# Have we really been to the moon or what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2006, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656 "2006-03-09T06:15:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CrazyFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@CrazyFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyFoo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/1 "2006-03-09T06:15:30Z")
After reading the conspiracy theory to end all theories I asked myself… Is there 100% proof to know we really did travel to the moon and land on the surface? My apologies if this came up before. Here is the link to the site I was reading: [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm](http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm) Regards ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/2 "2006-03-09T06:21:22Z")
Look, you don’t have 100% proof to know your mother really exists. You can never have 100% proof of anything. But you’d need to be some sort of nut to think that the US fooled the Russians at the hight of the cold war but that some loony in a basement has found the evidence 30 years later. The USSR had the technology to track the moon shots, and rest assured they did. They could track the radio transmission, they could track the craft themselves for much of the journey. The KGB had a massive forensics and propaganda wing that would have been able to dissect and expose fake photographs within days. And rest assured, the Soviets wanted to do exactly that. It would have been a massive propaganda coup. yet they didn’t. Why exactly do you think that might be? Hmm? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/3 "2006-03-09T06:23:54Z")
They were in on the conspiracy, too? ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/4 "2006-03-09T06:24:02Z")
Or, to provide an answer with substance. . . Go [here](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html). Read. Come back if things still don’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/5 "2006-03-09T06:24:27Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And rest assured, the Soviets wanted to do exactly that. It would have been a massive propaganda coup. yet they didn’t. Why exactly do you think that might be? Hmm? Because in Russia, Moon lands on _you_! ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/6 "2006-03-09T06:31:33Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > They were in on the conspiracy, too? :smack: Of course. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/7 "2006-03-09T07:17:24Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Go [here](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html). I was going to link to Phil’s site, too, but the internets broke on me. Must be a conpiracy somewhere … ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/8 "2006-03-09T07:33:24Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > …the internets broke on me. Wait, there’s more than _one_? ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/9 "2006-03-09T07:43:40Z")
A Staff Report on the subject: [Was the Apollo moon landing a hoax?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html) ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/10 "2006-03-09T10:01:04Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > Because in Russia, Moon lands on _you_! Okay, thread’s over. Give **Q.E.D.** the prize money!!! [sub]what?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/11 "2006-03-09T10:39:48Z")
On the board, someone once said in regards to Holocaust denial that we don’t prove anything in history through one record or one fact, there are hundreds of little indicators and unrelated sources of datum which all together show a pattern. Showing a potential flaw doesn’t count unless you can show a flaw for every piece of data, and then show that the probability that **all** the things that would have to have happened to cause all of those unrelated data sources be unreliable or incorrect to have actually occured. So, if you have 100 pieces of data collected from different governments who were monitoring it, the data brought back from the trip (pictures, moonrocks, etc.), the NASA and government budget for the year, attestments by other rocket scientists that we could have had the technology by that point in time, no “comings-out” by NASA engineers of the time, the difficulty in keeping anything that involves so many people, etc., it becomes highly unlikely that it isn’t true. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/12 "2006-03-09T15:44:49Z")
My grandfather knew the moon landings were a hoax. He didn’t need no fancy internet to figure it out. Of course he was born in 1884 and didn’t see cars on the streets until he was in his twenties. He could only process so much human advancement until he just shut down to any more. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/13 "2006-03-09T16:07:10Z")
I can answer one of the claims of the hoax site: > [@](#): > > 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? That is not a still photograph of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder onto the surface of the moon. That is a photo taken by Armstrong of Buzz Aldrin stepping onto the moon. There are no still photographs of Neil Armstrong on the moon, only television images. ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/14 "2006-03-09T16:24:40Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I can answer one of the claims of the hoax site:That is not a still photograph of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder onto the surface of the moon. That is a photo taken by Armstrong of Buzz Aldrin stepping onto the moon. There are no still photographs of Neil Armstrong on the moon, only television images. Actually, there is one: [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5886.jpg](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5886.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/15 "2006-03-09T16:32:51Z")
> [@CrazyFoo](#): > > Is there 100% proof. . . Well, if you had a trial, showed mountains of physical evidence and testimony of lots of eyewitnesses, and the only thing on the opposing side were a lot of statements of “Isn’t it strange that. . . ?”, then I think a jury would conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that we indeed landed on the moon. I don’t know why people think the US government could have pulled off a deception of that scale when they couldn’t even break into an office and keep it quiet, or plant WMDs in Iraq to justify the war. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/16 "2006-03-09T16:33:37Z")
> [@CrazyFoo](#): > > Have we really been to the moon or what? No, it was all a hoax, [here’s the evidence.](http://www.stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/17 "2006-03-09T16:52:57Z")
> [@Tevildo](#): > > Actually, there is one: [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5886.jpg](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5886.jpg) That photo has no caption. How do we know that is Armstrong and not Aldrin? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/18 "2006-03-09T16:56:01Z")
What a coincidence! i was watching that old james Bond flick last night-why did the director put in the sequence about JB stealing the lunar rover from the “poney moon landing” mock-up 9in "Willard White’s las vegas underground lab)? That was reallly quite hilarioous-I guess it was a sop to all those conspiracy nuts 9who deny the moon landings). By the way-who was “bambi”? (She was MEGAhot!) ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/19 "2006-03-09T17:05:32Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > That photo has no caption. How do we know that is Armstrong and not Aldrin? [NASA discussion of the photo’s provenance.](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.5886.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656/20 "2006-03-09T17:08:52Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > By the way-who was “bambi”? (She was MEGAhot!) One [Lola Larson](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1009477/) - apparently, her only appearance on film. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-really-been-to-the-moon-or-what/347656.md?page=2)