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1

The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Jason Thompson on January 15, 2025, 04:33:53 PM »

I'm also curious to how much artistic licence Apollo 13 (film) used.

Quite a bit, usually in the service of making a story that played out over several days into a gripping 2-hour movie and keeping the cast of characters manageable. We only see one flight control team, for instance, without even a mention of the others. Ken Mattingly was not the only one in the simulator working on power up procedures. I think it's unfortunate that it plays with the 'let's change the character of the dead guy for dramatic purposes' trope by making much more out of Swigert's last-minute switch into the CMP seat, with far more uncertainty about him from his crewmates and ground controllers than was ever the case in reality.

Ironically, the one moment in the movie that got most flak for excessive dramatic license, when Marilyn drops her wedding ring down the shower drain just before launch, has been confirmed by the Lovells as actually happening! (The ring was recovered from the trap.)

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Jason Thompson on January 15, 2025, 04:24:59 PM »

... some might argue we shouldn't let him build buildings either!   

Indeed, the neighbors of the Disney Concert Hall can tell you a thing or two about heat loads from reflective surfaces.

As can a number of people who have parked their cars in Eastcheap, a street in London, on particularly sunny days at certain times of year. The infamous 'walkie-talkie' tower has a distressing tendency to melt car parts.....

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Jason Thompson on January 15, 2025, 04:20:45 PM »

Sure. And as soon as you figure out what "it" is you'll be going places.

For a given point on a surface...

Proving I've got used to using social media more than bulletin boards, I keep looking for the 'like' button around here! Thanks for the illustration. I knew it was complex but I'm very much in the 'well I know the hoax believers are wrong but blowed if I can tell them how to be right' stage, and comfortable there.

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by JayUtah on January 15, 2025, 03:36:48 PM »

Were the switches really dripping with water?

I can't find any definite testimony one way or another, but it's likely that there was notable condensation.

You're probably familiar with the encapsulation of the AGC components, but in fact all the internal components of the CM were internally encapsulated against moisture. Not full potting, but the wired connections were dipped in or painted with sealants to prevent any water-related short circuits.

5

The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Peter B on January 15, 2025, 03:23:27 PM »

...Similarly, the LM ascent stage was always slightly off balance. If you watch the 16 mm footage, the LM wallowed constantly in one direction and had to be corrected. This was deemed acceptable since the corrective control action wasn't very significant. But it's one of those things that could have been corrected by a design change, but wasn't. The existing design was "good enough." Hence being successful as an engineer means (among other things) realizing when Better is the enemy of Good, and emotionally letting go of the ghosts in existing designs. Every successful design will still harbor "We never fixed that" issues. And every engineer accumulates a list of, "If we had it to do over again..."

The Murray and Cox book "Apollo The Race to the Moon" describes Joe Shea constantly emphasising that point, mentioning the use of Passive Thermal Control to manage the effect of extreme low temperatures on the heat shield material, and the lack of a fuel gauge for the SPS engine.

But presumably this sort of mindset is going to be fairly common in a wide range of workplaces?

Over the years I worked in many places where people could see better ways of doing things, but we were told to keep doing things the way they were because "the system works well enough", and "we don't have the money to fix that". Then, if the money became available, perhaps some random selection of those improvements might be actually programmed (can you sense my cynical nostalgia?).

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Luke Pemberton on January 15, 2025, 02:31:19 PM »

Nusselt, but yes.

Thanks for the correction. Worth pointing people in the right direction. I've lost my reading glasses and take amitriptyline for osteoarthritis of the neck. I get foggy at this time of night. Well that's my excuse. If I stir in the night I'm almost delirious. I was awakened at 2 a.m. the other night, and believed there was a male lion in my room.

Talking of Apollo 13. I never understood the accident was staged as a distraction from Vietnam claim (Ralph Rene). Firstly, Western society was progressing in an increasingly liberal manner by the late 60s and early 70s, and a few astronauts going to the moon was journalistic corn seed in terms of Vietnam and the powerful social movements of the time. In any case, how would a news story with a short half life take Vietnam off the front page for any length of time? Further, why not just explode the Saturn V on the launch pad and end the program there. They had 'hoaxed' the landings twice? Why keep playing it out and risk getting found out? I'm also curious to how much artistic licence Apollo 13 (film) used. Were the switches really dripping with water?

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by JayUtah on January 15, 2025, 01:39:12 PM »

The Kapton foil alone is fascinating.

Today polyimide tape is ubiquitous in science and industry. We use (nonaluminized) Kapton tape basically as science duct tape, which means we go through it like crap through a goose. At any given time there are several cases of it in my warehouse.

The plumbline, Sharpies and dome, is this the Nusslet analog? Makes for an interesting read.

Nusselt, but yes.

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by Luke Pemberton on January 15, 2025, 01:23:50 PM »

The Kapton foil alone is fascinating.

https://apollo11space.com/apollo-11-kapton-foil/

The plumbline, Sharpies and dome, is this the Nusslet analog? Makes for an interesting read.

9

The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by JayUtah on January 15, 2025, 01:15:54 PM »

... some might argue we shouldn't let him build buildings either!   

Indeed, the neighbors of the Disney Concert Hall can tell you a thing or two about heat loads from reflective surfaces. Coincidentally I was doing a performance gig at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion across the street when the Disney hall was being built. I got to see the structural steelwork, which was all kinds of awesome and unconventional (necessarily). Later I found out Gehry's studio uses CATIA software to design his buildings, the same CAD system we use to design spaceships.

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The Hoax Theory / Re: Hoax? - Flag moves without being Touched

« Last post by JayUtah on January 15, 2025, 12:44:37 PM »

"Have you tried turning it off and on again" will never get old as a solution, nor, apparently, will it ever stop being a valid solution. 

In contrast we can look at Apollo 13 with hindsight and say, "Why sure it's possible to turn on a dormant CSM." But in fact they really didn't know how to do it, or whether it could even be done. This is because no one ever contemplated a survivable scenario in which the CSM would be powered down and then powered back up again in flight. The normal procedure for starting up the CSM took two days and truckloads of ground support equipment. You started up each subsystem appropriately on ground power, let it warm up, took readings, made adjustments, and then moved on to the next step. When you were done, you just let it run continuously on ground power until the crew climbed in and took off. A bootstrapping procedure executed by subject matter experts was so standard that there wasn't even much contemplation of an alternative before being faced with the situation. I'm confident that anyone who has ever worked in a technical capacity understands how and why this is often the best way to get something started.