Faking the moon landings

[AtomicDog]

I'm tired of picking my comments out of his wall of spam. It's a lot of work, and he does it that way on purpose. It's a tactic of his, and I refuse to play any more. That, and his ad hominem attacks let any reader know who the real winner of this debate is.

[JayUtah]

I get the impression he's more raging against the machine than actually cogently trying to argue a point.  That would explain the wall o' screed.  He said flatly that he doesn't much care who he's talking to, since he thinks were all interchangeably "of one mind."

[gillianren]

The thing is, if you pick a topic that's actually a matter of opinion, you could doubtless get an array of opinions from us.  (For example--I don't actually like Kubrick films much!)  His fault if he happens to be attempting to challenge fact, where we all agree because we have enough sense to see which way the evidence points.

[molesworth]

I'm tired of picking my comments out of his wall of spam. It's a lot of work, and he does it that way on purpose. It's a tactic of his, and I refuse to play any more. That, and his ad hominem attacks let any reader know who the real winner of this debate is.

I'm not sure he is actually doing it on purpose.  It's more likely, given his disdain for any kind of science or technology, that he's just unable to learn how to use the quote feature properly.

His very infrequent posting, about once a week, and the time it must take to add quote marks to all the quoted snippets, leads me to think he's spending hours manually putting his posts together, rather than learning how to use the tools provided for the job.

[AtomicDog]

There

I'm tired of picking my comments out of his wall of spam. It's a lot of work, and he does it that way on purpose. It's a tactic of his, and I refuse to play any more. That, and his ad hominem attacks let any reader know who the real winner of this debate is.

I'm not sure he is actually doing it on purpose.  It's more likely, given his disdain for any kind of science or technology, that he's just unable to learn how to use the quote feature properly.

His very infrequent posting, about once a week, and the time it must take to add quote marks to all the quoted snippets, leads me to think he's spending hours manually putting his posts together, rather than learning how to use the tools provided for the job.

There's nothing stopping him from making an individual reply to an individual post. That's actually easier than the way he is doing  it; just like you did to my post. I'm sorry, I think he's doing it intentionally.

[Luke Pemberton]

I get the impression he's more raging against the machine than actually cogently trying to argue a point.  That would explain the wall o' screed.  He said flatly that he doesn't much care who he's talking to, since he thinks were all interchangeably "of one mind."

A great band.

I always have a mental image of all CT's listening to the above genre of music on loop, but I admit to still finding pleasure in the same music, despite my late middle age.

[Luke Pemberton]

I'm tired of picking my comments out of his wall of spam. It's a lot of work, and he does it that way on purpose. It's a tactic of his, and I refuse to play any more. That, and his ad hominem attacks let any reader know who the real winner of this debate is.

I gave up with the continued wall of spam along with finding his 'arguments' being less than compelling. They are straight from the book of un4g1v3n1 of Dwane Damon (StrayDog02) from YouTube, back in the heady days, but less vitriolic in content. The whole anti-establishment tact is boring. The irony being it that he is communicating with the world on the back of the science he dismisses as brainwashing and bogus.

[Luke Pemberton]

His very infrequent posting, about once a week, and the time it must take to add quote marks to all the quoted snippets, leads me to think he's spending hours manually putting his posts together, rather than learning how to use the tools provided for the job.

I concur. I really cannot be bothered to engage with the wall of text, it is too time consuming to work out where he has replied to me, along with his whole anti-establishment approach.

[ka9q]

As an afterthought - have any amateurs done any work on receiving imagery from e.g. lunar orbiting spacecraft?  I know there were plenty listening in on Apollo audio transmissions, and there was some recent work by amateurs to get a defunct satellite back into action again, so it might, in theory be possible.  (I've just bought a cheap SDR dongle to make a weather satellite receiver, so technically it could be possible.)

Probably not, though each case has to be individually analyzed. Modern digital communications tends to be all or nothing. Either you have an antenna big enough (and a receiver quiet enough) to receive a signal with a certain power and data rate over a given distance or you don't. Modern lunar and planetary probes generally store up their data and then transmit it to earth at prearranged times at the highest data rate that the intended receiver can handle. Unless you have an equally good (or better) receiving station nearby at the same time, you won't get anything.

Depending on how they are designed, you may get certain components of a deep space signal. For example, some years ago the AMSAT-DL group used the 20m dish at Bochum, Germany, to receive Voyager 1's carrier signal. The link budget was far too poor to permit actual reception of data. However, it was still a pretty good accomplishment. The same dish is routinely used to receive the real time science downlink from the STEREO spacecraft because the data rate is low and continuous. It can't receive the high speed dumps to the DSN.

The Apollo signals were all analog, except for telemetry (a fairly primitive digital format). The hams who received the CSM in lunar orbit only got the voice on a narrow band FM (frequency modulated) subcarrier on a PM (phase modulated) main carrier. The PM modulation index was low enough that the NBFM subcarrier could be extracted separately from the rest of the composite signal (telemetry, ranging, etc).

Video was completely out of the question as it required wideband FM on the main carrier. Larry Baysinger got Neil Armstrong's voice by listening to the VHF AM transmitter on his backpack, not Eagle's wideband FM transmission to earth on S-band.

[ka9q]

Pure oxygen at 5 psi is the same oxygen pressure as air at 15 psi.

Side comment. Sea level atmospheric pressure is 101.325 kPa. O2 is 20.95% of this, so that's a partial pressure of 21.228 kPa. However, the fire hazard doesn't depend solely on the O2 partial pressure. Diluent gases (like nitrogen and argon) conduct heat away from a fire, so the fire hazard in a pure O2 atmosphere is somewhat greater than in a mixed gas atmosphere with the same O2 partial pressure.

A good demonstration film of this exists from one of the Sealab experiments in saturation diving. It was impossible to light matches because the large amount of helium conducted heat away from the flame. (Helium is also a better conductor of heat than either nitrogen or oxygen.)

All said, I doubt Apollo 15's feather was seen as much of a fire hazard.

[molesworth]

As an afterthought - have any amateurs done any work on receiving imagery from e.g. lunar orbiting spacecraft?

...

Probably not, though each case has to be individually analyzed. Modern digital communications tends to be all or nothing. Either you have an antenna big enough (and a receiver quiet enough) to receive a signal with a certain power and data rate over a given distance or you don't. Modern lunar and planetary probes generally store up their data and then transmit it to earth at prearranged times at the highest data rate that the intended receiver can handle. Unless you have an equally good (or better) receiving station nearby at the same time, you won't get anything.

<snip for brevity>

Thanks - most informative.  I dabble in electronics, but haven't much experience with RF stuff, so it was a bit of a punt.  I suppose if I could get my hands on a nice big dish and the right receivers, I could give it a go* 

Meantime I'll try setting up the SDR dongle for weather satellites, which I've read I can do with a smaller, hand-made antenna.  Currently I'm having fun tracking aircraft in the area from ADS-B transmissions.

[ * funnily enough, there's a few big dishes, up to 3.7m, at the receiving station just across from my office - although I don't think they'll let me play with them...  ]

[Kiwi]

Great Wall of Text deleted – the following is from the last paragraph in the post.

Where is the video showing this footprint being made? Come to think of it, I can’t remember seeing any footage of the alleged astronauts making a clear footprint.

I have to guess that you are referring to the five boot print photos that Buzz Aldrin took, AS11-40-5876 to 5880. Is that correct? If it is, when at the ALSJ (link below), click on the Apollo 11 Image Library (5th link down in "Background Material") and examine the captions and links for each to learn more.

Your comments tell me that you are not a very good researcher and perhaps more likely to study a hoax-promoter's web page than go to the great wealth of genuine information that is available.

Anyway, try this - it's exactly what I did and how I got to the appropriate information in less than 90 seconds. Note that I used "print" only so that I didn't have to search for "boot print/bootprint" and "foot print/footprint". 

1./ Go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/

2./ Click on Apollo 11.

3./ Open the part of the journal titled Mobility and Photography. That name is a clue that Armstrong and Aldrin are moving around and taking photos, so it's a good place to start.

4./ Open the search function in your browser (I press Control-F).

5./ Type in "print" without the quote marks and tell the function to search for it (press Enter).

6./ The first hit is at Ground Elapsed Time 110:21:24 in the word "footprints" when Buzz describes to Houston the visual effects of transiting from sunlight to shadow. While it's nothing to do with the deliberate boot prints he made for the soil experts, it is still an interesting section because in his last comment he prevents one of many potential disasters produced by man on the lunar surface; and a few minutes before, starting at 110:18:37, he describes the effects of kicking the lunar soil for the experts in Houston. You can also view this in the 16mm colour film. Note that these tasks are listed in the checklist ("Dust / Pene-Photo Footprint") that's sewn onto the upper part of his outer glove – you can also view that by clicking on the links.

7./ Hit No. 2 is at 110:22:51 "Note that each of the bootprints is 33 cm long and has a greatest width of 15 cm.", but still not what we want.

8./ The 3rd to 15th hits are between 110:23:32 and 110:25:41, and cover what we want, the Bootprint Penetration Experiment for the soil mechanics experts. Enjoy!

The info is highly detailed and documented with many links, to which you seem to object, but that is exactly what helps convince many of us that the Apollo missions occurred as history describes. Note that Buzz is mostly out of the movie frame during this task (possibly because Stanley Kubrick couldn't fit inside the LM and direct exactly where Buzz should go to be in-frame :-)), but at least there is a little backup on the 16mm film which corroborates his explanations and photographs.

You could view all the Apollo 11 film and video on a large TV screen if you get hold of the 3-DVD set "Apollo 11: Men on the Moon" from Spacecraft Films. It's discounted to US$29.99 at the moment. Here are the details: https://spacehistory.tv/blog/?product=apollo-11-men-on-the-moon

Can’t you see how ridiculously insane this argument is?

I can't at all see anything "ridiculously insane" about this boot print argument. Could you please enlarge on that comment? I would like to understand why you've said that. Perhaps you just don't know enough about it (which is the most common trait of hoax-believers), and I hope this post helps you remedy that.

And by the way, can you please learn to use the quote button at the top right of every post here, as I have done above with the final comment in your post?  The little black bit above the quote is actually a hot link which puts us right in the exact post. Isn't that marvellous?

Many of us here use that button and you have had so many requests to join in but have not done so. By clicking on the quote link at the top of this post, you'll be able to see see how it's done, by copying and pasting the beginning and ending code in the quote. Just do it yourself with all quotes. If I (long-term invalid and doddery old fart who watched Sputnik 1 pass above New Zealand) can figure it out, surely you can.


Edited to add: Don't miss the two quotes below. My all-time favourites.

[twik]

You’re right, I don’t trust the science...
...I’m glad I made the decision to leave school when I did and earn a honest living , before the brainwashing started.

And that's why you're ignorant of how things actually work.  You're puzzled by the world, didn't bother to learn much about it, and latch onto charlatans like Sibrel, Bennett, and Percy who only want your money and know very well that they can part you from it by making up juicy conspiracy stories.  There is a segment of the population who will eat it up on that basis alone.

You are right of course, but I wouldn’t expect to find such information on a pro Apollo site.

Who said anything about "pro-Apollo" sites?  They can't be very well-known experts if the only thing they've ever published in their field is a treatise on how Apollo was faked.  My father spent his entire career as an academic and his publications take up about three feet of shelf space.  I can find them easily in several library catalogs, including the national library catalogs of other countries.  I can speak to others in his field who know of him and are familiar with his work.  This is the nature of expertise in the real world.  It doesn't exist in a vacuum.  Your "experts" on the other hand have nothing to establish them as experts, no one who knows them, and no record of achievement anywhere in the world.  The Aulis authors have, since the 1990s, been making up "experts" and lay witnesses who simply don't exist.  You probably didn't know that. "Bill Wood" (or "Woods") and "Una Ronald" and a whole cast of characters who exist only to lend to the notion that this isn't just a couple of charlatans in England trying to make a quid or two off of people they know will buy anything that sounds conspiratorial and won't bother to check any of the references or evidence.

Popular media doesn't give the public much of an idea of how science or scientists work. The idea that you could have "outstanding experts" with no paper trail outside the conspiracy community just isn't feasible. It's a "publish or perish" world in academia. If you're an expert, people read your stuff and expand on it. If no one has ever cited your work, you're not an expert.

[JayUtah]

Popular media doesn't give the public much of an idea of how science or scientists work. The idea that you could have "outstanding experts" with no paper trail outside the conspiracy community just isn't feasible. It's a "publish or perish" world in academia. If you're an expert, people read your stuff and expand on it. If no one has ever cited your work, you're not an expert.

That's why I think the current Aulis webmasters cleverly refer only to Russian experts, which they can argue would be difficult for American critics to vet.  We get no record of him because we're just not able to see into Russian academic circles.  Except that's not the case.  Even back in the 1980s I was working with an American professor of Russian to translate technical papers in space engineering.  He wanted to be able to translate them into the proper English terms.  American and Russian academics in space research are quite well aware of each other, and have been for decades.  The more likely excuse for an alleged Russian researcher not to have any discernible academic record is that he doesn't exist.

[Count Zero]

His very infrequent posting, about once a week...

Maybe that's when the attendants at his facility give him computer time.