Interesting thread over at Apollohoax - Were A11, A12 & A13

[RalphVanDyke]

Nope,I have a pretty good grasp of what we were up against. That is the very reason why you would never pull a hoax. Don't you think the Commies were salivating at the chance to make us look bad? What would have made us look worse than catching us faking the moon landing? Try explaining to the countries on the verge of accepting communism why Neil Armstrong is attached to some wires, hopping around on some Portland cement. I'd say the risk was just too great.

[jrkeller]

Karamoon,

When it comes to the moon rocks, here's a good site to investigate.

http://epsc.wustl.edu/admin/resource...wdoweknow.html

[Karamoon]

Jay: Nevertheless you acknowledge that a competing Plan B was contemplated. Can you provide any evidence whatsoever that NASA actually considered hoaxing the landings if they felt they could not meet the 1969 deadline?

No, I can not provide any evidence. I have doubts over what I am actually seeing, and those doubts stem from various images etc. But we have been through these before, much like the footage of what we see during Apollo 11. And I still think it is fishy.

[David Hall]

On 2002-07-09 11:19, Karamoon wrote:

This is the sort of context I see Apollo in. And when I think that the whole project was breaking up, and that President Johnson was constantly being advised to "abandon" the goal of landing a man on the moon, well, it just brings home how important making the deadline was.

You don't think the boys at NASA had the smarts to accurately assess the risks of what they were doing? They would have bowed to political pressure to the point of risking the greatest scandal in history? Especially since you admit they were so close anyway. I just can't buy that.

[Karamoon]

David Hall: Really, the only "deadline" that was unchangeable was to beat the Soviets there.

I disagree. I think historians have now made it very clear that Apollo could not be sustained beyond 1969 if they had not already landed by that time. The Apollo money tree was on the verge of being cut down, and the support it had at home was breaking up!

[JayUtah]

I haven't. But I am struggling to find any footage of Apollo 12.

Have you asked the American news media? Have you asked NASA?

[Karamoon]

RalphVanDyke: Don't you think the Commies were salivating at the chance to make us look bad?

Yes. That is why I don't think they would have attempted something like this unless A) They could fool everyone. B) They knew that a genuine landing was within their grasp.

Please bear in mind that history is repeat with staged incidents. Especially in warfare. We have faked attacks on ourselves just justify a subsequent offensives.

[JayUtah]

When you put it like that, the very idea seems crazy. I know. I know.

How more appropriately could it be put? You're asking us to believe something which is quite preposterous. Normally something preposterous must be established on the basis of virtually unshakable evidence, but you're not even giving us a decent shred.

But we have to go back and fully appreciate what they were up against here. There was a tremendous pressure bearing down on them at this time ...

No, you're not getting it. You can't support your contention by saying that NASA was under a lot of pressure, that the technology didn't seem to be coming fast enough, etc. You're giving evidence of the problem when what we really want is evidence of the solution you say was applied to that problem.

We don't have to speculate what NASA's plans were in the event they couldn't make it by the end of 1969. We know what their plans were. You might not agree that they would have worked, but that's really not the issue. You're asking us to abandon a fact in favor of your unsupported speculation. I can't do that.

[David Hall]

On 2002-07-09 11:34, Karamoon wrote:

I disagree. I think historians have now made it very clear that Apollo could not be sustained beyond 1969 if they had not already landed by that time.

I know we're getting into the area of "what ifs" here, but I think that if NASA were that close to a real success, they could've found a way, or at least tried to find a way, to finagle or stretch the budget to last another year. They could have sacrificed other projects, appealed to the public, anything.

The Lunar program had been going on for most of a decade, and billions had already been spent. It would have been very difficult for the government to simply close it out completely before it achieved it's goal. And since the plan was originally to go until Apollo 20 (am I right there?), but missions were already being be hacked off of the end, I think they would rather have sacrificed even more of the later missions, rather than end things before they began.

Besides, I don't doubt it would have cost at least as much as another year's budget just to run a credible hoax.

[JayUtah]

And I still think it is fishy.

Then all we have is your subjective opinion which is based on your incomplete study of the materials. I am not prepared to accept an argument which boils down to, "The early Apollo missions were falsified because I say they were."

[traztx]

On 2002-07-09 11:24, Karamoon wrote:
Jay: Who says you have to limit your research to the ALSJ?

I haven't. But I am struggling to find any footage of Apollo 12.

If there is visible footage of the astronauts actually walking on the surface then I would appreciate it if somebody would share it with me.

Me too. There was a lot filmed on 12. The last cannister was stuck, though, and couldn't be retrieved, but I'd like to see the other footage. I'm checking with someone who knows a NASA worker to see if anything is available on dvd.

[JayUtah]

That is why I don't think they would have attempted something like this unless A) They could fool everyone. B) They knew that a genuine landing was within their grasp.

This makes no sense. You're simply waving your hands and declaring that NASA could perfectly falsify a lunar landing. When confronted with the difficulties of doing this, you just wave your hands more vigorously and declare that, contrary to all evidence, the initial unmanned exploration was more extensive. You've got a really huge house of cards going here.

Please bear in mind that history is repeat with staged incidents.

Fallacy of inclusion. That other incidents may or may not have been staged does not provide any evidence that Apollos 11-13 were staged.

To summarize:

1. You haven't got any evidence that Apollos 11-13 were staged for whatever purpose. We just have to trust your feelings.

2. You haven't got any evidence that NASA was contemplating a hoax as its solution to the impending deadline. But there is, in fact, evidence that NASA was contemplating a different solution.

What, exactly, have you got?

[Karamoon]

JayUtah: You're asking us to abandon a fact in favor of your unsupported speculation. I can't do that.

The funniest thing is, I honestly don't expect you to do that. That is probably the craziest thing of all. What am I doing here preaching to people who I know have a different world view then myself? I think that perhaps I am hoping you people can prove to me that it did happen the way NASA said it did. When people ask me: "Did we go to the moon?" I respond with "Probably." I would much rather say "Yes" or "No" with conviction and mean it wholeheartedly. But I just can't do that, yet.

[Karamoon]

David Hall: They could have sacrificed other projects,

They already had. According to Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership, President Johnson had already gutted many post-Apollo projects just to sustain the current program.

[Karamoon]

Taken from Washington Goes to the Moon:

Schultze: Getting to the moon was in concrete. Getting to the moon this decade was at least in soft concrete (laughs) ... hardening rapidly.

Do you think this could be a Portland cement whistle blow? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[DaveC]

Karamoon, your theory seems to rest upon "someone" putting pressure on NASA to achieve Kennedy's commitment "or else". Undoubtedly NASA felt pressure to succeed - a lot of it likely tied to the agency's own internal drive to achieve a monumental first in space exploration. There doesn't seem to be even a smoking gun that suggests Congress or the President threatened to axe the budget if the moon landing date wasn't met.

If landing men on the moon and returning them safely to earth was a goal that captured the imagination of the American public - and all indications are that it was for a signicant majority through the late sixties - then chopping NASA's budget and canning the Apollo program wasn't on the political radar, except for a small number of NASA bashers who had their own agendas (e.g. Mondale).

As pointed out by many people here, you haven't even found a hint that NASA (or anyone in government) even gave a passing thought to faking it. And even if you could find a reference anywhere to anyone saying "What if we just fake it?" you must by now have enough general understanding of the complexities to figure out that the response to such a ludicrous suggestion would be something like "Even if that were possible, what purpose would it serve when our goal was to land men on the moon and bring them back safely? And what about the risk of being found out - wouldn't that spell the end of NASA? Wouldn't that completely destroy the credibility of America's space program?"

[SpacedOut]

Karamoon –

I believe you are focusing too much on JFK’s challenge that set the time table as the only hard deadline and are ignoring the bigger picture of American politics at the time. The only absolute goal of the cold war was to beat the USSR at anything and everything. Missing JFK’s deadline by 1 or 13 months wouldn’t have mattered as long as we were the first to get moon. Long before Apollo 11 we knew that the Soviets had lost the race win the N1 exploded and took out their launch facility, therefore the pressure was off somewhat to recklessly push for the moon.

Yes, NASA was loosing support for Apollo both in the public and in Congress, but, and this is a big one, American politics of the time would never have allowed the Apollo program to be scrapped solely due to money. As long as the Soviets hadn’t landed a man on the moon, NASA would have had funding through the first landing at the very least, even if it wasn’t possible prior to ’71 or even ’72. Regardless of what you may now infer, Apollo was a project that instilled a great pride in many Americans, and Congress could not have just eliminated funding on Jan 1, 1970 (or ’71). It would have amounted to political suicide for those politicians who had backed NASA and the spending of 30+ billion dollars.

In short, missing the “Decade deadline” wasn’t as big of a deal as you have made it out to be. Being second to the USSR would have done more to kill Apollo than missing the deadline and we knew prior to Apollo 11 that they weren’t going to the moon anytime in 1969 or probably even in 1970.

[sts60]

I think that perhaps I am hoping you people can prove to me that it did happen the way NASA said it did.

Aside from the direct testimony of men who walked on and orbited the Moon, the construction and launch of various large boosters and lunar expeditionary vehicles, various bits of returned space hardware, prior hard- and soft-landing robotic expeditions (which you don't seem to dispute), miles of photographic and video footage, tracking signals from various independent sources, hundreds of pounds of unfakeable lunar samples, reams of documentation, tons of supporting scientific research, tangible examples of unused flight hardware, the personal experience of thousands of engineers, scientists, and technical workers, and the utter lack of any credible evidence to the contrary, ...

what kind of proof would you like?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-07-09 12:49 ]</font>

[SpacedOut]

On 2002-07-09 12:19, DaveC wrote:
...... "Even if that were possible, what purpose would it serve when our goal was to land men on the moon and bring them back safely? And what about the risk of being found out - wouldn't that spell the end of NASA? Wouldn't that completely destroy the credibility of America's space program?"

Actually, Forget NASA, a major aspect of the cold war was the perceived prestige each nation projected to the rest of the world “winning their hearts and minds”. An exposed hoax would have been a double shot against the US – being fraudulent and untrustworthy is only one aspect – being so technologically inept that not only couldn’t we get to the moon first, we didn’t really try, we could only fake it!! How do you think that would have played on the front page of Pravda?

IMHO - the down side of a hoax was just too great to even consider it.

[edit to fix spelling] - Finally made my Internship [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpacedOut on 2002-07-09 12:55 ]</font>

[Tomblvd]

The funniest thing is, I honestly don't expect you to do that. That is probably the craziest thing of all. What am I doing here preaching to people who I know have a different world view then myself? I think that perhaps I am hoping you people can prove to me that it did happen the way NASA said it did. When people ask me: "Did we go to the moon?" I respond with "Probably." I would much rather say "Yes" or "No" with conviction and mean it wholeheartedly. But I just can't do that, yet.

It's been asked already. And I'll ask it again.

What proof would suffice for you to belive all the Apollo missions were real?

[DaveC]

Congrats, Intern SpacedOut! Of course you are right - it goes way beyond NASA and the space program. National prestige and leadership would also be at grave risk. Imagine being the person that had to make the decision to fake it. How could anyone believe that something so risky, something that would attack the core values upon which the U.S. staked its international reputation, would even be given a moment's consideration. I just find that naive in the extreme - even discounting the clear scientific reasons why it couldn't be done even half convincingly (Portland cement notwithstanding [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] ).