Dave Greer

The arrogant omniscience of some founts of all knowledge is incredible to behold. All should bow down in humble submission before the almighty. As he says, some never admit they are wrong, even if they are. Behold! An example for us all! Jack Ability to admit error shows humility, or strength of character. How about retracting your claim about conduction as opposed to radiation being the only means of heat transference in the vacuum of space? After all this is the Education Forum.

That sounds like not only a complete cop out, but also Evan speak for ... "I have no explaination or rebuttal as to why the numbers 13:13, April the 13th, or 33 have such significance in the Apollo 13 myth." 55hours ....54minutes ...53seconds ... BLAST OFF ! ... WE HAVE A BLAST OFF OF THE APOLLO 13 OXYGEN TANK IN DEEP SPACE !!! Duane These numerical coincidences are all very interesting, but proof that Apollo was faked? Smacks of straw-clutching to me. You must have read all the coincidences between Kennedy's and Lincoln's assassinations. I'm not aware of anyone seriously suggesting that these incredible coincidences is part of some uber-conspiracy, only that they are just that: coincidences. http://theshadowlands.net/jfk.htm What intense cosmic radiation? We've already discussed this previously, and you admitted you had no empirical evidence to support your claim. Have you found some in the meantime, or are you just repeating the claim to try and give it credence? If they didn't have enough, can you supply the figures to prove it? If not, why mention it? Why try to build an argument on straw foundations, it's only going to collapse on itself. You might have something worthwhile discussing here, but you've watered down your overall argument by filling it up with claims you can't substantiate. You might think repeating unverifiable claims strengthens your argument, all it does it reduce your credibilty, and weaken your argument. My opinion is that a combination of BBQ roll and the powered-down electrical equipment contributed to the cooling of the Apollo 13 LM, as opposed to a stationary LM on the surface. I may be wrong, but if you really want to get to the bottom of this it could be something worth discussing. Do you have this phrase set up as a macro on your F1 funtion key? Would save you an awful lot of keypresses. You're entitled your opinion, but your version of the truth doesn't have any supporting empirical evidence that I've seen - e.g. where's the evidence to support your claims about radiation levels being too high.

Which is what I find exasperating about the whole thing. It's very difficult to separate the possible sightings from the obvious fakes, unless you're willing to review every single piece of evidence yourself - a mammoth task. To cap it all, there are a number of Youtube's doing the rounds now which are CGI fakes. Very good fakes. It's increasingly possible for bored teenagers to produce good looking "evidence" while sat in Momma's basement, no doubt for their own amusement. It just adds to the flood of false sightings, disinformation and hoaxes that a genuine UFO investigator has to content with. And that means that the likelihod of the baby being thrown out with the bathwater increases. I had a chat with a friend on this topic some years back. We came to the conclusion that if and when Mr E.T. does finally decide to land on the White House lawn, he'd better not do it on April 1st - no-one's wants to admit they fell for the joke of the century. ~~~ On another note, I'm interested in the Drake equation and the statistical likelihood of other civilisations existing. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that I'm prety much convinced, purely on a statistical basis, that other "intelligent" civilisations either do exist , or have existed in the past somewhere in the Universe. And very probably somewhere in our own galaxy. There's also the possibility that we may be the first. If others do exist in our galaxy, if they're not within 100 or so light years, they won't even know of our presence unless they stumbled across our planet by chance (I'm thinking of the earliest radio/TV broadcasts). Civilisations may have existed in the past, but been wiped out either through self-destruction, or some cataclysmic event they couldn't escape. IMO the odds of a highly evolved, technological civilisation existing within easy reach of Earth, at the same time as life on Earth reaching the stage where they can begin to contemplate other life-forms, and even attempt rudimentary communication (SETI etc), are tending toward vanishingly small. The wiki article on the Drake equation has estimates of N (the number of civilisations in the galaxy that we might hope to communicate with) being anywhere between 2 and 50,000. All depends on what numbers you use to plug into the equation - much of which is based on conjecture. I'd go for the lower end of the spectrum.

Trying to throw you lot off the scent of course! (Damn, they're gettin' close...) All life's important questions can be answered down at the pub. The answers might be the wrong 'uns, but they make sense at the time. Must confess I hadn't heard of the foo fighters (other than the band namesake). Any chance you'll be able to post some of the juiciest stuff when your laptop is up and functional? I saw most of the video Duane linked last night. The most interesting part for me was the discussion of the filming of a Mercury (?) rocket, where subsequent development of the film revealed what appeared to be something flying past the payload and firing a beam at it. The source seemed genuine, but I tend towards skepticism unless I see something with my own 2 eyes and can come to a conclusion that way. I've seen too much mis-interpretation of photographic and video evidence to rely on other people's descriptions, no matter how reliable they are. That's the frustrating thing of course: the evidence itself has been salted away in a CIA data vault somewhere.

Man-made >=99.99% ET <= 0.01% ... if any. I'm open to the possibility of alien visitation, but if compelling evidence exists, I haven't seen it. I think it more likely that the US Military is quite happy for people to believe in ET UFOs. Makes it easier to keep their secret weapons developments a secret for longer. ET is a very handy patsy. It wouldn't surprise me if the CIA are involved in stoking the pro-ET camp with disinformation (pure speculation on my part). Most ET/UFO evidence I've seen is laughable, some of it is mildly interesting. Like you David, I've found that with the passing of time my propensity for skepticism has increased exponentially. In my yoof I was prepared to believe just about any old crap on the strength of the most threadbare of evidence, as long as it sounded exciting. UFOs, time travel, astral projection. Since then, for good or ill, I've learned to sharpen and apply Occam's razor more regularly. If the evidence isn't there, then the jury is out as far as I'm concerned. I think most people want ET to exist because they expect that a race so highly developed that they can travel across the light-years to say "Hello" to us mere mortals must be benificent, and would be able to right all of our planets wrongs. You'd have thought the generally negative portayal of our distant "friends" by Hollywood would have engendered a more hostile feeling toward the Beings from Planet X: Invasion of the Body Snatchers; The Thing; Alien; Predator; Independence Day; 'V'. Yet we stubbornly cling to Speilberg's more user-friendly, cuddly creations from "Close Encounters" and "ET".

Care to demonstrate why they are meaningless? They look to me as if they match up quite well with what is seen in the video. You keep on claiming that Haise cannot be holding the camera, but where is your evidence? What part of the film proves that he can't be holding it, and why? He's in the right position. He's in easy reach of the location where the camera is. When the camera pans round to him, we can only see the upper part of his arm, not the lower part, which suggests it's possible his lower arm is extended out underneath the camera. At the end of the clip the camera is quite close to the centre console and is tilted upwards, so it would be impossible for someone to be directly behind the camera. All I'm asking for is some evidence to back up your claims, some kind of explanation of your opinion. I've explained where I'm coming from and you haven't even attempted to address it and show why it can't be right. Time to put up or shut up old boy.

I completely disagree. Why would he have to be facing them? They're in a small, cramped cabin. He could see Lovell just by turning his head, and see Swigert by twisting his body to the right slightly and glancing over his shoulder. The camera had a wide-angle lens. All he had to do was point it in the right direction, at someone who was a foot or two away from him. He could see the camera, he could see the crew. Why do you think this is some kind of impossible feat? To adjust the f-stop, all he had to do was turn the control with his left hand. There wasn't a screen on the camera, or even a viewfinder - he used his training and knowledge to adjut the f-stop for the conditions. IMO it could have been adjusted a little better as the scene is still quite dark, but I'm willing to cut him a little slack here. How do you know he has his arm down by his side? You cannot possibly tell, since you can only see part of his upper arm. His forearm isn't in the frame. It could very easily be holding onto the camera. Or perhaps you could explain to me how you can tell that it is impossible for him to be holding the camera at any time during the clip? At the very end of the clip it's possible that he's let go of it and it is drifting in zero g - it's impossible to tell. Do you agree that most people can twist their necks through approx. -90/+90 degrees, enabling them to see people without their body facing them directly? Do you agree that most people can twist their body slightly so they can glance over their right shoulder at someone slightly behind them and to the right? Do you agree that most people have elbows that bend, so that if you can only see their upper arm, their forearm could be either be straight down, or bent at an angle but still out of the frame of view of the camera? If you agree with those three statements, then you should realise why your argument is flawed. If you don't agree with them, 'nuff said. Here's how I visualise what may be happening based on the available evidence in the clip, from a top-down perspective. It's only very rough and ready and isn't drawn to scale, it's just to give an approximate idea. The timestamps are from this video. At the start of the clip we see Lovell (green) , with Swigert (blue) sitting on the engine bell. The approximate direction of the camera is shown by the red arrow, and I've highlighted the apporximate field of view (this wasn't calculated, but judged from stills taken from the video). I know Lovell turns sideways-on partway through the clip, and he might not be sat down, but the rough sketch is just to show the approx position of the astronauts, along with the possible angle of Haise's body. 00:20 00:25 Haise adjusts the fstop at around 28 seconds. 00:36 Simple - I refuse to recognise something that quite plainly isn't there - or more specifically, is quite plainly something else. http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/hea...0386-shadow.jpg http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/hea...0385-shadow.jpg http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/hea...0387-shadow.jpg

I agree, it's hard to tell once the camera is pointing at Haise and he's looking out the window. I suspect he may have let go of the camera by then, but it's impossible (for me) to tell.

Just because I haven't found any figures or charts, doesn't mean that they don't exist, or that deep space radiation wasn't the show stopper for Apollo, or will be the show stopper for future manned missions. Which raises the question, why use this as proof that manned flight outside the Van Allen belts is impossible if you have no evidence to support the claim? Duane, he can't have his back to Lovell as he is looking out of the window at the end of clip, they are on opposite sides of the LM. He had his RHS toward Lovell. His back may have been turned toward Swigert, but why does that make it impossible for Haise to film him? Try it yourself - hold a camera pointing backwards in your direction, while someone else is just behind you and to the right. Are you really saying it's an impossible feat to do this? On top of that, it's impossible to know exactly which direction he was facing until he came into shot - he could easily have been turned to the right slightly. Duane, regardless of your inability to respect other people's entitlement to an opinion, I for one am not "pretending" that stage lights are smudges or scratches. I can't understand why you continue to believe what you do about those visor images, but I wouldn't accuse you of lying about that, only of being very, very wrong in your visual interpretation of what you see. But please feel free to keep up your accusations of lying, I wouldn't want you stopping and getting withdrawal symptoms.

I don't think the camera had a cable attached (it had a battery pack so didn't require an external power source). Remember the lens being used is quite wide angle which is making everything seem further away than with a regular lens. I don't have a problem with your suggestion James. If they were going to fake the footage, using a mock-up of the LM in the vomit comet would make far more sense than some of the other scenarios being bandied about, for example Jack's proposal, endorsed by Duane, that it was filmed on a sound-stage with an entire film crew in attandance. Why not just create an inch-perfect mock-up of the LM cockpit in the vomit comet, and give the three astronauts a 16mm camera to film themselves with? No need for outlandish theories about mystery fourth people, or stage-sets with large film crews etc. There are problems with this scenario from some conspiracists point of view though. Firstly, it isn't a "smoking gun". By that I mean that the footage would have been faked so well that it would be virtually impossible to discern it from genuine footage. Secondly, if they were using an accurate LM cockpit layout (which they would surely do for continuity, accuracy etc - otherwise why bother with the vomit comet), there simply is no room for the "smoking gun" of a fourth person. Some people arguing against Apollo seem hell-bent on shoe-horning the evidence to fit their pre-conceived notion of fakery, rather than folowing the evidence and seeing where it leads them. Is it possible to fake the footage under discussion? I'm sure it is, and an accurate LM cockpit mokcup in the vomit comet would be the way to do it. Does the ability to fake footage mean that the Apollo 13 footage must have been faked? Of course not. There's also the distinct possibility that it was real. There's also the possibility that no HB has even mentioned that they just pretended there was an explosion, and filmed themselves in the LM cockpit while either in Earth orbit, or even on the way to the moon. Which seems strange of course. Why not just land if you're going to the moon anyway? What evidence is there that Apollo 13 even went to the moon? Well, there's the photos they took of the far side of the moon. There's the live TV transmissions during TLC. Duane has recently he can find no empirical evidence that radiation (Van Allen belts, Galactic Cosmic Rays, ambient lunar radiation) was an Apollo showstopper, so what exactly was stopping them from going, even if they didn't land?

Now look who's telling tall tales, as he munches his popcorn .... I don't remember ever saying that Haise's back was to the camera ... I said that his back was to the rest of the crew, and because he was facing away from them, he couldn't possibly have filmed them properly .... His arm was not the correct position to be operating the camera and neither was his body, that was facing away from his crew mates and towards the window, located to the left of the camera.... This is what we see at time stamp :34. So who's telling tales now? Still waiting on that frame grab (slurps coke... ran out of popcorn).

If Turkey were invaded from the rear, would Greece help? This joke only works if read out loud

Like I stated before ... It's a lame excuse ... Actually, after reading this new detailed "explaination", it's not really lame but more like ... ABSURD ! How can it possibly be absurd for one of the astronauts on board the LM to be operating the film camera? The absurd suggestion is that there is a mystery fourth man, especially when there is no evidence for him! No it hasn't! Where is he? This mystery fourth person, who is strangely invisible? Since there's no evidence it wasn't staged, I agree - your task is quite literally impossible. Good luck trying though... I'll repost Matthew's frame-grab from 34 seconds, I'm sure he won't mind. Please do feel free to post your own frame grab that shows Haise's back to the camera at 34 seconds. I can't wait for that one. (Munches popcorn). You've got one thing right, it wasn't staged. Check out the rest of the footage James linked. No mystery fourth astronaut required.

Not sure I understand the question James. The handle wasn't long enough for what? Thanks for the other clip. I've had a brief look, and it does seem to support the fact that there was no room for a fourth person. I'll try to post some more evidence tomorrow.

James The 16mm lunar surface DAC is shown top right - I believe the long handle is the battery pack. I don't think the camera was floating for the entire clip, though it's possible it may have been released during the last 2 or 3 seconds of the clip (it's certainly not very steady then).

Haise holding it is a reasonable explanation. He's in the right position. The camera is a lot closer to his face than it was Lovell's. The camera was being held quite close to the centre console, in between the two glare shields, but to the left of middle. When he twists the camera round to face it's possible that Lovell reached an arm out to steady the camera, or he could have been loosely holding on to the camera by the bottom of the battery pack, or he could have let go of it so it as floating free for a second or two. It would help to see if there is any other 16mm film footage that could shed any more light on this. I believe this clip was taken from a documentary, so there may well be more film footage available. IIRC there were 20,000+ frames taken on the DAC in the LM, which at 20 FPS equates to more than 15 minutes of footage. Hopefully this extra footage would shed some more light. I'll see if I can contact someone who has the Apollo 13 Spacecraft Films DVD set who can review the rest of the footage. I don't think it really cuts it to say my explanation is a "lame excuse" when clearly it's the most logical explanation and makes sense, especially when you can't even come up with an alternative "pro-hoax" explanation that fits the available data. "Lame excuse" is your standard fall-back position when you can't address alternative explanations objectively. Remember, the burden of proof lies with you to prove that there was a fourth person holding the camera, something you clearly can't do.

Well you seem disappointed that noone replied to this one. The premise is that a mystery "fourth person" held the camera while taking this 16mm footage of the inside of the Aquarius, the Apollo 13 LM which was effectively used as a lifeboat after an explosion crippled the CSM. I haven't really heard a satisfactory explanation from anyone espousing this idea as to where exactly this film is supposed to have been taken from a hoax point of view, or why it required a mystery fourth person to take it, or where in the LM he was located. It looks to me as if the data acquisition camera (DAC) was being held by the LM pilot (Fred Haise) while he stood at his station. The camera was firstly pointed at the Commander (Lovell) who was sat opposite Haise. You can also see Swigert sat on the engine bell. The camera continues to pan round and until we see Haise looking out of the LM window. I don't see a problem here: Haise was holding the 16mm DAC with his right had, and he twisted the camera round to finish pointing at himself. They were in zero gravity so the camera had no weight, which would make it easier to hold. In the latter part of the film segment, it's even possible that the camera was floating free. Look at the two still images above. Look at how close to the RHS LM window the camera, compared to how close it is in the second still to the LHS LM window. Difficult to measure exactly, but clear enough to be able to say that the camera is certainly closer to the LHS window than the RHS window - which is what you'd expect if Haise was holding the camera (he's stood in front of the LHS window). For example, kin the second still, see how close the glare shield to the camera (it has some paperwork clipped to it). How would this be possible if there was a fourth person in the LM? At the start of the segment, he would be behind the camera - with Haise behind him! There simply isn't enough room in the LM. Check out this cut-away of the LM which shows where Haise would be (in blue) - Swigert would be where the astronaut coloured in yellow is (Lovell would be sat with his back against the wall of the LM, under the RHS LM window, facing Haise). Would it really be possible for a fourth person to be stood to the right of Haise while holding the camera? I think it's physically impossible. What I don't think is physically impossible, is holding a 16mm film camera with one hand, in zero gravity, then turning it around 180 degrees with a simple twist of the wrist. Source What does everyone else think?

That's why my gut instinct tells me the LM wouldn't have over-heated. It's highly possible I've missed something though. Thinking about it, they set up the BBQ roll presumably so that the side facing the sun didn't overheat. They didn't have that luxury while on the lunar surface. Too many variables for a mere layperson like myself to come to a definite conclusion on this one.

Any chance of taking your own advice sometime soon?

Well, my gut instinct tells me that Alan Bean never walked on the Moon. Then you agree with me that Alan Bean knows nothing about the true conditions of being on the lunar surface ? No I don't agree. Alan Bean is/was as qualified as anyone on the subject, since he's one of just 12 men who've actually been there. However, Alan Bean is an old man. I know nothing of his medical history, but it's not inconceivable that his memory isn't what it used to be. It's possible he may be confused over some details. I've heard the argument that all astronauts should remember every single detail about all aspects of the lunar trips, and any discrepancies in their memories are held up as evidence that they were lying or brainwashed. Does that apply to all walks of life, where old men who worked together 40 years ago fail to agree on details, or even say contradictory things? There's also the distinct possibility that my gut instinct is wrong, and that the LM on the surface is at danger from overheating if the cooling system failed. The thermal protection may have mitigated the effect of solar radiation, but not provided 100% insulation. The LM on the surface wasn't doing a BBQ roll, and didn't have most of it's electrical systems switched off, unlike the LM in Apollo 13.

My gut instinct says that Bean made an error with this statement. I think the thermal protection of the LM would have prevented it getting that hot. The electrical systems on board the LM, and body heat from the astronauts may have contributed to the heating of the LM as well, how much I don't now. There may be some more information in the technical documentation from the time. For a LM on the surface, the only external heat sources would be radiated heat from the sun, and some residual heat conducted from the surface through the landing pads .

No, it refers to the vacuum itself, which by definition does not contain any matter, therefore cannot contain any heat. The lunar surface itself can either be hot or cold, depending on whether it's night/day, in permanent shadow etc. Because physical exertion creates body heat. Usually the body cools itself by producing sweat which evaporates and cools the body. Have you got the source for this quote?

As you can see from my reply to Evan , that the "bee up my bonnet" ( cute expression ) is not the radiation issue, which NASA appears to have covered very nicely on almost every web site on the internet ( or as Bush calls them , "the internets ") but rather the subject of Whistle-Blower Tom Baron's highly suspicious and untimely death, one week after testifying before NASA's commitee that the Apollo Program didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of ever safely landing a manned lunar module on the Moon . I spelt it wrong - it should have been "bee in your bonnet". Can I take it that since you don't have any evidence to back up your claims about the radiation issue, you withdraw the claim about radiation being an Apollo showstopper? Or was I right in my assumption that you need to believe radiation is a showstopper in order to prop up the hoax theory?

Yes .... This one is a tad difficult to "debunk" isn't it ? ... I'm happy to see that you finally agree with me about something though ... Or is your reason for dropping this subject maybe the hope that this thread will disappear to the back pages and be forgotten ? Out of sight, out of mind ... That tactic seems to work well on most discussion forums . As you have a bee on your bonnet about this, how about stumping up some empirical evidence to support your claims re radiation, namely (1) the Van Allen belts being impassable to humans in an Apollo CM, (2) gamma radiation on the lunar surface being so strong that it would preclude astronaut EVAs, and (3) Galactic Cosmic Radiation being too high for a 2 week mission to the moon.

THIS IS CLEARLY A NASA LIE. The moon has NO ATMOSPHERE. On earth temperatures are MORE MODERATE AT SUNRISE AND SUNSET because sunlight has to penetrate the atmosphere OBLIQUELY instead of directly. Jack What is your source for this quote? The article I found it in was written in 2000 by an astronomer called Jim Scotti, as part of a critique of an article by James Collier. His webpage is hosted at the Lunar Planetary Laboratory website, Arizona Univeristy. Here's what Collier said in the critique:- "But NASA video and film prove the astronauts to be on the moon's surface when the sun was at high noon; the temperature was +250 F. degrees." This is completey wrong. No Apollo missions were on the lunar surface with the "sun at high noon", so the 250F temperature becomes irrelevant. The sun angles were anywhere between 8 and 45 degrees approximately. Source. Collier is saying that because the surface of the moon, at lunar midday, reaches a maximum temperature of 250F, after being exposed to the sun's rays for 7 Earth days, the temperature of film inside an aluminium cartridge exposed to the sun for a maximum of 8 hours should also be 250F. I'm being very generous with the 8 hours exposure, since the film cartridge wasn't always in direct sunlight: sometimes the astronauts would have their back to the sun and the film .cartridge wouldn't be getting exposed anyway The sorts of questions he should be asking are, how hot would the film cartridge get during a typical EVA on the lunar surface? How would the construction and design of the camera/film cartridges affect how hot that would make the film itself? It makes no sense to me to make the assumption that "when lunar soil is exposed to direct sunlight for 160+ hours it reaches a temperature of 250F, therefore film inside a protective cartridge which is exposed for a maximum of 8 hours would also reach 250F". That's what Collier is expecting people to believe. The sun's rays are still striking the surface of the moon obliquely at sunrise, hence the heating effect will be much lower than when the sun is directly overhead, regardless of the presence of an atmosphere. On top of that, when the sun is directly overhead, it has been heating the lunar surface continuously for about 7 Earth days.