More Book News: Digital Apollo

I got a Borders gift card from my relatives for my birthday. It didn't take long to check the email for a coupon and get the card emptied out pronto.

Digital Apollo is a book about the history and background behind the Apollo Guidance Computer.

I'm looking forward to checking this out in greater detail. Some time ago, Eldon Hall wrote a book called Journey to the Moon from the AIAA press. It was really good and showed how the AGC had its origins in the Polaris missile and other clever, simple machines like Bush's Differential Analyser.

I'll get into it later, but the AGC has been "resurrected" in both computer simulators and homebrewed hardware...

more to follow...

73
Scott
KD5NJR

"Read You Loud And Clear"

Every once in a while, you find something cool and cheap. Or free.

The guys at NASA's history department have done it again. "Read You Loud and Clear" (13 MB Adobe Acrobat ".pdf" format) is about the Minitrack, SATAN, STADAN, Mercury and other tracking and communication networks that were deployed for the space program.

What I've read so far, a variety of frequencies (HF, VHF, SHF) were used as well as a variety of modes. (radar, SSB, teletype) for tracking, telemetry and comms.

Looking forward to exploring the book more. I guess maybe 40 or 50 years later, some of this could be homebrewed... sounds like fun.

73
Scott
KD5NJR

Dreaming and the BIS Lunar Lander

I got caught up on a few back issues of Outside and National Geographic Adventure, then I went for a smoothie. After that, I went for a nice walk today and when I got home, I made some replies to Gene's blog and posted to Stan's a little ditty about the BIS Lunar Lander. It wasn't pretty... but isn't that good enough ? Little steps and all that. Not bad for an afternoon in which the wife was at work.

73
Scott Haley
KD5NJR

http://ke5lep.blogspot.com/2009/02/dreaming-is-good.html