Which of the six landings are you referring to here?

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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

Not lastly, firstly: A criminal investigation must begin with an actual crime. There's no point investigating a man for the murder of his wife--regardless of motive and ability--if his wife is still alive.

Your very first order of business is to demonstrate that a crime has been committed. Only then can you go about looking for the criminal that committed it.

Now, the overwhelming consensus of every expert in every related field for the last fifty years is that the Apollo Project was possible. That the goal NASA set (and that Kennedy later publicized in his speech) was feasible.

It is the overwhelming consensus of ever expert in every related field that no credible evidence for a hoax has ever been presented. You yourself concede that you have never seen any such evidence.

So, without any evidence that a "conspiracy was committed", what is there to say?

You seem to be taking the same approach as the vast majority of Apollo conspiracy theorists: in the absence of any evidence to support your theory, you flail about wildly with "motive" and "ability".

But the fact is that NASA had every motive to actually put a man on the moon by 1969, and they had every ability to put a man on the moon by 1969. Not only that, but all the evidence supports exactly that result.

So why even bother to bring up a conspiracy theory?

ETA: I mean, seriously? NASA publically puts a man on the moon, and the best rebuttal you can come up is maybe the military secretly didn't put a man on the moon. Really? And you can't even come up with any evidence to support this rebuttal?

I do not understand your comment. Did you see the original moon landing video?

I watched the first Moon landing live. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. I watched the second video feed. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. I watch the third video feed. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. Did I think at that time that the moon landing could have been fudged? No. Did I wounder why the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. Yes.

This is what I said about the Apollo program.

Is there motivation for a conspiracy? Yes. Why the frantic statement that the US will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, in 1961? Why spend 135 billion 2009 dollars to put a man on the moon? Note the importance of completing the project by the end of decade.

I did not say there was a conspiracy.

The investigation of a conspiracy has the same components as a criminal investigation. There must be motive. Secondly, there must be the ability to commit the crime. And lastly there must be evidence that shows a crime was committed.

There does appear to be motivation if it was not physically possible to have men walk about the moon by the end of the decade (See Kennedy's speech) to make it appear men did walk about the moon. The US military unlike the Civil government is capable of a significant clandestine project. The secret service would not be the secret service if if could not keep secrets.

I agree, it would be difficult to make it appear men walked about the moon if they did not, however, I do not think it would be impossible. Are you saying it would be impossible?

I have not seen any hard evidence that proves the moon landing was fudged.

One item that is against a conspiracy is the lack of counter rumors from the Soviets. It is expected the Soviets would have been aware of a conspiracy and would have leaked that information to reduce the propaganda value of the US being the first to walk on the moon.

I meant when you say "THE Moon landing," are you talking about Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 or 17? I'm sorry, this is something I tend to get nitpicky about.

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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

This is what I personally know concerning concerning the moon landing. (My room at the time was covered with Apollo pictures.)

I watched the first Moon landing live. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. I watched the second video feed live. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. I watched the third video feed. I stopped watching as the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. Did I think at that time that the moon landing could have been fudged? No.

Did I wounder why the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. Yes.

I've often seen the May '61 Congressional address (and the related speech at Rice in Sept '62) described as a 'frantic', 'panicked', 'foolish', or 'knee-jerk' reaction, but I've never felt these were fair characterizations. JFK has been described in many ways over the decades, but panicky and foolish are adjectives seldom applied to him.

If the space race was going poorly for the US in its early course, it had a great deal to do with the USSR's willingness to take a 'quick and dirty' approach to achieving their goals in space. In this respect, they had the advantage of secrecy -- their mistakes and failures did not occur in full view of the world.

The decision to go to the Moon made sense for several reasons:

1. America was behind in the race. What better way to reclaim prestige than by moving the finish line? The Soviets had taken an early lead by starting the contest before announcing it -- these two speeches were public declarations that the race was on, and that there was an ambitious, clearly defined goal;

2. by setting the goal beyond Earth orbit, there would be an ongoing program for years to come, with the expected rewards in science and technology that could be envisioned from meeting a more ambitious challenge. Otherwise, the space program could lose direction once a short-sighted task was completed; and,

3. while the 'quick and dirty' approach might work for smaller projects, it was more likely to fail in the longer run. In fact, the race to the Moon was a challenge to not only the technical, but also the economic and political strength of the Soviet Union.

I've also heard his decision to make this commitment described as rash and unwise. This seemingly ignores the well-documented fact that Kennedy met several times with senior personnel from NASA. He had access to the best minds in aerospace on the planet, and it's clear he consulted with them. And as such matters generally go, I'm sure it was stated quite plainly that if the commitment was there, and the funds were available, it would be possible to land on the moon by the end of the decade.

(Do I recall correctly an early assessment by the Air Force which stated that by doing the project 'quick and dirty', the Moon could be reached by '67?)

Which brings up the question of timing. Why NOT by the end of the decade? If you believe you're in a race, and your finest minds feel you can reach your goal within a certain time, why not make the race as tough as possible for the competition? Besides, a tight deadline keeps everyone focused, and is a great way to constrain a project and prevent mission creep.

Contrary to the notions expressed by hoax proponents that a fake was necessary to meet Kennedy's unrealistic goal, I really believe that no fake was needed at all, and that Kennedy knew this before he made either speech, based on the best advice available to him at the time.

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I can't WAIT for January 1, 2013 to arrive! Then again, I'm still waiting for October 1, 1993 ...

You'd better BET there's a spoon, Neo! THWACK!!!!

What first second and third video feed?

People are walking on the Moon and you stopped watching because the quality was poor?

Jon

To upstage the Soviets.
Success would demonstrate that America was more advanced and richer.


Low bandwidth.

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Join the Illuminati

Your entire thesis falls to the ground right there. It is simply not possible that a GIGANTIC conspiracy like that could have been kept secret. Not in this world.

Signal to noise ratio is the issue not band width. i.e. Sufficient bandwidth is allocated to transmit the signal.

The audio was OK. The visual was very, very, noisy. No improvement from mission to mission. There are transmission techniques to enable a weak signal to be recovered.

You don't think the colour video from the later Apollo missions was an improvement over the fuzzy black and white video from Apollo 11?

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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

You beat me to that question. William, are you claiming there was no improvement in video quality in later missions?

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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

Is the claim also that the audio had no distortion? Or is the claim that since there was sufficient bandwidth for "OK" audio, it should have been possible to fit better video on it as well? I just want to make clear whether William understands the difference in bandwidth between the two.

And, oh...signal to noise ratio IS bandwidth. They aren't separate entities.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

So you're not aware that bandwidth affects SNR? That by increasing the modulation on a carrier you increase the bandwidth over which its energy is distributed, at the same time lowering the peak power of the carrier?

Seems to me, limiting bandwidth would be a logical way to improve SNR.

The audio wasn't noisy? Count the number of 'SAY AGAIN's. Besides, we're very good at filling in the blanks in any conversation, even in a very LO-FI environment. Visually, we're maybe not so gifted.

Nod to others who addressed this already.

Really? Would love to hear about them, and how they'd be applied to Apollo comms. I always understood that once information was gone, it was gone. Could be wrong, tho.

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I can't WAIT for January 1, 2013 to arrive! Then again, I'm still waiting for October 1, 1993 ...

You'd better BET there's a spoon, Neo! THWACK!!!!

That is a demonstrable lie. Apollo 11's black and white video was very poor, everyone agrees with that.

By Apollo 17 we had good, clear, sharp colour television, live, from the moon.

From this
http://www.menziesera.com/years/vide..._apollo_11.jpg

To This
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17schmitt.face.jpg

That is a HUGE improvement. No one who has spent even 5 minutes looking at Apollo video footage could claim it didn't improve.

Perhaps William may find this interesting from the Space Exploration forum (I trust that Dwight has no objection to me re-quoting this here):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dwight there is a book coming out on the TV systems, which I have spent a good part of my free time over the last 5 years researching and writing. It chronicles the TV systems from pre-Kennedy's May 1961 Congress speech, through to the last television sent from Apollo 17. (I originally intended to document everything through to the space shuttle, but ASTP itself is nearly worth its own book regarding the TV systems, so I decided to hold off and do a volume 2 which will cover Skylab, ASTP and the shuttle TV systems.) The title of the book is scheduled as "Live TV From the Moon" and will be published by Apogee Spacebooks. It is due out sometime at the end of this year -first on their website, then in Spring of 2010 in major retail outlets across the world. I am in discussion now as to whether the book should be completely in color, given that after Apollo 10 everything bar A11's EVA was all televised in color. There are approximately 300+ photos mostly in color, and numerous anecdotes and tidbits you may not have heard about before. There are also several abandoned proposals like modified color for the A11 EVA, LM descent TV, A11 ascent coverage using EASEP batteries, and driving the LRV remotely to the next J mission landing site to cover the LM landing!!! The total page count should come in to around 300 pages. I hope the amount of research I have done reflects in the quality of the book.

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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

Leaving aside the fact that there demonstrably was improvement from mission to mission, if you were as interested in Apollo as you say at the time, how were you not aware of things like the fact that Apollo had to have a whole branch of development just for getting a TV camera that could be used on the missions? It's not a noisy transmission that's the problem, it's the fact that the resolution and frame rate of the camera itself is reduced compared to 'normal' TV, and the conversion method for allowing that to be broadcast into your home introduced its own problems and artifacts.

TV was not the first priority of the missions. They were grateful to have any picture from the Moon's surface at all.

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

What frantic statement? The advice received from NASA was that they could make manned missions to the Moon a reality by the end of the decade. There was nothing frantic about it.

To get one over on the soviets, who had already embarrassed the US with their first satellites and cosmonauts. Russia was technologically, econimcally and , so it was viewed at the time, ideologically inferior to the US, so they had to regain their 'rightful' position in the eyes of the world, and space was the 'in thing' at that time.

Yes. If you want to motivate people you give them a deadline, not just an open-ended goal. It doesn't look quite so bold and impressive to say 'I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, sometime in the indeterminate future, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth', does it?

Surely you have to have the evidence first? I may have the motive and the means to murder my wife, but why would you carry out an investigation into the murder of my wife with no evidence that she was actually dead?

(BTW, I do have the means, but not the motive, in case anyone was worried... )

Impossible no, hideously complex and more expensive and difficult than actually going there, yes.

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

Thanks for clarifying.

I'll say, it is impossible. The US military does not have access to different physics or chemistry than the Civil government, even if they have better tools for keeping secrets. There is absolutely no way they could have faked all the physical evidence of the six visits to the moon.

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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

Impossible, IMO. Utterly. Could someone, anyone, propose a plausible method by which a world-wide conspiracy involving multiple nations, and thousands---even hundreds of thousands---of professionals and amateur people could be accomplished?

My own father worked on the Apollo project (I still have his plaque)...how was he brought into the conspiracy?

I can claim the Civil War never happened (and no one living was there)...but unless I can provide some sort of plausible mechanism for that to have been faked I would just be blowing smoke.

The investigation of a conspiracy has the same components as a criminal investigation. There must be motive. Secondly, there must be the ability to commit the crime. And lastly there must be evidence that shows a crime was committed.

How many criminal investigations have you conducted? The first step is to ascertain that a crime has been committed. That is, first you must show that a hoax occurred. Then you ascertain who is most likely to have committed that crime. As part of that exercise you surmise who may have had a motive; but you will discover that several people had motives. To choose from among them, you have to match the facts of their actual behavior with the facts of the crime.

An investigation is always about facts: the fact of the crime, the facts of the perpetrator's behavior. To obtain a conviction you need facts. Motive plays a part in determining whose facts to examine. But the beginning of the investigation is not to second-guess motives. Conspiracy theorists like to think so, because a debate about motives is never resolved.

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

Actually, there aren't. "Hit it with a very big hammer and see what gets kicked up" is a VERY cheap way to analyze something -- and if you are looking for something as simple as water (as opposed to, for example, complex organic molecules that might get destroyed in the process), it is quite efficient. It is crude, but it works. More sophisticated methods involve soft landings, and are much more expensive. Deep Impact comet probe worked the same way, and for the same reason.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Heck, all of seismology is based on 'hit it with a hammer and see what happens'.

My point is because there is point 1 and point 2, it is reasonable to look at the evidence with an open mind to see if it supports a fudged moon landing. The key point is an open mind.

See link attached.

http://www.clavius.org/


I agree. There is no hard evidence that supports the assertion that the moon landing was fudged. There is evidence such as many pounds of moon rocks to support the assertion that the moon landing did occur.

Hey, William, you do know that Jay is the last person on Earth who needs a link to Clavius, right?

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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!"

If we're going to talk about motives, I can think of several excellent motives that certain people might have for claiming that Apollo was faked when it was in fact real.

Let's be open-minded and not consider these issues from only one side, 'kay?

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I do not understand your comment. Did you see the original moon landing video?

I assume you mean Apollo 11. There were five other successful landings, all of which produced visual and telemetric records and physical artifacts. Conspiracy theorists tend to cherry-pick the faults of Apollo 11 and ignore that the reality of Apollo comprises seven attempts and six landings. A hoax theory must account for all the evidence, not just the evidence that's easiest to explain away.

Did I wounder why the video feed was very, very, difficult to see. Yes.

And what did you do to investigate why the video quality was not what you expected? There is a wealth of information available on Apollo television practices.

Is there motivation for a conspiracy? Yes. Why the frantic statement...

Why is this a motivation for a hoax as opposed to a legitimate attempt to land on the Moon?

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

Not if by "open mind" you mean ignoring the facts and waffling over supposed motive. Point 1 is whether there is anything to investigate. In the case of a criminal case, Point 1 is the evidence of the commission of a crime. In the case of a conspiracy theory, Point 1 is evidence of an event to have conspired about. If there is no evidence the Moon landings were hoaxed, there is no point to wondering whether someone may have had a motive to do it.

Having an open mind doesn't mean doing the investigation backwards.

See link attached.

Yes, that would be my web site.

There is no hard evidence that supports the assertion that the moon landing was fudged.

There's no evidence of any kind. Supposition and guesswork is not evidence. Allegation of motive is not evidence.

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

I'm with Jay.

William, are you claiming that NASA did not have the motive and ability to land a man on the moon by 1969?

Can I break in here and ask for some of this info....
My google search fu seems to be lacking.#
Edit: Especially any details about the decisions for the Apollo 11 tv.