the documentary about the fake moon landings was a hoax!?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Moon_%28documentary%29
The tone of the documentary begins with low key revelations of NASA working closely with Hollywood at the time of the Moon landings. Over the course of the tale, Karel postulates that not only did Kubrick help the USA fake the moon landings but that he was eventually killed by the CIA to cover up the truth. First hand testimony backing these claims come from Rumsfeld and Dr. Kissinger, which lend credence to the story.

It is finally revealed that this is a mockumentary as the end credits roll over a montage of blooper reels, with the main participants laughing over the absurdity of their lines or questioning if particular ones would give the joke away too soon. Besides being a comedic documentary, it is also an exercise in Jean Baudrillard's theories of hyperreality.

Answer 1

Yeh the do was a hoax, but one thing that wasnt were the landings, but how bout I give you some ideas that are out there from people who try to disprove they did 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/iangod...

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 between the earth and the moon, we can't, 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 examples, i could keep going but everyone would complain that im taking up all the space, if they havnt already :)

Hope this helped a bit.

Answer 2

Of course the "documentary" is a hoax. If you think about the so called proof it is really easy discern that none of it makes sense.

Another mockumentary I thought was funny was the one starring Mitch Pilleggi. He played Skinner on the X-files. Hello! He was on the X-files! Think about that for a moment. The main character of the X-files was named Fox Mulder. The escapees in "Prison Break" are called "The Fox River 9". Get the picture? That mockumentary about impossible conspiracies was produced by Fox, the same network the brought you the hyper conspiracy shows "X-files", "Prison break" and "24". How´s that for a conspiracy?
So as long as people make money from coming up with a juicy conspiracy theory, no matter how ridiculous it is, there will always conspiracy theories floating around.


-addendum-
I´d like to add to what Pete vv already has said about the boring old "no stars in the pictures" claim. There ARE stars in some of the pictures from the surface of the moon. You just have to take the time to look at them. The stars are very faint, there are only a few but they are there. And they are just as faint as they would be for just the reasons Pete (and I many many times before) gave. Just goes to show that the conspiracists never bother to check facts. Instead they just repeat what they hear from other morons, like parrots.

Answer 3

The documentary was but the story has an interesting history. It was started by the Flat Earth Society to refute the fact that the earth was obviously round in all the photos. They were the first to claim it was all done in a studio.

Answer 4

It's true, man! All the things ya know are true.these people trying to make them popular end up making them selves a moron

Answer 5

Right on, pal!