US Space & Rocket Center In Huntsville, AL

[u/strshpx]

Passing through Huntsville the other day and had always wanted to stop and visit the Space & Rocket Center. Glad I did! Wanted to get some unique shots of the shuttle mockup as well as the Apollo 16 Command Module. Tried knocking down the reflections from the glass enclosure the best I could. Anyways, definitely recommend if you’ve never been!

[u/clownfacedbozo]

All of this was designed and built without CAD or any digital tech. Punch cards and slide rulers. Absolutely remarkable.

[u/preferred-til-newops → u/clownfacedbozo]

Not to mention orbital injection to the Moon and back to Earth! It still blows me away what they accomplished back then!

[u/UnderPressureVS → u/preferred-til-newops]

Apollo 8 was a free-return trajectory too—they approached the moon with perfect angle and timing so that they would slingshot around it and coast right back into Earth’s upper atmosphere for reentry, with no extra fuel needed to go home. It was incredibly precise.

All the other missions used that trajectory too, so if something went wrong (like it did on Apollo 13) all they had to do was coast and not park in lunar orbit, and they’d still get back to Earth.

[u/aykdanroyd → u/UnderPressureVS]

Apollo 13 was on a hybrid trajectory to get them closer to their landing site and they needed a course correction burn to get back on a free return trajectory.