I'm watching this program on TV now.. and i find it amusing.. most of the arguments are so easy to explain...

"No stars"
Look at the quality of the images! With qualiry like that faint objects like stars are going to dissapear. That combined with the fact that the brightness on the moon meaning they need to use a slow shutter speed and slow shutter speeds only bright objects are shown. Slow shutter speeds also make backgrounds blurry making them even more faint.

"Waving flag"
NASA said at the time there was a bar across the top of the flag to make it look like it was waving. Notice that the flag only waves while the astronaghts are trying to put it in the ground. Oh and if there was wind, we would see dust blowing past.

"Half speed astronaughts"
They do look like they are walking when the film is played at half speed, but if you look at the dust trail from the buggy it creates a perfect arc. Firstly, the length of the trail is way too long for the speed the buggy was going at. Secondly, if it were filmed with earths gravity the dust would circulate around the wheels rather than create an arc.

"No crater"
Because there is no crater where the lander landed the moon landings must have been fake, right? This one just made me laugh. Do you land a helicopter with enough force to create a crater? How about a plane? That and the fact that there is 1/6 of the gravity on the moon...

"No dust on the lander feet"
This one has to be a joke. When you land a helicopter or lower a box onto sand on earth, the sand moves because air is pushed down. There is no air to push down on the land so the moon lander landing would not disrupt the moon dust.

"The shadows go different directions"
*sigh* This assumes that the sun is the only source of light on the moon. The moon itself is reflective and creates extra light sources.

"No dark shadows"
No, there are no dark shadows, that's because there is more than one light source.

"The pictures are perfect"
The programme said "All the pictures NASA published were perfect" They key word here is published. When you take photos do you show people the blurry ones? or the ones where you got your thumb in the picture? Thought not..

Conspiracy theories make me chuckle. Especially this one.

I move that the admins ban anyone who votes no on the grounds of "too stupid to live"

There was special on TV about this years ago. It was the biggest bunch of crap I have ever heard.

Now look at what you did, you encouraged people to vote "no."

Hahaha. I'll fess up, I voted no just to get the nerds riled up, and Mikus' comment didn't help much either.

Can't you kinda see the flag on the moon with a strong enough telescope?

Now when you say "we", who exactly are you referring to?

We... the human race :p

As a whole?

The Apollo 11 crew put some sort of device on the lunar surface that either sends back signals to Earth, or reflects signals back.. and it still works.

This is the one piece of evidence that everyone seems to overlook.

I think that humans definately have been to the moon... whether or not they went the times they said they did, I don't know..

Now you're just being pedantic

No.. only the superior Americans.

Yes, we landed on the moon

I was actually going to say this myself, but you beat me to it.

Personally, I think it's a bit harsh to be so cruel on those voting no. We (being me and you) have never been to the moon, so we only have their word and the footage, It's highly unlikely we haven't been to the moon but still, there are possibilities we've never been in space....

1) The weather forcasts really suck

2) I've never been there so it's only their word

3) Well yeh, "No" voters are pretty stupid....

I've never been to America, but I'm fairly certain that man has been to America.

Yes, they left a mirror on the moon, which was aligned such that laser beams sent from Earth would be reflected back. Not only has it been reflecting lasers perfectly well for the last 35 years, but it was a key part in showing that the Moon is moving away from us at the rate of a couple of centimeters a year or so.

Anyways, in my opinion, whoever created that show in the first place needs to be shot. What an *******, to think that they deserve to be seen on TV, just to attempt to disprove what was one of the most impressive tasks ever undertaken by humanity. But what's worse is that people actually believed that we never went to the Moon, and to this day (despite overwhelming evidence that we did land on the Moon), they still don't believe it.

The theory that we never went to the Moon is incredibly stupid. But not only is it stupid, it is disrespectful to the tens of thousands of people who worked on the project, and especially to the Apollo 1 astronauts who LOST THEIR LIVES in a fire during a test in the Lunar capsule.

Honestly, they would be better off trying to prove something else that is equally stupid, like that the Declaration of Independence never existed or something. Idiots.

Unfortunately, though, there are currently no telescopes (not even Hubble) that have the resolution necessary to see features on the Moon as small as the Lunar Lander. Although, even if it was easily visible through telescopes, the conspiracy theorists would still be saying that it was all fake.

I added an option to the poll so I could vote the way I believe.

I don't have any reasons that I care to explain right now.

I don't think there's any conspiracy about the moon landings after 1969. No-one's claiming that NASA faked every single moon landning, it's just the Apollo 11 one that is the subject of controversy.

And all of the evidence that is used to prove the conspiracy theory is nonsense. I promise you that I can disprove every single piece of evidence that suggests the 1969 moon landing was faked. I'd put money on that, actually.

The fact that you're 'not willing to go into it' is sort of a strike against you already.

And anyway, no-one really cares whether you believe the moon landing was faked or not.
What we're interested in is why. That's sort of the entire point of a Discussion forum. These polls might be amusing, but they're of little statistical value, it is the discussion that's important.

It's really funny when "anarchists" like to believe we never went to the moon to prove that government is corrupt. Makes me giggle like 'hah.'

JediKirby

Well, that's what happens when Channel 5 does "serious documentaries". I saw this one in the TV listings and stayed well clear of it.

I somehow remember that they told Hubble would be able to spot a candle flame on moon, or something like that... But maybe I just remember wrong. It has been a long time, anyway.

Well, a candle flame probably wouldn't last very long on the moon because there is no oxygen, so obviously the Hubble telescope is faked.


:p

I think you missed the point of my post somewhat. Just like you missed the would word... Although I cannot say I didn't see a post like yours coming the very moment I clicked the Submit button...

It could pick up the light from a candle on the dark side of the moon, but seeing and distinguishing objects on the light side is a different kettle of fish.

Actually they say there is some kind of belt out there, right outside the earth's orbit, that is making it too dangerous for people to get on the new international space station. Which, in coordination with this theory, would mean that no man could have lived through the trip to the moon, and if he did, he would have massive amounts of cancer.

So, in other words, no.

Interesting theory. I'm currious though did you read that from a site? If so can we have a link to that I'd rather enjoy reading more on this.

Nice try.

But no.

That's the Van Allen belt you're talking about, and yes, it is highly dangerous, but the astronauts only passed through it very briefly and the shuttle was well enough protected for them not to be immediately affected. It might have trimmed a few years off their life expectancy, though.
Professor Van Allen himself said once that it was ridiculous to assert that Apollo 11 couldn't pass the Van Allen belt.


Edit: After some research, I can elaborate.

The principle danger of the Van Allen belts is high-energy protons, which are not that difficult to shield against. And the Apollo navigators plotted a course through the thinnest parts of the belts and arranged for the spacecraft to pass through them quickly, limiting the exposure. The Van Allen belts span only about forty degrees of earth's latitude -- twenty degrees above and below the magnetic equator.

[Edit: NM Mort-Hog hadn't posted when I posted... thank you Mort.]

Yes, me too.

And even if there is a dangerous band of whatnot, I assume they didn't know about it for the moon landing. Whether the astronauts suffered some illnesses afterwards I dunno (it would be interesting to look up).

No, it was discovered in the early 60s I think. By doctor James van Allen, funnily enough.

As I recall, the Van Allen belt was discovered in the year 1960 (or was it 1959? I didn't look into it), by Vanguard I, America's first artificial sattelite. (It was the third artificial sattelite after Sputnik I&II) Of course, I don't know whether they discovered that the level of radiation present was truly dangerous...

...As for the landing, it was true. I visited the site myself. :p

No, no one can go to the moon. First off, it would be hard to land on all that cheese. Second, Thor, overlord of the moon, would smite us.

Ok, you win as far as the Van Allen belt. But consider the fact about the thrust required for the lander to not crater. They were actually worried because scientifically it should have made a crater about the size of a lake.

Also, there was something I saw a while back... about a movie relating to this. I don't know if it's the same thing you guys saw, but I found it interesting. Found over at [url]www.moonmovie.com[/url] I think.

Yeah that's the website. Read it over. I found most of it interesting. Personally I never really bought the whole thing. The prospect of our government lying to me doesn't really seem too unusual to me.

There's a reason why conspirators are "self-proclaimed" physicists.

Ahah, the crater one.

Basic Newtonian physics solves this problem.

"Weight" is simply the force of gravity between two masses. If something weighs a certain amount on earth, that's the same as saying a force of that amount exists between the earth and the object. The force of gravity is computed partly by multiplying the masses of the two objects in question. The moon has only a fraction of the mass of the earth, and so exerts much less gravity. The force between the moon and that same object would be only 1/6 as much.

Galileo's principle lets us treat force, weight, and acceleration as identical concepts when dealing with gravity. A falling object accelerates downward because gravity imparts a constant force resulting in a constant acceleration. This acceleration produces an increase in downward velocity.

So if you want to descend at a constant rate you have to precisely negate that gravitational force so that your acceleration along the vertical axis is zero. This means the net force along the vertical axis must also be zero. So if you can apply a force exactly equal to the force of gravity, but in the upward direction instead, you can achieve that constant velocity. (Hovering is the same principle, but with the constant velocity being zero in that case.)

The Apollo 12 lunar module, for example, had a mass of 15 148 kg fully loaded. On earth gravity would exert a force of 148 602 N on that spacecraft. But near the end of the descent it was not fully loaded. Most of the descent engine (DPS) propellant had been burned away. Fortunately there are ample references to how much DPS propellant was consumed. We can therefore calculate the weight of the lunar module very accurately as it neared touchdown. According to telemetry, 320 kg of DPS propellants remained from an initial load of 8,285 kg.
This means at touchdown the lunar module had shed at least 7,964 kg by burning its descent fuel. Subtracting this from the launch mass gives a landing mass of 7,184 kg.

Earth's gravity would exert a force of 148 602 N on that mass, but the moon's gravity exerts only one-sixth that much: 24 767 N.

So in order to negate the downward force of 24 767 N we merely have to apply an upward force of the same magnitude. Therefore a thrust of 24 767 N was required to hover or descent at a constant rate.

Yes, it really is that easy.

This describes the situation seconds before touchdown. The initial descent was of course very fast. And so to slow the rate of descent it would have been necessary to apply a larger thrust that surpasses the force of gravity. This amount of thrust was applied at high altitude where it did not affect the lunar surface.

By comparison, a fully-loaded Harrier jump jet produces 120 000 N thrust at liftoff -- five times more than a lunar module. Yet you typically do not see a crater under a Harrier. This is because popular intuition dictates that a rocket engine of any size is automatically more powerful than a jet engine of any size. In fact, most jet engines are more powerful than the lunar module's rocket engines.

Word.

How about the radiation from the sun? I dont really care much about the supposed "evidence" from the pictures... but you cant say there is no dangerous radiation from the sun in space when in every science book its preached how the Ozone layer protects us from harmful radiation from the sun..... well fellas, theres no ozone in space.

I know someone who actually believes that we did not land on the moon. One of her (yes her) points was that the astronauts would die shortly because of the sun's emission of gamma radation. I didn't believe that out right. I do think that NASA knew about the gamma radiation from the sun and took measures to shield the craft. Also I read that gamma photons were sparsely detected in orbit. Someone might want to confirm/rebut this.

Isn't gamma photon an oxymoron anyway? I admit I know nowt about this situation/moon argument, but gamma rays are electromagnetic waves, and protons are physical things with mass...

but yeah, not claiming to know all