dse511_final_project_sb

1. Problem:

Ever since fifth or sixth grade, I’ve been captivated by the wonders of space flight. Back then, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut, though I didn’t yet grasp the immense risks involved or the sheer difficulty of being selected for NASA’s Astronaut Corps. In sixth grade—which now feels like a lifetime ago—I was given an assignment to document the names of all the manned Apollo missions, their crews, and their historical significance. That assigment opened a door to a lifelong fascination. I poured over the stories of the Mercury Seven astronauts, the ten Gemini missions, and all eleven Apollo missions (from Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 through Apollo 17). My curiosity was fueled by Alan Dyer’s book Mission to the Moon, which brought these incredible achievements to life.

While I’m not solving a specific problem here in this project, I think it would be visually captivating to create a timeline of key NASA missions and their launch dates. I also visualized a simplified, hypothetical 3D flight paths for Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, showcasing the beauty and complexity of these iconic missions.

The breakdown:

Part A: Visualized a timeline of key NASA missions, including Friendship 7 , Gemini IV, and Apollo 11.

Part B: Creates a simplified, hypothetical 3D flight path for Apollo 8, illustrating its Earth orbit, trans-lunar trajectory, lunar orbit, and return to Earth.

Part C: Simulates a hypothetical 3D flight path for Apollo 13, incorporating the trans-lunar trajectory, lunar approach, and the critical Service Module (SM) explosion event which happened 80,000 km from the Moon.

2. Data:

Part A: I gathered data from multiple different sources for the three parts:

• Friendship 7: https://www.nasa.gov/history/friendship7/#:~:text=Friendship%207%20%2D%20Home,to%20circle%20Earth%20three%20times.
• Gemini IV: https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/hatch-right-gemini-iv/nasm_A19670209004#:~:text=On%20June%203%2C%201965%2C%20a,and%20Edward%20White%20into%20orbit.
• Apollo 11: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/apollo-11/#:~:text=Apollo%2011%20on%20NASA%2B,Moon%2C%20splashdown%2C%20and%20more.

Note to Dr. Peterson: The two books listed below provided launch dates and other important details only for the manned Apollo missions (Apollo 7–17).

• Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell, the mission’s Commander, and coauthor Jeffrey Kluger.

• A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.

In the book "Apollo 13", the launch date for Apollo 11 can be found on page 370.

In the book"A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts", the launch date for Apollo 11 can be found on page 598.

Part B: Hypothetical data!

Part C: hypothetical data!

3. Approach:

Part A: For Part A, I created a timeline visualization of key NASA missions: Mercury (Friendship 7), Gemini IV, and Apollo 11. The approach involved the following steps:

1. Define the Mission Class: I implemented a Mission class to represent each space mission. This class includes attributes such as the mission name and its launch date, stored in a structured format.

2. Create Mission Instances: Using the Mission class, I instantiated objects for the selected missions:

• Mercury with a launch date of February 20, 1962.
• Gemini IV with a launch date of June 3, 1965.
• Apollo 11 with a launch date of July 16, 1969.

3. Helper Function for Parsing Durations: I wrote a helper function, parse_duration, to process mission durations in string format and convert them into a timedelta object. While not used directly in this section, it lays the groundwork for further analysis of mission timelines.

4. Plot Launch Dates: Using matplotlib, I visualized the launch dates of the missions as points on a timeline. Each mission was represented as a marker on the x-axis, labeled with its name.

5. Customizations:

• Removed the y-axis ticks for simplicity.
• Added a title and x-axis label for clarity.
• Included a legend to associate each marker with its respective mission.

Part B:

For Part B, I dcreated a simplified 3D flight path for Apollo 8 using Python's matplotlib. Key mission phases—Earth orbit, trans-lunar trajectory, lunar orbit, and return to Earth—were represented as distinct paths. A blue scatter marked Earth as the starting point, and a grey scatter represented the Moon as the final destination. This visualization highlights the mission's significant milestones.

Part C:

For Part C, I simulated a hypothetical 3D flight path for Apollo 13. The trans-lunar trajectory and return path included a critical event: the Service Module explosion, marked along the trajectory to emphasize its dramatic course correction. The visualization provided a clear depiction of this pivotal mission's challenges.

4. Additinal Information - what each uploaded file contains?

• Final_Project_DSE_511.ipynb - This file includes all three parts for this final project and is completely written in python.

• Part_a_in_r.pdf - This PDF file contains the output of my R code. I'm comparing two programming languages, R and Python, to determine which produces visually appealing data representations. The R visualization is less aesthetically pleasing, while the Python version is simpler but includes a color key to clarify what each color represents for the reader. In my mind, the Python version is much better for this assignment rather than the one that R produced.

• DSE_511_Part_a_in_r. R - This .r.rft file contains my R code which help me produce the file name "Part_a_in_r.pdf".