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World's biggest telescope to prove Americans really walked on Moon (HOLD MY BEANIE ALERT)
The Sunday Telegraph ^ | November 24, 2002 | Robert Matthews

Posted on 11/23/2002 5:00:25 PM PST by MadIvan

Conspiracy theorists, you have a problem. In an effort to silence claims that the Apollo Moon landings were faked, European scientists are to use the world's newest and largest telescope to see whether remains of the spacecraft are still on the lunar surface.

For years, doubters have claimed that Nasa, the US space agency, spent billions of dollars faking the landings to convince the world that it had beaten the Soviet Union to the Moon. A host of supposed evidence has been put forward, ranging from the absence of stars on any photographs taken by the astronauts to the fact that the Stars and Stripes they planted seemed to flutter in a vacuum.

Earlier this month, Nasa tried to put an end to the controversy by commissioning a definitive account of the evidence for the landings. Days later, it dropped the idea after criticism that it was wasting money by taking on the lunatic fringe: naturally, this only boosted claims that the space agency was trying to hide something.

The row even boiled over into personal conflict in September when police in Beverly Hills were called in to investigate claims that Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin - the second man on the Moon - punched a conspiracy theorist who accused him of lying about the landings.

Now astronomers hope to kill off the conspiracy theory once and for all by using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) - by far the most powerful telescope in the world - to spot the Apollo lunar landers.

Operated by European astronomers in the Chilean Andes, the VLT consists of four mirrors 27ft across linked by optical fibres. It can see a single human hair at a distance of 10 miles.

Trained on the Moon, such astonishing resolution should enable it to see the base of one or more of the six lunar modules which Nasa insists landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Any images of the modules would be the first not to have been taken from space by Nasa.

Dr Richard West, an astronomer at the VLT, confirmed that his team was aiming to achieve "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites".

The first attempt to spot the spacecraft will be made using only one of the VLT's four telescope mirrors, which are fitted with special "adaptive optics" to cancel the distorting effect of the Earth's atmosphere. A trial run of the equipment this summer produced the sharpest image of the Moon taken from the Earth, showing details 400ft across from a distance of 238,000 miles.

The VLT team hopes to improve on this, with the aim of detecting clear evidence for the presence of the landers. The base of the lunar modules measured about 10ft across, but would cast a much longer shadow under ideal conditions.

Dr West said that the challenge pushed the optical abilities of one VLT mirror to its limits: if this attempt failed, the team planned to use the power of all four mirrors. "They would most probably be sufficiently sharp to show something at the sites," he said.

Dr West insisted, however, that the decision to examine the landing sites was not driven by the conspiracy theory. "We do not question the reality of the landings," he said. "It is more for instrument-testing purposes."

Supporters of the conspiracy theory welcomed the news that astronomers are to photograph the landing sites. Marcus Allen, UK publisher of Nexus magazine and a long-time advocate of the theory, said: "I would be the first to accept what they find as powerful evidence that something was placed on the Moon by man."

He added, however, that photographs of the lander would not prove that America put men on the Moon. "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem - the Russians did that in 1959," said Mr Allen. "The big problem is getting people there."

According to Mr Allen, Nasa was forced to send robots to the Moon and faked the manned missions because radiation levels in space were lethal to humans. "We know that no lead shielding was carried on Apollo, so how were 27 astronauts able to survive a journey of several days to and from the Moon?"

Dr Duncan Steel, a space scientist at Salford University, said that the supposed radiation hazard is a myth spread by conspiracy theorists.

Dr Robert Massey, an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, said that the conspiracy theorists are unlikely to be deterred by photographic evidence. "Even if the VLT does see something, I suspect it won't silence them. In science we can never totally prove anything - but we can prove things beyond reasonable doubt."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: apollo; beanie; conspiracy; moon; theories; tinfoil
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This is getting out of hand in terms of wasting money.

Regards, Ivan


1 posted on 11/23/2002 5:00:25 PM PST by MadIvan
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To: Toirdhealbheach Beucail; TopQuark; TexKat; Iowa Granny; vbmoneyspender; America's Resolve; ...
Bump!
2 posted on 11/23/2002 5:00:38 PM PST by MadIvan
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To: MadIvan
I figured they were gonna train the VLT on GB to see if there is any sign of a Conservative Party over there!

LOL!

3 posted on 11/23/2002 5:03:02 PM PST by sauropod
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To: sauropod
I thought they would point it at France and try to find any courage.
4 posted on 11/23/2002 5:05:24 PM PST by exnavy
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To: MadIvan
Hit the bastard again, Buzz, only harder!
5 posted on 11/23/2002 5:07:00 PM PST by Argh
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To: MadIvan
It's sad when valuable telescope resources have to be used to placate the nutters.
6 posted on 11/23/2002 5:09:59 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: MadIvan
I have never heard a viable explanation on how that one flag on the moon was blowing around like a flag being blown by a very stiff wind, as there is NO wind on moon, it's a vacuum, right?!
7 posted on 11/23/2002 5:12:04 PM PST by timestax
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To: RadioAstronomer
Consider it just a test of the optics.
8 posted on 11/23/2002 5:13:51 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: RightWhale
Consider it just a test of the optics.

:-))

9 posted on 11/23/2002 5:15:16 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: MadIvan
Not necessarly, Ivan. DOD regularly bounces radar signals off the moon to calibrate their radars. They don't have to, since the radars arn't tracking anything on the moon, but it provides a good reference and tuning beacon.

Same way with these guys. They need to know what the capabilities of their telescope is. I especially believe this, since they are going to use ONE of the scopes, then all 4 of them.

Besides, the tin foilers are not going to believe it anyway, since you can doctor a photo easier than fake a moon landing mission.
10 posted on 11/23/2002 5:17:47 PM PST by Lokibob
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To: Lokibob
Maybe they can look around for Elvis too, he's a hidin' somewheres.
11 posted on 11/23/2002 5:20:03 PM PST by Dudesdad
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To: MadIvan
Telescope photos? FAKES!

Heck, no telescope could possibly see that much detail.. it's a fake, too!

;^)

12 posted on 11/23/2002 5:20:35 PM PST by Teacher317
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To: timestax
yeah, and those astronauts on the shuttle look like they're being blown around the cabin... but there's not supposed to be any wind on the shuttle... FAKES!!! The shuttles are fakes, too!!!
13 posted on 11/23/2002 5:22:15 PM PST by Teacher317
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To: timestax
They put wires in the flag so it looked like it was flapping. Just for show. It's well documented. A friend was an intern at NASA during the moon landing and he verifies knowing about it.
14 posted on 11/23/2002 5:24:49 PM PST by PianoMan
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To: MadIvan
According to Mr Allen, Nasa was forced to send robots to the Moon and faked the manned missions because radiation levels in space were lethal to humans. "We know that no lead shielding was carried on Apollo, so how were 27 astronauts able to survive a journey of several days to and from the Moon?

Balderdash! Everyone knows there were no robots capable of piloting a spacecraft back in 1969.

The Apollo moon missions were carried out by suicide teams who bravely sacrificed themselves!< /insanity >

15 posted on 11/23/2002 5:25:55 PM PST by LibKill
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To: timestax
I remember watching it in 1969, when I was 13, and the
explanation was that if they just put the flag there, it
would hang straight down so they put a telescoping rod
along the top of the flag to hold it out straight.
16 posted on 11/23/2002 5:26:52 PM PST by poindexters brother
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To: PianoMan
...wires???....
17 posted on 11/23/2002 5:27:01 PM PST by timestax
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To: RadioAstronomer
Science always needs more money, interest, and support; consider it a useful PR gesture.
18 posted on 11/23/2002 5:28:14 PM PST by Cicero
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To: timestax
Please tell me you're kidding.
19 posted on 11/23/2002 5:28:45 PM PST by Tennessee_Bob
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To: poindexters brother
I remember watching it in 1969, when I was 13, and the explanation was that if they just put the flag there, it would hang straight down so they put a telescoping rod along the top of the flag to hold it out straight. 16 posted on 11/23/2002 5:26 PM PST by poindexters brother [ Post Reply

uh, it wasn't just hanging out there ..it was flapping and furling around big time!!

20 posted on 11/23/2002 5:28:52 PM PST by timestax
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