Top 10 Apollo Hoax Theories

In honor of the anniversary of the moon landing, Space.com has an article listing (and debunking) the top 10 Apollo Hoax Theories. Below are the top 10 points raised by those who believe the moon landing was a hoax. You'll have to read the article to get the explanation of why these points DON'T prove that the moon landing was a hoax.

#10. Fluttering Flag: The American flag appears to wave in the lunar wind.
#9. Glow-in-the-Dark Astronauts: If the astronauts had left the safety of the Van Allen Belt the radiation would have killed them.
#8. The Shadow Knows: Multiple-angle shadows in the Moon photos prove there was more than one source of light, like a large studio lamp.
#7. Fried Film: In the Sun, the Moon's temperature is toasty 280 degrees F. The film (among other things) would have melted.
#6. Liquid Water on the Moon: To leave a footprint requires moisture in the soil, doesn't it?
#5. Death by Meteor: Space is filled with super-fast micro meteors that would punch through the ship and kill the astronauts.
#4. No Crater at Landing Site: When the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) landed, its powerful engine didn't burrow a deep crater in the "dusty surface."
#3. Phantom Cameraman: How come in that one video of the LEM leaving the surface, the camera follows it up into the sky? Who was running that camera?
#2. Big Rover: There's no way that big moon buggy they were driving could have fit into that little landing module!
#1. Its Full of Stars!: Space is littered with little points of lights (stars). Why then are they missing from the photographs?

Exploration/Travel Science

Posted on Wed Jul 20, 2005



Comments

Oh, and the flag appears to wave because it was made that way. It was considered to be more visually appealing than a limp flag. Go figure.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Dec 26, 2005  at  03:11 AM
In 1969 the Americans first landed men on the moon. Now some people have made names for themselves by saying that this and subsequent landings never happened. Their position is that NASA faked them in order to save face and fool the public. To prove their point they rely on explanations of the reported events using dubious science and lay explanations that any first year science major would and does, laugh at.

However, they always miss or purposely avoid the the one piece of irrefutable proof that it did in fact happen. That is that the Soviet government never refuted the American claims and they were in a unique position to do so. For even after the Americans landed on the moon the Soviets still continued to send orbiters, landers and rovers to the moon.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetary_lunar.html

Now if they wanted to get the goods on the Americans all they had to do was to land, photograph or explore with a rover the American landing sights. Just imagine the embarrassment not to mention the the damage to American credibility, at the height of the cold war no less, that such information would generate. Records even show that they never landed or even explored that areas that that American landings happened. So they did not even go and look to make sure because they knew it really happened.

The next question then is even if they did know they were faked why did they never use the information. They did not use it to pressure the Americans to stop bombing North Vietnam and Cambodia where Soviet military advisers were being killed as a result. They did not use it to
pressure the United States to stop sending military advisers to and providing Stinger missiles to the Afghan fighters during the Soviet occupation. They did not use it to stop the Star Wars program of the
Regan administration.

In fact they did not even use it to turn the West's attention away from the Soviet Union during the Soviet Coup of 1991 when members of the Soviet government briefly deposed Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and attempted to take control of the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_coup_attempt_of_1991

Which every body knew was the last death throws of the Soviet empire. If they did not use the information then to turn the attention of the American, and world public, inward to their own governments lies and thus corruption and force it to ignore the events in the Soviet Union
in order to deal with a damaging domestic and international issue. Then the proof of faked moon landings did not and never existed.

One final thought. After the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian economy tanked. People were selling all kinds of stuff owed by the crumbling state, ships, weapons, artworks and knowledge but nobody ever approached any Western news agency or tabloid to sell them this information. And to say that one would buy it but not publish is foolish. The seller could just keep peddling it until someone would.
Posted by Arthur Paliden  on  Tue Dec 26, 2006  at  09:13 PM
In 1964 America went about 120 miles into the atmosphere for the first time and broadcast it world wide. 5 years later America landed on the moon after the first attempt. The space shuttle orbits at 300 miles above the earth. Wake up. Do you seriously believe this. Oh, and 235,000 miles away and the radio reception was instantaneous...give me a break. hoax. I wonder why people believe this. I have a feeling its the same numbskulls that support the war and whatever America does. What America does is deceive. Landed on the moon..now that's rich.
Posted by Ed  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  08:17 AM
Yes Ed, I do believe it. Why? Because it's well within the limits of the available technology. And your grasp of physics seems a tad lacking.

Oh, and 235,000 miles away and the radio reception was instantaneous...give me a break.


Let's see, radio waves travel at the speed of light. That's 186,282 miles per second. I'm not sure how far away the moon was at the time of the landings, but I'll just use the average distance of 238,857 miles. That means it took only 1.28 seconds for the signals to reach the moon and another 1.28 seconds for the response to arrive back on earth. Hell man, modern radio communication has gaps that long.

So while the communication gap wasn't instantaneous (no communication is), it was easily short enough to allow for a normal flow of conversation.

Any other questions?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  10:23 AM
And because I can't leave well enough alone -

In 1964 America went about 120 miles into the atmosphere for the first time and broadcast it world wide.


It was 115 miles on May 5, 1961. Alan Shepard became the first American in space. The moon landing came over eight years later, not five.

You're actually pretty right about the space shuttle. Not that I can see what your point is.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  10:42 AM
Charybdis, the Moon is normally about 8 light-seconds away. And, being old enough to remember, it was mentioned quite often during the TV broadcasts that what we were seeing was sent 8 seconds ago from the Moon. Sam, the reason the astronaughts didn't jump very high was safety. Even with the lesser gravity a fall from a great height, especially in rough ground, can be dangerous. It could have been deadly there. Also, the amount of heat provided by the Solar radiation would not have been enough to counteract the radiation losses in the shadow of the Sun. The capsule would have absorbed heat where the Sun struck it, this heat would have conducted through the capsule slowly due to the conductivity of the material that the capsule was made of (which was chosen to minimize such conductivity) but where the Sun did not strike, the capsule would have radiated the heat away. A much greater area would have been radiating heat away than absorbing it. And, about the stars, read my earlier post about how long it takes film to register stars. No film or technological device yet invented can equal our eyes and brain for discerning light sources.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  10:48 AM
The moon is on avarage 385,000 km from the earth. Electromagnetic radiation (light/radio.etc...) travels at about 300,000 km in a vacume. So round trip to the moon is about 2.5 seconds. Not 8. The reason why it took 8 seconds is be cause the signal had to be processed on the earth and turned into a tv signal and then retransmitted to tv stations for retransmition

Please do some research be for you start to spout.
Posted by Arthur Paliden  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  11:02 AM
Arthur, I may have confused the number with the number of light-minutes the Sun is from Earth. However, my point that it wasn't instantanious and was acknowledged as such back then still stands.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  11:13 AM
Hmm, I wasn't aware of the processing time delay, probably due to being born 11 months after the fact. 😉

Still, it doesn't alter the fact that the moon's distance from the earth isn't anywhere near great enough to have caused an appreciable delay in communication on its own. With current technology I would expect the delay to be just over the 2.5 second turn-around.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Fri Apr 13, 2007  at  02:58 PM
Yes, I am wrong, it was 1961 the US went 115 miles into orbit.

Even with our communication advances, isn't there a time delay from live feeds from the US to Australia? Even if it is just a matter of seconds or nanoseconds or whatever?
Back then I don't believe there was anywhere near the communication ability as there is today. Ok, radio waves haven't changed in speed, I suppose, but it had to go through a satellite and then transmitted to the earth. It seemed to me odd that there was hardly any appreciable delay in communication.

Why was the transmission controlled entirely by the government? Months before, a satellite was put into orbit to broadcast to the control room simulated flight data for practice. The control room could never discern the difference between test flight data and the real flight data. The CONTROL room(funny name don't you think? It was a room controlled by the government...ok, you say it was controlling the Eagle)

THe television broadcast of the events was a recording from the video monitor in the control room.

Clear, color broadcasts from inside the Eagle and craptackular video from the moon's surface. Ok, techies, explain that one to me.

Why hasn't the US gone to the moon since then? Is it because Nixon isn't president anymore? The Apollo missions started and ended with Nixon, right?

Why didn't they put powerful telescopes on the moon instead of wasting their time driving around in dune buggies?

The questions can continue...
Posted by ed  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  08:51 AM
So why, at the hight of the cold war, did the USSR not call the American on it if it was all faked..see my original post about it.
Posted by Arthur Paliden  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:06 AM
There is a delay in transmitting images around the earth, it's just so short as to be negligable. Radio waves travel fast, very fast. There's is an entirely noticable delay when transmitting as far as the moon and back, but even then it's not that great. The distance may seem staggering to us, but it's miniscule when you're dealing in something that travels 186,300 miles in one second.

As far as the government controlling things - well, it was a government project. Did you expect them to set up telemetry computers in people's garages?

THe television broadcast of the events was a recording from the video monitor in the control room.


Well, the video monitors in the control room would have been the only ones picking up the live feed. As for being a recording, that's pure speculation with no evidence to back it up.

Clear, color broadcasts from inside the Eagle and craptackular video from the moon's surface. Ok, techies, explain that one to me.


I've seen lots of color video from the surface. You have to remember, the surface of the moon is very stark. Not a lot of color out there, but what there was came through. Also, inside the capsule you didn't have the contrast issue you had on the surface. All that white/light grey rock and dust reflected a lot of light back into the camera, tending to wash out less bright images.

In fact, if the whole thing were staged wouldn't you expect them to do a better job of it? If the images were perfect you'd be using that as an example of how it wasn't real.

Why hasn't the US gone to the moon since then? Is it because Nixon isn't president anymore? The Apollo missions started and ended with Nixon, right?


$$$$$. That and a lack of public interest pushing it through. With no obvious returns (the Soviets having already been beaten) why bother anymore.

Kennedy started the Moon Project. A rather famous speach of his, in fact.

Why didn't they put powerful telescopes on the moon instead of wasting their time driving around in dune buggies?


Why would they? Any telescope they could have brought with them wouldn't have been any better than the far bigger telescopes on earth, though they would have had the benefit of not dealing with an atmosphere. And who would adjust them? Batteries would only last a short while then fail, rendering the telescope useless. Plus, they would have had the same issue as earthside ones in that the planet they were on kept moving all the damn time. That's why so many telescopes are being put into orbit.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:52 AM
Don't be naive! The whole so-called 'cold war' was as fake as the moon landings - each side's 'achievements' (moon landings, cuban missile bases, you name it) HAD to go unchallenged to keep up the facade which was so profitble to the entrenchment of both power bases.

You're such a gull!! Next you'll be claiming the Kennedy 'assassination' and Twin Towers 'terrorist attacks' were not set up and faked:) God, I can't believe there are still people who cannot see through this CHARADE!!!!!
Posted by outeast  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:52 AM
PS /irony (for those whose Irony Meters when bust long ago...)
Posted by outeast  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:53 AM
Oh Arthur, don't you know that the USSR was secretely controlled by the US at the time? We were all working toward the same goal. That's why we didn't call them on the whole Vladimir Ilyushin debacle.

😉
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:57 AM
Snap:)
Posted by outeast  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:58 AM
See, outeast knows the truth. :lol:
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  10:58 AM
Charybdis, I appreciate this civil discourse. I started out on a bad foot by calling believers "numbskulls" and I apologize.

Certainly other countries would have continued to the moon, if it was possible at the time. A matter of pride? A matter of obtaining hugely significant scientific data? A matter of being the second country to do this. Nothing to snub one's nose at.China wants to do this by 2015.Not to mention Russia was far advanced in their space program. The first man in space, the first synchronous orbital flight, etc.

A telescope satellite could have possibly been jettisoned out into space further than ever at the time, right? I know, my scientific knowledge is lacking.

The video from the first landing was horrible on the surface of the moon. But the interior shots were great.

I wasn't talking about the moon mission including the Gemini, Mercury and others. The Apollo mission was during Nixon and ended with Nixon, I believe. Not saying he had anything to do with it.

October 11, 1968 Apollo 7 First Apollo mission to fly. Made 163 orbits around earth. 9 months later they broke free of the orbit and landed with no problems on the moon. Yes, Apollo 13 was made dangerous, probably to garner more public support for the missions(I mean, getting money.)

The space program lands on the moon in the time frame given by Kennedy in which Nixon calls the greatest event in creation...and they run out of $$$? Makes no sense. It makes more sense that this was a propaganda piece that NASA thought dangerous to continue. Or, NASA was completely successful in learning how to launch huge, far-reaching rockets that could have intercontinental ballistic missiles attached. Mission accomplished and instead of continuing the lie, they stopped.

US and Russia could have been in cahoots. Russia receives aid from US in return they don't blow the whistle. Speculation.

Do you know and can you provide info/sources on any observatories that kept track of the Apollo mission as it ascended in the direction of the moon? I would love an answer to this question.

Collins, Buzz, and Neil look extremely uncomfortable during the press conference after they returned. They didn't remember seeing stars on the surface of the moon either.Only question they did not have an answer for. All three retired after their mission. I've heard the top director of Apollo retired weeks before the missions for no given reason...forgot the name at this time(how convenient right?)
Posted by Ed  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  12:28 PM
Most other countries didn't have the resources and capital to attempt a lunar landing until recently. Even the USSR couldn't afford it at the time, they ended up bankrupting the nation because of their attempts to keep up with the US.

I'm unsure about your telescope comment. There's no reason to send most telescopes outside of earth's orbit. As long as they're in a location free from atmospheric pollution and can stay pointing at one part of the sky for extended lengths of time they do just fine. The only reason to send one further into space is to get close-up images of the other planets and misc, and we've been doing that with probes for 40 years.

The images from the surface would have been washed out. They improved in later missions. They also would have required far different cameras than interior cameras, ones intended to operate in a vacuum.

Again, how is this evidence the landing was staged? Do you think NASA would have used substandard cameras for their faked 'lunar surface' footage than for their interior shots? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just use the same cameras?

Mercury was the program to get Americans into space. Gemini was the program to develop the skills and technology to produce the Apollo program, operating from 1963-66. Gemini was the 'testing ground', so to speak, where we learned what it would take to get a manned capsule to the moon. The Apollo Program was the actual lunar program. Nixon was elected in '68.

The images from the surface would have been washed out. They improved in later missions. They also would have required far different cameras than interior cameras, ones intended to operate in a vacuum.

Again, how is this evidence the landing was staged? Do you think NASA would have used substandard cameras for their faked 'lunar surface' footage than for their interior shots? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just use the same cameras?

You're correct about Apollo 7. Your comment on Apollo 13 is pure speculation with no evidence to back it up.

The space program didn't 'run out of money', the government stopped funding it as much. Public opinion waned after the first landing. Subsequent landing barely rated television time, except on the news. Nobody wanted to pay for it anymore when the Soviets had already been beat. If another 'threat' had surfaced then perhaps the interest and funding would have come, but none did. By your own argument some threat should have been 'manufactured' at this time to keep interest and funding up, yet none came. You can't have it both ways. No government agency willingly stops accepting money.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  04:05 PM
I don't know of any record of observatories that tracked the missions, but it should be easy to find something. Any large telescope or radio antenna would have been able to track the capsule on its way to and from the moon. Well within the capabilities of many countries. Yet none, even the ones that hated us (such as China), stood up and said "This was faked, and we have telemetric proof the capsule never left the earth." Why not?

Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin were not celebrities. They were people assigned a dangerous job who managed to pull it off, with the help of thousands of people supporting them. Of course they were uncomfortable being in the limelight.

And as for retiring, they had done something no other person had ever done before. It's hard to top that. And Armstrong in particular hated the attention and hounding the press gave him. Paparazzi isn't a modern phenomenon.

As for the top director of Apollo retiring, I have no info on that. Even so, what does it prove?

You keep making comments without any reasoning to back them up. You say "this is suspicious", but you don't follow through and state why, or why it would matter. You point out what you perceive as anomalous 'facts' as if that proved your case, yet you don't ever state why this should be so. You seem to be making huge leaps to your conclusions, leaps other people can't understand.

For instance, the camera quality issue. Even if the images from the surface are of less quality than the interior shots, how does this support your position? What reasoning are you making that would link this with the landings being faked?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Apr 16, 2007  at  04:06 PM
Alas, you're right Charybdis. I have no proof. Only speculation.

But Charybdis, riddle me this:
Several peculiarities exist for the
Posted by ed  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  09:51 AM
ed, von Braun was indeed a Nazi. After WW II the Soviet Union captured many German scientists and began using them to develope their rockets. The U.S. did the same in part to counter the Soviet actions, in part to hot-house our own program. Many Nazi scientists and other Nazis were ignored and not prosecuted in response to the Soviet threat. Look at the numer of former Nazis who ran the Federal German military in the 50's. And as far as Disney and von Braun being a technical consultant, who would they have selected? I know, the teenager selling papers on the street corner! Von Braun was selected not only for his technical expertese but his name recognition as well. It would have been a big publicity bonus to have "the chief NASA rocket scientist" as a technical consultant, even if they completely ignored him. He probably had nothing to do with any aspects of the production except that he answered any technical questions submitted to him. If he had been the producer, or director, then you might have a point to bring up. You didn't think this one through long enough.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  10:34 AM
This is speculation: "It would have been a big publicity bonus to have "the chief NASA rocket scientist" as a technical consultant, even if they completely ignored him. He probably had nothing to do with any aspects of the production except that he answered any technical questions submitted to him."

Could it have been a boost to have the most advanced, technical film making studio be associated with the NASA program? I mean they could have made the cameras better for lunar surface broadcast. All that darned bright light.

Maybe they could have been able to film the stars that must have been so brilliant on the moon without atmosphere..you know, those same stars that the three astronauts
DIDN'T REMEMBER IF THEY SAW STARS OR DIDN'T SEE STARS ON THE LUNAR SURFACE. They must have been too busy trying to keep the flag from waving around huh?
Posted by ed  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  10:42 AM
You know Ed, I often can't see stars from my house. You know why? Light pollution, pure and simple. And I'm not just talking about light reflecting off of atmospheric dust, though that's a major problem. I'm also talking about street lights and car headlights dilating my pupils so they won't register the fainter stars. It happens all the time.

Now, try looking for stars when you're standing in a sea of white and gray rocks and dust with the sun overhead. The lunar landscape could be very bright at times, and even in the darker areas it was still bright enough to ruin night vision, which is required to see all those faint stars.

Yes you could see the stars from the moon, but only if you shielded your eyes from all the brighter objects all around you. It would have required staring straight up for a long enough period to allow your eyes to adjust to the lower light levels. And even then I'm uncertain just what affect reflected light would have had on the astronaut's helmets. Perhaps none, perhaps a lot.


And, once again, your present an argument that in no way supports the idea that the landings were faked. Do you honestly think that NASA (this incredibly manipulative and conniving group, it seems) would have forgotten to add stars to their supposed backdrops? Or that the astronauts, who were presumably complicent in the fraud, wouldn't have lied and claimed they *did* see the stars?

How, in your mind, would such an omission on their part ever make you think the landings were faked?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  11:14 AM
See quote from your above post concerning viewing stars from telescopes on the moon:
"Any telescope they could have brought with them wouldn't have been any better than the far bigger telescopes on earth, though they would have had the benefit of not dealing with an atmosphere."

SO which is it? Too much reflected light to not see the stars from the moon or really bright stars that are well seen due to the lack of atmosphere on the moon? You can't have it both ways.

Stars added to the backdrops would be very difficult to fake, I assume. Astronomers world wide might be able to point out anamolies in constellations, etc. Best way to deal with it is not mention them at all. It would, however, have behooved the astronauts to rehearse the star questions before the press conference.
Posted by ed  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  12:18 PM
I can too have it both ways, because you're talking about two different problem, light scattering in the atmospher and light reflecting from the surface.

What happens on earth during the day is that the dust in the air reflects sunlight, causing the sky to basically glow with a soft blue light. This light is easily brighter than the stars shining through it, so the stars disappear. At night this glow disappears, but the atmosphere still has different layers at different temperatures, causing the stars to shimmer, much like when looking out at a low angle across a hot pavement.

On the moon you don't get either of these issues, so you get a much clearer view of the stars.

Now, to the second issue. If bright light is entering your pupils then they will grow smaller to protect your eye from overload. This has the side-affect of limiting your low-light vision, meaning you can't see fainter lights, such as stars. This in no way is negated in a vacuum. The cameras of the time suffered from this affect even more so than the humans. If the cameras were to allow enough light to enter to make the stars show up, then everything else in the image would have appeared more or less solid white due to too much light entering the lense. You see this often on television for dramatic affect, the image starts out very bright and solid, and as the light is filtered the image gets darker and details start appearing.

If you doubt this try some simple experiments. Go outside at night and try to see the stars near a light pole. The closer to the light you get the more the stars grow fainter until you can't see them at all. Imagine the entire landscape lit up in such a manner and it's not hard to see why your pupils wouldn't allow enough light to enter to make the stars visible.

Now try it with a camera. Take a picture of the light and see if any stars are visible in the image. Unless you turn the exposure way up you won't be able to see any, but then the light would be so bright as to cause an annoying glare in the center of your picture.

To recap.

1) Dust in the air scatters light and outshines the stars. Only objects brighter than the sky (the moon, Venus, and sometimes Jupiter. Maybe Mars as well, in certain circumstances) will show through.

2) Light reflects off objects and terrain, causing your pupils to contract letting in too little light to allow you to see the stars. The affect is the same with cameras, though through mechanical and not biological processes.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  01:01 PM
Wow, lots of typos. I guess I shouldn't do this just before lunch.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  01:02 PM
From the Apollo 11 log:
http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/apollo11_log/log.htm
1:55 p.m.- Armstrong tells Mission Control: "We're getting this first view of the landing approach. This time we are going over the Taruntius crater and the pictures and maps brought back by Apollos 8 and 10 give us a very good preview of what to look at here. It looks very much like the pictures, but like the difference between watching a real football game and watching it on TV-no substitute for actually being here."

About 15 minutes later he adds: "It gets to be a lighter gray, and as you get closer to the subsolar point, you can definitely see browns and tans on the ground."

And a few moments still later: "When a star sets up here, there's no doubt about it. One instant it's there and the next instant it's just completely gone."(why couldn't he say this during the press conference? No, he has to stumble over his words..I remember something about stars, don't know which ones....and Buzz says "I don't remember seeing any."

I thought you said that the surface of the moon was white and gray rocks...but Neil says it's brown and tan.

Wait, wait...Wait a minute..Aldrin agrees with you and completey disagrees with Neil:
4:18 p.m: Finally, in describing the surface, Aldrin says: "It's pretty much without color. It's gray and it's a very white chalky gray, as you look into the zero phase line, and it's considerably darker gray, more like ashen gray as you look up 9O degrees to the Sun. Some of the surface rocks close in here that have been fractured or disturbed by the rocket engine are coated with this light gray on the outside but when they've been broken they display a dark, very dark gray interior, and it looks like it could be country basalt."

Fractured rocks from the effects of the rocket engine thrust? But no displacement of rocks or moon dust, as would be evidenced by no dust on the landing feet of the LM, underneath the lunar module. I think it produced 10,000 lbs of pressure or something? And no displacement of dust near the landing module as evidenced by the fact of the footprints photographed in the fine dust near the landing site.

Does not Buzz Aldrin recount seeing stars from the surface of the moon in his book written around 1976 entitled 'Return to Earth"? I wish I had the page number. But he didn't remember seeing them during the press conference. This book is something we'd have to read to find out. To the library!

What does this prove? Conflicting answers equals a conflicted story. Details are important. One doesn't remember something here but remembers it at a later date. One sees brown and tan and the other sees white and gray. Just details.

I guess they can't be expected to remember everything that happened on the moon...but it does warrant questioning when they remember different things about the same event.
Posted by ed  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  02:23 PM
ed, talk with someone who deals with witnesses as part of their job. Guess what! Witnesses will disagree on what was seen almost all the time. Sometimes quite massively. There is the famous experiment of the psychologist's convention which illustrates this. Perhaps you've heard it, perhaps not. The basics are that one man runs into a convention conference room and goes down the center aisle. A second man chases the first while wavint a gun. A third man enters, knocks the second down and takes the gun away. The three leave. After this the organizers get everyone to write down what they saw. Of the approximatle 100 people in the room almost none got it right. I forget the exact number, but it was no where near even half the people who witnessed the experiment. Try something similar yourself, don't tell them what you are doind, but get several friends to witness some event and then get them to describe it in writing to you. I'll bet the descriptions will vary quite a bit, even to the basics. Human memory is not a photograph.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  02:43 PM
these were not merely witnesses to the moon landing..these were highly trained astronauts trained in the skills of space exploration, research, and observation. They weren't a bunch of yahoos in a conference.

What about displaced and fractured rocks by the thrust of the engines, but the silt near the landing module was not disturbed and allowed for nicely laid footprints? No dust on the landing feet of the LM, either, from pix I've seen.
Posted by ed  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  03:27 PM
I thought you said that the surface of the moon was white and gray rocks...but Neil says it's brown and tan.


From your own post ...you can definitely see browns and tans on the ground.

Neil says he can see browns and tans, not that the entirety of the surface is brown and tan. He also stated this while approaching the landing site. White and gray are the predominant colors at the landing site, but that's not universal across the whole moon. Also, green is the predominant color of a forest, but that doesn't exclude browns and tans from showing through as you pass overhead.

The dust issue has already been raised and explained, I'm not doing so again. It's up there if you care to read it. It's a simple thing, really.

As far as memory goes, Christopher covered it quite nicely. In fact, if everyone agreed on every last detail that would be suspicious, not the other way around.

Face it, you simply don't want to believe the landings occurred, and you're willing to latch on to any perceived 'irregularity' as proof you are correct. You still have yet to provide a single example of any real evidence beyond your feelings.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  03:34 PM
these were highly trained astronauts trained in the skills of space exploration, research, and observation. They weren't a bunch of yahoos in a conference.


No they weren't. They were mostly pilots with the determination (and luck) to have made it into space. There was no space exploration to speak of, everyone was learning as the went along. Yes they were highly trained - to operate the crafts they rode in. There was very little research done at first, and what was done was at the direction of earthside scientists.

They weren't yahoos, but there wasn't much room for niceties when your sole goal is to get there and return alive.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  03:40 PM
ed, I forget exactly how quickly the press conference was held after splashdown but those men had not had the time to recover from days of bad sleep and off-and-on adrenaline rushes. Which is a much more likely explanation for what you think of as suspicious events in the press conference than any conspiracy. No one has a prefect memory. Several months ago a couple of police officers came to my door and asked for one of my neighbors. Even though they explained who they wanted very well and even though I know the person fairly well, it still took me several minutes to put the data together and direct them to my next-door neighbor.
You called my explanation of von Braun's being used as a technical consultant for Disney "speculation", not really since this sort of thing still goes on all the time. Except now it is more likely to be a rock or movie star or athlete or out-of-office politician than a engineer or other technical person.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  05:46 PM
"You still have yet to provide a single example of any real evidence beyond your feelings."

You're right. None of these observations must make any sense at all to you.

Von Braun worked in the film industry. Accept it. He either knew how to make movies or he knew people who knew how to make movies. A rocket scientist plus a film producer equals the ability to produce a movie that appears to be filmed on in space or on the moon.

The van Allen Radiation belts.

Charybdis is very good at debating. He/she/it says the dust issue has been resolved from this post "The dust was only a few inches thick, on average. The dust was piled up around the LEM. The ladder extended out the side of the LEM, not the bottom."

The dust was only a few inches thick...exactly...it should have been blown away from the LM and then no footprints would have been left. It's simple really.

Those astronauts look nervous as hell during the press conference.

This has been hilarious. But now it bores me.
Posted by ed  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  10:35 AM
Von Braun worked in the film industry. Accept it. He either knew how to make movies or he knew people who knew how to make movies. A rocket scientist plus a film producer equals the ability to produce a movie that appears to be filmed on in space or on the moon.


And yet, this in no way is any kind of evidence such an event occurred. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it happened.

As for the dust, try it some time with a sandbox and a can of compressed air. The sand immediately below the air stream will be blown out of the way, but it will pile up around the center. The exhaust wouldn't have simply turned 90
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  10:48 AM
Assuming you aren't leaving us because we're pointing out how all of your arguments are incorrect, I suppose you'll switch to another false premise.

How about the waving flag? I haven't argued that one is a long time. Or how about the melting film since I haven't addressed that one before?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  10:54 AM
They weren't actors, you're right. That's why they couldn't act confident and proud that they had done something no one had done in the history of the world. They all just stared at their pens as they fidgeted.

As for the dust...try it in a sandbox with a fire extinguisher. The surface area that would be affected by the descending lunar module with its rocket jets would be larger than the craft itself.
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  11:26 AM
You'd think they'd hire actors if they were going to fake something. It argues against your position, not for it.

No, the surface area affected would have been larger than the nozzle, but not necessarily larger than the lander. This picture gives a good shot of the lander and the ground beneath it. The nozzle itself looks to be roughly 1/4 the width of the entire lander assembly. It shows that the dust has been blown from directly beneath the nozzle and surrounding area, but not as far as the lander legs. Which is what you should expect with no air displacement.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  12:19 PM
Thank you for the picture. It argues against your position and not for it.

So you admit the dust would have been blown in all directions, especially upward.

The dust is blown upward, hits the underneath of the LM, is deflected back to the ground,... and none of it lands on the landing feet?
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  01:08 PM
Ed, the primary reason why exhaust spreads is atmosphere. Without the air to deflect the exhaust, it will travel in a straight line. Dust blown up will fall straight down with displacement only due to the lunar rotation. The bottom of the lander was quite flat, it didn't need to worry about drag so the bottom didn't need the more expensive drag reducing curves and so forth. As for why the astronaughts looked and acted they way they did, you see how you act after weeks of bad sleep. No one has ever gotten a good nights sleep in space, primarily due to the gravity difference. It probably took months for them to recover. And while professional observatories were discussed, amatures weren't. There were thousnads of amatures back then with telescopes powerfull enough to notice that the asttronauts weren't flying to the Moon. Unless you are going to argue that the Lunar Lander was sent empty, thousands of people had the ability to follow the Apollo astronaughts as they travelled to the Moon.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  02:34 PM
Ed, I just remembered someting else. There is a lasar reflector on hte Moon that is used by scientists not only in this country but others as well. Primarily to measure the speed at which the Moon is receeding from the Earth, but other experiments as well if I remember right. If Apollo was a hoax, how did it get there?
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  02:55 PM
I was watching a NASA film about the space shuttle. In the film they described the booster rockets as being 40 feet wide( I don't remember exactly.)

Are the booster rockets similar to the exhaust system in cars? I'm under the impression that the rockets channel the exhaust and explosive powers of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as they combine and ignite. Is this assumption correct?
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  03:31 PM
Booster rockets are nothing like the exhaust system of a car. On a car the system is designed to vent waste gases left over from the internal cumbustion of the fuel. All the motive power is created within the engine to power a drive train, which turns the wheels.

In a rocket, the exhaust system is the thrust system. It's the gases being expelled that cause the rocket to move.

The rocket boosters used to launch the shuttle, as well as the rockets actually on the shuttle itself, are far, far bigger than on the lunar lander. The lander didn't have to fight the earth's gravity, only the moon's. And the lander was far less massive that the shuttle.

The space shuttle at liftoff weighs in at around 4,500,000 lbs.

The lunar lander weighed around 5400 lbs as it descended to the lunar surface (lunar weight), and only 1700 lbs lifted off again.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  04:15 PM
So the fire we see exiting the rocket boosters is the gas that is being expelled and ignited?

How many pounds of pressure do you suppose comes out of those rockets? And how hot do you think those expelled gasses get?

Once I have these answers, then I have a follow up question and a point to make.
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  05:05 PM
Ed, you do not see fire coming from a rocket except in bad sci-fi shows. The fire is inside the engine and what you see is hot gas. The hot gas needs to expand, to occupy more volume, than the cold gas and the engine and exhaust tubes are designed to channel that expansion to best use. Therefore, the exhaust coming from a rocket, or a jet, is designed to flow out as straight as possible as any side expansion reduces the thrust available to actually push the craft. An old rule of thumb for rockets was that the payload was 10% of the total weight of the rocket. Since rockets have to depart going basically straight up, thrust would have been some bit larger than total weight. The rocket would accelerate as fuel was used up and as gravity lessened. The shuttle booster rockets are thrown away as fast as possible in order to lessen the weight. The design of the shuttle rocket exhausts are different from the ones on the Lunar Lander, many years of further research the ones on the Lander were quite small.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Apr 18, 2007  at  06:43 PM
Actually, the gases that escape from the shuttle rockets are flaming, they're that hot.

However, the first-stage rockets on the shuttle are solid-fuel rockets, much like in model rocket engines - they are not liquid fueled.

The reason for this is because solid-fuel rockets provide much more thrust per volume of weight. The systems are also far less complicated, so they save money and get greater initial thrust right where it counts the most.

The problem with solid-fuel rockets is that once ignited, you can't turn them off again. This makes fine tuning impossible, so the the shuttle finishes its launch on it's own liquid-fuel thrusters. Once the solid rocket boosters have burned out and dropped away the shuttle draws its liquid fuel from the external fuel tank, and when that's empty it's jettisoned as well. This leaves the shuttle with just enough fuel in its own tanks to maneuver in space and fall out of orbit again.

So no, the thrusters on the lunar lander operated nothing like the shuttle at lift-off. As far as how hot the lander's thrusters burned, and how far away those gases retained heat in a vacuum, I have no idea. I also have no idea how hot you wuld have to get the lunar dush to melt it, if that's what you're aiming at. I would imagine that by the time the gasses first reached the surface and blew the dust away they were cool and diffuse enough to have no affect on the dust. Remember, heat is lost very, quickly in a vacuum since there is not atmosphere to absorb the heat and re-radiate it back at you.


And always, always, ALWAYS copy your post before submitting. 😠
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Apr 19, 2007  at  09:02 AM
How hot do you think those gasses get...hotter than an office or home fire?
There's tens of thousands of lbs of pressure that is exited by the booster rockets and the external fuel tank/rocket, I'm sure.

Does NASA gather and reuse those rocket boosters after they are jettisoned?

What do you mean "copy your post"?
Posted by Ed  on  Thu Apr 19, 2007  at  12:07 PM
Ed, the boosters are recovered and reused, the external fuel tank is not. And the exhaust is not hot enough to melt rock, if it were, the exhaust nozzels would melt.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Thu Apr 19, 2007  at  12:32 PM
It makes sense the flaming exhaust is hotter than an office fire (goes to figure since the fuel is made to be highly combustible), but not hot enough to weaken the exhaust nozzels on the booster rockets that they reuse. Plus, those exhaust nozzels are then channeling the tens of thousands of lbs of pressure in as straight a line as possible, so they would have to be very sturdy. Sound right?
Posted by Ed  on  Thu Apr 19, 2007  at  01:11 PM
The comment about copying posts is to remind myself. The system has a habit of losing my post, and if I don't copy it first I have to retype the whole thing.

I'm not sure how hot they get, easily hotter than anything in most homes outside of welding equipment. Still not hot enough to melt the launchpad during the short time it's exposed to it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they replace the nozzles and many other parts of the rockets before reusing them. There's always going to be some damage or stress weakening of them, and these are (relatively) cheap and easy to replace. It's the delivery and structural systems that probably cost the most money, and are the parts they most desire to reuse.

And once again, the space shuttle launch rockets are many factors more powerful than that used on the lunar landers.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Apr 19, 2007  at  03:10 PM
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