Moon Missions Faked?

[Stargazer]

Want a religious experience? Go to a shuttle launch. I always thought that no one could be a skeptic about the moon landings after having seen a launch. From 5 miles away on the beach in Titusville, you feel the ground shake. While there's not really a shock wave, from that far away its LOUD! Do this after having gone by on the tour bus to see this GIGANTIC thing sitting there on the lauch pad. If that's what they have to do to fake it, heck they might as well not fake it and just go to the moon. This is really awe inspiring stuff.

I love watching shuttle and rocket launches, never seen it on anything but on TV, but still it's something extraordinary. Still to see it on TV must be nothing compared to real life!

 

No question. My dad had an ancient hp programmable calculator from the 70s (able to do 100, count em *100* instructions), and it had a program you could enter by hand that did a moon landing simulation. And if you've dug up any of the details on how these nav computers worked, they were basically programming in machine language, with buttons for "verb" and "noun" to indicate if a number was an instruction or a byte of data. Wild! Works, but man, having to fiddle with something like that while you're 60 seconds from running out of fuel is mind boggling...

Indeed it was probably as simple as the computer could have been to even go to the moon. I suspect it might've been possible to use other means of navigation and perform calculations on the back of the envelope, but it would take too much time. Anyway, I'm impressed by the programmers who wrote the software for the AGC. I wonder what kind of shipcomputer they will have in the CEV...

[little cloud]

I never have and never will believe that the moon mission was faked. ;)

Why would anyone fake something like that?

That mission was probably the greatest thing that has happened in a very long time. ;)

[Queso]

*sigh, that's how i felt.

until i read that austrailia saw a coke bottle on the moon from their televisions. and the different light sources...

[Buffy]

*sigh, that's how i felt.

until i read that austrailia saw a coke bottle on the moon from their televisions. and the different light sources...

Wait, only the Aussie's saw it? They musta had their TV's upside down... :D

 

And of course you have to remember this was 1969, the year after the Summer of Love, God knows what some of these people think they saw through that haze of drugs... :)

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Queso]

people are always on drugs everywhere though, i wouldn't use a time period as an excuse for a mass observation.

[Tormod]

Did they see coke bottles on all the moon landings, then?

[Queso]

that web page states just one mission, i forget the specific one. if i remember correctly, it was the first one. and nasa cut that part out of the transmission to the rest of the world (since it was delayed) and austrailia got it live.

[Tormod]

I could have sworn it was Pepsi. Another failed attempt at a market coup.

[Buffy]

that web page states just one mission, i forget the specific one. if i remember correctly, it was the first one. and nasa cut that part out of the transmission to the rest of the world (since it was delayed) and austrailia got it live.

Unfortunately, the technology for that "5-second obscenity delay" we've gotten used to did not exist during the moon missions. All of the mission feeds were live and not rebroadcast (pretty boring to watch from what I've seen, unless you're a space nut)... "Another one bites the (moon) dust, heeeyy yah!"

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Buffy]

Up about item 11-12 in this thread we were talking about the guidance computer on Apollo, and the following story just appeared in the NY Times about a guy who's rebuilding one. Facinating stuff:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/technology/circuits/10apol.html

 

I guess this is more of the scientific method at work: if people don't believe we went to the moon, just repeat all of the experiments necessary to get there.

 

Who's to say that the Gray's don't like Coke, picked up some when they were mutilating cattle and abducting humans and left a few empties on the moon? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Turtle]

Here is why I sit squarely on the fence. I watched the entire process, from Kennedy's announcement of the mission in 1960(?) to, well, now. I sat enraptured by Walter Cronkite explaining every little detail over hours & hours of continuous broadcasting. I joined a science book club which sent monthly booklets explaining the mission & equipment; they also sent little models of the LEM & command module to assemble. This experience for me I have no doubt is an important driving force for my interest & ability in science & math today.

That said, the reason I started this thread is that I heard this gentleman(the one who wrote the article the link points to) on late night radio doing a 3 hour interview. What seemed to be the strongest argument he emphasized, is the radiation outside Earth's magnetic field would have killed the astronauts given its strength & their lack of shielding.The article is well written & documented, & as I understand that even the bad astronomers are having a tough time with that. In short, he's claiming we did everything we claimed/saw up to the point of actually leaving Earth orbit. The rest was faked in order to not loose face with the Soviets.

Finally, have you seen a Moon rock? How do you know it's from the Moon? Oh yeah; the authoritys told me. :)

I appreciate the help because I'm still on the fence. I once heard Hillary Clinton say "If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself."

[Tormod]

What seemed to be the strongest argument he emphasized, is the radiation outside Earth's magnetic field would have killed the astronauts given its strength & their lack of shielding.The article is well written & documented, & as I understand that even the bad astronomers are having a tough time with that.

 

No. Well, yes, I guess "bad astronomers" will have problems with understanding it. Normal astronomers won't. Anyway, you don't use astronomers to send people to the moon, you use engineers. Job number #1 is to take care of the crew and make sure they are shielded from harm.

 

The radiation between the Earth and the Moon is lethal - especially in the Van Allen belts - but not difficult to survive (we have 8 manned missions without a single death to prove this). Moon missions are SHORT - they last a few days. A Mars mission is a completely different matter. The Moon is only about 350,000 kilometers away, and the Earth/Moon system really is a double planet system.

 

At the bottom of this document you'll find evidence of this:

http://www.lunaranomalies.com/fake-moon.htm

 

(And, by the way, if you can get people into orbit, you're almost halfway to the Moon! The rest is peanuts because the REAL effort lies in getting people off the ground in the first place!)

 

Finally, have you seen a Moon rock? How do you know it's from the Moon? Oh yeah; the authoritys told me.

 

No, the scientists did. Possibly the only big mystery left when it comes to the Moon is how it came into being. The current theory is that a planet-sized asteroid smashed into a very young Earth and a huge chunk of matter formed a ring which condensed into the moon. This would mean that the Moon should consist of pretty much the same material as the Earth, except that it has not gone through the geological activity (volcanoes, tectonics) as the Earth. So it is like the Earth when it was young. And in fact that is what we observe.

 

Here is a good page about the Lunar samples collected during the Apollo missions:

http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/lunar/lunar.htm

 

The SMART-1 mission, operated by the European Space Centre, is currently in orbit around the moon to study these things in further detail.

 

I once heard Hillary Clinton say "If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself."

 

Good quote. I like this one, too:

 

Stephen Hawking in A Brief History Of Time starts with the anecdote.

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a

public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the

sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection

of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at

the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish.

The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant

tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is

the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever,"

said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Taken from http://www.the-funneled-web.com/Hawking.htm

[Turtle]

Thanks Tormod; I want to beleive & I feel a little more inclined again to your side. I heard it was Feynman(sp) not Russel in your Hawking anecdote. Being a turtle myself, I thought I might work that one in. She's right you know; it is nothing but us turtles all the way down. ;)

Further on the contributions of turtles, the oldest know written magic square is in China. They relate that the magic square (3x3) came by way of a turtle which emerged from the Yellow river in the prescence of the emporor who slew the nine-headed dragon ( I forget his name) with the magic square etched on the bottom of his shell.

Another place to meet a math/logic turtle (although he is long-winded), is in "Metamagical Themas" by Dougy Hofstedter(sp). :cup:

[TeleMad]

I just watched a program on the National Geographic channel about the claims of the moon landing being faked. They interviewed people from both sides, and also setup a mock with a single source of light to test some of the arguments. Off the top of my head, here were some of the arguments and their undoings.

 

1) The flag flapped, indicating there was a wind.

The flag had two rods: one the pole that was jammed into the ground and a perpendicular one from which the flag itself hung. The act of sticking the pole into the ground setup motion in the rods and with no air to offer air resistance, the flag moved for a longer period of time than it would have on Earth.

 

2) Could see both sides of the flag clearly: stripes, stars, colors.

The single-source experiment at night also showed both sides of the flag clearly.

 

3) Shouldn't see details on space suit that is on opposite side of light source.

The single-source experiment at night also showed excellent detail of a space suit "in the shadow". Light bounces off surface and illuminates the shadow regions.

 

4) Shadows going in different directions, indicating multiple sources of light.

The single-source experiment at night showed shadows converging, for example, because the terrain was not flat.

 

5) No stars in the photos.

The single-source experiment at night also showed no stars in the pictures, even though stars were out.

 

6) Radiation would have killed the astronauts.

Not so. The time spent in the radiation belt was only a few seconds and it was calculated that it would take weeks, I believe, to be lethal. Also, NASA was worried about solar flares: they figured they would have enough notice to have the astronauts take off and point the bulky bottom of the craft towards the sun to block.

 

And some others. It was a good show.

[Brinnie]

this controversy is a walk in the park compared to Scientology...

[Moontanman]

i used to believe that america stepped foot on the moon, but i just read that entire page and am now disgusted.

what's going to happen when america loses it's spot as being the highest power on earth?

it's going to pull some bullshit like this because it's jelous.

once again, disgusted.

 

No, we are going to nuke every one else on the earth with non existant weapons that kill every one but leave all the cities standing with no radiation! England reported hearing the astronaunts from the moon, even the Soviets listened in and admitted the USA was on the moon. If there was a shred of evidence to the contrary you can believe the Soviets would have screamed to high heaven. I've read the mentioned site and all the things they say are proof are easily refuted by unbiased scientists. Give it up people, the USA went to the moon, it was very close a couple of times with solar flares and such but we made it. I'm sure luck played a role but determination and the human spirit made it happen. By the way I don't consider the moon landing a strictly American acomplishment, it was the sum total of human desire and knowlege acumulated for hundreds if not thousands of years by all peoples that made it possible.

[Theory5]

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at

the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish.

The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant

tortoise."

No,no,no. The world is supported by four elephants which in turn are on the back of a turtle hurtling through space.(Terry Pratchett's Disk World series) That much is obvious.

 

As it was said in the forum, getting people into space is the hard part. That much is true. After reading many science fiction books such as "Orbit" by John J. Nance and others, very specific math and science is required to correctly launch rockets into orbit. Have you ever been to Huntsville Alabama? Where they had the first NASA center? they have a bunch of rocket stages (I forget from what flight) and they are huge.

Why would the government spend so much money on NOT sending someone to the moon, when the same amount of money could be used to send someone to the moon. The government would spend less money if they weren't sending someone to the moon. The actors would be Barbie's wrapped in tin foil :-P

And the crosshairs missing? Ever play a First Person Shooter? Every gamer knows that your crosshairs will merge with the scenery sometimes. And thats especially true if the crosshairs are nothing more than a piece of plastic like paper placed over the camera lens.