Young Aussie genius whipping NASA in Moon Hoax Debate!

reply to post by manmental


This is what I was able to find as far as Cernan saying he could see stars. From the Lunar Surface Journal:

113:19:58 Schmitt: Window shades are going close. I'm using it instead of a light switch because I've got it covered up. (Long Pause)
[Jack is probably adjusting the window shade to let in a little light for his own activities while keeping the cabin dark enough for Gene to do the star sightings. Jack seems to be saying that he can't get to the light switch, probably because it is covered by his helmet and/or gloves. The shade on Gene's window and on the overhead rendezvous window are denoted in AS17-145-22225 as labelled by Lennie Waugh.]
[Schmitt - "We couldn't see the stars out the window or when we were out on the surface. It took the collimation of the telescope to eliminate all of the reflected light reaching your eye from your surroundings. Even in the LM shadow, there were too many bright things in your field-of-view for the stars to be visible."]

[A telescope - or any long, straight tube - admits only light rays coming from a small range of directions. The light rays that reach the end of the tube are virtually parallel to each other and to the long axis of the tube and, therefore, have been "collimated".]

[Cernan - "When you were in the lunar module, looking out the window, you certainly couldn't see stars. Using the telescope was sort of like being in a deep well; it cut out all the reflected light and let you see the stars. It was also generally true that, when you were on the surface in the LM's shadow, there were too many bright things in your field-of-view for the stars to be visible. But I remember that I wanted to see whether I could see stars, and there were times out on the surface when I found that, if you allowed yourself to just focus and maybe even just shielded your eyes to some degree, even outside the LM shadow you could see stars in the sky. And, quite frankly, under the right conditions here on Earth on a bright sunlit day, you can do the same thing. I could see stars through my helmet visor; not easily, but it can be done."]

So it seems Cernan specifically took the time to block out extraneous light and let his eyes adjust and look for stars. Armstrong probably didn't make the effort. Remember, Armstrong was only on EVA for 2.5 hours. Cernan was on EVA for over 22 hours.

As for the Apollo 11 crew looking "depressed," I don't see it. They look a little tired to me. But that's all a matter of opinion. I prefer to stick to the science and engineering.

reply to post by nataylor


Thank you. Thanks for the link, very interesting. The explanation... I'm inclined to thnk that is a very reasonable arguement. And the politeness. Others could learn from you. Star.

But 'tired'? Possibly... I would have thought adrenalin would be surging through their bodies at this point in time regardless of lack of sleep. But I agree these are only personal observations.

One could also say that by the time Cernan made his very explanatory statement he had been properly briefed by NASA on what to answer, in such a way that Neil's initial statement doesn't sound like bunkem.

Edit: From NASA for kids: lunarscience.nasa.gov...

Can you see more stars from the Moon? On the Moon, there is no atmosphere and no clouds to blur or block our view of the stars. The sky on the Moon is always black, even during the daytime. From the Moon, you would be able to see many more stars than you could see from Earth.

Erm... so are NASA misleading the kids? Or just simplifying it so much?

reply to post by manmental


Simplifying it too much. Assuming you could block out extraneous light getting into your eyes, you would be able to see a lot more stars than your standard viewing location here on Earth. As a practical matter, while actually suited and working in the sun, there will be too much light getting into your eyes to allow them to adjust. You'd have to take some specific action, as Cernan did, to block out light.

Originally posted by manmental
reply to post by nataylor

 

Thank you. Thanks for the link, very interesting. The explanation... I'm inclined to thnk that is a very reasonable arguement. And the politeness. Others could learn from you. Star.

Yes it is a reasonable answer to a point.
It doesn't explain why they first people on the moon wouldn't even try.
Out of curiosity, out of science.
Or why didn't anyone at mission control even ask them, "Hey dudes, can you guys see any stars?

Lets not forget though, Neil or Buzz, did take time to take photos of the Earth!
And between Apollo 11 and 17 we still had 4 other missions.
So why didnt any of them try?

Finally, though Neil's EVA was only a couple of hours. How long were they in the LM- 20 hours?
Didnt any of them just want to pass time staring out the windows to see if they could make out constellations, planets, or anything else? It just doesn't make sense. Any human explorer would be fascinated or at least curious by their surroundings. Especially if they knew it would be a one time opportunity.

Haven't you guys ever gone on vacation, and took so many photos of the trip because it was a once in lifetime visit? 20 hours in the LM and these guys take like 4 photos of themselves. I guess they were camera shy.

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by manmental

 

Simplifying it too much. Assuming you could block out extraneous light getting into your eyes, you would be able to see a lot more stars than your standard viewing location here on Earth. As a practical matter, while actually suited and working in the sun, there will be too much light getting into your eyes to allow them to adjust. You'd have to take some specific action, as Cernan did, to block out light.

Were they never in the shade for any period of time?
Even the LM cast quite a shadow..

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by manmental

 

Simplifying it too much. Assuming you could block out extraneous light getting into your eyes, you would be able to see a lot more stars than your standard viewing location here on Earth. As a practical matter, while actually suited and working in the sun, there will be too much light getting into your eyes to allow them to adjust. You'd have to take some specific action, as Cernan did, to block out light.

Nat, if that was true why didnt astronauts have problems driving, walking, looking towards the horizon?

So long as we have circled back to the "No Stars" argument yet again, perhaps manmental could use their extensive knowledge of film-making to explain why no stars are visible in this photo:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8ed796767291.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by backinblack


As Schmitt said: "Even in the LM shadow, there were too many bright things in your field-of-view for the stars to be visible."

reply to post by FoosM


Why would they have problems driving or walking? I can drive my car just fine in the sun, even with all the bright landscape around me and light reflecting off the interior surfaces in the car. Their eyes would be adjusted to bright light.

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by FoosM

 

Why would they have problems driving or walking? I can drive my car just fine in the sun, even with all the bright landscape around me and light reflecting off the interior surfaces in the car. Their eyes would be adjusted to bright light.

And you would be able to see the moon, airplanes, hot air balloons, during the day in the blue sky as well. I dont see how this supports your argument. Both situations are the same.

What doesnt make sense is that you say that there were bright objects, they had to adapt their eyes, yet they had visors to block the sunlight. Where these visors as good as the windows of the CM or LM in blocking light?

Scaled Composites has recently unveiled its ‘Tier One’ programme, shown in Figure 1. The vehicle that flies to space, ‘SpaceShipOne’, is in the foreground and its carrier aeroplane, ‘White Knight’ at the rear. The idea is for White Knight to carry SpaceShipOne to a height of 50,000 ft (15 km) and then release it. SpaceShipOne then uses its rocket motor to pull into a steep climb and to zoom up to the lower edge of space. Carrying a pilot and two passengers, it reaches a maximum height of some 100 km, which is about ten times higher than the cruising height of a jet airliner. Gravity then pulls SpaceShipOne down towards Earth and it lands back at the airfield that it took off from, some thirty minutes after being released from White Knight.

Passengers will feel weightless for about two minutes, will see an area several hundred kilometres across at one time, and will see the sky turn dark with bright stars even in daytime. Burt Rutan, the President of Scaled Composites, says that the first flight to space could be this year or early next [2]. He estimates the cost per flight at under $80,000.

Lies I say, Lies! The sun would be too bright, and the Earthshine to powerful!

www.raes.org.uk...

reply to post by FoosM


I'm really not sure what you're saying. Ill just reiterate my point:

In general, two things affect how dim an object humans can see. First is the diameter of the pupil. The larger the diameter, the more light is allowed to hit the retina. The second is quite a bit more complex, and involves the polarization of the photoreceptor cells in the retina. Without getting into a whole lot of biology, we have two basic types of photoreceptor cells: rods and cones. Cones produce our color vision. They require, compared to rods, more light to become polarized and fire off a signal. Rods give us black and white, low-light vision. They require much less light than cones to become polarized and fire off a signal. Thus, in low-light situations, not enough light is hitting the retina to activate the cones, and all we see is the signal the rods produce. Once polarized by being stimulated with light, it takes time for the cells to depolarize. Cones take longer to depolarize than rods. This means that once the cones are activated, their signal overwhelms the signal from the rods, and continues to do so for some time after the light stimulation is removed.

So to see dim objects, the pupils must be sufficiently dilated and the cones must have time to depolarize and allow the signal from the rods to be detected. Both processes take time after the removal or reduction of light stimulus.

So while driving, walking around, or working, the astronauts had constant light entering their eyes, be it from sunlight reflecting off the landscape, the equipment, themselves, even the inside of their helmets. This means there was never enough time for their pupils to dilate and their cones to become depolarized.

Even if they used their visors to block out a lot of their surroundings, if they were still moving around and working, they would likely be focused on their hands, equipment, or something on the surface, all of which would reflect light into their eyes, keeping the pupil contracted and their cones polarized. If a bit of bright light enters the eye, it essentially resets the clock, since the pupil contracts quicker than it dilates and the cones polarize faster than they depolarize. They would have to stop work and make a conscious effort to block out extraneous light and not look at anything bright for a period of time, as Cernan did, to allow their pupils enough time to dilate and their cones to become depolarized.

Originally posted by manmental
reply to post by 000063

 

Quote-mining. I don't think so. That's why I posted the clip. So you could all watch and listen.

Yet you misquoted him.

Therefore it wasn't necessary to repeat Patrick Moore's question because Neil answered so emphatically..
"We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface..."

Context is always necessary. Removing that context means you remove something that changes the entire point of the answer.

He said in his total answer to the question: 'We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or from the daylinght side of the moon... (pause) er.. but I.. without looking through the optics.. er .. I don't recall, during the time we were photographing the solar corona what stars we could see.'

Kind of an odd, confused answer don't you think? In effect by saying 'i don't recall... what stars we could see' goes against his emphatic 'we were never able to see stars..'

You're doing it again! Do you know what the "solar corona" is? It's something that comes from the Sun. The Sun which would severely impair their ability to also see any stars.

So in one sentence he is contradicting himself.

You quote-mined. And when I challenged you on it, you responded with another misquote. In fact, you quoted the statement in full, and then helpfully showed everyone where you excised a vital part of it.

Given the nature of the question and of the press conference a better answer might have been... 'I don't recall what stars we could see when photographing the solar corona."

He's an astronaut, not a publicist. Stop trying to twist words and infer intentions.

Any why do all three returning heroes look so goddam miserable at this conference? I've asked this question three times now to various Apollo OS believers and no-one has offered an opinion.Most likely? Because they were tired. They had been sleeping in cramped conditions and pooping in bags and drinking Tang for more than a week.

Also, looking "sad" is evidence of precisely nothing besides the fact that they look sad.

Originally posted by FoosM
Anybody can tell that was a leading question posed by Patrick Moore.

a leading question is a question that suggests the answer or contains the information the examiner is looking for.

en.wikipedia.org...

He asked him if he could see X, under conditions Y. The answer was "no". There was no leading question.

Also, you and MM are now disagreeing. Either asking about the SC is the same as asking if he could see any stars, period (MM's claim), or it's some sort of leading question that has an alternate meaning to asking whether he could see any stars at all (your claim). I'll leave you two to hash this out.

The second quote was made about him being in space, on the way to the moon.

Its already been established in this thread that Cernan claimed to have seen stars from the surface of the moon.

Astronots = busted.

Not my point. My point is that Manmental quote-mined. We'll get to Cernan in a second.

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by FoosM

 

I'm really not sure what you're saying. Ill just reiterate my point:


So to see dim objects, the pupils must be sufficiently dilated and the cones must have time to depolarize and allow the signal from the rods to be detected. Both processes take time after the removal or reduction of light stimulus.

What dim objects? You are using NASA terminology.
I dont believe that believing that the source light emitting stars are dim in black skies.

So while driving, walking around, or working, the astronauts had constant light entering their eyes, be it from sunlight reflecting off the landscape, the equipment, themselves, even the inside of their helmets. This means there was never enough time for their pupils to dilate and their cones to become depolarized.

That is your assumption.
That is not a fact.
Besides Apollo astronauts, whats your proof that this would be a problem?

The landscape is the albedo of concrete and it was striated with long black shadows.
Apollo photos, or videos for that matter, did not have issues of over exposure due to the landscape.
So I dont see what are all these bright objects you are referring to.

Come to think of it, they landed in generally flat terrains. That means that much of their viewing area would be the black sky. Im not buying it, NASA better come up with some better excuses than that.

Originally posted by 000063

Originally posted by FoosM
Anybody can tell that was a leading question posed by Patrick Moore.

a leading question is a question that suggests the answer or contains the information the examiner is looking for.

en.wikipedia.org...

He asked him if he could see X, under conditions Y. The answer was "no". There was no leading question.

Exactly, it was a leading question. He offered the condition to why you couldn't see stars.
He didn't simply ask, "Could you see stars on the lunar surface?"

reply to post by FoosM

That is not a fact.

What is the fact? Please provide citations and links.

Originally posted by FoosM

Originally posted by 000063

Originally posted by FoosM

Originally posted by 000063
Incidentally, they abandoned a pure O2 atmo after Apollo 1. You seem to have misinterpreted whatever website you got that fact from from.

Oh really? Show me the evidence. And I dont know if you want to use a conspiracy site for it.

I just did. Now produce your source. Who said they were still using pure O2 after Apollo 11?

I know you did, and I said I dont know if you want to use that source you did because it states:

for Apollo 12, values given for cabin pressure are 4.8 psi, and for normal operating suit pressure, 3.8 psi. This suggests a pure oxygen environment for the Lunar Module.

I've highlighted the operative word. You're equating a non-definitive statement with a definitive one.

"Washington - Decision to use a two-gas atmosphere (60% oxygen, 40% nitrogen) during manned Apollo on-the-pad preparations and in pre-orbital flight reflects a basic inability to make the spacecraft flameproof after 14 months of redesign that cost more than $100 million and added about 2,000 lb. to the system.

"The decision (AW&ST, Mar. 4, p. 21) was forced on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration after three series of flammability tests on an Apollo command module boilerplate failed to satisfy officials that changes would prevent the spread of fire under a pure-oxygen environment."
[commentary on the article]
"By switching to a two-gas system for pre-flight and immediate post-launch activities, NASA is willing to accept an added problem. Astronauts will be breathing pure oxygen during that phase and they will have to vent the spacecraft cabin during boost to orbit and repressurize to 6 psi with oxygen to permit them to remove their helmets and work in relative comfort.

"Possibility of the 40% of nitrogen causing bends if an emergency escape has to be made during the launch phase was considered by officials less hazardous than that of fire propagation in a one-gas system."

You also seem to have missed the first line of my source.

As a result of the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire, the use of a pure oxygen atmosphere during launch and ascent of Saturn V was abandoned by the U. S. space program, according to NASA.

Are you basing this on experience?

Not since I've been old enough to cross the street alone, no.

And do you call 12 hours a few hours?

Yes. Please don't bother nitpicking. I'll change it to "several hours" if it offends your delicate sensibilities.

And how did they manage to stand the smell?

The same way World of Warcraft addicts do it, I suppose.

It would have been overwhelming.

Touting opinion as fact again.

There was no shower in the CM (no gravity) or LM,
so how did they manage to clean the suits and themselves with a wet nap and still hold a conversation with Houston? Come on, you are reaching.

I'm not the one who thinks toiletry needs are a smoking gun. It's also rather hypocritical of you to ask me for this information, then claim I'm reaching because I answered it.

Here's an idea, since you're claiming they didn't bathe, why don't you provide a link to what the official story says on the matter? I'm sure you'll provide this information with the same completeness and alacrity with which you fulfilled my earlier request for evidence, FoosM.

Originally posted by FoosM
Because to survive going through the VABs, Interstellar space, landing on the moon you need to be sufficiently shielded. Like with a few feet of lead. 1 to 8cm^3 of aluminum is not shielding for space radiation.

Its like saying, your coat can shield you from cold weather but not the meltdown of Fukushima.

That wasn't the point of my post. The dose he claimed the astronauts would get, by your mixed analogy, wouldn't be that they'd receive wearing a coat, it would be if they were completely naked in the snow. Entirely un-coated, entirely unshielded. Since they had multiple layers of shielding, then the number he quoted was wrong, which means that any conclusions derived from it are suspect.

Jarrah said the astronauts would receive exposure X. The exact source he quoted says they would've received Y. X > Y. Jarrah is wrong.

Also, "interstellar" space is not the same as translunar space. The requirements are very different.

Originally posted by manmental
reply to post by nataylor

 

But 'tired'? Possibly... I would have thought adrenalin would be surging through their bodies at this point in time regardless of lack of sleep. But I agree these are only personal observations.

Why? The mission's over. They want to get home and hug their wives and kiss their kids. Or maybe the other way around. I don't know if they'd been debriefed yet, but the news conference was just one more thing between getting to sleep in their own bed and pooping in their actual toilet.

One could also say that by the time Cernan made his very explanatory statement he had been properly briefed by NASA on what to answer, in such a way that Neil's initial statement doesn't sound like bunkem.

And that's another personal observation. Speculation, really. You forgot the disclaimer on that one.

Edit: From NASA for kids: lunarscience.nasa.gov...

Can you see more stars from the Moon? On the Moon, there is no atmosphere and no clouds to blur or block our view of the stars. The sky on the Moon is always black, even during the daytime. From the Moon, you would be able to see many more stars than you could see from Earth.

Erm... so are NASA misleading the kids? Or just simplifying it so much?

edit on 1-6-2011 by manmental because: (no reason given)

Simplifying, probably. That'd be a pretty obvious mistake from taskmasters who have maintained the conspiracy for four decades.

Originally posted by FoosM

Originally posted by nataylor
reply to post by FoosM

 

Why would they have problems driving or walking? I can drive my car just fine in the sun, even with all the bright landscape around me and light reflecting off the interior surfaces in the car. Their eyes would be adjusted to bright light.

And you would be able to see the moon, airplanes, hot air balloons, during the day in the blue sky as well. I dont see how this supports your argument. Both situations are the same.

Well, no. There's no atmo on the moon. No air to scatter the light. Which is why, even in the daytime, the sky is black instead of blue. There would be nothing to soften the light bouncing off the surface, which means their eyes still couldn't adjust if the surface was bouncing ambient light into their view. Which is why Cernan had to block out external light.

And it is, in fact, possible to see the moon in the daytime under certain conditions.