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Moon Landing: Hoaxed?

eburacum said:
There is nothing on the Moon we haven't got on Earth, so these resources won't be destined for Earth markets. Lunar resources are the key to setting up an economy in space. Together with Near Earth asteroids, these metals and other elements can allow us to build infrastructure in orbit without having to boost it out of Earth's gravity well. Read Gerard K O'Neill's The High Frontier.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Space-ebook/dp/B00CB3SIAI
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Helium-3?
 
Even Helium-3 is easier to obtain from deep mines on Earth than from the Moon. I'm vaguely hopeful that this isotope will be commercially useful as an aneutronic fusion fuel in the future, but mostly to propel spacecraft rather than to provide power for the Earth. This would, of course, be a space-based rather than a terrestrial application.
 
The man who started the moon hoax theory & it's spread.

It took 400,000 Nasa employees and contractors to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 – but only one man to spread the idea that it was all a hoax. His name was Bill Kaysing.

It began as “a hunch, an intuition”, before turning into “a true conviction” – that the US lacked the technical prowess to make it to the moon (or, at least, to the moon and back). Kaysing had actually contributed to the US space programme, albeit tenuously: between 1956 and 1963, he was an employee of Rocketdyne, a company that helped to design the Saturn V rocket engines. In 1976, he self-published a pamphlet called We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, which sought evidence for his conviction by means of grainy photocopies and ludicrous theories. Yet somehow he established a few perennials that are kept alive to this day in Hollywood movies and Fox News documentaries, Reddit forums and YouTube channels.

Oliver Morton, the author of The Moon: A History for the Future, believes the persistence of the moon hoax isn’t surprising. Given an implausible event for which there is lots of evidence (Apollo 11) and a plausible event for which there is zero evidence (the moon hoax), some people will opt for the latter.

“The reality is, the internet has made it possible for people to say whatever the hell they like to a broader number of people than ever before,” sighs Roger Launius, a former chief historian of Nasa. “And the truth is, Americans love conspiracy theories. Every time something big happens, somebody has a counter-explanation.”
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etc..
 
[Grinds teeth angrily]
Bill Kaysing was a technical writer. A disgrace to my profession!
 
Morning, whilst having a quite few minutes at work, we talked about the moon landings and one of our colleagues said that when the Lunar Module landed, why was there no moon dust in the lander's concave pads? He said they must've been some dust there but there is none in any of the photos. That was one thing that never occurred to me but on seeing the photos online ( yeah, I admit, they could be fake), there was none there. Any answers?
 
Crankyoldgit62 said:
Morning, whilst having a quite few minutes at work, we talked about the moon landings and one of our colleagues said that when the Lunar Module landed, why was there no moon dust in the lander's concave pads? He said they must've been some dust there but there is none in any of the photos. That was one thing that never occurred to me but on seeing the photos online ( yeah, I admit, they could be fake), there was none there. Any answers?
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Not much dust was kicked up - soft landing, low gravity.
 
Crankyoldgit62 said:
Morning, whilst having a quite few minutes at work, we talked about the moon landings and one of our colleagues said that when the Lunar Module landed, why was there no moon dust in the lander's concave pads? He said they must've been some dust there but there is none in any of the photos. That was one thing that never occurred to me but on seeing the photos online ( yeah, I admit, they could be fake), there was none there. Any answers?
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Most of the loose surface dust was blown away from the landing site, then it fell to the surface immediately. So none would fall into the pads.
 
Crankyoldgit62 said:
Morning, whilst having a quite few minutes at work, we talked about the moon landings and one of our colleagues said that when the Lunar Module landed, why was there no moon dust in the lander's concave pads? He said they must've been some dust there but there is none in any of the photos. That was one thing that never occurred to me but on seeing the photos online ( yeah, I admit, they could be fake), there was none there. Any answers?
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On earth, the motion of dust is quickly slowed by resistance with the air. You'll no doubt have seen particles of dust drifting in sunlight coming through a window, gently making it's way to rest on a surface. On the moon, no air, and dust particles blown away from the landing site continue on their trajectory until the moon's gravity drags them back down. Like much supposed evidence that the landings were faked, this is actually almost evidence that the lander really was on an alien world. There shouldn't be dust on the lander; if there were it would raise questions about how it got there. So either NASA got it right when they faked the landing, or they just forgot to liberally scatter dust about as an audience would expect to see it on Earth, or, shock, the whole thing was taking place on the moon.
 
I would think the engine blast would clear most of the dust from the area and
the engine would still be running for a sec or two after landing and that would
tend to clear any dust on the lander.
 
I was never very convinced about the moon hoax theory, but a couple of years ago I spent about a week looking into it. It mostly rests on assumptions that the workings of physics look the same in a lower gravity, airless environment with a highly reflective surface as they do on Earth. So the answers to these assumptions actually work to prove that the events depicted occurred on an alien world. Nevertheless, it was a case of the conspiracists saying X, and NASA saying 'that's because of Y,' leaving me thinking, fair enough, but NASA would say that, wouldn't they. What put the issue to bed for me was the video of an astronaut holding a flag that was supposedly 'blowing about in the wind', obviously impossible on the moon. Except it clearly wasn't blowing about in the wind. It was clearly responding to every little movement the astronaut's hand was making, with no air resistance to slow it down, and in much lower gravity than one is subject to on Earth, an effect that would have been incredibly difficult to have faked fifty years ago. This gave me a respect for just how different and difficult to predict everything is in an alien environment, and convinced me there's nothing to the moon hoax theories.
 
Tribble said:
Maybe the 1969 landing was faked using footage and scientific data from an earlier, top secret moonlanding elsewhere. They just don't want us to know about the moon base.
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Maybe the moon landings were faked by NASA's secret alien allies in human style spacesuits, the footage then sent to NASA for editing. So no humans ever went into space.
 
PeteByrdie said:
Maybe the moon landings were faked by NASA's secret alien allies in human style spacesuits, the footage then sent to NASA for editing. So no humans ever went into space.
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Just how far down does this rabbit hole go?
 

With the internet, we now have the greatest invention for gathering facts and witnessing proof of scientific discoveries but it seems there’s a lot in human nature that revels in ignorance and actively rejects what people see with their own eyes.

I remember the moon landing. I also remember that the presenters of the coverage, probably Patrick Moore, explaining that because there’s no wind on the moon, the flag was made with a wire on the top to keep it aloft.
There’s no end to the tosh you hear about this. ‘It was all filmed in a studio’.
‘The flag is blowing because of wind’.
A windy studio open to the elements and prying eyes? Do these people even know what a curtain is?
Conspiracy Theory based on ignorance is a Hydra. Hack one stupid argument off and another ill-educated and groundless opinion takes hold in its place.

We had good teachers in the old days who were up to speed on science and world affairs. I often wonder whether teenagers and young adults now are suffering as a result of a new form of education where the basics simply haven’t been explained.
 
Analogue Boy said:

With the internet, we now have the greatest invention for gathering facts and witnessing proof of scientific discoveries but it seems there’s a lot in human nature that revels in ignorance and actively rejects what people see with their own eyes.

I remember the moon landing. I also remember that the presenters of the coverage, probably Patrick Moore, explaining that because there’s no wind on the moon, the flag was made with a wire on the top to keep it aloft.
There’s no end to the tosh you hear about this. ‘It was all filmed in a studio’.
‘The flag is blowing because of wind’.
A windy studio open to the elements and prying eyes? Do these people even know what a curtain is?
Conspiracy Theory based on ignorance is a Hydra. Hack one stupid argument off and another ill-educated and groundless opinion takes hold in its place.

We had good teachers in the old days who were up to speed on science snd world affairs. I often wonder whether teenagers and young adults now are suffering as a result of a new form of education where the basics simply haven’t been explained.
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Quite a few teenagers are fans of 'alternative facts'. Perhaps some of their teachers are too...
 
"How dare you tell me what to do" is becoming "How dare you tell me what to think".
 
Analogue Boy said:

With the internet, we now have the greatest invention for gathering facts and witnessing proof of scientific discoveries but it seems there’s a lot in human nature that revels in ignorance and actively rejects what people see with their own eyes.

I remember the moon landing. I also remember that the presenters of the coverage, probably Patrick Moore, explaining that because there’s no wind on the moon, the flag was made with a wire on the top to keep it aloft.
There’s no end to the tosh you hear about this. ‘It was all filmed in a studio’.
‘The flag is blowing because of wind’.
A windy studio open to the elements and prying eyes? Do these people even know what a curtain is?
Conspiracy Theory based on ignorance is a Hydra. Hack one stupid argument off and another ill-educated and groundless opinion takes hold in its place.

We had good teachers in the old days who were up to speed on science and world affairs. I often wonder whether teenagers and young adults now are suffering as a result of a new form of education where the basics simply haven’t been explained.
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In a science or engineering based colledge they don't skimp on "math -physics-science" basics. Must solve all problems and show all work (some problems take = > 8 to 10 pages prior to deriving a solution (linear algebra, simultaneous equations, diffy-Q, etc). prior to students allowed to use a computer simulator, etc, really little change from the old days. Worked as an teaching adjunct in MW engineering doctorates program over at RIT as a fill-in job for a bit.
Total different experience from old primary schools (which in my area has improved substantially since the old days). I believe there were some very good primary teachers back then. The difference is that they monitor the performance of the primary teacher presently making it easier to circumvent poor teaching habits. Sorry not related to the moon landing, BTW nice to see some of the old coverage of the landing recently again.
 
Jim said:
In a science or engineering based colledge they don't skimp on "math -physics-science" basics. Must solve all problems and show all work (some problems take = > 8 to 10 pages prior to deriving a solution (linear algebra, simultaneous equations, diffy-Q, etc). prior to students allowed to use a computer simulator, etc, really little change from the old days. Worked as an teaching adjunct in MW engineering doctorates program over at RIT as a fill-in job for a bit.
Total different experience from old primary schools (which in my area has improved substantially since the old days). I believe there were some very good primary teachers back then. The difference is that they monitor the performance of the primary teacher presently making it easier to circumvent poor teaching habits. Sorry not related to the moon landing, BTW nice to see some of the old coverage of the landing recently again.
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BTW plenty solid discussion on why the coverage wasn't faked, some good thoughts here on the forum.
 
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The moon landings suffer from the fact that, to subsequent generations, they appear to have been one off events that came out of nowhere.

If you look into the history of astronautics, however you will see that this is not the case. In fact the manned exploration of the moon was the culmination of an evolution in technology that probably began with the V2 rockets or Tsiolovsky.

So we had Sputnik. Then dogs and chimps into orbit. Then Gargarin. Then the first spacewalk. Then unmnaned probes on the Moon. Then a spaceflight around the Moon. Then, finally, the first manned moon landings. This was the culmination of twelve years of exponential development of space technology - driven by a frantic cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union.

The Soviets had been ahead of the game - but the Americans `won` the manned exploration part of the `space race` when they planted an American flag on the lunar surface. They continued with a few more landings but, frankly, there wasn't much to see or do on the Moon - and the Soviets, who were having problems of their own, decide not to replicate the venture.

So the Moon shots were discontinued - but the technology that was involved continued to be put to use.The Soviet Union landed some probes on the surface of Venus (a somewhat overlooked part of space exploration history, by the way!) The Americans got to work on the Viking Mars landings. also of course there was a lot going on with space stations in orbit - much of which features some laudable co-operation between the East and West.

None of this, though, was quite as headline grabbing as landing a man on the moon! So, to the `man-on-the-Clapaham-omnibus` - now there's a dated phrase! - it can look as though the Americans suddenly sent a whole load of people to the Moon in the seventies - and then just as suddenly stopped.

As for the science behind it all - the info is out there but has become a bit buried. I used to own a video box set of the moon landing coverage. This explained - by broadcast journalists at the time - a lot of the questions that the hoax conspiracy nuts have since raised.

Just to give one example: who is filming Neil Armsrong's descent onto the moon as he climbs down the ladder? (After all, he is supposed to be alone!) Well the video had a TV broadcast which explained this at some length. The lunar module had a camera placed on the outside(just for this very purpose) which was activated by Armstrong himself pulling on a lanyard. Also questions about the `fluttering flag`, the lack of stars in the sky, and how they got the moon buggy into the capsule were all mentioned in broadcasts made at the time.

The video has since been junked - and there is nothing to play it on now anyway. That sort of information os probably on the web somewhere, but you'd have to know where to look - and wade through a lot of dross to ge to it. Otherwise, you'd need to get to a decent univeristy library to find such information.

So we have a seemingly one off event which hasn't been repeated, with much of the technical details hard to come by and the only people who remember it are getting on a bit now. That's the ideal soil in which conspiracy theories can grow.

Rather like Holocaust denial, in fact.
 
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That's an excellent historical overview and summation of the situations then and now.

It's hard to describe to younger folks how remarkable, wondrous, and even mind-blowing some of those early "firsts" were. To those of us who experienced such advances it was almost magical. To those who came later those milestones seem almost trivial, because they're just historical footnotes to similar milestones which are the only things subsequent generations experienced for themselves.
 
My maternal grandparents were about 60 years old at the time of the first landing. They rode to school in horse drawn buggies when they were kids because that's what everyone did. Cars and airplanes existed, but they hardly ever saw any till they got older. Before they reached retirement age, they watched people driving cars on the moon.

The Moon landings were amazing for many reasons, but when I got old enough to appreciate the fact that it was just barely doable, they took on a new dimension. They were not doable with the technology that existed at the time the decision was made to go. So much of it had to be invented. It really did change the world. It's still changing the world.

It still blows my mind that after the third landing, they started taking cars. I recall some comedian saying "Who but Americans would decide to take a car when they went to the Moon? And then just leave it there. There are abandoned cars on the Moon!"
 
To tackle the thing from another angle: how diferent would the world be if the conspiracists were right - and humanity had never set foot on the moon? Livescience.com has a go at this as a kind of alternate history thought experiment (although without mentioning the lunar `truthers`):

https://www.livescience.com/what-if-no-moon-landing.html

Their answer is a little disappointing. Apparently not much would be different, except for the fact that that the advance of space exploration itself would have been slowed down somewhat. (I thought the same would apply to computer technology too - but they don't say so).

James_H said:
The Moon Landing Hoax Theory Started as a Joke
How a freelance writer sowed doubts about the Apollo mission — now 50 years old — laying the groundwork for 9/11 truthers, birtherism, Pizzagate, and QAnon
Big if true.
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Kaysing - as a person - comes out of it rather better than I would have thought. It seems he was a before-his-time-beatnik-malcontent whose chief interest seems to have lain in (a rather commendable) desire to promote living cheaply and as much `off the grid` as one can. It sounds as if he had to be more or less goaded into writing about the Apollo missions and it was just another bit of hack work to him.

Then when the idea caught fire and got him onto radio and TV he, of course, milked it for all it was worth - he was then in his fifties after all and getting a taste of the big time for the first time in his rather drifting life. I can relate, and I don't suppose we'll ever know how seriously, deep down, he himself really took his own claims.
 
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