RCS Load Simulators

For those of you who have been insisting that these load simulators
completely take the place of any actual functioning of the valves in
the RCS, I have news for you. I've spent the past almost seven hours
having conversations with various people on this and other Apollo One
issues. One of those people is a person who has become a friend of
mine; he was also a friend of Gus Grissom's. He worked for Chrysler
(who was one of many contractors on Apollo One) until shortly before
the fire. He left because his protests about safety went unanswered.
I asked him about these simulators--by the way, his job was GSE.
That's all he did. He said, and I'm about to quote, that the Plug's
Out Test, "It's a mess." Because of those simulators, you have some
systems being operated on external power, others on internal power,
and it would basically take a genius to sort out which was which.
There is NOT going to be a simple answer to this one. That particular
test is too convoluted.
What I DO know is this: Two of the twelve valves Ed tried to open did
not open. THAT was no simulation; it was a fact, and it is documented
via schematic. You're just going to have to stand by and wait to see
where all the chips fall on that one.
LaDonna

"LaDonna Wyss" wrote in message
om...
I've spent the past almost seven hours
having conversations with various people on this and other Apollo One
issues.

Such as?

One of those people is a person who has become a friend of
mine

Clearly a man of limited taste in his later years. What's his name?

he was also a friend of Gus Grissom's.

He's clearly fallen on hard times.

He said, and I'm about to quote, that the Plug's
Out Test, "It's a mess."

Cite, please.

There is NOT going to be a simple answer to this one.

Nobody but you ever pretended there was.

Two of the twelve valves Ed tried to open did
not open.

Cite, please.

How am I supposed to "cite" a telephone conversation? Would you PLEASE
grow up?
The citation for the valves is in the VOICE TRANSCRIPT. 23:06 is when
he reports 12 gray bars. You'll have to pull up the valve photograph
on Scott's website for the schematic. It's on the first page as an
"exhibit." It's erroneously labelled something like "A & C React
Valves" or something like that. You'll be able to tell which one it
is; there are only a couple of schematics in the group (OH, it might
say "logic." You'll just have to check the list.)
And NO, I'm looking into why Ed had 12 grey bars when he should only
have had ten. Something was wrong, but I don't know what yet.
LaDonna
LaDonna

"LaDonna Wyss" wrote in message
om...
For those of you who have been insisting that these load simulators
completely take the place of any actual functioning of the valves in
the RCS, I have news for you. I've spent the past almost seven hours
having conversations with various people on this and other Apollo One
issues. One of those people is a person who has become a friend of
mine; he was also a friend of Gus Grissom's. He worked for Chrysler
(who was one of many contractors on Apollo One) until shortly before
the fire. He left because his protests about safety went unanswered.
I asked him about these simulators--by the way, his job was GSE.
That's all he did. He said, and I'm about to quote, that the Plug's
Out Test, "It's a mess." Because of those simulators, you have some
systems being operated on external power, others on internal power,
and it would basically take a genius to sort out which was which.
There is NOT going to be a simple answer to this one. That particular
test is too convoluted.
What I DO know is this: Two of the twelve valves Ed tried to open did
not open. THAT was no simulation; it was a fact, and it is documented
via schematic. You're just going to have to stand by and wait to see
where all the chips fall on that one.
LaDonna

I worked on the Saturn program (digital random vibration analysis, mostly in
SCAT and SAP originally, before the days of FAP) at the Slidell Computing
Facility in 1965, as well as with Dr. Wehrner von Braun's telemetry
engineers at MSFC on trips to Huntsville that year. I met him once, during
a meeting in the cafeteria. I also became well acquainted with a brilliant
NASA engineer working at Michaud. He later wrote part of the Rogers Report
while at MSFC and more recently he was transferred to Goddard or Langley as
a very high-ranking NASA director. I can confirm that Chrysler management
during the 1965-1966 time period was in approximately the same state of
financial corruption and technical incompetence as was Lockheed management
prior to the Challenger catastrophe.

I should probably mention for those of you 40-45 years of age or younger
that flight simulators at the time of the ApolloOne fire bore little
resemblance to the digital flight simulators I helped develop in the late
seventies and early eighties. In other words, putting even a good prototype
of a Challenger-era Singer-Link flight simulator onboard for the Apollo One
Plugs-Out Test would have been out of the question. You should probably be
thinking more in terms of analog, or an alternate circuitry configuration
which was designed (although perhaps not correctly implemented) to be
switchable from external to internal power..

John Maxson

wrote in message
...
How am I supposed to "cite" a telephone conversation?

Try this:

"Telephone interview with [name of person], [relevant credit of person],
(date of call)"

For example:

"Telephone interview with Douglass Borisky, Senior Revising Editor of the
Columbia Law Review (Apr. 10, 1986)."

As shown in _A Uniform System of Citation_, 14th Edition, published by
Harvard Law Review, Cambridge, Massachusettes, page 88.

Surely an investigator as skilled as yourself should have been able to
figure out something as trivial as how to cite a phone conversation.

The citation for the valves is in the VOICE TRANSCRIPT. 23:06 is when
he reports 12 gray bars.

See? That's better. You included a specific _time_ with a specific _claim_.
If you did that on a regular basis you'd have a lot fewer problems. I'll bet
it didn't even hurt all that much.

You'll have to pull up the valve photograph
on Scott's website for the schematic. It's on the first page as an
"exhibit." It's erroneously labelled something like "A & C React
Valves" or something like that. You'll be able to tell which one it
is; there are only a couple of schematics in the group (OH, it might
say "logic." You'll just have to check the list.)

Fair enough.

And NO, I'm looking into why Ed had 12 grey bars when he should only
have had ten.

Why not? That's part of what a good investigator would do. Unless you check
it out, you don't know it's irrelevant.

Something was wrong, but I don't know what yet.

Fair enough.

wrote in message
...
The citation for the valves is in the VOICE TRANSCRIPT. 23:06 is when
he reports 12 gray bars. You'll have to pull up the valve photograph
on Scott's website for the schematic. It's on the first page as an
"exhibit." It's erroneously labelled something like "A & C React
Valves" or something like that. You'll be able to tell which one it
is; there are only a couple of schematics in the group (OH, it might
say "logic." You'll just have to check the list.)
And NO, I'm looking into why Ed had 12 grey bars when he should only
have had ten. Something was wrong, but I don't know what yet.
LaDonna

One thing that's wrong *now* (concerning the subject topic) is that it began
with an allegation of a Plugs-Out "RCS response simulator"

( see http://tinyurl.com/2x8ne)

and mutated to an allegation of yet another supposed Grissom-scenario
refutation, namely, "CM/RCS/SM/Load Simulator Bank wires."

I think much of the problem you're facing here in this group, LaDonna, can
be attributed to the fact that you're not getting criticism or advice from
qualified electrical engineers familiar with the Apollo One spacecraft's RCS
system. You might try cross-posting to sci.space.tech. In the 'newsgroups'
block, make it look like this: sci.space.history,sci.space.tech

John Maxson

"John Maxson" wrote in message ...
"LaDonna Wyss" wrote in message
om...
For those of you who have been insisting that these load simulators
completely take the place of any actual functioning of the valves in
the RCS, I have news for you. I've spent the past almost seven hours
having conversations with various people on this and other Apollo One
issues. One of those people is a person who has become a friend of
mine; he was also a friend of Gus Grissom's. He worked for Chrysler
(who was one of many contractors on Apollo One) until shortly before
the fire. He left because his protests about safety went unanswered.
I asked him about these simulators--by the way, his job was GSE.
That's all he did. He said, and I'm about to quote, that the Plug's
Out Test, "It's a mess." Because of those simulators, you have some
systems being operated on external power, others on internal power,
and it would basically take a genius to sort out which was which.
There is NOT going to be a simple answer to this one. That particular
test is too convoluted.
What I DO know is this: Two of the twelve valves Ed tried to open did
not open. THAT was no simulation; it was a fact, and it is documented
via schematic. You're just going to have to stand by and wait to see
where all the chips fall on that one.
LaDonna

I worked on the Saturn program (digital random vibration analysis, mostly in
SCAT and SAP originally, before the days of FAP) at the Slidell Computing
Facility in 1965, as well as with Dr. Wehrner von Braun's telemetry
engineers at MSFC on trips to Huntsville that year. I met him once, during
a meeting in the cafeteria. I also became well acquainted with a brilliant
NASA engineer working at Michaud. He later wrote part of the Rogers Report
while at MSFC and more recently he was transferred to Goddard or Langley as
a very high-ranking NASA director. I can confirm that Chrysler management
during the 1965-1966 time period was in approximately the same state of
financial corruption and technical incompetence as was Lockheed management
prior to the Challenger catastrophe.

I should probably mention for those of you 40-45 years of age or younger
that flight simulators at the time of the ApolloOne fire bore little
resemblance to the digital flight simulators I helped develop in the late
seventies and early eighties. In other words, putting even a good prototype
of a Challenger-era Singer-Link flight simulator onboard for the Apollo One
Plugs-Out Test would have been out of the question. You should probably be
thinking more in terms of analog, or an alternate circuitry configuration
which was designed (although perhaps not correctly implemented) to be
switchable from external to internal power..

John Maxson

That's EXACTLY right, Mr. Maxson, and I thank you very much for that
contribution. The person to whom I referred in the beginning of this
thread has told me more than once that one of the many problems with
Apollo One was the fact that it was possible to be on both external
and internal power AT THE SAME TIME, which was a prescription for
disaster. There is much to be deciphered about these load simulators,
but you are absolutely correct in all of what you said, including the
fact these were not some computerized game where everything was some
sort of software. It was quite antiquated and not anything resembling
the simulators we see today.
Thanks again.
LaDonna

"John Maxson" wrote in message
...
I worked on the Saturn program (digital random vibration analysis,
mostly in
SCAT and SAP originally, before the days of FAP)

= sniffed farts to guess what the engineer ate for lunch as he swept the
floor.

"John Maxson" wrote in message ...
wrote in message
...
The citation for the valves is in the VOICE TRANSCRIPT. 23:06 is when
he reports 12 gray bars. You'll have to pull up the valve photograph
on Scott's website for the schematic. It's on the first page as an
"exhibit." It's erroneously labelled something like "A & C React
Valves" or something like that. You'll be able to tell which one it
is; there are only a couple of schematics in the group (OH, it might
say "logic." You'll just have to check the list.)
And NO, I'm looking into why Ed had 12 grey bars when he should only
have had ten. Something was wrong, but I don't know what yet.
LaDonna

One thing that's wrong *now* (concerning the subject topic) is that it began
with an allegation of a Plugs-Out "RCS response simulator"

( see http://tinyurl.com/2x8ne)

and mutated to an allegation of yet another supposed Grissom-scenario
refutation, namely, "CM/RCS/SM/Load Simulator Bank wires."

I think much of the problem you're facing here in this group, LaDonna, can
be attributed to the fact that you're not getting criticism or advice from
qualified electrical engineers familiar with the Apollo One spacecraft's RCS
system. You might try cross-posting to sci.space.tech. In the 'newsgroups'
block, make it look like this: sci.space.history,sci.space.tech

John Maxson

Thanks, Mr. Maxson. I realize 98% of the people posting are either
hecklers or are pretending to know things they do not. I'm targetting
the other 2%....
And frankly, I don't have time for yet ANOTHER newsgroup to spawn 45+
threads a day on this topic! LOL
You're right, though. Especially with Alan Erskine's post over the
weekend, the good old "blame the pilot" scenario is alive and well.
Gus could just never "quite get it right." Well, the mistake these
people are making is: This is the SAME mistake NASA made. DON'T P***
ME OFF!!!! NASA p***** me off December 5, 2002, which is why I'm
here. These folks just haven't figured out yet that is NOT the best
game plan if they expect to win....
:-)
LaDonna

"LaDonna Wyss" wrote:

Thanks, Mr. Maxson. I realize 98% of the people posting are either
hecklers or are pretending to know things they do not.

Well let's see who knows what, okay?



One simple question LaDonna. Please answer it promptly. No need to sit on
it a day or two. Where are the heaters you refer to in the quote below
physically located? Are they physically located inside the Service Module
or are they physically located outside the Service Module within the actual
Service Module Reaction Control System quad itself? This is not a trick
question.

"...There is not just one heater--you need to look at the diagrams.
Volume 2, Parts One and Two reprint the Apollo Operations Handbook,
and there is an index in the very beginning of that reprint. The RCS
is Section 2. (I don't have the book in front of me, but I'm sure you
can find it from there.) There is a heater in each thruster assembly,
with two thermo switches apiece.
The surrounding materials are foam and the wire insulation (which by
the way, was selected for its characteristic of "smoking and burning"
QUICKLY--that is according to a handwritten note by Floyd Thompson on
one of the memos I obtained at the Archives.)"

Gus could just never "quite get it right." Well, the mistake these
people are making is: This is the SAME mistake NASA made. DON'T P***
ME OFF!!!! NASA p***** me off December 5, 2002, which is why I'm
here. These folks just haven't figured out yet that is NOT the best
game plan if they expect to win....

Is it a game to you? Just another trophy to win? I don't believe I am
making a mistake. I am simply attempting to methodically follow the evidence
wherever it goes and I am pretty sure I know where it goes.

Daniel