Collaborate Disseminate
On July 26, 1971, at 9:34 am EDT, Apollo 15 lifted off the Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center on the first true lunar exploration mission. Using an improved Lunar Module, the ninth crewed Apollo mission and fourth lunar landing feat… Continue reading Apollo 15: NASA’s first moon buggy mission celebrates 50th anniversary
We’re unabashed fans of [Ken Shirriff] here at Hackaday, and his latest post about an Apollo-era transistorized shift register doesn’t disappoint. Of course, nowadays a 16-bit shift register is nothing …read more Continue reading Apollo Shift Register is Discrete
Fifty years ago today, on January 31, 1971, at 4:03 pm EST, a Saturn V rocket lifted off from Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center carrying Apollo 14 – the Moon mission that would make or break the US space program.Continue ReadingCat… Continue reading Apollo 14: The mission that saved the US Moon program
If you watched the original Star Trek series, you’d assume there was no way the Federation would ever work with the Klingons. Yet in later series, the two became great allies despite their cultural differences. There was a time when it seemed like the United States and Russia would never …read more
Continue reading The Day the Russians and Americans Met 135 Miles Up
When it comes to their more adult-oriented models, Lego really knocked it out of the park with their Saturn V rocket model. Within the constraints of the universe of Lego parts, the one-meter-tall model is incredibly detailed, and thousands of space fans eagerly snapped up the kit when it came …read more
Continue reading Animatronic Saturn V Launch Tower Sends Lego Model to the Moon
If everything goes according to plan, China will soon become the third country behind the United States and the Soviet Union to successfully return a sample of lunar material. Their Chang’e 5 mission, which was designed to collect 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of soil and rock from the Moon’s surface, …read more
Continue reading China’s Moon Mission Was About More than Rocks
I’ve been working hard on a big update to improve core functionality of APOLLO to include methods to gather up the database files needed so they can be extracted from using the APOLLO modules.New APOLLO Functions:‘gather_macos’ – Automagically finds a… Continue reading APOLLO v1.4 – Now with ‘Gather’ Function from iOS/macOS and updates to iOS14 and macOS 11 modules
Human spaceflight has always been, and still remains, a risky endeavor. We mitigate risk by being as prepared as we can. Every activity is planned, reviewed, and practiced long before any rocket engines are ignited. But space has a history of not cooperating with plans, and thus there is a …read more
Continue reading Short Video Recaps A Long Tradition of Space Hacks
It’s hard to say what exactly it is about the Apollo DSKY that captures so many hackers’ imaginations. Whatever it is, the “Display and Keyboard” unit from the Apollo Guidance Computer has inspired dozens of teardowns, simulations, and reproductions over the years, to varying degrees of success. But this mechanically …read more
By now, you’ve likely heard that scientists have found a potential sign of biological life on Venus. Through a series of radio telescope observations in 2017 and 2019, they were able to confirm the presence of phosphine gas high in the planet’s thick atmosphere. Here on Earth, the only way …read more