1968: Inside the APOLLO COMMAND MODULE | Tomorrow’s World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

"Before the end of next year, men could be flying across the moon's surface and preparing to land" - John Parry.
James Burke and John Parry report from inside an Apollo space capsule simulator at the NASA space research centre in California. Every effort has been made to ensure these simulated flights are as authentic as possible, so that astronauts Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong are prepared for every eventuality.
A bespoke camera system is trained on a large model of the Earth, to give the illusion of the capsule orbiting high above the surface, while another camera and model setup accurately recreates the positions of some 1353 stars.
An artist's impression of the moon is used to create the moonscape, which is used for simulating the - until now - top secret 'Moon Scooters'.
Originally broadcast 21 August, 1968.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - kzbin.info?...

[@sban8377]

Absolutely fascinating! I am so glad the men and women at the BBC tirelessly digitized all this footage.

[@tdcattech]

Just astounding attention to detail. The sheer effort put into making an accurate simulation is just fantastic. 👍🏻

[@johnnyallred3753]

I did not see these programs when they were first aired when I was a child. Thank you for making them available now !!😅.

[@hilaryepstein6013]

Thank you for another BBC treasure. I think to see the Earth from space is one of the most amazing thing you can do in your life.

[@harrisonmundschutz2654]

That was probably the last time anyone said “it might even be this very next year” where it actually ended up being that very next year

[@Atlantis.Reborn]

Insane dedication to detail

[@AnthonySimpson-vy3pb]

Yeah, right. Did you see the earth lmao😂😂😂😂. I cant laugh harder

[@ferraridinoman]

The Spacemen!! Love 1968!

[@johnkaminsky1657]

Ah, the anaologue world. A lot of gear but it did the job!

[@mr.invisible3123]

Rocket science than and now still complex no matter how advanced it becomes it will be dangerous as it was before in early days.

[@geraldscott4302]

Amazing what they were able to do back then, that could never be done today.

[@TheRecocebo]

this also explaings how they managed to do it without going to the moon.

[@hellie_el]

fascinating! thank you very much!

[@gandydancer823]

Love seeing James Burke in this segment

[@wrightmf]

Yes, when I see Burke then I know this is worth watching.

[@allgood6760]

Thanks for this 👍🚀

[@theminutebible873]

I read recently that the computer that controlled the sims as well as the one used for mission control had 2 megabytes of memory and took up 180 sq ft of floorspace.

[@knowpassword]

Practice makes perfect! 👍

[@fidelcatsro6948]

Flat earthers left the chat..

[@MrMann0123]

Nope ... look below

[@waspanimations7037]

@@MrMann0123 Very poor timing

[@AnthonySimpson-vy3pb]

Smh. Can you read?

[@starship3812]

And now interior of crew dragon would be so futuristic for them people of 1969 era.

[@X_Baron]

In Hooston, Texas!

[@Neptune997]

This was in my hometown, Downey CA.

[@mooghead]

The phone you have right now is thousands of times more advanced than this vehicle. An amazing achievement

[@lawrencemanning]

You mean the computer flying it, not the vehicle.

[@keithwaites9991]

Those scooters would have been a gas

[@chee5e2ee48]

What what 😊👍

[@andrewbrown9981]

Little did the know astronauts would go to the moon in four months

[@lacabb]

1:22 The Earth model in the simulator rotates in the wrong direction

[@ghost307]

Good catch.

[@HeeBeeGeeBee392]

Relative motion to the camera to simulate how an Apollo spacecraft orbiting prograde in LEO at 7.8 km/s would see the Earth before the S-IVB was reignited for TLI.

[@lacabb]

@@HeeBeeGeeBee392I'm sorry, but I don't know what the abbreviations you mentioned mean. In every trajectory diagram of the apollo spacecraft I found on the internet - it was moving in the direction of the earth's rotation. So the model in the video does not match the real simulation.

[@HeeBeeGeeBee392]

@@lacabb The rotation velocity of the Earth at the Equator is 0.44 km/s west to east and low earth orbital velocity prograde (in the same direction as the spin) is 7.8 km/s so the relative velocity of the ground seen from the spacecraft is 7.36 km/s retrograde (east to west), which is the type of motion simulated. TLI stands for trans lunar injection.

[@lacabb]

@@HeeBeeGeeBee392 thx for explanation!

[@kingspunkbubble]

Analogue virtual reality.

[@wrightmf]

This has to be be made before Apollo 8 because the earth has no clouds. I wonder if Ames Research Center (the one in California) has any of these artifacts stored someplace.

[@dougball328]

What has Apollo 8 got to do with clouds? We had had weather satellites for nearly a decade and had tens of thousands of photos of the earth - with clouds. Also Ames had very little to do with Apollo. it was mostly Marshall, the Kennedy Space Center, and Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

[@wrightmf]

@@dougball328 I was referring to magazine illustrations which before 1969 such drawings or paintings featuring earth from a distance showed no clouds. After the iconic "earth rise" photo by Anders then illustrators portrayed earth with clouds. Yes, Ames had little to do with manned spaceflight but James Burke mentioned the research center in Calif I assume is Ames. The history office has some artifacts relating to the Pioneer program, I was wondering if they had any of this CM cockpit Burke is in.

[@dougball328]

@@wrightmf I accept that. I had no idea that you were referring to illustrations since that isn't mentioned in your comment. It is curious that with all the photos taken by the Gemini missions that it took the "Earthrise" photo to impact peoples' perceptions.

[@wrightmf]

@@dougball328 yes, probably I could have made it clearer about illustrations. And yes, there were plenty of photos showing clouds around earth including photos from lunar orbiter, the spacecraft that took detailed photos of the moon surface for Apollo sites. It had film and after development, it scanned and sent back via television. It also had an earth rise photos but yet when a person took that photo in Dec 1968 there was something magical that changed our entire perspective. In fact, one of the crew said to Bill Anders, "hey look at that, take a photo!" Anders later said he simply pointed the camera (no settings of aperture, etc) and took that iconic photo. Then the earth had clouds, and it was no longer seen as something immensely big but quite small in the vastness of space.

[@eddiekulp1241]

Scooter ride on moon .talking about the lunar rover or lunar module ?

[@ghost307]

At one point they were considering a flying platform that you could think of as a one-man helicopter where you would stand while operating. That was abandoned as being too risky should an astronaut crash it on the moon (among other reasons).

[@dansv1]

Other modes of transportation considered and rejected were a lunar motorcycle and a type of pogo stick

[@darts-multiverse]

So much for that of the tell-tale, that they had no facilities to simulate, better feign flying over the surface of the moon. The rest like feigning the landing, which looked already back in 1969 poorly, is easy. Oh, the walking men on the moon, no problem, without stars but with stripes.

[@Primus54]

Lol… I love kooks that think the moon landings were faked. Believing that the government, along with the cooperation of the Soviet Union(!), could pull off such a monumental scam just proves that common sense no longer commonly exists. 🙄🤣

[@simmadpaul2880]

Exactly where they filmed the entire lunar landings. ;)

[@msain427]

Yes sir.. and it just boggles my mind that people believe that we really flew to the moon with that technology using battery power that we don't have today in a ultra-cold or ultra hot climate with no other way to cool off the craft other than battery power no other way to keep the craft other than battery power sending live photos at real time live video live audio.. still to this day people are so arrogant they believe in a time without calculators we did that

[@msidc1238]

​@@msain427Battery power? The LM was purely powered by batteries but the Command Module was powered by fuel cells in the Service Module. And none of the landings were in extreme temperatures. The Command and Lunar Module had multiple ways of cooling. The technology is well documented and available to the public. Why don't you do some research for once.

[@waspanimations7037]

Where the 3 mile wide set? Y

[@neilarmstrongsson795]

I didn't realise footage existed of the actual set. Well done bbc, this is like gold dust!

[@yomommaahotoo264]

​​​@@msidc1238Hey Shill - the Rover batteries were lead acid....which could NOT operate in a vacuum or in the heat and cold on the moon.

[@BritinSchleswig]

Funny that when they got up there no Stars were to be seen

[@thegreatdivide825]

They used stars for navigation

[@BritinSchleswig]

@@thegreatdivide825 Michael Collins said that he couldn't remember seeing any Stars kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpWUqnWNqLGmr7M

[@msidc1238]

​@@BritinSchleswigClearly you did not even watch the press conference when he said that because he was not referring to not being able to see stars through the optics used.

[@neilarmstrongsson795]

@@msidc1238 Well then, he wouldn't have been able to navigate then would he.

[@juz111]

You've totally misunderstood. They said they couldn't see stars from the surface or orbiting the daylight side. Collins went on to say that when he was on the night side, all he could see were stars and the moon was invisible.

[@yoskarokuto3553]

HYPERGOLIC BUT NO FIRE ? 🤣🤣🤣

[@JeaneGenie]

I just can't help but think what an amazing amount of money was wasted on that endeavour. Nothing was really achieved by it apart from bragging rights. Would have been far better to invest all of those billions in improving our lives here on Earth.

[@tthomas184]

I read that one baseball star just signed a contract for 40 million a year. No one bats an eye over that waste.

[@dougball328]

You try to make it sound like we shot $20+ billion dollars into space. We didn't. That money was spent paying 400,000 people who made this all happen. As for a waste. The space program drove computer development, electronics miniaturization, enhanced weather prediction, global communications and a host of other things. So it did improve our lives here on earth.

[@captainsouth4460]

@@dougball328 The amount of ignorance from some of these people is truly astounding!

[@dougball328]

@@captainsouth4460 Amen to that!

[@charlieboutin3341]

It advanced computers exponentially. You probably wouldn’t be replying on your device to this if not for the Space Race. We’d be writing letters to each other.. for months. 😂 Have a great one! 🚀

[@aaronhill9018]

No one has ever landed on the moon. 🙄

[@xandervk2371]

If you say so.

[@robertcampbell6349]

Sure thing, Mr. Short School Bus.

[@TheWokeFlatEarthTruth]

Another claim by one who will never even attempt to back it up with actual evidence.

[@msain427]

We never landed on the moon guys

[@msidc1238]

Prove it.

[@paulward4268]

Where is the "Moonguys"? I know we went to Earth's Moon -- was this somewhere else??

[@James-jl4jt]

And you know that do you?

[@neilarmstrongsson795]

@@msidc1238 Prove we went.

[@sharplessguy]

I got to visit Michoud on a class trip and saw the first stage being built. Afterwards my mom, brother and I watched the Apollo 11 launch live from just outside of Cape Kennedy. Afterwards we toured Cape Kennedy. Years later I was able to climb on and walk around one of the last remaining Saturn Vs located in Huntsville. Later on I toured the mission control room used for the Apollo and Gemini missions. I also went to Titusville and trained at the manufacturer of the video projectors used by Nasa for later missions. I also have used Eidophor video projectors like the one in the video showing the simulator. I have seen the Apollo 11 capsule several times. You can believe anything you want to but it doesn't change the fact that we've been on the moon 6 times.

[@thesatisfiedcustomer4869]

What a load of nonsense

[@msidc1238]

Proof?

[@yomommaahotoo264]

​@@msidc1238Well over half a century of no one going beyond low earth orbit is proof enough shill.

[@msidc1238]

@@yomommaahotoo264 A bit of research on the history of spaceflight quickly puts that claim to bed.

[@robertcampbell6349]

@@yomommaahotoo264 The Dunce will be with you always.

[@yomommaahotoo264]

@@robertcampbell6349 The term: Government Bootlicker will always be with YOU.

[@swaneknoctic9555]

Still can't believe people think this utter nonsense was actually real!

[@Paulatthedisco]

Hahahahahaha

[@scottishwildcat]

If it wasn't, an awful lot of people who were involved in the hoax have stayed inexplicably quiet for an inexplicably long time, including many sworn enemies of the United States who would have gleefully taken the opportunity to expose their lies.

[@golangismyjam]

I think the same about religion. The difference is man actually landed on the moon. Here’s a thought for you…. The Russians in a race to the moon against the USA, who had instruments capable of tracking the Americans and every reason to deny the landings never did. So apparently you and a tiny fraction of the world population know something that Russia didn’t know? I doubt it pal.

[@swaneknoctic9555]

@@golangismyjam it wasn’t Russia back then pal, it was the Soviet Union pal, a completely different country pal. USSR pal.

[@nutyyyy]

@@swaneknoctic9555 Are you dense?

[@garyfliess4375]

Interesting that they would show them simulated views of the stars when the Apollo astronauts themselves said they couldn’t see stars. But I believe it anyway.

[@tthomas184]

That's already been addressed in the comments, genius. Try reading.

[@TheWokeFlatEarthTruth]

They said that they could not see stars from the bright, daytime lunar surface. Take care.