|
Track, Model 2 and Model 1, the 20-foot sphere. Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. It was a complex project that cost nearly $2 million dollars. James Hansen wrote: "This simulator was designed to provide a pilot with a detailed visual encounter with the lunar surface; the machine consisted primarily of a cockpit, a closed-circuit TV system, and four large murals or scale models representing portions of the lunar surface as seen from various altitudes. The pilot in the cockpit moved along a track past these murals which would accustom him to the visual cues for controlling a spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon. Unfortunately, such a simulation--although great fun and quite aesthetic--was not helpful because flight in lunar orbit posed no special problems other than the rendezvous with the LEM, which the device did not simulate. Not long after the end of Apollo, the expensive machine was dismantled." (p. 379) From Ellis J. White, "Discussion of Three Typical Langley Research Center Simulation Programs," Paper presented at the Eastern Simulation Council (EAI's Princeton Computation Center), Princeton, NJ, October 20, 1966. "The model system is designed so that a television camera is mounted on a camera boom on each transport cart and each cart system is shared by two models. The cart's travel along the tracks represents longitudinal motion along the plane of a nominal orbit, vertical travel of the camera boom represents latitude on out-of-plane travel, and horizontal travel of the camera boom represents altitude changes." Published in James R. Hansen, Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo, (Washington: NASA, 1995), p. 379.
Description
Track, Model 2 and Model 1, the 20-foot sphere. Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. It was a complex project that cost nearly $2 million dollars. James Hansen wrote: "This simulator was designed to provide a pilot with a detailed visual encounter with the lunar surface; the machine consisted primarily of a cockpit, a closed-circuit TV system, and four large murals or scale models representing portions of the lunar surface as seen from various altitudes. The pilot in the cockpit moved along a track past these murals which would accustom him to the visual cues for controlling a spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon. Unfortunately, such a simulation--although great fun and quite aesthetic--was not helpful because flight in lunar orbit posed no special problems other than the rendezvous with the LEM, which the device did not simulate. Not long after the end of Apollo, the expensive machine was dismantled." (p. 379) From Ellis J. White, "Discussion of Three Typical Langley Research Center Simulation Programs," Paper presented at the Eastern Simulation Council (EAI's Princeton Computation Center), Princeton, NJ, October 20, 1966. "The model system is designed so that a television camera is mounted on a camera boom on each transport cart and each cart system is shared by two models. The cart's travel along the tracks represents longitudinal motion along the plane of a nominal orbit, vertical travel of the camera boom represents latitude on out-of-plane travel, and horizontal travel of the camera boom represents altitude changes." Published in James R. Hansen, Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo, (Washington: NASA, 1995), p. 379.
Description
|
