Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: chris on 24/07/2009 22:10:50
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The 40th anniversary of the first manned-Moon-landings has (predictably) spawned a resurgence in "the moon landings were an elaborate hoax" claims.
Still, a picture paints a thousand words....
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html
Chris
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wym04J_3Ls0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wym04J_3Ls0)
Nasa could have saved some money and just watched Mythbusters.
Ir would be cheaper to send people to the moon than go to all the bother of faking it...they would have to pay people to hush up the whole thing so it would cost a fortune.
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It paints words that fall on deaf ears; to the conspiracy theorist, a photo like that is just a doctored hoax meant to cover up the original conspiracy.
I don't entirely understand conspiracy theorists. I think a lot of different factors go into making someone think that way.
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People just like mysteries and when none are available, the nut cases just invent one.
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Yeah, but i don't think that's an adequate insight into their mindset. They don't merely invent things; people who are consciously fabricating something rarely come to believe it themselves, and even then, they only do so with a great amount of effort.
I think there's more to it than that.
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It's kept alive for commercial reasons. There's lots of money in a good conspiracy.
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I actually heard a 'professor' on Rad4 who was in denial about it (I didn't catch what he was a professor of though) and I was dismayed that the Beeb gave airtime to Jeanette Winterson's uninformed musings on the subject. In all the cases I've heard of Moon landing denial it comes down to ignorance. It's especially annoying to hear people claim that the photographs taken on the moon were 'too good' - it's as though people think that unless you've got an auto-exposure camera it's impossible to take photographs. They seem to think that the light levels on the moon were somehow impossible to predict, whereas the opposite is actually the case, and they simply don't seem to understand that hand held light meters exist or that bracketing exposures is common practice, and you'll only see the shots that worked, not all the ones where the exposure was out. They also seem completely unaware of depth of field with regard to focusing issues.
It's these sorts of people who have made me a misanthropist.
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It's kept alive for commercial reasons. There's lots of money in a good conspiracy.
Yeah..... just take a look at the banks for confirmation of that! I'm going to start a conspiracy that banks look after their customers best interest. Nah.... Nobody in their right mind would buy that!
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Good Photos:
The easiest exposures to estimate that you could imagine.
Illuminant: totally predictable.
Weather conditions: totally predictable.
Time of 'day': constant throughout.
Use a wide angle, excellent quality, lens with slow, fine grain film ( excellent lighting conditions).
Crop the pictures to compose the print.
Armstrong knew the subjects he was required to record.
Tell him to avoid shooting at the Sun.
Recipe for excellent shots.
Astronauts were selected for being 'good at things'. Oh he could land the damned thing then he could produce a good photo of it.
A box. Brownie would have done quite well, in fact.
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When Buzz Aldrin was confronted by a moon-shot-was-faked-conspiracy-theorist who was calling him a coward and a lier, General Aldrin responded with a splendid right hook smack in the loud mouth's maw.
And it's on YouTube
I for one salute you, Buzz.
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Because obviously conspiracy theorists are smarter than the Russians were. How would the Russians, with all their advanced technology in the Cold War era, know the difference between a hoax and the real deal? Duh...
And that punch was, to say the least, amazing! [;D]
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Have the conspiracy people not got a point regarding the missing stars.
http://www.thespoof.com/ rest removed - self aggrandizing spam)
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Not at all.
Film has a certain contrast range it can cope with (i.e. brightest to darkest object recordable). If you try to photograph the stars from Earth, you need a wide aperture and several seconds (even) of exposure. That would have totally overexposed the pictures of the expedition. For a proper exposure of the photos they wanted, the stars would have been so under exposed as to not register on the film at all.
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When Buzz Aldrin was confronted by a moon-shot-was-faked-conspiracy-theorist who was calling him a coward and a lier, General Aldrin responded with a splendid right hook smack in the loud mouth's maw.
And it's on YouTube
I for one salute you, Buzz.
Excellent punch !..I hope Buzz followed through with a head butt then a kick to the groin !!
I personally think that the whole Moon is a conspiracy theory .
I think NASA went to somewhat little trouble to time travel back 4 billion years or so to set in orbit a big back lit screen purely for the reason that they could create the illusion that we have a satellite body and that we have set foot on it. I don't even think the moon is there !...Yes..yes..I am sure I am right !
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Good Photos:
The easiest exposures to estimate that you could imagine.
Illuminant: totally predictable.
Weather conditions: totally predictable.
Time of 'day': constant throughout.
Use a wide angle, excellent quality, lens with slow, fine grain film ( excellent lighting conditions).
Crop the pictures to compose the print.
Armstrong knew the subjects he was required to record.
Tell him to avoid shooting at the Sun.
Recipe for excellent shots.
Astronauts were selected for being 'good at things'. Oh he could land the damned thing then he could produce a good photo of it.
A box. Brownie would have done quite well, in fact.
Exactly right SC.
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Pro photographers often expose their pictures based on 'incident light' readings. TOTALLY predictable, on the Moon. Pre-set the camera before your trip!
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Yup.
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This effect has been proved?:
and this one too?:
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I think the rationale is more that they did go to the moon but that the photos and videos they presented were fake - at least part of them. By none other than Stanley Kubrick. Check this out:
http://jayweidner.com/AlchemicalKubrickIIb.html (http://jayweidner.com/AlchemicalKubrickIIb.html)
Reminds me of the movie "Capricorn One" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One)). Usually there's always a grain of truth in these things.
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What an amazing 'halfway house' idea.
So they managed to get the whole expedition there and back but they 'chose' to fake the records?
Whatever for? Whatever the quality of real live pictures we would have lapped them up. As it happened, it was easy to get good pictures there. Why should that be suspect? The lighting was good enough and so were the cameras. Shooting the event was technically easy. I seem to remember that they did manage to cook a TV camera by pointing it at the Sun, on one occasion. Would they have bothered to simulate that accident?
Capricorn One was a movie. It is full of Movie Mistakes - which you'd expect.
Anyone can photoshop lines on a landscape picture. Most landscapes have layers to them - even seascapes do. That other link proves nothing but that film makers can do a fairly decent job, sometimes. Mostly they don't - or at least, didn't, before computers came along.
If you really want to find a conspiracy, at least find an interesting one and one which is relevant to us. It's a pity the conspiracy theorists weren't more wide awake about the Banks!
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I think the rationale is more that they did go to the moon but that the photos and videos they presented were fake - at least part of them. By none other than Stanley Kubrick. Check this out:
http://jayweidner.com/AlchemicalKubrickIIb.html (http://jayweidner.com/AlchemicalKubrickIIb.html)
Great link, FlashValor, thanks (welcome on this forum, by the way!)
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I was looking at some NASA photos yesterday and came across this one
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1017.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf293%2FAndrewW_photo%2FNewBitmapImage.jpg&hash=d52091abda99d396883c84e643b1f20d)
Both bits of reflective paper are interesting but neither is conclusive, the image on the reflective paper on the right looks like it could be an image of a person, and the image on the left piece looks like a possible tripod under a light source which seems to be a goodish match for the light used in the opening shot of this video.
http://www.liveleak.com/mp.swf?config=http://www.liveleak.com/flash_config.php?token=9cd_1179849088%26embed=1
The original HD version of the photo is from here:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11839HR.jpg
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There would be nothing to blow the pieces of "reflective paper" away, would there. I don't imagine they did 'litter duty' whilst they were up there, either.
If the image is of a person, then it looks as though they have no clothes on! Is this a Rorschach test?
There just may have been a tripod there. Were all the shots hand held? I doubt that they would have tidied a tripod away between uses - it wasn't going to get wet or blow away was it?
Is a lens starburst from a lamp going to be different from the starburst from a specular reflection off a camera lens or other shiny object? It certainly not very bright and the shadows don't exactly fit with a light source from that direction (over your left shoulder, looking at the picture - look at the angle of the reflective paper).
Will this thing NEVER lie down?
Even when they get there and photograph the scene, in a few years' time, there will still be some people who won't accept it.
This conspiracy thing is worse than a religion - it doesn't even pretend to encourage people to behave better.
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people belive in conspiracies because they do exist.. just not as often as folk like to think.
BTW how is the topic "Is it worth growing my nasal hair?" one of the 'other things on a similar subject'?
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You can also see 'the image of a person' on the grassy knoll.. because we humans have human pattern recognition we see faces in places there aren't faces at all.
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What, instead, hits me of that photo (the entire one in the link) is this particular:
look at the 'foot' of the LEM up: it seems at the edge of a little hill or crater or something alike. Isnt'it strange to have placed the LEM there?
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Didn't they always have to find the least worst spot? No second approaches available.
I didn't realise that my nasal hair was a conspiracy. I thought it was real - isn't everyone's?
Edit - second comment
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1017.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf293%2FAndrewW_photo%2FNewBitmapImage.jpg&hash=d52091abda99d396883c84e643b1f20d)
I've just found out that this photo is part of a pan series which shows that there is nothing that can explain the tripod type setup in the left piece of reflective foil.
The full photo sequence is AS15-87-11822 to AS15-87-11839
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11822HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11823HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11824HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11825HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11826HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11827HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11828HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11829HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11830HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11831HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11832HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11833HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11834HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11835HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11836HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11837HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11838HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11839HR.jpg
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A farmer watched as a neighbor built an airplane. He told others that his neighbor would never get it off the ground. The big day arrived and everyone including the skeptic came out to watch whatever happened. The airplane roared down the pasture and lifted itself into a perfect climb. Someone asked the skeptic after the plane went out of sight, "Well, what do you have to say, now?" The skeptic replied with absolute conviction, "He'll never get it down." Things do happen that are beyond our comprehension. An event too far afield of our experience (frame of reference) might be disbelieved very sincerely. What do you suppose a caveman might say of Disneyworld. (No offense to my troglodite friends).
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It would have been trivial for the Russians to prove that the US was not on the moon at that time. All that had to do is claim that radio transmissions weren’t coming from the moon. But since they were and that would be impossible to fake with even modern technology the conspiracy idiots ignore this all too simple fact.
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1017.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf293%2FAndrewW_photo%2FNewBitmapImage.jpg&hash=d52091abda99d396883c84e643b1f20d)
I've just found out that this photo is part of a pan series which shows that there is nothing that can explain the tripod type setup in the left piece of reflective foil.
The full photo sequence is AS15-87-11822 to AS15-87-11839
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11822HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11823HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11824HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11825HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11826HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11827HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11828HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11829HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11830HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11831HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11832HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11833HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11834HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11835HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11836HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11837HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11838HR.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11839HR.jpg
I strongly suspect that the two-legged 'tripod' feature you refer to was the astronaut who left the footprints visible in image AS15-87-11837HR.jpg.
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It would have been trivial for the Russians to prove that the US was not on the moon at that time. All that had to do is claim that radio transmissions weren’t coming from the moon. But since they were and that would be impossible to fake with even modern technology the conspiracy idiots ignore this all too simple fact.
That is an absolute clincher of an argument. It has to remove ANY doubt that there was someone there when they said they were. I don't think the conspiracy theorists understand the first thing about the geometry a d dynamics of a Moon shot.
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It would have been trivial for the Russians to prove that the US was not on the moon at that time. All that had to do is claim that radio transmissions weren’t coming from the moon. But since they were and that would be impossible to fake with even modern technology the conspiracy idiots ignore this all too simple fact.
That is an absolute clincher of an argument. It has to remove ANY doubt that there was someone there when they said they were. I don't think the conspiracy theorists understand the first thing about the geometry a d dynamics of a Moon shot.
Ok, but the fact there was a transmission coming from there doesn't mean that astronauts landed there.
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[^]They would have needed not to be in orbit if the transmissions were continuous. [^]
OK?
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[^]They would have needed not to be in orbit if the transmissions were continuous. [^]
OK?
Of course, but what "would have needed not to be in orbit"? The astronauts or a transmitter? The astronauts could have stayed in orbit and make a simple module land on the Moon. Would they really have risked the astronaut's death? Maybe. But it was too important that this didn't happen, all the world where looking at them and there was also the cold war.
I want to point out that I'm just speculating for conversation's sake, I'm not a conspiracist [:)].
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Ok, but the fact there was a transmission coming from there doesn't mean that astronauts landed there.
They might have claimed that we sent machines which landed on the moon and transmitted those radio signals but that’s stretching it a bit too far. Not to mention that the conspiracy theorists never admit this possibility. It’s clear that they never thought of something this obvious – or if they did they weren’t prepared to explain it. I’d like to see them claim that we had the ability to send machines and not people. When the astronauts went to the moon they broadcasted radio waves continuously (to monitor life signs etc). Russian scientists must have monitored all those transmissions just waiting for the opportunity to prove it was a hoax or find something wrong or wait for an accident/screw up. Those scientists can tell the origin of those radio waves by triangulating the radio signals. Thus it was quite easy to tell that those signals originated from the surface of the Moon. If someone wants to say that they were actually machines sending out those signals then let them do so and we’ll address that when it comes.
Then again I can’t prove to you that I’m not a machine myself, can I? :)
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If the crew were in orbit, then how could they be using the radio link on the surface when they were on the other side?????
You'll have to do better than that, lightarrow.
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Would they really have risked the astronaut's death?
Yes, most definitely. It was a huge risk even getting into that rocket and lighting it up. Heck, the worst accident in the history of the Apollo program was when a fire broke out during a test and killed the three astronauts inside. The greater risk would be to get caught in a hoax. The astronauts knew that they were risking their lives and they did so willingly.
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Would they really have risked the astronaut's death?
Yes, most definitely. It was a huge risk even getting into that rocket and lighting it up. Heck, the worst accident in the history of the Apollo program was when a fire broke out during a test and killed the three astronauts inside. The greater risk would be to get caught in a hoax. The astronauts knew that they were risking their lives and they did so willingly.
I didn't mean that. I meant that it would have been much worse to risk the astronauts' death *on the Moon's surface*. It would have been a much greater psychological defeat, for the entire world's eyes and for the moon race too.
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If the crew were in orbit, then how could they be using the radio link on the surface when they were on the other side?????
You'll have to do better than that, lightarrow.
Can you explain this better? I don't know not much about this subject. Why did they necessarily have a radio link? Couldn't an hypothetical transmitter on the Moon's surface simply answer pre-recorded voices electronically activated by every call of mission control?
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If you are in an orbiting craft and you want to talk to Earth, you have to be able to contact (see) this ground based link. So you would be restricted to communicating when you were Earthside. That would have been painfully obvious to Russians etc. . They would have been aware of all this and would have either spotted it and mentioned it at the time or later. Well, wouldn't they have spotted the fact that the contact with the (official) crew of the command module was in the same intervals as the communication with the claimed ground crew? I think even I would have spotted that if I had been a Soviet, dieing to discredit the Yanks.
In fact, it would be better not to use a ground based link at all because you could see the Earth for more time than you could see this ground location (below horizon more when in a low orbit than the view of the Earth).
I imaging the call times are ALL logged and on record! The proof / disproof of this particular theory is there to be accessed. Only one single call which doesn't fit in with orbit times is sufficient to disprove it.
I should have been a policeman!
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Why does neil armstrong keeps quiet about the moon landing? I feel that the first landing was a hoax. The rest were real.
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On what basis? Just because of one person's reaction to what must have been an overwhelming experience? Post traumatic stress if ever it existed.
It strikes me that they got an amazing number of things RIGHT about life up there the first time if it really was faked. Hollywood got it wrong every time, before they showed them what it was really like.
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There is a thing I don't understand about Moon's surface: if you want to land there, how do you know that you won't land in a hole of dust and that you won't sink down it?