Lunar Atmosphere in Apollo Photographs part II

[Shank]

I broke this presentation off from the first part as it is a separate investigation with little in common with part one other than the conclusion it suggests.  There are no photos showing an atmosphere, rather the photos suggest an atmosphere that includes oxygen may be present at the lunar surface.

A number of years ago I noticed that Reaction Control System exhaust deflectors on all of the Apollo Lunar Modules that had reached the lunar surface had orange or red staining on them, which I assumed must have been deposited by RCS exhaust.  The stains are significant and suggest the presence of oxygen during firing.  Apollo RCS thruster systems used a combination of Aerozine 50 fuel, and Nitrogen Tetraoxide as the oxidizer.  N2O4 vapor in a vacuum is colorless.  In the presence of an oxygen atmosphere it forms an orange vapor.   If the moon is surrounded by a vacuum, there should be no orange stain.  Any exhaust deposit would be a clear, colorless deposit.  However, that doesn't appear to be the case as orange and reddish deposits were photographed on all Apollo LMs as they sat on the lunar surface. 

When an RCS thruster was fired, the N2O4 oxidizer was introduced into the RCS nozzle a split second before the Aerozine 50.  That means each time an RCS thruster was fired, a small quantity of N2O4 would have been free to react with any lunar atmosphere that may have existed.  If that atmosphere contained oxygen, a red/orange puff of vapor would have formed, similar to that seen in the photgraph of a Russian Proton rocket launch below which used N2O4 as an oxidizer. 



It is that vapor that may be the cause of the red stains on Apollo LM RCS exhaust deflectors.  There are other possibilities as to how the stains may have formed that cannot be ruled out entirely.  The RCS thrusters are made of a flame resistent fabric which I have not been able to identify.  It is possible that the fabric may itself contain oxygen atoms bound up with other elements that may be released through thermal degradatiion or some other process to combine with N2O4 and create a stain.  Only a sample of the cloth tested in the presence of N2O4 could rule that out.   Prior testing of the RCS jets in earth atmosphere before launch is another possible source, though I am fairly, but not 100% certain that never occured.

Without further delay, the photos:

Apollo 11



It should be noted that the enlarged boxes were saturation enhanced to make the colors more easily visible, though they are all visible even when not enhanced. 

Apollo 12



Apollo 14



Apollo 15



You'll notice a second highlight box in the Apollo 15 and 16 photos.  They show sections of cracked and chipped paint near the tops of the Ascent Stages off the LMs.  They never left earth that way.  At some point during the trip the paint cracked and peeled.  N2O4 is an oxidizer and is highly corrosive.  N2O4 has been known to pit metals and cause paints and epoxys to crack and flake on contact.  That flaking may have been caused by unburned N2O4 finding it's way onto those painted surfaces.  That would be quite a trick considering the RCS nozzles do not point in the direction of the chipped paint.  Any unburned N2O4 should in theory, fly straight by any LM surface, other than the exhaust deflector, without ever making contact with any LM surface.  However, it appears that during Apollos 15 and 16 that may have indeed happened.

RCS nozzle angles suggest LM contact with exhaust is improbable in most all directions.



It is also curious to note the many LM surfaces that lie far away from any RCS thruster that are covered with the same dark flame resistent material the deflectors are made of.  It seems someone had anticipated that swirling clouds of hot exhaust gas would be present around the LM at some point.  Exhaust gasses only swirl in an atmosphere.  It is true that an accelerating vehicle may fly into into its own ehhaust if it is accelerating very rapidly in the direction the thruster is firing.  Somebody would have to do the math on that one.  I can't see exhaust gas exiting an RCS nozzle at great speed being overtaken in a split second of acceleration before the gasses dissipate, but I have been known to be wrong on occasion.

Apollo 16



Apollo 17

     

     

As usual, the study is incomplete and provides no concrete answers to any questions.  I have taken it as far as I am able.


http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html
http://www.clavius.org/techengine.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/gemini-spacecraft2.htm 
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/676031.pdf 
http://www.stormingmedia.us/09/0960/0096056.html   

[ArMaP]

Good thinking. 

To me it looks more pink than orange, but do you know how much oxygen would be needed for that result to appear?

Do you know of anything that would make a pink residue?

Is it possible that the pink colour comes from the heat resistant material when subjected to specific conditions (too much heat, specific fuel, etc.)?

[Shank]

I did read once on a page that N2O4 will produce a whole range of colors in air from orange to green depending on what gasses and contaminants may be presnet.  Orange and red just happen to be the most common color shades you see.  I don't remember if pink was on the list or not, or do you just count that  as a shade of red? 

To really do it up right you need a piece of that cloth, a vacuum chamber and some gasses to test the cloth in.  Until somebody does that, it's just a theory.   

[Pimander]

You could try to contact people involved in the mission.  The astronauts no doubt had to look over the surface of the module to check for damage and might be able to shed light on it - if they really went to the moon. 

[1Worldwatcher]

Didn't they have video of the Descent to the Lunar surface? Could try to find those videos and see it i further coinsides with you perceptions Shank.

Moon Landing July 20th 1969:


May need some one here with the software too see if vapors are presnt in colors suggested, sure there are a few here to assist with color saturations, or possible B/W to color, it would be at the very last seconds of landing where this would be found. Or about 2/3 of the way through the video.

1WW

[Shank]

You could try to contact people involved in the mission.  The astronauts no doubt had to look over the surface of the module to check for damage and might be able to shed light on it - if they really went to the moon. 

Ed Mitchell is the only guy I know of who talks about anything.  You used to be able to go to his forum and he'd answer questions.  Even at that he never like to say much about any mission other than his own.  Which I can understand.  I don't know when it was exactly, but he closed that forum down.  I suppose if you bumped into one of them somewhere you might get in a question or two.  But other than Mitchell, I don't know of any others who invite people to question them and somewhat enjoy it. 

I'm sure you can imagine if you were one of them, the kind of wacko magnet you'd become if it became known you liked to talk.  I would guess that's 90% of the reason why they mostly don't.       

[Pimander]

I'm sure you can imagine if you were one of them, the kind of wacko magnet you'd become if it became known you liked to talk.  I would guess that's 90% of the reason why they mostly don't.     

Or you could have the opinion that completely honest and straight answers to all questions only put off a wacko.

[zorgon]

Ed Mitchell is the only guy I know of who talks about anything.

Ed will gladly talk about many things, especially RV,  but not any UFO thing related to his actual missions. He can be reached via email.  So can many of the 'players' Hal Puthoff has responded to us via email, so has Uri Geller and Ingo Swann  and these guys are all birds of a feather and the key players in the CIA RV scene.

So yeah Ed would be and is a magnet for the nut jobs  and sadly there are only a handful of us that care for the real facts