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David Hall · #2 (**permalink**) 01-August-2002, 08:24 AM

This article is certainly a joke. The Apollo 13 director was Randall Cunningham? (For those who don't know, Apollo 13 director Ron Howard acted in the TV series Happy Days and his character's name was Richie Cunningham.) Also, Kubrick was a math genius who helped NASA solve an orbital problem, which meant they could go to the Moon to film the moonwalks? And they had time to do that, but they didn't have time to actually do the actual landings? Heeheeheeheehee Hawhawhawhawhaw. It's a joke.

However, what's more disturbing (in addition to the very wide format that makes it difficult to read), are some of the comments given in the reader's comments thread: http://galactic-guide.com/cgi-bin/wi...Moon_Hoax,_The. Specifically, there's one poster who actually has a pretty good, if rambling, argument. I'm going to print it here. Sorry it's so long:

Quote:

(added by ccnn51@mail.com): If you really want a "proof" that pictures from the Apollo 11 mission are fake (were not taken when NASA said they were), consider the phases of the earth. You know that the moon goes through phases such as new moon, quarter-full, half-full, three-quarters-full, and full moon. Well, the earth, as seen from the moon, does the same thing; and it takes just as long to do the progression. Although the earth spins around once every 24 hours, the percentage of it illuminated by the sun (as seen from the moon) remains essentially the same during any 24 hour period; just as the phase of the moon does not appear to change all that much from 8:00 p.m. on one night to 8:00 p.m. on the next night. The fact that the earth rotates under the sunlight much faster makes no difference one way or the other; the percentage of the moon (and thus the phase), or the percentage of the earth (and thus its phase), that appears lighted remains pretty constant during 24 hours. The full change from one full moon to the next is about 28 days. Therefore the change from new to full is about 14 days. The change from new to half-full is 7 days. And the change from new moon to two-thirds full is 9.3 days. Thus the time it would take to change from one-half full to two-thirds full is 2.3 days. This is exactly the same time frame when looking at the earth from the moon and seeing the phases of the earth (though the phases occur in the opposite order) (draw and compare a series of triangles representing the relative positions of the earth and the moon and the sun). It makes no difference that the pictures were taken from orbit around the moon at an altitude of 70 nautical miles (130 kilometers) above the moon?s surface, because the diameter of the moon is only 3,480 kilometers whereas the diameter of the earth is 12,753 kilometers. Thus the lunar orbit was actually like being on the surface of a planet smaller than the earth, and we know the phase of the moon doesn?t change hardly at all from early in the evening to late in the morning (from one end of the earth?s diameter to the other end). It takes 2.3 days for the earth to change from one-half full to two-thirds full. However NASA claims to have taken pictures that show it can be done in 1 day! In fact NASA claims that the earth even dropped to one-third full during that time! Go to:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...11.html#Flight

and then click on:

AS11-44-6550 (105k) View of the Earth from the Command Module Columbia. 20 July 1969. This picture was taken shortly after Earthrise as Columbia was passing over Mare Smythii.

Note the phase of the earth. It is two-thirds full. Then go to:

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/html/pao/as11.htm

and click on the image spot of:

AS11-44-6642 image text Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage photographed from Command Module

Note the phase of the earth. It is one-half full. If you go back and click on the text spot you will get: NASA Photo ID: AS11-44-6642 File Name: 10075285.jpg

Film Type: 70mm Date Taken: 07/21/69
Title: Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage photographed from Command Module

Description: The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, with Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. aboard, is photographed from the Command and Service Modules (CSM) during rendezvous in lunar orbit.

Last, go back to the previous web page, same menu, click on the image spot of:

AS11-44-6689 image text One-third of Earth's sphere as seen from Apollo 11 spacecraft

Note the phase of the earth. It is one-third full. If you go back and click on the text spot you will get:

NASA Photo ID: AS11-44-6689 File Name: 10075297.jpg
Film Type: 70mm Date Taken: 07/20/69
Title: One-third of Earth's sphere as seen from Apollo 11 spacecraft
Description: One-third of the Earth's sphere illuminated, Earth's terminator, sunglint, a portion of East Africa, as photographed from the Apollo 11 spacecraft during its lunar landing mission.

So, how did the above picture get taken, supposedly from lunar orbit, on July 20, 1969, when the picture taken on July 21, 1969 shows the earth at half-full, and first picture above taken on July 20, 1969 shows the earth at two-thirds full? It cannot be. Therefore the pictures were not taken on the dates specified.

For another proof, this time about Apollo 17, of the pictured manned moon landings being a hoax go to:

http://internet.ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo4.htm

You will see three different pictures, supposedly all shot from essentially the same spot on the moon (the moon vehicle could only take them a few kilometers from the landing spot), and all showing the earth at different elevations above the horizon of the moon. Since the same side of the moon (the face of the moon we are all familiar with) is always turned toward the earth the same way (probably the magnetic field of the moon is slightly off from its center of gravity and so the one side is pulled to face the earth, and the moon's rotation thus ended up timed to its orbit around the earth), the earth is always at the same elevation above the horizon of the moon when viewed from any one spot on the moon. But the pictures show the earth at elevations above the horizon that vary between about 15 degrees and about 40 degrees. This is calculated by counting the number of diameters of the earth in the picture that the earth is above the horizon. No matter what size camera lens is used this will work because the earth?s diameter, when viewed from the moon, will cover an angle of about 1.9 degrees from the top of the earth to the bottom of the earth, or from one side to the other. This is calculated by dividing the diameter of the earth (12756 kilometers) by the distance from the earth to the moon (384,400 kilometers), and taking the inverse sine of the result (inverse sine of 0.033184 = 1.9 degrees). If you follow the mathematics given at that website, you will see that none of the pictures could have been taken from the spot on the moon where the landing supposedly took place! The earth is simply too low toward the horizon for that to be true. Even if you don?t do the mathematics it is still obvious that the elevation of the earth above the horizon should not change from picture to picture. Therefore the pictures cannot be as represented. There have been unmanned landings, and perhaps unmanned ascents from the moon with samples (or they may just have used meteorites as ?moon rocks?), but did a man actually walk on the moon?

I say this guy has real motor-mouth disease. He just can't seem to concisely state his points. But I do admit this one had me stumped for a bit.

Here are links to the photos and text in question:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...11-44-6550.jpg
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075285.jpg (as11-44-6642) http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075285.htm
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075297.jpg (as11-44-6689) http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075297.htm

I have however figured out at least one part of the problem. Looking at other photos in the series of the first photo, I've discovered that they were not actually taken on July 20th. The date listed on the JSC site is actually July 16th.

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075247.jpg (as11-44-6549) http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075247.htm
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075248.jpg (as11-44-6552) http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS11/10075248.htm

So for the first photo, the ASLJ is most likely to be in error.

(Added) Hold on a minute, I just thought of something. July 16th was the launch date. They couldn't have been in lunar orbit. The guilty party must be the JSC site. That makes my following theory even more probable.

But I'm less certain about the other ones. I think the most likely explanation is that the dates there are also in error.

Since 6689 is after 6642 on the roll, how could it have been taken first? My guess is that 6689 was actually taken on the return trip, and thus taken from much closer, as well as from a different angle, especially since it's much larger and shows more detail.

(Added) So what we have is a problem with photo dates, not a problem with the missions themselves. And the most likely culprit is the JSC site. It looks like the dates given there can't be trusted.

The second Apollo 17 series is easier to discount. Trying to measure angular measurements on the screen of different photos taken at different locations is iffy at best. Different settings and camera angles can spell great differences in error. Nothing convinces me there.

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(made some formatting fixes, and added correction)

[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2002-08-01 05:19 ]