I have voiced my concerns and opinion,and now-yes,it is water under the bridge.
I also wish to convey my apologies to you PW in relations to comments i made in this thread to you.
We all have our ideal's and our belief's,but some time's i should keep them to my self.
I retract my comments about you being blind to the truth.
Brad
Brad,
You of all people should know that I am not easily triggered. We have both had to deal with abusive and foul mouthed posters in the past, and you know it is rare, if ever, that I allow myself to fall into any emotional rabbit holes. However, being accused of having somehow attempted to "trap" you was a bit too much. I used to be an ardent supporter, with high hopes for you.
So I too apologize to you if my posts were becoming a bit too personal in nature. But please believe me, they were my responses to a feeling of disappointment and dismay, and not based on anything one might consider as anger, which is only a fool's playground.
"Ideals" and "truths" are more times than not rooted in a world based on opinions. And although more suited to philosophers, I also allow myself to drift off into such a world on occasion, ideally in the shade of a tree on a warm sunny day.
However, I live in a fact based reality, with facts that are derived from research, collected data, observation and experimental results. As we are likely to never have all the data regarding any given subject, all conclusions based on a given data set are weighted for probability. Sadly, this is my life, oft times necessary for the work or research that I am doing at any given time, but it is also a world with less clutter and noise, and without the endless rabbit holes of wild, misleading, and unsupported claims.
As but one example, you presented an old video of the LEM doing roll maneuvers.
You look at that video and say it was impossible," everyone knows there should be inertial drift!" Therefore, its a fake and it is additional proof that "everything NASA" is somehow a lie, complete with never ending rabbit holes. Why did they fake that? Why did they lie? What are they hiding? Who would commit such a fraud? How large is the group of conspirators involved? And on and on and on.
I, on the other hand, watched that clip and got to experience a feeling of awe at what the reaction control system (RCS) of the LEM could do when servo-locked to a mechanical gyro. The amount of engineering and development that went into developing the RCS from Mercury through Apollo was quite the achievement. The RCS thrusters evolved over many years with various monopropellants, such as hydrogen peroxide over platinum, to hypergolic mixes such as hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide compounds being used. But the greatest challenge was always related to precision control of RCS thruster pulse width and timing accuracy, which over the years led to incredibly precise valves and actuators. Consider researching the system a bit, I myself lived through those times...
In your posted video, although the actual rate (speed) may be off a small amount due to the various frame rates used during the copying to various formats, the fact that the LEM could "stop on a dime" is exactly what it was designed to do. And it was almost exclusively achieved with analog technology. Moreso than flying the LEM, the RCS was flying the gyro. A command is given for x degrees of rotation at a given rate, and the RCS, servo locked to the gyro, would follow that command with extreme precision. Why you would think that a well designed (critically damped) servo system should have noticeable undershoot, overshoot or drift is beyond me. If you were to look into the operation and design of the RCS, servo locked to antique mechanical gyros (which were built to a precision that would still amaze anyone today), you too could allow yourself to experience a "wow moment" and an appreciation for what it took to achieve such precision.
Today, millions of servo locked systems are in operation all over the world, 'round the clock, and yet no one sees their precision as somehow being fake. Today gain and damping are mostly all handled in the digital realm, with analog filters and non-linear gain stages replaced with digital signal processing techniques. But, in its day, the RCS on the LEM was state of the art, and built to a mechanical and analog precision no one would bother with today. It is much easier to reference a digital lookup table of calibration errors to get the same precision through digital means.
My disappointment and dismay arises when I see someone call out something very real, and a great technological achievement, as somehow being fake based solely on their lack of understanding of what it is they are actually watching. It is an insult to the scientists and engineers of the past that gave their best to create the systems and technology that allow what is being watched to be accomplished. Even more, the seemingly ever growing number of people that apparently follow along like sheep and believe these false claims of fakery, are also cheated out of a wow moment and a possible learning experience that may actually steer them toward great accomplishments of their own, instead of a bunch of meaningless and never ending rabbit holes.
In the "olden days" of my younger years, defense and aerospace companies used to auction off pallets of surplus equipment sparking the advent of surplus stores. Some of the technology and state of the art analog components one could purchase on the cheap in those days were truly amazing. You could buy a used, flight rated gyro for 20 bucks. When opened, the quality of construction would amaze anyone. The ball bearing servo pots alone, with their incredible linearity, tolerance, and low Tc were themselves a sight to behold, and a veritable work of art. The mechanical workings of a gyro were second to none, making Swiss watches crude by comparison. The surplus components, mechanical and electronic, from those days was truly incredible, and only further reinforced the precision and engineering of the day. Any really old guys around here know of what I speak. Today, almost everything is disabled, sold for scrap only, and prohibited from resale. Bummer.
Sadly, I feel disappointment and dismay as more recent generations no longer play with the chemistry sets, tinker toys, cloud chambers, and the cast off gyros of my youth. Its all video games, smart phones, and this damned internet nowadays. I surely don't think people spreading false information based on ignorance and faulty logic to gullible people who find it much easier to "believe" than it is to make an effort to actually "learn", is going to somehow make the future a brighter place.
PW
Author
Topic: Deceptions of NASA (Read 17045 times)
