First Man: moon rocks, moon lasers, and the edge of space
b'One Small Step \\n\\n
Worrying the minimum amount about your speech. The difficulty of quoting noisy radio transmissions.
\\n\\n Because it is haaaahd \\n\\nRecognizing the small temporal distance from the first powered flight to the first moon landing. The cutting edge of the early space program. Test piloting. Gemini.
\\n\\n The edge of space \\n\\nDefining the edge of space. The \\u201cKarman Line\\u201d: transition from atmospheric lift to orbital velocity. Complications and redefinition of where \\u201cspace\\u201d begins. Geopolitics, ruining everything since forever.
\\n\\n The \\u201cright stuff\\u201d \\n\\nBadass engineer pilots. Moving fast and breaking things. Selection testing. Giving prospective astronauts ice-water wet willies. The importance of simulation in the early space program and the difficulty of simulating things we haven\\u2019t actually ever done or seen up close.How hard it really is to stay conscious under high-g stress.
\\n\\n Moon landing \\n\\nMonocular depth cues. Light and shadow, unfamiliar objects, and depth perception. Equatorial noon on the equinox when stuff looks creepy: Lahaina Noon.
\\n\\n Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment \\n\\nRetroreflectors and really really powerful lasers. Tiny photonic returns: 1 out of every 10\\xb9\\u2077 photons shot at the moon mirror make it back for our detection. Multi-mile laser beams. Confirming relativity ftw.
\\n\\n ROCKS \\n\\n\\u2026 from the moon! And some regolith to boot. Vacuum transport for moon samples and how we work with them on Earth\\u2019s surface without contaminating. The difficulty of maintaining a a very strong vacuum vs nonreactive gasses. Detecting the provenance of proposed moon rocks. NASA\\u2019s moon-rock cataloguing system.
\\n\\n Moon-landing video \\n\\nViewership numbers. NASA\\u2019s custom video encoding and the incredibly analog conversion methods employed to bring it to television.
\\n\\n What if \\n\\nWhat if it didn\\u2019t work out? The Nixon speach made ready just in case. \\u201cIn Event of Moon Disaster.\\u201d
\\n\\n What now \\n\\nWhy we have no rockets now to match the power of the Saturn V. Loss of engine-production expertise. Looking at near-future Moon and Mars missions.
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- \\n\\t\\t\\t\\tWhere does NASA keep the Moon Rocks? by Smarter Every Day: YouTube\\n\\t\\t\\t \\n\\t\\t\\n\\t\\t\\t
- \\n\\t\\t\\t\\tApollo Television by Bill Wood: NASA\\n\\t\\t\\t \\n\\t\\t\\n\\t