tl;dr overview of the debate as I see it so far:- Tom offers a reductio ad absurdum proof. He says that the premise that Apollo was real leads to an absurdity demonstrated by the tapes: Apollo/Houston must have sent/received information faster than light can travel, and nothing travels faster than light. The burden of proving both the validity and soundness of the argument is with the OP and its defenders.
- I argue that the proof is unsound because it makes the unreasonable assumption that Apollo/Houston would never interrupt one another. If interruption is allowed, then there is no demonstration of information traveling faster than light.
- PP says that I have to prove that they would ever interrupt one another.
- I disagree that I should have to prove that they
would have, but only that they (reasonably)
could have. Even so, I have articulated multiple reasons why they would have: full duplex radios, ample opportunity for mistakes/errors/poor judgement, relative importance of other factors (like time) over efficiency, lack of supporting evidence that Apollo communications should have been highly ordered, just to name a few. I have yet to hear why these claims are unreasonable.
PP, I take the crux of your argument to be that Apollo-Houston communications would never be disordered both because they would follow strict protocols, and because efficiency of communication is of paramount importance. Is this correct?
For the most part. I'd consider this to be the default state, and would expect both solid evidence and a rational explanation for any claims that it wasn't followed.
I mostly agree, but I think you have the same obligation to provide both solid evidence and a rational explanation for your claims that Apollo radio comms followed strict protocols and that efficiency was of paramount importance. The one and only source you've provided to that end is a total dog-shit Wikipedia page that says both, "needs additional citations for verification," and "Some elements of voice procedure are understood across many applications, but significant variations exist." I think that without actually credible sources that speak directly to the way Apollo communications specifically were organized, then you're just asserting that your interpretation must be the correct one to the exclusion of all other equally plausible interpretations. I'm unconvinced. I've already provided you with several perfectly reasonable explanations for why, even if those are default states, there were likely exceptions. I take your argument to be not that those things
couldn't happen, but that they
wouldn't happen. You need evidence to support that claim, otherwise it's just an argument from personal incredulity.
Your 'source' also doesn't have a single word to say about not cutting anyone off, or the timing of messages, or anything even remotely related. The kinds of signaling protocols you're describing are only useful for half-duplex radios, because if you can't send and receive at the same time. If you start talking before the other person finishes, then
neither of you will hear what the other is saying, and you won't even know that messages were sent. The same isn't true for full duplex radios. You can send and receive simultaneously.
I merely disagree with your assertion that this must always be true. It probably was true quite often. I imagine that there were plenty of times when it was vitally important that strict communication protocols were required. But, that doesn't preclude or diminish the plausibility of there being half a dozen 10-second moments among the literally hundreds of hours of recorded communications when Apollo and Houston spoke more casually.
It's not about plausibility of protocol being occasionally ignored. It's about the assertion that someone has gone and done the exact opposite of protocol at the exact time it happened to be convenient for your argument. That is a claim that shouldn't be made lightly, and is simply unacceptable as a throwaway explanation for anomalies in the recording.
Or it's a mistake. Humans often make mistakes. The longer we do something, the greater the probability of making a mistake. Mistakes are very often temporary. Every single thing you've said about their radio comms could be true and these recordings can still easily be explained as momentary lapses in judgement. Since there are hundreds of hours of dialogue, it's not just possible, it's unsurprising. In fact, it would be shocking if there weren't. Remember, the circuits were voice-activated, not button-operated, so a mistake is as easy as talking.
Or they simply didn't have strict signaling protocols because they were on full duplex radios and could rely on quindar tones whenever efficiency was paramount.
Or there were simply blocks of time where none of those things were all that important, like in the container recording when they're just sorting things around them. Not exactly a tense moment. Thinking about the mission timeline, I'd actually expect this to be most of the time. The astronauts were highly autonomous. Other than when actually piloting the capsules, landing, taking off, burns, maneuvers, etc, I'm struggling to think of why it would be so important to them to not interrupt one another. And, I can think of a good reason not to: time. It's one of their most limited resources, and it makes sense to me that one would be willing to forgo efficiency in favor of rate. Efficiency simply wasn't always paramount.
But why speak in generalities? Let's talk about the last clip that I posted, the one about the containers. Tell me why you think it isn't possible or plausible that, in my final clip, Cernan or Schmitt or whomever it was couldn't have been responding to the first sentence that came from Houston? I understand Houston to be stating that SCB-3 with the Rover samples in it is on the Rover. Cernan/Schmitt corrects him. How is that illogical or impossible or implausible?
As Tom pointed out, in this scenario there is a message that's being outright ignored. That seems highly unlikely. Tom's explanation, in which all questions are answered is simply more consistent with the flow of conversation, and the only address it's received so far is "if you insist."
I dunno what else I can say to him if he's merely going to insist that "If you have any, yeah, some of those today" is a question. I don't buy it, I don't think he's asking a question, and I think he's merely finishing his thought. You merely insist that it's highly unlikely that Cernan would ignore a message. That's just an argument from personal incredulity. You both ignore the most important factor, that you can hear the the echo of Houston interrupting Cernan in the delayed transmission. You can hear these echos in all of them.
I understand Houston to be stating that SCB-3 with the Rover samples in it is on the Rover. Cernan/Schmitt corrects him mid-sentence, either because he was in a hurry, or because he made a mistake for any number of reasons, or because he just didn't think it was a big deal to interrupt Houston (maybe he was in a bad mood), or because Parker fucked Cernan's wife and Cernan hates that little shit, or because pick any number of perfectly reasonable explanations. How is that illogical or impossible or implausible?