The new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter , designed to provide high-resolution photos of the Lunar surface for the planned return to the Moon, has photographed the equipment and even some of the footprints left behind by the original landings forty years ago. The final stake through the heart of the we-never-landed-on-the-Moon-it-was-faked theory.
Of course, it never made a lick of sense anyway.
Showing posts with label Conspiracies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conspiracies. Show all posts
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Conspiracy index
Do you believe the whole world is out to get you, but have trouble keeping the players straight? For your convenience, The Telegraph has provided this handy index to the top 30 conspiracies.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Update to 9/11 conspiracies
On this fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack, the talk shows are still full of the conspiracy theorists. Although I have tackled the subject before, CUUMBAYA: 9/11 Conspiracies I thought I would take one more stab at getting those who still believe in those conspiracies to see reason.
The central issue is “Would the buildings really have collapsed in the manner we all witnessed?” All else hinges on this; if the buildings really were brought down by the aircraft that hit them rather than by demolition charges, all the other silly claims fall like the buildings themselves did. As all the explanations as to why they couldn’t have been brought down in the manner explained by the 9/11 commission are based on misunderstandings of physics and construction techniques, I thought I’d try to explain it in lay terms. Disclaimer: I am not a working engineer, but I did start in engineering at Purdue before changing to another trade- I feel that may be an advantage as unlike a graduate engineer, I still speak English rather than technobabble.
Most materials are much stronger under tension (pulling on it, like a rope) or compression (just what it sounds like) than any other type of stress. For example, an arrow is strong enough under compression to punch all the way through a large animal like a deer- but has so little strength under a bending load that you can easily bend and break it with your bare hands. In fact, the impact energy that arrow shaft withstands is probably greater than your weight, unless you’re as fat as I am. So could we use an arrow as the shaft of a bar stool?
No- because that arrow is only so strong when all the forces acting on it are perfectly aligned along the shaft, as in flight. In fact, even then if it doesn’t hit straight, it will shatter- ask any bow hunter. There is no possibility that you could sit on it without causing it to bend, which will cause it to shatter. Suppose we were to use a dozen arrow shafts, spaced evenly, so that the stool resembles a bird cage, making it twelve times as strong- would that work? No- strength wasn’t the issue in the first place; bending was. Each of those twelve shafts would be just as likely to bend and break as a single shaft would; there is nothing to prevent this flexing. Now suppose we put several shelves inside the birdcage, rigidly attached to the arrow shafts- they are no longer permitted to flex or bend, and we now have an enormously strong, lightweight stool. This is how the Trade Center towers were built.
Suppose while you’re sitting on the stool somebody kicks it and breaks some of those shafts- does your stool break in half and fall over to the broken side? No- because those rigid shelves prevent the shafts from bending, so the force is distributed to the remaining shafts... but the stress on them is enormous. Now break one of those shelves- what happens? The remaining shafts will instantly shatter at the point where they are now allowed to flex- it will happen so fast that your butt will still be centered over the base. There is simply no time for the weight to fall over sideways; the shafts will go with explosive force and you’ll fall vertically.
There is actually an experiment you can do at home to demonstrate this phenomenon; it requires an empty beer can and two pencils. Stand the can up on end, kneel down, and place one foot on the can. You can put quite a bit of weight on it- in fact, if you use two people (one to steady the other) the can will support the weight of a small adult... as long as that weight is PERFECTLY centered. Now reach down with the pencils and poke both sides of the can. (we poke both sides so that the metal will bend rather than pushing the can sideways) The can will instantly collapse, completely vertically, leaving a flat disk! This is also, by the way, what happened to the plane that struck the Pentagon, and why there is such a small hole- an airplane is a nearly empty hollow aluminum tube, just like that beer can, 99% air.
But back to the building. I can hear the conspiracy nuts now- “Yes, yes, I get it- the floors of the Tower were like the shelves in your bar stool; once one or two went, the structural members shattered and the towers dropped vertically... but it’s a scientific fact that jet fuel does not burn hot enough to have melted those floors! get around that one, smart guy!” Never- with the possible exception of Paris Hilton’s attempt to prove herself an actress- has so much bandwidth been spent trying to prove a non-issue. Nobody ever claimed the floors melted! Metal begins to loose strength at temperatures far below their melting point; jet fuel burns at a temperature high enough to weaken structural steel by nearly half- but the real damage was done by temperatures even lower than that. Hot metal expands- look at any steel highway bridge and you’ll find it sits on rollers or pivots, to allow for several inches of expansion; you’ll also find expansion joints where the steel meets the road, and in-between two steel sections... and that’s just for a hot summer day! At hundreds of degrees, those floors would have expanded a couple feet or more, and probably twisted and bowed as well- instead of preventing the structural shafts from flexing, they were introducing flex where none had been before, while simultaneously those structural members were carrying a greater load than they had been designed for. Of course they went bang- the forces concentrated on those points were greater than the energy contained in the demolition charges normally used to raze a building.
“But look at the cleanup,” the conspiracy nuts say, “weeks later, girders pulled from the hole were still cherry-red and dripping! Jet fuel couldn’t have burned hot enough for them to still be cherry weeks later; it must have been thermite charges used to melt the floors!” As I said before, the jet fuel didn’t melt the floors; in fact, it would have burned itself out within minutes- the fuel merely served as lighter fluid. And yes, thermite could have melted the girders- but a thermite charge burns out in seconds, perhaps minutes if it were a really big one. For the steel to still be hot weeks later merely proves that the fire was still raging under the rubble! Those building were filled with things that are not normally particularly flammable, but if adequately fueled would have burned long and hot- and adequate fuel there was in abundance. The many lower levels of the building contained many machines with flammable fuels and greases; large gas and diesel tanks for emergency generators; natural gas lines- and, of course, a hundred stories of carpets, paneling, and furniture. There are coal-mine fires that burned for decades underground, and a used tire fire burned for nine months - these fires are nothing in comparison.
So come on, people, do a little research before you call the talk shows or write your chicken-little blogs or- God save the mark!- teach a college class . The Dixie Chicks are embarrassed that Bush is from Texas? I’m embarrassed that a third of my countrymen can swallow a camel of a conspiracy theory and strain at a gnat of logic.
The central issue is “Would the buildings really have collapsed in the manner we all witnessed?” All else hinges on this; if the buildings really were brought down by the aircraft that hit them rather than by demolition charges, all the other silly claims fall like the buildings themselves did. As all the explanations as to why they couldn’t have been brought down in the manner explained by the 9/11 commission are based on misunderstandings of physics and construction techniques, I thought I’d try to explain it in lay terms. Disclaimer: I am not a working engineer, but I did start in engineering at Purdue before changing to another trade- I feel that may be an advantage as unlike a graduate engineer, I still speak English rather than technobabble.
Most materials are much stronger under tension (pulling on it, like a rope) or compression (just what it sounds like) than any other type of stress. For example, an arrow is strong enough under compression to punch all the way through a large animal like a deer- but has so little strength under a bending load that you can easily bend and break it with your bare hands. In fact, the impact energy that arrow shaft withstands is probably greater than your weight, unless you’re as fat as I am. So could we use an arrow as the shaft of a bar stool?
No- because that arrow is only so strong when all the forces acting on it are perfectly aligned along the shaft, as in flight. In fact, even then if it doesn’t hit straight, it will shatter- ask any bow hunter. There is no possibility that you could sit on it without causing it to bend, which will cause it to shatter. Suppose we were to use a dozen arrow shafts, spaced evenly, so that the stool resembles a bird cage, making it twelve times as strong- would that work? No- strength wasn’t the issue in the first place; bending was. Each of those twelve shafts would be just as likely to bend and break as a single shaft would; there is nothing to prevent this flexing. Now suppose we put several shelves inside the birdcage, rigidly attached to the arrow shafts- they are no longer permitted to flex or bend, and we now have an enormously strong, lightweight stool. This is how the Trade Center towers were built.
Suppose while you’re sitting on the stool somebody kicks it and breaks some of those shafts- does your stool break in half and fall over to the broken side? No- because those rigid shelves prevent the shafts from bending, so the force is distributed to the remaining shafts... but the stress on them is enormous. Now break one of those shelves- what happens? The remaining shafts will instantly shatter at the point where they are now allowed to flex- it will happen so fast that your butt will still be centered over the base. There is simply no time for the weight to fall over sideways; the shafts will go with explosive force and you’ll fall vertically.
There is actually an experiment you can do at home to demonstrate this phenomenon; it requires an empty beer can and two pencils. Stand the can up on end, kneel down, and place one foot on the can. You can put quite a bit of weight on it- in fact, if you use two people (one to steady the other) the can will support the weight of a small adult... as long as that weight is PERFECTLY centered. Now reach down with the pencils and poke both sides of the can. (we poke both sides so that the metal will bend rather than pushing the can sideways) The can will instantly collapse, completely vertically, leaving a flat disk! This is also, by the way, what happened to the plane that struck the Pentagon, and why there is such a small hole- an airplane is a nearly empty hollow aluminum tube, just like that beer can, 99% air.
But back to the building. I can hear the conspiracy nuts now- “Yes, yes, I get it- the floors of the Tower were like the shelves in your bar stool; once one or two went, the structural members shattered and the towers dropped vertically... but it’s a scientific fact that jet fuel does not burn hot enough to have melted those floors! get around that one, smart guy!” Never- with the possible exception of Paris Hilton’s attempt to prove herself an actress- has so much bandwidth been spent trying to prove a non-issue. Nobody ever claimed the floors melted! Metal begins to loose strength at temperatures far below their melting point; jet fuel burns at a temperature high enough to weaken structural steel by nearly half- but the real damage was done by temperatures even lower than that. Hot metal expands- look at any steel highway bridge and you’ll find it sits on rollers or pivots, to allow for several inches of expansion; you’ll also find expansion joints where the steel meets the road, and in-between two steel sections... and that’s just for a hot summer day! At hundreds of degrees, those floors would have expanded a couple feet or more, and probably twisted and bowed as well- instead of preventing the structural shafts from flexing, they were introducing flex where none had been before, while simultaneously those structural members were carrying a greater load than they had been designed for. Of course they went bang- the forces concentrated on those points were greater than the energy contained in the demolition charges normally used to raze a building.
“But look at the cleanup,” the conspiracy nuts say, “weeks later, girders pulled from the hole were still cherry-red and dripping! Jet fuel couldn’t have burned hot enough for them to still be cherry weeks later; it must have been thermite charges used to melt the floors!” As I said before, the jet fuel didn’t melt the floors; in fact, it would have burned itself out within minutes- the fuel merely served as lighter fluid. And yes, thermite could have melted the girders- but a thermite charge burns out in seconds, perhaps minutes if it were a really big one. For the steel to still be hot weeks later merely proves that the fire was still raging under the rubble! Those building were filled with things that are not normally particularly flammable, but if adequately fueled would have burned long and hot- and adequate fuel there was in abundance. The many lower levels of the building contained many machines with flammable fuels and greases; large gas and diesel tanks for emergency generators; natural gas lines- and, of course, a hundred stories of carpets, paneling, and furniture. There are coal-mine fires that burned for decades underground, and a used tire fire burned for nine months - these fires are nothing in comparison.
So come on, people, do a little research before you call the talk shows or write your chicken-little blogs or- God save the mark!- teach a college class . The Dixie Chicks are embarrassed that Bush is from Texas? I’m embarrassed that a third of my countrymen can swallow a camel of a conspiracy theory and strain at a gnat of logic.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
9/11 Conspiracies
This month’s Popular Mechanics magazine has an editorial letter from Senator John McCain about the various wingnut 9/11 conspiracy theories. Hardly surprising that they are still news, I guess, with 36% of the American people believing it’s possible, Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy , but it’s still disheartening that it’s necessary to even print it. On the off-chance one of your friends believes this crap, here’s a few resources to show them: 9/11: Debunking The Myths , Pentagon & Boeing 757 Engine Investigation , and Pentagon & Boeing 757 Ground Effect that address most of the conspiracy theories in layman’s terms.
What amazes me is the mentality of the conspiracy nuts. They doubt the word of the mainstream media- which is fine, any intelligent person does- but then accept as gospel the word of home-grown “experts” on the internet without demanding their credentials and without peer review of their competing claims. It never occurs to them that if there was anything at all to their claims, if they were as “obvious” to trained engineers as they claim, foreign governments would leap at the chance to damage Bush and/or the U.S. by publicizing it- but of course, not even Cuba or North Korea or Iran is willing to put their national prestige behind claims that can be debunked that easily. Nor does it bother them that of all the people who would have to have been involved- the CIA, most of the upper Pentagon brass, the airlines involved, civilian air traffic control, the building demolition experts (and there aren’t that many capable of guaranteeing the results desired, they could be tracked down easily), no one has come forward.
They are great at examining the official timeline, but never consider the timeline of a conspiracy. Bush had only been in office less than 8 months, and hadn’t had his own people confirmed in place for more than weeks; many of the necessary people mentioned above were still Clinton personnel. (unless this was actually a Clinton plot to ruin Bush’s first term...) Bush would have had only weeks to conceive of the plot, recruit hundreds if not thousands of top government and military staff so loyal to him personally that they were willing to commit treason and mass murder for their beloved leader, run feasibility studies, arrange secret financing, pull it off, then cover up so perfectly that not only was the Congressional inquiry fooled, but also the intelligence services of the world- even the nations that hate us. To believe those theories is to believe Bush to be the most brilliantly competent conspirator in history.
Yes, disheartening. Disheartening to think that there are so many citizens who vote and serve on juries who can believe in such things, and even one Congresswoman- Cynthia McKinnon. I know P.T. Barnum said there was one born every minute, but I had always hoped that was mere hyperbole.
What amazes me is the mentality of the conspiracy nuts. They doubt the word of the mainstream media- which is fine, any intelligent person does- but then accept as gospel the word of home-grown “experts” on the internet without demanding their credentials and without peer review of their competing claims. It never occurs to them that if there was anything at all to their claims, if they were as “obvious” to trained engineers as they claim, foreign governments would leap at the chance to damage Bush and/or the U.S. by publicizing it- but of course, not even Cuba or North Korea or Iran is willing to put their national prestige behind claims that can be debunked that easily. Nor does it bother them that of all the people who would have to have been involved- the CIA, most of the upper Pentagon brass, the airlines involved, civilian air traffic control, the building demolition experts (and there aren’t that many capable of guaranteeing the results desired, they could be tracked down easily), no one has come forward.
They are great at examining the official timeline, but never consider the timeline of a conspiracy. Bush had only been in office less than 8 months, and hadn’t had his own people confirmed in place for more than weeks; many of the necessary people mentioned above were still Clinton personnel. (unless this was actually a Clinton plot to ruin Bush’s first term...) Bush would have had only weeks to conceive of the plot, recruit hundreds if not thousands of top government and military staff so loyal to him personally that they were willing to commit treason and mass murder for their beloved leader, run feasibility studies, arrange secret financing, pull it off, then cover up so perfectly that not only was the Congressional inquiry fooled, but also the intelligence services of the world- even the nations that hate us. To believe those theories is to believe Bush to be the most brilliantly competent conspirator in history.
Yes, disheartening. Disheartening to think that there are so many citizens who vote and serve on juries who can believe in such things, and even one Congresswoman- Cynthia McKinnon. I know P.T. Barnum said there was one born every minute, but I had always hoped that was mere hyperbole.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Who killed the electric car?
This is the title and subject of a new documentary out this week. I haven’t seen it, nor do I plan to- it’s the kind of movie that makes me heave a mighty sigh. Why do we have to assign conspiracy to everything we disagree with or disapprove of?
Don’t get me wrong; from what I’ve read, this is no Michael Moore propaganda piece- the facts are accurate, and not artificially sensationalized. But facts are not truths. Nobody “killed” the electric car, there is no conspiracy to keep electric cars off the market- they simply are not yet a viable option for enough car buyers to sell them profitably. Nor does the nation have the infrastructure to support them if we bought them. Nor would they reduce pollution- they would merely shift it to different venues.
The key log in the electric car traffic jam is the question of infrastructure. We simply do not have the electric generating capacity to recharge millions of electric cars. Depending on size and performance, electric cars need between 12 and 25 kilowatt-hours to fully charge- let’s use 15 kwh for a low average. 15 kwh times 75 million cars (there are actually 400 million cars registered in the US, but only 75 million in use on any given work day) equals one and an eighth billion kwh... on top of what we’re already using! The electric grid doesn’t have even a fraction of that available- the only reason we’re not having rolling blackouts during the current heat wave is that people have learned from past blackouts and are turning their thermostats up and their large appliances off. I think an automobile qualifies as a “large appliance”. Nor are any more power plants being built or even planned- ironically, the same environmentalists who want us to drive electric cars are preventing us from building new generators.
Infrastructure means more than generating power- you also have to deliver it, and we can’t. Every “destination” facility- hotels and motels, convention centers, sports arenas, ball parks, amusement centers, museums, state and national parks, resorts- would need a recharge socket for every parking slot. After all, the entire point of these places is to draw crowds from hundreds of miles away- go to any Cincinnati Reds game and you’ll find the parking lot full of Indianapolis license plates; without a recharge socket, not one of those cars would be there. No tourist attraction could survive depending on only those within round-trip (25-35 miles) range. Each facility would require the electrical service of a major factory, which means tens of thousands of miles of high-tension lines strung through virgin countryside, something else the environmentalists are not crazy about.
The infrastructure question alone means that the electric car can never be the only car in a family; it would have to be a second car, used only for work and shopping trips. Especially in the suburban and rural communities- you’ll notice that all the rave revues electric cars get are from people who live in big cities, where everything is close together. This would keep sales so low that the price per unit becomes unbearable- according to Wikipedia, the cost of the EV1 (the car the movie was about) was $40,000 without subsidies, the Honda EV Plus $53,000, Ford Ranger EV $50,000 without subsidies. In addition, those prices do not include the taxpayer subsidized research that went into the cars mentioned above- I saw one estimate that the true cost of the EV1, including everything that was needed to take concept to street, divided by the number of vehicles actually produced, would have been $900,000 each.
This is why serious environmentalists are concentrating on hybrid and hydrogen technologies instead of battery powered cars. A hydrogen fueled internal combustion vehicle has all the advantages of a gasoline car, the zero emissions an electric car promises but doesn‘t truly deliver, (the power plant that recharges it, at least here in Indiana, belches coal smoke) and no toxic batteries to dispose of in hazardous waste facilities. And, as all the technology except the fuel tank is off-the-shelf, it would be priced competitively with the gasoline vehicle. Is it any wonder car companies are turning their attention there, rather than the EV1? No conspiracy, only reality.
Don’t get me wrong; from what I’ve read, this is no Michael Moore propaganda piece- the facts are accurate, and not artificially sensationalized. But facts are not truths. Nobody “killed” the electric car, there is no conspiracy to keep electric cars off the market- they simply are not yet a viable option for enough car buyers to sell them profitably. Nor does the nation have the infrastructure to support them if we bought them. Nor would they reduce pollution- they would merely shift it to different venues.
The key log in the electric car traffic jam is the question of infrastructure. We simply do not have the electric generating capacity to recharge millions of electric cars. Depending on size and performance, electric cars need between 12 and 25 kilowatt-hours to fully charge- let’s use 15 kwh for a low average. 15 kwh times 75 million cars (there are actually 400 million cars registered in the US, but only 75 million in use on any given work day) equals one and an eighth billion kwh... on top of what we’re already using! The electric grid doesn’t have even a fraction of that available- the only reason we’re not having rolling blackouts during the current heat wave is that people have learned from past blackouts and are turning their thermostats up and their large appliances off. I think an automobile qualifies as a “large appliance”. Nor are any more power plants being built or even planned- ironically, the same environmentalists who want us to drive electric cars are preventing us from building new generators.
Infrastructure means more than generating power- you also have to deliver it, and we can’t. Every “destination” facility- hotels and motels, convention centers, sports arenas, ball parks, amusement centers, museums, state and national parks, resorts- would need a recharge socket for every parking slot. After all, the entire point of these places is to draw crowds from hundreds of miles away- go to any Cincinnati Reds game and you’ll find the parking lot full of Indianapolis license plates; without a recharge socket, not one of those cars would be there. No tourist attraction could survive depending on only those within round-trip (25-35 miles) range. Each facility would require the electrical service of a major factory, which means tens of thousands of miles of high-tension lines strung through virgin countryside, something else the environmentalists are not crazy about.
The infrastructure question alone means that the electric car can never be the only car in a family; it would have to be a second car, used only for work and shopping trips. Especially in the suburban and rural communities- you’ll notice that all the rave revues electric cars get are from people who live in big cities, where everything is close together. This would keep sales so low that the price per unit becomes unbearable- according to Wikipedia, the cost of the EV1 (the car the movie was about) was $40,000 without subsidies, the Honda EV Plus $53,000, Ford Ranger EV $50,000 without subsidies. In addition, those prices do not include the taxpayer subsidized research that went into the cars mentioned above- I saw one estimate that the true cost of the EV1, including everything that was needed to take concept to street, divided by the number of vehicles actually produced, would have been $900,000 each.
This is why serious environmentalists are concentrating on hybrid and hydrogen technologies instead of battery powered cars. A hydrogen fueled internal combustion vehicle has all the advantages of a gasoline car, the zero emissions an electric car promises but doesn‘t truly deliver, (the power plant that recharges it, at least here in Indiana, belches coal smoke) and no toxic batteries to dispose of in hazardous waste facilities. And, as all the technology except the fuel tank is off-the-shelf, it would be priced competitively with the gasoline vehicle. Is it any wonder car companies are turning their attention there, rather than the EV1? No conspiracy, only reality.
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