Donnie B.: Wow, your first post and it’s in my moon hoax thread? I’m honored! And welcome to the SDMB, too!
Well, it sounds plausible to me, but what do I know? In my travels among the debunking sites, I’ve never heard of any such “temporary atmosphere” effect. But I’m past the point of making any claims of even relative likelihood…
No shit. Do you really think it’s necessary to point out such obvious truths? The thing here is, I seem to be alone in thinking it is “within reason” that the moon landings could have been faked in part or in whole.
Blah, blah, blah. Thanks for your input! Have a nice day!
Yeah, every point I’ve made can be chalked up to a misunderstanding of photography. The dust cloud, the poor reporting at space.com? More evidence of my lack of photographic understanding. That’s why nobody else can really explain them either. Mea maxima culpa.
Are you actually blind, jab1? I’ve said only that I haven’t ruled out the possibility. If that makes me worthy of ridicule in your eyes, well, just please leave me alone. I have no interest in your charming brand of pseudointellect.
By running pre-recorded footage, obviously. Come on, at least try to think “outside the box.”
Ah, more unsubstantiated blather. Might I ask how you calculated the relative difficulty of these tasks, jab1?
Skogcat: Wow, a well-thought-out, thorough, and specific response to one of my questions! Are you sure you belong at the SDMB?
My only points of contention are that, as DaveW pointed out earlier, there was some “steering” involved during the LEM ascent, so we can’t be entirely sure that all the movements we see are due to the camera.
And although you touched on every other movement quite effectively, you seem to have left out the final lateral movement of the LEM after the 45-degrees-to-straight-up shift. What’s your theory for that part?
Well, except for the “lucky” or “by chance” ones, let’s not forget…
Well, unless he was deliberately trying to act as though he wasn’t there, of course. But that’s a way-conspiratorial explanation. I’d say you’ve done a pretty thorough job of explaining away the “magic,” as DaveW prefers I put it.
It may be a light effect, and yeah, the quality of the digital film is rather poor. I don’t suppose anybody out there knows of a specific video available for rent that might contain a clearer version of this footage?
DaveW: I’m tired of this anomaly/magic game. If I were to say “this looks like magic,” I’d be laughed out of town. You know it; I know it. I can see it now: “You believe in magic but not in the moon landings!?!?!?”
Read what you write. You pointed out to me that the space.com photo closeup references “photmetric [sic] anomalies related to small fresh craters.” Are you telling me these researchers didn’t expect craters to be on the moon? I mean, seriously, DaveW, with all the things I’ve brought up, do we really have to waste so much time on your minor quibbles with my perfectly acceptable use of the word “anomaly”?
I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Even one “dog running around” would be enough to prove a given piece of evidence false, no matter how many other pieces of evidence point to a contrary conclusion.
You know what I was getting at—there’s no rule that say individual pieces of evidence can only be considered in the context of other pieces of evidence. Since you don’t like my Bible and laws-of-physics explanations, how about we use a “Ten Angry Men”-type scenario. Say we found a plausible motive for a given suspect to have committed a murder. Say we found strands of his hair at the crime scene. Say we had a videotape of him entering and leaving the crime scene at the time the murder was committed. And say we found his fingerprints on a knife covered in the victim’s. Only one hitch: the length, width, and serrated edge of the blade do not match up with the wounds suffered by the murder victim. Do you just throw up your hands and say, “well, all the other evidence points to his guilt, so fuck it, let’s fry the guy”? God, I hope not.
Okay, technically you said it was unwise to examine a single piece of footage without looking at anything else, which I mutated into everything else. Still, I think my point stands that individual pieces of evidence can (and probably should) be evaluated in and of themselves. If the moon landings actually happened, I see no reason for you to object to this.
A pit lit from the east will look identical to a mount lit from the west? And a pit lit from the west will look identical to a mount lit from the east? But if we took a picture of a pit being lit from the east and rotated it 180 degrees, would it or would it not look like a pit being lit from the west?
They still look more like real craters in with the colors reversed, but you make a compelling case. I note, however, that you seem to have accepted the original space.com image as a “positive,” no?
I just don’t see how you can’t think the craters look more realistic when the colors are reversed. But my comments in the paragraphs above deal with those issues, so I won’t rehash it all again here…
What other resource could tell me whether the space.com photo taken by Clementine was in the UV range or the visible range?
The patronizing “read what I write” struck me as a bit grumpy.
Understood.
Can you explain to me why?
That’s understandable too, but it doesn’t make me any more anxious to ignore them.
I know you mean well, DaveW, but I don’t have to prove to you or anyone else that I’m interested in “The Truth.” If it isn’t obvious by now, I doubt it ever will be…
No, I realize you’ve qualified your statements; it’s not really you that’s bothering me here. The problem is that even your extensively qualified statements are being perceived by certain members of the SDMB as “perfectly reasonable explanations” that should inspire me to pipe down and move on. Not that your explanations are entirely unreasonable, of course, but they are generally rather hypothetical, and not entirely satisfying (to me). Had you simply said “I don’t know,” the conversation would obviously have been a lot less interesting, but on the plus side it would have made clear to the “haters” out there that I’m not just spitting into the wind.
Gotcha. Well, I definitely value your input, no question about that. You’re one of the few actually offering any! And it’s not that I have any problem with your “arrangement,” as long as it’s to prove I value your opinion and not to prove I value “The Truth” (call it a point of pride). I certainly don’t want you to stop participating in this thread, but I don’t want your participation to be contingent on me not discussing the dust cloud and space.com. Admittedly, it would be quite difficult to get proof one way or the other about the dust cloud; you’re absolutely right about that. But hell, you already seem to have made a lot of progress on the space.com issue! I don’t know, frankly I’m a bit tired. But I’m not formally rejecting your offer, at least.
I just don’t see why motive needs to come into play here. Either the footage is real or it’s not; who gives a crap why it would have been faked? It strikes me as dodging the question.
Let’s put it this way: I think it’s much more likely that NASA faked the moon landings (in whole or in part) than that a mouse could survive on the surface of the sun for a week. Call me crazy…
CurtC: Thanks for the links, I’ll check them out as soon as I can (I’m slacking off at work, ya see). My confusion, by the way, if I did not make it clear earlier, was that The Bad Astronomer said something to the effect of “lunar dust reflects light back the way it came, unlike a piece of paper which reflects light in all directions.” I was trying to figure out what lunar dust and airline hulls had in common that lunar dust and paper do not. Metallic content, perhaps?
Your dust cloud explanation may be accurate, but the debunkers seem to hold that dust blown around by exhaust on the moon travels laterally just above the ground and does not “billow.” But who knows…
You can say that again!
I’m not ignoring it in reference to whether the missions happened as claimed; I’m ignoring it as a means for explaining away anomalies (or whatever you want to call them) in specific pieces of evidence.
Good explanation. Too bad it appears to run completely contrary to the “facts” presented by your fellow debunker, The Bad Astronomer. Who’s right?
We’re getting back to the “dog running around on the moon” argument here. Blatant impossibilities in alleged moon footage would prove the footage fake even in the absence of a witness who could testify that such forgery occured.
That’s the “big if,” isn’t it?
And this is pertinent to me how?
Well, I think I see what I think I see. If somebody has a compelling explanation, I’ll consider it and possibly even accept it. What more do you want?
With my dog-on-the-moon example, I believe I’ve already demonstrated the falsity of this claim. Since the rest of your argument hinges on that point, I’ll just stop here…