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

[Corsair 115]

Ordinarily, I'd agree that the burden of proof could be argued to be on me, as I'm the one harbouring the doubts. Accordingly, I might go do the research. However, YOU WERE THE ONE WHO POSED A LEADING QUESTION IN A CONTEXT THAT STRONGLY SUGGESTS THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER (quote: "simple question:")

It was a simple question about a subject I assumed you knew about. If you did know about it, then you'd either accept that ALSEP is definitive proof of the legitimacy of the lunar landings, or you would post your reasons as to why ALSEP wasn't definitive proof.

Since you don't know about ALSEP, go read about it, then tell us whether you think it is definitive evidence or not.

Very basic stuff, I don't know why you're all in a twist about it.

You cited ALSEP as proof that man walked on the Moon, but now, having been challenged to put up or shut up, you've realized that you were a little hasty, and that what you inferred by referring to ALSEP proves no such thing.

So you're not going to look into it yourself? Okay then.

A reminder: there's plenty of info around on ALSEP. It isn't hard to find. Heck, we've even had posts in this very thread from someone who was involved with it. The simple fact is that I don't feel like digging around through my book and online to furnish you with info that is easily available through a bit of your own effort.

Put some of your own effort into it. You claim the lunar landings are perhaps illegitimate, so go find out about ALSEP and then come back and answer my question.

I can only conclude your reluctance to do so is because you'll know the evidence is rock-solid and will bury any idea that the lunar landings were not real and you don't want to have to admit that you were wrong.

 

[LastChild]

What would it cost and what would we gain by going to Mars?

 

[Hellbound]

What would it cost and what would we gain by going to Mars?

That thread is in the Science section; this one is a split from there that concerns moon hoaxes.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Well I've come in late, so I'll just sumarize.

1) Dark Moon is not worth the paper it's written on even if used as tiolet paper.
2) To date no one has been able to track down Dr David Groves to see if he even exists, there are at least two possible candidates, but neither have replied to questions about their involvement so it is impossible to determine who he is, let alone get him to athenticate the study published by Aulis.
3) If athentic, Groves claims to be able to measure the position of the "hotspot" on Aldrin's to a degree that is finer than the grain on the film, an impossiblity.
4) Even with all of this taken into consideration, there IS a light about 30-40cm to the right of the camera, it is Armstrong's shoulder reflecting the bright sunlight and can be seen on the TV footage while he is taking the photos of Aldrin.

 

[PetersCreek]

You'll also be aware, I assume, that light becomes scattered when passing through the atmosphere, which partially accounts for the indirect lighting of surfaces in addition to directly reflected light. Conversely, scattering of light is eliminated when passing through a (true) vacuum, hence the clarity of the images acquired by the likes of the Hubble telescope. Your pointing out that there is no atmosphere on the Moon actually serves to weaken the 'reflected' light argument!

Rubbish. Atmospheric effects are far from being the primary determining factor here. Even if the Moon had an atmosphere, the reflecting surfaces present would have themselves played a far greater role in diffusing the reflected light, under the clear sky, "Sunny 16" photographic conditions depicted in the photos. The single largest reflector present in each and every photograph was the Moon itself and it is not a specular reflector. Neither were the astronauts' suits. The gold foil on the LM might have been, had it not been so wrinkled. As it was, it and the LMs other multiple angled surfaces provided yet another source of scattered, reflected light.

As an experienced photographer, I find nothing at all suspicious about the photo in question.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Exactly. Calculations I have seen put the luminosity created by the sunlight on the surface of the moon is about the equivalent of having a 100w light bulb every sqaure metre. Suggesting that the luna suface can't help to back light things is dumb, especially when you can happily read a newspaper by just the reflected light during the full moon here on Earth...

 

[PhantomWolf]

Neither were the astronauts' suits.

eta: doh, misread the sentence as spectacular not specular. I'll leave up for info though.

I might question this, the albedo of the clean Apollo suits was close to 90%, that's a pretty good reflector, especially compared to the regolith at about 14%. During the later missions where the suits got progressively dirtier through use, then their albedo would have been reduced, but Armstrong and Aldrin's were pretty clean throughout.

 

[Damien Evans]

I can't believe people still believe this rubbish!

For a thorough debunking look at this page... http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/
or this one...
http://www.clavius.org/
or this one...
http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm

Debunking of the photographic analysis 'evidence' here - http://www.iangoddard.net/moon01.htm
or here
http://www3.telus.net/summa/moonshot/index.htm

Do you really think that if this was all a hoax the Soviets, who, don't forget were the original spur for the US to go to the moon, wouldn't have been able to expose it right away?

And Don't forget: www.bautforum.com and www.badastronomy.com

 

[Damien Evans]

What's your take on the allegation that the gloves were so cumbersome so as to have made the manual operation of the aperture ring on the chest-mount camera extremely difficult, to say the least, thereby leading, in all likelihood, to an ordinate number of incorrectly exposed photos, which is claimed not to be the case?

Who claims that's not the case?

There is a large number of incorrectly exposed photos

 

[PhantomWolf]

What's your take on the allegation that the gloves were so cumbersome so as to have made the manual operation of the aperture ring on the chest-mount camera extremely difficult, to say the least, thereby leading, in all likelihood, to an ordinate number of incorrectly exposed photos, which is claimed not to be the case?

First ly the gloves weren't that clumbsy, they were designed not to be. Sure it wasn't like they were bare hands, but they weren't so stiff that they couldn't be used. I have a picture of the bare gloves (without the outer abrasion protection overglove on) on my site, it quite clearly shows the specially designed constant volume joints in the knuckles which allowed the fingers to bend with a lot more ease than a standard clove. They were probably the most engineered part of the suit.

Still the cameras had to be modified as well. The rings were changed in two ways, they had preset positions that they would lock into, and they had large "paddles" on them that the astronaut could push with his hand to get it to lock into the next position. This meant that all the Astronauts had to do was decide if the shot was at a close, medium or infinate distance for focus, in full light, partial light, or shadow, for lighting, push the paddles to the correct positions, point the camera in the right direction and squeeze a trigger asembly that was attatched to the cameras.

Of course if one bothers to look through the entire 10,000 odd images, a lot of them are out of focus, far too dark, on angles, light struck and so on. One of the reasons only certain Apollo images keep cropping up is because on the whole most are either of nothing but rocks, or they are terrible shots unsuitable for publication.

These are a few from Apollo 12

 

[Corsair 115]

One of the reasons only certain Apollo images keep cropping up is because on the whole most are either of nothing but rocks, or they are terrible shots unsuitable for publication.

It's worth noting too that many of the good shots weren't taken for their aesthetic appeal. The famous image of Aldrin's bootprint was taken because engineers wanted to see the properties of the lunar soil.

 

[Damien Evans]

I make no apologies for not being as gullible as you. But never say never (or is that never say 'ever'?!).

THe irony, it BURNS!!!!

 

[PhantomWolf]

It's worth noting too that many of the good shots weren't taken for their aesthetic appeal. The famous image of Aldrin's bootprint was taken because engineers wanted to see the properties of the lunar soil.

very true, and really apart from a handful of "Tourist" shots scattered throughout the missions (such as the famous Man on the Moon photo of Aldrin, all of the images were primarially documentation shots for either flight, or for the hundreds of scientists who wanted to have photos of how the experiments were deployed, how the soils reacted to the landing and being waked on, how the rover moved later on, and of course hundreds of photos of rocks that would be collected, the images often showing the area pre disturbing it and more after the sample was taken. Throw in panoramas so that the scientists could see what the station areas looked like, and there's your 10,000 odd shots*.

eta: This is sort of a round figure. There are nearly 14,000 Apollo 70mm Images from the "Landing Missions" 6,500 of which were taken on the surface. The other manned missions produced another 3,400 images while the unmanned had anouther 1,000 between them. 10,000 is an approximate number of "Moon" images taken during the landings and from Orbit, while there are nearly 20,000 70mm images in total from all missions. Of course this doesn't include non 70mm images or pre-flight images taken during training or....

 

[Southwind17]

I'm not really up to speed on the Apollo theories, but this stood out as a rather strange juxtaposition. Are you suggesting that a refutation based on a very simple analysis is necessarily of lesser value than a highly complex argument presenting an anomaly? I would argue that the reverse is more commonly true. The fact that a long and complex argument needs to be constructed in order to present the possibility of an anomaly seems to be a weakness of the case being presented, and when that anomaly can be simply explained with a minimum of effort it would seem to be rather convincingly exposed as sophistry.

No, I'm suggesting that refutation of an allegation - such allegation being supported by a thorough, authoritative analysis, and such refutation simply comprising one of a number of otherwise possible 'off-the-cuff' theories - is of lesser value.

In this instance, a scientific, mathematical study and analysis of a photo leading to a conclusion that a photographer and subject were essentially standing at the same height, to me, has greater 'value' than the totally unsupported theory that the photographer was 'simply' standing on higher ground.

On a point of correction, the Groves analysis does not 'present' an anomaly, it seeks to explain one. The said anomaly is self-evident in the photo that Groves analysed.

 

[Southwind17]

Southwind17, I will only be available to explain the errors in Groves analysis for 2 more days, that is about 48 hours from this moment. If you plan to PM it to me, or post it on your website and link to it, or present it for comment in any other way, and don't do it soon, then you will have to wait for my comment until the end of next week when I'm available again.

I don't mean to rush you at all. I just think that you should know this, so that you are not confused by my silence, should you decide to make the analysis accessible during my forum break.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to PM the analysis to you just yet, but it should be waiting for you when you're next on line at the end of next week. Thanks for letting me know of your impending absence from the Forum.

 

[Southwind17]

Not at all - If you go and research what ALSEP was, how it was designed, how it had to be deployed and its current usage - then there is no burden of proof on anyone for the conclussion you draw. If we sit here and give you those answers and you dont like the outcome, then you can respond by say either prove it - or I dont believe you. In all a net gain of nothing

If the topic really means that much to you - you should be very keen to explore this issue. If for no other reason than to find the weakness in the arguement to support your supposition

How could I possibly not like the outcome, if it's so compelling? You're not suggesting it's open to doubt, are you?

Please realize that I'm not fighting the CT corner here, athough it might appear like that to some. I'm simply not yet satisfied with the refutations that have been proffered in response to some of the evidence presented by certain CTists.

 

[Southwind17]

One thing moon walk deniers cannot answer is, why didn't the Soviets fake it?

Well, just like the possible theories that 'explain' the anomaly in the Aldrin photo, there could be a multitude of reasons. A couple of questions, by way of response, immediately spring to mind, though:

• Why is the 'fact' that the Soviets didn't try to deceive compelling evidence that NASA didn't? I don't see your logic here.
• Who says the Soviets didn't think of faking it too? Somebody had to 'get there first', whether it really be on the Moon or in the studio.

It's a shame that these fantastic pictures are claimed by so many people to be fake.

I don't claim them to be fake. With great respect, though, I don't actually find them that fantastic, just my opinion.

Now, here they are very far away from Earth. Past the Belts and near the moon. It would be sort of silly to come this far then chicken out no?

At the risk of seeming disingenuous, which I assure you I'm not, these photos prove very little. In fact, I don't think they actually prove anything, in any context whatsoever.

 

[Furi]

Are we talking about Groves analysis of Aldrins Egress from the LM?, or are we talking the famous Aldrin on the moon Shot AS11-40-5903 which is normally presented cropped and rotated retouched and highlighted to make it more palatable for the press and Poster material etc.

=^..^=

 

[Southwind17]

It was a simple question about a subject I assumed you knew about. If you did know about it, then you'd either accept that ALSEP is definitive proof of the legitimacy of the lunar landings, or you would post your reasons as to why ALSEP wasn't definitive proof.

Since you don't know about ALSEP, go read about it, then tell us whether you think it is definitive evidence or not.

Very basic stuff, I don't know why you're all in a twist about it.

So you're not going to look into it yourself? Okay then.

A reminder: there's plenty of info around on ALSEP. It isn't hard to find. Heck, we've even had posts in this very thread from someone who was involved with it. The simple fact is that I don't feel like digging around through my book and online to furnish you with info that is easily available through a bit of your own effort.

Put some of your own effort into it. You claim the lunar landings are perhaps illegitimate, so go find out about ALSEP and then come back and answer my question.

Out of interest (because you haven't actually said so), do you consider that ALSEP provides indisputable evidence that man has walked on the Moon?

I can only conclude your reluctance to do so is because you'll know the evidence is rock-solid and will bury any idea that the lunar landings were not real and you don't want to have to admit that you were wrong.

I'd like nothing more than to be presented with rock-solid, undisputable proof of the Apollo lunar landings, including compelling refutations of the evidence against that remains to be discredited. As I wrote earlier, I'd say I have a 5% doubt, if I had to put a figure on it, but that degree of doubt would also prevent me from concluding that an accused criminal is guilty beyond reason, and I'd feel compelled to spare him from the gallows, so to speak.

Your inference that I would be proved 'wrong' if 'rock-solid evidence' were presented to me is completely erroneous and unfounded. I've stated before, and above, that I have, say, a 5% doubt, i.e. I'm around 95% certain, that man has walked on the Moon. What could I possibly fear being 'wrong' about?!

 

[Southwind17]

Are we talking about Groves analysis of Aldrins Egress from the LM?, or are we talking the famous Aldrin on the moon Shot AS11-40-5903 which is normally presented cropped and rotated retouched and highlighted to make it more palatable for the press and Poster material etc.

I'm referring to the photo you've posted - the 'famous Aldrin on the Moon' shot.

Interesting caveat:

... which is normally presented cropped and rotated retouched and highlighted to make it more palatable for the press and Poster material etc.

What's your basis for making this statement?