Does anyone here believe the Moon Landings were fake?

[Avro Arrow]

Hi all,

Sorry for my absence lately, it couldn't be helped.

I know conspiracies and such is sort of a natural outgrowth of this thread, but perhaps we could rehash Sanders/Clinton and Clinton/Trump in one of the political threads already dedicated to that purpose? If you want to continue discussing government conspiracies, fine, but in light of the subject they should probably be limited to the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations.

Here is the entire film, if you want to view it:

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[Mojochi]

To believe it was faked would require ignoring that the whole point was the military intending to beat someone else there, someone with whom there was an ongoing armageddon level arms race, within which was the pursuit of extraterrestrial advantages. You don't win that race if you don't actually get there.

So, leaving aside the uhhh... evidence, just for laughs, as a purely argumentative exercise, I personally have no problem simply believing that if the mid-twentieth century American military had wanted to get to the moon, they bloody well would. They were the 1st to get & use atomic weaponry. They were on the cutting edge of every kind of technology, which towers in achievement over a 3 day tin can trip through a vacuum.

I mean Jesus, the hard part wasn't even getting to the moon. It was getting off the Earth, & we definitely wanted THAT, rockets that could exit the atmosphere, traverse the globe, put satellites in orbit etc... The fate of humanity rested on which of 2 superpowers would outlast the other, in a time when people still held to the concept of Sun Tzu's high ground philosophy. THAT was the goal. Taking a jaunt to the moon was just rubbing it in... OH & making global news... winning public support, keeping the funds rolling etc...

 

[Galileo7]

I am removing your video for copyright violation. Please don't do that again.

Sorry, I found it on youtube. I did not know it was a copyright violation. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Gary7]

The video makes it look like a quick (though understandable) loss of temper, though, when in reality the violence was completely justified self-defense after (as Leviathan says) several minutes of verbal and physical harassment, which was why the police dropped the charges filed against Aldrin by the sack of shit conspiracy theorist who instigated the whole confrontation.

Thanks for bringing this up. Context is everything. The instigator was definitely harassing Aldrin and his stepdaughter for quite some time. And the short clip we usually see is just when the "pot is about to boil," which can make it look like Aldrin was overreacting and a hot-head. Bart See-Libel was asking for it. The thing that gets me is when this guy has the audacity to ask Aldrin to swear on the Bible. Bart has no "credible authority" so it's demeaning. Plus, Aldrin doing it would only set precedent that such harassment works in getting famous people to "cave in" to your demands. I'm glad Aldrin knocked his lights out.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Actually those on the left can win but the corporate wing is basically at war with one half of it's own party because if someone like Sanders wins it's bad for their business. I am sure they will try and screw him and or Elizebeth Warren in 2020 and we will be stuck with someone like Biden who will then get creamed by Trump.

Jason

He lost because he got millions fewer votes. The irony is that despite what the conspirators claim, the math shows that had all the Democratic primaries been held the way St Bernard’s supporters wish they were, his loss margin would have been as large or larger.

The real takeaway is that the thing most biased against Sanders is voter turnout.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Again, everyone, please take discussions about Sanders, Clinton or Trump to another thread.

Unless they've recently been faking their own moon landings, of course.

 

[J.T.B.]

I saw that but I don't think I liked it. Only scene I can recall is with Elliot Gould in his car with the breaks cut.

The main thing I remembered from when I was a kid was Doctor Steven Kiley taking a bite of raw snake.

One thing that bugged me about Capricorn One was that they used Apollo-type spacecraft. Can three astronauts really spend three years 18 months in a capsule with about as much interior space as a minivan?

ETA: I thought it was 18 months one-way but I guess it was round trip.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One thing that bugged me about Capricorn One was that they used Apollo-type spacecraft. Can three astronauts really spend three years in a capsule with about as much interior space as a minivan?

Only if it's like in Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, where the astronauts are in deep sleep for most of the journey.

 

[scotpens]

One thing that bugged me about Capricorn One was that they used Apollo-type spacecraft. Can three astronauts really spend three years 18 months in a capsule with about as much interior space as a minivan?

Done for budget reasons, obviously. I'm sure it was easier and cheaper to obtain an Apollo LM replica than to design and build a full-size mockup of a hypothetical Mars lander. Ditto for the Apollo-style spacesuits.

 

[Jayson1]

Isn't New Zealand actually Middle Earth?

I think it's actually Greece. I know historical documents have been found their were Hercules it seems was a real person who went around helping people.

Jason

 

[J.T.B.]

Done for budget reasons, obviously. I'm sure it was easier and cheaper to obtain an Apollo LM replica than to design and build a full-size mockup of a hypothetical Mars lander. Ditto for the Apollo-style spacesuits.

Oh yeah, there's no question about it: NASA let the production film one of their unused lunar modules. It's still dumb.

 

[Kor]

Only if it's like in Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, where the astronauts are in deep sleep for most of the journey.

Now that was an interesting movie.

Kor

 

[Owain Taggart]

Oh yeah, there's no question about it: NASA let the production film one of their unused lunar modules. It's still dumb.

And with Operation: Avalanche, the producers had to use misdirection and tell NASA they were filming a student documentary on the Apollo program in order to get permission to film at Johnson Space Center.

 

[cooleddie74]

Say what we want about the film's plausibility and science, but it's worth watching for this scene alone.

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[Nakita Akita]

Then you have absolutely no idea how difficult it was to engineer and design hardware capable of putting two people, not only ON the moon but in designing a single stage to orbit vehicle to get them back and rendevous with a craft with enough power to get them back.

And every landing but one, was successful.

to put in perspective: at the time of Apollo's announcement, the US had managed to put on man in space, not in orbit, for a few minutes past the Karman line on a modified Redstone missile. They had to go from there to conducting these flights in less than a decade. Nothing like that had ever been done before, or since. It was the peacetime equivalent of the Manhattan project. Funny now nobody denies that nukes are real.

to make Apollo work, they had to learn how to develop:
large first stage engines (there has never been an engine as large as the F1 since)
develop cryogenic engines (the J2's are still studied to this day)
build the infrastructure for building, assembling, and moving skyscraper sized launch vehices
build the tracking network for tracking deep space objects
design and use integrated circuits
develop the first true computer user interfaces (the DSKY interface for the AGC)
learn how to live in space
life support design and testing
orbital rendezvous
orbital docking
orbital mechanics
landing a vehicle vertically on an alien world using only manually operated thruster rockets
training
capsule recovery
lunar sciences
safety enhancements (many redesigns after the fatal Apollo 1 fire)
launch abort system design and testing
lunar activity suit design and manufacture
precursor probe missions


and that's just a small list.
if they'd spread it out over decades it might have cost less, but the impetus may have been lost and perhaps no one would have ever went. The Soviets finally called it quits after losing too many N1 launch vehicles.

Yes it cost a lot. All of that, done in a hurry, and it was, cost billions, and would cost far more now. Look how much Gateway (LOP-G) is going to cost. Look how much ISS cost. Space is expensive.

It's like not believing Carnival has a fleet of cruise ships worth billions because dayum you can take a weekender on one for $300!

I think it was faked.
To me it seems that if people could do that 50 years ago, why has it not happened since?
It seems like in the interim 50 years we would have built or have some sort of infrastructure of some permenant type on the moon already.
50 years and virtually nothing. Seems strange to me.

 

[Kor]

I think it was faked.
To me it seems that if people could do that 50 years ago, why has it not happened since?
It seems like in the interim 50 years we would have built or have some sort of infrastructure of some permenant type on the moon already.
50 years and virtually nothing. Seems strange to me.

Expenses are a big part of that.

Here's an interesting article from MIT Technology Review:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610720/why-getting-back-to-the-moon-is-so-damn-hard/

Kor

 

[BillJ]

I think it was faked.
To me it seems that if people could do that 50 years ago, why has it not happened since?
It seems like in the interim 50 years we would have built or have some sort of infrastructure of some permenant type on the moon already.
50 years and virtually nothing. Seems strange to me.

Money. No one cares until they've figured out a way to profit from it.

 

[Leviathan]

The video makes it look like a quick (though understandable) loss of temper, though, when in reality the violence was completely justified self-defense after (as Leviathan says) several minutes of verbal and physical harassment, which was why the police dropped the charges filed against Aldrin by the sack of shit conspiracy theorist who instigated the whole confrontation.

Bingo.

The man was far calmer than most people would have been in similar circumstances. He was being bullied.

 

[XCV330]

I think it was faked.
To me it seems that if people could do that 50 years ago, why has it not happened since?
It seems like in the interim 50 years we would have built or have some sort of infrastructure of some permenant type on the moon already.
50 years and virtually nothing. Seems strange to me.

There were attempts proposed to go back, but it was always a matter of $$ and a lack of political will. No other country besides USA and USSR seriously considered going, and Americans were satisfied they'd gone and not particularly interested in going forward.

Britain, around the same time as the last of the Apollo flights launched its one and only domestically launched satellite, Prospero, on a Black Arrow rocket. And never did it again. This doesn't mean they never launched Prospero. It's actually still up there and tracked.

Spaceflight is in many ways a tale of early dramatic leaps followed by long small retreats. The main reason is funding. It's extremely hard to go to space, and it hasn't become less so because electronics are cheaper and smaller now. The main challenge has always been the launch vehicles themselves. They contain extremely expensive components and until recently, were thrown away after each use. Even the shuttle, which was reusable, required a standing army of thousands to keep it running, ensuring its launch costs were more expensive than expendable launchers (and why its heyday as a commercial, and military launch vehicle ended after 1986).

Now there's a very proven record of SpaceX landing first stages on land and on barges. That goes a long way to lowering launch costs and other companies like Blue Origin will be following suit. It's the only way economically forward. Long term, and even not-so-long-term, that is lowering the price of access to space dramatically, making things like lunar colony and asteroid mining far less expensive.

Consider also undersea. It's far easier to colonize the surface of the ocean. Any nation can do that. Build a submarine that doesn't go anywhere. And yet there is as far as i am aware one undersea habitat left on earth, not counting the undersea hotel in the Keys. There used to be more, but we've backtracked from that, as a species.


So, cause i wrote it, i might as well tack it on: the sad tale of human spaceflight after Apollo

The budget was cut severely by the late 1960's and never returned to Apollo style funding.
A kind of rough synposis if human spaceflight after Apollo:

Apollo program ends. Humans, so far, never return to the Moon.

Apollo Applications which might have led to future programs like a Mars landing, NERVA nuclear upperstage, etc, also ends. The only thing left from Apollo Applications is Skylab

Skylab hosts three missions, including some of the first in-orbit repairs.

finally Apollo flight is Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Skylab remains in orbit but no visits to station during the late 1970's.

The shuttle program the basket going forward where all the human spaceflight eggs get stored. The original modest program gets turned into a much larger far more complicated an expensive system (STS) than was originally envisioned, partially because DoD wanted in on it as a launch system, with much larger payload needs than NASA. The larger STS shuttle would now be capable of commercial satellite launches, as well.

Proposed missions for shuttle program to boost Skylab to higher orbit and continue using it for the time being.

STS delays prevent Skylab from being saved, as well as higher than expected solar activity causing Skylab orbit to degrade, dumping parts of it over the Australian Outback. Columbia finally launches in 1981 with former Gemini and Apollo astronaut John Young, and Robert Crippen.

Space Station Freedom proposed by Ronald Reagan. Freedom will be serviced by the STS fleet, as well as European Hermes and Japanese Hope shuttles. Freedom is never built. Hermes and Hope programs both eventually cancelled after a great deal of development work.

Loss of Challenger and crew, 1986. Return to flight in 1988.

Space Exploration Initiative begun under the Bush Administration in 1989. Might have used shuttle derived components, such as Shuttle C. Enormously expensive, possibly over 1 Trillion Dollars. Program is never funded.

International Space Station, a result of work first begun on Space Station Freedom, finally begins to be built in 1998. From this point on the entire point of the shuttle program would be building the ISS. Strangely enough, there don't appear to be any ISS Deniers. You can go out at night and see it pass over in the night sky with the naked eye, as it is the second brightest object. With a decent telescope, you can see details like the solar panels.

1995: Delta Clipper-X program demonstrates vertical take off and landing of a reusable vehicle in atmospheric tests.

1990s-early 2000's: X-33 program with possibility of leading into the Venture Star system goes literally nowhere.

Loss of Columbia 2003. Return to flight 2005. Retiring of shuttle fleet at end of ISS construction in 2011 leading to the end, so far, of US derived human spaceflight.

2004: Vision for Space Exploration. A program for crewed landings on the Moon and Mars using Shuttle and Apollo derived components. Only one launch, the test flight of the Aries 1-X, suborbital. Cancelled in 2010 , though the SLS rocket is in some ways analogous to the Ares V rocket of the VSE design, and the Orion crew ship remains in development, now with an ESA ATV derived service module.

2014: Orion flies unmanned on test flight atop Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle.

2018 Gateway station (LOP-G) proposed.

2018 SpaceX announces name of purchaser for first BFS flight around the Moon proposed to take place in the early 2020's.

2018: Boeing and SpaceX announce they are ready to fly demos of their respective human spaceships, Starliner, and Crew Dragon by late 2018/early 2019. Crew assignments announced.

 

[Relayer1]

It was the Cold War. Russian tracking would have called them out immediately. End of...