I have a Meade LX-200 telescope, the older model without GPS. To align it, level the base with the bubble levels on the tripod. Key in an alignment star from the list and manually point the scope at it. Gravity + 1 star. Done. Use 2 stars, and the base doesn't have to be perfectly level. If HB had build this thing, once I aligned it with Sirius I'd never be able to use another star. No summer observing!
@hunchbacked The computer had a library of several dozen guide stars, 2nd mag or brighter. ANY convenient pair, preferably near 90 deg apart, could be used. Stars used for one alignment might go behind the earth or moon or require an attitude change that would pointlessly burn RCS fuel. There was SIMPLY NO NEED to reuse the same stars each time! Typically the Capcom would suggest the pair to be used based on current position and attitude.
For a given travel, you may use the stars you want, but, once you have chosen them, you must keep them...unless you take other stars that you exactly know how they are placed relatively to the ones you initially chose; but it's simpler to keep the same all along.
@hunchbacked Once again it's obvious you just don't know how the AGC worked. It had a list of several dozen guide stars known to high precision, each identified with 2 octal digits. The list was printed next to the DSKY keyboard. ANY two convenient stars could be chosen for a "P52" realignment as long as the angle between them was not close to 0 or 180 deg; 90 deg was ideal.
There was NO need to continually reuse the same pair of stars, and that was usually not possible anyway.
@ApolloWasReal "...and that was usually not possible anyway." And in fact, Aldrin said in the technical debrief that he wanted to use the same stars he used to align the platform before the EVA, but the Sun had moved into two of the detents, forcing him to use a gravity and one star alignment.
And thanks for th references. I've been plodding through the AFJ, and I'll have to pick up Digital Apollo - I've seen some good reviews about it, so it seems that's a must-read.
@roamingcroat The astronauts definitely had their favorite guide stars, as some were much easier to recognize than others. Collins liked Antares because of its distinct red color. It was often hard to recognize a single star without others nearby, and many complained that the eyepiece produced a dim image.
@ApolloWasReal Oh another one for you! The last Kubrick movie 'Eyes Wide Shut' had a contractional release date of 'July 16 1999' Of course just a coincidence!!
I think your Eyes are very very Wide Shut.... LOL!
@roamingcroat probably on Planet Mars with the help of Edgar Mitchel's alien friends!
But who cares! The funny part is that they got better as the missions progress.
Apollo 11 was terrible as was Apollo 12. They skipped Apollo 13 because the studio wasn't quite ready yet. I mean manpower was scares, after all they could not let all of NASA's 500 thousand workers in on it.
So everything was compartmentalized and only a few hundred people were in on it. Maybe even less.
@Gigaloader I ask because if you include Kubrik, you were pretty much filming in England. Which of course precludes using the vacuum chamber at Plumbrook, which is a hallmark of many of these hoax claims.
Why you need to include Kubrik is beyond me, though. It unnecessarily complicates your conspiracy. Which, by the way, do you have a coherent narrative for? When did they decide to fake it instead of actually landing?
@Gigaloader What advantage would it be to ask him over using in-house expertise? There was no particularly compelling need to get his opinion on cinematography, what with the stationary camera (A11-14). Set design was right out as it was limited by the conditions on the Moon. The design of the equipment was also right out - engineers are better to consult about that. What advice could he offer?
And when did this conspiracy take shape, again? At what point did they decide to fake it?
@roamingcroat In interviews Stanley Kubrick admits that he was contacted by nasa in the late 60' because of his accuracy in cinema photography! The "engineers" are good for technicalities but you need to have an overview on how to apply it all (bring it together). I doubt that nasa's engineers had the knowledge on how to from blend different models and apply effects on film. Only an experienced director who knows the tricks of the trade could help them out. When was it done? How about 60' & 70'
@Gigaloader So when was it decided that landing on the Moon was impossible so a fake needed to be set up? 1961? 1968? 1971? That's rather important. It's also rather important to know what exactly made it impossible. Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
And apply what? What needed to be brought together that NASA supposedly couldn't handle in house?
While we're at it, in what interviews did Kubrick say that? I'd be interested in seeing some context.
@Gigaloader Suddenly you add a tempermental theatre fellow (with a penchant, according to you, to refer to his "work" on Apollo in his other films) to a top secret project which must be kept secret in perpetuum. You must also set up your studio in England rather than in a more controlled or controllable CONUS setting, what with Kubrick working there.
All so he can tell you... what, exactly? How he made 2001 look nothing like the Moon?
@Gigaloader So if Kubrick has no bearing on this whole matter, why on Earth do you bring him up? I have to agree with AWR, you must be getting your information from Dark Side of the Moon.
"Yes probably a few hundred at NASA."
OK, so when did they decide to hoax it? And why? That's important, you see - depending on when they decided to hoax it, more and more people would need to be in on it. Not to mention your silly compartmentailization wouldn't really work like you think...
@roamingcroat I always giggle when I hear the claim that Kubrick directed the supposedly phony Apollo video, presumably because of his experience in depicting the moon in "2001" -- which didn't look anything like the real thing. My favorite scene is the conference room briefing. If they had really been on the moon, that photographer's head would have been banging into the ceiling.
Wait, I know. It was actually Ron Howard! NASA sent him back in time to fake the Apollo footage!
@Gigaloader Well, forgive me if I'm not always able to keep the various hoax claims straight. Maybe YOU aren't (currently) claiming that Kubrick "directed" the Apollo footage, but other hoaxheads certainly have. And still other crackpots think the Apollo landings happened but that NASA is covering up alien artifacts.
That's what's so entertaining about this stuff. It's almost like a cafeteria. Pick and choose whatever you want to believe.
@Gigaloader You mumbled something about Kubrick being in cahoots with NASA, so I presume you got that information from the French film "Dark Side of the Moon". Apparently you didn't realize that it was supposed to be a JOKE. Go read up about it on the IMDB or on Wikipedia.
@hunchbacked English is my native language and I'm reasonably competent with it. So when you say something utterly bogus and I point it out, it's disingenuous to claim that I merely misunderstood you. Did I distort your claim that there's no such thing as an analog multiplexor? Or that a diplexer couldn't work? Or that Armstrong could not have aligned the inertial platform on the surface with gravity and a single star sighting? It's all here for everyone to read!
@ApolloWasReal Ah, yes, the leaping photographer. Why hoaxers single out Kubrick as NASA's go-to guy is beyond me. Well, I suppose you have some particularly delusional hoaxers who make claims about Disney, but really, no one has ever really explained why those individuals were brought in. I guess they have a general sense that if it was a production, there must have been a director. And if you have a director, it may as well be the guy who did 2001, that stunningly fictitious sci-fi film.
@roamingcroat Yeah. I remember when 2001 came out everybody raved at how realistic it was. And only a few months later we saw what the moon actually looked like -- and it was nothing like "2001". Doesn't it stand to reason that if NASA faked the Apollo footage they would have met peoples' expectations instead of making it look completely different? I never could understand that. But hoaxers aren't very good at pursuing the logical implications of their claims.
@ApolloWasReal That's why I'd love a hoaxer to explain when and why it was decided to fake the landings. After Kennedy announced the deadline, there's only a very narrow window of time where the powers that be could decide to fake the landings without involving thousands of engineers and technicians. After the contracts were awarded, the engineers would discover the problem is intractable and would need to be bought off. Any hoax timeline would prove that the "few people knew" theory doesnt work
@Gigaloader So Kubrick used NASA consultants (I imagine - you never did show me those interviews). Armageddon did the same thing. As did Apollo 13. And From the Earth to the Moon. Etc.
And if clues are all it takes, was O.J. Simpson in on it? Capricorn 1, after all, is the mother of all hints. Maybe that's why he was framed for murder, and later burglary. To keep him quiet. Gasp! I think I've figured out this whole sordid tale! The Juice is the key to the Apollo haox!
@roamingcroat And again ,July 16 1999, contracted release date of his movie ' eyes wide shut' which was really uncommon because it was not a Thursday! Hahahah but I'm sure he was just a big Apollo fan. Lol lol
@Gigaloader To a certain extent, the questions are rhetorical. I mean, it's rather irrelevant to the matter of Apollo if Kubrick was involved. If it was faked (it wasn't, mind you), it's immaterial whether or not Kubrick was involved. If it was real, then he wasn't involved.
The questions about the timing of the hoax are important, though. You said only a few people were aware of the "hoax." Your timeline helps determine whether that can even be true or not.
@roamingcroat Now now, it's simply unfair to expect the hoaxers to provide rational explanations for their claims! If they say Kubrick was behind it, that's that. Who are you to ask why it made any sense to involve him? It's up to you to prove he wasn't involved and to ask him why NASA brought him in. Never mind that he's been dead for over a decade.
Have you noticed how they often start citing a source only when he dies?
@ApolloWasReal "Have you noticed how they often start citing a source only when he dies?"
Yes, virtually all of Bill Kaysing's sources for his folksy stories about ordinary people disproving Apollo were either dead or utterly unverifiable. My favorite was the unnamed pilot who saw Apollo 15 drop out of a C-130. Some dude calls in on a radio show, of course Kaysing's going to believe him! Tens of thousands of pages of engineering documents - well, that's not up to snuff.
@roamingcroat That's correct. Some of his so-called "incoherencies" can even be found in equipment on earth that has nothing to do with Apollo or space flight, and which works just fine. Like the FM modulator on the LM that he claimed couldn't work - the exact same technique is used in countless two-way and broadcast FM transmitters.
@hunchbacked The measurements of stars relative to the limbs of the earth and moon allowed Apollo to determine its position in space, not just its orientation. This served as a backup means of navigation in case communications with Houston were lost. Jim Lovell on Apollo 8 demonstrated that this method could be as accurate as ground-based tracking through the S-band transponder. However, it was never used as the primary means, only as a backup.
@roamingcroat That's exactly right. It's certainly possible that the stresses of the ascent might shake the inertial platform and cause it to drift more than it would in continuous free-fall, but the effects in practice were small. The updates were almost always small fractions of a degree, but because of the extreme importance of correct alignment for engine burns they were almost obsessive in realigning it. Every mention of a "P52" in the transcript is another 2-star realignment.
@hunchbacked Sorry, but YOU incorrectly claimed that Armstrong could not have aligned the guidance platform on the surface with just a single star sighting and arrogantly lept from that to the absurd conclusion that Apollo never actually happened. I corrected this mistake, but instead of acknowledging it you bring up the irrelevant point that once the LM is back in space it needs 2 stars for further alignments. Of COURSE it does, but that's not the point and you know it. Deal with it.
@hunchbacked I watched the transmission from nasa when the photographed ice crystals came transmitted back from mars. It was hilarious. Of course the had to remove the first layer of soil and there it was - like the icing on a cake sparkling in the sunlight. You should have seen the faces of the nasa scientists who weren't in on it! They where happy like little kids. But the main guy (i forgot his name) knew of course what was coming true the pipes and he had that wick little smile on his face!
I'm sure than people like Don Eyles (who wrote "Tales from the lunar module guidance computer") have the same wicked smile on their faces when they see that people read their weird literature and take it seriously; they must be amazed by the gullibility of people; it's so easy to fool people that it's a game for some.
@hunchbacked Don Eyles wrote an insightful paper about one of the most remarkable technical achievements in human history. It's just too bad that your fragile ego won't let you learn from it or experience or express the admiration most people have for this achievement. Instead you're compelled to deny it against all evidence so you can cling to your own conceit of being far more enlightened than everyone else on the planet.
@Gigaloader It must be wonderful being privy to so many keen insights and knowing that so few others on this planet share your acumen, huh? You must be one of the smartest guys who ever lived.
@hunchbacked I would always triangle my position even if it is possible with one star. Two stars makes more sense.
It is amazing how critical ApolloWasReal and romincroat are towards you. I mean it is not like you are claiming you went to the moon!
Not only the moon missions are fake the mars missions as well! All the closeups of the mars pictures are fake. Nothing arrived on mars in working conditions, ever! But they found water (ice) on mars... yeah right! HAHhahah....zzzz
@Gigaloader We're critical of sheer nonsense and of the arrogance and conceit exhibited by hoaxheads who seem to think that anything they can't understand -- like sending humans to the moon or robots to Mars -- must be a hoax.
Instead of respecting and admiring other people's accomplishments they are driven to ridicule and tear them down to protect their own fragile egos. And a lot of bullshit gets spread around to people who might not know better. That needs to be corrected.
@ApolloWasReal You ever wondered why they called the moon missions "Apollo" !? Why would a deeply 'considered' Christian nation use such a name for on of the biggest project of mankind! There is so many things you don't know about ... or you do and just hold the pole for nasa!
@hunchbacked That's simply not true. The alignment on the surface of the Moon can use whatever references are convenient (two stars or gravity and one star), and then it can later use whatever references are convenient at the time once on orbit (two stars). The alignment can be checked against stars other than the one(s) used on earlier alignment. So long as the positions of the stars are known, it doesn't matter how the platform is aligned whenever its aligned.
@hunchbacked The Saturn V inertial platform was aligned by use of a laser while sitting on the launch pad. Does this mean that as soon as the Saturn V lifted off, it lost all attitude reference? Of course not.
In fact, I have to wonder if the Space Shuttle INS uses a similar system for its initial alignment. If it does, that would, by your theory, make aligning the shuttle INS impossible on orbit.
I have never said that the loss of alignment was immediate; I have said that there may be a slow drift of the alignment, and this drift must be controlled...especially if the rendezvous is longer than expected, there may be a moment that a correction of alignment is not unnecessary.
@hunchbacked Of course, a realignment might be necessary. But it wouldn't have to be realigned the same way it was aligned on the Lunar surface. Why would it? There's no reason the LM couldn't determine its orientation using different stars once on orbit.
@roamingcroat You are exactly right; ANY references would do. No need to reuse the same ones. The AGC had a set of guide stars with precisely known positions. The crew (usually the command module pilot) entered a star number. The computer pointed the telescope where it thought that star was. The CMP corrected the small shift in position, moved to the other star and repeated the process. The computer then displayed the difference between the measured and known star-star angles as a check.
@roamingcroat I'd have to check to be sure, but I strongly suspect the shuttle (and the ISS) use hybrid GPS/INS navigation systems. Basically, the GPS continually calibrates the INS, and the INS "flywheels" through any short GPS outages. This gives position and velocity. To get inertial attitude you can use multiple GPS antennas in an interferometric array to measure angles to the GPS satellites with their known positions.
@ApolloWasReal Probably correct. I know that on landing, the Shuttle uses both TACAN and GPS data, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if it used GPS data during on orbit ops. I know the INS is regularly aligned; listening to mission audio, you regularly hear alignments being done. Of course, you also hear MCC telling them different stars to use depending on availability, so I guess the Shuttle program is also full of incoherencies.
@roamingcroat If you hear them talking about star selection, then they're almost certainly using optical star observations to align the platform in inertial space, just as on Apollo.
It's easiest to use GPS only to determine your position and velocity, as that requires only a single antenna and the receive processing is common. Using GPS to also determine inertial attitude requires multiple antennas and interferometric processing and is done much less often.
The alignment is supposed to offer a reference that can be continously used during the travel in space, and not a reference which can be used if the platform remains on the moon.
Your argument is specious.
I stand with what I said.
It's you who distort and musinterpret what I say.
@hunchbacked I didn't distort or misinterpret you when you incorrectly stated that it always required 2 stars to align the inertial platform even when the LM was on the moon.
I didn't distort or misinterpret you when this mistake led you to the utterly absurd conclusion that Apollo was faked and this was a "signal" for exceptionally bright people like you.
Your arrogance and conceit keeps you from actually learning about Apollo. Instead you waste your time "proving" it never happened.
If you take your plane perpendicular to the gravity, you don't only have to correct it with the rotation of the moon, but also with the move of the spacecraft: It is not independent from the move of the spacecraft!
I understand how you reason, but the way you reason is flawed.
@hunchbacked You went out of your way to claim that it wasn't possible for Apollo to realign its platform on the surface without sighting two stars. I corrected this mistake, and after some resistance you finally seem to have realized your mistake. So now you claim that *my* reasoning is flawed?!
No matter how many times you're proven wrong about Apollo, you never seem to hesitate to jump to the conclusion that something in Apollo couldn't possibly have worked...I love it...
But the LM, once it is in space, is independent from the moon, and needs to have its own reference independent from the moon.
It's not only about the moon's rotation and timespace, it's about the inertial platform needing to have spatial references it can aim at to check it has not lost its alignment.
@hunchbacked Stop being so evasive. After launching from the surface you are no longer in contact with it and any future alignments obviously require two stars. But we were talking about aligning the LM's inertial platform while it's on the moon, preparing for launch. That still only requires knowledge of surface position, the time and one star sighting.
Come on, why don't you just admit you were wrong instead of trying to wriggle out?
@ApolloWasReal I mentioned in the other video that this matter escapes me (as I'm unfamiliar with exactly how inertial platforms are aligned), so thank you for the explanation. I was wondering about using the local gravity, though. How accurate would you have to know your position to make this work? I would think you couldn't have any gross errors in your position, but what would the few km downrange on Apollo 11 do to the accuracy of such an alignment?
@roamingcroat Well, every degree of error in latitude or longitude turns directly into a degree of error in the attitude of the inertial platform. Because the moon is 1/4 the earth's size, 1/4 the surface distance corresponds to each degree. Since the landed position of Apollo 11 was uncertain until well after the mission, this was a potential issue.
@roamingcroat Since it was known at the time that Apollo 11 landed downrange the attitude error wasn't as large as that might imply, but it was still somewhat uncertain. Collins never did spot Eagle on the surface. Also, local mass concentrations could deflect the gravity vector somewhat. But none of these errors was so large that it couldn't be handled after ascent. That's what the rendezvous radar and VHF ranging system were for.
@ApolloWasReal So I guess based on their landing ellipse, they had a good idea of the errors they could to expect and planned ahead to allow that to be cleaned up in orbit. And I have to imagine their uncertainty in their landed position would have more of an effect on error than any effect from mascons on the gravity vector.
I'm planning on sitting down and thinking about it when I have a chance, but for now this qualitative explanation is good enough.
@roamingcroat I'd have to check the ALSJ and AFJ, but I think Houston gave each landed LM crew their best estimate of their position and the crew entered it into the AGC before ascent. They also tracked the CSM in orbit using the rendezvous radar. After all, the relative positions of the two counted much more than their absolute coordinates. And like all good pilots they were big on confidence building with lots and lots of cross checks.
@roamingcroat If you're really interested in Apollo guidance I can recommend some good references. First is the online Apollo Flight Journal. It's not as complete as the Lunar Surface Journal but it contains a lot of detail about navigation. Woods, the editor, wrote "How Apollo Flew to the Moon". And "Digital Apollo" by Mindell is about the design battles over the AGC with lots of insight into man-machine interaction that's still very relevant.
So I summarize: You take Apollo seriously, but you don't take me seriously; and I don't take Apollo seriously, but I take myself seriously; so, each of us takes something seriously; it's just not the same thing!
@hunchbacked Actually, I'd say you're fascinated by Apollo. Obsessed, even. The number of YT videos you've devoted to it proves it. It's just that you're obsessed with the impossible: proving that it was a hoax.
I don't know why Apollo bothers you so much. Perhaps you just can't bring yourself to concede that the US government, which you apparently loathe, actually accomplished something pretty neat. Or maybe it rattles your ego that so many people did something you can't understand.
@roamingcroat Inertial platforms are really simple in principle. Apollo carried two types, a "true" inertial platform that remained stationary in space as the spacecraft rotated about it, and "strapdown" gyros whose torques were measured and integrated when the spacecraft forced them to precess. Each had three accelerometers; integrate to get velocity and again for position - a major computer function. Periodic state vector updates adjusted their constants of integration.
@ApolloWasReal Yeah, I understand the principle behind them, I just wanted to work out the details of how the alignment works. When dealing with three dimensions, I usually have to put pencil to paper in order to visualize it.
@roamingcroat The basic principles, i.e., the geometry, really are simple. All the complications are in overcoming the physical imperfections that degrade accuracy. What makes it especially difficult is that determining position requires a double integration of the measured accelerations, so even small errors grow without bound over time without realignment. Bearing drag, aerodynamic drag, vibration, electrical noise, gain miscalibrations, etc, all have to be quantified and dealt with.
@hunchbacked Um, maybe Apollo 8 always used 2 stars for platform alignment because it never landed on the lunar surface? I thought we were talking about *surface* alignments. There you only need know your position, the time, and the azimuth of a reference star. Also measuring elevation will serve as a check.
I wrote my first orbit prediction and determination program nearly 30 years ago. I think I know most of the basics by now.
@hunchbacked In SPACE you need two stars. However, on the lunar surface only one is needed because the local gravity vector gives two coordinates of orientation. Two measurements of that one star (e.g., azimuth and elevation) are taken. This overdetermines the solution and provides a check on the accuracy of the reading. The same is true for the 2-star align in space as the computer knew the inter-star angle; the astronauts read back the residual angle as, e.g., "five balls" meaning 000.00 deg.
@Gigaloader You're talking to an electrical engineer who has worked professionally with exactly those things every day for several decades and you question whether I've educated myself about them?
But the really fun part is that you know far better than everyone in my profession, not just me. You're really just too much.
@ApolloWasReal "You're talking to an electrical engineer who has worked professionally with exactly those things every day for several decades"
OK....so why such a lack of basic knowledge in electro magnetics? .... but i let it go now it is getting old. But you should have known how information is carried and whats possible!
@Gigaloader Knowing the difference between the impossible and what merely hasn't been done yet is one of the most important things that the engineer learns in school. People who lack that understanding are wont to waste their lives on impossible quests, like "free energy" or proving Apollo was a hoax.
@Gigaloader Are you still claiming that the natural surface of the moon can emulate a precision array of retroreflectors? Is that what you're referring to?
You and HB are two of a kind; your inability to back down and admit even the most blatant mistake is really quite amusing. This skill is probably the most important one that any politician can have; it has certainly gotten Sarah Palin quite far. It's essential to be completely incapable of experiencing shame or embarrassment no matter what.
Hoo boy, hunchbacked never fails to deliver on the giggles, does he? At 11:20 it finally becomes clear that he hasn't a clue that the LM rendezvous radar was not of the skintracking type. It operated through a transponder on the CSM, requiring the LM to see the CSM's transponder antenna.
As usual, rather than suspect that he just might have missed something, hunchbacked assumes that Apollo couldn't possibly have worked as described...
Hunchbacked once again amuses us by mistaking his own deep ignorance about Apollo for a lack of careful design. He doesn't seem to know how the LM rendezvous radar worked, or that the CSM had a backup VHF ranging system, or that sextant angles were with respect to the inertial platform, not the horizon which was constantly moving inertially throughout an orbit. Or many, many other things. He clearly must not suffer too much from embarrassment when people point out his mistakes.
Gee, for all the time hunchbacked spends trying to debunk Apollo, you think he could spend a few minutes actually examining the spacecraft. If he had, he would have certainly noticed the overhead window above the commander's position in the LM specifically for seeing the CSM during docking. They even call it the "rendezvous window".
I'm glad he doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have so much fun showing how ignorant his is.
Its all very interesting , but the learning curve is too high. I can't keep up with your train of thought, especially for so long (20 minutes!). Plus you have to think about what you want to say and do a better job at wordsmithing. Keep in mind that the average person is not technically informed as you seem to be. Dumb it down and make this into a series of bite size chunks that the layman can comprehend. Keep up the nice videos, they are interesting.
@istanbul18 Basically, if you can't understand what he's saying here, you're not missing anything -- he doesn't know what he's talking about anyway. It's truly amazing that for all the time he spends talking about incoherences" in Apollo he hasn't learned more about how it actually worked. For example, he doesn't even know that there's an overhead window in the LM added specifically to provide visibility during the final stages of rendezvous and docking!
18:40 The duration of the burn is for the astronauts to use as a manual check. Listen to burns called up to the space shuttle. They give the same info. If the computer fails and the engine keeps firing long after the desired delta-V is reached, it can be a bad day. It's a backup.
19:06 These programs are used for orbital delta-V maneuvers, not for descent, ascent or attitude control. As each type of engine had differnt thrust levels, they needed different programs to correctly control them.
@hunchbacked Sorry, but there aren't. Your ignorance about orbital mechanics, physics, navigation, rocketry, computers, communications, astronomy and just about everything else relevant to Apollo is so extraordinary that there's really nothing to debate. You really should take the time to actually learn something about these things before you embarrass yourself further on YT.
15:59 Have you ever seen watch?v=alo_XWCqNUQ ? Imagine if Captain Stricklin had to confirm he wanted to eject? It's the same idea with the LM. If there's an abort near ther surface, they may not have time to go through menus asking for confirmation of the abort. That's why astronauts are trained to, among other things, not abort accidentally (think Apollo 12, Gemini 6A, and one actual abort, STS-51F).
18:28 Are you saying the CSM should raise its orbit to 115x45? Why?
14:59 What? If they're close enough, it doesn't matter which vehicle is behind and which is ahead, so long as the CSM can null its velocity with respect to the LM.
15:26 The Hyatt Regency Hotel walkway in Kansas City collapsed because the engineer was too lazy to do a statics problem. Aeroperú Flight 603 crashed because the static ports were left covered after the aircraft was washed. You can't prevent every mistake, and that includes loose solder in the LM. Luckily, they were able to override.
13:23 Ah, but what is program Y doing that's so important? These programs weren't switching willy-nilly - if they exited, say, P64 for P66, they weren't ever going back.
14:10 The RCS could be used in rotational mode, you know. There's nothing preventing them from pointing the windows at whatever they'd like to see.
14:31 While true for Apollo 11's very nearly 180 degree inclination orbit, for higher lattitude landings (Apollo 15 at 26 deg. N, for instance), the CSM's orbital plane moved.
@roamingcroat hunchbacked seems to have many objections to how they did things on the AGC.
It would be fun to give him a PIC with a primitive UI, a few K of memory and a long list of functions to cram into it. After he's spent several years shaving every possible instruction to make it all fit, come back and complain that he didn't make it more user-friendly or do it the way you would have. Make it clear you have no idea how hard he worked on it, nor do you care. Just call him stupid.
@ApolloWasReal My grandfather had an expression that, if I remember correctly, went something like this: "Oh, so you're one of those that thinks everything started with national socialism."
That's the biggest problem I have with Apollo hoaxers. They seem to think that doing things differently is impossible, that modern technology is the only way to make things work. I'm surprised they accept that the Wright brothers could get anything flying without CFD.
@roamingcroat Exactly. And hunchbacked is a perfect example. I laugh when he says you can't leave logic inputs open, or computers must have stacks, or restarts always take minutes. He learns one logic family, one processor, one operating system and assumes things have always been done one exact way. His lack of experience is exceeded only by his lack of imagination.
But my all-time favorite is when he said he'd never seen an "analog multiplexer" before so it could not possibly exist.
@ApolloWasReal I know next to nothing about electronics, so I steer clear of that, but seeing hunchbacked's explanation of orbital attitude (it violates conservation of angular momentum) certainly puts a big question mark over his credibility.
@ApolloWasReal Yes, I gathered that from reading the comments about his electronics theories. His commentary on the algorithms used gave me some laughs, especially his notion that the guidance equations should always be stable when folding in the radar data, no matter how big the difference between the radar and the INS. There were no calculations - just his word that it should always be stable.
@roamingcroat Yup. Classic handwaving from someone who doesn't have a clue. I did laugh at the part of Eyles' paper where he said that if throttle-down didn't occur when commanded, the guidance equations would soon cause the LM to invert some 40 seconds later. Yet just a little thought made it clear that he was right -- the LM would have to invert to undo the excessive delta-V. Now there was a little engineering humor that probably went right over hunchbacked's head.
11:38 I cannot emphasize this enough: it was used on Gemini 12.
12:02 Yes, but what if the out of plane component is 1 nm/s? That's what that means: if the component is small enough, there's no need to correct it.
12:31 Gemini 12, the computer failed, Dr. Rendezvous himself used the charts to successfully dock with the Agena (I'm afraid I'll have to bring that up every time you mention the manual backup modes).
12:43 It's a judgement call, but yes, someone has to decide that one method failed
9:53 You're still wrong on that. Remember conservation of angular momentum? What you're thinking of is a gravity gradient stabilized attitude. That's a very slow effect that would take many orbits to manifst itself. And you're also wrong about the orientation the CSM would take.
8:53 Armstrong noted that stars were only visible on the Lunar surface when looking through the optics. The Earth could be used as a reference, but the optics were limited in where they could view, and they needed several points of reference (stars) to align from a completely lost IMU. Stars also allow for much more precise alignment than the Earth.
9:09 Burn data was computed on the ground (including for ascent) and was relayed to the crew at regular intervals. I imagine that's what you mean.
6:11 The CSM/LM stack was inserted into a retrograde orbit. The LM did indeed take off towards the west. The retrograde orbit allowed for a smaller LOI delta-V and for a free return trajectory.
7:00 Dr. Buzz Aldrin used this technique on Gemini 12 to dock with an Agena vehicle.
7:28 From what I understand of the system, the LM would return a VHF signal sent by the CSM, allowing for a rough estimate of the distance.
3:15-3:37 There's a whole lot of bad orbital mechanics here. You'll need to read up on plane change maneuvers. You'll find that if the LM launches out of plane, it can't correct it during ascent but would need to make changes once in orbit. In fact, in Apollo, the CSM aligned it's orbital plane with the LM's landing site.
4:13 By now you've realized that I'm commenting while still watching the video for the first time, as you now seem to be getting to phasing orbits.
1:52 I'm going to ignore the orbital mechanics problems that led you here and just note that the LM had a rendezvous window that would allow it to see the CSM from that orientation.
2:25 Again, ignoring your mischaracterization of rendezvous, in all likelihood the LM was both translating and rotating between those pictures. It is also possible the CSM was rotating.
thru 3:15, all Apollo missions had very nearly equatorial orbits, none even approached polar. Just an FYI - it's not a problem.
0:45-1:33 You need to look up "phasing orbit" for why launch to rendezvous isn't exactly time critical (the ascent stage had an 11 hour battery life that would certainly limit the types of phasing maneuvers it could perform, but your explanation for launch timing is incorrect).
1:33 I'd have to double check, but I think the rendezvous radar had a lower limit on its operating range. The dockings were performed visually, and I think either craft was technically able to be the active one.
0:29 The LM pitches to 52 degrees after 10 seconds. Using Braeunig's Apollo 17 ascent stage simulation as a start, we see that the weight of the LM at pitchover is right around 8,000 N and the vertical component of thrust is 9,500 N, for a net vertical force of 1,500 N. We can conclude, then, that a pitch to 52 degrees is perfectly reasonable (and, in fact, it reduces gravity losses - so it's preferred to a slow pitch schedule).
@Gigaloader Seen through hunchbacked's warped mind, yes. But that has nothing to do with how Apollo actually worked.
By the way, did you ever figure out how the moon could return laser pulses with nanosecond precision from the three Apollo and two Lunokhod sites and ONLY from those sites?
@hunchbacked Whether GTP is a specialist in orbital mechanics is irrelevant. The fact remains that you are amazingly ignorant of the subject, and you demonstrate that very well all by yourself.
@attorneyskilforjews They went to the Moon... What of it?
roamingcroat 8 months ago
@roamingcroat Hey, join the club!
I have a Meade LX-200 telescope, the older model without GPS. To align it, level the base with the bubble levels on the tripod. Key in an alignment star from the list and manually point the scope at it. Gravity + 1 star. Done. Use 2 stars, and the base doesn't have to be perfectly level. If HB had build this thing, once I aligned it with Sirius I'd never be able to use another star. No summer observing!
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@hunchbacked The computer had a library of several dozen guide stars, 2nd mag or brighter. ANY convenient pair, preferably near 90 deg apart, could be used. Stars used for one alignment might go behind the earth or moon or require an attitude change that would pointlessly burn RCS fuel. There was SIMPLY NO NEED to reuse the same stars each time! Typically the Capcom would suggest the pair to be used based on current position and attitude.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
For a given travel, you may use the stars you want, but, once you have chosen them, you must keep them...unless you take other stars that you exactly know how they are placed relatively to the ones you initially chose; but it's simpler to keep the same all along.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Once again it's obvious you just don't know how the AGC worked. It had a list of several dozen guide stars known to high precision, each identified with 2 octal digits. The list was printed next to the DSKY keyboard. ANY two convenient stars could be chosen for a "P52" realignment as long as the angle between them was not close to 0 or 180 deg; 90 deg was ideal.
There was NO need to continually reuse the same pair of stars, and that was usually not possible anyway.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal "...and that was usually not possible anyway." And in fact, Aldrin said in the technical debrief that he wanted to use the same stars he used to align the platform before the EVA, but the Sun had moved into two of the detents, forcing him to use a gravity and one star alignment.
And thanks for th references. I've been plodding through the AFJ, and I'll have to pick up Digital Apollo - I've seen some good reviews about it, so it seems that's a must-read.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat The astronauts definitely had their favorite guide stars, as some were much easier to recognize than others. Collins liked Antares because of its distinct red color. It was often hard to recognize a single star without others nearby, and many complained that the eyepiece produced a dim image.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal Oh another one for you! The last Kubrick movie 'Eyes Wide Shut' had a contractional release date of 'July 16 1999' Of course just a coincidence!!
I think your Eyes are very very Wide Shut.... LOL!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader So where were these Apollo missions filmed, then?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat probably on Planet Mars with the help of Edgar Mitchel's alien friends!
But who cares! The funny part is that they got better as the missions progress.
Apollo 11 was terrible as was Apollo 12. They skipped Apollo 13 because the studio wasn't quite ready yet. I mean manpower was scares, after all they could not let all of NASA's 500 thousand workers in on it.
So everything was compartmentalized and only a few hundred people were in on it. Maybe even less.
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader I ask because if you include Kubrik, you were pretty much filming in England. Which of course precludes using the vacuum chamber at Plumbrook, which is a hallmark of many of these hoax claims.
Why you need to include Kubrik is beyond me, though. It unnecessarily complicates your conspiracy. Which, by the way, do you have a coherent narrative for? When did they decide to fake it instead of actually landing?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat "It unnecessarily complicates your conspiracy" ....hmm
Picking the brain - of the best film director of the time - about how to fake the moon landing is complicating things? I don't get your logic here!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader What advantage would it be to ask him over using in-house expertise? There was no particularly compelling need to get his opinion on cinematography, what with the stationary camera (A11-14). Set design was right out as it was limited by the conditions on the Moon. The design of the equipment was also right out - engineers are better to consult about that. What advice could he offer?
And when did this conspiracy take shape, again? At what point did they decide to fake it?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat In interviews Stanley Kubrick admits that he was contacted by nasa in the late 60' because of his accuracy in cinema photography! The "engineers" are good for technicalities but you need to have an overview on how to apply it all (bring it together). I doubt that nasa's engineers had the knowledge on how to from blend different models and apply effects on film. Only an experienced director who knows the tricks of the trade could help them out. When was it done? How about 60' & 70'
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader So when was it decided that landing on the Moon was impossible so a fake needed to be set up? 1961? 1968? 1971? That's rather important. It's also rather important to know what exactly made it impossible. Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
And apply what? What needed to be brought together that NASA supposedly couldn't handle in house?
While we're at it, in what interviews did Kubrick say that? I'd be interested in seeing some context.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat ether way it would definitely not hurt to consult a world class film director. And nasa did!
Come on you can figure that out on your own.
Your question seems rhetorical and pointless.
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader Suddenly you add a tempermental theatre fellow (with a penchant, according to you, to refer to his "work" on Apollo in his other films) to a top secret project which must be kept secret in perpetuum. You must also set up your studio in England rather than in a more controlled or controllable CONUS setting, what with Kubrick working there.
All so he can tell you... what, exactly? How he made 2001 look nothing like the Moon?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@roamingcroat "All so he can tell you... what, exactly" Ask NASA they contacted Kubrick, LOL!
"You said only a few people were aware of the "hoax." Yes probably a few hundred at NASA.
I'm not saying Kubrick was in charge of it all - but he was a part of it. A technical advisor in his expertise.
"a top secret project which must be kept secret in perpetuum" No it doesn't! Have you ever heard about the masonic threat?
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader So if Kubrick has no bearing on this whole matter, why on Earth do you bring him up? I have to agree with AWR, you must be getting your information from Dark Side of the Moon.
"Yes probably a few hundred at NASA."
OK, so when did they decide to hoax it? And why? That's important, you see - depending on when they decided to hoax it, more and more people would need to be in on it. Not to mention your silly compartmentailization wouldn't really work like you think...
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat I always giggle when I hear the claim that Kubrick directed the supposedly phony Apollo video, presumably because of his experience in depicting the moon in "2001" -- which didn't look anything like the real thing. My favorite scene is the conference room briefing. If they had really been on the moon, that photographer's head would have been banging into the ceiling.
Wait, I know. It was actually Ron Howard! NASA sent him back in time to fake the Apollo footage!
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal " I always giggle when I hear the claim that Kubrick directed the supposedly phony Apollo video"
Yes, why are you giggling?? Because nobody here claimed that Kubrick directed Apollo!
Well i guess NASA disagrees with you, because they were seeking Kubrick's advice!!!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader Well, forgive me if I'm not always able to keep the various hoax claims straight. Maybe YOU aren't (currently) claiming that Kubrick "directed" the Apollo footage, but other hoaxheads certainly have. And still other crackpots think the Apollo landings happened but that NASA is covering up alien artifacts.
That's what's so entertaining about this stuff. It's almost like a cafeteria. Pick and choose whatever you want to believe.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@Gigaloader You *DO* know that the French film "Dark Side of the Moon" was a joke, right?
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal " Dark side of the moon"? And what exactly are you responding to? Lol are you delusional !
Let me ask you ' did NASA worked with Stanley Kubrick in the late 60' ? Yes or No?
And the answer is ....... YES!
You guys are pathetic.
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader You mumbled something about Kubrick being in cahoots with NASA, so I presume you got that information from the French film "Dark Side of the Moon". Apparently you didn't realize that it was supposed to be a JOKE. Go read up about it on the IMDB or on Wikipedia.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal your problem is that you never read posts properly !
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader
Ah, you have noticed too?
I can see that I am not the only one to have noticed that.
APR continuously distorts what we say and uses specious arguments to make us say something else than what we intended to say!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked English is my native language and I'm reasonably competent with it. So when you say something utterly bogus and I point it out, it's disingenuous to claim that I merely misunderstood you. Did I distort your claim that there's no such thing as an analog multiplexor? Or that a diplexer couldn't work? Or that Armstrong could not have aligned the inertial platform on the surface with gravity and a single star sighting? It's all here for everyone to read!
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal Ah, yes, the leaping photographer. Why hoaxers single out Kubrick as NASA's go-to guy is beyond me. Well, I suppose you have some particularly delusional hoaxers who make claims about Disney, but really, no one has ever really explained why those individuals were brought in. I guess they have a general sense that if it was a production, there must have been a director. And if you have a director, it may as well be the guy who did 2001, that stunningly fictitious sci-fi film.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Yeah. I remember when 2001 came out everybody raved at how realistic it was. And only a few months later we saw what the moon actually looked like -- and it was nothing like "2001". Doesn't it stand to reason that if NASA faked the Apollo footage they would have met peoples' expectations instead of making it look completely different? I never could understand that. But hoaxers aren't very good at pursuing the logical implications of their claims.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal That's why I'd love a hoaxer to explain when and why it was decided to fake the landings. After Kennedy announced the deadline, there's only a very narrow window of time where the powers that be could decide to fake the landings without involving thousands of engineers and technicians. After the contracts were awarded, the engineers would discover the problem is intractable and would need to be bought off. Any hoax timeline would prove that the "few people knew" theory doesnt work
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat "Why hoaxers single out Kubrick as NASA's go-to guy is beyond me"
It doesn't surprise me that don't get that!
The reason for it is because worked for nasa and gives hints in his movies about the fakery.
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader So Kubrick used NASA consultants (I imagine - you never did show me those interviews). Armageddon did the same thing. As did Apollo 13. And From the Earth to the Moon. Etc.
And if clues are all it takes, was O.J. Simpson in on it? Capricorn 1, after all, is the mother of all hints. Maybe that's why he was framed for murder, and later burglary. To keep him quiet. Gasp! I think I've figured out this whole sordid tale! The Juice is the key to the Apollo haox!
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat And again you got all wrong and ass backwards! Kubrick didn't consult NASA!
NASA was consulting Kubrick, which makes the rest of your post zilch!!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader I'm waiting on the evidence for that. I did ask for it a few hours ago, you know...
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat And again ,July 16 1999, contracted release date of his movie ' eyes wide shut' which was really uncommon because it was not a Thursday! Hahahah but I'm sure he was just a big Apollo fan. Lol lol
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader To a certain extent, the questions are rhetorical. I mean, it's rather irrelevant to the matter of Apollo if Kubrick was involved. If it was faked (it wasn't, mind you), it's immaterial whether or not Kubrick was involved. If it was real, then he wasn't involved.
The questions about the timing of the hoax are important, though. You said only a few people were aware of the "hoax." Your timeline helps determine whether that can even be true or not.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Now now, it's simply unfair to expect the hoaxers to provide rational explanations for their claims! If they say Kubrick was behind it, that's that. Who are you to ask why it made any sense to involve him? It's up to you to prove he wasn't involved and to ask him why NASA brought him in. Never mind that he's been dead for over a decade.
Have you noticed how they often start citing a source only when he dies?
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@ApolloWasReal "Have you noticed how they often start citing a source only when he dies?"
Yes, virtually all of Bill Kaysing's sources for his folksy stories about ordinary people disproving Apollo were either dead or utterly unverifiable. My favorite was the unnamed pilot who saw Apollo 15 drop out of a C-130. Some dude calls in on a radio show, of course Kaysing's going to believe him! Tens of thousands of pages of engineering documents - well, that's not up to snuff.
roamingcroat 8 months ago
@roamingcroat
Tens of thousands of pages of engineering documents full of incoherencies!
hunchbacked 8 months ago
@hunchbacked You haven't found any, hunch. Everything you think is an incoherency is a result of your own misunderstanding.
roamingcroat 8 months ago
@roamingcroat That's correct. Some of his so-called "incoherencies" can even be found in equipment on earth that has nothing to do with Apollo or space flight, and which works just fine. Like the FM modulator on the LM that he claimed couldn't work - the exact same technique is used in countless two-way and broadcast FM transmitters.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@hunchbacked The measurements of stars relative to the limbs of the earth and moon allowed Apollo to determine its position in space, not just its orientation. This served as a backup means of navigation in case communications with Houston were lost. Jim Lovell on Apollo 8 demonstrated that this method could be as accurate as ground-based tracking through the S-band transponder. However, it was never used as the primary means, only as a backup.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat That's exactly right. It's certainly possible that the stresses of the ascent might shake the inertial platform and cause it to drift more than it would in continuous free-fall, but the effects in practice were small. The updates were almost always small fractions of a degree, but because of the extreme importance of correct alignment for engine burns they were almost obsessive in realigning it. Every mention of a "P52" in the transcript is another 2-star realignment.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Sorry, but YOU incorrectly claimed that Armstrong could not have aligned the guidance platform on the surface with just a single star sighting and arrogantly lept from that to the absurd conclusion that Apollo never actually happened. I corrected this mistake, but instead of acknowledging it you bring up the irrelevant point that once the LM is back in space it needs 2 stars for further alignments. Of COURSE it does, but that's not the point and you know it. Deal with it.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@hunchbacked I watched the transmission from nasa when the photographed ice crystals came transmitted back from mars. It was hilarious. Of course the had to remove the first layer of soil and there it was - like the icing on a cake sparkling in the sunlight. You should have seen the faces of the nasa scientists who weren't in on it! They where happy like little kids. But the main guy (i forgot his name) knew of course what was coming true the pipes and he had that wick little smile on his face!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader
I'm sure than people like Don Eyles (who wrote "Tales from the lunar module guidance computer") have the same wicked smile on their faces when they see that people read their weird literature and take it seriously; they must be amazed by the gullibility of people; it's so easy to fool people that it's a game for some.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Don Eyles wrote an insightful paper about one of the most remarkable technical achievements in human history. It's just too bad that your fragile ego won't let you learn from it or experience or express the admiration most people have for this achievement. Instead you're compelled to deny it against all evidence so you can cling to your own conceit of being far more enlightened than everyone else on the planet.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
You call it the most "insightful", and I call it the most mocking.
To each one his own point of view.
Ours are obviously extremely different!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@Gigaloader It must be wonderful being privy to so many keen insights and knowing that so few others on this planet share your acumen, huh? You must be one of the smartest guys who ever lived.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@hunchbacked I would always triangle my position even if it is possible with one star. Two stars makes more sense.
It is amazing how critical ApolloWasReal and romincroat are towards you. I mean it is not like you are claiming you went to the moon!
Not only the moon missions are fake the mars missions as well! All the closeups of the mars pictures are fake. Nothing arrived on mars in working conditions, ever! But they found water (ice) on mars... yeah right! HAHhahah....zzzz
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader We're critical of sheer nonsense and of the arrogance and conceit exhibited by hoaxheads who seem to think that anything they can't understand -- like sending humans to the moon or robots to Mars -- must be a hoax.
Instead of respecting and admiring other people's accomplishments they are driven to ridicule and tear them down to protect their own fragile egos. And a lot of bullshit gets spread around to people who might not know better. That needs to be corrected.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal "respecting and admiring"... lies..?
Well, I respect how they faked the Apollo missions somewhat. Stanley Kubrick was well ahead of his time and a great director.
Have you ever watched "The Shining" by Kubrick? Of course it is just a coincidence that the little boy wears a Apollo 11 Pullover! LOL!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal You ever wondered why they called the moon missions "Apollo" !? Why would a deeply 'considered' Christian nation use such a name for on of the biggest project of mankind! There is so many things you don't know about ... or you do and just hold the pole for nasa!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@hunchbacked That's simply not true. The alignment on the surface of the Moon can use whatever references are convenient (two stars or gravity and one star), and then it can later use whatever references are convenient at the time once on orbit (two stars). The alignment can be checked against stars other than the one(s) used on earlier alignment. So long as the positions of the stars are known, it doesn't matter how the platform is aligned whenever its aligned.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat
The alignment on the moon can use any reference, but not if this reference is to be used for space navigation.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked The Saturn V inertial platform was aligned by use of a laser while sitting on the launch pad. Does this mean that as soon as the Saturn V lifted off, it lost all attitude reference? Of course not.
In fact, I have to wonder if the Space Shuttle INS uses a similar system for its initial alignment. If it does, that would, by your theory, make aligning the shuttle INS impossible on orbit.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat
I have never said that the loss of alignment was immediate; I have said that there may be a slow drift of the alignment, and this drift must be controlled...especially if the rendezvous is longer than expected, there may be a moment that a correction of alignment is not unnecessary.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Of course, a realignment might be necessary. But it wouldn't have to be realigned the same way it was aligned on the Lunar surface. Why would it? There's no reason the LM couldn't determine its orientation using different stars once on orbit.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat You are exactly right; ANY references would do. No need to reuse the same ones. The AGC had a set of guide stars with precisely known positions. The crew (usually the command module pilot) entered a star number. The computer pointed the telescope where it thought that star was. The CMP corrected the small shift in position, moved to the other star and repeated the process. The computer then displayed the difference between the measured and known star-star angles as a check.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat I'd have to check to be sure, but I strongly suspect the shuttle (and the ISS) use hybrid GPS/INS navigation systems. Basically, the GPS continually calibrates the INS, and the INS "flywheels" through any short GPS outages. This gives position and velocity. To get inertial attitude you can use multiple GPS antennas in an interferometric array to measure angles to the GPS satellites with their known positions.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@ApolloWasReal Probably correct. I know that on landing, the Shuttle uses both TACAN and GPS data, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if it used GPS data during on orbit ops. I know the INS is regularly aligned; listening to mission audio, you regularly hear alignments being done. Of course, you also hear MCC telling them different stars to use depending on availability, so I guess the Shuttle program is also full of incoherencies.
roamingcroat 8 months ago
@roamingcroat If you hear them talking about star selection, then they're almost certainly using optical star observations to align the platform in inertial space, just as on Apollo.
It's easiest to use GPS only to determine your position and velocity, as that requires only a single antenna and the receive processing is common. Using GPS to also determine inertial attitude requires multiple antennas and interferometric processing and is done much less often.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
The alignment is supposed to offer a reference that can be continously used during the travel in space, and not a reference which can be used if the platform remains on the moon.
Your argument is specious.
I stand with what I said.
It's you who distort and musinterpret what I say.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked I didn't distort or misinterpret you when you incorrectly stated that it always required 2 stars to align the inertial platform even when the LM was on the moon.
I didn't distort or misinterpret you when this mistake led you to the utterly absurd conclusion that Apollo was faked and this was a "signal" for exceptionally bright people like you.
Your arrogance and conceit keeps you from actually learning about Apollo. Instead you waste your time "proving" it never happened.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
If you take your plane perpendicular to the gravity, you don't only have to correct it with the rotation of the moon, but also with the move of the spacecraft: It is not independent from the move of the spacecraft!
I understand how you reason, but the way you reason is flawed.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked You went out of your way to claim that it wasn't possible for Apollo to realign its platform on the surface without sighting two stars. I corrected this mistake, and after some resistance you finally seem to have realized your mistake. So now you claim that *my* reasoning is flawed?!
No matter how many times you're proven wrong about Apollo, you never seem to hesitate to jump to the conclusion that something in Apollo couldn't possibly have worked...I love it...
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
This stands if you remain on the moon.
But the LM, once it is in space, is independent from the moon, and needs to have its own reference independent from the moon.
It's not only about the moon's rotation and timespace, it's about the inertial platform needing to have spatial references it can aim at to check it has not lost its alignment.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Stop being so evasive. After launching from the surface you are no longer in contact with it and any future alignments obviously require two stars. But we were talking about aligning the LM's inertial platform while it's on the moon, preparing for launch. That still only requires knowledge of surface position, the time and one star sighting.
Come on, why don't you just admit you were wrong instead of trying to wriggle out?
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal I mentioned in the other video that this matter escapes me (as I'm unfamiliar with exactly how inertial platforms are aligned), so thank you for the explanation. I was wondering about using the local gravity, though. How accurate would you have to know your position to make this work? I would think you couldn't have any gross errors in your position, but what would the few km downrange on Apollo 11 do to the accuracy of such an alignment?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Well, every degree of error in latitude or longitude turns directly into a degree of error in the attitude of the inertial platform. Because the moon is 1/4 the earth's size, 1/4 the surface distance corresponds to each degree. Since the landed position of Apollo 11 was uncertain until well after the mission, this was a potential issue.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Since it was known at the time that Apollo 11 landed downrange the attitude error wasn't as large as that might imply, but it was still somewhat uncertain. Collins never did spot Eagle on the surface. Also, local mass concentrations could deflect the gravity vector somewhat. But none of these errors was so large that it couldn't be handled after ascent. That's what the rendezvous radar and VHF ranging system were for.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Can you believe hunchbacked claims to have worked on missile systems? This geometry stuff really isn't that hard...
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal So I guess based on their landing ellipse, they had a good idea of the errors they could to expect and planned ahead to allow that to be cleaned up in orbit. And I have to imagine their uncertainty in their landed position would have more of an effect on error than any effect from mascons on the gravity vector.
I'm planning on sitting down and thinking about it when I have a chance, but for now this qualitative explanation is good enough.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat I'd have to check the ALSJ and AFJ, but I think Houston gave each landed LM crew their best estimate of their position and the crew entered it into the AGC before ascent. They also tracked the CSM in orbit using the rendezvous radar. After all, the relative positions of the two counted much more than their absolute coordinates. And like all good pilots they were big on confidence building with lots and lots of cross checks.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat If you're really interested in Apollo guidance I can recommend some good references. First is the online Apollo Flight Journal. It's not as complete as the Lunar Surface Journal but it contains a lot of detail about navigation. Woods, the editor, wrote "How Apollo Flew to the Moon". And "Digital Apollo" by Mindell is about the design battles over the AGC with lots of insight into man-machine interaction that's still very relevant.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
I would like to be fascinated by Apollo like you are, but, even with the best will in the world, I can't.
Taking it seriously is absolutely impossible for me.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked That's really too bad. But don't worry, I don't take YOU seriously.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
So I summarize: You take Apollo seriously, but you don't take me seriously; and I don't take Apollo seriously, but I take myself seriously; so, each of us takes something seriously; it's just not the same thing!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Now if you'd only take facts, logic and the truth as seriously as you take yourself.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Actually, I'd say you're fascinated by Apollo. Obsessed, even. The number of YT videos you've devoted to it proves it. It's just that you're obsessed with the impossible: proving that it was a hoax.
I don't know why Apollo bothers you so much. Perhaps you just can't bring yourself to concede that the US government, which you apparently loathe, actually accomplished something pretty neat. Or maybe it rattles your ego that so many people did something you can't understand.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Inertial platforms are really simple in principle. Apollo carried two types, a "true" inertial platform that remained stationary in space as the spacecraft rotated about it, and "strapdown" gyros whose torques were measured and integrated when the spacecraft forced them to precess. Each had three accelerometers; integrate to get velocity and again for position - a major computer function. Periodic state vector updates adjusted their constants of integration.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal Yeah, I understand the principle behind them, I just wanted to work out the details of how the alignment works. When dealing with three dimensions, I usually have to put pencil to paper in order to visualize it.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat The basic principles, i.e., the geometry, really are simple. All the complications are in overcoming the physical imperfections that degrade accuracy. What makes it especially difficult is that determining position requires a double integration of the measured accelerations, so even small errors grow without bound over time without realignment. Bearing drag, aerodynamic drag, vibration, electrical noise, gain miscalibrations, etc, all have to be quantified and dealt with.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
If one star is enough, then why did Apollo 8 use 2 stars for the platform alignment?
It must be references which allow to control the alignment of the platform during the flight and eventually realign it, and ONE STAR IS NOT ENOUGH!
You may be an electronics engineer, but you are not a spatial engineer!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Um, maybe Apollo 8 always used 2 stars for platform alignment because it never landed on the lunar surface? I thought we were talking about *surface* alignments. There you only need know your position, the time, and the azimuth of a reference star. Also measuring elevation will serve as a check.
I wrote my first orbit prediction and determination program nearly 30 years ago. I think I know most of the basics by now.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal
You are wrong on this: TWO STARS I needed, I repeat; TWO STARS.
Read on platform alignment, they always use two stars!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked In SPACE you need two stars. However, on the lunar surface only one is needed because the local gravity vector gives two coordinates of orientation. Two measurements of that one star (e.g., azimuth and elevation) are taken. This overdetermines the solution and provides a check on the accuracy of the reading. The same is true for the 2-star align in space as the computer knew the inter-star angle; the astronauts read back the residual angle as, e.g., "five balls" meaning 000.00 deg.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@Gigaloader You're talking to an electrical engineer who has worked professionally with exactly those things every day for several decades and you question whether I've educated myself about them?
But the really fun part is that you know far better than everyone in my profession, not just me. You're really just too much.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
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@ApolloWasReal "You're talking to an electrical engineer who has worked professionally with exactly those things every day for several decades"
OK....so why such a lack of basic knowledge in electro magnetics? .... but i let it go now it is getting old. But you should have known how information is carried and whats possible!
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader Knowing the difference between the impossible and what merely hasn't been done yet is one of the most important things that the engineer learns in school. People who lack that understanding are wont to waste their lives on impossible quests, like "free energy" or proving Apollo was a hoax.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@Gigaloader Are you still claiming that the natural surface of the moon can emulate a precision array of retroreflectors? Is that what you're referring to?
You and HB are two of a kind; your inability to back down and admit even the most blatant mistake is really quite amusing. This skill is probably the most important one that any politician can have; it has certainly gotten Sarah Palin quite far. It's essential to be completely incapable of experiencing shame or embarrassment no matter what.
ApolloWasReal 8 months ago
Hoo boy, hunchbacked never fails to deliver on the giggles, does he? At 11:20 it finally becomes clear that he hasn't a clue that the LM rendezvous radar was not of the skintracking type. It operated through a transponder on the CSM, requiring the LM to see the CSM's transponder antenna.
As usual, rather than suspect that he just might have missed something, hunchbacked assumes that Apollo couldn't possibly have worked as described...
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
Hunchbacked once again amuses us by mistaking his own deep ignorance about Apollo for a lack of careful design. He doesn't seem to know how the LM rendezvous radar worked, or that the CSM had a backup VHF ranging system, or that sextant angles were with respect to the inertial platform, not the horizon which was constantly moving inertially throughout an orbit. Or many, many other things. He clearly must not suffer too much from embarrassment when people point out his mistakes.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
Gee, for all the time hunchbacked spends trying to debunk Apollo, you think he could spend a few minutes actually examining the spacecraft. If he had, he would have certainly noticed the overhead window above the commander's position in the LM specifically for seeing the CSM during docking. They even call it the "rendezvous window".
I'm glad he doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have so much fun showing how ignorant his is.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
Its all very interesting , but the learning curve is too high. I can't keep up with your train of thought, especially for so long (20 minutes!). Plus you have to think about what you want to say and do a better job at wordsmithing. Keep in mind that the average person is not technically informed as you seem to be. Dumb it down and make this into a series of bite size chunks that the layman can comprehend. Keep up the nice videos, they are interesting.
istanbul18 11 months ago
@istanbul18 Basically, if you can't understand what he's saying here, you're not missing anything -- he doesn't know what he's talking about anyway. It's truly amazing that for all the time he spends talking about incoherences" in Apollo he hasn't learned more about how it actually worked. For example, he doesn't even know that there's an overhead window in the LM added specifically to provide visibility during the final stages of rendezvous and docking!
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
18:40 The duration of the burn is for the astronauts to use as a manual check. Listen to burns called up to the space shuttle. They give the same info. If the computer fails and the engine keeps firing long after the desired delta-V is reached, it can be a bad day. It's a backup.
19:06 These programs are used for orbital delta-V maneuvers, not for descent, ascent or attitude control. As each type of engine had differnt thrust levels, they needed different programs to correctly control them.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat
There may be some points which are debatable, but there still are important problems.
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Sorry, but there aren't. Your ignorance about orbital mechanics, physics, navigation, rocketry, computers, communications, astronomy and just about everything else relevant to Apollo is so extraordinary that there's really nothing to debate. You really should take the time to actually learn something about these things before you embarrass yourself further on YT.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
15:59 Have you ever seen watch?v=alo_XWCqNUQ ? Imagine if Captain Stricklin had to confirm he wanted to eject? It's the same idea with the LM. If there's an abort near ther surface, they may not have time to go through menus asking for confirmation of the abort. That's why astronauts are trained to, among other things, not abort accidentally (think Apollo 12, Gemini 6A, and one actual abort, STS-51F).
18:28 Are you saying the CSM should raise its orbit to 115x45? Why?
roamingcroat 11 months ago
14:59 What? If they're close enough, it doesn't matter which vehicle is behind and which is ahead, so long as the CSM can null its velocity with respect to the LM.
15:26 The Hyatt Regency Hotel walkway in Kansas City collapsed because the engineer was too lazy to do a statics problem. Aeroperú Flight 603 crashed because the static ports were left covered after the aircraft was washed. You can't prevent every mistake, and that includes loose solder in the LM. Luckily, they were able to override.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
13:23 Ah, but what is program Y doing that's so important? These programs weren't switching willy-nilly - if they exited, say, P64 for P66, they weren't ever going back.
14:10 The RCS could be used in rotational mode, you know. There's nothing preventing them from pointing the windows at whatever they'd like to see.
14:31 While true for Apollo 11's very nearly 180 degree inclination orbit, for higher lattitude landings (Apollo 15 at 26 deg. N, for instance), the CSM's orbital plane moved.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat hunchbacked seems to have many objections to how they did things on the AGC.
It would be fun to give him a PIC with a primitive UI, a few K of memory and a long list of functions to cram into it. After he's spent several years shaving every possible instruction to make it all fit, come back and complain that he didn't make it more user-friendly or do it the way you would have. Make it clear you have no idea how hard he worked on it, nor do you care. Just call him stupid.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal My grandfather had an expression that, if I remember correctly, went something like this: "Oh, so you're one of those that thinks everything started with national socialism."
That's the biggest problem I have with Apollo hoaxers. They seem to think that doing things differently is impossible, that modern technology is the only way to make things work. I'm surprised they accept that the Wright brothers could get anything flying without CFD.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Exactly. And hunchbacked is a perfect example. I laugh when he says you can't leave logic inputs open, or computers must have stacks, or restarts always take minutes. He learns one logic family, one processor, one operating system and assumes things have always been done one exact way. His lack of experience is exceeded only by his lack of imagination.
But my all-time favorite is when he said he'd never seen an "analog multiplexer" before so it could not possibly exist.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal I know next to nothing about electronics, so I steer clear of that, but seeing hunchbacked's explanation of orbital attitude (it violates conservation of angular momentum) certainly puts a big question mark over his credibility.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Sure does. Rest assured his knowledge of electronics is almost as limited as his understanding of the physics of space flight.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@ApolloWasReal Yes, I gathered that from reading the comments about his electronics theories. His commentary on the algorithms used gave me some laughs, especially his notion that the guidance equations should always be stable when folding in the radar data, no matter how big the difference between the radar and the INS. There were no calculations - just his word that it should always be stable.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
@roamingcroat Yup. Classic handwaving from someone who doesn't have a clue. I did laugh at the part of Eyles' paper where he said that if throttle-down didn't occur when commanded, the guidance equations would soon cause the LM to invert some 40 seconds later. Yet just a little thought made it clear that he was right -- the LM would have to invert to undo the excessive delta-V. Now there was a little engineering humor that probably went right over hunchbacked's head.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
11:38 I cannot emphasize this enough: it was used on Gemini 12.
12:02 Yes, but what if the out of plane component is 1 nm/s? That's what that means: if the component is small enough, there's no need to correct it.
12:31 Gemini 12, the computer failed, Dr. Rendezvous himself used the charts to successfully dock with the Agena (I'm afraid I'll have to bring that up every time you mention the manual backup modes).
12:43 It's a judgement call, but yes, someone has to decide that one method failed
roamingcroat 11 months ago
9:53 You're still wrong on that. Remember conservation of angular momentum? What you're thinking of is a gravity gradient stabilized attitude. That's a very slow effect that would take many orbits to manifst itself. And you're also wrong about the orientation the CSM would take.
10:15 Yes, that would not be OK. We're agreed.
10:36 You've learned about plane change maneuvers since earlier in the video. Good. But
10:51 The LM usually won't deviate substantially from the trajectory.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
8:53 Armstrong noted that stars were only visible on the Lunar surface when looking through the optics. The Earth could be used as a reference, but the optics were limited in where they could view, and they needed several points of reference (stars) to align from a completely lost IMU. Stars also allow for much more precise alignment than the Earth.
9:09 Burn data was computed on the ground (including for ascent) and was relayed to the crew at regular intervals. I imagine that's what you mean.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
6:11 The CSM/LM stack was inserted into a retrograde orbit. The LM did indeed take off towards the west. The retrograde orbit allowed for a smaller LOI delta-V and for a free return trajectory.
7:00 Dr. Buzz Aldrin used this technique on Gemini 12 to dock with an Agena vehicle.
7:28 From what I understand of the system, the LM would return a VHF signal sent by the CSM, allowing for a rough estimate of the distance.
Thru 8:50, it was used successfully on Gemini 12.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
3:15-3:37 There's a whole lot of bad orbital mechanics here. You'll need to read up on plane change maneuvers. You'll find that if the LM launches out of plane, it can't correct it during ascent but would need to make changes once in orbit. In fact, in Apollo, the CSM aligned it's orbital plane with the LM's landing site.
4:13 By now you've realized that I'm commenting while still watching the video for the first time, as you now seem to be getting to phasing orbits.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
1:52 I'm going to ignore the orbital mechanics problems that led you here and just note that the LM had a rendezvous window that would allow it to see the CSM from that orientation.
2:25 Again, ignoring your mischaracterization of rendezvous, in all likelihood the LM was both translating and rotating between those pictures. It is also possible the CSM was rotating.
thru 3:15, all Apollo missions had very nearly equatorial orbits, none even approached polar. Just an FYI - it's not a problem.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
0:45-1:33 You need to look up "phasing orbit" for why launch to rendezvous isn't exactly time critical (the ascent stage had an 11 hour battery life that would certainly limit the types of phasing maneuvers it could perform, but your explanation for launch timing is incorrect).
1:33 I'd have to double check, but I think the rendezvous radar had a lower limit on its operating range. The dockings were performed visually, and I think either craft was technically able to be the active one.
roamingcroat 11 months ago
0:29 The LM pitches to 52 degrees after 10 seconds. Using Braeunig's Apollo 17 ascent stage simulation as a start, we see that the weight of the LM at pitchover is right around 8,000 N and the vertical component of thrust is 9,500 N, for a net vertical force of 1,500 N. We can conclude, then, that a pitch to 52 degrees is perfectly reasonable (and, in fact, it reduces gravity losses - so it's preferred to a slow pitch schedule).
roamingcroat 11 months ago
Once again hunchbacked demonstrates that he is a complete idiot with regards to orbital mechanics.
GoneToPlaid 11 months ago
@GoneToPlaid
Oh, because you are a big specialist yourself!
hunchbacked 11 months ago
@hunchbacked every time I see the LM I have laugh! The Apollo missions are and stay the best comedy Hollywood has produced.
Gigaloader 11 months ago
@Gigaloader Seen through hunchbacked's warped mind, yes. But that has nothing to do with how Apollo actually worked.
By the way, did you ever figure out how the moon could return laser pulses with nanosecond precision from the three Apollo and two Lunokhod sites and ONLY from those sites?
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago
@hunchbacked Whether GTP is a specialist in orbital mechanics is irrelevant. The fact remains that you are amazingly ignorant of the subject, and you demonstrate that very well all by yourself.
ApolloWasReal 11 months ago