Man on the moon. Really?

[Peter Miller]

Well we all have our own opinions.

So lets move on the planned Mars landing.

I have great news for everyone. If you want the true story of the Mars landing buy a copy of the DVD Capricorn One.

IT is a pity that they released it about 40 years too soon but I am sure that the conspiracy theorists will hold that film up as proof that they never landed on Mars.

[Don Fry]

I reckon it's true, cos the earth is flat, so how can you orbit it in the first place. It therefore follows that the inverse square law is a con trick, and that bloke Newton was aving a laugh.

Text books, same relationship to the truth as the Sun on a bad day.

But my whippets disagree. They claim to have higher degree status. Honest dogs, albeit a bit stingy about surrendering caught edibles.

[The Wright Stuff]

Posted by Peter Miller on 18/07/2017 11:44:51:

Well we all have our own opinions.

So lets move on the planned Mars landing.

I have great news for everyone. If you want the true story of the Mars landing buy a copy of the DVD Capricorn One.

IT is a pity that they released it about 40 years too soon but I am sure that the conspiracy theorists will hold that film up as proof that they never landed on Mars.

The number of people who think that "The Martian" was based on true events is terrifying!

[Geoff S]

Posted by Nigel R on 18/07/2017 08:40:45:

"no quadcopter style stabilisation available at that time"

Here's some more faked things that couldn't have flown and therefore must be actors with strings holding them up, in action, in 1954:

Well I never actually saw the Flying Bedstead but I attended a school about 5 miles away from Hucknall and we always knew when it was being run because we could hear it. I don't think it would have passed most model club's noise tests

Geoff

[Andy48]

Posted by Martin McIntosh on 17/07/2017 21:41:23:

I was expecting a response but not quite this much! You really need to be old enough to have watched it live as it supposedly happened.

I did watch it live on a TV in the student's Union at Uni. Don't see how this changes anything.

[SR 71]

I sat and watched the whole thing from start to finish, and followed all the space shots, I still do

I think that was the real deal, nothing faked about at all

Edge of the seat stuff, loved it

Tony

[Andy48]

I remember back in the 70's when I started programming, moon lander programs were all the rage, and they didn't involve a great deal of programming.

[J D 8]

I also watched it all.Christmas 68 was just magical with Lovell,Borman and Anders in orbit around the moon.

Their " Earthrise" photo says it all for me.

Still have my Airfix Saturn 5 rocket.

[The Wright Stuff]

I loved the Al Reinert film "For All Mankind" and have watched it countless times. The Brian Eno tracks from the film (Atmospheres and Soundtracks) are so relaxing to listen to while fettling balsa or brandishing a paint brush!

 

Edited By The Wright Stuff on 18/07/2017 16:07:41

[Nigel R]

I would recommend viewing the documentary 'in the shadow of the moon', it's simply excellent. Also 'from the earth to the moon'.

[Devcon1]

Just ordered the Shadow of the Moon DVD from eBay, £2.28 Inc delivery.

Thanks for the mention Nigel.

[Don Fry]

Arrrrrrrr, but are the last six posts done by AI's planted by the establishment, to make us believe a man got on the moon.

[John Bisset]

Posted by J D 8 on 18/07/2017 15:48:29:

I also watched it all.Christmas 68 was just magical with Lovell,Borman and Anders in orbit around the moon.

Their " Earthrise" photo says it all for me.

Still have my Airfix Saturn 5 rocket.

 

I agree. That photograph of Earthrise still brings a lump to my throat when I see it. A magical moment - and their reading from Genesis was thought provoking, though I am not a religious person. The comment 'to all on the good earth' was emotional;clearly they felt a long way away!

 

Incidentally, on the topic of the computers & software used, I seem to recall that the computer error reported several times by Buzz Aldrin while the landing was in progress was due to an overflow condition - an overflow error - since the crew had elected to run the LEM radar altimeter from much higher up than first planned. The extra computing and storage load overwhelmed the computer, hence the repeated warnings. Someone in Houston had to decide whether this was a mission critical failure - it was concluded the computer would continue to function adequately. Nail biting!  This was ZX-81 level capability - state of the art for mobile computing then.

And no lazy programming possible then; programs stripped to the bone because memory as well as computer power was so limited!  The trick was to know how to reuse memory locations with clever organisation of calculations to minimise repetition. It's easy to forget how different it all was.

 

Edited By John Bisset on 18/07/2017 21:44:49

[Geoff S]

All my early software was in Motorola assembler and we used all sorts of dodges to keep from using too much ROM (all our s/w was embedded and ran in 2k byte ROM). I always thought the ZX81 was a really good 8 bit processor as was the 6502 in the BBC Microcomputer. Both much easier to use than the Intel 8085.

I didn't start using micros until the early 70s. In 1969 the only integrated circuits we used were analogue operational amplifiers and they cost more than a week's salary (about £35 a throw and prone to failure).

They were exciting times for anyone interested in technology and still simple enough to pick up as you went along if you were using low level languages at machine code level.

Geoff

[Dwain Dibley.]

I was eight years old and we all sat in the school hall and watched on a tv.

Surely by now then, with all the tech available, we should be having day trips to the moon, which, when I was eight, was expecting to be the norm by the time I was nine. I had to be content with fireball XL5.

D.D.

[ted hughes]

They were all very brave men.

The "hoaxers" are losing out on one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century.

[ted hughes]

Posted by Dwain Dibley. on 19/07/2017 00:02:37:

I was eight years old and we all sat in the school hall and watched on a tv.

Surely by now then, with all the tech available, we should be having day trips to the moon, which, when I was eight, was expecting to be the norm by the time I was nine. I had to be content with fireball XL5.

D.D.

I was about 12 or 13 when the first landing was shown "live" in the school assembly hall.

I think there have been a number of issues relating to bone density, muscle loss, possibly cancer (because of lack of the protective layers around the earth),which make space exploration unlikely.

[John Privett]

Posted by Dwain Dibley. on 19/07/2017 00:02:37:

Surely by now then, with all the tech available, we should be having day trips to the moon, which, when I was eight, was expecting to be the norm by the time I was nine. I had to be content with fireball XL5.

D.D.

But lots of other predictions about the future made back then have turned out completely wrong too.

People ask why we haven't been back to the moon. But the real question is "why would we go back?" It remains a risky thing to do, and insanely expensive. NASA's budget is currently around 0.5% of the USA's federal spending. But for much of the 1960s it was over 3% and peaked at almost 4.5%. We know what is on the moon, so why spend huge sums of money to go back unless there is some strong reason to do so?

[The Wright Stuff]

People ask why we haven't been back to the moon. But the real question is "why would we go back?" It remains a risky thing to do, and insanely expensive. NASA's budget is currently around 0.5% of the USA's federal spending. But for much of the 1960s it was over 3% and peaked at almost 4.5%. We know what is on the moon, so why spend huge sums of money to go back unless there is some strong reason to do so?

 

According to Wikipedia, the final cost of Apollo was reported to Congress as $25.4 billion in 1973. This sounds big when you put it like that, but it translated to less than a $ per person per week.

Another shocking way to justify the spend as an investment for mankind, was that the US military spent $170 BILLION on the Vietnam War in the same period. Given the technical and symbolic legacy of Apollo, I find that food for thought!

Private ventures (e.g. Space X) look likely to be able to return to the moon at a fraction of the cost of Apollo, with today's technology.

Edited By The Wright Stuff on 19/07/2017 08:31:07

[Peter Christy]

One point that often gets over-looked is that Apollo was never designed to be the optimum way of getting to the moon, nor was it done for any real scientific benefit. It was done simply to beat the Russians to it. Once that goal had been achieved, it had served its purpose and was redundant.

Of course, it *should* have been followed up with a proper programme of exploration, but now it looks like some privateers may be about to take up the challenge, and good luck to them.

I remember a quote - I think from one of the astronauts - on being asked why we never went back. He described how one of his neighbours had a dog, and every night when he drove home the dog would chase his car down the road, yapping furiously. One day he wondered what would happen if the dog ever caught the car, so he slowed right down, and eventually stopped. The dog wandered around the car, sniffed at it, and then cocked its leg against the wheel, before going home! It never chased his car again!

His conclusion was that that was pretty much what man did to the moon......

--

Pete

[Nigel R]

On a related note, the Pale Blue Dot;

https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/voyager/pale-blue-dot-images-turn-25

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. … There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world."

[Trevor Crook]

Just dipped back in here. Apologies for my earlier use of the term "loonies", it wasn't aimed at any thread contributors. I was getting a bit irritated and came over all tabloid!

[The Wright Stuff]

Posted by Trevor Crook on 19/07/2017 10:26:17:

Just dipped back in here. Apologies for my earlier use of the term "loonies", it wasn't aimed at any thread contributors. I was getting a bit irritated and came over all tabloid!

The irony of course, is that "loonies" is derived from "lunatic" which itself is associated with the moon. The term "lunatic" derives from the Latin word lunaticus, which originally referred mainly to epilepsy and madness, as diseases thought to be caused by the moon.

Does that make it any more acceptable, BEB?

[Rob Ashley]

Well this is all a bit interesting... I wasn't born but have a son who is convinced that it didn't happen whereas I am 100% confident it did. We have had some interesting conversations over the years over this. I approach it from a more scientific point of view - he watches videos from the conspiracy theorists.

The lack of gyro stabilisation on the lander is not a problem. As an active military test pilot I have been privileged to see and fly many platforms that are very unstable - all without crashing. The reason being is that the human is exceptionally good at reading drift and counteracting the problem, especially with training - and this is exactly what append with the Apollo astronauts - they trained. Also a lot of the instability problems are not helped, and in fact augmented by atmospheric conditions - not found on the moon. The physics speaks for itself and as others have mentioned it doesn't take much to counter all of the conspiracy theories. Much harder to fake.

[John Bisset]

It saddens me but doesn't greatly surprise me that so many people have been gulled into thinking the moon landings did not happen.

The truth is that few people understand how the world works, or care, apparently - in scientific but more importantly in engineering terms. Maybe 10% care . That's fine, not everyone needs to take an interest.For most,the world is, for all practical purposes, run by 'black magic'. They take it on faith that things work; they don't know how. In such a circumstance it is no surprise they can be fooled by the conspiracy clots.

Our modern world is a construct produced by engineers - who interpret the science and the theories, make 'em into workable kit. They are in essence the folk who way back sat in the caves or the forests, in the dark, wet,cold and hungry and said 'Sod this, there must be a better way'. So they, men and women, went out and found it, bit by bit. Many died doing that, no doubt. But that is why we are where we are.

Engineers : "The Sons of Martha" to quote Kipling (the engineers' poet if ever there was one) They need to know, they need to care and 'carry the shock'. Others don't need to.

The bit which really annoys me about the absurd doubters is that some very brave men took the risk of going to the Moon - it was a singled down exercise with no back up if things failed, in many cases. The moon lift-off rocket for example, It could not be tested beforehand, A one shot, assured by excellent statistical risk thinking. We couldn't do it now; the rules would not allow it. But those brave men, test pilots all, accepted that risk as worth while.

I say 'absurd' - if that upsets anyone, tough. This is not a matter of opinion for disagreement in which 'everyone has an equally valid opinion', a common folly of modern times; this is simple hard fact, not open to 'opinions'.

John Bisset