My landlord's father worked for Vought during the early days, and he grew up down at the Cape. His Dad has some amazing pix, news clippings and other artifacts from those days. It's great to talk to people who were actually doing the stuff I grew up watching! Jim KQ6EA
--- On Fri, 12/26/08, James French w8iss@wideopenwest.com wrote:
From: James French w8iss@wideopenwest.com Subject: [amsat-bb] reminiscing about a long ago time - WAS:Re: Re: Earthrise - add To: "Reicher, James" JReicher@hrblock.com Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Friday, December 26, 2008, 5:17 PM Since we are reminiscing about where some of our families were doing at the beginning of the space age, I'll add mine in.
My grandfather, Paul, W1DLP, told me about working on some of the equipment for the Gemini program. He even gave me one of his trinkets from then, a plastic coin bank in the shape of a Gemini capsule that he had gotten. I have long since lost that trinket...:(
I am wondering how many of us had relatives that did something during those fun times?
James W8ISS
On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 11:13 -0600, Reicher, James wrote:
Seeing this link brought tears to my eyes.
At the time the tapes were made, I was the tender age
of three, but I
still have a very close connection with those images
and with the tapes.
My grandfather, Walter Lyons, an electrical engineer
with RCA, helped
develop the technology used in taking the images from
the Lunar Orbiter
and Surveyor series and converting them into radio
waves and into the
data found on these tapes.
Although he never was licensed as an amateur, he was
one of my
inspirations for becoming a ham. Unfortunately, he
passed away 2 years
before I earned my ticket.
73 de W0HV, Jim in Raymore, MO (ex-N8AU)
Light travels faster than sound... This is why some
people appear
bright until you hear them speak.
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:30:36 -0900 From: Edward Cole kl7uw@acsalaska.net Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Earthrise - add To: Joe Fitzgerald jfitzgerald@alum.wpi.edu Cc: Amsat BB amsat-bb@amsat.org Message-ID:
200812252030.mBPKUbv8086213@hermes.acsalaska.net
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 04:25 AM 12/25/2008, Joe Fitzgerald wrote:
Rocky Jones wrote:
I think that the first black and white photo
of Earthrise over
the Moon...was from one of the Lunar Orbiters...
I think 5...
There was a nice story recently about a recent
restoration of that
photo
...http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-111408a.html
-Joe KM1P _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed
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I am amazed at times how my own past resurfaces.
One of my duties at Goldstone from 1974-1976 was to
manage the tape
backup for data received from spacecraft like the
Voyagers and
Pioneers that flew by Jupiter, Saturn (and the outer
planets after my
time), and other missions. It was sort of an unwanted
task handed
off on me. But I took it serious and devised a record
system to keep
track of when they were recorded and so they would be
retained for
the required time period. These were backups as the
prime data had
been transmitted to the mission scientist. These were
held a minimum
of 30-days in case of any bad data in the originals.
I started
stacking them in an unused office but in time they
ended up in the
climate-controlled "basement" of the 64m
DSS-14 Control
Building. They ended up being kept much longer than
30-days. I'm
guessing these reel tapes were made by the same
recorder as mentioned
in the article. Isn't it fantastic that the old
Lunar tapes were
recoverable! 2009 will be my 30th anniversary of
leaving Jet
Propulsion Lab to move to Alaska...tempis fugit!
The, then new, Hydrogen Maser Master Clock was
installed in this same
room. It was used for precise timing of VLBI
experiments, which
previously required calibration by the famous
"flying clock" or the
x-band Moon Bounce timing system (ask Dick, K6HIJ).
Not only
Goldstone, but Madrid, and Canberra stations required
to be on the
same accurate time (ask Tom Clark about that).
As the New Year approaches we reflect on the past.
Thanks to those
who recently found those articles.
Merry Christmas and Happy New year! 73, Ed Cole - KL7UW (& Janet)
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Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb