A few simple questions for conspiracy theorists

[Zakalwe]

Even when the postings get more extreme I don't think it should be an immediate ban hammer. I give a perfect example of what happened on British TV where Nick Griffin was invited onto BBC Question Time. Nick Griffin is a British Nationalist. There was a huge debate whether he should be allowed to speak on BBC. I for one thought it was a no brainer as it would show him for the bigot he was. Sure enough, he was outed as being an absurd little man and support for the BNP dwindled after his appearance.

Absolutely. This is why free speech is so important. Censoring idiots like Griffin only allows then to build a base by whispering about censorship and being against "The Man". The Qestion Time program is a fine example as that was a turning point for the growth of the BNP. Following that program their descent back into the ooze was pretty rapid.

I only hope that Farage follows the same fate.

(and with apologies to LO....I'm not intending to hijack the thread into a political debate).

[frenat]

The only things I've seen get people banned are threats of violence, excessive vulgarity and racism,

How does IDW get away with not being banned?

He does get banned.  Often.  At least that is the impression he gives.  He'll come back every day with a different ID number showing he's connecting through a different IP address.  He claims he gets banned often but nobody except the mods knows for sure.  It could be IDW trying to play the martyr.  It is possible the mods are banning him for comedic value too.

[Luke Pemberton]

I only hope that Farage follows the same fate.

I have seen the video you posted, and agree with your sentiments regarding Farage. The man is a hypocrite.

(and with apologies to LO....I'm not intending to hijack the thread into a political debate).

I agree. Let us self-moderate and leave the Farage debate here. In context of the conspiracy theorists the political analogy is a good one. Allowing extreme views to be aired does not hinder their liberty, free speech and the right to self expression, but it serves our purpose of 'showing them up' for what they are.

[geo7863]

The bit I don't get about these idiots is how that they can believe, fully believe no questions asked, that a hell of a lot of people can 'lie' about the Moon landings....for the rest of their lives.

There was what 400 000 people employed in the Apollo programme in one way or another? Lets  say for arguments sake that 5000 of them in a position to know, without doubt 100%, that its 'was a big hoax' and not a single person has come forward and 'blown the whistle' apart from one technical writer, with no Engineering or scientific experience whatsoever (so he wouldn't know scheisse from shinola so to speak), Kaysing I do believe!

That means that every single Astronaut lied, every one from Mercury right up to the present day. They lied to the Media, the Public, and to their wives and children (if applicable). Every one! Not a single one told his wife, or if they did then the wives are also fantastic liars, even those that later divorced and had no more reason to keep the lie going. Or maybe they 'confessed' to their kids but luck would have it that their kids are all happy and accomplished liars too...plausible?

Then there's not just the Technical, Engineering and Scientific senior managers (whom are expected to lie....well they're NASA aren't they?...or Grumman or Rocketdyne or ...etc. etc. etc.) but the junior Engineers, Scientists and Technical people those with the brains to actually know that what they were doing was just a sham even if they weren't told. Not a single one of them has come forward either! Not a single one has said' "well this or that definitely wouldn't have worked because..."

How do these people actually believe 100% that so many people could actually hold such a massive lie forever! Perhaps it's because they can actually tell lies themselves simply and fluidly, as easy as breathing each breath, with no remorse, no guilt, no shame. And perhaps they perceive it to be a normal 'state of affairs' so everyone else, without fail, is a habitual (and very, very, very, accomplished) lair themselves.

Idiots every last one!

[Allan F]

Kaysing was out (fired or quit?) already in 1963, so he wasn't in a position to know anything.

[ineluki]

The bit I don't get about these idiots is how that they can believe, fully believe no questions asked,

Putting it nicely: I think the remaining Hoaxbelievers simply can't grasp how obvious "their" fake would be and how many people actually would know about.

[geo7863]

The bit I don't get about these idiots is how that they can believe, fully believe no questions asked,

Putting it nicely: I think the remaining Hoaxbelievers simply can't grasp how obvious "their" fake would be and how many people actually would know about.

Yep that's just what I was trying to say ;-)

[JayUtah]

Kaysing was out (fired or quit?) already in 1963, so he wasn't in a position to know anything.

Quit.  Kaysing sent a press kit to Phil Plait years ago, who forwarded it to me.  It contains a document from Boeing (by that time the parent company of Rocketdyne) outlining Kaysing's employment record.  He quit for "personal reasons."

But I agree that by 1963 not enough had been done at Rocketdyne on Apollo to substantiate Kaysing's claim to be an important insider.  Plus, he worked as a member of a four-man documentation team in a field office, not as an engineer or designer or "Head of Advanced Research," as some highly ignorant conspiracy theorists have titled him.

[Luke Pemberton]

But I agree that by 1963 not enough had been done at Rocketdyne on Apollo to substantiate Kaysing's claim to be an important insider. Plus, he worked as a member of a four-man documentation team in a field office, not as an engineer or designer or "Head of Advanced Research," as some highly ignorant conspiracy theorists have titled him.

Kaysing was truly ignorant. I think my understanding is correct:

Kaysing claimed that Rocketdyne could not solve the pogo problem. Pogo is more of a problem of vibrations along the rocket body - right? The only real problem that Kaysing could be aware of was the injector plate/fuel instability problem. Had the F1s been developed far enough by 1963 for Kaysing to know about the fuel instability.

If not, it is clear that he was chucking around technical jargon in hindsight and being a Mitty character in the process.

[Allan F]

The pogo problem is uneven thrust causing flexing of the fuel lines, causing uneven fuel flow, causing uneven thrust - and if the system has a resonance frequency equal to or close to the thrust oscillations, it's going to fail.

One problem - I don't remember which engine - only showed up in flight, because on static testing, the flexing fuel line was covered in ice, making in inflexible. In actual flight, the forces on the fuel  line was so strong, the ice fell off. Once the fuel line had been replaced with a stiffer tube, the pogo oscillations were within safe levels.

[JayUtah]

Pogo is a phenomenon that couples propellant flow to vehicle body elasticity.  So yes, it occurs only in a fully erected rocket and can be detected only there.  It can be initiated by vehicle response to any load, including propulsion and aerodynamic flight loads.  But it manifests itself in anomalies in propellant flow, caused -- as Allan F said -- by the mechanical behavior of the propellant feed system.  Longitudinal propellant line runs, for example, can set up columns of propellant that act inertially to slosh within the lines.  In the pump's inertial reference frame, this translates to unacceptable fluctuations in head pressure that cannot be smoothed out.  This in turn creates unsteady thrust that often amplifies the inertial behavior of the propellant.  The problem becomes a divergent feedback loop that can result in large-amplitude vibration and failure at the thrust-bearing structures.

Combustion instability arising from engine misbehavior can also initiate pogo.  But the type of instability encountered early in the F-1 development was of the standing-wave type that does not result in long-duration thrust anomalies.  Instead it created hot spots in the thrust chamber that violated its thermal design criteria and allowed the thrust chamber to rupture under pressure.

Pogo is not generally corrected by engine design exercises.  Corrective actions are inevitably applied to the propellant feed system and/or the vehicle structure design.  Detuning procedures minimize the coupling of resonances.  Accumulators along the propellant lines absorb pressure fluctuations.  Judicious routing of propellant lines minimize long stretches of inertially-affected flow.

Combustion instability is corrected solely in engine design.  In the case of the F-1, a change of management ensued which more effectively applied engineering resources.  The engineering solution developed included novel baffling patterns on the injector face and more stable impingement patterns.  These changes occurred after Kaysing left Rocketdyne, although he was still employed there when the standing-wave combustion instability problems were encountered.  He is not therefore an authority on the nature and effectiveness of the solutions implemented 1963-1966.

[Luke Pemberton]

Thank you both your considered replies (Jay and Allan). I was aware of some of the things you both wrote, but I certainly go away more educated on pogo and fuel instability.

It is clear that Kaysing was using terms he did not understand to sound erudite, and attributed those problems in a hand waving fashion. I'm sure that Jay has dealt with the Kaysing pogo claim before.

[JayUtah]

Yes, here:  http://www.clavius.org/techsvpogo.html

I responded to Bennett and Percy's formulation of the claim, which they borrowed from Kaysing.  As you note, Kaysing was using words he did not understand, and the Dark Moon authors didn't know any better.  Incidentally I had a professor in the aerospace engineering department of some university (in Georgia, I believe) ask permission to use this Clavius article in his lectures on propellant system design.

[Luke Pemberton]

Yes, here:  http://www.clavius.org/techsvpogo.html

I responded to Bennett and Percy's formulation of the claim, which they borrowed from Kaysing.  As you note, Kaysing was using words he did not understand, and the Dark Moon authors didn't know any better.  Incidentally I had a professor in the aerospace engineering department of some university (in Georgia, I believe) ask permission to use this Clavius article in his lectures on propellant system design.

Yes, I knew I had read about the pogo claim at Clavius  Anyway, my point being that when Kaysing left Rocketdyne there was no Saturn V so there was no pogo problem (yet). It does make me smile to think that because there were teething problems with the F1 it meant that NASA couldn't meet their goal. Does every engineering project go smoothly without glitches, or was Apollo the only one that ran into insurmountable problems? 

[smartcooky]

Plus, he worked as a member of a four-man documentation team in a field office, not as an engineer or designer or "Head of Advanced Research," as some highly ignorant conspiracy theorists have titled him.

I worked as a document writer at RAF Sealand when I was on exchange with the RAF in 1988.

The system I worked on was Stage 1 of the Marconi AI24 Foxhunter radar that was to be installed in the Panavia Tornado F3 (ADV).  All I ever saw were parts of the tech manuals including aircraft wiring diagrams, circuit diagrams, block/flow diagrams, exploded component views and line drawings of the system's "black boxes" and their mounting trays.

I'm posting this to give readers a real-life, personal example of the limits of the knowledge of a document writer; you get to know a lot about the tiny part of the whole that you are responsible for, and that is all. I never actually saw a real Foxhunter radar set or any of its components; I know that it had two modes of operation and had separate IF receivers for each mode; Frequency Modulated Interrupted Continuous Wave (FMICW) mode and Pulse mode with Surface Acoustic Wave compression, but I could not tell you anything about the Tornado F3, its combat roles, its performance capabilities or its flight characteristics. I saw one flying once at RAF Waddington, but it was not fitted with a radar, it was fitted with a large lump of concrete inside the nose radome as ballast (known as "Blue Circle" radar, only our British members are likely to get that little joke).