Saturday, August 3, 2019

Exploring the outer reaches of ignorance with Joseph A. Olson

        Olson is a civil engineer, one of eight authors of Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory (Stairway, 2011) and a climate change denier. In an undated online article, and in a guest appearance on Coast to Coast AM on 1st August, he turned out to be an Apollo denier as well.

        I haven't read Olson's book, and I have no plans to (an Amazon user reviewer wrote "A collection of blog posts wrapped in a self-published vanity piece by a bunch of bat-shit insane conspiracy theorists"), but if his climate denial is anything like his Apollo denial, ignoring it is the kindest treatment you could give it.

        The undated article is titled Perplexing Apollo Questions for NASA, and it's a brilliant example of why you should never believe what you read on the Internet. Olson pops up an infographic of the 3-stage Saturn V rocket, and takes us through the fuel loading of each stage and the contribution each stage made to Apollo's journey, ending with "NASA claims that the third stage, called S-IVB, then boosted speed to 24,500 mph and carried the Apollo capsule to the Moon." He then continues with this astounding nonsense:
"Neglecting the necessary first and third stage fuel, we will for layman discussion, assume that the 340,000 gallons of stage twonote 1 are all that was needed to escape Earth’s gravity, therefore 1/6 of that would be necessary to escape the Moons gravity. Given that Apollo must use a similar amount of fuel to slow approach, and use retrorockets to land with another 1/6 to land. Therefore to land and take off, the Lunar Lander would have required at least 1/3 of stage two volume, or 110,000 gallons of fuel.
NASA WHERE IS THE LANDER FUEL STORAGE?"
        Well, let's see. Stage 2 (S-II) only got Apollo as far as Earth orbit. In "neglecting" the third stage (S-IVB) Olson has neglected exactly what he should be using as the basis for his dodgy calculations. That stage is what enabled Apollo to escape Earth gravity, with 66,000 gallons LH2, 19,000 gallons LOX (85,000 gallons total). And then—astonishing for a man who has some sort of training in engineering—he utterly neglects the comparitive masses of what the S-IVB and the LM descent and ascent engines needed to accelerate.

Acceleration toward the Moon
The mass the S-IVB propelled Moonwards included:
Itself, 123,000 kgnote 2
The Command and Service Modules (CSM) 30,332 kg
The Lunar Module (LM) 16,400 kg
------------------------------------------
TOTAL 168,732 kg

The thrust of the S-IVB's engines (200 series) was 890,000 newtons
Theoretical acceleration: 5.27 m/sec/sec
Burn time (2nd ignition): 355 sec.

Deceleration on arrival
The CSM/LM stack was initially decelerated by the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine.
Mass to decelerate: 46,732 kg
Thrust: 91,000 newtons
Theoretical  deceleration: 1.95 m/sec/sec
Burn time: 357 sec LOI, 17sec Circ.

The LM descent engine, thrust 45,040 newtons throtlleable, had to decelerate only itself, 16,400 kg. The fuel load was 8,200 kg, approx. 2,000 gallons
Thrust-to-weight in lunar gravity: 1.68
Burn time (Apollo 11): 754 sec.

Acceleration on lunar lift-off
The LM ascent engine, 16,000 newtons, had to accelerate 4,700 kg. The fuel load was 2,353 kg, approx. 540 gallons
Thrust-to-weight in lunar gravity: 2.124
Burn time: 435 sec.

Finally the SPS engine fired again for Trans-Earth Injection. Load 30,332 kg (minus the mass of already-expended fuel), burn time 151 sec.

SUMMARY:
The SPS engine needed to decelerate 27.7% of the mass the S-IVB had to accelerate, with 10% of the thrust and roughly the same burn time.

The LM descent engine only needed to decelerate 9.7% of the mass the S-IVB had to accelerate, using ~2.3% of the fuel volume (albeit fuel of a completely different kind) and 212% of the burn time.

The LM ascent engine needed to accelerate 2.8% of the mass the S-IVB had to accelerate, using ~0.63% of the fuel volume and 122% of the burn time.

Olson's hand-waving fuel arithmetic is utterly ridiculous.


It gets worse

        Olson then shows this drawing, and comes up with this breathtakingly ignorant objection to NASA's description of the mission:
"The claim is that the crew (astroNOTS) boarded the Lander, but there is a rocket engine between these two crafts. ...  and it is doubtful that Armstrong and Aldrin ever spacewalked from the Command to the Landing module before and after their “giant leap” ... There is no airlock on the Apollo capsule,note 3 so the cabin pressure would have gone to zero for both exit and entry to the capsule.
NASA HOW DID THE ASTRONAUTS GET BETWEEN THE MODULES?"
        Of course, the answer is that, once they were on a Moon-bound trajectory and had had the full benefit of the S-IVB's engines, the CSM turned through 180° and docked with the LM, pulling it clear of the S-IVB. I'm pretty sure that many 6th grade schoolkids could tell Olson that, if he asked them.

        C2C has seen many ignorant guests in its time, starting with Richard Hoagland, moving on through Mike Bara, Robert Morningstar, Billy Carson, Maurice Cotterell, Clyde Lewis, Bret Sheppard. I think we've found a new paradigm of ignorance.

==================/ \=================
[1] The actual figures are 260,000 gallons LH2, 83,000 gallons LOX. Close enough, perhaps.

[2] Actually somewhat less, since a part of the Upper stage fuel had already been expended in achieving Earth orbit.

[3] On Coast-to-Coast AM, unbelievably, he actually said "The command module has no docking mechanism".

13 comments:

OneBigMonkey said...

Claims about the adequacy of fuel for the Saturn V as a whole, or a component of it, by people claiming expertise is becoming increasingly common. It's as if the hoax crowd are getting desperate for something to latch on to as their standard fallback positions get blown away by simple demonstrations and thisecpesky fact things.

Rocket science is more complex- I for one don't feel qualified to discuss the accuracy of thrust and fuel loading calculations. A lot of non-experts will assume that anyone presenting such calculations must understand them and therefore be right. Where they fall down (spectacularly in this case) is in not understanding other aspects of the missions, and the fact that the outcomes of the missions prove that they happened.

purpleivan said...

The relative mass of stages stuff was pretty appalling, but then I read that "It get's worse"... how I wondered.

Then you explained how.

Oh dear... oh dear, oh dear.

Either Mr Olsen is trolling and just pretending to be this dense, or he really is just that idiotic.

I think you have dug down to an unknown stratum of nonsense, in the great mud pile that is Apollo denialism.

Anonymous said...

"....and a climate change denier.....but if his climate denial is anything..."

I am sorry but may I remind you if you use claims/justifications/power-terms/ like this you simply use the same strategy as the one you write about.

- What is a climate change denier? Is that some kind of a legal term?
- On what basis is this author a climate change denier?
- Is it because he has another opinion on the subject other then yours?
- And if so, what justification do you have for stating yours as factual?

Shooting like Bill Nye or degrease Tyson using such statements does not make it scientifically correct, it really doesn't

Adrian

Anonymous said...

Addendum to previous post

"...ignoring it is the kindest treatment you could give it."

Olson as a civil engineer, is indeed one of eight authors. If had bothered not to be so ignoring you would have known that


Dr Tim Ball
Dr Claes Johnson
Dr Martin Hertzberg
Dr Charles Anderson
Hans Schreuder
John O’Sullivan
Alan Siddons

maybe have something sensible to say.
It would be nice if you took your hand of the social engineering button because as I gather you are all science and nothing but science right??

Adrian

expat said...

«- What is a climate change denier? Is that some kind of a legal term?»

Someone who does not believe the scientific consensus that this planet is in a runaway warming phase. I don't think it has any legal connotation.


« - On what basis is this author a climate change denier? »

Here's part of the blurb for his book:
"Nine leading international experts methodically expose how willful fakery and outright incompetence were hidden within the politicized realm of government climatology. Applying a thoughtful and sympathetic writing style, the authors help even the untrained mind to navigate the maze of atmospheric thermodynamics. Step-by-step the reader is shown why the so-called greenhouse effect cannot possibly exist in nature. "

« - Is it because he has another opinion on the subject other then yours?»
No
« - And if so, what justification do you have for stating yours as factual?»
n/a

«... as I gather you are all science and nothing but science right?? »

Oh no, oenology and certain outdoor games are my main expertise, but I used to be an acknowledged expert on the Apollo program. I still have a good understanding of it—better than Olson's at any rate.

expat said...

« Either Mr Olsen is trolling and just pretending to be this dense, or he really is just that idiotic. »

It crossed my mind that he might bbe trolling, too. But if you glance at some of his other writings, it's fairly clear that he's a very dim bulb who's had WAAAYYYYYY too much attention from the mass media.

Anonymous said...

"Someone who does not believe the scientific consensus......"
And there you have the problem. consensus is not a scientific criterium or term. For stating such a thing, as many do, one has to ask consensus by whom and what is the total of these 'consensing"scientist's. There are really not that many in reality. The popular phrase " 97% or what have you scientist's agree that" is just a form of social engineering. The real and hard scientific fact that should follow is...97% of what? And that is the key question.

"that this planet is in a runaway warming phase." Is really not the first time. Geology shows over a period of a couple of billions years that this happens all the time, simply followed by a runaway cooling phase.

My point being...one can not have a scientific discussion by simply ignoring stuff that does one does not find agreeable. Thats is simply not science but politics.

Climate, geology and the lot come in to shape based on a "shitload" of parameters. Using a temperature dataset from the late 19th and early 21st century are really not the only paramaters that make up our climate.

if you use
"Nine leading international experts methodically expose how willful fakery and outright incompetence were hidden within the politicized realm of government climatology. Applying a thoughtful and sympathetic writing style, the authors help even the untrained mind to navigate the maze of atmospheric thermodynamics. Step-by-step the reader is shown why the so-called greenhouse effect cannot possibly exist in nature. "

and cal it blurb to answer the question On what basis is this author a climate change denier?
then you are just ranting and blurbing. What kind of scientific response is that to a legitimate question what makes someone a climate change denier. I gather you are intelligent enough to know that the term 'climate change denier' is a political smear-term in order to shut down the argument if one is out of knowledgeable arguments.

And indeed you are a acknowledged expert on the Apollo program and indeed far better then Olson and Mike the Cartman.
I agree he should not have ventured into fields of space without the proper understanding of things.

Adrian


expat said...

It's annoying to me that global warming has become a party-political issue in the USA. I know why, of course—it's because many people only woke up to the crisis when Al gore lent his name to An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. That defined it as a Democrat issue, hence we find extreme right-wing loonies like Mike Bara endorsing false propaganda against it.

OneBigMonkey said...

You don't have to use the publisher's puff as a basis for calling him a climate change denier, just read the articles on his website.

He regards anthropogenic global warming as a scam (his word) pepetuated by elites to get our money. He denies our role in climate change and disputes the science and mathematical models that provide evidence for it, ergo, climate change denier.

Anonymous said...

@the monkey

So therefore in your line reasoning you are a science denier! Making funny ad hoc statements does not make you look smarter :-)
There has always been a climate change and looking at the results of ice core research makes you look even less smart :-)

"He denies our role in climate change...."

Rise in CO2 levels follow rise in temperature as it always did over periods of millions of years. Hint, ice core studies! Only recently some folks have figured out a way to make money out of it by turning the story around. In doing so one spits in the face of science

Adrian

purpleivan said...

Dear Anonymous Mr Adrian.

"Rise in CO2 levels follow rise in temperature as it always did over periods of millions of years. Hint, ice core studies! Only recently some folks have figured out a way to make money out of it by turning the story around. In doing so one spits in the face of science".

That would be your "understanding" of it.

Apparently AGW doesn't spit in the face of the science that has near unanamous support among those scientists who have seriously study the issue, in many cases for decades. As opposed to those who's only qualifications are an internet connection and a point of view.

Anonymous said...

@the imperial Russian

"That would be your "understanding" of it"

another unscientific reflex.
Rise in CO2 levels follow rise in temperature as it always did over periods of millions of years. Hint, ice core studies!
Scientific conclusions based on scientific studies.

No opinion, understanding, twisting or bending of data needed.

"unanamous support among those scientists who have seriously study the issue, in many cases for decades"

And those scientists are??

Adrian



Trekker said...

"Rise in CO2 levels follow rise in temperature". Yes, then that feeds back and further increases temperature. Oceans get warmer, release CO2, then that CO2 further amplifies warming, causing the release of yet more CO2. Temperature and CO2 release feed off each other. The relationship is complex, not simplistic. See the Milankovitch cycles for further cause and effect.