Perhaps you ought to work a little more on your understanding of that phrase. The Devil's Advocate (I believe no longer in existence) is the person arguing against someone's canonization. They don't just say "could have been faked." They give specific, clear information that goes against what is said by the other side, whatever the other side says. Even in modern usage, "it could have been faked" is not really enough to indicate a true Devil's advocate. There has to be a real argument.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Actually, I'm going to partially disagree. The effects of vacuum could be "faked" in a large enough vacuum chamber. But the effects of the lower surface gravity could not. IIRC, one of our members actually calculated the time for the hammer to fall and it was correct for the 1/6 g of the moon.

There was also the recent Mythbusters episode on the moon landing hoax and they showed that the lower gravity could not be faked, for example, by shooting the video/film at high speed and playing it back slower.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

FWIW - I've taken one section of the Apollo 16 Grand Prix - and tried to steady it up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdBvs4XkTr8 - parabolic flights of dust are quite obvious. If I could get more footage like this - I'd love to do more stabilisation work - it's awesome stuff.

Going back to the OP, I'm wondering what rodin understands "forensic" to mean, in this context.

When I see or use the word in casual conversation, I mean "physical evidence that admits of close expert scrutiny, in the manner of popular television shows like CSI and Bones".

In that sense, I think the answer to the OP's question is probably "all of it", or "any of it". All of the physical evidence is quite strong. All of it has proven very robust to scrutiny by the relevant experts.

From beginning to end, my experience of the Apollo Hoax debate has been a constant stream of doubters questioning this or that piece of evidence, and then being told by experts exactly how forensically strong that piece of evidence is.

So, yeah. The strongest forensic evidence for the Apollo Project? Pick one: Each piece is strong enough to practically support Apollo on its own.

Neat video. I'd always assumed that all particles were propelled to the same height and that in an atmosphere, larger particles would fall and smaller particles would aerosolize. Looks here as though smaller particles are propelled higher. They still fall like a stone, though. If ye get my drift.

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Crosby! Crosby!! CROSBY!!!

The dust kicked up by the rover wheels has always been one of my favorite pieces of evidence. Anyone who has kicked up some dust on Earth knows that it doesn't behave like the dust kicked up by the rovers. That could only happen in a vacuum. Based on the timing, it could also only happen in reduced gravity. There are no vacuum chambers anywhere near large enough to fake the rover missions. There were thermal-vacuum chambers big enough to hold a LM for prelaunch testing but none nearly big enough to fake even the Apollo 11 shots, much less any of the later missions where they traveled much further away from the LM.

You know what really impresses me about NASA? They fooled each and every reporter that was covering the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs, and Nixon couldn't cover up a simple burglary in Washington.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

And on A11, I recall that Buzz Aldrin spent some time just kicking away at the regolith. Just to see what it would do. Don't recall whether there was any footage, though.

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Crosby! Crosby!! CROSBY!!!

He said "It's about 1/8 inch thick over solid rock." That's that for Rene's leaf blower.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

The acceleration curve is always an exponential. Therefore altering time should theoretically simulate lower gravity, at least for falling inanimate objects (slowed down film might make human activity appear unnatural).

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Belief is the Enemy of Truth

A conspiracy theorist might reply what gets revealed is deliberate

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Belief is the Enemy of Truth

Neither has the existence of NASA

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Belief is the Enemy of Truth

Yes - on the Moon.

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Belief is the Enemy of Truth

Any form of suicide, political or otherwise is "deliberate". It's also stupid.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

And 5 seconds with Google will show you all that happens within the Free Masons. It would be impossible to keep it secret. Like it would be impossible to keep an Apollo conspiracy secret. Your point at a 'secret' society as proof such a thing could be done is utterly wrong. That 'Secret' society is proof, imho, that it could not be done. You can't keep a secret that involved 400,000 people from one country pretending to achieve something, whilst a similar number are trying to beat them on the other side of the world. You just can't.

Apple tries so very very hard to keep its new products secret - yet the rumours come out, and the rumours are right, every time - and that's just a damn phone. You think they could keep the efforts of four hundred THOUSAND people secret for FORTY years?

You continued ignoring of evidence provided is noted, as is your continued refusal to provide this evidence you claim you have.

You are correct for a simple, falling object. Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the slowed up film is the usual explanation of Hoax Believers (HBers) for the video and film of the gait of the astronauts as they walk around the surface. There was an episode of Mythbusters on this and they showed that a 1/6 g gait (simulated with a very elaborate rig) was very different from a slowed video of a normal gait.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

To add to the slowed video debate, I remember seeing an episode of Space: 1999 many years ago which attempted to do just that to simulate ¹/₆g. It was very obviously wrong; the actors looked like they were in molasses, not at all like the Apollo astronauts. (And that's leaving aside the dust clouds that were occasionally visible, and - in one shot - a clear gap between the visor and helmet body on one actor.)

Unfortunately I don't recall which episode, or even plot details; all I recall is it was supposed to be a fight between two people on the surface of the Moon. I remember it because it was so obviously staged.

Ah yes, the same series where the gravity went down as they decompressed the Eagle, and went to zero at the doorway.

Yes; good example though. Gravity and falling is diminished, but momentum is not. So; how do you slow vertical movement while preserving the speed of the horizontal?

There were a few, but there was one in the two part episode that they tried to pawn off in the theaters as a feature film. The one with the race of "sigmund the sea monsters".

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

We have all seen the extent the HB folks go to to try and prove the Apollo record has been faked, and how supposedly impossible it was supposed to be for us to even get to the moon in the first place.

I don't wish to rehash everything that many of us know and have researched again here, but, I do want to add one thing.

If you look at the written record of the Apollo missions, and how detailed all the data is, and the extent of work that was put into this all these years ago, it seems elementary to me that NASA would not go to this extent of such detailed flight plans among other things if they were simply only in earth orbit and faking the video/audio/photo record.

There are a few of the arguments the HB folks use, that SHOULD still be true today, in the current space program.

1. No stars in photos taken on the moon.

A. If stars SHOULD be present in REAL moon photos, then why are stars STILL NOT present in photos taken IN SPACE at the ISS? Yes, I have seen the YouTube videos suggesting the ISS is a NASA hoax as well.

2. Pressurized space suits make it impossible for astronauts to do fine detail work.

A. If a pressurized space suit makes it impossible for the astronauts to do fine work with their fingers such as taking photos and changing film magazines, then it should also be impossible for astronauts to do the fine detail work that has been necessary to do all the things they have done on the ISS and the HST.

Those are only TWO of the things that I would like the HB folks to explain to me. I don't just want to hear that the ISS and HST are simply hoaxes. I have seen the ISS in orbit over my house with the shuttle not far behind EXACTLY when and where NASA says it should appear when it is in fact visible over my house. Granted, I cannot PROVE that it is actually the ISS, but, it certainly is something big enough to be visible as is the shuttle when it makes passes and it is right where NASA says it should be, so that makes the thought of it being another NASA hoax highly unlikely.

Thanks.

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My daughters Chinese adoption story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_16m4LY-t6Q

I asked a cousin about that one night when we were fishing and ISS came by. He told me that that light could be anything. "...maybe a loose weather balloon or swamp gas." (Absolutely true story.)

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

Never mind that anyone wanting to really prove it to themselves can use a decent telescope and resolve enough of the shape to tell it's something shaped like the ISS is supposed to be shaped. There's no middle man involved, unless you think the telescope manufacturers somehow have been bought out as well and are somehow showing false images.

In other words, there's always a new reason for them to not believe, regardless of the mountain of evidence in front of them.

The funny part for me was that he was using the ideas that have been dissed by the UFO lovers for so many years.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

I had a similar experience viewing the ISS earlier this month, except the shuttle wasn't behind it because STS-127 hadn't launched yet. I can't prove it was the ISS either, but it was a very bright object that moved across the sky in just a few minutes, it didn't have blinking lights like an airplane has, and I saw it at the exact time the local media said the ISS was going to be visible in the area. It was neat.

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"One does not require alien ruins in order to absorb a profound sense of wonder and mystery from the moon. That our civilization had actually visited it is miracle enough." Jason Roberts

The same one where the moon was rocketed out of orbit at high-G acceleration by nuclear waste, where they had gravity generators (in 1999!) and lasers with a stun setting.

Admittedly, though, they did at least try to simulate low gravity on TV, something that was (and still is) pretty rare.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Even Stanley Kubrick didn't try to simulate lunar gravity in 2001: A Space Oddessy, and got a few things wrong when simulating free fall.
I am not sure if this has been presented yet, but here's a link to photos from people who optically tracked the Apollo spacecraft.
Also, the Lunar Sample Compendium provides a lot of info on the moon rocks. Quite technical though.

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I read once an HB said they used an underground nuclear test chamber filled with helium to simulate the 1/6g and slowed down the film footage. They retrieved radiated rocks to match the moon rocks. He says that's why you don't see stars in the footage. In the end they just pulled the LEM ascent stage straight up and out with cables.

The only way it makes sense is an elaborate leg-pull. Or else a claim that it's aliens.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Or my cousin is an abysmal moron. I'll go with that one. (Anybody wants proof, send me a message, I'll quote something he said one time that even dumber than that.)

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

Just in a similar vein (and apologies if this has been raised before, but this is a new thought for me ):

This morning in the Sydney Morning Herald, there was a letter from a reader bemoaning the fact that while he had been utterly inspired by the Apollo missions as a teenager at the time, he had been disappointed by the subsequent reticence of Armstrong to use the fact that he was the focus of all humanity at that time to do a greater job of encouraging enthusiasm in the general population for the sciences and space exploration.

I didn't particularly agree with his comments (having seen the schedule of public events that the A11 astronauts were made to perform after their return, and having read of Armstrong's personality traits, I can certainly understand his desire to retreat from the spotlight). However, it struck me that if you were going to select someone to be the focal point of a massive hoax to claim a worldwide PR coup, someone with Armstrong's personality would have been a remarkably poor choice to capitalise on the resultant reflected glory for his political 'masters'.

If I was the hoax puppetmaster, I'd be having a stern word to the Casting department!

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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

I heard one say the same thing, only the gas in question was uranium hexafluoride heated beyond the sublimation point.
In other news, the 16mm footage taken from the rover is quite stunning.It tarts at around 30 minutes in, here.
I did some rough calculations and figured that even if it was only moving at 10 kph, 3 less then it's top speed, it would require the worlds largest building ever, a new world record, to pull this one off.

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