Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[Garrison]

So, to sum it up, your contention is that NASA, in faking the moon landing, introduced a fake error in landing position that was so far off as to render the fact that the landing was faked obvious. Tell me, why would they do that?

Because introducing all these unnecessary extras that make it obviously fake make it more realistic, haven't you read the rest of Patrick's posts?

 

[matt.tansy]

Punishment; Matt has to be tutored by SUSpilot in using a simple pythagorean solution in determining the difference in distance between the various landing site coordinate solutions presented in the Apollo 11 Mission Simulation Report.

You obviously forgot that it was I who made you compute the differences between the positions. Which then caused you to create even more lame alternatives to explain the lack of evidence for a hoax because then it became apparent to you the positions weren't that far off from each other.

 

[abaddon]

Because introducing all these unnecessary extras that make it obviously fake make it more realistic, haven't you read the rest of Patrick's posts?

No, P1K is hoping to bury his ghastly blunders on pages past.

Ain't gonna happen.

 

[Kiwi9]

I really do feel silly now. I had gone through all that time and trouble studying NASA's own manuals, documents on reference frames for space travel, finding things in space. I read almost all of NASA'S, "THE GUIDANCE , FLIGHT MECHANICS AND TRAJECTORY OPTIMIZATION REPORT".

Perhaps you should have gone to Bob B's website, Rocket and Space Technology:
http://www.braeunig.us/space/

From his home page:

Welcome to Rocket and Space Technology. This Web page can trace its roots to the author's project to write a computer program simulating the launch of a rocket to orbit. As I performed my research it became apparent that most information on the subject tended toward one of two extremes: it was either too simplistic to be very helpful, or it was advanced texts written for engineers. I could find little information suitable for the space enthusiast who wanted to progress beyond the beginner level but who lacked the advanced math and science skills needed to understand the more complex texts.

After spending months digging through books and Internet sites I finally found the information needed to complete my project. Not wanting others to go through the same frustrating search, I decided to organize all the information into a single resource. Thus, in 1996 this Web page was created.

Most of the information from my original research can be found in the Basics of Space Flight section. Through the years additional information and sections have been added, such as my debunking of the absurd moon landing hoax theory. It is my hope this site continues to grow and improve. Please enjoy your visit and learn a little about the fascinating science of space flight.

Robert A. Braeunig

Bob is very competent regarding the mechanics and mathematics of space flight, and his site has received awards for excellence, so he might have a thing or two you could learn from. But beware of playing the idiot hoax-believer with him -- you might get the same sort of reply you got from Buzz Aldrin.

You might remember from a previous post here that Bob is the guy who said, regarding your claims about radial velocity error (emphasis mine):

Fattydash/Patrick1000’s argument is spurious because he’s confusing radial velocity with cross-range velocity. He got he head up his … well, you know what.

 

[Kiwi9]

By the way drewid, did Charles Berry ever get back to you... Did Charles ever get back to you on that drewid?

By the way, Patrick1000, did you ever get back to me regarding my query about the length of time between Borman becoming ill and Berry talking to the Apollo 8 crew? Did you ever get back to me on that Patrick1000?

...I would now like Patrick1000 to tell us, in his own words, exactly what his understanding is of the length of time between Frank Borman becoming ill and Chuck Berry talking to the Apollo 8 crew.

Perhaps he could also say whether he thinks the crew could have cleaned up the cabin before Berry spoke to them, and whether he thinks they had to clean up bucketsful that were splattered everywhere, or just a few relatively minor globs of goo.

I'd also like him to tell us exactly what was said during that discussion between Berry and the crew, and to give us all the information he has on what the medical people in Mission Control discussed, particularly their diagnosis of Bormans's illness. Not just links or quotes, Patrick1000 (if you are reading this), but your own understanding in your own words, although it would be excellent if you provided links or references to the material that gives you that understanding. [Oops, greengrocer's apostrophe there.]

Could you please once again be so gracious, courteous and kind, Patrick1000, to impart to us your wisdom on this point? Waiting so long for your esteemed answer is truly agonising.

 

[Patrick1000]

Rendezvous with turandot

RENDEZVOUS WITH TURANDOT

I finally finished John M. Logsdon's rather scholarly work, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology). An important piece of work I would say. It is directed toward an understanding of the political forces which shaped space policy and in particular, Kennedy's space policy. His "clarion call" for us, we Americans, to do New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary and his partner in hypoxia, the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, one, two, three, maybe a million better and summit the moon. My sense is that Kennedy knew from the get go that this grand quest was not achievable in real terms. I'll present my reasons for coming to this conclusion in future posts, as well as what I believe Kennedy's and the space program's goals really were then, and perhaps are to this day.

The subject, politics and space policy, is a complex one, and requires careful study. As such, I've been trying to read as much as I can, from many different points of view on topics that seem relevant. One such work I have looked at recently is William E. Burrows DEEP BLACK, published in 1986. At the time, I believe Burrows and his book were rather bold in making one of the first attempts to bring some of the facts with regard to the American spy satellite program to public consciousness. Of course, one can never be sure how much of what we read in books of this type is true, no matter how well researched, or pretended to be researched, that a book may be. Authors are as likely to intentionally lead us astray as they are to point us in the right direction with respect to learning the "truth" about this type of thing. But one must start somewhere, and popular accounts, such as that by Burrrows are as good a place as any.

Burrow's preface to DEEP BLACK opens with;

" "I wouldn't want to be quoted on this," Lyndon Johnson told a small group of local government officials and educators in Nashville in March 1967, "but we've spent thirty-five or forty billion dollars on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge we've gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor."

By "space photography", Johnson had in mind the broader system of space reconnaissance and surveillance with which the United States each day takes the measure of the world electronically, monitoring vital signs from Soviet missile tests, Chinese and the Afghan Army, terrorists training in Iran, Libya, and Syria, North Korean radar installations, and a large number of other places and activities in order to be able to assess developments that could figure prominently, if not decisively, in the fortunes of the United States and its allies. "

For what it is worth, so far I like the book, by that I mean I believe it to be informative and for the most part not disinformation oriented, though one of course must remain ever on guard with respect to disinformation/misinformation issues/possibilities. But even if a book, or work of any kind ultimately proves to have been penned to deceive, to intentionally lead us astray, we can nevertheless learn from such works, for identifying disinformation as such, can lead us "back" in the right direction.

My general impression is that the space program, the civilian program, the NASA program, has always been primarily about reconnaissance/surveillance and the exploration of the use of spaced based offensive weapons as well. NASA is a place to "cover" what the military doesn't want congress to know about, or the public for that matter. Would congress have agreed to the instrumenting of the moon for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes, not to mention any other purposes the military guys could have come up with for our use of the moon as a offensive/defensive strategic platform? Of course not, and so Apollo.

That's not to say NASA did not and doesn't carry out important "non military" work, it's just that military stuff is what NASA is all about at root, it drove the space agencies inception. It is NASA's raison d'être. The civilian cover aspect is of course critical. The best way to "hide" stuff like this, black ops stuff, occult military projects, is to run them under the guise of genuine civilian programs with essentially everybody involved, from aerospace scientists and engineers to housekeeping people believing they are simply doing important technical work, fascinating, challenging, exciting indeed, but not connected to making war in any direct or major way, very much not about blowing people up.

Another, more recent publication I have taken a look at, trying to educate myself background wise is, Defending Space: US Anti-Satellite Warfare and Space Weaponry(2006), by Clayton Chun and Chris Taylor.

On page 13 Chun and Taylor write with regard to the US early space efforts in general;

"Technology, funding, and political concerns had applied the brakes to some military space systems….As the Vietnam War heated up, any excess funding was pushed into conventional forces. However the most important limits were due to political concerns. The nation wanted to continue using space for reconnaissance and surveillance, communications and other missions, but Washington feared expanding an arms race into space. Washington could ill afford Soviet nuclear orbiting bombardment systems over the country. Negotiations with Moscow might eliminate this threat yet still allow for the exploration of other military space systems. At the same time the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) had started to gain control of many of the manned and unmanned space programs. Civilian space programs began to dominate the field, at least in the public's eye. The success of CORONA and other intelligence gathering satellites also lead a successful attempt by the CIA, under the guise of the National Reconnaissance Office(NRO), to wrest control of these assists from the USAF. Military and key national space systems started to become highly classified "black" programs due to their sensitive nature. These systems became the future eyes and ears for not only military, but also for key international programs supporting treaty negations."

The above passage is revealing as it dances around what we all know now to be all so very true. If congress and the American people might object, or if a space program, a space based system of whatever kind, legitimately needs to be secret to be effective, then the best way to deal with the "administrative problem" is to run most of the program under the guise of civilian NASA. This is what was done with regard to Apollo. It is overt and covert at the same time. Overt with respect to Apollo's in our face lavish funding and mainstream media panache, albeit panache with fading credibility, covert in that under Apollo, the moon was instrumented for military purposes.

In DEEP BLACK, already referred to above, Burrows writes on page xiv of the preface;

"What then do the Russians know about American space reconnaissance systems in general? As it turns out, they know quite a bit about U.S. low-orbiting spacecraft, such as the reconnaissance types that constitute the core subject of this book. The low orbiters are easier to see, easier to listen to, and easier to track than satellites higher up. In the case of obsolescent KH-11, which takes pictures and taps into some communication signals, they also have an operations manual purchased from a CIA traitor for a paltry three thousand dollars. Finally the Kremlin has its own long-standing reconnaissance program, and although Washington's systems are in general superior technologically, the basic hardware is more similar than different. The opposition knows a fair amount about the medium orbiters, which include most of the radar ferrets, ocean surveillance types, and some of the eavesdropping signals intelligence satellites. It knows relatively little about the high orbiters out at 22,300-mile geosynchronous range and beyond, which carry the brunt of surveillance for early warning attack, navigation, communications, relay, missile telemetry and electronic signal interception, and specialized ABM radar ferreting. This appraisal was made by one who has good reason to know."

Much there to think about. Of course I have already pointed out that instrumenting the moon to allow for its use as a military satellite/platform, puts our equipment even more out of reach than the 22,300-mile distant geosynchronous satellites that at least at the time of Burrows' writing back in 1986, were satellites about which the Kremlin did not know much. Presumably, placing equipment on the moon would put it that much further out of Ivan's reach. The passage above also reminds us, as we do, so does Ivan. One would imagine whatever it was we were able to achieve with regard to the militarization of the moon, the Russians probably did likewise, perhaps not as well as we did, but similar. This of course explains the "Race to the Moon". It was a race to instrument the moon, and not land men upon it. This is why we folded up the tent so quickly. We accomplished what we set out to accomplish with Apollo by the time 17 was in the books. This also explains why the Russians never "landed men", or Russian space gals for that matter. It didn't matter, they were able to put the stuff they wanted to on the moon, just as we did. There was no need for them to go through the big Hoax exercise as was the case with the US, the US with its potentially more disapproving public and congress than existed with regard to equivalent public and legislative bodies in the then Soviet Union.

Like a child conceived in a torrid moment of 1967 "Summer of Love" psychedelic passion, Apollo as spirit, as phenomena, was born too of a passion specific to, motivated by, and unmistakably rooted in its time, the 1960s. Yet it is here, at the moment of their births, that our wide eyed love child and Apollo's rockets part ways. The parents of the former were ever so hopeful their child would come to be a spirit of peace. The sire of Apollo, well he had different hopes for his kid altogether.

Apollo's strange pedigree, one of consummate paranoia, perhaps justifiable consummate paranoia, is unmistakably reflected in the faces, lives and mannerisms of its principals. The image that comes to mind in this regard is always the astronauts; Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, as they appeared, spoke, and presented themselves at the Apollo 11 Post Flight Press Conference, not to mention how the astronauts presented themselves for ever more after, after their supposed return to earth from the surface of the moon, or in Collins' case, his alleged return from the proximity of its surface. Edgy, nervous, without spark, without passion, and surprisingly without FEAR are the three thespians. The latter aspect, their all too obvious lack of genuine fear, has struck me since I first viewed that most revealing of videos, the Post Flight Press Conference Video, as the most telltale sign of just how limited their Apollo experience actually was.

Some friends of mine wrote to me about their having recently attended a particularly well done performance of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot. There is that marvelously powerful scene at the very beginning of the opera in which the Prince of Persia is about to be executed, about to be beheaded. The chorus sings, summoning the moon, the dark orb being late, has got them impatient, impatient for blood. For the chorus, the moon is the light of dark things, a dark light needed to show the executioner the way, and also a sentinel, a guard and witness of this dark event.

Puccini understood the moon in a way Neil Armstrong never could possibly hope to. Puccini was closer to its dark power, its dark mystery, its gravity, closer than Neil Armstrong ever was, though some claim Armstrong walked upon the furrowed, troubled and pock marked gray face of that ancient and infinite soul. We know, all of us that see Armstrong, have heard him speak, speak of the moon, know this cannot be true. It cannot be true that he walked there, where fear would be all consuming at times, in some deliciously dark moments. To survive it, would of course be the best and most telling part. If one were close enough to hear the moon breath, upon his return, the hearer would speak, at least once of such deep deep bone waking fear. I would imagine it to be the most interesting, telling and worthwhile aspect of the explorer's account, of his story upon returning.

But Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins look only so very nervous, nothing more, never afraid, not in this most meaningful and profound of ways. And so we see, as plain as the low angled light of a dark lunar day in July of 1969, those 3, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, they never set foot on that old and haunted and ever so frightening face.

 

[332nd]

RENDEZVOUS WITH TURANDOT

I finally finished John M. Logsdon's rather scholarly work, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology). An important piece of work I would say. It is directed toward an understanding of the political forces which shaped space policy and in particular, Kennedy's space policy. His "clarion call" for us, we Americans, to do New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary and his partner in hypoxia, the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, one, two, three, maybe a million times better and summit the moon. My sense is that Kennedy knew from the get go that this grand quest was not achievable in real terms. I'll present my reasons for coming to this conclusion in future posts, as well as what I believe Kennedy's and the space program's goals really were then, and perhaps are to this day.

The subject, politics and space policy, is a complex one, and requires careful study. As such, I've been trying to read as much as I can, from many different points of view on topics that seem relevant. One such work I have looked at recently is William E. Burrows DEEP BLACK, published in 1986. At the time, I believe Burrows and his book were rather bold in making one of the first attempts to bring some of the facts with regard to the American spy satellite program to public consciousness. Of course, one can never be sure how much of what we read in books of this type is true, no matter how well researched, or pretended to be researched, that a book may be. Authors are as likely to intentionally lead us astray as they are to point us in the right direction with respect to learning the "truth" about this type of thing. But one must start somewhere, and popular accounts, such as that by Burrrows are as good a place as any.

Burrow's preface to DEEP BLACK opens with;

" "I wouldn't want to be quoted on this," Lyndon Johnson told a small group of local government officials and educators in Nashville in March 1967, "but we've spent thirty-five or forty billion dollars on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge we've gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor."

By "space photography", Johnson had in mind the broader system of space reconnaissance and surveillance with which the United States each day takes the measure of the world electronically, monitoring vital signs from Soviet missile tests, Chinese and the Afghan Army, terrorists training in Iran, Libya, and Syria, North Korean radar installations, and a large number of other places and activities in order to be able to assess developments that could figure prominently, if not decisively, in the fortunes of the United States and its allies. "

For what it is worth, so far I like the book, by that I mean I believe it to be informative and for the most part not disinformation oriented, though one of course must remain ever on guard with respect to disinformation/misinformation issues/possibilities. But even if a book, or work of any kind ultimately proves to have been penned to deceive, to intentionally lead us astray, we can nevertheless learn from such works, for identifying disinformation as such, can lead us "back" in the right direction.

My general impression is that the space program, the civilian program, the NASA program, has always been primarily about reconnaissance/surveillance and the exploration of the use of spaced based offensive weapons as well. NASA is a place to "cover" what the military doesn't want congress to know about, or the public for that matter. Would congress have agreed to the instrumenting of the moon for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes, not to mention any other purposes the military guys could have come up with for our use of the moon as a offensive/defensive strategic platform? Of course not, and so Apollo.

That's not to say NASA did not and doesn't carry out important "non military" work, it's just that military stuff is what NASA is all about at root, it drove the space agencies inception. It is NASA's raison d'être. The civilian cover aspect is of course critical. The best way to "hide" stuff like this, black ops stuff, occult military projects, is to run them under the guise of genuine civilian programs with essentially everybody involved, from aerospace scientists and engineers to housekeeping people believing they are simply doing important technical work, fascinating, challenging, exciting indeed, but not connected to making war in any direct or major way, very much not about blowing people up.

Another, more recent publication I have taken a look at, trying to educate myself background wise is, Defending Space: US Anti-Satellite Warfare and Space Weaponry(2006), by Clayton Chun and Chris Taylor.

On page 13 Chun and Taylor write with regard to the US early space efforts in general;

"Technology, funding, and political concerns had applied the brakes to some military space systems….As the Vietnam War heated up, any excess funding was pushed into conventional forces. However the most important limits were due to political concerns. The nation wanted to continue using space for reconnaissance and surveillance, communications and other missions, but Washington feared expanding an arms race into space. Washington could ill afford Soviet nuclear orbiting bombardment systems over the country. Negotiations with Moscow might eliminate this threat yet still allow for the exploration of other military space systems. At the same time the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) had started to gain control of many of the manned and unmanned space programs. Civilian space programs began to dominate the field, at least in the public's eye. The success of CORONA and other intelligence gathering satellites also lead a successful attempt by the CIA, under the guise of the National Reconnaissance Office(NRO), to wrest control of these assists from the USAF. Military and key national space systems started to become highly classified "black" programs due to their sensitive nature. These systems became the future eyes and ears for not only military, but also for key international programs supporting treaty negations."

The above passage is "revealing" as it dances around what we all know now to be all so very true. If congress and the American people might object, or if a space program, a space based system of whatever kind, legitimately needs to be secret to be effective, then the best way to deal with the "administrative problem" is to run most opt the program under the guise of civilian NASA. This is what was done with regard to Apollo. It is overt and covert at the same time. Overt with respect to Apollo's in our face lavish funding and mainstream media panache, albeit panache with fading credibility, covert in that under Apollo the moon was instrumented for military purposes.

In DEEP BLACK, already referred to above, Burrow's writes on page xiv of the preface;

"What then do the Russians know about American space reconnaissance systems in general? As it turns out, they know quite a bit about U.S. low-orbiting spacecraft, such as the reconnaissance types that constitute the core subject of this book. The low orbiters are easier to see, easier to listen to, and easier to track than satellites higher up. In the case of obsolescent KH-11, which takes pictures and taps into some communication signals, they also have an operations manual purchased from a CIA traitor for a paltry three thousand dollars. Finally the Kremlin has its own long-standing reconnaissance program, and although Washington's systems are in general superior technologically, the basic hardware is more similar than different. The opposition knows a fair amount about the medium orbiters, which include most of the radar ferrets, ocean surveillance types, and some of the eavesdropping signals intelligence satellites. It knows relatively little about the high orbiters out at 22,300-mile geosynchronous range and beyond, which carry the brunt of surveillance for early warning attack, navigation, communications, relay, missile telemetry and electronic signal interception, and specialized ABM radar ferreting. This appraisal was made by one who has good reason to know."

Much there to think about. Of course I have already pointed out that instrumenting the moon to allow for its use as a military satellite, puts our equipment even more out of reach than the 22,300-mile out geosynchronous satellites that at least at the time of Burrows' writing back in 1986, were satellites about which the Kremlin did not know much. And presumably placing equipment on the moon would put it that much further out of Ivan's reach. The passage above also reminds us, as we do, so does Ivan. One would imagine whatever it was we were able to achieve with regard to the militarization of the moon, the Russians probably did likewise, perhaps not as good, but similar. This of course explains the "Race to the Moon". I t was a race to instrument and not land men. this is why we folded up the tent so soon. We did, accomplished what we set out to accomplish with Apollo by the time 17 was in the books. And it also explains why the Russians never landed men, or cute Russian space girls for that matter. It didn't matter, they were able to put the stuff they wanted to on the moon as well. There was no need for them to go through the big Hoax exercise as was the case with the US with a more potentially disapproving public and congress than existed with regard to equivalent public and legislative bodies in the then Soviet Union.

Like a child conceived in a torrid moment of 1967 "Summer of Love" psychedelic passion, Apollo as spirit, as phenomena, was born too of a passion specific to, motivated by, and unmistakably rooted in its time, the 1960s. Yet it is here, at the moment of their births, that our wide eyed love child and our rockets part ways. The parents of the former, ever so hopeful this child will come to be a spirit of peace. The sire of Apollo, well he had different hopes altogether.

Apollo's strange pedigree, one of consummate paranoia, perhaps justifiable consummate paranoia, is unmistakably reflected in the faces, lives and mannerisms of its principals. The image that comes to mind in this regard is always the astronauts; Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, as they appeared, spoke, and presented themselves generally after supposedly returning from the surface of the moon, or in Collins' case, at least the proximity of its surface. Edgy, nervous, without spark, without passion, and surprisingly without FEAR are the three thespians. The latter aspect, their lack of genuine fear has struck me since I first viewed that most revealing of videos as the most telltale sign of just how limited their Apollo experience actually was.

Some friends of mine wrote to me about their having seen recently a particularly well done performance of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot. There is that marvelously powerful scene at the very beginning of the opera in which the Prince of Persia is about to be executed, about to be beheaded. The chorus sings, summoning the moon, the dark orb being late, has got them impatient, impatient for blood. For the chorus, the moon is a light of dark things, a dark light to show the executioner the way, and also a sentinel, a guard and witness of this dark event.

Puccini understood the moon in a way Neil Armstrong never could possibly hope to. Puccini was closer to its dark power, its dark mystery, closer than Neil Armstrong ever was, though some claim Armstrong walked upon the face of this ancient and infinite soul. We know, all of us that see Armstrong, have heard him speak, speak of the moon, know this cannot be true. It cannot be true that he walked there, where fear would be consuming at times, at least in some deliciously dark moments. If one were close enough to hear the moon breath, upon his return, the hearer would speak, at least once of such deep fear. I would imagine it to be the most interesting, telling and worthwhile aspect of the explorer's account. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins look so very nervous, but never afraid, not in this most meaningful of ways. They never went to the moon.

So many words & still so wrong.

 

[Garrison]

RENDEZVOUS WITH TURANDOT

I finally finished John M. Logsdon's rather scholarly work, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology). An important piece of work I would say. It is directed toward an understanding of the political forces which shaped space policy and in particular, Kennedy's space policy. His "clarion call" for us, we Americans, to do New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary and his partner in hypoxia, the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, one, two, three, maybe a million times better and summit the moon. My sense is that Kennedy knew from the get go that this grand quest was not achievable in real terms. I'll present my reasons for coming to this conclusion in future posts, as well as what I believe Kennedy's and the space program's goals really were then, and perhaps are to this day.

Please feel free not to, we've already established your ignorance of Cold War politics and the ludicrousness of you military Lunar program fiction, no need to rehash it.

<cut irrelevant twaddle about space imaging that has nothing to do with Apollo>

My general impression is that the space program, the civilian program, the NASA program, has always been primarily about reconnaissance/surveillance and the exploration of the use of spaced based offensive weapons as well. NASA is a place to "cover" what the military doesn't want congress to know about.

Yes NASA has been involved with military programs, hence the design of the STS, does this have anything to do with your claim Apollo was faked? No.

Would congress have agreed to instrumenting the moon for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes, not to mention any other purposes the military guys could have come up with for our use of the moon as a offensive/defensive strategic platform? Of course not, and so Apollo.

Again demonstrating how little you know about the Cold War.

That's not to say NASA did not and doesn't carry out important "non military" work, it's just that military stuff is what NASA is all about at root, it drove the space agencies inception. It is NASA's raison d'être. The civilian cover aspect is of course critical.

Again unsupported nonsense, the USAF has it's own space projects, and yes they may have shoved costs off onto NASA on occasion but again does not make Apollo a hoax.

The best way to "hide" stuff like this, black ops stuff, occult military projects is to run them under the guise of genuine civilian programs with essentially everybody involved, from aerospace scientists and engineers to housekeeping people believing they are simply doing important technical work, fascinating, challenging, exciting indeed, but not connected to making war in any direct way, very much not about blowing people up.

Right because all those engineers won't realize that they are working on a Stealth bomber if you tell them its a space telescope, and again has zero to do with your Apollo Hoax fantasy.

<more cut and paste removed>

The above passage is "revealing" as it dances around what we all know now to be all so very true. If congress and the American people might object, or if a space program, a space based system of whatever kind, legitimately needs to be secret to be effective, then the best way to deal with the "administrative problem" is to run most opt the program under the guise of civilian NASA. This is what was done with regard to Apollo.

There is no such thing as a covert space program. The USAF may keep secret what's in the payload bay of the X-37 but the launch was broadcast online because you can't hide a rocket taking off, you can't make a satellite invisible, sure the specs on the Keyhole satellites is classified(though I imagine they have copies in Moscow and Beijing) but you can't hide the fact that they are in space. And lets not even get into SDI, 'Rods from God' and other programs that have been released or leaked out.

It is overt and covert at the same time. Overt with respect to Apollo's in our face lavish funding and mainstream media panache, albeit panache with fading credibility, covert in that under Apollo the moon was instrumented for military purposes.

You keep saying it, you keep failing to prove it, it keeps being untrue.

<more cut and paste removed>

Much there to think about. Of course I have already pointed out that instrumenting the moon to allow for its use as a military satellite, puts our equipment even more out of reach than the 22,300-mile out geosynchronous satellites that at least at the time of Burrows' writing back in 1986, were satellites about which the Kremlin did not know much. And presumably placing equipment on the moon would put it that much further out of Ivan's reach.

You 'pointed out something untrue and patently ridiculous please don't pretend anyone bought that garbage.

The passage above also reminds us, as we do, so does Ivan. One would imagine whatever it was we were able to achieve with regard to the militarization of the moon, the Russians probably did likewise, perhaps not as good, but similar. This of course explains the "Race to the Moon". I t was a race to instrument and not land men. this is why we folded up the tent so soon. We did, accomplished what we set out to accomplish with Apollo by the time 17 was in the books. And it also explains why the Russians never landed men, or cute Russian space girls for that matter. It didn't matter, they were able to put the stuff they wanted to on the moon as well. There was no need for them to go through the big Hoax exercise as was the case with the US with a more potentially disapproving public and congress than existed with regard to equivalent public and legislative bodies in the then Soviet Union.

With invisible rockets and and hardware that no one in the world noticed flying to the moon, you really have no idea how stupid that notion is do you?

<possibly drunken rambling removed>

 

[Garrison]

So many words & still so wrong.

Way more succinct than my response that said essentially the same thing and took way too long to write at this time of might.

 

[Kiwi9]

19-Second Film Clip of the Moon, 20 July 1969

If anyone would like to see a 19-second film clip of the moon from the United States when the Apollo 11 astronauts were there on the evening of 20 July 1969, see the movie "Woodstock." The clip was inserted into the film by Michael Wadleigh, the director, who, during July 1969, had been in Wyoming filming a movie about mountain climbing.

I heard about the clip - probably on the radio - shortly before the movie opened in Wellington, New Zealand in 1970 or 71, and I was relieved that it was as long as 19 seconds and that it came up fairly early in the movie so I could relax and enjoy the rest of it without keeping my eyes on the screen and barely blinking in case I missed a very brief clip.

In my 3:35:05 copy of "Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music" the clip is between 0:11:50 and 0:12:09 when Crosby, Stills and Nash are singing "Wooden Ships," which follows Canned Heat doing "Going Up the Country." There is a split-screen image with night scenes at Woodstock on 14 or 15 August 1969 on the left, and on the right is the moon on the evening of 20 July 1969 in the USA, or the afternoon of the 21st in New Zealand.

A check of the moon's phase in the clip confirms that if it was taken either side of the Woodstock festival it had to be taken either on 20 July or 19 August 1969.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

. The image that comes to mind in this regard is always the astronauts; Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, as they appeared, spoke, and presented themselves at the Apollo 11 Post Flight Press Conference,

Gods' nipples, not the stupid press conference again. Why? Are we supposed to believe that you can magically read the minds of people on a video? That's what you're professing to do by invoking this information - you claim to be able to discern some kind of mood or motivation behind their demeanor.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. They were hung-over during the press conference. The end.

 

[Obviousman]

Burrows does not claim NASA is military-controlled. In DEEP BLACK he notes the close relationship, the questions arising when a civilian asset gather information of military significance, that some technology often originates with the military, and funding arrangements, but he specifically says the relationship is "...close but low keyed...". Indeed he even notes that "...The old-timers at NASA had come to cherish the agency's civilian orientation...".

 

[Southwind17]

I suspect you may be more than an amateur Southwind17, or at the very least, not have had your powers of critical thinking softened by mainstream think. Regardless, go to the ALSJ and watch the LM ascent and descent 16mm films and ask yourself if it seems reasonable for someone to make the claim that by watching those videos the landing site coordinates could be determined with great accuracy? That is, within tens of feet?

I wasn't really challenging the process of determining the landing spot by visual reference to the terrain during descent, rather the risk of a somewhat less-than-smooth landing. That said, on the face of it it does seem somewhat surprising that they did identify the location by such a process, but presumably these guys were as familiar with the relevant features of the Moon local to the planned landing site as I might be navigating my way around town by observing buildings and shops. They had, presumably, studied the maps ad nauseum.

Southwind17, do you read the Apollo Lunar Surface Journals? They have incredible detail about landing the lunar modules.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html

Armstrong selected his landing area at about 160 feet altitude, at 102:44:29. Before 25 metres, the ground was becoming difficult to see because of dust flying out from the rocket blast.

No I haven't, but I probably will now. I've just watched the Apollo 11 landing video as P1K suggested - very interesting. What I did notice, however, albeit slightly off topic, is how much of the LM/Houston radio communiction response time was virtually instantaneous. How can that be? By my reckoning it would take at least 1.7 seconds for an LM transmission to reach Earth and an immediate response (e.g. "Roger") to be received back at the LM, or vice versa.

 

[drewid]

That wasn't the only process going on, there were several, and all gave answers to within a fairly small radius. They were just looking for confirmation. The important thing wasn't actually the landing site so much, it was the relative position between the LM and the CSM, which Reed calculated using the rendevouz radar.

As to audio delay, Also there's obviously only a delay from one end, depending where the recording was made. So from Houston you'd get [lm speaks][houston speaks][delay][lm speaks][houston speaks][delay] and so on.

It also depends which version of the recording you're listening to. Some versions were handed out to broadcasters, who then cut the longer gaps out to prevent dead air time. There are still some digitised versions of those floating about.

 

[Southwind17]

As to audio delay, Also there's obviously only a delay from one end, depending where the recording was made. So from Houston you'd get [lm speaks][houston speaks][delay][lm speaks][houston speaks][delay] and so on.

It also depends which version of the recording you're listening to. Some versions were handed out to broadcasters, who then cut the longer gaps out to prevent dead air time. There are still some digitised versions of those floating about.

I'm referring to the video available on the ALSJ website. Take your point about the source recording halving the 1.7s to just under a second - thanks. The recording doesn't sound edited, though, and there are still some instantaneous responses between the LM and Houston.

 

[abaddon]

I wasn't really challenging the process of determining the landing spot by visual reference to the terrain during descent, rather the risk of a somewhat less-than-smooth landing. That said, on the face of it it does seem somewhat surprising that they did identify the location by such a process, but presumably these guys were as familiar with the relevant features of the Moon local to the planned landing site as I might be navigating my way around town by observing buildings and shops. They had, presumably, studied the maps ad nauseum.


No I haven't, but I probably will now. I've just watched the Apollo 11 landing video as P1K suggested - very interesting. What I did notice, however, albeit slightly off topic, is how much of the LM/Houston radio communiction response time was virtually instantaneous. How can that be? By my reckoning it would take at least 1.7 seconds for an LM transmission to reach Earth and an immediate response (e.g. "Roger") to be received back at the LM, or vice versa.

It was recorded at mission control. Are you seriously suggesting that when they heard the astronauts say something they should deliberately wait 1,7 seconds before responding?
Why would they wait before responding?

 

[drewid]

I'm referring to the video available on the ALSJ website. Take your point about the source recording halving the 1.7s to just under a second - thanks. The recording doesn't sound edited, though, and there are still some instantaneous responses between the LM and Houston.

Well not exactly. It would remove the delay entirely, so if it was recorded in Houston there would be no (or at least only thinking time), delay between the LM speaking and Houston replying. Also if you mean the descent film there are three voices in the conversation. Aldrin was reading out results from the computer to Armstrong, so it might seem like Aldrin is making a reply to Houston, but he's actually just relaying information to Armstrong.

Is there any part in particular that displays this kind of behaviour?

Also which particular video is that? There are a number linked to from the ALSJ.

 

[drewid]

rendezvous with turandot

i finally finished john m. Logsdon's rather scholarly work, john f. Kennedy and the race to the moon (palgrave studies in the history of science and technology). An important piece of work i would say. It is directed toward an understanding of the political forces which shaped space policy and in particular, kennedy's space policy. His "clarion call" for us, we americans, to do new zealander sir edmund hilary and his partner in hypoxia, the sherpa tenzing norgay, one, two, three, maybe a million better and summit the moon. My sense is that kennedy knew from the get go that this grand quest was not achievable in real terms. I'll present my reasons for coming to this conclusion in future posts, as well as what i believe kennedy's and the space program's goals really were then, and perhaps are to this day.

The subject, politics and space policy, is a complex one, and requires careful study. As such, i've been trying to read as much as i can, from many different points of view on topics that seem relevant. One such work i have looked at recently is william e. Burrows deep black, published in 1986. At the time, i believe burrows and his book were rather bold in making one of the first attempts to bring some of the facts with regard to the american spy satellite program to public consciousness. Of course, one can never be sure how much of what we read in books of this type is true, no matter how well researched, or pretended to be researched, that a book may be. Authors are as likely to intentionally lead us astray as they are to point us in the right direction with respect to learning the "truth" about this type of thing. But one must start somewhere, and popular accounts, such as that by burrrows are as good a place as any.

Burrow's preface to deep black opens with;

" "i wouldn't want to be quoted on this," lyndon johnson told a small group of local government officials and educators in nashville in march 1967, "but we've spent thirty-five or forty billion dollars on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge we've gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor."

by "space photography", johnson had in mind the broader system of space reconnaissance and surveillance with which the united states each day takes the measure of the world electronically, monitoring vital signs from soviet missile tests, chinese and the afghan army, terrorists training in iran, libya, and syria, north korean radar installations, and a large number of other places and activities in order to be able to assess developments that could figure prominently, if not decisively, in the fortunes of the united states and its allies. "

for what it is worth, so far i like the book, by that i mean i believe it to be informative and for the most part not disinformation oriented, though one of course must remain ever on guard with respect to disinformation/misinformation issues/possibilities. But even if a book, or work of any kind ultimately proves to have been penned to deceive, to intentionally lead us astray, we can nevertheless learn from such works, for identifying disinformation as such, can lead us "back" in the right direction.

My general impression is that the space program, the civilian program, the nasa program, has always been primarily about reconnaissance/surveillance and the exploration of the use of spaced based offensive weapons as well. Nasa is a place to "cover" what the military doesn't want congress to know about, or the public for that matter. Would congress have agreed to the instrumenting of the moon for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes, not to mention any other purposes the military guys could have come up with for our use of the moon as a offensive/defensive strategic platform? Of course not, and so apollo.

That's not to say nasa did not and doesn't carry out important "non military" work, it's just that military stuff is what nasa is all about at root, it drove the space agencies inception. It is nasa's raison d'être. The civilian cover aspect is of course critical. The best way to "hide" stuff like this, black ops stuff, occult military projects, is to run them under the guise of genuine civilian programs with essentially everybody involved, from aerospace scientists and engineers to housekeeping people believing they are simply doing important technical work, fascinating, challenging, exciting indeed, but not connected to making war in any direct or major way, very much not about blowing people up.

Another, more recent publication i have taken a look at, trying to educate myself background wise is, defending space: Us anti-satellite warfare and space weaponry(2006), by clayton chun and chris taylor.

On page 13 chun and taylor write with regard to the us early space efforts in general;

"technology, funding, and political concerns had applied the brakes to some military space systems….as the vietnam war heated up, any excess funding was pushed into conventional forces. However the most important limits were due to political concerns. The nation wanted to continue using space for reconnaissance and surveillance, communications and other missions, but washington feared expanding an arms race into space. Washington could ill afford soviet nuclear orbiting bombardment systems over the country. Negotiations with moscow might eliminate this threat yet still allow for the exploration of other military space systems. At the same time the national aeronautics and space administration(nasa) had started to gain control of many of the manned and unmanned space programs. Civilian space programs began to dominate the field, at least in the public's eye. The success of corona and other intelligence gathering satellites also lead a successful attempt by the cia, under the guise of the national reconnaissance office(nro), to wrest control of these assists from the usaf. Military and key national space systems started to become highly classified "black" programs due to their sensitive nature. These systems became the future eyes and ears for not only military, but also for key international programs supporting treaty negations."

the above passage is revealing as it dances around what we all know now to be all so very true. If congress and the american people might object, or if a space program, a space based system of whatever kind, legitimately needs to be secret to be effective, then the best way to deal with the "administrative problem" is to run most of the program under the guise of civilian nasa. This is what was done with regard to apollo. It is overt and covert at the same time. Overt with respect to apollo's in our face lavish funding and mainstream media panache, albeit panache with fading credibility, covert in that under apollo, the moon was instrumented for military purposes.

In deep black, already referred to above, burrows writes on page xiv of the preface;

"what then do the russians know about american space reconnaissance systems in general? As it turns out, they know quite a bit about u.s. Low-orbiting spacecraft, such as the reconnaissance types that constitute the core subject of this book. The low orbiters are easier to see, easier to listen to, and easier to track than satellites higher up. In the case of obsolescent kh-11, which takes pictures and taps into some communication signals, they also have an operations manual purchased from a cia traitor for a paltry three thousand dollars. Finally the kremlin has its own long-standing reconnaissance program, and although washington's systems are in general superior technologically, the basic hardware is more similar than different. The opposition knows a fair amount about the medium orbiters, which include most of the radar ferrets, ocean surveillance types, and some of the eavesdropping signals intelligence satellites. It knows relatively little about the high orbiters out at 22,300-mile geosynchronous range and beyond, which carry the brunt of surveillance for early warning attack, navigation, communications, relay, missile telemetry and electronic signal interception, and specialized abm radar ferreting. This appraisal was made by one who has good reason to know."

much there to think about. Of course i have already pointed out that instrumenting the moon to allow for its use as a military satellite/platform, puts our equipment even more out of reach than the 22,300-mile distant geosynchronous satellites that at least at the time of burrows' writing back in 1986, were satellites about which the kremlin did not know much. Presumably, placing equipment on the moon would put it that much further out of ivan's reach. The passage above also reminds us, as we do, so does ivan. One would imagine whatever it was we were able to achieve with regard to the militarization of the moon, the russians probably did likewise, perhaps not as well as we did, but similar. This of course explains the "race to the moon". It was a race to instrument the moon, and not land men upon it. This is why we folded up the tent so quickly. We accomplished what we set out to accomplish with apollo by the time 17 was in the books. This also explains why the russians never "landed men", or russian space gals for that matter. It didn't matter, they were able to put the stuff they wanted to on the moon, just as we did. There was no need for them to go through the big hoax exercise as was the case with the us, the us with its potentially more disapproving public and congress than existed with regard to equivalent public and legislative bodies in the then soviet union.

Like a child conceived in a torrid moment of 1967 "summer of love" psychedelic passion, apollo as spirit, as phenomena, was born too of a passion specific to, motivated by, and unmistakably rooted in its time, the 1960s. Yet it is here, at the moment of their births, that our wide eyed love child and apollo's rockets part ways. The parents of the former were ever so hopeful their child would come to be a spirit of peace. The sire of apollo, well he had different hopes for his kid altogether.

Apollo's strange pedigree, one of consummate paranoia, perhaps justifiable consummate paranoia, is unmistakably reflected in the faces, lives and mannerisms of its principals. The image that comes to mind in this regard is always the astronauts; armstrong, collins and aldrin, as they appeared, spoke, and presented themselves at the apollo 11 post flight press conference, not to mention how the astronauts presented themselves for ever more after, after their supposed return to earth from the surface of the moon, or in collins' case, his alleged return from the proximity of its surface. Edgy, nervous, without spark, without passion, and surprisingly without fear are the three thespians. The latter aspect, their all too obvious lack of genuine fear, has struck me since i first viewed that most revealing of videos, the post flight press conference video, as the most telltale sign of just how limited their apollo experience actually was.

Some friends of mine wrote to me about their having recently attended a particularly well done performance of giacomo puccini's turandot. There is that marvelously powerful scene at the very beginning of the opera in which the prince of persia is about to be executed, about to be beheaded. The chorus sings, summoning the moon, the dark orb being late, has got them impatient, impatient for blood. For the chorus, the moon is the light of dark things, a dark light needed to show the executioner the way, and also a sentinel, a guard and witness of this dark event.

Puccini understood the moon in a way neil armstrong never could possibly hope to. Puccini was closer to its dark power, its dark mystery, its gravity, closer than neil armstrong ever was, though some claim armstrong walked upon the furrowed, troubled and pock marked gray face of that ancient and infinite soul. We know, all of us that see armstrong, have heard him speak, speak of the moon, know this cannot be true. It cannot be true that he walked there, where fear would be all consuming at times, in some deliciously dark moments. To survive it, would of course be the best and most telling part. If one were close enough to hear the moon breath, upon his return, the hearer would speak, at least once of such deep deep bone waking fear. I would imagine it to be the most interesting, telling and worthwhile aspect of the explorer's account, of his story upon returning.

But armstrong, aldrin and collins look only so very nervous, nothing more, never afraid, not in this most meaningful and profound of ways. And so we see, as plain as the low angled light of a dark lunar day in july of 1969, those 3, armstrong, collins and aldrin, they never set foot on that old and haunted and ever so frightening face.

tmib:dr

 

[dafydd]

It was recorded at mission control. Are you seriously suggesting that when they heard the astronauts say something they should deliberately wait 1,7 seconds before responding?
Why would they wait before responding?

Were they taciturn cowboys?

 

[Southwind17]

It was recorded at mission control. Are you seriously suggesting that when they heard the astronauts say something they should deliberately wait 1,7 seconds before responding?
Why would they wait before responding?

You misunderstand. What I was saying is that it would take close to 2 seconds from transmitting a radio message to receiving a response back. I overlooked the fact, however, that the recording of both signals was at the same location, namely Houston, meaning that there should be close to a 2 second interval only between signals originating at Houston and responded to by Armstrong, not the other way around. But see below.

Well not exactly. It would remove the delay entirely, so if it was recorded in Houston there would be no (or at least only thinking time), delay between the LM speaking and Houston replying. Also if you mean the descent film there are three voices in the conversation. Aldrin was reading out results from the computer to Armstrong, so it might seem like Aldrin is making a reply to Houston, but he's actually just relaying information to Armstrong.

Is there any part in particular that displays this kind of behaviour?

Also which particular video is that? There are a number linked to from the ALSJ.

This is the particular video I was referring to - Apollo 11 landing (note: 15Mb). Having watched it again in light of your advice I think the requisite delay is apparent, evidenced particularly within the last moments after touch down. Thanks for that.