Quick question about rocket engines

[Luke Pemberton]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every book I've read by/about the astronauts involved has some fascinating details that as you say, can't be made up. I've tried to encourage hoax believers to read some of these accounts but always get the "if I want to read science fiction I'll....yada yada yada". Oh well, their loss.

I've recently read Moondust, and it it was a hoax Andrew Smith would have latched on to it immediately. I have never understood the CTs from three main perspectives

• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled the USSR, China, France, UK and a list of others during the height of the cold war?
• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled the world's scientific community?
• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled journalists for 46 years?

These woo-hoo warriors with their YouTube channels and websites claiming that they are going to blow the gaff on NASA make me smile. If there was any truth in the hoax they would have been beaten to the punch by a gaggle of journalists by now. Does this ever cross their mind?

I'd like to see them take the stance that the press are in on the secret too. So who exactly owns Fox then? Only the biggest media magnate on the planet, and his corporation had no issues producing the Moon Hoax Special.

[Obviousman]

And that brings up an interesting issue.

Titanium manufacture in the 1960's was nowhere near as good as it is today. There was potential for defects in titanium that could, and in fact did lead to structural failure in high stress components. In the famous "Sioux City Fireball", a DC10 crashed after it lost all three hydraulic systems when the No 2 (tail) engine exploded. This was caused when the titanium fan-disk in the No 2 (tail) engine flew apart, severing all three hydraulic lines at a point where they came close together near the horizontal stabiliser.

The root cause of the fan-disk failure was almost undetectable micro-fractures caused by microscopic oxygen and nitrogen bubbles which were left in the titanium when it was manufactured. Admittedly, the DC10 scenario was also caused by many years of fatigue, but I image the stresses and strains on the components in a Saturn V are far greater then those normally encountered on a passenger aircraft.

AIUI this accident led to a change in the titanium manufacturing process for aerospace applications. It is now remelted several times in a vacuum to draw out any gasses within.   

The Sioux City crash also raises another interesting comparison: crew co-ordination. The landing involved four people in the cockpit, all working together to *almost* pull off a safe landing.

After the event, safety investigators ran through the scenario in a DC-10 simulator with similar crews. In every case, they crashed well before getting to the runway threshold. No-one, it seemed, could reproduce the CRM that went on.

Perhaps the Sioux City crash was "faked"?

[ka9q]

Claims that various accidental and deliberate man-made disasters were faked "false flag" operations really cheese me off, and not just because they're even more utterly ludicrous than the Apollo hoax claims. They also insult and torment the friends, families and colleagues of the victims.

9/11 is of course the great grand-daddy of the modern alleged "false flag" operations, and more recently we have Newtown and Boston. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone really were to claim this about an airline accident. As I recall, at least one passenger who died in the Sioux City crash was a fellow employee at the time, though I did not know him personally.

[Luke Pemberton]

They also insult and torment the friends, families and colleagues of the victims.

My thoughts exactly, and those expressed by Astrobrant. I find Truthers deplorable, given that 2000 people died that day and many more in the follow on wars that ensued. While 9/11 was an event on US soil, and I felt utter heartbreak for the American people that day, it has brought nothing but misery to thousands of people across the globe.

[ka9q]

My thoughts exactly, and those expressed by Astrobrant. I find Truthers deplorable, given that 2000 people died that day and many more in the follow on wars that ensued. While 9/11 was an event on US soil, and I felt utter heartbreak for the American people that day, it has brought nothing but misery to thousands of people across the globe.

And that's what gets me especially about 9/11 "truthers". There is plenty to criticize in the Bush administration's response to 9/11. Many, myself included, believe much of it qualifies as a war crime to say nothing of an impeachable offense. You don't have to invent wild fantasies about drone airliners and built-in demolition explosives to feel this way; the actual, uncontested facts are enough.

[Echnaton]

But I wouldn't be surprised if someone really were to claim this about an airline accident.

Not an accident, but the USSR shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 was widely attributed to a conspiracy by the US.  Making it a false flag type operation to the CTist by using the Korean flagged airliner for a US military operation.  The day or so after the incident, some jackass I met in the Munich youth hostel had already determined this and went to great lengths to let me, and any other Americans in his considerable vocal reach, know all about how it was our personal fault the Soviet military was forced to kill these innocent people.

[Peter B]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every book I've read by/about the astronauts involved has some fascinating details that as you say, can't be made up. I've tried to encourage hoax believers to read some of these accounts but always get the "if I want to read science fiction I'll....yada yada yada". Oh well, their loss.

I've recently read Moondust, and it it was a hoax Andrew Smith would have latched on to it immediately. I have never understood the CTs from three main perspectives

• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled the USSR, China, France, UK and a list of others during the height of the cold war?
• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled the world's scientific community?
• Do you really think that the USA could have fooled journalists for 46 years?

These woo-hoo warriors with their YouTube channels and websites claiming that they are going to blow the gaff on NASA make me smile. If there was any truth in the hoax they would have been beaten to the punch by a gaggle of journalists by now. Does this ever cross their mind?

I'd like to see them take the stance that the press are in on the secret too. So who exactly owns Fox then? Only the biggest media magnate on the planet, and his corporation had no issues producing the Moon Hoax Special.

It would presumably be explained as Part Of The Bigger Picture - something done to distract the masses while The Powers That Be Cement Their Position In Control. In other words, just another part of the NWO-Illuminati Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory.

The idea that a party appears to be on one side of a conflict but hidden or obscured evidence suggests it's on the other side would seem to be a staple for conspiracy theorists. If in doubt, just add another layer to the conspiracy (just think about Turbonium and his willingness to reinterpret the Cold War).

I wonder if these people think TV series like "La Femme Nikita", "Lost" and "Mad Dogs" are accurate representations of what life is really like - that nobody is who they really seem to be, and that some people have more masks beneath the one that others see (like Maria in "Mad Dogs", who is initially portrayed as a police detective, but revealed to be a corrupt drug-running cop, only to be finally revealed to be a CIA agent).

In other words, when a story doesn't make sense, many people would be tempted to say it isn't true, but these people are tempted to believe this lack of sense is evidence of infernally clever machinations behind a cover story.

[Luke Pemberton]

And that's what gets me especially about 9/11 "truthers". There is plenty to criticize in the Bush administration's response to 9/11. Many, myself included, believe much of it qualifies as a war crime to say nothing of an impeachable offense. You don't have to invent wild fantasies about drone airliners and built-in demolition explosives to feel this way; the actual, uncontested facts are enough.

Exactly, and Blair is culpable too. The man took my vote in 1997, but I didn't cast a vote for him after Iraq. 9/11 happened as reported. Without turning this thread into a 9/11 conspiracy/political discussion, what followed was an excuse for the neo-con hawks to sharpen their claws. I don't get the fantasy when all one needs to do is attack the ensuing policy. In any case, this has very little to do with rocket engines.

[ka9q]

Not an accident, but the USSR shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 was widely attributed to a conspiracy by the US.  Making it a false flag type operation to the CTist by using the Korean flagged airliner for a US military operation.

That would still not be a false flag operation as I understand the term. If KAL007 were shot down by a MiG bearing a hammer-and-sickle flag but flown by an American pilot, now that would be a false-flag operation.

I see the KAL007 shootdown just as I see the IranAir 655 shootdown by the US Navy: tragic accidents by hot-headed, trigger-happy and arguably incompetent commanders pushed on by irresponsible political leaders bent on waving their you-know-whats at the world.

Only pure luck kept this from happening during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the missiles and torpedoes were nuclear.

[Echnaton]

It was "false flag" in the sense that the fault could be attributed to America for falsely using KAL's flag and civilian status as a cover for its own operations.  Rather than in the sense you mention of an operation done under the cover of another's flag to directly to pin the blame on the other party, which is probably the more common use.  Covert is another term for describing CTist's attribution for the hypothesized KAL "operation,"  but that can also mean doing it secretly without invoking another's flag as cover.   

The key in the conspiracy world is the technique of developing a rationale through some "tale," whatever that may be, that allows blame to be pinned on the desired donkey.   

[Dalhousie]

There are also system-level approaches, particularly multiple launches, to reduce the total amount of mass and fuel that need to be launched. Equipment and supplies could be sent ahead of a crew on an unmanned launch vehicle taking a slow but energy-efficient route to the moon via a Lagrange point. It would not need a launch escape system or fly a sub-optimal trajectory to maximize the chances of one working.

Multiple launches don't save mass, the actually increase it overall. They do make the mass of each individual launch less.

Flying to the Moon via a liberation point also saves little, if any propellant. 

[Dalhousie]

But I wouldn't be surprised if someone really were to claim this about an airline accident.

Not an accident, but the USSR shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 was widely attributed to a conspiracy by the US.  Making it a false flag type operation to the CTist by using the Korean flagged airliner for a US military operation.  The day or so after the incident, some jackass I met in the Munich youth hostel had already determined this and went to great lengths to let me, and any other Americans in his considerable vocal reach, know all about how it was our personal fault the Soviet military was forced to kill these innocent people.

I heard one ex-USN person claim it was a set up by Iran - a plane loaded with dead people on a suicide mission.

[Al Johnston]

Wouldn't that have been Iran Air 655, shot down by USS Vincennes?

[Dalhousie]

Wouldn't that have been Iran Air 655, shot down by USS Vincennes?

Correct, I was a guest in his house, so I did not tell him he was an idiot.  I just rolled my eyes.

[darren r]

I heard one ex-USN person claim it was a set up by Iran - a plane loaded with dead people on a suicide mission.

They used that idea in an episode of Sherlock.