1961 - Liberty Bell 7 _ Gus did not screw the pooch

[Snattlerake]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/new-evidence-shows-gus-grissom-did-not-accidentally-sink-his-own-spacecraft-sixty-years-ago-180978240/
New evidence and testimony from the helicopter pilot and co pilot and original video.

 

[HFS]

I saw that capsule when it was on display at the science museum in OKC some years ago.
No computer on board, everything was mechanical. They showed a fancy egg timer time of device with a plastic arm to turn off something (fuel to a rocket motor, I think ???) after so many seconds. NASA just had the timer cocked back to so many seconds and when time was up the plastic arm flipped a switch.

 

[Snattlerake]

I saw that capsule when it was on display at the science museum in OKC some years ago.
No computer on board, everything was mechanical. They showed a fancy egg timer time of device with a plastic arm to turn off something (fuel to a rocket motor, I think ???) after so many seconds. NASA just had the timer cocked back to so many seconds and when time was up the plastic arm flipped a switch.

I got a good look at it when it was in the Cosmosphere. They also had Apollo 1.

 

[Louro]

I saw that capsule when it was on display at the science museum in OKC some years ago.
No computer on board, everything was mechanical. They showed a fancy egg timer time of device with a plastic arm to turn off something (fuel to a rocket motor, I think ???) after so many seconds. NASA just had the timer cocked back to so many seconds and when time was up the plastic arm flipped a switch.

What, no computer? How could that be?

 

[GUN DOG]

I got a good look at it when it was in the Cosmosphere. They also had Apollo 1.

I saw it there as well

 

[Snattlerake]

I saw it there as well

What did you think of the Cosmosphere? For such a small town with hardly any aerospace industry anymore it is very impressive. I installed and maintained the fire and burg alarms there. Quite a challenge with the shape of that building and the stuff in the way like the LEM and the SR71. We had to paint the wires up in the ceiling black or red or white or whatever we ran across.

 

[turkeyrun]

What, no computer? How could that be?

They had a slide rule

 

[AKguy1985]

They had a slide rule

They also had incredibly smart engineers and mathematicians. See the movie hidden figures.