This one has been around for several years now, but according to the BABB search engine, the link has not yet been posted on the BABB.

Once again, folks, it´s "shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-time" !!!

The poor creature resides at:

http://fakedmoonlanding.tripod.com

If NASA were able to carry out five completely successful Moon landings thirty years ago, why is it barely able to get the space shuttle into orbit today?

Firstly, officially, six mission classified as successful involved a landing. Secondly, the space shuttle only goes into Earth orbit because that's its design. Von Braun conceived the Space Shuttle as a cheap and easy means to transport personnel and payloads between Earth orbit stations, ie Skylab, and the surface. The Saturns and NERVAs were supposed to do the rest.

What he didn't count on was Nixon sabotaging the space program. He cancelled the Apollo program and ordered the hardware, including the gorgeous Saturn V's scrapped. However, he ordered that the Space Shuttle project go ahead. The idea was that Apollo was a democratic achievement and Nixon wanted America's pride and joy to be a republican achievement. So, a new vehicle, the Space Shuttle would take its place.

Moreover, why did every mission apart from Apollo 13 go perfectly?

They didn't. Apollo 11 had a computer overload. Apollo 12 got struck by lightening on launch. Apollo 14 nearly had to abort the mission and the first attempts at TD&E failed.

a) Although the only source of light was supposed to be the Sun, many photos show shadows which are not parallel (for example, the shadows of two astronauts standing on flat ground are not parallel). This suggests a much closer light source.

Give an example or an ID. We won't be able to respond to your argument unless you actually state it.

b) Some photos show two light sources. In fact, all the photos look very much as though they were taken in the dark using very bright spotlights.

Show us a photo and pinpoint the evidence. This is just subjective handwaving.

c) Some photos show artifacts. One shows a letter "C" carved on a rock; another shows a structure apparently floating in space a few metres above the ground.

This one has been done to death.

A third photo shows two astronauts reflected in the visor of a third one. (Yet there were never supposed to be more than two people on the Moon at the same time).

That a lot of kilometreage you get out of a few pixels. Can you provide us with a high resolution magnification of the area in question? It looks like this extra astronaut, as well as being very thin, has stolen Harry Potter's invisibility cloak and put it around his torso.

e) There is no crater, nor any sign of disturbance, under the Lunar Module. Yet its rockets would have blown dust and rocks away as it landed, and produced a crater.

There is evidence of raying and discolouration. But nothing along the lines of what conspiracists expect.

f) There is no dust on the rocks. Since there is no air on the Moon, there should be just as much dust on the rocks as on the rest of the surface, since there is nothing to blow it away.

Two problems:

1) Seismic activity and impacts would shake the dust off the rocks.

2) Dust forms on the grounds because of thermal shocks and micrometeroid impact. Thermal shocks don't tend to be as acute with the rocks because they are small and micrometeroid impact would probably knock the dust onto the ground.

Note that all of these photos can be seen on-line or ordered through NASA http://www.nasa.gov. The links below discuss the photographic anomalies in much more detail.

Very cordial of you. Except you haven't provided the IDs so we cannot know which ones we want.

g) There are no stars in any of the pictures. Stars are visible in pictures of space taken in Earth orbit, and are obviously visible from there. The only explanation that NASA gives is that it was "too bright". However, it is no brighter than it would be if you were in orbit around the Earth. Or maybe the problem is that it is harder to fake stars. (See discussion below).

There are no pictures taken from Earth orbit, which show stars (provided that there was no intention to capture them). That was a complete and bald faced lie.

h) On Earth, the atmosphere attenuates light, so that distant objects appear less sharp than objects close up. On the Moon, this would not happen. Yet several photos show backgrounds which disappear into the distance.

Again, no examples.

i) The lunar dust is totally dry. Yet the footprints look much like footprints on Earth: the moisture in the soil holds it together. On the Moon, the dust would not cling together, and any footprints would be much less well defined.

What has Terran soil got to do with Lunar soil?

(3) Although they were apparently operating under one-sixth gravity (and should therefore have been able to jump six times as high as on Earth) there is no film showing them doing this. According to NASA, their backpacks and suits increased their weight so much that their overall weight was only twice that on Earth. Unless the backpacks were full of lead, this seems unlikely. In fact, there is no evidence that they could jump even twice as high as on Earth.

Actually, they could jump over one metre to the third rung on the ladder. However, when they jumped, they had a tendancy to topple over.

a) the film would have either melted (in the heat) or snapped (in the cold). Unlike the astronauts, the cameras used were simply shielded from the Sun. The astronauts themselves apparently had special water-cooled spacesuits.

Of they're shielded from the sun, what else do they need to protect them from heat? How else are they going to pick up heat?

b) the visors would have cracked if they had been partly in a hot area and partly in a cold area (i.e., if a shadow fell across them).

Jay gave some details about the tolerance of Lexan in one of Ciggy's threads, I think.

(1) What about the Moon rock?

Nothing has ever been produced that could not have been created on Earth.

Wrong!

2) What about the laser reflector, which was apparently placed on the lunar surface, and which has been used by scientists to measure the exact distance to the Moon?

All the data has been controlled by NASA

That is absolutely not how it works! Only in paranoid delusions is the data filtered and altered by NASA. That is blind supposition being used in a pathetic attempt to hand wave off a legimate point.

(b) A pilot reported seeing the Command Module being thrown out of a plane with a parachute, a few minutes before it landed in the sea.

That's the Dark Lord's argument. It has never been confirmed because the Dark Lord refuses to state his source.

4) Why didn't the Soviets point this out?

There could be a number of reasons. We don't know the true state of the relationship between the USSR and the time: to what extent was the Cold War real, and to what extent was it created by the Industrial-Military complex to justify spending on arms? Maybe there was co-operation at some levels between the USA and the USSR. Maybe the Soviets never found out. Maybe they did find out, and they kept quiet in exchange for the Americans keeping quiet about something else.

The idea that the Soviets found out is ridiculous because they tracked the spacecraft and the frequencies used.

The idea that they were cooperating is laughable because it eliminates the only remotely credible reason for any fakery: to appear to be winning the Cold War.

5) What was the reason for this?

Money and prestige. The Americans' first Apollo mission, Apollo 1, ended in the death of three astronauts on the launchpad. According to one theory, NASA then commissioned a report which showed that it was extremely unlikely that a lunar mission would succeed (the person writing this report subsequently had an "accident".) However, JFK had already publically committed the country to going to the Moon. They therefore decided to use the approx. $30 billion (in today's terms) to fake the landing and save face. $30 billion provides a pretty big incentive, as does the desire to save face in front of the rest of the world.

The money was to accomplish a manned lunar landing, not to fake it. Faking it would be far more expensive. If you put all the money into the fakey, what are you getting in the end? Just a lie. Just because a successful lunar landing would be good, it doesn't automatically imply a faked one would also be good. That's a bit of straw man. Either a lunar landing means nothing, therefore no attempt would have been made, or it means everything, in which case, there is no way NASA could appear to fail. Why not a shade of grey, where it is important, but not so important that failiure would be unthinkable?

7) The American government is democratic, and would never lie to the people on such a large scale.

The American goverment has a track record of lying to its people. There is no reason whatsoever to take anything which it says at face value. NASA is a government organisation with close links to the military.

That doesn't automatically mean anything it says is a lie. Given the history of the lies of the US government, I don't think they are up to the challenge of such a conspiracy.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Glom on 2002-11-28 08:05 ]</font>

You are quite right. Newsgroup poster "Doug" has provided the most detailed list, I have seen on the above.

See it HERE

For instance, on Apollo 11 alone, he lists:

"Apollo 11:
- The EMS monitor failed to display valid measurements during TD&E.
- The LM steerable S-band antenna drive electronics were loaded with
partially invalid propogation characteristics (a "signal strength map" that
told the antenna when it was looking at pieces of the LM and when it was
clear of any obstructions), resulting in frequent side-lobe lock-ons and
intermittent comm, which was serious during the early phases of PDI.
- A lack of understanding of how the computer would react to simply
withholding rendezvous radar data during descent resulted in overloading of
the LM computer and frequent program alarms which nearly caused the landing
to be aborted.
- Unanticipated fuel slosh in the descent stage tanks made the LM difficult
to control during final descent.
- The LM's mission timer broke after the landing and never worked
thereafter.
- A lack of awareness of PLSS positioning within the LM cabin resulted in
the ascent engine arming circuit breaker being broken off and alternate
procedures (felt-tip pen and/or circuitry workarounds) had to be used to arm
the ascent engine.
- During rendezvous and docking after the lunar surface activities, the
LM's platform went into gimbal lock at the pre-planned docking attitude.
When the crew switched to the AGS to control spacecraft movement, the att
hold function was not controlled in the same way by the pre-planned switch
positions, so when the CSM docked and began the probe retract cycle, the AGS
began driving the LM into a significant yaw excursion. More through luck
than skill, the co-operative maneuvering done simultaneously by Collins in
the CSM and Armstrong in the LM managed to bring the two vehicles back into
the proper alignment just as the probe fully retracted, resulting in a
successful docking. Had the retract brought the vehicles together as much
as a second before or after when it did, the misalignment may have been
severe enough not only to prevent a hard dock, but to damage the LM's
docking ring. Had that happened, there would have to have been an EV
transfer, and according to the rules of an EV transfer, the rock boxes would
have stayed behind in the LM."

*****************

Didnt apollo 16 have problems with the CSM either in or near lunar orbit. To say that all the missions apart from apollo 13 were flawless is just plain wrong. Its also not hard to find information on what went well and what didnt with these flights so these kind of research blunders just show up a lack of effort in checcking the facts dont they.

I understand what you are saying, but check out THIS jrkeller post from June 24:

"CD,

Here's some proof that you should see stars from space. Of NASA it's from NASA so I guess you can't trust it. For the rest of you, here are two images from the JSC Digital Image Collection taken by Mike Collins on his Gemini X EVA

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/GT10/10074468.jpg

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/GT10/10074469.jpg "


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bad_Moon_Rising on 2002-11-28 08:55 ]</font>

All the mission reports are available at
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-mrs.html

They usually list all major and minor discrepancies happening during the flight with a detailed analysis.

Harald

These are photos of astronomical experiments, made with extra long exposure time. Caption at http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/GT10/10074468.htm

No one said you can't photograph stars when you are in space. All what is said is, that with camera settings to get a normal exposure of a brightly lit scene, you can't get stars on the film. On Apollo 16, they had a special astronomical UV camera with them, see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/as16-114-18439.jpg
Images taken with this camera (exposure times around 15 seconds) show stars. See http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS16/10075874.htm
or http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/images/pao/AS16/10075873.htm

Harald

Neil Armstrong jumped to the third rung. Wade Frazier discuss the feat HERE

"Regarding the lack of athletic feats performed on the moon, I lamented that although Neil Armstrong said that he leapt up to the third stair of the LM when leaving the lunar surface, the best visual record we had was Young’s mundane jump-salute.[64] Jay Windley replied that it might have been possible to see Armstrong’s leap in the film. I got the footage, looked at it, and Jay was right. I still find it amazing the footage of Armstrong’s leap was never mentioned in all the long years of debates. I must have seen it live in 1969, as did many millions of other people, but it was a forgotten feat. This evidence sealed it for me. Neil Armstrong performed that leap on the moon."

[quote]
On 2002-11-28 09:02, kucharek wrote:
I fully agree, but I was just in the mood to be really annoying !! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Mike Bara also provides this picture:

http://www.lunaranomalies.com/images/fake2-stars.jpg

with the caption:

"Surveyor 6 picture of constellation Scorpius taken from the Lunar surface"

Ok now here we have a routine HB picture stating that the rock shadows and the LM shadows aren't parallel. The problem is, they are parallel. The LM is on relatively flat ground so it has a shadow going straight across. However the rocks are on little "hills" so their shadows appear to be slanting to the bottom right of the photo. In fact they are just longer and because they go down the hill you could say that they are on flat ground and they slant to the bottom right. This argument is getting really old and needs to just be laid to rest. Many other people on this board have already adressed this and explained why this happens, but the HBs keep on saying the same old things, on top of new "conclusive" evidence like the "c" rock. So if you are an HB reading this right now, please tell your buddies to move on to the other claims.

__________________
May The Dark Skies be with you.

"(3) Although they were apparently operating under one-sixth gravity (and should therefore have been able to jump six times as high as on Earth) there is no film showing them doing this. According to NASA, their backpacks and suits increased their weight so much that their overall weight was only twice that on Earth. Unless the backpacks were full of lead, this seems unlikely. In fact, there is no evidence that they could jump even twice as high as on Earth."

Apparently this guy has never been on a multi-day hike. Backpacks don't need to be filled with lead to become quite heavy, and astronauts wouldn't be carrying something as simple as camping equipment either.

"c) most of the electrical equipment would have malfunctioned."

And the thousands of other electronic equipment drifting all over the Solar System haven't malfunctionned because.....?

This site is hellish. The grammar is even screwed right at the start of the website.

__________________
jest

"Don't worry, everything is getting nicely out of control." -Douglas Adams

It's the same old HB garbage, and Glom has answered basically the first portion.

False. NASA first issued a press release in 1977, and there are several websites and press releases that discuss it.

Sure there is, and one for decades. Just because the conspiracists ignore it or dislike it doesn't mean there isn't one.

Irrelevant. The stars are much farther away than the mountains.

What a bunch of crap. The Sun is simply bright enough to completely obscures the stars, no matter what the depth of field is.

There's no evidence for this author's conclusions.

Not to someone who understands how bright the Sun is.

No. As the BA discusses in his book on pg. 160, this is false. The atmosphere is fairly transparent to let sunlight in.

__________________
~AstroMike

I can't believe that I've never heard about this, the real potential deaths of Apollo 12 astros Pete and Al. From the page with the discrepencies noted above...

- The VHF radio voice link between the LM and CSM completely failed during
crucial parts of the rendezvous. This was labeled by the crew during
debriefings as a completely unacceptable situation, because the CSM was
supposed to be prepared to perform mirror maneuvers to the LM's maneuvers if
for any reason the LM couldn't make its planned maneuvers. Many of these
maneuvers occurred on the back side of the moon, so the confirmation of LM
maneuvers couldn't be relayed to the CSM from Houston. The CMP had to just
assume that the LM had made the proper maneuvers. Had the LM failed to make
any of the scheduled burns, the rendezvous would probably not have been
accomplished before the LM ran out of consumables.

This is amazing. What do we know about this? I'm also going to post this at Project Apollo.

Most of these are repeat claims on 90% of the moon hoax pages. They've been addressed ad infinitum here, at Clavius, and in the BA's book.

Funding now is less (but only about 50% so in real terms, according to The Economist magazine). In any case, this would only have slowed down further space exploration, not stopped it completely.

At the peak of Apollo, NASA funding was up to about 6% of the US total budget. It is currently around 0.5%. As for budget limiting space exploration, budgetary constraints are only one factor. The political issue is the real driver. The budget available was redirected from building Saturn Vs that could launch interplanatery missions to building Space Shuttles that were to reduce the cost of access to low Earth orbit (LEO). The concept was rapid turn around with reusable vehicles that therefore were cheaper over the long run, and used less fuel. The trade off was the limitation to LEO. Theoretically, the Shuttle could be outfitted with a payload that would be a CSM/LM combo type of package or the like. There would be practicality issues of fitting the payload bay constraints, load issues, etc. But the point is the political emphasis shifted from lunar and planetary exploration to LEO missions - launching and repairing communication satellites, providing military payloads their launch capability (removed after Challenger), microgravity research, preparation for, development of, construction of, and suppling and servicing of the Space Station. See, Station was originally supposed to be built about 1990 - about 10 years after Shuttle was created. That was part of the justification of Shuttle - as a cheap and easy resupply and support vehicle for station. Station just took longer to get off the ground (hee hee).

Also, and most importantly, space exploration did NOT stop. We shifted gears, and pointed the focus on LEO and examining Earth and developing knowledge for future exploration missions. And of course this ignores the dozens of robotic missions NASA has been carrying out all along - Pathfinder, Galileo, Cassini, Stardust, and Eros just to name a few.

Today we have technology that is many orders of magnitude more advanced than what was available in the 1960s. The computer in the Lunar Module had about the same power as a pocket calculator today. If they could do so much then, why can they do so little today?

Political will. See above.

In fact, all the photos look very much as though they were taken in the dark using very bright spotlights.

Describe what you mean. What, the backdrop is black, and the ground and foreground objects are brightly lit? And we know why that is. The ground is brightly lit by the Sun. The objects are lit by the Sun and by reflected light from the ground. The sky is black because there is no atmosphere to scatter the blue light. As for very bright spotlights, I think that would be a pretty good description of the Sun.

another [photo] shows a structure apparently floating in space a few metres above the ground.

This is the picture directly below this statement, with the circle and the letter "D" on the reflected image in the helmet. The "floating object" is a reflection of the flag. This can be demonstrated by looking at the other pictures of the Apollo 11 landing site. The flag is pointed mostly toward Buzz Aldrin, which is why it is not a large rectangle but a small image. It appears floating because the pole is not visible in the highly distorted reflection, and the pole is such a small detail that it washes out.

A third photo shows two astronauts reflected in the visor of a third one. (Yet there were never supposed to be more than two people on the Moon at the same time).

This one makes me giggle. The picture included is this one:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../alsj.trio.jpg

That's from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal on the page called "Fun Images". It is a deliberate fake made for that site as a joke, along with a bunch of other manipulated photos for various reasons. It is most definitely fake, and admitted as a fake, and in no way, shape, form, or fashion is proof of anything but that the ALSJ folks have a sense of humor.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...sj.funpix.html
Scroll down to "The Real Secret of Apollo 12".
The fact that the hoax believers use this picture is proof of how little effort they put into finding the answers, and how much the put into reguritating each other's work.

Other artifacts include a photo of the Lunar Rover with crosswires (supposedly from the camera that took the photo) which appear behind part of the photo. Other photos show crosswires at the wrong angle.

He means the reseau plate and the fiducils. Already beat to death, but I wanted to point out the second part of the claim, the "crosswires" at the wrong angle. In certain pictures, the grid appears at an angle to the cut of the photograph, as opposed to horizontal and vertical as would be expected. The answer is that the camera was held at an angle to the image when the picture was taken, and then the image was cropped on the ground to make a prettier picture with the horizon horizontal. The originals at ALSJ show the grid fits the original edges of the page.

d) The first shots of Neil Armstrong landing were supposedly taken by a camera attached to one of the legs of the Lunar Module. Yet this camera cannot be seen in a photo taken shortly afterwards showing Buzz Aldrin walking down the ladder.

Wrong. First, the TV camera was not attached to a leg of the lander, but the door of the MESA. The MESA is the panel on the astronaut's left as descending the ladder. It is not easy to see in the picture below the description "d", but if you look at the gap between the ladder and the gold foil on the LM, there is a sort of triangular region where lunar soil is visible. Splitting that image is a strut. I'm not sure the identity of the strut, but the MESA door is obscured at the bottom of the image just below that opening, on the far side.

Here is a close up from ALSJ:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-40-5863HR.jpg

There is also this later picture from approximately the same vantage point, of Armstrong working at the MESA.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...40-5894det.jpg
It has also been overdeveloped because of the poor exposure:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-5894enhnc.jpg

The strut appears to be the support for the MESA door. At least that is my impression.

Descriptions of images found here.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi.../images11.html

a) the film would have either melted (in the heat) or snapped (in the cold). Unlike the astronauts, the cameras used were simply shielded from the Sun. The astronauts themselves apparently had special water-cooled spacesuits.

Yes, the spacesuits were water cooled, because the bulk of the transient heat load was from the astronauts themselves. You dress up in 5 layers of plastic, and see how quickly you start sweating. The cameras didn't need to be water cooled. There was no convection to worry about, and limited conduction to worry about, so the only real temperature issue was solar radiation. That was designed for by using reflective white paint or polished silver surfaces. The cameras would neither heat up too quickly nor cool off too quickly, keeping them at the correct thermal range for the film.

b) the visors would have cracked if they had been partly in a hot area and partly in a cold area (i.e., if a shadow fell across them).

Ha. No understanding of thermodynamics at all. The visors wouldn't crack even if they had an external thermal differential because they maintained an internal constant temperature at human comfort levels. Objects do not instantaneously change temperature - especially in a purely radiative environment. While in sunlight, the helmet (suit, camera, whatever) would be absorbing some solar radiation and reflecting some. If put into a shadow, it would not be absorbing, so it would begin emitting thermal radiation. Either process takes time to effect a change. The object as a whole has a temperature change, because if one part becomes cool, the heat in the other part will move by conduction through to the cold part.

c) most of the electrical equipment would have malfunctioned.

Why? Did the engineers not realize the temperature ranges and design for them?

At the bottom, he has his email and a request for feedback, comments, and alternate explanations. I'm tempted to send him an email to point him at this board, particularly this thread, with a comment that if he truly wants explanations here is where to look. But I doubt it would really matter

Well, I emailed some answers. I wonder if they'll reply.

What a surprise - the address appears to be dead.

These are GREAT replies, even if seemingly repetitive and redundent, and make my research and writing a whole lot easier. Thanks to everybody who feels the effort is worthwhile -- I intend to prove you right.

I did a TV interview with a German news team on Monday and we found a way to simulate the flag waving.

The trick -- use a heavier 'drape' that is NOT slowed by air drag. I also thought about a 'wet net' but results were not satisfactory.

The solution -- in my back tool room I had a one foot square sheet of bathroom tiles leftovers, quarter inch square tiles, attached to netting for ease in installation. VERY flexible. I took my camera tripod and tilted the holder so the long arm was out horizontal, and attached the sheet to that horizontal bar with a clamp (two would be better). After struggling to 'insert' it into the ground, I let go and we watched (and videotaped) the sheet wave back and forth for over a minute.

Caution: Because the 'simulated lunar flag' IS so heavy, as it rocks back and forth it rocks the whole tripod and damps out its motion too quickly that way. The tripod needs to be firmly braced to avoid this. If done, the waving motion and its duration are spec-TAC-u-lar!

JimO

When I give my Moon Hoax talk, I use my belt to demonstrate the flag motion. I blow on the belt to show that air resistance is not an issue, then wave it back and forth. It works pretty well.

I also note that in the Apollo footage of the flag moving, the flag flaps up higher than you'd expect given the small amount of impulse from the astronaut. Since a flag on the Earth would have its motion dampened by both gravity and air resistance, this indicates that the footage was shot in an airless, low-gravity environment. Duh, I'm guessing this means the Moon.

Today we have technology that is many orders of magnitude more advanced than what was available in the 1960s.

It's rarely a matter of the level of technology. It's a question of specialization of technology.

Yes, we're more capable these days. We're also more ambitions. Ask someone in the 1960s about the ability to soft-land on an asteroid or rendezvous with a comet and they'll say, "Sorry, we can't do that." But that's what we're attempting these days.

And you can't freely mix manned and unmanned technology. Unmanned technology is developed on a faster scale and takes greater risk of mission failure.

The computer in the Lunar Module had about the same power as a pocket calculator today.

So what? The question is not whether the lunar module computer was as powerful as computers today. The question is whether it was sufficient to perform the tasks assigned to it.

My company makes some of the world's most powerful computers. But I don't want one in my spacecraft. I don't need one in my spacecraft. I want something simple, reliable, rugged, and well-tested. If that means it's older, more trusted machinery, then so be it.

many photos show shadows which are not parallel

... and shouldn't be parallel. Projective geometry is not hard, people.

In fact, all the photos look very much as though they were taken in the dark using very bright spotlights.

Well, as a sometime lighting technician at a local theater I deal with "very bright spotlights" all the time. And in no way have I been able to reproduce all the visible lighting and shadow effects that appear in any of the Apollo photographs that conspiracists say are anomalous this way. I really want to know if the people who make these claims have much experience with theatrical lighting.

One shows a letter "C" carved on a rock

Or a hair on the print, as has been conclusively identified. There is fibrous contamination all over the place in Apollo photography. It just so happens this one is more clearly visible than the others.

... another shows a structure apparently floating in space

The television camera on its tripod. The tripod can be seen in magnifications of the transparency, but isn't generally visible in the low-quality JPEGs used by conspiracists.

Lens flares are also frequently mistaken for "structures".

A third photo shows two astronauts reflected in the visor of a third one.

A joke.

Other artifacts include a photo of the Lunar Rover with crosswires ... which appear behind part of the photo.

Emulsion bleed. Photographers can easily reproduce it.

Other photos show crosswires at the wrong angle.

Cropped and rotated JPEGs -- the fiducials are correct on the transparency.

Yet this [television] camera cannot be seen in a photo taken shortly afterwards showing Buzz Aldrin walking down the ladder.

It's hidden by the landing strut and other elements of the LM structure. If you look at the television pictures of Buzz descending the ladder, you can't see the portion of Armstrong where his camera was mounted. If the television camera can't see the Hasselblad, then the Hasselblad can't see the television camera. Elementary.

There is no crater, nor any sign of disturbance, under the Lunar Module.

Fluid dynamics computations show that a crater would be unexpected. And there is plenty of signs of disturbance. Close-up photos of the area directly beneath the DPS skirt show slightly discolored regolith and radial striations where the dust was swept.

There is no dust on the rocks. Since there is no air on the Moon, there should be just as much dust on the rocks as on the rest of the surface, since there is nothing to blow it away.

Since there is no air on the moon there is nothing to attenuate the ballistic velocities with which dust particles strike a particular surface. Dust does not "settle" in the lunar environment. Dust particles strike the rocks and bounce off.

The point about seismic disturbances is quite valid.

There are no stars in any of the pictures.

Nor should there be, with the camera settings used.

Stars are visible in pictures of space taken in Earth orbit

I've seen hundreds of hours of video and thousands of pictures taken in space and the only ones that show stars are those specifically exposed to show the stars. If the subject of the photography is something else (i.e., the earth, or some piece of hardware) then there are no stars visible.

Yet several photos show backgrounds which disappear into the distance.

Without a clear example we can't be sure what this means. Typical causes are horizon, lambertian illumination, and phase-texture interaction. These occur on earth too, but are not as prominent due to scattered sunlight.

On the Moon, the dust would not cling together, and any footprints would be much less well defined.

Utterly false. Any fine particulate with irregularly shaped particles is impressible regardless of moisture content. E.g., cement.

Although they were apparently operating under one-sixth gravity ... there is no film showing them doing this.

Factually false. There is actually quite a bit of it.

the film would have either melted (in the heat) or snapped (in the cold).

Completely ignorant of thermodynamics. The film never got hot enough to melt, and it was a polyester-based film specially formulated for cold temperatures.

The astronauts themselves apparently had special water-cooled spacesuits.

Space suits were heavily insulated to thermally isolate them from the space environment. However, astronauts generate heat through metabolism, and that heat must be rejected. Human beings are relatively fragile and require very narrow tolerances in their environment. Machinery like cameras does not generate much heat, and can tolerate much higher variances in its environmental factors.

the visors would have cracked if they had been partly in a hot area and partly in a cold area (i.e., if a shadow fell across them).

Absorption is mostly irrelevant to the transparent Lexan. Lexan's thermal and mechanical properties are quite sufficient to maintain suit integrity.

most of the electrical equipment would have malfunctioned.

The temperature of the lunar regolith is irrelevant to the operation of electrical equipment. The thermal issue regarding electronics is the heat they generate. This was rejected via a straightforward and well-documented sublimation cooling system.

The scenery on the moon looks very much like that in Nevada

Not to anyone who's ever been to Nevada.

One investigator has suggested that some of the experts which created the film "2001 a Space Odyssey" were recruited to work on the graphics for the NASA moon shot.

If so then why do the Apollo photographs and Kubrick's film show entirely different conceptualizations of the lunar landscape?

Nothing has ever been produced that could not have been created on Earth.

Not according to the geologists that specialize in planetary geology.

What about the laser reflector ... ? All the data has been controlled by NASA.

Factually false. Several countries have successfully used the LRRRs.

How come information about this has been kept secret?

What information?

It's common procedure for conspiracists to allude to "secret" information whose existence is simply conjectured. The "unwillingness" of the custodians of that information to release it is then interpreted as suppression or secrecy.

At times Apollo information has been classified. It is possible, though unlikely, that more classified information exists. That which has been unclassified was formerly classified for appropriate reasons. The authenticity of the Apollo program can be determined using information that was never classified and was available at the time.

Prostitutes in Las Vegas have been interviewed, and have claimed that they had "astronauts" as clients who were working on the "film set" used by NASA.

A highly reliable source.

A pilot reported seeing the Command Module being thrown out of a plane with a parachute, a few minutes before it landed in the sea.

The source of this claim is a caller to a "fringe" radio show claiming to be a commercial airline pilot who witnessed this. Unfortunately the commercial air route is more than 100 miles away from the landing site of the command module in question. The source is obviously unavailable for verification.

Some investigators believe that the crudity of some of the mistakes ... suggests that they were deliberate.

Subversion of support. These "investigators" (mostly professional conspiracy theorists) are trying to explain anomalies which aren't anomalous. If there's no anomaly, there's no need to explain the anomaly.

The "whistle-blower" theory suffers from the very palapable flaw of there not being any substantiable, actual whistle-blowers.

$30 billion buys a lot of secrecy.

Not if you give it to half a million private sector employees.

There would have been no reason for more than a handful of people to have known the true nature of the project.

Only in the minds of conspiracists, who have yet to formulate a workable scenario which fits these constraints.

It would not have been difficult to fake a few conversations with astronauts and readings from the spacecraft's instruments.

Again, no conspiracists has yet postulated how this would actually have been accomplished. They simply claim it would be easy. When the flaws of their simplistic scenario are revealed, they simply make the scenario more and more complicated and convoluted, forgetting that their key premise is the alleged ease with which this could be done.

Indirectly the conspiracists admit it would be very difficult to falsify the stream of telemetry in order to fool all interested parties.

We don't know the true state of the relationship between the USSR and the time: to what extent was the Cold War real ...

To those of us who lived through it, it was very real. And it is very real to any serious historian who has studied it. A theory which requires as its premise a substantial rewrite of recent history is automatically implausible.

In any case all our author can offer as an answer to this very real and devastating question is a load of completely unsubstantiated conjecture. I am not impressed with theories that contain huge, unfilled holes.

According to one theory, NASA then commissioned a report which showed that it was extremely unlikely that a lunar mission would succeed

May we read this report and know who wrote it, or is this simply a "theory"? I am not impressed with people who theorize what would need to be true in order for their conclusions to hold, and then simply proceed as if that theory were really true.

the person writing this report subsequently had an "accident"

This sounds like Thomas Baron. Baron's report was not commissioned by NASA. In fact, it was not commissioned by anybody. It was Baron's personal view from one of many trenches, and it contained elements of truth, elements of hearsay, and Baron's own personal interpretations. Nevertheless Baron tried to ram it down the throat of his employers. After that he became a pawn in a political game played by members of Congress.

Baron never argued that it was unlikely a lunar mission would ever succeed. He simply pointed out the problems he was having at one of his company's sites.

Neither did the Phillips report cast such gloom on the prospects of ever getting to the moon. Phillips and his inspectors were very explicit: it was clear to them that Apollo would not proceed on schedule and on budget at the current rate, but nowhere does it say it would never happen. And neither did NASA per se commission the Phillips report; it was commissioned by George Mueller (a high-ranking NASA official) but not necessarily for agency-wide reference.

The only report which seems to cast doubt on ever reaching the moon is one claimed by Bill Kaysing. This was supposedly an internal report written by Rocketdyne in 1959 which gave a very low estimate of the probability of successfully reaching the moon. Now in 1959 the probability of doing that was indeed very low. But what about the probability of doing it ten years and 30 billion dollars later? The report -- if it even exists -- has very limited applicability.

However, JFK had already publically committed the country to going to the Moon.

And this goal would be satisfied by a genuine landing too. It all rests on whether conspiracists can prove NASA was unable to get to the moon. And so far they can't.

They were several hundred metres in the air, and NASA controlled all access and television pictures.

False. Close-out was by contractors, not by NASA henchmen.

The American goverment has a track record of lying to its people. There is no reason whatsoever to take anything which it says at face value.

Fallacy of specialization. The U.S. government is not a single entity with uniform, monolithic behavior and characteristics. Elements of the U.S. government have lied on occasion. That does not prove that NASA lied on this occasion.

The U.S. government tells the truth sometimes too. When a composite entity displays varied behavior, there is simply no basis for a presumption either way. Conspiracists wish to avoid responsibility for proof by this type of innuendo: they might be lying, therefore they are lying.

Unfortunately with no presumption, positive proof is required in each case. This is not simply a matter of faith belief. This is a matter of investigation and proof. The conspiracists must show in this specific case that NASA is lying. They may not simply claim guilt by association.

NASA is a government organisation with close links to the military.

Such as?

The second document is an article which appeared in Fortean Times (number 94).

The Fortean Times received a record number of letters in response to this article, many of them from professional photographers lambasting Percy for his ignorance.

It is written by David Percy, an award winning film and TV producer:

Percy overstates his credentials. I have discovered at least one instance where he has claimed credit for another's work. Further, I have been able to find only one award Percy has actually won: a rather insignificant yearly award from an obscure filmmaking organization.

But this is largely irrelevant. None of David Percy's claimed credentials, real or otherwise, establishes him as an expert photographic interpreter or photogrammetrist. Photographic interpretation does not require the same skills as photography itself. Percy's claims relate to a science called photogrammetry, and Percy demonstrates almost no understanding of the principles of that science.

The author suggests that the reason why some of the shadows are not parallel is because the photos were taken with short-angle lenses. However, this would produce a completely different kind of distortion.

It is unclear what this author intends by the term "short angle lens". He apparently confuses the concept of short focal length and wide-angle field of view, which are orthogonal ideas. Nevertheless his confusion casts doubt on his ability to understand and deal with the rebuttal.

Short lenses capture a wide field of view, which will in turn embody a wide variation in the phase angle. Phase angle determines shading and shadow direction as seen from any one point. The rebuttal is highly valid in the general case -- shadows should not appear parallel under most photographic conditions with short lenses.

The Apollo 12 photo used as a counterexample to the rebuttal is not very relevant. There is a difference in appearance between foreground and background, and in this case it has little to do with phase angle. However, other principles of projective geometry and photogrammetry apply; the photo is not anomalous, but not necessarily because the short-lens rebuttal applies.

Another, even stronger, argument made by David Percy is that the angle which the Sun make to the horizon is simply incorrect.

Percy's ad hoc method of measuring sun elevation is completely absurd, mathematically invalid, and entirely useless. His claim to expertise is largely eliminated by such preposterous methodology. Photogrammetric rectification establishes plausible shadow angles for Apollo 11 photographs.

NASA's answers are:
a) because they are out of focus

This is obviously an inappropriate rebuttal. The zone-focus technique taught to astronauts would have almost always correctly focused objects at infinity.

because stars are not visible in daylight on Earth, either. ...
Stars are not visible on Earth during the daylight because sunlight is scattered by particles in the atmosphere.

Correct. Look at any point in the day sky and you'll see sunlight that got to you from that direction after having been scattered by the atmosphere. We know that the atmosphere itself doesn't attenuate visible light enough to obscure stars because we can see the stars fine at night. So why can't we see stars through the scattered light from the sun? Because that scattered light is too bright, and our eyes adjust to receive that light, not the dim light from the stars behind it. Take away scattered sunlight and all other sources of light and you can see the stars.

There is no atmosphere on the Moon, so this wouldn't happen.

Correct, but irrelevant. Just because atmospheric scattering doesn't supply enough light to "stop down" your eyes doesn't mean that other effects won't cause your eyes to adjust. Standing on the day side of the moon you will have a hard time looking anywhere without seeing something lit up by the sun. The only way to avoid this is to look directly up so that your view is comprised totally of the sky, and wait for your eyes to adjust. Ed Mitchell did this on Apollo 14, and he saw a few stars.

Regarding the Apollo 14 photo.

If you look at the High-Resolution scan of the photo, you will see that Alan Shepard's shadow is there and that the arrows laid down by the HB actually cover it up.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-68-9486HR.jpg

Remind me again, who's trying to fool the public?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jrkeller on 2002-12-05 15:11 ]</font>

This is a common David Percy trick. Those helpful arrows cause more problems than they solve. In Percy's classic shadow direction proof photo -- a park with some trees and benches -- he places one arrow between the two shadows, carefully splitting the difference in their apparent direction, and the second arrow completely obscures the shadow of the third tree. The annotational arrows indeed are parallel, but the shadows are not.

JayUtah posted:
In this case, I believe you are incorrect. I don't know, perhaps you mean a different picture. Just below the text on that page is the picture of Buzz Aldrin taken by Armstrong, with Armstrong's reflection. The object circled and marked "D" is the floating object in question, I believe.

Here is a panarama Buzz took, which is from a slightly different viewpoint, but from the same side as the reflection.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...1104333_bm.jpg

You can see the legs of the lander (obscured by Armstrong's PLSS), the Solar Wind Experiment, and the Flag. Compare this to the image from the ALSJ.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-40-5903HR.jpg

This high resolution image shows the visor reflection in good detail. You can see the lander legs, Armstrong, and two objects. The one on the image left is long and boxy, and from the shadow you can tell is the Solar Wind Experiment. The other is the mysterious floating object. This would be the flag. It is floating because the pole does not stand out. It is at a very steep angle, and thus looks very small and is basically a bright spot.

This rectified image reverses it, which puts it in the same orientation as the pan image. The view from Buzz is looking basically down sun.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...eil-mirror.jpg

It is in a slightly different position than the pan image. The pan image is from further over to the right, so that the flag is almost perpendicular to the camera view. There is a third object further to the right in the background. That is too far away to be visible in the reflection, and may even be off angle. This other pan image shows the layout from a different perspective, the other side of the LM and flag. It appears the third object is far enough to the side to not show in the reflection.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...pan1103147.jpg

In this case, I believe you are incorrect.

Yes, I am. I got it right here:

http://www.clavius.org/manmoon.html

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Here is a funny story that maybe some HBs could relate to:
I was looking at the link to Clavius JayUtah posted above and thinking about the shadow on Aldrin's arm (labeled B) which Jay explains as a shadow caused by the bright Eagle. I suddenly thought: hey, if the Eagle is causing that shadow, why isn't it causing any other shadows? There aren't any shadows behind Aldrin!
I started to get a little panicky, (probably because I was up all night writing a paper and I'm stressed out about finals), thinking: oh my God, what could be the explaination! is it true? did we not go to the Moon?
Then I had another cup of coffee and DUH the sunlight would wash out any shadows behind Aldrin.
So maybe all that HBs need is MORE COFFEE. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Perhaps someone should send Bart Sibrel a care package.

Or not--maybe it's to much coffee!

On an another note--if they can't reveal their sources because of fear that the Government will eliminate them, why is he still here as opposed to being taken out of the picture beforethe HB stuff gained enough publicity to still exist?

__________________
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." — Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

441!!!! :)

Here's another old and big HB site that tries to be technical.

http://people.mail2me.com.au/~vk4vkd/Mooned.htm

__________________
~AstroMike

Okay, I'm not going to bother getting into the technical content of that site. However, I do want to address the comment at the top, about Buzz Aldrin being a member of the Freemasons and being given a "SPECIAL DEPUTATION" to claim Masonic Territorial Jurisdiction and form a new Masonic lodge on the moon.

Let us assume for a minute that Buzz Aldrin was/is a member of the Freemasons, and that they did hold a meeting and grant him a special deputation under the bylaws of their organization, and did give him a charter to form a new Masonic lodge on the Moon. So What? It's not like there's anyone there to join up. This appears to be nothing more than a symbolic act for the appreciation of the lodge members, in the same way that the American flag they planted is a symbol of America's achievement but in no way is supposed to represent America claiming the Moon (or even the landing sites) as official territory. It would be like a church sending a missionary somewhere, so giving him a special blessing. Or colleges and universities handing out honorary degrees to celebrities and other public figures, for the attention and publicity and good will they get out of the exchange. Or clubs giving a member who achieves celebrity status some type of special recognition (like "goodwill ambassador) for the morale of the organization and a boost in enthusiasm of the group.

In fact, the whole point is predicated on the conspiracist premise that the Masons are a secret organization clandestinely working for world domination. There is no proof to that allegation, and this ceremonial event does not in any way provide proof for that allegation. You have to assume that premise, the Freemasons are evil, before this event has any significance.

http://people.mail2me.com.au/~vk4vkd/Mooned.htm

The alleged connection to Freemasonry is a frequent charge. Don't be taken in by the apparent detail of the claim. It's pure bunk. There's no proof anywhere of any of this.

Freemasonry makes a convenient character in all the conspiracists' dramas because it's a secret society. The Masons are obviously tight-lipped and so this gives people carte blanche to make up all sorts of stories about them without any fear of serious contradiction. So when the Masons deny the particular charge, the conspiracist simply says, "What else do you expect them to say?"

The argument that Apollo distracted from the Vietnam War is also an old one, and one that simply doesn't jive with history. Apollo was announced and planned when the war was doing well. That could hardly have been the motivation.

The Soviets indeed had heavy-lift boosters before the U.S., but they weren't very safe. And they soon "hit the wall" and were unable to scale up any further.

PLUS they had already made dramatic advances in orbit and accuracy ...

No. Gemini spacecraft and techniques were clearly superior.

Then we come to the Pravda article alleging cosmonauts prior to Gagarin. Given the state of historical documentation from the early Soviet space program, this is not an unreasonable hypothesis. However, Pravda lately is more of a tabloid than a serious journal. The implication is still inapplicable: just because the Soviets were allegedly able to hide significant portions of their manned space program doesn't imply it was easy or even possible for NASA to do the same.

"Where there's smoke there's fire?" No, not logically. Where there's smoke there's smoke. That's what logic says. This maxim is often quoted as a sort of excuse why a full measure of proof cannot or should not be provided.

The Pravda article raises largely unsubstantiated allegations, yet this hoax author considers it ironclad proof that conspiracies exist.

It had already been observed that the space environment outside the Van Allen belt was too hostile for human life

No. The data indicated that radiation hazards existed, but that they were not insurmountable, nor were they a constant threat. The conspiracist always makes a jump from findings of "hazards" to the statement, "It was too hostile." Most conspiracy theorists don't even understand that they have made this leap. They think of the problem in strictly binary terms. It's either too hazardous or "perfectly safe."

Further, the biggest radiation hazard in cislunar space is the Van Allen belts, but few conspiracists seem to understand this. They simply have no fundamental understanding of cislunar radiation and so they ball up a whole bunch of scary-sounding facts.

no live animals had been recovered from high altitude missions (above 15,000 miles) that had taken the animals outside the Van Allen belts ...

Factually false.

Why was so much money expended on these missions between 1973 and 1985, when the Apollo missions could have collected the data from a much higher altitude ... ?

The Apollo missions did collect data -- copious amounts of it -- during their missions. In fact, AP8 and AE8 (the condensation of those findings) are still standard references in the space engineering community!

But a correct understanding of the phenomena requires continous long-term monitoring not possible in a two-week Apollo mission. And we also capitalize on more sensitive sensors. We continue our observations because that's what science does.

why wasn't a lab set up on the moon for the project ...?

Solar wind experiment, and ALSEP packages.

CONSTRUCT THE LM WITH A SUFFICIENT RADIATION SHIELD TO PREVENT THE DEATHS OF THE ASTRONAUTS IN THE HIGH RADIATION ENVIRONMENT OUTSIDE THE VAN ALLEN BELTS.

The CM, not the LM, was the primary spacecraft for purposes of radiation exposure. And again the conspiracist seems to believe that ambient cislunar radiation is too hazardous.

... it only points out the reasons why it would have been in the US interest to have people believe that they went to the moon.

Nice of him to admit he can't prove anything, but this statement is still ludicrous. Why is it important to demonstrate that the U.S. wanted people to believe it landed on the moon? Everyone on both sides of the argument already agrees on this. These needs can be met either by a faked landing or by a real landing. I will argue that they are best served by a real landing (no fear of disclosure). It then falls to the conspiracists to prove that only a real landing wasn't possible and therefore couldn't have served that need.

The radiation argument doesn't suffice. It's just a lot of handwaving.

First a brief outline of solar flares, or rather the incredible level of radiation that exists outside the Van Allen Belts.

All irrelevant. There is no question that high-order solar flares are dangerous. We all know this. We all accept this. The question is not whether solar flares are dangerous; the question is how often do they occur, how predictable they are, and did any actually occur during an Apollo mission?

satellite electronic components, solar cells, and materials degrade from the accumulated radiation dose caused by repeated traversals of the Van Allen radiation belts. (emphasis mine)

That's the key: repeated traversals. That's very different than two transverse traversals.

so how could the Grumman Corp. provide shielding in the LM and CSM to protect against the intensity that might be encountered?

Neither Grumman nor North American specifically included shielding for first-order (i.e., "X-class") solar events. The protection against that hazard was simple statistical probability.

The conspiracist's list of solar events is sorted by intensity. If it is sorted by date, it reveals a pattern of events which easily allows for a two-week Apollo mission to proceed with little chance of exposure.

The time frame of the "manned" lunar missions was right smack in the middle of a solar maximum ...

The conspiracist seems to vacillate between considering these SPEs as events and considering them as some source of ambient radiation. He can't seem to make up his mind; a clear sign of simply not understanding the concept. In this respect he is not unlike most conspiracists, who can sometimes provide vast amounts of apparently relevant data (which impresses the layman) but cannot put that data in a correct conceptual framework.

We've seen vast amounts of data on this page having to do with the strength of SPEs, but little information dealing with what kind of a practical hazard that might have been. The author winds up this section by reiterating the same naive points he's already made.

Yet we know full well that numerous UNMANNED PROBES collected various samples from the Lunar surface - so it would not be unreasonable to expect REAL Moon rocks to have been examined by various laboratories.

That doesn't explain core samples. Nor does it explain the vast amount of material recovered and studied. Where would these sample-return missions have been launched from? Why didn't the Soviets track these, as they tracked other American missions, and ask about them?

As any person familiar with radio and the use of signal repeaters knows, it is easy to make a signal appear to come from a totally different direction to where the originating station is transmitting from ...

The conspiracist makes an appeal to specialized knowledge, but he stops short. If you continue to study about repeaters you learn about signal latency, which means you can't carry on an interactive discussion over cislunar distances with two repeater paths and not have that be plainly obvious to anyone on the ground.

Further, you have to consider the motion of such a repeater, which would be subject to the inviolable laws of orbital mechanics with its attendant effects on signal clarity and frequency.

The conspiracist's examples are terrestrial, and use primitive equipment. You can't apply those to PLL-based communications with orbiting vehicles.

... would have seemed logical to go to the next step and build a "Moon Base"

No moon base, therefore no initial mission? It all depends on how well you buy into the conspiracist's premise, that a moon base was a logical, necessary, and expected step. This all presumes a great deal about public finance, politics, and technology. The conspiracist must flesh that out before we can accept his premise.

Many a fraud has been perpetrated for much less.

Other frauds have been perpetrated, therefore this specific proposition is a fraud. Consummately poor generalization.

the dust on the surface under the LM would have been blasted well clear of the LZ

Why? May we see the fluid dynamics computations that support this contention?

As is typical, the conspiracist relies on common sense, not observation or science or logic. Common sense may say the surface should have been swept clean, but common sense is wrong in this case.

I wonder who drew the "triangle" in the dust in the foreground - just in front of the LM footpad

The contact probe.

Was this a marker for the placement of the "LM prop"?

Likely not. Conspicuous "spikes" are not used in the film industry. The conspiracist can't explain why the filmmakers would intentionally violate their accepted practices and opt for one that is less effective.

there is no sign of dust on the top of the the footpad of the leg of the LM.

Nor should there be.

in at least one instance the LM commander commented that the dust thrown up from the surface obscured his view of the surface

And Buzz Aldrin commented that it mostly hugged the ground like a flat sheet. Fluid dynamics predicts this would be the case. The LM was made to land under those conditions, contrary to the claims of the conspiracist.

Oddly, the proof against the conspiracy theory is right under the conspiracists' noses. They note a continuous stream of dust visible in the 16mm film footage of the landing, right up to the point where the engine is stopped. If there is a continuous stream of dust, that means there's more dust under the engine than is actually being blown. If the surface had been swept clean, eventually we'd see it stop flowing in the 16mm footage. "Swept clean" means there's no more dust for the engine to blow around.

it was also claimed that the Laser Reflector placed by the Apollo11 crew was so badly covered with dust when they left the Lunar surface by the ascent motor that it was virtually unusable.

Objects already on the surface when a motor is fired will likely accumulate dust. This doesn't apply to the footpads, which were several feet above the surface when the thrust was cut off.

we also see that rock melts at around 1,000 degrees C - yet the LZ has a good inch or more of dust in which we see footprints and the dust shows no sign of melting or even scorching.

Rock melts at that temperature if it is applied continuously for many hours or days. The brief exposure of rock and dust to the rapidly-cooling DPS plume is not the same. I can hold my acetylene torch (6,300 F) on a piece of rock for several minutes before any sign of melting appears.

As for scorching, the conspiracist would do well to look at the color original of his "triangle mark" photo. It clearly shows discoloration of the regolith directly underneath the DPS nozzle.

the ascent motor used HYPERGOLIC fuel - which issues an exhaust "flame"- but where is the "flame"

Like most UDMH combustion in a vacuum, it is invisible. If the conspiracist would watch the ascent footage through pitchover, he would see some evidence of incandescence.

An artists impression of the separation of the rocket motors ... note the flame/exhaust "flare" as the hypergolic fuel provides thrust.

Uh, right.

An actual photo of a test of a 1st. stage motor using HYPERGOLIC FUEL

Well, that's neither a Titan motor nor anything from the LM. It matters a great deal which exact fuel is used. "Hypergolic fuel" is like saying "petrochemical fuel". It's way too huge a category to generalize. It also matters whether the rocket is firing in a vacuum or in air, and whether we're seeing a photo of an ignition transient or whether we're at steady state.

NASA would have us believe that Armstrong took this perfectly framed shot in the total darkof the shadow of the LM with a medium format camera bolted to a chest plate on his pressurised spacesuit

No, it wasn't "bolted" to his chest. Nor was the down-sun side of the LM in "total darkness".

so how was it that the side of the astronauts away from the Sun could be clearly visible ...?

Reflected light from other sources, chiefly the lunar surface itself.

NASA did come up with the lame explanation that the Lunar surface reflected so much light that the astronauts were easily illuminated ...

What exactly makes this argument lame?

if that was the case then the rocks would also have been illuminated.

And many were. You must also consider exposure variations. Typically objects close the surface itself won't be as brightly illuminated. You have to be a few feet above the ground in order to benefit from reflect light from it.

but in this pic their is a clear impression of a bootprint with 12 RIBS

Two superimposed bootprints, with a slight offset.

Armstrong and Aldrin only had a limited time on the EVA but the tracks around the LZ show much more activity than would have been possible during the EVA

In whose expert opinion?

There is no trail of prints leading to or away from the "bigfoot" print

There is a whole mess of footprints all over, and the conspiracist wants to read foul play into the absence of certain prints? I won't even comment on the absurdity of his "cherry picker" theory. He's clearly very imaginative.

The "bigfoot" print is in the foreground, meaning the typical stride will be much wider than than implied by Aldrin's position in the photo. The conspiracist does not consider sideways steps or hops, common to Apollo lunar surface locomotion. The print near the foreground rock (lower right) is a likely candidate for a next or previous step. Further, that print is partially obscured by dust deposted ballistically from another nearby step. The forcefullness with which an astronaut takes a step dictates how much dust will be ballistically displaced from his footprint, and the direction in which it will travel.

The "bigfoot print" hypothesis relies, as most conspiracy hypotheses do, on a very rigid set of expectations which are almost certain not to be satisfied.

I've been giving some thought to the HPs' "radiation argument", especially the tendency to argue that it's an all-or-nothing problem (as mentioned in Jay's latest post).

I think I see a very slight amount of sense in the argument -- not that it has any validity, but in the mindset that produced it.

Consider an analogous situation: the problem of long sea voyages in the past (say, several thousand years ago). Most sailors hugged the coastline, where they could reach safety quickly in case of a sudden storm, and where navigation was a simple matter of line-of-sight.

The non-sailor, standing on shore, notices that the ships he observes never leave his view, never sail "off the edge". He hears a few stories of daring captains who tried to "cut off the corner" by sailing out of sight of land, but never returned. The non-sailor reaches the logical conclusion: sailing near shore is mostly safe, but sailing "off the edge" is invariably fatal. And he's reached the correct conclusion, given his limited knowledge.

But of course, the sailors themselves know better. They know that they can be at the "edge" (as seen from shore) and yet still see plenty of ocean out beyond them. They understand that there's no edge -- that is, that the hazards of open-sea voyages are neither inconsiderable nor insurmountable. You need to meet certain requirements: a strong ship to weather the kind of storm you're likely to encounter, enough supplies to last the trip (with some extras in case you get becalmed for awhile), and enough knowledge of the sky and sea, winds and currents, to find your way with no landmarks.

And yes, you might lose a mast in a storm or be stove by a whale or be blown off course or washed overboard or run aground on an uncharted reef. Yet you accept these risks, because the rewards are worth it to you.

But the landlubber doesn't know these things. All he understands is that it's dangerous out there beyond the horizon. He doesn't know, or perhaps even want to know, that the risks are understandable and managable.

That fellow, at least, has the excuse of ignorance, and in those days knowledge wasn't so readily available. Today, one would like to think, our "groundlubbers" would be able to seek out the information that quantifies the hazards of space. But for some reason, they seem to enjoy being Chicken Littles, crying, "Don't go out there! You'll fall off the edge!"

Their logic is actually resonable, given their ignorance. But why do they remain ignorant when knowledge is available? I guess it comes back to the psychology of the conspiracist again. And as much as we try to reveal that psychology, I still remain baffled by it. Maybe that's one reason I keep hanging around this forum!