everything.study
ESD.30

Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System

Graduate · Historical course

Spring 2007

This course is a detailed technical and historical exploration of the Apollo project to "fly humans to the moon and return them safely to earth" as an example of a complex engineering system. Emphasis is on how the systems worked, the technical and social processes that produced them, mission operations, and historical significance. Guest lectures are featured by MIT-affiliated engineers who contributed to and participated in the Apollo missions. Students work in teams on a final project analyzing an aspect of the historical project to articulate and synthesize ideas in engineering systems.

Readings

  • There is a significant amount of reading each week, usually composed of chapters from historical books in addition to one or more technical articles. Students are expected to do the reading before each class, and there will be weekly quizzes on the reading assignments for that week to verify.
    Listed reading
  • Kelly, Thomas. Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. ISBN: 9781560989981.
    Listed reading
  • Cox, Catherine Bly, and Charles Murray. Apollo: The Race to the Moon . Burkittsville, MD: Cox & Murray Inc., 2004. ISBN: 9780976000808.
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, David. Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Six Lunar Landings . Unpublished manuscript.
    Listed reading
  • Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts . New York, NY: Penguin, 2007. ISBN: 9780143112358. (Strongly recommended.)
    Listed reading
  • MacDougall, Walter. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age . New York, NY: Basic Books Inc., 1985. ISBN: 9780465028870.
    Listed reading
  • Kraft, Chris. Flight: My Life in Mission Control . New York, NY: Penguin, 2002. ISBN: 9780452283046.
    Listed reading
  • Kranz, Gene. Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond . Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2001. ISBN: 9780425179871.
    Listed reading
  • Kelly, Thomas. Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. ISBN: 9781560989981.
    Required
  • Cox, Catherine Bly, and Charles Murray. Apollo: The Race to the Moon . Burkittsville, MD: Cox & Murray Inc., 2004. ISBN: 9780976000808.
    Required
  • Mindell, David. Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Six Lunar Landings . Unpublished manuscript.
    Required
  • Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts . New York, NY: Penguin, 2007. ISBN: 9780143112358. (Strongly recommended.)
    Recommended
  • MacDougall, Walter. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age . New York, NY: Basic Books Inc., 1985. ISBN: 9780465028870.
    Recommended
  • Kraft, Chris. Flight: My Life in Mission Control . New York, NY: Penguin, 2002. ISBN: 9780452283046.
    Recommended
  • Kranz, Gene. Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond . Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2001. ISBN: 9780425179871.
    Recommended
  • Dick, Steven J., and Roger D. Launius. “Introduction.” In Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight . ( PDF ) (Courtesy of NASA.) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Whipple, Fred L. “Is There Life on Mars?” Collier’s, April 30, 1954, 21.
    Listed reading
  • Von Braun, Werhner, and Cornelius Ryan. “Can We Get to Mars?” Collier’s, April 30, 1954, 22.
    Listed reading
  • Porco, Carolyn. “NASA Goes Deep.” New York Times, February 20, 2007, 19.
    Listed reading
  • 2 · Apollo as a complex system · Mindell, chapter 1.
    Listed reading
  • Cox and Murray, chapter 1.
    Listed reading
  • Vincenti, Walter G. What Engineers Know and How they Know It . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780801845888.
    Listed reading
  • Launius, Roger. “Interpreting the Moon Landings: Project Apollo and the Historians.” History and Technology 22 (2006): 225-255.
    Listed reading
  • Hughes, Thomas Park. Rescuing Prometheus . New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2000, chapters 1 and 3. ISBN: 9780679739388.
    Listed reading
  • Johnson, Stephen B. The Secret of Apollo . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, chapters 1-2. ISBN: 9780801885426.
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, chapters 2-3.
    Listed reading
  • Cox and Murray, chapters 2 and 6.
    Listed reading
  • Sato, Yasushi. “Local Engineering in the Early American and Japanese Space Programs.” Dissertation; University of Pennsylvania. Chapters 1-2.
    Listed reading
  • McDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1985, chapters 2, 7, and 8. ISBN: 9780465028870.
    Listed reading
  • Kauffman, James Lee. Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo, 1961-1963 . Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1994, chapters 2-3. ISBN: 9780817307479.
    Listed reading
  • Logsdon, John. The Decision to Go to the Moon . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976, chapters 2, 4, and 6. ISBN: 9780226491752.
    Listed reading
  • Webb, and McNamara. “Recommendations for Our National Space Program: Changes, Policies, Goals.” May 8, 1961.
    Listed reading
  • Cox and Murray, chapters 4-5.
    Listed reading
  • Hansen, James. Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept . NASA, 1995.
    Listed reading
  • Seamans, Robert. Apollo: The Tough Decisions . Washington, DC: NASA, 2005, chapter 3. ( PDF - 2.9 MB ) (Courtesy of NASA.) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Cox and Murray, chapters 7-9.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Human Machine Issues in the Soviet Space Program.” Chapter 4 in Critical Issues in the History of Space Flight . Edited by Dick, Steven J., and Roger Launius. Washington, DC: NASA, 2006. ( PDF - 1.0 MB ) (Courtesy of NASA.) ↗
    Listed reading
  • 10 · Gemini and early Apollo engineering · Mindell, chapter 4.
    Listed reading
  • Hall, Eldon C. Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer . Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1996, chapters 4-7. ISBN: 9781563471858.
    Listed reading
  • Nevins, J. L. “Man-Machine Design for the Apollo Guidance, Navigation, and Control System.” Presented at the 2 nd IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Space, Vienna, Austria, September 4-8, 1967.
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, chapters 5-6.
    Listed reading
  • 12 · Astronautical guidance · Battin, R. H. “Some Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Moon.” AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 25 (2002): 1-7.
    Listed reading
  • 13 · Engineering the LEM · Kelley, Moon Lander .
    Listed reading
  • Klumpp, A. R. “A Manually Retargeted Automatic Landing System for the Lunar Module.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 40 (2003): 973-982.
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, chapter 8.
    Listed reading
  • Eyles. “Tales from the Lunar Module Guidance Computer.” Presented to the 27th Annual Guidance and Control Conference of the American Astronautical Society ( AAS ). Breckenridge, CO: February 6, 2004. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, chapter 7.
    Listed reading
  • Cox and Murray, chapters 24-25.
    Listed reading
  • Mindell, chapter 9.
    Listed reading
  • Smith, Michael L. “Selling the Moon: The U.S. Manned Space Program and the Triumph of Commodity Scientism.” In The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980 . Edited by Richard Wightman Foz and T. J. Jackson Lears. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1983. ISBN: 9780394511313.
    Listed reading
  • Kauffman, chapter 4.
    Listed reading
  • 21 · Life support and human factors I · Pitts, John A. The Human Factor . Chapters 1-7. ↗
    Listed reading
Sources