Re: Request for Apollo 10 document location
- From: "addams013" <mfunke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 2 Aug 2006 05:05:28 -0700
Henry Spencer wrote:
Actually, this one's easy: the Apollo 10 LM *was* in lunar orbit
throughout its operations, i.e. it never went below lunar orbital
velocity. Apollo 10 simulated the lunar landing only up to the point
where the main braking burn began. (There were suggestions that maybe it
should go farther, to simulate a later abort, but the added risks were
deemed not worthwhile.)
Whoops. I seem to remember that the LM got pretty low, though; there
was a portion of the transcript I remember reading where Cernan and
Stafford were ooh-ing and aah-ing about swinging so darned close to the
surface -- less than nine miles, if memory serves.
I should have double-checked whether they actually slowed enough to
leave orbit or not.
I suppose the question should have been what kind of contingency
planning was in place to retrieve the ascent module if they had been
unable to fire their engine to shape their trajectory for return to the
command module (in other words, if the command module had to do the
work for rendezvous). In looking over "Chariots for Apollo", it
appears that some of this was actually done with the *descent* engine.
.
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