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Post by darrenr on Sept 7, 2011 18:07:01 GMT -4
The Daily Mail, which is surprisingly keen on this kind of thing, has published a series of pictures taken by NASA's lunar orbiter, showing the later landing sites : www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2034594/NASA-moon-landing-hoax-New-photographs-silence-conspiracy-theory.htmlThe comments underneath make amusing reading, with the usual buffoons making the usual claims, though there are a heartening number of people making scathing rebuttals. I'm particularly tickled by the idiot who believes that the artifacts on the Moon were somehow planted by the Space Shuttle crew, despite his admission that it never left Earth orbit! ;D
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Post by redneckr0nin on Sept 8, 2011 7:48:52 GMT -4
Seen this as well the other day..beautiful images! Attachments:
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Post by BertL on Sept 8, 2011 8:31:18 GMT -4
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Post by Kiwi on Sept 8, 2011 8:31:43 GMT -4
Seen this as well the other day..beautiful images! Attachment: APOLLO17LANDINGSITE.jpg (116.8 KB) One interesting thing about that is the path marked "astronaut footpath" at lower left. It's a few years since I saw the Apollo 17 video on DVD, thanks to fellow member Ajv, so I'm relying on a vague memory, but I'm pretty sure that's the path Jack Schmitt took out to the Alsep site, carrying the gear. He left the LM at 118:51:00. He was visible for some time from the TV camera on the rover, and disappeared from sight for a while as he went down into a large hollow at 118:55:22. At that time Gene Cernan was messing with the fender he had accidentally broken on the rover, and later drove to the site. The upper path, above the arrow, is probably the one Jack took back to the LM on a more direct route, avoiding most of the hollow. Again, he appeared on the video and was nicely backlit by the sun, as was the dust he kicked up. That is also when he sang, "I was strolling on the Moon one day..." at 121:35:45, and Gene joined in. Some documentaries instead use the song over an image of Gene kangaroo-hopping back to the rover when they were at Camelot crater, or one of the craters to the south of the LM. That's an old, vague memory, so anyone who can correct me is welcome. But the fascinating thing is that we can view Jack Schmitt making those paths. They are visible in the 16mm film taken from the ascent stage as it left the moon, and there they are again, photographed from above 39 years later.
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Post by thetart on Sept 15, 2011 6:18:57 GMT -4
The LRO photos of the 14 site show the discarded PLSS on th esurface. I always wondered how they got them off and out the LM.
Can someone help.
Ta.
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Post by ka9q on Sept 15, 2011 6:31:51 GMT -4
Simple. After the last EVA they entered the cabin, closed the door, pressurized the cabin, hooked their suits up to the LM's life support system and turned off the PLSS. (It was especially important to switch cooling water to the LM supply because the sublimator in the PLSS requires a hard vacuum to work.)
Then they removed the PLSSes, took off the OPS (which they carried back to orbit as backups in case they had to do an EVA back to the CSM), depressurized the cabin (with their suits connected to the LM), opened the front door, tossed the PLSSes out the door, closed the door and repressurized the cabin.
Simple, but it used a lot of oxygen. Apparently it was easy to carry a lot of it.
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Post by zakalwe on Sept 15, 2011 6:38:13 GMT -4
The LRO photos of the 14 site show the discarded PLSS on th esurface. I always wondered how they got them off and out the LM. Can someone help. Ta. The Environmental Control System had a set of feed pipes that could plumb into the spacesuits to provide life support. The Lunar landing spacesuits had a double set of connectors that allowed the astronaut to connect up to the PLSS and the ECS at the same time. These ports could also be used to "piggy-back" two astronauts together in the event of a PLSS failure on the surface. The Command Module Pilot suit only had a single set of connectors, as the CMP remained in the CM.
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Post by Obviousman on Sept 15, 2011 7:11:28 GMT -4
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Post by Jason Thompson on Sept 15, 2011 11:26:01 GMT -4
Wouldn't it be easier to take them off at the foot of the ladder and hold their breath while they get in the LM?
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Post by ka9q on Sept 15, 2011 18:42:27 GMT -4
More seriously, I've wondered if it's really necessary to repressurize the cabin just to switch their suits from the PLSS to the LM's environmental system. That oxygen is soon dumped to discard the PLSSes and then the cabin is repressurized a second time.
The gas connectors (two in and two out for the lunar surface astronauts as zakalwe said) have spring-loaded valves that seal them when the hoses are removed. In theory it should be possible to enter the LM, unplug the OPS and purge valves, connect to the ECS, then shut down and remove the PLSSes and discard them before finally closing the door and repressurizing the cabin.
I guess they have other tasks before discarding the PLSSes, like filling a jettison bag, that are made easier without pressurized gloves. And it's probably a little safer not switching hoses in vacuum.
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Post by ka9q on Sept 15, 2011 18:49:05 GMT -4
Wouldn't it be easier to take them off at the foot of the ladder and hold their breath while they get in the LM? That's actually more practical than you realize. Just engage the OPS instead of holding your breath. Then again it makes sense to reserve the OPS for true emergencies. It's a flow-through system, so they're depleted rapidly.
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Post by ka9q on Sept 15, 2011 18:54:19 GMT -4
These ports could also be used to "piggy-back" two astronauts together in the event of a PLSS failure on the surface. I don't think that was an option. They had the ability to share cooling water if a PLSS failed but not O 2. The astronaut with the failed PLSS would still have to engage his OPS, but because he'd be cooled by his partner's PLSS he could reduce the flow rate through his purge valve and double his OPS lifetime from 30 minutes to an hour. Gene Cernan said that if this had happened to Jack Schmitt while far from the LM he would have taken off his own OPS and given it to Jack to double his reserve during the return.
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Post by echnaton on Sept 15, 2011 22:50:39 GMT -4
More seriously, I've wondered if it's really necessary to repressurize the cabin just to switch their suits from the PLSS to the LM's environmental system. That oxygen is soon dumped to discard the PLSSes and then the cabin is repressurized a second time. The gas connectors (two in and two out for the lunar surface astronauts as zakalwe said) have spring-loaded valves that seal them when the hoses are removed. In theory it should be possible to enter the LM, unplug the OPS and purge valves, connect to the ECS, then shut down and remove the PLSSes and discard them before finally closing the door and repressurizing the cabin. I guess they have other tasks before discarding the PLSSes, like filling a jettison bag, that are made easier without pressurized gloves. And it's probably a little safer not switching hoses in vacuum. I remember a discussion around her a few years ago in which it was concluded that the weight of the oxygen needed to pressurize the cabin was really very small. The main point was that safety wise simply dumping and re-pressurizing was without a doubt the best way to handle any issue.
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Post by ka9q on Sept 16, 2011 4:54:22 GMT -4
I remember a discussion around her a few years ago in which it was concluded that the weight of the oxygen needed to pressurize the cabin was really very small. The main point was that safety wise simply dumping and re-pressurizing was without a doubt the best way to handle any issue. I think you're right; it did seem a familiar topic. The LM carried a lot of O 2 and it seemed a less critical resource than battery power and cooling water. I do wonder how long an OPS could have been extended in a real emergency. The fundamental problem is that without an LiOH canister there's no way to dispose of the exhaled CO 2 without also dumping the O 2 it's mixed with. So assuming your cooling is handled with the buddy hose, then the greater the CO 2 concentration you can tolerate, the longer you can make your OPS last. You'd probably also have to tolerate some H 2O fogging. If I knew the various volumes within the suit I could take some metabolic figures and compute that CO 2 concentration as a function of flow rate. The suit is designed so that fresh O 2 flows into the helmet first and then through the rest of the suit before it exits and that probably keeps the helmet cooler and drier.
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Post by PUshift on Sept 16, 2011 16:47:45 GMT -4
... I'm particularly tickled by the idiot who believes that the artifacts on the Moon were somehow planted by the Space Shuttle crew, despite his admission that it never left Earth orbit! ;D Just tell him, the moon never left Earth orbit either. It will satisfy him ;D
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