Astronauts Gone Wild

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Duane, just because people dont react to a situation as you, or I would expect them to, does not constitute proof of lying/wrong-doing. Some people are naturally very good in front of a camera, others come across badly, eg take a look at the 1960 presidential debate between JFK, and Richard Nixon, its almost certainly what lost tricky the election.

I have worked in a psychiatric setting for more than 20 years, and to assume things based entirely on how the patient presents is not just wrong, it could be dangerous.

Steve .... You may have worked in a "psychiatric setting" for more than 20 years , but you obviously are not a psychiatrist ... because if you were , you would be able to recognize the body language of a xxxx ... Or in the case of these interviews with the Apollo astronauts, many liars .

Duane, I work in Psychological assessment, my qualifications are SEN(M) RMNand an open university degree in psychology. I mainly work with young offenders, particulaly those whose underlying pathology indicates low self esteem. Hope this helps.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Stephen Turner

[Guest John Gillespie]

Another of Sibrel's videos presented a SIGNIFICANT piece of NASA film,

but Sibrel failed to comment on the obvious importance of it.

It was footage of one of the missions in route to the moon ...inside

the space capsule. It showed in detail STAR CHARTS USED FOR NAVIGATION

NEXT TO THE WINDOW.

Yet we have some of the nauts claiming that STARS WERE NOT VISIBLE. Well

they can't have it both ways...if they have a star chart to navigate by, THEY

MUST HAVE THE ABILITY TO SEE THE STARS! Check it out.

Jack

__________________

duplicate

Edited December 20, 2006 by John Gillespie

[Guest John Gillespie]

Another of Sibrel's videos presented a SIGNIFICANT piece of NASA film,

but Sibrel failed to comment on the obvious importance of it.

It was footage of one of the missions in route to the moon ...inside

the space capsule. It showed in detail STAR CHARTS USED FOR NAVIGATION

NEXT TO THE WINDOW.

Yet we have some of the nauts claiming that STARS WERE NOT VISIBLE. Well

they can't have it both ways...if they have a star chart to navigate by, THEY

MUST HAVE THE ABILITY TO SEE THE STARS! Check it out.

Jack

_________________________________________________

Hmm, yeah; also, the AAA decal on a corner of the window was a tipoff, not to mention the view of Coney Island beach in the background. But, seriously, the insiders get away with this stuff because of the new clothes syndrome or, come to think of it, a corollary: he's naked. Yeah, that's it, the Emporer is nude. I don't see any clothes, none at all.

JG

Edited December 20, 2006 by John Gillespie

[Kevin M. West]

Jack is hopeless. Nobody ever claimed that stars were never visible. There were claims that stars were not visible when you're standing on the brightly lit surface of the moon, but what does that have to do with what was visible on the way to the moon while looking through an eyepiece to a specially designed sextant?

[Duane Daman]

Sibrel never called anyone a xxxx? Have you not seen the video of Buzz Aldrin punching him? He called him a coward and a xxxx to his face right before he got decked. In fact I believe he was trying to provoke him to do exactly that.

I'm not talking about the confrontation with Aldren .... I'm talking about the interviews with Ed Mitchell , Alan Bean and Gene Cernan , where none of them managed to get their stories straight about what happened while going to , landing and then strolling around on the moon .... Sibrel never called any of these men liars until Mitchell literally kicked him , then shoved him and then accused him of being a dishonset xxxx who conducted shoddy journalism ... It was AFTER Sibrel caught them in their lies and complete contradictions and was kicked and then shoved and accused of being a xxxx , that he then turned around and told Mitchell that pretending to walk on the moon when he really hadn't , was a Satanic lie .

I don't think that it was right of Sibrel to interview these guys under false pretenses , but there was no other way he could have ever gotten an interview with any of them ... and then exposed them for the liars they obviously are .

[Evan Burton]

Hi John,

Yep, they had to be able to see the stars - but as I explained to Jack and you know for yourself, you have to let your eyes adjust to the darkness first.

Some bits about stars and darkness from the Apollo Flight Journal.

Apollo 8:

000:47:18 Lovell (onboard): I hope I can see something out of here soon.

[if Jim doesn't see anything soon, he will not be able to accomplish the P52 realign. Since this is the first since launch, it is important before they head out of Earth orbit so he tries dimming the cabin lights to let his eyes adapt to the dimness of the stars. Delaying the P52 a few minutes rather than having it directly after crossing the terminator (the line between day and night) might have helped.]000:47:20 Borman (onboard): How's the cabin pressure?

000:47:22 Anders (onboard): It has kind of eased down a little bit.

000:47:27 Borman (onboard): What are you doing, Jim?

000:47:29 Lovell (onboard): I'm okay. I'm just getting this all put together here.

000:47:33 Borman (onboard): Do you want me to read off anything to you - from the checklist? From a checklist, maybe?

000:47:38 Lovell (onboard): I've got the P52 realign. You might kind of doublecheck me on it; maybe - I'm here and I'm going to turn down the floodlights and get - get my eye adapted here, because I don't see schmatz out there right now.

000:50:38 Anders (onboard): There's a couple of nice stars out here.

(my note: Anders is looking out the window, Lovell is at the sextant)

000:50:40 Lovell (onboard): ...Enter. Okay. All set, gentlemen?

000:50:44 Borman (onboard): Yes.

000:50:46 Anders (onboard): Hey, there's a bunch of stuff flying off this thing.

(my note: Anders is referring to minor debris that is around the spacecraft, this mostly generated when the covers that protected the optics during launch were jettisoned)

000:50:47 Lovell (onboard): I know; that's what I was afraid of.

000:50:50 Anders (onboard): Real bright - I wonder why they're so bright?

000:50:52 Borman (onboard): The Sun's shining.

000:50:54 Anders (onboard): Are we - We're boiling?

000:50:55 Borman (onboard): Is the sun shining, really?

000:50:56 Borman (onboard): Yes, look here, I got sun in it.

000:50:58 Anders (onboard): Oh Christ [laughter], I thought it was night time over here!

000:51:01 Anders (onboard): I can see a lot of stars over on this side.

000:51:06 Borman (onboard): What are you doing, Jim?

000:51:07 Lovell (onboard): Well, I'm getting the optics adjusted here.

000:51:09 Borman (onboard): Yes, they make you...

000:51:10 Lovell (onboard): Okay, 06; 06 is what? 06 is Acamar. Worst star in the world for me to look at! Oh, I'm getting more stars now.

[Jim is at the stage where he selects the stars he will use for the realignment. The first he has to use is number 6, Acamar or Theta Eridanus. At about magnitude 3, it's not the brightest star he could be given as his first.]

000:51:22 Lovell (onboard): Okay, here we go, gentlemen.

000:51:24 Anders (onboard): You got a real bright star...

000:51:26 Lovell (onboard): Zero off, right?

000:51:27 Borman (onboard): Yes.

000:51:28 Anders (onboard): Real bright star - star like...

000:51:30 Lovell (onboard): Zero off.

000:51:31 Borman (onboard): CMC; Optic mode should be CMC.

000:51:34 Lovell (onboard): CMC? Oh, to C, huh?

000:51:49 Lovell (onboard): Holy cow!

000:51:50 Borman (onboard): Any luck?

000:51:57 Lovell (onboard): Well, it stopped by a star. The star's out, but I don't know what it is, though.

[Having placed the optics under control of the computer [or CMC], Jim can have it drive them to where it thinks the star is.]

000:52:01 Borman (onboard): Can you see it through the telescope?

000:52:03 Lovell (onboard): Yes. It seems to look like - Okay, I'm going to go to Resolve - Low, and Manual.

[Jim then manually steers the sextant until the reticle is precisely aligned with the star. He then presses the Mark button. by setting Resolve to Low, he allows the optics to move at their lowest speed.]

000:52:31 Lovell (onboard): CMC; proceed; Spica's the one I want; proceed; okay; 15, that's Sirius.

[star 15, Sirius or Alpha Canis Major, is his second star.]

000:52:41 Borman (onboard): We there yet?

000:52:43 Lovell (onboard): Yes, proceeding.

Apollo 12:

001:56:49 Gordon (onboard): After you put all that in the DSKY, I'll do my align ...

001:56:51 Conrad (onboard): Wait, wait. Let me finish.

001:56:53 Gordon (onboard): I will. I will.

001:56:55 Conrad (onboard): You're not all the way in darkness yet anyhow.

001:56:57 Gordon (onboard): Yes, but I got stars ...

001:57:01 Conrad (onboard): Got them in the ...

001:57:02 Gordon (onboard): I can't make out ...

001:57:03 Conrad (onboard): ...telescope?

001:57:04 Gordon (onboard): ...I got two, I got two stars in the telescope.

002:09:29 Bean (onboard): I see - you see those RCS flash; there's another one.

002:09:32 Conrad (onboard): That's got to be the S-IVB.

002:09:34 Conrad (onboard): Yes. Everybody said they saw them.

002:09:37 Gordon (onboard): I got a bunch of stars out my window, now. Let me see. Anybody I recognize? Upside down, looking out ...

002:09:45 Conrad (onboard): That's the problem. I don't know what attitude I was in.

Apollo 15:

[Worden, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Navigation [in lunar orbit]was about as it was on translunar coast. The guidance system was very tight. I never had any problem getting a star pair. Whether I was doing a slow orb-rate maneuver or whether I was inertial [i.e. in an attitude held with respect to the stars]. P52s worked very well.]

["I still had the problem with the sextant. Even on the back side of the double umbra [where neither the Earth or Sun light the Moon], the sextant was very difficult to use - to identify constellations and to identify the stars. The attenuation in the sextant was really much more than I had anticipated. I could look out a window and see the star field very clearly. In fact, it was much brighter than I expected it to be. There were so many stars in the field of view out the window that, in a way, it was a little difficult to find a constellation and to find the navigation stars. But through the sextant, only the very brightest stars came through. I was able to identify the stars after a while, after I was used to the star pattern, and I did the alignments just about the same place every time."]

etc, etc, etc.

[Duane Daman]

Evan .... You have posted where several astronauts had conversations about seeing stars while allegedly in lunar orbit , but are there any conversations between the Apollo 11 astronauts about seeing them ? .... Because in their post flight press conference , Armstrong said that he couldn't see any stars unless he used the optics and Mike Collins claimed to have never seen any stars at all, during any part of their mission ( that was the part where it looked like Neil wanted to box him ! )

So don't you think it's quite possible that after some of the mistakes and ommisions made by the first mission to the 'moon' , that nasa convienantly covered some of these mistakes later by including conversations about the stars ?

Edited December 20, 2006 by Duane Daman

[Matthew Lewis]

Evan .... You have posted where several astronauts had conversations about seeing stars while allegedly in lunar orbit , but are there any conversations between the Apollo 11 astronauts about seeing them ? .... Because in their post flight press conference , Armstrong said that he couldn't see any stars unless he used the optics and Mike Collins claimed to have never seen any stars at all, during any part of their mission ( that was the part where it looked like Neil wanted to box him ! )

So don't you think it's quite possible that after some of the mistakes and ommisions made by the first mission to the 'moon' , that nasa convienantly covered some of these mistakes later by including conversations about the stars ?

They were specifically asked if they remembered seeing any stars "while they were photographing the solar corona". This was an experiment conducted on the way there and one done specifically by Collins which is why Armstrong referred the question to him. Collins who did the experiment, said he didn't remember seeing any. Never did he say that he couldn't see any stars at all, during any part of the mission.

[Evan Burton]

Matthew is correct. The optics refered to are those in the LM. It's also Armstrong & Aldrin who answer.

REPORTER 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. The footprint would penetrate a half an inch or sometimes only a quarter of an inch and gave a very firm response. In other regions near the edges of these craters we could find that the foot would sink down maybe 2, 3, possibly 4 inches and in the slope, of course, the varlous edges of the footprint might go up to 6 or 7 inches. In compacting this material it would tend to produce a slight sideways motion as it was compacted on the material underneath it. So we feel that you cannot always tell by looking at the surface what the exact resistance will be as your foot sinks into a point of firm contact. So one must be quite cautious in moving around in this rough surface.

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 don't recall during the period of time that we were photographing the solar corona what stars we could see.

ALDRIN I don't remember seeing any.

(The First Lunar Landing As Told By The Astronauts: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in a Post-flight Press Conference, NASA EP-73, 1989 pt. VI)

http://www.solarviews.com/history/EP-73/ch-7.html

He's refering to the solar corona photography, which was during the translunar coast.

Edited December 21, 2006 by Evan Burton

[Duane Daman]

No , I believe the question was ... Did you (Armstrong ) see any stars in the solar corona while looking up from the lunar surface ?..... And Armstrong answered that he couldn't see any stars by eye but only by looking through the optics ..... The press was not directing this question to Collins and there was never any mention of what Collins might have been photographing from lunar orbit .

The question was to Armstrong and he was answering it when Colling interrupted him and blurted out that he didn't remember seeing any stars at all .... And that is when Armstrong looked extremely uncomfortable and nervous about what Collins was saying ...

I was looking for this clip about the stars discussion but only found the clip before they were asked any questions by the press , and looked as if they were absolutely miserable about having to discuss their trip to the moon .

I will see if I can find the other clip so we can get the direct quote about seeing stars.

Edited December 21, 2006 by Duane Daman

[Matthew Lewis]

I have seen the clip in question and as I remember it, the dialog is exactly as posted by Evan although I think the source he used may have the names wrong as Armstrong looked over to Collins for him to answer (because Collins was the one that was principle on the solar corona experiment) and Collins answered that he didn't remember seeing any. Again, the question was specifically about stars in the solar corona. Since it makes sense that they couldn't see stars on the surface of the daylit side of the moon or in the corona, what is this really supposed to prove? One can not definitively say that their body language shows that they are lying. At most it shows that they are tired after having spent a long time in space and then time in quarantine and debriefing with NASA. Maybe they just really wanted to go home?

[Dave Greer]

I was looking for this clip about the stars discussion but only found the clip before they were asked any questions by the press , and looked as if they were absolutely miserable about having to discuss their trip to the moon .

I will see if I can find the other clip so we can get the direct quote about seeing stars.

I'm sure I've had this discussion before with someone, but where you see people who are miserable (I've heard them previously described as obviously guilty or lying), I see someone (Armstrong) who is of a quiet, reserved nature, who isn't a born speaker, having to contend with the world's press, having just spent 2 weeks in isolation upon returning from mankind's greatest adventure.

I'm willing to cut them a little slack for not excelling in presentation skills. I'll never experience how they truly felt, but I can really empathise with their situation.

[Evan Burton]

I have seen the clip in question and as I remember it, the dialog is exactly as posted by Evan although I think the source he used may have the names wrong as Armstrong looked over to Collins for him to answer (because Collins was the one that was principle on the solar corona experiment) and Collins answered that he didn't remember seeing any. Again, the question was specifically about stars in the solar corona. Since it makes sense that they couldn't see stars on the surface of the daylit side of the moon or in the corona, what is this really supposed to prove? One can not definitively say that their body language shows that they are lying. At most it shows that they are tired after having spent a long time in space and then time in quarantine and debriefing with NASA. Maybe they just really wanted to go home?

Matthew,

That's the name it gives in the NASA transcript. If there is a video recording of it, we can check and get NASA to correct the published transcript.

Duane,

He answered the question:

"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..."

His further answer covered the case that the reporter was actually refering to the inflight photography:

"...I don't recall during the period of time that we were photographing the solar corona what stars we could see."

Aldrin (or perhaps Collins?) confirms he didn't see any whilst photographing the solar corona.

They do mention briefly seeing things from the CM inflight:

14.4 Passive Thermal Control

Collins

Passive thermal control three modes – we didn't have three modes, we just had the one mode. We always rolled G&N control at 0.3 deg/sec; that procedure we've already talked about. There were no differences in transearth, although the geometry of the vehicles was a lot different and I thought that the command module by itself would go unstable more quickly. Neil thought it would not, and he was right. It was very stable on the way back, just as it was on the way out.

Aldrin

The LMP would have preferred pointing north. However, there was an added advantage in that we got to look at the Magellanic clouds by PTC-ing at 270.

Armstrong

To look at the earth, to look north, you had to get upside down.

Collins

Yes, we went out in 090 pitch angle and came back 270 pitch angle. It's "macht nichts" to me; I don't care one way or the other.

Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Section 14

Not exactly the stars, but close enough.

[Matthew Lewis]

Matthew,

That's the name it gives in the NASA transcript. If there is a video recording of it, we can check and get NASA to correct the published transcript.

I know. I read a similar discussion on another board where somebody was arguing that because the transcript said Aldrin but the video showed Collins, that NASA couldn't have simply made a mistake. Instead they must have been deliberatly covering up who said it. They said Collins forgot that he wasn't supposed to have been on the lunar surface and misspoke when the question was about seeing stars in solar corona which was an experiment that Collins did and therefore makes sense for him to answer.