Moon Landings: The Hoax that Refused to Die

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

With reference to: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html

So I was sitting watching TV the other day and this documentary was on – apparently, a serious, mainstream documentary, although I didn’t catch the name of it, production company, etc. – in which it was claimed that the moon landings actually happened. So far, so good. But they went on to claim that, while the landings themselves happened, the film we have was faked because, in 1969, while we had the technology to get to the moon, we didn’t have the technology to film there. (I didn’t catch if this was due to the lack of at atmosphere or the low gravity.) They then went into the silly (but all-too-familiar) claims about Stanley Kubrick filming the “landings” on his 2001 set; these landings were then aired to trick the Russians (and everyone else, incidentally) into thinking that we were on the moon. In fact, we were, but just couldn’t take pictures of it.

Now, something tells me this is wrong – perhaps it’s that lump about three feet above my ass. But I only caught a few minutes of the documentary, so, despite the fact that it seems so obviously stupid, I can’t offer any direct disputations of their claims. Can anyone out there in Teeming Millionsland – maybe a photography expert or something – tell me why this is demonstrably false?

2

Well…

The film cameras were specially built Nikons (35mm) and Hasselblads (6x6cm), optimized for the specific usage needed on space missions (not just Moon landings).

The movie cameras were video (IIRC) and I would suspect were optimized, too.

Go to NikonUSA.com and Hasselblad.com (or Google) for info on the special cameras.

3

[hijack]

I’ve noticed that relatively few people online anywhere capitalize Moon.

It’s the proper name for Earth’s sattellite, right?

Not really a nit, just wondering.

[/hijack]

4

I’m waiting for my pet theory to be on some TV “documentary” – that at the time of the moon landing, the moon was slightly less than a quarter phase, so the astronauts had to step very carefully or they’d fall off the edge of the moon.

There’s also a great government conspiracy to keep secret the fact that they found the bones of a long-decayed cow on the dark side of the moon – it wasn’t actually able to complete the jump. But the government maintains the American dream that it could and did.

5

What udder rubbish, Dex.

6

He’s really milking this, isn’t he?

7

I found it very mooving, myself.

8

go to “Our Company” and click on “Hasselblad In Space”

Nikon space cameras

C K Dex Hav, moove along, Moon doggie…

9

[hijack answered?]
I though Luna was the name of the moon. Isn’t “moon” just the name of any natural planetary satellite, like the moons of Jupiter or moons of Saturn?
[/end of poorly researched answer to hijack]

10

Oh lord, we already HAVE a thread arguing about the name of the moon. Really, it doesn’t have one. Luna is just “moon” in another language. =P

11

If someone you know proposed the theory that the moon landings were real, but the video was faked, you could ask them why they came up with the lame story about the video camera on Apollo 12 failing, causing there to be no video of that mission.

12

If that were the case, they would have filmed the footage from inside the lander through a window, and explained that they couldn’t take the camera outside for technical reasons. That would have been convincing enough, and there was no reason to take a risk of making up fake external footage. The lander was pressurized so there’s no reason for the camera not to work.

But it’s pretty trivial to make a camera that works in space. If film or detector degrades in vacuum (which I don’t think is the case anyway), it’s a simple matter to make a pressurized enclosure for it. It’s a heck of a lot easier than making an enclosure to keep a human being alive in.

13

I suppose that there might be some concern about cosmic ray exposure on the film, but that’s actually a bigger problem on Earth than it is in space. When a single cosmic ray hits the atmosphere, it produces a shower of thousands of secondary cosmic ray particles, any one of which is easily energetic enough to expose film. In space, you only get the primary rays, which are admittedly much more energetic, but as far as the film is concerned, that doesn’t matter.

Low gravity wouldn’t be a problem unless you’re somehow relying on gravity to move things around in the camera. But I’ve never heard of a camera which wouldn’t work upside-down, and even if there were a camera like that, it’d be easy enough to rig up something with springs to do the same job.

And if vacuum is the problem, it’s trivially easy to pressure-seal the thing. At worst, you might not be able to change the film outside.

14

Chronos, read my Nikon link. It tells a little of what had to be changed. Had more to do with NASA tolerences than real need for space use.

15

NoClueBoy, I tried the Nikon link, but all I get is a header and a blank page. I even turned on javascript, which allowed me to get a popup ad in spanish, but still no article.

saintp, I have seen similar claims about the moon landings being real, but the video and film fake, and that the “astronauts” we know about and celebrate aren’t the real astronauts. The basis of this claim seems to be a misunderstanding of the risks of radiation, especially the Van Allen Belts. This misunderstanding makes them think that the Moon trips would have been fatal.

You did not list your location. There is currently circulating a video program proclaiming the Moon landings a hoax, that has been broadcast in Europe and in Australia. This program is a deliberate hoax, a parody of the moon hoax crowd, taking real clips and putting them out of context to distort the meaning. I don’t know if this is the same program you saw, as I have not seen the program myself.

Regarding the claim for not having the technical ability to film on the moon, I would need the specific claim in order to be able to address it. However, I can generalize about reasons why they might say that.

  1. Lack of gravity. As has been mentioned, there is no reason why a camera should not be able to function in low gravity. We know cameras worked in “zero gravity” of low Earth orbit, because of Mercury and Gemini - that nobody claims were faked. The Apollo doubters generally concede low Earth orbit missions are real. So if zero gravity is okay, then 1/6th g should not be impossible.

  2. Lack of atmospheric pressure. I have no idea why film would require atmospheric pressure to work, nor why a camera would need it. However, it would be simple to make a vacuum tight camera and then pressurize it - a lot simpler than making a space suit or space capsule. The worst possible problem would be inability to change film, so you take multiple cameras with large film magazines. They already used large film magazines (the Hasselblads could take about 80 (IIRC) pictures per roll - they used special thin film). Same thing for television (video) cameras - pressurize the box if you need to.

  3. Radiation. There is concern about radiation in space being more intense than on Earth’s surface, because the Van Allen Belts protect us. This is somewhat true, but misrepresented. Space is not a glowing nuclear field. The people who advocate the dangers do not understand what radiation is, or that there are levels of intensity and different particles/energies that have different levels of threat. Furthermore, while hanging around in the thickest part of the Van Allen Belts would not be healthy, the actual Apollo path (designed by Dr. Van Allen himself) went on a path through the weaker zones at an off inclination, and passed through the belts fairly quickly. This protected the astronauts, combined with the protection afforded by the Command Module. Similar protection was afforded to the film and cameras. The truth is the cameras were adequately protected against radiation, with the exception of some stray cosmic rays that we are subject to even on Earth. There is no reason radiation would prevent the cameras from working.

  4. Portability and complexity of the cameras. This was of some concern. Television capability was a late idea to the Apollo program. The TV camera flown on Apollo 11 was very simple, using the spinning color wheel to provide the color, just like early color television cameras. This early and simple camera for Apollo 11 explains the ghostly appearance of the astronauts. Better cameras were available for Apollo 12, but there was an accidental pointing of the camera into the Sun, burning out the tube and preventing TV coverage. Apollo 13 didn’t make it to landing, so the next time we see is Apollo 14, with much improved Television cameras.

There were also motion film cameras used on the lunar surface, with film not available until after return to Earth. Plus the still cameras.

Resources:

Apollo 11 Mission Photography
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo11/A11_Photography.html

Television From the Moon
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/apollo11/tv_from_moon.html

Apollo 11 Hasselblad Cameras
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html

Hasselblad on Apollo Cameras
http://www.hasselblad.com/company/HBSpaceFirst.asp?secId=584

Hasselblad Space Camera
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/moon/1.htm

Photography Techniques
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/apollo.photechnqs.htm
(Actual documents in pdf format.)

Space Cameras and Photography
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/UnderwoodRW/UnderwoodRW_10-17-00.pdf
(long pdf document)

Extensive Moon Hoax Debunking
http://www.clavius.org/

16

http://membres.lycos.fr/ncf/nouveautes/Nikon%20cameras%20and%20NASA.html

That’s the Nikon link. (my earlier one worked for me, tho)

17

The Apollo 12 video camera failed because Al Bean accidentally pointed it at the sun. He tried to fix it, using very precise NASA engineering procedures, by banging on it with a hammer. It didn’t work.

Obviously, though, this was all staged by Mr. Bean, who in fact sabotaged the camera deliberately, so the folks at NASA who weren’t in on the Conspiracy wouldn’t see him communicating in sign-language with the Martian-descended occupants of the giant sub-lunar base on the dark side of the moon.

Or something like that.

18

What we didn’t have the technology to do was to fake the moon landings convincingly. Watch some Flash Gordon movies for an example. The “2001” link is confusing too. What about the moon landing looked anything like the sets from “2001”?

19

True. Anyone who claims they used the 2001 set to fake the moon landings has either never seen 2001 or the moon landing. Even today they’re not very good at low gravity SFX in movies.

20

Don’t worry too much. If it’s the same doco I saw, it was a ‘mocumentary’. It started out quite sensibly and plausibly, and got progressively wierder. It went on to claim that Nixon gave orders to kill the film crew, that they then went into hiding in Viet-Nam and that the real reason for the Viet nam war was an attempt to hunt them don and kill them. It also claimed that Kubrick was a recluse because CIA snipers were hunting for him.

Absolutely hilarious and very well done. They never actually let on that it was a hoax until the out-takes in the closing credits. It was done in such a way that the claims got more and more ludicrous until eventually your bullshit meter went into the red.

The scary part is I’m sure some peolpe watched the whole thing and believed it all.