Hello,
Neil. Welcome to the board, belatedly.
My contention is that most of the NASA space program is probably a hoax. I say "probably" because I don't know. But neither does anyone else ...
No. You speak for yourself, but not for me and others. Please understand, this is a very common conspiracist tactic, to insinuate that we are all helpless to understand the record in detail, but it will gain you no traction here.
I work in this field, including for and with Apollo engineers and Apollo-era astronauts. I've worked in the backrooms at Mission Control, in the processing and launch facilities at the Cape and KSC, and other NASA facilities. I've personally performed integration tests aboard the Shuttle with a spacecraft I helped build, and operated that vehicle after it was deployed by the Shuttle. (By the way, we also tracked our own vehicle with our own S-band antenna at our own facility.) In short, I have the relevant education and experience to evaluate much of the record for myself.
...I was confronted with the difficult question, "How do we PROVE we went to the moon?"
Well, you
could take the time to learn something about the subject, ask meaningful questions, listen to the answers, and take more time to really dig into the historical, management, technical, and scientific record. But that will take some effort, and a willingness to admit there's more to it than you have said. Are you game?
...Could be fake... Could be lies. Launches? ...Did they really...? Do they really...? Did they really...? ...I don't know... I don't know...
Waving your hands and saying that something "could be" is meaningless; it's simply an appeal to personal doubt. In order to support your claims, you need to show
why things had to be faked,
how it was faked, and show some
evidence of the actual massive effort required to fake it all. You also need to explain how all of this has fooled the scientific and engineering communities worldwide for lo these many years.
But you have done none of that, and don't seem to understand the scale or type of information that is available, let alone the information itself. That leaves you with your original appeal to ignorance. OK, fine,
you don't know, but that's
your choice; there's a cornucopia of really good material to review and people willing to help you, should you decided to learn something.
But then I stumbled upon the spacesuit ice sublimators... the clever and exotic technique of using nickel porous plate ice sublimators...
It
is clever. It
was exotic half a century ago when it was first developed. It's merely standard practice now.
Naturally, I wanted to learn more. What does a spacesuit sublimator look like? Specifications? Procedures? Video of one being tested? Photographs? Technical discussions in heat transfer or thermodynamics books? I searched. Strangely and absurdly, I found almost nothing. I received almost nothing.
That's funny. I was able to find all that stuff, except video (which I didn't bother looking for, but other people have dug up), with very little effort. I didn't even need to go to a technical library or anything.
...Absurdly, there were no photographs.
Wrong.
Absurdly, there was no video of spacesuits with ice sublimators being tested.
Largely irrelevant, but wrong.
Most absurdly, there was no information in any academic-level heat transfer or thermodynamics books.
Wrong.
Absurdly, the alleged manufacturer, Hamilton Sunstrand [sic] of United Technologies would only release very elementary information.
Why is this absurd? Should they provide detailed information on their designs to every random layman who attempts to pester them over a general email or phone? What if the design information is proprietary, or export controlled - which are both very common in the industry? Are you a credible potential customer, or just another random crank accosting a high-technology organization?
Absurdly, NASA's Johnson Space Center refused to provide video or photos and stonewalled me instead.
Why is this absurd? You can look up such items yourself online, or you could actually go to a technical library. What
exactly do you mean by "stonewalled"? Who exactly did you talk to? What was their job? Is doing your homework for you in-scope for them, or did you provide a charge number?
Absurdly, the Rice University Department of Mechanical Engineering, most closely associated with Houston's Johnson Space Center refused to comment.
I went to Rice. Why do you think the ME department
currently has any significant involvement with PLSS subsystems? Amusingly enough, Rice
did work on sublimator research back during Apollo, and I found a nice long report from the '60s with diagrams and pictures and thermodynamics and everything with a very simple NTRS search. You said there was no such thing; why did you say that?
And when you say "refused to comment", what
exactly do you mean? You are not the first hoax believer who says, "I talked to [name of large institution] and they wouldn't answer me!" Given that you are patently unfamiliar with the topic, I do not accept your characterizations ("absurd", "stonewalled", "refused to talk") without explicit justification. Loaded language may impress other ignorant laymen sympathetic to conspiracy "theories", but here it is readily seen as a flimsy and transparent bid to bypass critical examination of your claims.
Absurdly, my Congressional representatives in two states, California's and Washington's Feinstein, Boxer, Cantwell, Murray, Capps and Hastings, stonewalled me also when I requested their assistance acquiring accountability from NASA.
1. This may be the funniest entry of all. You tried to ask
Congressmen (well, some first-line staffers) about an obscure technical topic? How many of them do you think could even
define sublimation?
2. You might be a resident of one state or another for voting purposes, but not both. Therefore, they are
not all "your representatives". One would think, since you have implied by your list that you are some sort of diligent researcher, that you would have established this by now.
But voila! The good news was that I had stumbled upon the way to PROVE whether the NASA space program was a hoax. The lack of information and evasion regarding spacesuits with sublimators represents a huge anomaly upon which attention should be focused.
There is no lack of information regarding sublimators used in space. You simply were incapable of finding it or understanding it. Other people have found it easily. Nor is the amount of information available over the Internet out of line with what one expects to find on such topics, at least to someone who understands the subject. Therefore, your assertion of an "anomaly" fails due to subversion of support.
NASA must publicly demonstrate, before independent witnesses,...
You are just the latest in a long line of conspiracists who wave around some MacGuffin they think they've uncovered and demand that NASA "prove" this or that. Invariably - and this includes you - such persons do not understand the systems, are unfamiliar with the record, and can provide no technical justification or cost-benefit analysis to back up their demands.
Moreover, you cannot account for the routine use of such systems over the past half-century, other than to wave your arms about how somehow - you can't explain how - it's all a big fake, and nobody really knows anything. Nope. Sorry. I've worked with astronauts who have done EVAs, including working on the Hubble telescope you also suggested was faked. You simply don't know what you're talking about, and you don't get taxpayer funds to satisfy your ignorance.
retired Army General Antonio Taguba, retired Navy Admiral William Fallon and me.
1. Have either General Taguba or Admiral Fallon agreed to this exercise? Are they, in fact, even aware of your existence? (Restraining orders don't count.)
2. Do either of them have them have any experience in thermodynamics, PLSS technology, or vacuum systems? (Clearly, you don't.) If not, why would they be of any use in such a test?
3. You are manifestly
not independent, therefore you are excused from the test. Thank you for your interest.
Please demand NASA accountability...
That's part of my job as a NASA contractor, just as it is NASA's, and my company's, job to demand accountability from me. Please do not presume to lecture us about "accountability", when you have no idea at all what you're talking about.
That last part, though, is your choice. Would you rather believe in a hoax at all costs, or would you like to actually learn something? If the latter, you have a pretty good free resource in the regulars on this board. It's up to you.
