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How About the Story When Apollo 12 Was Almost Doomed?

apollo 12

By Wayne Published 3 years ago 4 min read
How About the Story When Apollo 12 Was Almost Doomed?
Photo by Dusan Osmokrovic on Unsplash

Eleven was the most renowned Apollo mission. This was the moment when Neil Armstrong took a modest stride for an individual but a gigantic leap for all of humanity, but do you realize how remarkable Apollo 12 was? Apollo 11's objective was to demonstrate that humans could walk on the moon. Apollo 12's objective was to demonstrate that we could not only land on the moon, but also make an accurate landing anywhere we wished. The Apollo 12 spaceship was supposed to land next to an old robotic spacecraft that NASA had sent to the moon a few years earlier. The Apollo 12 mission was a success, and all the astronauts returned to Earth, except for one. Alan Bean and Richard Gordon had trained for years to prepare for this moment. All three astronauts awoke at 6 a.m., passed a medical exam, and boarded the ship. They then began to check all the instruments sensors and indicators and compare them with the data from the command center.

Cloudy conditions could not impede the launch, so no one was concerned about the rain ignition frequency. at 11 22 the countdown began at 11 23 the engine started working huge pillars of fire burst out of the turbines and the ship slowly Rose it flew through the gray clouds to its goal at the 33rd second Charles Conrad announced that the ship was starting to rise at an increasing speed the headquarters in Houston received this message and replied something but at that moment there was a crack on the other side of the line something happened on board the Saturn V 36.5 seconds after launch the ship's crew realized something was wrong when alarms lit up the control panel it was strange because Saturn V was rising and the team felt no Tremors or turbulence everything seemed great only later they realized that the ship had been struck by lightning at an altitude of 6400 feet even though the first strike didn't create big problems the second worsened the situation as soon as the lightning struck again at the 52nd second the ISS warning light on the panel lit up which indicated the state of the inertial guidance system it helps the ship understand its location speed and flight angle simply put it's the way the ship feels its way around in the air and that system broke down at an altitude of more than fourteen thousand feet

The headquarters in Houston and the crew of Saturn attempted to determine the problem, but the ship's Electronics showed distorted data and there was a failure in the telemetry. This meant that the crew members and the staff on the ground were unable to fix the damaged Electronics, while the ship's speed continued to increase.

Saturn V attained its maximal dynamic pressure when air resistance exerted its strongest strain on the ship's Hull. Despite two lightning impacts, this instant is still considered one of the most hazardous during launch. Saturn V was en route while headquarters attempted to maintain control of the situation and intently monitored all indicators.

The crew reported that everything was going according to plan, but the command center didn't believe them because they had no idea what was happening or what problems it would cause. The failure in the electronics affected both the inertial guidance system and the power Distribution Systems. In a sense, the crew and the command post were blind to the condition of the fuel tanks and batteries as the ship rose higher and higher. No one knew what would happen when the ship entered outer space or landed on the moon, and the entire mission was in danger. At this moment, engineer John Aaron came to the rescue; his attentiveness and ingenuity saved the entire mission and cemented his place in NASA's history.

John operated a console that monitored the ship's electrical and life support systems. Two screens in front of him displayed all the changes in the ship's Telemetry data in real time. When the ship was struck by lightning 37 seconds after launch, distorted data appeared on the screens.

John recalled that he had observed identical equipment during earlier testing on the Command Module; he observed the equipment that processed signals. John observed that when the power went out in this system, it displayed numbers similar to those on the screens during the Saturn 5 mission, when a lightning strike caused a brief loss of power on the ship, but instead of zero values, the sensors and devices displayed chaotic ones. John contacted the command center's chief and informed him that he knew how to resolve the issue. The command center then contacted one of the crew members, Alan B, and explained that there was a special switch with three positions in front of him that had to remain in this position for the duration of the mission in order to power the telecommunications equipment.

Alan Bean flipped the switch and switched the module to a different power source. At that moment, all the devices began functioning again. The command post in Houston was ecstatic. The most critical problem had been resolved. 11th and 12th people visited the moon on December 7, 1972, after which all Apollo missions were canceled. the first flight to the moon was supposed to cost about 7 billion dollars, but the preparation for the mission increased the budget to 20 billion dollars, which was too much money even for NASA. walking on the lunar surface was a landmark achievement, but public support waned and there was little interest. In the 1970s, NASA created Skylab, the first controlled space station with a workshop and a scientific laboratory where numerous experiments were conducted. In the early 1980s, NASA developed the first multipurpose space shuttle. The ship was able to repair satellites and return them to Earth or their orbit. At the end of the 1980s, the International Space Station was built and is still functioning successfully. subscribe for more and thanks for reading

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About the Creator

Wayne

Am wayne, a writer from kenya specified in research and article writing. I love doing research on natural things, football updates and updating what going on in the world

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