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Author Topic: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge  (Read 32401 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Re: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge
« Reply #60 on: May 18, 2018, 02:14:03 PM »
After the "statistical aberration" argument, I think the next most powerful argument is the one about air conditioning the space suits/LEM, as well as the batteries that supposedly powered the rover:

After all this, I still have unanswered questions about the alleged BATTERIES, and the alleged AIR CONDITIONING equipment.
Lead acid batteries were the only type in use at the time, but how do they work in a VACUUM? They would have to be dry cell batteries or else the electrolyte would boil off without ambient air pressure. So the lunar rover for example would have to be powered with something like a very long stack of nickle-cadmium D cells (that was the rechargeable variety of that time).
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Ask any air conditioning technician or engineer about how it works. You need to have a heat sink or an environment where you can dump the BTUs from the cooled volume. If you want to cool off a LEM or a space suit, you need a cooler place where the heat can be disposed of. On the sunlit surface of the moon the 250-degree environment has no such cool place where the heat can be dumped off. Plus, there is no air or atmosphere on the moon so no evaporator coil would have anything to cool it off, no matter how hot it gets. The only way to dispense with the heat would be by radiation like infrared radiation. It would require a refrigerant to be upwards of 300 degrees so it could lose heat in a 250-degree moon surface. No one has ever explained what refrigerant could be used that operates at 300 degrees F.

I will personally add:

I know a bit about solar power and batteries myself. The one thing you almost can't do, without huge banks of lead batteries, is air conditioning. The process of air conditioning simply draws too much power to make off-grid A/C feasible. 

I've also seen diagrams of the lunar rover -- where were the batteries stowed? Did it operate on magic power?

Offline Matthew

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Re: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge
« Reply #61 on: May 18, 2018, 02:18:29 PM »
They claim there were 2 small "silver zinc" batteries on the rover.

I seriously doubt that would power that vehicle longer than 8 minutes. Have you seen the battery bank in a modern electric car? And the "lunar rovers" were built in the late 60's. They didn't have modern battery technology -- or efficient integrated circuit-based electronics to gently consume that battery power. Everything drew more power back in the 60's and 70's. Every light bulb was a power-sucking incandescent, etc.  All the electronic gear in the diagram would have drawn WAY MORE POWER than the modern equivalent, AND such electronic equipment wouldn't have used a single milliamp less because they were on the moon "where gravity is 1/6 that of Earth".

They broadcast data with antennae! How many of you noticed how soon your phone battery goes dead when you use a lot of wifi or 3G? That's the biggest power drain on any phone -- even more than the screen.

You can see in the diagram how small the batteries were. Not must potential for power storage there.


Re: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge
« Reply #62 on: May 18, 2018, 03:15:12 PM »
I've already pointed out how the "statistical aberration" argument is complete nonsense, so we've leave that aside until someone addresses that argument and talk about your misunderstandings of how heat transfer works.

Air conditioning is necessary on earth because the AIR gets hot, and heats us by convection. The moon has almost no air, so a person (or object) on the moon's surface will be heated directly by radiation (direct transfer of energy from the sun's rays). This effect also occurs on earth obviously, but is highly mitigated by the atmosphere which absorbs much of the radiation.

So on the moon, the most effective form of "cooling" is to wear a reflective suit, so the sun's energy simply bounces off and never heats you up in the first place. Thence the shiny white suits.

So what's the problem here exactly?

Offline Matthew

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Re: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge
« Reply #63 on: May 18, 2018, 03:31:29 PM »
I've already pointed out how the "statistical aberration" argument is complete nonsense, so we've leave that aside until someone addresses that argument and talk about your misunderstandings of how heat transfer works.

Air conditioning is necessary on earth because the AIR gets hot, and heats us by convection. The moon has almost no air, so a person (or object) on the moon's surface will be heated directly by radiation (direct transfer of energy from the sun's rays). This effect also occurs on earth obviously, but is highly mitigated by the atmosphere which absorbs much of the radiation.

So on the moon, the most effective form of "cooling" is to wear a reflective suit, so the sun's energy simply bounces off and never heats you up in the first place. Thence the shiny white suits.

So what's the problem here exactly?

The astronauts themselves also generated heat, being warm blooded. They can't "open a window" instead of running the A/C while they run around in their space suits. Having no air for convection is a double edged sword.

And their suits were not bouncing off 100% the suns rays or heating ability. They didn't look like mirror-men. They were just wearing white. Go out in the Texas mid-day sun sometime in white long pants and a white long sleeve shirt, with a white hat and a white shirt hanging from the hat to block your neck. Sure, you won't get cooked AS MUCH by the sun, but you will still heat up.
Then move to a well-shaded place like under a carport, and note that it wasn't the air that was warming you -- it was the sun. That's why I prefer working outside in the last hour before dark (when the air barely off the day's high, or around 95) to working in full sun at 10:00 AM when the air is only 79 degrees. It's the radiant heat that proverbially kills you.

See, as a Texan, I know much more about "hot" than you :)

P.S. Whatever I noted, above, about radiant heat experienced by a Texan, is even more true on the Moon -- as you pointed out, the Earth has an atmosphere to help mitigate the heating power of the Suns' rays, the Moon does not.

Re: Moon Landings - No Hard Science Knowledge
« Reply #64 on: May 18, 2018, 03:53:05 PM »
For all you know I'm from sub-saharan africa. And on that topic, there's a reason people in the middle east tend to cover themselves completely despite the intense heat.

The body heat inside the suit would take a while to become an issue, and it would also be mitigated by the fact that they were probably venting some air out (compressed air from the oxygen tank would need to be vented after they breathed it).

Either way, the point here is that you are cherry-picking factoids and twisting them to support your already drawn conclusion, rather than look for the easily available explanations for why they aren't actually a problem.