Did Man Land On The Moon?

[naomi24]

I watched a documentary last night offering some compelling evidence that he did not. However, it occurred to me that the Americans claimed not one manned mission to the moon, but six, so if the first was a hoax they got away with, why would they bother to manufacture five additional hoaxes? Seems to me they’d have been pushing their luck!

(‘Did we land on the moon’ - repeated today – channel 5 – 12.15pm).

[jim360]

I believe the flag was made of a thin sheet of metal, and the astronaut had to drive it in pretty fiercely.

Read more at the usual excellent resource that is wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories

Includes a relatively full list of the claims against the landings and their counters. More detailed sources are available by following the links below that page, in particular perhaps:

http://www.clavius.org/index.html

[jno]

the original conspiracy theory was Watergate, in which it was alleged that the White House, all the way up to the president, was involved in burgling a hotel.

Preposterous, but unfortunately true. This has given a great boost to subsequent conspiracy theories, especially those allegedly involving the duplicity of American government and institutions.

[maggiebee]

Ever since I saw James Bond (Sean Connery) play golf on the moon I've had my doubts. Great conversation piece though

[ichkeria]

Thanks Jim

[ichkeria]

Another "conspiracy" theory of course is that the now President Putin masterminded a couple of FSB-perpetrated bombs killing hundreds, to garner support for the second Chechen war.
Someone wrote a book about it and died of polonium poisoning ...

[jim360]

Incidentally if you read that it seems to make clear that the flag was not "made of a thin sheet of metal", but rather that the flagpole was designed to hold up a normal nylon flag -- and the ripples are just a result of the flag being folded.

Whoops -- on the other hand, it shows that you shouldn't rely on hearsay and should investigate these things for yourself.

[vetuste_ennemi]

You guys who believe it was a hoax, how many people do you think would need to conspire to effect it?

[ToraToraTora]

Ichteria, Fluttering flag OK I'll play along. The fact is it would have been a hoax if it did not flutter. It was made of light cloth with a cross piece. When the astronaut put it into the moon surface it needed some vigerous twisting so the flag moved back and forth. Try this in your garden on a still day and the flag would stop immediately due to the damping of the air. Take away the air and it would keep moving until something stopped it(Newton 1). In the case of the moon there is in fact a tiny amount of "atmosphere" so it fluttered noticably. You may note that in all the flag fluttering footage the astronaut is either still holding it or has just let go, but he will be close. Would you like me to do the stars now?

[LazyGun]

Every time this shows, it prompts people to ask the same questions that have been answered many, many times before.

Some excellent resources to answer any question you think you might have about the moon landing can be found in one of these sites;

http://www.clavius.org/index.html

or Mythbusters
http://mythbustersresults.com/nasa-moon-landing

or even Michael Shermer on the Fox documentary very similar to the one thats been shown several times now on C5.
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/moonhoax2.html

Lunar Module landing - How come no blast crater, and how come enough dust left to leave a clearly visible astronauts footprint in dust close to the lander?

Yes, the LLM had a engine rated 10000 lbs/f thrust. That was its maximum rating. Full throttle was applied high up from the surface to slow the descent. The last few metres - where dust on the surface might be affected - was under around 25% thrust, throttled back still further as they came closer to touchdown. Add to that that the plume dissipates much more rapidly and much more widely in a vacuum than under earths atmosphere, and there really was very little downward thrust applied - certainly not enough to create a blast crater.
As far as the dust is concerned - there is only actually a couple of inches of dust on the surface. So the LLM did disturb this, but dust behaves very differently in the lunar environment - vacuum, 1/6 earths gravity, no winds or atmosphere - so it fell straight back down again. Hence dust being around to allow for a footprint.

Flag Fluttering - Lots of genuine reasons to account for this. Firstly, the design of the flagpole itself. A telescoping vertical pole - and a telescoping horizontal one, at the top of the flag. Deploying this using a very lighweight nylon flag, which under 1/6 gravity stays "wrinkled" longer, coupled with inertial momentum imparted from driving the vertical flagpole into the ground and extending the horizontal arm explain this.

These are not new questions. These are not "smoking gun" observations. They are examples of people misapprehending basic physics in an alien environment - and you cannot get much more alien than a 1/6 gravity dusty ball of rock in a vacuum :)

[vascop]

This is what Brian Cox tweeted:

If I ever have the misfortune to meet the fish head who commissioned this Sugar on Ch5 about the moon landings, I WILL punch them.

[emmie]

yes, because as one of the men said you couldn't get over half a million people who worked on the project overall, keep it a secret. Someone would have spilt the beans long ago.

[emmie]

good for Brian Cox, a bloke i admire, his series on the Solar system and other scientific matters had me riveted.

[ToraToraTora]

Good on him, I have a lot of time for Prof Cox, I have on occasion heard his sound bites on the eejits that belive all this hoax sh1te!

[jake-the-peg]

If you've a lot of time for Brian Coc then Tora you should listen to him on Global Warming

Or is that a real conspiracy?

[New Judge]

Time I went and washed my hair.

[emmie]

i have watched just about everything he has done on tv, the small exception has been the programme with Dara O'Brian, as i hate the way he hogs the camera, and talks over everyone, including a clearly miffed Brian Cox. the best programme he presented was the one on the Hadron Collider, fascinating stuff.

[emmie]

interesting

http://gizmodo.com/5930450/all-the-american-flags-on-the-moon-are-now-white

[jno]

[i]Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky indulged in some "Ugandan Discussions" in a closed office in one of the most secure buildings on the planet and yet it became common knowledge in a relatively short period[i]

Yes, well, she told a trusted "friend" who was a Republican, so that's easily explained. It doesn't automatically follow that there will always be someone who blabs, though. Think of how many years it took for the Enigma story to break.

[jake-the-peg]

So lets see if I've got this right.

There's tons of evidence and scientists who all say man landed on the moon and anybody who disagrees with that is a nut

Yet when huge number of scientists say that man-made climate change is real - then that's a conspiracy

OK - think I'll go and wash my hair too