The Moon Landing

No-one said CGI except you. Fake footage is easy; trick photography and television magic are older than the Wrights' plane and you think rocket science is easier?

Also, the blast off, although an impressive achievement, is the easy bit. The radiation in deep space is death to chimpanzes. Ground zero at Cernobyll is not nearly as bad, so why not just wear a few vintage spacesuits and wander in? Because they never worked!

Look, I get that you're speaking up for common sense and intelligence. I understand that conspiracy theories are favoured by the mentally ill. In this case, I am logically adding up the motive + means for faking it minus the obstacles + expense of doing it for real.

Let's say they made it to the moon and back, but the TV transmission failed. Let's say all the photos were dark and mis-aimed and the landing zone was too jet-blasted for even a decent footprint. Let's say the only proof was the severe radiation poisoning of the astronauts. Any of those would be a much more convincing end-game than what actually happened: The whole thing was the greatest television event ever, the biggest fuck-you to the communists ever, featured perfectly framed and well-lit photos of what you imagined, and was immediately shut down on the next mission in yet another seemingly-made-for-tv event, leaving us with only satellites, missiles and velcro to show for it.

 

Have you ever seen any convincing fake footage from before Jurassic Park? Seriously, you can see the wires, or where miniatures are used, or if film has been sped up. The effects are ludicrously bad. Rocket science IS easier, or at least it was in those days.

Also, I said that the safety requirements are now much higher. Those lunar astronauts were exposed to a lot of harmful cosmic rays, which is why most of them are now dead from cancer and have been replaced by alien doppelgangers. Duh.

 

This thread is actually giving me insight into the gut reactions that religious zealots must have.

Suffice it to say that I believe that the lunar landing occurred. Of course I believe this; this is what I've been told from the day I was born.

If you don't believe it, you're a fool. You piss me off by challenging it because this shakes the foundation of something I've believed for as long as is relevant to me. Changing something this permanent is hard.

I'm inclined to take Smuel's stance. I insist that this happened because the technology did exist at the time. I would make this claim with no practical knowledge of what technology is required to put a man on the moon. I would make this claim without even knowing if the technology exists now.

Both sides present feasible scenarios to support their claims and this has spawned an entertaining discussion.

 

Yeah, let's get those goddamn unbelievers, brah!

* Fist bump *

 

So? They poured n million into full scale special effects instead of N million into impossible technology which then gets 'lost'. Anyway, footage does not need to be sfx for it to be fake. If I filmed Egypt and called it Syria, that would be fake footage.

As you keep pointing out, faking film is a well-developed art nowadays. Meanwhile, our radiation shielding still sucks (let alone rocket-cars or moon-colonies). Isn't that in itself suspicious?

Just to be clear on the bottom line of your convictions: You're defending the integrity of Richard Nixon in the cold war. Yikes. I like to play the devil's advocate, but there are limits.

 

Just because your rocket-car isn't any good ytzk doesn't mean you have to bring mine into this discussion.

Also note that this is my most devilish post ever.

 

This. Just check out the photos and films on the site i provided, and then read the comments. The photo quality actually isn't that good.

 

Woah, I hadn't read it until now but I'm not at all surprised.

The only statement I now wish to retract is "I'm not saying I can disprove it." As it happens it is already categorically disproved.

It's nice when the scientific evidence backs up your world-view: Now I know how all those insufferable atheists feel.

 

Not really (and that's assuming your statement is correct).

"While three astronauts flew to the Moon twice, none of them landed on the Moon more than once." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts (If wikipedia is wrong, then name the astronaut who claimed to walked the moon twice...)

Radiation suits only need to provide a certain level of protection for a certain length of time in order to reduce the amount of radiation to low enough levels that there is no long term damage. This is because the body already has defenses against radiation (as indicated by the fact that we are exposed to low levels of radiation on a continuous basis) and is capable of healing itself. It is the cumulative effects of radiation that creates harm, and if the sum total of the radiation in any given period isn't high enough, the body's natural ability to heal will deal with the minor harm caused by any exposure. The total radiation to which each would have been exposed would have been limited to the duration of their time outside of the lunar module, and because no astronaut landed on the Moon more than once, it is believable that the total amount of time at that level of exposure was short enough not to cause lasting harm.
To calculate whether or not a radiation suit would fail to provide proper protection on the moon, one needs to know the level of radiation exposure, the duration of exposure and the level of protection that the suit provides. If the necessary level of protection was acheived for durations of the exposure, then your radiation argument fails.
As for radiation shielding (exclusive of suits), that tech has developed to the point where nuclear plants can keep the large levels of radiation generated by the plant from killing the plant's operators. But then, I don't know if your use of the phrase "radiation shielding" above was an error on your part while you complained about radiation suits (as an inadvertent expansion of the terms being used).

At least Richard Nixon had the integrity to resign when faced with a controversy. How many politicians have do so since then?

Politicans lie; therefore, to believe that we lost the technology that got us to the moon is equally absurb. Who is more believable: the scientists and engineers of NASA saying we landed on the moon, or a politican who doesn't want to spend resources sending us back to the moon saying we can't?

 

Yeah... But the amount of radiaton that the astronauts would've been exposed to is too great. Even at a relatively low altitude (compared to that of the moon) the radiation is strong enough for astronauts to see on the inside of their eyelids when they have their eyes closed. Once you get into the Van Allen belt (not sure about the spelling but you know what I mean), you're fried. The moon is even worse. You would need very thick layers of lead to shield yourself from harm up there, and these guys went up in linen suits. The machine they went up in was made of aluminium, and wasn't very thick. They would have died of radiation poisoning within minutes.

But this is not the only issue. This is one small out of many. I'll tell you again: read what he's written on that site and see the evidence for yourself. Search the internet for counter arguments or evidence pointing to the contrary. I am now, but I'm not finding anything satisfactory.

 

Xyle, if you expect me to read the wiki on a point about who went twice, for some random reason, then the least you can do is actually read the article about the topic we're actually discussing.

Short answer: No.

 

I don't expect you to read the wiki article, I only used the fact that I quoted as a supporting argument for my position in that the duration of exposure went unrepeated. Therefore, if the first time the astronaut walked the moon was short enough, a radiation suit won't be too little protection.

 

By which I deduced that you don't understand the levels of radiation being discussed.

:monocle:

 

Well then, care to explain why the radiation suits would fail to provide adequate protection?

 

Short answer: Alfoil is not lead-plating.

Long answer: Read the article.

 

Scentists predicted that you would need a four feet thick layer of lead to effectively shield you from harm on the moon. The american austronauts went up in linen preasure suits. Even today, dentalists and doctors hide behind a wall or a sheet of lead to protect themselves from the mediocre ammounts of radiation that x-ray scans produce. Aluminium alloy and linen cannot protect you effectively enough from radiation, not even of mediocre levels. The moon is another matter entirely. The levels up there could and would kill a human very fast indeed. What protects us here on earth is our magnetic field, but the moon hasn't got that. The astronauts wouldn't've stood a chance.

 

Now that I know a real moon shuttle ought to be plated in four foot thick lead, and the suits as well, the whole prospect seems a lot more, well, steampunk.

They should definitely do it, for real this time. With brass trimmings and clockwork airlocks.

Mmmm, steampunk.

 

"Scientists predicted"? According to whom? The crackpot article?

The x-ray technicians protect themselves because if they didn't they would be exposed to large amounts of radiation over the course of their careers, otherwise that protection won't be necessary as evident by the fact that it is people that are being x-rayed.

Also the magnetosphere protects us against alpha and beta particles -- electrically charged particles -- and not from electromagnetic radiation like harmful UV rays and X-rays. The sun doesn't produce X-ray radiation, and UV rays can be protected against with sun tan lotion and linen. Therefore, the dangerous particles coming from the sun are alpha, beta and gamma particles which are significantly larger than photons (being made up of either electrons or protons) and therefore requires less shielding because they are more likely to interact with whatever molecules that they encounter first.

 

Delusions? Okay, I reread the articles, and the sun does produce x-ray radiation, but that is only one mistake. Where's the rest that makes my mistakes plural?

 

The sun produces all spectra of radiation, and it just so happens our magnetosphere isn't as good at blocking various UV rays and everything lower as it is at blocking every type higher. It even produces neutrinos, and in special neutrino capturing cameras, we can see the sun's core. Harvey Birdman is right;

THE SUN CAN KILL YOU!