Dec 222010
First of four. Grumman LEM drawings from 1965. Almost, but not quite, the final product. Note that the front hatch is round rather than square.
3 Responses to “LEM drawings: 1”
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First of four. Grumman LEM drawings from 1965. Almost, but not quite, the final product. Note that the front hatch is round rather than square.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Round vs square front hatch… did someone realize the round hatch would have clearance issues with the rectangular cross section life support backpack?
I can see the round hatch reflects good design sense for the vacuum environment. You’d want to make the hatch with a small area ( simplify structural loads on the frame) and perimeter ( easier to seal ).
I saw a cut away model of one of these and I was really surprised at how small it was.
The LEM interior is a little more than two or three phone booths, not much, as for the hatch, it was the astronauts and engineers at NASA who pointed out the hatch issue. It was originally intended to be a secondary airlock/attach point for linking with the CSM, but was held over for a time afterwards before the backpack issue came up. From the Earth to the Moon has a great episode all about the LEM development, love the episode, that one and the Apollo-12 episode are my favorites.