Satellites and Exploration

[Count Zero]

(Note: This thread splits off from the "Why the Apollo Moon Landings were Hoaxed" thread to keep that one on-topic)

Apr 18, 2008 3:42:33 GMT -4 turbonium said:

Satellites aren't used as vehicles for space exploration, first of all. They are used in various applications related to space (and its exploration), but they certainly don't "explore" space. That's also evident in the very term - "satellite" - describing an object in orbit.

So, the Hubble Space Telescope (a satellite of Earth) does not explore space? Nor does the Chandra X-Ray Observatory? IRAS? How about these satellites that discovered, measured, mapped and characterized the Van Allen Bellts?

1958 February 1 - Explorer 1: Perigee: 347 km Apogee: 1,859 km. Discovered radiation belt around Earth.
1958 March 26 - Explorer 3: Perigee: 186 km Apogee: 2,799 km. Radiation & micrometeoroid data.
1958 July 26 - Explorer 4: Perigee: 257 km Apogee: 1,352 km. Mapped project Argus radiation.
1959 February 17 - Vanguard 2: Perigee: 557 km Apogee: 3,049 km. Studied magnetosphere.
1959 August 7 - Explorer 6: Perigee: 245 km Apogee: 42,400 km. First Earth photo; radiation data.
1959 September 18 - Vanguard 3: Perigee: 512 km Apogee: 3,413 km. Radiation & micrometeoroid data.
1959 October 13 - Explorer 7: Perigee: 523 km Apogee: 857 km. Magnetic field and solar flare data.
1960 November 3 - Explorer 8: Perigee: 394 km Apogee: 1,331 km. Ionospheric research.
1961 March 25 - Explorer 10: Perigee: 221 km Apogee: 181,100 km. Magnetic field data.
1961 April 27 - Explorer 11: Perigee: 480 km Apogee: 1,458 km. Gamma ray data.
1961 June 29 - Injun 1: Perigee: 869 km Apogee: 992 km. Radiation data.
1961 August 16 - Explorer 12: Perigee: 790 km Apogee: 76,620 km. Radiation and solar wind data.
1962 October 2 - Explorer 14: Perigee: 2,558 km Apogee: 96,229 km. Magnetosphere studies.
1962 October 27 - Explorer 15: Perigee: 306 km Apogee: 17,610 km. Radiation decay data.
1962 December 13 - Injun 3: Perigee: 240 km Apogee: 2,406 km. Radiation decay data.
1963 November 27 - Explorer 18: Perigee: 192 km Apogee: 197,616 km. Interplanetary radiation data.
1964 August 25 - Explorer 20: Perigee: 857 km Apogee: 999 km. Ionospheric research.
1964 October 4 - Explorer 21: Perigee: 191 km Apogee: 95,590 km. Magnetic field, radiation data.
1964 October 10 - Explorer 22: Perigee: 872 km Apogee: 1,053 km. Ionospheric and geodetic data.
1964 November 21 - Explorer 25: Perigee: 526 km Apogee: 2,319 km. Radiation data.
1964 December 21 - Explorer 26: Perigee: 284 km Apogee: 10,043 km. Radiation and solar wind data.
1965 April 29 - Explorer 27: Perigee: 932 km Apogee: 1,309 km. Ionospheric and geodetic data.
1965 May 29 - Explorer 28: Perigee: 229 km Apogee: 261,206 km. Magnetic field, radiation data.
1965 November 19 - Explorer 30: Perigee: 671 km Apogee: 856 km. Solar radiation data.
1965 November 29 - Explorer 31: Perigee: 505 km Apogee: 2,833 km. Ionospheric research.
1966 July 1 - Explorer 33: Perigee: 265,679 km Apogee: 480,762 km. Magnetic field, radiation data.
1966 September 12 – Gemini 11: Perigee: 161 km Apogee: 800 km. Manned flight in the Van Allen Belt.
1967 May 24 - Explorer 34: Perigee: 242 km Apogee: 214,379 km. Radiation, magnetic field data.
1967 July 19 - Explorer 35: Lunar orbit, Perigee: 484 km Apogee: 675 km. Earth magnetic tail measurements.
1967 November 9 – Apollo 4: Perigee: 182 km Apogee: 18,256 km. Apollo CM test in the Van Allen Belts.
1968 March 5 - Explorer 37: Perigee: 353 km Apogee: 433 km. Solar radiation data.
1968 April 4 – Apollo 6: Perigee: 178 km Apogee: 22,259 km. Apollo CM test in the Van Allen Belts.
1968 August 8 - Explorer 40: Perigee: 679 km Apogee: 2,489 km. Radiation data.
1969 June 21 - Explorer 41: Perigee: 80,374 km Apogee: 98,159 km. Cislunar radiation data.
1971 March 13 - Explorer 43: Perigee: 1,845 km Apogee: 203,130 km. Earth magnetosphere research.
1971 July 8 - Explorer 44: Perigee: 433 km (269 mi). Apogee: 632 km. Solar radiation data.
1971 November 15 - Explorer 45: Perigee: 272 km Apogee: 18,149 km. Studied magnetosphere, energetic particles.
1972 September 23 - Explorer 47: Perigee: 201,100 km Apogee: 235,600 km. Investigated cislunar radiation, Earth's magnetosphere, interplanetary magnetic field.

None of these explored space? No, wait, let me guess. You're now going to try to distract us from this epic fail with another one of your irrelevant, nit-picking semantic digressions. Oops, because I said that, you're going to act all offended...

'Round and 'round we go, and still no sign of actual evidence, just more ignorant interpretations of cherry-picked quotes, often from sources that explicitly support the Apollo landings.

Wait for it, here it comes...

[Edited to add...] Well, Chrissyo beat me to that analysis. Welcome to the party. Great first post - very on-point.

Incidentally, the effect of LM exhaust on the lunar environment was measured and known. Print articles from the '70s & '80s described the issue. As usual, turbonium fell back on the "I-couldn't-find-it-so-it-doesn't-exist" excuse. Perhaps if he turned off his computer and went to a good college science library he could do some productive research.

[sts60]

I think the best evidence is only now starting to filter out. As a by-product of our efforts to "return" men to the Moon in 2020.

Current and planned projects and studies leading up to 2020 are exposing numerous holes in the official Apollo account.

Let's see. Interestingly enough, most of these projects and studies are operated, funded, or otherwise facilitated by NASA. Clearly the agency, which has been ruthlessly suppressing The Truth all these decades, doesn't care that expert investigators like turbonium will instantly realize how announcing this new scientific program actually Reveals The Awful Reality. Are they getting careless, or are they simply getting ready to confess the whole charade?

Really now, why would NASA spend all this money very publicly to reveal their own hoax? And why are scientists and engineers around the world not spilling the beans?

Example 1...

VA Radiation Belts - big bucks are being spent on new VA Belt studies to "make space exploration safer for humans and satellites."

www.bu.edu/csp/RBSP-ECT/News/mediLexicon.pdf

Thank you for finally citing your source. This mission, the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), is one of the Geospace Missions of NASA's Living With A Star program.)

My one-word answer: So?

My longer answer: Yes, NASA is funding additional studies of geospace physics for better understanding the mechanisms with which unmanned and manned missions must cope. This is hardly surprising, since space physics has been evolving just like any other branch of science. [We've been studying the weather for far longer, and yet we still keep studying it and learning new things about it. By turbonium's criteria, this means that transoceanic flights are under suspicion.]

Satellites aren't used as vehicles for space exploration, first of all. They are used in various applications related to space (and its exploration), but they certainly don't "explore" space. That's also evident in the very term - "satellite" - describing an object in orbit.

Wildly incorrect. The very satellite which detected the presence of the Van Allen belts was only about space exploration. So were numerous others whose orbits ranged from low Earth orbit to really quite distant Earth orbits. And here I am using only the most conservative definition - Earth satellites devoted to sampling their ambient environment. More pragmatic use of the term would include spacecraft such as Cassini, Galileo, and Ulysses - satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sun, respectively - to name but a few.

The primary reason they're spending $millions is to make it "safer" for humans. period. It's not to make it "safer" for both humans and satellites. It's more of a side benefit of the studies.

Factually incorrect. The Geospace Mission Science Objectives cite "Global Climate Change" as the number-one ranked science objective. "Human Flight" for spacecraft in Earth orbit and for high-altitude aircraft are ranked second.

But never mind that: turbonium says we weren't capable of manned flight beyond LEO, and implies this study somehow has something to do with that. Why exactly is a study, geared among other things towards improving the safety or manned orbiting spacecraft and high-altitude aircraft, any kind of evidence for that?

"Many satellites orbiting at high altitudes pass through the radiation belts, a dynamic region where energetic electrons and ions are trapped in Earth's magnetic fields. Even the low-altitude International Space Station orbit skims the radiation belts, posing serious concerns for astronauts during certain conditions," said Harlan Spence, a BU professor of astronomy and the ECT principal investigator. "A better physical understanding of the radiation belt environment has extremely important practical applications in the areas of spacecraft operations and design, mission planning, and astronaut safety. RBSP-ECT is designed to provide the observations needed to distinguish between competing theories of radiation belt physics."

Please note the relevant bolded items:
1. The ISS, which is in low Earth orbit (LEO), is routinely exposed to trapped particle radiation in part of the Van Allen belts. If the VAB environment is actually far more dangerous than cited by NASA, how is it that the crew members are not all dying? And how is it that satellites operating throughout the belts do not all fail far before their design lifetimes?
2. Why exactly should I consider suspicious a mission designed to provide a better understanding of some aspect of the space environment?
3. The third bolded passage, as do the mission objectives cited above and below, flatly contradict your erroneous claim that the RBSP-ECT program is to make it "safer" for humans. period. That claim is wrong. Period.

Speaking of the mission objectives, here are the Living With A Star program goal rankings:

1. Global Climate Change
2. Human Flight ("The capability to monitor and predict energetic electron and ion exposure is needed to ensure the safety of astronauts in Earth orbit and of flight crews of high-altitude aircraft.")
3. NAV/Com/Rad Systems
4. Satellite Systems
5. Satellite Drag
6. Ground Systems

To summarize,
1. turbonium's claims mean that NASA is announcing and funding work, quite publicly, which is inevitably exposing the very hoax it has so ruthlessly guarded all these decades - the hoax of manned flight beyond LEO.
2. turbonium cites as evidence a study that is geared, among other things, to manned flight in aircraft and low Earth-orbiting spacecraft.
3. turbonium claims that satellites aren't used for space exploration - which is immediately and obviously wrong.
4. turbonium implies that additional study of the space environment indicates that there is something suspicious about the work previously done.
5. turbonium claims that this study is all about manned flight, but the science goals explicitly show that manned flight is but one concern of the study.
6. turbonium's claims imply that there is something far more dangerous about the Van Allen belts than NASA's public claims, yet ISS crews routinely transit part of the belts with no apparent ill effects, and spacecraft (designed for the radiation environment data provided by NASA) fail to die early, mysterious deaths.

What we have here is an appeal to FUD, nothing more. Not only are the specifics of his claims wrong - embarrassingly so - they're at best only tangentially relevant to Apollo. His implications are purely speculative, are at odds with the way science is done, and are incompatible with the observed reality of space operations both manned and unmanned.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work - which has to do with powering lunar and deep-space missions both manned and unmanned. Reality is a lot more fun than the cramped, ignorant world of the hoax believer.


Edited for markup, spelling, and reordered the list.

Also nominated the "satellites aren't used... for space exploration" line for a Stundie Award.

[gwiz]

Re turbonium's claims about the lunar atmosphere:
An instrument that can measure the total density of an atmosphere is not necessarily the same as one that measures atmospheric composition.
An example of the former, the cold-cathode gauge, was deployed on the moon by the crews of Apollos 12 (unsuccessful), 14 and 15, the two latter instruments measuring the total atmospheric density over several years. The instruments certainly reported the major effects of the Apollo activities on the atmosphere, as reported at the time in the Preliminary Science Reports of the respective missions.
A composition instrument, a mass spectrometer, was only deployed on Apollo 17, and didn't work very well. That is why the lunar atmospheric composition is not that well known.

[JayUtah]

I'm not sure thread fragmentation is an effective remedy for distraction, since I suspect each new thread will simply wander from topic to topic.

I struggle to understand the apparent distinction proposed among various space missions.

First of all, there is no spacecraft in flight that is not a satellite. Every object in in space is in some kind of orbit. So first I'd like to see what "satellite" means in the context of this orbit, and why it's important to have that definition.

Second, I'm not sure I understand the distinction between machines "as vehicles for space exploration," and other machines "used in various applications related to space (and its exploration)." The allegation is that the latter -- "satellites," I guess -- don't explore space. I'm not going to venture a guess at what the distinction really is or why it's important, so I'm going to ask.

Turbonium: What does "exploration" mean in the context of this argument? What are then examples, according to you, of exploratory and non-exploratory missions, and what makes each example fit its category? Is the distinction important in a way that supports your argument of Apollo being hoaxed? If so, explain that support.

[sts60]

I would like to request that discussion in this thread be limited to specifically to the "Satellites and Exploration" topic. I would like to start two more new threads - one limited to selenology (the craters and isotopes parts of turbonium's post) and the other limited to the atmospheric claims (the last part of turbonium's post). I'm having trouble with the board - if someone wants to start those threads, feel free.

[Data Cable]

I'm going to hazard a guess that Turb doesn't consider observation from a distance to constitute "exploration." i.e. One does not explore the moon by looking at it through a telescope, one explores the moon by actually going there and walking [edit: or driving] around. Hence, HST and similar devices don't actually "explore" space.

[edited to correct organic biochemical locomotion bias]

[sts60]

Yes, I figured that he meant something along those lines. It doesn't matter. The statement

Satellites aren't used as vehicles for space exploration, first of all. They are used in various applications related to space (and its exploration), but they certainly don't "explore" space. That's also evident in the very term - "satellite" - describing an object in orbit.

is so wildly at odds with reality that I nominated it for a Stundie Award.

I will make a guess at an alternate meaning of the claim: perhaps turbonium means that satellites don't "explore" space because they "don't go anywhere". That would be an equally ludicrous claim, because satellites were the first explorers of space - quite a few preceded humans into the new territory. Earth-orbiting satellites were also the first to go out into cislunar space, long before Apollo 8. Furthermore, the Lunar Orbiter satellites (as well as the Soviet Luna series) explored the lunar environment before men got there, not only mapping the Moon from lunar orbit, but also providing data on the meteoroid and radiation environments as well as the lunar gravity field.

Whatever meaning one ascribes to "explore", the claim is embarrassingly wrong.

[gwiz]

Vaguely related to this thread, I came across a NASA document, Astronautical and Aeronautical Events of 1961, presented to Congress in 1962. The entry for December 15th includes:

NASA’s Explorer XII satellite returned voluminous data revising previous information on the Van Allen radiation belts and showing them to be no substantial problem to manned space flight. Launched on August 15, 1961, and transmitting until December 6, 1961, Explorer XII returned information amounting to 5,636 telemetry tapes (2,400 feet each). Of principal interest was its finding that the Van Allen belts consist of a preponderance of protons over electrons in a ratio of 1,000 to 1.
Since the protons are of less than 1 million electron volts energy, they do not themselves offer a serious radiation problem and serve to slow the velocity of other radiation.