Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[Andy_Ross]

I was refuting your claim that I had a belief that coming into contact with radiation makes you radioactive.

As I said it creates a potential health hazard.

Please acknowledge the following:

Science
Space
The Moon's Surface Is Heavily Radioactive
By Mike Wehner Sept. 25, 2020 10:10 pm EST

Read More: https://www.bgr.com/science/moon-radiation-exploration-levels/



As is well-documented, populations who live in areas with large amounts of underlying granite - such as Devon or Cornwall or Finland - have higher levels of cancer than those that do not and this has been attributed to the granite's inherent radioactivity, albeit relatively low level.

Simply dousing the Apollo 11 crew with antiseptic and then supposedly putting them in quarantine for three weeks is surely a dereliction of a duty of care? Unless of course...

You are doing it deliberately now aren't you?

 

[Vixen]

From the effects of irradiation, not from contamination.


Are you now a doctor as well as a health physicist?

You specifically drew the parallel between what you thought should have been done to the Apollo spacecraft and the decontamination protocols your friends needed for contact with radioactive materials.

Stop pretending radiation is harmless. Marie Curie died a horrible death.

 

[JayUtah]

There is no mention of radioactivity in the paper.

From the paper's abstract :—

On the surface of the Moon, this consists of the chronic exposure to galactic cosmic rays and sporadic solar particle events. The interaction of this radiation field with the lunar soil leads to a third component that consists of neutral particles, i.e., neutrons and gamma radiation.

Chronic exposure to GCR is a major problem for long-term habitation. It is medically insignificant for a 3-day mission.

Sporadic solar particle events are a major problem for long-term habitation. They would have been medically significant had any of those occurred during any of the Apollo missions.

Those two are examples of primary radiation: high-energy particles coming from the sun or the rest of the galaxy. The Van Allen belts too are high-energy charged-particle radiation.

"Interaction...with the lunar soil" is secondary radiation. When GCR and solar particles strike the lunar surface, the absorption of those particles causes the lunar regolith to emit secondary radiation in the form of x-rays, gamma rays, and energetic neutrons—but only for as long as the primary radiation persists. These are medically significant over the long term, amounting to about twice the exposure allowed occupationally for a radiation worker in the United States. They are medically insignificant over a 3-day mission.

More importantly, this bombardment, absorption, and re-emission does not make the lunar surface radioactive per se.

If I take a piece of beryllium and bombard it with electrons, it will emit secondary radiation in the form of x-rays. That's how we make x-rays at the airport and the dentist's office. As soon as I turn off the electron beam (the primary radiation), the beryllium stops emitting secondary radiation. That's what secondary means. The beryllium doesn't become radioactive as a result.

Similarly as soon as you scoop up the lunar dust and put it something that blocks the primary GCR and solar flux, it stops emitting the secondary radiation. It goes back to just being dust.

That's irradiation.

This is very different than radioisotopes such as the uranium dioxide you'll encounter on an Utah hike or the radioisotopes of iodine used to treat some cancers. These substances spontaneously give off energetic particles and ionizing rays without any help from anything. As long as you are in their presence, you will be irradiated. If some of it sticks to your gloves or shoes, you are contaminated. As the result of that contamination you will continue to be irradiated by it. If you let that persist for long enough, you'll suffer the effects of chronic radiation exposure. Freeing yourself of that ongoing effect requires removing the substance.

But the effects of irradiation do not require that special handling. There's nothing the recovery swimmers could do to mitigate any effects of prior irradiation. That was @Vixen's point. She indicated the recovery swimmers and suggested they should be doing something to mitigate the effects of "radiation." That makes sense only if contamination is the fear. There was no source of contamination.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The guys were frolicking about on the Moon whose surface is highly radioactive (cf recent Chinese study, as quoted, above). Given the fancy footprints, it indicates high quantities of this highly radioactive dust. Of course as a NASA health care specialist you would be concerned about all of this.

...unless of course you knew there wasn't any contamination...because...<cough>

You are doing it deliberately now aren't you?

How was the dust radioactive?
What radioactive element do you think is in the dust?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

No.

In this thread we have been shown at least one example of a moon photograph showing a boulder with shadowed areas within which details can be seen.

Stop Factsplaining you misogynist! /s

 

[JayUtah]

Stop pretending radiation is harmless.

I made no such claim.

My claim is that the nature of the radiation hazard in a lunar surface mission is not what you think it is, and does not required the decontamination steps you think the recovery swimmers should have done or been aware of.

Marie Curie died a horrible death.

Because she was contaminated heavily over a long period of time and took no steps to decontaminate herself. Her death due to the ignorance of the medical effects of her work has nothing to do with the careful, scientific protocols used on Apollo. Those protocols are not what you seem to expect, but that's because you don't know how radiation works.

If you continue to refuse to be taught, I cannot fix your ignorance.

 

[Vixen]

No.

I have asked you several times now you support your endorsement of Marcus Allen's claims despite your own admissions to the contrary.

Was it reasonable according to the facts for Marcus Allen to expect to see stars in Apollo 11 photos?

YES OR NO.

My response will follow on from Foster Zygote's response. Proof follows steps.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Stop pretending radiation is harmless. Marie Curie died a horrible death.

Who is pretending it is harmless?

 

[JayUtah]

My response will follow on from Foster Zygote's response. Proof follows steps.

Answer the question.

Marcus Allen claims that stars should be visible in Apollo 11 photos taken with short exposures. But you know it takes tens of seconds to expose stars. Was Marcus Allen's expectation reasonable according to the facts? This is a "you" question. It has nothing to do with @Foster Zygote.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Stop pretending radiation is harmless. Marie Curie died a horrible death.

Strawman.

Stop pretending the moon is radioactive.

The magazine you keep quoting is wrong. You know it is wrong. If you were as smart as you'd like us to imagine, you already knew it was wrong when you posted it. So why did you post it? And why did you post it again after having had its error explained?

 

[JayUtah]

If you were as smart as you'd like us to imagine, you already knew it was wrong when you posted it. So why did you post it?

She must be showing us the lost art of debate.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Strawman.

Stop pretending the moon is radioactive.

The magazine you keep quoting is wrong. You know it is wrong. If you were as smart as you'd like us to imagine, you already knew it was wrong when you posted it. So why did you post it? And why did you post it again after having had its error explained?

Attention, which we are all eager to provide.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

As soon as Foster Zygote answers my question we will come to that.

Wanna bet?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

My response will follow on from Foster Zygote's response. Proof follows steps.

So while you hide behind Foster Zygote, we remain completely in the dark. Fascinating.

 

[JayUtah]

She didn't answer the question before @Foster Zygote . She won't answer the question after Foster Zygote. She simply won't answer the question because it's as straightforward an example as there can be of her having painted herself into a corner. If she admits the obvious—that Allen's expectations are not reasonable according to the facts—then she has to walk back her accusations that the debunkers have been treating him unfairly. Someone who makes absurd claims under color of expertise is liable to receive well-earned criticism for it.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I was refuting your claim that I had a belief that coming into contact with radiation makes you radioactive.

You did a poor job of the refutation, because the post you reference, along with other posts you made, make it clear that you thought that the Navy recovery crews should have been worried about radiation exposure from the Apollo spacecraft and crews.

You inadvertently exposed your ignorance of physics, and now you're trying to weasel out of what you said, because you can never be wrong about anything.

As I said it creates a potential health hazard.

To the astronauts exposed to the cislunar environment. But you were clearly of the belief that the astronauts themselves would have posed a radiation hazard to the Navy personnel after their return to earth. You thought your anecdote about decontamination after exposure to radioactive materials was proof that the recovery crews should have been exercising the same precautions.

Please acknowledge the following:

Science
Space
The Moon's Surface Is Heavily Radioactive
By Mike Wehner Sept. 25, 2020 10:10 pm EST

Read More: https://www.bgr.com/science/moon-radiation-exploration-levels/

Who is Mike Wehner? Is he a physicist? All we know is that he wrote an article for an online magazine based on a journal publication, and that his sensationalist headline is already problematic because it refers to the moon as "radioactive", not to mention the vague yet dramatic use of the word "heavily". If you were actually knowledgeable about science, you would have skipped the magazine interpretation of the article and gone straight to the source, which never says that the moon is "heavily radioactive".

So please acknowledge the fact that the source that your writer cites never said what his headline implied.

As is well-documented, populations who live in areas with large amounts of underlying granite - such as Devon or Cornwall or Finland - have higher levels of cancer than those that do not and this has been attributed to the granite's inherent radioactivity, albeit relatively low level.

This is where your complete ignorance of scientific methodology comes to the fore.

How much higher is their cancer risk? You never quantize anything when you need to. You trot out "RADIATION" in scare quotes as though the mere mention of the word means certain death.

Simply dousing the Apollo 11 crew with antiseptic and then supposedly putting them in quarantine for three weeks is surely a dereliction of a duty of care? Unless of course...

And now you're back to arguing what you just said you weren't arguing. Explain, specifically, what their duty should have been upon recovery of the crews regarding radiation.

 

[Vixen]

Reading the journal article cited, the takeaway is that outside of severe solar events, the dosage in μGy/hour for a three day stay on the lunar day side is equivalent to a little over a week on the ISS. A typical stay aboard the ISS is ~6 months, with over fifty people having accumulated over a year in LEO.

The ISS is only about 250 miles above earth and nowhere near the Van Allen Belts.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Originally misposted to the wrong thread. Damn you Martini!

I think this is quite an interesting spin around the mulberry Bush as a lot of people don't understand radiation and it's 'scary'. My analogy here (which I'm sure will be corrected if wrong) for the situation on the Moon's surface is this-:

You can get sunburned on the beach, but that doesn't mean you have to wash off any residual sand so you don't get burned worse (or burn anyone else) back in your hotel room.

 

[Vixen]

No.

In this thread we have been shown at least one example of a moon photograph showing a boulder with shadowed areas within which details can be seen.

Excellent observation! Is the penny now beginning to drop..?

 

[Foster Zygote]

I am looking at these pics with great interest.

Please can you now acknowledge that when in shadow on the Moon, it is pitch black? For the avoidance of doubt, 'pitch black' meaning there are no gradations of grey or grey scale, as we see on Earth due to our atmosphere. Please provide a simple 'yes' or 'no' with no 'it depends' or other qualifiers.

Yes or no?


(Take a deep breath, be brave...you can do it!)

No! You're just so confidently wrong about everything, and so ignorant about photography that you can't get past the idea that a photographic image shows what you would see with your naked eye were you there.

The Surveyor 7 images show long exposures of the horizon with the sun still behind it. You're looking at images of an extremely faint phenomenon captured by taking long exposures. This has nothing to do with your nonsensical belief that shadows on the moon are "totally dark".