This all sounds like "Hitting one known point from another known point is impossible! Have you ever tried to shoot a hole in one in golf? Now Imagine teeing off an aiming for the moon! Thus, reflectors are impossible!"

Bleh.

It's not that I claim I've never reached a "Common sense" conclusion that was completely wrong. But, when proven wrong, I'm willing to admit my errors and learn. (Though I might not always be willing to say "You're right, I'm wrong." ). I tire of people who make up their minds, then deafen themselves to the voice of reason.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I have to admit that the first time I read your first paragraph my mind filled in the voice of your avatar. Gave me a chuckle.

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"Eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy"
------------Mark Twain

"Women are like Voltron. The more you can hook up, the better it gets."

It's called EME (or EarthMoonEarth) and radio amateurs (hams) have been doing it since I was a kid (most likely earlier). I got to visit one in NSW in Australia- they weren't even using a dish- just a huge array of yagis
http://www.nitehawk.com/rasmit/ws1_1.html has a huge range of links to various stations around the world
(check out the yagi arrays on the `EME on 50 MHZ!' link (http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/AntennaFarm04.jpg) - imagine that in the neighbours back yard!)

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No, I'm being ordinarily sarcastic. Don't make me get very sarcastic. You wouldn't like me when I'm very sarcastic. - JayUtah



Surely if you are going to start a conspiracy theory it is best to start with something that might have a grain of truth or reality in it. To start with the preposterous and go downhill from there is just stupid. steve(primus) (Avatar)

Amateur radio enthusiasts still do it today. Do some searching on "EME" (Earth-Moon-Earth) communications.

I really love that

I was in no way claiming to have any kind of - monopoly, on appreciating Apollo! All I meant was that I only ever approached it from the emotive perspective. This lead to me getting duped by conspiracy theorists; I remember that well, and how utterly saddened I was, how I felt like I'd lost something important to me, when I believed the hoax was true. So now I know better, I can't help but still feeling very annoyed with the people who report the lie with such gusto... partly because I feel a bit of a fool for believing them for awhile.

When I heard the hoax, I didn't know any different. I swallowed it, gullible - but so did my father, and so did a lot of other people. A lot of people still believe it, and not only that, if I mention my Apollo fascination in passing I get sceptical "but it didn't actually happen" comments. Even from my friends. So I still have a very guttural, emotional reaction to it. All I meant is that I think science offers a clarity that I didn't have seven or eight years ago.

Basically, it's envy. I wish I'd had the knowledge to look at that Fox documentary and think, well that's nonsense. It would have saved me a lot of upset.

What I was saying was, I approached the hoax from a different mindset, is all!

I wouldn't regret it. It's the way by which you are transitioning from HB to critical thinker. You are gaining knowledge, which replaces some of the mystery and wonder of naivete. But take heart. There is plenty of mystery and wonder to enjoy as your scientific knowledge grows.

I find it sad that so many people who grew up loving sci-fi find sci-fact such a letdown in comparison. To me, real science is more exciting than sci-fi can ever be, because it is real and extends our threshold of knowledge.

Mike

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Plan as though you will live forever, but live as though you may die tomorrow.

Yes.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Mr John Diefenbaker, heard a voice message yesterday from President Eisenhower that had bounced off the moon, and sent a reply the same way. Greetings were exchanged at the opening at Prince Albert of the new Canadian Government radar laboratory for joint United States-Canadian research in defence against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The message from President Eisenhower was transmitted from 1700 miles away but it travelled about 250,000 miles to the moon and back another 250,000 miles in 2.7 seconds.

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Don't criticize what you can't understand. — Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” (1963)
Some people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices and superstitions. — Edward R. Murrow (1908–65)

It takes, in my view, a certain sort of pathological mindset to side with the "lone voice" whenever there is near unanimous agreement in scientific circles.

Those that do, of course, nearly always justify this stance through horrendous cherry-picking of the examples which support it. In reality, of course, most correct new theories are quite well received (as long as they are backed by evidence), and most crank views are very easily shown to be crank views.

You seem to be suggesting that the term "expert" should be applied to the uneducated crank, rather than the person trained and experienced in the subject. Of course, you don't believe this at all, as I am certain that you prefer the planes you board to have been designed using conventional science, not wingnut science.

I think that one of the great things a good degree in the physical sciences (especially engineering or physics) does is to hammer home how careful you need to be with "common sense" views. That means that doing one makes us all consider a bit more carefully before we make a pronouncement on something. "Common sense" tells a lot of people even today that heavier objects should have a greater gravitational acceleration than lighter ones, that subatomic particles realy are not spread out, and that addition of speeds is linear.

One of the most common causes of conspiracy theories and ATM theories is that someone clings to the idea that the world, and the universe beyond, simply must comply with their intuition of how things are.

This is especially true for engineers, who can be held legally liable for the correctness of their reasoning about the physical world.

Too often even engineers will adopt a common-sense attitude and try to deduce the behavior of some system instead of measuring or observing it. And even clients will ask "Why do I need to pay for a backup to Critical Component A? What could possibly go wrong with it?" To which the answer is "If we knew all that could go wrong with A, we'd simply alter the design to avoid or accommodate it; it's precisely because the potential failures cannot be enumerated that we provide a backup." The client wants to reason by cause and effect; the engineer simply reasons by effect: it is unacceptable for A to fail (for any reason), thus A is made redundant. It doesn't matter that "common sense" suggests A should never fail because it cannot imagine how.

It's also ironic when conspiracists tell us we have to "think outside the box," by which they seem to mean we have to embrace the admitted farfetchedness of their ideas as if it were a good thing. But common sense is really just inside-the-box thinking: considering only what is superficially apparent. It denies the potential of a deeper, possibly more correct understanding.

But returning to the original point, engineers have a tightly vested interest in getting it right regardless of what others think. The notion that an engineer will dutifully toe some "party line" regardless of the facts is pretty laughable.

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

I had an "Oh! Really?" reaction at first, but then having done quite a bit of messing about with actual film and having an understanding of F stop and exposure settings, as well as knowing something about reflection and refraction of light, I very quickly was able to say to myself "Hey! That's not right!" and did more research, quickly debunking most of the photographic "evidence" (for myself) almost straight away.

I get that sometimes. I just try to remain calm and ask them why they think it didn't happen. One example where it leads is the "no stars" comment. "Ok, have you ever taken a photograph of the stars at night?" That leads on to me challenging them to TRY STUFF FOR THEMSELVES ...

I commend you for your approach, and your continuing to gain knowledge. It is a wonderful subject, and I find I can always learn something new here!

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

My thought is this guy's entire website is in question.

If you read the next article after the reflector part, he suggests that only about 100 people were involved with the hoax, and that everyone else actually believed that it was happening.

He suggests that 'CIA mind control techniques' were used to "convince" the astronauts that they actually went to the moon.

C'mon! MIND CONTROL? Please!

People actually BELIEVE this crap?

It is much more difficult to believe that the CIA used mind control than to believe that it was a real event.

This is something that really grates my nerves the most when it comes to all these HB theories. They propose far out plots that cannot be proven by any means to show their theories.

The "mind control plot" is a new one for me. And to think that EDUCATED people actually BELIEVE this garbage.

This person needs to get a grip on reality!

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

Yeah, I've been dealing with a guy on another message board whose answer to any quandary regarding how it was faked is, "The CIA did it." He seems to figure that the CIA can do anything.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Just like how NASA can do anything. Except fly to the Moon, of course.

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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

Now, there's someone who hasn't been paying attention.

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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!"

Question.

Why do we assume that just because there are reflectors on the moon that a human being must have landed on the surface and put it there?

Isn't it just as likely that we sent an unmanned probe to the moon and remotely landed a reflector on the surface?

I'm not say that we didn't goto the moon, only that this "definitive proof" is hardly that or am I wrong?

Comments please.

The reflectors weren't the only experiments deployed. Each mission included an experiment package. Some of the results (i.e.; a solar wind experiment) were packed up and brought back with a whole bunch of rocks, dust, core samples, photographs, and 16mm film.

So, "just as likely"? No.

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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Out of curiosity, were any of these rocks, dust core samples given to 3rd party organizations to research?

How can the validity of moon samples be differentiated from comet or meteorite samples?

Yes, and you can even do it yourself.Here is the checklist:

http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/luna.../checklist.cfm

Yes, NASA has provided samples of Lunar material to scientists world-wide. There are several indicators that the materials are from the Moon and are not meteoric samples found here on Earth. The most glaring difference is that Lunar samples bear evidence of having been exposed to radiation and micrometoroid impacts over billions of years. This would be charred off of any terrestrial meteorite.

If you'd like more information about this or any other aspect of a purported Moon landing hoax, I recommend the website Moon Base Clavius, run by our very own JayUtah.

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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Question.

Why should we struggle to help convince you that we did go to the moon, if, as you said in another topic:

What's the point if you can never really know anything?

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Why do we assume that just because there are reflectors on the moon that a human being must have landed on the surface and put it there?

There is no such assumption. However, the presence of the retroreflector is a fact that must be explained by some proposed cause. Any hypothesis for how it got there has to match up against other evidence.

Isn't it just as likely that we sent an unmanned probe to the moon and remotely landed a reflector on the surface?

No it isn't. There is a mountain of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that it was put there by a manned mission. There is no evidence that it was placed by an unmanned probe. There is a huge difference in credibility between a proposition for which there is much proof, and one for which there is no proof.

I'm not say that we didn't goto the moon, only that this "definitive proof" is hardly that or am I wrong?

It isn't characterized as "definitive proof." You're attempting a straw-man refutation. It is a fact that must be explained, and the explanation that best fits the evidence is the Apollo missions.

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

Out of curiosity, were any of these rocks, dust core samples given to 3rd party organizations to research?

Naturally, and there is worldwide consensus among the qualified experts that it represents material recovered directly from the lunar surface.

How can the validity of moon samples be differentiated from comet or meteorite samples?

By "validity" I assume you mean evidence of its provenance.

The difference between the Apollo samples and meteorites is night and day. Meteorites show clear evidence of having spent considerable time in the terrestrial environment: oxidation, hydration, thermal cycling, etc. These are clear tell-tales to geologists. The Apollo samples show evidence of what we'd expect from material subject to lunar conditions: wearing by micrometeoroids, anhydrous, and subject to cislunar radiation for long periods.

Proposing that geologists wouldn't be able to tell the difference between actual recovered samples and terrestrially located meteorites is pretty naive.

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

Question: why do you assume we assume any such thing? I conclude it from examination of the available evidence.

No, because there is not one shred of evidence for such a mission being undertaken.

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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.

Of course. Samples have been distributed worldwide for analysis.

Well for starters, screaming through the atmosphere at several thousand miles per hour, slamming into the ground, then sitting around for anything up to a number of millennia waiting to be picked up by a person who stumbles across it tends to leave some obvious markers...

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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.

Too often even engineers will adopt a common-sense attitude and try to deduce the behavior of some system instead of measuring or observing it. And even clients will ask "Why do I need to pay for a backup to Critical Component A? What could possibly go wrong with it?" To which the answer is "If we knew all that could go wrong with A, we'd simply alter the design to avoid or accommodate it; it's precisely because the potential failures cannot be enumerated that we provide a backup." The client wants to reason by cause and effect; the engineer simply reasons by effect: it is unacceptable for A to fail (for any reason), thus A is made redundant. It doesn't matter that "common sense" suggests A should never fail because it cannot imagine how.

In his autobiography, "They Said It Couldn't Be Done", Bill Lear wrote about his directions to the engineers working on the first Lear Jet (the model 23). He told them to eliminate as many components as possible from the design. His reasoning was that not only do you eliminate the cost and weight of the component, you eliminste the cost and weight of the backup. Lear's directions were a restatement of British engineer and test pilot Geoffery DeHavilland's dictate to "simplificate and build in lightness."

The only thing I'll add is that, say for a moment one supposes we did send unmanned probes went to the moon, set up the reflectors, collected samples, and returned them to earth.

Is the technology required to do that really so different than the technology to send men to the moon? Sure, you don't have to worry about life support systems and safety systems, but there's additional systems you would need in their place.

How convincing is the argument, in your mind, that "There is no way we could have ever sent men to the moon with that technology! But we did send and return probes."

Not that I mean any of the above as proof of anything, just some food for thought.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Well, no one is going to accuse the HBs of being rational. That their arguments are inconsistant is of no consequence to them.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Indubitably. No harm in pointing that out now and again though.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Of course not.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov