Ok, so lets get to grips with this whole "WE NEVER WENT TO THE MOON" conspiracy theory then.

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We've all heard mutterings about conspiracies like Princess Di never died, the KLF never burnt that money, there's a unicorn living inside the sun, etc etc, but the one I want to tackle here is this 'the NASA moon landings were faked' spiel. I've got little time for this, I believe man landed on moon, said some stuff, wooby doo, blah blah. However, one of my associates is pretty intense about proving it to be false but I reckon most of the evidence he gives is from nutters and conveniently disregards some vital chunks, so I'm putting it to YOU guys (cos I trust you, I really do).

Ok, so to put it into context he's written a letter to some journalist attacking his comments. And here it is:

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Dear *****,

I have read Dr David Percy's book, "A Dark Moon", and have also read other 'pro-Moon' books such as Andrew Chaiken's "From the Earth to the Moon", on which the HBO mini-series and the feature film Apollo 13 were based, and used extensively for reference material.

Having read both sides of the argument it is my opinion, which I believe I am entitled to hold without being called a crank, that the official record of the NASA Moon landings is not a true and accurate version of events.

With regard to the shadows that travel in different directions on the surface photographs:
In addition to being analyzed by photography experts, it is plainly obvious to the untrained eye that shadows cast from a light source 93 million miles away should all lie in the same direction as the relative distance between objects being lit is infinitesimal compared with the distance to the light source. May I suggest you publish one of the pictures from Dr Percy's book, or even study one yourself.
Also, on the subject of backlighting and reflected light, only some objects in the pictures are actually backlit. Rocks and craters next to astronauts who are bathed in back light are still completely black. Why should this be?

With regard to the Van Allen belts:
There are two expanses of lethal radiation that encompass the Earth that astronauts must pass through to reach the Moon (or any other planet).
Without proper shielding, the astronauts would have become very sick indeed, with or without a solar flare.
During the 89 days spent in space by the Apollo astronauts (mission 8 through 17, excluding Skylab and the ASTP), a total of 1506 solar flares were recorded. Of these, 15.6 were classified as deadly by the NOAA. With an average of 1.7 of these events per mission, how is it that no astronaut reported any effects radiation sickness. By your source's own admission, if the astronauts were to encounter such a phenomen, they would "have suffered". So why has there never been any signs of radiation poisoning suffered by any Apollo astronaut?
(The NOAA is the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, a US goverment Agency)

Dr Percy asks in his book that if NASA are so adept at producing radiation proof clothing such as the Apollo astronauts must have had, why can they not provide the US government with some so that Three Mile Island can be re-entered and the radiation spill cleaned up?

With regard to Professor David Harland's faked photograph:
I have not seen the photograph he mentions that shows the reflection of two astronauts in the visor of a third, but If he has the skill to produce a composite of two (or more) photographs that has fooled the scientific community then
A) is it not possible for NASA to do the same?
B) can he not see the obvious flaws that exist in the NASA moon photographs?
The non-parallel shadows are just one example.

Finally, after having pondered the question of how the pyramids were built to a geometric accuracy beyond our own 21st century capabilities (without using laser measurement systems), I would, as I'm sure many of your readers would to, love to hear your interpretation of the "well understood" techniques used for building them.

Your variety of popularist journalism serves only to stifle forward thinking and enables cover ups of such massive proportions. You must agree that with the world's popular media assisting their every turn and publishing articles such as yours every few years, it must have been incredibly easy for NASA to fool the world for 33 years. After all, only a fool or a madman would dare to contradict the establishment. It seem obvious that you have not researched this article at all, and have mearly poured scorn on a subject that you do not yet understand. Why did you not interview Dr David Percy as well, instead of provided quotes from his book?

NASA says they went to the Moon. There are no witnesses apart from their employees, the only evidence produced is their own. Any one who questions this is branded a crank.

Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction. Again we have no evidence apart from that which he has given us.
And we are about to go to war...

I would appricate your thoughts on these matters.

Yours sincerely,
*********

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So if you've waded through all that, and you think you're a touch more informed than my good chum then please add your thoughts. I admit I personally am completely uninformed, just a jaded kid with little time for things outside my narrow range of experience.
Thanks.

― Ian SPACK, Monday, 16 September 2002 20:46 (twenty-three years ago)

"Pro-Moon books" made me laugh. I'm neutral, myself.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 16 September 2002 20:58 (twenty-three years ago)

So did "...my opinion, which I believe I am entitled to hold without being called a crank".

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 16 September 2002 20:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Your friend is a crank. Ignore him.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 16 September 2002 21:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Some of the arguments I've seen against the Moon landing have been interesting, I'd like to see them properly discounted if possible.

― Ally C (Ally C), Monday, 16 September 2002 21:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Um, I shouldn't lower the tone already, and I suppose many of you will already have seen this (it's old and it did the blog rounds a year or so ago), but this seems a good excuse to express my love for this page.

Sorry, I never do serious useful on-topic posts. Sigh. Carsmilesteve said something about this once and I couldn't work out - I'm hugely gullible, see, and not much good with people - whether he was kidding or not. Is he still around? To thread, etc!

― Rebecca (reb), Monday, 16 September 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I love that page too, and seeing it again has cheered me up no end, so no more angst about use value of yr posts, OK?

― RickyT (RickyT), Monday, 16 September 2002 21:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Pigs! In! Space!

― brg30 (brg30), Monday, 16 September 2002 21:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I loved Ananova's summary of the anti-moon position i.e. they put a sticker of the earth on one of the capsule windows and videoed it!!

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 16 September 2002 22:22 (twenty-three years ago)

The Bad Astronomy page has a point-by-point rundown of the issues involved.

Still I don't expect that the true believers who think that everything is faked will buy it. We'll have to wait a couple years for that private mission that just got authorized.

― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Monday, 16 September 2002 22:40 (twenty-three years ago)

some of the arguments on that bad astronomy page are very shady!!

The lunar dust has a peculiar property: it tends to reflect light back in the direction from where it came. So if you were to stand on the Moon and shine a flashlight at the surface, you would see a very bright spot where the light hits the ground, but, oddly, someone standing a bit to the side would hardly see it at all.

sez who??

― ron (ron), Monday, 16 September 2002 22:56 (twenty-three years ago)

There is no such thing as the moon, hence "man" could not "land" on "it".

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 04:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Lunar landing skeptic says Buzz Aldrin attacked him outside LA hotel

Tuesday, September 10, 2002
---------------------------
(09-10) 04:53 PDT BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Detectives are investigating a complaint that retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin punched a man in the face after being asked to swear on a Bible that he had been to the moon.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2002/09/10/state0753EDT0047.DTL&nl=fix

― Michael A. (Michael A.), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 09:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Buzz Aldrin fukking roxx.

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 09:45 (twenty-three years ago)

he didn't hit the guy, he just taped a picture of him to his screen door. i have proof.

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 09:53 (twenty-three years ago)

i dislike conspiracy theories. they are a comfort blanket to people who want the world to seem 'ordered'

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 09:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Doesn't this argument tie into the flat-earthers at some point?

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 09:58 (twenty-three years ago)

for sure, people who buy into this are more to be pitied than scorned but this can be a classic wind-up. dunno why but the moon landings hold some kind of neo-mystical significance for a lot of people and they can get pretty flustered if they've never heard the 'theory'.

learn some of the harder-to-disprove 'flaws' in nasa's 'story' and give it a go sometime. comedy gold, i tells ya...

― mbosa, Tuesday, 17 September 2002 10:08 (twenty-three years ago)

abt four/five yrs ago, fortean times ran a piece on the "disproof of moon-landings by photographic evidence" stuff, then next issue its total utter demolition by amused readers (i vaguely remember they said they'd never had such a massive response to an article)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 10:30 (twenty-three years ago)

i remember that, the best part were the 'whistleblower' details like the photographic crosshairs having spatial mass for some reason!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 10:42 (twenty-three years ago)

The most striking evidence I saw in the C5 documentary involved the photos of the trip taken by the crew. They had NASA trying to rebuff some of the the points, but I didn't see anything that dealt with this:

There are two pictures taken of what is clearly the same spot on the moon (rocks etc. in exactly same formation behind). In one, there is no lunar module. In the other, there is. Seeing as the Apollo supposedly landed and wasn't moved, this makes no sense. This is in itself doesn't prove the landings were faked, just the photos.

If you were the USA government in the midst of the Space Race, and realised you couldn't get to the moon, wouldn't *you* fake it?

MInd you, I don't think they were a fake - there would be too many whistleblowers by now (yes, I know that some of them have been KILLED OFF)

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 11:32 (twenty-three years ago)

this made me think of unsolved mysteries shows and that dude edward leedskalnin (sp?) and his magic coral castle

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 13:37 (twenty-three years ago)

haha the jon ronson prog on the no-moon ppl was one of the most hilarious i evah saw: he just sat back and let them blather until they achieved mutual pinhead-liftoff velocity, and — after they had announced that hollywood is of course in on the conspiracy, hence the disinformation included in independence day re roswell — one of them said, "And of course, there's the other matter," and one of the others said, "No, this is not the time to speak of that," and they all wagged thr heads and clammed up!! You foax are all going to be allowed on TV again when precisely?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 13:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick, follow the Bad Astronomy link upthread - the point you mention is clearly answered.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 18:02 (twenty-three years ago)

god i love this site

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 19:20 (twenty-three years ago)

haha all you cheery toe-the-liners are clearly AGENTS OF THE MAN!

that debunking site is awful!! i don't doubt that the fox program in question was lousy, but their arguments are question-begging - "the naysayers just don't understand the reflective nature of the lunar surface. how do WE know? WE'VE BEEN TO THE MOON!!"

it also doesn't deal with some of the more interesting questions I've heard raised eg.the one about tiny asteroid particles which get burned up by the earth's atmosphere flying around like bullets. nor MY main question: why aren't people walking around up there ALL THE TIME? they collected a couple of rocks so there's nothing left to learn? the NASA answer: "Some of the unanswered questions will be answered in the future from data already returned but as yet not fully analyzed, and some will have to wait for data yet to be returned from instruments already in place on the lunar surface. Still other questions must await further exploration". (it's been 30 YEARS!!!)

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

entire nasa rationale:
i. get there b4 russkis
ii. er that's it

soviets sent an unmanned lunar lander intended to land a month or so b4 apollo 9 but it crashed into a mooncliff, so they nevah said

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah and point ii. includes budget constraints and waning public interest i know but still. after they lost lost that Mars probe thingy they could have cobbled some kind of mission together - "what probe? er LOOK! WALKING ON THE MOON!!" (and anyway if it was possible they would have filmed a Survivor series there by now)

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Tuesday, 17 September 2002 20:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I am a skeptic. I reckon it was faked.

― toraneko (toraneko), Wednesday, 18 September 2002 04:21 (twenty-three years ago)

The radiation is probably the biggest convincer to me of the conspiracy side of this controversy. Possibly because I don't understand the ins-and-outs.

But - the key and urgent point which convinces me that it was all genuine is: NASA claims to have landed on the moon in 1969. In the 33 years after that the USSR never once claimed that NASA faked it.

And, IIRR, the Sovs sent several unmanned craft to the moon - presumably photographing things on the surface such as six LEM descent stages, 6 U. S. flags and 3 lunar buggies. The evidence is there (or not).

― Tim Bateman, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 10:29 (twenty-three years ago)

tim they did: the lunarkhod!!

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 September 2002 11:23 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

revive! we watched the foxnews special "was the moon landing a hoax?" (from 2002) in my astronomy class this week, and i have to say it's pretty much the funniest goddam thing i've ever seen. it basically consisted of 20 minutes' worth of interview time with obvious nutjobs saying it was faked, about 20 seconds' worth of time with actual NASA ppl saying it wasn't (but not being allowed to explain further, while the narrator goes "but NASA officials simply dismiss these charges..."), and lots of stirring x-files-style background music just to assure you there are DARK and SINISTER forces at work.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't believe in the moon.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Great conspiracy-debunking site: http://www.clavius.org

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I think we're all totally ON THE MOON NOW and that thing is probably the Earth!

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

duuuuuuuuuuuuude

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 April 2004 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I ate a doughnut that tasted like the moon.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 30 April 2004 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to just laugh at conspiracy shite until a friend of mine got into all that illuminati mysticism. I hate it with a passion now. I reckon its all just a substitute for religion and divine teleology.

― fcussen (Burger), Friday, 30 April 2004 23:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Just remember: there is no cabal. And even if there were one, the official policy is: there is no cabal.

Thank you.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Saturday, 1 May 2004 00:31 (twenty-two years ago)

God knows why but this actually makes me miss Toraneko

― Mr Mime (Andrew Thames), Saturday, 1 May 2004 03:14 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.osk.3web.ne.jp/~htomo/cap2.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 1 May 2004 03:17 (twenty-two years ago)

OJ's secret alibi: he was playing golf on the moon.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 1 May 2004 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

Screw you moon landing hoaxers!

Japanese SELENE (Kaguya) Lunar Mission Spots Apollo 15 Landing Site (Images)
Written by Ian O'Neill
The Japanese lunar mission SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer), also known as "Kaguya" has imaged the "halo" left behind in the lunar surface from Apollo 15's lunar module engine exhaust plume. This is the first time a mission after the Apollo Program has detected such a feature. Apollo 15 landed on the Moon in 1971 in a region called Mare Imbrium, and SELENE's Terrain Camera (TC) is continuing to reconstruct a 3D view of the region in unprecedented high-resolution.
Apollo 15 touched down on the lunar surface on July 31st, 1971 with David Scott and James Irwin, to carry out 18.5 hours of lunar extra-vehicular activity. This was the first "J mission" where a greater emphasis was placed on scientific studies. After the lunar module blasted off from the Moon, the lunar astronauts looked back on the launch site to see a fresh "halo" had formed after the surface was exposed to the module's engine exhaust plume. The NASA astronauts took before and after shots of the landing zone where a lightening of the surface is evident. This halo had not been observed since Apollo 15, until the high resolution Terrain Camera on board SELENE imaged the region.

― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 17 July 2008 00:11 (seventeen years ago)

I love it. That's awesome.

― B.L.A.M., Thursday, 17 July 2008 02:37 (seventeen years ago)

Hehe. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_laser_ranging_experiment is how we know the moon is receding from Earth at 3.8cm/yr.

All hoax arguments are trivially disproved by noting that the absence of a source of radio waves on the surface of the moon in July 1969 might have been something the Russians would have, y'know, mentioned to the rest of the world.

― caek, Thursday, 17 July 2008 03:19 (seventeen years ago)

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