Computers of NASA (1960s)

a player piano is like a computer it's music is programmed by inserting a roll of punched paper as the roll turns the punched holes trigger the keys and strings of the piano a man is like a computer he is programmed by heredity and environment to the extent that he is creative he is more than a computer he is a form of life but he is much slower and he makes mistakes this is a high-speed electronic computer like the piano it too may be programmed with punched tape or cards or by more advanced devices such as magnetic tape or teletype units talking directly to the computer like the man it too does arithmetic in fact in one second it can do far more arithmetic than the man using a desktop calculator can do in a full year in one second the computer can perform more than 1 million arithmetic operations an arithmetic is only one outlet for its many talents performed with electrons moving at nearly the speed of light a computer can do research analysis and business management can make decisions can play cards and chess and even compose and play music like this without the high speed computers which the manned space program helped develop in the 50s and 60s there would be no manned space program we could not have orbited the earth we could not have landed men on the moon let us see why the environment of space flight is full of unearthly complexities intruders in space must cope with solar and cosmic radiation with extremes of heat and cold meteoroids weightlessness vacuum silence and infinity before flying off into such a different environment we require carefully designed spacecraft to carry life-support systems of air and pressure we must provide for food and water waste disposal systems protective structures and energy systems for electric power and propulsion Computers play an important role in the design manufacture and testing of all such systems to minimize costs and maximize safety space flight systems and requirements are first simulated by computers in this way for instance hundreds of multi-million dollar man moon landings were made before the Apollo lunar landing spacecraft was built for comparatively little essential engineering data were derived and safety measures were tested without risking lives in planning a spacecraft some of the most important components design are the onboard computers this is because many of the solutions and decisions we face as we travel in this new ocean of space far beyond the problem-solving capabilities of men unaided by computers for example if we are orbiting the Earth or the moon and wish to rendezvous and dock with another spacecraft flying several miles ahead of ours large numbers of complex flight computations must be made almost simultaneously to change our orbiting speed for rendezvous computers are needed to fire the spacecraft to change our attitude for docking they must fire attitude control thrusters often in bursts measured in tiny fractions of a second the rendezvous and docking maneuver is just one of many space flight phases containing far too many variables for a man alone to compute and apply in the time available computers both onboard the spacecraft and on the ground are indispensable in keeping track of the details of spaceflight dynamics and navigation predicting relative positions and monitoring remaining fuel and other consumables as well as firing thrusters and engines as needed long before a space mission is launched the parameters of the mission must be calculated with the help of high-speed computers optimum design of the mission profile and the spacecraft can be predicted by the computer in advance using theoretical data scientists and engineers present their problems in the form of mathematical models to the scientific computing specialists or computer programmers who translate the math into computer language this coded math is punched on cards as instructions to the computer also data related to the design problem are encoded converted to some form the computer can read one of these forms is the punched card the information often is transferred from the cards to a magnetic drum or tapes which can be read by the computer problem solutions by the computer can be displayed in various ways a cathode ray tube like a television picture tube may display design solutions which can then be photographed on the face of the tube lunar landing of a three-dimensional lunar module rendezvous of the lunar module with a command module earth rise over the moon star fields for use of navigation all of these computer-generated animated drawings were made before the first apollo man lunar mission the computer has since been proved right by history another area of computer assisted engineering involves the processing of data from actual tests as distinguished from theoretical predictions for instance consider the immense amount of aerodynamic thermal and metallurgical data in the re-entry of a spacecraft through the Earth's atmosphere this was the first re-entry test of an Apollo command module it was unmanned but recorded by automatic onboard cameras approaching the earth on its return flight from the moon the spacecraft reaches a velocity of 25,000 miles per hour as it slams into the Earth's increasingly dense atmosphere temperatures rise to several thousand degrees Fahrenheit due to the Blanc shape of the command module most of this heat is dissipated by waves of air molecules which form and act like a bumper pushing other molecules of air around and away from the spacecraft the heat shield must cope with 5,000 degrees of heat as it's a plate of surface material crumbles gases and chars the heat away inside the cabin temperatures remain comfortable in this first flight test telemetry relayed the data to a ground tracking station the station recorded the millions of bits of data in electronic form on analog tapes the tapes were rushed to the manned spacecraft Center and the data were transferred to digital bits on other reels of magnetic tape these were then run through the computer in this case the computer's output was by a high-speed line printer after analyses and application the output data were photographed on microfilm and placed in storage for future reference so voluminous are such records that another small computer is required to index them and retrieve them when they are needed just as spacecraft and systems must be designed built and tested over years of research and development with the help of computers so the men to fly the spacecraft must be carefully prepared and tested there every psychophysiological characteristic must be known analyzed and evaluated for the responsibilities they must assume during a space mission from regular and special medical examinations from bio sensor monitoring of each man in a variety of activities including actual space missions a store of biomedical and behavioral data is maintained by the computer capable of rapid retrieval and analysis on that man's suitability for a particular assignment the pioneering work done in this area at the manned spacecraft Center may have far-reaching impact on future computer usage in general medical practice astronauts also must spend hundreds of hours and simulators going through every phase of a mission in every nominal and contingency condition imaginable training simulators would be inadequate without high-speed interpretive computers which are used to simulate operational spacecraft computers long before a particular space mission is undertaken for astronaut training programs systems planning engineers design both the hardware and the software to make the simulators very realistic in the Apollo command module simulator most spacecraft systems are represented digital computers perform real-time computations that put trainees into convincing spaceflight situations the sense of reality is heightened by simulated spacecraft characteristics flight dynamics and visual and sound effects from control panel lights to jet and rocket noises the lunar module simulator is also an all-digital simulator with three computers using coordinates based on math models to simulate the spacecraft and the lunar landing phase of a mission as in the command module trainer simulation of the primary guidance navigation and control system is a most significant part of the training procedures in the lunar module itself the controlling element in the system is an onboard digital guidance navigation and control computer by the time a man's space mission is launched flight crews and ground support crews have flown the mission hundreds of times thanks to the computerized simulators pre-launch checkouts at the Cape involve many weeks of computer assisted countdowns the launch itself would not otherwise be possible nine eight ignition we have that liftoff as the spaceship clears the tower the Mission Control Center in Houston takes over command of the flight the flight directors most valuable resource is the real-time computer complex one of the largest computer assemblages in the world here is some of the computing equipment that calculates flight paths and solves other problems of the space mission on a real-time basis when necessary to keep the guidance system up-to-date the solutions are transmitted to the spacecraft and fed into the on-board computer computer-driven data display is reveal the spacecrafts quickly changing location velocity and other conditions derived from tracking the spacecraft and communicating with the crew the actual landing on the moon depends on computerized readings of remaining fuel and altitude while on the moon astronauts perform active seismic experiments and emplaced scientific instruments such as seismometers magnetometers and ion particle detectors voluminous data are transmitted to earth from these instruments which make up the various stations of the moon's expanding science network the data are interpreted with the help of computers after a mission returns safely from the moon computers are also indispensable inside the lunar receiving laboratory moon rocks and soil brought back by the lunar explorers are studied and subjected to preliminary analyses with the help of computer-controlled instrument systems remote terminals are set up to permit the antiseptic removal of data from the laboratory and to enable the investigators to use outside computers in their work computers are used to identify and classify moon matter and to reduce the data detected by such newer lab instruments as radiation counters gas analyzers mass spectrometers and electron microscopes information processing at MSC is not all related to the moon in outer space systems also are devised for the most efficient business management of the center whether it be a computerized system to record remember and report on books checked out at the technical library or the computerized magnetic tape library of more than 40,000 tapes other computerized operations at this remarkable one-of-a-kind City of space control and prepare paychecks warehouse inventories and even inventories of scientific and technical skills to ensure the fullest utilization of the space programs most valuable asset gets people another program using computers at MSC is that of earth resources this program uses aircraft to test and develop cameras and other sensors in studies of the earth photo enhancement and pattern recognition of data gathered from such flights our two computerized techniques the computer draws and color codes various crops growing in a large mapped area of the Earth's surface corn rye and barley are shown similar techniques are used to reveal areas of plant disease forest fires underground rivers and other surface phenomenon earth resource studies by aircraft and computers are valuable today in their own right and are also contributing to the development of scientific tools for vast studies of the earth the moon and the planets by man spacecraft of the future Skylab space shuttles space stations and eventually spaceships to carry men to Mars the computers at the manned spacecraft Center are truly our keys to the future

Channel: BoundForOuterSpace

Views: 68,513

Rating: 4.852973 out of 5

Keywords: Space, Science, Technology, Computers, Electronics, Math, Experiment, History

Id: BRZz0SVLdso

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 16 2013