Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[SUSpilot]

Patrick, I won't bother quoting everyone's excellent points here. Suffice to say that you're the one on the hook for proving whether or not PTFE will burn in a cryogenic O₂ environment and whether that fire would over-pressure the tank.

You are also on the hook for providing Jay with your contact info so you can openly face those you accuse.

I will openly state that my strategy will be to ask this of you in every single post I write on this topic and I will not allow you to try to lead me down the rabbit hole of changing the subject. I hope others follow my lead.

 

[JayUtah]

Mr. Kranz is more than a liar...

But what does it say about your integrity, that you've been handed the opportunity to accuse him to his face of being a liar and you refuse to take it? Why are you so bold only from behind a cloak of anonymity? A proponent's candid assessment of the strength of his argument can often be inferred from his willingness to own it personally.

He's a "liar" in your mind only because he didn't do and say what you, speaking from a position you admit is ignorant of engineering, say he should have done. No one cares, because your opinion is uninformed. You're no engineer, and so your feeble attempts to second-guess one of the most exemplary engineers in the world is falling very flat.

Whereas the evidence of your lies can be found simply by reading this thread and noting where you reverse your claims or make conflicting statements about who you are and how you know what you claim to know. It's not a matter of observation versus opinion in your case, but of observation versus observation. Hence it's a lot easier to argue that you're the liar in this case.

He is party to an act of treason.

No.

I guess once this all comes out they'll say it was a matter of national security.

When what comes out? So far this is just your fantasy that exists only in the bubble of your own imagination. You haven't tied any of your claims to any sort of real-world test or occurrence.

I want my money back!!!!!

And I want your contact information so that the "perps" can finally get you to put that money where your mouth is.

 

[rambaldi]

Because I wrote a 20 page letter to Neil Armstrong 8 months ago .......

Sure...

If you were half as smart as you want us to believe, you would have long understood that nobody believes a word you say, and abandoned your usual "I say so".

 

[SpitfireIX]

Under these circumstances NASA would be expected to determine the activation energy for THAT PARTICULAR TEFLON and document in the greatest of detail how the determination was made. It would obviously be one of the most important features of an appropriate evaluation.

The Cortright Report features no such details. Perhaps they exist, though I have yet to find them. At this point in time, I find the Cortright Report to be nothing more than a JOKE.

Here is an excerpt from the National Transportation Safety Board report on the ditching of US Airways Flight 1549, pp. 48-49:

1.16.2 Biological Material Sampling and Analysis

NTSB investigators collected seven samples of unknown material from the wreckage after the accident. Investigators also collected 10 samples of biological material from the right engine fan, the radome, the No. 3 flap track on the left wing, and various locations on the fuselage. Two additional samples were collected from the shroud from the No. 3 flap track on the left wing after it was removed from the airplane. In addition, a USDA representative and GE personnel collected six samples from the exterior of the left engine before its teardown at the GE facility. After the engine teardowns, 23 additional samples of biological material including feathers, blood, muscle, and bone were collected from the left engine, and 14 samples were collected from the right engine.

All of the samples were sent to the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Division of Birds, Feather Identification Laboratory, in Washington, DC, for analysis and identification. According to the feather laboratory analysis report, 39 of the samples were submitted for DNA testing. Eighteen of the 39 samples, 14 of which were from the engines, contained viable DNA and matched 99 percent or more to the Barcode of Life Database for Canada goose (Branta canadensis). Fifty-three of the samples, 50 of which were from the engines, contained feathers or feather fragments consistent with Canada geese. DNA sexing was successful on 16 of the 18 samples from the engines and wings. Both male and female Canada goose remains were found in the left engine, only male remains were found in the right engine, and only female remains were found on the No. 3 flap track on the left wing.

The Smithsonian Institution also performed a stable-hydrogen isotope analysis of the feather material collected from the airplane engines and compared the results with feather samples collected from resident geese in the New York region. The results indicated that the feathers from the airplane engines were similar to samples of known migratory geese and were significantly different from year-round resident populations from the New York region. [notes omitted]

Determining the species and migration habits of the birds struck by the aircraft was critical to the investigation; by your logic the NTSB should have "document[ed] in the greatest of detail how that determination was made." Why didn't the Board do that, Patrick? Is the report "nothing more than a JOKE?"

By the way, I am not writing these posts for Neil Armstrong threadworm. He had his chance to respond to me and did not, so no big deal from my end. I can mop the floor with Armstrong regardless of his participating or not.

No amount of laughing dogs would do justice to this statement.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Actually, Patrick implied it in one of his ill-fated medical screeds long ago and he's been trying to climb out of that hole ever since.

So he just pulled it out of an orifice and then found a quotation he thought he could twist to support it? Typical.

Note that it isn't even a quote from Berry, but an interpretation of what he said by a news reporter.

Good point. Not only is it ambiguous at best, it's also hearsay.

As I said a while back, and Patrick ignored, they were almost sure it was a 24 hr virus because the workers at Kennedy were suffering from the exact same thing.

That's a diagnosis even the pretend doctor Pat could make.

I noticed that he ignored it, but I thought I'd mention it again anyway for emphasis.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I vote not to. The reason is because when I read the rest of this thread I see how Patrick fishes for hints, then uses those hints to limp along to the next step. When he is finally dragged to something approaching the right answer, he turns around and claims credit for having educated the rest of us in how to get there. One of his strategies seems to be to commit an egregious error that causes someone to post a comprehensive correction, so I vote we hold off on the comprehensive debunking until it's clear Patrick is hopelessly wrong.

I strongly suspect (as I imagine everyone else does) that he wouldn't be able to solve any of the problems even with hints, but I see your point, and I defer to your judgement. Sorry, Patrick, the help line is closed.

My strategy, on this question at least, has been to let him establish what he thinks is necessary, then hold his feet to the fire to provide it, whether I think it's the right thing or not. Knowing the right models and methods is the lion's share of the task. The rest is just arithmetic. Hence I vote no more hints. He is, after all, an "expert."

I had solved the oxygen-pressure problem and started to post it, but then I realized it would be better to ask him to solve it, as he made the claim that the tank wouldn't have ruptured.

 

[KA9Q]

I [i]have[/i] heard the EECOM tapes

You have not heard the EECOM tapes and your argument is reflective of that. Your own statement is out of context given the tapes.

I have heard Liebergot's tapes. I do recommend them. They paint a fascinating story of a group of highly qualified experts working under extreme pressure to understand exactly what has happened during what has obviously been a severe and probably life-threatening failure. They want to find any way they can to salvage what they have left for as long as they can. They did manage to keep one of the fuel cells going for several hours after the explosion until the other O₂ tank also emptied, and that actually had a significant effect in the outcome.

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed personal comments

 

[KA9Q]

Apollo celestial navigation

1. The star you're looking for is twice as bright as any other star around it (at a magnitude difference of less than one) to ten times as bright (at a magnitude difference of 2.5).

And I believe all of the Apollo guide stars (there were several dozen known to the computer) were magnitude 2 or brighter.

2. After aligning with one star, the astronaut could switch to a second star which, if the alignment was right, would now be dead center of the reticule.

Yes. And there's an additional check that many people may not immediately appreciate. When you sight two stars, you define an angle between those stars. Since the Apollo computer knew which stars you were using, and had tables of their known positions, it subtracted the known angle between that star pair from your measured angle and displayed that difference to the crew on the DSKY. If you had the correct stars and measured them exactly, the angular difference would be 0 degrees or in Apollo parlance "all balls". If you aligned on the wrong star, you'd get a difference far from 0. In effect, you are reading more variable (4) than you need to define the ship's orientation in space (3), and that extra variable provides a redundant crosscheck.

The CMPs were primarily responsible for CSM navigation. Being a pretty competitive bunch, they began to pride themselves on their "all balls" readings. As the first CMP to go to the moon, there are a few amusing stories about James Lovell in this regard.

Anyone with a modern amateur telescope will recognize this star alignment technique; I perform something very much like it when I set up my (not so new) Meade LX200.

3. The moon, sun and earth all provide navigation points that keep the spaceship from getting completely out of alignment.

Correct, and they were in the computer's "star" database. The earth and moon were used primarily to determine position by sighting their limbs, but they could be used as reference "stars" when necessary. (Stars were preferred for attitude measurements because of their small apparent size.) And it did on Apollo 13 when debris around the ship made it impossible to do normal star sightings. The "Apollo 13" movie (overly) dramatizes a LM burn done literally by the seat of their pants using the earth out the window as an attitude reference since the computer was shut down.

5. The total expected error had been computed mathematically so that star sightings were taken before the ship became so badly aligned as to lose sight of the guide stars through the sextant.

Yes. Reading the transcripts you get the sense that the crew and ground were both almost obsessed with IMU accuracy, peforming P52s (realignments) very often even when there was little reason to expect much of a drift. They certainly did it before every attitude-critical maneuver, like a burn. Every Apollo Mission Report discusses the performance of the IMU at length.

6. The whole Apollo mission was an astonishingly difficult undertaking with failure and death constant companions, such that every single astronaut was fully prepared to die for the mission

Quite true, and I think it telling that Patrick1000's main objection, like so many other hoaxers, is that it would have all been much too dangerous for him. I'm quite prepared to believe that. That's one of the many reasons he wasn't an Apollo astronaut.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Who needs to 'compute' anything?
Why not ask the manufacturer?
I am sure a minimal ammount of searching will produce the specs for Teflon.

 

[Multivac]

Sorry, missed out the word "not", so that should have read:

To contribute: It is unlikely that McDivitt knew the details of the instrumentation readings that were available to mission control. As has been pointed out before, there was a fluctuation in the O2 readings, followed by a bang and the O2 and voltage readings dropping fast. Jim Lovell then reported that something was venting from the spacecraft. Once you have realised that it is not an instrumentation failure, you can put these facts together and make a diagnosis that O2 is venting. Especially if the readings for nitrogen and hydrogen were stable.

Does anyone know whether or not the readings for hydrogen and nitrogen remained stable? It might help Patrick if someone could post a reference to these readings.



Are you refering to Apollo13, or your bizarre arguments of fakery?

 

[KA9Q]

Visibility of cryogenic venting

Lovell does not know what cryogenically contained O2 looks like when vented into space, nor hydrogen or anything for that matter. No one at that time had any first person experience about this sort of thing.

Wrong on both. It was standard practice for the spent S-IVB (Saturn V 3rd stage) to automatically vent its excess propellants -- LH₂ and LO₂ -- shortly after translunar injection.

Nearly every Apollo lunar crew witnessed at least part of this procedure. Since this was Lovell's second trip to the moon on a Saturn V I think he knew what it looked like.

 

[KA9Q]

Effects of diluent on flammability?

Similarly 5 psia pure oxygen (i.e., 100 percent) provides putatively no greater a combustion risk than at sea level. However, research conducted after Apollo demonstrated that the diluent gas in Earth-normal atmosphere has a significant enough reduction of ignition risk to warrant the engineering complexity a two-gas environment in subsequent manned space applications.

I've been wondering about this for a long time. I have read that it's not just the partial pressure of O₂ that matters, the mere presence of a diluent gas makes fires more difficult to start and sustain. But I haven't seen much in the way of quantitative data. Do you know of any publications? I would have thought there'd be plenty in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire.

I'd be especially interested in the rationale for the 60-40 O₂/N₂ 1 atm pre-launch atmosphere adopted for Apollo after Apollo 1 on the launch pad. I can see that this would preserve the physiological minimum ppO₂ for breathing at a nominal CSM cabin pressure of 5 psi, but it seems like it would still be much more dangerous than ordinary air at 1 atm.

I can think of alternatives, such as filling the cabin with ordinary air before launch and then bleeding it down to vacuum during ascent while the crew remained on pure O₂ in their suits. Then you'd close the cabin vent valve and pump the cabin back up to 5 psi with pure O₂ and all the N₂ would be immediately gone instead of taking several days (and more oxygen) to gradually replace it. Obviously there must have been a good reason for not doing this.

I'd also be interested in the rationale for the O₂/N₂ atmosphere chosen for Skylab, as it seemed to be another compromise between pure O₂ and ordinary air.

 

[KA9Q]

Are we ever going to get a concession from you?

So, what did NASA claim was inside of Apollo 13's Oxygen Tank Number Two that resulted in an explosion equivalent to 7 pound of TNT? What was the fuel, what was oxygen's partner in this case? Teflon... Seriously, not kidding...... NASA claims that what "burned" inside of O2 tank number two and resulted in the 7 pounds of TNT equivalent explosion was the Teflon covering the other wires inside the tank.

Keep in mind Teflon is specially designed to not burn, to not combine with oxygen. I think that that NASA even ran some experiments after the staged Apollo 13 Mission which they claimed demonstrated that under the "right circumstances" Teflon will burn, will combine with oxygen and release energy.

So we are asked to believe there was a 7 pound TNT equivalent of TEFLON wiring inside oxygen tank number two.......Anybody want to buy some quality real estate in Antarctica?

So, Patrick, are we ever going to get you to concede that you were simply wrong about Teflon being incombustible even under pure, high pressure oxygen?

Yes, NASA did run experiments as part of the Apollo 13 investigation that showed that Teflon could and probably did burn under the conditions inside that tank at the time of its failure.

Don't you think you owe them an apology? That's highly appropriate when one withdraws a false accusation. Especially one based on the accuser's strong personal bias and on ignorance that could have easily been cured.

Such as your ignorance that aluminum can also be a fuel. Did you know that every space shuttle made it to space with the assistance of two very large aluminum fires? Yes, it's the main fuel in modern solid rocket propellant; the oxidizer is ammonium perchlorate, and a small amount of synthetic rubber holds it all together. Anyone open to a little learning about chemistry (and without a huge chip on their shoulder regarding NASA) can easily learn that under the right circumstances -- extreme heat, intimate mixture with a strong oxidizer -- aluminum will burn very enthusiastically. It's also the fuel in another powerful combustible -- thermite -- that's become well-known to fans of other contemporary conspiracy theories you've probably heard of.

I remember learning about the chemistry of aluminum way back in middle school: it's so reactive that the metal is never found free in nature; prior to the Hall Process it was more valuable than silver or gold; it takes a lot of energy to free it from ore, but far less to reclaim it from recycled cans; and that it quickly forms a thin but hard layer of aluminum oxide (alumina) that protects it from corrosion; and that mercury is strictly banned from aircraft because of what it does to this protective layer.

Most people know that their own knowledge is limited by their education and their own experiences. So when they hear about unusual things happening in exotic circumstances (like Teflon or aluminum burning in high pressure pure oxygen) their first impulse is to learn more about it, not to accuse the teller of the story of massive fraud. That's simply irresponsible.

So can we get a concession and an apology from you? (I won't hold my breath.)

 

[KA9Q]

Meaning of supercriticality

Supercritical - the point above where a liquid becomes a vapour. The temperature at which this occurs for oxygen is -118.6 degrees C.

"Supercritical" has a more specific meaning than this. Some materials cannot exist as liquids above a certain critical temperature. Think of the gas becoming just as dense as the liquid so they no longer exist as separate phases but as a "supercritical fluid". It can still solidify if the pressure gets extreme enough.

Carbon dioxide has a critical pressure of 73.8 bar and a critical temperature of 304.1 kelvins - just above room temperature. So some science museums (like the British Science Museum, where I've seen it) use CO₂ to demonstrate supercriticality. You see a cool sample of the compressed liquid and gas in a tube, with the miniscus (gas/liquid boundary) clearly visible. Then you push a button to turn on a heating element that warms the CO₂ above its critical temperature -- and the miniscus abruptly disappears. It's actually pretty freaky to see for the first time.

At 1 atmosphere pressure, oxygen boils at 90.2K. Its critical point is at 154.59K and 50.43 bar, so supercritical oxygen, by definition, must be at least 64.39K warmer than ordinary LOX. It could even be at room temperature, though cooling it allows more to be crammed into the tank.

I believe this is why the supercritical state was chosen for the Service Module's oxygen tanks. Because it was needed as a room temperature gas for the fuel cells (or to breathe), storing it as LOX would have needed a fair amount of energy to boil and warm it. A supercritical fluid would take much less energy to warm while still allowing the tank to hold much more than it would at atmospheric temperature and/or pressure.

 

[Patrick1000]

Armstrong was plenty brave RAF, no argument from me there...

Interesting that the astronauts were brave enough to risk their lives to fly to the Moon, while Patrick can't even come "face to face" with those he calls "liars".

Armstrong was plenty brave RAF, no argument from me there..Here one can see the commander climbing into a Dyna-Soar, the USAF's strategic hypersonic supra-atmospheric bomber;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TikodTMGdP0

So Armstrong was/is plenty brave. Just doing other things, not the stuff he claimed to be doing. The guy did not fly to the moon, but he sure was training to and prepared for dropping a big fat one on the Kremlin.

 

[Dcdrac]

the old story far far easier to flatter your ego by beleiving some convulated and unprovable conspiracy and then keep adding in spurious and provably false twists and turns instead of accepting the boring plan old proveable relaity we went to the moon, brave astronauts died, Apollo 1, 3 faced ultimate jeapordy but came through Apollo 13, and there were multiple failures but still they did it.

Something to be prud of rather than carp on about plainy stupid conspiracies.

Sorry the Apollo hoaxers make my blood boil more than the (/11 Truther nuts do

 

[Patrick1000]

Astrospies

I watched the PBS special ASTROSPIES last evening;

http://video.pbs.org/video/980042464

Not a bad presentation. As always they leave out the best/most important part. I'll get to that in a minute.

For those unfamiliar with the "astrospies" concept generally, during the 1960s, both the US and Soviets had full on intensive projects to develop and actualize manned space stations that would focus on supra-atmospheric reconnaissance/surveillance. The American project was called MOL(Manned Orbital Lab) and the Russian project and ship was referred to as "Almaz" which I believe means "diamond" and the reference by the Soviets was said to have been to a "diamond in the rough".

The labs were essentially manned Hubble telescopes that in the case of the US effort "would be", and in the case of the Soviet effort, actually WAS pointed at the surface of the earth instead of outward toward the cosmos.

The American program was to employ a Gemini capsule that would be attached to, and ultimately separate from, the "telescope" after 30 days when the specially trained picture taking astronauts would return. The Soviet Almaz(s) was/were indeed manned at various times from 1974 through 1977.

According to the PBS film, the Soviets gave up on Almaz in 1978 as the Americans had done earlier realizing they could do pretty much the same thing unmanned for less money. This is the conclusion the Americans were alleged to have come to in 1970 before every launching a functional and manned MOL.

A few interesting points, first of all, a relatively minor one, the PBS program ASTROSPIES indicated much of this stuff had never before been revealed. Actually, there had been some fairly detailed writing on this previously, and indeed, that is how I had been made aware of the programs in general.

Another point, the manned Soviet Almaz was armed with a cannon and so here is an example of an overt violation of the NO WEAPONS IN SPACE TREATY of which both the US and Soviet Union were signatories to in 1967. The US of course knew about all of this and said nothing, just as the Soviets and Chinese said and SAY(present tense) nothing about our Apollo and other military efforts in space. You know "calling the kettle black" type of thing.

Last of all, and most importantly, of course these things were fully realized in the context of the various space stations launched and manned by the United States and Soviets. Just as the Space Shuttle was/is a fully realized and functional Dyno-Soar capable of hypersonic supra-atmospheric manned reconnaissance, strategic BOMBING, anti-Russian and anti-Chinese satellite activity and so forth, so too were our space labs of this or that ilk and those of the Russians as well, realizations of MOL and Almaz. Of course other military activities were and are undertaken from the labs, but watch the NOVA film and you'll get a good feel for what we were and are up to.

 

[JayUtah]

I've been wondering about this for a long time. I have read that it's not just the partial pressure of O₂ that matters, the mere presence of a diluent gas makes fires more difficult to start and sustain. But I haven't seen much in the way of quantitative data. Do you know of any publications? I would have thought there'd be plenty in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire.

No, the quantitative research in stoichiometrics and diluent absorption didn't occur until later. I looked in my attic archive and couldn't find any printed papers, but I remember that they dated roughly to the period around Skylab. There was general presumption in the late 1960s that the diluent might have a small heat-transfer effect, but I don't know if there were any attempts until the mid 70s to develop a formal quantitative risk model. When they did, it was a surprise that the diluent had such a remarkable and non-linear effect.

The concern for the CM was that the ECS needed a gauge pressure of at least 3.5 psi to work. That means an absolute gas pressure of nearly 18 psia inside the cabin -- but any gas would work, they determined. Hence the goal was to determine the maximum amount of oxygen that could be sustained (see below) and use nitrogen to make up the rest of the needed overall pressure. There really wasn't any consideration given during Apollo to the role of the inert diluent in heat transfer and thermodynamics of combustion.

I'd be especially interested in the rationale for the 60-40 O₂/N₂ 1 atm pre-launch atmosphere adopted for Apollo after Apollo 1 on the launch pad. I can see that this would preserve the physiological minimum ppO₂ for breathing at a nominal CSM cabin pressure of 5 psi, but it seems like it would still be much more dangerous than ordinary air at 1 atm.

The MSC Flammability Board conducted a series of empirical tests (or asked NA Rockwell to conduct them -- I don't remember which) on a non-flight boilerplate CM at various total pressures and partial pressures to find the "sweet spot" concentrations for ignition and fire spread. Fire retardation was the primary goal, but there were gas toxicity concerns and other pulmonary concerns having to do with what the crew might suffer under various evacuation or abort scenarios that would rapidly expose them to ambient Earth atmosphere. Basically the 60/40 launch atmosphere is just inside the pulmonary constraints, and closely approximates the diluent response of nitrogen in ordinary air.

I'd also be interested in the rationale for the O₂/N₂ atmosphere chosen for Skylab, as it seemed to be another compromise between pure O₂ and ordinary air.

Again, for oxygen toxicity concerns. 5 psi, mostly oxygen, about 25% diluent nitrogen.

 

[JayUtah]

Such as your ignorance that aluminum can also be a fuel. Did you know that every space shuttle made it to space with the assistance of two very large aluminum fires?

I was hoping someone would mention this. ATK is one of my clients (both the former Thiokol and Hercules companies) for structural dynamics . I have several chunks of flown SRB hardware in my collection. I bid on (but sadly lost) the contract to supply instrumentation for ground tests in the Ares 1 launch vehicle.

...a small amount of synthetic rubber holds it all together.

A particular polyurethane, to be specific. The finished product, when cast and hardened, has the consistency of the rubber in a truck tire.

...under the right circumstances -- extreme heat, intimate mixture with a strong oxidizer -- aluminum will burn very enthusiastically.

"Very enthusiastically" is a euphemism. It burns with a white-hot, nearly unquenchable flame. And not under extraordinary ignition conditions either. In the finely powdered form in which it used as rocket propellant, spills have to be handled carefully lest the friction from the broom ignite it in ambient air, it combine with ambient moisture to ignite spontaneously (thankfully Utah is dry), or it aerosolize to form a highly explosive fuel-air mixture seeking an ignition source. Fatal fires have occurred during segment fueling. The ATK facility is remote (Google Maps), and fueling operations are separated from nearby highways by large earthen berms.

...it quickly forms a thin but hard layer of aluminum oxide (alumina) that protects it from corrosion...

This is why you can't weld aluminum in ambient air. You can only weld it in the presence of an inert gas, because aluminum instantly oxidizes before the weld can form.

So can we get a concession and an apology from you? (I won't hold my breath.)

My money says that if and when Patrick returns, it will be to present an entirely different subject, returning only to the Apollo 13 argument when the opposition has been forgotten. I sense a fringe reset in the works.

 

[JayUtah]

I watched the PBS special ASTROSPIES last evening;

Off and running on an entirely new topic! I can see that my "fringe reset" comment above, which was written before your post appeared, was eerily prophetic.

Your style of argumentation is becoming ever so predictable and tedious. You have every single other poster here clamoring for you to actually post the computations you promised, that would prove -- according to you -- that PTFE would not ignite and burn in the highly concentrated oxygen environment. You've had more than two weeks. I think it's safe to say you're never going to post them. After all, I'm still waiting for my answers to the orbital mechanics questions I asked more than two months ago.

You've dodged every single opportunity to show appropriate competence. Yet you maintain you're the only one able to get the right answer, and the right answer is to yell PERPS! and FRAUD! in screaming caps.

And to that end, again every single other poster is begging you to send me your contact information so that you can finally hold Gene Kranz, Jim Lovell. Sy Liebergot, and others accountable in person for the errors and inconsistencies you've attributed to them -- and naturally for them to hold you accountable for the public accusations you've made.

So far -- nothing. How credible do you think your accusations of fraud are against highly respected and well qualified professionals, when you dodge responsibility and maintain an active program of attempting sock puppets and false identities at the other forums where you've been banned? Do you really aim to show that your moral compass is a good basis for judging the people who legitimately make history?

It's amply clear who the liar is here, and he's not any of the people you've named in your puerile, incompetent tirade against Apollo.

Regarding the new topic, I told you about this months ago. The U.S. tried to militarize space in several ways, but found those ways not to be the advantage they had sought. That was the basis of my objection to your claim that the military would take "every conceivable opportunity." Don't now pretend that this information supports your claim, and that you were the first to find it and present it.

Please give me your contact information. And please at least tell us on what day you'll be providing the computations you promised about PTFE combustibility.