Apollo 13

[LunarOrbit]

thanks for letting me know

No problem. It's probably one the least significant consequences of the shutdown, but I figured you might want to change it.

[JayUtah]

You guys are over my head with some of your data/explanations.
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I doubt that there are any 'technical' explanations for this one.

These points of view are incompatible.  Choose one or the other.

...some sweating would be better than hypothermia (or death, according to my EMS friend).

Because every anonymous EMS is trained in space survival.

I also found it incredible that Bean didn't know he went through the Van Allen Belt.

He didn't.  He went around the edge of it.  The filmmaker Bart Sibrel told him he'd gone through the Van Allen belt, even though Sibrel is essentially ignorant of what that is or what that means.  Naturally Bean was surprised; Sibrel in his ignorance misrepresented the case.

...frankly, you could tell he was lying in this one.

Does every "professional photographer" display such remarkable clairvoyance?  I know trained and experienced psychiatrists who find it difficult to tell just by looking at a few seconds of film of someone they've never met, whether he's lying or not.

It would be breathtaking.

For a "professional photographer" you are colossally ignorant about the strength of light and the mechanics of vision.

Also, that they 'lost' 10,000 reel to reel telemetry tapes...

No, they didn't lose them.  They were reluctantly forced to re-use them due to a vendor snafu long after Apollo.

the scientific history of the missions...

That may be your characterization but it's not the view of the relevant scientific community.

Ditto with the specs to the LM and the Saturn.

Who says they are "lost?"  You're listening to way too much hoax-advocate rhetoric.  Yeah, they're so "lost" that engineer Scott Sullivan was able, using only publicly available information, to reconstruct the mechanical design of the spacecraft using modern drafting and modeling techniques.  I've seen quite a handful of the original drawings, which for the most part are held by their contractors in one form or another.

This sort of thing does it for me.

Oh really?  How many aerospace engineering projects have you been personally involved with?  On what basis are you judging the reletive

When I started looking into the possibility that Apollo was a hoax, I totally expected it to be a BS 'conspiracy theory.' I was in for a surprise.

I don't see you exhibiting a lot of critical thought here.  You came here with specific questions, admitted that the answers you're getting from qualified professionals went over your head, and then just decided not to believe them.  Don't try to play "innocent questioner" here.  As soon as you got your first answer, you let loose the standard Gish gallop of claims.

So now that it's obvious you're here to debate and not "just ask questions," let's see how much you really know about the beliefs you espouse.

[JayUtah]

You're very quick on your responses. May I ask if this is a paying job?

I'm paid to be an aerospace engineer, yes.  But posting on these forums is not my paid job.  As has been said, your claims are so old and so long-debunked that it simply takes no effort to provide the real story.

[JayUtah]

If so: One question I have is why they used approx 16 psi of pure O2 in the capsule during a communications test -- when Grissom & Co burned to death. Even I know not to do that.

You know now not to do that, largely because of what happened to Apollo 1.  Prior to that, oxygen saturated environments had been operated safely, hence there was no special cause for concern.  The danger was known and discussed, and plans were being made to fix it.  But they were being made to the Block II design, not the Block I design, which was what the Apollo 1 spacecraft was.

The test has to have an environment of 3-5 psi over the ambient in order to test the pressure regulation mechanisms.  And because of the plumbing, the only gas they could pressurize that spacecraft with was oxygen.  The capsule design was vetted for the space environment, and test constraints etc. were considered secondary in the rush to get the program off the ground.  What later was realized during the investigation but was not realized in the development and test phases is that the test environment for the Apollo 1 capsule, for reasons including the high-pressure oxygen, was actually more dangerous than the flight conditions.  This arose simply because overworked engineers were so focused on flight.

In short, yes it was not a wise thing to do.  But it is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you work on a complex engineering project very fast.

[JayUtah]

I'm a professional photographer and the attached photo raises a big red flag.

I don't believe you.  I have at times worked as a professional photographer, and while I maintain my own studio I do not make my living that way.  However, part of my living as an engineer is in photographic analysis, typically in a forensic engineering role.  I have been formally trained along those lines, and my analysis has appeared in such prestigious journals as Science.

You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about here.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

The percentage of hoax believers that are professional-photographers-on-the-internet is truly astonishing.

You're very quick on your responses. May I ask if this is a paying job?

Aaaand the Shill Gambit.

Pray tell, is misrepresenting yourself a professional deformity or is it just a hobby?

[ka9q]

If so: One question I have is why they used approx 16 psi of pure O2 in the capsule during a communications test -- when Grissom & Co burned to death. Even I know not to do that.

As several others have already pointed out, hindsight is always 20-20.

Why was Apollo 1 pressurized to ~16 psi? Because it was designed to operate in space with zero outside pressure; external pressure would crush the structure. So as it sat on the pad at sea level the internal pressure had to be greater than 1 atm to provide a positive pressure just as it would have in space.

Why did Apollo use pure oxygen? Because it was designed as a 1-gas system to save weight (no nitrogen tanks and a much lighter structure) and reduce complexity (no nitrogen piping and regulators, no O2 partial pressure sensors).

Apollo astronauts also conducted many EVAs in pressure suits. Even today, it is pretty much impossible to make a suit that can be pressurized to 1 atm while remaining light and flexible. Since our lungs care only about the partial pressure of oxygen, which is about 21% of air, by eliminating the nitrogen the total suit pressure can be dropped to less than 4 psi (vs 14.7 psi at sea level). This makes it far lighter and more flexible.

If Apollo had used ordinary air, it would have to have been pressurized to ~1 atm, greatly complicating EVA preparations. The astronauts would have to breathe pure oxygen for hours while the pressure around them is reduced very slowly to allow the nitrogen in their bodies to come out without causing the bends. The use of low pressure pure oxygen on Apollo greatly simplified an EVA; you just put on your suits, depressurized the cabin, and left; no prebreathing period was required.

After Apollo 1 revealed the extreme fire hazards of pure oxygen at > 1 atm, procedures were changed so that the prelaunch cabin contained a 60% O2, 40% N2 mixture. This was provided by ground equipment so the spacecraft did not have to be modified. After launch, the cabin was slowly vented and replaced with pure oxygen at the normal low pressure of about 5 psi.

The Space Shuttle, ISS and all Russian crewed spacecraft do use mixed-gas atmospheres (i.e., ordinary air) at sea level pressure, and that makes them considerably heavier and more complex. Astronauts spend hours in the airlock prebreathing oxygen to prepare for each EVA. But this was considered necessary because of the greater fire hazards in the much larger cabins filled with all sorts of equipment and supplies that couldn't always be made completely fireproof in pure oxygen.

[JayUtah]

That's your answer? An insult?

It's not an insult; it's a rebuke -- and a well-deserved one.

Unless you work in an industry for a long time, you can't really use your personal beliefs or suppositions as a basis to judge the propriety of actions taken by others in that field.  And you surely can't say, with any depth of understanding or credibility, things like "Well, I would never have made that mistake."  So when you insinuate that such an allegedly bone-headed practice would never have arisen in a real space program and so this one must be fake, you're going to have a lot of engineers lambasting you.

Don't pretend you're an expert in things you don't know about.  Around here you will get cut off abruptly at the knees for it, without warning or mercy.

[allancw]

Still no answer. OK. Main thing is that my observation that three days in tinfoil and no climate control in deep space IS a new observation has been confirmed. I just wanted to make sure I was the first to point that out. Thanks, guys.

[Andromeda]

Um, maybe you should actually read the answers several people have provided you with.

[ka9q]

Still no answer.

No, you got your answer. You simply didn't want to take the time to understand it -- you even said so.

You are committing the fallacy, almost universal among Apollo deniers, of appealing to incredulity.

[JayUtah]

But this was considered necessary because of the greater fire hazards in the much larger cabins filled with all sorts of equipment and supplies that couldn't always be made completely fireproof in pure oxygen.

The Apollo cabin was supposed to be reasonably sterile for flight.  The flammability and extinguishment characteristics of all the materials qualified for flight was carefully evaluated for the 5 psi of pure oxygen.  Even still, the investigation board found "creep" in the amount and types of materials accepted for flight, that was strictly above the combustibles limit.

But one of the big problems was all the stuff in the cabin for the test that would have been removed prior to the flight -- the webbing under the couches, the protective covers over the instruments, the "remove before flight" tags, the cable and hose covers.  All these things were not qualified for flight and were not evaluated for flammability.  Why?  Because those constraints were not established for ground test.  If everything present in the cabin at all times during its preparation had to be flight-qualified, there would be no end of delay and frustration.  And so a careful evaluation of non-critical constraints is one of the first things that falls by the wayside in a very high-profile, very complex project that is falling behind.

And it's absolutely true that the dangers of a high-pressure oxygen environment -- even if only for test -- were being realized by other aerospace projects and were trickling over to Apollo.  It was being discussed.  The designs for Block II were being looked at for possible revision.  GSE equipment designs were being modified.  Test procedures were being examined.

The problem is that the layman doesn't realize just what a sheer workload that is to go from abstract concern to deploying modified designs.  "Test procedures" are not just a handout.  For a manned space flight "test procedures" amount to dozens of feet of shelf space of loose-leaf binders that all have to be read through page-by-page to determine whether any individual steps need to be changed.  Then modified, then submitted to all affected parties and contractors for approval, then submitted to training to be implemented by the pad and flight crew.

You can't just willy-nilly add a diluent gas and all its associated tankage and plumbing to a spacecraft design without it rippling through all aspects of the design from systems reliability to aerodynamics to RCS flight control to mechanical interference control to electronic load control to panel displays and controls to telemetry to medical to thermal designs.

In the meantime the project continues.  "Evaluate risk factors for high-pressure oxygen in ground test and service operations" is one of maybe 100 new items brought to the team's attention that day.  As is, "Evaluate spacecraft design for diluent gas."  As far as anyone was concerned in January 1967, the plugs-out pad test was a reasonably safe procedure that had been done a dozen times safely before for other manned missions.

[JayUtah]

Still no answer.

Hogwash.  You either don't like the answer or you don't understand it.  Please tell us which it is.  But saying "no answer" is just you with your fingers in your ears, not wanting to believe there are rebuttals to your beliefs.

Main thing is that my observation that three days in tinfoil and no climate control in deep space IS a new observation has been confirmed. I just wanted to make sure I was the first to point that out. Thanks, guys.

What on Earth are you blabbering about?  No one has "confirmed" your ignorant handwaving.  They told you what was wrong with your line of reasoning.  If you can't let go of your instinctual premises, then no one can help you.

[darren r]

Still no answer. OK. Main thing is that my observation that three days in tinfoil and no climate control in deep space IS a new observation has been confirmed. I just wanted to make sure I was the first to point that out. Thanks, guys.

Good grief! Even by HB standards of chutzpah, that's pretty breathtaking.

[Echnaton]

Still no answer. OK. Main thing is that my observation that three days in tinfoil and no climate control in deep space IS a new observation has been confirmed. I just wanted to make sure I was the first to point that out. Thanks, guys.

No answer to what?  You have bombarded this board with multiple questions, complaints and opinions without citations for your sources or explanations for your beliefs.  So if you feel that your posts are not getting answers, try starting a dialog.  This practice of dropping a few effete bombs and declaring victory is all to common among hoax believers and cranks that blindly follow the crowd.  Do you really want to be one of them?