400 Days: The End of HB

[reynoldbot]

inconceivable said:

Because of the limited space inside the hanger certain areas had to be resurfaced with the overhead blower fans. This inadvertantly erased many foot prints and also caused the flag to blow many times.

Many times? There are exactly zero occurances of flag movement in any of the film or video footage that do not also involve an astronaut in direct contact with it. Find me even a single short clip of the flag waving with no astronauts around it. Go ahead. I triple dog dare you.

I don't care if you are a troll and are just yanking our chains. I'm gonna call you on it when you make bold and wild accusations.

[Kiwi]

reynoldbot said:

There are exactly zero occurances of flag movement in any of the film or video footage that do not also involve an astronaut in direct contact with it. Find me even a single short clip of the flag waving with no astronauts around it. Go ahead. I triple dog dare you.

I think inconceivable is being taken far too seriously, so in his defence:

In Al Reinert's movie "For All Mankind" at approximately 1:13:10 you can very briefly see the shadow of a distant flag waving on the lunar surface, and there isn't a single astronaut anywhere on the moon. This clip was filmed with the 16mm data acquisition movie camera and no doubt can also be viewed in the movie film of the Apollo 17 liftoff on the Spacecraft Films' DVD set..

And just a few seconds earlier in "For All Mankind," the Apollo 14 flag waves extremely vigorously too even though there are no astronauts around it or in direct contact with it.

Gene Cernan points out both of these flag motions in the commentary track of the DVD between 1:12:23 and 1:13:35:

1:12:37 Gene Cernan: This is the first real pictures we've ever had of the liftoff. I set the lunar module [he means the rover] about a mile behind the LM. The camera was operated remotely from the ground. We're in there, that's the valley, that was our Camelot, we're ready to leave. And we left with a tremendous bang and lifted off so quickly that they had to start the camera about a second and a half early just to keep up with us as we lifted off the surface. We used the descent stage as a launching platform. There it is — you can see the flag wave [from the Apollo 14 liftoff film] — and there we're on our way and as we look back down [Apollo 17 again], if you look at some of the movies that we took down there we can actually see the flag still standing. There it is, still waving [at pitchover] as we blew off, and there's our launching platform, there's that nostalgic place, place I called home, which I'd love to go back to one of these days, and probably as pristine and as undisturbed as the day we left it. 1:13:35

And to finish off with a third example for a triple dare, there's a still photo somewhere in cyberspace which was taken from the Apollo 11 post-EVA 16mm footage, which shows the flag rotated about 90 degrees anticlockwise from all the other earlier still photos and movie frames. This shows a change in the flag's position which occurred after Armstrong and Aldrin closed the hatch for the last time. I have not seen this particular clip of 16 mm movie film -- it is not on my set of Spacecraft Films' DVDs.

<Fixed typo>

[Czero 101]

kiwi said:

And to finish off with a third example for a triple dare, there's a still photo somewhere in cyberspace which was taken from the Apollo 11 post-EVA 16mm footage, which shows the flag rotated about 90 degrees anticlockwise from all the other earlietr still photos and movie frames. This shows a change in the flag's position which occurred after Armstrong and Aldrin closed the hatch for the last time. I have not seen this particular clip of 16 mm movie film -- it is not on my set of Spacecraft Films' DVDs.

Well, I looked through as many pics from ALSJ as I could find that show the orientation of the flag, both during and post-EVA and so far have not found the image you are mentioning here.

I'll have a better look and pull out the dvd's and whatever other videos i can find after I get some sleep.


Cz

[Kiwi]

oldman said:

Count Zero, you got one right! I'm back to talk about missing rover tracks. Explain to me if you will why the rover is missing its tire tracks in photo AS17-137-20979 after having traveled 9km across the moon's surface? Where is this discussed here? I searched the forum but couldn't find anything...

JayUtah has given you the link to his Clavius web page which discusses that particular photo. Did it help?

This 360-degree Apollo 15 EVA-3 ALSEP Pan #2:
www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/a15pan1642656.jpg
taken by Jim Irwin at GET 164:26:56, shows, on close examination, many good examples of dust having been kicked up at times by the astronauts. Note Jim Irwin's boot prints to and from the LM, and that immediately around the Rover its tracks have been eliminated, yet its approach tracks further out are visible.

There are three high-resolution partial views at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (link at the bottom of every page here) under the list of pans in the Apollo 15 image library -- page down to the time it was taken, GET 164:26:56.

The individual photos are AS15-82-11047 to 11064, and more information can be learnt from their captions further down in the image library.

If you watch the Apollo 17 EVA-1 TV footage on the Spacecraft Films' DVDs, around the part where Jack Schmitt sings, "I was strolling on the Moon one day..." at GET 121:35:45, just before the traverse from the ALSEP site to Station 1, you can see the dust he kicks up being nicely backlit by the sun as he lopes back to the lunar module.

As the ALSJ says (along with an example of the 2-1/2 second time lag):

[Fendell finds Jack running toward the LM. The Rover seems noticeably higher than the LM. However, Jack is down in the swale and that may be helping to create the impression.]

121:35:15 Schmitt: Hey, you're turning our voice around, Bob.

121:35:19 Parker: No, I said...

121:35:19 Schmitt: We're getting a repeat.

121:35:20 Parker: I said, "Close the covers, please."

121:35:27 Schmitt: That's right. I heard what you said, but you're turning our voice around. (Pause)

[That is, they are hearing themselves in the earphones after the communications has made the two-and-a-half-second round trip to Earth and back. As Jack runs, splashes of light are visible at his feet. The effect is due to sunlight reflecting off sprays of dust that he kicks up as he runs. The best example of this is in the TV coverage of Gene running toward the Rover, from the east, just before they leave Shorty Crater on EVA-2.]

RealVideo Clip by Mick Hyde (1 min 12 sec)

121:35:45 Schmitt: (Singing) I was strolling on the Moon one day...

[Kiwi]

jasonthompson said:

Contrary to the oversimplifications of those who wish to read some subversive meaning into the existence of such forums as these, Apollo is not intuitively obvious to everyone. It was a highly technical project in a field not everyone out there is au fait with. Many people do not immediately understand that dark sky does not equate to night-time in space; that stars are intrinsically much dimmer than they seem to be; that seeing a photographing are two very different problems; that orbital mechanics is so couterintuitive that you have to slow down to speed up; that radiation exists in different types and these require different shielding techniques; that the outer skin of the LM that looks so flimsy is not the pressure vessel of the craft; that dust behaves very differently in a vacuum than might be expected at first glance; and so on. The truth of Apollo is categorically NOT a common sense problem with an obvious answer unless you have some knowledge of the science and technology involved. If everyone had that, NASA wouldn't need to assemble a team of specialists and anyone could go to the Moon.

Jason, please fix the typo, "that seeing a photographing". That paragraph is far too good and far too useful to have an error in it.

[Jason Thompson]

Done.

[dwight]

And to finish off with a third example for a triple dare, there's a still photo somewhere in cyberspace which was taken from the Apollo 11 post-EVA 16mm footage, which shows the flag rotated about 90 degrees anticlockwise from all the other earlier still photos and movie frames. This shows a change in the flag's position which occurred after Armstrong and Aldrin closed the hatch for the last time. I have not seen this particular clip of 16 mm movie film -- it is not on my set of Spacecraft Films' DVDs.

Kiwi, I think you may be confusing that event with what is seen on the Apollo 14 sets. The flag indeed has spun around due to the reason you are wanting oldman to state. I'll hold my tongue on what it is incase you are waiting for him to respond.

IIRC Mark Gray was the one who posted the frame grabs over on the Projectapollo yahoo board.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

sts60 said:

You may not be aware of the history, but this forum was originally owned by a hoax believer. He learned about Apollo and became convinced that it happened pretty much as advertised. The current owner, LunarOrbit, picked up the board after it had fallen into disuse.

I did not know that.

Who, or what, was it that pushed him (the original owner) over the line between HB and reality?

[JayUtah]

Who, or what, was it that pushed him (the original owner) over the line between HB and reality?

Persistent, polite discussion.

[JayUtah]

The crew ran out a number of film magazines after the EVA. 70mm magazine 40 was run out by Armstrong just prior to LM ingress. Aboard the LM during EVA closeout, magazines 37 nad 39 were run out by each of the crew, as well as the 16mm DAC magazine. This was because the DAC needed to have a fresh magazine for the ascent. Running out the magazine in each case means simply taking exposures randomly until the film is exhausted, although the crew notes that they tried to make meaningful photographs anyway. Aldrin ran out Roll 37 by shooting many pictures of the deployed flag and TV camera.

All the 70mm magazines show the flag in the same position. Hence the difference in flag position on the 16mm DAC footage during the run-out must have occurred at some point after the exhaustion of the 70mm film. It does not come from the subsequent DAC footage at liftoff: Aldrin actually forgot to start the DAC, so we don't have DAC footage from the end of the post-EVA run-out to something like 15 seconds into the LM ascent.

The question then is to pin down the DAC runout parameters -- frame rate, time, correlation with other events.

On another take, we must have hypotheses for what caused the flag to move, so that these may be correlated in time, if necessary, with the DAC operations.

One hypothesis is simply that the unbalanced flag simply moved finally of its own accord. It was off-balance because the crew could not drive it deeply enough into the regolith. Hence they piled up regolith around the base. But more importantly, they leaned the flagpole backwards to compensate for the eccentric load of the flag; they wanted the center of mass of the entire assembly to be located over the flagpole's insertion point. It's likely they didn't fully succeed. In that case, basic dynamics predicts that the flag may rotate around its pole to compensate for variances in eccentric loading. The flag didn't survive upright, so we know it was poised precariously.

(This is actually the principle by which the dowsing rod appears to work -- minute changes in the vetical orientation of the handles result in disproportionate movement in the cantilevered pointers, in the form of a rotation.)

Fluid effects include expulsion of air from the jettison cycles (e.g., PLSS, 70mm camera bodies), and the RCS hot-fire test.

The latter is quite unlikely because it occurred long after the DAC would have been secured from run-out, and because that is variously when it was theorized the flag blew down altogether.

The jett cycles correlate well with the theorized DAC run-out schedule. One of the times in which the LM forward hatch was opened to jettison equipment may have expelled enough residual atmosphere to cause the flag to move. In combination with its eccentric loading, it would not necessarily take much air pressure for that to happen. And the DAC, dutifully clicking away, recorded the change in orientation.

We can rule out the theory that ambient air caused the flag to move, thus revealing that it was photographed in a fluid ambient. Ambient-induced motion of a flag is not characterized by long periods of rest in one orientation followed by a sudden move to a new orientation wherein it remains again quiescent. Ambient-induced motion is continunous and, where absent, returns the object to a single repeated rest state.

[reynoldbot]

I think inconceivable is being taken far too seriously, so in his defence:

Which is why I said "I don't care if you are a troll and are just yanking our chains." If something is going to be brought up on this forum, whether serious or not, we should answer it.

Would the flags have moved in your two examples had the astronauts not been lifting off in their ascent stage? I chalk those two up to "contact with astronaut."

That leaves your last one, in which Jay pointed out the fact that the astronauts did not put up the flag correctly and that probably contributed to its movement. Still a result of astronaut interaction.

[Kiwi]

jasonthompson said:

Done.

Aaargh! Until I pasted it into Word for filing in my "useful Apollo quotes" folder I didn't notice it also had "couterintuitive" -- missing an "n" -- so please fix that too.

That paragraph is excellent because it mentions a number of important points but is clear and concise, avoids being confusing, and sums up the situation nicely. Well thought up and well written. I shall no doubt quote it some time in the future, but with full credit to the original author.

[Kiwi]

jayutah said:

All the 70mm magazines show the flag in the same position. Hence the difference in flag position on the 16mm DAC footage during the run-out must have occurred at some point after the exhaustion of the 70mm film. It does not come from the subsequent DAC footage at liftoff: Aldrin actually forgot to start the DAC, so we don't have DAC footage from the end of the post-EVA run-out to something like 15 seconds into the LM ascent.

The question then is to pin down the DAC runout parameters -- frame rate, time, correlation with other events.

Has anybody seen the actual clip, and whatever else was on the same film? I wonder if the clip was on the end of the landing film because the DAC appears to have been turned off shortly after the landing, but the EVA film was just left to run out.

I found the particular still frame in my early days on the internet and changed the file name and didn't record its source, but could email it to anybody who can host it so that others can see it. It's probably best kept somewhere more permanent than any of the free sites.

The photo I have comprises two shots, the top one being a very yellow, cropped Hasselblad shot from roll 37 out of Buzz's window, and has the caption, "Above: Post-EVA Photograph taken from LEM (Mag 37)."

Note the "LEM" which indicates it was written by somebody who was not particularly familiar with Apollo terminology.

The bottom photo is a similar 16mm DAC view with more natural colour, but appears overexposed and is quite fuzzy, almost as if it was a jerky hand-held shot. The flag and its top rod are rotated anticlockwise about 90 degrees. An important thing is that the flagstaff's shadow and the shadow of the solar wind collector's staff are shorter than in the Hasselblad shot, so the sun has risen higher. The caption says: "Above: Still from Post-EVA 16mm footage."

[Jason Thompson]

Kiwi, I've fixed the other typo too. You give me too much credit for being well thought out, though. I ran that off in a couple of minutes entirely off the cuff, just summarising some of the recent debates that came to me while I was typing.

Do feel free to quote that paragraph anywhere you like, however.

[Czero 101]

kiwi said:

I found the particular still frame in my early days on the internet and changed the file name and didn't record its source, but could email it to anybody who can host it so that others can see it. It's probably best kept somewhere more permanent than any of the free sites.

Kiwi, I got your e-mail. Here's the pic you sent:



www.digitalafterimage.com/A-11-flag/Apollo_11_Flag_16mm_DAC.JPG


Cz