Order of Kilopi
Established Member
In case you're wondering Jay, the Clementine probe had a resolution of 125-250 m/pixels.
Otherwise, rock on! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Order of Kilopi
Well, Dave?
We're waiting.
Established Member
Nice piece of work, Jay! Suppose you'll be getting any more "legal" emails? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Established Member
Nice work Jay.
But for question 9 you should address the second "C" on the ground as well. Your page on the C rock does not cover that.
Established Member
Re: Question No. 4.
Aside from the fact that Dave's paragraph is contradictory in the extreme, he aslo says that he's found evidence for the ignition transient in only one LM lift-off.
For anyone interested, the same phenomenon is also visible in the Apollo 16 LM lift-off footage (Dave's footage is Apollo 17).
Apollo 16 LM lift-off
Order of Kilopi
But for question 9 you should address the second "C" on the ground as well.
Right, thanks for the reminder. It's now on the "to do" list.
Basically I think it's there, but it's not necessarily a "C". It's just a curved feature. If you assume everything in that photo that looks like a letter or numeral really is that letter or numeral, you can find like half a dozen letters in the dirt there.
The notion that it's a "C" to mark the centerline of the stage is absolute crap. I've been in theater since I was wearing befooted pajamas, and I've never seen that done that way. Plus, there's no need to mark the centerline of a film set because there is no centerline.
Established Member
Well done, Jay!
Established Member
On the point of the LRV camera tracking the LM ascent (point 22) wasn't it also true that it took Ed Fendell two previous tries on Apollo 15 and 16 to finally get the shot perfect on 17?
Established Member
Jay
Excellent work.
With regard to point 18 (internal pressure of the suits), I understand the internal pressure was only around 3.7 psi, rather than the 5 mentioned by Dave.
Order of Kilopi
From the Earth to the Moon tells the story of Ed Fendell like that, but I think it's been overstated.
And yes, the suit pressure was around 3.5 psia. Thanks for pointing that out.
Established Member
JayUtah,
Heres your answers, and a few I have for you. Your questions or accusations are in speech marks.
‘Skeptics don't say there aren't any stars visible in space. They say there should be no stars visible from the surface of the moon’.
What’s the difference between aren’t and should not be?
‘The "official photos" Dave reproduces showing alleged stars are the low-quality JSC scans that have white specks everywhere as a result of the hurried scanning process.’
And on several of the examples I have on my site the ‘white specks’ as you call them are in exactly the same configuration in the sky, even though the camera is panning across the horizon. This rules out blemishes on the lens or within the film.
‘ The astronauts were not affected by this environment because they pre-breathed with oxygen to purge the nitrogen out of their bloodstreams prior to doffing their helmets inside the spacecraft.’
This does not apply to the Apollo 13 missions because they had a limited supply of Oxygen.
Photos taken of the lunar surface directly beneath the descent engine show it to have been swept and scoured. However, there is no justification for arguing that the dust for any appreciable radius around the engine nozzle would have all been blown away. Recall that the foot of the ladder is some fifteen feet (five meters) away from the exhaust nozzle.
So the dust didn’t blow very far away, but it also didn’t land inside the landing pads either… interesting!
Contrary to having "turned the tables" on skeptics, Dave has once again tried to have his cake and eat it too. He says the lack of flame is suspicious, and simultaneously the presence of the flame is suspicious. He should decide whether a flame is visible or not so that he can get straight what is supposed to be suspicious.
Ok, so lets go with the appearance of a flame argument. You guys reckon that no flame should be seen, so why is one evident in many ascents from the Moon?
In fact, this is quite good evidence of the progressive nature of Apollo technology. Television coverage was not strictly required in order to accomplish the landing on time, and so high-quality television for lunar EVA was deferred in its development until later in the program.
In fact during the early minutes of the first Apollo 11 EVA the picture quality changes dramatically. Why?
This is a natural feature of contour on the lunar surface. It is not always possible to distinguish by color or shading the crests of intervening hills.
This comment would be fine, except for the fact that the background soil is of a completely different shade to the foreground and that is why such a distinct ‘join’ can be seen. Also several different backgrounds from different missions have the same features and size, even though the sites are allegedly several km away from each other.
Skeptics say no such thing. In fact, shadows in sunlight should be expected to appear parallel in photography only under very special circumstances. In all other cases they will appear to converge or diverge.
Actually those sceptics are on this very group and told me about the two light sources around Christmas time. Your own members came up with this theory, so if it’s wrong you can blame them. You maybe able to find these facts on this board, I have looked myself but believe that perhaps BA discards threads after a certain time?
It wasn't extended until after splashdown. It was in its retracted position during re-entry
So how did they communicate with Houston if the aerial was down?
The lunar module was tested successfully numerous times in vacuum chambers to verify its pressure integrity. It was tested in space on Apollos 5, 9, and 10 prior to the first landing. Every aircraft or spacecraft has a first flight test, and it's always a white-knuckle flight, but to say the LM was untested is absolutely false.
You’re missing the point. The wording I used is ‘Who would dare risk using the LEM on the Moon when it was never, ever tested successfully?’ The LEM was never successfully landed anywhere until it landed on the Moon. Prove me wrong! I seem to remember Armstrong almost being killed on one of the attempts made.
In regards to the ability to jump, within 1/6th gravity it would be an easier task to jump than here on Earth, jeez, even guys on Earth can jump 6 feet or above.
‘None of these extremely powerful solar events occurred during any of the missions. The events experienced by Apollo’s 14 and 16 were quite mild.’
More luck than judgement considering that there is no way of knowing when solar flares will erupt. In fact midway through the Apollo years the sunspot cycle was at its 11 year cycle high and was one of the highest recorded on record.
‘Further, the plans for the Soviet lunar spacecraft do not include two meters of shielding.’
And they didn’t go either!
‘No, they shouldn't have. Nickel porous plate sublimators are among the most common devices used in space engineering.’
So where did all that used up oxygen go?
In your Technology communications page you claim:
The practice of wearing a lead vest essentially allows you to undergo as many dental x-rays as you need without worrying about cumulative exposure.
And Astronauts during the Apollo missions were living in these radiation conditions continually. With no apparent affect to their health?
‘One man's opinion of the timetable shouldn't necessarily take precedence over those who had more information available.’
Really, even though that man was to be a guinea pig on Apollo 1 and basically put his life in NASA’s hands?
‘Command Module 012 has been in the custody of the United States government since early 1967. If they had really wanted to destroy it, it wouldn't have been too difficult.’
But how many people have seen it? You say that it’s in the custody of the United States Government… in a locked vault or on general display? Why destroy it? If the Government doesn’t want anyone to see something in their possession then they will find ways to make sure that the evidence stays covered up. Have you seen it?
‘Conspiracists interpret words like "more dangerous" and "hazardous" as if they somehow mean "instantly deadly", which they do not.’
If I was using a detergent to clean something and the instructions on the back of the container said ‘hazardous to health if swallowed’ do you think I would drink it? Or would you like to prove your point? Hazardous in my dictionary does mean life threatening.
The Apollo Guidance Computer was not intended to be a general purpose computer. It was designed to fulfill its specific mission, and did so.
My current car has an onboard computer of around 64mb. All it does is read the temperature, speedo, mph and have electric windows etc. Obviously the Apollo craft had a lot more gadgetry to them. Even a calculator has more memory than 32k and considering that the computer aboard the Apollo was used for making calculations, how do you suggest that such a small memory computer could cope with the task?
‘Neither the Hubble Space Telescope nor the Clementine probe has the required optical resolution to see objects on the lunar surface as small as the Apollo hardware.’
You better get in touch with NASA if you believe this because they have released images of the Apollo hardware, both on motion film and still photos - or are you calling them liars?
To my question 30 on my site which states ‘ In the year 2002 NASA does not have the technology to land any man, or woman on the Moon, and return them safely to Earth.’
You answer: ‘This does not prove it did not have the technology to do it in 1969. These are not skills and equipment on the same level as riding a bike or building a birdhouse. These are design and construction techniques which are highly specialized, and if not needed are not undertaken.’
But you’re the one who tells me that you have so many thousands of documents on the Apollo missions – What’s stopping them looking at the old blueprints? Oh yes of course I forgot, they destroyed most of them… doh! How stupid. Surely these highly qualified scientists can work from a simple plan – can’t they? And surely things can be learned from the Apollo missions that would help with flights to Mars and other space related missions. On the one hand your telling me that Schools and Universities are shown Apollo related stuff to learn from and in the next breath that NASA don’t bother to use it themselves… odd?
‘NASA's mission has changed. It has also been drastically scaled back. If there were a mandate to maintain and use such technology, there is plenty of design and manufacturing capability to undertake it. Space exploration simply requires different skills and materials, and must operate on a different set of resources.’
The budget Congress agreed to, part of a larger budget bill that funds the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development as well as various independent agencies, gives NASA $14.8 billion for fiscal year 2002, which started October 1. This is about $300 million more than what the Senate, closely following the budget proposal by President Bush, approved, but is about $150 million less than what the House approved. NASA received $14.3 billion in fiscal year 2001. The whole Apollo project cost an estimated $25 billion. So NASA would have more than that amount in just 2 years. Why do they have to cut back on resources?
‘The footage as shown in Bart Sibrel's video is cut up and rendered incoherent, and the voiceover makes it difficult to hear what the astronauts are saying.’
That’s a very convenient way of wriggling out of having to answer to firm evidence that you believe us hoax believers could not uncover. I thought that someone on here said that all NASA footage was released in the mid 70s? obviously that rule didn’t apply to this footage. What else has NASA got tucked away in the vaults?
‘Congress provided no funding for the storage and archive of the detailed design documentation. The private companies who had custody of it did not have the funds nor the desire to archive materials that required an inconveniently large building in which to house it. They are for-profit companies, not museums. Thus the detailed documentation was regretfully discarded while the basic documentation was preserved.’
Oh how convenient, and you don’t think this is suspect? If this were the situation in the UK there would be a national outcry if our Government dared to destroy evidence of a piece of our History of such great significance. Why didn’t NASA offer the documents to a private buyer?
THAT’S YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND HERES A FEW MORE THAT’S ON YOUR SITE WHICH I WOULD LIKE AN ANSWER TO:
As seen from earth, an Apollo spacecraft on a translunar trajectory would always be in roughly the same direction as the moon.
This strengthens my argument that the position of the Apollo craft could not successfully be worked out by radio ham operators
‘It's not as easy to hide a satellite as Sibrel believes.’
Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.
I think I have more than responded to my critics with very a very valid response.
Thanks,
CosmicDave
Established Member
I have been on this website for a long time and I have never seen a post that stated shadows were caused by earthshine.On 2002-06-03 15:18, cosmicdave wrote:
Actually those sceptics are on this very group and told me about the two light sources around Christmas time. Your own members came up with this theory, so if it?s wrong you can blame them. You maybe able to find these facts on this board, I have looked myself but believe that perhaps BA discards threads after a certain time?
I have seen discussions on this board where the fill lighting in shadows was speculated to be from earthshine, but that has been ruled out due to the intense light reflected from the moon's surface.
However, even if someone did make that statement on this board, why do you keep going back to it? Nobody has repeated it, and it is not on either BA or Clavius. You are hanging your hat on one post which may or may not even exist.
So to put and end to this, nobody here on the BA discussion board says that earthshine has ANY effect on casting shadows.
Established Member
As seen from earth, an Apollo spacecraft on a translunar trajectory would always be in roughly the same direction as the moon.
This strengthens my argument that the position of the Apollo craft could not successfully be worked out by radio ham operators
You can't just say that "it strenghtens your argument", you must tell us why. Please discuss the technique of using doppler shift to track a spacecraft and how being in one spot in the sky makes that difficult.
You have the incredibly annoying habit of making completely unsubstantiated statements and passing them off as fact.
Do you know what doppler shift is?
What in heavens name are you talking about? You have to at least give us a link of something!Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.
I think I have more than responded to my critics with very a very valid response.
Making up responses is not "responding to critics". NONE of your answers have any references to them. You make a statement about not being able to track Apollo, but give no evidence, while we posted the relevant information from numerous sources.
You also make completely false claims, like Clementine and Hubble have imaged the Apollo hardware on the moon. This is completely false. If it weren't, it would end the hoax speculation.
You'll have to do much better than that, with references.
Established Member
Well that's cool. The next time the Yankee Air Force is looking to acquire design specs of the de Havilland Comet for it's library and gets told by de Havilland and Bombardier that these documents don't exist anymore we can just warn them about the public outcry in the UK if they don't caugh up what we're looking for.On 2002-06-03 15:18, cosmicdave wrote:
Oh how convenient, and you don’t think this is suspect? If this were the situation in the UK there would be a national outcry if our Government dared to destroy evidence of a piece of our History of such great significance. Why didn’t NASA offer the documents to a private buyer?
I don't think you have a clue as to how many documents you're talking about and what the cost of storing them would be. Private contractors weren't going to do it without public funding. Taxpayers in this country got tired of funding the missions themselves after they had accomplished their goal, think they were going to fund a couple of Indiana Jones-style warehouses just to store, catalog and maintain a bunch of obscure documents most of them wouldn't understand anyways?
(corr. sp)
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pvtpylot on 2002-06-03 17:44 ]</font>
Order of Kilopi
What’s the difference between aren’t and should not be?
That's not the difference I delineated. The difference between seeing stars in space (e.g., from earth orbit) and seeing stars on the lunar surface. When you figure out what the difference is, you'll have your answer.
This rules out blemishes on the lens or within the film.
I did not say that had to be on the lens or within the film. The process of producing those photos for web publishing entailed many possible sources of dust contamination, e.g., scanner bezels. The JSC scans were produced hurriedly as thumbnails.
You say they're stars, although you can supply no proof for that. And in fact, your assertion that they are the same between photos despite a different camera angle is good evidence that they are not stars. It is very strong evidence that it is contamination in the optical path during some process.
It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck. Yet you say it's a squid.
This does not apply to the Apollo 13 missions because they had a limited supply of Oxygen.
Irrelevant to the point, which we have covered elsewhere in any case.
Ok, so lets go with the appearance of a flame argument.
Is this a concession, or is it for the sake of argument?
You guys reckon that no flame should be seen, so why is one evident in many ascents from the Moon?
That's simplistic. That's not what we claim. You want to break this down into a black and white, either-or situation, when it has been painstakingly explained to you that this it is not binary determination. You simply refuse to take it into account.
If there is to be a visible plume from an Aerozine engine -- and there isn't always one -- that plume will occur at the ignition transient, which is the exact instant you've captured in your video frame. If you play the rest of the video, the plume instantly goes away.
The problem in your argument is that you're trying to have it both ways. If you say that a plume is visible, that refutes your own argument where you say the absence of a plume is suspicious. You've subverted your own support.
This comment would be fine, except for the fact that the background soil is of a completely different shade to the foreground and that is why such a distinct ‘join’ can be seen.
No. The argument that there is a contour feature is based on evidence other than apparent color. You claim to have read http://www.clavius.org/shadlen.html where this was explained in great detail. Apparently you didn't read it carefully enough.
Also several different backgrounds from different missions have the same features and size, even though the sites are allegedly several km away from each other.
I require an example.
Actually those sceptics are on this very group and told me about the two light sources around Christmas time.
All the posts have been retained on this board since October 2001. Please point to the thread in which this conversation took place.
Your own members came up with this theory, so if it’s wrong you can blame them.
No. I am not asking you to address some other person's answers. I am asking you to address my answers. You have a singular talent for trying to shift responsibility for your statements. You are employing what logicians call a "straw man", trying to argue against a weaker objection that what is mounted. Please either support your statements or withdrawn them.
So how did they communicate with Houston if the aerial was down?
VHF communications are impossible during re-entry anyway due to the ionization layer that builds up around the spacecraft. The antenna was lowered just prior to re-entry and then extended again after splashdown.
You’re missing the point. The wording I used is ‘Who would dare risk using the LEM on the Moon when it was never, ever tested successfully?’
No, you're missing the point. I don't agree with your assertion that the LM was not tested successfully.
The LEM was never successfully landed anywhere until it landed on the Moon.
The LM was designed to land on the moon. Its structure, engines, and landing gear were designed for that task. How could such a vehicle have been landed anywhere else? It came as close as it needed to on Apollo 10 to verify that the landing systems would indeed work.
You argue that the actual touchdown as the sine qua non of a successful test. How and where did you become an expert on the flight test of spacecraft? If you're not an expert, why should we trust your opinion of what constitutes a successful spacecraft test?
I seem to remember Armstrong almost being killed on one of the attempts made.
Armstrong ejected from the Lunar Lander Training Vehicle shortly before it crashed. Two of the five such vehicles were lost in crashes. The cause of Armstrong's crash was determined to be a leak which exhausted his manuevering fuel, making it impossible for him to steer the vehicle. Hundreds of successful test and training flights were made in these training vehicles without incident.
What's your point?
In regards to the ability to jump, within 1/6th gravity it would be an easier task to jump than here on Earth
Granted, but your argument is that the absence of such leaping is suspicious. This is an affirmed consequent. You claim they didn't do it because they couldn't do it. When in fact there were other reasons why they perhaps didn't want to do it. Leaping about on the lunar surface frequently led to loss of balance. There is some excellent footage of this on the Apollo Archive if you'd care to examine it.
Your argument rests on your assumption that if they could have, they necessarily would have. I don't agree.
even guys on Earth can jump 6 feet or above.
Then I challenge you to find an athlete who can replicate, in earth gravity, Neil Armstrong's leap up to the top of the LM ladder at the end of the Apollo 11 EVA.
More luck than judgement considering that there is no way of knowing when solar flares will erupt.
Agreed. However the probability of encountering an injurious solar event during an Apollo mission was actually less than the probability that the booster would explode on the pad killing them all instantly.
If you argue that the use of statistical probability to avoid solar events was insufficient to provide an adequate safety margin, I will require you to provide a statistical probability argument to support that. I do not accept handwaving on matters such as this.
In fact midway through the Apollo years the sunspot cycle was at its 11 year cycle high and was one of the highest recorded on record.
And all the solar events that occurred during that solar cycle were duly recorded and measured by several different organizations and countries. If you believe that a first-magnitude solar event occurred during an Apollo mission, please provide documentation.
And they didn’t go either!
Irrelevant. They produced a spacecraft design they believed would survive the cislunar environment. Please explain why the Soviet designs mention nothing of the massive radiation shields you say were necessary.
So where did all that used up oxygen go?
You have absolutely no clue how the space suits function. The sublimators are for cooling. It's a closed loop.
The oxygen is combined with carbon in the astronauts' bodies and released into the space suit gas loop as carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is absorbed by lithium hydroxide in the PLSS.
And Astronauts during the Apollo missions were living in these radiation conditions continually.
No, I do not agree that astronauts were living in the same conditions as persist during a dental x-ray. This has been my point throughout. You have provided absolutely no quantitative evidence of the x-ray conditions in cislunar space, or estimates of absorbed dose, or estimates of biological effects. You simply wave your hands and say it would be dangerous.
I am engineer. I want numbers.
Protection in dental x-rays is intended to produce an effectively zero dose in your blood-forming organs, meaning that you do not have to keep track of how many such x-rays you receive over a year to see whether you're approaching a dangerous dose.
Really, even though that man was to be a guinea pig on Apollo 1 and basically put his life in NASA’s hands?
That circumstance has nothing to do with whether Gus Grissom was in possession of the relavant information and expertise to say whether the entire Apollo program was on track or not. Your statement has nothing to do with your argument. You wish to argue that Gus Grissom's estimate of ten years is the authoritative estimate. Your statement establishes interest, but not authority.
But how many people have seen it?
Irrelevant to your argument. You claim NASA tried to destroy the Apollo 1 capsule on a number of occasions. I want to know why it's so difficult to destroy an item that's in one's custody.
In short, you have provided no evidence that NASA attempted to destroy the Apollo 1 capsule, and the assertion is preposterous on its merits.
Hazardous in my dictionary does mean life threatening.
Irrelevant. You have provided no quantitative data to support any of your arguments regarding radiation. I don't care what your dictionary says. If you don't have numbers, and the ability to correctly interpret them, you don't have an argument.
My current car has an onboard computer of around 64mb.
And if the same technology had been available to Apollo, their computer would have been larger and more powerful. The comparison to modern computers is largely invalid. The question is not whether the Apollo computer is equivalent to some other computer. The question is whether the Apollo computer is adequate for the tasks assigned to it.
Can you give any expert testimony as to whether the Apollo computer was not capable of performing the tasks it was asked to perform?
Obviously the Apollo craft had a lot more gadgetry to them.
Perhaps. Does your car regularly communicate with large mainframes in order to maintain proper operation? Or is your car's computer required to manage all those tasks on its own? Do you have any explicit input to your car's computer, or is it simply a "black box" to you?
Perhaps your car's computer is trying to solve different problems than an Apollo spacecraft computer.
That brings up another point. The bit of the car you can see in my shadow photos does not have a computer. If your car requires a 64MB computer in order to operate, someone could argue that my car, which has no computer at all, could not possibly operate. You make the common mistake that just because we solve certain problems with computers today, those problems had no solution before the application of computers.
how do you suggest that such a small memory computer could cope with the task?
In your highly expert opinion, how much computer memory is required to solve the problem of spacecraft guidance? What are the memory requirements for an embedded system as opposed to a general purpose system? What other measures of computer performance might be applicable to the problem of spacecraft guidance?
You better get in touch with NASA if you believe this because they have released images of the Apollo hardware, both on motion film and still photos - or are you calling them liars?
That was not your question, nor was that my answer. Your question stated that it should be possible for "a very powerful telescope" or the Clementine probe to have taken pictures of the Apollo hardware. I took the liberty of using the Hubble as the quintessential example of "a very powerful telescope" (arguably the most powerful available). And I pointed out that neither aspect of your scenario was possible.
You're now changing horses and saying that NASA has released photos and film of the Apollo hardware. That is true, it having been taken from the Apollo command module and some from the ascending lunar module, not either of the pieces of technology you mentioned.
You are trying to change the argument.
But you’re the one who tells me that you have so many thousands of documents on the Apollo missions – What’s stopping them looking at the old blueprints?
I don't claim to have every document, and I specifically stated that many of them were destroyed. In any case, having documents which describe the technology is not the same as having the technology in hand.
Future attempts to reach the moon will likely build upon various Apollo concepts, but will not simply reuse the same hardware. Nothing prevents engineers from looking at the design documents from Apollo, filling in the gaps, and producing the Apollo spacecraft again. But this is not what they would prefer to do. They would prefer to incorporate the advances learned in space technology since Apollo.
And the acquisition of the technology is not the chief impediment to returning to the moon. NASA lacks any mandate from the public to do so.
Surely these highly qualified scientists can work from a simple plan – can’t they?
Why do you assume spacecraft are designed according to "a simple plan"? I have participated in the design of spacecraft. You have not. I'll keep my own counsel about what is possible in that industry.
On the one hand your telling me that Schools and Universities are shown Apollo related stuff to learn from and in the next breath that NASA don’t bother to use it themselves… odd?
No, again you're trying to simplify away important differences. Studying some crucial aspect of Apollo technology is not equivalent to being able to reproduce it for use again on a whim.
The space shuttle main engines were designed according to many of the same principles as the Rocketdyne F-1. We still use the F-1 to help understand the SSMEs, and we use the SSME design as a springboard for newer technologies.
The point with regard to using Apollo technology as teaching aids is that if this technology did not work as advertised, the people studying it would discover this. And technology built on that as a predecessor would not work either.
You want to equate widespread familiarity with Apollo technology to the capacity to yank a lever tomorrow and have an actual, functioning lunar module pop out.
The whole Apollo project cost an estimated $25 billion.
In 1960 dollars. You do understand inflation, don't you?
So NASA would have more than that amount in just 2 years.
But "that much" these days won't buy you a moon landing program. And that's if NASA completely shut down all of its other operations and concentrated solely on returning to the moon. That's impractical.
Why do they have to cut back on resources?
NASA must work within the budget and mandate established by Congress. Congress has not authorized funds for returning to the moon, nor authorized that as a valid expenditure of any funds currently in NASA's possession.
You are grossly oversimplifying the factors that affect a national space program.
That’s a very convenient way of wriggling out of having to answer to firm evidence that you believe us hoax believers could not uncover.
Not at all. I simply point out that Bart Sibrel has gone to great lengths to make it difficult for you to see what's really happening in his footage. If it really is what he says it is, it shouldn't require his heavy editing and commentary. Since I have seen the footage without the benefit of Sibrel's commentary, I am free to form my own opinion of what it represents. I have also consulted with both astronauts and ground personnel to get a more educated interpretation.
There is nothing whatosever in the footage that says the astronauts are about to falsify an in-transit telecast from low-earth orbit. Everything that's in there is fully consistent with what NASA says it is: a rehearsal for a telecast that hadn't been discussed prior to departure.
You seem fully converted to Bart Sibrel's interpretation of this footage. And it is his interpretatiion. Have you considered at all any other possible explanation?
I thought that someone on here said that all NASA footage was released in the mid 70s? obviously that rule didn’t apply to this footage.
Completely specious. That it was first published in the 1990s does not prove it was not previously available.
What else has NASA got tucked away in the vaults?
I don't know. Speculation is your bag.
Oh how convenient, and you don’t think this is suspect?
No, I don't, because unlike you I have experience in the aerospace industry. I know about their document retention policies. Whether you think it's "convenient" or not is irrelevant. If you believe the materials were destroyed to keep them from being examined too closely, then it is your responsibility to prove exactly that proposition.
If this were the situation in the UK there would be a national outcry
Well bully for you. You can't cry fraud just because, in your infinite wisdom, you would have done it differently.
Why didn’t NASA offer the documents to a private buyer?
The documents that were held by NASA are in the National Archives and have been available for inspection for decades. This is only a very small portion of the total documentation produced for Apollo. The vast majority of the documentation is the part-specific paperwork I mentioned earlier. That documentation is held by the contractor (by U.S. law) and is largely useless once the spacecraft have been used (and in some cases, destroyed). That is the documentation which has been destroyed.
Conspiracy theorists, who do not understand the first thing about documentation in public engineering, are aghast at any destruction of documents, regardless of their historical significant.
This strengthens my argument that the position of the Apollo craft could not successfully be worked out by radio ham operators
False. S-band receiving antennas must be precisely aligned.
Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.
Hogwash. Reconaissance satellites are continuously in various altitude orbits at high inclinations, passing over most of the earth's surface at any one time. It is impossible according to orbital mechanics to make a recon satellite "hover" over some particular part of the earth.
I think I have more than responded to my critics with very a very valid response.
No, I'm very unsatisfied. You have, in many cases, simply tried to change the subject or throw irrelevant topics into the discussion. For the rest you have simply provided handwaving.
Further, you did not respond to several of my answers. Does that mean you concede those arguments?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-06-03 17:26 ]</font>
Established Member
The hull of the command module is thicker than a dental x-ray vest; can you tell us how much radiation it absorbs?On 2002-06-03 15:18, cosmicdave wrote:
. . . In your Technology communications page you claim:
The practice of wearing a lead vest essentially allows you to undergo as many dental x-rays as you need without worrying about cumulative exposure.
And Astronauts during the Apollo missions were living in these radiation conditions continually. With no apparent affect to their health?
. . .
I have to side with Jay Utah on this: you keep making these statements with no consideration at all for even the simplest facts, and you *never* acknowledge your errors.
It is this latter non-responsiveness that is irksome.
I'm not a scientist, although I've got some decent education in the basics. There are a lot of things I simply don't know. Sometimes, I have mistaken assumptions. Just one example: I had thought that the Command Module, returning from the Moon, entered a stable circular orbit around the earth, then de-orbited for splashdown. Jay and others were kind enough to tell me that I was wrong. I didn't argue back. I didn't say, "But they must have had to, or else it couldn't work!" I didn't say, "But if that's true, then gravity has to push, not pull!" I didn't even say, "Oh, yeah, were you there?" I said, "Oh! Thanks for setting me straight."
I'd rather learn the truth than labor under an error. Do you really love your errors so much that you won't let go of them?
(Yo, Jay: how much thicker *was* the hull of the CM than a typical dentist's x-ray vest? Largely aluminum, yes? I know that aluminum is good at stopping some kinds of radiation -- for instance, the Canadian Destroyers Yukon, Mackenzie, and Q'Appelle were built with aluminum superstructures to resist fallout during an atomic war.)
Silas
Member
cosmicdave wrote:
"The alleged computer on board Apollo 11 had 32k of memory."
"Even a calculator has more memory than 32k and considering that the computer aboard the Apollo was used for making calculations, how do you suggest that such a small memory computer could cope with the task?"
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../compessay.htm
http://home.planet.nl/~faase009/Ha_Apollo.html
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../contents.html
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...ers/Ch2-5.html
Disabuse yourself.
dasi
Established Member
dasi: thanks for the links! Wow, that takes me back! I haven't thought about individual "flip flops" in a long, long time!
("You had ones and zeroes? You had it easy! In my day, we had to whittle our own ones from maple wood and cut sections of lead tubing for zeroes! And a fifteen bit word! Hanh! Luxury! We had a four bit word! We could code ten digits and six letters! It made sending flames over the email hard as the dickens!")
Silas
Established Member
Cosmic Dave seems to be posting the same stuff in two topic sections. Jay's debunked it here, and I've had a go in the 'Very Laughable Topic' section.
Divide and conquer?
PS, we said mostly the same things! Go Jay and John!!!
Established Member
'So to put and end to this, nobody here on the BA discussion board says that earthshine has ANY effect on casting shadows.'
So now that you disagree with a statement made previously on this board you accuse me of being wrong? It certainly was a different story around a year ago. As 'The Rat', I seem to remember that he was part of the debate.
'You can't just say that "it strenghtens your argument", you must tell us why. Please discuss the technique of using doppler shift to track a spacecraft and how being in one spot in the sky makes that difficult.'
If an object is moving away from you in near enough a straight line how can you predict how far it is simply by using ham radio? You cant.
in response to JayUtah:
'I did not say that had to be on the lens or within the film. The process of producing those photos for web publishing entailed many possible sources of dust contamination, e.g., scanner bezels. The JSC scans were produced hurriedly as thumbnails.'
Provide me the evidence that proves that the marks on several slides on my site are printing marks and not stars.
'Irrelevant to the point, which we have covered elsewhere in any case.'
When you cannot give a decent answer why do you always claim that what I say is irrelevant, more like you don't know the answer me thinks.
the flame arguement...Is this a concession, or is it for the sake of argument?
What do you think? Sake of argument perhaps?
'and there isn't always one (a flame)'
Why not? an engine needs a power source to work, why would we see a flame in some cases and not others?
I haven't claimed to read clavius at all, only parts of it. Another misquote.
'I require an example.' (of similar mountain ranges appearing on seperate missions).
If you haven't seen these pictures on HB sites then I suggest that you haven't been doing your homework. This is one of the main accusations for pro-hoax believers.
'All the posts have been retained on this board since October 2001. Please point to the thread in which this conversation took place.'
Well i cant find it if they are. Perhaps you can, seeming that you've hung out here for so long... or ask 'The Rat'. Finding these posts will support my statements about Earthshine 100%
'I don't agree with your assertion that the LM was not tested successfully.'
Face the facts, it wasn't
'It came as close as it needed to on Apollo 10 to verify that the landing systems would indeed work.'
50,000 ft is hardly close enough for a craft to test if it could land or not.
'How and where did you become an expert on the flight test of spacecraft?'
Getting a bit techy now. Perhaps I'm getting close?
'I seem to remember Armstrong almost being killed on one of the attempts made.' - whats my point?
Crash safety, would you buy a car that had not had any safety crash tests done on it in the environment that it was intended to be used?
'Neil Armstrong's leap up to the top of the LM ladder at the end of the Apollo 11 EVA.'
I haven't seen thios footage, please post a link.
'If you argue that the use of statistical probability to avoid solar events was insufficient to provide an adequate safety margin, I will require you to provide a statistical probability argument to support that.'
Could science predict where lighting is going to strike? NO! Same arguement applies to solar flares, you cannot predict the unpredictable, even if your the most qualified scientist in the World.
'If you believe that a first-magnitude solar event occurred during an Apollo mission, please provide documentation.'
I didn't say that, your making things up as you go along now.
'Please explain why the Soviet designs mention nothing of the massive radiation shields you say were necessary.'
As you would term it, this is irrelevant because they didn't go, so the thickness of the shielding makes no difference. Strike one CD!
'You have provided absolutely no quantitative evidence of the x-ray conditions in cislunar space, or estimates of absorbed dose, or estimates of biological effects.'
Perhaps I should dig up the radiation test results on 'Fred' that dummy used on the Shuttle last year - if they're available that is.
'That circumstance has nothing to do with whether Gus Grissom was in possession of the relavant information and expertise to say whether the entire Apollo program was on track or not.'
Actually, the tragic events of Apollo 1 completely confirmed Grissoms fears that NASA were trying to rush things. The film footage of the event is your evidence. How do you know that Grissom had no information of the Apollo schedule. Did you ask him?
'Irrelevant to your argument. You claim NASA tried to destroy the Apollo 1 capsule on a number of occasions.'
You brought up the arguement about certain craft being in NASA's possession not me. I have not made any claims that NASA tried to destroy the Apollo 1, where did you get that one from? But as you mention it, NASA destroyed it anyway.
Your starting to accuse me of allegations that I have not made.
'Does your car regularly communicate with large mainframes in order to maintain proper operation?'
Yes its called a computer tune-up - do you not have that in the States?
'Do you have any explicit input to your car's computer'
Yes I can set the time, speed restriction alert, temperature in C or F, see how many MPG I am doing, how much MPG I have done since I last filled up, average speed on the journey or change my radio frequencies and store them with it. Quite a few things really.
'You're now changing horses and saying that NASA has released photos and film of the Apollo hardware. That is true, it having been taken from the Apollo command module and some from the ascending lunar module, not either of the pieces of technology you mentioned.'
Your totally wrong and I have you big time here. On April 1st 2002, the Sky at Night on the BBC showed pictures taken from the Clementine probe which allegedly show one of the Apollo landing areas. I was also on NASA's site last month and found film evidence of another landing area which I believe was taken aboard the Clementine.(99% sure but will check this out to be certain). HJP Arnold made a comment on it on the show. The footage preceeded to bob up and down as it went over the site. So your completely wrong!
'Nothing prevents engineers from looking at the design documents from Apollo'
Other than some of them being destroyed perhaps?
'In 1960 dollars. You do understand inflation, don't you?'
Over the same period as the Apollo missions (Apollo 1 was launched in 1967) that would be 6 years and that doesnt include the years of budget taken to make the first craft and test it. 6 x $14.3 Billion would equal almost $86 billion. This means that over the same time scale of the Apollo flights, not including any further budget increases within that time, NASA could accumulate over 3 times as much money than they needed for the original Apollo missions. Argueing that NASA would be cash strapped in unrealistic.
'There is nothing whatosever in the footage that says the astronauts are about to falsify an in-transit telecast from low-earth orbit.'
Thats a matter of opinion.
'Speculation is your bag.'
No, speculating what you think I said seems to be your bag baby!
'Well bully for you. You can't cry fraud just because, in your infinite wisdom, you would have done it differently.'
Oh I forgot, America really doesn't have much of a history does it - that's why the UK has so many US tourists every year, to experience a bit of it.
'False. S-band receiving antennas must be precisely aligned.'
On a craft that you yourself on your own site says does not hardly move on its way to the Moon. That would hardly be difficult to tune into would it?
'Hogwash. Reconaissance satellites are continuously in various altitude orbits at high inclinations, passing over most of the earth's surface at any one time'
See the other forum for the article if you dont believe me.
'Further, you did not respond to several of my answers. Does that mean you concede those arguments?'
I'll return this accusation back your way as you seem to be doing your fare share of question dodging.
Established Member
I think it's fairly obvious by now that cosmicdave is just getting off on the attention at this point. He's not even trying to make coherent debate any longer, just a childish game of contridiction. He's not going to be swayed by anything that's said or presented here. He's just trying to ruffle some feathers, and it's pretty clear he doesn't care in the slightest what's actually written in response to his posts. Pathetic, but whatever, it's his life.
Established Member
No, the accusation made by most pro-hoax websites is that there are many pictures from a SINGLE particular Apollo mission that apparently show the same mountains in the background, yet the foreground is completely different. This is supposed to be evidence of a fake backdrop being used to falsify the EVA photographs and TV footage.On 2002-06-03 21:42, cosmicdave wrote:
'I require an example.' (of similar mountain ranges appearing on seperate missions).
If you haven't seen these pictures on HB sites then I suggest that you haven't been doing your homework. This is one of the main accusations for pro-hoax believers.
However, you are arguing that the SAME mountain range alledgedly appears in pictures taken on TWO different Apollo missions. This is a claim which no one on this board appears to have seen before, so we would be interested in reviewing any pictures or video footage that supports this particular allegation.
Established Member
cosmicdave said: "Over the same period as the Apollo missions (Apollo 1 was launched in 1967) that would be 6 years and that doesnt include the years of budget taken to make the first craft and test it. 6 x $14.3 Billion would equal almost $86 billion. This means that over the same time scale of the Apollo flights, not including any further budget increases within that time, NASA could accumulate over 3 times as much money than they needed for the original Apollo missions. Argueing that NASA would be cash strapped in unrealistic."
Dave
Once again you’ve sidestepped the issue of inflation. So I’m going to explain it for the benefit of you and other people who may happen to read this thread.
According to my dictionary, inflation is a substantial rise in prices due to an undue expansion in money supply or credit. Of course, the consequence of inflation is that the same number of dollars will buy you a smaller amount of stuff than before. For example, I remember that back in the late 1970s, a dollar would buy you a little over 3 litres of petrol (gasoline for you Yanks). These days, you’ll get little more than 1 litre of petrol from a dollar.
So when people talk about the Moon landings costing $25 billion in 1960s money, they’re talking about dollars which bought a lot more then than they do now. Since then, inflation would have cut the purchasing power of most Western currencies by around ¾, or even more. In other words, what you could buy for $25 billion back then would cost you at least $100 billion now.
Given that NASA’s budget is supposed to be around $14 billion a year, it would take about 7 years to fund Apollo these days, assuming it funded absolutely nothing else. Of course, at the time NASA was involved in Apollo, it was also involved in many other projects, such as the Mariner spacecraft which flew by Mars and Venus, planning for the upcoming Viking missions, meteorology or communications. I don’t know much about NASA’s budget back then, but I’d be curious to see some figures showing what proportion of NASA’s budget went to Apollo.
In conclusion, you can't compare NASA's budget these days with the cost of the Apollo program, because they use dollars of completely different values.
Order of Kilopi
If an object is moving away from you in near enough a straight line how can you predict how far it is simply by using ham radio? You cant.
You can compute how fast it is moving. If you know the dynamics of the translunar trajectory, and you have located its signal according to celestial coordinates, you know where it should be.
You vaguely wave your hands and say it's impossible for amateurs to have tracked Apollo. You're really skimping on details here. These people are making specific claims, and providing evidence of their achievement. They can also demostrate skill in tracking manmade celestial objects.
You, on the other hand, can't seem to demonstrate any appreciable knowledge about how to track objects in space.
Provide me the evidence that proves that the marks on several slides on my site are printing marks and not stars.
No, that's not how it works. You have made the assertion that they are stars. You are therefore responsible for proving they are stars. You may not state a proposition and then assume it's true until disproven, while supplying no proof yourself.
You have provided absolutely no evidence that they are stars. You have merely stated it axiomatically. If there were no other possibilities, I might give you the benefit of the doubt. But there are other possibilities -- namely contamination from a known hurried scanning process -- therefore you must prove that your hypothesis is the best possibility. In order to do that you must provide more evidence than a mere claim.
When you cannot give a decent answer why do you always claim that what I say is irrelevant, more like you don't know the answer me thinks.
I say "irrelevant" when the statements you make have nothing to do with the point under discussion. That happens a lot with you. I'm not about to follow you down every tangential path you propose to take. I'm trying to keep you on one subject long enough to examine the point to completion.
Why not? an engine needs a power source to work, why would we see a flame in some cases and not others?
Because the flame is invisible in some cases and not in others. Combustion characteristics are determined by propellant and by the size and shape of various components of the engine and by the pressurization technique.
I haven't claimed to read clavius at all, only parts of it. Another misquote.
False. You specifically claimed to have read the exact page in question. Your words were, "I checked out JayUtah's site by the way and didn't see any reconstructions of the shadows with natural light... just a few old Apollo photos and a simulation with tubes." (2002-06-02 15:48: http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...um=3&start=150)
The page you describe is http://www.clavius.org/shadlen.html to which you had been referred by Andrew in his post on 2002-05-31 12:07, and at the bottom of which is the detailed description of the evidence proving the lunar terrain is varied down-sun of the flag.
If you haven't seen these pictures on HB sites then I suggest that you haven't been doing your homework.
There are hundreds of pictures on hoax believer sites. I require the identification of specific one(s) that demonstrate a specific claim. I don't accept vague references as an argument.
Finding these posts will support my statements about Earthshine 100%
I agree. And your inability to find them denies you that support.
However, I'm quite concerned that you are far more interested in trying to make your opponents look silly than you are in providing clear and logical arguments for your own points. I'm not interested in your ability to nit-pick through past arguments.
Face the facts, it wasn't
You have not stated any facts. You have only given your uninformed opinion that it was not tested sufficiently. I do not accept you as an expert in spacecraft testing.
50,000 ft is hardly close enough for a craft to test if it could land or not.
... in your highly expert opinion.
Getting a bit techy now. Perhaps I'm getting close?
No, you're getting desperate. You have given an opinion which is only appropriately rendered by an expert. I am an expert. You are not. I will trust my opinion over yours.
Crash safety, would you buy a car that had not had any safety crash tests done on it in the environment that it was intended to be used?
Irrelevant. Apollo was known and acknowledged to be experimental technology and thus carried various known risks. Commensurately it was to be used only by those who agreed to the risk and who were considered the world's experts in operating experimental flying technology. Comparison to well-tested consumer technology intended to be operated by anyone is invalid.
I haven't seen this footage, please post a link.
The link was posted in my original answer to this point. It's becoming clear you pay little attention to the arguments presented against your points. That makes it rather pointless for me or anyone else to attempt to address them.
If you have not seen the Apollo 11 EVA, which is only two and half hours long, then I'm skeptical that you have seen any appreciable portion of the other, much lengthier EVA footage. I therefore submit that you have not made the appropriate investigation to be able to claim no feats of lunar gravity gymnastics appear.
Could science predict where lighting is going to strike? NO! Same arguement applies to solar flares, you cannot predict the unpredictable, even if your the most qualified scientist in the World.
False. Statistical probability is exactly the science of using past occurrences to estimate the probability of future ocurrences. It is well within the ability of statistical probability to determine the probability of a solar event occurring in a certain direction during a given two-week period.
The fact that statistical probability may be a closed book to you does not mean it is a closed book to everyone else. But it does mean that you are unqualified to make any quantitative statement regarding the risk of solar events during any given period.
And as a matter of fact, I can predict where lightning will likely strike. It's the when that's iffy.
I didn't say that, your making things up as you go along now.
I don't understand, then. You admit that no serious solar event actually occurred during any Apollo mission. You don't have the mathematical expertise to say just how risky it was. Yet you cite this as evidence that Apollo was falsified. That's a non sequitur.
As you would term it, this is irrelevant because they didn't go, so the thickness of the shielding makes no difference. Strike one CD!
It is not irrelevant. The Soviets engineered a spacecraft they, by their own claims, fully intended to use to send a crew to the moon and to land a man upon it. Neither their prototypes nor their design mentions anything about vast amounts of radiation shielding. Those items would need to be incorporated at the very earliest design stages. They were well past that stage when their project was terminated.
Perhaps I should dig up the radiation test results on 'Fred' that dummy used on the Shuttle last year - if they're available that is.
That data will not describe the radiation environment of cislunar space.
Actually, the tragic events of Apollo 1 completely confirmed Grissoms fears that NASA were trying to rush things.
That is not the assertion. You argued Grissom said the project was "ten years" from landing on the moon, and this was the basis of your argument that NASA's completion of it prior to 1970 was suspicious.
It is acknowledged by all parties that NASA was trying to rush things. You, however, made a specific, different assertion.
You continue to speak melodramatically about the Apollo 1 tragedy while completely ignoring the evidentiary requirement of your point.
How do you know that Grissom had no information of the Apollo schedule.
I did not claim Grissom had "no" information. I said Grissom cannot be assumed to have the most authoritative knowledge of the entire Apollo schedule. The statement you attribute to him would require such knowledge in order to be considered an expert opinion in contrast to other expert opinions.
And since you are the one claiming his "ten year" estimate is authoritative, it is your responsibility to demonstrate (not merely suggest) that he indeed had more information about Apollo project status than other people at NASA whose job it was to manage the project, and whose estimates disagree with Grissom's.
I have not made any claims that NASA tried to destroy the Apollo 1, where did you get that one from?
From your Question #26: "The Apollo 1 fire of January 27, 1967, killed what would have been the first crew to walk on the Moon just days after the commander, Gus Grissom, held an unapproved press conference complaining that they were at least ten years, not two, from reaching the Moon. The dead man's own son, who is a seasoned pilot himself, has in his possession forensic evidence personally retrieved from the charred spacecraft (that the government has tried to destroy on two or more occasions)." (emphasis added)
It appears you are trying to claim the government attempted to destroy the spacecraft. If you are instead claiming that the government tried to destroy Grissom's evidence, then I suggest you word your phrase in parentheses to more clearly describe what exactly you believe was about to be destroyed.
Your starting to accuse me of allegations that I have not made.
No, I'm accusing you of allegations you have appeared to make. If I have misunderstood your argument it is your responsibility to clarify and restate it before proceeding.
Yes I can set the time, speed restriction alert ...
Granted, all that. My point still remains: You can't seem to demonstrate beyond vague handwaving why the Apollo guidance computer was not sufficient to its task.
Your totally wrong and I have you big time here. On April 1st 2002, the Sky at Night on the BBC showed pictures taken from the Clementine probe which allegedly show one of the Apollo landing areas.
I know of the Clementine photo which shows alleged soil disturbance around the Apollo 15 landing site. If this is the photo you refer to, then it does not satisfy your condition because it does not show the actual equipment. Hoax beleivers have rejected it as evidence of a lunar landing. Therefore I do not cite this as evidence that the landing sites have been photographed, because there is no evidence that the disturbance was caused by an Apollo spacecraft. I believe it's likely to have been so caused, but I have no proof.
There may be additional photos I have not yet seen, which have been released in the past couple of months. If these photos show Apollo equipment then I presume that will answer your Question #29.
Argueing that NASA would be cash strapped in unrealistic.
You appear to be almost totally ignorant of the principles of public finance in the United States. NASA cannot simply do with its budget whatever it wishes.
Thats a matter of opinion.
Correct. And if it comes down to a matter of the viewer's opinion then it is hardly the smoking gun you and Bart Sibrel say it is. Since hoax believers will naturally interpret it to be consistent with their predetermined hypothesis, there is no evidentiary basis.
Oh I forgot, America really doesn't have much of a history does it?
Irrelevant and insulting. The needs of historical preservation regarding Apollo have been met, or are being met. The documents that have been destroyed have largely no historical significance.
On a craft that you yourself on your own site says does not hardly move on its way to the Moon.
That is not the assertion made on my site. A satellite in low earth orbit transits the sky from any one point of view on earth in a matter of a very few minutes, or seconds in some cases. A craft on a translunar trajectory would still appear to move in the sky, but it would not transit the sky in the same manner as a low-orbiting satellite. It would remain within its ephemerides for hours at a time, not minutes or seconds.
See the other forum for the article if you dont believe me.
I dispute the claims of the article.
It is clear you have no intention of backing up your claims. It is clear you have little if any required knowledge for the claims you make. It is clear you have not paid very close attention to any of the rebuttals made against your assertions. It is clear your modus operandi here is to attempt to fabricate the appearance of divisiveness and uncertainty in the futile believe it will lend your statements some credibility. I assure you it does not.
I have no desire to participate in a debate wherein the opponent cares almost nothing for supporting his own statements and is intent solely on nit-picking and winning rhetorical brownie points. I have exercised monumental patience with you over the past several days.
This is my last posting directly to you until you demonstrate the willingness and ability to participate in the intellectual process, not merely hijack it for your own amusement.
Established Member
Not quite. The statement in quotation marks is clearly a logical follow-up request in response to your loaded statement from a little way up this same thread (in your "answers for JayUtah") -On 2002-06-03 21:42, cosmicdave wrote/quoted:
"If you believe that a first-magnitude solar event occurred during an Apollo mission, please provide documentation."
I didn't say that, your making things up as you go along now.
"In fact midway through the Apollo years the sunspot cycle was at its 11 year cycle high and was one of the highest on recorded record."
Please feel free to point out that you never actually stated that a first-magnitude solar event took place during a mission (nobody claimed you said that anyway). However, if you acknowledge that no major event occurred, what relevance does the peak in the sunspot cycle have to your standpoint? Are you arguing that the possibility that an event might have happened and might have been fatal to the astronauts somehow implies that the Apollo missions were faked? Please explain your reasoning. From where I'm sitting this is all irrelevant because such an event DIDN'T HAPPEN.
And is your "one of the highest on recorded record" peak of any real significance anyway? Have a look at this link. Observe the graph showing sunspot activity during the twentieth century. Have a look at whatever area of the graph you consider to be "midway through the Apollo years". There certainly is a peak during the late 1960s, but it is clearly dwarfed by the preceding and following peaks. A red-herring, Dave.
http://www.sunblock99.org.uk/sb99/pe...her/cycle.html
Dave, from my reading of this and the other thread, it seems that either you are altering and denying your arguments to dodge the issues (and therefore being intellectually dishonest), or you are confused about your own standpoint (in which case I suggest you are a few Bradys short of a bunch). Which is it?
JB
(edits to add to second and last paragraph)
_________________
"Nowhere in all space or on a thousand worlds will there be men to share our loneliness..."
- Loren Eisely, "The Immense Journey" 1956
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jovianboy on 2002-06-04 03:16 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jovianboy on 2002-06-04 03:29 ]</font>
Member
On 2002-06-03 21:42, cosmicdave wrote:
Over the same period as the Apollo missions (Apollo 1 was launched in 1967) that would be 6 years and that doesnt include the years of budget taken to make the first craft and test it. 6 x $14.3 Billion would equal almost $86 billion. This means that over the same time scale of the Apollo flights, not including any further budget increases within that time, NASA could accumulate over 3 times as much money than they needed for the original Apollo missions. Argueing that NASA would be cash strapped in unrealistic.Just thought I would chime in a bit with a link:On 2002-06-04 00:57, Peter B wrote:
Once again you’ve sidestepped the issue of inflation. So I’m going to explain it for the benefit of you and other people who may happen to read this thread.
... when people talk about the Moon landings costing $25 billion in 1960s money, they’re talking about dollars which bought a lot more then than they do now. Since then, inflation would have cut the purchasing power of most Western currencies by around ¾, or even more. In other words, what you could buy for $25 billion back then would cost you at least $100 billion now.
Inflation Calculator
As it turns out PeterB estimate is just a bit off. $25 Billion 1967 Dollars would be $131,244,423,118.03 2001 Dollars, according to the link provided.
Hauteden
Established Member
JayUtah wrote:
It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck. Yet you say it's a squid.
I'm sick of Jay's smug assertions from his self-appointed throne as "expert". Landing on the water is hazardous. Who would dare to do such a thing without it being proven safe first? He'd have to be quackers to attempt it!
Therefore, it's not a duck, but a squid!
P.S. The Russians abandoned their duck effort after being unable to make one fly with the required two feet of feather-shielding all round it.
Established Member
Cosmicdave,
let's try to iterate to convergence on just one thing.
You apparently disbelieve that the Apollo Guidance Computer could have performed its tasks with its relatively small memory.
(Note: the AGC had a "fixed memory" of about 36,864 [15-bit]words with an erasable memory... of 2,048 words, quoting from the Apollo Flight Journal at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../compessay.htm ).
I have written spacecraft control code, on a computer about 20 years newer but with not much more memory than the AGC. It is my professional opinion that the AGC could indeed have performed exactly the tasks it was supposed to do. It is also the opinion of other experts on this forum, and that of the historical record. Publically-accessible information on the Web, provided in the previous page of this topic, explains the hardware, software, and development process in great detail.
What evidence do you have that the AGC computer was insufficient for its stated goals? If you can provide none, then we should disregard your claim as nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity.
While we're at it, what would convince you that the AGC was, at least in principle, capable of performing its stated task?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-06-04 10:41 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-06-04 11:09 ]</font>
Established Member
They're called "Test pilots". Almost all the astronauts were test pilots and long before they ever joined NASA they made their living being the first to do things in new machinery.On 2002-06-04 09:38, sts60 wrote:
I'm sick of Jay's smug assertions from his self-appointed throne as "expert". Landing on the water is hazardous. Who would dare to do such a thing without it being proven safe first? He'd have to be quackers to attempt it!
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