NavList:

   

Reply

Frank,

What makes you think the Kollsman wasn’t a backup for when things went south?  
Didn’t Apollo 13 get a bearing off a star for one of their return rocket 
burns?

Thanks,

Fred

Fred Hebard
mbiew@comcast.net



> On Dec 14, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Frank Reed  wrote:
> 
> Hi Bruce.
> 
> ...
> 
> The concept is, of course, perfectly reasonable even if the "space pen" 
parable isn't an actual example for it. Indeed, look no further than the 
"space sextant" commissioned from Kollsman in the 1960s which was used to 
shoot lunars aboard Skylab in the early 1970s. It was a complete waste of 
time and money. Actually, I suppose in that case, the lesson is opposite. 
Technology had already superseded the utility of the handheld sextant, but 
bureaucratic inertia remained focused on it, in one very small corner of 
NASA's sumptuously-funded Apollo-era bureaucracy, thanks to its appeal as a 
"simple" solution.
> 
> Frank Reed
> ReedNavigation.com
> Conanicut Island USA
> 
>  
> 
> 

   

Reply