[Split]Moon hoaxes - split from: Mars Voyage too Soon?

[rwguinn]

So it was just a question of hard cash was it?!

Erm...
Yeah. Most engineering solutions boil down to that.
"Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick 2"

 

[Southwind17]

So, Southwind, what exactly do you believe happened?

Did the Mercury missions proceed as NASA states?
How about the Gemini missions? Were they real?
The Space Shuttle? The Hubble telescope? The International Space Station? Real?

Now, how about the Saturn V, heart of the Apollo program? Did the huge crowds of spectators imagine each of the 13 launches of this 360 foot, 3000 ton rocket? Or are you suggesting that NASA threw away billions of dollars (1960s dollars, when a billion dollars was a lot) throwing empty tin cans at the moon and then bringing them back again?

Radar echoes coming and going, faked? Transmissions from lunar orbit and the lunar surface, picked up at multiple receiving stations outside the US, faked? Over 10,000 photos, faked? Laser reflectors left on the surface of the moon, still working today, faked?

What about the unmanned lunar orbiters and landers, the Surveyor and Ranger missions, that NASA launched prior to Apollo? What about Kaguya and Chang'e 1, the Japanese and Chinese lunar orbiters launched in September and October this year? Are they fake too?

What about Mariner, Pioneer, Voyager, Viking? If they were faked, how come so many of them crashed, blew up, or simply missed their targets? How about Spirit and Opportunity, the little rovers that are still trundling around the surface of Mars? Are they fake too?

And if NASA and others have successfully launched probes to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, plus various asteroids and comets, plus constant traffic to and from Earth orbit, why would you suggest that they didn't also send men to the Moon?

The Saturn V is clearly capable of making the trip. It was built. It was launched. It did indeed go to the Moon. The Command Module did indeed come back.

So where's the problem?

I'm referring to men walking on the Moon.

 

[Southwind17]

Good luck getting an answer to that, Pixy.

Will that do?!

 

[Southwind17]

Wow you can't even read.

You're supposing I'll understand this?

You mocked phantom wolf for his inability to do research. The fact is that he knew about that video when he made that comment. Ergo, his original point still stands.

The point being that 'Jay' couldn't find somebody, therefore that somebody doesn't exist? If you say so!

And as a side note that analysis is flawed. You can't tell where the light source is from that information.

What light source?!

 

[Southwind17]

Maybe he didn't know who "Jay" is, but he knows who PhantomWolf is. Therefore, he had a basis for tentatively accepting the information. Further, no one said that it "proves" Groves doesn't exist.

So what's PhantomWolf's point, then?

 

[Southwind17]

Jay is is JAy windley of the Clavuis moonbase, he pretty much an expert on debunking moon hoaxes and his website is listed as a web resource.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/local_links.php?catid=17

Fixed that for you.

Thabiguy erroneously found me guilty of the crime of 'appeal to authority' earlier!

 

[Southwind17]

Did you happen to notice that Aldrin is standing in a small crater?

Yes I did, although I don't believe it's a crater as such, more a slight depression, and I'd say he's standing more on the lip of it. Either way, Groves takes account of the difference in surface height based on where the photographer and astronaut are both standing.

 

[Southwind17]

Erm...
Yeah. Most engineering solutions boil down to that.
"Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick 2"

Physical impediments and technological innovation and development had no part to play?

 

[rwguinn]

Physical impediments and technological innovation and development had no part to play?

You DO have a comprehension problem, don't you.

 

[sts60]

Physical impediments and technological innovation and development had no part to play?

Not in the original context of this particular issue, where Undesired Walrus conjectured a "fake ray" to fool the Soviet's tracking technology. It is impossible to fake a signal from the surface of the Moon with a satellite or aircraft. The pointing angles, tracking rates, ranging, Doppler, and signal strengths simply would be wrong. Nor were the Soviets the only ones to track Apollo other than NASA and affiliated organizations; amateurs did, too.

Similar notes about radio signals from the Moon apply to the ALSEP units, as discussed in post 85 (also see post 133); I'm still looking forward to your comments (nudges Southwind17 gently).

Edit: I realized the struck-out part above didn't really make sense. What I wanted to say is that no amount of money can fake a signal from the Moon with anything but, well, a signal from the Moon. So "physical impediments" - i.e., physics itself - do play a key part here; they prevent a faked signal from being successful in the first place.

 

[Belz...]

Will that do?!

Yes, I believe you've made my point.

Feel free to join reality, any time. Sheesh.

 

[PetersCreek]

Sorry if I missed a previous post to this effect, Southwind, but just what is your standard of "proof" in this matter? What will convince you? Obviously, a preponderance of evidence won't do it. Some here, including myself, would argue that proof beyond a reasonable doubt won't be satisfactory to you, either. So, what will it take?

Now, regarding Dr. David Groves...an Appeal to Authority is not necessarily fallacious if the authority really is an authority on the subject in question. So, is Dr. Groves an authority on photogrammetry? If we're talking about this Dr. David Groves, he appears to have expertise in computer-assisted interferometric measurement techniques and related technologies. That's not the same thing as photogrammetry, though.

If Dr. Groves' analysis falls outside his field of expertise, then it is a fallacious Appeal to Authority to cite his credentials in order to bolster the argument. Lacking verifiable credentials in the field, a peer-reviewed body of work in the field, citations by other recognized experts in the field, or any other credible evidence as to his expert qualifications to conduct a definitive anaylysis, it would likewise be a fallacy to cite his analysis as authoritative. Of course, this alone doesn't invalidate his analysis...it just can't benefit from the support of his reputation and will have to stand or fall on its own merits.

Unfortunately, his analysis doesn't favorably bear scrutiny on that basis, either. The Clavius website does a far better job of dissecting Dr. Groves' various arguments than I could.

 

[Thabiguy]

Thabiguy erroneously found me guilty of the crime of 'appeal to authority' earlier!

It seems you misunderstand what "appeal to authority" is. Appeal to authority is in no way a crime; it is a logical fallacy. This means that the argument doesn't support the claim. Committing this fallacy is not evidence against the claim, and neither for the claim. The claim could be true or false for unrelated reasons; even if the claim is true, argument from authority remains a logical fallacy. As your post merely stated that an "authoritative" figure thinks otherwise, and didn't contain anything from Groves analysis to directly address the issue, as an argument it was an appeal to authority and there was nothing erroneous in stating so.

 

[The Big Dog]

I am confused. There are interviews with this Groves character on You Tube. Is there a question that the person in those interviews is not the Groves who did the analysis?

 

[ArmillarySphere]

Barring evidence to the contrary, that seems to be the case. However, he's never been conclusively identified, and so we only has his word for that he has any relevant expertise on the matter. Regardless of that issue, however, his analysis is severely flawed - the geometry is wrong, the assumption of flat ground is proven wrong by the very photo he's analysing, and so forth, so it doesn't really matter whether he has a Ph.D or not - he's still wrong.

The rest of that youtube clip is much the same - it sounds impressive enough to anyone who isn't familiar with the subject at hand, but falls flat once you start looking at the claims.

 

[drkitten]

Physical impediments and technological innovation and development had no part to play?

All solvable by throwing money at the problem.

 

[SpitfireIX]

So what's PhantomWolf's point, then?

I think I know, but I'll let him answer.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Thabiguy erroneously found me guilty of the crime of 'appeal to authority' earlier!

Appeal to Authority^WP:

On the other hand, there is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true, in contrast to claiming that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism: It can be true, the truth can merely not be proven, or made probable by attributing it to the authority, and the assumption that the assertion was true might be subject to criticism and turn out to have been wrong actually. If a criticism appears that contradicts the authority's statement, then merely the fact that the statement originated from the authority is not an argument for ignoring the criticism.

No one thinks Jay's infallible; certainly not Jay himself. In fact, there's a running joke on BAUTforum.com about the "I corrected Jay" T-shirt (I even got one once ). But he's right a hell of a lot more often than he's wrong.

 

[annexw]

I'm referring to men walking on the Moon.

I'm sorry if I'm reading this wrong, but Southwind17 are you saying that you don't have a problem with man getting to the moon, but with man walking on the moon?

Just trying to get your position properly in my head.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I think I know, but I'll let him answer.

Most people seem to have already guessed it. My point is that because Groves is impossible to track down, there is no accounting for his work. We only have Aulis' statement that he actually is qualified to do what was claimed, that he actually did what was claimed, and that the results they present us are what were actually obtained. Without Groves standing up and being counted and having his work examined, he is an anonymous authority, i.e. worthless.

The fact that a number of people, including those predominate in the Hoax debunking community, have tried to track him down and keep running into dead ends and ghosts doesn't mean he doesn't exist, but it certainly means he's not publicly accountable for his supposed claims. Since he apparently isn't willing to stand by his work, show that he was indeed qualified to make the assessments he had and support his conclusions, why should he be accepted as an authority? He shouldn't.

As to the image, not being sure which it was comes from not wanting to reading form a dozen rambling posts. I make the mistake of assuming it was Groves "hotspot on the boot" claims with the Aldrin egress image that were in discussion. Since it seems it's the "Man on the Moon" image, then all I can say is Aulis' work on this is even worse. They use a poor publicity image rather than getting an original scan and things get worse from there. The reason that Armstrong is "above" Aldrin is two fold. Aldirn is standing in a depression (you can see it in the photograph) while the ground Armstrong is on is higher, and second, Aldrin is leaning towards the camera. The centre of mass of the suits caused the Astronauts to lean forwards. Good shots of this are the "Aldrin Flag Salute" images were the lean forwards is showed very clearly.

As to my assessment of the book "Dark Moon", I stand by it, it is a muddled, incoherent, poorly thought out, self debunking, load of trash that isn't worth being used as toilet paper. Percy and co are conmen that know they are conning people and don't care. Percy's "laws of Photography" are his own inventions and even the photos he uses to try and support them contradict his own Laws. When this was brought to his attention, rather than accepting he was wrong and changing his position, he simple shut up shop to stop any further criticism of his work. They want nothing other then the money of gullible people who have even less understanding of photography and the real world than they do.