# What's with all of the gold foil on the Lunar Lander? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 16, 2016, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335 "2016-04-16T03:45:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335/21 "2016-04-17T16:40:38Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I could see a lot of ways the statement could have come out wrong in an interview. The context may be missing, or the statement never got completed, or he just said the wrong thing without realizing it or getting a chance to correct it. Or he really didn’t know and he was just reciting something he or someone else got wrong before. Yeah, it is quite easy when trying to simplify complex technical discussions to layman’s language to make statements or analogies that are factually incorrect, or at least ambiguous and misleading. This is especially true when talking about heat transfer and temperature, insofar as the common understanding of temperature equivalates it with heat energy when in fact the heat capacity emissivity, and conductivity are all just as critical to interpreting just how “hot” an object may be in practice. I’ve held a FRCI tile heated to over 1000 ºC on the front side with no ill effects because it doesn’t emit heat quickly and has a low overall heat capacity. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335/22 "2016-04-17T19:09:58Z")
I bring up the concept it seems five times a summer in the dog park, when some asshole shaves his double coated dog “because it will make him cooler.” Thermos bottle==dog in double coat. Works in winter, works in summer. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335/23 "2016-04-17T19:22:19Z")
Although I’ve always been interested in the different skin/body heating curves for a given “duty cycle” and body-mass to radiative surface (skin) and the weird thermodynamics of fur. The latter, it now occurs to me, was the (nominal) rationale for a series of measurements, with lovely slo-mo shots and data, of the shake frequency of various animals after a dunking–data happily reported around the media, by me here also IIRC. Eta Well shame on me. I didn’t. But I do now: (full text) [http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/77/3208.short](http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/77/3208.short) Wet Animals Shake at Tuned Frequencies to Dry ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335/24 "2016-04-17T20:21:51Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I bring up the concept it seems five times a summer in the dog park, when some asshole shaves his double coated dog “because it will make him cooler.” Do these people not understand that dogs don’t perspire except on foot pads and thus, do not cool by sweat evaporation? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335/25 "2016-04-17T20:27:47Z")
…And, obviously (even to those numbskulls) by saliva off of tongue and out of the oral cavity. What’s neat is dogs have a side-channel pulmonary system for heat/stress panting–I used to wonder why they don’t pass out from hyperventilation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-of-the-gold-foil-on-the-lunar-lander/752335.md?page=1)