Did we ever Land on the Moon.

SkepticOne

IrishSideOfMoon wrote: »

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6858681477520427064&ei=UEJsStXHLdCA-Aa66vj3AQ&q=a+funny+thing+happened+on+the+way+to+the+moon

I thought the stuff about stars not being visible as evidence of a faked moon landing had been fairly well debunked at this stage.

King Mob

SkepticOne wrote: »

I thought the stuff about stars not being visible as evidence of a faked moon landing had been fairly well debunked at this stage.

It has been for years.
Moon Hoax believers just don't want to listen.

General Grobel

Yes, we did land on the moon. To say we didn't is insulting and offending to the some 400,000 thousand people involved, the astronauts who risked their lives to go there and it is insulting to the ingenuity, the bravery and the ability of the human race.

Dave!

Yes, yes we did

Gremlin

I must say a very mature discussion. Not one raging fool with an anti-american axe to grind!!

If anyone suggest the moon landings were hoaxed there are a couple of irrefutable lines to use;

1. If NASA didn't go to the Moon where did all the moon rock come from (we can prove it is moon rock and its not from antarctica either!)

2. The soviets would have given anything to prove the americans faked it, they monitored every move the americans made and have no issues at all! As did thousands of radio ham operators around the globe

3. Keeping 400K people quiet on the biggest secret in history for 40 years? Gimme a break. The people making money from selling videos and books about faked landings will tell you that most of them beleived they actually did go, but there were still to many people involved who would have known and there is no way they all kept quiet for so long.

4. The Van-Allen belt radiation belt spin which says that they would not have survived the trip through it doesn't hold up. The astronauts did get irradiated. In fact Jack Swigert died of cancer IIRC.

5. Why didn't they go back? No need, they done it so why spend huge sums doing it again and again and again. They beat the soviets which was the only aim of the exercise politically.

IMHO Number 2 is the real killer to any conspiracy story.

Trail_Blazer

I don't know - It's still hard for me to believe that humans/americans had such technology back in 1969 to fly man to the moon. Especially at a time when luggage didn't even have wheels on it!

Plus, money can pursuade a lotta people to keep their mouths shut - Including the Russians.

Admittedly I have no evidence to back up my claims. Because of that, it's more of my opinion on where I stand with it. I suppose it might've happened - But I again can't understand why we (as humans) would only make one single trip in 40 years to the Moon and thats it. Especially given how technology has made HUGE advances over that time period. I think more experimenting and discovery could be done there.

eightyfish

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

I don't know - It's still hard for me to believe that humans/americans had such technology back in 1969 to fly man to the moon.

Even with the masses of proof?

King Mob

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

But I again can't understand why we (as humans) would only make one single trip in 40 years to the Moon and thats it. Especially given how technology has made HUGE advances over that time period. I think more experimenting and discovery could be done there.

It's been said before.
We didn't go back because the missions where expensive and the wasn't as much public support.
Nasa decided to turn to developing the shuttle and unmanned missions to Mars and beyond. After that they turned to developing space stations.
Most importantly after they beat the Russians there wasn't anything important a human could do that a robot couldn't.

Trail_Blazer

I hear what you're saying King Mob, I do. But why does it haveta be NASA only? Why wouldn't another country like say Japan or something, experiment by going there?

King Mob

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

I hear what you're saying King Mob, I do. But why does it haveta be NASA only? Why wouldn't another country like say Japan or something, experiment by going there?

They are. They've already sent a unmanned probe. As did India and China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_and_future_lunar_missions

Nasa is the best funded and biggest space program in the world.
Going to the moon has been too expensive for any other space agency to do it yet.
The public and political support just hasn't been there.

Trail_Blazer

I hear ya. Well I'd like to see there come a point in time where they fly man back to the Moon. Now possible within or maybe even outside of our lifetimes - The idea of colonization would seem to make a bit more sense to me on the Moon, since it is far more closer than Mars.

But I believe Mars' atmosphere and the fact it also has water (I think) would be more suitable for human colonization someday.

I think the thing that would convince me the most - Is to go to the hubble telescope and see the flag that was planted into the moon's surface.

namloc1980

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

I don't know - It's still hard for me to believe that humans/americans had such technology back in 1969 to fly man to the moon. Especially at a time when luggage didn't even have wheels on it!

They threw massive amounts of money at the Apollo project - over $20bn which equals c.$140bn in today's money. The NASA budget today is c.$16bn annually - which, when you think what they achieve with it, isn't huge by any means. The US defense budget tops over $600BN per annum!! The technology was basic back in the 60's but it was very specific in what it had to do. While computer technology has obviously advanced significantly since 1969, rocket technology is not much more advanced than it was 40 years ago.

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

Plus, money can pursuade a lotta people to keep their mouths shut - Including the Russians.

That would take an awful amount of money. There's no way you can keep something that big a secret for that long even with all the money in the world.

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

Admittedly I have no evidence to back up my claims. Because of that, it's more of my opinion on where I stand with it. I suppose it might've happened - But I again can't understand why we (as humans) would only make one single trip in 40 years to the Moon and thats it. Especially given how technology has made HUGE advances over that time period. I think more experimenting and discovery could be done there.

The Apollo programme was 100% politically motivated. The reason it was done was to beat the Soviets to it - end of. Once it was done there was no reason to continue to do it from a political point of view. It is a shame that we (humans) did not progress any further with manned exploration of the solar system since the apollo landings.

King Mob

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

I think the thing that would convince me the most - Is to go to the hubble telescope and see the flag that was planted into the moon's surface.

Firstly the Hubble wouldn't be able to see the flags on the moon, they are too small.
Secondly it's likely that the flags have been broken down by UV radiation from the Sun over the 40 years.
And third some of the landing sites have been imaged by a recent orbiter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter

namloc1980

Trail_Blazer wrote: »

I hear ya. Well I'd like to see there come a point in time where they fly man back to the Moon. Now possible within or maybe even outside of our lifetimes - The idea of colonization would seem to make a bit more sense to me on the Moon, since it is far more closer than Mars.

But I believe Mars' atmosphere and the fact it also has water (I think) would be more suitable for human colonization someday.

I think the thing that would convince me the most - Is to go to the hubble telescope and see the flag that was planted into the moon's surface.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the moon on June 23rd and has photographed the moon landing sites. Its shows the remnants of the lunar landers on the surface - resolution is not great but the LRO is not yet in it's best orbit. Once it is it'll show the landing sites in 2 or 3 times better resolution again.

LRO images Apollo sites

Trail_Blazer

Yeah, I saw the orbiter pics and stuff of the landing sites. I'm interested to see them in a better resolution though at some point down the road.

It is a shame that we (humans) did not progress any further with manned exploration of the solar system since the apollo landings.

That's exactly how I feel about it as well.

watty

The entire lander base is about 1/100th of a pixel on the best camera of Hubble or maybe less.

The mirror size isn't big enough to resolve that level of detail even if a camera pixel was a 1/4 wavelength resolution (the minimum possible).

eightyfish

watty wrote: »

The mirror size isn't big enough to resolve that level of detail even if a camera pixel was a 1/4 wavelength resolution (the minimum possible).

We can tell the mirror is there because lasers are bounced off it every day to measure the changing distance of the moon.

Dave!

watty wrote: »

The entire lander base is about 1/100th of a pixel on the best camera of Hubble or maybe less.

The mirror size isn't big enough to resolve that level of detail even if a camera pixel was a 1/4 wavelength resolution (the minimum possible).

How "convenient"...... :pac:

WillieCocker

On the topic of this thread, i just finished watching the "When We Left The Earth : Nasa Missions" on Blu-Ray.
Wow an amazing boxset.
For all you conspiracists, you should watch this Documentary in HD if possible.
Alot of the 1080i footage of the moon is spectacular and even the planting of the flag shows no movement apart from the ripples after they move it.

watty

eightyfish wrote: »

We can tell the mirror is there because lasers are bounced off it every day to measure the changing distance of the moon.

I was referring to hubble's Telecope lens, which is a large mirror.

The laser reflectors are arrays of "cat's eyes" type mini reflectors, but I could be wrong on that. I think you need industrial laser and about a 6m or 12m mirror to see the reflection.

eightyfish

watty wrote: »

I was referring to hubble's Telecope lens, which is a large mirror.

Ah. Grand so.