Captain RFFSMY1AI

The set of numbers that defined the desired orientation of the platform had their own peculiar abbreviation – the REFSMMAT, a remarkably simple concept couched in very opaque terms. Not only was this acronym extraordinary in its size, it was also ubiquitous, being peppered throughout the crews’ conversations with the ground and in their documentation. It stood for reference to a stable member matrix, an incomprehensible jumble of jargon; but it was simply a numerical definition of an orientation in space, one to which the platform could be aligned. Being an inertial orientation, it was defined with respect to the stars.

Whether or not the absence of the Sun renders them visible, the stars are constantly moving across Earth’s sky. They rise in the east and set in the west but only because Earth is rotating in the opposite direction. Remove Earth from the scene and the vista of stars can be thought of as an essentially static sphere with the observer at its centre. Onto this sphere, astronomers have drawn an imaginary spherical coordinate system against which they measure the positions of the stars. If wc then place a З-axis coordinate system at the centre of this celestial sphere and we project its axes out to the sphere, the axes will be aimed at particular angles on that sphere. We can see that the orientation of the three axes can be defined as angular positions against the sphere. This is the basis of the REFSMMAT. The platform can then be orientated so that its coordinate system is aligned to that of the REFSMMAT. To do this requires that sightings be taken on the stars with the
scanning telescope and sextant so that the computer can gain direct knowledge of the celestial sphere.

Ed Pavelka was one of the flight controllers who occupied the FIDO console in The Trench at mission control. As a way to cement the esprit de corps among the flight dynamics team, he invented a fictional character called Captain REFSMMAT who represented the ideal flight controller. Urged on by one of his bosses – the tough but sensitive Eugene Kranz – Pa­velka imagined a figure of mili­tary stature with a radar in his helmet, and drew a series of posters depicting Captain RE­FSMMAT and his arch enemy, Victor Vector. During the Apol – One of Ed Pavelka’s drawings of Captain lo yearSi pe0ple in the MOCR

REFSMMAT. (Courtesy of Chuck Deiterich.) scribbled little comments on

these posters, often sarcastic, to let off a little steam.