Author Topic: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage  (Read 143203 times)

Offline Glom

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #180 on: March 14, 2012, 01:23:12 PM »
I was shocked by the photographs of hypergolic fueled rockets without a visible plume.
I must say that this was enough evidence to cause me to move to a neutral position on the subject of moon landings.
I can say that at this point there is no substantial evidence or smoking gun that I can point to to disprove a moon landing.

Even though I still don't believe it was possible, I won't say it was not accomplished.

I want to thank all of you for your postings, informative.

Now that we've resolved this situation, perhaps you'd care to start a new thread on what matters still befuddled you.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions so long as you'll listen to the answers and review your preconceptions based on those answers.

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #181 on: March 14, 2012, 01:28:30 PM »
In the age of tubes and transistors, how did the Russians or the USA soft land probes on the moon?

By using tubes and transistors, combined with straightforward control system techniques from the era before solid-state electronics.  The sequencers for many early space vehicles, for example, were the coaxial-cam type systems that still run some washing machines.  Tubes typically require immersion in cooling fluid and so were only used in environments that allowed for that.  Transistors can be cooled conductively, and are still the basis today for control system engineering.

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Has anyone actually studied the technology and determined that someone in the 60's figured out how to get a probe to ignite rockets to decelerate and finally soft land while maintaining correct trajectory and orientation?

Yes, many thousands of us have studied sequential-logic control systems since the late 1930s and practice the techniques professionally.  Why do you think these are obscure sciences?
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline ka9q

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #182 on: March 14, 2012, 01:51:48 PM »
In the age of tubes and transistors, how did the Russians or the USA soft land probes on the moon?
There is also a wealth of material on the US Surveyor program available through the NASA Technical Reports Server, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/

I've read detailed descriptions of the Surveyor flight systems: its star trackers, inertial reference, attitude control engines and yes, its electronics. It's a reasonable design for the mid 1960s, and being an unmanned robot it could accept a much greater chance of catastrophic failure than Apollo. Indeed, two of the seven Surveyors were lost during landing.

Although it had a landing radar to measure distance and velocity to the surface, Surveyor could not detect obstacles such as craters and boulders. Even the radar it did have could be confused. During the landing of Surveyor III, famous for its later visit by the Apollo 12 crew, its radar got confused and did not shut down the engines when it reached the surface. It bounced high off the surface twice before its engine was manually shut down by ground command and it settled down -- on the slope of a crater.

This is exactly the kind of thing that made a skilled human pilot so valuable; he could see where he was going, avoid obstacles and pick a safe place to land, and no flight demonstrates that better than Apollo 11. Even today we don't really have much of a clue how to write computer programs that can analyze the output of a TV camera in the way that the human brain can interpret what it sees through its eyes.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is returning photographs and maps of the moon that are so detailed that they can be used to pick safe landing spots for future missions, manned or unmanned. This was one of its major mission goals. This has never been done before; even with intensive Lunar Orbiter and Apollo orbital photography, the Apollo landing missions still had to depend on their pilots to avoid the obstacles that were simply too small to be seen from orbit at that time. This information will be especially of help for future robotic landers.

Even today spacecraft electronics are not nearly as advanced as you might think. They generally lag the technology on the ground by at least 10 years because of the necessarily ultra-conservative nature of spacecraft engineering. Commercial-grade parts are not necessarily excluded, but everything new has to be analyzed, tested and finally qualified for space before it can be used. The traditional design principles for spacecraft are still valid: a part that isn't present cannot fail, so KISS -- Keep It Simple Stupid. If you can still accomplish the mission while keeping some part or system on the ground instead of putting it in the spacecraft, then do so. If you haven't tested something, then it does not work. Even if it seems to work, test, test, test, and test again.

And you can still be damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't; I personally put much of the blame for the failure of the first Ariane V on overly strict rules on the selection of the computer processors for the guidance system (specifically the inertial platform).

Radiation susceptibility is always a big issue, especially for spacecraft designed to fly in or repeatedly throgh the Van Allen belts. Unlike manned missions that last no longer than 2 weeks, robotic spacecraft are expected to operate for years, accumulating considerably more radiation and almost certainly being exposed to a number of solar proton events. Here the older technologies actually have the advantage as they tend to be more radiation-resistant than newer, very highly integrated circuits with very small feature sizes.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2012, 01:54:55 PM by ka9q »

Offline sts60

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #183 on: March 14, 2012, 02:02:42 PM »
In the age of tubes and transistors, how did the Russians or the USA soft land probes on the moon?
Has anyone actually studied the technology and determined that someone in the 60's figured out how to get a probe to ignite rockets to decelerate and finally soft land while maintaining correct trajectory and orientation?
We know they figured this out by the fact that said landers actually did land on the Moon. 

Surveyor did not have a digital computer; its guidance system was analog.  And, yes, one can also see they figured it out by reading about what and how they figured out.  Descriptions and block diagrams are available in documents such as Surveyor Spacecraft - Functional Description, Hughes Aircraft Company publication # 70-93401.   Go to the NASA Technical Reports Server and type the name in.  Or type in "Surveyor guidance", or "Surveyor spacecraft design", and you too can read all about it.

Apollo used a more sophisticated guidance system because (a) it had more time and money to develop one, (b) it could take advantage of "man-in-the-loop" design, but most importantly, (c) it had to be able to land safely because of its crew; it couldn't simply land "blind" with regard to surface hazards.  This risk was acceptable for the robotic Surveyors.

ETA: Well, I see ka9q was there firstest with the mostest.  (Shakes fist, grumbles)
« Last Edit: March 14, 2012, 02:04:14 PM by sts60 »

Offline ka9q

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #184 on: March 14, 2012, 02:11:13 PM »
Remember that the underlying physics of orbital mechanics and space flight have been known for a long time, and they haven't changed at all:

Two masses still attract each other in proportion to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. (Newton, Hooke, et al, circa 1670)

The velocity increment of a rocket is still proportional to its specific impulse times the log of its mass ratio. (Tsiolkovsky, 1903)

Pairs of objects still orbit their common centers of gravity in conic sections, sweeping out equal areas in equal times. (Kepler, 1609)

Arbitrary functions are still numerically integrated by algorithms first developed hundreds of years ago by geniuses like Newton and Gauss. One of the most popular algorithms, Runge-Kutta, was developed in 1900.

Force is still equal to mass times acceleration. (Newton, 1687)

And so on. Sure, hardware has advanced enormously, and we now have vastly faster computers for trajectory design and simulation that have enabled some truly spectacular interplanetary billiards shots. And some good performance tweaks have been made to old algorithms. But by and large the underlying principles of space flight have been known for a very long time and they simply don't change.

(Edited to add discoverers and dates)






« Last Edit: March 14, 2012, 02:31:47 PM by ka9q »

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #185 on: March 14, 2012, 04:35:28 PM »
Remember that the underlying physics of orbital mechanics and space flight have been known for a long time, and they haven't changed at all:

Indeed, I have a celestial mechanics textbook from 1912 that has all the right math in it.  And for John Carter fans, I also have a 1920 first edition of Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

Most spaceflight is indeed Newtonian physics and is based on centuries-old knowledge.  In one sense we simply deal with gravity and momentum the same way we always have.  In another sense, we are still innovating.  The authors of my 1912 text wouldn't see anything amiss in Bate et al.'s Fundamentals of Astrodynamics or in the Apollo trajectory planning.  They would understand patched conics.  They would understand numerical integration of perturbations.  But it might take them some blackboard scribbling to understand how Lissajous orbits work in the three-body case.

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Sure, hardware has advanced enormously...

And that's a big help.  The ability to measure changes in dynamic state to very great accuracy and precision allows us to plan more ambitious activity.  The ability to regulate control actions to a similar precision and accuracy opens up new doors.

High-end engineering always defies lay expectations for several years after its introduction.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #186 on: March 15, 2012, 06:00:25 AM »
Has anyone actually studied the technology and determined that someone in the 60's figured out how to get a probe to ignite rockets to decelerate and finally soft land while maintaining correct trajectory and orientation?

Yes. A lot of technology used now for such things is directly derived from that used back then. Maintaining trajectory and orientation by use of an inertial guidance system had been in use at least since the V2 was flying in the 1940s. Inertial guidance was a big part of ICBM design in the 1950s. Automated sequencing to make things happen at particular times is as old as the first time someone used a clock to form a time fuse for a bomb. OK, that's a very basic example, but the principle is the same for a spacecraft: some timing mechanism set up to perform certain tasks at certain times.
"There's this idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid. My arse! Bloke who was a professor of dentistry for forty years does NOT have a debate with some eejit who removes his teeth with string and a door!"  - Dara O'Briain

Offline ChrLz

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #187 on: March 15, 2012, 08:25:23 AM »
I was shocked by the photographs of hypergolic fueled rockets without a visible plume.
Hmm.  You raised this issue quite confidently, saying:
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What property does space have that prevents electrons in the burning exhaust from producing photons of light?
In other words, you had already dismissed any idea that the 'burning exhaust' might not produce many or any photons (for any of a number of reasons).  As an earthly example, have you never seen methylated spirits burning almost invisibly?  If not, I'm shocked.

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I must say that this was enough evidence to cause me to move to a neutral position on the subject of moon landings.
Given you have admitted several times to being uninformed on these matters, I'm not sure that your 'position' is of great significance in the grand scheme of things, but I guess any move towards being informed (and correct) is a good one..

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I can say that at this point there is no substantial evidence or smoking gun that I can point to to disprove a moon landing.
I'm sorry, but if you have no substantial evidence, then you cannot possibly justify saying:
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I still don't believe it was possible

If all your best evidence has now been completely rebutted, then that would be a completely irrational belief.


Offline twik

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #188 on: March 15, 2012, 10:56:13 AM »
profmunk, let me first say that I appreciate your efforts to actually address and process information from other posters. This doesn't happen all that often.

Your last posts leave me curious, though. You mention that, despite some blows to your evidence that "you still don't believe that it was possible".  I'm interested in what you consider the "tentpole" for this belief - what is the main thing that makes you disbelieve it, for which the other evidence is merely supporting?

"The moon landings were impossible because ... " what?

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #189 on: March 15, 2012, 12:54:48 PM »
OK, that's a very basic example, but the principle is the same for a spacecraft: some timing mechanism set up to perform certain tasks at certain times.

Somewhere in my library I have a book that describes a hundred or so of the basic mechanical designs that endured throughout history, simple machines such as the Archimedean screw or the Chinese winch.  When you're doing mechanical design, you work with a "vocabulary" of well-proven mechanisms such as levers, gears, screws, bell cranks, tension rods, and so forth.

The cam-and-follower design pattern is one of those ancient, robust machines.  Machine a circular disc to have a certain perimeter profile, then mount it on a shaft, and arrange for something to follow the varying radius.  You can generate linear motion with a piston follower, or angular motion with a lever follower.  Mount several discs on a common shaft and you can synchronize several operations.  To this day, many washing machines employ a clockwork shaft rotating a set of plastic cams that operate electrical switches to implement the cycle.  You rotate the camset to the starting point when you "select the cycle" on the round knob.  Pushing the knob in engages the clockwork.

Escapements are another fascinating mechanical design pattern.  They're like the mechanical equivalent of the Schmitt trigger.

But in keeping with the theme of repeating these patterns over and over, the summing-lever mechanism in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner rudder control linkages -- a thoroughly 21st Century airframe design -- traces its lineage to almost identical valve-gearing designs (e.g., Stephenson or Wallschaerts) in steam locomotives, dating to 150 years prior.  Yes, there is a digital signal from the FBW system that opens a PCU solenoid valve, but the summing among the tiller position arm, the yaw damper, and the rudder command arm is still accomplished mechanically.  Why?  Because the design has worked reliably for 50 years that way.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline cjameshuff

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #190 on: March 15, 2012, 01:35:30 PM »
profmunk, let me first say that I appreciate your efforts to actually address and process information from other posters. This doesn't happen all that often.

It's certainly better than "my sister/girlfriend says", "I'm really good with sextants!", etc. However, I am also interested in knowing what specific shortfall of technology would have prevented it from being done.

Farnsworth developed electronically scanned TV in 1927, and electronics was sophisticated enough for 525-line TV to be introduced in the US in 1941, color TV in 1953...as consumer products. The basic principles of radar were being experimented with in the 1800s, and by the end of WWII there was a wide variety of radar equipment in existence, including radar fuzes for bombs and artillery shells. The Talos surface-to-air missile used radar guidance to hit aircraft, and it was introduced in 1958. The first Atlas ICBM flew in 1957, and the design continued to be used for satellite launches and even some manned missions for decades afterward. The U2 spy plane, which required basic life support systems (including a pressure suit in case the cabin lost pressure) due to the altitudes it operated at, first flew in 1955. The SR-71 "Blackbird", with a largely titanium structure and cruise speed of Mach 3.2, first flew in 1964.

So what exactly did Apollo require that couldn't be achieved at the time?

Offline ka9q

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #191 on: March 15, 2012, 02:27:05 PM »
I thought it would be interesting to list at least some of the technologies without which Apollo simply could not have happened, and when those key technologies appeared. Of course, many did not appear at one instant in time but evolved over a period by the contributions of many people, so some have to be stated as date ranges. In some cases the Apollo program itself had to bring an immature technology to a usable point.

Here's just a few that come to mind. By no means do I imply that this list is complete:

Radio communications on CW (continuous wave) carriers - 1920-1940s.

Radar - 1940s.

Cryogenics - liquifying, purifying by distillation, storing and transporting and using extremely cold liquids such as oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen - 1870s-1920s. The development of the deuterium-fueled fusion bomb prompted the development of large scale liquid hydrogen facilities in the early 1950s.

The discovery of helium in natural gas fields and the making of it available in commercial quantities - 1903-1920. (Helium's properties make it almost indispensable in modern rocketry: it's utterly inert, it's very light, and it remains a gas when all other materials are liquids or solids.)

The integrated circuit - early 1960s.

The stored program computer - 1940s-1950s.

The Hall–Héroult process for the production of metallic aluminium - 1886.

It would be interesting to pick one technology that was the most critical to Apollo in arriving the latest and/or having to be developed by the program. I'd nominate the Apollo Guidance Computer for this, as it was the first computer ever built entirely out of integrated circuits to meet the volume, weight and power requirements.




« Last Edit: March 15, 2012, 06:45:37 PM by ka9q »

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #192 on: March 15, 2012, 03:07:12 PM »
I'd nominate the Apollo Guidance Computer for this, as it was the first computer ever built entirely out of integrated circuits to meet the volume, weight and power requirements.

Indeed, it being the first practical embedded digital control system and a paradigm-shifter for much technology that followed.  In all fairness the DEC PDP systems caught up to the AGC on most of those points while Apollo was still operational, but there was still considerable magic in how the AGC was used in the overall system design.

One of the unsung advances is project management.  Apollo used advanced project-management techniques previously only employed in military development programs.  These techniques and their tools (e.g., PERT and Gantt charts) are commonplace now.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Trebor

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #193 on: March 15, 2012, 03:57:09 PM »
I wonder what the Prof would make of the images of the Black Arrow launch.... (see attached)
And that was on earth as well.

Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Photos from Apollo 11 film footage
« Reply #194 on: March 30, 2012, 08:27:41 PM »
I've split the thread and moved all of the rocketry discussion to the Reality of Apollo section:

It really is rocket science
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth.
I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth.
I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)