Did we really land on the moon?

[StandingCow]

Just a kind of silly discussion...

Do you think we really landed on the moon or did we fake it in order to win the race?

Was just watching the news and we are planning to land on the moon in 12 years or so... just found it odd that we haven't been there since and are trying to find out how... :D

EDIT: Just saw the other moon topic although this is sorta different... if you want to combine the threads go ahead.

[Agent Law]

Probably because travel to the moon is no longer politically motivated, and NASA seems to have become freaks about safety, and maybe they're trying to make something more cost efficient than the Satern V rockets.

[Captain Colon]

Probably because travel to the moon is no longer politically motivated, and NASA seems to have become freaks about safety, and maybe they're trying to make something more cost efficient than the Satern V rockets.
And as an extension of the cost-efficiency angle, I don't think NASA has anywhere near the same budget as it did during the race to even come up with a better way.

[pro kossu]

Probably because travel to the moon is no longer politically motivated, and NASA seems to have become freaks about safety, and maybe they're trying to make something more cost efficient than the Satern V rockets.

They cant even build a Saturn V because no one has or manufactures the components for it anymore.

[Lord Kelvin]

We definitely landed on the moon. As we all know, if more than fifty government employees are in on it, then it's not a secret. If something as big as the moon landings were fake, it sure as hell would have been found out in the last forty years. That's my take on it, at least.

[ScAvenger001]

... if more than fifty government employees are in on it, then it's not a secret.
Particularly when so many of the government employees in question worked for the Soviet government. To fake the moon landings, we would have had to slip multi-billion dollar projects past the K G freaking B not once or twice but nine times (including six actual landings and one aborted-landing fiasco) and confuse any number of radio recievers all over the world into tracking nonexistent radio signals all the way to the moon. Either that or else every major government on the planet, including several that were (or are) overtly hostile to ours, was in on the conspiracy.

[Modest Genius]

Did 'we' land on the moon? No, 12 US astronauts did :p

and yes, scav is right. the radio evidence alone means SOMETHING was sent up there, and it would be easier to send people than to fake the thing

[phide]

This is a pretty interesting topic for some, and conspiracy theorists have a fair amount of 'evidence' against the idea that we did actually make a Moon landing. A few are easily flagged down, the "Anti-Radiosity Theory" (my name) being the most obvious.

If you watch the Apollo 11 landing footage, you'll notice that no surface is in complete shadow. Conspiracy theorists believe that on the moon, devoid of any additional ambient light, every surface is in either complete light or complete shadow. Since this isn't true of the Apollo video, theorists believe the government shot a fake video on a small Moon set and followed somewhat traditional means of lighting it. In all reality, without diffuse radiosity, every outdoor shadow on Earth devoid of other lighting would be in complete shadow, which is something that clearly doesn't happen. Radiosity is a word that describes how light rays 'bounce' off of a direct surface and create light on others areas not directly affected by a light source. This takes place on the Moon as well as it takes place on Earth.

There is, in truth, a hell of a lot of evidence that shows that we at least have spent a lot of time screwing around in space. The effects of solar flares which hurl plumes of particles into space and penetrate anything not protected by a meaty atmosphere, for instance. These particles go straight through just about anything and their effects are pretty easily observable. Even the largest particle accelerators on Earth today (let alone in the 1960's) couldn't mimic the effects of particles from solar flares.

[pro kossu]

This is a pretty interesting topic for some, and conspiracy theorists have a fair amount of 'evidence' against the idea that we did actually make a Moon landing. A few are easily flagged down, the "Anti-Radiosity Theory" (my name) being the most obvious.

The conspiracy theories have been pretty thoroughly debunked. (http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm)

Also, there would be too much people to keep quiet about this conspiracy.

[Kak]

Although I generally believe all the stuff people regard as fact about the moon landings, I do think it's possible we faked the initial moon landing, and that we really went there at one of the later landings.

[GoatChomper]

If you watch the Apollo 11 landing footage, you'll notice that no surface is in complete shadow. Conspiracy theorists believe that on the moon, devoid of any additional ambient light, every surface is in either complete light or complete shadow.
The conspiracy theorists conveniently ignore how video and still footage of orbital missions show portions of vehicles in shadow as well, ignoring the fact that light-colored vehicles and moondust are highly reflective.

Bah.....they'll just tell you Space Shuttle footage is faked as well.

[Lord Kelvin]

Also, there would be too much people to keep quiet about this conspiracy.
Exactly my point. People are generally too stupid to keep a secret for this long; add to the fact that the majority of them are government employees, and you've got a watertight argument there. The only secret that's gone nearly this long was Deep Throat, and that was kept by one person, who was not a government employee.

[Modest Genius]

Although I generally believe all the stuff people regard as fact about the moon landings, I do think it's possible we faked the initial moon landing, and that we really went there at one of the later landings.what would be the point in that, if you only had to wait a month or two anyway? and the first would be the most closely looked at for faking

[Makai Goblin]

Imagine this:

You're part of the greatest hoax in modern history, one of hundreds, nay, thousands who are making it possible, and you've pulled it off!

Wouldn't you be temped to tell someone, even if it's just one person, about the incredible achievment? Even if you did resist temptation, amongst the thousands, ther's be, say, %5 (most likely a higher percentage...) who would tell someone, and those it was leaked to would likely tell someone else, who tells all their friends... you get the idea. In just a matter of a year or so it'd be in the news, and the whole world knew it was faked.

That reason alone (much less the other reasons stated above) is enough to convence me it was real, because it's human nature that the larger a group in on a secret, the more likely it is it'll be spred out.

[theubc]

No Hoaxes end up working. So this isnt a hoax!
Clearly we landed on hte moon and who cares if we didnt.

[s_qwert63]

Do you think we really landed on the moon or did we fake it in order to win the race?



You never won the space race, there was no race for the moon.
The aim of our space programme was to put man permanently into space (orbit) and sustain him there. Which we accomplished with Soyuz 1, Soyuz 2 and Mir Space Stations.
Your aim was getting to the moon, and you accomplished it as well. Both countries won.

The fact that "America won the space race" is pure political propoganda, just like "America won the Seocnd World War".

[Lord Kelvin]

Hey, which country's still standing :D?

But since I'm feeling generous today, I'll indulge you. No, America didn't get into space first; Sputnik did that; the Soviets also got the first man, woman, and animal into space. But then the USSR didn't get anybody onto the moon as far as I recall. The US did both of those things: get people into space, and get them onto the moon. Not to mention, sometime right before Apollo 11 the Soviets had that big-ass accident with one of their rockets, which effectively crippled their space program for a while (and you gotta admit, quality control in the USSR wasn't exactly top grade). I also remember reading somewhere that at the same time that Apollo 11 took place, one of the Sputnik satellites crashed on the moon, though I'm probably wrong. And don't forget, the US also put Skylab in orbit, although it didn't last as long as MIR did.

In the time between the beginning of the space race and the end of the Soviet Union, both accomplished lots of extraordinary things; the Soviets did a lot of firsts, from sending the first animal into space to sending the first probe to another planet, so what you say does have truth to it. But even so, the US space program had less casualties than the Soviet space program; according to Wiki, only 3 Americans died as a direct result of the space program during the Apollo 1 incident, whereas the Soviets had at least 4, with other unconfirmed deaths from the US monitoring Soviet telemetry, although the Soviets didn't announce them.

[Seanobi]

I love that one of these conspiracy douchebags who hounded Neil Armstrong about not going to the moon eventually got a face full of astronaut fist.

[FloppyDisk]

I think it's not entirely impossible it was faked, though I think it's unlikely.

Bah.....they'll just tell you Space Shuttle footage is faked as well.

I can see those things go up from my house. They have to go somewhere ;o

[Kak]

The Soviets were the first ones to the moon... Not with a human though! ;)

[Lord Kelvin]

Is anyone else here confused by which country sqwert is supposedly from? Last I read he was from Australia or England, and now he's from Russia? WTF?

Anyways, back on topic. The point still stands that the Soviets, overall, made more mistakes than the Americans. One of the figures I saw was somewhere over a hundred (although that may have been about something else, I forget) deaths throughout the lifetime of the space program, as compared to the US, for which I have no figure.

[FloppyDisk]

I believe sqwert is from one of the former SSR's and now lives in the Netherlands.

[Fearfisch]

The fact that "America won the space race" is pure political propoganda, just like "America won the Seocnd World War".
The space race was about propaganda, and we won. Quit complaining, because we'll gladly come over there and kick your asses. Hell, we'll just send over a few care packages of potato water several hours beforehand and let you kick your own asses.

Yeah, we rock, you don't.

edit: And on topic, it really doesn't seem possible to fake something that major, and that's with my tinfoil hat on.

[GoatChomper]

The aim of our space programme was to put man permanently into space (orbit) and sustain him there. Which we accomplished with Soyuz 1, Soyuz 2 and Mir Space Stations.
You forgot Skylab.

[Kak]

I don't think he forgot Skylab since he was talking about the Soviet space program :o

[Lord Kelvin]

Does anyone have the "exact" totals for the deaths that resulted from the space program? It's been bothering me because I've seen totals that go between a dozen to almost two hundred.

[lucky644]

We definitely landed on the moon. As we all know, if more than fifty government employees are in on it, then it's not a secret. If something as big as the moon landings were fake, it sure as hell would have been found out in the last forty years. That's my take on it, at least.

How many people go into space? How would anyone prove otherwise unless they're on the inside?

[Lord Kelvin]

How many people go into space? How would anyone prove otherwise unless they're on the inside?
Well, even if only the higher-ups and the astronauts were in on it, you'd still have to fool all the mission control people, and somehow fake the splashdown as well. Fooling the mission control people is in of itself an incredulous task, seeing as how you'd have to tweak their equipment, fake the transmissions, and so on. Even tweaking the equipment, the ones who built it would have to be in on it. Anyone on the retrieval ship, the helicopters in the area, and any boats within visual range will see the splashdown, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't fake a splashdown with the equipment they had back then, unless everyone who witnessed it was either sworn to silence or eliminated. And I'm sure someone would notice if a crapload of NASA or Navy personnel were killed each time an Apollo mission took place.

[GoatChomper]

Yes, it was Cernan.