Nasa challenges Moon hoax claims

BBC News Online ^ | 11/07/02 | Dr. David Whitehouse

[GeneD]

For years there have been rumours that the Apollo lunar landings were faked, staged on a movie set to convince the world that the US had beaten the Soviets to the Moon.

And, despite evidence to the contrary, the belief that the "one small step for man" was a sham continues to spread.

Now, having tried to stay above the rumours, the US space agency (Nasa) has finally got fed up with the conspiracy theorists and asked James Oberg, a leading aerospace writer, to produce a book that it hopes will settle the issue.

But will it work, or will it just add a certain credibility to the hoax theory?

Flags that ripple on the airless Moon, discrepancies in the part numbers of lunar lander components, shadows that point in the wrong direction, the lack of stars seen in the sky - these are all "facts" that have fuelled the conspiracy theory.

It is claimed that the six Apollo landings took place in a hangar on a secret military base.

Over the years, every one of the lines of evidence has been discredited but the rumours refuse to go away.

In September, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, punched a man in the face after he had confronted the former astronaut at a Beverly Hills hotel.

Bart Sibrel - who has made a film questioning the Apollo Moon missions - had demanded that Mr Aldrin, 72, swear on the Bible that he had in fact walked on the Moon.

Prosecutors declined to file assault charges against Mr Aldrin.

Truth out there

Tackling the conspiracy theory head-on in an official book was the idea of Nasa's former chief historian Roger Launius.

He says that hardcore conspiracy theorists are not the book's main audience, as they will never be convinced of the truth.

Instead, it will be aimed at the general public and especially teachers, giving them the science to answer questions in class.

Doubters will no doubt dismiss the new book as just another attempt by the establishment to cover up the truth.

Nasa says the rippling flag is easily explained by the fact that the astronauts twisted it as they planted it in the soil.

The stars are not visible in the lunar sky because of the bright landscape and the light from the Earth drowning them out.

In a few years a definite answer could be possible.

A private company, Transorbital, will place a private high-resolution satellite into orbit around the Moon. It should have the power to see the Apollo hardware left on the surface.

[steve-b]

Spy satilites can read a license plate from a geosyncrous orbit 23K miles above the earth

Spysats are in lower orbits, precisely because they need to maximize ground imaging resolution. 23K miles in the geosynchronous orbit used for comsats that "hover" above a specific point on the equator.

[Shooter 2.5]

Aiming the Hubble telescope toward the moon still wouldn't silence the conspiracy nuts. It's because of an affliction I call "The Oswald Defense".

As long as the evidence originates from the government, the wackos will never believe it.

[TomB]

So you think it would be trivial to do such caclucations with the equipment avaviable at the time?

The calculations necessary are straightforward, if not a little esoteric. If someone knows what they are doing, it is a relatively simple task to plug the numbers into the equations and get the results. The flight computers just allowed many more calcualtions to be done more expediently.

[TomB]

The link below is a great site for info on the workings of the Apollo Flight Computer (click on the picture). You can see there it really isn't all that magical.

[supercat]

If NASA really wants to settle this once and for all, all they need to do is aim the Hubble telescope to the Sea of Tranquility and focus in on the decarded lower lunar module and the flag.

Those are too small and not bright enough to be detected by something like the Hubble.

On the other hand, astronauts did leave behind corner-reflectors at the landing sites, and those can be detected from earth with a relatively modest (under $10K I think) amount of equipment. Essentially, you point a moderately-powerful laser at one of the landing sites while monitoring it with a telescope. If the laser is well-collimated, the efficiency of the reflector will be good enough that the reflected beam will be detectable [I'm not sure if it's visible, or has to be detected electronically, since I've not done the experiment]. Pointing the laser and telescope at part of the moon without the reflector will not work--only the landing sites with reflectors will send enough of the laser energy back to earth for it to be detectable.