Did the USA really go to the Moon or did we just say that to stop the Arms Race?

Question

I am sure that the older people on this chatline have seen the clips showing the American Flag that was posted on the moon waving in the breeze, when there is no breeze in outter space!

And, now, the People's Republic of China will be launching their own moon exploration soon and what do you think they will find when they get to the moon, the American Flag maybe? How about the footprints left by our astronauts, or the surface vehicle and equipment we left behind?

What do you think the US Government really did with the billions of tax dollars they 'spent' on the moon exploration expenses?

I am seeking intelligent answers to this question, not silly answers.

Answer 1

amongst the equipment we left behind, we also left behind mirrors. we left them so we can shine lasers at the moon and measure its distance when we wished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment
http://wwwrc.obs-azur.fr/cerga/laser/laslune/laserlune.jpg

because of that, we found out the moon is moving away at something like 2 cms a year.

I think that is proof enough that we did go to the moon.

the flag wasn't waving, it was floating in near zero gravity.
plus it wasn't your ordinary flag material either.
for the most part it seems lightly propped up with reinforcements, ONLY for impression.

you know like if the Russians did make it to the moon later, they'd have to see the American flag in ALL of its GLORY as it was spread FULL out .

going to the moon wasn't any where as powerful as the politicians in stopping the arms race.

Answer 2

What makes you think the Chinese are going to the Moon? I heard from a VERY reliable source that they're going to use the same movie studio that NASA used from 1969 to 1972.

As for what the government did with the billions of tax dollars spent on moon exploration, when was the last time that the government had to actually accomplish anything in order to make billions of dollars disappear?

If you want an intelligent answer to a question, you would do well to ask an intelligent question in the first place. Where did you get the idea that the arms race was stopped by a "faked" lunar landing? It's still going on. Where did you get the idea that the lunar landings were faked? Do you really think that the Soviet Union would fall for a fake landing? As for the flag "waving in the breeze" take a look at the full videos of the flags being set up. Remarkably, the "wind" only blows the flags while there is an astronaut hand holding the flag pole. Did you build a bunker and stock it with food and water the last time the planets lined up? Did the world come to an end? Just because someone writes a book or puts something on the net doesn't mean that it's true, likely, or even possible. People LIE all the time and some people believe those lies. Any conspiracy that requires more than 2 people (like the 500,000 NASA workers required for the fake moon landings) is going to fall apart.

Answer 3

Here's an intelligent answer: we went to the Moon. This is not a subjective opinion but rather an incontrovertible scientific fact. The conspiracy theorists are ignorant; they use bad science and faulty common sense and, in reality, have no clue of what they're arguing.

Consider the following:
1) The retroreflectors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo missions have been detected thousands of times.
2) Independent radio telescopes (including those in America's nemesis, the USSR) detected the Apollo transmissions only when pointed at the Moon. Had there not been a ship there, these telescopes wouldn't have detected anything and the USSR would in turn unveil the conspiracy and humiliate America.
3) The Moon rocks have been positively identifed as being of lunar origin. There's absolutely no way for the government to have faked them.
4) Scientists have spent thousands of hours studying the lunar landings. Not a single one questions the lunar landings. Will the average Joe really notice a scientific irregularity that the world's greatest scientific minds wouldn't? Of course not.

On top of all of that, there's not a shred of evidence against the landings. For instance, the "waving flag" merely oscillated when touched by astronauts. There is photographic proof of this. All of the other conspiracy "evidence" is similarly absurd. I hope that the extreme ignorance of the conspiracy theorists in this thread is by now evident.

I can't imagine that China will visit the Apollo landing sites - the Moon is very large and it would be a waste to land somewhere that the US already visited.

Answer 4

If you want intelligent answers, you have to ask an intelligent question. I'm not trying to be nasty; it's just true. The flag is not waving in the breeze, it's sticking straight out because it was held with wire. If it moved, it's because it was bumped.

No, the Chinese will not see anything because the moon is huge. The chances of landing in the same place are worse than remote. And they won't be looking for those things simply to prove to you that the Americans went. They have better things to do.

The reasons given for thinking the landings were faked are so ridiculous that they could be demolished with a few seconds' thought. And remember that there's MUCH more to it than a few hours of TV footage and some pictures.

Look at it this way. Don't you think that intelligent scientists trying to construct a hoax could do better than that? Don't you think that they'd be able to make it look convincing? Or do you think they're dumber than you?

Answer 5

So I guess people think all those people at NASA decided to fake the films, using powerful fans to blow the flag, when every eighth grader knew there was no air on the moon.

The flag is not waving. It moves only when it is being handled. They stick out because there is a support coming from the top of the pole. There are several videos which the hoax theorists choose to ignore, that show the flag as steady as a rock. You can even see the same wrinkles in still photos taken at different times.

If you, or anyone else can find a video showing the flag waving when the astronauts are not right where they could be moving it, let us know.

Unless China plans to land at one of the locations that Apollo used, they will probably see nothing. The moon is as big across as North America. Now what are the odds that a shuttle astronaut will see my car in my driveway? None. Now if they take high mag photos to try to see the things we left, then maybe we will see them, just like I can see my car on Google earth.

What did they do with the billions of dollars? Maybe some of it went to buying all the explosives they allegedly used to blow up the World Trade Center.

Three astronauts died in the Apollo program. Thousands of dedicated, brilliant, people achieved perhaps the greatest feat in all of history. It ticks me off that two or three addle-brained, money-grubbing conspiracy theorists and the media that gave them a platform, have actually gotten millions of people to believe their garbage. Especially when virtually *all* of the "evidence" they have presented has been thoroughly debunked. Go see for yourself.

Sorry, I don't have the links. I hope someone else will paste them here.

Gorilla, now why don't you go to some sites that know what they are talking about and see how every one of the proofs is completely discredited. I don't mean someone's opinion. Facts. Proof that not only did these flakes expose their stupidity, but some of their evidence is plain fraudulent, and they knew it. The Van Allen belts and their potentially harmful radiation, are harmless for short periods of time. What do you know about them? What do you know about how much shielding would be necessary. Well, I guess one should consider your sources. Garbage in, garbage out.

Nadine, that was Buzz Aldrin. One of the people responsible for this nonsense was harassing him and following him around, demanding that he tell the truth. Buzz tried to ignore the guy, but when he blocked Aldrin's way, Buzz socked him in the gut. That's the story I heard.

Answer 6

The flag was not waving because of a breeze. It was oscilating because of weights in it. They put weights in the bottom of the flag to get it to open up properly. That is why the flag seems to be waving in a breeze.

Now, if the US lied about going to the moon, then how did we not get caught. The Soviets would have been watching the whole thing carefully. One thing they would have done is monitor the transmissions. The transmissions were done in the open for the entire world to hear what was going on. It would not have taken too much work to figure out where those transmissions were coming from. If they came from anywhere but the moon, then the Soviets would have figured it out. Some of the broadcasts involved people on the planet talking.

Also, we left equipment on the moon. One of these is a mirror that scientists were able to bounce a laser off of. You needed a human hand on the moon to align the mirror so that it would work. You cannot do that remotely, especially in 1969.

Answer 7

Not every waving flag needs a breeze -- at least not in space. When the astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil, this motion took a while to stop due to the way the moon works... I honestly believe that we did land there, and that China will find our flag and footprints up there on their visit. Too many people saw the event happen for it to be a hoax. My source will include all sorts of proof against the conspiracy if you still aren't certain...

Also wasn't it the Space Race, not the Arms Race that was ended by using landing on the moon? Why would they stop making arms because we landed on the moon? Doesn't make sense to me...

Answer 8

If you want intelligent answers, try asking an intelligent question!

The flag on the Moon was not "waving in the breeze" - it was held in that position by a rod along the upper part of the flag.
This is really not that hard to figure out.

Answer 9

A few points here....

One, the flag wasn't waving as if in a breeze. A lot of stills show it with ripples and such - but it wasn't actually waving.

See my reference below to an animation made from two photographs taken seconds apart from each other. The ripples in the flag are IDENTICAL in the two frames. The odds of this happening during a normally waving flag are astronimical- like the odds of being struk by lightning while winning the lottery as a planetkiller asteroid lands exactly on the Sears Tower.

As others have rightly pointed out, the flag did sway back and forth on its stand as a result of the motion transferred into it from the act of planting it, but it didn't blow as it would in a breeze.

As for China finding all of these artifacts - the Moon is a pretty big place, and China would have to land at the same location to go photograph them. They most likely would not land at exactly the same spot. They could photograph the landing sites from Lunar orbit, but such photos would not be resolute enough to be convincing to lay persons looking at them.

There are many many thorough, honest discussions on an item-by-item basis which disprove the hoax theorists' evidence. Most of the 'evidence' is simply easily-drawn false conclusions based on a lack of familiarity with things such as photography, gravity, space, and especially radiation.

There are even sites where amateurs have reproduced the 'anomalies' here on Earth by simply taking photographs (for instance). These photos were taken in similar visual conditions as on the Moon, and were not retouched / composited after the fact, so this disproves the theory that "inconsistencies" in the images prove that they were doctored. No, sadly for the hoax proponents, they only prove their lack of understanding of photography.

There's just too much to write about in a simple answer on here. Read the full discussion I linked in my references. It trounces the "faked moon landing" hoax quite throughly. (and yes, the idea that the landings were faked is the real hoax)

Answer 10

Let me get this straight. The US spent billions of dollars to build rockets which millions of people could see launch from the cape, that any nation with radar could easily track all the way to the moon, made a couple of dozen astronauts and god knows how many other people swear to lie... Then set up a fake moon and film a fake landing and forget that the wind was going to wave the flag? They actually filmed it outside? Is this really what you think? And do you think the Russians and the Chinese and everybody else with access to radar and with a network of spies, and thousands of members of the press were all deluded? All of which would seriously love to find a conspiracy and tell the world.. They all LIED?
Why would we spend billions to build the hardware, and tens of thousands of people worked for years to build the hardware, to NOT land on the moon. Tell me, is the shuttle a government plot too? Are we making up the International Space Station?
Do you ever stop taking drugs long enough to realize that your fantasies are absurd?

Answer 11

Four things:

1. That's quite a long jump with no evidence whatsoever to suggest, faked or not faked, that the Moon landing had anything to do with the Arms Race.

2. Like most conspiracy theories, the "Moon landing didn't happen" conspiracy is guilty of basically ignoring mounds and mounds of evidence that prove that it did happen. There are literally thousands of people who participated on the ground in this who are witness to the reality of all the science and effort that these people put into making this really happen. There are literally hundreds of thousands of artifacts, personal testimony, and photos from all aspects of the process. Put it this way: you can get convicted of a crime on a smaller fraction of the evidence here.

3. Like most conspiracy theories, most of the "science" used is either faulty, or is misinterpreted and poorly applied to the reality of the situation. You provide an excellent example with the "there is no wind on the moon" claim. The astronauts were moving the flag into position, causing motion. Since there is no air on the Moon to provide friction, these movements caused a long-lasting undulating movement seen in the flag. There was a rod extending from the top of the flagpole to hold the flag out for proper display (visible under the fabric in many photographs). The fabric's rippled appearance was due to its having been folded during flight and gave it an appearance which could be mistaken for motion in a still photograph. The top supporting rod of the flag was telescopic and the crew of Apollo 11 found they could not fully extend it. Later crews did not fully extend this rod because they liked how it made the flag appear. A viewing of the videotape made during the Moonwalk shows that shortly after the astronauts remove their hands from the flag/flagpole, it stops moving and remains motionless. At one point the flag is in view for well over thirty minutes and it remains completely motionless throughout that period (and all similar periods).

4.. You give our government WAY too much credit for their ability to pull this off. :-)