Anybody want to debunk this site?

[brotherofthemoon]

I found a link to this site on BAUT earlier. www.gratestshowonearth.com/speakingofdamoon.html Can't be bothered to debunk the entire thing because I'm not a genius like you guys. It does involve my personal "favorite" (cough) HB tactic, badly compressed tiny JPEG images. Isn't it amazing that ina fuzzy, tiny JPEG image you can't seem the Remote Control Unit, but in a hi-resolution digital scan you can?

vs.

He also knows jack-s*^t about the lunar module, and spends three pages devoted to the assumption that the MESA camera was mounted on the downlock assembly for the forward landing gear! He can't understand why the DPS didn't have a blast deflector if the RCS did (what's the thrust gonna impinge on, anyway?), can't figure out that a good portion of the sensing probe would have crushed under the landing pad, and acts as if the fact that the ladder didn't go all the way to the lunar surface was some sort of potentially astronaut-killing flaw!

Oh yeah, and somewhere there's a mockup of the LM that doesn't match exactly the real-life hardware. Wow, I'm convinced it's all a fake now! ;D

[nomuse]

Normally I dislike the term "Debunk," but in this case I embrace it. That site is bunk! Yet another site that uses blurred, cropped, dark, compressed pics to try to make a point. He might as well argue that the face of Brittany Spears appears inside the helmet on the left, and a salad bar is visible in the shadow of the Lander.

I think I may have seen this before. Either that, or there is a trend in using HTML code to make the site's title appear in Red, White, and Blue.

Just for laughs...

Exhibit #1: I have to say it isn't immediately obvious. In most of these "where's the...?" questions, a close look at even the compressed version of the picture will reveal traces of a ridge or similar ground formation capable of hiding them. I am a little struck by the body position, which suggests he's in the middle of a bunny step or leap. I won't make any argument based on that, however. Still, I do have to ask...if the dust was so sensitive it should show every footstep, every tire mark, et al, then HOW was the "fake" achieved? How exactly does one get camera men and assistant directors and grips and so forth through a set like this without leaving footprints everywhere? Or is he trying to imply the dust actually doesn't take footprints, and every print and tire track we DO see was molded into the scenery by an army of plaster castings?

#2: I have a possible candidate for the a bright white object in the direction of his "hotspot." The astronaut taking the picture. From the angle, this can't be the MESA, and if there is an astronaut standing behind the camera he would, it looks like, be front-lit in direct sunlight.

#3: He goes on and on about "two rocks, see two rocks, the same two rocks." Are his pattern recognition skills not up to the CRATER that appears on the lower part of both pictures? From the size and angle, it appears that astronaut #1 walked forward about ten feet. #2, with the camera, walked a couple of feet, and the camera was tilted down a little more in the second shot. Any other oddities are easily explained by cropping of the final results.

#4: I don't understand what he is going on about here. I think he is making assumptions based on absolutely flat everything...that the horizon is as flat as a board, that the Lander is completely level, and that astronauts stand bolt-upright even when climbing off a ladder. But as I said...I can't really tell what he is going on about.

#5: I'm getting tired of this game. Had to read and re-read this page for almost ten minutes before I began to understand what he was trying to say. Forget the science classes -- can we send him to English Composition first? Again I have to question his pattern recognition skills -- he points at a black object with burn marks. I see a grey object with a shiny spot. Well, okay. This seems to boil down to "a rocket is a rocket is a rocket"; that attitude control thrusters should behave exactly the same as the main descent engine. That, and the way he both mis-states the mainstream position and makes blatantly incorrect misquotes (the engine was on until touchdown?!) makes whatever point he may be making here too weak and scattered to actually argue about.

#6: Heh. Amusing, but I'd close the door. He gets so close, too....with the door standing wide open, the cabin is able to radiate heat out into its surroundings. Meaning you come back to a very cold room for the night. It is nice for a change, though, to read someone who has actually read more than a few words in his life about the program and some of the contingency planning.

#7: I love his final words; "No JPEG compression here!" Um...I didn't notice my browser loading a png...

#8: A two-in-one. First off, yes, you CAN cast a shadow like that without having to put your arms in front of your face in the classic "say cheese!" posture. I guess he doesn't spend as much of his day looking at his own shadow as I do (theater lighting technician -- ask Jay about it!) And second, the camera is, duh, detachable. How did he miss that one?

#11: Oh, let's skip a few. Interesting photometrics there. So....I can light a larger area to the same brilliance just by slanting the light? Oops...'scuse me, gotta deal with some melting ice caps here. And tell all my artist friends to stop shading spheres and cylinders.


Well. It is cute that he believes in the majority of the program, equipment, and landing series. He also appears to have some basic grasp of and respect for science. I wonder if there is a pattern in certain hoax believers one could call "mission creep"; that first they start with thinking everything was a fake, then as they encounter more convincing evidence they allow that some of it was real, and so on and so forth until they are down to that last niggling %1 that no hoax believer seems capable of finally abandoning.

[mndwrp]

i think the pattern is

"what about xyz?"
"x is this, y is nonsense because of that, and z isnt true at all"
"im not convinced..."
"its the truth .. look it up"
"uh.. what about xyz?"

[Count Zero]

That's pretty much it. Some day when you're really really really bored, look up some old posts by a HB named margamatix.

[mndwrp]

i sure will .. theyre always good for a laugh at least ! ;D

[nomuse]

Well....you can always assuage some of your hunger with these.... seaofcrisis.com/ext/babb/moonman.htm

[frenat]

nomuse said:

Well....you can always assuage some of your hunger with these.... seaofcrisis.com/ext/babb/moonman.htm

Wow. That brought back some bad memories. Now I know I won't be able to sleep tonight.

[scooter]

Actually, the LM DPS did require a some TPS to be installed on the lower legs and inner parts of the footpads for a bit of protection from the thermal environment expansion near the surface...but it was not due to "blast" effect, any more that the RCS deflectors were...The SM needed some for it's RCS as well.
It was just a hot exhaust issue, not destructive or erosive blast situation.

ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720018272_1972018272.pdf

[gwiz]

Is it my imagination, or can you see the astronauts face in the high-res pic in the OP? I can't recall the face being visible in other photos where the visor is lowered.

[PhantomWolf]

Is it my imagination, or can you see the astronauts face in the high-res pic in the OP?

Nope, your not going insane. In fact the ALSJ says about this image:

Journal Contributors Owen Merrick, Brian McInall, and Markus Mehring call attention to the fact that, in the high-resolution version, we can see Buzz peering over at Neil. In 5874 Buzz is facing the flag and saluting; but, by the time Neil takes 5875, Buzz has turned his body slightly - and his head a great deal more - to look over to see if Neil has taken the picture, possibly having lowered his right hand in the interim. Normally, the high reflectivity of the gold visor would keep us from seeing Buzz's face but, as Mehring notes, in this case "his face is directly illuminated by the sunlight from the front and at a right angle to the observer's point of view, so it literally shines through the visor, especially because he's sticking his head forward. At different viewing and illumination angles and with his head deeper inside the helmet and less brightly illuminated, reflections off of the visor that would wash out anything behind it. But in this case we're lucky."