ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: benparry on June 15, 2018, 02:42:19 PM
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
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Simple is the word. The moon does rotate, and the image is a composite. Earth is not in the original - in fact I'm not even sure it's from Apollo 11!
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
Only one question - does he actually think that's a genuine photograph?
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Tbh I don't know but can I just ask 1 question. Obviously the big moon with writing is not real but even if it was is the simple fact that we can sometimes see the moon high in the sky and sometimes low explain why the earth could be low on the horizon.
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This is a copy and paste from another comment he has just made in the same post to try to push the hoax in another way
Mark Ferguson Now, if you want a precise example, I have laughed when I have looked at the logical command interface of the lateral thrusters; each pitch or roll command activates two vertical thrusters directly opposed to each other, so pushing in opposite directions, which means that they cancel their mutual effects (and I remind you they were not throttleable); how could this work?
Moreover, the engineers had added some fun, by uselessly complicating the way that the commands were sent to the interface; intead of directly applying the commands to the interface, they were modulating a high frequency carrier with these commands, sending the modulated carrier into a wire, and demodulating the carrier to extract the commands at the other end of the wire; but you only do that when you send commands through air, like for a drone, not when you send the commands through a wire; this useless complication was a hint given by the NASA engineers that this interface was a farce.
Any ideas it's way over my head
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This is a copy and paste from another comment he has just made in the same post to try to push the hoax in another way
Mark Ferguson Now, if you want a precise example, I have laughed when I have looked at the logical command interface of the lateral thrusters; each pitch or roll command activates two vertical thrusters directly opposed to each other, so pushing in opposite directions, which means that they cancel their mutual effects (and I remind you they were not throttleable); how could this work?
Moreover, the engineers had added some fun, by uselessly complicating the way that the commands were sent to the interface; intead of directly applying the commands to the interface, they were modulating a high frequency carrier with these commands, sending the modulated carrier into a wire, and demodulating the carrier to extract the commands at the other end of the wire; but you only do that when you send commands through air, like for a drone, not when you send the commands through a wire; this useless complication was a hint given by the NASA engineers that this interface was a farce.
Any ideas it's way over my head
I'm sure people with more in-depth knowledge than myself can give you more detail, but I'd consider a couple of points :
- Why does he think the RCS thrusters would be counteracting each other? The "quads" each have four nozzles, facing in different directions, and when e.g. the upward facing one on one side is firing, the downward facing one on the opposite side fires, to provide a rotational force round the centre of gravity (or close to it).
- There are many reasons why using modulated signals is preferable to straight DC coupling, such as electrically noisy environments or lack of a common stable reference, although I'd have to do a bit of research to find out why it was used in Apollo. There are many types of system where a DC connection just wouldn't be possible.
I suspect too little research and too much "assuming" on his part, without considering the design constraints for the systems.
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isn't that pascals way lol
thanks for that molesworth
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
Yes, he needs to show where that photo came from. It's a composite picture. The astronaut on the ladder is Buzz Aldrin, and the picture is AS11-40-5868. The Earth has been added later by extending the image past the left margin, and at first glance this was done by pasting a low res version of the Apollo 8 Earthrise image on.
On Apollo 11 the astronauts did actually take pictures of Earth, and it was above their heads just as it should be. AS11-40-5923, for example.
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Tbh I don't know but can I just ask 1 question. Obviously the big moon with writing is not real but even if it was is the simple fact that we can sometimes see the moon high in the sky and sometimes low explain why the earth could be low on the horizon.
No. We see the Moon at varying elevations because of the interrelationship between the ecliptic plane, the lunar orbital plane and the rotational axis of the Earth. It's essentially the same reason we have seasons, with the Sun high in the sky in summer and low in winter, but with the added complexity of the lunar orbital plane thrown in. The Moon always shows the ame face towards Earth, however, so there is very little variation in the elevation of the Earth as seen from any point on the lunar surface. If you stand on a site at the centre of the side of the moon facing us, you will always see the Earth more or less overhead, and if you are near the limb as seen from Earth you will always see Earth low on the horizon.
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As for the pitch and roll issue...
Mark Ferguson Now, if you want a precise example, I have laughed when I have looked at the logical command interface of the lateral thrusters; each pitch or roll command activates two vertical thrusters directly opposed to each other, so pushing in opposite directions, which means that they cancel their mutual effects (and I remind you they were not throttleable); how could this work?
He needs to do some basic geometry. The two thrusters are not directly opposite, they are separated by the spacecraft. If you fire one on one side of the spacecraft in one direction and fire the opposite in the other direction you will induce a rotational force around the centre of the axis connecting them. Rocket engines are only directly opposed is they thrust on exactly the same axis.
How does this idiot think a catherine wheel firework works? The simplest of these consist of two rockets firing in opposite directions at each end of a connecting arm. The only reason they have a pin through the centre to be mounted is so they don't fly off uncontrollably, because they're not perfectly aligned and perfectly balanced in terms of thrust. Even if you don't mount them the forces from those rockets will still cause it to spin.
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
Simple. Take your phone at arms length selfie style. See your own image. Standing in place, circle in place with phone at arms length filming all the while.
Now explain why your phone has NOT ROTATED AT ALL.
Job done.
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ah ok thanks Jason. yes the firework example is a good one. sorry abaddon I don't quite follow your point
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He needs to do some basic geometry. The two thrusters are not directly opposite, they are separated by the spacecraft.
Wow, and how. That's basic spacecraft dynamic control. In the real world RCS thrusters are never optimally placed, so we always design according to a generalized free-body method. Even though the quads are ostensibly placed to give "pure" pitch, yaw, and roll moments, that is never actually achieved in practice. So any "pure" maneuver in the cardinal axes always requires multiple firings from RCS jets you wouldn't think are appropriate to that. One of the hardest things to do in manual spaceflight is "nulling" or trimming after a burn, to take down the residual unwanted rotations in odd axes.
Fun fact: the reference axes for the LM RCS were not an orthonormal basis like you'd expect. It was biased for forward motion, to optimize the control solution for landing. There's a great paper out of MIT's Draper lab that explains and justifies this, and it has a good introduction to basic dynamic control theory. The generalized free-body method is explained in full in Sidi's book, which is still the standard reference.
As for modulated signals, that's almost a no-brainer. You often get the carrier for free from the power supplies, and a passive band-pass filter can be made for a few bucks using a home electronics kit. Not only is it much, much safer in the space environment, where you can have transient electrical and magnetic interference and short circuits, but it also lets you multiplex different control signals on the same wire. That way you have to run only one wire out to the RCS from the controller, and then split the different signals out at the remote site. It saves mass and electricity.
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No, the RCS wasn't throttleable, but could be fired in very short bursts, down to 1/100th of a second. They provided both pitch, yaw and roll, and also lateral movement.
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No, the RCS wasn't throttleable, but could be fired in very short bursts, down to 1/100th of a second. They provided both pitch, yaw and roll, and also lateral movement.
A.k.a. "pulse mode" in the relevant literature. If you do a 0.01-second pulse with several idle pulses (say, 4) following, then another power pulse etc., it's effectively the same as throttling to 20 percent rated thrust. Slightly more, because the effect of the ignition transient will be more pronounced.
Obviously the same RCS had to serve the fully loaded and docked LM and the ascending stage after landing, which is roughly a tenth the mass.
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ah ok thanks Jason. yes the firework example is a good one. sorry abaddon I don't quite follow your point
Relative to you, the phone always keeps the same face toward you, but from the point of view of anyone watching you, the phone has rotated through 360° over the same period that it revolved about you (completed one orbit)
NITPICK/FURTHER EDUCATION
The Moon actually does not keep exactly the same face toward the earth. This is due to something called "libration"
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Lunar_libration_with_phase_Oct_2007_450px.gif/220px-Lunar_libration_with_phase_Oct_2007_450px.gif)
- from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration#Lunar_libration
Libration in longitude results from the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit around Earth; the Moon's rotation sometimes leads and sometimes lags its orbital position.
Libration in latitude results from a slight inclination (about 6.7 degrees) between the Moon's axis of rotation and the normal to the plane of its orbit around Earth. Its origin is analogous to how the seasons arise from Earth's revolution about the Sun.
Diurnal libration is a small daily oscillation due to the Earth's rotation, which carries an observer first to one side and then to the other side of the straight line joining Earth's and the Moon's centers, allowing the observer to look first around one side of the Moon and then around the other—because the observer is on the surface of the Earth, not at its center.
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No, the RCS wasn't throttleable, but could be fired in very short bursts, down to 1/100th of a second. They provided both pitch, yaw and roll, and also lateral movement.
AIUI, they work in much the same way that the cold gas thrusters work on the SpaceX boosters, on (max thrust) and off. A long burst is used to completely flip the booster over in preparation for the boostback burn (and a long burst to cancel that rotation) then a series of short bursts of max thrust to adjust the reentry angle of the booster.
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About 15 tonnes prior to descent, and I believe the ascent stage had a mass around 2.35 tonnes after orbit insertion.
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Around 27,000 pounds at DOI and around 3,500 pounds at lunar liftoff.
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hey thanks again guys I always learn something new here lol I almost feel embarrassed when I carry on the debate back on FB lol
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Around 27,000 pounds at DOI and around 3,500 pounds at lunar liftoff.
The numbers I can find talk about 2150 kg at rendezvous. And 4700 kg at lunar liftoff for the ascent stage.
Otherwise, the empty ascent stage with astronauts and samples would mass 800 kg on its own.
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Around 27,000 pounds at DOI and around 3,500 pounds at lunar liftoff.
The numbers I can find talk about 2150 kg at rendezvous. And 4700 kg at lunar liftoff for the ascent stage.
Otherwise, the empty ascent stage with astronauts and samples would mass 800 kg on its own.
Yes, table 1 here http://www.clavius.org/techexhaust.html gives the figures for LM-6 at touchdown on the lunar surface. I knew I had these laying around somewhere.
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
It'd be interesting to find out why Pascal thinks that image is genuine, given the ease with which its (un)reality can be checked.
...each pitch or roll command activates two vertical thrusters directly opposed to each other, so pushing in opposite directions, which means that they cancel their mutual effects (and I remind you they were not throttleable); how could this work?
Again, it'd be interesting to find out why Pascal thinks this was the case. I mean (i) illustrations have always been available of the use of the thrusters showing how they were fired on opposite sides of the Service Module to rotate the spacecraft, and (ii) using thrusters this way to rotate a spacecraft was hardly new to Apollo - they'd been used on both manned and unmanned spacecraft for years before Apollo. I mean, even as a hoax hypothesis it doesn't make sense.
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Hi all
After wrongly thinking Pascal had retired from Facebook he is back and debating me in a group. Although he wasn't the original poster he has had some thoughts. I think the answer is simple do you guys have any thoughts
A couple of information points, could you post a link to the FB page so I don't have to manually try to find it?
Did he link one of his videos in the FB page?, if so please provide that link also.
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hey bknight
as I say the original post wasn't his regarding the actual photo but the stuff about thrusters were.
sure the link to the thread is here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2214776597/permalink/10156507244731598/?comment_id=10156507755111598&reply_comment_id=10156509910421598¬if_id=1529161091821516¬if_t=group_comment
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hey bknight
as I say the original post wasn't his regarding the actual photo but the stuff about thrusters were.
sure the link to the thread is here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2214776597/permalink/10156507244731598/?comment_id=10156507755111598&reply_comment_id=10156509910421598¬if_id=1529161091821516¬if_t=group_comment
Thanks, I didn't see a link to any of his videos, so it would be next to impossible to go back and see where he flubbed.
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hey bknight no his videos I believe are on his youtube channel. I think this is the link for that.
https://www.youtube.com/user/hunchbacked
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That video isn't valid. I did search hunchy's site and found a couple of videos that deal with LM's RCS system.
ApolloWasReal took him to task as he(ApolloWasReal) loved to correct him and make him look stupid. Hunch has an aerospace engineering degree, but he pretends to know a lot about the electronics of Apollo, but unfortunately for him he grew up in the world of integrated circuits not the rather primitive 60's systems. Although I'm not an electronics engineer, those were probably state of the art in the 60's, but not by todays circuitry. I left a couple of comments to other posters who follow mimic his stupidness.
ETA videos I found
And here is one that mentions the RCS system of the SM
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oh there is no doubt in my mind that he is an idiot lol he had a video called Apollo 11 bullshit in which he clearly states that buz aldrin salutes the flag with 1 hand when quite clearly he does it with other. he was trying to claim the video and photo didn't match. anybody with decent eyesight could see he was wrong but he wouldn't have it
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Although I'm not an electronics engineer, those were probably state of the art in the 60's, but not by todays circuitry.
Some of the control systems in the CM and elsewhere weren't state of the art even by 60s standards. Some like the Earth Landing System were relay-logic elements that had the advantage of decades of design and operation experience behind them. The engineers who designed them had a great deal of confidence in them. In aerospace, "new" generally means "untried." For a while, we had a rule that an IC-type CPU could not be included in a design until it had accumulated at least 10 years of operational record. This means it's ten years behind the curve, but by that time it is solid, reliable, and generally less buggy. That's more desirable than faster processing speed or greater capacity.
But the lesson is still clear. Expertise in modern systems doesn't translate to expertise in older systems. They aren't just the same designs made with older parts. Often they're entirely different ways of doing things, and if you don't have specific experience in them you can't be considered an expert. Nor do you get to say that they can't possibly work just because they work differently than what you're used to.
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That video isn't valid. I did search hunchy's site and found a couple of videos that deal with LM's RCS system.
ApolloWasReal took him to task as he(ApolloWasReal) loved to correct him and make him look stupid. Hunch has an aerospace engineering degree, but he pretends to know a lot about the electronics of Apollo, but unfortunately for him he grew up in the world of integrated circuits not the rather primitive 60's systems. Although I'm not an electronics engineer, those were probably state of the art in the 60's, but not by todays circuitry. I left a couple of comments to other posters who follow mimic his stupidness.
ETA videos I found
<videos snipped for brevity>
Well, what these videos tell me is that he doesn't understand the issue of design and engineering constraints in developing something as complex as the Apollo spacecraft system. There are very good reasons why the RCS engines weren't throttleable, and why a modulated signal was used.
He also apparently doesn't understand the circuit diagrams, control systems in general, physics, photography, perspective, or even how the videos of the ascents from the surface were controlled.
As for the "quality" of the videos, they may be tailored for his audience, but they look like they've been put together (badly) by an eight-year-old who's just figured out basic editing.
On the plus side, this discussion has sparked my interest in how the RCS control systems worked, so I'm now learning more about this. There's a lot of information online, including the circuit diagrams he thinks are wrong, so no shortage of material to study! :)
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Well, what these videos tell me is that he doesn't understand the issue of design and engineering constraints in developing something as complex as the Apollo spacecraft system. There are very good reasons why the RCS engines weren't throttleable, and why a modulated signal was used.
He also apparently doesn't understand the circuit diagrams, control systems in general, physics, photography, perspective, or even how the videos of the ascents from the surface were controlled.
This is what makes us question whether he really has any aerospace training or experience. He doesn't seem to know anything about engineering in general, or anything specifically about how flying machines are actually designed, built, and operated. Now a lot of people don't know how those things are done. But he postures himself as a skilled, trained professional.
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Well, what these videos tell me is that he doesn't understand the issue of design and engineering constraints in developing something as complex as the Apollo spacecraft system. There are very good reasons why the RCS engines weren't throttleable, and why a modulated signal was used.
He also apparently doesn't understand the circuit diagrams, control systems in general, physics, photography, perspective, or even how the videos of the ascents from the surface were controlled.
This is what makes us question whether he really has any aerospace training or experience. He doesn't seem to know anything about engineering in general, or anything specifically about how flying machines are actually designed, built, and operated. Now a lot of people don't know how those things are done. But he postures himself as a skilled, trained professional.
isn't that what most hb's do Jay lol
if you ever fancy a laugh there is a facebook group called Manned Lunar Landing Hoax. take a look at 2 peoples posts there. Michael Lurie and Alf Beharie.
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He also apparently doesn't understand the circuit diagrams, control systems in general, physics, photography, perspective, or even how the videos of the ascents from the surface were controlled.
You don't say. Years ago I tried to explain to him why the ascent stage propellant tanks are asymmetrically placed. That's basic physics understood intuitively by any kid who's ever used a seesaw. But not hunchbacked.
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You don't say. Years ago I tried to explain to him why the ascent stage propellant tanks are asymmetrically placed. That's basic physics understood intuitively by any kid who's ever used a seesaw. But not hunchbacked.
Has he demonstrated even slight competence in any discipline that would support the claim to have a diploma in aerospace engineering? I would like to think he's not blatantly lying, but perhaps that he may have extended a qualification in some allied field that might let him make that claim in hopes it won't be too closely questioned. Conversely I would hate to believe that an accredited aerospace engineering program has given a diploma to such an obviously unqualified student.
And yes, I would expect the concept of a moment arm to be intuitively obvious without training. Cantilevers are all over the place in life, even if you don't know them by those names. I would expect it to be rationally understood by someone who passed high school physics, if only to know that a formula applies that can result in equal moments for different masses and moment-arm lengths. And from someone who claims to be a qualified aerospace engineer speaking as an expert on the subject of spacecraft stability and dynamic control, I would expect the ability to express the problem in the full linear-algebra formulation within the free-body generalized solution that has been the worldwide standard for many decades. (It is, in fact, the formalization MIT used in devising the LM's dynamic control system.) I can't fathom that someone whose understanding is at least two rungs down the ladder from the publicly-available state of the art is honestly portraying himself as an expert.
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I can't fathom that someone whose understanding is at least two rungs down the ladder from the publicly-available state of the art is honestly portraying himself as an expert.
Well, he is. And I've never been able to figure out if he honestly believes what he says. He acts like it, though.
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Well, what these videos tell me is that he doesn't understand the issue of design and engineering constraints in developing something as complex as the Apollo spacecraft system. There are very good reasons why the RCS engines weren't throttleable, and why a modulated signal was used.
He also apparently doesn't understand the circuit diagrams, control systems in general, physics, photography, perspective, or even how the videos of the ascents from the surface were controlled.
This is what makes us question whether he really has any aerospace training or experience. He doesn't seem to know anything about engineering in general, or anything specifically about how flying machines are actually designed, built, and operated. Now a lot of people don't know how those things are done. But he postures himself as a skilled, trained professional.
He uses a lot of wire diagram noting "now this can't work" or words to that effect. They are produced for the novice that can easily grasp the "simple" concept of what he is trying to describe. Personally I don't understand some of the electronics, others I can understand. The real kicker that I have with him is his lack of visual perception. Many times he will describe in his videos what the observers should see, then shows that to be correct only to indicate it doesn't show what he described. I find it difficult to describe because he actually shows the phenomenon he discusses.
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There's some analysis of the faked Apollo 11/Earth mash-up photo on Metabunk here: https://www.metabunk.org/explained-why-does-this-apollo11-photo-act-so-weirdly.t8894/
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He uses a lot of wire diagram noting "now this can't work" or words to that effect. They are produced for the novice that can easily grasp the "simple" concept of what he is trying to describe.
And I would say that's because his own understanding is simplistic. He can say "It's supposed to be like this," and a layman can understand that. 28V DC circuits are not, by themselves, rocket science. If you've installed your own lawn sprinklers, you can grasp something of what's going on. But advanced concepts like modulation or switch-in spares aren't intuitively obvious from that perspective.
At the broader scope, this is mostly how a lot of fringe theories work. "It's supposed to be like this, but it's like that instead -- therefore conspiracy." It's an argument meant to jump over the rationale for "it's supposed to be like this." Most of those arguments come from lay claimants relying on intuition or poor research. Some few, like Hunchbacked, claim expertise. In most cases that brand of claimant is careful not to expose his expectations to those who really know the field because they'll quickly be found out. But as many have noted, Hunchbacked doesn't seem bothered by being revealed as ignorant time after time and creating controversy over whether he really believes his own hype. I've seen a very few who are so far gone as to think their fantasy world is real to everyone else too.
The real kicker that I have with him is his lack of visual perception. Many times he will describe in his videos what the observers should see, then shows that to be correct only to indicate it doesn't show what he described. I find it difficult to describe because he actually shows the phenomenon he discusses.
That sort of person is the kind I generally leave alone. If they don't understand their own arguments, no amount of correct refutation will be effective. Analogously what has happened in the past with a few is that they get so wound up in fighting the good fight, discrediting their critics, etc. that they don't bother to connect the argument du jour with any of their claims. The argument never rises beyond casting random aspersions. But beyond that there is a small class of people who really don't get how a line of reasoning works, how ipso facto works, or what a logical inference is. They are left to a cargo-cult style of argumentation. I remember when Hunchbacked was trying to argue about the hardware and software of the guidance computer, and based all his expectations on modern Intel-based personal computers. It didn't seem to occur to him that a computer could be designed and built any other way. It's very difficult to argue with someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know, and isn't the least suspicious that there might be things he doesn't know.
As for spatial perception, this is important if you want to be an aerospace engineer. I give all my design engineering candidates a standardized spatial reasoning test, and you have to score pretty high on it to advance. And you need a high score because spatial reasoning is the heart and soul of any brand of engineering that involves actual objects in a three-dimensional environment. The same skills are required of a successful airplane pilot. There is a rigorous framework of mathematics that governs the science of spacecraft dynamic control. And that formalism is important to guaranteeing a correct solution. But the nuts and bolts of a practical solution comes from second-nature understanding of spatial relationships. It has to exist in your head first, and then you adjust it to the formalism. And this is why I have a hard time believing Hunchbacked has any sort of real qualification in aerospace engineering.