Yes Virginia, We Really Did Land On The Moon
For those genuinely in doubt as to whether we sent twelve men to walk on the moon, some facts.
1. We left retroreflectors on the moon, just like bicycle reflectors only bigger and not as pretty. Visit the McDonald Observatory or any other with the proper laser range-finding equipment and you can see for yourself that the laser energy returns when the telescope is pointed at the designated landing sites and does not return elsewhere.
2. Two recent survey missions have photographed the landing sites. The LRO has dipped low enough to resolve not just shadows and disturbed soil, but the descent stages and rovers we left behind. No word yet on the poop bags, but they’re here somewhere.
3. We have films of much of the research and testing, and if you know enough about science and engineering to know what you are looking at, it’s all clearly the real thing.
4. We still have much of the hardware. For example, F5 engines from the Saturn-V are currently being disassembled and in some cases fired as part of an effort to develop a cheaper follow-on engine. They clearly are what they claim to be. I’ve personally seen the Saturn-V stack on display in Houston, and it is clearly authentic. Among other things, a prop would not be made of the same materials, and it would either have phony components or all off the shelf 1960’s hardware. But much of the Apollo hardware was custom developed at great expense, and if you know what you’re looking at, you can see it’s for real. A prop or fake would not have details that only an engineer (or nerd who’s studied the blueprints) would notice.
Workmen at JSC in Houston inside the SLA (the adapter where the LM sat during launch), looking up at the heat shield of a real Service Module without an SPS engine installed. The hole at top (behind the strut) is an access port for fueling, venting, and testing the SPS propellants.
5. We have thousands of pictures taken on the moon, which clearly are what they claim to be. All alleged problems with these materials only demonstrate the ignorance of the conspiracy nuts alleging the problems.
For example: Many conspirators complain that the lander didn’t kick up a lunar dust cloud. Of course it didn’t. Billowing dust can only occur in an atmosphere. In vacuum, each particle—no matter how small–flies off in a straight parabolic arc never to be seen again.
For another example: Motions of the flag claimed to be caused by air currents are—in every case—clearly inertial movements or static electric attraction caused by astronaut movement. The very movements the nutters complain about prove the landings were real. (For many other such examples, visit Bad Astronomy)
6. We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks. Granted, you need access to them and you need to be a geologist with the right credentials to evaluate them, but at least some, such at the helium-3 impregnated rocks from by Apollo 17, could not have been produced on earth.
7. The Soviets were watching everything we did. They would have ratted us out. They would have LOVED to rat us out.
8. Thousands of people saw it. Not just the spectacular launches and the sailors on the recovery ships, either. Thousands in Hawaii, for example witnessed the Trans-Lunar-Injection burns.
9. We have documentation in the form of operations manuals for the command and service modules, the LEM, the suits, the rover and much more–all completely authentic and sprinkled across the world including depository libraries like the one at Louisiana Tech where I read them before the conspiracy nuttery had gotten any legs.
10. This guy:
I’ll be posting in more detail soon about specific conspiracy claims and how what they really prove is the ignorance of those making them.
We went to the moon. It was expensive, but like Frosty the Snowman, we’ll be back again some day.
I am amazed how there is a lot of people that does not believe man got to the Moon (and back). These same people believe and accept man can build and use submarines. Well, a submarine is a vessel that is completely autonomous (like a spacecraft), water-tight (like a spacecraft), that can be taken from A to B only “on instruments” (like a spacecraft), BUT as it goes up and down under the water, it must regulate is inner pressure, according with the variations of the outside pressure (UN-like a spacecraft). In his point, it its way more complicated to build a submarine than a spacecraft. But submarines are OK, while spacecrafts are “hoax”. Why?
Well, but the spacecraft have the rocket engines and reentry heatshield, so they also get some complexity points, right? 😉
Absolutely. The Apollo moon rocket was arguably the most complex system ever built–but we only know that because we built it.
Yes, well, you may be giving many of the hoaxers too much credit in wondering at their logic. As Mark Twain said, you can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. Still, some people just don’t know any better, and when you don’t have the information, really terrible arguments can sound persuasive. That’s why I post these. 🙂
I recently went on a course and there was this guy there, he was a typical goofey guy with glasses an inch thick and a typical short regulation nerd type haircut…and he thought he was just the shit..he knew it all!. We got on to the subject of lunar landings, to which I said so you dont believe they ever happened? his reply was “of course”! (they didnt happen)..well, you can imagine..so I took the piss out of him by saying “oh well of course!”..haha..but then I just couldnt take anymore so I educated him about the visible proof AND the reflector for laser range finding..you should have seen his face…all his muscles in his face seemed paralysed, with his mouth hanging open, speechless…ten minutes later I saw him doing karate kicks against a concrete wall ! That was it, I just burst out laughing at him..he’s one of those dweebs who was a brown belt (nearly black) but couldnt fight his way past cobwebs without tripping over his feet, and it was utterly rediculous seeing him trying to intimidate me…
Ha ha! Well I’m glad that’s all it amounted to. Those who can’t accept the possibility they might be wrong invariably are. Thanks for sharing!
I think its just healthy for the brain to question recognized facts, and actually the major part of your proof, like placing the reflector, collecting rocks and so on could just as well be performed by robots. (Did you know that the Russians also have moon rocks in their possession?)
However, there is one piece of hard evidence and that is the radio communication. Several radio hobbyists developed equipment that could determine the position of spaceship during the entire flight. Of course it could be a tape recorder on board, but I find it extremely unlikely that all this chatting was recorded in advance.
Regards
/Torbjörn
Yes, these things could have been done with robots, but lunar landing deniers don’t believe we sent ANYTHING to the moon, human, robot, anything. They don’t only deny the human aspect, they deny the landing in its entirety.
I’m convinced that we did go to the moon, but am glad that more modern space exploration has miniaturized space exploration vehicles, delegating on site observations to relatively tiny robots & computers that can be deployed with far less fuel usage and can remain in space observing on a diet of nothing more than available solar energy, even at the limits of our solar system. This is far more intelligent and efficient than trying to put humans on other moons or planets, and can provide no less valuable info than our moon astronauts did.
Reblogged this on anavarroliria and commented:
t is beyond understanding how even brilliant minds can actually have such deep perverse doubts in the presence of absolute proof that what they believe is based on utter misunderstanding of truth,. All conspiracy theorists are blind beyond recuperation as are all those believers in conspiracy theories
Moon landing deniers, Holocaust deniers–you can’t fix stupid.
Those who doubt the landing on the moon are just stupid.
AS I keep telling my candidates in classes that I instruct:
There is NO rewind for stupid.
Moon landing deniers, Holocaust deniers–you can’t fix stupid. GREAT COMMENT
Those who deny the moon landings deny the landings because the Apollo missions were such a great feat that the deniers could not even imagine, let alone accomplish.
When confronted with a feat that was so successful the hoaxers can only make sense of such an accomplishment by denying it ever happened to alleviate their cognitive dissonance and make their world make sense.
I am thankful that when I contemplate such an accomplishment of the Apollo mission, I am capable of knowing and being amazed at the many people that worked together to pull it off
I would have kept on punching this idiot… Well done Buzz!! Not enough of these fools get punched! It’s a symptom of modern living that stupidity is allowed to exist. IF we still lived in caves this dude would have been put out of the community and left to starve, which he most probably would have done by the look of him.
The world has become too liberal with too many being allowed an opinon which borders on the ludicrous. And no, we don’t have to listen to everyone!!
And yes, swearing is appropriate under the right circumstances and quite frankly I am surprised that Buzz didn’t throw out a cuss word or two along with that mint right hook!!
:o)
Well! I was often wondering the pictures of the planets & moons were fake on the text books or imaginary until I bought a telescope for myself by $450 and looked @ Jupiter’s moons, red spot, saturn’s majestic ring, half moon like Venus and some stars clusters with my nacked eyes! Then, I felt stupid because, if $450 equipment can show these images why should I doubt about billion $$$ Hubble ultra deep field images or the capability of ELT!!! Lol! people don’t believe until they see it by their own eyes. We might need to send these non believers to moon one day!