A close look at the Apollo 14 Lunar module on the Moon

HomerinNC
Beautiful pics, never knew HOW flimsy and fragile looking the LEM was
S&F

Don't forget, the LM only flew in space. It never had to fly through a thick atmosphere.

Most aircraft (and even rockets) you are accustomed to seeing are designed to be able to withstand atmospheric forces (wind drag, etc). The lunar lander did not need to withstand these forces, and its design was maximized for use in space only. It would not need to work anywhere but in space, so (with weight/mass being a vital consideration) all of the extraneous (heavy) parts of the design required to be able to withstand atmospheric forces had been stripped away.

So the LM did not need an outside cover on its exposed parts. A plane that flies through the sky on earth, or a rocket blasting off from its launch pad on Earth, needs these outside covers (the skin of the plane or the rocket) in order to protect the pieces of the craft from atmospheric drag - such as the air swooshing past it. Without this skin, the air could rip the pieces right off of the craft.

The LM, on the other hand, doesn't need to worry about atmospheric drag, because it only operates in space. It can have parts and tanks and struts on the outside of the craft. It can have its insulation exposed; the insulation can be exposed because there is no atmospheric drag that will rip it away from the craft

The complete LM may look odd, but the basic concept of it is simple.

A pressurized cabin with an engine and small control thrusters (the ascent stage):


connected to the top of a set of legs and engine (the descent stage) as shown in this model:


All the rest of that foil, fiberboard, and tape is just insulation, and is not really the "business end" of the LM. The LM is basically a crew cabin on legs.

The ascent module looks to be of relatively strong design, with the crew cabin being in a cylindrical pressure vessel (the drum-shaped part in the middle right of the picture of the ascent stage I posted above).The other pieces are tanks and such. The actual LM had a shroud over the tanks.

And, like I said, the descent stage is a platform on legs. It may be hard to see that it is just a platform on legs while looking at all of the foil insulation, so here is a picture of an unused LM (with BOTH the ascent stage and the descent stage still together) on display at the Franklin institute in Philadelphia that is devoid of the usual foil insulation. This can give an idea of what the "business parts": (without the insulation) of the LM looks like.. This LM was built to be used for the cancelled Apollo 19 mission

reply to post by wildespace

No lunar dust on the LM at all what a smooth landing. I have a question ...If Armstrong was the first off the module then who took the video of him coming down the steps? I just love the pics that do not make sense as in the module with no landing dust on them.... in less gravity should be more dust and it would linger more with the absence of wind .

tomounitismanassas
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

Its just funny after all this evidence that has been provided by Number of ppl in many threads,that someone comes pops up a pic and here it is the moon landings were Real...sorry i dont buy it.And i understand what you saying still it should have made some disturbance on the soil i cant see nothing

edit on 11-4-2014 by tomounitismanassas because: (no reason given)

Yeah -- but is all of the "evidence" of a moon hoax valid evidence that can stand up to scrutiny?

From what I've seen of the alleged evidence of a moon hoax, I say:
"no -- the evidence of a hoax cannot stand up to scrutiny"


Edit to add:
The alleged evidence such as "why are there no stars" or "why is there no blast crater" or "the shadows are not parallel" or "the LM could not have possibly worked" is not really evidence as much as it is people not having a good understanding the Apollo technology, physics, photography, or nature in general


As for disturbance of the soil -- there was a 1 or 2 inch covering of dust on the moon, then rock-hard compacted surface under that dust. The LM blew the dust away, leaving the hard surface exposed. I'm not sure why you think the engine would have left a disturbance in the hard surface. Even then, you can STILL see some of the radial lines created by the dust disturbance under the engine bell, such as in this image:


history.nasa.gov...

hanyak69
reply to post by wildespace

 

No lunar dust on the LM at all what a smooth landing. I have a question ...If Armstrong was the first off the module then who took the video of him coming down the steps? I just love the pics that do not make sense as in the module with no landing dust on them.... in less gravity should be more dust and it would linger more with the absence of wind .

As mentioned above, the LM engine was shut down about 4 or 5 feet from the surface. Therefore any dust that was kicked up by the engine would be falling back to the surface after the engine was shut down. Considering there is virtually no atmosphere, the dust would not be suspended in a cloud like we are accustomed to seeing on earth. It would just fall (or some would continue along a ballistic/parabolic trajectory).

Add that to the fact that the LM engine thrust was on a very low setting immediately prior to engine shut down, and any ust would be mostly kicked outward, there would be very little dust that would have been "above" the level of the landing pad that would have been able to fall back on top of the landing pad.

hanyak69
reply to post by wildespace

 

No lunar dust on the LM at all what a smooth landing.

Dust doesn't billow in a vacuum. It's a good thing you didn't design the "hoax." You'd have stars in the fast exposures and dust on the LM, all dead giveaways of a hoax.

BlueJacket
reply to post by andy06shake

 

You cannot see stars without an atmosphere or similar filter.
2nd

Totally not true!

BlueJacket
You cannot see stars without an atmosphere or similar filter.

Aliensun
Totally not true!

You are correct, Aliensun.

It has nothing to do with the lack of atmosphere (there ARE IN FACT pictures of stars taken from space by astronaut of Apollo, the space shuttle, and the space station). I has to do with camera exposure settings.

Due to the brightness of the reflected sun on the moon, which has a reflectivity similar to the sun shining on the asphalt of a car park/parking lot, the cameras used on the moon had exposure settings that were very similar to daylight settings here on earth. If a person took a camera on Earth that had the exposure set to a "daylight" setting and tried to take a picture of stars (even on a dark and starry night), the picture would most likely not show any stars, or maybe only show the brightest objects -- maybe only Venus or Sirius. Almost all of those other stars a person could see with their eyes would not show up in the picture.

The astronauts themselves may have not even been able to see many, if any, stars while they were working on the moon. Like the camera, the eyes of the astronaut would have automatically adjusted to the brightness of the reflected sunlight (i.e., their pupils would be smaller). Like I mentioned on the first page of this thread, it is similar to a person standing under a very bright street light at night. Their eyes would be adjusted to the brightly lit scene under the street light, and if they looked up, it would be difficult to see the stars. If the light was turned off, eventually their eyes would adjust (their pupils would get bigger, letting in more light), and they would be able to see a starry sky.

hanyak69
reply to post by wildespace

 

No lunar dust on the LM at all what a smooth landing. I have a question ...If Armstrong was the first off the module then who took the video of him coming down the steps? I just love the pics that do not make sense as in the module with no landing dust on them.... in less gravity should be more dust and it would linger more with the absence of wind .

The TV camera was on a hinge and hidden away. As Armstrong descended the ladder he pulled a lanyard that released the camera from it's housing to film him coming down the ladder.

Ther reason there is no dust lingering is precisely because there is no atmosphere to prevent it leaving. The thrust from the descent engine sends any dust in the vicinity off towards the horizon, not billowing into clouds of dust. As soon as the engine is turned off, the dust stops being disturbed. This is exactly what you would expect in zero atmosphere, and exactly what you see on all the lunar landing footage, including that of the Chinese one.

Soylent Green Is People
I'm not sure why you think the engine would have left a disturbance in the hard surface. Even then, you can STILL see some of the radial lines created by the dust disturbance under the engine bell, such as in this image:

People have this crazy idea that the engine is firing at full pelt all the way down, as opposed to throttling back and then turning off compeletely as the probes on the LM feet hit the ground ("Contact light").

You do not park a car by accelerating into a garage.

reply to post by wildespace

Here's a recent picture from a spacewalk on the ISS, you can't see any stars either:

And neither could the astronauts. I've looked through the names of every EVA astronaut listed, and none of them say anything about what can be seen looking into deep space, nor do they give talks or lectures about the subject, nor do they mention anything in books they have written, Except for Hadfield, who says it is just black out there. Even from 24 miles up, Felix Baumgartner says the sky is totally black, and he never mentioned seeing stars. Oh sure, the bright Sun was blinding him, the light from the Earth too, though he never makes that excuse himself. There is no PROOF that even with a long exposure, stars, or anything, can be seen looking into deep space. Neither you nor NASA can provide proof otherwise, and the EVA astronauts won't talk about it at all. If anyone has a Twitter account, please ask Hadfield about the subject, you won't get a reply I bet.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

If the light was turned off, eventually their eyes would adjust (their pupils would get bigger, letting in more light), and they would be able to see a starry sky.

Eventually? It takes my old eyes less than 5 seconds from being blinded by a flashlight to be able to see lots of stars, not the dimmest ones true, but many should be visible within a few seconds. If not, there is something wrong with your eyes.
And there are astronomy clubs in Manhattan, all that light pollution does not stop them, not the best location, but shows you do not need to be in total darkness to see the brighter stars at least.

reply to post by GaryN


Even the light pollution in manhattan cannot compare to being surrounded by a bright daylit lunar terrain. While on the surface indirect sunlight reflected by the moon is constantly entering your helmet. The astronauts had no trouble seeing the stars while in orbit around the moon though. They photographed them from orbit as well and used them for navigation with the command module's sextant. I spoke to Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden about this myself. He didn't walk on the moon, but he did orbit it quite a few times, successfully navigated to the moon and back using the stars, and took photos of the stars while in space.
h.dropcanvas.com...

GaryN
reply to post by wildespace

 

Here's a recent picture from a spacewalk on the ISS, you can't see any stars either:

And neither could the astronauts.

You are lying. Barbara Morgan saw the whole sky filled with stars from the flight deck of Endeavour while on the night side of earth with the interior lights turned off. Again, I spoke to her personally about this and I already relayed that information to you multiple times. You have chosen to lie instead and insist that the astronauts could not see stars when you know otherwise.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thanks to Soylent Green and ngchunter for providing good answers and interesting info. I suspected that this thread would be deluged with nonsensical claims by the hoax believers.

kookoos
The pictures of the LM on the moon in the OP looks quite sharp and in focus really amazing given the harsh environment.

The absence of atmosphere is exactly the reason for such sharpness. There's no air to make distant objects or terrain hazy.

The cameras were fairly simple to operate, and the astronauts had training sessions to use them. This particular photo isn't even that great; it's not entirely level with the horizon, and shows only part of the LM.

I could answer many more issues brought up here, but they have all been answered elsewhere time and again, and this thread would be turned into a slug fest of ignorance and moving of the goalposts.

All I wanted to was to share a cool image and some details about it.

valdonzontaz

wildespace

At the risk of seeming somewhat skeptical and overly sarcastic does OP actually expect intelligent people to believe his awkward anaslysis of the alleged LM and the supposed evidence of the disturbance of the moons surface beneath the fake module?

Then the OP say's something about "the small crater just in front of the LM." Please don't tell me he thinks that hole was caused by the fake LM?

Nope, that's just a regular impact crater on the Moon. I simply matched its location on the Apollo photo to the LRO image. I'm sure intelligent people would recognise that.

The analysis is not mine, it's quoted from the page I linked to.

Do the "intelligent people" also believe that lunar dust billows and hangs in clouds like on Earth? Do they believe stars should be visible in these images? What do they have to say about the fact that this LM skidded sideways, displacing some dust, and that the footpad landing probes are bent?
www.hq.nasa.gov...
www.hq.nasa.gov...

GaryN
reply to post by wildespace

 

Here's a recent picture from a spacewalk on the ISS, you can't see any stars either:

And neither could the astronauts. I've looked through the names of every EVA astronaut listed, and none of them say anything about what can be seen looking into deep space, nor do they give talks or lectures about the subject, nor do they mention anything in books they have written, Except for Hadfield, who says it is just black out there. Even from 24 miles up, Felix Baumgartner says the sky is totally black, and he never mentioned seeing stars. Oh sure, the bright Sun was blinding him, the light from the Earth too, though he never makes that excuse himself. There is no PROOF that even with a long exposure, stars, or anything, can be seen looking into deep space. Neither you nor NASA can provide proof otherwise, and the EVA astronauts won't talk about it at all. If anyone has a Twitter account, please ask Hadfield about the subject, you won't get a reply I bet.

You've had this notion discredited on numerous occasions. I've quoted you the Iranian astronaut's words on stars, I've shown you photographs. Once again here is a webpage I have done showing lots of pictures of stars and planets taken by Apollo astronauts.

onebigmonkey.comoj.com...

If you are so concerned about getting the correct answer from Cmdr Hadfield why don't you email him. or send him a tweet. It's not difficult to get hold of people. Why demand other people do your work for you when you won't believe their answer anyway?

Thank you for the pics, how I wish I could have joined them up there.

Once again hoaxers are proven wrong over and over, and no doubt they will make the same false claims they know to be false in another thread.

wildespace

Here's the panorama which I assembled from individual images:

And here's an LRO image of the location, taken at approximately the same time of lunar day, and rotated to match the Apollo panorama. I think you can identify the small crater just in front of the LM:

Is that also the shadow of the S-band antenna just to the right of the crater? Looks like it's on the right spot from the panorama. Pretty neat if you can pick that out too

Edit: in fact I think you can just make out the light dot of the antenna itself too. Look right from the small crater below the LM and it's just to the left of a line dropped vertically from the right tip of the LM shadow. The thin shadow points almost directly at another prominent small crater to the right of the LM.



Thanks for sharing these pics. Just a shame the same old tired hoax arguments are being trotted out. Are people really still asking "Why are there no stars?" in 2014? Because it was daytime!

Here's a shot from something I did along similar lines. The three images show an LRO view (left), the same view taken by a pre-Apollo Lunar Orbiter probe (right), and in the centre there is a a still taken from the continuous 16mm DAC footage taken during Apollo 14's descent.

The eventual landing point is pretty much in the centre of the DAC still, and you can work it by following the craters. The LRO and Orbiter photos have been rotated to match the angle of the LM approach view, which is why it is slightly different to the one in the OP.



There are two things that are significant in images such as this.

Firstly it is not just the Apollo hardware that is exactly how it should be, all of the rocks and craters are an exact match too.

Secondly, the Lunar Orbiter image shows the best available view of the Apollo 14 site before the landing. It contains nothing like the level of detail visible in the DAC still, yet the DAC still is an exact match for the LRO image.

The reason for this is simple: The Apollo 14 lunar module is on the moon.

BlueJacket
Pretty amazing indeed, I must admit, I would most certainly not want to fly to and from the moon on that thing. Looks like something I would of made in my play room as a child out of card board boxes, gift wrap tubes and tinfoil. Only thing I dont see is "buttons and switches" drawn on with magic marker. Amazing courage to navigate that thing through a landing etc...

I've read several comments like this about the apparent flimsiness of the Apollo Lunar module. These opinions are, to put it kindly, uninformed.

The error that these observers make is assuming that the outer skin of the LM has any structural function whatsoever. That's kind of like assuming that your shirt is what's holding you upright in your chair. In fact, the main purposes of the aluminum skin & mylar blankets were (like your shirt) thermal control and protection from the environment.

Let's have a look under the skin, shall we?

Here is a picture of the rear of the LM Ascent Stage:



You can see the thin stringers that will support the skin, when it's installed. Underneath them, you can see the much sturdier structural supports surrounding the Aft Electronics Bay.

In the next picture, on the upper-right, you can see the front of the LM ascent stage, including the pressurized crew compartment:



Note that the skin of the pressure vessel is strongly supported by structural ribs every few inches.
On the lower left is the Descent Stage. Here is a better picture of it:



Note that the structure is not octagonal, as the finished product would appear. It is cruciform. Since the Descent Stage had to support the Ascent Stage not only during landing, but also during launch from Earth, it had to be very robust. They built it using heavily-reinforced box structures.

The Apollo Lunar Modules were not massed-produced, nor were they hastily constructed. They were built by-hand by skilled engineers and technicians who knew that the hopes of their nation and the lives of astronauts were riding on them. Imagine the pride they felt when they saw the things they built with their own hands sitting on the surface of the Moon...

How would you feel?

How would you feel if (hypothetically) some anonymous, know-nothing burger-flipper who'd never accomplished anything in his life (not you, Blue Jacket) called your greatest achievement junk and, by implication, you a life-long liar?

"Contempt" might be one response. There are others: