Monday, July 13, 2009

Houston, we have been locked out of the rocket

Ten fascinating facts about Apollo 11 Moon Landing from Craig Nelson's new book, Rocket Men. My favourites:

2. The Apollo computers had less processing power than a cellphone.
3. Drinking water was a fuel-cell by-product, but Apollo 11’s hydrogen-gas filters didn’t work, making every drink bubbly. Urinating and defecating in zero gravity, meanwhile, had not been figured out; the latter was so troublesome that at least one astronaut spent his entire mission on an anti-diarrhea drug to avoid it.
7. When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle.
9. The flag was made by Sears, but NASA refused to acknowledge this because they didn’t want "another Tang."

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