Apollo 11 Photographs Unfrozen

GoneGaryT writes "Wow! NASA has pulled another set of photographs, this time of Apollo 11's trip, out of the freezer and digitized them. They are glorious. I'm just checking out the first ever 'Earthrise' sequence and they are beautiful." I'll cherry-pick a few for you: 1, 2, 3.

Comments

zip files.

[mpost4]

To make sure they never get lost (the digital ones at lest) they should make a zip file of them and put them up on kazza.

But for real any one know where I can get all the pics in a zip and/or a tar file.

But that earth rise is just a great sight, and also the pic of the earth from a distance is just .... ( I don't have the words to say what I felt looking at that picture, other then small)

Re:zip files.

[RNelson]

Feel free to make one for the rest of us and slap it on your blog. :D We'd appreciate it. hehe Yes, small is a good adjective.

Re:zip files.

[Bryan_W]

"Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies." -- Linus T.

Re:zip files.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that earth rise is just a great sight, and also the pic of the earth from a distance is just .... ( I don't have the words to say what I felt looking at that picture, other then small)

Then small what?

Re:zip files.

[Anonymous Coward]

To make sure they never get lost (the digital ones at lest) they should make a zip file of them and put them up on kazza.

They would have to name it teen-sex-britney-spears-xxx.jpg.mov.exe in order for that to work.

Re:zip files.

[trveler]

My favorite one, if only for the title:

KSC-66-5261 erection of S-1C-F on mobile launcher #1

Re:zip files.

[IngramJames]

To make sure they never get lost (the digital ones at lest) they should make a zip file of them and put them up on kazza.

They may never get lost, but they will get renamed to "Par1s H1lton s3x video - NO FAKE" and nobody who wants them will ever manage to find them again.

Re:zip files.

[SEWilco]

But that earth rise is just a great sight, and also the pic of the earth from a distance is just .... ( I don't have the words to say what I felt looking at that picture, other then small)

Then small what?

Because "then" refers to time, he obviously was referring to how small he was 35 years ago.

Re:zip files.

[losinggeneration]

that explains the bad photography right? Cause we all know astronauts can hold a camera centered.

Re:zip files.

[Ragica]

No, don't archive to Kazaa! The RIAA and it's evil minions and bots will find them, and start injecting fakes of them into the network...when you want to look at them again, God (and the RIAA) only knows what you'll get... if anything but endless corrupt downloads retrying, retrying, retrying to fetch the last chunk...

But whatever it turns out to be, no doubt you deserve it for file sharing.

Re:zip files.

[Anonymous Coward]

Until ONE person on teh intarweb finds the checksum and posts an "Hye gys, tere is teh phot0z here at ed2k://1337|foobarbaz.zip, try it tey are real!"

Then two geeks load that down, rename the files properly and everythings right again. Big deal, huh?

No foresight...

[grub]

What JFK should have said was "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth with pictures that will scale properly as wallpaper on computer monitors not yet invented."

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no.
I'm pretty sure that JFK said "I am a jellied donut" in that speech in Germany
There was no mention of the moon in it.

Re:No foresight...

[The Other White Boy]

you know i think the same thing at the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archives. some of their hi-res pictures (such as this one) would make GREAT wallpaper. but what am i supposed to do with a 1500x1000 image and still maintain the crispy hi-res-iness (woo i made a word!)?

Re:No foresight...

[The Other White Boy]

woops, that was sorta rude of me not to include a link to the site itself.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day Archives

Re:No foresight...

[arose]

Depends. If yor desktop is smaller -- crop. If bigger put it in the center and set the background colour to black.

Re:No foresight...

[SirPrize]

Get a bigger monitor? :-) Personally, I run my laptop at 1600x1200 - I love the resolution. A friend of mine recently bought a new Dell laptop - has an amazing 1900x1400 something resolution. Yikes!

Re:No foresight...

[Rei]

Oh really?

Re:No foresight...

[Ramion]

Here is a couple of resized pictures that I made that will fit nicely on the desktop.
They are all 1024x768. Some cutting and resize has been done to get them to fit.
They are hosted on platoon.dk, which cannot take more then a couple of hits.. :)
as11-40-5903.jpg Man walking on surface. ( 323 KB )
as11-40-5905.jpg US flag ( 254 KB )
as11-44-6547.jpg Earth Rising ( 118 KB )
as11-40-5863-69.jpg Landing POD ( 208 KB )

Re:No foresight...

[gosand]

What JFK should have said was "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth with pictures that will scale properly as wallpaper on computer monitors not yet invented."

Why is it that when I think of something JFK said, I hear it in Mayor Quimby's voice?

Re:No foresight...

[Citizen of Earth]

What JFK should have said was "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth with pictures that will scale properly as wallpaper on computer monitors not yet invented."

Is anybody else unable to read this without hearing Mayor Quimby's voice?

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that Mayor Quimby's voice was a parody of Teddy Kennedy, not JFK.
Unfortunately, Ted sounds an awful lot like Jack, but fatter.

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I opened up all of your images at once in new tabs, but they all timed out.
I tried reloading repeatedly (10-20 times), but was never able to get a full image for some reason.

Re:No foresight...

[Ramion]

The server is not terrible fast. Only a 2048/512 Kbit/s connection. Might be why you can't access them fully.

Anyway.

here is a rar file with them:
http://platoon.dk/stuff/apollo/apollo.rar
Might have more luck with that.

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. I was afraid I was the only person having a Simpsons moment.

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a couple of resized pictures that I made that will fit nicely on the desktop. They are all 1024x768. Some cutting and resize has been done to get them to fit.

Okay, here's today's free hint.

It's 2004 and 1024x768 is no longer considered hi-res.

Hi-res imagery is at least 2048x1536, but you really need to hit 4096x3072 to still be considered "hi-res".

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I even tried wget and a scriptfile, but it just didn't work. It runs nearly 20 attempts per minute from the university backbone here but nooo, always timeout. I wonder why...

Re:No foresight...

[Lispy]

You americans sometimes scare me. Not just one person hears it in Quimbys voice, at least three admit it. It's just hillarious. ;-)

Re:No foresight...

[geekoid]

yes. The simpsons have ruined me. I can't read anything the Kennedys said without hearing 'Diamond Joe' Quimby's voice.

Re:No foresight...

[Finuvir]

Hey! I am, er, no longer illiterate.

Re:No foresight...

[Citizen of Earth]

You americans sometimes scare me. Not just one person hears it in Quimbys voice, at least three admit it. It's just hillarious.

I'm not an American. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Re:No foresight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can, but then of course I am deaf though...

fake

[jeepee]

this is fake!
http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~akapadia/moon.html

hehehe some people are way too paranoiac

Re:fake

[irokitt]

Remember, I highly recommend useing only Extra Thick aluminum (aluminium for our British friends) foil for hats. And I double the thickness of the foil, for extra protection. In a world filled with Alien mind probes and government hoaxes, it's a necessary precaution.

/sarcasm

Re:fake

[aiabx]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The "earthrise" pictures were taken from the orbiting Command Module.
-aiabx

Re:fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I just absolutely love the nutbags that try and say the moon landing was faked.

every one of them know absolutely nothing about low gravity and photography as well as other science that debunk it.

call me when you get someone that is not a total moron with an IQ of 63 that can actually bring up some legitimate comments about it being faked.

until then anti-moon-landing nutbags are considered the stupidest on the planet.

Re:fake

[Anonymous Coward]

The moon orbits the Earth in what's called TIDAL LOCK.

On one axis. Theres a whole 'nother axis to take into account.

Moon landing conspiracy nuts are just loons. Take your damn medication and stop typing in all caps.

Re:fake

[double-oh three]

Looking at the earthrise picture here it seems to me that it was taken by the orbiter, not the lander. The picture is taken from too high up an alititude to be anything but.

Re:fake

[Rei]

I wonder how long it will take for them to catch on that the tinfoil hats simply act as an antenna to help us channel our mind control waves.

Re:fake

[cosmo7]

THESE PICTURES ARE FAKE! And the "scientists" who made them must be idiots.

Don't you get it? NASA wants people to think the moon landings were faked. The reason? Due to a little-known patent, NASA receives micropayments every time someone types in all caps.

Re:fake

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not taken from the surface. The craft itself is orbiting. "scientists" didn't make them. People analyzing them are idiots. Welcome to the tin foil hat crowd.

Re:fake

[pilgrim23]

Yeah. After all, this whole series was rendered digital. Probably did the whole thing in Photoshop...And look! They put those guys in MOON SUITS! and and... made it look like they were on the MOON, and and...
If you look closely in the reflection of the helmet you can clearly see the Book Depository in the background which demonstrates absolutely that these were all taken from on top of the Grassy Knoll... Can't fool me yes sir yes sir...

Re:fake

[SpaceLifeForm]

And even if they were not taken from the orbiting Command Module, it is possible to take a picture of what would appear as an earthrise from various points on the surface of the moon.

Re:fake

[double-oh three]

Yes, but odds are we arn't in the habit of landing billions of dollars worth of equitment on the side of a mountain or large crater.

Re:fake

[AKAImBatman]

At the very least, it should be obvious that the photos were taken in a near-vacuum. They're simply TOO clear to have been taken in an atmosphere. No distortion, no dust, no diffusion. Just a large light source shining down on some of the clearest images ever seen by man.

Re:fake

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I would have expected was more dust on the lunar craft in those photos resulting from the trust on landing. It sure looks clean.

Re:fake

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to mix sceptic thinking-for-ourselves with truly wacko statements. Believing in a staged assassination of JFK, a less-than-complete explanation for Oklahoma or 9-11 is a whole lot different than believing in tooth fairies and the moon hoax. If all these issues seems all *identically* nerdy and unthinkable to you, please keep reading FoxNews and don't commit further thought crimes writing about it.

Re:fake

[pyrote]

I wonder how long it will take for them to catch on that the tinfoil hats simply act as an antenna to help us channel our mind control waves.

Great, tell everyone.... I was having fun making them run into walls with my radio shack racecar remote!

now we'll need to start with the remote control chips under the skin again... CRAP! Now I told everyone about it!

EVERYONE YOU ARE SAFE... KEEP USING FLOURIDE TOOTHPASTE. That is all.

Re:fake

[kylemonger]

At the very least, it should be obvious that the photos were taken in a near-vacuum. They're simply TOO clear to have been taken in an atmosphere. No distortion, no dust, no diffusion. Just a large light source shining down on some of the clearest images ever seen by man.

(chuckle) If they wanted us to trust these images they should have released them thirty years ago instead of now, when every image is suspect because of a little application called Photoshop. Heck, you can get rid of atmospheric haze just by using the right lens filters. ILM could create photos like this using just the spare cycles from their rendering farms. Etc, etc.

Oh and if it isn't obvious... :-)

Hmm, 250kb images.

[ParticleMan911]

Time 'till NASA Slashdottining: T-Minus 10... 9....

Re:Hmm, 250kb images.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously tho, /.ed already...

Re:Hmm, 250kb images.

[kpansky]

Meanwhile in the NASA server room the doom phrase "contingency procedures" was heard over the intercom.

Re:Hmm, 250kb images.

[niktesla]

Ahhh! I love the smell of burning servers in the morning!

Too bad its down, I really enjoy images from the Apollo program.

Re:Hmm, 250kb images.

[tomhudson]

....uh, Houston, we have a problem ....

Re:Hmm, 250kb images.

[ernstp]

I kid you not, this will be slashdotted quick!

What's the record in slashdotting?

Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[aiabx]

Please go to http://www.badastronomy.com/ before you waste our time and bandwidth with your moon-hoax crap.
-aiabx

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

I only see one star during the day, it's a big bright one. I don't see any other stars during the day. Venus, Mars and the Moon are not stars! How many stars do you see during the day?

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[aiabx]

Goddamnit, didn't I tell you to read badastronomy.com? http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html# stars/ is the link to the stars question.

"So why aren't they in the Apollo pictures? Pretend for a moment you are an astronaut on the surface of the Moon. You want to take a picture of your fellow space traveler. The Sun is low off the horizon, since all the lunar landings were done at local morning. How do you set your camera? The lunar landscape is brightly lit by the Sun, of course, and your friend is wearing a white spacesuit also brilliantly lit by the Sun. To take a picture of a bright object with a bright background, you need to set the exposure time to be fast, and close down the aperture setting too; that's like the pupil in your eye constricting to let less light in when you walk outside on a sunny day.

So the picture you take is set for bright objects. Stars are faint objects! In the fast exposure, they simply do not have time to register on the film. It has nothing to do with the sky being black or the lack of air, it's just a matter of exposure time. If you were to go outside here on Earth on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won't see any stars! "

Yeesh.
-aiabx

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[PhilHibbs]

Then there's the feather-hammer-drop experiment

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Citizen of Earth]

Goddamnit, didn't I tell you to read badastronomy.com? http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html# stars/ is the link to the stars question.

But still, NASA should GIMP in some stars in order to placate the consipracy theorists.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[jwhyche]

There are no stars in the sky because the stars are to faint to be photographed with the settings on the cameras they used in the apollo missions. The same effect can be seen in photos taken from Earth. Take your camera outside one clear night and snap off a few pictures of the night sky. Once you get the film devoloped you will notice there will be no stars.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush's plan is another hoax... this one with electoral purposes, of course. NASA is out of budget so they are refurnishing their old pics.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[goates]

" Goddamnit, didn't I tell you to read badastronomy.com?"

Since when does anyone on /. read an article or follow a link?

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[eljasbo]

...and dont forget that a laser was bounced off the moon as well to measure the distance to the moon very accurately and test Einstein's theory of gravity... How did a laser bounce off the mirror placed on the moon if it the moon landing was hoaxed?

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[MrChips]

For those who still don't understand what's going on, take your camera outside at night, when the full moon is high in the sky, and try to photograph the moon. Make sure you set your camera so the moon is not over exposed and its details can be seen. Are there any stars visible in the resulting photo?

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[GPB]

Where the hell are the stars, dude?!

I know you are trolling but I'll answer anyway.

Back in High School, we had a NASA guy (no, I don't remember his name) come talk to our class. When asked why you don't see stars in any photos taken from outer space (anyone besides me ever notice this?), he said that the stars are too far away to be seen.

When someone then asked why we can see them from Earth, he said the atmosphere acts as a kind of magnifying lens which allows us to see objects far off in the distance that we would not normally be able to see without it.

Sci-Fi shows/movies always show stars because that is what people expect to see. How interesting would an epic space battle be if the background was completely black?

-B

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[jxe]

"If you were to go outside here on Earth on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won't see any stars!" Aha! So you're suggesting the landing was staged in the middle of the night on an outdoor soundstage. Fascinating...

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that NASA guy was on crack.

I hope you don't believe him.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Finuvir]

Seriously dude, 'photoshop' is a perfectly good verb. 'GIMP', I hope, never will be.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just looked for an explanation of ice crystals that change direction...none
I looked to see if any of the people post such remarks had seen "the secret NASA transmissions:the smoking gun"....none
it's very easy to comment negatively when you are ignorant. Only someone who hadn't seen the videos, which were taped by Martyn Stubbs (who was videographer for a public access channel in Canada)over several missions when NASA still broadcast live from its sattelites, would say out of hand that it's nonsense. sorry , ice crystals dont change direction, float towards the ship they supposedly flew from, or slow down in and come to a stop om their own.
think I'm nuts...have you seen it?
Also on Bad Astrononmy some said the fact that NASA hasn't refuted any of the tapes was because they don't have to dignify it with a response...how convenient!
If one...just one...person could provide an explanation that holds up to scrutiny we could put the question to rest. sorry, calling everything that moves around in space an ice crystal is not very scientific...of course I know there are ice crystals there, but they are not uniform in size, do not change direction multipul times without exterior force on them, of flash without appearing to rotate.
The posts at bad astronomy are from ignorant people who don't bother to research possibilities or use the same debunking logic on their own explanations. They didn't debunk shit

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[ars]

Ok, that is a total nonsence. There are good reasons for lack of stars - they are too faint to be seen using the exposure of the film.

But the reason this "NASA" guy gave is 100% nonsence.

Perhaps it's you who is trolling?

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

:D

Ok, so if the moon landings are real then, why don't they fire up another Saturn V retrofitted with modern computers and updated technology and send someone back up there?

Oh yeah and for the record I really do think a few space monkeys employed by NASA have made there and back.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[jelle]

"Seriously dude, 'photoshop' is a perfectly good verb. 'GIMP', I hope, never will be."

Much too late. "To gimp" was there first, and photoshopping is only a word unofficially used as a verb by certain subgroups of society. Most people likely will confuse it with 'photo shopping', which has a different meaning...

To gimp, is perfectly possible since at least 1913. It may not have much to do with photo editing, but could it be part of an ancient method to add stars to a photograph?

Gimp \Gimp\, v. t.
To notch; to indent; to jag.
[1913 Webster]

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Finuvir]

All this time I only knew the Pulp Fiction meaning of that word.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[earthforce_1]

I swear to god, some April fools day NASA should re-release some old Apollo photos with a photoshopped ET holding hands with Buzz Aldrin, or perhaps a mars rover photo with some pyramids and the sphinx in the background. It will keep the crackpots (and tabloids) busy for years!

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[shrewmy]

"Goddamnit, didn't I tell you to read badastronomy.com?"

You said conspiracy theorists should go there. I wondered the same thing, where's the stars? I didn't wonder it in the sense of WHY ARE THERE NO STARS THEY FAKED IT OH NO! panicky hate the government way, and wouldn't have clicked the link if I didn't see this post a few scrolls down...

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[UnknowingFool]

Ben Franklin is often quoted as saying:
Three men may keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Considering the thousands of people that worked on the Apollo missions, how come there aren't many that have come forward with proof of the moon landings being faked? Statistics would have it that there would be a few. The simplest explanation is that the landing was genuine.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[Matt_R]

I thought I saw stars... but it was just dust on my screen

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[troon]

If you load up the newly-scanned images into an image editor and turn up the levels, there are stars recorded.

Re:Attention Conspiracy Nuts!

[modrobert]

...but I can see the studio spotlights and that cheapass tinfoil on the lander don't fool me.

Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[tcopeland]

...right here.

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[tcopeland]

You're welcome!

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Albanach]

Now those really are strange shadows in those pictures. And that flag... well where's the wind coming from? :)

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[hunterx11]

Why, I believe it is the very same wind going through certain peoples' heads, Mr. Gorsky :)

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[pixelpusher220]

Thanks for the memory lane trip...I used to work on Cougaar a few years ago ;-)

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[KevetS]

Holy crap look at picture three!

It looks like someone left a twinkie sitting on the side of the lander and it became one with the metal during launch!

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Cat_Byte]

OMG I wish I still got mod points. That is hilarious! Noooo! I lost my twinkie!!! This trip is gonna suck!

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Odonian]

Man.. That closeup of the LEM is kinda scary. Slightly warped metal, bolted down here and there... Aluminum beach chair tubing.. Looks like something I might have built in the back yard as a kid. You kind of wonder if doubt crosses your mind when you are sitting there looking back at the earth and part of your ride home is comprised of (what appears to be) Aluminum foil.

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[tcopeland]

> I used to work on Cougaar

Sweet. It's open source under a BSD license now... good times!

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Yeah, a sceptic might think that picture was taken from *behind* the set?!

(sorry!! ;-) )

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Atticka]

Not too many people notice this, but the flag has a rod inserted across the top causing the flag to stay erect without the wind (you can sort of see this in the related pic).

people always seem to miss that and ask "where's the wind coming from!?"

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[angrytuna]

Don't forget this one. :)

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Finuvir]

The rod is pretty obvious, but it does look like there's something blowing the flag in photo 2. You'd think it should be hanging straight but it's not. Wire running through the fabric or something?

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love how they dealt with technology in the sixties!

And not surprised it wasn't a condom...

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Digi-John]

As I heard it, they couldn't get the rod fully extended, so the flag ended up with the wrinkle in it, making it look like it was blowing in the wind.

Re:Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored

[Finuvir]

On closer inspection it seems to have a second vertical rod as well as the horizontal rod across the top. The top one is fully extended but the side one isn't. I only saw the top rod originally. There aim was to make it look like it was blowing. Looks like it worked!

Maybe...

[Thingul]

These pictures will help Nasa on the road towards a better budget...

I sincerly hope so..

Linking with extreme prejudice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll cherry-pick a few for you: 1, 2, 3.

Why provide those three links? So that people have a chance to grab pictures before the server falls over? Or to be extra sure that the Slashdot effect will kick in quickly?

In other news...

[halivar]

NASA uses the same computers aboard Apollo 11 to host their web-site.

Re:In other news...

[Mastadex]

actually, to me correct, they are not using the same computer...they are using THE computer that was blasted to the moon and back to host thier website.

Behind the third rock from the left...

[R.Caley]

You can just see Ossama burrying Iraq's WMDs.

Re:Behind the third rock from the left...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you hate America? I hope your mother didn't see you post that.

Listen, when Saddam Hussein flew that airliner into New York, nobody was making WMD jokes. And you know why? Because GOD HIMSELF commanded us to avenge ourselves on Saddam and his co-pilots. He said (and I quote) "Saddam will not stop at crashing planes. He has nuclear weapons ready to deploy RIGHT NOW. You need to attack him RIGHT NOW. Ignore that 'Thou shalt not kill' business, this is clearly self-defense, even if those French pansies can't see it. Er, and Germans, and Russians, and Canadians, and Mexicans, and the Pope, and...well you get the picture"

And would you believe we got delayed long enough that Saddam actually WAS able to hide his nukes. In Venezuela. I'm not kidding, we have solid spy satellite evidence that can't be revealed to the public.

So quit making jokes about the moon and sign up for the military. We can't invade Venezuela without more troops.

Re:Behind the third rock from the left...

[R.Caley]

Why is this modded as Troll ?

Because a significant proportion of /.ers have problems understanding humour more subtle than the three stooges and Benny Hill.

I, for one, welcome our new humourless masters.

Re:Behind the third rock from the left...

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 stupid
-2 democrat koolaide sipper

Here comes the hoaxers

[Slowtreme]

Didn't we just go through a thread full of hoax theorists?

These pictures are very clean BTW. Very nice BG for your desktop even.

If we can put a man on the moon ...

[bryanp]

Then why can't we put those pictures up on a site that can withstand a good slashdotting?

Re:If we can put a man on the moon ...

[ArsonSmith]

Their budget just got cut by some 200+million dollars.

Re:If we can put a man on the moon ...

[bryanp]

Yes, I know. It was a joke. I have no idea how old you are, but that used to be a standard polemic back in the 70's. "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we ?"

Re:If we can put a man on the moon ...

[advocate_one]

"Then why can't we put those pictures up on a site that can withstand a good slashdotting?"

Should have been there the day before it made it to slashdot then... like I did ;)

It's about time. It's about space

[Anonymous Coward]

t's about some people in the strangest place.

But check out that lens flare!

[91degrees]

All that space budget, and they couldn't even afford lens hoods.

Re:But check out that lens flare!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they COULD have- But they were trying to keep weight down.

Keeping Space Alive

[artlu]

NASA needs to do more to remind Americans of the importance of space to the future of mankind. Things like this that get Nasa's name back in the public eye by showing objects of celestial beauty will hopefully remind people of what is out there.

GroupShares Inc.

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that sarcasm?

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to troll, but why exactly should our government be spending billions of dollars on space when that money is desperately needed here on Earth? Seems to me that things like education, medical research, and cleaning up our planet should be higher priorities than space. If you can actually give me a good reason why we should be spending so much tax money on space, I'd like to hear it, as I've never heard one before.

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we do need to spend money on problems at home. However, I don't think we should crawl back into our shells completely. Eventually this world is going to end. Yes it's pretty much long time from now. But when the Sun goes if we're still not out of here we go too. Now that's not really compelling reason, but it is one that *everyone* can agree on. Besides that reason despite how much we recycle, and despite our best efforts eventually we will run out of materials to keep the world running, and if not that then what about over population. Eventually it is going to happen.

We should keep exploring our solar system as well as the rest of the universe, and find new ways to safely survive up there so that when the time comes to start moving the human race into space we can do so safely.

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[BillyBlaze]

During the space race, there was a boom in education - partly because we needed to outsmart the Soviets, but also because there was more demand for education and more interest in science, both of which can be attributed to NASA. People dreamed of being space explorers, educated themselves, and got employed by NASA. And there was related medical research and spin-off technologies like efficient fuel cells to help with the environment.

My point is that the money spent on space exploration isn't just buying pretty pictures, it's also creating a demand for educated Americans, among other helpful effects. Spending money on schools can't create this demand, it only helps supply it. The other way to do the same thing is through the military industrial complex, but isn't exploration more noble than war?

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[Reducer2001]

Unfortunately, the aerospace lobby in DC has more money to give our congressmen and congresswomen than the education or environmental lobbies do.

Re:Keeping Space Alive

[cheekyboy]

1. make a folder with 400meg of nasa photos/mpegs
2. ask AOL, can you add this 400meg folder to your useless CDs?
3. more people will KEEP their AOL cds, rather than use em as shutgun targets.
4. manager gets a promotion for doing something good rather than just for lying his ass off.

But in this real world, we know managers at AOL dont even know where the space bar is on their keyboard.

Fake!

[spoodie]

Obviously fake; there's a suspicious gap in the flagpole and there's crosses all over the place.

Re:Fake!

[LittleGuy]

If you look at the reflection in Armstrong's helmet, you can see James Brolin running in slow motion across Arlington National Cemetary.

No HQ?

[hackstraw]

Too bad there aren't any high quality pics (at least from what I saw). It would be cool to print up some large prints of these or even use them as a desktop wallpaper. Is it asking too much to have 35 year old pics that were paid for by our tax dollars avaiable back to the people?

Re:No HQ?

[hackstraw]

Oops, I found them. Excellent! However, the site is too slashdotted.

the thrid picture proves

[RCO]

it is a hoax. The ship is a model and it still has the dept. store anti-theft device stuck to the side of it from when they bought it!

Yes, this is a joke, don't get your knickers in a knot.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude. We came in peace for all mankind.

Houston

[QEDog]

Houston, we have a problem. We have been slashdotted.

Re:Houston

[K1-V116]

Just an eensy nitpick...the actual quote was "Houston, we've had a problem." Unless, of course, you're quoting the Tom Hanks movie.....

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[haystor]

And a McDonald's.

hires pictures and slashdot...

[bdigit]

go together like george w. and michael moore.

Re:hires pictures and slashdot...

[megarich]

he, that should be the next celbrity boxing feud, in this corner, hailing from texas, with a 100+ killing underneath his belt, george w "freedom" bush....

and his opponent, from parts unknown, the filmmaker/writer who exposes his opponents weakness and bounces them for what its worth....michael "what freedom?" moore.

now lets get ready to RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUMBLE

Re:hires pictures and slashdot...

[blackula]

WOW nerds are FUNNY LOL!!!!!!! faggot

Held by glue.

[luugi]

Looking at the third picture. I think to myself:"how the hell did we go up there, with what looks like glue, all over the spaceship. It looks so cheap!"

Re:Held by glue.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it looked cheap and thrown together too, until I realized that the lunar module never flew in atmosphere- No wind drag, nothing to make the loose pieces flap.

Re:Held by glue.

[Fallen Andy]

Yeah, but a *REAL* space faring craft would never look like anything you'd design for a gravity well... would it? Face it. The LEM was the *ONLY* spacecraft that is worthy of the name even if they had to use reused socks to fix things to get 13 back... Someone give our fav engineer called Burt lots of Green stuff.. I want my father to live long enough to see space, not my grandchildren. Hey, I was there the first time. In the UK we only got a blurred version via that advanced technology of pointing a camera at a never twice same color set until around about 14 or 15. I'll never forgive you american imperialist b6ds for scheduling the 11 landing in your time zones prime time... I was 10.5 years old and mortally pissed.. But, NASA has serious problems with their ancient tapes ROTTING because nobody has looked at them. Perhaps instead of focussing on seti@home we should look at these damn things before all the data vanishes to /dev/eaten :- What do you folks think. Should there be a slashdot open source whatever project to resurrect the data from old NASA dustbin warehouses or should we just wait for a sexier probe?

website tab-unfriendly

[Anonymous Coward]

The links at the website use javascript to rewrite the document when click a link. This makes it really difficult to open the galleries and images in different tabs. (Also the color scheme sucks [orange on orange-- what were they thinking?])

And one of the image servers (www.hq.nasa.gov) is already slashdotted (and the others are *really* slow).

Re:website tab-unfriendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, JavaScript sucks. I have to copy the link, paste it into the address bar, and futz around with it to get a picture. Sucks majorly, and there is no reason, no need for it on this site.

Also, could it have any more frames?

My guess is that the site was made by some intern or co-op.

Re:Those pics are fake!

[InsomniaCity]

Care to elaborate on which shadows in the picture can not exist on the Moon's surface?

almost a fp huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

didn't quite make it did you.... what as your comment magically drops to offtopic/troll!

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?

these have been altered!

[Anonymous Coward]

These pictures have been altered. I distinctly remember there being an MTV flag up there from when I was a kid.

Wrong Apollo?

[darkjedi521]

Most of the Earth rise pictures (including one I'm using as wallpaper) that I've seen came from the Apollo 8 mission, not Apollo 11.

Re:Wrong Apollo?

[antispam_ben]

Yes, the famous Earthrise pic was from Apollo 8, first manned flight around the Moon, but they also had cameras in the Command Module of Apollo 11. They weren't coming back very often and wanted as many pics as they could take (also, it gave Collins something to do while the other two were playing around on the surface).

The Apollo 8 pics were supposed to be straight down at the Moon's surface so they woul have good photographs of the surface from 60 miles up, but coming around from the far side, one of the astronauts saw the Earth rising and said "look up." The rest is photographic and cultural history.

Re:Wrong Apollo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. After Lovell got the first one in 8, the crew on every mission afterwards tried to duplicate it. The first was definitely the best.

Re:Wrong Apollo?

[d474]

That explains it! I was sitting here thinking...."if the moon always faces the Earth the same way, how the hell could there be a picture of the Earth rising?"

So the Earth rise photo sequence was taken from orbit around the moon on Apollo 8.
Someone mod the parent up +1 Informative!!

Is there a political scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

or war these photos are trying to divert us from?

Judging by photo 3 I'll make my own tinfoil hat.

Sure, they can put a man on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

but the can't keep their server from being slashdotted. geesh, it doesn't take a rocket scientist here...

What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[goldspider]

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:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Memories.... Go, go, get some more karma.

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[sibtrag]

I love this....especially because of the mention of Joshua.

Why? Joshua mentions the moon in his prayer asking for the sun to be stopped.

Joshua 10:12 The day the Lord delivered the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua prayed to the Lord before Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon! O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon!"

10:13 The sun stood still and the moon stood motionless while the nation took vengeance on its enemies. The event is recorded in the Scroll of the Upright One. The sun stood motionless in the middle of the sky and did not set for about a full day.

10:14 There has not been a day like it before or since. The Lord obeyed a man, for the Lord fought for Israel!

10:15 Then Joshua and all Israel returned to the camp at Gilgal.

Taken from the NET bible: (New English Translation) http://bible.org/cgi-bin/netbible.pl?header=on&boo k=jos&chapter=10

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[southpolesammy]

The scary part about Slashdot is that if you replace every instance of "liberal" with "conservative" in the parent post, it will get moderated as +5, Insightful despite no change in content.

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[StalinsNotDead]

"These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special"

Yeah, but can they tell the difference between a Colt M1911 and a Springfield Armory M1911?

or

the difference between a Saiga AK-47 with a Milled Reciver and a Chinese Knock-off AK-47 with a stamped reciver?

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[Not_Wiggins]

Fool! The "power" obviously has you completely confused! All this arguing about the "moon" will not help you release yourself from the Matrix!

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[mpthompson]

Replacing "neocon" with "conservative" would have get it +5, Insightful in half the time.

Replacing "neocon" with "Microsoft" would have get it +5, Insightful even quicker.

Finally "Microsoft" with "SCO" would have get it +5, Insightful the quickest of all.

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmmmm.... colt 45......

Re:What Moon-Hoax Crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
That doesn't seam likely:
Clouds Written in 419 B.C.E, mentions an eclipse of the moon. The Moon in Ancient Egypt is often discussed. The moon is also mentioned many times in the Bible, eg. Psalms 8:
" When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; "
I imagine quite a few people will have access to a bible printed before 1950 and will be able to check that out. If you do check and find it missing - do post here - we may really be onto something!

Re:Apollo 11

[Alioth]

You can't see them because the shutter speed is high and the aperture is small, because of the high levels of light (the sunlight shining on the lunar surface and on the astronauts). If you took a photograph on Earth during the darkest night with the same camera settings as used on the Moon during the daytime, you wouldn't see any stars either (or anything much in fact) because they are far too faint to show up with those camera settings.

Houston...

[Anonymous Coward]

Houston, we have a problem...with these excellent photos!

Hahahahaha, I kill myself.

necessary

[unformed]

All your moon belong to us.

Re:necessary

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I believe you meant to say "All your moon ARE belong to us", but I give you a C+ for effort.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there is, you anti-American idiot. American technology, American ingenuity, and the American sense of adventure were responsible for AMERICANS landing on the moon. What flag would you prefer be there? Trinidad? The United Nations? Give me a break.

wind??

[Ubi_NL]

Can someone explain why the flag in pic 2 seems to be waving? It's not like there is an atmosphere around there is it?

Re:wind??

[great om]

Doesn't it have a wire running through it so that it stands up

-great om

Re:wind??

[Anonymous Coward]

The flag is bunched around the wire used to hold it out straight. Just like your curtains don't hang in a perfect flat sheet, neither does the flag.

Re:wind??

[crow]

With 1/6g, the motion in the flag from putting it in place would keep the flag waving for a while, certainly long enough for some of the first pictures.

Re:wind??

[Bahumat]

It's not. Look closer: There's a top bar to support the top of the flag, and then the mainstay bar supporting the side.

The flag was made of, essentially, thick aluminum foil. It's not waving at all; it's crinkled.

(NASA had always planned to plant a flag on the moon with their landing, but knew enough even then to get a custom flag made for it.)

Re:wind??

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck are you babbling about?

Re:wind??

[hunterx11]

Yes.

Re:wind??

[Ubi_NL]

Yes, I saw that of course...
My point is with the bottom part which is not hanging flat as you'd expect from a windless environment

Re:wind??

[Anonymous Coward]

It is waving. Haven't you ever seen the video of the flag being planted? It's waving, a lot, backwards and forwards.

Re:wind??

[Gordonjcp]

Would you like to travel 240,000 miles just to do some ironing?

Re:wind??

[VendettaMF]

Don't forget, its not just a windless environment. Its airless.
Any motion energy imparted to the flag has nowhere to go except escape by radiant heat (generated between fibres of the flag itself) and absorbtion through the pole to the ground. Obviously neither of these will take the motion energy rapidly from the flag, so it will continue to "ripple" ("Vibrate"? "Resonate"? "Shake"? Any physicists care to fill me in on the correct term for motion rebounding from the edges in an almost closed system?) for quite some time after the last astronaut touches it.

Re:wind??

[josecanuc]

Just last week I went to the Johnson Space Center and took the tour of the Apollo-era mission control and they said that the flags planted on the moon were plain silk flags bought at Sears.

The mounting was special, with wire to hold it in the "perpetual waving" shape, but they told us that the flag itself was just like you or I could buy at that time (were we alive then...)

Re:wind??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's waving because the astronaut is wiggling the pole back and forth, trying to get it to enter the ground.

There is nothing even remotely sexual about the previous sentence.

Re:wind??

[1u3hr]

How do you know it's waving -- i.e. moving? -- it's just wrinkled. It's supported by a wire along the top if that's what you mean.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll proabably be a chinese flag in a decade!

Guts = Glory

[Anonymous Coward]

It took incredible intestinal fortitude on the part of a lot of people to go to the moon using that old tech. Besides the guys actually going, the US administration put a whole lot on the line in terms of national reputation, it could have turned out real ugly.

What president would take a chance like that today? No way, they'd be too concerned about how failure would affect they're popularity numbers.

Re:Guts = Glory

[kippy]

The US administration had a whole lot more to loose if the Soviets got there first. Not only would it have been embarrassing but if they had established military dominance in space, well, it could have been bad for the US.

As for presidents taking a chance like that today, how about Bush? Now before everyone yells at me that it's a political stunt consider this: Announcing any kind of space imitative has never been a political winner. Even Kennedy took flack for announcing such a ridiculous goal. He only started getting benefits from it years after the announcement.

Bush Sr. took hits for his Mars push and ISS, Reagan for Star Wars and Clinton for the continued ISS support. It may appear that Bush is some bumpkin but he and his advisors are not stupid. They know a political lemon when they see it and they would not have announced a Moon/Mars push if they didn't really believe it would be good for the country.

Re:Guts = Glory

[Bearpaw]

Bush Sr. took hits for his Mars push and ISS, Reagan for Star Wars and Clinton for the continued ISS support.

The Strategic Defense Initiative was not and is not a space initiative. It's a political posturing, defense contract padding, pork barrel initiative. It's an even stupider idea now, in the era of stateless conflicts, than it was when the USSR was crumbling.

Re:Guts = Glory

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't old in 1969... What's your point?

Re:Guts = Glory

[Anonymous Coward]

they're popularity numbers

"their".

Re:Guts = Glory

[Anonymous Coward]

a whole lot more to loose

"lose".

Re:Guts = Glory

[Anonymous Coward]

My point is they did a lot with little in terms of technology as compared to today, and the reason (I believe at any rate) is because of the degree of courage and selflessness they brought to the table. By 'they' I mean everyone involved from JFK thru the people making the trip.

The 60's tech is facinating stuff, it's really ingenious but still amazing anything so significant could be done using it considering the limitations in memory, processing speed, languages, etc.

Re:Apollo 11

[Anonymous Coward]

The stars aren't there because of the exposure settings used in the camera. These settings were used due to the brightness of the time the landings took place - moon morning. Take a picture with the same exposure setting on Earth and you won't see stars either.

Please!

[Gannoc]

Look, clearly the moon landings were faked. Think about it. If we had REALLY landed on the moon, would the country have then gutted the space program and slowed exploration to a crawl?

Errr.

No, that couldn't have happened. Much better to assume it was faked.

Re:Please!

[utexaspunk]

who modded this insightful? funny, maybe... it cost us boatloads of money to get people on the moon, and we already knew there wasn't much of anything up there. after the first few times, the american public even got bored with it.

we went to the moon for a lot of reasons- it engaged the russians in a costly race, it gave lotsa defense contractors work, it served as a unifying experience for an extremely divided country- but it didn't do all that much USEFUL to make it worth continuing, and exploration beyond the moon gets exponentially more expensive and dangerous the farther you go.

it was a milestone and a great moment for all of humanity, but there are more interesting things to be explored and more pressing matters right here on earth that our dollars are presently better spent on. i'm sure that we'll continue going even farther when technology progresses to the point where it is economically feasible to do so, and that point is rapidly approaching.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

With German WWII technology, a German leader and lots of Canadian engineers that you guys conveniently got for cheap when Avro had to cancel the Arrow!

Re:Apollo 11

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They have been CUT OUT.

ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/plane ta ry/apollo/as11_40_5868.jpg
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.na sa.gov/miscellaneous/planeta ry/apollo/as11_40_5875.jpg

If you can't see the stars, then why cut them out?
It doesn't make any sense.

Mirror of Images

[diagnosis]

As the site is rapidly getting slashdotted, here is a mirror of a few of the best images (more added as they become available and are awesome):

Apollo 11 Mirror (select images)
---------------
ChipotleLovers.com
Chipotle food, locations, pics, links, polls and discussion!

Re:Mirror of Images

[Chicane-UK]

Has anyone else noticed that the last picture in that list, with the picture of the lander in centre shot and the brilliant bright sun to the top right..

If you go into Photoshop and lay a 105mm prime lens flare at about 86% strength on the picture just slightly to the left of the original picture, you end up with an identical effect - including all little render reflections and stuff in exactly the same places.

Why the hell would they stick a Photoshop lens flare render over the top of a real sun?!

Re:Mirror of Images

[flappinbooger]

http://www.visorenterprises.com/apollo11/as11-40-5 850.html

What, we left our trash up there before we left?

Re:Mirror of Images

[ibullard]

Our technology has advanced to the point where we can send a man to the moon, but we still end up with butt shots.

And people wonder why there aren't more female astronauts.

Re:Mirror of Images

[Japong]

Uh, this could just be dumbness on my part, but maybe the lensflare filter was based off that same type of lensflare? Could very well just be a coincidence.

You might also notice that sarcasm eludes me.

Re:Mirror of Images

[FrostedWheat]

Why the hell would they stick a Photoshop lens flare render over the top of a real sun?!

The sun is just outside the frame to the right. That image is a composite, which is mentioned elsewhere but not on that mirror.

Ed Hengeveld has used portions of 5863 to 69 to create this view of Buzz on the porch. Neil did not capture the top rear of the LM with these pictures and Ed has filled the gap with a portion of AS11-44-6576, which was taken in orbit after undocking.

Re:Mirror of Images

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for putting these up!

is anyone else amazed?

[enrico_suave]

that it made it into space?

reminds me of the Star Wars quote

"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia

Re:is anyone else amazed?

[neomac]

Not only did they come AND leave in that thing, but the landing program was written in FORTRAN, and the computer crashed something like three times during descent.. ...all before Windows!

Re:is anyone else amazed?

[Detritus]

It didn't crash, it generated alarms. An alarm is like an error message.

Re:is anyone else amazed?

[Dasein]

And the alarms were for lower priority tasks -- like updating displays. So, they dropped a few frames during descent. ;-)

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[dr_dank]

Yes and it cost this country trillions of dollars. After all, it's not cheap to send a guy up each morning and night to take down and put up the flag in accordance with flag display etiquette.

That's no moon...

[freeze128]

It's a space station!

Obviously

[Billobob]

This proves there was, as FOX predicted (and FOX is never wrong), no moon landing.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[GlassUser]

I think it was firmly planted on the light side of the moon. If it's still rotating at all, it will be thousands, if not millions of years before dark falls on that flag. So it's really a great budget-saver.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[JohnDoe.Slashed]

And if you look closely at the first pic you might see a jedi sword at Aldrin's feet.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think it was firmly planted on the light side of the moon. If
> it's still rotating at all, it will be thousands, if not millions of
> years before dark falls on that flag. So it's really a great
> budget-saver.

Yeah. thousands... millions of years... if you count thousands of millions of years as a month. The moon has a month long day, roughly.

can't take the load

[53cur!ty]

Hope NASA runs he shuttle program better then their web server! These aren't G forces we're talk'in bout, the ./ forces!

Didn't take long for them to suffer from the /.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. the moon has a dark side and a light side, and as it does not rotate anymore those two are mutually exclusive and DO NOT CHANGE

It's AMAZING!

[callipygian-showsyst]

As Photoshop and other image manipulation techniques get better--not to mention 3D rendering--those "fake" Apollo photos look better and better! Remember how crude the ones they made in 1969 were?

freezer?

[MrSpiff]

good thing there's room for their server in that freezer now :)

damnit, again with the misuse of trillion

[kippy]

Um, it didn't cost the country trillions even if you adjust for inflation. the Mercury - Apollo programs cost something like $200-250 billion in today's dollars.

That's still a shitload but trillions it's not. If it were trillions, we would have spent every single dollar we had as the US is around a $10 trillion dollar economy today. Clearly we did not.

Re:damnit, again with the misuse of trillion

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, it didn't cost the country trillions even if you adjust for inflation.

You didn't get the joke.

Re:damnit, again with the misuse of trillion

[Azrael Newtype]

Ahem, he's referring to the fact that someone has to fly up every two weeks to raise/lower it. Sending a rocket to the moon every two weeks since 1969 would easily be in the trillions if the the cost of the Mercury - Apollo programs totalled in the range you gave. After all, they didn't go up that often, nor for as many years as we've had since 1969 (obviously).

Also, before you jump on the fact that we don't actually go up every two weeks, I suggest you reread the grandparent with your humor detectors switched on.

slashdot effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, here's a crazy idea...

Why doesn't slashdot cache large images like this in the first place? It's a disservice to those releasing files on the web to get slashdotted unnecessarily.

Could it be that Slashdot likes the "Slashdot Effect" even though it means they are being bad internet citizens? I guess there's some marketing gain out of it... ;-)

Re:slashdot effect

[Talonius]

Believe it or not, how about copyright issues? Whether one site allows it or not caching those images on a popular site such as Slashdot - especially in circumstances where Slashdot is portraying the site or company in a negative manner - would be a Bad Thing.

Site metrics, robbing the remote site of advertising revenue, blah blah blah. These are all forces that could be brought to bear against Slashdot if they turned to caching stories and/or images from remote sites.

Re:slashdot effect

[antispam_ben]

Believe it or not, how about copyright issues? ... {concerning mirroring a site's pics and pointing slashdotters to the mirror so the original doesn't get slashdotted]

Good point for most commercial sites, but in this case these are US Government pictures which ISTR are handled differently, that these are (at least they should be) in the public domain.

Site metrics, robbing the remote site of advertising revenue, blah blah blah. These are all forces that could be brought to bear against Slashdot if they turned to caching stories and/or images from remote sites.

This is surely legally true (though IANAL), but practically, how do these problems compare to a site becoming slashdotted?

As a compromise that doesn't involve slashdot doing the caching, how about the people who post "first post" messages spend their time instead saving a mirror of the mentioned site(s), then if the site becomes slashdotted, put the mirror online?

Re:slashdot effect

[Talonius]

True, but how long does Slashdot keep a copy? Also keep in mind that public domain for one site is not public domain in another. See the UK and "That's All Right." Or in this case the US Government owns the photos and may or may not be in the public domain, but I'd wager that the possibility exists the government might not want... say, Iran looking at these photos for some reason. They block Iran at the proxy and don't tell anyone. Slashdot caches, boom, now they're in trouble.

It is definitely possible, and definitely a worthwhile goal, but in the end the editors here and story submitters aren't qualified to make the decisions involved.

A slashdotting is legal, if a bit rude. Kind of like me giving the bird to someone in Texas(unless they've outlawed that as they have here in Missouri. Road rage. Pfft.). You're directing a huge influx of visitors to the remote site - which is available on the Internet for interested people to view, search, etc.

As for first post mirroring, hell yes. I'd love for CmdrTaco to give away a few subscriptions to folks who would agree to mirror front page news for a temporary time period. They assume the risk, get a free subscription, and maybe a bit of free advertising.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[kippy]

even the light side gets hit by shadow when it the earth eclipses the sun.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[aiabx]

A common misconception. In fact, it will be 2 weeks before they flag needs to be lowered. If you take a look at the moon, you will notice that it goes dark on the side facing us every month.
-aiabx

Already Slashdotted...

[Mr. Cancelled]

One small step for a nerds, one giant leap for nerdkind.

Why the Hell not?

[kippy]

Seriously, why shouldn't the US plant a flag there? Spare me the namby-pamby citizen-of-the-world crap. We invested billions into the project. We had our best minds working on it and it took the bravery of not only the astronauts to sit on top of a bomb but the fortitude of an entire nation to support it to the end.

I'm sorry everyone else but this is a clear instance of the US setting a noble goal and kicking ass at it. We deserve to be proud and make note of who it was who did it.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[kippy]

Please read your history. The NASA program did employ Werner Van Braun but he was a black sheep to some extent and didn't really contribute as much as people tend to think.

The rockets were surplus US Air force ICBMs for Mercury and Gemini and Apollo was launched on American rockets so I'm not sure how the German rocket thing holds up.

As for British brains, who were these brits that the US hired?

A capacity for quotation is not the same as forming an argument.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[VanillaCoke420]

I hope that you are really going to go back to the moon even though the congress apparently cut the funding? Anyway, next year the new budget plan for ESA's Aurora will be outlined, apparently. This program's goal is to land people on the moon and Mars within 30 years. Hopefully they will do it, especially if noone else will. Personally I hope both NASA and ESA will go for it.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[dangermouse]

What kind of revisionist crap is that?

Wernher von Braun was brought to the US, along with hundreds of his best scientists and engineers, at the end of WWII. The Army set him up in Texas and later at Huntsville, where he built the Redstone rockets-- that's "Redstone" as in "Mercury Redstone", as in "MR-3", as in the mission that put the first American into space. Had von Braun not fought to delay the attempt for reasons of additional testing, Grissom would have entered space in the MR-BD mission and beaten Gagarin by a few weeks, to become the first person in space period.

von Braun could have put the first American satellite into orbit in the IGY, months before Sputnik, but Eisenhower wanted the Navy team to do it (for a variety of excellent reasons, not least of which was that von Braun's team was a bunch of captured Nazis).

When NASA was formed, von Braun directed Marshall Space Flight Center-- where he built the Saturn V, which was the launch vehicle for every single moon shot.

Sorry, but American rocketry, and the American space program, was built by imported Germans.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Werner Van Braun

Werner's plan for going to the mood was horrable - he wanted a single ship that whould land on the moon.

The LEM system - where one ship stays in lunar orbit and another ship lands on the moon was vastly more efficient. Werner fought the LEM pland tooth and nail, because it wasen't his idea.

Werner did a lot of things for NASA's early space program, but thankfully he diden't have the clout to fuck up Apollo with his un-imangnative ideas.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[SillyNickName4me]

> The NASA program did employ Werner Van Braun but he was a black sheep to some extent and didn't really contribute as much as people tend to think.

Nah, he only contributed by proving that it was possible to build a practical liquid fuel rocket and did much of the research for building a multi-stage rocket before he ever started working for NASA.

He may not have contributed that much directly to the US space program, but almost anything upto and including the Apollo project is pretty much based on the concepts that he developed.

Him being a sortof black sheep? how surprising, his multi-stage rocket design was intended initially for being able to hit the USA with missiles, and his name is soemhow associated with some other not so favorable things.

At any rate, denying his role and where the technology came from feels similar to how the north Korean government is claiming all kinds of inventions.. pure propaganda.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[kippy]

Well, I'm not personally but I'm fully behind the US manned program and I'm very hopeful for Aurora. I hope that they both stay separate programs though. if ISS has taught us anything, it's that international collaboration is not as productive as it might appear. Politics and bureaucrats gunk things up.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[aldoman]

A large proportion of what we know about gravity and other such issues which are directly needed to send people to the moon has been discovered by British scientists over the years.

I doubt it would of happened if Newton died as a child, for example.

As for the German's, read up on WW2 history. There would of been no ICBMs if it wasn't for the V1 and V2 rockets. I'm sure if the German's could of held out for another year or two in the war they would of most likely won it, they had the first jet aircraft rolling off the production lines just as the allies started invading via the beaches.

Imagine what would of happened if the Allies (and to a lesser extent, the Russians) did not have air superiority when they were attacking Berlin. They would of got 0wned, hard.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[shawnce]

Sorry, but American rocketry, and the American space program, was built by imported Germans.

Actually it would be more accurate to say that American rocketry and the American space program was kick started by imported Germans.

The "germans" had more experience in actual implementation of rocket engines, rocket flight control, etc. then anyone else at the time so the US leveraged that experience. We had plenty of theoretical knowledge in this space at the time in the US and had started to implement based on the knowledge but the powers that be decided to leverage experience over develop our own fully.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[kippy]

And who built the Atlas rockets? those were from the US air force.

Roketry was only a part of the space program and Van Braun didn't really contribute much more than rocketry.

Van Braun might have been a good rocket scientist but his ideas for space exploration were unworkable. His single craft plan for the Moon mission was thrown out. His plan for a Mars mission was backwards. In fact it's because of his Mars plan that any Mars mission is automatically labeled with a trillion dollar price tag by the press.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[kippy]

Oh come on...

So you're saying that we should give the brits credit because of Neuton's contributions? Should we also make consesions the the Mayans for inventing zero? It took american brains to take existing technology, improve it and shape it to the needs of a moon landing.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[Rei]

...after losing goal after goal to the Soviets, despite having brought in German rocket designers while the Soviets really only had German production-line engineers and did their designs themselves?

The Soviet space program was really pretty darn impressive, given a country that was as backwards as Russia was at the turn of the century. Heck, their craft were not only quite functional, but even looked cool
.

Really, I don't think most Americans give the Soviets enough credit when it comes to space development. Especially given the inherent flaws in their economic system...

Re:Why the Hell not?

[VanillaCoke420]

I agree, the politics and the bureaucrats is a big problem. Can't they just let the scientists, engineers and visionaires team up, give them funding and a goal? Forget about the fact that they are from different countries, because I think national pride will somehow make many international projects slow and expensive. I think that it could be done if people would focus on what's important and just do it.

Anyway, I'm pretty hopeful regarding Aurora as well. ESA has quite a long way to go though, since no European country ever launched any manned missions before.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[dangermouse]

Actually it would be more accurate to say that American rocketry and the American space program was kick started by imported Germans.

I'm not saying that the United States wouldn't have eventually built a decent space program without von Braun and his team. But to say that they didn't contribute much simply because we would have gotten there eventually without them is absurd for two reasons: 1) they actually got us there, and 2) it was the Germans' use of rockets during WWII that made the US actually want to develop rocketry. The US was more or less happily ignoring Goddard til the V-2s started hitting Britain.

I have in my notes from Dr. John Krige's "History of Rocketry" course at Georgia Tech the following text of a telegram sent immediately from Germany to Washington upon the debriefing of the captured von Braun and his personnel (emphasis mine):

HAVE IN CUSTODY OVER 400 TOP RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PERSONNEL FROM PEENEMUNDE. DEVELOPED THE V-2. THE THINKING OF THE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS OF THIS GROUP 25 YRS AHEAD OF US. RECOMMEND 100 OF THE VERY BEST MEN OF THIS RESEARCH ORGANIZATION BE EVACUATED TO US IMMEDIATELY.

And the guy was right. It was a hell of a "kick start" the Germans gave us.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[oldstrat]

'I hope that you are really going to go back to the moon even though the congress apparently cut the funding? Anyway, next year the new budget plan for ESA's Aurora will be outlined, apparently. This program's goal is to land people on the moon and Mars within 30 years. Hopefully they will do it, especially if noone else will. Personally I hope both NASA and ESA will go for it.'

Considering that the United States put a man on the moon in 8 years, and had they continued could have put a man on mars in 14 years, I suppose the ESA should be able to pull it off 30 years.

Even if they manage to hold(pull) the European Union togeter, they're going to be way late because the Chinese are going to beat the ESA by at least 15 years.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[skarmor]

Roketry was only a part of the space program and Van Braun didn't really contribute much more than rocketry.

The early space program was focused primarily on the development of rocketry - to argue otherwise is ridiculous.

Van Braun might have been a good rocket scientist but his ideas for space exploration were unworkable. His single craft plan for the Moon mission was thrown out. His plan for a Mars mission was backwards. In fact it's because of his Mars plan that any Mars mission is automatically labeled with a trillion dollar price tag by the press.

Like any good engineer, von Braun preferred designs which offered the highest margins of safety as well as the greatest chances of success. However, Charlie Bossart - the designer of the Atlas rocket - was more open to risk. His Atlas rockets were the first to use solid rocket boosters. von Braun felt that SRBs would introduce too much complexity to the system while dramatically reducing crew safety.

While von Braun's plans for the moon and mars were deemed excessively expensive they were in fact the most desireable from an engineering standpoint.

None of these arguments can be used to dodge the fact that it was German sceintists armed with the technical expertise gained in the nazi rocketry program who designed the first American rockets.

The simple fact is that the American space program was simply an extension of the nazi rocketry program - transplanted to the US.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[HBPiper]

Actually, Eisenhower wanted the first US satellite to be the result of a Civilian Space Program, NASA, and not a military program. He ordered the engineers at Redstone not to "accidentally" put anything in orbit during their test flights, which was exactly what they were planning to do when they saw how close the Russians were. While it is true that the Viking platform for Vanguard was a Navy design, it was the "civilian" aspect that the president through the Secretary of Defense, wanted played up. Hense the order from the SecDef in November 1958 ordering the Army to transfer Redstone technology in order to hasten our own space efforts once the Russian had beaten us. On their own, the Redstone scientists could have put the first "American" satellite in space over a year before the Russians. They just were not allowed to do so. You can see some of this chronology here .

Re:Why the Hell not?

[dangermouse]

Actually, Eisenhower wanted the first US satellite to be the result of a Civilian Space Program, NASA, and not a military program. He ordered the engineers at Redstone not to "accidentally" put anything in orbit during their test flights, which was exactly what they were planning to do when they saw how close the Russians were. While it is true that the Viking platform for Vanguard was a Navy design, it was the "civilian" aspect that the president through the Secretary of Defense, wanted played up.

This is true, and is another primary reason Eisenhower favored the Navy program for the IGY satellite launch. I only left it out to be concise, not to imply that Eisenhower only favored the Navy program because the Army's was essentially von Braun's.

Fun story:

The Army conducted a Jupiter test launch in September 1956 which could have orbited a satellite, "accidentally" as you say. The only reason it didn't is that nobody trusted von Braun's team to restrain themselves, even under orders from Eisenhower, and so to ensure that nothing went into orbit the rocket was actually weighed down by filling the fourth stage with sand.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Sorry, but American rocketry, and the American space program, was built by imported Germans.

Pull your head out of your ass.... von Braun bought Goddard's rocket patents for 10 cents a page in the 1930s. Goddard was the first person with a multi-stage and liquid fuel rocket and the first person to put a guidance system in a rocket.

Re:Why the Hell not?

[Rod Strongo]

Hasn't just about everything "American" been built by somebody imported from somewhere?

Re:Why the Hell not?

[Anonymous Coward]

von Braun could have put the first American satellite into orbit in the IGY, months before Sputnik, but Eisenhower wanted the Navy team to do it (for a variety of excellent reasons, not least of which was that von Braun's team was a bunch of captured Nazis).

Another strong reason was the "airspace" issue. If the Americans had launch the first man-made satellite, the USSR might have made a stink about unauthorized intrusion into their "airspace". By letting the Soviets have the first orbit of the planet and not complaining, the Americans made it possible for everyone to use SPACE without worrying about "airspace" violations.

Wheeee

Re:Why the Hell not?

[jxs2151]

Sorry, but American rocketry, and the American space program, was built by imported Germans.

Everything in this country and about this country was built by "imported" somebody from somewhere. This is the heart and soul of America.

Despite what Europeans want to believe, we will leave the Xenophobia over there.

First Earthrise...

[SunPin]

from a Hollywood soundstage! ;)

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[tverbeek]

I think it was firmly planted on the light side of the moon.

The moon does not have a "light side" and a "dark side". It has a side facing us, and a side away from us, but those sides (as anyone who looks up at the moon from time to time will notice) go through a cylcle of light and dark every month. That flag planted by Apollo 11 spends a couple weeks at a time in near darkness, with only reflected light from Earth to illuminate it.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[KDan]

And don't forget the italian pizza for the late nights.

Daniel

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[irokitt]

And a Starbucks. The Wal-Mart opens soon.

Re:Enough time to Doctor em..

[colinleroy]

And this must be because you're so much convinced that this is an hoax that you post anonymously?

just imagine

[WormholeFiend]

if we were to send astronauts to the Moon again, they'd bring back hi-rez DV footage!

Re:just imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

DV is far from hi-res.

I would rather they send back BetacamSP footage shot with a real video camera using a cheap $30,000.00US lens.

DV is a TOY format for home users and low end. DVpro is a bit better but still highly compressed. you can not beat DigiBetacamSP.

I personally prefer they take an IMAX camera and capture on FILM... something that digital cant even think of getting close to in resolution.

funny how analog is still massively better than digital.

Re:just imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

if we were to send astronauts to the Moon again, they'd bring back hi-rez DV footage!

good thing nothing lives there, or the footage would be of them being tied up and buggered.

Re:Apollo 11

[jo42]

At least they did a better job of 'Photoshopping' out the stage lights this time...

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[VendettaMF]

This is a stick.
It has a right end, over here, and a wrong end that you appear to have superglued your grasping hand to.

The moon does not rotate any more. Relative to the Earth that is. One face always faces towards the earth. The face it presents to the sun is thereby obviously changing, causing night and day on the moons surface. Very roughly 2 weeks of each, making for month long "days".

panoramic moon landing sites

[ch-chuck]

try these for a full Apollo 11 & 17 panoramas

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidently you listened, but didn't grasp what was being said. The fact that the moon doesn't rotate doesn't mean one side is always facing the sun. It means that one side is always facing the earth. Big difference, retard.

Cherry Pick?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll cherry-pick a few for you: 1, 2, 3.

So when you say that, you mean, I'll pick a few that will never been seen again due to slashdotting.

Earthrise????

[Gamasta]

I regret to announce that, since the moon shows us always its same side, there can be no such thing as Earthrise!! The Earth doesn't move on the Moon's sky. Just think about it.

It's silly, but everywhere in books you find pictures of the Earth in Moon's horizon and a label about the marvellous Earthrise.

A way to get such a thing is to walk on the Moon. If you walk far enough you may see the Earth moving.

But notice that days exist on the Moon. Meaning, the same thing doesn't happen with the Sun.

Why am I typing so many things in capitals!? Feels like german.

Re:Earthrise????

[aiabx]

You are correct. The "earthrise" pictures were taken from the orbiting Command Module.
-aiabx

Re:Earthrise????

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earthrise photo sequence was taken from lunar orbit. It's not so much a case of the Earth rising, as the lunar command module moving around the moon towards the side facing the Earth. So, yeah, a bit of a misnomer.

Re:Earthrise????

[Anonymous Coward]

The earthrise photos were taking from the orbiting apollo capsule. As it went round the moon the earth did 'rise', hence the terminology.

Re:Earthrise????

[Bazman]

So the first Earthrise was seen by the three astronauts of Apollo 8.

Tonight (22 July) on UKTV History is part two of the Apollo 8 story, 10pm UK time for anyone with access to UKTV History channel.

Baz

Re:Earthrise????

[Saige]

Wow, you mean that somehow the moon bends light such that there isn't a single place on the moon's surface where the Earth appears partially above and partially below the horizon? Please, then, tell the astronomers about this fact, so they can determine what is special about the structure of the moon to cause this effect!

You know, just as a stopped clock is right twice a day (once if you use 24 hour time), a moon with the same side always facing the earth is still going to have regions where the Earth is partially below the horizon, thus creating an image of Earthrise, even if it's not rising/setting.

Besides, the pictures were taken before landing, while perspective was changing and giving the appearance of Earthrise.

Re:Earthrise????

[GoneGaryT]

Yup, mea culpa. This is correct. I was just too excited when I saw the pics. They are fantastic, after all. And now I want an old Hasselblad, even though I just bought a Nikon Coolpix 5200.

:)

Re:Those pics are fake!

[kooshvt]

Care to elaborate on which shadows in the picture can not exist on the Moon's surface?

All of them. Don't you know that in such a low gravity enviroment shadows are not drawn all the way to the ground. Instead they float off in to the darkness of space never to be seen again. Or at least I have a bet with Stephen Hawking that they do.

Earthling litterbugs!

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Great. We've just landed on a new space rock and already we're littering it with Hefty Cinch-Saks.

This will surely impress the Intergalactic Council whenever we're up for membership.

Re:Earthling litterbugs!

[avalys]

You're making the common mistake of assuming that the Intergalactic Council would care what we do with a cold, dead, gray lump of rock and dust that orbits our home planet.

Re:Earthling litterbugs!

[Artifakt]

Unfortunately, I just checked wit hthe intergaqlactic council, and Earth is zoned as part of a historic preservation area. We are out of compliance until we repaint the whole moon to match earth (G. Washington White and Federal Blue).

Re:Earthling litterbugs!

[schemanista]

Bullsh*t.

I just checked with the IGC and both the Earth and the moon are to be demolished in order to make room for a new hyperspace bypass.

Re:Earthling litterbugs!

[Artifakt]

How'd you get past the leopard?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...the side of the moon facing us always faces us (there is a small wobble). That side goes light and dark over the course of a mo(o)nth.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Saven Marek]

see here

Now who is it who cant comprehend lol.

Noble goal?

[pjt33]

What's noble about one-up-manship?

Re:Noble goal?

[d474]

I think it's not so much that the American flag was placed on the moon as a show of "one-up-manship". I think it was done, because, hey, what the hell else are you going to do after landing on the friggin' moon? Twiddle your thumbs, and whistle dixie? Nope.

Your going to plant your flag so you can take memorable pictures, afterall....it's a big deal!

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Fishstick]

hmm, never thought about it before....

wonder what condition that flag is in after 25 years exposed to direct sunlight with no atmosphere?

I assume it was just a normal flag made of what, cotton or somesuch? I would imagine if nothing else it is faded to match the surrounding grey moonscape.

But then again, it isn't standing anymore at all, is it? The thing was sent flying by the eagle's ascent engines, wasn't it?

http://www.universetoday.com/html/articles/2001-02 07a.html
Apollo 11's flag got knocked over when the LM Eagle ascent stage took off on July 21, 1969. Arthur C. Clarke predicted a future issue in his 1976 SF novel Imperial Earth, where historians of the year 2276 debate whether to stand up the flag or leave it lying in the lunar regolith.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please get off your computer sometime and look at the moon. Make illustrations if necessary. You will see:

1) The same side is always facing us.
2) That side goes dark every month.

If your education has taught you otherwise you are blind or especially gullible.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[pomakis]

lol someone didn't listen in junior high.
The moon does not rotate. One side is always light the other dark

Yeah, it seems that you're the one who wasn't listening in junior high. The moon does indeed rotate. Its rotation period, and therefore its day-night cycle, is about 28 earth days long. The thing you're confused about is this: The rotation period of the moon is exactly the same as its orbital period around the earth. This causes the same side of the moon (with the exception of a bit of wobble) to always face the earth. But this side goes through day-night cycles. This is easily seen; it's what causes the phases of the moon.

Contrary to some popular belief, the equivalence of the rotation period and the orbital period is not a staggering coincidence. Most two-body orbital systems (slowly) tend towards this.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed out an important lesson in junior high.

I think you missed out on... junior high. Flunking 6th grade'll do that to ya. If the dark side "comes around to face" us, howcum the topological features on the side of the moon facing us don't move?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Diplo]

"One small step for Americankind..." just doesn't have the same ring to it, somehow.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Bombcar]

Well, la de da. Your textbook is factually wrong.

The moon has a side that always faces the EARTH, not the sun.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Saven Marek]

The rotation period of the moon is exactly the same as its orbital period around the earth. This causes the same side of the moon (with the exception of a bit of wobble) to always face the earth. But this side goes through day-night cycles. This is easily seen; it's what causes the phases of the moon.

Wrong wrong wrong! Look here and you'll see the explanation for the phases of the moon.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[cmpalmer]

If this is an actual quote from your science book, I would sue if I were you...

The moon is tidally locked with the *Earth*, not the sun. The dark side is the side the Earth never gets to see, but it is fully illuminated by the sun once a month.

Uh, right?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[tverbeek]

Your science textbook was written by an idiot with no knowledge of basic astronomy. Sorry.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd throw that book away, dude... It's just wrong.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't suppose you'd like to tell us who published this science textbook, so we can all go and knock some sense into them?

we like the MOOOON

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen up nerds, the moon doesnt even exist. Its a fucking conspiracy. These pictures dont prove shit. That thing you see up in the sky at night is a CIA controlled mind-prober designed to try and control the populace. It never worked though so they made up this MOON bullshit.

NASA aint shit but the CIAs bitch you ignorant APE NOSED NIGGERS

Ask and be answered...

[Chibi Merrow]

Here.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Saven Marek]

If your education has taught you otherwise you are blind or especially gullible.

No, it seems I unlike others can actually READ and COMPREHEND what is written.

Read this quote, direct from a text book, until you understand

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Tony Towers]

Interesting textbook. Did it also say the universe was created in seven literal days?

Nice Work

[Bob9113]

Wow! These new images are the best yet. The shadows are all going the same direction, you can't see the movie set reflected in the visors, and there's no apparent line where the backdrop meets the stage. And they managed to build a set that looks virtually identical to the original set from the 60's. You've got to hand it to NASA for listening to public feedback and making a more believable set of photographs.

Re:Nice Work

[ThisIsFred]

Yeah, each red 'X' is as sharp and clear as the my eyes are capable of resolving.

Titan II Missile Site

[Anonymous Coward]

For an awesome look at 60's technology check this place out next time you're in Tucson:

http://www.pimaair.org/TitanMM/titanhome.shtml

Man, they did this stuff with seriously primitive Info Tech, we're talking paper tape readers!

Re:Titan II Missile Site

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn how to make links.

<a href="http://www.pimaair.org/TitanMM/titanhome.sht ml">The Titan near Tuscon</a>

(without any spaces put there by Slashdot) yields: The Titan near Tuscon

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you still don't believe any of the people who have told you the truth, look at this animation:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991108.html

"cherry-pick"???

[J-Piddy]

Maybe I've spent too much time playing sports, where cherry-picking means you hang out in front of the goal/basket and wait for the ball to come to you, and not enough time playing with my computer, because I have NEVER heard "cherry-pick" used that way before.

Just my $0.02.

Re:"cherry-pick"???

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I forgot about the sports usage. I've mainly heard cherry-picking as grabbing the best or easiest out of a group of options. Nothing to do with computers.

Re:"cherry-pick"???

[p4ul13]

When you pick cherries, you choose only the best ones that you find. .... The analogy fits.

THANK YOU

[callmetheraven]

Finally! Someone else with some basic knowledge of the solar system! I thought I was the only one who had a clue about objects orbiting in tidal lock. EARTHRISE IS IMPOSSIBLE ON THE MOON! THESE PICTURES ARE FAKE!

Re:THANK YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

What an idiot. The spacecraft was orbiting. You do know stuff appears to be rising as you come around towards it right? Wow...all the posts like this one today about this and these permanantly light/dark side of the moon convos show me the slasdot crowd is filled with morons.

Come on!

[pyite]

Internet2 don't fail me now! That's ok, as soon as it's un-Slashdotted I'll happily download all of the high resolution images at multi-megabyte per second speeds...

Who the hell modded this insightful?

[Titanium Angel]

I think he was trying to be funny, if not, I recommend reading something like this.

Re:Who the hell modded this insightful?

[manly_15]

I see it as a really sad statement for humanity that Space needs to be "profitable" and "affordable" for us to be able to explore it. One county landed on the moon. 35 years ago at that. With todays tech, 3 countries should be able to land on Mars. I think I'll go huddle in a corner until the world realizes that exploration and knowledge are more important than money and materialisim... :(

Re:Who the hell modded this insightful?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Huddling in a corner won't get us to Mars. Why don't you go help design the thing?

Until we need to dispose of it

[ianscot]

When that particular flag gets worn, we're going to need to dispose of it with highest honors -- the preferred method being to burn the flag.

So do you go retrieve it, do you bring up enough atmosphere to burn it, or what? Any way you look at it, there's a lump exit fee on that car lease...

Re:Until we need to dispose of it

[tverbeek]

Just tape the worn flag to the exterior of the craft, and it'll burn up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. But I think it'll be OK for a few millennia, at least; there isn't much in its current environment to wear it out.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[SillyNickName4me]

Luckily you are right and the world is wrong....

Well, in fact that happens at times, but this is not one of them.

The sky is falling!

[danharan]

Ok, is it just me, or did we not manage to slashdot a server by linking to images?

Come on, people, click on that link! Don't just assume a slashdotting can happen without you. :)

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[tverbeek]

My textbook can beat up your textbook, kid. Mine says differently.

Unless your textbook was written by Jehovah Himself, you have to consider the possibility that maybe the author just didn't know what he was talking about.

And you know what? He didn't. A little empirical observation would demonstrate that to you. Did they bother mentioning that in your junior high science class, or was it all just overly-trusting appeals to authority?

Re:Apollo 11

[POPE Mad Mitch]

Look at the edges of that frame, the original is badly scratched and covered in noise. Now all this noise and scratches doesnt matter so much when theres bright picture detail behind it, but in a large blank black area like the sky it would make the whole picture quality look shitty.

so it seems obvious to me why they cut it out, its to make the picture look better quality than it really is, as joe public doesnt understand the subtlties of what it is and why they would just see it as a crap image.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shall we see what NASA says about it?

Here

The phase "dark side of the Moon" usually refers to the side of the Moon that we cannot see from Earth. The Moon takes about 29 days to orbit the Earth. It takes almost the same amount of time to make one rotation on its axis. That is why we always see the same side of the Moon from Earth. This part of the Moon is not really the "dark side", however, it is more accurately the "far side". The side of the Moon we do not see from Earth gets just as much sunlight on it as the side we do see. In truth, the only dark side of the Moon is the side that is pointed away from the Sun at any given time.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Polkyb]

It's wrong... and there's NO point in linking to one of your own comments as proof

One of the reasons for the apollo missions was to see the far side (AKA. the "Dark" side) of the moon

This is because the moon rotates at the same rate as it orbits the Earth, thus, it only ever presents one hemisphere towards us

That hemisphere goes light and dark because of it's orbit around the Earth, so you can assume, that the other one does the same

I suggest that you either return to the book, you read when you were 14, and make sure it does really say what you claim, or, better still, get your browser over to NASA.com and check out the kiddies section

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, of course, for that German guy who used to work for the bad guys in that war, you know?

Special flag

[Anonymous Coward]

The flag was made to look like that by NASA. Notice the bar at the top of the flag, holding it up.

No conspiracy here. Time to go back to bed.

NASA

[sabreofsd]

Slashdot definitely hit...

hey whore how's it whoring

[Anonymous Coward]

My God someone please stop modding this.

Re:hey whore how's it whoring

[Anonymous Coward]

No whoring here: funny mods don't count towards karma.

Re:Those pics are fake!

[wcrowe]

This post illustrates why we so desperately need a Dumbass mod selection.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

End of Discussion

I hope you had a look at this post - it shows the result of this argument better than any comparison of textbooks.

Here's hoping the amazingly bad textbooks haven't removed your ability to learn and improve your knowledge :)

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope you don't have a job where your thought processes affect other people.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[ahillen]

Quoting directly from the basic science textbook I used when I was 14.

Hmm, I guess you should send your textbook to NASA, because it seems that NASA doesn't know about this:

"People often refer to "the dark side of the moon", but there is no such thing. The sun shines on all sides of it in turn. However, there is a "far side of the moon" which is never seen from the earth. Over the eons, the gravitational forces of the earth have slowed down the moon's rotation about its axis until the rotational period exactly matches the revolution period about the earth."

Re:Apollo 11

[RickHunter]

What, exactly, about those two pictures indicates that something has been "CUT OUT"?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[nebaz]

Um... no... The moon does rotate, it just so happens to take the same amount of time to do one rotate as to go around the earth, thus the same side always faces the earth.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[falzer]

Here's the problem: the flag was planted on the side of the moon that faces the Earth, NOT the "light side of the moon". Your textbook is misleading. One side of the moon being lit by the sun is not a consequence of complex gravitational effects between the Earth and the Moon.
Read this, especially the last two paragraphs.

Hm

[EMH_Mark3]

Question: if the moon always presents the same face to the earth, how could the astonauts take pictures of the earth rising on the horizon? The earth should stay pinned at the same spot in the 'sky', no? Or were the picture taken from lunar orbit?

Re:Hm

[belg4mit]

Maybe because it still rotates around the Earth?

Re:Hm

[EMH_Mark3]

Yeah but its rotation speed is pretty much the same as its revolution speed, so wherever you are on the moon the earth should appear as a fixed spot...

Re:Hm

[mdf356]

A tidally locked orbit means the rotation period is the same as the revolution period. However, since the moon's orbit is slightly elliptical, it revolves faster and slower at various points of the orbit, in accordance with Kepler's laws of motion. So over the course of a 29.5 day lunar orbit, the earth will move slowly up and down in the sky.

Cheers, Matt

Re:Hm

[multi io]

Or were the picture taken from lunar orbit?

Exactly.

My Father and My Grandfather Were At NASA Then Too

[ausoleil]

I have not digitized all that I can find as of yet, but my family and I are working on a project to put all of my Grandfather's and (after him) my Father's papers and photographs from Cape Kennedy through the Apollo effort as well as Mercury and Gemini.

http://www.ausoleil.org/exhibits/vlpinson

A little background:

My Grandfather, V.L. Pinson, was Chief Telemetry Officer as well as MIS Manager for Cape Kennedy in the 1960's, not to mention duties he performed in the 1950's at ABMA (Army Ballastic Missile Agency) in Huntsville, and White Sands prior to that. While it is very incomplete, mainly because he died in 1988, we're continue to work on this and those interested in some of the minutae of space history might enjoy reading through some of the peronal effects of someone who was there.

PS: I saw Apollo 11 launch in 1969. We lived in Titusville, and saw the launch from the Bennett Causeway. Dad had a better view: As Missile Commander in charge of astronaut safety, he was in a foreward blockhouse about one kilometer from the launch itself. He and his team were there to provide rescue services for the astronauts had something gone wrong and Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins had needed to escape the launch vehicle.

As it was, Apollo 11 broke windows in my house, which was 6.5 nautical miles from the launch pad. Most Saturn V launches did.

It was a great thing going to sleep at night by light of a floodlit missile that was pointed at the moon. Even better was going fishing as a young child with my Grandfather's buddies -- Debus, Armstrong, Grissom, Scott Carpenter, a few others.

You had to be there.

Apollo 11 Photographs Unfrozen

[MSTCrow5429]

You mean before the photographs had totally melted and were a chemical soup, and they somehow refroze the chemicals into the exact form of the original, frozen photograph? Amazing!

Mod parent up!

[Dashing Leech]

Oh man, if I only had mod points. That's so true.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[the real darkskye]

Are flags not even safe from the dark side?

Wait a minute, thats no moon!

I'll be here until Thursday try the veal.

Cached servers...

[sabreofsd]

Atleast I'm glad I can see the staging server for www.hq ;) hahaha...

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[soybean]

Sigh, my literary allusion is for not.

Slashdot is interesting. Because people don't understand my cute, if not obscure, allusion, I get flamed. Hence, my comment is "flamebate".

It's basically reality by majority. If most people believe something, it must be true.

Nobody even bothered to mention that there is actually no american flag on the moon. (they took it down before they left)

Re:Apollo 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Open it in gimp or photoshop and up the brightness/gamma a bit.

You're in luck

[Scorchio]

Sony are producing a commemorative edition Moonlander(tm) monitor with a max resolution of 904x913. Allegedly.

Interesting stars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the stars or sun in picture 3?
Could you see the flag with a telescope and where would you look?

Re:Interesting stars?

[bandy]

Rule #1 of photography: the sun is always behind the photographer.
Rule #2 of photography: see Rule #1.

As to the stars - that's easy. Where are the stars when you look up during the day, even away from the sun?

Re:Interesting stars?

[hughk]

Actually no. However that is the way most people are taught to start photography. Astronauts have to be a lot of other things as well and messing with the settings on a Hassleblad whilst wearing thick gloves is kind of limiting.

Re:Interesting stars?

[bandy]

Rule #3 of photography: turn off your damn flash if you're at an Event and you're trying to take a picture of someone who is performing.

Sure, you can take photos pointed towards the sun, and you'll end up with lens flare and internal reflections messing up your photo, as well as an underexposed subject.

Re:Interesting stars?

[hughk]

You don't have to shoot into the sun, but you can certainly have it from left or right. Shooting into the sun can work too, it just depends upon what you are wanting to achieve.

The flash thing is actually an interesting issue. The performer may be well lit but surrounding not, an averaging exposure system will get it wrong. Switching on the flash will often just set the shutter to a fixed value, say a thirtieth of a second and the photo may sometimes work. It is better to have a camera with manual override and a photographer who knows how to use it.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[GlassUser]

Well I guess that will teach me to think half way through a problem. I feel real smart now. Even moreso with the following similar posts. Sigh.

Re:My Father and My Grandfather Were At NASA Then

[aiabx]

Thank you. That is extremely cool, and makes up for all the moon-hoax crap I've been wading through. It's fascinating to compare reality to the dramatised versions of the space race I've been glued to on TV all week.
-aiabx

Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[droopus]

With all the hoax talk, I thought I'd mention something actually concerning the missions.

I'm a bit of a 60's/70's space nut. I read all the books recently published (Gene Kranz's "Failure is not an Option", Chris Kraft's "Flight" and Gene Cernan's "Last Man on the Moon" are all incredible) and think the boxed "From the Earth to the Moon" DVD set might be the best thing HBO ever did.

Anyway.

Did you notice there are no (or very, very few) camera shots of Neil, but loads of Buzz? That's because Buzz was a bit of a PITA about the mission. He whined for months about not being the first out of the LEM, even after Deke Slayton told him the mission schedule. He tried to take it higher, using his deep religious feelings with politicians to try and be the first man out, but failed.

He did bring along a tiny Communion set and did indeed take Communion just after landing. But he was still pissed, and this was reflected in his refusal to use his camera much, if at all. The only shots of Neil were frame grabs off the LEM mounted 16mm cam.

Neil however, took loads of pics of Buzz, using the belly mounted Hasselblads they both had. So, Buzz became immortalized because there were simply more photos of him...saluting the flag, that classic closeup, etc.

Interesting that the attitudes of the astronauts weren't discussed much till decades later, NASA wishing to preserve the "rock star" image of the men.

I highly recommend reading at least one of the above books, probably this one which has a special if you buy it with Flight, Kraft's great book.

Both show just how amazing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were, and just how analog their equipment was.

Sadly the books will also give you a clue why a program like Apollo will never happen again in America, unless something radically changes.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[ausoleil]

I knew Neil Armstrong, albeit as a young child.

"Rock star"? Neil certainly was not that. He was (and is) an exceptionally gifted engineer and pilot, and a man who did the job the best he could. He was also an humble man, as evidenced by his lack of visibility in the years after Apollo 11.

Neil was a brilliant man doing a tough, dangerous job. He did so cooly and with professionalism. That's why he was America's best civilian test pilot prior to his stint in NASA. That's also why he was the best choice to lead Apollo 11 into the rare air where the great explorers are.

Few people today realize the danger and risk that was involved in the moon missions. Think of this: look at how far technology, from it's most basic levels of materials science and mathematics have evolved *since* 1969. The Saturn V was arguably the most powerful machine built in all of recorded human history (that was not a bomb) and to this day, no launch vehicle has ever matched it's sheer lifting capaibility. It had the power of a small atomic weapon, and three men would climb on top and strap their butts to it. All with less computing power than your car.

They did it, and they did it with bravery. Not the kind of foolish bravery associated with a glory hound, but the kind of quiet bravery that marks a true HERO in every sense of the world.

I was there, and I said goodbye to Apollo 11 from five miles away as she lifted into the skies of a sunny Florida morning. I knew one of the men on the machine, and I had four family members who had important jobs that got them to the moon and back safely.

I am proud of them all, and they all had their roles. Aldrin may have been seeking glory, that is for history to decide. Nevertheless, the best choice was Armstrong, and as a result, his name belongs with Columbus, Erikkson and other great explorers who opened the doorway for all humanity to place that none had been before.

Perhaps it will take a century or more for history to truly appreciate the scope of that they did.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[mforbes]

All with less computing power than your car.

Heh, not just less computing power than my car... less computing power than my wristwatch!

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[benploni]

He did bring along a tiny Communion set and did indeed take Communion just after landing.

Unbelievable. One foot in 1969 and one in 1169. When are we going to leave our superstitions behind?

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[data1]

This is afterall Slashdot and your wristwatch could be the equivalent of a portable PC!

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[mforbes]

Actually it is... it's a Timex Ironman DataLink... which became completely redundant when I bought my Blackberry!

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[droopus]

Rock star"? Neil certainly was not that. He was (and is) an exceptionally gifted engineer and pilot, and a man who did the job the best he could. He was also an humble man, as evidenced by his lack of visibility in the years after Apollo 11.

Neil was a brilliant man doing a tough, dangerous job. He did so cooly and with professionalism. That's why he was America's best civilian test pilot prior to his stint in NASA. That's also why he was the best choice to lead Apollo 11 into the rare air where the great explorers are.

Damn right! Neil is the only Apollo astronaut to basically remain humble, if not downright reclusive, while others such as Cernan and Buzz have been exploiting their 15 minutes for thirty years. Hey, nothing wrong with being proud of such massive acheivements as Gene and Buzz did, but to me, Neil always stood head and shoulders above the rest. He proved himself in that uncontrolled spin in Gemini...others might have died.

What an honor to have met him, I bet that is something you'll never forget. And you saw 11 liftoff? WHOA. I watched it all on tv from summer camp (I was about 12.)

I'm jealous. B)

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the utmost respect for Armstrong, and though I never met him, I do have an autograph picture from decades ago when he still responded to such requests by mail.

But, in hindsight, perhaps Aldrin would have been the better choice as the first out of the LEM. He's far more willing to be a celelbrity and grant autographs than Neil and does more to promote interest in space exploration.

Everytime Neil declines an autograph request, he's almost certainly diminishing that person's enthusiasm about the space program. That's not a good thing. He was granted a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he should be willing to give back to the public for that honor.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Eminence]

The Saturn V was arguably the most powerful machine built in all of recorded human history (that was not a bomb) and to this day, no launch vehicle has ever matched it's sheer lifting capaibility.

Ever heard of Energia rocket?

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Vellmont]

Perhaps it will take a century or more for history to truly appreciate the scope of that they did.

I hope the engineers who actually did most of the work will be the ones appreciated. It's easy to credit Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, but I just don't put them in the same category as the great explorers like Magellan or Columbus (though I'm not certain Columbus deserves all that much praise based on his behavior and motivations). If you're talking great hero, look at Ernest Shackleton who was shipwrecked along with his crew on the antarctic from 1914-1916. He and all his men survived an almost unimaginable journey.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with Astronauts, they just aren't the great men and great heroes that people make them out to be.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: photos of Neil vs photos of Buzz. I am looking at a photo of from Neil of Buzz face on and there isn't a camera mounted on the front of the suit. I think I read in "A Man On The Moon" that only Neil had a camera and that's why there are no photos of Neil (except for the reflections in Buzz's visor).

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[mpthompson]

Few people today realize the danger and risk that was involved in the moon missions.

Some of us do. This picture puts it into a little more perspective.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Why has this bollocks been modded Informative?

The reason there's few pictures of Armstrong is because THEY ONLY HAD THE ONE STILL CAMERA. Armstrong had the camera most of the time, so clearly most of the photos are of Aldrin. Take a look at the photos of Aldrin on the lunar surface. See any camera mounted on his chest?? Remember we're talking about a big sturdy Hasselblad here, not a compact point'n'shoot Kodak.

All Aldrin is guilty of is not thinking to shoot a portrait photo of Armstrong during the short period he was given the camera, but then he was kind of busy with other things to think about holiday snaps.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[hcdejong]

Actually, the Energia is quoted as being able to lift 100 tons to LEO, and 32 tons into a lunar trajectory.
Saturn V could put 118 tons into LEO, and 47 tons into a lunar trajectory.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[RexxFiend]

Mr Gorsky, is that you? ;-D

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Anonymous Coward]

last year there was a movie/documentary version of failure is not an option on cable tv, there is a dvd available, but it costs $30, did you see that? I missed it because i did not have cable tv at the time. I've been wondering how it was ever since.

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[droopus]

The reason there's few pictures of Armstrong is because THEY ONLY HAD THE ONE STILL CAMERA.

Rubbish. This is why I typically don't respond to ACs.

From the Apollo 11 Press kit:

"Still camera equipment carried on Apollo 11 consists of one 7Omm Hasselblad electric camera stowed aboard the command module, two Hasselblad 7Omm lunar surface superwide angle cameras stowed aboard the LM and a 35mm stereo close-up camera in the LM MESA.

For motion pictures, two Maurer 16mm data acquisition cameras (one in the CSM, one in the LM) with variable frame speed (1, 6, 12 and 24 frames per second) will be used. The cameras each weigh 2.8 pounds with a 130-foot film magazine attached. The command module 16mm camera will have lenses of 5, 18 and 75mm focal length available, while the LM camera will be fitted with the 18mm wideangle lens. Motion picture camera accessories include a right-angle mirror, a power cable and a command module boresight window bracket."

Re:Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether they had two cameras on the Lunar Module or not is irrelevant. During surface activity they only had one camera with them, and Armstrong used it most. Otherwise where is Aldrin's camera in the photographs of him? In his back pocket?

Note that the two astronaut's activity on the surface was carefully planned, itemized and timed well in advance. They weren't just strolling about doing whatever took their fancy. If Aldrin didn't have a camera and didn't take photos it was because it wasn't on the list.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[cosmo7]

The term "dark side of the moon" in fact is literal. The word "dark" does not just mean unlit; it also means unobserved. Think of the "Dark Ages" or "darkest Africa."

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[NanoGator]

"There is an american flag on the moon. Splendid."

Yeah, you'd think that the Americans that were on the moon would have put the Russian flag up in the name of diplomacy.

RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[GlassUser]

Looks like I started a nice debate, and have convinced several people that their inaccurate textbooks are correct. They are not. I though through the problem just far enough to get to the common (incorrect) habit of referring to the earth's side of the moon (the face, rabbit, woman, etc) as the light side. It's only light about half the time. The far side of the moon is light the other half (this of course ignores the effects of lunar eclipses, but they affect only the near side of the moon).

So, there is a light side and there is a dark side, but they change across a period of a month. If you have a textbook that says there is part of the moon that's always exposed to the sun, it's dead wrong.

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[spaceyhackerlady]

If you have a textbook that says there is part of the moon that's always exposed to the sun, it's dead wrong.

Do you have a citation for such a ridiculous thing for a textbook to say?

The Moon's axial tilt is non-zero, so it has areas of midnight sun/winter darkness near the poles, just like Earth does. But this is a far cry from the Moon being gravitationally locked to the Sun. 'tain't so!

...laura who watched the sun rise in Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Nectaris last night

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no dark side in the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[captainClassLoader]

spaceyhackerlady signs off as: ...laura who watched the sun rise in Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Nectaris last night

Wow! You must be seriously jetlagged!...

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[GlassUser]

Do you have a citation for such a ridiculous thing for a textbook to say?

I don't, but apparently a few repliers to my original post do.

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[aiabx]

This is probably an appropriate place to note that the moon is not absolutely tidally locked as well. Shifts in the earth's centre of gravity due to the ocean tides lead to a slight wobbling known as libration. Mostly libration goes east and west, but there's also a north-south component which will help expose the polar regions.
-aiabx who has been clouded in for 2 weeks now

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[angrytuna]

Look on the bright side - at least you don't owe anyone a baseball encyclopedia.

Re:RETRACTION - yep, I'm dumb!

[Finuvir]

Which side is the bright side?

Close enough, if slower than our return to space

[Roadkills-R-Us]

By getting the site slashdotted, they assured that the images will live for quite some time on millions of PCs and proxies around the world.

Once the data finally gets through. It feels like they're serving the images off the poor little IBM with core memory that ran the Apollo 11 mission, via a 110 baud acosutic coupler!

pictures unfrozen

[hords]

Yeah, but did they freeze the website for later retrieval?

/. strikes again

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Rei]

The flags are nylon (made by Annin & Co, from New Jersey; you can still buy such flags). I doubt it'll fade at all. Even a cotton flag would have trouble fading on the moon, though.

One interesting thing about the flag: The original flag was wrinkled due to it not fitting exactly as intended on its support. However, the look (a sort of "waving flag" look) proved popular enough that they deliberately missized the flag support in the future so that future flags kept the "waving" look.

Will you guys all get outta here!! LOG OFF NOW

[cdn-programmer]

I'm trying to see these picture and I think the NASA website has been slashdotted!!!

Re:Apollo 11

[RickHunter]

Again, how does this imply that anything was "CUT OUT"? As the grandparent said, the stars were simply too dim to show up at that exposure setting. That doesn't mean there aren't 'hints' of them that would be brought out by increasing the overall brightness, or (MUCH more likely) imperfections in the film or artifacts of the digitization that show up as 'stars'.

The scanner used: HR-500

[purduephotog]

... is responsible for much of the Image Quality you see in those images. The good news is that IF they scanned them in raw mode (which they may not have been able to do) it's possible to get even MORE information out of them.

I have worked on data paths and tested some features on the scanner when I worked in Kodak Professional. Hands down it is by far the most incredible piece of equipment I've been allowed to work on. It scans a 120mm neg in 6 seconds flat. (servo motor whine) *blip* (scanner stage moves back across) *blip* Image pops up on the screen.

If I could afford it, I'd have one of these in my home. Very low noise, very high sharpness, and now has integrated Digital ICE for dust removal.

IF they scanned these images in at the highest settings you should theoretically be able to make 20x30s as good as the original prints. If they scanned them in as RAW you might even be able to go higher... I can only wish.

*sigh* to see such a good use for that beautiful technology...

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

The same side always faces the Earth. But that side of course gets dark and light every month. Howgh. Search Wikipedia or use google if you don't trust me.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they had to send a spacecraft to make a photo of the side away from us, right?

Throw your textbook away, it's rubbish.

Apollo 8 crew saw first 'Earthrise'

[elh102]

I'm just checking out the first ever 'Earthrise' sequence and they are beautiful.

Not to nitpick, but Apollo 8 was the first mission to circle the moon. So that crew witnessed the first ever 'Earthrise', not the Apollo 11 crew.

Here's a picture from the Apollo 8 Image Gallery.

Beautiful, but not the first earthrise pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just checking out the first ever 'Earthrise' sequence and they are beautiful.

The first earthrise was shot by William Anders on Apollo 8, and it really was one of those pictures that jolted the world.

But thanks for the link; the pictures are beautiful.

Air & Space Museum has a LEM

[LMCBoy]

At the National Air and Space Museum, they have a backup Lunar Excursion Module. I'm always transfixed by it when I visit. It seems so primitive; you can see tape on the foil wrapping, and there are welds and rivets all over it.

I mean look at this image. I've seen RVs with better construction! It really puts the accomplishment in perspective.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Yunzil]

Quoting directly from the basic science textbook I used when I was 14.

You must have been 14 in the 18th century then.

earthrise?

[yagu]

I'm just checking out the first ever 'Earthrise' sequence and they are beautiful.

I know that there really isn't such a thing as a sunrise or sunset, a moonrise or moonset, since they're really just illusions caused by the rotation of earth. But I've often wondered about these "earthrise" pictures. Since the same side of the moon always faces the Earth, would this not imply there could be no such thing as an Earthrise on the moon? Wouldn't a person on the moon always see Earth in the same apparent position in the sky, and only see different phases? So, I've got to think these Earthrise pictures must be different pictures of Earth as the LEM or Command Module orbit the moon.

Re:earthrise?

[mforbes]

From a fixed vantage on the Moon's surface, Earth is always in the same angle in relation to the meridian (yeah yeah, no Prime Meridian on the Moon, but for the sake of argument, call it the longitude at which Apollo 11 landed). Due to the Moon's orbit not being completely on the ecliptic, the angle from the equator does change.

In addition, due to the rotation of the collective Earth/Moon system, the sun does be occulted (is that the right word?) by the Earth on a regular basis. I don't know what the frequency is, but considering Earth appears much larger from the moon than vice-versa, I'd have to assume that these events (call them Terran eclipses) happen more often than Solar eclipses.

So, to answer your question: wherever you stand on the Moon, Earth is always at the same position relative to the meridian, but moves relative to the equator. Therefore, if it's Earthrise now, it will be Earthrise at that same point for a damned long time :)

Re:earthrise?

[amliebsch]

the sun does be occulted (is that the right word?)

No, I think the word you want is occluded.

Re:earthrise?

[mforbes]

That's the word I meant :)
Yeah, I can just see a coven of witches doing their damnedest to hide the moon...

Want more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see if we can slashdot another site.

Apollo images galore:

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

Moon Mission Nothing

[methodic]

"That Apollo sound stage is a hell of a drug."

Hoax would have required Soviet cooperation

[soldeed]

OK all you conspiracy advocates, if the moon landings were faked, then explain to me why would the soviets have let us get away with it? They had deep space tracking capability, and the glaring lack of actual spacecraft going to the moon beaming back telemetry data and voice comm would have been a dead giveaway! I grew up in the sixties, and on launch mornings the pre launch broadcasts usually included a shot of the Soviet 'fishing' trawlers hanging off the coast observing the proceedings. The spacecraft could be tracked with radar all the way to, around, and back from the moon. They sent that Luna mission to try to return samples and steal our thunder, (which we were able to track) but crashed instead. After the failure of their own manned lunar program The Soviets would not have tried such a foolish stunt themselves because they knew they would'nt have been able to fool anyone, and neither would we! To this day, no one in the soviet government or space program, has ever made any suggestion that we did'nt actually go to the moon.

Re:Hoax would have required Soviet cooperation

[goon]

ahh I love the hoax lunar stories. try this one. not may remember but the voice and images, telemetry from apollo 11 had to be relayed from different tracking stations around the world. One of them in Honeysuckle creek (DSN 44) was receiving data from Apollo by directly pointing the dish at the moon. The data was then transmitted via Telstra to the yanks.

So the hoaxers have to contend not only with the Apollo crew, the ruskies but also csiro. Not exactly Occam's Razor is it?

Don't /. badastronomy. Read it here :-)

[gd23ka]

Why then, pray tell us, why are most of the images off limits to Joe citizen??

I personally wouldn't put a lie like a hoaxed moon-landing beyond the US Government (or any other for that matter). I can't say for sure whether the landing took place on a movie-set or 384,000 miles away. I've seen a lot of people, some of them saying they're image specialists and professional photographers photographers say on the net that the moon pics NASA released back in the 70s are doctored. Who knows, maybe they're just trying to appear important, maybe they're just trying to keep an urban myth alive for the fun of it... But who knows? Maybe the entire moon-landing IS a hoax, maybe it's just another one of the million lies the government tries to shove down our throats. It is also possible that they are only lying in part about the landing. Maybe those pictures were doctored to hide certain details but the landing took place. There is no way you or me could find out what is the truth and what is not, for you would have to trust their classified (and possibly doctored) archives and we all know that the most successfull liar believes his own lies.

While it may be as it may, one thing I do know for a fact: The US Goverment is one of the most secretive, paranoid and deceitful organizations on the planet. They are routined and accomplished liars and most of their lies fly because the greater the lie, the less people believe the US government would lie about it. I don't have to remind any of for example about the Iraqi WMDs that never materialized.

"If you believe they put a man on the moon Man on the moon If you believe there's nothing up their sleeve Then nothing is cool" REM

Re:Don't /. badastronomy. Read it here :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

"The US Goverment is one of the most secretive, paranoid and deceitful organizations on the planet."

You must not know about the Scientologists then.

Re:Don't /. badastronomy. Read it here :-)

[gd23ka]

Where are you on the bridge?? I'm a certified PTS and I'm an Operating SP IX. Tell you what, $cientology sure is one hell of an evil org but comparing them to the USG is like comparing Lynndie England to Satan.

Re:Don't /. badastronomy. Read it here :-)

[UezeU]

If it is so bad, why don't you move?

Re:Don't /. badastronomy. Read it here :-)

[gd23ka]

I already did :-) :-) :-)

If the Moon landings were faked...

[Robber Baron]

...the Soviets, who were technically proficient in their own right (and definitely proficient enough to uncover such a brazen fakery if it existed), would've been all over the Yanks like a cheap suit, rubbing their noses in it!

Re:If the Moon landings were faked...

[StalinsNotDead]

Given the skills built up during the Stalin years, their photographic editing skills were pretty advanced. The Soviets could have beaten the US to the moon in this fashion.

Here's a book with some examples. Some are pretty blatant (It was all about eliminating non-persons who had been purged) but many of them are skilfully done.

Cheap cubicle decorations

[Smack]

I've had pretty good success printing the hi-rez version of these at Ofoto as 8x10s. (Actually I did the B&Ws at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. They look excellent and it only costs a couple of bucks. And since it's all public domain, it's completely legal.

Way better than paying someone else for a print.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Alyred]

Absolutely! Right after Google's moonbase is built...

Earth looks really good in your rear-view mirror!

[billstewart]

Thanks for mirroring the photos..

Re:Apollo 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. Open photoshop, gimp, or whatever. Up the brightness alot. Look for sharp edges around the "sky line".

Don't bother replying until you have done that...

Pitiful works of puny man....

[Engineer-Poet]

Hmph. They don't even have a picture of a city on that moon, because silly humans haven't even used what they already know to make one. ;)

I prefer to look at more majestic things on my monitor, like a visible demonstration of gravity bending space-time.

Re:Pitiful works of puny man....

[Tassach]

Good grief... now that's a picture that lets you know just how insignificant you really are. Still, I'm kind of fond of this one

FreeCache.org

[breadiu]

I really hate coming to Slashdot and seeing a story only to find a multimedia file that has been linked to cannot be reached due to the "Slashdotting" effect.

I think this could easily be alleviated (if not solved) by linking files with the prefix "http://freecache.org" If you're not familiar with FreeCache, check them out.

Just for fun, here are the three links included in the story, with FreeCache's bandwidth help: 1, 2, 3. It may be too late to speed these up, but let's see!!

And remember, use http://freecache.org/http://link.to.file/file.xxx!

It looks as if FreeCache's timeout is shorter than a web browsers, but if this had been used from the beginning, I'll it would have made a difference.

Slashdot - the only reason to re-freeze

[IronChefMorimoto]

Tried getting to the website a bit ago and discovered something. Slashdot is perhaps the only reason in the world that NASA would need to go back and re-freeze priceless man to the Moon photos. So they'd have time to think of a better way to show them to the world other than through a WEBSITE THAN CAN BE SLASHDOTTED TO HELL!

Well -- there's another reason they'd re-freeze 'em, but it only comes up if one of the technicians in the lab breaks wind and compromises the air quality around the photographs he's un-freezing.

IronChefMorimoto

Cool and informative hoax-debunking site

[arashiakari]

Check out Clavius if you've ever wondered about the many conspiracy theories swirling around the Apollo missions. It addresses each point with facts and science, containing many fascinating descriptions and explanations of how things work up there on the moon.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

For your sake, I hope you're trolling.

I can't help but think...

[LifesABeach]

it sure would be nice to take one of those pictures myself, on the way to work...

I hate you!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Not really! I'm simply quite jealous. That sounds like just about the coolest way to grow up there is. When I was a kid in the 60s, I dreamed of one day growing up to fly in spaceships, walk on other planets, and perhaps die exploring space or defending earth. I used to design spaceships.

When we failed to follow up the Apollo program, when Vietnam and the whole hippie thing with the anti0military-industrial-complex went down, the magic died, and we as a nation lost the vision.

I no longer expect to set foot on another planet, but I am beginning to hope that some day before I die, I can at least get into space and see the beauty there for myself.

Thanks for sharing those vignettes.

Cable in picture 2?

[Dan East]

Anyone know what the white cable lying on the ground that goes completely across the frame in picture 2 (as11-40-5905.jpg) goes to and from?

Dan East

Re:Cable in picture 2?

[Smack]

By random chance, I happened to see that there's another photo that shows it goes to the video camera they used to film the EVAs:

as11-37-5480.jpg

Hoax did require Soviet cooperation (sort of)

[Roadkills-R-Us]

That's because the Soviet Union was alsoa fake. We worked it out with the Russians and related states to keep the Chinese under control.

If only we had realized that Chinese communism was also a fake (perpetrated by the parents of today's Nigerian scammers).

Next up: The EU hoax

Re:Hoax did require Soviet cooperation (sort of)

[Cat_Byte]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature= 605
The Russian rover is still positioned as a functional reflectometer and in use.

Not really earth rise

[Anonymous Coward]

"But that earth rise is just a great sight"

The earth does not appear to rise if you're on the moon. It stays stationary except for it's own rotation. I always wanted to see this sequence again just to be sure it was really from lunar orbit - it is. No conspiracy here, just a sort of misnomer.

Laser reflectometer

[Cat_Byte]

I looked up info on that laser reflectometer. It is still functioning and used after 35 years. I was surprised that they know the moon is moving away from the earth and that the moon has a liquid core (magma?). Interesting. Oh yeah its accurate to within 2 centimeters. I'm still trying to find how they figured it had a liquid core from this.

Link here

Re:Laser reflectometer

[DragonTHC]

the same way you tell if an egg is cooked or raw.

if it's raw, it has an orbital motion when it spins.
if it's cooked, it doesn't

Re:Apollo 11

[sweede]

look at this photo

http://www.underthemain.net/gallery/misc/stars

the line between the original photo and the black mask has been outlined and a star has been circled.

this was from just viewing the image full size.

Is it possible to see any of equpment from Earth?

[saigon_from_europe]

Is it possible to see any of USA or USSR equipment left there from Earth? (Using powerful telescopes, of course.)

Also, they mention "laser defractor" or something like that in articles, and if I understood correctly it is used for some kind of monitoring. Does anyone know a bit more about these things?

Please learn how to make links.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn how to make links.

<a href="http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~akapadia/moon.html" >"fake" pic idiocy</a>

(without any spaces put there by Slashdot) yields: "fake" pic idiocy

Those pictures were obviously doctored. For example, the picture with the gas pump shows a gas pump from the thirties, but the Moon landing took place in the sixties. Something is definitely wrong.

Camera equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

For those interested in learning more about the equipment used.

"The camera equipment carried on the Apollo-11 flight was comprehensive. In addition to the usual TV and small-film cameras on board, there was a special camera for near-distance stereoscopic shots of the moon. And, of course, there were also the cameras which, for this article, are the most important, viz., three Hasselblad 500ELs."

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/als j-hass.html/

MOD PARENT UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

insightful

Apollo 18, the forgotten mission

[Anonymous Meoward]

Just felt like bursting in song again after seeing the 3rd shot:

"What's that blue thing... doooo-ing here..."

Flag / physics question

[hotspotbloc]

In the picture with the flag why isn't the flag just hang down? I mean it kinda looks like it's in the wind (yeah, yeah, insert your favorite Capricorn One joke here). Wouldn't the gravitation force being exerted on the moon cause it "straighten out" in some way?

Thanks for the answers.

Re:Flag / physics question

[bandy]

It looks like it's made out of foil or something equally crumply (ever unfold a nylon kite-in-a-bag?). Not much gravity on Luna.

Re:Flag / physics question

[shadowbearer]

The flag was stiffened with wires to keep it unfurled. Not sure whether the "wavy" effect was intentional or not (I'd imagine it was fairly difficult to straighten the flag properly with those clumsy suit gloves.)

Cheers,
SB

Re:Flag / physics question

[hunterx11]

The device to straighten out the flag didn't extend all the way in Apollo 11. But they liked the way it looked so much that they made it wavy on purpose on subsequent missions.

Re:Flag / physics question

[hotspotbloc]

See, that makes sense. If the flag was made of a Mylar style material it would look like it does. I assumed that it was made of cloth. Since weight savings is everything, Mylar would be a much better choice. It seems to be supported by shadowbearer's comment about the flag being "difficult to straighten [...] properly with those clumsy suit gloves."

Thanks to both for the answer.

Re:Flag / physics question

[Montreal Geek]

In the picture with the flag why isn't the flag just hang down? I mean it kinda looks like it's in the wind (yeah, yeah, insert your favorite Capricorn One joke here). Wouldn't the gravitation force being exerted on the moon cause it "straighten out" in some way?

Simple. The flags all had a rod, perpendicular to the pole, so that the flag wouldn't just hang down (which would have looked -- err -- silly at best).

And the apparent motion simply is motion. Being to atmosphere to dampen it, just setting the flag up caused it to ripple and wave and it'd take a very long time to settle down.

I'd expect if you went up there now it'd look rather limp (if still holding straight because of the aforementioned rod). Although I'd expect the slightest vibration on the surface to show rather visibly (including meteorite impacts and your putative landing).

-- MG

Re:Apollo 11

[sweede]

Clickable

http://www.underthemain.net/gallery/misc/stars

Re:Apollo 11

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't flamebait, this is a joke! That you obviously don't get!

Question

[grungefade]

If the earth is so much larger than the moon, why does the earth pratically look smaller than the moon does from earth?

I shook Apollo 11 Astronaut Mike Collins' hand

[jeepliberty]

After returning from the moon, at the ticker tape parade in August 1969, I shook command module pilot Mike Collins hand. He has small hands!

Read all about it in my JE (with links to my long forgotten photos!.

No need to look at a mirror

[MonkeyCookie]

You don't need to mirror the pictures, I'll just post them here. They all look similar to this:

Not Found
The requested URL /apollo_gallery.html was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.26 Server at caramel.virtual-domain.com Port 80

No wonder they've decided to cover these pictures up for so many years. These pictures must have been strange and confusing in the pre-Internet days.

Either a serious slashdot effect, or ...

[Kahless2k]

The site has either been totally shut down by the slashdot effect, or Nasa got sick of us and moved the page... Anyone know which of the above seems to be the case? Andrew

Re:Either a serious slashdot effect, or ...

[sabreofsd]

Ya, I can help out with that :) www.hq.nasa.gov was never meant to handle all of the traffic load that it's getting right now (10Mbps steady, no break BTW). nasa.gov is made to handle that kind of traffic, but we (yes, we) didn't know that the history department was going to release the images on www.hq. Imagine our suprise... right now we are getting the site moved to another server that can handle this type of load. Problem is, that whole site needs to be moved (why they are not just taking the main images is beyond me - web development teams decision) which is 8.5GB uncompressed. Things will be better in about 7 hours after we get everything moved, till then, we're just watching the poor Ultra 2 get slamed. I think we'll all have a smoke after this one!

Mine from Space.com are of even higher quality

[Jugalator]

... and they were released two years ago. :-S

Compare this to this, for example. :-)

Obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, you should rotate it by 90 degrees. Duh!

Two Words

[jazman_777]

Capricorn One.

Re:Two Words

[aiabx]

I have two words too. Dick Cheney knows what they are.
-aiabx

Yes, there's a corner reflectors at each site.

[antispam_ben]

It's a "corner reflector" - put three mirrors, mutually perpendicular, two on the wall and one on the floor in the corner of a room. Any light shone one one will also reflect off the other two and go straight back the direction it came. The ones put on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts are, IIRC, are a (grossly approximate) one-foot-square array of one-inch corner reflectors.

Google finds some relevant links:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog? sc=1971-008C&ex=9

http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/services/demos/d emosl2/l2-44.htm

Clear proof it was a hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that flimsy cardboard and alfoil monstrosity could even make it off the ground before exploding into bits or crumpling into a heap, let alone make it through re-entry.

Re:Clear proof it was a hoax

[leav]

the LEM did not make it through re-entry, the other vehicle did.

Manufacturing site for Saturn V

[jeepliberty]

When NASA was formed, von Braun directed Marshall Space Flight Center-- where he built the Saturn V, which was the launch vehicle for every single moon shot..

von Braum may have designed the Saturn V but he did not build it at Marshall. The Saturn V was build at the NASA Michoud Facility in East New Orleans.

The Space Shuttle External Tanks were build there also.

Re:Manufacturing site for Saturn V

[SB5]

Maybe by built he meant, designed the blueprints and all the various and highly technical calculations involved with it. And from what I read, the Saturn V, first stage was built at Michoud but not the rest of the rocket. I could not believe that the entire rocket was built at one facility.

Yes, again, but...

[antispam_ben]

Is it possible to see any of USA or USSR equipment left there from Earth? (Using powerful telescopes, of course.)

I suspect that the Hubble telescope or the VLT in Chile might be able to see something at a landing site, probably long shadows just after sunrise or before sunset at the site, but I can't imagine either scope being put to such "frivolous" use, even if you paid for the viewing time, considering how much demand for legitimate astronomical use these things have.

The images brought me to tears....

[leav]

wow...... just wow....... and in full color too........ also, this is my first ever comment, kindof sucks for a forst comnment, huh?

photography

[SuperBanana]

moon-hoax crap

Okay, I don't think the moon landing is a hoax, but this image, as a photographer, bothers me, because it just doesn't look right:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a 11/as11-40-5903.jpg

It is STRONGLY backlit. That's obvious from the body shadow. So why is the astronaut almost perfectly lit all-around? The folds in the suit, for example, just don't have any shadows. It's the kind of lighting you get from really smooth studio lighting- maybe the surface of the moon is providing the frontlight? It happens- sunlight on a white wall will get the same effect.

NASA's great at enhancing images, so I suspect the answer is also in the scanning technique; drum scanners also often have amazing dynamic range which will help.

Still, my current-day canon 10D captures in 12 bit in RAW mode, and I can manipulate the exposure up to about 2-3 stops; blending two differently "processed" copies of the same image isn't that tough, I've done it before- but whoever processed the image did a truly excellent job.

It is a shame they're not available in higher resolution. Then the little green man in the left corner could be more clearly identified.

Re:photography

[tverbeek]

It is STRONGLY backlit. That's obvious from the body shadow. So why is the astronaut almost perfectly lit all-around? .... maybe the surface of the moon is providing the frontlight?

You've answered your own question. The dust on the surface of the moon is highly reflective, to the point that it even provides enough illumination to see things here on Earth in the middle of the night. It's more than bright enough to provide an even "fill" light for all those Apollo snapshots, in which the subjects are surrounded by the stuff at close range.

Re:photography

[Feztaa]

You should've read Bad Astronomy.

Re:photography

[frizzbit]

The light illuminating the front of the astronaut in the picture is coming from two main sources:

The main light source is the ground. Contrary to what the other poster said the lunar dust is NOT highly reflective - on average it only reflects around 7% of the incident light which makes it a dark grey color. But there's a lot of it around so overall it is probably the most significant source of light. The low reflectivity helps though, because it reduces the contrast between the background terrain behind the astronaut and the limited illumination of his front. You can see its effect by the fact that his legs, especially the lower parts, are better lit than his chest and right arm and shoulder.

The second light source is that gold foil covered lunar lander foot-pad you can see in lower right of the photo (as well as reflected in the visor) You can see its contribution in the yellow tinge of the parts of the spacesuit not directly lit by the sun. If the color you are seeing in the shadowed areas were the true color of the spacesuit then the sun-lit parts of the suit would also be that color - instead they're white - their color under white light.

Some light may also be provided by the the astronaut taking the picture and the lander he's standing next to. You can see them both reflected in the visor and can confirm they are only a few meters away and thus able to contribute to the illumination. The spacesuits are white which means they reflect around 50 % or more of the light falling on them. Much of the lander is also covered with gold foil.

There is also one other thing making the scene look "not right" to a photographer used to shooting terrestial scenes - the ground looks bright near the astronaut and dimmer in the distance. This is due to the reflectance properties of the lunar soil - there's a significant specular reflection component. This means that the soil reflects the most light were the angle of reflection is close to the angle of incidence.

Re:photography

[d474]

Look at the reflection in the helmet. If you look at the shadow of the head, there is a halo in the dust around it. That's because the light is shining brightest right back towards where it came from: behind the astronaut's head - the sun.

That's why the full Moon is so bright - both the fact that it's reflecting more light than the rest of the month, but also because the sun is almost directly behind us - all that dust is that much brighter. This is especially true before and after a lunar eclipse.

Re:RETRACTION - yep, parent is dumb! :)

[snake_dad]

Ironically, there are portions of the moon that are never exposed to the sun :) Granted, they are small areas in craters near the poles, but still.. the interesting aspect of that is that there might be ice in those spots. Very convenient for future manned moon missions. I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that some peaks near the poles are always exposed to the sun but I'm probably wrong on that one.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[canavan]

They'd better send someone up again, because the early flags planted on the moon are all lying in the dirt because they were blown over during the launch back to earth.

Is that a tweenkie?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Pic #3 stuck to the side of the lunar modual?

Re:RETRACTION - yep, parent is dumb! :)

[GlassUser]

Smaller and smaller factors that have escaped my sordid attempt at quick scientific thought. This, despite my attempt to head off the almost half light/always half dark loophole with eclipses. I've thoroughly learned my lesson!

Re:My Father and My Grandfather Were At NASA Then

[McCrapDeluxe]

Your dad was a missile commander. That's a really badass-sounding job.

Next up: The Reality Hoax

[NeuroManson]

None of us are really here, we're just figments of someone's imagination. We're ajahgdju*-
>Connection lost

Mission not a fake

[bach37]

So I guess this proves the mission wasn't a planned fake filmed in Area 54? (okay okay not funny....)

The first pic is testimony to power of technology

[bugnuts]

That first pic is a testimony to the amazing powers of technology. Anybody else see the naked ebay guy in the reflection off the helmet?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who still has his 7th-grade science textbook handy for quoting like this probably is as stupid as he appears to be.

That's easy!

[Glytch]

The laser was hoaxed! There was no laser, it was a flashlight. The ridiculous measurements were faked by the scientists involved.

Historical newspaper coverage

[Farce Pest]

Some of the old newspaper coverage from the first moon landing has recently become available again as well.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree!!!!!
http://kisskissing.blogspot.com/

Made in Mexico

[crane404]

Is it just me, or does the equipment look like crap. The panels look loose and its all held together with tar paper and gold electrical tape. I hope no alien finds it. They'll end up laughing at us and putting things in our butts for entertainment. It must feel weird to see footprints from the people who first put the flag there when you land. And to walk on that dusty ball that seems so empty and alone with earth so far away. I swear to God, I want to go there and make a Snow-Angel. Professionalism be damned!

Re:Made in Mexico

[crane404]

Sorry, I'm an idiot. I didn't read it and thought this was from a more recent landing and that they were taking pictures of the footprints and stuff left from Apollo 11

I guess the flag blew over when they took off for earth, that kinda sucks, but I'm glad superman put it back up when he was fighting the superbadman that Gene Hackman made.

If you WERE to go back, it would be amazing to see the footsteps of those before you. It's so surreal and eerie.

National Geographic Map of the Moon from 1969(ish)

[Hamster Lover]

Labels the side of the Moon that faces Earth, "Near Side", and the side of the Moon that always faces away from the Earth, "Far Side".

One of my most treasured National Geographic Maps.

FYI

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[ScottSpeaks!]

At least you had the willingness to consider what others were telling you, the intelligence to understand it, and the maturity to admit your mistake. You'll go a lot farther in life than the kid who just keeps laughing and saying "nuh-uh", and then stomps away in defiant ignorance when a critical mass of people have pointed out to him that he's in error.

What?

[zantolak]

The moon landing was faked, you insensitive clod!

crosshairs?

[Doc Ruby]

Why do NASA photos always have those crosshairs across them? I figure they're probably for calibration, to identify the exact coordinates of objects in the images. But they detract from the beauty of the images, although they are a trademark motif. Why not keep the crosshairs in the margins only?

Re:crosshairs?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had rayguns in their spacesuits and the camera (which were mounted on the chest area of the suit) also served as a targetting viewfinder for the gun system.

Teaser

[adius]

I'll cherry-pick a few for you: 1, 2, 3. --Thats like strapping a stick with food tied at the end. You are so cruel.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

German leader?

And, exactly how many Canadian engineers from the Arrow program went to work for NASA?

Oh, you don't know. What a surprise.

First Post?

[embedded_C]

They should have scribbled "First Post" in the surface of the moon.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[geekoid]

it's:
Near side
and
Far Side.

Not light and dark side.
If you want something that has a dark side, I suggest you get in contact with a Sith lord.

Where are the stars?

[OlaL]

Just wondering... I did not look through all the pictures, but I did start to wonder that where are the stars? Shouldn't they be visible on e.g. the Earthrise sequence pictures?

Re:Where are the stars?

[Stevyn]

Nope. The sky is black because there is no atmosphere, but the ground is bright and sunlit. Since the ground is so bright, the camera must be adjusted to correctly expose the ground and the astronaughts. If they adjusted the camera by exposing the film longer to catch the light from the stars, the ground would have appeared extremely bright and over exposed.

This is simple photography basics. You can try this out yourself by standing in a very brightly lit room at night time and then going outside. You'll notice all the stars are gone. But in a few moments, your eyes will adjust to let more light in and you'll see the stars. Now go into that very brightly lit room and you'll squint because you're "overexposing" your retinas.

I hope that clears it up. It's a common thing for hoax promoters to claim this is "proof," but they're just dumb asses

Re:You want pics??? Re:I hate you!

[Anonymous Coward]

What has she been eating?

seriously, WTF is it with deviants like the person who posted that crap? what's the point?

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Ayaress]

A little technicality about the flag is that it's not standing up anymore. The films from the Apolo 11 launch show that it got knocked over in the engine wash, as did the Apolo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 flags as well, most likely. They were mostly there to look pretty on the cameras, not to stay where they were put.

Re:Close enough, if slower than our return to spac

[Pharmboy]

Actually, I just witnessed the slashdotting. Got the page. Got a "missing" error. Got a blank page. Got a "down for maintenance". All about 30secs from each other. But the home page for them works fine, loads fast. My guess is they are pissed that /. deeplinked them or something, so put up a "fuck you, we are down" page.

So i clicked on them a few hundred times just to be sure, and wrote a script on my linux box:

#!/bin/sh
white true
do
wget -m -p http://www.apolloarchive.com/ &
done

Just to make sure I get copies of the purdy pictures ;)

For those who still needed to be convinced..

[tinkerton]

This buried transcript showing what really happened is yet another proof that the powers that be rewrite history to create the myths that suit them.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[GlassUser]

Looks like I can forget a career in politics too . . .

Heres a point

[Uplore]

If they really used this particular module to land on the moon, and if this is the area they landed on, then why is the 'moon' dust right next to the landers pad soft, fluffy and showing footsteps?(Picture 2)

This dust would have been blown clear back to hard rock by the force of hot gas created by the rockets required to stop the lander impacting into the moon.

Damm Skywalker labs

[Anonymous Coward]

I want the original photos, not the George Lucas "Special Edition" photos!

Re:Those pics are fake!

[09za]

interesting
since we can't see STARS in the photos, what might the bright object reflecting of the astronauts face shield be? It's located near the top of the mask almost center.
I'm not trolling here...I wonder if anyone else saw it? using EZ magnifier you can see it is not part of the mask and is clearly a reflection in the sky above the surface of the moon. the sun is shining from the right and this is clearly not the sun...so what is it?
BTW isn't a little too easy to call me nuts? provide an explanation or I'm going to have to assume it's one of John Glens "fireflies"
if you don't know what I mean by that try to find the "the smoking gun: the secret NASA transmissions" video tape which shows hundreds of examples of luminous balls of light that appear to move with intelligence.
Again, calling me crazy is very very easy to do and does not negate the presence of these anomolies.find an explanation, then call me crazy

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

So NASA's wrong, but your (probably religiouis) textbook is right?

If the book said the world was flat and riding on top of an infinite pile of turtles, would you believe that too?

I've got to hand it to you though, you really stick by your beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Strong dogmatic beliefs about science.

So tell me, is there anywhere in the bible (or whatever religious text your textbook is based on) that makes reference to the "dark side" of the moon? You're either a persistent troll or true to your belifes because you're afraid of going to hell. Or both. Help me understand you.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Finuvir]

I believe 'dark side' is used to refer to the near side of the moon because it has the dark maria ('seas' of volcanic rock) that the far side lacks (since the far side is constantly being hit by meteors which break them up).

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[cmpalmer]

Well, if I was being pedantic about it, I would say the light side is the one the sun is shining on and the dark side is the one where it isn't.

Seriously though, I've always assumed that the dark side was the far side, whether it was actually dark or not.

Yeah, like John Aaron

[littlecindylouwho]

You know, of SCE to AUX fame. Now THAT was an engineer!

Re:Apollo 11

[gl4ss]

.. compression artifacts?

they're 'digitally enhanced' anyways and photoshopped to the moon so who fuckin cares. could be lens information too.

Where are the stars?

[wb1967]

Does anyone no if any of these pics have any stars in? Apart from the sun and the ones with the flag ;-)

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Finuvir]

Yes, the far side being called dark does seem to be quite common. I'm sure I've seen or heard the near side being refered to like that though, for the reason I stated. 'Far' and 'near' are of course much better terms to distinguish them.

Why don't you do it

[syousef]

What's stopping you from pointing a web spider at the site, downloading the images and re-uploading to Kazaa? :-) Oh wait. Copyright law. That's right!

[Disclaimer: This is a joke. While technically easy I'm not advocating theft of NASA Intellectual Property.]

Re:Why don't you do it

[davmoo]

Technically it wouldn't be theft of NASA IP, since NASA is a government division and therefore "owned" by "the people". NASA has never restricted the use of its images for non-commercial purposes, and mostly not for commercial use either, provided that proper attribution to NASA is given in the materials. That's why there are all those wonderful CDs and DVDs of NASA material available.

Re:Why don't you do it

[syousef]

Technically it wouldn't be theft of NASA IP, since NASA is a government division and therefore "owned" by "the people". NASA has never restricted the use of its images for non-commercial purposes, and mostly not for commercial use either, provided that proper attribution to NASA is given in the materials. That's why there are all those wonderful CDs and DVDs of NASA material available.

First of all your argument that its a government body therefore owned by the people therefore you can do what you like with the pictures is just plain wrong.

Secondly making CDs and DVDs and selling them is a commercial venture. Those companies doing that would have needed to come to some sort of agreement with NASA first UNLESS they're arguing purely educational use. NASA I believe has always had a policy of allowing use of material released for educational purposes. Its a fine line and someone in that company would have checked NASAs position on the issue.

Google for the phrase "selling zoo photography" and you'll see just how free publicly funded institutions can be.

Re:Why don't you do it

[richie2000]

Or, you could have just read the frigging notice:

No copyright is asserted for NASA photographs. If a recognizable person appears in a photo, use for commercial purposes may infringe a right of privacy or publicity. Photos may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by NASA or by any NASA employee of a commercial product, process or service, or used in any other manner that might mislead. Accordingly, it is requested that if a NASA photograph is used in advertising and other commercial promotion, layout and copy be submitted to NASA prior to release.

NASA photos reproduced from this archive should include photo credit to "NASA" or "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" and should include scanning credit to Kipp Teague or other individuals or agencies as noted.

Re:Why don't you do it

[syousef]

Fair enough. Since they've effectively said they assert no copyright, they'd be on shakey ground even if implicit copyright exists. This looks to me like they've given permission, so the usual cautions don't apply. I withdraw my disclaimer :-)

Re:Why don't you do it

[davmoo]

I should have said so in my original post, but I actually knew NASA's policy because I've worked for a couple of companies that were using NASA photos. That's what prompted me to post in the first place.

I should have also been a bit more specific and said "federal government". Local and state government, as well as "publically funded institions" may be different, and I've never had much dealings with them to know. But on the federal government level, its damned hard for them to copyright anything produced in-house and most such work is considered to be in the public domain. In fact, I can't think of a single example of something that isn't...feel free to point me to an example of copyrighted federal government material produced in-house if you are aware of a specific example.

Re:My Father and My Grandfather Were At NASA Then

[jelle]

Great photos! those ashtrays in the audience room of the mercury launch control cracked me up!

Equipment envy

[Rod Strongo]

Makes me want a Hassleblad. Also makes me want a spacesuit...now THAT would be cool! Strongo

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your fucking head. If the moon had a "dark side", it would be dark because the sun was on the other side of it, which would mean we could only see the dark side of the moon DURING THE DAY.

Slashdotted!

[Malevolyn]

This note made me laugh:

Please Note: There is currently a problem with the server on which the majority of the images linked here are located. The new Apollo 11 scans, however, have been moved to an alternate server and should be accessible via the links. This problem should be corrected soon.

houston,we have a problem

[Anubis350]

nasa's sys admin: houston, our servers have a problem....

Where have you been?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my family has worked for Nasa and some still do. These pictures have been around for years. My uncle worked for NASA and has these pictures framed in his home office. He now works for USA (United Space Alliance). We participate in the Annual AIA sandcastle compitition in GAlveston, TX and used picture #1 As a reference for our theme. We all had our own little print out.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has his science textbook from when he was 14 is probably 15. This exlains his inability to believe that the crap he was taught is incorrect.

Honeysuckle creek

[rynthetyn]

There's a great movie about that tracking station called The Disn, which I'd highly recommend.

Armstrong was not a brilliant pilot...

[Anonymous Coward]

...according to Chuck Yeager, who WAS a brilliant pilot, probably the best in the world. Here's a story he retells in his biography (from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/yea0int-6? hb=0)

Q: Tell us about that incident with Neil Armstrong, was it in the X-15?

A: No, not the X-15. The X-15 which Neil was flying, about six other pilots were flying at the same time like Pete Knight, Bob White, Bob Rushworth and Joe Engle, it flies just like the old X-1. The X-15 is launched from a mother aircraft, within gliding distance of a dry lake bed. Since the X-15 was getting up to speeds of four and five times the speed of sound, you obviously couldn't launch it over Rogers Dry Lake. It had to be backed up and launched over a dry lake bed, like Mud Lake in Nevada or Smith's Ranch Lake, up east of Fallon, Nevada, or some of the Panament Lakes in Nevada, and then make its run and recover at Rogers Dry Lake. If the dry lakes are wet, you can't land safely an airplane that comes in at a couple hundred miles an hour. You can tear off the gear or skid, and end up tumbling.

I was running the Aerospace Research Pilots School at that time, some time around '65, when NASA, or Paul Bickel who was the administrator of NASA there at Edwards, called me and said, "What do you think about Smith's Ranch Lake?" I said I was just up there yesterday in a B-57 looking at it, and it's wet. He said, "My guys say it isn't wet." So I said, "Be my guest." That's exactly what I said. He said "Would you go up there and land on it?" I said no I won't. It's wet. And he said, "would you ride with Neil in one of our airplanes?" I said, "Yeah, as long as I'm not responsible for anything that happens."

So I went over to NASA, and they had a T-33 and Neil was flying it. I took my chute and helmet over, and we just wore light flying suits and gloves. I got in the back seat and sat there. Neil taxied out and took off on the dry lake bed, we fly up to Smith's Ranch Lake, he backs off, comes in and he's going to touch down. I said, "Neil, the lake is wet." He said, "No I think it looks dry enough for me to just touch down, let it roll, and I'll add power and come back off." I said, "You get on that lake surface in a T-33, and it starts sinking in, you're never going to overcome the drag with the power, if you are at about 5000 feet elevation where the lake bed is." And that's exactly what happened.

He came in, touched down, the airplane starts slowing down, he puts full power on it, it keeps slowing down and, finally, it just stops and sinks in the mud. We are sitting there, shut it off, now what? We are thirty miles from a road, it's about 3:30 in the afternoon, it's cold and you've got 30 miles to walk with a thin flying suit on. Fortunately, Paul Bickel sent a Gooney Bird, a C-47 that NASA had down there, to follow us because he suspected something might happen. Good insurance. We sat there for about half an hour, sitting on the wing of the airplane. You could walk on the lake bed and it would leave footprints, but pretty soon the old Gooney Bird homed into sight. I got back in the airplane, put the battery switch on and turned the radio on. I said, "We only got one choice. If you land over next to the edge of the lake and keep the airplane rolling, you probably won't sink, and then we can get back off the ground. Give us time to walk over to the edge of the lake. Don't slow the airplane down. Keep the door open and we'll jump aboard."

And he did. He landed and slowed it down. He was leaving a pretty good rut in the lake, but he kept the power on and as he came by we ran along and jumped in the back end of the airplane. When we got back to Edwards, it was after dark. The T-33 sat up there, the Navy went out and recovered it a week later. It was just an experience. You know things because you live on those lake beds, like I had since 1945. And the guys, they don't use their head. That's a good example.

Q: It's not the most flattering picture of the man that walked on the moon.

A: Well, Neil was a pretty good engineer. He wasn't too good an airplane driver.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Citizen of Earth]

It's wrong... and there's NO point in linking to one of your own comments as proof

But he is also providing us with the 10 reply comments telling him that he is an idiot and that the Grade-8 "science" book he is quoting is wrong (must be from Kansas!). Even a 14-year-old should be able to see the contradiction in the moon rotating the Earth, always facing the sun, and exhibiting phases.

Re:Is it possible to see any of equpment from Eart

[hcdejong]

No
Quote: "It's clearly impossible for an optical telescope on the Earth to resolve any of the Apollo hardware on the Moon, since the best systems, using adaptive optics in the near-infrared, can resolve details of maybe 0.02 arcsec. A lunar lander of width 5 meters, at a distance of 382,000 km, subtends an angle of 0.003 arcsec. The Hubble Space Telescope isn't appreciably closer the Moon, and its best resolution is about 0.03 arcsec in the near-UV. Not good enough."

Re:Close enough, if slower than our return to spac

[Anonymous Coward]

How clever.

Re:There is an american flag on the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what he said?

too much light to see the stars

[bandy]

The point being that in order to properly expose surface features, the LEM, and the other astronaut, the film didn't have enough light coming from the stars to make an image. Hence, my example of "you can't see stars during the day" [but they're still there].

Re:too much light to see the stars

[hughk]

Oh, I agree 100%. The contrast range to be able to capture stars and surface is way outside that of any normal film. One of the points also made was the regolith has a very reflective property, so if you stand with your back to the sun, and look along the line of the incoming rays, the surface will appear to much brighter.

That's Mercury

[Anonymous Coward]

Mercury has one side always facing the Sun, not the moon. IT wobbles a tiny bit, but the tidal forces on tiny Mercury form the sun have locked it "sunny-side-up", so to speak.

Re:Is it possible to see any of equpment from Eart

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Axis of Good intelligence services can read a number plate on your car from orbiting satellites, but we cannot spot several tons of alleged spacecraft sitting on the moon with no atmosphere?

Yeah right.

Cough ** hoax *** cough.

Re:Is it possible to see any of equpment from Eart

[hcdejong]

KH-12 satellites are reported to have a 3 cm resolution for objects on earth. That would translate to a 30 m resolution for objects on the moon (1000x the distance, remember?), so even a KH-12 wouldn't be able to see a LEM.

And even if they could, do you think the "space program is a hoax" morons would believe the CIA?