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."
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?
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...
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)
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
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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.
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
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· 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.
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
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.
-- No sig for the moment.
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
Re:That's too bad
by
JThaddeus
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· 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')
Obligatory Star Wars quote
by
Jippy_
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· Score: 2, Funny
"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.
Perception is reality.
by
nege
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· 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.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Daniel+Dvorkin
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· 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
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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.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
Daniel+Dvorkin
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· 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
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· 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.
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.
Re:Perception is reality.
by
cheezedawg
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· 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
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
dildatron
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· 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?
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
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· 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
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· 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
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· 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
manyoso
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· 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
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· 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
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· 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
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.
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.
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!
Re:Why don't they...
by
isa-kuruption
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· 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
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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) ?
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*
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.
Re:Why don't they...
by
Idarubicin
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· 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
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· 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.
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
DaveAtFraud
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· 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!"
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.
really? why did they leave mirrors up there? why do people bounce lasers off of them?
Re:Why don't they...
by
jerryasher
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· 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
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· 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!"
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.
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.
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)).
. 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.
No doubt the cancellation of this book will be listed as further "evidence" that the landings were fake.
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.
Does it really matter anymore?
by
Flamesplash
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· 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
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· 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.:-)
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.
Not really canceled
by
Ghoser777
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· 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
Madman27
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· 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
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· 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?"
The book wouldn't have worked anyway
by
HeroicAutobot
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· 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
cmeans
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· 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
nurightshu
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· 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.
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
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.
Great movie, Telly Savalas has his greatest ever performance in this movie. It's worth watching just for this.
Re:I KNEW IT!!!
by
DaveAtFraud
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· 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
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
josecanuc
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· 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.
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!
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
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· 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
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· 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.
Re:My point being...
by
Boronx
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· 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
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· 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.
Should take inspiration from Hitchhikers Guide
by
binaryDigit
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· 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
binaryDigit
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· 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
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· 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
The truth is obvious.
by
Prince_Ali
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· 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
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· 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
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· 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.
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!
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· 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.
--
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Re:Well, it's too bad. I was hoping to read the bo
by
Hitokage_Nishino
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· 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.
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.
The problem - no advertising
by
Animats
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· 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.
Here's the proof we landed on the moon
by
azav
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· 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:Does this also mean...
by
saskboy
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· Score: 3, Funny
..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!
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....
how 'bout a little "B Ark" action?
by
Pfhreakaz0id
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· 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?
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
Super Russian pr0n computer?
by
Flamesplash
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· 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
bm_luethke
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· 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
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.
They acknowledged this.
by
Inoshiro
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· 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
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· 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.
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
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· 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
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· 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
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· 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 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
The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth
by
Anonymous Coward
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· 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
Psiolent
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· 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.
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?
Easy enough to disprove,
by
Archfeld
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· 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
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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
macdaddy357
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· 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
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"...
Re:From someone who used to think it was real...
by
Yunzil
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· 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
raytracer
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· 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
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· 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.
To the Hubble and Lunar Reflector crowd..
by
Boss,+Pointy+Haired
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· 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
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· 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
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· 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?
Oberg Says He's Still Going to Write It
by
kalidasa
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· Score: 2
And I'm going to buy it; books like this, and Dawkin's Blind Watchmaker, are absolutely essential.
If you still believe...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· 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.
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
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· 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.
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".
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
susano_otter
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· 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.
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.
false authority syndrome (completely off topic)
by
Theodore+Logan
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· 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
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· 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?
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.
NASA is obligated to respond
by
g4dget
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· 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
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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.
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
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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?
Intended Audience
by
joncraft
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· 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
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· 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.
Public education at work
by
cardshark2001
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· 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.
-- Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
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!
I can see it now...
by
RedBear
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· 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
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· 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:Obligatory |Matrix| quote
by
mattsucks
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· Score: 2, Funny
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.
Re:I worked at NASA for four years... you can't wi
by
taphu
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· Score: 2, Funny
just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing
HAH! what you really meant was SPY data...;)
Re:I worked at NASA for four years... you can't wi
by
Sebastopol
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· 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
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· 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
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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.
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
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· 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:Show me a coverup where people DON'T work hard!
by
btellier
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· Score: 2
You're supposed to unwrap the plastic before smoking the cigar.
Re:I know a little about conspiracy theories
by
GMontag451
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· 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.
The Leaked NASA Video!
by
trite
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com
(I know...I know...)
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.
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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.
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
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susano_otter
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· 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!
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Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Re:What a shame... (Plain Old Text Version)
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Decimal
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· 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.
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?
Don't tell my wife. She seems to think I'm straight.
-- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Welcome to the flat earth society
by
Archfeld
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· 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
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Goonie
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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.
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Re:but it would have only cost $15,000
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cheezehead
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· 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.
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MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Re:Can't Resist One More Round
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MacAndrew
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· 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
MacAndrew
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· 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?
Slashdot Mirror
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
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)
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
"That's no moon..."
=-Jippy
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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."
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.
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?
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.
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
Since when is repeating the original post funny?
Agreed. It's no laughing matter. The CIA has known all along that the moon is made of cheese.
--- When I grow up, I want to be a legislator of scientific laws.
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"
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.
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 ;)
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."
...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
... 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 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.
You can still ping the retroreflector with a laser, but it's not the same.
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
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
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...) :{)||
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!"
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.
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 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.
..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?
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?
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?
And I'm going to buy it; books like this, and Dawkin's Blind Watchmaker, are absolutely essential.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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?
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))"
The writer they commissioned plans to still do the book, but he'll have to do it without NASA funding.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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 atmosphere of the Earth would distort the picture too much to get a fine enough resolution.
The Republicans get a majority in the House and Senate and already they're saving taxpayer money.
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...
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.
The whole moon is about the size of my thumbnail. Maybe it's mouse milk cheese.
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.
You're supposed to unwrap the plastic before smoking the cigar.
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.
Watch it at http://www.moontruth.com (I know...I know...)
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.
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.
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
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?
Don't tell my wife. She seems to think I'm straight.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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?)
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.
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.
You'll like law school. ;-)
... 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.
:) Take a look at the RISKS stuff, you may like it -- they touch on everything from voting to terrorism. And what else is there?
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
Well, you know all this already.