Did 12 Americans walk on the moon or hop around a movie set?

[Robert Bruce]

An interesting discussion popped up under the ISS topic about the conspiracists theory that NASA faked the moonlandings from 20 July 1969 through to 1972's final Apollo 17 mission to the moon.

This is an interesting discussion about six space missions that changed our world and is worthy of its own topic header. So I have opened up this thread to discuss it further if that is OK with you all.

As an opener I saw my first spacecraft fly overhead from horizon to horizon in my first or second year at OPS. I recall the day as clear blue skies and the silver dot so high in space passed quickly overhead. We were assebling out front of the school as we did in those days. I was so excited. I was hooked and happily admit that I remain an absolute space geek and readily accept that twelve men have walked, hopped, tripped up, fallen and driven a vehicle at different regions on the moon.

I followed NASA's entire moon program from the catastrophe and tragedy of the Apollo 1 pressure test fire, through to the final ascent stage blast off of the Apollo 17's LEM (called Challenger) from the moon's landing site in the Taurus-Littrow region on 14 December 1972. This brought down the curtain on the moon program. Regretably, public disinterest and mission costs brought an early close to all manned flight to the moon.

Once Apollo 17 landed safely back on Earth the conspiracy theorists started to try to undermine the USA's magnificent success. What Bart Sibrel and David Percy do not address is the success that followed the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, Skylab and for a shortwhile the MIR programs. Do they believe the ISS is manned by an international crew? Or do they think it is a US personnel only? Can they handle the fact that the USA and USSR eventually joined foces and manned the old MIR station? Surely this was faked propaganda....? Yes?

Debunking their flights of fantasy is an interesting challenge and I am pleased that so many of their baseless and untested hypotheses have been debunked. Even the popular TV programme called "MythBusters" got involved in an effort to prove one of their theories was correct but they successfully failed thus debunking the conspiracists yet again.

Below is part of the faked photographs project summation quoted from the test that Apollo photographs were not taken on the moon citing the theory that different shadow effects from a single light source (the sun) were impossible to create (different angled shadow effects) and thus were proof the photos were taken using more than one light source - studio lighting effect:

"...if there's no meal on the table, it means that dinner just wasn't cooked, not that cooking the meal was impossible.

Conspiracy theorists typically argue indirectly. They don't pit the merits of their theory against the merits of competing theories. Instead they try to erode confidence in some "official story" to the point where it seems arbitrarily incredible, whereupon their conspiracy theory is supposed to stand as the "default" conclusion when the official story fails. The conspiracists never put the conspiracy theory "default" to the test to see whether it too make sense.

In other words, they never test their tests......"

This is an absolute failing for any conspiracist. To not test what you propound to be the truth is incredibly naiive and ultimately so very, very stupid.

Carl, I have twice tried to view Sibrel's video BUT the very high emotive content from the outset such as pictures of starving Biafran children, Kent State, a monk on fire, Vietnam atrocities etc are not in context with the hypothesis and make it more a message about how Sibrel should get on a psychotherapist's couch to dump his psychological hang-ups about one of mankinds superbly brave, challenging, inspirational ground-breaking and successful endeavours.

As movies go about documenting their alternative 'fact' or myth, I have not seen a worse introduction to set out its stall an begin exemplifying its claim that everything about landing on the moon six times was faked. To say it is overly indulgent crap and contains so much irrelevent material is putting it mildly.

However, I need to persevere and watch the show in its entirety. I will. 



FOR YOUR EDIFICATION AND DELIGHT:

Mistakenly attributed as results of the space race, long-duration and deep space exploration

Barcodes (NASA developed a special type of barcode, but this should not be mistaken for the original one.)
Cordless power tools (The first cordless power tool was unveiled by Black & Decker in 1961. It was used by NASA and a number of spinoff products came out of that.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) (NASA has, however, contributed to its advances over the years. MRI is best known as a device for body scanning.)
Quartz clocks (The quartz clock dates back to 1927. However in the late 1960s, NASA partnered with a company to make a quartz clock that was on the market for a few years.)
Smoke detectors (NASA's connection to the modern smoke detector is that it made one with adjustable sensitivity as part of the Skylab project.)
Tang juice powder (Tang was developed by General Foods in 1957, and it has been for sale since 1959. It was used in the first orbit missions, which gave awareness to it.)
Teflon (Invented for DuPont in 1938 and used on frying pans from the 1950s.[29] It has been applied by NASA to heat shields, space suits, and cargo hold liners.)
Velcro (A Swiss invention from the 1940s. Velcro was used during the Apollo missions to anchor equipment for astronauts' convenience in zero gravity situations.)

I'll need to keep adding to this post as new facts and mythbusting videos come to my attention.

UPDATE#1: Just found and added the link to the MYTHBUSTERS video on YT. http://youtu.be/Wym04J_3Ls0

UPDATE #2: Now I've found a new conspiracy theorists myth buster video. This one is about the waving flag! http://youtu.be/hMBCfuKs9i8

UPDATE #3: Oh dear, here's another update about those wires that helped suspend the astronauts to make them appear to move in slow motion during the filming at the ictional studio....! http://youtu.be/Tc7FLQR92eg

[SandyB]

Yup  we will always wonder .. I still got the one  magazine stored away .. only verificatiob would be a pic from a super telescope showing the  discarded eqpt on the moon face ,,  but then  in 69  it was a glorious moment ..  so I will leave it so ...

[henniek]

I think it is important to take note of what they left behind on the moon , eg the reflector . The USA regulary sends a lasar beam to the moon , that is reflected back to earth , and by measuring the time lapse , they can tell the exact distance between moon and earth . If it was a fake moon landing by USA astronaughts  , who planted the reflector ? who aimed it back to earth at the correct angles etc ?

[Robert Bruce]

Henniek, you are so right! Here is some more detail:

"On the afternoon of July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin explored the surface of the Moon for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs while Michael Collins orbited in the command module Columbia. On July 21, about an hour aefore the end of their final moonwalk, they left an experiment on the lunar surface which, after 35 years, continues to work as well as it did the day it got there. Called the lunar laser ranging experiment, it studies the Earth-Moon system and returns data to scientific centers around the world, including NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

"An accurate knowledge of the Moon's orbit and orientation is needed for future robotic and manned missions to our satellite," said Dr. James G. Williams, one of four JPL scientists who analyze the data from the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment. "Scientists have been able to use the data they received through lunar laser ranging to study the Earth, the Moon and the character of gravity."


The data gathered has shown us that the Moon is receding from the Earth at about 3.8 centimetres (1.5 inches) every year. It has also measured minute changes in the shape of the Earth as landmasses gradually change after being compressed by the great weight of the glaciers in the last Ice Age.

Unlike the other scientific experiments left on the Moon, the reflector requires no power and is still functioning perfectly.

[Robert Bruce]

Tracks, Equipment Left By Apollo Missions Visible In New Moon Photos


NASA
The Apollo 14 landing site: To the far right, the Lunar Roving Vehicle; Toward the center, the descent stage of the Challenger lunar module. The lines are tracks and cables.

Published: September 06, 2011
by Mark Memmott

Tracks and equipment left on the moon by astronauts from three of the Apollo missions can be seen in new photos just released by NASA.

Though not close-ups by any stretch of the imagination, the images do offer more detail than other photos taken two years ago by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is now circling the moon.

As it flew over landing sites of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 missions, the orbiter snapped pictures that show, among other things:

Trails created by footprints from all six astronauts during the three missions, as well as tracks made by Apollo 17's Lunar Roving Vehicle (which also appears as a small dot in one photo).

Equipment such as the descent stages of lunar modules and cables running to two instruments from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package left behind by Apollo 12 astronauts.

[henniek]

I once saw an article in a Israeli publication where it is mentioned that since the USA and Rusians were involved in a space race , The Americans prepared for a possible unsuccesful moon landing . So they prepared a warehouse somewhere in England , and took some photographs . The landing was succesful , but some one not knowing that the photographs were fakes , released some for publication - If I remember correctly ,one of the photos was of a astronaught standing next to the moonbuggy , and on his face shield the reflection showed faintly that the person who took the photograph , had a ordinary unprotected Haselblad camera in his hands .
But of coarse they landed , and it is history .

[Robert Bruce]

That NASA would contemplate building a mock-up lunar EVA area in another country to perpetuate a falsehood to support their superiority over Russia is absolutely preposterous!

To involve a European country, a foreign nation at that, in a grandios deception flies in the face of the USA's paranoid sense of national security.

Any chance you can track down that article?

[Robert Bruce]

Yup  we will always wonder .... only verificatiob would be a pic from a super telescope showing the  discarded eqpt on the moon face

Sandy - here you are - all the super telescopic photos you need to convert you and others into firm believers that man went to the moon, landed and then walked on the moon. Apollo 11 site photo is on the webpage!

Click on the link below
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/index.html

[SandyB]

Thanks  Robert ...  did not  doubt , but yes  active debate  in the mind ..

[toonfandangl]

Common you disbelievers did man set foot on the moon! what about the Blue Police Box the 'TARDIS' it has been around since the early sixties I'm sure the 'Doctor' would have disproved the yanks by now........................................

[Robert Bruce]

Fortunately at a very early age I took a dislike to the Dr Who series. It was the cheaply made Daleks with the sink plungers that turned me off what I'm told is a very addictive storyline and which hooks people into being lifelong fans. Not me.

Even today's Dr Who still has cheaply made Daleks and laughably 'horrific' monsters. My prejudice against all things Dr Who prevails.

But mostly the single thing about the programme that makes me puke is that pathetic Tardis.

[Robert Bruce]

I posted a poll at the top of this thread to get a sample indication of how many people do not believe man went to the moon and landed  then walked on it.

PLease go vote. It'll be interesting to see the results.

[Michael Alexander]

What was the movie from the 70's called that played out this whole conspiracy theory then?

[Robert Bruce]

The movie Capricorn One was about a landing on MArs but was actually aimed at the moon landings. Elliot Gould starred.

[Michael Alexander]

Spot On!