🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4601@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes:
>
>     I've been getting a lot of E-mail flak about my NASA coverup  postings.

>   2. The figures given by Time or Von Braun are typos or mistakes.
>
>   3. The figures given by Time or Von Braun confuse miles with kilometers.

The most likely explanation.  Calculation with the canonical values, 
which give the surface gravity of the moon to be about 1/6 that of 
earth, give the force balance point to be about 38,000 km from the 
center of the moon.  Since the spacecraft does not fly straight up 
to a stationary target, but rather leads it, the difference between 
38 and 43 could be due to having to take the actual trajectory into 
account in the calculation. 

The other possibility is that someone divided the distance to the moon by 6.

>   4. The  explanation  for  the  apparent  lack  of jumping ability of the
>     astronauts is that the suits were as heavy  as  claimed  ,  and  simple
>     judicious caution on their part prevented more spectacular leaping.

Not heavy, inflexible.  Remember, they are inflated in a vacuum and all 
joints must be airtight.  Not exactly the thing to perform gymnastics in; 
remember Shepards terrible golf swing?  Anyway, it is not the height but 
the length of time in flight that counts.  The time-to-height ratio tells 
you g, and that ratio was much longer (hence g lower) than on earth.

This is the best empirical evidence, along with the orbital period of 
the Apollo command module.  Quoting from articles in the popular press 
is not the same as objective scientific evidence.  The numbers about 
the command module orbit are out there, why don't you track them down
and give us a follow up report.  

>   I believe that the direct quotation from the July 25,1969  Time  magazine
>   article would be helpful here:
>
>   "At  a  point 43,495 from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force [on the
>   spacecraft] equal to the gravity of the Earth , then some  200,000  miles
>   distant."

Well, the numbers do add up.  Which is not to say that the reporter got 
a value in kilometers, misunderstood it, then subtracted it from the 
distance to the moon to put the distances in perspective.  I would be 
more likely to trust numbers in a monograph by von Braun.  

>   In "Project Apollo: Man to the Moon" by Thomas J. Alexander  (Harper  and
>   Row , 1964 ) ,the author states:

This book is copyrighted back when we were still having trouble hitting 
the moon.  One might question its reliability.  It could also be the 
case that Time got its info from this book! 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)