Talk:Apollo program

Cost of Apollo

From the article:

According to Steve Garber, the NASA History website curator, the final cost of project Apollo was between $20 and $25.4 billion in 1969 dollars (or approximately $145 billion in 2008 dollars).

The problem with this statement is it doesn't mention which inflation measure is used. For example, if I use the GDP deflator, I get a price of roughly $94-119 billion in 2008 dollars. The NASA New Start Index might be what was used (if so, it is inappropriate, since it is used to price NASA contractor R&D), but I can't tell. In any case, I think this figure should either be corrected and the measure of inflation attributed. -- KarlHallowell (talk) 03:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, it's worth looking into but we would need a source to corroborate.Voiceofreason01 (talk) 18:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Just list the then-years cost and forget the projected/inflated 2008 cost. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I just tried in vain to find the Garber page referenced to get the $83 billion figure, but I did find a NASA presentation paper report [[1]] which gives a different 2005 figure, about twice as high: $160 billion. I did a sanity check by looking up the Consumer price index by country#United States of America, and the curve indicates a rise from ~30 in the 1960's to ~200 in 2005 (indexed to 100 in 1983), a 667% increase. This is consistent with $24 billion x 6.67 = $160 billion, and would have put the $83 billion back in the 1980's. I will try to fix this when I get a chance. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Dates on LBJ's response to JFK ?

The article said LBJ responded "on the following day" to JFK's query on how to beat the Soviets. But when I go to LBJ's memo, the date is April 28, 1960, not April 21, which is one week instead of one day after April 20. The dates are clearly visible on what look like photocopies of the originals. (Space Race had the same problem.) Can anyone explain this? JustinTime55 (talk) 20:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Constellation program section out of scope

If we want to briefly mention Constellation as a legacy of Apollo, fine, but I don't understand why the impulse to clutter this historical article with details of the new craft or the continuing political saga of whether or not it will survive. This section needs to be stripped down to the main article link and a summary stating no more than that it was proposed and some design and testing has begun, but that its status remains uncertain. The details should be moved out to Constellation program. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, too much detail on the Constellation here. The Constellation article probably covers most or all of that already. I trimmed the text back some as a start. Feel free to cut more.. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A world wide audience section

The section A_world_wide_audience claims "Approximately one fifth of the population of the world watched the live transmission of the first Apollo moonwalk." citing a book I do not have access to, as the source. I find this figure very unlikely to be reliable. Even today it's difficult to accurately calculate worldwide audience estimates when the figures enter the hundreds of million range. Back then even figures like domestic audience were diffiuclt to accurately estimate (a lot easier now) so it seems absurd that something which would be difficult even today could have been accurately calculated back then.

Unless a reliable source(s) can be found, I think it needs to be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.16.193.221 (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Just because you can't get your hands on a hard copy right away, doesn't mean the source is necessarily unreliable. I gave the source the benefit of the doubt and changed the wording to a less-definitive "An estimated one-fifth ..." Is that better? Just deleting it without knowing the facts, would be original research. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It's just an estimate. The book that cites that is already a reliable source. Start by finding a source that says states an appreciably different number. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Missing data and knowhow

It is often said that much of the data and knowhow (that will be again needed for the return to the moon has been lost). Is there a list somewhere about what was lost form the Apollo Project ? Has anyone been made responsible or any inquiry about that loss and cost to the taxpayers ? --79.168.10.241 (talk) 07:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The way to begin digging into something like this is to cite some sources making such an assertion. It may only be hyperbole. As an aside, my understanding is that NASA's documentation protocols back then were very thorough, moreover after early 1967. Sources will likely show the worry isn't "lost know-how," but the cost and management of dredging archives and mining all the old data for helpful knowledge, rather than building a new knowledge base by mostly other means. Meanwhile, many of those technologies have come a long way since the late 60s, it's been forty years. Even if the same modular system were to be used, the "stack" might look kind of like Apollo from the outside, but that's where many likenesses would end. Here's a source which notes flights to the moon (if any) may not even be US government projects.[2] Moreover, talk about this may be more fitting at Talk:Constellation program, Talk:Moon_landing or even Talk:Exploration of the Moon. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Timeline

The Article currently says: The Apollo program ran from 1961 until 1975, and was America's third human spaceflight program (following Mercury and Gemini). Well, While it is certainly true that Apollo's first flight as well as its program termination were later than Gemini's, it also seems to be undisputed that Project Apollo was started earlier, with Gemini in something like a dedicated supporting role, to gain experiences needed for Apollo. Several sources also claim more advanced technology in some details of the Gemini spaceship due to the corresponding Apollo systems having been design-frozen at an earlier time. So I think Apollo should be numbered as America's second human spaceflight program and Gemini third. --BjKa (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point about Apollo actually starting earlier than Gemini (which was planned to support Apollo), so I agree "third program" should be changed. But consider these:

• I think it would be just as "wrong" to call Gemini the third program, since it actually did fly before Apollo.
• I (and at least one other WP editor) notice a disturbing trend toward giving numbered statistics for everything in spaceflight, down to individual space flights. Perhaps it isn't so important to rank Gemini and Apollo as second or third.

Therefore, I think we should strike "third program" and just say that it followed Mercury, and the manned launches followed Gemini (and similarly in Project Gemini.)

I would also be very interested in seeing specifics about Gemini technology more advanced than Apollo. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Space Task Group / support for LOR

The statement: In late 1961 and early 1962, members of NASA's Space Task Group at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston began to come around to support for LOR. is at issue as the Manned Spacecraft Center article states it did not open until 1963. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.27.66.8 (talk) 20:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This gets tricky. Space Task Group article states it was located at Langley VA. If you check the external link to NASA org. charts from that article, you see an organization for MSC existed in September 1962 (while it was being built), and Gilruth was head of both organizations. My guess is, the Task Group was being phased out in favor of the MSC, which was probably still based at Langley. We should probably replace MSC with a reference to Langley (which is already wikilinked), or mention the transition to MSC. JustinTime55 (talk) 20:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

About the table...

Perhaps we should change the "Partial Failure" listed by Apollo 13 to "Successful Failure". Many people including Flight Crew members refer to it as such. The phrase is well known, and is more commonly used to describe the result as opposed to "Partial Failure". Lilly (talk) 00:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• Edit found an official NASA website backing me up so I am changing it.

"Classed as "successful failure" because of experience in rescuing crew." http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo/apo13hist.html Lilly (talk) 01:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Although the term "Successful Failure" is used by nasa, I feel like "Partial Failure" is a more neutral and accurate term. The mission's goal was to send a crew to the moon and return them safely. While they did return safely, we cannot ignore the fact there was a very serious failure on board. I am not trying to discredit the incredible ingenuity and the fantastic story of the Apollo 13 crew and engineers at NASA, but the fact of the matter is the mission did not go as planned due to a failure during the flight. To keep wikipedia as neutral and academic as possible, the term "Partial Failure" should be used to describe the Apollo 13 mission. NASA can label the failure however they wish, however, that does not change the facts concerning the mission. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.190.174.107 (talk • contribs) 21:51, November 29, 2010 (UTC)

In the spirit of neutrality, I don't believe it is necessary at all to place success/failure ratings in this mission table; it's not our obligation to make such judgements (WP:OR), and the fact that it raises a controversy shows it's not a good idea. Also, I don't believe you'll find this in the equivalent mission list tables in most other encyclopedias or space program reference books. We are not in the actuarial business.

We also should remember that during the Apollo program, space travel was (and even to this day should be considered) largely developmental (forgetting this was suggested as contributing to the Challenger tragedy at the time), and not everything could be expected to succeed 100% on every mission. The only real failures were the Apollo 1 tragedy and Apollo 13. Even the engine failure on Apollo 6 didn't stall the program, and there were many little bugs and glitches that had to be worked around in the successes.

Therefore, I would like to simply remove the color-coded designations; the failures can be easily noted in the "Mission Result" text (which we might want to think about renaming.) JustinTime55 (talk) 17:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thrust figures

It seems to me most of the thrust figures in the article contain errors, in that the thrust given in N is about a tenth of the thrust given in pounds. For example, for Saturn 1B, the article says 1,600,000 pounds (730,000 N), when in fact 1 pound = 4.4 N approximately, so this should be more like 7,400,000 N. Could this be corrected, please? I won't edit myself, because I don't know which figure is accurate, and there are also minor inconsistencies with the specific articles about the different types of launch vehicle. -- 163.1.146.148 (talk) 16:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The thrust error is usually caused by a common error caused by Template:Convert, because you have to use a different code for "pounds-force", which is different from "pounds" (taken as a unit of mass). I'll take a look and fix it. (There should really be no difference since a pound mass is the same as a pound force on Earth, but I'm not familiar with template programming. I would guess using pounds-mass makes it think the Newtons are kilograms, so it's not applying the 9.8 metric conversion factor.)

As for launch vehicle inconsistencies, can you please specify? Thanks. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I fixed that specific error, but there seem to be several other places where the template was used and the conversion is incorrect. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 16:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• The convert template settings just needed adjusting/correcting. Was no need to remove/replace. -fnlayson (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

How are you guys able to turn updates around so quickly? :-) I tried to do what you two did and kept getting edit conflicts (including this talk page reply). JustinTime55 (talk) 17:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• No idea why. Sorry 'bout the e/c. -fnlayson (talk) 17:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Original IP user: we still haven't settled what you mean by minor inconsitencies with other articles. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Numbering of Apollo Missions

The first Apollo mission was "Apollo I" while the next mission after that was designated "Apollo 7". What happened to missions 2 through 6? Any art or design to the numbering of the Apollo missions? Theaternearyou (talk) 05:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This is all explained carefully in the article. Please read it.SBHarris 05:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Space program infobox

User Soerfm has added a generic infobox to this article, similar to how he changed the infoboxes in Project Mercury and Project Gemini to refer to the programs themselves rather than the spacecraft. I think a Template:Infobox space program would be a good idea, but this requires some careful thought and design. It could be used on all programs (at least the "real" ones), e.g. Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz, Skylab, Space Shuttle, Shenzou, etc. Until this is done, I don't think it represents a net value added here (unlike in Mercury and Gemini), so I have reverted it.

Some might not agree that this infobox is necessary, and maybe some technical expertise is required to create a new template (I've only done some editing to existing ones.) I think this should be discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

"Putting lipstick on a pig"

The old proverb says this doesn't make much sense; it's still a pig. Similarly, I don't think the solution for this paragraph in the Cultural impact subsection, is to make incremental copyedits, but rather to remove it:

The dramatic accident of Apollo mission 13 was a well-known event and many people from around the world witnessed the magical return of the Apollo 13 crew members. However, the mission was not a very popular event during its launch, and TV ratings were at their historical low for space mission launches. ABC was showing the Dick Cavett Show when the Apollo 13 incident happened. That night Dick Cavett mentioned the mission on his show, saying how 3 million fewer viewers watched the launch compared to the last mission, even comparing it to the first few missions. ABC switched from the talk show to a "Special Report on Apollo 13". Then the TV screen displayed a special message on the Apollo 13 spacecraft and its failure. Apollo 13 made headlines for every newspaper and TV programs.^{[citation needed]}

Being uncited (and thus OR), alone is enough to remove it. Besides that, this much detail about Apollo 13 might belong in that article, but is way out of scope of cultural impact of the entire program. (One suspects that the writer's source was the Apollo 13 film.) The writing style is poor, and I'm not sure if it's appropriate to call "the magical return" peacock wording, but it's certainly not encyclopedic tone. I'm frankly surprised this stayed here for so long.

If someone feels it's appropriate to mention that Apollo 13 marked a turning point in waning public interest in the Moon shots, one or two sentences should do it (with appropriate citation.) JustinTime55 (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Command/service module - heat during re-entry

The majority of heat during re-entry is due to compressing the air ahead of the re-entry vehicle. The air "cannot get out of the way" as the vehicle is entering at supersonic speeds. Calling it "air friction" is somewhat of a misconception. This is discussed in the atmospheric entry article under the real gas section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_entry, and is also discussed on the space shuttle page. WikiDrPizza (talk) 18:16, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

APOLLO named after the ranging experiment??

It amazes me that this article and scientists in general never discuss what one of the main purposes of the APOLLO missions were or what even 'APOLLO' stands for - it is by far the best way of shooting down the conspiracy theory. The "Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser Operation" placed retro-reflectors on the moon so that we could accurately measure the distance to the moon. Measurements such as this are very important for geodesy and are fundamental to designing systems such as GPS etc., we measure distances to these reflectors to this day and any thought of placing one without a manned mission in those days is quite ridiculous. Jonny2vests (talk) 02:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation says that experiment started operation in 2005, whereas we all know the Apollo manned program was named in 1960. Indeed, the observatory APOLLO is based at, Apache Point Observatory didn't even exist before the mid-80's. Furthermore, we'd been soft landing instruments on the moon since the Surveyor Program in 1966, and could have put anything we wanted on them. The Soviets placed a lunar laser reflector without a manned mission in 1970 (eventually did this twice, actually). So, you're being silly. APOLLO for the laser program is an after-the-fact made-up acronym. Rather like MESSENGER for the Mercury spacecraft. Nice troll post, tho. SBHarris 03:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)