[MID]

MID, on 29 September 2009 - 08:45 PM, said:

Let me guess...

You're not going to provide anything to substantiate your Moon hoax claim, right?
There are no facts you can present because we're talking about something perpetrated by Big Brother?

You actually just believe this, and there's nothing in particular that makes you think this way?

That's essentially what you indicated on the other conspiracy believers thread.

This thread is a learning thread. We provide (hopefully...although there are some that abjectly refuse to study and learn) the knowledge that the CT is lacking in respect to this particular subject matter. We ask for questions about doubts that would make one believe this sort of thing.

Are you going to pull this avoiding the issue thing over here?

We don't want to hear about the Cold War and 9-11. Save it for someplace else, OK?

Why do you believe the Moon landings were faked?

We're not asking for proof. That's not possible to provide. We ask for why, so that we can hopefully provide what you don't have in the realm of understanding of the science and technology behind Apollo.

Those seeds, combined with a curiosity and a desire to learn, can clear up a heck of a lot of misconceptions in this matter.

That's what we strive for.

We have the facts. Lots of knowledgable people right here. They're all yours, if you wish. But if you're going to cop out with:



...you'll find this a frustrating adventure...

I think I can declare...after over a month of stasis and probably 15000 posts (in a couple of massive threads) that this topic may officially be declared dead...and settled.

This post has been edited by MID: 07 November 2009 - 02:25 AM

[The Hippy Viking]

haha fail

[batvette]

glyndowers heir, on 24 September 2009 - 12:35 PM, said:

Wait a minute!
I definately remember sitting around for hours waiting to throw my wonderjet into the blue, carrying buckets of instant sunshine to spoil Ivan's weekend!

I was also pretty good at building fallout shelters from tables and room doors

And i am pretty sure everyone seemed a bit upset about a concrete wall in the middle of Berlin.

i also remember an awful lot of eastern bloc diplomats used to spend a lot of time on ornithology conveniently close to our Airbases.

So yes I am pretty sure that Turbonium is in error if indeed he thinks the Cold war was faked - it was MY war and you can't take it away from me

I was a US Navy Aviation Fire Control Technician and F-4 Phantom Plane Captain from 1979-1983 on the USS Coral Sea, in the VF-21 Freelancers.



That's one of our birds in the far cat throttling up. This picture is in the wiki page on our squadron. I was on the boat that very moment sleeping a couple dozen feet below that, most techs worked all night and slept when they could during the day. I saw countless photos of the Russian Bear nuclear bombers that our jocks turned around and sent back to the USSR, by putting one plane 36" off each wingtip and forcing them to do so. (this is the basis of the blue angels airshow formation separation, it's SOP in the fleet or was in those days. I think that's what killed the Chinese pilot who tried the same thing on our P-3 some years back, when he collided with it- they just don't have it down yet) People who say the cold war wasn't a serious affair have no idea how close things got from time to time. Reagan's first term was deemed by many historians second only to the missile crisis in '63 as the most tense period of the whole affair. Reagan intentionally tried to provoke them on many fronts, hoping they would goof and make a grave error. They did in Sept '83, shooting down KAL007, which we inadvertently yet intentionally caused. It wasn't supposed to go that far, we had been recklessly "ghosting" commercial airline routes, "pretending" to go off course as our spy planes, military versions of commercial type aircraft, veered toward sensitive military sites to gather the photos and electronic data they could. They often trailed minutes behind actual scheduled flights. It was a milestone event tho as it turned European sentiment harshly against the Soviets, which was the goal of Reagan's chest beating bravado all along.
It was fully understood by those of us in the carrier groups that when the **** hit the fan we were going to be the first ones to glow, though the Navy laughably practiced General Quarters drills with nuclear atttack scenarios.

This post has been edited by batvette: 07 November 2009 - 06:09 AM

[batvette]

I believe we went, however consider this: Given what was at stake, and the Soviet program appeared equal to ours at the time, it is reasonable to assume a parallel facade program went on in case the goal appeared too far to reach. In this scenario it is possible for this to have happened and NOBODY, not even the president, to know all of the details or even the entire program. Each level of personnel having their task to complete based upon contingencies and you could even pull it off without the astronauts knowing, or at least remembering, if you drugged them in quarantine.
I used to know a guy who worked for DOE in the 60's in Nevada, and he used to see a lot of weird **** they had going on in the desert proving grounds, He told me he once was sent to a site to deliver some equipment and when he arrived, driving over a rise in the road, the small valley's sand floor was nearly black in color and there were mockups of vehicles and film crews on the scene. He wasn't the kind of guy who needed to make stories up to impress people, I believe him but I concede you don't know me from Adam so take it FWIW.
Considering Neil Armstrong had been seriously injured in the early spring of '69 crashing (and destroying) the landing module practice craft in the Mojave Desert- and it had been barely over a year since the launch pad fire killed three astronauts and caused a 90 day stand down and complete redesign of the crew capsule, I have considered that it is just vaguely possible we decided to err on the side of caution and not kill 3 more men and disgrace the nation in 1969 and didn't actually try to go until Apollo 13, which showed we still had some issues to solve and on 14 we got it right.
Before you all jump on me I reiterate a small corner in the back of my mind keeps that as a slight possibility- and the wise man always makes a similar allowance for such a chance. Most of the Moon Hoax arguments are silly, dishonest or stupid I must agree.

[flyingswan]

batvette, on 07 November 2009 - 06:28 AM, said:

I used to know a guy who worked for DOE in the 60's in Nevada, and he used to see a lot of weird **** they had going on in the desert proving grounds, He told me he once was sent to a site to deliver some equipment and when he arrived, driving over a rise in the road, the small valley's sand floor was nearly black in color and there were mockups of vehicles and film crews on the scene. He wasn't the kind of guy who needed to make stories up to impress people, I believe him but I concede you don't know me from Adam so take it FWIW.

It's no secret that the Apollo astronauts went to the Nevada nuclear test site for geological training:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/51133087.html

Quote

Considering Neil Armstrong had been seriously injured in the early spring of '69 crashing (and destroying) the landing module practice craft in the Mojave Desert- and it had been barely over a year since the launch pad fire killed three astronauts and caused a 90 day stand down and complete redesign of the crew capsule, I have considered that it is just vaguely possible we decided to err on the side of caution and not kill 3 more men and disgrace the nation in 1969 and didn't actually try to go until Apollo 13, which showed we still had some issues to solve and on 14 we got it right.

What ever makes you think Armstrong was seriously injured in the crash? A bitten tongue is serious?

The redesign after the Apollo 1 fire was hardly "complete". The Block 2 capsule was already on the way at the time of the fire, so the redesign was limited to making the hatch quicker to open, eliminating flammable materials in the cabin and switching to a two-gas atmosphere for ground tests and launch.

The trouble with the theory that only some of the landings were faked is that the lunar samples were in worldwide circulation soon after Apollo 11 and the curious moon-specific characteristics were well known before comparison with later Apollo samples, the Russian samples from unmanned probes and, a decade later, the lunar meteorites found in Antarctica. The instruments deployed on the lunar surface were also returning data from the first missions that were consistent with the later ones and indeed with subsequent unmannned missions to the moon.

[badeskov]

batvette, on 06 November 2009 - 10:01 PM, said:

I was a US Navy Aviation Fire Control Technician and F-4 Phantom Plane Captain from 1979-1983 on the USS Coral Sea, in the VF-21 Freelancers.



That's one of our birds in the far cat throttling up. This picture is in the wiki page on our squadron. I was on the boat that very moment sleeping a couple dozen feet below that, most techs worked all night and slept when they could during the day. I saw countless photos of the Russian Bear nuclear bombers that our jocks turned around and sent back to the USSR, by putting one plane 36" off each wingtip and forcing them to do so. (this is the basis of the blue angels airshow formation separation, it's SOP in the fleet or was in those days. I think that's what killed the Chinese pilot who tried the same thing on our P-3 some years back, when he collided with it- they just don't have it down yet) People who say the cold war wasn't a serious affair have no idea how close things got from time to time. Reagan's first term was deemed by many historians second only to the missile crisis in '63 as the most tense period of the whole affair. Reagan intentionally tried to provoke them on many fronts, hoping they would goof and make a grave error. They did in Sept '83, shooting down KAL007, which we inadvertently yet intentionally caused. It wasn't supposed to go that far, we had been recklessly "ghosting" commercial airline routes, "pretending" to go off course as our spy planes, military versions of commercial type aircraft, veered toward sensitive military sites to gather the photos and electronic data they could. They often trailed minutes behind actual scheduled flights. It was a milestone event tho as it turned European sentiment harshly against the Soviets, which was the goal of Reagan's chest beating bravado all along.

Cool

Quote

It was fully understood by those of us in the carrier groups that when the **** hit the fan we were going to be the first ones to glow, though the Navy laughably practiced General Quarters drills with nuclear atttack scenarios.

Would you mind elaborating? I am not sure I understand what is laughable about practicing nuclear attack scenarios, as that was a very real and very perceived option in the case of war.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Edited for missing word.

This post has been edited by badeskov: 07 November 2009 - 04:31 PM

[MID]

batvette, on 07 November 2009 - 01:28 AM, said:

Considering Neil Armstrong had been seriously injured in the early spring of '69 crashing (and destroying) the landing module practice craft in the Mojave Desert- and it had been barely over a year since the launch pad fire killed three astronauts and caused a 90 day stand down and complete redesign of the crew capsule, Most of the Moon Hoax arguments are silly, dishonest or stupid I must agree.

They are generally stupid, and certainly we've seen some that are dishonest.

A grasp of the historical facts helps sometimes...


Neil Armstrong was never seriously injured when he ejected from LLTV#1.
Further, this incident took place not in the early spring of 1969, but on May 5, 1968.

This incident didn't occur in the Mojave desert, but rather at Ellington Field in Houston Texas, where the LLTV program was flown.

The actual incident did occur 16 months after the Apollo 1 fire, but the Apollo 1 fire did not cause a 90 day stand down in the Apollo Program. It brought the Apollo spacecraft flight program to a screeching halt that would last well over a year.

Quote

I have considered that it is just vaguely possible we decided to err on the side of caution and not kill 3 more men and disgrace the nation in 1969 and didn't actually try to go until Apollo 13, which showed we still had some issues to solve and on 14 we got it right.
Before you all jump on me I reiterate a small corner in the back of my mind keeps that as a slight possibility- and the wise man always makes a similar allowance for such a chance.

Well, we did err on the side of caution, specifically for the reason you cite.
This is why the program essentially stopped while the Block 1 CM was scrapped, the cause of the fire analyzed, and the re-designs were put into the upgraded Block 2 spacecraft, a process which culminated 21 months later with the successful test flight of the spacecraft on the 11 day Apollo 7 mission in October, 1968.

What followed that was the lunar mission of Apollo 8 in December, the complete shakedown of the LM on Apollo 9 the following March, and the successful lunar test flight of the entire Apollo package on Apollo 10 in May, 1969.

By July of 1969, we were as ready as we could be to actually execute the landing, and there was nothing else left to do but fly it. The possibility of killing 2, or 3 men still existed, but there comes a point where you've attempted to mitigate the risks and have suceeded to the best of your capability, and you move on.

Quote

Given what was at stake, and the Soviet program appeared equal to ours at the time, it is reasonable to assume a parallel facade program went on in case the goal appeared too far to reach.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that such a thing was ever considered, especially given the fact that the U.S. program was public, not hidden in the shadows like the Soviet program was. The U.S. did everything in full view of the world, including the Soviets, who absoluetly knew exactly what we were doing and could verify we were doing it. They had no doubts.

Further, it is somewhat confusing what you mean by "...at the time".
What time was that? July of 1969?

If so, it should be noted that it was clear that the U.S. program was significantly ahead of the Soviet program then. In fact, we had been significantly ahead of the Soviet program for 4 years, and had flown to the Moon with men.

We knew that the Soviets were attempting to fly large boosters, obviously with the intent of launching lunar landing craft, but we had no concrete information concerning their actual craft or plans, as they did not expose their plans to the public as we did. By July 1969, the Soviet lunar program was essentially over, as they had destroyed their heavy lift capability in a stunning failure at Baikonur on July 3...

[mrbusdriver]

I seem to remember that Armstrong was back in his office the afternoon of the accident. Shadow of the Moon, if I'm not mistaken.

[MID]

mrbusdriver, on 08 November 2009 - 11:24 AM, said:

I seem to remember that Armstrong was back in his office the afternoon of the accident. Shadow of the Moon, if I'm not mistaken.

You're correct, Mr. B. He was. Sort of acting like nothing happened. Lots of guys found that almost wierd.
He said in his autobiography, "That's true, I did go back to the office. I mean, what are you going to do? It's one of those sad days when you lose a machine."

And that was it!

[Obviousman]

From the latest AW&ST, a wonderful diagramme charting the development of space & aviation technology. If anyone claims "we could not do it because we did not have the technology", or it was a sudden leap, they should look at this.

[MID]

Obviousman, on 09 November 2009 - 02:34 AM, said:

From the latest AW&ST, a wonderful diagramme charting the development of space & aviation technology. If anyone claims "we could not do it because we did not have the technology", or it was a sudden leap, they should look at this.

That's a neat chart there OM!

Thanks for that!

[batvette]

badeskov, on 07 November 2009 - 08:22 AM, said:

Cool



Would you mind elaborating? I am not sure I understand what is laughable about practicing nuclear attack scenarios, as that was a very real and very perceived option in the case of war.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Edited for missing word.

I worded that wrong, I can see why you asked the question. The laughable part wasn't the possibility our carrier group might face an attack, as I said we knew they would try and take out our air wing as a priority, for our antisubmarine squadrons to start with. The laughable part was the way we practiced GQ, with the scenario we'd survive one. Oh, I'm sure it's a must do, but outside of a few inches of armour plate on the flight and hangar decks (which the Forrestal disaster revealed a 500lber goes right through and 7 decks down) carriers are a big sardine can. The nuclear scenario GQ's would have the distinction of not allowing smoking or eating and they'd seal off the fresh air intakes from the weatherdecks or something to that effect. (do they allow smoking onboard anymore? bet not)

[flyingswan]

MID, on 09 November 2009 - 11:52 PM, said:

That's a neat chart there OM!

Thanks for that!

Rather undermines the HB argument that after 40 years of technology advancing, it should be a lot easier to get to the moon now. Look at how the airspeed record shot up in the 1950s and 1960s, but has hardly changed since. What has 40 years of technology advancing done for that?

[batvette]

flyingswan, on 07 November 2009 - 03:47 AM, said:

It's no secret that the Apollo astronauts went to the Nevada nuclear test site for geological training:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/51133087.html

What ever makes you think Armstrong was seriously injured in the crash? A bitten tongue is serious?

The redesign after the Apollo 1 fire was hardly "complete". The Block 2 capsule was already on the way at the time of the fire, so the redesign was limited to making the hatch quicker to open, eliminating flammable materials in the cabin and switching to a two-gas atmosphere for ground tests and launch.

The trouble with the theory that only some of the landings were faked is that the lunar samples were in worldwide circulation soon after Apollo 11 and the curious moon-specific characteristics were well known before comparison with later Apollo samples, the Russian samples from unmanned probes and, a decade later, the lunar meteorites found in Antarctica. The instruments deployed on the lunar surface were also returning data from the first missions that were consistent with the later ones and indeed with subsequent unmannned missions to the moon.

Thanks for the corrections.

I actually found some real good quality footage of Armstrong's mishap.

This should open up a window and play it: oops! armstrong's ejection

If it doesn't work here's the page it appears on:finding apollo-air/space smithsonian

[batvette]

flyingswan, on 10 November 2009 - 03:05 AM, said:

Rather undermines the HB argument that after 40 years of technology advancing, it should be a lot easier to get to the moon now. Look at how the airspeed record shot up in the 1950s and 1960s, but has hardly changed since. What has 40 years of technology advancing done for that?

Yeah but that's not an indicator of much by itself. If we needed aircraft in conventional atmosphere to be going much faster we'd have put the funding into developing it, and still all the money in the world doesn't change the laws of physics as they apply to aerodynamics, propulsion, etc.
I think what has progressed is not how fast or where we go but how often we went where we did back then safely.
The barrier we face in the next big leap (mars? probably) is propulsion techniques. I think I've heard with current technology it is a three year one way trip? Given the rate of muscle and bone mass loss the astronauts better have 55 gallon drums onboard for space suits, they'll pour themselves out of their craft.