Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tdn
The first question is one I think I alreay know the answer to, but I have never heard anyone actually say it, so here goes: When the CM turned around and extracted the LM, did they bring everything to a full stop first? Or did they do so while still hurtling along at great speeds?
|
Unsure of what you mean. But it unfortunately sounds Aristolian. The S-IVB did the trans-Lunar injection burn and the space vehicle (CSM-SLA-S-IVB) was travelling at high speed (24,000mph) relative to Earth. By the time of TD&E, they had obviously slowed due to the nature of their orbit, but they were still travelling at a high speed relative to Earth. But this matters not, because the maneuvers of the CSM during TD&E were slow, about a few feet per second relative to the S-IVB. So, if you were sitting on the S-IVB, you'd see the CSM moving very slowly and carefully, but if you were on Earth, you see them hurtling away at phenominal speed.
You can't really bring everything to a full stop. There is no such thing. Relativity does away with it. If you mean full stop relative to Earth, this would be very difficult and stupid considering they'd begin falling directly to the centre of the planet. It's also unnecessary since as far as TD&E was concerned, speeds were slow anyway, because we are only concerned about speeds relative to objects involved in the procedure.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tdn
Second question: The onboard computer had readouts in two columns marked "noun" and "verb." Wassem? Are those like command and argument? Was it, like, some crazy Mac thing?
|
A noun was an item of data. A verb was a process.