the thigs that you never think about it

funny they lost something, was never real!!!!

2006-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

جستجو برای يافتن نسخه اصلی فيلم حاوی صحنه های نخستين فرود انسان بر کره ماه آغاز شده است.

آن فيلم حاوی صحنه معروف قدم نهادن نيل آرمسترانگ و بقيه خدمه آپولو 11 بر کره ماه است که آرمسترانگ در آن گفت: "اين يک گام کوچک برای يک انسان، و يک جهش عظيم برای بشريت است."
تصور می شود اين نوارهای ويديويی جايی در آرشيو "مرکز پروازهای فضايی گودارد" در ايالت مريلند يا در ساير آرشيوهای ناسا قرار داشته باشد.
اما از آنجا که تعداد زيادی از مسئولان بايگانی نوارهای اصلی آن واقعه بازنشسته شده، اين سازمان را ترک کرده يا درگذشته اند، جای نگهداری آنها معلوم نيست.
به نوشته روزنامه "ديلی تلگراف" نسخه ای که مردم سراسر جهان ديده اند به اثری که دو بار فتوکپی شده و در نتيجه کيفيت آن افت کرده است تشبيه می شود.
اين نسخه توسط دوربين و از روی يک صفحه مانيتور سياه و سفيد که فيلم اصلی از آن پخش می شد ضبط شده است.
فضانوردان تصاويری با کيفيت بالاتر را به زمين مخابره کرده بودند که توسط سه ايستگاه ردگيری در نقاط مختلف زمين ضبط شد.
اما حتی آن تصاوير نيز مقدار زيادی از جزئيات و وضوح خود را از دست داده بود زيرا فضانوردان برای اطمينان از اينکه تصاوير مخابره شده به زمين می رسد، آنها را با سرعت 10 فرِيم در ثانيه ضبط کرده بودند.
به علاوه سه ايستگاه مزبور برای اينکه تصاوير قابل پخش شود آنها را به 60 فرِيم در ثانيه تبديل کردند که مقدار زياد ديگری از جزئيات در اين فرآيند دوم از ميان رفت.
استن ليبار، 81 ساله، مسئول تصاوير آپولو 11 بود. او گفت چيزی که او پس از تبديل فيلم به 60 فريم در ثانيه مشاهده کرد چنان تار بود که فکر کرد يک جای کار اشکال پيدا کرده است.
جان سرکيسيان، از رصدخانه CSIRO Parkes در استراليا - يکی از سه ايستگاه ردگيری که تصاوير اصلی را پيش از ارسال نمونه تبديل شده آن به هوستون ضبط کرده بودند- گفت: "آنچه برای جهانيان پخش کرديم فاصله زيادی با کيفيت خوب آنچه دريافت کرديم داشت."
هرچند اين نوارها با تصاوير عادی تلويزيونی قابل مقايسه نبود، با اين حال بهتر از ويديويی بود که اکنون در اختيار داريم، به خصوص اگر با استفاده از فناوری ديجيتال پردازش شود.
اکنون گروهی از دانشمندان و کارمندان قديمی ناسا، از جمله آقايان ليبار و سرکيسيان، در ميان آرشيوهای ناسا در حال جستجوی نوارهای اصلی هستند.
آرمسترانگ و دو فضانورد ديگر کپسول آپولو 11، نخستين انسان هايی بودند که روز 21 ژوئيه 1969 قدم بر ماه گذاشتند.
ميليون ها نفر در سراسر جهان آن واقع را روی صفحه تلويزيون ها تماشا کردند.

Was The Apollo Moon Landing Fake?

2005-12-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

Was The Apollo Moon Landing Fake?
(And why haven't we been back to the moon in 46 years?)
Translate this Page!

Moonfakers at work for Collier's magazineGeneral Leslie "Dick" Groves and the Moon Landings!!http://www.reformation.org/general-groves.html

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon. http://www.moonmovie.com/
· The cost of the entire Apollo program: USD $25.4 billion -1969 Dollars ($135-billion in 2005 Dollars). See NASA Budget. (Includes Mercury, Gemini, Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbitar, Apollo programs.) Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket cost alone, was about $ 83-billion 2005 Dollars (Apollo spacecraft cost $ 28-billion (CS/M $ 17-billion; LM $ 11-billion), Saturn I, IB, V costs about $ 46-billion 2005 dollars). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo
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Motives
Several motives have been suggested for the U.S. government to fake the moon landings - some of the recurrent elements are:
1. Distraction - The U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction to take attention away from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities did abruptly stop, with planned missions cancelled, around the same time that the US ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.
2. Cold War Prestige - The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race with the USSR. Going to the Moon, if it was possible, would have been risky and expensive. It would have been much easier to fake the landing, thereby ensuring success.
3. Money - NASA raised approximately 30 billion dollars pretending to go to the moon. This could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity. In variations of this theory, the space industry is characterized as a political economy, much like the military industrial complex, creating fertile ground for its own survival.
4. Risk - The available technology at the time was such that there was a good chance that the landing might fail if genuinely attempted.
The Soviets, with their own competing moon program and an intense economic and political and military rivalry with the USA, could be expected to have cried foul if the USA tried to fake a Moon landing. Theorist Ralph Rene responds that shortly after the alleged Moon landings, the USA silently started shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of grain as humanitarian aid to the allegedly starving USSR. He views this as evidence of a cover-up, the grain being the price of silence. (The Soviet Union in fact had its own Moon program).
Proponents of the Apollo hoax suggest that the Soviet Union, and latterly Russia, and the United States were allied in the exploration of space, during the Cold war and after. The United States and the former Soviet Union today routinely engage in cooperative space ventures, as do many other nations that are popularly believed to be enemies. However, this suggestion is challenged by the impression of intense international competition that was under way during the Cold War and is not supported by the accounts of participants on either side of the Iron Curtain. Many argue that the fact that the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries, eager to discredit the United States, have not produced any contrary evidence to be the single most significant argument against such a hoax. Soviet involvement might also implausibly multiply the scale of the conspiracy, to include hundreds of thousands of conspirators of uncertain loyalty. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations

Did man really set foot on the moon?
Shocking : See what NASA has done (Long but worth reading)
Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick, asks David Milne?
In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering?" the 47 year old American kept asking himself when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon? That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self- taught engineer from New Jersey.
He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon. The giant leap for mankind was fake.
It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read.
The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.
And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake.
For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts throw rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston - a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.
By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred.
As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers.
Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.
The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time.
The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out.
If Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, "Why would anyone fake pictures of an event that actually happened?"
The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Standard astronauts orbiting earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the earth's Van Allen belt. But the Moon is to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares.
John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were, said NASA, about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil.
How could that stop this deadly radiation? And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter? Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started. "They should have been fried", says Rene.
Furthermore, every Apollo mission before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000 defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one effect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so unlikely that God must have been the co-pilot," says Rene.
Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life.
Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his wife Betty: "If there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me."
Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded.
Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even a chemistry students in high school know high pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact, before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of 11 would be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is a spectacular accident rate.
"One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of these men didn't have the sort of 'right stuff' they were looking."
NASA wont respond to any of these claims, their press office will only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real. But a NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape. It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his audience to "Come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon."
A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. "The astronauts simply have to be on board," he says, "in case the rocket exploded. It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead." he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the public eye (global surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.
And now NASA is planning another giant step - Project Outreach, a 1 trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene Chillingly. "Special effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round will have no way of determining the truth."
9 SPACE ODDITIES:
1. Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.
2. A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?
3. One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?
4. The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.
5. The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.
6. Text from pictures in the article said that only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?
7. The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering if there is no air or wind on the moon?
8. How can the flag be brightly lit when its side is to the light? And where, in all of these shots, are the stars?
9. The Lander weighed 17 tons yet the astronauts feet seem to have made a bigger dent in the dust. The powerful booster rocket at the base of the Lunar Lander was fired to slow descent to the moons service. Yet it has left no traces of blasting on the dust underneath. It should have created a small crater, yet the booster looks like it's never been fired.
The Moon or a Studio in the Nevada Desert!
From: Patrick Kilcullen - pkilcull@roanoke.edu17 April 2001 I was reading about the supposed moon hoaxs (I'm not yet sure that they were faked) on your web site when I came across an excellent point in your arguments. You said that during the videos of the lunar landings the astronauts replied instantly to Mission Control in Houston. Yet light, radio waves, and all energies of the electromagnetic spectrum travel at roughly 186,000 miles per second, meaning the response time of the astronauts to comments made by Mission Control should have been a little over two seconds since the moon is over 200,000 miles from the Earth. Excellent point! I was stumped here for a minute, until I considered this: we're only hearing the astronauts transmission. Okay, that explanation obviously needs an explanation. First off, like you said, NASA didn't establish a direct link with televison stations for the broadcast. Instead, the video we saw was actually filmed as it happened on the huge television screen in Mission Control, which accounts for the poor quality of the film. What does this mean? It means that the video and audio in the broadcasts of the Apollo missions were both time delayed. You didn't hear people speaking inside Mission Control, you heard their transmission to the astronauts. The audio we heard from Mission Control was actually several seconds old. In other words, the landings transmitted back to Earth video and audio feed of their landing, audio including messages from Mission Control that the astronauts had just received. To make this easier to picture, image it this way: Mission Control transmits a message to Apollo 11 on the lunar surface saying Neil and Buzz can get out of the LM and walk around (with suits on, of course.) This message travels just over a second to the moon, where Neil and Buzz receive it and reply "Finally!" This message is transmitted all the way back to Earth, where it is received and broadcast on the huge monitor in Mission Control. So you see, Mission Control spoke first and then the astronauts replied, only the audio transmitted to us contained both messages with no time lapse in between. Confused? Don't worry, you'll get it soon. I've looked over the arguments used by believers of a moon landing hoax and they are rather solid and rooted fairly well in logic, so I can safely assume you're all pretty smart guys, so this shouldn't be to hard for you to understand. I would appreciate it if you would respond to this email with your thoughts on my explanation of this lunar quandary that is now solved (hopefully.)http://www.apfn.net/MESSAGEBOARD/9-03-03/discussion.cgi.25.html
CBC NEWSWORLD
DARK SIDE OF THE MOONSunday November 16, 2003 at 10PM ET/PTrepeating Sunday July 24, 2005 at 10pm ET/PTHow could the flag flutter when there's no wind on the moon? During an interview with Stanley Kubrick's widow an extraordinary story came to light. She claims Kubrick and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon. In order to finance the space program through public funds, the U.S. government needed huge popular support, and that meant they couldn't afford any expensive public relations failures. Fearing that no live pictures could be transmitted from the first moon landing, President Nixon enlisted the creative efforts of Kubrick, whose 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968) had provided much inspiration, to ensure promotional opportunities wouldn't be missed. In return, Kubrick got a special NASA lens to help him shoot Barry Lyndon (1975). A subtle blend of facts, fiction and hypothesis around the first landing on the moon, Dark Side Of The Moon illustrates how the truth can be twisted by the manipulation of images.With use of 'hijacked' archival footage, false documents, real interviews taken out of context or transformed through voice-over or dubbing, staged interviews, as well as, interviews with astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and others, Dark Side Of The Moon navigates the viewer through lies and truth; fact and fiction. This is no ordinary documentary. Its intent is to inform and entertain the viewer, but also to shake him up - make him aware that one should always view television with a critical eye.Dark Side Of The Moon is written and directed by William Karel and co-produced by Point du Jour Production and ARTE France. http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_161103.html
MOON HOAX DARK SIDEThe Nixon administration approached Kubrickwith a mind to stage the moon landing in advance.http://www.orwelltoday.com/moonhoaxdoc.shtml
Deaths of key people involved with the Apollo program
In a television program about the hoax theory, Fox Entertainment Group listed the deaths of 10 astronauts and of two civilians related to the manned spaceflight program as having possibly been killings as part of a coverup.
· Ted Freeman (T-38 crash, 1964)
· Elliott See and Charlie Bassett (T-38 accident, 1966)
· Virgil "Gus" Grissom (supposedly an outspoken critic of the Space Program) (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
· Ed White (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
· Roger Chaffee (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
· Ed Givens (car accident, 1967)
· C. C. Williams (T-38 accident, October 1967)
· X-15 pilot Mike Adams (the only X-15 pilot killed in November 1967 during the X-15 flight test program - not a NASA astronaut, but had flown X-15 above 50 miles).
· Robert Lawrence, scheduled to be an Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory pilot who died in a jet crash in December 1967, shortly after reporting for duty to that (later cancelled) program.
· NASA worker Thomas Baron Train crash, 1967 shortly after making accusations before Congress about the cause of the Apollo 1 fire, after which he was fired. Ruled as suicide.
· Paul Jacobs, a private investigator from San Francisco, interviewed the head of the US Department of Geology in Washington about the 'moon rocks'. Did you examine the Moon rocks, did they really come from the Moon? Jacobs asked - the geologist did not respond, only laughed. Paul Jacobs and his wife died from cancer within 90 days.
· Lee Gelvani claims to have almost convinced James Irwin, an Apollo 15 astronaut whom Gelvani referred to as an "informant", to confess about a cover-up having occurred. Irwin was supposedly going to contact Kaysing about it; however he died of a heart attack in 1991, before any such telephone call occurred.
Spacecraft testing and flying high performance jet aircraft can be dangerous, and all but one of the astronaut deaths (Irwin's) were directly related to their rather hazardous job. Two of the astronauts, Mike Adams and Robert Lawrence, had no connection with the civilian manned space program. Astronaut James Irwin had suffered several heart attacks in the years prior to his death. There is no independent confirmation of Gelvani's claim that Irwin was about to come forward. Moreover, if there was a coverup (that the Apollo 11 and subsequent landings were faked), the coverup would logically have occurred in 1969 and subsequent years - yet all of the deaths listed above occurred in 1967 or earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_conspiracy_theory#Deaths_of_key_people_involved_with_the_Apollo_program
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NASA's rebuttal cancelled
In early November 2002 NASA announced that it was cancelling publication of a manuscript by Jim Oberg that was intended to refute the claims that the Moon landings were a hoax. NASA said that this decision was based on the possibility of an outcry raised by people who felt such a book would "legitimize" the very belief it would have debunked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_conspiracy_theory#Deaths_of_key_people_involved_with_the_Apollo_program
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Watcher's Opinion RE:Orion/Giza Correlation and Mars/Moon/Masonic Connection
Hoagland, West, Hancock and Bauval are on to something. What they collectively have implied is nothing less than a PERFECT set up for the advent of the Antichrist. With the idea that Isis was the Egyptian god of "returning" and resurrection, it is uncanny that NASA has been engaged in a type of worship of this god from the beginning of the space program. Even the name Apollo is the Greek derivative of Isis. The landing sites, the dates for landing and the incredible connection with Giza concerning the moon missions all fit together. There is even evidence that the US astronauts were closely watched by the aliens while on luna firma. We agree completely with Bauval that the Giza pyramids are an earthly analogue for Orion and Sirius. I do not however agree with His conclusion that this analogue addresses the Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris. The Egyptians recorded a degraded form of the true meaning of the Giza complex. The Cydonia region IS in complete correlation to Giza, but again, its original meaning was not intended for reverence to "aliens" or the so called proginators of the human race. This conclusion will be the driving force behind the uniting of all nations under the Antichrist. Antichrist will appear as a bringer of peace in Israel along with a worldwide manifestation of aliens claiming a Mars\Earth connection (the fake savior will appear with his fake holy ones). The reason that the King's chamber ventilation shaft is open to the star "Al Naith" in Orion's belt is because that star, whose meaning is "The Wounded One", describes the God who has come. This God manifested in human flesh, died and rose again. The ventilation shaft in the Queen's chamber which points to Sirius is CLOSED. This is symbolically accurate because Sirus represents the same God who died and lives, but has not as of yet returned. Sirius is not the consort of Isis (the degraded meaning), but the symbol of the God who remains to come as the King of Kings. Sirius means, "THE EXALTED KING"--the ruler of the whole earth. When He returns He will set up a kingdom that will never end. If a man were to "force" this shaft open, he would in effect usher in the sequence of events that surround the working of the counterfeit-messiah, the antichrist. A close look at Orion reveals a warrior, holding the skin of a lion, treading his enemy. His upheld club is poised to smash his enemy. The river of fire, Eridanus, which issues from before him, flows out to consume Leviathan, or Cetus, the sea monster to whom the cords of Pisces are fastened. Sirius is properly the embellishment of Pullox, second of the twins, or correctly, the sign of second advent of the Messiah. Procyon embellishes Castor, the first advent of the Messiah as the redeemer, which is the actual translation of Procyon. The Giza complex, as well as the Cydonia region, were designed to reveal Jesus Christ. However, the Antichrist will of course try very hard to usurp the meaning for himself. The forces behind antichrist's coming were builders of the monuments (pre-rebellion). They are not presently alligned with the God which these structures describe.
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/sirius.html site down
Archived at: http://web.archive.org/web/20001207215300/http://mt.net/~watcher/sirius.html
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mt.net/~watcher/sirius.html
========================================================THIS SUBJECT WON'T GO AWAY.... I STILL WONDER WHY WE HAVE NEVER GONE BACK AND WHY WE DO NOTHAVE A BASE ON THE MOON NOW?Subject: Why NASA DID land on the moon.Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 16:47:17 -0400From: "Kyle Connolly" <prospyrus@livemuse.com>Reply-To: <prospyrus@livemuse.com>Organization: Point Of View ProductionsTo: <apfn@apfn.org>I am writing to argue that NASA really did put men on the moon. Here are my 9 responses to your nine "space oddities". 1. "Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air." The functional word here is "teased". Mission control was, as you said, merely teasing him. There is no way for anyone to be able to tell exactly which way the ball went. And even if you could, maybe he wasn'tholding the club straight, so the head hit the ball on an angle. 2. "A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?"Mission Control. If you watched the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", you would know that there was a guy in mission control, controlling the pan/tilt functions on the tv camera tripod. If you want to bring up the 7 second radio delay due to distance, he actually sent the command to tilt up with the ascending lander 7 seconds before it happened, and it all worked out. 3. "One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?" You really ought to learn more about the missions before you start attacking them like this. There was an arm attached to the lander that was deployed just before Neil Armstrong opened the hatch. This arm had a television and a still camera mounted to it. 4. "The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints." Did you really think that they just sent them up there in an airtight jumper? OK. I'm gonna make this real easy for you. Here is a quote from the NASA KIDS website. so you should be able to understand it. "The space suit is made of hard materials with jointed sections to allow movement. The upper and lower torso sections are put on separately. The two pieces are connected at the waist to allow the flow of water and gaslines. Gloves and helmet create a sealed protection against meteoroids and radiation. On Earth, the space suit weighs about 100 pounds. In space, the suit weighs much less. Under normal conditions, a space suit should last about 8 years." So. assuming you can read. you have just learnt about an American space suit. There is a hard layer of plastic, among many other things, protecting the astronauts from the vacuum of space. 5. "The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares." That's like saying 'Why don't the ISS astronauts light up the sky with millions and millions of flares?' CAUSE THERE'S NO POINT!!! What you're saying is. because they didn't put a massive flare on the moon. they never actually went. (Oh.. and by the way. have fun igniting a magnesium flare without oxygen). 6. "Text from pictures in the article said that only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?:As you can see from this photo of Pete Conrad on Apollo 12, astronauts didn't hold cameras like you do when you're taking a picture of your grandmother, the camera was attached to their suit at the chest. Most small tools used by astronauts were attached to their suits, so they would not be lost. 7&8. "The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering if there is no air or wind on the moon? & How can the flag be brightly lit when its side is to the light? And where, in all of these shots, are the stars?" Do you honestly mean to tell me that you believe that this photo hasn't been played with? Somebody (no.. NOT NASA) has doctored this photo really badly to make people like YOU think that you have a stronger case against NASA. That astronaut was copied and pasted into that photo. And as for the flag.. that shadow goes to the side with the face clearly lit because it's not exactly parallel to the sun's rays! It's on a bit of an angle, which anybody will tell you, is enough to clearly light the flag. And as for the fluttering.. less drugs for you, man. it's not moving at all. Do you know what happens when a flag is stowed for several weeks, all folded up? You guessed it.. It gets wrinkled! Look at getting some better glasses. As for the stars. in photography, to prevent an over-exposure (phonetically: Ovur-ekspojur) you must close the iris a bit, or in this case, a lot. The sun is much brighter here than the brightest day on earth. With the iris down far enough to prevent over-exposure, there is no way you would ever, EVER see ANYTHING in the sky other than the sun and the earth. 9. "The Lander weighed 17 tons yet the astronauts feet seem to have made a bigger dent in the dust. The powerful booster rocket at the base of the Lunar Lander was fired to slow descent to the moons service. Yet it has left no traces of blasting on the dust underneath. It should have created a small crater, yet the booster looks like it's never been fired." A few things you're forgetting.. It's mass was 17 tons, yes, however since weight is relative to gravity, and the moon has 1/6th the earth's gravity, the WEIGHT of the lunar lander was only 17/6 tons (2.833 tonnes). Now I'm not saying that this is light, there was dust stirred up when it landed, but no more that when a chopper lands here on earth. Some of your points (which I'm sure you didn't come up with on your own) were ALMOST valid. Please e-mail me back when you read this. I'd love to read your defending points. -Kyle Connolly (P.S. Your spelling sucks) Kyle Connolly phone: (613) 220-2532 fax: (613) 727-3849 email: pointofview@rogers.com
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Nasa pulls Moon hoax bookhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2424927.stm
Not heroes but actors, claim the theoristsBy Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor The US space agency (Nasa) has cancelled the book intended to challenge the conspiracy theorists who claim the Moon landings were a hoax. Nasa declined to comment specifically on the reasons for dropping the publication, but it is understood the decision resulted from the bad publicity that followed the announcement of the project. Criticism that Nasa was displaying poor judgment and a lack of confidence in commissioning the book caused it to abort the project, agency spokesman Bob Jacobs said. Oberg will still write the bookNasa had hired aerospace writer Jim Oberg for the job on a fee of $15,000. He says he will still do the work, although it will now be an unofficial publication with alternative funding. The book will deliver a point-by-point rebuttal of the theory that the Apollo landings were faked in a movie studio, to convince the world that the US had beaten the Soviets to the Moon. It will explain why in still and video footage of the landings, no stars can be seen in the Moon sky, why a flag appears to ripple on the atmosphere-free satellite and why shadows fall in strange directions - all "facts", conspiracy theorists say, point to a hoax. Some commentators had said that in making the Oberg book an official Nasa publication, the agency was actually giving a certain credibility to the hoax theory. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2424927.stm =======================================================Why the Americans NEVER landed on the moon.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon. http://www.moonmovie.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Why they would fake it The Soviet Union had been making all the early advances and the greatest progress in the great Moon race. The Soviet Union launched the first man and the first women in space in 1961 & 1963 and were also the first to orbit the Earth. With the above happening the US Government had to make some kind of success with President Kennedy promising that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's. Many people believe that NASA had released that it was not possible to go to the moon with the technology available (Computer chips being as powerful then as a modern washing machines chip) so they resorted to faking the landing to ensure a victory of the Soviet Union and keep the dollars coming in for real space projects. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Pictures NASA have never offered any explanation whatsoever for the numerous errors in the photographs, despite repeated questioning. These errors include: The Apollo 11 pictures show the ground in the distance being much darker than the ground in the foreground, as if the Astronauts were standing in a pool of light. Several photos show evidence of extra lighting (as a professional photographer would use fill-in lights) but no such lights were supposed to have been used. Some photos clearly show the light coming from "impossible" angles. In one instance, Aldrin's boot is lit from below as he descends the ladder. Some photos contradict the TV camera pictures of the same events. Some photos of one astronaut taken by the other are clearly taken from slightly above the eye level of the subject, but in his visor, the reflection of the astronaut with the camera shows it being held at chest level. The length of the shadows in the Apollo 12 pictures don't agree with the angle which the Sun should have been at. Some wide area photos show shadows pointing in different directions. In the sound recording of the lunar landing, you cannot hear the sound of the engines. As the astronaut calls out the remaining distance to the surface, he is only a few feet away from a rocket engine which should have been producing 10000 lb of thrust. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------The sounds The major point which has helped convince me that the moon landing was faked was the fact that when the control room asked a question to the Astronauts the replies were instant with no delays. This seems strange as even with technology in the 1990's there is a delay from satellite links from the UK to the US. There is about a 0.7 second delay from London to California so how is it possible for instant replies from the Moon ? There is also evidence that when people go into space that there voice goes tense although the Astronauts voices have been analyzed and found to be normal, and 7/10 people said it sounded like someone reading from a script. When Houston are talking to the module you should not be able to hear the responses at least when the module is landing and the infamous "eagle has landed" quote, this is due to the noise that should have been created by the rocket motor which generates several hundred thousand pounds of thrust 20 ft below the astronauts. The noise would have completely drowned the vocals out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Radiation An American author has researched and found out that he believes the Apollo Spacecraft would have needed to be two meters thick to prevent cosmic radiation from cooking the Astronauts inside. Also in addition to the radiation protection for the astronauts similar protection would be required for the films + cameras, NASA's official explanation of how the films were protected was that the cameras were painted with a coat of aluminum paint, yeah right. http://web.archive.org/web/20010407065641/http://thepeoplesrevolution.tripod.com/moonlanding.htm ==========================================================

TIME & MOTION STUDY:
Anyone with even elemental math skills and common sense can look at the facts, do the calculations, and come to their own conclusions about the alleged MASSIVE VOLUME of lunar surface photography in such a LIMITED TIME.
Here is my conclusion: IT COULD NOT BE DONE.http://www.aulis.com/skeleton.html It boils down not to just studying the photographs for signs of fakery, though I have examined every available Apollo photo for more than three years (and discovered many fakes). Very simply, it amounts to a study known to many businesses...A TIME AND MOTION STUDY. The elementary question is: was it possible to take the known number of photos (from NASA records) in the amount of time available (from NASA records)? But before you read my study, to understand it you need to know some basic information about the Apollo missions: 1. Of seven Apollo missions to put "men on the Moon", six were claimed to be "successful". (Apollo 13 was "aborted".)2. Each of the six successful missions landed two astronauts "on the Moon" in a flimsy craft NASA originally had called the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to LM), an unproven craft which never had an opportunity for a lunar landing test flight. But it landed and then took off six times with spectacular "success" on Apollo missions 11 and 12, and 14 through 17...once even landing within 200 feet of a pre-selected target.3. Two astronauts rode each LEM to the Moon surface while one remained in the orbiting Command and Service Module (CSM) awaiting their return. 4. During their Extra-Vehicular Activity (lunar surface exploration) each of the two wore a bulky inflated spacesuit with clumsy gloves, greatly limiting mobility. On their backs they wore a huge and heavy Life Support System (PLSS) backpack containing an oxygen tank and circulating water air conditioning system which pumped refrigerated water throughout the suit to counteract the 200+/- degree heat (and cold) of lunar conditions. Pumps circulated both refrigerated air and water to the liquid cooling undergarment, as well as dehumidifying, removing carbon dioxide, and providing all other functions needed to survive harsh conditions in the confining suits. 5. The principal objective of all six missions was SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH projects to be carried out by the two astronauts. Most of the projects, which numbered about a half dozen each mission, were remarkably similar on all six missions. All of these science experiments involved unpacking equipment from stowage bays, assembling it, transporting it to its location, setting it up, and then doing the experiments. As you might imagine, each of these research projects would require a major portion of the TIME of the two men for each experiment.6. Another major project besides operation of the packaged experiments was the Geological Study, which involved searching for different specimens of rocks and soils in various locations, documenting and collecting samples to return to earth. This obviously occupied much of their TIME.7. Considerable TIME was needed for "housekeeping chores". After landing, the LEM had to be inspected to make sure it had not been damaged. Communications equipment to put them in contact with Earth had to be set up and operated, including radio and television antennas and TV cameras. The US flag was planted in the moondust on each mission. All of this was done before any experiments were initiated. Oh, and don't forget the "ceremonial" chat with President Nixon during Apollo 11.8. The first three missions required the astronauts to walk to each experiment location. The last three missions were supplied with a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) to travel to distant locations miles away from the LEM. The partially pre-assembled LRV was attached to the outside of the LEM. The rover floor served as a pallet which was hinged to the outside of the LRV. The wheels were folded under. The "pallet" was lowered by hand to the lunar surface, and the wheels rotated into position. After the wheels were down, the vehicle had to be outfitted with all of its considerable equipment from various storage bins of the LEM. Oddly, not a single photo exists in the public domain (at least that I could find to date) of the astronauts assembling and equipping the LRVs. The battery-powered rovers had a top speed of about 8 mph, only slightly faster than walking...much like a golf cart. During the LRV travels ("traverses"), both men rode, and when moving, had no opportunity for photography. Also, the time taken in assembling the rover was not used for any photography. Though I could find no time given by NASA, surely it is reasonable to guess that it took at least an hour to unload, assemble and equip and test a rover? 9. Almost incidental to the main astronaut tasks was PHOTOGRAPHY. Each astronaut had his own camera. (Apart from the Apollo 11 EVA.) It was a square-format specially-built Hasselblad. It was mounted on a chest-plate for the astronaut to operate. The astronaut had to manually set the shutter speed and apertures while wearing bulky, pressurized gloves and without being able to see the controls. The cameras had NO VIEWFINDER, so the astronaut could only guess at what was being photographed. Each camera had a bulk film magazine holding more than a hundred exposures. The film (mainly Ektachrome color film) had a very narrow exposure range, which required PERFECT aperture and shutter settings, because according to NASA, the cameras did not have automatic exposure capability. 10. It is important to know that although each man had his own camera, they ALMOST NEVER USED THEM AT THE SAME TIME. Usually one of them was photographing the other doing some task. Therefore having two cameras DID NOT TRANSLATE TO TWICE AS MUCH TIME FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, as one might surmise. Now that you understand the missions, here is my discovery of NASA overzealousness, which has been successfully hidden till now. A TIME AND MOTION STUDY For more than three years I have been collecting and analyzing nearly all the significant photos from the Apollo missions. These official photos are readily available on multiple NASA websites for downloading. Recently I noticed they were taking up many gigabytes of memory on my computer's external hard drive, so I began organizing them and deleting duplications. I did a rough estimate of the number of Apollo photos, and was amazed that I had thousands! I visited several official NASA websites to find HOW MANY PHOTOS WERE TAKEN on the surface of the Moon. Amazingly, NASA AVOIDS THIS SUBJECT almost entirely. Two days of searching documents and text were fruitless. But Lunar Surface Journal, one of the sites, lists every photo with its file number. So I undertook to make an actual count of every photo taken by astronauts DURING EXTRA-VEHICULAR ACTIVITY (EVA), the time spent on the surface out of the LEM.Here is my actual count of EVA photos of the six missions: Apollo 11........... 121Apollo 12........... 504Apollo 14........... 374 Apollo 15..........1021 Apollo 16..........1765 Apollo 17..........1986So 12 astronauts while on the Moon's surface took a TOTAL of 5771 exposures. That seemed excessively large to me, considering that their TIME on the lunar surface was limited, and the astronauts had MANY OTHER TASKS OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAPHY. So I returned to the Lunar Surface Journal to find how much TIME was available to do all the scientific tasks AS WELL AS PHOTOGRAPHY. Unlike the number of photos, this information is readily available: Apollo 11........1 EVA .....2 hours, 31 minutes......(151 minutes) Apollo 12........2 EVAs.....7 hours, 50 minutes......(470 minutes) Apollo 14........2 EVAs.....9 hours, 25 minutes......(565 minutes)Apollo 15........3 EVAs...18 hours, 30 minutes....(1110 minutes) Apollo 16........3 EVAs...20 hours, 14 minutes....(1214 minutes) Apollo 17........3 EVAs...22 hours, 04 minutes....(1324 minutes) Total minutes on the Moon amounted to 4834 minutes.Total number of photographs taken was 5771 photos.Hmmmmm. That amounts to 1.19 photos taken EVERY MINUTE of time on the Moon, REGARDLESS OF OTHER ACTIVITIES. (That requires the taking of ONE PHOTO EVERY 50 SECONDS!) Let's look at those other activities to see how much time should be deducted from available photo time: Apollo 11..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment, operate the TV camera (360 degree pan), establish contact with Earth (including ceremonial talk with President Nixon), unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages, find/document/collect 47.7 pounds of lunar rock samples, walk to various locations, conclude experiments, return to LEM. Apollo 12..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment (spend time trying to fix faulty TV camera), establish contact with Earth, unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages, walk to various locations, inspect the unmanned Surveyor 3 which had landed on the Moon in April 1967 and retrieve Surveyor parts. Deploy ALSEP package. Find/document/collect 75.7 pounds of rocks, conclude experiments, return to LEM. Apollo 14..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment and establish contact with Earth, unpack and assemble hand cart to transport rocks, unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages, walk to various locations. Find/document/collect 94.4 pounds of rocks, conclude experiments, return to LEM. Apollo 15..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment and establish contact with Earth, unpack/assemble/equip and test the LRV electric-powered 4-wheel drive car and drive it 17 miles, unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages (double the scientific payload of first three missions). Find/document/collect 169 pounds of rocks, conclude experiments, return to LEM. (The LRV travels only 8 mph*.) Apollo 16..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment and establish contact with Earth, unpack/assemble/equip and test the LRV electric-powered 4-wheel drive car and drive it 16 miles, unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages (double the scientific payload of first three missions, including new ultraviolet camera, operate the UV camera). Find/document/collect 208.3 pounds of rocks, conclude experiments, return to LEM. (The LRV travels only 8 mph*.) Apollo 17..........Inspect LEM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment and establish contact with Earth, unpack/assemble/equip and test the LRV electric-powered 4-wheel drive car and drive it 30.5 miles, unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages. Find/document/collect 243.1 pounds of rocks, conclude experiments, return to LEM. (The LRV travels only 8 mph*.) Let's arbitrarily calculate a MINIMUM time for these tasks and subtract from available photo time:Apollo 11....subtract 2 hours (120 minutes), leaving 031 minutes for taking photosApollo 12....subtract 4 hours (240 minutes), leaving 230 minutes for taking photos Apollo 14....subtract 3 hours (180 minutes), leaving 385 minutes for taking photos Apollo 15....subtract 6 hours (360 minutes), leaving 750 minutes for taking photosApollo 16....subtract 6 hours (360 minutes), leaving 854 minutes for taking photosApollo 17....subtract 8 hours (480 minutes), leaving 844 minutes for taking photos So do the math: Apollo 11.......121 photos in 031 minutes............3.90 photos per minute Apollo 12.......504 photos in 230 minutes............2.19 photos per minute Apollo 14.......374 photos in 385 minutes............0.97 photos per minute Apollo 15.....1021 photos in 750 minutes............1.36 photos per minute Apollo 16.....1765 photos in 854 minutes ...........2.06 photos per minute Apollo 17.....1986 photos in 844 minutes ...........2.35 photos per minute Or, to put it more simply: Apollo 11........one photo every 15 seconds Apollo 12........one photo every 27 seconds Apollo 14........one photo every 62 seconds Apollo 15........one photo every 44 seconds Apollo 16........one photo every 29 seconds Apollo 17........one photo every 26 seconds So you decide. Given all the facts, was it possible to take that many photos in so short a time? Any professional photographer will tell you it cannot be done. Virtually every photo was a different scene or in a different place, requiring travel. As much as 30 miles travel was required to reach some of the photo sites. Extra care had to be taken shooting some stereo pairs and panoramas. Each picture was taken without a viewfinder, using manual camera settings, with no automatic metering, while wearing a bulky spacesuit and stiff clumsy gloves.The agency wants the world to believe that 5771 photographs were taken in 4834 minutes! IF NOTHING BUT PHOTOGRAPHY HAD BEEN DONE, such a feat is clearly impossible...made even more so by all the documented activities of the astronauts. Imagine...1.19 photos every minute that men were on the Moon –- that's one picture every 50 SECONDS! The secret NASA tried to hide has been discovered: The quantity of photos purporting to record the Apollo lunar EVAs could not have been taken on the Moon in such an impossible time frame. So why do these photos exist? How did these photos get made? Did ANY men go to the Moon? Or was it truly the greatest hoax ever? © 2005 Jack WhiteEditor's Notes: *According to Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon the LRV averaged only 5 to 7 miles per hour, which would reduce even further the time available for photography.http://www.aulis.com/skeleton.html
WERE THE MOON LANDING SHOTS FAKED?
WERE THE MOON LANDING
SHOTS FAKED?
In July 1969, more than 600 million people watched in awe, as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the moon. The last men to set foot on the moon were the astronauts of Apollo 17, in December 1972. But even before this, a set of conspiracy theories were spreading, the most radical of which claimed that NASA had faked all the lunar landings-that man in fact never landed on the moon. Look at the evidence and decide for yourself.
click on picture to enlarge

This shot of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the US flag on the moon's surface was taken by a 16 mm camera mounted on the lunar module. Aldrin's shadow (A) is far longer than Armstrong's. Yet the only light on the moon - and the only light source used by NASA - comes from the sun, and should not create such unequal shadows.
Buzz Aldrin stands with the sun shining down across his left shoulder. Although his right side is in shadow, there is too much detail shown on that side of his space suit (B). It should be much darker and less visible because the contrast between light and dark is much greater on the moon. With no atmosphere to pollute the light on the moon, all the photographs should look bright and crisp. But the landscape behind Aldrin (C) gradually fades to darkness. This 'fall-off' effect, hoax theorists say, should not occur on the moon. But the fading effect could have happened because film is less adaptive than the human eye and makes objects seem darker the further they are from the camera. There is a curious object reflected in Aldrin's visor (D). Some theorists think that it is a helicopter, others say that it is a 12-metre glass structure. NASA claims that it is a piece of equipment on the lunar surface.

NASA claims the strange shape (E) - in this shot taken from the Lunar Module while it was 95 km above the moon's surface - is a shadow cast by the Command Module's rocket. But when larger aircraft fly at lower altitudes over the Earth, they do not cast such huge and defined shadows.

As the Lunar Module Antares, from Apollo 14, rests on the moon's surface there is no crater beneath its feet (F), despite the considerable amount of dust that would have been thrown up during its descent. There also appears to be a footprint (G) directly under the module, yet no one walked on this part of the moon before the craft landed. On the left side of the craft, the words, 'United States' (H) are clearly visible, whereas they should be in shadow. Buzz Aldrin himself said that there is no refracted light on the moon, which points to the fact that another source of light was used to take this shot.
These shots of John Young and James Irwin - like many Apollo photos - show a lunar sky without stars (J). Yet with no atmosphere on the moon, stars should be visible - a fact confirmed by Maria Blyzinsky, Curator of Astronomy at the Greenwich Observatory, London. If NASA could not hope to recreate the lunar sky, they may have opted for simple black backdrops. NASA claim that the sunlight was so strong it overpowered the light from the stars. On the shadow side of the landing modules, there are plaques (K) with the American flag and the words 'United States' quite bright and clearly visible, but the gold foil around the plaques is in near darkness. Studio spotlights highlighting these areas, or technicians retouching the prints, could have caused this effect.

As Alan Bean holds up a Special Environmental Sample Container, the top of his head is clearly in view. But the camera taking the shot was fixed on Charles Conrad's chest, and the ground here seems to be level, so the top of the helmet (L) should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor (M) go off in various directions, not in straight parallel lines, as expected, suggesting that there is more than one light source. The container Bean is holding (N) is brightly lit at the bottom, yet it is facing away from the light. This may be due to the light reflected from Bean's suit on to the container, but the rest of the container is not so brightly lit.

In this photograph of John Young readjusting an antenna next to the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV), there is a marker, known as a cross-hair (inset) (P), that goes behind the LRV's equipment. These cross-hairs (Q), which appear on all the lunar photographs, are made by a screen of cross-hairs placed between the shutter and the film. The bright, reflected light may have obliterated the fine line of this one, or it could have happened if the image was retouched. The foreground shows what looks like the letter 'C' on a boulder (R). Is this perhaps an identification letter left on a studio prop? The letter C on the original photo is actually quite well defined and it is hard to imagine what can cause such a well-laid inscription on a boulder in a desolate place such as the moon. The tracks made by the LRV's wheel turn rather oddly at right-angles (S). These tracks could have been caused by studio technicians pushing the buggy into place. Such clear tracks and footprints require moisture to form and should not appear on the dry lunar surface.

THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
EXCLUSIVE WITNESS
The two leading supporters of the faked moon photograph theory come from either side of the Atlantic. Ralph René, an author from New Jersey, argues that Man never flew to the moon. He believes the radiation from the sun is so deadly that astronauts would fry as soon as they got into deep space. In his book 'NASA Mooned America!' René claims that the Apollo pictures were shot in a government studio near the town of Mercury in Nevada.
Englishmen David Percy, on the other hand, uses his experience as a professional photographer to put forward the argument that the lighting in the Apollo photographs could only have been achieved in a studio on earth. He also claims to have an informant in NASA, whom he calls Whistleblower, who has leaked information about the cover-up.

Buzz Aldrin
Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. Here's what he had to say about the claims that the Apollo photographs were faked.

"There has always been an undercurrent of queries about the conspiracy. But they are sensational fabrications and I don't put much into any of it. I appreciate he attention they draw - it's helpful in keeping the space promises on people's minds - but it's very erroneous and misleading and selfishly irresponsible. by the people concerned."

How do you feel when people say you and Neil Armstrong never went to the moon?

"Well it's a waste of my time. I don't have much respect for the people who entertain that thinking and generally am not interested in engaging in any discourse with them. All that does is encourage them and it's not going to change their thinking at all."

An interesting speech reversal can be found on Neil Armstrong's legendary 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' statement. When played backwards Neil seems to say 'Man never space walk.' Listen to it for yourself. (not in archive)
Certain aspects of the shots - the highlighted flags, the Lunar Modules without craters, the camera's cross-hair disappearing behind the image, the abnormally distinct tyre tracks and the footprints - are difficult to explain away completely. But perhaps the most intriguing question is why the photographs may have been faked, regardless of whether or not Man actually did land on the moon. http://web.archive.org/web/20011201195710/http://www.mohammedi.freeserve.co.uk/moonshots.htmlar
Why would NASA fake the Apollo moon-landing shots?
Moon Landing Hoaxer Buzz Aldrin Punches Filmmaker http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?ChannelID=124
HOT - PART II COVERS "WE DID NOT GO TO THE MOON"http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/04-04-05/discussion.cgi.61.html How can Bush put a man on Mars? We faked the moon!http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/02-07-04/discussion.cgi.101.html
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"Apollo debates are usually dominated by physics arguments which can be confusing for most people. Jack White's new analysis is breath-taking in its simplicity: now anyone can understand the evidence and come to their own conclusion." John P. Costella PhDDr. Costella is a physicist living in Australiahttp://www.aulis.com/skeleton.html
=======================================================NASA Masonic Conpsiracyhttp://www.biblebelievers.org.au/masonapo.htm#NASA%20Masonic%20Conpsiracy

Kay Griggs wife of Colonel George Griggs
Why would the US military ignore 9-11 and other crimes?These excerpts from 8 hours of interview of Kay Griggs (available at 888-820-2126) show one reason.Kay is another woman who wants a better world.
Video: Part 1 http://www.apfn.org/movies/Griggs.wmv 16MB
PART 2 DEALS WITH THE FACT WE DID NOT GO TO THE MOON.Video: Part 2 http://www.apfn.org/movies/Griggs2.wmv 18.6MB
Nasa pulls Moon hoax bookhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2424927.stm
US Plans New Moon Landing In 2018http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-05zzc.html (Fool me once, shame on YOU!...Fool me twice shame on ME!)
NASA's $104-billion plan to revive manned lunar missions is seen as a step toward Mars trip.By Peter PaeNASA unveiled a 13-year, $104-billion blueprint Monday for sending humans back to the moon as early as 2018, using a modified space shuttle rocket to propel an Apollo-like capsule into space.More: http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050920-moon.htm
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Last updated 12/23/2005

Mooning NASA

2005-12-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

Starless Gazing: Noting the absence of stars in the background, Bill Kaysing thinks NASA's lunar photos were not taken on the moon.

After 27 years, Soquel author Bill Kaysing still insists the lunar landing was a hoax
By Rafer Guzmán

TWENTY SEVEN years ago last Saturday, the world watched as Neil Armstrong kicked up clouds of lunar dust and announced, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
At the time, Bill Kaysing had already finished a seven-year stint as a technical editor at Rocketdyne. Yet, he chose not to watch the televised landing. In Kaysing's words, "I could not generate the least enthusiasm for watching a phony performance."
So begins Kaysing's self-published book, We Never Went to the Moon. A far cry from Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, Kaysing's tract documents what he claims is the greatest hoax in history.
"I really believe that the body of evidence proves, beyond any doubt, that no way could we have gotten to the moon," Kaysing says from his trailer home in Soquel. "The technology did not exist in 1969, and it certainly doesn't exist today."
The 74 year-old author of several travel and lifestyle books has spent the last two decades researching his subject. His files include old issues of National Geographic, newspaper clippings, a 1970 survey claiming that 30 percent of Americans doubted the moon landings and material from like-minded skeptics in Germany, Holland and New Jersey. "It's been a labor of love for me," he says.
Kaysing's theory posits that the failure-prone NASA panicked when President John F. Kennedy foolishly announced that America would put a man on the moon by the decade's end. NASA continued with the actual Apollo missions, but their backup plan was the clandestine Apollo Simulation Project. Unable to make good on Kennedy's promise by 1969, NASA opted to go forward with the project.
The phony footage, he contends, was shot at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. "They had more equipment and better equipment than all the movie studios in Hollywood combined," explains Kaysing, adding that the man in charge was none other than reclusive auteur Stanley Kubrick, whose 1968 epic 2001: A Space Odyssey impressed NASA officials. "He had access to everybody, globally," Kaysing maintains.
Kubrick did not respond by press time to questions faxed to his office.
Along with the "live" footage, NASA produced still photographs. After painstaking examination of these photos, Kaysing concluded that they were not taken on the moon. He holds up the famous pictures of the lunar landscape. "No stars," he says simply. "Standing on the moon and looking up at the heavens would be like standing on Mount Whitney on a clear night and seeing billions of stars right out to the horizon."
But in all the photos, the firmament is completely black. "That, to me, is the strongest evidence."
Then there is the Lunar Module, or LM, in which the astronauts landed on the moon's dusty surface. "I've witnessed hundreds of rocket firings," Kaysing says, "and it's incredible, the amount of heat and force which comes out."
Kaysing points to the LM's large jet-nozzle. "The temperature of that jet is 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit," he says. "It would have actually melted the dust into glass. There would have been an enormous crater." Yet the dust beneath the LM appears completely undisturbed.
Last June, Kaysing went to the San Jose Convention Center, where astronaut James Lovell was speaking. Kaysing presented Lovell with a copy of his book. "He was very jocular," remarks Kaysing.
But Lovell, after reading the book, sent an indignant letter to Kaysing insisting, "I personally made two trips to the moon. ... You heard my speech, and I am not accustomed to making up stories for my audience."
Speaking from his office in Illinois, Lovell said of Kaysing: "The guy is wacky. His position makes me feel angry. We spent a lot of time getting ready to go to the moon. We spent a lot of money, we took great risks, and it's something everybody in this country should be proud of. His problem is, he saw that movie Capricorn One and now he thinks that's really the way it goes."
Kaysing considers Lovell almost a comedian. "He's essentially a sort of comic Manchurian Candidate," he says. "He's been either brainwashed, hypnotized, programmed or whatever to present this spurious story of having gone to the moon."
Regarding Capricorn One, Kaysing claims that writer-director Peter Hyams based the 1978 film on his book. The script's copyright date was somehow changed, Kaysing says, to prevent him from suing.
The extent of the cover-up does not surprise Kaysing, who intends to take his theories to the grave. "Nothing could convince me now," he says. "You couldn't show me a thing."

Bart Sibrel

2005-12-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

Bart Winfield Sibrel is a conspiratorialist who claims the Apollo moon landings were faked. He outlines his points in two films, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon and Astronauts Gone Wild, both are marketed through his website.
Sibrel's claims are dismissed by the scientific community and none of his allegations are deemed credible by those with expertise in the field.
Most astronauts have refused to grant him interviews and Sibrel has used ambush tactics to try and get footage of them commenting on the film.
Sibrel was arrested for trespassing on Neil Armstrong's property. In 2002, he lured Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to a Beverly Hills hotel with the ruse that he was to interview Aldrin for a Japanese children's show on space. Sibrel insisted that Aldrin place his hand on a Bible and swear that he walked on the moon. The interview became contentious and at the end, Aldrin punched Sibrel in the jaw. Sibrel's reaction was "Did you get that on camera?" Sibrel used the tape to try to convince the police that Sibrel rather than Aldrin was the victim of an assault. No charges were brought by the District Attorney. Aldrin's lawyer, Robert O'Brien, claims Sibrel has been stalking many former Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Alan Bean, and Al Worden. Lois Aldrin, referring to an earlier encounter, added, "He said things I can't repeat. He was not a nice man, and it really upset Buzz a lot."
Jim McDade, in the Birmingham News, characterized the film as "full of falsehoods, innuendo, strident accusations, half-truths, flawed logic and premature conclusions", avers that the "only thing new and weird revealed in Sibrel's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon is his bizarre personal interpretation that the video views of earth were shot through a small hole (template) to give the impression that Apollo 11 was not in low earth orbit", and adds "Bart has misinterpreted things that are immediately obvious to anyone who has extensively read Apollo history and documentation or anyone who has ever been inside an Apollo Command Module or accurate mockup."
Sibrel also participated in Fox TV's special, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?".

Video of Buzz Aldrin punching Bart Sibrel

Apollo moon landing hoax accusations

2005-12-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

Apollo moon landing hoax accusations

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Proponents of the Apollo moon landing hoax accusations allege that the Apollo Moon Landings never took place, and were faked by NASA with possible CIA support.
According to a 1999 Gallup poll, about 6 percent of the population of the U.S. has doubts that the Apollo astronauts walked on the moon.
"Although, if taken literally, 6 percent translates into millions of individuals," Gallup said of this, "it is not unusual to find about that many people in the typical poll agreeing with almost any question that is asked of them -- so the best interpretation is that this particular conspiracy theory is not widespread."
Nearly all interested scientists, technicians, and space enthusiasts have rejected the claim, considering it to be baseless.
The landing hoax proponents believe that the Moon landings of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and subsequent missions never happened, but were faked on Earth. The idea grew significantly in popularity after the release of the movie Capricorn One (1978), which portrays a NASA attempt to fake a landing on Mars. It is possible that a brief sequence in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971) which appears to show a Moon landing being simulated may coincide with some of the first suggestions of the landings being faked. It should perhaps be noted that British playwright Desmond Lowden wrote a play called 'The News-Benders' in 1967 in which all major technological advances since 1945 were shown to have been simulated; the play was televised in January 1968 and showed a moon landing faked with models. In his book A Man on the Moon, Andrew Chaikin mentions that at the time of Apollo 8's lunar orbit mission in Dec. 1968, the conspiracy theories were already in full bloom.
A more subtle version of the idea is that although the Apollo missions were not faked, some of the photographs were doctored. According to this, the U.S. government feared the humiliation that would occur if the mission failed and fake photographs were prepared on Earth "just in case." By this account, although the mission was a success, some of these fake photographs were so impressive that it was decided to release them anyway for propaganda purposes.
The first published presentation of the claims was Bill Kaysing's We Never Went to the Moon in 1974, although perhaps the best known is NASA Mooned America by Ralph Rene.

the moonlanding was a hoax

2005-12-21T09:25:00.000-08:00

the moonlanding was a hoax

Nardwuar: For years, Bill, I've heard the rumour that Disney faked the moon landing. Now you're here, Mr. Kaysing, to prove it's true, aren't you? R.E.M. sang, "If you believe they put a man on the moon", you're here to prove it, aren't you, Mr. Kaysing?Bill Kaysing: I'm here to prove that no man has ever landed on the moon.
What's the background for that? There are lots of books on this subject, aren't there?Oh yeah, there are quite a few and there are more coming all the time. Interestingly, several people have, and will, produce videotapes based on my material.
There's a new book out, N.A.S.A. Mooned America.Yes, that's by a man named Ralph Rene, who lives in Pasaic, New Jersey, and the book is very well-done. It's far superior to my book because Rene is essentially a self-taught engineer, and he's come up with a lot of important points that I missed completely.
Well your book, We Never Went to the Moon, Bill, was probably the first book to expose the moon hoax, wasn't it?Yes, it was written in 1974 and has essentially been available ever since.
Rene calls astronauts, 'astro-nots', which is very interesting.Yes, that is true. He has a good comic sense.
Bill Kaysing, can you give your background of your involvement in the space program and what the official government line is about people landing on the moon?I was for seven years head of technical publications for the Rocketdyne Research Department at the Propulsion Field Laboratory in the Simi Hills, that's near Kenoga Park, California, and during that time I had top-secret clearance and Atomic Energy Commission (A.E.C.) clearance and of course I was in on all of the top secrets about the development of Mercury and Gemini and, of course, Atlas, and, eventually, Apollo. And my experience as a technical writer led me to believe that a lot of the things that the aerospace industry and NASA preferred to have done, were never done. And they were not as successful as they pretended to be. [As to the second question,] the government claims that the reports of astronauts and photographs and some rocks prove that we went to the moon and my feeling is that some photos and some people who have been under military pay or military jurisdiction all their lives and some rocks don't prove a thing. In fact, there is so much contrary evidence to going to the moon, such as solar and cosmic radiation, micro meteorites, the temperature on the moon, the fact that the astronauts never reported how magnificent the stars were or they never showed a picture of the crater that should have been dug underneath the lunar lander - it goes on and on. I have hundreds of pieces of information that any really intelligent person could review and then decide for themselves.
Well, particularly, Mr. Kaysing, could you just prove it here with some little points, that we actually did not go to the moon. In your book you mention that there were no stars in the photos that NASA took.That's right, and they had the most marvelous opportunity to take pictures of all the stars in the universe visible from the moon. I've talked to a number of top-level astronauts, both locally and elsewhere, and they say that the astronauts would have been overwhelmed by the sight of trillions of stars, not to mention Jupiter and Saturn and the other planets and so forth, but not one picture has ever come back from the alleged trip to the moon showing the stars in all their magnificence, nor do any of the astronauts comment on the stars. They completely ignore it. It would be like going to Niagara Falls and talking about the hamburger you ate.
Doesn't NASA say that the reason there were no stars is because their cameras weren't set for the proper exposure, isn't that their line?That's their line and that's pure baloney, because I've talked to photographic experts who say that NASA have all the money in the world to have a camera that would have taken magnificent pictures of stars. But there's a little problem, you know, the temperature on the moon is 250°F during the lunar day, and a friend of mine put some film in an oven and ran it up to 250 and the film just curled up. If you notice that the Hasselblad camera is worn outside of the astronaut's suit and it is not curled in any way. So that camera would have heated up to the temperature to bake cookies in a very short time, because the Sun on the moon is absolutely relentless, there's no atmosphere to mitigate the heat of the Sun. So it's obvious that the pictures that they brought back were not taken on the moon, nor could they have actually taken any pictures on the moon, even if they had gone there.

So apparently they faked the moon landing. If the moon landing was faked, how come they didn't include stars in their studio, apparently in the Nevada desert where they were faking the moon landing?They could not fake the stars and maps because there are too many astronomy buffs, and I've talked to a lot of them. They would have measured the angularity between stars and the position of the stars behind, let's say, the Earth. No way, even with the most advanced computers, could they have created star pictures that would have been, let's say, acceptable to the astronomy buffs. So at MIT, where the simulation took place, the planning for it took place, they simply decided to stonewall it and not include any pictures of stars at all.
Where was the moon landing faked? Somewhere in the Nevada desert? What's the deal on that, Bill Kaysing?Well it's said that there's an area near Quebec that looks just like the moon and that the astronauts spent some time up there. They spent lots of time in the Nevada desert and it looks a great deal like the moon. But here's the kicker - there's an Air Force base near San Bernardino, called Norton Air Force Base, and they have the world's largest sound stages under tremendously efficient security. They could have easily created all of the moon sets in those sound stages and filmed to their hearts' content.
This was in the Nevada desert.Well, this was in Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, but they could have done it in the Nevada desert in an area called 51, which is the north-east corner of the A.E.C. base there.
They have a lot of UFO stuff going on around Area 51.Oh yeah, 51 is a place where you don't want to be found at all. All the guards carry submachine guns and they are told to shoot to kill if anybody gets inside the base.
So continuing on, Mr. Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went to the Moon, to prove that the moon landing was faked, you mentioned that there were no stars in the photos that the astronauts brought back, but also you mentioned it was impossible for the United States of America to actually make it to the moon at that time, that there had been some problems, and that you were involved with the program at this time, so you knew about those problems.Oh yes. One of the major problems, of course, was trying to get things to work in essentially an alien environment. Outer space is no picnic. You've got the Van Allen belt around the Earth, you know, about twenty miles up, the Van Allen belt would probably have cooked any astronauts who ventured into that area. Then you've got outer space where there are billions of micro meteorites zipping around at speeds up to 60 000 miles per hour, and these would have gone right through the command capsule with the astronauts in it, and kept right on going, and these micro meteorites are all different sizes, from the head of a pin to, say, the size of a grapefruit and larger.
Weren't there actual events, though, that happened to NASA that made them realize they couldn't send somebody to the moon? When did NASA realize that it was impossible for them to send somebody to the moon and that they would have to fake the moon landing?Well, initially, they realized it in 1959 when I was privy to a study made by the Russians. The Russians discovered that the radiation on the moon would require astronauts to be clothed in four feet of lead to avoid being killed. NASA picked up on this study and, of course, did some studies of their own and, subsequently, other studies were made about all of the different hazards on the moon, particularly something as benign, you might think, as temperature. The temperature on the moon during a lunar day is 250°F. Now, trying to keep either the suits or the lunar lander cool during that tremendous heat from a blazing sun would have been impossible because they did not have enough air conditioning power.
So you're saying in 1959, the USA realized that they couldn't put a man on the moon?That's when they got hold of the Russian studies. The Russians never intended to land men on the moon. They concentrated on unmanned vehicles. And the so-called space race was just a lot of baloney.
Well, Bill Kaysing, what I don't understand is, if NASA realized they couldn't put a man on the moon in 1959, what about those astronauts who died in 1967 on the launch pad? Did NASA know that those guys were going to die on the launch pad? Were they sacrificed to make the space program more realistic?Aah...I would say that's - you're pretty close to that. A fellow by the name of Gus Grissom was very disenchanted with the Apollo program and he, on the day that he was burned to death, he hung a lemon on the command capsule to let people know what he thought of it. Prior to that, he made many trips to the rocket down in Downey Plant to examine the equipment and he realized that it wasn't going to work. A few minutes before he was burned to death, he said, hey, you guys in the control center, get with it. You expect me to go to the moon and you can't even maintain telephonic communications over three miles. But my theory about Gus Grissom was that he was about to blow the whistle on the entire project and that he was murdered.
What was the intention of those astronauts - what Apollo mission was that, the one that the guys died in?That was Apollo 1. Grissom and Chaffee and White, his two companions, were supposed to take off in the fall of 1967 and go to the moon.
And what did NASA have for that, like, what was going to be the plan? They were going to actually make it to the moon? That was actually a moon flight?Mmm...no. Not really.
What did NASA have planned? If NASA was faking the whole moon program, what was going to happen to the astronauts , what was their mission? What was NASA trying to achieve or prove to the public?Well, by simulating a trip to the moon, they could easily then justify the $30 billion that they spent. They intended to get Gus Grissom, and Chaffee and White, to actually lie about their trips to the moon, just like Armstrong and Aldrin and all the other astronauts here lied about their trips to the moon. I call astronauts who allegedly landed on the moon bald-faced liars, and particularly Alan Shephard.
Why is that?Well, Alan Shephard is one of these particularly obnoxious people. After Grissom was murdered, he refused to help Grissom's wife, Betty Grissom, get a settlement from N.A.S.A and from North American Aviation, which she held responsible. And Shephard didn't approve of this at all. He said that we should accept the deaths of astronauts and you don't need any money.
So, Bill Kaysing, nobody ever landed on the moon, right, Bill?That is absolutely correct. I will stake my life on it, and I have many, many, many people who will support this view with technical information, including a man who as at the Goldstone tracking station during all of the Apollo flights and he is absolutely convinced that they were faked.
What, exactly, brought him to this decision?Well, he realized that all of the input to the Goldstone tracking station came from NASA in Washington. Well, that certainly made it convenient for them to fake any communications that they wished. In other words, they were not picking up data from Apollo on its way to, or on the moon, or on its way back. They were getting communications from NASA Greenbelt in Washington, DC, which had complete control of all the communications. And at this point I'd like to mention that Walter Cronkite was the father figure that NASA chose to essentially hype the whole project. Cronkite is a rather big liar.
Well, he was in on the Kennedy thing, too, wasn't he?Oh yeah. Recently, he did a film that completely disputed the truth about the Kennedy assassination.
What I'm still curious about, Bill Kaysing, is that - did NASA kill those astronauts in 1967, did they kill them on purpose because they knew too much? Or was it actually an accident that happened?No, it was no accident. They murdered them because, you see, I found out just recently that whenever NASA was in trouble they would call on the CIA No we all know that the CIA has and can kill anybody they want without any feeling of conscience whatsoever. So it's my feeling that the CIA was hired by NASA to very adroitly kill Grissom, Chaffee and White.
Let's get a timeline here, Bill Kaysing. You're working here with Rocketdyne, on the space program?I was working on the space program from 1957 to 1963.
With probably a lot of ex-Nazis from the Ghelen organization, I bet.Oh, I met some of them. There were a lot of Nazis including, of course, Werner von Braun. And an interesting sideline is that, after the Apollo project was over, he completely lost interest in space travel, retired and went to work for Grumman, then he died of cancer. This also evokes the recollection that, after Apollo 11 allegedly returned to Earth, three of the leading NASA investigators resigned without an explanation. Now this tells you that there were some men of integrity who would not go along with this scam.
So you're working at the rocket place developing, working for the space program. You eventually leave the space program. At that point, did you know that the moon landings were going to be faked. 'Cause you said in 1959 the USA realized they couldn't put a man on the moon, so they started faking stuff. Why didn't you spill the beans right then?Well, I don't know. What motivated me to spill the beans was a young man from the Vietnam wars by the name of John Grant. He said that he was sent to Vietnam to kill people with no good reason and he also got a heroin habit, and he says, "Bill," he says, "what I want you to do is blow the whistle on this rotten, corrupt government." He says, "Why don't you say something outrageous, like, we never went to the moon?" So I attribute my interest in this project to John Grant.
If the moon landings were faked, why did they continue faking the Apollo flights. Like, in the movie Apollo 13 it points out that nobody really cared about the space program at that point. You know, America had made it to the moon, why continue faking moon landings if they already made it to the moon?Well, the plan was to have something like eight or ten Apollo flights to the moon and they had been given the money to build all the vehicles to do it, and they felt obligated to carry on with the simulation. But remember this - by the end of Apollo 12 people in America, possibly elsewhere, were completely bored with the project. So what they thought they would do, and did, was they would create a cliffhanger. And Apollo 13, which didn't happen at all, despite the movie, was simply a simulation inside of a simulation to get people's interests back into the space program.

Apollo 13 was totally faked.Totally faked. It never left the earth.
The movie that was up for nine Oscars™ never even happened.It never even happened.
But that guy wrote such a realistic book.Well, sure. He's paid to write a realistic book. You know, many of the Apollo astronauts have become multimillionaires. Where do you suppose all that money came from?
Well, why did they keep faking the Apollo flights, I still don't understand. Did the Soviet Union know it was faked? Why did they keep shut up if they knew it was faked? 'Cause a lot of people would think they kept the moon race going to prove the U.S. was better than the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union knew, why did they let the U.S. get away with this?Well, I'll tell you - at the highest levels there is a coalition between governments. In other words, the Soviets said, if you won't tell on us - and they faked most of their space exploration flights - we won't tell on you. It's as simple as that. See, what Apollo is, is the beginning of the end of the ability of the government to hoodwink and bamboozle and manipulate the people. More and more people are becoming aware in the U.S. that the government is totally and completely public enemy number one.
Well, let's get a little bit more into the proving part of We Never Went to the Moon, Bill. You mentioned before that there were no stars in the photos. NASA says the cameras weren't set properly - you say, well, they could have been set properly, they just didn't do it properly. There was no crater beneath the lunar lander. What's the significance of that?
Well, the significance is that the lunar lander engine developed 10 000 pounds of thrust and I've seen many, many rocket engines of that capability in action and they are so powerful that they will move giant rocks across the canyon. A 10 000 pound thrust engine would have dug a hole right down to bedrock and it would have stirred up an enormous cloud of dust, and that never appeared in any of the so-called films that they took of the lunar landing. So, the absence of the crater in any photograph of Apollo lunar landers is actually probably the only real proof that you need. You don't need much beyond that and the fact that there weren't any stars.
What about the operation of the lunar module, in the sense that it takes place thousands of miles above the moon, this is what NASA says. The big explosion that comes from the lunar module, when it lands on the moon, it happens way up above the moon, and that's why there's no crater. What about that explanation?Well, you know yourself that the lunar lander eventually had to, according to NASA, land on the moon. Well, as it approached the landing point, the engine still had to develop enough thrust to keep the lunar lander, which weighs, in lunar gravity, about 3000 pounds, they had to develop enough thrust to keep it floating above the surface in order to let it gently land on the surface. But that obviously was not substantiated by any crater under the lunar lander engine.
Furthermore, the radiation should have turned the astro-nots into crispy space bacon.Yes, it would have. And it also would have pierced them with thousands of micro meteorites. The moon is not a place for human beings, ever.
And Russia did a study in about '59, and this is what the U.S. picked up on, when the U.S. realized in '59 they couldn't go to the moon because the radiation was so bad - is there any background for this, are there any records that prove this, about the radiation out there in space?Well, I think any good astro-physicist could give you all the data, because it's been pretty well documented by studies. It's not hard to find basic information on flights in outer space, and what you'd come across when you do investigate it is how hostile the universe really is once you leave the Earth's protective atmosphere.
Do you believe that rockets ever made orbit; did Surveyor or Pioneer actually happen?Possibly. Possibly not. I'm not absolutely certain about that. I will concede that certain unmanned vehicles might have made it to the moon. The Russians are supposed to have sent some unmanned vehicles to the moon. And possibly our Surveyor did land on the moon. But units with people in them, never.
How 'bout any actual atmosphere, like John Glenn in space, Yuri Gargarin - were they actually in space?I doubt it.
So the Soviet Union faked that Yuri Gargarin was in space, and that dog that died, Laika, really didn't die?Mmm...I don't think he was up there. See, there was a fellow by the name of Lloyd Mallin in the early '70s who wrote a very detailed book saying that all - well, nearly all - possibly all of the Soviet space exploits were faked, and he proved it with photographs and technical data and so forth. I still have a copy of that book.
So continuing on with reasons that we didn't make it to the moon here - there were various lighting anomalies?Oh, a lot of lighting anomalies. Some friends from Europe came over recently and what they did, they're very interested in this project, they analyzed NASA films supposedly taken on the moon, frame by frame. And you know what they found out?
What, Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went to the Moon?Shadows diverged. In other words, if you have a point source of light, like the Sun, and you can see this anytime outdoors, all shadows will parallel - telephone poles, trees, you name it - all the shadows will be parallel. Well, these men found, in analyzing frame by frame movies, that there was more than one lighting source for this film. Now that proves beyond any doubt, in my mind, that these pictures, these motion pictures, were taken inside of a movie set, using gigantic spotlights to simulate the Sun. But because they would pan shots and show, like, the Rover or astronauts running around and so forth, if you analyze them frame by frame, you find out that the shadows are not parallel. This, to me, is one of the most significant breakthroughs, and I only learned it about two months ago.
Well how 'bout NASA countering that - they say that in some pictures astronauts are lit from more than one side because the sunlight is reflected off the lunar surface, or off the lunar vehicle.Very unlikely in a vacuum, because light doesn't go around corners unless it's assisted. If you look at NASA pictures allegedly taken on the moon, all of the potholes, the little mini craters and so forth, have completely black shadows. Well, any picture of any device on the moon should have had completely black shadows where the Sun did not illuminate them.
How about the pictures of the moon where there are curves in the moon, how did they achieve that if they faked the moon landing, Bill Kaysing?Oh, well - when I was in Frankfurt, Germany recently I saw about a six-foot diameter moon, a model, and it was absolutely perfect. So all the NASA people had to do was create a model of the moon and they could shoot any curvature they wanted.
Did people see Apollo 11 take off?Well, yes, certainly.
So what happened, then, if they saw it take off? The rocket took off - if we didn't go to the moon, what actually happened when Apollo 11 took off?The Apollo 11 vehicle, or Saturn 5, was sent out of people's sight, and then it was jettisoned into the South Atlantic, where all of the six that were launched now reside. There were no astronauts, of course, on board. They were hidden away carefully, to be returned, allegedly in their command capsule, by being dumped out of a C5A transport plane. It was easy to do all of this, because they had total control of everything.
So they were not on the rocket when it took off, then?No, they were not.
And then they were picked up - now, you talked to a pilot who saw all this happen?Yes, a pilot came on the air when I was doing a broadcast and he says, "Bill, I agree with you 100%. I was flying from San Francisco to Tokyo and I saw, along with several passengers, a command capsule dropped out of a C5A and the red-and-white candy-striped parachutes opened and it descended to the surface of the ocean."
And what happened then?Well, they were of course picked up and put into biological suits so they wouldn't afflict anybody with moon germs, but my theory on that is they couldn't tell these big bald-faced lies this early. So they were actually kept from the press for approximately a month until they could sort of reconcile themselves with telling a lot of big lies.
No, but I'm just curious, Apollo 11 takes off, the rocket dumps in the South Atlantic - what happens then, are the astronauts just hiding somewhere, and then eventually they get on a plane and jump out of the plane and they've landed - that was it?That is correct.
No moon involved at all.No moon involved at all. I am 100% positive of this, and every day when I get information from people who support my views, I'm more convinced than ever.
How did they make the astronauts float, Bill Kaysing, 'cause it seems pretty convincing when you seen them floating around there. Like, a lot of people when you say, "hey, you know, we never went to the moon", they went, "I saw it! I saw them floating there! I saw them on the moon right there!"Well, that could have been done just like they did the Broadway play Peter Pan. In other words, [they] used wires and suspended the astronauts from an overhead crane and had them leap gaily across what actually was a moon set. No, it's not difficult to show astronauts taking big leaps, nor is it difficult, for example, to put them in a simulated command capsule and have them go through an anti-gravity curve.
Another point here is that the moon rocks were fake. Are the moon rocks real?No, they are not real. NASA has a well-developed ceramics laboratory with high-temperature ovens-
That's another way NASA could prove they went to the moon, 'cause they brought back these rocks. Interestingly enough, at the University of British Columbia here, David Strangway, the President of U.B.C., was the guy in charge of inspecting the moon rocks.OK, fine, why don't you call him up and ask him what he thinks about them.
So what happened, the moon rocks were not real?No, they were manufactured on Earth to look like moon rocks, but since nobody has any moon rocks to compare them with, it's very simple to make up a moon rock and say, hey, this came from the moon.
Well, how would you know it is a moon rock? Like, how do you know it's not a moon rock - how do you know it's a fake?I had a Seattle geologist who examined moon rocks and he said, "There's no question, Bill, that these rocks were made in a laboratory on Earth."
The actual astronauts had strange language as well. I know this from your book and also some other articles, like Houston Control said, "Well, it's a good show", and then the command service module replied, "Fantastic", and then Armstrong replied, "Yeah, I'll second that." Like, well, it's a good show. That was interesting language.Yes, and you can find a little more of that in an article published in a magazine called Wired, published in September of 1994. [It's a] 4000-word article by Rogier van Bakel, essentially on my contentions.
Bill, has anybody ever seen the studio that this was faked in? 'Cause it's in Area 51, which you alluded to. It was also alluded to in the films Diamonds are Forever and Capricorn One?Yes, that's right. They did allude to the sound stage, or the hidden moon set. No, the reason no one has ever seen it and come out alive is that they don't intend for anybody to see it and come out alive. You’ve got to remember that NASA is kind of a lethal organization. Jim Irwin - Apollo 15 - was put up to blowing the whistle on the whole project and he called me up, ostensibly to give me the facts. Few days later he died of a heart attack. Now what does that tell you?
Well, a lot of people died when dissing NASA What's the significance of the Baron Report?Oh, that's profound. A man named Thomas Ronald Baron was an inspector on Pad 34, where Grissom, Chaffee and White were murdered. He brought forth a 500-page report on the mismanagement, the incompetence of NASA and North American [Aviation]. And again, like Jim Irwin, a few days after he testified before the Congressional Investigating Committee, he was found dead in his car at a railroad crossing. Now what does that tell you?
A lot of people got knocked off.NASA and the CIA and the whole U.S. government is a rotten and corrupt organization, designed just to get all the tax money they can out of people, to manipulate their minds, to keep them amused with sporting events and silly TV sitcoms. We, unfortunately, in the U.S. are pretty well brainwashed, believing whatever the government says. And they have control, as you well know, of the media.
How much space stuff since 1959 has been real? What space stuff is real today? Did the Challenger blow up? Did NASA know it would blow up?Yeah, and you know why it blew up? Because Christa McAuliffe, the only civilian and only woman aboard, refused to go along with the lie that you couldn't see stars in space. So they blew her up, along with six other people, to keep that lie under wraps. I claim that Christa McAuliffe was murdered.
So when the Challenger blew up, it wasn't because of O-ring problems, it was because NASA murdered the people because they didn't want to go along with the gags?Well, Christa McAuliffe was a woman of great integrity, and she would not agree to say that you couldn't see stars in space.
So, Bill Kaysing, are you saying that Roberta Bondar, Canada's first women astronaut, never actually made it in space, 'cause she was on the Shuttle.Well, I'll tell you what - the Shuttle is a possibility. After all, it's low altitude. I haven't done a great deal of research on the Shuttle, but several people have said that the Shuttle is actually faked, also.
So Christa McAuliffe refused to say that she couldn't see stars in space, which would have verified the moon landing claim of no stars in the photos in the moon, so they blew her up.Yeah, exactly. Once you start telling lies, you've gotta keep on going. And then, of course, you try to cover up lies, like the film Apollo 13.
Which, I'm sure, is not on your favorite flicks list for this year, right?I've seen it, and I examined it very carefully, and I found a tremendous anomaly in it. They show the exhaust of the lunar lander model engine as being a yellow-gold. Well, the fuels used on the lunar module were nitrogen tetroxide and asymmetrical dimetal hydrazine, which produce an opaque red gas. So their technical experts on Apollo 13 weren't really with it.
So, who else is gonna get murdered, what else is coming up? What's the future? What is real that's in space that we can see out there, Bill Kaysing?Well, I would say this, that the number of people that believe my version of Apollo are increasing in great numbers. I had a fellow come up from LA He borrowed all of my papers, materials, video and film and so forth, went back and did an hour-and-a-half tape on We Never Went to the Moon. The book is being translated into German and Italian in Europe. I've had inquiries from Australia, from Hawaii, from essentially all over the world. And all of them are highly supportive and have given me a lot of brand-new information which I never knew before. So my feeling is that, within a short time, the Apollo hoax will be exposed and that will open Pandora's box. After that, the U.S. government is going to be hard-pressed to keep the lies about the Federal Reserve Bank, about the IRS being the Gestapo of America, about the fact that all silver was taken out of circulation in 1963, the fact that Canada does not import our meat because it's so full of rotten chemicals. I'm sure you knew that. The Canadians are pretty smart, because they don't import American meat. So, you see, in this country, we're at the short end of things because of the corruption of the government.
There are some people who believe that the moon landing was faked because the U.S. government didn't want to disclose that they'd been on the moon since 1910!No. My feeling is that no human being has ever landed on the moon, because of the lethal environment on the surface.
How do you deal with people who you're trying to convince? Isn't it like trying to convince people that the Earth is flat? How do you distinguish yourself with these people, Bill Kaysing?Well, it's easy. I've got the proof. I've got the photographs, which are available to anybody. All it takes is some study. If you look at the pictures taken of Aldrin by Armstrong, you can find so many mistakes in those photographs that anybody in his right mind would realize, just by those photos alone, that they were faked.
Well, how did the media fall for this?Well, the media doesn't fall for anything. The media is controlled by the government. The Dutch papers on July 21 [1969] said that the moon landing was a hoax, was a fake, and I have been unable to find any of those Dutch papers, although it's well documented that they did publish information, with proof, that the U.S. was spoofing everybody.
Didn't the National Inquirer have stuff, too?Well, I did send some of my material to one of their subsidiaries, called The Weekly World News, and they did a marvelous job of presenting my material. It was extremely accurate. So, I've been in newspapers, I've been on Oprah Winfrey's show, and quite a number of leading television shows.
What did Oprah want from you?Well, she wanted me to talk about the moon book. I did that July 5, 1981 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Have you ever talked to any astronauts at all? Oh yes. I've talked to Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin. I was invited to appear on CBS television in Los Angeles with Colonel Aldrin. And they called him up, and he wouldn't appear with me. So I called him up, and I said, "Buzz, why don't you appear with me?" And his exact words were, "That is something I do not want to do," and he hung up. Now if, in reality, they had gone to the moon, wouldn't they put me on the air with a genuine astronaut, and let me debate with him. You've got to remember, too, that Neil Armstrong has not given more than three interviews since he allegedly returned from the moon. A friend of mine went to see him, to question him, and he not only refused to talk to him, he said, "If you hang around my farm much longer, I'll call the police." Now, here's the most famous man of the twentieth century, Neil Armstrong, allegedly set foot on the moon, July 21, 1969 - why won't he talk about it?
Maybe he's just tired of talking about it.No, he couldn't be tired of talking about it, because it's his duty and obligation to be a national hero. He took NASA’s money, he was supported by the government for many, many years, and here he is, in a position of, let's say, talking about Apollo in a very convincing way, but he won't talk at all. Now, he lives on a farm in Ohio, near Columbus. Anybody can find his address and go see him.
Bill Kaysing, you've been trying to prove that we never went to the moon for twenty years now. What new information have you garnered?Well, as I said, most recently the divergent shadows. Ralph Rene has done a very comprehensive study on temperatures on the moon. He's proved that, in no way could the lunar lander, where Aldrin and Armstrong slept, have been cooled down, because they did not have the power. What's happening now is that a lot of technical information is coming on stream. Also, I'm on the Internet, and my book's on the Internet, and I'm now getting 'phone calls from many different people who believe in my contention that Apollo was a hoax, and they have contributed a lot to the body of information that I have managed to acquire.
Is there any way of going to the Smithsonian in Washington and looking at the stuff and seeing that it is fake?Oh, yeah. One of my friends went to the Smithsonian and he measured the exit door of the lunar lander and found out that astronauts wearing their life-support systems could not have gone out that door, they were too big.
And all this was faked somewhere in the desert.Well, either in the desert and/or Norton Air Force Base. I suspect that a lot of the real fine photography and action was done at Norton, where they were able to create what appeared to be solar lighting. That was one of the most difficult things to do, was to simulate the Sun, 'cause the Sun's light is so glaring, so powerful, that it would have taken a tremendous arc lamp to simulate the Sun. And they could have actually created a vacuum inside the sound stage. See, if you have $30 billion, it's no problem to do just about anything you want, including murder people, eliminate anybody who comes on stream and tells opposing stories. I have been invited to talk on radio many times, and I have been immediately discredited.
In what sense?Well, for example, Chuck Ashman in LA called me and he said, "I understand you say we never went to the moon." And I said, "Yes, and here's my proof." Well, he clicked me off and said, "Well this is what I call an irresponsible journalist, a man who has no real proof that we didn't go to the moon, but he's running around telling people that it was all a hoax."
Are there any other points that we haven't [covered] here today, Bill Kaysing, about not making to the moon, more proof?Well, I think we've covered the very important general ones. There are a lot of details. For example, Edwin Aldrin, when he came back from his alleged trip to the moon, wrote a book called Return to Earth. Well, I've read the book three times, and in it we find a man who is trying desperately to tell the truth, but he's unable to. In other words, they put the wraps on him, they told him, don't ever talk about the moon as a fake. But an interesting thing happened to Aldrin when he was speaking at Edwards Air Force Base to some of his fellow pilots, he was asked by a TV interrogator, "What was it like to be on the moon?" And Edwin Aldrin at that point could not answer that question. he began shaking and trembling, he walked off the stage into an alley and later got drunk. Now, if you'd done something, honestly and truthfully, you can talk about it without any problems. Well, it was obvious that, here was an occasion when Aldrin could not tell that lie one more time.
Have you been threatened at all, Bill Kaysing.Oh, death threats and letters with skull and crossbones on them. I've been called a Commie sympathizer, a traitor to the United States. Many things have happened to me. One time I was on KOME radio doing a three-hour show, and half-way through the show someone dropped napalm on the transmitter in the Gilroy Hills. They wanted to cut our story off. Police came, they offered us police protection, and KOME was off the air for three days until they could a quarter of a million dollars' damage.
Boy, Americans really care about the moon landing, don't they?Oh yeah. Well, it's like Pearl Harbor. They managed to cover up the truth at Pearl Harbor since December 7, 1941. Everybody that was in W.W.II, including me, knows that the Japanese were set up to do it. In fact, some people told me that two shiploads of gold were sent to Japan to finance Pearl Harbor, they were sent by the British. So the British wanted us involved in the war and Pearl Harbor seemed like a good way to do it.
So the Americans bribed the Japanese into bombing Pearl Harbor?Yes, and Roosevelt not only knew about the attack, he helped arrange it, and he suppressed the information about the Japanese attacks from Kimmel and Short, the naval and army commanders at Pearl Harbor. This was one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated by the U.S. government to get us involved in a deadly war. There's no question that it was all set up.
If people want to get a hold of you, Bill Kaysing, what is your address?PO Box 832, Soquel, CA, 95073 and I would be happy to correspond with Canadians about these subjects at length.
Why should people care about the moon landing, Bill Kaysing, why should people care that the moon landing was faked?Well, I think we should care because it proves that the U.S. government is just a body politic of lies and falsehoods. They have been for many, many years on all of the important subjects. Social Security is bankrupt, the food in America is all weak poisons, people are put under the thumb of the IRS There are so many things wrong with the U.S. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the people - it's the government that I call public enemy number one.
Anything else you'd like to add to the people out there?Well, I'll say this - whether you believe my story or not, go to the library in your spare time and take a look at some N.A.S.A books and study the photographs, use your own intelligence to analyze them and see that they could not have been taken on the moon. That's the number one proof.
All right, Bill, keep on rocking in the free world and doot doodle oot do-What's that?
Bill, doot doodle oot do- Ha, ha - whatever. I'll take it easy.
No, doot doodle oot do-Doot do.

FAKED MOON LANDINGS ?

2005-12-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

FAKED MOON LANDINGS ?

Last Updated 1-26-99

My conspiracy theory for this report is that we never went to the moon. The whole dang thing was faked. When I had first heard of this idea, I though to my self that it was a load of rubbish. "Of course we went to the moon" Kept going through my mind.
I had first heard of this Idea from a local Radio Talk Show, Ground Zero, which plays every Sunday night on KBER 101.1 They had brought up some interesting points, but I was not quite sure that I believed them, so I have taken this opportunity to study this Idea further. I am now convinced that we never landed on the moon, and it is my hope, that I can make you question it yourself. One thing that I would like to call to attention, is that I am not an expert on anything that is written in this report. I don't know much about camera's, or non-atmospheric conditions, or physics or anything. I am just a senior in high school, and about the only thing that I know professionally is how to run movie projectors. I challenge all that read this page to find something wrong with it, and tell me about it, so I can more accurately disprove one of the most historical events of the century..... The Landing on the Moon.
Lets Start off with the pictures
Lets face it, there isn't really a heapload of evidence that we didn't go to the moon. Why would there be? NASA doesn't WANT evidence that we went to the moon. NASA wants people not to ask questions, and keep living their happy little lives. But here is some evidence that you cannot argue with. My theory is that the moon landing were set on a sound stage, not in space. (Perhaps an Air Force base near San Bernardino, called Norton Air Force Base, where they have the world's largest sound stages under tremendously efficient security).

On the moon, there is only one light source, the sun. This is a shot of Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong planting the US flag on the moon. If the sun is the only light source used by NASA on the moon, Aldrins shadow A shadows should not be so much longer than Armstrong's

This is a famous picture labeled "Man on the Moon" I have a poster of this picture hanging on my wall in my room, and it always gives me a chuckle.
If you will look at area B you will notice a shadow cast across Buzz Aldrin's space suit. Once again, if the Sun is the only light source used on the moon, this shadow would have been MUCH darker. Looking at area C you will notice that the surface of the moon fades off into the distance, then is met with the moon's horizon. In a no-atmosphere environment, the ground shouldn't have faded out, but stayed crystal sharp unto the moon's horizon.
Looking at area D you can plainly see some type of structure reflected through Aldrins helmet. I do not know what it is, but it is there.

In this picture, taken from the LEM, you can see at least two abnormalities. In section E you see an abnormal shadow on the moon's surface. NASA claims that this shadow is the shadow cast by the Lunar Module, but on earth, even when aircraft is flying low to the ground, it does not produce such a clearly defined shadow.
OK, here's the kicker... if you will look at section 3 you will notice there are no stars in the sky. In fact, you will never see any stars in any NASA Moon photographs, or hear an astronaut mention anything about the glorious stars that are visible when out of the earths atmosphere.

if you look in areas 6 and J , you will again see no stars. In area K you will notice that one side of the LEM in covered in shadow, but somehow the symbol of the US flag in illuminated. This very well could have been a touch up job.

This is a picture of Alan Bean holding up a Special Environmental Examiner Container. This picture was taken off a camera that was strapped to Conrad's chest. If the camera was attached to Conrad's chest, the top of Bean's helmet L should not be in this picture.
All of the shadows reflected in Bean's visor M are going off in separate directions, not in parallel lines like they should be.
If you will look at the Environmental sampler that Al Bean is holding, N , The reflection is coming from a light source other than the sun, but it is possible that light is being reflected off the space suit.
There is a strange anomaly in the sky 7 , It is yet to be determined what that might be.

DID WE LAND ON THE MOON? A Debunking of the Moon Hoax Theory

2005-12-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

A Debunking of the Moon Hoax Theory
On February 15, 2001 the FOX television network aired a program titled Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon? This program showed alleged evidence that NASA faked the moon landings. This hoax theory has been around for several years, but this is the first time it has been presented to such a wide audience. Since this Website, Rocket and Space Technology, is dedicated to the men and women who brought the moon landings to fruition, I feel the time is right for me to speak out on this topic.
This TV program capitalizes on America's fixation with government conspiracies by sensationalizing the notion that NASA perpetrated a multi-billion dollar hoax on the world. In my opinion, the FOX network acted irresponsibly by airing this program. What they produced is a TV show filled with sloppy research, scientific inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. To support such an absurd theory and to cast doubt in the minds of the American public is an insult to the courage of the astronauts and the brilliance of the engineers who worked to achieve mankind's greatest technological feat. FOX is apparently only concerned with ratings while exhibiting total disregard for the integrity of America's true heroes.
Some of the most prominent advocates of the hoax theory are Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went To The Moon, Ralph Rene, author of NASA Mooned America, David Percy and Mary Bennett, co-authors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle Blowers and, more recently, Bart Sibrel, producer of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon. These people, and other hoax advocates, usually point to alleged anomalies in the Apollo photo and video record as evidence of their claims. The FOX program featured many of these claims while providing very little refuting evidence or testimony. Below are my comments refuting both the evidence presented in the TV program and many other common hoax allegations. I invite you to draw your own conclusions, but I suspect you will find the facts speak for themselves.
The likelihood of success was calculated to be so small that it is inconceivable the moon landings could have actually taken place.
Bill Kaysing has claimed that the chance of a successful landing on the moon was calculated to be 0.017 percent (1 in 6000). The source of this information is a mystery to me, however it would not surprise me if some engineer, in the early days of the program, came up with these numbers. Unfortunately for that poor engineer, saying something doesn't make it true. Consider that in 1901 Orville Wright was quoted as saying "man will not fly for 50 years". Two years later he would make the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, NC. Surely, had NASA believed the odds of success were so slim, they never would have proposed a moon landing in the first place.
During the mid-1960s the Apollo Support Department of the General Electric Company in Florida conducted extensive mission reliability studies for NASA. These studies were based on very elaborate reliability models of all of the systems. A reliability profile over the course of a mission was generated by computer simulation, and a large number of such simulations were carried out for different scenarios. Based on those studies, the probability of landing on the moon and returning safely to earth never dropped below 90%.
Every Apollo mission before number 11 was plagued by about 20,000 defects apiece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions.
This is the claim of hoax advocate Ralph Rene. Although I am unfamiliar with the source of this information, Mr. Rene's assertion is clear; the early missions had so many insurmountable problems that NASA decided to abandon the moon landings and fake it. Even if the data is accurate, there is a big difference between a "defect" and a "major technical problem". None of the Apollo missions, with the exception of number 13, experienced a major technical problem that prohibited the crews from successfully completing their missions. Also, the early Apollo flights were test missions designed specifically to shake out bugs in the hardware and procedures. Finally, the moon landings were far from flawless. There were numerous technical problems but, thanks to the skill of the flight controllers, engineers and astronauts, the problems were either corrected or circumvented such that the crews were able to complete their missions with amazing success.
The poor video quality of the first moon landings was a deliberate ploy so nobody could properly examine it.
Television pictures of the Apollo 11 landing were sent directly to Earth from the surface of the Moon using the Lunar Module's antenna and power supply. This placed a restriction on the amount of bandwidth that could be transmitted. Apollo 11 was thereby limited to using a black-and-white, slow-scan TV camera with a scan rate of 10 frames-per-second at 320 lines-per-frame. In order to broadcast the images to the world, the pictures had to first be converted to the commercial TV standards. In the US, this was the EIA standard of 30 frames-per-second at 525 lines-per-frame. The pictures transmitted from the Moon were displayed on a 10-inch black-and-white monitor and a vidicon camera was pointed at the screen and the pictures were scanned at the EIA standard. A number of peculiar image artifacts were seen on the images. One set of artifacts was produced by sunlight reflecting off the astronauts and the LM onto the TV camera's lens. These reflections produced the ghostly effects perceived by the public. Other prominent artifacts were the result of spots burnt into the monitor screens from which the optical conversions were produced.
Apollo 11 was only a first step in what was to be increasingly ambitious missions, thus it was lacking in some capabilities. Among these was the ability to transmit high-quality TV pictures. Later missions, starting with Apollo 12, had enough time in the schedule to permit the astronauts to erect large freestanding dish antennae. This increased the amount of bandwidth that could be transmitted, thus allowing complex color TV pictures to be sent directly to Earth.
There can't be any pictures taken on the Moon because the film would melt in the 250° temperatures.
Any normal film would indeed melt if exposed to a temperature of 250o F, however the film used was not ordinary film, and it was never exposed to this kind of temperature. Apollo astronauts used a special transparency film designed specifically, under a NASA contract, for hostile environments like the Moon. According to Kodak, the film would at worst begin to soften at 200o F, and would not melt until it reached at least 500o F. The cameras were also protected inside a special case designed to keep them cool. The situation on the airless Moon is much different than in your oven, for instance. Without convection or conduction, the only method of heat transfer is radiation. Radiative heat can be effectively directed away from an object by wrapping it in a material with a reflective surface, usually simply a white material. The camera casings, as well as most of the astronauts' clothing, were indeed white.
Every Apollo photograph appears to be perfectly composed, focused and exposed, despite the fact the astronauts used cameras without viewfinders and light meters.
The implication is that the astronauts could not have achieved this apparent level of perfection. The obvious answer is that they did not, as is evident by this badly underexposed example [see photo]. The photos to which the hoax advocates refer are publicity photos released by NASA. Surely, NASA isn't going to release the foul-ups and blunders. Also, what appears to be perfect composition is, in many cases, the result of cropping. If all the photographs were uncropped, the number, size and pattern of crosshairs would be identical in every photo, which clearly is not the case. I don't mean to take anything away from the astronauts because they performed a remarkable job, which can be explained in three words: practice, practice, and practice. Perhaps no humans have ever been better prepared for a job than the Apollo astronauts.
The black sky should be full of stars, yet none are visible in any of the Apollo photographs.
This claim is one I hear frequently, and is one of the easiest to refute. The answer is very simple: they are too faint. The Apollo photos are of brightly lit objects on the surface of the Moon, for which fast exposure settings were required. The fast exposures simply did not allow enough starlight into the camera to record an image on the film. For the same reason, images of the Earth taken from orbit also lack stars. The stars are there; they just don't appear in the pictures. The hoax advocates often argue that stars should be visible, and some of their claims are valid, however they fail to recognize the difference between "seeing" stars and "photographing" stars. The astronauts could have recorded star images in their photos by increasing exposures, but they were not there to take star pictures. The purpose of the photos was to record the astronauts' activities on the surface of the Moon.
Bill Kaysing claims that NASA has perpetrated the lie that stars cannot be seen in space to validate the lack of stars in the Apollo photos. This assertion is utterly ridiculous; in fact, NASA has released many photos in which stars are visible. Common among these are long-exposure nighttime photographs of aurora taken by space shuttle astronauts. This example [see photo] is a four-second exposure taken from the flight deck of the shuttle Endeavour.
The astronauts should have seen a beautiful star-filled sky above them, yet they never mention it.
Even though there was a black sky above them, the astronauts still had to contend with the glare of a brightly lit lunar surface. The bright landscape prevented the astronauts' eyes from becoming dark adapted, thus making it nearly impossible to see faint stars. It would be like trying to see stars at night on Earth while someone is shining a flashlight directly into your eyes. Some astronauts reported that, while inside the LM, they could see stars through the upper rendezvous window. Also, astronaut Gene Cernan said that, while standing in the shadow of the Apollo 17 LM, he could see some stars while he was outside.
There are several photographs of objects that are in shadows, yet they appear lighted and with surprising detail. Objects located in shadows should appear totally black.
The problem with this statement is that it fails to consider reflected sunlight. Next to the Sun, the largest source of light on the Moon is the lunar surface itself, which reflects large amounts of sunlight. At the Earth-Sun distance, maximum solar illumination is about 10,000 lumens per square foot; however, if the Sun is not directly overhead its rays will strike the surface obliquely. This decreases the intensity of sunlight per unit area. A typical Sun elevation during the Apollo landings was about 20 degrees, thus the illumination per square foot was about 3,400 lumens. Since the Moon's surface reflects about 10% of the light it receives, each square foot of surface reflected about 340 lumens. This is equivalent to the luminosity of a 35-watt light bulb. This amount of light easily explains the illumination observed in the Apollo photographs.
In many photographs the shadow side of the astronauts appear illuminated, while the shadow side of rocks appear totally black.
This Apollo 17 photograph [see photo] is a good example of the above hoax claim. The explanation is apparent from the photo itself. Look at the astronaut's feet and you will see that the shadow in this area is just as dark as that of the foreground rocks. The lunar surface acts as a reflector to illuminate the shadow side of the astronaut. At the elevation of the astronaut's feet, and the foreground rocks, this reflector surface is mostly covered by the adjacent shadows. However, at the elevation of the astronaut's head and torso, the shadows cover a much smaller percentage of the surface. For example, on a flat surface the angular distance from horizon to horizon is 180 degrees. At an elevation of five feet, a one-foot wide shadow subtends an angle of 11.4 degrees, or only 6% of the distance from horizon to horizon. At two inches above the ground, this shadow subtends an angle of 143 degrees, or nearly 80% of the surface. Furthermore, the rocks are darker and less reflective than the astronaut's white space suit.
Shadows cast on the lunar surface should be parallel. Some shadows in the Apollo photos are not parallel indicating more than one light source, thus the photos are fakes.
Again there is a sound explanation; it is a simple a matter of perspective. A photo is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world, hence parallel lines may not appear as such on film. We all know how lines on a highway appear to diverge as they approach the observer, yet we know they are parallel. Another important factor that comes into play here is the slope of the ground. Let's consider two shadows - one cast on an upward slope and the other on a downward slope. If viewed from the side, these shadows would appear to go off in different directions. However, if viewed from high above, they would be seen as parallel. In other words, looks can be deceiving. There is no evidence of NASA trickery here.
This photograph [see photo], taken on Earth, is an excellent example illustrating how perspective causes shadows to appear non-parallel when seen on film. In this example [see photo] the astronaut on the right is standing on a small rise. The sloping ground has caused his shadow to elongate and appear at a different angle than the shadow of the astronaut on the left. Also note, if two spotlights produced the shadows then each astronaut would have two shadows.
Apollo 11 footage shows the astronauts' shadows increasing and decreasing in length as they move about. This is because they are in close proximity to a large artificial light source that causes their shadows to change as they move toward or away from the light.
This claim comes from David Percy, who displays this image [see photo] on his Web site. A brief examination reveals that Percy's explanation cannot possibly account for the shadows. If the shadows were produced as described, then the closer an astronaut is to the light source, the shorter his shadow will be, which is just the opposite of what we see. Percy claims ground slope cannot explain the shadows because the terrain is essentially flat. On a large scale the Apollo 11 site was essentially flat, however there were local undulations in the ground surface. Since we are looking at a two-dimensional image we cannot see the slope of the ground, but we can infer it from the shadows. It appears the ground is sloping upward and away from left astronaut either to the top-left, the bottom-right, or a combination of both. Remember, shadows cast on a downward slope are lengthened, while those cast on an upward slope are shortened. It seems that a change in ground slope is the only feasible explanation for the shadows we see.
Many Apollo photographs show lighting "hot spots", as well as a darkening of the surface toward the horizon. Sunlight should not produce hot spots, nor should the surface fade in an airless environment.
The "hot spots" are the result of the lunar soil's tendency to reflect light back toward its source. There are many reasons for this, but it is mostly due to countless tiny glass spheres found in the lunar soil, and formed by meteorite impacts. When you see a photo taken "down sun", away from the Sun, you see what looks like a spotlight around the shadow's head. This is because the light is strongly reflected back toward the Sun, so the soil around the head of the shadow looks very bright. This phenomenon also explains why the surface fades so drastically toward the horizon. It is brightest near the foreground due to sunlight being preferentially reflected back toward the camera. Farther away, the sunlight is preferentially reflected away from the camera, making the ground look dark. This phenomenon can also be observed in wet grass on Earth, as spherical water droplets act like the glass spheres. The technical term for this phenomenon is Heiligenschein, and is the result of light refraction, reflection, and diffraction on the surface of and inside the glass spheres and/or water droplets. This Apollo 11 photo is very good example [see photo] of Heiligenschein.
Some Apollo photographs show mysterious lights in the shadowy background that appear to be studio spotlights.
The hoax advocates usually reference this photograph [see photo] because the lights bare a vague resemblance to studio spotlights, however there are many photographs, such as this one [see photo], where the same lights seem to contradict this hoax claim. There is no mystery as to the origin of these lights; they are lens flares. A lens flare is an image of the Sun reflecting back and forth between the lens elements of the camera. If you examine the photographs in which lens flares are found you will notice they all have a couple things in common. First, they are all taken with the camera pointing in the general direction of the Sun and, secondly, if you were to draw a line from the center of the photograph through the flares (they usually occur in pairs), the line will point in the direction of the Sun, which lies just outside the frame.
Only two men walked on the Moon during each Apollo mission, yet there are photos in which the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?
The Apollo astronauts carried cameras that were attached to the front of their spacesuits. In this Apollo 12 photograph of astronaut Alan Bean [see photo], taken by Pete Conrad, one can clearly see Bean's camera mounted to his chest. The astronauts aimed and operated the cameras while they remained in this mounting. If you look closely at Conrad's reflection in Bean's visor, you can see Conrad's camera, which he is operating with his right hand.
In an Apollo 11 photograph of Buzz Aldrin the horizon is located at eye level; however, if the camera was mounted to Neil Armstrong's chest, the horizon should be at chest level.
The referenced photograph is the most reproduced image in the entire Apollo archive [see photo]. The claim of the hoax advocates assumes that Aldrin and Armstrong were standing on level ground; however, if Armstrong were standing on higher ground, the apparent elevation of the horizon would rise accordingly. If we look at Armstrong's reflection in the visor, we see the horizon is located at his chest [see enlargement]. This shows Armstrong was indeed standing on higher ground with his chest located in approximately the same horizontal plane as Aldrin's eyes. Given this camera position, we see the horizon across Aldrin's eyes as expected.
The hoax advocates also point out that the top of Aldrin's backpack should not be visible if the camera was attached to Armstrong's chest. Again, the hoax advocates fail to recognize that Armstrong is standing on higher ground. In addition, Aldrin is leaning forward, thus exposing the top of his backpack to the camera. Due to the weight of the astronauts' backpacks, a slight forward lean was required to maintain balance.
There is one photograph of an astronaut standing on the surface of the Moon in direct sunlight, yet he casts no shadow, which is impossible.
The photo to which the hoax advocates refer is one of astronaut John Young saluting the Stars and Stripes [see photo]. They often reference this photo as evidence of fraud, however they are very wrong. Young's shadow is clearly visible on the ground below him and to the right (his left). How can his shadow not be attached to his body? The answer is simple; Young was leaping off the ground and was elevated about two feet when the photo was taken. There is also some very good corroborating video of the event. This is one of the most famous of the Apollo photos and it is surprising that the hoax advocates would be unfamiliar with the story behind the photograph.
Other comments I've heard about this particular photo include (1) the flag appears to be fluttering and (2) the flag's camera facing side should be shaded from the sun. The fluttering issue I will deal with later. As for the lighting issue, it seems obvious to me that the flag is angled to the right and toward the camera. With the sun to the right, the flag's camera facing side would be sunlit at a shallow angle, which agrees with the shadows on the flag itself.
Not one still photograph matches the video footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time.
This statement, made by David Percy, is entirely untrue. For evidence I submit the above-mentioned photograph of astronaut John Young [see photo]. There is some excellent corroborating video of the event captured in this still photo. In the video, the TV camera is positioned behind Young and to his right. The video shows a leaping John Young, the flag (which is not fluttering) and Charlie Duke, who took the photograph. There are other examples as well.
Mr. Percy claims that the triangular shaped piece of fabric located on the top of John Young's backpack, and seen in the still photo, does not appear in the video. This is not true - the tip of the fabric can be seen when one closely examines the video. Percy's claim fails to take into consideration the relative camera angles, the fact that Young in leaning forward, and the fact the fabric is attached at the front edge of the backpack.
If Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who shot the video of him descending the ladder and taking his initial steps on the lunar surface?
The TV camera was stowed in an instrument pallet in the LM descent stage. When Armstrong was at the top of the ladder, he pulled a lanyard to swing open the pallet, which was hinged at the bottom. The TV camera, which was attached to it, also swung down. Buzz Aldrin then switched on the camera from the LM cabin. The camera was pointing at the ladder of the LM so that TV pictures of Armstrong's initial steps on the Moon could be relayed to the world. The camera was later removed from its mounting and placed on a tripod some 30 feet from the LM, where it was left unattended to cover the remainder of the moonwalk.
Two photographs show an identical mountain background, yet in one the Lunar Module is present while in the other the LM is absent. The mountain scene must be an artificial backdrop.
The above example, which was presented in the FOX TV program, is just one of many hoax claims about "identical backgrounds" and "artificial backdrops" [see photos]. If someone is going to claim the backgrounds are identical, they had better be IDENTICAL. In this case, as in all such claims, the backgrounds are clearly not identical. If you examine the photos with scrutiny, differences can be easily identified. For example, look closely at the hill on the right of each photo and you will notice that the angles of view are significantly different. It is obvious the photos were taken from different camera positions, thus we see different foreground terrain. In the right photo it appears the LM is off-camera to the left.
Another factor to consider is, due to the lack of an atmosphere, distant objects on the Moon appear clearer than they do on Earth, thus the background mountains may be more distant than they appear to be. As such, a change in camera position may, at first observation, have a nearly unperceivable affect on the appearance of the background. However, close examination will reveal otherwise.
Two video clips, claimed by NASA to have been taken at different locations many kilometers apart, show an identical hill.
There's an easy explanation for this: human error. The video clips to which the hoax advocates refer are from a documentary (not made by NASA) that accidentally used a wrong clip. This was a simple mistake, but not one made by NASA. According to NASA, the photos were actually taken about three minutes apart on the same hill.
Apollo 16 photographs show a rock with a clearly defined "C" marking on it. This "C" is probably a studio prop identification marking.
I do not deny that the rock certainly appears to have a "C" on it [see photo], however to suggest this is some sort of studio prop marking seems a bit far-fetched. Fortunately, someone else has already solved this mystery for us. An investigation by the Lunar Anomalies Web page has uncovered that the "C" is, in fact, no more than a hair or fiber that was likely on the paper when the print was made. This print was then scanned to produce the digital image seen on this, and other, Web pages. The original negatives have been found to be "clean" with no evidence of the infamous "C".
Crosshairs, etched into the cameras, are visible in the Apollo photos, however in some images there are objects that appear to be in front of the crosshairs; an indication that the photos have been faked.
In all the examples I've seen the crosshairs, called fiducials, disappear when crossing a brightly lit white object [see photo]. What's happening here is the intense light reflecting off the white surface is bleeding in around the crosshair and saturating the film, thus obliterating the crosshair. This phenomenon is commonplace and is in no way evidence of fraud.
Some of the Apollo video shows the American flag fluttering. How can the flag flutter when there is no wind on the airless Moon?
This I find to be one of the more ridiculous observations. It is readily apparent that all the video showing a fluttering flag is one in which an astronaut is grasping the flagpole. He is obviously twisting or jostling the pole, which is making the flag move. In fact, in some video the motion of the flag is unlike anything we would see on Earth. In an atmosphere the motion of the flag would quickly dampen out due to air resistance. In some of the Apollo video we see the twisting motion of the pole resulting in a violent flapping motion in the flag with little dampening effect.
I've heard many hoax advocates claim that some of the Apollo photos show a fluttering flag. (How one can see a flag flutter in a still photograph is a mystery to me!) I can only guess that ripples and wrinkles in the flags are being perceived as wave motion. The flags where attached vertically at the pole and horizontally from a rod across the top. On some flights the astronauts did not fully extend the horizontal rod, so the flags had ripples in them. There is much video footage in which these rippled flags can be seen and, in all cases, they are motionless.
When astronaut Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right, yet a slice is caused by uneven airflow over the ball.
This comment by Ralph Rene is another example of inadequate research, as well as evidence of a poor sense of humor. Near the end of Apollo 14's second and final EVA, Al Shepard pulls a PR stunt by hitting a pair of golf balls. He drops the first ball and takes a one-arm swing, topping the ball and burying it. He takes a second swing and pushes the ball about 2 or 3 feet, mostly along the line toward the TV camera. In Houston CAPCOM Fred Haise jokes "That looked like a slice to me, Al". Shepard's third swing finally connects and sends the ball off-camera to the right. He drops a second ball and connects again. Shepard says "Miles and miles and miles", Haise replies "Very good, Al".
The Apollo crews were launched into space but never left Earth orbit.
Orbiting spacecraft and satellites are easily visible to the naked eye; in fact, there are many people who enjoy tracking satellites as a hobby (I have personally seen many satellites, including Mir and the Space Shuttle). The Apollo spacecraft were large vehicles, thus bright and easy to see. Had the Apollos not left orbit, they would have been observed by many people worldwide, yet there where no such sightings. Also, there are documented cases of observers following the Apollos as they left Earth orbit on their translunar trajectories - exactly when and where the spacecraft were predicted to be. Furthermore, the Soviets closely tracked the Apollos all the way to the Moon and back.
NASA used its TETR-A training satellite to transmit data to Earth to simulate transmissions from the Apollo spacecraft. This way ground controllers were fooled into believing they were receiving real data.
The flight controllers in the Mission Control Center (MCC) read only what was on their computer screens and wouldn't have known where the data came from. Thus, it can be argued the MCC flight controllers could be fooled by simulated data, but a satellite would not have been necessary to do it.
On the other hand, a satellite could not possibly fool controllers of the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN), who collected radio signals from space and relayed them to the MCC. The Apollo spacecraft followed a trajectory to the moon that was tracked with great precision. TETR-A was an Earth orbiting satellite and followed a vastly different trajectory with no similarity to Apollo whatsoever. In addition, TETR-A reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 28-Apr-68, eight months before the first lunar flight.
To reach the Moon astronauts would have to travel through the Van Allen Radiation Belts, resulting in lethal doses of radiation.
This is a claim the hoax advocates often make, but it is a gross exaggeration and simply not supported by the data. Radiation was a definite concern for NASA before the first space flights, but they invested a great deal of research into it and determined the hazard was minimal. It took Apollo about an hour to pass through the radiation belts - once on the outbound trip and once again on the return trip. The total radiation dose received by the astronauts was about one rem. A person will experience radiation sickness with a dose of 100-200 rem, and death with a dose of 300+ rem. Clearly the doses received fall well below anything that could be considered a significant risk. Despite claims that "lead shielding meters thick would have been needed", NASA found it unnecessary to provide any special radiation shielding.
The hoax advocates also make the mistake of limiting themselves to two-dimensional thinking. The Van Allen Radiation Belts consist of a doughnut-shaped region centered around the Earth's magnetic equator, and spanning about 40 degrees of latitude - 20 degrees above and below the magnetic equator. The translunar trajectories followed by the Apollo spacecraft were typically inclined about 30 degrees to the Earth's equator, therefore Apollo bypassed all but the edges of the radiation belts.
For more information, please see The Van Allen Belts and Travel to the Moon and Radiation Plan for the Apollo Lunar Mission.
Intense radiation from solar flares would have killed the Apollo astronauts in route to the Moon and back.
Solar flares were a NASA concern as well, but the radiation doses claimed by the hoax advocates are again greatly exaggerated and unsubstantiated. Although low-intensity solar flares are common, they posed no real threat to the astronauts. High-intensity solar flares could have endangered the astronauts' health, but these large eruptions are infrequent. Furthermore, there are statistical methods for determining the likelihood of a major flare during a given time interval. If NASA found an unacceptably high probability for a solar flare event during a scheduled flight, the mission would have been postponed. No large solar flares occurred during the Apollo missions and typical radiation doses received by the astronauts was very low.
For more information, please see Radiation Plan for the Apollo Lunar Mission
In addition to exposure to deadly radiation, the Apollo astronauts would have been pierced by thousands of micrometeoroids.
Shielding was provided to protect the Apollo astronauts from micrometeoroid bombardment. Due to their low mass, only a thin layer of material was necessary to stop these dust-sized particles. For example, the Lunar Module was protected by a thin aluminum outer shield a few thousandths of an inch thick. In addition, the astronauts' spacesuits included a micrometeoroid garment to protect them while performing activities on the lunar surface.
How could the astronauts survive in the heat of the Moon's day? Objects that are heated cannot be cooled by space.
This is true, to a point, however spacesuits can radiate heat. All objects above absolute zero radiate heat; therefore some of the heat energy received from the Sun is radiated back into space as infrared rays. Also, much of the Sun's radiant energy can be reflected away. The astronaut's spacesuits were white because this color reflects the most radiation, thereby minimizing the amount absorbed. Finally, the spacesuits where equipped with a cooling system that utilized water as a medium to carry away excess heat. Water sprayed into a vacuum experiences a very rapid drop in pressure and, consequently, temperature. Hence, when a small amount of water was sprayed onto a cooling element on the rear of the spacesuit, its temperature dropped so much that it would immediately freeze onto the element. The cooling water of the spacesuit was then pumped through this element. The heat of the cooling water melted the ice, which then rapidly boiled off and carried into space the unwanted heat.
The Apollo guidance computer had the equivalent computing power of today's kitchen appliances, far less than that required to go to the Moon.
Unlike general-purpose computers, the Apollo guidance computer had to perform only one task - guidance. Most of the number crunching was performed at Mission Control on several mainframe computers. The results were then transmitted to the onboard computer, which acted upon them. The Apollo guidance computer was capable of computing only a small number of navigation problems itself. Since the guidance computer had to run only one program, that program could be put in ROM, thus only a small amount of RAM was required to hold the temporary results of guidance calculations.
The hoax advocates tend to overrate the tasks performed by the onboard guidance computers of the 1960's. In fact, the Mercury spacecraft, 1961-63, flew into space without any onboard computer whatsoever, yet the trajectories were precisely controlled and the capsule was capable of fully automated control.
The computer technology did not exist in the 1960's to build the Apollo guidance computer.
Computer companies of the 1960's had to produce general-purpose computers at a cost that would attract consumers. NASA, on the other hand, required a computer capable of performing only a single task - guidance - and could easily afford a custom designed and built system using cutting edge components and techniques. Although modern microprocessors did not yet exist, microchips performing simple tasks were available in the early 1960's, and these could be built-up into computer processors. By the mid-1960's several companies were producing commercially available integrated circuits.
The hoax advocates often become trapped into a single way of thinking. Just because one technology is used to solve a particular problem today does not mean that problem was unsolvable before the technology was available. Man is much more creative than the hoax advocates are willing to acknowledge.
The astronauts' movement inside the Lunar Module would change the center of mass, throwing the LM off balance, and making it impossible to control.
This is the claim of hoax advocate and Ralph Rene who, apparently, has a poor understanding of physics and the Lunar Module's control systems. The LM had an automatic computer guidance and inertial control system. This system was designed to measure the attitude of the LM several times per second using a system of gyroscopes. If it found that the LM was out of proper attitude it would make adjustments by gimballing the main descent engine and/or throttling it back, and firing control thrusters as needed to stabilize the spacecraft. Despite claims to the contrary, the control thrusters exerted sufficient force to nudge the spacecraft around as necessary to keep it stable.
How could the untested Lunar Module land flawlessly six times on the Moon when its prototype crashed on Earth during training.
The "prototype" to which the hoax advocates refer was not a prototype at all, but two classes of training vehicles known as the Lunar Landing Research Vehicles (LLRV) and the more advanced Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV). These vehicles included a jet engine to support five-sixths of their airborne weight, a pair of rocket engines that simulated the LM's descent engine, and small jets that mimicked the LM's attitude control thrusters. The Apollo astronauts trained in the LLRV and LLTV to learn the skills necessary to maneuver the actual LM. During one test flight, Neil Armstrong was forced to eject when the LLRV's helium pressurization system for the steering jets failed, causing the LLRV to become unstable and crash. Despite this incident, the LLRV and LLTV flew hundreds of successful flights.
The LLRV and LLTV were very different from the LM and the "untested" LM was far from untested. Every component of the LM was tested over and over again during its development. Furthermore, the LM was tested in space unmanned during the Apollo 5 mission and manned during the Apollo 9 mission. Apollo 10 tested the LM in lunar orbit and performed everything but the landing itself. The next test flight, Apollo 11, performed the first lunar landing. Testing continued during Apollo 12 as the ability of the LM to make a pinpoint landing was demonstrated. The LM flew successfully to the moon because of the hard work of thousands of workers over many years during the design, development and construction of the spacecraft.
The sound of the Lunar Module descent engine should be heard in the Apollo audio, but there is no such sound.
On Earth, a rocket engine is an extremely noisy device; this comes from the shearing action between the high velocity exhaust jet and the surrounding atmosphere. The LM operated in a vacuum so the only sound would be that produced by vibrations transmitted through the spacecraft structure itself. Also, the microphones used by the astronauts were located inside their spacesuits, thus insulated from the cabin environment. Finally, the microphones were designed to pick up only the sound in their immediate vicinity, that is, the astronauts' voices.
The powerful engine of the Lunar Module should have produced a blast crater, yet there is no evidence of a blast crater in any of the Apollo photographs.
Let's consider several facts: (1) Although the Lunar Module descent engine was capable of 10,000 lbs of thrust (the usual hoax advocate's claim), it was throttled down to below 3,000 lbs as it neared the lunar surface. While still several feet above the ground, the descent engine was shut down as probes, extending 5 feet below the footpads, sensed contact with the surface. (2) The LM descended at an angle, moving laterally across the ground. When the astronauts identified a suitable landing site, the LM leveled off and dropped to the surface. The LM did not hover over its final landing site for any significant length of time. (3) The Moon's surface is covered by a rocky material called lunar regolith, which consists of fine dust particles, glass spheres and a jumble of large boulders and rocky debris. Lunar regolith has many unique properties, the most obvious being that the particles are very jagged, which causes them to interlock. When subjected to pressure, the regolith will resist, almost like solid rock. (4) In a vacuum exhaust gases expand rapidly once exiting the engine nozzle.
When one considers these facts the truth becomes obvious - The exhaust stream was not powerful enough or centralized enough to displace the regolith and blast out a crater. In this Apollo 11 photograph [see photo] one can see some discoloration and a general lack of dust, which was mostly blown away. After the dust was removed a hard surface was exposed.
A large amount of dust was generated during the landings, yet no dust can be seen on the Lunar Module footpads.
This thinking draws on our common experience from Earth but, as we all know, the Moon is not the Earth. If wind picks up dust on Earth we get billowing clouds that tend to settle all over everything. This occurs because the Earth has an atmosphere. The Moon has no atmosphere so any dust that was blown by engine exhaust would follow a simple ballistic trajectory and fall immediately back to the surface. The dust would be blown outward away from the LM, thus the lack of dust on the footpads is exactly what we would expect to see.
The astronauts make deep footprints around the landing site, yet the Lunar Module exhaust should have blown the area clean of dust.
The downward traveling exhaust stream would impact the ground and rebound mostly outward and away from the surface. Since there is no atmosphere to interact with, the gas molecules would simply fly off and disperse (see note below). The only dust particles that would be displaced would be those directly impacted by the exhaust gas. Since the exhaust stream was concentrated mostly in the area directly beneath the Lunar Module, this zone would experience the greatest disturbance. The area adjacent to the LM would be largely unaffected by the exhaust stream.
NOTE: On Earth, the exhaust gas would impact and displace air molecules that would, in turn, displace other air molecules and so on. This phenomenon would create a large area of disturbance. Since the Moon has no atmosphere this type of widespread disturbance would be nonexistent.
The Lunar Module weighed about 17 tons, yet the astronauts' feet seem to have made a deeper impression in the lunar dust.
The hoax advocates often quote the weight of the Lunar Module as 16 to 18 tons (weights varied mission to mission). This was the LM's Earth weight when fully fueled and included about 9 tons of descent stage propellant. By the time the LM reached the surface, its weight in lunar gravity was only about 2,700 lbs. With four 37-inch diameter footpads, the load on the surface was about 90 lbs/ft2. Neil Armstrong's fully suited weight on the Moon was 58 lbs. His boots covered an area of about one square foot, giving a load of 58 lbs/ft2. In Armstrong's own words "the LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about 1 or 2 inches". On the other hand, the footprints of the astronauts were depressed only a fraction of an inch, although people often exaggerate their depth.
Moisture must be present in soil for it to form footprints, yet the Moon is a totally dry world.
The lunar surface is predominately composed of materials that fall under the general category of silicates. Silica has a natural tendency to bond with other silica, forming large molecular chains. When a meteoroid impacts the Moon, much of the energy goes into fracturing the surrounding structure causing breaks in the molecular bonds. On Earth, these "exposed" bonds quickly fill with oxygen in a process called oxidation or weathering. On the Moon, with a total lack of oxygen, these bonds have nothing to attach to until an event occurs that aligns the molecules. When an object, such as an astronaut's boot, disturbs lunar dust new molecular bonds are created. The new bonds enable the dust to hold its shape, forming an impression of the deforming object. Thus, footprints can form despite the absence of water.
The astronauts could not pass through the tunnel connecting the Command Module and the Lunar Module with their spacesuits and backpacks on.
Finally the hoax advocates are correct about something. Fortunately, the astronauts did not have to! Their EVA suits and backpacks were stowed in the Lunar Module the whole time. The only time the astronauts donned their suits and packs were when they actually egressed the LM for surface activities on the Moon.
The astronauts could not have egressed the Lunar Module because they could not fit through the hatch and there was insufficient room to open the hatch in the LM.
The hoax advocate who came up with this claim is badly misinformed. The astronauts were positioned on either side of the cockpit panel with the main EVA hatch between them. The hatch, hinged on the right side, swung inward to open, effectively trapping the Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) momentarily on his side of the LM. (There was plenty of room to open the hatch.) Once the Commander egressed, the LMP was able to close the hatch, move over to the left side, and exit himself.
As to the issue of whether the astronauts could fit through the hatch, clearly they could. There are many photos and video, both on the Moon and while in training, showing fully suited astronauts crawling through the hatch. There are a couple possible sources for this misinformation. First, early versions of the LM had a round hatch that hampered astronaut egress, however the original round hatch was changed to a rectangular hatch while the LM was still in development. Second, as I hear the story, a hoax advocate compared the width of the LM's hatch to dimensional data on the astronauts' spacesuit, or EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit). It was found that the published width of the EMU exceeded the hatch width. What the hoax advocate failed to realize is the EMU dimension was the maximum width measured across the elbows. When crawling through the hatch, an astronaut would draw his arms in under his body, thus decreasing his width and allowing him to pass through the opening.
The Lunar Rover was too large to fit in the Lunar Module.
If one takes the measurements of the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV) when it was fully deployed and assembled, then yes, it would not fit in the Lunar Module, however the Rover folded for stowage in the descent stage of the LM in a quadrant to the right of the ladder. The chassis was hinged in three places and the four wheels were pivoted nearly flat against the folded chassis occupying only 30 ft3. When the astronauts deployed the Lunar Rover, all they had to do was pull on two cords and the Rover popped right out of its berth and down to the lunar surface. As it did so, the wheels deployed outward and were then locked into position.
Some photographs show the Lunar Rover on the Moon with pneumatic tires while other show it with wire mesh wheels. Pneumatic tires will explode in a vacuum.
There are two problems with this statement. Firstly, there are no photos of the LRV on the Moon with pneumatic tires. NASA produced a training version of the LRV with pneumatic tires but it was only used on Earth. The only pictures of the LRV with pneumatic tires are of this training vehicle. Secondly, a tire will not automatically explode in a vacuum. A pressure vessel will fail when the tensile stress in the skin exceeds the tensile capacity of the material. This tensile stress is a function of the pressure differential between the inside and the outside of the vessel. Moving a tire from sea level on Earth to a vacuum will increase this pressure differential by only 14.7 PSI. This is a minor engineering problem that can be easily accounted for. Note that the tires of the Space Shuttle are exposed to a vacuum while in space, yet they do not explode.
The pressure inside a spacesuit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.
While on the surface of the Moon, the Apollo astronauts wore a spacesuit known as the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). The EMU was a closed-circuit pressure vessel that enveloped the astronaut. The environment inside the suit consisted of 100% oxygen at 3.7 PSI (about 1/3 that of a football). The complete article included a liquid cooling garment, pressure garment assembly, and integrated thermal micrometeoroid garment. The pressure garment was an airtight bladder with accordion joints at the knees and elbows, and swivel joints at the shoulders to allow mobility. When pressurized, the suit was allowed to expand slightly, but was kept from ballooning outward too far by a restraint layer of nonstretch netting. The fabric of the EMU's outer garment covered the pressure garment assembly. To suggest the EMU should puff out like the "Michelin Man" is a clear case of the hoax advocates making claims that are based on woefully inadequate research.
Video footage of the Lunar Module's ascent from the Moon should show an exhaust plume from the engine, yet there is no visible plume.
The hoax advocates' claim that an exhaust plume should be visible is due to their experience seeing launches of such rockets as the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle, where large columns of smoke and flame are seen trailing the vehicle. Whether an exhaust plume is visible or not is mostly due to the type of propellant used. The Saturn V's first stage burned liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, which produces an opaque yellow flame. The plume we see trailing the Space Shuttle comes from the solid-propellant boosters; however, if you look closely at the three main engines at the stern of the Shuttle orbiter, which burn LOX and liquid hydrogen, you will see very little flame. The Lunar Module used a propellant mixture consisting of nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50 (a 50-50 mixture of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine), which produces exhaust gases that are nearly invisible. This photograph [see photo] shows a close-up view of the engines of a Titan 2 missile during the launch of Gemini 11. This missile uses the same propellant as the LM - note the near invisibility of the flame. In space, the flame is even less visible as the plume expands and cools very rapidly in a vacuum.
The FOX program points out NASA illustrations showing an exhaust plume coming from the LM's ascent engine. This is a simple case of NASA taking artistic license. The illustrations are a dramatization of a LM launch and are not meant to be scientifically accurate.
Photos from the Space Shuttle show a glow coming from the engines and thrusters, thus proving an exhaust plume should be seen coming from the Lunar Module's engine.
Let us first note that the Space Shuttle orbiters use a different propellant than the Lunar Module. Nonetheless, the nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) propellant used by the Shuttle's OMS engines and thrusters also produces a nearly invisible flame. What the Shuttle photographs show is a split-second burst of light that accompanies an engine ignition. This is a transient phenomenon that occurs when the propellant mixture ratio is slightly mismatched, typically at engine start-up and again at shutdown. If one of the propellants is in excess of the proper mixture ratio it does not combust, is expelled from the engine, and is briefly visible. Once the propellant mixture has stabilized, the exhaust gases cannot be seen. Please note that the video of the LM launches show a brief flash of light just as the ascent stages separate and begin to rise.
The fuel tanks of the Lunar Module were nowhere near one-sixth the size of those on the space shuttle, as one would expect to achieve lunar orbit.
This comment, by Bart Sibrel, fails to take into account propellant density. It is not the "volume" of the propellant that matters; it is the "mass". The main engines of the Space Shuttle consume liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Since liquid hydrogen has an extremely low density, a very large tank is required to store it. The LM, on the other hand, used propellants of much higher density. On average, the LM propellants were 3.3 times denser than the propellants stored in the large external tank of the Space Shuttle. With an average specific gravity of 1.19, the 5200 pounds of propellant stored in the LM's ascent stage would displace a volume of only 70 ft3 (2 m3). This volume is consistent with the size of the tanks we see in photographs of the LM.
Also note that Mr. Sibrel assumes that since lunar gravity is 1/6th Earth gravity, 1/6th as much propellant is required to achieve lunar orbit. Unfortunately it is not nearly that simple, however it is possible to calculate the amount of propellant required. The 5200 pounds of propellant in the LM's ascent stage comprised about 52% of the total launch mass. I have performed some rough calculations and have determined that, for the type of propellant used, this is just the right percentage needed to overcome the Moon's gravity and achieve lunar orbit.
When Apollo 17's Lunar Module lifted-off the Moon the video camera followed the ascent, yet no one was left on the surface to operate the camera.
Apparently the hoax advocates have never heard of a remotely operated camera. The video camera that shot the LM launch footage was mounted on the Lunar Rover and was controlled remotely from Mission Control in Houston. The signal commanding the camera to pan upward was sent early to account for the 1.3-second time delay.
The video showing the Lunar Module's rise from the surface of the Moon was created by lifting the ascent stage on wires.
The hoax advocates substantiate this claim by citing how the video abruptly ends when the Lunar Module ascent stage reaches the 'ceiling' of the movie stage. The video to which they refer is an edited version that is often seen in Apollo documentaries and on television. The unedited footage [see video] clearly shows the LM rising far into the sky, pitching over, and then traveling far downrange before moving out of the range of the camera.
The Apollo video is strikingly similar to scenes in the movie Capricorn One. NASA, with a much larger budget, could have produced the Apollo video in a studio.
Capricorn One (released 1978) is a movie about how NASA faked a manned mission to Mars. The scenes look similar to the Apollo video because the movie was filmed to look like the real thing, however the similarities are only superficial. A close examination of the Apollo video reveals numerous examples of phenomena that simply cannot exist on Earth. No matter how big their budget, NASA cannot change the laws of physics. The comparison to Capricorn One is nothing but an attempt by the FOX producers to sensationalize their program.
There are many pictures of spacesuited astronauts inside buildings with artificial moonscapes, presumably the studio where the moon landings were faked.
The hoax advocates often cite such photographs as evidence for the hoax. These photos are common and were obtained during crew training for the actual moon landings. NASA has made no attempt to hide the photos, nor have they ever claimed them to be taken on the Moon. The Lunar Module, Rover, experiments, etc. seen in the training photos are generally training replicas or flight spares, rarely actual flight hardware.
Recently discovered video shows NASA staging part of the Apollo 11 mission. The astronauts, who never left low Earth orbit, used a camera trick to make viewers think that they were seeing a round Earth on their TV screens.
This claim can be credited to Bart Sibrel, who is more than happy to sell you (for a profit) this "never before seen footage" in his so-called documentary A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon. I have recently viewed this video and find it to be a horrible example of journalism. Sibrel simply beats us over the head with his own interpretation and conclusions while not providing any evidence or data that would permit the viewer to evaluate Sibrel's claims or formulate an independent opinion. The purpose of the video is not to inform the viewer, but rather to manipulate. The NASA video to which he refers is neither "never before seen" nor evidence of fraud. Despite Sibrel's billing that this footage is the "smoking gun", very little of it is actually shown and that which is shown is highly edited and voiced over with commentary. The alleged "camera trick" is simply a figment of Bart Sibrel's imagination as there is nothing seen to suggest the slightest foul play on the part of NASA. Jim McDade, in his Web page The Apollo Hoax Conspiracy, provides a very professionally debunking of Bart Sibrel's claims. I invite you to give it a read.
If the video footage of the Apollo astronauts is played at double normal speed, their motion appears quite normal, thus the images were faked by playing normal motion at half speed.
There's an easy explanation for this phenomenon. An object in free flight will follow a ballistic trajectory in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. The only force acting on the object is gravity, which on Earth has an acceleration of 32.2 ft/s2. On the Moon gravity is much less, 5.33 ft/s2. If the ballistic flight of an object on the Moon is sped up by a factor of 2.46 it will mimic exactly ballistic motion on Earth, and vice versa. The 2X speed the hoax advocates claim is close to this 2.46 ratio, hence free flight motion looks "normal" because it is what our eyes and brains are accustomed to seeing. Other motion however, such as the movements of the astronauts' arms, looks very unnatural when speeded up. The hoax advocates deceivingly apply this explanation very selectively. If the Apollo footage is viewed in its entirety it becomes clear the 2X speed explanation cannot account for the observed motion.
The Apollo video is exactly what it appears to be, that is, man on the Moon. The convincing evidence is in the dust, which is particularly apparent in the video of the Lunar Rover. If this video were shot on Earth there would be clouds of dust thrown into the atmosphere by the Rover's wheels, however there is no evidence of this. The dust falls immediately back to the surface as it would in an airless environment.
Earth based telescopes should be able to see the Apollo hardware on the Moon, yet none is visible.
The theoretical resolving power of a telescope, measured in arc seconds, is calculated by dividing the aperture of the telescope (in inches) into 4.56. The largest telescope on Earth is the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii. The theoretical resolving power of this telescope is 0.012", however the Earth's atmosphere limits the resolving power of any ground-based telescope to about 0.5"-1.0". The Hubble Space Telescope does not suffer from this limitation; thus, with an aperture of 94 inches, HST's resolving power is 0.05". At the Earth-Moon distance of 239,000 miles, the smallest object that can be resolved by HST is about 300 feet. The largest dimension of any hardware left behind on the Moon is 31 feet, which is the diagonal distance across the LM's footpads. No telescope, presently in existence, can see the Apollo hardware from Earth.
The only sure way to prove the moon landings really happened is to return to the Moon and see if the Apollo hardware is there.
Direct visual verification would certainly put an end to the issue, however there are at least three pieces of hardware on the Moon that are not in dispute. Apollos 11, 14 and 15 erected laser reflectors on the lunar surface. Laser beams are routinely fired at these reflectors through telescopes at McDonald Observatory in Texas and near Grasse in southern France. Timings of these reflected beams are used to measure the Earth-Moon distance to an accuracy of one inch. To explain the existence of these reflectors the hoax advocates have no choice but to claim they were placed on the Moon by robotic landers; a huge undertaking for which there is no supporting evidence. The simple answer: the Apollo astronauts placed them there. (More on robotic missions later.)
The moon rocks allegedly collected and returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts were actually manufactured by NASA in a laboratory on Earth.
It has been suggested that researchers could not to tell the difference between fake and authentic rocks since no one had ever examined a moon rock before. This claim is utter nonsense. In addition to the rocks returned by Apollo, we have samples of lunar rocks that have fallen to Earth as meteorites. (Lunar meteorites are very rare with only 25 known samples.) Tests have shown the Apollo moon rocks and the meteorites are of identical origin, however the Apollo samples lack other features that would distinguish them as meteorites. Also, the moon rocks have characteristics that are not found in terrestrial or artificial rocks, such as evidence of meteoroid bombardment and exposure to cosmic rays. Likewise, terrestrial rocks have unique characteristics not found in the moon rocks, such as weathering and exposure to water. Finally, the moon rocks returned by Apollo have been determined to be between 3.1 and 4.4 billion years old. The Apollo samples are without doubt of authentic lunar origin.
NOTE: The Apollo missions returned rock and soil samples totaling 842 pounds, comprising 2,196 individual specimens. These specimens have been processed into greater than 97,000 individually cataloged samples. More than 60 laboratories worldwide actively pursue sample studies; some 1,100 samples are sent out to researchers annually.
The moon rocks allegedly collected by Apollo astronauts were actually collected and returned to Earth by robotic spacecraft.
Any mission capable of returning over 800 pounds of rock and soil samples would be a massive, complex and difficult undertaking. If NASA could pull this off, then surely they had the technical know-how to land a manned vehicle. In fact, with an astronaut at the controls, a manned mission would likely have greater odds of success than a robotic mission. Perhaps the greatest case for the Apollo landings exists in the variety of rock samples collected. A robotic mission would be limited to a random collection of samples in the lander's immediate vicinity. However, the Apollo astronauts visited vastly different geological sites and were able to roam about the surface looking for particularly interesting and valuable specimens. For example, it is very unlikely that a robot would have been lucky enough to scoop up the "genesis rock" found by Apollo 15 astronauts. Only trained human explorers could collect the diversity of samples credited to the Apollo astronauts.
NOTE: During the 1970s the USSR successfully completed three lunar sample return missions - Luna 16 (1970), Luna 20 (1972) and Luna 24 (1976) - however these missions returned a grand total of only 301 grams (10.6 ounces) of soil.
NASA was able to perpetrate and maintain the hoax because the conspiracy required a relatively small number of people within the NASA "inner circle".
The hoax advocates make this claim yet, if all their assertions were true, the conspiracy they describe would be one of stupendous proportion involving literally thousands of individuals. I could cite numerous examples, but nothing illustrates this point better than the Moon rocks. Had the rock samples been collected by robotic landers, as some hoax advocates assert, then a program of huge scope would have been necessary. The design, manufacture, testing and launch of these spacecraft would have involved numerous subcontractors and suppliers, as well as thousands of workers. Since there is no supporting evidence for such a program, then the multitude of people involved in the project would have to be willing participants in the cover-up. (The same is true of the robotic landers that supposedly placed the laser reflectors on the Moon.) Other hoax advocates claim that the rock samples are manufactured fakes. I strenuously maintain the world's geologists could not possibly be deceived by fake moon rocks, thus the rocks are either authentic, or the geologists are lying. If they are lying, then the hoax must be a worldwide conspiracy involving thousands of people in the scientific community.
The anomalies seen in the Apollo photographs were placed there by "whistle blowers", who secretly passed on hoax evidence in order to expose NASA.
David Percy is the main proponent of the "whistle blower" theory. It is astonishing that do-gooders inside NASA would have produced these anomalies, yet after 30+ years not one of the hundreds of thousands of people who worked on Apollo has come forward to openly admit they were part of a conspiracy. Not a single deathbed confession. Personally, I think Percy is deluding himself by believing he has decoded these subtle messages. The truth is, there are no whistle blowers because the supposed photographic anomalies are the result of misunderstood phenomenon and mistaken conclusions, not hidden messages.
The fire that killed the Apollo 1 astronauts was a deliberate act by NASA in order to silence Gus Grissom, who was about to expose the hoax.
There's not much I can say here other than the accusation is a complete fabrication with no corroborating evidence whatsoever. Some hoax advocates claim there have been many "suspicious" deaths among those associated with the Apollo program, alleging that NASA murdered these people. These accusations are both ludicrous and libelous. Bill Kaysing particularly has made many slanderous allegations against NASA yet, when former astronaut Jim Lovell called him "wacky", Kaysing had the gall to file suit against Lovell. Wisely, the suit was dismissed.
By the way, one of Mr. Kaysing accusations is that Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who was to fly aboard Challenger in 1986, would not go along with NASA's lie that stars cannot be seen in space. When she refused, NASA murdered the unfortunate Ms. McAuliffe, along with six others, by destroying Challenger in one of the most spectacular, expensive, and embarrassing failures in U.S. history. What proof does Mr. Kaysing give in support of this claim? None of course.
Also consider that if NASA has been silencing these people, why haven't they killed any of the hoax conspiracy theorists?
NASA faked the moon landings in order to beat the Soviets and to assure that America achieved John Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
To me, the idea of a hoax makes absolutely no sense. It is true the Americans we were in competition with the USSR, but the risks involved in trying to perpetrate a hoax would be tremendous. The devastating effect the exposure of a hoax would have on the reputation of the United States would be many times more severe than simply failing to reach the moon. I find it inconceivable that NASA would be willing to take that risk. Also, why six landings? After Apollo 11 the goal had been met, so why fake five more landings? In fact, NASA continued to send men to the Moon long after the public had lost interest. Continuing to perpetrate a hoax would only increase the possibility of making a mistake and being exposed. Furthermore, the Soviets would have never been fooled by a hoax. The USSR fully understood the difficulties of a Moon landing and tracked American progress closely, yet they have always acknowledged that the Apollo moon landings were real.
NASA faked the moon landings as a diversion to distract Americans from the Vietnam War.
The hoax advocates like to point out that the timing of the Apollo missions almost exactly corresponded with the war in Vietnam. Let us take a closer look at this argument. It is important that we not look at when the Apollo missions actually occurred, but rather, when the planning for those missions took place. Although work on Apollo began years earlier, the start of the moon race is widely considered to be John F. Kennedy's speech to congress in May 1961, while the first U.S. ground combat forces did not enter Vietnam until March 1965. Apollo 18, the last Apollo mission to be scrapped, was cancelled during the summer of 1970, while the last U.S. ground forces did not leave Vietnam until March 1973. That's 1961-70 for Apollo and 1965-73 for Vietnam. It is obvious that NASA plans were made years in advance of events in Vietnam. Planners could not have possibly anticipated the timing of future events, yet the hoax advocates would have us believe so.
The Apollo 13 accident was staged by NASA to revive waning interest in the Apollo program.
Besides being pure conjecture, I find several problems with this claim. If NASA were faking the landings, why would they encourage greater interest and unwanted scrutiny of their actions? Some hoax advocates have suggested that a renewed interest in Apollo was necessary to keep the dollars flowing so subcontractors could continue to profit from the hoax. However, the interest generated by Apollo 13 was short lived and the accident proved to be a contributing factor in the cancellation of latter flights, thus shortening the program. Furthermore, the majority of the profits were made during hardware development, which was by now mostly complete. This explanation also contradicts previously given reasons for why the Apollo missions were faked. First the hoax advocates said it was to achieve John Kennedy's goal, then it was to distract Americans from the Vietnam War, now it is to generate corporate profits and line pockets. Which is it?
The Soviets had a five-to-one superiority to the U.S. in manned hours in space and were first in achieving many important space milestones. Yet, despite the Soviet lead, the Americans claimed to have won the Moon race.
The hoax advocates often mention the early lead the Soviets held in manned space flight, implying that American technology was inferior. The Soviets accomplished may "firsts" because their program was designed to do so, often at great risk. The Americans, on the other hand, were more methodical and took their time to develop better technology. With its Gemini program the United States pushed far ahead of the Soviets, completing many space milestones of their own. Among these: the first use of an onboard computer, first use of fuel cells for power, first piloted spacecraft to change its trajectory, the first space rendezvous, and the first space docking. By the end of 1966 the United States held a 4-to-1 superiority in manned hours in space and a 30-to-1 superiority in EVA experience. The U.S. would not relinquish its lead in space man-hours until 1978, which was due to the Soviet emphasis on space stations.
Also do not forget that some hoax advocates claim the supposed technologically inferior Americans were able to robotically collect and return to Earth over 800 pounds of diverse lunar rock and soil samples, while the technologically superior Soviets could manage only less than a pound.
The Soviet Union never attempted a moon landing because they knew it was impossible.
The failure of the Soviet Union to land a man on the moon was due to the failure of their N1 moon rocket, which was the USSR equivalent of the USA Saturn V. The Soviets attempted two test launches of the N1 in 1969, the first on 21-February and the second on 3-July. The July test, which occurred just two weeks before the launch of Apollo 11, was a catastrophic failure as the rocket exploded on the launch pad and destroyed much of the launch complex. After the failure of the first two N1 rockets, and the success of Apollo 11, Russian engineering efforts were diverted into crash development of the Salyut space station in order to beat the American Skylab. Cosmonauts, however, continued to train for lunar landing missions until October 1973, when the last training group was dissolved. By that time, manned flight of the original single-launch spacecraft to the moon had been abandoned. Instead work was underway on a twin launch scenario that would put a lander on the surface in 1978 for extended operations, and eventually, a lunar base. This in turn was cancelled with the entire N1 program in 1974.
Clearly the Soviets believed a moon landing was a technological possibility as they continued with their plans until well after the last Apollo mission. They failed to beat the Americans to the Moon because they could not make their N1 rocket work before time ran out on them.
The Soviet Union did not contest NASA's claim about the Moon landings because the USSR was faking their own space program and would have likely exposed themselves.
Surely the Soviets possessed the knowledge and experience necessary to debunk NASA's claim of a moon landing. Since they declined to do so, they, according to the hoax advocates, must have had something to hide as well. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever of fraud on the part of the USSR but, if they were faking it, why didn't they just hoax a landing before the USA did? It was awfully generous of the Soviets to allow the Americans to fake it first. There appears to be no accusation the hoax advocates are unwilling to make, despite the lack of evidence, if it supports the hoax storyline.
Another idea that's been proposed by the hoax advocates is that NASA paid-off the Soviets to keep them quiet, which, like most hoax claims, is pure speculation. This accusation is just another desperate attempt by the hoax advocates to overcome an obstacle for which they have no valid explanation.
If NASA was able to land men on the Moon with such great success, why are there no plans to return and why haven't the Russians sent anyone?
Despite the apparent ease with which NASA landed six crews on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972, traveling to the Moon was difficult, dangerous and very expensive. The advanced planning and preparation of the spacecraft and astronauts resulted in spectacularly successful missions that succeeded despite the inherent difficulties and dangers. The United States landed men on the Moon while the Soviet Union failed in its attempt to do the same. Once the U.S. succeeded, the Soviets' reason for going to the Moon was eliminated. To fly to the moon today would be nearly as difficult and likely more expensive than it was three decades ago. Until there is sufficient motivation to do so, it is unlikely man will return to the moon any time in the near future.
Neil Armstrong refuses to give interviews, thus indicating he has something to hide.
Neil Armstrong is, by nature, a very shy and private man who shuns the spotlight. It is true he infrequently gives interviews or makes public appearances, but to say that he refuses to is simply not true. Armstrong was interview by Andrew Chaikin for the book A Man On the Moon, he participated in a televised press conference for the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11, he was interviewed by Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley in Sep-2001 [read transcript], and in Nov-2003 he gave an interview to an audience of about 1,000 at Dublin's National Concert Hall. I personally saw him make a public appearance in Dayton, Ohio for the Centennial of Flight celebration in 2003. What Neil Armstrong apparently does refuse to do (and with good reason) is grant interviews to those who call him a liar and a fraud.
The blueprints for the Saturn V rocket has been lost or destroyed.
I am not sure why this claim is supposed to imply a hoax, but we will look at it anyway. If the hoax advocates mean that there is no complete set of blueprints, then yes, this does not exist, nor has it ever. The millions of documents relating to the Saturn V and its components were spread out across the country among a dozen NASA centers and hundreds of contractors. Certainly many copies of these documents have been discarded, but much of it still exists. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama has much Saturn documentation on microfilm and the Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents. Rocketdyne, who built the F-1 and J-2 engines, has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program.
Plans for the Lunar Module and Lunar Rover have been destroyed and no longer exist.
Much paperwork relating to the Lunar Module and Rover has been discarded, however this is to be expected. No company is going to keep in storage millions of documents for an obsolete project that has no chance of being resurrected. But it is not true to say the documents no longer exist. The National Archives microfilmed everything they thought was historically significant and those films are currently in storage. It is not uncommon for space enthusiasts and modelers to find many obscure facts and details about the LM, Rover, and other Apollo hardware.
Why do people believe this stuff?
I am no psychologist, however I have seen and heard enough over the past years to recognize certain reoccurring personality traits in those professing to be hoax believers. Although there are varying degrees of each, I have come to categorize the hoax believers into two generalized types: the Confused and the Hardcore.
The Confused are average people who have seen or heard the claims of the hoax advocates on TV, the Internet, or from friends and associates. They usually lack the scientific knowledge or experience necessary to dispute the claims, so they begin to doubt the authenticity of the moon landings. Despite their doubts, these people tend to be open-minded and willing to listen to varying points of view. When giving the opportunity to study both sides of the argument, they usually agree the moon landings were real.
The Hardcore, on the other hand, are a completely different type of personality. They almost always exhibit strong paranoid tendencies. For example, they commonly make negative comments about the U.S. government such as "they're a bunch of liars" or "they can't be trusted". Rather then allowing the evidence to speak for itself, they will often begin by assuming a hoax and then search for evidence to support that preconception. When they see something that looks suspicious they immediately accept it as proof of their belief. When someone attempts to offer an alternate explanation they dismiss it as a NASA lie. Any evidence that contradicts their belief is described as an attempt by the government to deceive us. They will say that anyone who believes in the moon landings has been brainwashed or is in denial. They are usually argumentative, hostile and arrogant.
The Hardcore also tend to be completely close-minded, refusing to consider alternate possibilities. I have often debated with hardcore individuals over various hoax topics and, to date, I have always been able to completely discredit their claims with arguments that would more than satisfy any open-minded individual. However, they routinely refuse to acknowledge the possibility they could be in error. They will stubbornly cling to their belief in the hoax even when they have no creditable evidence to fall back on. The debate is clearly not just about evidence and physics; there are those who believe in the hoax merely because they want to believe it.
Why do some people choose to believe in the moon-landing hoax? I wish I could provide a definitive answer to that question, however I suspect it is a combination of paranoia and, perhaps more importantly, feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. The hoax believers create a delusional fantasy in which they are the heroes. Their ability to decipher the subtle clues and uncover the hoax is seen as a demonstration of their intellectual superiority. To the hoax believers the more complex and convoluted the theory, the smarter they feel for having figured it all out. To the rest of us the theory just doesn't make any sense.
Who should you trust?
If you have a toothache you go to a dentist; if you have legal problems you consult a lawyer. Throughout our daily lives it is commonplace to defer to trained professionals when we require specialized treatment or consulting. If you want to know about the functionality of the Apollo spacecraft, the nature of space radiation, or lunar geology you should seek the expert opinion of the engineers, physicists, geologists, and other specialists who dedicate their careers to knowing such things. These specialists unanimously agree that the Apollo moon landings were real, yet the hoax advocates discount their opinions and characterize these professionals as NASA disinformationists.
The hoax advocates like to paint the picture that they are soldiers in a war against government corruption and stand for truth and justice. However it is they who commonly employ the deceptive and manipulative tactics they accuse others of. They will typically show only the information and evidence that, on the surface, appears to substantiate their claims while suppressing any information that contradicts them. They try to conjure up feelings of distrust and antagonism toward the government. In most cases the hoax advocate's goal is to manipulate the reader into agreeing with their interpretation of the facts. Encouraging a reader to study all the facts and formulate a scientifically based and unbiased opinion is generally not on their agenda.
NASA is one of the more open and cooperative of all government agencies. They are typically happy to answer questions and assist in locating information. On the other hand, if you contest the findings of a hoax advocate you are likely to be greeted with evasion and, in some cases, hostility. Now which of these descriptions sound like someone with something to hide? I have seen no indication that NASA has anything to hide, but I've seen much to suggest the hoax advocates do. They have often been dishonest with us about their credentials, the availability of evidence, and their interpretation of the evidence. But why would they lie? There are some who truly believe what they say but are simply wrong due to ignorance; however, there are others who are nothing more than snake oil salesmen who's only goal is to convince the public to buy their books and videos. They disparage the reputations of dozens of astronauts and thousands of engineers and scientists for profit. These people can certainly not be trusted.
Where can I find more information?
The responses provided above give only the briefest answers to the various hoax claims. There is much more that can be said regarding each topic. If you have questions or require additional information you can either email this site, or you can visit the many links provided at the bottom of this page. I especially recommend Moon Base Clavius, which is an on-line encyclopedia dedicated to debunking the moon-landing hoax claims. Clavius is probably the most complete and authoritative site of its kind on the Internet.
If you wish to examine the photographic and written evidence for yourself, I recommend the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, by Eric M. Jones. This site is an enormous collection of mission summaries, photographs, video clips, audio clips, mission reports, science reports, technical debriefings, etc. compiled over a period of many years. Much of it is the very same information the hoax advocates try to tell us either does not exist or is unavailable. I also recommend the Project Apollo Image Gallery, which is an excellent collection of Apollo photographs.
Closing comments.
Many hoax believers are well meaning people who have been duped into believing the hoax theories by what they perceive to be compelling evidence. Although I may not agree with their views, I mean these people no malice. There are other hoax advocates, often representing themselves as experts, who publicly make claims based on erroneous conclusions resulting from a lack of proper research, scientific ignorance, or extreme prejudice. I find these people to be very dangerous because they possess the power to sway people into accepting their assertions as fact. A third possibility is that there are those who may believe the moon landings were real, but intentionally try to persuade people otherwise for some sort of attention, fame or profit. These people I believe are especially loathsome.
The thing I find most bothersome about the hoax advocates is their repeated failure to apply the scientific method, that is, the principles of discovery and demonstration considered necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis. The hoax advocates routinely observe a phenomenon; they usually call it an anomaly, dream up one possible explanation for the anomaly, and then jump straight to the conclusion that their explanation is the correct one. They universally fail to put their claims through the rigorous testing necessary to validate them. It is this failing that irreparably damages the credibility of the hoax advocates.
The problem the hoax advocates face is that there is a mountain of evidence supporting the authenticity of the moon landings. In order to substantiate their story, this evidence must be refuted. In some cases, the hoax advocates propose arguments that, on the surface, appear to have some merit, but as they try to dismiss other evidence it becomes more difficult. Usually their claims become more and more outlandish, often times foolish. In many cases they resort to making assertions that are seriously flawed in both science and logic. On the other hand, the claims of the moon landing supporters are always based on scientific fact. (It's easy when you have truth on your side.)
If one looks at the hoax "theory" in total, it becomes apparent it is little more than a fairy tale based on a handful of mistaken observations and assumptions. You may see a hundred examples of so-called hoax evidence, but it is mostly just repeated samples of the same misinterpreted phenomena. For those who have convinced themselves Apollo was nothing more than a hoax, it becomes necessary to create a story that fits the remaining evidence and is consistent with the hoax plot. For example, one must explain the existence of the Moon rocks, so the hoax advocates claim the rocks are fakes even though there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They make this claim only because it is crucial to the storyline. Another example is the claim the Soviet Union was faking its space program. Again, the hoax advocates have no proof, however they must invent an explanation for the Soviets' failure to challenge the moon landings. If you look critically at the hoax story you will see it is no more than an illusion.
I have often been accused of "providing no more proof than the hoax advocates", which is correct - I have not proven anything, nor do I assert otherwise. The purpose of this Web page is to point out the myriad flaws and omissions in the claims of the hoax advocates, and to show that there is a sound and scientifically based defense to their repeated attacks. Only those directly involved can know with absolute certainty what the truth is. The rest of us must decide whether the evidence is strong enough to accept the historical account as fact. But isn't this true of all history? For example, few people alive today experienced the First World War, yet we accept as fact that the war happened because the accounts of the war and the evidence are so strong that all doubt is removed. I am confident the same is true of Apollo but, due to a general lack of understanding, the truthfulness of the moon missions has been called into question by a small but vocal minority. I ask that you not be persuaded by incomplete or inaccurate information. Study all the facts and use your sound judgment. I'm sure you will, like me, come to the conclusion that
Yes, We Landed On The Moon!
My Qualifications.
My name is Robert A. Braeunig and I earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1981. My formal university education includes such subjects as Astronomy, Physics, Statics, Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Soil Mechanics, Geology, Chemistry, Calculus, Structural Analysis, and Electrical Networks. I have received training in the basics of Photography with emphasis on exposure control. I have been an avid amateur astronomer since 1989, having served as both president and vice-president of the Birmingham (Alabama) Astronomical Society. In additional to my formal training, I am self-taught in the basic principles of Orbital Mechanics and Rocket Propulsion. I am in no way affiliated with NASA or any of its subcontractors.
My greatest qualifications are a keen eye, good sense and the power of reason. When the hoax advocates make claims that are based on flimsy evidence, sloppy research, and a poor understanding of the sciences, it does not take a PhD to figure out they are wrong. In general, the main proponents of the hoax theory are people who have no special education, training or experience to qualify them to make their claims. They are in no better position to judge the facts than you and I; so use your own sense of reason.
This Web page has been reviewed by professionals in the fields of aerospace engineering, physics, and astronomy. All have confirmed the content of this page to be factual, accurate, and truthful. I am thankful to these individuals for their time and comments.
Further Reading.
If you are interested in further information regarding this topic, I recommend the following Web pages. All do a very fine job of debunking the alleged hoax evidence, often delving into the various topics with great detail. Many of these sites have been valuable sources in the writing of this Web page.
Moon Base Clavius -- The best and most complete anti-hoax site on the Internet! Bad Astronomy - Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax Are Apollo Moon Photos Fake? Where Apollo Pictures Faked? Apollo Hoax Charges Falter Under Light of Critical Analysis A Conspiracy of Conspiracy Theories: America's Lost Moon Non-Faked Moon Landings! Comments on the FOX Moonlanding Hoax special Space and Sanity, Apollo: The Truth! Did we land on the moon? Conspiracy Theory: Did We Go to the Moon? FOX Goes to the Moon, but NASA Never Did - The No-Moonies Cult Strikes Answers to Questions about the FOX TV Moon Hoax Program Apollo 15 Landing Site Spotted in Images The Apollo Moon Landings - Were they all a hoax? The Great Moon Hoax NASA Facts - Did U.S. Astronauts Really Land On The Moon? (PDF) The Space Page Was the Apollo Moon Landing a Hoax? The Moon Hoax Is A Hoax! Proof Positive - Five Reasons to Believe We've Been to the Moon Telescopic Tracking of the Apollo Lunar Missions The Van Allen Belts and Travel to the Moon Mondlandungsflüge? (In German, Moon-landing flights?) (In Russian, Did Americans fly to the Moon?)
For Apollo images and other archived data, please visit the following:
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal Project Apollo Image Gallery
You can also read my supplemental debunking pages here:
A Debunking of Jack White's Apollo Photo Analysis Response to letter from James VanZanten
The following Web pages are a rather odd breed. Lunar Anomalies does a very good job of debunking the Moon hoax theory, but the authors also believe Apollo astronauts uncovered ancient extraterrestrial artifacts on the Moon, which is a conspiracy theory that I choose not to delve into.
Who Mourns For Apollo? - Or - Was It Really Only a Paper Moon? Who Mourns For Apollo? Part II Who Mourns For Apollo? Part III The Apollo "C-Rock" Revealed Another Nail in The "Moon Hoax" Coffin
The following Web pages are by persons who actually believe in the Moon hoax theory. As you view these pages I would like you to take note of something: not one of them, that I have noticed, provide links to any hoax-debunking Websites. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be they are trying to manipulate you into believing their version of history rather then allowing you to study all the facts and draw your own unbiased conclusions?
Aulis Online - Apollo Investigation A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon Was The Apollo Moon Landing Fake? Ground Zero: Faked Moon Landings? Faked Moon Landings? Moon Fakers? Where the Moon Landing Shots Faked? The 'Faked' Apollo Landings!!! Apollo Reality The Lunar Conspiracy? Did Man Really go to the Moon? NASA: Numerous Anomalies and Scams Allowed But Seriously, It Sure Looks Like NASA Faked the Lunar Landings - Is That Possible? Rethinking NASA's Version of History Oh what a wicked web we weave!!! - "The Apollo Program" ONE SMALL STEP ..... Moon Anomalies and The Great NASA Cover-Up MoonShadows: Did We Really Go To The Moon In The Late 1960's & Early 70's? We never went to the moon? Investigator Challenging NASA
The following is an interview with Bill Kaysing, who is one of the hoax advocates featured in the FOX television program and author of We Never Went To The Moon. Mr. Kaysing's opinions are unconventional to say the least. Read his comments and judge for yourself if they hold merit.
Interview with Bill Kaysing by Nardwuar
Bill Kaysing, considered by many the father of the Moon hoax theory, portrays himself as some sort of expert, but is he? The following Web page outlines his qualifications.
Clavius / Bibliography, Bill Kaysing
The following Web pages provide a little information about the major proponents of the Moon hoax theory. In addition to Bill Kaysing, there are articles about photographer David Percy, co-author of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle Blowers, Ralph Rene, author of NASA Mooned America, and journalist Bart Sibrel, a newcomer to the Moon hoax game.
Bill Kaysing David Percy Ralph Rene Bart Sibrel
Contact Information.
If you have comments or questions, please feel free to drop me a line. Feedback submission form.
Guestbook.
You can also leave your comments on my guestbook. You don't have to agree with me, but please be civil. I expect you to respect the fact this page is often visited by school children and thus your language should be appropriate. Vulgarity will not be tolerated. Read my guestbook or leave a comment.
Discussion Forums.
If you wish to engage in a discussion about the Moon landing hoax, I recommend the following forums. Very knowledgeable and helpful persons in the fields of Apollo history, astronomy, physics, and engineering are frequent visitors to both. I am a regular contributor under the user name Bob B.
Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board Apollo Hoax Forum

Did we Really Land on the Moon?

2005-12-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

DID WE REALLY LAND ON THE MOON?
This question does come up from time to time, you know, when the conspiracy nuts and FOX television get tired of alien autopsy's, Roswell and the search for Atlantis. I felt that this would be a good time to address this issue due to the recent program on Fox, which basically assumed that the entire population has just received a lobotomy. Actually what I am going to do is to repost a mailing from SKEPTIC magazine that addresses this program and all the asinine "theories" concerning the faked moon landing. With out further adieu, I give you Michael Shermer of SKEPTIC;
FOX GOES TO THE MOON, BUT NASA NEVER DID THE NO-MOONIES CULT STRIKES By Michael Shermer
For those of you who saw the abysmal Fox program Thursday night, February 15, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?," I hope you did not lose faith in the network that brings us the finest television show of the last several years--The Simpsons. I would love to tell you that it the show was a joke, like the one Fox did a few years ago about machines that take revenge on their owners--my favorite was the angry car that drove over a cliff; yeah, that's showing those bad humans who's boss! (Woody Allen has a funny routine similar to this, where his toaster, the building elevator, and other machines start making anti-Semitic remarks). Alas, this was a vintage Fox show that begins with the usual disingenuous disclaimer:
"The following program deals with a controversial subject. The theories expressed are not the only possible explanation. Viewers are invited to make a judgment based on all available information."
That information, of course, is not provided. To cover themselves morally (legally, anyone can say anything in America, no matter how vacuous it may be) they had a "spokesperson" from NASA who was allegedly there to answer the claims of the no-moon conspiracy "theorists." (To call this a "theory" or these tofuheads "theorists" is to so butcher the language of science that I cannot stomach it. Let's just call them the "no-moonies.") Unfortunately, this NASA guy had obviously never read any of the conspiracy claims, or the answers to them, for this is the biggest no-brainer debunking in skeptical history that anyone who actually knew something about the Apollo space program could have handled.
What particularly angers me about it is that Fox Family already did a special on the moon conspiracy--I did it for Exploring the Unknown! And, irony on irony, our token actor voice was the same Mitch Pileggi from X-Files who narrated this special. (The docutainment formula by the way, followed by every one of these type shows on every network designed the same way by every production company is that you must have a "celebrity" voice for, get this, "credibility." Yeah, okay, this is America so I guess I understand . . . .) Of course, we should not shoot the messenger, for Mitch is an intelligent guy who happens to read scripts for a living. And for all he knew when he did his voice over, the slated NASA guy really was going to answer all the conspiracy claims.
So, let's go through this point by painful point, just in case the statistic at the top of the show--that 10 percent of the American public believes we never went to the moon--is accurate. DISCLAIMER (hey, I can have one too): The Skeptics Society motto from Spinoza--"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them"--does not apply here. Sorry, this conspiracy theory is so dumb that I think it best we adopt H.L. Mencken's observation that "one good horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms."
1. CLAIM: The moon landing was faked on a movie set. Proof: there are clearly two sources of light in the movies and stills taken on the moon. Since there is only one source of light in the sky (the sun) how can we explain the fact that even in shadows there is obvious "fill" light that illuminates various objects that, back lit from the sun, should be in near total darkness. Much of the show was spent on this point as they showed photo after photo, film after film, of "filled in" photos. Fill light is exactly what you would see on a studio set.
ANSWER: Even granting that NASA's rocket scientists were too dumb to have thought of this and thus tipped their conspiracy hand to the no-moonies who, apparently, are smarter than rocket scientists, there were actually three sources of light on the moon: the sun, the earth that reflects the sun's light, and the moon itself, also reflecting light. The albedo (reflectivity) of the earth is quite high because of the amount of clouds, so the sun acted as the light filler via the earth. And the moon was, to say the least, rather close, and also reflected light.
2. CLAIM: The American flag was "waving" in the allegedly airless environment of the moon. How can this be? Proof: film footage showing the astronauts planting the flag, with the flag clearly waving.
ANSWER: Of course the flag was "waving" while the astronaut was fiddling with it back and forth as he jammed it into the hole. But the moment he let go of the flag, it mysteriously stopped waving. Umm, coincidence? I don't think so.
3. CLAIM: There was no blast crator beneath the LEM lander. Proof: photographs of the LEM with no blast crator and a NASA painting made before the first landing, showing what a NASA artist thought might happen when the LEM landed (big blast crator).
ANSWER: (1) The LEM engine was variable--the astronauts could control the thrust and, of course, as they eased their way down to the surface they throttled back on the engine. (2) There was only a couple of inches of moon dust on the surface, beneath which was a solid surface that would not be effected by the blast of the LEM engine. Before Apollo 11 landed, there was much debate among scientists about the amount of moon dust that would have accumulated over billions of years. Some speculated that there could be several feet of dust, into which the LEM and the astronauts would sink. Others said just a few inches. The latter were right.
4. After the blast crator from the LEM engine was created, all the lunar dust around the LEM should have been displaced, yet there's Armstrong's footprint clearly imprinted into the lunar dust just a foot away from the LEM's landing pad. What gives?
ANSWER: Again, the moon is airless, so the LEM engine blast did indeed send dust flying, after which it came back down because there is no wind to scatter it. The blast of dust happened mainly directly underneath the LEM engine.
5. If there was so much moon dust all over the place, being kicked up by the LEM engine, by the rover, by the astronauts, why is everything so clean?
ANSWER: It wasn't. Moon dust was a problem because, in fact, it got all over everything and the astronauts spents hours after their moon walks cleaning their suits so as not to get the dust all over the interior of the LEM.
6. CLAIM: When the top half of the LEM took off to return the astronauts to the command module, leaving the lower half sitting there on the moon's surface, there was no "blast" flame like we see on earth. The LEM just seems to leap off the base like it was yanked up by cables.
ANSWER: First of all, you can clearly see in the film footage of the launch, that there IS quite a blast as dust and other particles go flying, even one piece right toward the camera. Second, there is no air on the moon, so there can be no blast "flame" like there is on earth. This is why rocket engines in space have to carry their own oxygen (in liquid form). Unlike jet engines that suck in air, rockets carry all the chemicals they need and mix them at the time the "burn" is required. And "burn" is not quite the right term, since it implies a "flame" should be present. In space there can be no flame because there is no oxygen to fuel a flame tail coming out of the rocket nozzle. All that is happening is that chemicals being stored in separate containers are being released together to cause a reaction, the energy from which flows out rapidly through a nozzle, after which Newton's law of "equal and opposite reaction" takes over.
7. On earth, the LEM lander simulator used by the astronauts for practice was obviously unstable. In fact, shortly before the Apollo 11 flight Neil Armstrong barely escaped with his life as his simulator crashed and he ejected just seconds before impact. Imagine how tricky it would have been to land the actual LEM, with two astronauts shifting around inside and all that additional weight. Fox even managed to find a physicist named Ralph Rene who proclaimed that it would have been impossible to land the LEM because of its inherent instability.
ANSWER: Armstrong did indeed barely escape with his life in the simulator. But practice makes perfect, and these guys practiced, and practiced, and practiced until they got it down. A bicycle is also inherently unstable. The damn thing just falls over standing still, and even moving it topples over after a few meters of pedaling, UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO RIDE IT! Plus, and these no-moonies never seem to get this, what happens on earth is not the same as what happens on the moon. Air on earth, no air on the moon. Lots of gravity on the earth, a lot less gravity on the moon. Things big and heavy on earth will be big and light on the moon. And we can even calculate exactly how much different! These NASA scientists were so good they even calculated the effects of the gravitational pull from large and irregular moon masses as the LEM flew closely over them.
8. There are no stars in the moon sky, yet when you look up at night from earth you see lots of stars.
ANSWER: How many stars do you see in photographs taken at night, on earth, of terrestrial objects? That's right. None. Well, okay, MAYBE you'll see Venus, but that's not a star. If you want to shoot stars in the night sky you have to aim your camera and leave the shutter open for at least several seconds. The astronauts were not there to take pictures of the sky. Also, since it is very bright on the moon (no air to scatter the sunlight) and the astronauts were wearing white space suits, the camera F-stop would have been set way down, and the shutter speed quite fast. Stars are too faint to appear on the film emulsion.
9. If you run the moon film footage at double speed it looks like it was filmed on earth, ergo it WAS filmed on earth.
ANSWER: Balderdash! Double speed doesn't look at all like it was filmed on earth. I might have missed their explanation for this because I was laughing so hard, but that's what they said.
10. Why are the photographs so nicely framed and in focus, etc.
ANSWER: Because these are the few photographs that we get to see from the thousands of photographs taken. There is a beautiful book released last year with some of the very best moon photographs. It is magnificant. One glance through it makes it clear that these photographs were indeed taken on the moon which was aptly described by Buzz Aldrin as "magnificant desolation."
11. The Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the Earth would have fried the astronauts with a lethal dose of radiation.
ANSWER: Wrong. If you blast right through the Van Allen belts it is no problem, which is what the Apollo astronauts did. X-rays would be lethal too, if you sat there soaking in them long enough. A very real problem, however, are cosmic rays. They are not a problem on a short flight like to the moon, but in long flights that might last years, like to Mars, they could be a serious problem.
12. NASA murdered Gus Grissom and the other Apollo 1 astronauts, along with a bunch of other astronauts in assorted other "accidents," because they were about to go public with the hoax.
ANSWER: The show began by saying that the moon conspiracy was hatched late in the game when NASA realized they would never make it, yet we are to believe that years before they had been planning the hoax, Grissom caught on to it and decided to go public, and then they killed him. But that's not the real answer here. The real answer is that, like most conspiracy theories, there is no positive evidence in support, only negative evidence in the form of "they covered it up." Like the curse of the mummy, anyone who died within 20 years of the discovery of Tut's tomb, died because of the curse, not because people die. Let's face it, being a test pilot and an astronaut is not the safest job in the world. People died because it is an inherently dangerous job.
13. NASA managed to keep all this a secret for all these years with tens of thousands of people keeping their mouths shut. This from the same NASA folks who were too stupid to remember to set up the movie set properly so as to account for the proper light, blast crator, etc.
ANSWER: I once asked G. Gordon Liddy (who should know) about conspiracy theories. He said three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead. To think that thousands of people would keep their mouths shut is too ridiculous to consider.
14. NASA STUPIDITY: Going to the moon is very, very hard. Look at all those rockets that blew up in the 1950s and early 1960s, and all those other problems to solve. Space travel is an insoluble problem. Ergo, NASA could not have solved it.
ANSWER: There is no question that NASA, as a gigantic bureaucracy, is capable of mistakes and flubs, and perhaps even a few cover-ups. But this argument reminds me of the pyramidiots who think that the Egyptians were too inept to have built the pyramids. Their reasoning goes like this: "if I can't think of how they did it then they couldn't have thought of it either, ergo they didn't do it." It is really an indictment of the claimants own limited thinking skills.
15. ART IMITATES FICTION: I cannot let this end without one trivial observation: the Fox show began with footage from a conspiracy movie from 1978 in which the astronauts are asked to fake a landing on the moon because NASA realized they could never pull it off and if they didn't their budget would be cut, etc., The film was entitled Capricorn One, and the astronauts refused to cooperate so NASA tried to have them killed. But I noticed that Fox was most discrete in not showing the actors playing the astronauts: one of them was O.J. Simpson who, in the film just like on the football field and in Brentwood, showed his amazing ability to cut and run . . . .
RATING OF FOX: Two thumbs down to Fox for not providing the above explanations, for setting up a lame duck as a NASA expert who didn't know the explanations, and for pretending that this was a balanced show about a real theory that people allegedly take seriously.
RATING OF NASA: Two thumbs up for solving an insoluble problem. Now, quit wasting our money growing tomatoes 200 miles up when we should be making blast crators, leaving footprints, and taking photographs on Mars by now. Ad astra!!

THE GREAT MOON HOAX

2005-12-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Great Moon Hoax
Moon rocks and common sense prove Apollo astronauts really did visit the Moon.

Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer)February 23, 2001 -- Last week my phone rang. It was my mother ... and she was upset.
"Tony!" she exclaimed, "I just came from the coffee shop and there's an [adjective omitted] man down there who says NASA never landed on the Moon. Everyone was talking about it ... I just didn't know what to say!"
That last bit was hard to swallow, I thought. Mom's never at a loss for words.
But even more incredible was the controversy that swirled through her small-town diner and places like it across the country. After a long absence, the "Moon Hoax" was back.
Above: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon in 1969. [more information]
All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Guests on the show argued that NASA technology in the 1960's wasn't up to the task of a real Moon landing. Instead, anxious to win the Space Race any way it could, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios. Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on another world, the rollicking Moon Buggy rides, even Al Shepard's arcing golf shot over Fra Mauro-- it was all a fake!
Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS deliveryFortunately the Soviets didn't think of the gag first. They could have filmed their own fake Moon landings and really embarrassed the free world.
Shows like Conspiracy Theory ought to be as tongue-in-cheek as they sound. Unfortunately, there was an earnest feel to the Fox broadcast, enough to make you wonder if the program's makers might have fallen under their own spell.
According to the show NASA was a blundering movie producer thirty years ago. For example, Conspiracy Theory pundits pointed out a seeming discrepancy in Apollo imagery: Pictures of astronauts transmitted from the Moon don't include stars in the dark lunar sky -- an obvious production error! What happened? Did NASA film-makers forget to turn on the constellations?
Most photographers already know the answer: It's difficult to capture something very bright and something else very dim on the same piece of film -- typical emulsions don't have enough "dynamic range." Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their sunlit spacesuits were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper exposure for a glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too faint to see.
Here's another one: Pictures of Apollo astronauts erecting a US flag on the Moon show the flag bending and rippling. How can that be? After all, there's no breeze on the Moon....
Not every waving flag needs a breeze -- at least not in space. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who's set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). So of course the flag waved! Unfurling a piece of rolled-up cloth with stored angular momentum will naturally result in waves and ripples -- no breeze required!
Left: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin deploy a U.S. flag on the Moon in 1969. [more]
The Fox documentary went on with plenty more specious points. You can find detailed rebuttals to each of them at BadAstronomy.com and the Moon Hoax web page. (These are independent sites, not sponsored by NASA.)
The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn't return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth.
"Moon rocks are absolutely unique," says Dr. David McKay, Chief Scientist for Planetary Science and Exploration at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). McKay is a member of the group that oversees the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at JSC where most of the Moon rocks are stored. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," he added.
"For example," explains Dr. Marc Norman, a lunar geologist at the University of Tasmania, "lunar samples have almost no water trapped in their crystal structure, and common substances such as clay minerals that are ubiquitous on Earth are totally absent in Moon rocks."
"We've found particles of fresh glass in Moon rocks that were produced by explosive volcanic activity and by meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago," added Norman. "The presence of water on Earth rapidly breaks down such volcanic glass in only a few million years. These rocks must have come from the Moon!"
Right: A glass spherule (about 0.6 mm in diameter) produced by a meteorite impact into lunar soil. Features on the surface are glass splashes, welded mineral fragments, and microcraters produced by space weathering processes at the surface of the moon. SEM image by D. S. McKay (NASA Photo S71-48109).
Fortunately not all of the evidence needs a degree in chemistry or geology to appreciate. An average person holding a Moon rock in his or her hand can plainly see that the specimen came from another world.
"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. "There are plenty of museums, including the Smithsonian and others, where members of the public can touch and examine rocks from the Moon," says McKay. "You can see the little meteoroid craters for yourself."
Right: Nick-named "Big Muley," this 11.7 kg Moon rock was the largest returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts. One side of Big Muley was peppered with meteoroid "zap pits." Below right: A close-up view of 1 mm diameter zap pits shows tiny craters lined with black glass surrounded by a white halo of shocked rock. [more]
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," says McKay. Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn't. Earth's most powerful particle accelerators can't energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies.
Indeed, says McKay, faking a Moon rock well enough to hoodwink an international army of scientists might be more difficult than the Manhattan Project. "It would be easier to just go to the Moon and get one," he quipped.
And therein lies an original idea: Did NASA go to the Moon to collect props for a staged Moon landing? It's an interesting twist on the conspiracy theory that TV producers might consider for their next episode of the Moon Hoax.
"I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples -- not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren't all NASA employees, either. We've loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]."
Even Dr. Robert Park, Director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society and a noted critic of NASA's human space flight program, agrees with the space agency on this issue. "The body of physical evidence that humans did walk on the Moon is simply overwhelming."
"Fox should stick to making cartoons," agreed Marc Norman. "I'm a big fan of The Simpsons!"

did we landed on the moon?

2005-12-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

this is just the beginig, so how do you feel when you listen, we never landed on the moon?
it so very strange but some people thinks like that.