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The Hoax Theory / Re: Gene Gilmore
« Last post by smartcooky on Today at 01:29:01 AM »
Anyone heard of this clown?

https://rumble.com/v6qtabc-nasa-contractor-confesses-on-deathbed-i-helped-fake-the-moon-landing.html

So its not a video of the person confessing, its video of the son claiming his father confessed?

If so that's hearsay, and there's nothing to see here.

Exactly.  But I have some in-laws convinced by it....!

Well, no insult to your in laws. but

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The Hoax Theory / Excellent reply to an HB at Quora - minus photos
« Last post by Kiwi on Today at 12:02:19 AM »
Quote
C Stuart Hardwick
Has a lunar adventure in the March 2019 Analog Scifi. Updated 5y

What did you think of the USA Today front page showing two photos of the Apollo 11 flag waving and no stars?


What did I think of the USA today front page showing two photos of the Apollo 11 flag waving and no stars?

I think anyone with any intelligence understands that when you hang a nylon flag from a metal supporting rod in lunar gravity in a vacuum and adjust the exposure of the camera for bright sunlight, it looks just like this:

I think that anyone with any intelligence knows that when you reproduce such an image on the cover of the newspaper, you lose a lot of definition and contrast.

I think anyone with any intelligence, before making pronouncements or comments about one of history’s greatest and best-documented achievements, would seek to check out the reasonableness of their off-the-cuff impressions, say, by searching Quora for one of my dozens of answers to this topic.

I think that anyone with any intelligence should know at this point that the Apollo missions landed early in the Lunar morning, and the sky appears dark only because the moon has no air to catch passing photons of sunlight and scatter them down into the camera (or eye) of an observer—but that the photons are still there, illuminating whatever they touch with greater energy than the force of the hottest high noon sun back on Earth.

Further, I think that any intelligent person knows that stars are extraordinarily faint compared to sunlight, that photographs of stars made at night require long exposures and/or fast film and wide apertures, and that any photo made of an astronaut in a white spacesuit in broad daylight adjusted to show stars would look something roughly like this:

And I suspect that a really clever person will guess that the above image, though produced using GIMP and displaying numerous gleaming bits of dust caught in the equipment when this was scanned from the film, still looks starless when shrunk down by Quora’s image processor.

I think that any intelligent person understands that all this is why you can’t see any stars in this image (from The Atlantic) ..

…and why this overexposure of a dude on a hill with a headlamp looks surreal…

..and why here, the dim red light used to preserve the dark adaptation of astronomers working inside becomes a beacon across the landscape in this long exposure designed to capture the Milky Way…

..and why you can’t see any stars in this shot of the Las Vegan strip:

I think that intelligent people understand perfectly well why you cannot, and should not expect to, see stars in photographs taken on the moon or of other brightly lit objects against a dark sky.

I think people have a choice to make. Do you want to be counted in the camp of intelligent people, or in the camp of those who don’t understand elementary principles of photography that any child should know, yet presume to question the best and the brightest minds our species has to offer?

I get these in my email and can never find a link. Perhaps links are for members only. Some of the answers don't interest me, but occasionally there's a real gem, like this one.
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The Hoax Theory / Re: Gene Gilmore
« Last post by Dalhousie on March 18, 2025, 09:49:56 PM »
Anyone heard of this clown?

https://rumble.com/v6qtabc-nasa-contractor-confesses-on-deathbed-i-helped-fake-the-moon-landing.html

So its not a video of the person confessing, its video of the son claiming his father confessed?

If so that's hearsay, and there's nothing to see here.

Exactly.  But I have some in-laws convinced by it....!
4
The Hoax Theory / Re: Gene Gilmore
« Last post by smartcooky on March 18, 2025, 09:15:28 PM »
Anyone heard of this clown?

https://rumble.com/v6qtabc-nasa-contractor-confesses-on-deathbed-i-helped-fake-the-moon-landing.html

So its not a video of the person confessing, its video of the son claiming his father confessed?

If so that's hearsay, and there's nothing to see here.
6
General Discussion / Re: Kids say the darnedest things...
« Last post by Peter B on March 14, 2025, 04:54:27 PM »
14YOS and I were talking about vaccinations. The context was that all three of the kids (and my wife) have just had chicken pox despite being fully vaccinated.

14YOS: So, why are people opposed to vaccinations?

Me: A variety of reasons, none of them really good. Some people think the diseases aren't dangerous. Some people are worried about additives to vaccines. Some people prefer to expose their kids to the actual disease rather than the vaccine.

14YOS: I've heard that some people reckon the vaccines contain microchips to control everyone. Though that doesn't make sense, they could just put them in the  water supply...

Me: And anyway, people seem willing to control themselves with their addiction to social media...

We both look at 12YOD, whose head is buried in her phone.

She looks up blankly.

12YOD: Huh?
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General Discussion / Re: Kids say the darnedest things...
« Last post by Peter B on March 12, 2025, 04:31:19 PM »
Someone doesn't like maths...

All Australian school kids are required to do standardised testing in English and Maths in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, known as NAPLAN, and it's happening at the moment.

At breakfast this morning, 12YOD informed me she had her NAPLAN maths test today. Then, she mournfully added, "...and I have a maths class too, and they're not at the same time!"
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The Reality of Apollo / Re: Command module/Service module connection
« Last post by Peter B on March 10, 2025, 04:23:01 PM »
Cool, thank you! I didn't expect that level of connection through the heat shield.

I mean, I was aware of the connections around the outside of the heat shield. But I thought they were all that were involved, as I assumed it would be necessary to avoid any sort of interruption in the material of the heat shield.

The things you learn...!
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The Reality of Apollo / Re: Command module/Service module connection
« Last post by JayUtah on March 08, 2025, 10:59:20 AM »
Here is as complete an explanation as you're likely to get anywhere.

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41958/apollo-command-module-heatshield-tube-what-was-it-for

Tl;dr—yes there were stainless steel bolts that passed through the ablative portion of the heat shield in three places. But to be pedantic, this connects the CM to the SM, not to the Saturn IV-B stage. "Tension tie" is functionally equivalent to "bolt" in this application, although it's still ambiguous whether it was cylindrical or not. It seems to be, but other commentators describe it as a "strap." The illustration labeled Figure 11 is the most helpful. The compression pad (not labeled) is tightened until it presses upward hard on the CM, putting the tension tie in, well, tension. This compression-tension strategy is very much like how bombs are attached to airplane wings. It keeps them from wiggling around.

At separation, the linear shaped charge cuts the tension tie, the CM end of which stays there and gets very, very hot during reentry. The portion of the heat shield around the compression pads and tension ties are composed differently, and there is thermal isolation on the CM side.

The video also gives a very informative close-up of the fluid and electrical connections that went around the heat shield and were guillotined apart at separation.
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The Reality of Apollo / Command module/Service module connection
« Last post by Peter B on March 08, 2025, 03:06:18 AM »
Were there any connections between the CM and SM which passed through the CM's heat shield?

I don't think so, but a conservator in this Adam Savage's Tested video thinks it was. Savage is looking at the A11 CM sitting on a cradle, and the CM appears to be bolted to the cradle through the heat shield. The conservator says that these were "the same bolt holes that were used to attach it to the Saturn 5 rocket".

It occurs at about a minute into this video:

Thank you!
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