This is the code in the Apollo Guidance Computer for Apollo 11.
It’s part of the LUMINARY sofware, which ran on the AGC on the Lunar Module. It’s meant to check if the landing radar is pointed toward the lunar surface - because the LM went through several orientations, the landing radar could be pointed to the front or the side or down. You’re landing on the Moon. Point it down.
Point is, you have to verify user input. Even if your users are the most meticulous and highly trained individuals in history. You have to see if they’re lying. So you get to the BURNBABY.
Browse the code in GitHub - this code is in THE_LUNAR_LANDING.agc
in case anyone is curious, those comments are not a modern addition. They are a faithful reproduction of the original scanned copy of the code.
Ima be honest, I have no idea wtf I’m looking at
Interesting how similar this is at first glance to Kerboscript. Neat!
Is this KOS-related?
Edit: nope, a real language, not Kerbal Operating System.
Love that the termination routine is GOTOPOOH and the next step is BURNBABY
GOTOPOOHwas actually jargon for Program 00 (Hex), which was (I think?) the AGC’s normal idle routine.BURNBABYwas an alias forBURN_BABY_BURNwhich was the lunar descent burn sequence. Or something. I wouldn’t have named it that.P00H is hilarious.
Poop.
The end of all food, yet also, the beginning of all food.
Poop is the true neutral ground state from whence all emerges and all returns to.
… genuienly an incredible name for the idle loop, I am in awe.
I did not think Maggie Hamilton could be more legendary, but somehow, she is. Damn.
Winnie the Poop
It’s also something we left on the moon. Bags and bags of it, along with empty food containers and their moonwalking backpacks. It’s not like it’s worth it to haul it back to orbit.
So this is what the Seminal Theory is about. It’s not a meteor or some shit that crashed into the earth from far away.
It was just actual shit left behind by visitors. That’s us. We’re alien shit.
I wonder if that shit is something approximating a fossil, currently.
Presumably the radiation would have killed all the fecal bacteria pretty quickly… hell … would the plastic bags have degraded as well?
It has been exposed to 336 hours of continuous unfiltered sunlight each lunar day for the past 40+ years. That’s can’t be good for the plastic. The poo is probably dedicated, but I don’t think it’d be fossilized, in the sense of biological material replaced with stone, I don’t think the moon is geologically active enough for that to happen.
Is there… a word… for… ‘exposed to the void of space for a prolonged period of time’?
Yeah I know fossilized isn’t the right word, as thats generally a process that requires water… but i dont know how to say ‘space fossilized’.
Dehydrated and Irradiated … ?
Cosmopolitan.
Sanitizing user input for the Moon landings.
Meanwhile in 2026, ask AI to change an authentication phone number and it says, “Sure thing!” And is ABLE to do it.
I don’t understand what this comment is meant to convey. Could you explain a bit further?
It’s trying to convey that software and engineering discipline has gone to shit. Software written to have some of the most skilled humans at the given task in 69 still had safeguards to double check that the user, despite being one of the most eminent experts, did not provide incorrect input.
Fast forward to 2026 and things have worsened to the point where ostensible “engineers” deploy systems that allow attackers to access people’s accounts simply by asking a bot, which blindly trusts the attackers.
I don’t know yet to which degree I agree, but that’s what the comment is meant to convey in my interpretation.
Thanks! 🙏
The first one insisted to make sure one of the most competent human beings who ever existed oriented a thing downward in order to not die during a very well-rehearsed procedure.
The second one is a reference to social media companies “outsourcing” support to chatbots with no intelligence and plenty of control, allowing people to prompt said chatbots into giving them other people’s accounts.
I knew I should’ve waited until I hadn’t just woken up before trying to understand the comment. 😆
TCF = Terminate and Catch Fire?
