Do you believe people have landed on the moon?

Question

My mom has taught me in History that man has landed on the moon since I was little. But she told me that she personally does not believe it.

Answer 1

Yes, there are at least three good evidences for it.

First is the Moon rocks that were brought back. They have been studies by reputable scientists the world over and compared to other Moon rocks, which were not brought back by human beings. The other Moon rocks came here after getting blasted out into space by big meteors hitting the Moon, and then our gravity attracted them. This is the same way we have found rocks from Mars on Earth. Nobody disputes that the rocks that fell here from the Moon are of Lunar origin, and the rocks brought back by humans match them.

Second is the fact that we left artifacts on the Moon that can still be observed. We left laser reflectors for the purpose of measuring the Earth-Moon distance accurately. Any college science class with a good quality laser can detect the reflections, and perform the necessary calculations to prove that the reflections come from the Moon. The reflectors had to be placed carefully there, by hand, not just dumped from orbit.

Third, the Soviets watched us land. They were our rivals in the space race, and they would have taken genuine delight in telling the whole world that we were lying if we faked it. Why didn’t they tell the world that? Because they watched us, with their radars. Their radars are as good as ours are, and they could track the ships all the way out there, and track the landing module as it landed, and the re-ascent module as it went back up to orbit, docked and then came home.

Please tell your mom this is not made up and not a hoax, dream or imaginary story. We really landed on the Moon. Be proud of our astronauts!

21 DEC 06, 1922 hrs, GMT.

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

Some years ago, when "conspiracy theories" were popular, someone invented the idea that the Moon landings never happened and were filmed in a studio somewhere.

They offered a large number of "proofs", and every single proof has been since disproven (or explained). Therefore, we are left with no proofs that the landings were fake (but still a large number of people who think they can make themselves sound interesting by resurecting the myth every once in a while).

If you study world history as it was around that time, it is easy to conclude that if there had been the slightest indication that the landings were fake, the Soviet Union would have been the first to shout and point fingers. After all, they were first to place a satellite in orbit, first to put humans in orbit, first to photograph the far side of the moon, etc.

You think they would have let the Americans get away with a fake Moon landing? There would have been more than mere shoe banging...

Answer 4

Yes, the Moon landings were real. There is just too much publicly available material about the landings to all be fake, but nobody seems to care about it any more. It was all front page news back when I was little, with every launch carried live on TV. And not just a 5 minute interruption of regular programming. Every channel, I mean EVERY channel, had coverage that started HOURS before the launch and continued on an hour or more after the launch. And when they were safely in orbit and TV returned to regular programming, bulletins were breaking in every so often to give updates to the mission. And it was a lead story in ALL the news programs as long as the mission was in flight. And the landing back on Earth got almost as much coverage as the launch, with hours of continuous coverage on every channel. This kind of coverage was for all flights, including the Earth orbit flights of Gemini and Mercury, but the first Moon landing got even more coverage, if you can imagine more. The entire world was glued to the TV. I watched Armstrong step on the Moon and then went outside. It was night time in my suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, but even at night I could usually hear traffic noise in the distance. That night, at that time, there was none. No cars on the road in Los Angeles. Can you imagine? It got WAY more press than the Iraq war does now. People just don't care any more, especially young people who did not witness the exciting Apollo missions as they happened. Sigh...

Answer 5

Your mother is mistaken... believing or not believing is one thing, that such an event occured is quite another.

Sadly, many myths still exist today (usually due to a lack of scientific understanding or erroneous/insufficient information) and the media can err just like everyone else:

FOX aired a show a few years back that claimed there was no moon landing (see first link). Although this show did not initiate the conspiracy theory about the moon landing it did include many of that theory's claims - every one of these arguments were addressed and easily debunked (remaining links).

It is good to be (healthfully) skeptical about most claims, especially when these claims seem extraordinary, but usually some cursory investigation of the evidence (or of another's investigation of said evidence) can settle most concerns quickly.

The most important thing is to be careful where you get your information from, especially when using the web; use a reliable source, preferably one that is peer reviewed (checked) by others within the field of study, or one that cites such pages. (i.e. don't just "take my word for it", see my cited sources)

Answer 6

Well, your mom seems pretty conflicted here.

Yes, the U.S.A. landed six different missions on the moon, which means that 12 American men have set foot on the moon. It really happened.

If you've been looking at some of the conspiracy theory sites that claim the moon landings were faked in a Hollywood studio, try this site:

www.badastronomy.com

Answer 7

I suppose we faked the failed Apollo 13 mission too? If we were going to fake the whole thing, why not make them all successes?

Then again, if it was all about propaganda, why risk faking 7 missions over a period of three years? Why not just make it one or two and be done with it?

More than 100,000 people worked on Apollo. If only 25% of them knew it wouldn't work, that's still well over 25,000 people who have kept the biggest secret of the 20th century. Not to mention the astronauts themselves. And then what about the thousands of geologists worldwide who have examined literally tons of moon rocks and soil samples? Wouldn't at least a few of them have been able to conclude these samples didn't come from the moon? Or maybe they were all in on it too!

Answer 8

i will no longer be able to have faith this question continues to be obtainable. regardless of each and every thing this time and all the persons who opt to have faith it quite is faux and all the enemies of our united states of america and persons in our united states of america who're able to proving it pretend i basically can't have faith it continues to be a controversy. The moon landing got here approximately. How come people basically can't have faith it. What do people think of approximately all the different area adventures because then? have faith me if it replaced into pretend somebody might might have grabbed that minute of popularity whilst they uncovered it via now. it hasn't been proved pretend through fact the u.s. sent adult adult males to the moon. It replaced right into a significant accomplishment for us to accomplish that. do no longer you think of the enemy governments interior the international might have broke their necks to coach it a hoax? so people basically have delight on your united states of america and get on with existence. The moon landing got here approximately. i'm very proud that we've been the 1st myself.

Answer 9

There's another viewpoint, that we faked the moon landing, while doing a real moon landing at the same time.

We televized the fake landing, for TV, because we were afraid the real landing might end in disaster. The Russians had lots of disasters, with people dying in space.

The shadows on the moon don't seem to go in the same direction. Something is wrong with the pictures. It's probably from the fake set in Nevada desert.

Whether our real moon landing attempt succeeded is another question. Moon rocks? You could get them without a manned lunar landing, just using robots.

It was a public relations event for America, to beat the Russians in space. Our leaders just might have fudged things to look good. Eisenhower lied about U-2 flights. Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin. Kennedy was too honest, so they removed him. Nixon? With the type of leaders we had, a little fake photography isn't beyond the realm of the possible.

Answer 10

Yes