Fake Moon Landing

[oatmeal fetish....]

Half of me really wants to argue about this with someone, the other half hopes that I don't. Honestly I'd be surprised if there was anyone here that legitimately believes the moon landing was faked (if you do then by all means step on up) but its one of those things that bugs me enough that I want to talk about it.

A while ago David told me that in one of his larger classes the professor asked who in the room believed the moon landing was real, and he and one other person raised their hand. Now despite how I come off a lot of the time, generally I do have faith in the intelligence of people, which begs the question of why so many people believe that we really have never been to the moon.

Barring anyone actually arguing this point (again if you want to I would absolutely love to) does anyone have any idea as to why this is such a widespread thing? Anyone know of any real actual evidence or personally know anyone who believes this? This may turn out to be more of a discussion than a debate, so please, give me your thoughts as this is one of those things that for some reason I'm really intrigued by.

[Shire Le Buff]

Conspiracy's are fun.   They make us think that the government was trying to outsmart us but WE managed to get the upper hand instead.   I think that's why the moon landing is such a popular one.

I'm convinced we landed on the damn moon.

[Larry Flyntz]

For some reason, everybody wants to believe that the government is corrupt. Now, I'm not saying it isn't corrupt, but people go out of their way to try to prove this. Part of this is certainly partisanship; Democrats don't want to believe that Republicans are capable of success and vice versa, but it seems to extend beyond that. After all, the moon landing was a Kennedy project and LBJ was president when it actually happened, yet "liberals" are mainly the ones who put forward this theory. There are two different kinds of liberals, or perhaps liberal isn't even the proper word to use. It seems there are anti-conservatism liberals and then there are anti-government liberals. The latter feels that government, regardless of the party, is up to no good. There is probably some truth to that, but in my humblest of opinions, anti-government liberals tend to be morons who have no real conception of the functioning of government.

So, that said, where is the highest concentration of crazy ass liberals? Why, college campuses, of course! So, I don't think Americans are as dumb as college campuses lead us to believe. Indeed, according to a 1999 gallup poll, only 6% of Americans had doubts that we landed on the moon.

Let's see if I can make some sort of logical conclusions from this. Teenagers and college-aged folks are known for being anti-authority, meaning that they doubt anything authority figures tell them. If authority figures say "We landed on the moon," they'll say "Bullshit, yo! Let's go get high!" To be fair, there's more to it than that, because the argument supporting the hoax is pretty compelling at first glance. You hear the arguments, and say "Yeah! That's weird!" But, upon further reflection (which rarely happens with teenagers), the sheer stupidity of the arguments reveals itself.

So, people are dumb. That's why conspiracy theories are given the time of day.

[Rhino......................]

Barring anyone actually arguing this point (again if you want to I would absolutely love to) does anyone have any idea as to why this is such a widespread thing? Anyone know of any real actual evidence or personally know anyone who believes this?

There was a big televised conspiracy show on Fox a few years ago, which apparently every nib nob in the damn world watched. It argued that the moon landing was fake using unresearched arguments and citing geocities pages. We watched it in my Space Science class in high school, and my teacher went through each one of their bits of "evidence" one by one, and explained why they were completely illogical. I loved that guy.

Also, a big thing they failed to bring up were the hundreds of pounds of moon rocks we brought back.

[Shire Le Buff]

What's the evidence that goes against the "There's no stars!   They were in space so where are the stars??" argument?

[oatmeal fetish....]

The Moon's surface is airless. On Earth, our thick atmosphere scatters sunlight, spreading it out over the whole sky. That's why the sky is bright during the day. Without sunlight, the air is dark at night, allowing us to see stars.

On the Moon, the lack of air means that the sky is dark. Even when the Sun is high off the horizon during full day, the sky near it will be black. If you were standing on the Moon, you would indeed see stars, even during the day.

So why aren't they in the Apollo pictures? Pretend for a moment you are an astronaut on the surface of the Moon. You want to take a picture of your fellow space traveler. The Sun is low off the horizon, since all the lunar landings were done at local morning. How do you set your camera? The lunar landscape is brightly lit by the Sun, of course, and your friend is wearing a white spacesuit also brilliantly lit by the Sun. To take a picture of a bright object with a bright background, you need to set the exposure time to be fast, and close down the aperture setting too; that's like the pupil in your eye constricting to let less light in when you walk outside on a sunny day.

So the picture you take is set for bright objects. Stars are faint objects! In the fast exposure, they simply do not have time to register on the film. It has nothing to do with the sky being black or the lack of air, it's just a matter of exposure time. If you were to go outside here on Earth on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won't see any stars!

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html