NASA engineer vital to moon landing dies

[walter b]

(04-21-2014 12:48 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  John Houbolt, the engineer at NASA who suggested the method to land men on the moon, died last week. He had the idea to have the connected command module and lunar module go into lunar orbit and then separate, with only the lightweight lunar module landing on the moon. He wrote a letter in 1961 suggesting this method to the incoming NASA administrator, bypassing the traditional chain-of-command.

Interesting times, then: unbroken optimism regarding the future, even high tech meant to be perfectly under control, and all performed with slide rules. Meanwhile, we are a few Columbias, Tchernobyls, and tsunamis further ...

May he rest in peace. Have been heroic times anyway.

d:-I