It's 50 years to the day since Apollo 10 blasted off: America's lunar landing 'dress rehearsal'

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 10, the mission that would do pretty much everything except land on the Moon. Flushed with success following Apollo 9's shakedown of the Lunar Module in Earth orbit (despite a poorly astronaut for much of the trip), NASA pressed ahead with the first mission to send the complete Apollo …

[ralphh]

It's amazing what we did

“In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.” - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/events.html

[Pascal Monett]

Those were the days

Heady times indeed. But the risks were enormous. Had it not been for a truly impressive collection of very intelligent and dedicated people, many more people would have died than the unfortunate count we already have.

Do we have the technology to go back ? I'm confident we're getting there. Do we have the intelligence and dedication to do so safely ? One can only hope.

In any case, I think it is a good thing that private companies are flexing their muscles in that arena. NASA has demonstrated that the beancounters at the top are not to be trusted with life-or-death decisions, so a private company that puts its reputation on the line is a much better guarantee of safety.

[JimC]

Re: beancounters at the top

You think the beancounters at the top of private companies are any better? Not my experience!

[Martin Gregorie]

Re: beancounters at the top

There don't seem to be many beancounters in charge of Space-X, Blue Origin, Scaled Composites or Rocket Labs - the companies making leading the charge into space.

OTOH 21st century NASA, Boeing and the ULA seem to be top-heavy with people who are more interested in pay and politics than in getting the job done on time and without killing people. This becomes obvious when you look at their safety culture and inability to meet published schedules.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: beancounters at the top

> There don't seem to be many beancounters in charge of Space-X, Blue Origin, Scaled Composites or Rocket Labs - the companies making leading the charge into space.

Not yet. But as soon as travel to orbit / the moon becomes commonplace then the salami slicers will be let loose. The more of these space exploration companies that succeed, the more pressure there will be among them to cut costs and increase the number of launches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: beancounters at the top

No the heads of SpaceX Blue Origin are rich men with huge egos who are treating going to the Moon as a feather in their cap. They aren't looking at going to the Moon as a business, and indeed it is questionable if there is a viable business case to be had for being on the Moon (let alone Mars)

Now being in orbit with its microgravity certainly offers some real business opportunities, but you don't see Musk or Bezos bragging about how they're going to build a big modular space station. Because there already is (a small) one, so they don't get an ego boost out of it. If NASA or the Chinese had gone to the Moon recently, I doubt you'd see either talking about going because they would consider it too pedestrian.

[ecofeco]

Re: beancounters at the top

"They aren't looking at going to the Moon as a business,"

Have I got a bridge for you!

[Muscleguy]

Re: beancounters at the top

Musk seems to be letting the engineers go for it. For eg letting them try the recovery landing of the rockets and boosters/tanks. The coordinated triple landing when they launched starman in the Tesla was deeply impressive tech and reduces the cost of launches to boot.

I long assumed tail down rocket landings were the stuff of old SciFi films (Forbidden Planet) but Musk and his engineers and data geeks have made it look routine. Provided the robots work properly.

Landing a rocket fins first with live people on board will be the next feat when they launch a supersonic rocket passenger service instead of long-haul.

[Rich 11]

Re: beancounters at the top

I long assumed tail down rocket landings were the stuff of old SciFi films (Forbidden Planet)

Forbidden Planet had a flying saucer, not a rocket ship.

[bombastic bob]

Re: beancounters at the top

"if there is a viable business case to be had for being on the Moon"

1. space tourism

2. jumping-off spot for other places [we'll need moon bases for that] "Flight 404 leaving for Saturn at gate 12"

3. astronomy [telescopes, etc.] especially on the non-earth side

4. low gravity therapy (for people who can afford it)

5. "it's a frontier" (mining being one good possibility)

And so on. If I could, I'd go there. I'd probably want to set up a mining operation. The first people there will be able to get to the surface stuff, major lodes, and whatnot.

Also, it would be easier to allow people to mull around at 1/6 gravity, rather than zero gravity, between flights. Less vomiting, for one thing. And you could have large tanks of fuel and whatnot standing by for fueling up space ships, and they wouldn't need atmospheric accomodations, nor enough fuel to break away from the earth [just enough fuel to leave the moon's gravity, a LOT less].

I would also expect that shuttles to the moon would be more practical if you could fill them up with people for multiple destinations, like taking a short hop to a major hub (say LAX) for international flights.

[ecofeco]

Re: beancounters at the top

NASA still has the best people. It's lack of funding that is killing them.

Do NOT blame NASA for the failings of Congress.

[Pascal Monett]

Challenger was not a failure of Congress

[a_yank_lurker]

Yes and no, Shuttle's design was limited by Congressional funding of the project in the 70's and an unwillingness to spend money on a new series of orbiters about 20 or so years ago. The Shuttle was a very prototype vehicle class but they had some serious design issues caused by the original funding. After about 20 years of active service they should all have replaced with a new design based on the lessons learned from operating the originals. But Congress was unwilling to do so. The leadership of NASA was unwilling to fight Congress so the Shuttle was kept in service well beyond what any prototype should have been. Shuttle did prove reusable vehicles are viable but the thermal protection scheme could take another look for robustness.

[MrReal]

"Shuttle's design was limited by Congressional funding of the project in the 70's"

Hardly no. NASA claimed all the SaturnV rocket motors worked perfectly, there was simply NO NEED at all to suddenly dump them all and redesign the whole thing with the more risky solid fuel units.

Today the best rocket motor in the world is an evolution of the NK-33 that was ready by 1969 in the USSR. In the USA however the best the west could manage - the F-1 was immediately dumped.

So either NASA was lying about the Saturn V or it was stupid: none of those factors involve any funding at all.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

ISTR it was made a condition of shuttle funding that the Saturn V blueprints were destroyed, to ensure NASA were unable to go back in future to ask for them to do something else. Yes, a decision made by politicos based purely on funding.

Similarly the shuttle's principle design flaws were brought about by congressional funding decisions. The original design was intended to be launched from an aeroplane instead of the tank and booster stack but this was stopped when Congress saw an alternative concept with lower R&D costs even at the price of much higher per launch costs. This was a decision motivated by funding which directly led to both shuttle accidents.

Similarly the other weak link - the heat shield. Congress thought they could get away with a single design for both heavy lift and manned launches. This made the shuttle far bigger and heavier than it would have been and by necessity makes reentry a far longer process. A heatshield that has to survive 10-15 minutes reentry as is the case for the shuttle is far more challenging than one lasting 2-3 minutes as was true for Apollo. This led to a complex and fragile design which in turn led to the Columbia accident. Again, a poor decision motivated by funding rather than engineering.

[MrReal]

It's interesting about the blueprints of the Saturn V.

Lets recall what the Saturn V actually WAS: A collection of bought in rocket motors on tanks. Not a technology that has ever been lost is it? But what about the rocket motors themselves like the F-1 or J-2? Well, the designs belong to Rocketdyne, not NASA, plus there are better ones available today (and back then).

Also the blueprints are around it seems, perhaps NASA should try using the new device known as the 'internet' to look for them?

https://yandex.com/images/search?text=Saturn%20V%20blueprints%20were%20destroyed&stype=image&lr=10391&source=wiz

So it appears the 'blueprints destroyed' myth is irrelevant at best.

[putaro]

That's a very incorrect characterization of the Saturn V. The "tanks" as you call them were difficult engineering. The second stage had some whacky stuff with the common bulkhead between the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen sections. Flight control surfaces, flight control computing, etc. were all quite necessary. It wasn't a model rocket!

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Also the blueprints are around it seems, perhaps NASA should try using the new device known as the 'internet' to look for them?

Why don't you cite them then? True plans and designs contain all the details you need to manufacture the item: all you have linked to are merely general arrangement drawings. I can get those for e.g. a B2 stealth bomber, the fact it is full of military secrets (just like Saturn V) is irrelevant since summary information of that kind is of such limited utility. If you can't understand the difference I dispute if you have room to pronounce on the issue.

[cray74]

Challenger was not a failure of Congress

The root cause goes back to Congress on several levels. For example, during the 1970s four bids were submitted on the shuttle booster, with Morton-Thiokol's bid winning. NASA ranked Utah-based Morton-Thiokol's fatal booster design as fourth out of the four bids on technical merits and cost. Other designs, like Aerojet's monolithic boosters, entirely avoided risks present in the Thiokol booster.

However, Senator Frank Moss (Utah) was Chairman of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, and controlled NASA's purse strings. Morton-Thiokol won the bid.

[werdsmith]

Some of the politics that required the work to be shared around the nation thus requiring bits to be small enough to transport and brought together for assembly.

I’ve read right here on the register that the shuttle was required to be capable of a number of different roles and was designed to accommodate them, but didn’t do them all very well so some of those roles were never used. But the compromises from those requirements still affected the roles it was used for.

[bombastic bob]

Re: beancounters at the top

"Do NOT blame NASA for the failings of Congress."

I DO blame NASA, in some respects, for spending too much time going after politically-correct "science" projects... which isn't happening right now, thankfully. Politics drives them, it seems. I blame them for going along with it TOO WILLINGLY.

However, what Con-GRAB wants to do may be a whole lot WORSE. They'll spend money on agendas and political favors in the form of gummint contracts and NASA projects, like they have done somewhat recently.

Think of it this way: Con-GRAB will spend the people's money to BUY VOTES. It's "the establishment" that is behind it, regardless of which political party. It's ugly, dirty, corrupt, and evil. Knowing that, I vote for the lesser of evils whenever I have a choice.

I have something I put into a demotivational once. With a picture of the nearly complete space station from the movie "2001 a Space Odyssey", the caption reads"The Great Society" "If it hadn't been for LBJ and those whiny socialist liberals, we'd be colonizing Mars by now".

it's what happens when you divert money from BUYING ROCKETS (which boost the economy, cause technology to improve faster, and have far reaching economic benefits, as a Keynesian economist would LOVE this part), as compared to BUYING PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WORK by giving them "subsistence" for sitting on their ASSES [and taking drugs, and breeding, and protesting against America, and so on]. Yeah it's the truth, deal with it. So you get what you're PAYING FOR, ok? Gummint paying for ROCKETS gets rockets, heroes, great accomplishments worthy of news headlines and the people's adoration, and a better world and better economy and jobs and so on. Paying for WELFARE gets you WELFARE RECIPIENTS, lifelong dependents on handouts who DEMAND MORE, and vote for those who GIVE it to them.

[MrReal]

Re: beancounters at the top

NASA under James Hansen spent a lot of time and money pushing Global Warming, Hansen was always busy making the past colder and scaremongering. For a SPACE organisation it was all rather sad.

It's now 6 years since the 2013 date when the arctic was supposed to be completely melted and in that time NASA has still failed to produce any useful or visible hardware for any trip into space.

[Mooseman]

Re: beancounters at the top

Ok I see the global warming deniers are out in force again. tell you what, you keep putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la, that's bound to work. But when your coastal cities are flooding don't come crying.

[Mooseman]

Re: beancounters at the top

" politically-correct "science" projects"

What on earth (pun intended) are you talking about? I see you are still using every opportunity to spout your right wing nonsensical views about society. I mean seriously? You chose to rant about paying welfare on a piece about NASA funding?

['s water music]

Re: beancounters at the top

@Bob. You ok hun?

[bombastic bob]

Re: beancounters at the top

"21st century NASA, Boeing and the ULA seem to be top-heavy with people who are more interested in pay and politics than in getting the job done on time and without killing people"

Quite possible. Yet, look at Boeing's reputation taking a BIG hit over what they did with the newer 737's, and the resulting crashes, and what they're gonna have to do to fix it before the planes go in the air [are they STILL grounded? I haven't heard much].

If the FAA does its job correctly they should also manage space-related flight. And if it's UNSAFE, it gets GROUNDED, and the company responsible must fix it at no charge. That is actually good motivation to get safety and human life to the top of the priority list...

(and the same goes for space-liners around the world - no more 737 MAX fiascos)

Worthy of reminder when there's a crash anywhere in the world the FAA is going to want to analyze it to prevent it from happening again, and since many of those planes are built in the USA, they'll stick their noses in whenever they wanna, for good reason. It's one of the things gummint does _RIGHT_.

Anyway those bean counters that actually think bottom line comes before safety oughta fear losing their jobs the next time something like the 737MAX fiasco happens.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Those were the days

"a private company that puts its reputation on the line is a much better guarantee of safety."

I think so as well, at least in the CURRENT environment. [at least one lost space shuttle may have been due to environmental 'concerns', changing the glue that held the insulation on the fuel tank to a more 'environmentally friendly' one, which allowed it to break loose and damage the shuttle's wing, etc., because as we all know, "the environment" is more important than safety and human life... to THEM, anyway - it's their "god". But I digress...)

'Back in the day' the U.S. gummint was more interested in getting technological superiority over their 'behind the iron curtain' equivalents in the USSR, for several reasons, not the least of which WW2 was an ACTUAL MEMORY and nobody wanted to repeat it with the Soviet Union on the other side. And Kruschev was threatening everyone, banging his shoe, etc..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev

If the threat was not real, he made it SOUND real, for whatever reason.

So NASA was highly motivated to succeed. And JFK was as well. Presidents back then (both D and R) were ANTI-communists, and had memories of WW2, and so on. And so did the people, and the people love heros and want the world to be a safe place, and space became IMPORTANT, and so the motivation to succeed, and take the risks to get there [and pay for it].

I wish it were still that way, because I'd rather buy rockets and fire them into space than give money away for nothing. But I digress...

But now, private industries compete against one another the way the USA and USSR competed against one another. So the motivation is there to "beat Boeing" or "beat SpaceX" etc. and Amazon is in the mix now, and Virgin Air is in there someplace...

So yeah, company reputation and safety records and getting there first. THAT is the motivation!

Profit is good. (Ferengi rules of acquisition, heh). But without profit, there would be no investors, and therefore no 'bucks', and therefore, no "Buck Rogers". You can't be a wasteful black hole of expenses into which money is thrown, if you are a private industry. Take THAT anti-capitalists!

[imanidiot]

Re: Those were the days

Foam shedding from the STS External Tanks has been a problem for the lifetime of the shuttle. In how much the change in glue contributed to the problem is very much undetermined. Foam shedding was certainly NOT a RESULT of the change. It happened before that too.

(See the comprehensive descriptions in the Columbia accident investigation board report (Chapter 6, starting page 121) for all the different issues encountered before the loss of Columbia and the NASA culture with regards to foam shedding.)

[Mooseman]

Re: Those were the days

"NASA has demonstrated that the beancounters at the top are not to be trusted"

Bear in mind that NASA answers directly to the US government for all its funding and expenditure, so cost cutting is expected of it. The shuttle is a classic example - the original design was smaller and more expensive, budget demands made it cheaper (no escape hatch for example) and larger so it could carry more commercial payloads.

It's also worth remembering that private companies are answerable to their shareholders, and excessive costs won't get much joy there either.

[werdsmith]

Re: Those were the days

You won’t get much joy but you will get SpaceX and Blue Origin achieving more in less time for less money.

[TheProf]

The 60's

It was great growing up in the 60s. Space news on the TV all day long.

Well that's how I like to remember it.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: The 60's

Yep plus Tomorrows World, the sky at night and then the live broadcast of the Apollo 11 landing.

I rush home 50 years ago today after my CSE Maths exam to check on the launch. My final day at school was the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon (conspiracy theories notwithstanding)...

Them were the days all right. People were not afraid to make decisions. MBA's didn't exist (oh, bliss) and people were really more concerned with getting the job done and not covering their asses.

[Sean o' bhaile na gleann]

Re: The 60's

I wasn't allowed to see the live broadcast of the Apollo 11 landing & Armstrong's 'first step'.

As I remember, it took place in the early hours of the morning for us in the UK.

I was on a school trip with other class mates - a week clambering over the Yorkshire Dales - organised by the school's geography department.

The geography teacher in charge of the trip wasn't interested in 'all that science fiction stuff', so nobody was allowed to stay up to watch it on TV.

I've never actually got around to forgiving that teacher...

[MrReal]

Re: The 60's

Don't blame your teacher. The actual 'giant leap (of faith) for mankind' was performed by an actor at MGM Borehamwood, in what now appears to be a housing zone, but back then was Stanley Kubrick's Lunar sets for his 2001 film.

Rather kindly NASA repaid the favour to Kubrick by lending him some rather special lenses for his next film, unavailable to any other film maker, or country.

All you missed was the grainy black and white TV image of a monitor in Houston, from video taped on telemetry grade tapes that NASA has since destroyed: which tells you exactly how real they were.

[Mooseman]

Re: The 60's

"Don't blame your teacher. The actual 'giant leap (of faith) for mankind' was performed by an actor at MGM Borehamwood, in what now appears to be a housing zone, but back then was Stanley Kubrick's Lunar sets for his 2001 film."

Oh! I have bingo! global warming denial AND moon landing hoax! Let me guess, you're a flat earther too?

[MrReal]

Re: The 60's

Why would you think the earth was flat?

How would this have bearing on the discussion?

What makes you think I deny that the climate changes?

Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The 60's

@MrReal

Possibly because you seem to subscribe to the irrational belief that the moon landings were a hoax, coupled with the irrational belief that anthropogenic warming doesn't exist, Mooseman was suggesting you might like to go for the triple, and subscribe to the irrational belief that the earth was flat.

As you well know.

[werdsmith]

Re: The 60's

I think he’s having a bit of onanist style fun winding you up AC.

[MrReal]

Re: The 60's

When pushing for the narrative there is no need for you to post anonymously.

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: The 60's

Totally wrong. Kubrick would've insisted on filming ON LOCATION!

Like many others, you're conflating the moon landings with the movie "Capricorn One".

[werdsmith]

Re: The 60's

I've never actually got around to forgiving that teacher..

I was too late for xi but I have a memory as a tot of being deliberately kept awake by my dad to look at the tv images from one of the later Apollo missions. He said I should witness it and I can recall the feeling of not really understanding what I was being asked to see, but trying my best. What foresight, he wasn’t to know there would be decades pass before people would start to think about doing it again.

It astounds me today to think that a 100 tonne payload to orbit vehicle was developed and operated with such in 1969. USA mobilised itself as a nation from Kennedy onwards, focussing on STEM in schools and is still seeing the benefits of this today. That’s what you get when you tell the strangling bean counters to fuck right off because the smart people are running the show.

[Rich 11]

Re: The 60's

Well that's how I like to remember it.

To borrow an old joke, if you can remember the 60s you weren't there.

[Chris G]

Grit

The technology was impressive for its day but the grit shown by the astronauts was exceptional, like the test pilots from fifty years earlier.

[David Harper 1]

Re: Grit

Many of the astronauts *were* test pilots, as anyone who has watched the film "The Right Stuff" will know.

[Chris G]

Re: Grit

Never seen the film, not even sure I have heard of it.

I did know however that one or two 'nauts had been test pilots.

[Martin Gregorie]

Re: Grit

@Chris G

I saw the film when it came out and was immensely disapointed with it.

I remember a scene where Chuck Yeager rode a horse round the Bell X-1 while it, not tied down, stood on the desert completely alone and unattended with about three feet of flame coming out its backside: the horse just stood there and calmly watched it - *thats* certainly a realistic scene. Not.

Instead, you'd be much better served by reading the book, which is excellent.

There's a set of three books that, read in sequence give a really good, warts and all description of the US space effort from Yeager through Mercury and Gemini to the Apollo moon landings. In order, they are:

- "The Right Stuff" Tom Woolf (up to the end of Mercury)

- "Carrying the Fire" Mike Collins (Gemini and Apollo up to Apollo 11)

- "Moonwalker" Charlie and Dotty Duke (Apollo 16 by a moon walker)

And, as an add-on, there's "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane, a Shuttle mission speciallist who flew three missions on them and isn't shy about dealing with their dangers and design shortcomings.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

"with about three feet of flame coming out its backside: the horse just stood there and calmly watched it"

Still more realistic than watching the LRV race around with the driver fixed in a rigid, unmoving pose, failing to acknowledge or wave at the camera and executing turns with full grip in what was supposed to be a 1/6g dusty ice rink for a vehicle.

[imanidiot]

Re: Grit

Since you seem dead set on being "right" about humans having never gone to the moon I'll only comment that you don't seem to understand the way the LRV and the Apollo Lunar suits work, nor how gravity affects vehicle dynamics. The operational mass of the LRV was roughly 700 kgs, with about 1 HP total drive power. It mostly just LOOKS sporty. But with a top speed of 8 miles an hour, it wasn't all that blazingly fast.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

It's not about opinion, it's about using The Scientific Method to evaluate the evidence, rather then accept it all at face value from an American Defence 'Space' Department. An organisaton who have failed to even CLAIM to get a man above LEO for 50 years despite chewing through billions of dollars.

NASA have made outlandish claims that both they and everyone else are unable to reproduce, hav destroyed much of the evidence and the only evidence they have left are stories, dodgy photos and unlikely videos.

The LRV goes quite fast when you look at the videos of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bLH11-DbqM

That's your 700kg mass with 117kg of downforce in loose dust, yet skidding is minimal in a straight line and non existent in turns. 1/6 grip is like driving in ice and snow, yet no astronaut appears to have even commented on it.

You also fail to appreciate the 'gravity' of bolting a mass of 450kg to the outside of the LM, a craft that relies of a precise balance due to the single central motor. It would make it un-flyable as it would tip the LM toward the weight and the offset mass would confuse both computer and pilot.

Additionally: WHY did NASA give it a deployment winch system for 1g when it only weighed 210kg / 6 / 2 = 17.5kg per astronaut to lift ? Each LRV trip they wasted over 20 minutes messing about with the winch - why??

Deployment in 1g on earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEjEEfnBj8

Deployment in 1/6g ?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ShauSWcTC4

Such a great use of time ..

[imanidiot]

Re: Grit

STOP BEING STUPID. That's all I can say.

Lunar rigolith is VERY sharp and "grippy". When moving at a max of 8 miles an hour, with the mesh wheels of the lunar rover it provides PLENTY of grip with 117 kgs of normal force operating on the wheels. That's NOT like driving on ice because the lunar surface is nothing like ice. Driving a light vehicle on an ice rink is also very different from driving that same vehicle on the beach. Where do you think it'll get more grip?

The LRV mass was compensated on the other side of the LM descent stage with mass in the form of scientific experiments to bring the CG back within the safe range. It's not hard.

And why a winch? Simples, spacesuits (and it's gloves) are bulky, dexterity is limited and folding out the rover from the very small packing space was tricky. Doing it by controlling the decent with a winch allowed much easier working conditions and kept the astronauts hands free to do things like locking the wheels in place once they fold out. And they only did that 20 minutes ONCE per Apollo mission on the first day (usually) during a multiple hour long surface excursion. The 20 minutes was more than offset by having an operational rover. Doing this process by hand without the winch, while wearing an apollo lunar suit was simply more complicated and more strenuous than losing some time.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

You keep spelling 'disagreeing with you' as 'stupid'. Stop projecting.

So you are saying the dust was very sharp and grippy, unless on the top of any rocks in which case it had a sudden existence failure. Ok.

Grip isn't of much use in the dust because the dust slides, your claim of super grippy dust is debunked by the clouds of dust thrown up by the wheels as they drive around - so NASA shows us it's just - er - dust.

Additionally the composition of lunar dust is only verifiable from NASA so it's unreliable data in this case. Their feet sink deep into it, it's clearly not a stable or strong surface.

I have found no mention of any weight counterbalance for the LRV in any NASA literature, I think you are guessing here and simply making stuff up.

Your claim that the 1g rated winch 'helps the astronauts' is directly contradicted by NASA's own video footage that shows them getting thoroughly confused and frustrated by it for 20+ minutes. I have no idea why you keep basing your answers in a way that contradicts the evidence from NASA. I thought my role here was to be pointing out the flaws in NASA's evidence, yet here I am debunking your imaginative 'solutions' using NASA's own material. Why is this?

All they needed was two handles, to pick it off the LM, walk away from the LM with it and dump it on the floor. 5 seconds tops. Then they can unfold the wheels with ease. For either one to lift up a part of it is a merely 17.5kg - you do realise that's pretty easy - right?

[imanidiot]

Re: Grit

If you are using stupid arguments to try to convince me humans never went to the moon, and stubbornly stay willfully ignorant you're stupid. End of.

Lunar dus is sharp and grips together under compression. (Similar to "fresh" sand on earth compared to the worn and rounded stuff from the sahara for instance) This can be easily observed in the astronaut footprints. They sink in a bit due to compressing the material and when the foot is removed it stays in that shape without flowing back (like sahara sand would). Just because dust is sharp and grippy when compresses under the wheels doesn't mean it can't also get thrown up by the wire mesh wheels.

I never said it suddenly isn't sharp and grippy when on top of rocks. Those are your words.

Just because you can't find any mention of weight redistribution for the addition of the LRV doesn't mean it didn't happen.

They had problems on ONE mission with deploying the LRV from the LM. Subsequent missions made improvements and few problems were encountered otherwise.

You seem to underestimate just how limited mobility and dexterity in a spacesuit is. It's NOT easy to just lift something the size of the folded LRV from the stowed height on the LM or unfold it on the ground when something as simple as kneeling takes a lot of effort. The documents on the development of the LRV are available. The reasoning for why they chose the deployment method they did are all in there.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

I don't aim to 'convert' you, your beliefs are way stronger than any facts or logic: that is always the way - so how could you be any different?

I merely mentioned that the Apollo 10 was a fictional mission and everyone steamed in and attacked me, not the other way around. Of course I'll then respond - how could it be any other way?

As for your continued insistence that I'm stupid and 'don't understand' I have no idea why you persist with the ad hominem attacks, I don't know you, so why would I care what you think or say any more than I'd care about a goldfish giving me a hard stare?

As for your strange insistence that the 1g pulley system makes it easier may I draw your attention to NASA's video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ShauSWcTC4

You'll note at the start the LRV is at waist height, a perfect height for carrying the 17.5kg each off the LM and away from the craft. Look at the guys standing next to it, all they need to do is lift it off, instead we get a pantomime with bits of pointless string as some NASA team designed it to lower 210kg rather than the 35kg it weighs on the moon.

You say they improve it but they don't. The improvement is two handles for the astronauts to lift it out with. Instead we are treated to watching astronauts wasting their time and US taxpayer money that could be spent bombing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia on playing with bits of string.

BTW there's still no reference in any NASA literature to balancing the LRV's mass within the LM, to balance that much must have been a significant move by Grumman to do that.

One has to conclude that the entire LRV story works much better in a 1g environment where the LM lands with the help of a large crane. In this setting the winch makes perfect sense, as does the imbalance. Also what works is the carefree frolicks of the astronauts on the surface, the reliability, the orange stains on the film plate and the way a rush build american vehicle of such complexity just always worked like a new Toyota.

My final puzzle for you this post is simple: Why did NASA learn NOTHING about how to travel to the moon by travelling to the moon?

[imanidiot]

Re: Grit

The redesign to take into account the weight of the LRV was part of a much larger redesign package (called the J-class LM) to allow 3 day stays on the lunar surface. They packed among other things extra PLSS modules, on the descent stage, on the opposite side from the LRV stowage location. I wonder why... If you actually want to know more, I suggest you start looking into what changed on the J-class (Apollo 15 to 17) from the earlier H-class (Apollo 12 to 14).

I'm also not saying the pulley system was in any way perfect, but you seem to be insisting that a less than perfect solution to a problem is better than not having it at all and you even seem to be saying that this MUST be proof we never went to the moon, which is ludicrous.

"I don't aim to 'convert' you, your beliefs are way stronger than any facts or logic"

You have yet to provide me with facts or logic.

I stand by my user name, I'm an idiot in many things. Even on the Apollo missions I have barely scratched the surface. Yet I've not seen a single piece of fact or logic from you that cannot be refuted as false or incorrect from the data available from multiple sources.

If this was actually, really, undoubtedly all a hoax, they must still have built the rockets right? And the command module, and the Lunar module, and all the parts for it? Because building, testing designing and launching them involved thousands upon thousands of people (yet none of them suspected it was all a hoax and came forward) and the launches were seen by the public. That means that they built and tested all the hardware on the ground. They built expensive hardware like the LLRV and LLTVs, simulators for the LM and CM, the actual CM and LM with their life support systems, the spacesuits, the rockets, the recovery equipment. They had to actually launch the capsules with the astronauts in it since they were fished out of the ocean by a full carrier taskforce and nothing on this earth is going to stop scuttlebut in the naval fleet.

And your argument, with all the equipment built, the rockets with the astronauts launched, the ships deployed to recover them on landing, the hundreds of ground personnel worldwide manning ground and radio stations and the literally thousands of hours of voice comms on radio, thousands of photographs and umpteen hours of film, is that is was all faked on a soundstage...

Even with the technology of today that would actually be more expensive and more difficult than just going to the bloody moon.

[Mooseman]

Re: Grit

"Even with the technology of today that would actually be more expensive and more difficult than just going to the bloody moon."

Quite. and I always love this version of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M50Fd3gXvM

[Mark Dempster]

Re: Grit

>Additionally the composition of lunar dust is only verifiable from NASA so it's unreliable data in this case. Their feet sink deep into it, it's clearly not a stable or strong surface.<

Actually the USSR returned samples from the moon using robots, although far less than NASA managed. So that's easily verified.

Further, just because the astronaut's feet sank into the top layer of dust on the surface doesn't mean that there wasn't more compressed/solid material immediately below it - they didn't sink up to their waists, did they? And that would explain why the LRV kicked up plumes of dust from the top layer, while finding sufficient grip below it.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

The jury is still out on what Russia did, it's possible but not certain their Lunikhod machines worked. Interestingly looking at the few images sent back the contrast is very high.

Re the LRV you cannot have it both ways, if the wheels grip then they will only throw up a very small amount or no dust, it is the wheels spinning faster than the ground is moving that causes the dust clouds.

Think about it - if there is no skid/slip, there is nothing really to throw anything up.

The action is the LRV is consistent with it being driven through sand with a lightweight dummy on earth being filmed at double speed.

Look carefully at the motion, on the moon TIME is not slower, just GRAVITY.

You also need to remember the timescales: 1969 from walking on the moon to 1971 when they were playing golf and driving buggies around. Now think how much NASA has got done since then in the last 50 years. If Apollo was real, why is NASA acting as if it was a ridiculous lie and fake?

[Patrician]

Re: Grit

"it's about using The Scientific Method to evaluate the evidence"

Had you done the above you'd have come to a conclusion that is directly opposed to the one that you have come to.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

No, not really.

[AIBailey]

Re: Grit

Is the mass of the LRV 700Kg, 450Kg or 210Kg?

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

It's 210kg or just over 450 lbs.

There is a typo is one of my posts at 450kg.

Max load was 700kg.

[werdsmith]

Re: Grit

Yes,I’m still waiting to see some scientific method in this discussion.

The Soviets tracked all American activity. Had the missions been faked then you can be sure they would have presented the evidence. And with all the people involved, somebody would have blown the whistle by now.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

You ask for science and then present wild supposition, nice one!

Maybe you should present some scientific proof of Apollo, because no one has presented any in this thread.

[Mooseman]

Re: Grit

"you should present some scientific proof of Apollo, because no one has presented any in this thread."

Nope. You're the one claiming its all faked while not actually providing any evidence. You make the claim, you back it up. Faffing about with lifting stuff in and out of the LM doesn't address the basic issues. Have you seen 1960's state of the art special effects? they are about as convincing as Ray harryhausen's skeletons, yet you insist the whole Apollo mission was faked up on a sound stage somewhere, despite the countless debunkings of that. Weird. You probably think 911 was an iside job too.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

"Nope. You're the one claiming its all faked "

Ah I see, you not only want me to prove a negative, but when I do provide proof of fake photographs you not only ignore it but later on claim that I never produced any evidence.

What species of goldfish are you?

So here again I'll repeat one proof of faked photos, here it is:

https://yandex.com/images/search?text=shadow%20rock%20apollo%2016

Notice the rock. Buried in the dust, so the dust we see must have arrived later. But the top of the rock has been washed clean. The only weather systems that can do that are here on earth. Therefore the rock is also on earth. Therefore so is the photo.

Got it?

[STOP_FORTH]

Technical point on SI system

A kilogram is still a kilogram whether it is on earth, the moon or free falling. It is a unit of mass not a unit of weight. You are perhaps confusing kilograms with newtons?

I will grant you that things weigh about a sixth as much on the moon as here on earth, but they still contain the same number of atoms.

Stick to pounds and ounces, everyone else has moved on.

[_LC_]

Re: Technical point on SI system

https://www.universetoday.com/20338/weight-on-the-moon/

"Your weight on the Moon is 16.5% what you would experience on Earth. In other words, if you weighed 100 kg on Earth, you would weigh a mere 16.5 kg on the Moon."

Come on, fetch the stick. Bite chubby, bite!

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: Technical point on SI system

Wow, yankee website doesn't understand metric system.

[MrReal]

Re: Technical point on SI system

"A kilogram is still a kilogram whether it is on earth, the moon or free falling. It is a unit of mass not a unit of weight."

I suggest you tell your local Grocer when you next stop by for a few Newton's of potatoes.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: Technical point on SI system

Good use of greengrocer's apostrophe.

[MrReal]

Re: Technical point on SI system

Of course, it is mandatory :D

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: Technical point on SI system

I'll tell him to use a steelyard, then he can pretend he's weighing my spuds, but I'll know he's really measuring their mass.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Grit

I am far from a moon-landing denier - the evidence is there in so many ways - but I can see why some people doubt it. It is little things like how the dust falls after being kicked up by the LRV (looks very similar to how it falls here on Earth, even down to the speed) and the way the strap behaves on the LRV winch (it falls and wiggles very much like it would on Earth). These things set up a dissonance with what is expected *based on movie special effects*, even though they have been explained elsewhere.

I don't know how old MrReal is, but I suspect that he isn't old enough to have been around for the Apollo missions - he wouldn't have any doubt if he had been. The crowds at take-offs couldn't have been faked, and they would have smeeled a rat if anything was off, for example.

[MrReal]

Re: Grit

Calling me a 'moon-landing denier', is good, your credentials are valid here, don't worry.

The moon landings are only fact in a faith based belief system however, that some Americans (ones that were not bombing Vietnam even) visited the moon to play golf and drive buggies is a NASA story supported by mass peer pressure and authority: but NOT very much actual EVIDENCE.

Part of the lack of evidence is down to NASA themselves, who fail to even provide proper uncut footage from a single Apollo launch, let alone all of them as you'd expect, and who 'lost' the Apollo 11 video and telemetry data.

You then go on to discuss my lack of faith as a product of youth in 'not being there', as if somehow being there was some type of evidence. It wasn't evidence for Bill Kaysing or Gus Grissom was it? If a person's age is part of your proof for Apollo being real you need to re-examine your argument.

The footnote at the end about not being able to fake the launches is laughable - no one denies they launched some rockets, the argument is whether they ended up piercing the Van Allen belts to play golf on the moon or whether the rocket ditched harmlessly into the Atlantic and they switched to a studio down the road. Smelling something being off a mile away from the rocket as it thunders into the sky is a skill requiring supernatural powers so I'd drop that from your proof too.

[Mo'Fo B'dass]

Re: Grit

Also check out Chuck Yeager's autobiography "Yeager". It's a rollicking good read.

[PerlyKing]

Re: Yeager

I wish I could upvote this more than once. Excellent book.

[imanidiot]

Re: Grit

Take what yeager tells about his later years with a grain of salt. Especially his tale about flying (and crashing) the NF-104A Air and Space Trainer is pretty much a pile of steaming bullshit. Read the full tale <a href='http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_01.html>as told by the guy that actually built and ran the program</a>. Yeager was out of his element, didn't listen to input, did not follow the set mission profile, ended up in a high alpha flat spin of his own making and was then kept out of trouble by the force of his reputation of making life hell for anyone that opposed him.

Yeager was an exceptional pilot without a doubt, but this sort of tale (and it wasn't an exception) just makes me dislike the guy tremendously.

[ridley]

Re: Grit

Have to disagree with you there. "the right stuff" is IMHO a superb film.

It is not, however, a documentary.

[red floyd]

Re: Grit

"Have to disagree with you there. "the right stuff" is IMHO a superb film."

Except for they way they slandered Gus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Grit

And the stories in the article, and many others like them, are why they mostly chose test pilots to be astronauts. Because they knew they were at the very limits of human knowledge and technology of the time, and needed people who had a proven ability to stay cool under life and death pressure, and make the "right" decision even when it isn't what they had been told to do or the situation hadn't even been planned for.

[John 209]

Re: Grit

Where the grit came from. Having come of age in the '60s in college and the navy, it was the most remarkable decade of all time - i. e., to the depths of the Challenger Deep and to the moon within a span of 10 years.

And, I know of no better documentary that tells the story of the times and astronauts, from Mercury through Apollo programs, from the astronauts' point of view than "Moon Shot - The Inside Story of the Apollo Project". Originally a book, it was made into a four part TV documentary miniseries (3 hrs, 16 min total time) that aired on Turner Broadcasting System in 1994. It has all original films of the Am. astronauts, narrated by Barry Corbin (as Slayton, who died before the miniseries was completed in 1993).

It's available in its entirety on YouTube at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziJjOr_GIY8

It's worth your time to watch, if you want a realistic view of how risky it was and the character of the men that made it happen, without the political correctness and presentism that dominates so many of the more recent productions.

[John 209]

Re: Grit

Two days ago, I apologized for Google/YouTube withdrawing the documentary "Moon Shot: The Inside Story of the Apollo Project" without explanation, so the link posted above will no longer work (a snowflake offended by politically-incorrect real history? who knows).

That is still true, but thanks to Internet Archive @ archive.org, the full documentary survives. It is on archive.org in two parts, Moon Shot 1 (1:43:51), and Moon Shot 2 (1:35:22) - (The first item on the list at the bottom of the screen - i. e., In the Shadow of the Moon (1:39:55), is NOT part of the documentary.

Link to it at

https://archive.org/details/Moon_Shot/Moon+Shot+1.avi

[_LC_]

I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

https://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/big/m0nt-7-9260.gif

At the latest, when the Chinese landed on the moon, we knew that the lunar surface looked completely different - that is - exactly as we would expect it (continuous bombardment with different projectile sizes). There is no need to jump on all the mistakes, corpses and all the missing material anymore. ;-)

[Killing Time]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

Ah, yet another ovarian egg with the wisdom of the internet who thinks they can apply the science of hindsight to tell us how it was back in the day.

[_LC_]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

Right, they had different laws of nature and a different moon (West Coast) back then.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

" the wisdom of the internet who thinks they can apply the science of hindsight "

Hahahaha, NASA claims to have REAL hindsight yet hasn't got a single clue about how to get 'back' to the moon. Not a single clue. 50 years later all they've managed is an unmanned splashdown. You are the one who is ignorant, you 'believe' but don't know anything about the technology or the science,

As you are so 'wise' perhaps you'd like to explain why the big boulders in the Apollo moon photos (i..e Shadow Rock in Apollo 16) are buried in thousands or millions of years of dust but no dust ever settled on them?

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/AS16-106-17393HR.jpg

Physics and geology tells us that the only way this is possible is with WEATHERING - i.e. these photos are taken on earth.

[Killing Time]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

@MrBean

I will only explain this once as I currently have nothing better to do, after that you are going to have find yourself a preschool teacher with infinite patience.

If I understand you gibberish correctly you want to know how boulders don't appear to have dust on them when they are 'buried in thousands or millions of years of dust' (sic).

Well perhaps the boulders are deposited after the regolith (that's what moon dust is called by the way) i.e. they are newer than the regolith.

That is a reasonable explanation that doesn't involve conspiracy or film sets however I know deep down, that is of no concern to you as you just want to believe grand conspiracy, your paranoia won't allow you anything else.

Good luck in your search for someone who cares.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"Well perhaps the boulders are deposited after the regolith"

1. For the rocks to be clean they have to arrive AFTER the dust.

2. For there to be no scar or crater and be buried in the dust they had to arrive BEFORE.

If your moon photos are REAL, the bottom of the boulder must have arrived BEFORE the dust and the rest of the boulder must have arrived AFTER the dust. Can't you see that is impossible?

Try again, perhaps without the ad hominem you use as a crutch.

[bombastic bob]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/AS16-106-17393HR.jpg

I say it's the core of a former comet. LOTS of 'weathering' there, right? A few million years of solar winds and comet tail oughta make it like that, ya think?

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

Sigh.

It's buried in the dust Bob. Please pay attention at the back.

[ridley]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

Buzz says it much better than I ever coukd

https://youtu.be/CF_OeMkSAmg

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

Buzz is more honest in this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4UP6nRMuGs

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

So we can add 'English Comprehension' to the list of skills that you really lack.

Q 'why has no-one been to the moon in such a long time?' -

A- 'because we haven't been [to the moon in such a long time] so that's the way it is'

That's the way human beings speak - slightly messy, capable of being taken out of context, but obviously only understandable as 'evidence of a conspiracy' if you are certifiably nuts.

[TheProf]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"millions of years of dust but no dust ever settled on them?"

Meteoroids travel at 45000 mph. They probably vaporise when they hit a boulder. Or bounce off.

Now tell us all about the kooky shadows in the photographs. And the rock with the letter S on it. And don't forget the flag. It was waving in the breeze.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"They probably vaporise when they hit a boulder."

Then they'd also vaporise when they hit the ground rock too. The majority of meteoroids will however miss the boulders entirely due to their sparsity as a function of surface area, and kick up dust that would float down and coat the boulders.

About the flags - did you see they have photographed their shadows from the LRO? Amazing for a cheap nylon flag eh? Did any know cheap nylon would last for 50 years in alternating freezing + boiling temperatures up to 200C, with hard unfiltered UV and UVC striking it and the continual radiation attacking it from the sun and cosmos?

The existence of the flag shadows on the LRO photos is proof of the CGI guy who did that being a bit too smart for his own good: those flags would have been dust decades ago.

[imanidiot]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

It has been theorized the flags may or may not disintegrate, but nothing is conclusively proven either way as nobody ever bothered actually testing the lifetime of the material in lunar conditions. The LRO photo's show that at least PART of the flags still survives but how much and in what state is impossible to determine.

The flags are probably bleached and brittle, but since there are no forces to disturb them there's a good chance they keep enough integrity to stay in one piece so long as nothing touches them.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"since there are no forces to disturb them"

Except those continual moonquakes that are the subject of a different discussion.

And the heavy particles that literally smash the long chain molecules to pieces.

And the micro-meteors.

If they'd actually gone there I suspect they'd be dust on the surface in weeks, if that long, the sun alone would tear them to pieces with heat, radiation, particles and UV.

Think about it, one of the harshest environments we know, for FIFTY YEARS.

Perhaps NASA is playing a joke to see how gullible people are?

[imanidiot]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

You have no proof the material COULDN'T survive 50 years on the moon apart from: "Because I don't think it could" . There's several materials experts (That I would trust more than a random internet commentard that doesn't understand physics) that have a different opinion and say that it might.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"You have no proof the material COULDN'T survive 50 years on the moon apart from"

I have experience of nylon disintegrating after too much exposure to the sun on earth, the problem here is that you are clutching at straws, but the straw you are clutching was unable to be shielded by trees, clouds, houses, windows or even an atmosphere.

There's an interesting Russian story about the fate of a flag - left outside either Salyut or ISS, it's very anecdotal and tricky to find but the entire flag disappears in a few days.

We also KNOW that radiation tears stuff apart from our experiences at nuclear reprocessing plants, it's very corrosive stuff and literally eats things exposed to it. Let NASA explain what sort of hostile radiation environment is present on the moon constantly for the past 50 years:

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/08sep_radioactivemoon

[Mooseman]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

"flag shadows on the LRO photos is proof of the CGI guy who did that being a bit too smart for his own good"

Erm...what field do you work in again, something in IT wasn't it? You do know that CGI didn't exist in the 60s, yes? What we had instead was models and string. Have you seen the original star wars films? Zero CGI a decade later, yet you still trot out the same paranoid nonsense about the moon landings. Now this is the American government yes? The same government that can't keep a secret if it's life depended on it - Watergate, Iran-contra etc etc - yet we are to believe that the thousands of people involved in faking up the moon landings, from the main "actors" to the bloody catering staff, never breathed a word of it to anyone, ever? Put your tinfoil hat back on or grow up.

[MrReal]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

LOL, you are funny. Thanks for making me laugh :).

a) What exactly do you think CGI is?

b) In what part of the 1960s did the LRO send back images of those flags?

c) What exactly do you think the LRO is?

As for your thoughts about the US government, they kept the fact the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag pretty quiet for a long time and oh look - LIBYA. How many times do you hear that discussed? An illegal war of aggression with no one even charged, let alone prosecuted.

Ignorance is fine Moose, but you don't need to advertise.

[Patrician]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb, dumber, or dumbest ?

Not sure what crazy punch is supposed to mean, except that from your tone I'm guessing you think these missions never happened? I had really hoped not to come across that sort of stupidity here, Just for once I'll not trouble myself with attempting reasoned discussion, as it would so clearly be wasted:

Congrats, you earn the superlative.

[MrReal]

Re: Dumb, dumber, or dumbest ?

Your extreme naivete in believing in the NASA Apollo missions is no reason to accuse those of us that have studied the subject and concluded it was all faked as 'stupid'.

In fact you are the one accepting NASA's far fetched story of impossible stories and improbable technology without question whereas we used the scientific method, studied the evidence and decided that NASA was lying.

It's not as if the US government doesn't lie every single day is it? Remember Iraq, Libya, Syria and look at their lies about Iran and Venezuela.

You seriously think they were telling you the truth in the same decade they murdered JFK, MLK and thousands of Vietnamese in an illegal war of aggression? You are defending the same government that destroyed Laos and put Pol Pot in charge of Cambodia.

Just how naive are you?

[bombastic bob]

Re: Dumb, dumber, or dumbest ?

"Just how naive are you?"

Apparently, not naive enough to believe the "apollo denier" theories. And neither am I.

I watched every live coverage of every Apollo launch. I nearly missed one because I had to go to school, but the teacher left it on with a large TV (ok 25" black & white on a wheelie cart but still it was 1970'ish) in the classroom and the volume turned down. "History" after all.

I doubt, SERIOUSLY doubt, that any of it was made up. The tech was just SO obviously working, the science was good, and the entire WORLD was watching. Literally.

If you weren't actually THERE to remember it, you shouldn't be trying to pawn this theory off on people who WERE.

icon, because facepalm

[_LC_]

Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

You're asking people “to believe”, as this is a religious endeavor.

I can verify that they faked it. I have enough knowledge in science and material to safely uphold that claim. They didn't even do a good job; it was a rather lousy one.

It's like that stupid bible of yours. People are asked to believe in it, yet everybody with a brain can tell that the book is full of silly (and most cruel) fairytales.

[Nial]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

"I can verify that they faked it."

And the Russians who had also lost men in this race sat around and didn't say anything about it?

My other leg plays jingle bells.

[MrReal]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

The verification of the fake is rather long Nial, but a summary of some of the proofs of being a fake include:

1) NASA claiming several chest X-rays of radiation but no film in any mission was ever fogged.

2) Lack of photographic bracketing for exposure. Buzz Aldrin got the exposure of man's first photograph on the moon exactly right without an exposure meter, and carried on that way for the entire mission.

3) Lack of dust on the boulders on the moon: impossible unless subject to earth weathering to keep them clean

4) The LRV winch: That thing was an easy 2 man lift on the moon.

5) The LRV grip for starting, braking and cornering was way too high for 1/6g

6) The shape of the sonic thrust cone during staging of Apollo 11, shoing the rocket moving under half the speed in the NASA flight plan needed for orbit.

There are more, but each one is proof that they faked it. Once you start seeing the holes in the story they get bigger until you realise that far more was faked and impossible than you'd realised - like the timescales and reliability of such a large, complex project.

Very few needed to know it was faked, they even showed some of the gear needed to fake it on TV like the hidden chute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce6Ejy1A9mM

They used a zipwire for the Shuttle - FAR cheaper - because they didn't need to hide it's use.

[Mooseman]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

Well...OK. you win the stupidest comment of the day award. Possibly of the year.

[imanidiot]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1) NASA knew full well the effects of radiation and the film was kept in shielded bags.

2) Not much to bracket when you are in full sunshine most of the time. On top of that it's just practice. How many news photographers at the time had time to run around with an exposure meter you think? Yet they too manage to get good photo's with decent exposure most of the time. (And don't think the Apollo astronauts got all their photo's dead on. Search the archives ( here for instance) there's PLENTY of photographs that are out of focus, overexposed, underexposed, "oops I hit the shutter by accident" or just plain crappy. Film also allows for a certain amount of correction for exposure mistakes when developing the film, which you can see in some of these photographs in the way the details are washed out in the highlights or the shadows. Even today there's plenty of people who can manage to get an OK exposed photograph out of a film camera without an exposure meter.

3) Not impossible, geological processes work different on the moon. As I don't know enough about this I won't adres it, but this is a really stupid thing to dispute the veracity of the Apollo program photographs over.

4) I'm not sure what you are getting at here? That they shouldn't have been able to lift it? That's what pulleys are for, I can move a few hundred kg with my pinky on earth too. Or do you mean that they needed pulleys when they could have just lifted it without bothering with pulleys? Well, space suits are bulky and you don't want to drop a lunar rover from high up, so a few pulleys make the whole operation much easier. ( See this animation for the process)

5) If you don't understand vehicle dynamics then don't bother. I don't see any instance where it is out of line with what can be expected for a roughly 600 to 700 kg vehicle with 1 hp on loose lunar rigolith.

6) Huh? What? What you just said there is word-salad without meaning. If you mean the angle of some of the visible clouds trailing from the rocket in some photographs (supersonic shockwaves or shock cones, not thrust cones), that's been thoroughly debunked already too. It's not actually the sonic shockwaves that are visible and the photographs are taken at an angle, changing the apparent angle. See explanations in this Stack Exchange discussion

What the heck does an emergency escape system have anything to do with faking it?

[MrReal]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1) I've not been able to find any evidence for shielded bags for the film. The best view I managed to find was this:

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Apollo-protect-their-photographic-film-from-being-damaged

and the answers all say there was no shielding and that the film was 'tough stuff', seemingly unaware of the existence of X-rays in hospitals.

2) Your non-expert opinion about not having to bracket the first few reels of film on the moon, a new atmosphere free place where man had not been before, is interesting, but contradicts the views of professional photographers.

3) The dust free rocks bother you because they can only be explained by them being on earth and therefore you label them as stupid, using a plea to authority of NASA and the whole Apollo thing.

It's very simple. Either the rocks were there FIRST, or they fell AFTER some dust had fallen or they arrived JUST NOW.

In all scenarios it is impossible for the rocks to be buried in the dust (as the photos show) but be free of dust on the top unless they had recently arrived, in which case we'd see a disturbance in the dust: which we do not.

The top of Shadow Rock from Apollo 16 is full of detailed pits and cracks that are all through that rock, yet something has washed it clean and kept it clean. Since it doesn't rain on the moon it must have been photographed somewhere it rains. As we've only visited the earth and allegedly the moon they were taken on the earth.

Far from being 'stupid' it's very clear geological evidence of it being a rock on earth.

4) There is no use for the complex time wasting pulley system for LRV deployment on the moon. NASA knew that it was light enough to simply pick up on the moon. The only reason to leave a 1g rated winch and pulley system that takes 20+ minutes to untangle is because it had to be used in 1g.

5) The LRV was 210kg, not 700, 700kg was it's maximum rating, you skim read wikipedia too fast. I do understand vehicle dynamics, and I'm telling you that driving on dust with 5/6th of the downforce missing is impossible without skidding around like ice, which has a similar 1/6th or so level of grip/

6) The angle of the sonic shockwave at separation in supersonic flight is visible, the air temperature can be estimated and the offset angle compensated for. The Saturn V is less than half the speed it needs to be, you haven't seen any 'debunking' because there is none and the maths and physics are basic and clear.

7) What does a hidden method of getting astronauts out of the CM and into a safe place on the ground, after the crew has dispersed and just before launch, have to do with faking Apollo? Umm - let me think, yeah - got me there. Can't think. Your question is just as perplexing as the need to build an escape tunnel that takes 3.5 minutes to get to safety.

[imanidiot]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1) Outer space has a very low flux of Xray photons in general. Xrays are not the problem. Solar particles (Mainly protons and electrons) are but those don't affect film in the same way. And yes, film IS hardy stuff Just look at the footage from Chernobyl, all taken on film, some of it taken in heavy radiation FAR exceeding what was encountered during the Apollo missions. At worst you get some speckling effects on the film. I'll admit I might be wrong on the shielded bags. I could have sworn these pouches had a metallised foil liner, but I might have been confusing them with a different mission/era. Point remains, xrays don't happen that much in space. (They're a problem on high altitude flights because solar and cosmic radiation hits the atmosphere and gives of secondary radiation in the form of, amongst other things, Xrays) and even if they happen, only high sensitivity film could be affected. Most pictures used a 64, 80 or 160 ASA film that is pretty much insensitive to Xrays. (See also this site on flying with film and the security Xray systems). ALL these films for the Hasselblad camera's was contained in metal containers that would further shield the film.

2) Non expert (but amateur, with experience using actual film, even did it inside a vacuum once. Lack of atmosphere makes very little difference for exposure). You're also dead wrong on your assertion they didn't have a light meter by the way. A little bit of searching shows <a href='https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/spotmeter-1-degree-automatic-apollo-11>they did</a>

3) There are different explanations from the one you offer, but I'm not qualified to explain them as I'm just an idiot who doesn't understand that particular subject matter well enough.

4) The engineers who designed it clearly thought there was. The winch system didn't HAVE to be used in 1G, but it turns out it just didn't work as well as intended on the moon. That's not proof they didn't go to the moon, that's only proof some engineers could have done their job better. And if what you are saying is true there was nothing stopping NASA from changing the deployment methods on Apollo 16 and 17, yet they didn't.

5) The EMPTY weight of the LRV was 210 kgs. A single astronaut added slightly over 150 kgs to that. It was also loaded with roughly 100 kilograms of comms and science equipment most of the time. However, none of that matters. Vehicle weight matters far less for vehicle dynamics than you seem to

think. Surface conditions matter far more and lunar regolith is similar in texture to a very finely ground (sharp edged) basaltic sand. Even a 360 kg (minimum load with one astronaut) vehicle at 13 km/h is going to corner just fine on that sort of surface. It doesn't skip around like it's on ice because it's NOT ON ICE. It's that simple.

6) If you follow the link I posted, you'll see someone did those sums and came up with a bit over 2200 m/s. Yes, slightly off from the 2700 m/s it was actually be going (since it made it to orbit and the second and third stage don't have the performance to compensate for a 500 m/s velocity deficit) but that can be explained with measurement error. If you come up with less than half the speed you are simply doing the sums wrong.

7) Not very well hidden if they show it off on TV though is it? And the walkway at the top was quite open, meaning the astronauts in their bulky suits wouldn't be able to get out without getting spotted to GET to that slide. As soon as the hatches were closed and the cover installed the walkway with the white-room retracted to about 3 feet away from the rocket and it stayed there until 5 minutes before launch. Then it fully retracted. So how do you think those astronauts got out of there sight unseen? And better 3.5 minutes to escape than many more minutes running down stairs (And remember the astronauts were at this point in bulky spacesuits making walking stairs difficult to say the least). And that's 3.5 minutes from the evacuation starting. That includes moving the arm back in place, undoing the seatbelts, opening the hatch, kicking out the cover, 3 men in bulky suits clambering out one by one, riding a high speed elevator to the surface, then sliding down the chute to the rubber room.

Primarily though, that chute wasn't there for the astronauts. It was there mainly for the pad workers during fueling and closeout operations. The astronauts could use it, but in reality they were more likely to use the slide wire (Which WAS there already) or the LES to get away from the rocket. Getting to the rubber room with the slide just took too long compared to the other options. The slide was there anyway for the safety of the pad workers, it was option 3 on the list for the astronauts.

[MrReal]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1) Bremsstrahlung. What happens in a radioactive environment such as on the lunar surface that NASA describes is that any piece of aluminium becomes an X-ray generator (as well as secondary radiation products such as neutrons etc, depending upon the type of particles hitting it).

Essentially the camera, the film canister, the CM and much of the LM is a giant X-ray generator in space.

2) The vacuum is irrelevant, the lighting is very different without a sky. The Minolta light meter is interesting. The only small detail is that only picks out a 1 degree field of view, the ASA knob is too small to use when switch between colour and B&W (different ASAs) in a suit and there's no record or photo of Buzz ever using it.

4) The winch certainly isn't proof of fakery no, it's just a very very odd thing to do for a 1/6g use environment. It makes perfect sense if it's faked, it makes no sense if they went.

5) The NASA video of the Rover speeding around is with the rover unladen. It goes at IIRC 8mph. Not only does it never slide sideways even under maximum cornering but the driver is always rigid, unmoving and never turns to or waves at the camera like they often do on non rover video clips. It has all the appearance of a dummy. BTW 1/6 of the grip is about what you get here on ice.

6) There is a russian analysis of the sonic cone shape that gives just over 1000 m/s. If only NASA gave us a film of the Apollo 11 launch we could calculate the speed it was travelling and compare it to the Apollo 11 Flight Plan. NASA however have redacted that information: There is no Apollo 11 launch video on any NASA or JPL website anywhere.

7) If they were escaping from the CM is a pre-arranged move they wouldn't need to be wearing the suits, they'd just leave them in the CM and sneak out. Video of areas close enough to view this were controlled by NASA. The press didn't even get a direct video feed of anything, the Apollo 11 'Giant leap' of faith was filmed from a monitor, conveniently obscuring much of the detail, detail that NASA made sure was destroyed later. No quality video of Apollo 11's EVA remains thanks to NASA.

[imanidiot]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1)Brehmsstrahling would only produce a rather low flux, and again, the slower speed films are not all that sensitive to Xrays. The many layers would provide plenty of protection. (BTW, do you also deny the existence of the Corona sattelites?)

2) Uhhhmmmm, NO. Lighting is lighting. Having an atmosphere (or sky) doesn't matter for exposure. Just the amount of light. It only has a 1 degree measurement angle because it's a SPOT meter. You point it at whatever you want to have properly exposed, look through the viewport on the back and read off the correct setting. As for the knob being too small, it was probably fiddly, yes, but I think you underestimate how big that thing is in reality (The lens is probably 2 inches in diameter, though I don't know the exact dimensions). As for there being no record, I don't know of any photo's that shows them using it, but it's typically a tool they'd only use if needed and then put away before taking a photograph. That means it's unlikely to be in pictures. Exposures in sunlight probably all used the same settings as incident light on full sunlit objects is just full incident sunlight which is constant and they knew this beforehand (from Mercury, Gemini, surveyor missions and satellite measurements how much that is).

4) If it had been designed for 1g and it worked in 1g but didn't work in 1/6th g wouldn't that automatically mean that since they were faffing about with the deployment that they DID go to the moon since it didn't work in the video footage?

5) It's with atleast ONE astronaut on board, so a minimum of 360 kgs. Once again, grip in sliding conditions depends much more on surface material than on normal force. Grip on earth, on ice, is FAR less than 1/6th of the grip on fine sand. I also don't get why you think it doesn't skid at all. This clip with stabilised footage for instance clearly shows it skidding and jumping around as it drivers over ridges and bumps (The first turn is very slow, not max speed). As the wheels dig into the powder they find plenty of traction. Also, if this video was faked they would have had to have done so inside a giant vacuum chamber as fine dust like that kicked up by the tires would not drop down that fast in the presence of an atmosphere). Same with the other footage where heavy and light objects can be observed falling at the same speed (indicating a lack of atmosphere)

6) You mean something like this footage? I'm sure it's in the NASA archives somewhere but I can't find it right now. It'll definitely be there but it might help to know which camera designator was used for the tracking camera angle. My search-fu is failing me right now. I'm also not sure all of those angles are available online. They didn't really have internet to upload it in the 60s and 70s and digitization projects for film like this is slow going. There's hundreds (or thousands) of hours of footage.

7) OR, alternatively, since they had to have dropped into the ocean from very high up by parachute for recovery by an entire carrier taskforce they stayed in the capsule and rode it to orbit. Or do you honestly believe an entire taskforce crew of low pay sailors can be convinced NOT to tell everyone they can "Huh, yeah, we never picked those guys up!"?

"the Apollo 11 'Giant leap' of faith was filmed from a monitor, conveniently obscuring much of the detail, "

Filming from a TV monitor was a pretty standard way of doing live coverage of something like this at the time AFAIK. Not much detail was lost either way as the quality of the slow scan TV camera used for the "small step" was abysmal to begin with. They don't have a really good version of that moment saved, true, and they really screwed the pooch on that. But there's a LOT of video footage of the activities that followed it and preceded it and footage of the same moment taken by Aldrin from the LM hatch. Conveniently gathered for your viewing pleasure on this NASA site (And yes, circa 1995 webdesign... Including consistent timestamps and journal logs with photograph numbers that also match)

[MrReal]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

1) You have now redefined Brehmsstrahling as only producing low flux or soft Xrays that don't affect the ASA 160 film. Well done, but you realise your evidence free definition is rejected by Kodak in their guide to protect film from X-ray scanners at airports and basic physics which does not specify that Brehmsstrahling only produces soft Xrays. You are visibly altering facts here to suit your narrative.

2) Here again you are arguing a subject in which you have scant knowledge with the view of professional photographers. The lunar photos do not contain merely 2 levels of light as you claim, it contains all levels of light as a photoshop analysis of the NASA photos will rapidly tell you. The sky makes an enormous lighting difference to a scene, to remove the sky and take a perfectly exposed image right off the bat is unlikely. Then to repeat is multiple times is like throwing 'Tails' of a coin a hundred photos in a row.

Buzz wasn't a famous photographer either before or after: so how did he hit them every time on a new alien lighting environment?

4) You ignore the fact even the LEM's ladder was too weak for 1g. You can see in the Apollo 11 'One step' video they beefed up the sides of the ladder for the studio.

The LRV added at least 210kg yet they seemed to have no trouble implementing the heavy 1g ready winch system, it is inconsistent with the weight issues. They didn't suddenly gain more thrust for the LRV missions. There is no logical explanation for the winch being used on 15,16,17 unless it was for the studio. There's a good chance it was actually the very same winch BTW, on the very same LM. It is unlikely the 15,16,17 LMs and LRVs are 3 different ones, it would have all been a single 'training' LM and LRV.

5) You need to research just how a car behaves with 1/6th of the grip available. Multiply that to the fact it's 1/6 of the grip of loose dust and you have the same grip as estimated for ice. You can see the LRV gains speed rapidly to the terminal velocity (around 8mph) which again shows there is too much grip. The LRV appears to be a model with a rigid dummy 'driving' in sand filmed at double speed.

Also note in 15,16,17 the 'Pool of light' effect fails to reappear anywhere in any photo, indicating that they moved from a spotlamp lit soundstage of 11 to the desert, which is why the lighting is far more even and consistent and the area of land in the photos increases from the size of a small garden to the size of a desert.

6) Nope, that has more cuts in it than a Ninja fruit salad!

The Apollo 11 press film shows all the relevant parts of a ground based camera showing lift of and staging to the J-2 (although their J-2 has an orange flame for some reason). All we need is the original film from NASA that the the press cut into their news segment.

However as you discovered NASA doesn't want to show that single-take film from ANY Saturn V liftoff.

That's right, NASA hasn't published a SINGLE continuous film (less than 3 minutes worth) of ANY Apollo mission.

If they did show the Apollo 11 one we could time the cloud pierce scene to get a datum point of 'speed at N seconds' and compare it to their fictional flight plan. This 50 year long convenient oversight is just a coincidence right?

7) About those splashdowns, there was continuous training for the parachute drop and recovery during that period. Dropping CMs from planes was a standard training job - nothing unusual about that. Also note that in NO SINGLE LANDING does ANY astronaut remove their helmet, they simply appear like a Paul Daniels show in the quarantine box. When you LOOK for the evidence that Neil, Buzz, Collins were in the CM there is none. Collins was blind BTW, after questioning by our Patrick Moore he said he didn't see any stars at all. This is from a man who had orbited the shadow side of the moon in a rolling craft with multiple windows in it.

There is no way that Apollo 13 could get such an accurate splashdown. It's like throwing darts with a blindfold after being spun around a few times and getting the center of the bull.

This is the problem with the Apollo story, it relies on so many improbably and unlikely events all lining up - not just once, but mission (11) after mission (12) after mission (13) after mission (14) after mission (15) after mission (16) after mission (17).

The best proof of fakery is however still the giant evidence lovingly captured in the later missions, of glorious big detailed rocks buried in the dust of millions of years, yet all having been washed clean by the earth weather. Even on the earth training images from NASA of the LRV etc, all the rocks are like that: it simply never occurred to them that the rocks should have been covered in dust just like after a giant snowstorm. Look at this and note how unlike the moon photos it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gYcXkpb6Zk

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

I'll just take number 1.

1) NASA claiming several chest X-rays of radiation but no film in any mission was ever fogged.

I have personally verified that it is possible to expose a film to several chest X-rays of radiation and not fog it. I have seen photographs of kangaroos that weren't fogged, unless they were all faked by CGI at Whipsnade zoo, someone would have had to fly film to Australia and back which gives you about that should give you at least 2 x-rays worth (x-ray 10 rem, flight 5 rem). I am sure that some people have flown films on multiple successive long haul flights.

[MrReal]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

Did you subject it to several chest X-rays or several chest X-rays WORTH of RADIATION?

They are quite different, the surface of the moon is subject to both X-rays and ionising and non ionising radiation. There's a few radio photos like this taken of plant life around Chernobyl you may be interested in.

[_LC_]

Re: Dumbest = religiously dumb. ;-)

"And the Russians ..."

This is the old “There are two parties who oppose each other. Which one will you join?” trick. They both seem to have a common enemy – their own population. ;-)

Besides, they called it a fake. It didn't make it to your "window to the world", though.

[MrReal]

Re: Dumb, dumber, or dumbest ?

I watched Space 1999 on a big B&W TV back on the day too, by your logic that must be real too right?

You were NOT 'there', you were thousands of miles away and have NO IDEA where that rocket went. One of many items you missed was this concealed chute the BBC presents here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce6Ejy1A9mM

If you want to believe outlandish theories of lunar travel that's fine, but don't expect people who have looked into it to be equally naive or blind.

BTW I saw the original B&W TV coverage too and was totally suckered into the whole thing, if I hadn't been so interested in it Id never have noticed that it was all a rather poor fake either.

[ridley]

Re: Dumb, dumber, or dumbest ?

https://youtu.be/HYMla7qlBsg

[bombastic bob]

Re: I'm terribly sorry (not really) that I have to be the one to pee in your crazy punch again

what the HELL was THAT supposed to be, anyway?

no doubt green-screen'd in at some point.

*yawn* - should've made it a grey alien instead. Then more people would believe it.

[45RPM]

How did nominal (in name only / very small / not corresponding to a real value) come to mean normal? Rocket scientists they may be, but English clearly wasn’t their strongest subject.

I think that if I was being blasted into orbit, I’d want the rockets to be firing strongly / powerfully - not nominally.

/pendants_corner

[TDog]

Agree, nominally.

[Steve Todd]

From the dictionary definition

"(of a quantity or dimension, especially of manufactured articles) stated or expressed but not necessarily corresponding exactly to the real value:

legislation allowed variation around the nominal weight (that printed on each packet)."

So "Nominal" compared to the expected values (e.g. orbit) means near enough. The usage is perfectly valid in that context.

[Unicornpiss]

Re: From the dictionary definition

Translation: Nominal= "Working pretty much the way we had hoped, don't screw with it!"

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: From the dictionary definition

Indeed, the engineer's dream is that nominal is normal...

[bombastic bob]

Re: From the dictionary definition

"the engineer's dream is that nominal is normal"

and yet, 'normal' from a statistics point of view, would include a lot of crash/burn and explosions...

So 'nominal' is compared to what is expected to happen. 'normal' is compared to the average. or something like it. We want 'nominal' not 'normal' for the abovementioned reason.

[45RPM]

Re: From the dictionary definition

Thumbs Up Steve Todd! I don’t know if you’re right, but it seems plausible and (very) well explained (although it still smacks of misuse to me!)

[MrReal]

The nominal thrust of an F-1 engine was 1,000,000 lbs of thrust.

Rocketdyne worked on the engine for 5 years (1962 to 1967) and due to it's fragile brazed tube construction were stuck at 1,000,000 lbs to allow a little safety margin for manned flight.

The chamber pressure has a direct effect on the speed of mass ejection and hence specific impulse (efficiency) for a rocket, the F-1 was rather hopeless in this respect.

NASA/Von Braun claimed they got 1,500,000 lbs out of each engine which is frankly laughable and a total lie, the thinwall tubes collapsed at around 70bar.

In the same year - 1969 - the USSR was running around 200 bar in their vastly superior (still the world's most efficient rocket motor design) NK33. The RD-180 is a direct descendant and still used today. The hopelessly obsolete 'flamethrower' F-1 on the other hand was hastily dumped ASAP.

So we have nominal as 1,000,000, maximum as a dangerous figure possible 10-20% above that and then the fictional 1,500,000 lbs thrust.

BTW don't worry about the downie votes, the naive believer crowd here know nothing of Apollo except their belief in it, none of them have a clue of the technology or why it doesn't work, because they have never bothered looking. They _know_ they are right and that's all that matters, and usually resort immediately to ad hominem attacks to hide their ignorance.

[bombastic bob]

"In the same year - 1969 - the USSR was running around 200 bar in their vastly superior <snip> NK33"

Whoopee twiddle. They didn't get to the moon, though, did they?

obligatory reference to Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

[MrReal]

"Whoopee twiddle. They didn't get to the moon, though, did they?"

With a vastly superior engine and the world's best rocket designer in Korolev you are correct: they still didn't get to the moon, settling instead for silence with 10 years of grain shipments from the US to prevent an embarrassing famine caused by the pathetic bolshevik collective farming disasters.

You 'superiority' is misplaced however because no American has ever got above LEO, then or since.

[Mooseman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1

Yes, I know its Wikipedia, but check the sources.

[Aqua Marina]

/pendants_corner

I have the same issue when trying to offer technical support to IT people that angrily state they are using “default values” on whatever it is they cannot get to work. An explanation that default means in a “state of error”, or more accurately “requiring configuration” usually ends up with a sudden change of attitude on the other end of the phone and progress starts being made.

How did default become equal to normal or working in so many technical minds?

[_LC_]

Re: /pendants_corner

Default tends to imply a "reasonable setting", whereas the opposite would be "empty", "uninitialized" or "undefined". It's the terminology that makes the difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: /pendants_corner

" tends to imply a "reasonable setting""

Look out, Accenture or Capita employee hanging around!

[Wade Burchette]

It is amazing what was accomplished in the Apollo missions. When I make calls, I hold in my hand a device more powerful than the computer than landed people on the moon. Despite those limitations, NASA was able to put people on the moon. Youtube has videos on the landing sequence for the Apollo landings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RONIax0_1ec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSa6vUix70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZZe-xXx9_o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxqKlDsgMzc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSXhb3J05ps

And, as a bonus, Apollo 13 as it happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpTleKyn3gc

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, but I already have the whole Apollo 13 incident on HD Blu-ray in my movie cabinet.....

[Marty McFly]

Buy it again

You do know it was released on 4K. One of the very few movies I keep re-buying.

[MrReal]

Re: Buy it again

Yes I love Apollo 13.

Amazing that the radio always worked through the tumbling, but what is really interesting is the trajectory calculations made in a small notebook when they risked missing the earth entirely. The calculations were in the end so fine and precise, as were the manual burns required that according to NASA's own data they landed exactly 1.0 nautical miles from their newly designated splashdown spot.

In the days before GPS and with a risk of missing earth, bouncing off or burning up I think that demands a big round of applause.

1.0 nautical mile accuracy (more accurate than some other Apollo splashdowns) from manual button pushes and notebook calculations.

[MrReal]

Re: Buy it again

Here we are for the downies, splashdown location map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splashdown#/media/File:Splashdown_2.png

And the NASA statement of 1.0 nautical miles to target of Apollo 13:

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-40_Entry_Splashdown_and_Recovery.htm

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Buy it again

I guess you will accept that they knew the orbit - spacecraft kind of travel in a straight line..... so the problem is one of getting the range right. If you only had the reentry burn to get range, obviously it would be a bit difficult to land on the spot. But spacecraft aren't helpless in reentry - they have inertial guidance gyros, linked to a flight computer, and they can adjust their trajectory through re-entry by minor changes in attitude. So basically engineering skill, not magic.

[MrReal]

Re: Buy it again

"So basically engineering skill, not magic"

Except they just about managed to get into the right channel to prevent bounce or burnup - yes?

They are in an enclosed projectile falling like a stone with minimal steering - you think they could simply steer from say the coast of Africa to 1.0 nautical miles away from the target zone next to all the other splashdowns - without the aid of GPS or a clear view out of the window, or even radio, by shifting their weight ?

It seems like you will believe anything. Also spacecrafts never travel in straight lines, they are always influenced by gravity especially when fitted with feeble limited fuel chemical rocket motors.

Also there was no orbit, you are thinking of the journey there, which did involve initial earth orbits prior to the translunar burn.

[John Brown (no body)]

"When I make calls, I hold in my hand a device more powerful than the computer than landed people on the moon."

It's massively more powerful. The device you hold in your hand is probably much more powerful than the whole of Mission Control of the time. ISTR someone once comparing the 4-bit processor used in the IBM PC keyboard as being more powerful than the Lunar Lander onboard computer.

[_LC_]

Unfortunately radiation would crash it reliably

"It's massively more powerful. The device you hold in your hand is probably much more powerful than the whole of Mission Control of the time."

Unfortunately, the levels of radiation in play would crash something like our smartphones reliably. For this, you need the bigger structures - and - some redundancy/error checking.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

Species angst

I can't shake the feeling that we're not as good as we used to be....

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Species angst

I prescribe the late-great Hans Rowling and his famous Gapminder videos until you feel better.

Also, take the Gapminder Quiz. See if your assumptions about human progress are worse than random.

Then, browse through all the NASA et al missions to the solar system.

You'll feel better in, well, it might take a week.

Cheers.

[ecofeco]

Re: Species angst

And how long has it been since the last man stepped on the moon?

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Species angst

I think this rather sad infographic covers what you need to know:

https://xkcd.com/893/

[SW10]

Re: Species angst

...and this one shows how it's done today:

https://xkcd.com/2148/

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Species angst

JeffyPoooh,

Just to be a pedant, because the man was amazing - it's Hans Rosling.

He did a program for BBC2 10 years ago: link to Youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Species angst

Well, isn't the canonical reason for the space programs regressing everywhere after the 1970s that everybody's German rocket scientists got old and died?

But there's been a certain change for sure. Just as an example, if I understand correctly, in the 1960s Boeing designed the 737 and the Apollo lunar lander around the same time. Would you trust a 2010s Boeing not to mess that kind of thing up with 1960s levels of oversight? I would guess the change in how the big American aerospace companies are run - Boeing being the last engineering-led holdout - is a big structural reason for the creeping "too much safety" bureaucracy of NASA.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Species angst

it's the lack of what is now thought of as "toxic masculinity", that USED to drive us (as a species) to greatness instead of mediocrity...

When you "educate" (read: indoctrinate) 2 generations of younguns into believing in political correctness and getting participation trophies and "safe spaces" and "just talk it out with the bullies" all of their young lives, you get "what we have now" instead of IRON FACED MEN that TAKE RISKS and SUCCEED in the FACE of ADVERSITY!

The lessons of WW2 (and 100,000 years of human evolution) have been lost...

[werdsmith]

Re: Species angst

And private companies land rocket stages tail first in 2019. Three at a time. Sometimes on boats.

Or maybe these were scale models filmed on a trading estate in Slough..... hmmm.

[JeffyPoooh]

'13 Minutes to the Moon'

'13 Minutes to the Moon' is a nice BBC Radio podcast series. Episode 1 is out, more to follow.

Also, '10, 9, 8, 7' is another BBC Radio podcast, single episode as far as I can tell.

[keithpeter]

Re: '13 Minutes to the Moon'

Nice broadcast, thanks for link.

Caveat auditor: I had to register (supplied my usual demographic profile that I use for confusing analytics) and then discovered that this is not actually a podcast in the usual sense. Can't download it any way that I can see and you have to use the player embedded on the Web page.

[keithpeter]

Re: '13 Minutes to the Moon'

Scrub last part of above - found the download button on the Web page for the series at

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz4dj

Presumably you need to register/log-in to download

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: '13 Minutes to the Moon'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads

The above is the series download page, via which you can get all the episodes released so far (including the countdown ones).

[bombastic bob]

Re: '13 Minutes to the Moon'

10 minute mail oughta get you "13 minutes to the Moon"

ok bad PUN-ishment... (where's my coat?)

[werdsmith]

Re: '13 Minutes to the Moon'

A quick search on the Sounds app confirms it is downloadable.

[Deepblue69]

Phoning the moon

Technology was so much better in those days. You could pick up your phone and get through to an astronaut on the moon, and have a nice chat about the weather. Amazing, truly fantastic in the truest sense of that word!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the article

Thank you very much Mr Speed, it was good to spend some moments remembering those great achievements, and how they seemed to me as a child - really something else!

Great events, with the added benefit that we didn't get people claiming they weren't happening, or (this one really gets me) that the earth is flat.

[ecofeco]

50 years since men first landed on the moon

50 years. Well over half a lifetime.

And America has not been able to replicate it since 1972.

Truly epic fail.

[Martin]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

And America has not been able to replicate it since 1972.

What's really tragic is not that the US has not been able to replicate it, it's that no-one has even tried to do so. With 50 years of improved technology, there ought, by now, to have been a regular scheduled flight to the moon, and people living up there permanently. By now, the first children born on the moon should have been growing up.

And all we've done is doubled our population, and basically fucked our planet.

That's the truly epic fail.

[MrReal]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

I agree with your sentiment.

The reason is unpopular but brutally simple: There is no known safe way through the Van Allen belt with existing rocket technology.

This the a BBC segment showing the exact route that the Apollo astronauts took instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce6Ejy1A9mM

While people believe in Apollo we are going nowhere. Apollo is the obstacle, not the breakthrough.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

I've told you lot before.

The problem isn't that you'll be dead after travelling through the van Allen belts.

You'll be deaf after travelling through the van Halen belts.

Also, if we never went to the moon, how come there is contemporaneous video evidence on the historical document yclept "The Clangers"?

[bombastic bob]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

"And all we've done is doubled our population, and basically fucked our planet."

No. just no. We have _NOT_ 'fucked' our planet. Humans do not have that kind of ability, even with atomic weapons. A volcano blowing up does MORE damage than SEVERAL (typical) nuclear weapons, combined. Think 'Mt St Helens' in Washington (state) a couple o' decades ago, which was estimated at around 25 megatons (there has only been a single bomb recorded as having been larger, and none exist today). Nature is THAT powerful, and it recovers. Humans, not so powerful.

The whole 'population bomb' and 'fucking the planet' mentality _IS_ the problem!!! For if whiny socialists weren't busy trying to "fix" non-existent problems, we'd BE ON THE MOON ALREADY, and probably COLONIZING MARS AS WELL. Yet, politicians and the elitists that ENABLE them would rather have their power/control and SOCIALISM is the vehicle they have chosen to GET and MAINTAIN it. And they DEPRESS economies and keep people out of work as a MEANS TO AN END.

If you buy rockets, you get rockets and the observable technological breakthroughs and economic benefits that come with it.

If you buy SOCIAL PROGRAMS, you get MORE DEPENDENCY, which means MORE VOTES for those that hand out other people's money to BUY those votes. Until Peter can't be robbed any more to pay Paul. Then Paul stops getting paid, when Peter says "who is John Galt".

[bombastic bob]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

"And America has not been able to replicate it since 1972."

you know what _I_ blame, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

>And America has not been able to replicate it since 1972.

Having got there and discovered it wasn't made of cheese or inhabited by a gas oven on wheels they probably did a wise thing after they confirmed it was a baron airless rock to not bother sending people there anymore, especially after they had beaten the Russians to the prize.

Lack of a Concorde successor on the other hand....

[werdsmith]

Re: 50 years since men first landed on the moon

Concorde didn’t exist. BAC and Aerospatiale paid Gerry Anderson to create a mock-up.

100 people at Mach II and 60,000 feet in shirt sleeves sipping champagne is just not possible when the military needed spacesuits to do the same.

[robsonde]

Apollo 10 - live on twitter

Over on twitter, the account of @apollo_50th is doing live history by tweeting the transcripts and video and such like.

[_LC_]

Re: Apollo 10 - live on twitter

Remastered. *lol*

[RegGuy1]

Stunning -- the US at its best

Ah my school days -- when the US' triumphs dominated the news for years. It showed the US as the premier superpower.

Land of the free -- supporter of free enterprise.

Er...

All this talk about PTFE and non-stick pans. Yes, all that came out of it, and much more. But don't get dazzled by the private is better than public nonsense. The US is one of the most protectionist countries in the world (ask their farmers!). But what they do very well, in part because of their huge size, is to take the results of public investment and let the private sector market them. It you still cling on to the private is better than public mantra, this book may help widen your horizons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State

This is the US at its best. (But remember, the great country was stirred into action because the Russians beat them into space in 1957.)

[bombastic bob]

Re: Stunning -- the US at its best

you make a good point about the Russians beating the USA into space... that was COMPETITION, which drove the space race!

So when the gummint behaves like CAPITALISTS, i.e. investing in R&D and new tech to COMPETE and succeed through INNOVATION, then it works! THAT is they way things OUTGHT to be, ya know?

But under normal circumstances, gummint is like a black hole into which money is thrown, and more demanded.

[werdsmith]

Re: Stunning -- the US at its best

No, PTFE came out of research by DuPont in 1938.

The space race gave some huge beneficial effects but that often repeated lie is a trivialisation of the whole thing.

[chivo243]

I was 5yrs old!

It was amazing! I made a space car\ship out of cardboard boxes. We made space helmets in school, what a magical time. I wish another/the next generation could experience that magic!

[_LC_]

Re: I was 5yrs old!

How old were you when they killed JFK?

Just asking, as both have likely been produced by the same mob. ;-)

[SteveastroUk]

Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.

Yesterday I got to actually touch Geminii 8, the one that nearly killed them, at the Neil Armstrong museum in Ohio.

Well worth a couple of hours tour

[Carl D]

Wow, 50 years already? I was 11 years old when Apollo 10 went to the moon.

I always find it amazing that NASA deliberately 'short fuelled' the ascent stage of the Lunar Module for Apollo 10.

The Lunar Module descended to about 15km above the moon's surface then the descent stage was dropped and the ascent stage returned to the Command/Service Module in lunar orbit.

The ascent stage was deliberately 'short fuelled' to ensure that the Apollo 10 LM crew would not try to make the first lunar landing before Apollo 11 - if they did land there wasn't enough fuel in the ascent stage to make it back into orbit. NASA really thought the Apollo 10 crew might try and land. Really shows the incredible courage and willingness to take risks displayed by the Apollo crews back then.

I salute them all.

[MrReal]

"The ascent stage was deliberately 'short fuelled' "

You do realise what you have said? Nothing wrong with your statement itself, but it highlights that the LM, a complex machine rushed into service and so late arriving they dropped it from some earlier flights, was untested.

Basically Neil Armstrong was the first landing test the LM ever had in 1/6g, if the legs had buckled or some other fault had occurred they would be dead.

Same for the ascent from the surface after baking in the full sun for 2 days, totally untested until Neil pressed the button.

People scream that the Apollo 10 flight tested it, but landing and taking off is quite different from dropping it and catching it. Especially in unknown space with unproven gear where a single mistake is death.

Yes this rushed 1960s machine worked faultlessly time after time, every time, and was so easy to fly they continually changed the pilot each mission and never even had a hint of instability or malfunction, even when bolting a 450kg LRV to one side of it later.

Quite a feat!!

[MrReal]

Ah I see the downies are busy downvoting posts they feel uncomfortable with but can't explain why. Obviously these downies are used to giant complex projects running without a hitch and working perfectly when the time comes, because IT is always like that.

The F35 is a regular jet that Lockheed started building in 1994, even today the software isn't complete and it regularly crashes due to one reason or another.

Keep the faith guys, as that's all that holds up the Apollo missions. We need to worship America lest they ban us from using Android.

[imanidiot]

They were so sure that Apollo 11 was going to take of that the president had already prepared a speech for the event it failed. Things WERE untested, things COULD go wrong, failure WAS an option. That it worked is a testament to the people that designed and built it. The LM wasn't rushed in the sense you think it was. It took as long to develop as the Apollo CM and Saturn launch vehicle. The pilots trained in all kinds of different contraptions (see amongst others first and foremost the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle and Lunar Landing Training Vehicle). You seem to be implying no-one could ever fly a new vehicle for the first time without crashing.

[MrReal]

So at least 7 downies don't think mission and life critical systems need testing in the manner in which they will be used, before entrusting the life of two astronauts the world is watching to it.

Just a quick release and catch - "yeah, sure that'll be fine, what could go wrong? it's only Neil and Buzz anyway"

Guys, just a personal plea, NEVER work on an medical or mission critical software, Ok?

[imanidiot]

You might want to read up on Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 mission reports and what exactly they tested. Apollo 11 wasn't the first time they tested any of the important systems they could. The few things they couldn't they were sufficiently sure of to take the gamble.

Also, WAY too late for that plea. Done and doing both. And no, I won't tell you what.

[MrReal]

Even with Apollo 8, 9 and 10 I'm aware that they never tested that the LM would land on the moon successfully, or that it would survive 2 days sitting in the sun, or that it would still work afterwards and it would take off again safely.

For me that is 3 major things that remained untested. Also because the item was rushed by Grumman, totally new and not space proven it was rather unlikely to work. Then there were the questions of flying it as there appears to be no video from NASA showing either Neil or anyone successfully landing the simulator / bedstead.

So there are two questions: Would NASA have tested it, and would it have worked? The first is rather likely and the second rather unlikely, to believe the narrative one has to accept both these unlikely events.

Apollo 9 and 10 are sort of interesting but it was Apollo 8 that was the real 'now we can suddenly do all these things no one else has ever done and look it all works' flight, more unbelievable than even 11.

I have the National Geographic copy with all the info on Apollo 8. People mistake the knowledge that these trips were faked for them not being of interest, of history or being uninteresting. That's not really the case, it's just that the real story was different and that there is more work to do to conquer the radiation barriers, either by better shielding or better (faster) rocket technology. For me the real story behind it is just as interesting and adds to Apollo. Apollo is what it is.

The one thing both you and me know however is that Apollo stopped manned space flight dead in it's tracks. You think it's because of various budgetary reasons or no incentive to 'return', I think it's due to never having the technology, but the effect is the same: man isn't going anywhere beyond LEO for a very, long time...

[imanidiot]

The CM had previously done multiple longer duration mission in LEO prior to Apollo 8, which gave them the confidence to do lunar orbit mission with the CSM (also done as posturing since the Ruskies where expected to do a lunar mission soon at the time). Then they did a LM checkout in LEO on Apollo 9 of multiple days to verify all it's systems worked, with the ability to abort at any time by getting into the CSM and ditching the LM. Everything went fine, which gave them the green light to do a full dress rehearsal on Apollo 10 for a trip to the moon. They knew the CSM could handle it, they knew the LM worked in LEO as intended, they then tested if the combination could then get to the moon, if the LM descent engine would fire (it did, without trouble) and if the LM ascent engine would then fire (it did). Then if they could re-dock the LM and CSM in lunar orbit. The only thing they hadn't at that point tested was actually landing the thing. And the only way to do that was to actually do it. And so they did, on Apollo 11, July 24, 1969, 16:50:35 UTC

I don't understand why you seem to think it was so unlikely for the landing to work or the descent engine to work. They'd tested the LM descent systems pretty well, and the influence of radiation and heat on materials was quite well understood (probably at the time better than anyone, because the US did very extensive work on radiation and it's effects on materials in it's nuclear weapons programs). They were pretty certain it would work, but again, as said, they knew there was a chance they wouldn't get off the surface again (and the president had the speech prepared for the occasion).

As for this matter: "Then there were the questions of flying it as there appears to be no video from NASA showing either Neil or anyone successfully landing the simulator / bedstead."

I can't help but think you didn't search very well then. Footage is much rarer but some of it can be found (And much more of it can be found in the archives)

Best footage I can find comes from a short documentary called "300 feet to the moon" that also explains how the LLRV and LLTV work and the reason for their existence:

part 1

part 2

Most people only know the bit of footage of the one LLRV flight of Armstrong that ended with a bit more fire: here's a full cut of the approach, overcorrection, loss of control, ejection, LLRV crash and parachute landing

Mankind will be going beyond LEO. I have my doubts whether that'll be on Constelation Orion SLS Artemis as I suspect SpaceX might well beat them to the punch

[MrReal]

"Then they did a LM checkout in LEO on Apollo 9 of multiple days to verify all it's systems worked"

You keep repeating the same insistence that nothing could go wrong with the LM because it passed the limited tests they said it did. That never happens in real life does it? Statistically the chances of that are millions to 1.

Of course most of these tests were never done because they couldn't leave LEO, so we are examining the self-consistency of the story here rather than any real events. That however is my point, their story is inconsistent because the claims don't work in real life. There is no way the LM would be used in a real landing without having been tested that it could actually land, survive the landing, survive sitting in the intense sun for 2 days and still work properly in ascent.

Basic systems like the stability systems had never been tested in 1/6g where the mass remains but the weigh is shed to 1/6g - without a rope taking 5/6 of the weight attached to the top.

The Apollo believers rationalise the trips by simplifying these systems in their heads so they are eminently possible with 1960s technology and US manufacturing quality. Then they rationalise an entire back story of why in todays precision CNC world why these things are not repeated and made better.

Care to point out a single thing NASA had produced in the past 50 years that even resembles a single functional component suitable for a lunar trip? They've had executive orders to do it, they've had funding, they have the best manufacturing technology available and what' the best we have? I'll tell you the best we have: A 1960s era Soyuz taxi service.

[imanidiot]

"You keep repeating the same insistence that nothing could go wrong with the LM because it passed the limited tests they said it did. That never happens in real life does it?"

Did I ever say, anywhere, that nothing could go wrong? A lot of things could go wrong and on several missions they ran into SNAFUs that nearly ended things. Apollo 12 got struck by lighting which took most of the CSM offline due to power problems, Apollo 13 is most well known, Apollo 14 had it's share of problems (faulty abort switch and landing radar software problems).

"There is no way the LM would be used in a real landing without having been tested that it could actually land, survive the landing, survive sitting in the intense sun for 2 days and still work properly in ascent."

How would they test this without landing? The short mission of Apollo 11 WAS the test to see if it could land, survive sitting there and still work properly. AGAIN, they KNEW they might not make it back, they KNEW it was possible Eagle would never leave the surface. The president had a full speech prepared for that happening.

"Basic systems like the stability systems had never been tested in 1/6g where the mass remains but the weigh is shed to 1/6g - without a rope taking 5/6 of the weight attached to the top."

Roll stability is not dependent on the size of the gravity vector, and easy to calculate even in 1969. They knew exactly what translational speeds where safe for landing with the landing leg layout they chose. Any competent mechanical engineer would be able to calculate this.

[Phage]

Please - don't feed the trolls.

(Takes me ages to downvote all those posts)

[Anonymous Coward]

50 years since they blasted off to a film set to record the moon landing? Wow that's impressive. Must have been one hell of a walk.