It was 1969. The Jets beat the Colts in Super Bowl III. Richard Nixon was inaugurated to succeed Johnson. The Beatles gave their LAST public performance. The last new episode of Star Trek was aired, having outlived the other "serious" space show, Lost in Space. I Dream of Genie would go on for another season. Color TV was phasing in and most shows were now in color. Apollo 10 was the first mission to have a live color camera on board.
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| Apollo 9 Earth LEM Test |
March, the LEM is ready. We have everything we need to land on the moon and 10 months to get there. The mission for Apollo 9 was to prove out the functions of the LEM in Earth orbit. In a ten day mission they removed the LEM from it's transport, expanded its legs, docked, took it for some rides and docked the LEM back with the SCM. They even did a spacewalk to test the new self contained spacesuit they would use on the moon. Unlike prior EVA spacesuits, this one carried the life support gear as a backpack instead of a tether to the spacecraft. All systems were ready to go.
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| Apollo 10, Lunar LEM Test |
By May, we were ready for the full dress rehearsal. Apollo 10 would do everything the landing mission would do, except land. It was our second trip to the moon. Going to the moon still seems incredible. They followed the same flight path as Apollo 8. But, when they got to lunar orbit, they had the LEM with them. They took it for a test ride. During the ride they descended to less than 9 mikes from the surface, about as high as a jetliner flies above Earth. During the test ride, they surveyed the Sea of Tranquility, which was the planned landing site for the next mission.
Even astronauts don't always follow orders. To prevent them from getting the idea to see if they could land, in spite of orders (think "Negative on flyby, Maverick, the pattern is full."), the LEM was not fueled with enough propellant to get off the moon if they had landed.
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| HP 9100 - first desktop computer |
In my world, technology was advancing. We got a "computer" at the high school. The HP9100A could perform scientific functions, a breakthrough. It had 16 memory locations and could run a program of up to 196 steps. The size of a small suitcase with a display that could show three rows 10 digits, it was a marvel and only cost $5,000 at the time, about $32,000 inflation adjusted. Slide rules were still the tool of mortals. It had NO integrated circuits, it was built from individual transistors. I got to use it because the teachers couldn't figure out how. See the link to the brochure for a real trip to the past. Apollo had been built without these super modern tools.
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