Should I really believe in the Moon landings?

[BertL]

apollo13 said:

My dad told me once that when the astronuts were landing on the moon on mission, maybe Apollo 11, people were already thinking about the hoax theories to try and get some money, is that true?

Well, my Grandad always said "Men on the moon? Impossible!" from the moment the moon landing was on TV. And even before that.

[Bob B.]

reynoldbot said:

I know that the story of Roswell didn't become popular until several years after the incident.

The Roswell story didn't become very well known until decades after the incident. The incident pretty much fell off the radar screen until the late 1970s. It then seemed to gain further notoriety at the 50th anniversary in 1997.

[graham2001]

gillianren said:

I'm a big fan of the first half-dozen seasons of The X-Files. I never believed in byzantine conspiracy theories. I'd say pretty much none of my friends did, either. I think that, if anything, it tapped into a pre-existing mindset, letting people who'd already think that way have something to focus on. If The X-Files had never aired, there would still be CTs. I think the internet'd increase their numbers, too.

Ditto, I liked some episodes, but I couldn't stand the 'big conspiracy' episodes (with the notable exception of ' Jose Chung's From Outer Space').

I can also remember reading in a conspiracy magazine ('New Dawn") around the time that the 'X-Files' was coming out in Australia a letter which described the series as "...dramatized accounts of real but suppressed events...".

As I remember it (I no longer have the magazine) the editors came down on the writer of that letter pretty hard, not that they were unwilling to 'hitch their star' to the series mystique.

[frenat]

jason said:

I wonder if the popularity of "The X-Files" in the nineties has anything to do with conspiracy theories being more in vogue today.

I think it has more to do with the advent of the internet enabling any nutjob with two fingers to type up something and disseminate it to thousands of people with little effort. There have always been people willing to believe in these things, they just didn't have the access to them that the internet affords.

[Obviousman]

gwiz said:

countzero said:

Don't fly the shuttle in cold weather.

Probably not sufficient, seeing the number of earlier Shuttle flight that showed evidence of minor leaks past the O-rings. If I'd had to pick one relatively simple fix, it would have been the joint heaters to keep the O-rings warm.

There were other factors as well. They found that a pre-flight test to confirm seal integrity could leave one of the O-rings in a displaced position, increasing the chance of blow-by. The fix was relatively simple: after the test was done (which involved compressed air, IIRC), air was forced into a second valve which then ensured that the O-ring was properly seated.

[sts60]

I think it has more to do with the advent of the internet enabling any nutjob with two fingers to type up something and disseminate it to thousands of people with little effort. There have always been people willing to believe in these things, they just didn't have the access to them that the internet affords.

Harlan Ellison said it best:
G______it! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!

[JayUtah]

The temperature issue was exacerbated by there not actually having been a clear rule about how cold was too cold. It's not that NASA thought the shuttle could fly in any weather, but no one knew where to draw the line and why. So part of that infamous negotiation between Thiokol and NASA was the subtext of who got to make those decisions in absence of a pre-arranged flight rule.

No, of course the remark attributed to Yeager wouldn't have solved all the problems. But it would perhaps have charted a more useful course.

The O-rings weren't the only mechanical problem with the shuttle at that time. So when lamenting the long grounding to redesign the SRB field joint, remember that a lot of other potential disasters were quietly fixed in the meantime too -- things that had fewer opportunities for operational remedy.

[Grand Lunar]

bertls said:

apollo13 said:

My dad told me once that when the astronuts were landing on the moon on mission, maybe Apollo 11, people were already thinking about the hoax theories to try and get some money, is that true?

Well, my Grandad always said "Men on the moon? Impossible!" from the moment the moon landing was on TV. And even before that.

While not on the same line, I recall what my grandfather told me about when he was a child in school (he was born in 1921, so i estimate this was in the late '20s, early '30).
The teacher made a graph, representing the level of technology. She then said "By the 1980s, we should reach the moon". My grandfather's thought was "But our propellers would fall off before we get there!"
Different world back then.

[apollo13]

grandlunar1980 said:

bertls said:

Well, my Grandad always said "Men on the moon? Impossible!" from the moment the moon landing was on TV. And even before that.

While not on the same line, I recall what my grandfather told me about when he was a child in school (he was born in 1921, so i estimate this was in the late '20s, early '30).
The teacher made a graph, representing the level of technology. She then said "By the 1980s, we should reach the moon". My grandfather's thought was "But our propellers would fall off before we get there!"
Different world back then.

;D funny

[JayUtah]

Along those same lines I remember many years ago flying in a DC-3 to a remote location with some "interesting" co-passengers. The pilot rolled out onto the runway and performed the magneto check, which involves switching each engine from one magneto to the other in the redundant set and then throttling up a bit in each case with the brakes on to prevent rolling. One of the passengers who had clearly made abundant use of a nearby bar yelled up in a slurred voice to the cockpit: "Let up on yer clutch a little bit!"

[apollo13]

;D again thats funny!
was it some drunk guy?

[JayUtah]

Yep, some grizzled old drunk guy.

[svector]

jayutah said:

Yep, some grizzled old drunk guy.

Before I get on a plane, I always make sure the pilot knows how to use a stick shift.

[scooter]

...I make sure I'm grizzled and drunk, myself...(edit...I have this image of Ron White right now...)

[graham2001]

gwiz said:

There were a few news stories at the time along the lines of "These primitive people in [insert third-world country of your choice] don't believe the Americans have reached the moon, because [local moon deity] would have stopped them". Those days were of course before the concept of political correctness was developed. I don't recall anyone putting the hoax theory forward as a serious possibilty at the time, or even after "Capricorn One" was released,

The moon hoax concept gets mentioned in Rodney Dales 'The Tumor in the Whale'. It's one of the early books on Urban Legends and is most famous for coining the term FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) to describe the source of such stories.

On pages 120-121 of the 1978 edition there is reference to tales clearly inspired by 'Alternative 3' of the US and Soviet Union covering up the discovery of 'artifacts' on the moon, this is in turn linked to a 1950's British comedy entitled 'The First Man on the Moon' which has a misdirected moon rocket coming down in the Australian outback (The confused astronaut has an encounter with empty baked bean tin and then a prospector searching for uranium). It also mentions that in Mexico it was supposedly widely believed that the Moon Landings were faked in a TV studio (Shades of 'Capricorn One'.).

It may be that the Moon Hoax stories circulated widely outside the US before entering the country in the wake of 'Capricorn One'.