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Space

NASA Wasting Time and Money on Moon Landing Doubters 708

Posted by chrisd from the dead-scientists-spinning dept.
Rob Miles writes "Yahoo! News has this article about how NASA is paying aeronautics engineer James Oberg $15,000 to write a monograph gathering up materials answering the skeptics of the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing, point by point. It's a shame that even $1 has to be spent to debunk these conspiracy theorists with too much time on their hands. And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see this as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
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NASA Wasting Time and Money on Moon Landing Doubters More

NASA Wasting Time and Money on Moon Landing Doubters

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  • I rmeber reading a while back(a couple of month's) that a private comapny has gotten goverment approval to go to the moon. SO when this happens they can take pictures and disprove the naysayyer once and for all.

    • Re:THis wil be moot soon (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lawbeefaroni ( 246892 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:08PM (#4602622) Homepage
      Yeah, or they can give the the naysayers (h04X0rz?) a telescope and they can watch the Chinese building a colony there. [space.com]

    • Re:THis wil be moot soon (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:14PM (#4602696) Homepage

      Sadly that's not the case. You just can't convince somebody who truly wants to believe that it's all a conspiracy. They'll point out that this supposedly independent private company had to get government approval to do so, and that's proof that NASA got to themm and forced them to take part in the deception. It took me all of about 2 seconds to come up with that explanation. These are people who wouldn't believe that it was possible to go to the moon if you blasted them into space and landed them there. They'd still come up with some elaborate explanation about how it was all faked.

      There are none so blind as those who will not see. Sadly this applies as much to physical proof as anything.

      • Re:THis wil be moot soon (Score:5, Funny)

        by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @06:56PM (#4603673)
        There are none so blind as those who will not see. Sadly this applies as much to physical proof as anything.

        Reminds me of one of my favorite sigs ever:


        Tell a man there are a million billion stars, and he will believe you.
        Tell a man that a bench has wet paint, and he just HAS to touch it.

    • Re:THis wil be moot soon (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Quino ( 613400 )
      Well, it won't necessarily be moot. We're dealing with people who don't believe the pictures that were already taken by NASA, so why would they believe these more modern pictures?

      I thought the apollo missions were broadcast live world wide (it was a 'US vs. USSR' sword rattling deal). I'm not sure what more can be done for these naysayers.

      What I don't understand is, communication sattelites are OK, but not moon landings? Though, again, when you're dealing with people just looking for an excuse to not believe, I'm sure that even taking them up in the shuttle itself would not be enough ("then, they drugged me -- I'm sure in the food or in the air I was breathing -- while showing moving pictures of stars and stuff. Other than that, I could just have been on Space Mountain in Disneyland" or something similar).

    • Why can't they point Hubble at the Apollo 11 landing site and take a picture of it?

      Come to think of it, why have we never seen an aerial photo of the Apollo 11 landing site taken from Earth or Earth orbit? It can't be too difficult, can it?
      • from what I understand, hubble is unable to gaze upon objects so close to earth. it was designed to peer deep into space.

        imaging satellites are probably too close to earth to get a good photo as well. and it really doesn't make sense to build a satellite just to take pictures of the moon. of course, even if NASA (or whomever) did that, there'd still be people saying it was all a hoax... *sigh*
        • Plus it would burn out the optics on Hubble. It is not designed to look at the moon. The instruments are fine enough and there is enough reflected sunlight from the moon to cause major damage.

      • Re:This wil be moot soon (Score:5, Interesting)

        by los furtive ( 232491 ) <ChrisLamothe@gma ... minus physicist> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:45PM (#4603031) Homepage
        With its 2.4 meter diameter mirror, the smallest object that the Hubble can resolve at the Moon's distance of around 400,000 kilometers is about 80 meters across. More info including cool pics here. [nasa.gov]
      • I don't think you'd want to point Hubble at the Moon to "prove" to some bozo that there's space junk there. I'm no Hubble expert, but I do know a few things:

        * The Hubble doesn't just sit there unused. Every minute -- every second -- of its time is reserved months in advance for research purposes.

        * Even if the project were deemed worthy, it would probably cost more than $15k to make the project happen.

        * The Hubble is designed to look at very, very, very faint objects. Close yourself in a dark room, look at the light bulbs, then flip the switch to turn them on. Ouch! Now, imagine if your pupils couldn't contract... and your retina was worth several hundred million bucks. Double ouch!

        * If you believe in the Hubble telescope's images, there's a very, very strong chance that you believe that man has landed on the Moon already. Conversely, if you don't believe in the moon landing, why would you believe in the Hubble?

        And as for aerial images... it was big news when spy satellites could spot an object as large as a car from orbit. Compare these numbers [washington.edu]:

        * Distance to Space Shuttle (Low Earth Orbit): 400 km

        * Distance to Geosynchronous (med-high) Orbit: 27,000 km

        * Distance to Moon: 384,000 km!

        If the CIA/KGB can barely make out an object the size of a car from Earth orbit, how likely is it to see an even smaller object from 10 times as far?

        *whew* A great intellectual exercise... too bad the target of NASA's informative pamphlet don't work that muscle.
      • Come to think of it, why have we never seen an aerial photo of the Apollo 11 landing site taken from Earth or Earth orbit? It can't be too difficult, can it?

        Yes, it can be. As an approximation you can figure the resolution of a telescope at a given distance as:

        size of mirror/wavelength of light = distance to object/size of object

        Given that the distance to the moon is about 500 million meters, the lunar lander is about 10 meters across, and visible light has a wavelength of about 5e-7 meters, that means that you need a mirror about 25 meters across to see it. That's about 10 times the size of the Hubble mirror, and 2.5 times the size of the Keck mirror. Of course you can't see it with a ground based telescope anyway because they'll have problems with atmospheric distortion. And that's just the resolution you'd need to be able to spot it as a speck. You'd need to multiply the size of the mirror by the number of pixels you want in your picture, so a 10x10 pixel picture (still not exactly detailed) would need an optical telescope about the size of the Arecibo radio telescope.

  • FOX Network (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrLudicrous ( 607375 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:02PM (#4602528) Homepage
    The worst of this whole debacle is when Fox had the "special" on TV about a year ago about whether the moon landing really was a hoax or not. Just adding fuel to a fire that should have burned itself out years ago.

    Then again, since when our network executives concerned about what is good or bad TV, let alone good or bad science?

    • Re:FOX Network (Score:4, Funny)

      by ckuhtz ( 87644 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:03PM (#4602544) Homepage
      oh please. fox news is a benchmark now?

      roflmao

    • Re:FOX Network (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Neumann ( 240442 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:16PM (#4602719)
      Ok I am going to admit it: I had serious doubts that NASA went to the moon after seeing the Fox special. I didnt know enough (and still dont)about lunar physics or photography to be able to make a judgement call on a lot of the claims. The one claim that struck a chord with me was the crosshairs missing from the pictures. That one I could understand. Unfortuneately the NASA spokeman was not cast in a good light at all. He was evasive on a lot of the issues and came across as someone who was trying to hide something. Now whether this was the producers' fault or whether this guy was just weasley in real life, I dont know. But I thought they raised valid concerns and I couldnt find anything that refuted the claims put forward in the special.

      That was until I saw this article:
      http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html [badastronomy.com]
      They could save themselves 15k and just link to that. He refutes all the claims of the doubters with very rational explanations.

      See the internet is good for something after all!

      • Re:FOX Network (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:37PM (#4602943) Homepage
        Or you could start with the approach that would have avoided everything you went through:

        The chances that you will be subjected to useful, intelligent, exposes on the same network that created "Who wants to marry a millionaire?" are -1 to 0. Seriously, didn't it occurr to you that if the argment was really that compelling, other stations would be jumping on the bandwagon too? I thought FOX should start advertising a "Tinfoil Tuesday" lineup after that special (which was amusing if you watched it in a "how would *I* try to convince gullible people" light.)

        I think you shouldn't have admitted it man. I mean, come _on_! FOX practically makes all its money exploiting Blue Collar's distrust of academia and his eagerness to disassociate himself from anything remotely 'artsy' (read: original.)

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @06:17PM (#4603347)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:FOX Network (Score:5, Funny)

      by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:30PM (#4602884) Homepage Journal

      The worst of this whole debacle is when Fox had the "special" on TV about a year ago about whether the moon landing really was a hoax or not.

      Was Jonathan Frakes the host? I never trust anything on Fox unless Frakes hosts the show.

    • Of course the most obvious clue as to the fact that this isn't a big conspiracy, is that it was allowed to be broadcasted on national TV! (International really, I saw it in NZ).

      Come on, for crying out-loud. Do any of these nuts honestly believe that if it was a real conspiracy that it would ever make it to mainstream national TV as some cheap entertainment style sci-fi doco?

  • if they are only willing to risk $15k, they are obviously lying about the landing. it is all clear now... DUCK, the second shooter is back!

  • Blue Cheese (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chris_Stankowitz ( 612232 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:02PM (#4602533)
    The fact that we such an abundance of blue-cheese dressing to go with our wings is enough proof for me.

  • Other options (Score:5, Funny)

    by scott1853 ( 194884 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:02PM (#4602534)
    This is the best option for the money. The alternative would be to send them all up there in the cargo bay of a shuttle and then crack the bay doors for a second or two and see if they'll finally believe you.

  • As Monty Python said:
    Well let's see, look around now. Can you spot the loony?


    *KAPOW!!*


    Ah yes, another loony spotted...

  • Useful for educators (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:03PM (#4602550) Homepage Journal
    Of course this won't satisfy die-hard cranks. That's not the point.


    This booklet is for educators, to help them address concerns brought up by students who might have stumbled on a True Disbeliever's website or seen that atrocious Fox program!


    That's not a waste of time nor money.


    Stefan Jones

    • Re:Useful for educators (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @06:54PM (#4603657) Homepage Journal
      As I have mentioned in a previous post, engaging these people is never useful. People who deny the moon landing, evolution, or the Nazi generated holocaust are asserting an opinion in an effort to save a personal belief, and are not engaging in meaningful dialog. By engaging these people directly, you invalidate the scientific process and enter an argument that cannot be won.

      The problem is that science starts with an acknowledgment that we may be wrong. Nothing in science can be proven exactly. Nothing in science can be taken as truth. We have no reason to believe that the moon landing did not happen, but, scientifically, we can not say it absolutely did happen. There is nothing wrong with this bacause the level of doubt is so trivial as to have no practical effect. This doubt is then used by people who wish to disprove the moon landing. This is generally done by mangling facts to fits a predetermined reality. Because the anti-science side is fighting from a deeply held personal belief, and the pro-science side is fighting from a spirit of discovery, science loses.

      The second problem is assumptions. Science assumes that a certain level of proof is good enough. Science assumes that the ultimate truth is not necessary; all we need is a theory that fits the available fact well enough and can be applied to a known domain. Science accepts the possibility that theories may be modified in the fullness of time. These assumptions not only form an achilles heal that can easily be exploited, but also form a basis to make scientist sound foolish. For example, lets take a person who believes the earth is flat. This person points to building, and notes that when the design is drawn up, the assumption is indeed made that they earth is in fact flat. The reasonable person notes that locally, over a small distance, the Earth is taken to be flat. The flat-Earth proponent then asks, is the earth flat, or is it not! This person uses the assumptions of science, that theory need only hold to a known domain, to make the scientists look like a fool.

      So by engaging these nuts directly, we teach kids that this is useful. What might be good is a curriculla that explains what science does, what it does not do, and why science must concede all arguments to religious zealots. It really does no one any good to argue with these people. Anyone hypocritical enough to deny the moon landing but use a microwave or watch tv pretty much deserves what they get. The best we can do is make sure our kids are smart enough to know the difference between science theory and personal belief.

  • Give 'em a taste of Buzz! (Score:5, Funny)

    by svvampy ( 576225 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:04PM (#4602556)
    NASA should just pay Buzz Aldrin to go out and sock the doubters in the mouth.

    • Re:Give 'em a taste of Buzz! (Score:5, Funny)

      by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:14PM (#4602691) Journal
      Buzz'd do it for free, but it's too much work. They should recruit all the other astronauts and engineers who put so much time and effort into the moon landings.

      Since Congress won't even fund NASA properly, the least they could do is pass a law allowing this aging group of pioneers to smack people that insult their efforts.

  • Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:04PM (#4602560) Journal
    I think this way is cheaper. [csicop.org]
    • Obviously Buzz Aldridge punching that guy is a faked video. I know fake video when I see it. And the fact it is only in digital just proves it. I don't believe there even was a doubter at that event. It was all staged by the conspiracists on a sound stage in Hollywood.

    • To the moon, Alice... (Score:5, Funny)

      by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 ) <mike@mikesmithforor e g o n . c om> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:24PM (#4602809) Homepage

      Crank I'm a crank with nothing better to do with my time.
      Buzz That's nice.
      Crank I want you to swear on the Bible that you walked on the moon, you pig fucking coward.
      Buzz (pissed) Wanna see the moon? Up close and personal?
      Crank I don't get your meaning...

      The rest is in the movie.

      Moral: don't pick a fight with someone who's been to the Moon. Chances are good they're still tougher than you.

  • Didn't anyone see Mel Gibson in Capricorn One? Eveyone knows that they faked the landing in the same hanger that they store the alien spacecraft while they work on the virus that will some day save the planet.
  • Well of course they had to go to the moon. That's where the aliens were holding Elvis hostage, wasn't it?

  • Good Move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cdrj ( 556227 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:05PM (#4602573)
    Although quite expensive to prove one "little point," NASA is in desperate need of support. With cutbacks threating future explorations, $15,000 may help to gain the support and tax dollars of 15,000 more American's, greatly returning on NASA's "small investment."
    • But there is some question about whether NASA is still a good idea. I think its days as the biggest manned flight agency are coming to the end; in about the next 10 years.

      Let me explain. I've worked in research- almost any new technology follows a bell-shaped profit curve.

      Early on, in any 'new' technology, the technology is hugely expensive, rare, difficult, and hardly anyone buys. Very little money is made at that point; usually there's a big loss. That was the point with manned space up to about 1990.

      Then later (how much later depends on the market and the technology and how society views it, and so forth) it becomes a little more common, the price drops a little. Money starts to be made. That was the point in space around 2001 when Tito went up. The Russians were actually in profit for that mission. But it's still hugely expensive, only the early adopters can afford it.

      Then the damn breaks, the price comes down further- many more people buy, and lots and lots of money is made. I think that is going to be about 2010 for manned space. This is the point where about the most money is starting to be made- the price will still be fairly high, and the amount of product sold is fairly high- the combination results in the highest profits you will see with that technology.

      Then it starts to get less profitable- the technology slides into ubiquity- lots of companies pile into the market, the price simply plummets; but to some extent this is compensated by even higher numbers of people buying the product; but the total profit is going down.

      Finally, very little money is made- the price is too low, it's too easy to go into the market, but lots of people still buy the product, but it's too cheap.

      Anyway, NASA is set up for the first stage. It seems unlikely that a government organisation can or should handle the later stages of manned space flight; the companies will speed past NASA to the space tourism market faster than you can blink. People like John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace) are angling that way now. I think he might well succeed, succeed like he did when he wrote Doom.

      Oh yeah, one more thing- it seems obvious that space flight is inherently expensive. That isn't actually the case- the fuel costs are down at about $10/kg of payload; that's the real floor, pretty much. Right now you can't see this as it's hidden by the huge R&D costs, and the way that current (mainly disposable) launchers are built and operated, and the Space Shuttle which is super expensive due to screwups in the early funding and design.

  • This page already exists (Score:3, Informative)

    by jomagam ( 512625 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:06PM (#4602575)
    http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/ [demon.co.uk]

  • fox special (Score:2, Funny)

    by digiplant ( 581943 )
    Did anyone see that ridiculous Fox special on this? My favorite part was their expert was a "self proclaimed physicist". He was in reality a "cerifiable nut".
  • I'd rather they took that 15K, fashioned a big space-bus, and sent the rest of N'Sync to the moon and have them report back to us on what they find.

  • Fox is largely to blame. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rank Amateur ( 38275 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:07PM (#4602600)
    This issue should fall far below the attention-radar of NASA. The act of giving it even a moment's notice fans the flames of the conspiracy theorists (and will be adduced by them as yet further proof that the agency has something to hide).

    It was a sad day when Fox stooped to entertaining the theory on its special (the company should have lost priviledges to the monicker "journalism" that instant).

  • Myself, I prefer Buzz Aldrin's Response... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by uncleFester ( 29998 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:07PM (#4602606) Homepage Journal
    from a recent news article [yahoo.com]...

    The controversy recently emerged from cyberspace in the person of Bart Sibrel, who has made a film questioning the Apollo Moon missions and who confronted astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a Beverly Hills hotel on Sept. 9 and demanded that Aldrin swear on a Bible that he had in fact walked on the moon.

    The 72-year-old Aldrin, the second man ever to touch the lunar surface, punched the 37-year-old Sibrel in the face. Sibrel asked that assault charges be filed, but Los Angeles County prosecutors declined. A videotape of the incident showed Sibrel following Aldrin on the street with a Bible and calling him a "thief, liar and coward," one prosecutor said.

    How's that for refutation? :)

    -fester (Good for Buzz.. I'm sure he and the others who risked their ass at the top of that Saturn V are sick of this crap)

  • NASA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:07PM (#4602609) Homepage Journal
    It is too bad one of the astronauts did not trudge a gigantic NASA WAS HERE into the moon dust so that the image could be seen from a large telescope. That should silence the idiots.

    On another note it always amazes me that a significant segment of a human population will believe the unbelievable and doubt the obvious.

    • Re:NASA (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ericpearl ( 122518 )
      Didn't we leave mirrors up there for laser experiments? Are they detectable to the average Joe?
    • > On another note it always amazes me that a significant segment of a human population will believe the unbelievable and doubt the obvious.

      Such as the Earth is flat and the sun and stars revolve around the Earth? At one point in time, this was considered by all of the human population as Truth.

      Think about it...


    • I think the planting of the American flag kind of served that point... though granted it's probably not visible from the Earth.

    • Re:NASA (Score:5, Informative)

      by jokerghost ( 467848 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:24PM (#4602814)
      Actually, there are defacto "NASA Was Here" signs on the moon. The astronauts left several special reflectors (I forget the name) that reflect light straight back at the target, regardless of the angle from which the beam (in the form of a laser) originates. These have been used for years to calculate the distance the moon has been receeding from the Earth year to year. Also, there are beacons that ham radio operators have been using for years to bounce signals off of.... Why is it these conspiracy theorists always ignore this tiny point?

      -jokerghost

    • Re:NASA (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ospeovedizer ( 85934 )
      On another note it always amazes me that a significant segment of a human population will believe the unbelievable and doubt the obvious.

      But... isn't this a good thing? If everyone believed what was obvious, many scientific advances would never have come about (or at least be accepted) It's really the people who ask the questions about the accepted world that come up with the most astonishing advances. Remember Galileo, who flew in the face the religious community by thinking that the Earth revolved around the Sun? He actually came up with a big batch o' evidence, and science flourished.

      I will grant you that the moon-landing disbelievers have very little to do with the interest of science, but give them a chance and they might actually prove something.

      This means that if there are people who want to deny everything that NASA is trying to tell them, then all the more power to them! If they can come up with the evidence (and they DO have some evidence, BTW) then they have the edge on all the people who follow blind faith.

      Now, let me say that I believe NASA when they say they landed on the moon, simply because there is really no reason not to, but if someone is willing to stand up and say I'm wrong, I am more than willing to listen to them. Bieng closed-minded about peole who disagree with you is generally a foolish act, and I think the world would be for the better if everyone remembered that.

    • They DID!!! (Score:4, Funny)

      by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) <slashdot AT stefanco DOT com> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @06:02PM (#4603208) Homepage Journal
      They tried this one. Chairface Chippendale [tvtome.com] once tried to write his name on the moon, but he only got the first 3 letters before running out of room.

      And then The Tick kicked his ass...

      And then the Man Eating Cow showed up... but that was after the Ninjas....

      Or something...
  • They're only spending $15k. They'll sell a few thousand copies as college textbooks for useless social sciences courses over the next five to ten years and turn a tidy profit.

    Consider it a fund raiser.
  • www.badastronomy.com

    or for less than $15 the printed version at Amazon, or your favorite bookseller.

    Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"
    by Philip C. Plait

    Paperback: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 8.62 x 6.44
    Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471409766; 1 edition (March 1, 2002)

  • The Aldrinator (Score:5, Funny)

    by PinkStainlessTail ( 469560 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:08PM (#4602619) Homepage
    Maybe they could just send Buzz Aldrin out. With a bat. Or his manly fists of iron. That should "silence" the doubters!
  • I remember having seen a link on /. to a perfectly good debunking of the doubters' arguments, but I forgot where. It must've been either Space.com or Badastronomy.com or something.

    But it doesn't surprise me that people ``choose to believe what they were programmed to believe''...

    I'm sorry I don't have the time to find the article I'm referring to. Someone else might post it, or you could ask Google if you're interested enough.
  • They should just pay this guy to go around to each of these doubters' houses and personally punch them in the face a la Jay and Silent Bob meets Buzz Aldron.
  • I just read this week's copy of Aviation Week, and it said somewhere that NASA's overall budget is like somewhere like 15 billion bucks. [aviationnow.com] Who cares about 15k? It's spit in a bucket!
  • I have no problem understanding that they actually did land on -- and take off from the moon, and return to earth. My compassion for the conspiricy theorists only extends to the fact that if we did so much with so little (technology) why have we done so little (in comparisson) since.

  • The Soviet Factor. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Robber Baron ( 112304 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:13PM (#4602674) Homepage
    I would think that given that the moon landings happened during the height of the cold war, the Soviets would have been watching them very closely and would've been all over them like a bad stink if they could've even come close to demonstrating that the moon landings were faked. By the same token, if you were NASA, would you put your and your country's "face" on the line by staging such a stunt and risking discovery?

    • Exactly!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:35PM (#4602929) Journal

      This is EXACTLY RIGHT. Anyone who believes that the moon landings were fake to "win" the space race clearly believes that the Soviets, in spite of launching the first artificial satellite and first man into space, were too stupid to notice that:

      • American companies that were supposedly producing lunar landing hardware were actually producing nothing, or producing equipment that could not reasonably land on the moon (what's the point of faking it if you build the real hardware?).
      • The Saturn rockets, once launched, did not follow a lunar trajectory. (Easy to track by telemetry.) In fact the entire path of the rocket could be easily tracked by anyone on Earth with a directional radio antenna -- including whether or not something landed on the moon (if it didn't, the signal would keep disappearing behind the moon with each orbit).
      • The hundreds of pounds of moon rocks, released to the scientific community for study, were of obviously terrestrial origin.

      No conspiracy theory concerning the lunar landing stands up to even five minutes of skeptical thought.

  • There's no better debunking than that, IMHO. Getting something on Mars is a lot more difficult than on the Moon.

    Of course, one might argue that the Pathfinder was a hoax, too. But radio amateurs were able to get a radio signal which had all the right characteristics of something coming from Mars.

    The Raven

  • It happened, but not like they told you (Score:5, Funny)

    by scott1853 ( 194884 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:14PM (#4602689)
    The lunar module landing was a coverup for a secret mission to recover an alien metal from the moon. The only problem was that the Russians wanted that metal too. Soldiers were forced to gather the metal and build factories and hover tanks with it and battle the soviet enemy for hours on end, to the wee hours of the morning until you mother hollered at you to get your ass in bed so you'd be ready for school tomorrow.
  • If you don't believe that there was a Moon Landing, please kill yourself and save me the trouble.

    Sincerely,
    Natural Selection
  • If you aren't doing anything illegal, why do you insist on privacy. What are you hiding?
  • Yes, while one can bemoan the fact that these monies needed to be spent at all, this will be generally useful.

    I would expect, however, that the document will be rather redundant. It's not like one cannot find several very well documented debunkings out there (and on NASA's web site as well).

    I could see the point if the document is ultimately meant to be printed to dead trees, but then who will get it? Teachers would make sense, and perhaps FOX programming executives. :-)

    I don't think a great deal of money should be spent on wider distribution though, the only people likely to pick it up are those who didn't already buy into the cranks' insanity.

    -- MG

  • The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    (Ha! You can't mod it down 'cause it's actually relevant!)

    It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

    Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

    Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

    Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

  • This has already been done... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Griim ( 8798 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:17PM (#4602743) Homepage
    ...and rather well, I thought, by the guy who runs BadAstronomy.Com [badastronomy.com].

    Here is a direct link [badastronomy.com] to the article where he does so, where he tears apart the horrible Fox TV special that was on in 2001.

  • Buzz has his very own response ;-) (Score:3, Informative)

    by rainer_d ( 115765 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:18PM (#4602755) Homepage
    Look here [csicop.org] to see that even at 72, he can defend himself.

    St. Petersburg Times" [sptimes.com] has more info on the incident, if you must.

  • Buzz Aldrin Had The Right Idea (Score:3, Funny)

    by toopc ( 32927 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:18PM (#4602756)
    Why spend $15,000 when a left hook is just as effective?

    Buzz Aldrin Punches Moon-landing Conspiracy Theorist [csicop.org]

    btw...The video [csicop.org] is pretty funny!

  • Waste? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:19PM (#4602760) Homepage

    Money spent educating people is never a waste.

    • Re:Waste? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RandomCoil ( 88441 )
      You're right, however your statement assumes the people are able to learn.

      That might be a stretch with this group.
  • Can we not prove it in a less expensive manor? When we landed on the moon we left behind many thing; roller, flag, foots prints, and other junk. Our telescopes are powerfull, can we not zoom in on these objects and take pictures of them? Maybe even allow the public, at certain planeturiums to look at them? Just a thought. By viewign the flag alone should be proof enough.

  • Sad Day for Science (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <thguorw.wodahs>> on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:19PM (#4602767) Homepage Journal
    It is a sad statement for science in this country that NASA has to spend money debunking the absurd. I watched the Fox special and I kept shaking my head in bewilderment by the conspiracy theorist's "evidence". A modicum of science education ought to have been enough to have the nation laughing at these poodle buggering ninnys. Instead everyone shakes their head and says "sounds 'bout right to me..." Blech.

  • Conspiracy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:24PM (#4602815) Journal
    I don't believe these nutcases. However, I recently realized that one of my arguments against them is not as strong as I thought.

    Here's the argument: Tens of thousands of people were involved in the Apollo program. There were thousands of them who would unavoidably know if the moon landings were faked. Several thousand people can't keep a secret for over 30 years.

    What is wrong with this argument? Bletchley Park. For about 30 years, several thousand people kept the secret that the allies hand broken most of the axis codes during World War II.

    (It is still a valid argument, however - there are differences between Bletchley Park and a hypothetically faked Apollo 11.)

  • Of course they were fake (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:28PM (#4602854) Homepage
    This is just another attempt to hoodwink the public. I'd publish my point-by-point rebuttal but no one would understand the scientific terms that I'd need to use.

    The government can already read our minds. Last year we saw that scientists have been able to have machines controlled by nothing other than thought by scanning brain waves. It's obvious that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Moving machines with thought is only the part that the government allows these scientists to reveal to the public. Just as civilians aren't privy to top-secret military aircraft designs until years after they become completely outdated, so is the thought-reading apparatus hidden while it still is useful.

    You think I'm mad? Even private corporations are not allowed to release technology without government approval. Remember the Hoverboards in Back to the Future? They're real. But they still have military applications so cannot be released to the public. We know that it can work because the Japanese have maglev trains that work on identical priciples.

    You still think I'm mad? Turn your Television to a 'staticky' station. Watch the chaotic series of dots and blips. Do this for about six hours until your brain becomes attuned to the frequency. Soon you'll be able to decipher the 8,192 bit encoded datastream that the government is using to communicate with the L'kelialia from Pluto. You'll hear their voices. You'll see their devilish grins peering back at you.

    People ask, why would the government want to fake the moon landing? It's easy. Staking a claim. In 2053 the Global Congress will debate the issue of ownership of mineral rights on Luna. The government is only making sure that it has the most prior claim. The actual technology for a moon shot won't be available for another 16 years (I think, this is 2002, right?) but time travel has been well understood since Einstein. It's very complicated and scientific (I'd have to use terms like Schwartzchild radius and eigenvalues to really explain it) but suffice it to say that it's true. I read it on Slashdot earlier this year.

    Anyway, I hope my detailed, logical, and coherent analysis and convinces you that this upcoming paper is total fabrication.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @05:37PM (#4602953)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This never happened. (Score:3, Funny)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2002 @09:47PM (#4604815)
    There certainly have been moon landings, but not before 1982, when NASA finally invented the technologies to get past the radiation belt. The world was fooled over a decade before into believing that Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. All the images and whatnot from the various Apollo missions were fakes. I have bulletproof evidence to support this claim: Two different people, who do not know each other, have separately told me that they doubt the moon landings took place.

  • The most convincing... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by psych031337 ( 449156 ) <psych0@wtnetCOFFEE.de minus caffeine> on Wednesday November 06, 2002 @12:02AM (#4605609)
    ...fact about that entire saga is not a technical but a psychological one.

    Remember, it was a "race into space" with the Russians leading some time along the way. They had the first device in orbit (Sputnik) and they certainly can be credited for having a high-tech state of the art space control center back then.

    If something was faked along the way to the moon landing (i.e. no rocket leaving earth, the radio waves of transmission not really originating from the moon, etc.) do you think they would have kept their traps shut about this hoax? If someone had the tech and the expertise to really establish if something moved from earth to moon and transmitted a load of radio waves from there, it was them. They have not spoken up, and that in an era where almost every mistake from either side was used as ammunition to discredit the other. They didn't. Proof enough. QED.

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