(hijack)
Arnold, I’m getting ready to retire my present sig. May I use this as a sig, preceded by yahow’s impressive debut here at the SDMB? Must I get permission from yahow to use his pearls of wisdom? Even if yahow comes back, manages to sound out this message, and refuses me permission (again in his “vigorous” fashion), must I honor his refusal?
(byejack)
Sir Rhosis
Feel free to use my words Sir Rhosis. My dream is of a day where every SDMB poster will have a quote of mine in their sig. I have no doubt but that our friend dahow could not help but feel similarly honoured.
On the off chance that you aren’t just trolling, I’d like to point out that I asked a question in response to your first post (“What technological advances would be necessary to reach the moon that were lacking?”) that you never answered. Then you changed the subject and asked a bunch of questions unrelated to your original assertion about the technology lacking.
This is a pattern I’ve noticed often employed by the intellectually dishonest here. For example, the linked thread. You make one unsupportable assertion, ignore all evidence that you can’t argue with, attack weak evidence, and introduce new questions constantly.
Your premise is that going to the moon is not possible. You have not shown that to be true. You have not even tried to defend it, or even provide any more evidence that it is true than calling people who disagree with you idiots. Then you complain that we are being rude.
Well, maybe some people here are tired of being jerked around with the same tactics. Personally, I’ll wait to see if you post again before I can determine whether or not you are a troll. If you ignore any substantive arguments made so far and change the subject once more, it will pretty much prove you to be here just to try to piss us off.
Technologically impossible, fiddlesticks.
You launch a rocket to the moon. Attached to the rocket is a thread, tied to the thread is a string, tied to the string is a rope. Once the rocket is on the moon, it reels in the thread, then the string, so you have a good solid rope from the earth to the moon. Then people can just climb up the rope, hand over hand.
Nothin’ to it.
No, no, no! The rope is to get off the moon! To get on, one must sail there. That’s how Baron Munchhausen did it. 
Do Moon Hoax cretins believe we go into space, at least? I mean…that’s not hard to believe, is it?
Excuse me for forgetting the mission, but didn’t we botch a lunar landing mission? I guess we went throught the cost and aggravation of sending up a lunar mission and then faked the near crippling of a crew in space just to make it all more believable.
I almost understand where the hoaxers are coming from. It is hard to comprehend. It’s just hard to imagine. Actually getting into space was more incredible. The moon was just a ride dwon the road, and not a long one at that. Not much to worry about once you got there. Some concerns, but not huge…throw living people into the mix and it only gets a tad more complex.
We send probes all over the solar system, which dwarf the length of the moon visit…sometimes we do things that far exceed the complexity of the mission. Actually, the complexity wasn’t the issue ( relative to other scientific endeavors)…the issue was risk. Putting human beings in a situation where there isn’t much you can do for them was the issue.
If you are going to be fascinated by the concept of a moon landing by humans, remember that all the hype was based on the human factor of men being so far away depending on so much new technology.
Every greart endeavor has to happen at just the right time. We went to the moon at the righ time - when we didn’t make things to complicated, when software was primitive, when computers were primitive, but adequate. It actually made the job easier. It was a simple fundamental approach and it worked. Accomplishments throughout history happen long before anybody is mentally ready for them, that’s what’s makes them great.
If we went now, we’d need 7 computers for redundancy because of the fear of the first 6 crashing.
I’m not someone who wants to believe that there wasn’t a moon landing. Such a thing would give me much less respect for this country than I already have, which is getting closer and closer to none every day. However, I am a professional photographer, and also have my BS Ed in Earth and Space Sciences, and after seeing a recent tv special on this subject (I know this doesn’t qualify me as any expert, but who really is?), I have to voice my opinions that the case is very strong that the moon landing is a hoax.
Your report mentioned another’s argument on shadows. After viewing several photos used as evidence on this point, your explaination just doesn’t fit with regards to a wide angle lens or an imperfect landscape that would slightly shift the angles of the shadows. Specifically, the varying angles in the shadows do not line up within a “grid” of a digitized replication of a wide-angle lens. In fact, some of the rocks on the ground have a main shadow, and a lighter shadow angling off in a different direction, indicating the presence of multiple light sources.
More important is the issue of backlighting. There were two light sources on the moon: the sun, and the MUCH less luminous radiation from the earth. All photos taken with the sun in the background should sillouette all objects in front of it (in other words, anything that’s being photographed!). Even given that the earth would be located directly behind the photographer, there would still not be enough front lighting to produce the balanced photos that we all see and assume are lunar photos. Anyone who’s taken a romantic picture in front of a sunset knows what the results are going to be without sufficient fill-in lighting. The cameras used on the moonwalks did not have flashbulbs!
Also, all of the photos taken on all of the moon landings were automatically imprinted (directly on the film!) with crosshairs throughout the photos. In all too many of the photos, it is OBVIOUS the pictures have been tampered because there are objects that appear in front of the crosshairs! Granted, computer graphics programs like photoshop didn’t exist at the time, but there have always been equivalent procedures done in the darkroom, but using a Photoshop example may be easier for readers to relate to. Imagine taking a photograph of say, a flower arrangement, and the photo has a bunch of crosshairs (little plus signs) arranged on the photo. If you were to cut and paste a few more flowers onto the original, you’re ultimately going to paste those new flowers overtop of the crosshairs, either in part or in its entirety. What you wind up with when you print it out is a photo with newer flowers, but with some of the crosshairs missing, or with parts of the new flowers overlapping parts of the crosshairs. This is an apparent and extremely vital clue in the moon landing hoax arguments.
The final argument is an issue with the technology. The Van Allen Belts are an area of extremely intense radiation blasting out into space directly from the sun. The earth’s magnetic field protects us from this for the most part, but to get through this in space would require a 9 inch wall of plated lead. The technology used in the Apollo missions were a few layers of foil-thin aluminum and fiberglass. Any astronauts passing through the Van Allen Belts would have died of radiation poisoning. If the technology existed to pass through those belts, why does the government insist we do not have the technology available to send men into Chernobyl or 3 Mile Island to put out the remaining fires? If it were true, doing that wouldn’t have been a problem at all.
Why have we not returned? Because we’d “beaten” the Russians in the race to the moon, and we left them dumbfounded on how we did it. Once there was no longer a race or anything to prove, we can just chalk it up as a great achievement of the USA. Meanwhile, most of the former soviet union no longer believes we ever made it there anymore, because they are now aware that it would have been physically impossible for any astronauts to survive in the craft the Apollo astronauts supposedly traveled in.
To try and say we haven’t returned because “it’s popularity wore out” is ridiculous! If that were the case, space shuttle missions would have been abandoned 14 years ago and we wouldn’t have satellite tv, cellphones, semi-accurate weather forcasting, global intelligence…
Quit believing what you’re told and question EVERYTHING that doesn’t seem right.
Ok, Rocinante01, I haven’t posted on this subject yet, so I’ll give it a go. You haven’t read through the above referenced threads, have you? To start off, you said “Quit believing what you’re told and question EVERYTHING that doesn’t seem right.” I question everything that I see on Fox - don’t forget, they’re the network who gave us the alien autopsy!
But specific answers to your specific questions:
I’m not sure what you mean here - there are several Moon Hoax web sites. Find a picture that shows this and post a reference to it. The pictures that I have seen as supposedly having strange shadows look perfectly normal to me given that the local ground around the rocks is sloping, and the perspective effect.
No, you’ve overlooked the second-biggest light source - the light from the lunar surface itself. It was plenty bright enough to illuminate a brightly-dressed astronaut in the sun’s shadow.
You haven’t read the referenced links, where this is discussed in detail. The bright image diffused around the crosshairs, in the film itself. Bright objects on film tend to bleed, unlike with PhotoShop.
Says who? There are more particles up there, and I wouldn’t want to spend months or years in the Van Allen Belt, but the astronauts travelled through them in about an hour. It’s like getting an x-ray - there’s a very small risk from the extra radiation, but you’re willing to live with it. And the astronauts were facing much larger immediate risks than getting cancer when they were older.
In short: you were being manipulated - think for yourself - question everything.
Actually, Philster, we need 7 computers because of the fear of 3 crashing. The worst-case scenario is that a number of computers will all report the same wrong answer. If you have seven computers, then you can “outvote” as many as three wrong ones.
Of course, we could send someone to the Moon now with a single, simple computer (as was done with the Apollo missions), but we’d have a much harder time justifying the risk, now that we have the capability to do it much safer. Computers are cheap now (in both money and mass); we may as well send a bunch of them.
Yes, but modern computers are considerably more vulnerable to stray radiation. (Of course, they’re also less vulnerable to vacuum welding.)
I guess my main unanswered question (other than the one about how the moon was down to a crescent shape) is: WHY in the world (or on the moon) would the government perpetrate such a hoax? What could be the possible rationale? Was this to discourage the Russians from a moon-shot on the grounds that we made it there first? Seems a very risky proposition – imagine if the Russians HAD got to the moon and exposed that the U.S. landing was a hoax?
Also, let’s not pretend that “the government” is a single individual entity or mind. The moon landing happened under a Republican administration; do you not think that the very next Democratic administration would have gleefully blown the cover? How many hundreds of people would have had to know (and keep) this secret?
The sheer enormity of it boggles the imagination.
Next week: World War II never really happened, it was all staged by Hollywood to ensure Roosevelt’s reelection.
Hey! I was trying to make a point about making things too complex. We always overestimate our current knowledge and processes. Like, we don’t exactly know how a plane stays aloft, and we’ve put flight to sophisticated examination and can’t explain it conclusively. But that does not mean the Wright Brothers didn’t build airplanes and go aloft.
Moon Hoaxers use these types of arguements.
(Actually, Chronos, you make a good nit picking point. Hope you see mine)
I offered in the beginning of my last statement that that show I saw on Fox hardly qualifies me as any expert on the subject, and yes, I DO take into account this is the same network that gave us “alien autopsy”.
The issues I brought up regarding the light source, you answered to me that the moon itself is a light source. While this is true, it would not be responsible for the multiple shadows cast on the lunar rocks, and the perspective of the shadows on the astronauts would be cast upward onto themselves.
As for the direction of shadows cast and multiple shadows, maybe I didn’t explain clearly enough. If a wide-angle lens were being used, the tendency for the shadows along the outside would be to skew them from the direction they are originally to some point toward the center of the lens, and this is not happening. Rocks on the left corner of some photos might go off to the northeast while a rock in the middle of the photo along the left edge is in the same direction, northeast. If a wide angle lens were being used, the left center shadow would have been skewed slightly toward the center, which might make an argument for certain conspiracy holders, but this is, like you said, easily explained. But to see a rock with a shadow cast at 3:00 with a fainter shadow cast at 1:00 can ONLY indicate a second light source, and the moon isn’t about to cast a shadow on a rock when the light it is illuminating at an angleexacly 90 degrees from its surface (which means UPWARD). It’s even more apparent that there are multiple light sources when you see shadows cast in different directions and in multiple angles in the same photo.
As for the Van Allen Belts, it is NOT like getting any XRay you’ve ever had. It’s the equivalent radiation or more than a nuclear bomb. I don’t need the Fox network to tell me that one. If you know anything about them, you know it’s not a slight blast you get at the dentists’ office.
I will be the first to tell you a great deal of the controversy is explainable. I’ve checked out a lot of moon hoax websites and frankly, I feel most of them are “reaching” at best. However, I’ll stick to what I know: photography and E&S sciences. Anything can be doctored, even the evidence the hoax claimers are making themselves, so you’ll never truly know what to believe. But, if the photos I saw are the real thing, there is definately something worth questioning.
I haven’t seen the pictures you’re talking about showing rocks with multiple shadows. Could you find some and post links? The famous “Man on the Moon” photo take of Buzz Aldrin has an extra shadow, where his chest makes a shadow onto his right upper arm. It’s pretty easy to figure out what this is, since the lit-up part is a gold color - it’s light reflected off the golden foil around the Lunar Module (lander).
About the funny angles of the shadows, the page http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/shadows.html does a good job of showing how the uneven ground can cause shadows to be at oddball angles.
About the radiation - can you post some numbers or some reference sites? I’ve read through reports describing how the radiation was fairly high, but not a problem for an hour or two. Do you have data to show that it was more dangerous?
Rocinante01
While you’re at it (getting the info CurtC was talking about), could you tell me where we can find samples of photos that really are taken with just one light source? Is that possible, constructively?
I mean, that’s a big hoaxer point. Everything that is reflective (everything not painted flat black) is a light source.
There were men, machine, moon and Sun as sources of light. The men, machines and moon were not flat. The moon, she is very bright.
In this reference, Stern indicates that the radiation dosage received behind shielding of 1 g/cm of aluminum would be about 2500 rem/yr. IIRC, the LD[sub]50[/sub] for radiation is about 250 rem (it appears to matter very little whether that radiation is gotten in one dose or via a continual low-level exposure throughout a person’s life, although there is suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence that the linear non-threshhold hypothesis is wrong).
What is interesting to me…is that there are people out there that believe it was a hoax.
Now they (in their minds) believe they have shown some inconsistencies…and to tell you the truth it made me think…
Now I have read about the explaination about the shadow…(what about 3d objects giving off shadows , etc.) and that seems to explain their question about the shadows…
But what about the others…and please be mature when answering this…any comments such as (You are such a idiot or loser or <put your description here>) is an insult to a healthy debate.
Such as the flag moving if no air…
No crater under the modules…
Who took the pictureof the module taking off from the moon…
Why no stars in any background…
The dexterity that is available with the astronauts gloves…
Why did the Russians never attempt the moon…their reason was because of radiation…so that brings me to the biggie
And the biggie…insulation coverage of the astronauts and their craft…what about passing the van allen belt and how this tiny insulation was able to protect them…if it works so well why not use it for nuclear meltdowns…
These are a few that i must admit never crossed my mind until they were brought up …let the explanations begin…I look forward to it…
Oh and for you chronos…the radiation i am refering to is that when the astronauts have passed the van allen belt, not what they encounter passing thru…
And the crater…and this is in my opinion…does not show at all under any landing module…maybe to you but not to me or many others and if you have seen it please refer to the photo so I can look at it also.
And this is just a question I have…if our technology was so great back then…why is it going to take about 50 years after the fact to finally get the Mars Landing done…dont tell me money is the only reason…because their are also technological issues too…I am just curious…
By the way I am a card carrying believer of the moon landing but would like these questions answered to my satisfaction…
Heh since I can’t edit my own reply (Why?)
Need to add one more thing
About the flag waving…does not seem like a wire to me…the flag is moving in the film (THAT one i must say has always bothered me)…so how is that…flexible wire?..please don’t tell me it is a wire…why would you need one?..For space? You would not need it to keep it up …and if it is a wire is it just in the top seam of the flag or also the bottom ?..please enlighten me…
When this issue was brought up a few months back (it seems to come up every couple months), there was a site to link to that would answer most of these little quibbles. I’m too lazy to find it. If Lonewoulf wants the answers “to his satisfaction” then go searching. From memory I can answer one and will speculate on another.
IIRC, the footage of the module taken off was shot by a camera placed on the moon and panned upward by the use of a nifty thingie called remote control.
I like the way you set up the Mars question and then say “don’t tell me it is money” only. Well, By God, young man, don’t tell me what to tell you if I (or others) are trying to educate you. I’m sure it is mostly money, lack of enthusiasm from the general public and this little fact. It takes about three days or so to get to the moon. How long does it take to get to Mars? A few months? Something like that. Just imagine how much room would be taken up by food supplies alone for a three or four man crew. Look, I’ll jump in any old jalopy with a pop and candy bar and drive one hundred miles. I’m going to put a lot more money (there’s that damned money again, questing one), effort and thought into going three thousand.
Others more knowledgeable than I surely will come in and offer you hundreds of facts to refute your objections. Still I doubt these spot-on, irrefutable facts will answer anything to your “satisfaction.” We went to the moon. Period. End of sentence. Whether you are satisfied or not.
Sir