APOLLO KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER Preserving and Transferring the Apollo Legacy to a New Generation

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APOLLO KNOWLEDGE TRANSFERPreserving and
Transferring the Apollo Legacy to a New Generation

• Charles A. Lundquist, UAH
• Dennis Wingo, Skycorp

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APOLLO KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

• A perplexing issue is how to convey knowledge and
  experience from the Apollo Program in a way that
  is effectively helpful to the present teams
  planning return missions to the Moon.
• The transfer is particularly difficult because an
  interval of some forty years must be bridged and
  there is little personnel continuity.

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COOPERATION

• Obviously, the effective transfer of Apollo know
  how will not be accomplished by any single
  entity.
• Cooperation between national agencies, private
  companies, universities, libraries and other
  entities will be required.

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ONLINE INFORMATION ACCESS

• Present lunar team members have grown up in the
  era of computer data bases.
• They are skilled at accessing online data.
• One obvious aid to them is to provide Apollo
  knowledge and experience in computer searchable
  data bases.

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OBJECTIVES OF THE UAH EFFORT

• An acknowledged role of any university is to
  provide a repository of knowledge and to convey
  that knowledge.
• The University of Alabama in Huntsville, UAH,
  accepts a particular responsibility to preserve
  and transfer space knowledge.
• The UAH Archives and Special Collections play a
  principal role in this function.
• Online access to the collections is a crucial
  policy decision.

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UAH ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

• Record collections for space programs
• Selected space books and journals
• Memoirs of space participants
• Video and oral history recordings

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PERTINENT LUNAR PROGAM COLLECTIONS

• Saturn V - catalog online
• Apollo Missions - processing
• Lunar Roving Vehicle - catalog online
• Group for Lunar Exploration Planning -
• 
  processing
• Online at http//lib.uah.edu/
• then click Digital Archives

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GROUP FOR LUNAR EXPLORATION PLANNING

• GLEP established in 1967
• Initial membership, Aug 1967
• W.N.Hess,chair E.King P.Gast
  J. Arnold
• E.Shoemaker R.Jahns F.Press
  C.Lundquist
• M. Calvin F.Johnson D.Williams
  N.Roman
• P.Culbertson R.Allenby M.Faget
  W.Stoney
• H.Gartrell H.Schmitt
  
• Met frequently to recommend sites and objectives
  for Apollo missions

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VIDEO INTERVIEWS AND TALKS

• 1980s interviews with von Braun team members
• 2006-7 interviews with other early team members
  (some 70 to date)
• Various forums, commemorations and public events
• Online at http//lib.uah.edu/
• then click Digital Archives,
• then click Oral Histories Collections

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FACTORS FOR APOLLO SUCCESSDistilled from Oral
Histories

• Unequivocal political and popular support
• Adequate budget
• Recognized skillful leadership
• Experienced team
• Feasible plan
• Schedule discipline
• Commitment to testing
• Open personal communications

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UPDATED STANDARD FORMAT

• An issue faced by all archives is that most old
  records exist in print form. The task of
  scanning to modern electronic format is labor
  intensive and sometimes destructive to the
  original documents
• An archiving entity has the task of transforming
  records into a current format that facilitates
  online access.

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UPDATING ELECTRONIC RECORDS

• There are very few surviving electronic records
  from the Apollo era. Those that survive are in
  obsolete digital or analog formats. Also the
  machines that originally recorded them do not
  exist or have not been functional in decades.
• Dedicated efforts must be undertaken by skilled
  engineers and retirees originally involved to
  recover these data sets.

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LUNAR ORBITER Analog Tapes , AN EXAMPLE

• Lunar Orbiter Highest Resolution Images Recorded
  on 2 inch Analog Tape
• Tape Drives are 40 years old and have not
  operated in over 20 years.
• Equatorial Images have 1-Meter Resolution Equal
  to NASA LRO 2009 Mission

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LUNAR ORBITER IMAGE RECOVERY

• A cooperative project between NASA Ames, UAH, and
  Skycorp to refurbish Ampex FR-900 tape drives to
  digitize original Lunar Orbiter data.
• These data exists in lower resolution form at
  USGS but in 40 years the original high resolution
  data has not been downloaded.
• The LO Recovery effort will begin this summer.
  Original analog data tapes archived by GSFC/JPL
  have been transferred to Ames. Tape drives
  preserved by a foresighted retiree have been
  transferred to Ames as well.

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LUNAR ORBITER VALUE TO CURRENT SCIENCE

• Lunar Orbiter was NASAs first planetary mapping
  mission.
• Lunar Orbiter provides baseline for study of
  recent impacts for 1 to 1 comparison to LRO
  Images
• (Image at lower left 1 meter resolution Chit
  digitized from tapes in 60s of boulder tracks
  from rolling downhill)

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LUNAR CRATER INVESTIGATIONSOne example of the
use of high resolution images

• Crater and ejecta processes are major mechanisms
  on the lunar surface
• Recent craters are interesting as sites for
  future visits.
• Recent craters identified by brightness and
  through observations over time.
• Telescope detection of impact flashes have been
  made over history and continue currently
• One historic crater is identified where L. H.
  Stuart photographed an event on the moon in 1956

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REVIEWS

• Besides online access to original literature,
  another aid to present lunar team members is
  recourse to comprehensive surveys and reviews of
  earlier experience and understanding.
• A number of useful reviews have been prepared,
  and can be accessible online.

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A TYPICAL RECENT REVIEW

• Lunar Outpost Development and the Role of
  Mechanical Systems for Payload Handling by
  Skycorp Inc. Feb. 10, 2007 112 pages
• Authors Dennis Ray Wingo, Gordon Woodcock, and
  Mark Maxwell

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Value of Archiving Apollo Era Data Today

• The Apollo era datasets, documents, and science
  process can provide the USA valuable insights as
  well as guidance on where to maximize results
  from the return to the Moon.
• Providing this online via professional archival
  methods brings an orderly and timely resource to
  the nation today and for future generations

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ASSESSMENT

• Given the scope of past, present and future lunar
  programs, and recognizing the large number of
  organizations involved, the information
  preservation and transfer task is indeed a
  challenging social and technological problem.