Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[Robrob]

There is a great deal to this subject Suspilot, glad you asked the question.....

As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert. That said, I shall give you a relatively simple answer, not to be patronizing, but as I said, there is a lot to this.

(snip: 6 paragraphs of text about the Wright brothers aircraft a century ago)

OK, I am confused. Previously your position was you were a layman. Now your position is you are an acknowledged expert. What changed?

 

[SpitfireIX]

Who was the most eager and qualified NASA affiliated geologist? Eugene Shoemaker without a question. Shoemaker wanted to go to the moon desperately. Why didn't they let him go? They said he had Addison's Disease and so it would be too dangerous. But so what? Big deal......, all he needs to do is take some cortisol every day. Kennedy had Addison's Disease, didn't stop him from being president. Trivial really. And, couldn't they vaccinate him?

Not that we really needed any additional evidence, but you've now removed any possible doubt that you aren't really a doctor. From the US National Institutes of Health page on Addison's disease (authoritative and written for the layman):

The health care provider may increase the medication dose in times of:

• Infection
  
• Injury
  
• Stress

During an extreme form of adrenal insufficiency, adrenal crisis, you must inject hydrocortisone immediately. Supportive treatment for low blood pressure is usually needed as well.

Some people with Addison's disease are taught to give themselves an emergency injection of hydrocortisone during stressful situations. [bolding mine]

Even granting for the sake of argument that the additional risk could be justified, how was Shoemaker going to inject himself when he was wearing a vacuum suit?? Fail.

Instead, they send Harrison Schmitt the obvious perp. They had to send one scientist to pretend Apollo was about science, The reason they don't send Shoemaker on 17, even though he is most qualified is that he is not military, fraud insider like Schmitt. No other reason.

Harrison Schmitt was a civilian, as I explained earlier. Fail.

 

[SUSpilot]

I've been to the museum, as well as the Wright Brothers' home/shop.

OK, you've explained that they figured out that planes have to bank. How is the bank of a winged aircraft the same as turning a bicycle? Please elucidate the mechanics of the turn in each case, similarities and differences.

To my fellow pilots: please don't provide the answer. I would like to see what Patrick has to say, first.

 

[nomuse]

There is a great deal to this subject Suspilot, glad you asked the question.....

As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert. That said, I shall give you a relatively simple answer, not to be patronizing, but as I said, there is a lot to this.

If you go to U.S. Air Force Museum just outside of Dayton, you'll find one of the Wright Brothers' bicycles. You'll also find one in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. There are 5 known to be in existence. They are actually much more functional and useful and beautiful than a Space Shuttle or an utterly non-functional Apollo Ship, a Wright Bicycle is, but that is another story I shan't go into for the time being.

At the time the first planes were built, almost all experimental builders but the Wright Brothers envisioned planes turning like a ship, with a rudder in the back. This proved to NOT be the correct airplane turning model to work with as discussed just below. The Wright Brothers built AND RODE bikes. This is why and how they knew differently about the turning issue, how to make a plane turn, how to build a plane so that it might turn effectively, without spinning out/flipping out of control. To some very significant degree, the Wrights knew how to build airplanes because as a matter of fact, they were master bicycle builders. A Wright Bicycle could go for $40, $50, depending on what one reads, a ton of money in those days.

The Wright brothers had many great insights taken from their bicycles, the most significant in my mind, expert on the subject that I am, is that they realized PLANES SHOULD TURN AS THEIR BICYCLES DID, TIPPING LEFT OR RIGHT, BANKING/LEANING. This was one of their great insights among others that came from their bikes. And so they built planes, just like their bicycles, planes designed to "lean" in order to turn, and so the planes did indeed lean and TURN!, just like a bicycle. No one had figured that part out before. The Wrights did, thanks to their familiarity with bicycles.

The Wright Brothers "wind tunnel" was a modified bicycle, their so called "bicycle apparatus". Their prop was driven by a chain to a toothed crank. I shan't go on as much as I could and would.

I am not infrequently called upon as a consultant to those making films or writing about bicycles. Usually this involves historical questions, or questions dealing with bicycle mechanism, how it is that bicycles balance and so forth. Actually, despite what one would think, bicycles do not balance by virtue of any gyroscopic effect of their wheels, or if gyroscopic effects are at play, they are a minor, minimal contribution that is so made. It is rather best perhaps to think of them, bicycles, as of all things, stilt walkers, just like stilt walkers in a circus. That is a bicycle.

I'll leave it at that, as I mentioned, Loss Leader's recommendation is a good one. Best to focus on fundamentals of Apollo rather than the bicycle thing as much as I love it.

Ding ding ding.

You may know bicycles, but you don't know much about the Wrights.

I know some of this is your typical selective reading, but as presented there are multiple basic errors in the above. You neglect completely the actual wind tunnel and scale models and the development of mathematical tools to describe aeronautic performance that were made possible by these models. You focus on weight shifting, which is almost exactly the obverse of the Wright's experience and final success, and your chronology of the rudder is also significantly jumbled.

 

[JayUtah]

As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert.

Nonsense. Your exact analogy to the bicycle is described in one of the Wright documentaries recently available on Netflix. Busted again.

That said, I shall give you a relatively simple answer...

Why do you always claim to be an expert, or to have read dozens of books on some subject, then insist on giving "simplified" answers that anyone can get from Google or Netflix?

 

[nomuse]

The most hilarious part, however, concerns the weight-shifting. This was Lilienthal's mistake -- it didn't turn out to be an effective way to control an aircraft until the rise of hang gliders (heck.. even the Bell Jet Pack is not controlled by weight-shifting, although many would intuit it is). One of the Wright's first major advances was to dump weight-shifting. In fact, their paradigm was that of the immobile pilot. You had to look no further than the use of a CHAIR in the later models to realize that.

Traditionally, the Wrights are credited with something quite different. Wing warping, in fact. And even that did not work until they began to integrate....the rudder that Patrick so denigrates in his above.

Heck, I think Patrick overplays weight-shifting in the bicycle. I've never studied or even, that I remember, read studies on the dynamics and physiological mechanics of the bicycle, but my experience as a rider is that turning no-hands (which is done with, yes, a weight shift) FEELS different than turning normally. Which is to say, by turning the wheel. From my memory, in the former the weight shift leads. You actually unbalance the bike, and you can feel the balance going, until you are able to dip it into the desired turn and get it back into a positive balance. For normal riding (aka not hands-free) the balance remains largely positive as you lean into a turn simultaneous with making it.

I've seen a bike-like object tooling about that I think has a similar parallelogram action to wing-warped wings, but that is hardly a connection from riding a bicycle no-hands to learning how to make the first aircraft fly properly.

Oh, and the crowner? I did a quick Google to check that what I thought I remembered was somewhere in the vicinity of what other people had been writing, and among the first hits was a Google Books except which was talking about Lilienthal's use of weight-shifting.

Draw your own inferences from that.

 

[nomuse]

Oh, let me withdraw one comment. Patrick, I thought you were referring to earlier experiments where a glider was mounted to a bicycle/tricycle and pedaled to well below take-off velocity -- a method the Wrights gave up for the less expensive use of smaller scale models and an indoors wind tunnel. But upon re-reading, it does seem you were referring to the actual wind tunnel, and just noting that it (like a great many things of the time) was pedal-powered.

 

[JimBenArm]

You don't sight stars on a daily basis, only very occasionally is it necessary. But the inertial system platform drifts out of alignment, slowly but surely. One can correct for some of the error in "drift" by packing more than one inertial system. On your submarine JimBenArm, they carried 3. After a time however, one must realign all of the platforms, and the only way in the 60s to do that was by sighting stars. Charles Stark Draper's Lab designed the SINS on your boat, and star sighting was required to align its platform. Your ship's guidance personal were capable of carrying out the appropriate sightings from anywhere on the ocean.

Capable of doing so does not mean doing it. The only times that they realigned SINS was pierside. Not underway. And again, if they had to come up to shoot stars, suddenly they aren't hidden. Suddenly the enemy knows where your SLBMs are.
Your claims are absolute nonsense.
Again, I was there. You were not. Please quit presenting your Google nonsense. It's false, and you should know it by now. Why do you want to propogate falsehoods? Are you a liar? Or do you thing your Google stuff is more reliable than first-hand experience from people who actually, ya know, qualified on Submarines?
Nothin' worse than a DinQ Non-Qual Puke talkin' out his fundamental orifice.
Earn your Dolphins, then maybe I can respect you. Maybe.

 

[sts60]

No, Patrick. You're not an engineer. Don't even try.

And it's far too late for you to abandon your "I'm just a layman with common sense" tactic and decide that you really do have the needed expertise.

Oh, please....

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited for moderated thread.

Patrick1000/fattydash/DoctorTea/etc., who has routinely tried to argue from authority, and just as routinely had his claims to various sorts of expertise - doctor, scientist, mathematician, writer - revealed as phony, is now going back to try to pump up his "engineering" expertise by invoking that old standby of resume inflation: "I am involved in..."

I am an engineer, and it is painfully clear that P1k/fd/DT/etc. is no sort of engineer whatsoever. Nor could he ever be an engineer as long as he values hearing his own voice, so to speak, over actually learning from his endless mistakes, such as confusing gyroscopic and aerodynamic stability. Once again, Patrick1000/fattydash/DoctorTea/etc. Has No Idea What He's Talking About.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert.

Acknowledged by whom?

 

[abaddon]

There is a great deal to this subject Suspilot, glad you asked the question.....

Yay, Patrick is going to answer a question at last.

As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert. That said, I shall give you a relatively simple answer, not to be patronizing, but as I said, there is a lot to this.

No, He is not.
Just another claim of expertise in another field of endeavor.

If you go to U.S. Air Force Museum just outside of Dayton, you'll find one of the Wright Brothers' bicycles. You'll also find one in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. There are 5 known to be in existence. They are actually much more functional and useful and beautiful than a Space Shuttle or an utterly non-functional Apollo Ship, a Wright Bicycle is, but that is another story I shan't go into for the time being.

So Apollo is non-functional, but was used to test ICBMs, but roboticly placed LRRRs, but was based on bicycles, but didn't work at all.
Can't you keep your fable straight?

At the time the first planes were built, almost all experimental builders but the Wright Brothers envisioned planes turning like a ship, with a rudder in the back. This proved to NOT be the correct airplane turning model to work with as discussed just below. The Wright Brothers built AND RODE bikes. This is why and how they knew differently about the turning issue, how to make a plane turn, how to build a plane so that it might turn effectively, without spinning out/flipping out of control. To some very significant degree, the Wrights knew how to build airplanes because as a matter of fact, they were master bicycle builders. A Wright Bicycle could go for $40, $50, depending on what one reads, a ton of money in those days.

Relevance?

The Wright brothers had many great insights taken from their bicycles, the most significant in my mind, expert on the subject that I am, is that they realized PLANES SHOULD TURN AS THEIR BICYCLES DID, TIPPING LEFT OR RIGHT, BANKING/LEANING. This was one of their great insights among others that came from their bikes. And so they built planes, just like their bicycles, planes designed to "lean" in order to turn, and so the planes did indeed lean and TURN!, just like a bicycle. No one had figured that part out before. The Wrights did, thanks to their familiarity with bicycles.

Relevance?
Do rockets bank and lean en-route to the moon? In a vacuum?

The Wright Brothers "wind tunnel" was a modified bicycle, their so called "bicycle apparatus". Their prop was driven by a chain to a toothed crank. I shan't go on as much as I could and would.

Thanks. I am not sure I could bear another irrelevant wall-o-text.

I am not infrequently called upon as a consultant to those making films or writing about bicycles. Usually this involves historical questions, or questions dealing with bicycle mechanism, how it is that bicycles balance and so forth.

Sure you are. Where are your credits on IMDB?

Actually, despite what one would think, bicycles do not balance by virtue of any gyroscopic effect of their wheels, or if gyroscopic effects are at play, they are a minor, minimal contribution that is so made. It is rather best perhaps to think of them, bicycles, as of all things, stilt walkers, just like stilt walkers in a circus. That is a bicycle.

We all know what a bicycle is. I can balance mine at a red light without any forward motion at all. Did you have a point? Are bicycles in any way comparable to thundering great rockets?

I'll leave it at that, as I mentioned, Loss Leader's recommendation is a good one. Best to focus on fundamentals of Apollo rather than the bicycle thing as much as I love it.

Wait, what? You raised the issue of bicycles = Apollo. Shall we change the song to be "Pedal me to the moon"? Frank would turn in his grave.

 

[matt.tansy]

Capable of doing so does not mean doing it. The only times that they realigned SINS was pierside. Not underway.

They were realigned with every fix. They were only calibrated pierside.

 

[Patrick1000]

Just When Ya' Thought They Couldn't Treat You With Any More Contempt....

Along Comes the Story of Charlie Duke and Apollo 16.

Good Grief!

I Cannot Cannot Cannot Cannot Believe This Bull.....


Oh God, here we go again……..

From Charlie Duke's book, MOONWALKER, ebook location 1438, he says they couldn't see any stars out the window of his ship, CM for Apollo 16, while traveling through cislunar space…..Charlie says the reason one cannot see stars has to do with the fact that its more or less a light pollution type situation. He likens it to being in a city with bright lights that wash out the star light. Then Charlie goes on to say that even though they couldn't see stars with the naked eye when looking out the Apollo 16 CM windows, they could identify some of the brighter stars with the sextant because of its 24 power(sic) magnification.

Don't these guys get briefed on how to lie? There is no atmosphere in cislunar space, so once fully dark adapted as one should be when sighting stars, there would be no light-pollution issue, and with the 28 power sextant, they would be expected to see a greater number of stars in any patch of non-light-polluted night sky than one could see in the same patch were one to look at it from a terrestrial vantage. Such improved star seeing would of course not be due to the sextant's magnification properties, but rather, due to the relatively large aperture, 40mm, vs 9mm (X 2 for each dilated pupil).

At ebook location 1530, Charlie says that in astronaut training they studied/learned the major constellations and stars needed to navigate an Apollo ship. Didn't Neil tell 'ol Charlie that one doesn't see any constellations until you get to the dramatic eclipsing of the sun by the moon thing over 200,000 miles away? Until then, according to ever so reliable Neil, no constellations. Well, what about seeing constellations through the sextant? Charlie just said that doesn't work cuz' it is too bright, you only see a few of the brighter stars, and then, because of the 24 power magnification of the scope. Smart guy that Charlie, glad he is aboard.

At ebook site 2359, one finds Charlie drilling/running a simulated mission for a contingency in which they have lost ground contact. He was able to see simulated constellations Big Dipper, Orion's Belt, Scorpio, Cassiopeia. Charlie says they didn't show the astronauts all of the constellations one would see on a dark night, just the main constellations needed for Apollo navigation were shown the astronauts during this simulation. I am sure Charlie found when he was really in outer space that nature was obliging as well. That is, as the Apollo 16 crew traveled through space, nature would be kind and only show the astronauts the appropriate, Apollo navigation relevant constellations, only makes sense. Right? No chance you'd be out there and see too few or too many stars and get confused. Right? Charlie hasn't studied too many constellations you know, so it is a good thing nature only shows you the RIGHT ONES for navigating Apollo when floating through cislunar space, regardless of time, attitude, light conditions and so forth.

Whoops!…!!!…. Didn't Charlie just say when he really was in space, even with the sextant, they only saw the brightest stars. Boy that Charlie must be good at picking out stars with essentially NO CONSTELLATION CONTEXT.

And you thought this ridiculous nonsense could not get any worse, IT GETS BETTER!!!!!

At ebook location 3392 Charlie tells us they were confused upon landing. They estimated they were 200 meters from the intended landing site, but that was "just a guess". HE SAYS THEY ACTUALLY DID NOT KNOW WHERE APOLLO 16 TOUCHED DOWN , WHERE THEY WERE UNTIL THE SECOND EVA.

Can you believe this stuff? These guys do need a doctor…and a good one….. It would appear that contrary to one's intuition and common sense, the condition of one's not being able to see stars is contagious, as is the condition of one's becoming lost on the surface of the moon despite the world's most sophisticated tracking system directing a billion dollars worth of attention your way.

I literally cannot believe these people have the nerve to treat me with such contempt,.

$130,000,000,000 divided by 300,000,000. $433, FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE DOLLARS, THAT IS ALL I'LL GET BACK FOR THIS RIP JOB!!!!

 

[Robrob]

Patrick1000/fattydash/DoctorTea/etc., who has routinely tried to argue from authority, and just as routinely had his claims to various sorts of expertise - doctor, scientist, mathematician, writer - revealed as phony, is now going back to try to pump up his "engineering" expertise by invoking that old standby of resume inflation: "I am involved in..."

Judging by the qualifiers involved in his claim, I have to agree with you.

I am involved directly Jay with complex engineering projects.....

Though I am not a welder, I am involved in the design and creative execution of state of the art hand built bicycles.

(Snip)

You may think I am not being serious here. Au contraire, I am VERY VERY VERY serious. Granted, my involvement with bicycles is not rocket science, or aerospace engineering, but it is related, and my bicycles are as high tech and complex mechanically as any Stark Draper gyro ever was, or could be.

Though that could just as easily be the job description of the guy who paints the racing frames as anything else, it's a moot point. How being involved in bicycle manufacture is somehow pertinent to space exploration (1970's or not) is beyond me. I do not claim any level of engineering experience in the least but I feel fairly comfortable a "Stark Draper gyro" might just possibly be more complex than a 10 speed bicycle.

 

[AdMan]

Best to focus on fundamentals of Apollo rather than the bicycle thing as much as I love it.

You mean--as much as you'd like to distract people on your ignorance of the space program with irrelevant info on how bicycles work.

 

[matt.tansy]

Didn't Charlie just say when he really was in space, even with the sextant, they only saw the brightest stars. Boy that Charlie must be good at picking out stars with essentially NO CONSTELLATION CONTEXT.

Ummm. You are aware, of course, constellations are made of the brightest stars? Right?

What did Charlie say about the scanning telescope?

 

[SUSpilot]

Although many folks will state that bicycles, the Wright Brothers, and airplanes are irrelevant to this thread, I'm reminding Patrick of this post:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7893673&postcount=5991

My reason for doing so is that Patrick consistently claims either expertise or "uncommon common sense" about just about every topic that is raised here. To establish, for me, at any rate, his credibility as a "general expert" (my words, not his, but the description seems to fit), I asked specifically how balancing and banking a bicycle is the same as doing the same in a fixed-wing aircraft.

Patrick, the question is still pending.

 

[Patrick1000]

You tell me matt what ol' Charlie said about the scanning scope.......

Ummm. You are aware, of course, constellations are made of the brightest stars? Right?

What did Charlie say about the scanning telescope?

You tell me matt what ol' Charlie said about the scanning scope.......

Another ditsy astronaut without a brain in his head. They've asked me to write a chapter in the next edition of the world's most oft referenced aerospace text on SPACE TRAVEL, INSTANT MACULAR DEGENERATION AND EARLY LEWY BODY DEMENTIA.

You guys are lucky that I've got a much bigger fish to fry, building a new bicycle, otherwise I'd fillet that smelly blind flounder Charlie Duke this week.

Regardless of pace of scaling and filleting, now that it is ever so apparent that LOSING SPACE SHIPS FOR THE APOLLO CREWS WAS HABIT FORMING these clowns are going down in 2012 to be sure.

Get out your Apollo 16 books/maps/transcripts, 40 mm optics, slide rules, protractors, bull detectors, star maps. We are going a hunting for the Apollo 16 lunar module. WHERE OH WHERE OH WHERE COULD IT EVER HAVE POSSIBLY LANDED? Nothing like a New Year's space ship hunt to stimulate the brain.

Let's take a look at this bogus tale too, and see once again how it was NASA lost a space ship, and then pretends they knew all along what they didn't know.

Can you believe this NONSENSE???????!!!!!?????!!!!!?????!!!!!

 

[JayUtah]

I Cannot Cannot Cannot Cannot Believe This Bull.....

Oh God, here we go again…

Overwrought emotional language again, Patrick. No one cares how personally disgusted you are about Apollo, or how much you personally detest the astronauts. When you make emotionally-laden arguments, it reveals your position as intellectually and factually weak.

From Charlie Duke's book, MOONWALKER, ebook location 1438, he says they couldn't see any stars out the window of his ship, CM for Apollo 16, while traveling through cislunar space…

Then it's a good thing they didn't navigate by looking out the window. How many irrelevant comparisons are you going to post along these lines?

Don't these guys get briefed on how to lie? There is no atmosphere in cislunar space, so once fully dark adapted...

Explain how he would become dark-adapted while flying in a lighted spacecraft. Compute how much starlight is lost through atmospheric attenuation.

Well, what about seeing constellations through the sextant? Charlie just said that doesn't work cuz' it is too bright, you only see a few of the brighter stars, and then, because of the 24 power magnification of the scope.

In other words, he reports that he is able to see his guide stars through the sextant -- the actual instrument used to take star sightings. Further, his description of the view through the sextant corresponds to the reports here of everyone who has made similar observations, the expectations of the design, and the needs of the mission.

The only material here that doesn't fit is your handwaving speculation for what the view "must" look like through the sextant: an unnavigable see of equally bright stars. When are you going to get it through your head that what you suppose to be true is not necessarily true? Have you figured out yet that the universe isn't obliged to conform to ignorant expectations?

Further, when Duke is describing performing the LM pre-launch alignment in the crew debriefing (p. 10-114), he confidently describes being able to identify and mark his guide stars, although he notes there is light pollution in some of the AOT detents. In other words, he reports what every astronomer reports about his experiences.

You quote a book you say was probably ghost-written, claiming that Duke couldn't see stars casually. From this you try to manufacture a dilemma about overall star visibility, or claim that navigation would have been impossible. But when Duke himself, in primary sources that you accept as authoritative, describes something different, you ignore it. Why? Because it doesn't fit what you've already decided you want to believe.

Boy that Charlie must be good at picking out stars with essentially NO CONSTELLATION CONTEXT.

One only needs to locate stars when he is checking the platform alignment. When checking the alignment, one is looking through the sextant at bright guide stars.

You've already been busted for flip-flopping on the frequency of platform checks. You really need to go find out how often they really did check the IMU, and then you need to apply your allegedly superior mathematical skills and determine how much the platform had drifted in that interval. Then maybe you'll understand why it isn't strictly necessary for the navigator to be able to identify stars by constellation.

Can you believe this stuff?

Yes, and so do all the relevantly qualified experts in the world. You -- the mere "layman with common sense" -- seem to be the only one having marked difficulty, and chiefly because we keep running up against things your "common sense" (i.e., uninformed intuition) isn't telling you.

...becoming lost on the surface of the moon despite the world's most sophisticated tracking system directing a billion dollars worth of attention your way.

You really don't get this. You would tell someone he's "lost" if he doesn't know whether he's on the south side of Main Street or the north side. You constantly inflate one astronaut's description after another in your quest to manufacture a discrepancy.

The "200 meter" estimate comes from the debriefing, where Duke estimated that based on known landmarks he'd seen while flying over, and John Young's callouts, they "had a good idea ... within a couple hundred meters" of where they'd landed. (ibid. p. 10-2)

Did they then go on to say that they were lost? Heavens, no! That's your interpretation of what actually happened -- your words, not theirs. Why are you always so reluctant to let your sources speak for themselves? Why must you rail-split and quote-mine them, and "summarize" them in your words (which inevitably changes the meaning)?

The astronauts went on to say that they found all the science stations they were supposed to visit on EVA-1. That is, they could use their LRV guidance system to find all the places the mission planners outlined for them. How would that constitute being "lost?"

No, once again what you're talking about is the effort to locate the LM right down to the meter. There is no magical guidance-system button you can push to get that. It has to be obtained by synthesis from various sources, each with its associated error. And that takes time. Going back to you Fattydash days, you still have not produce an error analysis for these methods to show that they should have been able to do what you say they could.

Months and months of you make the same claim, without showing that it is based on anything more substantial than your naive layman's expectations.

I literally cannot believe these people have the nerve to treat me with such contempt.

No, Patrick. You do not get to play the "poor, poor me!" card here. Not when you're willfully disregarding expert testimony, and when you're calling people like Steven Bales "perps" behind his back and don't have the nerve to address him in person. You voluntarily subject yourself to this study. There's no rhetorical mileage to be obtained over how distasteful it is. If you dislike Apollo, but want to study it anyway, then suck it up and quit complaining.

 

[JayUtah]

How being involved in bicycle manufacture is somehow pertinent to space exploration (1970's or not) is beyond me.

It isn't. At all.

In addition to being an engineer, I also live in the land of cycling. You can't throw a taco around here without hitting a bike shop, so consequently you can't thrown a taco without hitting several people who "are involved with making custom bicycles." They're not engineers. Talented craftsmen, yes, but not engineers.

In fact, in my automated fixturing class I gave the students bike-part problems to solve -- frame fixtures and fixtures for brake discs etc. In other words, engineering students are already expected to know how bikes are put together. We use them as toy problems in the lab and classroom.

I do not claim any level of engineering experience in the least but I feel fairly comfortable a "Stark Draper gyro" might just possibly be more complex than a 10 speed bicycle.

I do claim a level of engineering expertise, and I've demonstrated it to most people's satisfaction. And I can wholly endorse your belief that IMU engineering is several orders of magnitude more demanding than building a bicycle.

The mechanical tolerances alone are at least an order of magnitude more demanding, and qualitatively different. In addition, there are chemical design factors, metallurgical factors, optical factors, thermal factors, and electrical factors that aren't apparent to the layman, but are required in order to understand the typical IMU. Patrick doesn't even understand the problem, much less have any useful knowledge of potential solutions.