Okay, let’s see here.
Hey, I’m half-watching this program on how the Egyptians actually could have built the pyramids without the help of aliens. Just so you don’t think I’m a total crackpot. 
pldennison: I’m working through a better understanding of surface reflection thanks to emarkp’s calculations… give me some time on this one.
On to the moon rocks. Jab1’s corroboration explains away most of your complaints, but leaves this:
“…you have to explain the above re: oxidation, and you have to account for the fact that unmanned Soviet vehicles visited the moon and returned samples as well.”
As for oxidation, I imagine it wouldn’t have been difficult for NASA to quarry even 1600 pounds of rock from the Northwest Territories (thanks for the location, Jab1!), then chip away the outsides in a vacuum chamber and irradiate them to simulate lunar radioactivity. This is assuming that NASA knew back then that the oldest rocks in the world, which I admit is an assumption.
The Soviet vehicle thing… that’s a toughie, to be sure. You’ve got me stumped for the time being.
But as long as everybody else is posting tongue-in-cheek crazy conspiracy theories, I’d posit… let’s see… that some American in the know defected/sold secrets to the Russians, but the Russians decided it would be an even bigger mind-fuck if they acted like they TOO had some moon rocks. Then the Americans would wonder whether the Russians really HAD gotten a probe up there and back.
Or, less ridiculously, suppose the moon rocks are real–if the Russians could bring moon rocks back with a probe, so could we, presumably. No need to ever send a man to the moon at all.
But of course I do not present these as “scientific” objections by any means; I hope that is understood by all.
I will look into astronaut ingestion/excretion as soon as I spend a little time NOT posting on the SDMB!
As for whether I would have the courage to look those men in the eye and tell them they are liars, no, I gotta be honest, I don’t think I’d even have the courage to look Bill Clinton in the eye and tell him he is a liar (and I’m DAMNED sure is he one).
Sofa King: Since one of my primary concerns about the moon mission is the amount of radiation in the Van Allen belts and beyond, I’d definitely separate myself from the people that I think are crazies–those who say that man has never, in fact, been in even near-earth space. They might also tell you that NASA deliberately inserted a “failure” (ah, but a failure-turned-triumph!) to underscore the fact that the odds of having a perfect mission to the moon every time (especially in light of NASA/Apollo’s spotty track record up to that point) were pretty low, therefore making the entire program seem more plausible. That’s what they might tell you.
That having been said, I think the most likely scenario for a moon-mission hoax would involve sending the astronauts up for 10 days orbit around the earth (perhaps somewhat contemporaneously with sending a probe to the moon), then returning them from the sky as we would expect to see if astronauts were returning from the moon (the really intense conspiratorialists will tell you that there were eyewitnesses who saw the returning capsules being dropped from extremely high-flying cargo planes–I am not in any way endorsing this theory).
If the Apollo missions were actually just near-earth orbits, I think it is still possible that something went terribly wrong with Apollo 13.
None of the above should be read as much of an endorsement of any view, really; just pointing out that there is a possible explanation for Apollo-13-as-hoax that doesn’t involve NASA deliberately trying to embarrass itself. Don’t take it personal, folks!
As for Neil Armstrong flubbing his line–didn’t NASA insert the ‘a’ in the written text? They didn’t actually overdub it ever, did they? I admit lack of knowledge here.
The notion that “no one has come forward to confess” does not in my mind rule out conspiracy. There’s an example on one of those conspiracy sites of a photographer guy who says he did the a lot of work for NASA on fake moon photos–he says they later doctored his photos (presumably so that he wouldn’t be able to prove his originals were in fact THE originals). People say he’s crazy, of course, a liar, etc.
I don’t know if the guy’s story has any credence, understand. But consider that coming forward with your story (if in fact you were one of the privileged few who would really need to know the total picture of such an operation) would fall under the category of treason, exposing national security secrets, etc. The penalty of death is permitted in such cases; the government wouldn’t necessarily WANT to go through the court system to bring the sentence to bear, lest the secret become even more exposed.
These are the thoughts that make me want to get hard facts about this issue. One can construct all sorts of scenarios to make the conspiracy theory internally consistent, and it would almost fall under the category of a creationism/evolution argument, but I think the difference in this case is that the unknown of a supernatural power need not be involved; it should be well within our means to establish whether the Apollo missions COULD have happened–never mind the evidence that they did. In other words, can we prove NASA could do it again? (This is why the Van Allen belt issue is of such importance to me.)
White Raven, tracer: don’t give me any ideas!
jab1: Okay, I’m being an English guy here and not a science guy. I understand that visibility technically depends on illumination. But I’m trying to use the terms to describe, on one hand, the state of not being invisible, and on the other hand, the state of looking like a floodlight is shining on you.
Your photography point has got me curious; if you’ll remember, emarkp said:
“…light can’t tell the difference between a camera and a retina either. Surely you’re not claiming that a camera is different than the other surfaces in the picture?”
Yet you say:
“No photograph has ever exactly reproduced colors and lighting the way they are seen by the human eye… the shadows in the pictures will be darker than they originally appeared to your eye. (It’s why photographers often use flash even at high noon, to illuminate the shadows so they won’t appear too dark. It’s why Hollywood filmmakers often use lights and/or reflectors even when filming in daylight.)”
I’m not a photography expert, and emarkp seems pretty smart, but I’ve heard your claims repeated before here and I’m inclined to believe they are true. You know a lot more about photography than me, at least, saying things like, “Film designed for bright light is not recommended for use in dim light and vice versa. (It also depends upon the lens and shutter.)” I surely hadn’t thought of that point yet.
If the conflict I perceive between your information and emarkp’s is actually there, it would sadly seem that emarkp’s calculations of reflectivity show us little about what would have been captured on film. To crunch out those numbers, it seems, would require a level of specialized knowledge it might be difficult to find even in a place such as this!
But for all I am learning here, I still have more questions. You have stated the following facts, jab1
(1) “…the film the astronauts brought was the kind designed for very bright light to handle the intense direct and indirect sunlight, but that meant the shadows would appear very dark.”
(2) “…photographers often use flash even at high noon, to illuminate the shadows so they won’t appear too dark… Hollywood filmmakers often use lights and/or reflectors even when filming in daylight.”
(3) “The astronauts’ cameras didn’t have flash.”
Doesn’t this all add up to the fact that the shadowed Aldrin and LEM in the much-debated photo 6 should NOT have been so brightly illuminated if taken under the alleged conditions of the Apollo missions? And don’t tell me the astronaut taking the picture was serving as a photographic reflector in the absence of a flashbulb.
Incidentally, you mentioned hearing that it would cost twice as much to fake it as to make it. I really don’t see how that would be possible, but do you have a link? This sounds like another intellectual urban legend.
RickJay: I still don’t get your basic point, I guess. I’m sorry. Hopefully the above illumination conversation with jab1 will “shed some light on the issue.” Sorry, it had to happen sooner or later.
When I said the sun doesn’t illuminate its own shadows, I was addressing your point that the sun’s angle could radically affect the illumination factor of the objects in shadow. emarkp might be able to quickly correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that as long as the sun is in the sky, the net effect of ground reflectivity is going to be basically the same no matter what time of day it is. I don’t believe there’s a special “brightening stuff in shadows” angle, which is what it seemed you were proposing.
The fact that I “admit” the missions occurred during the lunar morning/evening doesn’t in any way imply that I believe they actually took place, by the way—as always, I’ve first assumed the information was true, then sought seeming inconsistencies within it. NASA says the missions took place duringg the lunar morning/evening so anybody who is debating with me must at least argue about the effect of light in those particular conditions. That’s all I meant.
I’ve gotta move on here, but I don’t think the reflection argument is gonna die too soon, so I hope you’re not offended I did not specifically respond to your last point.
Good ol’ Sam Stone: I spoke a bit too bluntly when I said the moon rocks were all that earthbound scientists have to go on. The point I was trying to make is that I don’t believe there COULD be much data related to the Apollo missions that is not “conspiracy-proof.” As I stated earlier, the possibility of a returning space probe, the possibility of keeping the astronauts in near-earth orbit (though I haven’t forgotten the conversation about possible triangulation of the lunar signal) keep open the possibility of a conspiracy.
When I made my statement about lunar rocks, I wasn’t aware that the Russians had brought their own back with a probe, so, thinking for some reason that you’d need an astronaut to bring moon rocks back, I tossed that out as the only truly empirical evidence it seemed was out there. Now that too seems questionable.
Again, I’m not saying it IS fake. But it would make me feel more comfortable to be able to rule out certain key aspects of the conspiracy theory, which as I stated earlier in this post should theoretically be possible even without taking NASA’s testimony as gospel.
Honestly, Sam, I AM trying to think as critically as possible–that is why I am holding evidence to such a high standard. By the way, how is the DVD-timing experiment going?
Oh, and as for my education in science, I’ve always been more a biology guy than a physics guy, so yeah, I’m pretty out of my element here. That’s why I CAME to you guys!
Sofa King: Thanks for the link on conflicting shadow directions. That one has been pretty thoroughly debunked on the web sites for quite a few reasons. Even I must agree.
But if Arizona is a hoax, >gulp< WHERE THE HELL DO I LIVE!!?!?!?!?