Slashdot Mirror
Should NASA Try To Refute Crackpots?
angkor writes "CNN has an interesting article on the dilemma faced by NASA: what is the proper way to deal with far-out theories given exposure (and legitimacy) by the media--ignore the crackpots or refute them?"
You're probably not going to change the mind of someone who is CONVINCED the moon landing was a hoax. I don't see a need to spend money that could go toward research on trying to change people's minds.
It's a very simple calculation, based on how much influence the crackpots have over the Senate appropriations committee (or whoever decides NASA's funding). If the level of influence on NASA's budget >> the expense of convincing the crackpots, then they should do it, and if not, they shouldn't bother.
Show them the moon lander through a telescope, they say the telescope has been tampered with.
Thats the whole point of these debunking missions you can't see the lander on the moons surface or the rovers, even with modern telescopes the size relationship between the lander and any earth based telescope is just too small its like looking for a grain of sand from 100,000 miles away.
I believe Japan is launching a mission in 2003 to photograph the moon (called LUNAR-A) from a hi resolution camera on a low orbit satellite , also a californian company is doing the same with a mission called Trailblazer which also should prove/disprove that mankind was indeed on the moon.
In order to see if someone is lying you cannot ask the said lier to show evidence especially if fabrication of evidence was an issue in the first place , that is why its probably a better idea for a independant non connected 3rd party to verify the accused lier's claims.
Of course this still probably wont be enough for the hoax/conspiracy believers as they will say NASA skewed the results or "tainted" the 3rd party.
You must remember, we live in an age of liers and fraudsters and no one is untouchable even a established science agency such as NASA or members of the American goverment, after all no one thought Enron or AC would be one of the biggest frauds in history so it is somewhat understandable that people don't believe everything they see
But for the "ignorant" masses an independant investigation will go a long way to dispell any doubts, especially from one by a country independant from that of the said "fraudsters", plus with any luck they might be able to complete some worthy science along the way.
I think NASA should refute them, but not spend too much time on it. It should be easy quick and inexpensive to put together a dossier of information which non-paranoids would accept as reasonable evidence that it happened. Sell it for $19.95.
It's important to address the concerns because unresponsive government is not good government. Even if they're crackpots, address them long enough to say "You're crackpots, here's why you're crackpots, good night" If they don't do anything, then it is fuel on the fire.
On the other hand, if they provide proof in the form of some dossier, the conspiracy theorists are in a position of having to refute more and more documents, and saying that the conspiracy goes even deeper than they thought in NASA. The kookier they get, the fewer people will buy their crap.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
There is one way to refute the folks who think we faked the missions to the Moon: show samples of Moon soil from the Apollo missions and compare them against the Moon soil sample brought back by the Soviet Luna 16 probe in 1970.
:-p
Given that these two samples are pretty much the same element-wise, that should end the arguements once and for all, so there you hoax-believers.
How can the flag flutter when there's no wind on the moon?
The flag flutters because of the "sun wind", i.e. light pressure. If americans would have better physic lessons, they would learn about it..
Why can't we see stars in the moon-landing pictures?
Do you see stars when you make pictures on a clear night, but need to have a short exposure time
because of the extreme foreground brightness??
The human eye has much much more gain than a camera.
Why did'nt we hear the noise of the rocket motor when the Moon lander was returning to earth?
Hmmm, in space no one can hear you...
OK.. Why not ask AMSAT to send a cheap satellite to the moon and take some images from the landing sites. Sent these picture to earth using ham radio, so that everyone can see them and no one can fake you again!!!!!
Better ignore the ignorants...
Reluctantly, I think NASA should debate the crackpots - but with hard data AND personal testimonies. Line up every guy that's been to the moon and INVITE the people to call them liars to their faces, along with presenting the crackpots with their evidence. Doing it on both levels works wonders - the crackpots have to look both impolite and ignorant.
I do think this is important because with the prevalent media, though it can give us much information, it's also highly biased towards spectacle and word-games. It's a virtual reality of talking heads, word-juggling, and popularity contests with far to little connection to anything actually relevant. Anyone can come up with a bunch of pretty words, push a few buttons, and ridicule a few people to polite to be jackasses, and bam - instant "credibility" despite the fact said person has any relevant arguments, evidence, or credentials.
Debating the crackpots isn't just good for science or society, it'd be good for our culture.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
A local hero of mine, Dr. Lawrence Krauss Chair of the Physics Department of Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, has taken up the call-to-arms to protect Ohioans and the rest of the world against crackpots. In our recent "Intelligent design" debacle, creationists attempted to hijack the science education curriculum, and, thanks in no small part to his efforts, were stopped. He has also made a bigger name for himself analyzing science fiction, and is best known for his book "The Physics of Star Trek." If you find a scientific cause that needs a real scientist to refute morons, he is your man.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
What the "no, they didn't go" idiots are doing is spreading libellous remarks, defaming the character of the many good, honest folks who made the moon missions possible. People died to make the missions possible.
If criminals in prison can sue the state for "not giving them access to sports facilities", or for "interfering with their freedom of religion by not allowing them to have live chickens to sacrifice" (both Readers Digest stories from several years ago), then surely NASA can shake enough dollars out of the money tree to nail those idiots to the floor... Wasn't it recently said that that NASA were going to shell out $15M to get a book written and published refuting the nay-sayers? That would be a good war-chest...
I don't know quite how it stands in the US, but in England the defamers have to provide, in court, sufficient evidence to prove that what was said or written was factual, or face the consequences. If you flat out say someone is lying about something, and can't prove it, you're in deep shit.
At the very least you're made to publicly retract the statements, and often pay damages on top.
Come to think of it, that might be a good strategy - make 'em prove NASA didn't go to the Moon. The definitive way to prove it would be to go to the locations NASA visited and photograph the lack of footprints, the empty space where the landers are sitting, etc. Not only would NASA be vindicated, they'd get a moonshot funded by the idiots who claim they didn't go...
Even if you're lax and give the intern a week, that still doesn't cost $15k unless you're paying the intern three quarters of a million dollars per year.
Wacko thought of the day: this was all just a left-wing conspiracy to discredit Fox. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
- The U.S. government enlisted the help of many private defense and aerospace contractors in order to reach the moon. For example, the lunar module was built by hundreds (if not thousands) of engineers at Grumman Aerospace. Are you suggesting that all of these people were "in on" your conspiracy, or that they were simply duped?
- The national (and in many cases, international) media was very close to NASA during the years of the moon landings. Reporters were routinely given access to the Apollo crews in the months and weeks before their launch, whereby they could follow the crew around and record their day-to-day activities. There was also a large amount of technical cooperation between NASA and the media for things such as the live feeds from the moon. Certainly the media would have had some complicity in your conspiracy; have all of these people remained silent, as well?
- The Soviet military establishment would have jumped at the chance to demonstrate that the American capitalist pig-dog "moon landings" were, in fact, fake. Is it your contention that the Soviets, even with their considerable (at the time) intelligence infrastructure within the borders of the United States, would not have known about such a far-reaching conspiracy? Or are they part of it, as well?
Finally, let us not forget the names of three men: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. These were the astronauts that perished in the Apollo 1 fire, an incident that almost got the entire program shut down. If we never actually went to the moon, then why would NASA have to have launches in the first place? How do the deaths of these brave men fit into your conspiracy theory? I suspect that you find them rather inconvenient.Lots of things bother me about moon-landing conspiracy theorists, but they way that they callously disregard the sacrifice of the Apollo 1 astronauts is by far the most disgraceful thing about them.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground