🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bz9w8J.6Lv@world.std.com> tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker) writes:
>>... the Apollo 10 LM *probably* could have
>>flown a lunar landing if some fuel had been offloaded to lighten it, but
>>the margins would have been slim and hard to predict...
>
>Scary.  As I have often recalled, there was a subtle bug in the LM
>software that flew in the Apollo 10 mission.  When in ascent mode, the
>LM was supposed to automatically stay in contact with the CSM by
>directional antenna.  If it wasn't, then the LM automatically would
>do a "random tumble" to locate it.  During Apollo 10's simulation of
>ascent, that started happening just at the beginning of the simulated
>ascent.  Stafford yelled "Son of a bitch!", which we all heard on Earth
>a while before we found out the problem.

Indeed, before the weight problem was fully clear, there was considerable
debate about whether it was worth flying the dress-rehearsal mission --
why go all that way only to back out at the last moment?  Some of the
more thoughtful people pointed out that there were still substantial
unknowns in navigation and communications with two vehicles in lunar
orbit, and it would be better to sort these out with a final test.
They were right.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry