Posted by
michael
on from the things-THEY-don't-want-you-to-know dept.
redbaron7 writes "The BBC is
reporting that NASA has cancelled plans for a book to challenge the Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory, due to criticism. No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake."
No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake.
Re:I KNEW IT!!!
by
DaveAtFraud
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Elvis, I told you to keep quiet. Now get back to Graceland before somebody notices that you're not dead. If you're good, we'll borrow one of the black helicopters and slip down to Dallas and catch some rays on the grassy knoll right after I get back from my next trip to Area 51. Who knows, we might even see the woman in the red dress again.
-- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Actually, I doubt you know what THE conspiracy is. Here is a fact that ONLY I know (it is a fact):
The Arizona Desert DOES NOT exist!!
Many people were on the moon in the late 60s and early 70s. Those people were there to film scenes of a "community" living in the desert of Arizona.
These films routinely show up as proof that Arizona is "inhabited" Like that would really happen.
-- Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Re:I KNEW IT!!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
youre a fag, that wasnt funny.
Re:I KNEW IT!!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Delaware certainly doesn't exist. Do you know anyone from Delaware? (and I don't mean their phony Senators). Didn't think so. Take any state in the Union. I'd bet you have a rough idea of what shape it is on the map? How about Delaware? Didn't think so.
"The further evidence comments are just getting funnier and funnier:)"
Heh like the professional photographer that had no idea that light bounces? I about died laughing when somebody provided a visual rebuttal using legos.
The lego links to which you refer are sprinkled throughout this page. Some of the claims of the non-believers really are quite funny and far fetched.
By the way, for all those who were dissappointed that NASA is no longer making the book, the guy that runs the site link above appears to have his own book for sale. It's probably a rough equivalent.
Re:LOL!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Since NASA must provide proof that they actually went to the moon, the purden is on them, after they spend so much money, I fail to see why such proof is unreasonable. Quite the contrary, it is very reasonable that they provide proof. (Sorry, just because everyone believes that they went to moon, or because TV says so, that is not a proof.) Note: I have not followed the details of this story to have an opinion. But to request proof that NASA went to moon, or if God exists, such are the burdens of the proposer, or the people who circulate the proposition.
What tpye of proof do you need? If NASA put you in a capsule and shot your ass there, you'd still probably insist it was some sort of virual reality scam.
Moron. (damn, I couldn't keep it civil)
-- "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Yeah, and for their next trick, NASA will spend 80 kajillion dollars on a book that proves the hoax book was not a hoax, but it'll be cancelled... etc.
By the way, I wonder how much money was wasted before the project was blown?
-- Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
NASA must have consulted game developers...
by
CTD
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
...and acted upon the wisdom they have but usually ignore.
You will always have nay-sayers. Anything you do to answer their fears will immediately be taken out of context and ran with.
Better that they just shut their mouths and laugh at the conspiracy freaks.
-- Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
Re:NASA must have consulted game developers...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
NASA may be almight and all-powerful, but can they really laugh with their mouths shut?
Re:NASA must have consulted game developers...
by
surprise_audit
·
· Score: 1
About the only argument that might shut up the nay-sayers is: "So prove we didn't go to the moon! Go there and bring back photos of our supposed landing sites that show no lunar landers, lunar experiments, etc." If they say, "We don't have to prove you didn't go, it's obvious", we say, "Fuck off, you ignorant morons."
It is unfortunate, but true. NASA needs to have a good public image if it wants to get funded, because if people don't like it, they won't vote for politicians that fund it...
-- "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"NASA has become more interested in PR and their image than space science?"
Unfortunately, yes. They have to keep themselves in the hearts and minds of the American people, or the 'pugs in congress will slash their funding.
Conservativism is the root of all evil.
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
because the public opinion is important for them to get money from the government...
bad PR and image means more budget cuts, good PR and image means more money...
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
No, I think you mean liberalism is the root of all evil. It takes away our money and gives it to undeserving people without our consent and creates a huge government beaurocracy.
Ironically enough, a hundred years ago (or so) a "liberal" was an advocate of a free-market economy.
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Just what exactly has NASA done to make a positive impact on the here and now? I'm getting so sick of hearing and reading about "black holes" and "possible life out there" theories. NASA, let's focus on the now, and quit robbing the public blind with your "new discovery".
So any research out there that doesn't show an immediate gain should be bagged?
There is very much that NASA has added to society. For example, their research into solar panels has created more efficient light-gathering capabilities. Their gobs of money towards searching for NEO's could save a lot of lives some day. Their research into aerogel has yielded one of the best insulators known to man. Their work with earth-observing satellites can provide us with information about the ozone, global warming, and other global issues.
That's just a few off the top of my head, and there are tons more.
Personally, I do want some of my tax dollars to go towards searching for black holes, neutrinos, and ET's. So although you may not want it, a lot of other people out there do, or else NASA wouldn't be funded.
-- The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Is it me, or does it seem that in the last decade or so NASA has become more interested in PR and their image than space science?
Since when was NASA ever NOT more interested in PR than science? It was a PR project from the beginning. The whole motivation for going to the moon was to accomplish political/PR goals. It was never about science. NASA existed for the sole purpose of "flexing our collective muscles" to show the Soviets our superiority of intellect and industrial might.
Re:NASA?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Unfortunately, NASA must maintain a good PR image to get continued funding from the people who support it, ie you and me. Does anyone remember the horrendous pay cut NASA took after Americans stopped being really interested in it after the moon landings?
PR and image are a part of life for government agencies.
What a shame...
by
joebeone
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
There are teachers teaching their 3rd-grade students that the moon landing never happened... It appears they shall continue. (although I suppose they wouldn't have given much credence to the NASA publication anyway)
I'm curious to know what districts are teaching that the moon landing never happened. Do you happen to have any examples handy?
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
and the kids will grow up and realize the teacher was an idiot.
just like they do when taught about the horrors of drugs
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Don't know about this one, but I know that 15 years ago my brother was given an assignment to prove that the earth was round, and given permission to ask the help of anyone he wanted. So I copied out some proofs from (I think it was) Kepler. Teacher just said "what the hell is this?" and threw it back in his face.
I also know that when I worked for a short time as a sub one of the teachers had assigned the students to watch the movie JFK - without providing any context (context being "now everything in this movie is at best controversial"). I finally just said to the kids "keep in mind, just because the director asserts this stuff happened, that doesn't mean it's true."
There are plenty of idiots out there in the public school systems.
I'm sure these are private christian schools that also teach kids "creation science" instead of evolution, and tell them about the cabbage patch and the stork instead of the birds and the bees. Kids who go to these schools still have sex though, and still have babies even without hippie commie liberal dope-smoking teachers teaching them how to fornicate.
Nonsense is becoming so accepted that a new dark age can't be far off.
-- How ya like dat?
Re:What a shame...
by
joebeone
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I heard this from an aquaintance in London... he said in an email, "One of my niece's friends was told by her teacher in the classroom that the moon landings never happened, and that man never went to the moon. This little girl asked my sister to ask me (the closest thing they have to a 'space expert') to help her prove that her teacher is lying."
If you would like to get in touch with this person... post an email address.
Joebeone
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I hate to sound like an Anthropologist, but having some training in the discipline, you have to realize that scientific knowledge really isn't the only and ultimate good.
Re:What a shame...
by
susano_otter
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Bitter much?
Care to show some sort of logical relationship between creation science, theories of human reproduction, and moon landing conspiracies? Or do we just have to trust your angry little mind to figure it all out for us?
And what, if anything, does your ranting have to do with giving specific examples of school districts where teachers disbelieve the moon landings?
I guess that when all you have is an axe to grind, everything looks like a whetstone.
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
> Care to show some sort of logical relationship
> between creation science, theories of human
> reproduction, and moon landing conspiracies?
The logical relationship between creation "science" and moon landing conspiracies is that they're both based on ignorance and idiocy. Not sure what theories of human reproduction is all about, so perhaps the O.P. can expand a bit on that.
No it is not... Science is just like Religion: a way to explain the universe.
You have to choose what to believe in, and not just accept blindly what your Doctor/Priest/Scientist/Voodoo-lady tells you.
Now if you choose who or what to believe in, you must accept that there will always be someone that will think otherwise. The urge to shut them up will arise, but we must not give in to those impulses.
IMO, science is not at all like religion. Religion requires faith in some big things, ideas like God, the second coming, Shiva, etc. Science asks that you accept certain axioms like 1+1=2, and builds from there. Religion might say 'the earth is flat and sits on the backs of turtles', end of story. Science (scientists) would say 'I belive the earth is round because of this, this, this, and that reproducible experiment."
You can choose to belive whatever you want, but a rock accelerates downward at 9.8m*sec^2 no matter what.
I don't want to entirly discount religion as a world-view. I just don't see them as two sides of a coin. They seem to be qualativly different.
-- "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Re:What a shame...
by
UnknownSoldier
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> Religion requires faith in some big things, ideas like God, the second coming, Shiva, etc. Science asks that you accept certain axioms like 1+1=2,
Science requires you to have faith in logic. Remember Philosophy *started* Science.
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Care to show some sort of logical relationship between creation science, theories of human reproduction, and moon landing conspiracies? Or do we just have to trust your angry little mind to figure it all out for us?
I suspect that he's one of those people who figures "I don't like all these things, so there must be a distinct group of people that believes all these things that I can laugh at..." That's much simpler than realizing that some conspiracy theorists can't stand creation science, some creationists think tha t conspiracy theorists are just a bunch of nutters and people who believe storks deliver babies don't exist, but are instead a pathetic joke to make fun of people who disagree with your oppinion of how the facts of life should be taught to the young.
As for what it has to do with examples of school districts, I'd bet he's got a bee in his bonnet about blaming public school teachers for all manner of social ills. In that he most definately has a point, although as I side note, I find the number of people whose response to their inability to convince others of their point of view is to indoctrinate children quite disturbing.
.
-- .
---
If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here!
http://www.noemailhere.com
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
>>>Science is just like Religion: a way to explain the universe.
What are you some kind of moron? Science is based on demonstratable fact, the scientific method. Religion is based on blind faith, self imposed ignorance.
You need blind faith in the scientific method to accept a scientific "fact", the same way you need blind faith in the Torah/Bible/Quran to accept a religious "fact" such as the flood.
Science just happens to be a slightly better, less chaotic way to explain the world, but even the greatests minds in science wont claim to have all the answers.
Warning: If I see another Evo vs Creation thread I will club a baby seal.
Here's the way I see it. God may or may not exist. If it does, it set up a progression system for life forms we refer to as evolution. If not, the system "just happened" or there was some other form of intervention (alien genetic testing, if that makes everyone happy). I might be leaving something out.
Teaching the process of how life forms mutate and change over generations does not seem so terribly controversial, and does not seem to preclude any particular religious beliefs. But we also have that nasty "separation" deal that keeps Biblical verses out of schools. I feel that this should be respected, lest we slip further away from true religious freedom.
I think it's fine if a teacher implies that a divine being created the mechanics that explain our presence and conciousness. But I would draw the line at a literal interpretation of Genesis. There's room for all kinds of beliefs here, and I don't think there's any need to dictate the one "true" belief in public schools. Let's not forget what happens in countries like Nigeria and Afghanistan when this stuff becomes law. I know that's an extreme example, but I feel that it is valid.
Thanks for reading this far. I really would like to see this become resolved for others as it has been for me. I'm not holding my breath.:)
--
I assert ownership of all trademarks and copyrights on this page.
No I do NOT. Did you miss the "reproducable" part, troll?
-- Blar.
Had it been a /. excluse headline...
by
HogGeek
·
· Score: 1
it would have been moderated as redundant anyway...
That's too bad
by
Thanatopsis
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
These guys who believe we didn't go to the moon are everywhere. I had a 10th grade history teacher who was insistent that we didn't go to the moon. I spent half the semester avoiding discussing history before 1963 with him. After all it's only $15,000, why not? Perhaps NASA should spend the money producing a book on scientific method instead
Re:That's too bad
by
JThaddeus
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What the heck is a dumb bunny like that doing teaching? Did he also deny the Holocost? If my kids got some cretin like that, you can be sure that everyone from the principal to the state certification board would hear about it.
-- "Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Re:That's too bad
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
How did that history teacher prove that anything he taught was true? I mean, if something like the moon landing can be faked, why not pretty much *anything* in history.
Well from his perspectative anything in history could have been faked from the invention of the film camer on. Older events we have the word of historians such as Herodotus. This was also in Indiana in 1985 so I didn't have a lot of options.
Re:That's too bad
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
He has a life. His children's education is important to him. Do you have a problem with that?
Re:That's too bad
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
IMO, the teacher only had to prove two things:
1) The US government had/has the capability to produce a convincing fake (static included)
2) The US government had motivation to do so.
Point 1 is very hard to argue with. With a nearly infinite number of G-men and access to "the best" technology, point 1 is basically a given.
Point 2 is true of ANY government at any point in history. All governments use propaganda. The US has recently picked up in it's efforts again, (i.e. Afganastan) but it's not like it never bombed leaflets in Korea or Vietnam.
I was just hoping to sell Moon Cheese too! Its a conspiracy I tell you to prevent me from selling "Premium Products" via ONE TIME OFFER E-Mails:P
--
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
Obligatory Star Wars quote
by
Jippy_
·
· Score: 2, Funny
"That's no moon..."
=-Jippy
Re:Obligatory Star Wars quote
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Funny
and a thumb wars scene:
"That's no moon..."
'Hand solo' pulls up his pants
Re:Obligatory Star Wars quote
by
Jippy_
·
· Score: 1
'Hand solo' pulls up his pants
Actually, it was "Hand Duet", but I'd still have given you a +1 Funny if I had the points.
Book cancellation
by
King_TJ
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Really, I think it's great they cancelled this book. What a waste of tax dollars, trying to justify things they already spent our tax dollars on decades ago!
On the other hand, I'm sure someone will come along and write their own investigative book, attempting to prove the moon landings were real. There are certainly many topics to write about that would be of less interest.... Books are usually written to make money for the author(s); not to cost multiple thousands of dollars.
Nasa is a civilian agency...and even if the money for the book was from government sources, 15k wouldn't buy you a toilet seat on your congressman's private jet.
-- We've secretely replaced the Enterprise's dilithium crystals with Folgers crystals. Lets see if they notice.
Re:Book cancellation
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
So, they can use the 15k to launch another 8oz of solid matter into orbit? THANK GOD FOR THAT!
well it does seem to strenghten the conspiracy theory. still i don't know which side is correct with any certainty, but this evens things out a little more.
Re:nasa acting strange
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
still i don't know which side is correct with any certainty
Then you are utterly without a functioning brain cell. The hoax claim itself is a hoax by people trying to sell videos and books. If you cannot see this, you have no critical thinking skills.
Isn't this the silliest thing that they've ever thought about. Why would NASA feel the need to invest millions to rebuke the silly claims made by a few irresponsible socialist trolls?
Lets face it, free speech is supposed to be one of the cornerstones for Democracy and America but I have to wonder how much damage it really causes when I read stories like this. Perhaps the movement by Bush and Ashcroft to limit these rights will be a good thing long term and help to control some of the damage done by these nefarious post modern trolls.
Warmest regards, --Jack
--
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
I hope you're hoping for a +1 Funny, or maybe +1 Dry Wit. Otherwise you should just go sit in the corner.
And FYI, it was $15,000, not "millions".
-- If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Perception is reality.
by
nege
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
NASA is darned if they do and darned if they dont where those conspiracies are concerned. If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.
If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.
Dare I say that it reminds of... many slashdotter's opinion of Palladium?
Microsoft haters *want* to believe that Palladium is a conspiracy to allow Microsoft to only allow software signed by Microsoft, despite the fact that it's utterly impossible for Microsoft to implement that and maintain backward compatibility with unsigned software and/or music.
Yet, no matter how much I make this point, which the paranoids never both to refute, their only answer is "Microsoft so eeevil that it can only be a conspiracy."
If you want to know how people can be so delusional that they can believe the moon landing was a conspiracy, look no further than the Palladium Paranoids.
-- Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Daniel+Dvorkin
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Oh, yawn. If NASA had a history dating from its inception of faking missions, then you'd have some grounds for comparison. Slashdotters' distrust of Palladium is more akin to doubting the old Soviet space agency's rather vehement denials that personnel were killed every time there was a mysterious explosion at Baikonur.
-- The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Slashdotters' distrust of Palladium is more akin to doubting the old Soviet space agency's rather vehement denials that personnel were killed every time there was a mysterious explosion at Baikonur.
See? Exactly my point. You can't refute the fact that it's impossible for Palladium to be what the paranoids claim it to be, therefore you just have to fall back on "Microsoft is so evil that it has to be bad, even if this belief is entirely illogical".
-- Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Xerithane
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
NASA is darned if they do and darned if they dont where those conspiracies are concerned. If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.
You are exactly right. I worked at a NASA base 5 years ago, it was nothing spooky or mysterious. They have some cool technology, but that's all it is.
Yet it doesn't stop conversations like this, that I had with some strange fellow in a small town in southern California:
Me: Well, actually NASA is just like any other organization. You go to work, work on a project that is usually pretty cool and exciting, and go home to a normal house.. It's not like you work for NASA and suddenly they relocate you to some secret underground housing project. Him: NASA hides all of it's findings! You never know the result of their research because it would disrupt humanity! Me: What research? Most of NASA research is funded in part by public companies, and you can easily find out what they are doing. Most projects have their own website. Him: They hide a lot of stuff. Art Bell deserves to know the truth and tell the American people what's going on!
Art fucking Bell. That what these people listen to. At that point, I just walked off. They want there to be some secret meaning, because it gives their life more significant and importance in their mind. They're part of the elite conspiracy busting consortium without having to lift a finger just open their mouths.
As long as Art Bell is around to tell them the "secrets" NASA is holding out, NASA will have to deal with the nutjobs. It's unfortunate.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Daniel+Dvorkin
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Um, I don't think you read my post very carefully.
---
You: People who think Palladium is evil because it's from Microsoft are just like people who think NASA faked the Moon landings.
Me: No, people who think Palladium is evil because it's from Microsoft are just like people who think the Soviet space agency was lying when it denied that its personnel were getting killed.
You: That proves my point!
---
You may not understand the context here. NASA has a lot of flaws, but lying about its missions isn't one of them; every time there's a failure (whether or not loss of life is involved) it's dissected in gory detail, in public. OTOH, the Soviet space program was under no more obligation than the rest of the Soviet government to reveal its fuckups, and (as we now know) they did suffer a number of rather horrific accidents that make the Challenger disaster look like small potatoes. This was something that everyone kind of suspected all along, but we had to wait until the end of the Cold War for our suspicions to be confirmed. The Soviets didn't help their own case at all with pre-emptive press releases that said, in essence, "That big boom at Baikonur that your satellites picked up, that was just, um... a problem with a test of a new engine, that's right! No dead cosmonauts and ground crew here, nosirree. Nothing to see, move along, move along..."
So the point is (in case you still haven't gotten it) that Microsoft has a history of lying too. They lie about their intentions, they lie about standards compliance, they lie about openness. They try to control every new technology that comes along, and if they can't control it, they try to crush it. This behavior is a matter of public record. So when people who pay attention to this history express some suspicion of Palladium, we're being entirely reasonable -- just as those who expressed suspicion about the safety record of the Soviet space program were being entirely reasonable. Those who believe NASA faked the Moon landings, OTOH, have no reasonable grounds for their suspicions.
Do you get it now? Jesus, I can't believe I wasted that much time in explaining this to someone who probably isn't going to get it anyway...
-- The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
manyoso
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise."
Dare I say that it reminds of... many Microsoft supporters who claim Palladium is a Good Thing (tm)?
Microsoft lovers *want* to believe that Palladium is a god send for computer security, despite the fact that it's utterly impossible for Microsoft to protect against viruses and trojans and still maintain backward compatibility with unsigned software and/or viruses.
Yet, no matter how much I make this point, which the hopelessly optimistic never bother to refute, their only answer is "Microsoft is a great company they'd never try to hoodwink users into believing the benefit of Palladium was increased security."
If you want to know how people can be so delusional that they can believe the moon landing was a consipiracy, look no further than the parent post.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Moloch666
·
· Score: 1
OH Thank goodness!!! Palladium is just a hoax.
-- Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
Re:Perception is reality.
by
nojomofo
·
· Score: 1
...I can't believe I wasted that much time in explaining this to someone who probably isn't going to get it anyway
And that is exactly why NASA is not going to invest in a book to try to convince the conspiracy theorists.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
ashitaka
·
· Score: 1, Troll
If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.
Of course, take all that stuff about a guy named Jesus and certain alcoholic beverages.
-- If you don't want to repeat the past,
stop living in it.
So the point is (in case you still haven't gotten it) that Microsoft has a history of lying too. [...] Do you get it now? Jesus, I can't believe I wasted that much time in explaining this to someone who probably isn't going to get it anyway...
I get your point perfectly. Unfortunately, it's YOU who are missing the bigger point here. There is no doubt that Microsoft has a certain amount of history (although, comparing them to the level of the soviet union is absolute absurdity, but moving on), and that creates well-founded suspicion in people.
But well-founded suspicion is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people TURNING OFF THEIR BRAIN and assuming that a piece of software does something that it absolutely cannot do. That's what I'm talking about: the ability for people, because they distrust something (the government, in the case of the moon landings) creating absolutely illogical scenerios to try and justify their paranoia.
The extent of your argument seems to be that since Microsoft has a history, therefore any belief about Palladium is justified, no matter how illogical. Suspicion is fine and healthy. Paranoia and suspension of logic is not.
I'm sorry if I'm more rational than that.
I don't know if you get it now or not, but I tried.
-- Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Hah!, you were obviously not part of the inner elite circle that everyone knows exists.. or maybe you are part of their insidious propaganda department..
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
You are arguing about some 'supposed' conspiracy theory that Palladium (I assume you mean the hardware piece) will require code signed _by_ Microsoft. Please point to someone who has offered this conspiracy theory? I think you are suffering from a conspiracy of conspiracy theories;-)
Re:Perception is reality.
by
cheezedawg
·
· Score: 2
despite the fact that it's utterly impossible for Microsoft to protect against viruses and trojans and still maintain backward compatibility with unsigned software and/or viruses
Q: Will "Palladium" really stop spam/prevent viruses for me?
A: Unfortunately, no. Despite the hype in the media, "Palladium" will not stop spam or prevent viruses all by itself. But by using "Palladium" as a foundation, there are a number of trust and infrastructure models we can build that will help combat spam and viruses in new and effective ways.
Nobody (not even microsoft) is claiming that Palladium will protect against viruses. What Palladium can do is prevent any trojan or virus from seeing/modifying secure data.
-- "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Art Bell is a fucking ding dong who got busted faking the hacking of his website, haha.
The real true conspiracies are done by the cia and nsa, nada is harmless.
And if you don't think the cia and the nsa have done some whopping conspiracies get aquainted with the Freedom of Information Act. They basically have to give you all the conspiracies of the 20th century with the exception of the last 20 years or so and who ordered jfk assassination.
Ever wonder why the arabs think there is a big western conspiracy to fuck them over? Well look up the sykes-pikot agreement. Essential a secret plot by the europeans and russians to utterly fuck over the whole arab world. Of course once they russians went commie they exposed the agreement because they thought it was imperialist.
That was in what the 20s? It only gets better after that... Gulf of Tonkin was actually provoked attack by US Special Ops, More CIA staged coups than you can shake a stick at, secret plot to blow up Americans and blame it on Cuba,....
Unfortunatly these conspiracies are not theories.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
> Art fucking Bell. That what these people listen to. At that point, I just whacked off.
You must have missed the talk that Brian (one of the lead developers for Microsoft Palladium) gave at MIT. Brian claimed that stopping viruses and trojans is what keep the Palladium developers up at night. The clear implication is that Palladium will help stop these things. You see this over and over... Microsoft will claim that Palladium is all about security (because they know admitting it's all about DRM would be a disaster), but when intelligent people ask the right questions, they back off only to go right back to the 'Palladium is all about enhancing security' mantra as soon as they think people are not looking. They will still make these very general (and absurd) claims.
This is all cleverly designed to piggy back Palladium in as a security benefit for the end user. It's not and they are being disingenuous when they imply that it is. In fact, it's nothing of the sort. Same thing goes for when these Microsoft spokesman ask that we judge Palladium by actions not there words. Hello McFly! We are judging them by there actions and the verdict is: Guilty!
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"Despite the hype in the media, "Palladium" will not stop spam... "
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! LOL
Microsoft marketing is responsible for this stupid meme and they did this purposefully! They _want_ people to associate Palladium as anti-spam anti-virus. After all, calling it what it really is (can you smell the DRM) would be a disaster for them. Microsoft marketing is very good and very evil:-)
Re:Perception is reality.
by
dildatron
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I listen to Art Bell, but that doesn't make me a dummy. I take what he and his guests say with a big grain of salt, and realize that much of it simply can not be trusted or proven.
I do find it a fascinating show, though, whether I believe any of it or not. There was a relaly good who on a week or two ago when they were interviewing Kevin Mitnick. You just have to have the ability to seperate the fact from the fiction.
--
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Sheesh, this is the paranoia that I'm talking about. Did you read the link? Microsoft comes out and says that DRM can be based on Palladium. But so what? That's like saying that DRM can be based on encryption, therefore all encryption packages must be evil.
Once again, I have to say: Explain to me how ANY rights or capabilities are going to be taken away by Palladium. Explain to me how they are going to maintain backward compatibility if everything is under Palladium and can't be turned off.
-- Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
quintessent
·
· Score: 2
Yeah, when I'm in the mood for a good chuckle, I'll switch over to Coast to Coast and listen for a while.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
quintessent
·
· Score: 2
Since he no longer works there, he has obviously gone through the exit program of brain washing and reeducation. Of course he doesn't remember any conspiracies!
Re:Perception is reality.
by
cheezedawg
·
· Score: 2
Microsoft has said from the beginning that Palladium is designed to protect software from software. The goal is to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data. Whether you like the terminology or not, that is by definition "security". DRM is a subset of this. It is impossible to distinguish between protecting Company X's super-duper top secret confidential files from protecting the new electronic N'Sync download from copyright infringement - they are both solving the same problem. And this problem is provably impossible to solve without hardware support.
I think that Microsoft has been very straightforward about the goals of Palladium, but the baseless rhetoric from the likes of RMS and that half true Palladium FAQ by Ross Anderson that you see all over the place have whipped/. up into such a frenzy that they can't see straight.
-- "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
We aren't necessarily saying that it will be impossible to turn off, just exceedingly difficult. If it was easy to disable, we would have no complaint, and maybe 100-200 boards in the country would have it enabled. I can't think of anyone who would turn off the ability to run whatever code they want to by having Palladium enabled. If it isn't to protect Microsoft's interests, why is it being developed?
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Kevin Mitnick is just a lame con-artist. He couldn't code for a piss and didn't know didly squat. People that idolize him are fucking morons.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
manyoso
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, I read the link. The fact is Palladium (for all practical purposes) _is_ DRM. It provides the means _and_ they created it specifically for DRM. Brian admitted this. Others (when pressed) have admitted it. Palladium's primary goal is DRM and Microsoft has been trying to spin it otherwise.
My rights will be taken away if and when Microsoft roles out Palladium and it is successful. My rights will be taken away because large copyright holders will use Palladium to limit the fair use rights of the public (Microsoft has admitted this although grudgingly). And please don't repeat the soiled mantra of 'you can turn it off'. Well you can turn your computer off too, but then it isn't useful anymore now is it. If and when Palladium becomes successful, Microsoft can use it just like it has the IE browser to hinder competition and create another level of second class computer users. The danger is obvious and your pathetic attempts at white washing this as nothing more than something analogous to encryption are stupid and will backfire... just like Microsofts related FUD about linux.
No it is not by definition 'security'. There can be no question that Microsoft is marketing Palladium as some kind of enhancement to end users security. There can be no question that this is disingenuous if not an outright lie.
DRM is the main purpose of this crap technology and no amount of misleading FUD/marketing is going to change that simple fact.
"I think that Microsoft has been very straightforward about the goals of Palladium... "
Then you are either stupid or willfully being dishonest yourself. The truth is Palladium is designed to protect large copyright holder X from the end user. It is not designed to protect the end user from anything. I submit _if_ Microsoft were truly serious and motivated (see: pocketbook) to help protect the end user, _then_ they would research and design a system that would look nothing like Palladium!
Re:Perception is reality.
by
cheezedawg
·
· Score: 2
Palladium is a totally passive entity- it will only do something if a process requests its services (through an API). Therefore, to "turn off" Palladium, you just don't use the API's.
Why is Microsoft doing this? It is simple- there is a huge demand for digital content, and a lack of supply because the media companies don't want to release it. Eventually somebody was going to figure out how to facilitate this, and that person would definately make a lot of money and grab a huge market. Microsoft is making sure they are not left out of this movement. I see this as a defensive move by Microsoft.
-- "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Re:Perception is reality.
by
cheezedawg
·
· Score: 2
Lets see, data security is usually defined according to 4 different goals: confidentiality of data, integrity of data, authenticity of data, and availability of data. Palladium offers a solution to 3 out of 4.
I don't see any FUD coming from Microsoft about this- that FAQ on their website does not make any false claims about the goals of Palladium. They flat out say that Palladium will enable DRM systems to be built. It is not (by any stretch of the imagination) dishonest of them to claim that Palladium will also have useful features to the user.
I see the most Fear, Uncertanty, and Doubt coming from people like you. Examples:
Claim- Palladium will allow for remote deletion of pirated software or even censorship of objectionable material (Fear- and both of these baseless claims are made by Ross Andersen in that FAQ that is floating around)
Claim- Palladium will only run signed code, so you can kiss Linux goodbye (Uncertanty)
Claim- The real goals of Palladium are not security but to give Microsoft more power over you (Doubt)
-- "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Is issue is not whether certain people are persuatable, but rather, whether the public should accept whatever NASA says on faith. It is nice that you say we landed on the moon. Now there is the evidence?
Whever says that you don't need evidence because they said so, are either crooks or they are form CNN.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
workindev
·
· Score: 1
My rights will be taken away if and when Microsoft roles out Palladium and it is successful. My rights will be taken away because large copyright holders will use Palladium to limit the fair use rights of the public
The only "rights" that you will be loosing are the "rights" to steal copywrited digital content that you never had the "rights" to in the first place.
The fact is Palladium (for all practical purposes) _is_ DRM. It provides the means _and_ they created it specifically for DRM. Brian admitted this. Others (when pressed) have admitted it
Why are you acting like they are trying to lie about this? Microsoft clearly states that Palladium "enables DRM-style policy enforcement". There is no smoke and mirrors here -- they are very clear about the design and intents of Palladium.
The danger is obvious and your pathetic attempts at white washing this as nothing more than something analogous to encryption are stupid and will backfire
This has never been "white washed" as something analogous to encryption. The simple fact is that copywrite owners are reluctant to pursue the digital medium because it is impossible to completely secure the copywrited data without hardware help. Palladium is simply a method to utilize those hardware security features. The only FUD that I see are the likes of RMS, who seem to think that every single bit of binary data should be "free as in beer".
Re:Perception is reality.
by
surprise_audit
·
· Score: 1
I wonder if Nasa can shake about $20million loose from the money tree and send Art Bell up on the next Russian tourirst launch? Make that $10million and forget the return trip. Shoot him at the moon...
Still, even that probably wouldn't silence the protestors - they'd claim Art Bell was murdered by NASA and buried somewhere out in a handy desert. Even in the face of Art Bell saying, "hey, this is cool! I feel so light here on the Moon!" That'd be a recording done at gun-point before they shot and buried him, right?
The only "rights" that you will be loosing are the "rights" to steal copywrited digital content that you never had the "rights" to in the first place."
No, I am losing my Fair Use rights as described by the United States Supreme Court. This has nothing to do with stealing any copyrighted content.
Microsoft is trying to lie and spin Palladium as something benefiting the end user when nothing could be further from the truth. Palladium will hurt the end user by exposing technology that will be used to restrict rights. Microsoft tries very hard (and you are too) to white wash this as something other than it is. They would have the public believe that this is good for them and that Microsoft is doing this to help there customers while the only thing this will help is Microsofts bottom line and Hollywood. And if it is successful it will also provide another tool for Microsoft to bludgeon the Free Software movement.
Data security. Hmmph. The ones clamoring for 'data security' are Hollywood not normal every day end users. So, I call bullshit when Microsoft tries to market this as somehow benefiting the end user. You are trying to spin this into something it is not! Palladium does not provide a benefit to the end user. It provides Hollywood the opportunity to eliminate the Fair Use rights of the public.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I listen to Art Bell, but that doesn't make me a dummy.
Actually, it does. It means you are a dummy. It means you are very, very dumb. And you're ugly and you smell bad.
Microsoft is trying to lie and spin Palladium as something benefiting the end user when
nothing could be further from the truth. Palladium will hurt the end user by exposing
technology that will be used to restrict rights. Microsoft tries very hard (and you are too) to
white wash this as something other than it is. They would have the public believe that this
is good for them and that Microsoft is doing this to help there customers while the only
thing this will help is Microsofts bottom line and Hollywood.
This is hardly unique to Palladium. Virtually every time Microsoft announces a new (or upgraded) product they trumpet how it's good for the customer and contains loads of new "features" users were crying out for. This is basically marketing.
Data security. Hmmph. The ones clamoring for 'data security' are Hollywood not normal
every day end users.
The facilities being offered to the big corporate publishers will apparently not be available to end users. e.g. being able to send emails which cannot be saved or forwarded. Even if these end users are themselves large corporates.
Palladium does
not provide a benefit to the end user. It provides Hollywood the opportunity to eliminate
the Fair Use rights of the public.
Which protects an existing cartel, shutting out competition. Yet dosn't appear to do much along the lines of someone wanting to be sure that information they send to partners, customers or suppliers is only available to whoever it has been sent to.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Some "end users", such as those in Corporate IT, really are crying out for this. Spook-class trusted computing for the masses of cubical drones.
A pure-DRM marketing push would fail outright. When tied to some business need, it's success is plausible.
I don't see any FUD coming from Microsoft about this- that FAQ on their website does not make any false claims about the goals of Palladium. They flat out say that Palladium will enable DRM systems to be built. It is not (by any stretch of the imagination) dishonest of them to claim that Palladium will also have useful features to the user.
I'll bite. What features? In this document Microsoft goes to great lengths to imply that Palladium has little to do with DRM even thouh this is clearly not true. Signed applications and "data vaults" for personal info ALREADY exist on the Windows platfom. etc.
The only really "new" thing about Palladium is typing these to the hardware and the only real reason you would want to do that is DRM (typing personal data vaults to the PC would end up being a pain in the ass on the corporate desktop).
I'd really like to know what new benefit Palladium will provide to end users.
RedWolves2 Will Be Crushed
by
Schlemphfer
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
One less opportunity to put his Amazon ID into a Slashdot link.
-- I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Because that would be a waste of Hubble time. You can see the landing sites from the earth with a good telescope. if the moon is in the right position, anyway.
--
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Don't you realize that the Earth is a giant chocolate chip cookie floating in an even bigger glass of milk? Don't go near the edge, you'll kill us all!
Yes, but who says the pictures from Hubble are real!
They're watching us man! Ok, beter put my aluminium hat on now...:|
--
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
Re:Why don't they...
by
isa-kuruption
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Oh, those are just doctored images" That will be the excuse... then you'd have conspiracy theorists showing how the pixalation of the photo near the landing sites show that there was no activity at this region, etc etc..
Like someone said originally... those who don't want to believe it, will continue to not believe it no matter how much evidence you have. If you flew them into space and plopped them into a crater, they still wouldn't believe it!
Re:Why don't they...
by
foistboinder
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up?
There has to be enough resolution
The reflected light from the moon is strong enough to fry Hubble's optics.
If the moon landings were a hoax, don't you think the Soviet Union would have exposed it for propaganda purposes (they were able to track the spacecraft, IIRC) ?
Can the Hubble Space Telescope take a picture that shows the Apollo lunar modules on the moon? With its 2.4 diameter mirror, the smallest object that the Hubble can resolve at the Moon's distance of about 400,000 kilometers is about 80 meters across.
Besides, why would anyone who believed in that naive hoax suddenly believe a so-called Hubble picture?
-- I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Of what? They'd have to find the exact location that the little flag was planted (assuming it's still there, probably not a lot to disturb it). Or perhaps they could look for footsteps or an "impact zone".
Of course, even if they used a telescope, the "cynics" would say that it's not really a telescope by a video screen or something. There's not really any way to win. Even if we sent of the idiots into space himself/herself, some world probably just say there were put through a simulation reconstruction.
That being said, there are always cynics, some just insist on being more anal than others. Why not send them ALL on an all-expense-paid one-way trip to the moon...?
Cynic: This is BS, we're still on Earth, it's just a machine. I'm opening my mask now....
*whoooooosh* *splattt*
Unfortunately, even the Hubble Telescope cannot take pictures of the flag on the moon. There are pictures of the landing sites, but they merely show blurry shadows. I actually emailed the guy at badastronomy.com a while back with this question and he responded that it was not possible to see the US flag on the moon.
Granted, your question was on the landing sites, but considering those pictures are extremely blurry due to resolution, you still are not going to convince idiots of the fact that we landed on the moon. You could take them up there and they still wouldn't believe. Don't underestimate the severity of human ignorance.
Re:Why don't they...
by
Kyont
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Unfortunately, even Hubble does not have the resolution. At that distance, it cannot make out features less than about 60 feet (20 m) across, and the moon-landing footprints are just too small. (To-do list for next time: Take along 100-meter-high NASA logo flag).
Of course, the astronauts left little mirrors, off which lots of people regularly bounce laser beams, which should satisfy anybody. Unless ooh.. all that laser data is faked too!;-)
-- You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
...just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up?
There has to be enough resolution.
Actually, no there isn't. Hubble's resolution at that range is something like 90 meters. Not to mention the fact that the Hubble is designed for looking at extremely dim objects - the Moon is the second (apparent) brightest object in sky. The damage would be similiar to you walking out of a darkened theatre and staring directly into a spotlight at close range.
As for cancelling the book, I'm not sure I agreed with the idea of writing the book but once they started, NASA should have gone through with it. This will only give Moon conspiracy theorists more ammunition.
Funny thing - I was over at my uncle's place and left the original Slashdot story open and my cousin read it. Turns out that he had watched the FOX special and bought into the hoax theory. After he asked me what the story on/. was trying to say, I spent almost an hour debunking the hoax. Guess/. actually performed a useful education funtion for once!
Re:Why don't they...
by
Idarubicin
·
· Score: 5, Informative
First reason:
It's a waste of Hubble time. There's real science to be done.
Second reason:
The sunlit moon is way too bright. You'd cook all the expensive and highly sensitive optics. If you examine a new moon, maybe you could get away with it, but such a moon is still illuminated by the full sunny side of the earth. I wouldn't want to try it. Also, pointing towards the dark face of the moon is also pointing the Hubble very close to where the sun would be in its sky...
Third reason:
The Hubble's resolution isn't good enough. Depending on the wavelength you work at, the moon's distance at the time, and the assumptions you choose to make in your calculation, the Hubble could resolve objects no smaller than twenty to eighty metres in size--much larger than any of the artifacts left at the moon landing sites. You might have better luck with the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, but they too are busy being used for real science. Any hoax believers aren't going to be convinced by a smudge, which is all you'd see even with the Kecks--if you could see anything at all.
-- ~Idarubicin
Re:Why don't they...
by
gorilla
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The Hubble physically can't take pictures of the landing sites.
1) They're too small. Even at the Hubble's resolution, all you'd see would be a blob.
2) The moon is too bright. It would overload the optics.
Uhm there is no way in hell you could get the resolution on an earth based telescope to see the landing sights. The distance to the moon is huge and the size of the lander is exrememly small...I believe the highest resolution on an optical telscope on earth looking at the moon would is measured in kilometers, not meters and definitely not decimeters.
-- We've secretely replaced the Enterprise's dilithium crystals with Folgers crystals. Lets see if they notice.
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
WRONG! They have pictures of the moon. go check the nasa website....
As everyone has already said, the smallest size hubble can see is 80m, however as a corner cube reflector was left on the moon, all you need is a laser beam ( or a laser pointer with new batteries)
There *are* pictures taken from an orbiting satelite that show a tiny dot and a shadow that is one of the moon landers. I've got the image at home, I can't find it right now using google. I don't think it was Hubble, I think it was one of the Satelites that recently mapped the surface of the moon again.
What just supprised the heck out of me, was the results of my searches on Google!!!
HALF OF ALL GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS wrt the apollo moon landings, are either webpages refuting the claims that the landings were fake, or sights reporting on the "fake moon landings"!!!!!
FFS. .
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I think maybe the computer geeks should leave astronomy to the astronomers.
Visit http://www.clavius.org for enlightenment.
Re:Why don't they...
by
DaveAtFraud
·
· Score: 3, Funny
"The "dark side" of the moon is not always dark. The reason it is called the "dark side" is that that side of the moon is never visible from Earth. The moon's rotation and orbit are synchronized in such a way that we can only see one side. However, that "dark side" (or far side which is a more appropriate name!) does see the sun. For example, when we see only a sliver of the moon, most of the far side is facing the sun. During a solar eclipse, all of the far side is sunlit!"
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Yes, it rotates, but the moon is tidally locked to the Earth. The same face is always pointed towrds us, albeit with a tiny amount of wobble so we see, like, 51% of the moon.
I learned this in third grade. Where the (bleep) were you?
Actually, one of the things left at each landing site (besides "space junk") was a reflector. Since the landings, these have been used to make increasingly precise measurments of how far the moon is from earth by bouncing what amounts to a laser rangefinder off of the various reflectors. So there actually is something at each landing site that can be seen from earth.
I wonder, how hard it would be to actually hit one of these and then be able to see the reflected flash? The fact that the experiment would only work if the laser were aimed fairly precisely at one of the landing sites would somewhat be proof that something had been left there although the real conspirialists would probably say we chose the supposed landing sites because they were near a natural reflector that no one had noticed before.
-- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Are you sure about that? Last time I checked the moon did rotate, such that the same face always pointed towards the earth during its orbit. You may have meant that there's no "dark side" of the moon, since it shows all of its surface to the sun during its orbit(s).
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Several decates ago, nobody would question the existance of God. After all, if you cannot believe the Bible (the book of God), what more evidence to you need? Nowdays they say that you must have "faith" to believe in God.
Do I have to faith to believe in NASA? Show us some acceptable proof (if they have not done so already) and the whole subject is closed. What do the Russians say on the subject? I am intrested to know.
I thought with the whole english/metric conversion mixup that NASA had decided to stop using units altogether! But nooo, someone's copy and paste is having issues I guess. Here's the full quote, in case something else was missed:
"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"
The USSR won't expose it because they were in on it! Can't you people see how big this conspiracy is?
They weren't in on it, but they certainly had a lot to gain from going along with it. They had their own space race to fund, and even though they are a bit less worried about citizens complaining about how their incomes are spent, they did get a lot of support when they showed they were in a big race with the capitalist pigs.
Of course, they are in on it now, with the "space station".
Remember, just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Remember, just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
actually, if they really are out to get you, then you aren't paranoid, you're realistic.
Re:Why don't they...
by
jerryasher
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Too much light? Take the pictures at night!
Which ground based telescopes could find and resolve the lunar lander, a rover, a flag, or a footprint? And what stops us from using a ground based telescope to find the LM,...?
Take the pictures at night? Please say you're joking. What you meant is take the pictures at new moon when the side of the moon that *always* faces us (tidally locked orbit/rotation) is not bathed in light. Of course, the Hubble was never meant to look at things that are that close so I doubt it could resolve properly. In the case of ground-based telescopes, ~1 arcsec of resolution is all you're going be able to get out of them thanks to the wonders of atmospheric distortion (although that is being eliminated via interferometry and new telescopes with thousands of tiny computer-controlleed mirrors that adjust based on data given by a laser pulse through the atmosphere to try to reduce distortion).
The moon is about 1/2 of a degree in the sky. Utilizing some back of the napkin calculations:
radius of the moon is 3.4E3 km
lunar rover would be less than 4m long
(arcseconds of resolution) = 2E5(arcsecs)*d/D (skinny triangle approximation)
1/2 degree is 30 minutes of arc which is multiplied by 60 secs per min to get 1800 arcsec
1800arcsec = 2E5*(3.4E3km)/D D = 3.7E5 km or so (actual distance is somewhat greater)
So, now that you see the skinny triangle works let's find out the angular resolution of a 4m object at a distance of 3.7E5km
(angular resolution) = 2E5*(.004km/3.7E5km)
This comes out to about 2.1E-3 arc seconds. So...how are we going to find a rover again?
Of course, this whole point is moot because the Apollo missions left a reflective piece of material that astronomers use to measure the earth/moon distance (laser ranging). So there's already proof we've been there.
Re:Why don't they...
by
deglr6328
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Hubble's CCD's will NOT be fried by the intensity of light from the moon. This has got to be the most common misconception about Hubble. A 2 second search for "Hubble + Moon" gives you THIS as the very first result!!!
-- - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Typical dumbshit kid. Several *decades* ago no one questioned the existance of God? Is that dog decades?
I don't think it would be possible, at least not with the lasers that are used for lunar ranging. I watched a TV documentary on the laser ranging system that described the operation of the system. Even though they use a high-powered pulsed laser, the path loss between the Earth and the Moon is so high that only a few photons make it back to the detector in the ranging system. The laser beam is about 4 miles in diameter when it hits the moon.
Don't you realize that the Earth is a giant chocolate chip cookie floating in an even bigger glass of milk? Don't go near the edge, you'll kill us all!
See, these are the kind of crackpot ideas we intelligent people have to put up with every day. Chocolate chip cookie, indeed.
Everyone knows the Earth is a huge disc sitting on the backs of four elephants standing on the back of an immense turtle.
-- Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Isn't the moon too bright for it? I mean it might damage the sensors because they are geared toward resolving really faint objects. I don't really know but I would suspect that would cause problems.
Yes I was joking. In fact, I think that's a really old joke. What's most interesting about your analysis (and thank you) is the claim (I won't dispute it) that with a ground based optical telescope we can only get 1 arcsec of resolution.
I am not sure where you got the skinny triangle approximation from, or what D represents (presumably the long side of the triangle.) Using some presumably old numbers from howstuffworks http://www.howstuffworks.com/questi on529.htm A KH12 can see 5" at 200miles.
Using your skinny triangle, that's a frustratingly low resolution of only 8e-2 arc seconds. That needs to be reduced by an order of magnitude and then some to use a KH12 to see the rover.
Hmm, maybe someone can come along and make the argument that if howstuffworks, using old numbers, thinks the resolution of a keyhole is 5", then the real resolution is.2" which would work out very nicely.
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
In answer, they are not using typical astronomical terminology in describing the resolving power of the KH12. The KH12 can resolve 5" objects so they call it a "5-6 inch resolution". They aren't speaking in angular resolution.:)
Skinny triangle is a result of very small angles not having any appreciable curve on the short end (so no sin/cos/tan is needed). D is indeed the long side (distance from you to target).
Looking at your math I see no mistake, so that is indeed an impressive angular resolution. Of course, is that raw image or via image processing, and how advanced is their technology vs that of traditional astronomy, etc. I suppose another thing that would account for it is that a spy sat can take a very quick snapshot so distortion created by the atmosphere would not be nearly the issue it is for ground-based telescopes that take hours for exposures.
Of course as a final disclaimer thanks to computers the angular resolving power of ground-based scopes is improving dramatically with each passing year. Also, the wavelength of light you are observing drastically changes angular resolution. A formula to calculate this is angular resolution (arcsec) = 0.25(wavelength (um)/mirror diameter (m)).
Re:Why don't they...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
> The reflected light from the moon is strong > enough to fry Hubble's optics.
This statement is incorrect. The Hubble has been used to image Crater Copernicus on the moon (with great results!)
The Hubble doesnt have NEARLY the resolution required to image a tiny lunar lander 250,000 miles away. Most people dont understand how big some of the galaxies are that Hubble does image (meaning big as in, how much a chunk of our sky they cover.)
That being said, there are always cynics, some just insist on being more anal than others. Why not send
ALL on an all-expense-paid one-way trip to the moon...?
Uh, are you volunteering to pay those expenses? I, as a US taxpayer, am certainly not....
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
. Bah, I was slightly mistaken. We do have a picture of the Apollo 17 Lunar Module on the surface taken from a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon - but it was taken from the Apollo 17 Command Module:
Even if we sent of the idiots into space himself/herself, some world probably just say there were put through a simulation reconstruction.
Now that would just be rediculous of them... We would have enough data and the processing power to put someone through a virtual 3D real-time simulation of a moon landing with perfect simulation of the dynamic physics (the spray of dust particles, gasses from the engines, going through the clouds on the way up... even perfect rendering of the frekin Earth's surface), but the brain power needed to stage something like that couldn't get us to the frekin MOON???
Or better yet... the memory was implanted into their mind using complex electromagnetic (or whatever they pull out of their ass) waves to perfectly induce firing of the frekin microscopic nurons in the human mind... but nooooo... we don't know how to get to the moon and back...
The conspiracy theorists will come up with the idea of reflective rocks to explain this one away, but it is possible to bounce a laser signal off a peice of reflective foil left on the moon which is still being used to this day for experiments.
"actually, if they really are out to get you, then you aren't paranoid, you're realistic."
Generally quite wrong. Most (all?) paranoids believe that many people/groups (if not everybody) are out to get them. Just because you are right in a few cases because they are out to get you doesn't mean you are realistic (unless everybody that you think is out to get you IS out to get you), it just is statistically bound to be (the more people you think are out to get you, the more likely it is that at least one of them is).
Anyway, this sig is just a paraphrase of the Enemy of The State tag line:
"It's Not Paranoia If They're Really After You."
-- "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy
way to factor large prime numbers."
Bill Gates,
How about saying they're going to write... then cancelling... the book about the International Space Station Conspiracy Theory?
Gawd, it must be a slooowwww news day.
OMG REALLY?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Gee you mean the US Gov't would lie about something as "simple" as landing on the moon.?? kinda makes ya wonder why we haven't had more landings up there since.... I guess the raw resources are of no value to us....... no metalic compounds..... no minerals..... hmmmmm oh well... so when are we going to land on mars? rotflmao
Re:Fools! (5core: 5 Insightful)
by
patrick0brien
·
· Score: 0
-Wrong! There is no spoon!
-- -"I ate what?"
I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Illuminati+Member
·
· Score: 1
Seeing as I'm a bit of an expert on conspiracy theories, let me explain to you that it will always be deemed as a conspiracy theory.
Its like religion. You can show undeniable evidence that god doesn't exist, and the religious person would say "god made it this way to test my faith."
It was just a document for teachers to show their students when their students would ask about it.
My fourth wife is a teacher, and it never came up with her students. Perhaps its because she is a biology teacher. In fact, her studies are the reason we got divorced.
Anyway, remember that all conspiracy theories aren't necessarily false, and those that are the most rediculous are usually the ones that are true.
-- Yeah, I'm a Republican AND a geek. It is possible.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Ya the CIA trained Usuma Bin Laden and helped spread militant Islam through out the middle east just when the arabs where getting ready to leave the whole religous zealot stuff behind?
That's ridiculous!
Oh wait, that's true.
Doh.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"...You can show undeniable evidence that god doesn't exist..."
Actually, I can't, but I appreciate your confidence in my ability to transcend the boundaries of logic.:)
Four failed marriages, huh? My sympathies. Sounds like that non-existent god might be trying to send you a message...
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Yikes and all this time i thought it was your spelling that got you divorced!
Seriously, what's this, your 5th wife? WTF... are you easily bored or were they terrible wives?
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
susano_otter
·
· Score: 2
You can show undeniable evidence that god doesn't exist...
You can? That's pretty funny, since I though proving the absolute non-existence of something was a logical impossibility. Meanwhile, in the real world, I have yet to see any such "undeniable evidence". If I did see such evidence, and it really did stand up to the standard tests of reason, then I certainly wouldn't cop out with some sort of excuse like the one you suggest. I'd change my beliefs to something more reasonable.
Meanwhile, I wonder what the canonical atheist cop-out would be, should he or she be shown undeniable evidence that god does exist.
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Actually since marriage is a religous institution he should stop getting married.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If you believe in a god you're not very good at thinking logically. Sorry.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Guess what genius, the people that think it's a hoax are all harcore christians. If someone landed on the moon and all those pictures of the earth revolving around the sun are true then the bible isn't the word of god! uh oh, they must be lying!
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If you believe totally and utterly in Atheism, then sorry, you're thinking illogically as well. Please, sir, if you are truly a man of science you should know the greatest paradox of atheism AND religion.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
To add to this, we're scientifically clueless in the grand scheme of things, although non-scientists usually tend to believe we know so much. The only absolutely 100% logical thinking IS to be agnostic. That doesn't mean that believing in God or not believing in one is irrational, or stupid.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
No it's really quite obvious that gods do not exist.
For people like you that have indoctrinated into a system of brainwashing you will never be able to see why.
The chances of a god existing is about the same as Harry Potter being non-fiction.
And if you say "but you can't prove Harry Potter isn't non-fiction!" then i feel sorry for your pathetic ant like existance.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
drugdealer
·
· Score: 1
Go ahead and post your proof. Or is your proof "it's obvious?"
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
GMontag451
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That's pretty funny, since I though proving the absolute non-existence of something was a logical impossibility.
Thats only true if your evidence was gained through observation of the natural world. If however, you evidence was gained through a logical examination of the concepts involved, for example finding a logical contradiction in the definition of God, then its certainly possible. One such piece of evidence that applies to most of the popular Christian definitions of God is the fact that omniscience and omnipotence are logically inconsistent with each other.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
truthisabsolute
·
· Score: 1
There is a lot more proof of God's existence then there is for the lunar landing although I have no problems with the truth about either. Where there is design there must be a designer. Where there is order comming from chaos inteligence must be input to cause it. Creating some hoax pictures is easier than getting the complexity of life from chance RANDOM processes. If you wear a watch on your wrist which is more complex the wrist or the watch? If I told you the watch happened by accident you would find that silly. How rediculous is it to say the more complex of the two is a random event? On top of all this to know God does not exist requires a great deal of knowledge. You would have to be able to consider all possibilities. If you can do this maybe you are God. The real problem is personal accountability to God... That is what you are BELIEVING does not exist. Very unlikely but it is possible the lunar landing is false but when you imply you can proove God does not exist you have stopped thinking and turned to your belief, faith, and hope that He does not.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
cheezehead
·
· Score: 1
On top of all this to know God does not exist requires a great deal of knowledge.
Whereas to know that God does exist requires no knowledge at all. Only faith.
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Does it really matter anymore?
by
Flamesplash
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I hope that NASA has realized that it really doesn't matter anymore. Even if it was a hoax, who cares. We have a space station orbiting the earth that I think everyone agrees is there, especially since you can see it with a telescope. Let's concentrate on the present and future and not whether something in the past that really doesn't matter now adays actually happened .
-- "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
azadrozny
·
· Score: 5, Funny
We have a space station orbiting the earth
But do we really?!? Have you ever been to this so called "space station"? I though not. That object you see in your telescope is really just a big piece of aluminum foil. It's a giant conspiracy to hide the fact that Russia squandered all of its funds for the ISS on super computers that search the Net for p0rn.:-)
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
not so fast
a good portion of the moon landing nuts also truly believe the earth is flat. i am serious when i say this.
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
Flamesplash
·
· Score: 1
a good portion of the moon landing nuts also truly believe the earth is flat. i am serious when i say this.
Then I say let them waste their time trying to sail off the edge of the earth, as long as they aren't causing any real harm, what's the point in trying to rebuke them other than wasting otherwise useful time?
I watched an episode of the Daily Show not too long ago where one guy was calling Neil Armstrong the "Nephew of Lies" due to his spreading of the greatest lie of our life time. Note the "Father of Lies" position was taken by Satan.
-- "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Even if it was a hoax, who cares
You sound like you believe it could have been a hoax? Please drop off your tin foil hat at the door.
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I can't believe someone considered this nonsense "insightful." This is so incredibly stupid I don't know where to begin.
What is your argument here? It does not matter if one of the most important events in the history of mankind happened or not because, uhm, we have a space station now? History doesn't matter because it's... let's see... in the past? History is not irrelevant. Get out of your cubicle every now and then, will you please do me that favour?
Saying it doesn't matter if it's true or not just because it's good for us is Stalinism.
I wish all Slashbots could just shut up whenever the discussion is not technical so the rest of us (i.e. me) could remain blissfully ignorant of how shallow they are.
Re:Does it really matter anymore?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
But do we really?!? Have you ever been to this so called "space station"?
Actually yes I have. It passes overhead several times a day and you can see the light relection from it while inside a bright city.
Maybe NASA has a good business-model?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Now I'll have to go on believing that the moon is made of cheese and nasa films all their missions ala "Wag the Dog" in a sound stage. Me oh my.
--
today is spelling optional day.
Re:What am I to do now?
by
RealSurreal
·
· Score: 1
Personally I get all my space-related facts from this
Isnt there a probe going there in a few years
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Isn't that private company's probe going to take pictures of the landing sites anyway in a few years. Maybe nasa should give them the few thousand bucks to make their life better.
it's just as well
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
No amount of evidence will convince the conspiracy nuts.
Not really canceled
by
Ghoser777
·
· Score: 5, Informative
And if you actually read the article, you would have realized that Jim Oberg is still going to write the book, but with alternative funding.
F-bacher
-- James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Re:Not really canceled
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Isn't that even better, to have a third-party publish the book rather then the accused conspirators?
Re:Not really canceled
by
Madman27
·
· Score: 4, Funny
And if you actually read the article, you would have realized that Jim Oberg is still going to write the book, but with alternative funding.
For a second there, I thought you had written "alternative ending" instead of "funding". Since NASA's not going to cough up the money, the new version will end up with the spaceship returning to Earth with Apes at the damn controls.
Re:Not really canceled
by
Decimal
·
· Score: 3, Funny
And if you actually read the article, you would have realized that Jim Oberg is still going to write the book, but with alternative funding.
*Whew* I read that wrong and had to do a double take. I thought you said "with an alternative ending"... and I'm thinking "What, the moon was made of cheese after all?"
He says he will still do the work, although it will now be an unofficial publication with alternative funding.
Isn't there more interesting books that could be written?. What a waste!. Even if funds won't come from NASA, it's a waste of the time of some valuable person.
Never waste your time trying to convince somebody that won't be convinced anyway.
Re:Good but...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Isn't there more interesting books that could be written?. What a waste!.
I keep saying the same thing to Harlequin, but they just keep cranking them out...
The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
HeroicAutobot
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I was surprised when I read that NASA was planning this book to begin with. People who think the moon landings were a hoax are never going to be convinced otherwise by anything anyone says, NASA or otherwise.
If NASA really wants to do something about these wackos, they should sic Buzz Aldrin on them.
-- I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
Re:The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
There's a theory out there that you can construct an opinion poll around the most outlandish theory you can make up, and always get about 6% who will buy into anything. The semi-recent Fox pile of steaming manure pushing the hoax theory claimed that 20% of Americans don't think we went to the moon, but the real number is just about 6%.
Still, at $15,000, that's not THAT bad a use of fund if only to try and shut some people up. Far lesser writers for bits of fluff get bigger advancers that that. I hope Oberg (who will still write the book) talks to the folks at clavius.org and Bad Astronomy. Those two sites combined covery pretty much every claim by the hoax idiots.
Re:The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
cmeans
·
· Score: 2
Some people are easily swayed by logical sounding arguments, or statements as facts (that arent' actually true), or simple questions which seem to raise doupts in people's minds (who don't know or understand the physics of certain situations).
I have faith that we (American's) have landed on the moon, doesn't that mean that I believe it just because lots of people, articles, media, government, tell me it's true....
As I wasn't there, I've got to rely on faith in my Government etc....at least to a certain degree:)
Sounds silly, but it's true.
The fact that there are web sites where I can go to see alternate (debunking) information that tends to disprove the doupters, helps a lot in my own understanding.
Re:The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
brinticus
·
· Score: 1
oh that was just too funny. Buzz is a true American. Insults = immediate punch to face!
Re:The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
fname
·
· Score: 1
Well, there's more to the story that that. Y'see Buzz Aldrin is widely recognized as the 2nd person to set foot on the moon. Actually, he's often recognized as the 2nd person to set foot on the moon. OK, that's not quite right either, but it IS true that he was the 2nd person to set forth on the moon.
Do you want to hear the funny part? Neil Armstrong already pucnhed this guy.
Re:The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
nurightshu
·
· Score: 2
That kind of makes me feel bad for Buzz -- not only was he the second person to set foot on the moon, he was second to set fist on Bart Sibrel. You think he feels any resentment towards Neil for always having to be first?:)
-- They that would sacrifice their.sig space for that cliched Franklin quote deserve neither.
In response to the new consipracy theories...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Funny
Sane people don't give a sh*t.
Re:In response to the new consipracy theories...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Yeah, but this is slashdot... How many sane people actually visit this site?
I agree with this post
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Re:ironic or something-well not ironic but somethi
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Does anyone find it strange that the BBC is getting the scoop on a NASA story?
US media is too busy covering Cowboy George's "War on [Terrorism | Iraq]" and other related flag waving diatribe.
Seeing as how NASA runs the Hubble, I don't really see that being much in the way evidence for the naysayers. If there was a privately owned telescope somewhere on Earth that could make out the landing site, that'd be different.
-- "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Re:Stupid FAQ...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Havn't you been paying attention. The space race has been faked since sputnik so there Hubble doesn't exist. (I got this info from a +1 post so it has to be true)
Think of a recent theatrical CGI-rendered movie, and the quality of the animation, backgrounds, etc. Then think of how much simpler a picture of a flag on a moon would be to make than, say, even the simplest scene in Shrek.
If they did it, it wouldn't convince any of the conspiracy nutjobs. They'd claim it was a fake and make up some asinine "proof."
Maybe a new open source business-model?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the book.
by
cornicefire
·
· Score: 1
I realize that the official Slashdot editorial voice seems to believe that the moon landings really did happen. Perhaps they did. But $15k seems a small price to pay for a good discussion-- especially when Nasa routinely spends billions on things. Why can't they just classify it as history or something sociological?
BTW: I've never studied the information put forth by the conspiracy theorists or the debunkers, but I can say that a few of the claims that flitted past my eyes seemed fairly worrisome. Maybe some day when I've got the time, I'll try to dig deeper. In the meantime, I'm not going to let the government off the hook just because the Slashdot editorial voice says "It happened." After companies like Enron and World Com lied so completely to everyone about the EXISTENCE of BILLIONS of DOLLARS of so-called profits, I'm beginning to think that it would be possible to pull off the hoax. After all, auditors and the SEC checked out the corporations. There's no regulatory body checking out moon landings. So call me firmly undecided, at least until NASA writes the book.
It's a fake because footage showed rods
by
dudemaster
·
· Score: 1
Watching some of the old moonwalk videos in slow-mo clearly shows some rods in the background. Lately though, I haven't been able to reproduce them on my VCR, further proof of the conspiricy.
I really wish NASA would get back doing what they do best....it would be much cooler to watch man walk on Mars and then hear about how *that* was faked.
Conspiracy theorists will interpret anything as further proof of their theory. Getting into arguments with them is pointless because everything will be interpreted as further proof that things "are being covered up".
NASA is better served by ignoring the cooks and moving on.
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
SirSlud
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
The book is still going ahead as planed; NASA wont be funding or publishing it, is all.
It's amazing what a little article-reading can get ya.;)
-- "Old man yells at systemd"
Re:ironic or something-well not ironic but somethi
by
pigpen_
·
· Score: 1
No, not really. The media in the US is focused on Iraq, election fallout, and Iraq. Even on a slow news day I doubt a minor piece of news about NASA would get a lot of play.
-- Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
I believed in NASA, but as the years pass I'm becoming suspicious of the landing. I wonder why haven't we been back. Why hasn't any other country been to the moon if possible. Wouldn't the moon be useful as a research lab at a minimum.
My thoughts exactlly. (Manned) space travel and exploration has not followed anything even close to moore's law. I was a bit young at the time -- but I bet most people at the time thought that the moon landing was just the beginning of manned exploits into "space", not the climax.
-- (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Re:as time goes by
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Does it occur to you the cost of taking a trip to the moon? Not to mention setting up a research facility (one, I assume, you expect to be staffed constantly)?
Beyond that, what's the point of the moon as a research facility? It has low gravity, but with the shuttle (and even airplanes) they can do research on the effects of micro-gravity.
As far as the other post I saw questioning whether the landing happened or not because if it did we would be mining the moon -- why? Is there something great on the moon? How much would it cost to mine and transport what we mined? It's only practical if you can mine it and move it for less than it's worth.
Think....then post
Re:as time goes by
by
josecanuc
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Why would it be a useful research lab? It's made of rock and dust. We brought some back. What else is there?
A lab of any sort seems to infer the presence of equipment. Equipment like what might be used on a Moon lab probably wouldn't be very lightweight. The Lunar Excursion Module was pretty much only capable of getting 2 guys to the surface and back again with 200-300 pounds of rocks.
It cost billions of dollars back then. Imagine how much it would cost now. Who pays for it? Back then, there was a large number of folks in favor of 'beating the Russians to the moon'. The majority of US citizens were willing to pay for it. How many are now? And how much are they willing to pay?
I don't think there's anywhere near the same number of people that would support (financially) such an endeavor.
Once we beat the Russians to the moon, public support waned.
Because NASA hasn't got the budget to do anything other than a pityful small manned space program.
Re:as time goes by
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Becuase it's expensive and of dubious importance to most people on this planet? Holy Death Pigs In A Basket, people, can you not puzzle these things out for yourself? A very basic set of critical thinking skilss will get you past the moon hoax nonsense.
We just don't want anyone going up there and bothering the monolith. It tells us it doesn't like it when the ape-people keep touching it. Monoliths are very fickle things...
-- You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Re:as time goes by
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"I believed in NASA, but as the years pass I'm becoming suspicious of the landing. I wonder why haven't we been back..."
Well, I went to South Dakota once and I've never been back, probably for the same reason...
(Manned) space travel and exploration has not followed anything even close to moore's law.
So what. Neither has agriculture, medicine, the automotive industry, fast-food production, or just about anything but microelectronics.
If you want manned spacecraft to become half the size and twice the speed every 18 months then start building humans that shrink in size and mass at the same rate.
We're doing far more exploits into "space" now than we were in the 60's. Many of them are unmanned, because we can build inter-planetary spacecraft that can operate almost by themselves. We sent humans to the moon, rather than just limiting the trips to unmanned ships, for political reasons as much as scientific reasons. Want to send humans back to the moon? Start writing your congressman.
the US and the rest of the world hasn't been to the moon since because there's no reason to go back! we hauled enough space rocks and materials back to conduct all the analysis of the moon surface we could want.
why not build a lab there? it's too far away and landing and taking off from the moon is complicated and can be prone to error. what's the point of being on the moon surface if you can put a space lab into earth orbit instead? ISS to the rescue!
right now, the moon doesn't offer humankind anything other than a gee whiz factor. perhaps in the future it will be used for something!
The actual cost for sending 1lb of material into space is $10,000. Between food and water alone each person in the research station would be eating $30,000/day.
This means that a moderate research station of 20 people operating for one year would eat $219,000,000 worth of food. Still wondering why we don't have a research station?
My point being...
by
MacAndrew
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...there is absolutely NO chance of winning with the conspiracy crowd. They have everything to lose by conceding. (And I was pretending to be one of them. I'm not! Really!)
However, a book aimed at the general public might make sense -- there is a lot of bad science out there in general acceptance. A book targeting these problems, and not framed as a response to the conspiracy theorists, might make a lot of sense.
For all the fun folks make of conspiracy theorists, the term itself is a condemnation of skeptics run amok. I like the undercurrent of skepticism, of criticizing the accepted wisdom, but not with the disregard of the facts and, worse, dishonest hidden agenda of getting rich or getting on TV.
...there is absolutely NO chance of winning with the conspiracy crowd. They have everything to lose by conceding. (And I was pretending to be one of them. I'm not! Really!)
So you say... By the way, I know you all think I'm paranoid. I'm not you know... but you all THINK I AM, DON'T YOU?!!!
Re:My point being...
by
jdunlevy
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Jim Oberg was interviewed yesterday on the BBC World Service (before the decision to cancel the book, and with zero indication that there had been any real criticism of the idea of publishing the book).
He basically said it was never intended to convince hard-core conspiracy theorists (he refused to be drawn into calling them nuts), but was rather intended for people, like school teachers, who might face related questions and needed to understand the issue to have answers. Apparently NASA routinely receives requests from teachers and others asking how to answer doubts.
Which is the more complex and unlikely scenario: the Apollo program occured as "conventional wisdom" says it does, or the whole thing was faked with thousands upon thousnads of people involved, fake unmanned space craft travelling from Earth orbit to lunar orbit replying to radio chatter from Earth, fake moon rocks good enough to fool the best geologists around the world etc. etc.
Given the technology of the day it would be HARDER to fake the landings then to do it for real, not to mention the huge numbers of people involved staying quiet.
True skeptics don't automaticaly beleive everything they are told, but they are also able to logicaly analyze the evidence before them. No skeptic would beleive that the moon landings were faked.
True, but I think the theorists would think of themselves as skeptics. No, I don't think they do this in an intellectually disciplined or honest way, nor do they have the sophistication that to realize it would have been easier to go to the Moon than to fake it, so I said "run amok." And, geez, they defy the prime directive of Occam's Razor!
There are certainly plenty of instances of brave souls going against the accepted wisdom only to be proved right. A recent example was going against what "everyone knew," that hormone replacement therapy was an automatic benefit for all women. (The conspiracy one might suspect there is Wyeth, mfr of Premarin, the #1 drug in U.S.) No, I don't think there was any explicit conspiracy here, but I do appreciate the questions being raised, and this is the only example that comes to mind.
I agree with you, there is absolutely no chance of winning, and a proper book aimed at the general public might be useful.
The problem, as it has always been, is communicating the subtle differences between the believers of truth and the seekers of truth. I use the former instead of 'skeptics' or 'conspiracy theories' because both these groups are useful and good if they are not just trying to push a personal belief on everyone else. The same goes for the latter term.
The reason most of the moon-landing conspiracy stuff is so useless is that it hasn't really added to our knowledge. Mostly what it has done is made obvious and trivial statements in an effort to convince people that the moon landing could have been faked. Well, duh. A person must be the developmental equivalent of an average 10 year old not to be creative enough to figure out that things can be faked. However showing something can be done, or even showing motive and opportunity, is not enough. It would be like convicting someone for theft because they had means, motive, and opportunity, but nothing was missing, and no attempt was made(which is done, under conspiracy laws, but that is different). The question of whether the moon landing could have been faked, and consequently debunking these scenarios, is so far from the point as to be silly.
-- "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide."
Orphan Black
Re:My point being...
by
Boronx
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
And why would they bother faking the landing seven times! Nobody was even watching except Apollo 13.
Re:My point being...
by
electrafied
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There already is a book like this. Its called 'Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"' by Phil Plait. He also has a website, www.badastronomy.com. I highly recommend checking out both the book and the website.
Yes, I've seen both and agree. I was thinking, though, of a book with NASA's official imprimatur, assuming they know space better than anyone. As another poster indicated, NASA intended not a rebuke to conspiracy theorists but an educational volume for teachers etc., since the misconceptions and weird theories keep popping up.
Besdies, if Plait takes on astrology, well that's just going to make a lot of people mad. Astrology's real, or they wouldn't put it in the paper.
I'd love to see a survey of the general public's knowledge of space. Ever since that kid got a majority of people to agree dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, I've been worried.
A sceptic is someone who questions the facts and assumptions of our common reality. A conspiracy theorist is someone who belives that the "real" common reality is something secret and the population is being duped by elaborate deception. Of course only the conspiracy theorist is smart enough to see through this deception and warn others.
On the other hand outlandish claims are an effective way of selling copy.
-- And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
but it would have only cost $15,000
by
Eponymous+Coward
·
· Score: 1
Christ- they were only going to spend $15,000. I can't believe people got that upset over it. Put it in perspective- a frickin' space shuttle ash tray costs about the same. Geez.
Re:but it would have only cost $15,000
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Wouldn't smoking on the space shuttle be a bad idea with the bottled oxygen and stuff? I don't think they have ash trays.
Re:but it would have only cost $15,000
by
cheezehead
·
· Score: 2
Put it in perspective- a frickin' space shuttle ash tray costs about the same.
No smoking on the Space Shuttle. The astronauts have to step outside for a smoke.
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
binaryDigit
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Take all the people who don't believe, stick them on a spaceship and let them see the landing sites for themselves. We can tell them to "press the big red button" when they are satisfied and are ready to come back home;)
Re:Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
J_Dog82
·
· Score: 1
Yes sir, that is what I'm talking about! Wouldn't it be nice to have all the morons of the world to the moon, then have them press the red button!
Re:Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
fermion
·
· Score: 1
Didn't everyone who stayed on the planer die of some virus passed by diry telephones?
-- "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide."
Orphan Black
Re:Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
binaryDigit
·
· Score: 2
That could never happen, since the telephone sanitizers were one of the occupational types that composed the habitants. What happened was
the people on the planet survived and he realizes that he is actually on Earth and that these losers are our "forefathers".
Re:Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
cornjones
·
· Score: 2
not quite, the original planet sent a ship full of their "useless" citizens (incl. telephone sanitizers) into space. that shipped crashed on earth and killed the local neanderthal population. Arthur Dent freaked out when he realized these people were our "forefathers".
Everybody on the original planet died from a disease passed on through contact w/ public phones (or similar, b/c they had no more sanitizers)
to the best of my recollection
Re:Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
wouldn't be convinced there was a moon landing if you actually sent them to the moon.
-- Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
This should save a few bucks.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I thought it was strange that while people from NASA are often complaning about how lacking they are in the funds department (and I agree that they could use a lot more cash than they get), they were going to in my opinion, waste money on a book proving that they sent astronauts to the moon.
There is also a sad side of this story... a portion of the population does not believe the American government when it says that people have walked on the moon. Why wouldn't we believe everything they tell us? We have no proof they have lied before. Ha!!! Damn I crack myself up sometimes.
I believe that they walked on the moon. I believe that it's time to move on and do other productive things. The past is the past and either you believe it or you don't. Enough time has been spent by other parties proving (or trying to prove) that the moon walk was indeed real. That is not NASA's job. While we are on this topic though... what exactly is NASA's job? I read somewhere that their original mission was the search for et life but no longer have a mission statement at all... anyone know anything about this?
The truth is obvious.
by
Prince_Ali
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Not only was the moon landing fake, but also the Space Race and Cold War. The US and Russia have been faking all space exploration. Sputnik I was the only real space launch. It was during this mission that Russia learned that the world sat upon the back of a turtle. The turtle in turn sat upon another. In fact Turtle(n) sat upon Turtle(n+1) into infinity. They shared this info with the US. It was then decided that the general public could not handle this information, and that is why the "Space Race" started to really heat up after Sputnik I. It was all a hoax so that no one would suspect the truth.
Re:The truth is obvious.
by
idfrsr
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I am sure that there are four elephants in the mix somewhere there...
-- "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away"
-Tom Waits
Re:The truth is obvious.
by
jellomizer
·
· Score: 2
The truth is that you are brains in a jar and we are beein fed input from an Amiga. Located on an asteroid orbiting the asteroid is a green star and the universe revolves around it. You are the only brain in existance the rest of us dont exist just a part of an Amiga program.
The point is there is no real way to difinitivly prove anything. Anything is possible and we can only use science to try to find the solution that seems to fit the best.
My view (or is it one of yours) is not to waist time worying about these things and just go with the flow.
-- If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:The truth is obvious.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"Not only was the moon landing fake, but also the Space Race and Cold War. The US and Russia have been faking all space exploration..."
I seem to recall an author I found particularly enjoyable (R.A. Wilson, perhaps?) mentioned a discussion he had with an older woman who subscribed to the Earth-on-the-back-of-a-giant-turtle theory.
When he asked the woman what the turtle was standing upon, she told him that the turtle was standing upon another turtle. When he asked what that second turtle was standing upon, her reply was something to the tune of:
Don't get smart with me, young man. It's turtles all the way down.
I wonder how many people hold similar beliefs with regard to their operating systems.
I thought the world was on the backs of four elephants then a turtle.
For those who are not familiar this is a Terry Pratchett thing.
Actually, it's an old myth that's existed in some shape or form in almost every culture. The closest one is the Hindu myth, where "we find the idea of a lotus flower growing out of Vishnu's navel. Swimming in a pool in the lotus flower is the world turtle, on whose back stand four elephants facing in the four compass directions. On their backs is balanced the flat, disc-shaped world." (The Turtle Moves)
It's this old belief that inspired Terry Pratchett to come up with Discworld, which is "a geological pizza (only without the anchovies) on the back of a starturtle, called Great A'Tuin (sex unknown). The disc itself sits on the back on 4 elephants who stand on Great A'Tuin's meteor pocked shell. Occasionally one of them has to cock its leg to allow the sun to pass." (Turtles All the Way Down)
-- Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
Re:The truth is obvious.
by
Jace+of+Fuse!
·
· Score: 2
No, actually, it's true and I can prove it.
If you locate the pointer in your view, take it and move it all the way to the top. Now, using your pointer, grab the title bar (using the left mouse button) and drag reality down.
Assuming there is another reality running at the moment, it should be plainly visible.
You can flip through them using the two gadgets located in the upper right hand corner.
You forgot to include the physics behind it...
The turtles can balance on eachother just fine, but when it comes to the world, there has to be some gyorscopic effect to hold it in place. That's why the world spins. At least, that's the way it was explained to me...
=)
The truth is that you are brains in a jar and we are beein fed input from an Amiga
Gives a whole new meaning to Guru Meditation...
-- But then again, I could be wrong.
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Hitokage_Nishino
·
· Score: 2
By all means, reject the/. authority.
After all, you should be listening to the huge pile of moon rocks and the mirrors on the surface of the moon, who, along with other things, say, "It happened."
...how many of you think that the moon trip was a hoax? I don't know what to believe... So for now, i will say that the moon trip was true unless someone tells me a good reason of why NASA would want to hoax something this important.
I know that that was a Hoax !
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I am french and I know how the american government can play on the confidence of its stupid people.
When you see that Armstrong marooned on the Moon and get away from it without any difficulty, I am wondering why everybody believed that it was true !
Everybody knows that Lance Armstrong is powered by Automation, that Bush does not really own the White House, and Ben Laden does not exist.
Everything is fake thanks to americans !
OT : you have bigger problems dude.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
...My fourth wife... ...In fact, her studies are the reason we got divorced.
... Dude, this can't be a healthy lifestyle. At least not for your wallet.
Ever notice that "conspiracy theorists"...
by
JThaddeus
·
· Score: 5, Funny
... think the government can't do anything right except cover up whatever pet project they think was faked or hidden?
-- "Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
The problem - no advertising
by
Animats
·
· Score: 2
This wouldn't have been a problem if the Apollo program had put an big advertising sign on the Moon, visible through a telescope. (Heinlein fans will, of course, get this.)
You can still ping the retroreflector with a laser, but it's not the same.
Re:The problem - no advertising
by
psamuels
·
· Score: 1
This wouldn't have been a problem if the Apollo program had put an big advertising sign on the Moon, visible through a telescope. (Heinlein fans will, of course, get this.)
I think they should have put up such a sign that said "We apologise for the inconvenience." (Adams fans will, of course, get this.)
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
What I don't understand is...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
how these conspiracy theories have any weight whatsoever. It is a trivial exercise to get a decent reflector telescope and look at the stuff that was left behind by the Apollo missions. I mean, it's not like it went anywhere.
Neider space, the earth is plane and the star was the eye of god and the sun is belly button !
-- Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
azav
·
· Score: 2
My boss was one of the guys who built the Lunar Rover. For real, I'm not kidding. It weighed between 100 and 200 pounds and it could not hold up under earth's gravity. I was told that it unfolded from the lander and was designed to hold together on the moon's gravity which it did. So therefore, unless there was another fake moon buggy, the Rover had to be filmed running about in a lower gravity environment.
Rhode Island doesn't count.
-- - Zav
- Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I dont get your rhode island joke
I live in RI, please explain
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
psychalgia
·
· Score: 1
no offense, but if it couldn't hold up under earth's gravity how did they build it? did they just hope to god it would work without testing?
--
________________________________________________
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
azav
·
· Score: 1
How did they build it? Don't know. I do know that my boss does have a few plaques from Nasa for some Apollo (or equivalents) on his wall.
I'll get some more info from him Monday. Too wiped today.
-- - Zav
- Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
azav
·
· Score: 1
Well, we all know that RI is the smallest state and therefore has less gravity than say, Texas.
Doesn't anyone study basic physics anymore?:]
-- - Zav
- Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If you can;t figure this out, you have to turn in your geek license. WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE FIGURE THESE SIMPLE THINGS OUT?
Re:Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Send rocket to the moon with critics and bring them back. A month after they've returned and saying how great it really was and that they were wrong to question the original moon shot, leak a fake video of them on a moon set. Now the conspiracy nuts can't trust each other....
The hoaxers are right. WE all know ther's no such thing as the moon. It's all a ridiculous liberal myth.
Note to those who wish to mod this down - It's funny. You just don't get it.
how 'bout a little "B Ark" action?
by
Pfhreakaz0id
·
· Score: 2
I propose we fly all these folks to the moon to see for themselves and "accidentally" program the autopilot to crash into a crater after flying them low over the landing site.
Can we put the telemarketers on board while we are at it?
Re:how 'bout a little "B Ark" action?
by
jemoody
·
· Score: 1
Okay, but please don't send the telephone sanitizers... we don't want the remaining population of Earth wiped out from a virus spready by a dirty telephone.
To write a book regardless of canceling; this book get a great advertisement at least on Slashdot; people will buy this book in any case.
The book should have a warning.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
The moon landing is just one of those things science-ma-tific types made up to confuse da rest of us. Like evolution or Pi. Lets put a warning on the book and say it controversial!
10 best hoaxes of the last 100 yrs
by
u19925
·
· Score: 2
1) Moon landing
2) Holocaust
3) Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombs
4) Cuban missile crisis
5) Elvis Presley dead
6) 9/11...
Re:10 best hoaxes of the last 100 yrs
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
What's this about NASA starting a new hoax? Here in VA, USA, a hoax is two or more hokies. (Well, it is now...):{)||
Think of how many people had to be involved
by
denchen
·
· Score: 1
The conspiracy wouldn't work if you think just how many people had to be involved. First, obviously, are the astronauts. Then at least the higher-ups @ NASA, as well as the people in the control center. Then the entire crew who filmed the landing in some warehouse, from the props guys to the cameramen to the directors & producers to the janitors who cleaned up afterwards, and the special effects team. Then at least part of the government has to know.
And then there's the fact that we were competing against the Russians, and they have everything to gain by exposing this hoax, and you better believe they would've done everything to uncover the conspiracy if there was one.
This is an obvious piece of counter-hoax propaganda posturing. It should be clear to any disinterested observer that this is a desperate move on the part of the N(A)SA organization, and act which at once legitimizes the hoax/fraud theory and brushes it aside. However, it will have neither effect: it will at once pique the interest of those who have previously dismissed the fraud theory out of hand, and simultaneously fail to convince those who have previously given the hoaxes credit that the so-called 'artifacts' cited by the fraud theorists should not be given the weight that they have been in some parts.
What sort of conclusions can be drawn from this one-step-forward-one-step-back policy? Perhaps none. Perhaps that the posturing around the so-called "moon" expedition is exactly that. Posturing, and posturing that is still pertinent today.
But the real question that should be on your minds is, when will China reach the moon, and what will they find there? Will they find the footprints and detritus of the N(A)SA agents who purportedly reached the moon? Will they find the sovereign flag of the United States, claiming the entire Moon for our grand country? Or will they find a pristine moon, quite free of all evidence of a 1969 landing, and perhaps even quite different in character than the one shown in the 1969 films.
BUT
Will the communist Chinese even be allowed to reach the moon? Or will their vessel be struck down by an 'antiballistic' missile or laser, with the only information released to the public a Chinese government release describing a non-specific "failure."
I think that the meaning is clear. There is something that the N(A)SA doesn't want us to know about the 1969 moon landing films, OR the hoax surrounding them. Or there is something that they DO want us to know, and this book would not have contained it. The only thing that is clear, is that this book will not be published officially; and that will either lead us in the direction of the truth or away from it, and this may or may not be the intention of the evil N(A)SA and the so-called United States "Government."
... or NASA just didn't want to spend 15 grand on a book that, once the original came up on/., they realized would simply duplicate a bunch of anti-hoax sites online.
Hell, I could write that book in a day... with 'borrowed' material.
-T
Re:Concluded:
by
superyooser
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
when will China reach the moon, and what will they find there? Will they find the footprints and detritus of the N(A)SA agents who purportedly reached the moon?
Yes, then they could fake their own photographs and video to "prove" that the Americans had never been there. (How hard could it be to smooth out a footprint on the moon?) Even if astronaut footprints showed up in photos, it's nothing that a minute with the GIMP on Red Flag Linux couldn't fix.:-) In the photos, the Chinese flag would be drooping and still. There would be thousands of stars in the background. The only light source would be the camera flash.
Commies around the world (mostly China and Berkeley): HA HA! Look at high and mighty Uncle Sam! He cheated to win Space Race. Just a paper tiger like we always knew.
If America pulled a hoax, wouldn't China be just as capable? As untrustworthy as some of our leaders have been, I definitely wouldn't be more inclined to put faith in proclamations made by their Marxist government officials.
Have you read this? Your satire seems inspired by postmodern literary critique. It also has the elements of a good BS "paper," and I'm guessing you picked this up at Columbia. This style is a large part of what got me through the common core courses.
Super Russian pr0n computer?
by
Flamesplash
·
· Score: 4, Funny
...Russia squandered all of its funds for the ISS on super computers that search the Net for p0rn
Really? Well I guess what's done is done. So, umm how do I get access to this super pr0n computer, just out of curiousity of course?
-- "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Re:Super Russian pr0n computer?
by
ferkelparade
·
· Score: 1
telnet pr0nvax.ru
-- frotz grue
Re:Super Russian pr0n computer?
by
bm_luethke
·
· Score: 2
probably through priceline.com's computer shatner talks about.
-- -------
Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Just one of many exploration hoaxes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I am confident that this hoax will rank right up there with Columbus's hoax. Historians are hiding the fact that his trip was a great tragedy; Columbus left with 12 ships not three. The three that returned are the only ones that didn't fall off the edge of the earth. Hundreds of sailors on the other nine ships lost their lives and their names are lost in oblivion today.
It can be no surprise that people think the Moon landings were fake - after all, look at how many people take astrology seriously.
Newspapers spend millions advertising their wares on the basis of which professional con artist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hastrologer they employ. Just think about that for a minute - more is being spent on promoting scandalous anti-science than many aspects of science that could really improve our lives. But then look at missile defence and you can see it is not just Rupert Murdoch who is to blame for that one.
okay, that's enough
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Don't you people get it? We all know the moon landings were real, we're just f***ing with you.
As many of you know. I work as a classified documents clerk for NASA, and certin government agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and NAMBLA. The 'moon landing' photos were actually taken from Delta Station 10-F in the Phabos sector on Venus. The area near the delta station is still un-teraformed and looks very much like earth's moon. This was all done in an attempt to not only obscure the truth about how advanced our space program really was at the time, but to confuse the russians into thinking that the moon is landable, when we all know that the moon is in fact far too soft to land on as it is made out of green cheese and has a core of the styrofoam 'beans' used in modern bean-less beanbag chairs.
You can always find someone to believe...
by
Alton_Brown
·
· Score: 0
I've recently taken the stance that there will always be some small group of people that you'll never be able to convince. For instance, with the moon landing, a Gallup poll showed that about 6 percent of US citizens think it was a hoax. Interestingly, they mention that about this percentage of people will end up saying yes to almost any poll question asked! For futher evidence of people doing irrational things, look at the mid-term elections - Rep. Traficant from Ohio got 15 percent of the vote and he's in prison on 10 counts of corruption. Yet somehow he's still the best person to represent the people? This is why I really think the best you can do is lay out the facts, teach as much as possible and ultimately hope that enough people "get it".
When did they say that? I've seen the thing about 10 times and I don't remember hearing it.
actually...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
There is no moon
they landed on the moon
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
They landed on the moon alright!
That's where they hide the cyborg testing fcility on the dark side of the moon.
Those people who think they where abducted by aliens? Nope, abducted by DARPA and used for research on the lab on the dark side of the moon.
That way the human rights hippies can't harrass em.
They acknowledged this.
by
Inoshiro
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The book was meant to be used as an oracle for school teachers and other people wishing to teach their non-luddite, but-still-easily-mislead friends about the truth behind the moon landings.
The luddite people who think the landings were a hoax have a lot of FUD which is easy to believe on the surface of it, but once you actually learn about the details, they fall apart. Placing all these details in one place is very beneficial.
Look at how far major religions got because a lot of people believed them for a long time. The Mormons were in the 19th century what scientologists are today. Bad memes spread easily among the uneducated.
-- -- Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
WatertonMan
·
· Score: 4, Funny
In my opinion we ought to have the Luddites believing things like the moon landings are fake. It makes it easier to keep track of them. That way their more subtle goofy beliefs like "irradiating meat causes cancer" don't creep into society as easily. When those groups have these sorts of obviously goofy beliefs it shows them for what they are to society at large.
Sort of akin to wanting the far right or far left to hold onto their weird beliefs so that they don't contaminate more moderate groups.
That was one of the most insightful comments on mass-distribution of political opinion that I've ever heard anywhere, never mind Slashdot...
Also very apropos to last Tues. nights elections, which has spawned a power struggle in the Democrat party to decide whether to try to bring their increasingly leftist base to the center, or to bring their centrist leadership left.
The distribution of extreme beliefs among populations and reflections back on widely held beliefs should definitely be studied.
The Mormons were in the 19th century what scientologists are today.
But the Mormons were never a tightly controlled authoritarian cult of personality created by a madman.
Oh, uh, never mind.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
WatertonMan
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
BTW - you do realize that there are many very educated and thoughtful Mormons, right? I'm not sure the "Bad memes spread easily amoung the uneducated" comment ought to be tied to Mormons. I agree with the general thrust, but not the backhand. . .
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
pmz
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
There are well-educated and thoughtful members of any religion. That fact doesn't make those religions more credible; it only establishes that even well-educated and thoughtful people are not immune to the siren song of religious ideology.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
WatertonMan
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I agree. However the original poster suggested that religion spreads because of the ignorant and stupid.
I don't want to turn this into a religious thread. I just think that the bias some have against religion in general is a bit tiring. It for one suggests that the reasons people are religious is irrational and that religion itself is irrational. This is simply an ignorant view of religion.
I'm not suggesting that the "most likely" rational choice is any particular religion. However the assumption that all religions (including Mormonism) is irrational is itself a rather strong siren song of ideology.
I am a personally devout follower of Christ and also stridently combat the anti-religious bias that occurs on/.
I stand behind my Mormon slam because any social organization, however well intentioned, usually ends up becoming a quagmire of social strata and domination, and I have personally observed this within the LDS organization. I am considerably more critical to the pack of idiots who runs my own Methodist church.
I do take issue with the suggestion that religious ideals are inherent idiocy against which even the learned are vulnerable, because I believe that while calling into question the behavior of social organizations is more than reasonable, calling into question the way an individual believes is bigotry. (as the this post's parent so eloquently points out)
Although this position might seem conflicting, bear in mind that I follow one who disdained the religious order of his time.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
Skevos+Mavros
·
· Score: 1
You said:
I am a personally devout follower of Christ and also stridently combat the anti-religious bias that occurs on/.
Are you at least open to the idea that much of what you see on slashdot is not anti-religious bias but simply anti-religious opinion?
Are you able to tell the difference? After all, you claim to "stridently combat" anti-religious views, so how is that not a "bias"? If you deny being "biased", then explain the difference between having strong views on the beliefs of others and "bias".
If you concede that you are biased, then why resent the bias of others?
You said:
I stand behind my Mormon slam
I've said it before and I'll say it again - we're all skeptics of other people's religions!:-)
I believe that while calling into question the behavior of social organizations is more than reasonable, calling into question the way an individual believes is bigotry.
It's hard to imagine attacking a church without one of its members finding that the attack feels like a personal attack on their own beliefs. Besides, what's wrong with saying that you genuinely believe that another person's personal religious beliefs are in error? When did that become bigotry in and of itself? Is it now impossible to disagree with others on the subject of their religious beliefs without being bigoted? When did religious belief get so fragile? Did I miss a meeting?;-)
Skev
I've said it before and I'll say it again - we're all skeptics of other people's religions!:-)
You don't read too carefully, do you? A good example of bias would be your having leapt into that statement without taking the time to see this:
I am considerably more critical of the pack of idiots who run my own Methodist church.
Bias is the exercise of stereotype, and since the source of your statement is clearly outside of having responded to what I said, you can only have been speaking to a stereotype rather than to me. Furthermore, your own admission of the frequency of this behavior, "I've said it before and I'll say it again", suggests the pattern of behavior resulting from bias.
I am open to any belief, but as for your suggestion that your regard for religious belief might be a transcendent truth about its very nature, your having so ingracefully tripped over a painfully obvious exception to that belief seriously undermines my ability to accept it.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
That way their more subtle goofy beliefs like "irradiating meat causes cancer" don't creep into society as easily.
Please state your source for long-term studies of irradiated meat consumption.
I guess if the FDA doesn't say it's true, it must not be true, huh?
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
Skevos+Mavros
·
· Score: 1
You said (quoting me):
I've said it before and I'll say it again - we're all skeptics of other people's religions!:-)
You don't read too carefully, do you?
That's always a dangerous allegation, especially when you yourself read stuff into my post that just isn't there (see later). Perhaps I read more closely than you...:-)
A good example of bias would be your having leapt into that statement without taking the time to see this:
I am considerably more critical of the pack of idiots who run my own Methodist church.
Saw it. Disregarded it. Why? Not only did it smack of a pre-emptive yet hollow defence ("I kick my own guys, so it's OK for me to kick yours!"), but it wasn't relevant to my comments - I was commenting on your stated perception of slashdot's "anti-religous bias". There's more to religion (and to criticism of religion, surely?) than the people who run churches. Or perhaps we operate under very different definitions of "religion".
Bias is the exercise of stereotype,
Okay, that will do for a definition for now, though it's a little unclear.
and since the source of your statement is clearly outside of having responded to what I said,
Not so. You are clearly a skeptic of Mormanism the religion (unless I misread your post or we differ on what "religion" means). I put it to you that your stated critical attitude to those that run your church in no way expresses skepticism about your religion itself. Or does it? Are you a skeptic of your own religion? Perhaps I've misread you.
you can only have been speaking to a stereotype rather than to me.
Again - that allegation is double-edged. You seem to be doing some assuming too, hardly surprising given that we've never met. Take a look at the phrasing of my post. I didn't state that slashdot's views on religion were right. I didn't even state that they were opinion. I merely asked if you were open to the idea that slashdot's attitude wasn't bias so much as opinion. That's all (you didn't directly answer that question, by the way). I'm certainly open to the idea that slashdot's views on religion are the result of unthinking bias - but I don't yet see it that way. Heck, I'm not even sure if it's possible to talk about slashdot this way - we're all individuals and all that...:-)
(another assumption you seem to be making is that I share slashdot's opinion/bias on religion... I never said that either!)
Furthermore, your own admission of the frequency of this behavior, "I've said it before and I'll say it again", suggests the pattern of behavior resulting from bias.
YAWN - you're seizing on a figure of speech and using that as evidence of bias? Why not use it as evidence of me having an opinion? Or, more likely, why not use it as a simple recognition that I said something very similar quite recently in a slashdot post and I didn't want to be accused of copy-and-paste posting?:-)
It is possible to have a differing opinion from you that's not the result of bias, isn't it? Are you open to that idea at least?:-)
I am open to any belief,
Well, I doubt any rational person can honestly say that they are open to any belief (for example, I'm not open to the belief that the world is flat, are you?), but I'll take you to mean that you are open to points of view on subjects that decent/rational/whatever people disagree on.
but as for your suggestion that your regard
No - not my regard, slashdot's. I was referring to the same thing you were referring to - slashdot's bias/opinion/views/mad-ramblings. See how your initial statement about me not reading very well can flip back on you?:-)
for religious belief might be a transcendent truth about its very nature, your having so ingracefully tripped over a painfully obvious exception to that belief seriously undermines my ability to accept it.
No tripping, no lack of grace, no exception (not even sure what you mean by exception in this context - you're the exception?). I was just raising what I thought were two very simple (well, simply stated) and interesting (I still think they are interesting) questions:
(1) If slashdot is anti-religion, why is that position a "bias" rather than a valid (defendable, okay to possess) opinion? It is okay to be anti-religion, right? I'm not talking hate here, just firm disagreement. Heck - I didn't even suggest that slashdot was right or that I shared their view/bias, merely that it might be an opinion rather than a bias!
(2) Why is it bigotry to believe that another's religious views are in error? I found that a strange stance to take, especially given your apparent sketicism towards mormanism (or are you a believer in mormanism? If not, then you're a skeptic - see my original quip). You've never encountered anyone possessing beliefs that you genuinely, after some reflection, thought were in error? Or do you (and everyone else) only react on the basis of bias?
These were the two main matters I raised, and I've elaborated a bit on them above in an effort to be more clear. Perhaps my use of rhetorical questions strikes you as argumentative, and you went on the defensive. Such is the peril of text communication. If it helps, imagine me sitting back, relaxed, sipping tea and tapping gently on my keyboard (this is actually true). No agro here.
(1) If slashdot is anti-religion, why is that position a "bias" rather than a valid (defendable, okay to possess) opinion? It is okay to be anti-religion, right? I'm not talking hate here, just firm disagreement. Heck - I didn't even suggest that slashdot was right or that I shared their view/bias, merely that it might be an opinion rather than a bias!
Which I will take the liberty of summarizing to "What is the difference between opinion and bias?" In short, opinion has a reason behind it, bias is the practice of prejudice. Let me demonstrate:
Saw it. Disregarded it. Why? Not only did it smack of a pre-emptive yet hollow defence...
Bias. The very act of "smacking" in your example is the stereotype coming to mind.
but it wasn't relevant to my comments - I was commenting on your stated perception of slashdot's "anti-religous bias". There's more to religion (and to criticism of religion, surely?) than the people who run churches. Or perhaps we operate under very different definitions of "religion".
Opinion. This is reasoned analysis which has a very valid fundamental question - what distinction do I hold between religion and the religious, and how does that differ from yours? If you want to get into that further, let me know.
(2) Why is it bigotry to believe that another's religious views are in error?
Because the act of elevating a difference of belief, which is a relative state of understanding, to the condition of error, which is absolute and dependent on your own point of view is itself the threshold of bias.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
Skevos+Mavros
·
· Score: 1
Hi again, you said:
Which I will take the liberty of summarizing to "What is the difference between opinion and bias?"
Close enough - I was actually asking for what you believe is the difference, since it seems we use the words very differently.
In short, opinion has a reason behind it, bias is the practice of prejudice.
And you seem to think that you can tell the difference between a statement based on "a reason" (I prefer just "reason") and one based on "bias" when that statement appears in a text-only message from someone you've never met? You can't see the irony here? Let me spell it out for you - your assessment that I show bias is based on such scanty evidence that your view can only be the result of (wait for it, are you ready?) - bias!:-) Weee!:-)
Let me demonstrate:
Saw it. Disregarded it. Why? Not only did it smack of a pre-emptive yet hollow defence... Bias. The very act of "smacking" in your example is the stereotype coming to mind.
Eh? How is this bias? Firstly, the words "smack of" in that sentence merely mean "suggest". You seem to be under the impression I used the words as a pejorative expression. All I meant was "suggest". Now, my use of the term "hollow" was pejorative (well, critical at least), but you didn't address that. Secondly, I indicated the "reason" I thought it was a hollow argument in parentheses - was I unclear or too brief? And what do you mean by "coming to mind" - whose mind, mine or yours? Are you claiming to know my mind? Extraordinary.
I'll snip the next bit as it doidn't address my original questions.
(2) Why is it bigotry to believe that another's religious views are in error?
Because the act of elevating a difference of belief, which is a relative state of understanding, to the condition of error, which is absolute and dependent (sic) on your own point of view is itself the threshold of bias.
(I think you meant to say "independent" above, otherwise there is little difference between the distinctions you were trying to make)
I fail to grasp the distinction you're making here, and the unclear and arbitrary psuedo-definition you make here suggests to me (I won't say smacks of!) that you also are unclear on the difference, but just don't realise it yet. I'm not saying that I know this to be the case, only that your text suggests it. See the way I moderate my opinions based on the small evidence I have? I try to make no one-word statements of certainty about the beliefs of others...
I think we have very different world views, so I'm not sure what can be gained here - we even use words quite differently. You claim live in a world where people often have different and mutually exclusive beliefs, yet no-one is allowed to actually think that anyone else is in error, at least not on the subject of religion, without being "biased". Though quite how that jibes with your post about Mormanism and the one claiming "bias" on slashdot is anyone's guess (aren't you claiming others to be in error?). Perhaps you were just being flippant and I'm reading too much into it.
Or perhaps you don't really live in a world where it's a no-no to think that other religious beliefs are erroneous. Perhaps you actually live in a world quite like mine - where you do think other religious views are in error - but you just don't like it when others think your religious beliefs are in error. I guess I'm accusing you of being human...:-) It would be pretty hard to call yourself a devout Christian and yet be unskeptical of other religions. That would be taking double-think to new depths, and I'm sure you actually are quite skeptical of other religions (as evidenced by your Mormon post).
And after all that, you still haven't said why you think slashdot's views are unfair "bias" rather than worthy "opinion", nor have you convinced me that believing that other's religious beliefs are in error is bias, particularly when you seem so quick to express skepticism yourself.
I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it (and believing it, till I see compelling evidence to the contrary) - we're all skeptics of other people's religions! (okay okay, I'm teasing you a bit now):-)
And what do you mean by "coming to mind" - whose mind, mine or yours? Are you claiming to know my mind? Extraordinary.
I can't think of a way to say this without seeming sarcastic. I generally assume people think about what they write before writing it, or at least during the process. You were the one who stated that my comment smacked of a pre-emptive yet hollow defense. If it smacked to me instead of to you, we/I have a serious personality problem which has brought about the fracture of your/my/our identity. Your efforts to shore up your argument by obfuscating into insignificance have been most entertaining, and attempting to obfuscate our identities is a debate tactic I must confess to never having seen.
And you seem to think that you can tell the difference between a statement based on "a reason" (I prefer just "reason") and one based on "bias" when that statement appears in a text-only message from someone you've never met?
Pursuant to the above point - the question of knowing your mind - are you suggesting that some form of body language or tone of voice would add further meaning and/or clarification to what you have said? Is there a substantial divorce between what you are thinking and what you are saying? If the difference is great enough to invalidate my use of your words as examples in this discussion, I can hardly imagine being biased in taking you at your word.
I fail to grasp the distinction you're making here, and the unclear and arbitrary psuedo-definition you make here suggests to me (I won't say smacks of!) that you also are unclear on the difference, but just don't realise it yet.
Priceless. You not only know my mind based only on text messages, but you actually claim to know more about it than me.
I really tried to imagine how bias can occur independent of one's point of view, and I would have to admit to the same level of confusion about your analysis of my statement as you expressed about the statement itself. How can one believe oneself to be superior without that belief being dependent on one's point of view? Unless of course, the belief is deep enough to have obscured the concept of point of view. This would elevate bias to a whole new level, and would render the individual in question perpetually ignorant to the truth of his condition.
Were I to speculate as to the actual essence of this discussion, semantics and posturing aside, I would have to say that the issue is not how I define bias and opinion, but rather how I define religion and belief. But I think any meaningful discussion of that is probably hopeless at this point, unless we can videoconference so that you can express your views through interpretive dance or something.
I have an idea. You've had an itchy finger on your flamethrower trigger for some time now. Why don't I go ahead and call bullshit on the whole condescending civility thing you've got going on so you can cut loose and get this out of your system. I'll leave you with the last word on the issue.
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
Skevos+Mavros
·
· Score: 1
I can't think of a way to say this without seeming sarcastic.
Actually it was this sentence that seemed sarcastic.:-)
If it smacked to me instead of to you, we/I have a serious personality problem which has brought about the fracture of your/my/our identity.
You don't really think I meant that do you?
Your efforts to shore up your argument by obfuscating into insignificance have been most entertaining(...)
I don't have an argument or a (stated) position - just a couple of questions. Are you that keen for an opponent that you can't just take the questions I asked at face value? Yet again you talk at length about side-points (which is okay) but without addressing my questions (which is not), even when I (re)stated what my questions were.
Hmm, I think the penny has finally dropped - I think I've been trolled. Heh. You got me. Well done.:-)
But in case you're not just being silly:
are you suggesting that some form of body language or tone of voice would add further meaning and/or clarification to what you have said? Is there a substantial divorce between what you are thinking and what you are saying?
No and no. In fact I'm saying almost the reverse. I'm asking you to ignore the (imagined) tone you seem to be hearing behind my words, and focus on their plain meaning. Hence some of my previous comments - you seem to be responding to some hidden meaning behind my words, rather than their plain meaning. And what do I mean by plain meaning? Well, just try assuming that all my questions were asked in a polite tone as genuine enquiry. That's not too rare a thing is it?:-)
As I tried to say, and as I suspect you realise, plain text is fine for answering questions from a stranger based on the plain meaning of the questions, but hopless if you're trying to perceive subtle intentions (and biases!) behind the questions. You just don't know enough about me to make those assessments of underlying intent (I can assure you that you seem to be mostly wrong about them), so why not just address the questions themselves.
You've had an itchy finger on your flamethrower trigger for some time now. Why don't I go ahead and call bullshit on the whole condescending civility thing you've got going on so you can cut loose and get this out of your system.
Is it that hard to believe that someone posts to slashdot without pounding his keyboard in fury - that's certainly not how I see you. Again you read too much into my words, or perhaps I choose hostile-sounding ones? I've reread my posts and they don't strike me as hostile. I really am quite relaxed on this topic - perhaps that is what seems infuriatingly condescending to you? I have far more deserving things to get agro about (like a hard drive that recently died just before a backup, costing me three weeks work on a short film edit), and I very rarely get involved in angry debates, especially online, and especially under my real name. I asked my original (admittedly skeptically phrased) questions because I wanted to know the answers. That was the extent of my agenda. Does this really surprise you?
Nah, I think you know all this. Yeah, I've probably been trolled. Had to happen sooner or later. Nicely done though, especially the part about giving me the last word. And I went for it too. Elegant.:-)
I know of several well-educated evolutionists. Many are a bit zealous about it, especially those who insist it is science and not philosophical doctrine, but they're generally a nice bunch.
-- "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:They acknowledged this.
by
rtechie
·
· Score: 1
I agree. However the original poster suggested that religion spreads because of the ignorant and stupid.
You're right. Religions spread due to wishful thinking and gullibility.
I'm not suggesting that the "most likely" rational choice is any particular religion. However the assumption that all religions (including Mormonism) is irrational is itself a rather strong siren song of ideology.
No, it's not. It's common sense. Joseph Smith wa obviously lying about the "golden tablets" he was supposedly given. Most of the witnessess who claimed they saw the tablets later admitted they were lying. None of his claims about the history of the Americas have been verified. Not to mention the fact that the tablets were apparently written in 19th century American English (using period idioms, etc.), so not only were they fakes, but they were AMATUERISH fakes at that.
The Mormom faith is clearly based on outright lies.
Now admittedly, the same might be said about Christianity. We don't have nearly as much information about 1st century Galilee and the people that lived there as we do 19th century America. History has clouded all the details that might have proved the veracity of the Bible one way or the other.
The Mormons and the Scientologists don't have that luxury.
It's not that I think they didn't go to the Moon, but I find equally unreasonable both sides: the ones that say all the story is fake and the ones thay blindly believe NASA's story -most of us.
Hey guys, if you read about it, they may have a point: the flag, the shadows, the political context, etc... so maybe the book should be written.
The world is plenty of believers ready to buy into any theory they like.
The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Funny
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt.45 and a.38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
vmfedor
·
· Score: 1, Funny
I find it ironic that you can be skeptical of the moon, yet you seem to believe in God with no problem. (.."God-fearing Americans.")
- vmfedor
--
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
aeakett
·
· Score: 1
Ummm, I'm pretty sure that was all supposed to hysterically funny (as it was to me), and not meant to be taken so seriously. I'm hoping you comment was supposed to be funny too. If it was... I apologize.
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
DroppedPacket
·
· Score: 1
I know the Anonymous Coward who posted this thinks it is all just a joke, but what part of this is wrong?!
I've seen Enemy of the State. It was indeed a documentary. I know this because it is the only movie to show how satellites are able to hover over somebody to watch them instead of following the fictional "orbital path" thingie.
OK, I'll admit, I don't think the first paragraph about the 4 week cycles for the moon is a bit off. The real reason is to mask the fact that the werewolves are really aliens that hibernate for about 22 days at a time.
-- I am not a resource! I am a free man!
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
stinky+wizzleteats
·
· Score: 1
You shouldn't have AC'd this - it's high quality trolling and you should be proud of it.
I think you could have tied the whole "evil moon" discussion up by referencing the documentary motion picture: "AI".
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
vmfedor
·
· Score: 0
Well, I really couldn't distinguish if he was trying to be serious or funny. It seems an awful lot of work typing all that just to get a few karma points, haha.
Anyway, my comment was directed to the post if it was, indeed, serious. Otherwise, I'm a jackass. Sorry.;)
- vmfedor
--
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Re:The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
Psiolent
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!)
Two things wrong with this statement. Let me quickly clear things up:
(1) Really anyone is able to *ask* as Joshua did. It's just that not everyone gets a response like he did. Maybe this is just semantics, though.
(2) Joshua didn't ask to stop the rotation of the earth, but rather the movement of the sun across the sky. This proves that the earth *is* the center of the universe! But that's a whole other discussion.
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Comparing Enron accounting practices to the moon hoax nonsense is about the worst analogy I have read on the Internet in three weeks, and that's 150 years in human time.
Holy Bajeezus Christ, I can't believe you even made a comparison between the misdeeds of a handful of executives and a cooperative efforts of thousands of scientists, engineers and other hard workers, all of whom would have to have collaberated on this hoax without fail for over 30 years now.
The real REAL reason the book was cancelled...!
by
President+A.+Lincoln
·
· Score: 0
NASA has decided to write a different book instead -- One that claims that they themselves were the ones behind the whole "The moon landing was faked!!" movement. Rumor has it that while the moon landing did actually happen, it was only done to support the rumors that NASA intentionally started. As part of a huge 35-year long scam to defraud the government out of the money to write the book to defend it, they had to go to the moon to make their "it didn't happen!" gag seem plausable. And these stupid conspiracy goons bought it, lock stock and barrel!
From the previous story: "And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see [the book] as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
From this story: "No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake."
You just can't win with these people, can you?
Oh I almost forgot .....
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
.... and Gore invented the Internet.
Easy enough to disprove,
by
Archfeld
·
· Score: 3, Funny
we just take the dissentors to the edge of the planet and throw them over the side of the flat earth:)
-- errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
From someone who used to think it was real...
by
OrbNobz
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I never had any reason to doubt this event growing up. Then I heard about the conspiracy angle, checked out all the material (movies, books, forums), and I am now in the 'undecided' category. For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose. Most of the other facts are hit or miss, and pretty subjective.
To think that the government doesn't hide anything is lunacy. To think that the government doesn't lie is naive. What needs to be provided here is indisputable proof of the event. This was a scientific event and therefore must be (re)proven scientifically. Even when the private sector comes forward with photographic evidence of abandoned Apollo equipment, I still would not be 100% convinced. To be honest, I don't know what it would take to prove beyond a doubt that Niel Armstrong set foot on the moon. It might be easier to provide _real_ evidence to the contrary.
Am I alone in this vein of thought?
- OrbNobz If a sig falls in a forum and noone is around to read it, was it really written?
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
macdaddy357
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I didn't know Dale Gribble posted here.
-- How ya like dat?
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"Guns don't kill people, THE GOVERNMENT kills people!" -Dale
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
j-beda
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I think you are pretty much alone in these thoughts in this forum.
You ideas that proof of such an event is hard to come by definatively, is valid. But similar statements about Australia can be made. I have never been there - hvae you?
Something that might be persuasive without actually being proof of the landing, is the lack of proof of the fakery. It would be very easy to provide evidence of the faking if it in fact did occur in my opinion. How easy would it be to cover up the filming of a major motion picture? Not very.
There has not been one credible person to come forward explaining how the "fake" was carried out in any real detail. Where were the movie sets? Who made them? Who paid for them? Who did the filming? Where are the out-takes?
Nixon and his buddies couldn't keep the wraps on a couple of hours of audio tapes, yet NASA and how many other people managed to destroy all of the physical evidence of their fakery and managed to convince everyone who worked on it to keep their mouth's shut, for 30+ years?
Going to the moon was difficult, but no where near as hard as faking the whole thing successfully would have been. The moon visit just required some good engineering. The hiding of such a big fake I feel is virtually impossible.
If "they" are this good at coverups, and "they" control NASA, the USSR, and everyone else... then why the heck would anyone ever speak up against "them"? If I thought "they" were this powerful, I would be scared shitless. You would have to be *crazy* to try to fight against "them"...
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
mo+wiggley
·
· Score: 1
Im with you on this. For me, the radiation belt, and the photo of the flag where the pole covers part of
one of the +'s on the camera lense. Actually, Im very
suprised at the slashdot crowds attitude on this manner. Neither view has been proven, but there is indeed evidence to support a potential conspiracy. Anyone who has paid any close attention to this issue will have seen at least one piece of evidence that causes serious pause.
-- Libranet GNU/Linux - Excellent Debian Based Distro
http://www.libranet.com
Check it out!
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
Yunzil
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose
The van Allen belts are regions above the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field has trapped particles of the solar wind. An unprotected man would indeed get a lethal dose of radiation, if he stayed there long enough. Actually, the spaceship traveled through the belts pretty quickly, getting past them in an hour or so. There simply wasn't enough time to get a lethal dose, and, as a matter of fact, the metal hull of the spaceship did indeed block most of the radiation.
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
kirkjobsluder
·
· Score: 1
For me, an important bit of evidence that it really happened comes from the Soviet Union. At the time the Soviet Union was successfully taking the first measurements of the atmosphere of venus using radio astronomy. In addition a handful of amateur radio operators were already experimenting with EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) transmission. This left a fairly large body of people capable of confirming a carrier signal through the transfer orbit to the moon and back.
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
raytracer
·
· Score: 2
I never had any reason to doubt this event growing up. Then I heard about the conspiracy angle, checked out all the material (movies, books, forums), and I am now in the 'undecided' category. For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose. Most of the other facts are hit or miss, and pretty subjective.
It's a pity that some people get stupider as they get older. You are obviously too foolish to realize that citing NASA's "inability to send any living thing through it [ed: the radiation belt]" is begging the question. NASA did send living beings through the radiation belts: they were called Apollo astronauts. Perhaps you've heard of them. You can't use the fact that you don't believe they did so as evidence that they didn't do so.
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
dasunt
·
· Score: 2
OrbNobz writes:
For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose. Most of the other facts are hit or miss, and pretty subjective.
That's why I doubt the existance of microwaves. How can someone heat food without receiving a fatal dose of radiation? At the very least, if microwaves did exist and were in widespread use, there should be low population growth due to widespread sterility.
"Experts" even claim that some of these microwaves get their energy from Nuclear Power Plants! How absurd! We all know that the vast amount of radiation put out by nuclear fission is fatal to any human being. Even if we could manage nuclear power remotely, the amounts of radiation would interfere with any remote control. Quite frankly, nuclear power is a myth.
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
OrbNobz
·
· Score: 1
Prove that they did. That is the point of this whole topic. What gives you your conviction that these men travelled through the Van Allen Belt? Perhaps you could convince me. As someone so much more tactfully put it, it was the speed of which the astronauts travelled through it that saved their bacon. You don't prove a point by saying that it happened because you were _told_ "It happened". We're talking unbiased, third-party emperical evidence, man! I'm not saying it did _not_ occur, I'm only saying, fully convince me it did, as there exists a shadow of a doubt. If you weren't so busy trying to ridicule than actually proving your point, you might get a less scathing response in the future.
- OrbNobz I hate it when people are redundant, repetitive, and say the same thing over, and over, and over again!
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
OrbNobz
·
· Score: 1
Now you're just being silly.
Both items you mention above (Microwaves, and Nuclear Power Plants) are both easily accessible (albeit a bit restricted regarding the latter), and therefore fairly easy to test. Herein lies the key: physical accessibility. Go down to your local plant and take a geiger counter with you. You will find there is plenty of shielding. See that metal screen in the door of your microwave? Adequate screening of microwaves. Stop being fecetious and prove your point. Show me NASA's radiation measurements from the crew compartment during the traversal. Spike? That might be good evidence. But since NASA is on the receiving end of the controversy, can you use the information NASA gathered as evidence?
If I tell you I have built a vehicle, that by travelling through dimension 10, can pass through a mountain, you would want proof. Visual proof, proof from readings, eyewitnesses, etc. I tell you to check out Buckaroo Bonzai at your video store, as it documents the event. You watch my video documentary and tell me, "That's just a movie". Precisely.
- OrbNobz In every scientific experiment, the same results must be reproduced every time. The moon landing has not been reproduced...yet.
Simthers has been ordered to release the Buzz Aldrin robot.
DoubleClick add in your Footer!?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Now that's low.
To the Hubble and Lunar Reflector crowd..
by
Boss,+Pointy+Haired
·
· Score: 2
Firstly, I have no doubt myself that the moon was visited by man.
However, even if Hubble _could_ resolve the lunar lander, and even if there _are_ reflectors on the moon's surface, they do not prove that Man actually visited.
The lunar module could have gone it alone whilst Armstrong et. al. were in orbit around the Earth for a few days, and the lunar reflectors placed there automatically.
I stopped watching that Fox documentary when they showed the photograph that contained the lunar lander one minute, and not the next. Gee, you never looked at mountains in the distance? See how they don't change over the course of a few meters?
Get a life, hoax believers.
You know how stupid the average person is? Well by definition, half of 'em are more stupid than that.
Does it actually matter...?
by
Dutchmaan
·
· Score: 2
Does it really matter if we really went to the moon or not..
If we did... *Hurrah*!
If we didn't then...oh shock! our government lied for political reasons.
Whether we did or didn't is irrelevant to things that should be addressed today.
So what if it's a hoax...
by
sapgau
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If don't beleive something that is very easy to verify then you should be much more worried about other things!!
- Are you an orphan? - Is the food you are eating really good for you? - Is your house really worth what you think? - Are your dreams really in your subconscious? - Are you mature enough (mentally) to place such fundamental questions?
Re:DoubleClick add in your Footer!? - sorry
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Hm... Apparently it was a slashdotism, and not your intention. Sorry.
Re:Does this also mean...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
You people are so gullible. That entire story was completely fabricated to provide "proof" of a real lunar landing. There are no "moon rocks" to steal, at least not on Earth anyway. Take off the freakin' blinders people!!!
Obviously it was a hoax...
by
demachina
·
· Score: 1
...or we would be able to go there today. If it had been real after 30 years of technical progress it would obviously be easy and cheap to go to the moon, it would be covered with bases and people, and we would be on our way to Mars. Since NASA is incapable to do it now they must have been incapable the first time.
-- @de_machina
Re:Obviously it was a hoax...
by
cheezehead
·
· Score: 1
NASA can't afford to pay the parking fee for the Lunar Rover they left there ~30 years ago.
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Oberg Says He's Still Going to Write It
by
kalidasa
·
· Score: 2
And I'm going to buy it; books like this, and Dawkin's Blind Watchmaker, are absolutely essential.
Silly, disrespectful move...
by
Jinxo
·
· Score: 1
"Some commentators had said that in making the Oberg book an official Nasa publication, the agency was actually giving a certain credibility to the hoax theory."
I can't help but laugh, really, when such an argument is used. IMO it's basically as good as simply sticking your head in the sand, and pretending nothing's going on outside.
In the case of the Moon landing conspiracy theory, I feel the argument is even more invalid. Almost everyone has heard the theory. The theory would be so bad, and in so many ways, were it to be proven true, that it seems that everyone that might believe it, already firmly does, and everyone else already firmly rejects it. It doesn't strike me as the kind of suggestion that allows for grey areas.
The logical conclusion would seem to be that this move only serves to further fuel those who do believe. Since the work, it seems, was already done, I think they would have been better off publishing the book. No point in pretending the theory believers are not there, and that they don't have a loud voice. Better to confront them...
Unable to prove to "fanatics"
by
Longtime+Lurker
·
· Score: 1
Anyone who wants to believe in something will, no matter what type of proof you give them. Pictures can be faked, so can computer records, documents, etc...
The only way to shut up a naysayer and convince them that we have landed on the moon and have the technology to do so is by bringing that person to the moon and saying see "We are here!" what do you have to say?
Of course their response maybe "How do I know this is really the moon?" A no win situation at best.
Re:Unable to prove to "fanatics"
by
psamuels
·
· Score: 1
Pictures can be faked, so can computer records, documents, etc...
Yes, and we've pretty much passed the point of no return. For pictures, in particular, anything that can appear in real life can be mocked up by a CG effects house, with very little effort, and be pretty much undetectable. I expect this fact will have interesting ramifications in legal courts in the coming years.
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
If you still believe...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Funny
To convince the conspiracy theorists, NASA only needs to give them a better theory.
The moon landing was real alright - they released faked photos and such because they actually established a nuclear missile base on the moon, in complete violation of international treaties.
But a few very perceptive people noticed some small discrepancies, so it was necessary to "guide" them into believing the moon shots were faked, so they would be dismissed as kooks.
Work this right, and we might get financing for some more trips to the moon, well equipped for an extended search for the hidden automated missile bases.
Why stop at the IPBM (Inter-Planetary Ballistic Missile) base? Heck, we have an entire regiment of higly-trained super-secret military personnel living up there right now with all of that Ballistic Missile power at their fingertips. They've been up there since 1969 in a self-sustaining moon base, and have even had children who have grown up there. Problem is, they've been showing signs of lunacy (I couldn't resist), and just recently they severed all contact with the Mega-Top-Secret Super Communications Base (MTSSCB) in area 51 (you knew there was a reason your tin foil hat seemed to be getting fewer brain control signals lately), shortly after NASA caught some garbled arguments about "maybe we should just wipe the stupid 'Terrans' off of their pretty blue planet." Nobody's sure how stable these folks are, so we've got to get back up there RIGHT NOW and take care of the situation. The aliens say they will be able to help us with the expedited launch schedule, but they will need a lot more money than is currently available to them to make it work.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
We never went to the moon!!!
by
woogieoogieboogie
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Because the moon doesn't exist.
-- ... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
Re:We never went to the moon!!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
>> Because the moon doesn't exist.
Only when you don't look at it. See quantum indeterminacy.
Why not use a telescope and..
by
kleenex+box
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
.. take pictures of the lunar rover and landing module?
i mean, it's not like they've gone anywhere. the evidence is in plain sight, right above our heads.
so where are the pictures?
Re:Why not use a telescope and..
by
WetCat
·
· Score: 1
I asked astronomers about that.They are saying that NO current optical telescopes can see such small objects on a moon...
Re:Why not use a telescope and..
by
anthony_dipierro
·
· Score: 2
The atmosphere of the Earth would distort the picture too much to get a fine enough resolution.
Simpson was in Capricorn One?? Yeah, now I think I remember that vaguely. Now, there's a joke in here somewhere, but unfortunately he just doesn't seem as funny anymore. Is his acting career gone forever? (Say yes.)
Good flick, though. Especially when the biplane fakes out the (black, naturally) helicopter, my favorite.
Re:O.J. SIMPSON?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
>> Simpson was in Capricorn One?? Yeah, now I think I remember that vaguely. Now, there's a joke in here somewhere...
Something about leaving a bloody glove in the space capsule? Or the bad guys tracking his Bruno Magli shoe prints?:)
Marcia Clark: Do you believe O.J. walked on Mars? Kato Kaelin: I didn't hear anything.
I think the reason it was cancelled is because Britney Spears is a pseudo-intelligent Borax demon from Nebcuntz Pholoplax and used her evil brain powers to change the NASA's mind on the book as it would expose that hundreds of Gurblatz demons are posing as humans. Some examples are: Dennis Rodman, Prince, Evil Kenival, John Tesh, Carrot Top, and the lieutenant commander of the Hufberg Uboolats Kevin Bacon.
Please, someone mention John Edward now. His show is less probably than man landin on Pluto yet SciFi dumps GOOD admittedly fake shows like Farscape, shows that don't exploit the bereaved, to make room for it.
People eat this stuff up. Next thing you know they'll be believe that crap about President Bush stealing the election. Wait a second, I believe that crap... ?
Favorite piece of evidence
by
fleshapple
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The moon landing is a great example of separate intersecting lines of evidence converging on the conclusion that we did indeed land on the moon. For the conspiracy theorists, no amount of evidence is going to convince them so we might as well be speaking another language. Still, I think interesting things can come out of the discussion. My favorite piece of evidence of the landing is the storage bag from the Apollo 15 mission. NASA astronauts threw it out, it ended up at auction, someone bought it and realized that it was saturated with moon dust (you can tell the dust is from the moon by comparing the ratios of certain isotopes). The isotopic ratios of certain elements in moon rocks is different than that of any rocks found on earth. The collector has since been selling sections at an enormous profit.
see this link
Now, I suppose they could have gone to the moon with an unmanned mission which landed, blasted off, returned with a bunch of rocks and dust which was subsequently distributed. At that point, why not just go there. Occam's Razor would say manned missions is a much more likely solution given the other evidence.
Re:Favorite piece of evidence
by
psamuels
·
· Score: 1
Occam's Razor would say manned missions is a much more likely solution given the other evidence.
Yes, but belief in Occam's Razor is what separates "normal" people from conspiracy theorists.
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Yes, but belief in Occam's Razor is what separates "normal" people from conspiracy
theorists.
Except when you have a conspiracy theory which has the approval of government and mainstream media. Then you can end up with the strange situation of people who question a conspiracy theory being dubbed "conspiracy theorists".
Well of course the moon landings were hoaxes! If they had really tried to land their thruster rockets would have melted the green cheese and the moon would have been turned into a giant fondue.
Sheesh, everyone knows that!
--
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Besides, as creationist science has clearly proven, the moon is covered in hundreds of feet of dust, so they could never have landed there. Oh, wait, I have my hoaxes mixed up now...
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
In other news, Winona Ryder was recently found guilty of shoplifting. This too, will doubtless fuel conspiracy theorists' beliefs that the moon landing was faked.
I still can't believe the people who don't believe something until they can touch it themselves. Believe what you want, some thing happen others don't but there's one question you should ask yourself about this. What would they have to gain lieing about this? And how can you not believe that we have landed on the moon. You know all those little sataites that are up in space that allow things like the weather channel to forcast so well, I bet those aren't up there either.
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
most evidence involves low quality jpgs.
wow, thats really convincing evidence.
the one convincing bit of the theory is the reason it would be faked. jfk made the promise, and it couldnt be done in 10 years. that has some weight to it. but since there is zero legit evidence to back it up, that goes out the window.
false authority syndrome (completely off topic)
by
Theodore+Logan
·
· Score: 5, Funny
What do you mean it's your favorite anti-hoax site so far? Do you know so many you actually have to rank them and pick favorites? Do you spend much of your time looking for new ones?
Don't pretend to be someone you're not. Nobody's impressed anyway (in this case, all it goes to show is that you have some weird priorities).
--
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Re:false authority syndrome (completely off topic)
by
Citizen+of+Earth
·
· Score: 2
What do you mean it's your favorite anti-hoax site so far? Do you know so many you actually have to rank them and pick favorites?
That should be the next Slashdot poll!
Re:false authority syndrome (completely off topic)
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Nobody's impressed anyway (in this case, all it goes to show is that you have some weird priorities).
Posted to slashdot no less.
Mirror
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
isn't there a mirror on the moon placed by these landers for laser reflection studies?
in order to ascertain the true distance I thought this was done. Now that I think of it, 400,000km is a long distance to properly aim a laser from earth and record the reflection latency.
Well, if they could make Pong a few years later, then must of landed on the moon.
The International Society to Disprove the Moon Landings (ISDML) had recently determined that Christopher Columbus had never set foot in North America, and that any evidence presented by the Imperial Spanish Court of Ferdinand and Isabela was indeed a hoax.
There is no proof that Columbus, nor any of the men in his three vessels, had ever crossed the Atlantic and landed in North America. The ISDML believe that any evidence to the contrary was generated as part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the Spanish Government in an attempt to convince the world that they were the winners in the "Sea Race" versus their rival nation, Portugal. All evidence was fabricated at an elaboratly constructed studio in Seville, in a blatent attempt to deceive the public.
In fact, the ISDML has failed to find evidence that Europeans have ever reached North America, nor that this 'fabeled' contined does indeed exists.
There is no proof that Columbus, nor any of the men in his three vessels, had ever crossed the Atlantic and landed in North America
Its funny, but in your sarcasm you are actually right, there is indeed no evidence that points to Columbus or any of his three vessels landing on the north american continent. More likely he came ashore on the bahamas, or cuba. My memory is as good as shit without a link, so take it as you will, but I do think it to be correct.
Its funny, but in your sarcasm you are actually right, there is indeed no evidence that points to Columbus or any of his three vessels landing on the north american continent.
Correct (mostly). Columbus mostly visited Hispaniola (what is now Haiti/Dominican Republic). On his fourth and last voyage he actually landed in what is now Mexico, so depending on how much nitpicking you want to do, you can argue that he did or didn't land on the North American continent. What is clear is that he did not discover the North American continent in 1492.
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Just wait for Carmack to get there.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I'm sure Carmack [Armadillo Aereospace] will be on the moon in 20 years and he can prove it happened once and for all
to end the conspiracies...
by
benfoldsfan
·
· Score: 1
why hasn't NASA just shoot these people to the moon already?
NASA is obligated to respond
by
g4dget
·
· Score: 2
NASA receives billions of dollars in public funding. The public has a right to get explanations of what NASA is doing with that money, in terms that are comprehensible to a lay person, even if the questions may seem ridiculous to a scientist. Sites like this show that that can be done easily, it just happens to be NASA's job to do it.
The alternative is that the public just takes everything scientists say for granted. If the moon landing had been faked, it wouldn't really have mattered. But other issues do matter. For example, when the Pentagon fakes missile defense, that endangers us all: a public that thinks its protected from missile strikes is going to make different political choices from one that doesn't.
The best challenge to conspiracy theorists
by
Joey7F
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The apollo mission was followed by amateur astronomers (and professional ones outside of the USA). It just so happens that all of them were in on it too?
Conspiracy theorists often get nicked by the sharpened edges Occam's Razor.
--Joey
why not a website?
by
Tablizer
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't know why they need to make a book. Simply have a Q & A sort of website that indexes and answers claims. Not only is it cheaper than printing on dead trees (they don't expect a profit, do they?), it is more accessible to taxpayers.
Or is it? I bet they hid those plans. Deep in their secret underground volcano bookbindery, NASA is putting the finishing touches on a retitled version of that very book. Then, just before the 2011 Christmas season, they'll release it to the public. With a license agreement barring conspiracy theorists from reading it.
Not Entirely True
by
FreeUser
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
People who think the moon landings were a hoax are never going to be convinced otherwise by anything anyone says, NASA or otherwise.
Not entirely true.
I have a friend who is pretty intelligent, but has an unfortunate weakness in being gullible to certain "newsoid" broadcasts. Its very odd... the guy actually is quite smart, but after seeing the Fox News special claiming the moon landings were fake he was mostly convinced, and accussed me of being closed minded and dense when I laughed at him.
So I did a little googling (something he should have done before ever admitting to anyone other than his wife, who is similarly a little "too open minded" about fringe conspiracy theories, that he took such a thing seriously) and pointed him to an excellent site debunking the entire broadcast point by point, with clay models and lighting to demonstrate the optical features of each "faked" shot.
In other words, I pointed him to a web site that proved, picture by picture, that every piece of "evidence" presented by the media whores of Fox was in fact farcical, and that the reporter should have been emberrassed at his own lack of basic scientific understanding on each and every point.
My friend, somewhat abashed, was convinced, and was more than a little annoyed that a major television network would present such garbage as "news."
Frankly, so am I, but the point remains... there are a lot of reasonable people who have an unfortuante, ingrained trust of the media (many of the same people will decry the media, but believe the next newscast all the same), and these people can and often are conviced by reasonable, factually, easy-to-understand counterarguments.
Indeed, fighting bad speech with good speech is the best way to offset this sort of thing.
That, and openly jeering at the Fox Media Whores perpetrating this disgusting fraud on the people of America whenever they show their faces in public (a little social humiliation is just what those clowns need. No, let me rephrease: a great deal of social humiliation is just what those clowns need).
Re:Not Entirely True
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I fail to understand why you have such contempt for the media. They are whores, fakers, regardless of idiological affiliation. One person there pays the bills, the others write articles for a living as the boss orders. Nothing new, and not much different from the us either.
They are whores, fine, but this should not have become such a surprise.
Re:Not Entirely True
by
LuxFX
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I worked at NASA for four years... you can't win
by
Dr.+Zowie
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...against the tinfoil hat people.
I operated an instrument aboard the SOHO spacecraft for four years; during that time I fielded innumerable emails and discussions from crackpots who were convinced, variously, that comets were crashing into the Earth, that aliens were here, that SOHO was in fact a spy satellite, and that the sun was going to blow up.
The common thread was that NASA must be hiding something. In particular, writing from a nascom.nasa.gov email address, I was an "insider" and therefore not to be trusted -- if you're involved with NASA, these people will latch on to anything you say that seems to support them, but dismiss even the clearest, most well-documented rebuttals. After all, you're working for the government, of course you'd say that.:-P
Give me a break! Those people at Goddard were working their arses off just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing -- there was no time (or inclination or, most probably ability) to keep a giant dark secret about aliens or whatever.
Ditto the lunar journeys. Feh.
The Russians are, collectively, the best reason not to believe the Apollo revisionists -- if we really didn't send men on those spacecraft, the Russians had the technology to find out. They would've screamed bloody murder. Besides, why bother to fake Apollo 13?
Video of Moon Experiments was nice.
by
Dareth
·
· Score: 1
There was a video of a classic experiment carried out on the moon, we watched this in Physics. A hammer and a feather were dropped at the same time from the same distance and they both fell at the same rate. That means the experiment took place in a vacumn.
--
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Intended Audience
by
joncraft
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I thought I should point out, the intended audience for this book was not the wacky conspiracy theorists, it was for teachers and students who had questions about non-intuitive physics that take place on the moon, so they didn't propagate the insanity spouted by wacky conspiracy theorists (and the FOX network). Any book targeted at those who were paranoid to begin with is doomed to fail, but some of the explanations of why things looked the way they did (lack of a blast crater, strange shadows, waving flags, etc.) make for some very interesting physics lessons.
I say proceed with hoaxes
by
Tablizer
·
· Score: 2, Funny
NASA cancels moon hoax? They are going to be out of practice if they keep that up.
The Republicans get a majority in the House and Senate and already they're saving taxpayer money.
You can lead a skeptic to water
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
but you can't make them believe it's water.
They'll believe it if it fits their theory
by
Cybrex
·
· Score: 1
>Any hoax believers aren't going to be convinced by a smudge
Oh really? Have you noticed all the hype over the Cydonia "Face on Mars"? It's another example of something with which the conspiracy theorists insist on wasting NASA's time. I think that the bottom line is that if someone is willing to draw vehement conclusions without doing any *real* research then they're just as likely to ignore evidence that doesn't fit with their preconceptions.
Hell, I'm a bit of a conspiracy nut myself, and these idiots make me look bad!;)
-Cybrex
-- Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Re:CornerCubes left on Moon
by
hopbine
·
· Score: 1
Public education at work
by
cardshark2001
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Any high-school physics student should be able to counter all of the arguments in the "documentary".
If you believe in the "fake", you believe in it despite any real evidence that it was faked. Learn to think for yourselves without having NASA spend $15 k on a book.
Why do you think there was no NASA scientist to counter the absurd arguments in the "documentary"? The closest thing was a scientist who was allowed to say "there are a lot of crackpot theories out there".
Do you really believe that NASA couldn't counter the arguments point by point? Any astrophysicist could. That's why they didn't have one on the show.
Isn't there a better use for your time than writing code for Linux?
Who the hell cares? If he wants to write a book disproving the hoax believers claims that's his business. If HE thinks it's a good use of HIS time then it is.
Isn't there a better use for your time than writing code for Linux?
For all my time?.
If HE thinks it's a good use of HIS time then it is.
Hmmmm... yes.
What about royalties?
by
cardshark2001
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hasn't it occured to anyone that the royalties from the book might EXCEED $15k and actually make NASA a lot of money? Considering how much public interest and controversy this caused, I think that millions of dollars would not be an unreasonable expected return.
$15k is very small potatoes compared to how much money the book would make. By cancelling it, they are passing up easy revenue.
-- WWJD? JWRTFA!
I can see it now...
by
RedBear
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Im with you on this. For me, the radiation belt, and the photo of the flag where the pole covers part of one of the +'s on the camera lense. Actually, Im very suprised at the slashdot crowds attitude on this manner. Neither view has been proven, but there is indeed evidence to support a potential conspiracy. Anyone who has paid any close attention to this issue will have seen at least one piece of evidence that causes serious pause.
From BadAstronomy: The van Allen belts are regions above the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field has trapped particles of the solar wind. An unprotected man would indeed get a lethal dose of radiation, if he stayed there long enough. Actually, the spaceship traveled through the belts pretty quickly, getting past them in an hour or so. There simply wasn't enough time to get a lethal dose, and, as a matter of fact, the metal hull of the spaceship did indeed block most of the radiation
Where's the money?
by
RatBastard
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
We stopped going because we couldn't afford it any more. No one else has gone because they have better uses for their money!
The race to the moon cost so much mioney that it would hev been utterly impossible to pull off at aniy other time in US history. Only the mind-boggling economic excesses of the 1950's and 1960's gave us enough money to toss down that bottomless money pit.
We didn't go to the moon for research purposes. We went for purely political reasons: to beat those (in the lexicon of the day) "Godless bastards in Moscow" to the moon! The science was needed to get the job done.
There is no point in putting a reaserch station on the moon. The cost of maintaining a manned presence on the moon is (pardon the pun) astronimical. Ever breath of air, every drop of water, every bite of food must be sent there at tremedous cost.
The only useful scientific endeavor to put ion the moon would be telscopes on the far side, insulated from the light and radation of the Earth and it's noisy inhabitants.
As much as I like the idea of manned space exploration, and as much as I'd love to go to the moon, I just don't see it being in any way econimically feasable any time soon.
-- Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:Where's the money?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Not economically feasable?!?!?!?
How hard would it be to take all the money we waste on the drug war, release all of the marijuana dealers we keep paying to keep locked up, and put it towards this instead?
Ok, I'll bite. If I remember correctly, the entire Apollo program cost something like $20 billion. Even in '60s dollars, that is not a lot of money (really). The International Space Station costs something like $60 billion. Again, that is not a lot of money. Most countries could easily afford this kind of stuff, if only they had the political will. If you think I'm smoking something illegal, just look up the GDP and defense budgets of the U.S. and European countries.
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Re:Obligatory |Matrix| quote
by
mattsucks
·
· Score: 2, Funny
What did the U.S gain by landing on the moon besides showing the Russians that indeed they could waste more fuel and money and go farther and do useless things elsewhere. What NASA should do is concentrate on making a moon base instead of an international space station, atleast then we can get rid of some of the pollution on the Earth by balancing out the material needs by harvesting it from the moon, although the method of transportation and quality of my arguement through run on sentences are more things that NASA could spend their money on figuring out.
Certainly image is everything, maybe NASA should ask Sprite if they can be in some of their commercials, or maybe NASA just wanted to make (another) hoax to fool everyone a second time. NASA: "Hey we'll dispute this..with some facts!"........ Well I'll chalk this up with the aliens seen in space by the cameras on board space shuttles. Or that Nibiru the 12th planet is coming to wreak havoc, NASA is a busy client these days..Anyone up for opening the Privitized Slashdot Space Agency?
-[cx]
To hell with the lunar hoax...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
To hell with the lunar hoax...
I'm still not convinced intelligent life has ever visited earth!
Inasmuch as the New Jersey Democratic party illegally changed the ballot after the deadline in order to remove a losing candidate from the ballot, and inasmuch as the New Jersey Supreme Court for some reason upheld this crass disregard for the law (could it be that they are a liberal-leaning court, just as some accuse the Supreme Court of leaning to the right?), and inasmuch as the United States Supreme Court (also, apparently, known as the John Birch Society) refused to interfere in the matter, and inasmuch as the illegally substituted candidate won the Senatorial seat, without the losing (legitimate) candidate so much as asking for a recount, and inasmuch as this constitutes material evidence that the Great Holy Liberals do not, in fact, care about the purity of the election process as much as they pretended to TWO YEARS AGO, I hereby declare a moratorium on anti-Bush Slashdotters with no grasp of the fact that everybody else has gotten over it (just like they get over every election they lose) continuing to post FUD about Bush "stealing" the election or making cutesy comments like "in the end, only 9 votes counted," particularly in light of the fact that independent recounts of the ballots again affirmed that more votes were, in fact, cast for Bush than for Gore in Florida in the 2000 General Election. You may now resume your traditional Microsoft Bashing and Linux Cheerleading.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Moratorium on Bush Trolls
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
What?
Re:Moratorium on Bush Trolls
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Its like saying the SF Giants won the world series because they outscored the Anaheim Angels 45-41.
Oh wait, total score doesn't count, only the results of each game (each state). I guess it is really is true you can prove anything with statistics.
Never mind.
Show me a coverup where people DON'T work hard!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Give me a break! Those people at Goddard were working their arses off just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing
Of course they're going to keep lots of employees busy doing work. It's pretty arrogant for you to think that you, a small fish in a big coverup, would be informed or allowed to inspect what was really going on. Is it conceivable that in your brief years at NASA, the work you did simply contributed to the belief that real work was being done? You must admit that in any coverup (government, private sector, nonprofit, etc.) nearly everyone on the inside has no idea what's going on.
Don't concern yourself with rebutting this. All the evidence you bring to table, and all the evidence that your coworkers and their superiors bring to the table can still, conceivably, be lumped in the 99%+ of people and information that are used as cover. It's an absolute necessity that NASA have faithful, believing employees who toe the line and give public rebuttals. And you point out yourself that those employees are so easy to program with constant deadlines, technology and funding challenges, products that deploy out of range of many measurements, etc.
Re:Show me a coverup where people DON'T work hard!
by
btellier
·
· Score: 2
You're supposed to unwrap the plastic before smoking the cigar.
Re:Show me a coverup where people DON'T work hard!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
His cigar comes wrapped in latex produced by Trojan.
people have in fact never flown
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
As a member of the Flat Earth Society, I can atest to the fact the humans have never been off the surface of the Earth. As our motto is Birds fly Men Drink.
Ok, I'm prepared to be flamed
by
DenialX
·
· Score: 1
This is a dumb question no doubt...but does it really matter. I mean look what we got form the space program Velcro, microwaves, simple radio network patkets. It created or started off so much technology that we used today, that the authenticity of the landing itself isn't big of deal.
If you want to complain about nasa complain that they are underfunded to begin with and that we shuold be dumping tons of money into it rather then military. One new of the fighters, the vertical flying bomber, or the new fighter costs about 220 Million US Dollars. If nasa got just the equivelent of funding used to build one jet...they might actually be able to develop something useful in reasonable amount of time.
The conspiracy debate about the landings is absolutly pointless one way or the other. If we focused on building new, faster, and more effectient space traveling vehiecles we could indulge them and check it out...but not before why waste Nasa's little precious funding indulging groups just interested in saying I told you so.
I mean, we all know how it is; to communicate with people who just doesn't get, who refuse to think. We have all gotten frustrated over them. I think that sometimes, it's just a waste of time and energy, so why bother, right?
Once they opened the can of worms (by even bringing this up) no matter what they decided to do would probably be seen as a justification.
"Oh! They are writing a book to discredit us! We must be on to something!"
"Oh! They've cancelled the book! See! They know we are right and have decided to quit while they were ahead!"
Gotta love that circular logic.:-)
-- Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.:-)
Re:I worked at NASA for four years... you can't wi
by
Sebastopol
·
· Score: 2
If I had your job, I would find it nearly impossible to resist sending back an email like, "You're right! It's all a hoax! Send help, I'm trapped in here by aliens and their about to colonize the planet!"... just to fuck with em.
There's Hope in Bureacracy
by
serutan
·
· Score: 2
Bravo for NASA for actually responding to criticism like this. They could have stonewalled it with some dumbly obstinate PR statement.
Personally I don't CARE if people want to believe the moon landings were hoaxes. Some people still think the Earth is flat. Big deal. The truth, as they say, is out there. Let's do worthwhile things.
The moon is a hoax
by
rve
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Ask yourself, have you ever really seen the moon? I thought not. Sure, you see a luminous object in the sky from time to time, but that could be anything. Most likely it is a remnant of the cold war. Do you think it is coincidence that prior 1945 not a single reference or mention has been made of this so called "moon". The ancient egyptians were avid star gazers. Don't you think it is a little bit odd that they never even noticed this so called "moon"? And how about Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, none of them ever bothered to mention this so called "moon".
I pose to you, that prior to 1945 this "moon" did not exist, and that what we now call the "moon" is in fact a nuclear weapon.
Do you think it is coincidence that prior 1945 not a single reference or mention has been made of this so called "moon".
Genesis 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
"I refuse to believe that the moon does not exist when we don't observe it." - Einstein (attributed)
-- Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Re:The moon is a hoax
by
Emperor+Cezar
·
· Score: 2, Funny
That's not a moon. That's a space station!
I don't get it
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
What I don't understand is that all the intelligence gathered at this site, all the brains, geekdom, intellect, etc, despite all the overwhelming evidence, still believes that such a thing like a moon landing could ever have taken place.
Come on people, it's so crystal clear that we are being seriously mislead. There was no moonlanding in 1969.
It might have happened later, but I doubt it.
Don't fool yourselves. You have brains, don't insult yourself in believing this kind of crap.
The whole moon is about the size of my thumbnail. Maybe it's mouse milk cheese.
funny; you're all so scared it might be true!
by
dickcheese
·
· Score: 1
It seems that way from how angry everyone gets
over this topic.
I guess it is part of your national esteem.
snicker.
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
by
WWE-TicK
·
· Score: 1
> Care to show some sort of logical relationship > between creation science, theories of human > reproduction, and moon landing conspiracies?
The logical relationship between creation "science" and moon landing conspiracies is that they're both based on ignorance and idiocy. Not sure what theories of human reproduction is all about, so perhaps the O.P. can expand a bit on that.
Instead of a book rebuttal against the Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory, NASA is allocating their resources towards producing a TV special, featuing 60 minutes of Buzz Aldrin punching conspiracy theorists.
If there are people who still believe the earth is flat, what makes anyone think that any amount of proof will convince the hoax believers that we went to the moon?
-- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
by
susano_otter
·
· Score: 2
Okay, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I am an ignorant idiot. Since I've not been diagnosed with delusional paranoia (yet), there is some hope that my idiocy is the kind that can be cured. Ignorance, as we all know, can be cured by reason and facts. What are your reason and facts?
I can only assume that you have one or more solid, rational arguments, based on commonly accepted facts, to support your position. What are they?
This isn't meant to be a flamewar, mind you. If you have strong arguments on which you base your beliefs, I'm sincerely eager to know them.
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
by
WWE-TicK
·
· Score: 1
Regarding why creation "science" is not science see the
The General Anti-Creationism FAQ and perhaps also this
page by a guy named Lenny Flank. Those two sites summarize my arguments quite succinctly.
Re:I worked at NASA for four years... you can't wi
by
picoears
·
· Score: 1
If I had that email, I'd send back messages just to mess with them. For example, I'd talk about how one of my friends who worked there said he finally figured out what was going on, and then mysteriously died. Or give them the address of the movie studio where stuff was faked and tell them to go check it out.
I'm still not sure I know what that word means. I am sure it doesn't make one's speech more impressive.
I take it you're cross about the substitution of Lautenberg for Torricelli. I guess that you think its "wrongfulness" cancels out the 2000 debacle is an argument that "two wrongs make a right." Interesting concession regarding 2000!:)
The later recounts that the Supreme Court did not allow were in fact ambiguous, the counts varying with the standards used. If Gore had gotten the recounts in just the counties he identified, he would have probably lost; had the recounts been statewide, as Bush demanded, Bush would have lost.
If the SC was wrong to interfere, it was wrong regardless of whether its decision changed the outcome of the election.
Anyway, the way I made the comment should have made clear I was kidding around. Inasmuch.
You didn't read my post very carefully. I was simply mocking the Democrats, who were screaming "Election Fraud!" two years ago, pretending to be so concerned about the sacred election process, yet illegally substituted a candidate this year. Simultaneously, I was mocking Slashdot readers who seem to be the only ones in the world who cannot get over the no-longer-disputed election results in 2000. I conceded nothing about the 2000 Presidential election being fraudulent (it wasn't). The "ambiguous" results you are referring to were not as ambiguous as you make out:
Ironically, a tougher standard of counting only cleanly punched ballots advocated by many Republicans would have resulted in a Gore lead of just three votes, the newspaper reported.
This is the only possible scenario where Gore gets a tiny, tiny victory. Gore would have gotten a 3 vote edge only if, by the Democrats' own standard, voters had been "disenfranchised" by their non-machine-readable votes (hanging chads and whatnot) being left uncounted. Every other recount, by every other standard, showed that Bush had more votes. In fact, when the newspapers counted the votes in the manner that they would have been re-counted had Gore's demands for a re-count been successful, Bush's margin of victory tripled. So, the only logical conclusion is that if Bush had not won in the Supreme Court, he would have won in the recount, and Gore would have been embarassed to make so much noise only to see his opponents lead triple. This makes the question of whether the Supreme Court should have allowed the re-count to continue an entirely moot point, since the result would have been exactly the same (including the moaning about the results). To make this remotely on topic, the people still moaning about it are, in my opinion, similar to the conspiracy theorists in that no amount of evidence that they are wrong will convince them to stop. If you don't like Bush, then don't like Bush. You have that right as much as I have the right to want to puke every time I see Dick Gephardt's face. But, for crying out loud, dislike him for a reason. Dislike him because you disagree with him on some point or even because you don't like his clothes. Just quit harping on a tightly contested election that was ultimately determined to be in favor of the person awarded the office. I am begging all of you to find a new horse to beat.
As for your difficulty with the word "inasmuch," try Merriam-Webster's sometime. Dictionaries can be very enlightening tools. It doesn't make a person sound more intelligent; it makes him sound more convoluted, which is exactly the point in a mock decree such as mine.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Inasmuch -- actually, I'm a lawyer, so I'm quite familiar with the word.:)
It's hard to see the Supreme Court decision as a "moot point" because Bush would have won anyway. If the National Guard had taken over Florida and declared Bush the winner, that wouldn't be irrelevant even though the outcome was the same. The process counts as much as the result, and the Supreme Court made a terrible mistake by forcing Florida to stop the recounts on the theory that although Gore was right in principle there was not enough time left, neglecting that its own stay and candidate Bush's ruthless strategy had run out the clock. Perhaps he "stole" (I use the term with tongue in cheek) an election that was already his, but it was still improper.
Oddly I don't care who got the brass ring because it was so close. I do care how President Bush won, and by any reckoning the election and legal squabbling were a horrible mess that we should not put behind us. We can't stop "moaning" about the election because what happened procedurally was a travesty and can not recur. I'm critical of anyone happy or unhappy with the outcome who does not agree. Ironically, President Bush just quietly signed off on a federal bill to fund updating the election procedure.
As for who would have won (or did win), the hypothetical outcomes I cited were from the same NYT/WP/CNN etc. study. Again the method chosen is critical, and I reject any method that not place the intent of the voter as paramount. Intent-of-the-voter standards tended to favor Gore. Whatever the standard, I'm surprised you would imply a "tiny, tiny" victory is somehow not a victory.
The irregularities in the Florida election were objectively concrete, not speculative, and thus are not a conspiracy theory. As it happens, this year Florida lost (and later found) 100,000 votes in one region, though (whew) it could not have affected the outcome. As we know, it some elections it would. This issue is not going away.
I should explain that I focused on voting rights in school and am more interested in fair elections than horse-race politics. The mechanics of electoral theory and its underlying irrationality are fascinating, for the right person.;-) I'm still curious whether Kennedy legitimately defeated Nixon, and that's not political sour grapes. Anyway, I explain this at length in the hope you and others take another look at the election, not President Bush, and see what is there that's not right. After all, you wouldn't accept a computer that couldn't count right, would you?
If the National Guard had taken over Florida and declared Bush the winner, that wouldn't be irrelevant even though the outcome was the same.
This analogy is flawed. Had the National Guard taken over Florida and imposed martial law to declare Bush the winner, it would have been acting well outside of its authority. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, did exactly what it is meant to do -- it made a final, decisive decision so that the country could move forward from a dispute. You may disagree with the decision, but are you really arguing that they had no authority to make this decision? Furthermore, the independent recounts took months. Would you leave the issue of the presidency undecided for so long (really, I'd like to know)? Finally, as I recall, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to vacate the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court in favor of Gore, and then voted 5-4 that, although it was true, in principle, that it was desirable to use the intent of the voter to determine the voter's ballot, in the absence of a uniform, objective method for determining intent, a recount was not practical given the time constraints. To construe this as "agreeing with Gore in principle," is, in my opinion, a stretch, particularly in light of the fact that Gore wanted recounts only in 3 select counties where he (wrongly) expected a net increase, which the court specifically ruled "inequitable." I do not believe the court acted any more "improperly" than Bush did in defending his position when Gore started litigating.
what happened procedurally was a travesty and can not recur
I can't disagree with you on this. Highlighting the need for election reform was one of the important results of the 2000 election mess. As you pointed out, Pres. Bush himself signed off on funding to aid in this reform ("quietly"? I heard about it without specifically looking for it). However, there is a difference between still whining about an election that your favorite candidate lost two years ago and advocating positive reform that will avoid such a mess again.
I reject any method that not place the intent of the voter as paramount
How do we determine the intent of the voter except by looking at the ballot itself? Granted, the article you linked to cited exactly one example of a type of overvote ballot that would make the intent of the voter clear, but it does not assert that this type of ballot constituted the majority of overvotes, nor does it tell how the other overvotes were counted. Yes, the one example cited indicates clearly the voter's intent, but that is not compelling evidence without either evidence that those types of votes alone would account for the difference or a reliable standard by which other types of overvotes can be accurately counted, which I did not see. Also, the article makes the vague assertion "it almost doesn't matter what standard you used when looking at undervotes," which really doesn't mean anything without specifying which standards do and don't make a difference. All I see from that article is evidence that the author's opinion is that Gore should have won.
I'm surprised you would imply a "tiny, tiny" victory is somehow not a victory
Remember the LSAT?
Based on his post, Zordak would most likely consider a Gore victory illegitimate because
(A) The margin of victory would have been only three votes.
(B) The three vote margine of victory could only be obtained by tossing out thousands of legitimate votes.
(C) Al Gore is a spineless crybaby.
(D) Chelsea Clinton is uglier than his dog.
(E) He thinks Charlton Heston is his president.
The irregularities in the Florida election were objectively concrete
And did not necessarily favor the Democrats.
It will probably never be possible to determine the question of Nixon vs. Kennedy, but after the 2000 election mess, my respect for Nixon increased greatly because he chose not to manufacture the kind of crisis Gore did. If Gore had raised a cry for election reform after the election without trying to litigate himself into office, I would have been able to respect him as a person, despite the fact that I disagree with him politically (it really can happen -- Jimmy Carter is a really nice guy). I want to say that I agree with you completely that election reform needs to be a high priority for us in the short term. The system is broken in many ways and needs to be fixed. However, the specific issue of Bush vs. Gore was put to rest two years ago by all of the players involved, and I don't think it will hurt the push for election reform for the rest of us to do the same. You may disagree with that conclusion, and you certainly are entitled to, but I think that we are already seeing, and will continue to see, evidence of positive reform despite the fact that almost everybody else has gotten over it.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
I suppose this could go on forever (and will, because the "whiners" are not going to do the favor of conceding). I think, though, you are too smug about the results of the election. It was a shaky thing by any fair analysis, and a 5-4 vote of the Court along its standard ideological divide is not a resounding statement of justice over politics. Their ultimate ruling cutting off further proceedings was based on the lack of time. Read the dissents. Yes, this was a legal victory, but in the sense that the Supreme Court can't be wrong because they're the court of last resort. Who could ever rule their decision illegal (that is, contrary to the law)? The only difference with the National Guard example is that their action could be ruled illegal -- bu the Supreme Court. And there's always the chance it wouldn't; the SC has made its share of bad decisions later overruled, but all "legal."
As for time pressure, well the Court both created it (by staying the recounts pending its decision) and invented it. There was no deadline looming.
I'm not, as I stressed at the outset, and again, and again, obsessed with Gore not winning. I was not even a particularly strong supporter, although I did vote for him, and I totally agree he botched the election -- he should have beat Bush easily but didn't even carry his home state. It is a dodge to pretend that every critic of the election is a secret or open Gore supporter grasping at straws. There were numerous significant problems with the election, and I'm frankly astonished that anyone would claim otherwise. Worse yet is the argument, "Look, it's over, get over it." The Nixon supporters "whined" for years about the 1960 election, and the supposed Nixon stoicism about putting the country first is a debunked myth. Instead, he had political operatives make the charges, such that if he did not prevail he looked noble (despite the "suspicious" election) for a later attempt.
It would be nice to believe that one could just look at ballots to determine voter intent. If there were any lessons of Florida, it was that it ain't true. If the sudden surge in Buchanan support in a Jewish community were not enough, the whole mess of hanging/pregnant whatever chads proves the point.
I would be perfectly happy with a well-conducted reevaluation of the election leading to a Bush victory, and would be happier if the vote margin had been large enough to raise these questions. But it was close and did raise these questions, and even those happy with the result should sharply criticize it. But that appears not to be happening.
President Bush did not, incidentally, push for the bill financing updating voting equipment and that like, and could hardly trumpet its passage without admitted the election was screwed up, which he hasn't. You heard about the bill because the press reported it. I don't respect the man on his own merits, but do understand his unwillingness to criticize the election that put him in office. Thus the conflict of interest -- the ones with the power to change things are unlikely to attack the system that brought them to power, as with campaign finance.
The financing bill won't do the trick, anyway. Elections are much more complex, and our mechanisms for auditing them immature. Florida 2000 was not an isolated incident, just one where several improbable events coverged. It highlighted what happens often, in circumstances where the error doesn't (we think) make a difference.
I'm really joking when I play with the "Bush stole the election" thing. The problem is larger and more permanent, and I think it's unfortunate we tend to take sides on the question according to who we think should have won. I'm very interested in elections and would be upset either way, at the least because I know this kind of thing can turn around and bite you next time.
If its a hoax how come there are soo many moon rocks u can buy on E-bay? Huh? Somebody had to get em here!!
Gee some people today...
Re:ironic or something-well not ironic but somethi
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Yeah, WW3, monster dictators with WMD, incited epidemics, Commie nukes, thousands of domestic sleeper cells, armies of Jihad terrorists, Muslim snipers, the Al-Qaeda revival... all that "defense" nonsense.
We never liked those stupid old towers anyway. 3000 wankers dead, and NYC traffic still blows. C'mon Osama, you can do better than that!
Re:Obligatory The Onion quote
by
haedesch
·
· Score: 1
Does it really matter AT ALL?
by
Inkwina
·
· Score: 1
Let's face it, it wouldn't be that bad for siceince if the moon landings turn out to be a hoax. I mean considering the time at which it happend, if NASA were really cabable of prodcing such a hoax on such a large scale, with so much deatil , and still keep it belivable with thoses times' technology well...... by today who would need a Holodeck!
(not to mention the organisational structure and bugeting, Must have somthing to do with Enron!:-?)
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
by
susano_otter
·
· Score: 2
Thanks, I'm familiar with all three sites. I actually have found no good reason to doubt the moon landings, so you don't need to waste any time there. As for creationism, I'm of the opinion that it's more properly in the realm of metaphysics, rather than science per se--at least until our science advances quite a bit farther than its current state. Meanwhile, I admit I'm a little dissapointed, probably because I didn't make myself clear: I was hoping you could summarize your arguments in your own words, perhaps along the lines of "I find the existence of a god to be an unreasonable proposition, for the following reasons...". Surely your belief system is an intensly personal thing, and not just a pointer to talkorigins.org!
--
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Geez, this was discussed only a few days ago.
No, Hubble doesn't have adequate resolution. At the moon's distance, Hubble's resolution is on the order of 100s of meters. However, if you follow the above link I posted a link to some Clementine images of the landing sites... of course, Clementine was a Navy probe, so now you have to include the Navy in the conspiracy...
-- "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
The slashdot editors stand by the popular answer, because it is popular. They have probably not even cared enougth to look into it because it does not matter: if the slashdot audience thinks we landed on the Moon, then that is good enough for us! After, all we don't want to appear rediculous.
And that is fine. At least don't close with sneer remarks just to suck-in to the crowd.
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
by
Decimal
·
· Score: 2
Surely your belief system is an intensly personal thing, and not just a pointer to talkorigins.org!
Not mine. I try to base what I believe as far as facts go to what is logical, successfully argued and well-evidenced. There is little I can think (as far as my worldly beliefs go) that has anything to do with being deeply or intensely personal. The intro to Carl Sagan's the Demon Haunted world sums it up rather well: Carl recounts the time he explained to the man who deeply wanted to believe in all sorts of things that "The evidence is crummy."
I suppose my moral beliefs could be considered "intensely personal" but even those I try to put a voice of reason to -- Pro life? Pro choice? Who's involved? Which is more imporant, the rights of a person or the life of an unborn? Is an unborn truly sentient? etc. Some of them I still don't have an answer to... but I find the idea of shutting the best methods the world uses to determine truth out of my head to be really ridiculous. I don't see how anybody who is interested in knowing what is true can do it. Or how anybody can not care about whether their beliefs are true. The concept is so alien to me.
Perhaps (ironically enough) why I want to find truth to things is because of a intensely personal desire for the truth.
Re:Does this also mean...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I've played a GameBoy before, and I've never landed on the moon, therefore no one else could have done it. Besides, everyone knows that the communists beat us there, but the USA government is keeping that Top Secret:-p
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
The mirrors are proof to me, but I don't think the moon rocks prove anything. If I remember correctly, they're said to be "just like basalt." BFD. Rocks don't prove anything unless you have other rocks that are known to be authentic. And then they only prove things when there's some distinguishing characteristic that can't be found on earth.
One question for flat-earthers
by
LuxFX
·
· Score: 1
I have only one question that I'm dying to ask a flat-earther.
Why does the southern hemisphere see different stars?
-- Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Mormonism started because of Joseph Smith who made up stories about jesus coming to North America to teach natives, about how he could only read the tablets because of special glasses. Most people of the day thought him a kook, and he and his band of followers were pushed around until they hit Salt Lake City, Utah. He claimed it was the promised land, and they settled.
Then, after he was found to have been sleeping around, he claimed that god came and told him that everyone should practice bigamy.
Mormonism is a cult, the same way every other religion is a cult.
Cult:
2. A system of religious belief and worship.
The people who start it are almost always people looking for personal power, or as an excuse for behaviours they like to perform. While good people can be religious (as pretty much every religion has some good rules inside of it), religion itself is usually someone's vehicle to something else before it's something that's good for the general public.
I respect people's beliefs about religion; I just happen to think that most people have the wrong belief.
I say religion spreads because people are too willing to accept lies which seem like the truth. You can take a true statement: there is no wind on the moon. Then you can twist it: there is no wind on the moon, therefore the moon landing is fake since the flag looks like it flapped. See how easy it was?
-- -- Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Dude you don't even have a clue what you are talking about. Joseph Smith was assassinated long before the Mormons went to Utah.
I mean if you think Mormons are wrong - fine. That's your perogative. However at least be fair to what you are criticizing and get the basic facts right.
Of course the moon landing is a hoax! Everybody knows that there really is no moon and it's just a big projection up in the sky created by our government to test effects of radiation on US citizens! Why do you think people go crazy on nights with a full moon?
Not since the 60's.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Come on. There hasn't been a manned moonmission since the 60's.
The interesting question to ask would be, why hasn't there been more moonmissions?
Because even with todays technology they can't do it.
Welcome to the flat earth society
by
Archfeld
·
· Score: 2
just because they say the SUN is gonna rise tomorrow probably isn't enough for you either:) Maybe you are correct, asking for proof is not unreasonable, expecting NASA to fund research for fools who are NOT going to be swayed by anything short of going to the moon themselves goes beyond stupid into a whole new realm of ignorance. If we follow your logic we should have to actually educate these throwbacks, to the point of sentience. Treat this much like most folks did high school geometry, proofs exist but if you can't do the math you just take it on faith or look like a moron, if it really bothers you learn the math and double check the orbit and landing calculations:)
-- errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
No, they've always been PR-mad
by
Goonie
·
· Score: 2
NASA has been expert at PR since Apollo. In fact, PR was really the whole point of Apollo. Some great science and engineering undoubtedly got done in the process, but the whole point was bragging rights for the US.
--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
If I remember correctly, a few years ago Scientific American had a description in the Amateur Scientist section on how to build a very sensitive gravity meter yourself. One of the claims in the article was that the thing could detect the moon passing overhead.
--
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Those who insist on being right...
by
phorm
·
· Score: 1
Those who insist that they are right will often go to unreasonable and unrealistic depth in order to defend their belief. The "Moon landing didn't happen" group seems to be somewhat fanatical... how many fanatics do you have that actually listened to common sense?:-)
'The moon is a hoax?' What of the USA?
by
vortexau
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I have a hard time believing that the USA really exists!
I ask you; a (?)civilized(?) nation of over 200 million that allows ANY kook to own a handgun?
Where I live we have Road-rage, School-rage, and Employment-rage but serious disputes might lead to fist-fights, NOT the other person being blown away.
(Any fool knows that, in a MORE civilized age, the LIGHT-SABRE is a MORE elegant weapon) .
-- (David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter)
"My God - its full of Malware!"
Book Project (Score:)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 10, @07:00PM (#)
Mostly it's those who are most confused about the original purpose of the book project, who have been making up nasty misinterpretations of it. The purpose was -- and still is -- to examine the hoax claims, and from them identify those aspects of space and technology that are misunderstood or overlooked, and those logical fallacies fallen for, and do an educational exercise for teachers, students, and ordinary folks to sharpen their skills at assessing outlandless theories -- using the 'Moon hoax' as an example. The resulting project should be an entertaining and educational read for all 'space buffs'.
It will not be 'duelling experts' or 'revealed truths from know-it-alls'. Instead it will try to make the disputes into down-to-earth 'common sense' that people can check up on, and experiment with, at home.
As with any good teacher, I don't believe there EVER is such a thing as a 'stupid question', and I've always felt that more information was better than less, closer engagement was better than shunning, open dialog better than snotty arrogance. That may be why so many people like my books, and so few bureaucracies do (yes, I am sure not a run-of-the-mill 'NASA flack', as many of you will realize).
There was never any intention to argue with the proponents of the 'moon hoax' theories, just to arm their intended target audience with better tools and techniques for immunization from falling for illogical and counterfeit arguments in general.
And yes, I'm interested in contributions and ideas (joberg@houston.rr.com) and suggestions, as I put together a financial plan that doesn't need government support (or review). Editorial suggestions, not so much financial suggestions, I mean.
Jim Oberg
Galveston County, Texas
home page http://www.jamesoberg.com
Can't Resist One More Round
by
Zordak
·
· Score: 1
The Supreme Court can't be wrong because they're the court of last resort.
Still, your example of the National Guard was more analogous to the Supreme Court pre-emptively declaring Bush the winner before anybody brought the suit -- which would have been outside of their authority. When Gore started litigation, he knew it would probably go to the Supreme Court, and he knew he was taking a chance in doing it. If you're going to appeal, be prepared to live with the decision.
As for time pressure, well the Court both created it (by staying the recounts pending its decision) and invented it. There was no deadline looming.
What about the electoral vote? That was looming mighty close, and the recounts would not have been finished before 20 January. With the decision reversed, we create a precedent whereby a single candidate can hold the entire electorate hostage indefinitely because he doesn't like the outcome of a vote, besides the problem of having a president who by default would unconstitutionally continue to hold office without accountability to the voters. I still maintain that the Court did exactly what it was intended to do: it made a final decision so that the country could continue to function normally. As for the recount being delayed by the Court, I don't think the time difference in the Court's stay would have made a practical difference in the process of recounting, and I believe that they acted appropriately in staying a count that was being conducted with standards they felt were inequitable. As for Bush's political manuevering, I still believe that he was justified in defending his victory when Gore started bringing suits. Wouldn't you? In any case, I think we will have to agree to disagree on the propriety of the Court's actions, since we obviously are not going to convince each other.
I'm not, as I stressed at the outset, and again, and again, obsessed with Gore not winning
I believe you. I really think that you are concerned about the electoral process, and I commend you for that, even in the presence of some differences of opinion.
There were numerous significant problems with the election, and I'm frankly astonished that anyone would claim otherwise.
I'm certainly not. If nothing else, I hope that I have made that point.
The Nixon supporters "whined" for years about the 1960 election
As you implied earlier, two wrongs do not make a right. I'm an equal opportunity mocker. I freely mock whiners of all political, social, religious and cultural persuasions, including those who could not get over the 1960 election.
Instead, he had political operatives make the charges, such that if he did not prevail he looked noble (despite the "suspicious" election) for a later attempt.
At least he tried. I was not alive at the time, so I don't remember specifically, but my understanding is that these "political operatives," as you fashion them, did not bring the matter to court. The strategy obviously worked. I think that Gore has seriously compromised his viability as a 2004 candidate. Frankly, I will be surprised if he even gets the nomination.
It would be nice to believe that one could just look at ballots to determine voter intent. If there were any lessons of Florida, it was that it ain't true. If the sudden surge in Buchanan support in a Jewish community were not enough, the whole mess of hanging/pregnant whatever chads proves the point
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're implying here. If you're implying that demographics should be used as a factor in counting disputed votes, I will have to disagree with you most fervently. If we are to adopt this course, why pretend to hold elections at all? Using external factors and statistics to evaluate ballots would be tantamount to fascism. This would be a much, much greater travesty than what happened in 2000. If, as I hope, you are saying that these apparent anomalies should be an impetus for change, I agree whole heartedly. It appears quite possible that a number of people who intended to vote for Gore may have inadvertantly voted for Buchanan. However, what number may have done so is a matter of pure speculation, and I will never advocate using speculation to count votes or determine elections. Furthermore, I believe that the voter himself ultimately should bear at least a tiny bit of responsibility for casting a clear vote -- especially if he is really concerned about his voice being heard. We can and should work to make the ballots more clear and easier to use, but if voters cannot even be bothered to read the instructions and look before randomly poking holes in a card, then I do not believe we have either the right or responsibility to try to use some kind of statistical or psychological magic to attempt to read his mind. Once the vote has been cast, the ballot itself should be the only factor in determining the voter's intent. If a machine cannot tell, let a human examine it, but if the voter has not marked the ballot clearly enough for a person to decipher it, he is the one who has disenfranchised himself. Adopting any other standard would be a direct attack on popular voting. I, for one, read my ballot carefully and double-checked to make sure I had marked it correctly and completely before turning it in (this was before the 2000 mess). If a secondary result of this mess is that more people are careful when casting votes, something good really will have come of this.
and even those happy with the result should sharply criticize it
Again, I agree with you. There was a definite problem in 2000, and it needs fixing.
President Bush did not, incidentally, push for the bill financing updating voting equipment and that like &c.
No, it was not among his pet projects, and Bush seems to be very focused on his pet projects. Even I do not agree with all of these (a missile defense system, for example -- and I work with the ICBM program). However, it did pass a Republican controlled House, a very nearly split Senate (both overwhelmingly, if I recall), and Pres. Bush signed it. I think that sends a clear message that everybody thought this was needed.
The financing bill won't do the trick, anyway
Perhaps not completely, but I think it is the best we can do in the short term. A complete overhaul of the process will require more time and money than we have available before the next election. In the meantime, throw a high-tech band-aid at it and hopefully that buys us enough time to really fix things.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Can't Resist One More Round
by
MacAndrew
·
· Score: 2
I admire your tenacity. I promise to think about your position if you'll do the reverse, how's that?
A couple of minor factual points -- Gore didn't seek Supreme Court, because he'd won in the FL SC. In fact, I'm pretty sure Bush was the first to court, federal, seeking an injunction to block recounts requested by Gore. It doesn't matter much who blinked first, except that it was interesting to see the party that frequently touts states' rights go directly to federal court. Ordinarily it should have been up to Florida to decide how its electoral votes would be awarded.
The Jan. 20 "deadline" was mythic. That's just the arbitrary day appointed for the swearing-in. It used to be in March. In the interim, the country was functioning fine under a lame duck President. The only thing really getting messed up was Pres. Bush's transition time.
The Court didn't have a problem with recounts per se; it objected to th emanner of the recounts, as in how many counties and whether all would be held to the same standard. Hence the equal protection question. Recounts are nothing new, and are provided for in FL and TX law among others. At the time people were asking Bush about the TX law and his suggestion that recounts were inherently unfair; he distanced himself from the law.
I expanded on the Nixon thing mostly because I was genuinely horrifed to see him exhumed as an "example" for Gore to follow. There has been an effort to rehabilitate him, but it's ironic to hold him up as a stalwart of the electoral process when it was his efforts to subvert it in 1972 that destroyed him. He was a bright guy who had some moral challenges.
"Political operatives" actually isn't a pejorative term here inside the Beltway. It just sounds like one. And probably should be one. Anyway, Nixon's chances in court were pretty shaky, because Kennedy would have counterstriked over irregularities in places Nixon had won, adn he'd have to sue in multiple states, he'd look like a sore loser, there was already a 100,000 popular vote gap and huge electoral gap (like 2:1) in Kennedy's favor, etc. Florida was a remarkable case in that the electoral and popular votes were both nearly equal, and Florida was the deciding state where it appeared Bush had won by only a lousy 300 votes. They don't get any closer than that.
I think Gore will probably get the nod in 2004, and not because the dems are thrilled with him. He DID get half of the country to vote for him last time. If he had not contested the 2000 election I think the Dems would have been plenty pissed with him for that. His biggest problem would be a strong Bush presidency. Bush's father managed to blow big popularity ratings over Desert Storm in just a couple of short years by failing to respond to the economy, and I'm already hearing people grumbling about the White House's failure to address domestic issues.
Oh, I mentioned the Jews-for-Buchanan phenomenon only because that was one of many things that failed the whiff test. Even Buchanan admitted it was unexplainable, to his credit. To a very high degree of confidence -- not enough to decide a election -- we can be sure this caused a problem. And those were the butterfly ballots that were not recounted, an which likely decided the elections regardless of chads elsewhere. These ballots were tougher to use, one FL newspaper even posted an interactive version showing the problem. Regardless of whether the ballot was easy or hard to mess up, it's a grave error if the ballot is designed so that the errors mostly go to one candidate's benefit. I was sorry to see a lot of elderly people written off as incompetent on stereotype alone.
Voters, not ballots, elect officials. (I know, duh.) Hence the intent standard, not a hole-punching test. There were even further problems, such as the hole-punching apparatus itself. Apparently with use the resilient material under the card would harden, making it more difficult to dislodge the chad (these were cheap imitations of the Votomatic -- they even located the Votomatic inventor to testify!). The material wore out at the top fastest, because the machines were used in every election big or small. Gore ended up on the harder part, with the expected result. After you pull the unmarked card out, it's pretty hard to figure out there's a problem.
We all do boneheaded stuff some days, and I find it gets harder to pay attention the more elections I participate in (I'm 35). You know, it's like an ATM, you think you know what you're doing until whoops! I've had to help people with the ATM every once in a while, but didn't think that because they were a little confused that they didn't deserve their money... Florida designed another dumb ballot for the primary, you have to see it, but the design had be wondering for a minute.
I'm sure I've sparked a burning interest in voting technology; if you'd like to see more look at the RISKS Digest of the usenet group. I subscribe and read a lot of good stuff there on privacy and security risks of all sorts.
An ICBM -- engineer? My best friend is an aero/astro engineer pretty suspicious of the incredible challenges in an ABM program, never mind the political problems and the Maginot Line effect of guarding against high-tech attacks when tinpot dictators will use low-tech. Oh well. My only major peeve is the way, I think, they've misrepresented the tests. I read a lot, yet when I heard about the latest intercept test I just thought, wow, well I guess I underestimated them. I later learned from Doonesbury about the GPS telemetry broadcast by the projectile and was a lot less impressed. Next time I hope they send up the Mylar balloons that are the death knell for an orbital intercept approach. (When they can blow up the rockets on ascent with lasers or whatever, I'll be very impressed, but argue it still doesn't protect us from the bomb-laden freight container.)
Obviously I could run on forever about this stuff -- and I enjoy talking about it! Lawyers like words. I wrote a long paper on redistricting, another hairy problem where how those little lines are drawn can decide who gets elected, or cause problems like two incumbents running against each other. One U.S. Rep had to move to a new house to get back in his district, only to lose. Oops.
Re:Can't Resist One More Round
by
Zordak
·
· Score: 1
First of all, let me thank you for the most intelligent discussion I've had on Slashdot (that may be a small compliment, considering the forum, but it's sincere). You have very reasonable arguments, and I consider myself more informed for having heard them.
I promise to think about your position if you'll do the reverse, how's that?
Entirely fair.
An ICBM -- engineer?
An almost electrical engineer (I graduate this summer) who finally decided a whole week ago to go to law school (I had been thinking about it for a while). I had though I maybe might apply for the fall 2004 semester, but a complicated turn of events pushed me into high gear, and I decided to take the 7 Dec. LSAT and apply for this fall, so I'm cramming for that on top of projects and finals. In the meantime, I've got 5 years with TRW (the Air Force's prime contractor for ICBMs and a major player in missile defense, among other things).
I later learned from Doonesbury about the GPS telemetry broadcast by the projectile and was a lot less impressed
Actually, my criticism of missile defense is not the technology. You may want to take a second look and consider being impressed again. I'm not involved with this specific project, but I do not believe that the interceptor had access to the telemetry data. Also, I know a little something about re-entry dynamics, and even if you have a GPS telling you where the thing is, a positive kill is still very impressive, particularly given the accuracy that GPS would need (and doesn't have) to make a real difference. A re-entry vehicle is traveling mighty fast (it does not have time to decelerate to its terminal velocity, in fact), and trying to side-swipe the thing is no small task. You also might be surprised to learn that some re-entry vehicles actually have telemetry packages (to be fair, I do not know if these would be transmitting in a war scenario) -- again, they won't help an interceptor much. Our best hope previous to this was to toss a small nuke up into the upper atmosphere and try to blast the hostile warheads to death before they get too terribly close (of course, we still have the damage done by our "deterrent," but it's smaller and the effects of upper-atmosphere detonations are a little more palatable than low-altitude airbursts). So, the technology itself is very real, and beyond cool. The real problem I have with a ballistic missile defense system is the same one you have. The first hostile nuclear weapon to target America will probably be in somebody's suitcase, and our fancy lasers and interceptors will do exactly Jack Squat against that. ICBMs controlled by Super Powers have been self-deterrent for the last 50 years, and will probably stay that way in the near term, so the only immediate threat there is a rogue launch, which is (again, in my opinion) much less likely than the suitcase bomber scenario. Once Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein is able to make a good "physics package", he is not going to sit on it for decades longer while he tries to learn the secrets of Circular Error Probabilities and heat shielding needed to build a good delivery vehicle. He's going to concentrate on how to get the thing across the border and into an area of high population density, which means that we should be working on a web of sensors that will keep the thing out of the country to begin with, or, failing that, at least keep it outside of the Beltway. Unless they are able to get a 15-20 Megaton "city buster" (which they aren't), just keeping it outside of urban areas makes a big difference. The best weapon they would have would probably be about 10-15kT, which is approximately what was used in Japan. We inflicted considerable damage because they were used inside dense cities, but if we had dropped it on a farming community, the results would have been much less destructive, both in terms of human life and structural damage (and may still have made our point -- it's an interesting point to consider). Also, a suitcase bomb would be detonated on the ground (most weapons, including the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, are designed for air burst), which means you actually get a lot of attenuation of the blast wave, so your radius for near complete destruction is really quite small (possibly as small as a few hundred meters). Hence, the importance to the terrorist of getting his suitcase into an area of high popluation density that is preferrably flat, and possibly to the top of a tall building so you get more of an airburst affect. A detonation atop the Empire State Building would be orders of magnitude more catastrophic than a detonation a mile outside of the New York City metro area. That's what I think we should be concentrating on.
--
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Can't Resist One More Round
by
MacAndrew
·
· Score: 2
You'll like law school.;-)
I don't doubt they *could* pull off ABM, I just think it's oversold and its current state overhyped. They distorted extensively the performance of the Patriot's performance against an enhanced V-2 -- the Patriot was ill-matched, but it's the apparent need to mislead the public that bothers me. The press play given that recent test made it sound like a real-world experiment rather than a test of a component of the strategy. That radar they have to invent will be pretty incredible, and then we'll have to deal with the fast reaction time needed, ease of deploying decoys (a dozen balls, one with a warhead) etc. There's also an admitted faked test from the 80's where the miitary reported a "kill" ostensibly to mislead the USSR, which is OK, but they -also- used the faked result as a basis for further Congressional funding. The branches of gov't lying to each other is dangerous stuff.
But that's all off-point. The threat we're supposedly focused on killed 3,000 people with razor blades. Even if North Korea or China or Osama (wouldn't that be something?) had a trustworthy missile, they would be dumb not to put the bomb instead on a fishing boat to sail into S.F. Bay -- harder to trace and less likely to lose a precious warhead. Maybe fire the missile just to freak people out and distract them. And any nation-aggressor would have to worry about that massive retaliation thing we have.
Any nuclear attack will be for shock value, not to cripple the U.S., and any halfway success will doubtless succeed wonderfully. Nukes have an "aura" if you will. The body count would be impressive anyway -- NYC is a lot denser than Hiroshima, where as many as 200k eventually died -- and the economic impact staggering. If I were them I'd opt for a dirty bomb anyway. Some CNN reporters "smuggled" a bunch of U-238 into the country, designed to look suspicious but clearly marked. Customs didn't open it, but -says- they would known if there were U-235 or Pu in there... uh-huh, I trust them on that. Just dump the stuff in a dispersable form into NYC's water supplies, you'd paralyze the city and make the U.S. look pathetic. Or be less ambitious and set off a dirty bomb next to every U.S. Embassy. Nuke Israel. There are a thousand mundane ways to do it that wouldn't implicate exotic ABM in the slightest.
Well, you know all this already.:) Take a look at the RISKS stuff, you may like it -- they touch on everything from voting to terrorism. And what else is there?
Re:Oh I almost forgot .....
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
It's a good thing Gore has a sense of humor about that particular comment of his, because he's actually right. If it weren't for his efforts in Congress, the Internet as we know it today would not exist.
Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_. They drive on the wrong side of the road, too.
-- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
This "proves" the conspiracy!!!
The further evidence comments are just getting funnier and funnier :)
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Well, at least we can point to the fact that Lunatics have made it from there to here.
. . .Because they couldn't prove they landed there
That the moon hoak book was a hoax in itself? lol
...and acted upon the wisdom they have but usually ignore.
You will always have nay-sayers. Anything you do to answer their fears will immediately be taken out of context and ran with.
Better that they just shut their mouths and laugh at the conspiracy freaks.
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
Is it me, or does it seem that in the last decade or so NASA has become more interested in PR and their image than space science?
There are teachers teaching their 3rd-grade students that the moon landing never happened... It appears they shall continue. (although I suppose they wouldn't have given much credence to the NASA publication anyway)
it would have been moderated as redundant anyway...
These guys who believe we didn't go to the moon are everywhere. I had a 10th grade history teacher who was insistent that we didn't go to the moon. I spent half the semester avoiding discussing history before 1963 with him. After all it's only $15,000, why not? Perhaps NASA should spend the money producing a book on scientific method instead
Thalasar
I was just hoping to sell Moon Cheese too! Its a conspiracy I tell you to prevent me from selling "Premium Products" via ONE TIME OFFER E-Mails :P
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
"That's no moon..."
=-Jippy
Really, I think it's great they cancelled this book. What a waste of tax dollars, trying to justify things they already spent our tax dollars on decades ago!
On the other hand, I'm sure someone will come along and write their own investigative book, attempting to prove the moon landings were real. There are certainly many topics to write about that would be of less interest.... Books are usually written to make money for the author(s); not to cost multiple thousands of dollars.
Obviously NASA cancelled the book because we all have access to photocopiers, scanners and fax machines. Taking lessons from BMG Music I guess.
Trolling is a art,
well it does seem to strenghten the conspiracy theory. still i don't know which side is correct with any certainty, but this evens things out a little more.
Isn't this the silliest thing that they've ever thought about. Why would NASA feel the need to invest millions to rebuke the silly claims made by a few irresponsible socialist trolls?
Lets face it, free speech is supposed to be one of the cornerstones for Democracy and America but I have to wonder how much damage it really causes when I read stories like this. Perhaps the movement by Bush and Ashcroft to limit these rights will be a good thing long term and help to control some of the damage done by these nefarious post modern trolls.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
NASA is darned if they do and darned if they dont where those conspiracies are concerned. If people *want* to believe something, nothing they say or do can prove otherwise.
One less opportunity to put his Amazon ID into a Slashdot link.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
There has to be enough resolution.
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Does anyone find it strange that the BBC is getting the scoop on a NASA story?
Best Windows Freeware
Gawd, it must be a slooowwww news day.
Gee you mean the US Gov't would lie about something as "simple" as landing on the moon.?? kinda makes ya wonder why we haven't had more landings up there since.... I guess the raw resources are of no value to us....... no metalic compounds..... no minerals..... hmmmmm oh well... so when are we going to land on mars? rotflmao
No, the fact that they were going to create the book is further evidence. The more elaborate the story is, the more likely it is to be a lie.
for Troll kind, one giant leep for logic.
Suckers... there is no moon.
Seeing as I'm a bit of an expert on conspiracy theories, let me explain to you that it will always be deemed as a conspiracy theory.
Its like religion. You can show undeniable evidence that god doesn't exist, and the religious person would say "god made it this way to test my faith."
It was just a document for teachers to show their students when their students would ask about it.
My fourth wife is a teacher, and it never came up with her students. Perhaps its because she is a biology teacher. In fact, her studies are the reason we got divorced.
Anyway, remember that all conspiracy theories aren't necessarily false, and those that are the most rediculous are usually the ones that are true.
Yeah, I'm a Republican AND a geek. It is possible.
I hope that NASA has realized that it really doesn't matter anymore. Even if it was a hoax, who cares. We have a space station orbiting the earth that I think everyone agrees is there, especially since you can see it with a telescope. Let's concentrate on the present and future and not whether something in the past that really doesn't matter now adays actually happened .
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
1) Dream about space.
2) ?
3) Fake moon-landings.
4) Funding!
Now I'll have to go on believing that the moon is made of cheese and nasa films all their missions ala "Wag the Dog" in a sound stage. Me oh my.
today is spelling optional day.
Isn't that private company's probe going to take pictures of the landing sites anyway in a few years. Maybe nasa should give them the few thousand bucks to make their life better.
No amount of evidence will convince the conspiracy nuts.
And if you actually read the article, you would have realized that Jim Oberg is still going to write the book, but with alternative funding.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Isn't there more interesting books that could be written?. What a waste!. Even if funds won't come from NASA, it's a waste of the time of some valuable person.
Never waste your time trying to convince somebody that won't be convinced anyway.
If NASA really wants to do something about these wackos, they should sic Buzz Aldrin on them.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
Sane people don't give a sh*t.
Does anyone find it strange that the BBC is getting the scoop on a NASA story?
US media is too busy covering Cowboy George's "War on [Terrorism | Iraq]" and other related flag waving diatribe.
Maybe it's me, but I think that's the more important cause, since it's better to educate the truly ignorant first.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Does anyone know why they can't just point the Hubble telescope at the lunar landing sites and get a picture of the evidence?
1: Write free software.
2: ?
3: Fake moon trips.
4: Profit!
I realize that the official Slashdot editorial voice seems to believe that the moon landings really did happen. Perhaps they did. But $15k seems a small price to pay for a good discussion-- especially when Nasa routinely spends billions on things. Why can't they just classify it as history or something sociological?
BTW: I've never studied the information put forth by the conspiracy theorists or the debunkers, but I can say that a few of the claims that flitted past my eyes seemed fairly worrisome. Maybe some day when I've got the time, I'll try to dig deeper. In the meantime, I'm not going to let the government off the hook just because the Slashdot editorial voice says "It happened." After companies like Enron and World Com lied so completely to everyone about the EXISTENCE of BILLIONS of DOLLARS of so-called profits, I'm beginning to think that it would be possible to pull off the hoax. After all, auditors and the SEC checked out the corporations. There's no regulatory body checking out moon landings. So call me firmly undecided, at least until NASA writes the book.
Watching some of the old moonwalk videos in slow-mo clearly shows some rods in the background. Lately though, I haven't been able to reproduce them on my VCR, further proof of the conspiricy.
You know, this is a real shame. It's always sad to see a book die, especially one that would have been interesting.
I have no doubt that the moon has been landed on, but it would have been such a fascinating read.
It sounds empty, but knowledge really is the antidote to ignorance. A book like that could only have added more interesting knowledge to the world.
This site is my favorite anti-hoax site so far.
That's Mr. Eradicator to you.
trance-port
I really wish NASA would get back doing what they do best....it would be much cooler to watch man walk on Mars and then hear about how *that* was faked.
The moon landings were obviously a hoax in the first place. How did they get the flag to be all wavy?? Everyone knows there's no wind on the moon!
Conspiracy theorists will interpret anything as further proof of their theory. Getting into arguments with them is pointless because everything will be interpreted as further proof that things "are being covered up". NASA is better served by ignoring the cooks and moving on.
The book is still going ahead as planed; NASA wont be funding or publishing it, is all.
;)
It's amazing what a little article-reading can get ya.
"Old man yells at systemd"
No, not really. The media in the US is focused on Iraq, election fallout, and Iraq. Even on a slow news day I doubt a minor piece of news about NASA would get a lot of play.
Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
I believed in NASA, but as the years pass I'm becoming suspicious of the landing. I wonder why haven't we been back. Why hasn't any other country been to the moon if possible. Wouldn't the moon be useful as a research lab at a minimum.
...there is absolutely NO chance of winning with the conspiracy crowd. They have everything to lose by conceding. (And I was pretending to be one of them. I'm not! Really!)
However, a book aimed at the general public might make sense -- there is a lot of bad science out there in general acceptance. A book targeting these problems, and not framed as a response to the conspiracy theorists, might make a lot of sense.
For all the fun folks make of conspiracy theorists, the term itself is a condemnation of skeptics run amok. I like the undercurrent of skepticism, of criticizing the accepted wisdom, but not with the disregard of the facts and, worse, dishonest hidden agenda of getting rich or getting on TV.
Christ- they were only going to spend $15,000. I can't believe people got that upset over it. Put it in perspective- a frickin' space shuttle ash tray costs about the same. Geez.
Take all the people who don't believe, stick them on a spaceship and let them see the landing sites for themselves. We can tell them to "press the big red button" when they are satisfied and are ready to come back home ;)
Sure we've been to the moon... but I'm still not convinced the earth is round. ;)
wouldn't be convinced there was a moon landing if you actually sent them to the moon.
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
There is also a sad side of this story... a portion of the population does not believe the American government when it says that people have walked on the moon. Why wouldn't we believe everything they tell us? We have no proof they have lied before. Ha!!! Damn I crack myself up sometimes.
I believe that they walked on the moon. I believe that it's time to move on and do other productive things. The past is the past and either you believe it or you don't. Enough time has been spent by other parties proving (or trying to prove) that the moon walk was indeed real. That is not NASA's job. While we are on this topic though... what exactly is NASA's job? I read somewhere that their original mission was the search for et life but no longer have a mission statement at all... anyone know anything about this?
Not only was the moon landing fake, but also the Space Race and Cold War. The US and Russia have been faking all space exploration. Sputnik I was the only real space launch. It was during this mission that Russia learned that the world sat upon the back of a turtle. The turtle in turn sat upon another. In fact Turtle(n) sat upon Turtle(n+1) into infinity. They shared this info with the US. It was then decided that the general public could not handle this information, and that is why the "Space Race" started to really heat up after Sputnik I. It was all a hoax so that no one would suspect the truth.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
By all means, reject the /. authority.
After all, you should be listening to the huge pile of moon rocks and the mirrors on the surface of the moon, who, along with other things, say, "It happened."
...and rancid, dusty cheese at that.
Now, imagine the size of the cow!
...how many of you think that the moon trip was a hoax? I don't know what to believe... So for now, i will say that the moon trip was true unless someone tells me a good reason of why NASA would want to hoax something this important.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I am french and I know how the american government can play on the confidence of its stupid people.
When you see that Armstrong marooned on the Moon and get away from it without any difficulty, I am wondering why everybody believed that it was true !
Everybody knows that Lance Armstrong is powered by Automation, that Bush does not really own the White House, and Ben Laden does not exist.
Everything is fake thanks to americans !
...In fact, her studies are the reason we got divorced.
... Dude, this can't be a healthy lifestyle. At least not for your wallet.
... think the government can't do anything right except cover up whatever pet project they think was faked or hidden?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
You can still ping the retroreflector with a laser, but it's not the same.
how these conspiracy theories have any weight whatsoever. It is a trivial exercise to get a decent reflector telescope and look at the stuff that was left behind by the Apollo missions. I mean, it's not like it went anywhere.
Maybe Nasa can contract with BMI to release the book on CD-ROM instead. Then no one can read it!
Neider space, the earth is plane and the star was the eye of god and the sun is belly button !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
My boss was one of the guys who built the Lunar Rover. For real, I'm not kidding. It weighed between 100 and 200 pounds and it could not hold up under earth's gravity. I was told that it unfolded from the lander and was designed to hold together on the moon's gravity which it did. So therefore, unless there was another fake moon buggy, the Rover had to be filmed running about in a lower gravity environment.
Rhode Island doesn't count.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
..that that guy that stole Moon rocks from NASA, and was arrested, will get prison time for stealing ordinary, everyday run-of-the-mill Earth stones!
HAHAHAHA What a hoser!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Send rocket to the moon with critics and bring them back. A month after they've returned and saying how great it really was and that they were wrong to question the original moon shot, leak a fake video of them on a moon set.
Now the conspiracy nuts can't trust each other....
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
The hoaxers are right. WE all know ther's no such thing as the moon. It's all a ridiculous liberal myth.
Note to those who wish to mod this down - It's funny. You just don't get it.
I propose we fly all these folks to the moon to see for themselves and "accidentally" program the autopilot to crash into a crater after flying them low over the landing site.
Can we put the telemarketers on board while we are at it?
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
To write a book regardless of canceling; this book get a great advertisement at least on Slashdot; people will buy this book in any case.
The moon landing is just one of those things science-ma-tific types made up to confuse da rest of us. Like evolution or Pi.
Lets put a warning on the book and say it controversial!
1) Moon landing 2) Holocaust 3) Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombs 4) Cuban missile crisis 5) Elvis Presley dead 6) 9/11 ...
What's this about NASA starting a new hoax? Here in VA, USA, a hoax is two or more hokies. (Well, it is now...) :{)||
The conspiracy wouldn't work if you think just how many people had to be involved. First, obviously, are the astronauts. Then at least the higher-ups @ NASA, as well as the people in the control center. Then the entire crew who filmed the landing in some warehouse, from the props guys to the cameramen to the directors & producers to the janitors who cleaned up afterwards, and the special effects team. Then at least part of the government has to know.
And then there's the fact that we were competing against the Russians, and they have everything to gain by exposing this hoax, and you better believe they would've done everything to uncover the conspiracy if there was one.
This is an obvious piece of counter-hoax propaganda posturing. It should be clear to any disinterested observer that this is a desperate move on the part of the N(A)SA organization, and act which at once legitimizes the hoax/fraud theory and brushes it aside. However, it will have neither effect: it will at once pique the interest of those who have previously dismissed the fraud theory out of hand, and simultaneously fail to convince those who have previously given the hoaxes credit that the so-called 'artifacts' cited by the fraud theorists should not be given the weight that they have been in some parts.
What sort of conclusions can be drawn from this one-step-forward-one-step-back policy? Perhaps none. Perhaps that the posturing around the so-called "moon" expedition is exactly that. Posturing, and posturing that is still pertinent today.
But the real question that should be on your minds is, when will China reach the moon, and what will they find there? Will they find the footprints and detritus of the N(A)SA agents who purportedly reached the moon? Will they find the sovereign flag of the United States, claiming the entire Moon for our grand country? Or will they find a pristine moon, quite free of all evidence of a 1969 landing, and perhaps even quite different in character than the one shown in the 1969 films.
BUT
Will the communist Chinese even be allowed to reach the moon? Or will their vessel be struck down by an 'antiballistic' missile or laser, with the only information released to the public a Chinese government release describing a non-specific "failure."
I think that the meaning is clear. There is something that the N(A)SA doesn't want us to know about the 1969 moon landing films, OR the hoax surrounding them. Or there is something that they DO want us to know, and this book would not have contained it. The only thing that is clear, is that this book will not be published officially; and that will either lead us in the direction of the truth or away from it, and this may or may not be the intention of the evil N(A)SA and the so-called United States "Government."
...Russia squandered all of its funds for the ISS on super computers that search the Net for p0rn
Really? Well I guess what's done is done. So, umm how do I get access to this super pr0n computer, just out of curiousity of course?
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
"No way. That's great. We landed on the moon!"
I am confident that this hoax will rank right up there with Columbus's hoax. Historians are hiding the fact that his trip was a great tragedy; Columbus left with 12 ships not three. The three that returned are the only ones that didn't fall off the edge of the earth. Hundreds of sailors on the other nine ships lost their lives and their names are lost in oblivion today.
It can be no surprise that people think the Moon landings were fake - after all, look at how many people take astrology seriously.
Newspapers spend millions advertising their wares on the basis of which professional con artist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hastrologer they employ. Just think about that for a minute - more is being spent on promoting scandalous anti-science than many aspects of science that could really improve our lives. But then look at missile defence and you can see it is not just Rupert Murdoch who is to blame for that one.
Don't you people get it? We all know the moon landings were real, we're just f***ing with you.
As many of you know. I work as a classified documents clerk for NASA, and certin government agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and NAMBLA. The 'moon landing' photos were actually taken from Delta Station 10-F in the Phabos sector on Venus. The area near the delta station is still un-teraformed and looks very much like earth's moon. This was all done in an attempt to not only obscure the truth about how advanced our space program really was at the time, but to confuse the russians into thinking that the moon is landable, when we all know that the moon is in fact far too soft to land on as it is made out of green cheese and has a core of the styrofoam 'beans' used in modern bean-less beanbag chairs.
I've recently taken the stance that there will always be some small group of people that you'll never be able to convince. For instance, with the moon landing, a Gallup poll showed that about 6 percent of US citizens think it was a hoax. Interestingly, they mention that about this percentage of people will end up saying yes to almost any poll question asked! For futher evidence of people doing irrational things, look at the mid-term elections - Rep. Traficant from Ohio got 15 percent of the vote and he's in prison on 10 counts of corruption. Yet somehow he's still the best person to represent the people? This is why I really think the best you can do is lay out the facts, teach as much as possible and ultimately hope that enough people "get it".
Little do you all know the moon landings were faked, because they were actually landing on Mars!
Oiy some people.
When did they say that? I've seen the thing about 10 times and I don't remember hearing it.
There is no moon
They landed on the moon alright!
That's where they hide the cyborg testing fcility on the dark side of the moon.
Those people who think they where abducted by aliens? Nope, abducted by DARPA and used for research on the lab on the dark side of the moon.
That way the human rights hippies can't harrass em.
The book was meant to be used as an oracle for school teachers and other people wishing to teach their non-luddite, but-still-easily-mislead friends about the truth behind the moon landings.
The luddite people who think the landings were a hoax have a lot of FUD which is easy to believe on the surface of it, but once you actually learn about the details, they fall apart. Placing all these details in one place is very beneficial.
Look at how far major religions got because a lot of people believed them for a long time. The Mormons were in the 19th century what scientologists are today. Bad memes spread easily among the uneducated.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's not that I think they didn't go to the Moon, but I find equally unreasonable both sides: the ones that say all the story is fake and the ones thay blindly believe NASA's story -most of us.
Hey guys, if you read about it, they may have a point: the flag, the shadows, the political context, etc... so maybe the book should be written.
The world is plenty of believers ready to buy into any theory they like.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Holy Bajeezus Christ, I can't believe you even made a comparison between the misdeeds of a handful of executives and a cooperative efforts of thousands of scientists, engineers and other hard workers, all of whom would have to have collaberated on this hoax without fail for over 30 years now.
NASA has decided to write a different book instead -- One that claims that they themselves were the ones behind the whole "The moon landing was faked!!" movement. Rumor has it that while the moon landing did actually happen, it was only done to support the rumors that NASA intentionally started. As part of a huge 35-year long scam to defraud the government out of the money to write the book to defend it, they had to go to the moon to make their "it didn't happen!" gag seem plausable. And these stupid conspiracy goons bought it, lock stock and barrel!
Cheers,
A. Lincoln
..the "alleged" landings were fake.
From the previous story: "And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see [the book] as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
From this story: "No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake."
You just can't win with these people, can you?
.... and Gore invented the Internet.
we just take the dissentors to the edge of the planet and throw them over the side of the flat earth :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I never had any reason to doubt this event growing up. Then I heard about the conspiracy angle, checked out all the material (movies, books, forums), and I am now in the 'undecided' category. For me, the most convincing "evidence" supportng the conspiracy theory is the radiation belt, and NASA's inability (even at present IIRC) to send any living thing through it without receiving a lethal dose. Most of the other facts are hit or miss, and pretty subjective.
To think that the government doesn't hide anything is lunacy. To think that the government doesn't lie is naive. What needs to be provided here is indisputable proof of the event. This was a scientific event and therefore must be (re)proven scientifically. Even when the private sector comes forward with photographic evidence of abandoned Apollo equipment, I still would not be 100% convinced. To be honest, I don't know what it would take to prove beyond a doubt that Niel Armstrong set foot on the moon. It might be easier to provide _real_ evidence to the contrary.
Am I alone in this vein of thought?
- OrbNobz
If a sig falls in a forum and noone is around to read it, was it really written?
Simthers has been ordered to release the Buzz Aldrin robot.
Now that's low.
Firstly, I have no doubt myself that the moon was visited by man.
However, even if Hubble _could_ resolve the lunar lander, and even if there _are_ reflectors on the moon's surface, they do not prove that Man actually visited.
The lunar module could have gone it alone whilst Armstrong et. al. were in orbit around the Earth for a few days, and the lunar reflectors placed there automatically.
I stopped watching that Fox documentary when they showed the photograph that contained the lunar lander one minute, and not the next. Gee, you never looked at mountains in the distance? See how they don't change over the course of a few meters?
Get a life, hoax believers.
You know how stupid the average person is? Well by definition, half of 'em are more stupid than that.
Does it really matter if we really went to the moon or not..
If we did... *Hurrah*!
If we didn't then...oh shock! our government lied for political reasons.
Whether we did or didn't is irrelevant to things that should be addressed today.
If don't beleive something that is very easy to verify then you should be much more worried about other things!!
- Are you an orphan?
- Is the food you are eating really good for you?
- Is your house really worth what you think?
- Are your dreams really in your subconscious?
- Are you mature enough (mentally) to place such fundamental questions?
Hm... Apparently it was a slashdotism, and not your intention. Sorry.
You people are so gullible. That entire story was completely fabricated to provide "proof" of a real lunar landing. There are no "moon rocks" to steal, at least not on Earth anyway. Take off the freakin' blinders people!!!
...or we would be able to go there today. If it had been real after 30 years of technical progress it would obviously be easy and cheap to go to the moon, it would be covered with bases and people, and we would be on our way to Mars. Since NASA is incapable to do it now they must have been incapable the first time.
@de_machina
And I'm going to buy it; books like this, and Dawkin's Blind Watchmaker, are absolutely essential.
"Some commentators had said that in making the Oberg book an official Nasa publication, the agency was actually giving a certain credibility to the hoax theory."
I can't help but laugh, really, when such an argument is used. IMO it's basically as good as simply sticking your head in the sand, and pretending nothing's going on outside.
In the case of the Moon landing conspiracy theory, I feel the argument is even more invalid. Almost everyone has heard the theory. The theory would be so bad, and in so many ways, were it to be proven true, that it seems that everyone that might believe it, already firmly does, and everyone else already firmly rejects it. It doesn't strike me as the kind of suggestion that allows for grey areas.
The logical conclusion would seem to be that this move only serves to further fuel those who do believe. Since the work, it seems, was already done, I think they would have been better off publishing the book. No point in pretending the theory believers are not there, and that they don't have a loud voice. Better to confront them...
The only way to shut up a naysayer and convince them that we have landed on the moon and have the technology to do so is by bringing that person to the moon and saying see "We are here!" what do you have to say?
Of course their response maybe "How do I know this is really the moon?" A no win situation at best.
check out this site.
To convince the conspiracy theorists, NASA only needs to give them a better theory.
The moon landing was real alright - they released faked photos and such because they actually established a nuclear missile base on the moon, in complete violation of international treaties.
But a few very perceptive people noticed some small discrepancies, so it was necessary to "guide" them into believing the moon shots were faked, so they would be dismissed as kooks.
Work this right, and we might get financing for some more trips to the moon, well equipped for an extended search for the hidden automated missile bases.
Because the moon doesn't exist.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
.. take pictures of the lunar rover and landing module?
i mean, it's not like they've gone anywhere. the evidence is in plain sight, right above our heads.
so where are the pictures?
Simpson was in Capricorn One?? Yeah, now I think I remember that vaguely. Now, there's a joke in here somewhere, but unfortunately he just doesn't seem as funny anymore. Is his acting career gone forever? (Say yes.)
Good flick, though. Especially when the biplane fakes out the (black, naturally) helicopter, my favorite.
I think the reason it was cancelled is because Britney Spears is a pseudo-intelligent Borax demon from Nebcuntz Pholoplax and used her evil brain powers to change the NASA's mind on the book as it would expose that hundreds of Gurblatz demons are posing as humans. Some examples are: Dennis Rodman, Prince, Evil Kenival, John Tesh, Carrot Top, and the lieutenant commander of the Hufberg Uboolats Kevin Bacon.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Please, someone mention John Edward now. His show is less probably than man landin on Pluto yet SciFi dumps GOOD admittedly fake shows like Farscape, shows that don't exploit the bereaved, to make room for it.
People eat this stuff up. Next thing you know they'll be believe that crap about President Bush stealing the election. Wait a second, I believe that crap... ?
The moon landing is a great example of separate intersecting lines of evidence converging on the conclusion that we did indeed land on the moon. For the conspiracy theorists, no amount of evidence is going to convince them so we might as well be speaking another language. Still, I think interesting things can come out of the discussion. My favorite piece of evidence of the landing is the storage bag from the Apollo 15 mission. NASA astronauts threw it out, it ended up at auction, someone bought it and realized that it was saturated with moon dust (you can tell the dust is from the moon by comparing the ratios of certain isotopes). The isotopic ratios of certain elements in moon rocks is different than that of any rocks found on earth. The collector has since been selling sections at an enormous profit. see this link Now, I suppose they could have gone to the moon with an unmanned mission which landed, blasted off, returned with a bunch of rocks and dust which was subsequently distributed. At that point, why not just go there. Occam's Razor would say manned missions is a much more likely solution given the other evidence.
Well of course the moon landings were hoaxes! If they had really tried to land their thruster rockets would have melted the green cheese and the moon would have been turned into a giant fondue.
Sheesh, everyone knows that!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
In other news, Winona Ryder was recently found guilty of shoplifting. This too, will doubtless fuel conspiracy theorists' beliefs that the moon landing was faked.
I still can't believe the people who don't believe something until they can touch it themselves. Believe what you want, some thing happen others don't but there's one question you should ask yourself about this. What would they have to gain lieing about this? And how can you not believe that we have landed on the moon. You know all those little sataites that are up in space that allow things like the weather channel to forcast so well, I bet those aren't up there either.
most evidence involves low quality jpgs.
wow, thats really convincing evidence.
the one convincing bit of the theory is the reason it would be faked. jfk made the promise, and it couldnt be done in 10 years. that has some weight to it. but since there is zero legit evidence to back it up, that goes out the window.
What do you mean it's your favorite anti-hoax site so far? Do you know so many you actually have to rank them and pick favorites? Do you spend much of your time looking for new ones?
Don't pretend to be someone you're not. Nobody's impressed anyway (in this case, all it goes to show is that you have some weird priorities).
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
isn't there a mirror on the moon placed by these landers for laser reflection studies?
in order to ascertain the true distance I thought this was done. Now that I think of it, 400,000km is a long distance to properly aim a laser from earth and record the reflection latency.
Well, if they could make Pong a few years later, then must of landed on the moon.
For immediate release:
The International Society to Disprove the Moon Landings (ISDML) had recently determined that Christopher Columbus had never set foot in North America, and that any evidence presented by the Imperial Spanish Court of Ferdinand and Isabela was indeed a hoax.
There is no proof that Columbus, nor any of the men in his three vessels, had ever crossed the Atlantic and landed in North America. The ISDML believe that any evidence to the contrary was generated as part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the Spanish Government in an attempt to convince the world that they were the winners in the "Sea Race" versus their rival nation, Portugal. All evidence was fabricated at an elaboratly constructed studio in Seville, in a blatent attempt to deceive the public.
In fact, the ISDML has failed to find evidence that Europeans have ever reached North America, nor that this 'fabeled' contined does indeed exists.
More information will be fortcomming.
I'm sure Carmack [Armadillo Aereospace] will be on the moon in 20 years and he can prove it happened once and for all
why hasn't NASA just shoot these people to the moon already?
The alternative is that the public just takes everything scientists say for granted. If the moon landing had been faked, it wouldn't really have mattered. But other issues do matter. For example, when the Pentagon fakes missile defense, that endangers us all: a public that thinks its protected from missile strikes is going to make different political choices from one that doesn't.
The apollo mission was followed by amateur astronomers (and professional ones outside of the USA). It just so happens that all of them were in on it too?
Conspiracy theorists often get nicked by the sharpened edges Occam's Razor.
--Joey
I don't know why they need to make a book. Simply have a Q & A sort of website that indexes and answers claims. Not only is it cheaper than printing on dead trees (they don't expect a profit, do they?), it is more accessible to taxpayers.
Table-ized A.I.
I knew it -- NASA never did have plans to produce such a book. It was just another hoax :-)
People who think the moon landings were a hoax are never going to be convinced otherwise by anything anyone says, NASA or otherwise.
... the guy actually is quite smart, but after seeing the Fox News special claiming the moon landings were fake he was mostly convinced, and accussed me of being closed minded and dense when I laughed at him.
... there are a lot of reasonable people who have an unfortuante, ingrained trust of the media (many of the same people will decry the media, but believe the next newscast all the same), and these people can and often are conviced by reasonable, factually, easy-to-understand counterarguments.
Not entirely true.
I have a friend who is pretty intelligent, but has an unfortunate weakness in being gullible to certain "newsoid" broadcasts. Its very odd
So I did a little googling (something he should have done before ever admitting to anyone other than his wife, who is similarly a little "too open minded" about fringe conspiracy theories, that he took such a thing seriously) and pointed him to an excellent site debunking the entire broadcast point by point, with clay models and lighting to demonstrate the optical features of each "faked" shot.
In other words, I pointed him to a web site that proved, picture by picture, that every piece of "evidence" presented by the media whores of Fox was in fact farcical, and that the reporter should have been emberrassed at his own lack of basic scientific understanding on each and every point.
My friend, somewhat abashed, was convinced, and was more than a little annoyed that a major television network would present such garbage as "news."
Frankly, so am I, but the point remains
Indeed, fighting bad speech with good speech is the best way to offset this sort of thing.
That, and openly jeering at the Fox Media Whores perpetrating this disgusting fraud on the people of America whenever they show their faces in public (a little social humiliation is just what those clowns need. No, let me rephrease: a great deal of social humiliation is just what those clowns need).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Right when Lloyd is leaving the bar in Aspen, he spots a newspaper article on the wall that says "Humans land on Moon" or something to that effect.
is because if the government were to start debunking only the wacky conspiracy theories the remainder could be seen as being implicitly legitimate.
The label of conspiracy is too important for the powers-that-be to allow this to happen.
Just look at what The New York Times is doing with the term today.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I operated an instrument aboard the SOHO spacecraft for four years; during that time I fielded innumerable emails and discussions from crackpots who were convinced, variously, that comets were crashing into the Earth, that aliens were here, that SOHO was in fact a spy satellite, and that the sun was going to blow up.
The common thread was that NASA must be hiding something. In particular, writing from a nascom.nasa.gov email address, I was an "insider" and therefore not to be trusted -- if you're involved with NASA, these people will latch on to anything you say that seems to support them, but dismiss even the clearest, most well-documented rebuttals. After all, you're working for the government, of course you'd say that. :-P
Give me a break! Those people at Goddard were working their arses off just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing -- there was no time (or inclination or, most probably ability) to keep a giant dark secret about aliens or whatever.
Ditto the lunar journeys. Feh.
The Russians are, collectively, the best reason not to believe the Apollo revisionists -- if we really didn't send men on those spacecraft, the Russians had the technology to find out. They would've screamed bloody murder. Besides, why bother to fake Apollo 13?
There was a video of a classic experiment carried out on the moon, we watched this in Physics. A hammer and a feather were dropped at the same time from the same distance and they both fell at the same rate. That means the experiment took place in a vacumn.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake.
That's what they want you to think!
...
/me is lost in the layers of conspiracy.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I thought I should point out, the intended audience for this book was not the wacky conspiracy theorists, it was for teachers and students who had questions about non-intuitive physics that take place on the moon, so they didn't propagate the insanity spouted by wacky conspiracy theorists (and the FOX network). Any book targeted at those who were paranoid to begin with is doomed to fail, but some of the explanations of why things looked the way they did (lack of a blast crater, strange shadows, waving flags, etc.) make for some very interesting physics lessons.
NASA cancels moon hoax? They are going to be out of practice if they keep that up.
Table-ized A.I.
The Russians beat them to it. :-D
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The Republicans get a majority in the House and Senate and already they're saving taxpayer money.
but you can't make them believe it's water.
>Any hoax believers aren't going to be convinced by a smudge
;)
Oh really? Have you noticed all the hype over the Cydonia "Face on Mars"? It's another example of something with which the conspiracy theorists insist on wasting NASA's time. I think that the bottom line is that if someone is willing to draw vehement conclusions without doing any *real* research then they're just as likely to ignore evidence that doesn't fit with their preconceptions.
Hell, I'm a bit of a conspiracy nut myself, and these idiots make me look bad!
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
check out this
Semper ubi sub ubi
Any high-school physics student should be able to counter all of the arguments in the "documentary".
If you believe in the "fake", you believe in it despite any real evidence that it was faked. Learn to think for yourselves without having NASA spend $15 k on a book.
Why do you think there was no NASA scientist to counter the absurd arguments in the "documentary"? The closest thing was a scientist who was allowed to say "there are a lot of crackpot theories out there".
Do you really believe that NASA couldn't counter the arguments point by point? Any astrophysicist could. That's why they didn't have one on the show.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Isn't there a better use for your time than writing code for Linux?
Who the hell cares? If he wants to write a book disproving the hoax believers claims that's his business. If HE thinks it's a good use of HIS time then it is.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Hasn't it occured to anyone that the royalties from the book might EXCEED $15k and actually make NASA a lot of money? Considering how much public interest and controversy this caused, I think that millions of dollars would not be an unreasonable expected return.
$15k is very small potatoes compared to how much money the book would make. By cancelling it, they are passing up easy revenue.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Tomorrows headlines will read:
MOON HOAX BOOK HOAX, SAY NAY-SAYERS
How decidedly Bloom County-esque.
Im with you on this. For me, the radiation belt, and the photo of the flag where the pole covers part of one of the +'s on the camera lense. Actually, Im very suprised at the slashdot crowds attitude on this manner. Neither view has been proven, but there is indeed evidence to support a potential conspiracy. Anyone who has paid any close attention to this issue will have seen at least one piece of evidence that causes serious pause.
From BadAstronomy: The van Allen belts are regions above the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field has trapped particles of the solar wind. An unprotected man would indeed get a lethal dose of radiation, if he stayed there long enough. Actually, the spaceship traveled through the belts pretty quickly, getting past them in an hour or so. There simply wasn't enough time to get a lethal dose, and, as a matter of fact, the metal hull of the spaceship did indeed block most of the radiation
And...
From BadAstronomy again:
"Strong luminosity can washout thin lines"
-T
We stopped going because we couldn't afford it any more. No one else has gone because they have better uses for their money!
The race to the moon cost so much mioney that it would hev been utterly impossible to pull off at aniy other time in US history. Only the mind-boggling economic excesses of the 1950's and 1960's gave us enough money to toss down that bottomless money pit.
We didn't go to the moon for research purposes. We went for purely political reasons: to beat those (in the lexicon of the day) "Godless bastards in Moscow" to the moon! The science was needed to get the job done.
There is no point in putting a reaserch station on the moon. The cost of maintaining a manned presence on the moon is (pardon the pun) astronimical. Ever breath of air, every drop of water, every bite of food must be sent there at tremedous cost.
The only useful scientific endeavor to put ion the moon would be telscopes on the far side, insulated from the light and radation of the Earth and it's noisy inhabitants.
As much as I like the idea of manned space exploration, and as much as I'd love to go to the moon, I just don't see it being in any way econimically feasable any time soon.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
"There is no moon....."
There isn't a telescope built by Man* that can see any of the objects we left behind on the moon. Not even the mighty Hubble.
*Who knows what telescopes aliens might be able to do, if they actually exist and give a rat's festering rectum about us.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing
;)
HAH! what you really meant was SPY data...
Of course you can't win against the tinfoil hat people. That's the whole point of the hat: they're immune to your mind control rays!
What did the U.S gain by landing on the moon besides showing the Russians that indeed they could waste more fuel and money and go farther and do useless things elsewhere. What NASA should do is concentrate on making a moon base instead of an international space station, atleast then we can get rid of some of the pollution on the Earth by balancing out the material needs by harvesting it from the moon, although the method of transportation and quality of my arguement through run on sentences are more things that NASA could spend their money on figuring out.
.... ....
Certainly image is everything, maybe NASA should ask Sprite if they can be in some of their commercials, or maybe NASA just wanted to make (another) hoax to fool everyone a second time.
NASA:
"Hey we'll dispute this..with some facts!"
Well I'll chalk this up with the aliens seen in space by the cameras on board space shuttles. Or that Nibiru the 12th planet is coming to wreak havoc, NASA is a busy client these days..Anyone up for opening the Privitized Slashdot Space Agency?
-[cx]
To hell with the lunar hoax...
I'm still not convinced intelligent life has ever visited earth!
Inasmuch as the New Jersey Democratic party illegally changed the ballot after the deadline in order to remove a losing candidate from the ballot, and inasmuch as the New Jersey Supreme Court for some reason upheld this crass disregard for the law (could it be that they are a liberal-leaning court, just as some accuse the Supreme Court of leaning to the right?), and inasmuch as the United States Supreme Court (also, apparently, known as the John Birch Society) refused to interfere in the matter, and inasmuch as the illegally substituted candidate won the Senatorial seat, without the losing (legitimate) candidate so much as asking for a recount, and inasmuch as this constitutes material evidence that the Great Holy Liberals do not, in fact, care about the purity of the election process as much as they pretended to TWO YEARS AGO, I hereby declare a moratorium on anti-Bush Slashdotters with no grasp of the fact that everybody else has gotten over it (just like they get over every election they lose) continuing to post FUD about Bush "stealing" the election or making cutesy comments like "in the end, only 9 votes counted," particularly in light of the fact that independent recounts of the ballots again affirmed that more votes were, in fact, cast for Bush than for Gore in Florida in the 2000 General Election. You may now resume your traditional Microsoft Bashing and Linux Cheerleading.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Give me a break! Those people at Goddard were working their arses off just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing
Of course they're going to keep lots of employees busy doing work. It's pretty arrogant for you to think that you, a small fish in a big coverup, would be informed or allowed to inspect what was really going on. Is it conceivable that in your brief years at NASA, the work you did simply contributed to the belief that real work was being done? You must admit that in any coverup (government, private sector, nonprofit, etc.) nearly everyone on the inside has no idea what's going on.
Don't concern yourself with rebutting this. All the evidence you bring to table, and all the evidence that your coworkers and their superiors bring to the table can still, conceivably, be lumped in the 99%+ of people and information that are used as cover. It's an absolute necessity that NASA have faithful, believing employees who toe the line and give public rebuttals. And you point out yourself that those employees are so easy to program with constant deadlines, technology and funding challenges, products that deploy out of range of many measurements, etc.
As a member of the Flat Earth Society, I can
atest to the fact the humans have never been
off the surface of the Earth. As our motto is
Birds fly Men Drink.
This is a dumb question no doubt...but does it really matter. I mean look what we got form the space program Velcro, microwaves, simple radio network patkets. It created or started off so much technology that we used today, that the authenticity of the landing itself isn't big of deal. If you want to complain about nasa complain that they are underfunded to begin with and that we shuold be dumping tons of money into it rather then military. One new of the fighters, the vertical flying bomber, or the new fighter costs about 220 Million US Dollars. If nasa got just the equivelent of funding used to build one jet...they might actually be able to develop something useful in reasonable amount of time. The conspiracy debate about the landings is absolutly pointless one way or the other. If we focused on building new, faster, and more effectient space traveling vehiecles we could indulge them and check it out...but not before why waste Nasa's little precious funding indulging groups just interested in saying I told you so.
- DenialX
I mean, we all know how it is; to communicate with people who just doesn't get, who refuse to think. We have all gotten frustrated over them. I think that sometimes, it's just a waste of time and energy, so why bother, right?
....and damned if you don't.
:-)
Once they opened the can of worms (by even bringing this up) no matter what they decided to do would probably be seen as a justification.
"Oh! They are writing a book to discredit us! We must be on to something!"
"Oh! They've cancelled the book! See! They know we are right and have decided to quit while they were ahead!"
Gotta love that circular logic.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
If I had your job, I would find it nearly impossible to resist sending back an email like, "You're right! It's all a hoax! Send help, I'm trapped in here by aliens and their about to colonize the planet!" ... just to fuck with em.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Bravo for NASA for actually responding to criticism like this. They could have stonewalled it with some dumbly obstinate PR statement.
Personally I don't CARE if people want to believe the moon landings were hoaxes. Some people still think the Earth is flat. Big deal. The truth, as they say, is out there. Let's do worthwhile things.
Ask yourself, have you ever really seen the moon? I thought not. Sure, you see a luminous object in the sky from time to time, but that could be anything. Most likely it is a remnant of the cold war. Do you think it is coincidence that prior 1945 not a single reference or mention has been made of this so called "moon". The ancient egyptians were avid star gazers. Don't you think it is a little bit odd that they never even noticed this so called "moon"? And how about Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, none of them ever bothered to mention this so called "moon".
I pose to you, that prior to 1945 this "moon" did not exist, and that what we now call the "moon" is in fact a nuclear weapon.
What I don't understand is that all the intelligence gathered at this site, all the brains, geekdom, intellect, etc, despite all the overwhelming evidence, still believes that such a thing like a moon landing could ever have taken place.
Come on people, it's so crystal clear that we are being seriously mislead. There was no moonlanding in 1969.
It might have happened later, but I doubt it.
Don't fool yourselves. You have brains, don't insult yourself in believing this kind of crap.
The whole moon is about the size of my thumbnail. Maybe it's mouse milk cheese.
It seems that way from how angry everyone gets over this topic. I guess it is part of your national esteem. snicker.
> Care to show some sort of logical relationship
> between creation science, theories of human
> reproduction, and moon landing conspiracies?
The logical relationship between creation "science" and moon landing conspiracies is that they're both based on ignorance and idiocy. Not sure what theories of human reproduction is all about, so perhaps the O.P. can expand a bit on that.
Instead of a book rebuttal against the Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory, NASA is allocating their resources towards producing a TV special, featuing 60 minutes of Buzz Aldrin punching conspiracy theorists.
Seems more likely that it is a weather baloon.
If there are people who still believe the earth is flat, what makes anyone think that any amount of proof will convince the hoax believers that we went to the moon?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I can only assume that you have one or more solid, rational arguments, based on commonly accepted facts, to support your position. What are they?
This isn't meant to be a flamewar, mind you. If you have strong arguments on which you base your beliefs, I'm sincerely eager to know them.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Regarding why creation "science" is not science see the The General Anti-Creationism FAQ and perhaps also this page by a guy named Lenny Flank. Those two sites summarize my arguments quite succinctly.
As for moon landing conspiracies, check out the page at Bad Astronomy which talks about it.
Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com (I know...I know...)
If I had that email, I'd send back messages just to mess with them. For example, I'd talk about how one of my friends who worked there said he finally figured out what was going on, and then mysteriously died. Or give them the address of the movie studio where stuff was faked and tell them to go check it out.
I'm still not sure I know what that word means. I am sure it doesn't make one's speech more impressive.
:)
I take it you're cross about the substitution of Lautenberg for Torricelli. I guess that you think its "wrongfulness" cancels out the 2000 debacle is an argument that "two wrongs make a right." Interesting concession regarding 2000!
The later recounts that the Supreme Court did not allow were in fact ambiguous, the counts varying with the standards used. If Gore had gotten the recounts in just the counties he identified, he would have probably lost; had the recounts been statewide, as Bush demanded, Bush would have lost.
If the SC was wrong to interfere, it was wrong regardless of whether its decision changed the outcome of the election.
Anyway, the way I made the comment should have made clear I was kidding around. Inasmuch.
Very helpful details.
Well.....
If its a hoax how come there are soo many moon rocks u can buy on E-bay? Huh? Somebody had to get em here!!
Gee some people today...
We never liked those stupid old towers anyway. 3000 wankers dead, and NYC traffic still blows. C'mon Osama, you can do better than that!
Holy shit!. pl?user_action=detail&catalogno=ON1011WHLG
Man walks on the fucking moon!
https://store.theonion.com/cgi-bin/store/EDCstore
Let's face it, it wouldn't be that bad for siceince if the moon landings turn out to be a hoax. I mean considering the time at which it happend, if NASA were really cabable of prodcing such a hoax on such a large scale, with so much deatil , and still keep it belivable with thoses times' technology well ...... by today who would need a Holodeck!
(not to mention the organisational structure and bugeting, Must have somthing to do with Enron!:-?)
Thanks, I'm familiar with all three sites. I actually have found no good reason to doubt the moon landings, so you don't need to waste any time there. As for creationism, I'm of the opinion that it's more properly in the realm of metaphysics, rather than science per se--at least until our science advances quite a bit farther than its current state. Meanwhile, I admit I'm a little dissapointed, probably because I didn't make myself clear: I was hoping you could summarize your arguments in your own words, perhaps along the lines of "I find the existence of a god to be an unreasonable proposition, for the following reasons...". Surely your belief system is an intensly personal thing, and not just a pointer to talkorigins.org!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Geez, this was discussed only a few days ago. No, Hubble doesn't have adequate resolution. At the moon's distance, Hubble's resolution is on the order of 100s of meters. However, if you follow the above link I posted a link to some Clementine images of the landing sites... of course, Clementine was a Navy probe, so now you have to include the Navy in the conspiracy...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
because it is popular. They have probably not
even cared enougth to look into it because it
does not matter: if the slashdot audience thinks we landed on
the Moon, then that is good enough for us! After,
all we don't want to appear rediculous.
And that is fine. At least don't close with sneer
remarks just to suck-in to the crowd.
Surely your belief system is an intensly personal thing, and not just a pointer to talkorigins.org!
Not mine. I try to base what I believe as far as facts go to what is logical, successfully argued and well-evidenced. There is little I can think (as far as my worldly beliefs go) that has anything to do with being deeply or intensely personal. The intro to Carl Sagan's the Demon Haunted world sums it up rather well: Carl recounts the time he explained to the man who deeply wanted to believe in all sorts of things that "The evidence is crummy."
I suppose my moral beliefs could be considered "intensely personal" but even those I try to put a voice of reason to -- Pro life? Pro choice? Who's involved? Which is more imporant, the rights of a person or the life of an unborn? Is an unborn truly sentient? etc. Some of them I still don't have an answer to... but I find the idea of shutting the best methods the world uses to determine truth out of my head to be really ridiculous. I don't see how anybody who is interested in knowing what is true can do it. Or how anybody can not care about whether their beliefs are true. The concept is so alien to me.
Perhaps (ironically enough) why I want to find truth to things is because of a intensely personal desire for the truth.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I've played a GameBoy before, and I've never landed on the moon, therefore no one else could have done it. Besides, everyone knows that the communists beat us there, but the USA government is keeping that Top Secret :-p
The mirrors are proof to me, but I don't think the moon rocks prove anything. If I remember correctly, they're said to be "just like basalt." BFD. Rocks don't prove anything unless you have other rocks that are known to be authentic. And then they only prove things when there's some distinguishing characteristic that can't be found on earth.
I have only one question that I'm dying to ask a flat-earther.
Why does the southern hemisphere see different stars?
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Mormonism started because of Joseph Smith who made up stories about jesus coming to North America to teach natives, about how he could only read the tablets because of special glasses. Most people of the day thought him a kook, and he and his band of followers were pushed around until they hit Salt Lake City, Utah. He claimed it was the promised land, and they settled.
Then, after he was found to have been sleeping around, he claimed that god came and told him that everyone should practice bigamy.
Mormonism is a cult, the same way every other religion is a cult.
Cult:
2. A system of religious belief and worship.
The people who start it are almost always people looking for personal power, or as an excuse for behaviours they like to perform. While good people can be religious (as pretty much every religion has some good rules inside of it), religion itself is usually someone's vehicle to something else before it's something that's good for the general public.
I respect people's beliefs about religion; I just happen to think that most people have the wrong belief.
I say religion spreads because people are too willing to accept lies which seem like the truth. You can take a true statement: there is no wind on the moon. Then you can twist it: there is no wind on the moon, therefore the moon landing is fake since the flag looks like it flapped. See how easy it was?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Of course the moon landing is a hoax! Everybody knows that there really is no moon and it's just a big projection up in the sky created by our government to test effects of radiation on US citizens! Why do you think people go crazy on nights with a full moon?
Come on. There hasn't been a manned moonmission since the 60's.
The interesting question to ask would be, why hasn't there been more moonmissions?
Because even with todays technology they can't do it.
just because they say the SUN is gonna rise tomorrow probably isn't enough for you either :) Maybe you are correct, asking for proof is not unreasonable, expecting NASA to fund research for fools who are NOT going to be swayed by anything short of going to the moon themselves goes beyond stupid into a whole new realm of ignorance. If we follow your logic we should have to actually educate these throwbacks, to the point of sentience. Treat this much like most folks did high school geometry, proofs exist but if you can't do the math you just take it on faith or look like a moron, if it really bothers you learn the math and double check the orbit and landing calculations :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
NASA has been expert at PR since Apollo. In fact, PR was really the whole point of Apollo. Some great science and engineering undoubtedly got done in the process, but the whole point was bragging rights for the US.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
If I remember correctly, a few years ago Scientific American had a description in the Amateur Scientist section on how to build a very sensitive gravity meter yourself. One of the claims in the article was that the thing could detect the moon passing overhead.
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Those who insist that they are right will often go to unreasonable and unrealistic depth in order to defend their belief. The "Moon landing didn't happen" group seems to be somewhat fanatical... how many fanatics do you have that actually listened to common sense? :-)
Actually, I have a hard time believing that the USA really exists!
I ask you; a (?)civilized(?) nation of over 200 million that allows ANY kook to own a handgun?
Where I live we have Road-rage, School-rage, and Employment-rage but serious disputes might lead to fist-fights, NOT the other person being blown away.
(Any fool knows that, in a MORE civilized age, the LIGHT-SABRE is a MORE elegant weapon)
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
...that's what they Want Us To Think!
Book Project (Score:) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 10, @07:00PM (#) Mostly it's those who are most confused about the original purpose of the book project, who have been making up nasty misinterpretations of it. The purpose was -- and still is -- to examine the hoax claims, and from them identify those aspects of space and technology that are misunderstood or overlooked, and those logical fallacies fallen for, and do an educational exercise for teachers, students, and ordinary folks to sharpen their skills at assessing outlandless theories -- using the 'Moon hoax' as an example. The resulting project should be an entertaining and educational read for all 'space buffs'. It will not be 'duelling experts' or 'revealed truths from know-it-alls'. Instead it will try to make the disputes into down-to-earth 'common sense' that people can check up on, and experiment with, at home. As with any good teacher, I don't believe there EVER is such a thing as a 'stupid question', and I've always felt that more information was better than less, closer engagement was better than shunning, open dialog better than snotty arrogance. That may be why so many people like my books, and so few bureaucracies do (yes, I am sure not a run-of-the-mill 'NASA flack', as many of you will realize). There was never any intention to argue with the proponents of the 'moon hoax' theories, just to arm their intended target audience with better tools and techniques for immunization from falling for illogical and counterfeit arguments in general. And yes, I'm interested in contributions and ideas (joberg@houston.rr.com) and suggestions, as I put together a financial plan that doesn't need government support (or review). Editorial suggestions, not so much financial suggestions, I mean. Jim Oberg Galveston County, Texas home page http://www.jamesoberg.com
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
It's a good thing Gore has a sense of humor about that particular comment of his, because he's actually right. If it weren't for his efforts in Congress, the Internet as we know it today would not exist.
Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality
Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain
and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_.
They drive on the wrong side of the road, too.
-- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...