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Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

The whole notion of taking photos of the stars from the moon is just silly. Its like objecting that someone from Chicago who vacationed in Rome didn't get pictures of the night sky "to show what the stars look like from there".
Besides, if the astronauts had taken pictures of the stars, the conspiracy theorists would have said: "NASA went to such a length with their hoax that they even did it inside a planetarium".
 
They also didn't take photographs with the express aim to "prove" that they went to the moon. They simply took photographs on the moon.
This eventually comes up in Moon hoax debates. Any argument that sounds like, "If NASA really wanted to prove they had gone to the Moon, they would have done <random thing>." NASA did not document its efforts with the expectation or intent of proving their claim to extremely doubtful people. The notion that NASA should have somehow anticipated the hoax claims and produced rebuttal evidence in a correspondingly foolproof fashion has more to do with hoax claimants believing themselves to be very important than it does to any sort of sensible historical inquiry. NASA produced tons of evidence because they correctly thought the public would be interested in it as a landmark historical event.

While the Moon missions were being flown there was no credible doubt of their authenticity. After the missions concluded in 1972, NASA transitioned to Earth orbit activities. The big thing happening while Kaysing was writing his book was Skylab, which for some reason he didn't think merited any comment. The last flight of an Apollo spacecraft happened a full year before Kaysing's book came out. Obviously there was no way to go back in time and collect evidence differently. Wondering whether the Apollo 11 press conference could have done more to address Kaysing's doubts presupposes those doubts existed or were anticipated. They didn't and weren't.

Nor did NASA anticipate having to prove their claim to irrationally doubtful people.

Someone who is primed to expect reasonable doubt can arrange to provide reasonable evidence to address that doubt. But Kaysing's doubts are not reasonable. They're fully irrational, predicated in part on wrong ideas of how the natural world works. It's neither possible nor helpful to try to anticipate all the kooky wrong ways someone might doubt you. The answer to the belief that stars should be visible in Apollo photographs is not to collect more evidence or treat it differently. The answer is that the expectation is crazy wrong—full stop. No one is obliged to address claims arising from ignorance.

The right answer in those cases is to ignore the crackpots. NASA once contemplated hiring space journalist James Oberg to write a book addressing the hoax claims. They earmarked a $15,000 advance. I know Jim. I like Jim. Jim was in the American version of the OP video. Jim is fully capable of writing that book. But when the earmark was made public, there was a huge outcry over the notion that good taxpayer money would be spent to address patently ignorant nonsense. The deal was canceled.

The notion that NASA should be worried about the hoax claims comes solely from the hoax claimants who imagine themselves to be so much smarter and more important than they really are, or than normal people see them.
 
I am somewhat baffled that anybody can come up with arguments as easy to refute as these, and even more that somebody like you buys it unquestioning. :(
The "no stars in photos" argument is frankly the weakest and dumbest of all the hoax assertions. Every other claimant trying to debate this has quickly realized how weak and dumb it is and has abandoned it to move on to stronger ones. For someone to cling so desperately to it for more than a hundred pages in the face of uncontested fact says something about that person.
 
Tell us you know nothing about photography without telling us you know nothing about photography
:sdl:
She's claiming that's what I told her was needed. I did no such thing. Here's my actual post :—

She's desperate to get out from under her admission that it takes tens of seconds to expose stars on ISO 160 film. She doesn't even care that if what she tried to pin on me were true, it would mean Marcus Allen's claims are even less credible. All she cares about is trying to stir up enough confusion and doubt regarding the facts to make it seem like Allen's claims might somehow be credible.
 
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I'm watching this World Cup game, and the players in direct sunlight are completely overexposed to white blobs, and the players in shade are underexposed so it looks like a night game.

Why can't they just use one setting that clearly shows everything? Im pretty sure this means the World Cup is a hoax.
 
Am I the one one who has had to lower their sun visor while driving at dawn due to the BLINDING SUN AT THE LOW ANGLE OF THE HORIZON?

I can't be the only person who has regularly commuted, leaving the house pre-dawn, and watched the star-filled sky fade from black, to purple, to blue with the heavens vanishing into a field of blue as the sun comes up. How is this conversation 166 pages?
 
She's claiming that's what I told her was needed. I did no such thing. Here's my actual post :—

She's desperate to get out from under her admission that it takes tens of seconds to expose stars on ISO 160 film. She doesn't even care that if what she tried to pin on me were true, it would mean Marcus Allen's claims are even less credible. All she cares about is trying to stir up enough confusion and doubt regarding the facts to make it seem like Allen's claims might somehow be credible.
But Allens' claims are way less than truthful, credible or accurate. Something that should sink into her hard head.
 
But Allens' claims are way less than truthful, credible or accurate. Something that should sink into her hard head.
Why should it? Her head has remained impermeable to quite a number of facts.

She has sealed her fate by endorsing Allen's claims. She says he has valid points and that the debunkers who have addressed his claims have done a poor job of it. She rolled those dice based on the foolish presumption that there might be some legitimate gray area that would make the hoax claims seem reasonable. Now that she knows how blatantly wrong Allen and others are, she's hobbled by her pathological, chronic inability to admit error.
 
They also didn't take photographs with the express aim to "prove" that they went to the moon. They simply took photographs on the moon.

The context is, the 'Hoaxers' side claims that the photos were taken other than on the Moon and I can't see anything by the 'Debunkers' side that disproves this claim. So, if we for arguments sake take the claim seriously (that the pictures were a quick PR fix ATT to beat the Soviets) then the lack of stars, indications of secondary lighting, etc., supports their claim more than the debunkers'. Because suppose you did 'cheat' and release studio pictures, then of course, you'd leave out the stars which could expose the location and time as being incorrect and likewise you would drill the astronauts involved in the operation on what to say at press interviews bearing in mind you know that in the future any mistake will certainly be revealed in the future, so when asked about stars they can't 'blag it' as NASA is aware any blagging would soon be revealed as such. That is the logic. Yet the debunkers can't seem to debunk this (whilst it might be 'obvious bunk' to JayUtah and Foster Zygote, it doesn't follow it therefore must be 'bunk' if they have bought into it as Nixon wanted ATT). IOW they have a belief it happened because the press said it happened yet the only way they can 'debunk it' is to rattle on about 'the human eye' and rationalise (=philosophy not science) that the lack of stars is to do with normal technical issues that go with photography. However, these technical issues surely must have been known of in advance and with money no object, easily overcome, or at least attempted to overcome.
 
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Am I the one one who has had to lower their sun visor while driving at dawn due to the BLINDING SUN AT THE LOW ANGLE OF THE HORIZON?

I can't be the only person who has regularly commuted, leaving the house pre-dawn, and watched the star-filled sky fade from black, to purple, to blue with the heavens vanishing into a field of blue as the sun comes up. How is this conversation 166 pages?
It's very silly because you are assuming vision on the Moon is the same as that on Earth, when of course, our eyes have evolved to suit our unique Earthlyconditions (compare and contrast the eye of a bumble bee to that of a crepuscular animal such as a cat or a fox). When I go for a walk in sub-zero winter my vision soon distorts thanks to the effect of frost. The temperatures on the Moon are extreme, as is the brightnness of the Sun. Simply saying, oh they had special visors isn't really a debunk, more of a rationalisation.
 
Unlike Vixen, I've read Kaysing's "book" (which in reality is nothing more than a rambling illustrated pamphlet), and also have copies of Allen & Weaver's various publications on the topic, all of which are variations on a theme and merely assemble the various hoax claims in a slicker format.

They all follow the same format:

Bare assertions - claims that some element of the process happened or didn't happened, based on nothing but their own say so, much like Vixen's claims that that Armstrong's press conference response was scripted in advance. Falling in to that category is their own assumption of motive or interpretation of behaviour that is heavily slanted by their own prejudices and a priori reasoning.

"If I ran the zoo" - this has been repeatedly demonstrated by VIxen throughout this thread. Because things weren't done in a way that the hoax proponent has decided it should have been done, then it wasn't done at all. Likewise evidence that doesn't meet some arbitrary standard on which they have decided can be dismissed by them. Evidence from lunar probes? Well they claim to be 100 pixel resolution, I want 150 or I will refuse to accept it. It doesn't like I think it should, it wasn't transmitted on the day I think it should, it wasn't publicised the way I think it should, and so on and so on.

Information deficit - quite often the hoax proponent will claim something as fact because they just aren't aware that they thing they claim doesn't exist does actually exist. In on e of Weaver's books he claims no special cameras were taken to the moon to photograph stars when they should have done. The fact is they did, a UV spectrum telescope that took many photographs impossible from Earth. Stars were photographed in lunar orbit and cislunar space using specific film and techniques. They either just aren't aware of that and are arguing from a position of ignorance, or they know full well that this is the case and just gloss over it to sell copy. One proponent (who claimed to work for China's space agency, but did no such thing) insisted that China had no photographs of the Apollo landing site showing evidence of them. They do. I found them.

Dishonesty - time and time again we see claims being made that have been refuted over and over that the proponent knows about, but pretends that they haven't. Allen took the coward's way out when confronted by people who know what they're talking about and recanted his claims at the British Interplanetary Society, only to go back to them when in front of his paying audience. My favourite example of this is his "just asking questions" shtick over this Gemini photo


where he claims that the large 'stick' attached to the capsule should have been burnt off in re-entry and that "no-one can explain it". The fact is that it was explained to him multiple times, he just conveniently ignores it when presenting his carnival act to paying gullible marks (ironically, I can't remember precisely what it is, but it certainly isn't a mystery that no-one can explain) You only have to look at the countless videos by the "Apollo Detectives" on youtube to see lies and distortion presented as facts that are easily explained with a small amount of effort and a brain that open to understanding..

It's not that these claims haven't been debunked, it's that gullible and stupid people desperate to be part of a special club that gives them an explanation as to why their lives have amounted to nothing (instead of looking at their own failiings) refuse to accept that they have been. They don't want them to be debunked.
 

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