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I wonder... does an orbit from a launch in the Southern Hemisphere go in the opposite direcion from an orbit launched in the Northern? Kinda like a toilet bowl?

Argh! Sounds like a job for www.BadAstronomy.com

A good explanation of what's wrong with the "evidence" in the Fox show is here.

Of course, anyone with a lick of sense who lived in that era already knows it couldn't have been a hoax. See S20451's message for the long version. Short version: 10,000 contractors would have had to have been in on it. Many amateur astronomers were able to see the capsules with their telescopes, and many ham radio operators could pick up the telemetry. The Russians would definitely have noticed if we were cheating, and they weren't friendly. Even the French would have spotted it, and making fun of Americans whenever possible was official French policy at the time. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

I believe that he is refering to the Fox special about the moon landings being a hoax that there was an article about a couple of weeks ago.
check out this article on badastronomy.com.

"So, can anyone explain to me why these things happened?"

Three of your four questions were answered in the link given in the article.

Another good source was Michael Shermer's "E-Skeptic" email for February 17, 2001. I won't copy and paste it in because I don't know if that's allowed; unfortunately I also can't find it online at the Skeptic magazine website. Oh well...

"The nasa guy on the show commonly said that their arguements did not make sense, but he never actually said why. He never gave any explanation for their arguements, just a general, that guys crazy."

As Skeptic's writeup commented,

"Unfortunately, this NASA guy had obviously never read any of the conspiracy claims, or the answers to them, for this is the biggest no-brainer debunking in skeptical history that anyone who actually knew something about the Apollo space program could have handled."

This is a common trick used by sensationalistic crap TV. They have an "expert" who has not had time to think about debunking the specific issues, and then frame the presentation as if his failure to immediately respond means that all scientists everywhere are similarly dumbfounded. This is not science, it's National Enquirer type entertainment.

"1. The lack of any dust on the landing feet of the lunar lander. (It would seem to me a landing like that would kick up quite a bit of dust, some of which would setttle on the landing feet)."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

First, the lunar dust is denser than what we think of as dust; it's apparently more like dense sand.

Second, your intuition about how much dust would be "kicked up" is based on your experience in an atmosphere. If you spread out dust and blow straight down into it, the pressure of your breath into the atmosphere will spread around the dust a lot more than your breath alone. You'll see dust curling up and around, and being pushed out, and drifting down slowly, due to the atmosphere.

With a rocket in a vacuum, only those dust particles directly pushed by the rocket exhaust move. An area directly underneath the rocket would be swept clean, but just a few feet away there may be no effect -- or there may be thicker dust because what was under the rocket had to go somewhere.

"2. The cameras the astronauts had crosshairs permanantly in the frames. In some moon photos the crosshairs are BEHIND objects on the moon."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

It's bleed-over. When the thin black lines appear in front of something light-colored, the exposed film appears to erase the thin black lines. You see this all the time, and it's something photographers have to be aware of.

Besides, what is the claim here? That NASA didn't actually use crosshair cameras in their $30 billion "simulated" moon landing? Is the theory that NASA instead went out of their way to meticulously paint black crosshairs on the background of the photo? Absurd.

"3. The lack of a blast crater. (This one was partial explained, an expert said that the lander didn't need much actual blast force to land... however i would have thought in the lower gravity of space, it would have made an indentation because of how the entire surface seemed to be just a dust or sand.)"

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

See number 1 above. The crater was there, but more localized than your experience in an atmosphere would expect.

Also, the main point here is the rocket motor which the non-moonie suggests had "30,000 pounds" of thrust. Guess what? It had a throttle. Would the astronauts endanger their lives and mission by roaring down at the surface at maximum velocity so that they had to have the throttle wide-open to land? Of course not.

They did the 30,000-pound burns high above the surface, and by the time they were a few feet above the surface, it was operating at a fraction of its capacity.

"4. There is no engine noise on the tape during the landing. Wouldn't there be a lot of engine noise?"

I didn't see the show and I don't know what was said about this; this is the only point that isn't addressed at badastronomy.com or in the Skeptic writeup.

I guess the issue is that the LEM lander was doing rocket burns during descent and we should have heard the noise on the tape. I would point out, first, they were not doing continuous burns, I don't know what fraction of the descent time the rocket was actually on. Second, I do not believe the comm link was open the whole time. Third, I would not be at all surprised if the rocket motor caused more vibration than noise inside the LEM. Again, our experience in an atmosphere can be counter-intuitive, and rockets are constructed so that most of the energy, sound and otherwise, goes out the nozzle.

Fourth, given the deceitful way that these charlatans try to convince the gullible, I would not be at all surprised if they distorted the evidence regarding rocket noise.

Jamie McCarthy

"So, can anyone explain to me why these things happened?"

Three of your four questions were answered in the link given in the article.

Another good source was Michael Shermer's "E-Skeptic" email for February 17, 2001. I won't copy and paste it in because I don't know if that's allowed; unfortunately I also can't find it online at the Skeptic magazine website. Oh well...

"The nasa guy on the show commonly said that their arguements did not make sense, but he never actually said why. He never gave any explanation for their arguements, just a general, that guys crazy."

As Skeptic's writeup commented,

"Unfortunately, this NASA guy had obviously never read any of the conspiracy claims, or the answers to them, for this is the biggest no-brainer debunking in skeptical history that anyone who actually knew something about the Apollo space program could have handled."

This is a common trick used by sensationalistic crap TV. They have an "expert" who has not had time to think about debunking the specific issues, and then frame the presentation as if his failure to immediately respond means that all scientists everywhere are similarly dumbfounded. This is not science, it's National Enquirer type entertainment.

"1. The lack of any dust on the landing feet of the lunar lander. (It would seem to me a landing like that would kick up quite a bit of dust, some of which would setttle on the landing feet)."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

First, the lunar dust is denser than what we think of as dust; it's apparently more like dense sand.

Second, your intuition about how much dust would be "kicked up" is based on your experience in an atmosphere. If you spread out dust and blow straight down into it, the pressure of your breath into the atmosphere will spread around the dust a lot more than your breath alone. You'll see dust curling up and around, and being pushed out, and drifting down slowly, due to the atmosphere.

With a rocket in a vacuum, only those dust particles directly pushed by the rocket exhaust move. An area directly underneath the rocket would be swept clean, but just a few feet away there may be no effect -- or there may be thicker dust because what was under the rocket had to go somewhere.

"2. The cameras the astronauts had crosshairs permanantly in the frames. In some moon photos the crosshairs are BEHIND objects on the moon."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

It's bleed-over. When the thin black lines appear in front of something light-colored, the exposed film appears to erase the thin black lines. You see this all the time, and it's something photographers have to be aware of.

Besides, what is the claim here? That NASA didn't actually use crosshair cameras in their $30 billion "simulated" moon landing? Is the theory that NASA instead went out of their way to meticulously paint black crosshairs on the background of the photo? Absurd.

"3. The lack of a blast crater. (This one was partial explained, an expert said that the lander didn't need much actual blast force to land... however i would have thought in the lower gravity of space, it would have made an indentation because of how the entire surface seemed to be just a dust or sand.)"

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

See number 1 above. The crater was there, but more localized than your experience in an atmosphere would expect.

Also, the main point here is the rocket motor which the non-moonie suggests had "30,000 pounds" of thrust. Guess what? It had a throttle. Would the astronauts endanger their lives and mission by roaring down at the surface at maximum velocity so that they had to have the throttle wide-open to land? Of course not.

They did the 30,000-pound burns high above the surface, and by the time they were a few feet above the surface, it was operating at a fraction of its capacity.

"4. There is no engine noise on the tape during the landing. Wouldn't there be a lot of engine noise?"

I didn't see the show and I don't know what was said about this; this is the only point that isn't addressed at badastronomy.com or in the Skeptic writeup.

I guess the issue is that the LEM lander was doing rocket burns during descent and we should have heard the noise on the tape. I would point out, first, they were not doing continuous burns, I don't know what fraction of the descent time the rocket was actually on. Second, I do not believe the comm link was open the whole time. Third, I would not be at all surprised if the rocket motor caused more vibration than noise inside the LEM. Again, our experience in an atmosphere can be counter-intuitive, and rockets are constructed so that most of the energy, sound and otherwise, goes out the nozzle.

Fourth, given the deceitful way that these charlatans try to convince the gullible, I would not be at all surprised if they distorted the evidence regarding rocket noise.

Jamie McCarthy

"So, can anyone explain to me why these things happened?"

Three of your four questions were answered in the link given in the article.

Another good source was Michael Shermer's "E-Skeptic" email for February 17, 2001. I won't copy and paste it in because I don't know if that's allowed; unfortunately I also can't find it online at the Skeptic magazine website. Oh well...

"The nasa guy on the show commonly said that their arguements did not make sense, but he never actually said why. He never gave any explanation for their arguements, just a general, that guys crazy."

As Skeptic's writeup commented,

"Unfortunately, this NASA guy had obviously never read any of the conspiracy claims, or the answers to them, for this is the biggest no-brainer debunking in skeptical history that anyone who actually knew something about the Apollo space program could have handled."

This is a common trick used by sensationalistic crap TV. They have an "expert" who has not had time to think about debunking the specific issues, and then frame the presentation as if his failure to immediately respond means that all scientists everywhere are similarly dumbfounded. This is not science, it's National Enquirer type entertainment.

"1. The lack of any dust on the landing feet of the lunar lander. (It would seem to me a landing like that would kick up quite a bit of dust, some of which would setttle on the landing feet)."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

First, the lunar dust is denser than what we think of as dust; it's apparently more like dense sand.

Second, your intuition about how much dust would be "kicked up" is based on your experience in an atmosphere. If you spread out dust and blow straight down into it, the pressure of your breath into the atmosphere will spread around the dust a lot more than your breath alone. You'll see dust curling up and around, and being pushed out, and drifting down slowly, due to the atmosphere.

With a rocket in a vacuum, only those dust particles directly pushed by the rocket exhaust move. An area directly underneath the rocket would be swept clean, but just a few feet away there may be no effect -- or there may be thicker dust because what was under the rocket had to go somewhere.

"2. The cameras the astronauts had crosshairs permanantly in the frames. In some moon photos the crosshairs are BEHIND objects on the moon."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

It's bleed-over. When the thin black lines appear in front of something light-colored, the exposed film appears to erase the thin black lines. You see this all the time, and it's something photographers have to be aware of.

Besides, what is the claim here? That NASA didn't actually use crosshair cameras in their $30 billion "simulated" moon landing? Is the theory that NASA instead went out of their way to meticulously paint black crosshairs on the background of the photo? Absurd.

"3. The lack of a blast crater. (This one was partial explained, an expert said that the lander didn't need much actual blast force to land... however i would have thought in the lower gravity of space, it would have made an indentation because of how the entire surface seemed to be just a dust or sand.)"

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

See number 1 above. The crater was there, but more localized than your experience in an atmosphere would expect.

Also, the main point here is the rocket motor which the non-moonie suggests had "30,000 pounds" of thrust. Guess what? It had a throttle. Would the astronauts endanger their lives and mission by roaring down at the surface at maximum velocity so that they had to have the throttle wide-open to land? Of course not.

They did the 30,000-pound burns high above the surface, and by the time they were a few feet above the surface, it was operating at a fraction of its capacity.

"4. There is no engine noise on the tape during the landing. Wouldn't there be a lot of engine noise?"

I didn't see the show and I don't know what was said about this; this is the only point that isn't addressed at badastronomy.com or in the Skeptic writeup.

I guess the issue is that the LEM lander was doing rocket burns during descent and we should have heard the noise on the tape. I would point out, first, they were not doing continuous burns, I don't know what fraction of the descent time the rocket was actually on. Second, I do not believe the comm link was open the whole time. Third, I would not be at all surprised if the rocket motor caused more vibration than noise inside the LEM. Again, our experience in an atmosphere can be counter-intuitive, and rockets are constructed so that most of the energy, sound and otherwise, goes out the nozzle.

Fourth, given the deceitful way that these charlatans try to convince the gullible, I would not be at all surprised if they distorted the evidence regarding rocket noise.

Jamie McCarthy

"So, can anyone explain to me why these things happened?"

Three of your four questions were answered in the link given in the article.

Another good source was Michael Shermer's "E-Skeptic" email for February 17, 2001. I won't copy and paste it in because I don't know if that's allowed; unfortunately I also can't find it online at the Skeptic magazine website. Oh well...

"The nasa guy on the show commonly said that their arguements did not make sense, but he never actually said why. He never gave any explanation for their arguements, just a general, that guys crazy."

As Skeptic's writeup commented,

"Unfortunately, this NASA guy had obviously never read any of the conspiracy claims, or the answers to them, for this is the biggest no-brainer debunking in skeptical history that anyone who actually knew something about the Apollo space program could have handled."

This is a common trick used by sensationalistic crap TV. They have an "expert" who has not had time to think about debunking the specific issues, and then frame the presentation as if his failure to immediately respond means that all scientists everywhere are similarly dumbfounded. This is not science, it's National Enquirer type entertainment.

"1. The lack of any dust on the landing feet of the lunar lander. (It would seem to me a landing like that would kick up quite a bit of dust, some of which would setttle on the landing feet)."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

First, the lunar dust is denser than what we think of as dust; it's apparently more like dense sand.

Second, your intuition about how much dust would be "kicked up" is based on your experience in an atmosphere. If you spread out dust and blow straight down into it, the pressure of your breath into the atmosphere will spread around the dust a lot more than your breath alone. You'll see dust curling up and around, and being pushed out, and drifting down slowly, due to the atmosphere.

With a rocket in a vacuum, only those dust particles directly pushed by the rocket exhaust move. An area directly underneath the rocket would be swept clean, but just a few feet away there may be no effect -- or there may be thicker dust because what was under the rocket had to go somewhere.

"2. The cameras the astronauts had crosshairs permanantly in the frames. In some moon photos the crosshairs are BEHIND objects on the moon."

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

It's bleed-over. When the thin black lines appear in front of something light-colored, the exposed film appears to erase the thin black lines. You see this all the time, and it's something photographers have to be aware of.

Besides, what is the claim here? That NASA didn't actually use crosshair cameras in their $30 billion "simulated" moon landing? Is the theory that NASA instead went out of their way to meticulously paint black crosshairs on the background of the photo? Absurd.

"3. The lack of a blast crater. (This one was partial explained, an expert said that the lander didn't need much actual blast force to land... however i would have thought in the lower gravity of space, it would have made an indentation because of how the entire surface seemed to be just a dust or sand.)"

The badastronomy.com link given in the story writeup answers this.

See number 1 above. The crater was there, but more localized than your experience in an atmosphere would expect.

Also, the main point here is the rocket motor which the non-moonie suggests had "30,000 pounds" of thrust. Guess what? It had a throttle. Would the astronauts endanger their lives and mission by roaring down at the surface at maximum velocity so that they had to have the throttle wide-open to land? Of course not.

They did the 30,000-pound burns high above the surface, and by the time they were a few feet above the surface, it was operating at a fraction of its capacity.

"4. There is no engine noise on the tape during the landing. Wouldn't there be a lot of engine noise?"

I didn't see the show and I don't know what was said about this; this is the only point that isn't addressed at badastronomy.com or in the Skeptic writeup.

I guess the issue is that the LEM lander was doing rocket burns during descent and we should have heard the noise on the tape. I would point out, first, they were not doing continuous burns, I don't know what fraction of the descent time the rocket was actually on. Second, I do not believe the comm link was open the whole time. Third, I would not be at all surprised if the rocket motor caused more vibration than noise inside the LEM. Again, our experience in an atmosphere can be counter-intuitive, and rockets are constructed so that most of the energy, sound and otherwise, goes out the nozzle.

Fourth, given the deceitful way that these charlatans try to convince the gullible, I would not be at all surprised if they distorted the evidence regarding rocket noise.

Jamie McCarthy

I don't think you realize how difficult it is to deflect or destroy a large asteroid. You pretty much have to get to work about ten years before impact. The real solution to protecting human civilization from being wiped out by an impact is to get off of this tiny rock and become a presence in the rest of the solar system. How can we be safe when we haven't even explored 1% of our local environment? As for the scientific accuracy of armageddon, I can only assume that you're being sarcastic.

Oddly enough, an orion engine is what was used in the movie Deep Impact to get the ship to the comet... though they didn't explain the technology behind it. Try The Bad Astronomer's site for more details....

Wombat