Let's leave the poop for a moment and discuss an interesting report
I do have a bit more to say with respect to last evening's comedy. Certainly, nomuse's fine performance in his role as "embarrassment control specialist" can't go without his receiving some honors. I mean the guy is on beeper call, 24/7, ever ready to save his colleagues' rumps when they've stepped in Borman poop. But I am here to debate Apollo first and foremost, so let's leave my honoring nomuse and his efforts of last evening to a future time in another post. I'd like to take a quick look instead at a "funny" feature in the original Apollo 11 Technical Crew Report.
Here indeed is a gem of a find. Let's take a look at some astronaut chit-chat from the original version of the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing. Who knows, perhaps this document has a "ghost writer" too, Just like Jim Lovell's silly tale, APOLLO 13(subtitled "MY WEEK LONG DRIFT THROUGH CISLUNAR SPACE IN A FAKE ICEBOX"). Be that as it may, I trust the ever vigilant nomuse won't object to my use of this critically important NASA publication in proving Apollo to be 99.999 % charade, 0.001 % technical mumbo jumbo.
Shall we drop in on the boys at section 8-18 of the original Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing Report? Here, our Eagle Scouts in training, fresh as can be, having showered and shaved post their 9 day effort to score the highly coveted "NASA Acting Merit Badge", begin to discuss a bit of a problem they'd had with the readout on the lunar module DEDA. The DEDA of course being the Abort Guidance System's readout window. A quote from the report;
"Aldrin: Let's see, there was one funny thing that I don't think we've mentioned. It was pretty minor. One of the strokes on the DEDA was not illuminated. Each character is made up of all these different strokes. One missing was in the middle character, and it would leave you in a position where you couldn't tell whether it was a three or a nine. I didn't realize at the time that there was any room for confusion. Later, in looking at some numbers, you could not really tell whether in fact that was a three or a nine.
Yes. You just need that one stroke to close it, and it becomes a nine. I got the bottom one. With this particular one missing, there was some doubt as to exactly what you had. That's true of any digit on any of those electrical switch displays.
Collins: Remember, we had one of those in the EMS.
Armstrong: Yes, that's right. Fortunately, the simulators usually got some out and you got used to putting up with that. But, it's a problem that really could get to you sometime if you misinterpret that number.
Aldrin: We missed putting the AGS time in there. We missed by 15 centiseconds hitting it right on, which I thought was very close. We did even better than that when we updated at 120 hours. "
So here we have a situation in which our favorite principals are discussing a problem with the readout on their DEDA. Of course it's not all that much of a major a problem. Actually, per Buzz, "pretty minor" really this business with not being able to read the DEDA. When the numbers in the window of the lunar module backup guidance system readout can't dependably be determined it really is no big deal. After all, the abort guidance system is only the system that double checks the primary system's function/performance and is also the lunar module guidance system that would be employed were an actual emergent abort be required on the occasion of distressed LM rescue. So when discussing the malfunction of the DEDA/readout on this rather trivial and unimportant system, the abort guidance system, we really shouldn't find ourselves being surprised at all by Aldrin's minimizing this trivial and "pretty minor" issue. I mean after all, when your life is on the line 240,000 miles away, who really cares about vital equipment performance?
"pretty minor", who can argue with Buzz's assessment there? He's the guy working on the NASA merit badge after all. If we can't trust his sense as to what might or might not be important in a situation like this, who now can we trust?
The interesting thing about the above passage from the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing is that it doesn't appear at all in the debriefing's more recent republication. If one looks at the NASA authorized Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing Report republication, for example in the collection of NASA authorized reports published by Apogee, compiled from the NASA archives and edited by Robert Godwin, well I'll be a space monkey's great uncle, we see that these comments by Aldrin simply do not appear. I guess that little ol' problem with the readout out was so very "pretty minor" that it made no sense for that meticulous record fanatic Robert Godwin to include those minor comments of Aldrin's about such a minor problem in the republication of such an importantly minor document.
Of course, on the other hand, some smart aleck might have the temerity to suggest they're trying to hide something, like maybe the numbers in their records are not what they are supposed to be and so they make up this bogus story about the DEDA so that they can claim the fake numbers they have with respect to something or another, a trajectory for example, though trajectory need not be the case, actually do make sense.
Piloting a space ship is serious business. Obviously, saying "pretty minor" to not being able to read the abort guidance system's DEDA is "VERY BOGUS". So we have a case here of astronaut lying. Lying no less about something so very important that they're willing to risk major exposure/vulnerability by deleting the statement from the clearly DOCTORED/REDACTED Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing Report republication.
My oh my, how those astronauts do lie.
