Did the lunar landings actually ever take place?

Question

I'm still not convinced that the Americans landed on the moon, and there is evidence to suggest that they didn't, for instance why has the moon not been returned to in such a long time, and it would also seem viable that the Americans would want to show the world they could keep up with Russia during the Cold War, even if that meant faking the lunar landings. But having recently visited the Kennedy Space Center I'm now changing my mind and thinking maybe they did land on the moon.

Any thoughts opinions?

Answer 1

Trust me they did, but let me give you some hoax's and then the explanation for them hey. I have picked 4 big ones that are fairly typical. Its a bit long, but please stick with me :)

1) No stars in the photos:

The real reason is that when contrasted with the brightness of the astronauts and the lunar surface, the stars are just too dim to register on the photographic emulsion of the camera film. If the camera shutter were held open long enough for the stars to register, everything else would be over-exposed into a white featureless glare.

You cannot have both visible on the one photograph, so the camera was set for the correct exposure for Buzz Aldrin and the lunar surface, not the stars. When standing on the lunar surface the astronauts could not visually observe the stars in the dark sky, because of the surface glare, they could only see them when standing in shadow. By the same token, if we take a photograph outdoors at night from a brightly illuminated surface, our photograph also would not show any stars in the sky.

2) The flags waving.

The flag is out and appears to be waving by an extendable rod running through the top of the flag, so that it can be viewed unfurled, and you can see the unnatural rigidity this gives to the top of the flag in the picture. The rod creates the effect of a breeze blowing the flag into that position. Without the supporting rod the flag would just hang limply down and would not reveal the stars and stripes. The rod is not extended the full width of the flag and it looks like a breeze is causing a ripple in the flag.

It has also been claimed that some video clips show the flag waving in the breeze when it was planted. Not so. The movement of the flag is only because when astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil.

3) 'Wrong' shadows

The simple fact is that there is more than one light source. The light does not come directly from the Sun and illuminate only the one object in question, as a narrow beam spotlight would in a dark room. It shines on the entire daytime surface, just as it does here on Earth. Therefore it also illuminates the surface, the astronauts themselves, rocks, mountains, the Lander and all the other objects on the surface.

The reflections from these objects is why there is more than one light source, it is not because there was more than one spotlight used on a film set. It is also worth noting that on the lunar surface the reflected sunlight from the Earth is 68% brighter than that of the full Moon as seen from Earth.

For more on this question check out badastronomy.com/bad/tv/iangoddard/moon01

All the other fake photographs are explained just as easily with a little knowledge, and an understanding of how conditions on the Moon are very different to those here. With no atmosphere to scatter the light, things look a little odd on the Moon, we have a very black sky and a very bright surface.

We see strong shadows everywhere, and our sense of distance is also fooled because there is no atmosphere to produce the familiar atmospheric haze that creates a distance perspective on Earth. Furthermore, with the gravity being only a sixth of Earth's gravity, things move and behave differently as well.

It's hard to make straight comparisons, because we cannot, the Moon is just not like the Earth. We have to think differently when interpreting the images from the Moon, and that's what causes the problems, people are not allowing for those differences when looking at the lunar photographs. They are looking at them as if they were taken under normal Earth conditions, and concluding wrongly that there must be something wrong with the photographs.

4) Why doesn't the Hubble Space Telescope provide proof hey
The equipment left over by the astronauts is just too small to be seen with the HST. Even the best image we have of the moon is taken of Copernicus crater. Although it is beautifully detailed it is just impossible to make out anything on the surface.

I realise that these are just a view answers, i could keep going but everyone would complain that im taking up all the space, if they're not already :) I hope this has answered a few off your questions though. Check out this website, it answers alot more: www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm

Answer 2

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 3

There is no evidence the landings were fake, but there is tons of evidence they were real. Your visit to KSC has exposed you to some of evidence that the landings were real. People who think they were fake have heard some person say they were fake but have not looked at any of the evidence themselves. For example, lots of people ask how the flag waves (which is not possible in a vacuum) because the hoax people say it waves, but if you actually look at the video yourself you can see that it does not wave. It just looks like it is waving in a still photo. See the source for videos, stills, transcripts of the radio traffic and lots of other info.

Answer 4

all questions about the six apollo lunar landings being fake are non-sense. i was old enuf to watch it on television and know what i was watching. belief is only required for something that has no evidence to prove it. nasa got a huge amount of evidence to prove that twelve americans have stepped onto lunar soil, and there is no evidence at all that says they didn't.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/featherdrop_sound.mov

here is a video of david r scott (apollo 15) dropping an aluminum geology hammer and a falcon feather at the same time on the moon. there is no air resistance so they both hit the ground at the same time.

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/moonhoax2.htmlhttp
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

all that those who do not accept that twelve americans, and not one else, have stepped onto lunar soil can do is attempt to refute nasa's evidence.

http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

Answer 5

For the 1,000,000th time since I joined this place YES THEY DID, LOOK http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

And the reason they haven't returned is because flying to the Moon costs a bloody fortune, and even the finances of a country as rich as the United States can only stretch so far.

Answer 6

Yes. You have NO evidence that Americans didn't land on the moon; you have committed a logical error in thinking that the _absence_ of evidence is evidence. Go to http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ to lean more about these kinds of muddy thinking.

Answer 7

Stuart, why do you persist in believing the hate-America firsters who claim that we never landed on the moon?

Did you ever really read their "proof" of the faked landings? Anyone with half a spot of brain in his or her head can debunk those websites, written by scientifically illiterate morons.

Go check out www.badastronomy.com to find the truth.

Answer 8

We went to the moon a few times. You really think every single person involved in making those "fakes" would have kept quiet all this time?

And as we tell every person who asks why we haven't been back in so long (and this is asked almost every day) it costs too much money.

Answer 9

Yes, there is concrete evidence for this. We landed on the moon as well.,

Answer 10

If we didn't make it to the moon then the Russians would have been more than pleased to expose our hoax. Instead, they gave up on going because they had been beaten.