EEVblog 1548 - Moon Landing Hoax BUSTED

[SiliconWizard]

The Apollo computer was pretty amazing for 60's tech.

[vk6zgo]

Technical question time.... if you film yourself kicking dust on earth at 60fps, by how many frames per second would you need to slow the footage on playback to make it look as if you were kicking dust on the moon? Or if the CIA filmed it before hand, how many frames would a camera need to be over-cranked (running faster), to make playback at 30fps look lunar?

Hint: Earth G versus Lunar G

Several points: -
(1) As you hinted, gravity is less on the Moon, however, this is largely nullified by the absence of any real atmosphere there.
The propensity for dust to float in the air on Earth means that it will fall faster on the Moon.

(2) If you want to get that "moon walk" look, by recording at a higher speed & playing back at lower speed, you have
solved one problem, but exacerbated the other, as the dust will appear to take even longer to fall.

(3) As it happens, for Apollo 11, (1) would not be evident in any case, because the TV system used was Slow Scan TV, using 6 frames per second, which was optically converted to NTSC & PAL/SECAM * after reception at the Earth stations---mainly Parkes in Australia for the moonwalk.

People, generally have little idea of the complexity of the planning & actual activity involved in conveying the moonwalk video to the World.
The following, written by an Australian, not an "American CIA operative" gives a good overview, although necessarily from an Australian perspective.

https://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/apollo11/the_plan.html#:~:text=The%20original%20mission%20plan%20of,at%20Tidbinbilla%20near%20Canberra%2C%20Australia.

* PS :- I know it wasn't PAL/SECAM in many countries---Australia was still 625 line BW, but it is useful shorthand to refer to the 625/50 systems.

[EEVblog]

I'm old enough that I knew technical persons (engineers and scientists) who were involved in the moon landings (although I didn't know any astronauts personally).
They were generally honest people of high standards, and there were enough of them to make it difficult to publicly fake such things.

That is not a very strong argument because it boils down to hearsay. None of the people you reference to have been on the moon themselves. A much stronger argument is in the rocks that where taken back from the moon as some of these have rather unique features which are not present in rocks found on earth. You can doctor images / film and make people come up with collaborated stories but faking physical items that have been subjected to an entirely different environment for millions of years and make these pass scientific examination for decades is hard (understatement).

I liked someones comment on the video, they talked to operators who were looking at the coded signals from the science instruments and knew that those systems had to be manually connected and powered by the astronaughts on the moon for them to work. And there are probably dozens or even hundreds of these types of small things that had to and did work.

[nctnico]

I'm old enough that I knew technical persons (engineers and scientists) who were involved in the moon landings (although I didn't know any astronauts personally).
They were generally honest people of high standards, and there were enough of them to make it difficult to publicly fake such things.

That is not a very strong argument because it boils down to hearsay. None of the people you reference to have been on the moon themselves. A much stronger argument is in the rocks that where taken back from the moon as some of these have rather unique features which are not present in rocks found on earth. You can doctor images / film and make people come up with collaborated stories but faking physical items that have been subjected to an entirely different environment for millions of years and make these pass scientific examination for decades is hard (understatement).

I liked someones comment on the video, they talked to operators who were looking at the coded signals from the science instruments and knew that those systems had to be manually connected and powered by the astronaughts on the moon for them to work. And there are probably dozens or even hundreds of these types of small things that had to and did work.

But that still doesn't provide evidence that can be checked by a third party independently. 

There is no doubt on my mind people went and walked on the moon but it if you really want to prove this with zero room for doubt, you'll need verifiable physical evidence.

[magic]

There is no doubt on my mind people went and walked on the moon but it if you really want to prove this with zero room for doubt, you'll need verifiable physical evidence.

I.e. we need to wait for Moon tourism to become mainstream

[Ed.Kloonk]

I'm old enough that I knew technical persons (engineers and scientists) who were involved in the moon landings (although I didn't know any astronauts personally).
They were generally honest people of high standards, and there were enough of them to make it difficult to publicly fake such things.

That is not a very strong argument because it boils down to hearsay. None of the people you reference to have been on the moon themselves. A much stronger argument is in the rocks that where taken back from the moon as some of these have rather unique features which are not present in rocks found on earth. You can doctor images / film and make people come up with collaborated stories but faking physical items that have been subjected to an entirely different environment for millions of years and make these pass scientific examination for decades is hard (understatement).

I liked someones comment on the video, they talked to operators who were looking at the coded signals from the science instruments and knew that those systems had to be manually connected and powered by the astronaughts on the moon for them to work. And there are probably dozens or even hundreds of these types of small things that had to and did work.

But that still doesn't provide evidence that can be checked by a third party independently. 

There is no doubt on my mind people went and walked on the moon but it if you really want to prove this with zero room for doubt, you'll need verifiable physical evidence.

Go you halves in a space probe. 

[AndyBeez]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings

[Ed.Kloonk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings

Shadows are the bane of anyone who has ever took a photo.

[AndyBeez]

Shadows are the bane of anyone who has ever took a photo.

Or as they call it on the Moon, the Terminator. We'll be back.

[boggis the cat]

I.e. we need to wait for Moon tourism to become mainstream

This doesn't stop the Flat-Earthers.

They could buy a ticket on a cruise liner and go check out the Antarctic.  They might even notice the strange way that the highest peaks appear first and disappear last when you're on that ship.  But they'll still swear that it's magic / physics that makes no sense / mass psychosis / etc.

[Ed.Kloonk]

[Nominal Animal]

I do believe there is sufficient, ample physical verifiable evidence to conclude that the moon landing in 1969 was real, not faked.

I always thought that the seed for the "faked moon landing" theory (or whatchamacallit) was that there indeed were some politicians who wanted a backup plan in case they needed to fake it (most likely because their own physics knowledge was so weak they thought it was impossible), and actually approached Stanley Kubric about it.

I also have no reason to believe there was not a backup plan to fake it, in case NASA failed; mostly because it is exactly what politicians who have weak grasp of physics would do, just to not 'lose face' or 'the space race'.  I do not believe the backup plan was executed at all, but I consider it more likely than not that Kubric was asked about the feasibility of, and technical details of executing such a plan.

The best conspiracy theories always have a tiny kernel of truth in them, and I believe the 'they did ask Kubric et al if and how it could be done' is the one here.

[SiliconWizard]

As I said, what matters is the next time we'll set foot on the moon again. Past is past. As some have said, science is not about believing. it's about being able to reproduce experiments.
So let's reproduce this and call it a day. At this point, we still don't send humans further than about 400 km above the ground as far as I know.
Before going back to the moon, why not arrange flights that would go a few ten thousands of km away from Earth and back with humans, just to train people and improve technology? That would already be pretty cool.

[240RS]

[anecdote] Remember seeing an in-period built moon lander at the Smithsonian in Washington DC and screamed “no way!!”. How can you land and take off in something that flimsy? I only knew it from books. And I felt some understanding for the deniers. I had never even given that we had not landed on the moon a thought. Until seeing this paperweight thing. Really confused me at the time. Rationale then takes over and low gravity and vacuum brakes stuff way less easy. But from originally thinking it was an engineering marvel it made my current standpoint we were quite lucky to pull this off.
[\anecdote]

[nctnico]

There is a documentary series called 'moon machines' about how a few major parts of the moon mission where designed. I can recommend watching these.

[TimFox]

Maybe 25 years ago, one of my co-worker's kids was surprised that we could do such a moon landing way back then.
He and I both agreed that it was no longer possible, due to political reasons that would not justify such an effort or cost any more at that later time.

[PwrElectronics]

This topic like other similar ones reminds me of the phrase:

"Two can keep a secret if one is dead".

50yrs later and 100s of people would have been involved and nobody has spilled?

I do seem to recall hearing of some list someplace of persons worked on the program who died "prematurely" so I guess that feeds the idea that any potential snitches were taken out.   

[EEVblog]

As I said, what matters is the next time we'll set foot on the moon again. Past is past. As some have said, science is not about believing. it's about being able to reproduce experiments.
So let's reproduce this and call it a day. At this point, we still don't send humans further than about 400 km above the ground as far as I know.
Before going back to the moon, why not arrange flights that would go a few ten thousands of km away from Earth and back with humans, just to train people and improve technology? That would already be pretty cool.

That's the current plan with the Artemis II mission Nov 2024.
They could have done it with Artemis I that worked flawlessly, but it had dummies insteads of humans, because, you know, non space race era arse covering.

And of course Starship, but my money is on Artemis II getting humans around the moon before Starship does.

[magic]

I want to know sex distribution of those dummies.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/01/1133375223/the-first-female-crash-test-dummy-has-only-now-arrived

[SiliconWizard]

And of course Starship, but my money is on Artemis II getting humans around the moon before Starship does.

Sounds like the most plausible right now indeed, but I'm pretty curious to see what they can achieve with Starship.