ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: apollo16uvc on February 06, 2017, 06:07:16 AM
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Anyone who argues with conspiracy theorist will know their views on the Apollo Program machines, crafts and designs. Frequently they argue about how stupid everything looks, how nothing makes sense, or shouldn't be able to work at all.
My favourite way to question their
"argument"
Is by asking how it should have been build, and why. I am sure many ideas, which they claim NASA was too stupid to 'pretent' to build, have come up.
So what would the Apollo program look like if designed conspiracy theorist?
The Saturn-v would be a giant single stage rocket as tall as the Empire State building. The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead. Of course they will shoot right for the moon, through the most intense part of the Van Allen radiation belt. The LM is actually also a giant rocket, because you need to lift off the moon right back to earth!
Hasselblad camera's have to be put in a lead box, because Ekatchrome film was clearly sensitive to ultraviolet light and high energy particles. (Also I can't wait to shoot Ektachrome 35mm film when it becomes available again in 2017).
The rover has inflated tires made out of several inches of thick rubber to protect from the -200 +200 Celsius degrees temperature changes.
The rover TV camera has a massive antenna that always has to be pointed to the Earth, otherwise the universe will explode.
The suits don't recycle oxygen, and thus have to carry large amounts of gaseous oxygen.
I think this will go rather well.
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Heh.
In my experience Hoax Proponents will do anything to avoid creating any sort of narrative around how the hoax was perpetrated. Because almost as soon as they do their narrative contradicts itself or in some other ways runs into absurdity.
Our old mate Turbonium, for example, simply admitted to having absolutely no idea how the hoax was perpetrated. It soon turned into a game of "NASA can do anything to perpetrate the hoax; but actually landing astronauts on the Moon and safely returning them to Earth is just impossible".
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All of the arguments listed and many more not listed are mostly founded on observations from Earthly experiences and a complete misunderstanding/non understanding of physics. You can't argue with stupid, rather attempt to present the real case not incorrect observations or misunderstandings.
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The Saturn-v would be a giant single stage rocket as tall as the Empire State building. The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead. Of course they will shoot right for the moon, through the most intense part of the Van Allen radiation belt. The LM is actually also a giant rocket, because you need to lift off the moon right back to earth!
Not forgetting the SM needing to be twice the size in order to house the super computer needed to accurately work out their position and the actuation of any corrective burns. This was all of course impossible in 1969 without a quantum computer. :D :D
PS What the F*** is a slide rule anyway? :o
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They'd have included a big arc lamp to flash "Hi Mom" at the folks back home.
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
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Well, we'd need a massive rocket....
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Well, we'd need a massive rocket....
Seen it many times, still makes me giggle.
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The SM has to be really big to hold the fuel to burn the rocket all the way to the Moon and back. :D
Re: the narrative, Gillian has a standard question about that which she asks newly-arrived HBs. I don't recall the wording, but it is simple and brilliant.
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
I think he only ever used that as an example of how not to do it.
His mentor Hermann Oberth was science adviser for the film Woman in the Moon (Germany-1929) in which the moon rocket uses staging.
All the rocket buffs were well aware that staging would be necessary.
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I think people confuse it with the Nova.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(rocket)
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
You're probably thinking of the direct ascent approach which used a large single stage machine to go from Earth orbit to the moon, then leave the moon intact and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The large lunar vehicle would have required assembly in Earth orbit or a rocket much larger than the Saturn V to lift it to orbit.
Ranb
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Theoretically, a high enough exhaust velocity could lower the mass-ratio to where it would be practical for a single-stage-to-the-moon rocket. In the 1940s, with the seemingly unlimited promise of nuclear energy, this was the basis for some of Chesley Bonestell's artwork (https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--aa40ZmWO--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18h69qzn2uduajpg.jpg), Robert Heinlein's "Destination Moon" and the George Pal movie of the same name (http://images.furycomics.com/viewer/6d/6dce7ff3209ef724c3a9d122c281233d/0.jpg) (which Bonestell worked on).
8)
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Heh.
In my experience Hoax Proponents will do anything to avoid creating any sort of narrative around how the hoax was perpetrated. Because almost as soon as they do their narrative contradicts itself or in some other ways runs into absurdity.
Our old mate Turbonium, for example, simply admitted to having absolutely no idea how the hoax was perpetrated. It soon turned into a game of "NASA can do anything to perpetrate the hoax; but actually landing astronauts on the Moon and safely returning them to Earth is just impossible".
And there's the rub. It would simply be many times more difficult and many, many times more expensive to hoax the Apollo program; its rather like Titantic.
In 1912, RMS Titanic cost US$7.5 million to build; in 1997 adjusted dollars, that is US$120 million, but James Cameron's 1997 film which essentially "faked" the sinking of the Titanic, cost US$200 million to make.... so its cheaper to build a Titanic, sail it out of Southampton and run it into a iceberg to sink it than it than it is to fake doing so with movie FX.
But most importantly, James Cameron doesn't have to keep up the pretence. Not only would it cost an enormous amount of money to fake the Apollo Landings, those costs would be ongoing, as there would be close to half a million people you need to keep paying off to stay quiet for 40 plus years.
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
You're probably thinking of the direct ascent approach which used a large single stage machine to go from Earth orbit to the moon, then leave the moon intact and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The large lunar vehicle would have required assembly in Earth orbit or a rocket much larger than the Saturn V to lift it to orbit.
Ranb
Yeah, ISTR that was the initial thought, but practical considerations rendered the idea moot. But that was pre- even design phase let alone any physical product.
As far as I recall, von Braun first proposed a direct ascent approach, but it never got beyond a paper exercise. However, faulty memory and all that plays a part. I might very well be misremembering.
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Heh.
In my experience Hoax Proponents will do anything to avoid creating any sort of narrative around how the hoax was perpetrated. Because almost as soon as they do their narrative contradicts itself or in some other ways runs into absurdity.
Our old mate Turbonium, for example, simply admitted to having absolutely no idea how the hoax was perpetrated. It soon turned into a game of "NASA can do anything to perpetrate the hoax; but actually landing astronauts on the Moon and safely returning them to Earth is just impossible".
And there's the rub. It would simply be many times more difficult and many, many times more expensive to hoax the Apollo program; its rather like Titantic.
In 1912, RMS Titanic cost US$7.5 million to build; in 1997 adjusted dollars, that is US$120 million, but James Cameron's 1997 film which essentially "faked" the sinking of the Titanic, cost US$200 million to make.... so its cheaper to build a Titanic, sail it out of Southampton and run it into a iceberg to sink it than it than it is to fake doing so with movie FX.
But most importantly, James Cameron doesn't have to keep up the pretence. Not only would it cost an enormous amount of money to fake the Apollo Landings, those costs would be ongoing, as there would be close to half a million people you need to keep paying off to stay quiet for 40 plus years.
And James Cameron only had to build half a ship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWPVuVvUCG8)! (they just flipped the shots, using mirrored costumes when needed, for shots meant to be on the other side of the ship)
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
He did and this was well described in "How Apollo flew to the moon"
The guy responsible for the solution of this disastrous concept was John Houbolt. The Story is also mentioned in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt)
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Re: the narrative, Gillian has a standard question about that which she asks newly-arrived HBs. I don't recall the wording, but it is simple and brilliant.
Oh, er, thank you! The only one that comes to mind is "What would it take to convince you the Apollo missions were real?" If they can't answer that question, the answer is probably "I can't be convinced."
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...So what would the Apollo program look like if designed conspiracy theorist?
The Saturn-v would be a giant single stage rocket as tall as the Empire State building. The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead. Of course they will shoot right for the moon, through the most intense part of the Van Allen radiation belt. The LM is actually also a giant rocket, because you need to lift off the moon right back to earth!
Hasselblad camera's have to be put in a lead box, because Ekatchrome film was clearly sensitive to ultraviolet light and high energy particles. (Also I can't wait to shoot Ektachrome 35mm film when it becomes available again in 2017).
The rover has inflated tires made out of several inches of thick rubber to protect from the -200 +200 Celsius degrees temperature changes.
The rover TV camera has a massive antenna that always has to be pointed to the Earth, otherwise the universe will explode.
The suits don't recycle oxygen, and thus have to carry large amounts of gaseous oxygen.
There couldn't be any video taken near ground level of the first step on the moon, because someone other than the astronaut has to get out onto the moon first to operate the video camera. ::)
The Apollo Guidance Computer has to be replaced with a far bigger and heavier computer because a modern lunar-landing simulation program requires many more megabytes of memory than the AGC ever had.
The lunar module must be sheathed in thick sheets of stainless steel, because all that building paper, foil and sticky tape just didn't look right.
The rocket in the LM's descent stage must be designed to blast some lunar dust onto the footpads so that they look authentic.
The fuel in the ascent stage must burn with a very bright flame and produce clouds of billowing smoke so that it looks real in the video.
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And they had to know exactly where they landed, so they could shoot up blind and hit the CSM without even looking for it.
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The Apollo Guidance Computer has to be replaced with a far bigger and heavier computer because a modern lunar-landing simulation program requires many more megabytes of memory than the AGC ever had.
To the uninitiated, that almost sounds plausible, except for that fact that the computer and software for controlling a flight simulator is far more sophisticated and complex than that of the aircraft it is simulating.
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To the uninitiated, that almost sounds plausible, except for that fact that the computer and software for controlling a flight simulator is far more sophisticated and complex than that of the aircraft it is simulating.
I've been searching through my old documents with no luck to see if I could find the original post about simulating a lunar landing, but from one later post I think it may have been on New Zealand's Trade Me Message Board about 2004 to 2007.
A computer "expert" came into a thread about the moon-landings and said that the AGC couldn't have possibly landed the lunar module because it had only kilobytes of memory, whereas it took many megabytes of memory for a lunar-landing simulation program to work.
This blew me away and made me laugh out loud, so posted something like, "Jeez, mate, they were actually at the moon, so all they needed to do was look out the window to see it, and the computer didn't have to simulate a bloody thing!
"All it had to do was take information from the landing radar and other instruments and display them in meaningful terms so the Lunar Module Pilot could read them out to the Commander, who had to keep his eyes on the lunar surface and not the computer. The information included things like altitude, rate of descent, horizontal velocity, a few other less important items, and now-and-then, how much fuel was left in the tanks."
Here are some other posts of mine around that time at Trade Me, where I'm dbb:
33. Twincam1 -- No 25. What's your point? Do you think the Apollo computers were not capable of the tasks required of them? Do you know how much computing power was required? IIRC, the lunar module computer had about 75kb of memory. Here's some info about it:
The guidance computer is a general-purpose digital machine with a basic word length, in parallel operations, of 15 bits with an added bit for parity checks. The instruction code includes subroutines for double and triple operations. Memory cycle time is 11.7 microseconds with a single addition time of 23.4 microseconds. The 'core rope', used for the fixed memory, has a capacity of about 36,864 words with an erasable memory (of ferrite core planes) of 2,048 words. The processor is formed from integrated circuits (ICs). The total computer weight is 29.5 kg.
dbb (5) 12:13 am, 25 Jul 2004
34. Continued... The fixed memory contains programmes, routines, constants, star and landmark co-ordinates and other pertinent data. The erasable memory acts as an intermediate store for results of computations, auxiliary programme information, and variable data supplied by the G&N and other systems of the spacecraft.
You can find out more at
http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/compessay.htm
dbb (5) 12:14 am, 25 Jul 2004
The poster I was answering, Twincam1, was one of the very intelligent, open-minded kind of hoax-believers:
35. If you wanna believe the yanks drivel, cool.
twincam1 (2) 12:21 am, 25 Jul 2004
36. Your racial prejudice helps us debate rationally whether or not the lunar landings occurred?
dbb (5) 12:33 am, 25 Jul 2004
33. The Apollo Onboard Computers -- Here's a very good article about them: http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
People who REALLY know computers and study the article don't doubt that the computers could have done the job we're told they could. On the other hand, dopes tell us how much RAM etc. it takes to operate a flight simulator, while forgetting that the real computer didn't simulate ANYTHING. It just measured the environment and controlled a few things. It wasn't even completely necessary -- the astronauts could have operated the spacecraft without it -- it just made life easier for them.
dbb (15) 3:59 am, 29 Aug 2007
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Back in the mid-1970's, I had an HP25 programmable calculator. It had only 49 available program steps (with no ability to use subroutines) and only sixteen 56 bit registers; that is less than 1K bits of RAM so a far less powerful machine than the AGC, yet it used to run a program for a lunar landing simulator. which IIRC, used most of those 49 program steps.
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To the uninitiated, that almost sounds plausible, except for that fact that the computer and software for controlling a flight simulator is far more sophisticated and complex than that of the aircraft it is simulating.
I've been searching through my old documents with no luck to see if I could find the original post about simulating a lunar landing, but from one later post I think it may have been on New Zealand's Trade Me Message Board about 2004 to 2007.
A computer "expert" came into a thread about the moon-landings and said that the AGC couldn't have possibly landed the lunar module because it had only kilobytes of memory, whereas it took many megabytes of memory for a lunar-landing simulation program to work.
This blew me away and made me laugh out loud, so posted something like, "Jeez, mate, they were actually at the moon, so all they needed to do was look out the window to see it, and the computer didn't have to simulate a bloody thing!
"All it had to do was take information from the landing radar and other instruments and display them in meaningful terms so the Lunar Module Pilot could read them out to the Commander, who had to keep his eyes on the lunar surface and not the computer. The information included things like altitude, rate of descent, horizontal velocity, a few other less important items, and now-and-then, how much fuel was left in the tanks."
Here are some other posts of mine around that time at Trade Me, where I'm dbb:
33. Twincam1 -- No 25. What's your point? Do you think the Apollo computers were not capable of the tasks required of them? Do you know how much computing power was required? IIRC, the lunar module computer had about 75kb of memory. Here's some info about it:
The guidance computer is a general-purpose digital machine with a basic word length, in parallel operations, of 15 bits with an added bit for parity checks. The instruction code includes subroutines for double and triple operations. Memory cycle time is 11.7 microseconds with a single addition time of 23.4 microseconds. The 'core rope', used for the fixed memory, has a capacity of about 36,864 words with an erasable memory (of ferrite core planes) of 2,048 words. The processor is formed from integrated circuits (ICs). The total computer weight is 29.5 kg.
dbb (5) 12:13 am, 25 Jul 2004
34. Continued... The fixed memory contains programmes, routines, constants, star and landmark co-ordinates and other pertinent data. The erasable memory acts as an intermediate store for results of computations, auxiliary programme information, and variable data supplied by the G&N and other systems of the spacecraft.
You can find out more at
http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/compessay.htm
dbb (5) 12:14 am, 25 Jul 2004
The poster I was answering, Twincam1, was one of the very intelligent, open-minded kind of hoax-believers:
35. If you wanna believe the yanks drivel, cool.
twincam1 (2) 12:21 am, 25 Jul 2004
36. Your racial prejudice helps us debate rationally whether or not the lunar landings occurred?
dbb (5) 12:33 am, 25 Jul 2004
33. The Apollo Onboard Computers -- Here's a very good article about them: http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
People who REALLY know computers and study the article don't doubt that the computers could have done the job we're told they could. On the other hand, dopes tell us how much RAM etc. it takes to operate a flight simulator, while forgetting that the real computer didn't simulate ANYTHING. It just measured the environment and controlled a few things. It wasn't even completely necessary -- the astronauts could have operated the spacecraft without it -- it just made life easier for them.
dbb (15) 3:59 am, 29 Aug 2007
Was that guy Nasascam? Is he still around?
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I recall someone trying the requirements-to-run-a-sim vs. AGC argument on me a while ago. I pointed to the popular flight sim (at the time) Red Baron II and asked him how much computing power an actual Fokker Triplane used. For some reason he neither answered the question nor pursued the argument.
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Back in the mid-1970's, I had an HP25 programmable calculator. It had only 49 available program steps (with no ability to use subroutines) and only sixteen 56 bit registers; that is less than 1K bits of RAM so a far less powerful machine than the AGC, yet it used to run a program for a lunar landing simulator. which IIRC, used most of those 49 program steps.
I have a model at home(I can't remember the model number) but it used those magnetic strips to read/write programs and IIRC it was a maximum of 64 or 128 steps. Similar to your HP25.
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I recall someone trying the requirements-to-run-a-sim vs. AGC argument on me a while ago. I pointed to the popular flight sim (at the time) Red Baron II and asked him how much computing power an actual Fokker Triplane used. For some reason he neither answered the question nor pursued the argument.
Hah! That's funny!
Back in the mid-1970's, I had an HP25 programmable calculator. It had only 49 available program steps (with no ability to use subroutines) and only sixteen 56 bit registers; that is less than 1K bits of RAM so a far less powerful machine than the AGC, yet it used to run a program for a lunar landing simulator. which IIRC, used most of those 49 program steps.
I have a model at home(I can't remember the model number) but it used those magnetic strips to read/write programs and IIRC it was a maximum of 64 or 128 steps. Similar to your HP25.
That will probably be an HP65. The HP25 was marketed as a cheaper alternative to the HP65, and not including the magnetic reader was one of the cost saving measures.
I think mine must have been an HP25C because it had continuous memory , i.e. it didn't lose the program when switched off.
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Don't forget that the AGC and especially the AGS had utterly primitive user interfaces. Aldrin's call "413 is in" just after landing referred to his manually poking the value "1" into memory location 413 of the AGS to tell it that it had landed, so don't fire any RCS thrusters should it get control.
User interfaces are by far the dominant and most complex part of most modern computer programs.
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You mean not having translucent menu bars and windows reduces memory needed?
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Don't forget that the AGC and especially the AGS had utterly primitive user interfaces. Aldrin's call "413 is in" just after landing referred to his manually poking the value "1" into memory location 413 of the AGS to tell it that it had landed, so don't fire any RCS thrusters should it get control.
User interfaces are by far the dominant and most complex part of most modern computer programs.
Didn't it use radar and four switches on the landing pads to know when It has landed?
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I recall someone trying the requirements-to-run-a-sim vs. AGC argument on me a while ago. I pointed to the popular flight sim (at the time) Red Baron II and asked him how much computing power an actual Fokker Triplane used. For some reason he neither answered the question nor pursued the argument.
Or simulating dropping a ball, vs . . . dropping a ball.
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Didn't it use radar and four switches on the landing pads to know when It has landed?
I don't think so. I looked at the contact switch circuits a while ago, and if I remember correctly their only function was to light the blue "CONTACT" lights on the consoles.
I know it seems trivial to let the computer sense a landing, but you have to remember how long ago this was. There was also a lot of concern about having the computer shut down the engines automatically out of fear it might do so prematurely. This was not an unreasonable concern given that at least two Mars landers crashed when they prematurely sensed surface contact and shut down their engines well above the ground: Mars Polar Lander and the more recent Schiaparelli lander.
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Didn't it use radar and four switches on the landing pads to know when It has landed?
I don't think so. I looked at the contact switch circuits a while ago, and if I remember correctly their only function was to light the blue "CONTACT" lights on the consoles.
I know it seems trivial to let the computer sense a landing, but you have to remember how long ago this was. There was also a lot of concern about having the computer shut down the engines automatically out of fear it might do so prematurely. This was not an unreasonable concern given that at least two Mars landers crashed when they prematurely sensed surface contact and shut down their engines well above the ground: Mars Polar Lander and the more recent Schiaparelli lander.
Funnily enough, a couple of weeks ago I was involved in a conversation about a similar issue with something else regarding automatic vs semi-automatic mode. With one sub-system to detect and react would be okay, but with another, there was a concern because it would be easier for that sub-system to detect falsely and the consequences of reacting were more serious.
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The original LM design had lunar contact probes on all four pads, but there was a worry that the probe on the leg with the LM hatch might stick up on landing and be a hazard to the astronauts. They ended up removing all probes except one.
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No. There were 3 probes - one on each pad except the one where the ladder came down.
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No. There were 3 probes - one on each pad except the one where the ladder came down.
This: AS11-44-6574 (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/AS11-44-6574HR.jpg)
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Didn't it use radar and four switches on the landing pads to know when It has landed?
I don't think so. I looked at the contact switch circuits a while ago, and if I remember correctly their only function was to light the blue "CONTACT" lights on the consoles.
I know it seems trivial to let the computer sense a landing, but you have to remember how long ago this was. There was also a lot of concern about having the computer shut down the engines automatically out of fear it might do so prematurely. This was not an unreasonable concern given that at least two Mars landers crashed when they prematurely sensed surface contact and shut down their engines well above the ground: Mars Polar Lander and the more recent Schiaparelli lander.
You were/are correct
From https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/nasa58040.pdf Page 10 Approach phase
Probes...upon making surface contact activate a light which signals the crew to shutdown the DPS manually, whether using automatic or manual control.
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My understanding is that most of these people think it is impossible (or at least beyond current or 1960s technology) to build a rocket that would take people to the moon, so asking them how they would do it doesn't exactly seem to be the right question. But I guess this thread is just for humour.
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No. There were 3 probes - one on each pad except the one where the ladder came down.
Yep, sorry - I was getting mixed up there.
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In my mind's eye, I still see CTs coming up with a Buck Rogers style, sleek, aerodynamic, shiny design for reasons I cannot fathom and they cannot explain.
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The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead.
I've had someone tell me that you couldn't use any metal.
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In my mind's eye, I still see CTs coming up with a Buck Rogers style, sleek, aerodynamic, shiny design for reasons I cannot fathom and they cannot explain.
Well shiny is right.
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
He did and this was well described in "How Apollo flew to the moon"
The guy responsible for the solution of this disastrous concept was John Houbolt. The Story is also mentioned in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt)
For those interested in von Braun's original, ambitious plan in 1952: From - http://astronautix.com/v/vonbraunlunarlander.html
"No fewer than fifty engineers and scientists would fly to the moon aboard three spacecraft assembled in earth orbit. At 3964 metric tons each, one of these spacecraft alone, already in earth orbit, had the same mass as the Saturn V used 16 years later to launch the actual first lunar voyage from the earth's surface. Two of the lunar landers would house 20 crew, and one 10 crew plus 259 metric tons of cargo for lunar exploration. The cargo lander would be left on the lunar surface; the crew would return in two of the landers, 25 men per spacecraft."
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
He did and this was well described in "How Apollo flew to the moon"
The guy responsible for the solution of this disastrous concept was John Houbolt. The Story is also mentioned in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt)
Nope, he used three stage ferry rockets to assemble a lunar spacecraft in his earliest lunar study in 1952.
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Nope, he used three stage ferry rockets to assemble a lunar spacecraft in his earliest lunar study in 1952.
True, my bad. I remembered this a little wrong.
The book describes three competeting parties during the early times of the basic conception:
- a majority for the direct ascent ("make it easy, no complexity")
- nearly most of all the others for the concept of Von Braun´s EOR (all dockings in Earth's orbit)
- and this one single person, advocating the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR)
And it's so funny that this last idea had won the whole competition at the end. He gained the attention of the management by writing a very courageous letter. I am sure, this story should be well known by many of the forum members (who know so much more than me, anyway).
One great story to take a lesson how teamwork could be accomplished in favor of the company.
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Didn't von Braun originally start out with an enormous single stage rocket as a concept?
He did and this was well described in "How Apollo flew to the moon"
The guy responsible for the solution of this disastrous concept was John Houbolt. The Story is also mentioned in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houbolt)
For those interested in von Braun's original, ambitious plan in 1952: From - http://astronautix.com/v/vonbraunlunarlander.html
"No fewer than fifty engineers and scientists would fly to the moon aboard three spacecraft assembled in earth orbit. At 3964 metric tons each, one of these spacecraft alone, already in earth orbit, had the same mass as the Saturn V used 16 years later to launch the actual first lunar voyage from the earth's surface. Two of the lunar landers would house 20 crew, and one 10 crew plus 259 metric tons of cargo for lunar exploration. The cargo lander would be left on the lunar surface; the crew would return in two of the landers, 25 men per spacecraft."
I think this proposal was presented in a Disney weekly, but I could be wrong. I do remember Von Braun proposing a permanent space station orbiting at 1000 miles way before we knew about the VARB.
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The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead.
I've had someone tell me that you couldn't use any metal.
and quite right too:- The use of LEAD as shielding would have caused secondary Bremsstrahlung radiation.
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What energy levels of bremsstrahlung would lead create? And how much lead would it take to stop it?
Is there a table of energy levels and atomic numbers I can refer to when people start the lead-shield-rant?
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The LM and CM shielding needs to be made out of meter thick sheets of lead.
I've had someone tell me that you couldn't use any metal.
and quite right too:- The use of LEAD as shielding would have caused secondary Bremsstrahlung radiation.
This guy was arguing that the use of aluminium would have made the Apollo missions impossible. I couldn't convince him that the different molecular masses of metals was significant in how Bremsstrahlung was generated.
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This guy was arguing that the use of aluminium would have made the Apollo missions impossible. I couldn't convince him that the different molecular masses of metals was significant in how Bremsstrahlung was generated.
You did tell him that the aluminum shell was only part of the construction with stainless steel and insulation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module
EDIT:
I found a better description of the construction.
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/CSM06_Command_Module_Overview_pp39-52.pdf
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What energy levels of bremsstrahlung would lead create? And how much lead would it take to stop it?
Is there a table of energy levels and atomic numbers I can refer to when people start the lead-shield-rant?
BobB has it covered, in terms of the shielding of Apollo, I seem to recall someone on here calculating the difference Lead would have had. I.e Increasing the effects of bremsstrahlung radiation from 0 to very high, but I can't find it.
http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/VABraddose.htm
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Yes, I know that page. I was looking for a list of all the possible radiation-emissions from diverse elements. I would like to compare the emissions from wolfram (tungsten) which are used as x-ray emitters in medical x-rays. As you know, medical x-rays are used to find foreign objects inside the human body (shrapnell from bomb-blasts, projectiles and so on) and if these x-rays can detect those, they can't penetrate (or at least are greatly absorbed by) these materials.
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I have a question about shielding
In 1985, the Giotto probe, and later, the Stardust probe, used a double shield of two thin layers for protection against high-velocity particles during their encounters with Halley's Comet and Comet Wild2 respectively.
AIUI, the idea of this "Whipple Shield" was that the first layer would be punctured, either smashing or decelerating the particle so that it would not have sufficient energy or velocity to penetrate the second layer. Only the relatively small number of energetic particles would get through both.
Would such an arrangement work for cosmic ray shielding and could it help to reduce the amount of bremsstrahlung radiation (I am thinking the bremsstrahlung radiation created by impact with the first layer, it might not be energetic enough to penetrate the second layer?
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As I understand it, no. The whipple shield (named after it's inventor) smashes the impactor into smaller particles, which will affect a bigger area of the secondary shield. GR is (correct me if I'm wrong) heavy nuclei, accelerated to high velocities by supernovae. They will either pass clean through a shield or be stopped by it. The energy level (not the total energy) of the secondary radiation is dependent on the electron clouds the GR interact with. If they interact, fine, there will be heat and x-rays. If not, they will pass clean through and hit the secondary shield (or pass through and hit or pass thorugh the payload). If the primary shield is aluminium and the secondary shield is aluminium too, the x-rays will be stopped. More mass will be more effective than a few thin layers.
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The Whipple shield was thought on in 1947!
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I have a question about shielding
In 1985, the Giotto probe, and later, the Stardust probe, used a double shield of two thin layers for protection against high-velocity particles during their encounters with Halley's Comet and Comet Wild2 respectively.
AIUI, the idea of this "Whipple Shield" was that the first layer would be punctured, either smashing or decelerating the particle so that it would not have sufficient energy or velocity to penetrate the second layer. Only the relatively small number of energetic particles would get through both.
Would such an arrangement work for cosmic ray shielding and could it help to reduce the amount of bremsstrahlung radiation (I am thinking the bremsstrahlung radiation created by impact with the first layer, it might not be energetic enough to penetrate the second layer?
Now that is new to me, rather like the stand off protection versus RPG's etc. used in the military.
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The Whipple shield was thought on in 1947!
Arthur C. Clarke used/described a similar concept (on a much larger scale) in his 1953 short story "Jupiter Five"
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The Whipple shield was thought on in 1947!
Arthur C. Clarke used/described a similar concept (on a much larger scale) in his 1953 short story "Jupiter Five"
Probably based on Whipple.
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Yes, the Whipple Shield has been around for a long time. It was used in the ascent stage of the LM. That's why it's covered with those thin, flimsy sheets of metal the HBs are always going on about. When it hits the outer sheet, a particle shatters into many little bits but doesn't lose all that much energy. But the inner shield (the cabin wall) is better able to withstand that spray of tiny particles than the original single particle; it's like the difference between a rifle bullet and a shotgun blast. The LM also had multilayer aluminized Mylar thermal blankets under the outer metal sheeting that probably also helped to further fragment and spread the bits making it through the outer sheet.
The concept has a parallel in the design of error correcting codes for digital recording and communication. Two codes are often arranged such that the uncorrected errors from one are spread out over a wide enough range for the second to handle them easily. An example is the code used on the Compact Disc. The analogy may be a bit of a stretch, but I'm both a communications engineer and a space buff...
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Is this table a representation of the x-ray emissions from various materials?
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/kxray.html#c1