I don't know if this has been mentioned here before or not, but this website includes a poll on whether or not yu believe the Apollo astronauts really landed on the moon.

http://www.inconstantmoon.com/inconstant.htm

So far out of 430 votes, only 70.1% believe they did. :-?

[eek! voice]We's gots tas do somet'ins about dis![/eek! voice]

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

That moon phases animation in the upper-left corner is fake. Every self-respectiing BABB member knows, that in reality, it looks like this.

Harald

I like the 4% who think that different astronauts did. What's the point of that?

By my reckoning, 84% of those responding believe that astronauts probably went to the Moon. Still an appalling low figure, but maybe some of the twinkies rigged the vote count.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

ToSeek, there is a theory out there that we faked the first moon landing to beat the Russians and only actually achieved the feat on subsequent missions.

To me this is like the most cowardly of the theories, because it's like you don't have enough guts to stand on one side of the line or the other.

Oh, right, the "Apollo 13 was the first real mission, which was why it failed" theory.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I like the 4% who think that different astronauts did. What's the point of that?

That's a reference to Bennett and Percy's hypothesis in Dark Moon that says the "named" astronauts (i.e., the ones we know as the Apollo astronauts) did not land on the moon but, at best, stayed in low earth orbit. The authors hypothesis that "surrogate" astronauts, whose names we don't know, may have been sent instead (to pick up the moon rocks, etc.), knowing that they would die within a few days after passing through the Van Allen belts and weathering the "terrible" radiation outside them. The authors can't answer why anybody would actually want to do this. They say their theory is fully explained in their book and video (which it isn't).

This is a sort of attempt to have their cake and eat it to. They get to have their conspiracy theory without alienating those who still want to believe people landed on the moon.

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

To me this is like the most cowardly of the theories, because it's like you don't have enough guts to stand on one side of the line or the other.

True, but you have to give credit where it's due. Things like the moon rocks simply can't be plausibly explained in any way other than manned landings. Relaxing the hypothesis to say that some landings were faked and others succeeded is a step in the right direction. It's an indication that some people out there really are paying attention to the arguments against the conspiracy theory.

But this theory too has its problems. If you argue, as have some, that Apollo 14 (or so) was the first successful Apollo mission, you have to explain why the "fake" photography produced for Apollos 11 and 12 look fundamentally identical to the "genuine" photography of the later missions. Kubrick tried really hard to get it right before the actual landings, and he failed. If this theory is true you should be able to find some marked difference -- otherwise inexplicable -- between the allegedly faked footage and the allegedly real footage. It's not plausible to suggest that they got it all correct before ever having been there.

You also have to explain the natural escalation planned into the Apollo missions. Each mission built on prior successes.

Apollo 8 vetted the translunar trajectory. Apollo 10 was expected to fly that trajectory without incident and test the yet-untried rendezvous and descent orbits.

Apollo 11 was expected to fly the translunar trajectory, accomplish the descent and rendezvous orbits without incident, and actually touch down and lift off again.

Apollo 12 was expected to fly the trajectory, land, take off and rendezvous without incident, but this time they had to land on a dime.

Apollo 13 (later 14) was expected to do all that, and use extensive geological procedures and tools.

Apollo 15 adds the rover and the extended stay.

You get the picture. If you argue that Apollo 14 or 15 was the first "real" mission you have to explain how they were able to fly an untested trajectory, employ an untested descent orbit, land an untested lander, deploy and use an untested LRV (on 15), stay for many hours in an untested lander, take off and fly an untested rendezvous, etc. A better perspective is, why would all this have been considered "easier"?

The way NASA planned it, and the way we believe they flew it, is the easy way.

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

To have consistency within the Apollo Hoax theory, you have to believe that everything was faked from Apollo 8 onwards. This is when, apparently, everything suddenly began to fall into place and come right for the missions.

In addition to those other possibilities, remember we still have that theory that Kubrick shot the moon landings on location!
The way I look at it, less than 9% think we didn't. The other 91% includes those who think different astronauts did, as well as that 6 or 7% that are just not sure.

Hmm...I'm thinking of changing my vote to "not sure", I mean, how can you be sure of anything?

Thats why the faked Apollo footage looks so good - because they simply copied the on-location stuff that Kubrick shot for 2001: A Space Odyssey!

To be honest, as /. demonstrates all the time with its daft poll options, when presented with a web poll on just about anything at least 5-10% will pick a 'funny' answer rather than what they actually think.

Yeah, anytime you go anywhere you can pretty much figure that about 10% of the people you're crossing paths with are a few cards short of a full deck.

Are you sure you want to do that?

I guess I'll think about it. BTW, just for the record, the number of votes is now 744, with 73.3% saying definitely did, 8.2 probably, 6.5 not sure, 3.8 probably not, 4.7 definitely not, and 3.6 different astronauts did. (That adds up to 100.1%, glad to see no one left any dangling chads.)

Thanks for the update!

I wonder how many of the approx. 300 votes came from BABB folk?! :wink:

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

If ToSeek's figures were from that 430, and his figure of 84% included Definitely Dids, Probablies, and Different Astronauts, then it's only gone up to 85%, so it hasn't moved much.

430-733. By now it could be an incredible 10,000. What percentage is that of the US population, or the rest of the world.
If a polling company used a sample that size without a cross, they would have as much credibility as that site.

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Sounds like that should be true!

BTW, number of votes are up to 942, with no large change in the percentages, with definitely did edging up a bit more (+0.8%) than definitely did not (+0.4%).