I realize this topic has been resurrected and debated over for over 30 years now… but I have a question for you, nonetheless. I have absolutely NO doubts concerning the 1969 and all other subsequent trips to the moon by NASA. In my mind, to make these events a ‘hoaxed’ phenomenon is more logistically improbable than actually doing it in the first place.
My question is this… is it possible to view the NASA artifacts (i.e. the left over lunar lander vehicles, the lunar rovers, anything left behind by astronauts when returning home to Earth) from Earth-based telescopes? Can a casual amateur astronomer view these things using a reasonably competent scope, or were these landings made on a side of the moon not directly visible to us? I assume it is the latter… they probably wanted to land on a side that wasn’t so brilliantly lit by the direct sun.
What a wonderful thing it would be to look through a telescope, see the NASA artifacts with our own eyes, and make the conspiracy theorists eat crow! But alas, the artifacts may be out of our view here on Earth… I’m not sure.
Please note that a question like this more appropriately belongs in General Questions then in Great Debates.
That aside the link pldennison provided helps. In addition, try to think of it like this:
Ever see spy plane or spy satellite photos? Everything on the ground is still fairly dinky and usually only identifiable to trained photo intelligence experts. Granted the cameras used in these instruments are not equivalent to a full-blown observatory but then again they are a helluva lot closer (and don’t knock the optics in a spy satellite…they are first rate and still quite powerful in their own right). Maybe 10-15 miles up for a plane and 50(?) or so miles for a satellite (or less or more…I don’t know how far up they actually are).
Now try and compare that to seeing what amounts to a car on the moon which is some 239,000 miles away (give or take). I don’t think anything we have could discern something so small that far away. Certainly nothing your average Joe is likely to have in his.
The moon always points the same face towards the earth (hence some of the mystique surrounding the ‘Dark Side of the Moon’). Unless the astronauts landed on the dark side of the moon (which they didn’t) they’d be on the side facing the earth.
On this page, it says that the Hubble space Telescope “can resolve features as small as 280 feet across.”
On this page, it says that the bottom half of a Lunar Module, the biggest piece of equipment left behind on any Apollo mission, was only 9.4 meters wide. 9.4 meters is less than 31 feet, so the biggest thing left behind is WAY too small to be seen even by our best telescope.
Besides, even if you could see it, some idiot would say, “Prove to me it wasn’t sent there by an unmanned rocket.”
>> Unless the astronauts landed on the dark side of the moon (which they didn’t) they’d be on the side facing the earth
Whack-a-Mole, I hope a moment’s thought will make you realise this is nonsense. The moon has no “dark side” that I now of. Or do you know something that I don’t.
I’m admittedly not an expert on viewing the Moon. And yes, I realize the remaining NASA Apollo artifacts are very small (especially at 230,000+ miles from Earth).
I have never doubted NASA and the Apollo program. It has been too well documented and the whole world was watching the progress as it happened (including the Russians who would have immediately reported if we were ‘faking’ by conducting an Earth orbit & nothing else).
I think it would be really cool in the near future if NASA utilized some of today’s technology and launched some un-manned, solar-powered Web cams to the various sites of historic import so that the world could view live Web-casts of the various craft. I was too young to remember the last Apollo flights (since I was born in August of 1971).
Anyway… as you can tell, I’m a ‘dreamer’. I’m hopeful that some day we (America) will return to the moon. With our current technology and knowledge, we could take exploration there to the next level.
Sure it’s got a dark side, it’s whichever side isn’t currently facing the Sun (the Earth’s got a dark side too). It’s true, however, that there isn’t one particular side, it changes as the Moon orbits the Earth.
What Whack-a-Mole is thinking of is the far side of the Moon (I.E. the side not facing the Earth). You’re right, all of the Apollo missions landed on the near side.
Isn’t there a mirror left behind on the Moon by one of the Apollo missions that scientists can still bounce a laser off of? I had thought that they were still making precise measurements of the distance to the Moon using this method.
Not the same as viewing the stuff directly, but it would be evidence we were there, nonetheless.
Can the hubble telescope focus on objects as close as the moon anyway?
Note to NASA:
When you next visit the moon, take a large quantity of white paint and (in enormous letters, each a mile or two across) write “See, I told you we were here”
Actually easier than paint would be to make the letters out of some very thin plastic, maybe coated with metal to make it reflective, the astronauts could just roll it out (there’s no wind to worry about.
It really is a shame that 30 years have passed, and the whole Moon landing is becoming ‘ancient’ history. Every time I look at the Moon, I am filled with a sense of awe that twelve human beings walked there once (and also a sense of sober realization at the loss of life in achieving that goal… Apollo 1 and all other related accidents or incidents).
I do like the idea of rolling out the giant letters so that people on Earth can finally have proof… maybe even unfurl the largest American flag on the surface with the words, “WE WERE HERE FIRST… NOW DO YOU BELIEVE US?”
Oh well. These astronauts and the men/women behind them who made the voyage possible should never be forgotten.
I always feel queasy whenever the “moon landing was a hoax” people are referred to as skeptics. I know that is the correct terminology but I prefer my skeptics with a little more rationalism and a lot more brains rather than conspiracy minded wing nuts.
PS We never discovered North America, that was a hoax and we are all still living in Europe.
Wait, let me check outside my window – black cabs, double decker buses, Big Ben…nope, looks like Nebraska to me.
I do think it is a shame that we seem to have lost our sense of wonder about space travel. I can remember when they used to televise space shuttle launches on a regular basis, and people would watch them. <sigh>
I know what you mean. Shuttle missions have become so common place that people forget what an extraordinary effort is being put forth to set up a space station. Perhaps NASA has to become the showmen again to get the funds by planning a greater and more spectacular mission. That was what Mars was supposed to be.
PS For those who think they came from Asia Africa, Australia, or Antarctica they are fooled as well. There are only three continents. South America, Europe and Atlantis.
