[ale] xkcd on NPR

[Alex Carver]

On 11/21/2012 08:57, Ken Cochran wrote:
> So I guess we now know where The Plans (to what just might be
> The Most Awesome Machine Mankind Ever Built) wound up?  :)
>
> Ok, for completeness I guess, here's NPR's article/blog URL:
>
> http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/11/19/165469300/why-not-say-it-simply-how-about-very-simply
>
> (Trying to remember, my info may be very incorrect - bet
> someone here knows The Facts. :)  Seems I read sometime back
> (comp.dcom.telecom?) that the computer "ring" was built by IBM,
> cost around $14 *million* and took something like 4 feet of
> vehicle cross-section & weighed a few TONS (!?!) and had roughly
> the computational power of a modern-day cheap wristwatch.
>
> For our youngsters around here who might not know, it's my
> understanding that the plans to the Saturn V booster have
> long disappeared.  :(  Folks I was in school with long ago
> (who lived around Huntsville) told me they could hear & *feel*
> it when the manufacturer tested just ONE of its engines -
> it would shake & thunder most of north Alabama.  Yup "lots of
> fire comes out of here..."  And lots of kilo-Newtons.
>
> Essay well worth reading:  "Camelot on the Moon"
> (Google it - I'm sure it'll show up somewhere.)
>
> Sorry to blather...
>

Nah, the plans aren't gone.  Most of them are on microfiche in storage. 
  There was some discussion about the F-1 and J-2 engine plans at one 
point (F-1 is the first stage kerosene/LOX and J-2 are the second and 
third stage LH2/LOX) because the J-2 (now the J-2X) is the main engine 
for the SLS system (the replacement for Constellation).  The problem 
wasn't that the plans were lost in that case but that some of the 
modifications (red lines) to the engine designs weren't documented on 
the original plans.  The J-2's had been tweaked many times after the 
initial plans were drawn up so without the red lines it was going to be 
difficult to replicate them.  The same thing happened to many of the 
other plans.  The originals are there but not all of the red lines made 
it to permanent archive.