AstroMike: Which early landings specifically?

Apollo 11, 12 and I even think Apollo 13 is suspect.

AstroMike: You can't argue the early landings doesn't occur and that later ones did. It doesn't work that way. Once you take out one link, the others become disturbed.

I don't follow.

Squirm: In any case, I don't believe Neil Armstrong was the first man.

AstroMike: You think Neil went under four years of intensive training for nothing?

Not for nothing, no. This man was still going into space. WHOA! Space. Just think about it. This man was still very privileged, indeed more so in 1969.

More to the point, I believe the early crews actually carried out phases and exercises that would assist the later mission(s). They didn't just go up there and say "Run VT".

____________________________________________
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur."

Squirm: Are you under of the influence? You sound like it!

No, I am not. I make my decision after I have read your hypothesis and Jay's.

I take it you missed that bit, then?

I have not missed anything. You have misrepresented my points.

You're cracking me up.

Then I suggest you look over your hypothesis, and compare it with Percy's.

Now please tell me, where am I doing any of that?

You name it. Have you put much thought into your posts?

I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I was going to present the smoking gun which would prove once and for all that the moon landings were fake.

You have not proven anything. You're back to the same old trick of speculative conejecture. Jay has already give detailed points on why the whistle-blower theory fails and yours.

For heavens sake, not only have I acknowledged Percy's argument but I have clearly stated that I want nothing to do with it. How much clearer can I make that?

Then why does you arguments have a striking resemblance to Percy's?

Admit it. You're intoxicated. Aren't you.

No, I am not. I have never touched alcohol before, and I'll never will. You're being downright insulting, and I must remind you that this is a great way to get banned from this forum.

__________________
~AstroMike

If you have evidence for an Apollo 13 landing, then I will assert it was faked.

RE: Dambusters:

Did you know that within official circles this mission was actually far less successful than we were led to believe? The powers that be totally exaggerated the damage and turned the whole thing into a propaganda victory!

Yes I did. The real damage was minimal. The German industry in the area was back up and running within a few weeks. However, the propaganda was worth it, as well as the resources the Germans had to divert to defend the dams against further attack.

With this Diamonds are Forever thing, yes, it could be a whistle-blow. However, it's not very likely. James Bond films have always been a bit 'Minxy' in their approach. They tend to poke fun at current serious events. It's just the British sense of humour. I still regard James Bond films as comedy dramas, rather than serious pieces of theatrical genius. It's a big like all those seriously implausible gadgets, really cool, yet totally unbelievable. I suspect they are meant to be taken as seriously as Star Trek, or Indianna Jones.

I don't follow.

Allow me to explain. Your hypothesis suggests NASA couldn't make 1969 deadline, so they fake the first two landings. If they fake the first two landings, how can they bulid on experience by later ones? You probably should read the story of Apollo 10 before making your assumption.

This man was still going into space. WHOA! Space. Just think about it. This man was still very privileged, indeed more so in 1969.

Completely irrelevant. I should of specify that Armstrong's intensive training was for Apollo 11 specifically. Previous achievements from Gemini and later things after Apollo are not relevant in this case.

More to the point, I believe the early crews actually carried out phases and exercises that would assist the later mission(s).

Irrelevant. You may believe, but do you have any historical evidence? Until you do, I reject your argument.

_________________
"The contemplation of celestial things will make man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs." -Marcus Cicero

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: AstroMike on 2002-02-14 17:35 ]</font>

Squirm: I take it you missed that bit, then?

AstroMike: I have not missed anything. You have misrepresented my points.

I don't know how. {shrugs shoulders}

Squirm: Now please tell me, where am I doing any of that?

AstroMike: You name it.

I can't, that is why I am asking for direction.

Squirm: I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I was going to present the smoking gun which would prove once and for all that the moon landings were fake.

AstroMike: You have not proven anything.

Yes, I know that. I was being a little sarcastic.

AstroMike: Jay has already give detailed points on why the whi...

No, please forget Jay for one moment. If you are going to point fingers then it's quite improper to do so while hiding behind somebody else.

AstroMike: why does you arguments have a striking resemblance to Percy's?

If you reappraise my contribution you will find that there are major differences between what I believe and that which David Percy believes.

I simply called attention to what I considered to be the earliest possible reference to the hoax conspiracy, and what may be a subtle whistle-blow. Whistle-blowing features heavily in David Percy's book, thus it's subtitle -- Dark Moon: Apollo And The Whistle-Blowers. As I stated earlier, in this particular case, I believe that it is conceivable for someone to have propagated the message of wrongdoing behind NASA's back. Percy's hypothesis is that the message of wrongdoing not only was encoded but accomplished right under the noses of clandestine forces. I let it be known very early on that, in the circumstances Jay cited, you would be hard pushed to achieve such an aim.

My points have been quite simple, really, and in my opinion people have over reacted to them.
Now, I challenge to go to bed tonight and not dream of David Percy!

Squirm: Admit it. You're intoxicated. Aren't you.

AstroMike: No, I am not. I have never touched alcohol before, and I'll never will. You're being downright insulting, and I must remind you that this is a great way to get banned from this forum.

Oh, lighten up, man.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Squirm on 2002-02-14 17:39 ]</font>

The Bad Astronomer: If you have evidence for an Apollo 13 landing, then I will assert it was faked.

You know what I mean. I don't believe Apollo 13 unfolded as it is said to have unfolded. For the record, nor does Jerry Woodfill, the warning system engineer who was first alerted of the explosion.


John Witts: Yes I did. The real damage was minimal. The German industry in the area was back up and running within a few weeks. However, the propaganda was worth it, as well as the resources the Germans had to divert to defend the dams against further attack.

I guess one of the underlying points I was attepmting to make is that governments will tell tales to futrther their cause.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Squirm on 2002-02-14 17:50 ]</font>

Yes, I was making a joke. I didn't put in a smilie, for some reason. I usually do.

But I'll note that there is a chill in the air in this thread. I'll remind all those involved, regardless of which side they're on, to take it easy. When tempers flare, I get upset. You don't want me upset.

No. I am arguing that 'Diamonds Are Forever' could contain a whistle-blow. There is a difference. A difference you all seem to have missed.

We don't miss it at all. The difference is the heart of the debate. You can only provide conjecture, not proof of any kind. There is no limit to the number of things that scene could mean. An infinite number of interpretations is possible.

A number of posts have demonstrated this, that any number of scenes in any number of movies may be interpreted in any number of ways depending on the viewer's preconceptions and interests. It simply doesn't matter what it "could be". Since there are infinite "could be's" it only matters what you can prove.

No, I am not (borrowing Percy's
argument).

But most assuredly you are! You may not realize it, but the infinite number of possibilities available, for you to offer a whistle-blower theory nearly identical to Percy's -- simply substituting Maibaum's name for Fleming's -- and which is found nowhere else, has only one rational explanation.

It's not a misconstrual. Your argument differs from Percy's unique argument in only one particular. It just happens to be a very important particular as far as the validity of the argument is concerned.

Percy argues that the Diamonds scene may be a whistle-blow orchestrated by writer Ian Fleming. You argue that the Diamonds scene may be a whistle-blow orchestrated by writer Richard Maibaum. This isn't a common argument. You two are the only ones making such an argument. Percy wrote it first, and you've read Percy. By what stretch of credulity are we to understand you're not borrowing it?

Now it is plausible but invalid, as I am unable to prove that this was the case.

It is plausible at prima facie in Fleming's case, for reasons I've explained half a dozen times. It is not plausible at prima facie in Maibaum's case. I have provided evidence beyond prima facie which demonstrates that the Fleming argument is invalid. The Maibaum argument never was plausible.

But seeing as I'm not looking to prove this was the case I will accept that.

Are you conceding that you are unable to prove that Maibaum intended the Diamonds scene as a whistle-blow?

You must understand that we have no interest in idle conjecture. Either provide evidence or withhold the proposition. To do otherwise reflects badly on you, not on us.

I don't mean to state anything as a matter of fact, merely provide an avenue of possibility.

But there are countless such avenues. Thus only those which show promise interest us. You have, in fact, been endeavoring to show that your proposed avenue has some merit, but you are oblivious to why it is essentially unlike any of the countless other fanciful avenues. I might just as well suggest Maibaum was involved in the current Olympic judging scandal, for there is just as much evidence in favor of that as there is for your proposition.

I'm not trying to change minds here. That's never going to happen.

It would happen with well-reasoned arguments. We haven't seen any yet.

You say, essentially, "It's just a possibility; I'm not asserting anything." But you seem oblivious to the impliciations of your "possibilities", i.e., that lots of very talented an eminent people would have to be consummate liars if your possibility was true.

If I were to pick some eminent historical figure to whom you felt sympathy and say it's "possible" he was a child molester, but provided no evidence, I would be lynched.

But I am not asserting anything. At no point have I stated categorically or declared Maibaum to be an intelligence insider.

No, you're just weaseling around it but implying that he "might" be because no evidence has been presented that he wasn't. Conjecture is pointless.

I am not stating anything with absolute authority.

Maybe you should. "Soft" conjectural arguments are pointless. If there is indeed no evidentiary reason for us to travel down your avenue of thought, why not one that involves drug smugglers or space aliens? None of these has any evidence for it, but they're all more fun to talk about.

This relates to Percy's theory and this is almost certainly where wires have been crossed over.

Okay then. If, hypothetically, Maibaum had been given inside information, why would he reveal it in such a public way?

I believe Neil Armstrong may be alluding to something with his "there are places to go beyond belief" speech.

A matter of interpretation. There are countless avenues of interpretation open to you on this point.

What would Armstrong have to gain by having said what he said in the context in which you claim he said it?

And there are a few other comments by astronauts which are open to interpretation.

Again, interpretation. With countless avenues open, you rush immediately for the interpretations that favor a hoax. There's a trend.

I simply try to take into consideration
as many different scenarios as possible.

No, that is precisely what you are not doing. You are taking every opportunity for interpretation and applying a conspiracist preconception to it. You freely admit that you have no evidence for any of this, but that they are just "possibilities". But the common thread running through your "possibilities" illustrates your agenda.

In fact, each of your "possibilities" is very, very far down the list of probable explanations for each of these occurrences, yet these are the ones to which you are drawn time after time. How can we be assured you aren't simply trying to justify a conclusion you've drawn prior to examining the evidence?

If things have gotten complicated then that is because you lot are obsessed with David Percy!

Well, no, you have clearly presented Percy's argument with only very minor changes, and far more tentatively than he. One of us may have been the first to mention Percy by name, but the notion that Diamonds is a whistle-blow is Percy's argument. It's right there in black and white, and we know you read it.

I'm not reluctant, I just thought it was plain for all to see.

Your words are plainly visible, but their meaning and intent are not. You present an argument which differs from another well-known one by only one detail, then when appropriate responses are given you say we have not answered your argument. We are quite justified in asking where the dissimilar argument is.

It has been my belief for some considerable time that the people working towards such a goal would be doing so willingly.

Do you believe there was any threat of death given at any time to any of the hypothetical hoax workers?

People who are happy with engineering a hoax obviously need little or no oversight. But those who organize and plan hoaxes can't always be sure that those they engage to create the hoax are happy doing it, even if they seem to be.

Again, the nature of whistle-blowing requires that whistle-blowers operate under some material threat of punishment. Otherwise there is no whistle-blow.

When did I invoke Percy's evidence?

When you hypothesized that the creator of the scene in Diamonds did so with insider knowledge of a postulated moon hoax, and when you continued to imply that Maibaum "may" have had such insider knowledge despite the lack of any evidence to prove it.

I do! It's just that I often discuss other areas of contention at the same time.

Then that's not a clear expostulation. How are we to know what is relevant to your argument and what is verbal candy?

You are asking me to uphold David Percy's theory, right? I'm not sure I want to do that.

Then don't. It's sufficient to say, "I don't believe it's possible; I agree with you."

It's curious and suggestive for starters.

Curious why, and suggestive of what?

I've gone on at length why it could be a whistle-blow.

And finally admitting that it's only one of countless avenues of possibility, none of which has any evidence in favor of it.

I'm convinced they were behind schedule, most definitely. I belive the early landings were staged to appease almost everybody and to acquire that much needed preeminence in space.

But you also freely admit that you are not an engineer, that you have no particular experience or expertise in the creation of aerospace technology or any sufficiently complex engineering enterprise.

People all over the world with eminent degrees and considerable industry experience have no problem believing that the Apollo program progressed beyond the Apollo 1 issues and toward a successful landing. What experiential or educational basis can you bring to bear on the issue? Your opinion differs from most others. Why is yours right and theirs wrong?

I'm an engineer. I hold a degree in engineering. I have worked in the industry for a number of years. In other words, I am prepared to entertain a discussion of any degree of complexity on this topic that you choose to offer. Can you provide an argument sufficient to convince engineering experts that your assessment of the Apollo endeavor is credible?

<font color="ff0000">B.A.:</font>Being behind schedule at some point does not mean they couldn't make the 1969 deadline

One has to understand the complex relationship between the Block I and Block II spacecraft and where each was in its development in order to understand why the Apollo 1 failure had a limited effect on the program.

About 700 ECOs (Engineering Change Orders) were applied to the Block II spacecraft pursuant to recommendations following the Apollo 1 fire. Is that a large number? Non-engineers wouldn't know for sure.

In fact an Apollo command module contains about 1 million parts, comparable to a Boeing 757 airliner. It would not be uncommon on a project of that size at that time to have thousands of ECOs during development, and a hundred or so per year during producting and deployment.

So if we wish to answer the question, "How much did the Apollo 1 fire affect the design of the Block II spacecraft?" the answer would be, "Not all that much," compared to how much such a design changes normally during development, without the changes suggested by catastrophic failure.

In short, the Block I simply wasn't all that essential to the Apollo program, and therefore its failure didn't set back the development.

So what evidence leads you to suspect the early missions were faked?

It's very important to clearly understand this question.

First, we must have epistemological falsifiability. That is, the evidence which is given in favor of a hypothetical staged landing must be explainable only by such a hypothesis, and not also by any other.

Second, if one claims, for example, that all landings prior to Apollo 14 were staged, but all landings from Apollo 14 on were authentic, then the evidence one gives in favor of fraud must be there for the faked missions but not there for the authentic ones. You can't point to the same "anomaly" and say that one explanation applies in the fake missions and another one applies in the authentic ones.

I happen to know something about epistemology, so this could be fun.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-02-14 19:06 ]</font>

<font color="ff0000">AstroMike:</font>You can't argue the early landings didn't occur and that later ones did.

It's important to understand why this argument doesn't work. Each Apollo mission built on the achievements of its predecessor.

The missions were divided up into categories, among which: F (dress rehearsal), G (first landing), H (initial exploration), and J (extended exploration). A category would not be "closed out" until its objectives had been accomplished, no matter how many actual missions it took. This was to ensure that the necessary skills had been acquired before moving on.

Apollo 10 was the F mission. Apollo 11 was the G mission, although it was not expected to succeed. NASA believed the G mission attempts might extend to Apollo 13 or 14. Had Armstrong aborted the landing, which almost happened, Apollo 12 would have been the G mission and Pete Conrad would have gone down in history as the first man on the moon.

As it was, Apollo 14 was the last H mission. As such it had additional mission requirements that didn't exist for the G missions: pinpoint landing, two EVAs, hybrid trajectory. All these things were possible only because prior missions had had easier objectives and had accomplished them. The G mission used a free-return trajectory, had no pinpoint landing requirement, and no EVA requirement. Yes, no EVA. The primary objective of the G mission was, quote, "To perform a manned lunar landing and return."

If it is argued that Apollo 14 was the first genuine landing, then we have to ask why a mission with H-level requirements succeeded without any valid prior successes?

Apollo 13 failed to meet its objective. Therefore Apollo 14 was tasked to duplicate its mission. That's how the system worked. The beauty of the Apollo program was this escalation of requirements, the notion that one mission built on top of the other.

In my opinion, Squirm's hypothesis is less probable given his asserted premise of unreadiness. To say they would have failed in a modest mission in 1969, but succeeded in a much more ambitious mission in 1971 doesn't make sense. To fly in 1971 they would have needed the data from easier flights.

You think Neil went under four years of intensive training for nothing?

Indeed a salient question. Armstrong clearly wasn't in it for the fame or the publicity. He doesn't want any of that.

Armstrong was a pilot. His passion was flying, not grabbing headlines. Why would he be attracted to a scenario in which he merely pretended to fly, when all around him qualified pilots were flying X-15s and high-performance aircraft?

Most of the astronauts quit after their flights because they couldn't take the pressure of training for more than a few years. That's how intensive it was. And it was pretty public, too. It's not as if they trained in secret. Why would anyone go through that knowing there was no point to it?

Not for nothing, no. This man was still going into space. WHOA! Space. Just think about it.

I already have. This man had already been in space. Neil Armstrong had already earned astronaut wings before joining the Apollo program. He was an X-15 pilot.

He joined the Apollo program to enjoy the challenge of learning how to fly to the moon and land on it. Orbital flights would have given him nothing beyond the X-15, which was a more exciting spacecraft according to most.

I believe the early crews actually carried out phases and exercises that would assist the later mission(s).

What "phases and exercises"? Using what equipment? In what state of development? If, for example, you want to argue that lunar orbit rendezvous wasn't attempted until Apollo 12 or 13, then you have to answer why all the pertinent data suddenly became available after Apollo 10.

Jay may well have said that there in no evidence that the creators of this scene had insider knowledge, but in response I briefly questioned what he had done to ensure that he had no insider knowledge.

Irrelevant. I have no obligation to do so. You, however, have an obligation to provide evidence that Maibaum did have such knowledge.

To answer your question, I have read everything I can find on Maibaum, which isn't much. I have read somewhat more on Broccoli and Mankiewicz. Nothing I have yet read mentions anything about involvement in the intelligence community. However, when I read about Fleming I can't get past the second paragraph without being told about Fleming's adventures in the intelligence trade.

Now I could do this forever. I could interview everyone who ever knew Maibaum. I could meticulously research his life and work. But unless I could prove to myself that I had exhaustively studied his life, without possibility of exception, I could not assert that he had no connections to intelligence. In short, it is not possible to prove that no such connection exists.

It is, however, possible to prove that one did exist, simply by finding evidence of it.

And what of prima facie? Pick a hundred people from different professions other than intelligence. See how many of them have prior experience in intelligence, or connections to the field. Few, if any I'll wager.

Thus it is quite appropriate to presume that someone does not have connections to the intelligence community until such a connection can be established by evidence. It's a reasonable supposition, and it provides an epistemologically sound scenario for investigation.

In short, I have no responsibilities here. If you wish us to believe that Maibaum had insider knowledge, then you must prove it. No one has the obligation to disprove it.

If you prefer simply to rest on the notion that Maibaum "may" have had insider knowledge, then it's simply a waste of time. It's equally valid and useless to say that Maibaum "may" have been a space alien, that he "may" have been a child molester, or that he "may" have been Billie Holiday's love child.

You're asking us to take absurdity seriously.

I have clearly stated that I want nothing to do with it (Percy's argument). How much clearer can I make that?

You must make it abundantly clearer.

David Percy argues that the scene in Diamonds Are Forever may be a whistle-blow. You argue that scene in that film may be a whistle-blow. How can you possibly not want anything to do with it when your claim is substantially the same?

I'm sorry, I didn't know Percy had copyrighted that questionable sequence and all resulting controversies.

Then you had better review Percy's arguments, the forms in which they are given, and the copyright notices which are attached to them. "All resulting controversies" is not the issue. The fact that you have argued Percy's argument with only one difference is hardly mistakable.

Squirm, I have never worked for the Intellegence Services, yet I could never prove this fact. I could never prove I don't know the words to the Japanese National Anthem. If you suspect that I have and I do, then it's up to you to prove it. I can't prove the negative. In fact, it's impossible to prove a negative in general. No two snowfalkes are the same shape. This is regarded as true, but it can never be proved without checking every snowflake that ever fell with every other. Clearly an impossible and impractical task. It would be possible however to prove this statement is wrong. Just find two snowflakes the same. Any two would do, and the statement is falsified. All you have to do is find a connection between the writers of Diamonds are Forever and the intellegence services. Easy. Then we'd all shut up.

For the record, nor does Jerry Woodfill, the warning system engineer who was first alerted of the explosion.

For the record, hundreds of other experts who were also there and who are more qualified than Woodfill on the particular systems involved, disagree with him. There are plausible reasons for why Apollo 13 happened the way it is said to have happened.

Woodfill's web page is

http://www.ghg.net/woodfill/TRACT13.html

I urge you to read it carefully, because it's not necessarily what you think.

Woodfill's first point: The oxygen tank could have exploded at any time. Well, yes and no. Some of the conditions which caused the fire were present at launch -- even prior to launch. Other contributing factors such as the degree of tank depletion and stratification of contents took time to develop.

His point is that had the explosion occurred earlier, it would have been fatal because they didn't have enough consumables to get back. Had it occurred later, it would have been fatal because the LM would have been used for its intended purpose. Thus the time of the accident is somehow "convenient".

Codswollop.

The tank had to deplete to the point where it would stratify, then the bare wires could have arced. Prior stirs occurred before the tanks had fully stratified. That explains why it didn't occur earlier.

Once that condition had developed, we would expect the next instance of the initiating event -- the arc -- to cause the accident as soon as the conditions were right, not several stirs down the road. Tank stirs don't occur all that often. That explains why it didn't occur later.

But now Woodfill makes this great leap of faith and says that because this (and subsequent items) are so improbable and suspicious, Apollo 13 was meant to have a different outcome. It should have had a different outcome. Therefore the sequence of events in the mission was not due to chance, but according to some plan.

More on this down the page.

Woodfill's second point: The hatch would not close. His analysis is based on the unsupported assertion that the hatch was "perfectly designed". Nothing on a spacecraft is ever "perfectly" designed. We could argue that lots of things on a spacecraft ought to be "perfectly" designed, yet every mission has a discrepancy list. Apollo 14's docking mechanism was supposed to be "perfectly designed" too, yet it failed. Apollo 16's engine gimbal was a Criticality 1R component, yet it failed too. The notion that critical components should never fail (especially under exceptional conditions) is absurd.

Postulate a somewhat alarmed astronaut fumbling with a hatch in zero gravity, when the hole in which that hatch goes is fluctuating under mechanical stress pursuant to O2 venting and RCU corrections in degraded performance.

Says Swigert, "While Jim and I were trying to do this [i.e., dog the hatch], I misaligned it in the tunnel and we didn't get it in the first time." (Apollo 13 Technical Crew Debriefing, item 8.0)

In fact the problem was not that the hatch did not close, as Woodfill argues, but that the hatch was not being operated correctly, and understandably so. When it was dogged later in the flight, under less urgent circumstances, it worked perfectly.

Analogously, if you were being chased by a vicious dog and you fumbled with the key to your front door and couldn't properly align it because you were panicked, would you say that the key or the lock malfunctioned? Would you say this was a "suspicious" failure?

Point three: The power system simulation failed when the proposed LM-to-CM jump was simulated. But the jump actually succeeded.

Simple answer. The simulation is unfaithful. Lots of simulations fail when presented with extraordinary circumstances. Simulations can only represent what they are designed ahead of time to represent.

Point four: An unexplained drift in the CLSM stack which mysteriously went away.

An injured spacecraft vents. A spacecraft that vents, drifts.

Since spacecraft don't normally vent uncontrollably, they don't normally drift. Hence none of Apollo 13's guidance behavior can be considered normal. Therefore the cessation of venting and drifting can't be regarded as "mysterious".

If you're reading the web page, and the rest of Woodfill's site, you're probably getting the picture. The "unseen author" Woodfill credits with changing the "natural" flow of events for Apollo 13 is God. Woodfill found religion as a result of his involvement with Apollo 13, not an odd thing to have happen.

So my response sounds like I'm pitting science against religion and stomping all over this man's faith. Not in the least. If Woodfill wants to hypothesize that a little girl's prayer stopped Apollo 13 drifting, I certainly can't provide any counterevidence which disputes that.

No, we have to consider the evidence in the way I believe Squirm intended it. While he may or may not agree with Woodfill's conclusion regarding divine intervention, he likely agrees with the premises of Woodfill's argument, and instead applies them to the conclusion that Apollo 13 did not unfold as it "should" have and therefore may have been falsified.

Unfortunately, examining Woodfill's points from a purely scientific and engineering point of view, they don't necessarily present an implausible scenario. There are quite credible reasons for why these supposedly "improbable" things happened.

Improbability is a difficult thing to deal with in failure analysis. Part of my design engineering training is in failure analysis. I'm not one of the world's experts on it, but I do happen to know one of the world's experts on it: Charles Perrow.

The essence of system failure is precisely the combination of improbable events. You can say that an improbable chain of events led to the safe return of the astronauts. And I can turn right around and say that an improbable chain of events led to the accident in the first place. You can say that had one little thing been different, the astronauts would have been doomed. And you'd essentially be right. But I can turn around and say that if one little thing had been different, they wouldn't have been in danger in the first place.

So if you want to try to explain the improbable, you have to deal with all the improbables, not just the ones that fit your pet theory. Woodfill's hypothesis fails scientifically (even given the existence of God as an axiom) because while it suggests that God effected an "improbable" rescue, it fails to account for an equally or more improbable failure.

Okay, back to Perrow and Squirm.

We have contested the notion that the elements of the mission recovery were improbable.

The creation of a single downmoded spacecraft from the functional elements of two spacecraft actually resulted in a somewhat less complex system. Simpler systems have less chaotic function and are more deterministic and predictable. Perrow notes that the downmoding of the mission was supported by four complete expert teams working around the clock with intimate knowledge of the systems involved.

The downmoded spacecraft was optimized for one thing: crew survival. All the other objectives were rescinded. Therefore the improvisation of a new mission with a new spacecraft system concentrated only on a few critical systems.

The resulting engineering construct was loosely coupled and linear, two very desirable characteristics for a complex system. Although the complexity was increased by operational unknowns and the lack of redundancy, it was decreased overall by the omission of noncritical subsystems.

Although it seems counterintuitive, Apollo 13 after the accident was a lean, mean, survival machine.

Perrow goes on to note that redundancies reappeared as the downmoded mission progressed, decreasing overall system complexity.

Okay, so what does all this engineering-speke mean? A system which is loosely-coupled, linear, and simple is better understood and more tolerant of (subsequent) failure. That means mission controllers and astronauts can more easily grasp the meaning of new failures and have more slack in which to devise solutions.

The versatility of the Apollo spacecraft is legendary. The "spares in place" paradigm meant there were many ways to configure the spacecraft to accomplish any given task. The contingency planning is also legendary. We don't do much contingency planning anymore, but Apollo contingency plans were elaborate and exhaustive. Although the LM Lifeboat scenario was a bit dusty, the fact that it had been studied, simulated, and had procedures written for it is fortunate.

(cf. Perrow, Normal Accidents, pp. 271-281.)

Squirm: I don't know how.

You have misrepresented my points because you think I have not read your hypothesis and I don't know what talking about.

I can't, that is why I am asking for direction.

Then perhaps we should go back to the top.

Assertion #1: I am arguing that 'Diamonds Are Forever' could contain a whistle-blow.

Assertion #2: It is my hypothesis that this scene is possibly a whistle-blow.

Assertion #3: I've gone on at length why it could be a whistle-blow.

Does this help?

Yes, I know that. I was being a little sarcastic.

Then why are you insulting me when have you admit that?

No, please forget Jay for one moment. If you are going to point fingers then it's quite improper to do so while hiding behind somebody else.

All right, I'll forget about Jay. But you're still pointing fingers at Diamonds to cover yourself. I'm not trying to hide behind somebody else on purpose.

If you reappraise my contribution you will find that there are major differences between what I believe and that which David Percy believes.

All right, your hypothesis is different than Percy's, but not that different. The foundation for it is basically the same layout as his.

Now, I challenge to go to bed tonight and not dream of David Percy!

I'm not trying accuse you of being obsessive with Dav