MID Registered User
Posts: 40
(9/16/05 1:31 am) Reply
The "32 things that need to be answered".
Well, I guess I'll start with #1.
However, note that I will probably get to some that I think have already been addressed and just state that...but if you disagree, by all means say so.
Some others I may just ask a question back...for clarifications sake.
#1
Sceptics (which I take to mean people who aren't in agreement with the Apollo hoax idea) come in all colors.
I have heard alot of convoluted explanations from "sceptics" for the lack of stars in photographs from space. The question itself is quite reasonable, since one would think that the stars are abundantly visible in space, without the benefit of the earth's atmosphere filtering them out as it does down here on the surface.
The fact is, you're absolutely correct. Stars are visible in space, abundantly so, and of course moreso than on earth on the clearest and darkest of nights, precisely for the reason given. As you correctly point out, Gagarin himself declared the stars he saw from orbit as being astonishingly brilliant.
The fact is, many a U.S. Astronaut has described the brilliance and abundance of stars in space.
As I said, it is perfectly reasonable to ask your question. At the same time I think it unreasonable to come to a conclusion that professional astronomers would recognize that the star pattern in the lunar photos would be wrong, and therefore NASA had to edit them out. That pre-supposes several things: that the photos are fake, and that stars should be in them if they're real...both of which are false, and neither of which can be substantiated.
In fact, it is relatively simple to explain why no stars appear in any photos taken by astronauts in space...despite the fact that stars are abundantly visible.
There is a caveat to that visibility which no one speaks of. And that is that the stars are only visible to the human eye, or the camera in space, when it's dark. Just like on earth. During the times when the sun was out (i.e. day-side orbital passes, or anytime in cis-lunar space or on the surface of the moon), the sun was always out...in a brilliance that is much moreso than on earth.
Now, there were certain times when some stars could be seen even when the sun was out, if one payed careful attention not to look at anything brightly lit, and shielded his eyes from any interference (a difficult if not impossible task in a spacecraft that's well lit or in a helmet with a spherical visor assembly)...he could possibly pick out a few stars in space, but nothing really significant.
But no stars actually are visible on space photos, and in this specific case, lunar photos from the surface, for simple reasons.
1) The object of all of the photos was the lunar surface, a vehicle or equipment, or an astronaut in a white EMU.
2) It was broad daylight, a daylight much broader, if you will, than any experienced here on earth.
Now, the camera is alot like a human eye, although it must be set, while a human eye automatiucally compensates for brightness. In fact, the human eye is much more sensitive and discriminating than the best camera. Yet, the human eye, adjusting itself to clearly see a brightly lit object, is incapable of seeing objects that are much dimmer than the object being viewed.
So it is with a camera which is set to properly (hopefully, but not always) image the brightly lit objects on the lunar surface. It cannot image the stars with a short exposure and an aperture setting designed to image brightly lit objects.
Stars were in fact visible to many an astronaut, but not as much as you might think. The condition on the lunar surface essentially prohibited it, as it was always daylight, but in orbit it could be done vis:
On a night side pass, IF one turned off the cabin lights and allowed one's eyes to become dark adapted. Then, the stars could clearly be seen in all their glory.
Otherwise, it was not much of a show, and cameras, always being focused on bright objects never recorded anything at all but black sky. This is actually a natural photographic result.
You mention AS15-90-12249 through 12269, I believe. These photos do appear to show what might be stars in some of them...the few bright spots recorded.
I will say this: That particular series was a relatively poor black and white panorama. A better exposed and somewhat clearer panorama was taken within just a few minutes...which showed same scene (see as-82-11204-11217, also black and white).
But something you do not realize about this pan you show is that these photos were taken after EVA-3 on Apollo 15, and after the crew had re-enetered the LM, sealed the hatch, and stowed most of their gear. In other words, these pictures (both sets), were taken through the 2-paned windows of the LM, after 3 days of lunar exploration inside a vehicle with 3 days of moon dust all over it's interior.
Alot of Apollo photos were over or underexposed, some were a bit out of focus, etc. This pan you show was by far the lesser of the two sets taken by Jim Irwin inside the LM that day. The few specs you see on this series of pictures is, very likely due to the slightly askew settings on the camera, specs of dust on the surface of the LM windows.
You would be hard-pressed to find any stars in any photo taken on the surface of the moon. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find them on any space photograph at all (like those taken during shuttle flights in earth orbit, or the many Gemini EVA photos). The reason is simple: the camera can't pick them up with the short exposure times and aperture settings needed to clearly photograph the brightly lit objects.
Indeed, there was no opportunity to take pictures of star fields from orbit or in cis-lunar space. In orbit, even on a dark-side pass, there was no provision to take the timed exposure necessary, since the camera was only hand held, and the spacecraft was moving in an arc around the body it was orbiting, thus making the star field move. In cis-lunar space, the sun was always out, and the spacecraft was rotating about its roll axis once every 20 minutes to distribute solar heat evenly through the external structures of the spacecraft and through the relatively un-insulated service module (kept tanks from overhgeating and exploding, and things like that).
So, the absence of stars I argue is acceptable, because it's completely natural.
Regards
p.s.: sorry about the length. The answers or comments hopefully won't all be so lengthy.
MID Registered User
Posts: 41
(9/17/05 2:48 am) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
#2)
You'll have to clarify this one a bit. I have never heard of oxygen melting anything. The Hasselblad cameras were made of metal, and I haven't seen oxygen melt any metal I know of. Some cameras had a protective covering of beta cloth...space suit material, but oxygen certainly had no effect on that either...otherwise alot of fellows would've died.
#3)
This one deserves some discussion.
The LM DPS was a throttleable engine. It had a maximum rated thrust of about 10,000 pounds, and was throttleable down to practically nothing. This of course was a necessary feature when flying a landing approach...as continual adjustments to the thrust were necessary to adjust for decreasing weight, rate of descent, etc.
By the time Apollo 11, for instance, was down to the surface (and this is little different from any otherApollo lunar landing), the actual thrust being pushed from the DPS was in the order of 3000 pounds.
Of course, the engine had exhaust, a blast of exhaust gas that obviously contacted the surface and caused the fine powdered surface dust to blow away( in absolutely natural lunar fashion).
However, one must realize that the actual pressure of this exhaust is alot less than one might think. The net 3000 pounds of thrust is coming out of a 54" diameter bell. The pressure of that gas at 3000 pounds thrust is only around 1.3 psi. This is not enough to cause a blast crater in the very hard lunar substrate. Indeed, it's not even enough to blow all the dust away from around the LM, save the area just beneath the engine bell as it came into close proximity with the surface (this is adequately described by astronaut commentary and by photography which clearly shows the surface dust eroded beneath the engine bell, and a bit of thermal effect in that area, and on some areas of the descent stage of the LM). This area of erosion measured just a bit larger than the engine bell itself, well away from any place where the astronauts could actually walk.
It is also important to note that the LM landed in a front facing direction The +Z strut...the ladder strut, was moving ahead of the engine, as landings were generally done with a slightly forward moving LM. This is important because as the LM descended, the exhaust gas spread of the DPS narrowed. When the LM landed, the +Z strut was touching down in an area that was virtually untouched by the engine blast. Thus, the vast majority of dust that was there before the LM arrived was there after it did so. And that is why Neil Armstrong, and every other person to set foot on the moon, was able to do so and leave a footprint in lunar dust...lunar dust located about 15 feet in front of the last place the engine exhaust touched the surface.
#4)
Another point of some confusion.
All rocket engines produce exhaust gasses. Depending on the fuel, the exhaust may be very visible (like the RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen of the Saturn V first stage) or very clean (like the hypergolics used on the Gemini Titan II or the liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engines of the Saturn S2 stage or the Space Shuttles main engines).
A vast part of the exhaust plume, the flame or what have you, that is produced by all these engines is the result of the gasses reacting with the air that surrounds them. The Saturn V first stage produced a massive fire. The Shutlles main engines, just a blue glow. The Gemini Titan II produced a thin orange colored stream.
If a vehicle is above the atmosphere, things change radically. Rocket engines all produce no significant plume in vacuum. Glows, some artifact in some cases, but no plume of fire and smoke etc.
You can watch one of the many inboard films taken of Saturn Launches and watch as the S2 or S4B ignites, and you'll see a common characteristic of rocket engine operation in vacuum (or virtual vacuum..these engines ignited between 35 miles and 100 miles in altitude, which is basically vacuum):
...a flash of ignition, which consists of incomplete initial combustion, followed by little at all but some radiating residue and a glow inside the engine bell. The LM APS was a hypergolic engine which produced nothing at all in the line of exhause plume in a vacuum once ignition fully took place.
What you are looking at in your lunar liftoff film is typical of LM operations. It is a mere smittance of ignition by-products, combined with the tearing away of bits of the descent stage thermal covering, followed by a LM appearing to ascend with no flame whatsoever coming out of its engine bell...because, there was no flame possible. If you follow the LM upward and watch it pitch over, you'll see the glow inside the engine bell. That's the only effect there is. What you observe here is perfectly normal for the moon, or anywhere in space.
#5)
Footprints have nothing to do with the displacement of air or moisture. They are caused by the compression of particles that have space between them. That space may be filled with air, moisture of some nature, or nothing at all, which is the case on the surface of the moon.
#6)
The improvement of broadcast quality was not magical. It was the result of continuous improvement, a hallmark of NASA back in the day. The APollo 11 black and white slow scan camera was not used again on a lunar mission. The color camera was started with Apollo 12 (the ill-fated Apollo 12 camera), and was refined, along with MSFNs ability to process the signal better on each successive Apollo flight. There's nothing unusual or indicative in this fact. It was the way things used to be done.
#7)
You'll have to explain this question a bit better. Apollo photos show nothing but natural effects...in an alien enviornment, of course. But I have no idea what you mean about a "clear line of definition between the rough foreground and the smooth background." If there was indeed a rough foreground and a smooth background, I think your question answers itself, since there must be a line of demarcation somewhere that should be visible.
However, there is no such thing, so I'm just a little confused about what this actually means.
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Reply to #1.
I appreciate your explanation and agree with most of it. However, I have on the Apollo page a piece of movie footage (the link of which is now fixed) that pans from left to right and shows an object in the sky which I presume to be a star. I would not expect the movie camera to be inside the LEM when it took this footage?
Your comments on the footage would be interesting.
Reply to #2
During my research for the Apollo page, I was made aware that using the Hasselblad camera in a pure oxygen environment (such as inside the LEM) could have catastrophic effects. This NASA page (www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pa...hass.html) says as much:
Quote:(4) The Data Camera was modified to prevent accumulation of static electricity. When film is wound in a camera, static electricity is generated on the film surface. Normally, this electricity is dispersed by the metal rims and rollers that guide the film, and by the humidity of the air. In a camera fitted with a Reseau plate, however, the film is guided by the raised edges of the plate. As glass is a non-conductor, the electric charge that builds up at the glass surface can become so heavy that sparks can occur between plate and film - especially if the camera is used in a very dry environment or in vacuum. Sparks cause unpleasant patterns to appear on the film and can be a hazard if the camera is used in an atmosphere of pure oxygen
Reply to #3
Heres a few remarks from Aldrin and Armstrong after the event.
Quote:ARMSTRONG: 'Once [we] settled on the surface, the dust settled immediately and we had an excellent view of the area surrounding the LM. We saw a crater surface, pockmarked with craters up to 15, 20, 30 feet, and many smaller craters down to a diameter of 1 foot and, of course, the surface was very fine- grained. There were a surprising number of rocks of all sizes.'
ALDRIN: 'We opened the hatch and Neil, with me as his navigator, began backing out of the tiny opening. It seemed like a small eternity before I heard Neil say, "That's one small step for man . . . one giant leap for mankind." In less than fifteen minutes I was backing awkwardly out of the hatch and onto the surface to join Neil, who, in the tradition of all tourists, had his camera ready to photograph my arrival.
I felt buoyant and full of goose pimples when I stepped down on the surface. I immediately looked down at my feet and became intrigued with the peculiar properties of the lunar dust. If one kicks sand on a beach, it scatters in numerous directions with some grains traveling farther than others. On the Moon the dust travels exactly and precisely as it goes in various directions, and every grain of it lands nearly the same distance away.'
If you read the Apollo 11 journal or watch the footage, you'll notice that the LM starts kicking up dust at around 75 feet above the lunar surface. I suggest that if the engine had enough thrust to kick up dust at 75 feet above the ground then I cannot see why such pictures as the one below how so much dust right next to the LM?
Its almost as if they landed on a sandy beach and yet no dust seems to have been moved at all?
My reply to #4
The reason for question 4 was to prove to the people on Bad Astronomy that there was a flame visible on ascent from the Moon. They believed that a flame could not exist in the vacuum of space - I proved otherwise.
My reply to #5
This opens up an interesting question. Does the existence of dust or sand for want of a better word, mean that the Moon was once covered in water? Think about it for a few minutes - where on Earth do we get sand or dust in great quantities? Either on beaches or in the desert (which were once seas).
Why would the Moon have so much dusty areas if there is no water to break down the rocks?
My reply to #6
What about the varying quality of movie footage from the Apollo 11 EVA? Why were the astronauts almost transparent?
My reply to #7
OK, lets take this picture from Apollo 15 as an example:
My reply to #8
I accept your shadow theory concerning the panoramic photos taken, but still believe that shadows shown in many of the single photo still shots do not add up. No matter how many natural light sources (the Sun, Earth glow etc) hit the Moons surface, they will all combine together as one light source and the shadows on the surface will run in approximately in the same direction.
MID Registered User
Posts: 42
(9/17/05 4:56 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Ok, my comments...
On the footage you show from Apollo 15:
Some facts regarding this film.
Your film shows 5 seconds of film consisting of approcimately 20 clearly seen frames. In it, we see a continuous and very angular set of mountains in the distance, and equally angular features in the foreground.
The features are so anglular in fact, that it is apparent that the camera is facing north and that the angle of the sun is between 10 and 12 degrees above the eastern horizon.
This film also shows a decidedly duotonic appearance, basically blue black...with perhaps a hint of some tannish color in a few places. It is also pretty clear.
Additionally, the angle of this piece of film is decidedly elevated, clearly showing that the camera which panned this sequence was well above the surface, and in fact at or above the level of the mountains in the distance.
What is significant about these observations is as follows...
There were no such angular features at the Apollo 15 landing site. Nor were there any present at any Apollo landing site. Mountains, such as those surrounding Apollo 15's site, were decided rounded, especially the North complex, which were "domes", as it were (to use a typical geologic description), very rounded, and very high.
The sun angle of 10-12 degrees above the horizon which seems rather apparent in these pictures is incorrect. The minimum sun angle on Apollo 15 was just a hair under 20 degrees at the beginning of EVA-1, and was at a maximum of 44 degrees or so at the conclusion of EVA-3.
All films taken on Apollo 15 on the surface were video. Full color video. The DAC also took full color pictures as well, but it was basically reserved for use inside the LM, and filmed the approach to landing and the ascent from the surface. No DAC ever shot duotonic film in blues and blacks at any rate.
This clip you show is uncharacteristic of either DAC film or video.
Additionally, there was no elevated footage taken on Apollo 15, 16, or 17, as this sequence illustrates. Someone would have needed to have been thousands of feet above the Hadley plateau, up in the mountains to take a shot with this perspective, and no one ever was.
Therefore, I submit that this snippet of film is not Apollo 15 footage taken from the surface of the moon, nor is it from any other Apollo EVA. It actually looks like artwork...perhaps a portayal of someone's guess as to what the surface would look like from a ways up over the surface.
There is, however, a bright object panning through the field of view above the mountain ridge. I cannot explain what that is. I can only state that this piece of film is not what it is portrayed to be.
Regarding the Hasselblad Data Camera (lunar surface unit):
You are absolutely correct. And, what you reproduce here is accurate.
However, I think your use of the term "catastrophic" is a slight exaggeration. The article actually states that sparks in an oxygen environment, a very dry environment, or in a vacuum "can be a hazard". Agreed. It can be one. And of course, Apollo engineers were highly cognizant of the hazards of sparks in a 100% oxygen atmosphere (even a low pressure 100% oxygen atmosphere) and spared no effort to eliminate them in the oddest of places, such as the internal workings of the Hasselblad Data Camera. They did this despite the fact that 14psi oxygen was not used any more in spacecraft atmospheres, and that virtually all flammable materials had been eliminated from spacecraft in the wake of Apollo 1.
However, the article goes on to describe in detail how this hazard was eliminated in the Data Camera. Without these fixes, the camera's use could have various hazardous effects, but the point is, the camera was fixed so it didn't generate static.
That being said, I would argue that this was not what I was addressing, and has moved into another area which is moot, since there were no sparking hazards in the Apollo Data cameras.
I addressed the rather clear statement that the pure oxygen atmosphere in the spacecraft would have melted the camera's outer covering. There is nothing about oxygen that melts metals, or anything else.
My point here is that the astronauts felt no effects from the toxic fumes that should have been generated by this melting, because no such thing was possible or occurred.
____________________________________________________
Regarding the dust aspect,
I'm not really sure what the comments of Neil and Buzz are there for, but I will say that Buzz describes in the last comment the perfectly natural, yet most unusual movement of the lunar dust when an impulse is applied to it. He describes the motion of essentially uniform sized particles of extremely fine grained dust in response to an impulse without the interference of atmosphere to cause various swirlings and trajectories. This is unusual and surprizing only because no human being had ever observed these particular effects before. Neil Armstrong spoke of the dust's movement, both when he kicked it up with his foot, and when he observed it out the windows during the landing approach, and stated in debriefs that logically, he should have assumed that such behavior would be seen, but that the unusual-ness of it was very surprising nonetheless.
But back to the issue...
I have watched all of the DAC film of the Apollo landings, and have also read the majority of the technical debriefs for each mission, where the dust caused by the LM DPS is described in some detail.
A point to remember here is that the dust was not "kicked-up", in the sense that it would be in an atmosphere...which is of course what we are used to seeing.
There were no clouds of dust swirling about, but rather a sheet like projection of dust which radiated out in all directions from the base area of the LM.
When the engine was cut down, the dust instantly stopped being generated, and there was nothing left in the space around the LM. In fact, it was observed (and again this is utterly natural) that the dust immediately ceased being generated at cut down, and the end of the dust moved away from the LM in an arc toward the horizon, disappearing in the distance. This is very much akin to what you'd observe if you were holding a water hose and spraying a stream out in front of you, and then cut the valve off. You'd see the end of the water stream travel off in an arc and settle in the distance.
That's just information. But the fact is that I already explained how the dust as viewed outside the LM was still present. It doesn't take much to move the stuff, and from 75 feet, as you say, dust was being blown. However, not all of the dust, just the surface of the dust. Crews reported visibility through this very thin sheet, which was almost like a thin ground fog on earth. They could see through it.
As the LM descended, the "spray pattern" if you will, of the LM DPS exhaust became smaller and smaller, so less of an area beneath the LM was actually affected by the engine.
In fact, only the area immediately beneath the LM was shown to have all of its dust removed by the DPS engine, in some cases, and some thermal effect (also in some cases--especially in cases like Apollo 11, where the engine was running almost until landing pad contact).
...Most future crews cut down the engine at "lunar contact", when the LM was still 6-7 feet off of the ground, and let the LM fall into the surface. The compressed the crushable honeycomb "shocks" in the LM legs and allowed for a shorter final jump to the surface from the base of the ladder, and of course alot less efoort to jump up onto the ladder during ingress from the EVAs.
And again, remember that the LM faced forward during landing, necessarily, and was moving in that direction during the entire approach. The area in front of the LM, therefore, had very little or no dust blown away. That effect was, as I indicated, terminated behind the forward landing pad by about 15 feet or so.
That is why there's so much dust right next to the LM.
Regards.
MID Registered User
Posts: 43
(9/17/05 6:21 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Next series:
#9
The answer to this one is actually simple.
The "C" that appears in this photo on that rock is simply not there on the original.
I have a large (11 x 17) image of that photo (AS16-107-17446, from Station 4, EVA-2), and I cannot see anything on that rock. I suspect it is some artifact due to repeated reproductions.
#10
Now this is an unusual question, and seemingly irrelevant to Apollo.
The HF whip antenna on the Gemini 6A spacecraft, and all the other Gemini spacecraft for that matter, survived the tremendous heat of atmospheric re-entry for a simple reason:
It was designed to. Because...
It was actually inside the recovery compartment of the spacecraft and was not exposed to re-entry forces (well, at least atmosphereic blast and heat. It did of course take the g loads). It was uncovered and used only after re-entry, when the covers of the forward section of the spacecraft were jettisoned, and was used after the main parachute was deployed.
The antenna's purpose was to transmit a recovery beacon.
#11
This is where you fellows get a little overboard, making blanket statements like, "Ron Howard's 1995 science fiction movie".
The fact is...all Hollywood productions, including this one, have a bit of artistic liscense thrown into the mix. This is done to enhance the dramatic effect by portraying things that aren't necessarily accurate in a technical sense, or some things that may be fabrications altogether.
Nonetheless, Apollo people were on the advisory staff of "Apollo 13", and it is, for the most part, technically accurate...if not somewhat overdone in places (quite frankly, I cannot see Tom Hanks playing Jim Lovell, and I think the actual event in its reality was much more compelling than any Hollywood effort).
Anyway, you address a complex issue.
But, the actual fact is that no one was worrying about freezing to death on Apollo 13, either in the spacecraft or on the ground. The colder temperature was certainly understood as something that was going to happen, but it was hardly life threatening nor was it a primary consideration in the activities taking place to save the crew (it did get down to around 38 degrees F in the CM toward the latter part of the mission).
The primary worries during the actual Apollo 13 situation were electrical power, consumables (oxygen and water), carbon dioxide buildup in the cabin atmosphere, using the LM as the primary control for maneuvers and the LM DPS as the primary propulsion source, guidance, and overheating of several systems and propusion, oxygen,and RCS tankage in the LM stages and in the SM.
The CM was a highly insulated vehicle, and heating from solar energy was not really a problem. Indeed, the interior of both spacecraft relied on electrical equipment operation to heat them, and, since the CM had been powered down, there was no heating source for the CM, and the LM couldn't compensate for that, so it got cold...not critically from a survival standpoint in the short term, but cold nonetheless.
In terms of systems and tankage in the SM and behind the LMs thin skin, solar heating was an issue indeed. If the spacecraft sat in one attitude during trans-lunar or trans-earth coast, the heating on one side of these vehicles could cause a very bad day, by causing pressure build up, frying of systems, and explosions, etc.
This is why the spacecraft was placed in what we called PTC (Passive thermal control, or, "rotisserie mode" in the vernacular). This manuever basically oriented the spacecraft perpendicular to the ecliptic and rolled it 3 times an hour to evenly distribute solar heating and maintain system integrity and performance.
PTC was a concern after the Apollo 13 explosion because it would have to be done from the LM, which was difficult because of the location of the LM RCS pods relative to the Apollo package's center of mass, etc.
That was a concern. The cold wasn't.
By the way, atmosphere is not required to dump heat into. A vacuum would serve just as well, as it did on the lunar surface when the astronaut's PLSSs dumped heat into the lunar void.
#12
I believe the testing aspect of the LM was already addressed.
#13
An interesting idea, and I think I know where this line of reasoning comes from.
A man in decent physical shape could jump vertically perhaps 18"-20" on earth. Therefore, he should be able to jump 6 times higher on the surface of the moon, or about 10 feet.
True enough. However, you're not taking into consideration the aspect of mass.
What you need to consider is that the astronauts were wearing a space suit that added about 185 pounds of weight (earth weight) to their body weight. That means that their actual weight (earth weight) was in excess of 300 pounds.
Now, taking that into consideration, let's put a 180 pound weight on a man here on earth and ask him to do a verticle jump. How high do you think he could get? 18"? No way, not even a highly conditioned person could jump that high with 180 additional pounds strapped onto him.
He might get 3"-4" off the ground. If that! Now, taking that to the moon, this equates to a maximum of maybe 18" or so, and that is in fact how high anyone really ever got on the moon, as you indicate (indeed, even that wasn't advised unless you were quite practiced at keeping your center of mass in the right place...).
That's why men only jumped 18" or so inches on the moon, and also why 10 feet was impossible.
Now, I may know what you're thinking here, possibly...
'But they only weighed about 60 pounds total on the moon. They should've been able to jump even higher than 10 feet.'
If this thought is in your mind, remember what I said above about the aspect of mass. Mass is a constant. Weight is relative to the gravitational field. This is difficult for alot of people to understand, I realize.
But the fact is that although an astronaut on the moon might weight only 60 pounds, he is carrying a mass of over 300 pounds. That is the constant that affects his ability to jump, or lope along in 30 foot running strides.
Another way of illustrating this is to consider a spacecraft in orbit...0 gee, and an astronaut along side it floating about.
The spacecraft weights nothing, but it still has a mass of say, 20,000 pounds. If the astronaut says, "Gee, this thing weighs nothing. I oughta be able to push it right out of my way," and attempts to do so, his 200 pounds or so of mass will push against something a hundred times more massive, and the result is that there's little movement to the spacecraft, but the astronaut finds himself whifferdilling off into space.
This is a function of mass. Both astronaut and man weight 0. But they've got mass. If, for instance, that spacecraft was floating into the astronaut, and the astronaut said, "Well, shoot, it don't weigh nothin', I can get hit by that thing and it's not going to do anything," and he gets hit by a 20,000 pound mass spacecraft coming at him at say 5 feet per second, he's going to have a wake up call, as he's going to feel just like he got hit by a 20,000 pound object traveling at about 3 miles per hour.
Ouch, at least! And an unwanted trip out into space somewhere as well.
Mass is the key aspect in this statement you make. It also answers the statement you made in #14, regarding the distance between steps, which was simply natural given the mass these fellows were hauling around on the surface.
It doesn't, however, address another of those "conclusions" you tend to present as fact...
There was no slow motion photography. In fact, sometime after Apollo 11, a group of Japanese scientific types actually analyzed the films from the lunar surface and came to the conclusion that we all knew already (but hadn't bothered to analyze): that the astronaut's motion when jumping, hopping along, and etc. is perfectly consistent with 1/6 gravity, and the mass of the astronauts on the surface.
____________________________________________________
We'll continue with #15 later...
Regards.
MID Registered User
Posts: 44
(9/17/05 7:36 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Looks like I missed a few things!
Regarding #4, I see.
But there really wasn't a flame in the sense that one sees it on earth. As I indicated, engines produce initial incomplete combustion products, flashes, some residue, and then they stabilized into the no plume burn you see.
The common question is "why no flames from engines". I am basically addressing that issue, but also I am addressing your observation of something in the Apollo lunar launch videos. You're correct, something does appear there for a moment.
Regarding #5, that's a reasonable question / idea.
But I think not, regarding water. You're certainly correct in that oceans break down rocks and that's the origins of our sand here on earth.
But lunar dust isn't sand. It is a decidedly fine grained powder with a characteristic more like finely powdered graphite, rather than earth sand.
Aeons of bombardment by micrometeorites is the accepted reason for the lunar dust, and I agree with that idea. Of course, the silt on the base of the ocean floors might be very similar to lunar dust were it to be brought up and dried out...maybe.
That might be supportive of the idea that lunar dust might have been perhaps ocean floors at some time.
However, this same lunar dust is found in the highlands as well as in the Maria on the surface of the moon, which tends to put that idea on the back burner, I'd say.
Nonetheless, and interesting idea.
Regarding Apollo 11 TV and the often dark and ghostly (transparent) images, that had to do with that slow scan black and white camera they used there, and the processing of the signals.
I am not an Apollo TV camera expert (I just looked...but I don't have any expertise in TV cameras and how they work in any technical basis...it's just not a matter of interest to me), but there is a pretty good discussion of Apollo television that explains this thing in mind-bendingly technical detail.
If you go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, Introductory Material, and click on "Bill Woods--Apollo TV Essay", you'll find a rather detailed technical explanation of Apollo television camerae, signals, and processessing that can do a whole lot more justice to the topic that I can.
Regarding #7,
This photo you present shows the clear line of demarcation between what you see as the relatively rough foreground and the relatively smooth appearing background.
The reason for this is that you are seeing the edge of a drop off, located not too far behind Dave Scott.
Note the attitude of the LM, pitched up (it is also rolled a bit left). It actually landed in a dip. Note that you cannot see it's landing pads, as they are below the edge of the depression.
The ground slopes downward for some distance behind the LM, and the lighter area you're seeing is in the distance. It's difficult on the lunar surface to have an appreciation of the depth of what you're looking at, but most of that lighter, smoother looking area is not a whole lot different from the higher ground that Dave's standing on to the right of the LM.
It's just far off. Those mountains look pretty clear and pretty close, too, but they're actually kilometers to the south east of the LM. That's one of the wild aspects of having no atmosphere.
The bottom line is, you're looking at the edge of a drop off, located perhaps 60-70 feet behind Dave. The lighter area you see is quite a bit farther off in the distance.
Regarding #8, I contend there was only one light source. The Sun. The earth had no effect, and of course there weren't any others.
Your idea about multiple light sources combining into one is somewhat interesting, but also somewhat confusing. On the moon, if the earth was a light source (which it was to a very insignificant degree), it would be cancelled out due to the overpowering luminosity of the sun. The earth light doesn't combine with the sun to produce a single source of light (other than to supply a couple of insignificant lumens)...it's basically cancelled out.
I had used the example of a lighted soccer field to illustrate that two equal light sources at different angle will cast two shadows. If the sun came out, and the lights were still on, the two shadows cast by the lights at night would disappear due to the overpowering solar luminosity.
Now, I do understand your curiosity about other photos that seem to show divergent shadows, and some film that shows this effect as well. But rest assured that everything is normal about these.
Why? Because, first of all, in many of the photos used to illustrate this idea, there isn't much resolution and you can't determine exact shadow angles from them, and secondly, the moon, in many places, including Apollo 11, had an undulating surface which had rises and dips that weren't apparent to the eye when viewing the film, but were apparent when looking at high resolution Hasselblad shots (like that Apollo 15 photo you used here) and looking at the shadows in some places.
That Apollo 11 16 MM DAC film shot from the LM window showing two shadows of different lengths in the same frame is used to point to something strange.
However, what most people don't realize is that there was a rise in the surface just to the left of the left-most astronaut in that sequence, which caused his shadow to shorten in the two dimensional view, which would also be apparent to the eye looking at the scene live, as such effects are seen all the time right here on earth when viewing shadows being cast on sloping or undulating terrain.
Apollo 11 landed in the midst of a bunch of subdued craters. There were depressions and rises all around the landing site, and all you're seing here is evidence of one of them.
All shadows on the moon were parallel. They were merely affected, as they are on earth, by uneven terrain.
Regards.
MID Registered User
Posts: 45
(9/18/05 7:21 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
To Continue:
#15
This idea seems to be an extension of the prior idea regarding astronauts not being able to jump 10 feet vertically.
The reasoning seems to be that since gravity on the moon is 1/6 g, that the LRV should've been six times wider than an earth car in order to handle moving in that environment; this being based on the assumption that the rover had the same width as ordinary small cars.
First of all, the rover was 6'9" wide, which is pretty fat, and it was a hair over 10' long. This is a lot wider than any small car, and is in its total aspect ratio pretty square relative to most cars. It also had a much lower CG than any car on earth, It was also very light, being about 470 pounds empty, about 1400 pounds (+/-) loaded. That mass was supported on this squat frame whose support platform sat about a foot off the ground.
That's a pretty low CG, stable vehicle.
Rolling over in an LRV would be a function of accelleration and mass displacement above and to the side of the nominal center of gravity. The LRV had no massive acceleration potential, and it's mass was always distributed low, and evenly. This vehicle couldn't have rolled over unless the whole vehicle was tipped off two of its wheels well over 45 degrees. No such condition ever existed, of course.
I contend that your reasoning here is way off. To think that things must be six times larger in order to compensate for 1/6 g is skewed, although I can see where the thought might enter someone's mind. A 1400 pound (mass) vehicle which is 6 feet wide, 10 feet long, has a low CG, and cannot normally travel faster than 10 MPH, has little roll over potential.
If I am correct in stating your rationale for this statement, then I might ask how a man could function in 1/6 gee without being 12 feet wide...
#16
In 1959, alot of exaggeration was put forth regarding protection from solar, and Van Allen radiation. Of course, it was always well to err on the side of caution, but by the mid 1960s, alot more was known about the extent of space radiation, and its risks, as well as solar flares and their nature.
4 feet of lead was a little extreme even for 1959. After all, the atmosphere protects us from the effects of major solar flares, and it's alot more tenuous than 4 feet of lead is.
Nonetheless, I will agree with you that a major solar flare poses grave danger if it's effects are taken directly. However, Apollo missions were deliberately planned for times of relative solar quiet (which used to be rather regular).
This of course did not eliminate the risk entirely, but it mitigated it to acceptable levels.
Now, as to the actual question--
The astronauts on Apollo 14 and 16 didn't die because they were in no way exposed to the immense amount of radiation that a major solar flare might produce, if directed so that its effects were taken head on (solar flares are, in general very directional, and many big ones never have any effect on earth). This is because there were no major solar flares on these missions.
Apollo 16 was the only mission that flew when 3 minor solar flares were detected. While a slight increase in particle flux was detected from these flares, they were relatively insignificant and the Apollo 16 crew's personal dosimeters showed no more than 0.5 rads at skin depth (total dose), which was well below the threshold where any medical effects could be felt.
Apollo 14 had no solar flare activity, and yet, they recorded the highest dosages of radiation of any mission (as high as 1.15 rads at skin depth and 0.6 rad at 5 cm tissue depth). However, even these were well below any danger levels for radiation exposure. Apollo 14 flew right through the heart of the radiation belts due to its particular TLI trajectory.
Post flight, the Apollo 14 crew all had what is called whole body gamma spectroscopy done because of the higher space radiation background detected during their mission. These tests indicated that they had received no cosmic ray induced radioactivity during their flight.
Radiation has been made a big deal of concerning Apollo, and it really was never a major thing. No one ever received a dosage of any kind of radiation that was any where near dangerous. Of course, these were relatively short term flights. Longer term missions will require some longer term protections against the potential for dangerous radiation flux, but I'm getting a little off topic here.
#17-#18
Keep in mind that the Apollo space suits were highly sophisticated, 1.5 million dollar constructions consisting of well over a dozen layers that covered a pressure garment, and were technically the most advanced garments ever made. To think that a simple zipper sealed them is a little far-fetched.
But you're right, there was a zipper there. However, it was contructed with a special rubberized bladder-flap inside the zipper assembly which covered the zipper on the inside, and sealed the zipper by the pressure inside the suit...an ingenious little idea. There should not have been hardly any leakage of oxygen under such a condition, and there wasn't any significant pressure leakage.
Also realize that bending ones fingers (especially) was not exactly easy. The pressure suits, especially those designed for the J missions (AS15-17) were easier to work with in that respect, as they had special bellows tubes and joint-ring assemblies designed to allow more freedom of movement with less effort, and to prevent balooning in the pressure garment. They were quite effective, but it always took some work to move in a pressurized suit on the lunar surface.
Additionally, the suit prssure was not 5.2 psi. Nor was it even 4 psi. The suits typically were pressurized between 3.5-3.8 psi, which was adequate to provide oxygen equivalent to the partial pressure of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. The suits were also not speedbags. They were a tad more sophisticated
#19
This is a strange one.
We have voluminous photographs, both on the earth from training exercises, and from the surface of the moon, clearly showing astronauts egressing through the hatch of the LM.
Because some fellow trying to prove we didn't go to the moon measures what were told is a replica of the LM hatch and makes the conclusion that an astronaut couldn't fit through it really doesn't mean much, since we've seen ample evidence that men could indeed fit through the hatch...which was specifically designed to allow them to do so.
#20
Another "should have..."
No, they shouldn't have produced any such thing. The PLSS cooled by circulating feedwater though a heat exchange coil in the PLSS which absorbed the heat picked up by the LGC water (the water in the closed loop system of the Liquid Cooling Garment) as it circulated through the heat exchanger.
This feed water was then evaporated into the vacuum in small quantities to get rid of excess heat.
There was no explosive discharge associated with this evaporation. It was a rather continual, and small process, which, if run at maximum, would have evaporated about a gallon and a half of water over an eight hour period (approximately 4/10 oz. per minute feedwater evaporation at maximum cooling).
This would hardly produce any explosive discharge.
#21
This one has already been addressed.
#22
Good question!
But before I answer you as to how this was done, Id like to clarify something:
Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were not "burned to death" in the Apollo 1 fire. That is a commonly held, but untrue mythology. They died due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Thermal burns were only listed as "contributory", but they were not causal in death and therefore would've been survivable if that's all that happened to the crew in that spacecraft.
And, some 4 1/2 years prior to Apollo 15, the first time we attempted to track a LM liftoff from the moon with the LRV camera, Gus did in fact make comments in frustration at the difficulty of the test they were doing that day in January, 1967, particularly the late afternoon communications difficulties.
However, that was a long time before Apollo 15, and alot of progress had been made.
Tracking the LM in ascent was really rather simple in principal, although it took some finesse, certainly. A flight controller pitched the camera up and followed the thing from Houston. What he did was basically take the approximately 1.25 second travel time for the command signal from the earth to the moon and led the planned launch by that interval, or something close. He also pitched the camera up at a calculated rate, knowing the field of view of the camera, the distance to the LM from the camera, and the velocity that the LM would be accellerating during the initial phase of the launch. Thus, he was able to follow the LM. He did a pretty good job on Apollo 16, and an even better job on Apollo 17.
But that's basically how he did it.
#23
You're speaking of james Webb, NASA Administrator, who resigned in October 1968, just a couple weeks prior to Apollo 7, the first "manned" Apollo flight...not the first Apollo mission.
Mr. Webb I believe had concerns about the position of NASA in light of the Apollo 1 fire disaster, the cutting of the NASA budget by the administration, and the discussions taking place to send a mission on a translunar voyage (Apollo 8, planned for just a couple months later). He was very concerned about the effect that a disaster on Apollo 8 would have for the future of NASA, and didn't like the plan to go right out to a trans-lunar flight with this mission (it originally was not planned to be a lunar mission).
Add to this the fact that he was 62 years old at the time, and that he had personally taken the brunt of the backlash over the Apollo 1 fire, and I don't think it's surprising that he resigned his post when he did.
That's what I think...
Regards.
MID Registered User
Posts: 46
(9/20/05 2:27 am) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Next Installment
#24
TETR-A (a.k.a. TETR-1, TTS-1) was launched in December of 1967. This was a full year before the first lunar mission (Apollo-8 ), and long before it was known that Apollo 8 would in fact be a lunar mission.
TETR meant TEst and TRaining satellite (thus, also called TTS). Its actual "proclaimed purpose" was to serve as an orbital transmitter to provide training to Apollo ground stations in the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN). What this thing did was help train all of the MSFN stations in the coordinated reception and transfer of data between stations that would be required of the world-wide network during Apollo lunar missions. Target aquisition and handover techniques utilizing the Apollo S-Band transmission signals were practiced with the use of this small, solar and battery powered thing which one could easily have held in one's arms (it was the size of a beach ball and weighed about 45 pounds). It had a 9.5 watt S-Band transponder, and a 100 milliwatt VHF transmitter aboard, as well as an encoder.
What is a "misinformation lie" is that NASA ever claimed that TETR-A crashed shortly before the first lunar mission. TETR-A re-entered the atmosphere in April 1968, 8 months prior to Apollo 8, because it failed to attain an optimum orbit at launch. Nonetheless, it was successful in its mission, providing 4 full MSFN simulations.
I submit that to state, as you have, that its purpose was to do what you state it was supposed to have done is irresponsible at worse, uninformed at best. TTS had no power to do all you said it did. It supplied raw data in the format that Apollo spacecraft would be transmitting for practice purposes in the new techniques and procedures that were in place to receive and transfer S-Band data throughout the MSFN.
Did you know there were 4 of these things? TETR-2 was placed into orbit in August of 1968, and served the same purpose. TETR-3 unfortunately failed to reach orbit in August 1969 (after Apollo 11) and was destroyed along with Pioneer E (the satellite that it was launched with), and TETR 4, used in Apollo 16 training, was placed into orbit in September 1971. TETR-4 was also less than successful as a training device, as although telemetry signals were received from it, damage from launch prohibited any commands from being sent to it.
All TETRs were launched with other satellites as well. The Pioneers accompanied the first 3, and OSO-7 solar observatory was the TETR-4 partner satellite.
I'm sure it's easy to construct the idea that these satellites were used as part of the hoax of Apollo, but the facts are really rather different. Of course, if TETR were in fact part of a hoax, knowledge of them would never have been released, and of course, they were a matter of public record...just not one of much interest to the general public.
#25
You must mean STS-98, the John Glenn flight. Actually, that flight did orbit pretty high, at about 350 SM as you say, but that's not hundreds of miles below the lower limit of the Van Allen belts. It's a might closer, depending on the inclination of that shuttle's orbit.
However, I've never heard of anyone claiming to have been able to see radiation from that flight. What's your source for this information. It would be interesting, because I haven't heard any recent reports of astronauts seeing "radiation". Only from Apollo 11 through Skylab have I read any such reports.
Yep, that's right. Apollo 11 LMP Buzz Aldrin reported seeing strange flashes of light. Subsequently, the phenomemon was observed by all other Apollo crews, and was in fact studied during the missions as part of the flight plan on the Apollo 14 through 17 missions.
There is little doubt that these flashes (well studied on flights and on earth tests) were the results of charged particles passing through the retina of the crewmen. dark adaptation was necessary for about 20 minutes in order for the crews to perceive these flashes, but most all of the astronauts did see them.
Therefore, I wouldn't doubt what you're saying. I would however discount the implication of the perceived intensity of this "radiation". No one seems to have suffered any ill effects from these very few charged particles passing through one or both of their eyes. Odds are, if no one ever shut off the lights to go to sleep, no one would have ever seen any of these things and promped a strudy of the phenomenon.
No one ever "endured" anything really. They deliberately tried to see these things, once they were initially reported, and carefully recorded their observations. But no one ever suffered any ill effects from this.
I have to admit, it really frosts me when I hear people speak about AS-204 as if it was a murder because someone planned to blow the whistle, as-it-were, on the Apollo hoax...
...so I'll hold off on addressing "comment" 26, regarding same.
(that's Apollo 1 in the vernacular...the one where everyone was "burned to death").
Regards.
Quote:#9
The answer to this one is actually simple.
The "C" that appears in this photo on that rock is simply not there on the original.
I have a large (11 x 17) image of that photo (AS16-107-17446, from Station 4, EVA-2), and I cannot see anything on that rock. I suspect it is some artifact due to repeated reproductions.
Yes, I think that I can finally take this question out of the article – It is quite possible.
Quote:#10
Now this is an unusual question, and seemingly irrelevant to Apollo.
The HF whip antenna on the Gemini 6A spacecraft, and all the other Gemini spacecraft for that matter, survived the tremendous heat of atmospheric re-entry for a simple reason:
It was designed to. Because...
It was actually inside the recovery compartment of the spacecraft and was not exposed to re-entry forces (well, at least atmosphereic blast and heat. It did of course take the g loads). It was uncovered and used only after re-entry, when the covers of the forward section of the spacecraft were jettisoned, and was used after the main parachute was deployed.
The antenna's purpose was to transmit a recovery beacon.
The vast heat from re-entry which would still effect the outer shell of the craft (which the antennae was screwed into obviously) should have been hot enough to melt the aerial surely?
#11
An interesting statement, but I have read statements from Apollo 11 where they say they hardly slept because it was cold – and that was with the systems on.
#12
The question still remains – who would risk landing a vehicle on an unknown surface in a craft that saw 3 out of the 5 Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV's) explode during tests?
#13
Shaquille O'Neal is over 330lbs – look how high he can jump!
#14
The speed of the Apollo films seen on transmission here on Earth were slightly slower because the film was transferred to another tape as it was downloaded. Early video machines were used to record the NASA footage here on Earth by the TV networks. They received the FM carrier signal on Earth, ran it through an FM demodulator and processed it in an RCA scan converter that took the slow scan signal and converted it to the US standard black and white TV signal. The film was then sent onto Houston. When they were converting from slow scan to fast scan, RCA used disc and scan recorders as a memory and it played back the same video several times until it got an updated picture. In other words the signal was recorded onto video one then converted to video two. Movie film runs at 30 frames per second, whereas video film runs at 60 frames per second. So in other words the footage that most people saw that they thought was 'live' wasn't, and was actually 50% slower than the original footage.
#7
What I cannot understand is why the ground near to the camera seems to be rough and yet in the background is completely smooth? I certainly don’t believe that the astronauts had time to walk around that large area and make it rough. The area directly in front of the camera almost looks ‘damp’ to me?
#8
Its obvious that various shadows will be cast due to the uneven surface of the Moon. However, in the example movie that you refer to, if there were such a high increment to reduce the astronauts shadow, you would see a ‘crease’ as the point where the ground rises on the shadow. This is not apparent in the footage.
Quote:#15
If I am correct in stating your rationale for this statement, then I might ask how a man could function in 1/6 gee without being 12 feet wide...
Because Man can move its legs independently as they are not on a fixed axle as would be the wheels of a vehicle.
Quote:#16
4 feet of lead was a little extreme even for 1959. After all, the atmosphere protects us from the effects of major solar flares, and it's alot more tenuous than 4 feet of lead is.
But there is no such atmosphere on the lunar surface?
Quote:The astronauts on Apollo 14 and 16 didn't die because they were in no way exposed to the immense amount of radiation that a major solar flare might produce, if directed so that its effects were taken head on (solar flares are, in general very directional, and many big ones never have any effect on earth). This is because there were no major solar flares on these missions.
But the big problem is that 1969 was at the height of a solar flare cycle (which happens every 11 years). As I said in my article, considering that sun flares cannot be estimated as to when they will happen, why did NASA send their astronauts up at the height of the sun spot cycle?
Lets also look at the latest news from NASA who are now working towards sending men to the Moon in 2020. They are planning to leave men on the Moon for 6 months! What type of effect will the radiation have on them?
Quote:#19
This is a strange one.
We have voluminous photographs, both on the earth from training exercises, and from the surface of the moon, clearly showing astronauts egressing through the hatch of the LM.
Because some fellow trying to prove we didn't go to the moon measures what were told is a replica of the LM hatch and makes the conclusion that an astronaut couldn't fit through it really doesn't mean much, since we've seen ample evidence that men could indeed fit through the hatch...which was specifically designed to allow them to do so.
But the hatch that he measured was of an apparent ‘exact replica’ of an Apollo LM. Don’t ask me why they appeared to be able to get out of the craft as the guy showed on the film that with the backpack on, they couldn’t?
Quote:#20
Another "should have..."
No, they shouldn't have produced any such thing. The PLSS cooled by circulating feedwater though a heat exchange coil in the PLSS which absorbed the heat picked up by the LGC water (the water in the closed loop system of the Liquid Cooling Garment) as it circulated through the heat exchanger.
This feed water was then evaporated into the vacuum in small quantities to get rid of excess heat.
How do you evaporate something? By boiling it up? So doesn’t that mean that some sort of steam must be released?
#21
I still have a problem with the flag – but there you go 
MID Registered User
Posts: 47
(9/21/05 12:03 am) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Comments to the comments about the comments...
9:
Fair enough...
10:
Yes, the heat from re-entry would effect the outer shell of the craft, but the whip antenna was mounted interiorly on the Gemini spacecraft, not connected to the outer shell. The outer shell in that area ( the nose) was actually jettisoned to allow for drogue and main chute deployment. The whip was inside the nose area, and became active after the outer shell was jettisoned.
11:
You're absolutely right. Armstrong and Aldrin were somewhat uncomfortable in the LM during their sleep period. The temperatures inside while they were on the surface, powered down largely, were dipping into the lower 60s, which was cool enough to make them a bit uncomfortable. All systems weren't powered up during the lunar stay. In the future, accomodations were made to retain a little warmth in similar circumstances (blankets, etc.). However, this was nowhere near freezing.
12:
First of all, the surface wasn't unknown, entirely. The Surveyor spacecraft had soft landed on the lunar surface already before July 1969, and showed that the surface was adequate to support weight.
The LLTVs were not LMs. They were highly complex training devices designed to simulate the LM characteristics in earths atmosphere. The LM had been tested thoroughly in space.
Now, someone has to attempt a landing, and to answer the question regarding who would risk it...the astronauts would, and did.
This was based on their extensive practice, the successful test of the LM unmanned, and on Apollo 9 and 10, and the data from Surveyor landings. The risks were managable, and so, these test pilots accepted them.
13.
Indeed Shaquille O'Neal is over 300 pounds. He is also a professional athlete who's job it is to jump. Strap another 183 pounds onto him and see if he could make those 3 1/2 foot leaps, and maintain a modicum of balance at the same time. Me thinks not. He, if trained in the Apollo suit and sent to the moon (he'd have been far too large to qualify as an Astronaut for Apollo), wouldn't be able to jump any more than 6 times higher than he could with 180 pounds on his back on earth, although it might be a bit higher than 19" or so due to his conditioning. Astronauts, however, were not professional basketball players. If so, they'd play basketball and make a whole lot more money than an astronaut!
14.
I think you've mistaken what it means to covert from slow scan to normal TV speed. This conversion has nothing to do with the actual scene speed you're seeing. It has to do with the picture quality. The slow frame per second feed from the Apollo 11 TV camera (10 frames per second) was converted to U.S. Standard 30 frames per second format so it could be broadcast. This does not mean that the film was 50% slower. Indeed, by your logic, it would've been three times faster, but that's not what this conversion does. Simply put, it's kind of like filling in the gap between the frames, not speeding up what's seen.
Apollo 11's video was in real speed, in virtually real time.
7.
That's an interesting observation. Many an Apollo astronaut made an observation stating that in some areas, the surface almost looked wet. I imagine it had something to do with the character of bombardment by micros in certain locations. The soil was quite adherent to itself, and would hold a shape if one molded it. As to the distance and the apparent smoothness, it is difficult to tell what the actual characteristics of the ground are beyond the edge of the foreground, because that area is quite a ways off.
8.
It doesn't have to be a "high increment". It was in fact a gradual slope up. No crease is necessary, and on 16mm film shot through a multi-paned window, it's unlikely, and apparent, that no really clear detail can be seen. All that one needs to do is try it right here, on a sunny day. A relatively low grade can easily produce a visible shadow shortening, which is what you're seeing in the Apollo 11 films.
15.
That may be so, but as I indicated, the LRV was designed and limited so as to be able to do exactly what it did on the lunar surface. The idea that it had to be 6 times wider than it was to maneuver on the lunar surface still defies basic and logical engineering principals.
16.
The lack of atmosphere on the moon is not what I was addressing. The exaggeration of 4 feet of lead was. I said that a major solar event, with directional radiation that might have hit the moon, would've been a problem. The statement was that the Apollo 14 and 16 astronauts did not die because there was no major solar transient event recorded, and no attendant radiation, during their missions.
The solar maximum in the 1960s peaked in 1967, not 1969.
1967, 1978, 1989, and 2000 are solar max years. There was no solar max during any Apollo mission.
Solar flares could be , and were estimated rather accurately up until the 2000 max. They seem to be a little more unpredicatble nowadays, but the cycle was rather steadfast up until that time.
The fact is, they did not send their astronauts up at the height of a solar max in the 1960s.
The reason for the study of radiation effects on the planned 2020 (+/-) lunar missions (which are not planned for stays longer than 2 weeks at this point, incidentally) is because we don't know what that length of time will result in radiation exposure wise. We did have a pretty good idea based upon stays that were no longer than three days in the early 1970s. This is a new project, a new plan, with new unknowns and potential hazards. The study is hopefully to determine what effect the radiation will have on them...
19.
Apparently.
However, as I indicated, we have voluminous pictures showing that Apollo astronauts did indeed fit through that hatch, which was specifically designed for them to do so.
The hatch was 32" wide, 32" deep. The width of an Apollo PLSS was 20". I know who you're talking about who measured this "replica" LM (and then measured a flat-laying Apollo suit and concluded that it was too wide to fit through that hatch...without being worn, but pressed flat on a surface. This was a pretty ridiculous exhibition, quite frankly (put the suit on, and it's "flat" width is reduced for the depth of the person wearing it...as in any other article of clothing.).
I also know that this replica LM was the very vehicle (Test Article LTA-8A)that the astronauts used to practice egress in! The all succeeded in getting their 20" wide PLSS through the hatch.
The difficulty was actually vertically, not horizontally. They had to get down pretty low to fit vertically, to be honest with you. The guy on the film showed no such thing. He was attempting to sway an audience with no knowledge of what they were looking at to believe his story. He didn't show one clip of fully suited astronauts actually exiting that very hatch innumerable times, did he?
20.
Exactly, one boils it away...at a very slow rate, even at maximum cooling. Boiling is not in any way explosive. But yes, steam, as it were (gasseous water) will be released. At a rate which I described, and no one ever saw any "explosive" discharges of steam.
21.
Yes, I know, alot of folks are hung up on flags moving under impulse, and not moving when there's no impulse. The issue has been explained thoroughly. I'll just say this. The moon is an alien environment, and the movement of flags, as well as dust, and even the lack of depth perception (visible on the photos as well as to the astronmauts themselves on the lunar surface) are alien to human eyes that are only used to seeing things behave on earth. They are quite natural, given the environment, but that doesn't make them any less surprising to see.
25.
That's precisely what I'm talking about. Charged particles causing flashes and streaks. This phenomenon occurred on Apollo missions, and has even been documented on earth. It seems apparent what they are. But the point was that no adverse effects were reported from these apparitions (which seem not to be apparitions at all), and the association with them an deadly radiation is unsubstantiated.
Regards.
MID Registered User
Posts: 48
(9/21/05 1:10 am) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
#26
There is absolutely no evidence that the Apollo 1 crew would have been the first to walk on the moon.
Gus certainly had his opinions about the block I Apollo spacecraft (and he was not in the minority in his views), and despite the fact that he did joke around with the lemon, as you say, he was dedicated to the success of the program, and his beefs with the spacecraft were beefs he made in light of the fact that he didn't think things were right with it and success could suffer because of it.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Gus did say that we were ten years from landing on the moon!
The fact that Gus's son Scott is a seasoned pilot is completely irrelevant to anything.
And, he does not have any forensic evidence in his possession. There is no forensic evidence in the Apollo 204 disaster (forensic evidence is present in murder investigations)...only technical evidence.
Now, Scott Grissom has held the belief (at least at one time, apparently)that there was foul play (perhaps) in his father's death. I am not prepared to speak to his feelings, or those of his Mother, and I shall not venture a guess as to what's actually in their hearts.
However, it seems apparent from the statements of condolence that both he and his Mother made to the families of the Shuttle Columbia's crew after the disaster in 2003 that they no longer harbor any such thoughts...if they ever really seriously entertained them in the first place.
I will say that it is apparent that Scott had looked at the artifacts from Apollo 1 in some detail and discovered a piece of metal that was undocumented and which perhaps fed his one-time idea of foul play, and which he didn't think belonged in the command module of Apollo 1, due to the lack of doicumentation, documentation which accompanied practically every other piece of artifact from the original investigation. He thought that it may have been used to cause an arc which ignited the fire that killed his Father (perhaps).
He apparently made a request to Congress to investigate this matter, and Congress did initiate one in 2000.
It was shown that this piece of metal was cut from a support brackett removed from the main display panel of the Apollo 1 CM for examination under electron microscopy to seek evidence of electrical arcing. Nothing significant was found in this piece of metal. The problem was its lack of documentation which showed that this piece of metal was in fact a part of a normal structure of the CM. The matter was settled in 2000.
The real point here is that you appear to be implying that Gus Grissom was murdered because he wanted to blow the whistle on the hoax(?), or perhaps just because he held somewhat low esteem for the vehicle as of January 1967. This, in light of his own statements in suppoort of the program, and in acknowledgement of the inherent risks, is completely untenable.
I would ask why, if in fact Gus was knowledgeable about a hoax, and the government wanted him eliminated, that they would've killed all 3 crewmen (including Ed White as well, who was a national hero already, as well as was Gus), and risked the lives of dozens of pad personnel who were present that January evening in 1967 (did you know that 15 people were injured at Pad 34 that day?), as well as jeopardize millions of dollars of equipment in the process?
The government certainly could've arranged for "accidents" in a much less invasive way (they all flew high performance jet aircraft regularly...hmmm), wouldn't you think?
Yes, Gus was making a statement with the lemon, a statement that was agreed to by many. Unfortunately, and poingnantly, Apollo 1's disaster served a s a major slow down and wake up call...a wake up call which resulted in the success we saw 2 1/2 years later.
27.
Well, this doesn't say much. I'd have to read the CNN report to comment. But the fact is that it is of course well documented that between 1968 and 1972, when astronauts did go through the Van Allen belts, no severe or even close to hazardous exposure to radiation was ever recorded.
28.
There is a very simple explanation for this issue, one which tends to escape the technologically infested society of the present age.
Most of the calculations done for Apollo missions were done with slide rules by very smart folks. Computers were used to execute commands accurately, and display raw data in black and white. The reason that today, an Apollo lunar landing simulation requires so much RAM, is that there are boo-koo graphics involved in today's programs. Graphics is the reason for the power of todays computers. This computer that I'm using right now has more power in it than the entire computer system of the MOCR in Houston had in 1969. That is a result of Apollo, ofr course, but in Apollo, graphics didn't exist. They were "fluff".
Simulations required much less power, and there were no computer generated graphics (as is of course common and very advanced in today's class D aviation flight simulators, which are so realistic that one can actually log the time in their pilot's logbook).
Graphics in those days were supplied in simulations by projecting video of actual scale models of the lunar surface onto screens. The computers did the instrumentation and display simulations, but no more. Thus, the Apollo simulators filled a large room with projectors and such stuff.
Your comparison of today's simulations and what was done in Apollo are irrelevant. The fact is that the spacecraft computers were more than adequate to execute their functions, the fact that they were little more powerful than today's hand held calculators! They didn't need to be any more powerful. By today's standards, they are archaic, but today, a program like microsoft exchange, with all of it's graphics and such, requires alot more capacity.
People today just don't really understand what actually happened in Apollo days.
29.
No, debris from Apollo would not be able to be seen by any telescope in existance, even the Hubble. Resolution capabilities do not yet exist to image artifacts from 250,000 miles away that are at largest size only a few meters accross.
Clementine had the capability of imaging things to a resolution of perhaps 5-7 meters, at the proper altitude and orbital plane, but the Clementine probe was not at the appropriate altiutude to image anything quite so fine in eqauatorial regions of the Moon. It did primarily polar mapping studies.
To this day, despite the proposed VLA imaging of Apollo landing sites (which, logically, has been abandoned since no serious astronomer will waste money and that particular advanced equipment on imaging things we already have ample evidence of), there is no telescope in existence that could clearly image the largest piece of Apollo artifact ( a LM descent stage, at about 4 meters).
To say that it would be visible today through a powerful telescope indicates a lack of knowledge of the facts about telescopes.
30.
So? How does that relate to a lunar hoax in the 1960's?
besides, NASA does have the technology, as revealed just this week. Indeed, they have for years. They just have no mandate to develop and use it. They probably still don't!
31.
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To The Moon"is a piece of tabloid journalism. What you see in this piece of "behind-the-scenes" tape is training film. This is the Bart Sibrel film.
Bart Sibrel is an idiot. Plain and simple. A man who uses immature, ridiculous tactics, bends things creatively to fit some screwy agenda, and knows absolutely nothing about that of which he speaks. Using anything this fool produces as substantiating documentation places one in a very low position on the intellectual ladder. No personal offense intended...but this person is an imbecile.
32.
All of the blueprints and plans weren't destroyed. Alot of it still exists. All of the hardware, and many of the working drawings, etc. were apparently eliminated gradually. This was because in the wake of Nixon's cancellation of Apollo, and the demise of any real Apollo applications or future programs based on Apollo technology, it was realized that the technology we had would be obsolete by the time that someone, somewhere, gave us the funding and mandate to continue manned space exploration. Apollo technology and hardware is now, and has been obsolete for years.
But this has nothing to do with the contention of an Apollo hoax either.
Quote:The reason for the study of radiation effects on the planned 2020 (+/-) lunar missions (which are not planned for stays longer than 2 weeks at this point, incidentally) is because we don't know what that length of time will result in radiation exposure wise. We did have a pretty good idea based upon stays that were no longer than three days in the early 1970s. This is a new project, a new plan, with new unknowns and potential hazards. The study is hopefully to determine what effect the radiation will have on them...
But from reading the latest data at the NASA website only a couple of days ago, they want to leave astronauts on the moon for lengths of 6 months at a time and make a moon base. I’m wondering how they will deal with the solar flares?
Also Im wondering how NASA managed to land on the Moon just 7 years after Kennedy announced that 'Man would land on the Moon by the end of the decade', and yet this week NASA announce that it will be more than double that time (15 years) before they will be sending man back? Surely if its been done 6 times already and 12 men have landed on the Moon it shouldnt take twice as long to do the same thing, especially with the vast technological advances that we have seen in the last 36 years?
MID Registered User
Posts: 49
(9/24/05 6:02 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Reasonable questions.
Well, that type of stay has always been contemplated by NASA. Of course, projects have been developed and canned so many times in the past 30 years that it's all getting rather boring.
However, if this is real, and it's going to happen (and it seems that it is ((at least for now...it's a viable plan anyway)based upon what they're researching vis-a-vis solar radiation, etc.), all I can say is that that's what the radiation studies are for...longer-term lunar stays. I too shall be interested in what they develop shielding-wise to deal with potential solar fluxuations.
No, it shouldn't take that long. However, the effort that was put into Apollo, the mandate, the deadline, and the willingness of American industry and NASA to go all out, as they did in Apollo days, is not present today as it was then. The money is a major consideration...for political reasons obviously...
Not that it wasn't in the 1960s, but back then, it was an issue of national prestige in the face of the Soviet Union's apparent superiority in space. That's not the case anymore.
To be honest with you, I find the new program, while very nice to hear, somewhat puzzling vis-a-vis methodology, etc.
And to be honest with you, I give it a 50:50 chance at best of being fully implemented. A new admnistration is due in office in just a few years. Everything could change radically at that point, as it has time and again since Apollo days.
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
I had an interesting day out yesterday at the Science Museum in London. As luck would have it a new Imax film had just arrived there just 2 days beforehand called 'Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D' (www.imax.com/magnificentdesolation) which was produced and narrated by Tom Hanks. With never-before-seen photographs, CGI renditions of the lunar landscape and previously unreleased NASA footage, there was a lot on offer for anyone with a slight interest in the Apollo subject.
The movie was absolutely amazing and you really felt like you were on the moon with the aid of the 3D glasses. There were a few things that particularly caught my eye during the movie which lasted approximately 40 minutes.
Firstly, the movement of the dust from the moon rover sequences and when the astronauts hopped across the lunar surface looked identicle to the Apollo missions (you can see a short demonstration of this from the trailer on the official site that is linked above). It acted exactly as it did in the Apollo mission footage. Also it was amazing to see them walking on a 3D moonscape - you really couldn't tell if the movie was being shot on the Moon because it was that convincing.
I had a quick jaunt around the museum afterwards as I had just about an hour left because of a busy schedule. There is a good section there called 'The Space Gallery' which has many items on show, including the Apollo 10 module and an Apollo LM replica, as well as spacesuits and other space things. Ive taken a few pictures which I will develop, one of which was interesting for me as it showed an astronaut climbin the ladder of the LM with the door just above him. It didnt seem to me as if the astronaut could fit into the door?
MID Registered User
Posts: 50
(9/26/05 11:05 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
Looks like somehow I managed to duplicate the post below...so I killed this one!
MID Registered User
Posts: 51
(9/26/05 11:06 pm) Reply
Re: The "32 things that need to be answered".
It certainly sounds interesting, and from looking at the trailer, I can see why!
There are some pretty heavy duty special effects people on that staff, and from the brief snippets of the film I saw, it appears they've done their homework vis-a-vis 1/6 G behavior.
Yes indeed, "Charlie Brown" in in the London Museum.
As to the astronuat not being able to fit into the LM, I can certainly say that this point has been one of contention with some of the Apollo hoax afficionadoes.
That hatch was 32" square, a little larger than the average width of an interior door in most American homes. An astronaut in a full EMU with PLSS had plenty of room width-wise to slip out that hatch. The effort, quite frankly, was with the height aspect. One had to really squish down with a PLSS on one's back to get through that opening (hands and knees wasn't enough generally...one had to get down practically on one's forearms to get through).
Its almost as if they landed on a sandy beach and yet no dust seems to have been moved at all? 
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