Most Lunar Excursion Modules are getting on in years and occasionally need wrenching on. The Haynes Workshop Manual is indispensable in these cases.
Coincidentally (I’m sure) you can purchase one through the Cuana Enterprises store at this link.
Happy flying, and I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Back in those halcyon days when a man’s tax dollars actually bought him a piece of some magnificent hardware, we sent men to the moon. This year marks the 46th anniversary of Apollo 11 and, in fact, 46 years ago today Neil Armstong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were the very first men to walk on the moon. It was a moment in time when it felt like the aspirations of the entire human race were epitomized in the actions of two men. The event was broadcast live and was watched all around the globe. There were people who called the space program a waste of money, but I can tell you that in my lifetime there has never been another event like the moon landing that, if even for only a few hours, brought the whole globe together into one family. And so for those moments alone it was worth whatever the cost.
Spare 15 minutes of your time and watch this video – made for schoolkids, but suitable for all ages. It sums up the whole Apollo 11 mission very succinctly.
Now take a few minutes and think about how this was accomplished in fewer than 10 years. The technology used was primitve comared to what is commonplace today – our cellphones are more powerful computers than those employed in the LEM and Command Modules. There was no such thing as the internet. Yet the task was completed and resulted in at least a few hours of international brotherhood. Something that we couldn’t do today even if we tried.
Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog
Over a PriceEconomics.com I read a story of a guy who took a job with UPS because he heard they had good benefits. He started out working the ramp at Louisville Inernational Airport where the shipping company had established it’s hub, and as years passed, this fellow worked his way up the food chain until one day he was tasked with figuring out how to ship two whale sharks from Taiwan to Atlanta and then later two Beluga whales from Mexico City to Atlanta. His name is Bland Matthews and he is known as UPS’ logistical guru. Oh…and the answer to those questions involves a Boeing 747 and a balancing act.
Click here to read the whole fascinating story. While it is an intersting tale of how to get big jobs done, Mr. Matthews reveals a little secret about life in general:
On Christmas morning, he received a call. “They asked me to be a ‘cargo load master’ and I immediately said yes, not even knowing what that was,” says Matthews. “When a door opens, I don’t say ‘I can’t do it,’ — I just say yes, then figure it out later.”
If you are a new vistior here, welcome!
Let me give you a couple tips on how to get the maximum out of your time spent here. Essentially this is my soap box, a forum to express my thoughts through writing. My secondary goals are to entertain my readers, perhaps even to educate or inspire them as well. For more background, click on “about” in the upper right hand corner.
The technical stuff: the articles (or “posts”) are in chronological order – newest at the top and older below. To the left of each title is the date the post was created. The main page shows all the posts in all categories – if you want to narrow it down, click on a category in the list on the right and – voila! Only posts in that category are displayed. Also on the right hand sidebar are “recent posts” whaich are – you guessed it – the 5 most recent posts; and “popular posts” which are the posts that have received the most views in case you like to follow the crowd. My recommendation? Read everything.
Within each post you will notice some text in red. These are links to additional information. Click on the red text and a new tab will open taking you to an article, a wikipedia page, a song or something that supports or relates to the material I am writing about. Try it – click on this link and see where it takes you.
Most pictures within posts can be enlarged by clicking on them.
And – the blog is interactive. That’s right! You can participate by leaving a comment or comments on each post by clicking the “comments” button on the left under the date. All comments are moderated (that means I have to approve them before they are published) so I will see your comment. And so will the rest of the world if I approve it.
So – happy reading! And enjoy!
I may have mentioned that I am longer a Man Out Of Work. I am now a Man Who Seems To Work Every Waking Minute Of His Freaking Life. But that’s a poor name for a blog. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I am playing the excuse card for light *non-existent* blogging.
I like blogging. I want to blog. I know that all the great bloggers whose blogs I read and who have inspired me to begin blogging work jobs that are undoubtedly more demanding than mine, yet they still crank out the content. I just haven’t figured out how to make the adjustment from having lots of time to having almost no time.
Right now three things take up virtually 95% of my time. Work 40%; Sleep 30%; Wife 25%. The wife’s time budget has already taken the biggest hit, so there’s no cutting back there. In fact she is in need of an increase of at least 10%. Can’t cut back on work, so it looks like sleep is gonna have to take the hit.
We’ll see how it goes. It should be fairly easy for you to tell: as the posts get more frequent and less coherent you’ll know I am making an adjustment to my sleep schedule. Stay tuned!
We can close the books on another year – I hope 2014 treated you all well enough. For me it was not the best of times, nor was it the worst of times and so I can’t complain too loudly. It’s not that I don’t like to whine, you’ve all heard it often enough. I’ll try to save it for when it really counts. So here’s to a hopeful look forward to 2015 – may it be a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous year for us all!
I’d like to first welcome any new readers, then give some background and answer some questions about the blog.
*taps the microphone* Is this thing on?
Ego Vero is my little corner of the internet where I can transform thoughts and ideas that are rattling around inside my head into a form of reality by comitting them to writing. Ego Vero is Latin for “I seek truth”. I have invited you along on my journey which may take us along strange paths. This means I may write about any of several general topics that interest me and for whatever reason occupy my thoughts. The articles (which are called “posts”) on the home page are in chronological order – newest at the top, older below – and not sorted by category. As you scroll down you go back in time and see every post covering every subject. If you don’t wish to see all the categories, you can narrow things down to one category at a time. Here’s how. You will see these categories listed on the right hand side of the page – clicking on one of those categories will show you only the posts on that subject. Let’s say you are an aviation buff who only wants to read my aviation posts and avoid the rest of my blather about Empiricism, robots, music and so on – click on “Aviation” and voila! You will see only the aviation posts – still in chronological order with the newest at the top. Same goes for any of the categories.
The category with the most posts by far is “Life”. Just FYI
You know – Life – as in Life One and Life Two (three? four?……)
Any red text you see within a post contains a link to additional information – an article I used for reference, perhaps another related post I wrote, or a wikipedia link, etc. Clink on the red text and the link should open in a new tab.
My goal first and foremost is to get these ideas out of my head! Read the “About” page for more background. But I invite you, dear reader, in the hope that we may learn something together about ourselves and each other. And that you may be at least somewhat entertained in the process. I welcome your feedback via the comments. To the left of each post title is a two colored box – the top half is red and indicates the date the post was created. The bottom half is grey and says “comments”. The number – which is almost always zero, dammit – indicates how many comments readers have left about the post. Click on that grey box and you can leave a comment about the post. Please do! Your e-mail adress will not be published, shared or used by me in any way. And there is definitely a slim chance that I will not stalk you.
For more, read How to Read This Here Blog Thingy and For New Readers – Welcome!
So Welcome! And enjoy.
It seems like the right time for this – this is fire season. All over the west, but in California…Northern California in particular. Since I live near an airfield with a long runway, the occasional large tanker flies over my house. So why not do a little post with some video of the largest air tanker in operation in the U.S.? That would be the DC-10 “Rainmaker”. The McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 is a wide-body airliner that is no longer used for commercial passenger flight. It’s three engine configuration, with two engines mounted on wing pylons and the third engine mounted at the base of the vertical stabilizer makes it easily identifiable whether on the ground or in flight. The DC-10 ended production in 1989.
Here’s a Modern Marvels segment that give you the basic facts:
Here’s some footage taken by a news crew that was in the drop zone:
There are only two of these flying, Tanker 910 and Tanker 911. Quite a machine. Glad we have ’em.
Having been busy the last few days I have not had time to note the 45th Anniversaries of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and the first men walking on the moon – Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on July 21. I was twelve years old when it happened, and I remember the interest in the event was intense and universal. It was broadcast live on all three major networks, TV and radio were the only sources for live information at that time – no internet or cable TV yet. Looking back now, especially at the moon landing sequence, it was a little risky airing it live. Some years afterward we found out that the landing computer “overloaded” and began spewing error codes, and rather than wasting effort to translate the codes Armstrong and Aldrin shut it off and flew the Eagle in manually. They landed with 30 seconds of fuel remaining. Here are some highlights:
People worldwide were glued to their TV sets. For at least a brief moment, it seemed humanity shared a common dream, embodied by two men and an idea. It was a monumental feat carried out at great risk. I do not believe that a mission like this could even be carried out today as risk averse as we seem to be, and as evidenced by the fact that manned space flight has been all but abandoned. And we are worse off for it.
I am still at a loss as to what to call this..accident? atrocity? It seems certain now that Ukrainian Separatists (Putin’s proxy army) recklessly committed this act, thinking they were shooting at a Ukrainian military transport. There is a civil war going on over there, though you would never know it by reading the American media. So I’m settling on incident for now. Here is a link to a story at the Daily Mail (UK) with in depth information on the surface-to-air missile system used to shoot down the jet. If you don’t want to read the whole article, this graphic has a lot of info as well.
