Then, as Conrad and Bean streaked across the face of the moon under powered descent, the three of them began figuring out the value for Noun 69—by hand. The Control Center’s computers didn’t know how to do something as simple as multiply two numbers, Schiesser said, and they hadn’t bothered to bring in a mechanical calculator. They scratched out their calculations, passed the number to the Trench, who gave it to Flight, who told CapCom to transmit it to the crew.
