1/6th Gravity
Initially the way objects feel in this footage might be hard proof of fakery, as they seemed to fall too fast for what you might imagine moon gravity would be. But to be sure I did some calculations (distance in feet = 1/2*a*(seconds squared), where a is either 32 feet/(seconds squared) for earth or 5.3 feet/(seconds squared) for the moon, and * is a multiplication sign) and found that 1/6th gravity decreases the timing a relatively small amount at low heights-- say for a 5 foot fall, on earth an object would take 0.56 seconds to get to the ground, where on the moon, this would be 1.4 seconds. For a 100 foot fall though, this would take only 2.5 seconds on earth and 6.1 seconds on the moon, a larger and more easily measurable time. These timings assume a vacuum, though air resistance doesn't affect the timing too much for falls from low heights. The moon of course would be closer to a vacuum than the earth.
Anyway, I think this footage (for instance where an object tumbles about 5 feet off the back of the astronaut's backpack at about 2 minutes in) indicates a faster than expected fall time for the moon. The caveat is that the footage may not be perfectly true speed (it may have been altered somewhere along the way). But certainly the object falls in less than 1.4 seconds in the footage.
And I think in general, where objects fall in this footage, they show more of an earth gravity than a moon gravity. Particularly check out (about 2/3 way through) where the astronaut throws some sort of cloth in the air, and it floats surprisingly quickly-- a cloth like that thrown on earth floats down at a similar speed. Now someone could argue that the air slows down the cloth a lot on earth, and there is no air on the moon, so the object floats down at a slower speed on the moon due to less gravity. However, the cloth takes 3 seconds to float down from about 15 feet, and this should take 2.4 seconds on the moon since there is no air resistance! So either the timing is altered in this video, or this is proof of earth conditions.
And obviously, the rock they kick around could be foam...
posted by spooked at 12:53 PM
3 Comments:
I like near the ending with the alleged hammer toss, when the Astro-not admits it didn't go far. He says something like you'd think it would go a million miles, "But it didn't."
As if.
You can catch the wire holding them up again in this video. I guess they fell so much, because here on Earth, most people don't get enough practice walking with cables attached to them.
If they had been in 1/6g, their walking and running would have had a much greater height. They'd be seen somewhat like floating (higher), not falling. As you already pointed out, Spooked, in the "jump" video.
But those cables sure come in handy in getting the Astro-nots up from the ground, which they probably couldn't do themselves--here on Earth--not just because of the weight, but also the bulkiness of the "spacesuits."
And that timing was very poor, you cable opeators. Try not pulling on the cable, until the Actor-naut pushes off the ground, in the next set of TVfakery.
As if.
autobus vs wtc!
"But to be sure I did some calculations"
Yeah, but you need to make a chicken-wire model to be sure...
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