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.

__________________
Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

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!

__________________
Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

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.

__________________
Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

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.

__________________
Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

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?

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

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!)

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

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.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

APS = Auxiliary Propulsion System

__________________
Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

Ah yes, that was it. Thanks, Bob!

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

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.

__________________
"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...

__________________
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 ....