A Proposition...

[Fnord Fred]

For the most part, the only fight we have come up with against the HBers is to (repeatedly) explain why their 'proof' is either scientifically inconsistent, or just plain wrong.

Perhaps a change of tactics is in order: there are plenty of things that would make the moon hoax difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish:

The amount of people, and organizations, involved.

The moon rocks brought back, and confirmed by geologists here and abroad.

The visibility of the apollo spacecraft in orbit, followed by a disappearance - exactly at the time they said they were heading to the moon!

Radio transmissions that not only origionated from the proper area, but had the appropriate delay of an object that is broadcasting from the moon.

Personally, I'd be much more interested in exactly how NASA was able to overcome all these hurdles than arguing about whether or not I have a shadow on a sunny day.

Any takers?

[PeterB]

Not a bad thought, Fnord Fred. The points you raise have been discussed in a range of threads, such as the thread I started for Margamatix and I to talk about radio signals.

You're also right about the importance of these points compared to, say, the direction a shadow points. But in that case it's important to show that a dodgy shadow only proves the *photo* is faked, not the mission.

[Retrograde]

I think that's an excellent idea. It's much better if they do the dance and we critique it, rather than the other way around...

[PhantomWolf]

laughs. That'd be the day.

[Mr Gorsky]

I think the chances of any HB being willing to approach it on that basis are somewhere between wafer thin and zero, judging by what I have seen so far.

IF the moon landings had been hoaxed, there is no way it could possibly have survived this long if the proof of the hoax were available simply by studying the photographic, audio or video record, or critiquing the design of the LM or the space suits.

Moreover, any claims that it was just impossible due to the conditions prevailing in space would surely have now been backed up by the many companies who launch satellites into space (and have them continue to function) if it were the case.

And claims that late '60s technology wasn't up to the task would surely have been reinforced by other Aerospace companies (particularly those who lost the tenders for Apollo hardware) if it were true.

And I could go on.

The problem we often have when HBs come to the site and start to argue their case is that their case is mostly based on their beliefs, not on a study of the evidence. That is a very hard situation to counter. If someone has mis-read the evidence to come to their conclusion and then their error can be pointed out and the correct interpretation articulated then it is likely that a HB will change their mind. If, however, they believe in the hoax as a matter of faith it is a completely different matter.

The existence of God is a matter or faith. I can't empirically prove that he exists, and someone else can't empirically prove that he doesn't, so we can debate that backwards and forwards until doomsday without there ever being a consensus.

Apollo happened or it didn't. FACT. There are people alive today who saw it, built the hardware, were involved in it, or even personally walked on the moon. There are copious photos, videos and rocks brought back from the moon as additional evidence.

It is not a matter of faith - unlike the existence of God, there is a right answer that we can see, touch and feel right here, right now.

Even establishing that it COULD have been hoaxed (which I doubt) does nothing to prove that it WAS hoaxed .

... and I'll stop venting now. Thank you for listening.

[sts60]

Perhaps a change of tactics is in order: there are plenty of things that would make the moon hoax difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish:

Fred, a nice idea, but I doubt it would work very often. Consider margamatix for example: he just insisted everything was shot in a sound stage somewhere, or in the Nevada desert. The only times he bothered with the details, he'd be shown clearly where he was wrong, but almost never acknowledged it. He'd just throw out something else, or snipe here and there with a "It never happened"-type comment.

How do you think we could get someone like that to actually discuss the details of how to fake something? Or acknowledge they were wrong on something?

Moon Man, how about you? Are you still reading this board?

turbonium might be willing to, but he doesn't seem that attached to the Apollo hoax idea.

By the way, I've been to Chamber A at JSC, the largest vacuum chamber I've ever seen. It's enormous. And clearly too small to successfully fake much of the Apollo footage.

Another BTW - I gotta believe that 8*10^5 liters/sec maximum leakage rate figure near the bottom is a typo! No, wait, it's a whistleblower subtly letting us know that the Apollo testings was hoaxed!

[gwiz]

sts60 said:

Another BTW - I gotta believe that 8*10^5 liters/sec maximum leakage rate figure near the bottom is a typo! No, wait, it's a whistleblower subtly letting us know that the Apollo testings was hoaxed!

Dunno, it's consistent. A leak at that rate is well below the quoted pumping capacity, and would take a few hours to completely refill the chamber if the pumps were switched off.

[sts60]

It just sounds like a helluva lot of air whistling in.

Lessee, conservative estimate from working dimensions of 16.8 m (55 ft) diameter x 27.4 m (90 ft) high... pi r squared * height
3.14159*(8.4m)^2*27.4 m = 6073 cubic meters
1 liter = 10^-3 cubic meters
So total volume roughly = 6073 cu. m / 10^-3 cu. m/L = 6.07 * 10^6 liters

6*10^6 liters, compared to 8*10^5 L/s... something's amiss here. I think it has to do with the pressure of what's leaking in... Certainly the chamber isn't gonna fill up with sea-level air in 10 seconds if the pumps stop. Yeah, that must be it - the figures are right, but I ignored the pressure value (10^-6 torr) for both the pumping rate and the leak rate.

Note to self: as my high school physics teacher would have said, RTGDP*.




* Read The G__-D___ed Problem. He was a Catholic priest, BTW.

[Fnord Fred]

phantomwolf said:

laughs. That'd be the day.

Yeah, I know. I'd love to hear what they have to say though.

[jaydeehess]

claims that late '60s technology wasn't up to the task would surely have been reinforced by other Aerospace companies (particularly those who lost the tenders for Apollo hardware) if it were true.

An addendum and retort to this is that the technology of the day to hoax the Apollo landings would be very primitive and extremely expensive, requiring hundreds of technicians and stage personnel. The later "2001:A Space Odyssey" proves the point, it took a full contingent of a Hollywood production company to produce, cost a bundle of money and compared to today's special effects it is frankly obviously a movie production. Yet "2001" was produced with no restrictions due to secrecy.

Further, the Apollo "charade" would require the involvement of persons around the world, who are not American citizens, who would be working for NASA only peripherally, who would be technically savvy and who would all have to be utterly convinced that the "project" they were working on was 100% as advertised. These people would also have to be paid driving the cost to much greater heights than a simple movie production.

Then you have to do it not once but several times over the next few years, again multiplying the cost.

In short, it would have been cheaper to actually send men to the Moon and back that to fake it to the extent required to obtain what we now have as a record of the Apollo missions.

[Obviousman]

It really comes down to: it would have been easier to do it than to fake it.

Some people believe that' it's possible to perpetuate a 'hoax' for over a quarter of a decade, with the worlds (not just US) technical experts examining every little detail of the missions, and thousands of people involved. It just can't be done.

I no longer try to convince the HBs that the events were as recorded; there is no evidence that will ever convince them.

What I try to do (apart from having sport with the HBs) is to show those who actually SEEK knowledge that it DID happen, provide the resources to explain HOW it happened, and encourage them to do their own experiments to verify the data that others provide.

[AstroSmurf]

I also wonder how in the blazes they managed to find the budget for the fakery. After all, you have to pay the subcontractors (non-fudgeable), the NASA employees (non-fudgeable), pay for offices, cars, machinery, build the VAB and associated buildings, the launch pad and so forth. All under the eagle eyes of a lot of Congress members who weren't too keen on spending more money than necessary. All this is necessary regardless of whether you fake it or not.

To fake it, you also need to:
* build robotic sample-returning probes. Stealthed. A lot of them - we have 800 lb of moon rocks, which can't be convincingly faked.
* launch and control all those probes, as well as retrieve their samples.
* build a gargantuan vacuum chamber for the faked films, larger than anything we have today. The filming is mostly a matter of enough man-hours - cheap in comparison to most other items.
* pay bribes to quite a few people so they keep quiet - *someone* has to manage all those sample-return missions. Robots don't fly themselves.
* beef up FBI/CIA coverage to keep track of all the potential whistle-blowers

So where does the money come from? And how is this cheaper than doing it for real?

[gwiz]

Well, the Saturn V launches were real, I saw one myself, so maybe that's when they launched the robotic sample collectors. They'd have to be pretty clever machines to move around on the surface of the moon, deploy the laser reflectors, recognize anorthosite, photograph the rocks in situ before collecting them, put the gnomon in each picture, use a hammer to knock samples off large rocks, get deep core samples...
No, it's easier to send a couple of astronauts.

[sts60]

Don't forget they'd have to deploy the ALSEP experiments, which were designed to be deployed by hand - including removing the isotope heat source from one of the LM legs. And the ALSEP sensors, connected by wires to the base station, were deployed over spans up to the length of a (U.S.) football field. (My boss worked on ALSEP and was in one of the backrooms during those missions.)

Oh yeah, don't forget the people who received the years of ALSEP telemetry, in many places not only in the U.S. but also the Bahamas, Australia, Chile, and other places. And the scientists who reviewed the data.

[linuxboatr]

Although I find the scientific for/against a hoax arguments enlightening and entertaining, I look at the views of HBers in a more black and white sense.

By believing it was all a hoax, what kind of insult is that to the integrity, character and honor of the hundreds of thousands of people involved? These people took time away from their families and poured themselves and significant portions of their lives into Apollo. That applies from the guy or gal turning screws on the line all the way up to the astronauts themselves. And in some cases, they paid with their lives (Chaffee, White, Grissom, See, Williams, etc).

To cheapen, denigrate or otherwise cast off these sacrifices as insignificant or mere profiteerer offends me deeply. And what does it say about the views and mentality of the HBers towards others? I can think a lot of words to describe such attitudes and most of them are not kind.

Just my view on it and I wonder if the HBers would be so rabid and "holier-than-thou" in their beliefs if they had to stand before someone who spend weekends and nights away from his wife and kids and tell them it was all a hoax and that "none of it really happened". I'm pretty sure "amused" would not be the reaction they would get in return.

Matt