Half arguments and problems for the hoax

[gillianren]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  I do believe a lot of the people who worked on Apollo wouldn't have known if what they were doing was part of a hoax or not, and it would not have taken more than a few hundred people tops to fake it.  (Since, after all, you don't need the props to work on the same level!)  Now, "a lot of the people" still leaves us with probably a couple hundred thousand who would have known, and it isn't possible to make Apollo with current technology, but still.

[Willoughby]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  I do believe a lot of the people who worked on Apollo wouldn't have known if what they were doing was part of a hoax or not, and it would not have taken more than a few hundred people tops to fake it.  (Since, after all, you don't need the props to work on the same level!)  Now, "a lot of the people" still leaves us with probably a couple hundred thousand who would have known, and it isn't possible to make Apollo with current technology, but still.

That's great, but until such time that you provide SUPPORT for the claim that the program was compartmentalized, the claim will remain nothing more than your personal baseless speculation. 

So, you think a few hundred people can keep a secret?  Give me an example of when a few hundred people have successfully kept a secret.  I'm sorry.  That's unfair.  You can't possibly do that because if you could, obviously the secret keeping wouldn't have been successful.  Yet, you have no problem implying that this is going on right now.  Do you have any names of any of these hundreds of people?  Any at all?  What about the radiation claim?  Do you endorse the claim that the radiation would have killed them as well?  Because that involves every past, present and future expert in cosmic radiation.  There's a few more hundred right there.

If the people building the infrastructure, modules, rockets, etc. didn't know that what they were working on was going to be faked, then they would have assumed they were putting a man on the moon.  These are not factory workers.  They are brilliant physicists, engineers, astronomers, etc.  What you are suggesting would have produced hardware capable of the task which they thought they were working on.  So....why was it necessary to fake the missions?  Are you suggesting that these people who built the machines would not have known whether or not they were up to the job which they thought they were making them for?  Are the that incompetent?

"you don't need the props to work on the same level" - what do you mean by this?

It isn't possible to make Apollo with current technology?  What technology did Apollo have that doesn't exist today?  Be specific.  It is true that there is no HARDWARE a la Apollo that can land a man on the moon today.  Why would there be?  Do you think that they constructed 10 landers before they landed on the moon and we have extra ones lying around?  Did we wastefully build more Saturn V rockets than we needed?  What are you talking about?  There isn't any hardware to land men on the moon because there is no mission to land men on the moon.  You are implying that the hardware doesn't exist because we can't produce the hardware.  It's nonsense.  We don't NEED the hardware because we're not going to the moon.  Isn't this common sense?

[Allan F]

I think you misunderstand gillianren. She's on the side of reality.

But I also disagree with her, because there was so much hardware that had to interface with other parts, that Team A needed insight in Team B and C and D and E to do their own job - and team E needed A, B, C, D, F, G H to talk to too. The navigation system team needed to talk to the computer team, the propulsion team, the environmental system team, the power supply team, and so on.

And if a Navigation system guy noticed that the propulsion system team wasn't doing their job, he'd ask some very pointed questions. You can't compartmentalize such a interdependent project - especially not when the press was crawling all over at the same time.

[dougkeenan]

It's hard to see anything "on the side of reality" about hoaxing the landings with any amount of people.

[Willoughby]

I think you misunderstand gillianren. She's on the side of reality.

But I also disagree with her, because there was so much hardware that had to interface with other parts, that Team A needed insight in Team B and C and D and E to do their own job - and team E needed A, B, C, D, F, G H to talk to too. The navigation system team needed to talk to the computer team, the propulsion team, the environmental system team, the power supply team, and so on.

And if a Navigation system guy noticed that the propulsion system team wasn't doing their job, he'd ask some very pointed questions. You can't compartmentalize such a interdependent project - especially not when the press was crawling all over at the same time.

If she's on the side of reality, then I did indeed misunderstand her.  I've gone back and re-read the comment, and I still can't interpret it that way though even knowing that!  It still doesn't change the fact that this method of "compartmentalization" would have produced working hardware which makes a fake unnecessary, but maybe she agrees with that.  What you say regarding the type of communication necessary logically debunks the claim that it "could have" been done without them knowing. 

[darren r]

Gillianren is most definitely not an HB and while I don't presume to speak on her behalf I suspect she meant 'fake Apollo with current technology' not 'make' it. I could be wrong, of course.

[JayUtah]

Indeed, Gillianren has been a staunch defender of Apollo authenticity for many years.

I think in her defense she's referring to a practical compartmentalization that arises simply from a single person not being able to comprehend the whole project in all it's detail.  You're either a "high-level" person with broad perspective, or you're a "low-level" person with focused subject-matter expertise on, say, the cabin heat exchanger.  These folks wouldn't necessarily know about propulsion or navigation.

But in any large project engineers still have to confer across functional disciplines for integration, even at the low level.  At a certain point enough "low-level" people would have to represent, collectively speaking, a suitable knowledge of the overall project.  Further, Apollo was expressly uncompartmentalized.  We have both anecdotal and documentary evidence of aggressive familiarization and cross-training among project engineers.

[dougkeenan]

Do you agree with her that "it would not have taken more than a few hundred people tops to fake it" because I contend it can't be faked with any number of people.

Hard can't, as in not physically possible, even it they wanted to.

[Cat Not Included]

Gillianren is most definitely not an HB and while I don't presume to speak on her behalf I suspect she meant 'fake Apollo with current technology' not 'make' it. I could be wrong, of course.

I also assumed "make" was supposed to be "fake".

Of course, if they were going to fake it, why make it such a big, distributed project at all? Claim its being done in top secret/classified environments by a handful of geniuses. I mean, if its all impossible anyway, its not like anyone else will know how to do it better.

[nomuse]

Taking devil's advocate, if there was some problem or problems that were so esoteric only a small number of people either knew of them or needed to know of them, and that was so intractable as to make a landing impossible, then, yes, it is possible the Apollo Program might have compartmentalized that dangerous knowledge.

However. First, to actively produce the fake landings would require a surprising number of people with specialist knowledge. Second, there are seemingly intractable problems in achieving that fakery. Thirdly, such a void -- something that completely blocks manned space travel (to the Moon, beyond the VARB, at all...pick your limit) -- is very unlikely in the first place, and if maintained as a secret, would leave a visible black hole, a place where suddenly and mysteriously data stops being available and questions are shunted aside.

But all of this hardly describes the Hoax Believer scenario. Every candidate I have ever seen them put forward as this "intractable problem known only to the top brass" is in reality something that's taught at university level. If that. It's really, really, really hard to compartmentalize the dangerous knowledge that sublimation doesn't happen in a vacuum, or that Newton's Third Law doesn't work!

[smartcooky]

But in any large project engineers still have to confer across functional disciplines for integration, even at the low level.

Was it a failure to do this in one instance that led to non-interchangeable lithium hydride  canisters being employed in the LM and CM? I have to believe that had a systems integration specialist spotted that early enough he would have moved to have it changed.

[smartcooky]

... sublimation doesn't happen in a vacuum

...and try telling that to a comet!!!

[twik]

You could have a limited number of people not realizing that the Apollo project wouldn't have been successful.

You'd still have to have a vast number of people working on the "shadow Apollo," creating all the technology to fake it. They'd have to have known they were working on a fake, because their stuff had to work.

[ka9q]

We have both anecdotal and documentary evidence of aggressive familiarization and cross-training among project engineers.

If only to sit together and eat in the company cafeteria.

Engineers love to talk shop even outside formal work settings. Or at least I do. And every engineer I've ever worked with. Much to the consternation of our significant others and non-engineer friends.

[gillianren]

I did indeed mean "fake."

Look, the filming of a movie, even an incredibly complex one, only takes a few hundred people.  Count the credits the next time you see a blockbuster.  So with my eliminations from the people who worked for Apollo, we have not added the same number of people.

I believe all the engineers would have known.  Obviously, the astronauts would have known.  A lot of people who made the fiddly bits.  At least half the people involved, hands down, vastly more than it would take to fake Apollo, even if I believed Apollo were possible to fake.  Which it wasn't then and isn't now. 

But when we're citing the number of people who worked on Apollo, not all those people were engineers.  As I understand it, we're including everyone.  The guys who built the buildings.  The people who manufactured the screws and bolts and rivets.  The people who made the mission patches.  The janitors.  The people who provided the food.  The people who worked in the plants where they made Mylar and so forth.  A lot of people whose jobs required no real technical knowledge beyond any required to do a job they might be doing for a strip mall or an auto parts manufacturer next.  Now, they knew they did their jobs.  They knew they did their jobs well.  And, since I believe Apollo was a (qualified) success (after all, there's 13!), they did their jobs right.  But would someone on the screw assemblyline know that the screw was being installed into x craft for y reason to produce z result on the Moon?  It seems unlikely to me.  Could the file clerk necessarily read the blueprints and what have you being filed?  Maybe.  Maybe that's a person who would know if something were wrong.  But what about the guy at the print shop producing the manual?

The number of people who worked on Apollo is vast.  However, I do not believe that every last one of them had the knowledge to be certain that what they did was the way it was for a vital engineering reason.  If you're told that producing rolls of Kapton is important for the Moon landing, that doesn't mean you know enough to understand anything more than maybe the properties of Kapton.

Actually, I'm reminded of an old joke.  A pilgrim comes across the site of a cathedral being built.  He stands in awe, then goes over to a woodcarver.  "What are you doing?" he asks.

"I am building a scaffold, which will help support the stones until the mortar sets."

He asks the same question of a quarryman, who says, "I am carving the great stones that will form the walls.  They must be very precise in order to fit together properly."

Then, he asks the question of a little old lady sweeping out the construction site.  She says, "I am building a cathedral to the glory of God."