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Space

NASA Cancels Moon Hoax Book 578

Posted by michael from the things-THEY-don't-want-you-to-know dept.
redbaron7 writes "The BBC is reporting that NASA has cancelled plans for a book to challenge the Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory, due to criticism. No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake."
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NASA Cancels Moon Hoax Book More

NASA Cancels Moon Hoax Book

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  • Proof... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by moody834 ( 449404 )
    Well, at least we can point to the fact that Lunatics have made it from there to here.

  • OK, this is funny. . . (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    . . .Because they couldn't prove they landed there

  • Does this mean (Score:4, Funny)

    by fudgefactor7 ( 581449 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:43PM (#4627646)
    That the moon hoak book was a hoax in itself? lol

  • NASA? (Score:2, Informative)

    by mgibbs ( 548224 )
    Is it me, or does it seem that in the last decade or so NASA has become more interested in PR and their image than space science?
    • It is unfortunate, but true. NASA needs to have a good public image if it wants to get funded, because if people don't like it, they won't vote for politicians that fund it...

  • What a shame... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by joebeone ( 620917 )
    There are teachers teaching their 3rd-grade students that the moon landing never happened... It appears they shall continue. (although I suppose they wouldn't have given much credence to the NASA publication anyway)

  • That's too bad (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Thanatopsis ( 29786 )
    These guys who believe we didn't go to the moon are everywhere. I had a 10th grade history teacher who was insistent that we didn't go to the moon. I spent half the semester avoiding discussing history before 1963 with him. After all it's only $15,000, why not? Perhaps NASA should spend the money producing a book on scientific method instead

    • Re:That's too bad (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JThaddeus ( 531998 )
      What the heck is a dumb bunny like that doing teaching? Did he also deny the Holocost? If my kids got some cretin like that, you can be sure that everyone from the principal to the state certification board would hear about it.
  • "That's no moon..."

    =-Jippy

  • Perception is reality. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nege ( 263655 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:45PM (#4627675) Journal
    NASA is darned if they do and darned if they dont where those conspiracies are concerned. If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.

    • Re:Perception is reality. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xerithane ( 13482 ) <xerithane AT nerdfarm DOT org> on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:02PM (#4628525) Homepage Journal
      NASA is darned if they do and darned if they dont where those conspiracies are concerned. If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.

      You are exactly right. I worked at a NASA base 5 years ago, it was nothing spooky or mysterious. They have some cool technology, but that's all it is.

      Yet it doesn't stop conversations like this, that I had with some strange fellow in a small town in southern California:

      Me: Well, actually NASA is just like any other organization. You go to work, work on a project that is usually pretty cool and exciting, and go home to a normal house.. It's not like you work for NASA and suddenly they relocate you to some secret underground housing project.
      Him: NASA hides all of it's findings! You never know the result of their research because it would disrupt humanity!
      Me: What research? Most of NASA research is funded in part by public companies, and you can easily find out what they are doing. Most projects have their own website.
      Him: They hide a lot of stuff. Art Bell deserves to know the truth and tell the American people what's going on!

      Art fucking Bell. That what these people listen to. At that point, I just walked off. They want there to be some secret meaning, because it gives their life more significant and importance in their mind. They're part of the elite conspiracy busting consortium without having to lift a finger just open their mouths.

      As long as Art Bell is around to tell them the "secrets" NASA is holding out, NASA will have to deal with the nutjobs. It's unfortunate.
      • I listen to Art Bell, but that doesn't make me a dummy. I take what he and his guests say with a big grain of salt, and realize that much of it simply can not be trusted or proven.

        I do find it a fascinating show, though, whether I believe any of it or not. There was a relaly good who on a week or two ago when they were interviewing Kevin Mitnick. You just have to have the ability to seperate the fact from the fiction.
  • ...just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up?

    There has to be enough resolution.

    .
    • Duh, they'll just claim thoes picture are faked too.

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:4, Funny)

      by anonymous loser ( 58627 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:51PM (#4627755)
      Duh! Because the Hubble was faked, too!

      Don't you realize that the Earth is a giant chocolate chip cookie floating in an even bigger glass of milk? Don't go near the edge, you'll kill us all!

    • "Oh, those are just doctored images" That will be the excuse... then you'd have conspiracy theorists showing how the pixalation of the photo near the landing sites show that there was no activity at this region, etc etc..

      Like someone said originally... those who don't want to believe it, will continue to not believe it no matter how much evidence you have. If you flew them into space and plopped them into a crater, they still wouldn't believe it!

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by foistboinder ( 99286 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:53PM (#4627798) Homepage Journal
      ...just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up? There has to be enough resolution

      The reflected light from the moon is strong enough to fry Hubble's optics.

      If the moon landings were a hoax, don't you think the Soviet Union would have exposed it for propaganda purposes (they were able to track the spacecraft, IIRC) ?

      • Too much light? Take the pictures at night!

        Which ground based telescopes could find and resolve the lunar lander, a rover, a flag, or a footprint? And what stops us from using a ground based telescope to find the LM, ...?

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Scarblac ( 122480 ) <slashdot@gerlich.nl> on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:56PM (#4627838) Homepage

      Let's score a Informative...

      Why don't they just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up?

      As explained on this Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov]:

      Can the Hubble Space Telescope take a picture that shows the Apollo lunar modules on the moon? With its 2.4 diameter mirror, the smallest object that the Hubble can resolve at the Moon's distance of about 400,000 kilometers is about 80 meters across.

      Besides, why would anyone who believed in that naive hoax suddenly believe a so-called Hubble picture?

    • Of what? They'd have to find the exact location that the little flag was planted (assuming it's still there, probably not a lot to disturb it). Or perhaps they could look for footsteps or an "impact zone".

      Of course, even if they used a telescope, the "cynics" would say that it's not really a telescope by a video screen or something. There's not really any way to win. Even if we sent of the idiots into space himself/herself, some world probably just say there were put through a simulation reconstruction.

      That being said, there are always cynics, some just insist on being more anal than others. Why not send them ALL on an all-expense-paid one-way trip to the moon...?

      Cynic : This is BS, we're still on Earth, it's just a machine. I'm opening my mask now....
      *whoooooosh* *splattt*

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kyont ( 145761 )
      Unfortunately, even Hubble does not have the resolution. At that distance, it cannot make out features less than about 60 feet (20 m) across, and the moon-landing footprints are just too small. (To-do list for next time: Take along 100-meter-high NASA logo flag).

      Of course, the astronauts left little mirrors, off which lots of people regularly bounce laser beams, which should satisfy anybody. Unless ooh.. all that laser data is faked too! ;-)

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:04PM (#4627930) Journal
      First reason:

      It's a waste of Hubble time. There's real science to be done.

      Second reason:

      The sunlit moon is way too bright. You'd cook all the expensive and highly sensitive optics. If you examine a new moon, maybe you could get away with it, but such a moon is still illuminated by the full sunny side of the earth. I wouldn't want to try it. Also, pointing towards the dark face of the moon is also pointing the Hubble very close to where the sun would be in its sky...

      Third reason:

      The Hubble's resolution isn't good enough. Depending on the wavelength you work at, the moon's distance at the time, and the assumptions you choose to make in your calculation, the Hubble could resolve objects no smaller than twenty to eighty metres in size--much larger than any of the artifacts left at the moon landing sites. You might have better luck with the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, but they too are busy being used for real science. Any hoax believers aren't going to be convinced by a smudge, which is all you'd see even with the Kecks--if you could see anything at all.

    • Re:Why don't they... (Score:3, Informative)

      by gorilla ( 36491 )
      The Hubble physically can't take pictures of the landing sites.

      1) They're too small. Even at the Hubble's resolution, all you'd see would be a blob.
      2) The moon is too bright. It would overload the optics.

  • Does anyone find it strange that the BBC is getting the scoop on a NASA story?
  • How about saying they're going to write ... then cancelling ... the book about the International Space Station Conspiracy Theory?

    Gawd, it must be a slooowwww news day.

  • Evidence (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ratbert42 ( 452340 )
    No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake.

    No, the fact that they were going to create the book is further evidence. The more elaborate the story is, the more likely it is to be a lie.

  • Cancelled funding - the book's still being written (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fweeky ( 41046 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:46PM (#4627700) Homepage
    Hopefully NASA will find a better use for that $15k; and hopefully Oberg will find a better source for his $15k.

  • Does it really matter anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:47PM (#4627705) Homepage Journal
    I hope that NASA has realized that it really doesn't matter anymore. Even if it was a hoax, who cares. We have a space station orbiting the earth that I think everyone agrees is there, especially since you can see it with a telescope. Let's concentrate on the present and future and not whether something in the past that really doesn't matter now adays actually happened .
  • Now I'll have to go on believing that the moon is made of cheese and nasa films all their missions ala "Wag the Dog" in a sound stage. Me oh my.

  • The book wouldn't have worked anyway (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HeroicAutobot ( 171588 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:48PM (#4627727) Homepage
    I was surprised when I read that NASA was planning this book to begin with. People who think the moon landings were a hoax are never going to be convinced otherwise by anything anyone says, NASA or otherwise.

    If NASA really wants to do something about these wackos, they should sic Buzz Aldrin [csicop.org] on them.

    • The book was meant to be used as an oracle for school teachers and other people wishing to teach their non-luddite, but-still-easily-mislead friends about the truth behind the moon landings.

      The luddite people who think the landings were a hoax have a lot of FUD which is easy to believe on the surface of it, but once you actually learn about the details, they fall apart. Placing all these details in one place is very beneficial.

      Look at how far major religions got because a lot of people believed them for a long time. The Mormons were in the 19th century what scientologists are today. Bad memes spread easily among the uneducated.

      • Re:They acknowledged this. (Score:4, Funny)

        by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:24PM (#4628157)
        In my opinion we ought to have the Luddites believing things like the moon landings are fake. It makes it easier to keep track of them. That way their more subtle goofy beliefs like "irradiating meat causes cancer" don't creep into society as easily. When those groups have these sorts of obviously goofy beliefs it shows them for what they are to society at large.

        Sort of akin to wanting the far right or far left to hold onto their weird beliefs so that they don't contaminate more moderate groups.

      • BTW - you do realize that there are many very educated and thoughtful Mormons, right? I'm not sure the "Bad memes spread easily amoung the uneducated" comment ought to be tied to Mormons. I agree with the general thrust, but not the backhand. . .

        • Re:They acknowledged this. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by pmz ( 462998 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:55PM (#4628955) Homepage
          There are well-educated and thoughtful members of any religion. That fact doesn't make those religions more credible; it only establishes that even well-educated and thoughtful people are not immune to the siren song of religious ideology.

          • Re:They acknowledged this. (Score:4, Insightful)

            by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @07:57PM (#4629696)
            I agree. However the original poster suggested that religion spreads because of the ignorant and stupid.

            I don't want to turn this into a religious thread. I just think that the bias some have against religion in general is a bit tiring. It for one suggests that the reasons people are religious is irrational and that religion itself is irrational. This is simply an ignorant view of religion.

            I'm not suggesting that the "most likely" rational choice is any particular religion. However the assumption that all religions (including Mormonism) is irrational is itself a rather strong siren song of ideology.

    • Not Entirely True (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:22PM (#4628689)
      People who think the moon landings were a hoax are never going to be convinced otherwise by anything anyone says, NASA or otherwise.

      Not entirely true.

      I have a friend who is pretty intelligent, but has an unfortunate weakness in being gullible to certain "newsoid" broadcasts. Its very odd ... the guy actually is quite smart, but after seeing the Fox News special claiming the moon landings were fake he was mostly convinced, and accussed me of being closed minded and dense when I laughed at him.

      So I did a little googling (something he should have done before ever admitting to anyone other than his wife, who is similarly a little "too open minded" about fringe conspiracy theories, that he took such a thing seriously) and pointed him to an excellent site debunking the entire broadcast point by point, with clay models and lighting to demonstrate the optical features of each "faked" shot.

      In other words, I pointed him to a web site that proved, picture by picture, that every piece of "evidence" presented by the media whores of Fox was in fact farcical, and that the reporter should have been emberrassed at his own lack of basic scientific understanding on each and every point.

      My friend, somewhat abashed, was convinced, and was more than a little annoyed that a major television network would present such garbage as "news."

      Frankly, so am I, but the point remains ... there are a lot of reasonable people who have an unfortuante, ingrained trust of the media (many of the same people will decry the media, but believe the next newscast all the same), and these people can and often are conviced by reasonable, factually, easy-to-understand counterarguments.

      Indeed, fighting bad speech with good speech is the best way to offset this sort of thing.

      That, and openly jeering at the Fox Media Whores perpetrating this disgusting fraud on the people of America whenever they show their faces in public (a little social humiliation is just what those clowns need. No, let me rephrease: a great deal of social humiliation is just what those clowns need).
  • ...Now they can spend that money on convincing people who believe the world is still flat that it's not...

    Maybe it's me, but I think that's the more important cause, since it's better to educate the truly ignorant first.

  • Does anyone know why they can't just point the Hubble telescope at the lunar landing sites and get a picture of the evidence?
    • Seeing as how NASA runs the Hubble, I don't really see that being much in the way evidence for the naysayers. If there was a privately owned telescope somewhere on Earth that could make out the landing site, that'd be different.
  • You know, this is a real shame. It's always sad to see a book die, especially one that would have been interesting.

    I have no doubt that the moon has been landed on, but it would have been such a fascinating read.

    It sounds empty, but knowledge really is the antidote to ignorance. A book like that could only have added more interesting knowledge to the world.

  • Proof of the Moon hoax (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mr. Eradicator ( 470089 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:52PM (#4627773) Homepage
    This site [dc8p.com] is my favorite anti-hoax site so far.

  • Wasted effort (Score:5, Funny)

    by tribes ( 613022 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:52PM (#4627777)
    I really wish NASA would get back doing what they do best....it would be much cooler to watch man walk on Mars and then hear about how *that* was faked.
  • I believed in NASA, but as the years pass I'm becoming suspicious of the landing. I wonder why haven't we been back. Why hasn't any other country been to the moon if possible. Wouldn't the moon be useful as a research lab at a minimum.
    • Because NASA hasn't got the budget to do anything other than a pityful small manned space program.

    • Re:as time goes by (Score:5, Funny)

      by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:37PM (#4628284) Homepage
      It wasn't a fake...

      We just don't want anyone going up there and bothering the monolith. It tells us it doesn't like it when the ape-people keep touching it. Monoliths are very fickle things...

    • Where's the money? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RatBastard ( 949 )
      We stopped going because we couldn't afford it any more. No one else has gone because they have better uses for their money!

      The race to the moon cost so much mioney that it would hev been utterly impossible to pull off at aniy other time in US history. Only the mind-boggling economic excesses of the 1950's and 1960's gave us enough money to toss down that bottomless money pit.

      We didn't go to the moon for research purposes. We went for purely political reasons: to beat those (in the lexicon of the day) "Godless bastards in Moscow" to the moon! The science was needed to get the job done.

      There is no point in putting a reaserch station on the moon. The cost of maintaining a manned presence on the moon is (pardon the pun) astronimical. Ever breath of air, every drop of water, every bite of food must be sent there at tremedous cost.

      The only useful scientific endeavor to put ion the moon would be telscopes on the far side, insulated from the light and radation of the Earth and it's noisy inhabitants.

      As much as I like the idea of manned space exploration, and as much as I'd love to go to the moon, I just don't see it being in any way econimically feasable any time soon.

  • Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide (Score:5, Funny)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:54PM (#4627816)
    Take all the people who don't believe, stick them on a spaceship and let them see the landing sites for themselves. We can tell them to "press the big red button" when they are satisfied and are ready to come back home ;)

  • The truth is obvious. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:55PM (#4627833) Journal
    Not only was the moon landing fake, but also the Space Race and Cold War. The US and Russia have been faking all space exploration. Sputnik I was the only real space launch. It was during this mission that Russia learned that the world sat upon the back of a turtle. The turtle in turn sat upon another. In fact Turtle(n) sat upon Turtle(n+1) into infinity. They shared this info with the US. It was then decided that the general public could not handle this information, and that is why the "Space Race" started to really heat up after Sputnik I. It was all a hoax so that no one would suspect the truth.

  • Ever notice that "conspiracy theorists"... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JThaddeus ( 531998 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @03:58PM (#4627870)
    ... think the government can't do anything right except cover up whatever pet project they think was faked or hidden?

  • The Evil Solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by hrieke ( 126185 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:03PM (#4627925) Homepage
    Send rocket to the moon with critics and bring them back. A month after they've returned and saying how great it really was and that they were wrong to question the original moon shot, leak a fake video of them on a moon set.
    Now the conspiracy nuts can't trust each other....

  • Concluded: (Score:4, Funny)

    by EEEthan ( 41747 ) <emh26@columbia.ePLANCKdu minus physicist> on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:11PM (#4628016) Homepage
    This is an obvious piece of counter-hoax propaganda posturing. It should be clear to any disinterested observer that this is a desperate move on the part of the N(A)SA organization, and act which at once legitimizes the hoax/fraud theory and brushes it aside. However, it will have neither effect: it will at once pique the interest of those who have previously dismissed the fraud theory out of hand, and simultaneously fail to convince those who have previously given the hoaxes credit that the so-called 'artifacts' cited by the fraud theorists should not be given the weight that they have been in some parts.

    What sort of conclusions can be drawn from this one-step-forward-one-step-back policy? Perhaps none. Perhaps that the posturing around the so-called "moon" expedition is exactly that. Posturing, and posturing that is still pertinent today.

    But the real question that should be on your minds is, when will China reach the moon, and what will they find there? Will they find the footprints and detritus of the N(A)SA agents who purportedly reached the moon? Will they find the sovereign flag of the United States, claiming the entire Moon for our grand country? Or will they find a pristine moon, quite free of all evidence of a 1969 landing, and perhaps even quite different in character than the one shown in the 1969 films.

    BUT

    Will the communist Chinese even be allowed to reach the moon? Or will their vessel be struck down by an 'antiballistic' missile or laser, with the only information released to the public a Chinese government release describing a non-specific "failure."

    I think that the meaning is clear. There is something that the N(A)SA doesn't want us to know about the 1969 moon landing films, OR the hoax surrounding them. Or there is something that they DO want us to know, and this book would not have contained it. The only thing that is clear, is that this book will not be published officially; and that will either lead us in the direction of the truth or away from it, and this may or may not be the intention of the evil N(A)SA and the so-called United States "Government."

  • Astrology (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 00_NOP ( 559413 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:12PM (#4628038) Homepage
    It can be no surprise that people think the Moon landings were fake - after all, look at how many people take astrology seriously.

    Newspapers spend millions advertising their wares on the basis of which professional con artist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hastrologer they employ. Just think about that for a minute - more is being spent on promoting scandalous anti-science than many aspects of science that could really improve our lives. But then look at missile defence and you can see it is not just Rupert Murdoch who is to blame for that one.

  • Easy enough to disprove, (Score:3, Funny)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) <treboreel@live.com> on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:25PM (#4628168) Journal
    we just take the dissentors to the edge of the planet and throw them over the side of the flat earth :)

  • From someone who used to think it was real... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by OrbNobz ( 2505 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:25PM (#4628169) Homepage
    I never had any reason to doubt this event growing up. Then I heard about the conspiracy angle, checked out all the material (movies, books, forums), and I am now in the 'undecided' category. For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose. Most of the other facts are hit or miss, and pretty subjective.

    To think that the government doesn't hide anything is lunacy. To think that the government doesn't lie is naive. What needs to be provided here is indisputable proof of the event. This was a scientific event and therefore must be (re)proven scientifically. Even when the private sector comes forward with photographic evidence of abandoned Apollo equipment, I still would not be 100% convinced. To be honest, I don't know what it would take to prove beyond a doubt that Niel Armstrong set foot on the moon. It might be easier to provide _real_ evidence to the contrary.

    Am I alone in this vein of thought?

    - OrbNobz
    If a sig falls in a forum and noone is around to read it, was it really written?
    • I didn't know Dale Gribble posted here.
    • I think you are pretty much alone in these thoughts in this forum.

      You ideas that proof of such an event is hard to come by definatively, is valid. But similar statements about Australia can be made. I have never been there - hvae you?

      Something that might be persuasive without actually being proof of the landing, is the lack of proof of the fakery. It would be very easy to provide evidence of the faking if it in fact did occur in my opinion. How easy would it be to cover up the filming of a major motion picture? Not very.

      There has not been one credible person to come forward explaining how the "fake" was carried out in any real detail. Where were the movie sets? Who made them? Who paid for them? Who did the filming? Where are the out-takes?

      Nixon and his buddies couldn't keep the wraps on a couple of hours of audio tapes, yet NASA and how many other people managed to destroy all of the physical evidence of their fakery and managed to convince everyone who worked on it to keep their mouth's shut, for 30+ years?

      Going to the moon was difficult, but no where near as hard as faking the whole thing successfully would have been. The moon visit just required some good engineering. The hiding of such a big fake I feel is virtually impossible.

      If "they" are this good at coverups, and "they" control NASA, the USSR, and everyone else... then why the heck would anyone ever speak up against "them"? If I thought "they" were this powerful, I would be scared shitless. You would have to be *crazy* to try to fight against "them"...

    • Re:From someone who used to think it was real... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yunzil ( 181064 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:12PM (#4628598) Homepage
      For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose

      Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

      Copied from the Bad Astronomy [badastronomy.com] site:

      The van Allen belts are regions above the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field has trapped particles of the solar wind. An unprotected man would indeed get a lethal dose of radiation, if he stayed there long enough. Actually, the spaceship traveled through the belts pretty quickly, getting past them in an hour or so. There simply wasn't enough time to get a lethal dose, and, as a matter of fact, the metal hull of the spaceship did indeed block most of the radiation.

  • Fight Fire with Fire (Score:5, Funny)

    by TomRC ( 231027 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:30PM (#4628230)
    To convince the conspiracy theorists, NASA only needs to give them a better theory.

    The moon landing was real alright - they released faked photos and such because they actually established a nuclear missile base on the moon, in complete violation of international treaties.

    But a few very perceptive people noticed some small discrepancies, so it was necessary to "guide" them into believing the moon shots were faked, so they would be dismissed as kooks.

    Work this right, and we might get financing for some more trips to the moon, well equipped for an extended search for the hidden automated missile bases.

  • Favorite piece of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fleshapple ( 321038 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @04:45PM (#4628362)
    The moon landing is a great example of separate intersecting lines of evidence converging on the conclusion that we did indeed land on the moon. For the conspiracy theorists, no amount of evidence is going to convince them so we might as well be speaking another language. Still, I think interesting things can come out of the discussion. My favorite piece of evidence of the landing is the storage bag from the Apollo 15 mission. NASA astronauts threw it out, it ended up at auction, someone bought it and realized that it was saturated with moon dust (you can tell the dust is from the moon by comparing the ratios of certain isotopes). The isotopic ratios of certain elements in moon rocks is different than that of any rocks found on earth. The collector has since been selling sections at an enormous profit. see this link [collectspace.com] Now, I suppose they could have gone to the moon with an unmanned mission which landed, blasted off, returned with a bunch of rocks and dust which was subsequently distributed. At that point, why not just go there. Occam's Razor would say manned missions is a much more likely solution given the other evidence.

  • Columbus next (Score:5, Funny)

    by CFN ( 114345 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:05PM (#4628543)
    For immediate release:

    The International Society to Disprove the Moon Landings (ISDML) had recently determined that Christopher Columbus had never set foot in North America, and that any evidence presented by the Imperial Spanish Court of Ferdinand and Isabela was indeed a hoax.

    There is no proof that Columbus, nor any of the men in his three vessels, had ever crossed the Atlantic and landed in North America. The ISDML believe that any evidence to the contrary was generated as part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the Spanish Government in an attempt to convince the world that they were the winners in the "Sea Race" versus their rival nation, Portugal. All evidence was fabricated at an elaboratly constructed studio in Seville, in a blatent attempt to deceive the public.

    In fact, the ISDML has failed to find evidence that Europeans have ever reached North America, nor that this 'fabeled' contined does indeed exists.

    More information will be fortcomming.

  • The best challenge to conspiracy theorists (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joey7F ( 307495 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:10PM (#4628582) Homepage Journal
    The apollo mission was followed by amateur astronomers (and professional ones outside of the USA). It just so happens that all of them were in on it too?

    Conspiracy theorists often get nicked by the sharpened edges Occam's Razor.

    --Joey

  • Another hoax (Score:3, Funny)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:16PM (#4628631)
    I knew it -- NASA never did have plans to produce such a book. It was just another hoax :-)

  • The reason it was cancelled... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by corebreech ( 469871 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:24PM (#4628717) Journal
    is because if the government were to start debunking only the wacky conspiracy theories the remainder could be seen as being implicitly legitimate.

    The label of conspiracy is too important for the powers-that-be to allow this to happen.

    Just look at what The New York Times is doing with the term [nytimes.com] today.

  • I worked at NASA for four years... you can't win (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dr. Zowie ( 109983 ) <slashdot@defores t . org> on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:25PM (#4628721)
    ...against the tinfoil hat people.

    I operated an instrument aboard the SOHO spacecraft for four years; during that time I fielded innumerable emails and discussions from crackpots who were convinced, variously, that comets were crashing into the Earth, that aliens were here, that SOHO was in fact a spy satellite, and that the sun was going to blow up.

    The common thread was that NASA must be hiding something. In particular, writing from a nascom.nasa.gov email address, I was an "insider" and therefore not to be trusted -- if you're involved with NASA, these people will latch on to anything you say that seems to support them, but dismiss even the clearest, most well-documented rebuttals. After all, you're working for the government, of course you'd say that. :-P

    Give me a break! Those people at Goddard were working their arses off just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing -- there was no time (or inclination or, most probably ability) to keep a giant dark secret about aliens or whatever.

    Ditto the lunar journeys. Feh.

    The Russians are, collectively, the best reason not to believe the Apollo revisionists -- if we really didn't send men on those spacecraft, the Russians had the technology to find out. They would've screamed bloody murder. Besides, why bother to fake Apollo 13?

  • See that (Score:4, Funny)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @05:46PM (#4628891) Journal
    The Republicans get a majority in the House and Senate and already they're saving taxpayer money.

  • The Leaked NASA Video! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by trite ( 614780 ) on Friday November 08, 2002 @08:49PM (#4629938)
    Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com (I know...I know...)

  • Of course! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Transcendent ( 204992 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @01:04AM (#4630868)
    Of course the moon landing is a hoax! Everybody knows that there really is no moon and it's just a big projection up in the sky created by our government to test effects of radiation on US citizens! Why do you think people go crazy on nights with a full moon?

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