OT: Shades of Rocky Jones
LeatherGryphon
Posts: 12,091
in The Commons
Well, they finally did it. Rocket came back to Earth and landed on its tail on the floating platform in the ocean. If you don't succeed, try try again.
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One heck of an accomplishment, if you ask me.
Really impressive.
Youtube version:
And for the kiddies in the audience who don't know who Rocky Jones is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePSSkCj8nVc&nohtml5=False
The scene at 24:05 is an example of the landings as envisioned 60+ years ago. Yeah, the show is pretty primitive but it inspired a lot of 7 year old kids like me and I did eventually have my part in the US space program working in the Launch Control Center (LCC).
"... like God and Robert Heinlein intended."
My, how times have changed!
1st picture is the Apollo launch control room during my time, Apollo-Soyuz 1975. 15 inch boob tubes*, boat anchor equipment racks and a sea of men in suit & tie.
2nd picture is Falcon launch control room 2016. Flat displays, lunch tables and a handful of kids in T-shirts.
*Note for the kiddies who think we had big flat screens in 1975. Yeah, we did but they were rear projection screens with a whole room full of equipment & projectors behind them.
I remember Rocky Jones (and Crash Corrigan and many other Buck Rogers knock-offs). Great fun. There seem to be quite a few episodes on youtube..
I've always loved that quote. As to Rocky Jones, I was always more of a Tom Corbett kid.
-- Walt Sterdan
Ah, that's at the Cape, not Houston, is it? I keep forgetting the MCC wasn't right there at the launch site, and that's my mental image when I think "the control room".
Yep! Third floor of the NASA's Launch Control Center (LCC) at the Kennedy Space Center. One of the four Launch Control Rooms along the length of the building facing the launch pad. I worked in a separate computer laboratory along the outside end of the 2nd floor (red ME arrow points to my office/lab area :) The inner middle section of the 2nd floor was a giant computer room with many big-iron computers that controlled the rocket, pad, and control displays upstairs. I didn't have anything directly to do with the launches but was instead involved in experimental tests and studies. However, with my two mini-computers ( a total of 15 feet of 5 foot high racks of equipment) I did help analyze mechanical vibration measurements of the Shuttle's Tail Service Mast (TSM) and measured Shuttle Runway landing radar dissipation patterns, and monitored lightning threats for many launches. It was a fun time for a 28 year old kid.