Thank you so much for posting this video. My grandfather is in this video and he passed 40 years ago so many of us never got to meet him. You’ve made my Aunts & Uncles very happy to be able to see a glimpse of him live again. I wish my mom got to see this video before she passed. This video is worth a ton to my family.
Excellent look at the most complex and crucial technical process in history. The heat shield succeeded 100 percent of the time, against unbelievable stresses. It’s still a marvel for the ages!
Surviving re-entry at 25,000 mph and 5,000 degree heat, with the precise re-entry angle needed was the accomplishment of all time. It took years of precise detailed work. So much devotion.
Probably my most awe-inspired respect of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs: confronting and controlling the thermal challenges of reentry along with descent and certainly moon temperatures.
Thank you Textron for posting this. The video documents the application procedure for AVCOAT 5026-39 as applied to the Block I (early version) of the Apollo Command module. Some of the procedures were changed for the actual post Apollo 1 fire variant of the capsule (the Block II). Still nice to see the gunning operations and the huge amount of man hours that went into the production of the critical thermal protection system.
That was fascinating. It's very sad that more people don't know about this, particularly to appreciate just how well considered every element of the program was.
True. But the first Mercury missions and ICBM's fly suborbital trajectories so the heat loads were a lot less and so a beryllium heat sink was sufficient. In contrast an Apollo spacecraft coming back from the moon contained a lot more momentum that needed to be converted into heat, so the ablative heat shield was a necessity.
Hugh Brazier The Shuttle TPS tiles were fine. There is a huge difference between the Apollo heat shield and the Shuttle heat shield: On the Shuttle, the shield had to be reusable. On Apollo it was used once.
The bit that broke on the Columbia wasn’t a tile. (The “tiles” were actually ceramic fibre). What broke were the carbon/carbon composite leading edge panels. Those are made by making carbon fibre reinforced panels and then carbonising the polymer binder in a vacuum oven. The tiles were actually quite impact resistant. The Apollo heat shields were far more fragile than the Shuttle shields - that’s why they were protected by the service module until just before re-entry against cold.
If the ablative heat shielding was so good, why did they change it? It was composed of plastic, nylon and a fiber material and cured in a 200 degree oven after being stuck on the capsule with essentially a two sided tape. It was never tested at real temperature but at a much, much lower temperature, then calculations were used to design the final material. unbelievable that a heat shield that was essentially theoretically tested worked perfectly for the Apollo missions.
The heat shied was used while the CM was traveling at 25,000 mph. That speed, of course, could not be achieved for a test, so testing it at several thousand degrees, even if you would want to, would not measure the heat shield's performance in real conditions.
More than 370,000 individual honeycomb cells that needed to be filled with novolac epoxy by hand!! Staggering! What was the turnaround time to completely heat shield each command module from start to finish?
I don't know about the turn around time. But I would think that boredom was a difficult problem at the assembly plant. Imagine sitting there and doing the same exact thing over and over all day long. It's got to be at least as bad as working at McDonalds except the quality had to be much better. The video didn't show it but they must have played some serious 1960's rock and roll at the plant all day long or people kept their minds occupied by talking about their kids, their hobbies, growing up and so forth.
@@joevignolor4u949 As an inspector for a medical device manufacturer I am no stranger to such a repetitive task. I can tell you this: what gets the job done best is intense focus and the ability to not become numbed or 'hypnotized' by the task. Music and casual conversation can help or it can distract. The latter can be dangerous. The inspector or worker must pull back now and then. Only then can the cobwebs be cleared out so to speak, and the work returned to. Music or conversation during such necessarily repetitive actions is not recommended.
@@lesaber251 I'd refer back to Ford Motor Company when they were building the Model T on the assembly line. Boredom from doing the same repetitive job over and over again was a big problem. Even though jobs were scarce and Ford payed good wages for the period they still had a huge problem with turnover. People would eventually start going nuts from the constant repetition and they would quit after a few days or weeks.
@@joevignolor4u949 "Imagine sitting there and doing the same exact thing over and over all day long." ..Erm, that's most jobs. At least with this job they were actually making a difference and doing something good in the world.
I have seen several flown Apollo command modules. Studying the heat shields was very interesting. You can see the gas flow patterns running out from the center of the heat shield to the edges along with the charring that was caused by the ablative material burning off.
My grandfather worked for Avco on the Apollo missions and he mentioned using a lathe to turn the heat shield that was originally built in the Civil War. I found this video while looking for more information on that.
Me too. Firstly becase the thermal achievments utterly blow me away, I'm from MA and that he mentioned it was a Lowell company...couldn't hear him clearly but found it.
I lived in Lowell mass back in the late 70s till about the mid 80s. It’s interesting to see something positive being done there because it became and still is a real $hit hole city. No I’m not picking on them it’s just the truth.
Why is there no US stamp, US coin, or piece of US currency with either the name or the face of Neil Armstrong? Why is there no steam when the heat shield hits water on splashdown? Why has no one been on the moon since Dec. 14, 1972 when technology improves so fast? Why did 2 crashes of US spacecraft into the moon suggest the moon is hollow?
it takes a long time to change currency, and there's a long line of people for those. there's no steam because there's no reason for it to be. funding. and nothing suggest it's hollow, it's just idiots taking words out of context.
One stay in orbit two went down to the moon there the two walked on the moon the proof is it was recorded , yes the question who was the fotographer nasa must answer that we must know
Much of the video recorded on the moon was taken by TV cameras that were remote controlled from earth. They also took the first video of the astronauts coming down the ladder onto the moon's surface and the video of them taking off to fly back into lunar orbit.
The camera that recorded the astronauts coming down the ladder was bolted to a fold down panel and released by a string just outside the hatch. It was the same camera used by the astronauts later on the EVA. Simples… The take off video came from Apollo 15 to 17 which had a video camera on the rover. There was also a 16mm color film camera in the LM cockpit on all the flights.
@@allangibson2408 no there is takeoff footage of Apollo 11 and the way it panned out then follows the craft is ridiculous. People try and tell me that was radio controlled from Earth? Look it up yourself and watch it, you do need to have an open mind, you need to be open to being wrong about things. I would want to know if I was wrong wouldn't you? Look it up Apollo 11 takeoff and think about that amazing camera work, which was apparently controlled from Earth. The delay times would have to be almost non-existent for that incredible camera work
@@kurtslobodan3510 There was no external footage of the lander taking off from the moon until Apollo 15. The lunar rover camera was remote controlled from Earth and the footage was sent back via the high-gain antenna on the vehicle. With Apollo 15 the camera tilting mechanism failed, so there was only a brief shot of the lander taking off. Apollo 16's rover was parked too close to the lunar module, so while it's camera did capture a better view, the ascent stage moved out of shot very quickly. The footage you're probably referring to was captured during the final mission on the moon. This time the rover was parked 145 meters from the lunar module and the precise timing was worked out to allow the camera to record the entire ascent, because radio signals take about two seconds to travel to the moon. Ed Fendall was responsible for controlling the rover's camera. Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17 commander, gave a five second countdown to liftoff, and when he got to three, Fendall began tilting the camera up while zooming out slightly, giving us the footage we have today.
