New answers tagged crewed-spaceflight
0
It all depend how safe and accurate you want to be. But they used a supercomputer, and we would use a supercomputer today too.
There are 2 way to handle it :
Compute everything : you have an insane amount of variable to account for, too many too list. Let's just say that, beside the gravity effect of many objects, you also have to handle relativity (even if ...
1
A computer is a "broad term"
Calculations are necessary for all factors of momentum, energy, thrust, power, energy management, etc.
The point is, NASA had computers on it's early spacecraft. The Gemini missions had a computer as well for ascent, descent, flight and orbital maneuvering. However, NASA realized computational power was premium so they ...
0
For more details on how the Apollo guidance computer was designed and built, and the people who did it, take a look at We Hack the Moon, the 50th anniversary website of the MIT lab that led the work. During the open to the public museum display in their lobby from June to October of 2019, they had a mockup of the LEM that let you try to land it yourself, ...
1
It's all hard.
Try operating a basic ascent to orbit simulator where YOU control eg just the thrust. See how many attempts it takes you to reach orbit.
Decades ago I did this many, many .... times. Even with vast experience, achieving orbit was a pleasant surprise.
0
Interesting that some simple astrodynamical problems indeed can be solved without a computer, just by pen and using high-school algebra.
For example mass of payload a rocket launches can be calculated by Rocket equation. The caveat is we don't account for 1)atmosphere drag and 2)non-straight trajectory of rocket.
Also orbit transfer can be calculated easily, ...
3
As just one example consider the Lunar landing. If you think about a vehicle sitting on top of a rocket, with the thrust vector of the rocket passing through the centre of mass of the system for a moment you'll realise that it's not stable: there's nothing making it want to point in any particular direction. But you need it to face in some very particular ...
26
Your spacecraft would need to be several orders of magnitude larger than the Saturn-Apollo.
No human pilot has successfully performed a rendezvous without a computer. Note that rendezvous is bringing two spacecraft close together in orbit, position, and velocity. Docking is the actual physical contact between two spacecraft. The latter can and often is ...
0
According to this article, the nave & guidance computer had 36K of ROM, and 2K of RAM.
https://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.html
It lists 30 different “programs” that it could run.
The programs probably measure things like temperature, pressure, gyroscopes, etc. as input. The software then decides how to do motor control to keep the vehicle stabilized ...
23
“Do I have a very naive concept of space travel?“ - honestly, yes you do. Here is an excerpt from Don Eyles’s wonderful book Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir:
Guidance would be processed every two seconds, repeatedly correcting and refining the trajectory based on new data from navigation. Into the guidance equation, with each turn of the crank, went ...
4
Short answer: probably not, because tidal force resulting from slightly different orbits in spacestation-type distance scales is really small, likely smaller than plenty other disturbances.
If you calculate a circular orbit 6700 km from Earth centre and then move extra 100 m radially keeping the original angular speed, resulting force due to orbit "...
46
Assuming this isn't a troll question and you are serious about wanting to know what computers are used for in spaceflight (prior to 1988), NASA has a great resource for you:
Computers in Spaceflight (PDF, 494 Mb)
From the introduction:
Computers are an integral part of all current spacecraft. Today
they are used for guidance and navigation functions such as ...
7
I don't understand why a computer was needed at all, either on the ground or inside the space craft.
As Ben (PearsonArtPhoto) pointed out, computers have always been a part of launching rockets. By no means an optional one. Computers are needed to avoid collisions with the debris around earth, to auto-pilot spacecrafts and to monitor mission data (sensors, ...
27
First of all, the ground team could have, and in fact did, do most of the orbital navigation remotely. This report mentions the fact that the on board computer was secondary for Apollo 8, with primary being systems from the ground. The spacecraft did have to do a few things, including making some realtime adjustments during the landing based on the actual ...
10
Zero gravity does not restrict the evaporation of sweat.
On Earth the evaporation of water is enhanced by air movement like wind.
In zero gravity, there is no air circulation caused by thermal differences but the air in the ISS is circulated with ventilators. So the evaporation could not be reduced by zero air movement. Not to forget the body movement during ...
15
According to a COLUMBUS Module engineer I once spoke with, it is common practise to use "silica gel" (the stuff in the small white bags you get buying new shoes or bags or everything) extensively because as you mention humidity is dangerous for everything onboard the ISS.
I made a quick Google search for sources:
Clearing the Air in Space: ...
37
They keep the ISS at a pretty comfortable temperature and humidity level, so there's not much sweat accumulation except when they're working out. For that, they use towels.
The sweat that they do produce that evaporates (along with the water vapor they exhale) gets collected as part of the water processing system and recycled into drinkable water.
-3
The partial pressure of oxygen in air at 1 bar is 0.21 bar. The partial oxygen pressure in such a suit is not lower than in air, it is even higher. Breathing pure oxygen at a suit operating pressure of 0.324 bar delivers even more oxygen to the astronaut. A partial pressure of 0.324 bar is 150 % of the oxygen in air.
A passenger in a commercial airplane with ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
