> Nasa believed they might contain electronic information that was down linked to a radio telescope in Australia from the moon and which could be converted into much sharper pictures of the landing than those broadcast on the day.
> 'The question is why didn’t someone see these 45 tapes as something special. Boy, do we wish they’d done that,' Nafzger said.
> The grainy images that the world saw in 1969 came from a TV camera pointed at a giant wall monitor at mission control, of a live feed from pictures sent by satellite from Australia to California and relayed by landline to Houston.
Article: "Mahoney believes that, because the space industry was a government-sanctioned monopoly for decades, there was no room for risk, or for competition; the fear of failure dominated."
How true is that, really? That is, how many astronauts will (eg.) SpaceX kill by accepting a higher risk level than NASA? Because NASA certainly had room for risk.
>> The grainy images that the world saw in 1969 came from a TV camera pointed at a giant wall monitor at mission control, of a live feed from pictures sent by satellite from Australia to California and relayed by landline to Houston.
Rather offtopic, but if that chain isn't convoluted enough for you, check out exactly how they accomplished giant wall monitors in the 1960s:
> "Watching the footage of Neil Armstrong’s first steps”
That famous footage (literally, in both senses of the word) was of Aldrin’s first steps: Armstrong had already exited the LEM, made his famous statement, and then used a camera to film Aldrin’s descent and steps.
> Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera.[120][8]
> Apollo 11 used slow-scan television (TV) incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor, significantly reducing the quality of the picture.[121] The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States, but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia.[122] Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.[122] Copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, but recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were likely destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.[121]
Why do you think it's Aldrin's descent which is more famous?
Because Aldrin's video is much clearer, for what reason I don't know, and appears to be the one more often shown AFAICT...and not that anyone will really care in the long run.
But I was completely messed up in one important regard: the iconic color shots were almost all of Aldrin as the handheld cameras (in 11 at least) were still cameras only and almost all those shots were taken by Armstrong for some reason.
I think there are two sides to risk. Risk tolerance for a given mission is one. Mission tolerance for a given risk is the other.
What I mean there is I doubt that SpaceX will be a less safe option than NASA, Roscosmos by proxy, for getting crew to the ISS. But SpaceX's big picture plan is to get people, regular people, to Mars. And that is something I think would never happen with NASA would never even consider taking on because the risks involved will be extremely high. NASA tried sending a civilian to space exactly one time - Christa McAuliffe. She was to be the first of many. The mission was the tenth, and final, flight of The Challenger. She died. NASA said it would be a few years before they followed up on their plans to send a journalist and other civilians into space. That was 30 years ago.
Ahh, I think I got it. I'll restate it to see if you correct me.
The SpaceX long-term goal is cheap and safe space travel to Mars. The risk is very high that this goal will fail. NASA won't accept this sort of mission because it's very likely to be a waste of money which could be used for other NASA goals (eg, robotic probes).
Though looking at it, it implies that NASA is being fiscally responsible, but the other 1/2 of the Mahoney is the 'government-sanctioned monopoly', so my interpretation cannot be what is meant. (I can think of other reasons, like not wanting to upset the funding system.)
Still, I think it's close enough that it clears up my confusion. Thanks!
EDIT: But if people do die on a SpaceX mission, will that count as a mission failure, and will SpaceX be able to continue?
Not at all. It's not about the big picture goal but about the individual missions. There's effectively 0 risk that the big picture goal of getting people to, and ultimately colonizing, Mars will fail. It's a question of when, not if. But the individual missions, especially the early ones, to Mars will involve a high degree of risk.
Getting to low earth orbit, by contrast, is trivial. In spite of this we've sent fewer than 600 people to LEO, and have lost at least 30 astronauts in the process of it [1]. 5% of our astronauts have lost their lives just getting to and from low earth orbit! This is already pushing the edge of NASA's risk tolerance, which goes a long ways towards explaining why NASA hasn't sent a man beyond LEO in 47 years.
And missions to Mars are substantially more complex and risky than getting to and from LEO. No matter how safe we try to make things, people will die in the process of what ultimately will be the colonization of Mars. This means it's a mission that NASA is unable to take on, as they have become intolerant of risk. But at the same time it's a mission that must be executed. And for this it's a very good thing that we're managing to move beyond dependence upon government agencies for progress in space.
We've breached countless barriers that, at one point, seemed impossible or insurmountably challenging. Crossing the ocean by boat - later by plane, breaking the sound barrier in human flight, living in 'unlivable' locations on Earth, getting into space, putting a man on the moon, living in space for months at a time, and so on.
But one important factor here is that well before we accomplished any of these, it became evident that we eventually would. And that's because the technologies involved were no longer fantasy. What I mean here is that for a person in the 18th century putting a man into space was fantasy. We could foresee it as maybe being possible, but it might also be that the technologies to achieve such might simply never be able to be developed. By contrast, by the earlier part of 20th century century it became clear that such an achievement not only could, but would happen - sooner or later. The technologies necessary were no longer fantasy. And so all that remained was bearing the costs and pushing forward.
And we've now long since passed the same point for Mars. We can, and will, put men on Mars - sooner or later. And this is what I was referring to by 0 risk of failure - technical failures, as in some insurmountable roadblock that simply makes further progress impossible. Colonization is of course a social question, which is going to inherently be much more subjective than a technical one. But I find it not only difficult, but impossible, to imagine any scenario where humans, all, somehow decide to simply stay on a single planet. And if we assume that humans will leave Earth, Mars is arguably the most logical first permanent destination. Mineral rich, water rich, atmosphere with CO2 (sabatier reaction for methane + water), large land mass, reasonable gravity, reasonable temperature extremes, near identical day-night cycle, etc. Big downsides are extremely low atmospheric pressure which is of course unbreathable, as well as high radiation exposure.
We can certainly send someone to Mars. But doing so is "of course a social question" ... and you haven't answered the question of why must do it now.
You've used the same rhetorical constructions that I've read in books written before I was born. They also argued that then was the time. Why were they wrong, and you are right?
Oh, and those proposing undersea cities made many of the same arguments.
I'll point out that "living in 'unlivable' locations on Earth" can be done with neolithic technology, so that's a rather odd one to list. Crossing the ocean by boat" through stages was something the ancient Polynesians did without metal.
And 'breaking the sound barrier in human flight' hasn't yet proven to be economically feasible for general passenger services.
As for "more subjective than a technical one" ... there's a major problem of how to create a self-sustaining ecosystem, much less one where the people who live in it have enough time to train the next generation to run the ecosystem.
In the context of overall mission goals, the mission for the misnamed 'autopilot' of Tesla is to be safer than humans.
Moreover, while the car industry certainly produces safer cars than ever before, a huge number of deaths are auto related, so there's already some general acceptance that people will die.
I think a better example is Virgin Galactic, where several people have died (one on a flight, three on the ground explosion), while the project mission continues. Then again, VG still isn't flying commercial flights.
I don't know how to interpret that in terms of NASA's proposed non-risk-taking.
As I understand it, the problem wasn't the video feed, it was the re-transmission for the global TV audience. The original video was then lost. Quoting from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1200161/Apol... :
> Nasa believed they might contain electronic information that was down linked to a radio telescope in Australia from the moon and which could be converted into much sharper pictures of the landing than those broadcast on the day.
> 'The question is why didn’t someone see these 45 tapes as something special. Boy, do we wish they’d done that,' Nafzger said.
> The grainy images that the world saw in 1969 came from a TV camera pointed at a giant wall monitor at mission control, of a live feed from pictures sent by satellite from Australia to California and relayed by landline to Houston.
Article: "Mahoney believes that, because the space industry was a government-sanctioned monopoly for decades, there was no room for risk, or for competition; the fear of failure dominated."
How true is that, really? That is, how many astronauts will (eg.) SpaceX kill by accepting a higher risk level than NASA? Because NASA certainly had room for risk.