Did moon landings happen ?
editteam
We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
in true Capricorn One style.
There main reasons for this were,
a) Nasa discovered radiation outside the Van Allen belts would kill the
astronuats within a couple of days without a thickness of many feet of
lead to shield the astronauts. A few feet of lead would keep the Saturn
on the ground permanently.
b) Many of the moon still pictures were obviously faked,
ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
not lift his leg as he decends.
Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
And more,
Any comments or further ideas,
DRwell.
Christopher P. Winter
If I had a dollar for every claim that NASA faked the moon landings, I
could probably afford to book passage with Society Expeditions (if
they ever offer the trip again.)
Others may reply to your detailed points. Let me just ask you: If
NASA went to all that trouble, how is it that they would release
pictures that are "obvious fakes" ???
Dan Hunting
editteam wrote:
>
> We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
> convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
> in true Capricorn One style.
You're going to get a lot of angry responses on this topic, but I'll try
to be as rational as I can in my response. I can't answer about the
radiation question with much authority, but my limited understanding is
that is that the Van Allen belts are exactly that, BELTS of high
radiation which the spacecraft would rapidly pass through. Once
through, levels would be lower, but still high by earth bound
standards. The astronauts were exposed to higher radiation, and NASA
knew it but decided that the risk was acceptable.
I can answer the photographic questions pretty well. I've been a
professional photographer for many years, so I have a pretty good idea
about how pictures get made! First of all, I think you are confusing
the STILL picture of Aldrin coming down the ladder with the VIDEO of
Armstrong. I don't think there is video of Aldrin descending to the
surface, and if there is, it certainly isn't as widely viewed as the
Armstrong footage.
Some of your other points:
> Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
> of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
> if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
It's a possible angle in MANY ways. With the lens Neil used on that
shot, he wouldn't have to be elevated much at all to see the shoulders.
If he's a couple of inches taller than Buzz he'd have that shot. Buzz
looks like he's stooped over, to boot. If there was even a slight down
slope from camera to subject, you'd get the same effect. This doen't
seem at all unusual to me.
> Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
> in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
>
> Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
These arguments I've heard before and they just don't hold water. What
you are forgetting is that the moon is a VERY reflective surface. Try
this experiment: on a clear night, go out and look straight at the full
moon. In a minute your eyes will start to hurt from the reflected glare
off an object 250,000 miles away. At least mine do. So the answer is
yes, there certainly was a fill light when the astronauts were standing
in the shadow of the LM. The fill was coming from the light reflected
off the surrounding surface. The same effect explains the shadows.
The problem with all these arguments is that when people don't
understand something, they don't try to find the most logical
explanation, they look for the most spectacular.
-- Dan
dcha...@vnet.ibm.com
I remember reading in this news group a few months ago the comments made
about why there were no stars visible above the horizon of the moon in the video
taken from the Apollo missions. I was watching the NASA 25th anniversary videos
on the weekend, and was asked about this. I tried to explain it to the person based
on what I remembered from the post, but I couldn't remember enough of the post
to do it well.
Could the person who made the post I am referring to please re-post, send me a
note with the explanation, or point me to the right type of reference material?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Dale Chapman
dcha...@vnet.ibm.com
Kevin Elliott
In article <331476...@rmplc.co.uk>, editteam <edit...@rmplc.co.uk>
writes
>We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
>convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
>in true Capricorn One style.
>
>
> a) Nasa discovered radiation outside the Van Allen belts would kill the
>astronuats within a couple of days without a thickness of many feet of
>lead to shield the astronauts.
Not true. See below.
>b) Many of the moon still pictures were obviously faked,
I think not...
>
>ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
>has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
>not lift his leg as he decends.
The still might show him entering the module...
>
>Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
>of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
>if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
The astronauts had handheld cameras as well, and the lunar rovers were
also used as camera mounts
>
>Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
>in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
>
>Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
>
>And more,
>
>Any comments or further ideas,
>
>DRwell.
>
There's a thread in the sci.space.policy group on this topic - one
person posted a factual account of the programme, and (so far) 35 people
have responded to say that the conspiracy theory is utter rubbish.
To summarise -
1) There is proof that the moon landings *did* happen - the returned
moonrocks are different from any earth rocks,having been formed under
lower gravity, and the corner cube reflector instruments set up on the
moon can be accessed by anyone with a laser (and were too delicate to be
set up by a probe).
2) Levels of radiation in space aren't *that* high. One respondent from
the Physics Department of UCL said that an 11 week trip in space would
give you about 1 rem - only about one fifth of the maximum dose
currently allowed for workers in the nuclear industry in a year.
3) It would have been difficult to fake moon landings without someone on
the inside spilling the beans.
4) If the photographic evidence had been faked, the Russians would have
picked up on it. They lost most when the Apollo missions landed on the
moon, and would have gained most if they could have proved that the
photos were false.
5) If Apollo 11 was faked, why did NASA stage Apollos 12 to 17? If the
object of the fakery was to convince everyone that they could beat the
Russians to the moon, why do it more than once? Why was Apollo 13 staged
as a near disaster?
6) There would have been at least two light sources on the moon's
surface, and lots of reflections coming from the facted, highly
reflective LEM. This probably accounts for the multiplicity of shadows.
The moon's surface is undulating (its low albedo makes it look flatter
than it is), which accounts for the irregular nature of some of the
shadows.
7) Just for laughs we could say that the photos are fake fakes, that
they have been doctored by the conspiracy theorists to give themselves a
bit of publicity. Well, it could have happened... :-)
All the best,
Kevin.
--
Kevin Elliott ke...@kevinell.demon.co.uk
Somerset http://www.kevinell.demon.co.uk
UK ...reality is just badly written science fiction
be...@together.net
In article <331476...@rmplc.co.uk>,
editteam <edit...@rmplc.co.uk> wrote:
>
> We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
> convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
> in true Capricorn One style.
>
> There main reasons for this were,
> Any comments or further ideas,
Well, if you look closely at any picture of Earth that has ever been
taken, it should be evident to the blindest person that our planet is
perfectly flat. The fact that it has rounded edges only points to the
obvious disc-shape.
Ahem.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
David Woods
>
> We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
> convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
> in true Capricorn One style.
>
> There main reasons for this were,
>
> astronuats within a couple of days without a thickness of many feet of
> on the ground permanently.
Conspiracy theories thrive because so few people - relative to the
population as a whole - really know their science. Access to a half
decent encyclopaedia will reveal the true nature of the Van Allen
Belts. Also, you don't need great layers of lead to protect from many
types of ionising radiation.
> b) Many of the moon still pictures were obviously faked,
>
> ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
> has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
> not lift his leg as he decends.
I'd have to study the footage myself to expound on this one.
> Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
> of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
> if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
The lunar surface is not smooth as a billiard table. Aldrin is standing
in a crater. Armstrong could have been standing on a rise.
> Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
> in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
The lighting comes from a sunlit lunar surface.
> Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
This effect is called 'perspective'. Think about parallel railway lines
appearing to merge in the distance.
> And more,
>
> Any comments or further ideas,
People are left to think for themselves and if they don't have the
relevant knowledge or mental tools to process this stuff properly then
muddled thinking allows easy perpetuation of unsound theories.
Over to the teachers...
--
-----------David Woods, Bearsden, Glasgow.-----------
-----------email da...@wdwoods.demon.co.uk-----------
---------WWW http://www.wdwoods.demon.co.uk/---------
John McNairn
Maybe not but I saw the TV programme and it was convincing, so lets
see some answers to the previous questions, especially the radiation
subject. This alone would probably prove or disprove conspiracy theory
etc...
Lets not bother about counter points, but get to serious answers to
hard and fast questions.
Regards,
John
Kevin Elliott
In article <3315297...@news.sol.co.uk>, John McNairn
<jmcn...@taynet.co.uk> writes
>cpwi...@ix.netcom.com (Christopher P. Winter) wrote:
>
>>If I had a dollar for every claim that NASA faked the moon landings, I
>>could probably afford to book passage with Society Expeditions (if
>>they ever offer the trip again.)
>>
>>Others may reply to your detailed points. Let me just ask you: If
>>NASA went to all that trouble, how is it that they would release
>>pictures that are "obvious fakes" ???
>
>
>Maybe not but I saw the TV programme and it was convincing, so lets
>see some answers to the previous questions, especially the radiation
>subject. This alone would probably prove or disprove conspiracy theory
>etc...
The radiation theory has been shown to be false in the sci.space.policy
group - some 35 people so far have written in to say that the alpha and
beta radiation would have been stopped by the spacecraft itself (alpha
rays are stopped by paper), and that the intensity of gammas was too low
to cause serious problems. The people on the programme said that the Van
Allen Belt "protected" Earth from radiation, this is utter nonsense. Its
the atmosphere that protects us from radiation, the Van Allen Belts are
just radiation belts in their own right and don't stop anything.
One physicist wrote in to say that the Apollo mission astronauts would
have picked up about 1 rem in their trip. This is about 20% of the
maximum permitted dose for radiation workers in a year - hardly enough
to kill! The Russians have had men orbiting the Earth for over a year,
experiencing the *same* levels of radiation
>
>Lets not bother about counter points, but get to serious answers to
>hard and fast questions.
Why didn't the Russians spot the "fakery?" They had most to lose from
Apollo. Why were Apollos 12-17 "staged?" Why was Apollo 13 staged? How
come people can bounce laser beams of the corner cube reflectors left on
the moon - the reflectors were too fragile to be set up by any probe?
Hmmmm.
These claims also appeared in Fortean Times - and their programme
yesterday had an interview with a woman who claimed that all cats came
from the star Canopus. Interesting!
Gareth Jones
Kevin Elliott <Ke...@kevinell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>To summarise -
>
>1) There is proof that the moon landings *did* happen - the returned
>moonrocks are different from any earth rocks,having been formed under
>lower gravity, and the corner cube reflector instruments set up on the
>moon can be accessed by anyone with a laser (and were too delicate to be
>set up by a probe).
>
>2) Levels of radiation in space aren't *that* high. One respondent from
>the Physics Department of UCL said that an 11 week trip in space would
>give you about 1 rem - only about one fifth of the maximum dose
>currently allowed for workers in the nuclear industry in a year.
This ruins one of the main pillars of the arguement as I heard it -
the trouble was the TV show is about goofy theories, so they don't
have anyone there to rebut it.
>3) It would have been difficult to fake moon landings without someone on
>the inside spilling the beans.
Yeah! But what is Neil Armstrong so stroppy about? Was he a miserable
git before he went up?
>4) If the photographic evidence had been faked, the Russians would have
>picked up on it. They lost most when the Apollo missions landed on the
>moon, and would have gained most if they could have proved that the
>photos were false.
Yes. It also occurred to me, although I know nothing about this kind
of thing, that the transmissions from the craft would not just have
been followed by Nasa - surely the Russians would have been listening
in, and would have been able to tell where the signals were coming
from?
>5) If Apollo 11 was faked, why did NASA stage Apollos 12 to 17? If the
>object of the fakery was to convince everyone that they could beat the
>Russians to the moon, why do it more than once? Why was Apollo 13 staged
>as a near disaster?
Ratings they said. And to keep the funds flowing. What the hell they
wanted the money for if it was all pretend anyway I don't know.....
Gareth Jones
Henry Spencer
Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
charter -- this nonsense seems to come up so often.
In article <331476...@rmplc.co.uk>, editteam <edit...@rmplc.co.uk> wrote:
> a) Nasa discovered radiation outside the Van Allen belts would kill the
>astronuats within a couple of days without a thickness of many feet of
>lead to shield the astronauts...
References, please. This is simply wrong.
It may be a garbled version of the radiation intensity *within* the belts,
which is indeed serious, but is not that big a deal if you pass through
the belts quickly, as the Apollo flights did.
It may be a garbled version of the problem with giant solar flares, which
are indeed nasty but are very rare. Apollo simply took its chances with
them, and lucked out.
Or it may be a garbled version of the problem with high-Z cosmic rays,
which probably have adverse health effects if you spend *many months*
outside the Van Allen belts without very heavy shielding. This is simply
irrelevant to a 10-day flight.
>ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
>has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
>not lift his leg as he decends.
Incorrect, twice -- it's physically impossible to lift a leg "high in the
air" in one of those suits, and in fact the photo shows him with his legs
spread no more than 30deg, as he starts to jump down. There is no
inconsistency with the video.
>Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
>of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
>if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
This is simply silly. The natural standing position while wearing a heavy
backpack tilts you forward somewhat, and the astronauts were no exception.
In fact, if you look carefully at the photo, it's quite clear that Aldrin
*is* tilted forward.
>Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
>in flash or some kind of lighting applied...
>Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
Earthlight and light scattered off the surroundings make the lunar-surface
lighting much less unidirectional, and the shadows much less dark, than
paranoid simpletons imagine.
--
Committees do harm merely by existing. | Henry Spencer
-- Freeman Dyson | he...@zoo.toronto.edu
Dwayne Allen Day
Henry Spencer (he...@zoo.toronto.edu) wrote:
: Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
: charter -- this nonsense seems to come up so often.
It is useless to try to ban this stuff--the people who do it either have
an attitude (like those who doubt that Saturn V documentation still exists
and will not be convinced by inventories of records), or they're being
malicious. Note that the first person who posted this sent it to multiple
groups, some with only tenuous connection to the subject. This is
generally a no-no as far as Netiquette is concerned, and I am highly
suspicious when this happens.
I think in the end you have to simply learn to live with this crud and
ignore it. We are dealing either with people who will not accept evidence
that conflicts with their world-view, or people who simply don't care but
are trolling for controversy.
DDAY
--
"I feel a disturbance... as though a million monkeys cried out at once and
then were silenced."--Crow T. Robot
schumach_at_rsn.hp.com
>: Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
>: charter -- this nonsense seems to come up so often.
>I think in the end you have to simply learn to live with this crud and
>ignore it. We are dealing either with people who will not accept evidence
No! It must be answered factually, or naifs will start to
believe there could be truth in it. It's probably impossible
to correct a True Believer, but they're not the ones who
matter.
schumach_at_rsn.hp.com
>We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
>convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
>in true Capricorn One style.
>There main reasons for this were,
> a) Nasa discovered radiation outside the Van Allen belts would kill the
>astronuats within a couple of days without a thickness of many feet of
>lead to shield the astronauts. A few feet of lead would keep the Saturn
>on the ground permanently.
They were in the belts for hours, not a couple of days. It would
take weeks at least to be killed in the Belts.
>b) Many of the moon still pictures were obviously faked,
>ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
>has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
>not lift his leg as he decends.
Different occassion. They didn't leave the LM just once.
>Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
>of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
>if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
Subject was leaning forward. Easy in low gravity.
>Many pictures are taken in the shadows but the astronauts have had fill
>in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
>Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
Reflected Sunlight from the LM was quite bright.
>Any comments or further ideas,
It's crap. Relax.
schumach_at_rsn.hp.com
>I remember reading in this news group a few months ago the comments made
>about why there were no stars visible above the horizon of the moon in the video
>taken from the Apollo missions. I was watching the NASA 25th anniversary videos
>on the weekend, and was asked about this. I tried to explain it to the person based
>on what I remembered from the post, but I couldn't remember enough of the post
>to do it well.
The dynamic range of video cameras then was not wide enough
to show both the relatively bright Moon and relatively dim
background stars in the same frame. Even now it's very difficult.
Your eyes are better than most cameras in this respect, but
even so try spotting any stars next to the full Moon.
NASA Select video from the Shuttle shows stars, but only when
the Shuttle is above the nightside of Earth and completely
hidden from all Sunlight. Watch for these scenes, they're
very beautiful.
Christopher P. Winter
>Lets not bother about counter points, but get to serious answers to
>hard and fast questions.
I held off partly because there are others here who could give
better (more accurate, more complete, more succinct) answers.
But they may be unwilling, having dealt with this conspiracy theory
even more often than I have.
So, briefly, here's the situation WRT radiation:
The van Allen belts are a concentration of charged particles
trapped by the Earth's magnetic field. They can be dangerous if you
stay in them -- but the Apollo capsules passed through in a few
moments. Also, the capsule walls were thick enough to stop a large
percentage of this radiation.
Once past the belts, the astronauts would normally get much less
radiation (though still more than on Earth's surface). A solar flare,
now, throws out high-energy stuff that can be really dangerous.
However, flares are rare, and since the light gets here before the
particles, we always have some warning.
The bottom line is that the TV program got it mostly wrong. Also,
I read that they had six people claiming the landings were faked, and
no one to rebut. Would you describe such a program as information, or
sensation-mongering?
Dwayne Allen Day
schumachatrsn.hp.com wrote:
: >: Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
The problem is that you end up doing this again and again and again. Like
I said, this stuff never goes away. So soon you end up spending all your
time dealing with the bulls#@% instead of the real stuff. And by doing
that, you ultimately allow them to determine the agenda, dominating the
discussion with nonsense.
Ed Dravecky III
editteam (edit...@rmplc.co.uk) wrote:
> We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
> convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up
> by NASA in true Capricorn One style.
<heavy-sarcasm>
Well, drat. You figured it all out. We faked the moon landing to
cover up for the fact that much of the USA has been evacuated to
O'Neill colonies at the L5 point. This has take the entire vast
resources of our nation and over 40 years of effort, but we've
finally gotten the last 10 million or so people into space.
The "lunar" missions were to fool the world into looking at the
surface instead of the Lagrange points. And they worked! Even now
the former Martian moon Phobos is headed for Earth on a collision
course and should impact in late November, 1998. We Americans will
ride out the apocalypse in relative comfort and resettle the globe
in about 50 years.
A few of us have managed to send out coded "warnings" to the rest
of the world but the need for secrecy kept our most recent effort
("Asteroid" on NBC) from being at all believable. Oh, and the fact
that there are no more than 35 people left in Texas at the moment.
Oops. I've got to go before they notice my connection to the net...
</heavy-sarcasm>
Of course, if you believe sort of wild fantasy that comprises this
post, no amount of "evidence" could convince you that we managed to
put 12 men on the moon and return them safely to the Earth. may I
suggest posting to alt.folklore.urban or rec.pets.cats instead?
--
Another messsage from Ed Dravecky (dshe...@netcom.com)
Visit my homepage (the Pop Culture Sinkhole!) at
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/2727/index.html
Henry Spencer
In article <5f24dj$1h...@tornews.torolab.ibm.com>,
<dcha...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>I remember reading in this news group a few months ago the comments made
>about why there were no stars visible above the horizon of the moon in the video
>on what I remembered from the post, but I couldn't remember enough ...
Same reason it's hard to see the stars when looking up from a brightly-lit
street, only more so (the Sun is far brighter than streetlights). Stars
are quite dim, and the sunlit lunar surface is quite bright, and any
camera (or eye) which is set so as not to be dazzled by the sunlit surface
is simply not sensitive enough to pick up the stars.
Bruce Hoult
David Woods <da...@wdwoods.demon.co.uk> writes:
> > b) Many of the moon still pictures were obviously faked,
> >
> > ie, Aldrin picture, a still showing him leaving the Lunar module. Aldrin
> > has one leg lifted high in the air. On the live TV camera images he does
> > not lift his leg as he decends.
>
One of Aldrin's jobs during the EVA was to climb up and down the ladder at least
one extra time to guage its difficulty in 1/6th G.
-- Bruce
--
...in 1996, software marketers wore out a record 31,296 copies of Roget's
Thesaurus searching for synonyms to the word "coffee" ...
Peter Olbach
Henry Spencer wrote:
>
> Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
> charter -- this nonsense seems to come up so often.
Hear hear! (Now if only we had a way to enforce this, without throwing
this group away and starting again with a moderated group...)
[snip]
> It may be a garbled version of the problem with giant solar flares, which
> are indeed nasty but are very rare. Apollo simply took its chances with
> them, and lucked out.
Did NASA have any contingency plans to deal with solar flares during an
Apollo lunar mission? If a flare had occured, how much warning would
they have had, and could they have gotten the astronauts home in time?
(How rare is "very rare", anyway? It seems unlikely that NASA would
want to run that sort of risk without some sort of contingency plan,
however slim it might have been. After all, this was only a few years
after the Apollo I disaster and the Apollo XIII near-miss; three
astronauts glowing in the dark in lunar orbit would likely have been the
kiss of death for NASA, if not for American manned space exploration
altogether.)
Peter Olbach
If I wanted junk e-mail, I would have *asked* for junk e-mail!
Richard David Glueck
On Fri, 28 Feb 1997, Peter Olbach wrote:
>
> Did NASA have any contingency plans to deal with solar flares during an
> Apollo lunar mission? If a flare had occured, how much warning would
> they have had, and could they have gotten the astronauts home in time?
>
This was the premise of the final Apollo mission in James
Michener's novel "Space". He wrote about a disaster in an Apollo mission
to the far-side of the moon, during which a solar flare irradiates
the moon walkers and kills them. In the scenario, dying of radiation
poisoning, the Commander and LMP try to lift off the surface but wind up
crashing back onto the moon. The CMP comes home alone.
I didn't like the book either.
The television mini-series was even worse. (IMHO)
Dick
---------- Richard David Glueck Email:glue...@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov
Gareth Jones
cpwi...@ix.netcom.com (Christopher P. Winter) wrote:
> The bottom line is that the TV program got it mostly wrong. Also,
>I read that they had six people claiming the landings were faked, and
>no one to rebut. Would you describe such a program as information, or
>sensation-mongering?
I think having no rebutter is an intentional feature of the series -
which has a different bunch of conspiracy theoriests strutting their
stuff every week.
Gareth Jones
Gareth Jones
wayn...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Dwayne Allen Day) wrote:
>Henry Spencer (he...@zoo.toronto.edu) wrote:
>: Maybe we should have put this in the forbidden-topics list in the group's
>: charter -- this nonsense seems to come up so often.
>
>It is useless to try to ban this stuff--the people who do it either have
>an attitude (like those who doubt that Saturn V documentation still exists
>and will not be convinced by inventories of records), or they're being
>malicious. Note that the first person who posted this sent it to multiple
>groups, some with only tenuous connection to the subject. This is
>generally a no-no as far as Netiquette is concerned, and I am highly
>suspicious when this happens.
>
>I think in the end you have to simply learn to live with this crud and
>ignore it. We are dealing either with people who will not accept evidence
>that conflicts with their world-view, or people who simply don't care but
>are trolling for controversy.
I think that is a little uncharitable. I saw the TV show, and was
intrigued by the arguements put forward by the conspiracy theorists.
The show did not have any anyone giving the opposing case, and so I
subscribed to this group to hear the other side. I imagine the
original poster did so in the same spirit. I am quite satisfied with
the replies given to the various points raised.
Gareth Jones
Geoff Pollard
schumach, at, rsn.hp.com wrote:
>
> >We had a program on TV last night with a group of people who are
> >convinced the moon landings never took place, all was mocked up by NASA
> >in true Capricorn One style.
>
>
> >in flash or some kind of lighting applied.
> >Many of the shadows are pointing in many directions on the same still.
>
>
>hope this helps
geoff
Jim Kingdon
> Hear hear! (Now if only we had a way to enforce this, without throwing
> this group away and starting again with a moderated group...)
The "enforcement" of getting people to post nothing in response longer
than one line or so ("This is off-topic" or some such) usually is
pretty effective.
Dwayne Allen Day
Gareth Jones (gar...@ibis.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: >I think in the end you have to simply learn to live with this crud and
: >ignore it. We are dealing either with people who will not accept evidence
: >that conflicts with their world-view, or people who simply don't care but
: >are trolling for controversy.
: I think that is a little uncharitable. I saw the TV show, and was
: intrigued by the arguements put forward by the conspiracy theorists.
Have you ever studied the great works of Mr. P.T. Barnum?
Henry Spencer
In article <3316AD...@CHEMISTRY.Watstar.UWaterloo.CA>,
Peter Olbach <PCOL...@CHEMISTRY.Watstar.UWaterloo.CA> wrote:
>> It may be a garbled version of the problem with giant solar flares, which
>
>Did NASA have any contingency plans to deal with solar flares during an
>Apollo lunar mission? If a flare had occured, how much warning would
>they have had, and could they have gotten the astronauts home in time?
Some attempt was made to provide flare forecasts, but even today it's not
a very reliable process. The giant flares, in particular, are very poorly
understood, and there is little hope of reliable prediction for them. We
don't even know just how big they can get; only a few have been observed
with modern instruments, and each one is different. They tend to occur
around a maximum of the 11-year solar cycle, but the maxima are not very
sharp and this isn't a very helpful fact -- the giant flares in the
late-50s maximum were spread over about five years, and the late-40s
maximum seems to have had giant flares in 1942, 1946, and 1949.
You basically find out about these things when the X-ray flash arrives.
The good news is that the X-rays are not particularly dangerous, and the
charged particles which represent the real hazard lag well behind. The
bad news is that because the charged particles follow the interplanetary
magnetic field, which is not straight, it occasionally happens that the
flare itself is over the Sun's horizon as seen from Earth.
Disregarding the possibility of an over-the-horizon flare, and also the
related problem of deciding whether the particle cloud from a flare is
actually going to reach Earth or miss it, the time between the X-ray
emissions and the particle arrival averages about 15hr, although in
particularly unfavorable cases the fastest particles can show up in 20min
or so. Also, the larger flares usually take 24hr or more to reach peak
intensity. (But see comments above about limited data on giant flares.)
This is enough time to get abort procedures started, but not enough to get
a lunar mission home. It would probably be enough to at least get an LM
crew up off the surface and into the CM, which had better shielding.
>(How rare is "very rare", anyway? It seems unlikely that NASA would
>want to run that sort of risk without some sort of contingency plan...
There really wasn't a whole lot that could be done. (I recall some
negative comments in the early 1960s about Kennedy's schedule putting the
beginning of manned lunar exploration at a solar maximum.) Unless you've
got access to tons of shielding on maybe half an hour's notice -- which
is practical on the lunar surface but not in open space -- the worst case
simply is fatal.
As for how rare, that's kind of ill-defined. Normal flares are of no
great significance; it's the giant ones you care about. They happen maybe
a few times per solar maximum. The most recent maximum, at the beginning
of this decade, had a few (I forget, and my handy references aren't recent
enough). The previous maximum had none. The late-60s maximum had one, in
August 1972, about halfway between Apollos 16 and 17, which was big but
"soft" (few really high-energy particles); had an Apollo crew been on the
Moon at the time, they'd have gotten enough radiation to make them
somewhat ill but not enough to kill or incapacitate (James Michener
notwithstanding). The late-50s maximum had half a dozen, at least one of
which (Feb 1956) was so massive that it would probably have killed an
Apollo crew. The mid-40s maximum is poorly documented, but it appears to
have had four real monsters, possibly bigger than anything seen since.
Kit
In article <3314A2...@worldnet.att.net>, Dan Hunting
<hunti...@worldnet.att.net> writes
snip
>> Famous picture of astronaut on lunar surface shows top of helmut and part
>> of backpack showing behind astronauts shoulders. This not possible angle
>> if taken from the chest hung Hasselblads the astronauts wore.
>
snip
>It's a possible angle in MANY ways. With the lens Neil used on that
>shot, he wouldn't have to be elevated much at all to see the shoulders.
>If he's a couple of inches taller than Buzz he'd have that shot. Buzz
>looks like he's stooped over, to boot. If there was even a slight down
>slope from camera to subject, you'd get the same effect. This doen't
>seem at all unusual to me.
The foreground of that picture shows a change of surface detail which I
interpreted as the beginning of rising ground on which Armstrong was
standing.
I have also just looked at a web site (http://www.hway.net/ral/mlh.htm)
claiming the landings were faked. The page shows an example of a "faked"
picture in which there is a clear shadow thrown by the American flag but
none by the saluting astronaut standing next to it. This is seen as
significant. A very cursory examination of the picture (even at the
resolution provided via the net) makes it obvious that the astronaut has
jumped up to a considerable distance (I guess about 1-2 feet) above the
surface and there is a clearly visible shadow of him which begins some
distance from his boots as would be expected.
I think there is film of exactly this event, it may have been included
in the 25th aniversary programme shown on TV.
Ian Sharp
In article <7WLZ0CA0...@kevinell.demon.co.uk>
Kevin Elliott <Ke...@kevinell.demon.co.uk> writes :-
>7) Just for laughs we could say that the photos are fake fakes, that
>they have been doctored by the conspiracy theorists to give themselves a
>bit of publicity. Well, it could have happened... :-)
This is probably not a bad theory. I tape-recorded a (British) TV
programme (the programme?) on this subject about a week ago, - thought
I'd be interested in listening to the argument, but frankly it doesn't
hold an ounce of water.
One of the specific claims of the 'conspiratists' regards a fairly
famous picture of Aldrin with an image of Armstrong & the LEM in his
visor - I have a full page print of this in a NASA book from about '74.
There's quite clearly nothing untoward with this picture whatsoever.
(Slight aside: why do the conspiratists always describe this picture as
'the astronaut'? It's clearly Aldrin, his name's on the front of the
suit).
One criticism of the conspiratists is that the picture is from too high
an angle:
It's quite clear that Aldrin is standing in a small depression, probably
accounting for why the level of the horizon intersects with the
centreline of his helmet. In the small image of Armstrong visible as a
reflection in Aldrin's visor, the horizon 'behind' intersects just below
the shoulders, which would be consistent with Armstrong taking the
picture with the camera in the chest mounted position. Armstrong's arms
are clearly raised above the position that Aldrin's are in the picture,
so it's possible that Armstrong _might_ be using a camera in a higher
position, which would further accentuate this effect.
Another claim with regard to this picture is the visibility of the front
of Aldrin's suit compared to the dark shadows on the surface of the moon
& backs of rocks:
It's obvious that the picture was exposed for the front of the suit.
The suit is white, and obviously quite bright in comparison to the
moon's surface (albedo 0.16?) The right-hand side of Aldrin's suit in
direct illumination from the Sun is virtually bleached out in the image.
If additional front-filling sources of illumination are needed - the're
there, and visible in the reflection in Aldrin's helmet - a bright
suited Armstrong almost face-on to solar illumination, standing out very
clearly against the background, and the LEM.
The final claim with regard to this picture was the so-called hot-spot,
which the conspiratists claimed was caused by artificial illumination (a
picture shown on the TV program illustrated this claim well). This
'hot-spot' simply isn't evident in my '74 copy of the picture,
supporting Kevin's doctoring suggestion above. Detail on the surface is
only evident where shadows are present, and the area of the claimed hot-
spot is clearly sloping away from the camera in more square-on to solar
illumination. No shadows=no detail, and although there's a white patch
in the claimed area of the hot-spot, it does not even remotely resemble
(say) an effect that would be caused by a spot-light, and indeed, it
does not even remotely resemble the copy of the picture presented in the
TV programme.
For these reasons, with regard to the claims made about this specific
picture, and for myriads of other reasons explained in this newsgroup
and elsewhere, it is quite clear that the claims made by the 'we never
went to the moon' group are complete tosh.
--
73, de : Ian Sharp, QTH: Bath, QRA: IO81tj
e-mail : I...@sharpip.demon.co.uk
homepage : http://www.sharpip.demon.co.uk/
AMPR-Net : g7...@g7mzy.ampr.org
AX25-Net : G7MZY @ GB7IMB.#41.GBR.EU
PGP key : http://www.sharpip.demon.co.uk/sharpip.asc
Gary Neff
What's "stroppy", and what's a "git" ?
Gary
In article <331e1802...@news.demon.co.uk>, gar...@ibis.demon.co.uk
(Gareth Jones) wrote:
>
>>3) It would have been difficult to fake moon landings without someone on
>>the inside spilling the beans.
>
>Yeah! But what is Neil Armstrong so stroppy about? Was he a miserable
>git before he went up?
>
Gareth Jones
ga...@pacifier.com (Gary Neff) wrote:
>What's "stroppy", and what's a "git" ?
someone is stroppy when they have got a real cob on. A git is a
miserable sod who's always taking the hump. All clear?
:-)
Gareth Jones
George Herbert
Dwayne Allen Day <wayn...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>: No! It must be answered factually, or naifs will start to
>: believe there could be truth in it. It's probably impossible
>: to correct a True Believer, but they're not the ones who
>: matter.
>
>The problem is that you end up doing this again and again and again. Like
>I said, this stuff never goes away. So soon you end up spending all your
>time dealing with the bulls#@% instead of the real stuff. And by doing
>that, you ultimately allow them to determine the agenda, dominating the
>discussion with nonsense.
This is unfortunately the price we pay for an open popular press.
Yes, we end up fighting the same battle forever and ever,
the same wrong-headed ideas coming up again and again and having
to be rebutted over and over again. And that is the price we pay
for freedom of the press and an open society.
On the newsgroup, the best way of handling issues like this
is to put them in the FAQ and refer people to it if it comes up.
If you make the answer part of the collected group wisdom
(as FAQs are intended to be) nobody has to expend much effort
to answer it again and again each time it comes up. You just
point to the last set of answers which got FAQified whenever a
newbie shows up and asks the questions again.
Yeah, it gets old watching people ask them again and again,
but Henry's been putting up with it since 81 or 82, I have been
for over 10 years now, and if you aspire to Usenet Greatness
you must become one with the FAQ. It flows through all things
and concentrates wisdom where it can be hit over the head of
clueless newbies with minimal effort ;-)
I now exit this debate and return to metalworking operations.
-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace
gher...@crl.com
Chuck Buckley
In article <331e1802...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Gareth Jones <gar...@ibis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Kevin Elliott <Ke...@kevinell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>To summarise -
>>
>>1) There is proof that the moon landings *did* happen - the returned
>>moonrocks are different from any earth rocks,having been formed under
>>lower gravity, and the corner cube reflector instruments set up on the
>>moon can be accessed by anyone with a laser (and were too delicate to be
>>set up by a probe).
>>
>>2) Levels of radiation in space aren't *that* high. One respondent from
>>the Physics Department of UCL said that an 11 week trip in space would
>>give you about 1 rem - only about one fifth of the maximum dose
>>currently allowed for workers in the nuclear industry in a year.
>
>This ruins one of the main pillars of the arguement as I heard it -
>the trouble was the TV show is about goofy theories, so they don't
>have anyone there to rebut it.
>
>>the inside spilling the beans.
>
>Yeah! But what is Neil Armstrong so stroppy about? Was he a miserable
>git before he went up?
>
To some extent, yes. Armstrong was not that big on the Space Program. He
was a trained aviator and test pilot. This just happened to be the only real
test program going on at that time. He did not like all the media attention
from being the first man on the Moon. He was aware of what happened to
Gagarin and Glenn after their firsts and did his best to avoid the same.
And, Aldrin after the flight re-emphasized the points.
--
I definately do not speak for HP | cbuc...@swttools.fc.hp.com
The difference between Star Trek and Babylon 5....
Try imagining Neelix as the Centauri Emperor........
Eric Smith [see .sig]
gher...@crl.com (George Herbert) writes:
>Dwayne Allen Day <wayn...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>>>No! It must be answered factually, or naifs will start to
>>>believe there could be truth in it. It's probably impossible
>>>to correct a True Believer, but they're not the ones who matter.
>>The problem is that you end up doing this again and again and again. Like
>>I said, this stuff never goes away. So soon you end up spending all your
>>time dealing with the bulls#@% instead of the real stuff. And by doing
>>that, you ultimately allow them to determine the agenda, dominating the
>>discussion with nonsense.
>This is unfortunately the price we pay for an open popular press.
>Yes, we end up fighting the same battle forever and ever,
>the same wrong-headed ideas coming up again and again and having
>to be rebutted over and over again. And that is the price we pay
>for freedom of the press and an open society.
(etc.)
An interesting segment on "60 Minutes" last night had Lesley Stahl
exploring some of the wild conspiracy theories that can be found on the
net. She was interviewing the editor (or something) of Internet World
magazine, and it was certainly interesting to hear her viewpoint:
"Why, anybody can just say anything on the Internet. Shouldn't somebody
be removing some of this (i.e. people's web pages)?". The IW guy tried
to point out that we do have a concept called free speech. Basically
Stahl's underlying message was as clear as day: "But this stuff isn't
being filtered by the major new media, so we have no control over what
people might believe!"
I agree that it's the price that you pay for open exchange of information.
In a case like the moon landing conspiracy (or the Holocaust revisionists
who flood groups like soc.history), all you can do is offer the truth in
a form that logically rebuts the conspiracy theories, and let people make
up their own minds. Reasonable people, as most are, will be able to tell
who has the facts.
-----
Revp Fzvgu | This was posted with a fake address to
re...@argpbz.pbz | thwart bulk email programs. For my email
uggc://jjj.pngfqbtf.pbz | address, rot13 this .sig.
"Gurl jrer yvxr geniryyref hajvyyvatyl erghearq sebz oevyyvnag ernyzf,
abg lrg nqwhfgrq gb gurve erghea." - Byvivn Znaavat
Dwayne Allen Day
Eric Smith [see .sig] (Ihat...@address.fake) wrote:
: gher...@crl.com (George Herbert) writes:
: >This is unfortunately the price we pay for an open popular press.
: >Yes, we end up fighting the same battle forever and ever,
: >the same wrong-headed ideas coming up again and again and having
: >to be rebutted over and over again. And that is the price we pay
: >for freedom of the press and an open society.
My newsreader crapped out again, so I did not see Mr. Herbert's post, but
I disagree with his characterization of this as a free-speech issue. It
is nothing of the sort. Nobody is challenging the "right" of wackos and
gullible souls to post on the Net. I am challenging the wisdom of
responding to them--again and again and again.
What I am saying is that it is nowhere written in the Constitution (a copy
of which adorns my wall, so I checked) that reasonable people have to jump
up and respond to all this goofiness. I seriously doubt that the Republic
will crumble if we fail to rise to the bait.
: An interesting segment on "60 Minutes" last night had Lesley Stahl
: exploring some of the wild conspiracy theories that can be found on the
: net. She was interviewing the editor (or something) of Internet World
: magazine, and it was certainly interesting to hear her viewpoint:
: "Why, anybody can just say anything on the Internet. Shouldn't somebody
: be removing some of this (i.e. people's web pages)?". The IW guy tried
: to point out that we do have a concept called free speech.
It is never clear if the 60 Minutes crew is playing Devil's Advocate or
really believes some of the crud that they speak. They certainly do play
the advocate role from time to time, as all journalists must. But they
also have some severe leftist tendencies.
: Basically
: Stahl's underlying message was as clear as day: "But this stuff isn't
: being filtered by the major new media, so we have no control over what
: people might believe!"
This is one of the strengths of the Internet. It is also a fact that many
journalists are not quite conscious of. They seem to think that we
suddenly have a lot more kooks in America because they are now posting to
the Net. What they don't realize is that these kooks have always been out
there, but that the media (and medium--i.e. communications technology
available to them) restricted their ability to spread their message beyond
limited groups. The press could easily subscribe to any of thousands of
kooky newsletters and magazines before, but they didn't. They therefore
did not realize that these viewpoints existed. Suddenly they can tap into
this stuff quite easily and they therefore think that this indicates an
increase in racism, right-wing violence, anti-government sentiment,
etc.--basically confirming all of their left-leaning attitudes to begin
with.
George Herbert
[Copied and Mailed to Dwayne]
Dwayne Allen Day <wayn...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>Eric Smith [see .sig] (Ihat...@address.fake) wrote:
>: gher...@crl.com (George Herbert) writes:
>: >This is unfortunately the price we pay for an open popular press.
>: >Yes, we end up fighting the same battle forever and ever,
>: >the same wrong-headed ideas coming up again and again and having
>: >to be rebutted over and over again. And that is the price we pay
>: >for freedom of the press and an open society.
>
>My newsreader crapped out again, so I did not see Mr. Herbert's post, but
>I disagree with his characterization of this as a free-speech issue. It
>is nothing of the sort. Nobody is challenging the "right" of wackos and
>gullible souls to post on the Net. I am challenging the wisdom of
>responding to them--again and again and again.
>What I am saying is that it is nowhere written in the Constitution (a copy
>of which adorns my wall, so I checked) that reasonable people have to jump
>up and respond to all this goofiness. I seriously doubt that the Republic
>will crumble if we fail to rise to the bait.
As I said in the primary part of my posting (which I'll mail to
Dwayne seperately) the problem is free speech, but the solution isn't
to ignore them, it's to FAQify the answer and refer people to
the FAQ all the time.
The problem with ignoring them is that there is a constant ebb
and flow of people who don't already know about Space who are
readers (and not just posters... there are usually between 50 and 200
readers per poster). As someone comes in, if they see a discussion
about Apollo having been faked and the only people posting are
saying it was, then they will conclude that there are no good
counterarguments to be made and will believe the claims.
Having a FAQ and refering to it (and occationally cutting and
pasting an answer out of it with some wrapper commentary)
solves that: it establishes in the casual reader's mind that
there is a group consensus on answers to many questions,
it minimizes the effort that regulars have to do to answer
the questions each time they come up. Other regulars still
end up seeing the answers, which irritates some of us,
but there is no real way around that. Moderated more specific
topical groups can avoid this some, but the questions will
be asked somewhere and should be properly answered somewhere
lest innocents be led astray by unanswered kooky claims.