6496762 moon landing on the earth

8/8/2019 6496762 Moon Landing on the Earth

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MOON SHOT OR LONGSHOT?

INVESTIGATE: JAN 03

"Thats one small step for

man....one giant leap for conspiracy

theorists": did we really land on the

Moon? HAMISH CARNACHANinvestigates the controversial

argument over whether NASA faked

it, or whether the people pushing the

theory are, themselves, loose moon

units...

Houston, the Eagle has landed" - famous words

that spelt out one of the defining moments of the

twentieth century. Eagle, the Apollo 11 landingmodule, had gently touched down on the Moons

surface and the United States National

Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)

had finally achieved what many thought was

impossible. For the very first time, a craft carrying

humans had visited a world other than our own

planet.

On a clear morning in mid-July 1969 NASAs

landmark mission began. Columbia, the

command module atop a massive Saturn V

rocket, successfully rose off pad 39a, thundered

towards the heavens billowing a cotton-wool

vapour trail and disappeared beyond the

stratosphere.

The voyage to the Moon ran smoothly and on the

distant side of the Moon, Eagle prepared to

disengage from its mother ship.

Neil Armstrongs voice soon crackled across theairwaves and into the headsets of the anxious

technicians awaiting news back at Houstons

Mission Control. The broadcast carried the news

of the successful separation: "The Eagle has

wings".

The pivotal phase of the mission was underway,

but when the engine on the lander was fired to

begin the descent it was like triggering a signal for

the drama to commence.

At 14,000 metres an alarm sounded the

computer was becoming overloaded with data

but Mission Control gave the all clear to

"continue powered descent".

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conspiracy theory problem no. 1: in 1969 there were no

computerised photo-editing programmes. forging

photographs was strictly a cut and paste job. if we never

got to the moon, who took these pictures on kodak

extachrome film. this is not fuzzy broadcast video, this is

hard copy colour film, with a small earth in the

background. who got far enough out in space to take a

picture of a small earth and a large moon? to put it in

perspective, more computing grunt is required to create

this magazine than was used in the apollo programme


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computer was becoming overloaded with data

but Mission Control gave the all clear to

"continue powered descent".

Moments later another siren screeched a

warning. The computer readout suggested Eagle

was approaching touchdown too fast. Mission

Control scrambled to analyse and again snubbed

the signal to abort descent velocity was fine.

At 6400 metres above the lunar surface, and with

Eagle closing at a rate of 3700 metres per minute,

the time to decide whether to land or abort was

almost up when Armstrong glanced out of the

window and saw that they were heading directly

into a boulder field.

With a landing in rough terrain impossible he

manually angled the craft away, hoping to find a

smoother spot to touch down. A call camethrough from Mission Control: "30 seconds".Fuel

was running dangerously low and there was a risk

that Eagle would not have enough in reserve to

ascend.

Finally Buzz Aldrins triumphant dispatch came

through: "Contact light". A collective sigh of relie

was let out followed by a monumental roar that

rocked the mission centre. After years o

meticulous planning and four days after themission was launched, Man was finally on the

Moon.

It was 20 July, 1969, a day that is fixed in the

memories of everyone who saw the flickering,

grainy black and white television images of Neil

Armstrong stepping down from the Apollo 11

capsule onto the lunar surface.

Arguably it was the most monumental feat in

modern history perhaps recorded history some have even called the Apollo 11 mission the

pinnacle of Mans pioneering adventures.

So many of the people who stood witness that

day were left speechless and it was Armstrongs

now famous words, "One small step for Man,

one giant leap for Mankind", which articulated

what they could not say themselves.

Hundreds of kilograms of samples were brought

back throughout Project Apollo, as were reams

and reams of film and still-photo footage. These

invaluable archives and the astronauts

experiences not only gave us an indication of how

the Moon was formed and how it could be

conspiracy theory problem no 2: if it had been filmed in a

studio, multiple light sources would be required to evenly

fill such a large background, yet only one source exists in

this photo. additionally, if the light source were man-made

then it would have to be so close that shadows would be

seen radiating in different directions

conspiracy theory problem no. 3: if we faked the first trip

to the moon because we couldnt do it, why compound the

risk of discovery by faking several more moon landings in

quick succession? why not quit while theyre ahead? why

fake the apollo 13 crisis?

conspiracy theory problem no. 4: hundreds of thousands

of people worked on the apollo flights, each performing

detailed technical tasks, each expecting certain data on

the screens in front of them. to fabricate that data and


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exploited in the future, but they provide evidence

that set the missions in irrefutable fact.

The famous first mission to the Moon, and the

five others that were to follow, were, to a

majority of people, "remarkable

accomplishments". For many others at the time

though, the achievements were too unfathomable,

incomprehensible even. They simply did not

believe it was possible to put a man on the

Moon.

Though there have always been subcultures that

strongly believe the landings were faked, today,

more than 30 years on, there is a growing wave

of disbelievers who are finding favourable

platforms and forums to launch attacks against

the Apollo missions.

The new breed of sceptic has laid down a fiercechallenge to NASA, and the space agency is now

finding it increasingly harder to rid itself of the

rumours that it pulled "one giant con on

Mankind".

Now the conspiracy theories have been elevated

to a higher level of public awareness with

international television screenings of a

documentary that proposed NASA faked the

whole affair.

"Conspiracy Theory: Did we land on the

Moon?" as the program is titled, has aired twice

in the United States and in numerous countries

around the world including New Zealand,

creating quite a stir. While some have written it

off as a "personal attack against NASA" from its

creators, millions of Americans and people o

other nationalities now believe that the landings

were staged in a studio at the conspicuously

secretive Area 51 military base in the Nevada

Desert.

One of the spin-offs of the film is that Internet

conspiracy sites have since flourished and now

provide an inexpensive global medium for

sceptics to push their position. They seem to have

made substantial headway, and the level of

debate on the topic has become unprecedented.

In October this year, a Washington newspaperreport suggested that the argument was getting

ugly too. The Daily News ran a story alleging

that one sceptic confronted 72 year old former

astronaut Buzz Aldrin, poked him, verbally

abused him and demanded that he swear on the

fool all the people involved would probably be a larger

technical problem than actually getting to the moon in the

first place

conspiracy theory problem no. 5: contrary to the claims in

the documentary that it was only test flown once, and

crashed, three lunar module prototypes were test flown on

earth more than 160 times


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Bible that he really walked on the Moon. Aldrin

supposedly responded by punching Bart Sibrel in

the face.

So what is behind this recent groundswell o

contention? As more and more people noticeably

start to query NASAs moon landings is there

actually some substance to their doubts? Do the

Apollo missions really deserve the highest

accolades or were they, as the sceptics claim, anelaborate hoax staged right here on Earth?

Sibrel, who was four years old when man first set

foot on the Moon, is one of the growing numbers

of detractors who have made it their own

personal goal to prove that the landings were the

biggest con job in history.

Central to the stance that sceptics like Sibrel have

adopted is that the landings were staged to dupethe Soviet Union it was the height of the Cold

War and the United States had entered into an

aggressive space race with their old foe.

On his website (moonmovie.com), Sibrel lists the

grounds on which he has taken issue with what

has generally been regarded as established fact,

and claims to have found a credible source who

worked for the space program during the 1960s

to back these up.

"He asserted, most confidently, that the Apollo

moon landings were, first, impossible and,

second, falsified as a Cold War tactic to bluff the

Soviet Union into thinking the United States had

greater capability than it really did," states Sibrel.

"I discovered that the highest ranking official at

NASA resigned, without explanation, just days

before the first Apollo mission. All three

crewmembers of the first historic flight alsoresigned shortly thereafter.

"Neil Armstrong, the most famous astronaut

because of supposedly being the first man on the

Moon, refused to even appear in a single still

picture on the Moon! Aside from the initial press

conference immediately following the event, in

which he seems very disgruntled, he has not given

a single interview on the subject, in print or on

camera, to anyone ever!"

History notes that Sibrel is indeed correct in these

claims. However, is it rational to argue, with

absolute certainty, that a solitary testimony from a

retired NASA employee and a handful o


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resignations are anything other than coincidence?

Well, Sibrel asserts that there is more evidence to

back up his allegations and on his website he lists

his Top Ten reasons why the landings were a

hoax and why Man has never set foot on the

Moon.

Sceptics have literally cre-ated a field of study in

the dissemination and scrutiny of NASA material

and typical of their contentions are some of the

following points, often shown as proof that there

were no moon landings.

Richard Nixon, the king of cover-up, was the

President at the time and sceptics query his

potential antics that were never discovered. Theyargue that a successful manned mission to the

Moon offered a spirit-lifting distraction for

American citizens smarting over 50,000 deaths in

the Vietnam War.

It is also argued that the Soviet Union was well

ahead of the US in the Cold War space-race.

They had a five-to-one superiority over the

States in terms of manned hours in space and

were the first to achieve important milestonessuch as launching the first man-made satellite into

Earths orbit, putting the first astronaut in space,

putting the first astronaut in orbit around Earth,

and completing the first space walk.

Detractors say this put America at a perceived

military disadvantage in missile technology and

because they were so far behind in technical

capability they had no other alternative but to

fake it.

There is the fact that passengers of a spacecraft

that went beyond Earths orbit would likely have

been subjected to the potentially lethal radiation

of the Van Allen radiation belt. Questions are

raised about the possibility of astronauts travelling

through the fieldunscathed.

Sibrel suggests it is odd that "the Apollo missions

were the only times ever that an astronaut, Soviet

or American, left the safety of Earths orbit andventured into the deadly hazards of space

radiation."

Also peculiar, says Sibrel, is the astronauts

silence on their mission.


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"Neil Armstrong, the first man to supposedly

walk on the Moon, refuses to give interviews to

anyone on the subject. Collins also refuses to be

interviewed. Aldrin, who granted an interview,

threatened to sue us if we showed it [Sibrels

own documentary, "A Funny Thing Happened on

the way to the Moon"] to anyone."

Another significant point of conflict is held in the

photographs and film taken on the Moon. On

close inspection, analysts have discovered that

there are numerous inconsistencies and oddities.

For example, no stars are shown in any of the

film and the shadows do not fall in the same

direction. To some this suggests that the footage

was shot in a studiounder artificial lighting.

"Sunlight would cast shadows that would never

intersect," argues Sibrel.

The Hasselblad cameras that were used by

NASA on the missions had many crosshairs in

each frame. Keen-eyed sceptics have noticed

that in some shots the crosses disappear behind

objects in the picture, providing further proof o

foolery.

Perhaps even more bizarre are the pictures with

identical backgrounds that are supposed to have

been taken at different locations on differentdays. In two sequences from the Apollo 16

mission, this irregularity is clearly depicted.

But the biggest discrepancy and the "ultimate give

away", according to the sceptics, is the footage

that shows the American flag fluttering in the wind

an impossible phenomenon on the Moon simply

because no wind can form in the vacuum o

outer-space.

"The wind was probably caused by intense air-

conditioning used to cool the astronauts in their

lightened, un-circulated space suits. The cooling

systems in the backpacks would have been

removed to lighten the load not designed for

Earths six times heavier gravity, otherwise they

might have fallenover," suggests Sibrel.

Sibrel has spent many years and almost

US$500,000 in a quest to prove his theory that

the landings were faked. But aside from querying

inconsistencies and highlighting unexplained


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oddities, he professes to have uncovered

irrefutable evidence.

"In my research at NASA I uncovered, deep in

the archives, one mislabelled reel from the Apollo

11, first mission, to the Moon.What is on the reel

and on the label are completely different. I

suspect an editor put the wrong label on the tape

33 years ago and no reporter ever had the motive

to be as thorough as I. It contains an hour of rare,unedited, colour television footage that is dated

by NASAs own atomic clock three days into the

flight.

"Identified on camera are Neil Armstrong, Edwin

"Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins. They are

doing multiple takes of a single shot of the

mission, from which only about ten seconds was

ever broadcast. Because I have uncovered the

original unedited version, mistakenly notdestroyed, the photography proves to be a clever

forgery. Really! It means they did not walk on the

Moon!"

In a book he released last year, amateur French

astronomer and photographer Philippe Lheureux

made international headlines when he made

similar claims about NASA faking photographic

footage.

But Lheureux puts a different spin on the hoax

theory. In Lumieres sur la Lune (Lights on the

Moon) he suggests astronauts did get to the

Moon but in order to prevent competitors from

using sensitive scientific information in thegenuine

photos, NASA released bogus images.

The BBC quoted Lheuruex from French

television: "In order not to give out scientific

information they released photos taken during the

training stages.

"That satisfied the American taxpayer and that left

no real possibility for other countries to make

scientificuse of them."

Lheureux presents evidence from a photo of a

lunar landing crafts foot because it is totally

dust-free. The problem here, he says, is that

according to Neil Armstrong large clouds of dust

were displacedon landing.

Need more proof? How about props in space?

According to the BBC report, Lheureux says that

when one of the photos purportedly taken on the

Moon is enlarged a letter C can clearly be seen


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scribed on a rock "exactly like some cinema

props".

Sibrel alleges that NASA continues to doctor

their film footage to clean up obvious errors like

those that Lheureux claims to have exposed.

"Newly retouched photographs correct errors

from previously released versions. Why would

they be updating 30-year-old pictures if they

really went to the Moon?" asks Sibrel.

In the face of this barrage, NASAs persisting

silence does not seem to have helped quell any o

the doubts either.

In response to Lheureuxs claims, the agency was

reported to acknowledge that about 20 pictures

of the thousands that were taken do take some

explaining but on close examination they have a

scientific explanation. NASA left its response atthat.

In the past NASA has either relied on information

sheets originally issued in 1977, or private

citizens, concerned enough to mount their own

campaigns to address some of the concerns in

circulation.

But in late 2002 it seemed that the US space

agency had finally got fed up with all the dissent.

They commissioned James Oberg, a 22-yearMission Control veteran and prominent space-

travel author, to work on a 30,000-word book

to debunk the faked landing hypothesis and also

examine how such theories become popular and

spread.

The former chief historian at NASA, Roger

Launius, conceived the idea to give

schoolteachers a tool to help answer classroom

queries because half the worlds population wasnot yet born the last time an astronaut reached

the Moon.

"As time progresses, this gets less and less real to

everybody. At some level, I think that may be

whats happening here," Launius told

Washingtons Daily News.

However, days after they announced the funding

for the book, NASA added fuel to the fire by

pulling its financial backing. According to the

worldwide news service, AFP, a NASA

spokesman said the project had lost its focus

because it was "being portrayed by the media as

a PR campaign to debunk the hoaxers and that


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was never the intent".

Oberg has lost his promised US$15,000 contract

for the work, but despite this setback he informs

Investigate that he is forging ahead with the

book, writing it "commercially".

Until Oberg completes the book though, the task

of silencing the critics will be left to individuals

like Dr. Phil Plait, a teacher of physics andastronomy at Sonoma State University in

California. Plait, who has no links to NASA,

invests his own resources in disseminating

information he believes categorically disproves

the conspiracy theories.

And just as the sceptics are using the Internet to

spread their message, so too is Plait on his Bad

Astronomy website (www.badastronomy.com).

In times when public opinion is so easilyinfluenced by the Internet and "subjective"

television programming, he says he created the

site to add balance to a growing argument.

"Am I a bad astronomer?" asks Plait. "I dont

think so. I would say I am an average one. But

on these web pages, Im discussing astronomy

that is bad."

A good part of this discussion is a detailed

rebuttal of Fox televisions "Conspiracy Theory"documentary in which Plait assures that the

rumours broadcast on the network are

completely false, some laughablyso.

"Sometimes, I think I have heard everything when

it comes to bad astronomy. Then something

comes along so strikingly nuts that I have to

wonder what still lies ahead. In this case, the

craziness involves people who think that the

NASA Apollomissions were faked."

The "craziness" Plait refers to has grasped a

sizeable chunk of the American population too.

Although the documentary states that 20 percent

of Americans now doubt that Man set foot on the

Moon, the claim, like many of the others, is

actually false. The real figure, sourced from a

1999 Gallup-poll, is closer to 6 percent.

Some call this slice of the population the "lunatic

fringe" but, nonetheless, 6 percent of almost three

hundred million, is still a significant body o

outsiders. Still, Plait isnt fazed by the foibles o

his countrymen.

"There is no idea on Gods green Earth so dumb


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that you cant get a big chunk of the American

public to buy it. These are the same people who

believe you can cut taxes but expand services,

and who believe you can extract oil from the

groundindefinitelywithout running outof it."

On his site he proposes that part of the problem

creating the current wave of doubt is a lack o

understanding of science. Plait doesnt profess to

have covered every claim by the conspiracytheorists, simply because there are so many, but

he does answer many of the major "myths". He

says some involve subtle, but comprehensible,

physics, while lesser assertions are easily shown

to be false.

For example, he readily acknowledges that the

US flag is moving but says the explanation is

entirely logical.

"The flag had a stiffening rod on the upper side so

it would stand out from the staff. When the

astronauts moved the pole, the free corner lagged

behind by simple inertia. The flag actually flops

unnaturally quickly because there is no air

resistance to impede it."

As far as the absence of stars in the footage goes,

claimed by sceptics to be indicative of filming

inside a studio, Plait reasons that basic

photography clears this contention.

He says that because the Apollo astronauts all

landed on the day side of the Moon, and all the

film they shot from orbit were over the day side,

the exposure settings were all set for daylight.

"Set your camera to 1/125 at f/8 (a setting typical

of the slower films in use in 1969). Aim it at the

night sky and shoot pictures. Tell me how many

stars you see. Aim your camcorder at the skyand see how many stars you can film.

"Even with the eye youd have difficulty seeing

stars from the daytime lunar surface unless you

stood in a shadow and shielded yourself from any

light reflected from the ground, for the same

reason you cant see stars from a brightly lit

parking lot at night."

But sceptics also assert that con-verging shadows

in numerous pictures provide further evidence

that the landings were staged inside, under


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artificial lighting. As Plait has already indicated,

this is one of those issues that requires a little

scientific understanding.

"Shadows lie on parallel lines pointing away from

the Sun. Because of perspective, they will appear

to radiate away from the point on the horizon

directly under the Sun. Its simply incredible that

people who claimed to have backgrounds in

photography and engineering would not knowthis.

"A brief look around outdoors on a sunny day

will show that shadows of nearby objects do not

line up with more distant ones, or even point

directly away from the Sun. The reason is that

you dont line up the base of the object with its

shadow. You draw a line from a point on the

edge of the shadow through the object that casts

that part of the shadow. So its simply ridiculousto draw lines from the base of the lunar module

through its shadow. To see if the shadows were

consistent, youd have to draw lines from objects

on the lunar module to their corresponding

shadows. These lines should converge on the

Sun."

One sequence in the program that Plait appears

to take pride in ripping apart quite convincingly

shows that two scenes supposedly filmed ondifferent days at different locations were actually

filmed at the same spot.

"Maybe this proves the missions were filmed on

Earth on a set. Or maybe it merely shows that

whoever edited the film mixed up the footage,"

says Plait who suggests the logical explanation

would make no sense at all to a conspiracy

theorist.

Another couple of photos show that crosshairs

etched on the camera lens appear to be behind

objects in the foreground. Theres no question

about it - the crosshairs do disappear at the edge

of the objects. One in particular appears to be in

front of the American flag but behind an

astronauts arm.

"If youre going to stage the landings on Earth,

why put crosshairs on the camera at all? If we

assume the photos were shot with the calibratedcameras that would have gone to the Moon, and

NASA went to the time and trouble to build

stage sets and have people in spacesuits act out

the landings, why not just shoot the scenes you

need? Cutting and pasting makes no sense at all -


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nobody would have missed the apparently

doctored shots if they werent made."

Plait says somebody editing out distracting

crosshairs for press release makes perfect sense,

or another feasible explanation is that areas o

brighter light in the picture may simply have

hidden the marks.

French cynic Lheureux claims the absence of duston the foot of the Eagle landing craft proves some

pictures were faked. "Not so" in this case says

Plait it is merely a case of confusing lunar dust

with householddust.

"Household dust is mostly organic (a lot of it is

dead skin). It has a low density and floats easily

in the air. Lunar dust is powdered rock, much

higher in density and with no air to support it.

There are no dust bunnies [eddies] on the Moon.

"Kick any dry, bare ground surface on Earth and

you will kick up rock dust. Kick the Moon and

you will kick up lunar dust. Both kinds of dust are

powdered rock, different origins but with

somewhat similar properties. Rock dust is pretty

cohesive once it packs down. One reader sent in

a picture of the lunar rover churning up dust and

asked how this could happen if there is no dust

on the Moon. Same way an ATV in a gravel pit

kicks up dust. Nobody ever said there is "no

dust" on the Moon, just no fluffy, easily mobilized

dust.

"Once the lunar lander rockets blew away the

near-surface dust, whats left? Larger particles

too big to move easily."

Theability of NASAastronauts survivingpassage

through the extreme radiation of the phenomenon

known as the Van Allen radiation belt takes someexplaining and Plait offers detailed analysis on his

website.

In very simple terms, because they passed

through the belt at such a rapid speed, the

astronauts spent less than 15 minutes in the

danger zone. Plait calculates that exposure over

that amount of time would have been about 1

percent of a fatal radiation dose perhaps not

completely safe but entirely survivable.

Finally, it is well known that America was losing

the space race to the Soviet Union. In one of the

most famous speeches of his presidential career,

John F. Kennedy acknowledged this and pledged


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support and billions of dollars of funding to match

the Russians strides in space: "I believe this

nation should commit itself to achieving the goal,

before this decade is out, of landing a man on the

Moon and returning him safely to Earth."

Of course history tells us that Kennedy did not

survive to see his vision fulfilled and it was the

infamous Richard Nixon who was in power when

NASA finally accomplished the goal. But forsome sceptics it would not have been above

Nixon to pull a lunar landing scam.

However, why would the President have gone to

the trouble of preparing a contingency speech to

be read to the watching world if the mission failed

and the astronauts died?

In 1999 the BBC reported that a memo found in

Americas national archives revealed the extent ofemergency planning for the first mission by

NASA and the Whitehouse.

Radio transmissions would supposedly have been

terminated, leaving the space travellers to die or

commit suicide in silence. Nixons speech would

have opened: "Fate has ordained that the men

who went to the Moon to explore in peace will

stay on the Moon to rest in peace."

Is this irrefutable evidence that Man did reach theMoon, or another prop in an elaborate hoax?

Perhaps the AFP news service is correct when it

suggests that by staying silent, NASA merely

feeds the hoax rumours; by denying, it

encourages charges over an establishment cover-

up the agency appears to be in a no win

situation.

Sceptics like Bart Sibrel point to a humancondition called "cognitive dissonance", a

condition when someone has a long held belief so

deeply rooted in their psyche that they cannot see

anything else, even if visible facts present

themselves that prove contrary to their belief.

"The pride inducing moon landings can certainly

cloud some people from seeing the distasteful

truth," he states.

Meanwhile, Plait will not reply to queries that donot firstly address his own: What evidence would

it take (available now on Earth) to prove we

really went to the Moon? He suggests cognitive

dissonance should work both ways.


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"I have found it to be a great general-purpose

cut-through-the-crap question to determine

whether somebody is interested in serious

intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games,"

says Plait.

With such resolute opponents facing off, which

side of the story are we supposed to believe?

Will we ever really know, with absolute certainty,

whether Man reached the Moon or not?

Well, the answer may be closer than many think.

European scientific astronomers have announced

that they will use the latest, and most powerful,

telescope ever made to search for equipment

NASA astronauts left on the Moon.

It is hoped that the Very Large Telescope (VLT),

capable of imaging a human hair from 16

kilometres away, will provide visual confirmationof one or more of the six lunar modules that

landed on the Moon.

Across the Atlantic, Californian company

TransOrbital plans to mount a search for further

proof. Trailblazer will be the first commercial

probe to orbit over one of the Apollo landing

sites and take photos of gear left behind by

NASA. The launch of Trailblazer has been

tentatively scheduled forAugust 2003.

Certainly such technological developments will

have set alarm bells ringing already.

"Sceptics, you may have a problem."

.

6496762 moon landing on the earth

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