http://www.gpgwebdesign.com.au/astronauts.htm

Opinions welcome.

More specifically the two Shuttle movies (at the bottom of the page) reportedly showing alien space craft.

I love it. Even the jokes are conspiracies. The second paragraph on that page is:

"Santa Claus is the term used by NASA to indicate a sighting of a UFO by a space flight. Walter Schirra was the first to make use of the term Santa Claus during his Mercury 8 flight. His report was ignored by the public. James Lovell aboard the Apollo 8 command module announced, once he had returned from the dark side of the moon, 'Please be informed that there is a Santa Claus.' Many sensed a hidden meaning in the words despite it being Christmas Day 1968."

Mercury 8 page from Encyclopedia Astronauticax.

<font size=-1>[Added astronautix links]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GrapesOfWrath on 2001-12-23 10:12 ]</font>

now back to COPY LEFT |the rights over that way =>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HUb' on 2001-12-23 11:13 ]</font>

Many sensed a hidden meaning in the words despite it being Christmas Day 1968.

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

He he he! Talk about investigative reporting here. Where's that baloney detection kit? Oh, here it is... Wow, look at that reading... [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Let's see, we have lunar vibrations being evidence that the Moon is hollow. Yeah, there can be no other reason the shocks can last for hours.

And look! Now we know why Apollo 13 had it's "accident". Aliens sabotaged it because they were going to set off a nuke on the moon and prove it's hollow.

We have a list of unsubstanciated quotes by astronauts. I especially like the one attributed to armstrong:
<pre>
"According to author Timothy Good, a friend
of his apparently overheard Neil Armstrong
speaking to a friend about why NASA had
stopped its Lunar missions after 1972..."

</pre>
So, one author says that a friend of his apparently heard Armstrong saying something completely out of
character. Friend of a friend of a friend, etc. Yes, we can believe this one.

And what's the point with the story of how Gordon Cooper got selected? Is it supposed to mean something?

We have a couple of videos of specks of something drifting past shuttle windows. Naw, they can't be flakes of ice or dust being pushed around by the shuttle's thrusters. They have to be part of some secret Star Wars test or something. I wonder how NASA let these damning pieces of evidence slip out?

Oh, but of course NASA sticks conspiratorically to their story in spite of one claim that it can't be ice particles. Yes, we'd better believe that physicist from Nebraska, of whom we know nothing, because you know we can't believe what NASA says. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I love this one:
<pre>
Another explanation for the footage which
has been thrown up is that the flash which
is seen to the bottom right is actually the
shuttles thrusters coming into operation.
That's fine but why do the thrusters
influence the objects and not the trajectory
of the shuttle itself?. The curvature of the
horizon does not change one iota.

</pre>


Sure, everyone knows the shuttle just swings around like a top every time thrusters are
fired. It's a lot easier to move a shuttle-sized object than a tiny ice crystal after all. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I'm looking forward to the unnamed astronaut with the unknown irrefutable evidence to be disclosed in an unknown way at an unknown time in the future, aren't you?

Ok, last thing. For those of you without a clue, all of my comments here have been facetious and sarcastic. This is so you can take them out of context later and show how I was actually supporting the positions of this page. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

_________________
David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."

<font size=-1>(Minor formatting changes.)</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2001-12-24 01:48 ]</font>

Heh... personally, I like
"Note: ALL photographic material from the Apollo Missions and NASA should be treated with great circumspection."

I don't think I need to say more. Except maybe "so where does HE get his pictures?"

Many sensed a hidden meaning in the words despite it being Christmas Day 1968.

The meaning of this statement is very overt. Apollo 8 was a very daring mission because it put astronauts in lunar orbit with their only hope for return pinned on one relatively untested piece of equipment -- the SPS motor.

The outbound trajectory was a free-return trajectory. Had the astronauts done nothing when they reached the moon, they would have swung around the far side and been returned to the earth's sphere of dominant influence and a free ride home.
Instead they performed a standard capture sequence:

LOI-1 -- a retrograde burn at perilune to reduce the velocity sufficient to establish an orbit.

LOI-2 -- a posigrade in-plane burn at apolune to make the orbit more circular.

At this point the only way back was a TEI manuever, a high delta-v posigrade manuever at perilune to reach lunar escape velocity and return them to the earth's sphere of influence. The only engine they brought with them that could do that was the SPS, and if it failed to relight they would be trapped in lunar orbit.

Since this burn takes place on the far side where they are unable to communicate with mission control, the only indication of success is the time of AOS.

"Be advised there is a Santa Clause," is best interpreted as the astronauts having received the best possible Christmas present -- a working SPS and a trip home. This is how Lovell interprets it, anyway. There doesn't appear to be any evidence that something unexplained was sighted. "Many" may feel that something else was intended, but none of the astronauts involved seems to have conveyed that impression in any of their recorded statements.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-01-02 16:01 ]</font>

I would nominate Apollo 8 as the riskiest mission NASA has ever undertaken. I still find it amazing that the first manned use of the Saturn V was also the first time astronauts were sent to the Moon.

We have a list of unsubstanciated quotes by astronauts.

Of course you have to cite astronauts because if anyone's going to see a space alien it would be an astronaut. But the experiences cited all happened when the astronauts were test pilots flying conventional aircraft. As such they carry no more weight than any of the hundreds of other sightings of unexplained phenomena by all the other non-astronaut test pilots. It just sounds better if you can claim an astronaut saw it.

It's also amusing how those astronauts who say nothing about UFOs or space aliens are "muzzled", while those few who choose to discuss it have "broken ranks". Come on, they either talk about experiences they've had or they don't, and if they don't it's not necessarily because they're being suppressed. They might not have had the experience. The notion that all astronauts would talk about tea parties on the moon if they were allowed to is absurd. It's an argument from silence.

The really funny one is that regarding Dr. Brian O'Leary. I have periodic contact with O'Leary's so I'll have to ask him about this one.

The notion that a ham radio operator picked up that statement from the space shuttle is patently absurd because the shuttle's communications are digital. The voice channel is carried in the telemetry downlink. You can't tune in and hear what they're saying unless you've got NASA telemetry decoders. To a ham radio it would all sound like modem static.

As long as we're talking about mixed up facts, let's examine the charge that NASA terminated public video downlinks from the shuttle after these so-called UFOs were seen. Those of us who get NASA-TV are treated to hours and hours of pretty tedious live video from the shuttle during a mission.

Obviously this webmaster is not one to let facts stand in the way of telling a good story.

We have a couple of videos of specks of something drifting past shuttle windows.

Quite obviously normal flight detritus. No question about it. We've been seeing this stuff since Mercury days. It's fairly uncommon to aim a video camera out of a space ship and not see floating debris.

That's fine but why do the thrusters
influence the objects and not the trajectory
of the shuttle itself?. The curvature of the
horizon does not change one iota.

But perhaps it changes a tenth of an iota. The shuttle's stationkeeping ability is pretty awesome. It's really not all that difficult to engineer a system to hold attitude to a fraction of a degree. The guidance system will detect an attitude or rate error long before your eyes can.

The flash is entirely consistent with the shuttle RCS system operating in pulse mode, and it would definitely be the most plausible cause for the observed motion of the particles.

Sure, everyone knows the shuttle just swings around like a top every time thrusters are fired.

We cannot rule out a translational maneuver either, whose effects would not be visible using the earth's horizon as a reference.

I'm looking forward to the unnamed astronaut with the unknown irrefutable evidence to be disclosed in an unknown way at an unknown time in the future, aren't you?

Sure. This rumor has gone around more times than the one about Neil Armstrong being Muslim. (He's not.) And even though the entire quote boils down to, "Someone will at sometime say something very important," it doesn't stop the UFO-infatuated from assertively suggesting what that important something will be.

And when all the Apollo astronauts are dead, the UFO crowd will simply assert that they took their secret to the grave with them. At no time will it be seriously entertained that there actually was no secret.

This is so you can take them out of context later and show how I was actually supporting the positions of this page.

Good thinking. I've already told a bunch of grade-schoolers that space shuttles are easier to move around than ice crystals. Thanks for clearing up that bit of questionable physics. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-01-02 16:47 ]</font>

Well, I couldn't blame them for being happy about scooting round the moon and being on the way back to Earth. Would be pretty lonely out there and you'd be hoping like hell that everything ran to plan.

Gee, I never considered they might feel that way. Good to know they're off the hook!

Come to think of it, you're right. I wonder if the astronauts ever thought about that? It's insights like these that definitely justify resurrecting a 3.8-year-old thread.

__________________
A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Actually, I enjoyed reading what ToSeek had to say about Apollo 8. I had no idea. It gives me a new perspective on how brave these people really were. Wow!

__________________
Suffering from wrackspurt.......

I think in was in Nova's "To the Moon" that Bill Anders said, "At the time, I gave us a 1 in 3 chance of completing the mission and returning safely, a 1 in 3 chance of failing, but returning alive, and a 1 in 3 chance of not returning at all."

__________________
"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

Wasn't it Ed Hocken who said, "He's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a 10 percent chance of that."

__________________
"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

Thanks, Count Zero. It's on my Netflix list!

__________________
Suffering from wrackspurt.......

Hi, Jay Utah.

Bingo, par none.

Well done.

And for the record, Wally Schirra pulled his Jingle Bells joke on Gemini 6A, not his Mercury flight.

__________________
"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

That explains why I couldn't find it in the transcript of his Mercury flight.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran