HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Another fun one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXIDFx74aSY

Until Kennedy radically accelerated the schedule for the first moon landing and set that as a singular goal, the plans for the space program involved almost as much infrastructure building as exploration. Here's a 1955 television program where Wernher von Braun presents an earlier, more complicated plan for a Moon mission, complete with a nuclear-powered toroidal space station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXIDFx74aSY

⬐ reidacdc

That's a great find. A noteworthy (to me) feature was the height of the orbit -- they're at ~1000 miles above the Earth's surface. This indicates that they were unaware of the Van Allen belts, which makes sense, in 1955, no artificial satellites had yet been launched.

Edit: Also noticed the dramatized mission has a "free-return" trajectory, no maneuver required at the moon to get back to Earth.

⬐ philwelch

They also had a lot of enthusiasm for nuclear energy. Apollo itself used fuel cells and the later space stations all used solar power.

⬐ None

None

⬐ mimixco

This video is notable for a couple of reasons. First, it was produced by Walt Disney. Second, it features a prominent Nazi scientist.

That scientist, von Braun, was the principle designer behind the Nazi's rocket program. He was relieved of his duties in the US space program when he started saying that man couldn't reach the moon in one jump using the style of rockets he had invented, the Saturn type which was the basis of all the Apollo missions.

Interesting.