Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained

If you want to learn about the evolution and operation of Mission Control, "Failure Is Not an Option"[1] by Gene Kranz (Ed Harris in Apollo 13) is fantastic.

For more Apollo geekery, check out "Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module" [2] by Thomas J. Kelly, the Grumman Program Manager. His guidelines for making the LM reliable are just as relevant today:

* Specify the highest quality systems and components the current state of the art could achieve.

* Provide system-level redundancy whenever possible, preferably by dissimilar means...

* Provide component-level redundancy at the highest component level possible...

* Strive for simplicity and ample design safety margins.

* Test extensively and exhaustively in various environments and stress levels, including stress to failure. Document all failures and investigate until the specific cause is found and design, manufacturing, or operational corrections have been made.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spac...

In the mid90s, I got a short tour of mission control through the IBM project manager that was redoing the control stations into modern workstations. (At that time, IBM's role at JSC had shrunk to a faint shadow of its former glory, but that is a much longer story.) The most shocking thing I learned was that all those mission control consoles were not static systems. Many (most?) of those consoles had major changes during each mission. Today, of course, we would just update some software to change indicator light/display label as needed during a mission. But back then, as soon as launch was over the engineers were crawling under the consoles, re-wiring many indicators to their new display functions for the next mission phase, putting new labels on the consoles, etc. I got an entirely new appreciation for the engineering requirements of mission control.

I can unreservedly recommend the book "How Apollo Flew to the Moon":

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apollo-Springer-Praxis-Books-Explora...

Really cool article.

I wanted to list a book I have, Computers in Space by James E Tomayko, covering hardware and UI of Apollo & Gemini, also hardware breakdown of Viking and others. Lot's of photos and a very interesting read. I looked on Amazon but didn't see it, not sure if it's out of print.

I'm amazed at the video generation and projection technology that was available to NASA in the late 60s. That's pretty powerful stuff when color broadcast TV was still in its infancy and computer graphics were barely even heard of.

CAPCOM the company is named after that console?

Guess not, shame. http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/company/name.html

I always thought about the engineering complexities of sending someone to the moon that I overlooked the operational aspects of managing such a trip. This article was enlightening.

Amazing, but this is a perfect example of something that I don't want to pore over on a computer screen -- would be so nice to have it, with a better layout on nice cardstock

Interesting to see two of the four rows devoted to managers.

I was lead to believe that those screens were just used to monitor TV ratings!