Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley

Test subject sitting at the controls: Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. It was a complex project that cost nearly $2 million dollars. James Hansen wrote: "This simulator was designed to provide a pilot with a detailed visual encounter with the lunar surface; the machine consisted primarily of a cockpit, a closed-circuit TV system, and four large murals or scale models representing portions of the lunar surface as seen from various altitudes. The pilot in the cockpit moved along a track past these murals which would accustom him to the visual cues for controlling a spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon. Unfortunately, such a simulation--although great fun and quite aesthetic--was not helpful because flight in lunar orbit posed no special problems other than the rendezvous with the LEM, which the device did not simulate. Not long after the end of Apollo, the expensive machine was dismantled." (p. 379) Ellis J. White further described this simulator in his paper, "Discussion of Three Typical Langley Research Center Simulation Programs," (Paper presented at the Eastern Simulatio

Date

1961-07-23

Photographer / author

NASA

Collection

LRC

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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