JB11 Latest Jetpack

Looks like Jetpack people have again created a new version of their "real jetpack", real meaning that it really uses jets and not rockets like some earlier versions of jetpacks did.

Figure 1. Jetpack JB-11 uses multiple turbines for additional redundance. It can fly with one turbine inoperative. 

VIDEOS:

YouTube video: "World’s Most Advanced JetPack, the JB11 First EVER Flight at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2018"


RESOURCES:

/1/ http://www.jetpackaviation.com/

/2/ YouTube

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Mars 2020 Rover

[NASA will send a new rover to Mars year 2020 and also return some samples from Mars to Earth. The rover is similar to the Curiosity rover already there. Here are some facts about it - the video link at the end of this post is rather informative. /1/ /2/]

Figure 1. Computer-Design Drawing for NASA's 2020 Mars Rover

Apollo On-board Guidance History (Part 16, Apollo Control Systems)

[This article is based mainly on D.G. Hoag's paper about Apollo's on-board Guidance, Navigation, and Control System history /10/]

APOLLO ON-BOARD GN(et)CS HISTORY /10/

"This account is written from the point of view of one who experienced the hectic but exciting years. An enormous amount of material has been left out for practical reasons, and many worthy names regretfully remain unmentioned. Technical details have been deliberately played down: they can be found in the bibliography. The overall message is simple: In an incredible and audacious task, the landing of men on the moon, the guidance equipment for the mission was created out of primitive principles, prolific imagination, and a lot of hard work." -- Hoag, D.G.

The Beginnings /10/

"The forerunner of the Apollo guidance, navigation, and control system (GNetCS)), is found in an unmanned spacecraft and mission study started in 1957 by the Instrumentation Laboratory at MIT under a contract with the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division.

Milton Trageser (left), Hal Laning and Richard Battin

DSKY Hardware (Part 15, Apollo Control Systems)

[Since it looks like that DSKY is very popular with its companion LGC (or AGC) I add this article to fully cover the DSKY hardware (as it was 1966) in its detail. DSKY was a small and simple terminal device to today's standards. It was used by astronauts to communicate with the primary guidance computer programs. DSKY is interesting since it only had some latching relays to drive the segment displays and some simple transistor type logic to generate keycodes from the keyboard.

Today (2017) this device would be manufactured using maybe a single micro-controller and would be very simple. I am sure that even nowadays many astronauts would like to have a similar device to communicate with the guidance computer at least as a reserve device in case of some problem with the modern touch screens and high resolution displays. Its small size, simplicity and integration with the Apollo software and hardware will keep this device popular in the future also. Most of this material is from /1/. This text and drawings /1/ did have some differences with other documents but is anyway useful in its detail.

The AGC (and DSKY) was designed at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory under Charles Stark Draper, with hardware design led by Eldon C. Hall. Early architectural work came from J.H. Laning Jr., Albert Hopkins, Richard Battin, Ramon Alonso, and Hugh Blair-Smith. The flight hardware was fabricated by Raytheon, whose Herb Thaler was also on the architectural team.

Eldon C. Hall

Most of these people can be seen in the following film

YouTube video: "Computer for Apollo, MIT Science Reporter Film"]