Creepy: was the moon landing was hoaxed...?

[RiverRat]

Dear Fellow Cyberians:


I'm far too rational to give most hoaxes a second thought, but the following essay did give me pause.

There are many valid evidentiary points in this following argument...enough to make any science-minded person reconsider the TV footage seen in 1969.

I'm enclosing the essay that was forwarded to me. Maybe you have 5 minutes to read this and offer your thoughts.




RiverRat in Canada
http://www.edmdragonboat.com

================================================



THE ULTIMATE CONSPIRACY THEORY.
Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick?
asks David Milne

The great lunar lie.

In the early hours of May 16, 1990,after a week spent watching old video
footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the
mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering," the 47 year old American kept asking
himself, "when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon?" That
moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the
self-taught engineer from New Jersey.

He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA
film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally
reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon.
The giant leap for mankind was fake. It is of course the conspiracy theory
to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into
a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's
being sold by mail order - and is a impelling read.

The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space,
leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency
meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put
a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an
unbelievable 40 billion dollars.
And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to
agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972,
seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the
ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway - being
the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could
have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are
the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake.

For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless.
The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts
gambol through rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was
that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had
to film "man's greatest achievement" from a TV screen in Houston -a
deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.

By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the
problem.
The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed
and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred. As Rene
points out, that's not all:
* The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts
achieved this feat without being able to see what they were doing.
* There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful
cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it
useless.
* They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters
in pressurized clubs. It should have been almost impossible without the use
of their fingers.

Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the
pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the
pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows:
* The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources
and, in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on
the Moon was the sun.
* The American flag and the words "United States" are always brightly
lit, even when everything around is in shadow.
* Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both
were shot at the same time.
* The pictures are so perfect each one would have taken a slick
advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts
managed it repeatedly.

David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by
"whistle blowers", who were keen for the truth to one day get out. If
Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word
that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, why would anyone fake
pictures of an event that actually happened?

The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly
radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun.
Standard astronauts orbiting Earth in near space, like those who recently
fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the Earth's Van Allen belt.
But the Moon is to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And,
during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than
1,485 such flares.

John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at
least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar
Landers, which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were,
said NASA, "about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil". How could
that stop this deadly radiation?
And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why
didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl
meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would
encounter?

Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16
crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started.

"They should have been fried," says Rene. Furthermore, every Apollo mission
before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000
defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there
wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one
deffect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so
unlikely that God must have been
the co-pilot," says Rene.

Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin
"the second man on the Moon" - was asked at a banquet what it felt like
to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the
room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this.

"It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big
lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life. Virgil Grissom, a
NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as
part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his
Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his
wife Betty: "if there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's
likely to be me."

Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he
and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when
their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded.
Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even chemistry students
in high school know high-pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact,
before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of
11 would-be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were
incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this
is a spectacular accident rate. "One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't
NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of
these men didn't have the sort of 'right
stuff' they were looking for."

NASA won't respond to any of these claims, their press office will
only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real. But a
NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests
at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape.

It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA
claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer
told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things
on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his
audience to "come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did
walk on the Moon".

A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only
real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. The astronauts
simply have to be on board, he says, in case the rocket exploded. "It was
the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought
to be dead," he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of
the public eye (global surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe
hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a
week later.

And now NASA is planning another giant step - project Outreach, a 1
trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to
mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene chillingly. "Special
effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round we will have no way
of determining the truth."


Space oddities:

* Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In
front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about
slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow
over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.

* A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Lander lifting
off the Moon. Who did the filming?

* One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong
about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have
been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the
Moon, then who took the shot?

* The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football.
The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man,
but were seen freely bending their joints.

* The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't
America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR
would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with
magnesium flares.

* Text from pictures in the article. Only two men walked on the Moon
during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor
has no camera. Who took the shot?

* The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line
in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the
lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why
is the flag fluttering?

[Johnny L.A.]

As can be found here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28532
No "beyond a resonable doubt" proof? Are you nuts? You mean the combined proof of the thousands of NASA employees that worked on Apollo, the testimony of 14 men that actually walked on the moon, the physical evidence of the moon rocks themselves, and the miles of film shot on the surface of the moon aren't proof enough?

[Satan]

Some people still believe the world is flat too... :rolleyes:

[scratch1300]

It's been answered (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html) by Cecil.

[Diceman]

This is going to be an interesting one:
The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed
and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred. Says who? Is it that hard to believe that they only released the nice-looking pictures and threw away the duds? Isn't that what you do with your pictures?

There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. IANAEE (I am Not an Electrical Engineer), but I think that cosmic radiation is pretty begnign stuff, and it's fairly constant, so "intense peaks" may be stretching it.

* Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air. A golfer will be able to provide a better answer, but don't golf balls slice because you hit them wrong?

Re: all of the camera "problems," didn't they have a camera on a boom arm that projected out of the side of the module? I'll let someone else answe the rest of the questions.

[RiverRat]

Oh, man! Now I know why my putts are always curling to the left!



(grin)








RiverRat in Canada
http://www.edmdragonbaot.com


Although life can only be fully understood backwards,
it must be lived forwards.


-Soren Kierkegaard

[RiverRat]

Hey, I'll have you know: I have nothing but bad photos with my busted old camera!


(grin)


So censoring the so-called "bad" photos out is an academic exercise.


As for NASA's photographic skills and covering-up: don't be so quick to assume that an organization's size immediately preempts it from masking ugly truths...


...or shall I bring up Firestone in this conversation?





RiverRat in Canada
http://www.edmdragonboat.com



A conclusion is when you get tired of questioning.

[Padeye]

Originally posted by Diceman
A golfer will be able to provide a better answer, but don't golf balls slice because you hit them wrong?

Yes, hitting the ball wrong can result in side spin, causing a hook or slice because one side is spinning into the airstream and the other away. Aside from small gyroscopic forces a ball hit on the moon would not have the same effect. Backspin with a wedge wouldn't take effect until the ball hit the ground.

[Groundskeeper Willie]

OK, I'll take a shot at these. I'm sure that by the time that this post is submitted, others will have already been entered.

* Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.

They were teasing him... it was a joke. The flight of the ball was lost after a very short time - nobody in Houston saw the golf ball hook, slice, or go straight.

* A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Lander lifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?

A guy in Houston named Ed Fendell operated a TV camera by remote control.

* One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?

Again a remote camera - The NASA engineers were smart enough to figure out that if an astronaut has to descend to the lunar surface via the LM ladder, then a camera deployed near the bottom of the camera looking up will - surprise! - have a good view of the astronaut climbing down that ladder.

* The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.

The astronauts did have to exert themselves more when wearing the pressurised EVA suit in a vacuum, but the difference in volume between postures was low enough to be countered by simple muscular effort.

* The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.

Because they were there to do science (and engineering tests). Granted that the whole Apollo program was founded on Cold-War rivalry, the mere fact of Americans on the Moon was enough PR.

* Text from pictures in the article. Only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?

The camera was mounted on the chest of the EVA suit.

* The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering?

Which photo do you mean? The flag did flutter during liftoff of the ascent module, due to backblast from the rocket engine. In fact, the Apollo 11 flag was knocked over during the liftoff.

I would suggest that you be a little less credulous when hearing wildly divergent claims, from any source. The claims always could be correct, but the evidence for such claims must be rock-solid. The 'evidence' for this particular claim (that the Apollo landings were faked) is of such low quality that the claim must be dismissed as crack-pottery, at least until much better evidence surfaces. And after 30 years, it hasn't happened yet.

Bill

[matt]

For an extensive and rather generous-minded debunking of this crap, visit:

http://www.apollo-hoax.co.uk/homepage.html

I say "generous minded" because among other things, the site author reviews Percy and Bennet's book "Dark Moon" without mentioning that it lapses into gibberings about "glyphs of power", crop circles, anti-gravity devices and aliens.

"Award winning British photographer David Persey" (Percy) doesn't seem to know anything about contrast and exposure. Otherwise he'd know why you can't see the stars in most (NOT all) of the lunar photographs, an effect which quite frankly anyone can see in their nightime holiday snaps.

He also doesn't seem to know anything about perspective, since he makes a big deal about things which should be parallel (shadows) not appearing parallel in the photographs.
Presumably if you showed him a nice photo of railway tracks meeting at the horizon, he'd conclude that the rails aren't parallel either. I do wonder what he won his award for, because it can't have been photography!

[RiverRat]

do any of you guys drive a Ford with Firestone tires?

[jab1]

Originally posted by RiverRat


do any of you guys drive a Ford with Firestone tires?

Actually, the Ford/Firestone scandal proves that big secrets don't stay secret for very long. If the Apollo flights were ALL hoaxes, wouldn't there be more convincing proof than what you've posted?

As for the spacesuits being so flexible, the air pressure inside the suits (and the spacecraft as well) was only about 5 pounds per square inch to solve this precise problem. Also, spacecraft and suits don't need to carry or manufacture so much air if the pressure is so low. (And it was pure oxygen, which was a major factor in the Apollo One fire.)

Today, the Space Shuttle flies with pressure equal to that of sea level. But when the astronauts go on an EVA, they first go into an airlock and reduce the air pressure to about 6 psi., then put on their suits. When they return, they take off the suits, then SLOWLY increase the air pressure inside the lock, slowly to prevent the bends from occurring.

The flights happened. 12 men walked on the moon. Deal with it.

[Sofa King]

Well, I walk, and yes, I have suffered from unexpected blowouts caused by low-quality rubber soles.

I'd like to have my opportunity to shoot some of the fish in that barrel.

I've seen footage of one flag being set up on the moon. The astronaut gave the flag a pat so that it would start waving. With no air resistance, the flag kept waving longer than it would on earth.

As a really bad golfer, I can tell you that it is entirely possible to hit a straight ball as much as forty-five degrees off of the point of aiming, and I swear I once nearly emasculated a fellow golfer standing ninety degrees from where I was aiming. The club face is "open" and strikes the ball at an angle. Believe me, golf would be one helluva lot easier if this were not the case. And anyway, Groundskeeper Willie is dead on: we only have Shepard's word for where the two balls went. The other astronaut was busy keeping his (SHIELDED) camera trained on Shepard.

[Crusoe]

You mean Capricorn One (1978) (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077294).

[Sofa King]

Capricorn One: Yet another example of O.J. being framed.

[jab1]

Originally posted by jab1
Today, the Space Shuttle flies with pressure equal to that of sea level.I was in a hurry when I posted this because my allotted time on the computer was getting short. So, I posted from memory. I'm happy to say I got this part correct. (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_eclss.html#sts-eclss-press)

But when the astronauts go on an EVA, they first go into an airlock and reduce the air pressure to about 6 psi., then put on their suits. When they return, they take off the suits, then SLOWLY increase the air pressure inside the lock, slowly to prevent the bends from occurring.I didn't do as well here, though. The entire procedure is described here. (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-eclss-airlock.html#sts-eclss-airlock) (Warning, it's a LOOOOOOONG description!)

Space suits (which NASA refers to as Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs)) are actually pressurized at only four psi. That's how they are able to retain mobility. I've been unable to find the air pressure specifications for the Apollo moon suits, but I bet they were similar.

[RiverRat]

I think I saw that film in the late 80's... wasn't Hal Holbrook and OJ Simpson in that?

Hah! If so, then this world is truly ironic... OJ got nabbed in the movie for being honest , while he got away in real life with murder.
----------------------------------------

As for the NASA hoax claim: isn't Oliver Stone working on a film version of this conspiracy theory right now? Might make for a fun video rental one day...




RiverRat
http://www.edmdragonboat.com

[manhattan]

RiverRat, I have to ask. Do you actually believe that there is even a tiny possibility that the moon landings were faked, or are you trolling?

[RiverRat]

Dear manhattan:

Thank you for promptly doing your job as a moderator to keep these threads on track... your work must be tiring, slogging through all the text of other people's thoughts.

As for my motivations for being here:

I am not a conspiracy-minded kind of guy... I actually chuckle at anything like crop circles and UFOs and Roswell. To me, the X Files show is nothing more than humorful escapism...a tickle to the right hemisphere of the old noggin. I don't particularily care if aliens exist or not, unless they can give me some good tax tips and RSP advice.

This NASA theory only caught my attention because of the meticulous details examined by some of its proponents... including the radiation index, the torque spin of golf balls, and the granular dust observations.

Being grossly over-educated, and knowing a thing or two about science, my curiousity was piqued by this obsessive detailing.

So, on a lark, I have decided to question this whole notion myself by going to the lazy-person's research facility: the web.

Of the hundreds of discussion forums on the web, I chose this place because I thought straightdope would accurately represent the rational free thinkers on the web.

So here I am, raising this fun moon theory as a flag, watching for whoever salutes.

I am glad to see that the responses thus far have been from some rational-sounding people, instead of from crystal-rubbing Branch-Davidian types who see monsters behind every corner.


(or, am I speaking too soon?)



Courtesy of some links from your members, and from some browsing around this site, I have found an attempted explanation of the alleged NASA hoax. To be candid, I found that explanation unsatisfying...but I'm glad to see that it was least addressed by Cecil and crew.

As I said, this is a curiousity lark for me, and I'm not particularily invested in uncovering any NASA scandals here. I'm much more interested in the Firestone (alleged) scandal, and the future of oil prices... things that will more likely affect my wee existence in this large world.


I will follow this thread for a short while longer to see if any compelling writings are added.

===========================================

btw: Are there any good pages here on tax advice and RSPs?


===========================================


Yours in cyberspace,


Paul the RiverRat
Edmonton, Canada
http://www.edmdragonboat.com

The early bird may get the worm,
but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese.

[zwaldd]

"How can the flag be fluttering," the 47 year old American kept asking himself, "when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon?"
for what it's worth, i've read that the flag was kept unfurled by a metal rod which accidentally bent during deployment. while this gave the illusion of the flag 'waving' in the photographs, it isn't really moving at all.

[ElvisL1ves]

More debunking, and this is just from my own memory:

The statement that no Apollo astronaut died from cancer is lazily false. Edgar Mitchell and Jack Swigert are the first 2 to come to mind. Swigert's death came within about 2 years of the Apollo 13 mission.

Cosmic radiation is almost as strong right here on the earth's surface as in space. The film-fogging effect would be negligible. Even with airport X-ray machines, only ISO1000 and faster is even affected.

Thousands of people saw the liftoffs in person. How could they have been staged?

Aldrin makes no secret of his problem with alcohol in the years after Apollo 11. That alone would explain the described behavior.

Why bother to set off a magnesium flare? That could have been done from an unmanned spacecraft just as easily. Why not? Would have fried the cameras.

Sure, there were "rehearsals" of the missions on simulated moon surfaces, and no wonder they were filmed. Why would they have had to be faked?

Yes, the early missions showed problems, which were fixed one by one for the later ones. That's why the early missions, call them test flights if you like, were flown. And there certainly WERE problems with the lunar missions, a different set for each flight: Apollo 12 alone had enough excitement with an engine flameout and a lightning strike just during boost.

But simply ask yourself: Is it really possible for so many people to be in on such a big secret without any of them ever blabbing?

[Zor]

Perhaps the easiest way to prove that humans have been on the moon is to simply point a telescope at it; being able to see a lunar lander on the moon would be pretty good proof to me. That mirror that reflects lasers is helpful as well...

[Eutychus]

Originally posted by scratch1300
It's been answered (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html) by Cecil.

Actually, it was answered by David B, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind the comparison.

[Bob Scene]

If NASA's so good at faking space missions, why didn't they fake successful conclusions to those two Mars missions that failed so embarrassingly recently?

[Sam Stone]

I believe the spacesuits also have constant-volume joints, a design originally credited to Robert Heinlein.

Anyway, you can watch a movie of an astronaut setting up a laser reflector on the moon. Then you can go out in your backyard, aim your laser at that part of the moon, and catch the reflection. Proof positive that there is a laser reflector on the moon, although I suppose a conspiracy nut could always claim that it was put there by an unmanned probe that landed in exactly the same spot...

Then we have the 1/6g gravity field, which is incredibly difficult to fake. I have a DVD with footage from the moon which includes things like an astronaut dropping a hammer and a feather at the same time to show that Galileo was correct. You can time the drop and figure out the local gravity. You can see that the feather lands at the same time as the hammer, meaning the environment has to be airless.

The only way this could be faked would be to have the feather and hammer riding on some sort of wire contraption that was edited out in post-processing. That would have been very expensive and time consuming, to get a couple of seconds of unnecessary footage, don't you think?

If the moon landings had been faked, it would have required special effects rivalling the best of what we can do today, and it would be the most expensive movie in history. It would probably be more expensive to fake the Apollo missions than it was to simply go there. After all, we have hundreds of hours of footage from the moon and in orbit around the moon. Ron Howard spent a few million bucks just to fake perhaps ten minutes of such footage.

People who believe we never landed on the moon are either extremely uneducated, or unable to do even rudimentary critical thinking, or are just this side of wearing a tinfoil helmet to keep the alien rays out.

[Chronos]

Unfortunately, Zor, there was nothing left on the Moon big enough to be resolved by any telescope on Earth. We covered this a while back in the thread Whitey's on the Moon? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28532). The corner reflector is there, though, and many groups not connected with NASA have reflected lasers off of it.

Since nobody else has yet done so, I'll attempt to make a point-by-point refutation of the essay in the OP.
How is the flag fluttering? It isn't. It's held out by a wire in the top of the flag.
The photos and the rocks are the only proof Ham operators also picked up the transmissions, and there's the above-mentioned corner reflector.
The TV transmission was low quality The technology was in its infancy, and they didn't have much bandwidth
The pictures are all high quality They threw out the bad ones
The film should have been irradiated Cosmic radiation is actually worse at the Earth's surface, because the atmosphere produces secondary particles when hit bu cosmic rays.
They handled the cameras in awkward gloves Both the cameras and the gloves were specifically designed to be used in this manner
The shadows aren't parallel Perspective and uneven surface
The flag is well-lit They put it up in the sun, of course. As for the words "United States of America", were they not in the sun, they wouldn't be visible
The pictures don't match the video They were taken at the same time, but from different places
Deadly radiation Radiation doesn't kill instantly, it increases the chance for cancer. Like all other Americans, a few astronauts have died of cancer, but the sample size is too small to say whether more died than would be expected had they stayed on Earth.
Defects on all flights before Apollo 11 There are always minor defects in anything, including Apollo 11. In most of the cases, however, including Apollo 2-10, the defects were small enough that the mission was still a sucess. Also note that there were some major problems with Apollo 13.
Buzz Aldrin crying He wanted to be the first, and always resented being second
Grissom killed in Apollo 1 Accidents happen. If they just wanted him out of the way, they'd have killed him a lot more quietly, not on national TV in a manner that's guaranteed to be investigated.
Golf shot slicing If you hit a golf ball at the wrong angle, it'll go in the wrong direction, regardless of air or lack thereof.
Camera showing liftoff/first step Automated cameras mounted on the lander
Inflexible spacesuits Volume change was minimal, and movement was still difficult
No signal produced Other than the continuous radio transmission
Lack of camera in picture It's on his chest. You expected a Polaroid?
Lack of astronaut's shadow Presumably out of the frame

Did I miss any? By the way, consider this: The Soviet Union, who had both th means and a strong motive to disprove the Apollo landing, nonetheless accepted it. Maybe all of NASA, all major US Universities, and the military are part of the conspiracy, but why would Russia want to play along?

[sailor]

>> why would Russia want to play along?

Hmm... because they were part of the conspiracy?

[Tapioca Dextrin]

[/B][/QUOTE]

If you want one of those beanies try:

http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chronos


Why would Russia want to play along?

That's easy they were too busy planning to take over the worls with a fiendish plan that would take thirty years to come to fruition

http://members.tripod.com/~Telecommie/

[Tapioca Dextrin]

WOW! Aliens ate the first coulpa lines of my post

Originally posted by Sam Stone

People who believe we never landed on the moon are either extremely uneducated, or unable to do even rudimentary critical thinking, or are just this side of wearing a tinfoil helmet to keep the alien rays out.

If you want one of those beanies try:

http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

[djf750]

there is no way the moonlanding was faked-but i have a story i swear is true- i knew buzz aldrin back in the late 70's when Capricorn 1 (the movie about the fake mars landing) came out- he and another friend had gone the night before to see the movie and someone asked him how he liked it-as i recall he said he liked it, although it was a bit phoney-someone then said something like " just like the moon landing right?" everyone laughed and before i could stop myself out of my mouth came "where DID they film the moon landing?" without missing a beat he replied in a dead pan voice while looking straight ahead "they never told us"
we all laughed loudly (he didn't, as he was still recovering from depression and alcoholism at the time) and i thought what a jerk i am, i'll bet he has been asked that a million times and thats why he answered so quickly-but in the back of my mind i thought maybe he was just being honest.....NAH!!

[Zor]

Unfortunately, Zor, there was nothing left on the Moon big enough to be resolved by any telescope on Earth

Bummers, I just thought there must've been one. We can see rocks that are just a couple of meters across on the moon. Aren't the lunar landers large enough? I know you probably can't resolve the details and see the "Made in China" engravings, but you should be able to say that shiny little dot is man made... maybe the landers' shadows?

[douglips]

Originally posted by ElvisL1ves
The statement that no Apollo astronaut died from cancer is lazily false. Edgar Mitchell and Jack Swigert are the first 2 to come to mind. Swigert's death came within about 2 years of the Apollo 13 mission.

Ummm, isn't Edgar Mitchell still alive? When I met him a year ago or so, he seemed non-dead. Perhaps it was just a NASA conspiro-bot.

Did he recently catch the great big rocket to the sky?

[Xgemina]

Re: Edgar Mitchell

According to his bio at NASA:

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/mitchell.htm

he's still alive.

[BobT]

FWIW, Alan Shepard died of leukemia.

[Zebra]

Originally posted by RiverRat




In the early hours of May 16, 1990,after a week spent watching old video
footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the
mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering," the 47 year old American kept asking
himself, "when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon?" That
moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the
self-taught engineer from New Jersey.


At an emergency
meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put
a man on the Moon.


Read that first paragraph again. Do you really want to get information about the moon landings from a tired/obsessive self-taught engineer.


Second I thought the "to the moon Alice" speech was in Texas at a University.

[ElvisL1ves]

Originally posted by douglips
Ummm, isn't Edgar Mitchell still alive? When I met him a year ago or so, he seemed non-dead. Perhaps it was just a NASA conspiro-bot.

Serves me right for posting without verifying. Mea culpa.

I was SURE I'd heard that the guy who went off on searches for the Ark on Mount Ararat, and other various explorations into human consciousness and spirituality, was Mitchell, and that he'd been diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. Turns out that was Jim Irwin.

I'm sticking with Swigert's death from a quick malignancy just after returning from Apollo 13 (he had just been elected to Congress, too).

[quasar]

As can be found here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28532
No "beyond a resonable doubt" proof? Are you nuts? You mean the combined proof of the thousands of NASA employees that worked on Apollo, the testimony of 14 men that actually walked on the moon, the physical evidence of the moon rocks themselves, and the miles of film shot on the surface of the moon aren't proof enough?


They were 12, 12 I say

O.K. I have to correct this. Recently I was talking with some guy who swore on Allah, Brahma and Jessica Rabbit's breasts that the only AMERICAN astronauts to set foot on the moon were the Apollo 11 dudes. As if that weren't enough, he even thought that several cosmonauts had gone there also. :rolleyes:

Hadn't that perturbed me sufficiently, I read here that there were 14 moon-walking astronauts. My eyes hurt from reading this. HELLO? Can you count to 12? Haven't you watched Apollo 13? They didn’t make it you know.

Let's do some math to try clear up the confusion:

6 successful landings,
2 men per landing,
number of astronauts on the moon = 2*6
Guess what? The answer is 12.
Yes, 12.

Boy, all this stupidity has really messed my head up. I better let go of some stress:

The flag flutters I tell you, it really flutters.

Well, Dah! Of course it does, but not for the purported reasons proposed by that psycho. Hasn’t that dude heard of Occam' s Razor? The simplest explanation is the most likely one. So, what caused the flag to flutter in the absence of an atmosphere?

Once again, Dah! After planting the flag, Aldrin turns around, his ass pointing in the direction of the flag. Suddenly, the inevitable happens. BOOM! His ass does what it is supposed to do, it farts. The wind pressure exerted by the fart allows the flag to gracefully undulate, its stars and stripes rhythmically resonating to the tune of the fart's frequency.

End of story. Now, on to other matters:

Kubrick did it!

Promptly after making his masterpiece, 2001: A space Odyssey, Nasa officials called upon him to make another space related movie. They came with a nice story about astronauts going to the moon and that sort of crap. They even had a nice working title: 1969: A Lunar Conquest.

Rather naively, Kubrick bought their story and agreed to direct the film. Upon conclusion, NASA officials edited it and showed it to the unsuspecting world as irrefutable proof that men had indeed venture to the moon. Kubrick' s ire was released immediately but before he could reveal Nasa' s dark secret the boys from the CIA got to him and offered him a one way ticket to hell if he opened his mouth. Thus the secret was safe. Until now…

You see, Kubrick wasn’t stupid. He always had a slight suspicion about the whole project, a splinter in the mind if you will. I mean the idea that "Nasa goes Hollywood" sounds obscenely silly, don’t you think? Anyway, no issue delving into the past. The important point here is that Kubrick kept a copy of the original print before handing it to Nasa. In his will, he reveals the place where he hid the evidence that convincingly establishes without any doubts the fakeness of the "lunar landings." That remarkable proof is to be uncovered, according to his testament, next year--2001, poetic, huh?--on the day of his birthday.

All your doubts shall be elucidated by then. And who knows? He might win his first Oscar for that motion picture? Wouldn’t that be ironic?

And, BTW, yes, I'm drunk. :D

[douglips]

Originally posted by ElvisL1ves

I was SURE I'd heard that the guy who went off on searches for the Ark on Mount Ararat, and other various explorations into human consciousness and spirituality, was Mitchell, and that he'd been diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. Turns out that was Jim Irwin.

Actually, it was Edgar Mitchell (too?) except for the cancer part(?). My wife worked for The Institute of Noetic Sciences (http://www.noetic.org), founded by Mitchell. That's how I met him. This definitely qualifies as explorations into human consciousness and spirituality.

I'm not as familiar with Irwin's tale. I also don't know if Mitchell has or had cancer but is living with it or cured of it.

[ElvisL1ves]

Originally posted by douglips
Actually, it was Edgar Mitchell (too?) except for the cancer part(?). My wife worked for The Institute of Noetic Sciences (http://www.noetic.org), founded by Mitchell. That's how I met him. This definitely qualifies as explorations into human consciousness and spirituality.

There's additional proof the astronauts really went into space. Excessive exposure to cosmic radiation apparently caused mental derangement. No offense intended.

[Freedom]

Finally....

I have been waiting for a nice, legitimate reason to reanimate an old dead thread. With the airing of Fox's Moon conspiracy "documentary", I have finally been handed my ticket.


That remarkable proof is to be uncovered, according to his testament, next year--2001, poetic, huh?--on the day of his birthday.




Anybody know when his birthday is?

[Protesilaus]

July 26, 1928 (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Kubrick,+Stanley)

[kpm]

I knew a guy who worked for NASA in the 60's. He said they pretty much knew that the USSR could not get to the moon but they kept quiet about it. The reason was that by playing up the "race to the moon" story they made sure that NASA was very well funded.

[RM Mentock]

Originally posted by Zor
[B]We can see rocks that are just a couple of meters across on the moon.

We can?

[Chas.E]

I have some specific comments on the photography issues the hoaxers like to spout about. I used to own a Hasselblad 500 C/M, which is the consumer version of the cameras the Apollo astrounauts used (a 500 EL/M). The C/M and the EL/M are identical except the EL/M has a motor drive and can accept big film magazines. I also happen to own a 6 inch stack of 8x8 color prints from Apollo missions 11 through 16.
The alleged photo "expert" should not be surprised that all the shots turned out well exposed and in focus. Hasselblad gave cameras to the astronauts for practice, and they were all camera nuts. Hell, you'd be a camera nut too if someone gave you a free camera that cost about 1/5 your average yearly salary, plus unlimited free film and development. They took TONS of photos on their own, just fooling around even, during the training, and even during their off-hours. They had extensive training in photography, since this was to be primary scientific evidence. They had extensive practice in composing shots without using a viewfinder. And most of all, the "perfect composition" in these shots is due to one thing: CROPPING. The pictures were cropped before these nutcase hoaxers got to them. There are plenty of badly composed, off center, badly exposed photos even in my box of the "Best Of" photos. But they're almost ALL in perfect focus. And this is not surprising for Hasselblad. The Hassie has one highly prized feature, a very wide hyperfocal distance. This means, when you shoot a scene in very bright light, everything from 3 feet to infinity is in focus. Just set the max hyperfocal distance to infinity, and everything is in focus unless you're shooting a shot of your feet. And if you do that, just a quick adjustment.
During my own studies in Art School (I have a BFA with a studio concentration in Photography) I met another hasselblad photographer, she was quite famous and widely published. I always admired her accurate exposures, I used to carry around a handheld light meter, it took me ages to get perfect exposures, but hers were always right on the button. I asked her how she did it. She said, "you know those little info sheets in the film pack? You know where it has different preset exposures for 'Sunny/Hazy bright/Overcast'..? I just use those." And you know, I tried it and she was RIGHT. Its EASY. Photography isn't rocket science.
As to the other points:
The Hasselblads were heavily modified with special controls to make them easy to use with gloves. You can even buy some of these accessories today at any Hasselblad dealer. Magazines are extremely easy to change on a Hasselblad. There were no filter changes during the missions.
The film stock wasn't affected because the primary radiation was Alpha and Beta particles. Even the thin metal of the camera body can stop a an Alpha particle, and if I remember my physics, a sheet of paper can stop a Beta particle. Only gamma radiation will penetrate the camera body and fog the film, and there wasn't much of that. But I am sure if you subjected the original Apollo films to an electron microscopic inspection, you would be able to find tiny spots where gamma rays had passed through the film and fogged it.

[Chas.E]

Originally posted by quasar

You see, Kubrick wasn’t stupid. He always had a slight suspicion about the whole project, a splinter in the mind if you will. I mean the idea that "Nasa goes Hollywood" sounds obscenely silly, don’t you think? Anyway, no issue delving into the past. The important point here is that Kubrick kept a copy of the original print before handing it to Nasa. In his will, he reveals the place where he hid the evidence that convincingly establishes without any doubts the fakeness of the "lunar landings." That remarkable proof is to be uncovered, according to his testament, next year--2001, poetic, huh?--on the day of his birthday.


yeah right. Actually, the Kubrick film is probably the best evidence to PROVE that the moon landings were NOT faked.

Kubrick had the best experts and the best technology of the time, unlimited time to produce it, and it didn't have to go out live. And there is one massive technical error in 2001. Note that during the moon landing sequences in 2001, dust billows up when the engine exhaust hits the moon. Kubrick showed this sequence to NASA consultants and they immediately objected, without an atmosphere to support the dust particles, they would immediately fall to the ground, or disperse in a flat arc. When Kubrick learned of this, he decided to keep the scene as is, since the only way to make it completely accurate would have been to build a huge vaccuum chamber and refilm the sequence inside a vaccuum. This was prohibitively expensive, considering the small number of people likely to catch the error. BTW, this is all documented in the book "The Making of 2001: A Space Odessey."
And if you watch the Apollo moon videos closely, the astronauts are always kicking up dust. And the moon dust always flies away in a flat trajectory, just as it would in a vacuum. If the films were a hoax, they built the world's largest vacuum chamber and shot everything inside of it. This is technically impossible, even today nobody could build something like that.

[fiddlesticks]

Originally posted by Chronos
The pictures are all high quality They threw out the bad ones
[/B]

They didn't throw out the bad ones, they just didn't get published. For his book Full Moon Michael Light got access to NASA's cold storage vaults and published a number of shots that could be considered "bad shots", out of focus, or odd, awkward angles.

An out of focus shot of Apollo 17 Gene Cernan sitting in the LM after the last lunar EVA covered in moon dust and looking exhausted is absolutely haunting.

The book has its share of iconic images but its candid shots like Cernan's and a mostly black shot of a tiny crescent Earth seen through a triangular window of Apollo 13's LM Aquarius make it really special.

[Threadkiller]

Originally posted by Chas.E
[clip a lot of good stuff on Hasselblad cameras].
The film stock wasn't affected because the primary radiation was Alpha and Beta particles. Even the thin metal of the camera body can stop a an Alpha particle, and if I remember my physics, a sheet of paper can stop a Beta particle. Only gamma radiation will penetrate the camera body and fog the film, and there wasn't much of that. But I am sure if you subjected the original Apollo films to an electron microscopic inspection, you would be able to find tiny spots where gamma rays had passed through the film and fogged it.

Close but you got it backwards.
Alpha radiation is the heavy one being a helium atom w/o electrons.
Beta radiation is lighter being electrons
Gamma is (more or less) an electron

As far as penetration power and dammage: alpha gets stopped by a thin sheet of paper, the layer of dead skin on your arm, etc. You just don't want to ingest it. Beta penetrates farther but still gets stopped by your average pair of safety glasses or a very thin sheet of metal. Gamma radiation penetrates much farther (think x-rays) but does less dammage than the first two larger types of radiation.

For serious penetration power we go with neutrons. With no electrical charge they can race through an awful lot of material with impunity. This explains the massive shielding around a nuclear reactor (which in effect is a controled neutron storm).

[Guy Propski]

Zebra, you're right about the location of Kennedy's "to the moon" speech. He gave it at Rice University, in Houston, TX. At the time it didn't get a big reaction, but it was definitely the source of his mandate to NASA.

I suggest the moon-landing sceptics should read a couple of books that detail all that went on behind the scenes of the Apollo program:

A Man on the Moon--Andrew Chaykin
Lost Moon--Jim Lovell (about the Apollo 13 mission)
Deke! US Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle--Deke Slayton
Apollo: An Eyewitness Account--Alan Bean

...and about a hundred other books that provide incredible details into how the missions worked.

[everton]

Hey is this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=60155) some kind of Möbius thread?

[bernse]

I know telescopes aren't strong enough to resolve Apollo items or tracks, but what about probes like Clementine or others? Does anyone know of any photos on the web that contain Apollo era garbage or rover tracks?

[handy]

Those of you who are old enough might remember a book from the 60's that explained how it was faked. I never did read it, anyone remember what it was called?

[handy]

Cecil did not answer these issues, just the issue of the landing.

The other message subject on the board on this is about the Fox show. Im a bit wary of anything Fox does for publicity.

In a couple years when Japan sends a orbiter for closeup pictures of the moon, we see if the lander(s) is still there.

[Scruff]

Lost Moon--Jim Lovell (about the Apollo 13 mission)

This book may also be available as "Apollo 13" by Jim Lovell. They republished it around the time the movie came out under the new title.

[quasar]

Originally posted by Chas.E
Originally posted by quasar

You see, Kubrick wasn’t stupid. He always had a slight suspicion about the whole project, a splinter in the mind if you will. I mean the idea that "Nasa goes Hollywood" sounds obscenely silly, don’t you think? Anyway, no issue delving into the past. The important point here is that Kubrick kept a copy of the original print before handing it to Nasa. In his will, he reveals the place where he hid the evidence that convincingly establishes without any doubts the fakeness of the "lunar landings." That remarkable proof is to be uncovered, according to his testament, next year--2001, poetic, huh?--on the day of his birthday.


yeah right. Actually, the Kubrick film is probably the best evidence to PROVE that the moon landings were NOT faked.



You do know that I was joking, don’t you Chas?

[robby]

crc wrote:

Close but you got it backwards.
Alpha radiation is the heavy one being a helium atom w/o electrons.
Beta radiation is lighter being electrons
Gamma is (more or less) an electron

No, gamma radiation is high-energy (short wavelength/high frequency) electromagnetic radiation, or a high-energy photon.

Alpha and beta "radiation" are more properly called "particles."

(And thanks, Guy, for coming up with Rice University as the location for Kennedy's "put a man on the Moon" speech!)

[Chas.E]

Originally posted by quasar

You do know that I was joking, don’t you Chas?

ya but, it was still a good excuse to lob a good piece of debunking at the hoax.

[Sofa King]

Help us, Bad Astronomer!

For those of you not inside the loop, the SDMB has the honor of counting one of our members as the Bad Astronomer, a dedicated de-bunker of such bullshit as this latest affront to the efforts of the 500,000 individuals, including my father, who made the landing on the moon possible. His analysis may or may not be available now at http://www.badastronomy.com .

Read him, live him, know him, and visit the freaking Air and Space museum here in Washington, DC sometime, where a wealth of circumstantial evidence from dirty spacesuits to roasted heat shields will give you a sense of perspective, for chrissakes. Just because we can't do it today doesn't mean we couldn't then--that's your tax cuts at work.

[asrivkin]

IAAA.

I find it quite interesting that the real clincher that the Moon landings are real have been mostly ignored-- the rocks. Contrary to one of the posts near the beginning, the moon rocks can not be easily faked, or faked in any way I can think of.

Lunar rocks have distinctive compositions found nowhere on Earth-- they have very very very little water (read none). The soils bear evidence of spending a long time on an airless body (implanted solar wind). I could go on.

There are tons of lunar samples, which are still studied today, and have been looked at by hundreds if not thousands of geologists world over for decades (including my wife, actually). Millions of words have been written about them in technical journals. All evidence points unambiguously to an extraterrestrial origin. Visible and infrared spectra have been obtained of these samples and published. Point a telescope at the relevant portion of the Moon for comparison, and the match will be good. If you don't believe that, one can obtain a sample and take the spectrum themselves. In fact, one can go and reanalyze a sample that's already been looked at, since sample numbers are known, published, and tracked.

It is inconceivable to me that this evidence can be faked. There are too many geologists out there and too many samples.

[pldennison]

Originally posted by handy

Cecil did not answer these issues, just the issue of the landing.

The other message subject on the board on this is about the Fox show. Im a bit wary of anything Fox does for publicity.

In a couple years when Japan sends a orbiter for closeup pictures of the moon, we see if the lander(s) is still there.

Why? I mean, really, folks, these missions are expensive. Getting one of those probes properly launched, deployed, orbiting and functioning costs a lot of bloody money. The mission parameters are very specific. Neither NASA nor the European and Japanese space agencies have the time or inclination to waste valuable resources taking pictures to satiate addle-minded conspiracy buffs when nearly every reasonable person accepts the moon landings as a given.

Furthermore, even if some moon probe were to return pictures clearly showing landers and flags littering the lunar surface, the conspiracy morons would simply claim that they were faked or altered. Look what happened when NASA took more pictures of Cydonia.

[Threadkiller]

Originally posted by robby
crc wrote:

Close but you got it backwards.
Alpha radiation is the heavy one being a helium atom w/o electrons.
Beta radiation is lighter being electrons
Gamma is (more or less) an electron

No, gamma radiation is high-energy (short wavelength/high frequency) electromagnetic radiation, or a high-energy photon.

Alpha and beta "radiation" are more properly called "particles."

(And thanks, Guy, for coming up with Rice University as the location for Kennedy's "put a man on the Moon" speech!)

Oops. My post should have read "Gamma is more or less an x-ray"

Sorry.

[Montfort]

Originally posted by pldennison
Why? I mean, really, folks, these missions are expensive.
Phil, I don't have any idea what he's babbling about. As I said in a similar GD thread, I hope the Japanese surveyor finds a monolith, rather than detritus of a 30-year old science project (which, of course, is not meant to belittle the efforts of those who got the project onto the moon).

[mok]

You know, if you actually read through the whole OP (quite a chore), it has some real gems in it. All emphasis mine.

RiverRat wrote:
* The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts
achieved this feat without being able to see what they were doing.

Oh my gosh! No white meters or view ponders? How can you have a camera without any white meters or view ponders?


* They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters
in pressurized clubs. It should have been almost impossible without the use
of their fingers.

Obviously if there were night clubs on the moon, they would have to be pressurized....hey! That's got to be more proof of a hoax! I mean, who would believe there were clubs on the moon?


-m

[Phobos]

Originally posted by Sofa King
Help us, Bad Astronomer!
...
His analysis may or may not be available now at http://www.badastronomy.com .


It is available! :)
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

[Irishman]

You might also want to check out
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/FOX.html

It is not complete, but pretty good for what has been addressed.

You might also check out the other GQ thread on the Fox show where I've already tackled a number of similar claims.

Fluttering flags: 1) The flags have a pole at the top to hold them extended so they are unfurled. One pole bent during deployment, so it looks particularly curly, like it is waving. 2) When the astronauts are wiggling the poles, the flags wiggle. This is direct motion caused by the astronauts themselves. Every shot in the Fox show of a fluttering flag had an astronaut wiggling the pole. 3) There is one show of a flag fluttering as the LEM blasts off to return to space. Rocket thrust.

The crappy tv images - the TV cameras were a technical challenge. They were behind schedule. Better cameras came along later. One mission they actually burned the camera out by pointing it too close to the sun. That flight had to use studio mockups for dramatizations of what was occurring.

Not all the photos were perfect. Only the good photos were shown. Go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, and you can find pictures with glares. Also, pictures were cropped during developing to center the images.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html

How did the astronauts take such good pictures? 1) They had great cameras. 2) They had lots of practice.

As for manipulating the cameras, changing film cartridges, etc, while the gloves are pressurized, they're not quite clubs. There is some dexterity to the gloves - that's why they're gloves and not mittens like the Russians use. They can be stiff, but not impossibly so. And the equipment was modified with special attachments to be operable. I can tell you this with certainty. I work building space tools. Many times we don't bother starting from scratch, but take a commercial tool and modify it. For instance, the Shuttle has a ratchet wrench that is a standard ratchet with a couple slight modifications. Mainly the addition of a handle grip and tether point, plus swapping out the small ratchet direction lever for a slightly larger lever. Then it is degreased and dry film lubricant is added. Velcro is put on the handle. Similar things are done to other tools frequently - we change a lever or two to make it a little larger. We can test this using pressure chambers. In fact, we have a glove box - a sealed box that can suck pressure out to create the right pressure difference, and practice these tasks without being in a full suit. It is not impossible, it just takes practice.

The shadows questions have already been addressed multiple times. Check the previous links to the Bad Astronomer's page.

Why is the flag on the lander and the words "United States" visible in shadow? There is plenty of light reflecting off the moon's surface itself. It's bright enough that we see it here at night, of course it's bright on the surface. The flag and words are on the side of the lander in the location where the rover was stowed. The rover has been removed, so the white and color parts are set in a black field. That is not on the gold foil, but a black background. Ergo it stands out, but looks like the dark shadow is too dark.

Why don't the still camera photos match the film footage? Simple - different cameras were used. Nobody bothered to take simultaneous video and still shots.

For radiation, check the links at the BA site. There is a link to a description of the radiation exposure.

The Apollo 1 fire - it is ridiculous to assert this would be an assassination of Grissom. Why would NASA kill Grissom in a way guaranteed to get his death investigated? That tragedy nearly derailed the whole program, it took valuable time from the development schedule, and almost cost us making it to the moon by the deadline. If NASA's goal was that deadline, why do something most likely to get the project canceled, or make it fail?

About the fire - that post claims it should be obvious the dangers of the pure O2 environment. However, it wasn't obvious. Understand, the test conditions were more dangerous than the actual flight would be. Here's why. The operational pressure for the flight was to be about 5 psia pure oxygen. The materials used are flame retardant materials specially developed for spaceflight (and since made commercially). However, the test was to be a full systems check, including pressurizing the capsule. In order to achieve the 5 psi internal pressure, they had to run the pressure up to 19.7 psia. At 19.7 psia pure oxygen, even flame resistant materials become incredibly flammable. A spark in a frayed wire ignited Velcro straps and they went up in an instant. But this was only a risk during the test, not for the actual flight. Nobody really felt that a test could be dangerous - they were wrong.

The Fox program calls the fire mysterious and unexplained. That is an outright lie. See explanation above, which came out in the extensive post fire investigation. The moon hoax believers take any death and give it a mysterious atmosphere, even if it is fully explained. That is the way conspiracy theorists work. Just look at the UL about Clinton death toll. Exact same phenomenon.

There was a set made. It was not to prove it could be faked, but to use for training and for demos during the flight that the camera was blinded.

The golf "slice" argument - this shows the inanity of the moon hoaxers, and they'll grab onto anything, no matter how silly. I don't know anything about golf terms, but if I saw the ball fly off at an angle from intended target direction, I might call it a slice. Or as said before, they might not have even seen where the ball went, just decided to kid Shepard.

The picture of Armstrong's first step was not from the ground. It was from a deployed tray on the side of the lander. There is a fair set of pictures of the location at the following location.
http://www.apollosaturn.com/library.htm
Scroll down to "LM-5 Structures Handbook in pdf format"
http://www.thebest.net/jduncan/pdf/lm5hout.pdf

That's a fairly long document. Go to Chapter two. Beginning page 2-1 is a series of sketches and photos showing the MESA. It deploys on the side of the lander, and is where the camera was mounted. Unfortunately there is not a clear picture of the camera.

The pressure in the suits and the astronauts - they could bend the joints because they were specially sewn to be constant volume joints, so as not to increase pressure when bending. The joints were a little stiff, but not inordinately so. They were about 5 psia.

What about a signal from the moon? They made a signal from the moon - tons of radio signals. Oh, you mean a visible signal. The problem is resolution. They couldn't make a signal big enough to be seen. I would like to see a detailed description of how many magnesium flares it would take to make a bright enough glow to be visible on the lighted part of the full moon. Those who think it can be done get cranking and show me how.

I can't evaluate the photo remarks without seeing which photos he means. But the fluttering has been addressed above.