[Oatka]

Look at the Apollo capsule interiors at the Smithsonian, Cape Canaveral, or Huntsville AL: That “computer” dead center of the three astronauts - in a capsule where 1/10 of an oz was a highly prized weight gain! - there is a four function calculator. 16 buttons. Multiple display “folded” tube lights for each number, in a box about 10x10x10. THAT was the “computer” sent into space by the best of what we had then.

OK, thanks. I'm a little rusty here. Was the flight controlled from earth or did the astronauts "fly" this thing. It seems to me there was some pressure to have the crew pilot the capsule, unlike the Russians who basically shot up a boiler with a guy in it and did all the controlling from earth. Guess I gotta do some research as I thought they had an early computer on board.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The gross calc were done on earth, with the actual firing - the button pushing - beiong done locally. (For example, the retro rockets were fired by the astronauts returning to earth from earth orbit, the lunar orbit firing was done behind the moon so it could not be controlled from earth.)

A little bit dramatic, but there were a few astronaut controlled firings: look at the Apollo 13 hand controled burn to orient it back towards earth. There, they aimed by controlling the attitude of the capsule by aiming the window of the LEM at earth. The timing of the burn (how long the rockets were fired) was predicted on earth (fire for 33 seconds, for example, at 1432 hours).