http://advweb.com/kw/forum/misc/messages/689.shtml

I know I've posted this before, but if anyone wants to have more fun debunking, debunk this long post from David Wozney.

It's really that amusing.

__________________
~AstroMike

Good -so he was there before NASA was formed and around the time that LOR was selected as a method to go to the Moon. Good time for him to design the entire engine system, for both spacecraft.

That increases his credibility rating. So the Federal Reserve is a hoax? Is Alan Greenspan a hoax? Bill keeps talking about us bribing Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor - a fair indication of what mental institution he should be in.

Eh?

a) F-1 engines were never on the Atlas rocket.
b) What is the "B-1" engine?
c) How is the final sentence proof of a hoax? Of course there is a tremendous exhaust from the rocket.

Probably a lie, but:

Before Ranger
Before Luna
Before Surveyor
Before Lunar Orbiter

Good for Neil. It is well known that Armstrong is a very private and shy men who likes his privacy kept undisturbed. He rarely speaks at all. Kaysing deserves to be arrested for stalking Armstrong.

NO PROOF WHATSOEVER that Irwin made such a call.

Pure coincidence. Also, the Phillips report was classified and treated as a memo in the agency.

They can. We all know why. Go to Clavius for proof.

The pan obviously started before he fell and it was just another coincidence. Certainly not satisfying his Burden of Proof.


[img]http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/pao/AS15/10075742.jpg
[/img]

Which way is the shadow pointing? Thought so. Certainly not directly away from the flag, which would be the case if a spotlight were on it.

Also, a question about the second image. This is the only Apollo image that looks to me like it has a backdrop. Now, I know that the Apollos are real (I've posted far too many debunkings not to think so), but what causes the "backdrop" effect in the second picture?

Not on uneven surfaces, we don't.

This is same old, same old. I'm done with it.

__________________
"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars". - Edward Young, 1745

Just a reminder, it's false to say NASA has not explain this yet.

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/media/...ar_landing.pdf

__________________
~AstroMike

Don't mind if I give a crack at it as well, Jim?

While it is tough to say where development ends on an engine in use, this much is correct. The preliminary F-1 designs were begun 23 June 1958 and the first operational F-1 engine was delivered 31 October 1963. (Ref Encyclopedia Astronautica

However, this is a red herring. The status of the F-1 engine is not called into question. Most of the technical aspects called into question involve the Lunar Module, of which Rocketdyne played only a minor part and this after Kaysing's tour was over.

Furthermore, while Head of Technical Presentations could be consistant with his positions as a senior technical writer, Kaysing's limited qualifications, a degree in English, meant that his responsibilities do not give him the intellectual authority to question the F-1 design out of expert opinion.

The Dark Lord's wackiness never ceases to amaze me. His comparison to the alleged Pearl Harbour hoax is a non sequitor. Pearl Harbour is not accepted as a hoax, and so before he can start using it as evidence, he must justify the assertion.

The lack of credible references is typical of the Dark Lord but not acceptable.

The spelling of harbour indicated a British writer. Not another one. Why are they always British. :x It's an embarassement.

And this differs from the design of any other engine how? All engines have problems, especially one as powerful as the F-1. Doesn't mean the problems can't be solved. After Kaysing's departure, Rocketdyne had three years to sort out any problems encountered during operational tests before the first functional use of an F-1 engine on Apollo 4.

The F-1 engine was never used on the an Atlas rocket. The Atlas was notoriously unreliable in its early use, but reliability was improved as with all things... except operating systems.

No engine has ever been designated B-1.

Fuel rich?

:-? The rocket disappears? Asgard technology maybe? This sentence makes no sense.

Any source for this claim?

That was awfully psychic of them. Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was even approved until 31 May 1961. How they could make a judgement about what is and isn't going to work on a program that was even invented at the time is a mystery.

The Dark Lord commonly alludes to this statistic but has never produced a citation for it. But either way, it is irrelevant. The G class mission happened a decade later. A lot can happen in a decade.

Neil Armstrong is comparatively quiet compared to his comrades in the astronaut core but this is not an unknown tendancy. He has given many interviews, including a comprehensive mission review to Eric Jones of ALSJ and an interview to Patrick Moore. He just isn't a outspoken as many of the others. But the statement that he doesn't talk to anyone is a lie. He just doesn't talk to conspiracists. He's got better things to do than to be called a liar with only the flimsiest facts and logic.

I'm not sure what to make of this offensive statement. He has been employed widely by the government, but that doesn't mean he's been living off the government. He's been doing a service for the government and has been reimbursed for his effort with wages. That's fair. He owes his country nothing. Your attempts to characterise him as some kind of parasite is an offensive and unjust ad hominem for which you should be tried for treason.

The Dark Lord's friends are no doubt conspiracists and such, Armstrong has no desire to be harassed by them.

The Dark Lord frequently states this as fact and yet he's provided no evidence to support his claim.

Factually incorrect. He said that he had acquired second hand reports of safety trangressions by NAA. The report was rejected mostly because it contained nothing but rumour and hearsay and because most of the more valid stuff was already submitted in his previous report and NAA demonstrated they had acted on it.

NAA was the target of the Baron report, not NASA or the Apollo program. It said nothing about Grumman, about Boing, about Douglas, about TRW. Just about problems NAA had to sort out.

You have merely stated a fact and no interpretations. This is a real Percyesque ploy. The juxtaposition of this fact next to a statement that Baron had strongly criticised Apollo has complex implications that towards which you send the reader without having to take responsability yourself. Well tough. I am holding you responsible for the implications. So kill the whistle-blower after he's blown the whistle? Aren't the Death Squads supposed to do the deed before the whistle-blowing?

So you're now an economist are you? The failiure of one project means serious implications to the US economy? Apollo wasn't that important. Furthermore, you've only implicated NAA and Rocketdyne, libelously. What about all the other contractors? They were doing their jobs. Why should they lose their customers?

Calling all Jays. You're usually better at this kind of thing.

All rocket engines? The generalisation is unacceptable. You can't simplify just to bring down to your level of limited understanding. We want to now about the TRW TR-201 engine.

Rocketdyne engines of what thrust? An engine is not an engine is not an engine. They come is all different shapes and sizes. A generalisation is not accepted. TRW built the LM DPS, so I don't know what Rocketdyne engines have to do with it anyway.

Others can.

We will keep our own council on instanteous panning. Oh wait. We can't. You haven't provided the source. That's a problem... for you. Your argument is rejected on the grounds that you haven't stated it.

Nevada? The wind and water eroded terrain is the perfect likeness of course.

It has aircraft hangers, Muppet.

Anomalies to the ignorant, not to the educated.

David Percy, I presume. He's not doing anything for the BBC. His ingorance of perspective is truly astounding.

This isn't a fact, it's a condition needed for your conspiracy theory to be true. Stop stating it as fact.

What technology would that be? Antigravity chambers? Perfect vacuum chambers?

This is no longer an investigation. It is a fantasy. You're making up things you want to be true.

The Dark Lord is wacky and crazy.

The Dark Lord lost the case, but it says a lot about him. He's trying to enter the public eye and yet he cannot handle criticism. He's calling Lovell a liar and then getting childish when Lovell gets annoyed about it. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the fire.

Yada yada yada. Been there, smelt it, bought the gas mask.

Because Apollo is American and a lot of brits detest the USA for ideological reasons and the Apollo hoax is a stick to beat the USA without
admitting to it in as many words.

I say this as a Brit who isn't Anti-American.

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FROM THE REVIEW UNDER SCRUTINY:
He will not discuss
the most fantastic publicized event of all time.
He won't even talk about it. A friend of Bill's
wanted to interview Armstrong but Neil told him 'If you
come back one more time I will have you arrested.'



The "friend of Bill's" is none other than BS, who trespassed on Armstrong's private property. Trespassers are often arrested.

Unless they happin to be revenuers. Thin we just far off ar shotguns over ther heds. :-)

Sure, you know... that's when you turn the little brass screw on the carburator until you get a bit of soot out of the tailpipe...

It is, in fact, possible to run a rocket engine "fuel rich" -- that is, with more fuel than you provide oxidizer to combine with. It's not a very efficient way to go, of course, since you have to carry extra fuel that doesn't burn and so gives you no thrust. No competent designer would allow an engine to run this way except perhaps during starting transients or at the very end of a burn (to ensure that the tanks were emptied).

The turbines that drove the F-1 fuel and oxidizer pumps were run fuel rich, and their exhaust was very smoky and did "afterburn" a bit when it was dumped into the engine exhaust in the engine bell extensions. This was responsible for the "dark plume" effect - a section of the F-1 exhaust just below the bell that wasn't bright incandescent (at least, not compared to the lower portion of the plume). My recollection is that the fuel-rich mixture provided lubrication and/or cooling to the turbopumps and engine bells.

I've seen this article many times. Too bad David Wozney won't emerge from hiding to discuss it with me.

Bill Kaysing was the head of a technical presentations unit...

Technical publications unit, although since Wozney mentions he heard it on the radio we'll give him the benefit of the doubt as transcriptionist.

No such job title appears on Kaysing's official work record from Rocketdyne. The only job titles relevant to that claim are "Technical writer" and "Publications analyst". At any rate the unit Kaysing claims to have led consisted of himself and three other people at a field laboratory (not "fuel" laboratory -- again a transcription mistake, but an important distinction) for Rocketdyne.

Even if this were all true this doesn't qualify Kaysing to discuss the engineering of rocket engines at an expert level.

...from 1956 to 1963

That corresponds roughly to the development period of the Rocketdyne F-1 engine, but ...

This encompassed the major planning for the entire engine system and design and related components of the Apollo program.

No. Rocketdyne supplied the F-1 and J-2 engines used in the Saturn V, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the spacecraft themselves.

Aerojet produced the SPS and Bell produced the lunar module ascent engine. Rocketdyne was originally contracted to produce the variable-thrust LM descent engine. However, a parallel contract was let to STL about the time Kaysing left Rocketdyne. Rocketdyne's DPS contract was cancelled; neither the CSM nor the LM flew with any Rocketdyne engine.

Bill was there in the early days and he watched a lot of things come to pass.

But he wasn't there in the late days when most of the exciting problems were faced and overcome.

Kaysing indicated that the government is skilled at pulling off hoaxes.

Guilt by association: the ruse of the conspiracy theorist who can't provide any direct evidence. Further, Kaysing is all but a professional conpsiracy theorist. His propensity to see conspiracies everywhere doesn't bode well for his ability to defend any one of them.

The Apollo hoax is to be looked at within the context of other government hoaxes of this century...

No. The Apollo hoax theory is best examined according to hard evidence that pertains directly to it, not by means of handwaving from irrelevant theories.

For example, there were problems of combustion instability of liquid rocket engines. As late as the development of the F-1 engine for Apollo they found out it was very difficult to control these engines.

A clever rail split. The combustion instability of the F-1 was a key problem in its development. However, engineering is all about facing and solving those problems, and Kaysing completely ignores the techniques that were applied successfully to damp out those instabilities. He was there; he would have written and read about them. But he fails to mention them at all.

Kaysing's case is built entirely on the notion that the engineering problems were too daunting to solve. However, he can only make this case by selectively presenting the evidence he claims to be most conversant with. The F-1 was delivered, tested by Boeing (who built the Saturn IC stage for the Saturn V), tested by NASA, and used successfully. It is considered a masterpiece of rocket engine design, so well engineered that it does not need a computer to run it.

But Kaysing simply wants us to believe the opposite on nothing more authoritative than his say-so.

Thirteen Atlas missiles exploded consecutively at Vandenburg Air Force base.

The main problem with the Atlas design was not its propulsion system, but rather its revolutionary lightweight "pressurized monocoque" structure. It failed under load many times until engineers got it right. Kaysing does not tell us which of these failures were due to propulsion failure and which were due to structural failure.

The F-1 engine was not in the Saturn V ultimately, but rather B-1 engines which were more reliable.

Let's leave aside the notion that thousands of people witnessed the presence of the F-1 engines in the Saturn V, and hundreds of thousands more witnessed these engines in operation.

The B-series engine was first designed for the Atlas booster series, but it was replaced by the MA-series which used an entirely different thrust chamber design. The B-series was ablatively cooled; the MA- and H-series were regeneratively cooled. The F-1 was an upscaled version of the H-1 used in the Saturn I booster, and these have lineage in the MA-type design, not the B-type design. I am not aware that the B-1 ever flew, nor that any B-type engine was ever actually used in a flight version of the Atlas. To say it was "more reliable" is codswollop; it was superseded by the MA design in the late 1950s.

Kaysing may be confused by the fact that B-1 is a designation for a test stand at Rocketdyne. In any case, he's throwing out a bunch of model numbers that have no bearing on the boosters to which he has attached them, nor to any of the design lineages at Rocketdyne. This is handwaving at its finest. Kaysing is hoping to impress the audience with his ability to refer to engine designs, knowing that almost none of his listeners will be able to challenge him.

The B-1 engines were ran fuel rich which is a safer condition.

No.

If you run fuel-rich, you have a lower exhaust temperature and therefore less stress on the thrust chamber. However, the range of mix ratios that support propulsion is not such that choosing the richest extreme results in a significant reduction in chamber temperature.

Kaysing may be referring to the notion of film cooling, in which extra fuel is injected in such a way that a boundary layer of cooler gas forms between the hot propellant and the chamber walls. This was used in the Rockedyne J-2 engine, and a form of it is used in the space shuttle main engines.

However, these are hydrogen-burning engines. The B-, MA-, H-, and F-series engines all burn kerosene. Running them fuel-rich in an effort to implement film-cooling creates carbuerizing combustion which deposits carbon all over the inside of the nozzle, which is undesirable from a fluid-flow standpoint. Thus the cooling in these designs is accomplished by annular jackets on the thrust chamber, and of which the nozzle is composed. Fuel is circulated through these jackets to draw heat away from the nozzle material. In the regenerative cooling design pionered by the MA-series, the energy of the heated propellant is used to increase propellant inlet pressure, leading to an increase in thrust. I've actually worked on engines of this type.

Films of Saturn V show a tremendous amount and a long trail of fuel burned after the rocket disappears.

Aside from the relatively cool portion of the plume directly under the outside of the nozzles, the F-1 plume closely resembles other kerosene-burning systems. The bright incandescent plume is characteristic of LOX/RP-1 propellants.

The Saturn V was minimized in terms of thrust and the objective was to put on a good visual show and get it out of sight. It was jettisoned into the south Atlantic with no astronauts in it.

Pure conjecture.

They knew as early as 1959 that nothing really was going to work.

No. "As early as" is the enemy; design studies done in that period were highly conjectural and based on a very immature state of understanding of the problems to be faced and the means available for overcoming them.

Rocketdyne studies at the time indicated that the chances of landing men on the moon were as low as 0.14%.

Kaysing's actual figure is much lower. However, we are not allowed to see the study that allegedly reached this determination. Kaysing says it was top secret.

However, design reviews at Langley and other public facilities, whose findings we can examine in detail, were confident that a project could be put together to reach the moon in a practical time scale.

Neil Armstrong will not discuss Apollo with anybody at anytime.

Not true. Armstrong is, of course, notoriously reclusive. However, he does grant interviews and he does talk about Apollo. He does not, however, talk about Apollo with the likes of Kaysing and the other profiteering vultures who from time to time descend upon him.

This is a national hero, a man who owes the country a lot because he has been supported by the government his entire lifetime.

Codswollop. If anything, the country owes Armstrong a lot because he risked his life on a number of occasions to further our understanding of aeronautics and space. The notion that Armstrong is "supported" by the government is ludicrous. To be compensated by the government for services (expertly) rendered to it is an entirely different thing altogether.

A friend of Bill's wanted to interview Armstrong but Neil told him 'If you come back one more time I will have you arrested.'

Bart Sibrel. Kaysing neglects to mention that Sibrel was stalking Armstrong, hoping to ambush-interview him about the hoax theory. There is no obligation to speak to someone whose stated aim is to portray you as a liar no matter what the facts.

In 1991 James Irwin was being persuaded to tell the truth and called Bill. Four days later Irwin was dead of a heart attack.

Bill Kaysing cannot substantiate in any way that Irwin was planning to "tell the truth," nor that Irwin at any time contacted Kaysing. It would have made much more sense to kill Kaysing. Would-be whistle-blowers are often willing to risk their lives, but rarely willing to risk someone else's life. Nobody would miss Kaysing, while Irwin was a public figure. If Irwin was shown that by "spilling the beans" he would put innocent lives in danger, he would think twice about it. However, by killing Irwin NASA would tip off Kaysing to the notion that he was onto something.

Further, Irwin's death of a heart attack was not suspicious in any way. Irwin had had a previous heart attack, and his history of heart problems dated back to his Apollo mission.

After the Apollo 1 fire [Thomas] Baron came forth and testified before the Congressional Investigating Committee.

...at the behest of anti-NASA senator Walter Mondale, who hoped Baron's lurid and largely unsubstantiated tales of shenanigans at the Cape would pursuade Congress to cancel the Apollo project.

He produced a 500-page report saying there was no chance that Apollo was going to work.

Conspiracists make a big deal about the conspicuous absence of the lengthier Baron report, yet many are quite willing to state assertively what it contained and what its conclusions were.

This report was supported by General Sam Philip's (sp?) report...

No. The Phillips report was written quite a long time before the Baron report. There is considerable evidence in Phillips' notes and letters subsequently, including during the period of recovery from the fire, that he was pleased with steps North American Aviation was taking to remedy the problems he had noted.

Further, the Phillips report was based on plant inspections and other reliable methods of investigation and reporting. Baron's report was based mostly on hearsay and conjecture. In fact, in Baron's congressional testimony the fact that Baron had not reconciled his report with established fact and other -- more formally reached -- findings became a challenge to his credibility. While some of Baron's criticisms were legitimate, it is not justified to place the Baron and Phillips reports in the same category.

expressing his complete disillusionment with the Apollo program...

No. The Phillips report mentions only those portions of the program with which North American had been contracted. It is an expression of the customer's displeasure at the inability of NAA to fulfill its obligations on time and within budget. Gen. Phillips did not in any way express "complete disillusionment" with the program, nor even with NAA's part of it. Clearly neither Kaysing nor David Wozney has read this report.

Four days after Baron testified he was found dead, he was found crushed to death in his car at a railroad crossing with his wife.

No. Not "four days" later, but a number of weeks later. And his death was ruled a suicide, contrary to conspiracist claims that it was not investigated.

Robert Hauser (sp?) was a technician at the Goldstone tracking station. During his experience there during the so-called Apollo flights to the moon
he found out the information was not coming from the moon at all but rather a leased wire that originated at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The MSFN included many such links. The Goldstone tracking station was mostly about the operation of the dish and the signals being received, demodulated, decoded, and reformatted using it. The majority of the technicians there, if not all of them, would have been tasked with operating that equipment and performing those duties. They would have known whether the dish and its associated equipment were receiving signals. So apparently this guy was the only technician whose job didn't involve the dish and the only guy who didn't get the memo that they were only supposed to pretend to receive signals. The notion that any significant number of people at Goldstone could be kept in the dark about the "true" nature of the signals is preposterous.

Kaysing has letters from Hauser to this effect and Kaysing has checked his credentials.

Just like he checked the credentials of the guy claiming to be the airline pilot. The story is simply incredible on its face, and Kaysing is not a credible researcher.

Rocket engines emit a tremendous amount of force in their jet.

Some do and some don't. Just like any other engine, they are rated according to size and application. The Apollo DPS engine would nestle easily in the bed of a small pickup truck. It's a lightweight, as rocket engines go.

When Kaysing was at Rocketdyne rocket jets would pick up large rocks and move them rapidly across the canyon.

Perhaps the larger ones did, but not the ones installed on the lunar module. The General Electric CF6 series engines can overturn cars when operating at full thrust, but that doesn't meant all jet engines produce that much thrust all the time. Jet engines are routinely used on film sets as wind machines.

NASA cannot explain this lack of a crater.

On the contrary, NASA has done a number of computational fluid dynamics studies on the interaction of the lunar module exhaust with the lunar surface. The photographs of the effects are consistent with computed results.

The conspiracists, on the other hand, can do no more than wave their hands wildly at considerably larger engines and speak in awed tones about the observed effects. It is not NASA's responsibility to prove the legitimate absence of a crater, but rather the conspiracists' responsibility to justify their expectation of one.

One time when the cameras were panning the astronauts walking, one of the astronauts fell, and the camera instantaneously panned the fall.

Without a specific example this is just a claim.

Two sites were identified ... 1) an old nuclear test site site north of Las Vegas which has a lot of terrain that looks like the moon

I've been all over the environs of Las Vegas (and so has Kaysing) and there is unmistakable evidence everywhere of fluid erosion. There is no site anywhere in Nevada I've seen that could pass for the moon. Nevada is very mountainous (ruling out its use for the lunar maria), and the mountains look absolutely nothing like lunar mountains.

2) Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino is a very guarded facility and has more movie equipment than any Hollywood set.

I dunno; I've seen a lot of equipment in Hollywood. And if it's so heavily guarded, how did Bill Kaysing get in to verify the presence of the equipment? This is one of those arguments were the conspiracist claims some bit of evidence while simultaneously providing that others can't verify it.

It has one of the largest sound stages in the world.

I've been on the second-largest soundstage in the world, which also happens to be the largest in North America, and was the largest in the world at the time of the Apollo missions. It's still not big enough to film a J-mission. Nor will its roof structure withstand a vacuum. Nor can it be fully lit from any angle other than directly overhead, and with the equipment available at the time, with the power capacity available.

Besides, there are real-time cues in the missions. You can't have prerecorded them. That means doing it live, so one hangar won't work. There are numerous problems with the theory that the moon sets were done on a stage.

Apparently we're supposed to believe that somewhere in a secret location there's an unprecedented stash of film equipment untraceable to its source. That sounds suspiciously like a magical Acme Moon Video Faking Machine.

When looking through pictures of the lunar lander one good thing to watch out for is that the U.S. flag is always illuminated no matter where the sun is. A spotlight is on the flag to get a patriotic pitch.

So why would they go to all that trouble to provide a sense of realism, and then do something so utterly "cinematic" as that? Kaysing's theory on this point is inconsistent.

The appearance of the flag is exactly right for a nylon flag. Nylon diffuses the light it transmits, and also the light it reflects. It's very easy to duplicate the appearance of the Apollo flags:

http://www.clavius.org/glowflag.html

Some British television producers who are doing a film on Kaysing's book for BBC...

David Percy, and not for the BBC.

...studying NASA footage frame by frame on tracking shots...

No. They are ignorant of the contents of large portions of the Apollo video record, including some very common ones. They lack the ability to discern true footage from reconstructions. They don't give any evidence that they did anything other than look at a few clips and make misleading statements about them.

...are discovering non-parallel shadows.

As they should.

We all know that with a sun at a far distance we get parallel shadows.

Parallel versus radial shadows is immaterial compared to the effect on shadows of many other factors.

It is obvious that as the astronauts are moving from one area to another they were using different spotlights.

No. It is obvious that they were not. In order to create a uniform "wash" of illumination you need either to overlap spot beams, in which case there will be many duplicate shadows from the same object in a radial pattern, or with general fill, in which case the shadows will not be stark.

Most notably, the effects self-styled photographic analysts like David Percy say are due to artificial light, cannot for the most part be made by artificial light: artificial light actually has the opposite of the claimed effect.

The hammer and feather drop at the same rate because the feather is a weighted feather.

Yes, it very well could be, but the point is whether or not it was. Here Kaysing is simply stating what would need to be true in order for his theory to hold, and ignoring completely the question of whether it happened that way or not.

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in Massachusetts easily had access to all of the photographic and other types of technology required to pull this off.

But Kaysing can't describe any of that alleged equipment and provide examples of it. He can't even accurately describe the problem this equipment is postulated to solve. Thus more handwaving. He simply postulates the existence of a magical Acme Moon Photo Faking Machine.

Kubrick designed or wrote the script for Apollo 11, 12, and 13. The idea for a cliffhanger for Apollo 13 was Kubrick's idea.

http://www.clavius.org/bibkubrick.html

Did Kaysing check on the credentials associated with these claims?

As a result, Kaysing is suing Lovell for criminal libel. A court date has been set for this fall.

Kaysing's case was dismissed summarily.

Both Kaysing and Bart Sibrel are open about their aims to get notable people in court on the issue of the hoax. I don't think these people live in reality. It's one thing to make crazy claims to sell your books and videos, but another thing altogether to make that crap stand up in court. Don't they realize that if they take it to court, they'll have to present their evidence for bona fide experts? I'd love to quiz Kaysing in open court about his knowledge of rocket engine design.

I suppose they do, but these folks are consummate spin doctors. If they win, they win. But if they lose, it's just one more example of The Gubmint oppressing them. Ditto if the court rejects their case.

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

It's not a very efficient way to go, of course, since you have to carry extra fuel that doesn't burn and so gives you no thrust.

I've scoured the literature this morning looking for ways in which a fuel-rich mixture would be "safer", as Bill Kaysing claims. All I can find is lots of discussion about the performance hits of non-optimal mixture. I can't think of anything that makes it safer to have excess fuel in the mix.

...perhaps during starting transients

Even then you typically preinject oxidizer, meaning you'll have a lean mixture, not a rich one.

...or at the very end of a burn (to ensure that the tanks were emptied).

And you'd have to make an argument against simply venting the tanks after cutoff.

My recollection is that the fuel-rich mixture provided lubrication and/or cooling to the turbopumps and engine bells.

Not so much cooling, per se, as simply the absence of heat. You run the preburner fuel-rich to keep the gas at around 1000K, relatively "cool" in propulsion terms. This means you don't need to design the turbine hardware to maintain its strength under the full heat load of optimal combustion. You could run the preburner at an optimal mixture if you provide forced cooling or something like that for the turbine.

There's no penalty (aside from wasted fuel) for doing that in a hydrogen-burning engine, but the penalty in an RP-1 engine is excessive sooting of the turbopump components. You have to design around this, and it's difficult. The F-1 approach was simply to limit the run time and let the goop build up. (It will eventually choke the turbine inlet passages.) But yes, the "warm" turbopump exhaust is dumped into the nozzle of the F-1 as opposed to being vented via a separate nozzle, as was the case in the MA-series engines.

RP-1 is also heavily susceptible to coking, which was also a problem in the F-1 cooling jackets. The RP-1 breaks down chemically at high temperatures and deposits solids on the inside of cooling passages. Again the F-1 solution was simply to allow for coking and limit the run time.

There is a lot of interest in building a reusable RP-1 engine, but turbopump sooting and coolant passage coking are the big obstacles. Turbopumps are very expensive to make.

The more I think about it, the more I think you might be able to get away with using turbopump exhaust as a fluid film for cooling the nozzle. That's better than injecting raw fuel at the chamber wall, which is one of the ways to do it. The problem would be the change in heat transfer capability of the nozzle wall as it soots up. But maybe that won't be a problem. Normally you really don't want to inject pure RP-1 as a film coolant, but for a 2-minute run the resulting sooting might not be so bad.

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

That mountain is a long, long way off, and the LM is sat on sort of a crest. The 'local' horizon is a lot closer than the distant mountain. I can look out of my back window and see this effect. Behind our house is a valley, and in the distance are some hills. There are many 'horizons' between the house and the distant hills as the landscape undulates. I may have to take some pics... The point here is that it's easy to see what's going on behind our house. There are trees, houses, etc and I actually can walk the terrain. On the Apollo photos, everything in the landscape was 'essentially grey'. Coupled to the lack of landmarks for scale, this leaves us unsure of just where things are distance-wise.

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Things are only impossible until they're not!-Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Admin of the new and very much improved Apollohoax forum

John is right. Those of us who live in mountainous terrain see this every day. Valley floors are not flat. If you're standing on a low point in one, you'll see a "near" horizon formed by the nearest slight rise. Then, above that, the mountains.

Normally we have interference cues that tell us about depth, but those are absent on the moon. If we were there, we'd also have the standard visual cues. But in photography we have to rely strictly on contextual cues, and the bleak lunar landscape takes away most of those too. The only thing we have to go on, really, is lighting discontinuity (if any) and detail discontinuity (again, if any).

Look at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/as16-113-18359.jpg and cover up the distant LM with your hand. Try to find the discontinuity in the terrain without it. You probably won't. Without the partially obscured LM, the gully it's in is entirely invisible in the photograph. I can duplicate this effect too in earth deserts.

Thus the argument made by David Percy and others than the ground must be level because it looks level, is a pile of poop. You can't discern terrain undulations in photographs reliably.

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

Isn't that exactly what was done in the F-1? The manifold around the middle of the bell was the outlet of the turbopump exhaust, and it was released in a film, at least providing cooling for the nozzle extension, if not the whole thing. I also recall something about a shingled design for the bell's interior, something like the mercury capsule surface. I believe these two mechanisms worked together to provide cooling.

In any case, this is one of those things that keeps me enjoying this forum. Here, our discussions not only improve our understanding of the Apollo designs, but give us ideas for better ones!

As to designing a reusable RP-1 engine, I can see the obvious advantages - kerosene is far cheaper, safer, easier to store and handle, and design hardware to manipulate, than cryo hydrogen. Those considerations can outweigh its lower specific impulse. Could a "cleaner" fossil fuel be used, one that wouldn't have the coking and sooting problems? Or, would it be feasible to provide a special clean fuel for the turbopumps only, using the RP-1 strictly in the engines themselves? The extra complexity and tankage might be worth it, if it made the entire system reusable.

I think the flag being referred to here is not the nylon flag on the staff, but the painted flag on the side of the descent stage. It's often been remarked by the woo-woos that it, and the "UNITED STATES" legend, look "too bright". Of course, this is explicable by a combination of highly reflective paint and diffuse illumination from the sunlit lunar surface.

This must be the only messageboard in existence where members are encouraged to talk about and destruct other peoples websites and beliefs.

This must be the only messageboard in existence where members are encouraged to talk about and destruct other peoples websites and beliefs.

It's not singular; you just described most of Usenet.

We do very much encourage people to talk about beliefs and websites. Books and videos too. That's how the intellectual process works.

We do not encourage people to "destruct" them, but merely to think about them critically. This is important when people go beyond mere "belief" and advocate a conclusion which they allege to be fact. If an argument cannot stand up to critical examination, its conclusion should be disregarded. This is the fault of the argument, not of those who question it.

There is considerable social value in advocating critical thinking. A generally clear-headed population avoids hysteria, bigotry, and other tangible ills. Critical thinking does not mean rejecting everything you hear or read. It means simply applying the principles of reason.

People with honest intent and true belief generally do not object to a critical analysis of their work. It is generally only those who know they have something to hide who shrink from the light of inquiry. Mary Bennett and David Percy wish to portray an image of themselves as thoughtful, diligent researchers. In my three years of dealing with their arguments -- and occasionally with them -- I find this not to be true. It is easier to believe that the Aulis authors are perpetrating some kind of scam.

If you saw someone selling spoiled food, or a mechanically deficient car, and you had the expertise to detect that and warn people, would you not feel obligated to do it?

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

This is a bulletin board for constructive scientific debate. If somebody has an idea that is wrong, we endeavor to correct it. We do not destroy people's arguments for no reason. If the hoaxists were allowed to go undebunked, then who would defend the remarkable achievements of Apollo. Some of us care about Apollo a great deal. If someone attacks it, we will defend it. We don't maliciously attack theories, but if the science used in the claims is wrong, we will take them apart. I see no ethical problems with debunking ideas that are outrageously wrong and often ridiculous.

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"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars". - Edward Young, 1745

I know of others, including some of the moon hoax proponents. Unlike here, where scientific FACTS are discussed, we are called NASA stooges, closed minded, part of the conspiracy. You get the picture

Many moon hoax proponents, like Cosmic Dave, and Aulis, ask for comments and questions and sometimes they appears here. When we've given them an answer or pose questions to them, they magically lose part of their messageboard or close it all together. Everything here is archived

Finally, I personally feel it is my duty to do my part against people who knowingly dupe others into buying their garbage.

As an example, one of the moon hoax proponents claims is that the Hassalbald cameras would get too hot ultimately damaging the film within. I have asked for over a year to many hoax folks to provide me some sort of thermal analysis to prove this claim. I've never gotton even a poorly done analysis.