Ken Johnston short-listed for the suicide mission to Mars

        Well, Ken Johnston^{note 1} got his letter, improving his chances for a kami-kaze mission to Mars from 1 in 200,000 to 1 in 1058. Next cut will be to 100ish, then to 40. Finally, 10 crews of 4 will be launched at 2-year intervals, starting 2024. Each crew will be, as they would say in the porn business, MMFF. That's the plan, anyway.

View Ken's video-application. Ralph is his real given name.

        Naturally, this was a good enough story to devote an hour of Coast-to-Coast AM time to, last night. George Noory wondered what Ken's wife thought about it. "She signed me up for it," quipped Ken. Then came the obvious question -- aren't you a bit old for this? (Ken is now 71).

        "Oh no," said Ken. "I'll still be in my seventies, and John Glenn went into orbit at 77." Unfortunately, he was working with the wrong launch year. Actually, even if he's chosen as one of the first crew he'd be 81. More likely, he'd be well into the eighties.

Hoagland confuses the issue
        Enter Richard Hoagland, Ken Johnston's biggest booster, to make encouraging noises and trot out falsehoods, as usual. The first thing he got crashingly wrong was to say "No way will this be a one-way mission." He explained that, once the occupation of Mars begins, "the political log-jam will be broken" and many nations will immediately start work on round-trip man-rated rocketry to bring those guys back. Oh, and also -- since Hoagland will be Hoagland -- bring back the technology of the ancient Martian civilization. You know -- the one that left a Nike sneaker and a model plane lying around in Gale crater.

        This is to massively underestimate the difficulty of a round-trip Mars mission. The key problem is getting a four-person crew (and the payload of abandoned sneakers) out of Martian gravity and on the way home. To get the Apollo crews off the Moon, one pissy little hypergolic rocket engine was all it took. But launching from Mars, with a full third of Earth-style gravity trying to hold you back, would require a powerful multi-stage rocket and all the associated launch facilities -- a mini Cape Canaveral.

        Wernher Von Braun did the math back in 1956, and figured it could be done with 400 launches, assembling two super-giant rockets in orbit. General Dynamics did a study in 1962, assuming eight Saturn V (or equivalent) launches. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct project hypothetically reduces the requirements to two Ares launches, based on a massively enhanced Space Shuttle stack and a very long turnaround time while fuel is manufactured from Mars water. Even if the Mars Direct plan is really workable -- by no means a sure thing -- does Richard Hoagland seriously believe that it could be put into effect in time to rescue Ken Johnston? Would the math still work if the mass of four additional bodies (plus all the sneakers) was added for the return launch?

Gravity Gradient
        The second thing Hoagland got wrong was the assumed need for artificial gravity during the transit, lasting at least 200 days. Ken said the Mars-1 people were working on a tether system. Conceptually, this would assume two tethered spacecraft rotating about their common center of gravity at an angular rate calculated to create a decent fraction of 1g radially. Hoagland dismissed that as a problem, stating "They already did that on Gemini in the 1960s."

        Well, they did and they didn't. The Gemini 11 "passive stabilization" experiment was, indeed, a trial of that exact idea -- but it didn't really work. The tether didn't stay taut and the most that was achieved was a measly 0.00015 g.

 image credit: NASA

        This blog officially wishes Ken Johnston bon voyage. But it also wishes Richard Hoagland would STFU. He just can't get anything right.

========================

[1] This is who Ken Johnston is.

Lies of the year, 2013

        Instead of an end-year blog index, here's a handy reference to the lies of Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara as this year comes to a close. The score is Hoagland 12, Bara 24.

====================

HOAGLAND

====================

There's a Nike sneaker on Mars. (Originally from the Conscious Life Expo, October 2012, popped up on Youtube in January)

During the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse, HAARP was used to prevent the planet from tipping over. (Coast-to-Coast, January)

The scary asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk was a weapon sent by a malevolent extraterrestrial force as a warning. (Coast-to-Coast, February)

I have successfully measured the torsion field. The predictions of the model are overwhelmingly confirmed. (Red Ice Radio, February)

William Shatner's appearance in the Oscar telecast on 24th February, with a "time travel" theme, was a deliberate hint that JPL would contrive a software failure on the Curiosity Mars rover a week later. (Coast-to-Coast, March)

Neil Armstrong likened himself to a parrot in his 25th anniversary speech at the White House. (Awake & Aware conference, Glendale)

The Accutron is a really robust portable field sensor that allows me to monitor the changes in the field strength in and around these sacred sites. (Coast-to-Coast, July)

Someone's living on the Moon.  (Coast-to-Coast, July)

I was the first to publish the hypothesis that Europa might have an ocean under its icy crust. (Coast-to-Coast, July)

The Apollo 15 "Hammer and feather" demo was my idea. (Coast-to-Coast, July)

An image from Surveyor 6 clearly shows a glass dome on the Lunar horizon. (Art Bell on Sirius XM, September) (additional link)

The Chinese Chang'e 3  spacecraft was deliberately landed at 19.5° longitude on the Moon as a message to extraterrestrial intelligence (Coast-to-Coast, December)

====================

BARA 

(not including the additional lies in Ancient Aliens on Mars)

====================

Seven astronauts were killed on the Columbia space shuttle because NASA switched to "green" insulating foam on the external fuel tank. The original foam never broke off.  (January, FB)

There's an obvious red stripe on the Moonrock we call 'Data's Head.' (Youtube, January and Higherside Chats, March)

Dark Mission and The Choice were both international best sellers. (Notes for Conscious Life, January)

When you're in the middle of a meteor shower, they come at you from all directions. (FB, February)

The lunar craters Asada and Proclus A are satellite dishes. They don't look like it on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images (which are far, far, better than the ones Bara shows) because NASA has "sanitized" them. (Fringe Radio Network, February)

Historical flooding on Mars confirms Hoagland's "Tidal Model". (FB, February)

James Webb was the first NASA Administrator. (Dark Matters Radio, March)

It's been 53 years since the invention of the rocket, and we've made no advance since then. (Dark Matters Radio, March)

All the energy in the universe comes from higher dimensions. (Dark Matters Radio, March)

The landing site & time of Apollo 16 were contrived so that the constellation Orion would be at an elevation of 33°. (Dark Matters Radio, March and Higherside Chats, March)

Apollo 13 required an unusual number of mid-course corrections on the return journey because it was not benefiting from the spinning gyros. (Dark Matters Radio, March)

The Moon regulates the Earth's magnetic field. This is not accepted by conventional astronomy but is well explained by hyperdimensional physics. (Higherside Chats, March)

Mars has a really elliptical orbit. (Higherside Chats, March)

Lunar glass is twice as strong as steel. (Higherside Chats, March and Inception Radio, June)

Apollo astronauts brought back technology. (Higherside Chats, March)

During the Apollo missions, 'Santa Claus' was a code word for UFOs. (Higherside Chats, March)

Isis Avenue and 33rd St intersect. Right there is a pyramid and an occult symbol. (Originally from a CEF Research conference, 2008, revived on Bara's blog)

Direct imaging of a large planet 56 AU from HD 95086 "Totally supports the fission model of planetary formation." (FB, June)

There are unmistakable glass towers at Sinus Medii. (Inception Radio, June)

Terry James, a.k.a. kksamurai, was not the originator of the Lunar ziggurat image. (Inception Radio, June)

A newly-discovered exoplanet of star GJ 504 "fits the solar fission theory perfectly." (Bara blog, August)

There is no such thing as pareidolia. (Bara blog, October)

My critics (and I assume he includes me) have been sexually harassing my FBgfs. (Coast-to-Coast, October and also in print, in the foreword to AAoM)

There are gobs of alien bases on the Moon, many of which I document in my recent book. (Bara blog, November)

No more indexes

        I won't be doing a blog index this year -- or, indeed, ever again. Although the indexes are kinda fun to do, and undeniably useful, they're a lot of work.

        When I want to find something within the blog, I use google advanced search restricting the search to just this blog. Easier than going through the indexes.

Latitude and longitude

        Biggie congrats to the Chinese Space Agency, that successfully landed Chang'e 3 and deployed the Yutu rover at 44.1143°N, 19.5149°W on the Moon. Here's a permalink to the landing site in the ACT-REACT LRO lunar map.

        Richard Hoagland was torn from his nice warm bed to comment on this event with C2C host John B. Wells last night. He went straight for the least useful aspect of it -- the numerology.

Long, not Lat, Richard dear
        For at least 15 years Hoagland has been telling us (screaming, it seems like) that the 19.5° latitude is extra special. Magic. Ritual. Hyperdimensional. In support of this, he has cited Jupiter's red spot, Olympus Mons, Neptune's dark spot and Mauna Kea. All of which are NOT at 19.5°, but that's perhaps a minor detail. Now suddenly it's the 19.5° longitude that's magic/ritual/hyperdimensional, as Hoagland proclaims that the Chinese know all about the ritual and observed it correctly. Richard Hoagland is confused, you might say. If you were less charitable you might say Hoagland is crazy.

The ETs know, y'know
        It got worse. He went sailing off into a total fantasy about how this was China's message to the extraterrestrial intelligences. Something along the lines of "Look you guys, we're the ones to talk to as representatives of Planet Earth. See how LEET we are -- the Americans are crap, basically"

        I would have collapsed laughing if I hadn't already been collapsed in bed at the next bit. He said the choice of 19.5° longitude would have sealed the deal. The ET high command would be thinking "Hmmm, these Chinese really understand. The magic 19.5, WOW!!" This would require that a) The ETs chose exactly the same point on the Moon to designate as the 0° longitude, b) They count in decimals, and c) They also divide a circle into 360 degrees.

        Richard Hoagland is very confused. My message to the Chinese: WELL DONE. To Coast-to-Coast: GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Robert Morningstar on C2C last night

(revised with thanks to 'Trekker' who corrected my first draft)

       Robert Morningstar describes himself as a "civilian intelligence analyst." I think he's a buffoon in the mold of Hoagland & Bara. He says this Apollo image shows a crashed spacecraft on the far side of the Moon:

        The craters in that frame don't have names, but the nearest named craters are Diderot and Delporte. Judging by their known diameters (20 km and 45 km respectively,) the "object" is about 10 km long.

        My message to Morningstar, Hoagland, Bara: IT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH to show a 40 year old image whose resolution might  be ~25 m/px, and fail to examine the far better images in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image library. Here is one of them, from the WAC* to confirm that the same craters are nearby. The crashed spacecraft is in the center of that frame, and looks less like an object and more like a depression.

       That was at 125 m/px. Zooming to 8 brings in the NAC* image and the feature fills the frame.  Oh look --  a 10 km long spacecraft with craters on it!

       Morningstar says this is an Apollo 12 image, but in fact it's from the Apollo 15 pan camera, and therefore would have had a resolution of ~2 m/px. It's frame number AS15-P-9625¹, one of a stereo pair (with 9630.) Here it is, folks.

Artillery fire
        By the way, Morningstar's discussion of paired lunar craters of the exact same size was too precious for words. There are too many of these to be natural, he asserted. Artillery fire is a more likely explanation. George Noory didn't bat an eyelid.

        Friar Occam, you're needed on the overnight radio. AGAIN.

Cockpit voice recorders
        Data Storage Equipment (DSE) was installed in all Apollo Command Modules (and DSEA in Lunar Modules) from Apollo 8 on. The equipment recorded conversation among the crews, and could be dumped at high speed to the ground whenever Mission Control wanted. The point was to have a record of crew conversation while the spacecraft were behind the Moon, just in case something went wrong. Morningstar mentioned this as though he'd just personally discovered this Great Secret, eliding the fact that it's been well discussed on Internet forums for many years now. He made a total ass of himself by stating that the DSE was installed "without the crews' knowledge." Oh dear, oh dear.

=============================
[1] The P is not an identifier of the film magazine, as Morningstar alleged. It identifies the pan camera (details here, if anyone's interested.) He was also wrong in stating that NASA identifies Apollo film magazines by a single letter. The ID was a number-letter combo.

Update: The Lunar and Planetary Institute does actually use letter-only mag IDs, and there is in fact a magazine P in their nomenclature. However, the filenames of the images themselves follow NASA practice and use a number. So it's still true that AS15-P-9625 means the Apollo 15 pan camera, not mag P.

* WAC and NAC mean Wide Angle Camera and Narrow Angle Camera, on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Hoagland: A (fake) psych. eval.

Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 15:01:41
From: enterprisemission2001@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Your Ritual Alignment Model falsified
To: [expat]
CC: mikebara33@gmail.com


You REALLY need psychological help for your (obvious) continuing pathological obsession;


[...redacted...]

RCH

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2013
From: [expat]
Subject: Re: Your Ritual Alignment Model falsified
To: enterprisemission2001@yahoo.com
CC: mikebara33@gmail.com

Greetings....

I took your advice and sought psychological help for my "(obvious) continuing pathological obsession" (your words). I was referred to Eunice Rufe Snow, MD, PA, of the Institute for Advanced Psychiatry, 6015 Harris Parkway, Suite 110, Fort Worth, TX 76132. Dr Rufe Snow's report, somewhat redacted, is attached.

General
Mr Martin Blaise was referred for suspected Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (OCD). I evaluated this pt over the course of four sessions in November 2013.

Mr Blaise is a [redacted] year old engineering consultant living at [redacted]. A former television documentary producer/writer, he is an expert on the history of spaceflight. He has a bachelor's degree in physics and electrical engineering from [redacted]. He is the author or co-author of the following seven books: [redacted].

Report of pt
Pt reported a persistent desire to point out, in the most emphatic way possible, errors in the work of Richard C. Hoagland. To this end he has maintained a blog since April 2008, and has also engaged in several e-mail exchanges with Hoagland. He reports, however, that this activity is spare-time only and never interferes with his professional life.

Psych. eval.
The standard Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was unremarkable, with low psychasthenia.

The Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AGQ) showed low hostility (0.19) and very low anger (0.04).

Score on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale was 7. I consider that sub-clinical, although some workers would regard it as borderline.

Casework
Richard C. Hoagland is a low-achieving media personality. Since concluding a NASA contract in 1983, his professional activity has been restricted to authorship of just one book and co-authorship of a second. He has made professional appearances at several conferences whose general topic has been paranormal phenomena. In addition, he has contributed hundreds of articles to an amateur web site, many of which have been in the form of never-completed series. I have reviewed all this work.

Hoagland's written work does indeed contain very many technical errors. Pt discussed three of these at length.

1. Von Braun's Secret. This article is invalidated by mathematical error.

2. Ritual Alignment Model. Pt has falsified this proposition comprehensively. The published Table of Coincidence contains 19 errors, per Hoagland's own stated rules.

3. Accutron measurement of the torsion field resulting from planetary alignments. Pt has pointed out that, in all the voluminous work Hoagland has devoted to the topic, not once has an actual measurement been cited. The units in which the torsion field would be measured have not even been stated. Pt has pointed out several other fatal problems with Hoagland's experimental protocol.

Conclusions, recommendations
As a result of my review of Hoagland's work, I detect very strong indications of narcissism and paranoia. Hoagland's description of himself as a scientist, which he patently is not, is highly problematic. Many passages in his book Dark Mission identify him quite positively as paranoid.

I believe Martin Blaise should continue to draw attention to Hoagland's errors, as a public service, as long as this activity does not interfere with his professional duties or family commitments.

Eunice Rufe Snow, MD, PA
12.2.2013



PS. The above is an imaginary scenario whose sole intent is to mock Richard C. Hoagland. There is no such person as Eunice Rufe Snow, MD, PA.

Another entertaining e-mail exchange with an author

Entertaining and character-revealing....

21 nov 12:43pm
From: expat
To: Mike Bara (mikebara33@gmail.com)
cc: Richard Hoagland (enterprisemission2001@yahoo.com)
Subj: That Second Viking Orbiter Image

I note that in your recent book AA on Mars (p.92) you hand-wavingly estimate the "walk" of the Viking Orbiter on successive orbits as "between 15 and more than 20.4 miles." Could you not have been more precise? Here -- allow me to do your math for you:

DATA:
Orbit of Viking 1: Polar, 24.66 hours
Rotation period of Mars: 24.622 hours
Equatorial radius of Mars: 2110 miles
Latitude of Cydonia: ~40°N

During one Viking orbit, Mars rotates 360 x 24.66 / 24.622 degrees.
That's slightly more than a full rotation -- 360.55°.
So when Viking came around to 40°N latitude again, the "face" was 0.55° cross-track

Rotational circumference at 40° is 2.π.2210.cos40 = 2 x 3.1416 x 2210 x 0.766 = 10,636 miles
Walk for 0.55° = 10636 x 0.55 / 360 = 16.25 miles.

Given that the width of the frame on the ground is 34 miles, quite clearly you are in error when you write that there could have been no second image of Owen Mesa. Please see that the book is corrected for any second edition.

Regards,
expat

21 nov 2:36pm
From: Mike Bara
To: expat

It was after dark at Cydonia, you fucking shitheap of an idiot

21 nov 2:50pm
From: expat
To: Mike Bara

Not so, the planet had completed a full revolution plus a bit, so the sun angle would have been only slightly different.

Your insults, as ever, are of no interest.

Please see that the book is corrected at 2nd edn, if there is one. Thank you.

22 nov 10:49am
From: Mike Bara
To: expat

Eat shit and die

Sent from my iPad

Now Mike Bara is a "professional UFO investigator"

So much the better -- the more he pontificates about UFOs the less time he'll have to fuck up astronomy and the history of spaceflight. I wonder what kind of exams you have to pass to get credentialed as a real pro?

        What am I talking about? Mike's new TV show, Uncovering Aliens. Derrel Sims, Maureen Elsberry, Steve Jones and MB will be doing their level best to breathe some new life into this very tired topic as they trudge around hotspots like Sedona and Rendlesham Forest. I can practically write the script in  my head. Every sequence will end with a question like "COULD THIS HAVE BEEN the work of ALIENS?" Conjecture will substitute for fact, and nothing resembling science will ever raise its head.

        The show is scheduled on Animal Planet in December, at air times well past peak hours, and it'll probably repeat as endlessly as Ancient Aliens. Good luck in your new profession, Mike!! You were a total nincompoop at writing about astronomy — UFOlogy is a field in which incompetence doesn't even get noticed. I think you may have found your niche.