Apollo 13

[VQ]

[PROVE IT! WOULD YOU ACCEPT THAT KIND OF BALD ASSERTION  FROM ME?]

http://s149.photobucket.com/user/clavius_examples/media/van-allen-letter.gif.html

[smartcooky]

Speaking of which, since you seem to believe that they somehow 'avoided' the belts, possibly you could come up with a contemporaneous account of how they planned the launch to avoid the worst of the radiation. That would go a long way to shutting me up about the matter.

OK allancw. Are you going shut up about it now!?

[Sus_pilot]

I think that our hero is too deep into the woo to ever admit that though.....

Wow. 

To quote George Takei:  "Oh, my!"

[ka9q]

"Crank magnetism" certainly seems common, doesn't it?

[Zakalwe]

<rubbish snipped>
And more petard hoisting from the paper from 1969, which, brilliantly, suggests that the boys 'transit the belts rapidly' as a solution. Well, duhhh:
<more rubbish snipped>

And what exactly is the problem with transiting the belts as quickly as possible?

At least you now know that there are contemporaneous papers from the era that specifically address what you claim to be an insurmountable problem (it isn't and it wasn't). And you have referred to them (not that I was expecting a blowhard like you to come out and say something like "Hey guys, I had my head up my ass and have been shown that I was incorrect. Thanks for taking the time to correct me. I'm now off to read these documents and to try to educate myself a little").  You gave that as the sole piece of "evidence" to support your wild claim that the missions were hoaxed. It seems that practical experience in the field, years spent in education and in relevant industries has trumped your couple of hours searching. Who'd have thunk it, eh??
So again,

OK, so far no contemporaneous accounts of how the belts were to be avoided (just to remind you all of my request). By the way, the reason I guaranteed that you wouldn't find anything was because I spent a couple hours looking

So Mr. Weisbecker, you have now been furnished with the names and details of the documents that you "guaranteed" couldn't be found. You've even had quotations extracted from those documents in case your word-searching skills let you down.

I am saying, actually guaranteeing, that none of you can come up with the above, and for this reason: The Apollo missions were hoaxes.

Given that you have now got the information that you requested, it seems that a retraction of the above statement is required. I am personally happy to give you a little time to verify the documents (say a day), just so you don't have to accept anything on face value. Will you then retract the assertion that the missions were hoaxes?

No more hand-waving. No more attempts to insult people. Just try to be a man, acknowledge that you were incorrect and retract your ridiculous statement.

[Andromeda]

allancw, no-one has insulted you yet you have launched insults and SHOUTED at us.

Projection, much?

Why, may I ask, did you come here?  Your refusal to read the answers you have been given and then claiming to have not received any answers is wearying.  What is the point of it?

[Jason Thompson]

That's a beautiful diagram.

Thanks. I put it together years ago for a thread on the old boards.

[Jason Thompson]

Question:
Are the VARB's not distorted somewhat by the solar wind?

Yes, they are.

The diagram is a gross simplification of a very complex and dynamic system. Due to the solar wind the belts are 'squashed' on the side facing the Sun and stretched out somewhat on the trailing side. Since everything is in motion this is also not a fixed situation. A diagram can only cover so much.

It also simplifies the relationships of the various planes. In reality it is not the case that there is some imaginary distant videwpoint where all the planes are aligned like that so that the viewer would see all of them side on. However, it does illustrate that it is possible to miss the most intense regions of the belts using orbital inclination.

Observation:
A somewhat large penny dropped when I saw that drawing. I had always visualised the VARBs as a doughnut shape, at right angles to the Earth's axis, but in seeing this diagram it has dawned on me that the doughnut shape is in fact at right angles to the Earth's magnetic axis.

Nice to know that my work helped someone understand something.

I had always suspected that they had to take some account of the Moon's orbital inclination being 5.5° off the Earth's equatorial plane in order to calculate the "window" for each mission, but the fact that the magnetic pole (in the 1960's) was about 15° away from the Earth's axis, means that the doughnut is also inclined, and that means,  depending on the position of the Moon in its orbit, that the "amount" of the VARB between the Earth and the Moon along a given flight path would vary from one day to the next. This might also have to be taken into account when planning the mission window.

Very probably. As I said, the whole thing is a dynamic system. The relative positions of the Earth, Sun and moon, the time of day, the solar wind, all combine to produce a system that is not fixed and simple to work with but needs to be modelled and worked out for each launch.

Of course this leads us the difference between the HB interpretation of this (that everything must be calculated to the nth degree: remember the trouble we had with hagbardceline, who could not grasp that the van Allen belt does not have a solidly definable edge?) and the reality, where there is an acceptable margin of precision that can be quite broad in some cases.


[/quote]

[Jason Thompson]

This is my favorite:

So among all the responses that actually gave you what you asked for, your favourite was one where you felt you could attack the person rather than deal with the information you've been given? Says it all, really.

And you'll accept no substitute. [RIGHT! SOME EVIDENCE TO BACK UP YOUR BS!]

The evidence is right here in this thread, in your continued refusal to accept ANY of the documents you have been given.

This guy will spend how ever many hours writing insults but can't come up with a mention of how they avoided the Belts, etc etc. Tiresome.

So how about dealing with those who DID come up with stuff about how they avoided the belts?

And more petard hoisting from the paper from 1969, which, brilliantly, suggests that the boys 'transit the belts rapidly' as a solution. Well, duhhh:

Is there some reason that is an invalid suggestion? Yes, it's obvious, but that doesn't mean it can be left out of the planning details.
 

I'll check back in one more time but you guys are not doing well.

So how about answering our questions then? Do you still maintain that the picture is lit from the left, and do you accept the responses to the star seeing issues? Your continued refusal to address ANY of the reponses to your questions with anything but ad hominems is not doing your own credibility any favours.

[JayUtah]

This guy will spend how ever many hours writing insults...

Such as ... ?

but can't come up with a mention of how they avoided the Belts, etc etc.

Actually I did.  I posted the reference to the same technical memo that Sts60 referred to and quoted.  You didn't even acknowledge it.  And I know why you didn't:  your entire line of reasoning here is based on your presupposition that no such thing would be found.  Hence you refuse to acknowledge most of the many references and citations you've been given.  And the ones you do acknowledge you pretextually reject after a cursory examination.

Still not a word about a 'Van Allen launch window.' (Yes, my phraseology.)

If you'd stop looking for hypothetical stuff you made up on the spot and look at what's actually being provided, perhaps you'd realize that the worldwide aerospace industry actually does have an answer for all this, and perhaps your uninformed individual conjecture is wrong.

Here's the problem.  You obviously don't know how any of this works.  That's not an insult, nor even much of a pointed observation.  The vast majority of humankind doesn't know how to operate in space, so you're not alone nor at a particularly odious disadvantage.  But your problem -- the first half of it, anyway -- is that you keep pretending that you do know how it works:  the documents, the engineering, the scientific practice.  There's a special brand of arrogance that you display, and the response you interpret as "insult" is proper rebuke for your wanton hubris.  The second half of your problem is that while few people in the general population understand how to fly in space, you've managed to encounter a good half dozen of them here -- including people well known for such knowledge.  Since many of us are well known, it makes it hard for you to bluff around it.  And yes, we're giving you the answers you ask for, but as many of the lay regulars here have noticed, you're simply ignoring all of it.  You've got a scenario in your head for how you thought this discussion would play out, and you're sticking to your side of the script even when you're not getting the answers you planned for.

Your screen credits may include vapid television cop shows; mine include top-shelf documentaries on the subject of science and space.  I also happen to have written one of the most often consulted web sites on the subject of hoaxed Moon landings.  So I promise you that your continued bluster will probably not carry you very far in this debate.

I'll check back in one more time but you guys are not doing well.

According to whom?

[JayUtah]

The diagram is a gross simplification of a very complex and dynamic system.

Indeed, which is why our canonical representation of them is a computer model, not a drawing or even a 3D static model.  To determine their geometry, flux, and all other properties of interest, you have to feed the model some time and space coordinates.

This caused me no small consternation when asked to summarize dosages on my History Channel documentary.  Even producers who are sympathetic to historical accuracy and scientific correctness still want sound bites that are palatable to a lay audience, in the mode of "Here's what the experts have to say about passage through the Van Allen belts."  They want simple answers, not accurate ones.  "It varies," is correct but lacks the force the producer wants to elicit from an expert.

It also simplifies the relationships of the various planes. In reality it is not the case that there is some imaginary distant videwpoint where all the planes are aligned like that...

...or even maintain a constant alignment amongst each other.  What is helpful in the diagram is the abstract realization that there are different planes involved.  Even on Clavius.org I carefully note that nearly all depictions of the celestial mechanics problem of flight to the Moon are so simplified.  We don't even manage them graphically like that, except when such can be synthesized automatically on the computer.  We model the relationships among orbits using abstract mathematical definitions involving the various frames of reference.  Accurate, but lacking visual appeal.

Nice to know that my work helped someone understand something.

I still like the donut model.  The one made from actual donuts.

....needs to be modelled and worked out for each launch.

Lacking a closed-form solution to the problem but possessed of extremely powerful computers, we can today optimized launch windows, if necessary, for radiation sensitivity.  That simply goes into the mission planning phase where we evaluate payloads for first-order constraints.  Other payloads are more robust in a "shake and bake" sense.

[JayUtah]

So among all the responses that actually gave you what you asked for, your favourite was one where you felt you could attack the person rather than deal with the information you've been given? Says it all, really.

Quite so.  I would say he long ago gave up any pretense of dealing with actual evidence of any form, but in fact he has been avidly poisoning the well from the very start.  Only recently has he relied almost exclusively on that.

So how about dealing with those who DID come up with stuff about how they avoided the belts?

I'd like to point out that in addition to exposing the logical pitfall in his latest rhetorical trap, I did actually provide a reference to one of NASA's planning documents.  Sts60 provided the same one and clearly trumped the hand with his characteristic thoroughness, but just because I chose to focus on the ethical bankruptcy of the "challenge," doesn't mean I didn't also satisfy it.  You know me:  I like the one-two-punch approach where possible.

As a matter of associated and increasingly relevant fact, the hosting for Clavius.org is at a subsidiary over which I now have a great deal of control -- including its provisioning.  Hence, given the past problems with NASA's document repository and the ongoing government hiatus, I think I will devote as much disk space as I can spare at the facility to mirroring as much of the relevant document library as I can that pertains to Apollo.

[sts60]

That reminds me, I haven't checked out Bob Andrepont's massive collection of space-related documents lately.

[gillianren]

Yesterday, a bunch of us in the post office were grousing about the shutdown (the woman next to me at the counter was mailing tax documents), and I made them all laugh by the whole "I can't find it on the NASA website, so hoax!" argument.  Especially right now.

[ka9q]

Hence, given the past problems with NASA's document repository and the ongoing government hiatus, I think I will devote as much disk space as I can spare at the facility to mirroring as much of the relevant document library as I can that pertains to Apollo.

Yay!! I would be happy to contribute my own Apollo archive, which at the moment tallies to 118 GB.