[S3E3] Mission: Mission Creek High

Much third-party evidence for the landings exists, and detailed rebuttals to the hoax claims have been made.[1] Since the late 2000s, high-definition photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the Apollo landing sites have captured the Lunar Module descent stages and the tracks left by the astronauts.[2][3] In 2012, images were released showing five of the six Apollo missions' American flags erected on the Moon still standing. The exception is that of Apollo 11, which has lain on the lunar surface since being blown over by the Lunar Module Ascent Propulsion System.[4][5]

[S3E3] Mission: Mission Creek High

Dr. David R. Williams (NASA archivist at Goddard Space Flight Center) and Apollo 11 flight director Eugene F. Kranz both acknowledged that the original high-quality Apollo 11 telemetry data tapes are missing. Conspiracists see this as evidence that they never existed.[117] The Apollo 11 telemetry tapes were different from the telemetry tapes of the other Moon landings because they contained the raw television broadcast. For technical reasons, the Apollo 11 lander carried a slow-scan television (SSTV) camera (see Apollo TV camera). To broadcast the pictures to regular television, a scan conversion had to be done. The radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia was able to receive the telemetry from the Moon at the time of the Apollo 11 moonwalk.[113] Parkes had a bigger antenna than NASA's antenna in Australia at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, so it received a better picture. It also received a better picture than NASA's antenna at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. This direct TV signal, along with telemetry data, was recorded onto one-inch fourteen-track analog tape at Parkes. The original SSTV transmission had better detail and contrast than the scan-converted pictures, and it is this original tape that is missing.[119] A crude, real-time scan conversion of the SSTV signal was done in Australia before it was broadcast worldwide. However, still photos of the original SSTV image are available (see photos). About fifteen minutes of it were filmed by an amateur 8 mm film camera and these are also available. Later Apollo missions did not use SSTV. At least some of the telemetry tapes from the ALSEP scientific experiments left on the Moon (which ran until 1977) still exist, according to Dr. Williams. Copies of those tapes have been found.[120]

Others are looking for the missing telemetry tapes for different reasons. The tapes contain the original and highest quality video feed from the Apollo 11 landing. Some former Apollo personnel want to find the tapes for posterity while NASA engineers looking towards future Moon missions believe the tapes may be useful for their design studies. They have found that the Apollo 11 tapes were sent for storage at the U.S. National Archives in 1970, but by 1984, all the Apollo 11 tapes had been returned to the Goddard Space Flight Center at their request. The tapes are believed to have been stored rather than re-used.[121] Goddard was storing 35,000 new tapes per year in 1967,[122] even before the Moon landings.

In July 2009, NASA indicated that it must have erased the original Apollo 11 Moon footage years ago so that it could re-use the tape. In December 2009 NASA issued a final report on the Apollo 11 telemetry tapes.[123] Senior engineer Dick Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings during the Apollo missions, was put in charge of the restoration project. After a three-year search, the "inescapable conclusion" was that about 45 tapes (estimated 15 tapes recorded at each of the three tracking stations) of Apollo 11 video were erased and re-used, said Nafzger.[124] In time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Lowry Digital had been tasked with restoring the surviving footage. Lowry Digital president Mike Inchalik said that, "this is by far and away the lowest quality" video the company has dealt with. Nafzger praised Lowry for restoring "crispness" to the Apollo video, which will remain in black and white and contains conservative digital enhancements. The US$230,000 restoration project took months to complete and did not include sound quality improvements. Some selections of restored footage in high-definition have been made available on the NASA website.[125]

In April 2001, Leonard David published an article on space.com,[157][158] which showed a photo taken by the Clementine mission showing a diffuse dark spot at the site NASA says is the Apollo 15 lander. The evidence was noticed by Misha Kreslavsky, of the Department of Geological Sciences at Brown University, and Yuri Shkuratov of the Kharkiv Astronomical Observatory in Ukraine. The European Space Agency's SMART-1 uncrewed probe sent back photos of the landing sites, according to Bernard Foing, Chief Scientist of the ESA Science Program.[159] "Given SMART-1's initial high orbit, however, it may prove difficult to see artifacts," said Foing in an interview on space.com.

Periprosthetic tissue was analysed by the combination of different investigation techniques without destruction. The localisation and geometry of polyethylene abrasion particles were determined quantitatively to differentiate between abrasion due to function and abrasion due to implant loosening. Non-polyethylene particles from implant components which contaminate the tissue were micro-analytically measured. The results will help us to understand loosening mechanisms and thus lead to implant optimisations. A non-destructive particle analysis using highly sensitive proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) was developed to achieve a better histological allocation. Five autopsy cases with firmly fitting hip endoprosthesis (2 x Endo-Modell Mark III, 1 x St. Georg Mark II, LINK, Germany; 2 x Spongiosa Metal II, ESKA, Germany) were prepared as ground tissue specimens. Wear investigations were accomplished with a combined application of different microscopic techniques and microanalysis. The abrasion due to implant loosening was histologically evaluated on 293 loosened cup implants (St. Georg Mark II, LINK, Germany). Wear particles are heterogeneously distributed in the soft tissue. In cases of cemented prostheses, cement particles are dominating whereas metal particles could rarely be detected. The concentration of the alloy constituent cobalt (Co) is increased in the mineralised bone tissue. The measured co-depositions depend on the localisation and/or lifetime of an implant. Functional polyethylene (PE) abrasion needs to be differentiated from PE abrasion of another genesis (loosening, impingement) morphologically and by different tissue reactions. In the past a reduction of abrasion was targeted primarily by the optimisation of the bearing surfaces and tribology. The interpretation of our findings indicates that different mechanisms of origin in terms of tissue contamination with wear debris and the alloy should be included in the improvement of implants or implantation

RZ5 Magnesium alloys containing zinc, rare earth and zirconium are well-known to have high specific strength, good creep resistance widely used in aerospace components. The incorporation of hard ceramic strengthens RZ5 mg alloy. The RZ5-10wt%TiC composite has been fabricated in situ using RZ5 mg alloy as matrix and TiC as reinforcement by self propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) technique. This paper investigates the abrasive wear behavior of RZ5-10wt%TiC. Tests were performed using pin-on-disc apparatus against 600 grit abrasive paper by varying the sliding distance and applied load. The results showed improvement in the wear resistance of testing composite as compared to the unreinforced RZ5 Mg alloy. The coefficient of friction and weight loss increased linearly as applied load and sliding distance increased. The field emission scanning electron microscopic (FESEM) showed dominate wear mechanisms: abrasion, ploughing grooves.

Abrasion dusts from three types of commercially available non-steel brake pads were generated by a brake dynamometer at disk temperatures of 200, 300 and 400 C. The number concentration of the abrasion dusts and their aerodynamic diameters ( Dp) were measured by using an aerodynamic particle sizer (APS) spectrometer with high temporal and size resolution. Simultaneously, the abrasion dusts were also collected based on their size by using an Andersen low-volume sampler, and the concentrations of metallic elements (K, Ti, Fe, Cu, Zn, Sb and Ba) in the size-classified dusts were measured by ICP-AES and ICP-MS. The number distributions of the brake abrasion dusts had a peak at Dp values of 1 and 2 μm; this peak shifted to the coarse side with an increase in the disk temperature. The mass distributions calculated from the number distributions have peaks between Dp values of 3 and 6 μm. The shapes of the elemental mass distributions (Ti, Fe, Cu, Zn, Sb and Ba) in size-classified dusts were very similar to the total mass distributions of the brake abrasion dusts. These experimental results indicated that the properties of brake abrasion dusts were consistent with the characteristics of Sb-enriched fine airborne particulate matter. Based on these findings and statistical data, the estimation of Sb emission as airborne particulate matter from friction brakes was also discussed.

A significant discovery of the Mars Pathfinder (MPF) mission was that many rocks exhibit characteristics of ventifacts, rocks that have been sculpted by saltating particles. Diagnostic features identifying the rocks as ventifacts am elongated pits, flutes, and grooves (collectively referred to as "flutes" unless noted otherwise). Faceted rocks or rock portions, circular pits, rills, and possibly polished rock surfaces are also seen and could be due, to aeolian abrasion. Many of these features were initially identified in rover images, where spatial resolution generally exceeded that of the IMP (Imager for Mars Pathfinder) camera. These images had two major limitations: 1) Only a limited number of rocks were viewed by the rover, biasing flute statistics; and 2) The higher resolution obtained by the rover images and the lack of such pictures at the Viking landing sites hampered comparisons of rock morphologies between the Pathfinder and Viking sites. To avoid this problem, rock morphology and ventifact statistics have been examined using new "super-resolution" IMP and Viking Lander images. Analyses of these images show that: 1) Flutes are seen on about 50% or more of the rocks in the near field at the MPF site; 2) The orientation of these flutes is similar to that for flutes identified in rover images; and 3) Ventifacts are significantly more abundant at the Pathfinder landing site than at the two Viking Landing sites, where rocks have undergone only a limited amount of aeolian abrasion. This is most likely due to the ruggedness of the Pathfinder site and a greater supply of abrading particles available shortly after the Arcs and Tiu Valles outflow channel floods. 041b061a72