Little White lies

[Craig Lamson]

I'm starting a new thread to point out the disinformation and white lies in Whites time study piece on aulis. As you find them just keep adding to the list.

1 White sez:

"I visited several official NASA websites to find HOW MANY PHOTOS WERE TAKEN on the surface of the Moon. Amazingly, NASA AVOIDS THIS SUBJECT almost entirely. Two days of searching documents and text were fruitless. But Lunar Surface Journal, one of the sites, lists every photo with its file number. So I undertook to make an actual count of every photo taken by astronauts DURING EXTRA-VEHICULAR ACTIVITY (EVA), the time spent on the surface out of the LEM."

Well every image is available here: And they tell you exactly how many images on each roll were surface images. This is not rocket science research, in fact I have posted the link on this forum a number of times.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/

But even better yet, according to White "NASA avoids this subject". Again a bald faced lie. At the very website White claims is devoid of this information, they link to the scans of the NASA summary of the photography record for most flights which give the information White says is unavailable. The flights without indexes link to LPI. Maybe White was too busy looking for alien footprints to do any actual research....

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/

Its listed as the Photography Reference for mission 11 and linked

Mission 12

No photo index listed, but a link to the lpi site is listed.

mission 14

no photo index listed but a link to the lpi site is listed

Mission 15

Photo index is listed and linked

Mission 16

Photo index is listed and linked

Mission 17

Photo index is listed and linked.

Now this was tough to find, I guess it took me at least 15 miniutes to gather this information. Jack spent two days and missed this? What else did he miss? Time will tell.

Edited March 31, 2005 by Craig Lamson

[Craig Lamson]

2. From his "time study":

"The battery-powered rovers had a top speed of about 8 mph, only slightly faster than walking...much like a golf cart. During the LRV travels ("traverses"), both men rode, and when moving, had no opportunity for photography."

Yet in his photography section he points out a photo of tv camera on the rover and tells us that there are plenty of images taken by the Astronauts ( which is true) while riding in the rovers.

So which is it Jack? No photography while riding in the rovers or lots of photos while riding in the rovers?

[Craig Lamson]

3. White sez:

"The principal objective of all six missions was SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH projects to be carried out by the two astronauts."

Wrong. On Apollo 11 for example the principal mission was TO TEST THE LM, by landing on the surface of the moon and to return it to the command module.

[Craig Lamson]

4. White sez:

The US flag was planted in the moondust on each mission. All of this was done before any experiments were initiated.

Wrong. On A 15 for example they spent the entire first day of EVA doing experimental work and finished the day without planting the flag. On the second EVA they went the entire EVA working and only planted the flag ant the end of that second EVA.

EVA-2 Close-out

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.

All rights reserved.

Last revised 8 February 2005.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MP3 Audio Clip ( 3 min 24 sec ) by David Shaffer

148:32:16 Irwin: Okay, Joe, I'm back at the LM. (Pause)

148:32:23 Allen: (Making a rare mis-identification because of the static) Okay, Dave, copied you back at the LM, parking the Rover normally, and we're standing by for TV again.

148:32:32 Irwin: No, that's Jim. Jim is back. I don't know, Dave might be close.

148:32:39 Scott: I'm getting on the Rover now Jim. I'm just parking your TV for you. (Long Pause

148:50:46 Allen: Jim, this is Houston.

148:50:51 Scott: Okay, go ahead, Joe.

148:50:53 Allen: Roger, Jim. At your leisure, we'd like you to deploy the American flag, please.

148:52:50 Allen: And, Jim, if possible, we'd like for you to come around north of the Rover there to deploy it, and we're tracking the camera that direction.

148:53:00 Irwin: You tell me when I'm in a good position.

148:53:20 Irwin: Suppose that's too...(Stops to listen to Joe) (Long Pause)

[scott - "Before we went, we staged the orientation of the flag and the Rover in the simulator building at the Cape. We had a plan on where to put everything, and the only problem was, when we finally got to it, the Rover was facing the flag instead of sideways. And I think that's because they were concerned about (battery) temperatures. But, other than that, the location of where Jim was and the flag was and the LM and the Rover was all staged before we went."]

[Jim puts the staff on the scuff mark and leans on it.]

148:53:44 Irwin: Okay, I'm pushing the staff in.

148:53:46 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Jim gets the staff in about 6 inches (15 cm).]

148:53:59 Irwin: I'll hit it a few times so it'll stay up here for a few million years.

148:54:02 Scott: That's a good idea. (Pause)

[Jim drives the staff another 10 to 20 cm into the ground with six blows delivered with the side of the hammer. He grips the hammer with his thumb about 10 cm above the head.]

148:54:07 Irwin: Of course, it might make it too low. No, I don't think so. (Long Pause)

[Jim takes the hammer to the back of the Rover for stowage and, off-camera, unfurls the flag. The flag is attached to telescoping crossbar which will hold the flag out from the staff. The crossbar is attached to the top of the staff with a lokcing hinge.]

148:54:28 Scott: Pretty. You've got to admit. (Pause) Okay. (Long Pause)

[Jim comes back into view with the flag fully assembled. He puts the upper staff into the lower section.]

148:55:08 Scott: Let's see.

148:55:09 Irwin: Probably want to swing it around perpendicular to the (TV) camera, huh?

148:55:15 Scott: Okay! It's pretty good! Why don't you stand there?

[because the flag is translucent and is ENE of the TV, it is the brightest object in the scene and forces the automatic iris to close almost all the way. Dave and Jim are nearly lost in the resulting darkness.]

148:55:21 Irwin: Let me get up on the high part.

[Jim gets up on a slight rise east of the flag.]

148:55:23 Scott: Okay. Gee, I wish we had color (film).

148:55:24 Irwin: Yeah.

148:55:27 Allen: We'll have color tomorrow, Dave...

148:55:28 Scott: That's great just to look at it there.

[Craig Lamson]

5. White sez:

"The astronaut had to manually set the shutter speed and apertures while wearing bulky, pressurized gloves and without being able to see the controls"

Bunk! The controls were designed so the astronauts could easily operate them with their gloves. On a Hasselblad camera (ever used one Jack?) all the controls are on the lens barrel. One ring sets the shutterspeed, one the f-stop and one the focus. All of them on the Apollo cameras had click stop detents for ease of use and had extended paddle style levers to make adjustments easy. In addition the astronauts COULD see the controls since they were on the top surface of the lens barrel and the helmets allowed for free head movement inside of them and had a field of view downward that allowed for seeing the controls on the camera.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/...1-S69-31108.jpg

White is making stuff up out of thin air!

Edited March 31, 2005 by Craig Lamson

[Craig Lamson]

6. White sez:

"The film (mainly Ektachrome color film) had a very narrow exposure range, which required PERFECT aperture and shutter settings, because according to NASA, the cameras did not have automatic exposure capability."

Lie!

Apollo 11: 228 color surface images, 107 b/w surface images

Apollo 12: 280 color surface images, 303 b/w surface images

Apollo 14: 178 color surface images, 269 b/w surface images

Apollo 15: 393 color surface images, 761 b/w surface images

Apollo 16: 726 color surface images, 1061 b/w surface images

Apollo 17: 849 color surface images, 1460 b/w surface images

Total color surface images: 2654 Total b/w surface images: 3961

So White tells us MOST of the images were color Ektachrome photos when in reality MOST of the photos were b/w! 1307 more b/w photos were taken than color photos!

People actually BELIEVE this guy?

Exposure: B/w film has a HUGE over and under exposure latitude so White comments fail on this point in regards to b/w film. Color ektachrome film has an over exposure latitude of about 1/2 stop, and an under exposure latitude of about 1.5 stops. It also has the ability to be push or pull processed to compensate for either over or under exposure. Its common photographic practice to do a "clip test", cutting off a small portion of the leader to test process prior to processing the entire batch of film so if it needs pushed or pulled you can do that. WHite also knows that underexposed ektachrome film can be lightened in the duplication process (and all of the apollo flims were duplicated) to normailze exposure. Since some of his JFK work is based on this process he cannot deny it.

I've been a professional advertising photographer for 25 years and the use of extachrome film is the standard in advertising. I know ektachrome film inside and out, and the exposure of this film in the apollo application was just fine. Exposure setting based on the "sunny 16 rule" was used on the moon and its a very accurate method of setting camera exposure.

White is just full of crap on this one.

Edited March 31, 2005 by Craig Lamson