Moon landing?

Question

About the Moon landing conspiracy theory.
How come 40 years ago a spaceship went to the moon, landed dead and then took off again, whereby today America's only hope of space travel is Baykonur and the Russian technology?
Doesn't it sound to you realisticthat 40 years ago it would have been practically impossible to achieve such a feat, espeacially the part when Apollo 11 takes off from Moon...

Think of the Shuttle. To take it to space you need rockets 100 times greater to provide the necessary fuel. Although the lunar gravity is 6 times weaker, still you need a lot of fuel (I am talkin 100s of tons) to take that pathetic, sci-fi movie like spacecraft that is Apollo 11 off the moon. Do I have a point?

Apparently the proper term is LM not Apollo 11. The later was orbiting around waiting for the rest to come. What a coax...

And for the record, what does an engine have to do with this? I am talking about energy you need to take off. In any case you need enormous amounts of petrol or whatever, which must have escpaed from NASA'a then masterminds, since they only provided in the photographs a small "house" which I doubt had any fuel in it...

Well, for the last detail, I have to mention that in a beautiful photo of Buzz standing next to the LM there are absolutely no stars seen on the background. In a normal summer night, in my backyard I feel myself in space for the stars are soooooo clear. In an environment without atmosphere you would be scared to death by just looking into space to see the numerous intergalactic things which are not seen from the Earth...

Answer 1

No, you do not have a point. You are clearly ignorant of rocketry and the way NASA operates.

40 years ago NASA had huge funding for a program of manned flights to the Moon. They saw it as the start of a great American presence in space, to expand to include lunar bases and manned Mars flights by the end of the 20th century. Unfortunately, partly because of the way Kennedy presented the challenge and partly because of the innate short-sihgtedness and selfishness of the average guy on the street, the public and congress viewed the actual landing itself as the goal and the end of the purpose of the funding. After that, interest waned, funding was cut and no-one can go back to the Moon now because NASA isn't given the funding or the mandate to do it. Could they do it with the funding? Absolutely. Hopefully Project Constellation will have men back on the Moon before too many years, and before someone pulls the plug.

As for lifting off from the Moon, what do you think was so hard about it? The Saturn V had to put its own third stage, a fully fuelled LM and a fully fuelled CSM, three humans and enough consumables to last them two weeks into Earth orbit. The LM ascent stage had to put itself (a very lightweight aluminium structure), two men and enough supplies to last them a day or two into lunar orbit against 1/6th the gravity of Earth. Six LMs did that successfully. If indeed you did have a point about the LM being incapable of doing that, where are the men and women who make a living designing rockets who agree with you? Do you honestly think no-one else but the average joe with average education can spot these fundamental 'errors' in a science that has been practiced by specialists, published the world over, and currently earns even private industry a healthy buck? Do me, and yourself, a favour and go out and actually LEARN about the subject, rather than relying on what you think you already know. Apollo is fascinating, and well worth the effort to understand and appreciate.

Oh, and to the person who says the flag is waving, seriously, LOOK at the pictures. The flag has a rod sewn across the top to hold it out precisely because in a vacuum it WON'T wave. In the film and video the flags only ever move when an astronaut moves them. ANd answer me this: why would NASA be so unbelievably STUPID as to try to fake a vacuum environment in a studio with such a hefty breeze blowing as would waft the flag around?!?!?!?

[Edited to respond to the further details]

An engine has everything to do with it, since the type of engine determines the amount of energy available. As I said, the LM ascent stage was TINY in comparison to what the Saturn V or the shuttle had to lift into Earth orbit. Whether you doubt it had fuel is beside the point. NASA has not been shy about showing schematics and specs that show just where the fuel was, what the fuel was, and how much fuel it carried, and the power of that fuel in rocket propulsion is a matter of estabished scientific fact.

And as for the 'no stars' argument, doesn't anyone understand basic photography? The lunar surface was in SUNLIGHT, several thousand times brighter than any star. It is just NOT POSSIBLE to simultaneously correctly expose a sunlit scene and stars on the same piece of film. See if you can see stars in the background of ANY photo taken in space of a sunlit object. The shuttle; The ISS; Mir; Apollo-Soyuz; Skylab; even the pictures from planetary probes such as Voyager or Cassini. No stars, because they are just too dim. Go and do some proper research into the subject. Seriously.

Answer 2

Its been proven time and time agin, we did land on the Moon. May I also remind you that there was 6 Moon Missions that landed on the lunar surface during the Apollo era. None of these Apollo Moon Landing's were hoaxed. I will discuss and disprove the conspiracy theories you may be familiar with. Think about it logically; The spacecrafts were definitely launched by NASA, which is difficult to fake. Second the Apollo crafts could NOT have orbited the Earth for 8 days as some of the conspiracy theorists have claimed. If NASA had of done that they would have been caught on their lie, especially if they did it six times. The Russians tracked the Apollo missions very closely and they knew for a fact that none of the missions were faked. If they only had the slightest clue that the Moon Landing was faked it would have been the ultimate propaganda weapon for use against the US and to Capitalism. The flag waves because it was planted in the soil and Armstrong twisted the poles. This is obvious because in other footage you can see the flag is not moving when he walks past it. Also the reason there is no blast crater beneath Apollo 11 is because when the craft landed it reduced speed upon landing on the Moon's surface, so all that it did was blow away dust. The same is with driving into a car park because you don't drive in at 30 miles an hour. Over 3 quarters of a million people were working on the project in total. It would have been impossible for every 1 of them to keep a secret. Even filming the landing would have been MORE DIFFICULT than landing on the Moon itself. Think about the number of people they would have needed to shoot the Moon landing in a film studio. Lastly if the Moon Landing was faked, we would have found out years ago. These things don't last 41 years without an answer.

Answer 3

Of course we landed on the Moon. This isn't my opinion; it's a scientific fact. The conspiracy theory is based completely upon bad science and faulty common sense. Your absurd supposition contains both.

We don't have to take the government's word for it. Consider the following:
1) Apollo 11 left a retroreflector that astronomers have detected thousands of times. It's used to precisely measure the distance to the Moon.
2) Independent radio telescopes, when pointed at the Moon, were able to detect the Apollo transmissions. If there hadn't been a ship on the Moon, they wouldn't have heard anything.
3) The Moon rocks have been examined in detail by geologists, who have positively identified the rocks as being of lunar origin. They explain that there's no way for NASA to falsify this.
4) No scientist rejects the landings. If there was something fishy about the Moon landings, would it not be scientists who would realize it? Instead, scientists are the first to vigorously defend the landings.

Evidence just can't get any more incontrovertible than this. To reject this evidence is to reject all modern science.

Ever since NASA's budget was slashed after Apollo 11, it has been forced to reevaluate its priorities. Instead of designing spacecraft that could land on the Moon, it focused on improving its ability to send people (and payloads) into Earth orbit. It also put a lot more emphasis on unmanned missions. It's not as though NASA has tried and failed to land people on the Moon. If you would like to provide the tens of billions of dollars necessary to return to the Moon, I'm sure that NASA would gladly go back. Its current budget simply doesn't allow for this to be a reality.

Bad science: there shouldn't be any stars in the background of the Moon photos. The cameras' exposures were far too brief - they were set for daylight exposure.

Answer 4

Tell me what you don't believe.

One thing that I saw on here:

The flag moving in the "wind"? Notice how it didn't move any other time besides when the astronauts walked by.

There's a whole show about this on one of the science channels. I'm trying to find it right now, but it's deciding to hide. :)

If I find it I'll edit this and put the website on.

~Silverfighter

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edit: Ok bud, since you're being so stubborn, don't you think that the astronauts had lights so they could see what they are doing?

I want you to go outside tonight, make sure that it is clear, turn on some bright lights, and try to see the stars. If you can see them for whatevere bizarre reason, take a picture. Let me tell ya, I HIGHLY doubt that after you see the pictures, you will still believe this.

Answer 5

Yawn...

Another day, another consipracy moron...

Look here and you will find the specs and the fuel payload of the ascent stage of the lunar landing module.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module

The fuel is not 'petrol' as since the is no air in space, rocket fuels need to carry or contain an oxidizer to allow the fuel to burn. Rocket fuel has a much higher energy to weight ratio than more commonly used (and safer) fuels.

We continue to make space launches to this day (heard of the shuttle?). If we can't do it, how come none of you morons are claiming THOSE launches are being faked?

The reason we haven't gone back is financial, not technical. NASA has continually had it's budget cut as the politicians want more pork to spread around.

Answer 6

Two things:

1) Isn't it early for you guys to already be posting this question? You usually wait until at least noon.

2) Do some research on the Orion spacecraft. Baykonur and Russian technology is a far cry from Orion.

Answer 7

No. Someday go to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral and compare a Saturn-V engine with a space shuttle engine. The shuttle engines are absolute pipsqueaks in comparison.

Answer 8

You talking about this beautiful picture of Buzz?
http://www.solarviews.com/raw/apo/as11_40_5874.jpg
Gee... What are those little shiny dots above him and the flag? Thery´re called stars, moron....
There aren´t too many visible because even on the moon it is kind of hard to see stars during THE DAYTIME!!!
The space is a huge void but it is sadly not void of true idiots...

Answer 9

"40 years ago it would have been practically impossible to achieve such a feat"

It is impossible now with the current technology and it will be impossible within the 21st century in my opinion.

Answer 10

There are some kooks who say we have not gone back because they found abandoned buildings on the moon. They are glass thats why we can't see them. Check out this link

http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id228.html