ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: Dr.Acula on October 24, 2014, 07:04:34 AM
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A short story of beliefs and knowledge
20 years ago there was a man living in Germany. This man was interested in some fields, amongst others in the history of spaceflights and astronautics. This interest started on April 12th 1981 with the first launch of the manned Space Shuttle Columbia. This event was broadcasted on German TV. It was a Sunday, about 1:00 pm German time and this young man was fascinated by the images.
In July 1969 he was two years old, so he wasn't able to watch the Apollo missions on TV. After the Columbia launch 1981 this young man began to research the US spaceflight program. He was fascinated, interested and excited. He discussed the movies and photos with colleagues and friends, especially those images from the Apollo missions. After a while there was a friend who called the photos being faked. He referred to the book of Bill Kaysing. Later this friend presented the script of Ralph Renes explanations. 1999 the man read David Percys book "Dark Moon".
This man, not a specialist in photographic analyse, radiation, engineering etc., was easily to impress with the big words and numbers in these books. After the FOX documentation and the release of "Lügen im Weltraum" from the German journalist Gerhard Wisnewski he was sure about a hoaxed moon landing. But then there were two confusing details in Wisnewskis book. First the author said, he investigated the original broadcast from the German TV (the broadcaster was ARD). But in his book he used a two-hour-documentation from a news-broadcaster (Phoenix). The interested man wondered, why the author referred to the wrong broadcast and in the first place not to the original NASA footage.
But the big thing was the screenshot from the Phoenix documentation which showed a the lunar surface through the CM window. At the top of the frame there was a structure painted green and orange. Wisnewski claimed, this was a studio structure. He compared it with this photo: http://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/EL-2002-00473.jpeg
This was irritating. Why should NASA leave this scene in the footage? Why didn't they edit it? Why did they paint a structure green-orange, when they had to simulate a black sky? A quick research led the man to some interesting photos from Apollo 10, where this green-orange structure appeared as the window frame. The man wondered about the poor research skill of an acknowledged journalist and began to study the hoax arguments. He visited several fora (Baut, cosmoquest, Unexplained mysteries and others) and several youtube channels. He asked experts (Harlan Spence, Frank Cuccinotta, members of the Bochum Observatory etc etc).
Now this man knows, that he was wrong. He studied the evidences provided by NASA, he studied the fora, visited some special sites (i.e. Bob Bräunigs site). Although he doesn't understand each single detail, he knows, that Apollo happened.
I think, you have an idea, who this man is. Yes, it's me and I'm thankful to all the guys who explained all these special fields in great detail and with great patience. This is the reason, why I am here: to learn more.
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To answer your title question, yes. Vincent McConnell was a good example. I've run into some people with stories similar to yours who have stated that they were starting to fall for the hoax theory but were fortunate enough to encounter some good explanations for the claims they had seen. I think people like those, (and you), were hesitant to jump all the way on the hoax bandwagon because they had an intuitive sense about how impossible it must have been to fake something like that. So you looked further.
I've said many times that I think the questionnaire given to prospective jurors should ask a question like, "Do you think the Apollo moon missions were faked?" or "Do you believe 9-11 was an inside job?" Answering yes would be an automatic dismissal from jury duty.
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I'm fairly sure that the individual who once ran this forum was a hoax believer, that is why it is called ApolloHoax.Net. He changed his views based on the evidence presented. LO and other longstanding members of the forum will probably confirm this with more detail.
There was also a YouTube use called NASANAZI who said he had converted. He had a hard time convincing others that he had done so.
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There was also a YouTube use called NASANAZI who said he had converted. He had a hard time convincing others that he had done so.
Was that our NASA vs PETE, (among other socks)? If so, there are two possible explanations. First, he was spying: pretending to switch sides in order to gain our confidence in the hope that he could dig up some dirt or personal information on us. Or it was just symptomatic of his schizophrenia and he couldn't decide what he wanted to do. Bottom line, he went back to his hoax beliefs. I also think it may have had something to do with the attractive young Swiss lady who briefly participated as an Apollo defender in our YT discussions, and Pete was just trying to schmooze her.
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Was that our NASA vs PETE, (among other socks)? If so, there are two possible explanations. First, he was spying: pretending to switch sides in order to gain our confidence in the hope that he could dig up some dirt or personal information on us. Or it was just symptomatic of his schizophrenia and he couldn't decide what he wanted to do. Bottom line, he went back to his hoax beliefs. I also think it may have had something to do with the attractive young Swiss lady who briefly participated as an Apollo defender in our YT discussions, and Pete was just trying to schmooze her.
Words taken from my mouth there, I was going to post the same, was just checking up on my list of known pete sock puppets. :) Nazinasa and Nasatellslies were definitely two of Pete's persona. I have a list of about 25.
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I'm fairly sure that the individual who once ran this forum was a hoax believer, that is why it is called ApolloHoax.Net. He changed his views based on the evidence presented. LO and other longstanding members of the forum will probably confirm this with more detail.
Yes, I can confirm that. He managed to convince Jack White to let him post some of White's pictures and arguments here. That was a boon because at that time he would post things only within one of his tiny walled gardens. We persuaded him that White was way off base, and he came around. He was quite a character at the time. Several years after that he emailed me to say he had straightened out his life, was seeing a nice girl, and was working and going to school. We did good here.
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We did good here.
..and if we converted our Dutch friend??
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I think it is perfectly possible for a conspiracy believer to alter their views. While I have always been an Apollo believer (I witnessed the landings from age 13 - 17), as a young adult I was a firm believer in much of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy (multiple shooters on the grassy knoll, mob/FBI/CIA involvement etc etc). Gradually, as I read more and more about it, I came to realise that it was a load of old cobblers. There was no sudden epiphany, just a gradual realisation over a number of years that elements of the alleged conspiracy just didn't add up.
As for the Apollo Hoax, I think that there are aspects of Hoax Believery that debunk themselves, that simply don't jibe with reality, and that do not require a degree in mathematics or physics to understand; any reasonable person can easily follow the reasoning.
The very first aspect of HB reasoning that I encountered was the shadows; the claim that because shadows did not appear parallel in some of the Apollo surface photos, there must be two lighting sources in use, and since, on the moon, the only viable lighting source is the Sun, the photos must be faked. I have seen numerous explanations about perspective, the slope angles or unevenness of the lunar surface, etc, etc, all of which are correct, and which explain why shadows sometimes do not seem parallel, but there is a much simpler key fact that debunks the multiple light source claim from the get-go, and this is that multiple light sources will cause multiple shadows. Anyone who has been to a night time sports event at an old style stadium where the lights are on lighting towers rather than spread around the tops of the grandstands, will recognise this phenomenon....
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98915197/ApolloHoax/imageGen.jpg)
....players casting multiple shadows. With multiple light sources, there is simply no way to avoid multiple shadows. I'm really surprised how rarely I encounter this argument when people are discussing the shadow aspects of alleged Apollo photo fakery.
Now I don't wish to derail the thread into one about shadows, I merely point out that not all aspects of Hoax Believery require highly technical explanations in order to debunk them, and since alleged shadow anomalies are a very common theme among new HBs, it is a great one to tackle them with early on. The earlier you get to an HB, the more likely you are to turn them.
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I'm fairly sure that the individual who once ran this forum was a hoax believer, that is why it is called ApolloHoax.Net. He changed his views based on the evidence presented. LO and other longstanding members of the forum will probably confirm this with more detail.
There was also a YouTube use called NASANAZI who said he had converted. He had a hard time convincing others that he had done so.
This guy had converted? Wow, that's really impressive and new for me. I only was aware of another youtuber (NASAvsPete) who was converted by GoneToPlaid.
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There was also a YouTube use called NASANAZI who said he had converted. He had a hard time convincing others that he had done so.
Was that our NASA vs PETE, (among other socks)? If so, there are two possible explanations. First, he was spying: pretending to switch sides in order to gain our confidence in the hope that he could dig up some dirt or personal information on us. Or it was just symptomatic of his schizophrenia and he couldn't decide what he wanted to do. Bottom line, he went back to his hoax beliefs. I also think it may have had something to do with the attractive young Swiss lady who briefly participated as an Apollo defender in our YT discussions, and Pete was just trying to schmooze her.
Aaaah, I remember the lady. Sarah was her name, I read her responses. At this time I was converted about 5 or 6 years ago, if I remember right. Yes, this lady had something to say (and yes, she is attractive ;)) Is this right, that Pete isn't converted?
About Vincent McDonnell. Is this the young man who first pretended to release a video (or book or whatever), but interested people had to pay first for it?
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I've been at this for a while but I can't say I've ever personally converted anybody. Then again I tend to go after the really tough cases (e.g., Hunchbacked) where I'm really playing to the galleries, not them.
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It's good to hear the tale of such an organic realisation. You retained enough of a sense of open mindedness and critical thinking to question what the conspiracists were selling and from there the edifice crumbled.
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..and if we converted our Dutch friend??
OMG, perish the thought! I would not want him on our side. I'd prefer that he just quit.
Now Hunchie is a different story. I've always hoped he would see the light. (Isn't he Dutch, too?)
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I can't say I've ever personally converted anybody.
Ah, but you don't know! As I mentioned in another thread, there are a lot of silent ones out there and you could have had more influence than you realize. The same is true for all of us.
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This guy had converted? Wow, that's really impressive and new for me. I only was aware of another youtuber (NASAvsPete) who was converted by GoneToPlaid.
No, he didn't actually convert. I believe he faked it. See my previous comment about that. (NASA vs PETE)
In addition to the appearance of Sarah on YouTube, there was a discussion between Pete and me regarding a photo he used in a video to make a point about shadows. (He said he took the photo.) I told him I was going to post a video showing how the photo was deliberately faked. He took the video down and suddenly started getting very friendly with me. Within a day or two he announced his conversion. So it could also have been a dodge to prevent me from revealing his deception.
There are several possibilities for his "conversion," including the possibility that he really did convert and then changed his mind.
BTW, does anybody know if NASACrooks is Pete? (It's the account with that horrible clown picture of Buzz for an avatar).
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..and if we converted our Dutch friend??
OMG, perish the thought! I would not want him on our side. I'd prefer that he just quit.
Now Hunchie is a different story. I've always hoped he would see the light. (Isn't he Dutch, too?)
French.
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This guy had converted? Wow, that's really impressive and new for me. I only was aware of another youtuber (NASAvsPete) who was converted by GoneToPlaid.
No, he didn't actually convert. I believe he faked it. See my previous comment about that. (NASA vs PETE)
In addition to the appearance of Sarah on YouTube, there was a discussion between Pete and me regarding a photo he used in a video to make a point about shadows. (He said he took the photo.) I told him I was going to post a video showing how the photo was deliberately faked. He took the video down and suddenly started getting very friendly with me. Within a day or two he announced his conversion. So it could also have been a dodge to prevent me from revealing his deception.
There are several possibilities for his "conversion," including the possibility that he really did convert and then changed his mind.
BTW, does anybody know if NASACrooks is Pete? (It's the account with that horrible clown picture of Buzz for an avatar).
I believe, NASACrooks is Potrodsas (the guy who faked the picture with stars in the sky by day photographed from a moving plane). Same quotes ("now we all know that Apollo was faked..."), clown avatar and the usual claims without any evidences.
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..and if we converted our Dutch friend??
I was in a debate with a youtube poster, who has been banned countless times because of his rudeness (fuckedyoutube74, humanmonkeyrace etc etc). I told him this: Imaging to be a HB and having this one on my side, this would be one of the best reasons to convert immediately.
Bottom line: There are some, you can't convince, even if you present them the proof on a silver plate, even if you visit them personally with experts and show them exactly, how Apollo happened. Alone the imagination of Adrian supporting my position is really... uuuuhm... NOOOOOO. ;D
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Isn't that the same as NasaCrooks?
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Isn't that the same as NasaCrooks?
You mean fuckutube or humanmonkeyrace? No, this one is a very special one. He is from UK, potrodsas is from Greece. Potrodsas doesn't respond really to any comments (only some HBs' commonplaces), the other one asks the old fashioned questions (why no stars, waving flag etc etc) and doesn't get even the simpliest basics right.
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..and if we converted our Dutch friend??
OMG, perish the thought! I would not want him on our side. I'd prefer that he just quit.
Now Hunchie is a different story. I've always hoped he would see the light. (Isn't he Dutch, too?)
We both know that Hunchie can't see, which is half his problem. And definitely French - claims to be a graduate of the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, I think it was.
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... humanmonkeyrace?
I had forgotten all about him. Quite an entertaining fellow. ???
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... humanmonkeyrace?
I had forgotten all about him. Quite an entertaining fellow. ???
Astrobrant devoted a video to his ravings.
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... humanmonkeyrace?
I had forgotten all about him. Quite an entertaining fellow. ???
Astrobrant devoted a video to his ravings.
Yeah, I know this video, saw it some time ago. But I wasn't aware that it was created by Astrobrant. Good job. And I remember some of humanmonkeyraces's famous quotes (not that he has more the a couple ;D)
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... humanmonkeyrace?
I had forgotten all about him. Quite an entertaining fellow. ???
Astrobrant devoted a video to his ravings.
Holy Crap!!
I know we are not supposed to attribute that behaviour of HGs to mental issues, but I counted about 220 YT comments in 5 days. If that is not obsession, then I don't know what is!
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Holy Crap!!
I know we are not supposed to attribute that behaviour of HGs to mental issues, but I counted about 220 YT comments in 5 days. If that is not obsession, then I don't know what is!
Keep in mind, almost all the ones I used in the video were his personal insults. He spammed at least as many copy & paste anti-NASA posts in the same amount of time. So double that number. He also switched back and forth between several accounts, posting the same kind of stuff. I think it's very possible that he posted over 500 comments in those five days. This was his typical rate and I know he did it for at least a couple of years.
Yes, that has to be a mental illness at work there.
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Keep in mind, almost all the ones I used in the video were his personal insults. He spammed at least as many copy & paste anti-NASA posts in the same amount of time. So double that number. He also switched back and forth between several accounts, posting the same kind of stuff. I think it's very possible that he posted over 500 comments in those five days. This was his typical rate and I know he did it for at least a couple of years.
Yes, that has to be a mental illness at work there.
Do you know, if he is active on youtube? I watched several clips but I didn't found new comments for the last three or four months.
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Keep in mind, almost all the ones I used in the video were his personal insults. He spammed at least as many copy & paste anti-NASA posts in the same amount of time. So double that number. He also switched back and forth between several accounts, posting the same kind of stuff. I think it's very possible that he posted over 500 comments in those five days. This was his typical rate and I know he did it for at least a couple of years.
Yes, that has to be a mental illness at work there.
And he has the gall to criticise others for posting lots of comments and demand that they 'get a job'.
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And he has the gall to criticise others for posting lots of comments and demand that they 'get a job'.
I smell a contradiction. Normally he says, his opponents are paid NASA shills. Doesn't this count as a job? :D
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I smell a contradiction. Normally he says, his opponents are paid NASA shills. Doesn't this count as a job? :D
Good point!
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...Now this man knows, that he was wrong. He studied the evidences provided by NASA, he studied the fora, visited some special sites (i.e. Bob Bräunigs site). Although he doesn't understand each single detail, he knows, that Apollo happened.
I think, you have an idea, who this man is. Yes, it's me and I'm thankful to all the guys who explained all these special fields in great detail and with great patience. This is the reason, why I am here: to learn more.
That really is an excellent story, Dr.Acula. And written quite well for someone who has another main language. :)
I've heard it said that if anyone wants to know the finer points of the English language, ask an educated German. Some years ago I had a very good German friend who lived just a few houses away, and sometimes three or four us would get together and have a few beers. One time he and another friend got discussing Latin, and for about 40 minutes I couldn't say a thing, for once. I tried to understand, but couldn't!
Anyway, I was once a bit of a hoax-believer too, but only for about three weeks as I mulled over the first hoax book I read, because I did exactly the same as you:-- Sceptically examined the claims that I could by using my own expertise (photography), and found they were very, very wrong. So I then wondered about all the other claims that I didn't have the expertise to examine.
When I joined the internet a few years later, the Apollo "Hoax" was one of the first things I searched for, and I quickly found the old Bad Astronomy forum and then the early version of this forum. And through doing that I have learned far more about the space race and Mercury, Gemini and Apollo than I ever learned in all the years following 9 October 1957, when I first watched Sputnik 1 (or the rocket that put it up) pass over my part of New Zealand.
Interestingly, when I joined the internet I searched for claims that an Australian women had seen a Coca Cola bottle roll across the screen during the Apollo 11 EVA, and it appeared that nobody had what I thought was the correct answer. While watching a video about Apollo 11, I had suddenly, literally, jumped out of my seat and exclaimed, "Bloody hell! There's Una Ronald's Coke bottle."
So I sent an email to JayUtah and he confirmed the correct answer at Clavius.
In fact, there are many "Coke bottles" visible in the video, but they are actually lens flares produced by reflections of the sun in Buzz Aldrin's visor as he does his mobility experiment.
Here's JayUtah's excellent analysis:
http://www.clavius.org/cokebottle.html
http://www.clavius.org/bibcoke.html
Just last night I learnt some really good new stuff here, about the vacuum and connections between the CM and the LM. I'm a knowledge junkie and happiest when I'm learning things, so it's great to be able to read the writings of the people here who know things that I don't. And at no monetary cost, thanks to our marvellous web- and forum-master, LunarOrbit.
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It's funny how some HB's see different things in the same video shot. HB, UTUBENWO aka JayBlue aka about 20 other accounts, is convinced that, that particular video sequence shows an insect that Aldrin is desperately trying to stomp on. :D :D
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That really is an excellent story, Dr.Acula. And written quite well for someone who has another main language. :)
*snipped*
Here's JayUtah's excellent analysis:
http://www.clavius.org/cokebottle.html
http://www.clavius.org/bibcoke.html
Just last night I learnt some really good new stuff here, about the vacuum and connections between the CM and the LM. I'm a knowledge junkie and happiest when I'm learning things, so it's great to be able to read the writings of the people here who know things that I don't. And at no monetary cost, thanks to our marvellous web- and forum-master, LunarOrbit.
Thank you very much :)
There are some sites and fora, where I've found many interesting details (here, on clavius, on UM and cosmoquest and especially Bob B's site). Actually I'm reading some threads from the old forum, but more for fun.
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It's funny how some HB's see different things in the same video shot. HB, UTUBENWO aka JayBlue aka about 20 other accounts, is convinced that, that particular video sequence shows an insect that Aldrin is desperately trying to stomp on. :D :D
I remember this rereflection. IDW (Interdimensional Warrior) claims, that this thing is a frog (in the Nevada desert ???), which he sees as proof for a staged scene. All explanations about the used technique was beyond him ;D It's not, that this wasn't expected.
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There are some sites and fora, where I've found many interesting details (here, on clavius, on UM and cosmoquest and especially Bob B's site). Actually I'm reading some threads from the old forum, but more for fun.
Over the last several days I have been re-watching HBO's landmark 12-part miniseries, "From the Earth to the Moon" (the rousing opening theme is still ringing in my head as I write this)
The last time I watched FTETTM, I hadn't discovered this forum or Jay's "Clavius" site. I have to say that watching this series after posting on and discussing Apollo here, and after reading the pages at Clavius, has allowed me to see that series in a new light. There have been numerous "I knew that" moments and realizations that what they are portraying ties up with what I have learned here. There were also a few "so that's why" moments.
As I have been watching, I have come to realise even more that I did before, how valuable these resources have been!
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It's funny how some HB's see different things in the same video shot. HB, UTUBENWO aka JayBlue aka about 20 other accounts, is convinced that, that particular video sequence shows an insect that Aldrin is desperately trying to stomp on. :D :D
On GLP they claim it is a frog.
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Over the last several days I have been re-watching HBO's landmark 12-part miniseries, "From the Earth to the Moon" (the rousing opening theme is still ringing in my head as I write this)
The last time I watched FTETTM, I hadn't discovered this forum or Jay's "Clavius" site. I have to say that watching this series after posting on and discussing Apollo here, and after reading the pages at Clavius, has allowed me to see that series in a new light. There have been numerous "I knew that" moments and realizations that what they are portraying ties up with what I have learned here. There were also a few "so that's why" moments.
Smartcooky, you have just reminded me that just before this last southern winter I resolved to watch that programme again on the worst days when I was stuck inside, but there weren't many so I forgot. I last watched it in 2007 and early 2008, and like you, have learned so much more since then.
It is such a good programme! Whoever wrote it did a wonderful job, and considering that personalities and events must be amalgamated and compressed in a movie or TV docudrama, they did a superb job. Perhaps partly due to space nut Tom Hanks and the technical consultant, Dave Scott.
I was pleasantly surprised by how absorbing and interesting some episodes were that I thought, from their description, might be boring. Such as:
Part 5, "Spider", building the LM -- one of my favourite episodes.
Part 8, "We Interrupt This Program", where they concentrated less on the Apollo 13 accident and more on the composite TV frontman, Emmett Seaborn, and how he was ousted by a young, cocky announcer.
Part 11, "The Original Wives Club", where they concentrated on the stresses on family life, the wives, and the many divorces.
Part 12, "Le Voyages Dans La Lune", where they incorporated Georges Melies' films with Apollo 17.
But the programme is not without its faults -- I found plenty. The worst was the one that they repeated from "Apollo 13" -- the wrong ignition-sequence-start and liftoff times for the Saturn 5. Plus there was some atrocious astronomy as usual, but most laypeople wouldn't notice.
Another baddie was the hammer and feather experiment. It would have been best done entirely by computer graphics, because the feather rotated just as it would have done in an atmosphere. Furthermore, on the moon, Dave Scott held the feather horizontally before dropping it, but the actor who played him, Brett Cullen, held it vertically, probably because it would have rotated even more in the atmosphere in which it was filmed.
And throughout the programme, in the lunar scenes, dust billowed. Which brings me back to the "hoax." If Hollywood couldn't get it right in 1998 with it's massive budgets, with technical advisors who went into space and to the moon, a space-nut narrator (Hanks), and with the wonders of 1998 computer graphics, how could NASA have faked the video and movie films so realistically back in 1961 to 1972?
Even with it's many faults, I was impressed by the sheer number of accuracies, as I understood the history of Mercury-Gemini-Apollo. Some parts were probably just fictional dramatisations, and one I loved occurred just 20 minutes into part 1, where Chris Kraft, played very well by Stephen Root, says:
0:20:01 Chris Kraft: Rendezvous: Two spacecraft meeting up in orbit. Want to have fun? Come over to my house. You stand in the back yard, I'll stand in the front yard. You throw a tennis ball over my roof, I'll try to hit it with a rock as it comes sailing over. That's what we're going to have to do.
Okay, the rock and tennis ball would be travelling in opposite directions, unlike two orbiting spacecraft, but the description paints a wonderfully simple picture of how difficult rendezvous was thought to be at the time.
Excellent series. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who hasn't seen it. My copy cost only NZ$40 in 2006, and was worth every cent.
And as a free bonus for any ApolloHoax members, send me a personal message with your email address and I'll return a 31-page typescript of how you can find all the interesting bits, including the errors I noticed. Sample below in the next post. Note that bits of this episode are way out of sequence, but they still work for me. Lots of laughs from colourful Pete Conrad, who generously took Al Bean under his wing.
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ApolloHoax members: See the last paragraph in the post above about how to have all episodes done like this. No charge! You can easily change the text to suit whatever you want. It's in ODF format, so should be usable in any word-processor. Approximately 31 A4 pages in Arial Narrow 9-point font.
From the Earth to the Moon — Part 7 — That’s All There Is
0:00:00 1 — Opening credits — "We were a true team"
0:02:05 Tom Hanks — Introduction
0:02:58 Part Seven — That's All There Is
0:03:07 Credits
0:03:44 21 November 1969 — Al Bean exiting the LM on the moon
0:04:43 24 November 1969 — The U.S.S. Hornet
0:04:47 In the quarantine trailer
0:05:06 Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon sleeping
0:05:33 Presidential phone call
0:05:50 Three Captains
0:05:56 Alien diseases
0:06:01 Dick Gordon: Careful not to puncture his brain, Doc.
0:06:07 Splashdown
0:06:25 Knocked out by a camera
0:06:59 Hammering the TV camera
0:07:04 Alive, well, and disinfecting a bump
0:07:36 14 November 1969 — Apollo 12 liftoff
0:08:04 Dick Gordon: No big deal for an all-Navy crew. We can handle it.
0:08:17 Al Bean Voiceover: Me and my best buddies were ready for the adventure of a lifetime
0:08:32 Error: The commentator says, "We have ignition sequence start. The engines are on." But they are not.
0:08:41 Error: Ignition starts on zero instead of liftoff.
0:08:54 GET 0:00 Conrad: Lift-off. The clock's running. [Note: Where Ground Elapsed Time is shown the dialogue is taken from the Apollo 12 Flight Journal, but not everything that was actually said is recorded here.]
0:09:07 GET 0:12 Gordon (onboard): Clear the tower.
0:09:08 GET 0:14 Conrad: Roger. Clear the tower. I got a pitch and a roll program, and this baby's really going.
0:09:16 GET 0:33 Conrad: Roll's complete.
0:09:18 Error: The Launch Capcom was Gerald Carr. Ed Gibson, shown here and at 0:17:41, was the EVA Capcom.
0:09:19 Gerry Griffin, Flight Director
0:09:21 GET 0:33 Bean (onboard): This thing moves, doesn't it?
0:09:27 Lightning strike — all hell busted loose
0:09:31 GET 0:37 Gordon (onboard): What the hell was that?
0:09:32 GET 0:39 Gordon (onboard): I lost a whole bunch of stuff; I don't know...
0:09:33 GET 0:43 Conrad (onboard): Roger. We had a whole bunch of buses drop out.
0:09:36 GET 0:51 Conrad (onboard): AC Bus 1 light, all the fuel cells...
0:09:39 GET 1:02 Conrad: Okay, we just lost the platform, gang. I don't know what happened here; we had everything in the world drop out.
0:09:46 GET 01:12 Conrad: I got three fuel cell lights, an AC bus light, a fuel cell disconnect, AC bus overload 1 and 2, Main Bus A and B out.
0:09:55 GET 1:21 Bean (onboard): I got AC.
0:09:56 GET 1:22 Conrad (onboard): We got AC?
0:09:56 GET 1:23 Bean (onboard): Yes.
0:09:57 GET 1:24 Conrad (onboard): Maybe it's just the indicator. What do you got on the main bus?
0:09:59 GET 1:30 Bean (onboard): Twenty-four volts, which is low.
0:10:01 GET 1:33 Conrad (onboard): We've got a short on it of some kind. But I can't believe the volt...
0:10:06 John Aaron
0:10:25 GET 1:36 Carr: Apollo 12, Houston. Try SCE to auxiliary. Over.
0:10:30 GET 1:39 Conrad: Try FCE to Auxiliary. What the hell is that?
0:10:33 GET 1:43 Carr: SCE, SCE to auxiliary.
0:10:41 GET 1:50 Conrad (onboard): SCE to Aux.
0:10:48 GET 2:19 Carr: Apollo 12, Houston. Try to reset your fuel cells now.
0:10:50 GET 2:20 Bean (onboard): Reset the fuel cells.
0:10:51 GET 2:21 Gordon (onboard): Wait for staging.
0:10:52 GET 2:22 Conrad (onboard): Wait for staging, yes.
0:10:55 GET 2:23 Gordon (onboard): Hang on.
0:11:08 GET 2:47 Conrad (onboard): Okay, GDC is good.
0:11:11 GET 2:48 Conrad: Got a good S-II, gang.
0:11:13 GET 2:50 Carr: Roger. We copy, Pete. You're looking good.
0:11:16 Al Bean Voiceover: Poor Gerry Griffin. We were his first mission as flight director and he had dealt with a longer list of malfunctions than anybody had ever seen.
0:11:38 Al Bean Voiceover: Not just one, but two bolts of lightning rode our exhaust contrail all the way back down to the pad and hit the tower.
0:12:17 Earth orbit
0:12:44 African campfires
0:12:46 Error: Flying east across northern Africa. The true direction would have been nearer southeast.
0:13:19 Realigning the platform
0:13:26 Pete Conrad: That will give them something to write about tonight, huh? I bet all our wives fainted dead away!
0:13:44 Concern about the parachutes
0:14:35 Sugar, Sugar
0:14:37 CSM and LM
0:14:38 2 — 14 November 1969
0:15:42 Pete Conrad: In this vehicle I am your mother.
0:15:56 Emmett Seaborn
0:16:21 Setting up the TV camera on the moon
0:16:46 Training with a block of wood
0:17:15 Ed Gibson, EVA Capcom
0:17:37 Surgeon
0:17:41 Ed Gibson, EVA Capcom: That's coming in better there, Al. What change did you make?
0:17:45 Al Bean: I hit it on the top with my hammer. I figured we didn't have a thing to lose.
0:17:50 Ed Gibson, EVA Capcom: Skilful fix, Al.
0:18:25 Emmett Seaborn
0:18:33 Al Bean Voiceover: The vidicon tube was fried beyond repair, so that was the end of colour TV from the Ocean of Storms.
0:18:51 Emmett Seaborn: What the #$/&! happened up there?
0:18:54 Pete Conrad: Hey, Al. Come on, forget it. Let's go.
0:19:28 Before separating from the command module
0:20:27 Dick Gordon: I wish this son of a bitch fit three people.
0:20:55 Preparing to land
0:21:00 3 — The camera
0:21:56 Surveyor 3
0:22:10 Al Bean: Forty-two feet, coming down at three.
0:22:35 Error: Dust billowing.
0:22:40 Error: Footpad with billowing dust.
0:22:44 Al Bean: Contact light.
0:22:58 "Yeee-Haah!"
0:23:00 Pete Conrad: Pro!
0:23:01 Al Bean: Yeah, pro!
0:23:20 LM on the surface
0:23:52 Al Bean: Where are we?
0:24:17 Dick Gordon: I have Intrepid. I have Intrepid.
0:24:34 Dick Gordon: And I have Surveyor. I have Surveyor.
0:24:47 Surveyor 3
0:25:08 Emmett Seaborn
0:25:36 Pete Conrad: Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me!
0:25:36 Here, Conrad is jumping down to the footpad. Many modern documentaries of Apollo 11 show the same, with Neil Armstrong jumping down to the footpad, and incorrectly portray it as Armstrong taking the first ever step onto the moon.
0:25:50 Pete's colourful language
There's one fascinating bit of minutiae above that's probably not very well known. I have the details somewhere on and old CD-ROM, I think, and Andrew Chaikin explains it in "A Man on the Moon", pages 238 and 626. "SCE" means Signal Condition Equipment.
Between 0:10:06 and 0:10:33 we see John Aaron and the result of an instruction he had sent to Apollo 12, which saved the mission after the lightning strike. Aaron was apparently a 24-year-old electronics genius with a fantastic memory, and was the go-to man in emergencies. He quickly figured that to get everything going again in the Command Module, the SCE switch had to go to the Auxiliary setting. Pete Conrad had no idea what that meant, and said "Try FCE to Auxiliary. What the hell is that?" But rookie Al Bean knew, so reached up and changed the switch. Soon after, all the electronics that had gone down started firing up again and sending their details down to Aaron's console in Mission Control. Without his help it might have been necessary to abort the mission.
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There's one fascinating bit of minutiae above that's probably not very well known. I have the details somewhere on and old CD-ROM, I think. Trying to remember them. IIRC "SCE" meant Signal Converter something.
Between 0:10:06 and 0:10:33 we see John Aaron and the result of an instruction he had sent to Apollo 12, which saved the mission after the lightning strike. Aaron was apparently a young genius with a fantastic memory, and was the go-to man in emergencies. He quickly figured that to get everything going again in the Command Module, the SCE switch had to go to the Auxiliary setting. Pete Conrad had no idea what that meant, and said "Try FCE to Auxiliary. What the hell is that?" But rookie Al Bean knew, so reached up and changed the switch. Soon after, all the electronics that had gone down started firing up again. Without Aaron's help they probably would have had to abort the mission and not go to the moon.
Signal Conditioning Equipment; it converted input from the various sensors to displayable data. On the "Normal" setting it would stop functioning at low voltages (as happened when AS-12's fuel cells shut down) and the displays would show, basically, gibberish. On the "Aux" setting it would operate even at lowered power levels. Aaron, remembering having seen the pattern before in a simulation, came up with the now legendary solution and saved the mission.
Credit to my daughter, who has an MS in Engineering Physics/Instrumentation and explained this to me in terms my poor simple brain could comprehend. ;)
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Signal Conditioning Equipment; it converted input from the various sensors to displayable data. On the "Normal" setting it would stop functioning at low voltages (as happened when AS-12's fuel cells shut down) and the displays would show, basically, gibberish. On the "Aux" setting it would operate even at lowered power levels. Aaron, remembering having seen the pattern before in a simulation, came up with the now legendary solution and saved the mission...
Sorry Noldi400, I amended my post after you copied it but before you posted, because I discovered that Chaikin explained it. But you've added information that I left out, so thanks.
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There's one fascinating bit of minutiae above that's probably not very well known. I have the details somewhere on and old CD-ROM, I think, and Andrew Chaikin explains it in "A Man on the Moon", pages 238 and 626. "SCE" means Signal Condition Equipment.
Between 0:10:06 and 0:10:33 we see John Aaron and the result of an instruction he had sent to Apollo 12, which saved the mission after the lightning strike. Aaron was apparently a 24-year-old electronics genius with a fantastic memory, and was the go-to man in emergencies. He quickly figured that to get everything going again in the Command Module, the SCE switch had to go to the Auxiliary setting. Pete Conrad had no idea what that meant, and said "Try FCE to Auxiliary. What the hell is that?" But rookie Al Bean knew, so reached up and changed the switch. Soon after, all the electronics that had gone down started firing up again and sending their details down to Aaron's console in Mission Control. Without his help it might have been necessary to abort the mission.
If someone offered me the chance to choose just one member of the Apollo programme who was involved first hand and to meet them in person, it would not be an astronaut, it would be John Aaron. He isn't known as "the Engineer's Engineer" for no reason. His famous and inspired "SCE to AUX" call that effectively saved Apollo 12, and his later work with Ken Mattingly and Arnie Aldrich on the tricky power start-up sequence for the Command Module during the Apollo 13 crisis, is the stuff of legend.
Anyway, as it is now November, and we are approaching the 42nd anniversary of the launch of Apollo 12, and since John is something of a hero of mine (I use his photo from his EECOM position in Gemini 5 as my avatar), I thought it might be fitting to to recount the dramatic moments of that launch. When it looked for all the world that the mission was going to end disastrously, one man took just 59 seconds to save it with a master stroke. I have found an article that retells the story in a humorous way. I have reprinted it here (with a few grammatical corrections) for everyone's enjoyment.
Apollo 12 was The Most Amazing Thing We Ever Did: The Sequel, and inside a minute it was going straight to hell. When you're carrying thousands of tons of rocket fuel and liquid oxygen, that description can become literally accurate, especially the screaming in lakes of burning fire bit. Every screen in Mission Control was suddenly scrambled, and the Command Module alarm panel lit up like a self-destructing Christmas tree.
It would have been faster for the astronauts to list what was still working. "Well, the seats are still screwed into the capsule, and we're also screwed in the capsule." NASA isn't keen on flying bombs over civilian populations (because having a space program is the good part of large government). If they couldn't fix it, they'd be forced to abort Apollo 12, and with it the future of the entire space program. Flight Controller John Aaron fixed it in 59 seconds. He saved space in less time than it takes to boil an egg.
Aaron instructed the crew, "Switch SCE to AUX," and if that sounds like gibberish, now you have something in common with the Flight Director, CapCom, and the Commander of Apollo 12. This was a minor subsystem in no way designed to do what Aaron was now telling it to, and so obscure that in a building full of rocket scientists, he was probably the only one who knew about it. Commander Pete Conrad radioed back from the screaming capsule with the highly technical query of "What the hell is that?"
Luckily, astronaut Alan Bean knew exactly what the hell it was, because at that moment it was the difference between "Rocket GO" and "Rocket GO BOOM."
The rest was awesome history.
Later analysis revealed that the Saturn V SA 507 had been struck by lightning. Twice. That's how badass astronauts are -- they do things so extreme that they don't even notice being multiply electrocuted from the sky. For most people, "continuing after being struck by lightning" isn't a decision they get to make. The strikes arced down through the rocket, conducted by the ionized column of fire from the boosters and grounded through the launch tower. The entire launch process had created an immense lightning conductor. The astronauts were riding a massive middle finger made of metal and plasma straight at the gods, and when Zeus himself tried to fight back, it wasn't enough.
All thanks to one of the support staff, the people who defeat the sky by studying at it. John Aaron became a legend, nicknamed the "Steely-Eyed Missile Man" back when that was a compliment and not an adult film alias. And when a building full of moon-landing rocket scientists calls you the missile man, that's when God starts gathering his stuff so you can take his seat as Master of the Heavens.
The article was was No. 1 in a list of "The 5 Most Badass Things Ever Done in Space" at cracked.com
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-most-badass-things-ever-done-in-space_p2/#ixzz3GSDyKhHa
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Probably old hat but I saw this today and thought, 'Good Summary'
Science Pseudoscience
Willingness to change with new evidence Fixed ideas
Takes account of all new discoveries Selects only favourable discoveries
Ruthless peer review No peer review
Invites criticism Sees criticism as conspiracy or attack
Verifiable results Non-repeatable results
Limits claims of usefulness Claims of widespread usefulness
Accurate measurement “Ball-park” measurement
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If someone offered me the chance to choose just one member of the Apollo programme who was involved first hand and to meet them in person, it would not be an astronaut, it would be John Aaron. He isn't known as "the Engineer's Engineer" for no reason. His famous and inspired "SCE to AUX" call that effectively saved Apollo 12,
You do realize that this is basically the same advice given to thousands of frustrated computer users every day in their calls to IT help desks, right? Because it really means "turn it off and back on again and see if that works."
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I was sort of aware of the behind the scenes to a small extent (books etc) of this and where "Steely-Eyed Missile Man" came from but thanks to the posters above for adding more. Cracking re telling of events. Cheers.
Got the DVD as well, need to get them out again.
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If someone offered me the chance to choose just one member of the Apollo programme who was involved first hand and to meet them in person, it would not be an astronaut, it would be John Aaron. He isn't known as "the Engineer's Engineer" for no reason. His famous and inspired "SCE to AUX" call that effectively saved Apollo 12,
You do realize that this is basically the same advice given to thousands of frustrated computer users every day in their calls to IT help desks, right? Because it really means "turn it off and back on again and see if that works."
AIUI that is not what SCE to Aux did. My understanding is that the auxiliary signal conditioning circuits were designed to be less sensitive to low voltage conditions, and switching to them allowed mission control to get their telemetry back.
Simply turning the telemetry off and back on would not have worked.
As an analogy to your suggestion, SCE to Aux would be the equivalent of telling the frustrated customer to restart their computer in safe mode, not exactly as simple as hitting the reset button or pressing CTRL-AT-DELETE!
ETA: From "SP-287 What Made Apollo a Success?. Chapter 5 - FLIGHT CONTROL IN THE APOLLO PROGRAM By Eugene F. Kranz and James Otis Covington
Apollo 12 lifted off the pad at 11:22 a. m. e. s.t. on November 14, 1969. At 36.5 seconds after lift-off, lightning struck the command and service module (CSM), disconnecting all three fuel cells from the main buses and placing the main loads on two of the three batteries which ordinarily supply reentry power (fig. 5-1). Fuel cell disconnect flags popped up, and caution and warning lights winked on to alert the crew. With the decrease in the main bus power, the primary signal conditioning equipment ceased operating as it is meant to do when main bus voltages drop to approximately 22 volts. The ground simultaneously lost telemetry lock. At first, flight controllers thought the plume of ionized rocket-exhaust particles had blacked out the telemetry signal. However, they abandoned this theory when the crew reported the warning lights.
The primary signal conditioning equipment controls most electrical-power measurements; therefore, there was little information with which to diagnose the trouble. At 52 seconds after lift-off, the crew reported losing the spacecraft platform. At 60 seconds, the ground locked on to the telemetry signal again, and the CSM electrical and environmental systems engineer, John W. Aaron, asked the crew to switch to the secondary signal conditioning equipment to get additional insight into the electrical system. At 98 seconds, the crew made the switch, restoring all telemetry. Aaron then noted from his data display that three fuel cells were disconnected and requested the crew to reset them. Fuel cells 1 and 2 went back on the line at 144 seconds; fuel cell 3, at 171 seconds. Main bus voltages rose to approximately 30 volts, and all electrical parameters returned to normal.
Throughout the entire launch the Saturn launch vehicle performed normally. The spacecraft entered the proper orbit, and the crew and ground began preparing for translunar injection.
The quick response to the Apollo 12 outage came about not as a result of blind luck but of careful planning, training, and development of people, procedures, and data display techniques by those responsible for flight control.
The flight control organization devotes a majority of its time and resources to careful premission planning and detailed training. This premission preparation culminates in simulations of critical phases of the mission with the flight crew. These simulations prepare the flight controllers and the flight crew to respond properly to both normal and contingency situations.
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Oh, I have a beauty of an anecdote which appeared just last night. In a fit of boredom, I decided to visit a few YT Apollo discussion threads. I am a parrot because I used the word "pertaining", and apparently the accuser HB also used the word previous to my usage.
I wish I was joking.
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Oh, I have a beauty of an anecdote which appeared just last night. In a fit of boredom, I decided to visit a few YT Apollo discussion threads. Apparently I am a parrot because I used the word "pertaining". That is because the accuser HB also used the word.
So let me get this right. An 'HB' used the word, then you used the word, and they said you were a parrot? So now it's against the rules to repeat words they use?
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You got it on the nosie there Luke.
Best of all I used it because it was appropriate to the discussion. I didn't even know he had used it already.
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Just to add: It is like I say. I don't really need to do anything. The HB crowd make themselves look foolish all by themselves, especially with whoppers like this.
To top it all off, the HB was accusing everyone and ther dog of being paid shills. I offered my standard "What employment benefits do shills get?" routine, and the guy just ran with it. He claimed that I must be naive to think the CIA, SIS etc would be transparent enough to list employee benefits. I decided to check and lo and behold both the CIA and SIS specifically list benefits on their homepages. Our HB friend didn't like that owning, much.
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Just to add: It is like I say. I don't really need to do anything. The HB crowd make themselves look foolish all by themselves, especially with whoppers like this.
To top it all off, the HB was accusing everyone and ther dog of being paid shills. I offered my standard "What employment benefits do shills get?" routine, and the guy just ran with it. He claimed that I must be naive to think the CIA, SIS etc would be transparent enough to list employee benefits. I decided to check and lo and behold both the CIA and SIS specifically list benefits on their homepages. Our HB friend didn't like that owning, much.
After reading the nonsense from youtubers IDW and/or humanmonkeyrace and several others... ehm... say mental challenged, I don't wonder about any stupidity ;D
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AIUI that is not what SCE to Aux did. My understanding is that the auxiliary signal conditioning circuits were designed to be less sensitive to low voltage conditions, and switching to them allowed mission control to get their telemetry back.
I checked the handbook again to verify my understanding. There's only one SCE but two power supplies, normal and aux. The switch in question is in a group labeled "Power", and according to the text it manually changes power supplies. Automatic switching can also happen if the normal power supply outputs go out of tolerance.
Since automatic switching did not occur, it seems reasonable to assume that the normal SCE power supply didn't actually fail. It simply went out of tolerance briefly because of the glitch in +28V supply power, putting the SCE into a strange state. The NORM/AUX power supply switch is the only SCE switch available to the crew, so Aaron must have thought that switching to the aux power supply would interrupt power to the SCE long enough to let it go through its proper power-on reset sequence when power was reapplied from the aux supply. Or at least that's what I would have thought had I been in his position and not simply panicked.
Lots of electronic hardware (especially, but not limited to computers) includes a "power on reset" circuit designed to force the hardware into a known starting state. Typically this is a simple analog RC (resistor/capacitor) timer that provides a reset pulse lasting for some number of milliseconds after power is applied. A short glitch in supply power is not always long enough to trigger this reset timer even though it may be long enough to scramble the state of the electronics. This is why turning power off and on again so often works. The idea is to keep it off long enough to ensure that the power-on reset timer fires reliably when powered back on.
Why the glitch in +28V supply power? Although CM entry batteries (A&B, I think) were on the bus, they were not supplying power; that was all coming from the fuel cells. When all three fuel cells tripped together because of falsing of their overcurrent protective relays by the lightning pulse, the entire CM load (something like 70 amps) was abruptly thrown onto the batteries. Silver-zinc batteries cannot ramp up current instantaneously, so the bus voltage plummeted for a few milliseconds before recovering to a low but acceptable value. This is why the computer reset and the SCE got scrambled even though the bus voltages read normal when Bean checked them a few seconds later. It certainly explains his confusion.
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When all three fuel cells tripped together because of falsing of their overcurrent protective relays by the lightning pulse, the entire CM load (something like 70 amps) was abruptly thrown onto the batteries. Silver-zinc batteries cannot ramp up current instantaneously, so the bus voltage plummeted for a few milliseconds before recovering to a low but acceptable value. This is why the computer reset and the SCE got scrambled even though the bus voltages read normal when Bean checked them a few seconds later. It certainly explains his confusion.
So they expected the computer to reset and when it didn't, they suspected it was fried, but Aaron figured that switching SCE to Aux would manually restart it? This is what he saw that triggered the memory of something he had seen happen in a single simulation a year earlier?
With all the hundreds of failure and multiple failure simulations these crews and controllers did, Aaron remembered this one?
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And, IIRC, like the 1200-series errors, they hadn't done it very often.
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Lots of electronic hardware (especially, but not limited to computers) includes a "power on reset" circuit designed to force the hardware into a known starting state.
Yes, a substantial number of CSM and LM systems had this, which is why cycling breakers was often the first recommended action upon the indication of failure. A few key systems did not, leading to the Caution and Warning system going nuts for a few seconds when the CM was first powered on. Engineers never did figure out how to prevent this, but the crews easily got used to it. One of them said something to the effect that cars at the time did this and no one cared. You powered on the CM and then after a few seconds cleared the C&WS with MASTER RESET.
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So they expected the computer to reset and when it didn't, they suspected it was fried, but Aaron figured that switching SCE to Aux would manually restart it? This is what he saw that triggered the memory of something he had seen happen in a single simulation a year earlier?
No, the SCE and computer were entirely separate. The SCE, signal conditioning electronics, is part of the telemetry system. I haven't seen the details of the Apollo SCE, but if it's like others I've seen it contains a bunch of analog amplifiers and multiplexors that takes native signals from many different sensors, selects one for transmission, and converts it to a standard voltage range (typically 0 to +5V) so it can be digitized and sent to earth in the PCM (pulse coded modulation, i.e., digital) telemetry stream.
Those sensors seemed to be mostly independent of those feeding displays in the cockpit, giving the crew and the ground the ability to back each other up. In general they did not go to the computer, as it was used mainly for guidance tasks, not systems monitoring. (Today of course there wouldn't be just one onboard computer but many, each assigned a specialized function that Apollo did without them. And there wouldn't be a single "SCE" box, as its functions would be farmed out to the individual systems that generate the signals to be monitored. They'd communicate over a shared bus with the communications system.)
The Apollo 12 CSM computer was not expected to reset during launch. It did for the same reason that the SCE got confused: a momentary steep drop in +28V primary supply voltage when the fuel cells dropped offline and the entry batteries had to assume the entire CSM load. Apparently the computer's power-on reset did work properly, or like the SCE it would have required manual intervention.
With all the hundreds of failure and multiple failure simulations these crews and controllers did, Aaron remembered this one?
I can easily see this kind of failure happening many times during testing, and Aaron was around long enough to see and be familiar with it.
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Yes, a substantial number of CSM and LM systems had this, which is why cycling breakers was often the first recommended action upon the indication of failure.
The classic example being the descent radar on Apollo 14. The landing was saved almost at the last second by asking Mitchell to cycle its power. The radar had two range settings, one for high altitude and another for lower altitude just prior to landing, and it seems to have incorrectly powered up in the low range setting. Pulling and pushing the circuit breaker sent it back to the intended power-on state, the high altitude mode.
So, once again, somebody at NASA becomes a steely-eyed missileman for giving the same advice that IT "help" desks give thousands of times a day. :-)
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leading to the Caution and Warning system going nuts for a few seconds when the CM was first powered on. Engineers never did figure out how to prevent this, but the crews easily got used to it.
Seems to me you'd want all the alarm lights to go on at power-up so you can easily see if any bulbs are burned out. Just like today's cars light all their idiot lights when first turned on.
Burned out bulbs are much less of an issue with LEDs, but it still seems like a good idea to build a self-test function into the alarm system.
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Seems to me you'd want all the alarm lights to go on at power-up so you can easily see if any bulbs are burned out.
That's usually a separate lamp-test button or switch. Not only do you want that at power-up, but you want it any any time during the mission to see whether indicators are working. That's what Pinball (AGC user interface software) was first programmed to do. Its more sophisticated functions arose later.
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In a fit of boredom...
But I thought you were newly married. How could that possibly happen? :D
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This forum is marvellous. It's great how a small remark like...
There's one fascinating bit of minutiae above that's probably not very well known.
...can produce so much wonderful information from knowledgeable members. Thank you all.
Yesterday a series of links put me in YouTube and part of a documentary "Failure Is Not an Option", where John Aaron describes what happened regarding "SCE to Aux." It finishes with the sound of Pete Conrad elatedly cackling all the way into orbit once the problems were fixed. A documentary I saw years ago played even more of his laughter, so if it was this one, they've edited out some of it.
John Aaron appears much more on the brilliant CD-ROM "Apollo XIII -- A Week to Remember" by Odyssey Interactive, 1995 -- for IBM and MAC. It would be great if they could release it again in a modern format with higher-res graphics on DVD, but I guess the market isn't all that big. I would want a better version of it. Must see if the CD-ROM still works in my current computer.
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No, the SCE and computer were entirely separate.
Hang on. A couple of posts ago you said
"You do realize that this is basically the same advice given to thousands of frustrated computer users every day in their calls to IT help desks, right? Because it really means "turn it off and back on again and see if that works."
Now you have me confused because you are saying its nothing to do with the computer, that is actually do with the telemetry, which is what I said originally
"AIUI that is not what SCE to Aux did. My understanding is that the auxiliary signal conditioning circuits were designed to be less sensitive to low voltage conditions, and switching to them allowed mission control to get their telemetry back.
Simply turning the telemetry off and back on would not have worked."
So lets simplify this.
What did the Flight Controllers think might be the cause when they lost all their telemetry? Power failure? A short in the DC bus? (remember they didn't yet know or hadn't yet guessed that they were hit by lightning). The crew were indicating that the fuel cells had tripped off and the main bus voltage was down to 24v approx, not the 30v it was supposed to be, so they were on battery power..
With SCE to Normal, they were never going to get their telemetry back because of the low bus voltage, and until they got their telemetry back they would not know what to do next. However, Aaron figured out that they might get their telemetry back if they switched SCE to Aux because
a. he had seen this same failure condition in a simulation a year earlier, and
b. he understood the system well enough to know that in the Aux position, it was less sensitive to low voltage
As near as I can work out, the crew didn't reset the fuel cells until after Alan Bean switched SCE to Aux. (approx 000:01:50), At 000:02:19 Houston told them to reset their fuel cells and Bean was going to but was told by Conrad to "wait for staging".
At 000:03:30, Conrad reports that the fuel cells were back on, but its not clear when they were actually reset.
So they went through staging with no fuel cells and running on batteries.
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That's usually a separate lamp-test button or switch. Not only do you want that at power-up, but you want it any any time during the mission to see whether indicators are working. That's what Pinball (AGC user interface software) was first programmed to do. Its more sophisticated functions arose later.
True enough. Mike Collins invokes it on the AGC during a TV broadcast after warning the guys on the ground to hold onto their hats. But it only tested the AGC displays. I don't know of a lamp test button in the caution and warning system; was there one?
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John Aaron appears much more on the brilliant CD-ROM "Apollo XIII -- A Week to Remember" by Odyssey Interactive, 1995 -- for IBM and MAC. It would be great if they could release it again in a modern format with higher-res graphics on DVD, but I guess the market isn't all that big. I would want a better version of it. Must see if the CD-ROM still works in my current computer.
No, the CD-ROM won't play. It was made for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 and QuickTime for Windows 2.0 or greater, but it doesn't want to boot up QuickTime 7, and complains that it can't load a particular driver onto my C: drive, but I can't find it on the CD-ROM, and the internet wasn't used for getting drivers back them -- I wasn't connected to the internet until 2002.
GoogleLand indicates that the CD-ROM was made to coincide with the release of the movie "Apollo 13", but there doesn't seem to be any connection with the studio concerned. The original company, Odyssey Interactive, Inc., seems to only deal in electronic college yearbooks now. Amazon says the CD-ROM is extremely rare and a few other sites seem to be selling it.
Does anyone know how to make a 1995 CD-ROM work? I can listen to short AIF audio files in IrfanView, but not open movies, instead getting an error message "Unknown codec".
This is the annoying thing about this type of media -- quickly becoming unusable decades before books do the same. How silly of me to hope the CD-ROM might be usable 19 years after it was made. :(
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Now you have me confused because you are saying its nothing to do with the computer, that is actually do with the telemetry, which is what I said originally
I was making a general comparison. Lots of electronic problems can be fixed with a power cycle that properly triggers a power-on reset. Computers are just the most well-known example, but they're not the only example. The SCE undoubtedly contained its own logic to, e.g., cycle through sensors in a defined order, and it was probably sent into a disallowed state by the power glitch.
Sometimes (e.g., on generic PCs but not most Macs) there's an explicit reset button that does the same thing without actually cycling power. Many modern systems, especially those intended for unattended and/or high reliability operation, have "watchdog" timers that force a system reset unless they are periodically "tickled" by the software to indicate that they're working properly.
In the specific example of Apollo 12, the AGC (computer) and the SCE were separate modules both powered (like everything else on the CSM, either directly or indirectly via the AC inverters) from +28V DC buses A and B. Both were affected by the momentary severe drop in bus voltages when the fuel cells dropped off and threw the entire load onto the entry batteries. The computer reset and restarted itself correctly but the SCE did not. Aaron's call "SCE to AUX" momentarily interrupted power to the SCE as it was switched to its backup power supply, thus forcing the unit to reset itself correctly.
What did the Flight Controllers think might be the cause when they lost all their telemetry?
I don't know, do you know of any interviews with Aaron in which he describes his thinking at the time? The crew were indicating that the fuel cells had tripped off and the main bus voltage was down to 24v approx, not the 30v it was supposed to be, so they were on battery power..
Yes, the crew knew the DC bus voltages were low when Bean read them but they did not immediately realize that they had momentarily fallen much lower after the fuel cells dropped off and before the entry batteries picked up the load. This was a property of silver-zinc battery chemistry, not any electrical circuits.
This momentary (milliseconds) drop is what caused the SCE to malfunction, and the AGC to independently reset and restart.
With SCE to Normal, they were never going to get their telemetry back because of the low bus voltage,
I don't think that's right. The momentary loss of power put the SCE into a disallowed, malfunctioning state that was most easily fixed by turning its power off for a longer period and then turning it back on so it could do a proper power-on reset. I suspect Aaron, already being familiar with the behavior of an SCE in that malfunctioning state, knew the easiest (and perhaps only) way to do this was to switch the SCE to its backup power supply. So he made the "SCE to AUX" call that saved the day.
As near as I can work out, the crew didn't reset the fuel cells until after Alan Bean switched SCE to Aux. (approx 000:01:50), At 000:02:19 Houston told them to reset their fuel cells and Bean was going to but was told by Conrad to "wait for staging".
Right, and this is fully consistent with my understanding: the problem wasn't the low but steady bus voltage with the fuel cells offline and the batteries supplying the load, but with the much lower bus voltage that had existed for a very short time when the fuel cells first dropped offline.
So they went through staging with no fuel cells and running on batteries.
Yes, and this was a wise call by Conrad. The Saturn V's own guidance system was still working fine, so there was no real urgency in getting all the CSM systems running again. Acceleration builds to 4g's twice during S-IC boost (shortly before inboard cutoff and again just before outboard cutoff) and staging itself is pretty violent, so you'd run the risk of hitting the wrong switch and/or making erroneous readings.
The standard Apollo rule for emergencies was "If you don't know what to do, do nothing". This seemed like wise advice since ill-considered action could easily make something far worse.
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Does anyone know how to make a 1995 CD-ROM work? I can listen to short AIF audio files in IrfanView, but not open movies, instead getting an error message "Unknown codec".
Have you tried VLC (Videolan Player, www.videolan.org)? It supports just about every codec known to man, but as open source software it can't handle DRMed formats.
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ka9q
This video contains parts of the only interview I have ever seen with Aaron about Apollo 12
There is also this
"you can see the rising concern on the faces of the other Flight Controllers. No one knew what to do. And no one except John knew how the SCE switch worked and figured out that it could restore power. (Though not designed for this use, it basically acted as a circuits reset switch here). Yet the training and discipline of these professionals led them to trust the teammate in charge of this, and they did."
http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/03/its-not-rocket-science-john-aaron-sce-to-aux/
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I don't know, do you know of any interviews with Aaron in which he describes his thinking at the time?
The closest I have seen is in a blog article by a lady named Amy Shira Teitel from which this is an excerpt:
From his console in mission control, Aaron’s instinct to look at the lights on his panel didn’t help. Everything was lighting up. To make matters worse, the data on his screen had been replaced with gibberish numbers. Still, it wasn’t zeroes, and the pattern was somehow familiar to him. He just had to figure out why.
Aaron had seen that same change in data before. Towards the end of 1968, he was sitting in that same seat watching a simulated launch at Kennedy Spaceflight Centre. It was part of his familiarization with launch activities and training in monitoring the spacecraft. The normal data on his screen had momentarily changed from sensible data to gibberish then flipped back almost instantly.
Curious about the anomaly, Aaron got a hard copy of the test data the next morning then got in touch with controllers at Cape Kennedy. They grudgingly admitted that a test conductor had accidentally dropped the spacecraft’s power system to unusually low voltages before correcting his own error. That explained the change in data Aaron saw but didn’t explain the strange pattern the numbers took.
He sought the help of an instrumentation engineer to solve the problem. It turned out that the low power levels had upset the signal conditioning equipment, a box of electronics that served the obscure role of translating information from sensors into signals that fed the displays in the spacecraft and on the ground. The box could be set in the normal or auxiliary position; in the former setting it would turn off with low voltage and in the latter position it would continue to operate even under lower power conditions.
As he looked at the nonsensical data coming down from Apollo 12, Aaron remembered the instrumentation engineer’s final point: switch to auxiliary and you get your data downlink back. So he told Griffin what to do. “Fight, EECOM. Try SCE to AUX.”
Griffin had no idea what that meant. “SCE to off?” he asked, unsure; he had been expecting Aaron to recommend an abort, not a command he’d never heard. “AUX,” Aaron corrected. Griffin passed the command to Carr, who looked at Griffin as if to say are-you-sure-and-what-the-hell-is-that but didn’t. He dutifully relayed the command to Apollo 12 with a confidence in his voice he didn’t entirely feel. Meanwhile Griffin asked Aaron where in the spacecraft the crew could find this famed SCE switch. If Carr, an astronaut, had no idea where or what it was, it was entirely possible the crew aboard Yankee Clipper didn’t either.
Conrad’s reply confirmed Griffin’s suspicions. “Try FCE to auxiliary. What the hell is that?” “SCE – SCE to auxiliary” Carr corrected. “SCE to AUX,” Conrad called back in confirmation. Bu he still didn’t know where or what it was. Command Module Pilot Dick Gordon in the centre seat was equally clueless.
It was Bean who knew where the switch was, and changed it from normal to auxiliary without hesitation. By the time Griffin turned to Aaron to ask again where the crew could find this mythical SCE switch, everything had changed. “We got it back, flight,” Aaron said before Griffin could open his mouth. New and correct data was starting to come back from the spacecraft. Aaron advised Griffin to have the crew bring fuel cells 1 and 2 back online – connect their power to the CM again. Bean dutifully carried out the command after the Saturn V’s first stage fell away and its second stage kicked to life and shot the crew higher. Fuel cells 1 and 2 came back online followed by fuel cell 3 moments later. The spacecraft was starting to look like it was alive and well.
Ms. Teitel, as it happens, lives fairly close to me. I've sent her an email to ask her source for the information.
As for the mysterious location of the SCE switch, it was sort of buried among the tape recorder and VHF controls on the LMP's electrical panel:
(http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt353/jarvisn/sce-to-aux_zpse2a61ff3.jpg)
(http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt353/jarvisn/sce_zpsa0945b04.jpg)
Just as an interesting aside, the phrase has become sort of a cultural meme; you can get coffee cups, t-shirts, and other items with the imprint.
(http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt353/jarvisn/mugs-r7bbfd3a5b7f74d7eb22d000b017967bd_x7jgr_8byvr_152_zps686b201c.png)
ETA: Link to the article.
http://amyshirateitel.com/2012/04/29/apollo-12s-electrifying-launch/ (http://amyshirateitel.com/2012/04/29/apollo-12s-electrifying-launch/)
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A brilliant man. Curious enough to follow an obscure fault mode on his own time, and quick enough to remember the solution when everybody else were on the brink of cancelling a billion dollar enterprise.
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I have to admit that my knowledge of Apollo 12 launch went as far as the lighting strike, I had no idea about the SCE to AUX scenario. I've watched a few YouTube videos today, read the flight transcript and read the above posts. Incredible stuff, these guys knew their business and so cool under pressure. Amazing.
Thanks again guys, I've learned a fair bit today 8)
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A brilliant man. Curious enough to follow an obscure fault mode on his own time, and quick enough to remember the solution when everybody else were on the brink of cancelling a billion dollar enterprise.
Aaron called it "a natural curiosity about how things work". I think that its a common thread among engineers and scientists.
It is also a common thread here. There is no material benefit to be gained from posting on a forum like this (apart from the obvious wish to defend the reality of Apollo against the false and malicious allegations of the nut-jobs who think it never happened). We're curious, and we want to know and to understand why things are the way they are. The fact that explanations of even the smallest things are often forthcoming, and in detail, is evidence of the reality of Apollo.
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The box could be set in the normal or auxiliary position; in the former setting it would turn off with low voltage and in the latter position it would continue to operate even under lower power conditions.
This is the only part that doesn't make complete sense to me. The Apollo Operations Handbook doesn't say anything about voltage levels, only that the SCE had two power supplies that would switch automatically if the primary outputs went out of spec, or manually with that switch. Since the switchover didn't occur automatically, I'm inclined to think that the primary supply was producing correct voltages at the time of the manual switchover; it was the brief loss of those voltages due to the deep dip in the +28V bus voltage that had scrambled the SCE hardware.
It makes sense that Bean would know it when the others didn't. Being the LMP (which really means "flight engineer") it was on his side of the panel.
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I have to admit that my knowledge of Apollo 12 launch went as far as the lighting strike, I had no idea about the SCE to AUX scenario. I've watched a few YouTube videos today, read the flight transcript and read the above posts. Incredible stuff, these guys knew their business and so cool under pressure. Amazing.
Thanks again guys, I've learned a fair bit today 8)
Indeed. And it demonstrates just how rich the story is and how absurd the conspiracy theory is when you realise this.
Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
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Aaron called it "a natural curiosity about how things work". I think that its a common thread among engineers and scientists.
Yes. If he were completely honest he'd also attribute it to a fair amount of luck. If that malfunction had never occurred in testing while he was watching, he never would gotten curious about it and investigated the reason.
Of course, luck favors the prepared.
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Aaron called it "a natural curiosity about how things work". I think that its a common thread among engineers and scientists.
Yes. If he were completely honest he'd also attribute it to a fair amount of luck. If that malfunction had never occurred in testing while he was watching, he never would gotten curious about it and investigated the reason.
Of course, luck favors the prepared.
I agree. The harder I work, the luckier I get!
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Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
There's quite a variety, I imagine. Google "sce to aux".
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I have to admit that my knowledge of Apollo 12 launch went as far as the lighting strike, I had no idea about the SCE to AUX scenario. I've watched a few YouTube videos today, read the flight transcript and read the above posts. Incredible stuff, these guys knew their business and so cool under pressure. Amazing.
Thanks again guys, I've learned a fair bit today 8)
Indeed. And it demonstrates just how rich the story is and how absurd the conspiracy theory is when you realise this.
Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
http://www.amazon.com/CafePress-AUX-T-Shirt-Organic-Mens/dp/B00JTQAJ1G/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414964629&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=keep+calm+and+try+sce+to+aux
No mug, but you can get the t-shirt.
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I have to admit that my knowledge of Apollo 12 launch went as far as the lighting strike, I had no idea about the SCE to AUX scenario. I've watched a few YouTube videos today, read the flight transcript and read the above posts. Incredible stuff, these guys knew their business and so cool under pressure. Amazing.
Thanks again guys, I've learned a fair bit today 8)
Indeed. And it demonstrates just how rich the story is and how absurd the conspiracy theory is when you realise this.
Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
If you can come up with the logo as a jpg, your local photo retailer should be able to make you one!
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Indeed. And it demonstrates just how rich the story is and how absurd the conspiracy theory is when you realise this.
Exactly. I exchanged a few PMs with Dwight during the height of awe130 thread, and he said something that made sense to me. I just laugh at them now while I marvel at Apollo's achievements and the stories that surround it. I might never understand the detail of the electrical engineering behind SCE to AUX, but the story is just awesome.
When we have so many people here who can answer questions with great authority, I think it is better to learn than argue with the die hards. Jarrah et al. are going to their graves having spent an inordinate amount of time proving nothing thinking they have.
Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
No, but you can get a hoodie here. (http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+try_sce_to_aux_hoodie,1271013314?utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=sweatshirts&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=cpc-product-ads-uk&utm_content=1271013314)
I have some cash floating around from my birthday, so I might treat myself to this as its really right up my geek street.
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The box could be set in the normal or auxiliary position; in the former setting it would turn off with low voltage and in the latter position it would continue to operate even under lower power conditions.
This is the only part that doesn't make complete sense to me. The Apollo Operations Handbook doesn't say anything about voltage levels, only that the SCE had two power supplies that would switch automatically if the primary outputs went out of spec, or manually with that switch. Since the switchover didn't occur automatically, I'm inclined to think that the primary supply was producing correct voltages at the time of the manual switchover; it was the brief loss of those voltages due to the deep dip in the +28V bus voltage that had scrambled the SCE hardware.
That IS what it says in the Handbook, but (from a layman's perspective, remember) I can think of two possibilities: Either the instrumentation engineer that Aaron consulted [1] wasn't aware that there was an automatic switchover built into the circuitry, or [2] (and I think this more likely) he knew that the switchover circuitry was sometimes balky and didn't work properly. Either way, if MCC is receiving ratty data, the switchover hasn't happened and the switch needs to be thrown manually.
Your point about voltage levels may just be a matter of phrasing. The SCE would function on the AUX setting with lowered (primary) power levels because it would be operating on its redundant (presumably internal?) power supply.
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I found the detailed report on the Apollo 12 lightning strike. Summarizing with added comments:
The fuel cells were knocked offline by rapid false triggering of the SCRs in the fuel cell overload sensors. (An SCR is a silicon controlled rectifier that behaves like a solid-state latching relay.) The triggering had to be false because the fuel cells were simply incapable of producing enough current to trip them so quickly.
The trips are best explained by lightning induced voltage rises >500 V/μs on the anodes of the SCRs. dV/dt triggering is a well-known property of SCRs.
When the three fuel cells dropped off the buses, the entire CSM load of 75 amps was thrown onto entry batteries A and B. That's a very heavy load for batteries rated at only 40 amp-hours at a 25A rate. (Battery C was offline in reserve.) The bus voltage dropped momentarily to 18-19 V but recovered to 23-24V within a few milliseconds.
"The low DC voltage on the main buses resulted in the illumination of the undervoltage warning lights, dropout of the signal conditioning equipment, and a lower voltage input to the inverters. The momentary low voltage to the inverters tripped the ac undervoltage sensor and caused the ac bus 1 fail light to illuminate. The transient that affected the silicon controlled rectifiers in the fuel cell disconnect circuitry also affected the silicon controlled rectifiers in the ac overload circuits in the same manner."
The next section discusses the permanent burnout of 9 sensors in the service module, but they did not materially affect the mission.
There were actually five restarts of the computer, most likely caused by that same momentary +28V bus voltage drop when the fuel cells disconnected.
(end of paraphrase)
I see nothing in the diagrams to suggest that the two SCE power supplies weren't identical. Normal SCE power consumption was about 35W, enormous by today's standards but reasonable for the 1960s. Each produced the same set of output voltages: +20, -20, +10, +5. All four output voltages were themselves telemetered since the accuracy of all telemetry readings depended on them. I can't think of any reason to design only one supply to operate over the widest supply voltage range possible. I can't say what that range would be without knowing the specific design of each supply, but it seems reasonable that the 20V supplies would require an input of at least 20V. We do know that the +28V DC buses dropped below 20V when the fuel cells dropped off but recovered to voltages well above that in just a few milliseconds.
Today it would be easy to design a telemetry system to be much less susceptible to this sort of power supply glitch. Switching power supplies have pretty much displaced linear designs for most applications and they are inherently able to withstand a much wider range of supply voltages -- to the point that many "universal" designs can handle anything between 100 and 240V without any operator reconfiguration. They can usually store enough energy to ride through fairly long supply outages.
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Exactly. I exchanged a few PMs with Dwight during the height of awe130 thread, and he said something that made sense to me.
Looks around nervously hoping the HB crowd missed this detail... ;)
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Also, I love the mug. Is it actually available anywhere?
Looking closely at the photo,
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt353/jarvisn/mugs-r7bbfd3a5b7f74d7eb22d000b017967bd_x7jgr_8byvr_152_zps686b201c.png
because it has a crown at the top, I wonder if the mug is based on British World War 2 posters, "Loose lips sink ships" etc.
I think it would look much better with a NASA logo and just, "Try SCE to AUX" printed on a T-shirt or hoodie in NASA Blue, which might be sufficiently enigmatic to make some people curious enough to ask what it means, therefore gifting the dedicated Apollo Nut one of those delightful but infrequent opportunities to earbash at considerable length, as we are wont to do, the enquirer and anyone else within earshot about Apollo 12 and the other moon landings and every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo mission and the astronauts and cosmonauts and Skylab and Mir and the Space Shuttle and the ISS and the new plans to go to the Moon and Mars.
For those who a keen to get into this, it shouldn't be too hard for city-dwellers to find a suitable logo, print the words and have a T-shirt or hoodie made up locally.
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I wonder if the mug is based on British World War 2 posters -- "Loose lips sink ships" etc.
Wikipedia entry: Keep Calm and Carry On (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On)
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Does anyone know how to make a 1995 CD-ROM work? I can listen to short AIF audio files in IrfanView, but not open movies, instead getting an error message "Unknown codec".
Have you tried VLC (Videolan Player, www.videolan.org)? It supports just about every codec known to man, but as open source software it can't handle DRMed formats.
Many thanks, ka9q, VLC has been languishing on my hard drive for 14 months, mostly unused, and yes, it plays the audio and video files. I didn't know it was so much more capable than the other players I tried.
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I wonder if the mug is based on British World War 2 posters -- "Loose lips sink ships" etc.
Wikipedia entry: Keep Calm and Carry On (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On)
Ah, I've had a good day now because I've learnt something, and it's only 1:51 pm. Thanks AJV.
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I wonder if the mug is based on British World War 2 posters -- "Loose lips sink ships" etc.
Wikipedia entry: Keep Calm and Carry On (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On)
And here's the place where it was re-discovered:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Go3ZQqKdE4Q/VDkDLaBQ-wI/AAAAAAAAC_o/1zJyQj9CMpA/w1358-h764-no/IMG-1412690880784-V.jpg)
Barter Books (http://www.barterbooks.co.uk/) in Alnwick. I was there a couple of weeks ago. A great little place to while away an hour or two.
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Spooky. Drove through there last week en route to Cragside.
Missed that then, would have stopped. Look good.