Mike writes:
> Wirt writes
>
> < snipped >
>
> The most famous ship of discovery is, of course, the Beagle, the ship that
> was captained by Robert FitzRoy and carried a very young Charles Darwin as
> an
> unpaid naturalist in 1831 (see:
> http://www.biology.com/visitors/ae/voyage/beagle.html ). The United States
> has yet to name a spacecraft after the Beagle, but the Beagle 2 lander
being
> currently built by the British and the European Space Agency will be the
> core
> project of the ESA Mars Express, currently scheduled to land on Mars in
2003
> (see: http://beagle2.open.ac.uk/ ). As you might guess, the intention of
the
> Beagle 2 is to look for the independent evolution of life in this solar
> system.
> ------------------------------------------------
> Well not entirely true, the Apollo 10 LEM was named "Snoopy". Close
enough.
Absolutely true! I'm embarassed that I didn't think of that myself and I'm
impressed that you did, Michael.
Although I wanted very much to go to work for NASA in 1968 when I graduated
from college (I told the recruiter in 1967 that although I had always dreamed
of being the first man on the moon, and although it was now obvious that I
wasn't going make it, I very much wanted to be there when it occurred), I
didn't actually wind up working for NASA until 1970 due to the Vietnam war.
The first mission that I worked was the analysis of the Apollo 13 incident,
but they were still giving out "Snoopy" Apollo 10 tie tacks to the people who
worked the missions simply because they were so popular.
The CSM for Apollo 10 was named "Charlie Brown" and the LM "Snoopy." I still
have my tie tack, and because of Michael's comments, I scanned it into our
webpage this morning. It's at:
http://aics-research.com/snoopy.html
The cry during the mission planning of Apollo 10 was "Beagle to the Moon!",
which was later replaced by the most famous saying to date from the missions,
"Snoopy to Charlie Brown: Hello, Houston, we is down among it!", which itself
was replaced later by Apollo 13's, "Houston, we have a problem!"
Eugene Cernan was the LM pilot for Apollo 10 and was the person who spoke
those words. He is currently also the "Last Man on the Moon", as commander of
Apollo 17, and may be for some time to come.
While most of the later LM's were smashed into the moon to measure the depth
of the lunar crust and to get a sense of whether the moon has a molten core
or not, there were no geophones on the surface at the time of Apollo 10, so
Snoopy, the LM, was put into perpetual orbit around the sun, and it's
presumably still there now, waiting for us to retrieve it.
While I've gone on more about this subject than anyone really wants to hear,
the naming of ships is an area of history and tradition that shrinks
thousands of years into one or two days. I think that there's something
marvelous about knowing that the constellation Argo Navis, Jason's ship, was
quite visible to the early Greek mariners, but due to the precession of the
Earth over the last several thousand years, the constellation is no longer
readily visible from the Agean Sea.
For all of my adult life, we have been engaged in a period of exploration
that equals or exceeds any other time in human history. The names of the
ships are an important part of this extraordinary period.
In that regard, I found a very nice bit of text on a NASA website regarding
Apollo 10. For all the joking around, Apollo 10 was an extremely dangerous
mission, truly going where no man had gone before:
======================================
As Stafford and Cernan readied the LM for its descent to a low point only
50,000 feet from the moon's surface, the levity and gaiety that had
characterized the outward leg from earth vanished. The exchanges with the
ground were brief and workman-like as the two struggled to complete certain
tasks within the time allotted. Cernan summarized in edgy tones, "There are
so many things to do in such a short time."
It was midafternoon before they were ready for the descent. Young in the CSM
experienced momentary difficulty getting current into the homing receiver
that was essential to the relay of the LM's rendezvous radar signals. He
overcame the problem by recycling a power switch and reported receipt of the
signals to the two pleased crewmembers in the LM.
At 4:35 p.m., EDT, the LM descent engine was fired in a braking mode and the
LM moved toward an orbit the low point of which would take humans closer to
the moon's surface than ever before. Young kept a lonely vigil in the CSM,
ready to undertake the delicate and extremely complex rescue mission if
something went wrong with the LM.
Almost an hour later, Cernan excitedly commented, "Hello Houston, we is down
among it!" The LM had reached a point 8.4 nm above the Sea of Tranquility
where Apollo 11 is intended to land. The two crewmen alternated with
rapid-fire descriptions of the lunar surface that was passing beneath them.
What they saw appeared to stretch their vocabularies. The landing site was
"pretty smooth, like wet clay, like a dry river bed in New Mexico or
Arizona." "Earthshine got to be magnificent!" The mare's "a beautiful sight!"
"Enough big boulders to fill Galveston Bay."
A Guidance System Problem:
At the low point of the LM's second swing around the moon, Stafford and
Cernan prepared for insertion into rendezvous orbit, a delicate maneuver
using the LM's ascent engine, to bring them up for a rendezvous and docking
with Young in the CSM. Before firing the ascent engine, the descent stage,
with its power plant capable of a wide range of power settings controlled by
the crew, had to be cast off. Just before the lower segment was cut loose,
the LM gyrated. Stafford took manual control of the LM and restored the
proper orientation. Then the descent stage was jettisoned, as planned, and
the LM stabilized. The episode took some eight seconds.
Analysis indicates that the problem was caused by a malfunction in the backup
guidance system. When the trouble began, the LM was under the control of this
system. The system shifted its control modes which produced the LM's erratic
behavior. Once free of the descent stage, the astronauts shifted the ascent
stage to the primary guidance system control and there were no further
difficulties.
During the period that the CSM and the LM were separated, some communications
problems arose. But the astronauts and Ground Control at Houston worked
around them and they had no adverse effect on the flight.
The Final Rendezvous: With the LM back on its good behavior and the
jettisoning of the LM lower stage accomplished, Stafford and Cernan fired the
ascent engine at 7:44 p.m., May 22nd. A 15-second-burn sent the LM into a
looping orbit above and behind the CSM. From a maximum separation of 320 nm,
by 10.07 p.m. they had closed to within 38 nm. A sequence of three burns of
the LM's small reaction-control thrusters brought the LM within docking
range. During the docking maneuver, the LM played a passive role and Young
linked the two spacecraft. The docking was complete at 11:11 p.m. and 14
minutes later Stafford and Cernan came through the tunnel into the CSM. As
Cernan emerged, he declared, "Man, I'm glad I'm getting out."
The LM had flown independently eight hours with Stafford and Cernan standing
all the while as if they were driving a bread truck. They were maintained in
their position by a web of belts and harnesses.
When advised of the docking, Houston control broke out a large cartoon
showing Snoopy kissing Charlie Brown. The accompanying balloon read, "Smack.
You're right on target, Charlie Brown." With the tunnel locked up, the LM was
cast loose and a firing of its engine drove it into an orbit around the sun.
======================================
The complete text is at:
http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/Ap10.html
Wirt Atmar
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