In 1969, the United States achieved a remarkable space goal in human history - a manned landing on the moon.
Although the United States has now lost the scientific and technological capability of manned lunar landing, and the public is now generally skeptical of the lunar landing, the NASA space agency of the United States has not publicly revealed or clarified the truth of the facts.
It is said that the manned lunar landing program used a computer with only 4 KB of system memory.
Can you imagine? The memory of our mobile phones and computers has reached the level of gigabytes, and 4KB is not even able to save a photo.
And those American aerospace researchers relied on computers with such small memory to complete the so-called miracle of the moon landing. What's going on here? Let's uncover it together.
1. The moon landing program under the Cold War
In the shadow of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in fierce competition in the field of space. In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by successfully launching the first artificial satellite in human history, Sputnik 1, and later sending the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into space.
In order to prove that its scientific and technological strength is stronger than that of the Soviet Union, the United States decided to put forward the "Apollo program," that is, a manned lunar landing program. As a result, the United States organized NASA's scientific research personnel and began to find ways to carry out scientific and technological exploration of the "Apollo Program" for several years.
The Apollo program was to spend the next decade of exploration not only to get people safely to the surface of the moon, but also to ensure their safe return to Earth.
The true appearance of the Moon, its surface conditions, and whether its environment posed a threat to humanity were unknown at the time.
At that time, space technology was still in its infancy, how to design a rocket that could withstand huge thrust? How to ensure the safety of astronauts' lives in space? At that time, no one knew how to solve these problems.
The Apollo program also required a lot of financial support, and the entire program cost a huge amount of $26 billion, or 0.6% of the GDP of the United States at the time.
In order to raise funds, the U.S. government issued Treasury bonds and attracted private investment, racking its brains to complete the plan.
Moreover, in the context of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent spy agents to the United States to inquire about intelligence, and the implementation of the Apollo program was also interfered with and obstructed by Soviet spies.
After unremitting efforts, the United States finally realized the Apollo program on July 20, 1969. On that day, astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on lunar soil, becoming the first astronaut in human history to set foot on the moon.
On the moon, he gazed at this strange land, and then, his words, through the silence of space, were transmitted back to Earth: "This small step, for me, is insignificant, but for all mankind it symbolizes a great leap. ”
From 1969 to 1972, the United States successfully carried out six manned missions to the moon, and a total of 12 astronauts set foot on the land of the moon, and also conducted a large number of scientific investigations and experiments on the moon.
In short, the Apollo program allowed the United States to give the Soviet Union a heavy blow in the space race, proving that it is a space power. So, how did the Apollo rockets carry out their mission to send astronauts to the moon safely?
Second, the computer for the moon landing
In fact, it is not only humans who accurately perform the mission, but also computers as tools, and the computer on the Apollo rocket, with only 4 KB of memory, completed the mission.
The name of this computer is called the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), and it can be said that if this machine fails, the consequences will be unimaginable, and the astronauts will die in space.
At the time, moon-landing rockets needed a computer that could precisely control the rocket's launch system and be fault-free in space, all of which meant scientists had to start from scratch.
As a result, the laboratory under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States was launched, which specialized in the study of space technology and manned space technology, and the level was no lower than that of the Soviet space laboratory.
Time was of the essence, and the lab's scientists needed to quickly determine the design of the computer, and after time discussion, they worked out some scales for the computer.
First of all, such a computer must be small and light to reduce the burden on the rocket, its dimensions should be controlled within 1 cubic foot (about 0.03 cubic meters), and its weight should not exceed 70 pounds (about 32 kilograms).
The computer also needs to be responsive, able to process multiple pieces of data, complete complex calculations and instructions, and reduce the probability of errors and delays, and then the researchers will need to achieve a speed of 40,000 operations per second, a memory capacity of 4 KB, and a storage capacity of 36 KB to meet the requirements.
In addition, the computer must be able to run stably, without malfunction and paralysis, after all, it is impossible for an astronaut to repair machinery, and it is impossible to take a maintenance person into space.
Computers must be able to function in temperatures ranging from -50 to 85 degrees Celsius, as well as radiation interference.
The computer should also be able to communicate with ground personnel in space, complete various tasks while the rocket is flying, and complete instructions through the press of buttons.
In short, these requirements had to be met, and the researchers thought hard to complete the design of the computer, and at the same time succeeded in realizing the innovation of the computer.
Later, during the manned landing on the moon, it completed the mission brilliantly, without malfunctioning and with great responsiveness.
So, since these equipment and tools for the manned landing on the moon have been made public, why do anyone still suspect that the lunar landing program is fake?
3. Was the moon landing fake?
In recent decades, there have been endless discussions about the authenticity of the American moon landing, and not only the public on the mainland has studied it carefully, but even the Americans themselves have been skeptical about the Apollo program.
Former U.S. Navy officer Bill Casein's 1976 book "We Never Been to the Moon: America's $30 Billion Scam" brought the conspiracy theories of the moon landing to a climax.
Later, in 1994, the United States conducted its own polls, and nearly 10% of people did not believe that a manned landing on the moon was real.
This is very embarrassing, what American scientists do themselves, Americans themselves feel tired. In fact, it is not unreasonable to suspect that the moon landing is fake, because the phenomena and problems in it are too incredible.
In January 1967, Apollo 1 suffered a fire during ground tests, killing three astronauts, and Apollo 7 successfully landed on the moon on October 11, 1968, less than nine months later.
Later, Apollo 8 flew around the moon for the first time, Apollo 9 achieved the first docking in space, and Apollo 11 successfully landed a man on the moon. The progress was so fast that the Soviet Union was silent.
There are also some strange photos and materials left at that time, some people say that the cosmic photo has no other stars except the earth and the sun, the surrounding is pitch black, the distance between the earth and the moon is 400,000 kilometers, and the communication delay is almost none.
In addition, the Apollo rocket's mechanical design blueprints, development drawings, telemetry tapes, and the original first Apollo 11 video footage could not be found, as if it had evaporated.
The mainland's Yutu lunar rover landed on the moon, and the rutted imprints of the Yutu lunar rover are completely different from the ruts of Apollo's footprints and the lunar rover, which also adds another fire to the conspiracy theory.
What is the truth? The United States has not said anything, but a few weeks ago, the United States announced that it would return to the moon for everyone to see, which was really eye-opening.
4. The United States returns to the moon?
A few years ago, the United States wanted to land on the moon again and become the space power it used to be, but the project dragged on for many years, Congress did not approve it, did not get the start-up funds, and private fundraising did not want to give money as much as before.
Now that the United States has seen China's Chang'e-6 landing on the moon to collect lunar soil, it has always been thinking about it and wants to borrow it from us for research, but unfortunately we just won't give it to us.
Why? That's because the U.S. has previously passed something called the Wolf Clause, which prohibits any joint scientific research between the U.S. and China that is related to NASA or coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
When the United States signed this clause, China's aerospace development was still in its infancy, so the United States felt that the mainland would not be able to develop its space industry no matter what, but what is surprising is that China has made rapid progress in the past 10 years or so, gradually realizing its aerospace dream, while the United States has lost its own space capability.
At this moment, the United States lifted a stone to hit itself in the foot, and it did not expect to sanction itself, and it originally wanted to sanction China, but it did not expect to sanction itself.
In 2020, NASA launched a constellation program with the goal of sending humans to the moon again by 2020 to collect lunar samples.
However, the US military-industrial complex was not happy and passively sabotaged the implementation of the plan, resulting in the delay of the progress of the mission.
In the end, NASA decided to go to the moon in 2027, and the mainland decided to go up in 2030, I don't know if the United States will postpone the mission by then, I hope that China will successfully land on the moon by then, and the United States will still be on the surface.
Maybe at that time, the United States will find that it will not be able to complete the mission, and if it wants to come to China to rub the rocket spacecraft, it will make people laugh off their big teeth.
The United States is no longer the United States of the Cold War, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strength of the American space industry has stalled and even regressed with the prevalence of neoliberalism.
Although the 4KB computer of the Apollo rocket at that time was indeed very powerful, but now that technology continues to develop, computers have larger memory, why can't the United States go to the moon? Perhaps the answer to this question will be left to the Americans themselves.