NASA Unsure of How to Counter the 'Moon Hoax'

The Associated Press ^ | January 5th 2003 | MARCIA DUNN

[ContentiousObjector]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Is that the moon or a studio in the Nevada desert? How can the flag flutter when there's no wind on the moon? Why can't we see stars in the moon-landing pictures?

For three decades, NASA has taken the high road, ignoring those who claimed the Apollo moon landings were faked and part of a colossal government conspiracy.

The claims and suspicious questions such as the ones cited here mostly showed up in books and on the Internet. But last year's prime-time Fox TV special on the so-called "moon hoax" prompted schoolteachers and others to plead with NASA for factual ammunition to fight back.

So a few months ago, the space agency budgeted $15,000 to hire a former rocket scientist and author to produce a small book refuting the disbelievers' claims. It would be written primarily with teachers and students in mind.

The idea backfired, however, embarrassing the space agency for responding to ignorance, and the book deal was chucked.

"The issue of trying to do a targeted response to this is just lending credibility to something that is, on its face, asinine," NASA chief Sean O'Keefe said in late November after the dust settled.

So it's back to square one -- ignoring the hoaxers. That's troubling to some scientific experts who contend that someone needs to lead the fight against scientific illiteracy and the growing belief in pseudoscience such as aliens and astrology.

Someone like NASA.
"If they don't speak out, who will?" asks Melissa Pollak, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation.

Author James Oberg will. The former space shuttle flight controller plans to write the book NASA commissioned from him even though the agency pulled the plug. He is seeking money elsewhere. His working title: "A Pall Over Apollo."

Tom Hanks will speak out, too.
The Academy Award-winning actor, who starred in the 1995 movie "Apollo 13" and later directed the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon," is working on another lunar-themed project. The IMAX documentary will feature Apollo archival footage. Its title: "Magnificent Desolation," astronaut Buzz Aldrin's real-time description of the moon on July 20, 1969.

While attending the Cape Canaveral premiere of the IMAX version of "Apollo 13" in November, Hanks said the film industry has a responsibility to promote historical literacy. He took a jab at the 1978 movie "Capricorn One," which had NASA's first manned mission to Mars being faked on a sound stage.

"We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity," Hanks said. "There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened."

A spokesman for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington says there will always be those who will not be convinced. But the museum does not engage them in debate.

The spokesman acknowledges, however, that if a major news channel was doing a program that questioned the authenticity of the Holocaust, "I'd certainly want to inject myself into the debate with them in a very forceful way."

Television's Fox Network was the moon-hoax purveyor. In February 2001 and again a month later, Fox broadcast an hourlong program titled "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?"

Roger Launius, who agreed to Oberg's book just before leaving NASA's history office, says the story about the moon hoax has been around a long time. But the Fox show "raised it to a new level, it gave it legs and credibility that it didn't have before."

Indeed, the National Science Foundation's Pollak says two of her colleagues, after watching the Fox special, thought it was possible that NASA faked the moon landings. "These are people who work at NSF," she stresses.

The story went -- and still goes -- something like this: America was desperate to beat the Soviet Union in the high-stakes race to the moon, but lacked the technology to pull it off. So NASA faked the six manned moon landings in a studio somewhere out West.

Ralph Rene, a retired carpenter in Passaic, N.J., takes it one step farther. The space fakery started during the Gemini program, according to Rene, author of the 1992 book, NASA Mooned America!

"I don't know what real achievements they've done because when do you trust a liar?" Rene says. "I know we have a shuttle running right around above our heads, but that's only 175 miles up. It's under the shield. You cannot go through the shield and live."

He is talking, of course, about the radiation shield.

Alex Roland, a NASA historian during the 1970s and early 1980s, says his office used to have "a kook drawer" for such correspondence and never took it seriously. But there were no prime-time TV shows disputing the moon landings then -- and no Internet.

Still, Roland would be inclined to "just let it go because you'll probably just make it worse by giving it any official attention."

Within NASA, opinions were split about a rebuttal book. Oberg, a Houston-based author of 12 books, mostly about the Russian space program, said ignoring the problem "just makes this harder. To a conspiracy mind, refusing to respond is a sign of cover-up."

Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell does not know what else, if anything, can be done to confront this moon madness.

"All I know is that somebody sued me because I said I went to the moon," says the 74-year-old astronaut. "Of course, the courts threw it out."

The authorities also threw out the case involving Apollo 11 moonwalker Aldrin in September.

A much bigger and younger man was hounding the 72-year-old astronaut in Beverly Hills, Calif., calling him "a coward, a liar and a thief" and trying to get him to swear on a Bible, on camera, that he walked on the moon. Aldrin, a Korean War combat pilot, responded with a fist in the chops.

[afuturegovernor]

Haha, such mental heavyweights of Free Republic could have certainly added to this thread.

[afuturegovernor]

I know, almost every single DUer is claiming that the VRWC had Paul Wellstone murder and they have "facts" to prove it.

[AdA$tra]

I don't know about any of that stuff, but I can render as many Lightwave 3D images of space ships as you want. I really did take the moon photo in my back yard though. I am trying to get a good one of Saturn but the exposure is a bit more complex than the moon pix. All I needed to do for that one is use the spot metering feature on the Nikon.

[MHGinTN]

No atmosphere to give drag to the expelled particles. The mass of each particle would determine the thrust to send each (?) distance from the Lander. In one landing series, the gasses from the thruster are shown expelling particles at high speed out from under the Lander, but a cloud of dust didn't form because of the Lunar dust composition and lack of atmosphere. A 'dug out' crater didn't form either because of a combination of reduced thrust per unit area of the rocket motor exit and Lunar reduced grav to overcome in last three meters. What pictures do show is a spoothed out area under the Lunar lander, with massive stones (more massive than micron dust) showing a 'drift' pattern opposite the rocket motor thrust vector intersection with the Lunar surface.

If the above isn't enought to reduce your qualms, you are probably wanting to believe a hoax more than you want the truth.

[afuturegovernor]

Haha, I know that they would say exactly that. If I had a membership over there I would post it just to see the reaction.

[Gorons]

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[Swordmaker]

Didn't O.J. Simpson star in "Capricorn One?"

I think he took a stab at it...

[A CA Guy]

Wasn't this whole story the straw that retired Art Bell's back?

[Swordmaker]

Someone needs to post a pic of the "tourist guy" on the moon.

One itsy-bitsy problem... Tourist Guy was the guy BEHIND the camera that took the take-off shot. You KNOW that the cameraman never is seen in any pictures...

[capitan_refugio]

It's a working title. Oberg does good research and his books about Soviet space diasters is outstanding. The one I have is out of print now.

[capitan_refugio]

I, for one, appreciate the humor. Now, if you could only spell. ;^)

[capitan_refugio]

Maybe I am mistaken, but didn't the building that held "Buran" (the Soviet knockoff of our shuttle orbiter) recently collapse under the weight of snow? Maybe it wasn't Buran, but their moon rocket. Anyone??

[Swordmaker]

Hey, BigJim... welcome to FreeRepublic.

[Defend the Second]

You know, guys, this thread makes me kind of sad. The FR community is mostly a fairly sharp group. For the idea of the Apollo program as a vast conspiracy to gain any traction at all among the members of the FR community is a big disappointment. I know I'm old and all (45), but please just think about the hundreds of thousands of people who would 1) all have to be in on the gag, and 2) all have to keep their mouths shut for more than three decades.

Someone should call Oliver Stone. I think we got his next conspiracy movie. Remember JFK? That was the one where Ollie told us that Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy. EVERYBODY ELSE shot Kennedy. Some of my esteemed colleagues here at FR are obviously ready to believe anything. Really sad, people.

[Swordmaker]

Grav speed here is 32 ft/sec/sec. It is a third less on the Moon so your notion is wrong.

Actually the moon's gravity is approximately ONE SIXTH that of Earth's... Mars' is 1/3. So, if on Earth a falling object will fall 32 feet in one second, on the Moon it will fall only about 5.33 feet in that same second.

[Defend the Second]

Nothin' personal to you in my comment there, Sword. Jim Oberg has done quality work for decades. I checked the web site and the e-mail address is real.

[Swordmaker]

With this, you suggest the atmosphere will not allow drifting of the particles behind stationary objects moved by the gas "down wind" of the engines?

Sit-rep, there IS NO DRIFT. All of the objects, dust and debris blown away by the engines on landing and takeoff travel in completely ballistic paths because there is no atmosphere to interact with. There is no drag, no wind forces, no air-pressure and no differentials in air-pressure to cause "drift" of dust behind rocks, etc. There is only ballistic parabolae that are less acute than we would see on Earth... the force of gravity is only 5.33 feet/second/second.