Moon landing

[Christopher Maloney]

Well, I've finally written my blog post about this topic.  It is on my blog at http://sinophibe.blogspot.com/.  Unfortunately, it looks like blogger is blocked again by the Great Firewall.  So, I've reproduced my post below.  The English  might be a little bit hard.

Moon landing hoax conspiracy theory rears its ugly head

I was teaching a class last week -- the topic was the sixties in America. We were talking about the space race, and I mentioned America's achievement of putting men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth, when I was told that that, of course, was just a big fat lie.

I guess everybody has at least heard of the Moon-landing hoax conspiracy theory, but I've never been sure of how widespread it is, or how many people actually believe in it. Anyway, last week, I was shocked that about half of the students believed it, or were at least sympathetic to the arguments.

I started sputtering and stammering that the conspiracy theories were absurd, and how it was much less credible that the government could perpetrate the hoax than that they could have actually landed on the Moon, etc., but they were buying none of it.

We didn't finish that discussion then, and I asked them to send me links. So, after a few days, the main antagonist, Lance, sent me an email with two links to support this theory:

1. (Mandarin) Was the American Moon landing a hoax? Europe will check out the true situation.
   


2. Did We Land on the Moon? A Debunking of the Moon Hoax Theory
   

The second page is actually a great resource for, as it says, debunking the conspiracy theory. Most, if not all, of the arguments presented in the first page are dealt with by the second. I suspect that Lance didn't actually read it. I'll refer to this as the "debunk page".

One of the general reasons my students gave for the U.S. government perpetrating the hoax was that the U.S. wanted to damage the Soviet Union's economy by winning the space race. According to this argument, if we showed the world we landed on the Moon, the USSR would spend more money on aerospace, and thus ruin their economy.

A part of this argument is dealt with in the debunk page, under the heading "NASA faked the moon landings in order to beat the Soviets ...". This section talks mainly about the risk of a hoax being discovered. Also, why fake six landings? Why not fake just one? More than that, though, the idea that the U.S. winning the space race could adversely affect the Soviet Union's economy, or technology sector, is just absurd. The competition during the Cold War spurred both countries on to achieve more than they would have otherwise. A big reason for the U.S.'s rapid development of science and technology during this time was that it was a reaction to Sputnik. Also, if spending too much money on the space race was detrimental, then the U.S. really just hurt itself, damaged its own economy. Why wouldn't we have just given up sooner, and thrown that money into more productive uses?

Next I want to talk about the first page that Lance sent me, which is in Mandarin Chinese. As a public service, if anyone else is learning Mandarin, here's a vocabulary list:

航天员 - astronaut
骗局 - fraud, hoax
美国航空航天局 - NASA
内华达州 - Nevada
《今日美国报》 - U.S.A. Today
太空船 - spaceship
阿波罗 - Apollo
轨迹 - orbit
痕迹 - mark, trace, vestige
飘扬 - wave, flutter
这是让人难以置信的一幕。 - This scene is really hard to believe.
大气 - atmosphere
合影 - group photo
登月舱 - lunar module
制造商 - manufacturer
可信性 - credibility
迄今为止 - up til now
尼尔·阿姆斯特朗 - Neil Armstrong
不屑一顾 - disdain to consider
论据 - argument, grounds for an argument; as in:
"登月骗局"四大论据 - four main arguments in favor of the Moon landing hoax
敬礼 - salute
传送 - transmited, as in
阿波罗 14 号和 17 号的传送画面中 - The T.V. pictures transmitted by Apollo 14 and 17
俄亥俄 Ohio
先锋 1 号 - Pioneer 1
醉翁之意不在酒 - describes sb who has an ulterior motive

The main arguments put forth by this article are listed below, and, when possible, cross-referenced to sections in the debunk page.

· In some pictures, the shadows are not of the same lengths, indicating there is more than one light source.
-- See, in the debunk page, "Shadows cast on the lunar surface should be parallel. Some shadows in the Apollo photos are not parallel indicating more than one light source, thus the photos are fakes."

· In others, there are both astronauts visible, but the camera is in such a position that it's unlikely it could have been an automatic picture. They didn't even bring an automatic camera with them.
-- I couldn't find any reference to this specific argument in the "debunk page". On the other hand, there is a reference made to a camera that's not just automatic, but is a remote-programmable video camera, that took this video and transmitted it back to Earth. If they could do that, I think a simple remote-controlled, or timed, still camera would be no problem whatsoever.

· The article gives Bill Kaysing as a reference, and says that he was one of Rocketdyne's "designer engineers".
-- According to the Wikipedia article, he "is regarded as the instigator of the moon hoax movement. He worked for Rocketdyne, where Saturn V rocket engines were built. Kaysing was the company's head of technical publications but was not trained as an engineer or scientist. Kaysing's critics believe that Kaysing lacked the technical knowledge to make an informed opinion, and have denounced his conclusions."

· The flag continues to flutter even after the astronaut lets go of it.
-- This argument is addressed by "Some of the Apollo video shows the American flag fluttering. How can the flag flutter when there is no wind on the airless Moon?"

· When John Young was seen saluting the flag, he had no shadow.
-- See "There is one photograph of an astronaut standing on the surface of the Moon in direct sunlight, yet he casts no shadow, which is impossible."

· In some pictures there's a rock that seems to have a "C" written on it.
-- See "Apollo 16 photographs show a rock with a clearly defined 'C' marking on it. This 'C' is probably a studio prop identification marking."

· In some of the transmitted TV pictures, an astronaut's faceplate reflected way too strong a light, which couldn't have been from the sun.
-- I couldn't find any reference to this argument in the "debunk page". Actually, though, it doesn't make any sense to me, but perhaps I am not understanding it correctly. The sun is an extremely bright light, especially on the Moon where there is no atmosphere. I don't know how anyone could argue that the light in the photographs was too bright to have been the sun.

· The article asks why Neil Armstrong refuses to give interviews. Why should he refuse, unless he has something to hide?
-- See "Neil Armstrong refuses to give interviews, thus indicating he has something to hide."

Something that's not mentioned in Lance's article is that, in fact, there is hardware on the Moon that was left by the missions. From the debunk page: "Apollos 11, 14 and 15 erected laser reflectors on the lunar surface. Laser beams are routinely fired at these reflectors through telescopes at McDonald Observatory in Texas and near Grasse in southern France. They are used to measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon to an accuracy of one inch." There is no other reasonable explanation for how these reflectors got on the Moon.

During the class, when I began my ineffectual protestations, another student, Minda, asked me why it is that I always tell them they have bad information, and should look at different web sites, instead of assuming that I'm the one who has been misled. It's a fair question, especially since I often find myself arguing that they should be more skeptical.

Considering the question in general, it's related to cognitive biases, isn't it? It's a fascinating topic, and one that I hope to delve into more deeply in other classes / blog posts. But considering this Moon landing hoax theory, specifically, I can give a couple of reference why I think I'm not biased, and am, in fact, right.

At the end of the debunk page, there's a section "Who should you trust?" which is pretty well written.

Also, related to this and to lots of other conspiracy theories, one should ruthlessly apply Occam's Razor. As I tried to point out in the class, it's pretty inconceivable that this particular hoax could be perpetrated, when one considers how many people would have to be in on it. And not just ordinary people, or government goons, but we're talking about scientists and engineers -- a group of people who, I would suggest, are driven by an dedication to truth and objectivity, more than the average guy is.

I'll wrap this up by mentioning another argument that my one of the students gave. He said that the technology simply did not exist in the 1960s to land a man on the Moon. This one is hard to argue with -- it's almost true! That's what makes the fact of the Moon landing all the more incredible. But, of course, the technology was developed, and the Apollo program is still, in my opinion, the greatest engineering acheivement of mankind to date. And, you know what -- it's just not celebrated enough. The Moon landing is something that every human being should be proud of, regardless of what country he or she is from. Neil Armstrong said "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." He didn't say "one giant leap for the United States." We (human beings) landed on the Moon, goddammit!

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Other refs:
Apollo 11 page on the Chinese Wikipedia
For those still not convinced, see Clavius.org