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That's $15,000 that I paid a percentage of to try to convince brain damaged twits that we really did land on the moon. That's $15,000 more that could be spent getting data off of Galileo's flyby of Amalthea

Basically, we really did land on the moon.

- Sam

This should clear up any misconceptions you might have regarding the Americans landing on the moon

please read and comment.

There was also a recent article in Discovery magazine mentioning this bad-science-blundering. They provided the link to bad astronomy and mentioned some of the other urban-legends-of-science like being able to balance an egg during the equinox. One of the points they presented was how scientists do some experiments with bouncing laser beams off a mirror on the moon which the Apollo astronauts placed there. How's that for not landing on the moon?! Check it out some details here

...and rather well, I thought, by the guy who runs BadAstronomy.Com.

Here is a direct link to the article where he does so, where he tears apart the horrible Fox TV special that was on in 2001.

...and rather well, I thought, by the guy who runs BadAstronomy.Com.

Here is a direct link to the article where he does so, where he tears apart the horrible Fox TV special that was on in 2001.

Ok I am going to admit it: I had serious doubts that NASA went to the moon after seeing the Fox special. I didnt know enough (and still dont)about lunar physics or photography to be able to make a judgement call on a lot of the claims. The one claim that struck a chord with me was the crosshairs missing from the pictures. That one I could understand. Unfortuneately the NASA spokeman was not cast in a good light at all. He was evasive on a lot of the issues and came across as someone who was trying to hide something. Now whether this was the producers' fault or whether this guy was just weasley in real life, I dont know. But I thought they raised valid concerns and I couldnt find anything that refuted the claims put forward in the special.

That was until I saw this article:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
They could save themselves 15k and just link to that. He refutes all the claims of the doubters with very rational explanations.

See the internet is good for something after all!

www.badastronomy.com

...stars were lost most likely due to the fact that Saturn is such a bright planet - I am sure that if they adjusted the image to see the stars the image of Saturn would be saturated and just a bright blob.

There's an even more detailed explanation of this phenomenon at the Bad Astronomy web site, in the section where research astronomer and part-time hoax debunker Phil Plait explains in great detail why there are no stars in the pictures from the moon. Plait debunks the Fox TV least-common-denominator showcase "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" point by point... too bad the rubes the show was targeted to probably can't figure out that "Internit thang" anyway.

...stars were lost most likely due to the fact that Saturn is such a bright planet - I am sure that if they adjusted the image to see the stars the image of Saturn would be saturated and just a bright blob.

There's an even more detailed explanation of this phenomenon at the Bad Astronomy web site, in the section where research astronomer and part-time hoax debunker Phil Plait explains in great detail why there are no stars in the pictures from the moon. Plait debunks the Fox TV least-common-denominator showcase "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" point by point... too bad the rubes the show was targeted to probably can't figure out that "Internit thang" anyway.

The minute I saw it on slashdot, just like the last time, I knew people would go into the "this is just impossible" mode without at least giving it a shot.

For those of you who don't stay up til 5am listening to Art Bell, here's a good primer on all the "Planet X" garbage assembled by Phil Plait. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/index .html

People have already made counter arguments for each of the shows claims.

here

To say the moon landing trip nuts will ever be satisified is like saying the JFK assasination nutballs will every be satisified. But, at any rate, for anybody who has the slightest inclination to believe these nutballs here is a link to Phil Blait's badastronomy page on the moon landing 'hoax': Here.

And, just for shits and jiggles, here is a link about Buzz Aldrin punching a man who did an ambush interview claiming he never landed on the moon here, or for you lazy people here is the summary:

It certainly did with Buzz Aldrin. Mr. Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, was ambushed by Mr. Sibrel with the Bible trick. On September 9, 2002, Mr. Sibrel jumped out at Mr. Aldrin with the Bible, daring him to swear on it. told Mr. Sibrel to go away repeatedly, and even asked for the police. When Mr. Sibrel physically blocked his path, Mr. Aldrin (who is 72, 5'10" and 160 pounds) punched Mr. Sibrel (37, 6"2" and 250 pounds) in the face.

To say the moon landing trip nuts will ever be satisified is like saying the JFK assasination nutballs will every be satisified. But, at any rate, for anybody who has the slightest inclination to believe these nutballs here is a link to Phil Blait's badastronomy page on the moon landing 'hoax': Here.

And, just for shits and jiggles, here is a link about Buzz Aldrin punching a man who did an ambush interview claiming he never landed on the moon here, or for you lazy people here is the summary:

It certainly did with Buzz Aldrin. Mr. Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, was ambushed by Mr. Sibrel with the Bible trick. On September 9, 2002, Mr. Sibrel jumped out at Mr. Aldrin with the Bible, daring him to swear on it. told Mr. Sibrel to go away repeatedly, and even asked for the police. When Mr. Sibrel physically blocked his path, Mr. Aldrin (who is 72, 5'10" and 160 pounds) punched Mr. Sibrel (37, 6"2" and 250 pounds) in the face.

Try the "far side of the moon", since there is no dark side of the moon.

Please see this for the explanation.

Heres a neat page that demonstrates the effect. (Its down at the bottom but the rest of it is good too.)

For a fascinating article that discredits the nay-sayers who claim the moon-landing was fake, check out this piece by Ian Goddard. It contains photos that recreate the various light phenomena seen in the apollo photographs.

The answer to the camera's crosshair vanishing trick can been found here: Bad Astronomy Moon shots [http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/iangoddard/moo n01.htm]

At least it wasn't an X-10 pop-up ....

we are going to need to figure out how to keep cables from breaking in *much* colder regions (dark side of the moon).

As long as we're talking about imaginary places, what does it matter if we have a real solution? Just make something up, and it'll work, because there's no such place as the "dark side of the moon". (Or, at least, it's not a fixed place, so while some part of the moon is always dark, it's not always the same spot, just as with Earth and other planets.)

The show u saw was full of shit .. this website disproves evrerything they said on that show.

Check out http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html.

Actually the direction water goes down the drain is caused by local factors, such as random currents and the shape of the sink. Coriolis effects from the spinning of the Earth are too small to affect the water in your sink.

See this link from Bad Astronomy.

Bad Astronomy has a good page with links to sites debunking of all the "we didn't go to the moon" theories. He also has a thing he wrote addressing the Fox special about how we didn't go. Have a read.

you can make up your own mind by checking out some of the sites listed below.

Here's another.

Please, I'm sure you think it's funny to spew out garbage about the moon landing being a hoax, but some of us take science a little more seriously. Just in case you're serious about the moon landings being fake, here's some real scientific information about why they can't be fake.

The guy is trying to emulate Phil Plait's Bad Astrononomy (http://www.badastronomy.com) but does a poor job, because the guy is hung up on the plots. He touches on physics here and there, but mostly complains about "realism." Movies are escapism. If you want funny, less review, more real science, stick with Phil. And aside from the occasional "I liked thei movie", Phil doesn't get hung up on the plots and "realism" issues.

They forgot about The Mummy Returns
Okay, other people have attempted to point this out, but without much success, so I'm just going to link you to the full Bad Astronomy review.
(Another excellent page for bad science in movies, BTW).

As for delivery, within a week of performing my on-line search, I can expect an electronic voice on my answering machine inviting me to make a 10 minute bike ride and have my desired book in my hot little hands.

You're assuming the Apollo Moon landings actually occurred. Please present your evidence that allows you to reach that conclusion.

1. No stars in the pictures. If the landings had been faked, they would have painted stars on the backdrop to make the moon hoax idiots happy. Everybody knows that when you take pictures in the daytime you don't see stars, even with no atmosphere, because of the shutter settings required to avoid overexposure.

2. The mirror left on the moon by the astronauts, which has been reflecting lasers from earth ever since.

3. The requirement of an elaborate conspiracy that all moon hoax theories require. Almost any theory can be made logically consistent if you can explain away all contrary evidence with an elaborate conspiracy.

4. To hold their theories together, the moon hoax people usually insist that all space travel is impossible, the Van Allen radiation belts will kill you, the shuttle orbits are faked as well, and that Christa McAuliffe was murdered because she found out the truth and wouldn't keep it a secret, etc.

5. The only major network to take the moon hoax idea seriously has been FOX, which aired a one-hour special on it hosted by Mitch Pileggi from the X-Files (!). Fair and balanced as usual, FOX presented a show that was dominated by moon hoax nutcases like Kaysing and that concluded that yes, the moon landings were faked.

To see a refutation of all the moon hoax conspiracy arguments see Bad Astronomy.

Debunking the lunar landing skeptics
The above is an excellent link explaining why all the so called 'science' against the lunar landing is bunk and hokum. FOX had a show about people who think the Lunar landing is fake, and this page tears apart these arguments, one by one.

Remember a while back the FOX network did a show titled "Did We Really Land on The Moon?". BadAstronomy.com has a neat little article disproving every major arugement that was brought up in the show. Everything on the site is rather clear and uses something people like to call logic. Interesting read...

Remember a while back the FOX network did a show titled "Did We Really Land on The Moon?". BadAstronomy.com has a neat little article disproving every major arugement that was brought up in the show. Everything on the site is rather clear and uses something people like to call logic. Interesting read...

This site is dedicaterd to the topic of infamously bad science in movies.

Look no further for humorous reading.

Me.

You are wrong. A lot of people believe that one side of the moon is permanently dark. Its just not true. Check out www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/dark_side.html

Allthough the rantings of the ignorant conspiracy theorist have all been disproven, we are still subjected to this crap over and over. We did land on the moon. The supposed irregularities of the pictures, the unscientific rantings about radiation shielding, etc. Are just plain stupid. Get a clue you shizhot.

Take a look, maybe you can learn something about logic and carefull analysis. Probably not though.

It starts off with:
Bad Astronomy: "That's as remote as the dark side of the Moon!"
Good astronomy: "That's as remote as the far side of the Moon!"

...then goes on to complain about popular song lyrics and generally whine about the fact that anyone has ever used the expression "dark side of the moon."

It finishes with: "The Pink Floyd album may be one of the best selling albums of all time, but astronomically it's in eclipse."

It contains no claim about people being mistaught that one side of the moon is always dark, just a baseless assumption that the expression must be interpreted that way. And it fails as an educational resource by missing a good reason to call the far side the "dark side."

It's obnoxious "ha ha!" nitpicking, but worse for being built on bad reasoning. If it was isolated, I wouldn't have bothered, but it's not the only example on the site: take this, for example. This page doesn't even make sense:
Bad Astronomy: The Moon appears larger on the horizon than overhead because you are comparing it to foreground objects.
Good astronomy: The Moon does appear larger on the horizon, but it is because of the way we perceive the sky.

What the heck is with that? The page itself doesn't contain an explanation of "the way we perceive the sky," and the linked essays actually imply that the presence of foreground objects, particularly the horizon, is a key part of this optical illusion.

At best, he's making a meaningless distinction, and being rude about it. This is characteristic of the site in general, and it is not a worthy reference.

Of course, any real geek would known that there's no such thing.

Someone needs to mod the above up; it's important. I would have rephrased the post to reflect that this was NOT the first image of a brown dwarf orbiting a star if I knew about it before I submitted the comment.

On closer examination, the Gemini North press release does not claim to be the first to image a brown dwarf; from the site:"The faint companion is separated from its parent star by less than the distance between the Sun and the planet Uranus and is the smallest separation brown dwarf companion seen with direct imaging". It is only the CNN story that incorrectly claims this.....Hmmmm perhaps a notification is in order.

Not quite. A good explanation can be found here.

No, its called the dark side of the moon because it always faces away from the SUN

A "new" moon occurs when the Moon is closer to the Sun than the Earth. Then all the light falls on the far side and none on the side facing the Earth. For a "full" moon, the Moon is further than the Earth and all of the sunlight falls on the face nearer the Earth. But in both cases we're seeing the same face.

See here for a good treatment.

Fox News wants us to believe that the Lunar landings were faked, and that the government has lasers which can shoot down ordnance from space? Hmmm....

Before you flame: yes, I know that was meant as a joke, and yes, this post is more than slightly off topic (but Slashback threads often are), but this is probably going to be discussed here sooner or later anyhow so I might as well take some preventative measures.

The lunar landings were not fake. The "evidence" is poor at best, and just blatantly stupid otherwise. I won't reiterate all arguments against this silly conspiracy theorys validity, as you can read all about it, for example, here or here.

There are lots of nice conspiracy theories that really have some nice arguments that actually speak for them, but this is not one of those. This one should really die. Seriously, I'd go for Illuminati or Elvis any day of the week if this was my only alternative.

Before you flame: yes, I know that was meant as a joke, and yes, this post is more than slightly off topic (but Slashback threads often are), but this is probably going to be discussed here sooner or later anyhow so I might as well take some preventative measures.

The lunar landings were not fake. The "evidence" is poor at best, and just blatantly stupid otherwise. I won't reiterate all arguments against this silly conspiracy theorys validity, as you can read all about it, for example, here or here.

There are lots of nice conspiracy theories that really have some nice arguments that actually speak for them, but this is not one of those. This one should really die. Seriously, I'd go for Illuminati or Elvis any day of the week if this was my only alternative.

Here's a technical reason: Murphy's law.

I assume You dont drive a car then? You've got a greater chance of dying from an auto accident than from a meltdown.

No one should be compelled to explain why they choose to engage in risky behaviour that doesn't put others at risk. Engaging in risky behaviour doesn't remove one's right to join the debate about risks imposed on you, whether you like it or not.

Drive a car. Eat red meat. Smoke cigarettes. Smoke crack cocaine! Go skydiving. Date high-strung supermodels! People should be allowed to do these things, when they don't put others at risk, without exposing their reasons to scrutiny and ridicule. They shouldn't have to say what their payoff is. That is private.

Maybe I would like to try dating a beautiful, high-strung supermodel? Don't try and stop me! Don't try to make me explain why!

You only have a real democracy when you have healthy, informed debate. Let's let majority rule after we have had a full, healthy, informed debate.

Perceived risk? Actual risk? Of course there can be huge variance between the two.

You can make predictions of risk through modeling, through statistical examination of similar things from the past, using other intellectual tools.

It is still just an estimate.

If you are going to be honest about using modeling to estimate a risk, you state your assumptions up front. State the ones you know about at least, as there are always going to be unstated, unexamined assumptions.

The assumptions a model is based on are all good provinces for informed debate. Your opponents get to ask you searching questions to determine your credibility.

"the chances of dying from a nuclear accident in space are outweighed by the lives saved by using nuclear power to stop an asteroid"

Yes, I saw Armageddon and Deep Impact too. They were highly diverting. And Liv Tyler and Tea Leoni are beautiful gals, but let's not insult the other people in this discussion by turning to a pair of movies to back up your reasoning over a serious issue.

I challenge you to cite any deeply thought out reasoning predicting the dangers of nukes in space. And, as for the difficulty of diverting even the smallest comet? I challenge you to show you have done any serious research on this question.

Here is a link to a review of Deep Impact by an astronomer, who addresses some of these questions, just to get you started. It is aimed at the average intelligent person.

I challenge you to cite any hard numbers for the estimate of how often comets smash into the earth. How many orders of magnitude separate the direst prediction from the most optimistic? Let's be frank, the estimates are very fuzzy. They depend on all kinds of assumptions we can't be accurate about. So these predictions are ballpark estimates.

Let me suggest that it is a big mistake to cite ballpark predictions as hard facts. You weaken your own side of the debate when you do so. Human nature being what it is, you taint your colleagues who do back their arguments up solidly, by association with your sloppy thinking.

So what does it mean when you say the one risk "outweighs" the other? How much credibility should we attach to your comparison of these two risks?

You try to use this second comparison to bolster your first comparison. Nuclear reactors are safer than cars.

Cars last about a decade, and we have about a hundred years of statistics on their use. And we have built and junked hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of cars. So, I won't challenge you to show that we can use statistical analysis of past events to make a very accurate prediction of how safe my next trip in an auto will be.

We have been building Nuclear reactors for fifty years, and we have built thousands of reactors for power generation. I don't know if you have noticed, this is a lot smaller statistical sample.

Nuclear reactors last longer than cars too. Should we assume they last thirty years? Opponents of nuclear power generation would challenge that assumption. They would argue that the real lifetime extends far beyond the period when it is actively generating power.

In a healthy democracy we get to challenge one another's assumptions.

May I suggest that an ongoing debate over the real lifetime of a nuclear power plant very seriously weakens a statistical argument for the safety of nuclear reactors?

But let me return to your first point.

You've got a heck of a lot of nerve telling others what reasoning they can and can't use when your own reasoning is so specious.

I kidded about wanting to date a supermodel because the risk of choosing to date a super-model obviously has nothing to do with whether I get to share in the debate over nuclear energy. Choosing to drive a car also has nothing to do with my right to join the debate, but it is not so obvious.

[L]ast I checked IRON burns up in our atmosphere.

Actually, what generally happens is the outer layers are melted by friction in the atmosphere and blown off by the same. That's not really the same thing as burning.

Even if [anything living] was inside something and not directly in contact with the atmosphere, and that object was large enough to hit the ground and not completely burn up, anything inside would be cooked to an enormous temperature.

That depends on what you mean by "enormous". Certainly it gets pretty hot inside the meteor, but not nearly so hot as it does on the outside. If it did, it wouldn't reach the ground at all. I suggest reading the addendum of this page. Actually, I recommend reading the whole site, as it's both informative and amusing.

I don't why there's still this belief that there was an actual trip to the moon with people going back and forth with 30+ years old technology.

Why has not the US set up a permanent station in the moon. After all, today's technology is much better than 30 years ago.

Why stopping the "moon trips" altogether?

Why even with all the powerful telescopes we have today, there's not even a single (NOT ONE) good shot of artifacts left in the moon from the trip 30 years ago? And yet, they have great shots of Neptune, Saturn, etc.

You are a moron. There are thousands of photos, 382kg of lunar samples, testimony from thousands of people involved in the lunar missions, from astronauts to engineers at private firms that built the spacecraft. If that's not enough, have someone read to you from this link: Bad Astronomy

If you are still unconvinced, please get a vasectomy or your tubes tied (your doctor can tell you which procedure is appropriate for you).

It has been posted here before, but the site Bad Astronomy has some great information on combatting the people who believe that the landings were faked. Most of the information is laid out in a good manner that is easy to understand, partic for third parties you point to the site.