ArmillarySphere
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[citation needed]
Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga
- Thread starter Patrick1000
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[citation needed]
Jack by the hedge
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I've taken the liberty of trimming Patrick's post down to what I think is the core of his argument, in the hope it becomes more legible. I hope that's OK.
For myself, I'd prefer it if Patrick would stop copy/pasting his novel and instead concisely show his references for who gave which coordinates to whom and when.
Jack by the hedge
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As far as I can see, Patrick's story is;
It appears to me that the slight hole in this airtight case is that the astronauts came back with reams of photographs, all of which need to be faked in patrick's view, but the killer point for him is the absence of a faked little red dot in any of the faked photographs. Because of course NASA could fake a moonscape, and views of the earth which match the contemporaneous earth weather patterns, but they just couldn't figure out how to add a little red dot...
I'm struggling to find a suitable descriptor for just how completely unconvincing I find this.
- An LRRR really was landed on the moon.
- NASA gave its coordinates to Lick.
- Lick couldn't find it for several days because a) they had a timing error in their equipment and b) they misheard the figures given over the phone so initially shone their laser in the wrong place.
It appears to me that the slight hole in this airtight case is that the astronauts came back with reams of photographs, all of which need to be faked in patrick's view, but the killer point for him is the absence of a faked little red dot in any of the faked photographs. Because of course NASA could fake a moonscape, and views of the earth which match the contemporaneous earth weather patterns, but they just couldn't figure out how to add a little red dot...
I'm struggling to find a suitable descriptor for just how completely unconvincing I find this.
"Dirt dumb"?
"Dumber than a box of hammers"?
"As dumb as a cabbage appointed Professor of Dumb at Oxford University"?
p.s. I'd never noticed that weather patterns thing you mentioned. That's what you call attention to detail
Patrick -- you might start by calculating the apparent magnitude of the Lick laser. I think you will be surprised at the result.
Is this your latest reason why the coordinates had to be juggled, then? That putting a dot on a photograph was impossible? Are you still claiming that the Soviet "Luna" craft would have seen the lack of an LM? For that matter, are you still claiming (back several threads ago, and at another forum) that the position of the stars would be impossible to fake?
Oh, and can you give me any reason to believe you actually know the subject, and aren't just flailing from one lame idea to another in the hopes that one of them might actually stand up to a moment's examination?
Is this your latest reason why the coordinates had to be juggled, then? That putting a dot on a photograph was impossible? Are you still claiming that the Soviet "Luna" craft would have seen the lack of an LM? For that matter, are you still claiming (back several threads ago, and at another forum) that the position of the stars would be impossible to fake?
Oh, and can you give me any reason to believe you actually know the subject, and aren't just flailing from one lame idea to another in the hopes that one of them might actually stand up to a moment's examination?
Patrick1000
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I am as sorry about this as anyone could possibly be
From the book, HOW THE LASER HAPPENED, by our very own and so very marvelous Charles H. Townes. his work lead to the development of the maser and laser.
"On July 21, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin set up an array of small reflectors on the moon and faced them toward Earth. At the same time, two teams of astrophysicists on Earth—240,000 miles away—at the University of California’s Lick Observatory and at the University of Texas’s McDonald Observatory, prepared small instruments on two big telescopes. They took careful note of the location of that first manned landing on the moon. About ten days later, the Lick team pointed the telescope at that precise location and sent a small pulse of power into the tiny piece of hardware they had added to the telescope. A few days later, after the west Texas skies had cleared, the McDonald team went through the same steps. In the heart of each telescope, a narrow beam of extraordinarily pure red light emerged from a crystal of synthetic ruby, pierced the sky, and entered the near vacuum of space. The rays were still only about 1,000 yards wide after traveling the 240,000 miles to illuminate the astronauts’ reflectors. Slightly more than a second after light hit the reflectors, the crews in California and in Texas each detected the faint reflection of its beam. The interval between launch of the pulse of light and its return permitted calculation of the distance to the moon within an inch, a measurement of unprecedented precision. The ruby for each source of light was the heart of a laser, a type of device first demonstrated in 1960, just nine years earlier. Even before man reached the moon, an unmanned spacecraft had landed on the moon in January, 1968, with a television camera that detected a laser beam shot from near Los Angeles by the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That beam radiated only about one watt. But from the moon, all the other lights in the Los Angeles basin, drawing thousands of megawatts, were not bright enough to be seen. Their light spread and diffused into relative indetectability while that single beam, with the power of a pocket penlight, sent a twinkling signal to the lunar surface. Laser beams reflected from the moon, allowing measurement of the moon’s distance, is only one illustration of the spectacular quality of laser light."
Townes, Charles H. (1999-03-17). How the Laser Happened : Adventures of a Scientist (pp. 3-4). Oxford University Press, USA.
I am proud of Charles being one of ours!
Thanks for the post, Pat
From the book, HOW THE LASER HAPPENED, by our very own and so very marvelous Charles H. Townes. his work lead to the development of the maser and laser.
"On July 21, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin set up an array of small reflectors on the moon and faced them toward Earth. At the same time, two teams of astrophysicists on Earth—240,000 miles away—at the University of California’s Lick Observatory and at the University of Texas’s McDonald Observatory, prepared small instruments on two big telescopes. They took careful note of the location of that first manned landing on the moon. About ten days later, the Lick team pointed the telescope at that precise location and sent a small pulse of power into the tiny piece of hardware they had added to the telescope. A few days later, after the west Texas skies had cleared, the McDonald team went through the same steps. In the heart of each telescope, a narrow beam of extraordinarily pure red light emerged from a crystal of synthetic ruby, pierced the sky, and entered the near vacuum of space. The rays were still only about 1,000 yards wide after traveling the 240,000 miles to illuminate the astronauts’ reflectors. Slightly more than a second after light hit the reflectors, the crews in California and in Texas each detected the faint reflection of its beam. The interval between launch of the pulse of light and its return permitted calculation of the distance to the moon within an inch, a measurement of unprecedented precision. The ruby for each source of light was the heart of a laser, a type of device first demonstrated in 1960, just nine years earlier. Even before man reached the moon, an unmanned spacecraft had landed on the moon in January, 1968, with a television camera that detected a laser beam shot from near Los Angeles by the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That beam radiated only about one watt. But from the moon, all the other lights in the Los Angeles basin, drawing thousands of megawatts, were not bright enough to be seen. Their light spread and diffused into relative indetectability while that single beam, with the power of a pocket penlight, sent a twinkling signal to the lunar surface. Laser beams reflected from the moon, allowing measurement of the moon’s distance, is only one illustration of the spectacular quality of laser light."
Townes, Charles H. (1999-03-17). How the Laser Happened : Adventures of a Scientist (pp. 3-4). Oxford University Press, USA.
I am proud of Charles being one of ours!
Thanks for the post, Pat
Noun76
Well there seems to be some mixup with the numbers here. Page4 states a 7km (~4 mile) spread.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/32452/1/94-0193.pdf
and lets face it it's not the first time you've misquoted or quotemined. Almost as if the truth doesn't quite fit with your story.
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And C it was lunar day. Trying to find a few photons is that much more difficult against that background noise. It was lunar evening when they finally picked up a return signal.
Patrick1000
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For you nomuse, honestly hope you are able to prove me wrong, good luck!
A couple of little quotes at least beginning to give us a small sense of the tremendous difference in power between the Lick laser and that described by Charles Townes in my just prior post where he described the 1968 Surveyor VII lunar laser experiment. I am sure you can see the EDN article I provided you nomuse indicates the laser to be 100,000 times as bright as the sun.
Lest there be any charges of my not being fair nomuse, I also included that section of the EDN article which favors your side. Perhaps we are not "friends", but I trust now there shall never again be a charge of my being unfair. Perhaps there is some hope there for you in the EDN article numbers. I honestly do not know. Given what I know of this subject, I do not believe that to be the case.
On the other hand, you are capable nomuse. See what you are able to come up with. I honestly hope you can prove me wrong here. Pat
From Remington Stone's article previously cited. It appeared in a 2007 University of California Observatories piece in which Stone gives a first person account of his experience as the laser target master, operating the Lick Observatory telescope on the epic evening of 07/20/1969. Here's Stone;
"Anticipating the Apollo 11 Mission in 1969, NASA gave us $75,000 to dig a pit below the coude slitroom. Into that pit we installed the two most powerful lasers anyone in the world would admit to having, mounted on brand new Bridgeport mills."
And this from Electronics Design, Strategy, News, EDN , September the 1st 1969. From the article entitled, LICK'S LASER COMES THROUGH;
"Lasers at Lick. Two pulsed ruby lasers were used at Lick. One was operated by Wesleyan and the other by NASA-Goddard. When fired through Lick's 120-in telescope, they produced a pulse of light 10 ft in dia and more than 100,000 times as bright as the sun. And by the time this spot of light reached the moon, it spread from 1 to 4 miles in dia.
The Wesleyan laser, intended for initial acquisition, produced a 12-ns pulse every 30s. NASA's laser, used to improve range data, delivered a 50-ns pulse every 3s. Both lasers were operated at approximately 500-MW peak output power.
Even with the 120-in telescope, the return signal was very weak. Many techniques were used to separate and identify this weak signal from among the sunlight scattered off the lunar surface. One was a minicomputer (Digital Electronics Corp. PDP-8/S) that sorted a histogram of signals, which returned with an expected time relationship to the transmitted pulse. A photomultiplier operating in a coincidence circuit looked for short multiphoton bursts of light. And finally, scientists compared oscilloscope photos to identify the returned signals.
Twelve long days. On the night of the moon landing, EDN asked Dr. Faller about the chances for a successful LRRR experiment. His answer: "Do you have a section for prayer in EDN ?"
Dr. Faller explained that the experiment is a very difficult one. His sentiments were well-founded because it was 12 days later that the first returned signals from LRRR registered. During those 12 days equipment problems ranged from a broken water jacket that cooled a laser to a "fried lizard" in the hjgh-voltage supply.
The first successful return signal was registered at 2:00 a.m. PDT (Pacific Daylight Time). An intermittent series of successive firings, one every 30s, substantiated Lick's initial findings. One of the series consisted of 112 firings. Of these, 88 returned signals were identified. After receiving a first return, scientists moved the telescope off target and the reflections ceased. The group concluded that the signals returning from the target must be from LRRR."
A couple of little quotes at least beginning to give us a small sense of the tremendous difference in power between the Lick laser and that described by Charles Townes in my just prior post where he described the 1968 Surveyor VII lunar laser experiment. I am sure you can see the EDN article I provided you nomuse indicates the laser to be 100,000 times as bright as the sun.
Lest there be any charges of my not being fair nomuse, I also included that section of the EDN article which favors your side. Perhaps we are not "friends", but I trust now there shall never again be a charge of my being unfair. Perhaps there is some hope there for you in the EDN article numbers. I honestly do not know. Given what I know of this subject, I do not believe that to be the case.
On the other hand, you are capable nomuse. See what you are able to come up with. I honestly hope you can prove me wrong here. Pat
From Remington Stone's article previously cited. It appeared in a 2007 University of California Observatories piece in which Stone gives a first person account of his experience as the laser target master, operating the Lick Observatory telescope on the epic evening of 07/20/1969. Here's Stone;
"Anticipating the Apollo 11 Mission in 1969, NASA gave us $75,000 to dig a pit below the coude slitroom. Into that pit we installed the two most powerful lasers anyone in the world would admit to having, mounted on brand new Bridgeport mills."
And this from Electronics Design, Strategy, News, EDN , September the 1st 1969. From the article entitled, LICK'S LASER COMES THROUGH;
"Lasers at Lick. Two pulsed ruby lasers were used at Lick. One was operated by Wesleyan and the other by NASA-Goddard. When fired through Lick's 120-in telescope, they produced a pulse of light 10 ft in dia and more than 100,000 times as bright as the sun. And by the time this spot of light reached the moon, it spread from 1 to 4 miles in dia.
The Wesleyan laser, intended for initial acquisition, produced a 12-ns pulse every 30s. NASA's laser, used to improve range data, delivered a 50-ns pulse every 3s. Both lasers were operated at approximately 500-MW peak output power.
Even with the 120-in telescope, the return signal was very weak. Many techniques were used to separate and identify this weak signal from among the sunlight scattered off the lunar surface. One was a minicomputer (Digital Electronics Corp. PDP-8/S) that sorted a histogram of signals, which returned with an expected time relationship to the transmitted pulse. A photomultiplier operating in a coincidence circuit looked for short multiphoton bursts of light. And finally, scientists compared oscilloscope photos to identify the returned signals.
Twelve long days. On the night of the moon landing, EDN asked Dr. Faller about the chances for a successful LRRR experiment. His answer: "Do you have a section for prayer in EDN ?"
Dr. Faller explained that the experiment is a very difficult one. His sentiments were well-founded because it was 12 days later that the first returned signals from LRRR registered. During those 12 days equipment problems ranged from a broken water jacket that cooled a laser to a "fried lizard" in the hjgh-voltage supply.
The first successful return signal was registered at 2:00 a.m. PDT (Pacific Daylight Time). An intermittent series of successive firings, one every 30s, substantiated Lick's initial findings. One of the series consisted of 112 firings. Of these, 88 returned signals were identified. After receiving a first return, scientists moved the telescope off target and the reflections ceased. The group concluded that the signals returning from the target must be from LRRR."
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Horatius
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So, apparently you're making a big deal out of the "100,000 time as bright as the sun", while ignoring the "10 ft in dia vs. 1-4 miles in diameter" issue.
Compare the area of the beam at the source and at the target on the Moon:
Area of a circle A = pi(d/2)^2.
For d=10 ft, this gives 25pi ft^2 of area. For the lower value of d = 1 mile = 5280 ft, this gives 6,969,600pi ft^2, or a ratio of 1:278,784.
So that "100,000 times as bright" starts to look a lot less impressive.....
Jack by the hedge
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I wonder how, in Patrick's imagined version, NASA knew where the LRRR had landed.
Andy_Ross
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Nice dodge.
Do you actualy think that the laser used on the LLLR can be seen by anyone one the moon?
Do you think that the lasers are bright shafts of light as seen in Sci Fi movies, James Bond etc?
Patrick1000
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The famous visor down photo
A final point before I conclude for the day. There is the famous visor down photograph of Armstrong "walking across the surface of the moon". We are all very familiar with this image. This cannot be an authentic moonscape shot. They would not allow Armstrong to do this and of course Armstrong would not do such a fool hardy thing in the context of genuine potential for exposure to laser light of that intensity. There must not be any authentic risk of exposure to ruby red light in the "context" of this famous photo, and so one may conclude Neil Armstrong is not on the surface of the moon on July 20 1969. Pat
A final point before I conclude for the day. There is the famous visor down photograph of Armstrong "walking across the surface of the moon". We are all very familiar with this image. This cannot be an authentic moonscape shot. They would not allow Armstrong to do this and of course Armstrong would not do such a fool hardy thing in the context of genuine potential for exposure to laser light of that intensity. There must not be any authentic risk of exposure to ruby red light in the "context" of this famous photo, and so one may conclude Neil Armstrong is not on the surface of the moon on July 20 1969. Pat
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matt.tansy
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In one ear, out the other.
Please tell me this is a joke.
Horatius
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Patrick1000
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will check in later nomuse
Nomuse, I am out for a while. Tired as you might imagine. Will perhaps check in later, but may be several days.
With the greatest sincerity, good luck nomuse. I have been studying the numbers, they do not favor the astronauts. As I said, hope you prove me wrong.
Pat
Nomuse, I am out for a while. Tired as you might imagine. Will perhaps check in later, but may be several days.
With the greatest sincerity, good luck nomuse. I have been studying the numbers, they do not favor the astronauts. As I said, hope you prove me wrong.
Pat
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