Apollo 13

[LunarOrbit]

Why do we even know about the Van Allen Belt, Allancw? We know about it because NASA found it and told us about it.

So I would like to know why you think NASA would even tell us about the radiation if it posed an insurmountable obstacle? If we didn't know about the radiation they wouldn't have to explain how the Apollo missions dealt with it. Right?

So please explain that to me.

[sts60]

ONE MORE TIME: Show me. Just saying you showed me isn't quite enough. You have to actually do it.

Allan, you guaranteed we couldn't produce documents discussing trajectory planning with regard to the Van Allen Belt hazards.  Such references have been explicitly provided to you.  When will you satisfy your guarantee? 

[raven]

*puts on cynicism hat* The day we get a million Euro from Heiwa I would imagine.

[Luckmeister]

allancw, I worked in the space program in the 1960's on the Atlas and Titan boosters and later with Boeing. I was a participant and firsthand witness to the incredible effort and expertise that went into preparing for space exploration. That's why I am a bit insulted and quite disgusted that you can't understand how impossible it would be to carry on the immense deception required to fake the entire Apollo Program involving thousands of people worldwide. You really don't seem to have a grasp of how far-reaching that endeavor was.

It is obvious you have an obsession about this that is unassailable. You have a firewall in your mind that will not allow ANYTHING that counters that belief in. It's not just a matter of our disagreeing. For the bright people on this forum (most of them more knowledgeable in space sciences and astrophysics than I), it's like trying to educate a lamp post.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

[Noldi400]

I'm just sort of disappointed that he seems to have completely bailed on the one issue I have some actual real-world expertise in.  I guess the old bait-and-switch isn't dead after all.

[Zakalwe]

I think that we've probably seen the last of Mr Weisbecker.  He's had his arse handed to him on a plate. I ecpect that he'll go back to telling anyone in earshot that he has written a few mediocre books (hey, 350 reviews on Amazon!), writing crank letters to physicists and trying to flog his plot of land in Costa Rico

Its a funny thing...I think that people like this have such a belief in their own ego that they can never broker any idea that they might be incorrect. It's a funny old way to live your life, after all, if you never get anything wrong you are not learning anything much about the world.

[Andromeda]

I expect he will wander round the net telling everyone that we are paid shills who wouldn't (or couldn't) give him what he asked for.

I find it difficult to empathise with that mindset - Heiwa was the same.  To have on the screen, right in front of them, the answers to the questions they asked (multiple times) and then insist that the answers have not been provided...  It really baffles me.

[ka9q]

hypothermia effects in a confined, low pressure, low humidity, microgravity, almost completely still-air environment

Wouldn't this also create a troublesome bubble of CO₂? I've heard of that happening to sleeping astronauts and awakening them with headaches. There are usually a lot of blowers and fans to counteract this problem, though I don't know about Apollo 13. I know that they used suit hoses to blow fresh air up into the tunnel to the CM, which was used for sleeping.

[ka9q]

I expect he will wander round the net telling everyone that we are paid shills

Not only that, but NASA considers people like him -- who know The Truth^tm -- to be so dangerous that they kept their shills active when nearly all of NASA was furloughed during the government shutdown!

[Peter B]

From reply # 172 we have this, referring to the VARB:

'...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.' WORKED OUT FOR EACH LAUNCH

Sounds like they needed to calculate a specific 'VARB launch window' for each flight. Which has been said several times here. Yet no one can come up with a document showing what each flight's 'VARB launch window' was. Or one flight's. 'Hurry up' (through VARB) is not enough, guys.

ONE MORE TIME: Show me. Just saying you showed me isn't quite enough. You have to actually do it.

Seeing as you've shown everyone else What For regarding VARB launch windows, how about you turn your obvious skills to explaining how NASA acquired that ~370kg of rocks, soil and core samples which has convinced scientists from around the world for the last 40+ years?

[DataCable]

Why do we even know about the Van Allen Belt, Allancw? We know about it because NASA found it and told us about it.

So I would like to know why you think NASA would even tell us about the radiation if it posed an insurmountable obstacle?

I would like to know why, when his exhaustive multi-hour search couldn't produce information on Apollo avoiding the Van Allen belts, he automatically assumed that this was because Apollo was a hoax, and not, say, because the Van Allen belts were a hoax.

[Kiwi]

The Apollo astronauts were generalists who were busy enough learning what they actually needed to do their missions. They couldn't possibly be experts on everything. That's why NASA had all sorts of specialists on the ground to back them up.

Sorry folks, I've only read to page 4, but thought I'd add the following which backs up what KA9Q has said.  It's from the soundtrack of the wonderful movie "For All Mankind," and it's from one of the Apollo astronauts many laypeople have probably never heard of, Ken Mattingly.  I'll bold his most important points, but include the entire soundtrack for that particular five-minute period in the film.  (For those who don't understand the mixups that occur, they are intentional. The movie portrays one fictional trip to the moon, using the very best footage from all the missions, and even includes some from Gemini.)

"It won't fail because of me"

0:04:07   Ground Crew:  Y'all take care now.

0:04:36   Ground Crew:  Godspeed, men.

0:04:44   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  Right at the last minute there was a psychological block in there that said, "Don't, don't count on this so heavily, it might not happen."  This is such a big thing, I frankly don't see how you can do it even though I am participating in it.  I think it's audacious that you would try.  I clearly could never understand as a crewman how to how to make it work.  I could only learn how to operate my share of it.  0:05:11

0:05:34   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  Being command pilot, I was sitting in the centre seat so that meant I climbed in last.  I just stood around, and waited until they strapped in.  And here was a kind of a strange quiet.  Look out and you can see a large part of the state and ocean and this thing out here — you have the feeling that it's alive.  That's the kind of thing that sort of, for the first time, begins to bring home the fact that today is not the game we've been playing in training for years.  This is reality.  0:06:11

0:06:39   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  I had the only window at this point and I looked out and doggone if the, if the moon wasn't visible in the daylight right straight out the top of the window.  I know they're doing their job right, because the moon's right straight ahead and that's where we're pointed, and they're just going to launch us right straight to this thing.  0:06:55

0:07:00   M.C.:  This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control.  All still Go on the Apollo mission, the flight to land the first men on the moon.  The spacecraft also now is on full internal power.  Up to this time it had been sharing the load with an external power source.  Once we get down to the three-minute-and-ten-second mark in the countdown we'll go on an automatic sequence.  All aspects from thereon down will be automatically run by the ground master computer here in the firing room.  We have some 7.6 million pounds of thrust pushing the vehicle upward, a vehicle that weighs close to six and a half million pounds.

0:07:46   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  We all are in this together as a team effort, we're going to make it work.  And I don't know how to make it work.  I don't know how to do most of this mission.  But I do know that I can assure you that my piece of it is going to work and you won't fail because of me.  0:08:02

0:08:04   M.C.:  The members of the launch team here in the control centre are monitoring a number of what we call red line values.  These are tolerances we don't want to go above or below in temperatures and pressures.  They're standing by to call out any deviations from our plans.  All indications coming into the control centre at this time indicate we are Go.  The test supervisor now has informed launch vehicle test conducted, you are Go for launch.  Three minutes twenty-five seconds and counting.  We are still Go at this time.

0:08:35   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  There's a long period of time where you've done all the things in the cockpit you can do and there are very few things left to say.  You don't know any new jokes to tell or — there's just not much left to say except just sit there and wait.  0:08:46

0:08:46   Astronaut:  It feels good.

0:08:47   M.C.:  Astronauts report it feels good.  One minute twenty-five seconds and counting.  Our status board indicates the third stage completely pressurised.  Guidance system goes on internal at seventeen seconds leading up to the ignition sequence at 8.9 seconds.  Power transfer is complete.  Firing command coming in now, we are on the automatic sequence.  T minus sixty seconds and counting.  We will launch vehicle at this time.  All the second stage tanks now pressurised.  Thirty-five seconds and counting.  Go.

0:09:23   T. Kenneth Mattingly II:  It won't fail because of me.  0:09:25

[Glom]

I expect he will wander round the net telling everyone that we are paid shills

Not only that, but NASA considers people like him -- who know The Truth^tm -- to be so dangerous that they kept their shills active when nearly all of NASA was furloughed during the government shutdown!

It just demonstrates the effort required to maintain the cover up.

You know, I'm beginning to think the whole hoax just wasn't worth the trouble.

[Zakalwe]

It just demonstrates the effort required to maintain the cover up.
You know, I'm beginning to think the whole hoax just wasn't worth the trouble.

[JayUtah]

I worked in the space program in the 1960's on the Atlas and Titan boosters and later with Boeing. I was a participant and firsthand witness...
<snip>
For the bright people on this forum (most of them more knowledgeable in space sciences and astrophysics than I), it's like trying to educate a lamp post.

Well, don't sell yourself short.  Firsthand knowledge and experience with space engineering is important and valuable.  It's especially valuable because people like allancw tend to approach space science (or whatever they're claiming is a hoax) as if it were some high-priesthood profession practiced only by a few special, privileged people who (in the conspiracist's estimation) don't deserve their lofty station nor the accolades of society.  In fact it's just a job like any other, and it's not uncommon to meet and talk with people who practice it whereupon you realize they're normal people just like anyone else -- not some Manchurian candidate, hapless pawn in a global power struggle, nor nefarious oppressor.

I think that we've probably seen the last of Mr Weisbecker.  He's had his arse handed to him on a plate.

Unfortunately he had his arse handed to him pretty much upon his arrival.  He didn't recognize or accept it then, so I don't expect him to recognize and accept it now.  He never paid serious attention to any of the answers he was given, and he won't pay any attention to any future ones.

I expect that he'll go back to telling anyone in earshot that he has written a few mediocre books (hey, 350 reviews on Amazon!), writing crank letters to physicists and trying to flog his plot of land in Costa Ric[a]

I'm sure he did that before coming here, that he's been doing so all along, and will continue to do so long after he loses interest in us.  The statements he's made here and elsewhere indicate that he's essentially groping for whatever semblance of credibility and stature he can attain using his means.

Its a funny thing...I think that people like this have such a belief in their own ego that they can never broker any idea that they might be incorrect.

In my opinion this sort of overwhelming belief in one's own ego is actually a paradoxical symptom of low self-esteem.  This type of person usually goes overboard hyping himself because deep down he's fundamentally insecure and believes people will judge him harshly and reject him.  Often there's no rational reason for it; the individual is usually -- for lack of a better word -- just fine.  However, it is obvious that efforts to amplify one's apparent greatness and prowess would be intolerant to criticism or evidence of error.

To have on the screen, right in front of them, the answers to the questions they asked (multiple times) and then insist that the answers have not been provided...  It really baffles me.

As I pointed out, this conversation is a rhetorical exercise meant to bolster faith in the construct I described above.  Allancw entered the discussion with the "guarantee" that we could not find what he said he wanted.  The exercise had already been laid out:  the outcome in his mind was foregone.  He'll simply do or say whatever is needed to keep making the premise of the exercise true.