Has anybody dealt with this one yet?

[twinstead]

As usual, things that may appear to a layman to be suspicious, unexplainable, or even nefarious are almost always none of them.


EDIT for spelling

[Count Zero]

jayutah said:

Kaysing only stayed for the first half of the game and is totally unaware of what happened after halftime.

Not "is totally unaware," Jay, "was". Kaysing was totally unaware. Let the word flow off your tongue, and smile. Think of Munchkins dancing around in celebration while you're at it... ;D

[PhantomWolf]

Wow and I thought -I- wasted too much time on that drivel. The main problem with it was that it's hard to debunk because it's just so wrong. I mean, it's not just wrong in a few places, but virtually ever single sentance is wrong, and then he builds from that incorrectness to an overall explosion of being wrong so badly that much of it is pure gibberish. About the only thing he did actually manage to get right were the names of things and people. He certianly didn't get the History, the phyiscs, the testing procedures, the facts or the details rights.

Jay you have the patience of a saint to be able to go through this garbage and actually deal with it point by point. I was happy just taking out a few of the main supporting idocies in the belief that the rest would crumble.

[PeterB]

Jay

I read in Pellegrino and Stoff's book that the Saturn 1B from Apollo 1 was used on Apollo 5, due to superstition about putting another crew on top of it.

[PhantomWolf]

NASA had to cancel its next six proposed Apollo missions.

Something I missed the first time and Jay seemed to as well.

Apollo 2-6 (five missions not six) where never cancelled. They all occured, they were just unmanned flights designed to test the Apollo hardware before they were tested manned by 8-11.

Apollo 2 tested the Sat IVB and the Instrument Unit for the Sat V under orbital flight conditions.

Apollo 3 was to evaluate the Apollo spacecraft separations, emergency detection system, subsystems, heatshield at high re-entry velocity, and mission support facilities.

Apollo 4 was to frst test of the Saturn V and checked for structural integrity, compatibility of launch vehicle and spacecraft, heat shield and thermal seal integrity, overall reentry operations, launch loads and dynamic characteristics,stage separation, launch vehicle subsystems, the emergency detection system

Apollo 5 was the first test the LM and ws used to verify the ascent and descent stages, the propulsion systems and the restart operations, and to evaluate the spacecraft structure, Lunar Module staging as well as the second stage (S-IVB) and instrument unit orbital performance.

Apollo 6 was a final test to demonstrate structural and thermal integrity and compatibility of the launch vehicle and spacecraft, confirm launch loads and dynamic characteristics and verify stage separations, propulsion, guidance and control, electrical systems, emergency detection system and prove that it was indeed man ready for the next phase of testing.


Of course Apollo 7 was a test of the CSM in Earth orbit and so was not at all pointless as claimed.

Apollo 8 was a test of the CSM in Lunar orbit (it was swapped with 9 when the LM wasn't ready for that manned flight test)

Apollo 9 (originally ment to be 8) was the first manned test of the LM systems done in Earth orbit. It included docking techniques and also a spacewalk to show that the LM crew could transfer to the back to CM in the event of a docking failure in Lunar orbit on return to the CSM.

Apollo 10 was the testing of the LM in Lunar orbit with the LM being tested down to the point of reaching the landing orbit of 50,000 feet, then aborting and returning and docking.

Apollo 11 was the final test of the systems. Testing that the LM was ble to land safety, that the crew could explore the lunar surface safety and without ill effects, then use the ascent module to launch from the lunar surface and return and dock with the CSM.

In a way, Apollo 12 was the first "real" mission in that it wasn't a test flight.

[PhantomWolf]

By the way, just in case anyone can't tell the difference between the Saturn 1B and the Saturn V here are the images. Now try and tell me that people would be fooled by switching them.

[JayUtah]

Section 5.

According to the official account, what happened next was this. NASA took the Saturn V project away from Rocketdyne (the world's foremost rocket engineering company) and handed it over to its own engineers. Under Wernher Von Braun's personal supervision...

I can't possibly imagine what "official account" might have said this. It's unbelievably wrong.

Rocketdyne was not the builder of the Saturn 1 or the Saturn V. They built the liquid-fueled engines, but the rocket itself was built by a host of contractors led by Boeing, North American, IBM, and McDonnell-Douglas. Rocketdyne maintained its role throughout Saturn development.

Wernher von Braun designed the Saturn V, just as he designed a whole host of rockets that preceded it. In fact, von Braun is so associated with the Saturn V that it's simply unbelievable that Spencer can't have run across that well-known fact.

Von Braun had the special talent of suggesting brilliant, elegant solutions to problems. So there is no surprise that he personally was able to find solutions for problems that had eluded others, such as the restartable Saturn third stage.

But von Braun was the father of the Saturn V. It was not someone else's faulty design given to him to correct.

By late 1967 NASA was claiming it had conducted very successful unmanned tests of the Saturn V...

Thousands saw the rocket ascend. You can't hide a successful launch of the Saturn V, nor can you hide a failure of it.

Spencer's use of "claimed" is purely loaded language.

Despite the USA's short and troubled history in space flight and the lengthy record of failure of both Saturn boosters...

Spencer repeats the claim that the Saturn boosters were problematic. Where are the examples? Where is the evidence? Wade mentioned that Spencer admits he's making a "circumstantial" case with no hard evidence, but this is a claim that can only be made with hard evidence. If you're claiming that the boosters didn't work, you have to provide some evidence of inappropriate failure! Presumably Spencer simply says it was taking too long, but again that claim is made in a vacuum. There is no comparison, no analysis. Merely a claim.

NASA somehow conjured up, in little over a year, the biggest, most powerful and most reliable rocket the world had ever seen — and has not seen since.

Hogwash. Spencer has simply conjured up a dilemma out of thin air. With no evidence, he claims that the Saturn program languished in difficulty for years. Then contradicting one of the most well-documented stories in rocketry, he claims that the program was "suddenly" transferred to NASA where those problems were suspiciously solved.

In fact, the Saturn program is a perfect example of dogged determination and clear, documented progress.

If NASA is to be believed, the new Saturn V underwent further rigorous testing throughout most of 1968 and it was found to be almost entirely trouble-free. It worked perfectly.

No. Pogo was a recurring problem that was never solved. Apollo 6 demonstrated problems with the restartable J-2.

However, "all-up" testing was first employed in the Apollo program, whereby test flights could be minimized by properly and systematically partitioning test flights and procedures so that failures would be unambiguously attributable to certain systems or procedures. George Mueller's all-up testing strategy is now common procedure in the engineering world.

Apollo 7 actually sent a three-man crew into orbit on top of a Saturn 1B rocket, a modified version of the one that had failed tragically twenty-one months earlier.

No -- exactly the same rocket. And the rocket didn't fail; the problem was in the Block I Apollo command module. Apollo 1 is most certainly not a failure of the Saturn 1B.

It seems then that, despite the fact that the Saturn 1 had never been more than a stop-gap and the true Apollo rocket was now ready for manned flights, NASA was still taking the trouble to test it. Why?

Because the Apollo command and service modules had to be flight tested. It is a tremendous waste to flight-test them using a Saturn V. The Saturn 1B was built precisely to provide that flight-test environment for the spacecraft themselves. CSM flight test happens in Earth orbit first. The Saturn 1B puts the CSM in Earth orbit. It's very simple.

I believe the answer is that the Saturn V rocket did not really exist.

Thousands of people built them. Tens of thousands of people watched them fly. Millions of people watched them on television.

The Saturn 1B was to be the real rocket to send the Apollo astronauts into orbit. Its appearance was to be modified and it was going to re-emerge as the Saturn V. I believe the purpose of Apollo 7 was to test this rocket, in its undisguised form.

The notion that the Saturn V is just a "disguised" Saturn 1B is so purely ignorant that it defies polite refutation. The design, building, and operation of these vehicles is one of the most meticulously and completely documented endeavors in United States history. The Saturn V is its own rocket.

When the Apollo missions ended in 1972, where did that leave the USA in terms of space exploration? Pretty much top dog, I would say.

No. In 1972 the U.S. space program was gutted, rendered practically impotent by the Nixon administration and its cost-cutting. Nixon was no space buff either, and this time there was no enthusiastic Vice President to lobby for it.

What NASA actually did was scrap it [the Saturn V].

No, NASA had to choose reluctantly between the Saturn V and the space shuttle. Nobody wanted to see the Saturn V go. It is still generally regarded as the most successful booster ever built. However, NASA couldn't have both. The Saturn V was simply too expensive to operate on a continuing basis, elegant though it was. And NASA had already been handed far less money than they had expected. Space travel had to happen on the cheap following Apollo, and that meant a low-cost solution.

Isn't there something wrong here? What on earth was NASA playing at? ... It's comparable to a racehorse owner who, having brought on the finest thoroughbred ever and seen it win every race in its first season, decides the best plan is to turn it into dog-meat.

Unfortunately it's Spencer who is changing horses.

Earlier he argued -- with historical justification -- that the race to the moon had been largely a political move. That is, from NASA's point of view it was a scientific and engineering endeavor. But for Congress and the President (and for the American people) it was purely political.

Now he wants to argue that the technical aspects of Apollo should have had more sway. Unfortunately if you argue that political will makes the program possible, then the withdrawal of that will makes the program equally impossible. Spencer is simply picking and choosing his motivations to match what he needs to be true according to his theory. There's no rhyme or reason to it, other than support of the predetermined conclusion.

As an influential member of Budget and Space Committees, Proxmire was apparently responsible, almost single-handedly, for determining the drastic curtailment of the USA's space programme. ... It seems very curious to me that an unknown Senator from Wisconsin...

He's either "influential" or he's "uknown". He can't be both.

There had been opposition to the space program since the late 1950s. The problem was James Webb. Webb had basically extorted continued funding from Congress in order to bring Apollo to its successful climax. Congress simply returned the favor. The taxpayer giveth and the taxpayer taketh away.

He successfully campaigned for the end of the Saturn rocket programme and even saw to it that the machinery, dies and tools for building the Saturn V were destroyed.

No. The Saturn V production line was closed in 1975 when support for the last flight article was no longer needed. Breaking up the tooling is standard procedure in aerospace after the closing of a production line. The tooling is extensive, and there is simply no way to store it effectively until it might be used again. That's why closing a production line is a decision not casually made. But it is absolutely false that Proxmire ordered the tooling destroyed.

Am I alone in finding it almost incredible that NASA spent almost ten years and billions of dollars developing a rocket whose power and capacity turned out to be 20% less than its predecessor's — a predecessor that had only taken a few months to throw together?

Begging the question.

Thrust and lifting capacity is not the sine qua non of rocketry. The STS is not merely another "rocket" but an entirely new and unique method of flying in space. What it lacked in capacity it made up for in capability.

The Saturn V took ten years to develop and cost $11 billion in 1960 dollars. The STS took ten years to develop and cost $6 billion in 1970 dollars. How was NASA able to pull off the space shuttle with so little money? Because they used technology developed during Apollo. The SSME was a direct descendent of the F-1. The computer was a descendent of the AGC.

The Saturn V — and indeed all previous manned rockets — used liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket fuel.

No. The Titan used hypergols and the Saturn V used RP-1.

Liquid rocket fuel of this type enables rocket scientists to build rockets that are controllable, because the thrust of any or all of its engines can be varied.

No. Liquid fuel does not automatically give you a throttle. The SSMEs are throttled and the LM descent motor is throttled. All other major motors deliver relatively fixed thrust.

NASA's engineers however were unable to utilise liquid fuelled engines on the Shuttle, except for the Shuttlecraft's own rather small engines (each developing 375,000 pounds of thrust as against the 1.5 million pounds of the Saturn's F-1) fed by the huge, central external fuel tank.

The SSMEs are hardly "small" engines. Further, they have a greater thrust-to-weight ratio than the F-1. The SSME is also throttlable, something the F-1 also cannot do.

Spencer proposes to measure rocket technology by only one metric: raw thrust. That is a fairly misleading number.

This is because liquid-fuelled engines didn't deliver enough thrust.

No, it's because the budget cuts under which the shuttle had to be built did not allow for the companion liquid-fueled, manned booster.

Solid rocket fuel offers greater overall power...

No. Solid fuels generally have only half the specific impulse as liquid fuels. The advantages of solid fuel are thrust per unit volume (requiring a smaller container) and cost. Solid rocket motors are cheaper and can be built cheaper for some unit of thrust.

Has rocket science really regressed?

Yes. Budget cuts do that.

Why was NASA forced to employ solid rocket fuel engines when only a few years earlier it had been able to achieve a significantly greater performance with the safer and more functional liquid-fuelled Saturn V?

Cost. NASA had to choose between having a cheaply-built launch system or none at all.

Watch footage of the Shuttle taking off and then compare it with similar footage of the Saturn V; which one is clearly the more powerful?

The shuttle, actually. The shape of the STS stack is misleading. It's actually going more than 100 mph by the time it clears the tower. The shuttle actually leaves the pad faster than the Saturn V.

Which one is producing the most noise and smoke?

Are we seriously being asked to compare the performance of two different launch systems by the amount of noise and smoke?

Pound for pound, hydrogen and oxygen are the most powerful conventional rocket fuel we have. The exhaust product is water vapor. The plume is essentially invisible.

NASA is pretty vague these days about the Saturn V.

Vague in what way? One can hardly visit a NASA installation and not see some reference or homage to the Saturn V -- in some cases the rockets themselves.

Since then, puzzled scientists have regularly questioned NASA about the Saturn V.

Which scientists would these be? Scientists who are familiar with the history of space travel know exactly why the Saturn V was discontinued.

It was the greatest rocket ever; why not rebuild it?

Because it was the greatest rocket ever. Now it's 40-year-old technology that hasn't been maintained.

It would solve all NASA's payload capacity problems overnight.

NASA doesn't have payload capacity problems, and neither do private launch service operators. In fact, Boeing has to let customers "buddy up" on launches because its current boosters are oversized for single launches.

NASA says that the Saturn V would take too long to rebuild.

No, the aerospace industry says it would take too long to rebuild, because the design would have to be modernized. That would take as much effort as the initial design effort.

It says also that the Saturn V wouldn't fit on the new launch pad.

Absolutely true. Launch Complex 39 was cannibalized to launch the shuttle. That was the only way it could be afforded.

...but in these feeble responses — and in the improbable account of the Saturn V's stunning fall from grace...

Oh, please. The responses are "feeble" only because they're being measured against Spencer's demonstrable ignorance of the aerospace industry and history. The Saturn's "fall from grace" is suspicious only if you agree with Spencer's fictionalized view of history. It appears he is fully aware of the reasons for the Saturn's demise -- he simply chooses not to believe them. He can't explain them away or demonstrate why they are not factual. He just begs the question and asks you to join him in his ignorance.

Do you still think the Saturn V rocket really existed?

Absolutely. I've seen one. I've studied how it was designed and built. The people who built it are the ones who taught me my trade. Spencer can offer nothing in response but his own personal incredulity.

...it did that very thing on its maiden manned flight.

Every vehicle goes someplace on its maiden manned flight.

[JayUtah]

By the way, just in case anyone can't tell the difference between the Saturn 1B and the Saturn V here are the images.

The cognoscenti also know that the Saturn 1B was built on existing tooling from other boosters, hence, the "clustered" first-stage tanks and the generally unremarkable development cycle.

The Saturn V required all-new tooling, hence its unique appearance.

[wadefrazier]

Thanks guys. That was thorough. : - )

[JayUtah]

Section 6.

Yes, Apollo 8 was a daring mission.

Yes, it was the first manned flight of the Saturn V. That accounts for only first two hours of the flight. After that, the Saturn V is irrelevant.

No, it was not the first test of the S-IVB because that stage is the second stage of the Saturn 1B booster.

No, it was not the first time living creatures had gone to the moon. Zond 5 sent turtles. And Gemini sent two manned capsules into the Van Allen belts.

It was the first time NASA had tried to use the Service Module's engines to negotiate a safe orbit of the Moon.

Irrelevant. The SPS had been tested numerous times in space. The engine doesn't know or care what you intend to use it for; it either works or it doesn't.

It was indeed the first time to orbit another planet, and that was considered the unknown for this mission.

It was the first manned craft to attempt re-entry into Earth's orbit from space.

That would come as a surprise to the Mercury and Gemini astronauts.

The Apollo CM had been tested unmanned in all the re-entry modes. At some point manned test has to happen.

Looking through that list, it's obvious that there were, to say the least, a lot of things to worry about.

But only one at a time. Witness the genius of all-up testing.

Surely, before sending three men on such a mission, it would have found time to include a mission that would send a dog or monkey into space aboard the Command Module.

For what purpose? The only reason other organisms were used in early space flight testing was to ensure that complex organisms could function at all in space. Once Mercury demonstrated that humans can function in space, there is no further need for animal testing.

It could test the effectiveness and safety of the third-stage rocket...

How does a dog or monkey help do that?

It would provide an opportunity to test the effectiveness of the Service Module's own engines...

How would a dog or monkey help do that?

It would test the capacity of the Command Module's instrumentation and equipment to cross the Van Allen belts without damage.

How would a dog or monkey help do that?

Last but not least, it would gauge the effects of crossing the Van Allen belts on another, non-human, creature.

Been there, done that. Besides, Gemini had already advanced to manned flights into the Van Allen belts. You don't have to start over again with monkeys just because you have a different vehicle.

The astronauts have a small TV camera, but for some reason they're unable to show us the Earth out of their window.

Spencer has obviously never seen the television transmissions from Apollo 8.

In the GET 31h transmission the astronauts attempt to show pictures of the Earth, but since they have no viewfinder they are unable to find a lens setting on the telephoto lens that shows a good picture.

At this point it's worth mentioning that the notion of a handheld television camera was revolutionary in 1968. Today we have small handheld camcorders, and few people appreciate the miracle of Apollo 8 television. There was no automatic exposure, automatic focus, automatic zoom, or even a monitor or viewfinder.

During the GET 55h transmission the Earth was shown clearly, contrary to Spencer's claims.

Several subsequent telecasts showed the Earth, the moon, and Earthrise. The Soviets even managed to intercept some of Apollo 8's television.

The claim that Apollo 8 did not show celestial objects in its telecasts is simply wrong.

Spencer seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. In the first part of this section he makes the case that Apollo 8 was a deathtrap of potential failure. Then he chides the astronauts for not providing better entertainment.

Then they're going to be accelerated to over 24,000 mph by the Earth's gravitational pull and will have to perform critical, corrective engine manoeuvres in order to slow themselves down and safely enter Earth's orbit prior to splashdown.

No. There were no braking maneuvers done as part of re-entry.

No one had ever attempted this before.

There wasn't much to do in the final few hours prior to re-entry except enjoy the ride. The mid-course corrections were done mid-course, not at the end. Course corrections are ineffectual near the end of the mission. Passage through the Van Allen belts didn't require any preparation or attention.

I need hardly add that the astronauts also choose not to point the camera out of the window, their final opportunity to do so.

When Spencer flies his own space mission he can decide where to point the camera. Until then, it's not an "anomaly" that the astronauts photographed what they thought was important.

I believe the reason the Apollo 8 astronauts were unable to show the Earth (or the Moon, bar the one occasion) out of the windows is because if they had, it would have given the game away.

Subversion of support. Apollo 8 did show these objects.

There is at least one other fascinating feature about Phillips's article and that is its title, "A Most Fantastic Voyage". Look up the word 'fantastic' in a dictionary. Mine defines it as: fanciful; not real...

Oh, please. "Excellent" and "superlative" are also synonyms in my dictionary.

NASA would have us believe that Apollo 8 was the mission that let it know that landing on the Moon was possible. I would suggest that it was the mission that let NASA know that faking it was possible.

Purely circular. Spencer hasn't given a single iota of evidence that Apollo 8 was faked. And he has to ignore considerable evidence in order to make even his semblance of a case.

[JayUtah]

Thanks guys. That was thorough. : - )

Hey, we're just getting warmed up. (Welcome back, Wade -- it's been too long.)

[JayUtah]

Section 7.

Apart from a few kilos of Moon rock...

Make that a few hundred kilos.

...which can be collected and returned to Earth more easily by unmanned probes...

The Soviets didn't find it so easy. All they got was 10 ounces. In order to return all the Apollo samples by that technology, we would have had to launch a sample-return mission every two days between 1969 and 1972. And still no one has figured out how to take fractured samples or core samples with unmanned probes. The RAT on Spirit and Odyssey is the state of the art today, and is still considered a compromise.

...the photographic and video record is the only hard evidence NASA has given the world to prove it landed on the Moon.

And the radio transmissions and examples of the spacecraft and the scientific papers that prepared the way and the laser reflectors and the experiments packages...

In its descent from the Command Module to the lunar surface the Lunar Module's engine would need to be delivering thrust of around 6,000 pounds, virtually to the point of touchdown...

No. Because fuel is depleted, the thrust at touchdown is around 2,500 lbf.

It is not unreasonable to conclude that an engine creating that amount of thrust, to within two metres or so of the Moon's dusty surface, would generate a good deal of dust as it landed.

And it did. It's seen clearly in the video.

However, about half of the 2,500 lbf thrust was pressure thrust, not momentum thrust. Pressure thrust doesn't create dust.

Also, following the two-metre drop, the Lunar Module's feet would surely cause some cratering in the Moon's surface as they settled beneath their eighteen-ton load.

Begging the question. Soils don't yield to compression. And the disributed load can be computed. Where are Spencer's computations?

The foot itself looks shiny and spotless, despite the great dust cloud it has undoubtedly passed through.

Not a cloud. If you subscribe to the 2-meter cutoff altitude, you can show that the dust all left the area. If you subscribe to the notion that Eagle's engine fired all the way down, you have dust with enormous kinetic energy striking elastic surfaces.

Find a wall. Get a golf ball. Now draw a line two feet away from the wall. Stand several feet away from the wall. Now throw the golf ball so that it comes to rest between your line and the wall. When you figure out why you can't do it, you'll know why you don't see engine-blown dust in the footpads.

The lunar surface on which it sits shows no sign of a crater or print where the pod has landed.

That's because Spencer shows you the wrong photograph. The other side of that same footpad has pushed up the soil around it.

Note how shiny and clean it looks, right down to the cone of its engine, clearly visible on the Module's under-side...

Why should it be dirty? The dust doesn't billow as it does on Earth; it hugs the surface.

The ground beneath the engine cone shows no sign of disturbance and is indistinguishable from the ground elsewhere.

Stand far enough away to take the picture and that's exactly what you'll get. Thankfully there are close-ups of the DPS skirt that clearly show discolored and eroded surface.

Are we really supposed to believe that this eighteen-ton vehicle (three tons in lunar gravity)...

Spencer seems smart enough to have realized that half the LM mass was fuel, but he hasn't figured out that burning that fuel doesn't mean you get to keep counting it as part of the mass.

In any case, the real evidence of fakery does not, for me, lie in the photographs; it is to be found simply by comparing the USA's known capabilities at the time with the amazing achievements of Apollo.

Except that Spencer's assessment of NASA's capability has no basis in reality.

When you look at it closely and timetable it all out, it simply doesn't add up.

Except that Spencer simply leaves out the parts that explain how it was all done. And instead of investigating how the science works, he just assumes his intuition will suffice.

[PhantomWolf]

One question I do have regarding Apollo 2-6. Was Apollo 1 initially supposed to be the mission that became Apollo 7 and were 2-6 created after 1 because of the accident and a change of policy to hve the vehicles tested unmanned first, or were they already scheduled after Apollo 1?

In other words, if Apollo 1 had been successful, would have Apollo 2 been the mission we now know as Apollo 9, Apollo 3 what was Apollo 8, Apollo 4 being 10 and 5 the first landing?

[Count Zero]

jayutah said:

It was the first manned craft to attempt re-entry into Earth's orbit from space.

That would come as a surprise to the Mercury and Gemini astronauts.

No, the Mercury & Gemini capsules were in Earth orbit. Spencer apparently thought you had to go from a return trajectory from the Moon to Earth orbit prior to re-entering the atmosphere. You picked-up on this later:

jayutah said:

Then they're going to be accelerated to over 24,000 mph by the Earth's gravitational pull and will have to perform critical, corrective engine manoeuvres in order to slow themselves down and safely enter Earth's orbit prior to splashdown.

No. There were no braking maneuvers done as part of re-entry.

[echnaton]

jayutah said:

However, about half of the 2,500 lbf thrust was pressure thrust, not momentum thrust. Pressure thrust doesn't create dust.

Jay, this one threw me. What is the difference between pressure thrust and momentum thrust?