Should NASA Try To Refute Crackpots? 507
angkor writes "CNN has an interesting article on the dilemma faced by NASA: what is the proper way to deal with far-out theories given exposure (and legitimacy) by the media--ignore the crackpots or refute them?"
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a very simple calculation, based on how much influence the crackpots have over the Senate appropriations committee (or whoever decides NASA's funding). If the level of influence on NASA's budget >> the expense of convincing the crackpots, then they should do it, and if not, they shouldn't bother.
Re:spin it in your favor (Score:2, Interesting)
Let the crackpots join in, and let them make fools of themselves infront of millions. Problem solved.
Just my $0.02
You can't see the lander (Score:4, Interesting)
Show them the moon lander through a telescope, they say the telescope has been tampered with.
Thats the whole point of these debunking missions you can't see the lander on the moons surface or the rovers, even with modern telescopes the size relationship between the lander and any earth based telescope is just too small its like looking for a grain of sand from 100,000 miles away.
I believe Japan is launching a mission [isas.ac.jp] in 2003 to photograph the moon [estec.esa.nl] (called LUNAR-A) from a hi resolution camera on a low orbit satellite , also a californian company is doing the same with a mission called Trailblazer [bbc.co.uk] which also should prove/disprove that mankind was indeed on the moon.
In order to see if someone is lying you cannot ask the said lier to show evidence especially if fabrication of evidence was an issue in the first place , that is why its probably a better idea for a independant non connected 3rd party to verify the accused lier's claims.
Of course this still probably wont be enough for the hoax/conspiracy believers as they will say NASA skewed the results or "tainted" the 3rd party.
You must remember, we live in an age of liers [enron.com] and fraudsters [andersen.com] and no one is untouchable even a established science agency such as NASA or members of the American goverment [bbc.co.uk], after all no one thought Enron or AC would be one of the biggest frauds in history so it is somewhat understandable that people don't believe everything they see
But for the "ignorant" masses an independant investigation will go a long way to dispell any doubts, especially from one by a country independant from that of the said "fraudsters", plus with any luck they might be able to complete some worthy science along the way.
Re:I find it interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is not quite the case. The onboard computers may have been quite low powered (more like 1984 calculators, acutually...), but dont forget the huge amounts of mainframes on the ground that did all the serious number crunching to feed the little nav-comps.
During the same period, Sozuz craft used a mechanical drum autopilot system, and the first few Shuttle missions had a number of TI programmable calculators stuck to the dash with velcro, to assist in working out ground station aquisition times, IIRC, as the onboard gear was a decade out of date.
So on-board byte-bashing is no reason to lose faith in Moon Landings, after all you can see where you are going!
Re:Bring me to the moon. (Score:2, Interesting)
Compromise (Score:3, Interesting)
It's important to address the concerns because unresponsive government is not good government. Even if they're crackpots, address them long enough to say "You're crackpots, here's why you're crackpots, good night" If they don't do anything, then it is fuel on the fire.
On the other hand, if they provide proof in the form of some dossier, the conspiracy theorists are in a position of having to refute more and more documents, and saying that the conspiracy goes even deeper than they thought in NASA. The kookier they get, the fewer people will buy their crap.
Simple way to refute the hoax crowd. (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that these two samples are pretty much the same element-wise, that should end the arguements once and for all, so there you hoax-believers.
Better ignore the ignorants... (Score:3, Interesting)
The flag flutters because of the "sun wind", i.e. light pressure. If americans would have better physic lessons, they would learn about it..
Why can't we see stars in the moon-landing pictures?
Do you see stars when you make pictures on a clear night, but need to have a short exposure time
because of the extreme foreground brightness??
The human eye has much much more gain than a camera.
Why did'nt we hear the noise of the rocket motor when the Moon lander was returning to earth?
Hmmm, in space no one can hear you...
OK.. Why not ask AMSAT to send a cheap satellite to the moon and take some images from the landing sites. Sent these picture to earth using ham radio, so that everyone can see them and no one can fake you again!!!!!
Better ignore the ignorants...
Re:You can't see the lander (Score:3, Interesting)
No I want to see a Japanese man step foot on the moon.
Our government could easily place a lander on the moon so what, thats not proof a human was there
I want to see the footprints. I want to see other humans from other countries walking on the moon.
I want to see the flag exactly where it was in the 1960s still there.
We're already in virtual reality (Score:4, Interesting)
I do think this is important because with the prevalent media, though it can give us much information, it's also highly biased towards spectacle and word-games. It's a virtual reality of talking heads, word-juggling, and popularity contests with far to little connection to anything actually relevant. Anyone can come up with a bunch of pretty words, push a few buttons, and ridicule a few people to polite to be jackasses, and bam - instant "credibility" despite the fact said person has any relevant arguments, evidence, or credentials.
Debating the crackpots isn't just good for science or society, it'd be good for our culture.
There is one champion still alive (Score:5, Interesting)
I say sue 'em (Score:3, Interesting)
What the "no, they didn't go" idiots are doing is spreading libellous remarks, defaming the character of the many good, honest folks who made the moon missions possible. People died to make the missions possible.
If criminals in prison can sue the state for "not giving them access to sports facilities", or for "interfering with their freedom of religion by not allowing them to have live chickens to sacrifice" (both Readers Digest stories from several years ago), then surely NASA can shake enough dollars out of the money tree to nail those idiots to the floor... Wasn't it recently said that that NASA were going to shell out $15M to get a book written and published refuting the nay-sayers? That would be a good war-chest...
I don't know quite how it stands in the US, but in England the defamers have to provide, in court, sufficient evidence to prove that what was said or written was factual, or face the consequences. If you flat out say someone is lying about something, and can't prove it, you're in deep shit.
At the very least you're made to publicly retract the statements, and often pay damages on top.
Come to think of it, that might be a good strategy - make 'em prove NASA didn't go to the Moon. The definitive way to prove it would be to go to the locations NASA visited and photograph the lack of footprints, the empty space where the landers are sitting, etc. Not only would NASA be vindicated, they'd get a moonshot funded by the idiots who claim they didn't go...
Spinoffs from refuting crackpots: education (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems that the root of most crackpot theories is confusion borne from misunderstanding and misinterpretation of NASA press releases and publications. Looking at bizarre theories provides insight into points that are unclear to the layperson.
Also, the details that conspiracy theorists point out as evidence of forgery actually have interesting stories behind them. Often, these seem to be the product of "common sense" not applying to how things behave in microgravity or vacuum. These could be worked into engaging educational materials, surprising and entertaining schoolchildren.
It should cost less than $15k (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you're lax and give the intern a week, that still doesn't cost $15k unless you're paying the intern three quarters of a million dollars per year.
Wacko thought of the day: this was all just a left-wing conspiracy to discredit Fox. ;-)
Because it isn't just the government (Score:3, Interesting)
- The U.S. government enlisted the help of many private defense and aerospace contractors in order to reach the moon. For example, the lunar module was built by hundreds (if not thousands) of engineers at Grumman Aerospace. Are you suggesting that all of these people were "in on" your conspiracy, or that they were simply duped?
- The national (and in many cases, international) media was very close to NASA during the years of the moon landings. Reporters were routinely given access to the Apollo crews in the months and weeks before their launch, whereby they could follow the crew around and record their day-to-day activities. There was also a large amount of technical cooperation between NASA and the media for things such as the live feeds from the moon. Certainly the media would have had some complicity in your conspiracy; have all of these people remained silent, as well?
- The Soviet military establishment would have jumped at the chance to demonstrate that the American capitalist pig-dog "moon landings" were, in fact, fake. Is it your contention that the Soviets, even with their considerable (at the time) intelligence infrastructure within the borders of the United States, would not have known about such a far-reaching conspiracy? Or are they part of it, as well?
Finally, let us not forget the names of three men: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. These were the astronauts that perished in the Apollo 1 fire, an incident that almost got the entire program shut down. If we never actually went to the moon, then why would NASA have to have launches in the first place? How do the deaths of these brave men fit into your conspiracy theory? I suspect that you find them rather inconvenient.Lots of things bother me about moon-landing conspiracy theorists, but they way that they callously disregard the sacrifice of the Apollo 1 astronauts is by far the most disgraceful thing about them.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know depresses me everyday.
Whenever a religious person can't come up with an explanation they usually say "God works in mysterious ways" and "You just gotta have faith." Christianity has no real relevance to real world it's a comfort for facing death and being alone. That's what makes it so appealing. Along with it are all sorts of wacko beliefs that you must believe based on one book.
Socialism isn't a good analogy. Those people were living a harsh existence as it is. So this book comes along and sounds logical and the people rebel. They trusted their own ability to reason knew that their would be risk. Their current way of life was awful, so it's not like that had much to lose anyway. Others I'm sure just followed the masses in "blind trust."