Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

Kiribub: Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

Shopped. Pixels, etc.

Close up of Jacko's nose without make-up?

Kiribub: Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

Is that on their agenda? That would be really nifty.

I tried years ago to get NASA to do an Apollo landing site imaging campaign for the Orbiter as part of their public outreach, but got nowhere. I expect they'll do it eventually, hopefully soon!

Nerdgasm: first hi-res pix of the Moon from NASA orbiter

New keyboard please.

All that money and they couldn't get color pictures?

TheOther: All that money and they couldn't get color pictures?
Duh, they used the pre set photo effects on the camera. Be glad they didn't go with sepia.

The moon Hoaxers are just going to say that the hi-res pix of the landing sites are fake anyways.

From the comments:

# 5. Kit Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm

So, in the top picture, what is the D shaped "mouth" on the lower edge of the large dark area on the left side? It has a bright edge all the way around. The other craters have sunshine on one side and are dark on the other.
# 6. Christopher Ambler Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm

By a strange coincidence, that's the exact spot on which I plan to open my first restaurant.

"Great food. No atmosphere."
# 7. TechSkeptic Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Kit,

That area is blacked out because it shows the moonbase currently under construction by the zeebleboid armada. Our government is heavily influenced by their participation in our energy and medical advances. You can't possibly think we have come all this way by ourselves, can you?

20. Neil Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm

Whether the alleged future photos of Apollo landing site remnants are TRUE is irrelevant since no such photos by NASA can serve as the independent verification demanded by the scientific method.

If NASA were dedicated to science as they foist themselves to be, they would have given their high resolution LRO camera to the Japanese, Chinese, Indians or Europeans for use aboard one of their underequipped lunar oribiters. I realize this a highly insulting statement implying that the people of those nations or regions are incapable of building their own comparable or even superior cameras. Nevertheless, they did suspiciously fail to send cameras of sufficient power to resolve and independently verify Apollo landing site remnants. It's absurd that none sent such a camera when any and all should have.

Very strange until you recognize it all as a hoax.
22. Bob Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Let me just take this opportunity to say the moon landing is a hoax. No flags, no moduels can be view from here on earth. And considering we have much more advanced technology now than we did in the 60s and still we cant go. One of the biggest lies of our time.

Vedic Cosmology is awesome!
25. Sean Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Neil,

There is a simple explanation for NASA's refusal to build an instrument sufficiently powerful to resolve the Apollo landing site and then give that instrument to other nations for independent verification:

The NASA directors have had their brains infected by Grey Alien nano-technology.

A simple autopsy will prove this. However, I will only accept an autopsy performed by Japanese, Chinese, Indians or Europeans, as "the independent verification demanded by the scientific method."

NASA's recalcitrance is very strange until you recognize it all as the work of Grey Aliens.

-Sean

Why even bother having a thread about it here on Fark?

TheOther: All that money and they couldn't get color pictures?

Kinda like a money shot?

The Bad Astronomer: I tried years ago to get NASA to do an Apollo landing site imaging campaign for the Orbiter as part of their public outreach, but got nowhere. I expect they'll do it eventually, hopefully soon!

Yeah, we need that kind of public outreach, especially considering the fact that we'll never be going back to the moon. Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I feel that Obama is about this close *holds up two fingers* to canceling Ares V.

Everyone is saying, "omfg Ares I is so expensive" but nobody is saying, "yeah there's a good reason it's expensive: they are building in commonality with Ares V." In other words, a lot of things that you're going to need on Ares V anyway, like the six-segment SRBs and the J2E engine. If you build Ares I, then you can just bolt those parts onto Ares V. But if you don't build Ares I, then you *still* have to pay to develop those parts.

So, everyone is saying how much money we'll save if we go with the Delta IV, but I don't believe it, because I don't see people taking Ares V into account. What I think is going to happen, is that we'll cancel Ares I, we'll end up paying just as much for the Delta IV (surprise surprise, Boeing was overly optimistic in its cost projections). Then someone will say, "oh BTW Ares V is now double the cost LOL SORRY!" and they'll cancel Ares V.

Result: we'll have something even less useful than the shuttle and for the next 50 years, no US astronaut will leave LEO. And when the ISS is thrown away in 10 years or so what are we going to do? What possible use will there be for Orion without a space station or a way to go to the moon?

I'm sorry that I sound angry, but this is my cynical prediction. Enjoy your LRO pictures of the moon because you're not going back because nobody is willing to pay for it.

TheOther: All that money and they couldn't get color pictures?

you actually get better res photos being b&w. was told by a fellow farker, which makes sense.

Gravyguts: you actually get better res photos being b&w.

lol. hit return before typing a response to Gravyguts.

It's true, you get better resolution from a b/w camera. Landers typically use b/w and get color photographs by using filters. But the reason that works is that there's nothing moving on any of the planets we've hit, so that process (which is slow) is sufficient.

Orbiters on the other hand, including the LRO, have color cameras.

Those are color photos, but the moon is mostly gray. There's a great Calvin and Hobbes strip about this.

Yep. It's definitely the Moon.

LondosHair: Yep. It's definitely the Moon.

don't be so quick. could be a space station.

Tofu: lol. hit return before typing a response to Gravyguts.

Orbiters on the other hand, including the LRO, have color cameras.

Those are color photos, but the moon is mostly gray.

Yeah, I was trolling...and wondering if this

There's a great Calvin and Hobbes strip about this.

would come before a 'that IS a color picture of the moon!'...Calvin's dad's bullshiat is brilliantly funny and cruel.

You can CLEARLY see the boom mike...

Would someone be able to track down what the exact coordinates of this images are? I'd like to go to Google Moon and overlay the images to get an idea of just how good this new resolution is, but I'm having trouble finding the exact location just from looking. "4.4 degrees South by 6.0 degrees West" is pretty vague.

Tofu: Those are color photos, but the moon is mostly gray. There's a great Calvin and Hobbes strip about this.

So...the moon is completely black-and-white, just like the Earth was completely black-and-white until the 1930's?

73cm per pixel? Holy frakking sheeeeeiitttt.

That's amazing.

Gadren: Would someone be able to track down what the exact coordinates of this images are? I'd like to go to Google Moon and overlay the images to get an idea of just how good this new resolution is, but I'm having trouble finding the exact location just from looking. "4.4 degrees South by 6.0 degrees West" is pretty vague.

you don't have to find the exact coordinates. Just zoom in on any part of the moon until the scale says "2mi" and you will see that the resolution on google moon is so shiatty, relatively, that the field shown in these pictures would be an indistinguishable blur on google moon.

Weird, I didn't know the moon had craters.
It's amazing what you can see once you upgrade to HD.



(I kid, it's very cool.)

That's no moon!



//hawt

I went ahead and did an overlay of just a random area on the Moon. The top frame is the long strip that was released, and the bottom frame is one of close-up images.

The sort-of-more-detailed areas on the right are imagery from the Apollo 16 mission.

Comparison here

To say I'm floored by the level of improvement would be an understatement.

Kiribub: Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

You are joking right?

I never realized the moon has a vagina.

/an ugly one at that

Hey, wait. That's NOT cheese!

These are just pictures taken of an elaborate model built in Hollywood.

Harry_Seldon: That's no moon!



//hawt

Aren't you the witty one, nice going tiger.

So they say that they will take shots of the Apollo "landing sites". I don't believe them. It was the logical place to start. If they could have, they would have.

Yes, I am calling them liars. Further, I predict them to announce some sort of technical failure, just prior to them orienting the camera toward the "site".

/yes, I enjoy tree climbing
/If they fail to provide photos of the "landing site" will the true believers man up and admit being suckas?

hudef: So they say that they will take shots of the Apollo "landing sites". I don't believe them. It was the logical place to start. If they could have, they would have.

Yes, I am calling them liars. Further, I predict them to announce some sort of technical failure, just prior to them orienting the camera toward the "site".

/yes, I enjoy tree climbing
/If they fail to provide photos of the "landing site" will the true believers man up and admit being suckas?

what does the fact I like Marvel comics have to do with lunar landing conspiracies?

xria: Kiribub: Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

You are joking right?

I don't know why it seems like the conspiracy folks seem to irritate most pepole rather than amuse.

I can't wait to see the shopped landing sites.

hudef: It was the logical place to start.

lol. Two things:

1: If you can find even one actual astronomer or planetary scientist who thinks it was "the logical place to start" I will buy you one full year of total fark. Come on, there are millions of scientists around the world who aren't affiliated with NASA, surely if it's really "the logical place to start" then one of them must think so, right?

Clue: actual scientists want to use these multi-million dollar missions to perform, you know, actual science - to answer actual questions that actual smart people, with real live PhDs, who read sciency books about the moon and stuff, want answered. Actual scientists and engineers are smart enough to look at the mountains of evidence for Apollo and understand that it happened exactly as the historical record says it happened. For them, an image of the landing sites with no scientific value, while I'm sure it would give them a nerdgasm and make them feel all warm and patriotic, distracts and delays the actual important work that they want to do.

So no, it's not the logical first target. I would say the poles are the logical place to start.

Which brings me to 2: LOL! you think that a satellite in orbit is just magically over any piece of terrain that they want it to be over - meaning, they can throw a dart at a map of the moon and say, "we are starting here"

Clue: the satellites are in orbit. They point downward and can only photograph a small area at a time. For them to image the landing sites (even if it was a top priority) we *still* have to wait for the rotation of the moon to bring one of the sites into view.

hudef: So they say that they will take shots of the Apollo "landing sites". I don't believe them. It was the logical place to start. If they could have, they would have.

Yes, I am calling them liars. Further, I predict them to announce some sort of technical failure, just prior to them orienting the camera toward the "site".

/yes, I enjoy tree climbing
/If they fail to provide photos of the "landing site" will the true believers man up and admit being suckas?

If they did start with the landing sites (and when they do image them), you would (and will) say that they're shopped.

The shadows are all wrong. Clearly it's taken in a set somewhere in Arizona.

You know what's fun? Reading Phil Plait's articles with Steve Irwin's voice in your head.

RepoManTSM: xria: Kiribub: Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

You are joking right?

I don't know why it seems like the conspiracy folks seem to irritate most pepole rather than amuse.

Because they can't be reasoned with. Which is even more evidence that the only way to address them is to point and laugh.

/points and laughs

Wow, this zooming in stuff is neato.


Go here: Link (new window) Click on 'Full Hasselblad Magazines'. Pick a film roll. (film? wuzzat?) Pick an image. Click the hi-res download link. Repeat, pants, etc.

These are all newly scanned from the original 2-inch negatives at super high res. Keep a drool bucket handy.

You're welcome! I will be celebrating the 40th anniversary by using up some ink carts, making some prints of these shots.

Dumle: RepoManTSM: xria: Kiribub: Sweet, thanks, Subby!

Maybe some shots of the moon landings will finally put an end to the conspiracy folks' claims.

You are joking right?

I don't know why it seems like the conspiracy folks seem to irritate most pepole rather than amuse.

Because they can't be reasoned with. Which is even more evidence that the only way to address them is to point and laugh.

/points and laughs

There will be no new photos of the landing modules. Will any of you be surprised?

hudef: So they say that they will take shots of the Apollo "landing sites". I don't believe them. It was the logical place to start. If they could have, they would have.

Yes, I am calling them liars. Further, I predict them to announce some sort of technical failure, just prior to them orienting the camera toward the "site".

/yes, I enjoy tree climbing
/If they fail to provide photos of the "landing site" will the true believers man up and admit being suckas?

If they provide actual pictures of the landing site(s), will you man up and admit you have no desire to be convinced that the landings were real?

C'mon... being in on the "conspiracy" is cool, right?

OrbitalFerret: Wow, this zooming in stuff is neato.


Go here: Link (new window) Click on 'Full Hasselblad Magazines'. Pick a film roll. (film? wuzzat?) Pick an image. Click the hi-res download link. Repeat, pants, etc.

These are all newly scanned from the original 2-inch negatives at super high res. Keep a drool bucket handy.

You're welcome! I will be celebrating the 40th anniversary by using up some ink carts, making some prints of these shots.

As a photographer who has worked in medium format film, and done my share of scanning, I am amazed at the great compositional talents of all the astronauts, considering that they had no viewfinder. Not to mention them getting the manual exposures settings spot-on.

The old issue of "why no stars?" still nags. Yes I understand the nature of contrast, and that might explain the stars not showing up in ordinary prints. But the light from the stars would register, however faintly, on the film stock. And with modern drum scans, that data should be extractable.

I spent years in remote desert areas in Australia and Arizona. The vision of billions of vibrant stars at night was breathtaking. How much more spectacular must the sky be from the lunar vantage point, where there is no atmosphere to diffuse and distort the light?! Yet it never once occurred to the astronauts or their scientist bosses to place the camera on a tripod, point the camera skyward and take some longer exposures????

/all you true believers that said that there's no point in talking to people like me, do me a favor: shut the fark up and put me on your ignore list.

hudef:
As a photographer who has worked in medium format film, and done my share of scanning, I am amazed at the great compositional talents of all the astronauts, considering that they had no viewfinder. Not to mention them getting the manual exposures settings spot-on.

The old issue of "why no stars?" still nags. Yes I understand the nature of contrast, and that might explain the stars not showing up in ordinary prints. But the light from the stars would register, however faintly, on the film stock. And with modern drum scans, that data should be extractable.

I spent years in remote desert areas in Australia and Arizona. The vision of billions of vibrant stars at night was breathtaking. How much more spectacular must the sky be from the lunar vantage point, where there is no atmosphere to diffuse and distort the light?! Yet it never once occurred to the astronauts or their scientist bosses to place the camera on a tripod, point the camera skyward and take some longer exposures????

/all you true believers that said that there's no point in talking to people like me, do me a favor: shut the fark up and put me on your ignore list.

Oh, I'll be happy to talk to you, assuming you're not rigid and are willing to discuss things. If by "people like me" you mean "There's no way I'll ever allow that we actually landed on the moon, no matter what, I can't hear you nananananana" then perhaps its you who should be hitting the ignore button.

hudef:
/all you true believers that said that there's no point in talking to people like me, do me a favor: shut the fark up and put me on your ignore list.

I either enjoy talking to people like you or I'm a gluten for punishment. Either way, I keep coming back to this thread and I'd be happy to take a lot of time explaining to you whatever you don't understand.

However, something tells me that you will never see this post and never respond to me. That'll be par for the course.


I am amazed at the great compositional talents of all the astronauts, considering that they had no viewfinder.

Hoax believers like you bring this point up all the time. It is easy for me to refute it. Out of every 10 photos taken by the astronauts, 8 or 9 of them are crap. There are lots of photos with heads cut off or photos that don't show anything, even a rock. There are photos that are sun-struck, there are photos that are all black. And all of them - every single last one of them is available on NASA's website. But you, in your arrogant self confidence, have never bothered to go look. Instead, you occasionally are shown a photo that was selected out of all those crappy photos by a PR guy. And then you just assume that they're all like that.

How amusing.

If I thought there was any chance that you'll ever come back to this thread, I'd be happy to link you to dozens of bad photos.

The old issue of "why no stars?" still nags.

Show me a photo taken on Earth without the use of a tripod and long exposure time that shows stars. For example, a photo taken at a night football game. If you were there, you'd be able to see the stars with your eyes, but they don't show on film.

But the light from the stars would register, however faintly, on the film stock.

I'm going to have ask for a citation for this. Because I think you're blowing smoke.

BTW, a hoax believer much smarter than you who used an astronomy program and determined that Venus was above the horizon on at least one of the apollo missions. He went to apollohoax.net and asked where it was in any of the photos. Guess what, someone went out, found a photo taken in the right direction, bumped the contrast, and sure enough, there's venus.

If I thought there was any chance that you'd ever come back to this thread, I'd go find that discussion for you. But I doubt you will. If you cared enough to hang around then you would have also cared enough to research all of this on your own.

Yet it never once occurred to the astronauts or their scientist bosses to place the camera on a tripod, point the camera skyward and take some longer exposures????

I love how you phrase that - "it never occured" as if the missions where farking trips to the beach and the astronauts stood around in their space suits trying to think up something to pass the time. Clue: every last second of their time on the moon was scheduled. You can read it in the transcripts where mission control often tells them they have skip something or they need to move their asses. Bottom line, legions of scientists had input on what experiments the astronauts would perform. And actual scientists, with actual PhDs, decided that the most important use of their time was, you know, studying the farking moon. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should ask a scientist instead of another hoax believer.

That said, believe it or not, there was at least one astronomy experiment carried out: they took ultraviolet and spetroscopic images of a few stars. If I thought there was any chance that it would do any good, I'd go look it up. But I know it wont do any good, because I've had this discussion on fark before and it's always the same way. You'll never be back. You're not here to have a conversation.

Tofu: hudef:
/all you true believers that said that there's no point in talking to people like me, do me a favor: shut the fark up and put me on your ignore list.

I either enjoy talking to people like you or I'm a gluten for punishment. Either way, I keep coming back to this thread and I'd be happy to take a lot of time explaining to you whatever you don't understand.

However, something tells me that you will never see this post and never respond to me. That'll be par for the course.


I am amazed at the great compositional talents of all the astronauts, considering that they had no viewfinder.

Hoax believers like you bring this point up all the time. It is easy for me to refute it. Out of every 10 photos taken by the astronauts, 8 or 9 of them are crap. There are lots of photos with heads cut off or photos that don't show anything, even a rock. There are photos that are sun-struck, there are photos that are all black. And all of them - every single last one of them is available on NASA's website. But you, in your arrogant self confidence, have never bothered to go look. Instead, you occasionally are shown a photo that was selected out of all those crappy photos by a PR guy. And then you just assume that they're all like that.

How amusing.

If I thought there was any chance that you'll ever come back to this thread, I'd be happy to link you to dozens of bad photos.

Also, remember that there are nearly 17000 photos archived; regarding composition: why is it folks don't take into account the practice of cropping photographs?


The old issue of "why no stars?" still nags.

Show me a photo taken on Earth without the use of a tripod and long exposure time that shows stars. For example, a photo taken at a night football game. If you were there, you'd be able to see the stars with your eyes, but they don't show on film.

But the light from the stars would register, however faintly, on the film stock.

Furthermore, the photographs are taken during the lunar day. You can take pictures of our own sky during the day... not a lot of stars (or their data) show up then, either



I'm going to have ask for a citation for this. Because I think you're blowing smoke.

BTW, a hoax believer much smarter than you who used an astronomy program and determined that Venus was above the horizon on at least one of the apollo missions. He went to apollohoax.net and asked where it was in any of the photos. Guess what, someone went out, found a photo taken in the right direction, bumped the contrast, and sure enough, there's Venus.

If I thought there was any chance that you'd ever come back to this thread, I'd go find that discussion for you. But I doubt you will. If you cared enough to hang around then you would have also cared enough to research all of this on your own.

Yet it never once occurred to the astronauts or their scientist bosses to place the camera on a tripod, point the camera skyward and take some longer exposures????

I love how you phrase that - "it never occured" as if the missions where farking trips to the beach and the astronauts stood around in their space suits trying to think up something to pass the time. Clue: every last second of their time on the moon was scheduled. You can read it in the transcripts where mission control often tells them they have skip something or they need to move their asses. Bottom line, legions of scientists had input on what experiments the astronauts would perform. And actual scientists, with actual PhDs, decided that the most important use of their time was, you know, studying the farking moon. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should ask a scientist instead of another hoax believer.


Yes. Exactly.

That said, believe it or not, there was at least one astronomy experiment carried out: they took ultraviolet and spetroscopic images of a few stars. If I thought there was any chance that it would do any good, I'd go look it up. But I know it wont do any good, because I've had this discussion on fark before and it's always the same way. You'll never be back. You're not here to have a conversation.

Perhaps. I'd still like to think that folks are willing to be convinced- myself included. If a moon hoax person shows up with a logical, convincing argument (that hasn't already been debunked dozens of times), backed up with evidence, I'd like to think I'd at least consider the proposition. That written, it hasn't happened yet.

Here is one for you. Why no pictures of an astronaut with the Earth in the background. If you went to Paris on vacation, what would you take a picture of? You would probably stand in front of the Eiffel tower and have someone take your picture.

badhatharry: Here is one for you. Why no pictures of an astronaut with the Earth in the background. If you went to Paris on vacation, what would you take a picture of? You would probably stand in front of the Eiffel tower and have someone take your picture.

Nevermind, I found one. They must have thought about that in the studio.

badhatharry: badhatharry: Here is one for you. Why no pictures of an astronaut with the Earth in the background. If you went to Paris on vacation, what would you take a picture of? You would probably stand in front of the Eiffel tower and have someone take your picture.

Nevermind, I found one. They must have thought about that in the studio.

Whoops... didn't refresh. Sorry about that, Harry.

OrbitalFerret: These are all newly scanned from the original 2-inch negatives at super high res. Keep a drool bucket handy.

You ain't kidding. Bookmark page!

Fark yeah.

Tofu: hudef:
/all you true believers that said that there's no point in talking to people like me, do me a favor: shut the fark up and put me on your ignore list.

I either enjoy talking to people like you or I'm a gluten for punishment. Either way, I keep coming back to this thread and I'd be happy to take a lot of time explaining to you whatever you don't understand.

However, something tells me that you will never see this post and never respond to me. That'll be par for the course.


I am amazed at the great compositional talents of all the astronauts, considering that they had no viewfinder.

Hoax believers like you bring this point up all the time. It is easy for me to refute it. Out of every 10 photos taken by the astronauts, 8 or 9 of them are crap. There are lots of photos with heads cut off or photos that don't show anything, even a rock. There are photos that are sun-struck, there are photos that are all black. And all of them - every single last one of them is available on NASA's website. But you, in your arrogant self confidence, have never bothered to go look. Instead, you occasionally are shown a photo that was selected out of all those crappy photos by a PR guy. And then you just assume that they're all like that.

How amusing.

If I thought there was any chance that you'll ever come back to this thread, I'd be happy to link you to dozens of bad photos.

The old issue of "why no stars?" still nags.

Show me a photo taken on Earth without the use of a tripod and long exposure time that shows stars. For example, a photo taken at a night football game. If you were there, you'd be able to see the stars with your eyes, but they don't show on film.

But the light from the stars would register, however faintly, on the film stock.

I'm going to have ask for a citation for this. Because I think you're blowing smoke.

BTW, a hoax believer much smarter than you who used an astronomy program and determined that Venus was above the horizon on at least one of the apollo missions. He went to apollohoax.net and asked where it was in any of the photos. Guess what, someone went out, found a photo taken in the right direction, bumped the contrast, and sure enough, there's venus.

If I thought there was any chance that you'd ever come back to this thread, I'd go find that discussion for you. But I doubt you will. If you cared enough to hang around then you would have also cared enough to research all of this on your own.

Yet it never once occurred to the astronauts or their scientist bosses to place the camera on a tripod, point the camera skyward and take some longer exposures????

I love how you phrase that - "it never occured" as if the missions where farking trips to the beach and the astronauts stood around in their space suits trying to think up something to pass the time. Clue: every last second of their time on the moon was scheduled. You can read it in the transcripts where mission control often tells them they have skip something or they need to move their asses. Bottom line, legions of scientists had input on what experiments the astronauts would perform. And actual scientists, with actual PhDs, decided that the most important use of their time was, you know, studying the farking moon. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should ask a scientist instead of another hoax believer.

That said, believe it or not, there was at least one astronomy experiment carried out: they took ultraviolet and spetroscopic images of a few stars. If I thought there was any chance that it would do any good, I'd go look it up. But I know it wont do any good, because I've had this discussion on fark before and it's always the same way. You'll never be back. You're not here to have a conversation.

Thanks Tofu, for your considered response.

Why would I not return to see the damage? I actually thought the thread was already dead, but felt like taking a piss into the wind.

As you can see, I am not very well versed in the space arena, and just raised a few random questions as they came to mind. You have succeeded in shooting most of them down. But I believe, that if you were to check with the people at Kodak labs, they would confirm my point about the possibility of enhanced scanning extracting "hidden" information in the underexposed areas of the emulsion.

I am generally disinclined to subscribe to conspiracy theories. Neither am I obsessed with deciphering "forbidden truths". I don't much care who really killed the Kennedys. But I am also not a gullible person.

So how did I come to doubt that man has been to the moon? There are three main reasons. All are dismissable for falling into the "gut-feeling" category. But I will mention them just to help the understanding of those that "cannot conceive why anyone with a brain could doubt that man has walked on the moon".

1) Whenever man has explored new realms on this planet he has invariably discovered the unexpected and the novel. Yet when attaining to another world for the first time, nothing unexpected or remarkable was found. Everything was just as we expected it to be. Just some dust and rocks described as almost identical to those found in Arizona.

2) In recent years scientists have learned that the existence of life is not dependent on a narrow chemical or environmental parameter, as previously assumed. Life flourishes abundantly, even if inconspicuously, in even the most unlikely environments on Earth. Huge tube-worms derive sustenance from corrosive sulfuric geysers under the pressure of miles of ocean. Bacteria thrive in Icelandic geysers at hundreds of degrees and buried miles deep inside solid granite. Recently I read that UV resistant bacteria have been found high in the ionosphere. Thus I can see no reason why there would not be a form of life adapted to the moon's peculiar habitat.

3) If Nasa was able to hop over to the moon seven times using a pocket-calculator equivalent computer and an untested, flimsy, tinfoil-wrapped lander, why is it such a daunting task for them to return using modern technology a thousand times advanced? Why have billions been spent on building a floating trailer home, when a permanent base on the moon would have been feasible?


There are many other reasons to be skeptical of the Apollo claims but these are mine. As to why such a hoax was perpetuated, I can only guess. I would "follow the money".... Perhaps the billions were necessary to develop secret defense systems. There are many plausible reasons such as one mentioned in the comments on this (new window) page:

#
ray willow said,

April 19, 2008at 12:23 pm

"I suspect that the Apollo missions did no more that just orbit the moon and that the only people who were aware of this were the astronauts themselves, the president and his close advisers. I do not believe that
any of the so called evidence supports this hoax theory though. I just believe that the missions were so complex and the chances of a disaster were so high that common sense dictated that it just wasn't worth the
risk. American astronauts crashing into the moon,failing to take off again or failing to rendezvous in orbit would have been the certain outcome and that would have been very bad for American prestige. As the
president had already pledged to go to the moon a hoax landing was the only logical solution to the problem. The missions therefore left earth with a full mission payload for a landing plus a bag of rocks from the
desert and some exposed film from a film set. The landing payload was jettisoned into space for the return trip and the rocks and film were handed over as evidence of a successful mission."

I considered the hoax theory after seeing the video of the first press conference after returning from the Moon. Neil, Buzz, and Michael just seemed really nervous and secretive. I now think they were just not used to that kind of thing at all being test pilots. Plus, there was a lot of secret stuff that they couldn't talk about.

If I may:

1) Whenever man has explored new realms on this planet he has invariably discovered the unexpected and the novel. Yet when attaining to another world for the first time, nothing unexpected or remarkable was found. Everything was just as we expected it to be. Just some dust and rocks described as almost identical to those found in Arizona.

That's not true. The dust that comprises the regolith is quite different from anything on Earth. 1) It is not weathered at all, in fact the grains are best described as "spiky" 2) It is chemically reactive with free oxygen; the astronauts mentioned a "gunpowder" smell when they tracked it into the lander, which went away after a few hours as the reactive minerals oxidized 3) It contains a small but detectable amount of Helium-3 from the solar wind, which is absent on Earth. There are others, but those are the ones I can pull from the top of my head.

2) In recent years scientists have learned that the existence of life is not dependent on a narrow chemical or environmental parameter, as previously assumed. Life flourishes abundantly, even if inconspicuously, in even the most unlikely environments on Earth. Huge tube-worms derive sustenance from corrosive sulfuric geysers under the pressure of miles of ocean. Bacteria thrive in Icelandic geysers at hundreds of degrees and buried miles deep inside solid granite. Recently I read that UV resistant bacteria have been found high in the ionosphere. Thus I can see no reason why there would not be a form of life adapted to the moon's peculiar habitat.

All of these forms of life require liquid water. The Moon has not had liquid water on its surface for at least four billion years. How do we know this? The minerals we collected are all silicates and aluminates that form in waterless conditions. In fact, this goes back to #1, in that rocks in Arizona have all been weathered to some extent by liquid water. Also, if the Moon was formed in a large impact event, much of the existing water in the precursor body would have boiled off and not returned.

That's not to say that something couldn't evolve that could survive in present lunar conditions. But it would need time to get started. It took approximately 1 billion years for definitive evidence of life on Earth to emerge, and the Moon was dry as a bone before that.

3) If Nasa was able to hop over to the moon seven times using a pocket-calculator equivalent computer and an untested, flimsy, tinfoil-wrapped lander, why is it such a daunting task for them to return using modern technology a thousand times advanced? Why have billions been spent on building a floating trailer home, when a permanent base on the moon would have been feasible?

Power. It's not that cheap to get out of Earth's gravity well. We may have faster computers and better materials, but we don't have a booster as powerful as the Saturn V any more. The shuttle can make it to low Earth orbit. Communications satellites can make it to geosynchronous orbit. The moon is about 200,000 miles higher than GEO, and a manned mission is much heavier than a communications satellite. Plus, a permanent base on the Moon is a thousand times more complicated than a go-and-return mission. The Moon has no water. The Moon has no atmosphere. The Moon has no oil, gas or coal. The Moon has no open skies and virgin lands to plow and seed and harvest. You have to take everything with you, and make sure it doesn't run out.

theorellior:
3) If Nasa was able to hop over to the moon seven times using a pocket-calculator equivalent computer and an untested, flimsy, tinfoil-wrapped lander, why is it such a daunting task for them to return using modern technology a thousand times advanced? Why have billions been spent on building a floating trailer home, when a permanent base on the moon would have been feasible?

Power. It's not that cheap to get out of Earth's gravity well. We may have faster computers and better materials, but we don't have a booster as powerful as the Saturn V any more. The shuttle can make it to low Earth orbit. Communications satellites can make it to geosynchronous orbit.

Thanks for your elaborate response. This place is closing in a few minutes, but I am curious what you mean by "we don't have ..any more". Has the technology been lost? They did not "have" these rockets back in the 1960's.... until they built them. Eh...so if we want to travel to the moon we have to build a rocket to go there. Am I missing something?

hudef: Thanks for your elaborate response. This place is closing in a few minutes, but I am curious what you mean by "we don't have ..any more". Has the technology been lost? They did not "have" these rockets back in the 1960's.... until they built them. Eh...so if we want to travel to the moon we have to build a rocket to go there. Am I missing something?

The Saturn V was a huge rocket, with three stages. We only have two-stage boosters right now. It took a lot of material and money to assemble, fuel and maintain. And once you use one, most of it is gone forever. To get back to the Moon right now we'd have to cobble something together out of spare shuttle parts or try to clean off the pigeon crap and algae off of the Saturn V shell outside of JSC in Houston. And even then we'd only be able to send up three people in two tin cans.

To return to the Moon, we'd need a better rocket, using the better technology and materials we have now, to send more payload. I think that's what the Ares V project (referenced above) is all about.

hudef: Has the technology been lost?

In some ways, the technology has been well-known since the time of Newton. After all, it's just a matter of throwing mass out the back end of the rocket. The little details (like how they kept the bell of the F-1 engine from melting) are tough to get right, and that's why every new rocket is expensive to design - just like every new airplane is expensive to design.

The apollo project cost $140 billion in 2004 dollars. For that same year, NASA's budget was only $13 billion. So by that measure, if NASA put everything it had into another moon program, it would take them ten more years to duplicate it. But the catch is, they can't possibly put 100% of their budget into going to the moon. For one thing, congress is full of farking pork-snuffing politicians and they attach line items to NASA's budget like, "designate 1 million to build a science lav in Mrs. Crabtree's 8th grade class." Seriously, there's bullshiat like that in every agency's budget. For another reason, they have commitments like the shuttle and the ISS. So NASA can only put a little amount of money each year into this program. And what little they do commit, they have to deal with idiots saying, "omfg we should solve all of Earth's problems first!!" It actually makes me pretty angry.

But wait! Shouldn't it be cheaper this time? Why, exactly? What has improved, technology-wise? Computers are faster, but computers aren't the problem. If you paid attention in high-school physics, you learned everything you'd need to plot a hoffman transfer orbit to the moon. Computers don't take you to the moon, rockets do. Should it be cheaper today to design a rocket than it was 60 years ago? Well consider this, Boeing spent more money developing its newest airplane, the 787 than it did on the 747 (adjusted for inflation). The tiny prop-powered Cirus SR22 cost more to develop than the P-51 did.

Why? Did we lose P-51 technology? Why can't we just take parts from a P-51 and use them to make a new airplane at half the cost? I guess the answer is just that it's more complicated than that.

So NASA had a perfectly good rocket that could go to the moon, and they would have been more than happy to keep flying them. By the way, look at what NASA was planning for: the vertical assembly building will hold FOUR Saturn Vs. NASA built TWO launch pads for them, and two crawlers. NASA was planning to launch Saturn V's like once a month. What happened?

Nixon happened. Vietnam happened. They canceled the program. They bought the shuttle instead. Then they never gave them enough money to build a replacement, so NASA kept flying shuttles until they're about to fall apart.

Tofu: NASA was planning to launch Saturn V's like once a month.

*Sniff* Sorry, I got something in my eye.

Oh, another thing:

Tofu: The apollo project cost $140 billion in 2004 dollars.

In other words, the Iraq war would have paid for eight Apollo programs. At bare minimum, throwing out all the buildup and prototyping and cobbling-from-scratch that happened before the actual Moon landings and just doing a simple multiply-the-figures-out, that would have meant fifty-six manned Moon missions. Fifty-six. At once a month, that would have been manned Moon missions for four and a half years straight. 168 astronauts. Incalculable science.

Instead, we got shock and awe and a shiatton of depleted uranium littering Mesopotamia. This is the sort of thing I think of when people complain we shouldn't spend money on space, we should spend it on Earth. Yeah, good luck with that.

looks like a closeup b&w picture of a crappy drywall job
/thought the same thing about those pics of mercury
//yeah, whyTF aren't there pics of the Apollo landing site?

Tofu: The Bad Astronomer: I tried years ago to get NASA to do an Apollo landing site imaging campaign for the Orbiter as part of their public outreach, but got nowhere. I expect they'll do it eventually, hopefully soon!

Yeah, we need that kind of public outreach, especially considering the fact that we'll never be going back to the moon. Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I feel that Obama is about this close *holds up two fingers* to canceling Ares V.

Everyone is saying, "omfg Ares I is so expensive" but nobody is saying, "yeah there's a good reason it's expensive: they are building in commonality with Ares V." In other words, a lot of things that you're going to need on Ares V anyway, like the six-segment SRBs and the J2E engine. If you build Ares I, then you can just bolt those parts onto Ares V. But if you don't build Ares I, then you *still* have to pay to develop those parts.

So, everyone is saying how much money we'll save if we go with the Delta IV, but I don't believe it, because I don't see people taking Ares V into account. What I think is going to happen, is that we'll cancel Ares I, we'll end up paying just as much for the Delta IV (surprise surprise, Boeing was overly optimistic in its cost projections). Then someone will say, "oh BTW Ares V is now double the cost LOL SORRY!" and they'll cancel Ares V.

Result: we'll have something even less useful than the shuttle and for the next 50 years, no US astronaut will leave LEO. And when the ISS is thrown away in 10 years or so what are we going to do? What possible use will there be for Orion without a space station or a way to go to the moon?

I'm sorry that I sound angry, but this is my cynical prediction. Enjoy your LRO pictures of the moon because you're not going back because nobody is willing to pay for it.

You just made a small child cry, and probably also killed a puppy...