Timeline for What percent of time is a rocket to the moon on the right trajectory?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 27, 2018 at 15:21 | vote | accept | carolineggordon | ||
| Nov 26, 2018 at 16:18 | comment | added | David Hammen | Much better than the accepted answer, but still a bit off. The reason for midcourse corrections is that a spacecraft is always off-course. Always. How much off-course is a different question, and whether that deviation is worthy of correction is yet another question. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Apollo 11 missed the intended landing site by four miles, which was good enough. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 16:32 | comment | added | supercat | I would expect that in some sense the original claim could be accurate if "correct course" is interpreted to mean "a course which would result in its reaching the surface of the moon", since most of the time the LEM would have been attached to the command module which was, of course, never on a course to actually reach the moon's surface since that wasn't its job. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 3:35 | comment | added | supercat | @JanDvorak: A discovery that the craft cannot be relied upon to use its rockets in the intended fashion could cause a need for a course correction to ensure that the craft's actual abilities will suffice to get it where it needs to go. | |
| Jul 25, 2015 at 15:49 | comment | added | John Dvorak | @clockwork depends on the kind of failure. Anything that doesn't make the ship lose mass into space (or to lose mass in a different way than desired) can't change the ship's trajectory either. You can miss a maneuver, accidentally fire less or more or in the wrong direction, but an oxygen tank rupture that doesn't leak air into space doesn't cause a need for a course correction | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 13:46 | comment | added | Clockwork-Muse | @Oddthinking - Well, they still went to the moon, right (and back, thankfully)? The question really only mentioned getting to the moon, after all. If anything, I'd expect a craft with serious issues to need more course corrections, to be off-course more often (whether from just being off in the first place, or having some mid-transfer trouble). So this makes a nice counterpoint to a "no problem" run. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 1:44 | comment | added | Oddthinking♦ | +1, but given Apollo 13 did not go according to plan nor complete its mission, can we meaningfully include it? | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 1:41 | history | edited | Oddthinking♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Inlining links; minor copy-edits.
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| S Apr 29, 2014 at 22:11 | review | Late answers | |||
| Apr 30, 2014 at 0:22 | |||||
| S Apr 29, 2014 at 22:11 | review | First posts | |||
| Apr 29, 2014 at 23:21 | |||||
| Apr 29, 2014 at 21:54 | history | answered | Brendan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |