"Debate" on Kiwi Message Board

[Kiwi]

"Did man walk on the moon" started 9:13am yesterday.
www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=16499126&threadid=16499126

I didn't see it until after 10pm because I was here and at the LPI's site, but I've made a few posts, numbers 88, 89, 91, 92, 96, 103, 104, and 105.

It's full of the usual stuff -- flags, shadows, seering radiation hell, anti-Americanism, and "why haven't we been back?" I've referred them to my brief rebuttal of the the Fox programme at BAUT, and to BobB's, JayUtah's and this site, in post 92.

If anyone can post direct links that answer any specific queries (preferably brief ones to suit the posters' attention spans -- they're mostly into unpunctuated one-liners) I'd appreciate it.

Once the thread dies it will vanish into cyberspace in about two days -- nothing is archived because the message board is just an extra on an auction site.

It's too nice an afternoon to sit at the computer, so I'm off out into the sun now at 1:36pm. Probably back tonight.

[pzkpfw]

Nice work, as always, from DBB.

[Kiwi]

Two excellent, brief posts:
www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=16499126&p=3&c=1

112. Did man walk on the moon?
Of course they did! The Apollo Moon landings were among the most completely documented and observed events in history. The conspiracy "theories" that claim otherwise are a bunch of nonsense without even a single compelling piece of evidence. Most of the questions raised are based on ignorance of basic physics and optics. Video special effects were in their infancy in the late 60's so that faking a landing on the Moon would probably have been more difficult than actually going there, and it seems highly unlikely that the hundreds or even thousands of people who would have had to be involved in such a conspiracy would have kept it a secret for so long.
lifestylz (249 ) 9:10 pm, 6 Apr

113. And it shows a lot of ignorance by those
who ask "If they have been there why haven't they gone back?" .. hello... They went back many times......
lifestylz (249 ) 9:11 pm, 6 Apr




To turn one of the usual queries around and perhaps make the answer a little more understandable to a layperson, could those who know how to do the maths please work out at what distance the Hubble telescope could resolve the LM's descent stage?

And I'm guessing that another factor that could be a problem is what we generally call "camera shake." Put another way, if Hubble could resolve the lander, could it actually freeze an image of it? Could its orbital motion be too fast for it to do that?

It is least likely to be a problem when Hubble is moving directly toward or away from a landing site, but it might be a big problem when moving close to parallel to it.

[sts60]

I don't know offhand if Hubble could, but in general it is not a problem to do so. Or, more correctly, it is a problem which has been solved, as both military and civilian high-resolution imagers can take such images. I've worked on two of the latter (which used the "push-broom" technique in which a linear imager is swept across the imaging target).

[Grand Lunar]

This is just a guess. I suppose Hubble would have to be the same distance it is away from Earth to resolve the landers, some 200 km or so.
I also suppose that a similar problem arises, just as it does when Hubble takes a peak at the Earth; that the image is smeared.

[donnieb]

In fact, Hubble has imaged the Moon (though of course at much too low resolution to show the Apollo remnants). To do so, they had to do the thing you suggest: correct for the motion of the target.

Besides the "push-broom" method (scanning an image by letting the camera's motion provide one of the image's dimensions while snapping a series of narrow lines), you can do what Hubble did for the Moon shot (heh). You aim at the moving target and slew the camera to follow it. It's the same technique used by an Earth-bound telescope to correct for the Earth's rotation.

It wouldn't work for a camera in low orbit if the image required a long exposure, since the angle to the target would be changing. Of course, from low orbit in daylight your exposure time can be very short, so that's less of a problem.

[petereldergill]

Wow, i've never seen so many uninformed people in one spot before. It's not even a hoax site and I can't believe that som many of them believe in the hoax...Kinda scares me a bit as to what the general population thinks

Most of the comments are like :"We didn't go to the moon...and thats a fact"

A lot of anti US sentiment I noticed there as well

Pete

[Retrograde]

petereldergill said:

Wow, i've never seen so many uninformed people in one spot before. It's not even a hoax site and I can't believe that som many of them believe in the hoax...Kinda scares me a bit as to what the general population thinks

Most of the comments are like :"We didn't go to the moon...and thats a fact"

A lot of anti US sentiment I noticed there as well

Pete

Look on the bright side. There's another lot of people with whom I'll never have to compete for a job. . .

[JayUtah]

If only it were that easy. Goofy, illogical beliefs do not disqualify people from getting employment, nor from attaining positions of considerable authority. You may not have to compete against such people for a job, but you may have to be interviewed by one. Conspiracism scares the willies out of me because our society is indeed arranged such that nearly everyone, at some point and in some capacity, has power over some number of others. And if that power is exercised illogically or from highly biased and misinformed viewpoints, we all suffer.

[Retrograde]

jayutah said:

If only it were that easy. Goofy, illogical beliefs do not disqualify people from getting employment, nor from attaining positions of considerable authority. You may not have to compete against such people for a job, but you may have to be interviewed by one. Conspiracism scares the willies out of me because our society is indeed arranged such that nearly everyone, at some point and in some capacity, has power over some number of others. And if that power is exercised illogically or from highly biased and misinformed viewpoints, we all suffer.

I guarantee you, not one of these people would ever get past the reception desk of where I am right now. But regarding this one:

Conspiracism scares the willies out of me because our society is indeed arranged such that nearly everyone, at some point and in some capacity, has power over some number of others.

The local lying scumbag here, who has lied about some things of which I have first hand knowledge, is the best argument against democracy I've ever seen.

[Grand Lunar]

That is scary what you say, Jay.

I only hope that such people stay out of the aerospace industry and NASA.

[Tanalia]

kiwi said:

To turn one of the usual queries around and perhaps make the answer a little more understandable to a layperson, could those who know how to do the maths please work out at what distance the Hubble telescope could resolve the LM's descent stage?

From The RASC Calgary Centre: Can a telescope see the Lunar Landers or Lunar Rovers on the Moon?:

Hubble would have to be in orbit around the Moon at an altitude of about 1300 km, instead of in orbit around the Earth at about 569 km.

Also, regarding Earth-based telescopes:

...even ignoring the limitation imposed by Earth's atmosphere we can see that we would need an optical telescope with an objective mirror about 100 meters (about 328 feet) in diameter to just about be able to see the landers and the rovers.

Since the largest Optical telescope in the world is only 10 meters in diameter, it would probably be just as expensive to build the required telescope as it would cost to go there and take a picture with a normal camera.

Plus quite a bit more -- a very good reference.

[Kiwi]

Many thanks, Tanalia. I'd forgotten about that site and not kept a link to it, even though I'd alerted the webmaster to a typo, and since then it has said, "As [some mad Kiwi] pointed out..."

How embarrassing. I'm sure it's due to a progressive and fatal disease called Oldfartitis.

Pzkpfw and any other Kiwis who can post at Trade Me: Thanks for doing your bit. I'd suggest keeping the thread alive for a few days -- if we do we might get somebody inquisitive or help someone who's just looking. There are links there, but people are lazy.

An easy thing to do is just refer to a question and answer it briefly. There are plenty there to pick away at:
26 No stars
27 Flag blowing
29 Shadows
37 Shadows
40 Movie set [background] looking identical
48 Emigrant Valley or Area 51 similar surface to the moon
54 Moonlandings made no difference to ordinary life
60 No crater under LM
62 Searing radiation hell
116 Ask Neil Armstrong

A few posters are just chain-yankers having fun, and right now it's 10:30pm so there are the usual Saturday night drunks.


Wow, i've never seen so many uninformed people in one spot before. It's not even a hoax site and I can't believe that so many of them believe in the hoax...Kinda scares me a bit as to what the general population thinks

I just look in there briefly most days to view the thread titles -- it's the only New Zealand board I visit -- and occasionally post queries or help where I can, but so many threads are of such a low level that I don't bother with them. There are some marvellous, intelligent, helpful people there, but the General section tends to attract the most basic type and with so many threads people just post on those that particulalry interest them. Also, many of them probably don't have anything better to do.

As you say, it's a bit scary, but I definitely don't think that that degree of ignorance or gullibility is indicative of the general population -- at least not in my experience. At least, I hope not!

[james]

Great link Tanalia. What I found the most interesting on that page was the part titled, "Is there another way to "see them"?". I have been thinking about that exact same idea for the last while and wondered if it would be at all possible to catch a glint of sunlight reflecting off the LM or what have you. I figured that it may be an unrealistic idea, but it's neat to see that some one else has thought of this as well. Maybe the idea is a lot more common then I am aware of?

Anyway, sorry to go a bit off topic there.

[Kiwi]

The thread died for 48 hours but has now developed a new life. It was resurrected rather nicely by a new member:

129. How to fake a moon landing - by Nasa. Part One
Do it ONCE. Any more, like, say, 6 times & you're sure to make mistakes. Take just one photo (just enough to "prove" you went - like Hillary on Everest),and make it a good-un or people will see 'anomalies'. No TV pictures either. Make an excuse like "the equipment was damaged going through the Van Halen radiation belts". Build your own fake space ships - dont contract out to a bunch of private companies. If you ask them to build fake stuff one of their 400,000 employees might be tempted to spill the beans. And if you ask them to build ships that really could take men to the moon("nudge,nudge,wink,wink") the crazy fools might just do it. Next thing they are pestering you for a seat in Mission Control.
billyteejames (new) 10:29 pm, 9 Apr

130. How to fake a moon landing - by Nasa. Part Two
Send a real spaceship to the moon. People have this habit of looking up at the sky - sometimes with telescopes. The pesky critters will wonder where went the big freakin' rocketship they saw take off from Florida. Send pre-recorded tapes with said spaceship, of "astronauts" talking. Those same nerds will be listening in on their radio telescopes. So will the Russians (try bribing THEM with wheat). The "astronauts" will be expected to talk about same day events (like baseball results), so to ensure the pre-recordings are accurate you'll need a good psychic. The best psychics advertise on www.badastronomy.com.
billyteejames (new) 10:30 pm, 9 Apr

131. How to fake a moon landing - by Nasa. Part Three
Do not pretend to do scientific experiments. Real scientists will want to see the data & check the results. They are funny like that. Dont - and this ones the killer - pretend to bring back moon rocks. Moon rocks cannot be faked and geologists will spot the fakes in a heart-beat - even the ones your rocket scientist collected in Antarctica. If anyone challenges you, say 'hogwash' a lot.
billyteejames (new) 10:31 pm, 9 Apr

133. Keeping the Russians quiet... Check out those huge buildings in the Google Earth shots of Area 51. In the 60's they were filled with stuff to bribe hostile countries, to keep them quiet. The Russians got wheat, the Chinese got opium, the French got Jerry Lewis movies....
billyteejames (new) 11:17 pm, 9 Apr


The opening poster said, after I tried to explain the eight astronauts killed:

146. yes but i still feel that 8 is a huge number of astronauts in that time frame no matter how they died.
desprtehouswife (1 ) 2:26 pm, 10 Apr

and

149. ok so if you take all the risk takers in the world mountain climbers, sky divers etc...would 8 of them die in like the next year? no, i wouldnt think so!
desprtehouswife (1 ) 2:37 pm, 10 Apr

Oh my! There have probably been more than eight risk-takers killed in New Zealand already this year.