# Moon Mystery **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663 "2007-06-12T03:50:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/1 "2007-06-12T03:50:55Z")
Sorry if I am reviving a dead thrad here guys, but has anyone got a really convincing argument for why the Russians have not been to the moon , and why the USA have not got a base there now? Don`t throw that laser transponder at me as proof they landfd. They could quite easily have been placed remotely. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/2 "2007-06-12T04:13:04Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] They could quite easily have been placed remotely. [/QUOTE] But they weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/3 "2007-06-12T04:14:58Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] why the Russians have not been to the moon , and why the USA have not got a base there now? [/QUOTE] ISTM that it kinda boils down to “low ROI”. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/4 "2007-06-12T04:16:40Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] Sorry if I am reviving a dead thrad here guys, but has anyone got a really convincing argument for why the Russians have not been to the moon , [/QUOTE] [Sam Kenison]Cause they’re a bunch of space pussies[/SK] ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/5 "2007-06-12T04:21:43Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] But they weren’t. [/QUOTE] Says you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/6 "2007-06-12T04:23:51Z")
The Russians didn’t send men to the Moon because it’s kind of a dead end. It’s not on the way to anything else, there’s no economic incentive (unlike with satellites in near-Earth orbits), and there’s more interesting scientific exploration to be done in the outer solar system. It’s expensive and dangerous to get there and once the Americans got there first the Russians couldn’t even do it for the bragging rights. ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/7 "2007-06-12T04:24:06Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] Says you! 🙂 [/QUOTE] In other words, I am not convinced by that. Go on! ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/8 "2007-06-12T04:27:09Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] The Russians didn’t send men to the Moon because it’s kind of a dead end. It’s not on the way to anything else, there’s no economic incentive (unlike with satellites in near-Earth orbits), and there’s more interesting scientific exploration to be done in the outer solar system. It’s expensive and dangerous to get there and once the Americans got there first the Russians couldn’t even do it for the bragging rights. [/QUOTE] They made sure they replicated the A- bomb tho`. Was that a much less expensive project? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/9 "2007-06-12T04:32:23Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] They made sure they replicated the A- bomb tho`. Was that a much less expensive project? [/QUOTE] Well an atom bomb is **useful** , isn’t it? You can blow up Washington with it if you want. Going to the moon is mostly a stunt. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/10 "2007-06-12T04:33:11Z")
Is this one of those “The moon landing was faked” things? ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/11 "2007-06-12T04:36:33Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] Is this one of those “The moon landing was faked” things? [/QUOTE] What do you think? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/12 "2007-06-12T04:45:31Z")
The Russians would probably have sent men to the moon **if** they already had a rocket built for other purposes that happened to have enough payload to support a manned lunar mission. They don’t. The N-1 rocket they tried to develop to support a manned lunar mission failed, and it still would have taken two of them to send a mission to the moon (one for the manned vehicles, another for the rocket stage to boost them.) The heaviest payload rocket they have, built to launch heavy spy satellites into earth orbit, is the Proton, which the Russians have recently offered to send anyone sufficiently rich and suicidal on a loop around the moon. Why doesn’t the US have a permanent presence on the moon? NASA proposed a post-Apollo expanded exploration of the moon in the early 1970s, and Congress had a seizure when they saw the estimated cost. The exploration of space was never what justified the 20 billion spent on Apollo- we did it to beat the USSR, plain and simple. Once they were beaten, there was no further point. ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/13 "2007-06-12T04:51:56Z")
So after all that commitment they just allowed thier incentives to fizzle out like candles? Does n`t sound like the Russians to me! ---
**Author:** ![CJOK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CJOK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJOK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/14 "2007-06-12T04:56:00Z")
I`ll let you have a think about it and come back in a bit. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/15 "2007-06-12T05:33:41Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] Is this one of those “The moon landing was faked” things? [/QUOTE] it would appear to be in which case why bother with it? By far the majority of the world’s population who think about moon landing at all agrees that the US went to the moon. Several times. So let the nay sayers caper. No one gives a damn. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/16 "2007-06-12T05:52:15Z")
GQ is for questions with factual answers, and I think that you need to clarify exactly what you are asking. Is it: a. Why didn’t the Russians land people on the moon? b. Why doesn’t the USA have a manned lunar base? c. Prove to me that the USA did in fact land on the moon. Looks to me like both (a) and (b) have been answered - technically challenging, incredibly expensive, and the whole “space race” mentality wherein “doing it” wasn’t as important as “doing it before the other side”. If you don’t like those answers that’s up to you I guess, but if you’re going to decry them as factually incorrect you need to back yourself up with some facts. If you’re asking about (c), and it kinda sounds like you are with the laser transponder bit, then I suggest you start by going to a site like Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy”, specifically the “Apollo Moon Hoax” section, and read the answers to some common “hoax arguments” first: > **[Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy: Bad TV](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html)** > > Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Note that in GQ the onus is on you to back up what you say - and with a lot of common “conspiracy” threads like the moon landing or various 9-11 wackiness which has been utterly, completely, totally debunked and beaten to death, the reception may range from eye-rolling to “Here’s a compendium of all the counter arguments, please read it first before asking the exact same questions here”. I’m not trying to belittle you, just some constructive feedback. So, for example, if you don’t think that NASA’s little helpers placed laser ranging equipment on the moon by hand, please provide factual evidence for that assertion. BTW, the Russians did land on the moon. Twice. Drove around, sent back pictures, etc. OK, no human beings onboard but they landed robotic vehicles well enough that there were still functional. > **[Lunokhod programme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod)** > > Lunokhod (Russian: Луноход, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}IPA: \[lʊnɐˈxot\], "Moonwalker") was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestrial body. > The 1969 Lunokhod 1A (Lunokhod 0, Lunokhod No. 201) ... ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/17 "2007-06-12T05:52:59Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy] The Russians would probably have sent men to the moon **if** they already had a rocket built for other purposes that happened to have enough payload to support a manned lunar mission. They don’t. The N-1 rocket they tried to develop to support a manned lunar mission failed, [/quote] In fact, the N-1 literally shook itself apart before staging all four times a test launch was attempted. The RD-170 motors–derivatives of which power the Zenit launchers for SeaLaunch and the Atlas V Heavy booster–were excellent, reliable, robust engines which extracted high performance without developing dangerously high pressures, but the Soviets–having had much difficulty with combustion instability in scaling motors up–elected to gang many of them together. I believe the first stage had 30 or 32 engines, and all the associated plumbing and feed pumps and whatnot, which inevitably developed feedback resonance that would tear the rocket apart. Between these problems, internecine conflict between competing design teams, and the untimely death of the Sergei Korolev, head of the N-1 design effort, in 1966. The Soviets, fearful from the advances made during NASA’s Gemini program (which threatened to catch up to the early Soviet lead in manned spaceflight) decided that a direct injection approach would be the fastest development path too the Moon. The failures of N-1 and the death of Korolev put this plan behind, and by the time the Soviets switch back to their Earth-orbit rendevous plans it was much too late to beat the United States to the Moon, especially with the accelerated program enjoyed by Apollo. In short, they were just more unlucky than the US was (though both programs had their share of failures and misfortunes). [QUOTE=Lumpy] Why doesn’t the US have a permanent presence on the moon? NASA proposed a post-Apollo expanded exploration of the moon in the early 1970s, and Congress had a seizure when they saw the estimated cost. The exploration of space was never what justified the 20 billion spent on Apollo- we did it to beat the USSR, plain and simple. Once they were beaten, there was no further point. [/QUOTE] Actually, Congress started cutting budgets in the late 'Sixties, even before lunar landings had occured, and Nixon–no fan of the space program, allegedly in part because of his hatred for Kennedy–was quite willing to can the entire bag. Despite the fact that several Apollo vehicles and Saturn rockets were on order, bought and paid for, the Lunar program was scaled back, and Apollo Plus, Apollo-X, Apollo-N (NERVA nuclear thermal rocket-based upper stage) and even NASA’s modest efforts at the Apollo Applications program were all quashed, leaving only the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the three manned Skylab missions were all that remained. There is, frankly, little technical validity to make a case for a Lunar outpost; aside from being there to say that we’re there (and the Outer Space Treaty and the common law concept of res communis prevents a spacefaring nation from claiming part or all of a celestial body as territory) there’s very little to be gained; essentially anything we could accomplish on the Moon (vacuum manufacturing processes, extraterrestrial observatories, mining, et cetera) could be as well or better done from a free-fall orbit around Earth or the Sun. Once we got there, there was no real justification to keep going there, and NASA struggled for any “continuing mission”, eventually settling upon the compromised Space Transportation System (“Space Shuttle”) as a system useful for combined commerical, military, and scientific use. So, no mystery…just a lack of drive, a series of unfortunate events, and ultimately no compelling reason to go there. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/18 "2007-06-12T05:54:08Z")
Im sorry CJOK, but do you realize how ridiculous your point sounds? You’re implying that the moon landing was faked, and offer as proof only that “it doesn’t sound like the Russians to give up the space race after they lost!” It’s not even worth countering, really. If that’s all the reasoning you need to believe that humans didn’t walk on the moon, then we’re just going to end up spinning our wheels for days without actually getting anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/19 "2007-06-12T07:13:28Z")
I went to see Apollo XVII take off. It did, as evidenced by the very ground shaking miles away. If the moon landing was faked, while have six more of them planned. (More than that, but they killed some.) Why not have the supposed takeoffs in secret, and saved the expense of a Saturn V? There are lots of other reasons, but we’ve had plenty of threads about this nonsense already. One uncommon issue - why spread moon rocks far and wide, when any decent geologist getting them could probably tell they were from earth? And there were lots of people who got to study them. I was going to respond to the real questions, but **Stranger** said it better. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663/20 "2007-06-12T07:19:40Z")
[QUOTE=CJOK] In other words, I am not convinced by that. Go on! [/QUOTE] The most convincing argument for the fact that the moon landing actually happened is, regardless of anything else, if it was faked, the Russians would have known and blown the cover on the whole thing before you can say “Sputnik”. They didn’t, therefore (unless you propose the entirety of Cold War was filmed in a hollywood basement as well) the moon landing was real. Landing on the moon was expensive and hard. Faking a moon landing well enough to be 100% sure Soviets would believe you would be ten times as hard and ten times as expensive. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moon-mystery/407663.md?page=2)