ALSEP: Apollo's Unsung Experiments
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- Опубликовано: 19 июл 2024
- The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) was a modular, automatic system for collecting data on the lunar surface and transmitting it back to earth. Six ALSEP systems were installed on the moon over six successful lunar landings, and the data they returned added immensely to our scientific knowledge of the moon's history, geology, and environment.
0:00 Introduction
0:18 ALSEP Design Requirements + Architecture
2:10 Central Station
2:29 SNAP-27 Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)
4:30 Apollo 11 - Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP)
4:59 Laser Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR)
5:43 Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP) / Passive Science Experiment (PSE)
6:46 Apollo 12 - RTG Fuelling + ALSEP Deployment
9:36 Dust, Thermal, and Radiation Engineering Measurements Experiment (DTREM)
10:00 Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM)
10:10 Solar Wind Spectrometer (SWS)
10:25 Superthermal Ion Detector Experiment (SIDE) + Cold Cathode Ion Gauge (CCIG)
11:42 Apollo 13 - Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (CCGE)
11:57 Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLE)
12:01 Heat Flow Experiment (HFE)
12:27 Apollo 14 - Active Seismic Experiment (ASE)
14:00 Apollo 15+16 Experiments
14:56 Apollo 17 - Heat Flow Experiment (HFE)
15:08 Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (LSPE)
15:47 Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE)
16:00 Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites Experiment (LEAM)
16:37 Lunar Surface Gravimeter (LSG)
17:10 Non-ALSEP Lunar Experiments
18:26 Outro
SOURCES:
www.ninfinger.org/karld/My%20S...
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/exper...
space.stackexchange.com/quest...
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/exper...
darts.isas.jaxa.jp/planet/sei...
www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/exper...
didn't have 'percussive maintinence on the box full of plutonium' on my apollo bingo card
I wonder if they asked before they started hammering the Plutonium 😂
In fairness you'd be hard-pressed to turn the moon into any more of a radiation blasted hellscape than it already is
To be fair it's just a lump of hot metal, not a bomb
@@refindoazhar1507 No it won't explode but: Plutonium is exceptionally toxic as a heavy metal even compared to Lead or Uranium, and 238 is a strong alpha emitter, which means you *really* don't want to ingest or inhale the dust.
Aside from what others said I'm pretty sure that even the pellet on it's own had quite a sturdy casing
I find it poetic how during the most technologically advanced feat then accomplished, they used one of humanity's oldest techniques "hit with hammer until not stuck no more"
im stuck on 'buzz aldrin spent a bunch of time up there basically building flatpak furniture' like no wonder the man punched out that conspiracy loon. man went 300,000 miles to build a KALLAX in a diaper.
The best quote from the Moon must be "That may have been a small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me."
I think so too.
Pete Conrad.
This is the first in-depth discussion of ALSEP that I have ever seen on RUclips. Most authors and presenters discuss it only briefly, yet it was because of science that the program continued for over three years.
A fellow I once worked with years ago made several of the corner reflector cubes for an LRRR array. Turns out they were something that good amateur telescope makes could produce. Remembering that something you made with your own hands sits on the moon, reflecting the occasional laser beam back to earth seems pretty cool.
And will still be in exactly the same spot in a million years. I hope he signed it.
@@sarkybugger5009Unless the Resident on the Moon nick it.....hide it..
Okay moon landing believer.
@@dutchymon it's not a "Belief " it's FACT.
@@andrewpotter5956 Okay moon landing believer.
Very interesting video. I was breathless, as I watched the Apollo 11 landing in my Squadron Day Room at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. I think the Moon landings constituted one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. It's all the more astounding when you consider it was mostly done with slide rules & brilliant, seat of the pants engineering. The Apollo missions are a proud monument to human ingenuity.
I was six years old and watched it live on TV from our home.
I was bit confused because they said it was the first time someone went to the moon but I remembered earlier moon mission. The young brain didn't realize the earlier mission hadn't landed on the moon. It was still an amazing thing to watch.
I can't wait to see a return manned mission to the moon with modern high res cameras. The footage is going to be so surreal and stunning,
minor audio issue at 16:40 ish; the name of the LSG is skipped.
Keep up the good work
My father was a geologist and geophysicist who worked with Gene Shoemaker on the curriculum for teaching the Apollo astronauts geology. He was on the team that help spec the design for the original ALSEP.
In my lap is a two inch thick binder dated August 30, 1964 titled, “Survey of Lunar Surface Measurements, Experiments, and Geologic Studies” prepared by the Science Services Division of TI for NASA. My father was one of the contributing authors.
In an extremely oversimplified nutshell, on October 25, 1963, they wrote to 45 prominent lunar and space scientists and asked, “We’re going to the moon. What experiments do you want us to do when we get there? What will be the mass and size of the equipment and what constraints will the lunar environment and the fact that an astronaut in a bulky space suit has to install it place upon it?”
Twenty-eight scientists responded, all from the end of October to end of November, 1963. Dr. Thomas Gold of Cornell wrote his reply on November 22, 1963. Obviously, he wrote it in the morning because Kennedy was assassinated around noon and the country spent the rest of the day glued to Cronkite.
Considering that this was produced in 1964, I think they were as proud of the computer program they wrote to collate, score and weigh the various responses as they were of anything. Over a quarter of the report is devoted to that.
This book is a treasured family heirloom.
That's terrific! You are a lucky man.
This is more than inspiring to listen to as an engineer designing new parts in AutoCAD. Thanks much! Have a great day
I remember in the 90's visiting the Davis mountains in West Texas and seeing the part of Apollo that still functions where they go out and use some of the telescopes to laser range the moon!!! 🌙🤠👍
It really is remarkable how much scientific data the Apollo missions yielded over such a short time. Sad that so many people have forgotten, or never learned what was done there. Even worse that professional science deniers have made a business of lying about the details, dismissing it as "playing golf and riding dune buggies" or even worse, claiming that nobody went at all.
I mean if you take away all the video evidence, the people that witnessed it live, other countries confirming it (even enemy countries), the scientific equipment that we left there that we still use today, the photographs, and moon samples that we brought back, is there really any evidence that we actually went to the moon?
Your passion for forgotten, yet very important tech at the time is wicked awesome. I still want one of the toy canons. The little one would make a great paperweight 😊
As a kid watching the lunar landings and EVAs, I had no idea that they were setting up all those experiments. Thanks!
Thank you for this video! I'm an instrumentation scientist, and I never knew about most of these experiments. I didn't know they did active seismology on the moon, and I certainly didn't know they took mortars to the moon!
I also have much sympathy for both the astronauts and the instrument designers who experienced the failures of experiments. We too had an experiment on a helicopter fail due to cables being accidentally yanked out.
Which field are you in?
@@Astronetics My training is in instrumental chemical analysis, but I've mostly worked in geophysics.
Japan even took pretty much an anti tank weapon to an asteroid. Hayabusa-2 had an impactor which used a small Explosively Formed Penetrator to expose materia froml below the surface.
It's only over this weekend I'd collected some photos from Apollo missions, so good timing for this video!
wow, this the best breaking down of the moon trips. GOOD JOB
According to those scientifically challenged individuals this was supposedly done in a TV studio ! . The public had little information at the time of these experiments. Thank for posting.
Actually the missions were on live TV, with hours of air time devoted to showing all of the various systems, including the experiments. Many, many people all over the world watched them. In addition, periodicals and newspapers covered the events. A lot of special editions of some periodicals were devoted entirely to the moon missions. I was a child back then, and watched it all. In school, classes were canceled and we all watched the TV coverage. It was a long time ago, and as a child, I wasn't that scientifically literate, but I sure remember how many hours were spent on showing how each and every package worked during the long periods when no "interesting" radio traffic was happening. The information was there, but people had to make time to watch or read it all.
Starting at about 12:48 in this video:
_"Thumper"?_ They were trying to find _Lunar Sandworms._ 😉
{Great video, Gilles...👍}
I had no idea they brought mortars to the moon. Great video, Gilles. One of your best.
Regarding the discovery the Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth at the rate of 3.8 centimeters per year, since the end of the Apollo program in 1972 to now [2024] the Moon has drifted about 197.6 centimeters further away from Earth {if I did the math right}.
Not particularly Earth-shattering, but still fascinating.
Didn't realize what was really done there on the moon,Thumbs up,great video
wow. very glad to find your channel -well done - super interesting - things i did not know about. 👍👍
I never knew they used RTGs on the moon. Great video.
Fantastic video, Gilles. I'd really be interested in a video on the lunar rover itself as well.
Thanks for this. As a kid then I never knew.
I grew up during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo era. I had not realized until this that the active Lunar experiments were power by a SNAP thermal generator. Fantastic overview.
Apollo astronauts were carrying Plutonium on there mission to the moon. I love the 60s
Thanks for a great look into the experiments conducted on the moon. Fascinating.
Fascinating! I hadn't learned any of this before. THANKS
Very cool video brother thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise
Fascinating.
Good work !
5:43 they function because all they got to do is reflect.
Thank you.
From what I recall, some of the instruments were made by different countries.
Set up a multimillion dollar experiment
Trip over a cable and render it useless
Literally the story of my entire work life
So many abbreviations!
Feels like Curiousmarc should make a cameo
14:44 Today I learned: the surface of the moon has UXO (unexploded ordnance) left behind. 🤔
Great video! Very, very interesting. Didn't know they fired mortars on the moon.
I had no idea they set off so many bombs on the moon!
So, the simple reflectometers provided the best results of all the equipment. The KISS principle triumphs once more.
Nearly there Gilles ;-)
Never knew the details of the moon tests.
Usually when you do a story on a device I will go to Ebay and try to buy one. E.G. The Minox spy camera. I cannot find a used ALSEP set !? Can you believe it;;? Great viddy!
Try finding that RTG!
Yoooo they made dune thumpers real.
the Government sure does love their acronyms lol
The Ameicans bring mortars to the moon! Thats priceless!
Could you cover the 150+ Apollo Lunar Surface images that showed stars?
Thanks as always. Sorry to point out an editing flub: the archival footage around 4:08 is in the the wrong aspect ratio. This is common with archival footage and is lamentable, need to be careful. When done deliberately, I can't even..... There's no excuse. 😅
Acronym overload!
I wonder if someone will eventually go recover the RTG in the ocean!
Could you do a video about the world’s least accurate measurement reference: the human hair?
Firstly; an excellent presentation.
Secondly; I'm annoyed that, yet again, after spending 10 minutes researching and writing a comment regarding the technicalities of Project Apollo that had zero contention or problematic language my comment was removed! There is no incentive to add comments to your videos if you or more probably RUclips are deleting them!
It is a waste of time to write long comments on RUclips, because the risk is so high that either the RUclips algoritm or the creator's "banned word list" somehow decides your comment has to be removed.
@@Rob2
Lesson learned! Thanks.
be sure to avoid links, these are almost always banned.
After that superb presentation, I had a problem. My brain really, really hurt. What happened to the gum molecular regurgitating tritium powered sock dispenser ?
Notification Squad!!! :D
870 years? Not my problem. 4:00
After 870 years, Pu-238 has had 10 half-lives, so only 1/2^10 or 1/1024 of the original Pu-238, a few grams is still intact, most of the rest has decayed to lead.
but didnt you know? the us didnt go to the moon. they hired stanley kubrik to film the lunar landings. but he was such a perfectionist he demanded a location shoot........
I know(believe) we/they went there. They had a car and played golf and picked up some rocks and crashed shit into the moon. That echoed for an unusually long time l
Yes, I'm just wondering what kind of experiment they led out there that resulted in pieces of petrified wood. Must have been pretty advanced stuff.
@@joseoncrack There's the "experiment" that resulted in pieces of petrified wood.
In 1969, J. W. Middendorf II, US ambassador to the Netherlands, gave a present to a former Dutch prime minister, Willem Drees, during the world tour of the Apollo 11 astronauts following their historic mission. The item is a large, reddish rock fragment. The card that accompanies it says it's a gift to commemorate the visit of the Apollo 11 astronauts. The card does not claim that this is a lunar rock sample. The Netherlands did not receive any lunar rock samples during this tour, they were presented later.
When Drees died in 1988, the item was donated to the Rijksmuseum.
In 2006, two Dutch artists found it in the museum stores and decided to claim this was a lunar rock sample. People who saw the exhibit quickly concluded that that label was incorrect, and informed the museum. The museum had the object examined and that confirmed this was not a lunar rock, but a piece of petrified wood.
Nice information thank you. Did you watch live apollo websites. it has full voice recording of eva activities.
when can i get that sick flatpak RTG at IKEA and what's the swedish name for it
16:41 Sound drops out.
The audio cut at 10:15
not many people know, that 1 of those sets, the astronaughts actually fire real live mortars and ammunition to test multiple things at once.. as a military guy, who has fred mortars.. i think that is cool they brought a 60 mm one to the moon!
No one went to the moon,so it's okay lol
@@jeffdroog Don't be silly!
@@jeffdroog I understand it's frustrating to not be able to envision something so grand and cool. Though sadly some people are not bestowed with the intellect to do so, I'm sure you're very dedicated to your belief though.
I wish our planet that active seismology would be the only purpose and Moon the only place for mortars to fire
Seriously, I listen to Space Rocket History since the beginning but was still surprised how many times it was done or intended.
@bower31 I can envision it,I just haven't been shown any proof lol Stuff is on the moon,that doesn't mean people put it there.Did we send humans to set up the Mars rover? Nope lol It's not really necessary to send humans there,so why would it make sense we did? Or even that there's literally no real proof that couldn't have been attained solely on earth.
2:30 Why would there be dust accumulation on solar panels on the Moon?
1. regular impacts throwing up dust
2. electrostatic levitation of small particles
@@zounds010 OK, so "The footprints will remain for thousands of years" is BS?
@@mumiemonstret It is... well, they may still be recognizable as footprints much like dinosaur footprints are recognizable in some places, but the fine detail of the impression in the dust likely is already gone.
"resident LSEPer"
Like every other guy, I wonder how they handled the radiation.
3.8 kg of PLUTONIUM! what's that, the size of a ping pong ball?
Almost ;) it's 0.2 litres, so slightly smaller than a soda can.
At 17:54 we see the proof that the landings were staged and actually shot on Earth. Joking of course. Excellent presentation Gilles as always.
RTEGs are hideously inefficient. 1200W to 30W out, meh. Too bad they didnt have good heterojunction semiconductor material that could withstand direct conversion of radiation in the bandgap.
aeiouaeiou John Madden
Literally no reason to send humans back to the moon. None.
Lucky we stopped going there or the whole place would look like a junkyard by now
... нелетали.
I have a? We have been told for decades We don't know what is on the dark side of the moon on 4/8/24 that side of the moon was in full daylight I want to know what satellites were up there and what did they see🤔🤔🤔
There is no "dark side of the moon". The moon experiences sunrise/sunset just like earth, only a "day" takes about 29 earth days.
There is a "near side" and a "far side", the moon always has the same side towards earth. But that has nothing to do with dark or light.
@@Rob2 Then how come the government don't show us what is on the far side of the moon
UMMMM it is only called the dark side because we cannot see it. There are many images of the dark side
@@detroitredneckdetroitredne6674 Dont be a mong head all the time ! JUST LOOK there are thousands of pictures sheesh
Unbelievable that RUclips shows comments like "the government don't show us" while they delete my reply about LRO.
Can't understand your speech. Would be great if you announce better!
Disney
nope, reality.
@@zounds010 Stanley Kubrick. 154 takes. 😅
@@NoManClatuer-pd8ck The footage we see in this video, of the Apollo astronauts deploying the ALSEP etc. shows they are in 1/6 g gravity and in a vacuum.
We can't replicate 1/6 g gravity on Earth.
@@zounds010 Like many other Gen X'rs I don't buy that a flying beer can with a little foil and foam insulation traversed the Van Allen belt radiation and is unable to do so now. I don't believe we "lost" the technology to get there over the past 50 years. I've been to Kennedy, I've seen that flying go-kart they call a mercury capsule, I believe that made a low to mid earth orbit but beyond STS I'm extremely skeptical. Will your generation see a manned moon mission? I doubt it. Our government has been selling that PR piece for over 30 years.
Could the Apollo missions have been compartmentalized? If we classified the Manhattan project from most of the world, I think so. Still, the technology is great to see.
The aerospace industry's tactical to practical pay off has been substantial. I like 'razzing' the moonshot crowd. I hope you aren't offended. I could be wrong, or stupid or both. Still, I believe, even more so, that RUclips does our society a significant injustice in censorship.
@@NoManClatuer-pd8ck Your opinion of the LM is based on a lack of research. "a little foil and foam insulation" is the kind of words the moon landing deniers use to disparage the LM design. What they don't tell you is what's underneath the flimsy-looking exterior: the structure of the LM was aircraft aluminium. The ascent module had a pressure hull: an aluminium cylinder very similar to an aircraft fuselage.
They also don't tell you WHY the exterior looked flimsy: it looked flimsy because it _could_ look flimsy. The LM was never going to operate inside an atmosphere, so there was no need to make the exterior aerodynamic. The exterior was not a stuctural part, so it did not have to be structurally strong. the exterior only had one job: thermal insulation (for the insulation foil on the descent module) and micrometeoroid protection (for the ascent stage).
EXCEPT WE NEVER LANDED ON THE MOON
Go ahead and prove it being a huge conspiracy for no damn reason
The more I see ... The stupider it all looks ...
Stop looking in the mirror then.
Bruh it is real.
The same people who say this also look at crypto and think it's the future
@@bower31no.
@@bower31 Hu ? I thought it would be gullible people that would fall for the Crypto Scam ?
There's now more evidence available that noone went the than did. And you cannot provide evidence they did.
You have an odd notion of what constitutes evidence.
We can shine lasers at the retro reflectors and they come back directly. How do you explain that they got there if we never went to the moon
Well, actually, in the time period the ALSEP experiments were active, they were received on S-band by amateur radio operators.
The Moon landings were as much a political race as a scientific project, you can be sure that Russia tracked the spacecraft every inch of the way, any fakery would have been headline news in Pravda! We also have pictures of the landing sites taken from Lunar orbit
"noone went the than did" What?
All these failures but made it there first try no problems
Yeah right
Which is EXACTLY they tried the ideas ! Honestly is that the best you have . Oh and of course you forget Apollo 1 and 13
Every Apollo mission had at least one critical moment where abort or worse was narrowly avoided. From broken switches, computer overload while landing, to lightning strikes during launch, etc etc.
Before Apollo 11, there were 29 unmanned missions, more than half of which failed. Then the entire Gemini program to test essential procedures in Earth orbit. Then 6 unmanned Apollo missions and 4 manned missions that tested the entire flight except for the actual touchdown.