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how can people still deny that we went to the moon when that thing has been sitting there since? Id think that those people who think that there was no moon lan

by mkoryak 13y ago

how can people still deny that we went to the moon when that thing has been sitting there since? Id think that those people who think that there was no moon landing would have done a fair amount of research about it, and would have learned of the existence of this man made thing there.

brey 13y ago
The typical moon-conspiracy-theorist doesn't claim that nothing man-made has reached the moon, only that humans haven't been there. Unmanned probes or laser reflectors don't present a problem to their world view.
- VLM 13y ago
  For that matter, from Earth examples, its not terribly hard to find places with volcanic obsidian laying around vs nearly pitch black non-reflective areas. Doesn't help that people were not randomly bouncing laser beams off the moon before the landings. "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" If it were a religious claim that (fill in the blank) put a gold tablet up there, skepticism would be seen as healthy. Personally I think the ham radio AMSAT guys should drop an active transponder on the moon, so EME antennas don't have to be so elaborate. Of course it would only work half the time and temperature cycles would be brutal on the poor thing, but still...
  - bostonpete 13y ago
    Why would it only work half the time?
    - VLM 13y ago
      Assuming solar not RTG for power. And the battery bank to make it thru the weeks long lunar night would be enormous. If AMSAT (or partners) did a RTG power source it would certainly be a first, probably not going to happen along with a lunar AMSAT also being a first. Unless they hitch-hiked on a bigger mission. There is some weirdness with certain mountain peaks near the poles being in continuous sunlight. Great spot for a manned colony. Of course that is a lot different in scale from just dropping an unmanned AMSAT transponder. It would be much easier to lunar orbit the device, although less cool than being on the surface. A reasonably low orbit could keep transmitting even in the shade.
  - Tuna-Fish 13y ago
    > "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" It's not sufficient for the surface to be shiny. The retroreflector array needs a really specific configuration of mirrors to reflect incoming light from any direction back to it's source. That is rather unlikely to form naturally. Without that, it would only reflect the laser back to earth for a very small portion of moon's orbit, as it doesn't always point exactly to the same direction.
    - lutorm 13y ago
      Interestingly, the full Moon is brighter than one would expect because of a similar phenomenon: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html
smky80 13y ago
I don't think humans have walked on the moon. I wouldn't bet my life on it, and I don't have a complete narrative as to the why/how of it, but I'd put the odds at over 50%. It's something of a technological anomaly. A few years back the Apollo program had been in complete shambles, burning the Apollo 1 astronauts to death. 30-40 years later, we are still crash landing probes into the surface of planets and blowing up space shuttles. But for a few years starting in 1969 we routinely soft landed a rocket on an unmapped alien surface, and then launched it again and docked with the command module orbiting at 3000 mph? It just doesn't seem to "fit". I've seen enough historical examples to know that you CAN dupe most people most of the time. Most people seem to be convinced by the "social proof". I really believe if it were the other way around, no one had heard of the moon landings, and you were going around telling people "no really, we landed on the moon, drove a car around on it and played golf!" ... that you would be completely ridiculed. Anyway, not here to start a huge debate, just providing an answer to a question.
- blackhole 13y ago
  The problem with moon hoax theories is that, in the modern day, we're accustomed to extremely realistic CGI. What we don't realize is that in 1969, it would have been harder to FAKE the moon landings than to actually land on the moon. This video explains why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > in 1969, it would have been harder to FAKE the moon landings than to actually land on the moon. All true, and it would have been much, much harder to keep it all completely secret for decades. Virtually no secrets survive that long.
    - cantrevealname 13y ago
      > completely secret for decades. Virtually no secrets survive that long. How do you know that? If a secret did last for decades, you wouldn't know about it. I can actually give a couple counterexamples: two big government secrets that lasted 3 decades: (1) A US bomber accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb out of an airplane into the dessert near Albuquerque, New Mexico, triggering a conventional but non-nuclear detonation. This happened in 1957 but was kept secret until 1986 -- a span of 29 years. "It was only in 1986 when an Albuquerque newspaper published an account based on military documents recovered through the Freedom of Information Act." (ref: http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ ) (2) The British were regularly reading encrypted German messages by around 1940. The codebreaking of the German Enigma machine was one of the greatest secrets of World War 2, and the British shared the knowledge with the Americans. This secret was revealed in 1974--after 34 years--because of two books by key intelligence figures. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) In both cases, at least dozens of people--but more likely hundreds of people--would have been privy to the secrets. I'm certainly not endorsing conspiracy theories about fake moon landings. I'm commenting only about the persistent meme that big secrets are quickly exposed: it's not necessarily true.

by mkoryak 13y ago

brey 13y ago

The typical moon-conspiracy-theorist doesn't claim that nothing man-made has reached the moon, only that humans haven't been there. Unmanned probes or laser reflectors don't present a problem to their world view.

VLM 13y ago
For that matter, from Earth examples, its not terribly hard to find places with volcanic obsidian laying around vs nearly pitch black non-reflective areas. Doesn't help that people were not randomly bouncing laser beams off the moon before the landings. "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" If it were a religious claim that (fill in the blank) put a gold tablet up there, skepticism would be seen as healthy. Personally I think the ham radio AMSAT guys should drop an active transponder on the moon, so EME antennas don't have to be so elaborate. Of course it would only work half the time and temperature cycles would be brutal on the poor thing, but still...
- bostonpete 13y ago
  Why would it only work half the time?
  - VLM 13y ago
    Assuming solar not RTG for power. And the battery bank to make it thru the weeks long lunar night would be enormous. If AMSAT (or partners) did a RTG power source it would certainly be a first, probably not going to happen along with a lunar AMSAT also being a first. Unless they hitch-hiked on a bigger mission. There is some weirdness with certain mountain peaks near the poles being in continuous sunlight. Great spot for a manned colony. Of course that is a lot different in scale from just dropping an unmanned AMSAT transponder. It would be much easier to lunar orbit the device, although less cool than being on the surface. A reasonably low orbit could keep transmitting even in the shade.
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  > "so there exists a peculiar shiny field of obsidian rocks on the surface in that particular area, so what?" It's not sufficient for the surface to be shiny. The retroreflector array needs a really specific configuration of mirrors to reflect incoming light from any direction back to it's source. That is rather unlikely to form naturally. Without that, it would only reflect the laser back to earth for a very small portion of moon's orbit, as it doesn't always point exactly to the same direction.
  - lutorm 13y ago
    Interestingly, the full Moon is brighter than one would expect because of a similar phenomenon: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html

smky80 13y ago

I don't think humans have walked on the moon. I wouldn't bet my life on it, and I don't have a complete narrative as to the why/how of it, but I'd put the odds at over 50%. It's something of a technological anomaly. A few years back the Apollo program had been in complete shambles, burning the Apollo 1 astronauts to death. 30-40 years later, we are still crash landing probes into the surface of planets and blowing up space shuttles. But for a few years starting in 1969 we routinely soft landed a rocket on an unmapped alien surface, and then launched it again and docked with the command module orbiting at 3000 mph? It just doesn't seem to "fit". I've seen enough historical examples to know that you CAN dupe most people most of the time. Most people seem to be convinced by the "social proof". I really believe if it were the other way around, no one had heard of the moon landings, and you were going around telling people "no really, we landed on the moon, drove a car around on it and played golf!" ... that you would be completely ridiculed. Anyway, not here to start a huge debate, just providing an answer to a question.

blackhole 13y ago
The problem with moon hoax theories is that, in the modern day, we're accustomed to extremely realistic CGI. What we don't realize is that in 1969, it would have been harder to FAKE the moon landings than to actually land on the moon. This video explains why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU
- lutusp 13y ago
  > in 1969, it would have been harder to FAKE the moon landings than to actually land on the moon. All true, and it would have been much, much harder to keep it all completely secret for decades. Virtually no secrets survive that long.
  - cantrevealname 13y ago
    > completely secret for decades. Virtually no secrets survive that long. How do you know that? If a secret did last for decades, you wouldn't know about it. I can actually give a couple counterexamples: two big government secrets that lasted 3 decades: (1) A US bomber accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb out of an airplane into the dessert near Albuquerque, New Mexico, triggering a conventional but non-nuclear detonation. This happened in 1957 but was kept secret until 1986 -- a span of 29 years. "It was only in 1986 when an Albuquerque newspaper published an account based on military documents recovered through the Freedom of Information Act." (ref: http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ ) (2) The British were regularly reading encrypted German messages by around 1940. The codebreaking of the German Enigma machine was one of the greatest secrets of World War 2, and the British shared the knowledge with the Americans. This secret was revealed in 1974--after 34 years--because of two books by key intelligence figures. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) In both cases, at least dozens of people--but more likely hundreds of people--would have been privy to the secrets. I'm certainly not endorsing conspiracy theories about fake moon landings. I'm commenting only about the persistent meme that big secrets are quickly exposed: it's not necessarily true.