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

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
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/01/wmoon01.xml

"Mankind's second race for the moon took on a distinctly Cold War feel yesterday when the Russian space agency accused its old rival Nasa of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration.

Yesterday Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said: "We are ready to co-operate but for some reason the United States has announced that it will carry out the programme itself. Strange as it is, the United States is short of experts to implement the programme."

"A non-radioactive isotope of helium, helium-3 is a proven and potent fuel for nuclear fusion - so potent that just six metric tons would supply Britain with enough energy for a year.

The plot, says Erik Galimov, an academic with the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out."

If only America could have realized the significance of landing on the moon at the time. But the public was far more interested in watching reruns of I Love Lucy. If only the NASA scientists and engineers could have convinced congress that something, anything, could have potentially been used from the moon for mankind's advantage...then we wouldn't have articles like this one to read today.

Why does this have to be, Christopher and Chary?!!! why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We were there once, right?! Oh why were they so short-sited?!!!!!!

Has anyone seen Warner von Braun's, the Father of the United States Space Program, made for tv space exploration movies? excellent work!
Posted by ed  on  Tue May 01, 2007  at  10:40 AM
Ed, it takes a certain mind-set to plan for the distant future. This mind-set was more common before the baby-boomer generation since instant gratification was unusual. Sadly, my generation grew up on instant gratification and never grew up enough to get past it. So, we drown in debt because we have to have the whatever today instead of next week or next month, companys no longer plan for the long term because investors demand return on investment tomorrow (if that far into the future) instead of five years from now. Congress has, for decades, found it easier to spend money buying votes than building for a future, and so on. And the baby-boomers have taught these values of me-ism to the succeeding generations. I read once that the space program failed because we didn't bump into Klingons. There was no challenge to present to the public that could catch their interest. It wasn't just I Love Lucy reruns, it was absorbtion in self-interest.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue May 01, 2007  at  05:16 PM
NASA's recent articles belies its' own Apollo missions.

According to NASA:
If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. See Illustration here:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070621.html

View photos of stars visible behind the sun's corona made by SOHO telescope photographs. Obviously, the sun didn't block out these stars.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-eit_284-1024.html

When asked why none of the astronauts talked about the stars, NASA scientists respond with remarks such as:
"stars are not readily seen in the daylight lunar sky by either the human eye or a camera because of the brightness of the sunlight surface"
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/images13.html

The reflected sunlight travels in straight lines. There is no atmosphere to scatter the sunlight, so when an astronaut (or camera) looks up at the stars, how could the reflected light from the lunar surface get into his eyes?


It is easy to measure the level of reflected light from the moon, and from that you can determine what percentage of the sunlight the moon is reflecting. The moon does not reflect very much sunlight.

This is a very simple description of the moon from NASA:
"...the moon is about the poorest reflector in the solar system. The amount of light reflected by a celestial object is called the albedo (Latin: albus, white). The moon reflects only 7% of the sunlight that falls upon it, so the albedo is 0.07"
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/moon.html

This means that astronauts on the moon would not be overwhelmed with the brightness of the lunar surface. Rather, they would be amazed at how dark the surface is.

U2 pilots can see stars.

U2 pilots say that when they climb to high altitudes the sky becomes dark, the stars become brighter, and more stars become visible:
"The air is so much clearer up there; you can see what seems to be 10 times more stars. They just carpet the sky."

http://web.archive.org/web/20030620084228/http://www2.acc.af.mil/accnews/jan98/980025.html

A U2 pilot says stars "just carpet the sky", but not one Apollo astronaut talks about seeing stars.

Thanks to Eric.
Posted by Ed  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  10:47 AM
NASA is planning to send astronauts to the moon by the year 2020. However, before they send people to the moon, they want to measure the radiation levels on the moon with an unmanned probe named CRaTER:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/08sep_radioactivemoon.htm

Didn't NASA measure radiation levels in the 1960s?

NASA sent several Surveyor probes to the moon during the 1960s before sending the Apollo astronauts:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/surveyor.html

NASA claims the purpose of the probes was to analyze the moon's surface. At the time those probes landed on the moon, nobody knew whether the moon's surface was hard enough for people to walk on. Some people wondered if areas on the moon were covered with such a thick layer of powder that the Apollo spacecraft would sink into it.

The surveyor probes showed that it was possible to land a spacecraft on the moon because the surface was crushed rocks, not deep, soft powder.

NASA admits that the Surveyor 6 measured solar protons and cosmic rays:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1967-112A&ex=2

What did the probe determine? Were the solar protons and cosmic rays at such a low level that the astronauts would be safe? Why is NASA so secretive about radiation levels in outer space?

After discovering that the moon was safe to walk on, NASA claims to have sent six teams of astronauts to the moon. They landed in six different locations. However, none of them bothered to measure the radiation.

NASA claims that the Apollo astronauts never bothered to measure radiation levels because they were on the moon for only a couple days. A more likely explanation for why the astronauts never measured radiation levels on the moon is because they never went to the moon.


In April 2006 NASA announced a plan to send a probe to the moon in 2008 to determine if there is water on the moon.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/464883/nasa_chooses_new_spacecraft_to_search_for_water_on_moon/index.html?source=r_space

Didn't NASA already analyze the 400 kilograms of moon rocks that 6 teams of astronauts brought back to the earth from 6 different locations on the moon?


Furthermore, this latest probe will crash
into the moon, not land gently!

NASA claims to have the technology to put men on the moon, and bring them home again, so why are they planning a primitive, destructive crash?

In this amazing report, we discover that NASA is using the Hubble telescope to look at ultraviolet light reflected from moon in order to determine what type of minerals are on the surface of the moon.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/hubble_moon.html

Didn't NASA already analyze the 400 kilograms of moon rocks that 6 teams of astronauts brought back to the earth from 6 different locations on the moon?

Thanks to Eric H. and this website for a refreshingly truthful view of the Apollo mission. http://www.australiafreepress.org/articles/Apollo/apollo.htm
Posted by Ed  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  10:50 AM
Did you bother actually reading any of the posts that came before, or did you just jump in thinking you had new information?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  11:41 AM
Standing on the moon, with the lunar surface surrounding you, is completely different from looking at it in space. The cameras of the day washed out more easily than they do today. The SOHO cameras were specifically designed for viewing the sun's corona, the cameras on the lunar missions weren't. Nor are your eyes meant for such descrimination - your pupils will dilate letting in less light. If the sun is in your field of view, even in space, your pupils won't let in enough light to see the stars. And as dark as the lunar surface is, it's still many, many factors brighter than the brightest star.

Why the astronauts never mentioned stars, if in fact they didn't, I don't know. It hardly proves anything one way or the other though.

As for radiation levels, technology has advanced significantly in the past 40 years, as has medical understanding of the affects of prolonged exposure to radiation. The fact that they want to gather more information on it should come as no surprise. Who knows, levels might even have changed over the course of 40 years for some unknown reason. We won't know unless we check, though.

[qoute]A more likely explanation for why the astronauts never measured radiation levels on the moon is because they never went to the moon. [/quote]

No, a more likely explanation is that the equipment was considered unnecessary due to weight considerations since - by your own admission - probes had already measured the radiation levels.


Lastly, a small sampling of rocks was brought back from the moon. These were from select areas, mostly similar because they were deemed safer landing sites. This is representative of just a fraction of a percentage of the total surface area of the moon. Rocks from different areas would possible be very different from the ones returned, and might show signes of water that the others didn't. And again, technology has advanced an awful lot - things that are possible now weren't possible then.

I'm sorry, every point you raise is either misinformation or has a mundane explanation which is far likelier than a conspiracy theory, though nowhere near as fun.

And I'll state it one more time - if it was faked why didn't the Soviets (Our #1 enemy) ever point this out? They were in a position to do so yet never did.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  12:08 PM
QUOTE:Why the astronauts never mentioned stars, if in fact they didn't, I don't know. It hardly proves anything one way or the other though.

Charybdis, haven't you bothered to investigate whether the astronauts said they saw stars or not? If you would take the time to research, you would know that during the press conference upon their return, they could not remember if they saw stars or not. I mean, puhleaze! Couldn't remember...absolutely laughable.

QUOTE:Standing on the moon, with the lunar surface surrounding you, is completely different from looking at it in space.

What does this have to do with your argument? We're not talking about those cameras that were attached to the chests of the suits. According to NASA, stars would be brilliantly visible during the daylight hours. Please read carefully my post.

QUOTE:Lastly, a small sampling of rocks was brought back from the moon.

How much do you consider a small sampling?
The total mass was 381.69 kilograms or 841.6 pounds. It was delivered in 2196 original samples at a cost for the Apollo program of 24 billion dollars or 28,500 dollars per pound. I guess this is small conpared to the entire moon's weight. But, you present it in a disinformational way by saying nearly half a ton is a small sample. YOu are full of disinformation.


Why did't we hear the jet engines as the module was landing? huh? is it because they were in a vacuum and it wouldn't make noise? huh? why?

QUOTE:And I'll state it one more time - if it was faked why didn't the Soviets (Our #1 enemy) ever point this out? They were in a position to do so yet never did.

Wow, this tremendous observation of yours must really prove the Apollo missions were real. Why don't you offer anything to prove it? Instead, you attack my mesage by saying I have not read the previous posts, as if they answered all those questions which they do not. When you have no proof to the contrary, you attack the person offering legitimate questions and presenting research by NASA itself that contradicts their story.

Offer some info that proves they did it. Any 'proof' offered is debatable. Proof should be beyond debate, but nothing that has been offered by you is beyond debate. THe only 'proof' you can offer is what the media said and continues to say.
Posted by ed  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  01:42 PM
QUOTE:And I'll state it one more time - if it was faked why didn't the Soviets (Our #1 enemy) ever point this out? They were in a position to do so yet never did.

This question is best answered by Eric Hufschmid:

"If you think the Russians would love to expose scams, here are just four of many questions you should answer:

Are the Russians smart enough to know whether Building 7 was destroyed with explosives, and would they take the opportunity to make the Americans look like frauds and idiots?

Are the Russians smart enough to know whether 9-11 was a scam, and would they take the opportunity to expose the American government as liars, murderers, and con- artists?

Are the Russians smart enough to know whether the killing of President Kennedy was a scam, and would they take the opportunity to make the Americans look like frauds and idiots?

Are the Russians smart enough to know whether the Oklahoma City bombing was a scam, and would they take the opportunity to make the Americans look like frauds and idiots?

I think the answer to such questions is: all nation's have corrupt governments, and all commit scams. None of them want to get into a scam-exposing fight."

I bet you think, Charybdis, that normal temperature office fires could weaken industrial grade steel and cause two 110 story buildings to fall at free fall speed...at 10 floors a second, which completely ignores Newton's Law of the COnservation of Momentum and ignores the 100's of tonnes of steel and concrete that remained as support for the towers. And fire pulverizes concrete? Explosives can bring down a building in it's own footprint and pulverize concrete and send steel flying out hundreds of yards and bring a building down at free fall speed.

Plus the oldest fire engineering magazine in this country 'Fire Engineering' called the NIST and FEMA reports a 'half-baked farce.'

Didn't mean to change the subject, but it answers your question of why CCCP didn't call the USA to task on its Apollo missions. Every corrupt government has something to hide.
Posted by Ed  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  01:55 PM
This is about the Apollo moon landings, not 9/11. There are plenty of other threads to argue about that one.

Didn't mean to change the subject, but it answers your question of why CCCP didn't call the USA to task on its Apollo missions. Every corrupt government has something to hide.


This isn't an answer. Yes ever nation has something to hide. No other nations don't keep such things to themselves to avoid their own secrets being 'outted' when those nations are engaged in a war, even a cold one.

The Soviet Union and the US went to extremes to make the other look bad and themselves look superiour. And even if the Soviets hadn't done so, the Chinese certainly would have. They had the technology to monitor the radio transmissions to and from the moon, and were far less friendly to us than even the Soviets. And many other nations also had the capability, friendly and not so friendly.

Your 'conspiracy' requires too many people, too many governments to keep mum about it to work. US Presidents can't even keep their affairs secret, how are we to expect they could keep something of this magnitude a secret for almost 40 years? And yet not one shred of evidence has come forth, just lots of people pointing out 'odd' things about the program, most of which have boring old mundane answers that you refuse to accept.

We have repeatedly refuted all of these claims, yet you refuse to acknowledge this. You, and everyone else on your side of the argument, simply keep going in a circular motion moving from one claim to another, finally coming back to your original arguments as if we'd forgotten them.

How about you point out the error in any of my arguments as I've been pointing out the errors in yours?

Note - restating your argument isn't pointing out the error in mine, it's simply dodging the issue.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  03:41 PM
QUOTE: Your 'conspiracy' requires too many people, too many governments to keep mum about it to work.

That's your opinion.

Talk about dodging the issue, why don't you address why the astronauts said they didn't remember seeing stars (when NASA clearly states that a celestial body devoid of an atmosphere will reveal stars upon stars from the surface of the body even during daylight hours), why you believe nearly half a ton is a small amount especially considering your statement that the astronauts didn't bring radiation detection devices due to 'weight constraints', and why no jet engines were heard during the eagle's landing or during any of the communication with ground control.

Apollo truthseekers do not need to answer the question of why a nation did this or that to prove anything. HOw could we or even you know that answer.

We point to inconsistencies in the story and compare it with science and common sense, i.e., the temperatures of the surface of the moon and the effects of temperature and radiation on film, the fact that there is clear evidence of the flag waving when no one is around it, the discrepencies of the shadows, no sound from the engines even tho there was hardly much separating the astronauts from the intense heat and noise from the jet engines, the lethal power of the Van Allen Radiation belts.

THen you cvome along with 'well, they didn't stay long enough in the radiation belt to affect themselves or the film.' THen I point out that it doesn't matter how long they were subject to the radiation, the intensity of the radiation would be enough for complications to occur. Neither one of us can prove our 'points.'

YOu say the light from the sun would reflect from the surface of the moon and make the stars unobservable, yet 7 percent of the light the moon reflects, according to NASA, would be reflected in straight lines and would not interfere with an observer's vision who would be looking upwards.

And finally, I don't get paid to respond on this forum, unlike yourself who has to keep up the conspiracy theory. I am hypothesizing you work for this website, and you are no doubt located somewhere on the dark side of the moon.
Posted by Ed  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  04:26 PM
I have addressed your comment about the stars. I don't know if they mentioned them or not, I haven't gone through the transcripts of their interviews. However, even if they never mentioned stars at any point that hardly counts as evidence of a hoax. It would be odd yes, but far from damning.

I'm unsure what your 'half ton' remark refers to, I can't remember everything I've ever said. Possibly about weight on the moon. Regardless, I wasn't the one making the decisions on what was important to the mission and what wasn't. I simply stated that radiation detecting equipment might not have been considered important. Space, and weight, were both very precious commodities on the landers. Little things add up quickly, which is why they had to itemize everything they took with them. Of course they did smuggle some personal things such as a collapsible golf club and balls, but that's a far cry from radiation detecting gear.

Apollo truthseekers do not need to answer the question of why a nation did this or that to prove anything. HOw could we or even you know that answer.


You do if you want anyone to take you credibly. You're the ones making the argument, you have to support it with facts. If we refute those facts then it's your responsibility to refute our refutation.

We point to inconsistencies in the story and compare it with science and common sense, i.e., the temperatures of the surface of the moon and the effects of temperature and radiation on film...


Refuted.

... the fact that there is clear evidence of the flag waving when no one is around it...


Refuted.

...the discrepencies of the shadows...


Not refuted because you've yet to point these discrepancies, if they exist, out.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  04:58 PM
...no sound from the engines even tho there was hardly much separating the astronauts from the intense heat and noise from the jet engines...


Cites please? I know of no such issue, though I do know that the engines only ran for extremely short periods of time.

...the lethal power of the Van Allen Radiation belts.


The Van Allen belts aren't lethal. I'm unaware of anyone, other than hoax conspiracists, who states otherwise. Even Van Allen himself discounted this hypothesis.

YOu say the light from the sun would reflect from the surface of the moon and make the stars unobservable, yet 7 percent of the light the moon reflects, according to NASA, would be reflected in straight lines and would not interfere with an observer's vision who would be looking upwards.


Um, I never said an astronaut looking up from the lunar surface would not see stars. I said that an astronaut who had the lunar surface, the sun, or possibly the earth in their field of view at the same time would have their pupils dilate because of the light. This would limit low-light vision enough that stars wouldn't necessarily be visible. Cameras of the day would have had a similar issue, though because of exposure time rather than pupil dilation.

And finally, I don't get paid to respond on this forum, unlike yourself who has to keep up the conspiracy theory. I am hypothesizing you work for this website, and you are no doubt located somewhere on the dark side of the moon.


This is simply a stupid last-ditch ad-hominem attack because you have no real argument and are afraid to admit it, even to yourself.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  04:58 PM
Ahh, I seem to have skipped a post. I now understand the half-ton reference.

Of course, this half-ton occurred over several different mission, not all at once. It also would have replaced items taken to the moon and left there, like the lunar rover.

As for being a small sampling, compared to the trillions of tons of rock on the moon I'd have to say half a ton is pretty small indeed.

Wow, this tremendous observation of yours must really prove the Apollo missions were real. Why don't you offer anything to prove it? Instead, you attack my mesage by saying I have not read the previous posts, as if they answered all those questions which they do not. When you have no proof to the contrary, you attack the person offering legitimate questions and presenting research by NASA itself that contradicts their story.


And yet you never point out the error in my statement. Is this because you're unable to? Your conspiracy theory falls apart without concocting another one to support it. Then you concoct a third one about me because you're unable to actually attack my argument itself.

Provide one, just one, bit of REAL evidence for your theory. Just one person who undeniably worked on the lunar landings who can show them to be a hoax.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  05:11 PM
Ed, every one of your points has been dealt with previously. If you don't want to accept them, I nor anyone else can't make you. There are sites that have been referenced that disprove every one of your claims. Disprove - period. Your entire argument - it isn't a real theory since that requires facts - is based upon misunderstanding and ignorance, willful ignorance.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Jun 26, 2007  at  06:16 PM
QUOTE:Your conspiracy theory falls apart without concocting another one to support it. Then you concoct a third one about me because you're unable to actually attack my argument itself.


So you are telling us you do not work for this website?
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Jun 27, 2007  at  12:34 PM
I volunteer my time as a mod on this website. This is an unpaid position - I didn't even receive free copies of Alex's books, I purchased them myself.

But without even garnering this little bit of information you have accused me of taking money specifically to counter your claims. This is a big website with many other topics being discussed here. This thread and your claims are simply a very small part of that whole. To assume that you and your claims are important enough to warrant somebody here being paid to counter you is the height of arrogance. It would be much easier to simply delete this thread and not allow you to post at all, yet you are given free reign to post your misinformation so long as you remain within the bounds of decent and acceptable behaviour.

So you might want to rethink your little persecution complex a bit. It belittles you and your argument when your only recourse is to resort to personal attacks.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Jun 27, 2007  at  03:29 PM
Chary, I was only curious. Since you are the only one to challenge the claims, Christopher every once in awhile will, but since you respond every time, then one may wonder if this person or persons is being paid to keep the topic(s) going. Reasonable and responsible of me to uncover that unknown.

I just don't understand your pity party you have going on.
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Jun 27, 2007  at  04:13 PM
Charybdis,

Listen to the subtext in Ed's post: Let It Go. Ed's an Unsinkable Rubber Ducky on this issue, as conspiracy theorists tend to be. You've put the data out there for anyone who wants it; stop wasting your time pushing the ducky to the bottom of the bathtub again... and again... and again.

Maybe you get a kick out of it, of course, but to switch metaphors in midstream my impression is you're more scratching an itch - and trust me, that won't make it better!
Posted by outeast  on  Thu Jun 28, 2007  at  02:15 AM
Wow! Some truly stupid questions in here. I couldn't read through all of the comments because they were so absurd! Some people really need a crash course in what lies beyond the earth's atmosphere, the brightness of the sun when taking photgraphs in space, and the (OH MY GOD) radical idea of ground-based (that is - earth-based) motion-controlled camera photography! This is one of the most laughable web sites I've ever stumbled across! I want to read each individual post - and respond accordingly. This is my first time here, but it's obvious-as-hell that we have some totally clueless people posting in here!! Good for some real belly laughs! I'll check back in, later......
*snork* *guffaw* *snicker*
Posted by bananastand  on  Fri Jun 29, 2007  at  09:38 PM
These are some of the most naive, the most incredibly funny, the most unbelieveably dumb comments I have ever read! It's one goddamn laugh riot after another! I have to read them all, individually - on my time - to respond with some very factual information for you poor lost little lambs who never believed that we went to the moon! But this sampling of comments....this is priceless!! A true joy! This needs to be seen by everyone in the astronaut office at JSC! I hope that it has already made it there.
Posted by bananastand  on  Fri Jun 29, 2007  at  09:50 PM
Dear Bananas,

I am heading back to earth and would greatly appreciate some *very* factual information (as opposed to slightly factual) to help me understand that the USA went to the moon.

Please respond to the postings of your choice, if you can make it through the postings without getting a tummy ache from laughing so hard.

Maybe you have the influence to have some astronuts at JSC respond, on their free time. That would be super!

Hey! I have another great idea, maybe you can get some astronuts to go to the moon on their free time and send us all back postcards! If they need help with finances for the journey, I can send some rolls of tinfoil in order that they may re-foil the lunar lander.

Thanking you in advance...
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Jul 11, 2007  at  11:46 AM
How were all the moon missions, space craft and astronauts, spared from these meteorites that would have ripped through the craft and space- suited astronauts as they reportedly do to the moon rocks? And how could they survive the nuclear reactions from the highest energy cosmic rays?

I suppose bananastand would say this is an extremely dumb and naive question.


http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

"Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere... like the Moon.

Meteoroids are nearly-microscopic specks of comet dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph -- ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch, but they're also extremely fragile. Meteoroids that strike Earth's atmosphere disintegrate in the rarefied air above our stratosphere. (Every now and then on a dark night you can see one -- they're called meteors.) But the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it. The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters.

Just as meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon so do cosmic rays, and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks, too. "There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don't normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays."
Posted by Ed  on  Fri Jul 13, 2007  at  11:36 AM
Ed, there is a bit of information you don't have. Meteorites are not a constant threat. In the 4,000,000,000 years (give or take) that havve passed since the formation of the Solar System the planets have cleaned out the vast majority of meteorites so that the density is extremely low and meteorites cluster into predictable groups. The average mass of the Solar System is around 1 gram per cubic centimeter if I remember right. This includes the planets and the Sun. This means that the chance of getting hit by one is extremly slim especially if you schedule around the known clusters. Cosmic rays are also not uniformly constant. There are always some but the amount varies widely. The missions were scheduled for periods when the level was expected to be low. Further information gathered over the decades has improved the prediction level and the protection level against cosmic rays but the pioneers were bombarded and damage was done. If I remember right, it was even reported at the time that the damage done was lower than expected. However, I don't know where anyone could verify that memory.

And, by the way, the Moon does have an atmosphere. It is extremly thin but it does exist.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Fri Jul 13, 2007  at  01:38 PM
the 'SLS laser' has my full attention; they use a vacuum chamber to melt titanium & steel. vacuum of space/radiation waves? 😉
Posted by yo simiti sam  on  Tue Oct 02, 2007  at  04:50 AM
I thought some of your answers are funny so I decided to post a bit around here.


Some one said:
"Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere... like the Moon."

I say:
No they look that way because of the constant proton bombardment (cosmic ray)
In fact the moon is radioactive it's self, protons
impact the lunar surface causing gamma spray, tehniclay it's a small nuclrear explosion, the particles impacting the lunar surface are high energy particles in the form of electons and protons, particles running here on earth in particle generators are a weak copy of the cosmic ray, when you take an X-ray they put led shielding on you and those particles that are hitting your body for a very short time are nothing compared to the galactic cosimc ray.

Apollo astro-nots did not have proper protection for efective shielding, the main reason I think they never went to the moon is radiation.
Posted by astro-not  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  02:36 AM
Astro-not offers a good observation concerning not having proper protection against the radiation. I mean, are there any blue green planets that we can readily observe nearby? I don't know of any. And that seems to me to be because outerspace is a hostile environment not conducive to support life as we know it. Amazing how this planet can support life. And to think that a man or woman can just jump into a "space" suite and wisk away to the moon and survive the harshest of environments is laughable. "I'll just suite up and get in my tin can and to the moon, Alice!"

And where the heck does Christopher get his information? "Solar system has cleaned out the vast majority of meteorites" and "meteorites cluster in predictable groups"(is he talking about the rings of Saturn?)and "mass of solar system is one gram per cubic centimeter, if I remember right"?

And, Chris, what kind of damage was done to the pioneers, that is, if your memory serves correctly? NASA Science says the moon does not have an atmosphere but Chris says it does, but it's vewy vewy vewy tiny. Are you implying NASA is lying, Chris? Or do just cherry pick the info that best suites your non-arguments? But look at me...I 'm using NASA's own info to disprove themselves. I guess I'm a cherry picker too.
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  09:07 AM
The moon does have an atmosphere created by humans (exhaust, escaped gases, ect), but it's so thin as to be negligable. The moon does not have its own atmosphere because the surface gravity is too low to retain one for a cosmic length of time.

Humans suit up and survive the harsh environment of space all the time. Hundred of people have been in space. Are they all part of the coverup? How come not one of those hundreds of people has ever 'broken the coverup'?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  10:10 AM
Ed, I had to reread my post to understand the "pioneers" bit. I was, at to my mind, obviously talking about the pioneers in space and the comment was inclusive of the humans and their equipment. As far as the atmosphere of the Moon, it is extremely thin and was only discovered years after the Appollo missions by measuring the minute refractions it causes to the stars in the background. It is so slight and thin that it could reasonably be called thin or non-existant, just like a soda that has only half a calorie a serving can be said to have "no calories".
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  11:30 AM
Charybdis says that humans created the moon's atmosphere.

How long is a "cosmic length of time"? Is it less than a nanosecond or less than the amount of time it took me to laugh at the thought of humans affecting the moon with escaped SUV gasses?

I suppose you think global warming is caused by humans also? hahahahahah

Humans suite up and survive the thin atmosphere in orbit, 300 miles up. Not 150,000 miles up on the moon.

So, Chris, what damage was done to the pioneers? I know the first Apollo mission exploded on the launch pad. But what of the others?
AND, NASA Science says the moon has no atmosphere. What's your source for claiming it does (the SUV that Charybdis drives and that contributes to the moon's atmosphere ?)

Gosh, I've missed you guys:)!
Posted by Ed  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  03:49 PM
Charybdis says that humans created the moon's atmosphere.


Why, yes I did. Thanks for paying attention.

I'm not sure how long the atmosphere will last, but it won't be on the order of millions of years. Any natural atmosphere the moon ever possessed has long since dissapated into space.

You're making some outlandish claims here, Ed. Have you any evidence to support them at all? Please cite specifics on why you believe humans cannot survive a trip to the moon.

Oh, and Apollo 1 didn't explode, it caught fire and burned. You had the right idea, though, the capsule and crew were lost. Not sure what this has to do with a moon landing, though.

The moon has no meaningful atmosphere. The vacuum is greater than that reproducible on Earth, meaning it's pretty darn scarce. It is not, however, a greater vacuum than interplanetary space. Close, but not exactly. The fact of the matter is that even a single small rocket landing on the moon releases gases that will constitute an atmosphere, however nebulous. To all intents and purposes this is ignored because it's just that thin, so NASA is perfectly justified in saying the moon has no atmosphere. Of course I'm not sure why you value their opinion so highly since you seem to believe they never actually checked, but logic doesn't seem to be playing a part here.

Please explain why you believe I drive an SUV? Is this more of your shoddy 'proof'?
Posted by Charybdis  on  Wed Dec 12, 2007  at  04:33 PM
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