July 20th 1969: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." [1] The apparent flag waving on the "atmosphere free" moon is discussed below.
James Longuski, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering at Purdue University, dismissed the idea that man didn't land on the moon.
To suppose a conspiracy to fake a moon landing because the United States was technologically incapable of going to the moon, that numerous photos and films have been doctored, that a trip to the moon would have resulted in radiation killing the astronauts and that numerous key members of the Apollo program died under suspicious circumstances considering it would have to be a ten-year conspiracy involving more than 400,000 people who worked on the Apollo project including the 12 men who walked on the Moon, the six who flew with them as Command Module pilots, and another six astronauts who orbited the Moon is absurd in the highest degree.[2]Hundreds of thousands of people - including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled laborers - would have had to keep the secret. Longuski argues that it would have been much easier to really land on the Moon than to generate such a huge conspiracy to fake the landings. Penn Jillette made note of this in the "Conspiracy Theories" episode of his contrarian television show, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in 2005. He said that keeping that many people from talking about the Hoax would be impossible.
And as far as keeping people quiet, there were only eleven Apollo astronauts who died within the twenty-two month period before the first manned Apollo fight. And seven of them had non-space related fatal accidents within a year of one another. Yes that seems a bit odd, but the odds of that happening are 1 in 10,000. We don't know why James B. Irwin, Don F. Eisele, Stewart Allen Roosa and Jack Swigert all resigned from the program but there must have been a good reason.
Virgil Grissom, the NASA astronaut who hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule and told his wife Betty: "If there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me." Soon after, he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded. Some openly questioned NASA's knowledge of chemistry. Even a high school chemistry student knows that high-pressure oxygen is extremely explosive.
Conspiracy nuts will agree that the Apollo rockets were real, took off and sent the astronauts into orbit, but then they say that fabricating a rocket and getting it into orbit for several days kept the 400,000 busy working on the project. Then they argue that only a few hundred were involved in the big picture of the Hoax. The only thing real about the Apollo missions were the liftoffs. Once the capsule was aloft, there was only one source of video and photo information - and that was NASA. Only NASA was communicating with the astronauts. Most people at NASA would never have considered they were involved in something that was being hoaxed - they would never question what was on the screen in front of them.
The world tuned in to watch the moon landing and what looked like two blurred white ghosts throwing rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, inexplicably, NASA provided no direct link up. Networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston, making it impossible for anyone to examine it.
To date the only persons who had a link to the U.S. government, NASA and the Apollo program that openly question the Moon landings are Bill Kaysing, John Mauldin and Wernher von Braun.
Kaysing was the former head of technical publications for Rocketdyne in 1959. A Russian study supports Kaysing's claim that there is an area of very high radiation called the Van Allen Belts 272 miles from Earth. To pass through the belts would require the astronauts to be clothed in 4 feet of lead in order to avoid instant death. John Mauldin, a NASA physicist, disagrees and says they need 6.56168.
Both of them question how the astronauts were able to walk on the moon in such flimsy space suits and how they survived in the Lunar Landers on the moon's surface when, according to NASA, the walls of the landers were about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil. I am sure NASA has an adequate explanation, but so far I haven't seen it.
The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.NASA's response to these wild claims: "The Moon landings happened and the pictures are real." However on June 24, 2005 a NASA spokesperson, when asked about the return to the moon as preparation for even longer journeys to Mars and beyond, admitted NASA needed to find a good shield because of:
"a potential showstopper: radiation. Space beyond low-Earth orbit is awash with intense radiation from the Sun and from deep galactic sources such as supernovas ... "Why doesn't NASA just use their sixties technology?
Julian Scheer, the NASA public affairs officer, made fun of conspiracy theorists at a private party with 200 guests. He showed a clip from a film made on a movie set with footage of astronauts apparently on a lunar landscape, identical to what NASA claimed was the real lunar landscape.
"The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception."He then invited his audience to "Come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon."
Outer Space is Awash with Deadly Radiation
Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Astronauts orbiting earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected from the radiation in the Van Allen belt because they don't get near the belt. You might wonder why not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer after traveling 240,000 miles through the belts and encountering, according to astronomical data, no less than 1,485 such flares - not even a cancer among the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big solar flare started, causing ultra high levels of cosmic radiation.
Wernher von Braun, the "Father of Rocket Science," is quoted in 1953:
"It is commonly believed that man will fly directly from the earth to the moon, but to do this, we would require a vehicle of such gigantic proportions that it would prove an economic impossibility. It would have to develop sufficient speed to penetrate the atmosphere and overcome the earth's gravity and, having traveled all the way to the moon, it must still have enough fuel to land safely and make the return trip to earth. Furthermore, in order to give the expedition a margin of safety, we would not use one ship alone, but a minimum of three ... each rocket ship would be taller than New York's Empire State Building [almost ¼ mile high] and weigh about ten times the tonnage of the Queen Mary, or some 800,000 tons."Conquest of the Moon by Wernher von Braun, published in 1953 by Viking PressConspiracy nuts try and use Wernher's quote to show it was impossible to land a man on the moon, but they ignore that his statement was in 1953. Eight years later he told the Vice President of the United States that "We have a sporting chance of beating the Soviets to a soft-landing of a radio transmitter station on the Moon." [3]
Moon Landing Trick Photography
Jay Weidner believes that famed film maker Stanley Kubrick produced the televised moon walks using the elaborate trick-photography he used in his classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick's widow confirms that her husband and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon in order to finance the space program through public funds. Nixon, she says, didn't want an expensive public relations failure because he knew that men walking around in bulky space suits couldn't operate the camera controls, and the film stock would be useless because the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon would fry the film. The surface of the moon is at least 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
About the only connection you can make between Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1969 Moon Landing is that the Scotchlite screen material used in Front Screen Projection is also present on NASA's films. It's too bad NASA "accidentally" erased much of its lunar film because, with modern imaging tools, we could verify that man really landed on the moon.
The still photos from the Moon Landing are stunning but that's just the problem. How could the astronauts take thousands of pictures, adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in their pressurized air-conditioned space suits with thick gloves on their fingers? Each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused, not one was badly composed or even blurred.
David Percy believes that the obvious contradiction in the film and the pictures are evidence of deliberate "mistakes" left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out about the Moon Landing Hoax.
Percy might be right about the deliberate "mistakes" but that supposition assumes NASA is ignorant, clueless and just stupid.
I might agree with Percy had he written, "The obvious contradiction of the film and pictures are evidence of deliberate "mistakes" left there by NASA which was keen for the truth to one day get out about a conspiracy to make us believe in a Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy."
Batteries
Some of the crackpots that don't know anything about batteries are trying to argue that the landing was a hoax because the environment on the moon is simply too severe for the astronauts to have survived even with layers of insulating material covered by a highly reflective NASA's space suits.
Temperatures on the moon are extreme, ranging from boiling hot to freezing cold, depending on where the sun is shining. There is no significant atmosphere on the moon, so it cannot trap heat or insulate the surface.
The moon rotates on its axis in about 27 days. Daytime on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half days, followed by 13 and a half nights of darkness. When sunlight hits the moon's surface, the temperature can reach 253 degrees F (123 C). The "dark side of the moon" can have temperatures dipping to minus 243 F (minus 153 C).
Astronauts on the moon were supposedly protected from the extreme temperatures by internal heaters and battery powered cooling systems in their spacesuits. What is the Temperature on the Moon?
Why is it so hard to believe that portable batteries powered the heating and air conditioning units on each of the space suits? Batteries, according to NASA, operated the entire lunar module.
Why Weren't there any Stars in Night Sky?
Some believe that NASA exposed the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax! when they posted the Astronomy Picture of the Day, June 21, 2007.
Have you watched the video shown during the Apollo press conference when Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins said they didn't see stars? The video is on this page at the video icon: MoreInfoForScienceChallenge.html [a]
Is it possible that people are starting to rebel against the corruption and they are tired of maintaining the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax?
Answer, NO!
The only thing you can say about an image on NASA's website that admits that stars would be seen during daytime when there is no atmosphere to scatter the sunlight, is that it's consistent, but not proof, of a conspiracy to make you believe in a Moon Hoax conspiracy.
Why is the Flag Fluttering on the Moon?
Conspiracy theorists want to know, "Why the flag is fluttering if there's no wind on the 'atmosphere free' moon?" These naysayers point to the rod perpendicular to the pole, that you can see if you watch carefully, holding the flag up.
The answer is obvious.
The flag is mounted on one side on the pole, and along the top by another pole that sticks out to the side. The astronauts, according to NASA, needed to rotate the flagpole in order to better penetrate the lunar soil. The rod creates the effect of a breeze blowing the flag into that position. [4]According to these nuts who don't accept the astronauts needed to rotate the flagpole in order to better penetrate the lunar soil, an errant breeze blowing through Kubrick's movie set in the Nevada desert, caused the Flag to wave. Are these guys serious? Do they really believe that the photographic record, showing scores and scores of lighting, perspective, and artifact anomalies, as well as a perpendicular rod, proves Armstrong didn't walk on the moon?
The flag hangs from a horizontal rod that telescopes out from the vertical one. In Apollo 11, they couldn't get the rod to extend completely, so the flag didn't get stretched fully. It has a ripple in it, like a curtain that is not fully closed. In later flights, the astronauts didn't fully deploy it on purpose because they liked the way it looked. In other words, the flag looks like it is waving because the astronauts wanted it to look that way. Ironically, they did their job too well. It appears to have fooled a lot of people into thinking it waved.
What if the astronauts didn't add the rod supports and "rotate the flagpole in order to better penetrate the lunar soil?" Then the flag would just hang limply down and would not reveal the stars and stripes. Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax - Bad Astronomy
Then there is the image below of a decal on Apollo 15 that says "UNITED STATES."
The only thing you can say about a flag waving on the moon in 1969, Fox airing a special on the Moon Landing hoax in 2001 and some revolutionary scotch tape, is that it's consistent, but not proof, of a conspiracy to make you believe in a Moon Hoax conspiracy.
43 years later Photos Reveal the Flags on the Moon are Still Flying
An enduring question ever since the manned moon landings of the 1960s has been: Are the flags planted by the astronauts still standing? The verdict is now in, according to the latest photos of the moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) and studied by lunar scientists: Most do, in fact, still stand.
The Apollo 11 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera recently sent back "convincing" images of the six American flags planted in the lunar dirt by the astronauts 40+ years ago. Many scientists, including Robinson, were surprised that the flags survived the harsh ultraviolet light and temperatures of the lunar surface, but they did. The "experts" had assumed the flags could not survive the four decades of harsh conditions on the moon.
This recent image from the LROC camera shows the Apollo 16 flag and its shadow.
"Intuitively, experts mostly think it highly unlikely the Apollo flags could have endured the 42 years of exposure to vacuum, about 500 temperature swings from 242 F during the day to -280 F during the night, micrometeorites, radiation and ultraviolet light, some thinking the flags have all but disintegrated under such an assault of the environment," scientist James Fincannon, of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, wrote in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.
I don't know why everyone is surprised that the LRO has shown images of the flag. In recent years, photos from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have also shown other unprecedented details of the Apollo landing sites, such as views of the lunar landers, rovers, scientific instruments left behind on the surface and even the astronauts' boot prints.
This only shows that Americans know how to make flags and photographic film that can survive being bombarded with radiation and "micrometeors" that travel at speeds of 20,000 mph on the moon. The Soviet Flags outside the Mir space station in July 1991 were reduced to only two threads in less than one year.
Is this evidence the Apollo missions were a hoax? Did NASA, according to Jarrah White, one of the most influential moon lander investigators [5], shoot themselves in the foot by giving us proof that the LRO pictures have been doctored and more proof that Apollo was a fake?
Answer: No!
All NASA has done is to prove a conspiracy to make us believe in a conspiracy. It isn't possible NASA doesn't know that everyone with an IQ over 75 knows that a nylon flag can't be casting any shadows on the moon after 40+ years of radiation and micrometeoroids deterioration.
Epilogue
Eric Spitznagel met with Buzz Aldrin prior to the Astronaut Hall of Fame ceremony in 2010 and asked him a question that has been on his mind since he was five years old.
Eric Spitznagel: So here's my question: How do you pee and poop in your astronaut suit?Footnotes
Buzz Aldrin: (Laughs.) That has given me an awe for technology. You can be lying on your back in a Mercury capsule, and before technology came along, if you had to go to the bathroom, you'd be lying in a pool of your own urine.
Eric Spitznagel: Wasn't that the first thing you asked when you got the Moon-landing gig? "How am I gonna take a crap?"
Buzz Aldrin: We were well skilled in the art of disposal waste. There was such a thing called a "blue bag," which was kind of messy. There was a stickum on it, and you could stick it around your posterior. For urinating we had an ego-buster, which was like a condom catheter. We were cautioned not to overestimate our size. (Laughs.) Because if the condom was too big, there might be a little leakage.
Eric Spitznagel: That doesn't sound very hygienic. Were you walking around the Moon with a spacesuit filled with wee?
Buzz Aldrin: No, no, no. There was a connection to a one-way check valve in your thigh, so you could kind of move around like this (wiggles his leg) and squeeze the urine out into a larger bag that you could then dispose of.
Eric Spitznagel: Dispose of when you get back to Earth?
Buzz Aldrin: Or on the lunar surface.
Eric Spitznagel: On the Moon? So in addition to your footprint, there's a big bag of your excrement up there?
Buzz Aldrin: (Laughs.) Well no, probably not anymore. Sometimes we'd dispose of it during an EVA (extra-vehicular activity), when we were getting rid of a bunch of extra stuff. We did that on Gemini 12. I remember we were headed local horizontal, local vertical, and we opened the hatch and I had three bags worth gripped between my legs,
Eric Spitznagel: Three bags of...?
Buzz Aldrin: Yeah, yeah. And I just tossed them like this. (Pantomimes throwing bags over his shoulders.) Straight up! Being very familiar with orbital mechanics, I should have realized what I'd just done. I'd put those three bags on a free return trajectory. (Laughs.) Straight back to us!
Eric Spitznagel: This is starting to sound like a Farrelly Brothers comedy.
Buzz Aldrin: So an orbit later, we looked out the window and there were three bags in a row, heading straight for us.
Eric Spitznagel: Did you recognize what they were right away? A couple of years ago you hinted that you might've seen a UFO during a space mission. Is it possible you were just looking at floating bags of your own poo?
Buzz Aldrin: (Laughs.) No, not at all. They were very close. We could certainly tell what they were.
[1] "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." The missing article made a world of difference in literal meaning, though - instead of a statement linking the small action of one man with a monumental achievement for (and by) all of humanity, Armstrong instead uttered a somewhat contradictory phrase that equated a small step by the human race with a momentous achievement by humankind ("man" and "mankind" having the same approximate meaning in English). Nonetheless, since the quote as actually spoken by Armstrong still sounded good, and most everyone understood the meaning he intended to convey, his words were widely repeated that day and have since joined the pantheon of the most well-known quotes in the English language. Read more here.
[2] Moon landing conspiracy theories Other anomalies abound. One of the most intriguing is the state of technology today versus what it supposedly was during the 1960s. White observes that the highest altitude above the earth which modern space missions have reached is about 400 miles. While the brevity of distance is striking in contrast to the 240,000 miles to the moon, the real issue is the Allen Belt, an electromagnetic force field whose radiation is too powerful for man to withstand for any period of time - to say nothing of the two days required to take the spacecraft through it - which keeps man under the 400 foot ceiling.
Although not mentioned by the documentary, we note that that the spacecraft would have to travel 3300 miles per hour to reach the moon within the alleged 3 days of travel. We cannot produce aircraft to operate at that speed today, to say nothing of 1969, nor can man survive at that speed even in the weightlessness of space.
In general, given what we know now about technology and its limits, it is rolling on the floor funny to think that the technology of 1969 could take man 480,000 miles round trip when going 400 miles into space is a great challenge in 2013. Most Americans are damned lucky to have a car which can go 100,000 miles in Earth's agreeable climate. And to go that distance and live on the moon for 33 hours without a hitch is the most lunatic lie imaginable. Having many years with the software industry, project management, and military training missions, we can say that the likelihood of that outcome is absolutely zero degrees Kelvin.
[3] Wernher von Braun to the Vice President of the United States, 29 April 1961, NASA
[5] And to make doubly sure that everyone believes Jarrah White, his channel and youtube account is suspended and a number of moon landing investigators have been attacked and harassed:
18 Dec 2013, JW Studios suspended after complaints,YouTube account Jarrah White has been terminated because we have received multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants, including:yesiamawizardjonny
Is this really an attack on our right of free speech and attempt to silence the people who have questioned NASA and the moon landings? I say "attempt" because the video that was removed can be viewed at JW Studios, here is the link
I am sorry to disappoint these deluded truth seekers but the only thing this proves is a conspiracy to make you believe in a Moon Hoax conspiracy.
There is a way that both the conspiracy theorists and the lunar landing believers can be right; NASA did land on the moon, but the TV broadcast, pictures and media circus around the whole thing are fake!
Americans are very good at entertainment. The best movie-making industry in the world. They know that filming a live event is a risky thing to do. Anything could go wrong, and everyone would be disappointed. It is much better to record the "live" shows with a controlled audience, cut it and show the best parts later. This even allows retakes and other filmatic magic.
This was probably the most important show of might in the whole Cold War era, and in my opinion it is entirely believable that the USA didn't leave anything to chance.