Apollo 18

Discussion in 'Media Central' started by Bulldog, Aug 13, 2011.

  1. Bulldog

    Bulldog Only Pawn in Game of Life

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  2. Muad Dib

    Muad Dib Probably a Dual Deceased Member

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    A secret mission to the Moon...

    I want to see how they quietly launched a Saturn V.
  3. Scott Hamilton Robert E Ron Paul Lee

    Scott Hamilton Robert E Ron Paul Lee Straight Awesome

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    I might see this, and I normally don't like horror flicks.
  4. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    A conveyor belt mounted on a submarine. :D
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  5. Clyde

    Clyde Orange

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    Interesting idea, hopefully the movie isn't another shaky-camera, pseudo-documentary crap-fest from the crack film crew that brought us the Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. :garamet:
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  6. Scott Hamilton Robert E Ron Paul Lee

    Scott Hamilton Robert E Ron Paul Lee Straight Awesome

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    Hey man, they FOUND the footage. You work with what you find.
  7. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    The trailer looks pretty interesting.
  8. Bickendan

    Bickendan Custom Title Administrator Faceless Mook Writer

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    Where were the otters? :calli:
  9. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

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    They had that day off.
  10. Uncle Albert

    Uncle Albert Part beard. Part machine.

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    They were unionized otters with a contractually short work week.
  11. Tex

    Tex Forge or die. Administrator Formerly Important

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    If you had the money available for the project I don't think it would be that hard to do a secret launch. Just use an island somewhere as the launch point and if anyone asks say it's a satellite program of some kind.
  12. Muad Dib

    Muad Dib Probably a Dual Deceased Member

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    I still don't buy it. Look at the infrastructure needed to assemble and launch a Saturn V: gantry, VAB, etc. Then you're going to have to ship the stages to the island for assembly. All this for one mission?

    On top of that, it's a huge, powerful rocket. If the USSR could detect an ICBM launch, they should've had no problem detecting a Saturn V. It's like comparing a lit match to a wildfire.
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  13. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    ^I agree. I think a secret moon mission would be all but impossible to pull off.

    You'd need thousands of workers just to build the launch vehicle, the command module, the lander, etc. The cost would be so high and the interactions with the outside world so complex, it would be hard for any company to keep it from public scrutiny.

    Building a launch complex on an island? Good luck keeping that secret. That would be a huge logistics nightmare just in itself.

    And, yes, the Russians are going to know within minutes that you've launched some heavy-lift rocket into Earth orbit.
  14. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Well, building the hardware would be the easy part, as we had enough for several more Moon missions already. The rest of it? Not so much.
  15. Tex

    Tex Forge or die. Administrator Formerly Important

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    You're drawing conclusions that are both unnecessary and not really what I was intending anyway.

    1) Building the complex on the island wouldn't be has difficult as you say. You pick an island in the mid pacific somewhere that is not used or often visited by anyone. There are lots of them.

    2) We move things around all the time without drawing attention to it. Getting the equipment and construction materials to the island is as easy as having the Navy do it. They wouldn't necessarily do it all at once, but they could get it done. There are secret US military bases in existence right now, how do you think they got built? Area 51 was a secret for quite a while. People knew it was out there but there wasn't a paper trail following it, the perimeter established was far enough out and the security around it was at a high enough level that the best people could do is know that there is something there. The aircraft developed and tested out there remained a secret until the Government deemed it public knowledge. That actually leads me to another point.

    3. Launch out of the desert in Nevada if you want. Use an underground Silo for the launch pad.

    4. The USSR could detect the launch… so what? I covered this already when I said you could launch one mission but tell the public you were launching a different kind of mission. "We're sending some astronauts into space to test yada yada and they'll come back to Earth later." Launch detection explained. Or you could just launch the shuttle and give it a path that is non threatening to the Russians. Did they detect it? Sure, during the cold war did we have to explain our missions to them? Nope. So unless you visually could see the launch there would pretty be no evidence of it.

    5. What happens when someone sees a UFO? Deny, deny, deny. Call them a crackpot, did they get it on video? Back in those days, not likely. Still pics? Weather balloon reflecting light off the atmosphere, it's all very scientific, trust us, there was no secret moon launch.

    The only difficult part of the entire mission is keeping the construction of the launch site a secret because that requires a lot of people. The tricks used to help in these scenarios is to use military construction and tell all the dozer drivers you're building a secret nuke launch pad or whatever. They'll keep it a secret for the most part but when they do let things slip out it would be misinformation. And then we go back to the established rule, deny, deny, deny and call them a crackpot.

    It could be done. I don't see any reason to do it, but I'm quite sure it could be pulled off. Oh ya and lastly as established in the post above mine, we already had a lot of the equipment, it would be more of a matter of moving it into position than rebuilding it.

    And one more after thought… when you're producing the lander, capsule, and whatever else you mentioned, just produce 2 in the first place when it's rolling off the assembly line or out of the lab or whatever. Call one backup and immediately take it to your secret base for "research."
  16. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Really? Find one at the right latitude for launching a heavy rocket and that has a big enough harbor to support shipping of large components. I suspect it would be MUCH harder than you think. All of the prime choices are already inhabited.
    I suspect the 'secret bases' you refer to aren't so much 'secret,' as 'not publicly acknowledged.' If you build a base with so much as a landing strip somewhere, someone's spy satellite is going to get a picture of it. When you start building a launch complex? Lots of attention.

    I don't doubt the military could do quite a lot in secrecy, but the cost and logistical difficulty associated with a moonshot make it likely that somewhere, somehow, the word's going to leak out.
    And the nervous Russians start asking why you're building a super-sized secret missile silo.
    Why don't you just launch from the Cape and lie about it then? That would be much easier.

    The problem there is that then you need an apparatus to maintain the lie. Say you're launching astronauts? The press would like to meet them. Say you're launching an experiment? Oh, which one? Some taxpayers' association will come along asking where Congress approved the money. Some disgruntled employee will say "No, they're not really doing that at all..."
    When other nations say they tracked a rocket launch from Nevada or a secret island, etc., what will be the response?
    Even if the "why" is not documented, the orders to move the resources required would be noticed, either by spies or would-be whistleblowers. If a thousand engineers are shipped out, someone's going to ask where they're going.
    I actually agree with you that it could be. It's just that it would be sooooooo difficult and problematic to do it in secrecy, that you'd have to have an incredible reason to do it.
    "First rule of government spending: why buy one when you get two at twice the price?" [/haddon]
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  17. Captain J

    Captain J 16" Gunner

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    People are looking at this through today's eyes, with satellites, internet etc. In the 70's the US gov't might well have been able to set up a Saturn V launch billed as an experimental shot or special satellite. It would not be easy, but nowhere near the impossible task it would be today.
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  18. cpurick

    cpurick Why don't they just call it "Leftforge"?

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    Movie opens today, and the critics still haven't seen it.

    That should be all you need to know.
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  19. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    I think all the people working on it would not be a problem. Thousands work as we speak at area 51...anyone on WF ever met someone who worlks there? They do a great job of keeping secret about whatever they do out there.
  20. Ward

    Ward A Stepford Husband

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    Comments on this post
    Tex agrees: You got my exact reference in the last line. I'll respond to the rest tomorrow, bed time

    And just look what happened when Tex tried to talk about it... hmmmmm.....
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  21. Dayton Kitchens

    Dayton Kitchens Banned

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    Well, did the U.S. federal govt. manage to keep that huge bomb shelter called Weather Mountain under the Greenbrier resort secret for years?

    Technically secret anyway.

    Seems most of the people in the county knew about it but they didn't say anything because the resort and shelter were the biggest employers in the area.
  22. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    If that's even his real name......
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  23. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    A former Apollo flight director served as a consultant on the film. :wtf:

    More at the link.
  24. Black Dove

    Black Dove Mildly Offensive

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    Yep, it's officially a FLOP!
  25. Muad Dib

    Muad Dib Probably a Dual Deceased Member

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    I don't even want to watch it on DVD.
  26. Black Dove

    Black Dove Mildly Offensive

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    I'm sick of these "found footage" movies. The gimmick has been done to death. The only good films in the genre are The Blair Witch Project, and Cloverfield. The rest are shyte.
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  27. sandbagger

    sandbagger Fresh Meat

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  28. shootER

    shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

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    This.
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  29. Uncle Albert

    Uncle Albert Part beard. Part machine.

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    Hey, I liked Cloverfield. Nothing I'd buy and rewatch multiple times, but it has Lizzy Caplan, dammit. :rant:

    [​IMG]
    :wub:
  30. We Are Borg

    We Are Borg Republican Democrat

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    ^^^ You find meth addicts attractive? :huh:

    She looks awful in that pic.
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