# The Apollo Moon Missions Were Faked in a Studio **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 25, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949 "2013-03-25T21:15:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [March 26, 2013, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/101 "2013-03-26T14:01:30Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Just for serious, for a moment: if we include the missions that went around the moon without landing, there were 9 Apollo missions to the moon (Apollos 8 and 10-17). Even after discounting the astronauts who were on two moon missions, there were still about two dozen astronauts who’ve allegedly seen the far side of the moon. That’s an awfully large group of people for keeping a secret like that. Well, plus the tens of thousands of scientists and engineers who developed the Apollo/Saturn system and supported the missions including the emergency recovery of Apollo XIII. To have created a convincing fake sufficient to fool all of these technical people would have required a sizable group of people with similar knowledge…which begs the question of not only where all of these people are now and how is it that not one of them has presented evidence or a deathbed confession, but what would be the impetus for this supposed fraud to begin with? To be caught in such an elaborate lie would have been far more embarrassing for the US than to have simply failed, and if the evidence is so poorly constructed that a handful of nutters on the Internet can suss it out, how is it that trained Soviet analysts were not able to demonstrate the same? Or are the Soviets actually in on it, and this is all some kind of elaborate hoax by the secret world government, run by the Bilderberger group and financed through the sale of pet rocks? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/102 "2013-03-26T14:04:44Z")
> [@Levolor\_the\_Blind](#): > > Video of the conspirators, who have British accents so you know they are evil: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw) > > (The British faked the moon landing to cover up that an eccentric inventor and his dog did it first.) Dammit. I was reading through the whole thread just to make sure this hadn’t been posted yet before doing it myself. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/103 "2013-03-26T14:07:38Z")
I never considered the impact of Pet Rocks on the world-wide Illum\fnord\> ---
**Author:** ![Sid\_Snot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@Sid\_Snot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sid_Snot)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/104 "2013-03-26T15:03:07Z")
> [@Cosmored](#): > > The evidence that the Apollo moon missions were faked in a studio is… …total bollocks and part of my 5 year spam-the-internet-fest. Unbelievably, this tirade of lunacy has been totally debunked by somebody who could actually be bothered to wade through it point by point: [http://debunking-a-moron.blogspot.co.uk/](http://debunking-a-moron.blogspot.co.uk/) The spamlist part 1: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn41RM-x4wA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn41RM-x4wA) Part2: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYLwKqPn-YU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYLwKqPn-YU) His behaviour is quite disturbing, with his spamming antics, he reports back to that basketball forum, where he logs his spam and calls every ban he gets - censorship! [http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201736&page=15&p=6437170&viewfull=1#post6437170](http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201736&page=15&p=6437170&viewfull=1#post6437170) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/105 "2013-03-26T15:19:09Z")
It sure seems like actually going to the moon would be way, way easier than manufacturing and maintaining such a massive and all-encompassing conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/106 "2013-03-26T15:20:50Z")
You know who else has a whole page of links about the moon landing hoax? [Phil Plait](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html) I particularly recommend his [dissection of the Fox TV moon hoax show](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html). ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/107 "2013-03-26T15:31:21Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Serious question: what **is** the standard explanation for the flag being crumpled/waving? Just momentum? I’d like to know so I know what to say if I ever have the displeasure of encountering one of these people in the wild. Since I’m quoting _Bad Astronomy_, I’ll post their answer to this one but recommend the rest of the website: > [@](#): > > Bad: When the astronauts are assembling the American flag, the flag waves. Kaysing says this must have been from an errant breeze on the set. A flag wouldn’t wave in a vacuum. > > Good: Of course a flag can wave in a vacuum. In the shot of the astronaut and the flag, the astronaut is rotating the pole on which the flag is mounted, trying to get it to stay up. The flag is mounted on one side on the pole, and along the top by another pole that sticks out to the side. In a vacuum or not, when you whip around the vertical pole, the flag will ``wave’', since it is attached at the top. The top will move first, then the cloth will follow along in a wave that moves down. This isn’t air that is moving the flag, it’s the cloth itself. > > New stuff added March 1, 2001: Many HBs show a picture of an astronaut standing to one side of the flag, which still has a ripple in it (for example, see this famous image). The astronaut is not touching the flag, so how can it wave? > > The answer is, it isn’t waving. It looks like that because of the way the flag was deployed. The flag hangs from a horizontal rod which telescopes out from the vertical one. In Apollo 11, they couldn’t get the rod to extend completely, so the flag didn’t get stretched fully. It has a ripple in it, like a curtain that is not fully closed. In later flights, the astronauts didn’t fully deploy it on purpose because they liked the way it looked. In other words, the flag looks like it is waving because the astronauts wanted it to look that way. Ironically, they did their job too well. It appears to have fooled a lot of people into thinking it waved. > > This explanation comes from NASA’s wonderful spaceflight web page. For those of you who are conspiracy minded, of course, this doesn’t help because it comes from a NASA site. But it does explain why the flag looks as it does, and you will be hard pressed to find a video of the flag waving. And if it was a mistake caused by a breeze on the set where they faked this whole thing, don’t you think the director would have tried for a second take? With all the money going to the hoax, they could afford the film! > > Note added March 28, 2001: One more thing. Several readers have pointed out that if the flag is blowing in a breeze, why don’t we see dust blowing around too? Somehow, the HBs’ argument gets weaker the more you think about it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/108 "2013-03-26T15:55:21Z")
> [@Cosmored](#): > > Instead of all this empty rhetoric, let’s hear some actual analyses of the anomalies. Why? They are only anomalies to idiots like you. ---
**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:** [March 26, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/109 "2013-03-26T16:05:21Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Why? They are only anomalies to idiots like you. Unfortunately they are not so anomalous. Conspiracy nutters comprise a respectable portion of the population spectrum. A couple of years ago I had an exchange with one nutter who implied that the Chinese manned flight had been faked, based upon a [YouTube.com](http://YouTube.com) video narrated by Hugo the Abominable Snowman. I made the effort to go through every point made and illustrate why the arguments were not valid. The nutter countered by denying basic physical principles, shifting his goalposts of what comprised evidence of fakery, and ultimately insisting that regardless of whether it could be real, the Chinese were inverterate hoaxers who would have faked it anyway. It was like having an argument with a three year old. Anyone who insists that there must be a conspiracy will look for and stand on any apparent anomaly or discontinuity regardless of how absurd the entire scenario would be. Or, as I’ve often said, it was so hard to fake the landings convincingly that they actually had to go to the Moon to carry off the hoax. _That’s how clever they are!_ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/110 "2013-03-26T16:07:02Z")
Isn’t there a website devoted specifically to debunking this nonsense? [http://www.clavius.org/](http://www.clavius.org/) And, I see from the OP that our new best friend as already inoculated himself against those facts. Hmmmm… What is the usual policy in these situations? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/111 "2013-03-26T16:07:09Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Seriously, why do you give a fuck? The Google bump effect mentioned in post 56 is a really good reason to care, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/112 "2013-03-26T16:18:08Z")
The OP is _almost_ right. It’s not the Apollo moon missions that were faked – evidence for them is undeniable – but it turns out the Apollo moon mission _hoax_ itself was faked on someone’s blog. It’s not a _real_ hoax at all, it just _looks_ like one! Incredible! ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/113 "2013-03-26T16:26:18Z")
What I love about screeds like these is the rationalization of why the Soviets didn’t burst NASA’s bubble: “At the highest levels, there is a coalition between governments.” At the highest levels in 1969, there is nothing either government would have liked better than to have wiped the other from the international stage. Good Lord! ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/114 "2013-03-26T16:35:03Z")
It’s been mentioned before, but worse yet, you don’t have to be in the coalition of governments to own a telescope. Or radio gear. Or other equipment to track the missions. NASA gave this information out so anybody could track the progress of the Apollo missions. IIRC, it was not uncommon for elementary school kids to track the progress of missions. It’s beyond Illuminati level manipulation of data and equipment to fake all that. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/115 "2013-03-26T16:41:39Z")
Yeah, he just handwaves a conspiracy between mortal enemies out of thin air. ---
**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:** [March 26, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/116 "2013-03-26T16:41:51Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > What is the usual policy in these situations? “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” – Lazarus Long Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/117 "2013-03-26T16:47:38Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > What is the usual policy in these situations? If reason fails, usual procedure is to PALATR. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/118 "2013-03-26T16:54:00Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > What I love about screeds like these is the rationalization of why the Soviets didn’t burst NASA’s bubble: “At the highest levels, there is a coalition between governments.” At the highest levels in 1969, there is nothing either government would have liked better than to have wiped the other from the international stage. Good Lord! That’s what they _wanted_ you to think! Wow, that would be an even bigger conspiracy than a mere moon landing! ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/119 "2013-03-26T16:54:37Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > It’s been mentioned before, but worse yet, you don’t have to be in the coalition of governments to own a telescope. Or radio gear. Or a [radio telescope](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkes_Observatory#Apollo_11_broadcast). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949/120 "2013-03-26T16:55:01Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > The moon landings must have been faked. You know why? Because [there is no moon!](http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/) That’s right. The moon doesn’t even exist. You can’t land on something that isn’t there. The big conspiracy is that the government wants us to believe in the moon. So there. 😛 Not true. There used to be a moon, but it was blown out of orbit when the lunar nuclear waste dumps exploded on September 13, 1999. I saw a documentary about it once. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apollo-moon-missions-were-faked-in-a-studio/653949.md?page=7)