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>> They could measure stars' positions relative to the axes of the
>> spacecraft...
>>
>
> You could also measure the "altitude" above the earth.  I don't know
> that it was pointless to use a sextant for position fixing; rather,
> there were more efficient methods.

You touched on a few of the things that puzzled me.  I know nothing
firsthand about aircraft sextant use, so wondered if a bubble sextant would
be usable with some corrections, or if a traditional sextant with a
mighty-big dip correction (in the neighborhood of 12+ degrees at 100 nm
altitude) might suffice.  While using the diameter of the Earth and sextant
reading of it's angular diameter to find distance off (altitude) initially
occurred to me, my guess was the 120d-130d range of a standard sextant would
not cover the horizon-to-horizon range of a craft in the 100-200 mile range
(a SWAG) above an approximately spherical body 6900 nm in diameter.  Then
again, NASA is probably not "standard."

Given my objective ten months ago was learning to use a sextant and tables
to verify where I reckoned I was--without a GPS of Loran or coastal
piloting--sextant use in a space craft is a bit above me ;-)

What a long strange trip it been.  But great fun.  Thanks for keeping it out
of the "cookbook" realm.

Thanks to all,

Bill

   

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