Did we go to the moon?

[Stupot]

I always like to say the moon landings were faked. I don't know if I actually believe that or not, but it makes perfect sense to me why the Americans would have wanted to fake it (and Nixon, who was president during the same period, wasn't exactly squeaky clean, was he?).   There is indeed evidence to debunk the conspiracy thoeries.... but even those debunkings have some fairly persuasive counter arguments.

It's just an attractive theory and there's always the possibility that one day the 'truth' might be revealed, and those of us who like to believe they were were faked are hanging on to it, in the hope that one day we can say 'I knew it all along'.

It's a shame it took place in the grey days of black and white (and blurry) television, because it's always going to look dodgy even if it's real... it just seems to me that safely landing humans on the moon and bringing them back alive is something that might be doable now, but should have been impossible back then.

Apparently America is planning to make some new voyages, surely it would be impossible to fake in this day and age, (or am i being as naive as our parents were in '69?).  So it will be interesting to see what happens.  I suppose the only way to truly know, would be to go there yourself... and even then you don't know if your being duped?... A lot of people think that the likes of Neil Armstrong genuinely believed they were on the moon even though they were actually just in the middle of a certain compound in the Nevada desert.

What I'm saying is... I've learned not to come out with "I think it was fake", because I always receive a barrage of flame, and I don't believe that claim quite enough to back it up properly.  But you can't deny it's a sexy theory and it's easy to understand why some people are hanging onto it.

[Nacho]

Americans went to the moon. The soviets never expressed any doubt about it. There' s no need of further evidences.

[MrColossal]

I always like to say the moon landings were faked. I don't know if I actually believe that or not, but it makes perfect sense to me why the Americans would have wanted to fake it (and Nixon, who was president during the same period, wasn't exactly squeaky clean, was he?).   There is indeed evidence to debunk the conspiracy thoeries.... but even those debunkings have some fairly persuasive counter arguments.

It's just an attractive theory and there's always the possibility that one day the 'truth' might be revealed, and those of us who like to believe they were were faked are hanging on to it, in the hope that one day we can say 'I knew it all along'.

this is the silliest argument I've ever encountered... It's not even an arguement, it's just a.... I don't know what it is. You're willing to ignore mountains of evidence just because you like a false theory?

It's a shame it took place in the grey days of black and white (and blurry) television, because it's always going to look dodgy even if it's real... it just seems to me that safely landing humans on the moon and bringing them back alive is something that might be doable now, but should have been impossible back then.

Do you also doubt the existence of World War 1 or 2 or the holocaust? I mean the footage is all grainy and you can easily see how they could have faked it all.

It was possible to go to the moon because the government and people were scared to death of the russians gaining any sort of superiority so they poured billions of dollars into research for years and years.

I suppose the only way to truly know, would be to go there yourself... and even then you don't know if your being duped?... A lot of people think that the likes of Neil Armstrong genuinely believed they were on the moon even though they were actually just in the middle of a certain compound in the Nevada desert.

Do you "believe" that there is a war going on in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you "believe" in Guam island? Do you "believe" that I live in Troy, NY? I mean, you haven't been to these places first hand, this could all be an elaborate hoax! Do you know there are people in this world who actually believe they were REALLY fighting in the Iraq war when actually they were just in the Nevada desert.

What I'm saying is... I've learned not to come out with "I think it was fake", because I always receive a barrage of flame, and I don't believe that claim quite enough to back it up properly.  But you can't deny it's a sexy theory and it's easy to understand why some people are hanging onto it.

You want to believe a theory but you don't know enough about it. C'mon man, you're on the internet, at least give yourself confirmation bias and only read moon hoax sites to convince yourself that you're right! Or do some research [like read the Bad Astronomy link I added to this thread] and let's have a dialog about what's in that article that you still can't accept as evidence or find fishy.

Human beings walking on another celestial body is sexier than anything you can pretend happened. "Aliens gave us technology to beat the russians!" Nope, human beings figuring out a way to get human beings up into space and walking around on the moon is so sexy I'm popping boners just thinking about it.

[scotch]

You're willing to ignore mountains of evidence just because you like a false theory?

Ultimately, that's the only reason anyone believes in these theories. It's fun! I think the reality is more interesting but I'm not a conspiracy nut.

And why the hell man walked on the moon in 1969 and never after that?

I'm so tired of hearing this! I guess people walking on the moon is only worth remembering the firs time... but people do remember the moon buggy at least. That wasn't there in 1969. To remind people, there were three manned orbits around the moon, then 5 different manned landings, with some failed missions.

Lots of people went to the moon, and it's not that fantastical a thing, considering the amount of money spent, and considering how easy it is for small space programmes to send stuff around the moon these days. Obviously people don't go back anymore because the Apollo program is over, there's no big bad competitor to justify rebuilding it, and nobody would be all that impressed now.

As always the difficulty of making the conspiracy theory work overshadows any difficulty they might had getting people to the moon. There are a lot of people involved in a project costing 24 billion 1960s dollars, lots of people to realise it's all pretend. At the very least accept that if they did spend all that money on making a realistic special effects film they'd have got someone to work out how a flag moves in space.

[Nacho]

A lot of people think that the likes of Neil Armstrong genuinely believed they were on the moon even though they were actually just in the middle of a certain compound in the Nevada desert.

Hehe... I missed that one. So, Neil Armstrong can get confuse Nevada with the Moon? Do you think he was so idiot? Or maybe there is in Nevada some kind of antigravity device that makes that place having 6 times less than in the reast of the Earth? amazing...

[space boy]

The moon is fake.

[vict0r]

And made of Cheese.

[RickJ]

How much could this money NASA spent fight those problems and many others I didn't mention? How much it could really make difference?

The answer to this question lies beyond the naive and overly simplistic understanding of economics that presumes "all that money" was wasted and had no beneficial economic or social effect.  Also the choice of the language "fight those problems" rather than "solve those problems" is also curious as it seems to elevate process/intentions over results.  Are you really saying that you would have preferred that the money be spent on income redistribution and/or other socialist programs that are, in your view, a good unto themselves regardless of the results produced?

I truly believe if we don't get off this planet in vast numbers SOON, Earth is toast.

I agree, the sooner we launch the B Ark the better! 

Like I said there is no wind on moon! Scientific fact!

Since nobody was ever there how can you be so sure?


Well, I have to go now, Elvis is picking me up for lunch .. 

[AlbinoPanther]

If there is no atmosphere there are no conditions needed for establishing wind. My poor english puts me limits in explaining this.
Basicly, moon haven't atmosphere=there is no wind on it's surface.

But still I haven't watched moon landing video for awhile, and after all that was in 1969 main actors are dead or very old, so who cares. Written history is filled with lies!
Like InCreator said this argument wouldn't help in any way, nobody listen voice of the people.
If Americans did it they prooved that they can and they enjoy their superiority!
Meanwhile hundred of thousend people died from starvation.
And earth is more and more poluted.

That sucks

 

[Oliwerko]

Written history is filled with lies!

Exactly.

The main problem is, that these debates lead nowhere, just because there are tons of "evidence", fake or not, supporting BOTH sides. They can make YOU believe one side, but when 10 people read the same pile of evidence for both sides, it is obvious, that their opinions will differ. It is all about your personality. Nothing more, nothing less. Why? Becaue you know a big *** about it. The problem is that you BELIEVE, you do not KNOW. As we were taught at school: To believe is to accept a fact without actual proof.

Eric - thanks, I have links that will last me 10 more years to read  

To that JFK case - there is SO much evidence and witnesses that confuses the whole case. The truth is buried deep deep deep under these fake witnesses and fake evidence. What I am trying to say, that there is no way to find the truth, because it is forever lost under the piles of evidence (which is good for government if they really did it). I really do not know who killed JFK, but I personally believe that government or any of its fractions did it. The Zapruder film is fake. Some photos are fake. (I am not talking about arguable photos like - the man in the grassy knoll or Oswald in the door of the depository building in the time of shooting - that is really not clear like the fakiness of the Zapruder film) Why? Probably because somebody did not want the truth to come out. I believe that the 3rd shot came from ahead, from the grassy knoll. The first and second one could possibly come from the depository, but the third one...I think not. But again, I know nothing about it, so I can only choose what to believe.

[scotch]

AP: But the flags did not wave. They never fluttered in the videos or the photos because as you rightly state there is no significant wind on the moon. Look at the videos and see a wrinkly but static bit of cloth hanging from a pole... What sort of idiot would bring a wind machine into a presumably indoors low gravity studio anyway?

Sure there are more important things than going to the moon, it was in some ways a frivalous propaganda exercise but it's still an amazing technological achivement. Compared to all the petty wars, miscalculated policies and exploitative profiteering that has gone on in history, Apollo was pretty cheap and achieved something that inspired a lot of people. And hey, the money didn't even get spent on killing people! It most certainly wasn't the best use of resources... wonderful observation. That means it doesn't matter if it happened or not?

Oliwerko: Yes, but people attempt to defend any poorly supported belief by saying "Hey, you don't KNOW I'm wrong!". Of course... everything we say we "know" is based on our understanding of what we see, nobody is saying there is logical proof that men went to the moon. It's all about the evidence as you say, and acknowledging that there is evidence for both viewpoints does not say anything about the weight of evidence on each side. In the moon hoax case it's so overwhelmingly one sided.
The JFK conspiracy people strike me as more reasonable than the moon hoax people at least... there's more room for reasonable doubt there. I think the mainstream account is the most convincing but there's a lot of room there for something else to happen, sure. And lots of political motivation to do it. So I don't think these people are as ignorant.

[Khris]

I wholeheartedly agree.
In philosophy it's a good idea to question everything, in real life it isn't. The moon hoax believers don't ever come up with anything new; all they do is parrot the same old, thoroughly debunked bullshit arguments. The badastronomy site doesn't just offer another opinion, it offers very simple methods to see for yourself that the so-called arguments for a faked moon landing are so flimsy a school child could see right through them.
What's left is a piece of history that's questioned only by some ignorant conspiracy nuts.

My point is: only question things which there are good, valid, logical arguments against. History may be filled with lies, but if 99% of the history books tell it one way and neither side can proof they're right, what's the point in doubting it?
Don't, otherwise you'll end right back in philosophy: "How do you know that keyboard is actually there? Maybe it's just your brain telling you it was." Pointless.

[RickJ]

... Basicly, moon haven't atmosphere ...

Since nobody was ever there how can you be so sure?     *** suddenly a feeling of deja vu rushes over RickJ ***

Meanwhile hundred of thousend people died from starvation.

Yes, please feel free to enlighten us about the vaillant effort the good people of Serbia/Yugoslavia made to save these poor starving people.  Or did they just sit on their fat asses watching the moon landing on tv and just not give a shit about those starving fools?

It most certainly wasn't the best use of resources... wonderful observation.

How do you know this to be true?   What facts do you have to back this up?  How much human suffering was avoided because of the research and other sociological benefits?    You really can't make a conclusion here without answering that question.  There were plenty of other countries not spending on space, what were they spending their money on and what did they accomplish by it?

[scotch]

I don't think I'd need to analyse it too much to say it wasn't the absolute #1 most pressing issue facing humanity at the time. That's entirely a matter of opinion of course, depends on your priorities. My point was that just because something isn't solving poverty, or whatever you think the biggest issue in the world is, it can still be of some worth.

I know there are side effects from the research that have helped people on the ground, the military, rocket technology for launching civilian satellites, down to providing jobs, all sorts of things. I did say it was a relatively good use of money compared with where a lot of spending goes. And I would agree it was one of the most successful space projects, although I do prefer stuff like Hubble overall, the moon landings were a wonderful feat of exploration.

[Nacho]

I think Russia did the correct thing when chose not to compeate with the US in the moon race and spent that resources in finishing with famine on the World.

Oh, wait...

[scotch]

Every country wastes resources, no country is doing all it can to make the world a better place, that's an impossible expectation. This is all irrelevant when it comes to if the moon landing was for real of course, this thread doesn't need a national pissing match.

Related, one thing I like about the whole space thing is when people talk about the time "we" went to the moon. Like Swedes and Canadians and Brits and Slovakians have in this thread so far. It's nice to see that since the cold war, people think of it as one of the greatest human achievements in general, and not just a source of national pride. I think that makes it a fairly big deal for global culture, even if some people here don't feel that way personally.

[Nacho]

Exactly... I personally feel better knowing that we were there than thinking that those money could have gone to an UN plan to finish with the famine in Africa, which should have ended, knowing the UN antecendents, 75% for the local communist warlord' s personal fortune, 15 for the UN bureaucy, 9% for buying new AK-47s for the guerrilla, and 1% for famine fighting.

[Oddysseus]

@lo_res_man: I agree that leaving Earth is inevitable, in light of the facts that: 1.The sun will one day die 2.Another Ice Age may eventually hit 3.A meteor could strike the Earth at any time.  However, I think most of those things (certainly 1 and 2) are thousands of years off.  In the meantime, we have to develop alternative fuels and population controls and figure out how to continue to live on the Earth if we want to live long enough to develop spacecraft that can approach the speed of light/warp drive/whatever.

@Tuomas: "I can't help but thinking how all those money and time could have been spent in something that is important. Like ice cream."  Actually, the type of ice cream called Dippin Dots was developed with technology developed for the space program. Still think it was a waste of money?  Yeah, me too.  But people never considered the ancillary benefits of the space program. For instance, the Russian's attempt to keep up with U.S. developements in the space field probably accelerated the disintegration of the USSR and brought an end to the Cold War sooner than would otherwise have happened.  Plus, as previously mentioned, we got Dippin Dots. And those memory-foam mattresses.  Pretty sweet.

[Darth Mandarb]

I just skimmed through this thread (at work and can't take the time to read it thoroughly) so I'm not sure if my point has been made yet.

I definitely think we landed on the moon.

The [U.S.] President can't get a blow-job in the oval office without that secret getting out.  I find it very doubtful that a secret/lie as massive as a faked moon-landing could stay a secret for so long.

You can mask budgets and government spending (the billions of dollars spent on the moon-shot), and you can easily create hollywood sets to fake the moon-landing ... but those kinds of things would require/involve a lot of people to put together and, as history has shown us (time and time again) somebody would have spilled the beans.

I don't know ... I don't really see why it's so hard to believe we landed on the moon.  Given all the other things humans have accomplished it doesn't seem so unlikely to me.  Personally I think to even suggest it was faked is an insult to those involved.

[Nacho]

and you can easily create hollywood sets to fake the moon-landing ...

No... It was not so easy, in 1969 to fake the moon gravity and the vast distances covered by the moon rover. Let' s remember that those "fake" moon landings also involved Saturn rockets launchings (Impossible to fake, million of people saw them). Let's sum that to the costs of the "production" of the "fake" landings and we will soon reach to the conlcussion that the "filming" should have probably been more expensive than a real landing. Also, when Russia gave up in the moon race the US were so close of success (and nobody is so dare to deny that Apollo missions till 9, or 10 were real) that it should have just been silly not to go a step beyond.

If the US did not go to the moon, they "accidentally" walked all the necessary steps. Also, the "evidences" against the moon landings are so stupid that it' s not worth to comment them...