So, who wants to win 1 million Euro?

[gillianren]

[thumps desk]

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

[Daggerstab]

So, I went and had another look... I don't know if my tolerance for self-righteous broken English has become lower or it's something else, but I'd rather gouge my eyes out rather than put it in a diff tool and track all the changes one more time. So the rest is just a result of EyeBalls v.1.0.

Anyway, the URL is as usual:
http://www.members.tripod.com/heiwaco/moontravel.htm

Since the last time I looked at it (in April?) he has added more graphics from various sources, including Apollo reports. The first image on the page, besides his smug mug, is a painting by Alan Bean, described in its caption as "Animation of LM ascent module Eagle lift-off".  Do I need to point out that it's not an animation? Björkman, dictionaries are not that expensive, and some are available for free, on the Internet...

The picture is mentioned in the introductory text (that has grown a lot since I last saw it):

Most people believe US astronauts visited the Moon 1969-1972.

People believe it because they were manipulated to believe it by TV, false films, photos, reports and testimonies.

Like this fake photo below right:

Apollo 11 taking off from the Moon!

100% fake!

It is easy to manipulate people.

*facepalm* No, dipshit, it's a painting, not a "fake photo". It's clearly presented as a painting on the artist's website, and it's easily distinguishable from a photography.

Another funny new feature are the big red boxes with warnings like the following:

(16 October 2013 or even before all below nasa links/photos were not working due to some shutdown in USA, i.e. NASA cannot pay $ 4 /month to the ISP to keep them running! It is serious if you cannot pay $ 4/month! It seems I am right about NASA! It is just propaganda).

(16 October 2013 or even before all below nasa links/photos were not working due to some shutdown in USA, i.e. NASA cannot pay $ 4/month to the ISP to keep them running! It is serious if you cannot pay $ 4/month! It seems I am right about NASA! It is just propaganda that has gone bankrupt).

So, we can add "US politics", "government agency operation" and "web hosting" to the ever growing list of subjects about which Björkman is (wilfully?) ignorant.

Another big red box in the same style provides us with this gem:

Actually all the 534+ astronuts or kosmocrauts of many countries claiming having been travelling in space between 1960 and 2013 are simple liars paid to keep up the hoax. We are living in a world of liars.

Was it me or someone else who asked him about that page in this thread?

This was in the previous version, too, but never fails to make me laugh:

[describes retroreflectors] Imagine that! A whole or half silica cube with a diameter that bounces light!

And the page is full of things like this. Every time I see one I must resist the temptation to use a certain meme inspired by Pulp Fiction.

Also, apparently meteorites don't exist:

Actually anything entering Earth atmosphere at ~11 000 m/s immediately burns up and becomes gas, smoke ... nothing but atoms unless the forces acting on the object breaks it into small pieces ... that burn up.

This time, it's the immortal words of Bugs Bunny that come up... I'm sure Earth's atomizing magic shield would be a great comfort to the dinosaurs, Björkman.

In a discussion of launch vehicles, including the Ariane 5, under a picture of the Shuttle (boosters, tank and orbiter):

Above photo shows a small 78 tons NASA Shuttle with x tons payload (or is it a 5 tons empty mock-up?) being sent into space to reach the ISS by a very big 3 750+ tons NASA launch vehicle full of fuel. The 78+ tons Shuttle is connected to the 3 750+ tons launch vehicle via one little bolt that is removed when the Shuttle and launch vehicle separate.
Shouldn't the NASA launch vehicle be a little bigger than the little NASA Shuttle?
Anyway - never believe what you see on a photo type above. It is a FAKE!

No, you ignorant, pompous crank, the External Tank is not a launch vehicle, and the rest reveals a lot of ignorance about space terminology and the Shuttle stack. Which would be normal for a layman, but most lay people don't presume they can debunk human spaceflight...

I have probably missed other goodies, as I just skimmed the page. As I pointed out above, I don't have the time and the inclination for a full diff. Oh, and the good news: that piece of libel against Glom has disappeared at some point. Me and Zakalwe still get shout-outs, though. Hi, Björkman!

P.S. By the way, do you know one of the reasons why his website looks as if it was made in 1998? Because it's made with an application last released in 1998!

[Zakalwe]

Me and Zakalwe still get shout-outs, though. Hi, Björkman!

Aw shucks..that gets me right (thumps closed fist against chest) here.

P.S. By the way, do you know one of the reasons why his website looks as if it was made in 1998? Because it's made with an application last released in 1998!

I thought it was because it was made by a moron??

We should arrange introductions between Bjorkman and Weisbecker...they'd get on famously! 

[Peter B]

...Also, apparently meteorites don't exist:

Actually anything entering Earth atmosphere at ~11 000 m/s immediately burns up and becomes gas, smoke ... nothing but atoms unless the forces acting on the object breaks it into small pieces ... that burn up.

This time, it's the immortal words of Bugs Bunny that come up... I'm sure Earth's atomizing magic shield would be a great comfort to the dinosaurs, Björkman.

So...the Chelyabinsk meteor was a hoax too?

Or was it actually an American missile? Oh, hang on, those things re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at many klicks a second too...

[Daggerstab]

So...the Chelyabinsk meteor was a hoax too?

Or was it actually an American missile? Oh, hang on, those things re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at many klicks a second too...

No.

His argument is that everything that enters the Earth's atmosphere at orbital velocity burns up just like meteors, therefore nothing can be returned from orbit. So presumably, the Chelyabinsk bolide was real, but Soyuz re-entry capsules are a hoax.

The passage quoted by me is a hyperbolic form of that argument - everything that enters the atmosphere is reduced to atoms. Hence my comment about meteorites and the impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs. (For the literal-minded readers, the last part was an oversimplification.)

[Peter B]

It seems Mr Bjorkman has upped the ante since the last update on his site: http://heiwaco.tripod.com/moontravel.htm

- A photo of the Chang-E 3 mission control room is "funny": "Imagine that watching a funny square TV screen in a bulky box makes you control a Moon landing. The photographer in the middle of the photo must have been impressed." A square TV screen is funny?

- Regarding a mission to map a billion stars in the Milky Way and the Local Group: "Do not ask me what the Local Group is." I suppose admitting your ignorance is a good thing, but surely a visit to Wikipedia would provide a big clue.

- Because parachutist Felix Baumgartner exceeded the speed of sound on his jump, the atmosphere is too thin to slow an Apollo spacecraft.

- He still doesn't know why the Saturn V had a launch escape system.

- Then there's the general ignorance: "You would expect that you could vary the 5 tons thrust to slow down or stop the descent...but there is no indication that you could do it." "There was no window in the LM." "The rubber tyres [on the lunar rover] didn't melt." "...a plasma trail, whatever it is, can maybe not be seen - what is it?" "...how can a sonic boom or two claps (?) from a shuttle propagate from space to ground?"

- Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang is "...just a bad actor. And a very stupid engineer." Well, I suppose the opprobium is spread evenly.

- SpaceX "...has done the same, impossible, thing starting October 28, 2012, when the Dragon capsule dropped into the Pacific just outside Los Angeles. Its PICA-X heat shield is private property, i.e. no details are available. I evidently assume the SpaceX Dragon was dropped into the Pacific from a plane having taken off from a nearby airport ... Hollywood style ... and never visited the ISS." The fact that they're doing what the USA, USSR/Russia and China have done isn't perhaps a suggestion that it's real?

Which raises the obvious question (well, it's obvious to me): Why would all these countries and companies want to hide from us the impossibility of space travel? Other things are recognised as impossible (like, say, travel to the stars). What's the point of maintaining the idea that, out of all the currently impossible things, manned spaceflight is possible?

[twik]

It seems Mr Bjorkman has upped the ante since the last update on his site: http://heiwaco.tripod.com/moontravel.htm

- A photo of the Chang-E 3 mission control room is "funny": "Imagine that watching a funny square TV screen in a bulky box makes you control a Moon landing. The photographer in the middle of the photo must have been impressed." A square TV screen is funny?

It's "funny" because of course we all know that high technology means that they should have been watching on a 60-inch wide screen tv, as available from Best Buy. Just like Solon kept asking why astronauts in the ISS weren't taking pictures with consumer digital cameras. The idea that high tech may involve proprietary equipment that wasn't built for consumer appeal doesn't really occur to them.

[Glom]

It seems Mr Bjorkman has upped the ante since the last update on his site: http://heiwaco.tripod.com/moontravel.htm

- A photo of the Chang-E 3 mission control room is "funny": "Imagine that watching a funny square TV screen in a bulky box makes you control a Moon landing. The photographer in the middle of the photo must have been impressed." A square TV screen is funny?

- Regarding a mission to map a billion stars in the Milky Way and the Local Group: "Do not ask me what the Local Group is." I suppose admitting your ignorance is a good thing, but surely a visit to Wikipedia would provide a big clue.

- Because parachutist Felix Baumgartner exceeded the speed of sound on his jump, the atmosphere is too thin to slow an Apollo spacecraft.

- He still doesn't know why the Saturn V had a launch escape system.

- Then there's the general ignorance: "You would expect that you could vary the 5 tons thrust to slow down or stop the descent...but there is no indication that you could do it." "There was no window in the LM." "The rubber tyres [on the lunar rover] didn't melt." "...a plasma trail, whatever it is, can maybe not be seen - what is it?" "...how can a sonic boom or two claps (?) from a shuttle propagate from space to ground?"

- Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang is "...just a bad actor. And a very stupid engineer." Well, I suppose the opprobium is spread evenly.

- SpaceX "...has done the same, impossible, thing starting October 28, 2012, when the Dragon capsule dropped into the Pacific just outside Los Angeles. Its PICA-X heat shield is private property, i.e. no details are available. I evidently assume the SpaceX Dragon was dropped into the Pacific from a plane having taken off from a nearby airport ... Hollywood style ... and never visited the ISS." The fact that they're doing what the USA, USSR/Russia and China have done isn't perhaps a suggestion that it's real?

Which raises the obvious question (well, it's obvious to me): Why would all these countries and companies want to hide from us the impossibility of space travel? Other things are recognised as impossible (like, say, travel to the stars). What's the point of maintaining the idea that, out of all the currently impossible things, manned spaceflight is possible?

The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.

[gillianren]

If I were one of his followers, I'd be starting to get embarrassed about it now.  It's one thing when he sounds like he knows what he's talking about.  It's another when he so frequently admits that he doesn't.

[Glom]

If I were one of his followers, I'd be starting to get embarrassed about it now.  It's one thing when he sounds like he knows what he's talking about.  It's another when he so frequently admits that he doesn't.

It seems like whenever he doesn't know something, he assumes it's because it is a plot hole rather than just because he doesn't know.

[Noldi400]

I especially like this paragraph:

Anders Björkman:

NASA and Dr. David R. Williams of the NASA Solar System Exploration Data Services Office or Solar System Exploration Division Services Offce (sic), are not willing to tell neither how much fuel was actually needed and carried by the Apollo 11 Service and Lunar modules and times used to fire the various rockets to produce the kinetic energy required to get into orbit around Moon with the Lunar Module, visit the Moon and then get out of orbit around Moon direction Earth and to brake upon arrival Earth again, nor how and where to store it during the trip! Info is available in very confusing reports, but if it can be trusted is not certain.

So...  they won't give you the information, but it's available in reports, which you (surprise!) find confusing. And you don't think the information can be trusted anyway, I'm guessing because it conflicts with your calculations - the flaws of which have been spelled out in this thread repeatedly and in detail.

OK. Got it.   

[Glom]

You can show him the reports with exactly those details and he'll still deny they exist. He's a few sails short of a galleon.

[smartcooky]

I especially like this paragraph:

Anders Björkman:

NASA and Dr. David R. Williams of the NASA Solar System Exploration Data Services Office or Solar System Exploration Division Services Offce (sic), are not willing to tell neither how much fuel was actually needed and carried by the Apollo 11 Service and Lunar modules and times used to fire the various rockets to produce the kinetic energy required to get into orbit around Moon with the Lunar Module, visit the Moon and then get out of orbit around Moon direction Earth and to brake upon arrival Earth again, nor how and where to store it during the trip! Info is available in very confusing reports, but if it can be trusted is not certain.

Brake?

Did the Apollo capsule actually fire some kind of braking thruster?  I have always thought they returned with the main engine on the SM pointing back towards the moon (making subtle course corrections using the RCS as needed on the return flight) then just before arrival, they dumped the SM and translated the CM to face heat shield first and hit the Earth's atmosphere at the specified angle so as not to burn up or skip off, and allowed aerodynamic drag do the braking for them?

[Zakalwe]

Brake?

Did the Apollo capsule actually fire some kind of braking thruster?  I have always thought they returned with the main engine on the SM pointing back towards the moon (making subtle course corrections using the RCS as needed on the return flight) then just before arrival, they dumped the SM and translated the CM to face heat shield first and hit the Earth's atmosphere at the specified angle so as not to burn up or skip off, and allowed aerodynamic drag do the braking for them?

Bjorkman doesn't believe in aerodynamic braking though. So I expect he thinks that they had a big anchor that they just threw out to slow the CM down.....

[Chew]

He won a Stundie for his explanation of aerodynamic drag.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=254471