Why havent we sceen the 2003 photos that the japanese flyby mission of the moon were supposed to provide?

Question

I watched a documentry that suggests the 1960 moon landings where faked. At the end of the video it said that the japanses where sending a craft that would take close up pictures of the moon within 2 years. Since this video came out in 2001 where are the pictures? Is it possible that the US stopped these pictures from becoming public because it would reveal that infact we never landed on the moon. Can someone who kept up with these mission tell me what happend?

Answer 1

Why is it that, despite the mountains of documentation, people still think the lunar landings are a hoax? Then, when some spammer comes along with a pile of rubbish about "two moons," the same people leap to believe it!

Answer 2

There were no manned lunar landings in 1960 - the first manned landing was in 1969.

In 1990 Japan visited the moon with the Hiten spacecraft which released the Hagormo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the mission.
Japan has several planned lunar missions, with unmanned Selene in 2007 and LUNAR-A in 2010. The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) plans a manned lunar landing around 2020 that would lead to a manned lunar base by 2030; however, there is no budget yet for this project.

In 2003, JAXA was formed from the merger of 3 independant space agencies - that kind of reorganization would put all missions on hold for at least a few years while they consolidate and integrate the people and projects.

There are a lot of artifacts on the moon, many from unmanned missions.
But the Apollo 11 LM descent stage (mass 2034 kg) is located at 0° 40' 26.69"N, 23° 28' 22.69" E (in the Sea of Tranquility). And the Apollo 12 LM ascent stage is at 3.94°S 21.2°W and the Apollo 12 LM descent stage is at 2.99°S 23.34°W. Many of the other Apollo missions left descent stage (landers) and other objects on the moon.
Many of the larger items are visible in good telescopes.
So if we didn't land, how did these objects (plus a number of personal items such as Alan Shepard's golf balls from Apollo 14, the flags and statue left by Apollo 15) get there?

Answer 3

JAXA's SELENE mission (aka Kaguya) hasn't launched yet. As of now, it's scheduled to liftoff on September 13.

SELENE will study the lunar surface and gather data on the origins and evolution of the Moon. It's doubtful the Japanese will waste any time taking photos of the Apollo landing sites.

Six NASA Apollo missions successfully landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The project took nearly 10 years to achieve and involved half a million people. It's all well documented: the Apollo astronauts took plenty of pictures and even brought back rocks from the Moon. There really is no reason to doubt that NASA did what they claim they did.

Yet over the years, people have doubted. Mostly these doubts arise from a poor understanding of the physics of space and space travel. However, a lot of scam artists have written books and made documentaries trying to turn a buck off other people's ignorance.

So far every single one of the claims made by advocates of a moon landing hoax have been debunked. But that doesn't stop the conspiracy theorists from finding new suckers everyday.

Answer 4

The mission failed.

NASA was afraid of the hoax being unveiled, so they launched a secret military mission to disable the Japanese craft, locating it 200,000 miles in the void, and damaging it just enough to prevent photos from being sent back.

OMG.... Can't you guys think of bigger things to worry about?

Let me ask you - if you can't believe the photos and videos taken *by* the astronauts *on* the moon... why would you trust a grainy, fuzzy, 60-mile distant photo...? The American Public is beginning to disappoint me.

Answer 5

Japan Moon Pictures

Answer 6

"beginning" to disappoint?