Lots of wise advice. It's telling that one of the most frequently occurring words in this document about landing a man on the moon is "simple."<p>- "Build it simple and then double up on many components so that if one fails the other will take over. Examples are ablative thrust chambers that do not require regenerative cooling; hypergolic propellants that do not require an ignition source; three fuel cells, where one alone could bring the spacecraft back from the moon"<p>- "Another important design rule, which we have not discussed as often as we should, reads: Minimize functional interfaces between complex pieces of hardware. In this way, two organizations can work on their own hardware relatively independently...The main point is that a single man can fully understand this interface and can cope with all the effects of a change on either side of the interface. If there had been 10 times as many wires, it probably would have taken a hundred (or
a thousand?) times as many people to handle the interface." (interesting proposed scaling)<p>- "Generally, tedious, repetitive tasks are best performed automatically...but the entire rendezvous sequence was designed so that the pilot could always monitor the automatic system's performance and apply a backup solution if deviations were noted."<p>- "The single most important factor leading to the high degree of reliability of the Apollo spacecraft was the tremendous depth and breadth of the test activity...Most important of all, the tests gave us a tremendous amount of time and experience on the spacecraft and their systems. Such experience -- together with a detailed analysis of all previous failures, discrepancies, and anomalies -- led us to the conclusion that we were ready to fly a lunar orbit with Apollo 8"<p>- "Throughout Apollo, many discrepancies or failures occurred daily...the result was the same: The failure had to be understood and, if applicable, some corrective action taken.<p>- "Pay particular attention to what seem minor details, especially for substitute parts and 'explained' failures."
This document was referenced by Smarter Every Day in his latest video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU</a>
I highly recommend the book “One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon”. It focuses on the logistics, coordination, and innovation by the other 400,000 people involved in getting us to the moon.<p>It makes a compelling argument that the most innovative thing to come out of the program wasn’t tech, but rather project management techniques that allowed parts produced thousands of miles apart to mate perfectly for the first time on tight deadlines and the highest levels of safety and reliability. It’s also an easy read. If you like space it’s worth checking out from your local library.
Great stuff but don't forget Apollo was plagued with problems.<p>- Apollo 1 burned up on the pad killing 3 of our best men.
- Neil Armstrong's landing simulator suffered catastrophic failure, almost killing him.
- Apollo 11 had several in-flight incidents that jeopardized the mission.
- Apollo 13 explosion causes a mission abort.<p>And these are just the major incidents - indicated that low level failures may have been commonplace.<p>The achievement is never-the-less awe inspiring, and it's wise to study the blueprints Apollo team left behind. Those engineers are now out to pasture, nobody from that program is building the next missions.
For reference, these rockets were far from perfect. They had a very different approach to design and safety. Construction/fabrication errors that today would never be allowed anywhere near a human-rated rocket were accepted and dealt with. It was a different time.<p><a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/f-1-moon-rocket" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wired.co.uk/article/f-1-moon-rocket</a><p>"That's one thing we were trying to get knowledge on: what imperfections were OK to live with versus what imperfections are going to give us problems?" "Like with the injector," said Case, speaking of the 44-inch (1.1 metre) metal plate that spewed the propellant into the engine's nozzle. "There are hundreds of holes drilled into the main injector - all drilled by hand, too. And <i>one of the holes you can actually see where the drill bit came down at the wrong spot</i>, and the guy just stopped - you can see where he moved over to where the hole was supposed to be and finished drilling the hole. They kept that and would have flown with that engine. Those kinds of things were pretty neat.""<p><a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/injector-plate-rocket-engine-liquid-fuel-f-1-recovered/nasm_A20160018000" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/injector-plate...</a>
Ebook (epub and others) version of this on the Internet Archive:<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/what-made-apollo-a-success" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.org/details/what-made-apollo-a-success</a><p>This was created by a kind individual after this document was referenced on Smarter Every Day as mentioned by a sibling comment.<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/SmarterEveryDay/comments/18aw4ca/i_converted_sp287_what_made_apollo_a_success_into/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.reddit.com/r/SmarterEveryDay/comments/18aw4ca/i_...</a>
Wow, this is a treasure trove. The thing that stands out to me is the idea that testing is the essential ingredient:<p>> The single most important factor leading to the high degree of reliability of the Apollo spacecraft was the tremendous depth and breadth of the test activity.<p>And the most valuable reason for testing:<p>> Most important of all, the tests gave us a tremendous amount of time and experience on the spacecraft and their systems.
The enormous budget doesn't strongly suggest that Apollo was efficiently organized, though it also doesn't rule it out.<p>One thing to notice is that the Soviet N1 moon rocket development was very iterative (trial and error based, perhaps somewhat similar to SpaceX today) before it was cancelled, while the Saturn V development apparently was more perfectionist or risk averse. Though the modern SLS rocket development was even more risk averse than in the times of Saturn V.
Related - the Apollo Mission Reports make great reading.<p><a href="https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-mrs.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-mrs.html</a>
Page 71 has this paragraph on the Apollo Data Management network. I wish the paper provided more detail on what they did besides "assigning personnel".<p><i>Early in the Apollo Program, considerable difficulty was experienced in the exchange, standardization, and dissemination of critical data required both by and from the mission planners. In view of the interdependency of most mission-planning milestone documents, the need for coordination and tight control in disseminating these data became acute. As a result, the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office in conjunction with the hardware contractors and operational elements exercised strict controls and procedures in governing mission-planning data. As a part of this program, most organizations appointed key personnel on a full-time basis to support the data-management network. In retrospect, this action must be regarded as vital in consolidating and strengthening the Apollo mission-planning process.</i>
I am not affiliated, but as a fan… Smarter Every Day did a walkthrough with an actual Apollo engineer on the rocket and it was absolutely amazing. Definitely worth watching if you want to understand what this engineering program was up against — it’s kind of insane what they were doing with 1960s tech.<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1nLHIM2IPRY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1nLHIM2IPRY</a><p>Same guy also have one of the bravest talks I’ve seen in a while about the lessons of the Apollo program for Artemis, including some criticisms that I thought were deeply valid. Much to learn about Apollo from this talk as well.<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU</a><p><i>Thus very document is the foundation of that talk</i> and I’m sure why this is ending up on hacker news, so credit where credit is due please.