23 August 2009

Jarrah's Question No1

Jarrah asked: During his testimony, Frank Borman told Congress: "I dont believe that any of us recognized that the test conditions for this test were hazardous." He also told the US Senate: "None of us were fully aware of the hazard that existed when you combine a pure-oxygen atmosphere with the extensive distribution? of combustibles and the likely ignition...and so this test...was not classified as hazardous."

Yet in his on pages 162 and 163 of his book, Men From Earth, Buzz Aldrin writes: "The only serious hazard of the pure-oxygen environment was fire. As every high school student learns, when a smoldering match is put into a beaker of oxygen, it blazes into a spectacular flame. The Apollo cabin was also an oxygen-rich container, and the spacecrafts many switches, electrical equipment, and over 15 miles of wiring could easily short-circuit, providing a glowing match".

They either didn't know the risk, as Borman stated. Or they knew the risk and considered it acceptable, as Aldrin says. Which is it?

This is where we see an example of the incorrect interpretation Jarrah often makes. We have to look at three parts: what was the hazard, what risk was associated with the hazard, and what are the consequences.

Firstly what was the hazard? The hazard was the use of 100% oxygen in the spacecraft.

What was the risk? The risk was fire in the spacecraft.

Now, and most importantly, what are the consequences? The consequence depended on the phase of flight, and ranged from loss of cabin pressure and possible mission abort, to loss of the crew .

Well, that's obvious, isn't it? 100% oxygen posed an unacceptable risk. NO - you have to look deeper. If a fire had occurred in space and the astronauts were in their suits, the immediate action would have been to depressurize the cabin. Remove the oxygen and they fire goes out. If they weren't in their suits, the plan was to use the water gun to put out the fire. The option still existed for them to don the emergency masks and partially depress the cabin, helping put out the fire. They would have had to abort the mission, but the crew would have a high probability of survival.

This was the case through the majority of the flight. It would not be available if there were a fire on the pad. The length of time on the pad, however, was small compared to the total mission time.

Now what was the risk of a fire happening? There was some risk of an electrical short happening, but it was considered low; after all, this was a US spacecraft not some cheap radio from Japan. Besides, design rules meant that there was not to be any flammable material within 12 inches of any possible ignition source.

So the hazard was known, but the risk of an event with catastrophic consequences was low... or so it was believed. That's why the test was not considered to be hazardous. There were no fuels loaded, there were no explosives, even the launch escape system rocket was safed.

So what changed this? There were a number of factors, the most importantly being the spacecraft the spacecraft being pressurized to nearly 20 psi. This drastically increased the the consequences of any fire; it would burn with greater intensity. What also was not properly considered was the increased risk of an electrical short because of faulty wiring, poor workmanship.

NASA knew there were problems; so did the astronauts. It was just they believed that the problems would be solved. No aircraft, no complex technical system ever develops trouble-free; there are always faults, always problems.

NASA - and the astronauts - got lulled into a false sense of security.

They had used 100% oxygen in Mercury and Gemini without problems. The Apollo spacecraft, pressurized with near 20 psi of 100% oxygen, had been tested four times previously in a test chamber with no problems. They just didn't completely consider everything, and got caught out.

Page 87 of Volume I to the INVESTIGATION INTO APOLLO 204 ACCIDENT before the US House of Representatives subcommittee on NASA oversight illustrates this:

Mr Gurney: Colonel, we all recognize, I think I state this correctly, that the use of pure oxygen does present, severe fire hazards. I think actually that is the language used in the report and I guess there has been a great deal of discussion between using pure oxygen or some other combination in the cabins of spacecraft and yet it puzzles me when you say that under these specific test conditions you never considered fire as a hazard. Now, what generally do you consider as a fire hazard in this kind of atmosphere? Then let me say in trying to illustrate, if you were going into a filling station to have car serviced you wouldn’t light a match and have a cigarette while the gas was going into the tank. What areas do you identify as rather severe risks in this business of working in a pure oxygen atmosphere?

Colonel Borman: I think what you say about going into the gas station and striking a match is true. Mr. Rumsfeld can tell you when he flew in the Navy in jets he was using 100% oxygen all the time. There is oxygen right above your head when striking matches on a commercial airliner. Oxygen per se is not dangerous, only when associated with a fuel and an ignition source. Quite frankly we did not think, and this is a failing on my part, and on everyone associated with us; we did not recognize the fact that we had the three essentials, an ignition source, extensive fuel, and of course we knew we had the oxygen.

Why didn't they realise the danger? Part of the reason was because fire propagation data was misleading:

Dr Thompson: Could I interject a comment? Prior to the accident review, a great deal of dependence had been placed on information for flame propagation obtained from small laboratory samples of burning rates, some burning horizontal and some vertical, some burning upward and some burning downward, and some at 45 degree angles, and all kind of results were obtained. One of the outstanding accomplishments of this review has been the development of a procedure for obtaining valid information on the flame-propagation problem. The results obtained from these small samples are shown to possibly downright misleading...
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Mr Davis: Thank you, Sir. There is one other question and that is this: The decision to raise the capsule atmosphere to 16.7 pounds per square inch was entirely predicated upon the assumption that you could rely upon the fact that there would be no arcing within the capsule. That is correct, is it not? And if that assumption had not been wrong, then nothing else would have been the matter?

Dr Thompson: Yes.

Mr Davis: The fact that the assumption was wrong is the whole trouble?

Dr Thompson: That is correct.

So Jarrah - they knew about the hazards but the risks were not properly appreciated.

19 comments:

  1. ‘100% oxygen posed an unacceptable risk. NO - you have to look deeper. If a fire had occurred in space and the astronauts were in their suits, the immediate action would have been to depressurize the cabin. Remove the oxygen and they fire goes out.’

    Already debunked in my video. It takes as long as half an hour to depressurise the Lunar Module, depressurising the CSM will obviously take longer. That hardly justifies the fire hazard.

    "Sure takes a long time to go all the way down, doesn't it?" - Buzz Aldrin

    “If they weren't in their suits, the plan was to use the water gun to put out the fire.”

    Ridiculous. There was a fire extinguisher stored inside Spacecraft 008 during it’s testing and it’s altitude tests were supposed to be typical of all spacecraft. Yet NASA pulled this fire extinguisher out before sealing the crew in.

    “The option still existed for them to don the emergency masks and partially depress the cabin, helping put out the fire.”

    Define partially depress. I’ve already proven above that it takes as long as half an hour to depressurise the craft under normal procedures. And you think they could instantly depressurise it during an emergency?

    “Now what was the risk of a fire happening? There was some risk of an electrical short happening, but it was considered low”

    And yet John Young states that he knew the wiring was an extremely bad condition and that NASA would fire him (Grissom) if he complained about it. How can you claim they considered the risk low when Young now claims he knew it was a risk and NASA would take that approach to any who complained?

    “Besides, design rules meant that there was not to be any flammable material within 12 inches of any possible ignition source.”

    And yet someone was allowed by NASA and NAA to plaster the entire bulkheads with such flammable material like Velcro. Grissom brought this fire risk to attention and NAA not only failed to remove the Velcro, they and Joe Shea both blamed Grissom for the amount of Velcro in there.

    “So the hazard was known, but the risk of an event with catastrophic consequences was low... or so it was believed. That's why the test was not considered to be hazardous. There were no fuels loaded, there were no explosives,”

    Yes there was. This was already discussed in my video. The fuels used on the Saturn IB were liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Oxygen was obviously the same element used in the capsule cabin for breathing. And whether liquid or gaseous, if you put an ignition source in pure oxygen it will go up in flames. Yet they didn’t have the firemen on maximum alert, only standby.

    Hospital employees know the dangers of gaseous oxygen. And on all the previous flights there were no-smoking signs stamped all over the launch site, hear NAA employees were allowed to use cigarette lighters to read the signs posted everywhere. Frank Borman was an Assistant Professor in Thermodynamics, and all Thermodynamics experts are familiar with Bomb Calorimeters – a chamber in which a food or water sample is ignited in pure oxygen.

    How can you claim that Borman and NASA didn’t consider the test when they knew very well that there was pure oxygen in that spacecraft?

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  2. continued...

    ”So what changed this? There were a number of factors, the most importantly being the spacecraft the spacecraft being pressurized to nearly 20 psi.”

    Nearly 20psi, that’s a new one. Chris Kraft says it was 15psi, Michael Collins says it was nearly 16psi, Gordon Cooper says it was 16.7psi, Frank Borman says it was 20.2psi. Which is it?

    In any case; how can you alleged that this was changed? NAA’s Frank Hendel submitted an article in the July-August 1964 Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets in which he says oxygen “presents a fire hazard which is especially great on the launching pad when the cabin is purged with oxygen at 14.7psi”

    The only significant change on Apollo was that unlike Gemini and Mercury there was no adequate escape measures (i.e. explosive bolts on the door or ejection seats), and the door they put on was the first time in use. According to Cooper a new hatch that could be opened in 20seconds had already been developed to overcome the problems of this hatch.

    They obviously knew the door was too unsafe to use during the plugs out test, yet they used it anyway.

    “What also was not properly considered was the increased risk of an electrical short because of faulty wiring, poor workmanship.”

    If it was not properly considered why were NASA going to fire those who spoke up about it, as stated by John Young?

    “NASA knew there were problems; so did the astronauts. It was just they believed that the problems would be solved.”

    An organization that is trying to solve problems listens to complaints and rectifies them. Not threaten to fire any who dares speak up about these life-threatening problems.

    “NASA - and the astronauts - got lulled into a false sense of security.”

    John Young claims he urged Grissom to speak up about the wiring problem. Doesn’t sound to me like he was confident with the craft. And why didn’t Young himself speak out if he was so worried about the wiring as he now says?


    ”They had used 100% oxygen in Mercury and Gemini without problems.”

    As stated above, Mercury and Gemini had adequate escape measures and the risks on those flights were always considered.

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  3. continued...

    “The Apollo spacecraft, pressurized with near 20 psi of 100% oxygen, had been tested four times previously in a test chamber with no problems.”

    For a self-proclaimed truth seeker you sure make a lot of omissions.

    The altitude test chambers are conducted with the door open, eliminating the fire risks. And the vacuum chamber tests are done at 5psi, not 16-20.2psi. Oxygen at 5psi doesn’t burn as vapidly as oxygen at the pressures Borman, Collins and Cooper claim was in there.

    And the last part of your blog was already debunked in my Youtube comments.

    How is Borman's statement an answer? This is exactly the same thing he said in the quotations I've posted. Just worded differently.

    If they didn't think the risk was great and didn't know they had an ignition source, why did they threaten to fire anyone who spoke up about the wiring problem, as John Young stated.

    “Mr Davis: Thank you, Sir. There is one other question and that is this: The decision to raise the capsule atmosphere to 16.7 pounds per square inch was entirely predicated upon the assumption that you could rely upon the fact that there would be no arcing within the capsule. That is correct, is it not? And if that assumption had not been wrong, then nothing else would have been the matter?

    Dr Thompson: Yes.

    Mr Davis: The fact that the assumption was wrong is the whole trouble?

    Dr Thompson: That is correct.”


    Static electricity from hair is enough to enough to trigger a fire in pure oxygen at only 7psi and flicking switches on and off also creates an inductive arc. And you’re telling me they didn’t think there was going to be any arcs in the spacecraft at 20psi? Even after Aldrin and Young have both publicly stated that they were aware of the wiring problem?

    I said earlier your responses better be better than the ones you gave on Youtube. Seems you didn't live up to your hype.

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  4. "Static electricity from hair is enough to enough to trigger a fire in pure oxygen at only 7psi and flicking switches on and off also creates an inductive arc. And you’re telling me they didn’t think there was going to be any arcs in the spacecraft at 20psi? Even after Aldrin and Young have both publicly stated that they were aware of the wiring problem?"

    So you think it was recklessly dangerous for the air force to put me through a chamber run, breathing 100% O2 and yet wearing nylon underpants? They didn't check, you know.

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  5. This blog is ludicrous... The Apollo 1 fire was not a miscalculation by NASA but outright murder. Pressurizing the capsule to such a high level of O2 was absurd considering that the contact switches in the consoles would have been enough to spark a fire.

    I am in full agreement with Jarrah White in terms of his plausable arguments about the Apollo 1 fire. If this blog is done intentionally to slur anyone, then you are only going to make yourself out as a fool!

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  6. Why Jarrah is Wrong....

    Well for instance....

    It takes as long as half an hour to depressurise the Lunar Module, depressurising the CSM will obviously take longer.

    and Yet we read from the Apollo 11 Surface Journal....

    [For Apollo 11, the forward dump valve is equipped with a bacterial filter which is having a considerable effect on the speed of decompression. The filters will not be flown on subsequent missions. With the filter in place, cabin pressure drops from 5.0 pounds per square inch, absolute (psia) to 0.08 psia in 310 seconds versus 180 seconds without the filter. Use of both the forward and overhead valves without filters would bring the time down to 90 seconds. For most of the Apollo EVAs, one or the other of the valves was used; although, for the equipment jettison they will do after the EVA, 114:10:28 Neil and Buzz will use both valves. Because of the relatively large surface area of the hatch, it cannot be opened at cabin pressures much above 0.1 psia.]

    30 mins Jarrah? Really? Seems you are only out by between 27 mins and 28.5 mins, but hey, why bother with the technicalities right?

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  7. i still dont understand the reasoning behind murdering 3 astronauts as part of a moon landing hoax coverup. they could have faked the moon landing without killing them if they wanted to. why dont you talk to Gene Kranz and see what he has to say. you blurt out a bunch of names and you act like you know these people. all you know about them is what you read on wikipedia

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  8. "The last part of you blog was already debunked in my youtube comments"

    yeah, cos thats a great source of scientific accuracy

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  9. So you think it is recklessly dangerous for the air force to put me through a chamber run, breathing 100% O2 and yet wearing nylon underpants? They didn't check, you know.

    Then I suppose you are aware that from 1962 and 1964 NASA and the government conducted a series of oxygen chamber tests? These tests were generally done at only 5psi and they turned into a disaster. Two of these occurred at Brooks Air Force Base. In one of these fires four people suffered first and second degree burns to 20% of their bodies after trying to change a simple light-bulb started a spark. In fact a 'fireproof' asbestos blanket caught fire when these men tried to extinguish the fire. Remember, this is at only 5psi.

    These fires compelled NASA to write up a report which stated that these fires "illustrate in concrete fashion the potential dangers of 100% oxygen atmospheres."

    This happened well before Apollo 1.

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  10. 30 mins Jarrah? Really? Seems you are only out by between 27 mins and 28.5 mins, but hey, why bother with the technicalities right?

    Have you recently read the Apollo 11 transcript?

    04 12 22 06 Capcom: Tranqility Base this is Houston. You are go for Cabin Depressurization. Go for cabin depressurization.

    04 12 22 15 Armstrong: Roger

    [...]

    04 12 56 22 Armstrong: Cabin Pressure going towards zero.

    [...]

    04 13 01 12 Aldrin: Sure takes a long time to go all the way down, doesn't it?

    As you can see, more than 34minutes went by from the go for cabin depress to the near total depress of the capsule. Ironically Aldrin even said it takes a long time to go all the way down to zero during the transmissions.

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  11. Have you recently read the Apollo 11 transcript?

    Yes, and I really suggest you do it too, you might get some understanding.

    For instance you might learn that while the Go was give at 22:06 and was acknowledged by Armstrong that they got the Go, they were still dealing with their suits and didn't open the value until 54:08. That's 32 mins AFTER Houston gave them permission to do it.

    108:54:08 Aldrin: Okay. Going dump.

    You'd also learn that the LM depressurisation occurred in two separate stages, from 5.0 psia to 3.5 psia, then a full one.

    108:53:56 Armstrong: Okay. We want to go to (brief pause while he finds the line in the checklist) Dump and go down to 3.5 (psi) and back to Auto.

    [Once Buzz has the valve open, he will leave it open until the cabin pressure has dropped to 3.5 psi. At that point, Buzz will close the valve again so that he and Neil can watch their suits respond. The drop in cabin pressure increases the relative suit pressure to about 4.6 psi unless there is a leak of some sort. On later missions, the crews will perform a pressure integrity check prior to opening the dump valve, inflating their suits and looking for leaks before they vent any oxygen from the cabin.]

    108:54:08 Aldrin: Okay. Going dump. (Pause) And it's down to 4.2, 4.1. (Pause)

    108:54:25 Armstrong: That's 3.5. (Pause) Are you in Auto? "Verify cabin pressure at 3.5 and LM Suit Circuit pressure between 3.6 and 4.3."


    At this point the pressure has dropped from 5.0 psia to 3.5 psia in just 13 seconds (from 54:08 to 54:25)

    They now take just under a minute to check that their suit pressure is holding and then reopen the valve.

    108:55:12 Armstrong: Okay. Okay, let's go to dump.

    108:55:17 Aldrin: Dump.

    108:55:18 Armstrong: Go to dump.


    Nearly six (6) minutes later Aldrin makes the comment you quote

    109:01:12 Aldrin: Sure takes a long time to get all the way down, doesn't it?

    At this tome the total depress time is just 6 mins and 8 seconds (0:13 + 5:55)

    Even taking into account that the static pressure inside the LM was over the 0.1 psia they were waiting for, so they waited longer to open the hatch than they should have, the hatch was opened just another 6 and a 1/4 mins later.

    109:07:33 Armstrong: The hatch is coming open. (Pause)

    So from the time Aldrin first opened the valve to the time Armstrong opened the door, the depress time (time with the valve open) was just 12 minutes and 29 seconds. This is not how long it took to decompress, but how long before they opened the door, with a bacterial filter in the valve slowing the whole process down, and you're still no where near the 30+ mins you claim. The crew of Apollo 12 didn't wait for the pressure to drop to below 0.2 psia and did their decompress in just 3 minutes.

    115:05:38 Conrad: Okay. (Reading) "Dump valve Open, then Auto at 3-1/2."

    115:05:44 Bean: Okay. (Pause)


    Al has some trouble getting the valve open here.

    115:06:27 Bean: I got it. The lock (means "handle")'s in the way again.

    115:06:32 Conrad: Yeah. Why don't you...Wait; you're going to tire yourself out doing that. (Pause) Let me get it. (Pause) That a boy. (Sound of depressurization can be heard) Okay. That's it. (Watching the pressure gauge) Cabin going down. Okay.


    It reaches 3.5 just 17 seconds later.

    115:06:49 Conrad: Mark. 3.5. Okay?

    They then open the valve all the way up after checking suit pressure.

    115:07:37 Conrad: Okay, Houston. We're Go to open it (the dump valve) all the way here. How about you?

    115:07:43 Bean: They said Go.

    115:07:44 Conrad: Okay.


    Bean reports the Hatch open just 2 mins and 42 secs later.

    115:10:26 Conrad: Easy. Easy does it. (Pause) There you go.

    115:10:33 Bean: Got it, babe.

    115:10:35 Conrad: Okay. The hatch is open, huh? Okay.


    That's a total of 2 mins and 59 secs.

    Care to try again?

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  12. It's another example of Jarrah, passionate about his beliefs but a layman, misinterpreting matters.

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  13. what i dont understand is if jarrah is so anti-NASA, why does he trust the NASA apollo transcripts?

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  14. what i dont understand is if jarrah is so anti-NASA, why does he trust the NASA apollo transcripts?

    Because like all Conspiracy Theorists he does not read them to understand them and trust them, he reads them looking for anomalies that he can then use as ammunition. He then only trusts them when he thinks that they confirm his beliefs. The trouble is that because he has no understanding about what he is reading he makes whooping big mistakes, like believing that the crew started their decompression the moment that Houston told them they had a Go to do so. A little further reading and understanding would have shown him that at this point the crew were still working on their suits and were wearing neither their helmets nor gloves, and would not get those both on for a full 20 minutes after Mission Control's confirmation that they were allowed to do the decompress.

    Under Jarrah's mistaken scenario, the crew would have been standing around in a decompressing LM, open to the vacuum of space for 20 minutes without their suits fully on. What sort of moron would create that mission plan, and what sort of moron actually would follow it?

    However Conspiracy Theorists don't look at the overall picture, they just see the individual lines, mess up what they actually mean and then decide that because they either can't understand it, no one can, or because in their incorrect understanding it doesn't make sense, then NASA must have been up to no good. The idea that they are totally clueless and haven't got an ounce of understanding about the topic never seems to even cross their mind, yet this is true for every single Moon Hoax believer I have ever come across, without exception.

    This is why I had a good five minute laugh when he accused me of not reading the transcripts recently.

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  15. It would appear that once again Jarrah has abandoned the field when he realizes that he is getting his butt handed to him, and fled back to the safety of his controllable Youtube environment

    Or maybe I took a break from debating so I could focus on certain other things on the attenda. Like attending a friend's birthday party or finishing up the editing of my new film. Typical. I have stressed how many times that my communications are not instant and I try to reply to as many messages as possible in the limited amount of time available. Anyways, here goes.

    For instance you might learn that while the Go was at 22:06 and was acknowledged by Armstrong that they got the Go, they were dealing with their suits and didn't open the value until 54:08.

    Actually, from what I have read, the craft took so long to depressurize partly because of release gases from the suits. "Armstrong and Aldrin expected their EVA preparations to take about two hours, but they ended up taking twice that long, partly because the exhaust gases from the backpacks compounded the difficulty of depressurizing the cabin of the lunar module. [...] the astronauts struggled with their cabin depressurization problems." - page173-174 For All Mankind by Harry Hurt III.

    A this tome(sic) the total depress time is just 6mins and 8 seconds.

    6minutes hardly constitutes to being the "instant depressurization" that Aldrin claims was used to justify the fire risk. Do you really think you are helping your cause?

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  16. Or maybe I took a break from debating so I could focus on certain other things on the attenda. Like attending a friend's birthday party or finishing up the editing of my new film. Typical. I have stressed how many times that my communications are not instant and I try to reply to as many messages as possible in the limited amount of time available. Anyways, here goes.

    Well I'm actually glad you are back. Personally I have never bothered watching any of your films, I doubt I ever will, and since this is, to my knowledge, the first time we've gotten to cross swords, I haven't got a clue what you have stressed in the past. I would note however that you do have the time to read the Apollohoax forum, since you quoted it (would have been nice have given other readers a link so they knew that.) I also have too wonder though, why you don't come and make your arguments there... however, since you are a lurker there, I guess it is unnecessary to do introductions.

    Actually, from what I have read, the craft took so long to depressurize partly because of release gases from the suits.

    Well yes and no. The craft depressurised to a "static" pressure very quickly, especially in the cases of the later missions where there was no bacterial filter in the door valve. This static pressure was created by the "exhaust" from the PLSS as the ice sublimated into water gas. On Apollo 11 no-one knew what this static pressure would be, and the checklist instructions stated that the door should be opened when the pressure dropped below 0.1 psia.

    The issue was that the PLSS kept the static pressure at about 0.12 psia, so the crew were waiting on something that would not occur. This is why it took them 12 minutes to open the door instead of 6. In the later missions the bacterial filter had been removed allowing faster air flow, and they opened the door at "higher" pressures, about 0.2 psia, and so didn't have to worry about the PLSS exhaust preventing the pressure dropping below 0.12 psia, decreasing the time to about 3 minutes.

    So yes, it was the suits, specifically the PLSS, that were the cause of the pressure failing to drop to the expected levels, but it was the crew's decision to wait and follow the checklist that resulted in the extra 6 minute wait in opening the door.

    Of course this would not have been a factor in any CM decompress because the Astronauts would be in suits connected to the environmental systems of the CM, not to the PLSS Backpacks, and so there would be no sublimator exhaust to create a static pressure, and even if there were, the exhaust is water and so would not aid in any combustion, in fact the exact opposite as it would displace the oxygen in the cabin.

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  17. continued from above...

    6minutes hardly constitutes to being the "instant depressurization" that Aldrin claims was used to justify the fire risk. Do you really think you are helping your cause?

    Again you are diving into the water without checking the depth first and have ended up with a case of embarrassment when your ignorance on the topic shows through.

    First off, I hardly have to point out the entirely unsubtle moving of the goalposts here, anyone even causally reading this would have noticed it. Your initial claim was that it took over 30 minutes to decompress the LM. This has been shown to be totally incorrect, and it'd be nice if you would acknowledge that point before moving on to the next.

    Secondly, you are continuing to make the assumption that the CM and the LM would take the exact same time to decompress. You have nothing to base this claim on, as the systems were designed and built by entirely different people, so the CM could easily have had a far larger valve resulting in a faster decompress. We already know that the LM took half the time to decompress on 12 and the other missions, than it did on 11 because of the removal of the filter. The CM had no such filter in its environmental systems and so could have easily depressed at least as fast as the later missions, if not faster. Continuing to ignore the speed of decompress on those mission and use the 11 figure is rather disingenuous.

    Thirdly, in the case of a fire in space, the 5 psia pressure oxygen would result in a fire only as intense as one in a mixed air environment at sea level on Earth, and this would rapidly change as the capsule decompressed. The fire wouldn't stay at that level until all the gas is gone; it would die quickly as that gas was removed by both the fire itself, and the decompression. Using the LM figures (which is what we have) in at most, 17 seconds, 30% of the oxygen would be gone. Chemically that is significant to the reaction as most plastics will no longer burn at that low an oxygen pressure (15% of sea-level, or about that of air at 3,000m.) By 13% of sea-level, or just 3 psia, not even cellulose or liquid hydrocarbons will burn because the concentration of oxygen is too low to sustain the combustion. By the time the pressure hits 1.6 psia, even smouldering solid materials such as wood cease to burn.

    Now, none of this would have helped the Apollo 1 crew, but it certainly could have lead to a false sense of security by the Astronauts and NASA engineers over whether a fire in space could have been dealt with this way.

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  18. Personally I have never bothered watching any of your films

    Pity, it might interest you to know that you get mentioned in a few. Since this is our first encounter, I am sure many would like to know why you neglected to tell your readers that the clip from the 30:28telecast that you show on your website is from a cutaway shot. Probably something they shot in a CSM mock-up and then cut and spliced between interior shots.

    Why did you not tell your readers?

    I would note however that you do have the time to read the Apollohoax forum, since you quoted it (would have been nice have given other readers a link so they knew that.) I also have too wonder though, why you don't come and make your arguments there...

    I have better and more constructive things to do than join a forum dominated by trolls and where people with views different to those who dominate the forum are typically banned sooner or later for whatever spurious reason the mods can find.

    Your initial claim was that it took over 30 minutes to decompress the LM. This has been shown to be totally incorrect, and it'd be nice if you would acknowledge that point before moving on to the next.

    Because you evidently don’t watch my videos I’ll go easy on you this once. As of this little discussion I added up annotations to my video pointing out that you have claimed to contrary. The fact remains, 30minutes or 3minutes it’s not instant depressurisation. Even if they had plenty of time to depressurise the cabin, the astronauts would typically be in shirt-sleeves during an Apollo flight and putting on a spacesuit can take 5minutes to hours depending on who you ask. Frank Hendel claims it takes 5minutes to put on a spacesuit. Astronaut Mike Gernhardt told ABC news that the future spacesuit will take about ten minutes as opposed to the hours it has previously taken astronauts to get the suits on. And depressurising the craft whilst wearing only shirtsleeves and gasmasks is suicidal for obvious reasons.
    How does this justify the risk when the fire extinguishing procedures would sooner kill you than save you?

    Secondly, you are continuing to make the assumption that the CM and the LM would take the exact same time to decompress.

    No I do not. As Ralph once stated, the CM was a mansion in comparison to the LM’s tiny cabin. I contend that the CM would have taken longer to depressurise as the vehicle had a hell of a lot of more to vent out.

    Anyways, in practical terms, the quickest way to depressurise the cabin would be to blow the hatch: thus allowing the air to rapidly flood out through the big gaping door. It would be a lot faster than venting out the air through a tiny relief valve.

    And blowing the hatch could not be done on Apollo 1. It was to be flown using a Block 1 CSM, and the configuration of the Block 1 eliminated the ability to open the door in orbit as there were no spacewalks to be scheduled on such a flight.

    Thirdly, in the case of a fire in space, the 5 psia pressure oxygen would result in a fire only as intense as one in a mixed air environment at sea level on Earth,

    No it wouldn’t. If you light a cigarette here on the ground sea-level pressure, the cigarette takes a considerably long time to burn – even when puffing it. At 5psi the cigarette would rapidly burn without any puffing. And of course at 16psi the entire cigarette would go up in smoke in two seconds. At 5psi pure oxygen even fireproof materials like asbestos will go up in flames.

    Now, none of this would have helped the Apollo 1 crew, but it certainly could have lead to a false sense of security by the Astronauts and NASA engineers over whether a fire in space could have been dealt with this way.

    You’re right about one thing, none of this would have helped the Apollo 1 crew and the “ability” to solve something in space does not justify the use of such a catastrophic environment on the ground when previously all such tests were considered hazardous and on this particular test dangers had through the roof.

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  19. Just posting to say I am planning to respond, but due to real life work commits and a very nasty cold, it'll be at least another week. However, I will note that what limited scientific literature I currently have, it indicates that combustion in partial pressure 100% O2 is comparable to the same as that % O2 in a mixed gas system. Fire is an oxidation reaction, dependant on the concentration of the reactants. Concentration is mols/volume, so regardless of if other non-reagents, the concentration of gas is the the same in a one gas or two gas senario. Having the second gas does dampen the reaction slightly, but not significantly. I'll go deeper into it when I post next time.

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