DSKY-DSKY Him Sad: Official ILB Thread For The Heroic Age of Manned Spaceflight

So there’s a new book out...

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5744977b22482e4393b418c2/t/58ac8feb03596e6e757048f6/1537304200387/ This one? I have it on the way, will report when I get it.

https://www.apollopresskits.com/

🖼 This one? I have it on the way, will report when I get it.

Has a blurb from Mike Collins about it being the best Apollo book,

holy fucking shit

?

ran the doc tonite

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2

13 Minutes To The Moon

"How the first moon landing was saved. The full story of the people who made Apollo 11 happen and prevented it from going badly wrong."

specifically the 13 minutes before touchdown of Apollo 11, which were sketchy.

(that's from the bbc. iplayer radio stuff traditionally wasn't region-locked but i'm not sure whether that's true with the new sounds thing. oh, but it's World Service, so maybe it's ok.)

I can download it in Australia. Looks good. ANy idea how many parts it will be? It; doesn't seem to say anywhere.

I *think* he says it's 10 parts somewhere within it, but I can't see that info anywhere else.

(Episode 2 is up and 3 is listed for next week but no details beyond that)

episode 5 (briefly) talks about the DSKY system

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz4dn

Ep.05 The fourth astronaut
13 Minutes to the Moon

The computer that got us to the moon. The size of a briefcase, there had never been anything like it. Apollo 11 was “the first time software ran on the moon”. This is the story of the world’s first digital portable general purpose computer. The work of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, helped give rise to the digital age.

I know this isn’t booksrelated but it’s super cool

https://m.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Restored-Mission-Control-comes-alive-50-years-14057766.php#photo-17770659

No worries, VG, thread has long since widened its scope to included non-book-related discussion.

also in book related news, just started reading Shoot The Moon

i watched this with a friend last night at DOCUMENTARY CINEMA. bertha doc-house documentary cinema: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film)

it has no talkings heads* and is basically entirely stitched together out of archive footage from ground (cape kennedy and houston) and space (A11, columbia, eagle, the moon), the narrative also told only as a quilt of voices from the time. lots of split screen, plus some data readouts (time, speed, distance as they tick over at key moments). it goes from just before the launch to just after splashdown, in with some time-dilation (cuts, at least sly slow-down) bot only a very few flashbacks, one exception being kennedy's full "we CAN go to the moon speech from 8 yrs earlier), played in full at the close, as the astronauts re-emerge to the public eye down here

the thing i learnt:
— as he orbited alone ("as lonely as anyone since adam" acc.the overvoice) while neil and buzz pootled around on the dusty ground, he GREW A MUSTACHE TO KEEP HIMSELF COMPANY. it's a shocker too, but lol, well done him

*lol one of the trailers was for a doc abt pavarotti and it included a TH of (wait for it) bono. i told my friend (who'd suggested i come) that if THIS doc featured bono i would stand up, punch him and leave the cinema at that point. however it did not

haven't seen this yet (saving it for a screening on the date of the 50th anniversary like a proper space dork) but mike collins' autobio carrying the fire is grate

how did i only just notice that the 50th anniversary of the moon landings is also the date of my wedding anniversry, wtf

uh oh

it's good! tho the format leaves some (minor) questions unanswered: it very much gets across the "atop a long metal tube full of searingly explosive heat, three men sit in a tiny weeny tin can full of electrical gear, their lives dependent on some other ppl's maths homework" aspect of it all)

lot of close-ups where you're thinking "so how much of this so-called lunar module is not just made of baco-foil?"

also i wanted to know the answer to the question here:
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2496/where-were-the-various-apollo-lunar-modules-lms-discarded

yeah, the contrast of the sheer staggering scale and power of the saturn v rocket on one hand and the extreme fragility of its human and technological payload on the other will never stop being fascinating to me

standing underneath a saturn v filling an entire giant hangar at kennedy space centre and contemplating its two million components is one of the very few genuinely awe-inspiring moments of my life

the real answer to 'where were the various apollo lunar modules discarded' is, of course, in a dumpster behind elstree studios once kubrick had finished filming

moon: real
landing: real
space: still fake

a galaxy brain take fit for a galaxy which does not exist

Watching this National Geographic thing now.

Meh, just skipped right from Apollo 8 to 11. Now another commemorative Bud ad featuring “Spirit in the Sky.”

:/

It was pretty much all contemporary news(reel) footage, no modern day talking heads, which means in particular no Irishman wearing polycarbonate lunar visor sunglasses, just every once in a while a tiny bit of text to clarify something. Too many commercials, not much information, new or otherwise but it was still nice to soak up some of the vibe. Neil Armstrong doc afterward looked more interesting but I had to stop watching.

i have dvr’d a few PBS moon docs airing this month, hopefully one or two of them will be good

Please let us know.

i will give go/no-go updates soon

:)

happy moonday everyone 🌚

🌝

B-b-but isn’t it in four days?

"Sponsored by Kellogs"

so much moon stuff on tv, all the major channels are running bits. it's hard to keep i all straight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnFlx2Lnr9Q

CBS live streaming the original footage on youtube, complete with sub-thunderbirds models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYnF31el-ik

(complete with 1969 paper bikini adverts)

(ha, i missed the actual launch by 23 minutes)

Speaking of sub-thunderbirds models, over the weekend I was just thinking of a perennial school or Cub Scout trip taken to the Hall of Science in Queens where they showed a film about space travel - Frank Capra’s last, apparently- followed by a cut from film to real life in which two such models docked high above our heads.

https://nysci.org/installing-rendezvous-in-space/

The Great Hall was built for an exhibition sponsored by Martin Marietta called Rendezvous in Space, which culminated with a live demonstration of a docking between a model “space taxi” and an orbiting laboratory, suspended from the ceiling above. The show began with a documentary film produced by Frank Capra (his final film.) Narrated by Danny Thomas, featuring Mel Blanc (uncredited) as the voice of the moon.

CBS feed appears to have stopped. but there's a 4 hour rewind window if you want to see the launch 'as it happened'. (also, miss universe trails)

Happy Launch Day ilx crew <3

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/fa/42/2ffa423d88da1f8f4007a96fc7c9f013.gif

:)