Offline somerled

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #40 on: August 22, 2019, 03:17:32 PM »
Here is a better video of a guy using a proper vacuum chamber in an effort to prove rockets ( won't )work in a vacuum.
???
That video literally shows the opposite of what you're claiming.

In his initial test he says "The rocket did not ignite" and then says "This motor is not designed to work in a vacuum. The gunpowder can't sustain a burn."

Then when he modifies the rocket so there's some pressure for it to ignite in he shows it works and then says

"Rocket motors can produce just as much thrust in vacuum.
They are not pushing against the air, they are pushing against the fuel that is being burned and thrown overboard
."

He concludes:

"Now the rocket was difficult to ignite in a vacuum because it needed some pressure to get the fuel grain to burn but once I did that, it did just fine.
And since I was able to figure it out, I'm sure the folks at NASA can do it."

The rocket was modified by turning the ignition mechanism into a bomb . Good grief . As totallackey points out ,you are not going to pressurise the vacuum of space .  No pressure = no fuel burn .

Nasa is in the process of distancing itself from it's space/scifi programme . Future visits to  the moon and planets will be passed on to the film and cgi industries .

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Offline AATW

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #41 on: August 22, 2019, 05:57:36 PM »
The rocket was modified by turning the ignition mechanism into a bomb. Good grief.

Well, sort of, yes. A bomb is basically an explosion in a container. What makes them so dangerous is that the container is not strong enough to contain the explosion so it fragments and the parts fly everywhere at great speed and that also releases the energy of the explosion itself. This is what causes the damage.

The difference with a rocket is there is a hole in the container so the gases resulting from the explosion have somewhere to vent, that causes the thrust and the rocket accelerates in the opposite direction. Not because it’s pushing against the atmosphere but because of Newton’s Third Law.

The other difference with a rocket is it has a supply of fuel to keep the combustion going for a long time which means, for rockets designed to get to space, it can keep accelerating long enough to achieve the speeds necessary for orbit. Sometimes as you’ve said this is done by having several stages.

The tricky thing in a vacuum is keeping the combustion going. Combustion needs oxygen. In the video he did that by creating a little chamber full of air. That allowed the combustion to happen, the explosion blew the plug out, the gases vented out the hole and that pushed the rocket forward in a vacuum.

The way big rockets do this is they have their own oxygen supply. If they didn’t then combustion wouldn’t happen and the rocket wouldn’t work.

Quote
As totallackey points out ,you are not going to pressurise the vacuum of space .  No pressure = no fuel burn

Correct. Which is why the rockets have their own oxygen supply to allow the combustion to happen.

This isn’t rocket science...
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #42 on: August 22, 2019, 07:18:45 PM »
Halving your expenditure over a 28 years period is as rapid as rapid gets? ???
Under the circumstances, yes. They had already cut most of their easy expenditure by the point you're considering. Firing staff en masse is not as simple.

Once again, poor data analysis. "This number is big while this number is small" is not an approach that will lead to anything useful.

And what do you think that is? What are you actually getting at here?
Why NASA is being quietly retired into obscurity is left as an exercise to the reader.

I imagine NASA budgets could be affected by private enterprises by SpaceX - why let NASA launch your satellites if SpaceX can do it cheaper?
NASA contractors are still paid from NASA's budget whilst they're working for NASA. This is a non-factor.
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Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #43 on: August 22, 2019, 07:49:29 PM »
You could also be jumping to conclusions. Maybe NASA are getting more efficient with how they spend, maybe the US have higher priority things to be spending their budgets on.  There are enough pissed off people who struggle to get by while their government are (in their opinion) burning money to send rovers to planets pointlessly. You went straight for the conclusion that plays toward your narrative and I really hate saying that... You may or may not notice you're doing it. There are plenty of possible reasons for NASA's budget lowering over time other than "oh shit, we gotta phase this fake stuff out slowly and quietly so no one starts to realise it's fake".

Heck you could take for example my budget for spending on video games lowering over time too but that's not because there's some kind of conspiracy or fakery at play, it's because I already own enough games that I don't really need to buy so many any more, it's because my spending habits were quite bad and I'm slowly becoming better at spending over time. God I'd hate to see how much money I wasted on games in my teen years.

Point being is that you don't know for sure the reason their budget is lowering over time and you've come up with an answer based on your bias and opinion.
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #44 on: August 23, 2019, 09:36:46 AM »
some kind of conspiracy or fakery at play
Beautifully ironic, as always. Note that I said nothing about conspiracy or fakery - indeed, I chose not to offer a conclusion at all, and merely pointed out that multiple interpretations are available.

Your response appears to be a complete agreement with everything I've said, and a strong disagreement with things I didn't say, but which you're attributing to me for reasons unbeknownst.

Perhaps it is you who's jumping to conclusions?
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 09:43:12 AM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #45 on: August 23, 2019, 10:08:21 AM »
some kind of conspiracy or fakery at play
Beautifully ironic, as always. Note that I said nothing about conspiracy or fakery - indeed, I chose not to offer a conclusion at all, and merely pointed out that multiple interpretations are available.

Your response appears to be a complete agreement with everything I've said, and a strong disagreement with things I didn't say, but which you're attributing to me for reasons unbeknownst.

Perhaps it is you who's jumping to conclusions?
Fair point, I suppose you didn't directly say anything of the sort. I interpreted your post way back in page 1 of this thread in a way you suggested somewhat that their slow and quiet retirement is 'the best move' meaning they're intentionally trying to make a quiet and subtle exit from existence. Why is it for the best in your opinion?

I came to the conclusion because we all know you don't trust NASA. You've actually said it yourself you think they're liars.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 10:10:09 AM by ChrisTP »
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline AATW

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #46 on: August 23, 2019, 10:10:28 AM »
And what do you think that is? What are you actually getting at here?
Why NASA is being quietly retired into obscurity is left as an exercise to the reader.
Well, it isn't. Over a long period of time there has been a reduction, sure.
But since 2010 that reduction has stopped. Whether it will continue or reverse remains to be seen. There were very rapid reductions from the late 60s to the mid-70s. Further reductions into the mid 80s and then the budget increased for a few years. Possibly to do with the Space Shuttle programme. Since then there was a slow decrease but that stopped after the financial crisis. Since then the funding has pretty much flat-lined, over the last 5 years there's actually been some increase in real terms.
So no, absolutely no sign it's being retired, quietly or otherwise.

Quote
I imagine NASA budgets could be affected by private enterprises by SpaceX - why let NASA launch your satellites if SpaceX can do it cheaper?
NASA contractors are still paid from NASA's budget whilst they're working for NASA. This is a non-factor.

Private enterprises are winning contracts from the military to launch satellites.
https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/02/20/spacex-ula-each-get-air-force-contracts-for-trio-of-space-launches/

I imagine some of that money will end up going to NASA, they're using NASA's launch pads, but I can't imagine all of it will so that would be a factor.
And that's a good thing, NASA shouldn't have a monopoly when it comes to space exploration, it's good that other countries or private enterprises are creating some competition and driving innovation.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #47 on: August 23, 2019, 10:54:22 AM »
Why is it for the best in your opinion?
I don't know for certain. It could be that they've found a better way of doing what they do, or it could be that they want to do less of it. This is regardless of whether you choose to paint NASA as a conspiracy or as a legitimate space organisation. Given my impression that the reduction in funding correlates with a drop in media coverage, I'm leaning towards the latter.

I came to the conclusion because we all know you don't trust NASA. You've actually said it yourself you think they're liars.
It's one thing to distrust someone, and another thing entirely to directly slander them - I'd only make an outright accusation if I had strong reasoning to back it up. I may well be insane, but I try to be cautious and collected in my insanity. ;)
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Offline Zonk

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #48 on: August 25, 2019, 06:04:08 PM »
Quote
They had already cut most of their easy expenditure by the point you're considering. Firing staff en masse is not as simple.

You know what would be simple?  Not hiring new people to replace those who retire , quit, or get fired.  But they're not doing that either.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #49 on: August 25, 2019, 06:10:57 PM »
You know what would be simple?  Not hiring new people to replace those who retire , quit, or get fired.  But they're not doing that either.
Indeed, this simple and common method of cost-cutting has been a major factor in the trend we're investigating. Thanks for sharing!
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline AATW

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #50 on: August 27, 2019, 08:19:31 AM »
You know what would be simple?  Not hiring new people to replace those who retire , quit, or get fired.  But they're not doing that either.
Indeed, this simple and common method of cost-cutting has been a major factor in the trend we're investigating. Thanks for sharing!
The last sentence of his post says that's not what they're doing. Your reply is basically just "are too!". How is that not low content posting?
To be honest I really struggled to find NASA staff numbers over time although I guess their budget is a rough proxy for staff numbers.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #51 on: August 28, 2019, 10:53:49 AM »
The last sentence of his post says that's not what they're doing. Your reply is basically just "are too!". How is that not low content posting?
He described precisely what NASA was doing, and combined it with a grammatically ambiguous statement, which you clearly interpreted the other way from me.

He said that in order to reduce its budget further, NASA should not hire staff to replace those who leave. He then followed it up by saying that "they're not doing that".

I interpreted it as "NASA are not hiring staff to replace those who leave", you seem to have read it as "NASA are not not hiring staff[...]". Since the former interpretation reflects what's currently happening and doesn't rely on a double negation, I gravitated towards it as a much more likely one.

But perhaps I was too generous in assuming that our friend is truthful and somewhat literate. If we instead assume your interpretation, two things come to light:
  • My post would unintentionally look like an "yuh uh, they are too!!!"
  • Zonk's post would be a deliberate and intentional "nuh uh, they ain't!!!!!"

I don't see how that makes matters any better, why it's worth our time, or why you'd want to talk about it in this thread. It sounds to me like you're trying to divert the discussion from the matter at hand, though I'm not sure why you'd want to do that either.

With that nonsense hopefully out of the way, let's get back on track.

To be honest I really struggled to find NASA staff numbers over time although I guess their budget is a rough proxy for staff numbers.
Let's bring you up to speed, then. Start with https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASA_FY_2016_Budget_Estimates.pdf - page 600.

Of course, it counts FTEs rather than heads, but I'm sure you'll be able to forgive me if I suggest they're analogous. You can clearly see that, as of 2016, NASA had no plans of replacing the hundreds of staff that left in the prior couple of years.

A more recent budget estimates document (https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy19_nasa_budget_estimates.pdf) provides us with more insight:

Human resource management; including: recruitment, hiring, workforce planning, training, and performance management.  In FY 2019, NASA will continue rightsizing its workforce with a reduction of 110 FTE relative to the 2018 Request. NASA will continue to explore opportunities across the Agency to find efficiencies in workforce productivity.
(page 622)

From page 701, we can also see that the total civil service FTE count has dropped further from the 2016 projection.

If you want to delve deeper, you can see budgets from 2003 and onwards here: https://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html
(Everything prior to 2003 is broken links, helpfully)

Note that this omits contractors, who are not as well protected by law, and who are much more likely to be booted without having to go through too many steps.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2019, 11:26:57 AM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #52 on: September 06, 2019, 04:45:20 PM »
50 years ago it was easy to get to the moon - now we can't get out of low earth orbit.

We can, but nobody is putting up the money to do so with manned missions. Most everyone has other priorities.

"Not trying to" is different from "can't" ...
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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #53 on: September 06, 2019, 04:48:52 PM »
Of course, there's an alternative explanation for why NASA is being rapidly scaled down, and why they make less and less big news. Retiring it to obscurity is probably the best move at this point.

It may not be "big news", but it's news that matters for sections of the scientific community. Have a browse at NASA's Technical Reports Server someday.

And bear in mind what the first A in NASA stands for....
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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #54 on: September 06, 2019, 04:51:31 PM »
It was incredibly easy to get men to the moon and even easier to bring them back . Did nasa ever do a trial run - launching a rocket from the moon to rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft ?

Yes. Trial runs got progressively nearer to the actual Apollo 11 experience in Apollo 1 through 10, the last of which descended to within a few miles of the surface, then returned to dock with the CM. All Apollo 11 had to do in addition to this was land and take off. 
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Offline somerled

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #55 on: September 08, 2019, 10:37:13 AM »
It was incredibly easy to get men to the moon and even easier to bring them back . Did nasa ever do a trial run - launching a rocket from the moon to rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft ?

Yes. Trial runs got progressively nearer to the actual Apollo 11 experience in Apollo 1 through 10, the last of which descended to within a few miles of the surface, then returned to dock with the CM. All Apollo 11 had to do in addition to this was land and take off.

Why is it so difficult to admit that nasa never did a trial launching of an unmanned lunar module , from its launchpad table , away from the surface of the moon ?



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Offline AATW

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #56 on: September 08, 2019, 01:58:21 PM »
They didn’t do that simply because they had no way of getting the thing on the moon unmanned in the first place.
But Apollo 10 descended to near the lunar surface before ascending and docking with the command module.
That tested all the principles - the rocket firing and the docking. If you look at all the missions which led up to Apollo 11 you can see they tested incrementally everything they practically could.
If your argument is they just went there and hoped it all worked without testing things then that is incorrect.
Again, I recommend “A Man On The Moon” by Andrew Chaikin
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

Offline somerled

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #57 on: September 08, 2019, 02:49:37 PM »
They reportedly tested all principles apart from the important principle of the return launch from the moon - I can see you admitting this now .

    It is not my argument that they just went there and hoped it would all work out - in this case that is is an unarguable fact since nasa admit they did not carry out this test , even with an unmanned simple rocket type vehicle . 
 
A test of a docking manoeuvre is a test of docking manoeuvre ,not a test of lunar launch. At no stage was this extremely important procedure ever tested .

My view is that there was no need because the landing would never happen .



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Offline AATW

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #58 on: September 08, 2019, 03:20:21 PM »
It wasn’t tested because it wasn’t possible to test it. They tested everything they practically could and Apollo 10 was a test of the rocket which would launch them from the moon.
I’m not clear what your argument is here. Yes, there was a risk they might not return. That was actually planned for, a speech was written for Nixon in case that happened. Collins was asked about it at the press conferences before they left. There is always an element of risk when exploring new things. That is the nature of exploration. They did all they could to mitigate that risk.
The only way of testing what you’re suggesting is for them to land unmanned on the moon first. I don’t think they were able to, to this day only 3 countries have managed a soft landing on the moon, the Indian space agency have just failed to do it.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline TomInAustin

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Re: Moon Landing 50th Anniversary.
« Reply #59 on: September 09, 2019, 03:05:32 PM »
They reportedly tested all principles apart from the important principle of the return launch from the moon - I can see you admitting this now .

    It is not my argument that they just went there and hoped it would all work out - in this case that is is an unarguable fact since nasa admit they did not carry out this test , even with an unmanned simple rocket type vehicle . 
 
A test of a docking manoeuvre is a test of docking manoeuvre ,not a test of lunar launch. At no stage was this extremely important procedure ever tested .

My view is that there was no need because the landing would never happen .

Since the Apollo 10 LM slowed the descent to almost zero firing the ascent engine was a valid test.  You seem to forget that all of this was new and being invented as they did it.   The failure of the Indian mission over the last few days is a reminder of why they didn't land an unmanned craft to test the launch.  It's not easy with today's technology to do an automated landing. 
« Last Edit: September 19, 2019, 05:40:40 PM by TomInAustin »
Do you have a citation for this sweeping generalisation?