Evan Burton

Now the only thing missing are all of those photograhs of stars that this camera allegedly took .... If you happen to find any , could you please post them here ? ... Thanks . ... * ( except for that one very questionable example you already managed to find , that is )

You are mis-stating the situation. No missing photographs. They may not be online, but they are available:

Ultraviolet Imagery and Spectra

NSSDC ID: ASUV-00048

Other ID: 72-031C-10A

Availability: At NSSDC, Ready for Offline Distribution (or Staging if Digital)

Time Span: 1974-09-06 to 1975-12-09 (as determined by NSSDC)

Description:

This data set consists of 70-mm film containing a second-generation negative copy of the 35-mm film returned from the Descartes landing site, Apollo 16 mission, experiment S201. Included are pre-flight calibration exposures (mission frame number 1-18), a black frame (mission frame number 19), and the 190 exposures taken from the lunar surface (mission frame numbers 20 - 209). The mission frame number for each picture is on the film, but no other information is given. The lunar surface exposures are distributed over ten specific target pointings. There are both imagery and spectral frames. Imagery was done with a lithium flouride or a calicium flouride corrector plate, while the spectra were taken using either the lithium flouride corrector plate or no corrector plate. (Note: the complete data on each of the mission frames is contained in the separate NSSDC data set 72-031C-10C. This data set will be sent automatically to those requesting this data set).

Archive Location

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (National Space Science Data Center)

Media Information

209 70-mm Black & White Negative, Feet

************************

Digitized Scans of the Far-Ultraviolet Camera/Spectroscope Frames

NSSDC ID: ASUV-00017

Other ID: 72-031C-10B

Availability: At NSSDC, Ready for Offline Distribution (or Staging if Digital)

Time Span: 1972-04-21 to 1972-04-23 (as determined by NSSDC)

Description

This data set consists of magnetic tapes containing the digitized results of microdensitometering the 209 mission frames from the Apollo 16 far-UV camera experiment of Carruthers and Page. These scans were all performed on the dicomed model 57 microdensitometer using a spot size of 38 microns and a scan interval of 32 microns. The tapes contain a total of 476 scans. There are 288 scans of the 190 mission picture frames, 58 scans of the 19 mission calibration-frames, and 130 scans of the special frames used for calibration control during the scanning process. All tapes in this date set were written in binary and were packed at 8 bit/byte. Each tape is multifiled and has no information other than the direct scanning data. The data on the tapes are blocked out in the following manner. First, the scan of one complete frame is contained in one file. Second, each record within a file represents one scan line of data recorded left to right. (The full scan of one mission frame is equivalent to 1024 records). Third, each byte (b bits) within a record represents the light transmittance value recorded by the scanner for one increment of the scan interval. The 8-bit a/d digitization allows for a possible range from 0 to 255 in the recorded transmittance values along the scan line. The maximum number of elements (bytes) per scan line for a mission frame is 1024. (Note - to locate the scan of particular frames on these tapes and to know how that scan was performed requires used of the NSSDC data set 72-031C-10C. Data set 72-031C-10C will be sent automatically to those requesting data set 72-031C-10B.)

Further questions can be directed to:

NSSDC Coordinated Request and Support Office, Code 633

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771

+1-301-286-6695 (Voice)

+1-301-286-1635 (fax)

request@mail630.gsfc.nasa.gov

I considered basic* to be "cruel and unusual punishment". Gawd-knows how many laps of the quarterdeck with an SLR at the high port arms. bah!

* Actually called Basic Aircrew Training Course (BATC or "Bat Corps"), as distinct from Army 'basic'... but you get my drift.

Comedy gold! or as we say in Australia...

"Straight to the pool room!"

I still favor people just not doing their jobs. They are still people and people have an amazing ability to screw things up.

On another note we have this:

Navy: 6 Punished for Skipped Checks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sailors on the submarine USS Hampton failed to do daily safety checks on the ship's nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission, a Navy investigation shows.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Navy...amp;oref=slogin

Why on Earth do people do stuff like this? Sure, laziness in small matters with no serious repercussions is almost to be expected, but this is a nuclear reactor! We have the same problems in aviation. You highlight again and again that you are involved in aviation safety, that a failure to carry out procedures can lead to loss of life... and people still take shortcuts. We lose an aircraft and nine lives because of this... and yet people still fail to carry out the correct procedure, even after seeing what the result could be!

Simply incredible.

Got a reply:

Evan: Nice to hear from you again! I've been asking the same questions for a couple weeks now and I'm getting a few answers:

First of all, no one I've spoken with is ruling out the possibility of an "intentional" mistake. If Iran or anyone else needed to be reminded that the U.S. still had nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, this "incident" should have been a wake-up call. Although careers are going to end for real, I do not dismiss the conspiracy theories. We had plenty of weird and risky missions "on the shelf" that made this look ordinary in comparison.

I haven't ruled out a security or procedures test either: loading real warheads to see who, when, and where they'd catch the mistake. No one I've spoken to could confirm or deny that there was an actual complete operational physics package on the missiles or just a few components.

It would be hard to believe that an actual warhead was completely assembled without an A- or L-hour declared. Stranger things have happened I suppose, but "two-man" and "two-officer" procedures are so rigid that it's hard to believe that live nuclear warheads could be assembled for a test. In captive-carry test launches they would put several actual warhead components on board the missile, but not the physics package.

In a ferry mission, the weapons themselves would have been bolted to the external beams, so there was no danger of anything being launched.

The weapons and arming panel indicators show the position (place on the external beams), connectivity (data and power exchange), and condition (armed, prearmed, or safe). With the stores control panel on and the arming panel and safe/prearm panel off, the stores indicator would have shown position only. With the arming panel on, the crew would see connectivity and condition.

In a simple ferry mission it's not necessary for the aircrew to mess with the arming panel, so they would not have known from the cockpit that the weapons were live.

I did not hear that the crews did not visually inspect the weapons themselves (actually, I never asked--I assumed they did with the wing weapons officer in tow). They should have inspected the weapons on the external beams to be sure they were bolted down so they couldn't come off the plane, grabbed them and given them a shake to be sure, and I certainly would have looked at the weapon markings to be sure they had inert warheads.

I have done many captive carry test launches with cruise missiles (not the AGM-129 tho) and I've visually checked, double-checked, and triple-checked that there wasn't a live warhead on board.

I've never done a ferry mission, though, so I'm not exactly sure what the procedures are. They might do a combined captive-carry test launch with a ferry mission, so there might have been weapon components installed.

There is no conventional AGM-129 (yet), although both bases have both the -129 and -86.

It'll be interesting to hear what happens, but I think the media exaggerated this mishap and although someone probably screwed up it wasn't the BFRC (Big Fxxxxxx Red Cloud) emergency they portrayed.

Now, I trust this guy's judgment, and he says it might have been intentional.... but it might have also been a test. Wonder if we'll ever find out?

I looked up some information about the W-80 warhead (the type fitted to the AGM-129) and it has a Category D Permissive Action Link (PAL). This is the system that prevents a nuke being armed without the correct codes. It was mentioned that this PAL system probably was also used to select the yield of the device.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/W80.html

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Pal.html

This seems to give a little more data on the communications between the weapon and the aircraft:

A MIT [Missile Interface Test] is a communication test between the aircraft and the missile and is normally performed after package upload onto the aircraft. The aircraft offensive avionics system (OAS) sends a command word to the missile and tells it to perform an internal built-in test (BIT) test on any components it has and report the results back to the aircraft. SITs [system Interface Test] are more involved and must be performed (per technical order) if a single missile swap occurs on the flight line. In addition to all the tests the MIT performs, a SIT commands the missile inertial navigation element (INE) to go into a Fine Align/Coarse Align. This test ensures that the inertial platform is able to align to an earth reference and can take 1-second updates from the aircraft.

A Loaded Launcher Test / Loaded Pylon Test (LLT/LPT) Type A is run after building the package and to certify operational capability of the package. It is primarily a communication test and verifies that the aircraft will be able to communicate through the pylon/launcher and down to the missile. A LLT/LPT Type B is a retest of previous SIT or MIT failure. The test is identical to a LLT/LPT Type A and serves a similar purpose as a Level 1 except at the package level (as opposed to the individual missile level).

Cruise Missile Functional Ground Testing (FGT) is required to provide the capability to non-destructively accomplish functional flight simulation of a full-up missile flight profile on the ground to obtain additional reliability data. This capability will provide critical reliability data without the cost of flight test mission and will also retain the missiles in the inventory. This effort will develop the software and hardware for an existing test facility for accomplishment of the ground tests.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/acm.htm

This tells us that they can check the missile systems - as would be expected - put it doesn't make clear if a warhead status is also displayed.

Charles,

My guess is it would be somewhat similar to arming panels for other weapons. You'd select a particular station, and in the case of a nuke you'd be able to select a warhead yield... but it would not give you a specific indication that it is carrying a live warhead.

I'd be interested to see if any of the documentation for Apollo, starting from right back when it was the Space Task Group under Eisenhower, ever set a goal of taking photographs of the stars from the lunar surface.

I'd bet money it has never been a goal. Why? Because you are there to study the Moon, not the stars. You are there to gather data that you cannot obtain from elsewhere.

Photographs of stars? That was a primary purpose of Skylab, with the Apollo Telescope Mount amongst other observing equipment.

Questions I have that might also address the above - If they were carrying inert missiles, would the crews even have bothered to connect the missile’s avionics cables to the pylon? The pylon’s avionics cables to the plane?

The answer would be yes to both your questions, IMO. That normally happens with external stores that I am aware of... but I have no experience with the B-52. I have been able to contact an experienced B-52 crewmember and have asked some questions regarding visual indications in the cockpit.

I hope to get a reply within a few days.

I contacted William Keel and asked him about the images. He responded (with permission granted for publishing the response):

Back on the subject of TD-1 - that spacecraft did not carry a camera, but a scanning arrangement of photomultiplier tubes which could either sample the sky directly or at the output of a spectrograph. The direct sampling saw starlight through a slit 1.7 by 17.3 arcminutes in size, while the spectrograph analyzed a region 17.3 by 11.9 arcminutes. One can certainly synthesize images from scanned data, but one would need additional processing or information to avoid position errors along the length of the slit (which should be manifest in images at the S201 resolution).

There is also the issue (which I haven't yet followed up) of just when the TD-1 scan pattern would have carried its field of view across all the regions observed by Apollo 16, noting that the S201 images were published within a few months of the mission (Septembr 1972, IIRC, when the Science article appeared).

I think the Loose Change board supports links - being an IPB board - but I don't think it allows uploads.

Actually, there are a number of forums which all participants could join to conduct the debate.

How about the Loose Change board? That is pro-conspiracy. I don't know if Craig would be interested but it is a suggestion.

Evan ... I've asked Mike about joining the Education Forum to debate Lamson but he said he has been reading the posts here and doesn't much like the way the conspiracy researchers are treated .

He doesn't care much for BAUT or clavius / Apollo Hoax for the same reason as well .... So he has offered to debate craig or you or anyone else who might be interested , on his personal YouTube profile page ... but so far craig hasn't taken him up on his offer , but prefers to stay here where the CT's are very much out numberd and now even controlled with moderation by you , a defender of Apollo.

How about if I abstain from moderation in a specific debate thread between Mr St Mark and Craig? Have one of the other mods oversee it, a mod of your choice? Nobody else allowed to post in the thread but those two (St Mark / Lamson ... and the mod)?

Equal number, fair moderation, no interference. Can't get fairer than that.

Well if you can't find my post then I guess it got deleted ...

I said it may have been deleted; that's just a guess on my part.

But why would it have been deleted if it didn't contain anything in it that couldn't have been posted , even under moderation ? ... That just doesn't make any sense ... Should I ask Mr. Walker to check the security logs to see who might have deleted that post and why ?

To find out what happened to it, that is what I would do. Send Andy a PM detail the approximate time and date you believe you posted it, and to which board / thread.

I haven't seen three other posts of mine , that I submitted yesterday, make it to the boards either ... Two of them were rebuttals to two of your posts Evan , in the thread about why no astronots saw any stars from the Moon .... Neither one of them contained anything that would have to have been edited , so why do you think they are missing also ? .... Maybe I need to ask Mr. Walker why so many of my posts are being deleted without any reason to do so .

Don't go jumping to conclusions. I found the posts in the "no stars" thread you were talking about, and have released them. That is my fault, by the way. When looking at posts awaiting approval, I only went to the last page.. and there were posts awaiting approval. What I didn't do is check previous pages for posts also awaiting approval. My bad, and apologies for delaying them for so long Duane. If you like, I'll bump the thread, and I am in the process of getting a response for you.

Having served in the U.S. Air Force during the mid to late seventies, I spent four years working on B-52H bombers at Grand Forks AFB, ND. I know from direct experience that their is no way in HELL, that nuclear weapons could ever be accidentally/mistakingly transported without 'hard' orders.

We use to routinely prep B-52H for sorties using conventional and nuclear ordinance. How did we know whether it was conventional or nuclear, because one was loaded with just the regular munitions crews, the other was loaded with an accompanying 'shot to kill' MP escort group. Security was probably greater than what one would expect at Fort Knox's.

This is what I would expect, and I consider the crux of the matter. As I said earlier, I would like to know about the storage procedures. If they THOUGHT they were conventional, then no-one would expect any increased security.

To the best of my knowledge the AGM-129 only carries a nuclear warhead when it is a 'warshot'; at all other times it would purely be a training (dummy) load. Expecting to have a training load fitted for a routine proficiency sortie, no-one would have given it a second thought... except that it appears that checking the warhead status (live / inert) was supposed to be part of the loading / preflight checks and was never carried out.

If more people with direct experience can confirm that special weapons were not to be stored with conventional weapons, then we can ask more questions.

Instead of doing this by proxy, why don't you ask Mr St Mark to join here and present his own views directly?

I certainly haven't seen it, Duane. If there was something wrong with it, it possible (not confirmed, just possible) another mod deleted it without mentioning it. When John / Andy review the security logs, they'll be able to tell.

In the meantime, you might like to repeat your assertions regarding it (i.e. what you think is wrong with the image).

Accogli,

I agree. Yes you can paste links to sites outside this forum, and it is the way I would prefer.

Well picked up Craig!

I still find the sequence of events totally believable, because I see similar mistakes every day. I maintain a close liaison with our Flight Safety Cell, and am responsible for alerting my boss to any significant Air Safety Occurrence Reports (ASORs), so this incident is no surprise to me (stand fast its nuclear nature).

The big screwup IMO is the initial storage & handling procedures. As I said earlier, I believe storing of special & conventional weapons together was asking for trouble. The control procedures for special weapons has proven totally ineffective. From that point on, it's an often-seen sequence of events in aviation (failure to properly carry out tasks).

The problem for most people is that we won't really see much of the results. Yes, we see people have been sacked / disciplined. I'd imagine there will be an announcement regarding a review of special weapons accounting / storage / handling procedures (this might even involve a panel external to the USAF / DoD).

Matters regarding nukes, though, will not be publicly released. I doubt we'll know what other flaws in the procedures were found, and we won't know how they were corrected. Matters regarding nukes will always come under the umbrella of National Security, and even the most basic material will be of a classified / codeword nature.

Increased Craig's warning level due to repeated accusation, as warned not to above.

David,

There were two additional copies of this thread, with zero views and zero replies. This thread has the same opening post but views and replies. I deleted the the unviewed ones.

Cheers.

Edited this post by Craig to remove an offensive accusation. Gave warning that any repeat of the behaviour would result in an increase in warning level.

I just sent you a PM asking you to please not alter my posts ... I also asked you since you are on the forum , why you don't allow my other posts to be submitted now on the other Apollo threads ?

It looks like there might be a reason you don't want to submit my other posts .... So why are you issuing me a formal warning when I have done nothing wrong ? ... I know for a fact what image I put in my post ... It was the Alan Shepard photo from the Apollo Image Gallery , not the study I put here yesterday for Jack .

Once more:

1. I have not altered or edited your posts in any way.

2. I am not unduly holding up your posts; in fact I am attending to them as fast as I can. The only posts I am not touching are posts made by Jack. I have stated I will refrain from moderating his posts (that includes approving them) and I am adhering to that undertaking.

3. I brought to your attention the fact that the image did not match the description. That's all. The security logs will show I did NOT alter the post in any way. I'd suggest you made an error in the original post. Easy to do, and we can all make mistakes.

4. You are being formally warned because of your unfounded public accusations - such as another one in the quoted post ("It looks like there might be a reason you don't want to submit my other posts..."). These accusations are a form of abuse or harassment. If you have claims of such a serious nature, bring them to the attention of John or Andy as soon as possible. DO NOT MAKE PUBLIC ACCUSATIONS OF WRONGDOING AGAINST A FORUM MEMBER.

I would ask John or Andy to - once again - publicly confirm that I have not altered Duane's posts / images in any way.

I have been keeping score since Burton got me put on "moderation". Today I complained

to moderator Antti Hynonen that FIVE or more of my postings have disappeared without

any notice or reason. He has not yet replied to my protest. Most of them were very innocuous

and non-controversial and most were on the JFK forum.

John / Andy,

Request you investigate Jack's claim and publicly report your findings. Once more, by the same people, my character is being called into question and I would like full public disclosure of the results.

I believe these claims are vexatious in nature.