Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[Patrick1000]

Just for kicks

Patrick, this is wrong, therefore the rest of your "calculations" are wrong.
Can you see why? The answer is in front of you.

Just for kicks, take a look at what you'd get if you drifted 20 feet per second for 13 minutes from the targeted north coordinate. That so calculated north coordinate turns out to be not too far from the AOT Mission Report solution. Now, off the top of my head that is about 0.523 north give or take. To that you add the cross range, 17, which cannot be 17 degrees, so must be .17 degrees. That gives roughly the targeted north coordinate, something like 0.691. I am doing this from memory. No Mission Report with me. But you will see the numbers square.

I had yet to bring this up because I am busy with other things. But there is a reason for the AOT's being so far off. Think about this. The PNGS's platform is brought back into alignment/proper attitude by way of the AOT sightings. So how can the AOT coordinate solution and the PNGS coordinate solution be so far from one another?

I am just going through this to show you that I am not blowing you off and want to debate you, but cannot now. Way too busy. check my numbers, you will find my memory to be good.

Best I can do. Until later, PAtrick

 

[drewid]

Nope, guess again, it's even simpler than that.
Perhaps you should have posted this over on Apollohoax. BobB knows all about orbital mechanics, it's not like you've ever sockpuppeted over there and been banned is it?

Anyhow post 1178 is worthless from start to finish. You'll kick yourself when you find out.

 

[Patrick1000]

You need to study the MArch 16 1970 Trajectory analysis, Descent section

Last thing, drewid. Check out the March 16 1970 trajectory analysis, look at the part on the descent trajectory. you will see that supports my interpretation of where the numbers come from, what they are about. I am scrambling here, so please know I am trying to work with you on debating through this.

In that document, I believe it is footnote 10, it is a dedicated landing coordinate analysis referenced as a memorandum by Emil Schiesser. Again this is from memory, I think I am right , but you may need to look at other numbers. anyway, that memo is impossible to find. I have looked for it for a month. see if you can turn it up drewid.

I will come back to this when I can. Best I can do for now. Look at the trajectory stuff. the Mission Report is in a sense very incomplete.

 

[Patrick1000]

check the trajectory

Nope, guess again, it's even simpler than that.
Perhaps you should have posted this over on Apollohoax. BobB knows all about orbital mechanics, it's not like you've ever sockpuppeted over there and been banned is it?

Anyhow post 1178 is worthless from start to finish. You'll kick yourself when you find out.

sorry got to go drewid, really do like this stuff so will be back. See if you can find the Emil Schiesser thing. I have no way to search so will ask some friends. Out, Patrick

 

[matt.tansy]

Perhaps not so very far fetched given all we know already, another idea for a military application to kick around.

Say instead of just the reflector array, the vehicle that delivers the mirror also has a camera, just like Surveyor VII. If a ballistic missile submarine had an argon laser, 1 watt will due. It could surface and target the camera.

Surface a submarine to get a fix in the height of the Cold War? No. The technique you describe below would be far less accurate than the navigation methods they used during the 60s, but if they tried it they would mount the laser on a mast that could be raised and lowered, like a periscope.

The camera recording the the ship's position will now be known with great precision, as the argon laser's angle of trajectory provides the equivalent of this unique distance solution.

So the submarine would have a picture of themselves taken from the distance of the Moon. The resolution would not be sufficient to provide a more accurate position as Omega.

This would be sort of a "high art high form of the old and still sometimes used lunar navigation method", a one time competitor to finding oneself by way of a chronometer/clock. Conventional telescope ranging the reflector simultaneously would add the numbers to complete a solution. Now you have a ballistic missile sub on the open sea that has "found itself" with the greatest precision. This ship could then target an unfriendly military site with an accuracy not enjoyed prior to the institution of Apollo's LRRR system.

Study more about navigation and geodesy before spouting off this nonsense.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Patrick, do some reading on Navigation. I did the RYA Offshore Skipper course, I learned how to get my position accurately using stallar or solar fixes, the horizon, a watch and a sextant, I didn't need to bounce lasers or mirrors on the moon. You can even get a sextant that has an artificial horizon so you can take a shot on land or at night when the real horizon is obscured.

 

[R.A.F.]

Answer the liar question or be forever branded a coward. What do you want to be when you grow up?

An intellectual coward...the worse kind...but he don't care because he knows the "truth".

2 days to the landing site images are released...can't wait to see those images posted here.

 

[R.A.F.]

...really do like this stuff so will be back.

You enjoy being exposed as a coward for not answering relevant questions?


Talk about self-hatred.

 

[R.A.F.]

I didn't need to bounce lasers or mirrors on the moon.

I seem to have missed something here. Patrick is claiming that we didn't know the distance across the worlds oceans until we bounced Lasers off the Moon???


Is that what he is really claiming?....it's such a stupid idea, it almost debunks itself.

 

[fess]

I seem to have missed something here. Patrick is claiming that we didn't know the distance across the worlds oceans until we bounced Lasers off the Moon???


Is that what he is really claiming?....it's such a stupid idea, it almost debunks itself.

I asked him that question before. He ran away like a thief at night.

 

[drewid]

So, first things first.
Your interpretation of the word 'radial' bothered both me and Kiwi, BobB confirmed it.

The LM’s velocity can be described in terms of three components: radial (vertical), downrange (horizontal, or tangential, in the direction of the intended flight path), and cross-range (horizontal across the direction of intended flight path). Radial velocity is so called because it is in the direction of a radius vector emanating from the center of the moon, i.e. it is normal to the lunar surface.

So the radial residual isn't cross-range, it's vertical. Obviously then this segment of the mission report makes more sense.

Therefore, the 20 000-foot downrange error existing at powered descent initiation was also reflected as a 20-ft/sec radial velocity residual. This error is apparent on the figure in the altitude region near 27 000 feet, where an error of approximately 20 ft/sec is evident. The primary-system altitude error in existence at powered descent initiation manifests itself at touchdown when the powered flight processor indicates a landing altitude below the lunar surface.

( Apollo 11 mission report. 5-5)

The second thing is the word 'residuals' which I caught. It has different but related meanings depending on context. The AJSL mentions one meaning, the over/undershoot in actual velocity (from use of the main engine) that is then corrected for by using the thrusters. ( ALSJ 102:17:36 note by David Woods)

If this meaning is used the above bolded line makes no sense.

The trajectory analysis you mentioned gives the meaning used in this case,

difference between observed measurement and computed measurement

( A11TrajectoryAnalysis.pdf section 7.4 )

Then the bolded line does make sense, as does the preceding section from the A11 mission report:

Figure 5-B contains histories of altitude compared with altitude rate from the primary and abort guidance systems and from the Network powered flight processor. The altitude difference existing between the primary system and the Network at powered descent initiation can be observed in this figure. All three sources are initialized to the primary guidance state vector at powered descent initiation. The primary system, however, is updated by the landing radar, and the abort guidance system is not. As indicated in the figure, the altitude readouts from both systems gradually diverge so as to indicate a lower altitude for the primary system until the abort system was manually updated with altitude data from the primary system.

( Apollo 11 mission report. 5-5)

In other word the 20fps is not an actual vertical velocity, it's a drift error in one of the guidance platforms.

So even before you start on the maths it's broken. You're working with the wrong axis, and adding a drift that isn't an actual real-world velocity but an instrumentation error.

 

[Tomblvd]

I seem to have missed something here. Patrick is claiming that we didn't know the distance across the worlds oceans until we bounced Lasers off the Moon???


Is that what he is really claiming?....it's such a stupid idea, it almost debunks itself.

I think his actual rationale was that we didn't know the distance across the oceans to enough accuracy to properly target those notoriously fickle thermonuclear warheads.

Debunks itself indeed.

And I'm not sure if we are still at the "super-secret" LRRR that has active capabilities or the run-of-the-mill kind for bouncing lasers off of.

 

[dafydd]

I asked him that question before. He ran away like a thief at night.

Reading between the lines of his boasting and ignorance,I think that is what he said.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So, first things first.
Your interpretation of the word 'radial' bothered both me and Kiwi, BobB confirmed it.

... the radial residual isn't cross-range, it's vertical.

... the 20fps is not an actual vertical velocity, it's a drift error in one of the guidance platforms.

So even before you start on the maths it's broken. You're working with the wrong axis, and adding a drift that isn't an actual real-world velocity but an instrumentation error.

I wondered about that at the time, but despaired of getting a meaningful answer if I asked Patrick. So, thanks for explaining it (and confirming my suspicion that he was talking rubbish).

 

[R.A.F.]

I am trying to work with you on debating through this.

You've ignored ALL EVIDENCE that proves you wrong, and you talk about working with people?

Sounds like you've been indulging in a bit too much self-message.

 

[ArmillarySphere]

On the "no stars" issue, I noticed that Ken Mattingly was disconcerted by the lack of them during his EVA on Apollo 16. He had to raise the golden outer visor to be able to see them, and this was in cislunar space where the sunlit Moon was not around to ruin his night-vision.

 

[matt.tansy]

On the "no stars" issue, I noticed that Ken Mattingly was disconcerted by the lack of them during his EVA on Apollo 16. He had to raise the golden outer visor to be able to see them, and this was in cislunar space where the sunlit Moon was not around to ruin his night-vision.

But the Sun was there, right?

 

[ArmillarySphere]

I'll quote from "A Man on the Moon", which is where I read it. Page 491-492 in my copy.

The sun was so staggeringly bright that Mattingly immediately pulled down his gold-plated outer visor. He heard the reassuring whoosh of oxygen flowing into his suit through the 50-foot umbilical. He was completely outside now.(...)

Beyond Duke, just off the nose, a full moon glowed, 50,000 miles away. When he looked to his left, he saw a tiny crescent earth, 180,000 miles away. Looking at these through Casper's windows, he had never sensed the emptiness that lay on the other side of the glass. And in there, he had seen stars: Where were all the stars? It was a three-dimensional abyss. Charlie Duke kept saying, "My God, it's dark out here!" - and each time, Mattingly laughed, but his heart raced.

Mattingly was sure the "disappearance" of the stars was due to his gold visor. The doctors had advised him to leave the reflector down, lest he be exposed to harmful solar radiation, but he couldn't stand it anymore. He blinked the visor open just long enough for the universe to show a familiar face: There they are!

 

[Patrick1000]

Most important consideration is gravity in all of this

When the moon is on one side of the Earth vs the other, the gravitational effects on each of the 2 sides are different. Because the earth's diameter is 8,000 miles, the moon's component/contribution of/to the gravitational field on the earth's far side, non moon side, is weaker than on the side with the moon.

The gravitational force between 2 objects falls off with the square of the distance between the two masses/objects.

So on the side of the earth with the moon, we have 240 X 240, in thousands of miles gives 57,600. On the other side, away from the moon we have 248 X 248 , 61504. the force on the moon side is roughly 61504 minus 57600 equals 3904 divided by 57600 X 100 equals 6.8 percent. That is a big difference.

So they need the lunar ranging to develop this relationship well because the flight path of ICBMs will be greatly affected by the moon's position relative to the target trajectory.

 

[matt.tansy]

Thanks for that quote.