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Digital Apollo PDF

377 Pages·2008·2.59 MB·English
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Digital Apollo Digital Apollo: HumanandMachineinSpaceflight DavidA.Mindell TheMITPress Cambridge,Massachusetts London,England (2008MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher. Forinformationaboutspecialquantitydiscounts,[email protected] ThisbookwassetinStoneSerifandStoneSanson3B2byAscoTypesetters,HongKong. PrintedandboundintheUnitedStatesofAmerica. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Mindell,DavidA. DigitalApollo:humanandmachineinspaceflight/DavidA.Mindell. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-262-13497-2(hardcover:alk.paper) 1.Human-machinesystems. 2.ProjectApollo (U.S.)—History. 3.Astronautics—UnitedStates—History. 4.Mannedspaceflight—History. I.Title. TA167.M59 2008 629.4704—dc22 2007032255 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ForPamela,whofliesmetothemoon. The machine, which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature, actually plunges him more deeply into them. As for the peasant, so for the pilot, dawn andtwilightbecomeeventsofconsequence. —AntoinedeSaint-Exupe´ry,Wind,SandandStars Contents PrefaceandAcknowledgments xi 1 HumanandMachineintheRacetotheMoon 1 2 ChauffeursandAirmenintheAgeofSystems 17 3 FlyingReentry:TheX-15 43 4 AirmeninSpace 65 5 ‘‘Braincaseonthetipofafirecracker’’:ApolloGuidance 95 6 ReliabilityorRepair?TheApolloComputer 123 7 ProgramsandPeople 145 8 DesigningaLanding 181 9 ‘‘Pregnantwithalarm’’:Apollo11 217 10 FiveMoreHandsOn 235 11 Human,Machine,andtheFutureofSpaceflight 263 Notes 273 Glossary 305 Bibliography 307 Index 335 AbouttheCoverImage 361

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As Apollo 11's Lunar Module descended toward the moon under automatic control, a program alarm in the guidance computer’s software nearly caused a mission abort. Neil Armstrong responded by switching off the automatic mode and taking direct control. He stopped monitoring the computer and began fly
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