Rene-NASA-Mooned-America

Gotchas ! / Chap. 17 p. 148
The LEM's hatch would have to be a minimum of 35 inches high. NASA never mentioned
that an astro-not would have had to wriggle on his belly, like a snake, to get through the
hatch. How come Gotcha, NASA!
GOTCHA # 6
The LEM consisted of an upper pressurized ascent unit whose function was to pilot the
whole unit down to the moon using the large rocket motor in the lower unpressurized descent
unit. To escape from the Moon, the upper ascent stage would then blast free from the
lower part and ferry the Moon-walkers back to orbit to link with the command module. This
ugly insect consisted of jutting angles and flat planes. Any first year structural engineering
student would know enough to design a pressure vessel as a sphere, but the moron who
designed the LEM didn't seem to know this.
So the NASA apologists can't claim that the LEM was not pressurized, we have this
statement about the Apollo 11 LEM; "They worked their way to the ladder and squeezed
into their "flight deck," and sealed and pressurized their cabin." 13
On page 160, of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of SPACE TECHNOLOGY there is a cut
away drawing of the LEM. It has been drawn to scale and from that I determined that there
was at least one large flat panel with dimensions of 3 feet across and 4 feet high. Another
section of the drawing shows that the ribs are on 6 inch centers. I assume this section to be
typical and that the rest of the LEM was ribbed the same way.
Aldrin speaks of the LEM's ribs thusly, "...and there were ominous corrosion cracks
in the LM's paper-thin aluminum ribs." 14 A tissue paper thought here raises its thin head.
Since the support ribs of vehicles, vessels and structures are always much thicker than their
covering, you can imagine what the hull thickness must have been.
Continuing with the dissection at hand, I shall assume that the designers correctly put
the ribs across the shortest span. The LEM was pressurized in space to 5.2 pounds. That's the
minimal pressure needed to sustain life on a long term basis. Such being the case, and since
there are 144 square inches to each square foot, the hull was under a load of 750 pounds per
square foot. Compare this with 30 pounds per square foot allowed, and designed for on the
floor of your home, or with the 200 lb/sq ft loading of commercial warehouses.
This simply means that each rib (6 inches on center) had to carry 1100 pounds. In
structural engineering, loading is translated into a concept called the Maximum Bending
Moment (MBM) which is measured in inch pounds. For a beam (rib) supported on both ends
and carrying a load the formula is W x L / 8, where W is the load in pounds and L is the span
in inches. Therefore the Maximum Bending Moment for each rib is
1100 x 36 / 8 or 4,950-inch pounds.
The restraining moment needed to support this load is found by determining a thing
called the Section Modulus (SM). This is found by dividing the MBM by the working tensile
strength of the material involved. I don't know which particular aluminum alloy was used,
nor do I figure I will live long enough for NASA to answer my letters, but since all
aluminum alloys have less strength than steel, I shall pretend that the paper-thin ribs he
NASA MOONED AMERICA! / Rene