Mojo
Mostly harmless
Maybe they used an SEP field.
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Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk
- Thread starter Vixen
- Start date
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
Yes, but they'd have to be used with Black Knight rockets, development of which started in the early 50's.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Further evidence of a hoax!!! In 1969 Land Rovers were all petrol or diesel powered, and wouldn't have worked on the Moon!!!
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
It's okay, you can fit a 240,000 mile long snorkel.
Axxman300
Philosopher
Partially yes, but the white roof is semi-transparent to allow sunlight into the cargo area to eliminate the need for lighting (saving battery power. Made that change in the mid-1980s.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
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- 36,913
More rubbish.
Axxman300
Philosopher
It's based in reality. They have admitted doing this since we have since worked with them on ISS. This has never been in debate, and they have never denied it.
What the hell does this even mean? What was China doing under Mao in the late 1960s? And what the hell does Japan have to do with anything?
But the rational truth is the Soviets had Star City, and still do. They moved all their space related science and industry there to...guess what?...Yup, put stuff into space, and work on missiles. The space race of the 1950s and 1960s was a healthy competition between two competing superpowers. It happened, it was real, men died in both programs, and men did incredible things on the ground, and in space. People who doubt this are morons.
Really? You don't think their nuclear warhead production might have been a better bargaining chip? And in 50 years they've never leaked the truth?
What does this have to do with Apollo? What was Putin doing in 1969? Your analogies are consistently aweful.
But clearly you resent the USA for its existence for some reason. I suspect if the Soviets had landed cosmonauts on the moon there would be no debate from you.
So either we went or we didn't. And who cares? Buzz was always his own man.
Nope. We even have a plaque mounted on the LM that reads:Certainly makes the Moon a part of the USA, then, especially with the law passed that Tranquility Base is now a 'No Fly Zone'.Only in America ("USA, USA!")
"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
No "Property of the United States of America". Hell, the flag has probably faded by now. And landing site is now considered a historical site, which it most certainly is, and landing too close risks damaging the artifacts, such as the footprints. That's all. Not like we can enforce it...yet...
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
When you've established a brand...
catsmate
No longer the 1
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P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
Thank ◊◊◊◊ it was back in the sane times. If the First landing had been now the plaque would read "Future site of Trump Moon Hotel and Golf Course. Private Property, No Trespassing".
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JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
He did indeed work at Rocketdyne, but he left in 1963. This was before the lion's share of work on Apollo happened. Consequently he focuses on the early difficulties of the F-1 but is entirely silent on how the problems were solved.
He was not an engineer at Rocketdyne and had no engineering credential or job title. He was the head of technical publications, but not for the entire company. He was in charge of publications (a librarian) for the research department only—not any of the design, manufacturing, or operational departments. His degree was in English, and he left Rocketdyne to go live "off the grid" and write books about that lifestyle.
He had a security clearance. This was necessary for his job, even if he didn't understand the technical material he was handling. While he tried to say this gave him an insider's knowledge into the Apollo program, all his material regarding Apollo was publicly available.
Kaysing was not a very successful author. But to his credit, he was an advocate for veterans' rights. Kaysing was himself a veteran. Another veteran suggested to him that he could kill two birds with one stone and write something that would embarrass the government over its treatment of veterans. And it would likely attract more attention than the mundane books he was writing on how to live frugally. That part, at least, turned out to be true.
The story of how the book came about is hard to find these days. Transcripts of when he told it as part of a radio interview have all been DMCA-stricken over the years. Kaysing says in his book that his doubts just started as a "hunch" and grew with research. But of course if your goal is to write a book under false pretenses, you don't put the real reason in the book. However, what cannot be scrubbed is the press kit that Kaysing himself used to fax to people (including to me and Phil Plait) he thought might want to interview him on air. In it he tells most of the veteran story. Early Kaysing wasn't as interested in space missions as he was in nipping at the heels of the Establishment as away of fighting for veterans. Therefore Early Kaysing wasn't as bothered by the notion that his book might not actually be true. It was supposed to attract attention, not be actual history.
This is actually par for the course. I ran across a hoax-claiming article years ago by a guy named Milne in a small newspaper. I reviewed and debunked it. Years later, Mr Milne contacted me from his home in Scotland. He thanked me for the review and mentioned that his paper exists only to provide a sort of jobs program for homeless and/or jobless men in his city. To make the paper interesting, they print the same sort of titillating, sensational content as Nexus, which they source from all over. He assured me that he and his writers and printers firmly believe the Moon landings actually happened, but wanted the attention that outrageous claims would attract.
The problem for Kaysing was that his book became far more successful than he dreamed. His success afterward depended on him keeping up the charade, which required him to keep dipping into made-up pseudo-science. Since Kaysing himself had little scientific training or experience, that eventually got too comical for even hoax believers to hold onto. He eventually quit trying to posture himself as a technical person and relied more heavily on non-technical claims such as allegations of mismanagement and incompetence at NASA contractors.
It is unfortunate that "cat lady" is an inherently gendered term. But at the end, Kaysing really was mostly just a crazy old man living alone out in the desert. Kaysing's segment was filmed after mine, so I didn't get to respond directly to him. However, the raw footage of his interview was really just kind of sad. They were kind to him in the edit.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Being a Freemason wasn't especially weird in the 1960s. The astronauts took lots of little trinkets of personal significance with them. One carried a picture of his kids that he left on the Moon. One carried a little figurine as a tribute to fallen astronauts. A few got in trouble for trying to sell things they'd taken to the Moon. And yes, Buzz is weird. Or, since he is a national figure, he is "eccentric." None of that affects the historical facts that support the authenticity of the Moon landings. Claims of the form, "Buzz is weird, therefore the Moon landings were fake," generally rely on hidden premises such as a belief that such a person would not have been chosen as an astronaut. In other words, they boil down to, "Because I say so."
As you note, the U.S. does claim the landing sites as international and national heritage and history sites under international law. The request includes asking for a buffer zone of 75 meters (in all three dimensions) around the site. To call it a "no-fly" zone is misleading. And the descent stages are U.S. sovereign-flagged vessels on the "high seas," with an official maritime ligand status of "awaiting recovery." Therefore it is technically against international law to disturb the landing sites, and against maritime law for someone else to obtain, move, destroy, or tamper with the spacecraft.
However, the United States makes no proprietary or territorial claim on any part of the Moon.
Apollo 11's flag fell over during the RCS hot fire test. The other flags may or may not have fallen over by now, but are quite certainly faded under the UV light. Ironically if Apollo 11's flag were covered with dust from the liftoff, its colors may have survived a bit better.
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Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
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Well, I dunno. I saw a remarkable documentary about China and Japan's competing 1960s space programmes, called You Only Live Twice. It was quite an eye-opener.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Arguing against it requires bringing the Soviets into the conspiracy.
Axxman300
Philosopher
1958.
Sure. Well, we had nuclear weapons, a growing triad which included ballistic missiles (which were evolving), and a slew of technologies developed during WWII that continued to advance. But yeah, other than that the US was mostly horse and buggy...he said, tongue in cheek...
Weird, almost as if the US and the rest of the world saw advancements in technologies so fantastic we came to expect amazing things every year. In 1962, when Kennedy made his pledge, most Americans would have seen clips of the speech on their 13-inch black & white TVs, the majority having antennas, not cable. By 1969, 33% of Americans had color TV sets. Much can change in seven years, and often does. And there are test ranges in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and California littered with wreckage of rockets we lost during our race to the moon.
That's more about PR than it is anything else. These days NASA has to watch for the budget axe like everyone else. If they don't make too much noise, Congress forgets they're there.
This reminds me, I need to pull out my DVD of The Right Stuff and watch that one again.
Reformed Offlian
Illuminator
Yes, it is, for reasons already presented but apparently ignored.
The Soviets would certainly have known whether the CSM stayed in low-earth orbit for the mission, that a spacecraft indistinguishable from Apollo travelled to and from the moon, and even whether it landed there. All well within the technical capabilities of any nation with good radio and radar facilities, as well as observatories.
As a spacefaring nation, they would also be aware of anything that might make getting humans to the moon impossible. They would know what happens to film in space, what the surface of the moon looks like, and what *photographs* of the surface of the moon look like.
Pretty much all the specific reasons you have mentioned thus far for questioning the Apollo program are claims the Soviets would be able to evaluate with what they knew in the '60s. And they obviously concluded these are nonsense, since they acknowledged the landings to be genuine.
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Talking of spotting things, have you yet realised that there are people in this thread with first hand knowledge of NASA, including someone who features in the video you shared in the OP?
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
Don't spoil it. Everyone paying attention is having a laugh!
Reformed Offlian
Illuminator
Arguably before that, if you count all the V2 and Aerobee launches throughout the late '40s and into the '50s.
I don't think enough clues have been given yet, it'll be a while, if ever, before the penny drops.