Tracking Apollo

[zakabog]

I was having a debate on youtube (yes I see the humor in that sentence) and I don't remember how it came up, but someone mentioned Jodrell Bank was kept "Out of the loop" and thats why they tracked Luna 15 to the moon instead. It also came up that amateurs weren't able to track any of the Apollo craft to the moon.

I knew that was incorrect (how can you keep ANYONE out of the loop, just point a satellite at the moon and you could have listened to Apollo) so I did some research and found some interesting stuff -

Someone claimed Jodrell Bank changed their story, they originally said they couldn't track Apollo cause NASA wouldn't let them, and I found this interesting article -

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901106,00.html
SCOOPY, SNOOPY OR SOUR GRAPES? - TIME

If they changed their story they must have done it rather quickly, since that article is from July 25th 1969

There was another claim that without Jodrell Bank knowing where to point their dishes it would be impossible to find any of the Apollo craft, so I found this page with photos of Apollo and said if they could find Apollo in the sky with no specific information from NASA of where to look, I'm sure a professional with a really expensive antenna could do it too.

astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html
Bill Keel's Space Bits - Tracking the Apollo Flights

This is one of my favorite finds, I was linked to a page that apparently said Jodrell Bank didn't track NASA (it was a history of space tracking from Jodrell Bank, that didn't mention them tracking Apollo, and somehow that was supposed to prove that they didn't track any Apollo missions. Anyway, from that website I found this story about a group of amateurs with basic equipment, tracking Apollo 17 to the moon and they even got some audio.

www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/Apollo17/APOLLO17.htm
Tracking Apollo 17 from Florida

I also e-mailed Jodrell Bank about tracking Apollo 11, here's the text of that e-mail

Dear John, you are exactly right. We only needed a 50ft antenna to get a good signal from both the Command Module and the lander (the Eagle). We were tracking the carrier of its signal and, using the Doppler shift, could thus measure the relative velocity between Jodrell Bank and, for example, the Eagle. We observed its smooth decent under computer control towards the surface, but then Buzz Aldin saw that they would land in a crater. He thus took manual control and we saw the lander slow its decent until it overflew the crater. It then touched down and from the the, then, slowly changing doppler in the received signal could actually calculate where they might be on the Moon's surface.

Does this help?

Best regards,

Ian Morison


> -----Original Message----- > From:
> Sent: 14 May 2008 18:05
> To:
>
> Subject: Questions about Apollo 11
>
> I'm sorry that I do not know the best place to send this e-mail, although I
> still hope that you can help me. I was doing some research on tracking
> Apollo to the moon, and I've found a Time article from 1969 that said
> Jodrell Bank was listening to Luna 15 with a large dish and Apollo 11 with a
> smaller 50' dish. I was wondering if Jodrell Bank was tracking either
> mission, or if it was even possible to track Apollo 11's location just from
> picking up the radio signals. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear
> back soon.

Apparently that wasn't good enough to show that they were tracking Apollo, the question was brought up "why only Apollo 11?" I said "Because I only asked about Apollo 11" plus the Time article was the day after Apollo 11, why wouldn't they be focused on just that? That wasn't good enough so I had to send another e-mail to Jodrell Bank -

Hi John,
we were tracking all the Russian missions a that time. 1) to act as a backup for the Russian tracking ststions.

2) To prove to the Americans that the Russians were doing what they said they were.

We tracked all the Apollo Missions including the nail-bitinf Apollo 13!

Best regards,

Ian Morison.

On Fri, 16 May 2008, John Maugeri wrote:

> Sorry to bother you again, just two more questions. Why was Jodrell Bank tracking Luna 15 with their large antenna, and were any of the other Apollo missions tracked? Thank you for your time, again I'm sorry to bother you, and these will be my last questions

I figured I'd share this all with you since all of this information has helped me a lot.

[Cavorite]

Pity Morison says it was Aldrin who piloted the LM over the crater rather than Armstrong. I'm sure some HBs will use that slip to claim he's lying.

[laurel]

Confusion over the term Lunar Module Pilot maybe?

[PhantomWolf]

The Soviets tracked Apollos 8, 10, 11, and 12 as well.

[dwight]

Bochum Observatory, Germany also tracked Apollo to and from the moon, and also received TV signals which they decoded from the S band signal. These tapes still reside at the Bochum site. An interesting note about the signals they received were all sans mission control loop as they only got what was coming from the lunar surface.

[Grand Lunar]

I was having a debate on youtube (yes I see the humor in that sentence)...

I know the feeling.

I recieved a blessing in disguise, though.
Seems the computer I'm using won't let me post comments on there. It says "Error on Page".
Either it's the computer here, or that feature was disabled for me.

I recall that amatuer astronomers were able to get images of waste dumps by Apollo spacecraft.
Wouldn't that count as amatuers tracking?

[Ginnie]

May 17, 2008 7:09:05 GMT -4 Grand Lunar said:

I was having a debate on youtube (yes I see the humor in that sentence)...

I know the feeling.

I recieved a blessing in disguise, though.
Seems the computer I'm using won't let me post comments on there. It says "Error on Page".
Either it's the computer here, or that feature was disabled for me.

I recall that amatuer astronomers were able to get images of waste dumps by Apollo spacecraft.
Wouldn't that count as amatuers tracking?

But at what altitude were the dumps?

Also LO, whatever came of your 'reflections in the visor', ahem, discussions, with the HB crowd?
Didn't it all boil down to being dust or scratches that distorted the sun's reflection? At least, that was the conclusion that I came to.
I never came across any clear, star pointed reflection of the sun on the moon, but did see some distorted ones in space and on other missions. I think I even found one on a Shuttle mission.

[Ginnie]

At a range of about 110,000 km, the team at Corralitos Observatory was the first to record a water dump from an Apollo spacecraft
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html

But..it can't be...isn't that past the Van Allen Belts?
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/a12_corralitos.jpg

[craiglamson]

I never came across any clear, star pointed reflection of the sun on the moon, but did see some distorted ones in space and on other missions. I think I even found one on a Shuttle mission.

One of my favorite HB arguments.

Long story short. The starburst reflections of the sun in the visor are f-stop dependent. My tests with both sunlight and studio lights ( no difference by the way) with a Hasselbad 50mm lens shows that starbursts don't even start to appear until you get to an f-stop of 11 and even then they are very faint. You need f16 or f22 with a Hasselblad lens to produce good starburst reflections.

So why no starbursts in the Apollo lunar surface photos? Simple. They never used f16 or f22.

[Kiwi]

May 16, 2008 17:41:59 GMT -4 zakabog said:

Someone claimed Jodrell Bank changed their story, they originally said they couldn't track Apollo cause NASA wouldn't let them, and I found this interesting article -

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901106,00.html
SCOOPY, SNOOPY OR SOUR GRAPES? - TIME

If they changed their story they must have done it rather quickly, since that article is from July 25th 1969

There was information about Luna 15 in the media at the time. The following or similar stories are probably in your local newspapers.

The West Australian, Friday 18 July 1969, page 1
Luna 15 in moon orbit
Moscow, Thursday

The Soviet Union said today its unmanned Luna 15 space craft had gone into orbit round the moon.

An announcement read over Moscow Radio said the craft, launched early on Sunday morning, had "become an artificial satellite of the moon."

The wording strongly implied that no attempt would be made to land either the craft or a module from it on the moon's surface as had been forecast widely in Moscow and abroad.

The announcement was the first official word on the progress of the craft since the initial statement that it would make further scientific studies of the moon and near-moon space.

In recent *{obliterated in microfilm}* unofficial Soviet and other Communist sources had forecast that the Russians would try to land a module on the moon and bring back a sample of lunar dust. But Western experts here said they doubted whether the Russians were capable of such a feat yet.

An announcement by the news agency Tass said Luna 15 was put into orbit when it was on the dark side of the moon. It said everything on board was working normally and radio contact continued.

The flight from earth was described as taking 102 hours with the trajectory corrected once, on Monday.

In Manchester, Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the giant British tracking station, Jodrell Bank, told a television interviewer: "My personal opinion is that this is not the end of the exercise but the beginning. I think Luna 15 will stay in orbit for the rest of the day and then attempt to land either the whole spaceship or a bit or it to take some samples of rock.

"There is very little evidence to go on but I feel it is inconceivable that at this stage the Russians are going to leave the ship in orbit because there is relatively little information to be gained by doing that."

Sir Bernard admitted that the whole situation looked very obscure.
—A.A.P.-Reuters

The West Australian, Monday 21 July 1969, page 8
Luna changes orbit
London, Sunday

Astronomers at the Jodrell Bank radio-telescope said last night that the Soviet unmanned Luna 15 probe had changed its orbit significantly, after circling the moon in an unaltered course for more than two days.

They could not say if the changed orbit meant the craft might attempt to land and take a sample of moon-soil, or if it would return to earth.

The scientists said that during its 26th orbit, Luna 15 had transmitted radio signals for an hour — its longest transmission — and had gone into a stabilised position. Earlier, it had been spinning as it orbited.

There is thought to be no chance of Luna 15 interfering with Apollo 11.

Washington: President Nixon would speak to the Apollo astronauts over live television shortly after they stepped on the lunar surface, the White House said.

Houston: Neil Armstrong reported in the weekend that a mast used to support a floodlight on the lunar module was charred, apparently from the heat generated by rocket engines either during launch or at some other point in the flight. The light, which illuminates the exteriors of the two spacecraft, would be used as an aid in an emergency transfer of the lunar module crew into the command module.

Canberra: An electrical fire at Tidbinbilla, one of the key Australian tracking stations, put a transmitter out of action for most of the weekend. The fire occurred on Friday night, but a round-the-clock effort by a team of technicians had the transmitter back in action this morning.

The West Australian, Tuesday 22 July 1969, page 7
Soviet probe
London, Monday

Luna 15 spun into its fifth day around the moon today still with no certain sign of the spectacular feats that Western observers had expected from the Soviet unmanned probe.

Sir Bernard Lovell, director of Jodrell Bank's radio telescope observatory, said that signals from the probe were picked up soon after moonrise when Luna 15 was in its 50th orbit.

The West Australian, Wednesday 23 July 1969, page 8
Luna 15 crashes
Moscow, Tuesday

The nine-day flight of the mysterious Soviet space probe Luna 15 ended late yesterday with a probable crash landing on the moon.

The official Soviet news agency Tass announced that Luna 15 had completed its programme of research in space near the moon and had ended its mission with a landing.

It did not mention completion of its planned exploration of the moon, which the original launch announcement on July 13 said it would carry out. Such omissions are as close as the Soviet space programme comes to admitting failure. Well-informed experts said early this month that it would try to scoop up a sample of moon-soil and return it to earth.

The Tass announcement said that unlike the previous automatic stations, Luna 9 and Luna 13, Luna 15 could land in various areas of the Iunar surface through changing its orbit.

The craft's braking system was switched on at 11:47 p.m. W.A. time and it then moved out of orbit down to the lunar surface.

"Work with the station Luna 15 ended," the announcement said.

It did not say at what speed the probe was moving when it hit the moon, but the British observatory at Jodrell Bank, which had tracked Luna 15, estimated that it had come down at 300 m.p.h.

[Kiwi]

May 17, 2008 7:09:05 GMT -4 Grand Lunar said:

I recall that amatuer astronomers were able to get images of waste dumps by Apollo spacecraft.
Wouldn't that count as amatuers tracking?

On pages 610-611 of "National Geographic", Volume 135, No. 5, May 1969, there is a photo of Apollo 8 about 26,000 miles out in space, and the effect of fuel dumps from the S-IVB rocket.

The credit reads The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, San Fernando, Spain and the caption says: Extraordinary photograph made by a tracking camera in Spain shows the 600-mile-wide cloud created by the rocket when it dumped liquid oxygen. Now, half an hour later at a height of 26,000 miles, the S-IVB spews a smaller double cloud as it vents excess liquid hydrogen. The speck above and to the right of the rocket is the spacecraft.

[Grand Lunar]

May 17, 2008 11:59:53 GMT -4 Ginnie said:

At a range of about 110,000 km, the team at Corralitos Observatory was the first to record a water dump from an Apollo spacecraft
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html

But..it can't be...isn't that past the Van Allen Belts?
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/a12_corralitos.jpg

You might get an arguement along these lines.
True, it's about Gemini, but the context is similar:

...gemini 11 didn't claimed any single crossing of the SAA at high altitude orbit , gemini 10 did claimed 4 crossing of the SAA at about 750km (wich is just a bit above hubble servicing mission for 100-150 km , one of this servicing mission comming soon by the way) , and to be honest , yes gemini 11 is probably a fake , as well as gemini 10 , at least fake to some extent (fake mission goal etc...)

...because the SAA which is just an edge , of the inner belt , isn't in any way , the most intensive part of the belt radiation wise , because its just ... AN EDGE of it , meaning crossing this edge at 750+- km high will not get you as much radiation as crossing in-out , the WHOLE edge (crossing an edge vs crossing the whole thing you got the point ?) , and the only claim made nasa for the gemini 10 mission is ONLY a crossing of the SAA (4 crossing to be precise , so about 1 hour max)

...and they didn't ventured anywhere in the inner belt with gemini 11 , altough they claim highest altitude orbit with manned vehicle for that flight (excluding their apollo claim of course) , and they prove it by submiting their fake radiations doses , here they are :

gemini 10 : +- 750 milirad
gemini 11 : +- 25 milirad

gemini 11 specifically AVOIDED the SAA (as nasa said) , and since the SAA IS an edge of the inner belt , as you can see , they didn't claim any inner belt transit with Gemini 11

[Ginnie]

May 18, 2008 7:14:38 GMT -4 Grand Lunar said:

May 17, 2008 11:59:53 GMT -4 Ginnie said:

At a range of about 110,000 km, the team at Corralitos Observatory was the first to record a water dump from an Apollo spacecraft
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html

But..it can't be...isn't that past the Van Allen Belts?
astr.ua.edu/keel/space/a12_corralitos.jpg

You might get an arguement along these lines.
True, it's about Gemini, but the context is similar:

...gemini 11 didn't claimed any single crossing of the SAA at high altitude orbit , gemini 10 did claimed 4 crossing of the SAA at about 750km (wich is just a bit above hubble servicing mission for 100-150 km , one of this servicing mission comming soon by the way) , and to be honest , yes gemini 11 is probably a fake , as well as gemini 10 , at least fake to some extent (fake mission goal etc...)

...because the SAA which is just an edge , of the inner belt , isn't in any way , the most intensive part of the belt radiation wise , because its just ... AN EDGE of it , meaning crossing this edge at 750+- km high will not get you as much radiation as crossing in-out , the WHOLE edge (crossing an edge vs crossing the whole thing you got the point ?) , and the only claim made nasa for the gemini 10 mission is ONLY a crossing of the SAA (4 crossing to be precise , so about 1 hour max)

...and they didn't ventured anywhere in the inner belt with gemini 11 , altough they claim highest altitude orbit with manned vehicle for that flight (excluding their apollo claim of course) , and they prove it by submiting their fake radiations doses , here they are :

gemini 10 : +- 750 milirad
gemini 11 : +- 25 milirad

gemini 11 specifically AVOIDED the SAA (as nasa said) , and since the SAA IS an edge of the inner belt , as you can see , they didn't claim any inner belt transit with Gemini 11

So basically what you are saying is that no matter what evidence there is of the Apollo missions, an HB will just say "nope, couldn't have happened. They would have had to go through the radiation belts, so any evidence is bogus, NASA , astronomers, radio operators, tracking stations are all wrong and deceptive, all physical and visual evidence is not real."

Geez, why do we bother with this stuff?

[JayUtah]

Again, the Bellwether fallacy. Conspiracists hope to simplify the whole matter of authenticity down to one allegedly smoking gun so they can rush headlong to a conclusion. Then with that conclusion in place, they sometimes go back and try to deal with the evidence. "It doesn't matter how they faked the photos; we know from the radiation issue that Apollo simply couldn't have been done." It's cheating. If a lot of evidence argues against the bellwether, the bellwether is wrong.

[Ginnie]

Who is this Mr. Bellweather, and what are his credentials?