Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[Jack by the hedge]

...Since you believe entirely robotic ships actually made trips to the moon, deposited experiments and took samples, one is given to wonder how you think those ROBOTS were able to guide themselves in a way that robots plus people couldn't.

That's a very good point. Patrick's new argument, if correct, renders his former hypothesis impossible.

Purely of academic interest to anyone pondering which story Patrick now believes. Both are nonsense.

 

[mercatormac]

As pointed out, when the Irish plane was struck by lightning just after take off recently en route to Manchester, it was ordered back down as one would expect. Sure the plane is designed to take a hit, but one wouldn't be reckless as an air safety administrator and not have as a contingency that these planes return, land ASAP/as soon as possible for safety's sake. This was the case with the Irish plane. Back down it came, IN 2011!!

I don't know how many time this has to be explained to you: The standard procedure in the case of lightning strikes is for the flight to continue.

 

[JayUtah]

The AGC has a vocabulary of 37 stars, the astronauts better still, but just a bit, not much better.

What is the highlighted portion supposed to mean? The additional stars that some astronaut may be able to identify because of his astronomy studies, but which are not identified as reference stars in the AGC, cannot be used as platform alignment references.

When they align the platform, the astronaut(s) must sight the critical navigational stars.

...through the sextant. That's the part you leave out. What stars Worden or any other pilot might or might not be able to see with the naked eye just casually looking out the window, are irrelevant. It doesn't matter what the view out the window looks like. It's the view through the sextant that matters.

The 28X sextant has a narrow field of view and is not affected by the presence or absence of ambient light outside its FOV. It can see the relevant stars when the spacecraft is in full sun, not because the sun's radiance attenuates the view appropriately, but because the sextant's FOV always excludes the Sun. That's why the astronauts report that they see stars through the optics, but not always with the naked eye.

Further, the platform only drifts a fraction of a degree a day. The star in question will still be in the narrow FOV, just not in the crosshairs. It's the pilot's job to position the sextant so that the star is centered and then transmit that deflection to the computer so that it can adjust its reference matrix by that much.

If Worden could not FIND "Rigel", nor find any of the other 36 critical navigational stars, as he himself most clearly and unambiguously stated in the video referenced above...

He also clearly and unambiguously stated in the video that this problematic part of his orbit was a limited area. "There was a portion of my orbit where I was on the back side and on the dark side at the same time. It was just like a pie-shaped wedge around the side of the moon." He's talking about seeing a "wash of light" and making panoramic gestures, and describing the horizon by its demarcation from the starfield.

In other words, he's not describing the view through the sextant. As noted above, the sextant FOV contains the reference star plus only a small portion of the sky around it.

...therefore he could not not have sighted any of the 37 critical navigational stars to realign the platform under dark side conditions

You have provided no evidence that the proper stars wouldn't be identifiable through the sextant.

Further, "dark side conditions" is misleading. As noted above, this was only for a portion of the orbit. The Moon's phase angle during lunar surface operations was such that the fully darkened portion (i.e., no view factor to either Earth or Sun) constitutes only 70 degrees of arc or so, comprising about 25 minutes of the orbit.

It takes longer than that to perform the platform alignment procedure.

...and therefore not navigate (align the platform)

Are you really so clueless as to think any sort of "navigation" is required to stay safely in lunar orbit? What does it matter if they temporarily don't have an accurate orientation reference?

Are you really so clueless as to think that "navigation" for safe spaceflight means constantly babysitting the guidance platform? Did you realize they actually turn off the IMU for large portions of the mission when it's not needed?

...by way of the stars under all reasonably anticipated contingencies.

No, that's you making up new rules again.

Did you know that even in the worst case of (1) having a pilot who can't identify the stars, even through the sextant, (2) being in the 20 minutes of the orbit where you can't easily identify stars, (3) having the platform somehow become so coarsely misaligned that the reference star is out of the sextant FOV, and (4) requiring an orientation reference urgently in the next 20 minutes -- the pilot can simply switch over to the other orientation reference, the strapdown gyros in the SCS.

That's right. Even if all those improbable things came to pass, there's still another whole guidance system to rely on, that uses an entirely different inertial measurement technology.

...the whole Apollo kit and caboodle is a most bogus fake and phony kit and caboodle.

Every day brings a new way in which you think you've bashed such a huge hole in Apollo that there's no way its credibility can recover.

But in fact each day brings a new amusing tale of how little you know about the mechanics of manned spaceflight. This is made especially amusing when you extoll elsewhere the virtues of "common sense" and assure everyone that your personal "common sense" is sufficient to successfully contradict all the experts in celestial navigation.

Do you really think you're fooling anyone?

The final coup de hilarité is that by saying a competent human pilot who can sight the stars is required in order to keep the navigation platform aligned, you've effectively shown that your "robot military spacecraft" theory for the use of Apollo spacecraft is impossible.

 

[Patrick1000]

Only the alleged astronauts......

Try not to forget that NASA regularly sent the ships corrections for the PNGS systems. NASA had a far superior ability to do the calculations on the ground. The entire moon program was designed with the intention of updating the ships from the very beginning.





Since you believe entirely robotic ships actually made trips to the moon, deposited experiments and took samples, one is given to wonder how you think those ROBOTS were able to guide themselves in a way that robots plus people couldn't.






"Hey, man. We have not one but two computers on board. It's 1969. Do you have a computer? Didn't think so. Well, we've got computers. And they were built at MIT. Did you go to MIT? Didn't think so. Computers can do everything and, even if they can't, you don't know that because IT'S FORTY-TWO YEARS AGO."

The "ground" cannot align the platform, only the alleged astronauts can in the proffered Apollo scenario.

The ground could not do in the Apollo hypothetical, align the platform, that which the astronauts could themselves not do, align the platform under all contingencies anticipated within reason.

As such, one may proclaim the whole thing to be a charade with utter confidence.

 

[Loss Leader]

But there is no way the MSFN can provide a useful orientation reference to the spacecraft. The crew must do it using the resources at hand.

Thanks, I didn't understand the difference.

I still don't really understand the whole of the orientation issue. Since they had a horizon in view when the LM and CM undocked and docked, why couldn't they just use the horizon?

Sorry if my question is naive.

 

[Loss Leader]

Regardless of back ups......They MUST! be able to fly the birds manually, fly them without help from the ground. Otherwise, they don't go period, and they didn't go of course as one now well knows. This is so because contact can be lost with ground support for a variety of reasons.

Does anyone know if the basic assumption here is true? Was radio or telemetry contact with the ground a necessary part of the lunar missions? Could an entire mission from lift off to splash down be flown completely manually with no contact from earth?

Regardless of whether it could have been done, was loss of radio contact an abort condition? Did the astronauts have standing orders one way or the other if all ground contact was lost?

 

[Patrick1000]

It wasn't in Ireland just the other day.

I don't know how many time this has to be explained to you: The standard procedure in the case of lightning strikes is for the flight to continue.

It, continuing on with a flight after a lightning strike, wasn't "standard procedure" in Ireland just the other day(September 2001). They brought the plane back.

The point is, that when given the option, one errs on the side of safety.

Assessing Apollo 12's flight worthiness for a TRIP TO THE MOON! by way of ground based evaluation after a lightning strike is not an appropriate evaluation. This would be a joke were it not so expensive

AND!!!! Apollo 12 was not an airplane. NO WAY!!!! they would send a real spaceship to the moon after a lightning strike. The suggestion is beyond ludicrous.

 

[JayUtah]

The ground could not do in the Apollo hypothetical, align the platform, that which the astronauts could themselves not do, align the platform under all contingencies anticipated within reason.

Right. That means your scenario where of-the-shelf Apollo spacecraft were used to carry out unmanned military missions is expressly disallowed.

As such, one may proclaim the whole thing to be a charade with utter confidence.

No, only your theory. The real Apollo is still intact because you forgot about the SCS.

 

[Loss Leader]

Assessing Apollo 12's flight worthiness for a TRIP TO THE MOON! by way of ground based evaluation after a lightning strike is not an appropriate evaluation. This would be a joke were it not so expensive

Okay, but ... the money had already been spent. Absolutely none of the Apollo spacecraft were designed to be reusable. So, aborting the mission would cost exactly the same amount of money as going ahead with it. From a financial standpoint, there's no reason to abort.

This is not the case with reusable passenger airlines full of civilians.

 

[JayUtah]

It, continuing on with a flight after a lightning strike, wasn't "standard procedure" in Ireland just the other day(September 2001). They brought the plane back.

One example does not establish or refute "standard procedure." You were cherry-picking then and you're cherry-picking now.

The point is, that when given the option, one errs on the side of safety.

And once more you're just waving generalities around.

Given that the only item on Apollo 12 that could not be qualified for flight were the parachute pyros, tell us how "bringing them home" was a safer alternative.

Assessing Apollo 12's flight worthiness for a TRIP TO THE MOON! by way of ground based evaluation after a lightning strike is not an appropriate evaluation.

You're not qualified to make that judgment. Typing in all caps doesn't suddenly make you an engineer.

NO WAY!!!! they would send a real spaceship to the moon after a lightning strike.

Begging the question. When you have your own space program you can run it any way you want. Until then, leave it to the professionals.

 

[JayUtah]

Thanks, I didn't understand the difference.

Yes, for this discussion it's important. But Mission Control could update the orientation of the stable member. That doesn't affect the spacecraft orientation per se, but it changes some of the cockpit displays and makes subsequent operations safer and easier.

The "stable member" is the chunk of milled beryllium into which the gyroscopes are set. It also contains the accelerometers. Its job is to maintain the same orientation in space at all times, because of the property of gyroscopes to want to stay in a fixed alignment. It sits inside a basketball-sized set of metal shells that are gimbaled to each other such that the frame it's attached to can rotate at will, but the stable member is allowed to retain its orientation.

Because the Apollo IMU had only three gimbals, there was a deadband into which you couldn't orient the ship. The condition "gimbal lock" occurred when the gimbals were all in the same plane, and then a rotation occurred in the plane. That would drag the stable member off its orientation. So the stable member was intentionally set to various space-fixed attitudes for different parts of the mission. In addition to being passive sensors of angles, the gimbal joints also contained drive motors that could force the stable member into a new orientation.

In addition to placing the no-no gimbal-lock orientation in one not likely to be assumed by the spacecraft in that mission phase, it also made the "eight-ball" instrument in the cockpit have a different orientation for conceptual "up."

When a stable-member reorientation occurs, the member is driven to a new orientation relative to the spacecraft frame, which is known to be in a certain space-fixed attitude based on attitude measurements just prior to the matrix reset. So the conversion matrix and the actual stable-member reorientation update at the same time. Hence the new space-fixed attitude of the spacecraft doesn't change as reckoned against the IMU.

I still don't really understand the whole of the orientation issue. Since they had a horizon in view when the LM and CM undocked and docked, why couldn't they just use the horizon?

Because it's not a fixed reference. The spacecraft wants to retain the same space-fixed orientation while in orbit. It doesn't naturally follow the curvature of whatever you're orbiting. So if you oriented your spacecraft like you would drive a car or fly a plane, with your keister downward and your nose pointed forward, eventually the horizon would fall away from you. A quarter rev later, you'll be pointing straight up relative to the Moon. Another quarter rev later, you'll be heads-down, going backwards.

Some modern orbiters have an LVLH mode where the spacecraft does a full pitch circle at exactly the orbital period. But you have to set that up with your reaction control system.

There was an alignment mode that worked in orbit, where you sighted a certain feature on the ground and told the computer the difference between actual passage and computed passage. Then it would know, based on its orbital elements and assumed attitude, whether the platform was aligned.

 

[Loss Leader]

Thanks, JU. You're right that I have a hard time imagining spaceflight as much different from driving a car. It must have been all those Star Trek episodes where every single planet and ship agreed to all meet on one fixed plane with a set inertial referent.

 

[JayUtah]

Was radio or telemetry contact with the ground a necessary part of the lunar missions?

Yes. The missions were planned such that certain information was expected to be exchanged in order to prepare for each phase, such as lunar orbit insertion. Ironically because of the limited real estate on the instrument panels, flight controllers reading telemetry could typically tell more about the spacecraft than the flight crew.

Could an entire mission from lift off to splash down be flown completely manually with no contact from earth?

In the case of a lunar landing mission, probably not successfully. While the Apollo spacecraft were fairly autonomous and can be operated safely for extended periods without ground contact, to conduct a successful mission with them requires cooperation with the ground. Lunar landing missions require higher tolerances for success that can't be achieved autonomously.

Regardless of whether it could have been done, was loss of radio contact an abort condition?

In general, no. Apollo missions were organized as a series of phases, the transitions between which had certain rules, and which had stable states that could be remained in indefinitely.

Did the astronauts have standing orders one way or the other if all ground contact was lost?

Every phase of the mission plan had a contingency if communication was lost. However, long term or permanent loss of contact was not considered a credible case, so contigencies generally only covered the pending phase or the transition to the next phase.

For example, Cruise Phase transitions to Lunar Orbit Phase at LOI-1. The spacecraft can carry out that maneuver, plus the follow-on LOI-2 circularization maneuver autonomously, using data sent up at the MCC-2 manuever. The ship can have been completely out of contact with Mission Control between MCC-2 and LOI-2.

Lunar Orbit Phase is a stable state. Nothing is required to be done in order to keep it in that condition. The ship must remain in orbit for 10 revs so that its LOS/AOS data can be accumulated on the ground and the DOI insertion maneuver PAD can be computed. If something prevents that from happening or the PAD cannot be transmitted to the ship, there is no danger. But the landing phase of the mission cannot occur without it. The 10-rev calibration phase takes just under a day, but it can be extended by 1-2 days until MSFN contact can be restored.

 

[Patrick1000]

The Ranger craft were insanely "accurate"....

That's a very good point. Patrick's new argument, if correct, renders his former hypothesis impossible.

Purely of academic interest to anyone pondering which story Patrick now believes. Both are nonsense.

According to Arthur C. Clarke, by 1965, NASA's cislunar tracking of the Ranger craft was accurate to within feet, literally several FEET!, and velocity assessments were equally good. The last Ranger hit 3 miles from its intended lunar target. Pretty dang good, and that was 1965.

THAT! is exactly what they did with the Apollos, the same thing they did with the last Ranger and the Surveyor craft.

Think about that that Loss Leader, in 1965! no less, they could track a probe from 240,000 miles away to within feet, and they put the last Ranger down 3 miles from its intended lunar target. That reality, the last Ranger's "performance" landing target accuracy wise, was better than NASA's claim for Apollo 11. That claim with respect to the Apollo 11 craft was that the bird allegedly touched down 4-5 miles from its intended target.

It is in light of this, as I have mentioned previously, that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy into the notion that Apollo 11's whereabouts were not well known. LRRR experiment Lick Observatory Telescope specialist Joe Wampler recalls NASA informed the Lick Observatory staff members that the location of the LM would be determined to within an accuracy of tens of feet.

All this stuff about not knowing where the LM was/is bull.

What bogus irony! They can track Ranger to within feet through its cislunar journey in 1965, and what's more, land it within 3 miles of the intended target site, and then when it comes to Apollo, they have to pretend that they don't see stars in order to make sense of their platform alignment scenarios, and when they do "get Apollo 11 down", they have no idea where the bird is. This, simply cannot be true......

Phony, front to back. It's over Jack by the hedge. I've got the goods on the clowns big time now.

Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Patrick1000]

Collins' FLYING TO THE MOON and CARRYING THE FIRE accounts

On page 28 of Michael Collins' book FLYING TO THE MOON , Collins emphasizes that radio failure was "ESPECIALLY WORRISOME". Collins points out that if the astronauts were to lose ground contact, they would have to do their own navigating, 100%of it to get back to the earth. This was a pretended concern, and a big one.

So if they could not pull it off, self navigation, then, they could not go.

AND!, according to Worden, by way of his big fat "Whoops", they very much could not pull it off, and so, we may conclude, Michael Collins did not go. He was no where near the moon.

Consider this, page 368 of Collins popular, CARRYING THE FIRE, he says Menkent and Nunki were difficult stars to find. He claims this to have been true because those two stars were "nondescript", and because accompanying/associated stars were not visible, only the brightest stars were available to his eye given the circumstances.

So as Collins was having difficulties finding these stars, he employed the "fancy computer"(page 369) and the computer directed the sextant to where it thought Menkent was, and Collins said, "Aha!". There it was before him in plain view, Menkent. He sighted the star and marked it by way of hitting a button when the star and cross hairs of his optic were superimposed. He described doing the same with the computer in finding Nunki.

Now, we are on the back side, non sun-illuminated side of the moon, and so, per Worden, there are tons of stars up there, more than what we see from here on the earth given the lack of atmosphere, and viewing through scopes/Apollo optics with apertures larger than pupilary dimension also would have increased star count/visibility were any of this true. On dark side passings, especially when viewing through optics, we presumably would see many more stars than one would see from the surface of the earth. Some constellations would become utterly unrecognizable, more stars, no earth, no north/south/east/west orientation to direct one. The computer knows ONLY! 37 stars. It points toward Menkent and Collins/Worden sees 50 stars there. How do they know which one is Menkent now? The computer does not know. No one on the earth can help him. What if Collins/Worden are passing through cislunar space and the conditions are such given the sun's brightness/earth brightness that only "half the stars" usually seen from the earth's surface are evident. The constellation patterns give no clues
because only half the stars are visible. Where is Menkent? Ask the computer and the sextant swings to a now unrecognized field, only half the "usual" earth view accessible stars are featured before you in the field covered by your scope.


This platform alignment scheme is frightfully bogus. I am amazed that it took me so long to pick up on this.

Oh well, better later than never.

And, sitting on the truth here now does feel pretty dang good.

 

[abaddon]

Just ask "Mr. Whoops!!!!!

OK, how about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve6XGKZxYxA

 

[Patrick1000]

More evidence of/for fraud based on the Worden Interview Video Revelations....

In Frank O'brien's book, THE APOLLO GUIDANCE COMPUTER, on page 313 one reads that the attitude deadband values ran between 0.3 and 5 degrees. So even at 0.3 degrees, if one had "asked" the computer to find one of the 37 critical navigational stars and the attitude having drifted that 0.3 degrees off would have left the sextant pointing at what?, assuming we are in non sun-illuminated "shaded" space.......

One can cram an awful lot of stars in a circle defined by 0.3 degrees of deadband tolerated drift, let alone if the deadband was set at 1 or 2 degrees. What then? Find the nondescript Menkent and Nunki?

I don't think so Michael and Al.....

Fraud proof positive my friends.....

 

[Jack by the hedge]

According to Arthur C. Clarke, by 1965, NASA's cislunar tracking of the Ranger craft was accurate to within feet, literally several FEET!, and velocity assessments were equally good. The last Ranger hit 3 miles from its intended lunar target. Pretty dang good, and that was 1965.

THAT! is exactly what they did with the Apollos

Impacted the moon at high speed?

It's already been pointed out to you that you are not comparing like with like here. It's very tiresome that you repeat comprehensively debunked arguments as if you had not even read the replies. Surely you understand that nobody can take you seriously when you exclaim in triumph that an argument which has already been patiently and completely dismantled is proof of your claim.

 

[Border Reiver]

While we can respect Mr Clarke's credentials as a author of science fictio, he's no more an authority for the accuracy of space tracking systems than I am.

How is it that one device lands 3 miles from its intended point of impact is phenomenal accuracy, while another landing 5 miles away is bogus?

Still not convinced by any of your reasoning.

 

[CptColumbo]

Does anyone know if the basic assumption here is true? Was radio or telemetry contact with the ground a necessary part of the lunar missions? Could an entire mission from lift off to splash down be flown completely manually with no contact from earth?

Regardless of whether it could have been done, was loss of radio contact an abort condition? Did the astronauts have standing orders one way or the other if all ground contact was lost?

Keep in mind that when the craft went behind the Moon, loss of contact with Earth is going to occur. IIRC During Apollo 13 telemetry was shut down for extended periods of time to conserve energy.