1958, and the Russians send the first satellite into space. This satellite was named Sputnik. Sometime later, the Americans did the same. Not wishing {or willing} to be outdone by the Russians, especially in a field of this importance. The Cold War was still raging on during this time period, and the two countries were at loggerheads, always trying to see if one could outdo the other in any way, shape or form.
The first life forms to be sent into space were those of animals, again, the Russians blasted the animals, nine so-called ‘space dogs’, into space. They were used to test space suits in unpressurised cabins of spaceflight capsules. For space flight practice, near the end of the 1950s, the Russians were preparing to send two dogs into orbit above the Earth. The dogs were named Albina and Tsyganka, and they took off toward the Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of 53 miles. Upon reaching this height, they were then ejected from the capsule, still sitting in their ejection seats.
Other sub-orbital flights by space dogs, occured, reaching altitudes of 3oo miles above the Earth. Then came the breakthrough, the launches of both Sputnik 1 and 2 into orbit. The scientists within Russia all believed that living organisms from Earth could live in space. This being the case, they sent the world’s first artificial space satellite – Sputnik 2 – to space from the Baikonor Cosmodrome, 1957, November the 3rd.
The use of living animals in the ‘space race’ as it was called, paved the way for human beings to travel, for the very first time, above the Earth’s orbit. Yuri Gargaran, on April 12 1961, became the first human being AND the first Russian Cosmonaut to be blasted above the Earth’s orbit. The race to the Moon had begun in earnest. The name of his spacecraft was ‘Vostok 1’. Vostok had two sections, one for supplies, that were needed for Yuri to live, such as oxygen and water, and the other section was for him.
At 27,400 kilometers an hour, Vostok circled the Earth. The flight itself lasted just 108 minutes, and was controlled by a computer. Gargaran did not land inside the spacecraft instead, he ejected from it, and landed by parachute.
1963 and President John F.Kennedy makes a statement of intent saying, ‘We will go to the Moon within this decade amongst other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ NASA decided to pursue the plan that Kennedy had, after his assasination, and in 1967, the ‘Apollo’ program began in earnest.
1969, and NASA lands ‘Apollo 11’ on the Moon, the race was finally over. This was a major leap not only for the American nation, but for Mankind as a whole. Photographs and videos that were taken on the Moon were eagerly shown to the general public. NASA rode on a wave of positive reaction. Children wanted to become astronauts and the pilots themselves became household names, and heroes. But all was not well, there were rumbles of discontent, and the positive attitude towards this historic event was replaced by skepticism. There were people who believed that the Moon Landings never took place at all, and that it was all staged in some sort of studio, that the whole thing was a hoax.
NASA answered back and ‘proved’ that the Moon Landings were not faked at all, that everything that happened DID actually occur, and that vicious rumours had actually been put out, by certain peoples, agencies, and countries to try and discredit them. Debunkers argued that there was no way that a man could land on the Moon, never mind get anywhere near it, with the technology that they had at that time.
What they failed to realize was that the Apollo Support Department of the General Electric Company in Florida, began extensive mission realibility studies for NASA. The studies were based on very elaborate realiability models of all the systems. A profile {called a Realibility Profile}, which was calculated over the course of a mission, was generated by a computer simulation. A Number of simulations were also carried out for every concievable event, for every scenario. Based on those results alone, the probability of taking off and landing a human being on the Moon surface dropped to below 90%.
There were those that complained that the poor picture quality was done on purpose, so that no one could actually examine it, again, NASA answered back. The Apollo 11 Moon Landing, had pictures beamed DIRECTLY to Earth from the surface of the moon. They did this by using the Lunar Module’s power supply and antenna. Because of this, this placed a restriction on the amount of bandwidth that could be transmitted from the Moon to the Earth. Apollo 11 was, therefore, limited to using a black and white slow scan TV camera. This had a scan rate of 10 frames per second – 320 lines a frame.
In order to transmit the pictures from the Moon, they first had to be converted to the commercial TV standards. During this time the U.S.A standard was the EIA Standard of 30 frames per-second, at 525 lines per-frame. The pictures that were beamed back to Earth, from the Moon, had been displayed on a 10 inch black and white monitor, a vidicon camera was pointed at the screen, and the pictures were scanned using the EIA Standard.
A number of weird image artifacts were seen on the images themselves. One of them was produced by sunlight, that was reflecting off the astronauts and the LM onto the TV camera lens itself. These reflections produced the ghost-like effects that were seen by the public. Other effects were the results of spots that were burned onto the monitor screens, from which the conversions [optical] were produced.
People complained about other so-called things that they believed just could not happen. For instance, film. A special transparency film was used, at that particular time, by the astronauts. This film was produced by a company called EASTMAN KODAK working under contract for NASA. The photosensitive emulsion layers were placed on an ESTAR polyestar film base. This had primaly been used mostly for motion picture films. The melting point of ESTAR film is 490 degrees. Around 200 degrees some shrinkage and distoration can and did occur. Fortunately, the film was never exposed to this type of temperature. The cameras had to be protected inside a special case in order to keep them cool.
The situation on the Moon, which is airless, is very very different to that of your conventional oven. Without convection, or conduction, the only method of heat transfer is radiation. Radioactive heat, can be directed, effectively, away from an object by wrapping it in a material that has a reflective surface – this is usually a white material. If you look closely, the camera casings, [as is/was most of the astronauts clothing}, was white.
To finish, there are numerous examples were debunkers claim that Man could not have gone to the Moon, because of their pre-conceived ideas and a mish mash of haphazard science. They are too numerous to mention here. But, in every question that has come up since the Moon Landing/s, there has, in the end, been a rational explanation as to why something was the way it was.
Quick Question: ‘No Stars in the pictures’. Answer: They are there but they are too faint. The Apollo pictures were of brightly-lit objects that were on the surface of the Moon. Because they were brightly-lit this called for fast exposures. These exposures simply did not allow enough starlight into the camera to record an image onto the film. There is a difference between ‘seeing stars’ and ‘photographing’ them. The astronauts could have taken recorded star images onto the film by increasing the exposures, but they were not there to take, ‘star pictures’. Their purpose was to take photographic evidence of their work on the surface of the Moon.
But, I leave you to make your own minds up. Did Man actually land on the Moon? And, if he did…why have we not been back?
