and made practical in the mid-50’s. The space program commercialized it and improved the manufacturability of it, but certainly didn’t invent it any more than they invented Tang. Helps sell the product though.
As to the OP, I give up. Like evolution or global warming, doubts about the moon landing are political not factual. Science is not a democratic method, and if a few or many people choose to ignore reality that doesn’t change the truth.
Let em go. they will slide off the edge of the earth someday and no longer be a problem.
I’m always impressed by the irony of the moon landing hoax theories. The Apollo Program, and NASA more generally, are close to the only instances in which the Federal Government is entirely honest and straightforward. We not only know exactly what NASA does, but exactly how much money they spend and where and how they spend it. The same can’t be said for countless other departments, where concealing actions and budgets through secrecy or hiding behind massively complicated documentation are the norm. Worry about the U. S. military inventing Saddam’s chemical weapons, or about budget projections based on bogus assumptions about future tax revenues, or about incorrect counting of deaths caused by obesity.
But if you truly need an astronomy-related conspiracy fix, you can always start believing the theory that the moon is a hoax.
I’m amazed that people doubt the Moon landings: we have plenty of visible proof, lots of artifacts, plus the Moon rocks. Could anything be clearer? Yet, we have thousands of people who belive that the earth is visited by aliens in flying saucers-with no proof whatsoever? Take the whole "Area 51’ nonsense: yes, it is a secret base. but i have yet to see anything that proves that area 51 harbors alien corpses.
I believe that we landed on the moon, but lets look at this from a skeptical perspective. What do the supposed moon rocks prove? They’re fucking rocks. They could have come from anywhere.
As for Area 51, I suppose the UFO speculation is fueled by the fact that there were, in fact, Unidentified Flying Objects seen around the base until recently. They were probably prototypes for spy planes, but they were most definitely unidentified as far as the public knew
No, they couldn’t. They are very distinct from Earth rocks, having been formed on a body with a very different composition, under very different conditions than found on Earth, and exposed to a vacuum for billions of years. Moondust is also quite strikingly unlike anything on Earth.
None of this is obvious to the lay observer, I’ll grant you, but they have been examined by geologists from around the world—who could all be lying about them, I suppose.
But they are Yet Another Reason why no one with a lick of scientific training (that sunk in, anyway) doubts that the lunar landings took place.
Not alot of **people ** can say that they were President of the United States.
So what exactly did Bill see on the ‘plasma screen in the Sitution Room’ of the White House that made him re-think what that old conspiracy nutter said?
What Clinton wrote has been misunderstood in this thread. The quote, from his autobi9ography:
Clinton is not giving a personal opinion about man on the moon; he was voicing the age-old complaint of politicians that he was always being misrepresented in the media.
By the same token, you would expect that during his 8 years in office as President, he would have seen things that would have convinced him that a moon landing was both possible and factual.
No, but the President of the United States, having seen exactly how sophisticated the information-manipulation machinery is, can understand exactly how far the wool is pulled over People’s eyes every day on really important things, so he can say “Y’know those guys who say there’s conspiracies afoot? Well, I can’t blame 'em.”
I have no doubt about that. But how much did we really learn by getting these rocks? That’s an awfully long way to go to get some rocks, and a lot of money too.
Oh, sure. Both my parents, for instance. I’ve met other people, too.
It amuses me that Baby Boomers who saw the moon landing don’t believe it really happened, while many of us a generation younger believe it happened but that NASA is a waste of money.
In a poll taken by Gallup in July 1999, the overwhelming majority of Americans (89%) do not believe the U.S. government staged or faked the Apollo moon landing. Only 6% of the public believes the landing was faked and another 5% have no opinion.
