Author here if anyone has questions about obscure 1960s technology...
It's sometimes fun to imagine the alternative reality where miniaturization never happened and spaceflight is forced to use low-tech navigation aids - precise clock, periscopes, reticles, slide rules, nomograms. (and communication with the flight control center which does the bulk of the computational work)
Excellent book on this topic.
Do you think there was any kind of primitive authentication of the received PSK signal? Even something as simple validating a preamble against a hard-code bit sequence?
For the range safety officer's destruct control, NASA did use cryptographic security because they wanted to make sure the Russians couldn't blow up the spacecraft. This was an entirely separate system. The control unit used a secret plug that encoded the "key", that was installed just before launch so nobody could spoof the command.
What was this? Never heard of it. Anywhere I can read about it? It was a remote controlled destruct??
[1] See https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap10fj/pdf/19700015780_as-505-a... pages 14-15.
And yes the rockets had shape charges in each stage which can be activated to destroy the rocket in a controlled fashion. If you have a rocket gone haywire, it's better to jettison the crew capsule to safety and do a controlled demolition, to prevent the rocket from flying out of control and crashing into structures or people on the ground.
This is also why rocket launch sites tend to be coastal locations with ocean to the east - there's a lot less valuable stuff under their flight path.
A more general question - What's the hardest part about reverse engineering technology from the 1960's and such, from your experience?
Cheers from a former Avionics Technician. Keep up the good work, and love your blog.
Another hard part is things that are encased in epoxy or welded shut. In this case I used X-rays but its generally a problem.
Overall, the main secret of reverse engineering old stuff is to spend way more time on it than an sensible person would.
quote of the week.
so many things have been laid bare to me by just putting in the time. even just staring at the thing(s) will often help me realize something important, somehow.
A more serious question: why'd you use an X-ray instead of cracking one open?