Is it possible to sight the US flag on the moon through a high powered telescope?

Question

Not trying to stir up any conspiracy theories, or otherwise - just curious

Lol - qtg - you're back and you're bad!

Answer 1

No. Even the Hubble Space Telescope cannot resolve objects as small as the Lunar Module or the Saturn IVB booster that were crashed on the the moon for seismic experiments. The HST can resolve objects as small as 0.05 arcseconds. To see the Lunar Module, it would have to resolve objects as small as 0.0005 arcseconds. In other words, you'd need a telescope 100 times better than the HST and you'd need it to be in space.

And just for the hoax lovers ...

1) Twelve 12 American astronauts have walked on the moon.

Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin
Apollo 12: Pete Conrad & Alan Bean
Apollo 13: << failed to land on the moon >>
Apollo 14: Alan Shepard & Edgar (Ed) Mitchell
Apollo 15: David Scott & James Irwin
Apollo 16: John Young & Charles Duke
Apollo 17: Eugene (Gene) Cernan & Harrison Schmidt


2) Why haven't we been back?

a) American astronauts visited the moon on six occasions.

b) The "moon race" was an extension of the cold war. It was mostly about national prestige. We got there first and achieved our primary objective. There was some good science: surveys, measurements, sample collection. But it was mostly about being there first. Once we achieved our primary objective, there was no political will to go back. There still isn't. Perhaps, if we discover He3 or something else valuable, there will be.

c) I used to travel to Crested Butte, Colorado every year to ski. Because I don't go anymore, does it mean that I never went?


3) What about the Van Allen radiation belts? Wouldn't it have killed the astronauts?

The existence of the Van Allen radiation belts postulated in the 1940s by Nicholas Christofilos. Their existence was confirmed in *1958* by the Explorer I satellite launched by the USA.

The radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts is not particularly strong. You would have to hang out there for a week or so in order to get radiation sickness. And, because the radiation is not particularly strong, a few millimeters of metal is all that is required for protection. "An object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per *year*."

"In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [6]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation." When the astronauts returned to Earth, their dosimeters showed that they had received about as much radiation as a couple of medical X-rays.


4) The U.S. government scammed everyone?

In 1972, there was a politically motivated burglary of a hotel room in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. There were only about six or eight people who knew about it. However, those people, including Richard M. Nixon, the President of the United States, failed to keep that burglary a secret. It exploded into a scandal that drove the President and a number of others from office.

If six or eight people couldn't keep a hotel room burglary a secret, then how could literally thousands of people could have kept their mouths shut about six faked moon landings? Not just one moon landing, but six of them!


5) What about the USSR?

Even if NASA and other government agencies could have faked the six moon landings well enough to fool the general public, they could NOT have fooled the space agency or military intelligence types in the USSR. The Soviets were just dying to beat us. If the landings were faked, the Soviets would have re-engineered their N-1 booster and landed on the moon just to prove what liars Americans are. Why didn't they? Because the landings were real and the Soviets knew it.


6) Why does the flag shake? Where are the stars? Who took the video of Neil Armstrong?

Take a look at the first two websites listed below. They deal well with all of the technical questions.


7) Finally, please tell us what you would accept as definitive evidence that the six moon landings were real. Is there anything?

Answer 2

Hi Lady Rebecca,

I've answered this question (or something similar) twice in the last week or so and got a best answer both times - so I'm going for the hat-trick.

Here's my answer :

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Hi Richie.

I got the Best Answer prize for a very similar question a few dyas ago on here that asked if you can see the American flag from Earth. The answer and the reason is exactly the same - so here it is again,

The Hubble Space telescope's maximum resolution is such that an entire Apollo landing site and exploration area are only 1/20th of a pixel. Hubble was designed with deep space astronomy in mind.

Even the new OWL telescope (see Link 1) would only resolve the entire site to 2 pixels and would therefore not be enough to see the flag.

If your question is to prove that man actually walked on the moon then you need look no further than the Laser Reflector Experiment which constantly laser measures the distance between earth and moon. If the astronauts had never made it to the moon, they would not have been able to deploy these reflectors. (see Link 2)

Source(s):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2116...

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/apollo11...


Please ignore the last bit - coz thankfully it looks like you are not one of those nutters !

Answer 3

Well, the Moon is 400 000 km away. The flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted there was about 1 metre by 50 cm. So it would be like looking at something 1 km. away that was 1/400 mm long; a little bit smaller than a red blood corpuscle. it was a vertical flag, not flat-on to your line of sight, which would make it more difficult to see. No siree, you can't see it with any existing telescope. But if you doubt that it's there, there's tonnes of other evidence. And even if you could see it, the conspiracy theorists would say that it had been planted by a robot mission. The Russians have already brought back a sample of lunar rock with a robot probe.

Answer 4

No.Unfortunately the moon is highly reflective
and even the Hubble telescope cannot resolve objects as small as one of the six U.S. flags left on the moon.The reflectivity makes it even harder,sort of like trying to find a speck of dust on a flashlight with a pair of binoculars from across the room.Just yesterday Russia announced it is building a pair of telescopes that will be able to read news print on the moon.
One telescope will be launched into space and the other will be earthbound and they will work in tandem.If they accomplish this,it will put an end to any conspiracy once and for all.

Answer 5

No. The wave nature of light limits the detail that any optical telescope of a given size can see. The only way to see smaller detail is to make the telescope bigger. The smallest detail the Hubble Space telescope can see on the Moon is 300 feet wide. To see something 3 feet wide would take a telescope 100 times as big as Hubble. Hubble has a 94 inch mirror, so to see a 3 foot object would require a 9,400 inch (783 foot) diameter mirror. And even then you could only see that 3 foot object as a tiny spot with no detail. To recognize it as a flag would require the ability to see detail smaller than 1 foot, or a mirror half a mile wide.

Answer 6

It's depending on how big the flag is.....!! I remember having read (probably In the Guinness Book of records) of a huge flag with a size per side of several hundred meters. For sure you could see that flag on the moon through any powered telescope.

Answer 7

besides the actual undeniable actuality that my spouse's father complete gas calculations for the unique Apollo touchdown, i will spare you that speech. fairly, i'll inspire you to computer screen 2 classes. the first teach is termed Conspiracy Moon touchdown that it at present exhibiting on the nationwide Geographic Channel and it fairly a lot obliterates each and every of the favourite conspiracy theories. i might want to also inspire you to computer screen a movie referred to as Capricorn One. Made it 1978, it really is a fictional tale about a pretend project to Mars. besides the actual undeniable actuality that it really is a technology fiction tale, it really is a sturdy party of ways fully no longer accessible it would want to be to fake a moon touchdown for any length of time. 12 adult males walked on the moon from 1969 to 1972 and we've neither the elements nor the technologies to pull off that huge of a hoax for see you later. thousands of 1000's of human beings have labored on the area software. it would want to be a approaches a lot less puzzling to positioned someone on the moon than to attempt to pretend it and save it secret for just about 40 years. The landings got here at a time at the same time as our area software change into extremely aggressive with the former Soviet Union. save in thoughts how massive of a deal it change into at the same time as Sputnik change into positioned into orbit? they'd the technologies to computer screen our moon images and transmissions. do not you imagine they could have referred to as us out in the journey that they'd evidence that it change into all pretend? perchance the most definitive evidence of our vacation to the moon is what we left in the back of. For the most suitable 35+ years, scientists were beaming lasers to the moon and measuring the go back cases. How are they doing this? The beams are pondered decrease back through kit left on the moon on at 3 diverse places. Case closed.

Answer 8

Not a chance. You'd need a telescope strong enough to see Lincoln's nose on a penny 1500 miles away.

Answer 9

Most likely it's not possible within the Earth's atmosphere. It might be possible through the Hubble telescope, but I don't know for sure that it is.

Answer 10

maybe via the hubble????

or is you reversed some of those us spy satelites to look at the moon.

oh those spy satelites just sent in a report of someone running like a turkey on the gold coast... better watch yourself they will be waiting for the next instaqllment tommorow so they can have another laugh.. grin