Anyone familiar with this 'claim' at Aulis.com?

[Eventcone]

This is my first 'new topic' post here, so let me take the opportunity to say 'Hello' to you all! 

I have been an admirer of NASA's Apollo Program since watching the first moonlanding as a sleepy 9 year old (it was the middle of the night here in the UK!).

I'd like to pose the following question:

Is anyone familiar with this 'claim' recently posted at Aulis, which attempts to demonstrate that a piece of amateur film footage taken at Cape Kennedy reveals that the Apollo-Saturn stack did not accelerate as required and could not have reached Earth orbit. 

http://www.aulis.com/apollo11saturn_v.htm

The footage in question:

Now I know that this is a ridiculous suggestion, given the overwhelming evidence that the Apollo 11 mission went off as planned. However I'm a little intrigued by this. As much as I think there must be something screwy here, I have to admit that I'm not certain where the error (or deception, if any) lies.

As you can see, the claim is based on observations of the launch vehicle as it passes through a thin cloud layer, and the motion of the shadow that the vehicle then casts upon the cloud (visible to the camera from beneath). I had already noticed this feature of the launch in footage shown in a BBC program shown here in the UK ("Neil Armstrong - First Man on the Moon").

I can't buy that the launch vehicle could have been travelling as slow as they claim (100 m/s) some 105 seconds into the flight given that the vehicle should have been supersonic from about 66 seconds. My gut feeling is that the aforementioned cloud layer was penetrated much earlier, and that somehow their timing of the event is either in error, or is fraudulent. But how?

Also, is anyone aware of any other continuous, unbroken, unedited footage of the launch from T=0 to 1st stage seperation, or any other footage that shows the cloud penetration and launch vehicle shadow?

Many thanks!

[Daggerstab]

An attempt to use Phil Pollacia's video to deduce the velocity of Apollo 11's Saturn has been discussed on the old forum.

Here's the thread, starting with this post:
http://apollohoax.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=theories&thread=2732&page=2#94424

In short, the claim is contradicted by the acceleration and velocity observed when the rocket clears the launch tower. To have the claimed velocity later in the flight, it would require for the engines to be deliberately throttled down. (Fixed-thrust engines cause rockets to accelerate continuously, as the thrust remains the same, but the rocket loses mass.)

[Abaddon]

Not going to spend much time on this.

1. It's Aulis. One of the biggest lie filled sacks of crap on the internet. The default position is, if it's from Aulis, it's wrong by default.

2. Some how, a hand held super Eight has a clock, synchronised with NASA superimposed on the film. How? The only option is that this footage is altered. By Aulis.

3. The difference between the OSD and the Youtoob clock varies wildly over the course of the video. Oops.

4. I have lost the will to continue looking at this Aulis BS

5. Present something meaningful or go back to sucking at the teat of Jack White and his successors.

6. Why exactly should anyone spend time on this lunatic claim?

[onebigmonkey]

There is footage available taken just after TLI of the docking procedure. The Earth visible in that footage matches exactly the satellite images of the weather on launch day, and only that day.

[Abaddon]

There is footage available taken just after TLI of the docking procedure. The Earth visible in that footage matches exactly the satellite images of the weather on launch day, and only that day.

"A smell of sock pervades throughout."

[Abaddon]

That's an OSD VCR counter, is it not?

[raven]

That's an OSD VCR counter, is it not?

Something that looks like one, yes, but it's too crisp to be even part of a video conversion of super 8 to VHS, at least in my opinion.

[smartcooky]

That's an OSD VCR counter, is it not?

Something that looks like one, yes, but it's too crisp to be even part of a video conversion of super 8 to VHS, at least in my opinion.

I believe so. This film looks like it has been transferred onto a VCR tape by projecting it onto a screen with an 8mm film projector, and videotaping the projected image with a video camera. The darkening at the edges of the film is a dead giveaway; you simply don't get that with a proper digital movie film scanner. It was probably doen some years ago

I would guess that the next step has been taken more recently, and this is to "play" the tape using a VCR to HDD/DVD, or captured direct to a computer using a VCC.

3. The difference between the OSD and the Youtoob clock varies wildly over the course of the video. Oops.

In general, you should be careful using this as a claim to debunk a video.

I copy people's Home movie VCR tapes to DVD as a part of my business, and I am very familiar with the process. When I capture VHS tape to computer, the software displays the elapsed time of the recording, which is synchronised at the time I press "play" on the VCR. Both the VCR's OSD and the software OSD start at 0:00, but after an hour of playback, it is not usual to find the VCR OSD lagging the software OSD by as much as five minutes.

The reason for this is that the tape has stretched due to years of play and rewind. VHS tape runs at 1.31 inches per second (we have PAL-secam in NZ) so the time code intervals on a stretched tape are spaced further apart. Even though the tape still runs at the same speed, the OSD ticks over more slowly. This is particlarly bad on E-240 tapes that are much thinner.


 

[Abaddon]

That's an OSD VCR counter, is it not?

Something that looks like one, yes, but it's too crisp to be even part of a video conversion of super 8 to VHS, at least in my opinion.

I believe so. This film looks like it has been transferred onto a VCR tape by projecting it onto a screen with an 8mm film projector, and videotaping the projected image with a video camera. The darkening at the edges of the film is a dead giveaway; you simply don't get that with a proper digital movie film scanner. It was probably doen some years ago

I would guess that the next step has been taken more recently, and this is to "play" the tape using a VCR to HDD/DVD, or captured direct to a computer using a VCC.

3. The difference between the OSD and the Youtoob clock varies wildly over the course of the video. Oops.

In general, you should be careful using this as a claim to debunk a video.

I copy people's Home movie VCR tapes to DVD as a part of my business, and I am very familiar with the process. When I capture VHS tape to computer, the software displays the elapsed time of the recording, which is synchronised at the time I press "play" on the VCR. Both the VCR's OSD and the software OSD start at 0:00, but after an hour of playback, it is not usual to find the VCR OSD lagging the software OSD by as much as five minutes.

The reason for this is that the tape has stretched due to years of play and rewind. VHS tape runs at 1.31 inches per second (we have PAL-secam in NZ) so the time code intervals on a stretched tape are spaced further apart. Even though the tape still runs at the same speed, the OSD ticks over more slowly. This is particlarly bad on E-240 tapes that are much thinner.


 

Exactly my point. Since the vid varies between 4 secs ahead and behind, drawing any conclusion about it is suspect from the get go, without provenance.

[smartcooky]

Exactly my point. Since the vid varies between 4 secs ahead and behind, drawing any conclusion about it is suspect from the get go, without provenance.

True, its just that I thought you were implying some malarkey on the part of whoever created the video. In fact its just a limitation of the process with old and outdated technology.

In all probability this film would have been recorded onto either a Video 8, or a VHS-C tape first (1st generation), then copied onto a VHS tape (2nd generation) then finally to digital format (3rd generation).

All up, that makes anything like this very unreliable for any kind of measurement or analysis

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

The Aulis website is 100% bullshit. That's a fact.

[ka9q]

C'mon, guys, he already knows that. He just wanted to know the actual, specific errors in the analysis. Yes, Aulis may be 100% bullshit but that's not the answer he wanted.

[Bob B.]

I have several comments...

1)  Does Aulis show the calculations?  I'm not going to just take their word for it.  Show me the math! 

2)  What's the margin of error in the calculation?  (Surely pretty large.)

3)  The Saturn V isn't going as fast as you would think.  If we believe the time on the video, the rocket reaches the cloud deck at about 40 seconds after liftoff.  According to my launch simulation, the vehicle's velocity at that point is about 140 m/s.

4)  The Saturn V was traveling about 100 m/s at the 32 second mark.  If the timer was superimposed later and is not in sync with the image, the rocket could've reached the cloud deck closer to 32 s than 40 s.

5)  All things considered, it's likely the actual velocity is well within the margin of error.

[Abaddon]

C'mon, guys, he already knows that. He just wanted to know the actual, specific errors in the analysis. Yes, Aulis may be 100% bullshit but that's not the answer he wanted.

OK then. Relative to the clouds, the motion of the Saturn rocket is 'up' in the frame at first, but then 'down' relative to the clouds later on. This is because the spacecraft is pitching.

Similarly, the shadow Aulis, for their analysis, used would have reversed direction on the film had it been in frame, which, according to their analysis, would mean the rocket had reversed direction and was coming right back. Analysis of the shadows movement is thus meaningless.

The Aulis analysis assumes a straight path. This did not occur. They ignore pitching. They ignore the actual trajectory of the spacecraft. They ignore that the cloud "screen" is not necessarily flat, in fact we know it isn't because the rocket just disturbed it.

Aulis just is not friends with 3D spatial reasoning.

[ka9q]

That the Saturn seems to rise off the pad so slowly probably makes it easy for some people to believe it wasn't really going nearly 2.8 km/s at shutdown. I can see several reasons:

1. The Saturn did rise from the pad relatively slowly. Its thrust-to-weight ratio was barely greater than unity at liftoff, so nearly all of its thrust was needed just to support its own weight.

2. The Saturn is big and, like all rockets, achieves velocities well outside everyday human experience. It's hard to believe something so big can go so fast. With nothing as a reference, it is easy to misperceive as a smaller, closer and slower-moving object.

3. Low at liftoff, the Saturn's acceleration increased substantially during first-stage flight. It peaked twice at 4 g: just before inboard engine cutoff, and again at outboard cutoff. This was the result of the steady loss of propellant mass (and weight), decreasing gravity loss as the rocket pitched over, increased engine efficiency and decreased drag with altitude.

This is opposite to the power-limited acceleration of a car, which is greatest at first and steadily decreases as velocity increases.

Most of the Saturn's velocity at staging therefore came late in the burn when it was far away from the launch site observers and traveling almost directly away from them, making it difficult to perceive.