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Browse materialsMIT STS.471J · Spring 2007

Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System

Subject: Engineering

Art: Danish Navy official., Maskineriet på bagbord side af det Kongelige Dampskib Kiel - 1829, 1829 · Public domain

Instructors: Prof. David Mindell, Dr. Laurence R. Young
Term: Spring 2007
Level: Graduate
What's inside: 1 lecture note · 1 reading · 76 other files · 3 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

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Source: MIT OpenCourseWare STS.471J Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System, Spring 2007, Prof. David Mindell, Dr. Laurence R. Young — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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8 files

Lecture Notes

26 files

Assignments

27 files

Related Resources

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10 files

MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. David Mindell, Dr. Laurence R. Young, STS.471J Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System, Spring 2007.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Spring 2007 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Readings

Lecture Notes

Assignments

Related Resources

Other materials from this course

Lecture 1: Introduction and overview

Lecture 2: Apollo as a complex system

Lecture 3: Historical/technical analysis of engineering systems

Lecture 4: Systems engineering and atlas

Lecture 5: Organizing research from NACA to NASA

Lecture 6: Sputnik, Mercury, and the Cold War

Lecture 7: Kennedy’s decision: From politics to engineering specs

Lecture 8: The LOR decision

Lecture 9: The Soviet moon program

Lecture 10: Gemini and early Apollo engineering

Lecture 11: Apollo guidance and control

Lecture 12: Astronautical guidance

Lecture 13: Engineering the LEM

Lecture 14: Designing a landing

Lecture 15: NASA’s current moon plans

Lecture 16: Apollo software Presentation by Doug Cooke of NASA ( PDF - 1.8 MB ) (Courtesy of NASA.)

Lecture 17: Apollo 11

Lecture 18: Apollo 14: An astronaut’s view

Lecture 19: Apollo 12 and group project freetime

Lecture 20: Covering Apollo: The role of the press

Lecture 21: Life support and human factors I ( PDF - 1.4 MB )

Lecture 22: Bob Parker: Scientist-astronauts and lunar science

Lecture 23: Student presentations

Lecture 24: Student presentations wrap-up

Lecture 25: MIT museum trip

Lecture 26: Final class