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I know I'm going to make myself unpopular, but bringing this to more awareness could help me clarify some of *my* misunderstandings too, so I rather do this now than regret later.

The hypothesis is that man never landed on moon, and everything in the Apollo missing was staged on earth. The facts are presented in this video "What Happened on the Moon." There are two parts to this video.

1. Part I: this part focuses on analysing NASA publicly released videos and photographs for fakeness. If the light shown in the scenes are lit only by sunlight, then all shadows should be parallel since the sun is so far away, that its rays are focused at infinity. Furthermore, moon does not have an atmosphere to diffuse ambient light, so shadow areas should be completely dark. The film is also constantly bombarded by solar wind and cosmic rays, so it would be badly exposed.

   None of the above mentioned phenomenon are observed with publicly released photographs. Rather, contradicting observations are found, namely non-parallel shadows, well-lit shades, and studio quality exposed pictures. You can look at official NASA images and videos on your on and decide for yourself.

2. Part II: this part analyses rocket technology and radioactive shielding technology in the 1960's and concludes that these technologies are insufficient to actually bring human on the moon. Basically, they glued a German V-2 rocket to a space pod and claim that's what brought man to the moon.

As you can see, my summary is more detailed for Part I than Part II because I have some knowledge and interest in photography, and I do not have much to say about rockets and radioactive shielding.

This is a LONG project. All the 'current administration' can do is get the ball rolling. Which they are doing.

When it comes to science our current president is a total twit. He throws out phrases like "Hydrogen Fuel Initiative" without any clue what those pretty words mean. With current technology hydrogen is just a fucking battery, but saying "Hydrogen Fuel Initiative" makes you sound like you've got a big dick.

So get the ball rolling like Nixon did. Same shit, different day...

Quoting from Dr. Fletcher, NASA Administrator:

There are four main reasons why the Space Shuttle is important and is the right step in manned space flight and the US space program.

• The Shuttle is the only meaningful new manned space program which can be accomplished on a modest budget
• It is needed to make space operations less complex and less costly
• It is needed to do useful things
• It will encourage greater international participation in space flight

...and the Shuttle/ISS fulfills which of the above?

This is a LONG project. All the 'current administration' can do is get the ball rolling. Which they are doing.

When it comes to science our current president is a total twit. He throws out phrases like "Hydrogen Fuel Initiative" without any clue what those pretty words mean. With current technology hydrogen is just a fucking battery, but saying "Hydrogen Fuel Initiative" makes you sound like you've got a big dick.

So get the ball rolling like Nixon did. Same shit, different day...

Quoting from Dr. Fletcher, NASA Administrator:

There are four main reasons why the Space Shuttle is important and is the right step in manned space flight and the US space program.

• The Shuttle is the only meaningful new manned space program which can be accomplished on a modest budget
• It is needed to make space operations less complex and less costly
• It is needed to do useful things
• It will encourage greater international participation in space flight

...and the Shuttle/ISS fulfills which of the above?

NASA's deep space 1 launched 1998 http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/quick_facts.html

ESA's SMART-1 launched 2003 http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMSDE1A6BD_0. html

boeing sells ion thrusters for satelites http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/fact sheets/xips/xips.html

additionally, these technologies will never be used to replace chemical rockets. chemical rockets throw a lot of mass out the back at a relativly slow speed, but all at once. giving you enough velocity to get off the planet.

ion thrusters throw a very little bit of mass out the back at very high speeds, but run continuously for months/years. after that length of time at a constant acceleration you end up with a very high velocity.

unless you have discovered some new physics and an antigravity engine, throwing things out of the back of the spaceship, or hauling it up an elevator are the only conceiveable methods of getting something off the planet.

Nasa is accually developing multiple new propulsion systems such as the new w s/releases/2004/04-192.html>electro-magnetic plasma propulsion system</a>. With a estimated isp of over 10000 granted this is a space only propulsion system that needs something else to get it off the ground but it is perfect for a earth to nasa trip. Btw I accually saw a test firing of this 2 years ago so it's ot vaporware.

Argh. It takes electricity to seperate Hydrogen from water. Then you ignite the hydrogen and regerse the process. It's a lossy inefficient process.

Furthermore, who the hell would want to drive around in the hindenberg?

Of course, that wasn't multiple rovers, and a short 83 days hardly compares to the longevity of the more recent rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

... not to mention the enormous difference in size/scale. [1] [2]

I got to see these in person, which is why the difference is so ingrained in my mind. :)

I would like to see your source for Sally Kristen Ride (born May 26, 1951) is a former astronaut and became the first woman to reach outer space, in 1983.
Everywhere I look (even on nasa's website) the first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. You can google it yourself or if you are lazy simply look here http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos _who_level2/tereshkova.html
The only posible conclusion I can come to as to where you got your quote is the wikipedia article for Sally Ride but even they got it right
Sally Kristen Ride (born May 26, 1951) is a former astronaut and became the first American woman to reach outer space, in 1983.
Nice how that one little word got left out of your quote.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Still running and still producing valuable data
reliability is what companies should really strive for, consumer throw-away disposable culture is a nasty disease and the sooner its extinct the better

The posted /. story is confusing the Mars Pathfinder mission and the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The Pathfinder mission was in 1997. The MERs landed in January of 2004 and is still running, far beyond the expected lifetime of the rovers.

The posted /. story is confusing the Mars Pathfinder mission and the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The Pathfinder mission was in 1997. The MERs landed in January of 2004 and is still running, far beyond the expected lifetime of the rovers.

They spent their money on the wallpaper backgrounds for their mission control hence no backup power source. Compare their Mission Control center,
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/out_there/mission_ control.php

to one of NASA's,
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/presskits/ff s_gallery_mcc_image3.html

and you'll notice that NASA's people actually have *stuff* on their screens instead of wallpapers and miscalenous windows backgrounds.

When you send something into space you want to have a return on the investment. This means communication with the satellite! And after a few days, they can only say "At this point in time, the vehicle is happy and healthy" and produce a grainy image. At least to myself, they do sound like a joke.

In 1980 I visited the MOBLAS-5 Yarragadee station in the Western Australia outback, which was custom-built for this purpose. MOBLAS meant MOBile LASer, and as you can see from the picture it is built in a trailer. But the equipment does not move. The site has clear night skies and no geological or human interference. And results from one location over time are valuable. It was beautiful and eerie to see the green laser beam. Even though the air was clear you could see it when standing around the pad. It seemed to last longer than the tiny fraction of a second it pulsed. At the time the operators would get a visual feedback from their instruments on who big the return signal was. And they would tweak the telescope tracking as required to get good returns. Tapes of the results were then sent back to NASA. I assume this is all automated now. Those guys looked extremely bored.

BTW, notice how big the empty tarmac is around the trailer. I was told NASA wanted a 100 by 100 foot pad and they mistakenly got a 100 by 100 metre pad, making it about 10 times bigger than they needed!

In 1980 I visited the MOBLAS-5 Yarragadee station in the Western Australia outback, which was custom-built for this purpose. MOBLAS meant MOBile LASer, and as you can see from the picture it is built in a trailer. But the equipment does not move. The site has clear night skies and no geological or human interference. And results from one location over time are valuable. It was beautiful and eerie to see the green laser beam. Even though the air was clear you could see it when standing around the pad. It seemed to last longer than the tiny fraction of a second it pulsed. At the time the operators would get a visual feedback from their instruments on who big the return signal was. And they would tweak the telescope tracking as required to get good returns. Tapes of the results were then sent back to NASA. I assume this is all automated now. Those guys looked extremely bored.

BTW, notice how big the empty tarmac is around the trailer. I was told NASA wanted a 100 by 100 foot pad and they mistakenly got a 100 by 100 metre pad, making it about 10 times bigger than they needed!

In 1980 I visited the MOBLAS-5 Yarragadee station in the Western Australia outback, which was custom-built for this purpose. MOBLAS meant MOBile LASer, and as you can see from the picture it is built in a trailer. But the equipment does not move. The site has clear night skies and no geological or human interference. And results from one location over time are valuable. It was beautiful and eerie to see the green laser beam. Even though the air was clear you could see it when standing around the pad. It seemed to last longer than the tiny fraction of a second it pulsed. At the time the operators would get a visual feedback from their instruments on who big the return signal was. And they would tweak the telescope tracking as required to get good returns. Tapes of the results were then sent back to NASA. I assume this is all automated now. Those guys looked extremely bored.

BTW, notice how big the empty tarmac is around the trailer. I was told NASA wanted a 100 by 100 foot pad and they mistakenly got a 100 by 100 metre pad, making it about 10 times bigger than they needed!

In 1980 I visited the MOBLAS-5 Yarragadee station in the Western Australia outback, which was custom-built for this purpose. MOBLAS meant MOBile LASer, and as you can see from the picture it is built in a trailer. But the equipment does not move. The site has clear night skies and no geological or human interference. And results from one location over time are valuable. It was beautiful and eerie to see the green laser beam. Even though the air was clear you could see it when standing around the pad. It seemed to last longer than the tiny fraction of a second it pulsed. At the time the operators would get a visual feedback from their instruments on who big the return signal was. And they would tweak the telescope tracking as required to get good returns. Tapes of the results were then sent back to NASA. I assume this is all automated now. Those guys looked extremely bored.

BTW, notice how big the empty tarmac is around the trailer. I was told NASA wanted a 100 by 100 foot pad and they mistakenly got a 100 by 100 metre pad, making it about 10 times bigger than they needed!

Hydrazine reacts in the precense of a catalyst such as silver or iridium, which is why combustion chambers of many reaction control rockets are lined with such. Hydrazine is semi-stable. It will breakdown in the precense of the catalyst or if it warms up to the proper point. If neither happens, you're fine. The engineers who actually know how the system is designed (ie, not you), and know where stuff can get into, where it might come into contact with a catalyst, or where it might warm up are the ones qualified to analyze the risk.

As for the risk of explosion, well that's poorly written, but if you don't have enough to cause a pressure increase of damaging magnitude, well then there's nothing to worry about. In this case they have a lot less. That suggests to me they looked it over and decided it must be leaking in a way that there's no place for it to accumulate.

Furthermore, according to NASA, they don't actually use pure hydrazine in the shuttle RCS jets. They use nitrogen tetraxide and monomethyl hydrazine (add on a carbon atom), which are hypergolics. They're more stable but they react spontaneously in each others presence.

Of course, the shuttle engineers don't have a clue about any of this. They like playing dice with their co-workers lives.

According to NASA's website, the Shuttle's mission involves testing a lot of safety stuff. This would carry over to future Shuttle missions, as well as whatever the next vehicle is. I'd rather a spend a few billion on upgrades now than billions later on replacement vehicles.

There had already been a few robot landers. Three Rangers, which crashlanded; five Surveyers (1966-68) which successfully softlanded. The Apollo 12 astronauts visited the Surveyer 3 site.

There had already been a few robot landers. Three Rangers, which crashlanded; five Surveyers (1966-68) which successfully softlanded. The Apollo 12 astronauts visited the Surveyer 3 site.

All we have now is re-filmed qvga-res shit: tv-grabs, literally.

We have the ALSJ and I don't believe there was a writer in the world (let alone in the US) in the 1960's and '70s who could have written it from scratch.

I know you are trolling, but the real Moon-hoax tinfoilers never claimed that 'something' didn't land on the Moon, just that no humans from Apollo 11/12 landed on the Moon.

The Hatter idea is that no living thing can escape the atmosphere and survive (due to radiation or whatever reason the Hatters claim). And no, the Space Station and the sattelites are technically inside the atmosphere, well below the Van Allen belt.

The reflector delivery and the soil sample return could be done by a robotic probe, which in fact is what the Russians did with their Luna 16 mission about a year after the alleged Apollo 11.

Since the Russkies got the first sattelite (Sputnik), the first man in orbit, the first suit walk, the first docking, etc., the thinking was that we could sound-stage their glorious defeat, end the darn space-race, then go spend the money on something more profitable.

The credible conspiracy theory: Send the humans into orbit, camp in orbit while the robot fetches the samples, reunite humans with the 'bot, then land as heroes.

Until they find those missing tapes, you can watch excerpts of the Apollo 11 videos at the ALSJ, along with a complete transcription of the radio transmissions.

Spacecraft Films also sells a 3-disc DVD box set with enhanced video of the whole mission (as well as other Apollo missions), including onboard footage, surface TV, etc. Fascinating stuff.

Okay... not sure why you're insulting me when I was offering an opinion of something you found confusing, assuming that was an insult, but hey-ho.

I've looked at both videos (right SRB forward camera and right SRB aft camera) and the only objects similar to what you have described that I can see visible at around 3:32 are either Discovery itself, which doesn't fully match your description and that - I presume - you would have recognised, or the Sun. In the forward camera it's a little distorted because the lens is covered with residue at that point, but is obviously the sun. In the aft camera footage, where the lens is clear, the sun overloads the camera as it points straight at it. This is quite common with digital cameras - instead of the entire image bleaching, as would happen with film, you get "spikes" sticking out of the bright spot. (See, for example this image of a Comet from SOHO where because of the CCD alignment the spikes are horizontal. In the SRB footage the spikes are vertical.

If you're unwilling to accept the argument that the object you are seeing is the Sun, then what do you think it is? And if it isn't the Sun, where do you think the Sun is? Remember that the Shuttle currently has to launch with full sunlight on it all the way to orbit for photography purposes - the Sun is there somewhere.

An inflatable, on the other hand, has to be flexible in order to allow it to inflate. That seems to imply that something like a paint chip might just well zip right through a wall or two.

Hopefully they don't confuse the bathroom hose with the space bong hose!

From the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established NASA:

(d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

...

(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;

...

(9) The preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes.

We've gotten a lot of e-mail like this, so I thought it was worth addressing in a forum where folks who take a real interest in the technology spend time.

We stream video clips, rather than making them available for downloading, to manage our bandwidth usage. We have a fixed-priced contract with Akamai to provide content delivery, including HTML, RealMedia, QuickTime streaming and some Windows streams. That contract includes some hard caps on bandwidth, and though I give a lot of credit to Akamai for working with us on those caps, they are a business in the end. (Yahoo! provides most of our Windows streams as part of a separate agreement.) As you might imagine, during shuttle missions and other high-visibility events, we got a lot of traffic, the bulk of which is for live video streams. During last week's launch, we had more than a million webcast streams go out on the 4th, with a peak of more than 257,000 concurrent streams at launch. We were pushing data out at 52 gbps.

We continue to have at least 10,000 streams going out during the mission, even in the deep overnight, ramping up for major events like spacewalks. Streaming the video clips makes more efficient use of our bandwidth, as the user can watch the whole thing or cut it off when she feels like it. If the latter, our servers go on to other things. Add it all up, and we have to be fairly careful about managing available bandwidth. We do have some clips available for download at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/index.ht ml

Perhaps it's not the most elegant or perfect solution, but given finite resources and the need to be cross-platform, 508 accessible and as timely as possible, it's optimal, especially for the broad general audience that www.nasa.gov primarily serves. The alternative would be to have a lot less video available.

Cheers,

Brian Dunbar
Internet Services Manager
NASA Public Affairs

Here's a good site with a lot of info about the SRBs (incidentally, this page appears to be the source for much of the SRB info on Wikipedia).

Whatever air was left in your lungs would explode out in an angry rush, your blood would quickly--and literally--boil,

If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. [...] You do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly. Loss of consciousness occurs only after the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood.

the link is on this page...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/multimed ia/index.html

The rear-facing SRB view is more interesting in that you can see the ground pull away. And the camera stays above the water once the booster lands (they are bottom-heavy so the top part stays out of the water).

Not really the case - see http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970603.html .

You would be suprised

When they land tail first, the air(or gasses left over from combustion) gets trapped in the tube and this is what makes the SRB buoyant. I did notice from the rear camera view, that the SRB appears to almost get horizontal right after landing, but it still seems to remained pitched at such an angle that gas should still be contained inside. Then it settles in an upright orientation. Check this out: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/146685main _srb-et.pdf And: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/undersea/srbnp/s rbnp.html

From NASA:
Q. How much does it cost to launch a Space Shuttle?
A. The average cost to launch a Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/informat ion/shuttle_faq.html#10

From Wiki:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Budget US$225 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribb ean:_Dead_Man's_Chest

I'll take the shuttle launch anyday over the common blockbuster.

And at the :45 mark you can see the NASA Sound Suppresion System kick in (aka water). http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_watertest.h tml

If I could just download the copy of /right_forward_srb_camera.wmv being mirrored through (funky.dns.tricks.akamaistream.net), it would probably have stayed up longer.

But a certain DRM-infected media player doesn't welcome the SaveAs menu overlord. After all, how dare anyone think of downloading something (at whatever bitrate their client, or the overloaded server, might support) to your hard drive where you could play it back at your leisure, when you can just download the same content, asking the central server for permission over and over again, every time you wanted to see something?

Streaming video blows goats. The video's probably in the public domain. Put up a goddamn downloadable .MOV, .MPG, or yes, even a .WMV link. But enough of the streaming video, and don't even get me started on a site that requires a Javashit popup to load the goddamn .asx file that points to the streaming video in the first place. Web design ain't rocket science -- it's EASIER than rocket science. Last time I checked, there were a few folks at NASA who have the requisite skills, right?

To give credit to rocket scientists who do get it, check out how the JPL folks working on the Cassini mission handle videos. You know before you click, not just what format it's in, but how big it's gonna be, and you get to save everything to disk.

Earth to NASA: Dump the streaming video, at least for public domain content.

feel better?

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/video/shuttle/ sts-121/mpg/srb_fd01h_ra.mpg

on the main mission site linked to in the article, they have an mpeg posted of the seperation

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/video/shuttle/ sts-121/mpg/srb_fd01h_ra.mpg

Most people are capable of catching a ball. I'd hazard to say that the laws, or some mathematical approximation, are hard-wired into the human nervous system.

It seems to be software actually.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/18mar_play ingcatch.htm

I'd argue that 30+ years of training makes it quite difficult to adjust, but I'm not NASA.

Sorry, you're wrong. The gravitational force due to a hollow sphere is exactly zero everywhere inside that sphere.

Proof

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/preparingtravel/h uman_centrifuge_08315.html

To do this, Paloski will put astronauts in a centrifuge. While they lie comfortably on their sides (the astronauts are tested one at a time), the device spins at varying rates of speed forward and back.

There were space stations before ISS. Skylab, for example was launched in 1973. The shuttle didn't launch for the first time until 1981

Given the history of shuttle costs, it would have been far more efficient to just launch more space stations occasionally.

For example, we could of had 5 years experience with skylab, spent 3 years designing a better one and launched that at the same time as the shuttle would have launched for the first time. Then launch a new one every ten years or so.

At the same time, redesign and update the capsules to launch from.

There were space stations before ISS. Skylab, for example was launched in 1973. The shuttle didn't launch for the first time until 1981

Given the history of shuttle costs, it would have been far more efficient to just launch more space stations occasionally.

For example, we could of had 5 years experience with skylab, spent 3 years designing a better one and launched that at the same time as the shuttle would have launched for the first time. Then launch a new one every ten years or so.

At the same time, redesign and update the capsules to launch from.

the shuttle is still launched with vaccuum tube technology

You'll probably be a bit depressed to learn that NASA no longer gives out car passes for launches or landings. Not sure where exactly you were, but I do recall the experience being very impressive, when I was young.

Link :(

Every time NASA or some other country launches a shuttle into outer space we not only damage the ozone layer in incurable ways and for what?

I guess your daughter is right adults are stupid for wasting so much time, money, and human life on fruitless ventures.

Or, if you'd rather not "register" or "log on", you can get sighting information directly from NASA

It took Columbia's dissentigration to convince me, but Alex Roland is right. The Shuttle is a jobs program with a little bit of scientific research thrown in for fun. It's far more expensive than it was designed to be, and it's proven itself not viable time and again. The only people who aren't taking note are those who write the checks.

Fred DeJarnette, who worked on the original tile engineering is ready for a replacement. Let's do some real engineering and come up with a better spacecraft! (The Onion has an interesting take on the Shuttle program.)

What should we be doing in space? We should be using robots to explore (like the Mars rovers) and perform experiments in orbit. We should send people when we get the fuel to vehicle mass ratio better than 97%, and when it can warrant the expense of taking life support systems on a mission.

The Moon/Mars trips are another bigger jobs program, but they don't even have to get anywhere because the guy who called for them (and his successor, for that matter) will be safely out of office before the promised arrival date of 2018, so when it falls short, he won't have a
price to pay.

If Mars is the goal, the Mars Direct plan is much more economical. If the Moon is the target, go straight there, but don't use the Moon as a lillypad to get to Mars because landing and launching from there takes a certain amount of energy that needs not be expended on the way to Mars.

I want to see us (humans) explore space. I want to learn about the cosmos and I'd love to leave the planet (and probably return). I've followed the U.S. space program since I was old enough to know what a rocket was, and I've learned about the Soviet program since Glasnost. Now I'd like to see us do something meaningful - not just run a space truck to orbit and back, and not just design a fantastical Moon/Mars mission for the sake of it, but really learn about better forms of transportation and about the universe.