The First Men on the Moon

[kham]

For all the kids out there

This is pretty cool to listen to.

[jadokast98]

Awesome!

May the Fourth be with you! Happy Star Wars Day!

[rickyj]

I am in the camp that the lunar landing was hoaxed and no person has ever set foot on it.

[Duncan Edwards]

I am in the camp that the lunar landing was hoaxed and no person has ever set foot on it.

You're joking? Dave put you up to this to test me. Right?

[Mynock]

Dude didn't you see Apollo 18? They got chased off by rock creatures and their friend Toby.

[rickyj]

No, I''ve always believed it was hoaxed. There's tons of photgraphic/video evidence that it was filmed as a movie in Arizona and Hawaii, then shown to the public. There's been radio shows (mainly art bell/Geroge Noory) with people who have investigated this thoroughly...I need to find that website again..just found it:
http://www.zimbio.com/TheConspiracyZone ... MODERN+ERA
The main reasons most of the theorists have are:
1)In 1969 we did not have the technology to do it. The lunar lander was a prop. Just look at a picture of it up close. It's a bunch of tin foil wrapped around rods. Its measurements don't even allow it to fit inside of that capsule.
2)The Van Allen radiation belts would have exposed the astronauts to high if not lethal amounts of radiation, despite their lead shielding etc. they wore.
3) Photographs of the men "on the moon" show all sorts of anomalies: shadows falling different directions, obvious use of stage lighting, pictures of a soda can at the base of the lander (NASA said that was part of a "promotional" picture or some crap)...there was a site(dont know if its still up) that showed over 50 pieces of proof just from the photos alone.
4) The flag could not be waving because there is no wind. NASA said it was waving from the astronaut "rolling" on the base to get it to "stick in." That would not cause enough momentum to make the flag wave that much like the picture shows.
4) NASA refuses to show the lunar rover, which is supposedly still there. They say it's too small to see.
5)No one is allowed to have a moon rock. It's a federal offense. That's because they arent really from the moon, and if anyone got ahold of one they could easily prove it.
6)Many of the Apollo 11 men had major life problems after they "came back". I believe Armstrong has never to this day given an interview. Another astronaut told Art Bell "he didn't remember what it was like." Another one punched that guy in the face who confronted him and called him a liar (that is on YouTube). I also believe at least a couple of those guys became lushes and got divorced(I would have to confirm that) but..hmmm..strange behavior...living a lie could do that to you.
7)NASA mysteriously "lost" almost all of the tapes (mostly the TV transmissions to Earth) from Apollo 11 supposed lunar landing. This was kind a major news story a few years back. Pretty suspicious if you ask me.
8)NASA just recently said they will not have anything to do with the moon anymore. That's because they never did. If they really were there, you'd got to figure there would be least communications bases set up on the surface by now.
9)No other country has ever gone to the moon, even though some could attempt it. Russia knows about the Radiation.

These are just a few key points...conspiracy theorists have written entire books that all but prove it. Wikipeidia's article has a lot of good information, but you've got to see the pictoral evidence which is probably the most damning.

Basically my contention is we were in space race with Russia and JFK said we had to do it by 1970. There was a lot of pressure to "do it", so it was a lot easier to fake it than actually attempt it, which might have worked, although the men would probably have been exposed to very high amounts of radiation.

[Duncan Edwards]

There's tons of photgraphic/video evidence ...

There is NONE. I defy you to show me any empirical example or documentary evidence of it.

There's been radio shows (mainly art bell/Geroge Noory) with people who have investigated this thoroughly...

Late night radio call in shows are not what I would call thorough investigators. They are much better at raising their ratings by discussing recording dead people, mating Bigfoot with Elvis, and hoax/junk science. I've laughed out loud listening to the people who call in.

1)In 1969 we did not have the technology to do it. The lunar lander was a prop. Just look at a picture of it up close. It's a bunch of tin foil wrapped around rods. Its measurements don't even allow it to fit inside of that capsule.

I've looked at more than a picture of it. I've put hands on the LEM that was destined for Apollo 18. It's very real. It's legs neatly fold to fit in the 22 foot wide space atop the S-IVB stage of a Saturn V. I've been wiring digital circuits since the early 70's and yes, the technology was available. I've got personal photos of the insides of an Apollo guidance computer and while primitive it was up to the task. You can see one yourself at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center along with a Saturn V that was developed there. (I've got a photo of Dave standing under it) Wherner Von Braun sure duped a lot of stupid German rocket scientists working away at something that was never going to accomplish its mission. All of those fooled people have built huge monuments to it in Huntsville, Houston, Washington D.C.. You're telling me that thousands of people with PhD's got conned but somebody who wasn't there and is barely literate can put up a website or book and they must know the truth?

2)The Van Allen radiation belts would have exposed the astronauts to high if not lethal amounts of radiation, despite their lead shielding etc. they wore.

Maybe if the astronauts lingered in them long enough but they passed quickly through on their way to the moon. They carried no lead shielding.

3) Photographs of the men "on the moon" show all sorts of anomalies: ...

Again I defy you to produce a single unexplainable "anomaly". Photography is something I know very well. Especially the film emulsion kind of stuff they were doing then.

4) The flag could not be waving because there is no wind...

The flag was held aloft by a wire stiffener on top. A little momentum was imparted to it as it was put in place. You can see it being blown over by rocket exhaust if you look carefully at the 16mm film that was shot as the Apollo 11 astronauts lifted off from the lunar surface. Where would they get wind in a studio anyway? I've heard claims this was shot indoors by Disney or Stanley Kubrick and then other say it was outdoors in the New Mexico desert. For something so certain there's not a lot of specificity about sites or how it let to the supposed wind.

4) NASA refuses to show the lunar rover, which is supposedly still there. They say it's too small to see.

It is too small to see with much resolution but the tracks it left have long been visible from lunar orbit.

Flag-Apollo-16-1024x1024.jpg

lr_ap17_area.jpg

5)No one is allowed to have a moon rock. It's a federal offense. That's because they arent really from the moon, and if anyone got ahold of one they could easily prove it.

Another falsehood. The moon rocks that returned are very valuable and are not for private ownership. They have been distributed to responsible scientists and institutions world wide. It's a federal offense to posses a moon rock in the same way it is a federal offense to have any other stolen piece of government property.

6)Many of the Apollo 11 men had major life problems after they "came back". I believe Armstrong has never to this day given an interview. Another astronaut told Art Bell "he didn't remember what it was like." Another one punched that guy in the face who confronted him and called him a liar (that is on YouTube). I also believe at least a couple of those guys became lushes and got divorced(I would have to confirm that) but..hmmm..strange behavior...living a lie could do that to you.

I own every book ever written in person by an Apollo astronaut and I've got personally autographed copies of Jim Irwin's (Apollo 15) and Alan Sheperd's book (Apollo 14) as well as having met them in person. Neil Armstrong was naturally reticent but gave interviews and released a biography written by James Hansen - First Man; The Life of Neil Armstrong . Buzz Aldrin punched a nutjob who kept harassing him and laid hands on him while he was leaving a hotel meeting with his daughter. 76 year old men do not normally go around punching guys that are much younger and bigger than them unless they feel threatened. Half the married men in America have been divorced. What are they hiding?

7)NASA just recently said they will not have anything to do with the moon anymore. That's because they never did. If they really were there, you'd got to figure there would be least communications bases set up on the surface by now.

NASA did not say that. NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that he did not think NASA would get men back to the moon in his lifetime due to budgetary reasons. This stuff costs money.

8)No other country has ever gone to the moon, even though some could attempt it. Russia knows about the Radiation.

The Soviet Union spent billions of rubles on building the N-1 moon rocket but lacked the management expertise to make it fly without blowing up. They tried four times before quitting. It wasn't that they didn't try. They just didn't succeed. Why did they also go to the trouble of building a lunar lander and a spacecraft (Soyuz) that would get there? Why did they test fly it around the moon (Proton/Zond)?

http://youtu.be/rEX0IHIn0_4 Soviet N1 Moon Rocket Documentary.

These are just a few key points...conspiracy theorists have written entire books that all but prove it.

I suggest you study more science and history and less form the books of those trying to make a fast buck. None of the things you mention holds up to even the mildest scrutiny.

Basically my contention is we were in space race with Russia and JFK said we had to do it by 1970. There was a lot of pressure to "do it", so it was a lot easier to fake it than actually attempt it, which might have worked, although the men would probably have been exposed to very high amounts of radiation.

Why would JFK set out to do something that was impossible? Why would Von Braun and every other scientist in the country have backed him on it? Why would the Soviets try to do it also? If they knew it was impossible then why didn't they just let us fail? If they are so smart then how were we able to fool them? In fact, how is it that the dark forces who put together such a vast conspiracy, so huge that they fooled or coerced EVERY responsible journalist, scientist, military and political leader, museum administrator and industrialist, not just in America but on the entire earth, into keeping silent but they can't shut down a two dollar website? There were 400,000 people working on Apollo at all levels and yet not ONE, ever, ever, has said anything about it being a hoax. How in the world does anyone pull that off? Why did Nixon keep it quiet when he hated Kennedy and would have loved to discredit him? Was he under some kind of mind control too?

C'mon man, stop and think. Be rational here. This kind of bullshit does lasting damage to humanity. Learn what it means to search for documented evidence of something and not on hearsay and gossip like a bunch of old women a century ago.

[rickyj]

You certainly have a lot of knoweldge about the subject. Much more than I do obviously. I'm no scientist, and I don't read books. I don't really have the interest, so you are right, that I am going on a lot of shaky evidence by people who also have shaky credentials. Obviously some of my sources are not credible, but some of them are. Did you go to the site I mentioned? Perhaps you could debunk a few of the pictures on there, especially the one where there is a "reflection" of a stage light off one of the guy's helmets, when he was supposedly on the moon. The rover sitting there with no tracks by its wheel? How could that be? What about the polaroid pics at the base of the lander, how could that be there? The guys could not take their suits off. And the very damning evidence of all those Armstrong shots of him having different suit and glove and antannae configs in pics when he was on the moon? And backdrops that look phony? Everytime conspiracy people bring these up, NASA says "oh, those were just publicity shots we took before they left." They can use that excuse over and over again.
And the "accidentally" erased footage of the whole thing? The Televised parts? I mean, you'd think a historic thing like that would be very well protected and preserved. Nope, it just got erased, oops, sorry 'bout that...And Armstrong never giving an interview? C'mon, that is ridiculous....he was super world-famous and never talked about it? Maybe that's because NASA told him not to, because if he did, he could flub up and give way too much proof he never was there.
Art Bell, even as we know his show was/is of the loony sort, interviewed one who supposedly walked on the moon and Art used to always bring this up. He asked him "Wow, what was it like when you on the moon?" And the guy's answer was something like, "gee...you know I really can't remember it." Art used to always say he was almost shocked by that remark. You can't remember walking on the moon? Hard to believe. If I was on the frickin' moon, I think I would remember what it felt like to be there.
I credit your post, and I don't doubt your credentials. So we can "see" lunar rover tracks and what may be the Rover in the official pictures. HOWEVER how do we know these pictures are not faked? NASA could easily fake anything they wanted to. They were in a space-race with Russia. They were under pressure to do it. They would only have to keep a lid on with only the people who were involved in the mission directly, many of whom are probably not alive anymore. And Yet even today they must feel pressure to preserve the secret, by showing us "new" pictures of the flag taken from orbit. That's not proof. No picture is proof. They could be faked. Easily faked.
What the conspiracy believers want is to see in real time see the rover, sitting there on the moon. THAT would be 100% proof, if a neutral group of astronomers, including skeptics, could look into a telescope and see it there. NASA says it's too small. So we say, "use Hubble", but they say then you have the opposite problem. They say the moon would look fuzzy because Hubble was built to see things far away. So I am supposed to believe there is no telescope in 2013 that can focus in enough to see the rover? A big car only 225,000 miles away? Sounds dubious. We can see Galaxies and Quasars and now planets in other solar systems. But sorry, no moon car. If they let a conspiracy person see the rover with their own eyes, THEN it would be proof. Flag and tracks are unnecesary. Just Rover.
I still think it's very possible they simply launched them into orbit then brought them back down. It would be a lot easier than pulling off an actual moon landing that we technologically probably could not have attempted at that time. In the Wikipedia article , some scientist dude(I forgot the name, but it's listed toward the bottom) said he estimated that the ability of pulling it off technologically in 1969 would be some amount like .00017%. Sure, today we could do it...but hmmm..why don't we? Simple answer: Radiation exposure risk (even at fast speeds they would get a decent shot of radiation), money costs, and safety concerns negate any benefit of going there. Actually, that's the same reason we didn't go there in 1969 also....There's nothing there anyway. Mars is the focus now.
I'd like to read a few of the moon-hoax books someday, but I hate reading. I know you hate hearing from someone who doesn't have the knowledge to really back up arguments...I just don't have enough interest.
I don't totally believe the conspiracy...we may have gone. But if I had to bet on it, I'd say we didn't.

[Mynock]

For me the real conspiracy is not if we got there but why afterwords we didn't go back or go anywhere else. The last guy to set foot on the moon did so in 1972....why have we not been back? Why have we slashed NASA's budget to the point where all they can do is fly around in circles? Why, when we made it to the moon in less than 8 years (Kennedy gave his famous moon speech in 1961, we landed in 1969), is it still going to take till 2025 to get people to Mars? What the fuck have we been doing for 45 fucking years?!?!
Gut one of the shuttles, fill the payload bay with extra living quarters, life support, and a nuke plant. Fire it into space with a minimal crew, yank the mains once it's in LEO, stuff a VASIMIR rocket into the empty holes, hook it to the nuke plant, and light the fuse. Flyby for less than 10 billion. Need volunteers? Let me just pack a few things......

[dlodoski]

No, I''ve always believed it was hoaxed. .....1) In 1969 we did not have the technology to do it. ...

Well, they didn't have today's technology.

But they had something that we collectively don't - - - Big - - Balls.

Maybe that's why some conspiracy theories are so popular. We just can't deal with the fact that (besides our combat soldiers) we have become so wimpy.