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Post by sts60 on Jul 5, 2007 10:51:42 GMT -4
I agree it would have to be a closed-loop system. Open-circuit compressed-air SCBAs worn by firefighters typically contain 30-60 minutes worth of air (ours are 45) and weigh on the order of 30 lbs. But that's just rated use, and the time of use goes down quickly with exertion. Granted, the Apollo astronauts were quite fit, and their activities were less strenuous than structural firefighting, but they would have had to have the additional weight of active colling systems. Plus, as already mentioned, expelled air would have pooled on the floor, enhancing the very problem of aerosolization of dust this scenario is trying to avoid.
I do have to say, though, that inconceivable has come up with a truly original (AFAIK) method for addressing the dust problem. It wouldn't work, for various reasons already stated, but it is original.
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Post by JayUtah on Jul 5, 2007 12:25:52 GMT -4
The Apollo suit costumes supplied by Global Effects ( Apollo 13, From the Earth to the Moon, and Conspiracy Moon Landing) are fairly minimal. They comprise only the outer insulation garment, not the inner Neoprene pressure garment. The helmet can be fitted, but you can also simply wear the LEVA mockup. The PLSS mockup is largely empty space, a vacuum-formed PVC shell covered with Beta cloth. It contains only a fan and its power supply for feeding fresh air to the actor through the practical O2 hoses. That costume would be significantly heavier if it had to contain an oxygen supply, a dehumidifier, a cooling unit, a carbon dioxide scrubber, and the pumps and power supply required to operate the equipment. Ollie, our actor, was completely exhausted after a five-hour shoot, and that was with very short (e.g., 30 second maximum) takes and rest periods between each. His personal physiological failure mode was shoulder girdle and spine fatigue -- the PLSS straps forced the helmet seal ring down on his shoulders quite painfully, and that's with an empty PLSS. Dehydration and heat stress was also a factor. Ollie is a fit young man. It would be difficult to imagine an actor wearing a closed-loop version of that suit in Earth gravity and submitting to single takes lasting at times for hours.
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Post by scooter on Jul 5, 2007 12:59:37 GMT -4
NASA had a problem to solve. They were supposed to put an American astronaut on the Moon. They went to work designing the mission, the hardware, and determining the skill set required to pull it off.
They started work in earnest in the Gemini era, and designed the Saturn V while at the same time, were able to test technologies and techniques (rendezvous, EVA, fuel cells) on orbit that would be necessary in the lunar mission. The Saturn was a technolgical monster, enormous airframes, LH2/LO2 second and third stages, the massive F1 engines...armies of engineers and scientists worked the multitude of problems in designing and fabricating this unprecedented technology. And the LM, with it's allowable weight in flux based on Saturn performance... Now, with all this on their plate, they were sending Surveyors and Lunar Orbiters out to better understand the space environment. They knew the problems of radiation, solar flares, the surface environment. It was common knowledge in the agency.
Somewhere in this process, it is claimed that some yet undefined showstopper cropped up. Something in the mission process made it absolutely, and undeniably, impossible to send men to the Moon. A technical issue that would require the production of some "unobtainium", a discovery of some new radiation belt around the Moon that was 1000x stronger than the VAB, whatever. The mission was off, the American team had a problem they couldn't solve under any circumstances. So, at some undetermined point in the process, and for some undetermined reason, they shift into "hoax" mode.
Now, they cannot simply stop the whole Apollo freight train here, as that would raise too much attention. They continue real work on the Saturn, the difficult engines and stages, the LM, the CSM, the suits, the launch complex...everything. But they also must begin the arduous, challenging task of replicating the mission in total secrecy...massive sound stages, some means of replicating vaccuum and lunar gravity. Developing a means of replicating trans lunar communications and telemetry without using real people going to the Moon, while faking real-time communications. To add to this paralell mission cost, some claim that som if not many in the NASA community were bribed, generously, while others were silenced with more "extreme prejudice". All whilst the original Apollo mission to the Moon had to be pressing on full speed, if only for appearances sake.
OK, my brain hurts. If the obstacle was environmental, the Soviets would know about it, or would soon learn of it, as would any future spacefaring nation. Why would they fake something that would be easily exposed as fraudulent by any number of countries in the future? If the hurdle was technological, they would have to put real teams to work on it, even if only for appearances sake, to keep up the "ruse". And what if, by chance, the "non-hoax" teams came up with a solution? These were very talented and motivated people, not involved in the hoax. Just swiftly "turn off" the hoax side? Bury the multitude of physical evidence, and pay off the thousands involved? If the problem was indeed insolvable, the teams would know the missions were hoaxed...more bribes...very big bribes to cover a potential national calamity.
It all boils down to...what was the absolutely insurmountable showstopper? Why couldn't we get to the Moon?
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Post by nomuse on Jul 5, 2007 13:17:04 GMT -4
Insurmountable yet easily hidden!
Something that could slip by long enough to get the entire mission series rolling -- even to the point that they were committed to presence of cameras, public-figure astronauts, an open program (all of which made the ensuing hoax that more difficult.)
And yet, something that could only be discovered by a handful of top people who were fortunately concentrated at NASA and could all be sworn to secrecy, and something that could remain a secret and be defended even today.
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Post by Count Zero on Jul 5, 2007 18:38:46 GMT -4
That is an excellent summation, scooter (and follow-up by nomuse).
I wish that we could require each HB to give a detailed, lucid response to this. How 'bout it, rocky? turbonium?
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 5, 2007 18:40:19 GMT -4
Yes, something else to realise. Until the Soviet programme was shutdown in early 1974, as far as the Americans knew, the Soviets could have easily have gotten there as well, even if well after the US did. Had Apollo been hoaxed and they had gotten anything about the lunar enviroment wrong (remember all the ALSEP experiments.....) this would have been shown up very quickly. In 1972 the Americans didn't know the Soviets weren't going to make it there with manned craft, and they certainly had no way of knowing in 1969.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 5, 2007 19:02:06 GMT -4
Yes, something else to realise. Until the Soviet programme was shutdown in early 1974, as far as the Americans knew, the Soviets could have easily have gotten there as well, even if well after the US did. Had Apollo been hoaxed and they had gotten anything about the lunar enviroment wrong (remember all the ALSEP experiments.....) this would have been shown up very quickly. In 1972 the Americans didn't know the Soviets weren't going to make it there with manned craft, and they certainly had no way of knowing in 1969. Ah, but a hoaxer could say the Americans knew the Soviets weren't going to make it because they already knew it was completely impossible. EDIT: Wow, I really should have typed that one more carefully.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 5, 2007 19:12:12 GMT -4
Ah, but a hoaxer could say the Americans knew the Svoiets weren't gonig to make ti because they already knew it was completely impossible. However if the Soviets found out that it was impossible, and yet the US claimed to have done it, then they would have caught the US in a massive lie that would have been perfect for propoganda reasons.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
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Post by Bob B. on Jul 5, 2007 19:12:39 GMT -4
Ah, but a hoaxer could say the Americans knew the Svoiets weren't gonig to make ti because they already knew it was completely impossible. And if it were so completely impossible that neither side was going to make it, then why not just say that and be done with it? What shame is there in not being able to accomplish the impossible? What purpose is served by faking it? Any HBs care to give me some answers?
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Post by alex04 on Jul 11, 2007 2:50:32 GMT -4
Ah, but a hoaxer could say the Americans knew the Svoiets weren't gonig to make ti because they already knew it was completely impossible. And if it were so completely impossible that neither side was going to make it, then why not just say that and be done with it? What shame is there in not being able to accomplish the impossible? What purpose is served by faking it? Any HBs care to give me some answers? Possibly they would argue that a 'supposed' mission to the moon was staged, to hide the 'real' reasons for spending the money which was supposed to be used to finance the technology needed to get them to the moon? I know it doesn't hold up, just throwing a possible rebuttle in there!
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 11, 2007 11:19:48 GMT -4
An HBer could claim that a popular American President declared we would be going to the moon, so when it was discovered we couldn't do it we still had to fake it out of respect for Kennedy.
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Post by HeadLikeARock (was postbaguk) on Jul 11, 2007 11:47:56 GMT -4
An HBer could claim that a popular American President declared we would be going to the moon, so when it was discovered we couldn't do it we still had to fake it out of respect for Kennedy. Well that settles it then. It was either Lee Harvey Oswald's fault or the man on th grassy knoll's.
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furi
Mars
The Secret is to keep banging those rocks together.
Posts: 260
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Post by furi on Jul 11, 2007 11:51:44 GMT -4
Thats IT, That is why he organised his own shooting, he couldn't face the guilt of not living up to a promise to go to the moon.
Now if only more politicians arranged for their own assassination for every little fib they told, or promise they couldn't keep
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Post by JayUtah on Jul 11, 2007 11:57:47 GMT -4
Yes, he could claim that, but it would contradict the historical facts.
Conspiracists firmly believe that Kennedy announced out of the blue that the United States would land a man on the Moon, and NASA responded in a sort of "deer in the headlights" fashion knowing (or discovering too late) that it couldn't be done. But of course it was too late to head off the proposal, so they had to pretend it could be done.
The opposite actually occurred. President Kennedy wanted a technology project to impress the world, mostly to one-up the Soviets. There were several proposals, one of which was the land on the Moon. Kennedy naturally wanted a reasonably high probability of success before committing to it, so he put the onus on NASA to assure him it could be done before agreeing to commit the nation to it. And it took two tries; Kennedy (really the two Kennedys: John and Robert) originally rejected a Moon landing project. Apollo had already been approved by Eisenhower. Kennedy's plan was to redirect it slightly and fund it to the point where it could be accomplished before the end of the decade.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jul 11, 2007 14:10:22 GMT -4
An HBer could claim that a popular American President declared we would be going to the moon, so when it was discovered we couldn't do it we still had to fake it out of respect for Kennedy. So the best way to honor a fallen president is to cheat and lie? I agree many HBs think this way. To them there are only two possibilities -- succeed or cheat. Other possibilities are apparently inconceivable to the typical HB. It makes me wonder what kind of sicko scumbags we're dealing with that they can't conceive of someone acting honorably; that the only response to failure is cheating.
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