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Evan Burton

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Posts posted by Evan Burton

  1. BTW - would the term 'misinformation' be more appropriate for the situations as I make them?

    Yea, that would work.

    And Evan, is it really possible for a modern warship to be sunk by a submarine but nobody know it for two months?

    BK

    Short answer? Yes. It's not a cut and dried situation.

    I've looked at the situation and there is a lot of evidence to support the claim that it was a DPRK submarine, but even so I still have this nagging doubt. The investigative process does take time, recovering all the debris, examining it, reviewing modeling of various scenarios, etc.

  2. Yea Evan, I'll repeat what I said before you accidently errased it.

    I said that as a military man, I thought you would be more precise in your use of language, and not randomly fling disinformation around and call anything you disagree with "disinformation," a term that is classically defined as intentionally deceitful information dissimenated by a secret intelligence agency or network in order to influence public opinion.

    How is the Moon landing intentionally deceiving "disinformation" the source of which is a national intelligence sevice? Or can you attribute it to a foreign intelligence source, which excludes Jack White?

    Maybe it really is Soviet Dizinformation, dreamed up in some Ruskie cellar and suspiciously leaked through underground channels in order to discredit NASA and America? I don't think so.

    John Barron, the American journalist/propagandist who wrote the book on the KGB and propagated the use of the term "Dizinformation," like you, only applied it to the Ruskies, implying that nobody else did it.

    The USA also propagates real disinformation, or as Paul Linebarger called it "black propaganda," and very specifically attributes it not only to an intelligence source, but one who tries to pawn off the info as if it originates from the enemy.

    And I will tell you as a fact, that the USA space program would not have gotten anywhere if it wasn't for the NAZI rocket technology and scientists brought in by the CIA via Project PAPERCLIP, and the union of NASA and the DOD- Dept. of Defense - in the development of ICBM - using the same Saturn booster, precluded Apollo from not becoming a propaganda opportunity, but also required the use of disinformation and doctored photos of the rockets, in order to keep the Soviets guessing. We knew they were looking at our rockets just like we were looking at theirs, through magnifying glasses.

    So don't tell me the USA put out unretouched photos of the Apollo missiles, because I would bet that every one of them was doctored in some way.

    As I wrote:

    In addition I would like to call you attention to the fact that the American moon mission was successful only because it adopted the resources, technology and brain power from the Nazi rocket program, and many of the early photos of the moon mission were doctored in order to keep the Soviets from knowing exactly what the photos portayed. Those doctored photos were genuine DISINFORMATION because they originated from a known intelligence source - NASA, and were meant to deceive the Soviets, though the general public were also hoodwinked.

    That's wrong Bill. The images were always public information and they weren't 'doctored'. Let's see an example of an image which was 'doctored' by NASA to portray a false situation, to deceive the Soviets.

    After all, the launches were always public affairs; the Soviet launches were military secrets.

    The crews were always announced well in advance of the missions; the Soviet crews were often not made public until after a mission had been completed.

    The designers, engineers, contractors, and facilities were always publicly known; the name of the head of the Soviet space programme (Sergi Koryolov) was a state secret until after his death. The location of the Soviet launch facility was always referred to as 'Baikonur Cosmodrome', even though it was located some 300km to the south-west of the town of Baikonur.

    There you go, sounding off just like John Barron, when we all know that the Soviets, who coined the term "Dizinfomation," and even had a "Department of Dizinformation," - we all know what they did, but like John Barron, you refuse to even recognize that WE TOO DID IT. And continue to do it today.

    In fact, the disinformation campaign that was started to implicate Castro in the assassination of JFK continues today - see Gus Russo and company.

    But the faked Moon Landings is not disinformation, as you imply in the title of your thread.

    And despite Professor Fetzer's attempt to change the classic definition of disinformation so it can be attributed to anyone he disagrees with, and the apparent adoption of this definition by others, including Jim DiEugenino, who calls McAdams a disinfo agent and now calls Reitze "Disinformation Dave," I think it is important that disinformation be a term applied to real disinformation agents who clearly are sprouting intentionally deceiving black propagada, the source of which is an intelligence service or network.

    Because, if we are going to apply it to McAdams, Reitze, Jack White and the fake Moon Landers, then what are we going to call those who really are disinformation agents?

    Bill Kelly

    Oh, yea,

    The other question I had for you is how could a modern warship be sunk by a submarine and the cause of its sinking not discovered - or disclosed for two months? And then only disclosed on the eve of an election? And then found out not to be true at all? And allow this type of incident develop into a lead up a nuclear confrontation, as we are now at DEFCON 3 in Korea?

    Now there's some real DIZINFORMATION at work.

    And I'm glad you aren't the naval officer sitting at the nuke missile swtich, or you could have wipped us all out by sneezing.

    BK

    Thanks for doing that Bill - I apologise again for my stupid mistake. lesson for everyone: when you can't sleep and get up in the middle of the night to read the internet, do NOT attempt write things.

    I'll address the NK situation in my next posts, but it should be in the thread associated with that subject.

  3. NASA erased moon footage

    http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_science/25244.html

    Okay, now let's get the story straight and everyone can decide for themselves.

    When the Apollo 11 landing was planned, believe it or not, TV was not a priority. In some ways it is understandable: NASA was concerned with landing men on the Moon and returning them SAFELY to the Earth. Still, there were many voices that pointed out that this was a historical and it would almost be criminal not to have the people of the US - who were paying for the journey - not to be able to see it. So a TV camera was included for the lunar landing. There was a small problem, though. The majority of the bandwidth from the spacecraft was needed for communications, data monitoring, biomedical data, etc. There wasn't a lot left for TV.

    Even so, a TV camera was designed and the bandwidth allocated. It would be what was known as a Slow Scan TV (SSTV), giving a resolution of 320 lines at 10 frames per second. This is what was sent to Earth from the Apollo 11 moonwalk. That transmission, however, could not be sent directly to the TV networks. Those systems operated 525 lines at 30 frames per second. During the conversion to the 525 line format, there was some loss of quality.. but no-one really cared. This was a live broadcast of a man walking on the Moon. The transmission was sent via Honeysuckle Creek (HSK) in Australia until Goldstone (in the US) was in the transmission footprint.

    All of the footage - let me stress that - ALL of the footage went out to the networks and it ALL is available today.

    The SSTV tape was kept as a backup. It was recorded onto the same type of tape as other telemetry. It was shipped back to NASA and stored along with all the other telemetry data such as heart rates, temperatures of the engines, etc.

    In 2005, some 8mm footage of the scenes from HSK made their way into the wider public eye. They showed the clearer quality of the SSTV footage and some of the ex-NASA people asked: "Hey - what happened to the SSTV footage?" An investigation was launched and they discovered that the one or two tapes were amongst 700-odd tapes that could not be found. The majority of the tapes contained mundane telemetry which had been recorded and stored elsewhere. It was highly likely that the tapes had been erased and re-used for later Apollo missions, as well as Skylab, ASTP and unmanned exploration missions, which used the same type of tape for recording data.

    The search continued for a couple of years, but eventually it was determine that the tapes had been erased. So NASA decided to instead hire industry professionals, and using the bestavailable technology, enhance the quality of the tapes.

    Links:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes

    http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/index.html

    http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/index.html

    http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/tapes/index.html

    http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11.html

  4. Okay next:

    How Stanley Kubrick Faked the Moon Landing

    http://www.assassina...nLandings-1.pdf

    First, a link to the author's website so that you know something about the person:

    http://www.jayweidner.com/

    Now, let's examine the article itself.

    What's the first piece of evidence? Why... motivation. And what is the first proof of motivation?

    NAZI FLYING SAUCERS!

    Don't believe me? Read the article.

    It goes on: "Soon after seeing the flying saucer technology, JFK made his famous speech asking NASA to land a man on the moon before the decade was out. Many insiders believed that this was a ploy by JFK to get NASA, and the secret government, to release their saucer technologies."

    Does anyone really take this tripe seriously? it seems Prof Fetzer does.

  5. 1. The 130,000 Mile Deception.

    For this one, I thought it best to quote the claim verbatim:

    Apollo 11. July 18th, 1969. Neil Armstrong, having heard CapCom report Columbia's distance from the Earth at 130,000 miles out - begins the unofficial television transmission [to be edited and partially played later] by echoing the same distance of 130,000 miles. In view, out the Commander's window is a small ball of blue, with a terminator line and weather patterns matching Earth's current conditions.

    We are meant to believe that the blue ball is Earth. It is not. This evidence is our top reason. There can be no doubt. The Apollo 11 Westinghouse camera was not zooming through deep space to see a distant Earth and zooming back out again through deep space. When truly understood, when one understands that the Earth could not have remained in view through the small window across the room, or suddenly appeared as large as when they zoomed into it - this proves the hoax. This is the 'smoking gun' of Apollo, and the top reason to not believe the official story. Raw footage of this is available on the DVD Apollo 11 Monkey Business with detailed explanations in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon, and confrontations about it with 9 of the Apollo astronauts in Astronauts Gone Wild.

    Few people have taken the time to analyze this footage, but if they truly approach this footage for what it is and not what they hope it will be - they will come to the same conclusion. It is staged, and the Earth is fake.

    Bart Sibrel got it wrong in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon. He should have deeply consulted with other Hoax Researchers, but he did not. Sibrel thought it was an "in-orbit' shot of Earth through a circular window. Neither is correct. The commander's window is not circular, and there's no way this was the real Earth at all.

    Behind Michael Collins, hanging on Window Number 1 [the commander's CM window] was a transparency - used when they brought down the lights and adjusted the camera exposure. The transparency was a picture of the planet Earth. This was first tested by another Apollo crew on their "flight", which can be examined in detail, through the research & videography of Jarrah White (linked above).

    There is no room for "theory" here, in terms of whether or not Apollo safely sent men to the moon and back. The hoax is no longer simply speculation. It's an historical fact.

    Now the first thing you might notice is that it refers to Sibrel and how "... he got it wrong...". Huh? I thought this WAS Sibrel.

    Just who is running that site anyway? Have HBs hijacked the website? Did someone "buy out" Bart?

    Anyway, it's still wrong. I don't normally like to refer to YouTube, but this shows you the claims and why it is wrong:

    Lunar Legacy Pt 4

    Also worth watching:

    Lunar Legacy Pt 1

    Lunar Legacy Pt 2

    Lunar Legacy Pt 3

    Lunar Legacy Pt 5

    So, looking at the "Top 10 Reasons", what evidence do we have?

    NOTHING.

    EDITED TO ADD: Dave Greer has pointed out that it appears Bart Sibrel seems not to have anything to do with the website anymore. This seems to be confirmed by what I said above. So who is running the site now? Why don't they identify themselves?

  6. 2. The Precedent of Secret US Government Operations.

    Another good one. No actual evidence, just a lot of insinuation. Let me sum it up for you: Gub'mit bad - you know they are up to no good!

    Yep - that's it. Hell, Sibrel even says it's not evidence:

    "...And although this reason in and of itself is not enough to prove the Manned Moon Landing to be a hoax...."

    This is No2 on the evidence list?

    celebrity-pictures-homer-simpson-facepalm-copy.jpg

  7. Apologies for the delay, John.

    The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is designed to look at things far away, not close, so if it were to photograph the lunar surface it would have a resolution of about 60m. Since the biggest Apollo artifacts are the LM descent stages, and they are a little over 4m in width, there is no way you could distinguish any of the hardware left at the landing sites.

    For the mathematics behind the resolution, see here.

    As you know, after the HST was launched they found out that the main mirror, used for observations, had a flaw in it. The edges were made too "flat", meaning that light reflecting off the edges of the mirror focused in a different point than that of the light coming from the centre of the mirror. This didn't affect all the modes (e.g. UV, etc) but it meant that the pictures were not as sharp as they should be. Knowing the error they could remove some of the problem with advanced digital image correction techniques, but even then the images were less than optimum.

    Although there was a replacement mirror available, it was totally impractical to replace the mirror in orbit and far too expensive to return the HST to Earth for repair... but the fact they knew exactly what was wrong allowed for a solution. Because the exact magnitude of the error was known, they could make instruments that would allow for the error, in effect 'correcting' the HST's poor vision. That took place over a number of Space Shuttle mission with the end result that the HST got it's perfect eyesight back.

    Does that answer your question?

  8. Bill,

    My apologies but I accidentally edited your post when I meant to quote and reply to it.

    Could you please repeat what you said so that readers can understand what your point was?

    Again, my apologies. I don't know if there is an 'unedit' function but if so, I'll restore your post.

  9. In addition I would like to call you attention to the fact that the American moon mission was successful only because it adopted the resources, technology and brain power from the Nazi rocket program, and many of the early photos of the moon mission were doctored in order to keep the Soviets from knowing exactly what the photos portayed. Those doctored photos were genuine DISINFORMATION because they originated from a known intelligence source - NASA, and were meant to deceive the Soviets, though the general public were also hoodwinked.

    That's wrong Bill. The images were always public information and they weren't 'doctored'. Let's see an example of an image which was 'doctored' by NASA to portray a false situation, to deceive the Soviets.

    After all, the launches were always public affairs; the Soviet launches were military secrets.

    The crews were always announced well in advance of the missions; the Soviet crews were often not made public until after a mission had been completed.

    The designers, engineers, contractors, and facilities were always publicly known; the name of the head of the Soviet space programme (Sergi Koryolov) was a state secret until after his death. The location of the Soviet launch facility was always referred to as 'Baikonur Cosmodrome', even though it was located some 300km to the south-west of the town of Baikonur.

  10. Bill,

    I started using it because it was a term I was often labeled with. I'm happy to just call them errors, blunders, erroneous conclusions and sometimes just plain deception.

    One error with your definition though: I am not acting on behalf of any military, governmental or even civil organisation. I speak as a private citizen who has a passion in this area. If I have to wear a badge in this regard, I wear this one proudly:

    apollogist_small.jpg

  11. Next we have the claim that:

    Also, under the Apollo 11 LEM, pebbles are still in place and there is no indication of landing by anything other than a cable lowered down on a pristine surface of grayish sand and powder. There are no streaks of dust spreading out from the descent engine.

    So, is this true? Well, first off you have to understand that during the final phases of the landing, the throttle was at about 10% of it's maximum setting. This meant that there wouldn't be a big blast crater. So, is what Sibrel says correct? Nope - more lies from Sibrel.

    No small pebbles under the LM

    Here you can see the blast effect from the descent engine.

  12. 3. The Lunar Surface Photographic and Video Record.

    I like this one. Sibrel just mentions the same claims he had previously, teases with a couple of vague things but gives you the impression (from the title and "countless other images") there is a wealth of evidence.... but doesn't tell you what it is (you have the buy the DVD to know the truth...). let's examine what he does tell you.

    - The C rock. This refers to an image in which a rock on the lunar surface appears to have the letter 'C' on it. The claim is that this is a commonly used method to mark a particular prop, and there will be a corresponding mark on the 'sound stage' where this particular prop is to be placed. This shows that the whole thing was a stage and the images are faked.

    c.jpg

    Now first off, I have no experience in movie making nor the theatre. People who do know, however, tell me this is not a widely used method... at least not just a single letter. This makes sense when you look at the full image, and see all the clutter which would of had to have been 'placed' there. I would question why a prop master would decide that a "prop rock" had to have been placed ... just there.

    Anyway, in 2001 some researchers decided to look at this evidence. The 'C' was certainly there on a number of images, including NASA's own website. So they decided to order transparencies from three different sources: the National Space Sciences Data Center, the Lunar & Planetary Institute (LPI), and the Johnson Space Center. All three transparencies did NOT show any such marking. Well, okay, but they are NASA sources and they are covering up their mistake, right? The researchers decided to take a closer look at image and the 'C'. The particular rock was visible in two consecutive images: AS16-107-17445 and AS16-107-17446. The 'C' was not visible in either transparency, but it 'C' appeared on printed and electronic versions of 17446. They decided to examine the 'C' in the electronic versions of 17446 and this is what they found:

    hairc.jpg

    It's a hair! The 'C' is just a piece of hair or fibre that got scanned with that image and was subsequently sent out to numerous sources.

    Now some may object, saying such a foreign object would have produced a white mark on photographic paper or film, not a black mark. The answer to this is that the Apollo images were colour transparencies from positive film (like slide film) rather than negative film. This is why such an object would appear dark.

    http://www.clavius.org/rover1.html

    http://skepticwiki.o...ported_Mistakes

    EDITED TO ADD:

    Dave Greer pointed out that Aviation Week and Space Technology had the very image as their cover photo for their 8 May 72 edition, less than two weeks after the astronauts returned. Notice that it does not show the 'C' on the rock... further proof that it was a hair and not on the original transparency.

    post-2326-062482900 1280214661_thumb.jpg

    (Thanks Dave!)

    (continued next post)

  13. Jim,

    It started way before the Fox special but that just gave the nonsense a popular lift. It did raise quite a ruckus though, with Neil Armstrong and other astronauts writing in to complain, and even prompting a angry letter from Professor James Van Allen, after whom the Van Allen Belts are named. I could review it but it has already been done by people far more qualified than I.

    BTW, you should look at the photographic claims that Jack White makes, then have a look at my rebuttals on this Forum (rebuttals to later claims can be found here). The rebuttals are done in the same sequence that the claims were originally posted, so I'd recommend that you look at a claim, then look at the rebuttal for that claim. Go through them and make up your own mind. If you have any comments or questions, I'd be glad to hear them.

    Edited to add: I'd also be a little offended at Jack White saying you are '...out of your element...' when Jack himself has demonstrated time and time again poor understanding of the subject matter and has continually made significant blunders regarding hardware, procedures, people, etc.

    If ever there was a case of the kettle calling the pot black, then this is it.

  14. Didn't people actually see them through telescopes?

    I thought I read that someplace.

    The landing sites? No, for the same reason Hubble can't be used - insufficient resolution. The recent images taken by LRO and others should dismiss any notions of a hoax.

    You might be referring to people seeing the actual spacecraft on it's way to the Moon and back, and you'd be correct. Both large observatories and amateur astronomers with reasonably powerful telescopes were able to visually track and even photograph the spacecraft. The best opportunities were when the spacecraft was doing a waste or water dump.

    Third party evidence of Apollo

  15. 6. Moon Rocks

    See my previous post.

    5. The Limitations of 1960's Computer Technology, small meteors, and the Van Allen Belts.

    Again Sibrel talks about things he has no knowledge in and hasn't bothered to properly research. Yes, the Apollo computers were primitive as compared to today... but they could do the job. Let's think about some comparisons: those of you who were around when the first personal computers came out - remember how primitive they were? My first PC was a Tandy MC-10, which had a whole 4Kb of memory and an external cassette tape drive for data storage... but it had 16 colours and ran various games, applications, etc. Mind you, you often had to write the programmes yourself. Remember Windows 3.1? Remember when you had a top of the line computer with a 386 CPU running at 33 Mhz with 16 Mb of RAM and a massive 100 Mb hard disk drive? We used to use them in Defence, running a signal message system, tracking of fleet units as well as a full suite of office functions... but some kids of today would not believe you could operate with such primitive equipment.

    Let's go back to before the digital electronic computer: at the latter part of World War II, a computer that used wheels, valves and magnets help the code breakers at Bletchley Park break Nazi high grade codes which were supposedly unbreakable.

    ColossusMkII.jpg

    Does Sibrel claim these activities were faked?

    Anyway, a majority of the calculation for the spaceflight was done prior to launch, or done by Mission Control (using the Real Time Computer Complex, the RTCC) and relayed to the spacecraft. The onboard computer (Apollo Guidance Computer - AGC) had relatively simple tasks: know what the spacecraft inertial attitude was, operate RCS thrusters and SPS engine. For navigation, the astronauts would "sight" three known stars and the AGC would then know where it was in space (that's astronavigation, a technique that has been in use by mariners for hundreds of years, using nothing but a sextant, a timepiece and a set of printed tables. I myself have been trained in and have used astronavigation many times). Once you knew where you were, you could calculate in what direction and with what thrust you need to apply in order to get back on track. This was normally done on the ground, as they were tracking the spacecraft using radio waves.

    For example, here is where Apollo 15 was given updated information as they coasted out towards the Moon (courtesy of the Apollo Flight Journal)

    010:40:50 Henize: And, I'm - I've got a P37 for you - plus 25 hours, if you're ready.

    010:40:59 Irwin: Stand by one. [Long pause.]

    010:41:29 Irwin: [Garble] I'm ready for the P37 for 25 hours.

    010:41:33 Henize: Roger. 025:00, 4621, minus 175, 075:21; 035:00, 6821, minus 174, 074:51; 045:00, 5605, minus 175, 099:06; 060:00, 5448, minus 175, 123:06 and that's the end.

    [Now that the spacecraft has settled into its Moon-bound trajectory, RETRO and the RTCC can calculate abort PADs for the Return-To-Earth program, P37, for the rest of the translunar coast. These four PADs update the crew's emergency return contingencies for the planned times of 25, 35, 45 and 60 hours GET. An interpretation of the PADs follows:
    Lift-off plus 25 hours

    • Time of ignition:
      25 hours GET
    • Change in velocity:
      4,621 fps (1,408 m/s)
    • Longitude of Earth landing point:
      175° West
    • Time of entry into Earth atmosphere:
      Defined as 400,000 feet (122 km) altitude; 75 hours, 21 minutes GET.

    Lift-off plus 35 hours
    • Time of ignition:
      35 hours GET
    • Change in velocity:
      6,821 fps (2,079 m/s)
    • Longitude of Earth landing point:
      174° West
    • Time of entry into Earth atmosphere:
      74 hours, 51 minutes GET.

    Lift-off plus 45 hours
    • Time of ignition:
      45 hours GET
    • Change in velocity:
      5,605 fps (1,708 m/s)
    • Longitude of Earth landing point:
      175° West
    • Time of entry into Earth atmosphere:
      99 hours, 06 minutes GET.

    Lift-off plus 60 hours
    • Time of ignition:
      60 hours GET
    • Change in velocity:
      5,448 fps (1,501 m/s)
    • Longitude of Earth landing point:
      175° West
    • Time of entry into Earth atmosphere:
      123 hours, 06 minutes GET.]

    010:42:13 Worden: Readback. 025:00, 4621, minus 175, 075:21; 035:00, 6821, minus 174, 074:51; 045:00, 5605, minus 175, 099:06; 060:00, 5448, minus 175, 123:06. 010:43:15 Henize: That's all correct. The next one I have is a P27 update.

    010:43:22 Worden: Stand by. [Long pause.]

    010:43:35 Irwin: Okay; I'm ready on the P27.

    010:43:37 Henize: Roger. It's - the purpose, V71; GET 11:45:00; INDEX 21, 01501, 00001, 71465, 41437, 76654, 45425, 77003, 52553, 72602, 54007, 75455, 55217, 76267, 55324, 00402, 05560, and that's all.

    010:45:02 Irwin: Okay. On the P27s; 71, 11:45:00; 21, 01501, 00001, 71465, 41437, 76654, 45425, 77003, 52553, 72602, 54007, 75455, 55217, 76267, 55324, 00402, and 05560.

    010:45:55 Henize: That's all correct. Thank you, Jim.

    [Very long comm break.]
    [updating the computer's memory is performed in two different ways. The first, and the most common is to enter POO (program 00, which puts the computer into an idle state) and place the Uplink Telemetry switch to Accept. At the start of the update, the computer switches to Program 27 to perform the update. The other, and less common method (and it's not clear why it is being done here) is to enter Program 27 directly, then enter the data manually using Verb 71. Afterwards, the data is recalled onto the DSKY, one item at a time, to verify it.]

    [
    ]

    Now, do computing experts or software programmers have a problem? Nope.

    The real-time operating system in the Apollo 11 spacecraft could multi-task 8 jobs at a time, no small feat for the time it was developed, and something we take entirely for granted today. Multi-tasking however, wasn't quite as we now think of it. Today's operating systems use mostly preemptive-multitasking, where the operating system itself is in control of the execution and can stop any program at any time and hand off some computing power to another. The Apollo Guidance Computer relied on non-preemptive multi-tasking, whereby programs had to relinquish control back to the OS periodically.

    The Apollo system also implemented a sophisticated virtual machine which offered more complex instructions, and could be used to perform more advanced mathematics. For it's time, this was way-out stuff in 2k of memory and 32k of storage. The real-time OS managed transition between native instructions and the instruction set of the virtual machine, which let developers mix and match the hardware level instructions with the virtual instructions within the same assembler code. The complexity of those operations is simply mind boggling for someone who grew up writing in any high-level language such as BASIC, Pascal or even C.

    Keep in mind that the Apollo 11 was actually the advanced "Block II" version of the AGC, and that earlier missions had relied upon as little as 24k of core read-only storage, and 1k of main memory, and you can begin to imagine the power the developers who wrote the AGC's code must have felt.

    http://www.downloads...lo-11-computer/

    See also:

    http://www.drdobbs.c...HOSKH4ATMY32JVN

    http://en.wikipedia....idance_Computer

    Something else to consider: Fly-By-Wire systems. This is where direct linkages from aircraft controls to the control surfaces are removed, and instead a computer takes in what control inputs the pilot makes with the controls, and then determines what control surfaces need to move in which direction and by how much in order to make the aircraft to what the pilot wanted. The first Fly By Wire (FBW) system was installed into an F-8 Crusader about 1972. Guess what formed the basis of the FBW computer in that first aircraft? Yep - the AGC!

    With respect to travel through the Van Allen belts, see my previous posts.

    Strikes by micro-meteoroids? Good planning. How many satellites have been struck? Very, very few. The majority of damage (and risk) comes whilst in low Earth orbit from space debris.

  16. Evan

    If you are interested in all aspects of the space program then you have to love the movie "The Right Stuff"

    This is by far my favorite scene and is a laugh a second

    Sputnik Crsis

    Hi Dean,

    Actually it's not my favourite. Although it is accurate in some respects (the book is better), I didn't like the way Tom Wolfe portrayed Gus Grissom after the Liberty Bell 7 incident ("squirming hatch blower"). There WERE conditions in which the hatch could 'just blow'. The most telling evidence came later: fellow astronauts manually blew the hatch after landing, in accordance with procedures. Each one of them got a bruise on their hand where they actuated the firing mechanism. Gus didn't have one. The best explanation is that his helmet may have hit the switch.

    The irony of the situation is that it was precisely that incident that led them to design the Apollo CM hatch without explosive bolts - and Gus died during the Apollo 1 fire because they couldn't blow the hatch.

    Yes, that scene is pretty funny. Surprisingly enough, it's close to the truth, too: they did consider a number of those people for astronauts, and it was Eisenhower who demanded that test pilots be used!

  17. 7. The Testimony of Apollo Astronauts under Light Duress.

    Again, some misrepresentation by Sibrel. The answer given by Mike Collins was taken out of context. He was not asked if he could see stars from the surface of the Moon (he wouldn't have; Collins remained in the CM during the landing). The question was if he could see stars during the solar corona, to which Armstrong and Collins said no. Let's see the full transcript, not the edited portion Sibrel will show you.

    REPORTER (Patrick Moore): I have two brief questions that I would like to ask, if I may. When you were carrying out that incredible Moon walk, did you find that the surface was equally firm everywhere or were there harder and softer spots that you could detect? And secondly, when you looked up at the sky, could you actually see the stars in the solar corona in spite of the glare?

    ALDRIN: The first part of your question, the surface did vary in its thickness of penetration somewhere in flat regions. [...]

    ARMSTRONG: We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the Moon by eye without looking through the optics [i.e., the lunar module's navigation telescope]. I don't recall during the period of time that we were photographing the solar corona what stars we could see.

    COLLINS: I don't remember seeing any.

    (Source: The First Lunar Landing Press Conference, NASA EP-73)

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