ACTUNG DAS FAQ APOLLO
Nathan Jones
THE APOLLO HOAX FAQ version 1.1 04/DEC/02
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The FAQ regarding the Apollo Record and the so called
manned Moon landings of 1969 to 1972.
Written by Nathan Jones.
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Subject: (1) Forward and Intent
In recent years there have been many criticisms and
refutations made in various media of the Apollo record, the
so called proof of the Apollo space missions that allegedly
landed astronauts onto the surface of the Moon during the
period 1969 to 1972. The criticisms and refutations by authors
such as David Percy, Ralph Rene, the late James Collier, Bill
Kasing and others take the form of analysis of the photographic
record and video footage shot by NASA astronauts and questions
about the viability of other aspects of the operation such as
the flight worthiness of the lunar module (LM) and the
radiation risk posed to astronauts who venture outside of the
Earths protective shield - the Van Allen belts.
Critiques of the Apollo record have sprung up all over the
internet in various websites and in the form of books,
television documentaries and video presentations such as James
Colliers "Was it only a Paper Moon?". Counter claims and
arguments have also appeared in websites such as Phil Plaits
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html and in
professor Dutchs website: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/
ConspiracyTheoryDidWeGototheMoon.htm.
http://www.clavius.org/techengine.html is another often quoted
web site. These sources of information regularly deal with the
same questions and principles but in many instances they fail to
correctly describe the situation. While this FAQ makes no attempt
to address every question raised by the true sceptic it answers
enough of them in order to conclude that the proof of the so
called manned moon landings is no proof at all.
Subject: (2) Table of Contents.
(1) Forward and Intent
(2) Table of Contents
(3) What does it take to prove we went to the Moon?
(4) The public are dumb, they'll buy into any idea.
(5) No stars are visible in the images, where are they?
(6) The flag waves.
(7) There's no dust on the lander footpads.
(8) Why is no engine noise audible in the LM radio broadcasts?
(9) Where are the flames from the landers engines?
(10) What about the shape of the exhaust and its effects?
(11) Was the Lunar Module (LM) tested on Earth?
(12) Where's the blast crater?
(13) Dust kicked up by the Rover wheels acts strange.
(14) Radio telemetry proves man went to the Moon right?
(15) Laser ranging reflectors on the Moon are proof right?
(16) Why don't they point the HST at the landing sites?
(17) The Russians had to be in on it right?
(18) What about Apollo 8, 9 and 10?
(19) The radiation hazards facing the missions.
(20) The lunar surface brightness misconception.
(21) Photographic anomalies, heiligenschein and perspective.
(22) What still film was used?
(23) In a vacuum there is no heat?
(24) The noon day temperature misconception.
(25) How much insulation does it take to keep an astronaut warm?
(26) Can the Moon rocks be faked?
(27) Unmanned retrieval of Moon rocks possible? -definitely.
(28) Sceptics Websites
Subject: (3) What does it take to prove we went to the Moon?
I would remind the reader that It's up to scientists and
claimants of this or that fact to provide proof of their claims.
That's how it works in science. It's called the scientific
method. If we find flaws or errors in their method or in the
results of their scientific work then we may call in to question
the validity of their claims. NASA and many scientists provide
what they claim is proof that man walked on the Moon and then
we are allowed to examine that proof. Many non-sceptics say
they can easily prove that the sceptics proof is flawed. I
have no proof, NASA has "proof". I'm merely examining that
proof and finding it wanting. It's up to the believers to
account for all of the flaws and anomalies in their proof.
Subject: (4) The public are dumb, they'll buy into any idea.
It has been said that up to 20% of the American public believes
we did not go to the Moon and that there is no idea so dumb that
they will not buy it. Or something of that sort.
This is a non-argument. It is neither supportive of nor
detremental of any scientific analysis of the Apollo record. It
is merely an attempt at ridicule and should be ignored. Most of
the NASA believers that swallow the NASA story hook line and
sinker usually end up making remarks of this kind or worse.
Subject: (5) No stars are visible in the images, where are they?
In order to capture stars on film you need very long exposures
in comparison to "daylight" scenes even if the sky is pitch
black. Just try and take a photo of stars for yourself whilst
including some brightly lit scene (say a lighted car park at
night) and you should find that the car park images are
"burned out" when the stars begin to show in the pictures.
Though it's correct that stars will have been absent from the
lunar photographic images it is strange that none of the
astronauts remarked on the stars in the sky. The stars really
will have been a magnificent sight at all times from the Moon.
Subject: (6) The flag waves.
The only footage I have seen where the flag waves or flaps
about is when the astronaut is adjusting the flag pole.
Because he had his hand on the flag pole and was making
adjustments to it then I would expect the flag to wave
around for a time.
Subject: (7) There's no dust on the lander footpads
The Moon has no atmosphere in which eddies and such can cause
the dust to swirl and "float around". Dust is "shot" away when
there is no atmosphere. Therefore it is difficult to say
whether the foot pads would have been covered in dust with any
certainty. The chances are that some hollows and crevices will
contain trapped dust but all of the images I have seen look
remarkably clean. Nothing conclusive here in my opinion though.
Subject: (8) Why is no engine noise audible in the LM radio
broadcasts?
Hmm... Your guess is as good as mine. The LM was pressurized
to about 5 psi (oxygen rich atmosphere) during the landing and
ascent phases of the missions. The LM cabin will have been filled
with the sound from the engine and control thrusters.
The following website has an account describing the noise from
the engines on the space shuttle orbiter;
http://internet.ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm
Quote: "The forward primary thrusters sound like exploding
cannons at thrust onset; and during their firing" -each
primary thruster produces a thrust of only 870 pounds. The LM
engine produced a 3000 pound thrust and would have made much
more violent sounds and actions. "jets of flame shoot out
from the orbiter's nose. ...The orbiter reacts to the
primaries' shove by shaking slightly and moving very
noticeably. For the crew on board, a series of attitude
changes using primaries resembles a World War I sea battle,
with cannons and mortars firing, flashes of flame shooting in
all directions, and the ship's shuddering and shaking in
reaction to the salvos".
It has even been suggested that because passengers do not hear
the sound of an airplanes engines over the captains loudspeaker
system when he addresses them then there is no expectation that
we should hear it in any of the LM radio broadcast!.
The reason we can't hear the engine sound over the loudspeaker
is because the passenger compartment is already filled with
engine noise and there would be no way for the passenger to
differentiate it. I have personally heard the engine noise
during the captains air to ground radio broadcasts on many
occassions. Many NASA proponents claim that the LM rocket
engines never did make any noise once the flow of propellants
had stabilised. They claim that the only sound it made was the
sound of the propellants rushing through the tubes. Well, I
have never heard of a silent rocket engine. They all (to my
knowledge) produce a roaring sound in a range from loud to
deafening and there is a good reason for this, rocket
propulsion is essentially a form of controlled explosion.
Anything less than this and there will not be enough thrust
generated to lift the rocket off the ground. Of course in a
vacuum the only way the noise may reach the cabin is via the
structure of the LM itself. We've all heard how much noise
may be transmitted by this method everytime we drive our
cars. At speed road noise from the wheels becomes significant
and may even interfere with conversation depending on the
road surface. The ascent engine was mounted inside the cabin
only inches away from the astronauts and there was no noise
picked up by the microphones?
Subject: (9) Where are the flames from the landers engines?
Some websites like badastronomy dot com make the claim
that the engine didn't produce any visible exhaust or flame
because the fuel mixture that was used just doesn't do that
they say. However it is known that the LM engine and the space
shuttle orbiter both use hypergolic fuel engines of the same
type and same fuel and yet the space shuttle orbiter does
produce a visible exhaust flame and the LM somehow did not.
The flame from the orbiter is plainly visible in the image at
this website: http://internet.ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm
but the badastronomy website would have you believe that no
flame is produced. The Titan2 rocket used exactly the
same fuel and oxidizer mix as the LM and yet it produced
copious amounts of highly visible flame but the LM somehow
does not NASA and its supporters claim.
Try the following url http://www.clavius.org/techengine.html
for images of a titan2 launch and also a very misleading side
by side comparison of an "LM" type of engine and a solid fuel
rocket engine in a direct luminosity comparison. I say it's
flawed because the exhaust bell in the "LM" type image is
nothing like the real thing. The one in the picture flares out
at 45 degrees thus diluting the luminosity of the exhaust flame
greatly. Even so it is still visible even against what appears
to be a bright background. Note that it would have been greatly
inefficient to waste fuel and thrust with such a flared exhaust
and that it would not have been allowed to happen on a real
engine. The solid fuelled engine used for comparison is against
a darker background though it is not clear if this is as a
result of under exposure in the photography. Note here that in
the case of the solid fuelled engine the exhaust is properly
formed unlike in the other picture. You'd be right to think
that they were comparing "apples" with "oranges" in this
comparison. The only usefull information to come out of this
comparison is that the "LM" type engine did produce a luminous
exhaust flame and that if a real exhaust bell had been used
then the flame would have been much brighter and thus easily
visible against a dark background like the lunar sky.
Subject: (10) What about the shape of the exhaust and its
effects?
The badastronomy website claims, "In a vacuum, no air means
the exhaust spreads out even more, lowering the pressure.
That's why there's no blast crater! Three thousand pounds of
thrust sounds like a lot, but it was so spread out it was
actually rather gentle". Take a look at the photograph at the
url http://internet.ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm and see
how much the flame spreads. It spreads only a little. Also the
exhaust bell on the LM will have been only a couple of
feet above ground as the LM touched down and given that the
bell was five feet in diameter the ground just below will
have felt the full effects of the engine as it set down.
Therefore we can say that the badastronomy claim is not a
significant factor.
Subject: (11) Was the Lunar Module (LM) tested on Earth?
Basically, no. The Lunar Module was the vehicle that was
supposed to take the astronauts down to the Moons surface and
allow them to take off again back up to rendezvous with the
command module. The LM just wasn't designed for reuse and for
flight in Earths gravity where it's weight would have been six
times what it would have been on the Moon. That's why they
developed simulator vehicles for training. NASA had Lunar
Module "simulators" built for astronaut training but four out
of the five training/research vehicles crashed. NASA is still
to this day having trouble with vertical take off and landing
rockets. The last known attempt ended in a crashed landing in
1996. NASA claims that the LM underwent successfull "testing
and manouvers" out in space and in orbit around the Moon.
The simulators or training vehicles were actually called
LLRV's and LLTV's - lunar landing research vehicles and lunar
landing training vehicles but they were nothing like the LM.
See here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apoollrv.htm
People often cite the Harrier jump jet as an example of a
machine with vertical takeoff and landing capability as a
comparison. While that is true the Harrier has 4 powerfull
turbofan driven thrusters for load balancing. The LM would
have had to balance on one engine output only. The LM also
had 16 small (110 pound) thrusters for attitude control and
translation complicating matters considerably and which the
Harrier does not have. The Harrier is much flatter and with
a much lower centre of gravity than the LM resulting in a
more stable configuration as well. It can be seen that the
Harrier jump jet and the LM are two different kettle of
fish entirely.
Subject: (12) Where's the blast crater?
The Moon is covered in powdered rock and rubble. The dust has
a consistency described as being like cornflour. The blast
emitted by the descent engine 3000 or so pounds and averaged
out over the exit area of the exhaust "bell" came to about
1.5 pounds per square inch. That's some draft. If the dust
layer on the lunar ground was only an inch or two deep then
conceivably there would not be much of a crater or hollow
etched out by the blast, however NASA claims that the regolith
(the powdered rock and rubble) that covers the Moon is 5 to 15
metres deep. Instead we see a fairly smooth surface with a few
light brush marks underneath the bell.
See this image: as11-40-5921.jpg. It's not a blast crater,
it's more like someone swept up with a broom just underneath
the bell. The main engine was not extinguished
untill after touch down on some missions NASA say yet all the
landing sites (the ground beneath and around the LM) look the
same, that is relatively undisturbed. There should have been a
starburst pattern extending out beyond the footpads.
Subject: (13) Dust kicked up by the Rover wheels acts strange.
Let's examine the claim on the badastronomy dot com
website that says; "you will see dust thrown up by the wheels
of the rover. The dust goes up in a perfect parabolic arc and
falls back down to the surface. Again, the Moon isn't the
Earth! If this were filmed on the Earth, which has air, the
dust would have billowed up around the wheel and floated over
the surface. This clearly does not happen in the video clips;
the dust goes up and right back down. It's actually a
beautiful demonstration of ballistic flight in a vacuum".
So, badastronomy dot com tells us how it is supposed to be,
what is supposed to happen on the Moons surface, however
frames from NASA's own footage of the lunar rover show us a
very different picture. It reveals the presence of atmosphere.
In parts of the rover footage "vertical walls" or "curtain"
formations of dust are seen to form in the wake of the dust
kicked up by the rear wheels. Jim Colliers video shows this
effect nicely. Small particles of dust encountering atmosphere
will have their ballistic flight path impeded to the point
where sideways velocity drops to zero. The particles can then
only fall vertically and look as if they had come up against a
wall. That would only happen if the dust encountered atmosphere.
See also this image at
http://www.empusa.clara.net/lunar/lunar6.jpg
and notice that clouds of dust form behind the rover's wheels.
It looks just like there is an atmosphere! Also it's just not
good enough to ascribe the cloud like appearance of the dust
kicked up by the rover to "random motions". You would only get
random motions like that when factors due to atmosphere come in
to play. Close in to the wheels the geometric planes in which
the dust move are all basically parallel and are not randomly
aligned.
Last point, don't let the fact that some of the dirt kicked up
by the rover's wheels fall in a parabolic arc require it was
done in a vacuum because it means no such thing. If you drive
the wheels over coarse sand you will see the same thing.
Subject: (14) Radio telemetry proves man went to the Moon right?
Jodrell Bank and sundry government scientists might have
pointed their antennae at the Moon but none of that will
prove man set foot on the Moon. Sending unmanned packages to
the Moon for orbit and deployment on the lunar surface is
childs play in comparison to safely landing and returning
astronauts from the Moon.
Subject: (15) Laser ranging reflectors on the Moon are proof
right?
No, they are not proof that astronauts put them there. NASA
and its believers claim that astronauts placed a reflector on
the surface of the Moon so that astronomers may bounce laser
beams off of them in order to better determine various lunar
parameters, distance from Earth, period and so on. That fact
is often incorrectly cited as a proof. There may well be
reflectors on the lunar surface but that doesn't prove anyone
set foot on the Moon. The Russians deposited a reflector during
their Luna (Lunakhod) series of unmanned missions to the Moon
some time in the early nineteen seventies. In fact the Russians
were first with the ability to "soft land" instrument packages
on the Moon in February 1966 with the Luna 9 mission. The Soviet
success was closely followed by the American Surveyor missions
which also "soft landed" instrument packages.
No proof of a manned Moon landing there then.
Subject: (16) Why don't they point the HST at the landing sites?
Even today, the largest telescopes in the world and the Hubble
space telescope (HST) do not have the resolving power to identify
the LM or what would be left of it on the Moon's surface. The
smallest object they can discern is something about the size of a
football pitch at the distance of the Moon and even then it would
be hard to tell exactly what it was they were looking at.
In order to make a specific determination they will need more
information than size alone. A blob the size of a football
pitch could be anything, a crater, a patch of ground or
anything. The LM is of course much smaller than a football
pitch.
Subject: (17) The Russians had to be in on it right?
No, the Russians would have exposed the Missions if they could
have.
The 60's was the peak of the propaganda wars between the US and
the
USSR as it was known then. There was no known technology
available
that could detect the presence of humans aboard a capsule from a
distance. The only means of detecting a fraud would have been
from
the "leakage" that may have resulted in relaying communications
from
the Earth to the capsule in order to make it appear to originate
from the capsule or from the lunar surface. That would not have
proven
a problem however as microwave links are highly directional and
thus
inherantly very "leak proof" and when that is coupled with secure
communications methods such as frequency hopping, spread spectrum
techniques, encryption and any other unusual modulation methods
it's
virtually certain that an outsider would not have detected it.
Subject: (18) What about Apollo 8, 9 and 10?
Apollo 8 orbited the Moon and returned to Earth. Apollo 9 never
left
Earth orbit. The astronauts allegedly practiced deploying and
docking
with the LM. Apollo 10 practiced everything but the landing
itself.
Lunar orbit, deployment and docking with the lunar module. If
they
were "real" then there's no technical reason we could not have
gone
on to land astronauts on the Moon is how the argument goes. The
answer to that is, why should the deployment and docking trials
of
the LM be any more real than the Moon landings? If the LM wasn't
fit
to land on and takeoff from the Moon then why would anyone risk
any
space manouvers with it? It would have been illogical to do so.
Apollo 8, 9 and 10 don't prove astronauts landed on the Moon.
Subject: (19) The radiation hazards facing the missions.
- From http://www.aulis.com/nasa6.htm "According to an expert at
DERA in the UK: Radiation is the biggest show stopper affecting
mankinds exploration of the universe. As far as the probability
of encountering SPEs or solar flares went, the thin-walled Apollo
craft (from 8 through to 12) travelled during a solar maximum
period, a time when there was a likelyhood of three or four
severe
flares per mission. The ability to predict solar flare activity
was, and still is, very poor indeed. The CSM did not have any
shielding against such an event. Neither did the LMs, nor did
the spacesuits". Even NASA admits that should there have been a
severe flare while astronauts were on the Moon the likelyhood
would have been a fatal dose of radiation.
There is no comparison with the international spacestation
which does have shielding and which orbits inside the
protection of the Earths Van Allen bands as well.
Now here's what is typically said in response to questions
about the problem of radiation:
from: http://www.clavius.org/envsun.html
"A major solar event doesn't just cut loose without warning.
It is possible to observe the "weather" on the sun and predict
when a major event will occur. And this is what was done on
the Apollo missions. To be sure, the missions were planned
months in advance and the forecasting was not that farsighted.
But they would have had enough warning to call off the mission
should a solar event have started boiling up from the depths
of the sun." That's not quite right, It takes millions of
years for anything to "boil up" from the depths of the Sun and
It's just not possible to accurately predict when a solar flare
will occur. About the best you can do is say they correlate with
high sunspot numbers but the Sun can have high sunspot numbers
for months on end.
- From http://www.lunaranomalies.com/fake-moon.htm
"As to the issue of solar flares and the danger they
presented, there simply weren't any major ones during any of
the Apollo missions. So the biggest reason that none of the
astronauts died from their radiation exposure was that they
simply did not get a bad dose to speak of".
That's right, they gambled with the astronauts lives. The
chance of encountering a severe solar flare was 3 or 4 per
mission, any single flare of which could have proven fatal
to the crew. To tackle this problem NASA had a "Sun" watch
going by the name of SPAN, the solar particle alert network.
This was a network of telescopes that monitored the Sun day
and night for flares. It was known that electromagnetic
radiation, the gamma and radio bursts for example would reach
the Moon (and Earth) well ahead of the solar particles that
were thought to be more dangerous. This might have bought
anywhere from 10 to 100 minutes time for the astronauts to
find shielding from the deadly particle stream. NASA says
the astronauts would have been ordered to leave the Moon and
fly back up to the safety of the command module. But the
command module didn't have the sheilding to protect against
a severe flare. Oops! Another NASA clanger.
Another potentially serious radiation hazard are the Van
Allen belts or zones. They are regions in space near the
Earth where the Earth's own magnetic field traps and
"concentrates" radiation from the Sun. The most damaging form
of radiation that we need worry about are the solar wind
particles that the Sun continuously emits and which is
prevented from reaching the Earth's surface by the Earths
magnetic field. Whilst we are protected from this radiation
on the Earth just above us at a range of approximately 500 to
20 thousand miles the radiation is concentrated and transit
times through these regions must be kept to a minimum. It is
not thought that any of the Apollo mission astronauts will
have spent sufficient time in the Van Allen belts for it to
have been a worry. The International space station however
must keep clear and thus orbits underneath the Van Allen
zones and whilst keeping away (most of the time) from a
related problem known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.
Subject: (20) The lunar surface brightness misconception.
It is sometimes argued that the surface of the Moon is so
bright that it accounts for all the so called fill-in lighting
that critics of the Apollo record claim has been used.
For example it has been argued that, "One celebrated picture
shows an astronaut with the sun behind him, and the lunar
lander and American flag reflected in his visor. According to
critics, the astronaut should have been merely a silhouette.
And so he should, if he weren't surrounded by brightly-lit
ground. If the full Moon can brightly illuminate the earth
from 250,000 miles away, just imagine what it can do to an
astronaut standing on it". That argument is about as wrong as
it can get.
Here's what NASA has to say about the Moons surface brightness.
See: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/Academy/UNIVERSE/MOON.HTML
"Next to the sun, the full Moon is the brightest object in the
heavens. However, its surface is rough and brownish and
reflects light very poorly. In fact, the Moon is about the
poorest reflector in the solar system. The amount of light
reflected by a celestial object is called the albedo (Latin:
albus, white). The Moon relects only 7% of the sunlight that
falls upon it, so the albedo is 0.07."
The reflectance of grey paper is 18% and the Moon (close up)
is brown with a reflectance of only 7%. You know now that
close up, on the Moon things are going to look pretty gloomy
over all because the ground is brown and the sky is black.
- From a distance the Moon might be a raging beacon of light
(comparatively) but it's not that way close up.
Subject: (21) Photographic anomalies, heiligenschein and
perspective.
Note, all the images referred to here use the same file name
as that used in the NASA online archive and are easily located
with Google <filename> or alternatively at the following
websites:
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/archives/images/USA/
Apollo_11/Spacecraft/medres/
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/archives/images/USA/
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap11ann/
kippsphotos/apollo.html
The following images all contain "photographic"
anomalies or inconsistencies. In aS11-40-5903.jpg there is a
strong hot spot very near the subject and the brightness of
the ground fades rapidly into the distance to nothing. The hot
spot is indicative of spot lighting and will not be caused by
the Sun which illuminates all the ground equally and that is
in spite of what they say on the badastronomy dot com website.
Any "heiligenschein" effect in the above image should be
invisible as the Sun is way off to the right. You can tell
that because the astronauts shadow is to the left. Here's what
badastronomy says about the heiligenschein effect; "The lunar
dust has a peculiar property: it tends to reflect light back
in the direction from where it came. So if you were to stand
on the Moon and shine a flashlight at the surface, you would
see a very bright spot where the light hits the ground, but,
oddly, someone standing a bit to the side would hardly see it
at all. The light is preferentially reflected back toward the
flashlight (and therefore you), and not the person on the
side." So, take a look at the image and see for yourself. They
must have used a spotlight to take that photograph because the
hotspot cannot have been caused by the heiligenschein effect.
Some of the shaded areas of the astronauts suit is brighter
than the lunar ground which if it is the only source of fill
in (light reflecting from the ground acting as fill in light)
is not possible. Why is the brightness of the astronauts suit
(his right ankle/calf) so bright near the ground? There should
be much less reflected light reaching him down there and yet
the brightness is the same as it is at the top of his suit.
Try looking at as11-40-5902.jpg for all the same anomalous
features and inconsistencies. What about the following images,
10075741.jpg and 10075742.jpg. In these images Mt Hadley is
the back drop but with a small change in veiwing position and
a slight increase in camera height of a couple of feet the top
of Mt Hadley has completely changed it's angle relative to the
horizontal. Mt Hadley is 3 miles in back so a small shift of a
few feet in camera position ought not to produce such a large
shift of perspective at the top of Hadley.
Many images look like the background is dropped in to the
foreground and some are obviously air brushed just like
10075841.jpg. There are many more examples of images that are
not right and which may be described as fakes.
In some NASA film footage included in the late Jim Collier's
video "Was it only a paper Moon?" Young and Duke of Apollo 16
can be seen against exactly the same backdrop on two different
EVA's (EVA1 and EVA2) which were on different days at alleged
different places and in different directions from the LM base
camp. On EVA2 Young describes the scene as "absolutely unreal".
On another EVA to and from a site near Hadley Young makes a
similar remark about the scenery being unreal during the return
journey when exactly the same backdrop (which should have been
laterally reversed with respect to the origin but which was
not) was displayed as that used in the forward (to) journey.
Of course the whole debacle is explained away as human error in
the editing room by the NASA supporters.
What can I say, "It's absolutely unreal".
Subject: (22) What still film was used?
http://www.aulis.com/nasa6.htm
"It was actually ordinary Ektachrome film emulsion. However,
it is now claimed by the Enterprise Mission
(post justification) that there was a special transparency
film created for these missions under a NASA contract. Called
XRC,apparently this was a specially extended range color
slide film that allowed the astronauts to take perfect
National Geographic-quality pictures. So you might ask how
does the agency justify the fact that according to Kodak in
1969 and confirmed again in 1997 the film was just ordinary
160 ASA high speed Ektachrome?"
http://www.empusa.clara.net/lunar/lunar1.htm
"Ordinary ektachrome slide film will shatter at -4F". So what
kept the inside of the cameras warm? They had a silver case
presumably to reflect solar heat to keep them cool.
Subject: (23) In a vacuum there is no heat?
"So it may be +200F in the lunar sunlight and -200F in the
shade, but in a vacuum there is no heat".
Wrong. There is plenty of heat in the vacuum and especially
close in to a star. Heat is energy and there is plenty of it
in the "vacuum" of space in the form of an energy flux. The
sun pours out massive amounts of heat energy and other
radiation. At the distance of the Earth (and this goes for the
Moon too) the amount of heat energy in the "vacuum" of space
amounts to 1.36Kw per square metre also known as the solar
irradiance. Both the Earth and the Moon receive this amount
of energy from the Sun but at the Earths surface you can
sometimes subtract about 30% from the solar irradiance figure
due to reflection by clouds in the atmosphere.
There is also no such thing as a completely empty vacuum with
no energy in it. There is a virtual partical flux throughout
the whole of space and there is a base level of energy
associated with that flux. It's called the zero point of
energy. It's not zero energy but a baseline of energy below
which we cannot go.
Subject: (24) The noon day temperature misconception.
It is often said or implied that it takes 14 days for
temperatures to reach +200F on the lunar surface. This is
plainly wrong. Claims that astronauts landed on the Moon
during the "lunar morning" in order to "avoid noon day heat"
are ridiculous. They might say they landed at that time but
it would not have helped them to avoid any heating problem
that they will have faced.
Heating to +200F or more can happen in less than 24 hours of
exposure to sunlight on the Moon's surface. Here's how;
surface temperatures (not the regular air temperature
measurements) may reach 200 degrees fahrenheit on Earth in
places like deserts and so forth. If we consider that during
the night the temperature may in all probability have dropped
to freezing (-32F) or near freezing then we may note that the
Sun's energy in a matter of only a few hours (less than 12
hours) will have brought about a temperature rise of around
200 degrees fahrenheit and that is after the additional
cooling effects of atmospheric convection which are not found
on the Moon have done their worst. If we remove atmospheric
cooling then the ground will heat up much faster because there
will be no convective heat losses caused by the presence of
the atmosphere which are far more severe than the radiative
losses and the final temperature may even be more than 200F.
Now, hypothesizing a world where the minimum starting
temperature is -200F (that's what the surface temperatures
on the Moon can cool off to during the night and in the shade)
those same 12 hours of sunlight would also bring a RISE in
temperature of more than 200F. If we add the two solar
exposures and take out the night time, that makes things
nearer to conditions on the Moon where the Sun can shine for
14 whole days at a time because that is how long the lunar day
is, then we can see that temperatures starting from -200F may
easily rise to more than +200F in 24 hours or less. If we take
the best case of the 24 hour period centred on lunar midday
when more time is spent by the Sun overhead presenting the
optimum angle of incidence to the ground then the temperature
rise on horizontal ground will be fastest of all during that
period. However for surfaces that present normal (head on) or
nearly normal angles of incidence to the Sun's rays no matter
whether it be lunar midday or morning then they too may rapidly
heat up to more than +200F in less than 24 hours. It is fairly
obvious from this that surface temperatures on the Moon can
rapidly heat to more than +200F in much less than 24 hours of
sunlight depending on angle of incidence. For a recently
landed lunar module standing vertically on the ground and
presenting a surface that is perpendicular to the Sun's rays
(which it will be during the lunar morning) the heating effect
will be rapid and similar to that for level ground at midday.
The same applies to astronauts standing on the lunar ground.
They too will present a perpendicular side to the rays from an
early morning Sun.
Subject: (25) How much insulation does it take to keep an
astronaut warm?
Not much. The biggest problem is in keeping him cool. However,..
In order to maintain a normal temperature (37C) the human body
(naked) would have to radiate about 800 watts of heat to the cold
sky of space. With an average layer of clothing the losses can be
considerably reduced to around 200 watts but the average daily
calorific intake is only sufficient to support losses of around
100 watts. Therefore a little more clothing on top will suffice
to stay warm under a cold sky and losses would then be at the
normal 80 to 100 watt level which is easily sustained given
proper calorific input.
Subject: (26) Can the Moon rocks be faked?
They don't need to be faked - see section (27)
While I do not offer an opinion on the authenticity of the
samples I think it is important to "tidy up" a couple of
related issues.
- From http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/
ConspiracyTheoryDidWeGototheMoon.htm
"You simply do not see unaltered olivine on earth. This could
not have been faked. These rocks have grains easily visible
to the unaided eye, which means they cooled slowly. To have
made these materials synthetically would have required keeping
the rocks at 1100 C for years, cooling them slowly at thousands
of pounds per square inch pressure. It would have taken years
to create the apparatus, years more to get the hang of making
the materials, and then years more to create the final result.
Starting from Sputnik I in 1957, there would not have been
enough time to do it. And, you'd have to synthesize several
different types of rock in hundred-pound lots".
The curator at JSC claims that sample sizes are of the order of
a few tens of milligrams. That's sugar lump size. There's no
need to manufacture "hundred pound lots at once or in single
pieces. I'd think the manufacture of small sample sizes is
easier and faster than large ones.
"All I did to get the Moon rock specimens (on loan) was write
in and sign an agreement to keep the materials secure when not
in use. NASA had no control over any non-destructive tests I
might do when I had the specimens. I could have, for example,
zapped the rock with X-rays to get its chemical composition.
So the faked specimens would have to stand up to any kind of
scrutiny that researchers might give them".
Researchers had to supply a protocol to the curator at JSC
that described exactly their intentions. If anything "funny"
happened or showed in undisclosed testing then they broke
protocol.
"Whoever came up with the faked specimens would have to have
devised a story of lunar evolution to fit the samples".
Lunar evolution is still undecided. We still aren't sure
exactly how the Moon formed. Whether it is a piece of the
Earth broken away after a collision with a small Mars
sized planet or whether the Moon evolved on its own in an
orbit near ours and was captured. The former hypothesis was
not even publicly proposed until the Kona conference in 1984!
"And you'd have to put in exactly the right amounts of
radioactive elements and daughter products to get the rocks
to date radiometrically at 4 billion years old - older than
any terrestrial rocks. And you'd have to anticipate the
development of new dating methods not in use in 1969 and make
sure those elements are present in the correct abundance.
And it's not like adding carrots to a stew, either. To mimic
the results of potassium-argon dating, you'd have to add
inert argon gas and trap it just in the potassium-bearing
minerals, and in exact proportion to the amount of potassium".
K-Ar dating is often unreliable. Volcanoes that errupted only
a few hundred years ago yeild dates of millions of years! And
another thing, K-Ar dating is patched with fixes up to its
neck and some. Depending on what you think happened to the
rock sample you apply factors because of the mobility of the
argon. I'm not saying K-Ar dating is total hogwash you
understand but....
More info on moon rocks can be found at:
http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/lunar/lunar10.htm
http://www.space.com/news/spaceagencies/
apollo_moon_rocks_010326.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_
rock_analysis_000522_MB_.html
Subject: (27) Unmanned retrieval of Moon rocks possible?
Lets not forget that the Russian unmanned mission actually
brought back about 100 grams or so of lunar rock so it wont
have been beyond the wit or wisdom of NASA to do it bigger and
better will it? In the light of the above and when you take into
account all the anomalies and flaws in the Apollo record that
have been demonstrated to exist why should we believe that the
samples were retreived manually just because they (NASA) say so?
All claims require evidence and extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence (favourite skeptic/debunker terms of
evidential proof).So where is it?
According to Jim Collier "30 billion dollars were spent in
sending man to the moon but all the paper work has been flushed
down the toilet". All we have is "a bunch of faked photos".
I might be willing to accept the authenticity of the rock samples
if I saw some proof but that wont prove that astronauts
personally dug them up out of the ground. It especially doesn't
mean that astronauts retreived the samples when I find that
many other aspects of the Apollo record have doubt about their
authenticity.
Subject: (28) Sceptics websites.
http://www.empusa.clara.net/lunar/lunar1.htm
http://internet.ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm
http://www.aulis.com/nasa.htm
http://www.apollohoax.com/
http://www.grade-a.com/moon/
http://www.moonmovie.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/2666/MoonHoax2.html
http://www.geocities.com/nasascam/
http://www.ari.net/b2m/0198.html
http://myspeedtest.net/backwards/moon.html
http://galactic-guide.com/articles/8S12.html
http://advweb.com/kw/forum/misc/messages/689.shtml
http://clydelewis.com/dis/gorsky/gorsky.html
http://www.futuresunltd.com/sudarshan/MoonShadows/
MoonShadows.htm
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