Apollo moon landing - pilots please help.?

Question

I am no expert so please pardon me if my reasoning is wrong. I was viewing the descent of the Apollo 11 moon lander as shown in
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4166049933953240830&q=moon&hl=en

I find the video clip quite strange. The sizes of the craters on the moon do not change with the descent of the craft. At about 10:02 mins into the clip, a voice says 21000 ft. the craft drops to about 200ft in less than a min. Think of looking down at a football stadium from an aircraft high above the sky. At landing the small-sized stadium you saw in the air has grown so large that it is larger than your craft yet in the descent of the moon lander in 1969, the craters hardly change in size. Image you were descending in a light plane into a crater on earth. Would you say that the Apollo 11 video clip is a true reflection of a craft that is descending onto a celestial body with many large craters? Can a pilot take a critical look at that video and tell me what’s going on?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The voices and the pictures were not synchronized due to the distance from the moon. So when you heard one thing, you saw another...............

Answer 2

What a great video! I really love the over the top, hyper-dramatic narration and background music.

Anyway, the appearance of the Surface does show changes from high up to near the surface, but maybe not exactly like you would expect from your experience on Earth. First, since there is no air, large distant objects look just like small nearby objects. There is no blue haze of distance. Second, craters are of all sizes from a few feet wide to miles across, and they all look the same. Third, there are no trees, people or artificial objects of a size we already know to use as a gage of distance. Finally, the audio and video are not always well synchronized. Some of the video is slow motion, and some is faster than real time, while all the audio is real time, so when the audio says the altitude is 21,000 feet, the picture may not show the view from exactly 21,000 feet.

Answer 3

Your thinking is on the way to the answer.

What if the stadium your looking down at has a smaller stadium inside it? When you get to 200 ft then your looking at the stadium inside the stadium.

In addition the LEM was in orbit around the moon so as well as decending vertically it was moving horizontally to the lunar surface. By the time you see the 200ft height craters the 21,000ft craters are long gone.

The moons surface is all craters, some are big, most are small so the closer you get the smaller craters become visible. Craters look like craters so without a direct comparison of size they all look the same.

Answer 4

The story of how we got to the moon, and all the sacrifices, failures, and successes along the way, is far, far more interesting than any whacko conspiracy theory about it being faked.

You think the same government who couldn't cover up a simple break-in (Watergate) would be able to perfectly pull off the greatest hoax of all time?

Besides, think of all the people who would have to have been involved in an operation of that scale. I'm talking not about the "major players," I mean the minor roles, like cameramen, set builders, security, sanitation, my God even catering! And you honestly believe that not one of those people has uttered a word about it in 40 years?

If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Answer 5

I don't have 28 minutes to spare right now, but craters are all different sizes and I don't think you would be seeing the same ones more than once.

Answer 6

I heard the catering crew ran out of tin foil to cover the lasagna, so they pulled some off the lander.