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This thread is without a doubt has proved Apollo believers dont have a leg to stand on in showing any evidence that man went the moon.
They have nothing only circular arguments and nitpicking!
Not only did Apollo miss all those solar flares during their peak season, they also managed to get by all those micrometeorites!
Originally posted by zvezdar
The high gain on the LM was directional, but computer controlled. The low gain wasn't even directional.
Originally posted by debunky
Damn... looks like they got the model kit manufacturers too! Is nothing sacred anymore?
[edit on 4-6-2010 by debunky]
Originally posted by debunky
Damn... looks like they got the model kit manufacturers too! Is nothing sacred anymore?
[edit on 4-6-2010 by debunky]
The Facts
On each Apollo mission, there were 3 astronauts. One would stay in the command module (CM) that orbited the moon. Two would descend in the lunar excursion module (LEM) and land on the moon, then return to the CM.
There were 6 successful Apollo missions that comprised a total of 4834 minutes on the moon and took 5771 photographs (the following data is assumed to at least be mostly accurate, though it is taken from a pro-hoax site):
Apollo 11 ~ 151 minutes
Apollo 12 ~ 470 minutes
Apollo 14 ~ 565 minutes
Apollo 15 ~ 1110 minutes
Apollo 16 ~ 1214 minutes
Apollo 17 ~ 1324 minutes
Simple division shows that, with 5771 photographs in 4834 minutes, that they must have taken 1.19 photos per minute, or one photo every 50 seconds. The hoax claim then goes that, with all the other experiments (especially sample return and setting up retroreflectors and seismology equipment), there’s no way this is possible.
Why This Claim Is Faulty
To say that this claim employs faulty reasoning is fairly generous. First off, it employs bad math. Remember … there were two astronauts that were taking pictures! So now we have one photograph per astronaut every 100 seconds. This now makes it seem much less silly.
But let’s go further. This is a case where what’s going on can easily be explained by common sense. Think of your last vacation. If you didn’t have a camera, then think back to someone in your group who did. For me, it was a trip to Italy just 2 weeks ago (which is why I haven’t had many posts in the last few weeks).
On the trip, which I went on with my parents and joined my brother who was already there, we went to a different sight-seeing place every day in the area of the city of Turin. We spent probably 2-4 hrs a day sight-seeing. During that time, I took around 400 photos. Days that I actually had my camera with me were 3. Take 3 hrs times 3 days is 540 minutes. Divide by 400 and I took a photo every 81 seconds. How could I possibly have done anything else!?
The answer (duh) is that I took many photos at once from one location, then walked around and did other stuff, and then took a lot more photos from another location. Often these included up to 30+ photographs per minute when I was taking panoramas. Once you realize this, and take in the actual practicalities of taking pictures when you go someplace, 1 photo every 100 seconds seems like much less of a fantastic feat.
But wait, there’s more! When taking my photos in Turin, I spent a fair amount of time at the beginning of each shot setting it up – figuring out aperture and shutter speed. The Apollo astronauts did not. They knew what to expect for lighting conditions, and they generally used a small aperture (to permit a large depth-of-field). Without weather or an atmosphere to complicate things, they really didn’t need to spend much time – if any – figuring out what shutter speed to use. And for aiming, they used wide-angle lenses and so just pointed their bodies where they wanted to aim.
Wrap-Up
The idea that the astronauts could not have taken a photograph every 50 seconds while on the moon while still doing other things completely ignores 3 things: (1) There were two astronauts to take photos; (2) many photographs were taken from the same location of the same thing or as panoramas, allowing them to be taken in rapid succession; and (3) the astronauts didn’t need much set-up time in determining photograph composition nor exposure settings, as the settings were figured out experimentally before the mission.
Originally posted by ppk55
In a previous post I mentioned that the Apollo astronauts took too many pictures for the time they had available. 6000 of them, all mostly perfect.
www.aulis.com...
From the time and motion study above, I suggested they had even less time available to take snaps, considering they had to adjust the antennas etc.
Originally posted by FoosM
2. How could the astronauts know what to expect in terms of lighting? Its not like they had been on the moon before.
3. I had shown, especially with Apollo 11, the astronauts did not have the time to really get to know their cameras
4. On vacation your are not wearing a pressure suit,
you are not taking photos in a hostile environment,
you are not pressured for time, your are not fumbling with a complicated camera, you dont have to worry about setting up scientific experiments.
If you are interested in going deeper into it, may I suggest the following:
Take a look at this map:
or
And compare it to the photos and videos that are listed, for example here:
www.lpi.usra.edu...
If Im not mistaken, there were photos listed that I couldn't find on the map.
Which could translate to too many photos taken.
Originally posted by debunky
Originally posted by FoosM
2. the effects of weightlessness is very serious.
I wonder, what is the US's record in the study of weightlessness prior to Apollo 11?
How much experience did Apollo astronauts have in space? And how much time did they spend in space prior to their long trips with Apollo?
Gemini 7
From wikipedia:
Frank F. Borman, II and James A. Lovell, Jr spent nearly 13 2/3 days in space for a total of 206 orbits
...
Mind googling yourself for a change Foosm?
The Saturn V rocket bore little resemblance to any previous launch vehicles. As Apollo flight director Gene Kranz observed, “It was a new spacecraft. It was something that we had to learn from the ground up – that we had to learn from scratch.” It was a massive, and massively complex, spacecraft. The Saturn V was so much larger than its predecessors that all previous manned launch vehicles – the six Mercury and ten Gemini vehicles – could fit inside a single Saturn V casing.
Unmodified Hasselblad 550C medium format cameras were first used on the last two Mercury one-man missions in 1962 and 1963. The Hasselblads proved the mainstay of the early space program and were used throughout the Gemini two-man spaceflights in 1965 and 1966. In addition to the excellent mechanical and optical properties of the cameras and their Zeiss lenses, the cameras were relatively simple to use, and film was pre-loaded into magazines that could easily be interchanged in mid-roll when lighting situations changed. In addition to the Hasselblads, on the second Gemini mission, history was made when the first picture of a spacecraft in orbit was taken by astronaut Ed White as he floated outside his spacecraft. He used a Zeiss Contarex 35mm camera mounted atop his gas-powered maneuvering gun.
On Apollo 8, Hasselblad EL electric cameras were used for the first time. The electric motor in these Hasselblads largely automated the picture taking process. The astronauts needed only to set the distance, lens aperture, and shutter speed, but once the release button was pressed, the camera exposed and wound the film and tensioned the shutter. Two Hasselblad EL cameras, each with a Planar f 2.8/80mm [normal] plus a single Sonnar f5.6/250mm [telephoto] lens and seven magazines of 70mm film, were carried. The cameras, film magazines, and lenses used on Apollo 8 had black anodized surfaces to eliminate reflections. Modifications to the cameras included special large locks for the film magazines and levers on the f-stop and distance settings on the lenses. These modifications facilitated the camera's use by the crew operating with pressurized suits and gloves. Additionally, the cameras had no reflex mirror viewfinder and instead a simple sighting ring assisted the astronaut in pointing the camera.
Each film magazine would typically yield 160 color and 200 black and white pictures on special film. Kodak was asked by NASA to develop thin new films with special emulsions. On Apollo 8, three magazines were loaded with 70 mm wide, perforated Kodak Panatomic-X fine-grained, 80 ASA, b/w film, two with Kodak Ektachrome SO-68, one with Kodak Ektachrome SO-121, and one with super light-sensitive Kodak 2485, 16,000 ASA film. There were 1100 color, black and white, and filtered photographs returned from the Apollo 8 mission.
In addition to the Hasselblad cameras, Apollo 8 carried a black and white television camera, a 16mm motion picture camera, exposure meters, several types of filters, and other camera accessories.
Apollo 11
A comprehensive set of camera equipment was carried on board Apollo 11. This included two 16mm Maurer motion picture film cameras, a color television camera in the orbiting Columbia, and a black and white TV camera outside of the lunar module to transmit to Earth Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon's surface. A Kodak stereo close-up camera was used to film the lunar soil from only inches away. Three Hasselblad 500EL cameras were carried.
Two of the Hasselblad cameras were identical to those carried on the earlier Apollo 8 and 10 lunar orbit missions. During the Moon landing one Hasselblad was left aboard the Command Module Columbia, which remained in lunar orbit. Two were taken on the Lunar Module Eagle to the Moon's surface.
The Data Camera used on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission and later Moon landings was a 500EL with additional modifications. A transparent glass Reseau plate, or register glass, engraved with grid markings was placed between the film magazine and the camera body, immediately in front of the film plane. The plate is engraved with crosses to form a grid and the intersections accurately calibrated to a tolerance of 0.002 mm. The crosses were recorded on every exposed film frame. From the markings, it is possible to calibrate distance and heights in photos taken either on the lunar surface or from space. Such markings were not new or unique to the space program. They were commonly used for large format scientific and aerial photography prior to the Moon landings, when the large size of the photographic negative could be distorted either during exposure or the printing process.
When film is normally wound in a camera, static electricity is generated on the film surface. This electricity is dispersed by metal rims and rollers, which guide the film, and by humidity in the surrounding air. In the lunar surface camera, however, the film was guided by the Reseau plate's raised edges. As glass is a poor electrical conductor, and with the absence of surrounding air, the charge built up between the glass surface and the film could become so great that sparks could occur between the plate and the film. In order to conduct the static electricity away and prevent sparking, the side of the plate facing the film was coated with a thin transparent conductive layer and silver deposited on the edges of the conductive layer. The electrical charge was then led to the metallic parts of the camera body by contact springs.
The outer surface of the 500EL data camera was colored silver to help maintain more uniform internal temperatures in the violent extremes of heat and cold encountered on the lunar surface. Lubricants used in the camera mechanisms had to either be eliminated or replaced because conventional lubricants would boil off in the vacuum and potentially could condense on the optical surfaces of the lenses, Reseau plate, and film.
Two film magazines for the lunar surface Hasselblad 500EL data camera were carried for use on the Moon's surface. Thirty-three rolls of the same film types as used on the earlier missions were carried on the Apollo 11 mission. The film used for Apollo 11 was loaded and several test shots exposed prior to flight. When the film magazines were returned for processing after the mission, the test shots were cut off and processed first. These were compared against accurate color charts to ensure that there would be no defects in processing the remainder of the film and that the colors would be most accurate.
Each film magazine was finished in the same silver color as the camera body. The film magazines were each fitted with a tether ring. To the ring, a cord was attached that permitted the entire camera to be lowered from the lunar module cabin to Neil Armstrong on the surface using a clothesline-like arrangement. The exposed film magazines were lifted from the surface in the same manner. The camera and lens were left behind and still rest on the Moon's surface at Tranquility Base.
Originally posted by Tomblvd
3. I had shown, especially with Apollo 11, the astronauts did not have the time to really get to know their cameras
4. On vacation your are not wearing a pressure suit,
you are not taking photos in a hostile environment,
you are not pressured for time, your are not fumbling with a complicated camera, you dont have to worry about setting up scientific experiments.
Originally posted by tomblvd
Each astronaut was given an identical camera to practice with for many months before the missions. By the time of the J-missions, the astronauts had taken thousands of pictures.
Originally posted by FoosM
I'm speechless, I just said this wasnt true. I posted this earlier on this thread.
Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by FoosM
Oh, for Pity's sake!!! :shk: Will you ever stop it???
Ijust think that gear ought to be available earlier.
It's one of the things you can get done or at least get
started on 3 or 4 months before the flight, and yet it's
not available. It's another one of those late-arrival
categories. I'm not sure whether it has to do with the
quantity of the training equipment or the fact that we
have to get one flight down before we can get around to
providing for the next one, I think the familiarization
with the cameras (taking them home and taking pictures
while you're flying around the country in T38's) should be done early and not the last couple of weeks. Fr\om the flights that I have been associated with, it seems to me that it's always been the last month when that stuff magically appears and they want t o t a l k t o you about it and all that; it should be done earlier, I think....
If that had been aggressively
pursued, we would have right now in our hands an automatic
camera that would take a hell of lot better pictures than
we are capable of taking, and we could have qualified the
thing by now. I think that should be done, I really do.
I think they are pursuing it with Hasselblads, but, my Lord, they have been pursuing it with Hasselblads for years, ever since the subject first came up, and I just
don't see any results et we do carry great huge spot-
meters whose utility is questionable, and we manage to develop and carry those frapping things. That Minolta
t spotmeter was not used during the flight. I don't know what flights have used it but I'd gladly swap it for an automatic light control in a camera. That 2-pound battery
is nothing moreorless than a handle crank; I'd gladly swap it for an automatic lightmeter built into the camera.
Originally posted by FoosMIf NASA's official answer to the blue halo is it being due to a dust smudge, I think its a not a sufficient answer. And I posted 4 reasons why, two of which I think make complete sense.
Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by FoosM
If you are interested in going deeper into it, may I suggest the following:
Take a look at this map:
or
And compare it to the photos and videos that are listed, for example here:
www.lpi.usra.edu...
If Im not mistaken, there were photos listed that I couldn't find on the map.
Which could translate to too many photos taken.
Thank you for posting these links; they pretty much blow your case out of the water. There were 232 photographs taken on the lunar surface. The contents of magazine "O" were taken from inside the LM, and would be those mysterious "missing photos" you can't find. There were, by my quick count, 181 B&W photos taken from inside the LM, and maybe two or three in the next, color, magazine. Let's call it 182. 232 less 182 equals 50. As the map you provided indicates, most of the photographs were taken in pans averaging about 10 exposures each. There were five such pans... accounting for pretty much all the photographs taken. As mentioned several times, pans are taken in quick succession. If you can take as little as five exposures a minute, the astronauts took only ten minutes to take all the photographs. Any further questions?
Originally posted by FoosM
Originally posted by Tomblvd
2. How could the astronauts know what to expect in terms of lighting? Its not like they had been on the moon before.
'
Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by FoosM
I wish I had one of those 'face/palm' photos!!!
You are using the recollections of COLLINS!?!