Links to Apollo program stories

[WS3N]

Please excuse this non-DX post. I know a number of the "mature" members of this forum - those of us who were kids in the '60s - have expressed an interest in the space program. Here are a couple of links to recent stories in Ars Technica, and another to a series, from IEEE Spectrum, about Apollo 13. The latter has a link, at its end, to the report from NASA's Apollo 13 accident review board, just loaded with nerdy details.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/going-boldly-what-it-was-like-to-be-an-apollo-flight-controller/

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/apollo-flight-controller-101-every-console-explained/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/apollo-13-we-have-a-solution

[AD6KA]

Cool links, thank you!

I've also been fascinated with the TV camera
and transmitter that was actually used on the
LEM on the moon. Many, many technical obstacles
had to be overcome. It had to be small, lightweight (7 lbs)
and draw as little power as possible (6.25 watts)
It also had to withstand temperatures of 250 degrees
in daylight and minus 300 degrees at night. And this
all was accomplished building a camera that had only
250 parts, compared to a TV camera of that day which
used 2,500 parts. I *believe* I read somewhere
that several ham radio operators, who were also
employed by NASA at the time, worked on this
camera & its transmitter
.
It used half the vertical scanning and frame rate
of broadcast TV cameras of that era. This format
could not be broadcast on commercial TV, so
yet another "one off" device had to be designed
and built to convert that to a broadcast friendly
format.  The TV signals from the moon were received
by a large dish in Australia, retransmitted to
the U.S.A, then supplied to the networks.

Some links:
http://www.newseum.org/exhibits-and-theaters/past-online-exhibits/datelinemoon/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_TV_camera

Man, only in America could something like
the Apollo Program be pulled off!
73, Ken  AD6KA