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Post by fireballs on Aug 21, 2010 0:28:02 GMT -4
Good points, all.
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 18:45:30 GMT -4
The hoaxers put up some good arguments, IMO. Would you mind telling us which arguments of theirs you consider good? Sure. Authenticity of the moon rocks mostly, and I do see it as plausible that it could have been filmed in a studio. Couldn't they haven rented a huge studio (or studios) from MGM, filmed, and payed them off (with royalties of course)? Are any of the hoaxer's theories plausible to you guys?
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 18:26:07 GMT -4
Go to curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lsc/10003.pdf and have a read. It's a report on one rock from Apollo 11. The website has over 350 such reports, each on a rock, a core sample or a soil sample. Go to the last two pages of the article I linked and have a look at the academic articles listed - 34 of them. I counted 126 separate authors of those reports, although I suspect a few of those names were repeated. Let me make the point again - that's 126 authors writing 34 articles about one Apollo 11 rock sample. How much money would you need to shut up for the rest of your life about an event as significant as faking Apollo. Multiply it by (say) 10,000 for all the scientists who've had a look at Apollo rocks. How much money are we talking about now? I don't know where you live, but I reckon it's a better than 50% chance that if you were to contact the geology department of the university nearest to you, at least one person on the staff has studied a Moon rock. Perhaps you could talk to that person and ask them about their experiences and findings. True... Excellent points. This got me thinking, and while I'm not totally convinced they are really rocks from the moon, I'm starting to reconsider.
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 18:23:24 GMT -4
Welcome fireballs. Coming in late, but here's my two penn'orth on the subject: Radio, same as everyone else. Apollo communications frequencies were published so anyone could listen in, and since radio receivers are pretty directional, you can tell if a transmission is coming from the Moon or not. Paltry, quite simply. The only sample return missions ever performed on the Moon were simple probes that scooped up some soil from the site of the landing and then launched it back. The total amount returned is a few orders of magnitude lower than that returned by Apollo. Or it would do if all six missions were the same. Apollo 11 spent less than three hours on the surface and didn't venture more than a couple of hundred feet from the LM. Apollo 17 spent three days on the Moon and drove out to more distant sampling sites. The amount collected on each mission actually increased steadily from mission to mission, and they are distinct enough to be placed to each mission. The question is less 'would it be possible?' than 'what evidence is there it was done that way?' There is not one single scrap of evidence for the existence and launch of such robots. Given the extensive development and testing that would have to go into such a technological project, that is exceedingly unlikely. Because of their sheer weight of numbers and distribution around the world. If all you had was some NASA geologists publishing the data you might have more of a leg to stand on when questioning the information given, but for the past four decades thousands of geologists across the world have studied the Apollo samples and not one dissenting voice is heard. When a hoax requires almost an entire field of science to be written off as either incompetent or in on the lie, the idea of a hoax needs serious re-evaluation. The amount of effort required to keep such a hoax going undiscovered for decades makes actually going to the Moon look like a stroll to the corner shop. Not without being detected. The Apollo spacecraft stack was highly reflective and large, and would have been one of the brightest naked eye objects in the sky. If a bright satellite appeared in the sky at the same time and for the same duration as the Apollo 11 mission then someone would have noticed. Additionally, the TV transmissions from the spacecraft on the journey to and from the Moon lasted too long. In low Earth orbit they were only in range of any given ground-based tracking station for about ten minutes at a time (it was not until the space shuttle that a satellite network was set up allowing continuous communication from low Earth orbit). The TV transmissions from the Apollo missions were far too long to have been sent from low Earth orbit. You can see this in the Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 broadcasts, none of which was longer than 12 minutes as these missions stayed in orbit, but the lunar missions all included TV broadcasts that could only have been made in space from a location that remained in line of sight with a tracking station for anything up to an hour.If you assume the accident was genuine then it does suggest that, but if the accident was staged (and if faking going to the Moon is easy then why not faking an accident to regain public interest and make a few more NASA astronaut heroes?) then the astronauts were never at risk so it doesn't matter how long it took. See the above point though: the Apollo 13 TV broadcast from just before the accident was too long to have been made from low Earth orbit. Very good post. Can you (or someone) expand on the radio things (how could you tell from a radio transmission that it was from the moon?) and is there documentation about the bolded stuff? Thank you
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 17:49:03 GMT -4
Sorry I've taken so long... School eats up the time. Anyway, the most popular question seems to be "Why do you (I) think they are fake?" Here's an answer: To be honest, I'm 50/50. The hoaxers put up some good arguments, IMO, and so does NASA. They both sound plausible to me. There's no clincher that says "A ha! This proves they went!" The closest thing to a 'clinches' is the fact that the Russians never disputed it, though sometimes I doubt they really tracked it the right way. Secondly, I doubt the moon rocks are legit, but the posts I read today make very good points. If clarification is needed, please ask. Questions will draw more detail out of me I'll try to respond to some of the posts, but there's a lot so I might not get to everyone.
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 0:06:50 GMT -4
Fendell was the guy in Mission Control who remotely operated the Lunar Rover camera to film the EVAs on Apollo 15, 16 and 17. Makes sense then But what are the greatest reasons why the missions were not filmed in a studio and were real?
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Post by fireballs on Aug 20, 2010 0:00:45 GMT -4
The Apollo footage was filmed by people like Ed Fendell, yes. I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 23:46:44 GMT -4
The reason I don't buy the idea that NASA could just bribe people into going along with the hoax is that a) it's a lot of people and would get really expensive, and b) it would be an ongoing expense for pretty much the rest of time. They would have to bribe every new scientist who could potentially expose the hoax... forever. Also, eventually someone is going to get a guilty conscience and expose the hoax despite the fact that they took the bribe. This is very true. Here's what I have been able to put together so far: 1) NASA claims to have put a man on the moon (duh) 1a) Claims backed up by: -pictures -moon rocks (which I still doubt somewhat) -repeated missions -Russians never said anything -There is 3rd party evidence -etc. I still doubt the moonrocks for the reasons I've listed (if clarification is needed, please ask). And I can still see it as a possibility that it was filmed.... I guess I need some sense beat into me (with a moonrock)
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 22:05:48 GMT -4
Thanks for the links! ;D But the only problem I have is with the moon rock one. How can we trust those people? Could NASA have paid them off? I'm covering all the bases here...
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 21:55:34 GMT -4
Check the link in Reply #9 I did; that does appear to help.
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 21:47:48 GMT -4
Regular satellites are no where near as bright as Apollo was. I've probably seen hundreds of them and most satellites are hardly noticeable unless you're looking for them. On the other hand, when the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station passes overhead, it is very bright and obvious. Satellite observing is a hobby with some people, and these experienced folks would never be fooled by a cover story alleging that Apollo was really some other satellite. I see...
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 21:46:21 GMT -4
With what instruments did the USSR track Apollo 11?In 1969 the Soviets had a half dozen ground stations and about a dozen tracking ships. During their missions they also employed airborne tracking equipment. The Soviet deep-space network was not as capable as the U.S. network and did not provide as extensive a coverage, but was capable of tracking Apollo 11 over most of the Earth's rotation. The Soviet tracking system was not too different from the NASA MSFN, and had a central coordination facility northwest of Moscow. Modern Russian astronomy journals have reported on their early attempts to intercept and interpret Apollo 11 signals, including television. The Soviets were able independently to decode and watch U.S. television signals originating from Apollo 11 on the lunar surface, without the knowledge of NASA. The Soviets were well-equipped to observe Apollo operations. What was sample-return technology of the 1960s and sample-return technology of today?The total amount retrieved by unmanned sample-return spacecraft is substantially less than 1 kilogram of undifferentiated lunar surface material. No other sample-return technology has been maintained or developed. In order for 350 or more kilograms of lunar surface material to be returned by the known sample-return methods of the 1960s and 1970s, a successful sample-return mission would have to be launched approximately every 3 days for a number of years. There is no technological evidence supporting an unmanned sample-return capability as the explanation for 350 kg of lunar material. Why can we believe the scientists that have examined the moon rocks...Because in 40 years of relevant peer-reviewed scientific inquiry, the only grounds upon which to dispute their findings has been the unsubstantiated disbelief on the part of a very small number of unqualified people. Could they be in on the alleged hoax?No one has been able to prove that there is a hoax, much less that legions of trained and otherwise disinterested professionals are party to it. Collusion seems very unlikely since a substantial fraction of the relevant scientists have no ideological motivation to support a hoax. In short, there is no demonstrated hoax and no reason to suppose that everyone would agree with it if there were. Could Apollo 11 have remained in Low Earth Orbit for 8 days while NASA was filming the mission on the ground?No. It would be visible to the naked eye over most of the Earth's surface, and it would be out of contact with the tracking stations worldwide that are known to have tracked it. Does Apollo 13 prove the moon missions were real?Hoax advocates accommodate Apollo 13 into their hoax scenarios by various means. The Apollo 13 accident doesn't affect an argument for authenticity or an argument for a hoax. However, any scenario postulated as history must account for the observations. If they were simply orbiting around the earth, it is highly unlikely NASA would have risked their lives to keep the secret...Remaining on orbit is not especially risky compared to launch and re-entry. The mere fact of getting a crew out of the atmosphere and committing to recover them alive later establishes a significant baseline risk. Each day spent in the stable state of a parking orbit presents only a small nominal risk on top of that. If a hoax scenario incorporates the notion that the crew may have been days away from an abortive return when the accident occurred, then keeping them in orbit that number of days in order to make the hoax seem more plausible does not present a substantially greater risk to life. However, as mentioned above, the CSM/LM stack would have been a significant naked-eye object while in orbit. Therefore to keep a crew in Earth orbit that's supposed to be enduring a life-or-death drama in translunar orbit presents a significant risk of detection. Good post, yet I'm still skeptical
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 21:43:22 GMT -4
1) With what instruments did the USSR track Apollo 11? I've heard the argument made that the USSR never disputed the moon landings, therefore they believe they happened. But what did the Soviets use to track? The Soviets/Russians have a deep space tracking network like NASA, though I can't quote off the top of my head exactly what equipment is used. Don't forget that the Soviets had been sending their own robotic missions to the Moon, Venus and Mars for a decade prior to Apollo, for which they required deep space tracking capability. There has only been three successful missions that landed on another solar system body and returned samples to Earth. These where USSR's Luna 16 (1970), 20 (1972) and 24 (1976). Together these missions returned about 300 grams of lunar soil. No other nation has returned even a pebble much less 800 pounds of rocks. The Apollo samples also consisted of core drills extracted from several feet into the surface. Do you really believe that every scientist from every country that has ever examined an Apollo lunar sample is part of some 40+ year old worldwide conspiracy? Believing that seems like quite a stretch to me. Not without being seen. The Apollo spacecraft were easy naked eye objects to observe in the sky. Furthermore, there are people who observed the spacecraft leaving Earth orbit along paths consistent with a trajectory to the Moon.Excellent post all around, but I want to focus on the bolded part. I am tending to believe this is true, but is there documentation of this? (If there is, can it be trusted?)
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 21:40:47 GMT -4
Also, I'm just curious, but why single out Apollo 11 in your question? What about the other eight Apollo Moon flights? I figure that if Apollo 11 is proved, the other missions are validated as well.
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Post by fireballs on Aug 19, 2010 18:48:32 GMT -4
4) Could Apollo 11 have remained in Low Earth Orbit for 8 days while NASA was filming the mission on the ground? If not, why not? How would NASA have kept people from seeing it? There's a quote in the "Humour in Space" thread about people seeing Gemini 7 at night over the Rose Knot Victor tracking ship; it was a bright naked eye object. A larger Apollo spacecraft would have been highly visible to people on Earth also. apollohoax.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=apollo&thread=2020&page=1#60149Could they have said it's merely a satellite? I'm sure that by 1969 there were some satellites up there, but not a lot.
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