NASA's 30 Billion Dollar Scam

[gwiz]

Not very good for reflecting thermal radiation

Like this one, you mean?
http://www.newswise.com/images/uploads/2010/03/23/SIBRSPHOTO1.jpg

or this:
http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/qzs1satellite_retroform.jpg

Engineers pick shiny or black covering depending of the thermal properties needed, which vary from one satellite or part thereof to another.

[gwiz]

In one picture it looks fine, but it the other picture looks strange

Here's a high-resolution version of that picture.  Note that it isn't quite in focus, but you can nevertheless see tape joins in the parts of the module that Jack White crops out.
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/AS17/AS17-145-22272.JPG

The other picture is in sharp focus around the window, but further aft on the module is out of the sharp zone and there the tape joins are not so apparent.

[raven]

Read the replies!

Here is the Lunar Module without its exterior heat and micro meteorite shielding -
http://www.nordenretireesclub.org/level2/album_images/images/museum_2011/Grumman%20LTA-1,%201st%20functional%20Lunar%20Module.jpg

Ooh, thanks, I've been looking for a picture like that. It is nice to have one on hand showing that the external shell and foil was not the pressure vessel or main structure of the spacecraft, so, given that it never had to operate in a significant atmosphere, it didn't need to be terribly robust to its job.

[ka9q]

given that it never had to operate in a significant atmosphere, it didn't need to be terribly robust to its job.

Not only did it not have to operate in an atmosphere, its internal atmosphere was only 5 psi (about 1/3 of sea level pressure on earth) because pure oxygen was used. That allowed the structure to be even lighter.

[sts60]

Eternidad195, didn't I tell you to do a little research before coming on here waving your hands about "Scotch tape"?  You didn't take my advice, did you?

You should have - it would have saved you some embarrassment.  At least, you should be embarassed: You came on to a board frequented by space flight experts and well-informed laymen and made a demonstrably false claim, based on your plagiarization of a conspiracy nut so famously incompetent he literally couldn't tell which side of the Lunar Module he was looking at.

This picture of the lunar lander by NASA is made up of paper, and cardboard, stuck up with Scotch tape.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.  In fact, you're not only wrong, you're wrong about what you're looking at; that's not the LM structure you're looking at, it's the thermal and micrometeoroid protective layers.

The LM primary structure was made of aluminum.   The thermal and micrometeoroid shielding, attached to the outside of the LM structure, was made of things like Inconel and Kapton (the tape is a form of Kapton with adhesive).  These are standard materials used in aerospace.

If you had done a little research as I had advised you, you would already know this and would not have made such a silly mistake.

The question is: Why do they have this picture of the lander, if it is a faked one?
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5922HR.jpg

Your question debunks itself.  If any random, uninformed layman like you could immediately spot a fake, NASA certainly would not use such an arrangement and publish such images in the service of attempting a fake mission.  Doesn't that tell you something?

I did get permission to publish Mr. White’s pictures

From where?  Even supposing you did, using them without attribution is plagiarism.  And you plagiarized a raving incompetent.

If they publish a faked lander as the real one, how many more things are they faking?

Begging the question.  They didn't publish a faked lander.

Having a lunar lander made up of cardboard and Scotch tape...

Repeating your mistaken claim does not make it any less wrong.

...is not an idiotic thing, is a funny thing.  Can you drive a car made up of cardboard and stuck together with Scotch paper?
The answer is no.

What's funny is that you came on here, having literally no idea what you're talking about, and simply regurgtated someone else's easily- and often-debunked claims, and expect that we should grant any weight to your uninformed opinion.  Well, if it comes to opinions, I work in this field.  To me, the LM looks exactly what a purpose-built spacecraft designed for operation in a low-G, vacuum environment should look like.

But your opinions - or I should say, someone else's opinions that you are merely parroting - mean that you should have some idea of what a "real" lunar lander should look like.  So why don't you tell us?

So do not try to convince me that that thing landed on the moon.

Here's your choice: You can either cling to your opinion, based on no knowledge of the subject and informed only by often-debunked codswallop; or you can listen to people who actually know something about the subject and learn. 

Which do you want to do?  Dig in your heels and cling to your opinion, or learn?

[ka9q]

Here is another picture of the module

http://strangeapollo2.blogspot.co.uk/

In one picture it looks fine, but it the other picture looks strange

They're pictures of the same thing. The Command Module was covered with strips of aluminized mylar for thermal control in space. How they appear depends strongly on the type and angle of illumination. In one picture the CM is lit by direct sunlight, in the other by reflected moonlight. That's why they look so different.

[Zakalwe]

And that picture of the satellite with a golden surface, that is a highly reflective surface and not like the one of the lander, which is a non reflective blue paper.

Not very good for reflecting thermal radiation

How do you know? Please present your experience and qualifications that allow you to make that assumption.

In one picture it looks fine, but it the other picture looks strange
I'll be back later.  I have to feed my family

What is your experience in spacecraft design?
What are your qualifications and experience in space craft or associated industries?
In fact, do you have ANY qualifications in engineering, design or fabrication?
Have you ever worked in spacecraft construction? Or in any associated space related industries?

If not, then how are you able to say what is "fine" or "strange"? Or are your assumptions based on what Hollywood thinks a spacecraft should look like?

Do you know what an argument from incredulity is? Do you know what auto-epistemic is?

Without knowing how spacecraft are constructed you cannot say what is strange and what is fine. And please don't say "it's common-sense"....."Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"

[raven]

given that it never had to operate in a significant atmosphere, it didn't need to be terribly robust to its job.

Not only did it not have to operate in an atmosphere, its internal atmosphere was only 5 psi (about 1/3 of sea level pressure on earth) because pure oxygen was used. That allowed the structure to be even lighter.

And even that load was taken up not by the 'cardboard and scotch tape', but by the interior vessel seen in the photo from Grumman.

[cjameshuff]

Ooh, thanks, I've been looking for a picture like that. It is nice to have one on hand showing that the external shell and foil was not the pressure vessel or main structure of the spacecraft, so, given that it never had to operate in a significant atmosphere, it didn't need to be terribly robust to its job.

It's been mentioned a few times, but it wasn't even foil, it was aluminized plastic film. Similar to the mylar material used in balloons, food wrapping, and emergency blankets...extremely lightweight, but considerably tougher than foil. But yeah, the thermal blanket was simply not a structural component.

And Kapton tape is used in a variety of applications where heat resistance is needed. For one example, it's used to mask areas of a circuit board and hold parts in place in wave soldering, where it's immersed briefly in molten solder. It's an engineering material, and its use in spacecraft is entirely appropriate and not at all unique to Apollo. Insisting on calling it "Scotch tape" is absurd.

More pictures of spacecraft covered in Kapton tape and aluminized film:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/large/05pd2590.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/7070913129/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/6924835676/in/photostream/
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/aquarius/20110124/aquarius20110124-full.jpg

[sts60]

It looks like one of those things my children make in the school but my kids would make it much better.

Really?  Let's see your kids make this:

That's a look under the layers you were looking at and wrongly thought were part of the structure.  The image shown was part of the discussion of the LM structure in this thread, and if you had done any actual research - as I advised you - you wouldn't have made such a silly mistake. 

If you'd actually like to learn something about it, this site has a nice explanation of the various LM structural features.

  It is obvious where the Scotch tape has been added and it is obvious that is a blue paper.
It is golden Scotch tape and blue paper and it seems to have been stiched in some places.

It is obvious that you do not know what you are talking about.

The LM Structures handout has detailed illustrations of the layers of H-film, Mylar, Inconel, and nickel of which the thermal control and micrometeoroid layers are actually made.  And I have used Kapton adhesive tape myself on spacecraft; I have hands-on experience working on spacecraft.   Would you like to tell me again about "Scotch tape"?  If so, please show either the relevant documentation listing its use, or cite your personal experience in spacecraft design, manufacture, and operations. 

Those metal rods are kept in place by the tape.
I can even ask my kids to do something like this and post the results on facebook

Or you could actually do some research - heck, I'll even do it for you:

The cabin and midsection structural shell is cylindrical and of semimonocoque construction. The shell is a welded and mechanically fastened assembly of aluminum alloy sheets and machined longerons. The shell is supported by formed sheet-metal rings that are riveted to the structural skin.

A front-face assembly, attached mechanically to the cabin, encloses the forward end of the cabin. The front-face assembly incorporates openings in the structure for two triangular windows and the egress/ingress hatch. The midsection is attached mechanically to the cabin by a bulkhead. The midsection structure contains an opening for the docking (top) hatch. The aft end of the midsection is closed by a bulkhead. The aft equipment bay is formed by a rack cantilevered off the aft bulkhead by tubular struts. The main propellant tanks are nonintegral and are supported from the midsection by tubular struts. Various other tanks, such as the oxygen and helium tanks, are supported from the aft bulkhead or aft equipment rack in the aft equipment bay.

The descent-stage structure is constructed primarily of chemically milled webs, extruded and milled stiffeners, and milled cap strips (fig. 5). The material used in the construction of the descent stage is primarily 7075-T6 aluminum alloy. Titanium is used where high temperatures are experienced. The main structure consists of two
pairs of parallel beams arranged in a cruciform configuration with structural upper and lower decks and end bulkheads. A four-legged truss assembly (outrigger) is attached at the end of each pair of beams. These assemblies serve as support for the LM in the SLA and as attachment points for the main struts of the landing gear (fig. 5).

You're welcome.

If you want to learn more about how a real spaceship was built - and not make irrelevant and ignorant comparisons to art projects by your children, as wonderful as I'm sure they are - then I recommend reading Moon Lander by Thomas Kelly, Grumman's engineering manager for the LM development; and Chariots for Apollo, which gives a detailed history of the development of the Apollo spacecraft.

But it's up to you.  Do you actually want to learn something?

[gillianren]

I really hate when people think "it looks like" is a reasonable explanation when they don't have enough information to know why it looks like that or what it should look like.  I started calling it "look at the picture" science, and it is not a compliment.  Most of the most laughable beliefs I've encountered started with "look at the picture" science.

[Chew]

It looks like one of those things my children make in the school but my kids would make it much better.  It is obvious where the Scotch tape has been added and it is obvious that is a blue paper.
It is golden Scotch tape and blue paper and it seems to have been stiched in some places.

It's not paper and tape but even if it were, so what? Did you think the wind would have blown it off?

[Zakalwe]

Tremendous post sts60

It looks like one of those things my children make in the school but my kids would make it much better.

But it's up to you.  Do you actually want to learn something?

And there's the rub. Its so easy to regurgitate the same old clap-trap that has been debunked a million times before.

I'm changing my mind about HBs after seeing some recent behaviour on here. I used to think that some HBs were just misinformed. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that most of them are just bone-idle lazy. It would take nothing more than a Google search and an hours worth of reading to see *exactly* how Apollo worked, yet they (this one in particular) would rather spend their time creating rubbish websites with plagiarised material that can be debunked in seconds.

Eternidad195...what says you now? Are you prepared to withdraw your ridiculous statements and publicly do so on your blog?

[raven]

It looks like one of those things my children make in the school but my kids would make it much better.  It is obvious where the Scotch tape has been added and it is obvious that is a blue paper.
It is golden Scotch tape and blue paper and it seems to have been stiched in some places.

What 'blue paper' are you referring to?

[theteacher]

The question is: Why do they have this picture of the lander [...]?

There are a lot of pictures of the many "landers", and the answer is: Because this is what the Lunar Modules look like.

I had the great fortune to be able to visit the US in my autumn holiday 2012, and amongst others I went to Washington DC and visited "National Air and Space Museum". I spent the most of a day there but saw maybe only half of the collection. It was more than overwhelming.

One of the items on display is an original Lunar Module out of 12 built for the Apollo missions. The one on display is similar to those, that flew in space, but it was never used, because the previous test had been sufficiently successful.

It is free to visit the museum, and you can spend as long time there as you want. If you live too far away, you can see the LM on display here: http://airandspace.si.edu/webimages/highres/99-15232h.jpg

So do not try to convince me that that thing landed on the moon.

Ha ha :-)

You know what: When I came to this forum, I had the notion that I could contribute with something useful having taught math an physics all my life. But I found out, that compared to the regulars here, I knew next to nothing about spaceflight and "rocket science". But still I know enough to see, that you know absolutely nothing about it. Start studying instead of making a fool of yourself among experts in the field.