For all of you NASA Apollo Mission geeks, download the instruction book

[Snattlerake]

NASA SP 287

Download and read how they did it. It's condensed down to 75 pages and written in plain English with hardly any doctorate level speak.

They had backups to backups. There were 5 procedures to lift off from the moon including going back outside the LEM with bolt cutters cutting the exploding straps that didn't explode to let the ascent stage go.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19720005243.pdf
How I came upon it

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

Cool...

 

[DRC458]

Very nice. Thanks! My son's gotta' have this. He is definitely a NASA Apollo Mission geek!!! His grandad worked for NASA in Houston for a time back in the '70's.

 

[Snattlerake]

Very nice. Thanks! My son's gotta' have this. He is definitely a NASA Apollo Mission geek!!! His grandad worked for NASA in Houston for a time back in the '70's.

My first wife's father helped to develop the LEM.

 

[Shadowrider]

My first wife's father helped to develop the LEM.

Last machine shop job I had we had a customer that made the engine nozzles on all the LEMs. That’s what we were making for them except it was for an ICBM.

They had a ton of Apollo artifacts hung up in their entry foyer, complete with historical plaques. Most obviously burnt. It was a cool place, like a museum!

 

[BillM]

NASA SP 287

Download and read how they did it. It's condensed down to 75 pages and written in plain English with hardly any doctorate level speak.

They had backups to backups. There were 5 procedures to lift off from the moon including going back outside the LEM with bolt cutters cutting the exploding straps that didn't explode to let the ascent stage go.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19720005243.pdf
How I came upon it

Back when I was a young pup, the Smithsonian would let you touch the Apollo 11 capsule in their display. That thing was made of something just a bit thicker than aluminum foil. Hardly any pressure at all would cause it to ripple...

Got to meet Michael Collins around that time. He was commander of the Air Force Reserve, IIRC. I was documenting his speech to a Reserve group at Eglin AFB. Compared to those guys I need a microscope to see my cojones.

 

[DRC458]

My first wife's father helped to develop the LEM.

My FIL was Director of Aircraft Maintenance for the T-38 fleet they had in Houston ... the astronauts' personal commuter aircraft. HA! The "parasol" (sunshade) for Skylab was developed in the lab next door to his office. My son has quite a display of NASA memoribilia from his Grandad, including a piece of that parasol material (space blanket).

 

[Snattlerake]

Al, FIL's name, was a chain smokin slide rule engineer that helped to write the program for the guidance control of the LEM. Hist stories were mostly about how bad it was in the beginning. They lost more test beds because of the bad gyros they eventually figured out they were getting from a certain manufacturer.