Conspiracy Theory The Moon landing - 40 years on

[Pessimistic]

I wondered the other day. What’s the overlap in people who believe we faked the men on the moon (presumably that we aren’t/weren’t capable at least back in the sixties but also believe we have been visited by aliens who would have had to travel for many of our light years, but then concentrated their visits in the quietest of places?

I too think they have put Mayo on the photos of the first moon landing, but look at the online store of photos they can’t all have been faked

 

[Werewolf]

I recently watched an episode of The Moon Landing on the Netflix series 'Conspiracies'. Prior to watching that episode, I was aware of there being a conspiracy about the Moon Landing but I'd never previously given it a whole lot of thought.

After watching the Netflix episode, my thoughts were that it's more likely than not that we have never set foot on the moon. The episode had me hooked on the conspiracy, though, so I wanted to look into it more and do some research. As part of the research, I reviewed this entire thread, as well as doing a bit of reading, watching some YouTube videos and listening to a couple of podcasts. My position has since changed.

I think it's very important to keep an open mind on these sorts of things and I also think it's important to do research before holding a strong view. There are some pretty strong views from posters in this thread and from reading certain posts it's obvious to me that their opinions (for or against) won't be swayed. It's obvious certain posters don't have an open mind.

My thoughts are the Moon Landings probably did occur, but there were certain videos or photographs that were taken on Earth (probably from Apollo test runs) made to look like they were shot on the Moon.

I'm now balls deep in the Apollo missions, the space race, and the science behind it all.

I haven't researched this any further, but one thing I found interesting on the Netflix episode was the alleged cover ups by the USSR with their failed missions. Those with more knowledge than me probably have a more concrete opinion, but the Netflix episode seems to suggest the USSR had several failed missions where they lost multiple Cosmonauts and they didn't publicise those failings, nor did they acknowledge or make any announcement on the multiple Cosmonauts who never made it back to Earth. Apparently the USSR kept this information hidden.

I thought I'd posted heaps in this thread, turns out it was the other Moon landings thread where I did some of my best work

Anyway, it's important to look to websites where the authors have strong scientific and technical/engineering knowledge. Remember that the various spacecraft and boosters were built by different US defence contractors - Boeing, Grumman, Douglas, North American Aviation, Northrop, Rockwell, etc.

The one I used to visit a lot was quite educational and would probably answer most of your questions: Clavius Moon Base - debunking the moon hoax

 

[Zidane98]

There's plenty of information out there logically debunking all the moan hoax theories.


The question is - are those people who all believe it is a hoax receptive to information that does not confirm those beliefs? In my general experience it is very difficult to change the mindset of a conspiracy theorist no matter what factual information is presented to them.

 

[Lebbo73]

In my general experience it is very difficult to change the mindset of a conspiracy theorist no matter what factual information is presented to them.

Ain’t that the truth. It’s very obvious from the Covid19 thread.

 

[Fwoy]

 

[BlueE]

Or is this a fake interview of Kubrick?

At 12.19 the "interviewer" begins to get IRRITATED and a bit angry with him, telling him how to deliver his lines. They discuss how they're trying to make this fake interview sound believable.

At 14.10 into this FAKE Interview of a FAKE Stanley Kubric on the Moon Landing, you'll hear the "interviewer" address the other actor BY HIS REAL NAME, Tom.

 

[Steele13]

10 years ago I would have said zero chance it was fake. Now, maybe 5-10% chance. Purely because we've surpassed 50 years, which is a huge amount of time considering every other technology has improved exponentially. If in the coming decades it reaches 70, 80 + years I think anyone would have a hard time believing it.

 

[Wallaby]

10 years ago I would have said zero chance it was fake. Now, maybe 5-10% chance. Purely because we've surpassed 50 years, which is a huge amount of time considering every other technology has improved exponentially. If in the coming decades it reaches 70, 80 + years I think anyone would have a hard time believing it.

I don't quite understand what you are saying.

If you are saying it's odd that technology has improved so much, but we haven't been back to the moon - well, we have. Since Apollo, we have soft-landed at least 10 probes on the moon, deliberately crashed another 10 or so at mission completion (orbital probes that had finished their work, and were crashed to test for things like water vapor ec), another half-dozen or so that crashed unintentionally. There have been at least 40 lunar orbiters sent - not all have worked. (and that doesn't include the 25+ landers and obiters that have been sent to various planets).

Diud you notice that not all the probes were successful? That's because it's bloody difficult. It takes a huge amount of money. And none of those have carried humans. There was a quote I read that said (paraphrasing) 'The Apollo missions cost the US about 24 billion dollars (1960s dollars) - and about 23 billion of that was to make it safe for humans'. That's why Musk and Branson and the other billionaires are having trouble setting up their private space flights - it's unbelievably difficult to make space travel safe for humans. They haven't got enough money.

And why send humans anyway (apart from tourism)? The space probes can do 90% of the job - and they can do it for months or years. They don't have to be brought back after a week or so to save the astronauts. We are still getting data from landers that arrived in 2016. We are getting data from orbiters that arrived in 2009 and are still going around the moon.

The major objective of the Apollo 14 mission was to visit Cone Crater and analyse the rock samples. The atstronauts could not find the crater and had to abandon the search because they ran out of time (ie oxygen, supplies, time to leave to make orbit rendezvous etc). Later analysis of their mission showed they got within 30 metres of Cone crater. How about that? Send a mission 400,000 kms and wind up 30 metres short. If that was a robot probe, they could just have kept going. But the astronaut safety hampered the scientific exploration (rightly).

 

[Fwoy]

What happened to China doing a moon tour? Weren’t they going to explore the dark side of the moon?

Also weren’t they going to check if the US flag was there?

 

[Steele13]

I don't quite understand what you are saying.

If you are saying it's odd that technology has improved so much, but we haven't been back to the moon - well, we have. Since Apollo, we have soft-landed at least 10 probes on the moon, deliberately crashed another 10 or so at mission completion (orbital probes that had finished their work, and were crashed to test for things like water vapor ec), another half-dozen or so that crashed unintentionally. There have been at least 40 lunar orbiters sent - not all have worked. (and that doesn't include the 25+ landers and obiters that have been sent to various planets).

Diud you notice that not all the probes were successful? That's because it's bloody difficult. It takes a huge amount of money. And none of those have carried humans. There was a quote I read that said (paraphrasing) 'The Apollo missions cost the US about 24 billion dollars (1960s dollars) - and about 23 billion of that was to make it safe for humans'. That's why Musk and Branson and the other billionaires are having trouble setting up their private space flights - it's unbelievably difficult to make space travel safe for humans. They haven't got enough money.

And why send humans anyway (apart from tourism)? The space probes can do 90% of the job - and they can do it for months or years. They don't have to be brought back after a week or so to save the astronauts. We are still getting data from landers that arrived in 2016. We are getting data from orbiters that arrived in 2009 and are still going around the moon.

The major objective of the Apollo 14 mission was to visit Cone Crater and analyse the rock samples. The atstronauts could not find the crater and had to abandon the search because they ran out of time (ie oxygen, supplies, time to leave to make orbit rendezvous etc). Later analysis of their mission showed they got within 30 metres of Cone crater. How about that? Send a mission 400,000 kms and wind up 30 metres short. If that was a robot probe, they could just have kept going. But the astronaut safety hampered the scientific exploration (rightly).

Understand all of that, they are completely valid arguments. What do you think if it gets to 100 years since human have set foot on the moon and we haven't been back? What about never again? It would seem odd to take one gigantic leap then never take it again is all i'm saying.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Especially how corporations always look to bleed every last dollar out of real estate and tourism opportunities, as well as scientific and mining.

A nation claiming the moon, corporations and contracts, etc.

The deep sea is just as dangerous and inhospitable yet corps, govts, nations still engage in mining, exploration, building infrastructure etc.

 

[Wallaby]

Understand all of that, they are completely valid arguments. What do you think if it gets to 100 years since human have set foot on the moon and we haven't been back? What about never again? It would seem odd to take one gigantic leap then never take it again is all i'm saying.

Why should we go back? ie - why should people go back?

 

[Wallaby]

What happened to China doing a moon tour? Weren’t they going to explore the dark side of the moon?

Also weren’t they going to check if the US flag was there?

The chinese have launched at lesst 5 missions to the moon - 2 orbiters and 3 landers (I think). One of the landers (Change) returned lunar samples back to earth.

No one is going to check 'If the US Flag is still there'. What would be the point? Every scientist who works on any lunar probe project knows the US landed there in the 1960s-1970s.

 

[Steele13]

Why should we go back? ie - why should people go back?

I don't know specifically, but probably the for the same reasons we have always pushed our boundaries. As I said, would seem odd to take a giant leap then never repeat it because it's too hard and expensive when we did it before when it was probably way harder and way more expensive.

 

[Exe Gesis]

How Stanley Kubrick Staged the Moon Landing

To understand America, you can start with Apollo 11 and all that is counterfactual that’s grown around it; that’s when the culture of conspiracy, which is the culture of Donald Trump and fake news, was born.

www.theparisreview.org

Good article. It's actually abti-conspiracy, but it's a good read anyway. The main thing i liked was the point being made here -- why havent we returned?

There were six successful manned missions to the moon, all part of Apollo. A dozen men walked the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972, when Harrison H. Schmitt—he later served as a Republican U.S. Senator from New Mexico—piloted the last lander off the surface. When people dismiss the project as a failure—we never went back because there is nothing for us there—others point out the fact that twenty-seven years passed between Columbus’s first Atlantic crossing and Cortez’s conquest of Mexico, or that 127 years passed between the first European visit to the Mississippi River and the second—it’d been “discovered,” “forgotten,” and “discovered” again. From some point in the future, our time, with its celebrities, politicians, its happiness and pain, might look like little more than an interregnum, the moment between the first landing and the colonization of space.

 

[Billy ray]

is there a telescope on earth that can see the flag?

 

[Exe Gesis]

is there a telescope on earth that can see the flag?

No but there are telescopes that can see distant stars trillions of light years away....go figure.

Are there telescopes that can see the flag and lunar rover on the Moon? (Beginner) - Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer

Ask an Astronomer is run by volunteers in the Astronomy Department at Cornell University. We answer your astronomy questions. Please browse our archive first.

curious.astro.cornell.edu

 

[Father Jack]

It would have been harder to fake the landing than to actually fly to the moon for real. Conspiracies are hard, and this one would have had thousands of people involved, and yet the best proof we can find is from for random oddities in photos and to postulate about why we haven't continued to spend outrageous amounts of money on repeating the effort. Whitey was on the moon for a bit, but it seems he's found better things to spend his cash on these days.

Also, the thread title needs an edit.

 

[CD Xbow]

It would have been harder to fake the landing than to actually fly to the moon for real. Conspiracies are hard, and this one would have had thousands of people involved, and yet the best proof we can find is from for random oddities in photos and to postulate about why we haven't continued to spend outrageous amounts of money on repeating the effort. Whitey was on the moon for a bit, but it seems he's found better things to spend his cash on these days.

Also, the thread title needs an edit.

Yes. Impossible to cover up. The fake moon landing was the stupidest conspiracy theory ever, no doubt driven by those pesky Russians.
LRO has visualised the Apollo sites and you can see the lower half of the lunar lander on the surface.

Apollo 11 https://www.lroc.asu.edu/featured_sites/view_site/1
Apollo 12 https://www.lroc.asu.edu/featured_sites/view_site/2
etc

You can use the slider to change the date and time for your pictures which have different illumination.

There are many reason why folks may choose to believe it's a hoax. My brother had a French girlfriend at the time, and she declared it 'impossible' and when asked why, she responded because they are not French.

 

[Zidane98]

How Stanley Kubrick Staged the Moon Landing

To understand America, you can start with Apollo 11 and all that is counterfactual that’s grown around it; that’s when the culture of conspiracy, which is the culture of Donald Trump and fake news, was born.

www.theparisreview.org

Good article. It's actually abti-conspiracy, but it's a good read anyway. The main thing i liked was the point being made here -- why havent we returned?

It's a simple matter of economics. There was prestige in the space race in the 60s between US & USSR. The cost of the moon missions were eye watering and simply would not be passed in congress these days. But back then there was almost a blank cheque given to the space program. Here are the figures:

How much did the Apollo program cost?

A rich data set tracking the costs of Project Apollo, free for public use. Includes unprecedented program-by-program cost breakdowns, facilities…

www.planetary.org

The cost in today's money is $257 billion.


Now that the private sector is involved (Space X) and technology has improved many times over since the 60s we won't be far off from returning to the moon and eventually Mars.

 

[Lebbo73]

It's a simple matter of economics. There was prestige in the space race in the 60s between US & USSR. The cost of the moon missions were eye watering and simply would not be passed in congress these days. But back then there was almost a blank cheque given to the space program. Here are the figures:

How much did the Apollo program cost?

A rich data set tracking the costs of Project Apollo, free for public use. Includes unprecedented program-by-program cost breakdowns, facilities…

www.planetary.org

The cost in today's money is $257 billion.


Now that the private sector is involved (Space X) and technology has improved many times over since the 60s we won't be far off from returning to the moon and eventually Mars.

Mars has been done

 

[Exe Gesis]

Mars is just Iceland or Canada.

 

[deanc]

Or is this a fake interview of Kubrick?

At 12.19 the "interviewer" begins to get IRRITATED and a bit angry with him, telling him how to deliver his lines. They discuss how they're trying to make this fake interview sound believable.

At 14.10 into this FAKE Interview of a FAKE Stanley Kubric on the Moon Landing, you'll hear the "interviewer" address the other actor BY HIS REAL NAME, Tom.

FFS, hard to believe this nonsense is still doing the rounds - this is a well known spoof specifically given the actor looks and sounds nothing like Stanley Kubrick...

I recall around the mid 90's some nutter asked the real S Kubrick at a function about his role is faking the moon landings. His response was; "Yeah sure, I also invented electricity and built the Titanic..!"

 

[Fwoy]

 

[Mrzach]

I don’t have an opinion if the moon landing was fake or not but a lot of the development of trips and technology to space was a pissing contest out of fear between the USA and Russia as part of the Cold War. But a video for the conspiracists
View attachment IMG_9908.MOV
for the conspiracists