"Mark McIntyre" <markmcintyre@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:jv20rv4f6cq5r7onqi8hm1v8j9bkiuo69a@4ax.com...
|
| I've no way to ascertain the truth or otherwise of any
| of this, but it seems a tad unlikely to me that NASA would
| have sent astronauts off on a billion dollar trip if they
| didn't have adequate protection.

Against what contingencies?  I'm reasonably sure NASA didn't provide the
astronauts a defense against a blimp attack or hordes of bare-breasted Benny
Hill extras.  Yes, I'm being facetious, but you have to think practically.
The command module used in Apollo was safe for all but the very most severe
solar flares.  The lunar module was slightly less protected.  There is
"adequate" protection and then there is "absurdly comprehensive" protection.

I carry a small rain slicker with me at all times.  It's made for bicyclists
and it fits into a package the size of a fist.  In other words, it's no
trouble at all.  Now there's a non-zero chance at any time that I'll get
caught out in an unseasonable blizzard in September.  But is that worth the
trouble of carrying a parka with me wherever I go?

Ultimate protection would have imposed insurmountable engineering
constraints.  We're still, decades later, trying to solve the problem of
ultimate protection.  Every item designed to protect and safeguard the
astronauts has an associated cost in weight, development time, and system
complexity.  Those costs have to be measured against the anticipated
benefit.  If the cost is great and the benefit small, you don't provide it.
You may already have a system that is 98% reliable.  It's not always worth
quadrupling or quintupling the cost in order to achieve 99% reliability.
Engineering is almost always about managing the point of diminishing
returns.

| ...I can't imagine the bad publicicty of having to admit
| that your astronauts got toasted while snapping some holiday
| photos on the moon.

Sure, but how is that any different from the possibility that their ascent
engine might not ignite?  That they might crash on landing?  Are these not
also risks?  Is one remote possibility any different than another in terms
of consequence?  Unfortunately one remote possibility may be wildly
different from another in terms of what it costs to engineer against its
failure.

I live in a desert.  The chance of rain at any given moment is small.  But
because the cost of rain protection for me is very minimal, I can afford to
be prepared for that contingency at all times, no matter how remote.  Not
all contingencies can be so easily avoided.

| But then they'd have had enough time to get back into the LEM at
| least.

In most scenarios, yes.  In the worst case (exceedingly rare) you have about
10 minutes warning.  If the astronauts had been on an LRV traverse some
distance from the LM, they probably could not have returned before the event
began.  But in the typical case you have up to 18 hours warning.  That's
plenty of time to return to the LM, take off, and rendezvous with the
command module.  Then, as has been explained, the command module is placed
in the safest attitude.

This would have been possible in the August 1972 hosedown.  My point is that
there is a worst-case scenarios, using actual data, that would have resulted
in fatality.  But the rest of the data for that solar season is non-fatal.

| And again, without wanting to be negative, I have not heard of
| this risk before.

And that's not surprising.  The conspiracy theorists have made a mountain
out of a mole hill.  They need some pretext for why Apollo missions were
impossible.  And everyone's scared of radiation.  So they just say there's
"radiation" out in space, and everyone is thus predisposed to hear a tale of
NASA's trepidation to brave that gulf.  Solar flares were something that
NASA considered.  It was deemed hazardous enough to develop a formal
contingency plan for it, but not hazardous or threatening enough to let it
drive the engineering.

-- 
                                          |
The universe is not required to conform   |  Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant.      |  webmaster @ clavius.org