#if you want me to talk about specific apollo missions ask me about apollo 13 bc that's the one i watched all the documentaries on when i

[ashdumpsterpile]

tell me about the apollo missions

The Apollo missions were buck fucking wild and I'm going to talk about the Saturn V Rocket because I'm in love with her.

A little background tho: we had been to space for about a month when JFK comes swinging out of the gate with "hey what if we went to the moon." WHICH IS INSANE. Like we hadn't even been in orbit yet. JUST TO SPACE.

NASA was like "well that's going to be insanely expensive and also we don't have the tech to do it" so the government threw $25 billion dollars (which, for reference, averages to about $199 billion dollars today I THINK) and like 400,000 people at the program and said "get it done shawty."

But anyway, they invent the Saturn V Rocket which is 363 feet of fucking beautiful art and there were only fifteen of these babies ever built and I'm in love with all of them. (These are the one's that got launched.)

These guys are so freaking cool.

They're split up into three stages. The S-IC (bottom bit) has five rocket engines. The S-II (middle bit) has two rocket engines. The S-IVB (top bit) has one rocket engine and consists of the lunar module, the service module, and the command module. The top bit is everything they needed to land on the moon.

So to get to the moon you have to have enough power to get into space, escape orbit, get into the moon's orbit, land, take-off again a few days later, escape the moon's orbit and then get back into earth's orbit. Oh yeah, and on the way back the astronauts would be bringing back moon rock samples which weigh waaaay more than you think they would.

Here's how it works: so the Saturn V launches and burn the first set of engines for about three minutes before the the S-IC is released. The second set of engines burn out after about 10 minutes. The last set of engines fire until the astronauts are in what's called "parking orbit."

SO LIKE HALF OF THIS ROCKET ISN'T EVEN NEEDED ONCE THEY'RE IN SPACE.

But that's not what makes me insane!!

The lunar module extraction gives me anxiety, what the FUCK NASA.

So this is what the S-IVB looks like:

Behind those panels in the middle are the lunar module, which is what's used to land on the moon. So instead of being normal and doing literally ANYTHING BUT performing a dangerous flight maneuver in outerspace while hurtling at an ungodly speed toward the moon, they decide. HEY lets perform a dangerous flight maneuver in outerspace while hurtling at an ungodly speed toward the moon.

The panels split apart and the spacecraft that the astronauts are in separate from the bit that's going to put them on the moon. So they have to GO BACK and and grab it. AND IF THEY FUCK UP THEY'RE DEAD.

Now you might be asking yourself. What the fuck kind of people did they send to the moon. Who the fuck is crazy enough to get launched at that godly speed toward the moon with only two other guys and like 160 cubic feet of room.

CRAZY PEOPLE THAT'S WHO.

[missionspecialist]

hey!! i watched apollo 13 a few days ago and fell down a rabbit hole and i was delighted to find there's a whole (sort of) nasa/astronaut/space/i-dont-know-what-to-call-it fandom thing/network of blogs on tumblr! so far my fave things are (1) the memes, and (2) the rants & rambles about little bizarrely specific or seemingly random things. i'm REALLY loving your blog especially! if you want give me some rambles/rants/memes/facts/thoughts on the apollo 13 astronauts! or don't! love u either way ❤

Hi anon! Thank you so much for this ask, I’ve had a really bad last couple of days but this is so nice. And yeah I don’t really know what to call the “fandom” either tbh. But it makes me happy that more people are falling down the rabbit hole lmao - I first got into this stuff when I was like 16-17 and I would spend all my time reading mission transcripts and screaming about astronauts to anyone who would listen (in retrospect, oh god im sorry lol). Seeing the community grow is really like…really heartwarming? So yeah.

About Apollo 13…hm. I have seen the movie a bunch of times but not in a while so I can’t remember exactly what facts might already have been included and I don’t wanna be redundant but! I will do my best. Actually this is prob. mostly just gonna be stuff about Jim Lovell bc I love him!! and despite Apollo 13 being one of the more famous missions it’s not one of the ones I know a ton of specific details about so:

Whenever I think about Apollo 13 honestly my mind goes to this pic bc omgh my god….Fred Haise sitting on the phone books is SO fucking funny to me. like. mood.

anyway yes. jim lovell….Im love him….here are some of my fave pics of him: (1) where he looks all handsome, (2) where he looks like a big goof, (3) another joke pic from geology training (see caption), and (4) another geology training one w/ his friend Pete Conrad (who nicknamed him “Shaky” when they were in test pilot school together in the 50s lmaooo). like, yeah he just stuffed some random rock in his pocket and it looks hella awkward (honestly every time I see this pic I’m like “is that a rock or are you just…” ajhshhs lmao) but I think it’s fun, I mean just look at Pete’s hat and pipe. Anyway. Ya girl just loves geology training photos sorry!

Also since I feel like part of my niche on here is rambling about design/fashion/aesthetics in relation to space I’m gonna talk about mission patches! You can read more about the design process behind the Apollo 13 mission patch here. Overall I think it’s a good patch w/ a solid design! A few years there was a project where some people designed alternate commemorative versions of the Apollo mission patches and the alternate Apollo 13 one is my favorite of the bunch. It has the path of the horses representing Apollo reversed so they’re traveling from the moon back to earth, which I think is a really simple but elegant and meaningful reimagining. You can read more about the commemorative patch project here btw.

While we are on the topic of mission patches and Jim Lovell, can I just say SHOUTOUT to my mans for his design sense bc the Apollo 8 patch is a banger and easily one of the top 3 best mission patches from Gemini and Apollo. It seems like he was more interested in considering the designs of the patches for his flights than average (at least, this is my impression, but idk) and he had a pretty good run of mission patches. I tend to like patches w/o a lot of cluttered details and text all over the place that convey a lot through simple shapes and symbols (imo the Gemini 10 patch is the pinnacle of mission patch design) so I think the Gemini 12, Apollo 8, and Apollo 13 patches are nice. The Gemini 7 one is also very good but he wasn’t as involved on that. He did contribute ideas to Michael Collins about the Apollo 11 patch design (prob. bc he was backup commander for the mission) which is another good one, of course. Anyway I can appreciate a man who appreciates good design so! yeah lmao!

I’d love to add in some stuff about fashion/spacesuit stylings in relation to Apollo 13 bc I tend to go on about that stuff but I can’t really think of anything right now? But yeah I think I’m gonna stop here otherwise I will keep writing random stuff about Jim Lovell (I am so sorry Fred and Jack I just do not know as much about you), but THANK YOU for letting me talk about this stuff! Maybe others can add more (and better) info to this post if they want?