Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion - continuation thread

[dasmiller]

I'm not an engineer, but I do play Kerbal Space Program. So take this with a grain of salt. Apologies for my presumption.

Many (but not all) science fiction spacecraft have extremely high performance in order to pull off what the plot requires them to do. If your SF story had, for example, a ship able to pull 1 G of acceleration for a week, then it should be able to enter orbit above a planet, kill off most of its orbital velocity, and descend into the atmosphere at a fairly slow speed. That's science fiction.

In real life spacecraft tend to use all their fuel going out and coming back. They rely on aerobraking to kill that last bit of speed they have left. This means they compress the air in front of them, generate an enormous amount of heat, and need to be designed with that in mind.

However, that's still cheaper than carrying the fuel you'd need to slow down that much.

I am an engineer, and the above is pretty much correct. I'll quibble with the "last bit of speed," though; aerobraking is often used to dump most of a spacecraft's speed. For example, a spacecraft in a low LEO is moving at ~7800 m/s, and Wikipedia cites a deorbit delta-V as low as 60 m/s for LEO spacecraft; all the rest of the energy would be dissipated by aerobraking.

 

[John Nowak]

I am an engineer, and the above is pretty much correct. I'll quibble with the "last bit of speed," though; aerobraking is often used to dump most of a spacecraft's speed. For example, a spacecraft in a low LEO is moving at ~7800 m/s, and Wikipedia cites a deorbit delta-V as low as 60 m/s for LEO spacecraft; all the rest of the energy would be dissipated by aerobraking.

Point taken.

In my defense I will say that I was thinking of the entire delta-v of the vehicle through the flight. So when you're making your final landing, the last bit of speed is indeed most of the speed remaining.

Kerbal Space Program FTW.

 

[JayUtah]

Awww, too bad. Pesky safety regulations.

This is the bane of success in a space program. You go from astronauts who are household names to astronauts who are largely unknown but for a few. You go from dramatic bleeding-edge technology that gets a lot of passes from regulatory bodies to spacefarers who are just another ticker symbol and have to obey the same rules as any other industry. If you succeed in changing the world, your success is measured in how normal what you did seems over time.

...bear in mind that I proposed that appolo hoaxers did this project...

I'm sorry, I missed that part of your post. That changes things.

...and learning is not something they seem to do well.

Well, true. And they would not be well motivated to duplicate the program in a way that saw it succeed.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Its like people who claim we couldn't build a Giza pyramid - they are partially correct we couldn't build it the way the AE did not only do we not know the exact methods they used by we lack the experience and expertise. We could certainly build one that looked liked the originals but not in the same way. Its like we could at great expense build and sail the fleets that fought at Trafalgar and Jutland but it would take an enormous amount of time and effort to regain the skills and technology to build such things in the way it was done then.

Not only that, but sometimes reproducing old technology can lead to problems if you try to do it in a modernized manner. I watched a documentary about The Vintage Aviator in New Zealand in which they talked about resisting the temptation to "improve" certain components. The worry is that they might strengthen one part, but in doing so simply move the point of failure to some other component that could have much more serious consequences. They've learned to trust the original designers because they built thousands of these machines and in so doing certainly learned what worked and what didn't.

 

[Hans]

Not only that, but sometimes reproducing old technology can lead to problems if you try to do it in a modernized manner. I watched a documentary about The Vintage Aviator in New Zealand in which they talked about resisting the temptation to "improve" certain components. The worry is that they might strengthen one part, but in doing so simply move the point of failure to some other component that could have much more serious consequences. They've learned to trust the original designers because they built thousands of these machines and in so doing certainly learned what worked and what didn't.

Yes that is also a point it would be very hard to make something exactly like the original because you might find it maddening to not fix what you think needs fixing or doing something you know is inefficient and perhaps even dangerous.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Yes that is also a point it would be very hard to make something exactly like the original because you might find it maddening to not fix what you think needs fixing or doing something you know is inefficient and perhaps even dangerous.

In engineer hell, nothing needs improving.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

It might surprise a few to learn that Apollo used COTS items where possible, just as any smart engineering project would.

The circuit breakers, for example, were just the same that would be installed in an aircraft in the 1960s. The bulk wiring was from the manufacturer's catalog. Not everything was custom designed and custom manufactured. But today many of those items are no longer available. They've been discontinued by the manufacturer, and in many cases the manufacturers are no longer in business.

It was wise at the time to use those items. They had been thoroughly tested and vetted by their manufacturers. And in many cases the designs had long operational histories in hazardous conditions such as air combat or hostile environments. They were known to be reliable and mature, and therefore safe.

The multi-throw, multi-pole switches used in the command module were a standard design used all over in aerospace. And these, for example, would be a notable exception because they were used in the space shuttle as well and so carried on through decades of manufacture, use, and replacement. I could probably very easily obtain new or slightly used examples of them that would be indistinguishable from one you took out of a museum command module.

But the rest of those components would have to be reverse-engineered and remanufactured from scratch, and that would be both expensive and dangerous. There are limits to how much we can rediscover about manufacturing processes just by looking at surviving examples. What solder formula was used? Were the bails heat-treated? What exact formula of polystyrene were the circuit-breakers made with?

I may not be able to exactly duplicate a 1960s era circuit-breaker. Nor would I go to an airplane boneyard and gather a bunch of decades-old ones to use in a spacecraft I intended a human to fly in. I would not trust the ability to manufacture and test a fully identical Apollo-era circuit breaker, nor would I trust one that has sat in the desert for 50 years.

That's why I think there's limited value in reproducing Apollo technology. You either have to say your reproduction is significantly non-faithful, or you have to accept a high probability it will fail because it's a spacecraft designed to have a short shelf life and is now 50 years old.

 

[JayUtah]

In engineer hell, nothing needs improving.

In engineering management hell, engineers won't stop improving.

I'm reminded of an Apollo story. When you first power up an Apollo command module, the first thing that happens is a whole set of warning lights and klaxons. This is naturally because the items that the caution and warning sytems are supposed to monitor have not yet initialized and warmed up to their operating modes.

Engineers tried unsuccessfully for many days to devise a method to drive all the subsystems to a stable state earlier, to avoid the startup warnings. It wasn't until one of the prospective crew pointed out that cars (at the time) also did this, and that it was no big worry for a driver to ignore warnings that cleared within a few seconds of turning on the ignition.

Consequently the Apollo spacecraft worked the same way. You powered them on, and they chirped, squawked, and flashed for a few seconds, and then the pilot pushed the master reset button and anything that reappeared after that was a legitimate problem.

The space shuttle worked in a similar fashion, although having more to do with computer error messages. The engineering team didn't have to make a spaceship that printed no error messages as it was readied for flight. It just had to print only messages whose cause had been previously identified, investigated, and determined to be harmless. Messages aren't problems. Unexpected messages are problems.

Okay, why is this on-topic? Because it exposes naivete in conspiracy theorists' expectations for what a fully functional manned spacecraft should run like. Very often you see conspiracists pointing to some reported failure, some set of engineering change orders or defect tickets, some condition that signals danger to the untrained mind. They say this can't be the record of a successful, safe spacecraft.

But the Apollo spacecraft didn't have to be flawless. They only had to be good enough. Leave an engineer alone and he'll keep finding problems to solve. But when an engineer tells me he wants a week to devise an interlock mechanism for some latch, I have to decide whether I want to expend $4,000 worth of engineering time to do that, or expend $37 worth of tech-writer time to put out an operator's bulletin explaining how to get around the problem.

 

[smartcooky]

In engineering management hell, engineers won't stop improving.

I'm reminded of an Apollo story. When you first power up an Apollo command module, the first thing that happens is a whole set of warning lights and klaxons. This is naturally because the items that the caution and warning sytems are supposed to monitor have not yet initialized and warmed up to their operating modes.

Engineers tried unsuccessfully for many days to devise a method to drive all the subsystems to a stable state earlier, to avoid the startup warnings. It wasn't until one of the prospective crew pointed out that cars (at the time) also did this, and that it was no big worry for a driver to ignore warnings that cleared within a few seconds of turning on the ignition.

This is the same when you turn the power on in a C130 cockpit. Numerous lamps light up and warning sounds go off...

Master Caution and alarm
Engine Fire warning light and alarm
Hyd/Oil Pressure warning lamp
Stall Alarm
Wing & Empennage Anti-icing lamp

to name just a few.

 

[Hans]

This is the same when you turn the power on in a C130 cockpit. Numerous lamps light up and warning sounds go off...

Master Caution and alarm
Engine Fire warning light and alarm
Hyd/Oil Pressure warning lamp
Stall Alarm
Wing & Empennage Anti-icing lamp

to name just a few.

When you turned on a TACFIRE computer it was quite the light show!

 

[smartcooky]

Just saw this at Apollohoax.net and thought I'd share it here (don't now if its been shared here before.)

Paolo Attivissimo's excellent book Moon Hoax Debunked is now available as an EBook and in PDF format.

http://www.moonhoaxdebunked.com/

 

[Skinny Splash]

It doesn't mean they are right



You are substantially overqualified in that regard



And your evidence for this is?


***

Like your brother, your posts both here and at Apollohoax.net have been, and continue to be, entirely evidence-free!!

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

 

[threadworm]

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

~yawn~

Like we haven't heard this line before.

"I can prove it all. And I will. Eventually. You know, soon. Just as soon as I've done something else. Any minute now..."

You have no proof of anything.

 

[smartcooky]

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

We've been tuned in for many years now, and nothing

You're all talk and no action. You talk about the proof you are going to provide, but you never provide it. IMO, you suffer from verbal diarrhoea,

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed breach of rule 0/rule 12

 

[Hans]

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

...I find the idea that you will produce anything but unintended laughter - remarkably unlikely!

 

[sts60]

We've been tuned in for many years now, and nothing

You're all talk and no action. You talk about the proof you are going to provide, but you never provide it. IMO, you suffer from verbal diarrhoea,

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed quoted moderated content.

Actually, he's not even much talk. His alleged brother spewed rivers of nonsense;

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed breach of rule 0/rule 12

 

[Halcyon Dayz]

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

Nearly half a century and still NOTHING.

 

[sts60]

Actually, he's not even much talk. His alleged brother spewed rivers of nonsense;

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed breach of rule 0/rule 12

...his output is just a drip.

I'm sure that's what I meant to say.

 

[BazBear]

Dear Mr. Cookie,
I will produce the proof. Stay tuned

Perhaps, but I'm betting the heat death of the universe will happen first.

 

[Erock]

Will find the pictures I saw and bring them here!

I'm sure you are right but there was something about not allowing him to go in the 1st place that sticks in my mind, Unfortunately I put "the moon books " as I call them in storage for awhile, I'm sure I can find out on the inter net!

24th October 2014, 08:40 PM and tumbleweed persists.