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."
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
What a shame...
by
joebeone
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· 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)
Re:What a shame...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· 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.
Re:What a shame...
by
joebeone
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· 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
susano_otter
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· 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.
That's too bad
by
Thanatopsis
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· 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
"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.
...just use the freekin' Hubble to take pictures of the landing sites and shut these idiots up?
There has to be enough resolution.
.
-- "A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Re:Why don't they...
by
foistboinder
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· 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) ?
Re:Why don't they...
by
Kyont
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· 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.
From someone who used to think it was real...
by
OrbNobz
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· 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
j-beda
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· 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"...
Why not use a telescope and..
by
kleenex+box
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· 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:Perception is reality.
by
Xerithane
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· 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.
The best challenge to conspiracy theorists
by
Joey7F
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· 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
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· 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.
Not Entirely True
by
FreeUser
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· 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).
I worked at NASA for four years... you can't win
by
Dr.+Zowie
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· 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?
What about royalties?
by
cardshark2001
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· 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!
The moon is a hoax
by
rve
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· 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.
The Leaked NASA Video!
by
trite
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com
(I know...I know...)
Slashdot Mirror
...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
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)
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
"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.
There has to be enough resolution.
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
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?
.. 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?
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:
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.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
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.
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
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?
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!
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.
Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com (I know...I know...)