A wonderful collection of Apollo and Gemini project Computing Systems
documents hosted on
www.ibiblio.org and covering areas such as the Apollo Guidance
Computer (AGC), the Abort Guidance System (AGS) and the
Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) can be found here -
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/links.html
Revel in the beauty of documents such as this set of training slides for
the Apollo Guidance and Control Systems, including the occasional hand-written
annotation by the original owner -
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Docume...l_02-10-67.pdf
Or reflect on what it must have felt like to be handed a copy of the
Apollo 11 Final Flight Plan on July 1, 1969 -
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Docume...FlightPlan.pdf
(Note details such as the navigational star sightings pp 215-216).
Or contemplate the implications of a sentence such as this, which appears
on page 19 of the "
General Design Characteristics of the Apollo Guidance Computer"
May 1963 -
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Eldon Hall, MIT Instrumentation Laboratory
Since the computer has an inflight MTBF of 4000 hours, the probability of
success is 0.966. Therefore, we must rely on inflight repair in order to realize
the required probability of success of 0.99995.
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Thank goodness for people who think big. Engineering at its best.
Collection here -
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/links.html