I dunno, I didn't watch it lol

I think there is a very real possibility the moon landings were faked, or that at least, the public saw a different (ie faked) version of a real moon landing.

I've seen a documentary on it also, and its very hard to answer some of the questions that are posed by it. Indeed, in the documentary I watched, there were some questions the NASA representative wouldnt offer and explanation for, he just tried to rubbish the claims and suggest that all the conspiracy theorists were just crackpots.

Considering what a big politicial issue it was at the time, what with the cold war, and the Russians beating the Americans into space, I think the Americans were prepared to do just about anything to restore their country's belief in their superiority over the rest of the world.

Call me a skeptic, but I have a dim view on the Americans generally, and their current role is the world as "Global Cop" or "Looking after their Oil Interests" might be another way of putting it.

I've read that their is a great deal of evidence to support the fact that the Americans deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor in order to generate public support for getting into WW2 which at that time they realised they needed to get involved with, but had no public backing for.

I didn't see the programme you mention, but I've seen a few such "documentaries" before and they're generally not worth the celluloid they're filmed on.

1) objects visible from earth have been left on the lunar surface

2) many hundreds of kilos of material have been brought back to the earth from the moon and analysed by thousands of independant scientists

3) waving flag - there may be no wind, but there is a moving astronaut in contact with the flag pole

4) crosshairs behind lunar features - image bleed due to camera moving (standing still in low-g is rather tricky)

5) no stars in the pictures - too faint to show up, contrast in photos is so that bright objects (astronauts, surface, lander etc) show up, not faint things.

6) shadows not black enough - assumes sun is the only source of light, last time I checked the moon had a very reflective planet next to it, which when coupled with the high surface albedo of the moon itself means light hits the moon from two sources (direct from the sun and reflected off the earth) and then scatters off the lunar surface

There are a plethora of other problems with the conspiracy theorists claims, mostly arising from a complete ignorance of the science involved. Their claims may be credible if (a) the moon's surface sonditions are the same as the Earth's (gravity, atmosphere, light etc) and (b) NASA are complete muppets.

And of course the most compelling reason - do you really thing the US government could have covered up something like this? "How do we know that the CIA weren't behind the JFK assasination? Because he's dead".

Of course, there is the other popular conspiracy theory....

That there was a moon landing and that the astronauts saw a UFO on the moon. They reported it to NASA who, subsequently, covered it up...

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by Callum
"How do we know that the CIA weren't behind the JFK assasination? Because he's dead".

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he he!

I'm inclined to agree with Callum. The best comment I've ever heard about this one is that, given the number of people who'd have had to be in on the conspiracy and had to be kept quiet ever since, with all the secrecy (or lack thereof) problems the US government suffers from it'd have been easier to send people to the moon than fake it.

There is another really weird conspiracy theory I once came across which says the pictures which were broadcast were fake because the first Apollo mission actually went to the moon to make contact with the Nazis who'd been there in a base ever since the end of WW2...

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by Whistler
Of course, there is the other popular conspiracy theory....

That there was a moon landing and that the astronauts saw a UFO on the moon. They reported it to NASA who, subsequently, covered it up...

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Ive heard they have seen remenents of a old alien civilisation on the moon, there quite a few 'incidents' that have reputedly happened involving UFOs and Astronauts.

(Edited by JtB 12/08/2002 00:11)

the only one I've seen that's half credable was the theory that the first one was faked because they simply couldn't couldn't carry out the mission with any success in the timescale involved. So they were faked to put the russians off or something..

Then there's the one that mentions shadows in the wrong directions or something..

I'd hate to be one of those "experts" that comes on to back the claims up, how silly would you look?

Certainly gives you food for thought thought doesn't it?

Just one other question - if man did land on the moon all those years ago - why hasn't it been done since?

well - If it was faked you'd think they'd have given Neil Armstrong a chance not to fluff his lines wouldn't you?

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by Jola
Certainly gives you food for thought thought doesn't it?

Just one other question - if man did land on the moon all those years ago - why hasn't it been done since?

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Yup thats what has always made me wonder if it was real

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by Jola
Just one other question - if man did land on the moon all those years ago - why hasn't it been done since?

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whats the point? theres nothing up there to do, no shops, no pub, beach, sea, basically not really worth going back to is it?

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by Sweet-Sange
(quotes)
Yup thats what has always made me wonder if it was real

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Because the American public got bored with the moon trips which was borne out by the apathy of the Apollo 13 mission. They only got interested in that when it went wrong. Shortly after that, NASA pulled the plug on anymore trips to the moon.

The scientific case for manned moon travel (and indeed for manned space travel in general) is as strong as it ever was; however the lunar landings (and much space travel) weren't driven by science but by politics -- the science and exploration were just tacked on to "justify" the missions.

Once the US had so completely won the 'space-race' and when the negative publicity of Apollo 13 began to impact on the public perception of space travel, the most politically expedient position was to cut back on manned moon missions -- the science was irrelevant.

i met these 2 guys at a summer school last year who were adament that the moon landings were fake, so we decided to shoot our own, much more amusing one. It had tin foil aliens and everyhting ooo and they had pink rubber gloves for arms.

The teacher working wiht us on the media project thought we were nuts.

If you think about it the orignal moonlanding broadcast could have been so funny, if the astronauts on it had just been a little inventive. pretending there were aliens after them and so on. It would have amused me if i'd been around at the time. Guess not really apopriate for such a momentus occasion tho'.

I'm a trusting soul, so i believe the landings were real.

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by Callum

And of course the most compelling reason - do you really thing the US government could have covered up something like this? "How do we know that the CIA weren't behind the JFK assasination? Because he's dead".

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Oh come on.... everyone knows that the one thing the CIA is good at is getting Americans killed

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by Sydney
well - If it was faked you'd think they'd have given Neil Armstrong a chance not to fluff his lines wouldn't you?

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The video footage is real, the audio was faked, Neil actually says, "Whoa Buzz dude, this ladder is like totally slippy!!!"


On conspiracies in general, well I'm sure there are theories that would prove true and others that would prove gibberish, the real skill lies in preventing anyone proving it one way or the other till the government is ready.

Shhhh, nobody knows about Operation MonSTeR yet.. Oh, damn..
Errrm move along people, nothing to see here..

(Edited by Stoo 13/08/2002 12:27)

Why hasn't the U.S. sent another missions to the moon? At this point, it can't. It no longer has the hardware.

It takes an incredibly powerful "heavy lift" rocket to generate the power to get there and back. The U.S. had one such rocket, the 36-story-tall Saturn V rocket. Saturn Vs were used for all the moon missions. The U.S. doesn't have Saturn Vs anymore--except maybe in a museum somewhere.

Before the moon missions even ended, NASA had already committed itself to the space shuttle and they sort of put all their eggs in that basket. The space shuttle can't go to the moon.

If NASA were to start another moon program, they'd have to design and build another heavy lift rocket like the Saturn V. NASA has been absorbing tremendous budget cuts. There's absolutely no money in the kitty for such a rocket. They're concentrating now on other things.

An orbiting staging area would be a better bet, outside the gravitational pull, you wouldnt need as much heavy equipment etc to get the payloads there.. Oh, the ISS? how convienient

(Edited by Stoo 15/08/2002 23:37)