Moon landing conspiracy

This page concerns arguments raised by American conspiracy theorists that the NASA moon landings actually happened. Separate arguments are given under their own headings, followed immediately by the pseudorebuttals (if any).

Suggested evidence

1. No crater under the landing module

There is no crater under the landing module, though the exhaust jet have 10% extra efficiency in space. Gravity is 1/6 the of that on earth hence its easier to create a depression on moon since the top soil will be blown off with great ease. The moon has a very thick crush of dust that's been left undisturbed for billions of years, this should make a clear deep crater.

The shoe prints are very clear and deep near and around the lander to prove above points.

Rebuttal

No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion System was throttled very far down during the final stages of landing. The Lunar Module was no longer rapidly decelerating, so the descent engine only had to support the module's own weight, which by then was greatly diminished by the near exhaustion of the descent propellants, and the Moon's lower gravity. At the time of landing, the engine's thrust divided by the cross-sectional area of the engine bell is only about 1.5 PSI and that is reduced by the fact that the engine was in a vacuum, causing the exhaust to spread out.

Rocket exhaust gases expand much more rapidly after leaving the engine nozzle in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. The effect of an atmosphere on rocket plumes can be easily seen in launches from Earth; as the rocket rises through the thinning atmosphere, the exhaust plumes broaden very noticeably. Rocket engines designed for vacuum operation have longer bells than those designed for use at the Earth's surface, but they still cannot prevent this spreading. The Lunar Module's exhaust gases therefore expanded rapidly well beyond the landing site. Even if they hadn't, a simple calculation will show that the pressure at the end of the descent engine bell was much too low to carve out a crater. However, the descent engines did scatter a considerable amount of very fine surface dust as seen in 16mm movies of each landing, and as Neil Armstrong said as the landing neared ("...kicking up some dust..."). This significantly impaired visibility in the final stages of landing, and many mission commanders commented on it. Photographs do show slightly disturbed dust beneath the descent engine. And finally, the landers were generally moving horizontally as well as vertically until right before landing, so the exhaust would not be focused on any one surface spot for very long, and the compactness of the lunar soil below a thin surface layer of dust also make it virtually impossible for the descent engine to blast out a "crater".

2. Fake photographs on the NASA site

It has been suggested that fake moon landing photographs are on the official NASA sites that "prove the intent to distort the facts and discredit the legitimate moon landing whistleblowers by putting them in line with moon landing conspiracy theorist."

Here is a small example, find yourself for more, there are many.^{[citation needed]}

[Image:http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/a12.DPphoto.jpg]

Rebuttal

This photo is indeed a "fake". Who faked it is debateable. It is a composite of two photos of a single astronaut. There is a retractable arm that has been erased from the right-hand image. However, parts of the arm can still be seen on the astronaut's leg. There is also a shadow that would not be there if the arm had not been in position.

3. Too many photos exist

There are far more moon photos to exist, given the total time astronauts were on the moon. In some mission they will have to take a photo per minute (Supporting evidence needed). There were too many time consuming and extremely complicated tasks with them, so this is not possible.

Rebuttal

The camera equipment used had simplified setting which allowed up to two photographs per second. Many photos of essentially the same scene were often taken in quick succession.

4. The lunar buggy couldn't fit in the lander

There is no mention nor a photo about how they removed the lunar buggy from the lander or where they had kept it.

Rebuttal

The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was stored in quad 1 of the Lunar Module (LM). The astronauts deployed it by using a system of pulleys and braked reels using ropes and cloth tapes. The rover was folded and stored in quad 1 with the underside of the chassis facing out. One astronaut would climb the egress ladder on the LM and release the rover, which would then be slowly tilted out by the second astronaut on the ground through the use of reels and tapes. As the rover was let down from the bay most of the deployment was automatic. The rear wheels folded out and locked in place and when they touched the ground the front of the rover could be unfolded, the wheels deployed, and the entire frame let down to the surface by pulleys.

The rover components locked into place upon opening. Cabling, pins, and tripods would then be removed and the seats and footrests raised. After switching on all the electronics the vehicle was ready to back away from the LM.

5. The Apollo 11 astronauts looked bored during their press conference

Their press conferance was not the typical reaction of men who just embarked on the greatest mission in the history of man. They look disgusted, unenthusiatic, and ashamed. Something is really bugging these Astronauts. [1]

Rebuttal

Maybe they were just tired. Or they were emotionless nerds. Or maybe thier bodies were replaced with synthetic clones and their personalities replaced with I/O subroutines.

6. The Apollo Landers were impossible at their time

Its clearly seen how the lander ejects into the space off the moon as if pulled by cables or something. If we look at even todays vertical liftoff planes or rockets they take a lot more time to gain speed due to inertia, but the moon lander was ahead of its times it seems.

Even today vertical liftoff and landing are cutting edge science under test phases and extremely unstable, this 30 years after lunar missions, think about it. There was no report or demos about lunar landers successful trials, in fact there are videos of crashes while in tests. To save face NASA would have definitely made video of the successful trials, public.

Rebuttal

Regarding the issue of speed, gravity on the moon's surface is 1/6th of the gravity on the surface of the Earth. Therefore, we would expect the moon lander to appear to accelerate faster than it would if taking off from Earth.

There is also no atmosphere on the moon, so air resistance effects that would affect a vertical takeoff on Earth would have no bearing on the moon.

7. Photographs of lunar mission simulation points to the evidence of Hoax

The practice sessions for lunar missions look remarkably identical to the real moon itself, just look at the boot prints.

[Image:http://piratenews.org/spaceref_com_apollo11_simulation.jpg]

(Reference needed to show that this is in fact a genuine NASA photograph.).

These photos raise doubts of the Hollywood style of moon missions. And look at the heavy backpacks, it would had been very difficult to carry them around in low gravity due to inertia, unless they were empty.

There are many photos that show mock up models of entire or part moon surface in miniature. Why did they require so many of them for ?

Here is an one of the photos, find the rest yourself. Ask what did they do with that trolley conveyor.

[Image:http://www.geocities.com/apolloreality/apolloreality_files/033f88b0.jpg]

(Reference needed to show that this is in fact a genuine NASA photograph.).

Rebuttal

The backpacks were cumbersome, but not too heavy, due to the lower gravity on the moon.

Regarding the moon mockups, what they did with the trolley conveyor was probably put a camera platform on it to simulate the orbit of the lunar module.

8. They couldn't have got footage of Armstrong climbing down the ladder of the lander

When Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder to set foot on the Moon's surface for the first time, who took the video footage? There would have had to have been somebody holding a video camera already outside the lander.

Rebuttal

There was a TV camera mounted in the Modularized Equipment Storage Assembly near the bottom of the lunar module. It was deployed by a small door opening up on the module, then a bracket which extended the TV camera to a position pointed at the ladder from which Armstrong descended.

9. No stars in photos

[Image:http://www.space.com/images/schmitt_flag_03.jpg]

We can understand that the glare of other objects will limit us from getting stars in the photos. But not a single Photo pointed at moon Sky, Thats amazing.

There is no way I won't take a good snap from moon of sweet Earth thats above my head.

I am sure we should see the brightest stars with cameras that good when pointed at space.

Rebuttal

Notice how the sunlight is reflecting off a very bright spacesuit, the flag and so on? In order for the photo not to be over-exposed, the exposure had to be quite short. Comparatively, any stars in the background sky were nowhere near bright enough to register on the film in the short exposure time.

This applies to many moon photos that show astronauts, the moon's surface, the lander, etc.

10. No moon in the sky

On the moon the view of the sky is unobstructed due to the lack of atmosphere. Hence the moon should be more than visible.

Rebuttal

You got us there! Actually if you look really hard you can see Io.

11. The moon is made out of cheese

The moon is made out of cheese. The lunar lander should have resulted in a brown burn mark and cheese does not turn into grey dust. The cheese did melt underneath the moonlander.

Rebuttal

There are a variety of cheeses of various consitency and flavour. It is quite feasable that the moon is made of Tyrolean grey cheese or Tymsboro. Detailed scientific studies of moon samples brought back from the surface in fact confirmed this. Unfortunately the scientists ate all the remaining cheese samples so you'll just have to trust us. The last sample was lost during the great fondue craze at NASA during the late 70s.

12. No giant "la-zers" visible in photos

Everyone knows that the primary purpose of the moon is to house giant lazers to point at the earth to extort money from the World Government. Yet, no such la-zers are visible in any of the 'lunar' photos, even though any space captain worth his salt would naturally have landed near the huge anomalous object detected on their Radar-O-Matics. In fact, such giant installations are not even mentioned during the entire record of lunar exploration.

Rebuttal

That's an interesting point. But first, let me show you this pit of Sharks With Frickin Laser Beams Attached To Their Heads. Feed them? Why, of course we can.

Trivia

In Soviet Russia, moon lands on YOU!!

There was no moon landing it was all fake.