ELi5: What is gimbal lock and why is it bad? (Been watching Apollo 13)
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A gimbals that whirly metal round thing that you often see in labs on space related movies.
I don’t know anything regarding spacecrafts use of them, but they are used in lots of everyday equipment too, like stage lights that rotate in multiple different ways, which I know a lot more about.
In that context, ‘gimbal lock’ is when the light refuses to move out of a certain position, and therefore the light becomes next to useless unless the gimbal can be replaced.
I imagine on a spacecraft, gimbal lock could be a lot more serious than a lightshow fucking up.
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