I posted a comment on Aulis, and an editorial was attached. I was wondering whether anyone was interested in commenting.

I said:

"If operating in the van Allen Belts is a problem, then how do commercial satellites (such as communications satellites) operate there now? After all, the geosynchronous orbit where they operate is inside the belts. I understand their electronics are hardened to an extent determined by reference to NASA data. If NASA was understating the amount of radiation present in the belts, then those satellites would be failing frequently, and NASA would quickly come under investigation for supplying dud information.
"Peter B Canberra, Australia On Tue 16 Jul"

And Aulis replied:

"For an analysis of the degree of authenticity in the official NASA line concerning the radiation hazards to both technology and bio-organisms prior to and during Apollo, please refer to the subject of radiation in DARK MOON. Also see the Aulis News Item 'Solar Flare Halts NASA Launch', as well as the recent announcement concerning radiation by NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. These items can be found on aulis.com.
"In particular, we recommend you read Radiation Belts Threaten Satellites, Astronauts on
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9812/08/radiation.belts/
"The Apollo flights were supposedly ‘designed’ according to the scientific knowledge at the end of the 1950s – when the official line of thought was that the van Allen Belts followed a steady, consistent and (therefore open to prediction) pattern of activity. However, research published in 1998 concluded that these already intense belts of radiation can become excessively powerful in mere seconds, and such effects extend down into the atmosphere. It is therefore obvious that if insufficiently protected, satellites are affected as well as anything or anyone that is in space and unprotected. Moreover, according to this 1998 information adequate protection costs too much and makes craft too heavy to launch. This, of course, was even more true of a lunar launch during Apollo. The Apollo astronauts were not protected against such extreme conditions, and mere seconds between states cannot be predicted. So for NASA to state that it ‘planned for any SPE’ is somewhat short of the mark – indeed this ‘new’ information shortens the odds on the Apollo astronauts and their craft avoiding a problem in the van Allen Belts drastically. However, the discrepancies concerning Apollo emerging today would tend to indicate that this ‘new’ radiation information might well have been known, or at least suspected in some quarters, long before 1998.
"Aulis"

Anyone?

Well, you'll probably get a lot of replies from people much more knowledgable than myself, but I can't resist observing how much space they used in not answering your question.

""For an analysis of the degree of authenticity in the official NASA line concerning the radiation hazards to both technology and bio-organisms prior to and during Apollo, please refer to the subject of radiation in DARK MOON."

Thank you for the reference to such an authoritative source. What about the comm satellites?

"However, research published in 1998 concluded that these already intense belts of radiation can become excessively powerful in mere seconds, and such effects extend down into the atmosphere. It is therefore obvious that if insufficiently protected, satellites are affected as well as anything or anyone that is in space and unprotected."

"If insufficiently protected" is a great outski. The conclusion they apparently want us to draw is that before 1998 we didn't know enough to design spacecraft that were sufficiently protected.

What about the comm satellites? How often did the pre-1998 models get zapped, how long was their mean lifetime, and what does this tell us about the likelihood of a really hazardous event happening during a particular time interval, say, the duration of an Apollo mission?

"Moreover, according to this 1998 information adequate protection costs too much and makes craft too heavy to launch."

And what about the comm satellites?

Oh. I get it. If adequately protected spacecraft are too expensive and too heavy to launch, then there must not be any.

Therefore, either I've never had a phone conversation with anyone in Europe or my calls were routed through a trans-Atlantic cable, complete with delay lines to simulate 45,000 miles worth of propagation delay and deliberately introduced crosstalk between transmit and receive to simulate echo suppression artifacts.

I'm impressed. Two paragraphs worth of text and never do they directly address your question. If their contention that all the information on radiation hazards available to the designers of Apollo was dangerously wrong is true, then what about nearly 40 years of succesfully operating comm satellites within the Van Allen belts?

About the specifics of the radiation environment in space I admit I don't know bubkes. Recognizing evasion and handwaving doesn't require an advanced education, and that their reply is made of just that is as obvious as what a brick wall is made of.

On that basis, I say it's spinach and I say the Hell with it.

The Aulis authors are certainly masters of distraction.

For an analysis of the degree of authenticity in the official NASA line concerning the radiation hazards to both technology and bio-organisms prior to and during Apollo, please refer to the subject of radiation in DARK MOON.

Buy our book, buy our book, buy our book, buy our book, buy our book, buy our video, buy our book ...

The Aulis site is little more than a promotional tool for their materials and a repository of testimonials. It ceased long ago to be a forum where the authors' conclusions could be questioned.

The Dark Moon treatment of radiation is a large collection of utterly uninformed analysis and speculation. For example, they wonder with great puzzlement why Skylab radiation exposures were greater than any of the Apollo lunar landing missions. Of course, anyone who knows anything about radiation exposure knows the answer, but that doesn't keep Aulis from trying to insinuate it's because Apollo's exposures were simply made up.

Also see the Aulis News Item 'Solar Flare Halts NASA Launch'

Launch and deployment are different than continuous operation. The guidance system of a launch vehicle is hardened against nominal radiation, but not necessarily against the peak of a solar particle event. The inability of the deployment system to withstand a solar flare does not indicate that the payload spacecraft itself cannot withstand it.

Further, the spacecraft are designed to withstand a certain number of solar events that works out to a lifetime of about fifteen years. If, by delaying the launch until a pending solar event concludes, the effective life of the spacecraft can be extended by the average period between such events, this would be an advantage to the customer.

... as well as the recent announcement concerning radiation by NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe.

Which has to do with long-term periodic exposures, not the type of exposure encountered by the Apollo astronauts. Aulis authors have consistently demonstrated that they do not understand the difference.


In particular, we recommend you read Radiation Belts Threaten Satellites, Astronauts ...

The so-called "killer electron" argument. Unfortunately this finding does not have much to do with the fact that commercial companies have been reliably operating satellites in the Van Allen belts for years with no otherwise unexplained failures. Storms of killer electrons have not had a major deleterious effect on spacecraft not specifically designed for them. A very few satellites have been damaged by solar events, generally by protons. Long-term failure modes of communications relay spacecraft generally involve the degradation of the solar array by energetic protons to the point where the spacecraft does not receive adequate power.

In short, Aulis' response is the typical handwaving appeal to fear, uncertainty, and doubt without providing any meaningful context or application. Any statement by space experts that boils down to, "The radiation environment of space includes this extra hazard we didn't know about," is immediately translated by the hoax believers into evidence that their particular model of cislunar radiation is correct.

It is therefore obvious that if insufficiently protected, satellites are affected as well as anything or anyone that is in space and unprotected.

Correct, but irrelevant. Satellites in geostationary orbit would be expected to endure several bursts of activity throughout their operational lifetime, whereas Apollo astronauts would be affected only if such an event occured when they were transiting the belts. Aulis authors seem very oblivious to the notion that the Apollo spacecraft did not spend an appreciable amount of time in the Van Allen belts.

Moreover, according to this 1998 information adequate protection costs too much and makes craft too heavy to launch.

False. There is simply a cost-benefit tradeoff. Aulis authors cannot speak intelligently about what types and amounts of shielding are required to reduce exposure of sensitive components to an acceptable level. The space station has already received its shielding against "killer electrons" in the form of polyethylene slabs. Boeing is revising its flagship 701HP spacecraft design to accommodate similar shielding.

The Apollo astronauts were not protected against such extreme conditions, and mere seconds between states cannot be predicted.

True, but also irrelevant. Since these events are rare and would have affected the astronauts only during the four hours or so in which they were inside the Van Allen belts, the protection is probabilistic and not mechanical. What are the chances that such a particle event will occur during the four-hour window in which the astronauts would have been vulnerable? Very, very small.

And the Aulis authors haven't been able to get around the pesky fact that no large-scale events actually occurred during any of the Apollo missions. "It was a big danger," they say. But did it actually happen?

So for NASA to state that it ‘planned for any SPE’ is somewhat short of the mark

Not at all. NASA's planning for solar events considered all possible methods of avoiding the hazard, not just piling on mechanical shielding. Since Aulis authors cannot demonstrate any degree of expertise regarding spacecraft design and operation, or mission planning, we do not necessarily accept the validity of their opinion that adequate protection was not considered.

this ‘new’ information shortens the odds on the Apollo astronauts and their craft avoiding a problem in the van Allen Belts drastically.

Not in the least. The techniques to limit exposure apply to this new evidence as well, since they were based largely on trajectory design (in which, incidentally, Dr. Van Allen participated), not a detailed understanding of the nature of the hazard.

In short, Aulis wants to cast suspicion on Apollo because the spacecraft's suspension was not designed to handle all the potholes it might encounter. They do not consider that the spacecraft was simply steered to a portion of the road were potholes were less likely to occur. Therefore if one comes along later and says, "We know more about the hazardous nature of potholes than we did back then," the avoidance of potholes altogether still provides a suitable measure of protection.

However, the discrepancies concerning Apollo emerging today would tend to indicate that this ‘new’ radiation information might well have been known, or at least suspected in some quarters, long before 1998.

And at long last they've simply restated their position without defending it against the counter argument. They say that the "true" nature of cislunar radiation was known in Apollo times and was reported differently to the public to make it seem more possible for the missions to have succeeded. They have not addressed in the least the fact that private companies have been using that supposedly bogus data successfully without unexplained failure in designing and operating commercially viable spacecraft in the Van Allen belts.

Aulis response is just a lot of smoke and mirrors.

I love this. They obviously didn't read the website very well.

The website clearly states this new "killer electron idea" is only a theory. And it takes an accumulation of these electrons to disable a satellite. It also states that the implications to NASA is less clear.

Again it looks like buy our book.