Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[JayUtah]

It always makes me laugh when we get to the bit where Vixen grasps for some alternative form of words that might make it look like she wasn't simply wrong. And fails.

...and gets five more pages out of it.

 

[Helen]

I'm not all that good at hero-worship, I prefer real people, but I have come to respect JayUtah a great deal. It's obvious that he has expert knowledge, but he is also kind and patient enough to try to make his expert knowledge accessible even to the denser of us. I enjoy learning from people who are so obviously experts in their field, and who also like sharing their knowledge, and allow you to share their enthusiasm - It's one if the best things in life, if you ask me.

 

[Axxman300]

Yes, when you were an impressionable patriotic excitable schoolkid, of course the Moon Landing was explained in terms that were rational and made perfect sense.

It's called, "Getting an education". Most of my classroom knowledge comes from teachers who explained a variety of topics in terms that were rational and made perfect sense. Too bad you never took advantage of your time in school.

As far as being patriotic, I was 5 in 1969. My loyalty was with Tyrannosaurus Rex.

This is why it will be interesting to compare how the Chinese astronauts do their landings, Moon walks and taking off.

Well, while I'm no rocket scientist, I did pay attention in grammar school. My educated guess is the Chinese lunar missions will be updated versions of the Apollo missions. I can say this with some certainty because the laws of physics haven't changed, the science of space travel hasn't changed, and the Chinese tend to copy things that work (like any other wise industrialized nation does *except Russia*).

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Yeah, let's all pretend I'm the stupid one.

It's easy to understand why you'd like for us to join you in that, because it would shift the discussion to an activity you've mastered, but there's no reason for the rest of us to play along.

I'd say let's not play pretend.

 

[Steve]

Yeah, let's all pretend I'm the stupid one. I get this means a lot to our US friends and I honestly have no intention of pricking anyone's fondly held beliefs.

Well you raised the issue, so - There is absolutely no need to pretend. It is blatantly obvious with every single post you make. It is astonishing that a person with the '"thought" processes that you display here can function in the real world.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

This one is much more appropriate for this situation.

View attachment 72189

There are nil bogs on the moon, so that tracks.

 

[turingtest]

All this reminds me of a visit I made to the Flat Earth Society's website and forum a few years ago, out of curiosity to see if this was a real belief held by real (presumably sane and reasonable) people. Turns out that it is, but it quickly became apparent that there were two types of people making the arguments for a Flat Earth- those who actually believed in it and really were just too stupid to comprehend the (very basic) objections to their worldview, and those who were only making the arguments to get a rise out of folks who knew better, IOW trolls, who didn't mind looking foolish through foolish argumentation because they got some weird kick out of the frustrations they engineered. The moral of the story is that you cannot fix determined stupidity and there's no point in arguing with bad faith. I'm not sure which one is going on here, but if the effect is the same, the difference isn't a meaningful one.

I will say, though, that that whole "[t]he Moon being 1/6th gravity of Earth does not mean a weight on your back is any less lighter" thing, and then defending it by saying it was all about the ratios, bears a strong family resemblance to Donald Trump's "alternative" math when he claimed he had brought drug prices down by percentages that amounted to giving the drugs away for free or even paying people to take them. Trump, IMO, belongs firmly in the "determined stupidity" category, so...make of that what you will.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

This is the other thing: all people seem to have in their debating tool box are insults, name-calling and ad homs.

Yup, I noticed that about @JayUtah 's posts, too. Nothing but wall-to-wall insults and name-calling and absolutely nothing else, nope.



(/s, by the way)

 

[Axxman300]

It's this idea that when on the Moon every step is ten inches high and you have to leap about. This is something imagined by NASA and Kubrick in his Apollo film at the time. The proof will be in the pudding when the Chinese astronauts land in the near future.

Here's the problem with your claim: You are full of crap.

This is the entire lunar sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. At the 5:18 mark they're walking on the moon:


Guess what, Einstein? They're walking normal. No bouncy bouncy. Yet again you've cited a source without reviewing that source. If you take the time to watch just this clip you'll see Kubrick's moon, and lunar activities look much different than the real thing.

And we get it, you'll only believe it if communists walk on the moon.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Guess what, Einstein? They're walking normal. No bouncy bouncy

Well, no, it's not that sort of movie.

And we get it, you'll only believe it if communists walk on the moon.

I'm now picturing Sting singing: "I hope the Russians love to moon-walk, too."

 

[welshdean]

As I pointed out, buoyancy is not the same as gravity but never mind,

Whoosh!
Why did NASA bother with this?

 

[JayUtah]

There are nil bogs on the moon, so that tracks.

We just had the annual cast screening a week or so ago. Those are always fun.

 

[Foster Zygote]

No IIRC the Hasselblad shutter speed, including winding onto the next frame, was 1.5 secs.

You don't recall correctly.

That's not the shutter speed. The shutter speed is how long the shutter exposes the film to light. For the lunar EVAs they selected between either 1/125 sec. or 1/250 sec., depending on general lighting conditions. The frame advance speed is how fast the camera can be readied to expose the next frame.

This is why you can't tell us what settings you supposedly used to "easily" take pictures of stars while implying that they should be evident in the Apollo photographs. It's because you don't know enough about photography to even understand why that was such an obviously blatant lie.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Yeah, let's all pretend I'm the stupid one.

You're certainly making it easier than pretending you're the smart one.

I get this means a lot to our US friends and I honestly have no intention of pricking anyone's fondly held beliefs.

This isn't an American thing. This is an educated thing. It's not like scientists outside the U.S. are denouncing the moon landings as fake.

 

[JayUtah]

I have come to respect JayUtah a great deal. It's obvious that he has expert knowledge...

Thank you for the kind words. I try to explain things thoroughly even when I'm responding to a joke I didn't get.

Conspiracy theories ask us to reward ignorance and mediocrity. That's an insult not only to the people who have made an actual effort to learn and investigate, but also to the dignity of human knowledge writ large. "My ignorance is as important as your knowledge," has to be one of the most corrosive prospects society faces.

I'm surprised we haven't yet heard the typical, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to have an opinion on..." argument. I assume it's in the offing as soon as the traditional, "Poor, poor me! You treat me so badly!" whin[g]ing has failed. Well, yes, quite a lot of Apollo is literal rocket science, and yes you do have to be a rocket scientist to have an opinion that matters.

But no, you don't need to be an expert. You just need to be a willing student. I can teach you enough determinate statics in a couple of paragraphs to understand how to work the problem of an off-center backpack. I and others can teach anyone enough about perspective or camera exposures—and in any case it's within the power of any reader to experiment with that. Even free DSLR camera apps on your smart phone let you play with the classic camera parameters and see the results in real time. And it takes no expertise at all to understand line-of-sight communications.

It's important to understand that @Vixen is none of these things. She is not an expert, but neither is she a willing student. She responds to attempts to educate her and correct her mistakes with unhinged rants that just restate her claims. And so no, she doesn't get to insist that those hubristic opinions matter. People will understandably point and laugh at such behavior, because it's legitimately laughable. And thus the victimization she might cobble up in its wake—however real or imagined—is ultimately earned. It's the same theatrics with which she seems to approach every topic, and it's becoming so very tiresome.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I am not 'playing the victim'. I am simply correcting your ridiculous and patronising assumptions. I know it is safer for you to assume I am an idiot (and you are quite welcome to call me an idiot); what I am doing is pointing out your defence mechanisms: by asserting I am an idiot you are just protecting your own fear of addressing the issue that Marcus Allen has a point.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm simply pointing out facts in evidence. You keep trying to pretend that you're knowledgeable about various subjects, only to demonstrate that you know virtually nothing about them. You've made embarrassing errors regarding photography, after lying about it. You've demonstrated that you can't even perform the simplest of mathematics after implying that there might be something fishy about shooting 120 photos in 150 minutes when there's a minimum time of 1.5 seconds between exposures. You don't even understand that you're strength doesn't lessen by 1/6th just because you go from n the earth to the moon.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I was addressing Wollery and his pompous claim his 13-year-old pupils know better.

There's nothing pompous about it. Most attentive 13 year old science students do know better. My son probably understood that when he was 8 or 9. I'm positive he could divide 150 by 120 at that age.

 

[steenkh]

The proof will be in the pudding when the Chinese astronauts land in the near future.

Nah, they are not going to the Moon. They are going to fake it just like the Americans did, only in better quality!

 

[JayUtah]

My educated guess is the Chinese lunar missions will be updated versions of the Apollo missions. I can say this with some certainty because the laws of physics haven't changed, the science of space travel hasn't changed, and the Chinese tend to copy things that work (like any other wise industrialized nation does *except Russia*).

Yes, there are certain things that will necessarily be the same for any future Moon mission. But also things that will be different. The laws of nature and the problems they present for us don't change. But the way we solve them might. While the Orion spacecraft bears a purposeful resemblance to the Apollo command module, it is also quite different. And whichever lunar lander we select will look only superficially like Grumman's, and may in fact operate materially differently.

So this is one reason to invoke the Chinese missions. If they differ in any way from the Apollo missions—even innocuously and superficially—unscrupulous claimants can say, "See, they're doing it the right way, which means Apollo was fake." These don't have to be actually operative differences. Any departure will do.

Another reason is simply rhetorical. "Let's just wait for the Chinese missions," is trying to say, "I'm pretending to be reasonable by withholding judgment until I get more information." As with a certain ship sinking, that faux-rational posture doesn't stop the arguments being made here and now from being preposterous on their face. We have the evidence right here and now to know that those arguments don't hold water regardless of whether any future missions happen. You don't need to wait for the cupcake for comparison to know that what you're holding in your hand is dog poop.

Finally in this case it's likely that references to recently completed missions and future planned missions is just the veneer trying to pass off long-debunked conspiracy theories as a "current event" and not a conspiracy theory. There's nothing new that happened that makes Apollo any more or less authentic. There's nothing planned that will make Apollo any more or less authentic.

Nah, they are not going to the Moon. They are going to fake it just like the Americans did, only in better quality!

That's always in the wings. People who really want to believe in conspiracy theories will simply expand the theory to account for any new counter evidence.

 

[Steve]

Nah, they are not going to the Moon. They are going to fake it just like the Americans did, only in better quality!

Gimme a break! If they went to the moon those heavy packs would make them tip over as soon as they tried to walk. And digital cameras don't work in low gravity.