Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!world!ksr!clj@ksr.com From: clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Lost Apollo 12? Message-ID: <796@ksr.com> Date: 10 Sep 90 12:53:03 GMT References: <794@ksr.com> <1990Sep8.231127.22737@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: news@ksr.com Reply-To: clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp Lines: 39 In-reply-to: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) In article <1990Sep8.231127.22737@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <794@ksr.com> clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) writes: >>... Almost all of the CSM's power was >>knocked for a loop, and only the quick thinking of a mission controller, who >>had seen similar data in one of the simulations and realized how to reset the >>system, allowed the flight to continue without aborting. [Even so, pretty much everyone thought that continuing to the moon was out of the question. When they got to earth orbit and couldn't find anything wrong, however, they decided to go on.] > >Actually, they didn't really sort out most of the CSM's problems until >they reached orbit. (Stuff in brackets is stuff I added back in after your editing.) That's what I meant by the last sentence above. It is the case that if the CSM power system hadn't been reset, the crew would have almost certainly aborted. What they couldn't be sure of whas that getting the power back would be enough; there was concern about damage to electrical components. I don't have it in front of me now, but the book _Apollo_ goes into this event in some detail. Written as it was in the very recent past, the participants in the event look back and comment on how difficult it would be to make the same decision (to go to the moon after a lightning strike) after what has subsequently happened to Apollo 13 and Challenger. On one hand I mourn that loss of daring, and on the other I recognize that the belief that having nothing go wrong when the rules are bent increases the desire to bend the rules further next time. Carried too far, the only check on that kind of behavior is a disaster. > The main reason why the flight could continue was >that the CSM systems had nothing to do with controlling the Saturn V. >The Saturn's own computers, buried under the LM, were less vulnerable >to lightning hits and were unaffected. True, losing the Saturn's electronics during launch would have been bad. I bet that the crew would have elected to abort even with a probably good booster under them if Apollo itself was haywire (I'm assuming the abort system is separate and simple enough that it would be much less likely to be affected by the kinds of things that would entail an abort). -- Chris Jones clj@ksr.com {world,uunet,harvard}!ksr!clj