Radiation

[Luke Pemberton]

I suspect strongly there are MORE impacts in LEO, not fewer.

Would this Planetary and Space Science publication confirm your suspicion? I can only go by the abstract, and I'm not paying for the full pdf. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0032063379901284

[Abaddon]

of course i agree. i cannot just say its true without research. i myself used to believe they were fake. i watched the FOX TV show. i decided to google 'did we land on the moon' one day and found Bobs site. after reading through this site and looking at a few others i was happy with what i saw and what was explained in a very simple manner. also on the other hand i have yet to come across an argument which i couldnt find an answer for. until i met tim and his radiation issue. this is when i joined cosmoquest and eventually this one. through my interactions on FB groups i occasionally come across items i cannot fully explain and i have asked some of those questions in other threads on here.

You are fortunate. Sure, I can buy that the photo nonsense has the appearance of some traction, but upon examination, it does not.

That is the beauty of this site. There is a boatload of expertise available.

[nomuse]

The radiation issue IS complex. And messy. When you get right down to it, the specifics of dosage and the specifics of thermal management are two places where even the engineer would prefer you build the real thing and measure it.

Thing is, ballpark shows you the task is achievable. Even error-ridden approximations like we've been throwing around in this thread are enough to zero in to a magnitude or two; enough to where you know you aren't going to need that "six feet of lead" some people claim.

But when it gets down to it, working out the various energetic particle threats and their amelioration isn't something completely orthogonal to figuring out how to navigate, or predict and control liquid flow within the motors, or sustaining life within the pressure suits. It really is just another engineering problem. And when you've accepted that the people they had were fully capable of figuring out how to communicate with the craft or build landing gear that would work, it becomes very hard to think that same group (or, rather, other specialists with similar levels of expertise) would be incapable of addressing the radiation issue.

What I mean by all this is that set against the background of the rest of the project, you would need a heck of a big smoking gun. "It's harder than it looks" isn't a good smoking gun. "This looks odd to me" isn't one. A deathbed confession is nothing, at this point. My "smoking gun" at this point would be an interview program where interviewees explain how they did it. And that program would be Ken Burns in length.

[Jason Thompson]

Thing is, ballpark shows you the task is achievable. Even error-ridden approximations like we've been throwing around in this thread are enough to zero in to a magnitude or two; enough to where you know you aren't going to need that "six feet of lead" some people claim.

What frustrates me most about this whole business (apart from people like Tim trolling by pretending not to understand log graphs, or inconceivable and his seagull posting) is that there really is an abundance of information out there that shows this radiation issue to be a non-issue for short duration missions, yet HBs will insist on going back to statements from James van Allen made right after Explorer 1, or point to the fact that radiation studies are ongoing for long duration missions as though they somehow have relevance. Or generally not even look at the information available.

Even inconceivable's latest garbage about windows contains no actual information and still falls back on the implication of a deadly sea of radiation and tiny projectiles ready to kill us all the minute we dare go out of the atmosphere.


But when it gets down to it, working out the various energetic particle threats and their amelioration isn't something completely orthogonal to figuring out how to navigate, or predict and control liquid flow within the motors, or sustaining life within the pressure suits. It really is just another engineering problem. And when you've accepted that the people they had were fully capable of figuring out how to communicate with the craft or build landing gear that would work, it becomes very hard to think that same group (or, rather, other specialists with similar levels of expertise) would be incapable of addressing the radiation issue.

What I mean by all this is that set against the background of the rest of the project, you would need a heck of a big smoking gun. "It's harder than it looks" isn't a good smoking gun. "This looks odd to me" isn't one. A deathbed confession is nothing, at this point. My "smoking gun" at this point would be an interview program where interviewees explain how they did it. And that program would be Ken Burns in length.
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[Allan F]

They are trying to be lawyers. They treat the issue as a criminal case. If one single fact can be shown not to fit the prosecutors case, there can be argued for "resonable doubt" - and the defendant must be acquitted. Which in this context means, the Apollo moon landings were impossible, if one single fact can be proven wrong or impossible. No matter how much they have to lie and cheat and quotemine.

[BertieSlack]

If one single fact can be shown not to fit the prosecutors case, there can be argued for "resonable doubt" - and the defendant must be acquitted.

The burden of proof is indeed with the prosecution. That would be the Apollo deniers, not the Apollo defenders.

But the argument that one missing or apparently contradictory piece of evidence destroys all the others is nonsense anyway. Hoaxnuts are very fond of quoting the Holmesian maxim that a missing link in a chain destroys the whole chain. They disregard the fact that Holmes was referring to chain of reasoning, where each inference is dependent on the strength of the previous one - he was NOT referring to a collection of independently verifiable facts. For example, if I told you that:
1. My real name is not Bertie
2. I am 50 years old
3. I live in England

but then it turned out that I was mistaken about my age, that would not mean that I really am called Bertie and live somewhere other than England. Even if a jury suspected I was a liar, my name and country of residence can be independently verified.

Court verdicts are given on the totality of the evidence, and not everything can be perfectly known. Some pieces of the jigsaw will be missing, some may be damaged - but have we got enough pieces in the right place to see the picture?

[nomuse]

I think it helps (hinders?) that the hoax believers generally lack a background that lets them appreciate the body of the material.

They look at Apollo as resting on proof that is made up of a bundle of straws. So when they think they've broken one straw, it is easy for them to think of the others as equally weak as would all break if looked at as closely.

Even when you follow them down one hole and show them, say, how much more a pressure suit is than a balloon, they don't extrapolate; the radio transmissions are still easily faked with a tape recorder in LEO, the Apollo Surface Record just takes a bit of desert and black-and-white film, etc.

All in a framework where understanding of Apollo is entirely some pictures in a dusty archive that are said to have been shot somewhere that we know nothing about and no-one else has ever been or seen. A project that has no footprint, no connections, no descendants, and few witnesses. They just can't see it within the context of widely known and ordinary engineering and science.

(I'd also say they lack appreciation for how well the history is documented, but the conspiracy believer has the same lack of appreciation for the width and depth to which history is studied. For them it is a single line in a schoolbook and anyone could have written that.)

[gillianren]

In my experience, HBs don't understand how history works any more than they understand how anything else works.  You can tell based on all the weight they place on Nixon.

Was Watergate a scandal and a Constitutional crisis?  You bet.  Does it show a disregard to the truth and the law in Nixon?  Absolutely.  Does it prove that Nixon lied about everything?  Absolutely not.  Nixon is a complicated figure, even a tragic one in some ways.  He had a strange sense of honour that was completely overwhelmed by his need to be liked.  I would argue that you can track everything Nixon did wrong in his life to a need to believe that people liked him.  More to the point, though, it's obvious that he didn't lie about everything.  We have evidence of all kinds of things he didn't lie about.  He didn't lie about the automatic cost of living adjustment to Social Security; all you need to prove that's true is to note that Social Security payments still get automatic COLA to this day.

So if you're going to put "Nixon lied about stuff" in your evidence column, well, that's not enough.  Everyone lies about stuff.  Everyone also tells the truth about stuff.  So you then have to work out if it's more likely, in this case, that Nixon was lying or telling the truth.  Given that Apollo was announced by JFK and pushed by LBJ, it frankly becomes more likely that Nixon was telling the truth, and if you don't understand why that's the case, you need to stop using Nixon in your evidence column anyway, because you don't understand Nixon.  Revealing the hoax would have, in his eyes, made him beloved at the expense of JFK, who had once betrayed him.  I mean, come on!

[bobdude11]

The thing that gets me about moon mission are the unknowns that have come to light over the years....

Well, microbursts were not identified as an aviation hazard until the mid 70's. All those decades before that with people flying about close to airports putting themselves at risk not knowing about the potential for disaster.

Ah yes I remember AA flight 181 2 Aug 85 near DFW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191

I was a Security Policeman (7th Security Police Squadron) at Carswell AFB (now Naval JRB) when that happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carswell_Air_Force_Base). Our Readiness Exercise was cancelled in preparation for receiving any survivors at the base hospital. We didn't receive any that I recall; the local hospitals in and around DFW were sufficient to handle them.
I also remember that storm and it was nasty 

[bobdude11]

The thing that gets me about moon mission are the unknowns that have come to light over the years....

Well, microbursts were not identified as an aviation hazard until the mid 70's. All those decades before that with people flying about close to airports putting themselves at risk not knowing about the potential for disaster.

Ah yes I remember AA flight 181 2 Aug 85 near DFW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191

Also, I believe it was Flight 191 ...

[bknight]

The thing that gets me about moon mission are the unknowns that have come to light over the years....

Well, microbursts were not identified as an aviation hazard until the mid 70's. All those decades before that with people flying about close to airports putting themselves at risk not knowing about the potential for disaster.

Ah yes I remember AA flight 181 2 Aug 85 near DFW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191

Also, I believe it was Flight 191 ...

Fat finger exercise, but you're correct.

[timfinch]

I can see I was sorely missed.  Providence has smiled on you all for I am back.  If you are not aware Cosmoquest booted me the first day.  It seems they have a policy against proving the Moon Landings were a hoax.  Who knew?  I also noticed there was movement on the Logarithmic graph and now we all see the purpose and need for the logarithmic minor graduations.  This is good news because we we all have to decipher the data from logarithmic graphs moving forward if we are to keep up.  Check out the Cosmoquest debacle and tell me what you think.  They not only booted me, they closed the thread.  What's up with that?

[timfinch]

I really don't think you guys are looking at background radiation correctly.  It appears to me that you believe that because GCR is reduced by Solar Activity then a corresponding reduction in background radiation occurs.  I would point out the cause of GCR reduction is the presence of Solar radiation.  Solar radiation is not the same radiation as GCR but it is nevertheless radiation.  It is the reason the average background radiation is so high.  It is logical to assume that background radiation increases in relation to solar activity meaning that because Apollo 11 ventured out during solar peak it would have experienced ad inordinately high background radiation.

[timfinch]

I finally downloaded the CraTer data and produce this graph.

[timfinch]

The other thing I wanted to bring to the groups attention is the fact that the CraTer data is a bit misleading.  The telescope records data at periodic intervals, say hourly, and a more complete image would require the all of the snap shots taken in a day to be averaged.  That would give you a better understanding of the daily exposures received by astronauts.  Some of you thought that because you saw prolonged stretches of data below the Apollo threshold that a transit was possible.  You would need a stretch of over 240 consecutive measurements to equal a 10 day mission.