Hi Poul, that AGS system existed only on the LEM, and only to abort a lunar landing. It couldn't even dock the two craft. Mindell discusses in great detail how they went to a single-computer digital Autopilot on pages 138 to 143, because they considered a failure so remote as to being able to do away with redundant computers, or in-flight repair. Since all CM thrusters are controlled by the CM computer software, a landing would not be possible without it. See also figure 6.2 on page 142. But I think there was a manual way to start/stop the main engines, so maybe this would have been useful if the main computer failed to at least get back into an earth orbit? This was apparently the very first fully-digital 100% fly-by-wire system ever, and probably the last one that did not have redundant computer backup. bye, Said In a message dated 11/18/2009 15:30:36 Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
In message <[email protected]>, [email protected] writes: >No CM computer, no return to earth. I think this is also discussed in the >movie Apollo 13. http://history.nasa.gov/ says otherwise. Lot of good stuff there. In particular: http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
