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Old 28-October-2009, 08:54 PM
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JayUtah JayUtah is online now
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Because I know better, I can say that the question, "What if Apollo turned out to be technically impossible?" is absurd. It's absurd to me, but it may not be patently absurd to someone else who may not know anything about space engineering. Some people are satisfied having an experienced space engineer say that the question is absurd. But a listener can't necessarily know that all who dismiss the question as absurd are doing it from an informed standpoint. They might be inclined to think the question is being labelled absurd so as not to be considered on its merits. It's not clear that the technological question is answered conclusively, hence it's not clear that the question is equivalent to asking for acceptance of perpetual motion.

Now on the historical question I can almost say it's absurd. That is, we have a very well documented history of Apollo development and operation. It is far more likely at this point that it's a true record than that it has been fabricated. But there's a difference between saying that it's not likely to be fake and saying that it cannot be fake. If someone wants to try to satisfy the burden of proof for an affirmative refutation of the Apollo historical record, I'm quite willing to entertain it. And I can't say here and now that any such attempt will fail. I can only say that all past attempts have failed -- quite miserably.

Can someone say how the moon rocks were faked? Not yet, but I'm willing to entertain proposals. Photographs? The still photos wouldn't be that hard to fake, honestly. Or many of them, anyway. Film and video: considerably harder. No one has yet explained how it could be done and shown evidence that's how it actually was done.

We have to remind ourselves that it's not enough to show that it is possible to fake something. A proponent has to show that's how it was actually done. An affirmative rebuttal can't merely point out that alternate paths exist; it has the burden to show that was the path that was followed. Conspiracy theorists don't understand this. They don't know what it means to prove something.

Can someone show how the telecommunications were faked? Perhaps. Mike Dinn can't figure it out, and he's one of the experts. But if someone comes along and says, "This is what they did to fake it, and here's the evidence it was actually done," then we do have an obligation to hear them out and test their claims on their merits.
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