We Probably Never Made it to the Moon

a reply to: cooperton

The VAB are a problem, and have always been recognised as such. The issue is how you manage that problem. In the Apollo era the kind of electronics they had were much less likely to be affected by them, and there was much less of them. The deaths of 2 shuttle crews also means they are a little more conscious of safety protocols. Electronic systems have safely made their way on modern spacecraft to the moon many times, but with human cargo it is imperative that those systems work.

Don Pettit is not a NASA spokesman. He's a former astronaut offering his opinion. It's not NASA's 'narrative', neither is it lies or excuses, it's just a fact: changing political and budgetary priorities changed the spacecraft they built.

The fact that it is actually a painful process to build that ability back again does not mean it didn't happen. The original process took 8 years from Kennedy's deadline and was already in progress when he set it. It also cost three lives on the way - it was just as painful then.

Anyway, in all likelihood the next boots on lunar soil will be Chinese, not American.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: cooperton



The fact that it is actually a painful process to build that ability back again does not mean it didn't happen.

Yeah it doesnt prove we didnt go in the past, but it does raise doubts about it. Thanks for participating in this thread, it was a good exercise.

Looking forward to the moon base

originally posted by: cooperton
One final thing though. Are the Van Allen Belts a problem or not? NASA Engineers and astronauts refer to the difficulty of it, yet others say the radiation in these layers is barely harmful at all. Particles moving at the speed of light in the Van Allen Belts at super high temperature makes me think it is a difficulty, despite the low density.

The problem, as explained several times, it's today's electronics being much smaller and using much less power, so they are easier to be affected by a charged particle.

You can take a look at the Wikipedia page about soft errors to get an idea of the problem.

Cosmic rays creating energetic neutrons and protons
Once the electronics industry had determined how to control package contaminants, it became clear that other causes were also at work. James F. Ziegler led a program of work at IBM which culminated in the publication of a number of papers (Ziegler and Lanford, 1979) demonstrating that cosmic rays also could cause soft errors. Indeed, in modern devices, cosmic rays may be the predominant cause. Although the primary particle of the cosmic ray does not generally reach the Earth's surface, it creates a shower of energetic secondary particles. At the Earth's surface approximately 95% of the particles capable of causing soft errors are energetic neutrons with the remainder composed of protons and pions.[3] IBM estimated in 1996 that one error per month per 256 MiB of ram was expected for a desktop computer.[4] This flux of energetic neutrons is typically referred to as "cosmic rays" in the soft error literature. Neutrons are uncharged and cannot disturb a circuit on their own, but undergo neutron capture by the nucleus of an atom in a chip. This process may result in the production of charged secondaries, such as alpha particles and oxygen nuclei, which can then cause soft errors.

Soft error mitigation
A designer can attempt to minimize the rate of soft errors by judicious device design, choosing the right semiconductor, package and substrate materials, and the right device geometry. Often, however, this is limited by the need to reduce device size and voltage, to increase operating speed and to reduce power dissipation. The susceptibility of devices to upsets is described in the industry using the JEDEC JESD-89 standard.

One technique that can be used to reduce the soft error rate in digital circuits is called radiation hardening. This involves increasing the capacitance at selected circuit nodes in order to increase its effective Qcrit value. This reduces the range of particle energies to which the logic value of the node can be upset. Radiation hardening is often accomplished by increasing the size of transistors who share a drain/source region at the node. Since the area and power overhead of radiation hardening can be restrictive to design, the technique is often applied selectively to nodes which are predicted to have the highest probability of resulting in soft errors if struck. Tools and models that can predict which nodes are most vulnerable are the subject of past and current research in the area of soft errors.

Correcting soft errors
Traditionally, DRAM has had the most attention in the quest to reduce or work around soft errors, due to the fact that DRAM has comprised the majority-share of susceptible device surface area in desktop, and server computer systems (ref. the prevalence of ECC RAM in server computers). Hard figures for DRAM susceptibility are hard to come by, and vary considerably across designs, fabrication processes, and manufacturers. 1980s technology 256 kilobit DRAMS could have clusters of five or six bits flip from a single alpha particle. Modern DRAMs have much smaller feature sizes, so the deposition of a similar amount of charge could easily cause many more bits to flip.

Now, imagine they built a shiny new system, with state of the art computer systems (in fact, they do not usually do that, they prefer older and known as reliable systems to new, unproved ones) that are fast and consume very little power and give up very little heat. The system works flawlessly on Earth, but when crossing an area with much more energetic particles, many of them charged, the system may start to be affected by soft errors. These may happen in any part of the system, but, as it says above, memory is usually the most affected. If part of the memory gets affected, anything can happen, even just a change from 1 to 0 on a single bit may change a value from 0 to, for example, 32768, so a system may interpret that change in values as, for example, an increase in speed and, as a consequence, stops the engines.

I know many people do not like or trust Wikipedia, but I find the above excerpts easier to post than to write myself what I learned on my electronics courses, and they show the same information I was given on those courses.

a reply to: ArMaP

As I stated earlier the POLARIS DAWN mission at the end of this year (2022) is scheduled for its orbit to penetrate the lower reaches of the Van Allen Belt

It is designed to measure radiation levels and effect on human biology

polarisprogram.com...

No earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Polaris Dawn mission from historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, during which they will work towards the following objectives:

This Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon’s maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. Orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, Polaris Dawn will conduct research with the aim of better understanding the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.

HEALTH IMPACT RESEARCH
While in orbit, the crew will conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights. This includes, but is not limited to:

Using ultrasound to monitor, detect, and quantify venous gas emboli (VGE), contributing to studies on human prevalence to decompression sickness;
Gathering data on the radiation environment to better understand how space radiation affects human biological systems;
Providing biological samples towards multi-omics analyses for a long-term Biobank; and
Research related to Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome (SANS), which is a key risk to human health in long-duration spaceflight.

China wants to send humans to the moon 2029

originally posted by: cooperton


Ooo yeah I think you're right. Good call

One final thing though. Are the Van Allen Belts a problem or not? NASA Engineers and astronauts refer to the difficulty of it, yet others say the radiation in these layers is barely harmful at all.

"HIgh Temperature" doesn't mean anything when the mass of the object with that temperature is just composed of a few atoms.

It truly means 0. Nada. Nothing at all.

The amount of heat that you can be transferred to you from another object is proportional to the difference in temperature multiplied by the mass of the other object (and then divided by your own mass.)

When you divide the mass of a few free floating atoms by your own mass, you get a number so very near to perfect zero that it might as well actually be zero.

And any number multiplied by zero is zero.

Particles moving at the speed of light in the Van Allen Belts at super high temperature makes me think it is a difficulty, despite the low density.

The fastest subatomic particle ever detected on Earth became to be known as the "oh my god" particle. And it hit with about the force of a baseball.

en.wikipedia.org...

I don't think the Van Allen belts have any of those, because a particle moving that fast would not be bound by Earth's gravity at all. Or even the Sun's gravity.

It seems as though the narrative at this point is that we got there before but we lost the technology (according to Don Pettit) and now we need to establish new electronics that can resist the radiation exhibited in space. To me this seems like the result of a compulsive lie that continually needs to be covered up with more excuses.

We've forgotten how to make electronic devices with thick wires. That is actually a true story, anyone in the microprocessor industry will back up and confirm for you.

Once the small die microprocessors became common, engineers simply stopped designing electronic systems that relied on the older, thicker circuit board setups.

Maybe they could reteach themselves, but nobody wants to. The small die micrprocessor systems are a lot better, and require less human intervention. The astronauts on the Apollo missions had to do a lot of calculations by hand, which a human can screw up, like by putting a decimal in the wrong place or something.

a reply to: Ove38

In all probability in something that looks very similar to a Saturn V CSM and LM configuration

My take on lunar exploration is that it is important and should be done, if only for a 'because we can' reason.

One things humans have over machines is what I call adaptive prioritisation - the ability to see something, go "hey, what's that?" and go investigate at the expense of something more mundane, like the 'orange soil' moment in Apollo 17. Doing that with machines is more difficult and time consuming - it took a long time for China to check out the odd looking rock they saw, whereas a human could have done it in minutes.

Conveying how it feels, the human side of being somewhere so alien, is even more difficult. It tells us seomething about who and what we are, like the way the Earthrise photos changed our perspective on the planet.

In practical terms, sending 'spam in a can' is pointless. It adds massively to the cost, complexity and risk, and you have to build in to the calculations the likelihood that someone will die. Had the Apollo program continued as planned and beyond it is pretty certain someone would have, either going bang on launch, an accident on the surface or burning up on re-entry.

Apollo astronauts accepted this risk as a way of achieving a national goal. Modern sensibilities are much more risk averse, and that's part of the reason it's taking so long to redesign and rebuild the approach. Each Apollo mission, not just 13, had something go wrong that jeopardised its success. It's thanks to the kind of meticulous planning that the new missions are going through that nothing worse happened.

The fact that we are now better able to quantify the risks involved, and even identify new ones, and are more prepared to try and ameliorate them, doesn't mean people weren't prepared to take them or weren't able to overcome them in the past.

Not liking or trusting those involved also doesn't mean they didn't do what they said they did. I listened to Tom Stafford (Apollo 10, amongst many other things) and realised that he was heavily involved in many things against which I protested vigorously as a young man. That doesn't mean he didn't fly around the moon, or tbat his motives were anything other than genuine - they just differed from mine.

As far as questioning whether people took and overcame the risks, fine - question them. Question them but listen to the answers. Ask if there is a more reasonable answer to "why can you can see a foot appear?". Check for yourself whether what is being claimed is reasonable, or is it just appealing to your own bias. Deny ignorance.

a reply to: Ove38

Quick someone inform China about the deadly Van Allen Radiation Belts and how they would be fried by radiation if they attempt to go through ............

AWWWWWWWW .................

originally posted by: firerescue
a reply to: Ove38

Quick someone inform China about the deadly Van Allen Radiation Belts and how they would be fried by radiation if they attempt to go through ............

AWWWWWWWW .................

Considering their ETA is 7 years from now, it appears it will be a working progress. Hopefully they can figure it out

If you believe we made it the moon in 1969, and that all the new technology and break through's that resulted from the "race" to the moon and outer space were a positive for society... then what is the reasoning that we can't even reproduce what happened in 1969, let alone expanded exponentially on that progress?

a reply to: jjkenobi

Politicians not wanting to pay for things that don't get them votes, or pay for them at the expense of things that do.

I can't afford expensive foreign holidays right now. Doesn't mean I haven't been on them in the past.

a reply to: jjkenobi

The moon program was established by JFK in 1961 as a means of challenging the Soviet Union during the Cold War

JFK had asked his advisors what was a feasible means of beating the Soviets in space At this time Soviets had orbited humans while USA was struggling to get a man on a suborbital hop

Beating the Soviets to the moon would enhance US prestige throughout the world

For the next 8 years everything was geared to getting there before the Soviet Union

This included construction of the Saturn class boosters (Saturn 1, Saturn 1B, Saturn V)

At one point in 1967 NASA was consuming over 4 % of the entire US budget

When we beat the Soviets in 1969 the public support and hence the money to continue on dried up Along with this the Vietnam War was costing more and more money at this time

Something had to go and it was the moon program - How many times can you watch couple astronauts pick up rocks and drive a go kart on the moon

The final 3 missions (Apollo 18, 19, 20) were cancelled This included the Saturn V boosters which were only designed for one purpose - that was to get Apollo to the moon and back

The Saturn V was custom built, especially the 1st stage booster, and once the program was discontinued all the rocket builders disbursed

In recent years Rocketdyne, builder of the Saturn V, had redesigned he first stage as a possible heavy lift rocket

The redesigned stage has 1/3 the parts and uses modern materials and manufacturing to simplify the rocket while delivering equivalent thrust

originally posted by: firerescue
a reply to: jjkenobi

The moon program was established by JFK in 1961 as a means of challenging the Soviet Union during the Cold War

JFK had asked his advisors what was a feasible means of beating the Soviets in space At this time Soviets had orbited humans while USA was struggling to get a man on a suborbital hop

Beating the Soviets to the moon would enhance US prestige throughout the world

For the next 8 years everything was geared to getting there before the Soviet Union

This included construction of the Saturn class boosters (Saturn 1, Saturn 1B, Saturn V)

At one point in 1967 NASA was consuming over 4 % of the entire US budget

When we beat the Soviets in 1969 the public support and hence the money to continue on dried up Along with this the Vietnam War was costing more and more money at this time

Something had to go and it was the moon program - How many times can you watch couple astronauts pick up rocks and drive a go kart on the moon

This is what doesn't make sense though.. The moon is a perfect strategic satellite, especially given how easy it was for the astronauts to frolic around on the lunar surface and the ability for Nixon to call them from his land line in the Oval Office.

A moon base could allow the survival of a nuclear holocaust on earth, among many other applications. It just doesn't make sense that we would stop with simply landing on the moon. They only asked for a 4 billion dollar budget raise to forego the Artemis missions, so it doesn't seem like they were drastically underfunded.

a reply to: cooperton

In 2009, it was estimated that the cost of the station would be around $36B, to support 4 astronauts, and be unmanned between missions, with a cost of $7.5B a year to maintain it. That’s not even a permanent presence, it’s just occasionally having astronauts there. Staying on the moon long term is not easy, and in 1970 it isn’t clear that they could have done it safely. It’s a lot easier to stay there 3 days than even 3 months, let alone permanently.

a reply to: cooperton

Easy? It took over 10 years and 3 dead astronauts to get there. It is not nipping to the shops for bread.

The moon has no real strategic value. It may have all manner of mineral resources but the cost of harvesting them is way over any financial reward.

It isn't much use as an observatory because half the time any telescope is in sunlight. If you're on the far side you need a secondary relay satellite. If you're on the near side you also have a bright Earth to contend with. You can see things much more clearly from Earth orbit and in a more flexible way.

As a launch platform for missiles (which some thought might be an option) it's not ideal to give your enemies 3 days warning, and transporting all your secret military stuff up there is difficult to do when literally the whole world can see you doing it.

As a hiding place from holocaust you're pretty reliant on the smouldering remains of civilisation sending supplies. Hopefully enough radioactive rocket parts will remain to get some food up to you before you run out of oxygen. Yes, you can make water and air with the right technology, assuming it's invented, but that technology has a huge cost attached to it in terms of manufacturer and energy requirement.

Its only main purpose is as a scientific resource, and much of that can be done with machines and remote probes. Its subsidiary purpose is showing off: look what we can do. That is exactly why the US went and why China wants to go now. No matter the science justification, somebody has to convince a politician that it won't cause riots.

Getting to the moon is difficult in every way you can think of. The USA did not get there by accident, it did not just happen to do it. It committed a massive scientific, engineering, logistical and above all financial resource to achieve it.

Had they committed to staying they would have had to continue to commit that resource for very little gain. Sooner or later the money runs out, which is what happened.

i got some stuff on the moon lol, also check out bruceseesall and his ufo moon research with his telescope
he captures triangular craft flying in and out of crators all the time its crazy

originally posted by: iskyguy

i got some stuff on the moon lol, also check out bruceseesall and his ufo moon research with his telescope
he captures triangular craft flying in and out of crators all the time its crazy

Thanks for the links. I'm more prone to believe we have secret moon bases there, rather than we have never been back since Apollo. The former makes much more sense than the latter.

a reply to: iskyguy
Most of which is all fake:
www.metabunk.org...

but people still fall for it apparently.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: cooperton

Easy? It took over 10 years and 3 dead astronauts to get there. It is not nipping to the shops for bread.

But then they went 6/7 landing all missions from apollo 11 to apollo 17 without failure besides apollo 13 (which no one died). This to me looks like they got it down. Yet now were back on the struggle bus. The Artemis project is already delayed in its estimate to get the CLPS to the moon. Getting unmanned rockets to the moon should be routine by now.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: cooperton

In 2009, it was estimated that the cost of the station would be around $36B, to support 4 astronauts, and be unmanned between missions, with a cost of $7.5B a year to maintain it. That’s not even a permanent presence, it’s just occasionally having astronauts there. Staying on the moon long term is not easy, and in 1970 it isn’t clear that they could have done it safely. It’s a lot easier to stay there 3 days than even 3 months, let alone permanently.

The Artemis program only asked for an extra 4 billion, so it must not be too out of budget.

Seriously though, is an airtight moon-base with plants for oxygen-co2 exchange really that difficult? Apollo 11 made it seem like candyland up there.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: cooperton

Easy? It took over 10 years and 3 dead astronauts to get there. It is not nipping to the shops for bread.

But then they went 6/7 landing all missions from apollo 11 to apollo 17 without failure besides apollo 13 (which no one died).

Apollo 8 - crew illness
Apollo 10 - uncontrolled LM spin in lunar orbit
Apollo 11 - computer overload during landing, broken switch needing emergency repair that
Apollo 12 - hit by lightning
Apollo 13 - explosion thanks to manufacturing and quality control errors
Apollo 14 - LM/CSM docking problems en route
Apollo 15 - landed at almost too steep an angle
Apollo 16 - CSM problems cut mission short.
Apollo 17 - launch delayed as a result of tank pressure problem.

All the missions had problems. They coped because they planned stuff.

This to me looks like they got it down.

Because a) they planned stuff, had failsafe backups and conitingencies, and had people who knew what they were doing and b) they got lucky

Yet now were back on the struggle bus. The Artemis project is already delayed in its estimate to get the CLPS to the moon. Getting unmanned rockets to the moon should be routine by now.

Not sure how many times this needs explaining: it's new equipment with new technologies. It needs working out, just like they did with Apollo. Landing on the moon was not just Apollo 11, it was Mercury and Gemini and countless hours of testing.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: cooperton

In 2009, it was estimated that the cost of the station would be around $36B, to support 4 astronauts, and be unmanned between missions, with a cost of $7.5B a year to maintain it. That’s not even a permanent presence, it’s just occasionally having astronauts there. Staying on the moon long term is not easy, and in 1970 it isn’t clear that they could have done it safely. It’s a lot easier to stay there 3 days than even 3 months, let alone permanently.

The Artemis program only asked for an extra 4 billion, so it must not be too out of budget.

Seriously though, is an airtight moon-base with plants for oxygen-co2 exchange really that difficult? Apollo 11 made it seem like candyland up there.

Yes. It is.