Would an astronaut survive burial on the Moon?

[Allan F]

And what about the discussion of who went out first? A discussion which was eventually resolved by pointing out, that the hatch in the LM was hinged on the LMP's side, and therefore it would only be possible for the Commander to get out first, since there wasn't room inside for them to swap places, once the spacesuit were on.

[ka9q]

A lot of people, I believe, really don't understand the sheer volume of the planning, designing, testing, training, etc. that went into Apollo, or the extent to which every scrap of data was analyzed and incorporated into subsequent missions.

That is very true. The more you read about Apollo, the more impressive it becomes for just this reason.

I even catch myself sometimes underestimating just how difficult it was to do something because of how easy it is to do now. Even though I was around back then, I have to remember that much of the technology I now take for granted came after Apollo. In fact, Apollo helped spur much of it into existence.

Everybody knows that when engineers do something for the first time they have to work out a lot of unexpected problems when it's not clear what the best solution may be, or even if there is a solution. Much less well appreciated is the amount of effort that goes into solving what turn out to be non-problems before you know that they are, in fact, non-problems.

Edited to add: I'm sure someone will ask me for examples, so here's one. A major design driver in Apollo communications and navigations design was the threat that the Russians might deliberately jam or spoof communications. Some of the procedures (such as the uplink "block" switch the astronauts regularly threw to enable ground computer updates) were based on this assumption.

A great deal of effort went into making it possible for the astronauts to return home on their own in the event of sustained Russian jamming. While it's true that this also protected against a non-malicious but serious communications failure, that never happened either. I think simply adding hardware redundancy (which they also did) was the better way to address that particular risk.

[Noldi400]

A lot of people, I believe, really don't understand the sheer volume of the planning, designing, testing, training, etc. that went into Apollo, or the extent to which every scrap of data was analyzed and incorporated into subsequent missions.

That is very true. The more you read about Apollo, the more impressive it becomes for just this reason.

I even catch myself sometimes underestimating just how difficult it was to do something because of how easy it is to do now. Even though I was around back then, I have to remember that much of the technology I now take for granted came after Apollo. In fact, Apollo helped spur much of it into existence.

Everybody knows that when engineers do something for the first time they have to work out a lot of unexpected problems when it's not clear what the best solution may be, or even if there is a solution. Much less well appreciated is the amount of effort that goes into solving what turn out to be non-problems before you know that they are, in fact, non-problems.

Edited to add: I'm sure someone will ask me for examples, so here's one. A major design driver in Apollo communications and navigations design was the threat that the Russians might deliberately jam or spoof communications. Some of the procedures (such as the uplink "block" switch the astronauts regularly threw to enable ground computer updates) were based on this assumption.

A great deal of effort went into making it possible for the astronauts to return home on their own in the event of sustained Russian jamming. While it's true that this also protected against a non-malicious but serious communications failure, that never happened either. I think simply adding hardware redundancy (which they also did) was the better way to address that particular risk.

We ought to start a new thread: "Underappreciated Things About The Apollo Program"

i.e., almost all of the Apollo astronauts were engineers in a relevant field, many of them with advanced degrees.  Each of them, beginning with Group 3 at least, was assigned a specialty area that they were heavily involved in throughout the program. IOW, they weren't just pilots waiting around for their flight; they were either heavily involved in (or at least closely monitoring) everything from instrument panel layout to spacesuit design.

[ka9q]

It would be interesting to see the astronauts' academic degrees in a simple table. I think you're right that the later astronauts generally had engineering degrees, but I don't know if that was true for all of the earlier ones when test pilot experience was the main criterion. An engineering background was emphasized later as the spacecraft and missions got increasingly complex.

I really like that introduction Neil Armstrong gave in 2000 when he presented the list of the top 20 engineering achievements of the 20th century. He identified himself as a fellow engineer ahead of everything else he was:

“I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.”

[Echnaton]

It would be interesting to see the astronauts' academic degrees in a simple table. I think you're right that the later astronauts generally had engineering degrees, but I don't know if that was true for all of the earlier ones when test pilot experience was the main criterion. An engineering background was emphasized later as the spacecraft and missions got increasingly complex.

The official NASA bio for the original seven lists six with engineering degrees of some sort, including three in aeronautics.  Shepard is listed as graduating from the Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science but does not state the subject.  It appears that a strong technical background was a requirement for attending test pilot school. 

[Noldi400]

It would be interesting to see the astronauts' academic degrees in a simple table. I think you're right that the later astronauts generally had engineering degrees, but I don't know if that was true for all of the earlier ones when test pilot experience was the main criterion. An engineering background was emphasized later as the spacecraft and missions got increasingly complex.

Good idea - I'll see if I can knock something together.  Also, glad to see you guys chewing on HB over his orbital calculations - I was getting a headache.

I'm pretty sure that an undergrad degree was a requirement for Mercury right from the start.  Mike Collins writes that for the second group of astronauts the requirements (in part) were certified test pilots with a degree in engineering or one of the biological sciences.

[Noldi400]

First Installment.

The Mercury Seven

1 Shepard, Alan               BS, Engineering

1 Grissom, Gus                BS, Mechanical Eng
                                      BS, Aero Mechanics

1 Glenn, John                  BS, Engineering

1 Carpenter, Scott           BS, Aeronautical Eng

1 Schirra, Walter             BS, Aeronautical Eng

1 Cooper, Gordon            BS, Aerospace Eng

1 Slayton, Deke               BS, Aeronautical Eng

The Next Nine

2 Armstrong, Neil                 MS, Aeronautical Eng

2 Borman, Frank               MS, Aeronautical Eng

2 Conrad, Pete                  BS, Aeronautical Eng

2 Lovell, James                 BS, Aeronautical Eng

2 McDivitt, James              BS, Aeronautical Eng

2 See, Elliot                      MS, Engineering

2 Stafford, Thomas            BS, (?) USNA

2 White, Ed                       MS, Aeronautical Eng

2 Young, John                   BS, Aeronautical Eng

[ka9q]

I'd say there's a pretty strong trend here. Of course, being military officers (or ex-military officers) they would all have at least a BS degree, and if they were always interested in aviation it's quite likely they would have aeronautical engineering degrees. Only a few seem to have MS degrees. The first PhD was almost certainly Buzz Aldrin, but there were also some medical doctors in there somewhere like Joe Kerwin.

[Noldi400]

I'd say there's a pretty strong trend here. Of course, being military officers (or ex-military officers) they would all have at least a BS degree, and if they were always interested in aviation it's quite likely they would have aeronautical engineering degrees. Only a few seem to have MS degrees. The first PhD was almost certainly Buzz Aldrin, but there were also some medical doctors in there somewhere like Joe Kerwin.

Maybe I should have listed their schools - pretty impressive, for the most part: Purdue, MIT, UCLA, Cal Tech, Ga Tech.

I had to put this on pause because I'm currently a bit under the weather. Group 3, though, looked a lot like the first two, but for Group 4 they were recruiting scientists and applicants were required to have a doctorate.

[ka9q]

Since nearly all of them (except for the scientist-astronauts) were military officiers, didn't they generally get their degrees from the service academies?

[ka9q]

The fact that so many Apollo astronauts were themselves engineers makes me wonder about the often-claimed divide between them and the engineers who designed their spacecraft.

I think The Right Stuff has a scene, obviously done for laughs, showing an argument between a Mercury astronaut and an engineer over whether the capsule should have a window. Maybe that movie was especially hard on the engineers because it was told mainly from Chuck Yeager's viewpoint, and he was famously non-academic. Though I always found it hard to identify with the man's pure seat-of-the-pants philosophy I lost a great deal of respect for him after his non-performance on the Rogers (Challenger) Commission. I think his only contribution was to suggest not flying in cold weather.

Another work to play up the astronaut/engineer divide was the excellent book Digital Apollo; its entire theme was the man-machine (i.e., pilot-spacecraft/aircraft) interface. It featured a famous early-60s cartoon showing two alternative approaches to Apollo design: in one, the astronauts inhabit a totally automated spacecraft in a sterile cabin whose only feature is a big ABORT button. They look totally bored. In the other, they're mad at work over a pile of equipment, doing nearly everything by hand.

I think this divide was overstated as everything I've read by those actually involved is that the astronauts and engineers got along pretty well, largely because the astronauts themselves were engineers and actively took part in the design. Each was assigned some area of specialty (life support, pressure suits, guidance, propulsion, etc) and spent quite a bit of time with the contractors. Some, like Roger Chaffee, reportedly went above and beyond the call of duty often asking to meet every line-level worker during a plant visit.

[Echnaton]

Those scenes in The Right Stuff also featured the divide between proud oldworld Germans vs brash young Americans to the same humorous effect.  It seems there was a large difference in personal attitude between those designing a ballistic missile to be controlled from the ground and those wanting a space ship to be flown by a pilot.  Tom Wolfe never let the truth get in the way of a good story. 

[Noldi400]

The fact that so many Apollo astronauts were themselves engineers makes me wonder about the often-claimed divide between them and the engineers who designed their spacecraft.

I think The Right Stuff has a scene, obviously done for laughs, showing an argument between a Mercury astronaut and an engineer over whether the capsule should have a window. Maybe that movie was especially hard on the engineers because it was told mainly from Chuck Yeager's viewpoint, and he was famously non-academic. Though I always found it hard to identify with the man's pure seat-of-the-pants philosophy I lost a great deal of respect for him after his non-performance on the Rogers (Challenger) Commission. I think his only contribution was to suggest not flying in cold weather.

Another work to play up the astronaut/engineer divide was the excellent book Digital Apollo; its entire theme was the man-machine (i.e., pilot-spacecraft/aircraft) interface. It featured a famous early-60s cartoon showing two alternative approaches to Apollo design: in one, the astronauts inhabit a totally automated spacecraft in a sterile cabin whose only feature is a big ABORT button. They look totally bored. In the other, they're mad at work over a pile of equipment, doing nearly everything by hand.

I think this divide was overstated as everything I've read by those actually involved is that the astronauts and engineers got along pretty well, largely because the astronauts themselves were engineers and actively took part in the design. Each was assigned some area of specialty (life support, pressure suits, guidance, propulsion, etc) and spent quite a bit of time with the contractors. Some, like Roger Chaffee, reportedly went above and beyond the call of duty often asking to meet every line-level worker during a plant visit.

My impression is that most of the conflict was during the Mercury program, when the admittedly old-world engineers regarded the astronaut as almost an afterthought. You don't ( or I haven't, at least) hear nearly as much about it in Gemini and following.  Of course, there were multiple occasions where the machines malfunctioned and the astronaut turned out to be the component that saved the mission - not to mention his own hide.

Service Acadamies - some did, some didn't. Gene Cernan, for example, was a product of the NROTC program at Purdue. As it happens, Neil Armstrong was there at the same time, going through Purdue on the "Holloway Plan". I guess flying jets, especially for the Navy, was a fast-growing field in the 50s and more than one route was open for the right candidates. Gus Grissom enlisted as an aviation cadet right out of high school (WWII was still going on), pulled a hitch, got his Mechanical Engineering degree (Purdue again), then re-enlisted in the new USAF. Deke Slayton did something similar, although he enlisted early enough to actually become a pilot and fly fifty-some missions in WWII, then stayed in and got his degree at U. Minn after the war.

Also, I don't know if you've ever read his autobiography, but Yeager seems to have been sort of an intuitive, self-educated engineer (although Ralph Rene makes me kind of leery of that term).  He talks about how he always made it his business to be sure he understood the function of every nut, bolt, washer, transverse thingamabobble, and every part of any aircraft he flew; he credits that knowledge with 'saving his ass' more than once.

[ka9q]

Of course, there were multiple occasions where the machines malfunctioned and the astronaut turned out to be the component that saved the mission - not to mention his own hide.

Yes, though one has to point out that it's not so important to bring a spacecraft back to earth when it's not carrying any of those aforementioned hides.

Astronauts have always been more than a little defensive about crewed vs robotic spacecraft (what used to be called manned vs unmanned). I hope we'll be over that when humans do return to the moon because there won't be much point in doing it simply to show they can fly a spacecraft to the moon. We did that over 40 years ago, and it has become routine to send highly capable robots to the moon and planets.

If we send humans back to the moon, it should be for what they can do once they're there, not to show off their skills as pilots in getting there. I'm sure there's a lot more useful scientific work that could be done by professional geologists, for example, and engineers could gain a lot of useful experience in designing, building and operating habitats in such a hostile environment.