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Post by wadefrazier on Aug 29, 2005 9:38:47 GMT -4
Hi people: A pal of mine posted up something that I am sure the members of this forum can capably deal with. It is here: www.serendipity.li/apollo/moonshine_6.htmMy initial response was: Any hypothesis like that needs rigorous testing, and tha ApolloHoax forum can do it, although some of the people in that forum will play too-happy debunker. Jay does a very professional job in dealing with the evidence. As Spencer admits, he is building a circumstantial case, with almost no hard evidence. Again, I spent years sifting through the evidence, and no hard evidence has ever held up as far as providing evidence of fakery. NASA did recycle footage in its official films, as they played fast and loose in the editing room. But that does not mean the footage is fake. There are virtually miles of film of the moon taken from the Command Modules. If the photographic record is forged, it is the forgery of all time, and the photo he presents has been explained many times before. Anybody taking on the authenticity of the film evidence has a tall task set for themselves, and I have never seen any "anomalies" hold up under scrutiny, and I have looked at literally hundreds of them. Thanks, Wade
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 29, 2005 10:56:51 GMT -4
Well, I've read the introduction and the first section, and already there's a major error. Spencer has followed the lead of most conspiracy authors and characterized Kennedy's announcement as some sort of blind-side challenge to NASA. This is the common approach for them because then it's easier later to argue that NASA just wasn't up to that challenge, but they had no choice but to meet it -- or perhaps only to appear to have met it.
Unfortunately that's pretty much the opposite of what really happened. pre-NASA pre-planning for Apollo began in January 1960. It was to be a three-man capsule launched on the Saturn family of boosters with its mission, among others, a circumlunar flight. Very quickly it evolved into a manned lunar landing. Eisenhower, not Kennedy, approved it.
By the middle of 1960 design study contracts had been let.
Kennedy was not a space buff. Spencer is correct to have interpreted the famous announcement as strictly a political move having little to do with science and exploration. But the interesting part is what happened between Eisenhower's approval of the attempt to land on the moon, and Kennedy's elevation of the project to national importance. Lyndon Johnson, however, was a space buff, beginning the national tradition of the vice-president commanding the nation's space exploration efforts. In late 1960 Kennedy was ready to disband NASA (or rather, NASA's predecessor). While a senator, Kennedy had scorned space travel as a waste of resources. Only through Johnson's efforts did American even retain a space program, much less think about expanding it.
Prior to Gagarin's flight, Kennedy had no plans to compete with the Russians in space. He felt it was a waste of time and money. And while he believed the U.S. should challenge the Soviets for prestige, he wanted it to be along more meaningful lines. But the public had other ideas. The Soviet space triumphs worried them, and it soon became clear to the Kennedys (because Bobby was part of this too) that regardless of what they wanted, the public wanted space travel.
Keep in mind that Kennedy was a new president, having been inaugurated only a few months prior. During the time when NASA -- with Johnson coaching from the sidelines -- was pitching the moon landing, Kennedy was highly distracted with the fiasco that would become the Bay of Pigs.
Ironically on the exact day the Bay of Pigs assault fell apart, Kennedy quizzed Johnson on what the options were for space. On the table were a manned moon landing, an unmanned moon landing, a circumlunar flight, and a space station. Could any of those be done? Johnson didn't have the answers. He pulled James Webb aside and asked, "If we give you the okay to go to the moon, can you really do it?" Webb didn't have the answer, but his Wunderkind Wernher von Braun did, and he was there giving presentations. Von Braun assured web that it was strictly a matter of money and that no new breakthroughs needed to occur.
Based on von Braun's assurances, Johnson recommended to Kennedy that the giant leap be a manned lunar landing, and Kennedy agreed. Far from being a shot across the bow, this was a matter of the space agency convincing a reluctant president to fund aggressively a project that had already been studied for more than a year. Kennedy merely put his stamp of approval on what NASA said it was ready to accomplish.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 29, 2005 11:26:03 GMT -4
Well this is totally wrong for a start. Firstly NASA considered the end of 1970 to be the end of the decade so made the deadline by a year and five months and secondly, Kennedy was using information from NASA, who had been working on getting to the moon by 1970 since 1958. They had done much of the planning and even announced the name of the Apollo program in 1960, a year before Kennedy's backing. So far from them being upset with him doing it, they told him to do it. A good link to learn about the history of Apollo is hereThe three Problems: 1) No one knew how to get there. Hogwash. NASA had been planning and calculating methods and flight plans since at least 1958. They even had companies ready to build the CSM and LM by 1960. All they needed was the backing, Kennedy gave tham that 2) The Van Allen belts. Even Dr Van Alen himself says this claim is rubbish. 3) No rocket: Again wrong. Von Braun was developing the Saturn Rockets for the Air Force back in 1958 and had the plans for the Nova well under way. With Kennedy's backing, the Saturn and Von Braun were transfered to NASA and it became the number one rocket priority and was once a few problems with the F-1 engine were sorted out in 1965 the Saturn V was quickly in production. It'd take far too long to point out all the things that are incorrect through the next section, but I expect Jay will do it. For instance, he says in one part that the Saturns were the brainchild of Von Braun which is true, but then says that NASA took them off Rocketdyne and gave them to Von Braun and his team to fix. Apollo 7 was a manned test of the CSM prior to it being sent into Lunar orbit and so was neither pointless nor redundant but very necessary, but since it was an Earth orbiter it needed no Saturn V and if he doesn't believe that the Saturn V existed, what was the rather large rocket that hundreds of people watched launch? It wasn't a Saturn 1B. Most people who hve seen them can tell the difference between the 1B and V quite easily. The reason he gives over the the V being scrapped is wrong. It was a commerical reason. NASA didn't want a heavy lifter to be in competition with the new Shuttle that was planned so the Sat V was scrapped. Yes it was a stupid reason, but money talks and a Sat V luncher would have been cheaper then the Shuttle and NASA wanted the shuttle so they scrapped its competition. No, the first stage of the Sat V used Kerosene, and there were a number of other rocket fuels about as well, even today. I'd disagree. Having just watched the Discovery Launch and then watching the Apollo 11 launch the Sat V has far more visible exhaust. However that said it's redundant anyways as visible cloud and smoke meeans nothing. The shuttles main enigines for instance produce no visible flame at all. Wrong. Zond 5 in 1968 carried living creatures and returned them. Also several of the Gemini missions entered nd spent quite some time inside the VA Belts. Firstly this is an agrument based on "What I would have done." Secondly, there was no worry about the VA Belts, they are just a boogy man for the HBs. Thirdly, any such mission would hve had to have been automated and thus would have been pointless as the CSM was designed to be flown by humans. Automating a human driven system invaildates the tests. What cloud? To have a cloud requires air, there is no air so no cloud. Take a look at the landing footsage of the Eagle. The dust is shown as it rushs out across the surface skimming across the top of it. Both Buzz and Neil comment on this behaviour in the Debriefing locatable in the /Lunar Surface JournalsBegging the question, and not a very god question anyways. There is plenty of disturbance of the ground from the engines that is obvious in the close up images and both Neil nd Buzz comment on an absence of a crater. It was positioned above the pilot's (Buzz's) window looking out through the window. I disagree (I just watched this last night) I have the complete thing and can play the Eagle vioce recorder and the NASA controller loop at the same time. Eagle's crew's voices echo quite noticably with the voice recorder first, then them coming thru to the controller's loop in Huston. I've also looked through the Transcript timings and can't find any instant responses. Well I do question that it can't because of the voice recorder track, but firstly Neil stated that the engine was pretty quiet, something other crews commented on as well, and secondly, the mikes they used were designed to pick up only noise very close to them, basically the Astronauts voices only. Jet pilots use similar mikes to communicate. An amazing trick given that the bottom of the window frame is in view the entire footage. Actually lunar apologists think it's dreadful compared to the real thing. By the way, the documentry that suggested that kubrick ws the director was a joke and actually stated that at the end, something a lot of HBs miss. Just because he doesn't understand thermodynamic doesn't mean that no one does. Just because he doesn't understand heat transfer doesn't mean no ne else does. The PLSS is the same as the Russians used, as Gemini used and as they use today with the Shuttle and ISS. How it works is readily available in threads here, on Bad Astronomy and in NASA's achives. So explain why when they fall over they fall slowly yet their arms wave at normal speed? It might work fr small bits, but the Lunar footage is hours in lenght and 99% of iut doesn't look like that at all. Does somene want to hit him with a physics book. Perhaps it's MGD I'll make up my own physics. Wrong, it's almost transparent. There's an picture of a test firing using it hereWell that's not an entire debunk, but hopefully it's enough to show just how wrong this page it. Most of it is based on already debunked groups such as Auils anyways.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Aug 29, 2005 11:53:21 GMT -4
Perhaps it's MGD I'll make up my own physics. Are you suggesting this guy had a few too many Miller Genuine Drafts?
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Post by DaveC on Aug 29, 2005 12:06:48 GMT -4
I can't believe someone took the time to write this drivel - but I guess the time he saved on research gave him more time for prose! PhantomWolf already hilighted this one, but I thought it was so funny that it was worth another look:
Someone could hit him with a physics book, but for this dude it may have no impact because he apparently doesn't believe that physics books even exist - at least he doesn't seem to have ever encounterd one!
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 29, 2005 12:07:05 GMT -4
ROFL. Well you might be right, but I was thinking MrGuitarDeath.
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politik
Venus
on a crusade against ignorance
Posts: 83
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Post by politik on Aug 29, 2005 13:57:45 GMT -4
I wish it were possible to respond directly to these people. I mean, has anyone ever told Sibrel that he is wrong? Has he been shown the evidence against him? Does Sibrel take the same stance as margamatrix?
And how is it that Spencer took the Newtonian rules so literally? I'd like to know how he figured atmospheric drag is factored into the measured rate of acceleration due to gravity on Earth.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 29, 2005 14:01:44 GMT -4
I mean, has anyone ever told Sibrel that he is wrong?
Yes.
Has he been shown the evidence against him?
Many times.
Does Sibrel take the same stance as margamatrix?
Yes, but more artfully and for different reasons. Sibrel has a financial position to maintain. I am not aware that Margamatix is trying deliberately to fool other people. Sibrel is.
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Post by sts60 on Aug 29, 2005 15:30:52 GMT -4
Hi people: A pal of mine posted up something that I am sure the members of this forum can capably deal with. It is here: www.serendipity.li/apollo/moonshine_6.htmMy initial response was: Any hypothesis like that needs rigorous testing, and tha ApolloHoax forum can do it, although some of the people in that forum will play too-happy debunker. Jay does a very professional job in dealing with the evidence. As Spencer admits, he is building a circumstantial case, with almost no hard evidence... No evidence at all, actually. Unfortunately, your friend has apparently spent a lot of time writing this lengthy treatise without actually understanding the physical, technological, political, organizational, or historical facts involved. For example, Firstly, they clearly presented some form of physical obstacle to escaping much beyond the Earth. Several of the probes from the era, like Explorer 1, simply failed to pass through them and instead skewed over into a wide Earth orbit. If this taught space scientists of the time anything it probably taught them this: Einstein's theoretical hypothesis, that an object must acquire a velocity of just over 24,000 mph in order to 'glide' thereafter out of the Earth's gravitational pull, was in practice incorrect. That's so far disconnected from reality it's not even wrong - it's just gibberish. That's not meant as an insult. It's just that he literally doesn't understand the subject. The van Allen belts a "physical obstacle"? The escape speed for Earth being established by Einstein? Please. Aside from a few funny mistakes like that, there's nothing new on his website; it's all been dredged up and debunked repeatedly before.
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Post by margamatix on Aug 29, 2005 15:45:30 GMT -4
Does Sibrel take the same stance as margamatrix? . Hello politik and welcome to the forum. I can't speak for Bart Sibrel, although you can email him through his website if you wish to. It's fair to say that Sibrel believes, as I do, that the Apollo missions never happened- that the footage was all faked and that man has never walked on the moon. It has been suggested that Sibrel takes this stance for mercenary reasons, since he is a film-maker who sells videos.No-one has yet been able to suggest any ulterior motive for my beliefs, largely because there isn't one. All I would ask is that you view the evidence with an open mind, and decide for yourself. Once again, welcome to the forum.
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Post by sts60 on Aug 29, 2005 16:13:22 GMT -4
No one here, AFAIK, has accused you or thinks you have some sort of financial interest in promulgating the "hoax" claim. I don't.
However, having an "open mind" includes considering counterarguments to your claims, in particular technical claims which have been refuted in detail by various persons with appropriate domain knowledge. There is no evidence that you have done this yet; all you've done in reply is to repeat such claims. For example, your claim that no plausible mechanism exists for active cooling of a space suit on the Moon is wrong, but you have yet to acknowledge this.
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Post by hubcapdave69 on Aug 29, 2005 16:25:19 GMT -4
Found this little jewel on that page:
No, that's 1,400,000 tons buddy!
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Post by Jason Thompson on Aug 29, 2005 18:21:33 GMT -4
Why does the author of that page keep going on about failures and the abysmal record of the Saturn I, Saturn IB and Saturn V? The Saturn series was the most successful group of rockets ever developed! It is the only rocket never to have exploded at any point during launches.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 29, 2005 18:52:56 GMT -4
The Soviets did things differently; they didn't make their missions public until those missions had been successfully completed. This policy protected its scientists from undue pressure and allowed them to fail as a normal part of scientific endeavour.
Again, this is the opposite of what really happened. Yes, the Soviets kept their missions secret until success was assured, but it was not to reduce pressure on their scientists. In fact, Krushchev put enormous pressure on the Soviet space program to take foolhardy risks in the quest for the appearance of pre-eminence in space. The missions were kept secret so that failures did not have to be publicly acknowledged. This would create the impression that the Soviet space program was of higher quality than America's.
I've personally worked with ex-Soviet scientists. The climate under Krushchev, and for a while under Brezhnev, could not have been more driven toward results at all costs.
The first problem was this. No one actually knew how to fly to the Moon and back, or even if it was possible.
False. Kennedy and Johnson did not make any public commitment until they had been assured by NASA that a moon mission was possible. Kennedy, not NASA, was the skeptical party in this case.
NASA had no system or plan for executing a mission of this nature, nor even a proper way of assessing its feasibility.
False. From December 1960 to April 1961 NASA presented to Johnson and other policymakers in the new Kennedy administration the results of the design studies that had been conducted since August 1960. NASA had a wealth of information showing that a properly funded, properly supported space program could land a man on the moon within 10 years.
Having done that it would have to design, build and test all the equipment required and train the astronauts in its use — all in little over eight years.
The Manhattan Project produced a working atomic bomb in half that time.
Further, the Saturn boosters had been in the works, under Air Force authority, since the late 1950s. The Apollo program presumed use of those boosters. Further, the Kennedy administration agreed to characterize Apollo as a "crash" program, one undertaken with a greater acceptance of risk and thus a more streamlined development approach.
There was a second major problem. It was something that, at the time, only NASA itself and Soviet space scientists fully appreciated. This was the problem of the Van Allen belts.
And if the Soviets fully appreciated it -- which they did -- then why didn't they blow the whistle on Apollo?
Dr. Van Allen himself has specifically and directly repudiated the notion that the belts that bear his name would have prevented men from traveling to the moon.
At around 25,000 miles out — a mere 6 Earth radii and just one tenth of the way to the Moon — it [Explorer 1] ran into an unexpected problem.
The Van Allen belts begin substantially lower than that. Further, Explorer 1 never went that far from Earth, and was never expected or intended to.
Explorer 1 suddenly veered off course and, rather than escaping Earth's gravity, adopted instead a wide Earth orbit — making it, technically, the USA's first successful satellite.
This is pure fiction. Explorer 1 never "veered off course". (Some of the later Explorers suffered various deployment problems, but at very low altitudes.) It didn't accidentally go into Earth orbit; it was intended to do that from the very start. It was not otherwise headed for deep space.
Additionally, its systems failed and the transmissions of scientific data ceased almost immediately.
No. Explorer 1 began transmitting on January 31, 1958 and stopped transmitting May 23, 1958 -- nearly four months of continuous data. The dead spacecraft re-entered in 1970.
Dr. Van Allen's Geiger counter however did manage to transmit a few seconds of extraordinary data back to Earth before it too was lost. That data showed levels of radiation in near space over ten thousand times more intense than had been anticipated.
The instrument in question was not merely a "Geiger counter" but was in fact a special device intended to measure galactic cosmic radiation -- Dr. Van Allen's area of specialty. The instrument did not report radiation levels 10,000 times more intense. It simply registered saturation of its detector. This is by itself an indication that more radiation was present than had been expected. But you cannot determine the exact level using a saturated instrument.
The key to proper understanding here is the realization that the expected radiation levels were very small. Galactic cosmic radiation is nearly negligible over the short term in the vicinity of Earth. The instrument had been prepared to detect very small levels of radiation. It would not take much radiation to saturate it, just like a thermometer that peaks at 30 F would have a hard time registering the heat of the human body.
Between 1958 and 1964 the USA and Soviet Union launched over thirty satellites and probes between them in an attempt to find a way of sending a controllable craft through the Van Allen belts and back again, while at the same time sending and receiving serviceable data. During this period, most of these probes (the Able, Pioneer and Ranger series for the USA and the Luna and Zond series for the Soviet Union) failed for one reason or another.
Hogwash. The rest of the Explorer series successfully mapped the Van Allen belts. While it is true that some of the named series experienced individual failures, they did fail "for one reason or another," none of them having anything whatsoever to do with radiation.
The Van Allen belts mark the boundary of the Earth's own magnetic field.
No. The magnetic field exists at Earth's core and extends for thousands of miles into space before its effect becomes dominated by other forces such as gravity.
Firstly, they clearly presented some form of physical obstacle to escaping much beyond the Earth. Several of the probes from the era, like Explorer 1, simply failed to pass through them and instead skewed over into a wide Earth orbit.
Pure fantasy. This has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
Secondly, the later probes that did breach the Earth's magnetic shield were immediately beset with equipment failure, presumably burnt out by the intense electromagnet pulse that the Van Allen belts effectively represent.
No. EMP is commonly associated with nuclear detonations, but has absolutely nothing to do with the Van Allen belts.
What you won't find, I believe, is a great deal of hard, quantitative data, detailing the actual intensities of the belts' radioactive layers.
That's because the information about the Van Allen belts and their various fluxes and energies would themselves require several books. The current models for cislunar radiation are AE8 and AP8, maintained by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The data are so complete and precise that they are specified algorithmically, not in exhaustive tabular form.
Now turn to the chapter on Jupiter and find the section that deals with its magnetic field. Notice the difference? If your book is advanced enough, that section will give you a great deal of hard information.
Or, if it isn't, it will say nothing.
Am I right?
Who could tell? Spencer didn't say exactly which books he looked at or what other books were available. He didn't consider whether he consulted engineering or scientific sources, or merely popular ones. Aside from begging the question, this is the standard exercise in proof from silence. He has looked at some few sources and expected to have characterized an entire field of inquiry from what was presented -- or rather, not presented -- in them. He may not have considered that Jupiter's data is so scant that it's easily presented in tabular form in books, while the data for Earth is unwieldy and large and can only be summarized.
Data on Earth's magnetic field has been accumulated since we started using magnetic compasses for navigation -- hundreds of years. To argue that it's suspiciously missing is not to have investigated very thoroughly.
Could it be that the Van Allen belts proved a rather greater obstacle to space flight — and getting to the Moon — than the USA or the Soviet Union have so far been prepared to let on?
That argument simply doesn't wash in the modern world. Space operations in the cislunar environment constitute a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide, with many nationalities and private players. Data regarding the Van Allen belts simply cannot be hidden because these private concerns (and their insurers) will discover it in the normal course of business, if it differs from published sources.
It is not only the matter of the Van Allen belts' strength where basic factual information seems strangely hard to come by.
It is hard to come by in the form that Spencer expects. The problem is that the expected format is inappropriate to the data, and it is actually presented in a much more complex and comprehensive fashion requiring a bit more effort to obtain and use. The data are heinously multivariate. At each point in three-dimensional space there is a two-dimensional continuum of energy and flux. This continuum is anisotropic, meaning it also varies according to which direction your detector is pointing. Further, all these values change over time. Not only are the data complex, they cannot be meaningfully rendered in 2D or 3D visualizations. And they certainly don't lend themselves well to tabulation.
My figure of 25,000 miles derives from the original research, undertaken when the Van Allen belts were first discovered.
But it's entirely inaccurate. Explorer 1 never went that high, nor was intended to.
Nowadays however some sources maintain that the Van Allen belts begin at around 250 miles above the Earth .... Clearly there is a big difference between these two sets of figures...
Clearly there is; and the answer to the dilemma is that the 25,000 mile initial figure has no basis whatsoever in fact.
...it is perhaps surprising that scientists should be unable to agree on such a fundamental point of fact.
It would be surprising if there were any real dilemma. There are differing summaries of the geometry of the Van Allen belts precisely for the reasons outlined above. Continuous values in multivariate phenomena defy easy demarcation. Scientists know this. It is the layman who demand "easy" answers who are at fault.
This is that in 1958 and again in 1962 the USA created new and massive man-made radiation belts around the Earth, which are now included by some authorities as part of the Van Allen belts.
The "some authorities" here are merely David Percy and Mary Bennett, neither of whom has any training or knowledge of astrophysics.
It [Project Argus] resulted in the severe disturbance of the Earth's ionosphere and the creation of a new radiation belt round the Earth.
Which was not severe enough and didn't last long enough. The purpose of the exercise was to see if nuclear detonations in space would produce a barrier that would interfere with incoming Soviet missiles.
The USA's response to this calamity was to repeat the exercise, only using a much bigger warhead.
Precisely because Project Argus had disappointing results.
The ionosphere was disrupted for several months and the Earth was subjected to a huge dose of radiation.
No. The effects of Starfish Prime were highly localized. The ionosphere was "disrupted" only to the extent that effects reasonably attributed to the detonation could be detected for months afterward with sensitive instruments. No additional radiation was measured on Earth.
Operation Starfish Prime also created a new radiation belt around the Earth that is believed to be several times more intense than the Van Allen belts themselves.
No. Bennett and Percy provide absolutely no empirical evidence or observation that a "third" Van Allen Belt exists or existed. Instead, they try to argue that such a belt would have a "radioactive half life" such that it must still be in effect today. They wholly misunderstand the principle of half-life; it applies only to radioisotopes, not to magnetically entrapped charged particles.
While the population of electrons was briefly elevated by Starfish Prime, it had fallen back to equilibrium values within a few months.
...it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that one of the primary objectives of both Project Argus and Operation Starfish Prime was to blast a hole in the Van Allen belts...
Hogwash. The documents regarding these tests are now public, and the stated aim is fully supported by empirical evidence and consistent with research objectives in force at that time. To suppose that a nuclear warhead would "blast" a hole in the Van Allen belts is like saying you can put a hole in the surface of a lake by dumping a bucket of water into it. There is no principle of physics that supports the notion that a nuclear warhead would somehow breach the Van Allen belts.
This likely derives from the entirely incorrect notion that the Van Allen belts are some kind of physical barrier.
NASA knew it wasn't going to get to the Moon with the Atlas Centaur. It needed a brand new rocket, the biggest and most sophisticated rocket that man had ever devised.
Yes, and before committing to the moon landings NASA ensured that sufficient funding and engineering expertise would be applied to the Saturn booster family, which had begun development under an Air Force contract.
Its [the Saturn V's] development progress however was dependent very much on that of the Saturn 1.
Not so. Although they shared one stage, they were designed essentially as separate vehicles.
The Saturn V was correspondingly also well behind schedule.
But not because of the Saturn 1.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 29, 2005 20:16:02 GMT -4
Section 4.
It just needed the all-important Saturn 1 rocket, so beset by problems over the previous six years, finally to succeed.
Specifically what problems? The Saturn 1B had two noteworthy problems: guidance instability and base heating. The former is a problem with all large rockets and was solved by tuning the guidance system and engine gimballing algorithms. The problem to be avoided was guidance correction that became harmonic with the excursions, leading to a divergent feedback condition.
The latter is a problem with clustered engines, and was solved by better aerodynamic design of the first stage skirt.
Neither of these presents any serious problem to rocket development. They are the kinds of things that are expected to be discovered and corrected in flight test. All development programs encounter problems. Encountering them and solving them is the purpose of development. To say that the development of anything is "beset" by problems is to misunderstand the nature of development.
The first manned flight of the Saturn 1B was scheduled for 1967 because that's when it had always been scheduled. Manned flight test happens very late in the development schedule. The next step beyond manned flight testing is operational flights! The Saturn 1B could have been validated for manned flight operations as early as February 1967.
...were incinerated in a ferocious fire which swept the capsule moments after the hatch was sealed.
Not moments but hours after it was sealed. Part of the problem with the countdown demonstration test was that communication difficulties made the test last far longer than anticipated.
With less than three years to go before the end of the decade, the Apollo project was practically back to square one.
Not so. Many of the improvements suggested by the fire had already been incorporated into Block II designs. Only 700 ECRs (engineering change requests) were issued in response to the fire, a fairly small amount in that scale of engineering.
There was nothing deemed wrong with the lunar module, the Saturn boosters, or the service module. The problem was localized to one aspect of one component of the entire set of technology.
With the Saturn 1 booster again undergoing intensive modifications, NASA had to cancel its next six proposed Apollo missions.
No. There were no ECRs issued for the Saturn 1B as a result of the Apollo 1 fire.
These would not resume until October 1968 with the launch of Apollo 7 on a modified Saturn booster called the Saturn 1B.
Utter hogwash. Apollo 7 flew on the exact same booster that had been intended for Apollo 1. The new capsule was fitted atop the undamaged booster.
Ed Givens was killed in a car crash and C.C. Williams in an air crash.
True. These accidents were investigated thoroughly.
Givens died on a stretch of road that had been notorious for previous car crashes. It was nighttime, raining, and Givens was lost.
Williams died in a plane crash after a mechanical failure. He had ample time to bail out, but chose rather to stay with the aircraft and guide it away from a populated area. He attempted to eject, but his parachute did not have time to open sufficiently; he died on impact.
Robert Lawrence also died in an air crash and X-15 pilot Mike Adams was killed on a mission.
Test pilots had a 25% mortality rate during this era. However, neither Lawrence nor Adams had anything to do with Apollo.
NASA came under a great deal of public criticism in the wake of the Apollo 1 tragedy, not least from its own Safety Officer, Thomas Ronald Baron.
Thomas Baron did not work for NASA, nor was he a "Safety Officer". He was merely a quality control inspector for one of the contractors -- one of thousands of low-level inspectors who had a limited responsibility for safety.
Baron had identified what he believed were safety infractions, which he took to the head of Quality Control at his company. The company investigated some of them and found them to be mostly hearsay or otherwise without merit. For example, Baron claimed he saw men drinking on the job, from alcohol meant to purge piping systems. In fact, Baron had only seen the men take alcohol from the central supply; he then went on to assume they had drunk it.
Baron produced a highly critical 500-page report outlining NASA's failings and suggesting that the Apollo Program was so far adrift of its targets it would never reach get to the Moon.
The only reference to Baron's report was in a statement he had made to Congress in which he referred to a report lengthier than the 30-page report which he had delivered to his superiors. We do not know whether the lengthier report actually existed, or how long it was. We suspect it was critical, but since it cannot be examined we cannot be sure in what way or to what extent.
Baron's criticism was leveled not at NASA, but at his employer North American (later Rockwell). He specifically exonerated NASA. Baron, as I said, went to his bosses with lists of what he thought were deficiencies. His bosses acknowledged that about half of Baron's statements had some merit and investigated those. Baron was not satisfied; he went to the press with his full list, and thereafter became the media darling, the insider "whistle-blower" who was making headlines with "Apollo Unsafe!" Unfortunately Baron had a hard time distinguishing fantasy and conjecture from reality, and so many of his accusations simply were not true. North American rightfully fired him, whereupon Baron became the epitome of the disgruntled ex-employee.
Baron never realized he was a pawn in a much larger game. Noted anti-NASA senator Walter Mondale tried to use the Apollo 1 hearings to end Apollo and NASA once and for all. He dragged up mudslinging witness after witness, among which was Baron.
Baron, on the stand, mostly fell apart. Under cross-examination it became apparent he had just made up a lot of his criticism, or inferred it from innocent observations. He renegged on his claim that he had learned the real reason behind the Apollo 1 fire. And he described having been displeased with his job at North American for other reasons.
NASA's Program Director for the Apollo missions, Lt. Gen. Sam Phillips (USAF), launched a thorough investigation.
The Phillips investigation took place a year before Apollo 1, not in the wake of it. Sweeping reforms were put into place, and those were in force at the time of the Apollo 1 fire. In fact, just prior to the fire Phillips sent a letter to Lee Atwood at North American congratulating him on having gotten the program back on track.
But Thomas Ronald Baron himself also met a violent and untimely death. One week after testifying to a Senate Committee, he — and his wife and daughter — were killed when the car he was driving was struck by a train.
And this was investigated and ruled a familial suicide.
Innuendo has it that Baron was killed by NASA for his testimony. That is preposterous.
First, Baron didn't say anything bad about NASA.
Second, it is customary to kill the witness before he testifies, not after.
Third, if one has thoroughly discredited and embarrassed the witness, what good does killing him do?
His report into the Apollo 1 tragedy has never since been subjected to public scrutiny and is presumed lost.
I certainly haven't been able to find it. But the conspiracy theorists are more interested in what can't be known about Thomas Baron than what is already known. Rather than try to characterize him based on some mysterious report, it is better to characterize him based on what we know he said and did. And that characterization is one of a disgruntled former employee dragged into something bigger than he expected, suffering humiliation, and taking his life and that of his family. Humiliation is not the only risk factor in Baron's life. He also had diabetes, which increases one's risk for suicide. He also had an unspecified "nervous condition".
If the Apollo 1 disaster and the unreliability of the Saturn 1 rocket seemed a major setback...
I'm not sure if this is intended as a connection, but the Apollo 1 fire had nothing to do with the Saturn 1B booster.
Indeed Rocketdyne, the company responsible for building them, had not been able to build a single F-1 engine that could reach full power without exploding or becoming uncontrollable.
False. The engines reached full power and held it so long as there were no external difficulties. The engine proved too sensitive to fuel flow fluctuations and mechanical interferences.
By 1967, the Saturn V had not achieved a single successful launch despite over five years of development.
The Saturn V had been in development for nearly ten years by that time, and that's how long it had been projected to take. Spencer seems to suggest that the development period was inappropriately lengthy, but he provides no insight or evidence to support that. It's a begged question.
In my view, it was the lack of reliable rocket power that finally killed off the Apollo project.
Unfortunately Spencer tells only the first half of the F-1 story. By 1963 or 1964 it became apparent that the normal means of solving combustion instability weren't going to be very effective. It was determined that there hadn't been enough theoretical work done. So they took a year off of empirical testing and contacted the leading academic experts on the subject of fluid dynamics in combustion. Rocketdyned also reorganized the development team, bringing in some new and eager engineering managers.
At the end of a year they had a whole new playbook for combustion stabilization and a new quarterback. They focused their attention not on baffling in the thrust chamber, but on the geometry of the injector plate itself. Changing the flow rates and impingement angles proved to solve the problem, and quickly the F-1 went from one of the most unstable production engines to one of the most stable.
The conspiracy theorists completely omit that part of the story because their information on the F-1 engine comes from Bill Kaysing, who left Rocketdyne in 1963. Kaysing only stayed for the first half of the game and is totally unaware of what happened after halftime.
Instead of announcing to the world the cancellation of the Apollo programme however, NASA decided on a different strategy. Publicly Apollo would be seen to continue and, ultimately, succeed.
So as early as 1967 NASA is ready to admit defeat? Why admit defeat then when you can take another two or three years (depending on the definition of "decade") and continue work? Are you really going to quit in the third quarter just because you're a few touchdowns behind? If they have to admit defeat, let them do it in 1969 or 1970, having given it the old college try. Or let them continue on to 1972 or 1975 -- they'd fail the deadline they gave Kennedy, but still have the satisfaction of beating the Russians.
No, instead Spencer asks us to believe that they immediately changed horses and adopted a hoax posture. Admitting failure is one thing. But if you get caught hoaxing something with government money, you go to jail. Which is worse?
You have to keep in mind that anyone contemplating a hoax or coverup can't be sure it will work. You take an awful risk trying to pull off an elaborate hoax. If you get caught, the results are far more damaging than just a punch in the prestige. People personally get held responsible.
No, the leaders of Apollo, in addition to being engineers and scientists, were also politicians themselves. They knew that taking personal responsibility for something was not a smart move. Better to attempt success and then identify the other people you're going to blame it on if you fail. That's how politicians solve those kinds of problems. Blame Congress. Blame the Russians. Blame some contractor and then reward him under the table later with a lucrative contract. But under no circumstances should you put your own reputation on the table and try to fake it.
Contractors carried on working round the clock to build and test all the equipment and components, unaware that they were no longer building spacecraft parts but film props.
And that is completely ignorant of how engineers work. The smarts required to carry out Apollo resided in the contractors, less in NASA. All those design contracts that were let in the summer of 1960 were precisely to pay the contractors to get the expertise they needed in order to build the equipment later. That meant conduction their own feasibility studies and scientific inquiry.
It's common for laymen to believe that NASA just handed finished engineering drawings to the contractors and said, "Here -- build this for me and don't ask any questions." That's the opposite of how it worked. NASA set the standards that the equipment was supposed to meet, and it was up to the contractors to figure out how to meet it.
To suggest that the contractors didn't realize they were just building props is wholly ignorant of the entire foundation of the aerospace industry.
This is of course only my opinion. It is not what most people believe and it is certainly not what the history books record.
Nor is it what the facts say. So far Spencer's essay is based in large measure on "facts" that have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality and seem to be largely cribbed from the standard conspiracy theory sources.
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