Overturning a Paradigm: The Mystery of Stable 2

Article

“Overturning a Paradigm: The Mystery of Stable 2” by Ralph Lorenz
Published in Quest Volume: 27 #2 (2020)

Abstract

Half of the Apollo Moon flights ended with the Command Module upside down, an attitude designated by the laconic euphemism “Stable 2.”  The author, a planetary scientist and engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, studied splashdown mechanics as part of his PhD work in the early 1990s.  As the project scientist for the Phase A study of the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) he revisited the Stable 2 events during Apollo and examined high-speed camera footage of tests that he performed to solve the mystery of Stable 2.

Citation

Lorenz, Ralph. “Overturning a Paradigm: The Mystery of Stable 2.” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 27, no. 2 (2020): 21-26.