A problem with the fake-apollo landings theories

[Foster Zygote]

Not to mention that the suit designers, fully realizing this potential problem, designed the suits with constant volume joints.

And even then it was still quite a challenge to move in those suits (modern suits have much improved joints), but not impossible.

 

[Larry Lovage]

A satellite channel re-showed the godawful Did We Go To The Moon pseudodoc narrated by X-Files star Mitch Pileggi here in the UK this week. I wonder if the HBs (that's Hoax Believers to the uninitiated) get tired themselves of seeing the same old movies of the flag waving when one or more astronauts are...well, making it wave.

Ralph René's gardening glove demonstration always cracks me up. I think he must believe that all manned space missions that include moonwalks and manual work are faked... because they're completely impossible to pull off with gardening gloves in a vacuum! I mean, it's one thing to make claims about the Van Allen radiation belts, but .... we never went because we couldn't design gloves that would work!?

 

[ponderingturtle]

There's an interesting reason why the Soviet Union seemed to be outdoing the U.S. at first. Now I'm no rabid nationalist and I'm fully aware that there were many brilliant people working in the Soviet Union's space program, but the U.S. had more advanced technology at the time. So why did the Soviets take the early lead? Because they had developed larger ICBMs for their larger nukes. The U.S. had more compact nukes and they had developed smaller launch vehicles for the smaller payloads. The U.S. therefor had more work to do developing all new launch vehicles for manned space capsules. That's not to say that the USSR didn't take the U.S. by surprise with Sputnik.

Also being able to only announce success and cover up massive failures was a good PR tool for them as well. Didn't one of their rockets kill a large number of their engeneers when it blew up because the dirrector decided what a safe distance was and it was rather closer than turned out to be safe in the event of failure.

Ah that was the Nedelin disaster

 

[ponderingturtle]

A satellite channel re-showed the godawful Did We Go To The Moon pseudodoc narrated by X-Files star Mitch Pileggi here in the UK this week. I wonder if the HBs (that's Hoax Believers to the uninitiated) get tired themselves of seeing the same old movies of the flag waving when one or more astronauts are...well, making it wave.

Ralph René's gardening glove demonstration always cracks me up. I think he must believe that all manned space missions that include moonwalks and manual work are faked... because they're completely impossible to pull off with gardening gloves in a vacuum! I mean, it's one thing to make claims about the Van Allen radiation belts, but .... we never went because we couldn't design gloves that would work!?

I like this, it proves that the Hubble is a hoax as well, because they could never have handled the tools in a vacuum right?

 

[Foster Zygote]

A satellite channel re-showed the godawful Did We Go To The Moon pseudodoc narrated by X-Files star Mitch Pileggi here in the UK this week. I wonder if the HBs (that's Hoax Believers to the uninitiated) get tired themselves of seeing the same old movies of the flag waving when one or more astronauts are...well, making it wave.

Ralph René's gardening glove demonstration always cracks me up. I think he must believe that all manned space missions that include moonwalks and manual work are faked... because they're completely impossible to pull off with gardening gloves in a vacuum! I mean, it's one thing to make claims about the Van Allen radiation belts, but .... we never went because we couldn't design gloves that would work!?

Van Allen himself called the radiation belt claim something along the lines of "laughably ludicrous".

 

[Foster Zygote]

Has any moon landing conspiracy theorist ever addressed the issue of the dust? It seems quite amazing to me that they (the alleged hoaxers) would be able to get fine dust to behave the way it would in a vacuum.

 

[rjh01]

There are a few explanations for that.
1. The dust was U238, which would behave like that in air.
2. Everything was done in a vacuum or low pressure
3. The dust did take a longer time to settle than normal hence that is proof that it is a fake.

 

[Spindrift]

Engineering degrees are generally listed by specialty--there is not(in the US, anyway, AFAIK) a generic "BS engineering" degree--and I'll not abide comments from the cheap seats!
An engineering degree is stated: BSME, BSCE, BSChE,BSEE, etc.
Keeps us from venturing into stuff we don't know nothing about...

Carter went to Annapolis who does offer a "general" Engineering degree.

 

[Spindrift]

There are a few explanations for that.
1. The dust was U238, which would behave like that in air.
2. Everything was done in a vacuum or low pressure
3. The dust did take a longer time to settle than normal hence that is proof that it is a fake.

U238?

"longer than normal?" Wouldn't a vacuum or low pressure make it settle faster as there is less resistance?

The moon has less gravity which would explain it wouldn't it?

To paraphrase Neil Armstrong, "The only thing harder than going to the moon would be faking it."

 

[rjh01]

U238 is Uranium with 238 neutrons plus protons in each atom. It is the stuff you Americans put in armour piercing bullets. Three times denser than lead. Hence even in air it would settle down fast. Then if they reduced the air pressure you would see dust settle just like the moon.

Actually the moon hoax is about the most stupid conspiracy I have heard. It does not take much to show how stupid the evidence is.

 

[R.Mackey]

There's an interesting reason why the Soviet Union seemed to be outdoing the U.S. at first. Now I'm no rabid nationalist and I'm fully aware that there were many brilliant people working in the Soviet Union's space program, but the U.S. had more advanced technology at the time. So why did the Soviets take the early lead? Because they had developed larger ICBMs for their larger nukes. The U.S. had more compact nukes and they had developed smaller launch vehicles for the smaller payloads. The U.S. therefor had more work to do developing all new launch vehicles for manned space capsules. That's not to say that the USSR didn't take the U.S. by surprise with Sputnik.

That's an interesting hypothesis. I'm not entirely sure I agree with it, but it's hard to say.

I presented a talk last month at the 2006 Aerospace Design Expo wherein I tried to trace the developmental philosophy of automation and control in spacecraft by going back through past missions. Our earliest human spaceflight used a heavily modified Redstone missile in early, uncrewed tests, then graduated to the Atlas for the pioneering Mercury flights. Our first satellite of any kind, Explorer, used a Juno I launch vehicle, a parallel evolution in Redstone.

With the possible exception of the Atlas, these early rockets were not true ICBMs. The Redstone had a combat range of only a few hundred miles, while its contemporary Jupiter had about 1500 mile range. Their range would have been extended by lighter nuclear warheads, but there was clearly a need for more powerful military rockets in the US as well as the Soviet Union, regardless of any disparity in nuclear technology.

I'm not sure why the Russians were as ahead of us as they were, but I suspect the key driver was one of strategic doctrine. American research was heaped upon rocket technology, but even more so on aircraft, and even our first forays into space (X-15, DynaSoar, etc.) had a more aircraft-like flavor. Early atomic warfare plans stressed the bomber. Regardless, after the initial shock of Sputnik, we were quick to catch up.

At least that's my interpretation.

 

[Brian Pears]

So they did 2 moon landings. One was the real one. Another was the fake one to be on TV, where nothing could go wrong. That's a likely scenario.

So, on your planet "likely" equates with absurd, fanciful, impossible, ludicrous...

In no sense of the word that I've ever come across, is that scenario "likely". Even in that "Alice Through the Looking Glass" world that all CTers inhabit, your ideas would surely be regarded as inane drivel.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

 

[Brian Pears]

Three times denser than lead. Hence even in air it would settle down fast.

Oh no it won't! That's what Aristotle thought, but Galileo proved him wrong. In air, particle size and shape will affect how quickly the dust settles, but particle density is irrelevant. Talcum powder and U238 dust of the same shape and dimensions would settle at the same speed.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/gal_accn96.htm

 

[R.Mackey]

Oh no it won't! That's what Aristotle thought, but Galileo proved him wrong. In air, particle size and shape will affect how quickly the dust settles, but particle density is irrelevant. Talcum powder and U238 dust of the same shape and dimensions would settle at the same speed.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/gal_accn96.htm

Actually no. As long as drag is dominant, i.e. "terminal" velocity, the falling speed of small particles can be directly computed as the balance between weight and drag. Since drag is linear (link from the same site as yours) with respect to velocity, and weight is linear with respect to density, velocity will increase linearly with density.

Up to a point. Once your particle is large or fast enough that you are no longer in a Stokes' Flow situation, the results are quite different. This is because at larger Reynolds numbers, you create a significant wake in the fluid, expending energy at a different rate.

Unless, of course, you're talking about particles so small that its trajectory is dictated by eddies in the air, and both weight and drag are negligible -- this kind of particle will basically random-walk its way through the air. But that doesn't count. In still air, the argument above applies.

Also there is nothing particularly magic about Depleted Uranium, despite the fact that it is surprisingly dense. You could get the same effect with any other of the truly dense elements, such as tungsten. I believe osmium is the heaviest, a few percent denser than uranium, but I'm not near my CRC at the moment to check.

 

[Foster Zygote]

There are a few explanations for that.
1. The dust was U238, which would behave like that in air.
2. Everything was done in a vacuum or low pressure
3. The dust did take a longer time to settle than normal hence that is proof that it is a fake.

So conspiracy theorists are willing to claim that an entire sound stage was blanketed in a thick layer of very rare, very expensive and very toxic radioactive dust and then the entire sound stage was made air-tight and de-pressurized? That's got to say a lot about the CT mind.

 

[jaydeehess]

Oh no it won't! That's what Aristotle thought, but Galileo proved him wrong. In air, particle size and shape will affect how quickly the dust settles, but particle density is irrelevant. Talcum powder and U238 dust of the same shape and dimensions would settle at the same speed.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/gal_accn96.htm

If an object is allowed to fall on Earth it accellerates in obeyance to Newton's formula a=F/m.

But this will happen only until the force due to air resistance equals that of gravity. The drag force is (Cd*rho*V^2 )/2
Cd= coefficient of drag
rho=density of air
V=velocity
A=area in the plane perpendicular to the direction of travel

So when ma=(Cd*rho*A*V^2)/2 the object will be at terminal velocity.

We can see that denser objects will have a larger terminal velocity that less dense ones

We also know that a dust particle or a feather falling horizontally will reach it's , slower , terminal velocity faster than say a hammer. (BTW drop the feather with the point of the qill aimed straight down and for a short distance(several feet) both the feather and hammer will drop pretty close to the same rate).

In an atmosphere dust drops slower than in no atmosphere obviously since a dust particle has very little mass and therefore reaches it's terminal velocity very quickly.



First, let's determine the fall time of a particle in a vacuum. This is an easy calculation. Let's say the particle is dropped from a height of 2 meters, we have:

on Earth,
t = (2d/a)^0.5 = (2*2/9.807)^0.5 = 0.64 s

on the Moon,
t = (2*2/1.62)^0.5 = 1.57 s

However, because of drag, soil-sized particles may actually fall slower on Earth, which is exactly the opposite of what the HBs claims. A small particle will reach its terminal velocity very quickly (in only a fraction of a second), thus we can assume the particle will fall at a constant velocity (the terminal velocity) over the entire distance. From this we can determine the fall time.

The lunar soils are mainly classified as sandy-silt or silty-sand. Therefore, let's assume a particle with a diameter of 10 microns, which falls into the size range of silt. If we assume a density of 2700 kg/m^3, which is fairly typical of rocky material, we can calculate the mass of the particle,

r = 10 / 1E+6 / 2 = 0.000005 m

volume = 4/3*pi*r^3 = 4/3*pi*0.000005^3 = 5.236E-16 m^3

m = vol*density = 5.236E-16*2700 = 1.414E-12 kg

The cross-sectional area of the particle is,

A = pi*r^2 = pi*0.000005^2 = 7.854E-11 m^2

The drag force on a particle is given by,

Fd = Cd*rho*A*V^2/2

where Cd is the drag coefficient, rho is the air density, A is the area normal to the flow, and V is the velocity. We know that F=ma, thus we can write,

ma = Cd*rho*A*V^2/2

Terminal velocity occurs when the acceleration caused by the drag force is equal to the acceleration of gravity. In this condition we have a net acceleration of zero and the velocity remains constant. We therefore replace the acceleration, a, in the above equation with the acceleration of gravity, g, giving us,

mg = Cd*rho*A*V^2/2

Rearranging variables we get,

V = [ 2mg/(Cd*rho*A) ]^0.5

which is the terminal velocity.

We know that g equals 9.807 m/s^2, and the standard density of air at sea level is 1.225 kg/m^3. In my previous calculations I used a value of 0.5 for Cd, which is the normal coefficient of friction for a sphere. However, this number is generally higher for very small particles. Furthermore, a soil particle is not a perfect sphere. Nonetheless, let's use Cd=0.5 knowing that our calculation is conservative, i.e. the time we calculate will be the *fastest* time in which the particle will fall. We have,

V = [ 2*1.414E-12*9.807 / (0.5*1.225*7.854E-11) ] ^0.5 = 0.759 m/s

Thus the fall time is,

t = d/v = 2/0.759 = 2.64 s

Don't forget that if we use a higher value of Cd, the fall time increases. For instance, if Cd=1 then fall time becomes 3.73 seconds.

Now that you have an example, you can vary the particle size, the soil density, and the drag coefficient to calculate other examples. I think these computations show quite convincingly that small soil particles will fall more slowly on Earth than they will on the Moon.

One more thing, these calculations assume the air is completely still. In reality, very small particles will usually remain in suspension longer because of air currents.


Thus, if one drives down a dirt road when it is dry you need not to be going very fast at all in order to kick up a great cloud of dust behind the vehicle. This dust cloud remains in the air for quite some time due to it's particles reaching their small terminal velocity very quickly,,, AND because the turbulent air following the vehicle keeps lifting the dust.

IF the lunar vehicle was on Earth , in an atmosphere, the dust would behave exactly the same way. The lack of a following dust cloud proves that this was not on Earth and or in an atmosphere.

In contrast to this an astronaut jumping into the air on Earth would fall about 2.5 times faster than that same astronauts jumping up to the same height on the surface of the Moon. This is because the much greater mass of the astronaut requires a much much greater velocity before drag equals gravitational forces on Earth but gravitational force on the Moon is so much les than that on Earth.

 

[jaydeehess]

I posted the above calculations on another forum and received this reply from an HB

--

Like everyone else here, YOU have no idea whether we went to moon or not -- we are ALL dependent upon second hand information.

And, in some cases, many display an inordinate confidence in government truthtelling --

Calculations -- which you are pushing are ridiculous -- you have NO ACCESS to any of the material to even judge what the calculations should be --

What has to be done -- the most that can be done -- is to reexamine the calculations made by those who have had access to NASA materials -- and to experts.

That's the information which has to be dealt with --



PS: Nor do I see a "link" re your June 23rd post --
Unless you want us to believe that you did those calculations?

I admit that although I knew the basics to calculate the terminal velocity I asked a physicist to help me out.

The calulations for this have been known for a few centuries prior to the exisitance of the organization known as NASA and indeed are taught to first year university physics students all over the world.