Apologies if this has been previously discussed - I am not at leisure to wade through all the posts...

Ok, I recall shots of Earth in the lunar sky *MEANING* the destination(s) of at least one, mission was the 'Earth side'... It is claimed instruments, etc. were jettisoned and/or otherwise abandoned on the lunar surface (including, I seem to recall, mirrors and, of course, a US flag) --- It seems this entire matter could be readily settled via Ground-Based telescopic examination of said landing site[s] (Ground based such that the skeptics might 'have a gander' for themselves) Comments???

Another thought; although a *seemingly* convincing case has been made for retouched and outright bogus images - this does *NOT* necessarily mean the missions did not take place!!! Were any of the 'equivocal' lunar scenes imaged on 'chemical' film? If so it is conceivable said film was inadvertently 'exposed' (i.e. destroyed) in transient (by solar radiation). Considering the intensely political nature (of the early missions) 'reconstruction' of certain scenes may have been expedient...

One more point:

Re: the oft heard refrain: "NASA can't even develop reliable orbiters! How are we to believe they managed lunar missions over three decades ago???" --- Paraphrase...

WELL THAT ONE *AT LEAST* IS A NO-BRAINER!!! FUNDING, FUNDING, FUNDING!!! --- what with an executive edict - the sky was the limit!!! (NPI )

While maintaining an open mind, I tend to accept the Apollo missions as factual --- Think about it!? While the assertion that the first mission (Apollo 11) was 'faked' (for reasons of political expediency) is *mildly* plausible There would have been little return - and great risk of exposure - attendant to continued deceit (To wit: feigning further missions)...

Respectfully
Sarandon

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All the mission were nearside. Apollo 11 went to Mare Tranquilitatis, Apollo 12 to Oceanus Procellarum, Apollo 13 was supposed to go to Fra Mauro, Apollo 14 went there instead, Apollo 15 went to the Hadley Apennine region, Apollo 16 went to Descartes and Apollo 17 went to the Taurus-Littrow valley. Jack Schmitt, scientist-astronaut of the '65 class who was LMP on 17, petitioned for a landing at the Tsiolkovsky mare crater on the far side. He proposed that Titan II rockets could be used to deploy relay satellites in Lunar orbit to allow communication. But budget cuts obviously threw that idea out the window.

All missions left behind a set of experiments. 12 onwards deployed the sophisticated Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package containing all sorts of goodies. This relayed data back to the mainplanet for years afterwards, far longer than expected. I believe all five ALSEPs were still operational when budget cuts caused the ALSEP office to be shut down. All other equipment that was not required for the return journey was left behind.

This has been discussed a lot. More expert people can give you numbers but the simple truth is that no current telescope is capable of the required resolution. There is also the issue that no-one is prepared to waste valuable time on such a pointless exercise. The Rusty Lander once made a similar proposal here.

Correct. To assume so would be a fallacy of composition.

All Hassleblad photography was on film.

Firstly, the solar radiation is always exaggerated by conspiracists. It didn't pose any serious threat to the integrity of the film. Secondly, this scenario has been suggested, but no-one has produced any direct evidence to support it. It is essentially grabbing at straws.

With the STS 107 disaster, this obviously gets more weight. It is frankly disgusting that conspiracists would capitalise on such a tragedy to further then bilking.

It is also a very poor way of making a point. The Space Shuttle is designed for a certain purpose and to do things a certain way. Because NASA may run into trouble accomplishing that, it doesn't mean to say that different spacecraft doing things a different way for different purposes can't work. This is pure handwaving, a thing that we on this board find pathetic. It is the job of the conspiracists to demonstrate directly that the technology developed for the task was incapable of doing it. The fact that conspiracists must resort to such handwaving says a lot about how much they actually know about what they're talking about.

Indeed. There are some that suggest that Apollo 11 was faked and that the rest were real. This is a rather cowardly standpoint to take. It seems like the view of someone who doesn't have to courage to stand on one side of the fence, he tries to compromise. Of course, such a scenario is implausible. Those who actually know how the program works will know that each mission built on the one before. Apollo 11 was the manned qualification of the LM on the Lunar surface. It was part of the development. The idea that real Apollo began with fully functional selenogical missions is to demonstrate ignorance of the program. I discussed the procedure of development here.

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Although ground-based scopes cant image the lander sites, Clementine, in Lunar orbit, did. There was an interesting Space.com article, complete with pictures.

The problem is: Any entity with a scope or satellite access is said to be linked to NASA and the Dis-Info conspiracy when they manage to point to any kind of feasable proofs. It's a true Damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-dont situation with the Lunar Conspiracy believers.

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http://signaturedigitalimages.com

This has been discussed a lot. More expert people can give you numbers but the simple truth is that no current telescope is capable of the required resolution. There is also the issue that no-one is prepared to waste valuable time on such a pointless exercise. The Rusty Lander once made a similar proposal here.


Very quick back-of-an-envelope calculation - if I (generously) assume that at the right time the LM base might cast a shadow of 5 metres, at a mean distance of 385,000km to the moon, this shadow will subtend an angle of ~0.003 arcseconds. This is roughly the equivalent to trying to see a 10c piece in Melbourne with a telescope in Sydney.

Ignoring interferometry techniques etc, a 10m reflector will have diffraction limited resolution of ~0.02 arcseconds (rough calc assuming 700nm wavelength light). I would say we are at least an order of magnitude away from being able to image the Apollo remnants on the moon with an earth-bound telescope, even (as Glom has noted) if we would want to waste valuable telescope time on such a spurious exercise.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

Thanks all for your knowledgeable replies!!! Your quantitative approach to this subject is GREATLY appreciated, and, I might add, rather refreshing !!!

Please know that I share your feelings Re: the, groundless, non sequitur, and often insensitive, rationalizations (read machinations) of the skeptics!!! Proofs of extraordinary claims necessarily fall to the claimants!!! - In this they have failed miserably- it is a sad comment upon human nature that groundless iconoclasm should enjoy (relatively) wide acceptance sans personal examination of the data --- It is tempting (and rather trite) to blame 'Watergate' - However I doubt it is that simple…

Again *THANK YOU*!!!

Very best regards
Dan Sarandon

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My formula for success is never to talk about a successful formula, because it's bound to go wrong!