Would you guys PLEASE get off this stupid Area 51 garbage? We are giving cosmicdave a free pass to ignore the main questions of this thread. As I've said before, Dave has made some serious accusations, he has been corrected, and now he must defend these statements or correct them on his website.

In the interest of getting the conversation back on track, I'll reask my last questions:

Sadly, it doesn't look to me like cosmicdave has any intention of either defending any of his accusations or changing his webpage, no matter how badly his assertions are discredited here. For my part, though, the topic is done and my apologies to anyone who was annoyed for participating in allowing the discussion to stray this far.

For a proper follow-up on my part ...

Thanks for following up.

...considerably modified for the task.

Unfortunately Bennett and Percy won't give any consideration for the modifications. Elsewhere they argue it would have been impossible to operate the camera while wearing space gloves, despite all the modifications intended toward doing just that.

... therefore any electrical spark would be disastrous, the electrical contacts within the camera had to be secured.

True, but they're being melodramatic. In the Apollo 1 test environment any spark would have been a problem, but in the normal 5 psi environment it wouldn't have been instant death. And a spark confined to the innards of the camera would have limited effect.

But given the fanatical lengths taken to eliminate ignition sources and remove combustible materials, it is quite true that the camera's electronics were scrutinized for ways to improve them.

In addition, the leatherette camera finish would 'outgas' in the reduced pressure environment ...

This is the key concept. It is not necessarily a chemical reaction we are thinking of, but a physical reaction. It is not the "pure oxygen" environment that would cause outgassing, but rather the "low pressure" environment. Big difference.

Sorry pvt., I lost my temper a bit.

I get frustrated seeing people like dave make absolutely ridiculous statements and then dodge the issue.

If he doesn't have the courage or intelligence to defend his allegations, then he should leave.

It's all right. Sometimes we all need to take a breather and do something else for a day or so until we get our perspective back (pun intended).

I went away for a day and found another four pages of stuff in this thread! It is interesting to watch CosmicDave squirming his way out of corners.

I think the BA must be on holiday, as some os cosmics comments have been close to the 'edit' criteria. I wonder if he's got a (fake?) tan?

Here's a photo taken of the Apollo 11 landing site.


AS11-37-5447

Here's another one taken of much higher resolution from Lunar Orbiter 5.

Lunar Orbiter photograph V-76-H3

Here's a map drawn of the landing site.


Apollo 11 site: Traverse map

Exactly how do these look like Area 51?

__________________
~AstroMike

Don't know. Gotta ask the "expert", Dave. To me, the amateur, looks like a moon landscape. Don't look like anything on the Earth to me. But what do I know?

Prediction:

Large chunks of this thread will be deleted. The BA does not tolerate either ad hominem attacks (name calling) or profanity.

_________________
When all is said and done - sit down and shut up!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kaptain K on 2002-06-02 22:37 ]</font>

Thanks, JayUtah (and David Hall, Donnie B., and infocusine, too), for following-up on my follow-up.

Apparently, Bennett and Percy relied quite a bit on Kodak man H.J.P. "Douglas" Arnold for their "research." I may be wrong, but I don't think Mr. Arnold is a Hoax Believer.

See: http://www.aulis.com/nasa6.htm ; http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../a11.5886.html ; http://physics.iop.org/IOP/Press/PR0299.html ; http://www.nikonownersclub.com/benefits/magazine.html

More on Hasselblad leatherette removal: http://www.hasselblad.com/company/HB...584&itemId=530 ; http://www.hasselblad.com/company/HB...584&itemId=534

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Alan G. Archer on 2002-06-02 23:00 ]</font>

cosmicdave:

You are being rude, and you used a word I am not happy with. Read the FAQ. Consider this your only warning. If you continue in this vein you will be banned.

Ok,
I am going to answer all the questions put to me here and now in this one post.

First to answer pvtpylots question, or should I say accusation:

'The difference being NASA has endless evidence to back up their claims of what their pictures show. You've presented nothing but your word, either here or on your website. That's why I asked you to provide proof that your pictures are what you claim they are (which it seems you not only can't provide, but you're annoyed that I've even asked).'

It’s really simple to answer this question. Firstly, I have given you plenty of evidence about Area 51 and have directed you to other sites and I have shown you pictures of satellite images of Area 51 which were taken by a Russian Space Agency and a company employed by the US government, but you still don't believe me. Your accusation that you can only take my word for it or I have only directed you to my own website is completely false.

If you have a hard time believe one Government agencies official photographs of an area on Earth, why would you believe NASA who is another Government agency who has released pictures of the Moon? Tell me the difference.

Of course NASA has released loads of pictures of the Moon because they are the agency which allegedly went there. Also lets remember that they had 25 billion Dollars (http://spacelink.nasa.gov/Instructio...lo.Program.pdf ) of US taxpayers money to get the evidence right. Where else do you suggest that I go to see pictures of the Moon landing if NASA are the only agency to possess the photographic evidence?

I find the groups stance against me is rather hypocritical. You challenge me to provide evidence of my claims by giving you evidence from several different sources and yet you yourselves only have NASA’s evidence to go by. I can only guess that you think that whatever NASA says is the gospel truth and could not possibly be a lie.

You guys are missing one very important point and that is the fact that every single piece of film and stat comes from either NASA or a company within NASA’s employment, no third party has ever been sent in to investigate whether all these stats including money spent on the project is legitimate. See my point.

All of the live transmissions were carefully released by NASA and all TV footage was taken by TV cameras filming the main screens at Houston. Why didn’t NASA allow a direct feed to TV stations unless they had something to hide? Name one other live event where this type of TV coverage has been used… you wont be able to.

Now onto Tomblvd’s question:

I would still appreciate an explanation as to how the astronauts, in the movies and videos they supposedly made, handled moving from bright sun to darkness as they orbited the earth. You might also want to answer why nobody on earth ever saw the Command Module in orbit while they were supposedly on their way to the moon. Just the other night I watched the Space Station go by, and it's just as easy to see much smaller satellites.

What do you mean by how the astronauts handled moving from sun to darkness? I commented on the blue sky seen in one of the films from Apollo 13, I don’t see how this relates to your question? From the footage of the incident I have seen the sky outside is blue all the time, no black sky whatsoever.

If the CM was up there how could you tell that it was not just another satellite? I know that satellite tracking can be done easily in this age of the Internet, but lets put ourselves back 30 odd years. Would you know that the small light you see crossing the sky is a satellite or a CM?

Alan g. Archer:

Can you point me to the evidence that says that NASA removed the leatherette covering from the Hasselblad cameras?

Astro Mike:

Many thanks for posting those pictures. What’s the difference between the Apollo pics and the Lunar Orbiter 5 ones? Couldn’t the Lunar Orbiter 5 or a similar probe be able to take the footage allegedly taken onboard the Apollo missions?

To finish this post, I guess that to see the real truth and confirm your beliefs we will have to wait until China send up their crew to the Moon. But, I will put my neck on the line now and predict that they will not make it. My reasons for this assumption is simple and could result from any of the following.

1. Sabotage
2. The US not allowing them to (remember Dennis Tito)
3. They will die on the way
4. They will realise that it can’t be done and abandon the project
5. Costs become to much and abandon the project


I hope that answers your questions… but somehow I think you’ll still disagree.

The difference is simple. I don't have to believe just NASA to corroborate the Apollo program. Other governments and independent ham radio operators across the globe tracked Apollo. Scientists and engineers having nothing to do with NASA or the government have reviewed the equipment, the transcripts, the photos and NASA's mountains of other data and found no flaws. A purely subjective observation, but it seems to me that the only people who have found flaws in the evidence have either a history of conspiracy-type findings based on little or no evidence, or have a monetary stake in their claims.

Your data does not have the same empirical and independently verified evidence standing behind it.

First – Since it is you and the other HB’s that state that the Apollo record is false as presented by NASA it is absolutely up to you to prove the NASA record is false it is not our responsibility to prove the NASA record. We simply state the NASA record stands on its own merit.

I think JayUtah has already answered the TV Coverage issue.

Also – You have not answered one of my questions –

Firstly, I have given you plenty of evidence about Area 51

Except for the key evidence: the juxtaposition of the Area 51 photos with the Apollo 11 landing sites, which you can't seem to find. At this point we would settle for some handwaving. Failing that, it is time to leave Area 51 behind and return to the subjects at hand.

If you have a hard time believe one Government agencies official photographs of an area on Earth, why would you believe NASA who is another Government agency who has released pictures of the Moon? Tell me the difference.

The moon is not a top secret military installation.

I can only guess that you think that whatever NASA says is the gospel truth and could not possibly be a lie.

No, we do not uncritically accept NASA's statements. I have spent considerable time and money verifying NASA's claims. The U.S. military has admitted it was trying to keep the existence and function of the Groom Lake facility a secret. When there is absolutely no question that the controlling organization is trying to keep a secret, this makes it crucial to verify any third-party information.

NASA, on the other hand, spends considerable effort and money making its Apollo records and findings available to whoever asks for it. The only source of the notion that they're trying to hide a hoax comes from NASA's accusers: a very small minority of conspiracy-obsessed people with no evidence for it. There is simply no credible reason to distrust NASA on the subject of the moon landings, unless you can provide one.

But that's neither here nor there. Nobody wants to talk about Area 51 anymore since you can't prove the point which brought this all up: that an Apollo moon landing site looks very closely like aerial photos of some place on earth.

Further, I have no problem criticizing NASA for Apollo 1, the Challenger, and various aspects of "better, cheaper, faster" it couldn't seem to get right. The notion that we're all NASA cheerleaders is unfounded. We simply lack your a priori distrust.

no third party has ever been sent in to investigate whether all these stats including money spent on the project is legitimate. See my point.

I see your point, but I don't think it's valid. You make the mistake of assuming that NASA could just lie about various aspects of the Apollo project, and no one would be the wiser.

There are literally thousands of people in the world who can inspect NASA's claims and give an expert ruling on whether they make sense. Apollo hardware is used to teach up and coming engineers. Apollo documentation is used as handouts in class. Apollo techniques and methods are still being used in aerospace today.

My private library contains some 85,000 pages of documentation on the various aspects of the Apollo mission, and I've just barely scratched the surface of what's available. Now you may not understand any of it, but I do. It was, at one point, my job to know how build machines that can do things in space.

Of course the cardinal rule of deception is to keep the story simple. If that's the case, then why has NASA scrupulously documented every single aspect of its endeavor? This seems much more consistent with a group that's trying to document a historical occurence, not falsify one.

Finally, NASA is audited reguarly. Most government agencies are audited by private CPAs -- chartered accountants, in your vernacular. And the Apollo expenditures were very closely scrutinized by Congress.

All of the live transmissions were carefully released by NASA ...

... to live worldwide television, making it the most watched event.

Why didn’t NASA allow a direct feed to TV stations unless they had something to hide?

They did. Bart Sibrel's contention that this was not provided is false. I have confirmed this with the people who actually operated the equipment.

At the ground stations during Apollo 11, a camera focused at a CRT was used as a simple scan rate converter. Since this procedure was to be used only for Apollo 11, more elaborate equipment was not contemplated. This is the source of the rumor that TV stations had to aim their cameras at the screens in Houston. In fact, when the signal arrived at Houston it was split and amplified to the news networks in the customary electronic fashion.

The camera-CRT arrangement was never used again. The ground stations had scan converters used for the subsequent missions. But because of Apollo 11's unique signal characteristics they could not be used for that mission.

Name one other live event where this type of TV coverage has been used… you wont be able to.

Name one other live event that required this level of technical sophistication You won't be able to. If you read my other posts on this forum, you'll understand that today's "live" television is actually considerably less live that Apollo's downlink. Yet no one argues that it's routinely faked.

But you conveniently forget that this camera-CRT method was used only once, for Apollo 11, and that broadcast quality television was provided for Apollos 13 through 17. If NASA had something to hide, why would they provide progressively better quality and progressively more coverage?

You are really quite something. You are stuck on the idea that NASA was trying to hide something and you completely ignore or sidestep every other possible explanation. Yet you sit there and tell us you'd really like to believe in Apollo? Please!

What do you mean by how the astronauts handled moving from sun to darkness?

Each low earth orbit, regardless of inclination, spends about 45 minutes in sunlight and 45 minutes in darkness. On the dark side you can see the stars if you turn out your spacecraft's cabin lights. You cannot see the "blue" earth because you're looking at the dark side. If you strain, you can see city lights. But there will be no sunlight through your window, now glow from earth, no strong external light source of any kind, unless the moon is in the right place.

From the footage of the incident I have seen the sky outside is blue all the time, no black sky whatsoever.

That's the problem. You claim the spacecraft was in low earth orbit. Yet you cannot explain why the glow seen through the command module windows does not switch between blue (dayside part of the orbit) and black (nightside part of the orbit) in the television coverage or between photos. Nor do you explain why NASA didn't arrange for all the telecasts and photography to be done on the nightside, where the expectation of a black view through the windows could have been met.

The fact that you always see some blue in the window is actually evidence that the scatter theory is more likely. Some side of the spacecraft would always have been in direct sunlight during the translunar coast. There is no nightside to a lunar transfer orbit, therefore the effects of sun are expected to always be visible.

The observed phenomena agree fully with our hypothesis that the blue is reflection and scatter. They are inconsistent with your hypothesis of a low earth orbit. You have spent so much time backpedalling and spinning additional conjecture on this point that the time has now come for you to admit that we have indeed satisfied your request for a suitable alternative explanation. You simply don't know how it works and don't want to hear it.

Would you know that the small light you see crossing the sky is a satellite or a CM?

Yes, you would. You've obviously never tracked a satellite before, otherwise you wouldn't even ask that question. Many amateur trackers in the early days of space travel were just as good as professional rocket scientists at computing and predicting orbital ephemerides. And many of the trackers were not amateurs; they were college professors and students who were following Apollo's progress using their facilities.

Can you point me to the evidence that says that NASA removed the leatherette covering from the Hasselblad cameras?

He has quoted Dark Moon which lists the covering as one of the items covered under the modification plan. He has provided links to NASA web sites and Hasselblad web sites. How much more evidence do you need?

Can you provide any evidence that it was left on? Can you provide any evidence that it would have "melted" in the pure oxygen environment as you state? The only expert you've cited believes the problem is outgassing in a low-pressure environment, not some sort of spontaneous bursting into flame.

Further, in your 32 questions you imply that the environment, which would supposedly cause the leatherette cover to melt, would have been dangerous to the astronauts. Can you explain why?

Couldn’t the Lunar Orbiter 5 or a similar probe be able to take the footage allegedly taken onboard the Apollo missions?

According to your hypothesis, none of this photography is possible due to the extreme radiation environment in space which you argue on the authority of David Groves would have fogged the film. This has been brought to your attention numerous times and you haven't addressed it.

I hope that answers your questions… but somehow I think you’ll still disagree.

I'm offended. You took me to task for not providing the demonstration photos about shadow length that you asked for. When the weather cleared I constructed a suitable apparatus and photographed it. I posted them to a separate thread on this board that included your name in the title, and notified you here of its presence. All other participants in this thread managed to notice it.

Typically when you ask for evidence that disputes your findings, and it's provided, it's customary to at least acknowledge that it was provided even if you don't address its content.

Further, as I proposed, I have fully answered your 32 questions. The answers can be found at http://www.clavius.org/bibdave32.html I also posted that link here, and you have completely ignored it.

You have been asked persistently and politely for evidence that backs up your arguments on your web page. You have provided only Dark Moon, which we do not accept as authoritative for reasons clearly spelled out in detail here, and largely irrelevant conjecture on Area 51, which was only tangential to the point you wish to make.

It is becoming quite clear that you have no intention of engaging in any substantive degree of debate regarding your statements. Do you, in fact, have any plans whatsoever to take meaningful responsibility for your accusations?


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-06-03 12:21 ]</font>

Your "answers" prove to me that you are completely out of your element here. If you didn't realize that an orbiting spacecraft only spends a limited amount of time in sunlight, or you really think the orbiting CM wouldn't be noticed by anybody, including astronomers from other countries, you don't understand the absolute BASICS of spacetravel that would be covered in a basic science course.

I'm in the process right now of reading Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, which covers the entire Apollo program. Honsetly, you should read it sometime. But the point I wanted to make is that the technicians at Mission Control could track the Apollo spacecraft so accurately that their plots would show a wiggle whenever the CM/LM would vent waste. How do you fake that, and all the telemetry and voice transmissions that go along with it?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomblvd on 2002-06-03 13:01 ]</font>

One of Dave's 32 questions is a verbatim lift from Bart Sibrel's open letter, wherein he invokes TETR-A to cover the transmission. Of course neither Bart nor Dave appears to understand the first thing about orbital mechanics. It makes it so much easier to come up with theories when you don't have to pay attention to any of those inconvenient facts.

You state 'Apollo 11's unique signal characteristics'. and what would those be? How uniquely different were they to the other missions?

Yes, I just read and saw your other posts on other groups here about 30 minutes ago, which I have, or am in the process of answering. Boy you all seem to be so impatient on here, I haven't got all day to debate this you know and do other things than talk about space all day.

I cannot see what your problem is about the Area 51 photo, I have said that I will look for it and you should be satisfied with that answer. I haven't said no I'm not going to bother looking or can't be bothered to show you,so keep your hair on!

You say 'There are literally thousands of people in the world who can inspect NASA's claims and give an expert ruling on whether they make sense. Apollo hardw