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PROFESSOR: Some funny things
happened on the way to the

00:00:23.590 --> 00:00:27.690
moon, as a takeoff of Funny
Things Happened on

00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:29.730
the Way to the Forum.

00:00:29.730 --> 00:00:34.220
And probably not too
many people in this

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audience know that.

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Also, in particular, a thing
that's happening this year is

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the 40th anniversary of
the lunar landing.

00:00:54.450 --> 00:00:57.660
And we're going to
talk a little bit

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about how MIT got involved.

00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:03.870
And let's see if we can
move this along.

00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:15.920
Sputnik was about the size of a
large, maybe oversized beach

00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:23.360
ball, or a basketball.

00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:34.800
And it was launched in
June, of 1957, or

00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:36.730
later, maybe not June.

00:01:36.730 --> 00:01:38.730
I thought I had it
on the screen.

00:01:38.730 --> 00:01:46.150
But anyhow, if it hadn't been
for Sputnik, I doubt if

00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:50.360
anything would have happened in
terms of the United States

00:01:50.360 --> 00:01:54.170
getting interested in
the space program.

00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:59.680
So we have to have a lot of
gratitude for the Russians for

00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:00.730
doing this.

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I remember Wernher von Braun in
a meeting was asked, this

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was after maybe six months of
the program, says, "Wouldn't

00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:13.780
we do a lot better if we
collaborated with the

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Russians?" And he, without
hesitation, said, "If there

00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:20.330
were collaboration with the
Russians, there wouldn't be a

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program in either country." So
it had all to do with the

00:02:24.990 --> 00:02:27.380
race, the race for the moon.

00:02:29.950 --> 00:02:34.760
It was October 4,
I'm sorry, 1957.

00:02:34.760 --> 00:02:39.810
Right after the lunar landing,
Dave Hoag and I were invited

00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:46.080
to the Soviet Union as their
guests, all expenses paid.

00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.400
It was really quite
an experience.

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And they gave us a good show.

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Everywhere we went--

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we had some movies of
the lunar landing.

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And as soon as they knew we had
movies, they wanted to--

00:03:08.690 --> 00:03:12.170
they took them and set
up their screen.

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If the didn't have a screen,
they'd put up a bed sheet.

00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:18.240
And they oohed and aahed in all
of the right places for

00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:19.340
the landing.

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And it was really quite
an experience.

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And also they asked us, when
will the Americans go to the

00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:28.290
moon again?

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Well that was Apollo 14.

00:03:30.200 --> 00:03:37.120
And the date was sometime
in November.

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And I was always grateful that
it went on time and on that

00:03:45.710 --> 00:03:52.020
date, because the Russians never
gave any indication of

00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:55.970
what they were planning on doing
until it was all over.

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And then they would
take bows, or they

00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:00.230
would hide the results.

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But anyhow, I happened to
buy this little device.

00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:09.920
It's actually a music box.

00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:13.360
It plays the Russian
national anthem.

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It used to, but it's all rusted
out in there now.

00:04:15.730 --> 00:04:18.399
It's been around a long time.

00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:21.899
And when we were in Moscow,
we went to the

00:04:21.899 --> 00:04:24.380
GUM department store.

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And I saw this there
and bought it.

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I'm so glad that I did.

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And I brought it home.

00:04:38.050 --> 00:04:41.020
1957 is particularly interesting
to me, it's

00:04:41.020 --> 00:04:51.150
because my son, my youngest son,
was born in that year.

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And so he really became--

00:04:56.280 --> 00:05:02.490
everything that happened in
space, he was right there to

00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:05.670
watch it on TV, or whatever
news there was.

00:05:05.670 --> 00:05:08.760
And he's still much
like that today.

00:05:12.530 --> 00:05:17.920
This the MIT Instrumentation
Laboratory responded to--

00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:24.390
we're going to go into space,
so why don't we design a

00:05:24.390 --> 00:05:32.820
spacecraft which will indeed
take us, not to the moon-- we

00:05:32.820 --> 00:05:34.540
aren't going to think about the
moon-- but actually into

00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:37.780
interplanetary space.

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In 1957, when the Sputnik
was flying, the MIT

00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:51.665
Instrumentation Laboratory
was--

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that building on the
right is the

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Whittemore Shoe Polish factory.

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And the one on the left is the
old Hood's Milk factory.

00:06:04.730 --> 00:06:08.780
And the railroad tracks there
are the same tracks that cross

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Mass Avenue today.

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The buildings, of course,
are gone.

00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:19.190
And Doc Draper's office is
indicated as a little, the

00:06:19.190 --> 00:06:21.940
corner of these warehouses.

00:06:21.940 --> 00:06:27.510
So we didn't really have
plush surroundings.

00:06:27.510 --> 00:06:34.480
The thing we wanted to do was
to build a Mars probe.

00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.770
We would like to launch
this spacecraft.

00:06:38.770 --> 00:06:47.670
And it would coast to Mars and
pass close by, take a picture,

00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:54.500
and then return to Earth so we
could collect the photograph,

00:06:54.500 --> 00:06:58.040
not a whole series of
photographs, just one picture,

00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:01.990
because we didn't want to have
all that time and effort

00:07:01.990 --> 00:07:11.500
invested and find that the
wheel which would change

00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:13.870
pictures was screwed up.

00:07:13.870 --> 00:07:17.390
So it was just the simplest
thing to do, would be to just

00:07:17.390 --> 00:07:20.000
have it open the shutter
and close it.

00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:23.490
And that was the only thing
that had to be done.

00:07:23.490 --> 00:07:27.810
And we'd do that at the point
of closest approach to Mars.

00:07:30.380 --> 00:07:36.180
The round trip from Earth to
Mars and return, there it is.

00:07:36.180 --> 00:07:37.980
We were serious about this.

00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:42.680
We were thinking of launching
it in December of 1962.

00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:49.100
And we would intercept
Mars on February 15.

00:07:49.100 --> 00:07:52.870
And then we would pass
by the planet.

00:07:52.870 --> 00:07:55.290
It's not a two-dimensional
problem.

00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:59.300
This is the relative motion of
the spacecraft with respect to

00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:07.410
the planet during the
planetary contact.

00:08:10.130 --> 00:08:13.130
Then after that, we have to
get back to the earth.

00:08:13.130 --> 00:08:20.650
And unfortunately, we had to
make two trips around the sun

00:08:20.650 --> 00:08:22.120
to get back.

00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:25.650
And so the total trip time was
more than three years.

00:08:25.650 --> 00:08:30.780
That did not play very well with
those who are interested

00:08:30.780 --> 00:08:33.760
in getting some attention
for the work that the

00:08:33.760 --> 00:08:37.080
laboratory was doing.

00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:41.440
But they did get some.

00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.089
This is a picture from
the newspaper.

00:08:45.880 --> 00:08:53.120
And I'm on the right hand side,
a younger version of me.

00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:58.990
And there's Hal Laning and Milt
Trageser, all of whom

00:08:58.990 --> 00:09:03.610
were involved in this program.

00:09:03.610 --> 00:09:09.070
And it said, this project
may solve the

00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:12.040
life on Mars mystery.

00:09:12.040 --> 00:09:14.260
But it didn't.

00:09:14.260 --> 00:09:18.670
In fact, it did do
a lot of things.

00:09:18.670 --> 00:09:22.050
But it never flew.

00:09:22.050 --> 00:09:26.610
The Mars probe involved always
a three year round trip to

00:09:26.610 --> 00:09:29.290
photograph the planet.

00:09:29.290 --> 00:09:33.670
And we had to have onboard,
self-contained navigation.

00:09:33.670 --> 00:09:39.400
For three years, this little
vehicle was going to be

00:09:39.400 --> 00:09:43.080
cruising and making measurements
to determine

00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:47.320
where it was and when to make
velocity corrections, all done

00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:49.230
on board the spacecraft --

00:09:49.230 --> 00:09:52.590
unheard of at that time.

00:09:52.590 --> 00:09:55.780
And after the three-year trip,
it would splash down in the

00:09:55.780 --> 00:09:57.360
Gulf of Mexico.

00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:04.520
And this little model, which is
a good size, is hanging in

00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:05.770
the Draper Laboratory.

00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:10.950
I used to know where it was,
but then they moved it.

00:10:10.950 --> 00:10:13.320
But they said, it's somewhere
in the building.

00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:16.620
So if you want to take a look
at it, and you can get into

00:10:16.620 --> 00:10:23.370
the Draper Lab building,
then you can see this.

00:10:23.370 --> 00:10:29.880
The big red, that's the entry
vehicle, which was, in it was

00:10:29.880 --> 00:10:37.900
the film of the picture
that we took of Mars.

00:10:37.900 --> 00:10:42.750
The major problem was how to
design a small computer and

00:10:42.750 --> 00:10:48.970
its memory in 1960 to survive
a three year round trip to

00:10:48.970 --> 00:10:54.620
Mars, with no data uplink
and no inflight service.

00:10:54.620 --> 00:10:57.430
That doesn't mean
what you think.

00:10:57.430 --> 00:10:59.870
Inflight service means
if something breaks,

00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:00.980
you can't fix it.

00:11:00.980 --> 00:11:04.320
It's got to be perfect.

00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:11.900
But then came 1961.

00:11:11.900 --> 00:11:14.290
Alan Shepard was ready
to fly the

00:11:14.290 --> 00:11:18.350
Mercury-Redstone on May 5 of 1961.

00:11:18.350 --> 00:11:21.770
It was the first American in
space, not the first human

00:11:21.770 --> 00:11:25.740
being in space, the
first American.

00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:30.450
The Russians had already
capitalized on their Sputnik,

00:11:30.450 --> 00:11:36.160
and they had a man in space
somewhat before we did.

00:11:36.160 --> 00:11:44.215
And you look at the picture,
there's the blockhouse.

00:11:44.215 --> 00:11:48.010
It looks like about the
size of a garage.

00:11:48.010 --> 00:11:55.280
And the space vehicle, not very
big, all it was going to

00:11:55.280 --> 00:12:01.050
do was just fly a 20-minute
flight and land in the ocean

00:12:01.050 --> 00:12:03.190
and be fished out.

00:12:03.190 --> 00:12:07.620
That was what we were going to
do, when in fact, the Russians

00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:10.595
were already putting
men in orbit.

00:12:13.490 --> 00:12:29.080
Now, I will never be as amazed
that three weeks after Alan

00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:35.990
Shepard made his flight, that
John F. Kennedy said that he

00:12:35.990 --> 00:12:38.600
believed that this nation
should commit itself to

00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:42.180
achieve the goal, before this
decade is out, of landing a

00:12:42.180 --> 00:12:45.175
man on the moon and returning
him safely to Earth.

00:12:45.175 --> 00:12:50.990
Now, that's pretty gutsy to do
when your only success is a

00:12:50.990 --> 00:12:55.240
20-minute splashdown in
the Atlantic with one

00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:56.880
person at the helm.

00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:06.940
Now, 1961, let's look at some
of the other things.

00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:12.400
Alan Shepard's flight on May 5;
May 25, President Kennedy's

00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:15.880
message to the Congress
and to the world.

00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:22.410
And then on August 10, MIT is
awarded the first NASA Prime

00:13:22.410 --> 00:13:23.910
Contract for Apollo.

00:13:23.910 --> 00:13:27.180
NASA had just barely
been created.

00:13:27.180 --> 00:13:31.420
And in response to President
Kennedy's "we're going to go

00:13:31.420 --> 00:13:38.540
to the moon," they gave
the job to MIT.

00:13:42.850 --> 00:13:47.680
That's pretty amazing when
you think about it.

00:13:47.680 --> 00:13:53.740
And we'll say a word more
about that in a minute.

00:13:53.740 --> 00:14:01.240
The Mars probe never flew, but
the onboard computer did

00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:05.310
evolve into becoming the Apollo
guidance computer.

00:14:05.310 --> 00:14:08.710
There was a computer that we
had to have in our little

00:14:08.710 --> 00:14:13.790
space probe, and that did
evolve into the guidance

00:14:13.790 --> 00:14:19.430
computer, the Apollo
onboard computer,

00:14:19.430 --> 00:14:23.330
for the lunar mission.

00:14:23.330 --> 00:14:25.660
We moved into better quarters.

00:14:25.660 --> 00:14:30.800
This is the home of the Apollo
project from 1962 on.

00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:33.310
That building no
longer exists.

00:14:33.310 --> 00:14:40.200
It was originally a storage
warehouse for underwear.

00:14:40.200 --> 00:14:51.360
And we took over the whole
building, refurbished it, and

00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:56.670
my office was on the other
side of the building.

00:14:56.670 --> 00:15:01.680
And it was on the corner.

00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:03.160
It was a nice office.

00:15:03.160 --> 00:15:05.950
Here's what the place
looks like today.

00:15:08.700 --> 00:15:14.780
This is the luxury waterfront
condominiums that they made

00:15:14.780 --> 00:15:19.350
long after the space
program ended.

00:15:19.350 --> 00:15:24.350
And the underwear factory or
underwear warehouse was

00:15:24.350 --> 00:15:29.900
replaced by these
condominiums.

00:15:29.900 --> 00:15:34.080
Now, MIT was chosen for the
GN&C. And quite a big question

00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:42.620
is "Why?" Well, Jim Webb, who
was the administrator of NASA,

00:15:42.620 --> 00:15:44.880
knew Doc Draper.

00:15:44.880 --> 00:15:49.730
And this is Doc's version
of what happened.

00:15:49.730 --> 00:15:54.620
Jim Webb called Doc Draper on
the telephone, says, "Doc," he

00:15:54.620 --> 00:15:57.730
says, "Can you develop the
guidance and navigation system

00:15:57.730 --> 00:16:00.530
for Apollo?"

00:16:00.530 --> 00:16:03.000
What would you say if
you were Doc Draper.

00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.010
You would say, "Yes,
of course.

00:16:05.010 --> 00:16:09.330
We'll do that." "When will it
be ready?" "Well, when you

00:16:09.330 --> 00:16:13.650
need it." (Laughter) That's
a good schedule.

00:16:13.650 --> 00:16:16.840
"And how do I know it will
work?" And you say, "I will go

00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:21.210
along and operate it for you."

00:16:21.210 --> 00:16:26.050
Now that's the story that
Doc always told.

00:16:26.050 --> 00:16:29.710
And I believe it, because
he did know Jim Webb.

00:16:29.710 --> 00:16:33.300
Jim Webb was not a scientist.
Jim Webb was good at getting

00:16:33.300 --> 00:16:35.050
money out of Congress.

00:16:35.050 --> 00:16:36.030
He was a lawyer.

00:16:36.030 --> 00:16:41.630
And his job was to make sure
that the Apollo program was

00:16:41.630 --> 00:16:44.230
adequately funded.

00:16:44.230 --> 00:16:54.530
Now, was it Doc Draper's phone
call from Jim Webb, or was it

00:16:54.530 --> 00:16:55.480
Bob Chilton's memo?

00:16:55.480 --> 00:16:58.910
Bob Chilton worked for
NASA all of his life.

00:16:58.910 --> 00:16:59.460
He's retired.

00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:07.240
He lives down in Texas, at Texas
A&M. And I hear from him

00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.920
once a year.

00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:13.960
And here's what Bob
Chilton did.

00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:17.390
He wrote this memo to the Chief
of the Flight Systems

00:17:17.390 --> 00:17:21.406
Division in November 7, 1960.

00:17:21.406 --> 00:17:25.119
He said, "Development of the
onboard capability to

00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:29.260
determine position and velocity
by optical means is

00:17:29.260 --> 00:17:35.320
important to the principle of
onboard command for Apollo.

00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:40.060
The Instrumentation Laboratory
of MIT has shown a strong

00:17:40.060 --> 00:17:43.260
interest in the problem of
self-contained navigation.

00:17:43.260 --> 00:17:47.500
The position and velocity
determination schemes proposed

00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:50.940
in the reference report by
Battin and Laning called A

00:17:50.940 --> 00:17:55.280
Recoverable Interplanetary Space
Probe in 1959 are alike

00:17:55.280 --> 00:18:00.110
in principle to that desired
for Apollo."

00:18:00.110 --> 00:18:02.310
At the time, Bob Chilton was
the head of the Flight

00:18:02.310 --> 00:18:06.240
Dynamics Branch at
Langley Field.

00:18:09.860 --> 00:18:15.350
Bob Chilton's memo, the memo
was stamped Confidential.

00:18:15.350 --> 00:18:18.690
Everything was classified in
those days, and Bob gave me

00:18:18.690 --> 00:18:23.180
his original carbon copy,
which I still treasure.

00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:26.020
Here we are sending men to the
moon, and we had not even

00:18:26.020 --> 00:18:31.450
invented a good copy machine.

00:18:31.450 --> 00:18:35.600
Why was onboard navigation
a basic requirement?

00:18:35.600 --> 00:18:37.900
Well, one of the reasons would
be that the Russians

00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:38.860
might not play fair.

00:18:38.860 --> 00:18:41.760
They might jam the communication
links and we

00:18:41.760 --> 00:18:44.720
would not be able to communicate
with our

00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:45.970
spacecraft.

00:18:49.550 --> 00:18:54.830
1961 was a long time ago.

00:18:54.830 --> 00:18:58.880
We had to use typewriters
and carbon paper.

00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:02.340
Xerox had not been invented.

00:19:02.340 --> 00:19:04.910
You could watch TV,
but not in color.

00:19:04.910 --> 00:19:06.870
There were just black
and white TVs and

00:19:06.870 --> 00:19:09.620
not very good quality.

00:19:09.620 --> 00:19:13.220
You could do calculations
using electromechanical

00:19:13.220 --> 00:19:17.440
machines, no personal computers
or even pocket

00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:19.280
calculators.

00:19:19.280 --> 00:19:22.390
These things would cost about
$800 to $1,000, and all the

00:19:22.390 --> 00:19:27.110
would do is add and subtract
and divide.

00:19:27.110 --> 00:19:29.490
If you spent $500 more,
you could get one

00:19:29.490 --> 00:19:31.720
that did square root.

00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:37.220
And that was a pretty amazing
thing, because every day, just

00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:41.320
about, the repairman would be
there to fix it, because it

00:19:41.320 --> 00:19:43.870
was such a complicated
piece of equipment.

00:19:46.540 --> 00:19:49.940
When we'd go on business
trips, no jets.

00:19:49.940 --> 00:19:52.690
We had propeller-driven
aircraft.

00:19:52.690 --> 00:19:55.570
And the per diem rates
were $12 a day.

00:19:55.570 --> 00:20:00.240
With that $12, I was supposed
to pay for my hotel bill and

00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:04.160
buy three meals, and do
it for $12 a day.

00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:08.020
And that was plenty
good enough.

00:20:08.020 --> 00:20:14.370
In fact, if you just said, give
me the $12, and then if

00:20:14.370 --> 00:20:17.330
you didn't spend it, you could
keep the dollar or

00:20:17.330 --> 00:20:20.140
two which was left.

00:20:20.140 --> 00:20:24.370
Those were different days
than they are today.

00:20:24.370 --> 00:20:29.130
Now let's look at, this came
about only relatively

00:20:29.130 --> 00:20:37.080
recently, the numerology
of 1961.

00:20:37.080 --> 00:20:38.350
It's an invertible number.

00:20:42.030 --> 00:20:50.140
That is, if you turn it
upside-down, it's still 1961.

00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:58.692
Earlier invertible years,
1001, 1111, 1691, 1881.

00:20:58.692 --> 00:21:03.235
When will the next invertible
year take place?

00:21:06.170 --> 00:21:08.190
6009.

00:21:08.190 --> 00:21:13.460
You've got a long wait for
the next invertible year.

00:21:13.460 --> 00:21:15.160
OK, that's one thing.

00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:16.410
But there's more.

00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:22.210
President Kennedy's
Special Message to

00:21:22.210 --> 00:21:25.830
Congress was 5/25/61.

00:21:25.830 --> 00:21:31.590
5 plus 25 plus 6 plus 1 is 37,
which is a prime factor of

00:21:31.590 --> 00:21:36.540
1961, which is only
interesting.

00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:48.090
But if you take the prime
factor, which is 37, there's

00:21:48.090 --> 00:21:51.130
only one other prime factor,
and that's 53.

00:21:51.130 --> 00:21:55.820
So 53 times 37 is 1961.

00:21:55.820 --> 00:22:01.620
If you take 53, and you get the
month of August, 5 plus 3

00:22:01.620 --> 00:22:08.550
is 8, and the 10th, 3 plus 7
is 10, and it's all written

00:22:08.550 --> 00:22:15.590
there forever that MIT would
get the Apollo contract on

00:22:15.590 --> 00:22:19.930
August 10 of 1961.

00:22:19.930 --> 00:22:21.980
Isn't that-- that's
pretty amazing.

00:22:21.980 --> 00:22:25.615
I was going to give
a talk on Apollo.

00:22:25.615 --> 00:22:27.810
And I had it in the afternoon.

00:22:27.810 --> 00:22:33.540
And I was fiddling around,
and I came up with this.

00:22:33.540 --> 00:22:35.560
And I was really impressed.

00:22:35.560 --> 00:22:42.640
And so were the audiences when
they realized that this was,

00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:46.030
as I pointed out, this
is not an accident.

00:22:46.030 --> 00:22:50.880
This is the way it was all
planned ahead of time.

00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:55.690
Now also, Apollo is
Greek mythology.

00:22:55.690 --> 00:23:01.150
Apollo is America's Program for
Orbital and Lunar Landing

00:23:01.150 --> 00:23:04.550
Operations, so even the Greeks
knew that we were

00:23:04.550 --> 00:23:07.076
going to do the job.

00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:12.890
1961 was a vintage year.

00:23:12.890 --> 00:23:14.866
A lot of things happened then.

00:23:14.866 --> 00:23:16.910
There they are.

00:23:16.910 --> 00:23:23.000
In January 26, the first
multiple fly-by orbit of the

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:29.250
planets was determined,
by going from

00:23:29.250 --> 00:23:36.805
Earth to Mars via Venus.

00:23:39.530 --> 00:23:49.190
You go from Earth to Venus to
Mars and back to Earth, all in

00:23:49.190 --> 00:23:50.900
one launch.

00:23:50.900 --> 00:24:00.770
And that was discovered by
me in January 26 of 1961.

00:24:00.770 --> 00:24:06.510
I have to emphasize that that
date is very important.

00:24:06.510 --> 00:24:16.380
Because there was a lawsuit by
somebody whose name I must not

00:24:16.380 --> 00:24:22.480
mention, who brought suit
against me, because he said he

00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:25.280
did it first. But he
didn't really.

00:24:28.250 --> 00:24:32.820
In the spring of that year, the
first offering, that is

00:24:32.820 --> 00:24:35.990
the first class in Astronautical
Guidance, is

00:24:35.990 --> 00:24:39.560
what my course used to be called
until it was changed to

00:24:39.560 --> 00:24:40.810
Astrodynamics.

00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:48.130
On April 12, Yuri Gagarin flew
three orbits of the earth.

00:24:48.130 --> 00:24:54.640
And then to respond to that, on
May 5, Alan Shepard did a

00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:56.800
quarter-orbit flight.

00:24:56.800 --> 00:25:02.250
And then, three weeks later,
President Kennedy commits us

00:25:02.250 --> 00:25:04.410
to going to the moon.

00:25:04.410 --> 00:25:14.030
And in August, Gherman Titov
flies 16 orbits of the Earth.

00:25:14.030 --> 00:25:22.480
And MIT is awarded the first
Apollo contract.

00:25:26.410 --> 00:25:31.970
In October 13, the American
Rocket Society had a meeting,

00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:34.650
because Kennedy said he
wanted to know what

00:25:34.650 --> 00:25:36.230
progress had been made.

00:25:36.230 --> 00:25:39.415
And so we had a spaceflight
report to the nation of all

00:25:39.415 --> 00:25:42.210
the stuff that we were doing.

00:25:42.210 --> 00:25:49.230
Later, on November 21, Draper,
who had said to Jim Webb that

00:25:49.230 --> 00:25:52.400
yes, he would make sure it
worked, because he'd fly it,

00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:57.240
he volunteered formally
to be an astronaut.

00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:04.200
And then, I thought of this much
later, December 23 was

00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:06.290
Christina Shue's [?]

00:26:06.290 --> 00:26:08.520
100th birthday.

00:26:08.520 --> 00:26:12.610
Who in the world was Christina
Shue [?] ?

00:26:12.610 --> 00:26:13.860
My grandmother.

00:26:18.590 --> 00:26:21.680
So in 1961, a lot of
things happened.

00:26:24.600 --> 00:26:27.860
Here is the first round
trip to Venus.

00:26:27.860 --> 00:26:30.680
We were a little discouraged by
taking three years to get

00:26:30.680 --> 00:26:32.230
to Mars and back home.

00:26:32.230 --> 00:26:36.610
So we said, maybe we could
go to Venus and

00:26:36.610 --> 00:26:38.990
return in less time.

00:26:38.990 --> 00:26:41.500
And as a matter of
fact, you can.

00:26:41.500 --> 00:26:49.090
If you see the launch, and you
go past Venus, and then you're

00:26:49.090 --> 00:26:49.980
coming back to Earth.

00:26:49.980 --> 00:26:54.190
But look, you're almost out
to the Martian border.

00:26:54.190 --> 00:26:56.870
And wouldn't it be nice
if Mars were there?

00:26:56.870 --> 00:27:02.780
And that was what we did.

00:27:02.780 --> 00:27:05.460
We had a Venus fly-by.

00:27:05.460 --> 00:27:10.320
And then following that is
the return to Earth.

00:27:10.320 --> 00:27:14.160
And it is all done in just
a little over a year.

00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:20.430
And we visit two planets for
the price of one, first to

00:27:20.430 --> 00:27:24.820
Venus and then to Mars, and
then back to Earth.

00:27:24.820 --> 00:27:28.150
And this was the very
first one of these

00:27:28.150 --> 00:27:30.650
that was ever done.

00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:37.960
We do that all the time today,
using fly-bys of planets to

00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:42.390
change the velocity to get to
another location to accomplish

00:27:42.390 --> 00:27:44.610
something else.

00:27:44.610 --> 00:27:51.530
But this was the first time it
was ever done on a computer.

00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:59.450
Now saying that the first
offering of astronautical

00:27:59.450 --> 00:28:01.130
guidance, it's kind
of interesting.

00:28:01.130 --> 00:28:05.830
Because there are the people
who took that course, Buzz

00:28:05.830 --> 00:28:16.335
Aldrin, who flew in 1961, in
Apollo 11, and then Dave

00:28:16.335 --> 00:28:23.630
Scott, who flew Apollo 15, in
1962, and Ed Mitchell, who was

00:28:23.630 --> 00:28:28.160
on Apollo 14 in 1963.

00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:31.820
Each of these gentlemen, and
they're all still alive and

00:28:31.820 --> 00:28:36.720
well, they walked on the moon.

00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:38.655
And they took astronautical
guidance.

00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:59.200
Apollo 14, I always thought that
Ed Mitchell, it had more

00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:03.320
people watching that launch than
any time in the past or

00:29:03.320 --> 00:29:04.320
the future.

00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:05.570
Why?

00:29:08.620 --> 00:29:10.050
Why?

00:29:10.050 --> 00:29:12.860
It was Apollo 14.

00:29:12.860 --> 00:29:16.200
What was the flight
before that?

00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:17.300
Apollo 13.

00:29:17.300 --> 00:29:19.770
And that was pretty serious.

00:29:19.770 --> 00:29:22.910
We almost didn't
get them home.

00:29:22.910 --> 00:29:28.850
And then to be a crew for the
next flight, I think, took a

00:29:28.850 --> 00:29:33.960
little gutsy.

00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:36.630
Here's the textbook for
the graduate course in

00:29:36.630 --> 00:29:40.040
astronautical guidance.

00:29:40.040 --> 00:29:43.600
The book is Astronautical
Guidance.

00:29:43.600 --> 00:29:49.870
The diagram, if you take my
course, you'll find out how to

00:29:49.870 --> 00:29:54.710
navigate in space by making
measurements of angles between

00:29:54.710 --> 00:29:57.080
stars and near bodies.

00:29:57.080 --> 00:30:03.240
And so that little diagram was
on the flyleaf, and was also

00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:10.490
on the inside of the
book in color.

00:30:10.490 --> 00:30:17.430
Now when the book came out, we
were having a heavy load of

00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:19.290
important visitors.

00:30:19.290 --> 00:30:24.600
And Doc, he took my book, and he
said, "Battin," he says, "I

00:30:24.600 --> 00:30:26.630
want you to buy a
lot of these.

00:30:26.630 --> 00:30:28.520
And I want you to
autograph them.

00:30:28.520 --> 00:30:33.390
We're going to have important
people here." And sure enough,

00:30:33.390 --> 00:30:35.540
let's see who the important
people are.

00:30:35.540 --> 00:30:37.550
Well, there's Doc.

00:30:37.550 --> 00:30:38.880
And then there's Kurt Debus.

00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:45.120
He was the head of the Space
Center in Florida.

00:30:45.120 --> 00:30:50.600
Wernher von Braun needs
no introduction.

00:30:50.600 --> 00:30:57.740
Bob Gilruth, who was the head of
the NASA team in Texas, and

00:30:57.740 --> 00:31:01.670
then me, looking smug.

00:31:01.670 --> 00:31:04.950
And everybody, you see, has
got a copy of the book in

00:31:04.950 --> 00:31:06.100
front of them.

00:31:06.100 --> 00:31:09.830
And I was pretty excited
about that.

00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:16.900
There was an unauthorized
version of the book,

00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:21.090
Astronautical Guidance,
in Russian.

00:31:21.090 --> 00:31:27.600
And this was about
four years later.

00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:29.470
And everything is in Russian.

00:31:33.020 --> 00:31:36.252
There is Battin in Russian.

00:31:36.252 --> 00:31:41.520
And the diagram is exactly
the same diagram

00:31:41.520 --> 00:31:43.030
that appeared on--

00:31:43.030 --> 00:31:47.950
but it's an unauthorized, that
is, they didn't ask permission

00:31:47.950 --> 00:31:50.870
to do this or give
us any royalties.

00:31:50.870 --> 00:31:56.890
But they did give us an all
expenses paid, round trip

00:31:56.890 --> 00:32:06.990
visit to Moscow and Leningrad
and Tbilisi after the Apollo

00:32:06.990 --> 00:32:11.940
11 landing.

00:32:11.940 --> 00:32:18.120
MIT awarded the first
Apollo contract, and

00:32:18.120 --> 00:32:20.690
here was the team.

00:32:20.690 --> 00:32:24.220
We have Jim Webb, the
one in the center.

00:32:26.750 --> 00:32:30.750
And to the left is
Hugh Dryden.

00:32:30.750 --> 00:32:33.970
He was the deputy administrator,
but he passed

00:32:33.970 --> 00:32:37.690
away in December of 1965.

00:32:37.690 --> 00:32:43.460
And then there's Bob Seamans,
the associate administrator.

00:32:43.460 --> 00:32:49.780
He was promoted to deputy
administrator.

00:32:49.780 --> 00:32:55.030
And Bob Seamans, as you are
well aware, passed away.

00:32:55.030 --> 00:32:59.230
I was very happy that when I
give this talk at this time

00:32:59.230 --> 00:33:02.490
last year, Bob Seamans came.

00:33:02.490 --> 00:33:03.900
He had not heard it before.

00:33:03.900 --> 00:33:05.650
But he came and listened.

00:33:05.650 --> 00:33:09.880
And I was so pleased
that he was there.

00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:14.530
But he passed away shortly
thereafter.

00:33:22.620 --> 00:33:24.160
MIT was chosen.

00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:24.590
Why?

00:33:24.590 --> 00:33:30.390
Well, Bob Seaman's book, Aiming
at Targets, says, it

00:33:30.390 --> 00:33:31.960
doesn't give you much
information.

00:33:31.960 --> 00:33:34.390
It just says, "When the decision
was made to go to the

00:33:34.390 --> 00:33:37.340
moon, the Draper Lab got the
contract for the navigation

00:33:37.340 --> 00:33:40.140
system."

00:33:40.140 --> 00:33:46.350
He really knew why, but he
didn't want to put in print.

00:33:46.350 --> 00:33:51.160
Because after all, he was
from MIT Instrumentation

00:33:51.160 --> 00:33:53.330
Laboratory.

00:33:53.330 --> 00:33:55.510
Doc headed the laboratory.

00:33:55.510 --> 00:34:00.180
And then all of a sudden,
we get the job for

00:34:00.180 --> 00:34:03.770
the GN&C for Apollo.

00:34:03.770 --> 00:34:05.370
But we deserved it.

00:34:05.370 --> 00:34:07.970
And we performed well.

00:34:07.970 --> 00:34:15.260
So was it Doc Draper's
phone call, or was it

00:34:15.260 --> 00:34:16.510
Bob Chilton's memo?

00:34:20.170 --> 00:34:21.724
I guess I got this
in there twice.

00:34:21.724 --> 00:34:22.974
I shouldn't.

00:34:26.630 --> 00:34:31.750
I have to do a little
surgery on this.

00:34:31.750 --> 00:34:33.650
Doc Draper volunteers
to be an astronaut.

00:34:33.650 --> 00:34:34.699
He really did.

00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:37.260
And he had a letter.

00:34:37.260 --> 00:34:38.480
This is part of his letter.

00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:44.320
"I would like formally to
volunteer as a crew member on

00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:47.560
the Apollo mission to the moon,
and also for whatever

00:34:47.560 --> 00:34:50.520
sub-orbital and orbital flights
that may be made in

00:34:50.520 --> 00:34:52.820
preparation for this
lunar trip.

00:34:52.820 --> 00:34:57.860
I realize that my age of 60
years is a negative factor in

00:34:57.860 --> 00:35:01.180
considering my request, but
General Flickinger tells me

00:35:01.180 --> 00:35:06.130
that this is no sure bar to my
selection as a crew member."

00:35:06.130 --> 00:35:15.690
And we had a system, a real
system, put on the roof of one

00:35:15.690 --> 00:35:23.020
of the buildings on the river,
where you could practice

00:35:23.020 --> 00:35:24.170
navigating.

00:35:24.170 --> 00:35:28.350
And there's Doc Draper making
a navigational fix.

00:35:28.350 --> 00:35:31.510
And you can recognize the Boston
skyline, or what the

00:35:31.510 --> 00:35:34.410
Boston skyline looked
like in those days.

00:35:34.410 --> 00:35:37.180
Some buildings are missing.

00:35:37.180 --> 00:35:44.170
And you could actually make
measurements, and the computer

00:35:44.170 --> 00:35:48.100
would calculate where it was
on the basis of that.

00:35:48.100 --> 00:35:58.140
And the result was always the
particular spot on the roof of

00:35:58.140 --> 00:36:01.480
the building, even though you
could start off with very bad

00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:06.160
guesses of where you were.

00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:10.740
And then by utilizing the
navigation algorithm, you

00:36:10.740 --> 00:36:12.815
could to get a navigation fix.

00:36:16.840 --> 00:36:19.580
The guidance navigation
laboratory system, you could

00:36:19.580 --> 00:36:25.710
see that today, if you get
somebody to take you through

00:36:25.710 --> 00:36:26.960
the Draper Lab.

00:36:31.040 --> 00:36:34.480
This is actual--

00:36:34.480 --> 00:36:35.240
it's not a mock up.

00:36:35.240 --> 00:36:37.280
It's really the equipment.

00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:42.800
And you have the means of
communicating with the

00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:46.220
computer on the right,
that was the DSKY,

00:36:46.220 --> 00:36:47.670
the display and keyboard.

00:36:47.670 --> 00:36:50.440
where you could get information,
and you could

00:36:50.440 --> 00:36:59.280
also call up different
things that you

00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.300
wanted to do in flight.

00:37:02.300 --> 00:37:16.350
For navigation purposes, we had
a scanning telescope and a

00:37:16.350 --> 00:37:21.200
good sextant to make
these measurements.

00:37:21.200 --> 00:37:28.770
You could get a view of the
stars and the planets through

00:37:28.770 --> 00:37:36.760
the sextant and then make
the actual measurements.

00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:40.360
You'd try to line them up,
line up these two images,

00:37:40.360 --> 00:37:43.540
press a button to get
information to the computer.

00:37:43.540 --> 00:38:00.950
In fact, what we have here does
not show behind, where

00:38:00.950 --> 00:38:07.280
the ball for getting information
with respect to

00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:13.860
attitude and velocity, all done
on the back side of the--

00:38:13.860 --> 00:38:18.840
but this is the front side, is
this what the astronauts saw

00:38:18.840 --> 00:38:25.320
and used in their flights.

00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:29.390
There's the Apollo guidance
computer.

00:38:29.390 --> 00:38:36.980
The fact that it's approximately
one cubic foot,

00:38:36.980 --> 00:38:40.270
it's a really interesting
story.

00:38:40.270 --> 00:38:50.560
When the spacecraft contractor
was chosen, you got a phone

00:38:50.560 --> 00:38:53.030
call from them, saying, "Oh, I
understand that you're going

00:38:53.030 --> 00:38:54.650
to have a computer on board.

00:38:54.650 --> 00:38:57.140
How big is it?"

00:38:57.140 --> 00:39:00.420
Well, we had no idea.

00:39:00.420 --> 00:39:03.500
All we could see was
all this equipment

00:39:03.500 --> 00:39:04.900
that was on the wall.

00:39:04.900 --> 00:39:07.480
And somehow or other, we were
going to have to package this

00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:10.570
down to something that would
fit in the spacecraft.

00:39:10.570 --> 00:39:17.045
So they said, "Well, we've got
to give him a number." And so

00:39:17.045 --> 00:39:21.470
I said, "Well, just tell
him it's a cubic foot."

00:39:21.470 --> 00:39:23.140
And it was.

00:39:23.140 --> 00:39:24.840
We were able to squeeze it.

00:39:24.840 --> 00:39:31.560
You couldn't make it two cubic
feet, because that's all they

00:39:31.560 --> 00:39:34.360
had room for, planned for.

00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:40.270
It was a computer
of that size.

00:39:40.270 --> 00:39:45.290
And it weighed about 70 pounds,
consumed 55 watts,

00:39:45.290 --> 00:39:48.090
which, that's pretty good.

00:39:48.090 --> 00:39:54.580
And then this up close is the
display and keyboard.

00:39:54.580 --> 00:39:58.840
The core rope memory was a--

00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:02.350
we're not going to spend much
time dwelling on it.

00:40:02.350 --> 00:40:09.350
But it was an invention of Hal
Laning, primarily Hal and

00:40:09.350 --> 00:40:16.580
others, that you could have a
memory system which you would

00:40:16.580 --> 00:40:23.930
wire in place, so that if you
lost electricity, you wouldn't

00:40:23.930 --> 00:40:25.820
lose your memory.

00:40:25.820 --> 00:40:29.760
And there is the way
it was done.

00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:32.200
Each core would store a word.

00:40:32.200 --> 00:40:36.200
In fact, we got it down to
where a single core could

00:40:36.200 --> 00:40:41.940
store 12 words, and each word
was 16 bits or 2 bytes.

00:40:41.940 --> 00:40:46.470
And to read, to get information
out, all you have

00:40:46.470 --> 00:40:49.560
to do was select the
core and switch it.

00:40:49.560 --> 00:40:51.650
And then all of the sense wires
that went through the

00:40:51.650 --> 00:40:54.850
core would produce 1s, and those
that did not go through

00:40:54.850 --> 00:40:57.150
the core would produce 0s.

00:40:57.150 --> 00:41:01.880
And lo and behold, this
was our system.

00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.435
The trouble is that you had
to make these things.

00:41:04.435 --> 00:41:06.080
You had to manufacture them.

00:41:06.080 --> 00:41:08.650
And after you've made it, and
if there was a mistake, you

00:41:08.650 --> 00:41:11.420
couldn't change it.

00:41:11.420 --> 00:41:15.680
Here's the speed in kilobytes.

00:41:18.250 --> 00:41:23.240
For our Mars probe, it had
eight read only memory

00:41:23.240 --> 00:41:30.870
kilobytes, and change, this
would be Random Access Memory,

00:41:30.870 --> 00:41:35.230
is a half of a kilobyte.

00:41:35.230 --> 00:41:44.130
The Apollo Guidance Computer
had 74 ROMs and 4 read and

00:41:44.130 --> 00:41:48.550
write memory, and it was
actually a little slower in

00:41:48.550 --> 00:41:52.180
speed than the Mars probe.

00:41:52.180 --> 00:41:58.940
Now today, the kind of memory
that we're talking about, you

00:41:58.940 --> 00:42:01.520
can carry around
in your pocket.

00:42:01.520 --> 00:42:06.120
In fact, I do have it in my
pocket for this talk.

00:42:06.120 --> 00:42:14.005
And it's just absolutely amazing
that first of all,

00:42:14.005 --> 00:42:16.410
that they had the idea that
this was the way to do it,

00:42:16.410 --> 00:42:24.890
because in Apollo 12, the
spacecraft was struck by

00:42:24.890 --> 00:42:26.000
lightning on the way up.

00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:31.210
And all of the read and
write memory vanished.

00:42:31.210 --> 00:42:33.580
They had to put that
back in by hand.

00:42:33.580 --> 00:42:35.680
But the read-only
memory was fine.

00:42:35.680 --> 00:42:42.030
There was no trouble
with it whatsoever.

00:42:42.030 --> 00:42:46.190
Here's a photograph of the core
rope memory up close.

00:42:46.190 --> 00:42:51.010
And how would you manufacture
something like that?

00:42:51.010 --> 00:42:58.010
Well, we used the LOL method,
the Little Old Lady method,

00:42:58.010 --> 00:43:01.480
which I'll show you
in a second.

00:43:01.480 --> 00:43:04.350
The computers and the memory
were manufactured by Raytheon.

00:43:04.350 --> 00:43:06.670
The flight software was written
and tested at the

00:43:06.670 --> 00:43:07.860
Instrumentation Laboratory.

00:43:07.860 --> 00:43:12.100
The core ropes required six
weeks to build, and you

00:43:12.100 --> 00:43:14.510
couldn't make any last-minute
changes.

00:43:14.510 --> 00:43:19.120
And there's one of the women
who's wiring this thing.

00:43:19.120 --> 00:43:32.130
It was set up to be like a
weaving machine that the

00:43:32.130 --> 00:43:34.540
computer would tell you where
you're supposed to

00:43:34.540 --> 00:43:36.060
put the next wire.

00:43:36.060 --> 00:43:39.990
In fact, it would set it up for
you so that you could put

00:43:39.990 --> 00:43:42.410
the wire through
the right core.

00:43:42.410 --> 00:43:46.030
And all this was done
at Raytheon.

00:43:46.030 --> 00:43:51.090
And it must have been very
tedious for these women to do

00:43:51.090 --> 00:43:53.930
that kind of work.

00:43:53.930 --> 00:43:57.190
But they were always so proud
when the astronauts

00:43:57.190 --> 00:43:58.080
would come and visit.

00:43:58.080 --> 00:44:02.070
Oh, it gave them the feeling
that we can't screw up.

00:44:02.070 --> 00:44:05.330
We have to do this right,
because we just met the men

00:44:05.330 --> 00:44:08.000
whose whole lives depend upon.

00:44:12.230 --> 00:44:13.520
How many computers?

00:44:13.520 --> 00:44:19.060
Well, we wound up with one for
the Command Module and one for

00:44:19.060 --> 00:44:21.320
the Lunar Module.

00:44:21.320 --> 00:44:24.210
And there would be no
inflight repair.

00:44:24.210 --> 00:44:26.770
There would be no built-in
redundancy.

00:44:26.770 --> 00:44:31.590
That is, if one of the circuits
fails, that's it.

00:44:31.590 --> 00:44:34.670
There would be no uplink
from the ground.

00:44:34.670 --> 00:44:39.160
And there were many possible
single-point failures, but

00:44:39.160 --> 00:44:41.100
none of them ever happened.

00:44:41.100 --> 00:44:45.510
The quality control people
couldn't calculate the mean

00:44:45.510 --> 00:44:50.560
time between failures, because
they never had any failure of

00:44:50.560 --> 00:44:52.460
the AGC at all.

00:44:56.570 --> 00:45:02.665
Software, the early NASA
manned flights.

00:45:06.260 --> 00:45:14.820
The first one was
Mercury flight.

00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:16.640
There were 6 Mercury flights.

00:45:16.640 --> 00:45:20.850
And there were 10
Gemini flights.

00:45:20.850 --> 00:45:22.810
The first one was May 5.

00:45:22.810 --> 00:45:26.440
We've already seen Shepard's.

00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:32.900
And the last one of the Mercury
group was May in 1963.

00:45:32.900 --> 00:45:35.180
Then there were Gemini flights,
where there were two

00:45:35.180 --> 00:45:38.940
astronauts in a capsule,
rather than just one.

00:45:38.940 --> 00:45:47.400
And there were 10 of those,
from '65 to '66.

00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:51.790
George Mueller was the Associate
Administrator for

00:45:51.790 --> 00:45:54.750
Manned Spaceflight.

00:45:54.750 --> 00:45:58.620
And he was a NASA person.

00:45:58.620 --> 00:46:06.160
And he was very much concerned
with the computer software.

00:46:06.160 --> 00:46:15.040
In fact, he was in charge of the
software for the Mariner 1

00:46:15.040 --> 00:46:19.800
spacecraft to Venus, which
was launched in 1962.

00:46:19.800 --> 00:46:22.280
And it went off course due
to a software error.

00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:24.670
There was a missing minus
sign in the code.

00:46:24.670 --> 00:46:28.620
He had this minus sign framed
and hanging in his office.

00:46:28.620 --> 00:46:31.820
Do not take for granted.

00:46:31.820 --> 00:46:35.780
That you've got to check
everything to make sure that

00:46:35.780 --> 00:46:37.030
it's going to work.

00:46:40.350 --> 00:46:43.190
The astronauts used to
come and visit us.

00:46:43.190 --> 00:46:47.295
And in the fall of 1966,
we had six astronauts.

00:46:47.295 --> 00:46:49.740
There were all sitting down
there in the front row.

00:46:49.740 --> 00:46:53.160
And we had them autograph
these.

00:46:53.160 --> 00:46:57.140
And then the people in the back
were the ones that were

00:46:57.140 --> 00:46:59.170
working on the job.

00:46:59.170 --> 00:47:00.650
There is me.

00:47:00.650 --> 00:47:05.410
And there is Dave Hoag, and
there's a whole bunch of other

00:47:05.410 --> 00:47:08.900
people all there to be
photographed with the

00:47:08.900 --> 00:47:11.210
astronauts.

00:47:11.210 --> 00:47:16.350
This is a very sad picture,
because Virgil Grissom and

00:47:16.350 --> 00:47:19.455
Roger Chaffee and Ed White,
who where in that picture,

00:47:19.455 --> 00:47:21.840
were in Apollo 1.

00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:25.350
What happened to Apollo 1?

00:47:25.350 --> 00:47:27.920
It burned up on the ground.

00:47:27.920 --> 00:47:33.320
And so those guys, next to them
was Dave Scott, who was

00:47:33.320 --> 00:47:37.260
one of my students, and Jim
McDivitt and Russell

00:47:37.260 --> 00:47:38.020
Schweickart.

00:47:38.020 --> 00:47:41.540
Russell Schweickart was
an MIT student, but he

00:47:41.540 --> 00:47:43.480
didn't take my course.

00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:45.790
And they flew on Apollo 9.

00:47:45.790 --> 00:47:52.970
Apollo 9 was the first flight
using the Lunar Module.

00:47:59.900 --> 00:48:01.150
Apollo 8.

00:48:02.900 --> 00:48:06.260
This was the round trip
trajectory to the moon.

00:48:06.260 --> 00:48:16.270
And you notice you're going from
Earth to moon, go around

00:48:16.270 --> 00:48:17.640
the moon and back.

00:48:17.640 --> 00:48:23.020
And of course, what you want
to do is to go on an orbit

00:48:23.020 --> 00:48:27.030
which is going to arrive at the
lunar orbit ahead of the

00:48:27.030 --> 00:48:33.740
moon, and then we'll go
around and then be

00:48:33.740 --> 00:48:36.830
swept back to Earth.

00:48:36.830 --> 00:48:43.100
Instead, if you had gone behind
the moon, then the

00:48:43.100 --> 00:48:46.820
energy exchange would have been
such that you would go

00:48:46.820 --> 00:48:50.220
off into the solar
system someplace.

00:48:50.220 --> 00:48:57.410
You had to do this just right
in order to get on an orbit

00:48:57.410 --> 00:48:59.240
back to the Earth.

00:49:01.740 --> 00:49:04.010
This picture is also
in my book.

00:49:04.010 --> 00:49:06.570
And you can look at it.

00:49:06.570 --> 00:49:12.290
And they made a big deal out
of the fact that it is a

00:49:12.290 --> 00:49:15.140
figure eight.

00:49:15.140 --> 00:49:27.150
And Apollo 8 was the
first manned flight

00:49:27.150 --> 00:49:29.420
away from the Earth.

00:49:29.420 --> 00:49:38.130
And so Apollo 8, which was the
Christmas flight, you may

00:49:38.130 --> 00:49:41.550
remember that, maybe
you don't know.

00:49:41.550 --> 00:49:42.450
You don't have to remember it.

00:49:42.450 --> 00:49:47.320
But it was the time when the
astronauts were for the first

00:49:47.320 --> 00:49:49.710
time in orbit around the moon.

00:49:49.710 --> 00:50:01.110
And they were in this
particular mission.

00:50:01.110 --> 00:50:03.680
Of course, you always worry
about, what if the engine

00:50:03.680 --> 00:50:04.530
doesn't work.

00:50:04.530 --> 00:50:05.990
You're going to stay
there forever.

00:50:05.990 --> 00:50:08.460
You're not going to come
back to the Earth.

00:50:08.460 --> 00:50:11.610
There's nothing the ground
could do to help you out.

00:50:11.610 --> 00:50:23.230
And this design for the Apollo 8
is really a Earth around the

00:50:23.230 --> 00:50:29.670
moon, just as the real
mission showed.

00:50:29.670 --> 00:50:32.210
Here's the crew.

00:50:32.210 --> 00:50:34.670
Frank Borman was
the commander.

00:50:34.670 --> 00:50:38.290
And Bill Landers was the
Lunar Module pilot.

00:50:38.290 --> 00:50:43.240
Even though we didn't
have a Lunar Module,

00:50:43.240 --> 00:50:48.070
they had work to do.

00:50:48.070 --> 00:50:52.150
And Jim Lovell was the
Command Module pilot.

00:50:52.150 --> 00:50:55.130
And he was the one that
did the navigation.

00:50:55.130 --> 00:51:03.500
He did all the measurements to
do the orbit determination,

00:51:03.500 --> 00:51:12.940
the navigation, for the first
time, on a flight to the moon.

00:51:12.940 --> 00:51:21.330
And what he had to do, this is
the navigator measuring an

00:51:21.330 --> 00:51:24.280
angle between a star
and a landmark.

00:51:24.280 --> 00:51:32.080
And you would put a mark in
the computer, which would

00:51:32.080 --> 00:51:35.340
register the time and the
direction of each of these,

00:51:35.340 --> 00:51:42.470
and then it would calculate the
angle, the shaft angle and

00:51:42.470 --> 00:51:45.580
trunnion angle, or two angles.

00:51:45.580 --> 00:51:52.560
And you'd get one piece
of information.

00:51:52.560 --> 00:51:56.050
But when you added all these
different measurements

00:51:56.050 --> 00:52:02.010
together, separated in time and
position, you were able to

00:52:02.010 --> 00:52:05.400
do a very credible job of
navigating to the moon.

00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:12.120
As a matter of fact, it was so
close that it was decided that

00:52:12.120 --> 00:52:14.550
we didn't need an update
from the ground.

00:52:14.550 --> 00:52:18.720
In the rule book, it said,
before you make any velocity

00:52:18.720 --> 00:52:24.460
change, you have to get your
state vector information from

00:52:24.460 --> 00:52:25.950
the ground.

00:52:25.950 --> 00:52:31.750
And Chris Kraft said, he
couldn't see any difference.

00:52:31.750 --> 00:52:37.790
The onboard computer and the
ground were almost identical.

00:52:37.790 --> 00:52:41.410
But they did have to follow
the rules and make the

00:52:41.410 --> 00:52:42.850
correction.

00:52:42.850 --> 00:52:46.290
And Jim Lovell navigated
all the way back.

00:52:46.290 --> 00:52:50.770
So he was the very first person
to ever navigate a

00:52:50.770 --> 00:52:56.730
spacecraft by making telescopic

00:52:56.730 --> 00:52:57.980
measurements on board.

00:53:01.660 --> 00:53:06.110
Jim Lovell, he trained
at MIT using the

00:53:06.110 --> 00:53:09.580
Earth horizon simulator.

00:53:09.580 --> 00:53:10.860
He was calibrated.

00:53:10.860 --> 00:53:15.290
That is, he would tell you where
he thought the horizon

00:53:15.290 --> 00:53:21.430
was, and it would be different
than what the computer thought

00:53:21.430 --> 00:53:22.715
the horizon was.

00:53:22.715 --> 00:53:28.500
And so eventually, at least
he was consistent.

00:53:28.500 --> 00:53:39.680
And so he had demonstrated that
his consistency was such

00:53:39.680 --> 00:53:42.390
that we would calibrate him.

00:53:42.390 --> 00:53:45.700
That is, when he looked at the
horizon, and there was a

00:53:45.700 --> 00:53:50.810
little difference, that
that particular offset

00:53:50.810 --> 00:53:54.680
would be Jim Lovell.

00:53:54.680 --> 00:53:58.960
And other astronauts would
have their own.

00:53:58.960 --> 00:54:02.250
And it says here that Jim was
the first to demonstrate that

00:54:02.250 --> 00:54:04.840
man could navigate
in space without

00:54:04.840 --> 00:54:06.310
assistance from the ground.

00:54:09.190 --> 00:54:11.240
He wrote a book called
Lost Moon.

00:54:11.240 --> 00:54:17.200
This was the Apollo 13 book.

00:54:17.200 --> 00:54:23.890
And he was the Command Module
navigator on Apollo 8.

00:54:23.890 --> 00:54:27.640
There he is when
he was younger.

00:54:27.640 --> 00:54:32.200
And that's just kind of sad,
because on Apollo 8

00:54:32.200 --> 00:54:35.050
navigational measurements, he
said, "After leaving Earth

00:54:35.050 --> 00:54:40.770
orbit, the astronauts took a few
rapturous sightings of the

00:54:40.770 --> 00:54:46.230
receding planet, and then turn
their spacecraft around to fly

00:54:46.230 --> 00:54:53.570
in a proper, nose-forward
attitude." That always,

00:54:53.570 --> 00:54:56.630
whenever I see that, it's
sort of upsetting.

00:54:56.630 --> 00:54:59.490
We went to all kinds
of trouble.

00:54:59.490 --> 00:55:02.180
And he was the navigator.

00:55:02.180 --> 00:55:07.130
And when he wrote the book, he
didn't mention anything about

00:55:07.130 --> 00:55:08.170
how he did this.

00:55:08.170 --> 00:55:11.730
He just took some rapturous
sightings of

00:55:11.730 --> 00:55:14.720
the receding planet.

00:55:14.720 --> 00:55:17.580
Oh, well.

00:55:17.580 --> 00:55:19.980
Here are the flights.

00:55:19.980 --> 00:55:22.570
Apollo 1 was destroyed
by the fire.

00:55:22.570 --> 00:55:25.940
Then there was Apollo 7,
which was to try it

00:55:25.940 --> 00:55:27.640
out in Earth orbit.

00:55:27.640 --> 00:55:30.120
Apollo 8 went to the moon.

00:55:30.120 --> 00:55:34.260
Apollo 9 was a flight for that
the first time, the lunar

00:55:34.260 --> 00:55:38.610
module flew in Earth orbit.

00:55:38.610 --> 00:55:42.350
Apollo 10 was a dress rehearsal
to fly to the moon.

00:55:42.350 --> 00:55:45.010
You do everything except land.

00:55:45.010 --> 00:55:48.540
And then Apollo 11, you land.

00:55:48.540 --> 00:55:51.850
Then there were a bunch of
others, as you can see.

00:55:51.850 --> 00:55:57.405
12, 13 was, it took a while
before they were ready, over a

00:55:57.405 --> 00:56:02.680
year and a half, to go
from Apollo 13 to 14.

00:56:02.680 --> 00:56:05.410
And at the very end,
they had Apollo 17.

00:56:05.410 --> 00:56:08.440
But there were 18, 19, and 20.

00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:09.990
The rockets were there.

00:56:09.990 --> 00:56:11.400
The spacecraft were there.

00:56:11.400 --> 00:56:13.730
They could have flown.

00:56:13.730 --> 00:56:17.870
But I think that probably the
reason was that with all these

00:56:17.870 --> 00:56:22.070
successes, why don't we
quit when we're ahead?

00:56:22.070 --> 00:56:25.070
And there's another reason why
you might want to quit.

00:56:25.070 --> 00:56:29.315
And that is numerology, again,
more numerology.

00:56:32.230 --> 00:56:36.480
1 plus 9 plus 6 plus 1 is 17.

00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:42.190
And Alan Shepard's flight was
on 5/5/61, which is 17.

00:56:42.190 --> 00:56:47.930
So Apollo 17 was going to be the
last flight to the moon,

00:56:47.930 --> 00:56:51.260
all set by the very beginning.

00:56:51.260 --> 00:56:55.510
But not only that, 17 is
an important number.

00:56:55.510 --> 00:56:56.320
It's a Fermat number.

00:56:56.320 --> 00:56:59.480
It's a Fermat prime.

00:56:59.480 --> 00:57:03.670
Fermat numbers are 2 to the 2 to
the, and so on up the line.

00:57:03.670 --> 00:57:08.580
And Fermat had suggested
that all such

00:57:08.580 --> 00:57:11.640
numbers would be prime.

00:57:11.640 --> 00:57:16.070
And they're not.

00:57:16.070 --> 00:57:20.670
In fact, the only numbers which
are known to be Fermat

00:57:20.670 --> 00:57:30.910
primes are the ones at the
bottom 6, or 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4

00:57:30.910 --> 00:57:37.950
are the only known primes, and
F2, which is 2 to the 2 to the

00:57:37.950 --> 00:57:40.030
2 plus 1 is seventeen.

00:57:40.030 --> 00:57:46.080
And so it is one of the
only known primes

00:57:46.080 --> 00:57:49.000
generated by this formula.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:54.557
So obviously, 17 had to be the
last flight to the moon.

00:57:57.360 --> 00:58:00.750
Then Apollo 11.

00:58:00.750 --> 00:58:05.060
Here are the guys that
flew Apollo 11.

00:58:05.060 --> 00:58:07.090
There's Neil Armstrong.

00:58:07.090 --> 00:58:08.040
And there's Buzz Aldrin.

00:58:08.040 --> 00:58:13.150
These pictures were taken
when they were young.

00:58:13.150 --> 00:58:15.710
They don't look like
that anymore.

00:58:15.710 --> 00:58:24.380
And Mike Collins stayed in
orbit while Neil and Buzz

00:58:24.380 --> 00:58:25.630
landed on the moon.

00:58:30.350 --> 00:58:34.110
And there is a picture
of, this is the arm

00:58:34.110 --> 00:58:37.020
patch for Apollo 11.

00:58:37.020 --> 00:58:38.445
It's the Eagle.

00:58:38.445 --> 00:58:43.140
The spacecraft, the Lunar
Module was the Eagle.

00:58:43.140 --> 00:58:47.850
And there it is, landing
on the moon.

00:58:50.730 --> 00:58:56.610
Now, in the aftermath of Apollo
11, this is Newton's

00:58:56.610 --> 00:59:00.370
tomb in Westminster Abbey.

00:59:00.370 --> 00:59:08.100
And I recently went to
Westminster Abbey to see,

00:59:08.100 --> 00:59:10.270
again, Newton's tomb.

00:59:10.270 --> 00:59:12.550
And they wouldn't let
you go up to it.

00:59:12.550 --> 00:59:14.330
Before, you could
walk up to it.

00:59:14.330 --> 00:59:17.195
And you could pat the--

00:59:17.195 --> 00:59:19.180
but now you couldn't.

00:59:19.180 --> 00:59:24.800
And I was talking to one
of the guides there.

00:59:24.800 --> 00:59:29.000
And I told them what had
happened in Apollo 11.

00:59:29.000 --> 00:59:32.160
I said, there was a
message left on

00:59:32.160 --> 00:59:35.220
Newton's tomb with flowers.

00:59:35.220 --> 00:59:38.790
And it said, "The Eagle
has landed."

00:59:38.790 --> 00:59:41.410
And his eyes just lit up.

00:59:41.410 --> 00:59:45.480
He said, "I was here
when that happened.

00:59:45.480 --> 00:59:46.880
This was my job.

00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:51.720
And I saw the symbol,
the flowers.

00:59:51.720 --> 00:59:55.690
And I saw the note at that
time." He said, "It really did

00:59:55.690 --> 00:59:58.800
happen." And there it is.

00:59:58.800 --> 01:00:01.105
There is Newton's tomb.

01:00:01.105 --> 01:00:02.850
It's a huge thing.

01:00:06.040 --> 01:00:13.200
If you stand in front
of it, you're no

01:00:13.200 --> 01:00:17.630
taller than the base.

01:00:17.630 --> 01:00:28.420
And so that was the story about
Westminster Abbey and

01:00:28.420 --> 01:00:32.510
"Sir Isaac, the Eagle
has landed."

01:00:32.510 --> 01:00:35.430
It was Howard Johnson
who knew about this.

01:00:35.430 --> 01:00:40.070
Howard Johnson was president
of MIT not too long ago.

01:00:40.070 --> 01:00:44.600
And a friend of his was killing
time between flights.

01:00:44.600 --> 01:00:49.040
And he went to Westminster
Abbey, and he saw this note.

01:00:49.040 --> 01:00:54.540
And he told Howard
Johnson about it.

01:00:54.540 --> 01:00:56.810
And Howard Johnson told me.

01:00:56.810 --> 01:01:00.590
And it's very, very-- brings
tears to your eye when you

01:01:00.590 --> 01:01:05.885
think that they were able
to actually do this.

01:01:10.120 --> 01:01:12.600
And I'm still pretty
emotional.

01:01:12.600 --> 01:01:20.476
"Sir Isaac, the Eagle has
landed." So thank you.

01:01:20.476 --> 01:01:29.670
[APPLAUSE]

01:01:29.670 --> 01:01:34.220
If you have any questions,
fire away.

01:01:34.220 --> 01:01:36.590
If you don't have any questions,
I had a good time.

01:01:36.590 --> 01:01:37.840
I hope you did, too.

01:01:47.720 --> 01:01:51.960
AUDIENCE: First of all, on the
numerology, was that all your

01:01:51.960 --> 01:01:52.720
personal touch?

01:01:52.720 --> 01:01:54.800
Or was that an active
discussion topic?

01:01:54.800 --> 01:01:58.570
PROFESSOR: No, that was just
me talking to nobody.

01:02:01.470 --> 01:02:11.910
No, I was really struck by the
factoring 1961 and getting the

01:02:11.910 --> 01:02:13.620
date out of that.

01:02:13.620 --> 01:02:20.400
That just didn't seem like it
should be, unless somebody was

01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:29.140
moving the hands, and we were
able to get the job.

01:02:29.140 --> 01:02:39.830
And the number 17, I was just
fiddling around one day, and I

01:02:39.830 --> 01:02:47.090
said, oh, maybe that's why 17
was the last flight to the

01:02:47.090 --> 01:02:54.310
moon, because there's only
one other prime Fermat

01:02:54.310 --> 01:02:56.990
number beyond 17.

01:02:56.990 --> 01:03:05.040
And if you used that number,
it'd be much too big for

01:03:05.040 --> 01:03:10.208
having anything to do with the
number of the flights.

01:03:10.208 --> 01:03:15.020
AUDIENCE: I have a question
about the orbital mechanics

01:03:15.020 --> 01:03:19.870
that you were looking at
of that early period.

01:03:19.870 --> 01:03:23.150
I was in high school several
weeks ago, and somewhere

01:03:23.150 --> 01:03:31.060
around 1951 or 1952, in an
advanced math class, we were

01:03:31.060 --> 01:03:34.935
doing celestial orbital
mechanics.

01:03:34.935 --> 01:03:37.700
And we were doing it from
a small textbook

01:03:37.700 --> 01:03:38.840
imported from England.

01:03:38.840 --> 01:03:42.640
And it was written by somebody
who I didn't recognize as a

01:03:42.640 --> 01:03:45.690
mathematician that year,
Arthur C. Clarke.

01:03:45.690 --> 01:03:48.220
PROFESSOR: Oh yes, of course.

01:03:48.220 --> 01:03:49.630
He just passed away recently.

01:03:49.630 --> 01:03:52.680
AUDIENCE: Yeah, and now I've got
to go home and find out if

01:03:52.680 --> 01:03:56.240
multiple body orbits
were in it or not.

01:03:56.240 --> 01:03:57.830
PROFESSOR: No, he didn't--

01:03:57.830 --> 01:04:00.050
you mean the one I
was showing you?

01:04:00.050 --> 01:04:05.430
No, he said he was not impressed
at all by that.

01:04:05.430 --> 01:04:07.460
I didn't send it to him.

01:04:07.460 --> 01:04:08.590
Somebody else did.

01:04:08.590 --> 01:04:12.490
And he said, well, that's
not a problem.

01:04:12.490 --> 01:04:15.650
Well, it's not a problem
until you try to do it.

01:04:15.650 --> 01:04:18.068
So he was just not interested.

01:04:18.068 --> 01:04:22.052
AUDIENCE: Work it on the
blackboard for him.

01:04:22.052 --> 01:04:22.550
Thank you.

01:04:22.550 --> 01:04:24.050
PROFESSOR: OK.

01:04:24.050 --> 01:04:24.762
Yes?

01:04:24.762 --> 01:04:29.440
AUDIENCE: Where were you
when Neil Armstrong

01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:30.440
walked on the moon?

01:04:30.440 --> 01:04:32.130
PROFESSOR: I was in Houston.

01:04:32.130 --> 01:04:36.440
And I was in the center there.

01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:39.520
And we were all wringing
our hands.

01:04:44.370 --> 01:04:52.210
The alarm that came off just
before landing, none of us

01:04:52.210 --> 01:04:56.470
knew, except the one person who
had to know, and that was

01:04:56.470 --> 01:05:01.630
the, what's his name.

01:05:01.630 --> 01:05:04.470
I can't think of his name.

01:05:04.470 --> 01:05:07.780
But he was the one who said, he
knew what the alarms were.

01:05:07.780 --> 01:05:08.350
Forget it.

01:05:08.350 --> 01:05:11.400
They're OK.

01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:14.830
Because everyone else, if he
hadn't spoken up, they were

01:05:14.830 --> 01:05:18.600
ready to scrub it, because they

01:05:18.600 --> 01:05:20.040
didn't know what happened.

01:05:20.040 --> 01:05:24.360
And they would have just
decided to play it

01:05:24.360 --> 01:05:26.460
safe and not land.

01:05:26.460 --> 01:05:30.320
But it was not a problem.

01:05:30.320 --> 01:05:36.520
Actually, what was happening
was that the computer had a

01:05:36.520 --> 01:05:40.080
lot of jobs to do
simultaneously.

01:05:40.080 --> 01:05:42.300
It can only do one
thing at a time.

01:05:42.300 --> 01:05:46.030
But it would do a piece of a
job, and then it would switch

01:05:46.030 --> 01:05:46.870
to another one.

01:05:46.870 --> 01:05:53.990
And all the time, it had to be
reading the accelerometer

01:05:53.990 --> 01:05:57.870
information and calculating what
the x-acceleration was,

01:05:57.870 --> 01:06:00.180
lots of things to do.

01:06:00.180 --> 01:06:04.150
And it had more to do than
it had time to do it.

01:06:04.150 --> 01:06:08.770
And the reason was that
somebody, and Buzz Aldrin has

01:06:08.770 --> 01:06:17.110
admitted to it now, that he put
on the ascent radar, just

01:06:17.110 --> 01:06:24.670
in case they were told to not
land but leave, they'd be all

01:06:24.670 --> 01:06:28.610
set with their radar.

01:06:28.610 --> 01:06:36.070
And by leaving that on, which
the computer would do, if they

01:06:36.070 --> 01:06:39.200
were actually launching to
the moon, it was just an

01:06:39.200 --> 01:06:42.230
additional task which was
not supposed to be

01:06:42.230 --> 01:06:44.370
done at that time.

01:06:44.370 --> 01:06:53.040
And so fortunately, the guy who
was in charge knew that

01:06:53.040 --> 01:06:57.655
that was what the problem was,
and he just said forget it.

01:06:57.655 --> 01:06:58.905
Let's go.

01:07:01.395 --> 01:07:04.000
It's one of those things that
you don't want to be

01:07:04.000 --> 01:07:06.790
responsible for.

01:07:06.790 --> 01:07:09.480
You don't want to have to be
the one who says, go ahead,

01:07:09.480 --> 01:07:12.840
and then have it smashed into
the surface of the moon.

01:07:12.840 --> 01:07:18.600
You'd be very serious about
what you would do with the

01:07:18.600 --> 01:07:19.850
rest of your life.

01:07:22.878 --> 01:07:24.854
Any other questions?

01:07:24.854 --> 01:07:25.720
AUDIENCE: Dr. Battin?

01:07:25.720 --> 01:07:26.660
On your left.

01:07:26.660 --> 01:07:30.746
I worked at the lab on
the guidance system.

01:07:30.746 --> 01:07:33.920
And I think the astronaut
students, your old students,

01:07:33.920 --> 01:07:36.530
might be interested knowing,
it wasn't just one program.

01:07:36.530 --> 01:07:40.400
But the Lunar Module and the
Command Module were very

01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:43.730
different, because of the
ascent and landing.

01:07:43.730 --> 01:07:46.240
And also, the lunar
module was a very

01:07:46.240 --> 01:07:47.610
early digital autopilot.

01:07:47.610 --> 01:07:51.876
It worked on a phase plane to
decide when to fire its jets.

01:07:51.876 --> 01:07:55.700
And for ascent, it didn't have a
"gimbal-able" engine, so the

01:07:55.700 --> 01:07:59.525
whole scheme for controlling
it was very different.

01:07:59.525 --> 01:08:05.010
PROFESSOR: Well, the interesting
thing about the

01:08:05.010 --> 01:08:10.490
LEM computer was that the people
who were responsible

01:08:10.490 --> 01:08:13.100
for the LEM said, "OK, well,
we'll put a computer in.

01:08:13.100 --> 01:08:19.439
We'll do our own." And we kept
saying, and NASA kept saying,

01:08:19.439 --> 01:08:21.529
why do we want to do that?

01:08:21.529 --> 01:08:26.840
I mean, if the Command Module
computer will functionally do

01:08:26.840 --> 01:08:30.460
the same things that the Lunar
Module computer is supposed to

01:08:30.460 --> 01:08:32.149
do, then let's do it.

01:08:32.149 --> 01:08:34.109
Let's just change the program.

01:08:34.109 --> 01:08:39.149
Let's don't reinvent a new
computer for that job.

01:08:39.149 --> 01:08:45.649
And fortunately, the decision
was that there would only be

01:08:45.649 --> 01:08:47.090
one computer.

01:08:47.090 --> 01:08:50.939
We had two sets of software to
design, but we didn't do it

01:08:50.939 --> 01:08:54.390
for two different computers.

01:08:54.390 --> 01:09:02.649
Actually, the Lunar
Module had, I

01:09:02.649 --> 01:09:03.960
forget what it's called.

01:09:03.960 --> 01:09:13.859
But it was a little computer
which could do basic things.

01:09:13.859 --> 01:09:19.590
And if you couldn't do
anything with the big

01:09:19.590 --> 01:09:23.810
computer, at least with
that, it could run

01:09:23.810 --> 01:09:25.490
the engine, for example.

01:09:25.490 --> 01:09:29.899
It may not calculate what the
result's supposed to be.

01:09:29.899 --> 01:09:31.859
You'd just give it
to the astronaut.

01:09:31.859 --> 01:09:37.490
And the simple jobs that you
expected the computer to do,

01:09:37.490 --> 01:09:40.174
you would do.

01:09:40.174 --> 01:09:45.000
And again, they never,
ever had to do that.

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:45.890
They never had to use it.

01:09:45.890 --> 01:09:46.809
But it was always there.

01:09:46.809 --> 01:09:49.290
And they were always
trained for it.

01:09:49.290 --> 01:09:53.985
But it didn't ever
have to be used.

01:10:00.490 --> 01:10:01.800
Yes?

01:10:01.800 --> 01:10:03.180
AUDIENCE: I had hear
about Draper

01:10:03.180 --> 01:10:04.540
attempting to be an astronaut.

01:10:04.540 --> 01:10:05.565
Whatever happened with that?

01:10:05.565 --> 01:10:06.830
Did they just decide--

01:10:06.830 --> 01:10:07.680
PROFESSOR: Draper what?

01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:08.710
AUDIENCE: Wanting to
be an astronaut.

01:10:08.710 --> 01:10:10.170
Did they just determine--

01:10:10.170 --> 01:10:11.990
PROFESSOR: Oh, well,
I mean ha ha.

01:10:14.740 --> 01:10:18.205
Actually, Draper would have gone
if they had picked him.

01:10:21.790 --> 01:10:25.970
The Instrumentation Laboratory
existed before Apollo.

01:10:25.970 --> 01:10:30.810
And he personally designed
instruments for aircraft.

01:10:30.810 --> 01:10:34.340
And then he would test-fly
them in the plane, and he

01:10:34.340 --> 01:10:35.720
would be the pilot.

01:10:35.720 --> 01:10:42.240
So he was a test pilot
in that sense.

01:10:42.240 --> 01:10:47.600
But the fact that he was 60
years old, that's unheard of.

01:10:50.110 --> 01:10:51.870
I remember when I was
60 years old.

01:10:51.870 --> 01:10:54.470
It was a while ago.

01:10:54.470 --> 01:11:04.820
But no, I don't know whether
he was actually

01:11:04.820 --> 01:11:06.230
serious about it.

01:11:06.230 --> 01:11:13.130
He did write a letter to Bob
Seamans saying that he would

01:11:13.130 --> 01:11:15.280
like to be considered.

01:11:15.280 --> 01:11:23.370
And they could say, well, we
considered you, but you

01:11:23.370 --> 01:11:25.750
couldn't do it, physically
couldn't do it.

01:11:29.420 --> 01:11:31.762
AUDIENCE: Also, in those days,
all of the astronauts were

01:11:31.762 --> 01:11:33.630
military pilots.

01:11:33.630 --> 01:11:37.145
PROFESSOR: And there
weren't any women.

01:11:37.145 --> 01:11:41.420
There weren't any women, because
there weren't any

01:11:41.420 --> 01:11:43.310
women test pilots.

01:11:43.310 --> 01:11:46.900
Had there been women test
pilots, that'd be OK.

01:11:46.900 --> 01:11:55.390
Janice Voss was the first female
astronaut from MIT.

01:11:55.390 --> 01:12:03.220
And she helped me
with my course.

01:12:03.220 --> 01:12:07.630
She was really a very
good student.

01:12:07.630 --> 01:12:13.900
And when she graduated, she
applied to be an astronaut.

01:12:13.900 --> 01:12:22.120
And she was turned down once,
twice, and she was turned down

01:12:22.120 --> 01:12:24.490
three times.

01:12:24.490 --> 01:12:27.550
The fourth time, she
was selected.

01:12:27.550 --> 01:12:29.780
And so she says, don't
ever give up.

01:12:29.780 --> 01:12:32.050
If you want to do something,
make sure that

01:12:32.050 --> 01:12:33.790
you don't give up.

01:12:33.790 --> 01:12:37.800
It may not come right away, but
it could come eventually.

01:12:37.800 --> 01:12:41.090
So she was very excited
about that.

01:12:41.090 --> 01:12:48.890
And she was actually the first
female astronaut from MIT.

01:12:48.890 --> 01:12:50.410
We've had other--

01:12:50.410 --> 01:12:58.920
well, you just saw some of the
guys who went to the moon were

01:12:58.920 --> 01:13:02.410
all MIT students.

01:13:02.410 --> 01:13:06.430
Incidentally, when Buzz Aldrin
was a student, he did not have

01:13:06.430 --> 01:13:09.260
a label on saying I'm going
to be flying to the moon.

01:13:09.260 --> 01:13:12.890
He was a military pilot.

01:13:12.890 --> 01:13:18.060
And he was interested in,
I guess they had begun

01:13:18.060 --> 01:13:19.570
to talk about it.

01:13:19.570 --> 01:13:25.650
He was interested in doing
some of the rendezvous

01:13:25.650 --> 01:13:26.900
calculations.

01:13:29.475 --> 01:13:32.440
But he was not representing
NASA.

01:13:32.440 --> 01:13:38.780
He was just there to get
a Master's degree.

01:13:38.780 --> 01:13:46.630
And all the other astronauts,
none of them arrived and said,

01:13:46.630 --> 01:13:48.800
I am an astronaut, and I want
to [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

01:13:48.800 --> 01:13:50.460
They were all just students.

01:13:50.460 --> 01:13:55.435
Mostly, they were from
the military.

01:13:55.435 --> 01:14:00.680
They might be from the
Air Force Academy,

01:14:00.680 --> 01:14:01.810
that sort of thing.

01:14:01.810 --> 01:14:07.720
But it was only afterwards that
they got an assignment,

01:14:07.720 --> 01:14:10.765
actually being an astronaut.

01:14:19.724 --> 01:14:21.110
Yes?

01:14:21.110 --> 01:14:23.190
AUDIENCE: Can I ask your
opinion on the

01:14:23.190 --> 01:14:24.777
Constellation program?

01:14:24.777 --> 01:14:28.500
I imagine you think it's long
overdue, but are they doing it

01:14:28.500 --> 01:14:29.590
the right way?

01:14:29.590 --> 01:14:32.910
Do we still have the skills
to go back to the moon?

01:14:32.910 --> 01:14:34.356
PROFESSOR: I don't know.

01:14:34.356 --> 01:14:35.628
I really don't know.

01:14:43.490 --> 01:14:49.790
They're doing so many things
which are just unbelievable,

01:14:49.790 --> 01:14:55.950
the Messenger program
of getting a

01:14:55.950 --> 01:14:59.670
spacecraft to Mercury.

01:14:59.670 --> 01:15:06.130
And they did that by at least
a dozen or more fly-bys of

01:15:06.130 --> 01:15:12.390
Earth and/or Venus in order to
get the energy lowered down to

01:15:12.390 --> 01:15:17.620
where you could actually contact
Venus and maybe go

01:15:17.620 --> 01:15:20.140
around, orbit it, or take
pictures of it,

01:15:20.140 --> 01:15:21.390
or what have you.

01:15:24.730 --> 01:15:31.440
But I don't know any more about
that today than anybody

01:15:31.440 --> 01:15:32.690
who reads the paper.

01:15:35.150 --> 01:15:39.140
The Constellation is,
I'm not sure.

01:15:39.140 --> 01:15:42.000
Is this is a new program
or what?

01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:46.686
AUDIENCE: No, that's the return
to the moon, and then

01:15:46.686 --> 01:15:48.150
to continue on to Mars.

01:15:48.150 --> 01:15:52.060
PROFESSOR: They got a
name for it now, oh.

01:15:52.060 --> 01:16:01.640
Well, I think it's certainly a
great idea to do what we did.

01:16:01.640 --> 01:16:05.980
And it would be wonderful to
be able to do it again.

01:16:05.980 --> 01:16:09.910
And I had a student,
she was actually a

01:16:09.910 --> 01:16:11.455
freshman at the time.

01:16:11.455 --> 01:16:14.120
And she was Japanese.

01:16:14.120 --> 01:16:18.155
And I was a freshman advisor.

01:16:18.155 --> 01:16:21.040
We were going around to ask,
what would you like to do?

01:16:21.040 --> 01:16:21.580
What would you like?

01:16:21.580 --> 01:16:22.960
And it got to her.

01:16:22.960 --> 01:16:29.160
She said, I would like to be
the first woman on Mars.

01:16:29.160 --> 01:16:30.150
And she was serious.

01:16:30.150 --> 01:16:32.110
I want to be an astronaut.

01:16:32.110 --> 01:16:35.530
The fact that I'm Japanese
shouldn't have any problem.

01:16:38.630 --> 01:16:40.130
I said, well, that's great.

01:16:40.130 --> 01:16:42.880
I'll be there to cheer you on.

01:16:42.880 --> 01:16:50.420
But the Japanese do seem to be
getting more interested in

01:16:50.420 --> 01:16:53.470
space, as are the Chinese.

01:16:53.470 --> 01:16:58.700
And the only thing that's
going to get us really

01:16:58.700 --> 01:17:02.760
interested is when it looks like
they're going to do it,

01:17:02.760 --> 01:17:09.370
and we're going to be left in
the dust. If as von Braun

01:17:09.370 --> 01:17:17.830
said, if you had tried to
cooperate with the Russians,

01:17:17.830 --> 01:17:19.310
there wouldn't be a program.

01:17:32.330 --> 01:17:33.580
What was I going to say?

01:17:40.378 --> 01:17:42.240
I've forgotten what I
was going to say.

01:17:42.240 --> 01:17:49.990
But anyhow, there are so many
opportunities that we

01:17:49.990 --> 01:17:56.640
hopefully will not ignore, just
because there isn't any

01:17:56.640 --> 01:17:57.890
particular competition.

01:18:01.230 --> 01:18:07.750
The whole business of Apollo,
we learned how to make these

01:18:07.750 --> 01:18:09.930
computer chips.

01:18:09.930 --> 01:18:15.400
And the chips were manufactured
by Raytheon for

01:18:15.400 --> 01:18:27.930
Apollo, and the largest number
of computer chips that were

01:18:27.930 --> 01:18:37.030
being made were the
ones for Apollo.

01:18:37.030 --> 01:18:40.650
There were very few
applications.

01:18:40.650 --> 01:18:47.400
And so you might say that the
Apollo computer really was the

01:18:47.400 --> 01:18:52.780
original device that
we have here.

01:18:52.780 --> 01:19:01.200
And I think that that is true,
that with an application,

01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:03.770
demand, you're going
to learn how to do

01:19:03.770 --> 01:19:05.020
it better and cheaper.

01:19:21.330 --> 01:19:21.770
OK.

01:19:21.770 --> 01:19:22.970
[APPLAUSE]

01:19:22.970 --> 01:19:23.870
Thank you for coming.

01:19:23.870 --> 01:19:25.420
[APPLAUSE]