I read that the computer technology then was no more powerful than a smartphone today. If this moon landing is really real, it is the equivalent of Magellan circumnavigating the globe.
Much less so, in fact. If you look at some of the archival footage that's been on TV lately, you see most of the engineers doing calculations of orbital mechanics using pencil, paper and slide rule.
As to technological advances to come from the space program, don't get me started. The PC you are typing on, the smartphone you use to be in touch with the world 24/7 and the fact that many "major" surgeries from 30 years ago are now done on an outpatient basis are just a few things that are an outgrowth of manned space flight.
| Apollo Mission Computer | My cell phone |
|
|---|---|---|
| clock speed | 2.048 MHz | 1400 MHz quad core |
| program memory | 72 kB read only | 32 GB flash + 32 GB flash car |
| RAM |
4 kB |
2 GB |
| display | 13 lights + 21 digits | 1280x720 full color display. |
| input | 10 digits + 9 other keys | touch screen |
| power | 55 watts |
a lot less |
| weight |
70 pounds |
5 ounces |
| Candy Crush | no | yes |
What I heard the other day is that your average smartphone is 100,000 times more powerful than the computers that controlled the Apollo missions.
CC
a smart phone is orders of magnitude more powerful than a mainfraim computer from the 1960s that took up a large air conditioned room. That's part of the problem. How did they navigate so precisely with a substandard on-board computer? Granted they developed the microprocessor to make it happen, but it would have been less powerful than the first Apple machine delivered in the late 70s.
In 1978 people were still using card punch machines to create computer programs to be read through a card reader connected to a mainframe.
This lack of power and sophistication is partly why the conspiracy theory exists. Couple with that with the fact that the space program through the rest of the 20th century (after apollo) amounted to low earth orbits with the space shuttle.
Finally with all our technology and powerful computers, with our advances in machining, look how long it is taking to create a set of new rockets to launch man into space.
I'm not saying I believe the conspiracy theorists but I certainly understand how a dismal space program (after the pinnacle reached by apollo) creates fertile ground for their theories to take root.
Not even as powerful. The computer was 4K if memory on an eight bit chip
No, the average smartphone today could manage 200,000 moon trips without batting an eye lash. The Apollo 11 astronauts had to manually program in every program in machine language and not make a mistake. . . entering it in hexadecimal code, each time they needed it. IIRC, the onboard computer had 4k of RAM. . . and no storage. Watch the movie Apollo 11 on Amazon Prime. It covers this.