An End To The Moon Conspiracy!

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Soylent Green,

So well said. If I had the power I'd award you 10,000 points for that one!

Your excellent description points out how many just cannot conceive how spaceflight actually works. Many simply apply their Terrestial experiences and understandings of objects in an atmosphere (and, dare I say, their observations from many Hollywood movies that pollute the physics of orbital mechanics) and it muddies the waters, so to speak.

A common misconception is, when looking at the LEM, that it couldn't possibly have effected a soft landing. What those people need to do is study the fact of other (unmanned) Lunar probes, both US and Soviet, that successfully 'soft landed' to pave the way for the manned missions.

In a science fiction movie, the stalwart brave souls go off and land in a strange environment...in real life, we test, experiment, assay, and test again before committing lives on the line. Maybe in some future time, technology will enable the stalwart souls to go first...since they will have OTHER technology, yet to be invented, to protect them...

Great post soylent, well thought out and very detailed. I had forgotten that in all the later apollo missions that the CM performed the first part of the descent. When I simulate an apollo mission I usually do 11, though I have done 15 before. To pepsi and anyone else who has doubts about the ability of the LEM to soft land on the moon, I urge you to try it yourself in simulation. The simulator I use implements the real apollo guidance computer software. It features the real performance characteristics of the vehicle, and it runs inside an advanced free spaceflight simulator program developed by an independent physicist from London.
The apollo software can be found here:
nassp.sourceforge.net...
The simulator can be found here:
orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk...
If you really want to know the truth, if you really want to know if the apollo missions were physically possible and what the velocities, trajectories, and difficulties were, then this software will give you a huge amount of valuable insight. It's not for the faint of heart, the detail in the apollo simulation is extreme, you can fly the missions using the real checklists and just like mission control, you have to do your own calculations to figure out what to instruct the guidance computer to do (the orbiter simulator it runs in provides the tools to calculate those things for you so you don't actually have to pull out a slide rule. though you could if you wanted to be completely purist). This simulator was not programed by "conspirators," it was programmed by people from other countries as well as this one, and they're just space enthusiasts like me.

I can't believe this thread is so long haha

Let's just all agree that ppl from america have been on the moon, I don't think it's so hard to believe..

[edit on 11-1-2008 by ZikhaN]

reply to post by ngchunter


Thanks for the links.

The bottom line is that the LEM wasn't falling like a rock and then fired it's thrusters only before it landed. Instead it was controlling its slow rate of descent all the way down to the surface by burning its engines periodically during the entire descent.

EDIT:spelling

[edit on 1/11/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

I want to say 'thanks' also, to NGCHunter, for the links...

(oops, all lower case...'ngchunter'...sorry)


[edit on 11-1-2008 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by ngchunter


ngchunter,

I have yet to fully explore the simulation links (thanks again, BTW) but before I do, was wondering about something you said.

In 'later' missons (am assuming 16 and 17?) they used the CM, or actually, the CM/SM combined vehicle, for initial de-orbital deltaV, so the LM could use less fuel? Following that, the CM/SM would certainly have to fire the main engine to correct the orbit, yet save enough for the TEI to get home. Am I correct?

Oh, here's a thought...the initial TLI placed the combined CM/SM/LEM vehicle into a purposely 'higher' orbit than previously, so that the larger engine on the SM could help reduce some of the orbital velocity, allow the CM/SM to then settle into the lower orbit needed for rendezvous later, before the trip home, thus allowing more fuel on the LEM for maneuvering, if necessary.

Experience is the key here...real life experience, lessons learned from previous missons, would have allowed for this 'tweaking' in the missions we are discussing. Makes sense.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by ngchunter

 

ngchunter,

I have yet to fully explore the simulation links (thanks again, BTW) but before I do, was wondering about something you said.

In 'later' missons (am assuming 16 and 17?) they used the CM, or actually, the CM/SM combined vehicle, for initial de-orbital deltaV, so the LM could use less fuel? Following that, the CM/SM would certainly have to fire the main engine to correct the orbit, yet save enough for the TEI to get home. Am I correct?

Oh, here's a thought...the initial TLI placed the combined CM/SM/LEM vehicle into a purposely 'higher' orbit than previously, so that the larger engine on the SM could help reduce some of the orbital velocity, allow the CM/SM to then settle into the lower orbit needed for rendezvous later, before the trip home, thus allowing more fuel on the LEM for maneuvering, if necessary.

Experience is the key here...real life experience, lessons learned from previous missons, would have allowed for this 'tweaking' in the missions we are discussing. Makes sense.

Yes, you're correct in your assesment of how the CM/SM fired its engines after undocking from the LEM to put the CM back into a more-or-less circular orbit about 60 nautical miles up. My understanding is that a CM powered DOI (descent orbit insertion) started with apollo 14 (not sure how they intended to do it on 13). I'm kind of surprised they didn't think of it for apollo 12 since they cut it so incredibly close on fuel during apollo 11, but perhaps the CM's fuel supply was more of a concern for 12.

Soylent Green Is People

First of all, we need to remember that even before the Command Module (CM) and LEM separated, the joined spacecraft needed to slow itself down from 11,000 meters per second (its trans-lunar cruising speed) to 1600 meters/second (its lunar orbital speed). This was done by turning the spacescraft around, pointing the engine in the direction of motion, and conducting a burn of the engine. I hope you don't doubt the fact that the spacecraft can slow down in this manner, since this is basic physics...action/reaction stuff, and is done all of the time.

At last you've got the truth.
“I hope you don't doubt the fact that the spacecraft can slow down in this manner, since this is basic physics...action/reaction stuff, and is done all of the time”.

The spacecraft can't slow down in this manner from 39,600 km/s to 5,700 km/s.

Now I explain you this simple thing: we are talking about a spacecraft that move in 3D space but, in order to simplify the involved dynamics, imagine to replace the spacecraft with a little disk that can move on a frozen surface with not much friction.
The disk has an air-compressed device that you can turn on with a transmitter. Push the disk in such a way that it doesn't spin and then turn on the compressed air that acts along the opposite direction.
What does it happen? The disk begins to turn and to lose its rectilinear direction going towards all directions at 360°.

Are you able now to figure out what happens to a rocket that must slow down from 39,600 km/s to 5,700 km/s.

reply to post by ngchunter


Yeah, ngchunter...

Makes sense. Like you said, Apollo 13 and the 'plan' for orbital altitude and landing site have been lost in the obviousness of just 'get them home'.

It would be interesting if we could find the original Mission Objectives for A13. Certainly I am glad that Lovell, et al, got home safely. I expect that with a safe return, there was still a terrible let-down...but, that's not for me to discuss.

(It's just how I would have felt)

Anyway...thanks for great links. Still, perhaps we could investigate the A13 v. A14 missions, see if there was cross-over due to the SM explosion...

Thanks.

reply to post by no.stars



The spacecraft is not a disk with forces being applied tangentally to the edge, so how is this analogy supposed to apply? If the force of the engine were going to induce a spin, the simulator would reflect it. If you try to do a burn with a fictional spacecraft that's not properly balanced it will spin, but the apollo spacecraft never exhibit this behavior because their engines are directly in line with their cog, unlike in your example. Interestingly, the space shuttle's orbital maneuvering system engines are not in line with the center of gravity, so the reaction control system must compensate for this to prevent the craft from pitching up everytime they do an OMS burn. It's easy to offset the force though if you know exactly how much force is being applied and have full throttle control. By your logic though, the space shuttle should be completely unsteerable when doing a de-orbit burn. Is the shuttle a hoax too? By the way, a small side note, there aren't supposed to be stars in the pictures. The exposures were for daylit scenes, not the kind of excessively long night time exposures that would be required to see stars while overexposing everything else. Current shuttle mission videos and pictures taken on the daylight side of earth do not show stars either, so once again, is the shuttle a hoax?

Excessive Quoting – Please Review This Link

[edit on 11-1-2008 by Jbird]

I have a feeling that our oft-banned friend will soon try to tell us that wheels can't possibly roll and water is, in fact, dry.

reply to post by nataylor


nataylor!!!!

Funny, and to the point! Kudos!

Originally posted by ngchunter
reply to post by no.stars

 

The spacecraft is not a disk with forces being applied tangentally to the edge, so how is this analogy supposed to apply? If the force of the engine were going to induce a spin, the simulator would reflect it. If you try to do a burn with a fictional spacecraft that's not properly balanced it will spin, but the apollo spacecraft never exhibit this behavior because their engines are directly in line with their cog, unlike in your example.

In that disk compressed air acts along the radius in line with its center of gravity.

You say in another post:

"The simulator I use implements the real apollo guidance computer software. It features the real performance characteristics of the vehicle, and it runs inside an advanced free spaceflight simulator program developed by an independent physicist from London".

A simulator can't reproduce the complexity of the real thing. Do you think landing on the Moon is a video game?

You say in another post:

"I hope you don't doubt the fact that the spacecraft can slow down in this manner, since this is basic physics...action/reaction stuff, and is done all of the time".

In my analogy we are in the field of dynamics like the spacecraft in 3D space.
You talk about action/reaction stuff but a vector remains in line of another opposite vector only in statics.
In dynamics momentums cause the disalignment of action-reaction vectors.

I usually try to stay out of these "debates" - if that is even the proper word - because I know that members like Soylent Green Is People, jra, and others bring greater knowledge to bear than I can.

However, I do feel obliged to point out that a real physics teacher would probably know how to spell physics.

Oh man, I sure do hope they've been there. And i sure do hope that they have lied about what is there. I think so much evidence exist on us beeing on the moon that we can kill that debate. Instead the new question should be:
With what technology was it made possible? I mean is there more to it than meets the eye?

I would totally agree with reality, were it proved beyond doubt that old-school Nazi technology got us there.

I would not be surprised, though, if that technology was fused with some other "black" technology that we are kept from knowing about. By that i don't necessarily think that greys towed them there and picked them up by sundown.

I just feel it is crazy that in this discussion proof of an orbiting craft around the moon is valid as devastating to the "sceptics". A discussion of some key, particular operations and their theoretical validity still seem like fair game to me.

reply to post by EarthDweller


Sorry, EarthDweller...

It was not 'old school Nazi Technology'...Sheesh!!

Some of the tech was picked from former Nazi's brains, especially von Braun, of course. (Remember, Stalin had his cadre of Nazis too).

But Robert Goddard was a huge intellect. ALL of these people's contributions went in to the technology...and many others as well.

I am, frankly, tired of the continued denigration of these accomplishments just because a few dozens (or hundreds) of former, and I emphasize 'former' Nazis had specific knowledge and skills to impart.

Certainly not, here, attempting to be an apologist for the NAZI regime -- hope everyone can see that. I would simply wish to point out that many, many Germans in that political climate had to swear an oath to the Party, or be imprisoned and likely killed. It is heinous, but true. I daresay von Braun never pulled a trigger on any of the victims of Hitler's 'reign'. If I am wrong about this fact, please, someone come along and show otherwise.

von Braun aided in the development of the V1 and V2...would you, conversely, claim that Mitsubishi is as bad, since he developed the Zero? Remember, please, that history is written by the victors...and revisionist history...

We must guard against innuendo, and stick to hard facts please.

(misspelled 'Mitsubishi'...y and t close together)

[edit on 12-1-2008 by weedwhacker]

all i have to sayis this. why people have they not been bacjk in just over 40 years? think about it. how many rockets and crft have been sent up. hundreds. man on the moon since the "landing"? none. technology has jumped well beyond what they had then. so my opinion is that they haven't been i feel its too dangerous. i once saw this long program on the landing arguement. they recon (those who say it didnt happen) that the radiation and temperatures along would not allow a man to walk the moon.
there was also deep scrutany of the film taken from the landing. there is too many things that point to the fact it wasnt real. am very sure all us here have heard them. like the crosses on the lense was under the objects when they should have been on top of them. wind on the flag. it was a slowed down film clip of guys skipping around.
it was said earlier that no one has got hubble and pointed to the moon and looked. well aint hubble nASA owned? so other telescopes then? it aint to bright on the surface of the moon. a telescope you get for kids can pic out detail clear enough to see the pot marked surface and they cost like £20 no £20billion. there is quite clearly something we're not being told

Originally posted by darktim
all i have to sayis this. why people have they not been bacjk in just over 40 years?

Lack of money and political interest has prevented NASA from going back. They had plans for continued missions to the Moon, but after the US Government cut there funding, they couldn't go back.

i once saw this long program on the landing arguement. they recon (those who say it didnt happen) that the radiation and temperatures along would not allow a man to walk the moon.

The radiation wasn't that strong. You should look up the actual numbers for the amount or radiation they were exposed to. Apollo 14, for example had the most radiation exposure, which was 2.85 rem. That is still well below the lethal levels.

It sounds like you watched something by Bart Sibrel. The points you brought up have been debunked countless times. I encourage you to look into some of those points and research the information yourself and see how those claims hold up.

reply to post by weedwhacker


Hey Wheedwhacker.

I agree with you there. I have a lot of respect for engineers of all regimes and fates. I still believe that some of the people BEHIND the space program may be more nazi than the actual scientists beeing shipped over during "project paperclip". As you point out; they are but pawns in a bigger game. That said, I'm still open to the possibility that Von Braun was an avowed fascist even when active in USA. And what about Parsons? There was some funky stuff going on there i tell you. Proof? Well, no. Inuendo? Hell yeah!

Originally posted by EarthDweller

Instead the new question should be:
With what technology was it made possible?

Certainly not with Apollo technology since a rocket that runs at 39,600 km/h can't be slowed down to 5,700 km/h turning round it and igniting its rocket engine.
Action-reaction vectors remain in line only in statics.
Imagine the Command Service Module that weighs 30 tons and runs at 39,000 km/h. You turn round the rocket and, in order to slow down its speed to 5,700 km/h, you turn on its rocket engine.
It is impossible at this point to maintain the alignment of action and reaction vectors. It is enough a very little displacement between the 2 vectors that infinite biggest momentums make the rocket to spin and run to all infinite directions of 3D space.