works for me too. If you don't have Adobe Acrobat installed, you can view google's HTML version of the page:

link

however, the document appears mangled and you can't see the images.

I would ask people, where possible, to allow Jay to answer by himself.

I neither want this nor agree that it is the right approach. This is not a one-on-one debate; it is a public debate. This is not (nor is it ever) a case of "Jay knows best." I do not represent anyone but myself. I am not anyone special.

IDW is not anyone special. I'm not sure how he has managed to create the expectation that he should be coddled or treated differently than any other hoax proponent, but I do not accept those implied ground rules. If we propose that our rules effectively ensure fair debate and equitably protect the interests of minority opinions and individual proponents, then we should not do anything differently in this thread than is done elsewhere on the board.

There is already a thread discussing rules of engagement, therefore I will post there if this matter needs to be discussed further.

I will deal with the additional on-topic content in this thread presently.

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

Jay, I had a question regarding a claim by another poster who said that in A13 the cooling was also switched off. I wonder what parts of the cooling could be switched off. The shiny surface obviously not. Could the radiators be closed? Were there other ways of cooling that could be switched off?

(note: I ask this to Jay because he's online now and I think he knows the answer, if others know the answer they are more than welcome to give it of course )

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Hello IDW,

no you're wrong. One doesn't need elementary physics (or even thermodynamics which btw aren't elemenetary at all) but common sense.
If, as you suggest, shedding of excess heat by either radiative cooling or by a sublimator (let some stuff boil from the heat you produce and it will carry away said heat - worked so far in my kettle) doesn't work then:

Why does it work in the shuttle (radiative cooling),
the ISS (radiative cooling),
the russian Soyuz (radiative cooling)
and spacesuits of EVA Astronauts (sublimator)?

Certainly, you don't deny manned spacecrafts in Earth's orbit. Otherwise Lokeed, Gruman, Rochwell and alike would have scores of lawyers on their heels for negligently frying terrestials.

IWD - I believe you totally missed the point of prooving that men didn't land on the moon. On the contrary, by posting a question about Apollo's cooling mechanism (under the broader topic of prooving that men didn't land on the moon) you achieved the opposite by prooving that it works today and so did fourty years ago.

IDW - you managed to refute yourself!

Extracelestial

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Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

I was referring to the water/glycol cooling system. If the spacecraft is powered down the coolant is not being circulated through the systems, surely?

__________________
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

Hello Nicholas,

a quick answer.
When talking about Apollo 13 don't forget that they were two spacecraft joined but with seperate systems. The comand module had a radiator cooling system ; i.e. a closed cycle system. It's working a bit like a common refrigerator. However, that was damaged in the O2 tank explosion and didn't work anymore.
The LEM on the other hand had a sublimator (an open cycle cooling system). That was simpler in construction (reliability!) and carried, due to the short duration of the mission, a lower weight penalty.

Extracelestial

__________________
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. - Dennis Overbye

I personally think that further discussion should be suspended until IDW explains to us exactly how he arrived at his conclusion that the spacecraft could not be cooled in space. He has given a conclusion, then asked us to prove it wrong and provide all the necessary information which either will or will not lead to the conclusion he has already made, which is not the way to make a reasoned argument. Surely he should defend his conclusion with data and calculations first before we go and do all the hard work?

And I say we deliberately, and will stick to it. Jay, whatever arbitrary criteria IDW wants to set up, is NOT my representative, and this is a public forum.

__________________
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

Well, then why not show us the calculations you used to arrive at that conclusion?

No handwaving...no "I'm not being treated fairly"...no more stalling....

It's time to fish or cut bait.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

If I might simplify: I understand from the above discussion that Interdimensional Warrior finds the specific case of Apollo 13, post accident, becoming "rather chilly" as something implausible.

Thus we may be able to discuss that restricted situation; an essentially passive situation dominated by influx of solar radiation, contribution of metabolic heat, and thermal radiation of the space craft.

I also understand that Interdimensional Warrior does not disagree with the basic principles of reflective surfaces or passive radiators, thus, where we are in argument is in the precise efficiencies; in the numbers.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I'll try the 'save as' angle, thanks. I have a firewall that was set up by someone else, so there could be something about the link it is restricted to allow.

And yes, I was unaware the command module had a 'bra' that was used to protect it during the launch, too.
That explains one question, why the photos of the CM in space always showed a mirror like finish, but on the pad it was a white color. I have never seen this mentioned up until now, even though I asked this same question years ago .
It would be a logical step to take, and re enforces my opinion that solar energy would have been an obstacle.

The BPC wasn't there to protect it from solar energy. It was in place to protect the CM during tower jettison. The rockets on the tower damaged the skin and the windows during testing.

__________________
I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Let me address, out of order, the question of Apollo 13 cooling shutdown.

Extracelestial is right to remind us that "Apollo 13" at this point consisted of two separate spacecraft systems joined only mechanically. The service-module systems were, to the best of my knowledge, shut off entirely to the point of consuming no electrical power. That would include the SM water-glycol pump. That does not mean that heat transfer ceases; it means only that the heat transfer intended by the normal operation of the system ceases.

This is important to consider because the SM radiators continue to radiate. They are purely passive components. The coolant mass trapped in them will reach an equilibrium temperature likely to be far colder than allowed in operational limits. The general fear in designing such systems is that the coolant will freeze in the radiator if the pump fails. That makes it harder to start the system up again, and may crack the plumbing. That's why a water-glycol coolant is used. Normal coolant temperature at the radiator outlet is 45 F or so. If the coolant stops circulating, the trapped coolant mass may cool to significantly below zero F.

Heat conducts through the plumbing and stagnant coolant mass toward the cold coolant mass in the radiators. Not as effectively, of course, as if the system were operating in normal forced-convection mode, and not to the extent that the coolant mass becomes isothermal, but it happens. So elements such as water chillers, coldplates, and heat exchangers that lie on the primary and secondary coolant loops will still conduct some amount of heat away from cabin structures and air mass.

The only heat input to the CM system comes from solar radiation and is governed first by the optical properties of the CM skin and subsequently by the conductive properties of the spacecraft structural assembly.

The LM operations were drastically curtailed. Guidance and navigation equipment was used for a while. Those systems have priority in the cooling design, and require the operation of the cooling system in order to function for any useful length of time. (The endurance of the LM systems following complete coolant system failure was measured on Apollo 11 after the returning lunar surface crew transferred to the CM.) When the guidance and navigation systems were deactived, only the radios were left on.

Some components of the telecommunication system require ECS cooling, so the LM cooling system was also left on. That was the source of the water scarcity aboard the LM. The LM would normally have been provisioned with about 200 lbm water, and that had to serve both as potable water for the crew and sublimator supply water for the cooling system. It had to be stretched. The crew elected to ration the drinking portion of the water, since they surmised they could do without water better than the radios.

However, as with the CM system, the coolant loop need not draw heat from the LM cabin air mass; that exchanger can be switched out of the loop entirely. The operation of the LM cabin heat exchanger did not likely contribute materially to the cooling of the LM cabin.

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

[The BPC] was in place to protect the CM during tower jettison. The rockets on the tower damaged the skin and the windows during testing.

Yes, and then some. The early LES tests were done before the decision to cover the CM in aluminized polymer film. NAA opted for the hard BPC solely the rationale of protection from plume wash from the LES jettison maneuver. That was not universally accepted as the best solution. Sooting of the forward CM heat shield was not considered a critical failure. Sooting of the windows was. So, argued some, why not just cover the windows and other critical elements? Why incur the weight penalty of a full cover?

In the meantime, the thermal design team for the CM proposed the aluminized film coating to give the CM the desired optical properties. The problem was that the coating was flimsy and would not survive the ascent. There was a moment of systemic epiphany where everyone realized that the full, hard BPC would kill two birds with one stone. It would protect the CM from plume effects during LES jett, but it would also protect the aluminized polymer film coating of the CM from aerodynamic heating and mechanical loads during boost. So the BPC stayed.

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

IDW, there's something I'm not clear on, here.

You say you're a fence-sitter, that you aren't sure one way or another. You say none of us can be. Why not? With the literally tons of evidence, the literally thousands of participants, what information do you feel is missing that would prevent us from a firm conclusion? Further, what would prevent the missions from being possible? If they were possible, what would be the point of faking them? I keep asking questions like this, and I never do get them answered. I'm hoping you can give me a hand, here.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Just to provide some round figures on that: Estimating from a blackbody curve, about 35% of the Sun's energy is in the visual spectrum, and 55% at shorter wavelengths (mainly IR); the remaining 10% is almost entirely UV.
The reflective surface of the CM clearly rejects a very high proportion of the visual spectrum, and therefore around a third of the incoming energy. That's the conservative assumption on which I based my little calculation of the (chilly!) radiative equilibrium temperature for a body heated by solar radiation alone.
But I would be surprised if the outer coat of the CM did not also reflect at longer wavelengths too, further decreasing the solar radiation load.
Do you happen to know the infrared reflectivity of the spacecraft assembly?

Grant Hutchison

I'm sure you meant longer on the IR end.

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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You can say that again.

Speaking as someone who only once-in-a-while comes to BAUT, this thread is a good example of the usefulness of HB's. I have learned SO MUCH about some questions I had over the years. I never understood how a spacecraft in flight to the moon could EVER be "cool" inside when it's in sunlight all the way from here to the moon and back!!! It always made me wonder how ANY craft could be anything but HOT inside after awhile.

I think I am grasping "heat transfer" better than ever before.




I should come around here more often!

__________________
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and the Stormwatch brews
a concert of Kings,
as the white sea snaps,
at the heels of a soft prayer,
whispered

Now to address IDW's latest issues. Sts60 has already answered a few of the technical issues. In the interest of streamlining the discussion, I will not reiterate his statements. I will state that I agree with the substance of his answers.

May I remind you, IDW, that you began this thread asking two questions: (1) how was the spacecraft cooled? (2) why did Apollo 13 get so cold? You added that only elementary physics would be required, and specifically that no detailed understanding of the spacecraft would be needed. Now you're saying that the discussion "cannot proceed" until I provide a substantial amount of detailed information regarding the system. No such rigor was asked for or implied in your question. No such rigor was volunteered in my answer. So I'm wondering how I managed to acquire such a hefty burden of proof.

You styled me as the expert on Apollo. What word did you use -- "unimpeachable?" The cooling subsystem of the CSM ECS is only one of several Apollo systems which I can describe at a high level from memory. One attribute of an expert is his ability to speak extemporaneously on certain aspects of a topic without necessarily referring to outside authority. It is disingenuous for you to style me as an expert and then not to allow me to act as one.

Here are some references you may find useful.

Parker, James F. and West, Vita R. Bioastronautics Data Book. NASA SP-3006, 2d ed. 1973. This describes NASA's post-Apollo understanding of the thermal problems of manned space flight.

Osgood, Carl C. Spacecraft Structures. Prentice Hall, 1966. This describes, among other things, what thermal factors go into the selection of materials, design, and operation of spacecraft.

Jimenez, S.I. et al. Apollo Spacecraft and Systems Familiarization. (sec. 8) NASA (s.r.), 1967. This reference contains an overview of the ECS, including a simplified schematic of the system and a description of its principles of operation.

Apollo News Reference. Progressive Management (reprint), 2000. This is a general reference to the Apollo spacecraft and systems. It covers the same territory as the above reference, but in more detail.

These references substantiate my answer to the degree of detail in which I gave it. Since you say no detailed understanding of Apollo is needed to investigate your questions, I don't recognize a need to provide any more detail than this. If you care to revise your premise to accept that a detailed knowledge of Apollo systems may be necessary, then now is the time to explicitly make that revision known.

You say you have not drawn any conclusions. Conclusions, assertions, propositions -- call them what you will. By my reckoning you have made at least the following statements:

1. The Apollo 13 account is not credible from a scientific standpoint, specifically according to thermodynamics.

2. The Apollo 13 spacecraft should have heated up to an "uncomfortable" temperature after its temperature-control system was turned off, because that's what objects in space do.

3. The Apollo spacecraft in general cannot have handled the heat load from the crew's metabolism, the heat from the electronics, and the solar influx.

4. Varying the optical properties of a spacecraft's skin cannot effectively regulate its heat load from the sun. Specifically, the Apollo spacecraft's skin would not have prevented it from heating up from solar influx without some other method of rejecting the heat.

5. A car radiator is fundamentally the same as the radiators used on spacecraft.

6. The Apollo service-module radiators would have been ineffective.

7. The implied nominal heat load from Apollo electronics was "excessive" and indicates improper design and construction.

You phrased them as allegations of fact. When you submitted to the BAUT rules of posting, you agreed to substantiate or withdraw allegations of fact upon request. I make that request.

Some of these allegations imply a quantitative argument -- that is, one that deals in comparisons of amounts or quantities. Quantitative arguments require computation or estimate to make them valid and, if necessary, an explanation of the derivation of the computation or source for the estimate. When I asked earlier, "Can you provide" those estimates, I meant to request that you do so. I apologize for my inexact wording.

I don't believe at all that you are sitting on the fence. You suggest you came here to ask the "hard questions." Don't be surprised then if the premises behind your hard questions are themselves subject to hard questioning. If you intend to hold Apollo's feet to the fire, you have the burden of proof to show your questions are indeed well-considered and not founded upon misconception or meaningless doubt.

You are obviously unfamiliar with how the Apollo spacecraft worked. If you are indeed asserting that the Apollo spacecraft thermodynamics are bogus, then your ignorance of the thing you're criticizing is your own fault. It's not our responsibility to remedy that. It's your responsibility to demonstrate through your own diligence a knowledge sufficient to make your criticism credible. Asserting that you have the knowledge is not the same as demonstrating it.

If instead you're simply curious about how Apollo worked, then there's no continuing obligation for us to spoon-feed you information you should be finding yourself, especially when the effort to provide it becomes oppressive. There's no single, comprehensive reference for the ECS. I'm not going to spend hours making one for you just because you say you want it. So kindly stop implying it's my duty to do so unless you're willing to support your claims as allegations of fact.

In either case I see no evidence that you would know what to do with any of that information if it were provided. In this whole thread you have offered nothing but handwaving and vague, often-wrong claims. Why the sudden need for great precision?

Try this. You say that a spacecraft in space will come to an equilibrium temperature. You imply on numerous occasions that the equilibrium temperature for an Apollo spacecraft should be "uncomfortably" hot if no active cooling is operating. I ask (1) whether that implication is indeed your argument, (2) whether you are able to compute a value for the equilibrium temperature as suggested in your claims, and (3) if you can do it, please do it. See post #31 in this thread for an example of the kind of computation I have in mind.

When you can demonstrate at least that degree of rigor to my satisfaction, then perhaps I will take your request for more details seriously. Until then I believe it's just a ploy.

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

Aaargh. Thanks. Yes, the 55% is longer wavelength, almost all IR; 10% UV, 35% visible. In round numbers.
This thread's just a train-wreck of mis-hits for me.

Grant Hutchison

I have no information about what they used then.
But I found something about todays coatings.
Jenoptic Polymer Systems gives a reflectivity for its aluminized polymer of
99% between 460 and 570nm and a reflectivity of 98% between 440 and 600nm.

http://pdf.directindustry.de/pdf/jen...-19412-_3.html

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Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
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The presence of space provides a near-perfect radiative heat sink. Anyone who's spent any time in the desert knows this. We used to dive into our sleeping bags when it was 104 out because laying out beneath the night desert sky (no humidity), even in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, felt like you were positioned right in front of an ice box.

Space is COLD!

Most humans are too used to receiving radiated thermal energy from their environment. When half the hemisphere to which they're exposed is no longer radiating back, however, perceptions of how cold space can be catches up with reality.

Now - that's just half of one's hemisphere. When it's all of one's hemisphere, except for the sun (which, in Apollo's case was placed where, for what purpose?), things can get even chillier, even in a well-insulated vehicle like Apollo.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

The optical parameters of aluminized polymer films vary widely. I'm thinking of a reference that might contain the exact product or part number for the CM skin, but it's a paper volume that's several miles away from me right now. The modern products considered for spacecraft skins are typically those that have reflectivity coefficients about 0.9 or greater in the IR wavelengths, high emissivity, and fairly low conductance.

An important note is that aluminized polymer films for spacecraft skinning are also generally not Kirchoff-conformant. They have higher emissivity than absorption. That skews their thermal behavior in the direction of cooling.

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Clavius Moon Base

Found something about the reflective film
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20020078360_2002126574.pdf

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"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
our animal welfare board and organisation

Nice find!

From the .pdf

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

You were obviously asking the wrong people. Plenty of us here could have told you that.

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

In fact it's one of the easiest questions we've had No real scientific explanation or understanding needed.

HB: It looks white
US: It had a cover
HB: Oh

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

That's an energy expenditure approximately equal to that of a cellist or tailor, which says something about the effort required to move around a small space in free fall.
So we've got three 136W astronauts: in round numbers, 400W. To continue my "imagine a spherical cow" calculations, and for entertainment purposes only, put them in a sphere 4m in diameter (about the width of the CSM, I think). Surface area is 50m², of which each square metre must therefore radiate eight watts to dispose of the astronauts' metabolic heat.
Now, if my sphere is the same sphere I put in radiative equilibrium with solar energy flux earlier on this thread, it is already radiating 221 W.m^-2 at its equilibrium temperature of 250K. We must add the additional 8 W.m^-2 to compensate for the heating effect of the astronauts, and then convert back to temperature: 252K.

It's hopelessly basic, but I think it does (again) demonstrate that there's no good reason to assume that a people-carrying container, in direct sunlight between Earth and Moon, must get hot.

Grant Hutchison

Is the following a fair summary of what he have so far?

A: The equilibrium temperature of an object at about 1AU from the sun may be high or it may be low depending on the size, shape, reflectivity, and radiative properties of the object.

B: An Apollo stack painted all black (though it would look cool) would probably have an equilibrium temperature on the hot side.

C: As designed, a completely shut down Apollo stack (by that I mean CSM and LM) had an equilibrium temperature right around freezing.

D: Fully powered up, the extra heat from the electronics and such raised the equilibrium temperature such that additional cooling was required to maintain a livable environment.

With respect to white command modules:
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/pix/skylab2.jpg

Of course it's never as easy as anyone wants it to be. The Apollo CMs for the lunar landing missions had the highly-reflective aluminized polymer coating. The Apollo CMs used as Skylab shuttles (shown above) were painted with a white thermal paint. By "thermal paint" I mean a coating designed specifically to achieve a certain heat transfer effect. The designation S-14 for the paint comes to mind.

In this picture, the white band around the forward end of the service module, just at the interface with the command module, is the EPS radiator array. N.B. that's not the same as the ECS radiator array, which the larger white band at the aft end of the service module. The EPS (i.e., the electrical fuel cells and related doo-dads) had its own radiators so that the heat loads could be better controlled. The ECS radiator panels were of aluminum, separated into two panels of around 50 square feet each (varies according to source) and had nominal heat-dissipation capacity of something like 4,000 Btu/h each.

There was an early Earth-orbit-only variant of the SM designed with a different ECS, but I don't know if that's what was used for Skylab.

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Clavius Moon Base

The pdf you (Jay) linked claims that the original radiator (60 sq ft) could reject about 3700 btu/hour and that the Earth-orbital requirement is 4850 btu/hour. The difference (1150 btu/hour) was rejected by water evaporation and had an impact on mission duration. It appears that there was some type of redesign, but I haven't found any updated heat-rejection numbers yet.

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