I might as well ask if there is a plausible explanation for a few other of the many inconsistencies that I noticed about the Apollo program.
Of course there are. And it should be telling you, after all this, that your idea of what constitutes an "inconsistency" is really just something you didn't know about Apollo before.
Yes, you may have been taught only the rudiments of space engineering in school. That's because only a very few people at your school go on to study space engineering and become experts. I flounder through business accounting because I only ever learned the rudiments. I rely on the expertise of the few others at my school who went on to study corporate accounting and know its details intimately.
The conspiracy theorists who are feeding you bad information don't know anything but the rudiments either -- if even that. But they make an art out of trying to delve into the details, only from a completely ignorant (or worse, solely common-sensical) point of view. They talk, for example, about "radiation" when they themselves know practically nothing about it.
When Apollo 11 blasted off from Kennedy space center Neil Armstrong was clearly heard saying Houston we have a roll program.
Yes. He's speaking into the best noise-cancellation microphone that Plantronics made at the time, pressed against his lips, inside a bubble helmet inside a heavily insulated and shielded command module 300 feet away from the engines -- and, most importantly, in front of the engines.
Of course if you watch the extremely edited versions of any Apollo liftoffs now the massive Saturn V rockets are silent. How is this possible?
Because they're heavily edited. Or more likely, because you're looking at something that ultimately traces its lineage back to film, and film doesn't naturally record sound. The pad cameras, for example, don't record sound. They're just 16mm data-acquisition cameras in hardened enclosures.
I was there and we had to be kept several miles away due to the noise...
Not so much noise as explosion and crash hazard.
You've already been shown how ordinary jet engines are deafening if you happen to be around them outside, but are noticeably quieter as heard from the airplane cabin just a few feet away. I also mentioned it matters what direction you are in relation to the engine.
Experienced airline passengers learn that the rear of the cabin is considerably noisier than the front of the cabin, in airframes with wing-mounted engines. Why? Because if you're seated aft of the wing, you get the directional noise produced by the engine's tailcone -- or more accurately, by the effect of the exhaust stream hitting the ambient. This tends to radiate outward (i.e., at right angles to the direction of thrust) and rearward (i.e., behind the plane) but not so much forward (i.e., the forward part of the cabin and the flight deck).
Observing a Saturn V launch, you were at right angles to the thrust axis, and then likely somewhat behind it. Where was Neil and company? They were on the "flight deck" forward of the engine exhaust.
The shuttle pilots say that the noise and vibration of pulling several "G"s is all consuming and the shuttle should be less noisy than a Saturn V.
Where did you hear that?
I also read that the heat shield on the command module was designed to melt away...
No. Melting means changing from a solid to a liquid without altering the chemical composition. The ablative heat shield on the CM chars, which means to change chemical composition in a material by means of applying heat. The heat consumed by the chemical reaction keeps it from penetrating further. Also the product of the reaction is a species of gas that has excellent thermal insulation properties. The plasma heat generated forward by the compression of gases has a hard time penetrating this layer of gas, char, and sheer bulk.
this seems odd since today heat shields are not designed to melt but just the opposite.
No, only the space shuttle had a non-consumable thermal protection system, and that's because it was designed to be reused.
Were the large inflatable balls and the orange float on the bottom of the command modules already on the command module?
They were up on the ELS ring, near the parachutes. No, they were
not contained within the pressurized volume of the spacecraft.
