Re: On July 20.1969.....

From: Dr_Postman (Looky_at_mysig.foremail)
Date: 07/20/04 

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 23:30:39 GMT

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 20:11:58 GMT, henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

>In article <40fd40fd$0$199$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net>,
>Ian Stirling <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>30 seconds of fuel.
>>> Not a whole lot of people pay attention to that line. He had
>>> less than 30 seconds to find just the right spot to set down
>>> on. That's what I call cutting it close.
>>
>>30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash.
>
>30 seconds is actually quite a long time in such a situation.
>
>And in fact, he had longer than that, because all the maneuvering was
>making the fuel slosh, uncovering the low-fuel sensors early.
>
>Moreover, an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some
>altitude for the staging, so there *was* some fuel left at the point where
>a decision was called for. Now officially, if you reached that point and
>weren't actually on the ground yet, you were supposed to abort --
>otherwise you lost your escape route -- but in practice, most of the
>Apollo CDRs would probably have said "don't bother me, I'm busy landing"
>and carried on to touchdown.

We're talking about a surface that no one was familiar with. To me 30
seconds would go by fast with me having to scan around to find
a spot that I could set down on. So, how much more time would
he have had if he would have gone over? 

--
Dr.Postman USPS, MBMC, BsD;    "Disgruntled, But Unarmed"
Member,Board of Directors of afa-b, SKEP-TI-CULTŪ member #15-51506-253.
You can email me at: TuriFake(at)hotmail.com
"Did the Venus transit occur during sunset, idiot?"
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     sunrise happens in NY and Asia at the same time.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: On July 20.1969.....
    ... >>30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash. ... an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some ...
    (sci.geo.geology)
  • Re: On July 20.1969.....
    ... >>30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash. ... an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: On July 20.1969.....
    ... >> Not a whole lot of people pay attention to that line. ... >30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash. ... making the fuel slosh, ... an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some ...
    (sci.astro)
  • Re: On July 20.1969.....
    ... >> Not a whole lot of people pay attention to that line. ... >30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash. ... making the fuel slosh, ... an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: On July 20.1969.....
    ... >> Not a whole lot of people pay attention to that line. ... >30 seconds to either land, or abort, not land or crash. ... making the fuel slosh, ... an abort would have involved accelerating upward to gain some ...
    (sci.geo.geology)