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

[CurtC]

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.

While I was watching the YouTube video, I had in another tab, the high-resolution Man on the Moon original photo, and it's striking to be switching back and forth, that the effects of the light fading away towards the horizon just don't look that way at all on the original.

I also couldn't figure out the point they were trying to make by pointing out that the center-frame crosshair marker was on Aldrin's lower leg. So what? That just means that the camera was angled down. How did they then make the logical jump that the camera was held at eye-level? Seems to me that Armstrong was aware that Aldrin was downhill from him, and over-compensated because they didn't have a viewfinder.

Also, an early indicator of poor analysis skills, was when they were talking about the bright "hot spot" on Aldrin's boot as he descended the LM ladder. They scanned over someone's diagram showing the angles, and some angle on there (there wasn't explanation given of what these are) was labeled as being 3.1417 degrees. Anyone carrying out photogrammetry and measuring to the ten-thousandth of a degree is an idiot.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm referring to men walking on the Moon.

Yes. What I don't understand is why you consider this to be at all questionable.

From an engineering perspective, the Saturn V, CSM and LM were perfectly capable of doing the task. They were built; they were launched. This is a matter of record.

Space suits are also something we know are real. The Gemini astronauts wore suits and made EVAs - space walks. Shuttle astronauts do this routinely.

So, we know we could get to the Moon. We know that the vehicle to take us there did indeed go there. We know that the suits required for walking on the Moon were available.

Where then is the problem?

 

[Corsair 115]

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 you either have a poor memory or you have not read the posts in this thread very well.

From post #86:

I would have thought it clear that my position is that there is no doubt of the authenticity of the moon landings. Indeed, that's why I mentioned ALSEP in the first place, as another item of rock-solid proof.

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?!

Then stop posting here for a few days and go read up on ALSEP. Then come back and tell us whether you find it solid evidence or not.

While you're at it, do some checking into just how many photos were taken on the lunar surface, and how many hours of television footage were taken on the lunar surface.

 

[technoextreme]

Also, an early indicator of poor analysis skills, was when they were talking about the bright "hot spot" on Aldrin's boot as he descended the LM ladder. They scanned over someone's diagram showing the angles, and some angle on there (there wasn't explanation given of what these are) was labeled as being 3.1417 degrees. Anyone carrying out photogrammetry and measuring to the ten-thousandth of a degree is an idiot.

Technically that number is to the millionths of a degree. It's not like it changes anything.

From an engineering perspective, the Saturn V, CSM and LM were perfectly capable of doing the task. They were built; they were launched. This is a matter of record.

Space suits are also something we know are real. The Gemini astronauts wore suits and made EVAs - space walks. Shuttle astronauts do this routinely.

So, we know we could get to the Moon. We know that the vehicle to take us there did indeed go there. We know that the suits required for walking on the Moon were available.

Don't forget Kapton. That bright yellow stuff of the LEM is Kapton. It actually got confused with Duct Tape when Astronauts used it on a spacesuit.

 

[uruk]

Well I saw the youtube video and noticed some errors and oversites.

First Dr. Groves expertess seems to be with holographic analysis not necessarily photographic analysis. And that seems apparent when he talks about the pictures specificaly the boot hotspot and the "famous" Aldrin picture:


The company he works for does tire wear anaylisys using holographic interferometry
( http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-3/iss-3/p37.pdf )
Basicaly they take a hologram of a tire. Use the tire. Then measure the wear by overlaping the hologram of the tire over the actual tire and measure the Moire or fringe patterns.

Not quite the same thing as analysing a photograph for light source and distance info.
The good doctor and the other interviewees did not seem to understand much about exposure rates either.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg
Anyhoo. As you can see in the "famous" photograph abouv you will notice that Aldrin is not standing too far from the lander. the lander uses a gold maylar as an insulator. If you look carfully at Aldrin's right arm and leg (his right arm and leg) you will notice a slight gold tinge. The "fill" light is coming from the light reflected from the gold maylar insulation of the lander's decent stage. You can also tell the direction form the shadows being cast from the wrinkles that the light direction is pretty diffused buit is basiclly coming from a low angle. I guess that is something the good doctor et. al. missed.

Also, I think the two foot height distance is probably a bit exagerated. If you notice Southwind7, Aldrin is in fact standing at the base of the depression close to lower end of the "lip". His right foot is right on the base and his left foot is slightly lifted on the lower end of the "lip".
Page 201 of this report ( http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11_MissionReport.pdf ) shows that there were many creaters around the lander. Ranging from "very subdued" to "relatively sharp". The astronauts report some of the rims sloped at 15 degrees and ranged from 1 meter or less. Needless to say the ground was very uneven.

You can see on page 26 and 28 of this report ( http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11psr.pdf ) the difference in height between the left and right landing pad of the lander. The height difference is quite a bit larger than .9 meters

Page 47 of the above mentioned report show the position and direction of the picture 5903 taken in relation to the LM. It also mentions the general angle (if I read the legend right) shows that the picture's centerline tilted more than 25 degrees below the horizon.

Here is also picture 5902 ( http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5902HR.jpg ) which was taken just before 5903 and from slightly different position and angles. Notice how differently the image has been cropped.
page 47 of the science report shows the different positions Neil was when he took the pictures. Notice in 5902 how much higher the area in front of Neil is compared to 5903. Compare the shadows of Aldrin and the lander leg and the angle of the shadows in the footprints. Neil was standing on a mound and Aldrin was standing in a crater (you can also add in the difference in height between Neil and Aldrin. Neil is taller) . The height difference is even more exagereated because the astronauts tend to lean a little forward because of how the wieght of the backpack shifts the center of gravity on the astronauts. that why you see so much of the top surface of Aldrin's backpack.


Now lets look at picture 5866. The boot hot spot picture. The hot spot on the boot is lined up right center of the photograph which would mean the source of the hotspot would be coming more from directly behind the camera rather than to the right as was mentioned in the video. That would mean that a possible source of the light causing the hotspot could have been (and most likely is) the reflection of the Sun shining off of Neil's helmet visor.
In the video the video camera clearly shows Neil walking out of the shadow area into the sun light to take the picture (5899). That means the the sun would have been shining on Neil and the light from his suit and shiny visor would have been reflecting light towards Aldrin.

As for the all the light shining into the dark shadow of the lander. Notice the shadows being cast into the wrinkles of the space suit? notice how the top of Aldrin's lifted leg has a shadow on top? That means the light source was coming primarily from below. The light is also pretty diffused which means that it is light is being reflected from the surface of the moon on to Aldrin and the lander.

You can even see the sunlit surface reflected in the Acent stage windows.


Funny how a physicist and a researcher in photoanalysis missed what a computer maintenance intructor can see.

 

[PhantomWolf]

While I was watching the YouTube video, I had in another tab, the high-resolution Man on the Moon original photo, and it's striking to be switching back and forth, that the effects of the light fading away towards the horizon just don't look that way at all on the original.

Exactly. This is a result of Aulis using a goodness knows what generation scan of a publicity shot that has had its colour scheme shoved up the ying yang and back. First generation scans of the original show a much more even lighting of the surface. The drop off we do see is caused by a zero-phase angle where because we're looking up-sun, we're seeing more shadow that we do lit areas. This can be aptly shown to work on Earth as well as these images that Jay Windley took for Clavius show.

up-sun

down-sun

The up-sun image is quite clearly darker than the down sun one, even though they are the same piece of dirt.

I also couldn't figure out the point they were trying to make by pointing out that the center-frame crosshair marker was on Aldrin's lower leg. So what? That just means that the camera was angled down. How did they then make the logical jump that the camera was held at eye-level? Seems to me that Armstrong was aware that Aldrin was downhill from him, and over-compensated because they didn't have a viewfinder.

The issue is that the large crosshair should be in the centre of the picture, and it's not. Of course this is because Aulis' version is a publicity shot in which the bottom has been cropped and black added to the area above Aldrin (if you look at the original it cuts off right above his head, and actually removes the very upper right part of the PLSS.) This is really an obvious example of how poorly researched and crappy Aulis' work really is, they couldn't even be bothered getting hold of an original scan before making up stuff.

Also, an early indicator of poor analysis skills, was when they were talking about the bright "hot spot" on Aldrin's boot as he descended the LM ladder. They scanned over someone's diagram showing the angles, and some angle on there (there wasn't explanation given of what these are) was labeled as being 3.1417 degrees. Anyone carrying out photogrammetry and measuring to the ten-thousandth of a degree is an idiot.

This is the David Groves work I thought was being disgust (sic). Groves claims to be able to measure the position of the hotspot to a level that is smaller than the actual film grain. Other than that, the work is sloppy, but the final conclusion still doesn't rule out the most obvious source of the hotspot, Armstrong's shoulder, which was in the sunlight while the rest of him was in the LM's shadow.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Space suits are also something we know are real. The Gemini astronauts wore suits and made EVAs - space walks. Shuttle astronauts do this routinely.

The Apollo suits were a bit more advanced than the Gemini ones, which didn't include the PLSS and had rather serious fogging issues. However having said that, the suits were tested during Apollo 9 so they had a good work out before the landing in 11.

It's better to compare them with the Space Shuttle EVA suits. The SS suits are direct decendants from the Apollo ones, the main changes being that the Shuttle suits have a hard torso and are not custom fitted (The Apollo suits were all custom fitted to the Astronaut. After being measured for them, three suits were made, one was used for training, one was the mission suit and there was a back-up incase something happened to that suit before launch.) Even the SS PLLSS is virtually identical to the Apollo ones, the only major difference is the order in which the air is passed through the filter and the the subliminator. (IIRC the Apollo ones cooled then filtered, the SS ones filter then cool. If I'm wrong, it's the other way around. ) meaning that the principles that worked for Apollo are still being used by astronaut crews to this very day.

This is where the hoax really falls over. Apollo didn't happen in isolation. It was a step up from Gemini which was a step up from Mercury and of course after Apollo they used the Apollo gear for Skylab and even use much of what they learned from those missions in the Shuttle. Today as the Shuttles come to the end of their lives, NASA will be using the leasons of Apollo and the Shuttles to build and operate the Orion spacecraft. Nor was it a sudden jump, each mission built on to the next, from man in space, to man in orbit, to two men in orbit, to man spacewalking, to two ships rendezvousing in space, to ships docking with a target, to firing a booster in space, to spending a week in space, to putting unmanned craft in lunar orbit, to softlanding unmanned craft, to manking those unmanned craft take off and land again, to testing the hardware unmanned, to testing the hardware manned, to putting men in lunar orbit, to conducting a near landing then abort, to the final test landing. As of yet not one person has been able to tell me which step it was that so was so impossible that NASA would have had to give up and fake it.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I would have thought it clear that my position is that there is no doubt of the authenticity of the moon landings. Indeed, that's why I mentioned ALSEP in the first place, as another item of rock-solid proof.

Very much so, the ALSEP was unable to be deployed remotely as it was powered by an RTG that had to be manually fed with the material cartridge to start it. They actually had a little trouble with this on Apollo 12, the cartridge canister expanded in the cask it was stored in and they had a fight to get it out so that it could be added to the RTG. Aside from the thousands of photos, hours of film and video, return samples, tracking data (including independant data from both non-government and non-US sources), and Astronaut testimony, the ALSEP data is the best evidence of the moonlandings being real.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Technically that number is to the millionths of a degree. It's not like it changes anything.

not when you are already well below the grain resolution of the film

For those that might not be understanding this point, it's like me saying that I can measure the position of a golf ball to the nearest mm when all I have to work with is a 1m grid and one of the squares marked to tell that the ball is somewhere inside that square.

Don't forget Kapton. That bright yellow stuff of the LEM is Kapton. It actually got confused with Duct Tape when Astronauts used it on a spacesuit.

LM.

I think that you'll find that the Duct Tape was used on the rover, not the spacesuits.

The claim about how the LM looked like a prop and was taped up is a very common one. All it shows is that the claimant has no idea what they are talking about, though I have yet to met a HP or HB who actually does yet. Very few of them know what Kapton, Mylar, Beta Cloth or Lexan are, let alone know their properties and where they were used in the Apollo equipment. The idea that you would use tape to hold on a decal or outer plate on to a non-aerodynamic surface instead of rivetting or screwing it because tape has a large surface area meaning a better hold and less change of tearing the material being taped, as well as it being lighter, seems to go right over the heads of most of the Lunartic (sic) crowd.

 

[PhantomWolf]

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg
Anyhoo. As you can see in the "famous" photograph abouv you will notice that Aldrin is not standing too far from the lander. the lander uses a gold maylar as an insulator. If you look carfully at Aldrin's right arm and leg (his right arm and leg) you will notice a slight gold tinge. The "fill" light is coming from the light reflected from the gold maylar insulation of the lander's decent stage. You can also tell the direction form the shadows being cast from the wrinkles that the light direction is pretty diffused buit is basiclly coming from a low angle. I guess that is something the good doctor et. al. missed.

Most of the "fill" is coming from the bright ground you can see in his visor, after all if you can see it reflected in his visor then light from it must be hitting other parts of his suit as well. The fill is also coming from below as evidenced by the shadows on his upper arms and shoulders. That's not to say that there is nothing from the Lander, there is. There certainly is a golden colour to the image, especially his right arm (our left) which shows a decidely golden colour to it. Yes it is hard to determine how someone supposedly skilled in photographic analysis such as Groves, and also David Percy, managed to miss these rather obvious things. Perhaps it's because they have a book to sell?

Now lets look at picture 5866. The boot hot spot picture. The hot spot on the boot is lined up right center of the photograph which would mean the source of the hotspot would be coming more from directly behind the camera rather than to the right as was mentioned in the video. That would mean that a possible source of the light causing the hotspot could have been (and most likely is) the reflection of the Sun shining off of Neil's helmet visor.
In the video the video camera clearly shows Neil walking out of the shadow area into the sun light to take the picture (5899). That means the the sun would have been shining on Neil and the light from his suit and shiny visor would have been reflecting light towards Aldrin.

It's very unlikely that the hotspot is caused by a visor reflection, the more likely cause is Armstrong's right shoulder which was in the sun at the time.

As for the all the light shining into the dark shadow of the lander. Notice the shadows being cast into the wrinkles of the space suit? notice how the top of Aldrin's lifted leg has a shadow on top? That means the light source was coming primarily from below. The light is also pretty diffused which means that it is light is being reflected from the surface of the moon on to Aldrin and the lander.

You can even see the sunlit surface reflected in the Acent stage windows.

yes, it's funny how HPs (and subsequently HBs) continuously ignore the fact that the ground is a great big light reflector even though it's sitting there in every image. How do they think the light gets into the camera from the ground if it wasn't reflected? I can see how anyone who claims to be a photographer can honestly ignore that as a source of the reflected light that is acting as backfill.

Funny how a physicist and a researcher in photoanalysis missed what a computer maintenance intructor can see.

Which begs the question, are they doing it deliberately?

 

[Stellafane]

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?

Don't you understand? None of that is real. In fact, nothing at all is real. It's all the Matrix, don't you know? Fortunately people like Southwind are real-life Neos and will save us all from our stupid, deluded selves.

I've never been modded before, and I hope never to be. But I'll risk it now, for the sake of making my thoughts on this matter perfectly clear: Anyone who thinks the moon landings were faked is just plain nuts. Willfully nuts perhaps, but nuts just the same. If you're capable of dismissing the whole oceans of evidence proving we were there, and instead embrace the rantings of some doofus who sees something in the pixels he doesn't quite understand, then you have problems that will never be fixed here on this forum.

 

[technoextreme]

LM.

I think that you'll find that the Duct Tape was used on the rover, not the spacesuits.

Are you sure it was Duct Tape? The skeptical side of me says that there is more to this story. Namely the tape would turn into goo. Even Lexan does not fair well if you don't get the right type. Maybe it was just real Duct Tape not the craptacular plastic stuff I usually see.
PS. The story I was referring to was a recent spacewalk. The backpack was failing off the spacesuit.

The claim about how the LM looked like a prop and was taped up is a very common one. All it shows is that the claimant has no idea what they are talking about, though I have yet to met a HP or HB who actually does yet.

Was it tape or just sheets attached to the LM? I've used Kapton tape before (Only tape that could withstand a UV chamber for extended periods of time) but it looks like it could just be a film.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Are you sure it was Duct Tape? The skeptical side of me says that there is more to this story. Namely the tape would turn into goo. Even Lexan does not fair well if you don't get the right type. Maybe it was just real Duct Tape not the craptacular plastic stuff I usually see.

Looks like Duct Tape to me

Here's John Young telling them how to do the fix.

--------------------------
138:32:00 Young: Okay, Geno, I don't think you need to copy this. Sort of just ad-lib it. With your four cronopaque maps, tape two maps and allow about a l-inch overlap to (create) a 15-inch by 10-1/2-inch configuration.

[Two 10 1/2 x 8 inch pages will become one 15 x 10 1/2 piece.]
138:32:20 Young: That's an estimate. And then repeat with two other maps, and then tape the two maps - now four maps - tape them together, and you'll end up with a sheet that's about 15 inches by 19 inches, a sheet of cronopaque. And then tape both sides of it - the overlapping edges - to strengthen it. And you can further strengthen it if you tape an "X" of tape across both sides of it.

138:32:55 Young: And then, on the roll up, on the long axis, secure it with a strip of tape and put it in the ETB. And, on that strip of tape you secure it with, be sure and leave a tab on the end of it so you can get it off with your gloves. And then remove clamps from both the utility light units, and open the clamp jaws to max. And then tighten the mounting bracket that you've got on it so (that) it will be swinging around; and stow the clamps in the ETB. You got that, Gene?

138:33:39 Cernan: Yes, sir.

138:33:43 Young: Okay. Now you've got everything you need. And it's all put together and all ready to be fastened to the Rover. And then when you get the ETB in the (Rover) seat, you unroll the cronopaque sheet and you locate the front edge - with the long axis fore and aft - even with the axle. And you lay the edge of the sheet over the inboard guide rail and you clamp it. And you lay the other edge of the sheet over the outboard guide rail and clamp it. And, as I said, the inboard clamp must be directly over the axle to avoid interference while steering. And tighten the clamps securely, both of them. And then while you're driving around out there by yourself, it would be good if Jack could take a look at it and see if you're getting any unusual dynamics. And at Station 2, you should inspect the fender for any unusual wear that might have been caused by this mass out there on the fender, of those clamps bouncing up and down.
---------------

The crews carry the duct tape to help remove dust from places they couldn't reach (minds out of gutters please, I mean small cracks and crevases in their EQUIPMENT, not them.)

Was it tape or just sheets attached to the LM? I've used Kapton tape before (Only tape that could withstand a UV chamber for extended periods of time) but it looks like it could just be a film.

From talking to people in the industry the tapes come in different widths. I believe that they used tape for the decals and for where it was basically just there for holding stuff in place and such, while film was certainly used on other parts of the craft, including the CM I as I understand it.

 

[PixyMisa]

This is where the hoax really falls over. Apollo didn't happen in isolation. It was a step up from Gemini which was a step up from Mercury and of course after Apollo they used the Apollo gear for Skylab and even use much of what they learned from those missions in the Shuttle. Today as the Shuttles come to the end of their lives, NASA will be using the leasons of Apollo and the Shuttles to build and operate the Orion spacecraft. Nor was it a sudden jump, each mission built on to the next, from man in space, to man in orbit, to two men in orbit, to man spacewalking, to two ships rendezvousing in space, to ships docking with a target, to firing a booster in space, to spending a week in space, to putting unmanned craft in lunar orbit, to softlanding unmanned craft, to manking those unmanned craft take off and land again, to testing the hardware unmanned, to testing the hardware manned, to putting men in lunar orbit, to conducting a near landing then abort, to the final test landing. As of yet not one person has been able to tell me which step it was that so was so impossible that NASA would have had to give up and fake it.

Exactly.

 

[Southwind17]

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.

Is it possible to relay a signal from Earth back to Earth via the Moon (with the necessary relay equipment on the Moon, of course)? Seems plausible to me, given that we can bounce lasers back to measure distance. I don't know; I'm just asking.

 

[uruk]

Most of the "fill" is coming from the bright ground you can see in his visor, after all if you can see it reflected in his visor then light from it must be hitting other parts of his suit as well. The fill is also coming from below as evidenced by the shadows on his upper arms and shoulders. That's not to say that there is nothing from the Lander, there is. There certainly is a golden colour to the image, especially his right arm (our left) which shows a decidely golden colour to it. Yes it is hard to determine how someone supposedly skilled in photographic analysis such as Groves, and also David Percy, managed to miss these rather obvious things. Perhaps it's because they have a book to sell?

Yea. It's amazing how a physicists would miss light diffusing from the surface of the Moon. Heck even argue against it. You'd figgure he would know better from working with lasers for holography.

I learned about diffusion and dispursion while learning fiber optics.

It's very unlikely that the hotspot is caused by a visor reflection, the more likely cause is Armstrong's right shoulder which was in the sun at the time.

I thought it was a possibility because the gold visor seemed to be more of a specular source than the white beta cloth of the suit.

yes, it's funny how HPs (and subsequently HBs) continuously ignore the fact that the ground is a great big light reflector even though it's sitting there in every image. How do they think the light gets into the camera from the ground if it wasn't reflected? I can see how anyone who claims to be a photographer can honestly ignore that as a source of the reflected light that is acting as backfill.

Not to mention the effects of exposure rates on film.

Which begs the question, are they doing it deliberately?

Well if you have a book to sell to a target demographics it would be to your advantage to ignore or avoid a few things

 

[Southwind17]

Yes, I believe you've made my point.

What point was that?

Feel free to join reality, any time. Sheesh.

Seems there's an echo in this imagination void!

 

[uruk]

Is it possible to relay a signal from Earth back to Earth via the Moon (with the necessary relay equipment on the Moon, of course)? Seems plausible to me, given that we can bounce lasers back to measure distance. I don't know; I'm just asking.

You would have to account for the delay time caused by the distance between the earth and the Moon. That would give you away. That's one of the reasons why sts60 and UW mentioned that it was impossible to fake. You can't fudge the laws of physics. It takes a specific amount of time for a signal to travel the distance. There was almost a three second round trip delay for radio signals. (half that for one way)


If you watched the Tom Hank's series "From the Earth to the Moon" they had a part where the remote camera man had a hard time synchronizing the video camera to tilt upward in time with the ascent stage as it launched from the decent stage.
He finally got it right on Apollo 17. The last mission to the Moon.

 

[Southwind17]

You would have to account for the delay time caused by the distance between the earth and the Moon. That would give you away. That's one of the reasons why sts60 and UW mentioned that it was impossible to fake. You can't fudge the laws of physics. It takes a specific amount of time for a signal to travel the distance. There was almost a three second round trip delay for radio signals. (half that for one way)


If you watched the Tom Hank's series "From the Earth to the Moon" they had a part where the remote camera man had a hard time synchronizing the video camera to tilt upward in time with the ascent stage as it launched from the decent stage.
He finally got it right on Apollo 17. The last mission to the Moon.

But to anybody picking up just the relayed signal it wouldn't seem anything 'unusual', would it? 'Correct' time delay, no?

 

[Furi]

Whoopee!

Is it possible to relay a signal from Earth back to Earth via the Moon (with the necessary relay equipment on the Moon, of course)? Seems plausible to me, given that we can bounce lasers back to measure distance. I don't know; I'm just asking.

that would be no major tech issue, you can bounce signals off the moon with a relay (or at far lower eff. without It is a reasonable reflector after all) but bouncing off a predicted location during the TLC, would be a tad tricky, and we then run into signal delay problems, and also the chance that with the world watching/listening and tracking, it would have been such a pity for a radio signal or signal exho to be picked up and determined to be a terrestrial xmit rather then a lunar xmit.

=^..^=