For the good of BABB, Jay, please concede gracefully and give up on GLP. You're taking a fearful pounding from IDW and his intracranial cohorts. It's making us all look bad.

The beatdown IDW and his virtual clones are administering to Jay reminds me of a Woody Allen bit on how he taught some bullies a lesson - exact words not remembered, but something like -

"Some punks got tough with me, so I had to get tough with them. First, I smashed one guy's fist with my face. Then I rammed this other guy's knee with my groin. Then I ..."

Arrgh, against my better judgement I went to GLP to look at that thread. I just can't handle that place. Anyway, I don't think Jay and Bob B. are taking a pounding at all - the last page seems to be made up of people laughing at IDW, especially cutting and pasting some physics from a site on raquetball, chaging some words to "vehicle" but accidently leaving in some sentences about racquets.

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Huh? Just how are Jay's well reasoned and articulate posts making "us" look bad?

I agree with [b]TriangleMan[/i].

I think that was meant as a joke. Read the Woody Allen part again.

Now IDW is asserting I went back and inserted a post dated the previous night to take credit for something he claims to have figured out on his own. What a jerk!

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I don't think facts will be in any way successfully in changing IDW's mind. Obviously he ignores them.

Possibly the only one who could get through to him is a psychiatrist.

In some ways it's probably better that his father isn't around to see it.

Yes, my tongue was firmly planted in cheek.

As far as I can tell, the whole thing is about three BABBers (I've AC posted a few times too), about four GLP regulars, mostly ridiculing IDW, and IDW with about seven sock puppets. He and his sock puppets have run through a number of "arguments":

- can't transfer heat via radiation, so S-IVB/CSM would melt;
- his dad worked at ALCOA and knew it was all a hoax;
- he's heard the crew respond instantaneously to ground from the Moon (but refuses to produce his tape)
- he used to work on titanium parts for the Saturn V and "management knew they were door props"
- he's a radiologist and knows that deadly X-rays would kill the astronauts;
- gamma and X-radiation is stopped by the Van Allen belts, Van Allen doesn't really believe they could have done it/Van Allen is a shill;
- no space radiation data is available, NASA is hiding it all;
- he did all the hoax-proving radiation calculations, professionals did them, they're estimates, he's got the numbers, he hasn't got the numbers because NASA's hiding them, could Jay please give him the numbers?
- he's an engineer and etc., etc.;
- thrusters are used to make the LM stable by firing in the same direction as the descent motor;
- there's no throttle on the descent stage;
- thrusters aren't used to turn the spacecraft - they're only used to steer!
- more power = more stability;
- the LM would have crumpled when docking with the CM;
- work = force = torque = "force vectors" = power = energy (or something like that);
- his "estimates" are as good or better than any paid shill's calculations;
- Jay is a full-time paid debunker, is not an engineer because he has no patents, is a decent engineer but misguided, is a lousy engineer, is an OK guy, is an a******, etc., and runs a small army of character assassins.

Have I missed any?

The funny thing is, aside from the "paid debunker" and "army of character assassins" claims, he's dropped each one after playing serial cat toy for several pages, and moved on to the next. His LM-go-squish story is now playing, but better hurry if you want to see it on the big screen.

I suggested to him that to keep the thread going just go on to the next 4 (out of the 100 reasons he has that proves it was fake) but I think it's a no go.

I wish I could add to the thread more but engineering is not my bag. Unlike IDW I won't even try to fake it .

Now, if IDW starting spouting off about the origins of languages, or beer, or coin collecting, don't worry guys I'd jump right in and set him straight :wink:

It's reassuring to know we have you there backing us up if we need you.

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Yea, as soon as he starts telling you all that the mint mark for the Carson City mint was C on the Morgan silver dollars, when we all know it was CC, or that a stout is a Lager, I'm going to have to get medieval on him!

- official story of apollo 13 flawed with references to "cold".

I think you spoke too soon. He's once again screaming for space weather data.

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A pronoun describes a noun! An adjective describes a verb.

I see IDW's expertise extends far beyond physics and engineering.

It's kind of funny watching IDW miss the tricky (and interesting) issues and concentrate on the trivial ones instead. He's currently obsessing about the second docking maneuver (i.e the LM ascent stage docking with the CSM), completely missing that it involved two manned and maneuverable vehicles and thus was relatively safe.

In my view, the first docking maneuver would be a lot trickier, since it involves the same load-bearing structures but much heavier vehicles - the fully-fueled CSM as the active part and (similarly fully-fueled) LM + S-IVB stage as the passive part.

Did the spent S-IVB stage have any stabilisation capabilities at this point? Was there a separate RCS on it, or was it truly "dead in space"? Seems that this might have become a tricky situation if it had been nudged into rotating.

I'm also a bit curious about how the ascent stage managed to equalise velocities with the CSM upon rendezvous. My impression is that the RCS on the LM wouldn't be powerful enough - am I off course here?

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The S-IVB had an attitude control system under ground control (called the APS for reasons that escape my sieve of a memory - Attitude Propulsion System?), which was used to diverge the trajectories of the S-IVB from the CSM/LM stack after extraction. This is how they managed the S-IVB impacts onto the lunar surface.

I don't believe that it was used during the TD&E, with all the work being done by the CM. (I may stand corrected on that point however!)

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"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

My impression is that the RCS on the LM wouldn't be powerful enough - am I off course here?

The LM RCS was sized to manuever a 17-ton fully-fueled dual-stage vehicle. The problem with the RCS steering only a nearly-empty ascent stage is how to hold it back.

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APS = Auxiliary Propulsion System

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Ah yes, that was it. Thanks, Bob!

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

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

Hehe, thanks :P Didn't think of it that way, which is of course why I was flat-out wrong. My thoughts were that propulsion and rotation of the ascent stage during docking had different requirements on the propulsion system. But as long as the propellant didn't run out it seems the RCS would suffice.

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

This is what I like about being here. You can post something that you may think is correct, or some figure you are not sure about, and someone is bound to come up with the correct figure or a full explanation, usually with a source so we can check ourselves. Then we are more than happy to be more fully informed, or admit our error or misconception. That is the essence of reasoned debate associated with the practice or explanation of real science and/or engineering.

Compare this to "GLP Science" or "HB Reasoning" where "I have constructed my own pet theory about why it is all a hoax or a conspiracy and I will now try to find any minute fact that might be used to suggest it is possible. I will then state that this is how it MUST be as this dubious (and often unsupportable) piece if 'evidence' COULD show how my theory is correct. The fact that it is also shown to support debunkers claims when true science is applied is therefore now irrelevant."

(I did wonder about including deliberate spelling mistakes in there to make it more "lifelike", but thought better of it...

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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 ....

Keep the pressure on, guys. IDW is in meltdown.

Good lord, that thread has grown. I got's me some reading to do.

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IDW is really getting boring; he just keeps repeating the same nonsense and denying the obvious. Unless it's possible for someone to really be that ignorant (is it?) I suspect he's just putting on an act. As long as the discussion remains stagnated like it is now, I'm not going to waste my time with it anymore.

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IDW thrives on your attention. I think the best thing you can do now is deny him that attention.

Awww. But it's so fun!

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

There used to be a creationist troll by the name of "DNAUnion" on many of the evolution boards: he sounded uncannily like this IDW guy.

I guess the similarities are due to convergence, but man, can't these people come up with any novel (i.e., interesting) ways to spout their crankiness? Why must they all sound like reclusive caffeine-hyped video-game playing twenty-somethings with just enough technical education to be dangerous and no outlet for their testosterone rages?

Or did I just answer my own question?

IDW tripped himself up finally, if only in a minor way.

He said early on that he was 11 years old in 1969 when Apollo 11 happened.

Later, he said he took Physics 101 (3.9gpa) in college when he was 16. That would make it 1974.

And now he's saying he attended college from 79-83.

OOPS!!! :^o

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I think you just answered your own question.

Some of these people have some legitimate intelligence and in fact may indeed have scored high on aptitude or intelligence tests. That, in my opinion, is a strike against standardized intelligence testing. That kind of testing does not test what we call "domain knowledge". It tests only abstract problem-solving skills. It's good information to know, but our culture equates high scores on such tests with knowledge of specific things.

Regardless of how smart you are, you still have to actually sit down and learn physics or chemistry or medicine or finance or whatever domain you intent to work in. Engineers (and many other professionals) face a different form of the domain knowledge problem. We come out of school with our heads full of abstract engineering. But in practice engineering is usually applied toward some other field. Engineers who are going to build x-ray machines need to learn something of radiology. Engineers intending to build spaceships need to learn something of what it's like in space.

In any case, a few souls either convince themselves or are told that they are very intelligent, and yet fail to acquire the domain knowledge they need in order to be intelligent in some field. And so as IDW has done, they flounder their way through a self-taught crash course in whatever they're trying to discuss. As intelligent as people are or think they are, they are still bound by intuition, and I cannot begin to count the number of things in this world that defy "common sense". Heat transfer, for example, by conduction or convection is very common-sensical. But heat transfer by radiation is not. Nevertheless it exists.

As you can see in IDW's case, there is often considerable resentment for legitimate practitioners of the fields in which the conspiracist is trying to demonstrate domain understanding. I believe this stems from frustration over the drudgery of obtaining domain knowledge. Sometimes it is simply because the conspiracist lacks the intelligence to understand some particular domain but very much wants to. In other cases, especially those in which the conspiracist scores high in intelligence, it can be seen as an affront to his ego that someone with "lesser" intelligence could nevertheless be more capable in some specific thing. The latter is especially disastrous because the conspiracist's pride prevents him from adopting a learning posture and thereby correcting his deficiency.

You can see how this would translate into a love of conspiracism. It becomes simultaneously a way to reject and embarrass the Establishment and also to satisfy one's desire for a rewarded intelligence. A sort of pidgin engineering and scientific approach prevails, lending itself to be adopted by those of either modest intelligence or modest specific knowledge. The outrage and opposition from the Establishment is interpreted as circular confirmation that one is "on the right track".

And very often this goes hand in hand with emphasis on "new age" science -- the far-fetched kind that deals with lofty speculative principles without actually being useful for anything. This fits the conspiracist's perception of himself as "above" everyone else. Then it's okay that the other people dink around with kinetic energy and newtons and furlongs; the conspiracist is talking about multiverses and zero-point energy and other "advanced" topics.

When I was teaching introductory classes at the university as a graduate student I ran into the IDW mentality all the time. If you've been to college you know the type of student who argues incessantly with the instructor and wastes everyone's time trying to show how smart he already is. You have to be careful how you deflect that behavior. In some cases the motivation is sound: the student wants to extrapolate and infer from basic principles. That's the kind of person who has the potential to go far in the field because he has a highly interrogative mind. The student has to be encouraged to channel his energy into testing his new ideas instead of merely advocating them.

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Very good, Jay. Are you going to post that on GLP as well?

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Jay - have you studied psychology? Your grasp of multple facets of the human mind is well founded in things I remember reading in my clinical psychology courses.

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"Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter neccessitatem."
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Jay, I'd like to suggest that there's a basic qualitative difference between the example you gave of the obstreperous student and the genuine IDW mentality.

Someone who is argumentative because they see an apparent contradiction between new knowledge and what they infer from their existing knowledge base might not be using the best method of resolving the conflict, but they're still struggling to understand and to learn.

OTOH, the dogmatic conspiracist type isn't seeking to learn, he's casting about blindly for something to use as a weapon, whether he understands it or not, which dramatically increases the probability that he'll get it wrong way round and shoot himself in the foot.

Those seem like truly different motivations to me.

I'm not an engineer, I'm a technician/troubleshooter. In the course of twenty years of following that trade, I've observed that a judicious sense of when to ask for help from someone more knowledgable about the problem at hand is a very valuable tool, both for dealing with the immediate situation and for enhancing my own problem-solving powers.

I've also noticed that the willingness to say "I don't know" when appropriate seems, paradoxically, to be more apt to win respect from bosses, clients and co-workers than trying to be a consummate panjandrum all the time.

Funny how it's possible to learn that empirically, without the benefit of higher education- and yet it so commonly goes unlearned.

edited because my spelling gene is misfiring today.