Merged Discussion of the moon landing "hoax"

[Justinian2]

Is there a point to quoting back sources to people? It's nice, though, that you are reading a little bit about it.

It's part of the context of my answer.

So? We already know that computers are faster, smaller, etc. today. This doesn't advance your argument.

This part of the argument is skepticism about the ability of what the LM computer to do the big job that needed to be done. I feel I had to partly answer the reason that NASA would go all the way to the moon and NOT land. Today, computers in toys have more computing power.

There's no need to keep repeating yourself.

I appear to be the only skeptic here. The anti-skeptic keeps repeating arguments.

I am skeptical of your memory - and unlike what you call "skeptical", I have reasons to be:
(a) your memory has been repeatedly demonstrated to be unreliable - "a movie", "the TV announcer", etc.
(b) That's not '60s technology. '60s technology used integrated circuits.

The technology of the '60s included some discrete component hardware. RTL, DTL and TTL were among the first digital integrated circuits. They included the Nand and Nor gates as well as Flip Flops.

My memory, experience and education have been sufficiently accurate. I remembered the equations I learned while in the 6th grade in 1957 that allowed me to calculate the times it would take a body to fall to feet on earth and on the moon. These are the same as you can find with an internet search.

Now there is so much on the internet that people can (much of the time) not only find the exact answer to an question, but be able to quote the source. I have been the source for much of what I've said. Many don't like that and can't deal with it.

My recall of the amount of memory in the LM was not incorrect. I thought it was 1K to 2K. The exact number didn't matter to me because it is in the order of magnitude that I wished to discussed. I never bothered to even try remember the exact amount of memory. That order of magnitude was kilobytes. Since that time, memories have been megabytes and now gigabytes and even terabytes.

About the movies, I remembered what I saw and what was in the movies. I didn't misrepresent the movies. My recall was as it was after seeing the movie.

Eye witness accounts are considered FACT in a court of law. Part of the reason is that the eye witness can be examined to verify what is factual and what is not.

You are being stupid if you think that a person's memory should be total recall or that it is totally bad. With the internet, you can get the exact information.

I am only your guide. If I want an exact source, I'll go to the internet (which isn't perfect either)

Wrong. Again. The AGC was built with resistor-transistor logic (RTL). The Block II AGC integrated circuits were already in use in other aerospace applications.

The first integrated circuits were RTL or resistor-transistor logic. DTL and TTL came later. I didn't say that the AGC was built with discrete parts - just that some of the technology of that era did use discrete componets for various reasons.

Don't you think, at this point, that maybe you should reevaluated your conviction, since the actual claims you keep making turn out to be wrong? No one will make fun of you for reevaluating your position; this isn't politics - you would gain respect for being intelligent and flexible enough to respond to factual data.

Why don't you as well. You have repeated jumped to conclusions that you thought warranted only because you had decided not to trust what I was saying.

I did change a little. I restated my skepticism about the power of the computer to state that I was sure that when it was designed and built that the engineers thought it would be adequate.

You say you believe that Apollo flew to and around the Moon. In order for that to happen, the LM and the CM had to dock before they left for the Moon. In other words, you say it couldn't do the very thing you say you believe it did!

I was talking about launching from the moon and hitting a target moving several thousand miles per hour. This is a seven dimentional requirement (pitch, roll, altitude, velocity, and x, y, z). And I am only skeptical that the technology of the time was adequate. I am trying to find the reason that they did NOT land on the moon as witnessed by the lack of 1/6 th gravity in the moon video.

Again, this is the problem with stubbornly pushing forward your denial without understanding the subject - not only will you get your facts wrong, repeatedly, you will contradict yourself, as you have done several times in this thread.

Again, logical fallicies including ad hominen attacks, straw man arguments, and spamming do NOT change my mind and they shouldn't be expected to.

 

[Papermache]

Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon

I'm wondering if the 'film' he saw was one of the Omni-Max movies they show at the museum at the Kennedy Space Center. These are recreations of some aspects of the Moon Landing discussing the risks and actions of the astronauts on the Moon. While these movies are very well done they are obviously recreations as:

This movie was obviously a produced film, not a reproduction except for select scenes. The movie does look pretty good, but it is obvious that it is a hollywood produced movie. If this fools someone (it certainly didn't seem to fool the kids in the audience) I question their judgement on many levels.

Sounds like Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon, which I happened to get from the library yesterday. It has the details you mention, including the disabled rover scenario. There is also a brief joke sequence in the beginning, with "out-takes" showing an astronaut attached to wires descending from the lunar lander.

 

[Sledge]

Wait up. Justinian 2, you've already said "I can't prove anything." So what exactly is the point of your continued posts? The proof that man went to the moon is overwhelming. You, by your own admission, have precisely nothing that proves otherwise. What possible good can come from you continuing to say "It still looks wrong to me"?

 

[Justinian2]

These things had to make two take offs and two landings on every flight.

And he also had this howler which he has yet to explain

Mission success required a successful launch from earth and a successful launch from the moon. Mission success required a successful landing on the moon and a successful landing on earth.

Count them. That's two takeoffs and two landings. Reliability decreases with each part added (unless they are added for redundancy)

You are spamming your little post.

 

[excaza]

This part of the argument is skepticism about the ability of what the LM computer to do the big job that needed to be done. I feel I had to partly answer the reason that NASA would go all the way to the moon and NOT land. Today, computers in toys have more computing power.

Restating your opinion will not force it to become true. What, specifically, could the technology of the time supposedly not handle?

Why don't you as well. You have repeated jumped to conclusions that you thought warranted only because you had decided not to trust what I was saying.

Because almost all of what you've been saying has been demonstrably wrong.

I did change a little. I restated my skepticism about the power of the computer to state that I was sure that when it was designed and built that the engineers thought it would be adequate.

I was talking about launching from the moon and hitting a target moving several thousand miles per hour. This is a seven dimentional requirement (pitch, roll, altitude, velocity, and x, y, z). And I am only skeptical that the technology of the time was adequate.

What, specifically, about the technology made it inadequate? And, to be quite honest, nobody gives a rats what you think if you can't cite a real and specific reason. How difficult you feel the calculations are is completely irrelevant. All it illustrates is that NASA shouldn't hire you.

 

[Rawkarma]

I was talking about launching from the moon and hitting a target moving several thousand miles per hour. This is a seven dimentional requirement (pitch, roll, altitude, velocity, and x, y, z). And I am only skeptical that the technology of the time was adequate. I am trying to find the reason that they did NOT land on the moon as witnessed by the lack of 1/6 th gravity in the moon video.

[snip]

I recently posted a video (just above yours, in fact) that does indeed show astronauts in 1/6 gravity on the moon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMxvw6-4PWE

(Should you get bored with all the "astronauts on wires" malarkey being debunked beforehand, skip to 2:14)

 

[twinstead]

Again, logical fallicies including ad hominen attacks, straw man arguments, and spamming do NOT change my mind and they shouldn't be expected to.

If facts won't what else do you expect?

 

[slyjoe]

I've never understood why moon-hoax believers accuse NASA of faking the landings. At the time, we were in a race to the moon with Russia. Are the Russians in on it too? I wish they would tell me how they faked the signals that Russia (and others) monitored. The Russians would have screamed louder than the hoaxers if it was faked.

This has to be one of the hardest conspiracies in the world to sustain, but they seem to do it anyway.

 

[Justinian2]

Wait up. Justinian 2, you've already said "I can't prove anything." So what exactly is the point of your continued posts? The proof that man went to the moon is overwhelming. You, by your own admission, have precisely nothing that proves otherwise. What possible good can come from you continuing to say "It still looks wrong to me"?

That's a straw man argument which means you lessened the argument in order to make it easier to beat. You lessened the argument by removing the reason.

I said something like: "I can't prove anything because the video and pictures have been re-created and there is no way to tell which is the origional"

Perhaps it's sufficient to say that you have not provided any evidence of hops higher than could be expected on earth. I was given one video of the astronaut jumping to the ladder, but I wasn't able to play it on my computer and there are several other reasons given for not embracing that as fact.

We've all seen things floating in space. We need to see equally convincing video in 1/6th gravity (that isn't a re-creation).

 

[Rawkarma]

We've all seen things floating in space. We need to see equally convincing video in 1/6th gravity (that isn't a re-creation).

So you're intentionally ducking this video then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMxvw6-4PWE

(Psst 2:14)

ETA: Can you offer any other explanation other than the astronauts are really in 1/6 g?

 

[TjW]

The following Wikipedia quote discusses the 36K or Core Rope Memory that was used in the LM and the CM. Note that it was also called the LOL memory (little old lady) memory, because the program was hand woven into the memory.

The memory density of this memory was 72 kilobytes per cubic foot. That is pretty large by today's standards.

The TRS-80 had 32K ROM before the expansion interface and 64K ROM after the expansion interface was added. The TRS-80 had approximately twice the ROM.

The TRS-80 also had 64K RAM with the expansion interface. (I put an extra 64K Ram in mine for a total of 128 K)

The TRS-80 was, however, technology of the 1980's whereas the AGC was 1960's technology.

I worked on a lot of '60s technology at Raytheon. I remember a whole cabinet of electronics contained nothing but a shift register. Each board in that five foot tall cabinet that contained the shift register had one or two discrete component flip flops. That was the era just before DTL, RTL and TTL.




I'm still a skeptic that there was sufficient programming or memory to allow for calculations I would have wanted in a lunar mission. Engineers of that era were very ingenious and I know they must have had a plausible/viable solution to the calculations necessary for flight. I would have felt more secure if it had the computational power of a TRS-80 with a floppy drive.

Today's computers have to handle GUI and pictures which consume immense amounts of memory. However, the GUI of todays' computers isn't necessary to obtain a mathematical result or run a relatively simple program. Thus much smaller computers of the Apollo era could do much more. I'm sure the computer had the power to fly to and around the moon. I'm a skeptic that it had sufficient power to help sufficiently with the descent to the moon, the launch from the moon and then control the docking with the CM.

The existence of the TRS-80 is completely irrelevant as to whether the AGC could do its job.

The semiconductor dynamic memory in the TRS-80 would have been a poor choice for a moon mission. Bits can be flipped by alpha particles. A momentary power dropout will clear the memory.
One of the design criteria was "restart protection" -- the system had to be able to be turned off and back on without interrupting the landing.
Core memory isn't susceptible to alpha particles, and is non-volatile.

A difficulty you have with your position is that the AGC was also used on the CM, which you acknowledge did reach lunar orbit.

So, is the AGC capable of controlling a spacecraft, or not?

 

[Paulhoff]

If one uses more than 5% of their brain, they wouldn't like living on earth, the 3% users will drive you nuts.

Paul



THEY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! drive me nuts

 

[frenat]

Mission success required a successful launch from earth and a successful launch from the moon. Mission success required a successful landing on the moon and a successful landing on earth.

Count them. That's two takeoffs and two landings. Reliability decreases with each part added (unless they are added for redundancy)

You are spamming your little post.

Your original post looked as if you meant with the same craft. You had been talking about whether or not the LM could do its job of landing and taking off from the Moon. US manned rocket launches and splash downs had been tried and tested by the time of Apollo. Not a surprise they were still able to do that part then.

I repeated it ONCE because you ignored it. That is NOT spam.

 

[roger]

The following Wikipedia quote discusses the 36K or Core Rope Memory that was used in the LM and the CM. Note that it was also called the LOL memory (little old lady) memory, because the program was hand woven into the memory

Can you please read the sources? That is kilowords. The TRS-80 is kilobytes.

Furthermore, that 36K that you keep quoting was split between 32K (WORDS!) of read only rope memory, and 4K (WORDS!) of writable memory. I quoted the lower number because that is where the programs reside.

Block 2 had roughly four times or more the memory of the TRS-80 for programs, depending on assumptions (a strict comparison of numbers is misleading, as I explained before), and equal to more the amount of space for data (4KB RAM, 8KB writable rope).

And, what, exactly, is your expertise here? I've created flight computers from scratch for the military, written navigation filters, modified a lot more, tested more yet, created flight planners for more yet, and now currently work on robots and UAVs.

I say, from a position of knowledge, both demonstrated and asserted, that the AGC was capable of doing what it did. You say it isn't. You will need a better argument then some spurious (both on the facts and on relevence) arguments about the TRS-80. I also say it from a position of proof, given it was used as a fly by wire computer for the F-8.

Facts are lovely things, and allow us to actually figure things out about the world. It's far more interesting than just hand waving and saying "I doubt it". Why not give it a try?

 

[roger]

My recall of the amount of memory in the LM was not incorrect. I thought it was 1K to 2K.

Which made you an order of magnitude or two off. You seemed to place great stock in somebody being an order of magnitude off earlier. Will you apply that to yourself?

 

[stilicho]

Can you please read the sources? That is kilowords. The TRS-80 is kilobytes.

Furthermore, that 36K that you keep quoting was split between 32K (WORDS!) of read only rope memory, and 4K (WORDS!) of writable memory. I quoted the lower number because that is where the programs reside.

Block 2 had roughly twice the memory of the TRS-80.

And, what, exactly, is your expertise here? I've created flight computers from scratch for the military, written navigation filters, modified a lot more, tested more yet, created flight planners for more yet, and now currently work on robots and UAVs.

I say, from a position of knowledge, both demonstrated and asserted, that the AGC was capable of doing what it did. You say it isn't. You will need a better argument then some spurious (both on the facts and on relevence) arguments about the TRS-80. I also say it from a position of proof, given it was used as a fly by wire computer for the F-8.

Facts are lovely things, and allow us to actually figure things out about the world. It's far more interesting than just hand waving and saying "I doubt it". Why not give it a try?

If anything, what NASA accomplished is even more remarkable given the limits to the technology and the risks inherent in the task given them. Most of the moon hoax arguments could be similarly made to argue that Renaissance-era Europeans didn't embark on trans-Atlantic voyages because they didn't have an accurate means to determine longitude. The evidence is ample that they did perform this feat and did it several times successfully (and more than a few times unsuccessfully) without "proper" navigational aids.

Anyone remember Eric Hufschmid? He used to have (maybe still does have) an old HTML web page where he applied his expertise at machine lathing to "disprove" the moon landings. He had photos of lathes from various periods of time and showed how modern computer-operated lathes are better than those of the 1960s without microchips.

I don't know what that logical fallacy is called, technically, but to argue that something would be easier to accomplish with more advanced technology doesn't necessarily mean it was impossible with the technology of the time.

 

[AdMan]

Sounds like Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon, which I happened to get from the library yesterday. It has the details you mention, including the disabled rover scenario. There is also a brief joke sequence in the beginning, with "out-takes" showing an astronaut attached to wires descending from the lunar lander.

Yes, I'm betting this is what he watched and is now taking for NASA admitting they have recreated and replaced some of the actual footage shot on the moon because of "poor quality."

 

[Justinian2]

Which made you an order of magnitude or two off. You seemed to place great stock in somebody being an order of magnitude off earlier. Will you apply that to yourself?

An Order of Magnitude is a factor of ten.

Ten is 10 to the one
A hundred is 10 to the two.
A thousand is 10 to the third.

Ten is in the first order of magnitued, a hundred is in the second order of magnitude and a thousand is in the third order of magnitude. When calculating with a slide rule, one has to keep the orders of magnitude in his mind.

Anyway, now everybody knows how small the computer was.

Whether or not it explained a reason that the moon landing was not possible is open for discussion.

Did the LOL memory have anything to do with it? What happened if they found a problem in the vicinity of the moon and needed to reprogram the computer? They had no little old ladies in space to string the new rope memory.

 

[Justinian2]

Can you please read the sources? That is kilowords. The TRS-80 is kilobytes.

Furthermore, that 36K that you keep quoting was split between 32K (WORDS!) of read only rope memory, and 4K (WORDS!) of writable memory. I quoted the lower number because that is where the programs reside.

Block 2 had roughly four times or more the memory of the TRS-80 for programs, depending on assumptions (a strict comparison of numbers is misleading, as I explained before), and equal to more the amount of space for data (4KB RAM, 8KB writable rope).

And, what, exactly, is your expertise here? I've created flight computers from scratch for the military, written navigation filters, modified a lot more, tested more yet, created flight planners for more yet, and now currently work on robots and UAVs.
I say, from a position of knowledge, both demonstrated and asserted, that the AGC was capable of doing what it did. You say it isn't. You will need a better argument then some spurious (both on the facts and on relevence) arguments about the TRS-80. I also say it from a position of proof, given it was used as a fly by wire computer for the F-8.

Facts are lovely things, and allow us to actually figure things out about the world. It's far more interesting than just hand waving and saying "I doubt it". Why not give it a try?

I was responsible writing some of the test code for flight critical computers used in all commercial airlines. Don't forget to bring tranquilizers for your next flight. Relax a little though, because there is always a backup computer that will automatically switch on - they are redundant.

Using a 15 bit word instead of an 8 bit byte will speed up calculations and memory transfers. However, it will not necessarily halve the number of bytes required for the code.

 

[bobc]

Did the LOL memory have anything to do with it? What happened if they found a problem in the vicinity of the moon and needed to reprogram the computer? They had no little old ladies in space to string the new rope memory.

Clearly, they would have had to abort the mission. As they did on Apollo 13.

No one is saying that the Moon landings didn't entail some risk, and were literally a journey into the unknown. That still doesn't mean because something might have gone wrong, they must faked it.