Bart's 5:1 Russian superiority claim

[sts60]

For margamatix's convenience, I am repeating six particular claims he has posted and which have been debunked. I look forward to his acknowledging some or all of these when he has some spare time:

1. Sibrel's 5:1 superiority claim, which has been thoroughly debunked in this very thread. Does he still believe Sibrel's claim? What does he think the facts, which were not hard to dig out, say about Mr. Sibrel's competence and/or integrity?

2. margamatix's claim that there is no plausible way to cool an astronaut on the Moon. Among various responses which pointed out his fundamental failures to understand the environment, types of heat transfer involved, or insulation techniques, I gave him hard numbers indicating the suitability of cooling an astronaut via the PLSS' water sublimation technique. Does he acknowledge our refutations of his claim? If not, why, exactly?

3. margamatix's claim that the Apollo lunar orbit rendezvous was "untried" (refuted here). Does he acknowledge his error?

4. margamatix's claim that missions to the Moon should have started with unmanned craft. It is pointed out here again that many unmanned craft were sent to the Moon prior to the A11 landing. It was discussed at length here as to exactly why it made no sense to attempt an automated LM landing. Does he acknowledge the refutations of his claim, which included the opinions of practicing engineers with extensive aerospace experience? If not, why, exactly?

5. margamatix's repetition of Sibrel's claim that the Saturn had to be 266 times bigger than it actually was (refuted here). margamatix's only response was to call von Braun a "war criminal". Correct or not, that does not alter the fact that Sibrel's claim is factually incorrect. Does he (margamatix) acknowledge this? If so, what does he think this says about Sibrel's competence? If not, why not, exactly?

6. margamatix's claim that the Apollo CSM was unable to get back from the Moon itself (couldn't carry enough fuel, etc.), refuted here, with explicit numbers crunched by Bob B. Does he acknowledge the refutation? If not, why not, exactly?

[Bob B.]

sts60 said:

So I'm staying out of the "Radio signals" thread per peterb's request. But, hey, this is a different thread.

Would you not accept that it would be quite easy to create artificial signal delay if, say, the astronauts were in low Earth orbit?

No. Absolutely not. A vehicle on its way to, returning from, or orbiting the Moon, is on a completely different trajectory, both real and apparent, than one in low Earth orbit. The motion across the sky is drastically different, and the delays, signal strengths, and Doppler signatures are are as well. It's rather like trying to fake the appearance of Venus in the sky by using a 747.

It’s not quite clear to me whether margamatix means that ground stations would pick up the radio transmissions directly from the orbiting spacecraft, or whether the ground stations would pick up radio transmissions that are relayed through an unmanned craft near the moon. In either case it doesn’t work.

In the first case, as sts60 correctly explains, there is no way an orbiting spacecraft can be disguised to look like one in route to or from the moon, the trajectories are just too different. The second case doesn’t work either for at least a couple reasons: (1) the time delay would be twice the expected duration because the signal must first travel to the relay craft and then back to Earth, i.e. twice the distance, and (2) the line-of-sight between the orbiting spacecraft and the relay craft will be eclipsed by the Earth for nearly half the time, thus there would be long periods when no transmissions are possible.

[margamatix]

sts60 said:

For margamatix's convenience, I am repeating six particular claims he has posted and which have been debunked. I look forward to his acknowledging some or all of these when he has some spare time:

5. margamatix's repetition of Sibrel's claim that the Saturn had to be 266 times bigger than it actually was

Let's start off with this one.

This was Wernher von Braun's claim, not Bart Sibrel's who merely flagged up Wernher von Braun's claim




Happy with that?

[LunarOrbit]

Von Braun was able to change his mind about that... can you?

[rocketdad]

[/quote]
Happy with that?[/quote]

I'm not, since we've already told you in both techical and layman's terms and with counter-examples why this is not relevant to the Apollo program.

In case you are a chatterbot, I will refresh your buffer:

1) Dr. von Braun wrote that "claim" in the fifties, based on his preconceived notions of a) longer missions b)larger crews) c)reusable equipment. NASA had different requirements, and by the sixties knew the budget would not support his original wild-eyed dreams. WvB was an engineer, tried and true, and died not quite understanding politics, bureaucracy or why EVERYBODY didn't want to go to the moon personally. Have you read about him? Fascinating guy.

2)We have discussed sending the shuttle to the moon. In order to do so, or send craft of the equivalant mass and send it back, would require a gargantuan launcher of the type he originally devised, or strapping on more fuel in earth-orbit. Have you read the book Bart is supposedly quoting yourself? Dr vonBraun was discussing plan A, single-ship there and back, and also discussed a plan B (earth-orbit rendezvous), but he didn't think up the plan C actually used. Other minds came up with that. He was willing to put his ego aside and help design the booster in order to get men on the moon.

3) If you want to discuss his war record, perhaps we could start a new thread for that.

4)Bart(space)Sibrel has misrepresented the facts, here and elsewhere. Need you be reminded again?

5) You also have said elsewhere that the CSM needed to be larger, which butters both sides of the toast. The dinky little machines they used where WHY the Saturn V was as "small" as it was.

6) The Saturn/Apollo was friggerty massive. Bigger than that would be really hard to find a safe place to launch. The engineers (who were neither truck drivers nor carpenters) spent many labor-years with drafting board and slide-rule trying to get everything smaller and lighter everywhere they could.

7) I've suggested before that you download the free 30-day trial of SpaceCAD, a model rocketry design package available outside of the US. Design for yourself several models with the preloaded database of materials and motors, and play with it. Learn for yourself why the rocket would have had to be 266 times bigger only if it were launching more payload than it did. Write me back when you've downloaded it, and I can help with any questions.

Next!

[Bob B.]

margamatix said:

Let's start off with this one.

This was Wernher von Braun's claim, not Bart Sibrel's who merely flagged up Wernher von Braun's claim

Happy with that?

No. It is Bart Sibrel's claim that Wernher von Braun's claim is applicable to Apollo. It is Sibrel's claim that we have a problem with.

[sts60]

margamatix said:

sts60 said:

For margamatix's convenience, I am repeating six particular claims he has posted and which have been debunked. I look forward to his acknowledging some or all of these when he has some spare time:

5. margamatix's repetition of Sibrel's claim that the Saturn had to be 266 times bigger than it actually was

Let's start off with this one.

This was Wernher von Braun's claim, not Bart Sibrel's who merely flagged up Wernher von Braun's claim

Happy with that?

No, because it's not valid as Sibrel represented it, and therefore not valid as you presented it.

Sibrel misrepresented this estimate - for an entirely different mission profile than what was actually used - as being applicable to what was actually done for Apollo (orbital rendezvous in both Earth and lunar orbit).

Sibrel's claim that the Saturn V used for the actual Apollo missions had to be XXX times bigger than it actually was is therefore false. And this was explained to you, in detail, by people who understand rocketry and looked at the record.

Do you concede that this "266 times" claim does not apply to Apollo as it was actually flown? And, therefore, it does not apply as "evidence" against Apollo?

If not, why not, exactly? Please don't simply reply "But von Braun said it!", because he was talking about something quite different.

[JayUtah]

This was Wernher von Braun's claim, not Bart Sibrel's who merely flagged up Wernher von Braun's claim

No, he did not "merely" do that. Sibrel lifted von Braun's estimate from its original context -- which he ignored -- and tried to place it in a completely different context, which was inappropriate. Misrepresentation is still dishonest.

Happy with that?

No. It's been explained exactly why Sibrel's misrepresentation of von Braun's claim is dishonest, or at best highly ignorant. Do you have answer for that?

[sts60]

BTW, margamatix, I can sympathize with you insofar as five replies just landed like counterbattery fire on your last post. But it's not our fault you're the only one on this board who is actively prosecuting an Apollo hoax claim! (turbonium isn't doing much in this section lately.)

(added) What I can't sympathize with is your reluctance to acknowledge refutation of your claims when all the evidence and work is done for you. I'm interested to see what you'll do with this one.

[rocketdad]

If your'e the only girl at the barndance, you don't have to be pretty.

[echnaton]

sts60 said:

So I'm staying out of the "Radio signals" thread per peterb's request. But, hey, this is a different thread.

I'll stay out of that thread but want to comment on this bit of nonsense as well.

Would you not accept that it would be quite easy to create artificial signal delay if, say, the astronauts were in low Earth orbit?

Another great hole in the low earth orbit theory is that there was no tracking system that covered the whole of the Apollo earth orbit, eliminating the possibility that they could have given a continuous signals to earth. Any more legs you want to pull?

[PhantomWolf]

I'm a bit reluctant to reply here since poor margamatix has apparently attracted fire a little like a German U-Boat surfacing in the middle of the British Armada, however I did want to clarify something that wasn't really pointed out.

The mission von Braun discribed in his 1953 book, Conquest of the Moon, is under the idea that, like the V-2, the entire rocket would have to travel from the Earth to the Moon and back to land on Earth again. This rocket would require enough fuel to lift off, perform a TLI burn, brake into a lunar orbit, de-orbit and land, lift off from the moon, perform a TEI burn, perform a braking burn to re-enter Earth Orbit, then de-orbit and land on Earth. This would require a very massive rocket indeed. It has to perform a total of at least 8 major burns (including an Earth Landing that would use at least an equivalent amount of fuel usage to the Saturn V launch, if not more) and thus would require a huge amount of fuel.

Consider it this way. I want to drive a car from Los Angeles to New York, and I don't want to have to fill up on the way. What size of fuel tank do I have to have? In all likely I'd end up needed to drive a 28 wheeler truck and double tanker trailer unit that had its fuel tank attacthed to the tanker on its back and trailers.

Of course I could do it another way too. I could use a 18 wheeler truck and on the back put a second smaller flatbed truck. On that I could put a van and in the back of the van I could put a motorbike. This way, when the 18 wheeler truck runs out of gas, I then drive the smaller one. Then when that one runs out, I drive the van and then finally the motor bike.

This is the difference between the Saturn V to the moon and the Nova to the moon. The Nova was designed to do the entire flight, the Saturn V was designed to have the initial large rockets do the hard graft to get the payload some of the way, then it'd drop that rocket and have another rocket take the now lighter payload a bit further and so on.

The Saturn V's first stage, the Saturn IC, lifted the rocket part of the way up out of the atmosphere, then it was discarded and the second stage, the Saturn II, took over lifting it into orbit. Once in orbit the Saturn II stage was dropped and a third stage, the Saturn IVB was used to do the TLI burn. Once in orbit about the Moon there was only the CSM and the LM left, the rest of it had been thrown away. The LM's descent module did all the work to land, and then because it was no longer any use, it was left behind with the ascent module doing the work to get the lighter upper part of the LM back into lunar orbit. Once the crew were transfered back to the CSM, the LM ascent module was tossed away as well and the SMS had only the weight of CSM to return to Earth. With the CM separating from the SM and re-entering without any braking to orbit and no rocket based landing also cuts down the required burns and hence also a major amount of fuel weight that all the previous burns would have had to deal with as well. (Imagine how much extra fuel you would require to just initally launch a mass equal to an entire fuel load of a Saturn V so you would have enough fuel just to land back on Earth!!!!)

Because of this, single stage rockets are hugely ineffiecent, and the method of 'staging' the rockets and tasks meant simply that a much smaller rocket could be used overall to do the same job as one very big rocket would have to as a single stage. Remember also that staged rockets really didn't really become popular until after 1953. prior to that the single staged V2 system was still the common system. After 1954 however, von Braun was not only very familiar with staged rockets, he was exculsively building them and so he found a better way than he had predicted based on only his V2 knowledge.

[margamatix]

OK, now to deal with the second point.

sts60 said:

1. Sibrel's 5:1 superiority claim, which has been thoroughly debunked in this very thread. Does he still believe Sibrel's claim? What does he think the facts, which were not hard to dig out, say about Mr. Sibrel's competence and/or integrity?

Where have I made any mention of a Russian superiority claim of 5-1 or any other ratio, or any mention of Bart Sibrel's claim of any such ratio?


And when you have found this, where have I made any statement to the effect that I either believe or disbelieve it?

[PhantomWolf]

Where have I made any mention of a Russian superiority claim of 5-1 or any other ratio, or any mention of Bart Sibrel's claim of any such ratio?

You weren't asked if you made the claim, or even if you agreed with it, you were asked if with the numbers showing him so so wrong, whether you still believe him, and what it did to your beliefs of his competence and/or integrity.

Totally different question.

Also, given your avoidance of responding to the responses to your first point, does that mean you conceed the point?

[margamatix]

phantomwolf said:

You weren't asked if you made the claim, or even if you agreed with it, you were asked if with the numbers showing him so so wrong, whether you still believe him

How can you ask me if I still believe it when I never said if I believed it in the first place?