well. i’ve gone and done it. i’ve met the Man Of My Dreams. Brilliant, funny, good looking, talented, fantastic conversationalist, etc., etc., etc. my search is over, stick a fork in it and all those other clichéd sayings.
there’s one problem. he’s That Guy. That Guy who thinks that the moon landing is one giant hoax. :smack:
that’s just my luck.
here’s how i found out:
(while discussing my career path and how i arrived where i am)
me: well, i actually wanted to be an astronaut when i was a little girl. i was thisclose to joining the Air Force Academy. him: um. me: yeah, naive and innocent youth… him: well. me: what? him: well… when i tell people this they get really bent. me: what are you talking about? him: it’s impossible for humans to go to the moon. it’s one big hoax. it’s a soundstage in Hollywood. me: :dubious: him: it’s just scientifically impossible. me: oh lord help me, you’re That Guy.
i’ve done a LOT of googling, but frankly, when it comes down to it, most internet sources of information must be taken with a grain of salt. i’m not exactly the best debater either, and he thrives on it. how do i make my case?
this has got to be the most absurd thread i’ve ever posted. :o
Depends whether he’s a guy who’s just got the wrong end of the stick, and is open to evidence and reason, or whether he’s a guy who just wants to believe a particular thing in which case, give up. Either on the argument or on him altogether, that’s up to you.
If he’s open to evidence and reason, send him to Phil Plait.
Biggest problem with his argument is if it is scientifically impossible for humans to go to the moon, and this was done all on a soundstage in Hollywood, then WHY didn’t the Soviet Union expose the US lies? I can easily imagine the US government doing such a hoax if they could possibly get away with it. But the Soviet Union obviously had advanced space technology in 1969, and surely could have detected the US hoax if that was what happened. He needs to explain why the Soviets never claimed the US moon landing was other than genuine.
Ask him if he has any reason to believe this other than being taken in by a shoddy Fox TV Pseudo-Documentary. He’s either seen that and been persuaded by mere sensationalist bullshit, or there’s the other possibility… that he spends a lot of time reading and believing conspiracy kook websites, in which case… RUN AWAY!
Seriously - if he’s a web conspiracy nut, you’ve no hope of convincing him, but maybe he’s just uncritically accepted that dreadful TV feature.
Here’s the link to SDMB Staff Report on the moon hoax issue. If you can bring back any specific points of debate from your would-be fiancé, we can talk more about that.
OK… factual answer or cite having been given, here’s the snarky comment that I can’t resist making -
He’s a moon hoaxer, and “brilliant”? Most likely the brilliance is due to his head being harder than diamond. Unfortunately, this diamond has a flaw. A truly brilliant person would surmise that there might be a reason a reason why the “moon hoax” is a highly contrarian opinion, and might suppose that he ought to research it further. If he’s convinced that he’s right on this, needing no proof, what else does he think he’s unquestionably right about?
Or maybe this is a lover’s test to determine your intellectual mettle, in which case you must not disappoint. Send him to Cecil’s column and report back to us on the results.
Does he just think that all the moon landings so far have been a hoax? Or does he actually think that a moon landing is impossible? If so, perhaps that’s one way you could meet the challenge. Get him to outline why he thinks it would be impossible, then rebut his arguments.
Well…I don’t personally know anyone who has ever been to the moon. So I can totaly get someone not believing a story given to us by a governemnt with questionable morals at the height of The Cold War. But…
I like the moon. Coz it is close to us.
I like the moon. But not as much as a spoon coz that’s more use for eating soup.
first off, THANK YOU for that link. it is most informative…
now for the soviets: one of his arguments is that IF we had the capability to do so and IF we actually did it, why didn’t the soviets go as well? why was the space race abandoned after the americans allegedly landed? my argument? it’s not much of a race if it’s already been won.
i’m picking the site apart as we speak. THANKS! let’s hope i don’t buckle under pressure!
It will come down to some bullshit argument about angles of shadows and odd things that should be in the photographs, but apparently aren’t (or shouldn’t be, but apparently are), mark my words.
There’s a woman at my work like that. )(The difference is, I really don’t respect her about anything).
Anyway, her reasoning is “I just don’t think that the moon is anythink you can land on”
“Why”
“I just don’t beleive it.”
Then she proceeded to tell me about a movie she saw from 1950 where they had a microwave. So if they had a microwave in 1950 then the U.S. Government has technology we don’t know about and that’s how they faked the landings.
Exactly. Plus the Soviets realized early on there was no good scientific reason to send humans to the moon. Robotic probes work as well, are cheaper, and it isn’t that big on an embarassment if a robot probe is destroyed. The US did the moon landing solely for PR reasons. Once the Soviets realized there was no way they could beat the US in putting a man on the moon, they focused on more practical ways to spend money on space.
Just because it’s possible, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. The Soviet space program had a lot of political problems, internal struggles for power, etc. that hindered their effort. And if the Soviets knew it was impossible, why didn’t they expose the American victory as a fraud?
Anyway, if the guy claims it’s scientifically impossible, just ask him to prove it.
How could the Soviets expose the American victory as a fraud if they couldn’t go to the moon themselves? About the only thing the Soviets could have done would have been to make a claim that would top the moon landing but couldn’t be disproven by the Americans. The only possible thing would have been to claim a Mars landing, but not even an isolated peasantry would be fool enough to believe that in the 60’s. I think. People constantly surprise me.
The same way this conspiracy theorist did, obviously. Go ask him.
I mean, that was the point of my post. He needs to explain why he knows it’s a fraud, while the Soviet government did not know. Or why they knew but chose not to reveal it.
The Soviets would have been more interested in convincing the rest of the planet that the US lunar program was a complete sham than Americans. As for proving it was a hoax, it wouldn’t have taken that long for the Soviets to have constructed robotic probes that could land where the US claimed astronauts had been, and find no footprints, etc. As for credibility, the Russians could have invited respected European scientists to mission control to verify their robotic lunar probe was the real deal.
The Soviets, even if immediately couldn’t prove it was a hoax, would certainly have detected this to their own satisfaction quickly. They could easily have monitored radio comms between the lander and mission control. And noticed if things weren’t right. Besides, how the heck could the US fake an entire space program and this not be noticed by all the spies Russia obviously had within the space program? No way could the US try such a thing without some folks spilling the beans.
My parents, alas are Those Guys, too. Their answer to your question is that they didn’t expose the US’ lie, because that would make their own lies about plausable moon landings/space travel more transparent - they planned on lying to the public about putting a man on the moon too, so there was little to gain by saying it couldn’t be done. I’ve never asked them if they think the space program *in general * is a hoax, because I don’t think I really want to know…they think it’s “cute” that people their children’s ages think that the moon landing was real. :rolleyes:
