Project Apollo Mission Planning: “Fly Me to the Moon–And Back” 1966 NASA MPAD
NEW VERSION with more improved video & sound:
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The work of the NASA Houston Manned Spacecraft Center ‘s Mission Planning and Analysis Division for Project Apollo. “Explains the complexity of planning a lunar mission trajectory. Includes mission analysis, new mathematical techniques, hybrid computers, mission operational plan, and real-time support for the NASA JSC’s Mission Operations Control Room.”
NASA film JSC-315
Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved sound and video, and all in one piece instead of parts.
Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and 1-pass exposure & color correction applied (cannot be ideal in all scenes).
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
PROJECT APOLLO PLAYLIST:
The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America’s manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth and based at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F. Kennedy set the goal of the Apollo Program to land men on the Moon in 1961, NASA decided a much larger organization and a new facility was required to perform the Task Group’s function, and it was transformed into the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center), located in Houston, Texas…
History
Created on November 5, 1958, the Space Task Group was headed by Robert Gilruth. Originally it consisted of 45 people, including eight secretaries and “computers” (the term for women who ran calculations on mechanical adding machines). Of its 37 engineers, 27 were from Langley Research Center and ten had been assigned from Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Original members of the group included Charles Donlan, Gilruth’s deputy; Max Faget, head of engineering; Chuck Mathews, head of flight operations; Chris Kraft, also in flight operations; and Glynn Lunney, who at 21 was the youngest member of the group. The head of the public affairs office was John “Shorty” Powers.
In 1959, the group was expanded by the addition of 32 engineers from Canada, who had been left without jobs when the Avro Arrow project was cancelled. These new additions, Canadians and some British, included Jim Chamberlin, George Harris, John Hodge, Owen Maynard, Bryan Erb, Rodney Rose and Tecwyn Roberts.
After President John F. Kennedy set the national goal on May 25, 1961 of landing men on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, it became clear to NASA administrator James E. Webb that Gilruth would need a much larger organization and facilities, in fact a new dedicated NASA center, to administrate US manned space programs. Webb got the approval of Kennedy and the Congress, and in August 1961 appointed a team to select a site for the new center. On September 19, Webb announced the new Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) would be built on a Houston, Texas site donated by Rice University. Gilruth immediately began the transition of his Task Group into the new MSC, planning his increased staff organization and its move to Houston, using temporary leased office and test facility space on 12 sites while the new facility was being built. By September 1962, his organization was moved to Houston and construction had begun, effectively marking the end of the Task Group. The MSC facility was completed in September 1963…
…Construction of the center, designed by Charles Luckman, began in April 1962, and Gilruth’s new organization was formed and moved to the temporary locations by September. That month, Kennedy gave a speech at Rice University on the US space program. The speech is famous for highlighting the Apollo program, but Kennedy also made reference to the new Center…
The 1,620-acre (6.6 km2) facility was officially opened for business in September 1963. The facility was to be the primary flight control center for all subsequent U.S. manned space missions from Project Gemini forward. The MSC’s Mission Control Center first became operational for the flight of Gemini 4 in June 1965.
In addition to housing NASA’s astronaut operations, JSC is also the site of the former Lunar Receiving Laboratory, where the first astronauts returning from the moon were quarantined, and where the majority of lunar samples are stored. The center’s Landing and Recovery Division operated MV Retriever in the Gulf of Mexico for Gemini and Apollo astronauts to practice water egress after splashdown…
