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NASA Wasting Time and Money on Moon Landing Doubters
Rob Miles writes "Yahoo! News has this article about how NASA is paying aeronautics engineer James Oberg $15,000 to write a monograph gathering up materials answering the skeptics of the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing, point by point. It's a shame that even $1 has to be spent to debunk these conspiracy theorists with too much time on their hands. And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see this as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
from a recent news article...
:)
The controversy recently emerged from cyberspace in the person of Bart Sibrel, who has made a film questioning the Apollo Moon missions and who confronted astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a Beverly Hills hotel on Sept. 9 and demanded that Aldrin swear on a Bible that he had in fact walked on the moon.
The 72-year-old Aldrin, the second man ever to touch the lunar surface, punched the 37-year-old Sibrel in the face. Sibrel asked that assault charges be filed, but Los Angeles County prosecutors declined. A videotape of the incident showed Sibrel following Aldrin on the street with a Bible and calling him a "thief, liar and coward," one prosecutor said.
How's that for refutation?
-fester (Good for Buzz.. I'm sure he and the others who risked their ass at the top of that Saturn V are sick of this crap)
-'fester
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!
It is a sad statement for science in this country that NASA has to spend money debunking the absurd. I watched the Fox special and I kept shaking my head in bewilderment by the conspiracy theorist's "evidence". A modicum of science education ought to have been enough to have the nation laughing at these poodle buggering ninnys. Instead everyone shakes their head and says "sounds 'bout right to me..." Blech.
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I don't believe these nutcases. However, I recently realized that one of my arguments against them is not as strong as I thought.
Here's the argument: Tens of thousands of people were involved in the Apollo program. There were thousands of them who would unavoidably know if the moon landings were faked. Several thousand people can't keep a secret for over 30 years.
What is wrong with this argument? Bletchley Park. For about 30 years, several thousand people kept the secret that the allies hand broken most of the axis codes during World War II.
(It is still a valid argument, however - there are differences between Bletchley Park and a hypothetically faked Apollo 11.)
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With its 2.4 meter diameter mirror, the smallest object that the Hubble can resolve at the Moon's distance of around 400,000 kilometers is about 80 meters across. More info including cool pics here.
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creationism is not testable. by its very definition creationism cannot be tested or verified.
creationism is not applicable. you cannot apply creationism to solve any problem.
creationism does not make any verifiable predictions.
therefore, creationism is not a theory.
the theorem (theory) of pythagoras is a theory. the theory of evolution is a theory.
creationism is NOT a theory. to claim it is otherwise is either ignorant or fraudulent.