Apollo 11 Lunar Lander Pre-Launch

[nomuse]

Not a lot of deviation from the script this time. Pity. The RCS thing was a new one on me and I learned some stuff.

I'm calling the first flounce within 48 hours of now.

[Abaddon]

A little early to call, but likely we are all meanies. Because reasons.

[JayUtah]

Nah, it's pretty clear we're sheeple.  We can't really know what we think we know; we're just too trusting of the official word.  Therefore it will take a "woke" someone like Jr Knowing to free us from the shackles of our misplaced faith.

[Peter B]

Nah, it's pretty clear we're sheeple.  We can't really know what we think we know; we're just too trusting of the official word.  Therefore it will take a "woke" someone like Jr Knowing to free us from the shackles of our misplaced faith.

Sheesh! Must be just plain dumb luck all those spacecraft you've helped with actually work...

[Luke Pemberton]

It's about starting with a classic design to save time, money, and effort.  Very few designs these days are clean-sheet designs, often for defensible reasons.

A point concreted in history so starkly at the end of the second world war, with the effort to capture the Vengeance weapon sites and the main prize, von Braun and his team. It made sense from a technological view and strategic view. No one in their right mind would give away such an advantage and proclaim 'we'll design it all from scratch, that would be a good idea.'

[Luke Pemberton]

The RCS thing was a new one on me and I learned some stuff.

I wish we had more visits for the reason in bold.

[onebigmonkey]

To return to a couple of topics that have been touched on in this thread, a question on collectSpace about the LM windows made me go to Thomas Kelly's excellent "Moon Lander".

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735

There is a section in there on fine tuning the positioning and orientation of the RCS thruster set up on the LM, as well as some background into how the windows came to be designed the way they are. Our protagonist would do well to read that book, it's excellent, but essentially the windows were designed to minimise the amount of glass while maximising visibility, something achieved by the in flight position of the astronaut.

Then this document was posted in the collectSpace thread:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/documents/apolloSpacecraftWindows.pdf

This, and many documents like it, explores in excruciating detail the design of just one small aspect of the spacecraft. That is how well this project was recorded. How can anyone come here and claim that there is no information on which to base our views?

Th OP has even been to my site and presumably had a look at what was there and still claims that we are taking the Apollo legacy on faith alone, and that no-one has looked at the data seriously.

I'll throw it right back: if you have looked at the documents and data and still believe Apollo was hoaxed, you haven't actually looked.

[mako88sb]

I've asked a few HB's that if the missions were faked, why didn't they simply use something for the lunar lander that people would have expected it to look like instead of something that even the astronauts admit to having doubts about when they first see it?

[Zakalwe]

Not a lot of deviation from the script this time. Pity. The RCS thing was a new one on me and I learned some stuff.

I'm calling the first flounce within 48 hours of now.

I think that he's already stealth flouncing as he's been on every day watching his ass getting whooped.

[AtomicDog]

I've asked a few HB's that if the missions were faked, why didn't they simply use something for the lunar lander that people would have expected it to look like instead of something that even the astronauts admit to having doubts about when they first see it?

Bingo. The public expected an aerodynamic single stage to moon ship with seats and a hull so thick that bullets would bounce off it. If Apollo was fake, it would have been far easier to deliver that fantasy spacecraft than what they came up with.

[JayUtah]

I've asked a few HB's that if the missions were faked, why didn't they simply use something for the lunar lander that people would have expected it to look like instead of something that even the astronauts admit to having doubts about when they first see it?

Bingo. The public expected an aerodynamic single stage to moon ship with seats and a hull so thick that bullets would bounce off it. If Apollo was fake, it would have been far easier to deliver that fantasy spacecraft than what they came up with.

The astronauts' reaction is anticipated.  They were test pilots.  They mostly flew warbirds, airframes meant to be shot to pieces and still bring their crews home.  The Navy pilots especially were accustomed to highly robust airframes, beefy landing gear.  Even those like Neil Armstrong, who had flow spacecraft like the X-15 and previous capsules, were used to structural designs needed to strengthen the craft for its aerodynamic requirements.  This was the first time anyone had flown anything that had no aerodynamic behavior requirement whatsoeve.  From a certain simplistic point of view, it was an aluminum balloon.

Science fiction has fed us for years a diet of robustly built spaceships.  We seem to have forgotten the spindly XD-1 Discovery in favor of the AA Valley Forge (filmed on a decomissioned aircraft carrier), the Nostromo, and a bunch of Starfleet vessels.  I suppose I should talk about the fictional ships of the 1930s through the 1950s, but todays' hoax claimants have a certain ideal in mind.  My experience with the modern designers of Starfleet vessels is that they approach the imaginary construction of their designs as if they were designing oceangoing ships.

[nomuse]

And rivets. And fins. Can't forget big circular portholes. And go-faster stripes (although you can always paint it up like one of the V2 test rockets for that classic look).

[mako88sb]

We seem to have forgotten the spindly XD-1 Discovery in favor of the AA Valley Forge (filmed on a decomissioned aircraft carrier),

Hadn't thought of that movie in years. So not just any aircraft carrier but the actual USS Valley Forge or is IMDB wrong about that? I'll have to see about getting the movie for the kids to watch.

[Luke Pemberton]

Bingo. The public expected an aerodynamic single stage to moon ship with seats and a hull so thick that bullets would bounce off it. If Apollo was fake, it would have been far easier to deliver that fantasy spacecraft than what they came up with.

One only has to watch Earth to the Moon and Moon Machines to understand the design was, well, to achieve the objective of lunar landing. It took real engineers to arrive at those very real solutions, and as Jason pointed out on the Tim Finch thread, if you ask a bunch of engineers to design something, they tend to do just that. If the thing they made didn't work, then you'd have a rather large smoking gun. There's no getting around that very simple observation.

Eta: I'm not suggesting Jason is simple either. 

[Luke Pemberton]

From a certain simplistic point of view, it was an aluminum balloon.

What would that make the Falcon, other than a rust bucket?