Talk:Apollo 12

Changes from Apollo 11?

I was hoping for a section saying what, if anything, was changed in the hardware from Apollo 11. Does someone know who could add a section? I'm guessing the 1202/1201 alarms and communication issues from 11 were addressed. Apepper (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

There was no significant hardware change. The computer alarm problem was diagnosed as caused by an antenna switch left in the improper position, so it was fixed by a procedural change; no hardware change was required. To what "communication issues" are you referring? JustinTime55 (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

November 2019

I wonder if there will be a 50th anniversary of the lunar landing of Apollo 12. How many people on our planet still remember the names of the crew of this mission? DannyJ.Caes (talk) 07:40, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

footnote issue

Hi User:Wehwalt, just start translation but footnote 8 doesn't work.--Jarodalien (talk) 14:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Fixed.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:03, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

What? Another thing, "The CCID returned only a small amount of useful data due to the failure of its power supply soon after activation", but no idea what that is. --Jarodalien (talk) 06:45, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Should have read CCIG, but that's the alternate name so I've changed to LAD.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Looks nothing happened at footnote 8. BTW, translation done.--Jarodalien (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I've got rid of that ref as unnecessary. It's all covered in Chaikin. Congrats on the work.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:54, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Picture showing Alan Bean descending the ladder.

The picture is shown the wrong way. It should be reversed 24.202.244.63 (talk) 20:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Typo?

In the section "Outward journey", second paragraph, I think "non-" should be added in the following sentence, as indicated with < >:

Apollo 12 was the first crewed spacecraft to take a hybrid <non->free-return trajectory

But maybe I’m missing something, so I didn’t go ahead and make the change myself. Any thoughts? Geke (talk) 12:55, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

If it's a typo, the original source makes the same mistake. p. 333-334. Was it free return until the midcourse burn and non-free return after? --Dual Freq (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

If it is a hybrid between free-return and non-free-return then surely hybrid free-return and hybrid non-free-return mean the same thing.

My understanding is that 12 did not have a 100% free-return trajectory (do absolutely nothing and you come home automatically). It's just that the required burn was small enough to be executed by either the SPS engine or the LM engine (as a backup), so that it was a close to free-return trajectory.  Stepho  talk  20:05, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

They did go off free return with their midcourse correction (see here, particularly the PAO commentary following 29:06:29). As I understand it, all of the Apollo missions after 11 did a hybrid free return trajectory that could be changed to a free return by either the SPS or the DPS, Apollo 13 famously so. Wehwalt (talk) 22:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

TV Troubles

I think it would be appropriate to mention the discussion of how this (pointing the camera into the Sun) came to happen, as described in https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/a12/a12.tvtrbls.html. I am not sure how to summarise what in that page, avoiding putting in too much of one's own interpretation of what is said. (I think it is mainly put down to not being covered in training.)

I have found that when trying to go to that page, sometimes I seemed to be re-directed to https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/ . (The URL in the reference "TV Troubles" in the article also goes here.) If that happens, click "Enter the Journal", then "APOLLO 12", then "TV Troubles". FrankSier (talk) 16:34, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Not so much training but not having worked with an actual camera in training is how I read it. Why do we need to add more to what's already there? Wehwalt (talk) 17:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that making such a big mistake, which meant that the planned first colour TV from the Moon did not happen, warrants an explanation in the article. The missions were meticulously planned, so how could this have happened? Without knowing the reasons people can only speculate: did they trip over? had the astronauts thought it would not matter pointing it at the Sun? did the various technicians not realise that this was a problem? were the astronauts rushed? were they careless? FrankSier (talk) 14:15, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you consult the link above and come up with a brief summary. From what Alan Bean said, they only trained with a block of wood substituting for the camera and were not told that pointing it at the sun would block it out.

I agree, it is a major, major mistake. I read somewhere a theory that not being able to follow along on TV basically decimated public interest in the Apollo project. Wehwalt (talk) 14:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

It was more a failure of mission planning that practically set Bean up for failure. But of course, we need a reference that explicitly talks about the causes and effects. Otherwise, all we can say is that it happened.  Stepho  talk  18:30, 17 October 2024 (UTC)