Sunburst and Luminary
In 1966 the author, newly graduated from college, went to work for the MIT laboratory where the Apollo guidance system was designed. His assignment was to program the complex lunar landing phase in the Lunar Module's on board computer. As Apollo 11 approaches, the author flies lunar landings in simulators and meets the astronauts who will fly the LM for real. He explains the computer alarms that almost prevented Neil Armstrong from landing and describes a narrow escape from another dangerous problem. On Apollo 14 he devises a workaround when a faulty pushbutton threatens Alan Shepard's mission, earning a NASA award, a story in Rolling Stone, and a few lines in the history books. This memoir is a new kind of book about Apollo. It tells a story never told before by an insider the development of the on board software for the Apollo spacecraft. It makes a vertical connection between technical details and historic events, but by broadening the story using his own experiences as he grows into adulthood in the 1960s the author draws a parallel between that era of successful space exploration, and the exploration, inner and outer, that was taking place in the culture.
Stats for nerds
19recommend
43mentions
24people
2018–2026years
84% recommend14% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A few books that I whole-heartedly recommend:
- "Digital Apollo", a book about HCI, the tension between automation and human-in-the-loop, the history of systems engineering and minutae of each Apollo landing through those lenses. If you want a heavy dose of interesting, inspiring and thought-provoking HCI and embedded engineering lessons and anecdotes in context of the most thrilling examples possible you'll love this.
- "Sunburst and Luminary", the really quite charming and lively memoir by Apollo software engineer Don Eyles.
- "Apollo" by Cox and Murray, a go-to general history of the Apollo program that emphasizes program management and engineering far more than the astronauts.
This + the CuriousMarc videos and you'll feel spaceflight mini expert high, and be quite capable of maybe flying a landing in one of the emulators, actually understand the technical jargon in any of the Apollo landing videos or the Apollo 13 incident video, or appreciate some AGC source code.
- IMHO it would be more Yes, in the same sense that mount Everest is covered with all the garbage all the tourists can't be bothered to bring back from their (ego) trip.
On another note, I'm currently reading "Sunburst and Luminary An Apollo Memoir" from Don Eyles, which is a great read that makes you realize the feat it really was at the time.
My main interrogation now (and I've not yet looked anywhere for elements of answer) is why is it so difficult to reproduce with the current tech and scientfic advances ? Is bloatware involved or is the scope really different ?
- I'd add 'Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir' [0], written by one of the LM guidance computer programmers, Don Eyles, to the Apollo reading list.
- 51. The Dream Machine - A deep dive into the history of computing.
52. Mindstorms by Seymour Papert - Groundbreaking work on computers in education.
53. Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles - The Apollo Guidance Computer.
54. Build by Tony Fadell - Memoir and innovation lessons.
55. Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy - Punic Wars and Carthage's fall.
56. Making PCR - The story of polymerase chain reaction development.
57. Moonwalking with Einstein - Memory training and championship.
58. The Rickover Effect by Theodore Rockwell - First nuclear-powered submarine.
59. The Idea Factory - Bell Labs and American innovation.
60. Hackers by Steven Levy - History of computer hackers.
61. Fire in the Valley - Personal computing revolution.
62. Monk in the Garden - Life of Gregor Mendel.
63. Leadership Moment - Lessons from leaders in crises.
64. The Man Who Discovered Quality - W. Edwards Deming and quality management.
65. Eccentric Orbits - Iridium satellite network's rescue.
66. The Road to Character - Human nature and moral development.
67. The Spy and the Traitor - Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky's story.
68. Billion Dollar Spy - Cold War espionage.
69. Skunk Works - Lockheed's F-117 and SR-71 programs.
70. Working by Robert Caro - Insights into Caro's research.
71. The Wager by David Grann - 18th-century British maritime disaster.
72. Caro's LBJ Series - Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.
73. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry history.
74. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf - Alexander von Humboldt's contributions.
75. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - Theranos scandal.
76. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson - Memoir and business insights.
77. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - Leadership lessons.
78. Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman - WeWork's rise and fall.
79. Tuxedo Park - Invention of radar during WWII.
80. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.
- I can recommend the book Digital Apollo to anyone interested. Especially the first parts cover the question of what the role of the human is in the endeavour at large, and during the flight of Saturn V in particular.
Rocket designers came from the business of autonomous cruise missiles and argued that the rocket can get itself into space just fine on its own. Astronauts -- being test pilots of aircraft -- wanted to hand-fly rockets off the earth. In the end, this particular debate was won by the missile people because it turns out the navigation and sequencing of events to get a rocket off the planet happens so quickly and under such accelerations that humans cannot, in fact, do it by hand.
However, the book ends on an optimistic note regarding the role of humans in spaceflight. We ought not to send humans to space because they do it better than machines. They barely did back then, and they certainly don't now. We do it to broaden the human experience. We do it to enhance what it means to be human. We are Aventurers and conquerors. We use our brains to put our bodies and senses through experiences and into places they were never meant to go.
It doesn't matter that computers get better than us at things. We will still do them, because doing them anyway is what makes us human.
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There are a lot of great books on this for the interested. Aside from Digital Apollo, off the top of my head I can recommend
- Go, Flight! from the perspecive of the young flight controllers who orchestrated the missions from scratch.
- Sunburst and Luminary from the perspective of some of the first ever software developers working on the computer in the lunar module.
- Ignition! from the perspective of the chemists that tried to find stuff that would go fwoooooosh rather than boom or fuitt.
High on my to-read list is
- Aiming at Targets which I understand is written from the perspective of the higher echelons of NASA.
- Another chance to recommend a book that I learnt about from HN: I highly recommend the book, Sunburst and Luminary; http://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html
A technical pleasure and also very good glimpse into the Apollo team - working together, to land on the moon. It is a fun easy read, written by the fellow in charge of programming the guidance computer on the lunar lander. It is also a great snapshot of that time in history, the excitement of Apollo, and with the frustration of the Vietnam war going on, some protests, etc. Just a hint - the main programmer, was an English major, and his use of the right words, were a key factor in the success of of creating an efficient and effective computer language
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