See http://www.clavius.org/bibdave32.html

In case you're wondering Jay, the Clementine probe had a resolution of 125-250 m/pixels.

Otherwise, rock on! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

__________________
~AstroMike

Well, Dave?

We're waiting.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Nice piece of work, Jay! Suppose you'll be getting any more "legal" emails? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Nice work Jay.

But for question 9 you should address the second "C" on the ground as well. Your page on the C rock does not cover that.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Re: Question No. 4.

Aside from the fact that Dave's paragraph is contradictory in the extreme, he aslo says that he's found evidence for the ignition transient in only one LM lift-off.
For anyone interested, the same phenomenon is also visible in the Apollo 16 LM lift-off footage (Dave's footage is Apollo 17).

Apollo 16 LM lift-off

But for question 9 you should address the second "C" on the ground as well.

Right, thanks for the reminder. It's now on the "to do" list.

Basically I think it's there, but it's not necessarily a "C". It's just a curved feature. If you assume everything in that photo that looks like a letter or numeral really is that letter or numeral, you can find like half a dozen letters in the dirt there.

The notion that it's a "C" to mark the centerline of the stage is absolute crap. I've been in theater since I was wearing befooted pajamas, and I've never seen that done that way. Plus, there's no need to mark the centerline of a film set because there is no centerline.

Well done, Jay!

On the point of the LRV camera tracking the LM ascent (point 22) wasn't it also true that it took Ed Fendell two previous tries on Apollo 15 and 16 to finally get the shot perfect on 17?

Jay

Excellent work.

With regard to point 18 (internal pressure of the suits), I understand the internal pressure was only around 3.7 psi, rather than the 5 mentioned by Dave.

From the Earth to the Moon tells the story of Ed Fendell like that, but I think it's been overstated.

And yes, the suit pressure was around 3.5 psia. Thanks for pointing that out.

JayUtah,
Heres your answers, and a few I have for you. Your questions or accusations are in speech marks.

‘Skeptics don't say there aren't any stars visible in space. They say there should be no stars visible from the surface of the moon’.

What’s the difference between aren’t and should not be?

‘The "official photos" Dave reproduces showing alleged stars are the low-quality JSC scans that have white specks everywhere as a result of the hurried scanning process.’

And on several of the examples I have on my site the ‘white specks’ as you call them are in exactly the same configuration in the sky, even though the camera is panning across the horizon. This rules out blemishes on the lens or within the film.

‘ The astronauts were not affected by this environment because they pre-breathed with oxygen to purge the nitrogen out of their bloodstreams prior to doffing their helmets inside the spacecraft.’

This does not apply to the Apollo 13 missions because they had a limited supply of Oxygen.
Photos taken of the lunar surface directly beneath the descent engine show it to have been swept and scoured. However, there is no justification for arguing that the dust for any appreciable radius around the engine nozzle would have all been blown away. Recall that the foot of the ladder is some fifteen feet (five meters) away from the exhaust nozzle.
So the dust didn’t blow very far away, but it also didn’t land inside the landing pads either… interesting!
Contrary to having "turned the tables" on skeptics, Dave has once again tried to have his cake and eat it too. He says the lack of flame is suspicious, and simultaneously the presence of the flame is suspicious. He should decide whether a flame is visible or not so that he can get straight what is supposed to be suspicious.
Ok, so lets go with the appearance of a flame argument. You guys reckon that no flame should be seen, so why is one evident in many ascents from the Moon?
In fact, this is quite good evidence of the progressive nature of Apollo technology. Television coverage was not strictly required in order to accomplish the landing on time, and so high-quality television for lunar EVA was deferred in its development until later in the program.
In fact during the early minutes of the first Apollo 11 EVA the picture quality changes dramatically. Why?
This is a natural feature of contour on the lunar surface. It is not always possible to distinguish by color or shading the crests of intervening hills.
This comment would be fine, except for the fact that the background soil is of a completely different shade to the foreground and that is why such a distinct ‘join’ can be seen. Also several different backgrounds from different missions have the same features and size, even though the sites are allegedly several km away from each other.
Skeptics say no such thing. In fact, shadows in sunlight should be expected to appear parallel in photography only under very special circumstances. In all other cases they will appear to converge or diverge.
Actually those sceptics are on this very group and told me about the two light sources around Christmas time. Your own members came up with this theory, so if it’s wrong you can blame them. You maybe able to find these facts on this board, I have looked myself but believe that perhaps BA discards threads after a certain time?
It wasn't extended until after splashdown. It was in its retracted position during re-entry
So how did they communicate with Houston if the aerial was down?
The lunar module was tested successfully numerous times in vacuum chambers to verify its pressure integrity. It was tested in space on Apollos 5, 9, and 10 prior to the first landing. Every aircraft or spacecraft has a first flight test, and it's always a white-knuckle flight, but to say the LM was untested is absolutely false.
You’re missing the point. The wording I used is ‘Who would dare risk using the LEM on the Moon when it was never, ever tested successfully?’ The LEM was never successfully landed anywhere until it landed on the Moon. Prove me wrong! I seem to remember Armstrong almost being killed on one of the attempts made.
In regards to the ability to jump, within 1/6th gravity it would be an easier task to jump than here on Earth, jeez, even guys on Earth can jump 6 feet or above.
‘None of these extremely powerful solar events occurred during any of the missions. The events experienced by Apollo’s 14 and 16 were quite mild.’
More luck than judgement considering that there is no way of knowing when solar flares will erupt. In fact midway through the Apollo years the sunspot cycle was at its 11 year cycle high and was one of the highest recorded on record.
‘Further, the plans for the Soviet lunar spacecraft do not include two meters of shielding.’
And they didn’t go either!
‘No, they shouldn't have. Nickel porous plate sublimators are among the most common devices used in space engineering.’
So where did all that used up oxygen go?
In your Technology communications page you claim:
The practice of wearing a lead vest essentially allows you to undergo as many dental x-rays as you need without worrying about cumulative exposure.
And Astronauts during the Apollo missions were living in these radiation conditions continually. With no apparent affect to their health?

‘One man's opinion of the timetable shouldn't necessarily take precedence over those who had more information available.’
Really, even though that man was to be a guinea pig on Apollo 1 and basically put his life in NASA’s hands?
‘Command Module 012 has been in the custody of the United States government since early 1967. If they had really wanted to destroy it, it wouldn't have been too difficult.’
But how many people have seen it? You say that it’s in the custody of the United States Government… in a locked vault or on general display? Why destroy it? If the Government doesn’t want anyone to see something in their possession then they will find ways to make sure that the evidence stays covered up. Have you seen it?
‘Conspiracists interpret words like "more dangerous" and "hazardous" as if they somehow mean "instantly deadly", which they do not.’
If I was using a detergent to clean something and the instructions on the back of the container said ‘hazardous to health if swallowed’ do you think I would drink it? Or would you like to prove your point? Hazardous in my dictionary does mean life threatening.
The Apollo Guidance Computer was not intended to be a general purpose computer. It was designed to fulfill its specific mission, and did so.
My current car has an onboard computer of around 64mb. All it does is read the temperature, speedo, mph and have electric windows etc. Obviously the Apollo craft had a lot more gadgetry to them. Even a calculator has more memory than 32k and considering that the computer aboard the Apollo was used for making calculations, how do you suggest that such a small memory computer could cope with the task?
‘Neither the Hubble Space Telescope nor the Clementine probe has the required optical resolution to see objects on the lunar surface as small as the Apollo hardware.’
You better get in touch with NASA if you believe this because they have released images of the Apollo hardware, both on motion film and still photos - or are you calling them liars?
To my question 30 on my site which states ‘ In the year 2002 NASA does not have the technology to land any man, or woman on the Moon, and return them safely to Earth.’
You answer: ‘This does not prove it did not have the technology to do it in 1969. These are not skills and equipment on the same level as riding a bike or building a birdhouse. These are design and construction techniques which are highly specialized, and if not needed are not undertaken.’
But you’re the one who tells me that you have so many thousands of documents on the Apollo missions – What’s stopping them looking at the old blueprints? Oh yes of course I forgot, they destroyed most of them… doh! How stupid. Surely these highly qualified scientists can work from a simple plan – can’t they? And surely things can be learned from the Apollo missions that would help with flights to Mars and other space related missions. On the one hand your telling me that Schools and Universities are shown Apollo related stuff to learn from and in the next breath that NASA don’t bother to use it themselves… odd?
‘NASA's mission has changed. It has also been drastically scaled back. If there were a mandate to maintain and use such technology, there is plenty of design and manufacturing capability to undertake it. Space exploration simply requires different skills and materials, and must operate on a different set of resources.’
The budget Congress agreed to, part of a larger budget bill that funds the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development as well as various independent agencies, gives NASA $14.8 billion for fiscal year 2002, which started October 1. This is about $300 million more than what the Senate, closely following the budget proposal by President Bush, approved, but is about $150 million less than what the House approved. NASA received $14.3 billion in fiscal year 2001. The whole Apollo project cost an estimated $25 billion. So NASA would have more than that amount in just 2 years. Why do they have to cut back on resources?
‘The footage as shown in Bart Sibrel's video is cut up and rendered incoherent, and the voiceover makes it difficult to hear what the astronauts are saying.’
That’s a very convenient way of wriggling out of having to answer to firm evidence that you believe us hoax believers could not uncover. I thought that someone on here said that all NASA footage was released in the mid 70s? obviously that rule didn’t apply to this footage. What else has NASA got tucked away in the vaults?
‘Congress provided no funding for the storage and archive of the detailed design documentation. The private companies who had custody of it did not have the funds nor the desire to archive materials that required an inconveniently large building in which to house it. They are for-profit companies, not museums. Thus the detailed documentation was regretfully discarded while the basic documentation was preserved.’
Oh how convenient, and you don’t think this is suspect? If this were the situation in the UK there would be a national outcry if our Government dared to destroy evidence of a piece of our History of such great significance. Why didn’t NASA offer the documents to a private buyer?
THAT’S YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND HERES A FEW MORE THAT’S ON YOUR SITE WHICH I WOULD LIKE AN ANSWER TO:
As seen from earth, an Apollo spacecraft on a translunar trajectory would always be in roughly the same direction as the moon.
This strengthens my argument that the position of the Apollo craft could not successfully be worked out by radio ham operators
‘It's not as easy to hide a satellite as Sibrel believes.’
Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.
I think I have more than responded to my critics with very a very valid response.
Thanks,
CosmicDave

I have been on this website for a long time and I have never seen a post that stated shadows were caused by earthshine.

I have seen discussions on this board where the fill lighting in shadows was speculated to be from earthshine, but that has been ruled out due to the intense light reflected from the moon's surface.

However, even if someone did make that statement on this board, why do you keep going back to it? Nobody has repeated it, and it is not on either BA or Clavius. You are hanging your hat on one post which may or may not even exist.

So to put and end to this, nobody here on the BA discussion board says that earthshine has ANY effect on casting shadows.

You can't just say that "it strenghtens your argument", you must tell us why. Please discuss the technique of using doppler shift to track a spacecraft and how being in one spot in the sky makes that difficult.

You have the incredibly annoying habit of making completely unsubstantiated statements and passing them off as fact.

Do you know what doppler shift is?


What in heavens name are you talking about? You have to at least give us a link of something!


Making up responses is not "responding to critics". NONE of your answers have any references to them. You make a statement about not being able to track Apollo, but give no evidence, while we posted the relevant information from numerous sources.

You also make completely false claims, like Clementine and Hubble have imaged the Apollo hardware on the moon. This is completely false. If it weren't, it would end the hoax speculation.

You'll have to do much better than that, with references.

Well that's cool. The next time the Yankee Air Force is looking to acquire design specs of the de Havilland Comet for it's library and gets told by de Havilland and Bombardier that these documents don't exist anymore we can just warn them about the public outcry in the UK if they don't caugh up what we're looking for.

I don't think you have a clue as to how many documents you're talking about and what the cost of storing them would be. Private contractors weren't going to do it without public funding. Taxpayers in this country got tired of funding the missions themselves after they had accomplished their goal, think they were going to fund a couple of Indiana Jones-style warehouses just to store, catalog and maintain a bunch of obscure documents most of them wouldn't understand anyways?

(corr. sp)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pvtpylot on 2002-06-03 17:44 ]</font>

What’s the difference between aren’t and should not be?

That's not the difference I delineated. The difference between seeing stars in space (e.g., from earth orbit) and seeing stars on the lunar surface. When you figure out what the difference is, you'll have your answer.

This rules out blemishes on the lens or within the film.

I did not say that had to be on the lens or within the film. The process of producing those photos for web publishing entailed many possible sources of dust contamination, e.g., scanner bezels. The JSC scans were produced hurriedly as thumbnails.

You say they're stars, although you can supply no proof for that. And in fact, your assertion that they are the same between photos despite a different camera angle is good evidence that they are not stars. It is very strong evidence that it is contamination in the optical path during some process.

It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck. Yet you say it's a squid.

This does not apply to the Apollo 13 missions because they had a limited supply of Oxygen.

Irrelevant to the point, which we have covered elsewhere in any case.

Ok, so lets go with the appearance of a flame argument.

Is this a concession, or is it for the sake of argument?

You guys reckon that no flame should be seen, so why is one evident in many ascents from the Moon?

That's simplistic. That's not what we claim. You want to break this down into a black and white, either-or situation, when it has been painstakingly explained to you that this it is not binary determination. You simply refuse to take it into account.

If there is to be a visible plume from an Aerozine engine -- and there isn't always one -- that plume will occur at the ignition transient, which is the exact instant you've captured in your video frame. If you play the rest of the video, the plume instantly goes away.

The problem in your argument is that you're trying to have it both ways. If you say that a plume is visible, that refutes your own argument where you say the absence of a plume is suspicious. You've subverted your own support.

This comment would be fine, except for the fact that the background soil is of a completely different shade to the foreground and that is why such a distinct ‘join’ can be seen.

No. The argument that there is a contour feature is based on evidence other than apparent color. You claim to have read http://www.clavius.org/shadlen.html where this was explained in great detail. Apparently you didn't read it carefully enough.

Also several different backgrounds from different missions have the same features and size, even though the sites are allegedly several km away from each other.

I require an example.

Actually those sceptics are on this very group and told me about the two light sources around Christmas time.

All the posts have been retained on this board since October 2001. Please point to the thread in which this conversation took place.

Your own members came up with this theory, so if it’s wrong you can blame them.

No. I am not asking you to address some other person's answers. I am asking you to address my answers. You have a singular talent for trying to shift responsibility for your statements. You are employing what logicians call a "straw man", trying to argue against a weaker objection that what is mounted. Please either support your statements or withdrawn them.

So how did they communicate with Houston if the aerial was down?

VHF communications are impossible during re-entry anyway due to the ionization layer that builds up around the spacecraft. The antenna was lowered just prior to re-entry and then extended again after splashdown.

You’re missing the point. The wording I used is ‘Who would dare risk using the LEM on the Moon when it was never, ever tested successfully?’

No, you're missing the point. I don't agree with your assertion that the LM was not tested successfully.

The LEM was never successfully landed anywhere until it landed on the Moon.

The LM was designed to land on the moon. Its structure, engines, and landing gear were designed for that task. How could such a vehicle have been landed anywhere else? It came as close as it needed to on Apollo 10 to verify that the landing systems would indeed work.

You argue that the actual touchdown as the sine qua non of a successful test. How and where did you become an expert on the flight test of spacecraft? If you're not an expert, why should we trust your opinion of what constitutes a successful spacecraft test?

I seem to remember Armstrong almost being killed on one of the attempts made.

Armstrong ejected from the Lunar Lander Training Vehicle shortly before it crashed. Two of the five such vehicles were lost in crashes. The cause of Armstrong's crash was determined to be a leak which exhausted his manuevering fuel, making it impossible for him to steer the vehicle. Hundreds of successful test and training flights were made in these training vehicles without incident.

What's your point?

In regards to the ability to jump, within 1/6th gravity it would be an easier task to jump than here on Earth

Granted, but your argument is that the absence of such leaping is suspicious. This is an affirmed consequent. You claim they didn't do it because they couldn't do it. When in fact there were other reasons why they perhaps didn't want to do it. Leaping about on the lunar surface frequently led to loss of balance. There is some excellent footage of this on the Apollo Archive if you'd care to examine it.

Your argument rests on your assumption that if they could have, they necessarily would have. I don't agree.

even guys on Earth can jump 6 feet or above.

Then I challenge you to find an athlete who can replicate, in earth gravity, Neil Armstrong's leap up to the top of the LM ladder at the end of the Apollo 11 EVA.

More luck than judgement considering that there is no way of knowing when solar flares will erupt.

Agreed. However the probability of encountering an injurious solar event during an Apollo mission was actually less than the probability that the booster would explode on the pad killing them all instantly.

If you argue that the use of statistical probability to avoid solar events was insufficient to provide an adequate safety margin, I will require you to provide a statistical probability argument to support that. I do not accept handwaving on matters such as this.

In fact midway through the Apollo years the sunspot cycle was at its 11 year cycle high and was one of the highest recorded on record.

And all the solar events that occurred during that solar cycle were duly recorded and measured by several different organizations and countries. If you believe that a first-magnitude solar event occurred during an Apollo mission, please provide documentation.

And they didn’t go either!

Irrelevant. They produced a spacecraft design they believed would survive the cislunar environment. Please explain why the Soviet designs mention nothing of the massive radiation shields you say were necessary.

So where did all that used up oxygen go?

You have absolutely no clue how the space suits function. The sublimators are for cooling. It's a closed loop.

The oxygen is combined with carbon in the astronauts' bodies and released into the space suit gas loop as carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is absorbed by lithium hydroxide in the PLSS.

And Astronauts during the Apollo missions were living in these radiation conditions continually.

No, I do not agree that astronauts were living in the same conditions as persist during a dental x-ray. This has been my point throughout. You have provided absolutely no quantitative evidence of the x-ray conditions in cislunar space, or estimates of absorbed dose, or estimates of biological effects. You simply wave your hands and say it would be dangerous.

I am engineer. I want numbers.

Protection in dental x-rays is intended to produce an effectively zero dose in your blood-forming organs, meaning that you do not have to keep track of how many such x-rays you receive over a year to see whether you're approaching a dangerous dose.

Really, even though that man was to be a guinea pig on Apollo 1 and basically put his life in NASA’s hands?

That circumstance has nothing to do with whether Gus Grissom was in possession of the relavant information and expertise to say whether the entire Apollo program was on track or not. Your statement has nothing to do with your argument. You wish to argue that Gus Grissom's estimate of ten years is the authoritative estimate. Your statement establishes interest, but not authority.

But how many people have seen it?

Irrelevant to your argument. You claim NASA tried to destroy the Apollo 1 capsule on a number of occasions. I want to know why it's so difficult to destroy an item that's in one's custody.

In short, you have provided no evidence that NASA attempted to destroy the Apollo 1 capsule, and the assertion is preposterous on its merits.

Hazardous in my dictionary does mean life threatening.

Irrelevant. You have provided no quantitative data to support any of your arguments regarding radiation. I don't care what your dictionary says. If you don't have numbers, and the ability to correctly interpret them, you don't have an argument.

My current car has an onboard computer of around 64mb.

And if the same technology had been available to Apollo, their computer would have been larger and more powerful. The comparison to modern computers is largely invalid. The question is not whether the Apollo computer is equivalent to some other computer. The question is whether the Apollo computer is adequate for the tasks assigned to it.

Can you give any expert testimony as to whether the Apollo computer was not capable of performing the tasks it was asked to perform?

Obviously the Apollo craft had a lot more gadgetry to them.

Perhaps. Does your car regularly communicate with large mainframes in order to maintain proper operation? Or is your car's computer required to manage all those tasks on its own? Do you have any explicit input to your car's computer, or is it simply a "black box" to you?

Perhaps your car's computer is trying to solve different problems than an Apollo spacecraft computer.

That brings up another point. The bit of the car you can see in my shadow photos does not have a computer. If your car requires a 64MB computer in order to operate, someone could argue that my car, which has no computer at all, could not possibly operate. You make the common mistake that just because we solve certain problems with computers today, those problems had no solution before the application of computers.

how do you suggest that such a small memory computer could cope with the task?

In your highly expert opinion, how much computer memory is required to solve the problem of spacecraft guidance? What are the memory requirements for an embedded system as opposed to a general purpose system? What other measures of computer performance might be applicable to the problem of spacecraft guidance?

You better get in touch with NASA if you believe this because they have released images of the Apollo hardware, both on motion film and still photos - or are you calling them liars?

That was not your question, nor was that my answer. Your question stated that it should be possible for "a very powerful telescope" or the Clementine probe to have taken pictures of the Apollo hardware. I took the liberty of using the Hubble as the quintessential example of "a very powerful telescope" (arguably the most powerful available). And I pointed out that neither aspect of your scenario was possible.

You're now changing horses and saying that NASA has released photos and film of the Apollo hardware. That is true, it having been taken from the Apollo command module and some from the ascending lunar module, not either of the pieces of technology you mentioned.

You are trying to change the argument.

But you’re the one who tells me that you have so many thousands of documents on the Apollo missions – What’s stopping them looking at the old blueprints?

I don't claim to have every document, and I specifically stated that many of them were destroyed. In any case, having documents which describe the technology is not the same as having the technology in hand.

Future attempts to reach the moon will likely build upon various Apollo concepts, but will not simply reuse the same hardware. Nothing prevents engineers from looking at the design documents from Apollo, filling in the gaps, and producing the Apollo spacecraft again. But this is not what they would prefer to do. They would prefer to incorporate the advances learned in space technology since Apollo.

And the acquisition of the technology is not the chief impediment to returning to the moon. NASA lacks any mandate from the public to do so.

Surely these highly qualified scientists can work from a simple plan – can’t they?

Why do you assume spacecraft are designed according to "a simple plan"? I have participated in the design of spacecraft. You have not. I'll keep my own counsel about what is possible in that industry.

On the one hand your telling me that Schools and Universities are shown Apollo related stuff to learn from and in the next breath that NASA don’t bother to use it themselves… odd?

No, again you're trying to simplify away important differences. Studying some crucial aspect of Apollo technology is not equivalent to being able to reproduce it for use again on a whim.

The space shuttle main engines were designed according to many of the same principles as the Rocketdyne F-1. We still use the F-1 to help understand the SSMEs, and we use the SSME design as a springboard for newer technologies.

The point with regard to using Apollo technology as teaching aids is that if this technology did not work as advertised, the people studying it would discover this. And technology built on that as a predecessor would not work either.

You want to equate widespread familiarity with Apollo technology to the capacity to yank a lever tomorrow and have an actual, functioning lunar module pop out.

The whole Apollo project cost an estimated $25 billion.

In 1960 dollars. You do understand inflation, don't you?

So NASA would have more than that amount in just 2 years.

But "that much" these days won't buy you a moon landing program. And that's if NASA completely shut down all of its other operations and concentrated solely on returning to the moon. That's impractical.

Why do they have to cut back on resources?

NASA must work within the budget and mandate established by Congress. Congress has not authorized funds for returning to the moon, nor authorized that as a valid expenditure of any funds currently in NASA's possession.

You are grossly oversimplifying the factors that affect a national space program.

That’s a very convenient way of wriggling out of having to answer to firm evidence that you believe us hoax believers could not uncover.

Not at all. I simply point out that Bart Sibrel has gone to great lengths to make it difficult for you to see what's really happening in his footage. If it really is what he says it is, it shouldn't require his heavy editing and commentary. Since I have seen the footage without the benefit of Sibrel's commentary, I am free to form my own opinion of what it represents. I have also consulted with both astronauts and ground personnel to get a more educated interpretation.

There is nothing whatosever in the footage that says the astronauts are about to falsify an in-transit telecast from low-earth orbit. Everything that's in there is fully consistent with what NASA says it is: a rehearsal for a telecast that hadn't been discussed prior to departure.

You seem fully converted to Bart Sibrel's interpretation of this footage. And it is his interpretatiion. Have you considered at all any other possible explanation?

I thought that someone on here said that all NASA footage was released in the mid 70s? obviously that rule didn’t apply to this footage.

Completely specious. That it was first published in the 1990s does not prove it was not previously available.

What else has NASA got tucked away in the vaults?

I don't know. Speculation is your bag.

Oh how convenient, and you don’t think this is suspect?

No, I don't, because unlike you I have experience in the aerospace industry. I know about their document retention policies. Whether you think it's "convenient" or not is irrelevant. If you believe the materials were destroyed to keep them from being examined too closely, then it is your responsibility to prove exactly that proposition.

If this were the situation in the UK there would be a national outcry

Well bully for you. You can't cry fraud just because, in your infinite wisdom, you would have done it differently.

Why didn’t NASA offer the documents to a private buyer?

The documents that were held by NASA are in the National Archives and have been available for inspection for decades. This is only a very small portion of the total documentation produced for Apollo. The vast majority of the documentation is the part-specific paperwork I mentioned earlier. That documentation is held by the contractor (by U.S. law) and is largely useless once the spacecraft have been used (and in some cases, destroyed). That is the documentation which has been destroyed.

Conspiracy theorists, who do not understand the first thing about documentation in public engineering, are aghast at any destruction of documents, regardless of their historical significant.

This strengthens my argument that the position of the Apollo craft could not successfully be worked out by radio ham operators

False. S-band receiving antennas must be precisely aligned.

Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.

Hogwash. Reconaissance satellites are continuously in various altitude orbits at high inclinations, passing over most of the earth's surface at any one time. It is impossible according to orbital mechanics to make a recon satellite "hover" over some particular part of the earth.

I think I have more than responded to my critics with very a very valid response.

No, I'm very unsatisfied. You have, in many cases, simply tried to change the subject or throw irrelevant topics into the discussion. For the rest you have simply provided handwaving.

Further, you did not res