Quote:
On 2001-11-03 23:30, SAMU wrote:
The 200 degree tempreture I mentioned was based on tempreture mesurements made of moon rocks, which have a high degree of refletivity, in direct sunlight. Certainly the combination of heat gain to heat loss could have resulted in a tempreture coincidentaly in the narrow range between condensation and freezing. The command capsule was covered in silvery material to reflect sunlight. Why? To reduce heating. The landing stage of the lander was covered with gold mylar laminate to reflect sunlight heat and landing rocket heat. Why? To reduce heating. The assent stage of the lander where the astronauts spent most of their time during 13 was not silvered to reflectivity. I find it remarkable that the combination of reflectivity, radiation and heat absorbtion and retension resulted in an average tempreture that resembles immersion in cold water. So I remarked on it. Were it me up there freezing my ears off, I would have spent plenty of time in the window with the sun shinning in to warm them up and to heck with rotating the craft at 1 RPM to maintain even heating which was by all accounts too durned cold to begin with. I know I wouldn't have complained that the light was irritating as the astronauts did. Although sodium arc light is very irritating and not very warming. Review every documentary you see about 13 from the perspective of the tempreture and you will spot an ever increasing number of peculiarities. For example the lithium hydroxide co2 scrubber problem with co2 as a measure of metabolic heat produced by the crew.
SAMU
|
Any spacecraft is designed to exacting tolerances. The primary design criteria for Apollo spacecraft was to perform the missions selected using the lightest weight spacecraft and equipment that could be built. The LM's were made primarily from Titanium, the outer skins being .015" thick in many places. Titanium loses 10% of its strength and will enlongate about 10% of a part's length when exposed to 200 deg. F heating for 1/2 hr. (Check MIL-HNDBK-5F for 6Al-4V Ti). Again, the LM and CSM's were designed to exact tolerances. If only one side of the spacecraft were exposed for any great length of time, the deformation and loss of strength of the structure would have caused a catastrophic failure. The spacecraft had to rotate to evenly heat the outer surfaces. Also, the structure was designed to conduct heat through the the structure to the "cold" side to be radiated out into space. Little heat was radiated by the structure into the interior. As stated elswhere in this thread, the heat came from the equipment running. When the 13 crew had to power down, little was left to heat the interior.
{Edited for spelling errors!}
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: K. Hovis on 2001-11-05 08:45 ]</font>