ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: onebigmonkey on December 24, 2014, 05:48:12 AM
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I decided to have a nosey around there today, and came across this article by "Phil Kouts" who is too scared to put his name to his work, for fear of being called stupid.
http://www.aulis.com/moon-earth.htm with it's Afterword:
http://www.aulis.com/moon-earth_afterword.htm
Phil: you're stupid.
It was updated in November this year, and very obviously someone has told him about weather patterns, because he mentions satellite photos a few times.
He claims that all the photos taken from and in orbit around the moon show only Australia and were probably done from a geostationary satellite above Hawaii. This is despite the fact that there are photos taken from orbit showing Africa, ones taken above Central America, and others where the position of Australia changes orbit by orbit - something you just don't get from a geostationary satellite.
He doesn't tell us which satellite was taking colour photos above Hawaii (there were none taking colour), or how they managed to get the perspective from above Earth that very obviously can only have been taken from cislunar space.
He claims that there are white dots in some of the photos that are stars. They aren't. He then produces 'Starry Night' reproductions of Earth to show the movement of the stars that he thinks should be visible during TEC photos and fails to spot that the the Earth in the software is exactly as it should be for the GET they were taken.
He produces photos of Earth and says they are the same, when they aren't.
He makes great play out of the fact that the ALSJ said that one photo was taken at REV 12, when it could only have been taken REV 6. You know how I think he worked that out? He read my page. He then plays the spooky music because the ALSJ stopped saying it was at Rev 12. They did this because I emailed Eric and told him it could only have been taken at Rev 6, because the satellite photos say so. Despite him then saying it could only have been Rev 6, he then complains that the one taken on the ground at that time doesn't show the same clouds.
He's very upset that they didn't take more photos of Earth from the ground, or from orbit, or make a big fuss over it, despite the fact that elsewhere on Aulis they are bitching about how many photos they took.
In short, our boy Phil is either very bad at research or he is being economical with the truth.
Try harder Phil, and own up to who you are. My real name is on my site, and I earned my PhD. Show us yours.
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I decided to have a nosey around there today, and came across this article by "Phil Kouts" who is too scared to put his name to his work, for fear of being called stupid.
Yep, I've run across his ignorant tripe before. Anonymous expertise is no expertise.
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Are they still around?
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The one I particularly loved is when they asked how could there be a photo of both Alan Shepard and ed Mitchell when only one camera was (at that point) on the lunar surface. They included a frame grab of the 16mm DAC footage. When you played the complete 16mm, it clearly showed one astronaut GIVING the other the camera.
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There are other things in the article I linked to that are just plain wrong, such as where he claims that the photo of Earth in the LM Earthrise rendez-vous image should contain South and North America so there is something wrong with it. Except that it is exactly what it does show.
What really offends me are just three of the letters attached to the article: PhD
I don't claim that my thesis is earth shattering or even particularly good, but I know I was thorough and I know the process of obtaining it was followed correctly. I was not allowed to get away with short cuts or sloppy research and I was given a real grilling in my viva voce exam (I believe in the US it's a 'Defense of dissertation').
I find it offensive that someone whose research skills are so poor and who deliberately cherry picks evidence is claiming to have gone through the same process that I did.
On the other hand it always amuses me that the HB community is very vocal in its distrust of scientific credentials and academia, except when they find someone who claims to have them with whom they agree.
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I don't claim that my thesis is earth shattering or even particularly good, ...
One doesn't have to be either in order for it to satisfy the intent. It just has to be sufficiently novel so that you aren't just reflecting work already done. And it has to be sufficiently engaging to constitute significant research -- in short, you have to pull enough rope off the spool in order to hang yourself, but not so much you can rig a sailing ship with it.
Buzz Aldrin's PhD dissertation on orbital rendezvous was limited to Gemini-type missions using Gemini-type equipment and treated only a few general techniques to effect a rendezvous using scant line-of-sight observations. It didn't reach either too broadly or too deeply, although tangentially (pun intended) he formulated a basis for rendezvous with uncooperative spacecraft that has proven effective and enduring over time.
but I know I was thorough and I know the process of obtaining it was followed correctly....
That's why we do them. The PhD dissertation is meant to prove you know how to research a new topic thoroughly and correctly, avoiding common errors of reasoning and empiricism. If it fails to instill in its author an enduring motive to conduct proper and thorough research, then the author deserves little of the respect that would ordinarily be afforded. The letters PhD are a double-edged sword, for they command a measure of respect but they also set a high standard that must be maintained for any research subscribed with that degree.
...I was given a real grilling in my viva voce exam (I believe in the US it's a 'Defense of dissertation').
Correct. A typical American doctoral candidate endures three oral examinations. First he defends his choice of topic and the means by which he intends to examine it to his panel of faculty who will supervise him. When they are satisfied the topic is sufficiently novel and remarkable, and his means are sound, he is allowed to proceed.
Second, at some point during his studies he is subject to a battery of varied subject-matter oral examinations from his field to demonstrate general proficiency in it. These are rigorous enough practically to require a prior degree in the field. In contrast to the typical American university experience centered on classroom and laboratory activity, preparing for PhD "orals" is best accomplished in the English mode of individualized study.
Finally, at the conclusion of his research and writing, he defends his completed dissertation to the entire university -- students and faculty from any college or department are permitted, although in practice it is only the faculty and students from his field who desire to attend. (Older tenured professors at some of my universities attended all defenses as a rule, mostly to ask general scientific and historical literacy questions.)
I find it offensive that someone whose research skills are so poor and who deliberately cherry picks evidence is claiming to have gone through the same process that I did.
Indeed, in a rather rare occurrence I attended the defense of a computer science PhD candidate who was not only denied his degree but also brought censure upon his supervising faculty when we discovered that the cases by which he illustrated his conclusion had been cherry-picked and that he had not, as claimed, discovered a general solution to a class of problem. The problem arises in automated interference detection in the simultaneous design of assemblies, which is one way in which computers can aid engineers in getting it right the first time. First-order problems in this field have easy solutions. Second- and higher-order problems do not, and are the ones most commonly manifest in practical design work. I believe he was allowed to revise his research, and the censure of the faculty did not extend to accusing them of complicity -- they were not complicit, just complacent. But it did hammer home to us that just because one embarks upon doctoral work does not guarantee its successful, honest completion. And more importantly, the gauntlet you run is real.
The anonymity of the allegedly bedoctored author at Aulis is inappropriate. The desire to subscribe one's degree but not one's name raises much suspicion. It is a ploy to enhance credibility without the naturally attendant risk. And the risk is what compels experts to be true to their expertise. I can think of no legitimate reason why a doctor of some subject should withhold his name from a treatise intended to be an example of that doctoral prowess. A legitimately qualified author writing defensibly within his field of expertise should have no problem exposing his identity to those who may wish to dispute him. If he is on solid ground, both factually and in his faculty of judgment, there is no legitimate fear -- and indeed some substantial, natural expectation of such a revelation on the part of his readers. Anonymous expertise is no expertise. Expertise is vested in the individual and may not be attached to whatever ephemeral identity the author wishes to invent.
Were the name provided, we might discover, for example, that the views expressed in the treatise are not principally the views of other practitioners of the relevant science, thus his stature in the field in which he has professed expertise would be diminished. We presume he would want to continue practicing in his field, and thus he must insulate his reputation from such a misuse of it.
Or we might discover that his degree and expertise are in an unrelated field. Again, anonymity in this case serves to hide the misapplication of irrelevant expertise.
Or at worst we might discover that the degree does not exist at all in any form, and that some layman has simply appended the honorific to a pseudonym in a sophomoric attempt to forestall legitimate criticism.
On the other hand it always amuses me that the HB community is very vocal in its distrust of scientific credentials and academia, except when they find someone who claims to have them with whom they agree.
They believe that we are bound to respect mainstream academics regardless the outcome. Hence if one of those academics seems to agree with them, they view it as a slam-dunk argument that we must respect without argument. It is a manifestation of the converse accident. We generally eschew as evidence the "expert" opinions of those whose expertise cannot be substantiated. And that is approriate. But the converse is not necessarily true: if someone has substantial expertise, we are not categorically bound to accept his judgment as necessarily being evidence. The foundation of expertise itself is only one pillar in the structure of an argument based on expert judgment.
Fringe theorists conflate two amphibolies of "authority." They are unwilling to distinguish between speaking with authority, as befits the knowledge and wisdom acquired through devoted study and practice, from authority as an arbitrarily appointed leader, disobedience to which engenders punishment. In eschewing the latter from a position of socio-political argumentation, they draw in the former as a sort of appendage to it. It is obvious that unlettered conspiracy theorists are generally ignorant of the topics on which they speak, and so it is easy to understand that they denigrate mainstream knowledge by calling it indoctrination from above, serving no practical purpose. They must have some reason for valuing their own intuition above other factors.
But yes, the paradox is comically apparent. Experts who, naturally enough, endorse mainstream or majority views have "obviously" been brainwashed by the Establishment to parrot unthinkingly the desired party line, or else are complicit with socio-political authority to conceal the truth. But experts (or those set up to appear as experts) who seem to agree with conspiracy reasoning are "obviously" unassailable sages whose word cannot be disputed.
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The anonymity of the allegedly bedoctored author at Aulis is inappropriate. The desire to subscribe one's degree but not one's name raises much suspicion. It is a ploy to enhance credibility without the naturally attendant risk. And the risk is what compels experts to be true to their expertise. I can think of no legitimate reason why a doctor of some subject should withhold his name from a treatise intended to be an example of that doctoral prowess. A legitimately qualified author writing defensibly within his field of expertise should have no problem exposing his identity to those who may wish to dispute him. If he is on solid ground, both factually and in his faculty of judgment, there is no legitimate fear -- and indeed some substantial, natural expectation of such a revelation on the part of his readers. Anonymous expertise is no expertise. Expertise is vested in the individual and may not be attached to whatever ephemeral identity the author wishes to invent.
Were the name provided, we might discover, for example, that the views expressed in the treatise are not principally the views of other practitioners of the relevant science, thus his stature in the field in which he has professed expertise would be diminished. We presume he would want to continue practicing in his field, and thus he must insulate his reputation from such a misuse of it.
Or we might discover that his degree and expertise are in an unrelated field. Again, anonymity in this case serves to hide the misapplication of irrelevant expertise.
Or at worst we might discover that the degree does not exist at all in any form, and that some layman has simply appended the honorific to a pseudonym in a sophomoric attempt to forestall legitimate criticism.
Reminds me of the elusive "Dr. David Groves" and the outright fraud, "Dr." Ken Johnston.
Then there's the guy who was custodian of Ralph Rene's work and who sold it to Jarrah White. I can't remember his name, but he used his math PhD label to buttress Rene's nonsense. Turns out that he is an elementary school math resource and G&T math teacher in Maryland, and his thesis was about instructional methods in 4th grade math. He also claimed to have lectured the Physics Department at Loyola College in Baltimore. I highly doubt that. I should look into that, since my home base is in that area.
Then there's the mysterious "Bill Wood". I'm not sure that's even his name and that maybe he just stole the name of a couple of important people at NASA. If his name actually is Bill Wood, I'm sure he has been in no hurry to clear up any misunderstanding about who he is. And given the credentials stated by the host of this video, it's hard to imagine that he only has "BSc" listed after his name in the graphic title.
I doubt that anybody with only a bachelor's degree is considered a "highly qualified scientist".
(I just read your critique in Cosmoquest of his 1996 speech.)
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Then there's the guy who was custodian of Ralph Rene's work and who sold it to Jarrah White. I can't remember his name, but he used his math PhD label to buttress Rene's nonsense.
Stephen Rorke.
Turns out that he is an elementary school math resource and G&T math teacher in Maryland, and his thesis was about instructional methods in 4th grade math.
Perfectly qualified to debunk Ralph Rene then. :D
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If -that- Bill Wood is the same Bill Wood I know, and with whom I had numerous discussions with for Live TV From the Moon, then I'll whistle Dixie.
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Bill Wood, BSc. vs. Bill Wood @ Goldstone.
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If -that- Bill Wood is the same Bill Wood I know, and with whom I had numerous discussions with for Live TV From the Moon, then I'll whistle Dixie.
It isn't, as I'm sure is obvious from the above. I checked that out very early on in my fact-checking into Bennett and Percy. Nor is it the "Bill Wood" who was a mainstay of the California amateur rocket community some years back. According to Aulis the Bill Wood that Bennett and Percy cite as their rocket authority suffered some major health issue shortly after granting his interview to Bennett and Percy and is conveniently no longer able to be interviewed. Methinks the authors simply chose a name for their alleged expert that would survive a cursory fact-check into prominent figures of the Space Age. As I point out on the relevant Clavius page, their "Bill Wood" seems very oddly ignorant of some of the most well-known principles of rocket propulsion. I can see why they would not want him interviewed by actual rocket scientists.
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As I point out on the relevant Clavius page, their "Bill Wood" seems very oddly ignorant of some of the most well-known principles of rocket propulsion. I can see why they would not want him interviewed by actual rocket scientists.
What did he claim about rocket propulsion? The only mention I could find of him on Clavius related to communications.
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What did he claim about rocket propulsion? The only mention I could find of him on Clavius related to communications.
That's the real Bill Wood. Hm, I wonder if it's a post I made somewhere then. Bennett and Percy's "Bill Wood" supposedly substantiated their explanation of the dark exhaust below the exit plane of the Saturn V's F-1 nozzle extension. They claim it occurred because it was just a "show" rocket with smaller engines hidden inside the F-1 structures. In fact it's film cooling using the turbine exhaust, one of the F-1's most notable features. This harks back to the V-2 engine, which also used film cooling.
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What did he claim about rocket propulsion? The only mention I could find of him on Clavius related to communications.
That's the real Bill Wood. Hm, I wonder if it's a post I made somewhere then. Bennett and Percy's "Bill Wood" supposedly substantiated their explanation of the dark exhaust below the exit plane of the Saturn V's F-1 nozzle extension. They claim it occurred because it was just a "show" rocket with smaller engines hidden inside the F-1 structures. In fact it's film cooling using the turbine exhaust, one of the F-1's most notable features. This harks back to the V-2 engine, which also used film cooling.
Could you explain what this film cooling is to a laymen like me? I've always wondered what caused the darkness of the F-1 exhaust.
Show rocket, that's funny. Doesn't the Saturn V hold several decibel level and seismic records for being the loudest machine ever constucted? How would a "show" rocket pull that off?
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The F-1 engine uses a "gas generator" cycle common in relatively simple liquid fueled rockets. Some of the RP-1 fuel and LOX oxidizer is diverted to a small enclosed combustion chamber where they burn, producing hot high pressure gas to drive the turbine that drives the pumps delivering the rest of the propellants to the combustion chamber of the rocket itself.
To keep the turbine blades from burning up, the mixture ratio into the gas generator is very "rich", that is, there's a lot more fuel than can be burned with the available oxygen. This is inefficient, but it keeps the gas reasonably cool. The gas further cools as it expands in the turbine. Many gas-generator-cycle rocket engines (e.g., the SpaceX Merlin) dump the turbine exhaust through a pipe alongside the main engine nozzle, but the F-1 makes a more clever use of it. It is piped to the side of the engine nozzle through large ducts and injected into the plume through narrow channels on the inside of the nozzle. The turbine exhaust is carried along the inside of the nozzle as a thin "film", acting to insulate and protect the nozzle from the much hotter gases coming from the combustion chamber.
Because the turbine exhaust is relatively cool and rich in incompletely burned kerosene, it emerges from the nozzle as a dark smoky "surface" that obscures the much brighter (and hotter) plume inside. Some distance outside the nozzle, it hits atmospheric oxygen and the unburned fuel burns, so the plume gets much brighter at that point.
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What ka9q said.
In the V-2, the alcohol fuel was just sprayed down the inside of the thrust chamber. In some engines the outside rim of the injector plate has a different impingement pattern. It creates a shear layer of cooler exhaust that still mixes with the main flow before exit but, for the length of the thrust chamber, provides the same effect as classic film cooling.
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It is piped to the side of the engine nozzle through large ducts ...
There's a heat exchanger in there too somewhere. The turbine and pump assembly on the F-1 is quite impressive.
Rocketdyne thrust chambers and nozzles are built as a single regeneratively-cooled set of Inconel tubes brazed together. The F-1 was too big for the entire nozzle to be built this way, so the rest of the nozzle -- the nozzle extension -- was a bolted-on assembly. This means it can't have shared the same regenerative cooling pathways and had to be cooled a different way: in this case, the cooling film from the turbine exhaust.
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Thank you! I knew for years it had something to do with how the fuel was burned, but could never come up with anything that made sense. I always thought it was something esoteric in the chemistry, not something this straightforward.
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Ahh, ok thanks. So basically a little gas goes out the tailpipe to keep the nozzle cool, and the burning of the cooling film causes the black exhaust. Makes sense. I'm assuming then since this unburned fuel doesn't enter the combustion chamber, it does not effect the actual thrust of the engine?
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The black exhaust is the cooling film. It's black because it was produced by the gas generator with an extremely rich mixture ratio, so there's lots of unburned fuel. Actually, it's unburned carbon -- black smoke -- because the excess fuel decomposes in the heat.
You are correct that the propellants feeding the gas generator and turbine do not contribute significantly to the thrust. This does lower efficiency, and it's a reason for more complex engine designs such as "staged combustion" used in the SSME (space shuttle main engine) and others. In the SSME, all (not just some) of the hydrogen is mixed with a small amount of oxygen in a "preburner", producing a lot of hot hydrogen (plus a little steam) to drive the turbines.
Instead of being dumped overboard (which would waste all of the hydrogen!) the turbine exhaust is then fed into the rocket combustion chamber where it meets the rest of the liquid oxygen and burns much more completely. (The mixture ratio is still a little rich, so some of the hydrogen still comes out unburned in the plume. This actually improves efficiency at the same time it lowers the temperatures that must be tolerated by the engine.)
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Ahh, ok thanks. So basically a little gas goes out the tailpipe to keep the nozzle cool, and the burning of the cooling film causes the black exhaust. Makes sense. I'm assuming then since this unburned fuel doesn't enter the combustion chamber, it does not effect the actual thrust of the engine?
Here's an excellent article of the engine cooling and thrust chamber:
http://heroicrelics.org/info/f-1/f-1-thrust-chamber.html
I can recommend this book on the development of the F-1 engine:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saturn-F-1-Engine-Powering-Exploration/dp/0387096299/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419773431&sr=8-1&keywords=F-1+engine
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Anything injected into the divergent part of the nozzle doesn't contribute materially to propulsive effect. In some vehicle designs the turbine exhaust is vented through vectored nozzles for steering -- chiefly roll control.
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http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19751580000
Here's a cutaway of the turbopump assembly.
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Actually, it's unburned carbon -- black smoke -- because the excess fuel decomposes in the heat.
And it really soots up the turbines and exhaust system. That's why you can't run an RP-1 engine with gas-generator cycle for more than a few minutes total before you'd have to tear down and rebuild everything south of the combustors.
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That actually makes sense to me. Never really understood how any of it worked. Thank you all for the explanations and answers, learn something new every day!
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The black exhaust is the cooling film. It's black because it was produced by the gas generator with an extremely rich mixture ratio, so there's lots of unburned fuel. Actually, it's unburned carbon -- black smoke -- because the excess fuel decomposes in the heat.
Is it really black or does it just look black on film because it is under exposed next to the bright exhaust? Kind of like how sunspots look black even though they're not black at all. I've always thought the turbine exhaust was orange* but often looked darker because of its contrast with the bright exhaust and the need of the camera to stop down.
(ETA)
* To clarify, I mean the area of dark coloration immediately aft of the nozzle looks orange, not necessarily the turbine exhaust itself.
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There's a heat exchanger in there too somewhere.
Just to elaborate on this a little bit...
The heat exchanger surrounds the exhaust duct and is located just aft of the turbine (it looks like a thickened section of duct). Its purpose is to heat up gaseous oxygen and helium that is then used to pressurize the propellant tanks. As liquid propellant is drawn from the tanks, the resulting empty volume has to be filled with something to allow a smooth continuous flow. Hot GOX from the heat exchanger is piped to the LOX tanks, and hot helium is piped to the RP-1 tank. Heating the gas increases its volume, thus it takes a smaller mass of hot gas to bring the tanks up to the required pressure than it would if cold gas were used.
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Reminds me of the elusive "Dr. David Groves"...
Several people in the U.K. attempted diligently to locate "David Groves, PhD." The best we could manage is mention of his name as a principal in a company that advertised digital 3D contour extraction from photographs. The company has been defunct for well over a decade, and -- to anyone's best research -- never existed beyond a listing in a directory.
As with many of the claimants purporting to have advanced academic degrees, by their fruits we know them. The experiments attributed to Groves in Bennett and Percy's work display an appalling ignorance of even basic physics or experimental method. And Percy himself flip-flops over the faux doctor's claims. For his own purposes, for example, Percy claims you can't discern contour on the lunar surface from photographs, so the explanation that surface variation causes "improper" shadow casting can't possibly be correct. But then in the appendix, his "expert" Groves not only maintains that contour can be discerned from photographs, he even proposes a (simplistic) method for quantifying it and uses it in "analyzing" -5903 to conclude artificial light must have been used.
...and the outright fraud, "Dr." Ken Johnston.
And the equally fraudulent Maurice Chatelain. Chatelain claimed to be "Chief of NASA Communications Systems." In fact he was a low-level electronics technician who may have briefly worked as an installation contractor at one of the NASA centers.
Johnston was outed by James Oberg as little more than a shipping clerk. As I recall, Hoagland and company had to rewrite Johnston's bio on the subsequent editions of their various books to downplay the earlier claim that he was a "Director" of the Apollo mission photography archives.
What puzzles me is how these people think they can get away for very long with making such easily-checked and clearly exaggerated claims? Do they not understand that, at least in the case of NASA, what people were "directors" of this or that throughout the agency's entire history is a matter of very easily verified fact?
Then there's the guy who was custodian of Ralph Rene's work ... I should look into that, since my home base is in that area.
Yes, you probably should. Chances are he was a graduate teaching assistant or some such thing during his own doctoral work. Doctoral candidates are presumed to want to continue in academia. That means it's valuable to have practical teaching experience.
Then there's the mysterious "Bill Wood". I'm not sure that's even his name and that maybe he just stole the name of a couple of important people at NASA.
I really think that's what happened. Bennett and Percy rely on a cast of characters, some easily verified like Jan Lundberg of Hasselblad, and others simply names they throw out there without providing enough information to verify the foundation of the alleged expertise. "Una Ronald" is alleged to be an eyewitness, but Bennett and Percy say that's not her real name. They have given her a false name, allegedly to protect her identity. But then Percy shows her face on his video! Great way to protect her identity there, Percy.
Ditto "Bill Wood." They give him a name that would survive perhaps a cursory web search -- "Oh, look, there's someone with that name legitimately associated with NASA" -- but again his story is suspicious. After "Bill" spilled the beans to Bennett and Percy, he was allegedly taken so ill that he was unable to participate in any more evidentiary discussions. There's the insinuation that he was "silenced," but then again he really wasn't. The only thing that's silenced is his critics' ability to test his expertise and claims for validity. But then again, his face appears on Percy's film. So is Percy responsible for the "silencing" of the witness by exposing his face?
I doubt that anybody with only a bachelor's degree is considered a "highly qualified scientist".
Correct. In fact, given the clearly bogus claims of Percy's on-screen witnesses and his flagrant fabrications elsewhere in his work, I wouldn't be surprised if those people are just actors Percy hired to portray his fictional "witnesses," claiming expertise or other standing, but simply reciting the script Percy wrote for them.
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Is it really black or does it just look black on film because it is under exposed next to the bright exhaust?
A little of both. By itself it would look like the dirty exhaust of a big diesel. But we can't deny that the only way we see it in this context is in film records where we can plausibly suspect the exposure has been set to allow such things to be visible even if, to the naked eye, they would be unbearably bright.
We know the turbine exhaust contains particulate carbon. Film cooling generally invokes two methods. First, the annular film is engineered to move very much more slowly than the main flow. This creates a fluid shear a few centimeters inboard of the inner surface of the nozzle. Fluid shear is the generalized form of wind shear, or simply the concept that adjacent layers of any fluid can be made to move at vastly different speeds. This generally inhibits mixing the two flows for a time, and in the case of a rocket engine prevents the main flow (very hot) from physically touching the nozzle surface and transferring heat to it. So the entire convective-conductive heat transfer scenario is engineered to minimize transfer of heat to the nozzle.
But to return to the carbon, the other heat transfer mechanism you have to inhibit is radiation. The main flow is very hot and radiates heat via electromagnetic energy that would be absorbed in the nozzle. If the cooling film is opaque to those wavelengths, it effectively shades the inside of the nozzle from that influx. Some cooling films are suitably opaque and the chemical level. But the LOX/RP-1 cooling film is additionally opaque at the physical particulate level. The fluid is composed of gaseous products as well as particulates of carbon compounds entrained in the flow.
So effective was this eventual design that it was contemplated that even bigger and more powerful engines (e.g., the M-1) could be built by scaling up the qualitative design features of the F-1.
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But to return to the carbon, the other heat transfer mechanism you have to inhibit is radiation. The main flow is very hot and radiates heat via electromagnetic energy that would be absorbed in the nozzle. If the cooling film is opaque to those wavelengths, it effectively shades the inside of the nozzle from that influx.
If the cooling film is black, wouldn't it then absorb radiation from the main flow and be heated by it?