Photo Anomalies

[Sus_pilot]

Let's turn this around (and if I read this right, ineluki, you're not a HB), and ask hoax believer what the LM should have looked like. 

I can't do it, as I'm know the reality, and I know form followed function, much the same as an A3xx looks a lot like a Boeing 7xx looks a lot like a DC/MD 8+ looks a lot like a B-52 looks a lot like a B-47....

[bknight]

Let's turn this around (and if I read this right, ineluki, you're not a HB), and ask hoax believer what the LM should have looked like. 

I can't do it, as I'm know the reality, and I know form followed function, much the same as an A3xx looks a lot like a Boeing 7xx looks a lot like a DC/MD 8+ looks a lot like a B-52 looks a lot like a B-47....

OMG, the mystery of flight 370 has been solved; a bomb blew up in the cargo of the 777. 

[grmcdorman]

The other things to consider are 1) any such non-functional decoration would add weight (as mentioned, very much at a premium) and 2) to an engineer, it is - well, perhaps not beautiful, but elegant: supremely designed and fitted to the task at hand - and engineers were the ones tasked with creating and critiquing it.

[darren r]

Let's turn this around (and if I read this right, ineluki, you're not a HB), and ask hoax believer what the LM should have looked like. 

I'm not a hoax believer, but I've always had the impression that they were expecting some kind of Destination Moon V2-style tail sitter.

[JayUtah]

It seems we are still talking about different issues...  Reality on your side and the missing "real" common sense and logic in a hypothetical (and obviously BS) Hoaxscenario on my side.

This dichotomy arises a lot.  The claim, "The LM doesn't look much like a spaceship" always begs the question "Well then what do you think a spaceship ought to look like?"  And since few if any conspiracy theorists will tell us, we have to infer their expectations from any specifics they may add to their claims:  the LM looks covered in flimsy materials, or was made by shoddy methods, or would need to withstand a "hostile" space environment.  Invariably we get the idea they think it should be visually more robust.  But we're not sure exactly in what way.  The bottom line for that argument is that almost no one who makes it can speak intelligently about how spacecraft are actually designed and built, or how the LM specifically was designed and built.

But on the other side of the coin it's legitimate to ask why NASA would publish pictures of something they claim is a spacecraft, but doesn't seem like one to the people NASA was allegedly trying to fool with its hoax.  It's fair to ask why NASA didn't do a more convincing job of faking a space mission.  And granted this attacks a completely different premise than the argument above.  But it's possible for a hoax argument to be wrong on two unrelated counts.

[bknight]

I don't remember anyone saying before 1969 that the LM didn't look "right".  I do remember hearing it looked ungainly mostly from Walter Cronkite, but that was explained away quickly for the same reasons listed here.  No atmosphere, low gravity vehicle used exactly once.  I thought it looked cool, because it didn't resemble normal rockets, but more of the little one manned ships used to work in the high orbit with the wheel that was constructed.  Normal to me but then I was/am a space nut.

[DD Brock]

  Maybe I'm doing a lousy job of getting my point across, but I've asked this question to hoax believers many times and I've never had one respond to me.  WHY would  NASA build the LM they way they did if they were going to fake it ?

This is what really REALLY bugs me about the claims the "LM is just a prop" : if it's just a fake they plopped on a movie set, then WHY would they make it look as aesthetically ridiculous as it does ( and let's face it, it is kinda ridiculous looking). To my mind, the LM is a lousy choice as a prop.

I mean, from the point of view of a simple laymen such as myself, the hoax theory utterly falls apart here. By their reckoning, NASA spent millions developing a bitchin' looking rocket that carried a bitchin' looking CSM that may or may not have been real and may or may not have been hiding in low Earth orbit ( depending on the hoax details in play with whichever HB you are talking to), does it not follow that they should have built a Lunar Lander prop that matched the level of bitchin' found in Apollo and Saturn?

Why not just build the original concept of the LM with the cool windows and seats if it was all just fake? Or hell, just omit the silly looking Mylar and cover the whole shebang in aluminum sheeting?

Full disclosure, I don't actually think the LM is ridiculous at all, my opinion is that it is the ultimate expression of form following function and is therefore beautiful. However, it IS kinda ridiculous from a purely aesthetic point of view. Which is why looks ain't everything, right? Lol!

[JayUtah]

It's okay to say the LM looks "ungainly."  It does.  It's probably not going to win any beauty contests by the same lay standards that the F-4 or the F-104, or even the Citroën CV2 is judged.  But by engineering standards -- which emphasize a different kind of elegance -- the LM is a perfect flying machine.  It has everything you need and nothing you don't.  It can even fill in in a pinch for more streamlined spacecraft that go awry.

I've built props for stage and screen.  There is a gradation of quality, which relates to realism.  Some props -- "hero" props -- are meant for closeups and are indistinguishable in most respects from what a practically manufactured object would look like.  I've seen similar props constructed by others.  The space suits by Global Effects are utterly convincing until you start taking them apart, and then only if you know what they're supposed to look like.  The fanciful props for, say, Mission to Mars are made from the same materials and according to the same processes as "manufactured" parts.  Processes like vacuum-forming and injection-molding are routinely used in propmaking, even though the per-unit price is astronomical.

The notion that a NASA prop for a hoax intended to fool the world indefinitely would have to be cardboard and foil and tape is absurd on several levels.

[DD Brock]

Yeah, I work in injection molding, I can certainly see how expensive movie prop parts could be. We lose a lot of prospective customers when they find out how expensive it is to build a new mold, and how many parts they need to order to make it cost effective.

You hit the nail exactly on the head with regards to the LM. Look, I'm just a working stiff with a couple of years of JC for an education, and I have nothing more than a laymen's understanding of spacecraft and how or what they do, but I cannot fathom a worse example of a fake spacecraft than the LM.  A lifetime's experience working with industrial machinery tells me the only reason anything would ever be built like that is because it needed to work. Period.

Can't figure out why that is such a hard concept.

[smartcooky]

Yeah, I work in injection molding, I can certainly see how expensive movie prop parts could be. We lose a lot of prospective customers when they find out how expensive it is to build a new mold, and how many parts they need to order to make it cost effective.

You hit the nail exactly on the head with regards to the LM. Look, I'm just a working stiff with a couple of years of JC for an education, and I have nothing more than a laymen's understanding of spacecraft and how or what they do, but I cannot fathom a worse example of a fake spacecraft than the LM.  A lifetime's experience working with industrial machinery tells me the only reason anything would ever be built like that is because it needed to work. Period.

Can't figure out why that is such a hard concept.

You are so right about that.

Anyone who has never seen "From Earth to the Moon" should at least make an effort to see the episode called "Spider" (its my favorite ep). It graphically illustrates just how technically difficult  it is to build the perfect, one-off spacecraft to land on the moon. The amount of ideas and concepts they had to keep throwing away as they realised the magnitude of the task they were undertaking, is just amazing.

[Zakalwe]

Anyone who has never seen "From Earth to the Moon" should at least make an effort to see the episode called "Spider" (its my favorite ep). It graphically illustrates just how technically difficult  it is to build the perfect, one-off spacecraft to land on the moon. The amount of ideas and concepts they had to keep throwing away as they realised the magnitude of the task they were undertaking, is just amazing.

Or read Tom Kelly's excellent book "Moon Lander"
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735
The list of problems that they overcame was huge. A lot of the book concentrates on the management structures that Grumman had to develop in order to control the vast amounts of data that was being generated. Change-control alone was a massive task.

My favourite story from that book concerned  the root cause of certain weld failures. The boilerplate LM pipework leaked like a sieve.  The hypergolic fuels are hugely corrosive and Grumman had to resort to using titanium pipework. Working titanium was in it's infancy and many of the procedure used were developed on the job.  They had so many problems with welds cracking that they kept re-designing the pipework to use bolted-up fittings to reduce the amount of welding needed. Nevertheless, welding was unavoidable in places, and these joints kept cracking. A huge amount of work took place to try and find the problem, which was eventually tracked down to a certain batch of tack-rags that the welders used to wipe the titanium joints before welding. The tack-rags were leaving a residue that contaminated the weldpool and eventually caused the weld to fail under pressure.


<edit> I've just re-read the relevant portion (pages 142 of Kelly's book. The root cause was that tack-rags were being re-used on welds that failed on fuel tanks. The tack-rags were washed with a detergent that left traces on the titanium. This detergent attacked titanium. Super sleuthing by Henry Graf)

[Kiwi]

Anyone who has never seen "From Earth to the Moon" should at least make an effort to see the episode called "Spider"...

The whole series was excellent when compared with some Hollywood-type productions. So good, I took heaps of notes.

One excellent thing about Part 5, "Spider" is that they even gave John Houlbolt and his theories on Lunar Orbit Rendezvous a well-deserved turn.

Some of the notes from the DVD:

0:08:53   John Houbolt
0:09:26   Houbolt critics 1 & 2
0:09:56   Late 1961 — Houbolt's letter to Dr Seamans
0:10:08   Dr Robert Seamans and assistant
0:11:04   2 — Tom Kelly
0:11:05   July 1962 — Lunar orbit rendezvous accepted
0:11:19   November 1962 — Tom  Kelly, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Bethpage, New York
0:11:30   Bob Carbee
0:11:42   "Yeah, Frank.  We got the contract.  We're all just observing a moment of silence for the companies that didn't."
0:12:59   Tom Kelly:  I'm afraid you're gonna have to go tell your wives and kids the bad news, fellas.  Looks like you won't be seeing much of them for the next couple of years because we got the contract!
0:13:57   January 1963 — Grumman Engineering Bullpen
0:14:18   Tom Kelly:  Seven years.  Well, let's get started.
0:14:26   Four legs
0:14:42   February 1963 — Octagonal descent stage
0:14:55   March 1963 — Windows
0:15:36   What if they don't need seats?
0:17:00   May 1963 — Thermal shields
0:17:15   Mylar Engineer
0:17:40   August 1963 — Mylar film between layers of Kapton with an outer layer of nickel foil
0:18:06   Hatches
0:18:39   Arnold Whitaker
0:18:56   October 1963 — Square hatch
0:19:12   December 1963 — Ladder
0:19:32   Tom Kelly:  Okay, one more thing.  It's no longer the Lunar Excursion Module any more.  Everybody feels that excursion sounds like it's gonna go out on a school trip.  From now on it's just the Lunar Module.
0:20:02   March 1964 — Let's make sure we film everything we do
0:20:36   Every LM would have to be handmade
0:20:47   Thruster test
0:20:49   Engine test
0:20:53   Landing gear test
0:20:57   Sunlight and dust test
0:21:03   Landing gear on a slope
0:21:09   Thousands of tests, day after day, for years
0:21:32   Young engineer
0:23:12   Tom Kelly:  This is bad, but as long as people speak up about their mistakes, we've got a shot.  Okay?  They try to sweep it under the rug and we're not going to go to New Jersey, let alone to the moon.
0:23:46   Original film of LM assembly
0:24:48   3 — Lunar Module 3
0:24:59   Jim McDivitt
0:25:04   Dave Scott
0:25:10   Rusty Schweickart
0:27:09   August 1967 — Grumman Engineering Bullpen
0:27:24   Original film of LM assembly
0:27:41   Systems Integration Test No. 1
0:28:00   Systems Integration Test No. 2
0:28:57   Systems Integration Test No. 3
0:29:21   4 — At the Cape
0:29:40   Tom Kelly:  I need to know if we can make the date
0:30:48   Original film of LM assembly
0:32:13   Operations and Checkout Building, Kennedy Space Center
0:33:07   Deke Slayton and Jim McDivitt
0:35:14   5 — "First in space" — 11 October 1968 — Apollo 7
0:35:27   Apollo 8
0:35:48   LM 3 was ready
0:36:30   Call signs Spider and Gumdrop
0:37:53   3 March 1969 — Apollo 9
0:37:02   Jim McDivitt:  She's a beautiful machine, Tom!
0:37:03   Tom Kelly:  Isn't she?
0:37:05   Rusty Schweickart:  You really think it's beautiful?
0:37:06   Jim McDivitt:  God no, it looks like a toaster oven with legs, but I'm not gonna tell him that.

And even a little bit of Hollywood, but forgivable:

0:48:14   Error:  LM above the North Island of New Zealand, which is reversed left to right.  Coromandel Peninsula bottom left, Bay of Plenty bottom centre, Mahia Peninsula bottom right, Mount Egmont/Taranaki top left, Wellington top centre.
0:48:45   Descent stage above the lower North Island of New Zealand, which is reversed left to right.  Wellington centre left.
0:51:34   Error:  Ascent stage flying almost due south, above the Indus River and the Gulf of Kutch

Anyone's welcome to a copy of the notes -- for research purposes only. 31 pages of Arial Narrow 9-point, Open Document Format, covering all five DVDs. PM me if wanted.

[bknight]

It was good the John Houbolt kept being a thorn in NASA's side to get his point across.  I'm not saying an earth rendezvous method would not work, but it seems that this procedure would require more risk, launching to vehicles into orbit then still having the issue of Lunar lift off to deal with.  In addition the costs would seem to be costly than LOR.  This is only speculation on my part as I wasn't involved in the manufacturing/procurement process that would have been required.

[Peter B]

It was good the John Houbolt kept being a thorn in NASA's side to get his point across.  I'm not saying an earth rendezvous method would not work, but it seems that this procedure would require more risk, launching to vehicles into orbit then still having the issue of Lunar lift off to deal with.  In addition the costs would seem to be costly than LOR.  This is only speculation on my part as I wasn't involved in the manufacturing/procurement process that would have been required.

For me, it's the point that Murray and Cox described in "Apollo - the Race to the Moon": how exactly were they going to configure the Command Module to land on the Moon?

Lying in their couches with the controls in front of them, the astronauts couldn't see the Moon as they backed down onto it. But if they stood up and had a window to look out of, they'd need a whole second set of controls with all the attendant weight and space issues. M & C suggest that the engineers didn't really ever come up with a solution to that conundrum from an EOR point of view.

It was separating those two functions into two separate spacecraft which solved the conundrum.

[raven]

I don't know. To me there seems a fairly obvious solution: periscopes. It does add some weight, mind, but it could be part of the star sighting system.