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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 16, 2007 12:15:12 GMT -4
Why are threatening to ban us for using the term play-group? Are the posters here a group or just one person? When posters come to this message board is it in a professional capacity (work) or for recreation (play)? Please explain why you find it offensive and how it justifies getting banned? It is insulting because it is condescending, it implies that you think we're children. If you want to remain a member of this forum then you should take my advice and discuss the topic politely. I don't care if you don't believe it's an insult, I have told you that it is so it stops now. You won't get any more warnings. Discuss the hoax theory all you want, but desist with the insults and the prying into other people's private lives (ie. asking if members are related or Freemasons, etc.).
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 16, 2007 13:31:18 GMT -4
Where would vomiting be a problem?
I took a guess and assumed she was talking about vomiting in the space suit. Vomiting in the space helmet is indeed dangerous. The primary danger is the aspiration of vomitus into the oxygen loop. There are whole lists of secondary hazards.
Since there is a limit to what suit engineering can do to address this problem, avoiding the hazard is generally a matter of reducing or eliminating the cause. The primary causes of vomiting are motion sickness and gastrointestinal distress (e.g., flu, food poisoning).
Anyone who has ever flown in a high performance jet aircraft can attest that people who fly them for a living cannot be successful if they are prone to motion sickness. The astronauts were expected to log a certain number of flight hours in high-performance aircraft partly to maintain their resistance to motion sickness from dynamic flight. There was also training in the zero-g aircraft (aptly nicknamed the Vomit Comet) intended to acclimate the astronauts to the intended environment.
EVA was contingent upon astronaut health at the moment. If an astronaut was unhealthy in such a way that increased the risk of vomiting, the EVA was postponed. This flight rule persists today.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Feb 16, 2007 13:52:22 GMT -4
Considering that 40 years later no one has yet done it (a film of a successful Descent Landing of a rocket only powered spacecraft)...
I don't know what the Japanese have in terms of videos or photos, but their Hayabusa spacecraft briefly landed on the asteroid Itokawa and took off again.
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 16, 2007 15:10:06 GMT -4
I have more time now.
When posters come to this message board is it in a professional capacity (work) or for recreation (play)?
Asked and answered.
False dilemma. I do not believe you intend "play" in "play group" to mean merely the antonym of "professional employment".
Did that make you feel like an intellectual giant?
Of course not. I was, however, rather satisfied with my subsequent discussion of albedo, which you seem to have ignored in your rush to browbeat me. Do you agree that geometric planetary albedo is not an appropriate measurement of the transparency of air?
Just because you seem to approach this discussion as a pseudo-intellectual pissing match doesn't mean that's why the rest of us are here. You may be here to belittle us, but we are not necessarily here to belittle you. You make it very difficult for us to stay on track, though, because a large percentage of each post you make is insult and irrelevant speculation. If all you give us to work with is your cutesy sayings, then unfortunately none of us will be putting his best foot forward. Lunar Orbit may feel it best simply to ban you than to suffer the board filling up with invective.
In reality it made you seem petty minded.
You're right. I apologize. The proper use of terminology is one measure of expertise, but you have convinced me that "albedio" was a mere typo.
Is this yet another attempt to discredit us...
Yes, but on appropriate grounds. (And please stop pretending there is more than just you.)
If someone makes an argument that can be tested objectively, then to point out that he is a poor speller, a drunkard, or Hitler doesn't affect the objective truth or falsehood of the statement. That's the essence of the ad hominem fallacy.
However, that rule is suspended when the person purports to be an expert and asserts that the strength of his argument rests on his expertise. That's what I believe you have done. You propose to dismiss our claims on the grounds that we don't know what we're talking about, or equivalently that you know more about these topics (heat transfer, thermal design) than we do. You keep referring to us as a "play group" in order to diminish the seriousness with which we approach these questions. And you seem to imply that you're a wise mother educating us on the mysteries of the universe.
When that's the line of reasoning that's presented, it is quite appropriate to question the legitimacy of the proponent's purported expertise in order to test the reasoning. If the argument is, "I know better, and I say this is right," then it is not only proper but necessary to examine the premise, "I know better."
So it is not strictly to discredit you that we question your knowledge of science, but rather to examine the premise on which you've chosen to base your argument. If you purport to be an expert, then you cannot complain when others wish to test that expertise. And you especially cannot complain when that test fails. Had you suspected others might find out you aren't really as expert as you claim, then it was unwise to use that argument.
If someone purports to be a medical doctor and consistenly uses the word "epiglottis" when he means "epidermis", we might wonder whether he's really a doctor. If he claims that the stomach's role is to filter impurities out of the blood, we would really wonder. And if he says, "It's impossible to do surgery because anaesthesia would be too hazardous," then we'd be absolutely sure this guy isn't a doctor. And if he made assertions and gave opinions that would only be proper for a qualified doctor to do, then we'd be quite right to have no faith in them.
This is essentially what you're doing. Yes, every qualified person makes the occasional mistake. But you've made some whoppers -- enough to convince everyone here that you really know nothing about science. Googling around for key words in the debate does not create the level of understanding required to contest practitioners in the relevant field. The question is what you're going to do about it. Are you going to continue to maintain that you know more than we on these topics? If so, whom do you think you're fooling?
...and detract from the subject?
No. You made claims regarding the lunar module. We answered your claims, pointing out that they were based in part on an incorrect understanding of heat transfer. You questioned our relevant expertise and suggested that you knew more, and that this superior knowledge rendered your original claims impervious to the refutation. Unfortunately when you deploy that argument, it makes your personal expertise a premise of the argument. Therefore an examination of your purported expertise is quite on-topic.
Of course we would much rather discuss the objectively verifiable aspects of heat transfer. But this requires you to address the implications of the experiments we have suggested. Instead you dismissed them as pointless. And now you're trying to cast aspersions on the whole notion of experimentation. Every attempt we make to stick to objective subjects is met by your stonewalling. If you insist on making your personal expertise the only thing we can talk about, then that is the only thing we will talk about. And based on your performance to date, I predict you're going to continue to get severely beaten up over it.
Tests that are carried out on Earth will be effected by other factors...
This is the nature of all science. Every time you propose to study something in the real world, you have to realize that you can't magically separate out the one cause and effect that you're interested in. You always have to deal with intruding factors. The whole point of the scientific method is to be able to deal with this reality and still be able to draw conclusions you can support with data.
We do this by dividing the experiment into two halves: the control and the variable. Sometimes that means doing the experiment once with at least two subjects, and sometimes it means doing it twice with one subject.
The control is left alone. It is subject only to the various extraneous factors. We don't even have to know what all of them are -- just that the control is being affected by them.
The variable is, well, varied. It is subject not only to the various extraneous factors, but also to the one thing we change. The overall effect in the variable subjectwill be a combination of all those causes -- the ones we can't do anything about, and the one we can and are interested in. The control tells us which or how much effect is due only to the extraneous factors, so we can "subtract" them out. This ability to compare data between the subject we messed with and the one we didn't is what makes science work.
Let's say you want to test whether a drug prevented headaches. You reach the point where you're ready to test it on people. You ask for volunteers and then you divide them into two identical subgroups.
That's the real trick in science. Of course you can never be sure they're perfectly identical, but you want to divide them into groups such that each group has roughly the same rate of headaches. Further, you want to make sure each group is as equal as possible according to the things you know causeheadaches: stress, lack of coffee, neurological ailments, etc.
If you just left these two groups alone for six months, you'd expect that they would report the same number of headaches. But you aren't going to do that. To one of the groups you give your miracle drug, and you leave the other group alone. (In medical research you actually have to give the control group a placebo.) Then after six months you compare the rates of headaches to see whether your drugged-up group had significantly fewer. You know that a variety of things will cause, prevent, and cure headaches. But because you've done your best to insure that those other effects are the same between groups, you can defensibly attribute any improvement to the action of your drug alone.
Jason proposes to place two cards in the sun on Earth. If we were to place those cards both directly facing the sun, we would expect they would come to the same temperature. The various atmospheric effects would apply equally to each card. If we tilted on card (the variable) and left one card facing the sun (the control), then we could see whether any difference in temperature arises. And since we haven't changed those extraneous conditions, they still cancel out. The only thing we changed for the one card was the angle at which the light strikes it. So even though the extraneous effects are still there, they're still affecting each card equally. So we can attribute any change in temperature to the one-and-only potential cause we changed.
I perform experiments like Jason's all the time. Some of the things I design and produce generate a lot of heat. It is important to be able to reject that heat effectively and efficiently. We spend a lot of time on forced-convection cooling. But I got in my head the idea that we should see whether radiative cooling would augment the fluid convection.
We built two identical examples of the product. And we put them side-by-side in our walk-in thermal torture chamber. We ran them both unchanged to verify that they were identical enough in the temperature profile. Then we painted the casing of one with an appropriately emissive substance. That's the variable. Then we ran the machines again to see whether the more emissive model would run cooler than the ordinary one. We also re-ran the tests with the machines in each other's position so that we could account for any possible changes in the radiative view factor. The answer? The cooling achieved by emissive coatings was not measurable, but not especially significant.
That's how science is really done. It is quite possible to isolate and test thermal factors on Earth. The experiments are not pointless. And sadly they dispute your claims.
And that we think that if the top of the LEM was covered with a reflective coating or they could have deployed a parasol...It may well be better to be near the equator.
Now at least we're getting somewhere.
As a matter of fact the top of the LM was coated with a reflective coating. Actually the whole LM was. Polished aluminum plating is about as reflective as you can ask for when building a spaceship.
Skylab was also coated with a reflective material. Unfortunately it blew off during the launch, so Skylab made it to orbit with its inner skin exposed. The inner skin wasn't meant to reflect away sunlight, so the interior of the ship got rather hot. The solution was exactly as you propose -- a parasol. The first astronauts deployed it. And you're absolutely right when you say that if you can keep the sun off something, it won't get hot.
Now what if a spaceship were really two spaceships? One inside the other? If people only lived in the inner one, and the outer one's only job was to keep the sun from shining on the inner one, and you very carefully limited (using insulation) how much heat could travel between the two, then you'd have a spaceship that could do well in the sun.
And that's exactly how the LM was designed. The LM's "parasol" was its outer shell, the only part most people see. The crew lived inside the inner part. If, due to some accident, the outer skin of the lunar module had been torn off, the interior of the LM might have gotten just as hot as Skylab did. The other part of the LM's "parasol" was the golden-colored foil wrapped the bottom. Unlike the top, the bottom didn't have air or people in it. It still had to be kept from getting too hot, but it wasn't as important for the bottom.
The question of where and when to land, and how to design the LM accordingly, isn't as simple as all that.
Yes, it would be possible to design the LM to work best with sunlight directly overhead. That wasn't pursued not because it wasn't possible, but because it wasn't necessary. There were other reasons to want to land in the lunar morning, and with than in mind the LM designers produced a craft that would work best in lunar morning. With the sun low in the sky, the lunar surface itself won't be so hot. You can certainly deal with a hot surface by designing all your equipment to deal with it. But it might be overall easier just to change the mission time and design all the equipment normally. And the sun at a low angle casts shadows and produces shade that makes the photography more effective. Lighting from directly overhead doesn't make for good photographs.
The current LM design presumes most of the solar heating would come from behind. If you chain-saw one in half from front to back, you see that the astronauts occupy the very front part. They are occasionally in the middle part, but only to sleep and to get in and out from the overhead hatch. The rear part is uninhabited -- it's just a bunch of electronic equipment and tanks and the framework that holds it in place. The designers were shrewd -- they put the inanimate stuff between the crew and the sun. It can therefore have a secondary role as thermal insulation. Heat from the sun coming from directly behind has to percolate through a bunch of stuff in order to get to the crew.
If this same LM design had landed in full overhead sun, it wouldn't have been as good. The top of the LM is basically the top of the crew cabin. Yes, there are still two skins with insulation between them. But it would be harder to keep the heat from percolating down into the cabin with that design. If you wanted a craft that was meant to land during lunar noon, you might rearrange the various parts to put some inanimate equipment above the astronauts' heads instead of behind them.
The top of the LM doesn't have a whole lot less surface area than the back. There's no real advantage to having the sun strike the top directly instead of striking the back directly. In any case, none of those are hard problems. If you are the designer and you know where the sun is going to come from, you just arrange for that side of the ship to withstand it. You can make it reflective. You can reduce the surface area from that aspect. You can put in lots of insulation. All that works.
What about the astronauts in their space suits? Regardless of how many different ways you can design the LM, there's only a few ways to design a space suit to fit around an astronaut and make him useful and comfortable. You can't really design a space suit toward some intended location or time of day, so as to get the most out of sun angle.
Yes, from the strict point of view of solar heating, having the sun low on the horizon maximizes a standing astronaut's aspect to it. He's likely to get the maximum solar heating if the sun is low. So why did NASA set the missions to happen when the sun is low, if that's going to be the worst time for an astronaut to stand in the sun?
Because when you build a space suit, there are much bigger fish to fry than just solar heating.
Solar heating is an easy problem to solve because you just tell the sunlight to go away. The outer layer of the suit is made from a substance called Beta cloth. It's Teflon-coated glass fiber woven into a thick, canvas-like fabric. And it's very reflective. A space suit is the whitest of white. It reflects away about 80% of the sun's light. When you can get rid of that much energy by reflection, it isn't going to matter much whether the light strikes at an ideal angle.
And if you put layers upon layers of insulation between that outer layer and the astronaut, the outer layer can get as hot as it wants without the astronaut feeling it. The point is to keep the astronaut cool, not the suit cool. If the outer layer of the suit is perfectly okay at 250 F, then let it get that hot! Who cares?
The problem for a suit designer is getting rid of the heat the astronaut generates. As he metabolizes food, he generates about 80 W of heat. If he's working hard, that can go up to 100 W. That prodigious insulation keeps the heat from going anywhere, so the problem is actually moving the heat from inside the suit to the outside.
If the suit designer is looking at 1,300 W per square meter of incoming solar energy, and his reflective coating cuts that down to 260 W absorption, and the insulation means that only 2 W of solar heat gets inside to the astronaut, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the 80 W the astronaut creates by walking, breathing, farting, and cavorting about on the surface. Whatever heat trickles in through the suit from the sun will be easily whisked away by the liquid-cooling apparatus set up to remove the astronaut's body heat.
This whole debate could have been very easily forestalled. Conspiracists seem to believe designing for the space thermal environment is especially problematic, and that there's just no way to keep equipment from overheating and astronauts from gasping and collapsing from heat prostration. I have to ask, where does that belief come from?
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 16, 2007 16:15:49 GMT -4
Regarding "Was it Only a Paper Moon" that we watched for the first time this week.I understand it's new to you, but it's hardly new to us. I'm not going to be arrogant and say we've "seen it all," but there are a number of books and videos that have been around for a long time. And we're reasonably familiar with them. So when you refer to material like this, and we say, "Oh, that old film," it's not as if we're just dismissing it without a fight. It's because, once upon a time, we did look at it and discuss it thoroughly. Rather than rehash all the previous discussion, we'd rather just refer you to it. But in the meantime you'll have to take our word for it that we know the material, we know enough about it not to be impressed by it, and that's not a hasty judgment. How wide from the front to back were the astronauts including back-pack and camera?I think I know what you're trying to do. If I'm right in guessing your intent, it's the right thing to do. You're trying to retrace James Collier's argument and improve on it by putting actual data in it. Good luck with that. But be careful that you don't try to change the burden of proof. If you propose that the space suit wouldn't fit through the LM door, then you have the burden to prove it -- including any research or measurements or experiments you think would apply. You don't get to pretend that we have the responsibility to supply you with all the detailed information that pertains to the claim the way you want to make it. You have to understand how our refutation works. Collier said the suit wouldn't fit through the door. But he only measured the door, not the suit. If you say Tab A is too big to fit through Slot B, that implies you've measured Tab A and found it to be a larger number than Slot B. If you measure Slot B but ignore Tab A altogether, you don't get to say you've proved anything. Based on that alone we can reject Collier's argument. Period. Full-stop. It's tempting to say, "No, in order to prove Collier is wrong, you have to measure both Tab A and Slot B and show that they'll fit." But no. First, it shifts the burden of proof. We are only obliged to address arguments for which there is evidence. We aren't obliged to go digging up proof just because someone makes an idle claim. Second, we don't have to prove Collier is wrong, just that he's not right. Or more specifically, that he can't know whether he's right or not. Third, and most important, we don't have to measure Tab A and Slot B in order to know whether they fit. We can just try to shove the tab into the slot and see whether it works. The last element is what really sinks Collier on this point. He tries to make an inferential argument -- that is, one that asserts what must be true because something else is true. Learning to make those kinds of arguments well and rigorously is what makes people smart. But knowing when to dump the inferential argument and observe the outcome directly is what makes people smarter -- and often better paid. Collier proposes he can show the suit won't fit by taking a bunch of measurements, and from that combination of measurements infer that the suit won't fit. You seem to propose to do the same. But if you haven't already discovered, you soon will discover that the measurement approach is fraught with uncertainty. So cut to the chase. The Apollo 11 photography shows three or four pictures of Aldrin in the LM hatch. We don't have to quibble over whether we measured Tab A or Slot B correctly. There's the LM; there's the door; there's the space suit. It demonstrably fits, so we have to ask what Collier was thinking by proposing to infer something we can directly observe. The suit is observed to fit, so anyone who says they can measure stuff and say otherwise is automatically wrong. If you get the wrong answer, you're wrong no matter how careful you say you've been. Okay, so you want to go the measurement route. First read what I've already written. www.clavius.org/lmdoors.html I'll answer questions you have on what I wrote, but I won't repeat it. Note that I report the PLSS depth as 8 inches. That's from the Hamilton-Standard dimensioned design drawings of the PLSS. Conspiracists seem to believe the astronauts' cameras were permanently bolted to the front of the suit. Not so. They were easily removable. The astronaut got out of the hatch and went down the ladder, then put on his camera. It just slides down into a holder on his chest pack.
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 16, 2007 17:20:00 GMT -4
Why did the LRV kick up dust in waves...
Why can't it?
Collier: "Those waves are where it hits the atmosphere and stops..."
Huh? What's Collier's proof that atmosphere is why the dust behaves that way?
...why did the dust only go up as high as it would from a car or motorbike on Earth?
Collier: "This rooster tail should probably have gone sixty feet up in the air."
Huh? Where's his computation to arrive at that number?
I forgot how deceptive this film is. Collier simply demands that certain things should be the way he thinks. But he can't give any reason for why. He just makes vague references to gravity and atmosphere, but doesn't discuss exactly how those factors would produce (or fail to produce) his detailed expectations.
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Post by dwight on Feb 16, 2007 17:36:21 GMT -4
What never ceases to amaze me is the way HB folk, who are generally quick to point the finger at those who think the evidence strongly, nay overwhelmingly, supports Apollo, being sheeple types, are themselves blind disciples of those leading the hoax crusade. I figure, given the nitpick argumentative responses they have for the pro Apollo side, their blind subservience to videograpaher, Kaysing, Percy and collier is laughable. How come the electron microspcope of scrutiny suddenly disappears when one of those folk speak? I don't get it.
Say someone told me that R+G+B video actually equalled 1.7 volts, and they had a waveform monitor to prove it, combined with a volt meter confirming that fact, I would have to seriously rethink my TV basics. Arguing that 1.7 volts is really 1 volt wouldn't cut it. So I ask all you hoax believers, where is the scrutiny applied to yourselves that you readily apply to us (or we, as is becoming vogue)?
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Post by twinstead on Feb 16, 2007 21:41:21 GMT -4
So I ask all you hoax believers, where is the scrutiny applied to yourselves that you readily apply to us (or we, as is becoming vogue)? I also find it interesting that the 'free thinker' moniker goes out the window when they look at things that support their world view. It's aggravating.
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Post by heavenlybody on Feb 17, 2007 5:02:09 GMT -4
We do not claim to know everything. We have never claimed to be a physicist. This is a very hard case to crack. We do not expect it to be easy to uncover this as a hoax or that we ever will. We find this subject interesting and wish to delve into it until we get bored or are satisfied one way or another. Most off our research is done via the web. When we say atmospheric-diffusion we mean Solar-radiation that is scattered, reflected & absorbed by the atmosphere. At the horizon sunlight passes through more scatterers, leaving longer wavelengths and redder colours revealed. Take a look here www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7f.htmlYou will see that only 51% of the solar-radiation even makes it to the surface of the Earth. Experiments using artificial light sources and in a room are useless and will prove nothing. Your two plates at the equator are also useless unless you have another two plates at the pole to compare the data with. This is why we ignored your suggested experiments as they would give inconclusive results. Our experiments were valid. As was our comment on the fact it is takes longer to get a tan at the north pole (providing you do not allow reflected sunlight from the ice/snow) than at the equator. Jupiter welcome to this thread, don't be put off by this lot. We agree with you it is a tremendous leap of faith on behalf of the NASA team to use untested experimental craft live on TV. Especially on the moon. To go from a few hundred km away to a few hundred thousand km away is well unbelievable. The whole live on TV thing is very suspicious, it suggests that it was an entertainment program rather than scientific one too. Basically NASA had know way to be sure of anything, unless they faked it of course. It is quite peculiar how the pro-moonies all jump to defend Jayutah and act like some one coming to this message board will not know who he is. We came here via clavious that is Jay Windys aka jayutah's web page. And when you look at this message board if you were to count the number of words in each thread jayutah would probably make up at least 40-50% of all words from all posters, add to that multiple posters use quotes from him in their signatures. He is seen by the pro-moonies as their hero. In our opinion he is most of the other pro-moony posters too. Here is some pro-moony logic. If you know who jayutah is you must be moonman or lunatic or someone else they recently banned. That is how much imagination they have. If half of them got their way they would be accusing you of being us right now! Well they probably will anyway. Have you been viewing these threads for a while or did you just start visiting this message board? LO, we are not allowed to be condescending but the pro-moonies are! Is that what you are saying? we are not allowed to ask if people are Freemasons! But you are allowed to discuss our personal details with Len from brazil? Talk about double standards. JU, We have made typos, so have you, big deal. Occasionally we use the wrong term such as solar-energy when we mean solar-radiation, again big deal you all know what we meant. You just smugly and premeditatedly let them pass in the hope to bring them up at a later stage when you are loosing the argument as you are now. What did you mean by "made a few whoppers" are you accusing us of working in Burger King now? Are you spying on us? How would you know how many of us there are? Are you a mind reader or clairvoyant? How do you know what we are thinking? JT & GL Do either of you have any idea how long a lunar day is? Obviously not. For your information it is approximately 29 days! The longest time spent on the lunar surface was 72 hours. Given this fact do you still think it would have made any difference? Is any one going answer how wide from front to back an Apollo astronaut was? We would expect the dust to go at least 6 times higher than on Earth. We rode our bike though a tunnel yesterday not going very fast at all less than 10kph, there was a small puddle, the water splashed right up on to the roof of the tunnel about 3 metres above, this was not an experiment more of an accident. However the water travelled much higher than the dust on the moon? we thought that was a bit strange. How could they be sure that long term exposure to a 1/6g environment would not cause vomiting? We did not get a chance to re-view "was it only a paper moon", but we did watch "moonfaker". We thought this was another very good example of professional sane rational people, expressing their doubts regarding Project Apollo. Are any of you familiar with the Moonfaker documentary? Part 1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTm66nu6dGIPart 2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUhzRKbQw8MPart 3 www.youtube.com/watch?v=50l0_GriaWsPart 4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNsZcl_VMEg
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Post by jupiter2 on Feb 17, 2007 5:13:10 GMT -4
To Jay whom I consider the best repository of NASA's position on the moon landiing question, and others who responded to my initial post.:
To me this debate about the LEM is about one thing -the required technology is to stabilize a purely rocket powered craft -not a Harrier type jet hover craft as we know the training vechicles actually were.
35+ years after the fact this technology is still under research and development and it still cant be done. As I said Jay you would have no link and no documentation of the LEM of 1969 being successfully tested. Did either you someone else mentioned it was tested in space? That is not helpful to NASA's problem since there was nothing to land on, no gravity to work with whether 1/6 moon or earth gravity because its all about gravity. There is nothing to learn unless its done on a gravitional body. This is because the continually changing center of gravity for such a small and relatively top heavy craft like the LEM is what made the training vechicles or a rocket powered LEM so unstable. The technology needed would have had to have included some form of reliable mechanical weight distribution compensation, which it did not have, as opposed to the" flying bedposts" served up as proof that the LEM did in fact work.
Besides not being a rocket but a jet (Harrier type function) the training vechicles had a rather substantial mechanical stabilisation gyro, as well as considerable degree of back up stabilisation sensors, with numerous back up mini rockets (16)huffing and puffing to keep it stablized while the jet engine did all the work. Yet the dificulty with stabilization was plainly evident! This was certainly not a large rocket engine doing the work.. Plus the real LEM-. which you will never see being tested because all attempts failed had to be continuously interacting with a fairly complex onboard computer which it didnt have. The computers of 1969 had about 37k enough to change from wash to spin cycle on a washing machine. Lets not even get into the wattage that would have been needed that it didnt have.
I do see a substantial difference in the vechicle that Armstrong crashed. If you look closely it looks alot more like the real LEM, I think NASA tried to stay close to the real specs here and of course paid for it due to its being top heavy as opposed to the "bedposts" design. They tried but failed to get it to stabilize.
Think about it, properly modulating jet flight control is still relatively complex, a massive assortment of computerized sensors are integrated and must be employed in order to safely control the likes of a Stealth fighter. However, this issue is simplistic compared to that of modulating rocket engines and multiple thrusters. Unfortunatley the real LEM had neither a mass gyro nor such multiple modulated thrusters.,The LEM successful documentation films have never been shown by NASA because they dont exist.
Again to say they were tested in space would be convenient, as if there would be no film available, if the idea wasnt so ridiculously unproductive. NASA has described the history of their testing of the LEM in some detail right up to the apollo 11 mission, and nowhere is there any documentation of "Space Testing" or any companies involved in the making of such testing possible. Remember NASA took great pains to explain that they did not build the LEM, they paid contracted companies to do that.. Perhaps because it was never done, as it would serve no purpose in addressing the problems that needed to be solved that were by and large gravity related?
When Apollo planning was underway in 1960, NASA was looking for a simulator to profile the descent to the moon's surface. Three concepts surfaced: an electronic simulator, a tethered device, and the ambitious Dryden contribution, a free-flying vehicle. All three became serious projects, but eventually the NASA Flight Research Center's (FRC) Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) became the most significant one.
All of the time and expense lavished upon the Apollo lunar missions ultimately hinged upon the last few minutes before the lander touched the lunar surface. This was a daunting fact when the program began in 1961. The first landing would be an entirely new experience for any astronaut, and it had to be perfect.
NASA chose three approaches for lunar landing training: (1) An electronic flight simulator, (2) an outdoor, lunar-landing-type vehicle that "flew" suspended from a large gantry and employed hydrogen-peroxide powered attitude-control and thruster rockets as well as a cable system for control, and (3) the free-flying training vehicles, which evolved from the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle.
The lunar lander, called a Lunar Excursion Module, or Lunar Module (LM), was designed for vertical landing and takeoff, and was able to briefly hover and fly horizontally before landing. After conceptual planning and meetings with engineers from Bell the NASA FRC Issued Bell a $50,000 study contract in December 1961. Out of this study came the NASA headquarters endorsement of the LLRV concept, resulting in a $3.6 million production contract awarded to Bell Feb. 1, 1963, for delivery of the first of two vehicles for flight studies at the FRC within 14 months.
Built of tubular aluminum like a giant four-legged bedstead, the vehicle was to simulate a lunar landing profile from around 1500 feet to the moon's surface. To do this, the LLRV had a General Electric CF-700-2V turbojet engine mounted vertically in gimbals, with 4200 pounds of thrust. The engine, using JP-4 fuel, got the vehicle up to the test altitude and was then throttled back to support five-sixths of the vehicle's weight, simulating the reduced gravity of the moon. Two hydrogen-peroxide lift rockets with thrust that could be varied from 100 to 500 pounds handled the LLRV's rate of descent and horizontal translations. Sixteen smaller hydrogen-peroxide rockets, mounted in pairs, gave the pilot control in pitch, yaw, and roll. On the LLRV, in case of jet engine failure, six-500-pounds-of thrust rockets could be used by the pilot to carefully apply lift thrust during the rapid descent to hopefully achieve a controllable landing. A drogue chute was also to be ballistically deployed for additional stability in this emergency recovery mode.
The pilot's platform extended forward between two of the vehicle's legs while an electronics platform, similarly located, extended rearward. The pilot had a zero-zero ejection seat that would then lift him away to safety. Weight and balance design constraints were among the most challenging to meet for all phases of the program (design, development, operations). The LLRV project team had made a decision to avoid any "tethered" flight testing to lessen the risk to the pilots and vehicles. Two test fixtures to provided "hot" closed loop testing of all jet, rocket, hydraulic, and electronic control systems (except for the yaw attitude rocket system). The scene then shifted to the old South Base area of Edwards Air Force Base. On the day of the first flight, Oct. 30, 1964, NASA research pilot Joe Walker flew it three times for a total of just under 60 seconds, to a peak altitude of approximately 10 feet.
During the period of time the number one LLRV was undergoing flight testing the LLRV #2 was being assembled, instrumented and cockpit modifications made at the South Base. Kluever conducted the first flight of the number two LLRV in early January 1967.
The jet was controlled automatically to simulate flight within the lunar environment. Aerodynamic drag forces were opposed with vectored thrust so the vehicle would respond as though in a vacuum, and the jet supported five-sixths of the vehicle's weight to simulate lunar gravity.
Flight control of the LLRV was mainly done with small, hydrogen-peroxide rockets. Two sets of eight rockets were mounted around the vehicle to make it turn, or pitch up and pitch down. For added safety, each set was independent of the other, and the pilot could use either one or both.
After the jet engine had throttled-up enough to simulate lunar gravity, the LLRV's vertical movements were controlled by two rockets mounted in the center, next to the jet. There were also six emergency lift rockets that could also be used in the event of a jet engine failure.
The pilot's controls and flight instruments were in a forward-mounted cockpit that hung about six feet above the ground. The pilot sat in a rocket-propelled, Weber ejection seat. The LLRV was flown using a conventional stick and "rudder" pedal system for controlling attitude and yaw. Control inputs were sent to the thrusters through direct electronic signals, without the use of mechanical linkages.
The LLRV was able to duplicate the "feel" of the LM's controls, and it was equipped with some LM instrumentation, such as a radar altimeter, a Doppler radar for measuring velocity, and an accelerometer that gave indications in units of lunar gravity, from -1 to +10.
Fuel constraints limited most flights to about ten minutes, but a lunar-landing-simulation maneuver could be done in nearly two minutes. The task called for lift-off with the turbojet gimbal locked in position (VTOL mode). The pilot would take the craft to an altitude of about 200 feet while moving to a ground marker 400 feet ahead. This could take about 8 seconds. At that point, the pilot would change heading 90 degrees, and maintain a hover. Then the VTOL mode was disengaged, and the LLRV was flown in lunar mode: the jet's gimbal was unlocked, and lunar flight conditions were automatically simulated. A system of gyros and hydraulic servomechanisms kept the jet essentially vertical with respect to the ground, regardless of the vehicle's attitude.
The pilot continued the hover by using thrust from the lift-rockets. The vehicle would then be pitched-down to begin traveling forward, as it descended to a landing marker 800 feet ahead. The sink rates for the descent were kept to less than ten feet per second.
Approaching the marker, the pilot would use a pitch-up maneuver to slow the LLRV's horizontal speed, then establish a hover about ten feet over the landing spot, and make any final corrections before touching-down.
Pilots described the feeling of flying in the lunar mode as one of "slow motion" compared to earth mode VTOL operation. Large attitude angles were required to start or stop horizontal flight, while a lot of lead-time was needed to slow the vehicle over a specific spot. The pilots were forced to operate at much steeper attitudes, and for longer duration, than required for conventional VTOL operation.
By mid-1966, NASA had accumulated enough data from the LLRV flight program at Dryden to give Bell a contract to deliver three new vehicles, known as Lunar Landing Training Vehicles. These were sent directly to the Manned Spacecraft Center (now, Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas, where they were used to train the Apollo astronauts. The original LLRV's were modified as LLTV's and used in Houston as well.
The first flight was quickly followed by five more.By the ending of the Flight Research Center phase of the LLRV program, flight times had reached 9-1/2 minutes and altitudes of around 750 feet had been achieved. As a result of the high reliability experienced with the CF-700-2V jet engine and the shift in mission from research to training, the six emergency lift rockets and the emergency drogue chute were removed. Part of the significant weight savings achieved with this action were allocated to upgrading the ejection seat rocket catapult to a new model with 50% more impulse. This decision turned out to have a major positive impact, as the training operations used the ejection seat on three occasions, none related to jet engine problems.
Three of the five vehicles were later destroyed in crashes at Houston - LLRV No. 1 in May 1968 and two LLTVs, in December 1968 and January 1971. The two accidents in 1968, before the first lunar landing, did not deter Apollo program managers who enthusiastically relied on the vehicles for simulation and training.
So you see there is no mention of any "space testing" as the history of the program and contracts by the companies paid to produce these vechicles ends without any mention of further testing or even an actual LEM which the Armstrong vechicle ame the closest to looking like the real thing.
Again, any proof of the LEM being tested sucessfully is in fact non-existent and bears witness to the fact that the entire project failed to solve the stabilization problems due to gravitational constraints placed upon such a top heavy vechicle.
Now 35+ years later we are still waiting for a simple demonstration of any spacecraft using rocket power only lowering itself to the ground from a high altitude without going out of control and crashing. In rocketry vertical takeoff is the easy part. The difficult and so far impossible part is the descent landing.
I do believe that this problem will eventually be solved using bottom heavy crafts, but certainly never with a top heavy craft like the LEM was. But in all actuality propulsion is the real culprit here. What is needed is some kind of anti-gravity system that bypasses all the problems that prevented the LEM from ever landing succesfully on the earth, never mind the moon.
As always I welcome any film documentation or links to such that would dispute my contention that the LEM was indeed a LEMON. I dont expect any, but would be happy to see any produced. As I said in my original statement., I want to believe! But until this subject is changed from being a question of faith to a question of fact, I am unable to do so.
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Post by Count Zero on Feb 17, 2007 8:31:35 GMT -4
Let me get this straight: You have doubts about rocket-powered descent. People have pointed out that Surveyor did it in the 60s, Luna & Viking did it in the 70s, DC-X did it in the 90s (on Earth), and Hayabusa did it in this decade, and you say that it "still cant be done"? Films of successful LM landings are here, here, here, here, here and here. The LMs had highly capable and sophisticated active stabilization systems. Their names were Armstrong, Conrad, Shepard, Scott, Young and Cernan. Wherever do you get the idea that the LM was top-heavy?
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Post by gillianren on Feb 17, 2007 8:33:13 GMT -4
Most off our research is done via the web. Well, see, there's your first problem. Get thee to a library, as I always say. There's more information available on most subjects than just what's on the web, and it's got greater odds of being reliable, simply because of the greater challenges involved in publishing a book as opposed to making a website. (Yes, some books are wrong, too. Still.) But, as you've been told repeatedly, they didn't. There were many, many tests performed, including testing the complete item in everything but landing--and it may be said that Apollo 11 was, in fact, a test of the equipment. It just happened to be a successful test; they are sometimes, you know. Besides, what arguments would you have if they hadn't broadcast it live? Wouldn't that have just made a hoax easier? To you. I, on the other hand, find it unbelievable that someone can look at the vast mountains of evidence in favor of the supposition that the Apollo missions really did, in the cases where that's what they were intended to do, land on the Moon and return safely home again--except, of course, Apollo 13. Couldn't it be both? After all, the American people paid for the Apollo program. Since it was possible to show that historic moment, why not show it? And again, suppose they hadn't? Wouldn't you then argue that it was suspicious that they didn't? In fact, you seem determined to believe that the missions were fake regardless of the evidence presented, regardless of the expertise of those presenting it. Why? Oh, I know--it's been asked before. But you never have answered; it's really quite rude of you. Quite right. Thus, we should be all the more admiring of those who took the risks. NASA couldn't have been sure it would work; they just had a strong supposition based on all those aforementioned tests. That's why there was so much excitement when any major milestone was acheived. Haven't you ever experienced the delight of doing something you weren't sure you could? I didn't. Actually, I came from Bad Astronomy, originally, and it took me quite some time (I can be slow, I must admit) to catch on that Clavius was Jay's website. As to why I'd defend Jay, it's because I have found him to be polite, articulate, and knowledgeable--not to mention willing to share his greater expertise with people like me, who couldn't do his job if their own lives depended on it. Not that Jay's does. However, other people's might, which in my opinion makes the work that much more noble. Especially if--oh, fond hope!--Jay ends up helping to build the next generation of lunar landers. I don't think so. For one, the posting style means it's quite clearly not Moonman, given that he never could hold it together to be polite for three sentences strung together. It's English-language slang for a lie. It has been for more than a hundred years; I'm not at all sure it still counts as slang. It also means "a big thing," which is why the burger is called that. Honestly, I think you ought to check dictionaries for these words before launching accusations on people. There should only be one of you. If there's more than one, each person should get a separate account. And we've asked how many of you there are; you've consistently refused to answer. Again, it's rude.
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Post by Grand Lunar on Feb 17, 2007 9:28:36 GMT -4
We do not claim to know everything. We have never claimed to be a physicist. This is a very hard case to crack. We do not expect it to be easy to uncover this as a hoax or that we ever will. Interesting you mention all this, in light of the claims for experiments that you suggest. Not that it matters anyway, as your ideas are invalid. What sort of research? All I see is bad science by you. That, or someone that does not know science very well. Try reading some books. You can find much in them. Explain your reasoning for this. The principle behind such an experiment is the same for temperature differences due to the angle of the sun. I've learned this since grade school. What did you learn? So, you ignore tried and true science, yet think your methods (as I recall, staring at the sun at two different times of the day to determine the difference in energy received) are sound. It's also odd that you claim greater knowledge than one that experiments with thermal effects for his job. That's odd thinking. So now you take to insults? Guess you really don't want to be here any longer. As always, you forget; the LM was tested. Period. No, what is unbelievable is how obstinate you act in spite of having valid data shown to you repeatedly. Why is it suspicious? The ISS and shuttle crews use TV as well. Are they suspicious as well? I know how long the lunar day is (rather, the rotation period). And yes, it makes a difference. The missions landed at local morning. So, it was cooler then. Consider that the lunar night lasts about 14 days for any particular spot. It takes a while to heat up; it doesn't instantly heat up to the high temperature. I believe Jay answered that. You obviously missed that reply. Okay, you expect it. Does that mean it will? Okay, you drove through water..... ....and you're comparing it to dust? I think that is a bit strange. Talk about apples and oranges. It's all about the individual. It seems safe to say that if you can handle zero-g, then 1/6g shouldn't be a problem. Do you even know what causes people illness in zero-g? I had conversations with that guy. He really doesn't understand space technology (to say nothing of how a spacecraft's orbit works). His knowledge is just as bad as Ralph Rene's.
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Post by Count Zero on Feb 17, 2007 9:34:48 GMT -4
Basically NASA had know way to be sure of anything, unless they faked it of course. Quite wrong (no offense). There was no guarantee that the hoax wouldn't be blown. As many have pointed out, staging a faked Moon landing with the amount of evidence provided would have been more complicated than actually flying to the Moon. Also, the penalties - both legal (for the perpetrators) and in terms of international humiliation for the nation - of getting caught faking it would have been incalculably worse than simply failing to complete Kennedy's mandate.
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Post by BertL on Feb 17, 2007 9:55:35 GMT -4
I think all these lengthy posts from the one side aren't very encouraging for serious discussion from the other side.
Frankly, I don't think many people will read all that stuff. (No offense at all, but it's just a lot of information.)
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