The Surprising Success of NASA's First Moon Landings - The Surveyor Program 1966-1968

[@thomasfholland]

Thanks for bringing this up again. That was one of the series at my Dad worked on. He spent his entire working career first working at NASA (Surveyor and the little known the US first try at building the first space station - just because the USSR had already built a space station for 2 cosmonauts) and then being relocated to NASA/JPL. It was really cool going with him to work. He was an engineer for this series. He retired being the mission controller for Galileo.

[@RockHudrock]

Skylab! 👍🏼

[@colormaker5070]

In my case it was my grandpa. He started at collins radio cedar rapids IA and was put on a project to design control systems for early spacecraft. He often told me that two events that happened on the same day that he will never forget was the day I was born and the project he supervised made it to space. Thank you for a great video and the trip back in time.

[@gsmontag]

Was he working on MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) for the Air Force? Scott has some cool videos on that.

[@DanSmithBK]

Mission controller for Galileo is a pretty big deal! Nice!

[@ghimmy47]

We could very much use actual engineers who did the work rather than reading a computer screen. Surveyor did much better than IM.

[@patrickradcliffe3837]

I think it was really cool that Apollo 12 was able to do a precision landing and bring home pieces if Surveyor 3. A true testament to slide rules and computers that fill up a room.

[@thomasfholland]

So true! 100% correct! 👍

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

A true testament to highly-skilled and experienced PILOTS.

[@bewilderbeestie]

The Apollo LEMs were the first fly-by-wire... well, not _aircraft_, but flying vehicles... ever. The flight controls just told the computer what to do; it emulated something not dissimilar to a helicopter flight more. In fact, the on-board computer and its sensing systems were sophisticated enough that they were entirely capable of landing the vehicle autonomously, with no pilot input. Weirdly, every single Apollo pilot opted to take over from the computer's automated programming; given that the computer couldn't do collision avoidance, that was probably a good thing.

[@Calatriste54]

Fire all the Woke, hire back the Nerds..

[@Charonupthekuiper]

A bright individual was responsible for that. They realised after nearly running out of fuel for Apollo 11 the moon's gravity was uneven making a precise trajectory impossible without intervention. The solution was to feed in Doppler information from the carrier signal on earth back to the craft to fine tune the descent. Apollo 12 and onwards were able to land 'on a sixpence'.

[@Noubers]

The pace of these missions is mind boggling compared to today. All seven flown in less than two years.

[@bluesteel8376]

NASA had a huge budget back then.

[@javierderivero9299]

@@bluesteel8376 And most of the budged maybe 90% was just for Apollo lunar landing....today has several deep space missions at the same time ...Artemis is just one of them

[@donjones4719]

Agreed. And the pace of Gemini was even more impressive, 10 missions in 20 months - and there were people on them!

[@GlutenEruption]

@@bluesteel8376 actually adjusted for inflation, it's pretty close to where it was for the surveyor missions - of course nasa doesn't have a singular goal or mandate anymore and is spread much thinner, with that budget going to many more projects.

[@BackYardScience2000]

​@@arrdubualmost. Luckily, we know better and know for a fact that they actually went. It really doesn't matter how much conspiracy loonies say that we didn't go. We did, whether they like it or not.

[@Cmdr_Krella]

I'm 75, I can vividly recall seeing the Ranger impact photos and being thrilled and amazed.

[@dvdschaub]

Right there with you!

[@LivingroomTV-me9oz]

When you see the images more recent probes send back (e.g. Juno), and compare them to the grainy, black and white images of the 60s, it’s really breathtaking!

[@dosgamer74]

Ranger had an excellent resolution camera for it's time - 1152 TV lines no less!

[@ronschlorff7089]

As a kid in High School, some of my nerdy friends and I went to nearby JPL, in Pasadena, to listen to lectures on those early missions of Ranger, Mariner, and Surveyor given by the Cal Tech scientists involved.

[@spudeleven5124]

I once saw Ranger footage shown in a movie crowd projection. The "WHOA!" reaction the the impact reminded me of how people in the 1910s - 1920s wigged out to see footage of oncoming locomotives.

[@johnstewart579]

Thank you for this video. I remember how impressive it was for Apollo 12 to make a pinpoint landing so close to Surveyor in 1969

[@JohnBlackburn1975]

Remains the only time humans have visited a probe on another world. Likely to keep that record for many decades to come

[@RandyBaumery-s4i]

Lots of balls mixed in!!

[@patrickday4206]

Stanley Kubrick 😂 just kidding

[@MarsJenkar]

This reminded me of an animation by MetaBallStudios depicting all the lunar missions that have ever happened, and the fact was that this was in the days when the failure rate of lunar missions was still very high. The fact that five of the seven Surveyor missions succeeded, in that context, makes the Surveyor program a resounding success.

[@Atrahasis7]

Well 13 was almost a big fatal failure but yeah. I say Apollo himself was guiding these men.

[@spudeleven5124]

Yes, but what's even better was that Conrad and Bean actually retrieved parts of one of those bad boys and brought them all the way back to Earth!

[@scott6129]

That analogue radar guidance is brilliant. So in the 60s without computers or lasers they nailed the landing on the first try. Didn't fall over or land on it's solar panels. And no one forgot to arm the system.

[@dosgamer74]

There is something to be said for the simplicity of using a few hardwired operational amplifiers, in lieu of an embedded digital processor that requires it's firmware code to be tested to death :)

[@richardmalcolm1457]

Yeah, but JPL engineers thought they only had a 10-15% chance of success. They had a bit of luck, too.

[@scott6129]

@@richardmalcolm1457 I still can't believe they forgot to turn on the ladar. A lander worth hundreds of millions and they forgot to flick a switch. 😔 Somebody got fired.

[@kukuc96]

@@dosgamer74 It has one big drawback: You can send a software update to a computer if you encounter an issue you need to fix (and there are many stories on that, the best is probably SOHO), you can't send an update to analog hardware.

[@richardmalcolm1457]

@@scott6129 Yeah, it sounds bad, but a goof like that is suggestive of a larger procedural failure. There should have been multiple checks in place on something like that.

[@politicsuncensored5617]

I was a young boy in the 60's excitingly watching this on my grandparents B/W TV. My son would not be born until after the Apollo 11 landing and grandchildren much later. I hope to live to see the next moon landings with all of them. Thanks for bring back great memories. Shalom

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yup, 1969 was a great year for me too, my daughter was born, April, I returned from two years in the U.S. Army just in time to see Apollo 11 land on the moon, in July. Good times then, and hopefully again in the near future!

[@rockymountainhiker8119]

Scott, your videos are always interesting. But your videos about early space travel are not only interesting because we learn new things, but also so much fun because of the space vintage vibe! Those were heady times. Thanks for putting this together.

[@spudeleven5124]

What's old is new. It (the Space Race) is starting over somewhat, and since it's been over 50 years since Americans walked on the moon, I'm hopeful that a new Space Race is about to begin. I believe that China is going to surprise everyone soon, and will make Sputnik look like a Sunday-School picnic (that is, I believe they're going to mount a manned lunar effort shortly).

[@T_Mo271]

Nice to see the Surveyor coverage. Real steely-eyed missions. I always love that image that shows both the Apollo 12 LM and Surveyor 3 in the same shot. And the image at the end, should have been a self-timer portrait of Al and Pete next to the Surveyor, except when the moment came, they couldn't find the wind-up timer in the carrier bag. Later when he became an artist, Al did an oil painted version of how that photo would have turned out.

[@jaimeduncan6167]

Great overview of the Surveyor program. Thanks for sharing.

[@Calatriste54]

Was such a miracle, at the time. So much more, the Apollo 12 landing..

[@montylc2001]

Great video. I'm and avionics technician of 50 years, fully understand how analog systems work without any kind of computer help. I've worked on analog aircraft autopilots that work just as well as the new computer driven ones.

[@digitalplayland]

Systems should work like a charm in 2024. Maybe live video feed and remote control capabilities for one light second away.

[@spudeleven5124]

Oh, man! 🤮 I was an avionics tech working for the Navy and that analog stuff was a killer to troubleshoot and repair. SO glad to leave it behind for the world of 1's and 0's. What branch were you in? I was USAF and USN.

[@DavidEsp1]

@@digitalplaylandAlways good to have fall-back options.

[@montylc2001]

@@spudeleven5124 Was not in any military branch. Grew up in an avionics shop.

[@digitalplayland]

@@spudeleven5124I'm a psychologist. The techie stuff is a lifetime hobby. Cheers.

[@SchrodingerZX48]

The things that NASA achieved back then, considering the tech available to them, was truly astounding. A triumph of science and engineering. Wonderful video.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yes, and they had only a few "boxes to be checked" then too. Can you do the job, do you have the education to do the same, are you willing to work your ass off round the clock and get things right. Or you Will be fired!!@@TheWizard-pk4nh

I wanna visit you privately..

[@grahamf57]

Brilliant as usual Scott. I can remember the excitement on the BBC, with Patrick Moore and James Burke. I was 9 or 10 (born Jan 57) during Surveyor, and it was all part of the build up to Apollo. One thing the deny people ignore is the pre Apollo missions to the moon. Bless 'em.

[@spudeleven5124]

They paved the way.

[@jamesgibson3582]

Surveyor! Loved these missions, and that picture with Apollo 12 in the background is iconic. Often it is my laptop backdrop.

[@rwboa22]

Would have been really cool if Al Bean didn't misplace the timer for the Hasselblad (Al and Pete Conrad in a "group" style selfie photo in front of the Surveyor 3).

[@executivesteps]

@@rwboa22Iirc correctly all the Apollo surface images by the astronauts are black and white because the color film cassette was left on the Moon. ???

[@JamesPerkins]

​@@executivestepsDo a search. Lots of color film shot on the moon came home with the Apollo astronauts. Color TV beamed home too in later missions.

[@olasek7972]

@@executivesteps??? say what? Plenty of color images from the surface

[@executivesteps]

@@olasek7972 Some color images - you’re right but no color from EVA 2. Film canisters were left on the Moon but the question was were they ever used. The history seems confusing. Apparently different versions of what happened between Conrad and Bean.

[@GlutenEruption]

Things like this definitely put into perspective how spoiled we've become as engineers in certainly ways today, with endless amounts of processing power, memory, all sorts of sensors, actuators, and readymade solutions of all types available cheap off the shelf allowing us to essentially brute force solutions to the vast majority of problems. The level of ingenuity required to do so much, so efficiently and so elegantly with so little never ceases to amaze me. From that perspective, it's not surprising they were able to achieve a whole series of successful robotic soft landings on the moon in a handful of years while we struggle to do the same thing in triple the time. KISS principals are phenomenally important.

[@TheRealLaughingGravy]

To be fair, the Surveyor program was developed on a budget today's uncrewed lunar landing programs can only dream of. The Surveyor program had a budget of $469 million in 1968 dollars. Today, that would be $8.86 billion.

[@GlutenEruption]

@@TheRealLaughingGravy yeah, not to mention a huge national mandate and political drive, plus the entire agency had a nearly singular focus vs being spread all over the place like they are today but which the technology they had available and the state of rocketry knowledge and practical experience, I still think its nothing short of amazing what they accomplished in such a short timespan

[@dbaider9467]

Scott, you have said it many times - don't rely on software to solve your problems, unless it is ALL correct. These landers were autonomous without a million lines of code...

[@Hobbes746]

They landed blindly, meaning one boulder at the landing side could have derailed the landing.

[@ParameterGrenze]

Not to forget they had a low center of mass and rotatable panels and antennas 😝

[@Calatriste54]

This is an extremely important history lesson that flies over most heads. Well worth watching. Bravo, SM..

[@Bora_H]

Margaret Hamilton, the director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program is still working in Cambridge. Interview her if possible !

[@spudeleven5124]

Good idea, but isn't she in her 80s now?

[@Bora_H]

@@spudeleven5124 Yes indeed. If not an interview then perhaps Scott could make an episode on her. She is definitely an unknown hero. A giant in the field.

[@LLH7202]

The unmanned missions were fascinating--we learned so much. This year is the 60th anniversary of Mariner IV, the first flyby of Mars, and the first time we saw photos of Mars from other than Earth based telescopes. Grainy and low resolution by today's standards, we saw craters for the first time! It was awe inspiring! It's hard to believe that by the time we finally set human feet on the surface Mars we will know far more about Mars than Neil Armstrong knew about the surface of the moon.

[@thomasroutson3046]

I remember those Surveyor missions and how fascinating it was to see the moon "up close". Love your channel!❤

[@janhofmann3499]

Pure analog PID-controllers and (i guess) some rotary sequencer. Also the jettisoned solid fuel motor that provided the bulk of delta-v is great!

[@scottmanley]

I believe the sequencer may have been digital on Surveyor.

[@marcmcreynolds2827]

Likewise analog for airliner avionics into the 1980s. A couple of DC-10-30s had their center main landing gears snap off from heavy braking all the way to full stop. The cause was found to be the steepening friction coefficient-vs-speed profile for rubber sliding on pavement approaching zero speed. The solution was to disable the aintiskid below 5 mph... by snipping out a diode from the antiskid's analog circuit board.

[@janhofmann3499]

@@major__kong Concorde also used analog FBW because cables wouldn’t work on a plane that thermostatically grows in length by about 20cm at cruising altitude and speed😬

[@janhofmann3499]

@@marcmcreynolds2827What a genius patch! Would be interesting to see how a similar patch in a modern digital system would look like.

[@cogoid]

I have not seen the schematics, but NASA publications describe a state machine which switches between different feedback loops when some threshold condition is met. In the early part of the landing, thrust was controlled using inertial sensors to maintain a constant thrust-to-mass ratio equivalent to 0.9 lunar g. Once altimeter signal became available, the target value for the descent velocity was generated by a circuit built from resistors and diodes. It was using altitude from the altimeter as an input, and was sending the target velocity to the control loop which regulated the thrust. Once the velocity dropped down to 10 feet per second, the control was switched to maintain a constant 5 feet per second descent rate. Once the altitude of 14 feet was reached, the engines were shut down, and the lander fell to the surface.

[@u1zha]

6:16 nice egg & sacrificial radar combo And a fascinating attitude control system, and the panorama splicing bowl also gets a high grade honorable mention!

[@spudeleven5124]

I've never seen this before, and I have Scott Manley to thank.

[@anthonybarcellos2206]

The Ranger missions were maddening, since the first six attempts were failures. We finally got photos with Rangers 7, 8, and 9. Surveyor had a better success record, with five of seven missions successfully landing on the moon. I was lucky enough while in high school in the sixties to attend a Caltech lecture by Dr. Ronald F. Scott, the researcher responsible for the Surveyor's scoop shovel. Dr. Scott noted the Surveyors 2 and 4 failed in their missions to Sinus Medii. I recall Scott pointing at a large image of the moon on the display screen in Beckman Auditorium and saying, "At JPL we were concluding that either even numbers were unlucky, or someone at Sinus Medii didn't like us." We had a good laugh in the middle of a great talk. (It was one of the reasons I enrolled at Caltech a couple of years later.)

[@alfonsopayra]

These are the videos i love from You scott! Thanks!

[@Spherical_Cow]

I just love, how Scott actually pronounces Mün correctly! 😂❤

[@the_jcbone]

I like how he pronounces aluminium correctly. ;-)

[@ronschlorff7089]

yes, one of my favorite (favourite, LOL) British words along with rubbish and whilst!@@the_jcbone

[@3800S1]

This was a great video, learned so much and genuinely amazed how sophisticated the surveyor program was. I never knew 80% of what was presented in this video.

[@mLynx24]

15:05 For those wondering, "sinus medii" is Latin for "middle bay." Bay, the geographic feature, fits with the sea-themed names on the moon. But sinus can also be translated as a "fold" because a bay is where the land folds around the sea. So yes, the anatomical sinuses are related to the same word.

[@spudeleven5124]

I really like how the US Geological Survey has relied upon Latin naming conventions for significant extraterrestrial feature names, such as Noctis Labyrinthus and Utopia Planitia on Mars. I hope that continues, because it (the naming convention) is a very satisfying blend of old and new; that is, an obscure human language which today is used almost exclusively in science, medicine and law is being used to give place names to otherworldly venues. Wild.

[@imEden0]

It's also sea-themed since the mare, meaning sea, were lava oceans.

[@paulkrapp]

Thank you Scott! I was 9 years old in 1968 and remember all of this. The "Space Race" made a huge impression on me back then! 😀👍

[@ivanjermakov]

Amazing how popular is Apollo program and how uncovered is the rest of the moon exploration.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yes, true, but they were all pieces of the whole, beginning with Mercury, Gemini, and then Apollo, training astronauts and manufacturing hardware, such as the boosters, and landers, and the preliminary explorations of the moon, to find suitable landing sites, by probes such as the surveyors, and those before them. All basically the same big program, with different parts to play to reach the goal of the first manned moon landings, by the USA! Which still stands, ... for now.

[@niraj_dave]

really best video on surveyor missions..good job scott

[@craigriddell1169]

Makes you appreciate the genius of the engineers that were able to do this successfully with all the limitations of computing power , communication and technology in it's infancy in the early 60's

[@ronbridegroom8428]

Built by Hughes Aircraft Company

[@Jedward108]

That's such a cool adventure to imagine, to fly up there on Apollo 12 and walk over and check out the old surveyor. Very exciting!

[@michaeldemarco9950]

“A Fall of Moondust” is a great story. “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve had since arriving on the Moon!”

[@andrewnewstead4367]

It was actually tea.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

@@andrewnewstead4367 , sorry. It’s been 40 years.

[@gfabasic32]

Instead of 'tea' NASA prefers: CAE-OC-PD-CMT (controlled, aqueous extraction of organic compounds through passive diffusion and convective mass transfer)

[@michaeldemarco9950]

@@gfabasic32 , yes. A $25000000.00 program.

[@jurjenbos228]

@@gfabasic32 LOL I am going to use this term from now on.

[@Stuart.McGregor]

Great history lesson Scott. Amazing what can be achieved with 60’s engineering and a spirit of adventure.

[@davidboyle1902]

Thanks for this. I remember these missions - and the uproar when Sputnik went up - but was unaware that a few of the Surveyors relit their engines after they had landed. All these years and I’m still learning things about these old missions. What’s astounding is that there are people who STILL refuse to believe that we’ve been to the moon. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent, ten of thousands of people involved. Stupidity on an unfathomable scale. Thanks for the history lesson.

I wanna visit you privately

[@michaelhead875]

Best overview of Surveyor I have seen.

[@xmoex6393]

how awesome to land there for humans and just walk up to another spacecraft already sitting there to retrieve stuff... 😍

[@shanemeyer9224]

brilliant work as always scott, I look forward to your videos

[@stargazer7644]

It amazes me that people are astonished by what these devices did without computers. We've had electricity for far longer than we've had computers. What do you think they did for the first 150 years?

[@johnhavens8199]

This is great! I love these historical looks back into our early space programs.

[@zbemadej5768]

Pięknie dziękuję!!!Pozdrawiam z Warszawy, Poland!

I wanna visit you privately

[@olasek7972]

Pozdrawiam z Kalifornii!!

[@zbemadej5768]

​@@olasek7972co tam w tej Kalifornii dobrego słychać.....nigdy nie byłem, 😂

[@GregPackard]

I have no way to verify this story but my father was an quality engineer at Hughes Aircraft and worked on the Surveyor program. He told me that during inspection of one of the TV cameras that he sustained a small cut on a sharp edge and a drop of his blood fell into the mechanism. He said there was much discussion about what to do but in the end, the decision was to let it fly. I wish I could get more on this but he has passed and the story is gone within him. Great video and many memories for me.

[@philofthefuture1570]

My mom always said, "Every generation gets worse at landing shit on the moon."

[@truman42746]

Great video! I kept up with all the Surveyor landings. It was a real treat seeing the Surveyor sitting in the crater when Apollo 12 landed.

[@martl0]

low center of mass for stability .... maybe a good idea to copy from the past ;-)

[@olasek7972]

that’s the point, few are willing to copy past, they want to invent their own approach

[@patrickradcliffe3837]

Beat me to it! There are reasons why our Dad's and Grandfather's did thing's a certain way.

[@MrGoesBoom]

Yeah, it seems damn near everything people are sending or planning to send is tall with a narrow base. Granted that wasn't the reason the Odysseus crashed but a wider bad and squatter form does seem like a safer bet. Only thing I can think of is size the rockets and their fairings being an issue but bound to be ways around that

[@marcmcreynolds2827]

Odysseus was essentially an equipment rack for disparate experiment packages. You either carry less experiments in a shorter rack, integrate them into a bespoke bus which kills the flexibility criterion, or go with a larger-diameter fairing which costs more money and also reduces payload... for the same result, if things had gone well on the initial attempt. Engineers aren't dumb. If copying the past met all mission requirements, that's what they would do.

[@patrickradcliffe3837]

@@marcmcreynolds2827 yeah, but no. There are always tradeoffs. This time the reliance on active soft landing design over one with more passive landing design. It appears that they did not design enough out of profile margins to give them the best chance at landing if they were outside those profile margins. Maybe they should have gone with a side by side tank configuration. I don't remember reading anywhere, but wasn't design meant to be a universal bus and rack, for both landers and orbiters?

[@NowinWTF]

Awesome little bit of history. I love you.

[@jamess.2599]

That “can do” attitude that won WWII got us to the moon with this ancient tech.

[@penguin44ca]

Yeah and a budget that was 1% of the gdp.

[@penguin44ca]

Imagine what you can do with 1 of today's gdp

[@ParaglidingManiac]

I've been your subscribers for over 11 years now, finished my studies and worked up to being a real energy engineer in Scandinavia. Your passion and level of content carried me all this way and continues to fuel me! Thank you, mr. Scott Manley!

I wanna visit you privately.

[@MrGuzmanra]

yeah, but could they land upside down? no...

[@hennemmc5021]

Gotta Trickshot your way to the moon

[@Joe-jv5mm]

Mr Manley your Channel is a fountain of Knowledge, Cant Stop coming back drinking up more information 😉

[@livethefuture2492]

Can't believe we did all that in a matter of 2 years back then, and had a good chunk of them be successful. Perhaps sometimes simpler and old school analog tech just works better. Compared to the Complex computer guidance of these modern probes, sure it's more modern, but also much more complex and therefore a lot more potential points of failure.

I wanna visit you privately...

[@stargazer7644]

And yet the goal of all that complexity is to increase the chance of mission success. It also gives us a much larger choice of missions. Apollo was very limited in where they could go.

[@livethefuture2492]

@@stargazer7644 still there is something to be said about overeliance on software fixes.

[@stargazer7644]

@@livethefuture2492I challenge you to come up with a hardware fix on an already launched spacecraft. Software gives you options. And when done correctly, is extremely flexible and reliable. Yes, sometimes there are spectacular mistakes along the way - but that is true of all spaceflight engineering, both hardware and software.

[@havelsand]

what a simple and ingenious method for orienting the spacecraft during landing. wow!

[@Phlosioneer]

The simplicity and effectiveness of the early landers makes you wonder if modern landers are doing too much. Did we lose something important in the switch from control using clever feedback loops, to control using in-memory terrain maps?

[@sirmonkey1985]

some what. i think the big difference during the 60's and 70's is that everything was one off built so engineers were required to know exactly what it did and how it did it. where as today it's a hodge podge of equipment and software that's been used in many different applications and is tuned for the specific application they want to use it in but what that causes is a lack of detailed knowledge of the hardware being used. just because a part can be programed to do X and Y was it designed to do that and what are the exact failure points of that part? no one really knows until it fails but now it's in space.. as the saying always goes "keep it simple, stupid".

[@sonicmastersword8080]

Yes. We lost adaptability based on differentials. The landings may not have been perfect, but they were functional and acceptable for what they were.

[@JamesF0790]

Keep in mind that the recent landers had a MUCH smaller budget than these old programs. If they had an proportionately smaller budget back then it'd be a different story then.

[@johnbrant2454]

Great presentation! I remember the Surveyor missions, but did not know all the details you shared. So cool, that they were able to relight the engine/thrusters to reposition it. I never knew they did that. Smart engineers!

[@Zywl]

sometimes I beleive those analog circuits were more reliable than thousands of lines of modern code in digital computers, the simpler the system, less likely there will be a "bug", less points of failure.

I wanna visit you privately.

[@stargazer7644]

You've obviously never had to tune an analog PID controller by hand before.

[@donjones4719]

I had forgotten sooo much about Surveyor, my memories were overwritten by Apollo. Wow, we did a lot with a little. The analog feedback descent guidance system worked very well.

[@RogerM88]

So 60's Lunar probes had more reliable analog guiding systems than nowadays fancy software.

[@marcmcreynolds2827]

Reliability is only one criterion. Mission flexibility is another. For a pathfinder like Surveyor, the former was more important than the latter. But eventually there will be both -- that's what flight testing is for.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

Almost like the 1960s probes were more like living robots than today's 'smart' electronics.

[@Hobbes746]

No. The Surveyors landed blindly. It’s pure luck they didn’t land with one foot on a boulder.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

@@Hobbes746 Did you watch the video?

[@Hobbes746]

@@RideAcrossTheRiver I did. It said nothing about the reliability of the flight control systems. 1960s electronics were less susceptible to radiation than modern systems. But that’s a solved problem: you can buy radiation-hardened electronics off the shelf. None of the recent failures have to do with failures in the flight control system. SLIM: engine failure during the landing due to incorrect mixing ratio of the propellants. IM-1: dumb mistakes during assembly. Insufficient mechanical engineering (landing leg that broke). Chandrayaan-2: Flight control software that could not handle the terrain. Insufficient development. But all three had software that would have enabled soft landings in areas where Surveyor would have crashed (e.g by landing with one foot on a boulder).

[@SebSN-y3f]

Thank you very much. Such great explanations help so much to understand what is important about these landings. And what considerations went before it back then. Your videos are always educational. No wonder so many love your channel.

[@paoloferreri6249]

Surveyors were the result of simple, sound, intelligent engineering. What they were able to achieve, 58-55 years ago was just outstanding. The fact that today we are considering a major milestone what has been instead a failed lunar landing leaves me quite skeptical. Just looking at the difference in the overall architecture of the spacecraft (including the one of the manned LM) would make you realize that the narrow landing leg stance and the high CG of Odysseus was a recipe for disaster. And they forgot to turn on a switch, as if a flight checklist was never invented. 50 years ago I would have been enthusiastic about this "first" attempt. Today I would have expected even real time 4K images of the landing.

[@CapitalRoach]

Love the Arthur C Clarke shoutouts

[@Andriastravels]

Surprising? We had top level military pilots, full US government effort, and whatever money was required. Today we have dumbass billionaires to please, software piloting, inclusion, and propaganda. Getting there today will be the real surprise.

[@spudeleven5124]

***GREAT*** feature, Scott! There was a lot of film about Surveyor which I have never seen before, so many thanks for collecting and sharing it! You're absolutely right to point out the critical role the unsung Surveyors played in preparing for manned lunar missions (and of course Lunar Orbiter was a mind-boggling technological triumph. I hope you do a feature about it because some of the tech involved is nothing short of astonishing). And I absolutely LOVE your tie-in to today's efforts with robot probes as pathfinders. And I know that *you* know this, but for other viewers: the camera retrieved from Surveyor III by the Apollo 12 Intrepid crew (Pete Conrad & Alan Bean) is on display in the Apollo Lunar exhibits section of US National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC, and like Scott Manley, I have seen it with my own eyes. Fun fact: the parts of Surveyor 3 which Apollo 12 brought back were initially examined in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, TX (which contains America's crown jewels [moon rocks]) and had been sandblasted by the regolith kicked up by Intrepid when it landed about 535 ft (~163m ft) away from Surveyor.

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[@duran9664]

70 years ago they landed on the moon easily & now they struggle🤷‍♀️ Ok. I totally believe u 😒

[@Hobbes746]

70 years ago, we had hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo. They went through the learning curve with Ranger, and got all of the dumb stuff (forgetting to switch the lidar) out of the way. IM-1 was designed on a budget, by a team that has never built a lander before.

[@stargazer7644]

The missions we're trying today are harder than 70 years ago. Apollo couldn't land at the south pole.

[@Krektonix]

Oh how I have been waiting for a Surveyor video from Scott MUNley!

[@MrGoesBoom]

Then as now, Space is hard...just cause the Moon is closer than anything else to us doesn't change that, just the problems involved. This was really interesting ( always is ) so thanks for uploading

[@johnnordqvist6081]

the 60s spacecraft were so cool, you work with you got and do your best. a lot of genius solutions

[@MCsCreations]

Thanks for the history lesson, Scott! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@ancliuin2459]

Exactly the question that space nerds are asked by people who get their info (or lack thereof) from the mainstream media. A big thank you!

[@hittepasurname8731]

Great video! I'm 63 and renember vividly how exiting it was when the Apollo 12 astronauts took a short walk to Surveyour 3.

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[@KarldorisLambley]

brilliant video. i could watch historical space stuff all day.

[@waynekeith6833]

My uncle worked on Surveyor, it's so interesting to learn more about it. I remember he used to talk about how surreal it was to see Surveyor 3 again when the Apollo astronauts visited it.

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[@vincei4252]

Scott, I watched a video by Anton Petrov this morning discussing Voyager I. He was lamenting the loss of information surrounding the computer on Voyager. I remember looking for details about the computer years ago but coming up with nothing. Is this something you'd be interested in researching ?

[@DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

Yea, a deep dive and tribute, Manley Style, would be great!

[@Valery0p5]

Yeah the computers on board have been sending the same pattern with no actual data for some months now... Poor probe has Alzheimer :( I think they already tried almost everything to reset it...

[@Karma-fp7ho]

A bit suspicious

[@DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

@@Karma-fp7ho Yes, the _V-ger_ meme was in full swing on Anton's channel 😅

[@stargazer7644]

@@Karma-fp7hoOh FFS. Enough of the conspiracty crap. It is still an operational mission. All the details are in hardcopy in the Mission office, where they are still used from time to time. This was all done on paper years before the internet. And since its still an operational mission, you're not going to find copies of the schematics being bought and sold at auction. That's why you can't find much online about it.

[@MadMorgie6318]

Thanks for this. I knew a fair bit about Surveyor but not how its landing system worked.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

Great video! Which not being able to live up to my past self is a fear I have so seeing us fail to land a craft upright and hadle it well makes me feel better.

[@jamessmith4229]

Thanks for the mention of "A Fall of Moondust". One of my favorites by Clarke.

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[@jamessmith4229]

Ok. How does that work?

[@tperk]

Outstanding job. This was the stuff I lived for when I was 10 years old. I'd follow each Surveyor mission reading Aviation Week & Space Technology among other newsmagaines. I even had a lunar map and looked up each landing site. A good way to fill the time between the Gemini and Apollo programs.

[@k.c.sunshine1934]

Thank you for the beautiful simulations, as usual!

[@alexlandherr]

For extra viewing I can recommend the “Destination Moon” episode of the “JPL and the Space Age” series on KZbin and NASA TV.

[@thomasfholland]

👍 Yeah even if it’s like a year old I loved watching this. (I’m personally biased because my Dad worked at JPL for almost 40 years!)

[@alexlandherr]

And for a documentary the music is especially good.

[@rcook1276]

Thanks Scott, I had no idea they used these landers.

[@765kvline]

This was back when I religiously and rigorously followed the U. S. and Soviet Space Program . . . I loved the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter programs. Naturally, I was encouraged early enough to also anxiously await the "Prospector" missions, where a wheeled robotic mobile soft lander would careen around the craters of the moon and analyze dust and rock, routinely drilling into the surface and reporting results to Earth. Since following the difficulties of the Soviet Lunar soft landers (who ultimately became first to soft land on the moon) and that series of failures, I hardly expected the course of Surveyor I to be much different. Following that event, I still remember that June day of 1966 when it (surprisingly!) made it to the moon successfully on its first try! How amazing that was! Followed by Surveyor III, V, VI and VII successfully. What have we lost in the last 50 years? We've definitely gotten out of practice doing these feats. Such good technology we had back then. Sadly, Prospector, was never mounted as a progressive follow-up to Surveyor. Would have been a great series of missions.

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[@johne7100]

Thanks, Scott. Great days.

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[@pauljcampbell2997]

Really interesting video Scott. I learned heaps. Thanks mate!

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[@Nf6xNet]

Somehow I failed to remember that Apollo 12 landed near Surveyor 3 and brought back pieces of it. Maybe I didn't realize how amazing that is the first time I learned it, probably as a kid back in the 70s or 80s? Wow!

[@jonkayl9416]

Scott, you make awesome videos. Thank you very much :)

[@gtaxmods]

I've never seen those pieces of Surveyor footage. Cool.

[@Joemama555]

I had no idea we had visited a previous lander on the Moon! Wild!

[@olasek7972]

Yeah, I figured younger folks would never heard of it

[@cfgrammer]

Thanks for mentioning the Lunar Orbiter project. My father worked on that for Kodak.

[@paulsengupta971]

Thank you for this. I was vaguely aware of pre-human landers on the moon but had never been told the story of these landers. I have now.

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[@jimholliman2822]

Very informative and interesting video. Thanks Scott.

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[@Indiskret1]

I didn't know a lot of this, so a huge thank you for another great episode!

[@etcher6841]

Thank you Scott, very interesting subject, beautifully made video!

[@robbhahn8897]

Surveyor always was, and still is my favorite moon probe.

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[@ChuckSwiger]

Love the teletype like printer at 6:33 :)

[@mpetersen6]

In my mind the single greateet picture taken by an unmanned lunar mission was the Lunar Orbiter picture of Tycho taken at a low angle. It made the Moon an actual world in the publics eye.

[@clarencegreen3071]

A long time ago: "Mars is not a thing; it's a place." -Carl Sagan

[@danielwalker5682]

Outstanding film. Thank you.

[@owenrichards1418]

Thanks for being geeky about this for the rest of us.

[@nathanlee6654]

"There's no hazard avoidance capability, this was the 1960s." I love that line

[@petergibson2318]

The Surveyor 3 TV camera which was returned to earth by Apollo 12 astronauts is now on display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Hardly any visitors look at it because they don't know the heroic story behind it. P.S. You can see one of the astronauts (not sure which one) touching the TV camera at 11:44 .

[@MilanMinic-kk3kh]

That was Charles "Pete" Conrad.

[@willharmatuk4723]

Direct descent (not from lunar orbit), with a solid rocket motor it lit at ~75 km, burning all the way down to ~10km. Impressive indeed!