That's why I come to these parties; you learn such cool details.

Plus, although I think it should be obvious to a rational person that something as huge as the Apollo program could not be faked, and also that the majority of the HB claims are absurd, it is both helpful and sobering to be told by a professional person just what the actual science and technology look like.

We amateur debunkers are often guilty of some pretty pathetic science ourselves -- and I'd rather not give the HB's more ammunition.


Looks like Jay won that round. IDW just tossed in the towel.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I remember when the final design for the LEM (later LM) was unveiled by Grumman/NASA, it was described as the first true spaceship, in that it was designed to operate only in space. Hence the elimination of any aerodynamic features and exposure of many features that would be under the aeroframe for an atmospheric craft.

I was really impressed by it and looked forward to seeing the design of its descendants which would be assembled in orbit for interplanetary trips. Still waiting, unfortunately.

Gemini was extremely cool, especially when the adapter module was still attached during orbit prior to retrofire. Except for the wires dangling out the back, it looked like one big, well-integrated spacecraft.

For me the hi-res photographs of the Earth and the LEO environment Gemini brought back really acted like having one's own eyes in orbit and demonstrated what views from space could tell us about our planet. Plus once the Agena docking and boost mission was a success (Gemini 10 if I recall correctly), there was no doubt that we were well on our way to the Moon.

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For info (if anyone is interested) it was me posting on the GLP thread in answer to A&S about why no dust seen on liftoff - due to ASCENT stage lifting off from DESCENT stage. Thus exhaust was spreading out sideways at about 8 or 9 feet (can someone confirm height??) thus no ground dust would be picked up.

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

Let me just say that I am STUNNED both by the LM engineering and by Jay's explanation of it. I knew it was Mylar, but I had no idea it was as carefully placed as all that. I thought it was just for heat rejection, and I had no clue there was more than one layer.

That's what impresses me so much about Apollo: Once you start looking at the fine details, you keep finding these incredibly well-designed things.

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"We do not require reality to conform to the expectations of the ignorant"

Can you just imagine the conversation ...

"I hear you work in the space programme - what do you do?"

"Oh, I hand-crinkle the mylar outer layers on the LM."

Would that have been a cool job or what?

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Dave

Anyone seen my marbles? Anyone ... ?

my eye's my eye;s...... I'vve just worked through all 19 pages of the GLP thread.... I may have to go and lie down in a darkened room for a few hours to recover ,

Jay how do you do it ?, polite, informed, lucid and cogent all the thngs GLP is famed for NOT having , you displayed them to all the disblievers , there really should be some kind of award for you efforts .. how about .. =D> =D> =D>

Even with Jay killing their arguments, they still fail to see the truth. The biggest problem is these HBer's are not going to believe any amount of evidence, even if it is from an expert! They will take the word from some web site that probably copy/pasted their "facts" from another website.

I've almost given up trying to convince people we went to the moon. I think alot of them are unwilling to accept the truth, no matter what evidence lies before them. Like that guy at GLP, he fails to believe that his dad may be mistaken, these people need to learn on their own.

Is that what he was talking about? I thought he may have been referring to the lack of an exhaust plume. BTW, I'm posting over there as BB and also responded to the same post.

According to this page, the length (i.e. height) of the LM's descent stage is 2.8 m (9.2 feet) and its diameter is 4.2 m (13.8 feet).

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Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

I wonder somethimes if the belief in a Lunar Landing hoax is a generational thing. I'm 47 and I grew up watching Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missiions on TV, it seemed a logical progression then, and indeed now. One man , flights 2 man flights , docking , EVA's then 3 man flights , then the landing.

Ok looking back with hiundsight we can aopporeciate how many corners NASA cut and how what risks the crews actually ran .

However a 20 something looking at the Lunar Landing in isolation might just be driven to the HB positiion since it takes less effort to believe in a big lie than to find out the truth -

Ok that's me finished being agest now!

Ditto. I'm 47 as well and feel the same as you.

I noticed in IDW's last thread that I think he's the same age as well. I believe what happened with him is that he got disillusioned by the broken promises. Remember back in the early 70's when we were promised (and believed) "Moon Bases", "Men to Mars" and "Flying Cars" all by the year 2000?

I know I certainly believed all those things would be true some ~30 years from then. And I am quite disapointed that none of it ever happened and we aren't even anywhere close.

I think in the case of people like IDW, they expanded on the "lies told then" and decided it must have been all lies.

Did that make sense?

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From my exchanges with IDW I think you might be on to something there. Start with an interest in science and space, toss in some possible issues with his father, sprinkle in some disappointments and unmet expectations in the state of the space program, fold in some mistrust of authority, and blend well with a healthy dose of paranoia, and viola!

It looks like we could have a meeting of the mid-forties club - I'll be 47 in in three months. Unfortunately I don't remember anything from the Mercury missions and have only a few vague memories of Gemini. Apollo, on the other hand, I remember very well.

I'm a little confused just how many people we're talking to over there at GLP. Some posts sounded like IDW but were addressed "Anonymous Coward". The guy who claims to have made the recordings of the Apollo 11/12 landings (I don't think it's IDW) said he was 11 at the time, so that would place him as about our age.

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Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

Do multiple personalities count? 8-[

That's funny- I'm 47 too, and I was thinking the same thing as Scotsman just recemtly- that if you saw the space program develop the Moon landings seemed a perfectly logical culmination. The idea of approaching a goal by developing the abilities you'll need to get there step by step was accessible even to us grade school kids.

The point about disillusionment is well-taken as well, though I don't recall ever expecting to see flying cars or anything else out of a '50s futurist's fancy, especially during the '70s, when the popular belief that science and technology would keep on making life better for everyone was starting to sputter and stagger.

Perhaps Jean Gimpel was on to something in the conclusion to The Medieval Machine, and the feeling I recall from the '60s that the world could and would become a better place to live does seem to be gone, but it's still an awful leap from "the predictions were wrong" to "the predictions were lies" to "history is all lies". I can't quite fathom the mental mechanism that jumps like that.

I do wonder about folk like IDW- the dogmatism and rigidity and especially the tendency to a sudden access of anger that characterizes PCT dialogue. That thread is interesting, because the correlation between stimulus and response is right there to be seen. If the emotional springs that the triggers act on could be understood- the connection between the belief and the intense feeling that drives an all-costs defense of it regardless of external reality, perhaps it would illuminate some of the Conspiracy Engine that seems to be part of the human brain.

It does make me wish that I knew something about psychology.

I don't know the psychology behind the sort of outburts we've seen from some of the posters, but I know why I am moved to anger by the inanities there. In the tangled resources of my mind, the people who post blithly about converging shadows are the same people who scream at me to "turn up the microphones and lose that feedback!" or "I need three colored spots of light on the floor; a red one, a green one, and a black one!)

I suspect, though, there is a particular kind of simmering anger that comes to an engineer-type when he decides that he's been systematically mistreated and lied to. I've run into a few people, usually of my father's generation, that have this same rock-hard distrust of everything the government says. These are the sort of men who are very hard to convince of anything, but once enough of the tests come in on one side or the other, they are as difficult to sway away from their conviction.

They went into the schools, often did their cold-war military service, put on the white shirt and the cropped hair and did their best and their utmost building the country and doing the best durn engineering they knew how. And the companies grew and changed -- middle management is promoted over their heads, friends are layed off and have to face uncomfortable retirement...and the glorious future they were building is systematically dismantled by a society that won't take risks, won't take good care of what it has been given, won't learn, and won't accept blame.

I'm not of that generation, myself. But I was raised by one. And you can take your supercilious doctors, and your ego-storm artists, and they all fade against the brutal contempt of an engineer presented with something that doesn't agree with the physics he was taught.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I missed it by 5 weeks

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There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

He's ba-ack!

And there's a lovely discussion by Jay of the various rocket engines in question. I hope he's copied it out and will save it somewhere where it will reach more people.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I've struggled through to page 16, but I just can't go on any further. Ignorance is one thing - but this is something else altogether (and something that is not a little disturbing quite frankly).

How IDW can engage in a battle of wits when he so poorly armed is beyond me.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

Well, I'm shortly to hit 42 and I haven't gone to the website in question.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this on the website in question, but what about GEMINI BLUE and the MOL?

I remember seeing the only GEMINI BLUE capsule at KSC during their "NASA - THEN & NOW" tour.

(Thank you KSC. You made my ultimate trip of a lifetime. To the ex-USMC pilot who hosted us, please forget my lovely lady. She is wonderful but does not share the same enthusiasm as me. To enlighten you all, we did the tour. We were going past various historic sites, and our host was pointing out HANGAR S, etc, when my love shouted out "LOOK! THERE's an armadillo!".

I was forced to feign no knowlege of her - despite our Australian accents - but she is a vet with a love of all animals.)

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

It's deffinitely the 40 something club on here! I'm 48 and remember being glued to TV, radio, newspaper articles, magazines (especially National Geographic) and anywhere there was ANYTHING about Apollo.

Those Nat Geo magazines helped fill me in on Mercury and Gemini. My grandmother collected them and I looked out everything I could find about those missions as Apollo was underway. I was probably too young (and also we lived in Pakistan for 6 years of my youth, mainly during Mercury and some of Gemini) as my father was an engineer on a major project out there during the early 60's.

We came back to Britain in '66 and I picked up from there really. Being an inquisitive 10 year old space was a wonderful adventure, and there were actually men GOING THERE!! So instead of trying to make up adventures about it or read about it in comics it was actually happening!

And by this time, the progression on to the moon was beginning to take shape so I was getting caught up in the excitement. When Apollo 8 went out to the moon and back it was just awesome!! .... and the rest, as they say, is history!

And also, for me, EVERY TIME I hear the audio of Eagle's descent and landing, I find myself holding my breath exactly as the controllers in Houston were. Hearing the countdown (for remaining fuel) while they are maneuvering around finding a safe landing site, and finally those immortal words "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed!" still brings a lump to the throat at the enormity of the achievement!!