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?"
NASA would call them crackpots wouldn't they? (Score:3, Funny)
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:Better ignore the ignorants... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, I hadn't heard anyone use that one before... Um, how much force does the light from the sun exert on a flag that small? Is the force relatively constant? Why isn't the dust on the moon blowing under this "sun wind"?
The light from the sun does have a measurable force, but it is very very small relative to everything else affecting things on the moon (isn't even strong enough to blow the moon dust around). The flag was waving in the breeze because the the vibration caused by sticking it in the ground had very little damping in the flag fabric without the presence of air. Only the miniscule friction cause within the material itself damped the flags movement so it "fluttered" at its resonant frequency.
Re:NASA would call them crackpots wouldn't they? (Score:3, Insightful)
spin it in your favor (Score:2, Insightful)
Nasa needs to get more public support, the more chances to remind people how magical walking on the moon was the more likely we will be doing it again.
If you ask me the best way to refute it isn't to right a book, but to do it again. Would it really be that hard now that we have a space station to launch from.
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
Re:spin it in your favor (Score:2)
If you think about all the people who watched it on TV, it was less waste than most Hollywood productions.
Re:spin it in your favor (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, at times NASA has lost vision and suffered from featherbedding and beaurcratic gamesmanship, but IMHO the payback from what we put into the space program has been the BEST use of taxpayer dollars, EVER.
Re:Why Blindly trust your government? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for proof, that's easy. The Apollo program has left laser reflectors on the moon [nasa.gov]. These reflectors have been 'pinged' by many organizations independent from NASA and the U.S. government, including schools and government programs in the U.K., France, Japan, and even the former Soviet Union (what reason would they possibly have to back up false U.S. claims?), Canada and others.
Anyone with the money to rent a properly equipped telescope and the necessary laser equipment can verify this. Including the skeptics.
As for the point about the abductees, I've never heard anyone assert (even Whitley Striber) that they're talking about numbers in the millions. You and I both know that it's technologically possible. That's (I think) not what's in dispute here. But there is, in my opinion, as much reason to believe that man went to the moon as there is to believe that we've gone to Antarctica. I've never been there. And unlike the moon, I've never met anyone who's claimed to have been there! That doesn't mean I don't believe we've gone. It's not an absurd claim. Alien abduction... well, I think of it like an afterlife or lots of religious concepts. I'd *love* to believe in it. I've love to believe that not only are there aliens (which I believe do exist. We probably aren't the only intelligent life in the universe), but they are here visiting us. But I don't. I see no evidence, nor do I see any reason to believe it's more likely than not. Just like I'd love to think that after I did, that's not it. But I see no reason to believe that that is anything more than wishful thinking.
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 Blindly trust your government? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because people who get "abducted" are all fruits. They have stupid stories about anal probing. The aliens always confirm these people's opinions (that conveniently are always ignored because of a conspiracy) about whatever ridiculous thing they're going on about. These people don't understand the difference between causality and correlation, they say things like "It didn't look like a plane [to me], I couldn't find out that it was a weather balloon, so it *must* have been a UFO" and they don't even understand why they're ridiculous.
That's why they don't get believed. They're not mentally all there and they make assumptions from too-few facts.
What does this mean? Because no other country tried (why, most of them were allies with one of the two countries that were trying), it must be false? No other country has made a plane like the SR-71, or nuclear submarines as capable as the US, but most people believe in those.
The space-race was a massive attempt by both sides to demoralize the other side by proving them to be less capable. Don't you think the Russians would have pointed out the US's lies if they could have? They've sent probes around the moon before. It'd be a simple matter to have sent out close enough to the landing site to photograph the empty site for proof that there never was anything there.
If you were in a contest with someone and suspected they won a big prize by cheating, and all you had to do to check was send someone to review tapes of part of the contest, wouldn't you do so? Wouldn't you blow the whistle? How about if the other person was your sworn enemy and you could humiliate them completely by this?
What is really so suspicious about the moon landings? The rocketry technology is there, I prove it every time I use a signal broadcast by a geo-synchronous satellite. The life-support equipment is there, this is actually easier than building a suit that'll work at great depths.
On one side of the UFO vs Moon Landing you have a bunch of trained scientists willing to show you the inbetween steps and the documentation, as well as explaining why certain things don't match your explanations and show how you can test these assumptions in an unbiased experiemnt. On the other hand, you'd got a bunch of crystal-power using, accupuncture practising, new-age weenies who make claims like UFO abduction or perpetual motion and yet get violent and abusive when you ask for a demonstration, let alone proof.
Who do you really think is more believable?
Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why bother? (Score:2)
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:Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
FOX is still a major network, and while they should be ashamed of themselves for spreading such blatant misinformation, it seems to me that NASA should have some response to this. Yes, I've heard the claim that responding to it only gives the crackpots more credibility, but when a major network (even the lowley FOX) suggests the moon landings were faked, the crackpots already have far too much credibility than they deserve.
Now, you can argue about WHAT NASA should say or do, I'm not sure funding a book was the proper thing. It would seem too late to make a big stink about FOX being so irresponsible to air trash like this, being that it's been almost 2 years since it was first shown. Personally I think this argument should be about what NASA should do about this sort of thing, not if.
UFO sightings are hoaxes, roswell was a hoax (Score:2)
So why cant the moon landing be a Hoax?
How can you believe something when it was only on TV? You didnt see it in person.
Also why has no other country gone to the moon besides us? We havent even gone back since then.
So why not be skeptical.
I'm going to admit I dont know either way.
I dont trust the government, the government is just as quick to claim something they cant prove is a hoax, like UFO sightings. Millions of people claim to have seen them, but its a hoax because the government prolly doesnt even know.
So why dont we have the right to be skeptical of the government if they are skeptical of us?
If you claimed to have found an unlimited energy source and your only proof was a video tape, and no one has since been able to duplicate your experiment in a lab, everyone would say its a hoax, including NASA.
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one wish more people would start to doubt things they saw on television / the big screen. Things like the "Blair Witch Project", for example, show just how easy it is to convince people that fantasy is reality.
n.b. I'm not saying the moon landing didn't happen, I'm just saying it's entirely possible that it was faked. Personally, I remain skeptical, but I don't fret about it. Did we land on the moon? Does it matter? Who cares! Of course the billions of dollars the American citizens are spending on NASA funding quite probably sticks in their craw some, but hey, it's their choice whether they want to spend money for the research NASA provides. Is the moon landing the only tangible thing for which they can plead for funding? If they have other reasons to request funding, so be it.
As for people who are "CONVINCED" that it was a hoax, well, they're just as closed-minded as the people who are "CONVINCED" that it did happen. It's like anything else you haven't personally experienced; you have to take someone elses word for it. I'm sure we could spend weeks coming up with counter-arguments for every existing argument, and even counter-arguments for the counter-arguments. The problem is, however, all of this relies on the words of people who are making the original claims. That amounts to a lot of circular logic being employed by both sides. As for the people who were there, well, they have a vested interest in maintaining a unified front.
Meanwhile, there are more important things down on Earth to concern ourselves with, so I'll now attend to them and forget the whole thing. {smile}
Evidence (Score:2, Informative)
I hate ignorance (Score:4, Informative)
That's what everyone else is for (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's core business is delivering science and engineering, not education.
There are plenty of educated, credible and vocal people who don't work for NASA who can and will provide necessary refutations (word??) for pseudoscientific nonsense.
NASA could probably achieve the same goal (convincing swinging skeptics) to the same level of efficiency through a PR department staffed with a couple of researchers and the occasional "read this or ask them" press release.
Re:That's what everyone else is for (Score:2, Insightful)
It is NASA's business (Score:5, Insightful)
One of Nasa's three stated mission objectives [nasa.gov] is "to inspire the next generation of explorers". Exactly how could the next generation be inspired if they think NASA was lying up-front about its most inspiring accomplishment?
Re:It is NASA's business (Score:2, Insightful)
The number of people who are running around screaming that NASA fooled everyone is, I imagine, pretty small. Even if it is as high as 20%, that means 4/5 of the next generation are open in some degree to the idea of space travel, and they have succeeded, all without wasting money on the minority of yahoos.
Keep in mind that there is a percentage of people who think that there is no such thing as atoms, that science was created by God as an ultimate test of their religious faith and that the earth is flat, or that it is supported on the back of a turtle in an infinite ocean, or something like that.
How can you prove the moon landing? (Score:2)
Thats like me looking at UFO footage (theres plenty of so called scientists who do this) And claiming its real.
The government is quick to call it swamp gas, air balloons, everything under the sun besides an un indentified flying object. The government is to arrogant to admit they dont know something.
So if they cant admit they dont know what a UFO is, why would they admit the moon landing could have been staged?
IT only happened once,theres no absolute proof,it could be as fake as Alien Autopsy.
Bring me to the moon. (Score:4, Informative)
Why bother trying to convince the "crackpots"? What percentage of the population are they, and does it really concern NASA? Maybe the most telling thing about the whole story is that NASA does seem concerned.
If they really want to prove them wrong, then take me (and everyone else) to the moon, and we'll check out that flag and footprints to see if they're there.
Nasa will not be able to convince all the "crackpots" until there is a viable station on the moon that people can go to for vacation.
Re:Bring me to the moon. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bring me to the moon. (Score:2)
Re:Bring me to the moon. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why should NASA even care? (Score:2)
I mean, seriously, why waste good money on a bunch of people who don't believe that the NASA went to the moon? I mean, sure, some point they make are compelling about lack of stars, flag wave while there is no wind. But each and everyone one of those points been tackled by claims like overexposure, not so perfect cameras, etcetera. So why waste money on a bunch of idiots who do not believe the NASA? Besides, even IF you would prove it to them, there will always be a few retards who will still refuse to believe it all, claiming that the evidence was set up as well and more of such claims.
NASA should realize that there also are idiots on this planet who should be ignored.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could draw parallels with creationism.
dave
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
They're trying to undermine the faith that society has in science.
That is a bizarre point of view for someone who appears to embrace science for its own sake. That comment, along with your creationism cut, appears to betray a regard for science that borders on religion.
My understanding of science is that faith is irrelevant. You ask a question, test the question, and analyze the results. I fail to understand how its purpose or value can be affected by public belief in it. Indeed, given DDT, PCBs, thalidomide, agent orange, phlogiston, the Hanford site, etc., etc., etc., I should rather hope that public policy toward science be critical enough to question it effectively. In fact, I am horrified by the thought of the public having "faith" in science.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those who refuse to provide proof are the "anti-science crackpots". Society's faith will in science will be undermined if science as treated as something that must be believed based merely on a statement from a self-proclaimed authority.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're painting with a pretty wide brush there, I must say. Some (many, I'd wager) people who doubt things like the moon landing are merely skeptical; it doesn't mean they're somehow opposed to science as a whole. Problem is, generally the only ones who get substantial airtime are the extremists. {sigh}
The world is a much bigger, more diverse place than Fox portrays. ;)
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if there's a faction who'd like a populace which doesn't understand the word it lives in and reverts to superstition and prayer when a little thought would do. Then they can blame events on lack of faith, rather than a rational analysis.
dave
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:2)
It's not faith. It's logic. There is a difference.
far-out theories (Score:2)
Like theories about the evils of MP3 from people who think pink make mice tails rot off?
Why should there be a policy? (Score:2)
It's a non-issue.
Re:Why should there be a policy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, most of these people won't be convinced until you bring each and every one of them to the moon, and even then some will insist it was a drug induced hallucination.
And another thing.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just the the two groups are lumped together as crackpots. Either that, or it was the aliens who prevented the Apollo missions from succeeding.
Belief (Score:2, Insightful)
Theres evidence of UFOs too, do you believe it? (Score:2)
Wow look at the UFO videos, the crop circles, alien autospy, hell all of this bullshit could be created by the government as part of a psyops program to confuse and scare other enemy governments into wasting resources on invaders that dont exist.
You need to wake up and learn to believe what you can actually prove, not just what you see.
Did we go to the moon? (Score:2)
If enough people believe it, then it happened. If they don't, it didn't. So we just need to know how many people believe it - cue a Slashdot Poll?
There is no spoon.
Re:Did we go to the moon? (Score:2)
The vast majority of people once believed that the sun orbited the Earth, which was flat, but that didn't make it any more true. Beliefs in fact have no effect whatsoever on reality. That's why religion isn't taken seriously these days.
As I said on a previous post.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You show them documents, they say they are fake.
Show them footage, they say it was done in a studio.
Show them the moon lander through a telescope, they say the telescope has been tampered with.
Take them to the moon and show them the lander in person, and they say it was planted.
Last time i posted this reply i got some replies suggesting that the crackpots be left on the moon.
Re:As I said on a previous post.... (Score:3, Funny)
That'll convince them, or they'll say that they are in a big room, with all of the air removed, and it is a big conspiracy to silence them.
Re:As I said on a previous post.... (Score:2)
That's right. Mockers are just mockers. There's no way to convince incorrigibly pessimist freaks. If they don't believe NASA, it's their problem, not NASA's. Even if NASA would make another last ditch attempt to send some people to the moon, these crackpots would still cry "Liar! Liar!"
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: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.
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.
The essence of science is repeatability. (Score:2)
I know what I saw in my backyard on July 20, 1969. Watching under a full moon, watching the moon landing on TV. I know what I saw.
But I know now that I was wrong. What do I tell my daughters?
The essence of science is repeatability. Show me this wasn't a hoax. Wasn't a one time stunt at the most.
Don't give me a book. Don't debunk this with photoshop.
Give me a space program. Let's go back.
The only way to prove certain things is physically (Score:2)
You'll never be able to prove UFOs or Alien Abductions are real unless you physically show people.
You'll never be able to prove that the moon landing happened unless you physically bring people to the moon.
I'd believe the moon landing happened if other countries also went to the moon, the fact that its only the USA who sent men to the moon allows skeptics to claim its a hoax.
It would be hard for skeptics to claim UFO sightings are a hoax if other governments were claiming its not, but because our government says its a hoax and other governments dont comment on it , well then its a hoax. Forget what millions of people say, forget video tapes, forget physical evidence like weird metals, its all fake or done in the studio.
You can tie them up in knots (Score:3, Insightful)
- The Americans had to show a success in getting to the moon, because they were locked in competition with the Russians.
- It is impossible to send men to the moon, because they would be killed by the radiation.
From this, two conclusions are inescapable:- The competition with the Russians was pointless, because the Russians could not have sent men to the moon either.
- The Russians were too stupid to know this, because they kept building the N-1 booster despite the knowledge that they could not put men on the moon. Yet they did.
Making such a conspiracy theorist look like a complete idiot in front of their friends and family is a good way to get them to shut up, and if they are afraid to talk about such nonsense for fear of a severe beating about the concepts with logic, the meme will stop spreading. The real problem is that most people are so ignorant that they have nothing to use as a template for calibration of their bullshit filter.Re:As I said on a previous post.... (Score:3, Funny)
Also, he tells me that the cat I ran over last week won't last much longer, and that he needs new blood.
Crazy old wizard.
Shut these people up ...... (Score:2)
"How NASA faked its proof of the fact that the moonlandings are not a fake; read all about it at www.crackpot.org"
Sigh! They should really create a new top level domain suffix,
www.something.moron
There seems to be no shortage of csutomers for it.
Logic Problem (Score:2)
I think Buzz Aldrin had by far the right idea. If they won't see sense, try to knock some into them!
In the meantime, I fully recommend "Full Moon" by Michael Light. Absolutely beautiful pictures of the moon, scenes of beautiful desolation. They make you wonder why we ever stopped going there.
Cure the problem at the source (Score:2)
I'll bet it costs less than having to pay a board of Ph.Ds and senior engineers to try and convince the lowest common denominators in the public scientifically, not to mention a hell of a lot more effective...
Turn it around... (Score:2)
Does it really matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe its called an "International Space Station" or a "Space Shuttle" both of which have given dismal returns on investment. NASA started going downhill in 1970.
It hasn't hit bottom yet.
That aside, prehaps the biggest piece of evidence for us actually going to the moon is the Soviet Union. Does anyone believe for an instant that the Russians wouldn't have done everything in their power to show that the US had not actually been to the moon if they could? You have to remember that this was during the Cold War and the Russians would have loved to do anything to give the US a black eye.
Prehaps space flight will really take off once we find some other source of power then solid/liquid fueled rockets.
So why didnt the soviets go to the moon? (Score:2)
Wheres the video tapes of the soviets dancing around on the moon with their flag? or the chinese? what about some of the europeans countries? The japanese?
I find it disturbing that only the USA went to the moon and somehow we cant do it now but we did it in the 60s.
Only one option remains (Score:3, Funny)
I want to see NASA appoint an official representative to go and visit all of the conspiracy nuts, point at them, and laugh.
This way the nuts will become so ashamed of themselves that they'll climb into their tinfoil beanies, get into their metal trailer homes and cry until the visitors take them away
Ignore them (Score:3, Insightful)
Throw lawyers at them (Score:2)
Fox special effect on people (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of this isn't the minority of crackpots, and hopefully it never will be. I've been around several schools as an astronomer since that ridiculous Fox special aired locally, and personally I think that's where it hurts most. For example, the children in one school had had a "debate" about the moon landings the day before we arrived, and the side claiming it was a hoax had won hands down.
This wasn't because the arguments in the show were actually good, it was because the teachers and parents of the children didn't have a clue how to contradict the arguments that'd been presented. The only information they had access to was the extremely crack-pot Fox special.
This shouldn't be a case of "think about the children", though. It's at least as much a case of "think about the adults". They don't need to be crack-pots, only ignorant.
Most people simply don't know how to critically evaluate information presented to them. I was taught the difference between fact and opinion in school, but I wasn't taught to use it implicitly with the world around me. I figured that out myself. Personally I think that most people never learn. They just take information presented to them on a plate, and believe whatever seems most convenient or to their liking at the time.
If people were taught to pro-actively think for themselves then it might be different, but most of the time they're not. Instead they're taught to rely on someone else for the answers to any remotely hard questions... which is why there's so much reliance on psychics, daytime talk shows, astrology, mainstream media and sensationalist television. That's my theory, anyway.
If people actually cared, we wouldn't have to put up with trashy media like this in the first place. They don't care about correct information, they just want any information to believe is correct.
Re:Fox special effect on people (Score:2)
I know a couple of people who should just know better; one's an admin for his own webdesign company (survived the bomb, fyi) and the other is a machinist gone on to a communications degree. These people should know better, but they just don't ask the right questions! They have no knowledge of optics, reaction mass etc, and they just believe what's on tv. Or they go to cleuless sights where they get pseudo-science shoved down their throught (sciencebox.cx (or something...went there once, fled back to arxiv...hell, even
God, if only people would just ask the propper questions, or at least know where to look to get correct information.
Anyway, my soloution: shoot the crackpots. Think of it as Darwin's way of telling them that they lose. We just can't afford to let these people breed, or they'll form a that vocal minority telling us that there is no greenhouse effect, and it's the aliens/terrorists that have stolen antarctica.
Re:Fox special effect on people (Score:3, Informative)
It's anomalous on the face of it, true. But it's just anomalous if we didn't go to the moon; why didn't they just put the crosshairs on the camera when they were filming? Alternately, why couldn't they add crosshairs to photos from the moon?
The actual explanation is that photos get bleached out in the sun; there are some good pictures of it here [badastronomy.com].
several of the pictures had the exact same background.
The Bad Astronomy site [badastronomy.com] has something on that, too. It's not nearly as easy to judge distances in the absense of an atmosphere. It links to a flash animation [hypnoide.com] where you can flip back and forth between two of the pictures, and actually see the background move.
Milk it! (Score:2)
wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA got itself into this problem by presenting itself as a frontier organization, a group of heroic explorers. And to maintain that image, they are wasting lots of money on useless projects like the space shuttle and the space station.
What should NASA do? They should present themselves as a scientific organization and forego the wild-west mentality. They should stop presenting astronauts as "heroes", reduce manned space travel to next-to-nothing, and instead go mostly with comparatively low-cost, unmanned probes. As you may have noticed, people don't generally ask whether unmanned probes are fake or not, and even if they did, nobody would really care very much.
And, of course, the other problem is that the US population isn't exactly up to speed on science, on average. Refuting a single crackpot is too little too late, but NASA should take its educational role in the sciences more seriously and they should get the funding to do it--they are trying, but they aren't making a dent.
If we had a scientifically literate population, and NASA stuck to doing science and didn't create a heroic mysticism around manned exploration, crackpots wouldn't stand a chance. The way it is, NASA is merely reaping what they sowed.
If Carl Sagan were still alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is one champion still alive (Score:5, Interesting)
evidence towards refutation (Score:2)
I find it interesting... (Score:2)
One thing that always stood out in my mind was a High School teacher of mine telling us that the computational power used to deliver people to the moon way back when was equivelant to the computational power in "current" (1994?) calculators.
Up untill that moment I had no reason to doubt the moon landing. After that, however, I started to wonder - not doubt, mind you - but wonder.
Is it really such a hard thing to find a hint of disbelief in? Way back when, on their first attempt, people fired a big-ass rocket off the earth, located and landed safely on another planet, walked around a bit, launched succesfully off of that other planet, located and landed safely back on earth.
I mean come on, yeah, in all likelihood it happened, but can you say that with absolute certainty that it DID happen (or as close to absolute certainty that reality will allow)? Are you so certain as to be able to label those who disagree with you as crackpots without even talking to them first?
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:I find it interesting... (Score:2)
Ok, assuming that every refutation that has been given thus far about my under-powered computer thought is true, is it still so far fetched that the moon-landing MIGHT NOT be true?
Are you so absolutely sure in the truth of the moon-landing that you're willing to throw around the term "crackpot" in reference to anyone who may disagree with you? You have every right to claim that they're wrong and give reasons as to why you believe they're wrong, but throwing around the term "crack-pot" seems a little pre-judgemental and ivory-towerish, n'est pas?
Take the long view. (Score:2)
You've got TransOrbital's TrailBlazer mission [transorbital.net] which will take photos of the landing sites. Followed a few years later by TransOrbital's Electra II [transorbital.net] which will drive rovers up to the landing sites. And within 15 years we'll have Chinese astronauts [newsmax.com] on the Moon (they say by 2010, but personally I think that's about 5 years too optimistic).
None of these things will convince the conspiracy nuts. Nothing would. But that's not the point. The point is to discredit them in the eyes of the public.
In a personal argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even with very intense religious or political discussions, it is usually possible to reach this goal.
And, for the most part, this goal is usually about as far as it is possible to go, at least in a single argument. After you get that far, you need to give it a rest for six months or so and not keep harping on it.
It is very unusual for anyone to say "By gosh! you're right! I just changed my mind." But if you can get a mutual understanding of each others' point of view, the chances of productive progress sometime in the future are much increased.
At work, say, with discussions with colleagues or supervisors, what typically happens (when I'm right and have presented it well) is that nobody agrees at the time, and nobody says that they've changed their mind, yet three or six months down the line I will see some partial or incremental progress in the directions I've advocated.
I believe that the same goal should be applied to the "moon-landing-hoax" debate. NASA should try to present clearly and publicly, the reasons why people believe the moon landing occurred, AND should try to address the opponents' arguments intelligently and respectfully.
NASA should not expect to convince the "it's-a-hoax" crowd nor to settle the debate, but NASA needs to acknowledge that the government has lied to us on occasion, and that saying, in effect, "it's true because we say so, and your opinions don't count because you're crackpots" is arrogant and inappropriate.
The Amazing Randi has not "settled" any debates about psychic phenomena, but he's done a lot of good.
Tell them about the mutant space goats (Score:2)
NASA should assemble all the crackpots and tell them about the giant mutant space goats coming to devour the planet, then herd them all onto the rockets that will take them to safety....
It is not about the crackpots (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not about the crackpots. It is not even about moon landings. It is about teaching reasonable folks about critical thinking and evaluating evidence.
There are many people who believe what they see on Fox, because there are no easily accessible sources that give them the other side. These people also vote at elections, and one of their votes count as much as your vote (at least theoretically... :-) ). They shape policy as much as you do, and really, democracy can't work unless you have a well-educated public who can tell when they are being lied to.
That's why NASA, and every well-educated person has to spend time teaching everyone about evaluating evidence, not because of the moon landings, but because you can't have a working democracy without.
Re: (Score:2)
No, you can never cure stupidity (Score:2)
It Won't Matter (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Moon Landing is a Hoax" crackpots are the same: if NASA doesn't refute them, then they can continue with their silliness. If NASA does refute them, then the crackpots either say "See, if NASA is refuting us, we are important" feeding into their delusions, regardless of the information NASA releases. It's a Catch-22.
Plus, any information that NASA does release would be used against them in some way: any little deviation, correction, etc, automatically triggers the "conspiracy sense" these idiots have.
It is a lot like the John Edwards stuff: you can explain exactly how he does his tricks, exactly how he gathers his information, but none of that will actually convince a person who believes.
Refute? NASA should sue! (Score:2)
- Tell him to get his ass outta here or else I'll call the cops
- Call the cops
- Use physical force (aided by appropriate tools) to get the guy off my property
but sure as hello I would -not- argue with him. If I would argue, I would give a very small legitimity to the claim. And he'd take it from there and get more and more obnoxious, so I would really have to kick his ass.
Why should NASA refute these crackpot claims, argue with sleazy journalists in search for fame? You don't argue these outrageosly stupid allegations, because if you do, you give them at least a little bit of validity.
To Be Contrary Is Human (Score:2)
All the article is pointing out is that we're now in the Sun entering the house of Virgo new-agey crapfest that resurfaces every ten years or so. Science will once again become popular at some point. When it is popular again, it'll be for all the wrong reasons.
We should all be refuting this... (Score:2)
My favorite way to refute psychics is a joke: "I don't believe in psychics, because you have to make an appointment".
So, go out there and do your job... :-)
Good luck for fighting against "crackpots"! (Score:2)
UFO as 'I've been abducted by little green men', not UFO simply as Unknown Flying Objects, which do exist of course.
Should NASA help also to dismiss these myths?
It's going to be hard: when you really look at it it is really a belief: it's the same thing as fighting against astrology or other stupid myth.
The only thing that can help fighting those myth is better teaching, trying to change the mind of adults is nearly impossible.
PS:
I'm French but I'm not criticising the US, in France we have our own crackpot theories:
- astrology is a huge marcket here
- to apply to any jobs we have to write by hand a letter so that a specialist can check in our handwriting our qualities and default!
*Sigh* and I'm not even joking: it is sad but true.
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.
Buzz Aldrin's Response (Score:3)
I prefer Buzz Aldrin's response... The Daily Show featured a video by a hoax advocate as he harrassed the astronaut on a city street. Aldrin simply ignored the guy until he got in his face calling him a liar and demanding that he tell the world the truth, at which point he punched the guy in the face and continued on his way.
More at Bad Astronomy [badastronomy.com]
Re:Buzz Aldrin's Response (Score:4, Funny)
I saw that film, but I don't think it's real. There were no stars in the background.
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.
Credulous People... (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my co-workers was talking to his brother who mentioned that he had watched one of these no-moon-landings programs and now believes that there never was a moon landing. My co-worker responded, "The only people who believe that there was no moon-landing are the morons who believe the CIA killed Kennedy." A long silence ensued.
The mass media panders to people like this and most rebuttals would only reach those who were clueful anyway. My advice is to laugh at anyone who says that a moon landing never occured. And roll on the floor when you meet a flat-earther.
It's Our Own Damn Fault! (Score:3, Insightful)
Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul
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...
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. ;-)
Re:Do a Buzz Alrdrin (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Write a book:"Moon landings for Idiot's" (Score:2)
Re:There are some things NASA can't explain. (Score:2)
Bright objects will bleed over onto thin black lines on film. It's as simple as that. The effect gets more pronounced the brighter the object and the wider the aperture.
Now let's suppose this bleeding effect didn't exist (which it does - you can demonstrate it here on Earth), if NASA was faking the photographs, and this was an issue, don't you think they would have fixed the problem so you couldn't prove the image was faked?
Re: (Score:2)
People blindly trust NASA (Score:2)
How is NASA more credible than the so called crackpots?
What makes NASA incapable of lying?
I just dont understand how people can be so stupid to trust everything the government says. Gov said Roswell was a flying saucer, then changed their story to a weather balloon when people began to panic, then in the 1990s they said it was a top secret spy balloon with test dummies inside with big black eyes like the witnesses saw.
Thats 3 seperate lies about the same incident right there.
Then you have the secret test trials they did on the population and prolly still do.
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The government is no more credible than people on the art bell show, when I see another country besides our own go on the moon and put their flag on it, then i'll believe we went there.
So far i've only heard of one country landing on the moon, the USA, I've only seen one video, ours, and no ones ever done it since then, not even us.
So of course I'm skeptical, I mean China, Russia and other super powers still havent landed on the moon and its 2002?
Yeah but it never can work (Score:2)
UFO investigators, they go around trying to prove that UFOs are real and that they land on earth.
How is NASA going to prove we landed on the moon?
Impossible, even if there were thousands of hours of footage