Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[GlennB]

Vixen has her own
reality. No one else can participate.

Oh, is that what it is? Ah, I see now.

 

[JesseCuster]

And the reason Syncom 3 was useful as a geostatioanry communication satellite was because...?

There was a planet in between where the signal was being sent from and where it was being received, so a satellite which had line of sight with both locations was used to relay the signal.

However, there was no planet or anything in between the TV signal coming from the moon and earth so no geopositioned or geostationary or any satellite was needed to relay the signal to earth, NASA had receiving stations around the globe so there was always a radio dish available on the side of earth facing the moon to receive the signal directly from the source. Can you genuinely not pictures this or understand this? It’s really that simple.

 

[JesseCuster]

As has been determined re longitude, the Earth spins at about 15.04° per hour, or, a rotational speed of 1,041mph at the Equator.

So?

 

[junkshop]

As has been determined re longitude, the Earth spins at about 15.04° per hour, or, a rotational speed of 1,041mph at the Equator.

Irrelevancy is irrelevant. Multiple (more than one - HTH) recievers around world point at moon, hear broadcasts when pointed at moon. Many hours each. Much overlap.

Why need satellite? Moon is satellite already.

Do you want we call someone? I am feigning genuine concern for your wellbeing.

 

[JayUtah]

I know it is bad form to answer a question with another…

Yes it is. Answer my question.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So?

So Vixen wouldn't know that. Like so much else.

 

[JayUtah]

What was the big physical drawback of Telstar? Think, height of orbit and correct positioning.

No.

“Geopositioned” is not a synonym for “geostationary.”

 

[Steve]

Oh, is that what it is? Ah, I see now.

It seems real to her.

 

[JesseCuster]

nm, not worth commentating on.

 

[Trebuchet]

As has been determined re longitude, the Earth spins at about 15.04° per hour, or, a rotational speed of 1,041mph at the Equator.

And is always in the same spot in the lunar sky. So all you need is a high gain antenna that is pointed more or less at the Earth, and three or four receiving stations so at least one always has line of sight to the moon.
The high gain antennas were NOT highly directional. They pretty much blanketed the Earth with what was, by the time it got here, a pretty weak signal. But the receiving antennas were very large and were highly directional. They could be pointed directly at the moon, or ever a specific area of it.
I am, of course, still waiting to see what Vixen has looked up on how long it takes the Earth to transit the lunar sky.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Yes it is. Answer my question.

She can't without admitting that the idea that a satellite was absolutely necessary to relay signals between the earth and the near side of the moon is really stupid. So she's going to continue to monologue triumphantly like a Bond villain who's just going to pretend that Agent 007 is still hanging over the shark tank even though he's long since escaped and set the self-destruct charges on her hollow volcano lair.

 

[Foster Zygote]

And is always in the same spot in the lunar sky. So all you need is a high gain antenna that is pointed more or less at the Earth, and three or four receiving stations so at least one always has line of sight to the moon.
The high gain antennas were NOT highly directional. They pretty much blanketed the Earth with what was, by the time it got here, a pretty weak signal. But the receiving antennas were very large and were highly directional. They could be pointed directly at the moon, or ever a specific area of it.
I am, of course, still waiting to see what Vixen has looked up on how long it takes the Earth to transit the lunar sky.

Radio telescopes can detect quasars, which arrive here with a signal strength of about 1 trillionth of a Watt. Even a signal from a small parabolic antenna on the moon is going to come in five by five.

 

[JayUtah]

Radio telescopes can detect quasars, which arrive here with a signal strength of about 1 trillionth of a Watt.

Geostationary satellites cannot.

I covered this previously. A geostationary satellite can relay signals sent by large, powerful Earth transmitters to large, capacious Earth receivers—roughly 72,000 km round trip. That's astonishingly different than receiving signals from ~340,000 km away transmitted by small antennas and battery-powered (in some cases) transmitters.

Trying to send a signal to a geostationary satellite from lunar orbit or the lunar surface presents a much greater challenge than simply sending signals to a well-equipped Earth receiver.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

And the reason Syncom 3 was useful as a geostatioanry communication satellite was because...? Think global positioning of USA vs Japan.

The earth is round, and you can't see the USA from the ground in Japan.

You can see the earth from the Sea of Tranquility at all times. No curved rock to get around.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

As has been determined re longitude, the Earth spins at about 15.04° per hour, or, a rotational speed of 1,041mph at the Equator.

So what? The beams from Apollo's high-gain antennae were wide enough to illuminate the entire visible disk of the Earth. All Earth needed was at least one big antenna pointed back at the moon at all times, which NASA had.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

And is always in the same spot in the lunar sky. So all you need is a high gain antenna that is pointed more or less at the Earth, and three or four receiving stations so at least one always has line of sight to the moon.
The high gain antennas were NOT highly directional. They pretty much blanketed the Earth with what was, by the time it got here, a pretty weak signal. But the receiving antennas were very large and were highly directional. They could be pointed directly at the moon, or ever a specific area of it.
I am, of course, still waiting to see what Vixen has looked up on how long it takes the Earth to transit the lunar sky.

The narrowest beamwidth for the steerable hg antenna on the LM was 4.4 degrees, with additional settings at 11.? and 40 degrees. More than wide enough to paint the whole earth with your beam. Not sure what the beamwidth settings were for the mountable antennas used on later missions, but I imagine they were in the same ballpark.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The narrowest beamwidth for the steerable hg antenna on the LM was 4.4 degrees, with additional settings at 11.? and 40 degrees. More than wide enough to paint the whole earth with your beam. Not sure what the beamwidth settings were for the mountable antennas used on later missions, but I imagine they were in the same ballpark.

Given earth has an angular size of about 2° from the moon, even the tightest beamwidth made for an easy target.

 

[JayUtah]

She can't without admitting that the idea that a satellite was absolutely necessary to relay signals between the earth and the near side of the moon is really stupid.

Which it very much is, for reasons I've explained at length several times and which everyone else but the self-proclaimed Triple Niner has managed to understand.

She has to flee back to the notion of geostationary satellites around Earth because it seems she finally figured out how absolutely full of crap Allen and Weaver are on the subject of lunar orbit television. You don't need to be in a selenostationary orbit around the Moon in order to video lunar surface features from orbit and keep them in frame. You merely pan the camera, something that everyone with a cell phone instinctively knows how to do but which seems to have exceeded Allen's professional experience.

So now we're back to @Vixen trying to pontificate about Earth-orbiting satellites. I'm sure she'll be back shilling for the frauds Allen and Weaver when she realizes how full of crap she is on this point too.

I used to work as a professional astronomer, you are incapable of teaching me anything about orbital mechanics, satellites, the Moon, or anything else remotely related to Physics or astrophysics. Please stop trying to speak to me like I am an idiot who needs leading to a great discovery.

Congruently, I have designed, built, operated, and communicated directly with the very type of spacecraft @Vixen is trying to lecture about. I probably forgot more about geostationary satellite operations last night than she will ever be able to learn. Yet she arrogantly believes I need a tutorial from her on the subject.

@Vixen, we're past you pretending to spoon-feed your critics one oblique point after another and quizzing them to "get them thinking." Now, pretend you're standing in front of a panel of expert satellite designers and operators—because you very much are—and tell us what you think a "non-geopositioned satellite" is and why you think Apollo signals need to be sent "via" a "geopositioned" one in order to implement a valid Earth-Moon communication system. You don't get to quiz them. You don't get to "get them thinking." You don't get to trot along endlessly with "baby steps."

Pretend you have one minute to make your point completely or something bad will happen.

And the reason Syncom 3 was useful as a geostatioanry communication satellite was because...?

Line of sight.

For crying out loud, I just taught my eight-year-old niece what "line of sight" means. It took less than five minutes and she understood it perfectly the first time. What is your major malfunction? It's taken hundreds of pages and you're still not up to speed.

For radio communications, the sender and receiver need to have a line of sight to each other. For points on Earth that are close enough, that line of sight is direct. If they are sufficiently separated, there needs to be a relay above the surface to which both sender and receiver have line of sight. Originally that was Earth's ionosphere, and the relay was a passive reflection. Also you can use very tall towers that relay by retransmission. We still use this for the backhaul in cellar networks.

If you can't build a tower tall enough to provide simultaneous line of sight, you can use aircraft such as were employed in the Vietnam War. But since they have endurance issues, there is great interest in using satellites which can orbit indefinitely.

What was the big physical drawback of Telstar?

That there were too few of them (compared to, say, Iridium or Starlink) and that they were in low orbit and as such had to orbit much faster than the comparatively sedate rotation rate of Earth.

You can solve that problem by providing many satellites so that as one passes beyond the horizon, another has come into view. This is especially effective if the satellites can communicate with each other in addition to the air-to-ground channel.

You can solve that problem by moving the satellite farther out so that it's visible for longer. This gives you both greater coverage and longer duration at the expense of signal-handling over a greater distance and latency. The latter reason is why we still invest in landlines. Geostationary spacecraft are also insanely expensive to build, launch, and operate. They have end-of-life disposal issues too, which is why the industry is switching back to LEO solutions. GSO spacecraft are one way to solve the problem but by no means the only or necessarily best way.

This is all elementary. I would expect a bright high school student to be able to pick this up. Or even an 8-year-old girl. It explains why two points on Earth need an intermediary when they have no direct line of sight to each other. It does not explain why a transmitter on the Moon supposedly needs an intermediary when it does have a line of sight to the receiver on Earth. A given point on Earth has direct line of sight to the Moon for at least 8 hours at a stretch.

This is what you're being repeatedly asked to explain. Pointing out that GSO spacecraft solve other problems is not the same as saying they solve your problem or are required (or even convenient) for all problems. You're slinging cargo-cult reasoning and pretending that you can bluff your way past experts.

As has been determined re longitude, the Earth spins at about 15.04° per hour, or, a rotational speed of 1,041mph at the Equator.

...which provides direct line of sight to the Moon for 8-12 hours on end. One is the practical limit. The other is the theoretical limit. The Deep Space Network provided several dishes spread out over the available longitudes to cover the entire rotational period of the Earth.

This is basic geometry.

(I'll just note that Cattell III B does not test spatial or quantitative reasoning.)

Literally everyone else here but you understands this principle.

Given earth has an angular size of about 2° from the moon, even the tightest beamwidth made for an easy target.

The diameter of the geostationary belt subtends about 12º as seen from the Moon. As your GSO spacecraft goes from one side of its orbit to another over 12 hours you will need to constantly redirect your antenna to track it. The Earth itself is a comparatively stationary target.

The narrowest beamwidth for the steerable hg antenna on the LM was 4.4 degrees, with additional settings at 11.? and 40 degrees. More than wide enough to paint the whole earth with your beam.

But not wide enough to paint the entire geostationary belt. Yes, you can expand the beam width, but at the expense of power and effective SNR.

Of course you can just use several geostationary satellites so that one is always within your beam and you don't have to constantly steer it. But then you've just badly reproduced the actual solution of having several ground stations spaced around the world.

Just point the dish at Earth and have at least three ground stations. It really is that simple.

Vixen, complete this sentence: "An Earth-orbiting geostationary satellite would have been required to receive Apollo signals from the Moon because ____________________."

No bad-form answering questions with questions. No "let's get you thinking." No coy insinuations that you know the answer but you'll only give it if we jump through hoops.

I'm an expert practitioner in this field. I'm the examiner. You're the examinee. You're being given a chance to display your understanding before I give you your score.

 

[JesseCuster]

Radio telescopes can detect quasars, which arrive here with a signal strength of about 1 trillionth of a Watt. Even a signal from a small parabolic antenna on the moon is going to come in five by five.

I was amazed to learn that’s the order of strength of the signal that comes from Voyager 1 when it arrives at Earth. That is a ridiculously weak signal to be detecting and understanding.

 

[threadworm]

I'll have better things to do in the coming week than pander to the bleatings of a desperate clickwhore, so I'll make it simple for @Vixen :

Of course they mapped the lunar surface before landing. They used 5 orbital probes that broadcast scanned photo negatives back to Earth (without the aid of a satellite, seeing as they were one). The point is that those images do not contain the details seen in Apollo photos, 16mm or live TV. Mapping for later missions was much more reliant on photographs taken by preceding ones.

As for views of Earth, there were numerous satellites in operation, both in geostationary and low Earth orbits, and operated by the USSR and USA. Weather satellites were not in colour, and more often than not were not ready at the time of live TV broadcasts. The satellite photos could be intercepted by anyone, were published in daily newspapers, and even used in TV forecasts. Without exception, every image of Earth matches the satellite record, up to and including a tiny section of Antarctica taken by Landsat and visible on the 1972 Blue Marble.

It was not possible to reproduce the lunar surface views with the imagery available, nor could they reproduce views of Earth. Prove me wrong.