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Post by LunarOrbit on Jul 5, 2007 22:53:41 GMT -4
I think I need to change web hosts. If you do decide to switch let me know. I highly recommend my host, and I'm sure they can handle a site the size of yours no problem. They're generous with the webspace and bandwidth. I can give you more details if you're interested.
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Post by svector on Jul 6, 2007 0:19:35 GMT -4
Well, Jay, if you're not a paid disinformationist, and I know I'm not a paid disinformationist, that's two down. Anybody else? Originally I thought I wasn't a paid disinformation agent/NASA shill, but having been accused of same almost daily for the past six months, I'm starting to think I might be. File me in the "undecided" category for now.
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Post by ishmael on Jul 6, 2007 0:26:16 GMT -4
Originally I thought I wasn't a paid disinformation agent/NASA shill, but having been accused of same almost daily for the past six months, I'm starting to think I might be. File me in the "undecided" category for now. If you're willing to stretch the definition enough, I was a government disinformation agent once. It was a small thing, but I provided certain analysis under contract. The final report included not only the analysis put together by my group, but an interpretation that could at best be described as misleading. Nobody wanted me or anyone else on the technical team to sign our names to the final report, which was just as well, because I (and maybe the others) would have had to be paid a lot more before that would have been worth it... Edited - it had nothing to do with Apollo or any kind of space program.
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Post by Obviousman on Jul 6, 2007 0:31:43 GMT -4
I better come clean.
I am paid by the government. Specifically the Australian government.
And I am indeed part of the Australian Defence Forces.
My position as an Officer within the ADF is within the Naval Aviation headquarters.
In my defence, though, the only NASA document I have (at work) is a study into checklists and publications, the sequences and layouts, the fonts used, etc.
I should also say I have never been paid by any government agency, any non-government agency, received recompense in any way from any of the former, been directed / ordered / instructed / encouraged / congratulated / even mentioned for my opinions on the validity of Apollo.
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Post by scooter on Jul 6, 2007 1:31:04 GMT -4
Wish I was a "shill"...but I'm not, would probably do poorly being paid for doing something like this. I like spaceflight stuff.
For Rocky Anyway, it doesn't much matter. What matters are the facts. The evidence. Could, or could not, NASA send men to the Moon? Was the technology sufficient? Could the hardware do the job? It's easy to look at the technological state of the art in the 60s, and think it just wasn't possible. By today's standards, rudimentary computers, minimal processing and storage capability, slide rules, no CAD. The same technology designed and flew the 747, the Tu-144, and the Concorde. The SR71 too. It was state of the art, in the days before PCs, handheld calculators, and iPods. It's all we had, we used our brains for the rest. Look at the charts and diagrams of the day...all hand drawn, using graph paper and French curves, very accurately. There were failures , many failures on the way. But failures it is said teach far more than successes. We learned why the engines failed, we learned about pogo. The unmanned probes, US and Russian, returned detailed data on the environment encountered enroute to, and on, the Moon, also some failures along that route too. These were the days of the space race, a vigorous technical and political competition between the two opposing superpowers. The populations were deeply committed to the race. The funding was significant. The political implications of the program were immense. People were caught up in the program, it really mattered to them. The press was excited and supporting. The people in the program were motivated by this, they knew their work really mattered. They suffered through horrific problems along the way, and worked each one through. There was a personal committment at every level of the program. In the end, they got it all working and we went to the Moon...several times. But interest waned, costs were high, and the nation lost it's motivation to continue. We got it done, we beat the Russians, time to move on. The race was over. We (Americans) had the technology. We learned it through hard work, failure, analysis, and fixes. We had the drive, and the money. And we cared about it. And, on the Moon, there is a small memorial called the "fallen astronaut". A small figure of an astronaut, with a plaque with the names of the many lost American and Russian explorers who had lost their lives towards the exploration of space. This is, and always will be, one of my my fondest impression of the entire race to the Moon. There is nothing I have found that makes a trip to the Moon, be it Russian, Chinese, European, Americans or anyone else, impossible. It was possible then, and it is possible today. There was no thought of "faking" it. Either you could do the job, or you couldn't.
One just needs the national will and the drive, like we had almost 40 years ago. It was a good thing. The world's scientific community accepts, and benefits from it's findings, even in context of further findings and study. They are deemed valid, and important.
Humans, not just Americans, indeed have reached the Moon. This is an achievement of, and for, mankind. We have all been there as a species, nothing will change that. We all benefit as we will, or not.
Anger against America today has no context as to whether a trip to the Moon by humans was or was not techologically possible in 1969.
Seeing the shuttle and ISS astronauts and cosmonauts greeting one another in space, as good friends, gives me hope. A microcosm of what could be, on spaceship Earth.
Have a good night...
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Post by Count Zero on Jul 6, 2007 6:28:02 GMT -4
Good post, scooter. I had similar thoughts on an IMDB board a couple of years ago:
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Post by Grand Lunar on Jul 6, 2007 7:39:25 GMT -4
Excellent points, Scooter and Count Zero. People just seem out of touch with the days of ambitous feats of engineering and problem solving. I hope with the Constellation program, these old ideas come back.
On to the previous subject, the closest I was to being a US govt agent was my six years in the navy. I even recall someone mentioning that in a conversation online about something, and decided to dismiss whatever facts I offered. Anyway, I worked on diesel engines, air compressors, hydraulic systems, air conditioning units, distilling plants, refridgeration units, an incinerator, a boat davit, and 1000 gpm water pumps for the ship's firemain.
I only worked with stuff labeled "Confidential", because it was related to the support systems for the ship's nuclear power plant.
I WISH I was paid to support Apollo. I'd probably be filthy rich by now.
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Post by rchappo on Jul 6, 2007 8:17:22 GMT -4
Great post Scooter!
Rocky's silence is deafening.
The closest I've ever been to being paid by any government was when I worked as a chemist for a pyrotechnics company that had contracts with the UK Ministry Of Defence. I worked there for 2 years. I wasn't paid directly by the UK government though. I then emigrated to the USA because my wife is American. We went to Kennedy Space Center as part of our honeymoon, so that means that I've actually paid NASA some money for admissions and merchandise etc, but I've never taken money from them.
Like any other country in the world I'm finding good and bad things about living in the USA. Some things that happen here actually anger me and depress me. So I'm not some kind of "dumb patriot" and I can be as cynical as anybody when I want to be. The Apollo debate cannot be turned into a simple pro/anti America debate like the HBs seem to want it to be. To me it was primarliy a wonderful feat of science and engineering and I continue to be in awe of all of the people that made it possible. I can watch the pad footage from the Apollo 11 launch over and over and over again and it never fails to take my breath away.
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Post by ineluki on Jul 6, 2007 8:39:57 GMT -4
Perhaps it would be best not to distract rocky from his current task, finding evidence or retracting his claim. If he doesn't fulfil LunarOrbit's request, he is gone anyway, and I don't think there are any lurkers left to convince. Anyone who didn't see through rocky's handwaving already, WANTS to believe him.
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Post by Obviousman on Jul 6, 2007 9:00:25 GMT -4
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Post by BertL on Jul 6, 2007 10:03:22 GMT -4
Hey, you posted my thingie too, thanks. I guess I should keep a look on that thread. I hope he realizes I'm actually really a 17 year old (I just turned seventeen six days ago!) high school student who lives in Holland before he starts calling me a paid disinfo agent. I can prove that too, although not when taking rocky's standards into account.
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Post by petereldergill on Jul 6, 2007 10:28:40 GMT -4
I don't believe you BertLs, I think you just cast a Phantasmal Force and I didn't make my saving throw...I wish the 17 year olds that I teach wrote english half as well as you do!
Pete
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Post by frenat on Jul 6, 2007 10:29:28 GMT -4
If he doesn't fulfil LunarOrbit's request, he is gone anyway, Well, lunarorbit only said he would be banned for 30 days so he'll be back but I doubt his opinions will have changed. I predict he'll accuse lunarorbit of bias, say he was banished because we are close mided, etc. then he will continue on with the magic sand like nothing ever happened.
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Post by phunk on Jul 6, 2007 11:02:21 GMT -4
Does the $5 I was paid for jury duty last year count as a government paycheck?
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Post by JayUtah on Jul 6, 2007 11:06:43 GMT -4
I wish more 17 year olds simply thought the way BertLS does.
And jury duty pay counts only if you voted the way the Evil Gubbermint said to.
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