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by 82_28 » Wed Dec 24, 2014 10:42 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 09, 2015 8:28 pm
Moon created by collision with look-a-like Earth
A collision between two planetary bodies of similar composition leading to the formation of the Moon.
The planet believed to have smashed into a primordial Earth, creating a cloud of debris that eventually formed into the Moon, was a near-match to Earth in its chemical composition, according to a new study.
The leading theory of how the Moon formed has always been that a Mars-sized planet slammed into Earth some 4.5 billion years ago.
This fits well with what we know about the Moon, including its mass and lack of any significant iron core, a study published in Nature claims.
The theory also implies that the Moon is made up mostly of material from the shattered planet that smacked into Earth.
Since lunar and Earth rocks have such similar compositions, this suggests that Earth and the impactor planet were sister planets — they would have formed from the same kind of orbiting proto-planetary material.
Hagai Perets, an astrophysicist at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, based the findings on simulations of the Solar System’s formation using advanced computer modelling.
"The Earth and the Moon are not twins born from the same planet, but they are sisters in the sense that they grew up in the same environment," Perets said.
A primordial origin for the compositional similarity between the Earth and the Moon
Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti, Hagai B. Perets & Sean N. Raymond
Nature 520, 212–215 (09 April 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14333
Received 10 November 2014 Accepted 10 February 2015
Most of the properties of the Earth–Moon system can be explained by a collision between a planetary embryo (giant impactor) and the growing Earth late in the accretion process1, 2, 3. Simulations show that most of the material that eventually aggregates to form the Moon originates from the impactor1, 4, 5. However, analysis of the terrestrial and lunar isotopic compositions show them to be highly similar6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. In contrast, the compositions of other Solar System bodies are significantly different from those of the Earth and Moon12, 13, 14, suggesting that different Solar System bodies have distinct compositions. This challenges the giant impact scenario, because the Moon-forming impactor must then also be thought to have a composition different from that of the proto-Earth. Here we track the feeding zones of growing planets in a suite of simulations of planetary accretion15, to measure the composition of Moon-forming impactors. We find that different planets formed in the same simulation have distinct compositions, but the compositions of giant impactors are statistically more similar to the planets they impact. A large fraction of planet–impactor pairs have almost identical compositions. Thus, the similarity in composition between the Earth and Moon could be a natural consequence of a late giant impact.
Collision with Earth's 'Little Sister' Created the Moon
APR 8, 2015 01:00 PM ET // BY IRENE KLOTZ
The primordial planet believed to have smashed into baby Earth, creating a cloud of debris that eventually formed into the moon, was chemically a near-match to Earth, a new study shows.
The finding, reported in this week’s Nature, helps resolve a long-standing puzzle about why Earth and the moon are nearly twins in terms of composition. Computer models show that most of the material that formed the moon would have come from the shattered impactor, a planetary body referred to as Theia, which should have a slightly different isotopic makeup than Earth.
ANALYSIS: 'Man in the Moon' Created by Mega Volcano
“For some 30 years this contradiction was a major challenge to physicists grappling with the formation of the moon. The hope was that better simulations might resolve this issues, but it turned out that the progress with simulations gave essentially the same results, giving rise to the ‘isotope crisis,’ as this problem came to be called,” astronomer Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti, with the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, wrote in email to Discovery News.
Using advanced computer modeling, Mastrobuono-Battisti and colleagues ran dozens of simulations of later-stage planet formation, each time starting with 85- to 90 planetary embryos and 1,000 to 2,000 planetesimals extending from about halfway between the orbits of Mercury and Venus to within 50 million miles or so of Jupiter’s orbit.
Within 100 million to 200 million years, each simulation typically produced three to four rocky planets as a result of colliding embryos and planetesimals, the scientists found. Looking particularly at the last moon-forming impact scenarios, the scientists assessed the likelihood that Theia and Earth had the same chemical composition.
NEWS: Violent Moon Formation Happened Later Than Thought
“It turned out it is not a rare event … On average, impactors are more similar to the planets they impact compared with different planets in the same system,” Mastrobuono-Battisti said.
“Our study was the first to reconsider this issue, now exploring it with large data and … wide range of models. One should always be careful when basing the assumptions on limited data,” she added.
Related papers, also published in Nature, home in on slight variations in an isotope of tungsten found on Earth and on the moon, which continue to raise questions about the moon’s formation.
“It is very unlikely -- but not impossible -- that two very different sized bodies developed the exact same tungsten isotopic composition,” University of Maryland astronomer Richard Walker told Discovery News.
“I think all three papers work to explain the formation of the moon within the framework of a giant impact. I don't think we have a better alternative at this time,” he added.
NEWS: Bits of Earth-Shattering Impactor Found on the Moon
Additional studies may depend on sacrificing Apollo moon rocks in an attempt to more precisely measure lunar tungsten.
“It may be worth it. The committee that considers such requests will have to be convinced of the merit of continued work,” Walker said.
A second tact is to get a sample from another inner solar system planet.
“Venus would be really difficult, but a sample from it would tell us whether or not Mars (which is considerably different from Earth and the moon) is the odd man out,” Walker said.
A sample of Mercury already may be on Earth, in the form of a rare, and still unidentified, meteorite.
by seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 11, 2015 10:38 am
China plans to land lunar probe on far side of moon
Chang’e 4 mission to far side of moon is planned for sometime before 2020, leading engineer says
Wednesday 9 September 2015 05.19 EDT
China’s increasingly ambitious space programme plans to attempt the first-ever landing of a lunar probe on the moon’s far side, a leading engineer said.
The Chang’e 4 mission is planned for sometime before 2020, Zou Yongliao, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ moon exploration department, told state broadcaster CCTV in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.
Zou said the mission’s objective would be to study geological conditions on the moon’s far side.
That could eventually lead to the placement of a radio telescope for use by astronomers, something that would help “fill a void” in man’s knowledge of the universe, Zou said.
Radio transmissions from Earth are unable to reach the moon’s far side, making it an excellent location for sensitive instruments.
China’s next lunar mission is scheduled for 2017, when it will attempt to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon before returning to Earth with samples. If successful, that would make China only the third country after the United States and Russia to have carried out such a manoeuvre.
China’s lunar exploration programme, named Chang’e after a mythical goddess, has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes, and in 2013 landed a craft on the moon with a rover on board.
China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon.
China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003 and has powered ahead with a series of methodically timed steps, including the deploying of an experimental space station.
by backtoiam » Fri Sep 11, 2015 2:48 pm
alwyn wrote:
The sufis have a story called 'the islanders'. They maintain that we were on a journey somewhere, and that cosmic conditions got too bad to continue, so we were parked here for a time. The time has passed to move on, but we have grown fond of our 'home' so to speak, and now fail to recognize any other. The 'BEezlebubs Tales' contain much coded reference to Sufi literature, and the incomplete tale that Mr. G. told has it's basis in far older literature. Fascinating study...food for the moon indeed.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29514&start=30#p357583
backtoiam wrote:
The guy that writes for (or owns?) http://www.viewzone.com deciphers ancient petroglyphs. He was involved in decoding some rock glyphs found in Colorado. He developed a program that runs in your browser that inserts the symbols and translates them. While playing with the program that can be found here (http://www.viewzone.com/negev/z.html) that originated from here (http://www.viewzone.com/expo2002.html) I saw what I thought was an interesting resemblance.
While playing with this browser page program I seemed to come up with a sequence of questions and answers that if done in the right sequence seem to be querying as to the location or nature of God. Every time the answer is always the same "I am on the Island." No matter what I did I got the same answer which was "I am on Island."
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39128#p571685
Full Definition of INSULAR
1
a : of, relating to, or constituting an island
b : dwelling or situated on an island <insular residents>
2
: characteristic of an isolated people; especially : being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint
3
: of or relating to an island of cells or tissue
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insular
http://www.slideshare.net/jcrane66/the-insular-cortex
The Insular Cortex
1. Insular cortex<br />By ShuangShuangHu and Kyu Hwang<br />
2. What is it?<br />is located between the temporal lobe and parietal lobe<br />is connected to the experience of emotions, the processing of tastes, the memory of procedures, the control of motor responses and interpersonal behaviour. <br />negative emotions activate in this region. <br />
3. The insular cortex comprises two main sections: the anterior and posterior regions <br />AIC = the anterior insular cortex<br />PIC= the posterior insular cortex<br />Tasks:<br />Such as:<br />-motor tasks<br />-amygdale activation<br />-social emotions<br />-language<br />-interceptive awareness<br />Tasks:<br />Such as:<br />-time and decision making<br />-is related more to auditory function<br />*perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions.<br />
by BrandonD » Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:07 pm
backtoiam » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:48 pm wrote:alwyn wrote:
The sufis have a story called 'the islanders'. They maintain that we were on a journey somewhere, and that cosmic conditions got too bad to continue, so we were parked here for a time. The time has passed to move on, but we have grown fond of our 'home' so to speak, and now fail to recognize any other. The 'Beezlebubs Tales' contain much coded reference to Sufi literature, and the incomplete tale that Mr. G. told has it's basis in far older literature. Fascinating study...food for the moon indeed.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29514&start=30#p357583
by km artlu » Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:54 pm
by NeonLX » Wed Sep 23, 2015 1:49 pm
by justdrew » Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:10 pm
NeonLX » 23 Sep 2015 09:49 wrote:The whole "Apollo 20" thing freaked me out when I first saw it...
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Sep 23, 2015 11:00 pm
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Sep 23, 2015 11:06 pm
by temp-monitor » Thu Sep 24, 2015 2:44 am
The Earth Without the Moon
The period when the Earth was Moonless is probably the most remote recollection of mankind. Democritus and Anaxagoras taught that there was a time when the Earth was without the Moon.(1) Aristotle wrote that Arcadia in Greece, before being inhabited by the Hellenes, had a population of Pelasgians, and that these aborigines occupied the land already before there was a moon in the sky above the Earth; for this reason they were called Proselenes.(2)
Apollonius of Rhodes mentioned the time “when not all the orbs were yet in the heavens, before the Danai and Deukalion races came into existence, and only the Arcadians lived, of whom it is said that they dwelt on mountains and fed on acorns, before there was a moon.” (3)
Plutarch wrote in The Roman Questions: “There were Arcadians of Evander’s following, the so-called pre-Lunar people.”(4) Similarly wrote Ovid: “The Arcadians are said to have possessed their land before the birth of Jove, and the folk is older than the Moon.” (5) Hippolytus refers to a legend that “Arcadia brought forth Pelasgus, of greater antiquity than the moon.”(6) Lucian in his Astrology says that “the Arcadians affirm in their folly that they are older than the moon.”(7)
Censorinus also alludes to the time in the past when there was no moon in the sky.(8)
Some allusions to the time before there was a Moon may be found also in the Scriptures. In Job 25:5 the grandeur of the Lord who “Makes peace in the heights” is praised and the time is mentioned “before [there was] a moon and it did not shine.” Also in Psalm 72:5 it is said: “Thou wast feared since [the time of] the sun and before [the time of] the moon, a generation of generations.” A “generation of generations” means a very long time. Of course, it is of no use to counter this psalm with the myth of the first chapter of Genesis, a tale brought down from exotic and later sources.
The memory of a world without a moon lives in oral tradition among the Indians. The Indians of the Bogota highlands in the eastern Cordilleras of Colombia relate some of their tribal reminiscences to the time before there was a moon. “In the earliest times, when the moon was not yet in the heavens,” say the tribesmen of Chibchas.(9)
There are currently three theories of the origin of the moon:
1) The Moon originated at the same time as the Earth, being formed substantially from the same material, aggregating and solidifying.
2) The Moon was formed not in the vicinity of the Earth, but in a different part of the solar system, and was later captured by the Earth.
3) The Moon was originally a portion of the terrestrial crust and was torn out, leaving behind the bed of the Pacific.
All three theories claim the presence of the Moon on an orbit around the Earth for billions of years. Mythology may supply each of these views with some support (Genesis I for the first view; the birth of Aphrodite from the sea for the third view; Aphrodite’s origin in the disruption of Uranus, and also the violence of Sin—the Babylonian Moon—seems to support the second view).
Since mankind on both sides of the Atlantic preserved the memory of a time when the Earth was without the Moon, the first hypothesis, namely, of the Moon originating simultaneously with the Earth and in its vicinity, is to be excluded, leaving the other two hypotheses to compete between themselves.
We have seen that the traditions of diverse peoples offer corroborative testimony to the effect that in a very early age, but still in the memory of mankind, no moon accompanied the Earth.(10) Since human beings already peopled the Earth, it is improbable that the Moon sprang from it: there must have existed a solid lithosphere, not a liquid earth. Thus while I do not claim to know the origin of the Moon, I find it more probable that the Moon was captured by the Earth. Such an event would have occurred as a catastrophe.(11) If the Moon’s formation took place away from the Earth,(12) its composition may be quite different.
There is no evidence to suggest whether the Moon was a planet, a satellite of another planet, or a comet at the time of its capture by the Earth. Whatever atmosphere it may have had(13) was pulled away by the Earth, by other contacting bodies, or dissipated in some other way.
Since the time the Moon began to accompany the Earth, it underwent the influence of contacts with comets and planets that passed near the Earth in subsequent ages. The mass of the Moon being less than that of the Earth, the Moon must have suffered greater disturbances in cosmic contacts. During these contacts the Moon was not carried away: this is due to the fact that no body more powerful than the Earth came sufficiently close to the Moon to take it away from the Earth for good; but in the contacts that took place the Moon was removed repeatedly from one orbit to another.
The variations in the position of the Moon can be read in the variations in the length of the month. The length of the month repeatedly changed in subseqent catastrophic events—and for this there exists a large amount of supporting evidence. In these later occurrences the Moon played a passive role, and Zeus in the Iliad advised it (Aphrodite) to stay out of the battle in which Athene and Ares (Venus and Mars) were the main contestants.
References
[1] Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium V. ii.
[2] Aristotle, fr. 591 (ed. V. Rose [Teubner:Tuebingen, 1886] ). Cf. Pauly’s Realencyclopaedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, article “Mond” ; H. Roscher, Lexicon d. griech. und roemisch. Mythologie, article “Proselenes.”
[3] Argonautica IV.264.
[4] Plutarch, Moralia, transl. by F. C. Babbit, sect. 76.
[5] Fasti, transl. by Sir J. Frazer, II. 290.
[6] Refutatio Omnium Haeresium V. ii.
[7] Lucian, Astrology, transl. by A. M. Harmon (1936), p. 367, par. 26.
[8] Liber de die natali 19; also scholium on Aristophanes’ Clouds, line 398.
[9] A. von Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères (1816), English transl.: Researches Concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, (1814), vol. I, p. 87; cf. H. Fischer, In mondener Welt (1930), p. 145.
[10] [In addition to the sources cited above, cf. The Nihongi Chronicles of Japan (I.ii, in Transactions and Proceedings of the Japanese Society, vol. I [1896]) which recount how “Heaven and Earth . . . produced the Moon-god.” The Kalevala of the Finns recalls a time “when the Moon was placed in orbit.” (Rune III.35)]
[11] [Cf. the effects of such an event on the Earth’s rotation calculated by H. Gerstenkorn in Zeitschrift fuer Astrophysik, 36 (1955), p. 245; cf. idem, in Mantles of the Earth and the Terrestrial Planets, S. K. Runcorn ed., (New York, 1967); also idem in Icarus 9 (1968), p. 394.]
[12] [Cf. H. Alfven and G. Arrhenius, “Two Alternatives for the History of the Moon,” Science 165 (1969), 11ff.; S. F. Singer and L. W. Banderman, “Where was the Moon Formed?” Science 170 (1970), 438-439: “ . . . The moon was formed independently of the earth and later captured, presumably by a three-body interaction, and these events were followed by the dissipation of the excess energy through tidal friction in a close encounter.” More recently, a study of lunar paleotides has shown that “the Moon could not have been formed in orbit around the Earth” (A. J. Anderson, “Lunar Paleotides and the Origin of the Earth-Moon System,” The Moon and the Planets, 19 [1978], 409-417). Because of a certain degree of instability in the Sun-Earth-Moon system, “the planetary origin and capture of the Moon by the Earth becomes a strong dynamic possibility.” (V. Szebehely and R. McKenzie, “Stability of the Sun-Earth-Moon System,” The Astronomical Journal 82 (1977), 303ff.].
[13] [Cf. Yu. B. Chernyak, “On Recent Lunar Atmosphere,” Nature, 273 (15 June, 1978), pp. 497ff. The author found “strong theoretical evidence of a considerable atmosphere on the Moon during the greater part of its history.”]
by Luther Blissett » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:42 am
by chump » Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:16 am
Did NASA Sabotage Its Own Space Capsule?
From NASA Mooned America!
by Rene
THE RIGHT STUFF
The Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese cult movie about a poverty stricken village that hired seven magnificent warriors to help them fight the bandits.
In 1960 Hollywood filmed The Magnificent Seven which was effectively the same story set in Mexico as a western. Someone in the hierarchy of NASA had undoubtedly seen one or both movies and decided that seven space samurai was a psychologically appropriate number to start with. We were told that these men represented the nation's finest and that they possessed what was later called that elusive quality: the "Right Stuff."
Virgil Grissom certainly had the "Right Stuff." He was one of the original seven, culled from the first batch of military test pilots almost a decade before. Grissom was not the type of man who "went along to get along." Men who spend their lives seeking the wild hairs on a new air-plane's ass seldom are. He was a professional test pilot, a mechanical engineer and had flown 100 combat missions in Korea.
But he was dead before his flight to the Moon could fulfill his dream.
ACCIDENTS
Compared to civilian test pilots the astronauts were underpaid. However, their perks were impressive. Their celebrity status instantly conferred upon them all the bonuses usually associated with show business stardom. Each night on the town provided them with all the young women they could handle, plus free drinks in every bar in the country. They were also given a government jet trainer as a personal toy.
Test pilots have a hazardous occupation which probably sees as many fatalities per unit of time as do men in combat. However, before the first Apollo manned flight ever cleared the launching pad eleven astronauts died in accidents. Grissom, Chaffee, and White were cremated in an Apollo capsule test on the launching pad during a completely and suspiciously unnecessary test.
Seven died in six air crashes: Freemen, Basset and See, Rogers, Williams, Adams and Lawrence. Givens was killed in a car crash.
When you reflect on their deaths in the light of the three-man-instant crematorium one wonders. Add the fact that there were eight deaths in 1967 alone. One wonders if these "accidents" weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes and saying that some of these men really didn't have the "Right Stuff."
After 1967, only Taylor died in another plane crash in 1970. An actuarial statistician would probably go berserk over these numbers considering how small the group was. Another weighty factor, even though they were "hot" pilots, the astronauts flew their trainer jets only part time. And add to that the fact that trainers are usually inherently safer than other planes in the same class. It would raise his eyebrows to find how few of these men would ever enter space.
I can't help but wonder what technicians serviced their ships—because what we have here is an appalling "accident" rate. They were the finest professional pilots in the world, operating government planes where costs have little meaning. Yet they died. Even if we call the cremation an accident we still have five more "accident" deaths in one year. Very interesting!
I also wonder what the death rate was among the other NASA employees who were in position to know too much?
THE PRELIMINARIES
The first American in space was Alan Shepard, followed by Grissom and then Glenn. I'm convinced that every Mercury flight was real and that the phony missions only started after Grissom's Gemini 3. And even some of the later Gemini flights were real which leaves most of the original astronauts smelling like a rose. Unfortunately, Wally Schirra and NASA General Tom Stafford's Gemini 6A flight, with its miracle of an undamaged antenna, turned the rosy aroma into real toilet water. So did Alan Shepard's little golf game on the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission.
All of these men barely entered near space (near-Earth-orbit) which I define as any altitude less than 500 miles. Far space I reserve for those interstellar journeys that may come during the next millennium. That is, if we can solve our planetary problems before we dissolve in the stew created by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Plague, Pestilence.
And add a fifth "horseman," Religious Fanaticism, which frequently causes the other four.
Every other "race" involving aircraft, from hot air balloons through rocket planes, entailed serious efforts to go higher and faster than the other guy. For good technical reasons neither we or the Russians played that game. To this day our Shuttle flights are limited to very near space usually well under 200 miles in altitude.
Most writers on the Apollo Program either totally ignored, or played down, the fact that by early January 67, Grissom, was no longer a happy camper. He was very disenchanted with both NASA and the prime capsule contractor, North American Aviation. This company had a phoenix-like ability to weather every storm, including the fire on Pad 34.
It ultimately combined with Rockwell Engineering to become North American Rockwell.
GRISSOM'S LEMON
North American Rockwell's first Apollo capsule had been delivered and accepted by NASA in August 66, with a flight date set for November. But time after time the date had to be reset because of problems with the craft.
"Grissom, a veteran of two test flights in Mercury and Gemini, normally quiet and easy-going, a flight pro, could not hide his irritation. 'Pretty slim' was the way he put his Apollo's chances of meeting its mission requirements."1
According to Mike Gray,
"Grissom had a sense of unease about this flight. He told his wife, Betty, 'If there ever is a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me.'"2
We will never know if this statement was the result of a psychic premonition or a burgeoning fear of our government.
Early in January 67, Grissom, probably unaware that NASA had other internal critics, hung a lemon on the Apollo capsule. He was threatening to go public with his complaints.3 He was already a popular celebrity, especially with the press. He would have had no problem in getting his story out. In a case like this even NASA's censors would have had little control over the news.
Headlines like "Popular Astronaut Rips Into NASA!!" couldn't be easily squelched.
SPACE RADIATION
NASA also had another serious problem, besides being in a space race with the Russian Bear. This problem derived from our first answer to the Sputniks. On January 31, 1958, Explorer 1 lifted into orbit. It weighed a mere 18.3 pounds and carried a Geiger counter which dutifully reported that a belt of intense radiation surrounded the Earth.
The belt was subsequently named after the Explorer Project Head, James A. Van Allen. However, the radiation was first predicted by Nikola Tesla around the beginning of this century as the result of experimental and theoretical work he had done on electricity in space in general and the electrical charge of the Sun in particular. He tried then to tell our academic natural philosophers (scientists) that the Sun had a fantastic electrical charge and that it must generate a solar wind. But to no avail. The experts knew he was crazy.
It would take almost sixty years to prove him right...
However, predicting something is not the same as discovery so the discovery of our magnetic girdle of radiation rightfully belongs to the man who was suspicious enough to put a Geiger counter on board the satellite, whichever technician actually thought of it.
Subsequent study showed that this belt, or belts, began in near space about 500 miles out and extends out to over 15,000 miles. Since the radiation there is more or less steady it obviously must receive as much radiation from space as it loses. If not it would either increase until it fried the Earth or decay away to nothing. Van Allen belt radiation is dependent upon the solar wind and is said to focus or concentrate that radiation. However, since it can only trap what has traveled to it in a straight line from the Sun there remains a dangerous question: how much more radiation can there be in the rest of solar space?
The Moon does not have a Van Allen belt. Neither does it have a protective atmosphere. It lies nakedly exposed to the full blast of the solar wind. Were there a large solar flare during any one of the Moon missions massive amounts of radiation would scour both the capsules and the Moon's surface where our astronauts gamboled away the day. The question is worse than dangerous—it's lethal!
In 1963 the Russian space scientists told the famous British astronomer, Bernard Lovell that they,
"could see no immediate way of protecting cosmonauts from the lethal effects of solar radiation."4
This had to mean that not even the much thicker metal walls used on the Russian capsules could stop this radiation. How could the very thin metal—almost foil—we used on our capsules stop the radiation? NASA knew that. Space monkeys died in less than ten days but NASA never revealed their cause of death.
Most people, even those interested in space, are still unaware that killer radiation pulses through space. I believe our ignorance was caused by the people who sell us space sagas. Sitting in front of me is a 9-x-12-inch coffee table book titled The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology, printed in 1981. The words "Space Radiation" just do not exist on any of its almost 300 pages. In fact with the dual exceptions of Bill Mauldin's Prospects for Interstellar Travel published in 1992 and Astronautical Engineering and Science written by early NASA experts, no other book I have read even begins to discuss this extremely serious impediment to space flights.
Do I detect the fine hand of my democratic government at work?
The Russians were in a position to know because as early as the spring of 61 their probes had been sent to the backside of the Moon. Upon his return to England Lovell sent this information to NASA's deputy administrator, Hugh Dryden. Dryden, representing NASA obviously ignored it!
Collins spoke of space radiation in only two places in his book. He said,
"At least the moon was well past the earth's Van Allen belts, which promised a healthy dose of radiation to those who passed and a lethal dose to those who stayed."5
In speaking of ways to dodge problems he wrote,
"In similar fashion, the Van Allen Radiation belts around the earth and the possibility of solar flares require understanding and planning to avoid exposing the crew to an excessive dose of radioactivity."6
So what does "understanding and planning" mean?
Does it mean that after the Van Allen Belts are passed that the rest of space is free of radiation?
Or did NASA have a strategy for dodging solar flares once they were committed to the trip?
It seems to imply that back in 1969 it was possible to predict solar flares. My astronomy text has this to say on that subject,
"It is accordingly possible to predict only approximately the date of the future maximum and how plentiful the groups will then become."7
This text was ten years old by 1969. Later in this book I will show that nothing had changed during the years of Apollo Moon missions.
To continue with the Apollo Program after receiving this information implies that NASA knew something the Russians didn't. Either we had developed an effective extremely light weight radiation shield or NASA already knew that no one was going any where near the Moon.
Could the cloth in our space suits stop the radiation?
I doubt that because more than fifteen years have passed since the partial core melt-down at TMI (Three Mile Island) and workers still can't enter the containment dome. We don't yet have the technology to create light weight flexible radiation shielding. High velocity could get the capsule through the Van Allen belt but what could they do about solar flares during the rest of the trip to the Moon? And if we didn't go, why didn't the Soviets, our arch enemies, rat us out?
While I was thinking about this something rang a bell. Around the time we were fighting communism in Vietnam (and other countries in south-east Asia) we began to sell Russia, later to be called the Evil Empire, wheat by the mega-ton at an ultra-cheap price.
On July 8, 1972 our government shocked the entire world by announcing that we would sell about one-fourth of our entire crop of wheat to Russia at a fixed price of $1.63 per bushel. According to these sources we were about to produce another bumper crop while the Russian crop would be 10-20 percent less. The market price at the time of the announcement was $1.50 but immediately soared to a new high of $2.44 a bushel.8
Guess who paid the 91 cents difference in price for the Russians?
Our bread prices and meat prices were immediately inflated reflecting the suddenly diminished supply. It was the beginning of the high inflation of the 70s. Now how much did the Moon cost us? Would our government be a party to blackmail? Nah!
However, if NASA knew that Kennedy's dream was impossible in the time frame given, they should have reported this to the President. We are civilized now and no longer cut off the right arm of the messenger who brings bad news. Now we cut off budgets! That's safer for the messenger but fatal to the bureaucracy in question.
NASA must have decided if they couldn't make it they would fake it. Big bucks were at stake here, to say nothing of American prestige. Those bucks, properly funneled, would buy a lot of southeast Asia, at least for awhile. And with proper prestidigitation some of the same could wind up in numbered accounts handled either by the "gnomes of Zurich" or off-shore Caribbean banks.
NASA'S OTHER PROBLEM
NASA's second problem was magnified as a result of the first. If they were really going to land on the Moon they would be able to take great quantities of real photos and pick up genuine Moon rocks. Such pictures should include the Earth rising or setting against a background of a bona fide starry sky.
However, if they weren't actually going to the Moon, the evidence would have to be synthesized. Credible proof was vital to the continued high rate of funding and to NASA's very survival. NASA's labs could create "Moon rocks" to the specifications of an educated, or rather an expected, guess that would pass any inspection, because there wasn't anything else to compare them to.
Or they could have used rock samples picked up in Antarctica during the intensive exploration of that continent during the International Geophysical Year in 1957. They would do as well provided there were no fossils in them. These rocks could be slowly doled out, but only to those geologists who could be counted on to agree with anything the government said. And most of academia can be relied on to do just that!
Strangely enough rocks were later found in Antarctica that closely resemble "Moon rocks." In point of fact, some geologists are now positive that these rocks were blasted from the Moon to Earth during immense meteoric impacts.
However, true-to-the-Moon photos posed a bit more of a problem.
Because the twentieth century is the age of increasingly sophisticated photography, huge amounts of tape and film had to be expended. NASA seemed to do precisely that.
As Harry Hurt put it,
"... Project Apollo was one of the most extensively documented undertakings in human history..." 9
Despite this alleged fact and the fact that the NASA Apollo mission photo numbers seem to indicate that thousands of pictures were taken, we keep seeing the same few dozen pictures in all the books on space.
Using the well developed art of Hollywood style special effects (FX) the astronauts could be photographed "on the Moon" in the top secret studio set up near Mercury, Nevada. Of course, there is a bit more to great FX than having the best equipment. As in any art form, the artists are always more important than their tools. The backbone of superb FX is lodged in the Hollywood professionals who devote their lives to it. Lacking access to these relatively liberal experts NASA was forced to use CIA hacks... relative amateurs.
Nevertheless, they did their job well enough to pass casual inspection for many years. It worked only because we wanted to believe! As long as we had something to hang our hats on we could continue to have faith and ignore the anomalies in the evidence the photos provided.
It worked ... for a while!
GRISSOM'S FINAL MISTAKE
At the time of his death Grissom was one of NASA's old-timers. He was the man who, a few short years before, certified that the astronauts had been involved in every step of the program and had been free to criticize at will, and even suggest ideas for improvements.
He was the man whose fatal error was no more than in being who he was; an independent thinker ... a free spirit who seemed to be completely unaware that NASA had wholeheartedly opted to enact the second part of the old saying,
"If you can't make it, fake it!"
He had been selected as Commander of Apollo I, the first manned flight of the Apollo series.
Grissom's crew included Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee. White flew on Gemini 4 but Chaffee was a newcomer who had not as yet been in space, or verified the NASA rite of passage by condemning the visibility of stars and planets.
THE HANDICAP
Right from the beginning, NASA was operating under a tremendous handicap. They were in a space race with a nation who, they knew, had operational rockets that made ours seem like tinker toys by comparison. The Soviets started their space program in capsules that were 50 times heavier than those we were launching six months later.
Russian capsules were closer to being compressed air tanks than flimsy space capsules. Their ships had sufficient wall strength to maintain normal atmospheric pressure inside the craft against the zero pressure outside in space. However, since we didn't have rockets to lift that sort of weight, we couldn't afford this luxury. We had to make light, [almost] tin foil, capsules just to get into the ball game.
The differential in pressure between the 14.7 psi (our normal atmospheric pressure) and the zero pressure of space amounts to 2116 pounds per square foot of outward loading on the enclosing wall of a capsule. Compare this figure with the floor of a house—which is designed to be safely loaded to only 30 pounds per square foot—and you will realize that relatively heavy metal is vital for skin and skeleton if you want to enjoy normal pressure. It is wall strength that prevents catastrophic and explosive depressurization of small capsules.
The LEM's walls will be discussed in more detail later in the book...
(continues)
by smoking since 1879 » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:14 pm
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