Was the moonlanding a fake?

Question

Im not a sceptic here but I have this moon book and in it it says that there is no wind on the moon and has a picture of the astranaunts on the moon. I couldnt help noticing the flag and it was not fallin down like a flag that has no wind, rather it looked like it was blowing in the wind.

Answer 1

As David said, perhaps the best proof is that the USSR and China did not think it a fake, but if you're looking for scientific evidence, the way dust moves in a zero gravity environment should be pretty convincing. Yes we did go to the moon, but I don't know if we did or did not find a 1:4:9 strange black cube :)

Check this link for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations

Answer 2

I like this question, because some many of the people that point to "evidence" that is was faked simply do not understand what they are talking about...The horizontal flag for instance. My other favorite is the nonexistent dust plume when the lunar module departed to rendezvous with the capsule. Without an atmosphere to transmit the force of the rocket engine into the dust what could possibly be impacting the ground to make a plume? The "airless/weightless" room that exists where all these effects could be faked? Not possible. Gravity is not dependent on air pressure to exist, it simply is. Zero gravity can be simulated in an aircraft but only for short periods of time, and there is NO possible way to suck the air out of an airplane to make it airless too...it would crumple like a coke can. The lack of stars in the background? Its VERY bright in direct sunlight with no atmosphere above you to diffuse and reflect the light. The videos were taken through a strong filter to avoid overexposure. Otherwise they would simply have been whited out.

Before assuming that these are fakes, please think about what you're saying. It may in fact be possible to simulate all the effects (except the one where an astronaut dropped a hammer and a feather and they impacted the ground at the exact same time...not possible to duplicate as there is no way to make a vacuum that perfect on earth large enough to hold a man in a spacesuit) however it would cost more and require more resources than an actual trip to the moon.

The physics behind the lunar landings are pretty straight forward. It simply took a lot of hard work, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of money. It's not particularly difficult to send a man to the moon, it just takes national will to accomplish it

Answer 3

No, the moonlanding was not faked. As the others have said, they just put sometihng stiff in the top of the flag so it wouldn't fall down.

It is amazing, though, with all the evidence and documentation that these things happened, you are focussed on the picture of the flag and not the rest of the information. In fact, there may even be astronauts alive today that you might be able to email or send a letter to.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_astronauts for a list of astronauts.

Answer 4

The mathematics for space travel were worked out before 1900. You might recall that Goddard did lots of experiments with rockets before WWII. At the end of WWII we got the head of the German V2 program, Werner Von Braun. The Soviets captured most of the V2 technical data and many examples of the V2 itself. The next phase however was the competition to deliver nuclear weapons by missile.

The Redstone was directly derived from the V2 under Von Braun's leadership; it burned alchohol and liquid oxygen just like the V2. The Jupiter which which was a further development of the V2 was also designed for nuclear weapons delivery. We then developed the Atlas and the Titan. Considering that the Atlas and Titan are still used today to launch satellites it would be difficult to suggest that it was somehow fake.

A Jupiter C put the US's first satellite in orbit. And, Redstone rockets carried Shephard and Grissom on subortital flights. The Atlas was used in most of the Mercury program and into Gemini. Then they moved up to the Titan.

As I've mentioned, these were all off the shelf missiles used to deliver nuclear weapons so we didn't have to spend much money developing them. However, the planned Lunar Missions required something much, much larger, the 6.7 Million lb. Saturn V. Since a Titan only weighed about 200,000 lbs this was too much of a jump. So, Nasa decided to make an intermediate design to prove the concept and get experience with a larger vehicle. This was the Saturn 1 and 1B.

The Saturn 1 used eight kerosene and liquid oxygen burning H-1 engines for the first stage. Two of these would have been enough for Titan but Saturn 1 required four times as many. Although this vehicle did use Jupitor and Redstone tanks and an engine design for the Navaho missile this was the first rocket that was not built to deliver a nuclear payload. This vehicle was needed in the early Apollo tests because Titan was not powerful enough to lift the Lunar Module into orbit. This vehicle worked well and was used as late as 1975. Although the military was originally interested in this rocket they later decided that it was larger than they needed. The second stage of the Saturn 1 originally used six RL-10 engines of 15,000 lbs thrust each. These were replaced on the Saturn 1B with a single liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen J2 engine of 200,000 lbs thrust.

The final Saturn V used the 1.5 million lb. thrust F-1 engine. This engine delivered only slightly less thrust than the 1.6 million lbs. of the eight combined H-1 engines of the Saturn 1B. It used the same fuel, however, kerosene and liquid oxygen. The second stage of the Saturn V used the same J-2 engine as the second stage of the Saturn 1B but it needed five of them.

Through all this over a period of 25 years you can see how we went from V2 to Saturn V. The notion that this was faked is a bit silly since the Soviets had attempted to build a rocket, the N-1, that would get them to the Moon first. Even though it only carried two people it was larger than Saturn V because they couldn't produce enough liquid hydrogen for the second stage so it had to burn less efficient kerosene like the first stage. They only had an engine of 340,000 lbs of thrust so the first stage required thirty of these. This made the first stage very complicated and not very reliable. None of the four test launches made it into orbit.

However, the Russians do still have the Energia heavy lift launch vehicle which is in the same class as the Saturn V. Likewise we could create a vehicle using three Space Shuttle Booster engines instead of two and also have a vehicle in the same class in a short period of time. If it were desirable the US or Russians could probably duplicate Apollo in about three years since it would take that long to test new Lunar orbiting and landing craft. However, the heavy launch vehicles could be ready to go in about a year.

One final word. Nasa does not have a zero G room. This misconception results from confusing two different training facilities. One is the big water tank where astronauts train under water with perfectly neutral buoyancy to simulate weightlessness. The other is a special jet aircraft (nicknamed the vomit comet) that flies in a dive to achieve freefall for about thirty seconds. Nasa allowed shooting some of the scenes for the movie, "Apollo 13" aboard this aircraft. This is why the weightless scenes are so realistic.

Answer 5

There was a rod that went horizontally at the top of the flag pole, this held up the flag. Also, the astronauts shook the flag pole to make it look like it was blowing. Why? because it looks more patriotic.

I can go into a long question and answer section disputing every claim conspiracy theorists have, but someone has already done that for me. Check these links out:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

Hope this clears things up.

Answer 6

The flag was held up by a horizontal pole, like a hanging sign. Keep in mind that before accepting any theory burdened by a large number of assumptions, look for the simple explanations first.

Answer 7

Seems like a lot of people sell out humanity's accomplishments. It just like with some saying that humans could not have built the great pyramids in Egypt. Yes, we did go to the moon and we will be going back again soon.

Answer 8

well true the moon has no atmosphere or any air. It's absolutley true that two astronauts landed on the moon. So, they put up a flag that looks like it's waving to mark their point on the moon they landed.

Answer 9

the united statesS.R. ought to have blown the canopy off any hoaxes about any Mercury, Gemini, or apollo challenge very right away. the united statesS.R. had both a tremendous deliver or a sub in global waters observing Cape /Canaveral/Kennedy for more effective than 30 years. All SIX moon landings were somewhat authentic. i became 16 years old in July, 1969.

Answer 10

*Chuckles* I was 8 years old when we landed on the moon. Your quesiton was asked many times- essentially NASA cheated by putting a wire at the top of the flag to hold it in the display position