did we really land on the moon?

Question

in school today, our teacher told us that odds are we did not land on the moon, that it was just pure hollywood. he said that for that time, what would possibly posses us to go on the moon, because around that time, we were trying to pratice nutrality. also, i was told that recent studdies have shown that the shadows are in the wrong spots, and also i heard you can see very thin wires and stuff likt that. also if we have been to the moon, why havent we ever been back in like 64 or so years? well russia or someone is planning on going to the moon, so when they go, they will see if we really were on the moon.

could this be the biggest government cover up and conspericy in the history of the world?

sorry, last time, it showed the american flag waving on the moon, but wait there is no wind on the moon, so how could that be?

Answer 1

Hmmm... I've always thought about this too- the flag waving, and us not returning for over 64yrs or so makes sense! Why haven't we done it again??? Unlike most here, I somewhat agree with ur teachers view. =] We were trying to beat others to the moon- so I bet it was staged!

Answer 2

If that is what the teacher told you, then he is a disgrace to the profession (speaking as a teacher). Are you sure he wasn't just sharing an alternate opinion in order to play devil's advocate? A teacher should never give personal opinions in the classroom. A teacher's job is to teach you how to thing, NOT what to think. Anyway, there are a small percentage that believed that the moon landing was a hoax. However, this is not a widely held opinion and not very likely. These are probably the same people that believe the holocaust never happened. We haven't been back to the moon because space is a vast frontier that have many places left to explore - such as the Mars landing. NASA as well as the Russians have now focused their attention on the space station, where many astronauts carry out various experiments They are also studying other planets. The moon? Been there, done that.

Answer 3

Please tell us where you go to school and who the teacher is.

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 4

Congratulations. You have a conspiracy theorist for a teacher. I bet you're learning a lot.

Check out http://www.badastronomy.com for all the refutations you need. The shadows are on an uneven landscape. Several light sources give you several shadows, not uneven ones. Everytime you see the flag move, someone is fidling with the pole. There's not much point in going back to the moon all the time, and it's extremely expensive. China will go next. They can't just track down our landing site and confirm it, the Moon is huge. There's no point anyway since we have tons of proof we went. Really, the only people who doubt it are the conspiracy nuts and people who don't know any physics.

You can tell your professor that a REAL astronomer told you that.

Answer 5

You might not want to believe everything your teacher said because that is ridiculous. All the theories of the people claiming a hoax have been disproved. We did go to the moon and might be heading back since China announced plans to go.

He was touching the flag at the time. There was a recent show on the History Channel, I believe, where they went over all the problems. The problem was that all he expected to see was not reality. He just didn't understand things like how light affects cameras.

Answer 6

Facts: We last went to the moon about 30 years ago, not 64. The flag was waving because it was held up by a wire because with no wind, it would have just drooped. When the mast was moved while being held, it set up a vibration in the pole which caused the flag to "wave".
Ask your teacher how did he calculate his odds?

Answer 7

Shame on your teacher for telling you that!

Twelve men did walk on the Moon over six different Apollo missions.

The flag only waves when an astronaut is holding and shaking the pole. The flag just sits there, perfectly still, when the astronauts are not touching it. Look at the videos in the source and you will see.

And all the other "reasons" for saying they were fake are wrong in different ways. There are plenty of web sites that will explain this, if you bother to look for them.

Answer 8

Tell your teacher that he should not be rewriting history. Also let him know that the whole rumor was started by the Flat Earth Society to knock down the fact that photos from the moon showed a round earth. They claimed it was done in a studio. Tell your teacher that he should consider joining the society. Is he also teaching you that the Holocaust was faked ? And it was 30 years ago and not 64.

Answer 9

It sounds like your teacher is a conspiracy nut who hasn't any opinion of their own but to believe simply what other say. People have landed on the Moon, there is no consipracy - those video's going around about the flag "waving" on the Moon have been falsified to look as though NASA is covering up their Moon landing, and my personal thoughts on people who believe everything they hear without doing their own conclusive research are nothing but mindless drones - preferring to go with the crowd than against.
I actually feel sorry you have that person as a teacher, if they are telling you that, but I suppose it does explain the supidity of the americans these days, if they are teaching that in their schooling systems.

Answer 10

There is no intelligent argument against us landing on the moon. Your teacher is most likely just ignorant, and only looked at half of the story. Do what the above people suggested, and if he sticks by his story, he is stupid, and you can tell him that.

Answer 11

your teacher should be ashamed!!!! ask your teacher where we got all of those moon rocks that geologist study so often. and ask your techer how those mirrors that the astronaughts placed on the moon got there. we use those mirrors to shoot lasers at the moon in order to tell how fast it is moving away from us. your teacher should go back to college and get a better education.!!!!!!