Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[Vixen]

The period in the middle of the 20th century is known as the Golden Age of aerospace. It is not at all surprising that a successful crewed mission to the Moon came out of this.

There's one argument that points to the sheer scale of the Apollo project and rightly asks how such an important secret could be kept successfully by so many people for so many years, or alternatively how so many people could be so effectively fooled for so long into thinking they weren't really doing their jobs. There's another argument altogether that asks how named individuals like Maxime Faget and Tom Kelly could have acted in such a scenario.

The people who were tapped out to build Apollo were chosen because they were already at the top of their game and would go on to stay at the top. Tom Kelly was legendary, and the engineering team he assembled at Grumman was separately legendary. Of course someone like @Vixen who hasn't worked in or studied this field won't know any of these names or reputations. But well-informed people do.

Was Tom Kelly ignorant of what it would take to build a lunar lander? Was his team? Was Kelly fooled by a smarter person in the field (of which there were probably only a dozen such examples)? Was Kelly convinced to risk a successful, illustrious career at the top of his field by participating in a hoax? Would his team have known?

"But Jay, you're just hero-worshiping," has been the answer so far. No, I'm giving demonstrably accomplished people their due respect and rightly questioning the ignoramuses who come along and say he's some kind of poser or fraud, providing no information for it than their own ignorance and incredulity. Yes, I believe such misinformaton should be challenged, and a skeptics forum is an ideal place to do it.

Seriously though, when you use terms like 'legendary' you are informing your reader how they are supposed to think. Rather like Dan Brown telling readers that the Mona Lisa is 'world famous'. That might work for teenagers but your telling us 'Kelly is legendary' doesn't actually settle the debate.

 

[Foster Zygote]

We were discussing debunking and Nixon ringing up the astronauts on the Moon hardly qualifies as a debunk. Quite the opposite.

Liar liar pants on fire.

No one brought up Nixon but you. And then only because you're desperate to assert that Nixon's minimal association with Apollo 11 casts the whole space program under suspicion.

 

[sackett]

It's genuinely funny watching you try so hard to remain incredulous regarding simple telecommunications technology.

No, you guys are the laffable ones, staying credulous & believing all the
NASA bedtime stories about men on the moon technofuzzle way back then.
In Nixon's day? Are you still buying that?

Me, I can refute it easy because I was there then.
"There" in my case was Laramie, Wyoming. (Pretty farther out in the stick
factory than even Finland, eh?) I was watching it on a so-called televison
(in Albany County Wyo in 1969!) and saw Trickity Dick in his oval screen from the
Oval Orifice telling those conveniently helmeted guys how great it all was! Like they could
breathe inside those things without holes drilled in 'em, nor hear him neither! Whole thing
was "broadcast" from KOWB over there by the telephone office and lunch counter on Gowdy Street.

So: I wasn't fooled a damn bit. Can you hear me 'n Vixen guffawing? Can't? Try tuning us in on your
"cellular phone" and maybe that'll help.

I'll just set here and whet my puukko.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Just ten years separates the first flights of the Avro Lancaster in 1942, and the Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor in 1952.
View attachment 73473
View attachment 73474
View attachment 73476


The Victor still looks like the future.

View attachment 73477

Less than nine years from the first flight of this



To this.



And this was in an era when our technology was, according to some, barely out of the Bronze Age.

 

[JayUtah]

Seriously though, when you use terms like 'legendary' you are informing your reader how they are supposed to think.

No, I'm accurately reporting his reputation in my field.

You're the one accusing him of being either an ignoramus or a fraud. Was he also suffering from "mean standard deviation?" Tell your readers which one he is and provide the evidence that supports your characterization.

 

[Andy_Ross]

And Charles Lindbergh maintained a friendship with the Apollo 11 crew for many years.

And he went from crossing the Atlantic in this designed in 1926




To flying the P-38 in combat, an aircraft designed just 12 years later.

 

[threadworm]

Seriously though, when you use terms like 'legendary' you are informing your reader how they are supposed to think. Rather like Dan Brown telling readers that the Mona Lisa is 'world famous'. That might work for teenagers but your telling us 'Kelly is legendary' doesn't actually settle the debate.

The Mona Lisa is world famous.

 

[Vixen]

No, I'm accurately reporting his reputation in my field.

You're the one accusing him of being either an ignoramus or a fraud. Was he also suffering from "mean standard deviation?" Tell your readers which one he is and provide the evidence that supports your characterization.

No, I haven't accused him at all. I am sure he is as legendary as you say he is.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I actually said it was explained away by the radio waves route in my post.

Did you get "radio waves route" from the same grab bag of pseudo-technical gibberish as "mean sd". I recall you making some nonsensical claims about the lack of "relay satellites" between the earth and moon.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

My post #4192

"Artemis is not comparing like for like. For example, we have the ISS in place for refuelling and docking. We have digital technology, computer and sateliite systems a million times more advanced and developed than in 1969. The entire Houston computer servers of 1969 are equivalent to the entire technology you now have in your smart phone. Calculators were as thick as a brick. President Nixon claimed to have rung up the astronauts on the Moon direct from his White House telephone because he was too dim to realise there were no telephone wires on the Moon. Telephone all used to be by wires, remember. So a story had to be conjured up that er, his 'direct line to Apollo 11' went via bouncing around various radio stations instead. Well, it has plausible deniability."

So not wrong at all. Sorry to disappoint you. AGAIN.

But you wrote all that crap in response to a post saying that Artemis took a similar trajectory past the Van Allen belts to those the Apollo missions took.

None of it was in any way relevant to VAB radiation. The ISS is not a refuelling station and even if it was that has nothing to do with VAB radiation. The Apollo guidance computer was able to perform all the necessary calculations to carry out its mission so it doesn't matter if a new smartphone can do the same calculations much faster while also posting about it on Instagram. That has nothing to do with VAB radiation either. Nixon's phone call was planned and simply involved establishing a phone call from the Oval Office to Mission control and patching that into the communications loop with the astronauts. You are completely wrong to imagine it was impossible, or unplanned, or needed a cover story to be cobbled together for some other reason. Everyone would have understood perfectly well how that was expected to work and it's really weird that you seem to think people from fifty-odd years ago would have seen radio as some kind of magic. It also of course has absolutely nothing to do with VAB radiation.

If that's the level of work you think is "not wrong at all" I seriously have to consider whether, whenever it was you were advised you had an especially high IQ, maybe they gave you someone else's results.

 

[Vixen]

The Mona Lisa is world famous.

You need Dan Brown to tell you..?

 

[JayUtah]

Thomas J. Kelly (aerospace engineer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the year 2000's Long Island: Our Past poll, Kelly was selected as the fourth favorite person from Long Island's history. He followed behind Robert Moses, Theodore Roosevelt and William Levitt.

Looks to me like he was considered no "mean standard deviation" by people also outside my industry. So, @Vixen, which is he according to you: ignoramus or fraud?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Less than nine years from the first flight of this

View attachment 73478

To this.

View attachment 73479

And this was in an era when our technology was, according to some, barely out of the Bronze Age.

Gloster. From the Gladiator in 34 to the Meteor in 43

 

[Pope130]

Gloster has them beat. Seven years from the Gladiator to the Meteor.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Seriously though, when you use terms like 'legendary' you are informing your reader how they are supposed to think. Rather like Dan Brown telling readers that the Mona Lisa is 'world famous'. That might work for teenagers but your telling us 'Kelly is legendary' doesn't actually settle the debate.

The floor is yours. Debate away. By all means tell us how incompetent the Grumman engineers were and what a hash they made of the F-14.

Or don't. I can't help but suspect you have nothing of value to contribute except further unintended hilarity.

 

[Vixen]

But you wrote all that crap in response to a post saying that Artemis took a similar trajectory past the Van Allen belts to those the Apollo missions took.

None of it was in any way relevant to VAB radiation. The ISS is not a refuelling station and even if it was that has nothing to do with VAB radiation. The Apollo guidance computer was able to perform all the necessary calculations to carry out its mission so it doesn't matter if a new smartphone can do the same calculations much faster while also posting about it on Instagram. That has nothing to do with VAB radiation either. Nixon's phone call was planned and simply involved establishing a phone call from the Oval Office to Mission control and patching that into the communications loop with the astronauts. You are completely wrong to imagine it was impossible, or unplanned, or needed a cover story to be cobbled together for some other reason. Everyone would have understood perfectly well how that was expected to work and it's really weird that you seem to think people from fifty-odd years ago would have seen radio as some kind of magic. It also of course has absolutely nothing to do with VAB radiation.

If that's the level of work you think is "not wrong at all" I seriously have to consider whether, whenever it was you were advised you had an especially high IQ, maybe they gave you someone else's results.

I didn't say it was impossible. It was very much a PR stunt but I shan't try and disabuse you further as I know it is important to people to believe in it.

AIUI the plan is for a refuelling docking station.

 

[Trebuchet]

Nixon didn't dial the communication was already set up, all he did was pick up the reciver and talk.

Ah, but we've just been told that's only a post-hoc rationalization!
And once again I'm about nine pages behind. Can't keep up.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Gloster has them beat. Seven years from the Gladiator to the Meteor.

They had an advantage as the engines were being made fairly close, the US had to wait for them to be shipped across and put in to production.

 

[Vixen]

Thomas J. Kelly (aerospace engineer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Looks to me like he was considered no "mean standard deviation" by people also outside my industry. So, @Vixen, which is he according to you: ignoramus or fraud?

I didn't say he was either. Dry your tears. I haven't knocked your legendary heroes at all.

 

[Thermal]

Gotta say I'm a fan of this new Aeronautical Kittening trend. So much cooler than eating Tide Pods.