To sum up the key findings in the technical articles on Aulis.com,E1
the F1 engines have never actually been able to deliver the Saturn V
2nd and 3rd stage assemblies plus a payload (namely the Apollo assembly)
into the required position because it has never achieved the necessary
ascent speed. There are other relevant aspects to the problems with this
launcher, e.g. the unsustainable acoustic vibrations of the 1st stage
(MB-1) details of which are beyond the scope of this article.
In short, the APOLLO missions NEVER HAPPENED.
DB
Even an interim grade school pupil could conclude from the appearance of the rocket that a craft in such a state is in very serious trouble. AnalystsE1 have convincingly shown that the speed of the rocket at the point of the 1st stage separation (S-IC stage) was around a mere 1.0 km per sec i.e. nowhere near the 2.4 km per sec speed as published in the NASA records (Saturn-V, 1968). This aspect alone is the end of Apollo flight story because this finding means that no flight could have ever actually reached LEO, let alone insertion into a suitable Moon-bound trajectory.
Analytical reviews and technical evidence of the complete failure of the Saturn V rocket is in abundance, and the technical details of the shortcomings are discussed in detail on Aulis.com. The objective of this article is entirely different, I would like to make some decisive conclusions.
What do we know about the Saturn V rocket and its gigantic F1 engines?
The undisputed fact is that neither the engines nor the rocket was ever used again for any deep space flights or deployed as a proven technical prototype for new developments. On the contrary, despite the fact that NASA now really does require a powerful rocket, the agency continues to slowly, very slowly, develop its Space Launch System (SLS) with little progress over 10 if not 15 years, when including the Constellation Program.
Since 2005 the agency has hoped to repeat the capability of the Saturn V. Moreover, in 2011 the US Congress applied all conceivable measures to engage NASA and its contractors in the development of a powerful rocket (MB-2) with a 2016 deadline. It was shameful to see how NASA has vehemently denied being able to do that. Even now in 2019, NASA still launches its military satellites using trusted Russian RD-180 rocket engines. As we know, the next target date for an attempt to repeat the claimed capability of the Saturn V is now pencilled in for the year 2028 (MB-4). The most recent action by NASA experts to postpone the SLS is arguably the biggest disgrace ever (SLS, 2019).
To sum up the key findings in the technical articles on Aulis.com,E1 the F1 engines have never actually been able to deliver the Saturn V 2nd and 3rd stage assemblies plus a payload (namely the Apollo assembly) into the required position because it has never achieved the necessary ascent speed. There are other relevant aspects to the problems with this launcher, e.g. the unsustainable acoustic vibrations of the 1st stage (MB-1) details of which are beyond the scope of this article.
But that aside, before going into the details as set out in the papers published on Aulis.com, one can start with a reliable summary (R. Walsh, 2018).
Critical thinking analysts have explained clearly and simply what was really going on and have calculated the actual parameters of the flight. Firstly, the key problematic element was the material used for the F1 nozzle. Rocketdyne used Inconel X-750 for the thrust chamber of the F1 engine deployed in the first stage of the Saturn V booster. This is an alloy, the properties of which were not sufficiently understood at the time of production, and as a result it was found to be entirely unsuitable for withstanding the immense heat of the powerful flow from the combustion chamber.
This key technical aspect is a crucial argument against using this material (despite a seemingly reasonable idea to cool down the nozzle by retro-flowing the fuel in tubes along the internal walls inside the nozzle – which failed to work). We have to keep in mind that the United States was in such a hurry to win the space race by any means possible that NASA didn’t necessarily need to perfect every aspect of the technology to send people to the Moon and safely return them to Earth. In brief, the cluster of five F1 engines was helpful at best to carry the rocket out of sight and beyond the visibility of witnesses to the launch at Cape Canaveral.
An unusually large exhaust flame engulfed the body of the Saturn V during the final part of the 1st stage burn. This massive flame was captured on many photographs by the official photographic teams and subsequently published by NASA associates who, possibly through sheer negligence, brought these images into the public domain.E2 Up to 20% of the rocket, that is to say half of the huge 1st stage (Figure 4), was engulfed in a fiery inferno.
Even an interim grade school pupil could conclude from the appearance of the rocket that a craft in such a state is in very serious trouble. AnalystsE1 have convincingly shown that the speed of the rocket at the point of the 1st stage separation (S-IC stage) was around a mere 1.0 km per sec i.e. nowhere near the 2.4 km per sec speed as published in the NASA records (Saturn-V, 1968). This aspect alone is the end of Apollo flight story because this finding means that no flight could have ever actually reached LEO, let alone insertion into a suitable Moon-bound trajectory.
Figure 5. The solid red circle is the declared Saturn V 1st stage splashdown zone in the Atlantic Ocean – the small green circle indicates the NASA-declared point of separation of the 1st stage from the Apollo assembly, while the green dotted oval is the likely burned-out splashdown zone
It is claimed that all Saturn V first stages had successfully
fulfilled their role downrange after approximately 93 km, following 160
sec in operation, falling into the splashdown zone delineated in Figure 5
by the solid red circle. The zone embraces eight of the nine Apollo
missions, except Apollo 17. The actual figures set out in the mission
reports represent a good ‘shot grouping’ with Apollo 17 better
considered to be the outlier of the group. The deviation of Apollo 17
might be seen as a result of some strong winds in December causing a
drift of the Saturn V first stage. From the NASA perspective, it serves
as an indirect validation that the NASA record is genuine, i.e. some
hiccups occurred but on the whole readers should conclude that the
Saturn V flights were practically faultless.
According to the NASA record, these splashdowns were in a certain area (Figure 6) having a mean point of impact as 29.9ºN 74.0ºW, at a distance of approx. 655 km from the launch pad 39A; with Apollo 17 as the outlier some 180 km down from the group centre (Splashdown, NASA). Many engine remnants were presumably spread out within the area indicated in Figure 6.
Another scenario is that due to the disastrous performance of the F1 engine all the flights went catastrophically badly. Having failed soon after it had disappeared from view of the spectators at Cape Canaveral, the rocket collapsed into its own firey inferno, and didn’t follow any strict math, instead free falling into the ocean as a burned-out firework. (The area indicated by the green dotted oval in figure 5). In this second scenario the debris would be spread out along the ocean floor at a depth of approximately 2 km. Accordingly, those who want to look for ‘a skeleton in the cupboard’ would have to deep-sea dive, searching in areas much closer than those stated by NASA.
In 2013 Jeff Bezos claimed that he had found components from two F-1 rocket engines lying at 4.27 km (14,000 ft) off the Florida coast. According to Bezos, these were from the mission all pupils in primary schools know about – Apollo 11. Yet no one has questioned Bezos’s claim. Mr Bezos has also mentioned that there was a lot of other debris lying around the sea bed, but he doesn’t appear to have made any effort to share photos of these with the public.
Of course, after his find was exhibited it inevitably became one more ‘strong piece of evidence’ that the flights of the Saturn V were completed as per the record.
However, although Bezos states that he had the radar-tracked coordinates of where the booster stage of Apollo 11 impacted the surface of the Atlantic – there doesn’t seem to be any public record of the precise co-coordinates of his find. Meanwhile, over the years the depth of the find has dramatically increased: in 2017, at a gala celebrating the 48th anniversary of Apollo 11, surrounded by his finds, Bezos recounted that these items had been found 4.8 km (15,700 ft) down. A slip of the tongue perhaps. So while the Bezos expedition corresponds to the red circle area in Figure 5 – it all sounds like a fisherman’s tale. (Fisherman, 2017)
For example, the Apollo 12 CM is full of unresolvable anomalies (Figure 7). In particular, it has a set of strange blackish charred spots where thermal shield pieces have fallen off during, or soon after, re-entry. Was it when the craft hit the water at the moment of splashdown? Well, the area where that heat shield is missing seems to be tarnished by the ferocious heat of an intense fire. Should we then assume that the CM continued burning as it passed through the inferno of re-entry, but still managed to somehow survive?
The important thing to remember is that without a reliable thermal shield the extreme heat would melt the metal bottom of a naked module trashing it into rapidly-burning pieces – as actually happened with the Shuttle Columbia in 2003. Note also that in the definitive NASA report of 2005 (MB-3) it was admitted that the Apollo CM was fundamentally bi-stable i.e. at re-entry it could, with a 50/50 probability, have turned over. This means that a number of re-entries (out of a total of nine) would have ended up as a catastrophic disaster.
To better understand how ridiculous these assumptions are, imagine a box of military ammunition with grenades for a close combat. The enclosed instruction sheet says that the fatal distance from its explosion point is 8 metres. If the distance for a fatal injury is as stated can we then confidently assume that no fatal injury will occur at a distance of say 9 metres? Naturally, the answer would be evident after reading the instruction further on, where it recommends that the grenade is thrown ideally beyond 15 metres, and even then the soldier still has to avoid his own grenade shrapnel.
The above example illustrates the impossibility of ever being able to precisely calculate the strength and thickness of a heat shield with an assumption that it will fully burn out during the CM’s passing through the most dangerous re-entry area – after which its metal bottom will get just mildly burnt. Is it in any way realistic that astronauts could ever be expected to return in such a craft? Surely a crewed command module would never receive certification as flight worthy if it was destined for such a hazardous return journey.
In Figure 11a, the bottom of the CM is visible after the shield was detached and then freely fell to the ground. In Figure 11b a heat shield fragment is shown after its free fall following detachment from the CM. Understandably, the shield crashed into pieces when it impacted the ground.
These specimens are convincing demonstrations that the Russians were well prepared for the conditions of re-entry when returning from LEO. Furthermore, during their experiments with flying unmanned craft to the Moon in 1969 to 1970, they were fully aware of the technical requirements of returning a craft from deep space. In order to control the speed and the heat, so as to protect the crew adequately, they had mastered the essential skip re-entry technique, compared to the direct entry which was claimed for Apollo (MB-4). At the time, aware of the limitations of 1960s technology, the Russians were not consistently successful.
By way of comparison, the Apollo CMs, as presented in museum exhibits, are total misrepresentations of what is actually real.
The Apollo mythology requires vast resources to sustain it, and therefore has seriously delayed any actual development of human space exploration. The incremental steps towards achieving human flight to the Moon were established – but never delivered. In order to win this race NASA declared its technological achievements well ahead of their time. NASA’s budget for human space exploration is largely wasted by engineers working under the misapprehension of assumed achievements that prevent these specialists from addressing the reality of the multiple technical challenges. As a result, many areas of knowledge have deviated from the required path of natural evolution. What might be a way forward to real success in this industry?
To make it clear, the lunar environment is quite hostile to humans and still needs to be carefully assessed before humans can ever step onto its surface safely. The Sun’s radiation as well as galactic cosmic radiation in deep space and micrometeorites on lunar surface are among the crucial factors to be thoroughly investigated and considered. Naive claims by the US establishment as well as by NASA made some fifty years ago that their astronauts had spent hours walking on the surface of the Moon without any harm to their health, are now entirely thrashed and dismissed.
Fig 13. AstroRad radiation protection vests – Image ESA
Recently, the European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed their new work focused on the mysteries of cosmic rays and energetic solar storms in deep space. (ESA, 2019) Away from the Earth’s magnetic field and into interplanetary space, as ESA admits, the impact on the human body could be up to 700 times higher than on Earth. ESA has announced that two dummies will occupy the passenger seats during Orion’s first mission around the Moon in NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed "pioneering [sic.] lunar flyby".
Fitted with thousands of sensors, the pair will measure the radiation to which astronauts could be exposed during future missions to the Moon and Mars. One dummy will be wearing a radiation protection vest, while another will travel unprotected from space radiation. Comparing the radiation doses they will receive, scientists aim to understand how to better protect future crews. The radiation could increase the crew’s risk of cancer and become a limiting factor in missions, concludes ESA. As usual, modern observers can only guess how Apollo astronauts have travelled in those glorious days without much thinking about a possible radiation impact.
In summary, my previous series of articles was focused on perspectives of building a Moon base. Regarding the Apollo myth, we saw an impressive start of a huge rocket flying nowhere and then a splashdown of the CM dropped from a cargo aircraft such as a C-133 Cargomaster, with some staged show in between. It is still unclear how humans can sustain the variety of conditions of space radiation beyond LEO and to which degree this can be aggravated by hostile circumstances on the lunar surface. From the estimates of radiation (Private comm., Moscow) that should have been experienced by Apollo astronauts, the most probable outcome is between a condition of fatal illnesses to the state of poorly recognisable corpses – all provided the CMs could have miraculously returned to Earth intact.
Considering all the research undertaken over the past 50 years or so, a lunar base, most likely, would primarily be developed using unmanned machines. This would appear to be the first very necessary stage before any human could ever step onto the lunar surface. It is encouraging to see indications of some collaborative work between NASA and the Russian Space Agency on a lunar orbital station project – a rare step in the right direction at last. (MB-4) The Moon base would serve then as a reasonable shelter available to future Moon landing pioneers.
The deceptive success of Apollo has created a feeling of a major national accomplishment. So any signs of reversing this deep conviction is passionately rejected with indignation that is directed at any source of doubt or questioning. This is because “the highest form of ignorance [is] when you reject something you don’t know anything about,” (Wayne Dyer, Quotes) has developed in American society, in part as a direct outcome of the Apollo myth.
Fortunately, prudent steps forward have now being made by a number of progressive thinkers. As Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar indicated, there must be a way to gradually introduce the real facts of the Apollo record to future generations. The healing might appear to be a painful process for American society, but the outcome will be the return to the path of truth for all mankind.
Phil Kouts
Aulis Online, April 2019
https://www.aulis.com/moonbase2019.htm
In short, the APOLLO missions NEVER HAPPENED.
DB
Even an interim grade school pupil could conclude from the appearance of the rocket that a craft in such a state is in very serious trouble. AnalystsE1 have convincingly shown that the speed of the rocket at the point of the 1st stage separation (S-IC stage) was around a mere 1.0 km per sec i.e. nowhere near the 2.4 km per sec speed as published in the NASA records (Saturn-V, 1968). This aspect alone is the end of Apollo flight story because this finding means that no flight could have ever actually reached LEO, let alone insertion into a suitable Moon-bound trajectory.
Analytical reviews and technical evidence of the complete failure of the Saturn V rocket is in abundance, and the technical details of the shortcomings are discussed in detail on Aulis.com. The objective of this article is entirely different, I would like to make some decisive conclusions.
What do we know about the Saturn V rocket and its gigantic F1 engines?
The undisputed fact is that neither the engines nor the rocket was ever used again for any deep space flights or deployed as a proven technical prototype for new developments. On the contrary, despite the fact that NASA now really does require a powerful rocket, the agency continues to slowly, very slowly, develop its Space Launch System (SLS) with little progress over 10 if not 15 years, when including the Constellation Program.
Since 2005 the agency has hoped to repeat the capability of the Saturn V. Moreover, in 2011 the US Congress applied all conceivable measures to engage NASA and its contractors in the development of a powerful rocket (MB-2) with a 2016 deadline. It was shameful to see how NASA has vehemently denied being able to do that. Even now in 2019, NASA still launches its military satellites using trusted Russian RD-180 rocket engines. As we know, the next target date for an attempt to repeat the claimed capability of the Saturn V is now pencilled in for the year 2028 (MB-4). The most recent action by NASA experts to postpone the SLS is arguably the biggest disgrace ever (SLS, 2019).
To sum up the key findings in the technical articles on Aulis.com,E1 the F1 engines have never actually been able to deliver the Saturn V 2nd and 3rd stage assemblies plus a payload (namely the Apollo assembly) into the required position because it has never achieved the necessary ascent speed. There are other relevant aspects to the problems with this launcher, e.g. the unsustainable acoustic vibrations of the 1st stage (MB-1) details of which are beyond the scope of this article.
But that aside, before going into the details as set out in the papers published on Aulis.com, one can start with a reliable summary (R. Walsh, 2018).
Critical thinking analysts have explained clearly and simply what was really going on and have calculated the actual parameters of the flight. Firstly, the key problematic element was the material used for the F1 nozzle. Rocketdyne used Inconel X-750 for the thrust chamber of the F1 engine deployed in the first stage of the Saturn V booster. This is an alloy, the properties of which were not sufficiently understood at the time of production, and as a result it was found to be entirely unsuitable for withstanding the immense heat of the powerful flow from the combustion chamber.
This key technical aspect is a crucial argument against using this material (despite a seemingly reasonable idea to cool down the nozzle by retro-flowing the fuel in tubes along the internal walls inside the nozzle – which failed to work). We have to keep in mind that the United States was in such a hurry to win the space race by any means possible that NASA didn’t necessarily need to perfect every aspect of the technology to send people to the Moon and safely return them to Earth. In brief, the cluster of five F1 engines was helpful at best to carry the rocket out of sight and beyond the visibility of witnesses to the launch at Cape Canaveral.
An unusually large exhaust flame engulfed the body of the Saturn V during the final part of the 1st stage burn. This massive flame was captured on many photographs by the official photographic teams and subsequently published by NASA associates who, possibly through sheer negligence, brought these images into the public domain.E2 Up to 20% of the rocket, that is to say half of the huge 1st stage (Figure 4), was engulfed in a fiery inferno.
Even an interim grade school pupil could conclude from the appearance of the rocket that a craft in such a state is in very serious trouble. AnalystsE1 have convincingly shown that the speed of the rocket at the point of the 1st stage separation (S-IC stage) was around a mere 1.0 km per sec i.e. nowhere near the 2.4 km per sec speed as published in the NASA records (Saturn-V, 1968). This aspect alone is the end of Apollo flight story because this finding means that no flight could have ever actually reached LEO, let alone insertion into a suitable Moon-bound trajectory.
Figure 4. Saturn V rockets on missions Apollo 6 (unmanned) and Apollo 11 (crewed). NASA Image Library E2
As a result, the remnants of the 1st stage would have splashed down
not in the claimed area of the Atlantic Ocean, but in a location much
closer to the Florida shore. No doubt NASA knew full well about this
disastrous scenario after unmanned tests of the Saturn V in Apollos 4
and 6. Realistically, the agency had neither the time nor the resources
to radically improve the rocket, so instead of methodically working on
the components of this monstrous machine, one must conclude that the
agency had to settle for a guaranteed lift-off, a disappearance out of
sight and a premature ending in the Atlantic.Figure 5. The solid red circle is the declared Saturn V 1st stage splashdown zone in the Atlantic Ocean – the small green circle indicates the NASA-declared point of separation of the 1st stage from the Apollo assembly, while the green dotted oval is the likely burned-out splashdown zone
According to the NASA record, these splashdowns were in a certain area (Figure 6) having a mean point of impact as 29.9ºN 74.0ºW, at a distance of approx. 655 km from the launch pad 39A; with Apollo 17 as the outlier some 180 km down from the group centre (Splashdown, NASA). Many engine remnants were presumably spread out within the area indicated in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Detail of the ‘grouping’ of all eight Saturn V 1st stage splashdowns within the solid red circle in figure 5
My interpretation is that because of the appallingly poor performance
of the Saturn V the most likely actual area for the 1st stage
splashdowns was much closer to Florida’s coastline. One scenario is that
the flight was continuing more or less in accordance with the
Tsiolkovsky formula, therefore one has to look for the 1st stage debris
in an area approx. shown by the red dotted oval in figure 5. In this
instance, the debris could be at depth around 4 km.Another scenario is that due to the disastrous performance of the F1 engine all the flights went catastrophically badly. Having failed soon after it had disappeared from view of the spectators at Cape Canaveral, the rocket collapsed into its own firey inferno, and didn’t follow any strict math, instead free falling into the ocean as a burned-out firework. (The area indicated by the green dotted oval in figure 5). In this second scenario the debris would be spread out along the ocean floor at a depth of approximately 2 km. Accordingly, those who want to look for ‘a skeleton in the cupboard’ would have to deep-sea dive, searching in areas much closer than those stated by NASA.
In 2013 Jeff Bezos claimed that he had found components from two F-1 rocket engines lying at 4.27 km (14,000 ft) off the Florida coast. According to Bezos, these were from the mission all pupils in primary schools know about – Apollo 11. Yet no one has questioned Bezos’s claim. Mr Bezos has also mentioned that there was a lot of other debris lying around the sea bed, but he doesn’t appear to have made any effort to share photos of these with the public.
Of course, after his find was exhibited it inevitably became one more ‘strong piece of evidence’ that the flights of the Saturn V were completed as per the record.
However, although Bezos states that he had the radar-tracked coordinates of where the booster stage of Apollo 11 impacted the surface of the Atlantic – there doesn’t seem to be any public record of the precise co-coordinates of his find. Meanwhile, over the years the depth of the find has dramatically increased: in 2017, at a gala celebrating the 48th anniversary of Apollo 11, surrounded by his finds, Bezos recounted that these items had been found 4.8 km (15,700 ft) down. A slip of the tongue perhaps. So while the Bezos expedition corresponds to the red circle area in Figure 5 – it all sounds like a fisherman’s tale. (Fisherman, 2017)
Command Modules in Museums
The fact that used command modules (CM) are exhibited in museums
everywhere, is rather ironic. Because these exhibits are themselves,
evidence that these craft have not been on flights returning from deep
space. Set out in plain sight for the public these exhibits purport to
be Apollo CMs that have returned from space trips well beyond LEO, at
incredibly high speeds, and re-entered through the Earth’s atmosphere.For example, the Apollo 12 CM is full of unresolvable anomalies (Figure 7). In particular, it has a set of strange blackish charred spots where thermal shield pieces have fallen off during, or soon after, re-entry. Was it when the craft hit the water at the moment of splashdown? Well, the area where that heat shield is missing seems to be tarnished by the ferocious heat of an intense fire. Should we then assume that the CM continued burning as it passed through the inferno of re-entry, but still managed to somehow survive?
Figure 7. Apollo 12 CM museum exhibit – on loan travelling around the US;
fragments of the heat shield are missing and the bare craft is visible. NASA E3
In other words, should we accept that this CM miraculously survived
the final part of its hazardous journey through the highly-resistant
atmosphere and merely incurred some surface burns while the integrity of
the craft didn’t suffer in any way? Alternatively, should we consider a
sustainable crack in the thermal shield during the CM’s passage through
the high heat area? Again then, if the pieces of heat shield fell off
only at splashdown then the CM underside body would have boasted a
nicely-preserved metal surface. This last thought will become clearer
when we look at some Soyuz modules which routinely return from LEO.fragments of the heat shield are missing and the bare craft is visible. NASA E3
The important thing to remember is that without a reliable thermal shield the extreme heat would melt the metal bottom of a naked module trashing it into rapidly-burning pieces – as actually happened with the Shuttle Columbia in 2003. Note also that in the definitive NASA report of 2005 (MB-3) it was admitted that the Apollo CM was fundamentally bi-stable i.e. at re-entry it could, with a 50/50 probability, have turned over. This means that a number of re-entries (out of a total of nine) would have ended up as a catastrophic disaster.
Figure 8. Apollo 11 CM – apparently
no heat shield survived
and the bottom of the craft is
slightly burnt NASA E3
Another example is the Apollo 11 CM which is currently exhibited in
the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC (Figure 8).
The appearance of this module is rather similar to that of the Apollo
14 CM displayed at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida – readers will have
seen my photograph of it (MB-1). The problem with the Apollo 11 CM is
of the same nature as that of Apollo 14 – the underside is burned down
to the metal alloy, practically no remnants of a heat shield remain.
(Figure 9).
Figure 9. Underside of the Apollo 11 CM with just a few traces of a heat shield remaining NASA E3
What is meant by ‘without any remnants of a heat shield’? Apparently,
we have to accept that all the material of the CM’s heat shield was
consumed by the inferno of re-entry and the CM was burned back ‘to the
bone’. We can only find this acceptable provided, fortunately, at that
very moment the module reached the precise altitude where the actual
heat of re-entry was somewhat less of an inferno. As a result, we can
happily conclude that a residual, relatively mild heat produced a
lightly-charred surface of the naked CM underside, leaving just a few
traces of the heat shield.To better understand how ridiculous these assumptions are, imagine a box of military ammunition with grenades for a close combat. The enclosed instruction sheet says that the fatal distance from its explosion point is 8 metres. If the distance for a fatal injury is as stated can we then confidently assume that no fatal injury will occur at a distance of say 9 metres? Naturally, the answer would be evident after reading the instruction further on, where it recommends that the grenade is thrown ideally beyond 15 metres, and even then the soldier still has to avoid his own grenade shrapnel.
The above example illustrates the impossibility of ever being able to precisely calculate the strength and thickness of a heat shield with an assumption that it will fully burn out during the CM’s passing through the most dangerous re-entry area – after which its metal bottom will get just mildly burnt. Is it in any way realistic that astronauts could ever be expected to return in such a craft? Surely a crewed command module would never receive certification as flight worthy if it was destined for such a hazardous return journey.
Figure 10. Soyuz CM after returning
from LEO – its heat shield became detached during the descent stage of
main parachute deployment – Photo P. Kouts
Since the early days Russian space engineers have built their craft
in such a manner that they are well protected by a massive heat shield which has to remain in a good working condition – even after its atmospheric re-entry.
Soon after the main parachute is fully opened, at altitudes around
4,500 metres (14,700 ft), the shield is pushed away from the CM to avoid
any further unnecessary heating of the CM body due to heat accumulated
in the thickness of the shield. Typically, the temperature rises inside
the craft by around 10 to 20 degrees. Figure 10 is a CM that has
returned from LEO and is now exhibited in the Moscow Museum of
Cosmonautics, Russia. The underside of the module is in a pristine
condition, having shed its heat shield.In Figure 11a, the bottom of the CM is visible after the shield was detached and then freely fell to the ground. In Figure 11b a heat shield fragment is shown after its free fall following detachment from the CM. Understandably, the shield crashed into pieces when it impacted the ground.
These specimens are convincing demonstrations that the Russians were well prepared for the conditions of re-entry when returning from LEO. Furthermore, during their experiments with flying unmanned craft to the Moon in 1969 to 1970, they were fully aware of the technical requirements of returning a craft from deep space. In order to control the speed and the heat, so as to protect the crew adequately, they had mastered the essential skip re-entry technique, compared to the direct entry which was claimed for Apollo (MB-4). At the time, aware of the limitations of 1960s technology, the Russians were not consistently successful.
By way of comparison, the Apollo CMs, as presented in museum exhibits, are total misrepresentations of what is actually real.
Figure 11 a) Underside view of the
Soyuz CM after its heat shield detachment;
b) heat shield fragment that landed after a free fall – Photos P. Kouts
b) heat shield fragment that landed after a free fall – Photos P. Kouts
Overall Thoughts
Extensive research over the last five decades has demonstrated that
the Apollo program was a highly-complex and well-choreographed staged
show of biblical proportions. Thanks to the last 25 years of the
developments in personal computing and the Internet it has been possible
to reveal how the USA and NASA succeeded in creating an enduring
impression of superior technological accomplishment in space travel
without the actual development of the implied technology. Detailed
studies of the Apollo record suggest that there were in fact no human
steps on the Moon and that any ‘giant leap for the mankind’ is yet to
come.The Apollo mythology requires vast resources to sustain it, and therefore has seriously delayed any actual development of human space exploration. The incremental steps towards achieving human flight to the Moon were established – but never delivered. In order to win this race NASA declared its technological achievements well ahead of their time. NASA’s budget for human space exploration is largely wasted by engineers working under the misapprehension of assumed achievements that prevent these specialists from addressing the reality of the multiple technical challenges. As a result, many areas of knowledge have deviated from the required path of natural evolution. What might be a way forward to real success in this industry?
To make it clear, the lunar environment is quite hostile to humans and still needs to be carefully assessed before humans can ever step onto its surface safely. The Sun’s radiation as well as galactic cosmic radiation in deep space and micrometeorites on lunar surface are among the crucial factors to be thoroughly investigated and considered. Naive claims by the US establishment as well as by NASA made some fifty years ago that their astronauts had spent hours walking on the surface of the Moon without any harm to their health, are now entirely thrashed and dismissed.
Fig 13. AstroRad radiation protection vests – Image ESARecently, the European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed their new work focused on the mysteries of cosmic rays and energetic solar storms in deep space. (ESA, 2019) Away from the Earth’s magnetic field and into interplanetary space, as ESA admits, the impact on the human body could be up to 700 times higher than on Earth. ESA has announced that two dummies will occupy the passenger seats during Orion’s first mission around the Moon in NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed "pioneering [sic.] lunar flyby".
Fitted with thousands of sensors, the pair will measure the radiation to which astronauts could be exposed during future missions to the Moon and Mars. One dummy will be wearing a radiation protection vest, while another will travel unprotected from space radiation. Comparing the radiation doses they will receive, scientists aim to understand how to better protect future crews. The radiation could increase the crew’s risk of cancer and become a limiting factor in missions, concludes ESA. As usual, modern observers can only guess how Apollo astronauts have travelled in those glorious days without much thinking about a possible radiation impact.
In summary, my previous series of articles was focused on perspectives of building a Moon base. Regarding the Apollo myth, we saw an impressive start of a huge rocket flying nowhere and then a splashdown of the CM dropped from a cargo aircraft such as a C-133 Cargomaster, with some staged show in between. It is still unclear how humans can sustain the variety of conditions of space radiation beyond LEO and to which degree this can be aggravated by hostile circumstances on the lunar surface. From the estimates of radiation (Private comm., Moscow) that should have been experienced by Apollo astronauts, the most probable outcome is between a condition of fatal illnesses to the state of poorly recognisable corpses – all provided the CMs could have miraculously returned to Earth intact.
Considering all the research undertaken over the past 50 years or so, a lunar base, most likely, would primarily be developed using unmanned machines. This would appear to be the first very necessary stage before any human could ever step onto the lunar surface. It is encouraging to see indications of some collaborative work between NASA and the Russian Space Agency on a lunar orbital station project – a rare step in the right direction at last. (MB-4) The Moon base would serve then as a reasonable shelter available to future Moon landing pioneers.
Afterword
The Apollo myth was a triumph of the American way – particularly in
its seemingly victorious achievements in space. Indeed, the US formally
won the 1960s race to the Moon – an enduring ‘victory’ that continues to
hold firm.The deceptive success of Apollo has created a feeling of a major national accomplishment. So any signs of reversing this deep conviction is passionately rejected with indignation that is directed at any source of doubt or questioning. This is because “the highest form of ignorance [is] when you reject something you don’t know anything about,” (Wayne Dyer, Quotes) has developed in American society, in part as a direct outcome of the Apollo myth.
Fortunately, prudent steps forward have now being made by a number of progressive thinkers. As Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar indicated, there must be a way to gradually introduce the real facts of the Apollo record to future generations. The healing might appear to be a painful process for American society, but the outcome will be the return to the path of truth for all mankind.
Phil Kouts
Aulis Online, April 2019
https://www.aulis.com/moonbase2019.htm
