The Engineer's Notebook

A bit hokey, and probably dated at this point, is my reference in this blog piece's title to The B-52's 1979 classic New Wave song "There's a Moon in the Sky (Called The Moon)". However, the enthusiasm captured in this tongue-in-cheek ode to outer space expressed sincere feelings of thrill and wonderment many Americans, including myself, felt when the first human set foot on Earth's long out-of-reach satellite. The historic date was July 20th, 1969.

At right, an early popular concept for a space shuttle and space station. Illustrations from Collier's Weekly, an American Magazine in publication from 1888 until 1957. Photos courtesy Dr. Eric Ruggiero. -->

Honoring American Engineers, Past and Present

An event was organized to learn about the engineers and scientists that made the epochal Moon Landing happen, in order to celebrate National Engineers' Week. ASME Hudson-Mohawk section, in partnership with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), sponsored a dinner meeting on February 18th entitled "Why Go to the Moon? Apollo and the Many Faces of Lunar Exploration". Distinguished speaker Dr. Roger D. Launius, Senior Curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, provided a fascinating talk to our combined groups.

Organizing the joint AIAA + ASME meeting were: Dr. Eric Ruggiero, Mechanical Engineer, GE Global Research (Niskayuna, New York) and Northeastern New York Section Chair for AIAA (many thanks to Eric and the AIAA for arranging to bring Dr. Launius to Schenectady via their Distinguished Speaker program!); Diana Polli, President, Union College's student section of ASME; and Holger Lukas, Mike Brilliant, Dave Smith and myself, all mechanical engineers and volunteers working for ASME Hudson-Mohawk's Executive Board. Thanks to all for your service in making this event so enjoyable!

Ancient Obsession with The Moon

With an expert background in history and religion, Dr. Launius began his presentation with a discussion of ancient ideas about the moon. Over the centuries, civilizations across the planet have long attributed lunacy, werewolf syndrome, vampirism, and other perceived preternatural phenomena to a lunar influence on human affairs. A spate of recent movies and television series like Twilight and HBO's True Blood was referenced during the talk as evidence of an on-going fascination with the perpetual glowing orb circling our world.

Sputnik Forces the U.S. to Respond

On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khruschev, launched the first human-made object to orbit the Earth. "Red Triumph" as it was called by Time Magazine at the time, the one-hundred eighty-four pound Russian satellite circled the globe in an elliptical orbit, intentionally traveling over populated areas in the U.S. and Europe for three months. While circling, the the satellite sent a constant radio beacon heard by both government and amateur radio operators.

As Dr. Launius pointed out, NASA was formed in large part as a reaction to Sputnik, with President Eisenhower consolidating, in a Homeland Security style re-organization effort, personnel and facilities previously managed by the U.S. Army and Navy. Included as a major driving force in the newly-formed agency was famous (infamous?) World War II German V-2 rocketeer, Wernher von Braun.

Later, after winning the 1960 election due partly to his strong pro-space agenda, John Kennedy, experiencing a major setback in the attempted Bay of Pigs Invasion, decided to react by proposing a major new space initiative - a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

NASA's Funding Curve, 1958 - 2010

Most fascinating for this engineer was the PowerPoint slide Dr. Launius presented - please note not the same one shown here - tracking NASA's budget, as a percentage of the U.S. federal budget - from the late nineteen-fifties until present.

At its start, NASA received a paltry one-tenth of one-percent of the federal budget. Then, coinciding with the the feverish pace of technology work being done from the mid-to-late sixties that led to the initial lunar landing, NASA hit its peak funding level of approximately five percent. It would never see this level of funding again in its history.

One-out-of-Ten U.S. Jobs Attributable to the Moon Shot

Of particular resonance during our current historically high unemployment situation, Dr. Launius quoted a claim stating that at the peak of Apollo effort, one of of every ten workers in the United States was either directly or indirectly working for NASA. Direct federal workers, federal contractors, and indirect workers comprise this claim. An astounding part of our economy was devoted to Apollo, and the accelerated technological innovation of this period would benefit this U.S. and the world for many years afterward. As the CEO for Intel, Paul Otellini, recently stated on C-SPAN Television for a Brookings Institute event, America's future technological competitors were watching and learning during this historic period of national investment.

When describing what he meant by indirect "knock-on" employment produced by peak NASA funding, Dr. Launius used the example of an engineer working at a small, private bolt manufacturer that supplied a NASA contractor with critical parts used in Apollo.

This engineer had to inwardly chuckle at the example used. In the late 1990's, I had myself worked at a high-tech plastic fastener manufacturer. Along with other important customers, we supplied nicely engineered bolts - with special plastic materials appropriate for the vacuum of space that I helped to specify - to NASA satellite projects! A small geek moment it was to work on NASA-related projects in our factory's engineering expansion trailer, but amazing for me personally, considering some of my earliest words at age three were Neil Armstong inspired.

Adding to that are other childhood memories, from back in the late sixties / early seventies, of many of my downstate relatives who performed Apollo-related work. This included an uncle who was a project engineer designing mainframes. They all worked for IBM in Poughkeepsie and the surrounding region. IBM was a major contractor supplying Apollo program computers.

Excited talk in the Dutchess County homes of my aunts and uncles about groundbreaking work that IBM was doing for Apollo - and personally witnessing new buildings being constructed to accomodate this - always made trips from much more sedate Albany, my home, fascinating for me, and inspired me to pursue engineering as a profession. So when Dr. Launius spoke of a knock-on employment effect, I knew exactly what he was talking about!

"Moon Truth"

Moving away from the from the serious and into lighter material, Dr. Launius discussed a new breed of extreme skeptics (some might call them opportunists) who like to counter the official moon landing story with alternate versions of what might have happened.

<-- Click on image at left to launch the YouTube video, courtesy MoonTruth.com

Lack of government transparency likely started many of the first conspiracies. Although not usually emphasized in public statements, there were obvious military benefits from rocket technology developed for both the American and Russian civilian space programs. Governments across the globe - for state security and public relations reasons - played this down, both during the Cold War and now. The same rocket that launched Sputnik into orbit was equally capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to U.S. cities, and the opposite for American civilian technology was likely true as well. Also, as Dr. Launius pointed out, the death of John F. Kennedy at the hands of an assassin who had spent time in the Soviet Union also likely fueled the flames of many conspiracy theories related to the moon project.

The clever Moon Truth video above was the same one shown to ASME / AIAA meeting attendees, and was produced by a group of young Internet "truthers" living in or near Paris, France. Watching this video - which shows a television studio lighting rig "accidentally" falling during what is supposed to be a live television broadcast of the real lunar landing, brought back a drive-in theater memory for me of another conspiracy movie. It was a pretty cheesy B-movie I must say, that I had watched with my family back in the late 1970's, called Capricorn One. In both cases, enjoyable entertainment, but entertainment only for sure, at least for this rationally-minded engineer.

Another member of the "truther community" - maybe inspired by some of the confrontational reality shows and movies now on American cable television - has taken lunar conspiracy to the next level.

Click on image at right for the YouTube video -->

In contrast to the Paris kids having a little fun with tongue-in-cheek Internet humor, truther Bart Sibrel - whose video was shown at the Engineers' Week meeting - confronts - in a completely disrespectful, loud, shouting tone - America's second astronaut to step foot on the moon. During a speaking engagement, Mr. Sibrel shouts amazing claims - amazing for this engineer who grew up with Buzz Aldrin the American Apollo hero - that the lunar landing was a complete fraud, saying that Buzz was "A coward, a liar and a thief". In the video, it becomes clear that the now eighty year-old astronaut still has the "right stuff", as the former Air Force Colonel defends himself, Astronaut 1.0 style. Watch out Muhammad Ali!

Unsung Heroes of Ground Control: GlobalSpec Honors Apollo 13 Engineering Team at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) Ceremony

Lastly, a brief mention / plug for GlobalSpec.com, my employer and the Engineering Search Engine company behind CR4. I was proud to mention the following to Dr. Launius the day after his lecture in Schenectady:

Quoting from an April 15th, 2005 Troy, NY BUSINESS WIRE Internet statement, the team of NASA engineers whose "ingenious, ad-hoc air scrubbers sustained lives aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft as it limped home", were the recipients of the first GlobalSpec Great Moments in Engineering award.

Engineers belonging to NASA's Crew Systems Division of 1970 were honored, with Robert E. "Ed" Smylie, retired chief of the Crew Systems Division, accepting the award at a breakfast and award ceremony held at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. GlobalSpec's president at the time, and a co-founding mechanical engineer, Dr. John Schneiter, presented the award. I encourage folks to follow the statement link here to learn more about this.

- Larry Kelley

http://sections.asme.org/hudson-mohawk/2010_Feb_Newsletter_v2_color.pdf

http://www.globalspec.com/News/ShowPressRelease?PressReleaseID=75

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_launius.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862778,00.html

http://www.vibrationdata.com/Sputnik.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Sibrel