QOTD: Do You Think Moon Landing Was Faked?

[okibrian]

[citation][nom]momcilosystem[/nom]I don't know if it's fake or not, I just want to know how do they lift from Moon. I mean if Moon's gravity is nine times lower than Earth's then by simplyfing it should take nine times less fuel - which is still reaaally big amount of fuel, but you can't see it on their craft... Please clarify[/citation]
Good question and to be honest I don't really know, so I will not BS you. I will just say that we should not forget that the moon also lacks an atmosphere which also cuts down on friction. That would cause far less resistance and less fuel would be needed.

 

[llebrez]

Sorry for the unbelieving people.. I was operating the so called "Apollo Scan Converter" at one of the 3 tracking stations around the World. The signal coming into my console came directly from the receivers and data demodulators. That signal came from a very large antena, and that was pointing to the Moon as we could see in the monitor (the antenna had a camera pointing on the direction of illumination). In the monitor we could see lunar landscape but with not so much magnification to see the actual craft. It is impossible to have inserted a signal (at that time in history, 1.2 Ghz was quite an accomplishment) into a very directional antenna and have encoded all the telemetry, voice and TV just for the sake of faking things. Then after conversion to NTSC, I recorded the scenes into an helicoidal Ampex tape machine (2 inch tape) The signal was sent by microwave to a telecommunications station and sent via satellite to USA (Houston), and from there sent for the World to see. What happened to the tapes I don't know, but they were made at the station just in case the transmission back to USA failed. Anybody that questions all this, is nuts. I lived the ordeal and made possible for you to see many of the scenes you still see today, and it was very real.

 

[okibrian]

llebrez,
Thank you!!!!

 

[dangerous_23]

of-course it was real, it is not even worth asking the question!

 

[Guest]

The reason that the lander itself needed so little fuel compared to the Saturn V is mainly because it didn't have to carry tons of fuel halfway out of earth orbit. Saturn V had to carry itself, and a whole lot of fuel a good portion of the way out of earth's gravity well. Sure, it broke up into stages to get rid of as much weight as possible, but there was still a whole lot of heavy lifting needed!

Something like 90% of the energy the Saturn V used in the launch went to lifting the other fuel that hadn't been burned yet, and the associated rocket. The actual payload, the lander and command module, only accounted for the last 10%.

But here's the key - since lunar gravity is 9x lower than earth's gravity, the ratio of energy needed to lift the fuel vs. energy to lift the rest of the spacecraft was much better. Hence, the energy to lift the fuel would only account for perhaps 10% of the total, with 90% working to lift the rest of the spacecraft (I'm making up numbers here, but the gist of the idea is correct.) Note that not only are we cutting gravity by 9x escaping from the moon, but we have only 10% of the fuel+spacecraft remaining to lift (the rest was burned up getting out of earth orbit). That translates to 90x less fuel!

Anyway, don't quote my numbers. They're no doubt very much wrong. I'm just illustrating the basic reason that the lander needed so much less fuel than the Saturn V.

There are a couple other points that I didn't mention. First, of this 10% of energy needed to get the payload out of earth orbit, only a part of it was for the lander itself - the command module also needed to be lifted, and it needed a big ol' heat shield for returning to earth which the lander didn't need, since the moon has no atmosphere. Thus, the command module was no doubt a fair bit heavier than the lander, which decreases the fuel the lander needed even more. This should more than componsate for the fact that the lander needed to use fuel to both land and take off again, which would require about 2.1 times as much fuel as just taking off (there's an extra 10% to carry the fuel for taking off again to add to the figure for landing). Well, more like 3 times as much fuel, since they left the base of the lander behind. On the other hand, they did pick up a nice payload of moon rock samples before taking off again... Over all, if the lander only weighed 50% what the command module weighed, then these figures would pretty much cancel out, leaving the original 90x less fuel that the lander needed.

***

Anyway, here's a nice little paradox for you guys.

Faking the moon landing would require massive coordination between thousands of people, and a government coverup big enough to quiet them all. It is doubtful that our government could ever be competent enough to pull this off.

Actually doing the moon landing would require massive coordination between thousands of people, and a government able to properly manage the tremendous scientific breakthroughs needed, and dot all the i's and cross all the t's to prevent a single error from resulting in disaster. It is doubtful that our government could ever be competent enough to pull this off.

Therefore, the moon landing cannot have been real, but it cannot have been faked either.

Hence we have a impossibility - how could it have not been faked and not have been real at the same time, and yet we've all heard of it.

A more plausible explanation of this than something as ludicrous as the existence of government competency would simply be that the moon landing is in a state of quantum uncertainty between these two states, thus, we may only conclude that the landings are simultaneously real and fake (see Schrodinger's cat).

 

[hemelskonijn]

+1 for Schrödinger's cat

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]valcron[/nom]Honestly no I don't. There is to much proof showing otherwise. Even myth busters did an episode on it. All of the conspiracy theories that I myself have heard that say otherwise have been dis proven. So until i see something to shows me unreputidely (sp?) that it was faked, I say we landed on the moon.[/citation]

I guess I am the opposite now. I would not have bothered to start researching if it wasn't for this.

How the fu** do you erase the moon landing footage? One of the most pivotal moments in human history? What, was smackdown on and they just had to tape it? Give me a fu**ing break. The least they could have done was transfer it to another storage medium or came up with a better lie and say the footage had degraded. (which would still be a farce.)

Most of what I have researched so far is pretty thin and could probably be disproved but I sure as hell do not believe that some dumb ass at NASA erased the footage.

 

[mrx]

What... They erased the tape? AHahahah. That is just stupid. Anyway I do not care much about moon landing, but I would not be surprised if it was all a fake tho.

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]mrx[/nom]What... They erased the tape? AHahahah. That is just stupid. Anyway I do not care much about moon landing, but I would not be surprised if it was all a fake tho.[/citation]
Agreed, even if it was it is old news. I only spent and hour or so on research and didn't care to dig further; there are pressing issues at present.


But I will say this:

con·spir·a·cy -
An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.

the·o·ry-
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

Virtually all large scale criminal or revolutionary acts are conspiracies at some stage; such acts only become subject of conspiracy theories once brought to light for investigation.

So, just because someone believes in the existence of a conspiracy doesn't make them insane. Otherwise we have wasted a great deal of time and effort perusing organized crime syndicates such as the mafia.

 

[hps]

Jeez! I sometimes wonder if you Americans can all be so naive? I don't know if moon landing was faked or not, but there was a reason to fake it during the cold war, and i think it could have been a good strategy to do so. Saving money, shutting up the enemy. It was a result oriented approach, with cost saving. I can not imagine NASA did not store the recordings, they needed as technical documentation for later reference, this is a ridiculous excuse..."nobody thought it will be a historic moment" - total bullshit. Guys, just remember what your government did to fake the reason for the war in iraq (oil)... do you still think that faking the moon-landing is such a far stretched idea after that during a war? Than wake up!!!
Cheers from Europe.

 

[rage machine]

I think its pretty dumb to say we didn't. We took a pretty straight forward approach to it after much investigation... strap a giant rocket onto a ship and hit the Go button. If your questioning our ability to land on the moon, take a physics class.

 

[JohnMD1022]

There were no 'write tabs' to be flicked in 10 tape reels.

There was however, a write ring.

 

[annymmo]

[citation][nom]puddleglum[/nom]You can't really see any details in those pictures. Plus today we have photoshop -- seeing is no longer believing.[/citation]

I think it is not faked.
To be sure, you have to look at the moon with an ultra-powerful telescope to see if the equipment is there. Then you can be sure.
Has anyone done that?

About losing the tapes, that's not the only thing they lost.
All kinds of idiotic problems have cropped up all over the NASA-history.
Here is another example of such stupid problem, very funny actually:

The first multi-billion (at that time it cost that much) dollar satellite to the moon crashed (wasn't supposed to happen) because of a misunderstanding of units.
(The satellite-tracking station used kilometres and the NASA headquarters used miles, they forgot to calculate that in.)

It seems very unlikely that they could kept the fact that the moon landing was a hoax a secret.

 

[rembo666]

You know the funny thing is that there are no such conversations in Russia. Not now, not during the time of the Soviet Union. Obviously, the Soviet government never glorified the fact that US went to the moon, preferring to emphasize that USSR was first to launch a satellite, first to send a man in space, first moonwalk, first space station, etc. However, there was never any doubt that US went to the moon. In fact, as somebody already mentioned, I'm sure they were tracking the same data and watching the same video feeds as NASA as it was happening.

The sensationalism in US media get really annoying sometimes.

 

[hemelskonijn]

kami3k:

For you and all other who did not pay attention i do believe we landed on the moon and i never once said i did not.
Fact remains that it is not scientific to just accept something.
My opinion on the subject does not change that way to many people lack the skill to think for them self or the skill to accept that others dont think alike.

Both you and rembo666 clearly did not grow up in central Europe and are for as far as i can conclude still not familiar with the way communism and in special the CCCP really worked.
Until the fall of the Berlin wall they did refuse to educate people on these matters and in most cases spread propaganda that denied the whole landing on the moon thing among others.
Though there was not much propaganda on this subject for one good reason people had no access to information and thus launching a campaign to deny it would be like waking sleeping dogs.

In those times it was dangerous to have an opinion and it could get you killed so even if people did not buy in to the propaganda they would not speak publicly about the amazing things NASA did if only because they might be held for being a spy or defector.

In a way the only real reason the CCCP could not keep up any of this and ultimately fell is because people have the need to think whatever they think and ultimately express it.
The freedom the USA boasts world wide "the freedom of speech and opinion" is the basis for many constitutions and even many religions preach to accept each other they way we are.
To deny those who don't believe in the moon landing that right is even worse then the oppression of the CCCP.

Then again one of the big questions in this whole discussion one that most theorist ask and makes almost any here wonder at least a little is this ... Would the government lie to you if they think its in your best interest ?

A complete nation was afraid of communism and a lot of them are still have you ever wonder why ?
Because you and a lot of people in a lot of nations where told that in communistic regions people have no basic human rights (this is called propaganda) ... a lot like your government is taking away your rights step by step and you take away the right of the theorists (this is a fact see the patriot act).

Then again you where not even born and even if you where your media is corrupted any way just like it is in most part of the world so you are not to blame for your ignorance and i forgive you.

 

[pender21]

Watch that Mythbuster's Episode from Season 6 (i Believe).

 

[okibrian]

Oh, and one more thing. Do you know how many people were involved with NASA and the moon landing? Also, how many people in the government had a front row seat in it as well? If it was fake (which it’s NOT) don’t you think one person would have talked by now? Just one? You know, out of the hundreds or maybe a thousand that were involved. People these days have a real problem with keeping their mouth shut, so I would think just ONE of the people involved would say something. But no one has. It’s real, so can we move on.

@pender21
It's Mythbusters episode 104 and here is a link to that full episode. Happy viewing non-believers.
http://www.megavideo.com/v/AB0YMS9Uda932a8572d02a1b5b129fc2d1f9c685

 

[Guest]

I just think its funny how most of the conspiracy theorists (the official ones, and its fairly obvious on the internet as well) have little to no secondary education (I did not say all, but the vast majority), specifically, VERY FEW (again, this is not exclusive) engineers or physicists are non believers of the moon landing....

Funny that.

Oh, and lets just wait and see how many so called engineers creep out of the woodwork to try and prove me wrong.

 

[sonofliberty08]

i care about did intel fake or not more than nasa fake or not on this website .

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]jimmysad[/nom]well if they did it 40 years ago, dont you think they would constantly go back and forth landing people on the moon with some LIVE footage? [/citation]
They were doing that with the Apollo program. 11 wasn't the only one to land on the moon, 5 more Apollo missions did. But even by the time of Apollo 13 there was already waning interest by the public and television coverage was not what it had been just two missions prior. All of that changed, of course, once 13 blew up in space and there was a frantic scramble to help the astronauts pilot the remains of their ship back home safely.
The last mission to land men on the moon was Apollo 17. Immediately after that program ended, NASA began launches for the Skylab program. We kind of followed the Soviety lead: after moon mania subsided, it was all about space stations and, later, reusable shuttles. NASA hasn't used rockets for manned missions since the Shuttle program, which turned out to be unfortunately because for all their heavy-lift capability and technological awesomeness they turned out to be more expensive and complicated to use than manned rockets. That's why the shuttle's replacement design is the classic rocket+capsule combo that works so well.

[citation][nom]jimmysad[/nom]i mean why not, they did it 40 years ago, it should be a breeze to do it now.[/citation]
There have only been six successful manned moon missions, ever. That's hardly enough experience to make something like a lunar mission "a breeze," even if our computer technology is more advanced. Despite the relatively simple physics of rockets, a system like the Saturn V or any comparable moon rocket is enormously complex and expensive. The Soviet version was so complex, in fact, that it didn't work.
One of the primary reasons for the Space Race was the drive between two world superpowers locked in a ridiculously absorbed state of one-upsmanship. Another, often unspoken, reason was the potential military applications that lunar launch and landing technology could yield. With the US beating the USSR as "First" to-and-from the Moon, the public drive flagged. With the collapse of the USSR, there was essentially no military application for the moon that seemed to be worth funding (besides which, an existing treaty banned a lot of that military use for the moon).
So basically the two biggest motivators were already gone by the time Apollo wrapped up.

[citation][nom]jimmysad[/nom]i saw something on discovery channel that next moon landing is slated for 2020...i mean why so far away. NASA should have conquered moon landing by now, dug for gold and oil by now, and landed on Mars by now. They should have had the enthusiasm they had 40 years ago and raced to be first to dig the Moon and land on Mars.[/citation]
The Moon lacks most commercially important minerals (and obviously, without life it'd have no fossil fuels) because of the way it was formed, so there's no point in using it as a source of ore for Earth-bound projects. Mars is an incredibly more difficult undertaking than the Moon, on one level just because of the enormous distances involved (it would have to be a multi-year mission for a round trip). And public enthusiasm has, as I said, waned drastically since "winning" the space race. When Bush talked about landing men on Mars, people laughed it off. Today you have a lot of people griping that NASA gets way too much money as it is, which would have never happened back when we had to "beat" the Soviets. The enthusiasm has almost totally evaporated, and it's not really NASA's fault either.

 

[hemelskonijn]

D_Kuhn:

Maybe the gross of the people that speak out their doubts are not ignorant at all ... maybe they just don't accept anything they are told.
As i am sure no one should just believe something just because some one tells them its the truth.

Respect their opinion and trust that people will come to a viable conclusion by them self over time.
If those people where ignorant they would not take part in the discussion or call every one who takes part in it ignorant.

Some one pointed out there are not many engineers or physicists among the theorists and he might be right.
Those who are engineers or physicists are able to do some calculations them self and thus more likely to make their conclusion based on that.
Just like in my field of expertise (philosophy and sociology) we would tend to explore all sides and accept that there is no knowing for sure even though i am 99.8% sure.

People with other fields of expertise have a different view on the matters but fact remains no one is ignorant for forming a well thought opinion since that would kinda require a new definition of ignorant.
It is not scientific to accept it just for the sake of excepting it and thus every one should make up his or her own mind leading to his or her conclusions which might change over time.

If you really want to change people's perception then you yourself need to change first.
In stead of calling people ignorant try to explain it with patience and most of all listen to there view on the matters and then try to explain it in a way they can relate to.
You cant make some one believe or disbelieve by forcing your opinion upon them you can only try to teach them enough and hope they come to the same conclusion.

 

[StefanH]

Any money, all the people who contradict the moon landing's would never be able to go through the training to get there, I seriously don't know why they think it was fake. That's why Buzz Aldrin punched the guy at the press conference a while back because he was conspiracy theorist, who clearly doesn't know how tough it was for Buzz.

BTW the reason why we don't go back to the moon is there's nothing there anymore for us to research, going to the moon, or indeed space, isn't a cheap business and if they kept going back yank taxpayers would get shitty.

 

[ossie]

Very funny how the moon gravity, "1/9th of the gravity of earth", was thoroughly discussed, without anyone noticing it's actually 1/6th. This in itself is representative of the actual background knowledge of the typical TH reader, slowly tending to zero. He just parrots what he has seen on television, or, more and more rarely, read in some magazine (if it hasn't enough pictures, it might get too boring).
Some proofs, considered undeniable, presented in favor of the landing, are more or less circumstantial:
- radio feeds could be relayed by an unmanned vehicle
- tetrahedral reflectors could be placed by an remote controlled vehicle, as was also done by the russians
- moon rocks could and were brought back by unmanned missions
- there is no optical system (terrestrial or in space) with high enough resolution, to independently visually confirm the remains of the missions

There are some dubious events and aspects:
- no engine noise or vibrations of lunar module at landing
- no visible combustion products and almost no dislocated ground dust particles on moon landing/launching
- there is not one single picture of the sky of the moon, on which stars could be seen - if the objective would be lifted enough by an astronaut, so that the light reflected by the moon surface would not enter the camera lens (the single explanation presented for the lack of stars) - there had been no real obstacle in doing it
- unexplainable anomalies in some pictures
- all original tapes erased by accident - not one survived
- all public available transmissions where reproduced by filming a screen, allegedly with the direct feed
- the lack of knowledge regarding Van Allen radiation belts, or deep space high energy particles, and their effects, shown by the astronauts - also there isn't the slightest mark of the effects of such particles on the moon shot films, which are extremely sensible
- a later discovered tape, which is showing astronauts trying to mask some part of the earth in the window, to make it look more distant and partially shadowed, which confronted astronauts practically refused to comment
- the brutal or panicked reactions of some of the astronauts, when faced with "tough" questions by Sibel (granted, he can be annoying at times)

So, was man on the moon? Tough question, as there is no undoubtful answer to date...

 

[benfea]

[citation][nom]lifelesspoet[/nom]The QOTD is an article of curiosity. "Should we go back?" might have been a better one but I wouldn't come down on tom's for asking. Conspiracy theorists have been getting press lately, and I, myself, am curious as to what kind of person would deny such irrefutable evidence based on very little if any evidence.[/citation]
Who would?

Around half of all conservatives think Obama faked his birth certificate as part of a 44 year old conspiracy to destroy America, despite ample evidence that says otherwise.

Lots of conservatives and libertarians honestly believe that there is a vast international conspiracy comprising of several entire sciences as well as people from all over the world to convince the world that global warming is real and that it is anthropomorphic. They believe this despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Many liberals still cling to 9/11 conspiracy theories that require us to believe that the most incompetent administration in American history was actually the most competent government in world history. Even if you ignore the ample evidence, Hanlon's Razor makes it obvious these conspiracy theories are false, but people still cling to that nonsense.

Many Christian/Muslim/Jewish conservatives believe in a vast international conspiracy (excuse me, "agenda") by homosexuals.

So many liberals still believe in JFK assassination conspiracies that I've given up arguing with them.

We still get the occasional libertarian and/or conservative mumbling about "U.N. black hellycopters" planning to take over the world and implement a "One World Government".

It is the very nature of conspiracy theorists to believe in what they believe in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. That's how conspiracy theories work: no matter what you believe, they view it as proof of their wacky conspiracy theories. If you agree with them, that is of course proof that they are right, but if you disagree with them, that is proof that you are either part of the conspiracy or have been duped by the conspiracy, which they also view as proof of their wacky theories. This makes their beliefs entirely immune to facts or reason.