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DISCUSSION
BOARD
Hello:
I recently purchased a copy of Jim's video (from Global Insights) and sent
out a questionnaire to some newsgroups and scientists. A couple of
people responded. In the next couple of e-mails you will see my
points and his answers. I would appreciate it if you would give me
your opinion about his answers. I am in the quotation marks. Thanks
in advance. Gavin Phillips
Subj:
Re: Did we go to the Moon? 1/2 Date:
10/10/99 11:57:38 AM Central Daylight Time From:
bthorn@airmail.net (Brian Thorn) To: GAVUFO@aol.com
At
01:49 AM 10/10/1999 -0400, you wrote: >Jim Collier went to a lot
of trouble taking measurements of the module they >supposedly went in
and came to a valid conclusion that A sloppy conclusion, based on the
assumption that astronauts wore their moonwalk spacesuits while in
the CM and thus had to go through the tunnel to the LM while wearing
it. This is a false assumption. , with all their bulky >breathing
apparatus, they wouldn't have been able to get in and out of the >LM.
Funny, all those photos and TV footage show astronauts doing just that. I
see, it was on TV, so it must be true.
Well, your source seems to be saying I didn't see
that happen at all. If the astronauts couldn't get in or out of the
Lunar Module, then what was I watching on TV, and what do I see in
those photographs? Is he honestly suggesting that NASA was smart
enough to create this enormous conspiracy, but then failed to make
the Lunar Module on the studio set match the one in the Smithsonian?
The way I see it, he can't have it both ways. Either NASA is
brilliant and came up with a spectacular hoax, or they are stupid and
couldn't get the door size the same between two different fakes. If
you're talking about the LM in the National Air & Space Museum in
Washington, that would be LM-2, designed for an unmanned test flight which
was cancelled after the success of LM-1. So yes, it is a little different
than the manned ships which flew later. Not according to the National Air
& Space Museum in Washington. The LM-2 they have in the museum,
according to them, is an actualLM. The next paragraph is taken form their
website; "This is an actual lunar module (designation LM-2), one of
12 built for Apollo. Engineers planned to use this craft in low Earth
orbit to test the techniques of separation, rendezvous, and docking with
the command and service module. The second of two such test vehicles, its
orbital mission was cancelled after a successful flight in an earlier
mission. The spacecraft subsequently was used for ground testing..."
Note that this is wrong. There were 13 LM's built, with a 14th half-built
and then scrapped. What else is the NASM wrong about?
This doesn't change a thing, however. I said LM-2 was designed for an
unmanned test flight, and NASM says the same thing. The fact
remains, that the first LM intended to be manned was always LM-3. That's
why LM-3 wasn't delivered to NASA (by Grumman) for over a year after
LM-2 was built. LM-3 was built using the experience gained from
(mostly) LM-1's unmanned test flight.
For the record...
LM-1 (Unmanned, flew as Apollo 5, January 1968.) LM-2 (Never flown.
Now on display at NASM) LM-3 (Manned, flew as Apollo 9, March 1969.) LM-4
(Manned, flew as Apollo 10, May 1969) LM-5 (Manned, flew as Apollo
11, July 1969) LM-6 (Manned, flew as Apollo 12, November 1969) LM-7
(Manned, flew as Apollo 13, April 1970) LM-8 (Manned, flew as Apollo
14, January 1971) LM-9 (Never flown, original Apollo 15 mission was
cancelled. Apollo 16-18 renamed Apollo 15-17. Now on display at KSC.) LM-10
(Manned, flew as Apollo 15, July 1971) LM-11 (Manned, flew as Apollo
16, April, 1972) LM-12 (Manned, flew as Apollo 17, December 1972) LM-13
(Never flown, built for cancelled Apollo 18 (AKA Apollo 19). Now on display
at Cradle Of Aviation Museum, Long Island, New York.)LM-14, intended for
Apollo 20, was barely started when the mission was cancelled. It was
scrapped. (Apollo 20 was cancelled six months before Apollo 18 and
19 were cancelled, for different reasons.) My point is that Jim went
to the Washington Space museum to get measurements and videotape LM-2 on
display.
I see, it was on TV, so it must be true. In live NASA footage Jim
shows on his video, James Lovell floats through the connecting tunnel from
the CM to the LM. He has plenty of room and he goes down about 6 ft into
the LM. In the LM in the Washington Space museum, there is a bell type
metal object sticking up which would not allow the astronaut to come down
6 ft, he could only come down about 3 ft.
I'm not sure what this is, but there are two possibilities.
1. The docking cone, into which the "probe" on the Command
Module was inserted during the docking procedure. The CM/LM had a
male/female relationship in the docking apparatus. The cone, on the
LM side, was removable (else, how could anyone get through the
tunnel). It might simply be sitting on the floor of LM-2, instead of
stowed as it would be in flight.
2. The ascent engine housing. It sat roughly below the docking tunnel, but
was cylindrical. Since LM-2 was the second of two LM prototypes, it
is entirely possible that the housing was larger on LM-2 and made
smaller from lessons learned during testing with LM-1 and LM-2
before the first manned LM, LM-3 was built. Prototypes do differ
from production vehicles sometimes. Another example is the Space
Shuttle Enterprise, which has a different wing design than Columbia
and the other production Shuttles. In the NASA footage the bell is
nonexistent.
DISCUSSION
BOARD
It was stowed during flight, because objects in zero-g tend to float
around and bump into things if not secured somewhere. There was no
such worry with LM-2 sitting in the NASM. NASM likely just left it
somewhere convenient, since most visitors don't get to look inside
anyway. Jim says the tunnel on the LM is 27 inches across, but they
only have 24 inches of clearance because of a latch (latches, we see one)
for connecting to the droge (SP)which sticks out about 3 inches. It would
be a very tight squeeze for a suited astronaut.
Astronauts were not suited when going through this tunnel. Remember, this
is the tunnel between the CM and LM, not from LM to the outside
world. The astronauts wore only their coveralls while in transit
from Earth to Moon. The moonwalk suits were stowed in the LM, not in
the CM. So no reason to wear one going back and forth from the CM to
the LM. The hatch
on the LM opens from the left. In the footage itis hinged on the rear. His
point is that the "live" footage is being shot ina simulator,
not the real LM.
Where exactly is the "rear" or a square, vertical,
forward-facing hatch? And again, NASA was brilliant enough to pull
off such a hoax but couldn't take care of a simple matter like
making sure two fake LM's looked the same? You are correct Brian,
that is my mistake, not Jim Colliers. After watching the video again I
have cleared it up. Jim went to Grumman Aerospace Corp who built the LM.
He asked them for nuts and bolts technical details of how the LM was
designed. The blueprints. Whose idea was it? The technical specs for how
it works. He says they told him that the information had been destroyed.
They just had some drawings. As he says, the person who thought of it and
all the minute details of it's history and R & D should be proudly
displayed in NASA books and museums everywhere. It is not. He then went to
Boeing and paperwork.
On the surface, this looks bad. Looking deeper though, it is typical of
government/military practices to dump stuff more than seven years
old. After all, we're talking about ten years worth of paperwork (LM
operations ran from 1963 to 1972, with the LM being improved and
upgraded all the way through Apollo 17.) Is it so surprising that a
contractor, who is not being paid to keep this stuff, threw it away
after x number of years? Is it surprising that, when Vietnam and
Apollo ended and the government trough dried up, that Grumman's
Board of Directors looked for ways to save money and saw a great big
warehouse in Long Island as a nice neat way to cut a few hundred
thousand dollars a year from the budget? Not to me it isn't. Not
when the same Board of Directors saw zero chance of restarting Lunar
Module production and thus zero chance of ever needing that
paperwork again. Not when NASA already has microfilm copies of all
the stuff (NASA got copies of it all when it was first produced) in
storage at Marshall and a bunch more is in the National Archives. He
was very surprised to find out that important records of one of the most
momentous, (maybe the most momentous) event in the 20 th Century would be
destroyed when other far less important facts of history are recorded in
their minutiae for generations. Thirty-billion of taxpayers money and they
destroy important paperwork for future scientists and space historians to
study and document?
Only the *paper* copies were destroyed, typical of government projects
after five or ten years. (Go look for military documentation of the
Vietnam War and you'll see for yourself.) We are talking about
things that happened over twenty-five years before this expose was
written. In NASA footage it moves horizontal to the lunar surface,
not at an angle.
Excuse me, but where did you find footage of the LM flying... from the
outside? Did CBS have a camera crew flying in formation? In the
video you see the LM moving horizontal to the Lunar surface and slowing
down to make some very precise corrections.
I still don't have any idea what footage you're talking about. That Apollo
11 landing film taken from inside the cabin? How in the world can
you possible tell anything from that blurry TV footage? With
all that thrust coming from the top, the LM would flip in circles. Jim
says they should have been on the bottom.
That thrust was carefully balanced by the other 15 thrusters. (four thrusters
on each of four thruster packs, one pointing up, down, and
two horizontal depending on which corner of the LM the pack
was mounted.) This one is really ludicrous. I'll accept arguments
about hatch sizes and craters under the nozzle, but the author seems
to have absolutely no basic understanding of spacecraft control. If
he's claiming this wouldn't work, he must also believe that no
spacecraft ever built could work. Space Shuttle, Mir, Soyuz,
Intelsat, Voyager 2, even the unfortunate Mars Climate Orbiter
operate on exactly the same principles.
And if all the thrusters are on the bottom... how the devil would the LM
back away from the CM for undocking? Sheesh! Jim Collier
paraphrases Einstein, a body in motion tends to remain in motion unless
stopped. Jim asked Frank Hughes ( he is in the video) of Space Center in
Houston (who is Chief in Charge of Astronaut Training) what absolute proof
he could provide that they went to the moon. Frank said the "Rooster
Tail" kicked out of the back of the Rover as they take it for a spin
was that proof. Jim says the laws of physics say that the soil/sand kicked
out of the back should have gone upwards about 60 feet with no atmosphere
to stop it. As I said, it goes up about 8 and it reacts as it would in an
atmosphere. What possible difference would the tyres construction make?
Velocity imparted to the dust, of course. I know as much about
photography as I do about playing the banjo, bugger-all.
Yes, that is obvious. Believe me. I really don't complain about people
falling for this fallacy. Since like you, hardly anyone really knows
how a camera works. But when presented with the facts, the
"conspiracy" argument looks supremely stupid. Let me
say this. Before watching this video I hadn't paid any attention a tall to
the Apollo missions.(except reading Bill's book a few years ago which was
not convincing enough, by itself, as far as I was concerned) Watching the
B/W and colour NASA film footage you see everything on the Lunar surface
perfectly clearly. At different times of the day, when the sun is behind
them, when they are in the Rover and going to collect samples, in the
footage when the Rover has it's "Rooster Tail" the lighting is
far less as it's a different time.
One word of caution... the Rover was flown on three landings, each made at
different latitudes on the moon's surface. So the sun would not be
in the same place in all of the Rover footage. And if the film is a
compilation of several flights, as a disturbing number of Apollo
documentaries (including the splendid FOR ALL MANKIND) are, it could
easily make one think that someone is fooling around with the
lighting in a studio instead of on the moon. In every shot you
see a totally black sky. Nothing. No white star light at all. I do not
understand how there would be no light what soever caught from stars with
the sun behind them and no atmosphere.
Because the camera was not a 1990's automatic, it was a 1960s manual, and
it was still set for bright daylight conditions. Again, hardly
anyone really knows how a camera works and in today's era of modern
electronic, automatic cameras, the "moon landing was a hoax
because no stars are visible" fallacy is even easier to pull on
the innocent bystander. After watching the video again Jim mentions
that the astronauts took a special camera specifically for photographing
stars.
Once. It was a telescope, not a camera. And like most astronomical photos
prior to Hubble, didn't get much attention except from other
astronomers. You can go look for it if you want, but it wasn't TV
and Film Footage, it was telescope data treated the same as the
solar wind experiment data or the seismograph data. Generally
meaningless to the average citizen. Another point is the astronaut's
comments about stars over the years are extremely confusing and
contradictory, to say the least.
"Over the years" is the explanation. Humans tend to forget
things and misremember things over the years. It happens to all of
us, astronauts are no exception.
These quotes are taken from the book, Suppressed Inventions and
other Discoveries, by Jonathan Eisen. In this bookthere are some excerpts
taken from Rene's book (NASA Mooned America) andlater a review of it by
Thomas J Brown. On pages 401/403 Brown says;"...Alan Sheppard, first
American to be catapulted up reported seeing no stars, ditto for Virgil
Grissom. John Glenn reported seeing some brighter stars only (and he saw
[what NASA claimed were] "fireflies").
The "fireflies" were ice crystals flaking off the outside of the
Mercury spacecraft. This was proven by Schirra two flights later.
They weren't stars. See "The Right Stuff" by Wolfe.
To quote some astronauts on the subject:
Neil Armstrong: "The sky is black, you know." ; It's a
very dark sky." Mike
Collins on Gemini 10: "My God, the stars are everywhere: above me on
all sides, even below me somewhat, down there next to that obscure
horizon.
Gemini 10 was an Earth-orbital flight that spent half its time (45 minutes
of every 90 minute orbit) in orbital night. Hence, after a few
minutes letting eyes adjust to darkness, one can and does see stars.
Shuttle astronauts do all the time, too. But Apollo moon flights
were in daylight most of the time (except when behind the moon from
the sun... one hour of each lunar orbit and only for the CM pilot...
all of the landings were in daylight throughout (a lunar day lasts
two weeks, and the Apollo landings were timed from just after local
sunrise.)
>The stars are bright and
they are steady." This was written 14 years later, >and
remember that the Gemini 10 space walk photo shown here has now been
>proven a fake." (Gavin: Brown is referring to a photograph on
page 399 which >is taken from Rene's book)
No, I don't know that at all. Brown is comparing orbital day/night cycles
with perpetual daylight of the moon landings. Apples and oranges.
"Mike Collins on Apollo 11: "I can't see the earth, only
the black starless sky behind the Agena [ rocket ]....
The Agena was a Gemini 10 docking target and was not used by Apollo 11.
This error is so sloppy that I'm forced to consider the source
either error-riddled throughout or an application of deliberate
misinformation. As I slowly cartwheel away from the Agena, I see
nothing but the black sky for several seconds....";"What I see
is disappointing for only the brightest stars are visible through the
telescope, and it is difficult to recognize then when they are not
accompanied by the dimmer stars...."
Again, a lunar flight that spent only three hours in Earth orbit and
subject to day/night cycles.
Gene Cernan on Apollo 17: "When the sunlight comes through the
blackness of space, it's black. I didn't say it's dark, I said black. So
black youcan't conceive how black it is in your mind. The sunlight doesn't
strike on anything, so all you see is black."
Apollo 17 was a lunar flight, Cernan spent 72 hours on the lunar surface
never experiencing night. He was in night conditions... where he'd
be able to see stars... for only a few hours of the entire 10-day
mission. Yuri
Gagar in, first Russian cosmonaut: "Astonishingly bright cold
starscould be seen through the windows."
Gagarin made only a single orbit of the Earth, half of which was spent in
darkness. We don't know when this observation was made, but the odds
are 50/50 it was during orbital night, and thus not unexpected.
"...I (Brown) later spoke with John Bartoe who was up on an
early shuttle flight and he laughed at this , said he couldn't believe
that anyone in NASA would say that because he was in space and the stars
were brighter than they are on earth!..."
ALL the stars are brighter in space than they are on Earth. That includes
the nearest star of all... our Sun, so the total effect is no
particular difference in the relative brightness of the stars
compared to the sun in space.
Brian
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