Apollo 11 TV footage taken on the way to the moon

[Evan Burton]

When I was reading Armstrong's biography in Barnes and Noble when it first came out ( and now seems to have changed text ) I remember reading that Buzz asked Neil where the soil sample was , as it was allegedly the first experiment that Neil did when he hit the lunar surface .

But guess what Neil told Buzz as they were getting ready to blast off the lunar surface ? ... He told him that he forgot about it and left it in the zippered pocket of his spacesuit which he had just tossed out on the lunar surface !!!

Oops too late ... The cabin was repressurized and the boys were suitless , so there was no retrieving the soil sample .

Now if Evan tells me this dialogue is not in Armstrong's biography , then I will know I read this conversation and the other conversation I mentioned before about them taking their scheduled nap , in another book .

I had a look and couldn't find anything. What was mentioned was that Houston had to remind Neil a few times to take the contingency sample; he purposely deviated from the checklist.

Duane, you still have no proof at all for your claim that the biography was changed. This might be true - changes are made to second and third editions for various reasons - but you have not provided any evidence that it has been changed (or why, if it was).

Edited February 23, 2007 by Evan Burton

[Duane Daman]

If this dialogue is not in his autobiography , then it must have come from another book ... Didn't you say you had a first edition ? .. If so , it should not have been changed .

I remember every word of the dialogue .... Buzz asked Neil where the soil sample was and Neil laughingly told him he forgot all about it and left it in his zippered spacesuit pocket , which he had just tossed out onto the lunar surface, right before they left .

No, I can't prove this is what I read but I remember it well ... The dialogue was silly , like something from the Hardy Boys Mystery Series ...

Did Neil bring back a soil sample ? .... Did he toss his spacesuit out onto the lunar surface ? ... If anyone would know these answers it would be you .... If he didn't return a sample and he didn't bring back his suit , then what I am saying is true .... If not , then someone wrote one hell of a fairy tale about the Apollo 11 mission .

Edited February 23, 2007 by Duane Daman

[Evan Burton]

The LM had triangular windows:

and a rectangular RV window above the CDR's station (shown here in a mockup):

The round window was in the CM:

[Evan Burton]

Did Neil bring back a soil sample ? .... Did he toss his spacesuit out onto the lunar surface ? ... If anyone would know these answers it would be you .... If he didn't return a sample and he didn't bring back his suit , then what I am saying is true .... If not , then someone wrote one hell of a fairy tale about the Apollo 11 mission .

Yes, they brought back both contingency and planned soil samples (as well as 'rocks').

Yes, they threw out their PLSS backpacks (not their suits).

A brief overview of Apollo 11 lunar samples

Edited February 23, 2007 by Evan Burton

[Duane Daman]

Thank you ... It was the CM where the "Smoking Gun " footage was shot and it was a round window , not the windows that were shown in the You Tube video ... If you watch 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon ' , you can clearly see a round window being used to film Earth ... Sibrel changed his mind about it being Earth from low orbit , because the cloud cover would have been moving too quickly .... That's why he said a transparancy had been used when he confronted John Young .

Funny how Dave didn't menion there being a round window in the CM .... and my mistake for saying they were in the LM ... I meant to say the Command Module .

Edited February 23, 2007 by Duane Daman

[Duane Daman]

Did Neil bring back a soil sample ? .... Did he toss his spacesuit out onto the lunar surface ? ... If anyone would know these answers it would be you .... If he didn't return a sample and he didn't bring back his suit , then what I am saying is true .... If not , then someone wrote one hell of a fairy tale about the Apollo 11 mission .

Yes, they brought back both contingency and planned soil samples (as well as 'rocks').

Yes, they threw out their PLSS backpacks (not their suits).

<a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo11/A11_sampact.html" target="_blank">A brief overview of Apollo 11 lunar samples

</a>

Well if they claim to have brought back soil samples and the spacesuit also , then somone wrote one hell of a fairy tale .

Unfortunatley , I will probavly never find the book I read that day with this strange dialogue and information in it .. and if it was his autobiography , then it has been edited .

Edited February 23, 2007 by Duane Daman

[Evan Burton]

Well if they claim to have brought back soil samples and the spacesuit also , then somone wrote one hell of a fairy tale .

Unfortunatley , I will probavly never find the book I read that day with this strange dialogue and information in it .. and if it was his autobiography , then it has been edited .

Every time your claims are refuted, you seem to intimate that the facts have been changed!

What if I claimed I read a post of yours where you admitted that you were just stirring things up and knew that Apollo really did happen - but it mysteriously disappeared? And I could offer no proof to support my claim?

Would you think it was fair for people to believe my claim?

Or would you think people would read what you had previously said, formed the opinion that you did not believe the Apollo landings happened as recorded, and that I was mistaken in what I had read?

I'm sure you would support the former - as would most everyone.

[Duane Daman]

I don't give a damn if you believe my claims or not ... I know what I read ... and anyway , you're the one who just said that books can be changed from one edition to the next ..

So if your book is a first edition , like you claimed , then I read this crap in another one of nasa's fairy tale books .

[Evan Burton]

I don't give a damn if you believe my claims or not ... I know what I read ... and anyway , you're the one who just said that books can be changed from one edition to the next ..

So if your book is a first edition , like you claimed , then I read this crap in another one of nasa's fairy tale books .

Then it should be a simple job for you to produce evidence of this claim.

[Duane Daman]

It would be simple if I can find the same book again ... or if this was in Armstrong's autobiography , find a hardback first edition ....

I know I have a reputation for not quoting things exactly and also a tendancy to rush through reading things , and not remembering every single word I have read or what web site I read it on ... but I do remember this dialogue very well and there is no mistaking what it said .... Buzz asked Neil where the soil sample was and Neil said he forgot about it and left it in the zippered spacesuit pocket that he threw out on the lunar surface ... This was the same book where it claimed they took their scheduled nap .... So if Neil didn't write this stuff and it's not in the book I thought it was , then some other clown made up this stuff and didn't care if it didn't match up with nasa's previous moon stories .

[Evan Burton]

It would be simple if I can find the same book again ... or if this was in Armstrong's autobiography , find a hardback first edition ....

Books are not like an internet site which might be changed at will. Books are hard copy productions, produced in their thousands. If your claim is correct, then surely someone has a copy of this... dare I say 'rogue'?.... edition?

I know I have a reputation for not quoting things exactly and also a tendancy to rush through reading things , and not remembering every single word I have read or what web site I read it on ...

Then perhaps this might be an object lesson for you. When you want to state things as an assertion, then make sure you can back it up. I'm guessing that the JFK researchers would be most unforgiving of inaccurate claims.

but I do remember this dialogue very well and there is no mistaking what it said .... Buzz asked Neil where the soil sample was and Neil said he forgot about it and left it in the zippered spacesuit pocket that he threw out on the lunar surface ... This was the same book where it claimed they took their scheduled nap .... So if Neil didn't write this stuff and it's not in the book I thought it was , then some other clown made up this stuff and didn't care if it didn't match up with nasa's previous moon stories .

Then withdraw the assertion, gather the proof and - when you have it - then remake the assertion with the proof. Making unsupportable or inaccurate claims does nothing to reinforce your credibility.

[Duane Daman]

"Making unsupportable or inaccurate claims does nothing to reinforce your credibility."

My credibility with whom ? ... A bunch of nasa defenders ? .... You have gotto be kidding me ?!!?

I will withdraw nothing ... I know what I read ... and I will take some time this weekend to see if I can locate the book where I read this information ....

So are you now saying that because books are hard copy that they are not edited when necessary ?

If you read what I did in a book about the Apollo 11 mission and believed it to be untrue , would you not report it to someone at nasa , in hopes of having the book pulled and corrected ? ... Of course you would ... So don't pretend that books are not edited when obvious glaring mistakes are made ... Or new stories don't quite jive with the old one's .

Of course in nasa's case , their stories don't jive quite often ... but luckily for them , they have people like you to cover for them .

[Evan Burton]

I will withdraw nothing ... I know what I read ... and I will take some time this weekend to see if I can locate the book where I read this information ....

Good. I look forward to you supplying this information. Please do NOT forget to grab the edition / revision details, publisher, and ISBN.

So are you now saying that because books are hard copy that they are not edited when necessary ?

I find it pretty absurd to claim that NASA "revisionists" go around replacing every single copy of a specific edition of a book. For my part, my German Shepherd has not alerted me to anyone trying to replace various copies of Apollo books in my library (including replicating the inscriptions that are within them)

If you read what I did in a book about the Apollo 11 mission and believed it to be untrue , would you not report it to someone at nasa , in hopes of having the book pulled and corrected ? ... Of course you would ... So don't pretend that books are not edited when obvious glaring mistakes are made ... Or new stories don't quite jive with the old one's .

I would certainly question the discrepancy, most normally with the author of the work. I'd ask them on what they based their statements.

Of course in nasa's case , their stories don't jive quite often ... but luckily for them , they have people like you to cover for them .

That's close to an accusation, Duane. Please refrain from making such statements unless you have verifiable proof.

Consider that a warning.

[Dave Greer]

Let's try and clear up this confusion about the contingency sample brought about when Jack claimed that no lunar dust was brought back on Apollo 11.

The contingency sample was exectly that - a small sample of dust retrieved at the start of the mission in case they had to quickly curtail the EVA for some reason. You can see 16mm footage of Armstrong retrieving it here.

I don't know where Jack is getting his information from, but according to the ALSJ, they also brought back 6.5 kg of lunar dirt. Neil Armstrong packed the Bulk Sample Container (which already contained rocks) with 6 kg of dirt. The other container contained some 0.5 kg dirt (along with the rock samples).

From the ALSJ at 111:25:04

At some point during the closeout, Neil decides to use dirt as packing for the rocks he has put in the open rock box (ALSRC 1003, aka the Documented Sample container). In all, he shovels in about 6 kilograms. Jim Gooding describes this sample as being very representative of the mare regolith and that, because there is so much of it, it is the material which is now being put to use in lunar base engineering studies. Small amounts have been used in lab-scale demonstrations of processes proposed for the manufacture of such basic engineering materials as cement and ceramics. From the TV, it is not at all obvious when or how he collects this soil. Because he had the tongs with him while he was collecting rocks, it seems most likely that he collected this soil once he got back to the MESA. The lack of any movements in the TV that can be easily interpreted as soil collection suggests that he was able to reach down to the surface with the scoop without bending over very much at all.

Note added in 2006: My original impression, source unknown at this writing, is that Neil added about 6 kilograms of regolith to the Documented Sample container before closing it. However, the Apollo 11 Lunar Sample Catalog ( 16Mb PDF) indicates that it was the Bulk Sample container into which he put 6 kilos of loose regolith; and that he only put about 0.5 kilos of regolith into the Documented Sample container. Whatever the details of how much he collected at any particular point in the EVA, it is clear that Neil collected a great deal more lunar soil than had been planned and put a great deal of it loose into the boxes because there was room for it. He was using his head and putting the limited time available to good use.

So whether Neil still had the contingency sample or not is somewhat irrelevant, but interesting enough to find out what happened to it. Neil and Buzz has a little joke about what happened to it while helping Eric Jones out with the ALSJ.

[Aldrin - (To Neil) "Where's the contingency sample right now?"][Armstrong - "I don't know. I mean, we don't care about that anymore, once we got the rock boxes."]

[Aldrin - "Did we throw it out? Or did we keep it?"]

[Armstrong - "Oh, I think we kept it."]

[Aldrin - "How did it get back without kind of being out loose and all that?"]

[Armstrong - "It was in my pocket."]

[Aldrin - "I'm just trying to...because I don't remember dealing with it hardly at all."]

[Armstrong - (Chuckling) "It may still be in that suit pocket, for all I know."]

[Aldrin - " (Joking) You got it (at) home in your top drawer?"]

[Neil stowed the sample in his tight pocket at 109:36:33. The Apollo 11 Preliminary Science Report, assures us that the Contingency Sample did make it back to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. Journal Contributor David Harland notes that Neil showed the sample to Mike Collins in orbit at about 129:14:17, soon after re-entering Columbia.]

Thinking about Duane's claim that the contingency sample was thrown out along with the suit... I can only assume he's confusing the suit with the EVA gloves and the PLSS, which were left behind (the astronauts could plug their suits into the LM for oxygen and water while inside). If not, it's going to take some explaining how the suit was thrown out of the now-pressurised LM... and the fact that Neil Armstrong's suit is on display here on earth is going to take some explaining away as well.

Duane, if you really did see this written in a book somewhere, then I'd suggest that part of the book is in error. I'd like to see the actual quote from the book first of course.

[Dave Greer]

Thank you ... It was the CM where the "Smoking Gun " footage was shot and it was a round window , not the windows that were shown in the You Tube video ... If you watch 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon ' , you can clearly see a round window being used to film Earth ... Sibrel changed his mind about it being Earth from low orbit , because the cloud cover would have been moving too quickly .... That's why he said a transparancy had been used when he confronted John Young .

Wrong I'm afraid. It was either taken out of one of the trapezoidal rendezvous windows, or a rectangular side window. Of course, Sibrel is trying to lead viewers into believing that it was a round window. He doesn't show you what he doesn't want you to see - namely, the rest of the footage footage that clearly shows the earth being filmed through a rectangular or trapezoidal window. You can purchase the DVD set from Spacecraft films. If you don't want to do that, here is a site with various stills from the footage Sibrel doesn't want you to see. I'll post one of them below. Doesn't look like a round window to me.

Here is a link to the alleged "Smoking Gun" footage. There is no round window being used.

Funny how Dave didn't menion there being a round window in the CM .... and my mistake for saying they were in the LM ... I meant to say the Command Module .

Neither did I mention what I had for breakfast - quite simply because it's irrelevant! I didn't mention the shape of ANY windows until this post. The Lunar Legacy Youtube film explains it all quite clearly.

And being a diligent resercher, you did know about the configuration of the CSM windows anyway didn't you? Or at least how to confirm it for yourself?

Edited February 23, 2007 by Dave Greer