Forgive Me If You Already are Briefed on How to Land On the Moon

Seriously, just skip this if you already know the basics on what you are going to do if you need to fly up to the moon and land on the feet of a spindly craft. There are other ways of doing it, but the way I know how to do it, based on the only verified cases of it being accomplished (i.e., the easy way) has a lot to do with something I would like to encourage you to do as it flows naturally in your travels. If this a burden it won't work. What I am picturing is you already are starting to have this flow within you and I want you to share it and not hold back on it for fear of not being how you have always been in certain ways.

So to fly to the moon, the first thing you are going to need is Cape Canaveral.



is an example of something I want to encourage you to do.




Cape Canaveral was not the first cape to be selected for hosting rockets.






With liftoff and your rocket all set, the next thing is you need to know the route to get there. No street signs. It works different than cars. You don't point the nose of your rocket at the moon and go.

Most people do not understand orbit. It's the same thing as the amusement park ride that makes you barf:



This is where we get to the part where I am thinking your special ability to explain things might make all the difference in the world.


Flying to the moon is going to involve using a rocket to hurl yourself from Earth to the moon.You have to lead the moon the way a quaterback leads a receiver, so you meet up with the moon at spot where you reach it's distance from the earth. Once you are there, you are going to need to slow your ship down, so you don't go flying by but not so much that you fall to the moon. You have to slow down just the right amount, be traveling just the right speed, going in just the right direction, so your ship falls into an orbit around the moon. It happens, I know a lot about all that stuff you need to do when you get close to the moon to finally land your craft on its feet and not its side.

The part I just am not going to figure out on my own, and that I need explained to me is how we are going to throw that pass, fire that rocket so we go in the right direction at the right time.. do what we need to do to get from here to that other place where, like here,we will be making computer systems. I know how to do that. It's this flight thing, from one celestial body to another that is not going to come from my head.

I don't think it will come from yours either, at least not entirely alone.What I think is it will come from somwhere and collect in our mind and you will see big parts of the way.

Today, you spoke with surety that shows that you are speaking from first hand experience. You are going to see the way with that same quality

 

First you need a telescope, and probably a lot of other radio frequency measurement devices. You need to take readings, make charts, plot courses. Then do a bunch of simulations. As the picture gets clearer, I think the course will too.
This is a really great analogy for what we are trying to do and I have more than this, of course, but I've been over at the Mac Haik thread and I need sleep ...
And I've been reading the material by Holly's Launch guru Jeff Walker. I need to get informed if I'm going to investigate for myself. Hmmm, launch kind of fits doesn't it?

 

I am glad you are here to help with this part. I am glad you like the idea of gathering prospects in a forum.

Between Holly's forum and here, what do you think? I am kinda thinking it should be both. This is where the techies get away from everyone else but it is good for us to have regular people to work with as well.

 

So, while your server was moving yesterday I wrote this massive thing. I'm going to see if I can get it to flow with what you asked at the beginning of the thread.

I was thinking about what an apt analogy it is.

One of the reasons I find it so apropos is because when it comes to lunar missions, the populace is divided about whether they should even be pursued. After all, things are pretty great right here on planet Earth aren’t they? The sun comes up pretty much at the same time every day, we can breath the air without the aid of filtration device (unless you pick a smoggy day in China), it rains at regular intervals, and our musculoskeletal structure is perfectly suited to its gravity.

Which leads me to the question of why I am even here learning programming, shooting for the moon and contemplating rockets. I have a pretty nice day job. I get paid every two weeks, I get a real generous vacation package, plus sick time so I can stay home with pay when I get a headache. The guys I work with are pleasant, mostly. And my salary pays all my bills, so I can pursue other interests without worrying about getting money for them right away. (Funny how the salary never exceeds the bills at the end of the month though.)

But of course I know why we need to go to the moon. For all of humankind’s history we’ve been captivated with its nightly meanderings across the sky and, as our moon is the closest celestial neighbor to our planet, setting foot on its surface represents our first tentative steps to becoming a space-faring species. When we left our mark upon it we could truly call ourselves astronauts. Freed from the bonds of gravity, we can begin making inroads into explorations of other astral phenomena. Another planet perhaps? A comet? An asteroid? How about an multi-generational journey to another star system?

So it is with my present occupation. It’s pleasant there, but I keep thinking there is more for me. I want to do something meaningful to me, something I can't wait to work on every day. I hope that utilizing my potential more fully might make my workload lighter, or at least more fun, and bring in better income. Who knows what I could do next, once I establish myself in a position where I rely on my own skills, and free myself of the gravity of depending on the good graces of my boss.
I know there are reasons behind your quest to explore the moon as well. Most people don't think about gravity too much, but when the moon is your goal, it suddenly becomes all too real, and obstacles stand out more clearly.

That brings us to your original question, about how one might manage to defy gravity and slingshot from a sunny shore in Florida to a soft landing on dusty Luna.

Since the Launch Formula plays such a large role in Holly's business plan and because I was feeling so unenlightened when I looked over the proposal Holly gave you, I grabbed both Jeff Walker’s Launch and Ryan Levesque’s Ask in an effort to get up to speed.
I finished Jeff Walker’s Launch first. It was eye opening and I was unprepared for how sound this method actually seems. I'm going to put my impressions into a different thread, because I think it merits discussion. I'm about halfway through Ask, and if you haven't read these books but intend to, I would recommend you begin in Part 2 of this one, because the things Mr. Levesque is able to learn by interpreting the data from a simple survey are astonishing. I think you'll like the data part a lot.

But back to our moon landing.

I think the tendency might be to focus on the rocket launch, of course. But here, back on Earth, there are many other things to do in preparation for the momentous flight.
I need to learn programming. You can teach me, and support my efforts at Code School. We need to bring some new people on board, but we need to get people who work independently in addition to providing value to the community by helping you out with communications.

We can start thinking about your new software, and I can start thinking about putting together some training materials for the software you are building. I think it might be useful to lay out some of the things we are planning to do, and evaluate their usefulness and how everything ties together in the big picture. I don't have an idea of that yet, and that's okay. Working with Mac Haik, and bringing money in for that has been a good step, for both my programming confidence and the financial viability of my position, because you are right that I can't do this without compensation indefinitely.

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The S-IC first stage of the Apollo 8 Saturn V being erected in the Vertical Assembly Building on February 1, 1968.​

When I look at pictures of the Saturn V rocket under construction I am amazed that three men would actually trust what looked like giant firecracker to take them to the moon. But they knew they had an entire team of top engineers working on that thing to make it safe and fast, and probably another team of physicists working out the orbit problem. They weren't alone, and neither are we.

And they didn't have to get it right the very first time. They practiced. We can practice too, and learn as we go.

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I know this seems like a precarious journey, but each step along the way is doable. Being short on confidence has taught me one thing, and that’s to focus on where I’m at and not look up— because seeing how high I’m aiming can make me so scared that I give up. When you said I sounded sure of myself it’s because I know I can do what’s right in front of me, which is to learn to work on Mac Haik’s auction system. I also know how to make websites look nice once I learn all the tools, and I can write lots of words to explain how to use them.

And I know you can program just about anything, and glue together five different softwares to make Holly a new site. Last but not least, we have experienced astronaut Holly, who’s been to the moon and back a couple times already to keep us on track.
I think we have a real good shot at landing this thing.

(And you know what? I think a preview window, with images visible, would be a really great addition to XF.)

 

There are things more hateful than depending on good graces of a boss, but that doesn't mean that situation is hateful. How about that feeling when you think you are in trouble with the boss?

Is this an idea you came up with, maybe extrapolating on the window provided the astronauts after intial plans for none? I don;'t remember anything about a preview window.. but now I get it We need that.

Text editor

 

Your note here really helps me and calms my nerves. I will be coming back to this, because this is a guide a measure of progress.

 

You should know by now that I'm not in the habit of being a troublemaker!

But then there is the trouble of picking up the phone to speak with the office complex manager, who is hunting down my boss for unpaid rent!

 

Except for money, everything in this thread is has materialized to an extent. That money problem is going down.