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Apollo 11 souvenirs


andrew63

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Interesting stuff, if a little odd.

Got to be worth a lot of money though. Anything that has "flown" in space seems to command very high prices with collectors, not that any of this lot will be getting onto the open market.

You do wonder what the lunar landing astronauts and others have stached away in their cupboards !

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I wonder if Armstrong was running any risks here.

I thought weight was a huge factor in relationship to fuel consumption, and not least when allied to the LEM.

They were perilously close to an empty tank on the descent to the surface, although Armstrong didn't display any concern.

In the weightless space environment, maybe a few pounds extra wouldn't have mattered, but the moons gravity was pulling against the descent engines thrust,

and more fuel than usual would be consumed perhaps.

I'm certainly no space engineer, so perhaps I'm up a Gum tree with this.

Anyway, the main thing is the items are big news, and probably are worth big bucks to whoever owns them.

Sorry for the deviation away from the main topic.

Ron.

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I liked the fact that he had a roll of film from one of the cameras that had some good images on it.

As it was due to be left on the moon no one cared about it. I guess Neil realised this and so kept is as a souvenir. Did wonder how another camera did not actually record him removing it - or maybe it did.

Also that fact that the US changed the law so it wasn't a problem.

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I wonder if Armstrong was running any risks here.

I thought weight was a huge factor in relationship to fuel consumption, and not least when allied to the LEM.

They were perilously close to an empty tank on the descent to the surface, although Armstrong didn't display any concern.

The items were taken from the LM, therefore they were in the LM during descent. Yes, he could have dumped them on the surface before the ascent (along with things like the PLSS, waste packaging, urinary condoms, the Hasselblads and so on) to reduce the ascent mass, but the ascent motors had their own fuel supply so the fuel situation on descent didn't affect that.

Regarding the oft-quoted low on fuel thing, its a bit of an urban myth (thought with some factual base). The Apollo 11LM had 45 seconds worth of fuel left with Apollo 11 touched down (including 20 seconds for an abort). What had happened is that the fuel sloshed in the tank and activated a Low Fuel sensor. This sensor doesn't reset...once it was activated it stayed activated. So, in reality, they had plenty of reserves. Later missions were retro-fitted with anti-slosh baffles to prevent a recurrence. They fitted the baffles in through a 2" opening in what I personally think was a great example of the ingenuity that typified the Apollo program.

"Post-flight analysis indicated that Neil landed with about 770 pounds of fuel remaining. Of this total, about 100 pounds would have been unusable. As indicated in an unnumbered figure ( 63k ) from page 9-24 in the Apollo 11 Mission Report ( 5.7 Mb ), the remainder would have been enough for about 45 seconds, including about 20 seconds for an abort."

".Slosh uncovered the Quantity Gauge, latching the light early, losing the crew half a minute of flight time. It also made the LPD unreliable. Apollo 12 flew with the same configuration and its Quantity light came on early"

Source: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html

Grumman redesigned the baffles to prevent the problem:

AntiSloshBaffles.jpg

The engineers were able to demonstrate retro-fitting the new design through a 2"  Quantity System hole (maybe they missed their calling as gynaecologists!)

AntiSloshBaffleInstall.jpg

As for Armstrong not showing the stress...well, he really was a steely-eyed missileman. His coolness in Gemini 8 saved his and Dave Scott's life and the mission. He was incredibly calm during and after the ejection from the LRRV. His ability under extreme pressure was one of the reasons for his selection for the first landing attempt. But he was still mortal and his heart-rate doubled to 150 bpm during the landing.

In the weightless space environment, maybe a few pounds extra wouldn't have mattered, but the moons gravity was pulling against the descent engines thrust,

and more fuel than usual would be consumed perhaps.

I'm certainly no space engineer, so perhaps I'm up a Gum tree with this.

Anyway, the main thing is the items are big news, and probably are worth big bucks to whoever owns them.

Sorry for the deviation away from the main topic.

Ron.

Even in zero-G mass makes itself felt. You need a greater force to move or change a more massive object's direction than a smaller one.

Every kg that could be shaved off the booster and LM mass was shaved. Every kg that was landed on the Moon required another 8Kg of fuel in the Saturn V launcher. Grumann were heavily incentivised to reduce mass and introduced massive weight-saving programs in the build. They used strategies such as chemical etching of the LM panels to shave weight, they drilled the centres out of bolts. The LM was right on the edge, for example, a technician dropped a screwdriver when  building the LM and punctured the pressure vessel wall of the lander. The egress door bulged when pressurised (to 1/6th atmosphere). It really was pared to the bone and the items that were in Armstrong's purse were all accounted for.

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The items were taken from the LM, therefore they were in the LM during descent. Yes, he could have dumped them on the surface before the ascent (along with things like the PLSS, waste packaging, urinary condoms, the Hasselblads and so on) to reduce the ascent mass, but the ascent motors had their own fuel supply so the fuel situation on descent didn't affect that.

Regarding the oft-quoted low on fuel thing, its a bit of an urban myth (thought with some factual base). The Apollo 11LM had 45 seconds worth of fuel left with Apollo 11 touched down (including 20 seconds for an abort). What had happened is that the fuel sloshed in the tank and activated a Low Fuel sensor. This sensor doesn't reset...once it was activated it stayed activated. So, in reality, they had plenty of reserves. Later missions were retro-fitted with anti-slosh baffles to prevent a recurrence. They fitted the baffles in through a 2" opening in what I personally think was a great example of the ingenuity that typified the Apollo program.

"Post-flight analysis indicated that Neil landed with about 770 pounds of fuel remaining. Of this total, about 100 pounds would have been unusable. As indicated in an unnumbered figure ( 63k ) from page 9-24 in the Apollo 11 Mission Report ( 5.7 Mb ), the remainder would have been enough for about 45 seconds, including about 20 seconds for an abort."

".Slosh uncovered the Quantity Gauge, latching the light early, losing the crew half a minute of flight time. It also made the LPD unreliable. Apollo 12 flew with the same configuration and its Quantity light came on early"

Source: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html

Grumman redesigned the baffles to prevent the problem:

AntiSloshBaffles.jpg

The engineers were able to demonstrate retro-fitting the new design through a 2"  Quantity System hole (maybe they missed their calling as gynaecologists!)

AntiSloshBaffleInstall.jpg

As for Armstrong not showing the stress...well, he really was a steely-eyed missileman. His coolness in Gemini 8 saved his and Dave Scott's life and the mission. He was incredibly calm during and after the ejection from the LRRV. His ability under extreme pressure was one of the reasons for his selection for the first landing attempt. But he was still mortal and his heart-rate doubled to 150 bpm during the landing.

Even in zero-G mass makes itself felt. You need a greater force to move or change a more massive object's direction than a smaller one.

Every kg that could be shaved off the booster and LM mass was shaved. Every kg that was landed on the Moon required another 8Kg of fuel in the Saturn V launcher. Grumann were heavily incentivised to reduce mass and introduced massive weight-saving programs in the build. They used strategies such as chemical etching of the LM panels to shave weight, they drilled the centres out of bolts. The LM was right on the edge, for example, a technician dropped a screwdriver when  building the LM and punctured the pressure vessel wall of the lander. The egress door bulged when pressurised (to 1/6th atmosphere). It really was pared to the bone and the items that were in Armstrong's purse were all accounted for.

Well, thanks for clearing all that up Zak. I'm a bit more clued up now. It just shows one shouldn't open Gob. without knowing the facts  :grin:.

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Another thought...the COAS would be needed for docking the LM back to Columbia, so it was needed in the ascent phase. I guess that Armstrong could have left in the LM before separation. I guess that he just grabbed whatever could be grabbed in a fairly short time. They only had two hours between hard docking and jettisoning the Eagle. During that time they had to ensure the tunnel was sealed, re pressurise, transfer the Lunar samples, dump junk from the CM into the LM, close out the hatch and so on. it was a pretty busy time, as the transcripts will affirm:

http://history.nasa.gov/ap11fj/20day6-reboard-lmjett.htm

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