Russia's Space Chief Finally Admits US Landed on Moon (newsweek.com) 85
"Russia has finally admitted that American astronauts did, in fact, land on the moon," reports Newsweek:
Head of Russian Space Corporation Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, accepted the truth of the U.S. putting a man on the moon in an address to the State Duma, Intellinews has reported.
"As for whether the Americans were on the Moon or not, I have one fact to share," he was reported to have said. "I was personally interested in this matter. At one time, they provided us with a portion of the lunar soil that the astronauts brought back during their expedition." Previous polling revealed that just under half of Russians believe America's 1969 moon landing was a government hoax. However, Borisov said that tests performed on the samples by the Russian Academy of Scientists confirmed their authenticity.
"As for whether the Americans were on the Moon or not, I have one fact to share," he was reported to have said. "I was personally interested in this matter. At one time, they provided us with a portion of the lunar soil that the astronauts brought back during their expedition." Previous polling revealed that just under half of Russians believe America's 1969 moon landing was a government hoax. However, Borisov said that tests performed on the samples by the Russian Academy of Scientists confirmed their authenticity.
You can still bounce lasers off the mirror ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You can still bounce lasers off the mirror ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Faking a laser bouncing on a mirror on the moon is much easier than faking a whole moon landing. Have you tested that all by yourself?
Not the parent, but I have actually done the laser-ranging experiment to a retroreflector on the moon using a IR laser, we did it at university as part of a Physics undergraduate 5 or 10 years before it appeared on that TV show.
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More importantly though, the USSR did NOT deny it.
First off, there were so many people in the space program that if it was faked, there's no way it will remain a secret. It's just too big a deal for that many people to have kept quiet. Someone would've blabbed and there would be enough evidence that it was faked.
Second, you think the USSR WASN'T listening in? They have radio antennas as well and know
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I'm not saying it's fake, but you likely didn't measure what you think you did.
And what exactly is your basis for this assertion? The experiment I took part in was planned and supervised by established professors, most of the actual work conducted by postgrads, with undergrads (including myself) there to do some of the simpler tasks, observe the experiment and take notes and record the results. The detector and associated recording hardware were first calibrated and we got to observe that too, so there was no fakery of results. This experiment was not conducted with the purpose of a
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Yes, but nothing will convince the conspiracy theorists. They will just say that university students were indoctrinated into the NASA lies (the same ones that pretend the earth is not flat). This isn't really about science, it's about the faith-based belief it was all a hoax, and it's better for them psychologically to be one of the few who believe it's a hoax than be just another boring person.
Re:You can still bounce lasers off the mirror ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I did test that myself and it works. My entire class did it when I was learning electronics back in 1978.
The school had a pretty decent laser that was donated but never used for anything, and one of the teachers wanted to try hitting the reflector as a pet project. It ended up turning into a classroom project. It took a couple of weeks to get everything set up.
Honestly I don't think any of us expected it to work, but it did, and we did it repeatedly.
It was very difficult to detect the bounce hits during the day but we were able to do it pretty reliably in the early evening and at night. (That was more of a detector problem, I think, with it being swamped by ambient light during the day.)
But it's there. The laser reflector panel on the Moon is there, and it you point the laser just right, you WILL be able to detect a return bounce of the light off the reflector. We all got to press the button to fire the laser and we all got to see the return bounce a few seconds later.
We did it with probably less than $10K of equipment, today that would probably cost less than $1000.
We went to the Moon, and anyone who claims we didn't is just wrong.
Re:You can still bounce lasers off the mirror ... (Score:5, Funny)
We went to the Moon, and anyone who claims we didn't is just wrong.
Wrong! Anyone with a brain knows that Stanley Kubrick filmed the fake moon landings from a studio in Area 51. Facts!
But if you remember, Kubrick was such a perfectionists that he made NASA go to the moon to ensure he got the faked footage right.
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It reminds me of what 9/11 truthers figured out:
The US governnment (especially George W Bush) decided to plant demolition charges in the World Trade Center towers, and detonate them on 9/11. The problem: everyone would know how it was done and infer who did it, and GWB didn't know presidents had immunity for all crimes back then, because SCOTUS hadn't realized it yet. So GWB wanted to evade detection.
They decided to fly hijacked commercial airplanes into the towers as cover, so that no one would suspect that demolition explosions had actually taken the towers down.
But then they realized that the aircraft would start fires which would destroy the towers anyway, so they didn't need the demolition charges. They fabricated an excuse to remove the bomb-sniffer dogs, and then when the coast was clear, they sneakily removed all the demolition charges, late 9/10 and early 9/11 morning. That's why no one ever found a shred of evidence the demolition charges, even though they were totally real!
And yes, some people believe that.
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This was one of the funniest bits, out of a zilliion funny bits, in Arrested Development. When Ron Howard, playing himself, had the same moon lander that was used in the hoax.
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We went to the Moon, and anyone who claims we didn't is just wrong.
Wrong! Anyone with a brain knows that Stanley Kubrick filmed the fake moon landings from a studio in Area 51. Facts!
But if you remember, Kubrick was such a perfectionists that he made NASA go to the moon to ensure he got the faked footage right.
PFFFT, it wasn't Kubrik, he'd have insisted on filming on location.
Besides, we all know it was faked, filmed on a sound stage on Mars.
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We went to the Moon, and anyone who claims we didn't is just wrong.
Wrong! Anyone with a brain knows that Stanley Kubrick filmed the fake moon landings from a studio in Area 51. Facts!
But if you remember, Kubrick was such a perfectionists that he made NASA go to the moon to ensure he got the faked footage right.
PFFFT, it wasn't Kubrik, he'd have insisted on filming on location. Besides, we all know it was faked, filmed on a sound stage on Mars.
By Elon Musk three years before he was born - people don't understand that all of the present day starship stuff is something to allow people to think that we haven't made it to Mars yet.
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Faking a laser bouncing on a mirror on the moon is much easier than faking a whole moon landing.
It is, but what they did was tell everybody in the world that there's a retroreflector on the moon and they can bounce a laser off it for themselves any time that the moon is above the horizon. I don't see how you can fake this when you don't know who would try this or when or where. You do need an observatory-sized telescope, but there are plenty of those around the world.
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Goddiddit! I mean bots diddit! (Score:1)
> You can still bounce lasers off the mirror Neil and buzz left there
Unmanned probes put them there, and collected rocks and soil ;-)
Re: Goddiddit! I mean bots diddit! (Score:2)
If you are going to reference things that were unthinkable back then, at least make it original.
I think it must have been a naked Terminator coming from the future planting it. He needed a mirror to mastirbate to himself, and left it behind.
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Ditto... I also performed this experiment, (using the 31" Cassegrain), as an Undergraduate in the mid-80's.
[Rosemary Hill Observatory, Bronson, FL, UF]
So, I expect that this has been a relatively common experiment in many Departments for at least the past half-century+!
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Both the Russians and Indians have also left retroreflectors on the moon. There was a year and a half in 1969/70 when the Apollo 11 mirror was the only one, but it still could have been put there by a probe and not a man.
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How gracious of him. (Score:3, Insightful)
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They've run out of News in Russia, probably because of all the journalists who fled the country or were arrested. So occasionally to fill in the gaps they pull out some very very old newspapers for some material they can present as new.
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The Soviets never really disputed the moon landing (Score:5, Informative)
Khrushchev and the Politbureau officially congratulated the US on their successful moon-mission and the Apollo missions brought back a huge moon-rock to gift to the soviets. AFAIK that rock is actually on display in moscow for regular people to touch and examine. It may be that after Khrushchev officials had an interest in spreading the hoax-myth among regular citizens of the Soviet Union in a post-Khrushchev chilling of the cold war, but anyone around in the late 60ies paying attention never really doubted the moon landing. There even were somewhat public discussions on whether the Soviet Union should join the effort that was eventually deemed not that beneficial to the Soviet people.
Re:The Soviets never really disputed the moon land (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, one of the reasons why moon landing conspiracies are so daft is that the USSR, which had no reason to lie on behalf of the US, was able to track the vehicles and confirm that the radio broadcasts were indeed coming from the moon.
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Previous polling revealed that just under half of Russians believe America's 1969 moon landing was a government hoax.
The other half accidentally fell out of windows shortly after disagreeing with the Russian government line.
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Minor nitpick. By 1969, the leader of the Soviet Union was Brezhnev. Khrushchev was ousted in 1964.
"Finally admitted"... no... (Score:5, Informative)
The "finally admitted" part is BS ...
The USSR never questioned that the moon missions were real, since the Soviet (and German, by the way) space scientists closely observed the flights and received the telemetry data and other transmissions from the Apollo spacecraft.
The authorities actually _congratulated_ the USA on the achievement at the time.
It _is_ true that the footage was not shown live in the USSR - but it was 3am in Moscow at the time. It was shown the next day instead.
They were quite graceful in defeat there. So much so that most Americans now believe that the USA got to the moon first. They didn't. The USA was the first to land *a human* on the moon. The USSR was the first to land a spacecraft on the moon - in 1959.
Re:"Finally admitted"... no... (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA was the first to land *a human* on the moon.
It was a pretty amazing accomplishment - and within Kennedy's declared time frame, which is another amazing accomplishment (especially since he had died years before).
For what it's worth, Kennedy's "we choose to go to the moon" speech [youtu.be] also included a lot of points that Americans nowadays could stand to re-learn IMHO.
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A brilliant and inspiring speech, delivered beautifully.
Well worth listening to if one hasn't heard it in a while.
More so compared to the crap we hear these days ...
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One other thing stands in the way: The SLS (Senate Launch System), which is pork for all 50 states, not to mention a bunch of bad engineering decisions.
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Just get them all under the Capitol Dome. Which in reality is a part of a giant rocket system. This can lift the entire Senate and a large chunk of Congress up into a lunar orbit where facts and science cannot hurt them.
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it would be easy for me to take a second job working night shift as a security guard or something (I already work for the DoD) to 'do my part'.
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Not really proof. (Score:3)
Re:Not really proof. (Score:5, Insightful)
When some of the dribbling conspiracy theory clowns genuinely believe the earth is flat even when all they have to do is go stand on a sea cliff and watch ships descend over the horizon to prove otherwise , trying to convince these mental retards of a moon landing is a futile endeavour.
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That is why we should be able to bluntly say to them "Stop your drivel and go elsewhere, or you'll get a kick in the butt".
But no, we even need to be polite to them, because they have their right to their own opinion.
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"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
- Harlan Ellison
The Earth is not Flat [Re:Not really proof.] (Score:3)
When some of the dribbling conspiracy theory clowns genuinely believe the earth is flat even when all they have to do is go stand on a sea cliff and watch ships descend over the horizon to prove otherwise
To be fair, that could be a refraction effect. Usually the refraction effect goes the opposite way (you can see things that are actually below the horizon), but with some contorted reasoning flat Earthers can make the argument.
But all they really need to do is call somebody in a different time zone at sunset, and ask them to look outside and tell them where the sun is. On a flat Earth, the sun sets everywhere at the same time.
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Ah, but they've all thought of that also. The sun appears to orbit a globe but it really just goes in a circle around the disk. There's so much hand waving by the flat earthers that it has potential uses as a renewable energy source.
But then, flat earthers are absolutely sane compared to other nutters out there. Flat earthers are embarrassed to be in the same room as the Hollow Earthers. Then there's the "mud flood" dingbats (https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4765).
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Many flat-earthers think the sun is something like a spotlight. It doesn't illuminate the entire earth at once, but moves around in such a way that leads the unenlightened sheeple to think the earth is spherical.
It's fun to watch the contortions they go through to try to reconcile actual observations with
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Many flat-earthers think the sun is something like a spotlight. It doesn't illuminate the entire earth at once, but moves around in such a way that leads the unenlightened sheeple to think the earth is spherical.
But that makes no sense.
Oh, wait. Of course it doesn't.
Re:Not really proof. (Score:5, Informative)
The Soviets brought back lunar soil before the Apollo missions ever took off using robotic landers(Lunakhod)
No they didn't. Apollo 11 (July 1969, 21.55 kilograms) and Apollo 12 (November 1969, 34.3 kilograms) where the first to bring lunar soil to Earth. Luna 16 (not Lunokhod) brought a measly 101 grams of lunar soil to Earth in September 1970.
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ref:https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a36984208/soviet-luna-program-history/
They did in 1976.
Soviet lunar samples [Re:Not really proof.] (Score:3)
The Soviets brought back lunar soil before the Apollo missions ever took off using robotic landers(Lunakhod)
Minor correction; you're indeed right that the Soviets brought back lunar soil-- three times-- but the first Soviets lunar sample returns were in 1970, a year and a half after Apollo 11.
The missions were Luna-16, Luna-20, and Luna-24 (the Lunakhods were rovers, launched on Luna-17 and Luna-21).
Good site: https://airandspace.si.edu/sto... [si.edu]
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"The Soviets brought back lunar soil before the Apollo missions ever took off using robotic landers." Wrong. The Soviets *attempted* to do so a few days before Apollo 11's landing, but the probe (Luna 15) crashed into the Moon. Not until more than a year after Apollo 11 (and after Apollo 12) did the Soviets succeed in returning a sample from the Moon.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
... ever more mouth breathing tin foil hat wearers in the US think they were faked spouting the same few long disproved bits of "evidence" they believe proves their nonsense such as the flag flapping (rod supporting it along top, no air to slow inertial movement - a pre schooler could understand this) and other cretinous BS.
Half the Russians think the moon landing is a hoax (Score:2)
That's a lot better than Americans [checkyourfact.com].
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Re: Half the Russians think the moon landing is a (Score:2)
50% is better than 6%? I guess better depends on your point of view.
For what it's worth I don't trust these kinds of polls. I think most people accept that people have landed on the Moon multiple times. But I also think that people are easily manipulated into agreeing to almost anything on the phone, so poll methodologies are incredibly important to examine before reaching any conclusion.
Re: Half the Russians think the moon landing is a (Score:2)
I don't believe GP actually read his own source.
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they observed it happening (Score:2)
That whole thing about not knowing it was just neo-news propaganda.
Does he believe in homeopathy though?
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Buzz but not Aldrin (Score:2)
There is an upcoming show about how our best and brightest would have faked a lunar landing, and this piece is meant to create some excitement for that show on the streaming channel
Wow, propaganda works! (Score:2)
Even 55 years after the fact.
Did they ever deny it? (Score:2)
I don't think they ever denied it. In fact footage of it was shown on Soviet TV and Apollo 13 was certainly followed by the population... and not in a mocking way.
Of course you have a lot of people who think it's a hoax, but that is rarely state policy. Idiots are a phenomenon that is found all over the world. I mean even radio hams were able to receive the USB (Unified S-Band) uplink via moonbounce, and lots of people and institutions have experimented with the mirrors or gotten the signals from the sensor
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I don't think they ever denied it. In fact footage of it was shown on Soviet TV and Apollo 13 was certainly followed by the population... and not in a mocking way.
Of course you have a lot of people who think it's a hoax, but that is rarely state policy. Idiots are a phenomenon that is found all over the world. I mean even radio hams were able to receive the USB (Unified S-Band) uplink via moonbounce, and lots of people and institutions have experimented with the mirrors or gotten the signals from the sensors... or even studied the moon rocks.
A surprising number of people have impact resistant proof shields.
The irony is that one of the biggest factors in things like moon landing denialism is much of it is based on the concept of personal incredulity. Which automatically puts stupid and unimaginative people acting as the final arbiters of the truth.
Kind of like how "Ancient Aliens" tries to assign large constructions to some mysterious alien entities because Humans obviously couldn't do that!
Well, humans can do impressive things.
And sen
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"But back to the conspiracists, there is a psychological aberration that I'm fascinated with. There are some people who voluntarily choose to reject obvious truth. On the other hand, they will choose to believe outlandish ideas put forth as an alternative." FWIW (I have no training in psychology), I think this makes less intelligent people feel they're more intelligent than most people, because--in their view--those other people are fooled, while they--the conspiracists--aren't.
But I haven't met such peopl
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"But back to the conspiracists, there is a psychological aberration that I'm fascinated with. There are some people who voluntarily choose to reject obvious truth. On the other hand, they will choose to believe outlandish ideas put forth as an alternative." FWIW (I have no training in psychology), I think this makes less intelligent people feel they're more intelligent than most people, because--in their view--those other people are fooled, while they--the conspiracists--aren't.
But I haven't met such people face-to-face, and as I say I'm not trained in psychology, so I freely admit I don't know why they do this.
I'm not trained other than an interest in it, so I do a little research.
I know a couple conspiracy "kooks". They function well, so they don't exactly fit the "needs help" category. But when the conspiracy BS comes out - and it seems that like vegans, they have a compulsion to tell people - they just sound like they are not quite in reality. And there is always that twinkle in the eyes when they spout their nonsense.
I suppose the mechanism is that they have some quirk that causes them to always assume t
Soviet Union already did this back in 1969 (Score:2)
In a small column in newspaper and on TV.
Not to worry (Score:2)
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They're not that stupid or delusional - they are happy to send mercenaries, prisoners, minorities, and the 'undesireable'.
When Putin started needing more bodies than those groups could supply, regular Russians started fleeing the country to avoid conscription and there have been some protests despite the fact that can get you a jail sentence... And presumably possibly sent to the front lines.
So they're good with killing innocent people, if someone else does it so they don't need to be personally at risk of
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I think we have to question exactly what "belief" means here. The thing that authoritarian regimes want from their populace, even more than obedience, is passivity. Hannah Arendt, the historian of totalitarianism once observed that 'The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any."
Effectively cowed populaces under authoritarian leaders are characterized by a cheap and lazy cynicism. They disbelieve everything, but will go along with anythi
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Right. The goal is not to make you believe what they say - it is to get you to pretend you believe it and be terrified of speaking the truth.
Being forced to do that strongly reinforces passivity, and it makes speaking up an extreme act of defiance.
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In a way being terrified to speak the truth would be an improvement. They wear you down until you just can't bring yourself to care.
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At least in this particular context I'm not sure it's necessary to specify "authoritarian regimes". Russia's justrification for invading Ukraine is based on creative hyperbole. The US justification for the invasion of Iraq was also based on creative hyperbole. I expect both were going for enthusiastic endorsement from the people, but they only really required passivity.
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Second, you seem to be implying an equivalence between our invasion of Iraq and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I would like to note that we're no longer occupying Ukraine and made fairly significant efforts to rebuild it. Russia is planning on forcibly, permanently
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Other good propaganda techniques:
- alleging statements of fact are an implied moral statement
- attempting to use good behaviour to cancel bad
- prognostication
- justification of your own actions through comparison to someone elses'.
He's in on it (Score:2)
Definitely faked (Score:4, Funny)
The moon landing was staged and it was shot by Stanley Kubrick; the reason it looks so real is because of Kubrick's obsession with filming on location.
Three things (Score:2)
There are four things that make me walk away from people: they believe the moon landings were hoaxed, they believe the Earth is flat, they believe in booming sky voices that control their lives, and they believe watching sports is somehow entertaining. These are the four "true believer" types I can do without.
Regolith samples or JSC-1? (Score:2)
How did the Russian or Soviet scientists ascertain the origin of the samples vs say JSC-1, the Lunar Regolith Simulant mined near the San Francisco peaks in Flagstaff?
I hear a taxi driver weeping. (Score:2)
Bart Sibrel inconsolable.
Russia's Space Chief ... Admits US Landed on Moon (Score:2)