Oh goodie, we have a new player...

[Count Zero]

So it was the LEC.  Neat!  Thanks to you both.  Back to my previous question, was there a specific concern that made the "safety line" a requirement, or was it just "general principles" for the first lunar EVA?  Also, I assume he disconnected the hook after the first few minutes?

[DD Brock]

Learn something new every day, I never knew that!

[Allan F]

So it was the LEC.  Neat!  Thanks to you both.  Back to my previous question, was there a specific concern that made the "safety line" a requirement, or was it just "general principles" for the first lunar EVA?  Also, I assume he disconnected the hook after the first few minutes?

It's all in the link - about 2.5 minutes after first footfall, he disconnected.

[Kiwi]

...was the lava tube thing really an issue?  Iirc, some wondered if people would sink into the dust...

I definitely recall concerns being expressed about the possible dangers of lava tubes prior to Apollo 11, but don't have or recall any details, and have read very little a bout it subsequently. Only Mike Collins's brief mentions in Carrying the Fire.

From a post of mine in July 2012
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=133.msg4927#msg4927

I remember from the time before Apollo 11, lava tubes were still one of the great unknowns and it was thought that rilles might have been collapsed lava tubes.  The surveyor craft had done a great job of sending information about the lunar surface back to earth, but being so much lighter than the LM and having widely-spaced landing pads, there was far less of a chance that they would crash through into a tube.

The only places I've seen this concern mentioned post-Apollo are in Mike Collins's book, Carrying the Fire.

On pages 339-341 is his list of 11 major hurdles during a lunar-landing trip.  One of them is EVA:

7. EVA  Walking on the moon might be physically taxing and overload the oxygen or cooling systems. There might be potholes, or even underground lava tubes which could cause the surface to collapse.  Even more basic, any EVA puts man just one thin, glued-together, rubber membrane away from near-instant death.

And on page 410, after Houston tells Mike the crew of Tranquility Base is back inside:

Well, that's a big one behind us: no more worrying about crashing through into hidden lava tubes, or becoming exhausted, or the front door sticking open, or the little old ladies using weak glue, or any of that! Whew!

It shows how faulty our memories can become -- recently I only recalled one mention of lava tubes by Mike Collins.

Dr Thomas Gold was the person who promoted the idea that there could be very deep dust on the Moon. The 35mm 3D camera that Neil Armstrong used was named the Gold Camera after him.

Patrick Moore wrote in his book, The Moon, Mitchell Beazley, London (1981), page 18:

...According to another theory, proposed by T. Gold in 1955, the maria were covered with dust layers kilometres deep, so that if a spacecraft were to attempt to land, it "would simply sink into the dust with all its gear"; the dust would flow downhill, accumulating in the lowest-lying areas. This theory gained a considerable degree of respectability until the successful soft landing of Luna 9 in 1966, when it was finally discarded.

Learn something new every day...

Whenever I can say that, I've had a good day. The frequency of its occurrences can diminish when Oldfartitis sets in. :-(

[onebigmonkey]

I seem to recall, though I can't remember the source, that notwithstanding all the evidence there was still one prominent lunar scientist within the programme that insisted on the dangers of deep surface dust. While they were pretty sure he was wrong, pretty sure wasn't quite enough to throw caution to the wind

[Kiwi]

I seem to recall, though I can't remember the source, that notwithstanding all the evidence there was still one prominent lunar scientist within the programme that insisted on the dangers of deep surface dust. While they were pretty sure he was wrong, pretty sure wasn't quite enough to throw caution to the wind

Possibly Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon, page 180. Gold, Thomas in the index.

[smartcooky]

Its seems to me that lunar dust isn't so much "dust" as fine grit. The lack of any type of erosive forces on the Moon means that this grit is very sharp edged, and therefore "grippy"; it would seem impossible to sink into.

[JayUtah]

Well, difficult.  Apparently it clumps easily.  That's understandable.

[Luke Pemberton]

I never really understand the argument that it was faked using wet sand, at many levels, but to dismiss the idea that powders do not form imprints without water for cohesion is utterly ignorant. Of course, if you live in cloud cuckoo land, you claim that it was filmed with dry sand to allow entrainment but then claim wet sand was used to form the famous Aldrin bootprint.

[gwiz]

...to dismiss the idea that powders do not form imprints without water for cohesion is utterly ignorant.

You wonder what world they inhabit when so many common substances refute this idea.

[Dr_Orpheus]

...to dismiss the idea that powders do not form imprints without water for cohesion is utterly ignorant.

You wonder what world they inhabit when so many common substances refute this idea.

I've seen at least one, probably on this board, who claimed that dry powders in an atmosphere contain small amounts of water which allows them to form imprints.  Dry powders in a vacuum would be completely dry, and therefore, according to this poster, would not do so.  He or she naturally didn't do any experiments in a vacuum chamber to prove this accusation

[Kiwi]

...to dismiss the idea that powders do not form imprints without water for cohesion is utterly ignorant.

That statement almost tempts me to crack a bag of flour and see if childhood memories of it taking the imprint of a fist, and sticking together to make "mountains" with ridiculously steep sides, without requiring moisture, are reliable or not.

Then again, 2015's flour might be nothing like 1950s flour. [CT Mode]The wheat it comes from has probably been deformed by the constant pollution from the chemtrails that the gubmint keeps spraying us with. And now, of course, we have all the crop circles messing up our wheat too.[/CT Mode]

[Echnaton]

Na!  It's GMO all the way down.

[Tedward]

Someone bought a tub of simulated stuff and lobbed some hobnails in it. So it must be fake.

At least they will not go hungry, all that flour on the moon. Lots of bread.