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Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

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Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#161

Post by dorkwood »

yarg wrote: post #121

I feel bad for Collins, at best he got the "also participated" award in the public mindshare - and this despite that fact he was left more alone than any man in history, locked about the dark side of the moon, wondering if he was going home alone.

> despite that fact he was left more alone than any man in history, locked about the dark side of the moon, wondering if he was going home alone

He actually didn't mind being on the dark side of the moon.

"'I was not lonely,' Collins said at an Explorer's Club event in New York City earlier this year, 'I had a happy little home in the command module. Behind the moon it was very peaceful — no one in Mission Control is yakkin' at me and wanting me to do this, that, and the other. So I was very happy, it was a happy home.'" [0]

https://www.space.com/michael-collins-remembers-apollo-11-mo...

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#163

Post by kelnos »

foobar1962 wrote: post #146
banana_giraffe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a spherical earth, it's 4873 km.

Assuming a spherical earth in a vacuum... One of the few times that simplifying assumption matches reality.

Not quite; the Earth is an oblate spheroid. Assuming it's a sphere is certainly a close enough approximation for this exercise, though.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#164

Post by iainmerrick »

JohnBooty wrote: post #155
onwardly wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you can survive about 40 seconds in a vacuum. One option would be for one pilot to enter (as quickly as possible!) then put the CMP into a spacesuit, then re-admit the other astronaut. No clue if they could enter and re-pressurize the capsule within 30 seconds- sounds like a long-shot. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627561-700-maxed-ou...

It takes about 45 minutes to don a modern spacesuit -- and that assumes the person donning the spacesuit is assisting with the process, not incapacitated. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/spacesuits/facts/... Edit: This says it can actually be done in five minutes in an emergency if one's willing to skip every safety check, but getting an unresponsive person into one seems like surely it would be more of a…

I think they are suggesting:

- Enter the command module, in spacesuit

- Quickly re-pressurize

- Help incapacitated astronaut into suit (temporarily removing own suit if necessary)

- Once both suited up, open airlock again to admit remaining astronaut

But I’m not sure if that would have been possible. Was there really a way to re-pressurize in a few seconds, 2001 style?

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#165

Post by vkou »

mandevil wrote: post #132
vkou wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robotics has advanced a lot further from the 60s than the ability of people wearing space suits to manipulate instruments. In fact, the latter hasn't really advanced at all in those 60 years.

By the nature of the beast, a spacecraft with humans is going to have absolutely thunderous mass and energy budgets compared to robotic ones, so any instrument you can put on a robot you can put on a manned mission. In a similar manner, I would expect any manned mission to Mars to employ a lot of robots: control is much easier when the human making the decisions is a few light seconds away versus 8 light minutes. And…

> By the nature of the beast, a spacecraft with humans is going to have absolutely thunderous mass and energy budgets compared to robotic ones, so any instrument you can put on a robot you can put on a manned mission.

By the nature of the beast, for the cost of a single manned mission, you can launch dozens of expendable, unmanned missions, that can go on for more than a few days. Robots don't need to eat, or breathe, and they don't grouse when you abandon them on an alien surface.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#166

Post by Synaesthesia »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #37
aplummer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pictures of Pluto, a helicopter on Mars, I’m more inspired than ever by nasa

And I love them for it. But I want humans on the Moon again.

Always struck me as a vanity project when there were much more deserving uses for the money.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#167

Post by Zecc »

slg wrote: post #29

Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…

> public conciseness

That was possibly an autocorrecto for "public consciousness", but I like how well it still applies.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#168

Post by hutzlibu »

slg wrote: post #29

Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…

" When he was on the far side of the moon he was truly alone in a way that no other person had ever been in human history."

Well, in terms of distance maybe, but I would argue, a lone surviver on a shipwrack no one knows about, or in some dessert - would be more alone, than an astronaut, being watched and thought about by millions and in direct communication with peopke.

(was communication with earth possible, when the moon was in between?)

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#169

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lmm wrote: post #154
minikites wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why shouldn't we apply this same standard to government projects? Any time a government project doesn't go perfectly it's used an excuse to scrap the very concept of government since "they can't do anything right".

The US culture around government is really weird. And yes, if people gave the government permission to fail sometimes they could probably do things 10x cheaper. But that requires a level of trust that just isn't there. I don't know why, and I'm glad I live somewhere more functional.

No only does lack of trust prevent innovation, on the other end of the spectrum you have people who won't tolerate failure because it might give the distrustful of government people data point or talking point.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#170

Post by ud_0 »

iainmerrick wrote: post #164
JohnBooty wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes about 45 minutes to don a modern spacesuit -- and that assumes the person donning the spacesuit is assisting with the process, not incapacitated. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/spacesuits/facts/... Edit: This says it can actually be done in five minutes in an emergency if one's willing to skip every safety check, but getting an unresponsive person into one seems like surely it would be more of a…

I think they are suggesting: - Enter the command module, in spacesuit - Quickly re-pressurize - Help incapacitated astronaut into suit (temporarily removing own suit if necessary) - Once both suited up, open airlock again to admit remaining astronaut But I’m not sure if that would have been possible. Was there really a way to re-pressurize in a few seconds, 2001 style?

> - Help incapacitated astronaut into suit (temporarily removing own suit if necessary) > - Once both suited up, open airlock again to admit remaining astronaut

These steps don't seem to be necessary. Since the CM can be opened from the inside towards the LM, the third astronaut could just wait in the LM and be let in that way.

I think the only question is really how quickly can you repressurize the CM.

It was basically a cone-shaped pressure vessel 3.23m tall and 3.91m wide, that's 51.71m^3 of volume. I'd estimate about 50% is taken up by machinery, so how fast can you repressurize 25m^3 to 1/3 sea level (which was apparently standard for the spacecraft)?

My guess would be it could be done pretty quickly, maybe 2 minutes?

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