NASA Pulls Moon Hoax Book

BBC ^ | 11-8-2002

[blam]

Friday, 8 November, 2002, 16:08 GMT

Nasa pulls Moon hoax book

Not heroes but actors, claim the theorists

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

The US space agency (Nasa) has cancelled the book intended to challenge the conspiracy theorists who claim the Moon landings were a hoax. Nasa declined to comment specifically on the reasons for dropping the publication, but it is understood the decision resulted from the bad publicity that followed the announcement of the project.

Criticism that Nasa was displaying poor judgement and a lack of confidence in commissioning the book caused it to abort the project, agency spokesman Bob Jacobs said.

Oberg will still write the book

Nasa had hired aerospace writer Jim Oberg for the job on a fee of $15,000.

He says he will still do the work, although it will now be an unofficial publication with alternative funding.

The book will deliver a point-by-point rebuttal of the theory that the Apollo landings were faked in a movie studio, to convince the world that the US had beaten the Soviets to the Moon.

It will explain why in still and video footage of the landings, no stars can be seen in the Moon sky, why a flag appears to ripple on the atmosphere-free satellite and why shadows fall in strange directions - all "facts", conspiracy theorists say, point to a hoax.

Some commentators had said that in making the Oberg book an official Nasa publication, the agency was actually giving a certain credibility to the hoax theory.

[blam]

Please correct the spelling in the title from hoaz to hoax. Thanks. (ugh)

[RightWhale]

Oberg has been wanting to write the book for several years anyway. So he will write and publish it himself, and forget about NASA and their measly $15k.

Could be a best-seller, James. Ad astra, etc.

[SamAdams76]

Did anybody see that crescent moon tonight? Cast against a brilliant sunset, this is my favorite part of the moon's phase.

[ofMagog]

Well, when Scuttlebutt, humblegunner, and I were on the moon, Humble used his compact (no comments, please) mirror to signal Earth. The answer we got was, "Who cares?"

Sorry you fellows aren't up here on the mountain above Telluride with us. Weather man says we'll have three feet plus of fresh snow over weekend. We will now be officially snowed in. All systems are in excellent condition, firewood supply is more than enough, GOP has congress, and all is well. Deer and elk are well fed. No lost snowmobilers to shoot. Wife is fine. Thud sends greetings. Looks downright Christmas out this afternoon.

[Brett66]

A book about ho's on the moon might be interesting. :)
Seriously though, the tin-foil hat crowd is gaining strength, they need to respond but the best way to respond would be to resume regular manned missions there. Noone seems to think the ISS is a hoax because astronauts are continually going back and forth from the ISS and making Radio Shack commercials on the ISS.

[onedoug]

That's Vietnamese, as in "Hoa". Everybody knows they got there first.

[Falcon4.0]

Ya know it seems to me that the hardest job of flying to the moon would be to get the 6.1 million pounds of spacecraft off of the ground. And thousands of people saw it with their own eyes.

For further details see
http://www.apollosaturn.com/

[Hodar]

Although I don't believe the hoax theory, they do ask some very interesting questions. For example, the astronauts had to pass through the Van Allen belt, which is very radioactive. The astronauts had no/minimal shielding, yet no one developed cancer or other radiation illness. Consider the shadows in the astronauts picture above. There is only 1 light source on the moon (ie. sun), and the sun is behind the astronaut, yet his FULL visor has a reflection on it. Where did that light come from? Also, the cameras were mounted on the astronauts waists (not hand held), the perspective would appear to be taken from a height greater than 3 ft off the lunar soil. Also, with only INTENSE light from 1 direction, why do the photo's never have glare, or shadows blocking subjects.

I do believe that man went to the moon, I do have some questions whether all these photos were taken there.

[Dan(9698)]

"Did anybody see that crescent moon tonight? "

It wasn't this shape when they went there.

It was easier to hit then.

[Flashlight]

...no stars can be seen in the Moon sky...

sky should be filled with stars, but there's probably some easy reason why they wouldn't photograph.

...and why a flag appears to ripple on the atmosphere-free satellite...

The flag *does* ripple. If you want to freak somebody out, show them the moon shots with the flag waving and ask them, hey, if there's no wind then why is the flag waving? (I couldn't figure it out, but when I learned the reason why it made perfect sense. I won't spoil your fun and let you figure it out yourself, if you don't know.)

...and why shadows fall in strange directions...

seems that there would be all kinds of reflected light that would cause this, from the Earth, from the LEM, from the astronauts, from the moon, and also auxilliary light sources like a flashlight or spotlight they set up nearby.

[xm177e2]

Moon Hoaz be good-lookin' hoaz.

[historian1944]

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html

That website does a better job of explaining your questions than I can.

All the light on the astronaut? It's the same principle as why you can see the moon in the sky: the light reflects off of the surface.

The astronauts took thousands of pictures while they were on the moon. Only the good ones were published. That's why you never see the bad ones.

[Hodar]

Looks like an awesome site! Thanks!! I like to ask questions, then gather as many facts as I can before forming an opinion; and having worked for NASA I knew it wasn't a hoax. You cannot pull a hoax with over 10,000 people involved worldwide. However, some very interesting questions were raised. And finding the answers to those questions is fun.

[sushiman]

Hi Sam ,

Q : could you explain to me ( in computer illiterate lingo ) how one posts pics on FR ?

Cheers on ya mate !

Sushiman

[SamAdams76]

Sure can. It's easy. Find a picture on the web and right-click on it, then click "Properties." Copy the URL address and paste it into your post. Use the following tag:

img src="paste url here"

Naturally surround the above statement with the < and > signs. If I put the < and > signs above, it won't show up in the post because it becomes a live tag.

There are other tricks to modify the tag so that you can have the image do certain things like show up on the right side of the post. But it gets too complicated to get into here. I suggest visiting one of those "URL BOOT CAMP" threads that surface here from time to time.

Also, some websites don't let you link the picture here. Keep that in mind.

[Exigence]

Where is this picture from? I want to go there. Gorgeous.

[humblegunner]

Humble used his compact (no comments, please) mirror to signal Earth.

1. That happened during a time when I carried a mirror.

2. I have a dread fear of getting spinach caught in my teeth.

Quite simple, actually! ;-)

[Eaker]

Mash Here

Eaker

[SamAdams76]

Caption says it was on Mount Tamalpais in California.