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Apollo 11 TV Tapes Go Missing
Richard W.M. Jones writes "On July 21st 1969, Honeysuckle Creek observatory brought us the first TV pictures of men on the moon. The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards.
Unfortunately
John Sarkissian of Parkes Observatory Australia
reports that 698 of the 700 boxes of original tapes have gone missing [warning: large PDF] from the
U.S. National Archives.
Even more worryingly, the last place on earth which can actually read these tapes is scheduled to close in October this year.
The PDF contains interesting comparisons which show that if all you've seen are the TV pictures from the landing, you really haven't seen the first moon walk in its full glory."
I knew I forgot to return those rental tapes.
I wonder if I can talk them out of the late fees again.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Incontrovertible proof that the moon landing was faked is convenently "lost" by the national archives while Bush II talks about going "back" to the moon.
oh no more coverup talk will soon follow.
if all you've seen are the TV pictures from the landing, you really haven't seen the first moon walk in its full glory
Now you tell me. Thanks for the early heads up.
Oh, BTW, you missed seeing Halley's commet in your lifetime a few years ago.
If the one place that can read them is closing, does it matter if you can't find what is essentially bunch of unreadable media?
On the other hand, how do you loose almost 700 boxes? You'd think that 700 boxes of stuff would kind of stick out.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
So the actual 'raw' proof that men were walking on the moon is gone. How convenient.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
They are hidden in the underground television studio at Area 51 where they faked the moon landing.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Please, nowadays a kid with an HD camcorder and a copy of Finalcut Pro could fake the moon landing for millions of dollars less than the 1969 production. I'm sure we'll see a bunch of new footage appearing on YouTube any day now!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
You know, that we walked on the moon in 1969. :)
j/k
ummm...Why weren't they backed up? Arn't you suppose to back up your data as often as possible?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
Quick! Convert them to HD-DVD, er, Blu-Ray, er...
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
They let me on the Warner Bros backlot where the first Apollo landings were filmed back in the 1960s (my dad was friends with the guy they hired to dump the "lunar sand" in the studio). I had my 8 mm Kodak movie camera with me, and I still have some reels that I filmed myself during the shooting of important scenes. I'll put them on Youtube soon. (If you ever see the finished films, you'll see the edge of one of my footprints from when I strayed into the actual set in the "lunar soil" near Neil at one time. I'm surprised that, perfectionist as he was, Kubrick did not catch that and edit it out.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Firstly, Isn't this a dupe? And secondly, have they checked ebay yet?
Some dude brought them home for the weekend and they wound up being thrown into the trash by his wife.
It was Hanger 18.
:-)
They moved to Area 51 after everybody was talking about Hanger 18 all the time.
My mom says I'm cool.
Now I can prove once and for all that the moon landing was a fraud! So far in reviewing the tapes, I've seen dress-rehearsals, cables, stand-in props... Hell, you can even see a set-designer clad in overalls working on a matte painting in the background.
Fer criminy's sake, the tapes are labelled "Faked Moon Landing".
Your ass is mine, NASA!
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
We only walked on the moon in Hollywood not in Space!
You just know that one of the people working in the facility used them to tape episodes of Futurama and the Simpsons...
Does this make my brain look big?
In May, I was a speaker at the ACM Conference on Computers, Privacy, and Freedom (CFP). On the last day of the conference, one of the speakers was the guy in charge of digization efforts at the Smithsonian Musuem of the American Indian. (Granted, a different branch of the government than the National Archives, which this story pertains to). He said that digization efforts are hampered by a number of issues, not the least of which are the sheer size of the collection, the relatively small budget available, the extreme difficulty of digitizing some parts of the collection (like a 16-ton statue, for example). At this point, even getting an electronic catalogue of the entire collection would be a huge step forward.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Actually have slides, remember those from before digital cameras, that I took off the TV pictures showing them coming down the lader.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The RIAA was right after all.
It must have been those damn kids on botorrent and p2p networks!
So half the population of the US goes: "Man, the recordings of the world's first Hollywood simulation of the moon are all gone".
Full Tilt
Whoever has those tapes now,upload to youtube please! :p
Wincopy
I would mod you up had I the mod points.
This sig no verb.
These original DVD's from the CBS vaults were really interesting. They were mastered in 1969 using Amiga Video Toaster. It is probably no coincidence that they turned up missing about the same time Dan Rather left CBS. I wonder if Rather took the wrong boxes when he carted off those old 3.5" inch floppies containing the MS Word 97 docs George Bush's original military service records and archive copies of Bush's Myspace page from 1973.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Remember the last scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Boxes and Boxes and more Boxes.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Next up on Slashdot: Apollo 11 lands on the moon for the first time. The Party rejoices at such a successful mission, which has NEVER happened before.
I knew I forgot to return those rental tapes.
More like they'll show up on eBay.
There's always the possibility a retiring employee thought they wouldn't be missed. Or some overefficient bureacratic paper shuffler elected to do something about all those dusty boxes on the shelf which look utterly horrid (ever have one of these people sweep into your office and suggest your desk needs cleaning?) and would win some kind of medal if they could only dispose of them and put a spit shine on those shelves.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wouldn't you think that only the people who were THERE have seen the moon walk in ALL its glory? ;)
Ok, seriously, how can you lose ~99% of the data from something that is such a HUGE part of history? It is not like this was video of the 30th space shuttle launch or something, this was the first time humans had landed on the MOON. I would think that somebody would realize this and would have taken much more care of those tapes.
Since the PDF is slashdotted so I can't read it I also am curious as to why if "the last place on earth which can actually read these tapes" closes down someone won't be able to save whatever is required to read the tapes, are they just going to trash the machines? That would seem pretty stupid to me. Anyone have any answers?
The worst part is the conspiracy theorists claiming the landing never occurred are going to go nuts over this. Almost all the tapes of the landing mysteriously disappear as well as the only way to read the tapes, if I was one of them I would go nuts too.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
Does anyone think that the originals in the comparisons look worse than the TV versions?
It may have something to do with the way they got the image, but man, they're not really proving their point with 'em.
i found the release
NASA.faked.moon.landings.1969.LiMITED.VHSRip.Xvid
they didn't "go" anywhere. they don't have legs. someone lost them, but it sounds better to say they may have went missing on their own.
I mean that's just taking it way too far. To think that they actually faked the moon landing. ... ... ..
So what if they did plan to invade Cuba by shooting down a civilian airliner over Cuba and
then blaming Castro for it (Operation Northwood, if you're into FOIA documents), so what
if George W(anker) Bush's Grandpa Prescott cut Onkel Adolf a cheque every now and then and now
they're friends with BinLaden Terrorgroup Inc. so what if these people used unsuspecting
civilians and military unwittingly as subjects in radiation experiments,
The world saw it happen on TV and just because some cooky people have come out of the woodwork
to point out that many lights and shadows on the official footage of the moon landing are obviously
not what they should be if the images were "real", that still doesn't mean they're right. If
they were right, don't you think it would have come to light decades ago and they would have
had this on TV and in the newspapers??!
Your sir, are in desperate need of a heavy dose of reality here. I suspect you have been dodging
your weekly Ritalin injections for months now or else you wouldn't be having so funny ideas.
Nearly 700 copies of "A Star Wars Holiday Special" appeared in the trash around LucasFilm that had been taped over some old media George had obtained from NASA years ago.
Why were the original US moon landing tapes stored in an Australian observatory!!??
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
we never went to the moon! ;-)
Congratulations! You've reached the same status as the parent post - I have no idea if you're serious or not, but either way I still have to laugh at what you wrote.
No chance Sandy Berger was in there looking at them. Check his socks. And his trash. At home. rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This is terrible. We know that in the far future the crew of the Battlestar Galactica intercept some of these recordings but it seems that they just miss the transmissions from the moon. These recordings are doomed to be lost forever.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It's "How can the government lose 698/700 boxes?"
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure. And before y'all attribute it to conspiracy theories, I remind you: Don't attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
in our genetics studies.
It's easy to copy, you can write on it, it's not power dependent, and in a pinch you can use it to start a fire.
Plus, if you drink coffee, the rings make pretty pictures.
At least they didn't use BetaMax for the moon landings.
But check Cheney's basement, he probably removed it "for official viewing" and has decided we don't get to see them.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Government and the general public education system (arguably = Government at this point) are arguably the slowest and least likely to "keep up" with changes in society and technology.
Because career employees in the "Public Service Sector" function almost as Tenured Professors's, virtually by design, there is little way to make government entities "perk up", as you can't get rid of positions or employees who are not keeping up. Solution = add more departments (more tax dollars).
There have been debacles with the IRS computer system, no computer system of note at the FBI, no interacting computer systems amongst security agencies, and now State Department web site hacking and military members' personal data stolen.
Some times it takes a revolution to get progress. I hope the revolution starts at the ballet box, not the bullet box like the Middle East. Hopefully our U.S. Federal Government figures out how to safely store things, whether it is the National Archives or the Nuclear Archives. Geesh!
The national archives flooded a couple weeks ago, if you were remotely in the north east, you would have known that. All of DC basically shut down, essentially opening the doors to anybody who wanted to grab anything. IF it had been faked, they wouldnt have kept the video in the archives in such high quality. Every claim to be faked has been proven wrong
Do not worry, dear consumers! The tapes have not gone "missing". The studio that made the original landing footage simply took it back to their labs to Digitally Re-Master it for the Special Limited Collector's Edition DVD, which will be out by Christmas. Since the original director (Kubrik) is gone, they will have directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg collaborate on this wonderful new addition to the Disney(TM) Classics(TM) Collection(TM).
New, never-before scenes will be inserted into the middle of the old, staid footage!
Tom Hanks will replace Neil Armstrong through the magic of digital effects!
Kristie Alley will be Buzz Aldrin, adding an exciting new romantic subplot to the mission!
A lovable animal sidekick will have your kids squealing in delight!
Gagarin shoots first!
Master directors Spielberg and Lucas will also modernize the plot and imagery to give a fresh, "post-2001" look!
The American flag, such an archaic-looking symbol (that didn't test well with audiences overseas), will be replaced with a pleasant, pastel blue UN flag. The ugly SUV 'lunar rover' will be digitally removed, and replaced with bicycles which the astronauts will pedal about the moon. The President will be updated to be a Texan oil millionaire conducting a needless war in Asia, who commander Michael Collins (played by academy award-winner Liam Neeson) will denounce for "having turned to the dark side". The "Cold War" sideplot will be updated to be a "Temporal War On Terror", which will feature terrorists from the future attempting to fly the Space Shuttle Columbia into the White House! Can our heroes stop them 'in time'?!
This and other new changes will keep the franchise fresh and exciting to today's viewers, and like Star Trek: Enterprise, will boldly re-write history that no one but nerds cares about anyways!
Apollo 11: The Special Limited Collector's Edititon: Coming Christmas 2006 - collect all 6 covers!
Sandy greeted at home by his wife after an innocent visit to the archives: "Is that a sensitive national security dossier in your briefs, or are you just glad to see me?"
Where were you when the voynix came?
The most convincing evidence against most of the massive government conspiricy theories is: how can an entity suddenly perform a massive cover-up operation so competently, when they manage to screw up everything else they do?
no guys, we lost those boxes! We don't have the data because WE LOST IT! We went to the moon and made the tapes, we just lost it! dumb comnspiracy theorists. I'll bet your suspicious of this "supposed" "motherhood" and "apple pie" too...
I saw Michael Jackson in concert back in '86. I doubt that the '69 moonwalk would compare.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Just keep Lucas away from the thing. I'll be damned if I'm going to see Gungans greet Armstrong as he steps foot on the lunar surface. "Ona step for gungans, ona giganta leep for meesa!". However, I have to admit, I would welcome a space battle as the lunar module struggles to complete its landing. In fact, really looking forward to Jerry Bruckheimer adding huge slow-motion fireballs in space depicting the competing Russian modules getting blown up.
Where were you when the voynix came?
!No mas! Please, I'm begging you, no more faked-moon-walk replies. 95% of this comment page should be modded "redundant."
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
It's been said that future generations will regard the next few decades as a dark age, where the culture lost most of its common heritage. This will supposedly come about because so much audio and video is mouldering away (sometimes literally), locked in vaults where it will rot before anyone can recover it. While such factors as copyrights much longer than the physical life of the archival media are likely to contribute to this, the loss of these tapes is an example of another cause.
Why do so many people think Colombus discovered America? He got it into the permanent record, where the vikings, chinese, etc. didn't. Will Neal Armstrong be the Lief Ericson of the 26th century, and some one from the Chinese, Indian or Nigerian space program get all the credit, because they kept thir records?
Who is John Cabal?
Congratulations! You've reached the commendable status of first AO Score:0 post I've read that was quite funny!
It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.
The Dish is the lighthearted 'adapted' history of the Parkes observatories role in the tracking and transmission of the first lunar landings. Quite funny if you get Australian humour.
Because most likely they were stolen by NASA employees/managers, government contractors, or "given" (improperly) to elected officials. There a case within the last few years where someone found a storage room at NASA chock full of stuff including two space suits. The stuff was supposed to have gone to the Smithsonian, but oops, gee, donchaknow, it just mysteriously ended up in a storage room nobody knew anything about.
Rumsfield had a piece of the airplane that hit the Pentagon, as a showpiece- almost like a trophy. There were plenty of other examples of thefts. I doubt any of the victim's families saw so much as a pebble. In the executive branch of the federal government the World Trade Center site was like a free-for-all memento/souvineer stop. I'd be astounded if visiting officials at NASA didn't have the same 'sticky fingers'.
Please help metamoderate.
Just go to http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/tapes/Se arch_for_SSTV_Tapes.pdf :) The story had Coral Cache URL. =)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
..."Those tapes tried to proof the lunar landing was a hoax... why do you need video when you have photos of rocks that definetly DON'T cast shadows in different directions?, it was just a camera thingy, sure NASA paid a lot of dough for them but the lunar atmosphere screwed everything up".
Please stop the conspiracy theories, not swearing on a bible on something that happened doesn't prove anything.
I can't wait to hear how consipracy theorists are going to spin this one.
The problem is just that they still need to be edited, because the higher fidelity versions clearly show "Capricorn One" on the patches.
(Mars, Moon, what's the diff?)
I think I used those tapes to record several episodes of "Too Close For Comfort". I mean, JM Bullock!
-- Of course I'm paranoid. I'm a sysadmin.
And the police officers will all be holding walkie talkies.
... when I was working on the Mars Observer Project,
a side project of the team was to transcribe old
Lunar Orbiter slow scan TV tapes. We had a bunch
of the old tapes, and were refurbishing one of the
old tape players. This was back in 1989. I'm not
sure what came of it. Perhaps the folks at Malin Space Science Systems
(http://msss.com) would know.
This obsession with information as eternal property, causes the higher quality original to be locked away in some safe. While very high quality originals (and ability to create high quality copies) may exist, those who profit from the copies will only allow lower quality copies to be made, to maximize the number of times to re-sell the copy. Meanwhile if the "owner" looses interest, the original fades into nothing. The surviving copies would likely be the most common, low quality copies, or perhaps nothing at all if the DRM serves is purpose.
... DRM model can only lead to "dark" data in a new dark information age.
The eternal information property
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure.
Someone obviously did not properly fill out form: ZT082-7465-826/AYG-46-B_1.03
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
What do they mean closing? I mean, wouldn't someone else buy the hardware that the current place is using for purposes such as this? Or are they melting the hardware down?
You would think tapes such as these would already be converted to a more current media or atleast be in a secure location. How can you lose something as important as the first walk on the moon?
Things like this don't help support the claims that we walked on the moon now do they?
I still can't believe the LAST place the play these very tapes is CLOSING in October, what is it a movie theatre?
Not really that convincing, Blibbler. Maybe they slip up on purpose once in a while to take your mind off of
other things they don't want you thinking about at the moment. Personally I have only scratched the very top
of the iceberg here and I even think that the little information advantage I have over you is because they
want me to have it.
B) What the heck is a "high quality slow-scan tape" anyway? SSTV is done using AUDIO, so all you need is a standard audio tape and you've got as high a quality as you need. There is no way anyone mistakenly recorded The Simpsons over these, unless you recorded just the audio track.
Does it surprise anyone they are missing, neglected, with no funding for perpetually archiving the results?
If a tree falls in the wood, and there is no proof, was a sound made?
Do the presidential libraries suffer that fate?
That critical things that the US (or any) Government is actually responsible for is, once again, messed up?
They are like an unfocused, irresponsible child, except they have big guns, our credit card with unlimited limit, and the legal system to perpetuate it.
If I am out of line consider Katrina, War on Terror, Social Security, the scandals, Halliburton, energy prices, approach to global warming, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Dumbasses all around.
I have only one counter-argument that I think is sufficient = the russians.
..ofcourse there might be some ppl that believe the whole cold war was staged... but hey, there are many levels of paranoia
The trip to the moon was not a secret plan as spoutnik was, and everyone knew
the americans were going to the moon, so the russians must have closely followed and tracked
the whole mission.
If this was a fake mission the russians would have been the first to report it (they wer in 'cold' war anyways)
See The Dish and you'll understand. It takes place at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Aus. Actually, it's a pretty good movie - especially for folks like 'us'.
The tapes are sitting next to the missing Dr. Who eps?
There is lots of evidence that we landed on the moon (900 pounds of moonrocks being a good part of it). But to say, "I know we landed on the moon 'cause I saw it on my Tee Vee!" is ridiculous.
Considering the low resolution television images that came back, it would have been very easy to fake it.
Just wait until "Apollo XIII: Brokeback CSM".
top men
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Since bush has taken office they have been classifying information that before was public information. This info in most cases have no national security significance. It is of interests to the academic. Much of our history is now out of our reach due to the desire to replace our history with their neo conservative definition of our past.
Also the EPA library will soon be shut away from the public. We paid for that info, now we will have to pay for it again, assuming that we will have any access. national weather service hurricane info is being privatized too.
photosMy Photostream
Sounds like someone needs to take these tapes and copy them to DVD, if they are found again.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
These are also the people who are supposed to keep track of such important documents as the U.S. Constitution. Can someone please photocopy it just in case it gets misfiled? kthxbye
And the brethren went away edified.
Don't worry though, once sales of this version die down, the old crusty one will be released on DVD just so you can buy it all again in order to see the version you remember from the 60s. And then there's the Blu-Ray version! And HD-DVD! Both with slightly different content, so you need to buy both!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
At least people in the future will have a source of random numbers.
Just shine a laser tracker at one of these "compact disc" things and the odd random bits will jump back out completely meaninglessly.
liqbase
Then certainly, we shouldn't bother returning to the moon because it's "been done."
Actually - I'm a "let the robots explore space while we control them remotely here on terra" but you know, whatever.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
So, how is 10FPS with 320 lines of definition higher quality than 30FPS with 525 lines of definition? Not that having the originals isn't a good idea, but the writeup is very misleading.
... and then they built the supercollider.
TOP MEN!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
suspiciously white coming off the crater ri...
Several people I have spoken to heard Armstrong getting very excited (a rare event from my understanding of the man) and say those words before transmission was cut. They were glued to the television watching the moon landings.
I have no doubt man went to the moon. The signals of the moon landing came via the Parkes observatory in Australia and were viewed by the australian public.
I've never thought that the moonlandings were faked, but I have always wondered about those statements repeated from people who watched the moon landings live in australia.
So asides from loosing some articles of HISTORY that are vitally important, there is no way to confirm these anecdotal statements before that generation dies. Oh yes, very convenient indeed.
and this is the government we're trusting for our retirement, security, and protection from scourges like bird flu?
vote out ALL incumbents this November. all of them. and let's change all the priorities completely.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I do not think the prefix "pico-" means what you seem to think it means. Do you mean "petabytes"?
See also, "terabytes".
I worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1976-77 and know that Neil and CO. watched the tapes during debriefing of the mission, then later got to re-view with family.
"look dear, that's MY foot making that footprint!"
Okay that alledged "quote" I made up, as I was not there for debriefing (before my time there), but wouldn't you?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"With the use of modern image processing techniques, it is hoped that the original high quality TV images can be restored for public viewing before the magnetic data tapes deteriorate beyond repair." Is it likely the originals are still in good condition? 37 years is a long time for archiving magnetic media. This also implies that there are no high-quality, first-generation backups: what utter negligence! Nixon's 18 minute gap should have been sufficient warning!
If you read through the PDF, Sam Preecs was the agency official who signed off on the storage order at the Goddard Space Flight Center. He is "the most likely person to know where the tapes are" according to the paper. So put an APB on Sam Preecs.
Mumble mumble mumble...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Is this the proof that the landing really was faked??
Loss or deterioration of the physical medium is the simplest to deal with, yet is an area where failure is seen currently.
Loss of codecs or data specs is another: who's going to fund/spend time reverse engineering a format or codec just to read a file to see if it is worth reverse engineering or decoding? DRM adds a whole new dimension to data loss. When the keys or authorization is lost, the file and it's contents are essentially lost.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people go on about not attributing to malice what can adequately explained by stupidity or incompetence. With the case of the missing Apollo 11 tapes the are arguments for a case of malice, indifference or simple incompetence. And any of these can be the direct result of political appointees, rather than qualified individuals. But guess what, whether malice, indifference, or incompetence, the results are the same: lost data (which was damned expensive to acquire and/or irreplaceable) and lost cultural heritage.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Once in a while?
I guess conspiracy theories are the new religion of the overly book-intelligent, under social-developed, eh?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Something like this happened with the Gospel of Judas. It was found in the desert, preserved by the aridity, and passed through a few hands to a Swiss antiquities dealer. He wanted $3 million for it; when he couldn't get it he stashed it in a safe deposit box, for 17 years, where it rapidly crumbled away. Finally in 2000 it was sold and they spent 5 years reassembling and restoring it; but about 20% was lost.
If greed can almost destroy a gospel, none of our cultural heritage is safe.
You can find anything on there :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Either that or NASA is embarrassed at the bad grammar in Neil Armstrong's quote: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
It's missing the word "a" before "man." In the context as stated, the word "man" means the same thing as "mankind."
Same thing. The quote should have been: One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Ooops!
"That's no moon..."
Its for comments like this that I believe Slashdot's "Score:5, Funny" should be capable of being cranked all the way up to 11...
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another."
Funniest post ever on Slashdot
If they can lose about 99% of the greatest victory in the Cold War, what else did they lose? Will they conveniently lose the Constitution too within a few years so we can't prove our rights anymore? Will they lose all laws on privacy, free speech, ... that would be convenient now wouldn't it.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Why doesn't NASA? Wikipedia SSTV article
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
I have 900lbs of mooon rocks if you want to buy them...............
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
If this observatory filmed the moon walk, then they should be able to use it to take pictures of the Lunar Rover, and LM module. I would expect this to put hitch in the conspiracy theory nuts' claims.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
900 lbs of Moon rock is proof we were on the moon? Well, if you have 900 lbs of Pluto rock it would be more believable you went to Pluto. Why? Well, the close proximity of the moon to our planet makes it very likely you can find 900 lbs of moon rock on Earth without needing to go to the moon for it.
The Dish was a fun movie, and the Parkes Observatory folks are happy with the publicity it got them.
The Dish is also a work of fiction (though a delightful one). The real story is available and makes a fascinating read.
The Visitor's Centre at Parkes has the replica control console they made for The Dish on display. The real one had long since been upgraded. I've been there: it's a short drive north of Parkes, NSW. A town of strip malls and fast food: the exterior shots in The Dish were done in Forbes, the next town down the highway.
The bit in the film about getting the Moon's coordinates wrong because they weren't in the nothern hemisphere really happened. They also had a major technical problem at a bad time, but it was a blown-up television scan converter.
And, yes, it's still in the middle of a sheep paddock...
...laura
Why don't these Govt archives store the data on a none volatile medium.
What about storing the data on glass, You can etch the data into the surface of the glass with some type of laser/chemical combination.
Ive seen 3D images laser etched into a glass block, why not ones and zero's ?
Anyway just an idea.
from the moon to see it (or more).
Fair enough - but 900lbs? No meteorite or spacebourne detritus that big has fallen to earth for thousands of years. Good luck finding moon rocks on earth. To fake moon rocks you would have to have to crush "them under 1000 atmospheres of pressure, while keeping them at 1100C for a few years. Then while keeping under pressure, you would have to cool them slowly for a few more years." - Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Yeah, that always bothered me too. Neil Armstrong testifies that he did say it with the 'a' as would be logically expected. It was lost somewhere in transmission. It's pretty hard to overcome the incompetence of bad reporting though, especially when it gets repeated thousands of times the wrong way. Unfortunately, Armstrong is reclusive and doesn't get the word out enough about his actual quote. The official records and transcripts were amended upon Armstrongs request, for anyone who cares to verify it.
m l
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/misquotes.ht
TV may be low resolution, but there were several things you could see that still would have only been possible in an airless environment and a substantially lower gravity. Many of those scenes could not have been faked in a studio, even today, let alone in 1969. While one may try to argue that they were faked with photorealistic animation, that leaves the nasty problem of actually GETTING photorealistic animation.... in 1969. Oh... but that creates yet another conspiracy: that NASA and the government had more computing power available to them in 1969 than modern movie studios with huge render farms have today. And it just gets worse from there... one has to keep inventing more extravagant and obviously contrived excuses about why we can't possibly find any evidence for the truth while simultaneous suggesting that all the evidence that might contradict their theory is "obviously" planted which just goes to further "prove" the conspiracy. (insert rolling eyes expression here).
It's about on par with a Jehovah's Witness trying to say that the geological evidence for an old planet was just put there by God to test our faith.
Any attempt at a rational discussion with a conspiracy theorist quickly devolves into a flurry of conjecture and hypothesis with no logical foundation. Occam's Razor be damned.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That the National Archives in America is just as incapable of looking after its material is depressing. They're only getting round to looking for the tapes now? Ok, so they're limited in money, so prioritize! Digitize the stuff that's utterly unique FIRST. They might still have found it stolen, but at least they'd have found it stolen around the time the theft happened, and have half a chance of recovering it. Right now, recovery is almost certain not to happen and even if they did, there won't be anything capable of extracting the information by the time they do.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And you correctly answer the question:
Ayup. And 700 boxes is probably just a fraction of a days intake at the National Archives.
Sadly, there's a significant portion of the Slashdot hivemind who blame everything on malice, conspiracy and Microsoft.
...on that shelf just below where the Ark of the covenant is stored ?
In 1970, the tapes were placed in the US National Archives in Accession #69A4099. By 1984, all but two of the over 700 boxes of Apollo era magnetic tapes placed in the Accession, were removed and returned to the GSFC for permanent retention. These tapes are now missing.
...
Accession Document #69A4099. Note: Sam Preecs is the Agency Official who signed the Accession. He is the most likely person to know where the tapes are. Where is Sam today?
I'd wager he's dead :
20. Samuel PREECS - U.S. Social Security Death Index
Birth: 18 May 1921 State Where Number was Issued: Indiana Death: 18 Feb 1993
21. Samuel PREECS - U.S. Social Security Death Index
Birth: 17 Nov 1889 State Where Number was Issued: Texas Death: Dec 1972
They "plan" every possible senario you can imagine. That's a ridiculously long way from actually doing it.
The Bush family is frendly with the most highly respected family in Saudi Arabia, second only to the Royal Family, who happen to share their last name with a terrorist? *Gasp*!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The tapes are missing because they may reveal that we already had a space station on the moon. It was a staging "base camp" for us to reach our real base on Mars. This is why the moon landing was faked.
Believe it.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't say that. But at least you spelled their name correctly. They don't believe in Evolution, most certainly, but they don't have a problem with the idea that the Earth is very old. It's quite obvious that the Earth has been around since long before the creatures living on it arrived.
..maybe the tapes show giant ants walking arround.. Probably the government doesn't want us to know about our giant ant like overlords.
-- # man women
In a few hundred years, everyone will think that the first people there were whalers singing "We're landing on the moon..."!
Sheesh, we've got such better technology these days, why waste tapes on that old stuff when you could be saving Top Gun and Magnum P.I.?
I love working out how you could fake the moon landings. Not that they were fake, but could it be done with 1969 technology in such a way that no one at NASA would be aware of it? I agree, I hear these stories of advanced computer graphics and I shake my head. NASA cannot be in on the joke--they have to believe that they have sent people to the moon.
For example, the video from Apollo 11 was in Black and White. This is far easier to manipulate than color and probably within the realm of 1969 analog technology. If you need bright light and sharp shadows, it's pretty much an adjustment to the contrast curve. I'm sure somebody could have built a camera to give grainy images with the appropriate contrast in order to hide wires and things like that.
Well, I think it's purely for entertainment purposes. Like I said, I think it's entertaining to think about how it could be done. But, after awhile, the complexity becomes overwhelming. You can, arguably, fake the video on the moon. But how do you fake the video from the CSM? That was color and much better quality. What about the film--both still and 16mm video--shot on the moon? And the moon rocks? They have to be able to pass the test by scientists. What about the reflectors and other instruments? They have to really be on the moon. It wouldn't do to have an earthquake in California and--amazing coincidence--one on the moon at the exact same time.
At this point, as you say, Occam's Razor applies. It would be easier to land people on the moon than to fake landing people on the moon.
I would expect at the National Archives there is room to lose nearly anything. I'd say, look behind the Ark of the Covenant...
Sadly, on the Russian side, one of the Space Museums was burned down in a dispute between two "protection" rackets, so many one-of-a-kind items, such as Yuri Gagarin's helmet and so forth, are lost forever.
This occurred some time ago; it is unfortunate there are no high resolution pictures of these items.
The single best collection I know of on Soviet space science would be Robert Kennedy's CD, at www [period] ultimax [period] com , which has many highly unusual events from the space program on it. Very interesting stuff indeed. Also very funny review of the physics of "Independence Day" indeed.
-- thanks,
Dave Small
I don't even want to believe that we live here and now in a world where the dumb jock types (read screaming monkeys) have got us into ANOTHER WAR and, here we go again, waisting 1.5 trillion (1500 X 1-billion) on more wars while R&D budgets dwindle away, important tapes from the moon landing get lost/stolen.
We really do need a massive development of new Nano/biotech to fix all the problems we currently have (energy sources, better computers, new Nani/biotech to fix diseases/fix aging etc), but noo, here we go and blow another 1.5 trillion on a stupid war for domination/control of the middle east oil resources...if we had spent that money on Nanotech/biotech right now..we could be growing solar cells, cars, houses, new computers (millions of times as powerful as the current tech we have) and we would have advanced Nano and AI for reversing aging, boosting intelligence, forget plastic surgery, just re-program your body with nanobots to improve/customize your looks, improve your intelligence, make your permanently in your 20's (age wise, with unlimited life spans), but noo, we waste another decade on war, Halliburton etc. same old crap, just new decade.
(The ironic thing is that you have to thank the current miltary (Darpa) for actually funding much needed nano basic research (how ironic, big business cant be bothered because they are too cheap), just goes to show that it will be surprising if we survive this century with any real advance tech (more advanced than todays tech).
I don't have a truckload of moon rocks, but I do have 900 pounds of something from Uranus.
This is just the beginning of the saga. Now with the evidence lost, 1000 years from now our ancestors will think whalers were the first on the moon..
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
;)
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
*cough* swimming pool *cough*
- Travel to the Moon was technically possible even in 1969. It just required shitload of money.
- No one has ever claimed that he was participating Faked Moon Landing creation. Usually, people tend to publish books about it because some of them still have concious.
- There is no real evidence of Faked Moon Landing and presented circumstational evidence is very questionable. Quite real evidence would be e.g. forgotten cigarette butt in dust of the Moon surface.
- In a Moon surface-like scene it's extremly hard to avoid all flaws, like undesired light reflections, air vs. vacuum issues and different gravity, especially in 1969. It is hard job even today.
I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.
The real moon conspiracy is not "Did we walk on the moon?" but "How did we get there?"
It appears to be reasonably clear that Americans were on the moon in the 60s (left intentionally vauge). But there are very significant problems with the Apollo story.
(#1) The most significant problem in the story is the Van Allen radiation belt. Go do your research on this sucker and the absolute lack of radiation shielding on the Moon lander. We are talking dead astronauts before they reach the moon. WAY BEFORE.
(#2) Fuel. If you know how to do the math, do the math. Could the Apollo actually propel the lander to the moon in the time it took? Or... go look it up... there are some interesting quotes by Wernher van Braun on the net about the size of rocket actually required (hint: bigger than Apollo).
(#3) Sound, Vibration and lack of exhaust burn/crater under the lander on the moon. Just watch the video of the lander (where is the sound and vibration from the thrusters). Then go look at the pictures of the lander on the moon (where is the charred earth and crator from the exhaust of the lander?)
(#4) The lander taking off from the moon. Go watch this one. Anyone with half a brain will find the video amazingly funny. A small pop and woosh! Off goes the lander like a rocket without exhaust...
But, the fact is, we do have equipment up there (laser reflectors, etc..) Much of the video footage really is unimaginable to fake and the rocks we have could not all have been found in Antarctica, right?
So, we are left with a mystery. The mystery isn't "did we go?". The mystery is "what is the secret behind how we got there?"
Can anyone say "Military technology"... Or perhaps "Advanced propulsion systems" ???
Am I a conspiracy nutbag or has the US been in possession of high aerospace technology (such as antigrav) for more than 40 years? You be the judge. But don't be hardheaded and blind.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
What these conspiracy theorists always forget is that we placed beacons on the moon which we "ping" with lasers constantly.
Behold more mass-media lies (part of the conspiracy no doubt) here!!
Even if the footage was all faked, and NASA was nothing but a PR department gone wrong, *something* qwnt to the moon and placed very specifically calibrated censors there, coincidentally, these censors have been used WORLDWIDE for some 40 years now. Fade back...Occum's razor trumps David Duchovny for the win.
barack to the future?
Back in 1989 the BBC wanted to do a 20 year retrospective on Apollo 11. They wanted to use their old tape of the landing, complete with commentary by Patrick Moore and James Burke, but found the tape had been reused to record an episode of "Brideshead Revisited". So they had to show the old CBS footage instead, with commentary by Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. In the UK we'd never seen Heinlein at that moment before. It was amazing. He was out of his seat, jumping up and down, shouting, "It doesn't matter any more! It doesn't matter any more! We can trash this planet!"
Now some might say this was a terrible and cynical reaction to the great event. Considering the values indicated by the loss of these tapes, and the lack of useful progress in the last 37 years (anyone remember DC-X), we might now recognise this as the realistic and hopeful response that it was.
I think that the strongest proof that the US landed on the moon was the absence of any attempt by the USSR to discredit the claim. Given that the space race was being used by both sides to demonstrate the superiority of capitalism/communism, I'm sure the Soviets would have shouted from the rooftops if there had been any faking going on. And i'm sure that Nasa etc. were sufficiently penetrated that such activity couldn't have been hidden from well placed moles.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
It is amazing for all the super sleuth conspiracy proponents can't quite get a grip that the missing tapes are _not_ the only source of the original TV tapes. That material is safely archived at NASA on both kinescope and videotape. Additionally, DVDs of the material (all of it) are available from www.spacecraftfilms.com and have been for a number of years.
We are talking about the tapes containing the slow scan TV signal, the telemetry and bio data all in one signal. The video image was then scan converted to NTSC TV standards. While an important part of history, the tapes are not solely crucial to it. This is no different to the BBC wiping tapes of early Dr Who, with the exceoption here that the TV images are available at NASA. Over 35 years tapes go missing, whether it be a Number 96 special or Apollo S-band tapes. It happens in TV all the time whether you like or not. They are somewhere, and will eventually be found. Let's not forget the TV contents have been copied and are archived.
For those of you convinced the landings were faked, take a look at www.clavius.org and see how all the points raised here (many, many, many, many times over) are thouroughly debunked.
They do still have tapes from later Apollo missions, right? Wouldn't those high resolution tapes of other times astronauts walked on the moon still be equally good proof we've been there? Why don't they preserve those by sending them out to be copied if they still have them? Sadly, my question will probably go unnoticed because of all the +5 funnies drowning out all the +5 insightfuls.
Yeah, because when you kick up dust in a swimming pool it looks exactly the same as it does on the moon...
The moon conspiracy argument has been done to death so very many times, and there is simply no credible evidence that Apollo was a fake. And there's a ton of evidence that it was real. I've heard all the usual conspiracy arguments, and for all of them there are entirely reasonable explanations for the supposed problems. In most cases the 'evidence' amounts to nothing more than a lack of scientific/technical understanding - all too common these days.
Why do some people have such a hard time believing that at enormous cost, with vast numbers of people working on it and committed to making it a success, you couldn't do this, just because we aren't doing it now?
Z.
Perhaps I misunderstood the PDF, but it appears that although the actual Apollo 11 tapes are missing, the National Archives have hundreds (perhaps thousands) of similar tapes (i.e. same size and format) mostly labelled "Magnetic Tape". Presumably, they can also only be read by this one machine at Goddard? So, if that one remaining lab is closed, will the archive keep all the other tapes (which may or may not be interesting) and if so why? What would be the point if there is nothing to read them on?
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
They fell in the analogue hole...
Unlike SOME cooky crazy people I don't think the moon landing was faked, BUT it IS obvious that the tapes were taken by MIB in order to conceal alien spacecraft that were imaged on the tapes.....
That's a very valid point, I'm surprised I haven't seen it raised before.
...nah.
...THE SOVIETS WERE FAKED AS WELL !!!
Unless...
Unless of course...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Agreed, though I do have to say sometimes attempting rational discussion with a conspiracy theorist is just entertaining. Especially if they show you their stylish tinfoil hat.
On another note, for some reason your post reminded me of the exceptionally well written dialogs from the Deus Ex series of games. Bravo.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Another issue is how do you fake it so that the thousands of people who worked for NASA's tracking network think they are tracking the Apollo spacecraft, and communicating with it, as it goes to the Moon and back. They can see where the antenna is pointing to, and the doppler shift tells them the relative velocity. You can't fake this with a satellite in Earth orbit, or Lunar orbit. It would have to be a fully robotic duplicate of the Apollo mission, complete with landing on the Moon, deploying experiment packages, leaving the Moon, and returning to Earth. It would be easier to do it with real people.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
That's a whole shitload of something.
more seeders plzzzzz
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks!
I find it hilarious that people think we could have faked the moon landings. I mean, we were in an international space *race*; probably the biggest rivalry in the history of the world. If there were any way in hell those men weren't actually on the moon, the Soviets would have been all over it and shamed us forever.
Some things are too risky to fake... and way too risky to fake multiple times.
I suppose thats better than Scullying around.
The answer is obvious: secret alien technology was used to create the tapes.
It's about on par with a Jehovah's Witness trying to say that the geological evidence for an old planet was just put there by God to test our faith.
Please don't troll.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't say anything about geological evidence. It has nothing to do with their belief structure, since it's not a subject the Bible deals with. In fact, JW's aren't even one of those crack-smoking Christian faiths that claim the earth was created in 6 literal days, as they repeatedly point out that the word translated as "day" means "period of time", not the literal value of "24 hours". And according to JW's, God cannot lie. So if there's some evidence that the earth is billions of years old, then either someone else is lying about the evidence, or, more likely, the earth is billions of years old. God cannot and would not lie about anything, especially not something that trivial. If he wants to test us, then he'd do so directly and without ambiguity.
The fact is, Jehovah's Witnesses point out (often, and without letup) that nothing in the Bible contradicts anything science has conclusively established yet. Round earth? Isaiah chapter 40. Earth not sitting on the back of a turtle or something? It's in Psalms. There are more, but you should get the point by now. The only major disagreement JW's have with science is Darwinian evolution. The Bible says each animal was created "according to its kind". So nothing jumped the gap between, say, reptile and mammal, though there's no disallowment of mutations (even "evolutionary" ones). Heck, even humans "evolved" a bit according to their pre-existing genetic information. Some became darker-skinned, others lighter-skinned. Some have distinctive combinations of facial features and bone structure, others have different combinations of such. Some are tall, some are short. All according to their kind - human. It's just that human "evolution" hasn't yet caused enough differences to classify some as a different species. Birds are quite a bit less biologically complex and therefore more likely to "jump species", and they're what Darwin noticed first (finches, IIRC).
And don't try (as others have) to tell me that I don't know what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. I am one. I know exactly what we believe (and yes, we all believe the same things, or we wouldn't all be Jehovah's Witnesses).
here. "Three tracking stations were receiving the signals simultaneously. They were CSIRO's Parkes Radio Telescope, the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station outside Canberra, and NASA's Goldstone station in California."
"During the first few minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated between the signals from its two stations at Goldstone and Honeysuckle Creek, searching for the best quality images. When they switched to the Parkes pictures, they were of such superior quality, that NASA remained with the Parkes TV pictures for the remainder of the 21/2-hour telecast."
There was no power failure, it was high winds. I wasn't alive at the time, but I do know a little bit of the history of Parkes (i was born 30km south of there, and spent the first 18 years of my life in the region).
And it doesnt look look aussies who lost the tapes, the national archives in the US appear to have lost them.
There are two types of people in the world: 1) those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Maybe it would be easy to fake it now and I have no doubt about that. Back then however not every little kid had a P3 and Adobe Premier/After Effects on it...
In fact keeping a secret requires a large scale logistics and high level processing. Despite the la la land that most conspiracy theorists live in, it is not just a simple matter of killing everyone involved, especially for a government project. Even if no hard evidence is found, there will always be enough circumstantial evidence to piece the program together.
So given these fact, why would it be easier to keep a secret coverup secret than sending men to the moon. Furthermore, since it was a space race, why would the russians allow the fabrication. For such a program, involving thousands of people, would they not be able to get one mole into the program?
It is funny that people who routinely call the government incompetent attribute characteristics that require the utmost level of competence.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
A Funny thing happened on the way to the Moon
http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/tapes/Se arch_for_SSTV_Tapes.pdf
From page 17:
Accession Document #69A4099. Note: Sam Preecs is the Agency Official who signed the
Accession. He is the most likely person to know where the tapes are. Where is Sam today?
From page 16:
Conclusion:
The tapes we are searching for were most likely stored in Accession #69A4099 which according to
the National Archives records, were transferred back to Goddard. The answer as to what became of
the tapes can only be determined by Goddard. In a like manner, answers as to where these tapes
might reside today can only be determined by digging into the Goddard organization and
procedures of the time period during which the Accession #69A4099 was active, and trying to
contact some of the members who were at the time responsible for managing this particular activity.
The organization that exists at Goddard today is very much different from what was in effect thirtyseven
years ago, as well as the methodology with regard to the handling of this type of material.
The information, if it does exist, resides with those who managed these efforts during the 1970's. If
we want to find out where they are, that's where we must go if these treasured archival tapes are to
be located. The search has shifted back to Goddard and, under the leadership of Dick Nafzger, a
new phase of the search is being discussed within Goddard to determine the organization that is best
qualified to oversee and continue the search.
From page 14:
Stan Lebar Describes His Search Efforts
In 2005, the current search for the tapes was initiated by Stan Lebar through Richard Nafzger of the
Goddard Space Flight Center. This search has resulted in several promising leads. Richard Nafzger
concurs with Stan's findings described below, and has requested that he continue the effort with his
approval, and that of other NASA management. Stan describes his search to date:
I understand that there are those at JSC who are presently engaged in the new program effort to
return to the moon and are seeking the very same tapes that we have been looking for these past
couple of years. Rightly so, they want to review the Apollo lunar EVA telemetry data that was
produced by Apollo in the 1969-70 time period, as indeed they should.
Below is a summary of the National Archive search for the Apollo 11 Lunar surface telemetry tapes
I performed under the direction and support of Richard Nafzger, of NASA Goddard that was
completed in March, 2006.
1. The three tracking sites which received the 10 frame rate Apollo 11 lunar camera television
signal, as transmitted directly from the moon during the lunar EVA, were Goldstone, CA,
Honeysuckle Creek, Australia and Parkes, Australia. The M-22 tape recorder, using 14 inch tape
reels recording at 120 inches per second, was primarily used to record the transmissions. The
procedures for shipping the original recorded tapes were defined by a NASA document. Each site
was to prepare dupes of the processed tapes, send the original boxes of tapes (on the order of 12-15
tape reels with five tape reels per box) to Goddard and retain the dupes until so advised by Goddard.
Upon receipt of the original tapes, Goddard was to verify that each tape received contained the
original data as recorded at the tracking sites. When Goddard had verified that the original M-22
tapes from the sites contained data, each site was so notified and the dupes that were being retained
by each site could then be erased and used for other purposes.
2. A search for documentation at Goddard that would show either the present stored location for the
Apollo 11 tapes or disposition was never located. No reference documentation was ever found that
referred to any of the Apollo mission telemetry data tapes. When the National Arch
I've toured the archives for work purposes and planning purposes for large digitization efforts. The speaker from the Smithsonian is absolutely right- just how the hell do you digitize that much crap? The numbers are staggering- pick any task and multiply it by the billions of feet of film and you've got serious timeframes- in the order (of some estimates I did) 30 to 50 years.
But I find it odd that they could misplace all the boxes. The check-in/ check-out procedure used at the archives is fairly regimented- to screw something that large up requires a deliberate effort to delete or mis-file the boxes.
To give you an idea, a box is received / dropped off at the archives. It has it's master database that says "This box is #####". The organization that drops it off maps a number assigned by the archive to that box, and said org maintains all the details of what is IN the box.
The archives then move the box and it's paperwork to the specific row, shelf, and complex. I believe they are to make a total of 12 to 15 'pulls' per hour, which when we were wanding meant actively finding an item in about 2 minutes after you walk into a complex (this place is huge- each complex is a football field).
The paperwork is then returned to central processing for annotation and entry into the DB.
But to lose 700 CF (each box is 1 CF or so) requires serious effort- that implies that someone filed them all in either the wrong complex or completely off the wall location- and that NO ONE has tried to place another item on wherever they are currently sitting.
Now, assume they've been actively 'pulled' for a number of years. Your standard pull & return places a piece of paper at the boxes location- it's a copy of the form showing who pulled it and when. The paper sits where the box originated- I saw some papers from the 70's which implied that the organization pulled the item yet is still paying around 30 cents / month for that space.
A permanent withdrawl could have been done to 'stop the monthly fees', but that means the box wouldn't necessarily go back to the same spot. If all those boxes were moved around the entire archives it would be nearly impossible to locate- there's just not enough eyes to find them- and even then you can double stack boxes to boot so you'd never see them.
So... either the boxes are there or someone checked them out. If they were checked out and the paperwork was lost.... you'll never find them. If they weren't checked out, you would need a miracle (and yes, they do have 'reward' sheets for lost boxes posted around the area) to find them. Maybe there's a cache of boxes somewhere... and then maybe not.
What these conspiracy theorists always forget is that we placed beacons on the moon which we "ping" with lasers constantly.
First of all, most "conspiracy theorists" aren't so much forgetfull as they are ignorant.
Secondly, no one seems to be denying that the Russians had landed robots on the moon before July 1969. It's not that it is impossible to do so, beacons could be sent there with rockets. The big question is, was it possible to send and retrieve humans in this way, at that time.
Occam's razor here is, what is the easiest way to achieve the propaganda of a manned Lunar landing? Actually doing it, or faking it?
Personally, I still wonder. Of course, since there's a lot of noise in the info on that subject (loud nutjobs), I don't particularly want to investigate this, but I don't think that it was more impossible to fake than it was to accomplish. Both would be quite hard, but the resulting propaganda would be worth it either way.
You can't take the sky from me...
On a completely unrelated note, has anyone seen Sandy Berger recently?
But they're already nuts. That's why they're conspiracy theorists.
Everyone is nuts; Normal people simply share the same kind of crazy.
You can't take the sky from me...
My God! It's all beginning to make SENSE! That means...that means the LAST FIVE THOUSAND YEARS is a sham!
Scuse me, I just got a fed-ex package here...hey, it's a cell phone, and it's ringing...
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
That is. . , provide a tatalizing albeit false idea, let the steam build and then debunk so that everybody looks silly?
Here's a hint: If it happens on big public broadcasting, (and if Peter Jennings doesn't contract terminal cancer shortly after it airs), then it's probably (more) misleading.
Anybody who is serious about learning how the world really works is going to have to be a lot more savvy and critical about what data to allow into their knowledge structure. --And they're going to have to learn how to ignore emotional attacks, like the "Tinfoil Hat" remark, which is fueled by the part of the world which doesn't want you to ask questions.
And those who fling emotional attacks at those who ask questions: You are being manipulated.
-FL
I have a friend from an Eastern European/former communist country (she had to learn Russian in school) and it astonishes me but she honestly does not believe the US landed on the moon, ever. Much as the US used to belittle any Soviet effort at anything (we always think of "first to the moon!" but who from the US... ok Slashdot crowd not representative... thinks of "first in space!"), I'd guess this is the same thing from the other side. Not that we ever denied the Soviets had the first person in space (and the first satellite), but we do tend to not think of it at all. But to actively deny that the US landed on the moon! I was too shocked to press her about it to see what else she believed, but I certainly wasn't going to change her mind.
They're in the basement of the Alamo!
Wow, I didn't know that we sent those type of people to the moon, trained them and then used them all over the world. China may want to get ahold of these moon-savvy censors for their firewall. Perhaps you meant "sensor"
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
You forgot that animation can be done without computers, all the disney classics (up to alladin) were made without them. Sure it would take a fine animator that can paint a photo-realistic frame, shoot it, alter it slightly, shoot it again and so on. This would take years and years to make, each second of footage has 24 frames in TV or worst 50 half-frames that are interlaced, so a minute of this animation would compromise at least 1440 frames of foto-realistic original art. Very hard, very improbable, but possible if enought artist are hired and enouth time, a few years pehaps, is alocated to the production.
hehehe I still think that men was on the moon, though.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Ciao
OK, lets assume for an instant that US never made it to the moon and, to keep Kennedy's "in this decade" promise, they have staged a moon with bouncing astronauts, etc..
Now, wouldn't they want to erase all posible evidence of the contrary?
Of course, the simplest explanation is always the most likely to be true. These dumbasses simply lost them.
Questions to the reader:
If China lands on the moon. Would you believe it?
Now. What if China lands on the moon and they say they didn't found an american flag where it is supposed to be?
What if they kinda prove it (video + some kind of GPS)?
My guess is that 90% of the US people would not believe any of the previous question no matter how hard the chinese try to prove the contrary.
Then, what does it take to make you change your opinion about the US moon landing?
"the tapes were taken by MIB in order to conceal alien spacecraft"
The photographic evidence is irrefutable.
davecb5620@gmail.com
I love moon conspiracy. But the truth is they probably just misplaced them.
Maybe the Ark of the Covenant melted the paint of the lunar tape boxes as well.
Its all just smoke and mirrors.
There is lots of evidence that we landed on the moon (900 pounds of moonrocks being a good part of it).
The funny thing about moon rocks is that they turned out to be very similar to material on the the earth.
So we can assume that the moon was either part of the earth a long time ago or that they just happened to fly in some rocks from the desert.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
We "young-Earth creationists" put up with a lot, but when you compare us to this batch of kooks you're going TOO FAR!
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Considering the low resolution television images that came back, it would have been very easy to fake it.
Did you not even read the Slashdot summary?
The video signal broadcast from the Moon to Earth was higher resolution than standard broadcast TV. Those master tapes of that hi-res signal are now missing, leaving only those low-res second-generation copies that we all saw on TV.
Is it possible that the master tapes never existed? Maybe. But people claim to have viewed them -- are they liars? Conspirators?
No no, He meant censer, as in incense burner. The moon smells really nice now.
Occam's Razor be damned.
To be fair, the simplest solution ist that Occam could be wrong about his razor.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Until they find those missing tapes, you can watch excerpts of the Apollo 11 videos at the ALSJ, along with a complete transcription of the radio transmissions.
Spacecraft Films also sells a 3-disc DVD box set with enhanced video of the whole mission (as well as other Apollo missions), including onboard footage, surface TV, etc. Fascinating stuff.
I love 9/11 conspiracy. ..such as the official story.
Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever know the truth. I do know we don't want to know. And a few of us geniuses think we already know, it was terrorists with boxcutters, it had to the be the boxcutter terrorists, in the flight cabin, with their passports.
But when the evidence doesn't match reality, scientists inquire.
What is the old spy rule? The percentage chance that a secret will leak out is equal to the number of people who know about it squared.
The Feds couldn't even keep the details of nuclear weapons secret never mind a massive moon landing fake.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I'll never understand how places that have priceless artifacts in their care treat them with less care and security than a janitor's closet. Between this and the thefts of major artworks over the years (The Scream, the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum robbery, etc) I think either insurance companies or the government should force owners of items deemed "of major cutural significance" to properly protect them. Either you protect them or you can't publicly display them, force them to sell to someone who can protect them, and/or a big insurance premium increase.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Sorry... wasn't trying to incite any flamage on that issue, it's just something that I've heard them say to me on at least a couple of occasions. Not sharing their particular view on theology, I was not aware that this was not a common perception among them.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Actually these tapes were just the rehersal tapes. "Ok Neil, can you hide your footsteps with the brush and go back up the ladder? This time just stick to the script please."
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Adding employees to a project increases the project's complexity and does not linearly reduce the time it takes. For many complex problems there can even come a point where you've added so many people to the project that it starts taking even longer than it would have with fewer people. While there is always an optimum number of people to put on any one project such that it can be done in the least possible time, it's not always possible to predict what that number might be, and for a complex enough problem the time scale could simply be impossible in any fixed amount of time. It would seem to follow that drawing many hundreds of thousands of frames of photorealistic art by hand for the purpose of animation is an intractable problem even if one has many artists at their disposal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yeah, that's my favourite argument when the issue comes up too. I was about to reply to another post with it when I noticed yours... won't bother now. Cheers, dude.
Yar.
Well, actually, yes, the moon was formed when a large Mars sized object struck the Earth early in its history. Much of the ejected material became the moon. The rocks on the moon are made up of very similar material due to this. There is also very little heavy metals like iron on the moon because most of the ejected material was from the surface of the then forming Earth and not its core.
The rocks from the moon were not oxidized like those found on earth (due to a lack of oxygen).
It would be interesting to see how much the quality could be even further improved by using identical frames recorded at the three different locations, as well as the overlap from the two recorders that had to be reloaded every 15 minutes, for noise removal.
Did you say "insightful" or "inciteful"?
Whaddaya mean? The secret gets out all the time. The brilliant part is that almost nobody believes it, so those who do get branded as "wackos."
Assuming this is accurate (and it's more likely to be accurate than the conspiracy theories) it pretty well explains the thrust thing.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And where was this video stored waiting slow scan transmission? Memory in the old machines was ferrite core - large power hungry and not much of it. As for TV recorders ever see an Ampex prior to Beta or VHS? Ever see the synchronous motors that drove the reels? Hmmmmm? Curiouser and curiouser.
It is funny that people who routinely call the government incompetent attribute characteristics that require the utmost level of competence.
No, dude. The idiot up front is just a distraction -- it's the guy in back with the pacemaker pulling all the strings that make the world dance.
It was, after all, not until Nixon was elected that we actually 'landed' on the moon when, not coincidently, Dick Cheney began a career in politics as special assistant to the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity -- none other than Nixon appointee, Donald Rumsfeld. Does anyone really think the increase in American energy consumption and the steady decline of civil rights soon thereafter was an accident?
Once rid of the Vatican-controlled Kennedy Brothers(TM) and that pesky negro preacher, nothing has stood in their way -- hell bent on either world economic and political domination by controlling the world's energy supply and the policies that govern them... or to seize control for their Zionist masters on the religious right...
I can never remember which one.
As the world grows increasingly weary and leery, a framework for continued domination is in place. "Green is the new petroleum!" went the cry from the group of aging alcoholics drinking anything but Scotch from Geronimo's skull while gathered 'round a college underclassman masturbating in a casket beneath a frat house in Connecticut. Their most capable operative/pawn is performing better than expected. Already in more than 400 theaters, his movie continues to be embraced by the wealthy lefties whose ideology unexpectedly formed amid the 'energy crisis' thirty years ago. This group, thought unreachable until only now, and unwittingly motivated to support the Statesman from Tennessee by the engineered 'election snafu' of 2000 and 2004, may still escape the Alzheimers-inducing tannins and waxes manufactured by Monsanto and slated for introduction next year into food items labeled "Certified Organic'.
But what I can't remember is whether it was Merom or Conroe that had the Homeland Security backdoor...
Bush has been in office for six years and the Republicans control Congress. When something goes wrong in government or foreign policy, it is Bush's fault. There is nobody left for the Republicans to shift the blame to anymore.
And of course the kicker is you can be damn sure the Soviets were tracking it too. Even if it were possible for the US govt to fool the American people, the Russians would have sported major wood at the thought of exposing a fraud like that.
The article says the missing tapes include the Apollo 11 footage. 698 of 700 are missing, so what was left?
What would/could someone do with these tapes (assuming they were taken) if the only place that can read them is the DEL at Goddard? How hard would it be to build something that could read these tapes?
This is why all that stuff needs to be tagged with RFID or something, so that a record is made everytime when it leaves or enters a storage room or the building. Sure, it wouldn't stop King George II from destroying evidence, but it would stop Joe Mopbucket or Sally Shelf-straightener from throwing it in the trash.
I find it hilarious that people think we could have faked the moon landings. I mean, we were in an international space *race*; probably the biggest rivalry in the history of the world. If there were any way in hell those men weren't actually on the moon, the Soviets would have been all over it and shamed us forever.
;-)
And you really think that proves anything?!?
What makes you think we didn't just make up Russia too?
Have you ever been there? If not, then hah! If so, then you're clearly part of the conspiracy.
See? Easy as shooting fish through the bottom of your lifeboat
And none of those engineers and technicians, (face it, it's not realistically possible that NASA, Boeing, Grumman, Rockwell, and everybody else just highered a bunch of artists with fake credentials and nobody caught on) complained about the fact that their fancy degrees were going to waste while they used their sliderules as straight edges, that they were wasting billions of their friends and neighbors taxpayer dollars when there was a war in Vietnam, and that they never got to test anything.
Wrong fundamentalists: JW's aren't "young earth" theorists, but creationists who believe that the "6 days of creation" are symbolic and that the earth probably is as old as geologists think it is, but also that all species were directly created by Jehovah (an alternate transliteration of 'Yahweh').
The concept of "fossils were put here to test our faith" is credited to Philip Henry Gosse, a contemporary of Darwin, as the young-earthers' response to the mounting evidence of an old earth at that time.
Just in case you care.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
My apologies. But I have on more than one occasion heard a person claiming to be a Jehovah's Witness tell me exactly that. Not sharing their particular theological view, I had no basis to assume that it was anything other than a common belief in that religion. I stand corrected.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I was sure that the people I heard that line from were Jehovah's Witnesses, but it's possible I was wrong.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Hi,
You believe God can't lie, but what about the bible? Do JWs believe the bible is 100% correct? Is there a particular translation that is 100% correct? Or do JWs feel that the bible might have had human faults introduced when it was written down by humans?
Let's give the conspiracy the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that Apollo 11 was faked and the motive for this was anti-USSR propaganda.
What was the motive for Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17? In other words, once "the sheeple" already believe our flag is sticking out of the face of the moon, why pretend to go back another 5 times? (Six times assuming Apollo 13 was just another PR move).
Yes, I find it odd that no other country has ever been to the moon in the decades since, and yes, it is odd that these tapes disappeared just as the Chinese claim that they are ready to visit the moon for the first time, which coincidentally has sparked the fist effort to return Americans to the moon since 1972. Yes, President Bush is a conspiracy theorists' wet dream, and a *lot* of what this President does is purposefully left quiet, which tends to invite a lot of debate.
But why fake it five times? And, where did those billions and billions of dollars in expenses (those which allegedly ended the age of moon exploration) really go?
barack to the future?
Considering the low resolution television images that came back, it would have been very easy to fake it.
I hope this was meant as a joke. It was not even possible to do digital music synthesis in real time back then. The moon landing would NOT have been easy to fake, and for quite a few reasons:
- An estimated 6 million people watched that rocket lift off live from the Cape. The damn thing was visible with the naked eye for miles around. Something big sure got launched.
- We're talking HISTORY here. This was during the height of the Cold War, and nobody was going to let the US take credit for something it didn't do. That mission was tracked by every country that could afford an optical or radio telescope. The spacecraft was tracked both optically and electronically by friend and foe from the time it left the launch pad until the capsule splashed down. SOMETHING went to the moon, landed, and returned.
- Some of you might not be aware of this, but the earth is round. The moon can only be seen from one side of the earth at a time. NASA had tracking stations in several countries around the world that received the data and relayed it back to the States. You've got to either fake an incoming signal from the moon, or thousands of people would have to be in on it. Thousands of other current and future NASA employees (including me) would have had to be in on it as well, and NO secret can be kept by that many people for such a long time.
- In 1969, we used punched cards and paper tape for computer input, and "mainframe" computers had memory measured in KB and not MB. You got typical memory cycle times of one or two microseconds. The IBM mainframe I worked with at the time had three memory partitions, a 100K partition, a 200K partition, and a 300K partition. This was the Triangle Universities Computation Center (TUCC) in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and was shared by three universities. This was typical cream of the crop high tech for the day. NASA didn't have much better. You couldn't fake a moon landing using hardware like that. It would be easier to do it than to fake it.
- Finally, a retroreflector was left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew, and it is being used to this day. It is possible, using a telescope and laser that most major university physics departments can afford, to get very precise measurements of the distance from the earth to the moon by bouncing a laser beam off of this reflector. Some of this work has been used to help verify some of Einstein's theories. You can find out about this by spending a bit of time with Google.
I can't, for the life of me, understand why this "controversy" is still going strong. I suspect that the type of person who believes that the landing was a fake is the type who learned his physics from Star Trek, "Put us into a synchronous orbit over the pole, Mr. Data..."But why fake it five times?
Why would it have to be faked everytime?
The point of faking it is that the U.S. had to be there first, that was the point: To win the race.
Why go back for real once the race is won with a fake? Why, so people would assume that since it was done for real later on, then obviously the first time was for real too (horrible logic, but a common assumption).
P.S. Like I said, not that I believe I could prove it either way. But I have this sinking feeling it wasn't all on the up and up.
You can't take the sky from me...
Here's the scenario I came up with. This is pure fantasy on my part--I'm making it up and I don't believe it. It's just an entertaining fantasy to begin the game with.
The LEM has some sort of problem that requires parts of it be redesigned. There is absolutely no way that it will be ready for use before Kennedy's deadline of "the end of the decade." But it has become vitally important for the US to hit Kennedy's deadline because we know the Russians are also trying to make it to the moon in the same timeframe. What to do? If we don't make the end of the decade, we're going to have a lot of Americans howling. If we don't do it ASAP, the Russians might beat us. There's no way to do it, though, because the LEM problems.
So we must fake Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 to show up the Russians--Apollo 12 was done to show the Russians that we can do it twice and it wasn't a fluke.
That's the why of the game. Given this, here's some comments.
Fair enough. However, who's going to believe him?
In our scenario, the moon-landings were not all fake. Just two. The reason to fake the missions has it's basis in patriotism, so you could easily convince people to keep it secret. And even if one spills the beans, who's going to believe him? NASA says it was real--and they believe it because they weren't part of the conspiracy. There are only six people in the public eye--Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, and Alan Bean--who have to keep the secret. After all, if Neil Armstrong said it was fake, I'm going to believe him. If John Schmoe said it was fake and he knows because he set up the fake cameras in the desert, I'm not going to buy it.
But circumstantial evidence is just that--circumstantial. People won't necessarily believe it, especially with enough voices saying that it really did happen and they know because they were there.
Also remember that there's a lot of national pride tied up in this. Anyone who says we didn't land on the moon is certainly not a patriot.
I agree that the conspiracy nuts are usually way out in left field. But how many people would you need to fake the video portion? I don't think you'd need that many people...
I couldn't read the PDF, but that explains alot.
And frankly, if the tapes are sitting somewhere there, they're in the trash can. 5S has a notorious habit of finding the least competent person and saying "Go clean that shit up".
Which explains why I pulled 35 lbs of legally non-disposable heavy metals out of a trashbin after 5S wandered by and 'cleaned' an area. Has that slowed the process down... ? nope.
History is lost.
Yes: I've been to Russia. Shut your pie hole.
That's an interesting pov; 11 was faked to win the race, and we had to go back (i.e. do it for real) to cover our tracks. But with the sudden spike in interest by both China and the USA after 30 years or disinterest, I could almost believe that the 1960's-70's missions were ALL made up, and now we have to get there before the Chinese do or be found out.
Of course, this is all pure "what if" conspiracy fun. Truth be told, I'd like to think we really did it just like the history books promised.
barack to the future?
You know, like I said I don't really care whether the moon hoax theory is true, fully or in part. I have my own theory
about what happened and I even gave it somewhere in this thread but it is completely irrelevant to the point I am
trying to make:
Basic Programming - Serf, Human:
What we tell you is largely true. What you see on TV or read in the newspapers, magazines etc., what letter degree university people or
the ones in uniform tell you, that is largely true. We are smarter than you and that is why we are running things and you are not.
If others present you with material that they obviously did not get from the previously mentioned respectable sources such as
television, print etc. and/or which has not been certified by a letter degree person etc. then it is largely false. These people
are mentally deranged must be avoided unless you want others to believe that you are likewise afflicted and suffer social isolation.
FIAT.
That is the kind of basic programming that every human adult that goes through the conditioning process which begins upon leaving their mother's
womb and doesn't stop merely after graduating school has gone through. You right: It is hard to combat that kind of fanatic, the
conspiracy theorist who considers theories presented to him merely on the account of how many other people believe that theory to hold true
and who is prepared to act against better judgement just to avoid being laughed at.
So what if they were about to kill 400 people just so they have a reason to start a war?
.. ], I guess _WE_ can live with some collateral damage as long as we don't get picked as collaterals.
... CRIMETHINK! CRIMETHINK! Can't even _entertain_ the thought that just because they put out papers like that, that whey would do things like that. Oooohh Noooo, can't go there. OFfF LLiiImmiitSS! It wasn't on TV and Wikipedia doesn't say so either so it's just a crazy, kooky thing to say.
Oh yes I know, it's the War on @SET[Communism, Drugs, Terrorism, Private Gun-ownership, Tax Evasion, Atheism, Unamericanism
Mein Fuehrer was pretty nice when he needed a reason to invade Poland. All he did was blow up a radio station just over the polish border. The American Fuehrer sank an oceanliner with I don't know how many hundreds of people in WWI and the second time around allowed Perl Harbor to happen.
Ooooh... wait... COOONSSSPPIIRRAAACYYY THhhHHheEEEoooORRRRYYYYYyyY
Another thing, like Dylan said, Osama is family, in fact he's their son. He's most definately a friend of the family.
You didn't say anything about the radiation experiments? Too bad. I particularily like how the Dept of Energy admits to injecting a healthy young women with plutonium without her knowing. I don't know but she could have had Dr. Mengele for a doctor and would probably have fared better.
People, don't just go and believe (or disbelieve) what I'm telling you. Instead, go and look up the things I'm talking about and see for yourself.
See first post.
Also, the plan WASN'T to kill anybody. The plan (imperfect and preliminary as it was) was to more or less HIDE those people. They never even planned to kill those people.
That's good. Supplement your paranoia with an equally large persecution complex, just because rational people don't buy-in to your insane rantings, and take utter lack of evidence as PROOF.
No, I didn't say anything about radiation experiments. However, I had the CIA break into
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Right. Why "Hide those people, build a remote controlled drone and shoot that down over Cuba. Invade the country, haul Castro in chains to New York, kill anybody who has seen the wreckage sans bodies, let people go and follow up on them should they ever dare to talk about what happened"
when instead you could
"Shoot down a passenger plane over Cuba, Invade the country, haul Castro in chains to New York".
You know during the entire threat, I aim to get the message across that people are conditioned to discredit things they hear just because it is
not backed up by the official media etc. Looking at your and the replies of some others that is apparently the last thing you want to discuss.
Which is great because from now on I am going to pursue that a lot here on Slashdot and elsewhere.
Sort of like one of the classic SNL skits "masterbrain" was the one where Reagan was totally in control of the Contra situation, speaking fluent arabic to banking contacts to finance the whole thing, doing all the calculations on money on a accountant calculator (or in his head) and keeping all the rest of the cabinet in the dark. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86fmasterbrain.pht ml
But at the same time the people claiming that
Reagan did run the whole contra affair were also saying he was a
senile, naive fool.
Hey, no biggie. I just wanted to set the record straight. "Fundamentalists" get a lot of flak on /., and it's not all deserved.
/. user. I'm sorry I jumped on you like that.
The doctrinal basics of being a JW are all the same (we don't allow dissenters to keep close association with the organization), but our focus isn't scientific, so we only touch on a few topics that tend to stumble those that might otherwise join us. That leads to a lot of people filling in the blanks and spouting their opinions as "fact". We're (as a group) constantly warned not to do it, but it happens a lot anyway.
Thanks for not being the typical argumentative
Briefly, yes, probably not, and yes.
We believe that:
- God cannot lie.
- The Bible is God's word, and therefore, contains no lies. That means we do a lot of study to figure out why certain things appear to be contradictory. This has always led to an understanding that the Bible does not contradict itself. The details do matter.
- There are minor copyist mistakes that have crept into the Bible over the centuries and milennia, but that they're not things that have greatly altered the overall meaning of the text. We've also done a lot of work to mitigate these errors by comparing multiple older versions and even archaeological evidence and texts.
- There are several major threats to the "purity" of the Bible, and these are ongoing. The most amazing of the lot has to do with God's name. It happens that the divine name (YHWH) was removed from the Hebrew scriptures (the "old testament") in about 6900 places in most translations. It used to commonly appear in 4 places in the KJV, but in recent years (within the last 100 years) has been removed even from those places. This is presumably to keep people from "taking his name in vain", but these efforts are misguided. Through careful study of numerous texts, translations, and revisions (several hundred, in fact), Jehovah's Witnesses have compiled a translation of our own. We call it the "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures". It's a modern-language translation (currently available in about 20 languages) that restores the divine name as used in the common language for the translation. In English, for example, it's rendered as "Jehovah". In Italian, "Geova". There are an additional ~200 places in the Greek scriptures (the "new testament") that got a similar treatment. The NWT is as close to a "correct" translation as we need, and it does get some updates as better translation tools and more alternative texts have become available - there have been 3 revisions since the original 1960 publishing, the latest in 1984.
They'll turn up on ebay.
Funny. You count that document as solid evidence when it suits you, and utterly discount what it actually say when it doesn't suit you. Who's the irrational nutjob again?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Like you said, the Northwood document was more or less a brainstorm, nothing more, nothing less. I guess we can expect some
form of efficiency here that if they had enacted the airplane scenario, it would have been at the inconsequential cost of a
couple of hundred civilians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods , but really all you need is to type "Operation Northwoods"
into Google.
But like I said this is not what I'm here for. The message I want to get across is: It's time people turned off
their TV sets and turned on their minds. Don't thumb your nose at someone because what they're saying is not what
they're saying on FOX or in the NY Times.
And on the other hand don't believe anyone blindly -- instead do your own research and your own thinking and go
with what _YOU_ come up with.
A fascinating sect to study, actually: for what is, in my opinion, a small and largely harmless group of fundamentalist sectarians, they sure do raise a lot of ire. And produce amazing ranges of misconception. They're misrepresented almost as badly as the Hare Krishnas. Unfortunately, they (JW's) don't scare as easily as the local "we're more conservative than the Missouri Synod" baptists, with whom I have no end of fun with when they see my statue of Kali-ma[0].
I'm glad you actually cared to be informed; most people have their preconcieved ideas about the various fringe religions, and it causes no end of argument.
[0]: Which is, incidentally, purely decorative -- I have yet to decide if those proselytes are more terrified of me before or after I tell them I'm an atheist.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/index.ht ml
There was a hilarious story a few years back about how in the late 80s the British Parliament decided to start putting laws on digital media instead of vellum (lambskin) as had been done for almost 1000 years. 10 or so years later the project was canned because it was becoming impossible to read the 10 year old media. By contrast, 1000 year old vellum was still perfectly legible.
In a related story, one of the early issues of Wired had a nice chart showing the age vs longevity of various kinds of media. Clay cuneiform tablets are still legible after about 6000 years, but modern CDs only had a projected lifetime of about 10 years.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates