Mythbusters vs. The Moon

[Trekker4747]

Sunday night the Mythbusters resumes their sixth season with a Shark Week two-hour long special.

Leading to the August 27 episode of them debunking that we never landed on the moon.

 

[Squiggy]

I'm sure that'll finally cease any and all debate.

 

[archeryguy1701]

^You kidding? Once the Mythbusters crew proves that it actually happened, anyone who questions otherwise should be arrested and beaten.

 

[RobertVA]

I think people are still arguing about the airplane on a conveyor belt myth that reran last night. Although seeing how some past discussions went, both subjects might be better debated in the Neutral Zone.

 

[Trekker4747]

^You kidding? Once the Mythbusters crew proves that it actually happened, anyone who questions otherwise should be arrested and beaten.

I think those people need to be arrested and beaten anyway.

I think people are still arguing about the airplane on a conveyor belt myth that reran last night. Although seeing how some past discussions went, both subjects might be better debated in the Neutral Zone.

Part of "the problem" with that is, many claim, is the way the "myth" is stated careful to point out that the "myth" states that the plane's forward momentum is canceled by the treadmill. Not realizing that is impossible. That there's nothing the treadmill can do to hold the plane in place.

But people want to argue the "conditions of the myth" say that the treadmill is holding the plane still. In which case the myth is impossible to test and pointless because, obviously, if the plane is still it won't take off. I, guess, not realizing the muddled way the myth has gotten after being repeated so many times and it may even be "purposely spoken" to trick you into thinking the plane can be held still by the treadmill.

 

[Lindley]

Part of "the problem" with that is, many claim, is the way the "myth" is stated careful to point out that the "myth" states that the plane's forward momentum is canceled by the treadmill. Not realizing that is impossible. That there's nothing the treadmill can do to hold the plane in place.

I've been thinking about that. In an ideal wheel, yes, the force due to rolling friction is constant regardless of rolling speed, so the treadmill has no hope of stopping the plane from taking off.

However, in reality, wheels that spin fast enough will heat up until they melt. If the treadmill could accelerate fast enough that every bit of forward motion the plane achieves is echoed a millionfold in backwards treadmill motion, it might be possible to melt off the wheels before the plane manages liftoff velocity. And then non-rolling friction comes into play, and that's a lot harder to counteract......

 

[Trekker4747]

Part of "the problem" with that is, many claim, is the way the "myth" is stated careful to point out that the "myth" states that the plane's forward momentum is canceled by the treadmill. Not realizing that is impossible. That there's nothing the treadmill can do to hold the plane in place.

I've been thinking about that. In an ideal wheel, yes, the force due to rolling friction is constant regardless of rolling speed, so the treadmill has no hope of stopping the plane from taking off.

However, in reality, wheels that spin fast enough will heat up until they melt. If the treadmill could accelerate fast enough that every bit of forward motion the plane achieves is echoed a millionfold in backwards treadmill motion, it might be possible to melt off the wheels before the plane manages liftoff velocity. And then non-rolling friction comes into play, and that's a lot harder to counteract......

Well, as far as I can figure it takes very little friction to hold the plane in place, it has to overcome very little to stand still and to move against the treadmill's direction.

If you had a fantasticly fast "treadmill"/conveyour and it was moving so fantasticly fast it was making the wheels spin so fast they they fail before even trying to move the plane then this "treadmill" is moving fast enough to probably be pretty detremental to the plane as well so it may not even get a chance to move without the wheels.

But this scenario is so fantasticly out there I don't think it could be tested in anything outside of a computer program and not practicaly. The friction imposed on the wheels is miniscule and while airplane wheels cerainly have their limits they're at the ame time pretty tough things.

I think "on paper" scuch a scenario is possible (and I still don't think it'd stop the plane) it's not practicaly able to be tested.

It's have to be a FAST conveyor. FAST. Probably close to mach speeds.

 

[Lindley]

And in order for the plane to not be moving backwards before the test starts (usually a prereq of the myth), it'd have to be accelerating from zero to such speeds very fast.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I wonder if they'll get Richard Hoagland to consult on this one. VERY interesting...

 

[Carpe Occasio]

There was already a show on the National Geographic Channel called Conspiracy Moon Landing that debunked the 10 biggest moon landing hoax theories.

For example, they demonstrated how:

- A flag could still flutter in a vacuum

- Stars wouldn't show up in the photos of the surface

- There could be multiple shadows

- There could be no engine blast crater

- The camera pans up on LEM takeoff

 

[Holdfast]

Probably more of a TV topic than Misc, on balance, I guess.

 

[jkladis]

There was already a show on the National Geographic Channel called Conspiracy Moon Landing that debunked the 10 biggest moon landing hoax theories.

For example, they demonstrated how:

- A flag could still flutter in a vacuum

- Stars wouldn't show up in the photos of the surface

- There could be multiple shadows

- There could be no engine blast crater

- The camera pans up on LEM takeoff

And those were the easy ones that an inclined 5th grader can smash to pieces.

And boys, is it just you two or was my theoretical discussion of months back about wheel friction and imagining limitless treadmill velocity gaining popularity? That's why I hated that bust because it fails to properly address all of the variables.

 

[Lindley]

And boys, is it just you two or was my theoretical discussion of months back about wheel friction and imagining limitless treadmill velocity gaining popularity? That's why I hated that bust because it fails to properly address all of the variables.

I don't recall precisely what you said, but my considered opinion is that while it may theoretically be possible to destroy a plane's landing gear with a treadmill, that "solution" sidesteps the intent of the myth; and that in any practical scenario, or theoretical scenario in which the gear remains relatively intact, the plane will have no trouble taking off.

Besides, Mythbusters never considers all the variables.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

And boys, is it just you two or was my theoretical discussion of months back about wheel friction and imagining limitless treadmill velocity gaining popularity? That's why I hated that bust because it fails to properly address all of the variables.

I don't recall precisely what you said, but my considered opinion is that while it may theoretically be possible to destroy a plane's landing gear with a treadmill, that "solution" sidesteps the intent of the myth; and that in any practical scenario, or theoretical scenario in which the gear remains relatively intact, the plane will have no trouble taking off.

Besides, Mythbusters never considers all the variables.

Also, would the landing gear fail at twice the regular takeoff speed? It seems to me that if the wheels are usually designed to spin at 150-200 mph during takeoff then they would likely have enough tolerance to spin at 300-400 mph without blowing up. Because doesn't the myth stipulate that the treadmill moves in reverse at the same speed the plane is moving forward? Not that the treadmill moves backwards at 10 billion mph to destroy the landing gear. I suppose there are different incarnations or interpretations of the myth, so that may depend on how you're reading it.

-MEC

 

[Christopher]

I wonder if they'll get Richard Hoagland to consult on this one. VERY interesting...

Why would they "consult" a crackpot who thinks NASA has edited the memories of the Apollo astronauts to cover up the existence of domed alien cities on the Moon? Heck, Hoagland doesn't even claim we didn't land on the Moon, so why would he be relevant to this?

And if even a nut like Hoagland accepts that the Moon landings were real, then you have to be really, really far gone to believe they weren't. It seems like kind of a waste of time to do this myth, because it won't convince anyone irrational enough to buy into the myth in the first place.

Besides, the only tests they could perform would be peripheral to the core question, since they can't actually go to the Moon themselves. I assume they'll be debunking the sorts of claims about camera exposure and flags that Carpe Occasio listed. Or maybe they'll try the proposed methods for faking the Lunar footage and compare it to the real thing.

On the other hand, if anyone could put together a working Moon rocket in their special-effects studio, the Mythbusters could. Just so long as they don't try to power it with salami...

(Does anyone remember the old show Salvage One, where Andy Griffith played a junkyard owner who built his own rocketship out of junk and flew to the Moon to salvage the landers and equipment? The capsule was a cement mixer barrel.)


As for the Shark Week special, I have to ask -- what is the deal with Shark Week? Enough with the sharks already. Many of the experiments weren't all that interesting or surprising; this could've been a decent hourlong episode, but at two hours it was overkill and somewhat repetitive. And it was getting too far into the real-life-danger-porn territory of shows like Man vs. Wild or Deadliest Catch (at least I get the impression that's what those shows are like, having zero interest in watching them). I don't want Tory and Grant to be macho action stars facing down danger, I want them to be unrepentant geeks who build stuff and play with it. Okay, they weren't exactly fearless here, but still, this isn't the kind of situation they belong in.

Kari looked nice in that green dress, though. But I was hoping for some bikini shots.

I found the Robo-Dog test particularly unconvincing, because they didn't duplicate the electric field of a living organism. So maybe the sharks knew it wasn't alive regardless of the camouflage. It seemed inconsistent that they based so many other tests on the sharks' EM sense but ignored it here.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

The Mythbusters Airplane on a Treadmill was flawed, IMHO, because it was just a big piece of fabric dragged along the pavement. The plane was actually supported by the pavement underneath, not the treadmill. The fabric had no effect as the plane was getting all it's traction from the pavement.

 

[jkladis]

An excellent point.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

Not really, as planes don't use traction. The power comes from the engines, not the wheels. Planes can even take off if the wheels don't spin at all, like this one.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I enjoyed the shark week episode, as stupid as it may have been in spots.

I thought the robo-shark was pretty cool. It didn't really prove anything, since people actually have fended off shark attacks by poking the eyes (and they even mention it in the episode), but as builds go I thought it was one of their better ones.

Robo-dog though was pretty lame. Not very convincing. Even if the sharks had went for it, all it would have proven was that sharks will attack robots. Which may have been a better myth actually. Robot Vs. Shark.

 

[Trekker4747]

An excellent point.

A point.

Wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

But a point, none the less.

The plane still has to push off the "treadmill." We even saw Adam running on the treadmill (ripping it a bit with his hard boots) and he was able to "run in place" on it. Why? Because he still has to push off the fabric to move forward and if the fabric is moving back as fast as he's going forward...

It would've been "neat" to see them build a real, working, treadmill but it wouldn't make a difference.

Again, the plane doesn't need the wheels to move. It doesn't need TRACTION to move planes move by pulling themselves through the air. There's not a whole lot of traction on water or on ice but planes can take off from those all of the time. The wheels just support the plane and provide the easiest means for the plane to move along the ground. They could've cut the wheels off of the plane and let it sit on the ground/treadmill and it'd still work.

Jesus. I still can't believe people argue this. Saving building a fantasticly fast treadmill that'd move backwards many times the best possible forward speed of the plane to the extent of destroying the wheels, causing the plane's gear to collapse and the body to rest on the "treadmll" (where it'd still move forwards) and THEN this treadmill destroys the plane before it can try and take off by dragging across the "ground."

Planes push off the air. Not the ground. They don't need the ground to work.

On the moon: I just think it'd be a fun episode, I don't suspect it'll change any minds, it'll just be interesting. I would've liked to see them try and use all of their "30 years of special effects experience" to see if they could duplicate the moon landing using the restrictions of 1960's movie-making techniques. If they could properly simulate the appearance of the moon, simulate 1/6 gravity and so on. THAT'D be pretty cool to see!