The Russians never duplicated Apollo 8

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

A spacecraft is only part of the equation. The rocket system is another. Did the Soviets have a reliable working rocket for manned Moon missions in the 60s or 70s, even if for a circum-lunar trajectory?

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

originally posted by: Rob48
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter
What he is saying is that you can't present news clippings about Zond as 100% fact and not also accept news clippings about Apollo. You don't get to cherry pick like that.

And yes, of course the Zond missions were dry runs for manned missions. Who denied that? But they couldn't have landed a man on the moon, or even put a man into lunar orbit, using the same rocket they used to send turtles AROUND the moon.

They did go beyond it, with circumlunar missions including biological payloads.

The reason they didn't duplicate Apollo 8 is that that would require enough fuel for a lunar orbit insertion burn and a trans-Earth injection burn. Those totalled almost eight minutes and required several tonnes of fuel and oxidiser: far more than a Proton rocket could lift.

The Zond missions went on a free return trajectory so they didn't need that fuel.

Just the oxidiser alone in the Apollo CSM weighed more than the ENTIRE Zond capsule (6315kg versus 5375kg).

Now do you see why "the Russians never duplicated Apollo 8"?

Please do not respond any more.

If you support the 1981 CIA video then you will say so.
www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Rob48

You are not a "space expert" so you can sit down.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
If you support the 1981 CIA video then you will say so.
www.youtube.com...

When you've finished barking out orders and demanding that people do your bidding, maybe you could state specifically what it is that you disagree with in this video. Having now watched it, other than conveniently neglecting to mention the US's own military space programs, I fail to find anything particularly controversial about it.

if anything is incorrect in the video, feel free to identify it.

originally posted by: onebigmonkey

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
If you support the 1981 CIA video then you will say so.
www.youtube.com...

When you've finished barking out orders and demanding that people do your bidding, maybe you could state specifically what it is that you disagree with in this video. Having now watched it, other than conveniently neglecting to mention the US's own military space programs, I fail to find anything particularly controversial about it.

if anything is incorrect in the video, feel free to identify it.

That was the whiskey talking. I'm very sorry about that. It is quite clear to me now that the CIA video from 1981 is a concrete version of history which is deserving of criticism. If I criticized the CIA video and came to the wrong conclusions that must mean, automatically, that I am insane. Is that the response you wanted ??

Now let me tell you what I really think.

An American CEO is selling tickets for a Soyuz hardware trans-lunar tourist expedition. Why haven't the Russians sent a human being above 475km into space space but now, somehow, the Soyuz is able to sell seats to tourists for a circumlunar flight?

Now that glass ceiling of 475km altitude? You are stuck with that. And you are unfortunately burdened by the fact that the Russians have never sent a human being above 475km altitude yet they are allowing the American capitalists to sell seats on Soyuz for a circumlunar mission.... something that if Putin had the power to do he would fly that mission himself!!!

Yes, I said it. If Russia had the ability to send circumlunar missions with Soyuz components, Vladimir Putin would be the first Russian to do it. Why haven't the Russians sent Soyuz to the moon? American CEO Eric Anderson seems to believe that the Soyuz can do it.

The Soviets/Russians have had the means to send human beings outside of low earth orbit with the Soyuz since, what?, 1970?

Yet, the Soviets/Russians have never exceeded 475km in low earth altitude.

Now the American CEO, in coordination with the Russians, have created a market for circumlunar space flight tourism.

Who is winning the space race now? America or Russia?

*META*

Let me just say that I am very disappointed with the responses from the regular ATS "space experts". I will not name names.


This thread is the perfect example of why ATS should not have a dedicated History Forum. Because this thread illustrated the problems of concrete history. This thread shows that concrete history can be cross-examined and defeated. The "space experts" are only valid when they confirm the establishment viewpoint.

We need only to look at space expert Charles Vick to understand that he is looking for satellite image that doesn't exist. isn't that right big monkey?

The "space experts" are charlatans. That is my statement.

originally posted by: Rob48

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

originally posted by: Rob48
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter
What he is saying is that you can't present news clippings about Zond as 100% fact and not also accept news clippings about Apollo. You don't get to cherry pick like that.

And yes, of course the Zond missions were dry runs for manned missions. Who denied that? But they couldn't have landed a man on the moon, or even put a man into lunar orbit, using the same rocket they used to send turtles AROUND the moon.

They did go beyond it, with circumlunar missions including biological payloads.
?

Turtles are not the same as human beings.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

It's pretty obvious that you only like a space expert when they agree with you. Any space expert who has a different opinion, or presents facts that cast doubt on the bubble you inhabit, is wrong as far as you are concerned, no matter how detailed their knowledge, comprehensive their knowledge or well constructed their argument, if they don't like it then they are wrong, no matter how poor your understanding.

Let#s deal with another couple of points from your previous posts.

There is no glass ceiling.

You have found a figure and decided, with nothing but your own whisky-fuelled imagination to back it up, that this is some sort of physical limit to space exploration.

This is nonsense.

There are parameters within which LEO mission operate. This does not mean that missions beyond this are impossible.

The Soviets have not gone beyond LEO with a human because (despite their own declared intention to do so) a bad administrative system made bad choices and built bad rockets. This does not mean that they couldn't have had they got it right and this does not mean that no-one else could do it, because the evidence quite clearly shows that other people did.

You have moved the goalposts more times on this than a beach football game at low tide. Claiming first they weren't going to the moon, then they were, then they could easily have done it, then they couldn't. Your only consistency has been inconsistency.

And yes, the Vick believes exists does not exist, because it can not exist. The chances of a satellite passing overhead at precisely the moment the rocket exploded are so slim as to be impossible. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong should that photograph emerge, but my view is that the explosion's appearance in a satellite image can't happen. Why? Let's look at actual facts and evidence.

What Vick says in his global security article is that there is a reference in a publicly available memo to a not yet publicly available document. The reference says:

DDI called attention to today's item in the CIB showing that the Soviet's largest space booster exploded on the launching pad on 3 July

This does not mention the word photograph.

Vick goes on to say this:

It was believed that this CIB of August 15, 1969 contains information on the DMSP-Block-4B weather film based image photograph of the Central Asia explosion flash from the July 3-4, 1969, launch failure on or about 20:18:32 UT.

Note the word 'believed'. Not 'does contain', but 'believed to contain'. Vick is basing his argument on hearsay evidence and supposition, nothing more.

We're also looking at a DMSP block 4 satellite. The block 4 satellites could image an area of 1500 nautical miles, and could resolve, at best, objects of 0.8 nautical miles in diameter - nothing like the resolution of the de-classified Corona and GAMBIT images. It orbited at 450 miles and was sun-synchronous. You might want to check the meaning of sun-synchronous and compare that with the launch time of the N-1 on 03/07/69.

The answer to your question in the OP had been given to you many times by people who have a very detailed understanding of the subject, and by other people (like myself) who are capable of using Google to glean relevant facts. Your disappointment that those facts don't support whatever fantasy construct you were trying to build does not invalidate them.

Still waiting for the specifics about the CIA video that you don't like.

I'll add some more information related to Vick's satellite claim, rather than edit my post above.

This document

www.dtic.mil...

explains how the DMSP satellites worked.

While the daylight portion of an orbit would have been imaged in the visible spectrum, the 'descending' portion at night used infra-red observations. Theoretically, this could have detected a heat signature from an explosion and resulting fire. Certainly the weather was clear on July 3 1969.

The document also contains some examples of the satellite images produced. I would suggest a likely digital equivalent of 1 pixel for any heat glow, even if the DMSP satellite just happened to be passing at the peak of the heat signature.

I maintain that the briefing Vick refers to contains Corona images before and after the explosion, and that the likelihood of an image capturing the moment of explosion is so small as to make it impossible.

DMSP data were declassified in 1972 and some images from the data began appearing in scientific and meteorological collections soon after.

originally posted by: onebigmonkey
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

....And yes, the Vick believes exists does not exist, because it can not exist. The chances of a satellite passing overhead at precisely the moment the rocket exploded are so slim as to be impossible. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong should that photograph emerge, but my view is that the explosion's appearance in a satellite image can't happen. .....

Your case is even stronger than merely random unlikelihood, it is made ironclad by a then-existing policy of deliberate avoidance that made such a 'coincidence' impossible.

When I reported to the AF Weapons Lab in January 1970 straight out of spaceflight navigation training in graduate school, one of my first duties was to go to the message center every morning and pick up the twxes from NORAD about Soviet active satellites. In about fifteen minutes, using an existing template, I generated the local times when every one of them was line-of-sight our location [and a few subsidiary test sites elsewhere in New Mexico], and got it to the base operations office. Every activity on base that involved transport or testing or ANYTHING outdoors observable from overhead had to be cleared, and the daily report was the schedule against which they were cleared. Do it an hour early, or two hours later -- that was the sort of advisories the ops center issued.

We already knew the Soviets did the same, and it was damned frustrating to notice that some test vehicle or roofed hole in the ground would be invisible on one of our passes, then the next pass all we could see were tread tracks in the snow from one covered location to another. Once and a while we got lucky and goodies got stuck in transport, and briefly in the mid-1970s we actually disguised a few of our reccebirds as harmless -- so the Soviets didn't bother with concealment even when they were passing overhead -- but as a rule, we knew they scheduled big stuff on purpose so we couldn't see it even by luck.

Just a personal footnote.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
The "space experts" are charlatans. That is my statement.

My feelings are hurt



NOT.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
a reply to: Rob48

You are not a "space expert" so you can sit down.

I have found Rob48, inter alia, to be a reliable provider of pertinent and soundly-assessed information in the unearthly universe of 'rocket science'. Just my 2 kopecks.

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
The "space experts" are charlatans. That is my statement.

My feelings are hurt
NOT.

Well, I noticed in the old news clips that the term "space expert" and "western space expert" or "space official" is always used when they are trying to guide the propaganda narrative.

That's why I had to draw the line. This glittering generality of calling people "space experts" is something that we have accepted as normal but it should be set aside, as it is getting in the way of what should be a rational discussion about the Russian Glass Ceiling - from historical sources.

Did you hear the story about the CIA commandos who kidnapped a Soviet Luna satellite right from under the noses of the Russians, tore it apart, took pictures of it, put it all back together and those dummy Reds never found out about it??
io9.com...

That's not something you will find over at the NASA gift shop. So, what is your opinion on history Mr. Oberg? Is it concrete or what?

a reply to: JimOberg

Cool story.