This second image is the close-up referred to above.
A Small Insight on the Origins of the Amiga Phenomenon
This is a World Exclusive - From a Classified NASA Archive
This page provides an introduction to a some video footage I have managed to extract from an old NASA archive. It also contains technical detail essential to the understanding of the video. I strongly recommend that you download both this page and the video, so they can be considered together. The video has been ported to a native Amiga format using MainActor Broadcast. You should therefore run the footage on an Amiga to ensure things work as intended.
Much of NASA's development was conducted in America's Mohave desert and on Devon Island, in Canada's Nunavut Territory. The terrain there is almost identical to that on Mars. Eventually, it was necessary to conduct some Moon based trials in order to secure the low gravity and low atmospheric pressure conditions essential for operating the Mars Lander System (MLS).
The unique video shown here contains but a few seconds of the action from one of NASA's lunar trials. As will be seen, this one wasn't entirely successful.
Please note that the footage is still classified under US Law. Please DO NOT ask how I came by it, nor divulge its existance to any third party, nor in any way create waves. The best thing you can do is to watch the action, make up your mind about its importance to the Amiga story and then try to forget you've seen it!
The principle of the MLS is based on the bouncy ball principle. The kinetic energy of a falling ball is absorbed in pulses with each bounce on the ground. The energy is converted into heat (by compressing the intergal gas) and into sound energy (the noise of the ball hitting the ground). After a certain number of bounces, the gas becomes hot (relatively speaking), the ball becomes motionless and the sound waves dissipate into the surroundings. NASA scientists calculated that the Mars Lander Module would bounce about a dozen times, travelling almost a kilometre before coming to rest.
To determine the absolute rate of kinetic energy conversion (ARKEC), it was necessary to conduct dozens of these 'Bouncy Ball' experiments under various conditions. The most severe of those trials were to take place on the Moon during several of the much publicised Apollo missions. The MLS experiments were, however, never reported to the public for fear of NASA being ridiculed. As noted, few people outside the Lander Team saw any value in the work. Certainly the great American public would never accept the three billion dollar cost of bouncing some balls on the Moon! The biggest hint to what was going on occured during the 1969 Apollo 12 Mission. Remember when Alan Bean struck a golf ball with a number three iron? He wasn't just larking about as we all had assumed. That was deadly serious stuff!
It's clear that the bulk of the Lander's kinetic energy is converted into heat. The balls become warm. Very little sound energy can be generated because that necessitates an atmosphere sufficiently dense to propagate a sound wave. Surprisingly, NASA physicists reckoned that the Martian atmosphere is indeed dense enough to transmit sounds and in 1997, the Sojourner Mission confirmed that fact. The Moon is another scenario entirely. It has an atmospheric pressure only one fiftieth of that on Mars, so NASA didn't expect to 'hear' anything at all during the Apollo missions. However, using specially developed hi-gain sound detectors, they were pleasantly surprised.
The MLS consists of thirty-six inflated spheres wrapped pyramid-like, around the Lander core. The two metre diameter balls are arranged in three layers with an absolute minimum of space between them. The spacial placement is known to scientists as 'hexagonal close packing'. It occurs naturally when atoms are arranged in a crystalline latice and is the most effective way to protect the core from damage. The one millimetre thick spheres are constructed from a silicone elastomer and are inflated with nitrogen. They look very much like dull grey beach balls. During the early Mohave desert trials, someone described the noise produced as "A kind of 'Boing' sound" and the name stuck. The project became known as Boing Pulse Energy Conversion (BPEC).
Lunar trials of BPEC required the use of a specially developed launcher or gun. The principle was to fire the balls high into the 'sky' and record their trajectories, bounce patterns and internal temperature. To ensure accurate telemetry, each sphere was given a red and white checkerboard finish. This allowed video cameras to record any rotational changes with great accuracy. The Lunar trials each used forty spheres, also two metres in diameter. The volume occupied by these 'balloons' was reduced to almost nothing by constructing them as micro-spheres at Houston Space Center. They were only a few millimetres across and contained a small charge of nitrogen gas at 20 psi, slightly above our normal atmospheric pressure. When released into the relative vacuum of space, the spheres inflated to a thousand times their original diameter. The micro-spheres were retained and equilibrated within the gun by placing them in a sealed chamber also held at 20 psi.
Ejection of the spheres was achieved using a small explosive charge. The spheres inflate naturally after the chamber pressure is released, also by a small charge. The propellant system was backed up by a second identical unit within the gun casting. Firing of the charges was critical. The pressure retaining disc was blown first, followed one second later by the propulsion charge. The astronaut responsible for firing the gun used a hand-held pc to initiate the sequence. If there was a misfire, the software would detect it and immediately run the backup program. Here's a couple of diagrams which should be self-explanatory.
This second image is the close-up referred to above.
You will see that the experiment had its problems.
The primary firings (Pressure Disc and first Ejection Charge) went as planned, but for some reason, the back-up Ejection Charge was detonated approximately one second later. As noted earlier, the detonations were controlled by a hard-wired PC and NASA has always blamed the (un-named) astronaut for the error. They reckoned he pressed the backup button in his excitement! This was denied unequivocally by the individual concerned, who blamed it all on an error in the software. That had been provided by a new kid on the block called Microsoft, who were desperately trying to make it with flight sims. After this fiasco, Mission Control said they were...
Whatever the cause, you can clearly see two explosions below the gun as each propulsion charge is vented. Although the hi-gain sound system clearly detects the 'boing, boing, ....' of the spheres, it didn't record the response of the guy with his finger on the button 'cos his phone link was damaged by the impact. Maybe that's just as well!
