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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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To: Dog Gone
Those Rats are everywhere. No doubt looking for cheese.
81 posted on 11/23/2002 6:20:06 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: MadIvan
Thanks, Ivan. Interesting post.

Two related pieces of evidence (which the doubters will ignore).

Lasers are bounced every clear night (even now) from McDonald Observatory in Texas and Cote d'Azur Observatory in France from retro-reflector prisms on the moon. This tells the drift of the moon from the Earth accurate to a centimeter or so. (and Earth's continental drift).

The great telescopes on Earth photographed the Apollo return flight rocket burns against the limb of the moon. (I'll try to post the photos).
82 posted on 11/23/2002 6:20:44 PM PST by edwin hubble
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To: timestax


Now you must die.

83 posted on 11/23/2002 6:21:19 PM PST by Justa
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To: timestax
"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?!"

You know, I've always wondered why it is that people seem to think that the flag would have come straight off an ironing board. Why is it that they think it's "fluttering in the breeze" rather than just wrinkled and nobody neatened it up for the photo? Most likely people tend to think that because that is our only frame of reference (since most of us have never been in outer space...drat, rat, and double drat). My understanding is that if you hang up a wrinkled flag in outer space it will pretty much stay in whatever wrinkled position you left it in.

84 posted on 11/23/2002 6:21:58 PM PST by Pablo64
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To: Miss Marple
As I told you, none of the explanations contradicts the others. They are all supporting the same thing. In fact, this last one is a repeat of an earlier "explanations", only with different wording

YOU said the flag wasn't flapping, Now you come saying all the nebulous "explanations" causing the flag to flap are correct. What are you trying to say?

85 posted on 11/23/2002 6:22:08 PM PST by timestax
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To: Tennessee_Bob
So, tell me - did President Lincoln exist?

Yes! But his assassination was faked!

86 posted on 11/23/2002 6:23:53 PM PST by CharacterCounts
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To: timestax
Movement of the flag caused by the twisting of the pole is not what I consider flapping. If you will notice that the third explanation, that the flag was hit by the exhaust of the lunar module, I did not see in the European coverage. IF it happened, the explanation is sufficient. I did not see that movement in the covereage provided overseas.
87 posted on 11/23/2002 6:25:00 PM PST by Miss Marple
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You people are insane.
88 posted on 11/23/2002 6:25:19 PM PST by Senator Pardek
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To: Lokibob
That story is in Urban Legends. They checked with Neil Armstrong and he said he never said that. It sucks because I had also told that story a couple times before I found out.
89 posted on 11/23/2002 6:25:25 PM PST by Higgymonster
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To: timestax
I took a science class in high school (many moons ago).

For my junior year science project I did the following:

First I borrowed the use of the lost-wax jewelry casting room's equipment.

I put a plastic mini-flag on a cobbled-up pole and broken radio antenna then stuck it upright in a bell jar on a rubber sprue base and evacuated the air.

When you tapped the jar, the flag waved.


One more kook theory bit the dust.





90 posted on 11/23/2002 6:25:40 PM PST by petuniasevan
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To: MadIvan
They left there a device to reflect laser beams back to earth. Anyone with a powerful enough laser should be able to ping it any time they want, and that should provide all the proof needed.
91 posted on 11/23/2002 6:26:05 PM PST by Stefan Stackhouse
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To: timestax
Is that a moonpot?

No, it's an x-ray of your skull

92 posted on 11/23/2002 6:27:19 PM PST by muleskinner
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To: MadIvan
This is getting out of hand in terms of wasting money.

Well Ivan, the article doesn't seem to address cost issues,
But with a little luck, they're only wasting Euros, not real money.
Cheers!

93 posted on 11/23/2002 6:27:21 PM PST by Willie Green
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To: CharacterCounts
Man throws 82 year old woman out of her home . " Dont let this happen to you " .
94 posted on 11/23/2002 6:27:24 PM PST by Ben Bolt
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To: edwin hubble; timestax
Thanks, Ed. Forgot about that.

Answer this one, wonder boy! Who put the reflector prisms in place? They had to be hand-positioned so the reflection would be directly back to Earth.

What's your conspiracy theory on this one? Martians?
95 posted on 11/23/2002 6:29:11 PM PST by petuniasevan
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To: Miss Marple
I'm not saying the moon landing were faked, only some of the "pics". Maybe the cameras didn't work and they needed somthing to show,so they faked some.
96 posted on 11/23/2002 6:30:36 PM PST by timestax
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To: muleskinner
Is that a moonpot? No, it's an x-ray of your skull 92 posted on 11/23/2002 6:27 PM PST by muleskinner [

Is that a threat?

97 posted on 11/23/2002 6:31:58 PM PST by timestax
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To: timestax
I think that I have seen this footage of the waving flag too.

It is caused by the firing rocket motors on the Ascent stage of the lunar lander.

The flag was filmed from the spacecraft as it was ascending from the lunar surface.
98 posted on 11/23/2002 6:32:23 PM PST by antonz
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To: timestax
Go back and look at the pictures that were supplied over several landings. Thay all had the stiff American flag.

You also forget that the flag planting was shown LIVE on television. This was 34 years ago, when there was little special effects in television. NO FLAPPING!

99 posted on 11/23/2002 6:32:51 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: FormerLurker
This is your kind of thread.
100 posted on 11/23/2002 6:33:15 PM PST by TomB
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