I think rdbob is getting confused with that trainer that Neil had to eject from just before it crashed.

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Just a reminder. He's only in the 8th grade. A lot of this stuff probably does seem like magic at that age, and if he's been taught that it was fake (perhaps by someone he trusts) then he's going to think it was fake, and doesn't have the tools (yet) to judge the evidence for himself.

So on the one hand, someone he trusts tells him A. Then on the other hand, random anonymous internet people point at him a fire hose of evidence for B but none of it make any sense to him.

He doesn't understand that the LM would fall toward the moon. He thinks it would need a rocket to push it downward. I tried to point him to a simulator where he could learn this stuff and have fun, but that comment was lost in the fire hose.

I think this one is a lost cause, for at least four or five more years anyway. I still hope he hangs around though.

I think rdbob is getting confused with that trainer that Neil had to eject from just before it crashed.

He may be. Conspiracists use that instance to create a completely fictional notion that rocket-powered VTOL is impossible. They ignore the hundreds of successful test flights. And they ignore the root cause of Armstrong's crash: mechanical failure. When something goes wrong with even the most ordinary machinery, disaster results. It doesn't often cast doubt upon the fundamental workability of the underlying principles, simply upon how they were implemented in that one case.

If you're driving down the highway and the steering wheel comes off in your hand, you will crash. That's not an indictment of the whole principle of automotive transporation. The essential principles of the automobile are still sound; it's simply that some dunce didn't tighten a fastener enough.

Out of hundreds of successful flights, the hastily-built single-purpose VTOL trainers crashed only three times: none of them due to failures of the fundamental principles of rocket-powered VTOL.

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Just a reminder. He's only in the 8th grade.

That's a good reminder: I actually interpreted his statement differently. He said he "completed the 8th grade." For some reason I took that to mean he's an adult whose education stopped after the 8th grade, not that he's a teenager who is in 8th grade and has every intention of continuing on to the 9th and subsequent grades.

I agree a different approach is likely to be more successful in the case of an inquisitive youth.

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Orbital mechanics...the idea of landing on the Moon, without having to worry about atmospheric variables actually makes the problem of landing easier.

About opposite where you want to land, they fired the LM descent stage engine briefly. This lowered the opposite side of the orbit to ~50000 feet. As the LM approached this low point (apoapsis) they turned on the engine again, to slow their forward speed across the surface, and also to control their descent rate for landing. It was this final long burn that brought them to the surface.

They had landing radar to give them velocity and altitude information, and know the geography of the landing zone better than I know my own driveway.

It was math and physics at wotk, real rocket science stuff...and it does work.

That's why you need a rocket engine to slow the craft.

No offence, but your belief is simply wrong. Less gravity means things fall slower, but any gravity will cause an object to fall to the surface.

That is circular arguing. You say we haven't been there, then say we couldn't have been there because no-one has been there to test the practicalities needed to go there.

Sorry, this also is simply wrong.

I accept you are in the 8th grade only. Fair enough. However, you must accept that you do not have all the facts or the experience needed to analyse them at your disposal. You are making blanket statements about things that do not exist or have never been done that are quite simply not true, and you are confusing 'I have never heard of' with 'they do not exist'. If you can't start by accepting that, then really there is no point in further discussion.

If you can accept that, I would ask you to look up the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, which was exactly the kind of vehicle you said was never successfully landed. Look up the DC-X, which is another example. You might also consider the Hawker Harrier aircraft, which, although it uses a jet not a rocket, lands on more or less the same principle when performing a vertical landing.

You might also then look up the Soviet Luna probes, which included a number of soft landings, and even a few that landed and returned to Earth, and the NASA Surveyor series that made several soft landings on the lunar surface. These were unmanned probes. If unmanned probes can be soft-landed on the moon by remote control from Earth, or by automated methods, it would be a darn sight easier to land something with two men piloting it.
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I'm not that familiar with the USian education system.
What level is 8th grade?


Lol. Four minutes would've been a personal record.


Here is the Delta Clipper Experimental, a rocketship that managed to land on its tail, right here on Earth.
So yes, we can do it here too. But it's harder.

And here, is the classic computer game Lunar Lander, that will give you a feel how it is to try to land a LM.
It ain't easy.

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Hi, rdbob. Welcome to the board.

How would you know the results when it has never been tested? Without atmosphere there would be no friction to slow the craft.

That's what rocket engines are for. That's why the U.S. and the USSR were able to land quite a few unmanned probes on the Moon in the '60s and '70s (Surveyor, Luna). That's why the U.S. and Japan were able to soft-land unmanned spacecraft on asteroids (which have much less gravitational pull). Do you not believe this was done?

My belief is less gravity would require energy to force bodies in a downard motion. Its kinda hard to prove or disprove as we have not been there to test this theory.

Sorry, but this is fundamentally wrong. Two bodies always are gravitationally attracted to each other. Newton figured this out about four centuries ago.

Think about it this way: if lower gravity made such a difference, would Mars (smaller than Earth) have moons? (It does.) Would Pluto (smaller than Mars) have a moon? (It does.) Would asteroids (smaller than Pluto) have moons? (Some do.)

How amazing is it we can't or never landed a craft on the earth like the moon landing but 280,000 miles away with absolutely no proof of environment we can land on the moon

First, the Moon is not 280,000 miles away. Ever. You're almost 30,000 miles off.

Second, we have plenty of "proof of environment". The general environment of the Moon has been known from ground-based observations for decades. The specific environment was studied carefully by unmanned probes (Surveyor, Luna) before and during the Apollo landings.

but here where we can test land it we COULD NOT and NEVER was able to land a craft on earth like the ones used to the Moon. That in itself is a feat of mental ability never seen before. You can do something where you have never been but can't where you live? Huh

I'm pretty sure, as others have mentioned, that you're referring to the LLRV/LLTV flying testbed - see attached image - which was only intended to simulate the experience of flying in a 1/6 G field, and was not in any way some kind of Lunar Module prototype.

Is that what you mean? If so, are you aware these were flown successfully over two hundred times? (You may note the attached image shows a group photo celebrating the first 100 flights.)

rdbob, please understand I'm not picking on you for not being familiar with the subject. I'm not trying to "mock, boast, harass, and make a person [you]that is trying to find answers look stupid."

What I do want to do is to help you find answers - some of which I can supply pretty readily, and almost all of which somebody here can help with.

But before we start talking about "proof" (lunar samples, imagery, telemetry, science results, etc.) we need to clear up some misconceptions you have. I've addressed a couple in this post. What do you think?

Attached Images

E-14754.jpg (108.5 KB, 21 views)

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The average child starts kindergarten at about age six. This is immediately followed by first grade, and so on. So eighth grade is about twelve or thirteen.

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"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!"

The low point would be periapsis. I get the two words confused too. As a mnemonic, I try to think of the game publisher, apogee and associate that with "far away" because they became the company that never finished Duke Nukem (so it's far away).

I guess that's not a very useful mnemonic, but that's all I've got.

But will they believe what random TV people tell them?

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But not because those people are random. It's because they trust them. Commander Riker was the first officer aboard the flag ship of the United Federation of Planets for crying out loud! Surely he could not have achieved that position had his integrity ever been in doubt.

More like 13 to 14.

Fred

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He didn't actually say that. What he actually said in his first post was:

I took that to mean he's an adult who completed only the 8th grade, although it could equally well mean he's in the 9th.

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We're well into the school year. In my own experience, someone who is currently in school would say "I'm in the ninth grade," not "I have completed the eighth grade."

My interpretation is the same as Trebuchet's: He's an adult who made it through eighth grade. But let us belay such talk and let rdbob himself clarify the situation, or not.

So back to the discussion: Apollo was not performed in a (as it were) vacuum, and Apollo 11 was not the first or only flight. Mercury, Gemini, and the early Apollo flights all helped NASA gain valuable insight and information on how things work in space, and what are the the best solutions to particular problems. Add to that the unmanned satellites and lunar probes (crashers, orbiters, and landers), and you find that there is a wealth of information about near space and the lunar surface -- sufficient to let you design a mission to land a man on the moon and return him back safely to the Earth.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
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This who moon hoax thing is beyond ridiculous without a shred of proof and pushes the bounds of specious assumption far past any credibility. My father knew Rodger B. Chaffey. To think for one minute the Apollo Astronauts would risk their lives for this hoax is a insult. Perpetuated upon them by lecture circuit money making book selling radio show guest scum(bags). I remember watching the moon landing in 1969 on T.V. It was quite something to be living at such a key moment in time. What I don't remember from back then was conspiracy theorys running rampant through society. Thanks to modern media, a few bad eggs, media included, can sow bad mischief for profit. It's up to us to put an end to this circus of absurd lies called the moon hoax. I'll also include physic powers, astrology, spoon bending, talking to the dead and the Beatles-Paul is dead!

Please, tell us how you really feel about it. Don't be shy now.

Welcome aboard Mr. Fantastic.

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I take it that's the same person as Roger Bruce Chaffee, LC, USN (and Boilermaker) who perished while testing the capsule for Apollo 204 (1).

As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, many if not most Apollo hoaxers are cultural vandals, and deserve the "respect" they earn.

Meanwhile, welcome to the BAUT, Mr. Fantastic!

Read the FAQs, especially the rules, and have fun.

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