NASA Scientist Ryan Mackey Answers ATS Questions

reply to post by wsamplet


Yes, that's my opinion, wsamplet. What's your point? I didn't lodge any formal complaint about this thread. I shared my opinion with Griff.

reply to post by Valhall


My point is that SO said he was not aware of any complaints. I have a hard time believing that he did not see your gripe with all the time he spent in that thread.

If it makes you feel any better SO has a long history of ignoring me and my gripes, so I doubt I was a determining factor. He probably did skip to the next post.

BTW - I'm not sure if your "attention seeking" statement was aimed at Griff or me - hard to tell since you followed it with a quote from me. But I assure you, I don't need any mod attention. When I get mod attention it's usually not pleasant. And I didn't take Griff's OP on that thread to be attention-seeking. Some times trolls just get exhausting and I think she wanted some one to explain why the behavior was being allowed.

I'm not sure she got her answer.

Originally posted by LaBTop
Griff, you admitted to the same thoughts about core columns failure as I had.

I have to note however, that when a portion of about 1 meter of ALL core columns suddenly would be missing, and the above parts of those columns would come crashing down 1 meter, with the floors still attached, that in my opinion all 4 exterior walls would start buckling inwards, if all floors held tightly welded to the angle plates welded on the inside of the exterior columns.

Yes. Exactly. And the exterior would initiate collapse at the weakest part. The plane impacts. I've been saying this for about 3 years now since I've been looking into it. I've never said that the floors wouldn't pull in the exterior if the core failed. The evidence actually points to this.

So what caused the SLOWLY developing localized buckling over some 20 minutes, as reported by NYPD helicopter pilots, if not caused by sagging floors?

The key word there is localized. If a floor is going to pull in a rigid body, wouldn't it pull in the entire rigid body? I could be wrong, but it's my opinion the localized buckling could be caused by floors sagging, but those columns were somehow separated from the rest of the structure during impact. You raised a good question that really had me think. Thanks.

That must have meant that part of the hat truss was compromised.
The part where the radio tower was attached to.
Or, the whole hat truss fell INTO the rest of the building.

Now your getting back to my theory of "something" happening to the core.

reply to post by Valhall


I do have to side with Valhall and SO over this. I didn't think about the implications of the board in the long run. I do wish Mr. Mackey would join us though. I know I could join jref but I refuse to get bombarded with diatribe and personal attacks.

Now that I had time to take a breath, I feel obligated to pass along a letter from Mr. Mackey and one last reply to Griff. Griff is the classiest "truther" in here who always seems to keep an open mind to all questions and answers.

My intentions were genuine and I wanted us all to learn in here.
I apologize for not forseeing the issues this thread would bring. That beign said, I stand by my opinions I posted about Bsbray11. (although snipped)

Best of luck to all of you.
C.O.

I happened to look at your thread today, and it certainly took a turn for the worse. There are a few things I might clarify for the group, and the moderators there:

I have no intention of joining the ATS Forum. This is not a slight against ATS, but more an acknowledgement of the futility in Internet bickering with conspiracy theorists. In similar fashion, I have been asked to join PhysOrg.com, for instance, but have declined that invitation as well. I still post on the JREF, albeit much less than I once did, but this has more to do with history and interests besides September 11th. I was originally drawn there by myths of high-end audio, if you can believe that.

The whole reason I wrote my whitepaper in the first place was to elevate the discussion. Rather than continue bickering, I sought to write something more thorough, more carefully researched, and more lasting -- a kind of coup de grace, if you will. The whitepaper covers a large range of popular conspiracy theorist myths, and Dr. Griffin, who amalgamates nearly all of them into a loose narrative, served as an appropriate foil.
There are those (such as Tony Szamboti, contributor to the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice") who deride my whitepaper simply because it (like his works) hasn't been peer-reviewed. It has not, of course. However, I am unaware of any suitable review board for a critique of a similarly un-peer-reviewed book, written by a professional theologian with no detectable relevant credentials or association, relying itself upon the words of a handful of self-proclaimed experts who have also yet to produce a single peer-reviewed result between them. (If anyone is aware of a suitable review board, I will certainly look into it -- my e-mail is on the front page of the whitepaper. Thanks.)

Since there is no readily apparent form of appropriate review, I determined that the best way to guarantee and maintain quality of the whitepaper was to subject it to as many informal reviews as possible, and facilitate any and all feedback. This is why my e-mail address is on the front page, and why I encourage virtually any and all reproduction. To date I have received a healthy number of responses, and I have made a number of minor corrections. I have not, however, received any corrections of significance, and though this does not prove I have everything right, it is reassuring. As I have noted elsewhere, I am a scientist, and I am committed to accuracy. If there's a mistake in there, show it to me, and I promise to fix it.
But, you can't just make an unsupported claim and expect me to adopt it. You have to explain your reasoning. I have, for instance, received a few e-mails claiming I'm wrong simply because "it's obvious that explosives were used." Hardly. I've also received a couple of messages with no intellectual content at all, merely the work of mental deficients claiming that, because I wrote this whitepaper, I am a traitor to the United States.
There is no way to avoid these kinds of juvenile, borderline insane responses. If I was discussing this in an Internet forum -- any Internet forum -- those replies would immediately prompt derails, escalate into epithets, and invite more of the same from the original irresponsible party or his admirers. The message is lost. By releasing a more formal document and controlling the editorial process, on the other hand, nobody ever has to see this. Those who see fit to call for my execution are simply added to my "delete" file, and that's that. The time wasted is theirs, not mine, and not that of other readers.

With the recent dustup at the ATS Forum as an example, I feel completely justified in this course of action. For whatever reason, and without pointing any fingers, it is impossible to hold a discussion on September 11th conspiracy theories without someone resorting to ad hominem attacks and colorful language, not to mention the well-known "conspiracy shuffle" of endlessly changing the argument in an attempt to appear knowledgeable. My whitepaper only considers Dr. Griffin and NIST in an attempt to remain as dispassionate and scientific as possible, by design, yet still discussions of its content inevitably lose all decorum simply because of the subject matter -- or because of the character of those discussing it. If you believe there is a scientific basis for September 11th conspiracy theories, this fact should give you some pause. Were there truly a scientific basis, it would be possible to hold a totally calm and clear-headed discussion on those scientific topics, but strangely, this never seems to happen.

To the Moderators, I sympathize with your confusion on how to handle this thread. Let me simply state that I, too, never anticipated a lengthy Q&A thread through an intermediary -- which, on the surface, could resemble an attempt to circumvent moderation. That's not how it started.
The way it started is that a number of individuals read my whitepaper and asked questions, but for reasons known only to them, they *did not ask them of me.* As I have noted, my e-mail is on the front page of the whitepaper. Nobody saw fit to ask me for clarifications; instead they opted to discuss it here, in a vacuum.
What happened next is that another poster, Captain Obvious, wanted to know the answers to those questions. Some were even good questions. Since the questioners weren't asking me, his recourse was to e-mail me himself. I gave him the answers. He chose, on his own, to share those answers with the rest of the ATS Forum. This all seems perfectly reasonable to me.
What happened after that is that the other ATS posters continued to question, but still did not contact me, in effect taking advantage of Captain Obvious's initiative. This went on for some time. Now, weeks and several pages later, I see at least one of those people complaining retroactively about this arrangement, which strikes me as hypocrisy of a high order.

If there is a moderation issue here, that is no concern of mine. I have no stake in the ATS Forum and I would agree that this situation is unusual. Do as you must, I respect your duty in this matter.
My concern is the accuracy of my whitepaper. I point out, with mild rebuke, that not one of the posters other than Captain Obvious ever attempted to contact me, perhaps signifying either uncertainty in their positions (however strongly worded on the Forum) or total disinterest. I find Captain Obvious's requests for answers to be commendable, and it appears he honestly wishes to learn. The choices of the other posters are harder for me to understand.

With that, I would recommend that anyone who is actually interested should contact me directly. The choice of whether to share the results of such a conversation at the ATS Forum or elsewhere are entirely up to you.

As a parting note, and to provide some useful content to this message, I have one technical observation for poster Griff, whose questions (relayed through Captain Obvious) did always seem reasonable. Regarding the perimeter columns, the reason you are confused is that, while the perimeter columns had constant exterior dimensions, the column strength was NOT constant with height. From NIST NCSTAR1-1, pages 10-11:

"Fourteen grades of steel were specified in the design documents for the perimeter columns, with minimum yield strengths of (36, 42, 45, 46, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 100) ksi. Twelve grades were actually used. [...] The structural engineering plans indicate that the flanges and webs of a given column section consist of a single grade (i.e., minimum yield strength) of steel, but each column and spandrel within a single prefabricated panel could be fabricated from different grades of steel. The use of different grades of steel facilitated in maintaining uniform exterior dimensions of the exterior columns throughout the building as well as equalize the dead load stresses and shortening of very tall steel columns.

Columns in the upper stories were typically fabricated of thinner steel plates, as thin as 0.25 in., with the grade of steel dictated by the calculated gravity and wind loads. In this manner, the gravity load on the lower stories was minimized. In the lower stories the perimeter column webs were often more than 2 in. thick."

What this means, in other words, is that the perimeter columns at any given floor were built with roughly the same safety factor. The columns at the impact floors were on the order of ten to fifteen times weaker than those on the floors near ground level. Hence the "2000%" quote cannot mean anything other than I have already explained.

Also, I see no reason for the angle clips to have approached or exceeded 45 degrees prior to collapse -- they could have been hit and flattened afterwards from above once the collapse got underway, but photographs of the hanging floors, and models of sag presented in NCSTAR1-6 do not predict that much sag. Nor is that much needed to produce the pull-in forces expected.



With that I return you to your Forum and your discussion. My apologies if I have inadvertently caused a disruption.

Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

Well, Mr. Mackey, it's not hypocrisy at all. How could I have something to complain about prior to trying to get an earnest discussion out of you? I do believe I had to experience how you were going to disingenuously handle touchy subjects prior to accusing you of doing so - wouldn't that be correct?

I submitted my questions to you on the assumption that certain areas of concern could be discussed with some one promoting themself as a subject matter expert in this area in an earnest fashion. Your reply was to act as if the statements and questions submitted to you were not worthy of your time to research. You responded with inaccurate technical statements. And my request for you to provide reference to publications backing your technically unsound statements has rested for nigh on many days-to-weeks right here in this same thread you've now admitted to reading...and they still remain without your response.

It is YOUR hypocritical behavior that has formed MY opinion that this exercise is very much not in the best interest of this board. You are cherry-picking questions to answer and you have basically admitted you won't give enough support to your own circular answers to come here and actually engage in a back-and-forth discussion so that technically doubtful statements by you can genuinely be debated out and brought to some fashion of conclusion.

So while I'll readily admit my hypocrisy knows no bounds on certain issues - I won't admit it on this. Hypocrisy would have been to continue to engage your behavior and secretly badmouth you. I did not do that.


[edit on 10-27-2007 by Valhall]

(DISCLAIMER: These are my personal opinions and have no influence on editorial policy on ATS)

While these discussions of the physics of the building failures and how it relates to the engineering of the design and construction are fascinating and challenging mental exercises, I've come to believe these topics may be a purposeful deflection.

There are few people involved in speculating on 9/11-related conspiracies who were also speculating on conspiracies before the attacks. Those of us who were will recall that, in the first year, the speculation was not necessarily dominated by thoughts of varying degrees of "assistance" through demolition charges in the fall of the buildings... even building seven.

The early LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) was very much a Perl Harbor styled conspiracy idea in which western governments allowed certain terrorist groups to flourish in the hopes that a massive attack would occur. Contemporary LIHOP speculation hasn't much changed, but is hardly ever mentioned any more.

The MIHOP (make it happen on purpose) speculators of the first year where hardly ever focused on the events of the attacks, and more so on historical influences of covert agencies that appear to have manufactured the very "terrorist groups" responsible for the attacks. Indeed, the information that pinpoints apparent culpability of one or more covert groups in the radicalization of Islam during the Soviet-Afghan war rose to the surface during this time. At about the nine month point, the dominant MIHOP theories revolved around a very small number of covert actions, taking advantage of the foundation laid during the previous thirty years, that brought about the "attacks." In addition, many speculators were uncovering solid information that hinted at a level of behind the scenes assistance that ranged from organizing the morning military exercises, to a very small number of intense charges in the buildings to ensure failure.

Enter the activists, black t-shirts, and guys on bullhorns... and a series of mysterious TV commercials for products that postulated no planes, missiles, controlled demolition, and media deception. Everything changed after that. Everything. Now, we've been convinced to spend our precious time arguing about the finer points of squibs, stress, the melting point of steel, and the color of the fire (among a dizzying list of others).

Step back. Run down the list of known and exposed conspiracies. None of them were uncovered by excruciating analysis of minute physical details. All were exposed by relentless research into the people, the money, simple physical attributes, or the big picture.

Is this the intent? Has "someone" used the historical reactionary gullibility of activists in steering the "truth movement" into dead end directions? If you step back and review the past ten years (yes ten), it certainly looks that way.

Thanks for that review, SO. But what about those of us who have no "horse in the CT race"? I can't accept LIHOP or MIHOP because I just don't see the evidence. But my contention is that the US populace has been robbed of tax funds and then denied an earnest analytical report on the collapse of the World Trade Centers. My contention lies in the incompetence that flourishes both in the NIST investigation and the 911 Commission investigation. The seemingly uncaring nature in which both were conducted.

We now have a letter from NIST in which they are confessing in writing of:

1. Removing critical verbage from the report because they don't want to address the questions it raises, and

2. Rejecting data (which was already obvious just not confessed) and model results - outright refusing to publish same - because those results didn't match their a priori assumptions!

This is ludicrous...actually, as an engineer who has dedicated all my work to bringing about the most accurate analyses and/or interpretation of empirical data so that I can lay down at the end of the day and sleep knowing I earned my paycheck, this is outright heart-rending. I can't describe the shock I have that NIST will take the money they have charged and then be this unscrupulous in their technical methodology.

We don't need a conspiracy on this issue - it's happening OVERTLY.

[edit on 10-27-2007 by Valhall]

Those issues do fall into the conspiracy pool as they qualify for the coverup angle. And in fact, the Watergate conspiracy was discovered by tracing backwards from revelations learned by research into the coverup.

Where there is coverup, there is either conspiracy or incompetence... and the coverup of incompetence that results in deaths is a conspiracy.

Regarding the perimeter columns, the reason you are confused is that, while the perimeter columns had constant exterior dimensions, the column strength was NOT constant with height. From NIST NCSTAR1-1, pages 10-11:

I just wanted to thank Mr. Mackey for pointing this out. I was under the impression that only 2 grades were used. This does make a difference.

Now, one a side note and especially since Mr. Mackey will not join here. I have no reason to doubt the NIST when they report things of this nature. But, I do have a problem with not being able to verify these column strengths myself. I.E., I would need to be privy to the structural documentation.

reply to post by LaBTop


Something to note. Fires will burn upwards at a whole lot faster rate than down. Fires follows the heat generated upwards through several processes such as convection , conduction, and radiation. Fire is not affected by gravity. If you ever watch some of the videos of the wild fires that are burning, you will notice that they burn uphill at a very high rate. Fires will burn down, but they have to be almost out of fuel above it before that will happen. There were a whole lot of signs of fire. The biggest sign of how big and hot the fires were was the smoke and air that were pulled back into the building. There are numerous videos posted here and else where that show this. Basically these fires were creating their own inflow to feed themselves.

Fire is not affected by gravity.

A burning fluid, as in jet fuel, does.

Originally posted by six
The biggest sign of how big and hot the fires were was the smoke and air that were pulled back into the building.

There was tremendous amounts of smoke flowing out of the buildings, too. And, wouldn't you know it, the wind was blowing that morning (lightly but this was magnified higher up), and wind typically tends to move in a particular direction, and would have been blowing up against at least one of the tower faces, probably 2 of them simultaneously at least. Windows were knocked out around the impacted areas.

I don't see all of that lining up to indicate that the fires were sucking air into the buildings. What I saw was wind blowing, air going in one side (or 2), dark, sooty smoke coming out the others.

The fires were producing dark gray/blackish smoke, which is sooty. Not very efficient hydrocarbon combustion, and that is where your energy release is coming from. Not only is the reaction not very efficient, but sooty smoke apparently is a better thermal conductor than lighter smoke and holds in more heat, carrying it away when it's blown away.

reply to post by bsbray11

I will try and locate the video. It showed the smoke from the fires being pulled back into the building, not being blown back in. Smoke does not hold heat. Heat is transfered through conduction, convection, and radiation. In this case it is the latter two that should be considered more than conduction in addtion to fire spread through other means. Now I can only hope to find that video.

Originally posted by six
I will try and locate the video. It showed the smoke from the fires being pulled back into the building, not being blown back in.

And how exactly do you tell the difference?

Smoke does not hold heat.

Watch a fire through thermal imagery and tell me there isn't a correlation between the smoke and heat energy drifting away.

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by kleverone
Great thread! This is exactly the type of thread that ATS needs to see more of! Great Post Captain!

Ask him how the building was able to fall in just about 10 seconds? Was there zero resistance from the floor below when each floor above seem to just fall straight down?

I hope he doesn't ask him this because the building didn't fall in "just about 10 seconds". It fell in 14 to 16 seconds (WTC 1 and WTC 2).

Well you may be right but according to the NIST report and the seismic data, they did fall under 10 seconds. Now I suggest that the seismic data was not caused by the collapse, but rather by the detonations inside the building.

But if NIST wants to assert that the buildings feel in 10 seconds or less and cover up the bomb vibrations by pretending they were collapse vibrations, i see no real problems with that, it serves our cause all the more.

In this instance, I would rather use the oh-fishy-all numbers of less then 10 seconds. It's not scientific but it's a number the blue pillers will accept readily without questions.

Cheers,
PepeLapiu

reply to post by PepeLapew


Hi Pepe ~

Here is some information you may be interested in:

"There is no scientific basis for the conclusion that explosions brought down the towers," Lerner-Lam tells PM. "That representation of our work is categorically incorrect and not in context."

www.popularmechanics.com...

Geophysicist Terry Wallace agrees with this:

"How can geologists catch a terrorist? With their instruments, explains Terry Wallace, a geophysicist at the University of Arizona. There are about 16,000 seismometers installed around the world, many of which offer data on freely accessible Web sites. Seismometers detect motion in the Earth, which can be triggered by an earthquake, or possibly explosions.

By learning how to read these signals, Wallace hopes scientists might catch on to suspicious activity.

"We can study these signals and begin to develop a portfolio of different kinds of signatures of explosions," says Wallace. "It will be like have a set of fingerprints."

Geophysicists have already contributed critical data to terrorist investigations. It was geologists who determined there were no secondary explosions at the base of the World Trade Center towers — but only the impact of the airplanes and subsequent fires — that contributed to the towers' collapse on Sept. 11".
www.globalsecurity.org...

Wow, CO, it's interesting that you're quoting the concept of using seismic readings to detect events when two different seismic reviews (one independent review, one commissioned by the 911 Committee) both placed the impact of Flight 93 3 minutes AFTER the official report states it happened. The Pentagon rejected a SECOND seismic review when it came back with the same answer...then published their own time, the one that matches 3 minutes of the voice recorder from the plane being missing.

Soooo....they wouldn't accept the seismic record (interpreted by two different groups of seismologists to show the same time of impact) for establishing the impact of Flight 93, but we're now to believe they are going to use this valuable resource honestly in the future?

shamazing!

[edit on 11-7-2007 by Valhall]

[edit on 11-7-2007 by Valhall]