Watching the Apollo 11 DVD from Spacecraft films, I detected another "anomaly" that "proves" the whole thing was a hoax.

Shortly after the astronots set up the so-called Lunar Ranging Reflector, while they were still outside the LM, they received a report from Earth that an observatory had already fired a laser at it and received a signal.

Now, everyone knows how powerful that laser had to be to send a pulse all the way to the Moon and back. Furthermore, unlike the light from typical sources, laser beams don't spread out in all directions, so they don't get weaker over distance.

Are we supposed to believe that the astronots could have survived those intense pulses of light without being fried? At the very least they would have been blinded. How could NASA have even exposed their crew to such obvious danger?

The only possible explanations are that they were safely inside the Apollo capsule in Earth orbit, or that the laser was never fired at all. Either way, what so many pro-Apollo nutters think is the ultimate proof turns out to be just that -- proof it was all a fake!

[/HP mode]

This has been an exercise in Hoax Proponent thinking. This was only an exercise. Had this been actual HP thinking, you would have been reading GLP.

In case anyone thinks there's any validity to this: there isn't. The ranging laser was a coherent beam, all right, but still suffered considerable divergence over the 240,000 mile trip to the Moon. It was spread out over several kilometers by the time it got there. That's a good thing, from the point of view of the required aiming accuracy.

Even if the beam had less divergence, it's not clear that it would carry enough energy to pose a problem for the well-protected, space-suited astronauts who were already in full lunar-morning sunlight. And they wouldn't have suffered any eye damage unless they were looking directly at the source, any more than grocery store checkout clerks get blinded by their price scanners.

On the other hand, how could the astronomers detect a handful of photons returning from their laser pulse when the reflector's surface was already fully illuminated by sunlight? You don't suppose that...

... Naaaahhhh!

(The final issue is left as an exercise for the reader!)

Actually the ALSJ is somewhat misleading on this point. The Flight Director indeed received a report that the LRRR had been acquired, but that report did not come from the observatory (which had not, in fact, acquired the LRRR and would not do so until Aug. 1, 1969) but instead from NBC news. No one at this point was sure where Tranquility base actually was, so they didn't know where to aim the laser. The spread of the laser has to be taken into account, but if memory serves it had only spread to a kilometer or so.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I didn't think the lazer beam is strong enough to cause any kind of damage to anything at anytime. I could be wrong, though. 8-[

AHA! So NASA lied again. More proof! :wink: :P

Well, I wouldn't recommend that you sit on top of the emitter when it was firing... 8)

LOL! NASA has told the exact truth. They say a report of LRRR acquisition was received by the Flight Director. That actually happened. The assumption that the report was authoritative and accurate belongs to the reader.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

This recently came up on sci.space.history (as some posters surely know). There was some nice detective work which found this sequence of events:

- Team is testing their laser setup at the Lick Observatory 120-inch telescope, with reporters in attendance.

- Setup includes calibratrion flashes of internal laser off back of mostly transparent 45-degree window.

- Reporter sees these flashes superimposed on TV view of moon, grabs movie or video camera to record what he thinks is the historic moment, and rushes down mountain (better part of an hour to San Jose airport) with "scoop" without asking any questions.

- Story gets out, media report handed to flight director.

(Still waiting on my thesis advisor and now Lick director to comment, since he was on the mountain at least during the transEarth coast)

When reading this, I felt that I should report an important and new kind of whistleblower:

The XPrize Cup webiste "accidentally" used the word astronuts instead of astronauts. I reported this "typo" to them after which they changed it. After all, the whistle had been heard. 8-[



(they actually typed "astronuts" at first #-o )

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So that explains what happened to my bottom half. ops:

[/HP mode]
I sure hope you loaded up on Tylenol, Advil, or mass quantities of alcohol before setting out to write this.

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