How long is a piece of string? It would depend on the distance between the object and the observer, height above the ground, the zenith angle, the angular altitude, the angular distance from radiant, the linear speed of the object.

Hats off to you MID. I was just looking for you to clarify your original statement. You have. Thank you.

Yes...it would, roughly speaking...during the ionization phase, the vehicle decellerates from orbital velocity, of course, but this is still very fast and very high in the atmosphere. It gets lower, and slower as time goes on, but lower means that the angular displacement increases. The decelleration makes a re-entering plume high in sky look just about the same time-wise in it's transit.

It's a difficult matter to comprehend, I'm sure.

If I thought it was worth explaining further, I would, but somehow, I don't think it would have much effect.

Besides, this too is unassociated with the argument.
The re-entering vehicle obsewrved in polar orbit re-entry in Australia was not Apollo 11.

You're welcome...I think.
And thus, I am assuming that you have satisfied your need to deal in irrelevancies and shall concede that Apollo 11 was not what the people in Australia saw?

No I meant it MID.

I'm going to have to get off to my kip. I'll resume this tomorrow.

I'll just leave you with Windley and Obergs quotes from the video.


Oberg: "if the astronauts were indeed in low Earth orbit, they would have been in the necessary line-of-sight for ground stations for only 4-5 minutes at a time."

Windley: Mr. Sibrel has no actual evidence that the Apollo spacecraft stayed in low earth orbit the whole time, nor can he explain how it was able to go for two weeks without being spotted in the night sky. *It would have been the brightest object in the sky next to the moon and Venus*. *And it would have been moving so fast that it would have transited the night sky in about three minutes*. **Bright, fast-moving objects in the sky attract attention**.

You forgot to mention that during orbit, it wouldn't resemble something that was re-entering the atmosphere.

Cats are mammals with four legs and a tail, who enjoy a special relationship with mice. I saw a four-legged mammal with a tail the other day. Mouse scared it witless.

Did I see a cat?

Of course not. It was an elephant. I know it was an elephant because it had a trunk.

Moral of the tail [sic]? We know that the people of Western Australia didn't see a spaceship in orbit - it was entering the Earth's atmosphere. Other similarities to orbiting spacecraft do not make it an orbiting spacecraft, just like an elephant being a mammal with four legs and a tail doesn't make it a cat. I can deny the presence of a trunk and talk about the cat-like properties possessed by the elephant on all the "mammal-transformation-conspiracy" forums I can find, but it won't turn the elephant into a cat, without the aid of some painful surgery, a strict weight-loss regime, plenty of counselling and a saucer of milk.

I appreciate the sentiment, but still, I do not see the relevance to Apollo 11.

Apollo 11 re-entered the atmopshere on 7-24-69 (US TIMES) about 2000 miles NE of Australia, heading toward Hawaii at an azimuth of about 44 degrees. Re-entry would've been visible in the Marshall Islands, or perhaps even in the Solomons...but Australia was stretch at an altitude of about 75 statute miles at that distance.

At any rate, the ground track was SW to NE, not N to S in relation to Australia, and it occurred at about 2:00 am Sydney time on July 25, 1969... some significant time after the N to S re-entry track described by witnesses in Australia....Re-entry of AS-11 might have been visible perhaps 2.1 to 2.5 degrees above NE in much of Eastern Australia...and not for long...if they saw it at all.

If what those folks saw was Apollo 11, we were in deep trouble, as she would've been heading into the Antarctic Ocean....(Apollo 11 was on a 1285 NM re-entry path....being visible N to S over Australia might've put the men down in a nasty place (depending on where over Australia they were observed... any place over Australia would not be good)...and way off course!).

Of course, they landed about 950 SM SW of Honolulu, as we tracked and many people saw on their TVs...while most of Australia was sleeping (well, they should've been at any rate, save the NASA shifts on at the tracking stations we had there...who were always on-line!).

Apollo 11 had no relation to this specter in the night skies of Australia at 7:00 pm on July 24...

There is a chance they faked it because of the soviets catching up.

A pretty well put point Posty!

..and mighty creative at that!

Dragon...

Welcome.

Unfortunately, there is not a chance they faked it because the Soviets were "catching up".
The soviets had already lost the race to the Moon by December 1968...7 months prior to Apollo 11, and they had no capability to go to the Moon whatsoever as of July 3, 1969, when their large booster capability was destroyed in a launch pad explosion. They had been behind the U.S. for some years in space efforts, and never caught up.


There was no reason to fake it because of any pressure by the Soviets. The race was over before Apollo 11 launched.

I've put in a request for the Keplerian elements of Proton 4's orbit from 22nd July 1969 through to the end of the 24th of July. Once I have the data I will map it to show a ground track and then use that to predict exactly where it should have been roughly 7 o clock Aussie time on 24th July 1969.

Or you could fork out for this analysis of its orbit published in 1976...

http://www.ntis.gov/search/product.aspx?ABBR=ADA036093

...which was a refinement of this analysis of its orbit published in 1970.

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRec...ifier=AD0714659.



This little known Russian space-probe had over 900 professional sightings (and was apparently witnessed re-entering the atmosphere by people in Western Australia), but there are no reported sightings of Apollo 11 in LEO when it should have been beetling it's way to and from the moon.

Nor Apollo's 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17...

Does that mean that you are FINALLY going to drop this??

Question...(where I left off) Why do you think discussion of Apollo 8 going to the Moon isn't relevant to a discussion of Apollo 11 going to the Moon??

Cats, elephants?

I hope one of you boys gets the info PRONTO because its looking bad for you. And everybody else reading this (meow?)

Not identified FOR A MONTH back in 1969.

Sounds to me like they were clutching at straws and SHOULD have known IMMEDIATELY within in a day or two TOPS it was a Russian satellite that had stopped operating 150 days beforehand.

And why is this info only listed at Astronautix and nowhere else?

Mind you. Jodrell Bank were busy tracking Luna 15 for the Russians so maybe back in 1969 nobody had a clue what was on the way or back from the Moon and what objects were due to fall out of the sky!

Question...(where I left off) Who do you think gave the worst performance during the Apollo 11 press conference and didn't seem to have a clue what they were describing when the photos they allegedly took were being shown? Neil, Buzz or Mike?

My choice. Joint first place!

You are STILL insisting that it could have been Apollo in orbit? I'd like you to answer these questions then please.

1) How was Apollo 11 lit so far after sunset? If you're not sure what I mean by this question, see:



2) The article describes it as 'entering the atmosphere' and the people described it as something out of the ordinary, unusual, bright, a UFO; which signifies to me something entering the atmosphere. Why would an orbiting Apollo 11 be classed as unusual and bright, when all it really would have been was a semi-bright star slowly traversing the heavens. Hardly noticeable!

3) As the object was in a polar orbit, how did Apollo 11 transit to the correct orbit in 5 hours, more importantly where did they get the fuel to do this?

4) Why had no-one seen this 'spectaculary bright sight' beforehand. You are trying to make out that the orbiting Apollo 11 would have been a sight that people looked up in awe at, so why was it only seen and paid attention to once?

5) Where is your actual proof that this is Apollo, because I haven't actually seen one shred of evidence, not even in the video.

I have more, but I will leave you with that for now.

At the time we went to the moon, the soviet's space program was in total meltdown having had several total disasters with their moon rocket tests and many other huge setbacks. They were not catching anyone at that moment. They basically had nothing to work with at the moment their whole moon program went into total disarray. Even though it was called a "race", the only ones in the race were the Americans at that moment in time. Do some research, or
watch some of the excellent documentaries on the science channel and discovery channel, the history channel etc. Some of them are devoted to the entire history of the soviet space program and tell you that they were in no position to catch up to anyone at that point in time.

This string is so incredibly long now, that it really defies belief. A few people think that they have a position that states that we never went to the moon, and everyone else jumps on the bandwagon. I guess that you just had to be there at that time in history to understand it all. If it was a hoax, the hoax itself was then more monumental of a challenge than a moon mission would have been! There would be more involved in perpetuating such a huge hoax that it would dwarf sending men to the moon.

To those of you that question the Van Allen Belt radiation killer theory, it has been stated that it took about twenty minutes to get through the belts and that the radiation, though high was far from a fatal or even overly risky, from entering the field, to the exit point on the other side.

As mentioned before, I just need the hoax folks to show me the movie studio that is miles long. When we watched the entire moon landing missions, we watched as the astronauts deployed the camera's, then mission control (in the later missions) were able to steer the cameras around and point them at the astronauts as they worked. Then we watched as they took the lunar rover out of the lunar module.. (all in real time), then watched them get into the rover and without any breaks in the action, we watched them drive for miles up onto the sides of distant mountains, miles away from the camera. Back in those days, there was no CGI to fake it with, so it would have taken a studio that was miles long that could hold a few mountains inside of them. And remember that during these missions, there were no commercial breaks, and we watched it "live". So show me a studio setting that can house a mountain and miles of landscape, and just maybe you will have the smoking gun! Then you would have to explain how the lunar module blasted off of the moon as we watched and literally exploded into the lunar sky, throwing debris just as an explosion, and we watch it gain altitude of thousands of feet. And recall that the camera was the same one that we had watched as was the same scene.. So in order to pull off a hoax, the astronauts would have had to be in a studio that also was over two thousand feet tall also. We watched them drive the rover to back to the lunar module, get inside the lunar module, and blast off several thousand feet into the sky before the camera could no longer follow it's path! Without CGI effects, and no interruption between the events, how on earth could this be done in a studio? It would have to be the biggest studio in the world..

Here is the smoking gun for all of you hoax believers. I have tents I have a house, I also don't care how hard you try, no matter where you are on planet earth, if there are movie lights, and especially in a big environment like a studio, one thing loves lights, INSECTS! As mentioned before, if it was a studio and remember that we watched these missions in real time, where are the insects that surely would have been attracted to your movie lights? In movies, they can edit out shots where there are bugs etc.. In real time, with missions lasting 5 hours or more, don't ya think that one bug would have gotten through and pestered the actors or flown around and landed on the space suits? I would love for someone to set up in any studio anywhere and try to run film constantly for five straight hours, and no matter how hard you try to keep them out, or spray for them, you always will have bugs flying around lights and pestering you! No bugs appear in any moon footage. I dare anyone to set up a camera in any studio and go for five straight hours and never have one bug land in the camera's view! Explain that one to me hoaxers!

I hope that this thread will someday come to a conclusion, but I somehow doubt that it ever will. Men of the sixties had some things going for them that are not quite as apparent today. 1. They had conviction toward a goal. 2. They didn't let things keep them from said goal. 3. They had an entire nation working toward the goal. 4. They had guts, and didn't whine about setbacks. 5. They loved their country, and believed in themselves and the nation.
6. School systems actually taught people back in those days and demanded excellence. 7. People of the day actually had respect for their parents, their country, their teachers, and their fellow man. 8. You could actually spank your kids back then to straighten out their bad attitudes and it was not correct to be a slouch. 9. People actually had jobs back then and worked hard to make sure America was first on the moon. (Before all of the good jobs got outsourced). 10. We actually had companies that manufactured stuff in this country, and every company and employee was excited to be working on such an important project and took pride in what they were doing. (Even though many other countries also helped in the process, the majority of it was made in the good old U.S.A.) 12. We had a dream to fulfill John F. Kennedy's proclamation of landing a man on the moon before the "decade was out", and come hell or high water, we were gonna make it happen.

As far as our great disappointment, we surely thought that we would have gone to Mars, within a decade after the moon landings, and then everything changed very drastically. A new generation sprang out that had no vision of manned space flight. The new generation decided that it was really cool to fly a couple of hundred miles above the earth and go around and around in circles! What a letdown! We then got a space-plane that flies just above the atmosphere and goes nowhere! Weeeee! Then we decided to build a huge albatross that a crew can get on and fly around and around in circles for a much longer time. Whoo hoo! So much for exploration huh? Then we wonder what the albatross really does for us? I've yet to figure that one out. Does anyone know of anything we have learned from it? Are there products or science that have been produced? Maybe there is, but you just never hear what that science is. I think they are testing to see how many times they can go around in circles!

Sorry, I tried to make the analogy as clear as possible! Let me clarify...

Apollo 11 is the cat. Proton 4 is the elephant. The Western Aussie sighting of Proton 4 is different to a satellite in orbit because it was clearly in re-entry (just read the witness statements)... that is the trunk. Apollo 11 could not possibly have been in re-entry at that time and place since it was recovered 6000 miles to the north east - hence Apollo 11 didn't have a trunk.



Cobblers - it's debunked! It could not possibly have been Apollo 11, unless you are prvy to some other crucial information you haven't shared with us?



What experience have you in satellite tracking and identification?



Look harder.

http://bibis.lib.cas.cz/knav/space.40/1968/103A.HTM
http://www.tbs-satellite.com/tse/online/sat_proton_4.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=1968-103A



If, but, maybe! Evidence, schmevidence!

Bottom line is, if you still want to cling to the belief that what those Australians saw 24 July 1969 really was Apollo 11, that is your right. If you want to convince a skeptic, then you need to start supplying some evidence to support that, because the evidence supplied by Jarrah White actually supports it not being Aollo 11, regardless of the spin he put on it.

You really need to STOP mocking me...it's childish.



You seem to think that because the astronauts didn't behave as you think they should have behaved that it proves something...sorry, but it doesn't.



Perhaps if you were to stop smoking, you'd be better able to answer the questions asked of you...

Speaking of which, I've answered your question, now you answer mine.

Did you believe that Apollo 8 flew to the Moon or not??

As promised, I have extrapolated the ground track for Proton 4 on July 24th 1969, at 19:05pm time (perth). Note the time you see at the bottom is in UTC, feel free to confirm that this is correct. Perth is where Broadway, Nedlands is. I have highlighted Perth on the map. As previously discussed, this data corresponds to what I would have expected to see. I used the following Keplerian Elements:



This tracks to:



and five minutes later



Taking into account minor errors in time (as the time in the article is only an estimate and is probably out by a couple of minutes) and the no doubt erratic behaviour due to re-entry, I think we can safely say that it was Proton 4 that was seen in this instance. Case closed.

Excellent work, Trinitrotoluene! It all matches up: traveling north-to-south, visible from western Australia, and passing by at about 7pm local time.


I completely agree.

Hats off, TNT. Solid supporting evidence that what was seen was indeed Proton 4. There is solid evidence that it wasn't Apollo 11 (wrong direction, wrong location, wrong time). Is there any evidence that this was Apollo 11, other than Jarrah White stating that it was?

Very nicely done. Congratulations!!

Edit to add...Hey!, I just became an "Ectoplasmic Residue" which I assume is a good thing??

It's far worse than that. Consider the lift-off to orbit video of Apollo 15. It starts before ignition, through lift off, pitchover, crossing Hadley Rille, and continues filming the lunar landscape passing beneath until achieving orbit almost 7 minutes later.

The studio that could accomplish this "illusion" would need to be hundreds, if not thousands of square miles in area...

Obviously, no such studio exists.

Ah, man! You mean we really did?
Sorry, just had to stick tongue in cheek on that one. But I missed Apollo 11. I really did! I was alive, breathing, and old enough, but I missed it. Might have had something to do with flying around over Vietnam or something, maybe. One of my biggest regrets is missing the moon shot. You'd think they would have stopped the war for a few days to let us all watch the thing.
And I think you're right: this thread may be like a bureaucracy, a self-perpetuating slithering senseless thing that will somehow work towards its own goal of lasting forever.
Nice to see some statements such as the numerics you put down. Thanks for that, anyway. Now I'll retire back into the woodwork.

Jarrah White...Isn't he the one who believes that a polar orbit means a spacecraft flying at 25,000 mph around the north pole?

Do I believe Apollo 8 flew to the Moon? Are you actually being serious with that question?

Straight from the horses mouth seeing as we've had cats and elephants here recently.

"1968 in this country was a disastrous year. We had several assassinations. Not too good. So we needed something to cap it up that was positive. To give the american people a sense of accomplishment or at least satisfaction or something.
If you were a scriptwriter for the movies you couldn't have pictured a better scenario than Apollo 8"

Jim Lovell- In The Shadow Of The Moon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWQDMAiW2fQ

Patrick Moore- "Publicity stunt"- surely not?????

Love that live shot of the lunar surface BTW. Very impressive. Did they think the CSM was one of those jets they were so fond of flying?

Dear old Patrick... but when he says that "there have been claims that this is a mere publicity stunt" , i think he was talking about people suggesting that flying round the moon was a publicity stunt, not that the whole mission was faked from beginning to end. I don't think you could read into that that Patrick thought that the whole thing was faked,surely.

You get yourself a job with Astronautix son. Your talents and time are wasted here debating events that are actually allegedly supposed to have happened.

"Its true I saw it on the telly"

Either that or you have far too much of it. Time that is!

cheese merchant, a large portion of your posts since you arrived here seem to have very little to do with actually debating the issue and much more to do with flame baiting. I suggest, before you post again, that you acquaint yourself with the terms and conditions of this site, which you agreed to abide by when you joined. They can be found HERE.

These terms and conditions include the following:

the_UNKNOWN_DEAD, some of your posts are also cause for concern.

I suggest that the two of you discuss this matter in a more calm manner.

Indeed, and agreed!

Thanks, Gav, for confirming the polar orbit shape and ending the situation once and for all...and showing that it wasn't Apollo 11, or Apollo anything for that matter.


I have a feeling that the poster will not quite understand the S curve of a polar orbit on a mercator projection of a spherical object (GOD, I could tell you the pains to which I've gone with some folks to show how this is a nominal shape on such a projection )

But regardless of that dumb stuff, nice work on getting the data and concluding the issue once and for all.

I agree with Jim (I always have).
One couldn't have pictured a better scenario than Apollo 8 to cap off a year like 1968...perhaps one of the worst years America has experienced.
Christmas eve--the end of a year which saw Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King murdered...the Chicago Riots, the beginning of the peak of vehement anti-war sentiment and activism in the country, as well as racial unrest--and we saw three men circle the Moon, and read from the Book of Genesis in lunar orbit...


A hollywood producer couldn't actually have dreamt up a better conclusion to a year from hell.
That's what Jim meant, and he was absolutely correct.

What's your point?
If you were around in 1968, you'd likely understand his precisely, as all of us who were there did.
Apollo 8 was an event that no one who was involved with it in any way would ever forget...a scene right out of a movie, indeed (and I don't think any writer could've actually concocted a scenario like the one we saw unfold in lunar orbit on 12-24-68...).




What exactly, does that mean?

It was indeed very impressive. Maybe you weren't around to see the first live television of the lunar surface?
I can assure you that the men who flew in the CSM did not think it was one of those jets that they flew for a living prior to becoming astronauts. They knew it was a spacecraft (they were actually trained to know the difference...as amazing as that may seem).



You know cheese, it might be wise, now that you've thoroughly established yourself as an HB of rare qualities, and have drawn the ire of several mods who may shortly be less than courteous with you, to actually get with the program here.


You don't believe that men landed on the Moon in Apollo?

OK, fine, then here's what you do:

Cite an issue...one at a time, which you are doubtful about.
Ask a question about it.

I can guarantee you this:


You will get an answer, and references that you can investigate for yourself which will enable you to gain the knowledge that you are lacking in the subject area (and all HBs, without exception, lack knowledge in the subject area). This knowledge, which you obviously do not have, will empower you to use your own mind and learn.

And learning is really what such threads here are about.


...however, the learning is something that is your responsibility. We can only guide the way. It's a matter of personal choice.

You see, over at Apollo Hoax, they have demonstrated little tolerance with people who come there and argue vehemently through bodily orifices which aren't attached to the lower fronts of their faces. We are a bit different. We're very, very tolerant.

Here, we really go to great pains to try and educate. That's a worthy cause, in my opinion.
You also get a very long rope here at UM...


However, wrapping it around your own neck many times...thereby shortening it's length , is setting your life expectancy at an unreasonably short term.

Ask a question...one at a time, nicely.

You'll get the tools you need to learn...guaranteed.

If you continue with the snide remarks and silly comments, and the lack of staying on topic and the profound tendency to emphasise irrelevancies, you may find yourself swiftly asphyxiated...and of course, buried.

Just a thought about a possible course you might take in order to make your tenure here beneficial, rather than fatal.

"a scene right out of a movie, indeed"

Exactly.

Yes I have several points I'd like to raise and I'll get to them as and when I see fit.

"they have demonstrated little tolerance with people who come there and argue vehemently through bodily orifices which aren't attached to the lower fronts of their faces. We are a bit different. We're very, very tolerant."

You certainly sound like it.

Yes, I tend to lose my patience when asking the same question over and over and having it continuously dodged.

For instance, I am STILL waiting for a straight answer to my question concerning Apollo 8.

Sometimes you simply have to accept that a straight question will be dodged, draw attention to the fact and then move on. No one on this site is obligated to answer a question. People are also free to draw their own conclusions. Sometimes when someone is asked a straight question it is silence that speaks loudest of all.

Quite the incentive for the fringe element to post here, but no incentive at all for the rational person.

Thanks for straightening that out for me.

I think most rational people are capable of answering a simple yes or no question, even if it is to honestly say I don't know.

I think you'll already find my answer to that question. I quoted Jim Lovell from In The Shadow Of The Moon.
The USA needed a pick me up PRONTO. Apollo 8 was originally planned as just an orbit round the Earth.

It allegedly then travelled to the Moon.

The USA smiled.

And they all had a lovely xmas. And they praised the Lord.

You couldn't have paid a scripwriter to come up with a better scenario. Honestly you couldn't.

" We went to the moon 9 times......why would we fake it nine times?.........if we faked it?"- C.Duke- Apollo 16- Bible Basher- In The Shadow Of The Moon.

Money. Sure, the "Space Race" with the Soviets was over....but not the Apollo program, which had already developed into an enormous cash cow for NASA (and their contractors) in the years leading up to Apollo 11. And, NASA had already planned for several more manned moon landings after the first one (Apollo 11), which meant another 3+ years of fattening up the cash cow.

After the last lunar landing, total funding for the Apollo program was about $19,408,134,000. The budget allocation was 34 percent of the NASA budget.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/



See above.



I've already told you a very obvious reason why NASA wanted to continue with more manned moon landings after the success of Apollo 11 - tons of money.

But what about the public? Would they want to see more manned mooned landings after the first one? By and large, the answer was...No, not really. The public was still unwinding from the emotional fervor of "the first man setting foot on the moon". Who really cares, or even notices, when they do it again just four months later, with Apollo 12?

NASA must have noticed it was going to be a big problem trying to sell the public on even more Apollo missions, after Apollo 12 was a "public ratings" disaster.

So, NASA may have decided to inject some real life-or-death drama into their next 'script', in order to get the public all worked up/interested in the Apollo program again. Enter Apollo 13. A real nail-biter, as they say.



Once again - money, money, money.



Ditto.



Re-ditto.



You seem to be saying that it's not that big of a leap to go from unmanned lunar missions directly into manned lunar missions. What I'm saying is that a manned mission is so much more difficult than an unmanned mission, that it's absurd to make sweeping comparisons between them, such as you've done here.

Unmanned missions to the moon, to Mars and beyond, can (and have) been done (or are being planned), by the US, Russia, and other countries. Nobody else has even tried to send humans beyond LEO, period, except when we supposedly did, with Apollo.

Perhaps there's a good reason why nobody else has even attempted to do what we claim to have done, some 40 years ago?

Maybe there are several good reasons why they haven't....

I thank you so much for your service at the time of Apollo 11. I watched it for you as I was too young (15) at the time to be in the war. I really liked your statement on the string here though. Couldn't have said it with such eloquence! I know you feel bad about missing the moon landing, but maybe I can make you feel better. First off the Apollo 11 landing was in black and white and the camera's were really lousy.. The audio wasn't much better, and there were long boring periods to sit through too. There! Now you feel a bit better don't ya? Well, there was no popcorn either. I was sitting in an old trailer house with a bunch of drunks that were playing cards. Here we were making a such a historic landing on another planetoid, and the grownups were playing cards and drinking without paying any attention to the event!

Thanks again for your service in Vietnam. You are an American hero, and I am gratified just to be able to respond to your great post! Live long and prosper!

Great point Unknown Dead! Kudos.

Congratulations on your ectoplasm status! Party time now huh?

Would you now please like to retract your statement that it was Apollo 11 that was in orbit and seen over Australia five hours before splashdown?

Once that J-2 engine fired (and it only had to fire for less than 6 minutes) they were definitely going to the Moon.

Can you show why this engine firing was impossible???

...and when answering that last question, remember that there is video of this engine performing perfectly in tests, so why it wouldn't work in space???

Turbonium...please aknowledge the error you made...ie. "one fell swoop", or I'll have to assume that you are not discussing this subject in good faith.

Thank you...

If Apollo was such an amazing cash cow, why did they cancel the last three missions (18, 19, 20)?

Sorry, Turb, but you're not making any sense at all. NASA is a part of the federal government, funded by federal money. If the government wanted to keep NASA and the U.S. aerospace industry funded, they could just allocate money for other projects, like Skylab, the shuttle, or even a Mars mission. Heck, why not keep things simple and just give them another multi-billion dollar black project like the unmanned lunar sample return program you've been claiming?

Let's assume for a minute that you're right and that the government and the aerospace industry really, really want to keep building and flying Apollo hardware. Ok, so why do they need to keep faking trips to the moon? The race to the moon was over, and the public rapidly lost interest after the first couple landings. Why not just expand the Apollo Applications program and build more Skylabs (or derivatives) for use in low earth orbit? They require Saturn V boosters for launch and Apollo spacecraft for shuttling crews back and forth. Grumman loses out on the lunar module, but hey it didn't work anyway (according to you). I'm sure they'd be more than happy to get a contract to build some other Apollo Applications hardware that really did work. Similarly, ILC Dover would breathe a big sigh of relief because they could go back to building plain old space suits and wouldn't have to worry anymore about those lethal lunar rocks, against which there is no known defense.

NASA could do all of this for real, nice and safe in low earth orbit, where even you believe we can operate manned spacecraft. Public opinion wouldn't matter any more than it did for later Apollo lunar missions. Why fake volume after volume of lunar science data that will someday certainly be discovered to be bogus? Why fake hours and hours of video that nobody is watching? There's no benefit to it, but there's an enormous amount of risk that the hoax will be discovered.



Why is it more difficult to build a throttleable descent engine for a manned lunar lander than it is to build one for an unmanned lander? Is it really more difficult to add reinforcement to the knees of a spacesuit to protect against rock punctures than it is to build an autonomous lunar rover capable of collecting 11 kg rocks and drilling 3 meter core samples?


So, do you believe it is technologically impossible for humans to safely fly missions to the moon?

Mostly because robotics have improved greatly since then, and we can now do things with robots that 40 years ago could only be done by humans.

So why no 'robots' on the moon, showing the world a couple of flags on the moon maybe?
Just a thought...

I'll retract it as soon as I've checked out the possible reasons why it took a month to name the satellite.

No stars and stripes on the moon I'm afraid. They'll be poles in the lunar regolith because they never worked out planting a flag pole near a LM woud likely be blown over as the LM ascended.

Lets hope they were smart enough to leave the laser reflectors a far enough distance away or they'd have got covered in "very fine dust" and "gold mylar foil" as well.

This is just silly. Do I really need to point out just how dopey your implication that NASA was too stupid to put their flags farther away from the LM is??

If you want a good faith discussion, well that's fine, but to continually insult others intelligence is pointless.


edit to add...and cheese, I don't see your explanation for why the J-2 rocket wouldn't work. Does that mean that you don't have an answer??