Apollo 11 And Its Balky Computer

Many, many words have been written about Apollo 11. It is, after all, one of the crowning achievements of the human race. Adding a few thousand more isn't going to add appreciably to the literature, but I doubt so much has been devoted to the guidance computer on board the lunar module. If you know your history, you'll know that Neil Armstrong had to take manual control of the landing procedure as the computer wasn't doing its job. Not surprising, it was 1969, computers weren't exactly powerful at that point.

Anyway, this is the story of that balky computer. Obviously, everyone wants to hear about the human triumph aspect, so I thought it was interesting to hear the tale of the first moon landing from a different perspective, and just how close it came to failure. And while the computer comes out looking pretty bad, Neil Armstrong comes out great. Seriously, he has to be the calmest, most collected human being to have ever lived. I'm not sure anyone else could have done what he did.