Technology
January 28, 1966
I've been thinking about the people in Houston I never see in the photographs. The astronauts get all the press, but Mission Control is the other half of every spaceflight.
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Technology
October 25, 1965
Every spacecraft that comes home from space has to survive re-entry. The temperatures involved are extraordinary. Here's how the physics of it works.
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Technology
September 15, 1965
The medical results from the Gemini 5 eight-day mission are in and I've been reading the summaries. The human body changes in microgravity. Some of it is manageable. Some of it is alarming.
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Technology
January 12, 1965
People don't think about spacesuits much when they think about going to the Moon. They should.
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Technology
September 20, 1964
I've been trying to understand how you actually navigate a spacecraft from Earth to the Moon. It's not like driving — there are no roads, no landmarks, and everything is moving.
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Technology
July 31, 1964
Ranger 7 hit the Moon yesterday after taking 4,308 photographs in the last 17 minutes of its descent. The closest images show features only a few feet across.
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Technology
June 15, 1964
I've been trying to understand the Saturn V rocket. The numbers are almost too large to hold in your head.
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Technology
April 15, 1964
The Apollo guidance computer uses integrated circuits — a technology that didn't exist ten years ago. The space program is partly responsible for developing them into practical components.
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Technology
September 15, 1963
I've been reading about the food systems for space missions. The early Mercury food was toothpaste-tube paste and cube-sized bites. It's improving, but slowly.
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Technology
May 10, 1963
How do you train for weightlessness on Earth? The answer is parabolic flight — an aircraft that flies a specific arc to create about 30 seconds of free fall. They call it the Vomit Comet.
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