Dear BA,

My apologies to fellow forum members if this implies a familiarity or expectation that the BA himself will answer - if needed I'll do an email instead rather than cluttering up the board.

The question is from a student in regards to possible contradictions in the book (in particular, page 162) and the BA website under the Apollo Moonlanding Hoax, url is: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html). Admittedly the site is dated from 2001 and the book is dated 2002.

In the book, he states that 'to minimise the risk they put the Apollo spacecraft along a trajectory that only nicked the very inside of the inner belt, exposing the astronauts to as little dangerous radiation as possible. They spent more time in the outer belts, but there the radiation isn't as high. the metal walls of the spacecraft protected the astronauts from the worst of it. Also, contrary to popular belief, you don't need lead shielding to protect yourself from the radiation. There are different kinds of radiation; alpha particles, for example, are just fast-moving helium nuclei that can be stopped by normal window glass.'

On the website it says:

Good: Kaysing's exact words in the program are ``Any human being traveling through the van Allen belt would have been rendered either extremely ill or actually killed by the radiation within a short time thereof.''

This is complete and utter nonsense. The van Allen belts are regions above the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field has trapped particles of the solar wind. An unprotected man would indeed get a lethal dose of radiation, if he stayed there long enough (our emphasis)

Question is: Therefore, did they stay in the outer belts longer than the inner belts or did they pass through it very quickly?

Thank you very much for any help - my student Bec is using this for a skepticism report for the WA Skeptics Awards where she is surveying belief in the Apollo Moon Hoax and seeing if what Michael Shermer says about belief in 'weird things' is true across age and education levels.

Again, if this is an inappropriate question for this particular section, we can email. Thanks.