We need to step into the "way back" machine and look at what was going on back in the 50s and early 60s...

The Cold War was in full swing, a hot war if you consider Korea and the Russian and Chinese involvement against the Americans. Rocket technology was growing by leaps and bounds, IRBMs were being developed and deployed. Larger rockets were being developed.

The first Earth satellites were launched. The Russians beat the Americans with Sputnik, partly due to the government's reluctantance to use a military booster (Redstone) for the First US satellite. Eventually , after the Vanguard failure, the modified Redstone was used to launch Explotrer 1, the world's first real scientific satellite. It discovered the presence of the Van Allen belts.

The space race caught the attention of the public, and both governments made great use of this competition. Funding for rocket programs grew, and inevitable the plans for putting men into space evolved. Eisenhower created NASA. The Mercury 7 astronauts were selected. Plans for adapting the Redstone and Atlas for manned flight were underway. The American people were caught up in the program. And they didn't want to be second to the "Reds".

The Soviets indeed scored many firsts. The US program worked to perfect their spacecraft, building them with unique capabilities. Fuel cells, the ability to change orbits were very important US firsts.

The question that needs answering is "why would they fake the landing missions"? It would have to be a physical or technological barrier which could not be overcome. There were plenty of technical issues which no doubt evoked a "how in the hell are we supposed to do that??" response. Building a 3000 ton, three stage rocket to launch the stack to the Moon comes to mind. The LM, fragile and "flimsey" is another. But real enginers, using real materials and knowledge, worked the problems. The line guys were designing and building ships that would accomplish the mission. They knew the stresses, the forces, the environment they were building to withstand. They were building spacecraft that would work. Technology was growing by leaps and bounds.

The Van Allen belts...numerous probes were exploring the region, studying the size and radiation inside the belts. They were pretty well understood, and the knowledge was growing. Planners were confident they understood the problem and plans to mitigate the radiation were incorporated, through trajectory and spacecraft design. The trans lunar and lunar environment were also being examined. The Pioneer craft, Ranger series, and Surveyors studied the space out there, and the lunar surface, through flybys, orbits, and landings. Slow, methodical progress. This was all critical data that needed to be understood before humans ventured out. The data was coming in.

The Gemini program proved that rendezvous and docking could be done with precise orbital mechanics calculations. Space walking was maturing, after several shakey attempts. And the big Saturn was progressing.

All of this was real. There may have been potential motives to fake something for publicity or politics, but it wasn't necessary. The craft were working.The Saturns flew...not perfectly, and the problems were identified and solved, but they flew. No need to fake anything.

There were no insurmounable environmental or technical hurdles that prevented Apollo from going to the Moon. Were there risks? Yes, far more than today's risk averse society could stomach. But it was do-able, with contingincy procedures built in every step of the way. The Sun could flare up, the SPS could fail, the SIC could pogo itself to destruction. And people could die, in pursuit of a great dream.

But they didn't, and we have a great historical acheivement, taking humans to another body. There was no reason to fake it. That would have been far more hazardous to national prestige than just being "second" to the Russians. And I don't think there would be anyone that would want to do that, it just wasn't how we did things. Hundreds of thousands of workers made it happen, they wouldn't have tolerated it. They were building real spaceships, and were fiercely proud of what they were doing.

It was a race, and pressure was great to meet Kennedy's deadline, and to beat the Russians. The Saturn's second stage was behind schedule, with numerous technical issues. Folks were fired, management reshuffled and experts poured into the plant to help solve the issues. The LM suffered the same kind of challenges. The problems were worked, nothing went "smoothly".

I'm rambling now, but you get the drift.

Mr. B.

Stepping into the "Way Back Machine" (you reveal yourself as erudite, intelligent, and experienced by this reference alone...superb!) is often beneficial in such matters as this.


Nice post!





...a Fractured Fairy Tale is, every once in a while, also good for the soul!!!

I don't know Swanny...

I'm trying to think about if Nixon had been elected President in 1960, and what he might have done in response to Gagarin.

That's a tough one. Somehow, I think he would've been thinking of something...but Apollo? God, that's a hard call.

One thing's a certainty in my mind:

In November of 1963, under a Nixon Presidency, I don't think we'd have been silently pulling planeloads of advisors out of Viet Nam, as we were under Kennedy. That may well have made a huge difference in whatever space race he designed.

But you're right. Johnson was instrumental in the Apollo decision, and Nixon did of course scrap Apollo prematurely. But the latter was because of Viet Nam and because Apollo was Kennedy's baby.


I suppose it's probably fruitless to speculate about what Nixon's actions may have been, were he President in the early 1960s....

I shall agree with you.

I shall also add that President Kennedy, nor any other President, has penned his own speeches. They employ writers for that purpose.
However, I will add that President Kennedy often edited his speeches while traveling to a venue where he would deliver his prepared address, and often ad-lib from his notes, changing the original composition, and always to incredible effect!





Well...again, I will agree with you. However, I cannot be certain that anything that President Kennedy was given for his pain distorted his judgement. His judgement was always dead on, his intellect high. He moved through several critical situations, and never gave any indication of anything but impatience (tapping his fingers on the table during a legnthy diatribe that failed to get to the point quickly was a sign of that).



I don't think there's any doubt that motive (Gagarin and Vostok 1), and American ingenuity had everything to do with Apollo and its success. However, that motive had nothing to do with faking it. It had to do with doing it. That was a matter of establishing that it was possible, and then charging Americans with the task of doing it. Further, it involved moving out of the way and allowing them to do it---which is what was happened.

Here's a good example of his ad-libbing from the speech at Rice University where he announced the moon program:



It makes me laugh every time I hear that part.

Actually at Rice he explained his lunar program. He had acctually announced the challenge a year before.

But I'll certainly agree with laughing at the man...he had an amazing dry wit, which was often interspersed into serious topic matter.

What preceeded that statement you quoted echoes something I've talked about many times...




But the seriousness in that speech was what really stuck in my craw...




And...it was.

I am often saddened by the fact that he didn't get to see it happen....

History is a strange thing, whilst it is fun playing the "what if" game we can never actually know what the alternative outcomes could have been. Like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane, even the smallest changes can have massive effects.

It is of course entirely possible that the very fact that Kennedy did not live gave extra incentive to get the job done and ensured the the "by the end of the decade" goal was met. Had Kennedy live he may have become discredited and Apollo may have had its budget cut back even sooner than was the case.

Alternatively their may have been no consequence to Apollo at all. As I said, a fun game to play but you can never know the outcome.

We all are, I'm sure.

Yeah, but Johnson was working on inertia. In the vacuum left by Kennedy, the Congress gave Johnson everything he asked for: including the "Great" society. But if Kennedy had never been POTUS, I really don't think any other possible Executive administration would have promised Apollo in the 1960's.

You all left out something very notable about Kennedy. He was a risk-taker. Don't forget that it was his Harvard crew that raised political "brinksmanship" to its height. Not even Clausewitz or Bismark had ever placed political brinksmanship on the same level. And this concept of "risk-taking" was also instrumental in the lunar landing scenarios.

P.S. Edit: I don't think it's proper to discuss the Apollo missions without considering the political stakes involved, the motivation behind the research, and the men, notably Kennedy that made the suggestion and force of ideology upon the political and technological process.

Perhaps my rhetoric regarding "drug addict" was too hard. I just wanted to get your attention, and your consideration to the possibilities. Maybe now you will never look at the early 60's in the same light as you had in the past.

Total nonsense. As flyingswan has already pointed out, Kennedy took the decision on the advice of the scientific community. Of course there was some risk involved, there is in any great endeavour, but Kennedy chose to go to the Moon and do it within a decade because he was advised it was achievable.

Nonsense?

Tell the bereaved families of the Challenger disaster that their spouses, and fathers, and sons and daughters were not taking a risk. Try telling the families of dead from the last shuttle disaster that the dead heroes (and the United States) had not taken a risk. Apollo 1? Three souls burned alive in an oxygen risk environment on the launchpad. Going to space, I daresay, is far more risky than walking down the stairs in your home. It's not risky strapping yourself on top of a bomb? It's not risky propelling yourself away from the loving embrace of mother earth. It's not risky re-entering as a meteor?

It's a big and expensive risk to launch an unmanned satellite. And then we take another leap in a calculated risk to send human beings into space. Going to the moon and coming back? You're telling me that it's not a risk?

I cannot agree with you.

Edit:
BTW, it is the concept of "risk-taking" that makes humanity great. We have intellect and choice to achieve beyond emotional and instinctual response. So, in my view, "risk-taking" is really what separates humans from the other species on this planet...

I think you misunderstood what waspie_dwarf was saying.

We all know space exploration is risky, but what I think waspie_dwarf meant (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) is that President Kennedy didn't just decide to send people to the moon on a whim. He consulted NASA first, made sure they were confident that it could be done, and only then decided that that is what their goal should be.

I understood what WD said. And I stand by my comment. Kennedy was the consummate "risk-taker." Six or one-half dozen of the other, another POTUS given the same data set as Kennedy would probably not have taken such a big risk. Was he (Kennedy) over-confident? I definitely think so. Was there a strong political motivation? Yes. Was Kennedy known for taking risks? (The blockade of Cuba was a big risk during the Cuban missile crisis.)-But I digress. And I definitely do not want to start that discussion on this board.

Bottom line, I stand by my assertion. In my view, Kennedy was a huge risk-taker. But, fortunately, he often won.



Edit: P.S. There is a reason many business schools and Organizational Behavior textbooks study the Bay of Pigs and The Challenger Disaster. These two incidents are classic examples of Groupthink and the consequences. Experienced professionals understand the danger of Groupthink and the biased reinforcement of member constituents to the decision-maker. Whenever I hear people say that NASA (which Kennedy created, by the way) said it was possible to succeed with Apollo, I (and I've been trained to think this way) have to ask the question whether these people were suffering from Groupthink (that is, they say what they think their boss and everyone else wants to hear). NASA professionals in that milieu might very well have been in a Groupthink mode. And, guess what, they did it again with Challenger. You would be hard-pressed to find a quality Organizational Behavior text that does not cite Challenger as a Groupthink example (or Bay of Pigs, for that matter)...

Either you didn't understand what I said OR you are arguing for arguments sake. I clearly stated:

So your indigent response about Apollo 1 and Challenger was just rhetoric from you. It was you that made the claims of POLITICAL risk taking and it was that I was addressing. The risk to astronauts was well known and accepted by the astronauts (who were mostly test pilots). You seem to be resorting to a rather transparent and clumsy case of a strawman argument. You are trying to claim a victory by disproving something that was never argued for in the first place. I'm afraid we have seen it all before.

So far all you have posted is your opinion. An opinion on the motive for a crime you can not even show happened. This is all hoax believers ever do, express their opinion, they never produce cold, hard facts to support their belief. Why is this? Well the answer to that is simple, there are NO cold hard facts that support their belief.

As has been said over and over again in this thread, Apollo is not about opinions and belief it is about scientific facts.Scientific facts which are accepted by pretty much every expert in the relevant fields in the world, including those from nations which were/are hostile to the United States. There are many, MANY pieces of evidence which prove beyond reasonable doubt that between 1969 and 1972 the USA landed 12 men on the Moon and returned them safely to the Earth. Evidence which shows that these missions were faked.. there is none.

Unless you can produce evidence which supports your belief then your entire argument is a huge waste of your time and that of those that read it. Spending so much time trying to produce a motive for a crime that there is no evidence even occurred is as pointless as it is absurd and illogical.

The case for Apollo not only is backed by the evidence, it is also internally consistent. Every moment, every action, every piece of technology all can be accounted for, all fit within the official story. This is not the case for the hoax theory. It is a mess. It consists of small arguments aimed at trying to show anomalies in the official story. It is not internally consistant and often the arguments put forward are mutually exclusive. There is no one single hoax believer explanation for when where and what was being done at any given time in a single mission, never mind during the whole programme. I'll give you an example. Many hoax believers will argue that the Apollo 11 crew were in low Earth orbit during the entire mission. Other hoax believers (and hilariously some times the same ones that claim Apollo 11 was in LEO) will point to the infamous "coke bottle seen on Australia TV" argument and claim that this is proof that the TV footage was coming live from a TV studio on Earth. They will then point to Apollo1 and claim that this fire prevented Apollo being ready on time and was the reason that the 1969 deadline could not be met. Of course if Apollo CM could not meet the 1969 then it could not have been in LEO with 3 astronauts on board, but that doesn't stop all of thee claims being put forward as evidence of fakery.

The Apollo hoax theory is so full of holes you could drive a Crawler with a Saturn V through it. So lmbeharry do you actually have evidence a crime took place? It would be nice to see that evidence before you look for a motive.

Dude, I never even implied it was a hoax. I said that my grandmother did not buy the story when I had told her that we had landed on the moon in 1969.

Don't get hysterical...

The path to knowledge is to ask the question. All I'm doing is pointing out some psychological and social concepts that are relevant to the motives of the principals involved... Don't get a hernia over it!

1st Edit: P.S. BTW, it was scientific fact that the earth was flat (in Christian Europe) until Galileo shut them (Catholic Church) up. And they got their revenge (they shut him up). And it was scientifically acknowledged fact that atoms were the smallest bits of matter - until curie, Einstein, Neils Bohr, and the others put that myth to rest. Fact? We won't really "know" the truth about Apollo until other human beings get there (probably the Chinese because the U.S. Congress and NASA can't get themselves together on this) and bring back the American flags that Neil and his progeny left there to make their mark.

2nd Edit: I'm like Thomas. Show me the flags! In fact, have a Chinese astronaut show me the flags (with moon dust on it)!

Sorry, in my view, there are too many complex social and psychological issues at play in the whole question. Hell, I know (firsthand, up close and personal) how systems can distort reality.

About photographic evidence, telemetric evidence, Neil's famous maneuver to correct his rockets for landing on a soft, rather than a rocky field, etc. Well, I am definitely inclined to believe, but I just want a good U.S. flag, pelletted by meteorites, and carrying a good bit of moon dust - and held by the hands of a Chinese astronaut (or an American) for that matter, if U.S. ever gets there again.

And for the record, I am not arguing for argument's sake. In fact, this is the first board wherein a moderator has even accused me of such a thing. Damn, I thought this was a social club for free-thinkers to have honest debate. Am I wrong????

In which case you are arguing for arguments sake. Be careful, for that way lies trolling.


If showing that your point of view is illogical and absurd and that you engage in the disingenuous tactic of the strawman argument is hysteria I will take it every time.


No, the path to knowledge is to ask the question and then to listen to the answer.



Which is irrelevant if Apollo was not faked. I stand by what I said, unless you can provide evidence that it was faked your argument is totally pointless. There can be no motive where there is no crime. I am sure that someone could make a convincing argument as to my motives for murdering my sister in 1994. As my sister is alive and well and clearly did not die in 1994 it would be a pointless and silly thing to do.


I won't thank you.

One more thing about photographic evidence. We, today, use Photoshop (and similar programs) to make "real images." Well, the U.S. has more money than God (Catholic Church), and within the constraints of 1960's technology, I can't even guess what 1960's technology could produce to convince the masses. Kubrick had me going with "Dr. Strangelove," and he really had me with "2001, a Space Odyssey." Bottom line, before the populace gets technology, the government gets it. Good thing too.

I'm not trolling. I'm discussing. And social sciences, complexity, groupthink, moving the masses, and hard natural sciences have merged, brother. Please do not be constrained by hard science to the exclusion of the extent to which the masses can be cajoled into belief of anything by the same hard sciences applied to social structures.

It's important to make a distinction between Galileo's struggles against the dogma of the day and HBs denial of the history of Apollo. There is no comparison.

HBs run on "faith", faith in their leaders' words and claims (Kaysing, Percy, Sibrel et al), while the Apollo students rely on the science, the physics, and technical knowledge of how it was done. We understand the engineering, the environment, It's all knowable, understandable science. To say the Van Allen belts are lethal to humans is to say the world is flat. To believe that the LM was too flimsy for it's mission is to believe the first explorers would be devoured by sea monsters in the deep blue. The myths are washed away by scientific knowledge. If anything, the HBs would be analagous to the blind eyes of the old "Church", refusing to see the wonder of the science of Creation.

Kennedy was a President who would take up great challenges. His decision to announce the lunar program was not unilateral, and was not made in a vaccuum, pardon the pun. It was made after extensive consultations with the experts at NASA, the centers, the engineers, the contractors. It would have been foolish for him to blindly announce such a program if they didn't support it and see it as realistic. When he made the first proclaimation, we indeed could not go to the Moon. We didn't have the experience, the technology, the know how. But, from the community's perspective, there were no apparent show stoppers. They could learn to make it happen. And they did. Kennedy and Congress gave them the funding necessary.

If the experts had given the President the impression that the landings were not possible by the end of the decade, I'm sure he wouldn't have made the announcement. It was a large technical and political challenge, and success would bring great prestige in both areas to the USA. But, either way, it's all played out, the old Soviet Union is gone, and, despite some political differences with the Russians, we are working together on the ISS 24/7/365 as I write this.

Thats a very good thing.

Do not deny, or wave off, the hard sciences either. They are proof that Apollo was real, and that it was not impossible to go to the Moon. While "groupthink" is prevelant (don't get me started on the media), the science proves the authenticity of the lunar samples. It proves the Van Allen belts are not impenetrable, it proves the LM could accomplish the mission, it proves the lunar surface environment was survivable. Ignoring the science is like the Monty Python cry of "She's a WITCH!!!". Just substitute "it's a HOAX"...

It's important to determine where the real ignorance and groupthink lies...

edit: the flags are not going to be there. They were regular nylon flags, and would not stand up well to the solar and thermal environment. They have likely turned to dust by now. But the descent stages, the experiment packages, the debris...it's all still there.

mrbusdriver, I never wave off the hard sciences. But I will have doubts until someone brings back something - and if the nylon flags were melted by the sun and blown away by solar wind, then give me a plaster cast of someone's footfalls. It's not that I'm a total skeptic. I'm better than 99% convinced that it likely occurred following all of the evidence. I'm just stuck on the timing of the cancellation of Apollo, that NASA cleaned house of so many documents, and that the U.S. put it so far on the back burner that the Chinese will probably get there before U.S. returns. That 1% doubt has been plaguing me since I was 30 (about 13 years now).

I love the hard sciences. Here's an example of hard sciences at play: Lawyer tells the court that only 1 person in 500,000 could have a particular DNA chromatography scan. Jury says - wow, 1 in 500,000. And no one asks the obvious question: What is the population in the city? If the city (Seoul South Korea, for instance) has a population of 20,000,000 well then, hard science would suggest that, we would expect 40 people to have that DNA signature. I love the sciences. I love the moon rocks. I love the chest-mounted Hasselblad cameras. I love the LEM. And I respect all of the technology - especially given the success rate - all of those moving parts, from the fall-away gantry to the re-docking maneuver when the lunar lander mates with the lunar capsule and the huge (excuse the pun) astronomical improbability of everything working so perfectly (granted triple redundancy). But again, I'm have just about 1% doubt (call me Thomas). And I won't be sure until someone brings back some piece of proof (a golf ball maybe) that Americans walked, danced, drove a buggy, and played golf on earth's natural satellite.

Apollo, with all it's really BIG stuff was indeed amazing. But, again, no flight went perfectly, there were glitches, human error, technical breakdowns. The very precise burns were just physics and great attention to detail. The mission planners knew the weight of the spacecraft precisely. They knew the exact thrust of the engines. They knew the orientation and duration of burns to get the desired change in trajectory. And, if after a given burn, the resulting trajectory was not as planned and predicted, they would do a "trim" burn, with small RCS thrusters, to take out the small error. These were not unusual, due to small variations in engine thrust and the like.
I wish we would jump in and go to the Moon tomorrow, but it's a political thing. We don't have the motivation of a space race, and the population is pretty indifferent to spaceflight (except as it affects them directly, with satphones and GPS). Going to the Moon the next time will be a more "permanant" thing, and many issues that wern't factors on the short Apollo trips are major problems to deal with when looking at long term stays. Maybe the Chinese or Koreans will visit before we do, though I'm not expecting them to land at a previously visited Apollo site, it would make for a very expensive souvenier hunt.
I too look forward to what folks call "hard evidence", though for me the existing photos, scientific findings, and existing hardware and documentation is proof enough that we went.
BTW, here's on of my favorite document sites, not all encompassing, but a good place to go if you like technical minutia...
http://www.geocities.com/bobandrepont/pdfspace.htm

Enjoy...
Dave

Oh, that's absolutely correct, Waspie. The "what if" game is purely speculative.



Kinda like that!

Maybe. Maybe not...
Another possibility is that by the time of Apollo 8, we'd have had no military presence in Viet Nam at all (as President Kennedy planned to have all advisors ouf there in 1965...after the election of 1964), and full attention to the Soviets and Apollo could've been the case (including a lack of budget cuts), and we might have landed earlier than July 1969...maybe even without an Apollo 1...

But again...it's fun at best to imagine.



I will agree with this wholeheartedly.

John Kennedy's death in 1963 was utterly crushing...not only to most all of America, but perhaps especially to the men and women he charged with the goal. It served to drive a great many forward with extra emphasis on The President's challenge, and on absolutely meeting his goal. I have often thought of the irony in the fact that President Nixon was the one in the White House in July of 1969, gushing over the Apollo 11 success, while at the same time scrapping the program.

I often wonder what he thought when on July 24, 1969, in the MOCR, it was President Kennedy's challenge from 8 years before painted up on the 10 x 20 in front of the Moon, with the words, "Mission Accomplished" underneath it...

Thanks for the link mrbusdriver. Are you really a bus driver?

Anyone who has ever succeeded has been able to take risks. Any engineering test flight program that has succeeded, like Apollo, for instance, lived with risk, but managed the risks through strict engineering controls, redundancy, and an emphasis on safety.

However, brinksmanship Apollo was not. There was no maneuvering a dangerous situation to the point of the limits of tolerance or safety in order to gain advantage. Apollo was about minimizing risk, creating redundancy and safety, in order to accomplish a goal (which had in its mission statement the word, "safely"). In those times, crew safety was paramount, and no one was going anywhere unless everyone involved felt that it was doable with a high probability of success (menaing, everyone lived to tell about it). It's a no-brainer: "...land a man on the Moon and return him SAFELY to the Earth."

The mission statement is completely counter to brinksmanship.

Brinksmanship was however something employed several times in the Soviet efforts in space. The notable results of that are well known, and include the death of Cosmonaut Komorov on Soyuz 1. Apollo involved no such practices.



Agreed. Further, it has been discussed many times--the fact that Apollo was a political program with a specific reason for its establishment. However, Apollo was charged entirely to the people responsible for making it happen. No one interfered; no one said, "No, you must press on with this flight, no more testing, we have to get an advantage on the Soviets," or anything like that.
Depsite its political motivations, and of course its appeal to American patriotism, know how, ability and drive...it became much more than that for the many who did this thing.



Oh, I didn't think it was too hard. It was reasonable speculation. I don't think it has any particular merit, as a President of the United States is medically attended to by one or more physicians whose sole responsibility is his care. The idea of physicians allowing the President to be addicted, or to suffer mental or cognitive alterations by means of their prescriptions and treatment regimens is untenable at best.

I look at the early 1960s from the perspective of someone who experienced them directly. Living through that era tends to provide living perspective. It was a very complex time, but I don't see how speulating on the possibilities revolving around potentials that are not confirmed and unknowable changes that perspective.

Besides, when you think about it, it happened, just as it happened. There isn't any other alternative to that!

I...

I am detecting that you perhaps do not understand the concept of managed risk inherent in engineering test flight test programs, or the type of risk inherent in space flight in general. I detect that perhaps your statement:



...may have been phrased so as to indicate that we were taking a foolhardy and unmanaged risk in sending men to the Moon.


No one is stating that the risk of spaceflight is not known. However, it must be understood that we attempt to minimize and manage the risks with the goal of safety in mind.

I would never tell the bereaved families of the Challenger disaster that their family members were not taking a risk. The families knew that, so did the crewmen and women. The same for Apollo 1 and Columbia's crews.

Each of those occurrances involved risk. The circumstances surrounding each are different, complex, and involved unknown or unacknowledged hazards which vary in complexity and in the motivations surrounding the missions involved.

The point is, no one who's ever flown a space mission expects to die. They expect to execute their mission, and are confident in that idea. However, they all know that it's possible that something could happen.

Your over-dramatization of the Apollo 1 fire tends to make me think you may well have this idea that spaceflight is an unmanaged, deadly dangerous situation.

Apollo one's crew did not burn to death.
No one straps themselves to the top of a bomb when they board a spacecraft.
They strap themselves onto the top of a highly complex launch vehicle which is designed to reliably and safely propel them into space. It's not a bomb. It has the potential of a bomb, but so does the gasoline tank in your car.

We also do not re-enter the atmosphere as a meteor. We re-enter the atmosphere under controlled lifting conditions (for the most part) that allow us to precisely touch down at a specific place at a specific time. Meteors don't do that, and they do what they do at speeds that are much higher than we've ever done it.

Is it inherently more risky to fly in space than to descend a staircase?
Of course.

However, based on the data available...it is certainly much more risky to drive one's car every day than it ever was or will be to fly in an airplane. In fact, it's probably more risky, and more likely that you'll certainly have an incident, if not a full fleged disaster driving your car than flying in space!

It's a matter of perspective and understanding what lengths are gone to in order to minimize and manage risk in space flight.
This certainly doesn't minimize the seriousness of the endeavor, mind you, but I cannot repeat it enough...no test pilot makes a flight, no astronaut climbs aboard a spacecraft, without thinking that he or she can do the job safely. No one is scared when they do this...they're excited. And frankly, I was and still am more scared (if that's a reasonable term to use) when driving or riding in a car that I have ever been in an aircraft.


Sure, I know full well that in the environment of flight, a mistake can amplify into a disaster...but I know the potential for that happening in a car is much higher.



You are correct. However, I think a complete understanding of the concept of risk as it applies to spaceflight may be in order.


Make no mistake; I am not in any way implying that spaceflight is not risky. I am merely attempting to convey the concept of managed risk as it applies to the spaceflight realm, as opposed to the generally accepted idea that flying in space is an insanely dangerous and foolhardy venture...

It is not.

Yup, and that's what a lot of the kids call me (I guess "Mr Dave" is too informal for them!)
Retired USAF, a great interest in space stuff, and a few Masters level space courses under my belt. Need more math courses!
I also do rocketry, model into high power. My big project, an 8' Level 2 Viking 7 scale job, stands in the corner glaring at me as I type. It wants attention (and my money!!!)

I can certainly understand your doubts.
Many people in your age range, and younger, have them. That's perfectly reasonable to me, and I appreciate the questions!

You're right in your speculations. The flags, which were made of nylon are very likely long since reduced to dust on the lunar surface. But plaster casts of footfalls? I'm thinking that would be a trick, and very unnecessary since we have over 6,000 photographs taken on the lunar surface which show them rather clearly (many made for soil mechanics analysis).

AS11-40-5877



I am curious as to the extent of this so-called document house cleaning that NASA allegedly did concerning Apollo.
I know of no such thing. The documentation concerning Apollo is more voluminous than that associated with any human endeavor. Today, a vast majority of it is available on line thanks to the efforts of a few people who wanted to make it so, and who have spent years doing it.

The U.S. didn't put Apollo on the back burner. The U.S., in the form of the Nixon administration, cancelled it entirely. The whys of that, and the political situation of the day, and the reasons why until now, we haven't had a mandate to continue have been explained at length in this thread, and the other one we had (almost as lengthy).

What makes you think that a nation that has made 2 manned flights in the past 5 years, and never executed rendezvous and docking in space, has never done anything on orbit but change orbital altitude, and which has a total experience of about 6 days in LEO, has a chance at getting to the Moon before the U.S. returns c. 2020? We did all of the lunar requirements in the 1960s. We have a program in work right now to return to the Moon. It needs to be understood that going to the Moon (and this is based upon the observations of someone who was there when it was done all those decades ago) is an intense, incremental engineering program which must gain knowledge of techiques, and master them, before attempting the lunar mission. There is spacecraft development and testing, techniques of EVA, orbital maneuvering, rendezvous and docking capability, redundancy and reliability, launch vehicle capability and development, and a hundred things most people would never think of involved in such an endeavor.

Only the Russians and the U.S. have the techniques necessary to attempt such a mission down to a science. Only the U.S. has ever had the LV capability to launch such a mission. And of course, only the U.S. has ever executed such a mission. Right now, no nation has the booster capability of executing a lunar mission (the Chinese long March 5 series couldn't orbit an Apollo CSM, let alone get a lunar package into LEO). The U.S. is the only nation who ever did have such a capability. The Russians do not, and they will not in the forseeable future, even with Angara 5.


However, the U.S.'s ARES will provide that capacity again.

Of course, the Chinese, like the Soviets before them, are very secretive, and very Soviet like in their news disemmination regarding their accomplishments (no foreknowledge, no television broadcasts, no live coverage...only reports of success after the fact). They may be able to do more faster than the Soviets of the Americans did back in the day...since the knowledge of the systems and the techniques has been spread for decades...and the Chinese are in no way inept...but to expect them to go to the Moon, and develop those capabilities, before the Americans do so, is wishful, and likely naive thinking (they need 7 to 8 times the heavy lift capability to even attempt a manned lunar mission).



I appreciate your love and appreciation for the sciences.

You're a 1% doubter...which is a pretty low percentage, I'll grant you.


Please understand that there was no such thing as "perfect" in Apollo. Anomalies and problems for the program numbered in the dozens per mission. I would personally consider Apollo 17 as close to operationally perfect as we got on Apollo, but still, there were 23 anomalies on that mission...

Apollo was not perfect.


Your 1% doubt seems to boil down to having some piece of evidence returned from the Moon.


I would ask, how is the return of some piece of Apollo going to convince you?

Suppose we return one of Al Shepard's golf balls, or perhaps an Apollo 11 PLSS, discarded on the lunar surface 39 years ago, or perhaps a piece of Apollo 16's LRV, or an LRRR, or Dave Scott's feather, or whatever it may be.

How is that going to relieve your 1% doubt?

After all...you'll watch men and perhaps women on TV just as we did all those many years past, gathering up these things. You'll see a golf ball in the Al Shepard museum. How could that golf ball...a Titleist that one could buy in any sporting goods store, relieve your doubt? Hell, what you were watching could've been a fake..including the Moon dust all over it!

Anyone could fabricate any artifcact they wanted to and place it on display, merely saying that "This is the hammer that Dave Scott dropped on the Moon back in the Summer of 1971! "

Ooohs and Aahhs all around. But think about it. We have 6000 photographs, we have the Command Modules themselves, exhibited all over the country, we have space suits (including the un-removable black stains of moon dirt all over them)and all sorts of artifacts from the missions, and we have the 800+ pounds of scientifically substantiated moon rocks (which cannot possibly be from any where else) in various locations around the world!

How's a golf ball, or any other piece of Apollo artifact, collected from the Moon 40 years after the fact going to add anything to the massive body of incontrovertible evidence that we already have on hand?

Oh, man, Mr. Dave, that's great!
Model Rocketry....do you ever get any of the kids involved in that activity?


Used to be back in the old days, there was a heck of alot of benefit in that for kids...(I recall Estes Industries publishing their "Technical Reports" on various aspects of design and math that could help kids understand how rockets work, how to design them, how to track them....it was great!).

I haven't been involved actively since the Apollo days. Back then, I think we had the D series motors available at best (nowadays I believe they have much more powerful solid motors than that!).

You've got an 8' tall model rocket?!
What kind of motors do you use in that beast (I've been out of touch for decades!)?

It will fly on a J motor, 54mm diameter. I've flown several I motors, 38mm, and a pile of H (29mm) launches. It just gets pretty expensive buying the cases and reloads (we use APCP, very similar to SRB propellant).

J? Wow.

They use APCP, huh?

That's some serious stuff! I'm impressed (I hadn't realized how far model rocketry has come....). Black powder was the stuff back in the old days (and I remember one particular catastrophic loss resulting from a probable crack in the D engine black powder slug (BOOM)!

I haven't been involved for a long time...so forgive my ignorance as pertains to the state of this stuff these days!

A "D" used to have a maximum thrust of ~13n and was maybe 20mm in diameter maybe. I'm trying to visualize a 54 mm SRM for a model rocket....(good lord, that's a whopper, and APCP would be a natural for such a large diameter motor! What's the thrust on one of those babys???)
I had, long ago, a 4 engine "D" cluster project...designed and built by kids, which staged the center engine on a 3 stage behemoth of 6'8" tall as a project for kids back in '71. Got 2700 feet out of that 1 pound, 11 ounce monster one summer....12 pounds average first stage thrust). Took a whole summer...but talk about fun!


It's such a great activity for kids to get involved with...so much knowledge and curiosity can be cultivated by projects like that. I wonder if kids actually get involved with those things anymore. It's one thing to get a kit and build it and fly it...it's another altogether to design and build and test and fly one....

I'd have to check, but the motor I'm planning is a J275, around 70 pounds average thrust, a spike of over 100lbs at ignition. Yeah, rocketry is good for the kids, we do launches with Scouts, schools, and I judge every summer for the 4-H folks, it's all great fun.
I invite you to take a peek at the Aerotech rocketry site, they're a major motor manufacturer, and there are many more that cater to the really, really big stuff. (M through P). There are launch videos on the internet, these are big, scary rockets!
CATO...been there, done that, got the burned up body tube...safety, safety, safety...these aren't just toys kids!! And we teach aerodynamics, geometry, physics, some chemestry...the skys the limit. Buzz Aldrin is a regular at national level launches, including the TARC (Team America Rocketry Challenge) where teams from all over compete. It's growing.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program...

You bet, and thanks for the info!

That's some really great stuff at Aerotech!

275 N....??? Man I wish I was still involved in all that!

Yes indeed...back to the regularly scheduled program!

Then again, maybe not.
I am thinking that somehow, finally, this thread may have come to its logical conclusion, and the arguments have been won.

If so, congratulations to all those astute folks who have provided so much material, and have so adeptly explained what is not understood in certain circles about mankind's greatest scientific and technical accomplishment.

I very much doubt that. Even if the current debate has died away I suspect that Turbonium will return in the near future with some new argument or more likely a repeat of one of his old arguments. Even if that doesn't happen then, once this thread disappears from the first few pages of this forum, then some new, fresh faced, conspiracy theorist will find their way to this site. They will start a new thread, posting the same old, tired, disproved, nonsense about there being no stars in the pictures and the shadows all being wrong. Some moderator (quite likely me) will merge that thread with this one and it will start all over again.

This is the conspiracy section, is it not?

I believe we landed on the moon, but don't understand why you make that comment as if those who believe in certain conspiracies are unwelcomed here.

Mulder of the X-files has a poster of a flying saucer in his office with the caption: I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Well, that's me. I WANT TO BELIEVE. I'm 99% convinced. The evidence is so strong and overwhelming. You know I can pinch myself and feel it - I know I've got neurons; I'm 100% on that. But flying to the moon and back: it's 99% - maybe even 99.9% but not 100%.

I'm actually a little sorry that I feel this way.

But the experts who post here - you guys have really done your homework. I could never debate with you guys.

Have a great day!

The Moon flights are something you can never "know" 100%, just like Hillary on Everest, photos of Neptune or the sinking of the Titanic. We rely on a detailed historical record and judge it based on that. I look at the science and technology, the physics. Nothing I see tells me it did not happen as presented.
The orbital mechanics are sound, and are used today. The technology employed, while rudimentary by today's standards in some cases, was perfectly capable of doing the job. The radiation was not a significant issue, the thermal conditions were accounted for appropriately. The texts printed today on space systems engineering, looked at in the context of today's space systems as well as Apollo, match up perfectly.

Study the science and engineering, the documentation...it's fascinating to see how Apollo was entirely do-able as described. There is nothing I've seen that shows otherwise.
The lunar surface environment, the searing radiation hell, the "poorly constructed" LM...all simply opinions based on ignorance. If these hoax proponents would just study the subject they so vehemently argue, they would realize their many mistakes.

Where did I say anything derogatory? Where is the personal attack? Where is the statement that such debate, or conspiracy theorists in general are not welcome here? These comments exist only in your head. All I stated is that someone will restart the debate in the future, so kindly dismount from that high horse you are riding and read my post properly. Thank you.

To further comment on what mrbusdriver has said: There is no need to feel sorry that you feel that way. Doubting what you believe is a healthy thing, it allows you to question and therefore to learn.

I agree with mrbusdriver, most of us can never now for sure whether we went to the Moon or not.. there are those who do, I'm not one of them. All we can do is come to a conclusion based on the balance of probability, the weight of evidence. This is the scientific method. In this way science is very much like a trial by jury, it is about reasonable doubt. Just as no juror can ever be 100% certain of the guilt of the accused, science can never be 100% sure of it's conclusions. Just as juries can sometimes get the wrong result so can science. Both systems are not perfect but both are the best systems we have got.

Using the evidence and the scientific method I have no reasonable doubt that we went to the Moon. With a 99% certainty that we went I would say that you have very little reasonable doubt either.

Yea ... I'm really on a high horse.

You're comments above are in the same manner as the one you make about "conspiracy theorists".

The only person on a high horse here is you.

And oh, since you are bringing up things in peoples head - when did I say you made derogatory or personal attacks? Perhaps you're the one who should read my post properly. I understood what you meant in your first post that I responded to. And yes, it certainly carried the tone of "oh, woe is me, I'll just have to direct all those conspiracy theorists to this thread again once they show up."

You also said it as if you were lumping all "conspiracy theorists" together - as if a person who believes in one conspiracy, must therefor believe in all of them. It's not appropiate to do so.

Kind of makes me want to drink, you know?

Interesting post!

How many times I've used Mulder's "I want to believe" poster as an illustration of obstinate mindsets which prohibit knowledge--knowledge that's readily available--from overcoming cherished beliefs I can't say!!!

That being said, I agree (again ) with Waspie in that there's no reason to feel sorry for having a doubt: a smidgeon of a doubt, like yours, or alot of doubt for that matter.
Doubt is often a key to learning...it makes one curious about the hows and whys of something, and can lead you to figuring out things you didn't know, which is of course (well, at least in my view) exhilarating, and fun!

If you peruse the close to 8000 posts in both Moon hoax threads (Good God!) you'll find many examples of things that people just didn't understand, or even know about, and which came about because of people's doubts.

Debate is healthy, certainly, but we like to avoid contention here. I have always prefered to look at this topic as one which can educate and inspire learning.

You know, one time...a while back I remember someone asking something along the lines of, "How come they could see the Earth and film it on a TV camera when they were supposed to be pointing at the Moon?"

Such a question is LOADED with potential for learning...and it did produce some!

HINT: They weren't pointed at the Moon, and they weren't actually headed to the Moon.

Trajectory, non-atmospheric "flight", guidance and navigation...all of that stuff got discussed in some depth because of one little question. And, as I recall, what was discussed was understood, where it hadn't even been contemplated previously. That's cool!

Anyone with doubts is welcome...
All they have to do is express them as a question, and you can be guaranteed that an answer will be forthcoming from someone!

I think the reference was to the frustration felt in having to deal with a mind-boggling, died in the wool CT who comes into these types of threads and makes a fool of himself by posting nonsensical mis-interpretations of things he doesn't understand at all, and which have been so thoroughly explained herein that even long-term "dis-believers" understand them.

It's akin to that which one might feel if he or she were a math teacher, and had taken a group of students from arithmetic all the way to differentiation, and then had someone come in and start interjecting in the class who didn't yet know his multiplication tables!

Died in the wool CT's are problematic when they do that (and most don't last very long here any more, because their obstinance usually degrades into being a bad boy and they take a hike).


We have no problem with someone with a question and a doubt. But that's different than the person who, after all this time and effort, comes here and says, "WAKE UP PEOPLE, WE NEVER LANDED ON THE MOON, KENNEDY WAS FAKING IT TO TRICK THE RUSSIANS. YOU CAN'T SEE ANY STARS IN THE SKY!!! IT WAS FAKED ON A SOUND STAGE IN AREA 51!!!

That's boring...

On the other hand, if someone comes here, even now, and says:

"Look, I have a problem with this whole moon landing thing. None of the photos show any stars in them and without air, we should see thousands of them! How do you explain that?"

...he or she will get an answer to their question.


It's a matter of what we've explained already (often multiple times in detail), and what we've been through with certain folks ad nauseam.

This thread is indeed in the conspiracy section, but it's about knowledge, not about entertaining a conspiracy theory about the most supported occurrance in human history. If you'd ben involved in these threads from the beginning, I think you'd understand where Waspie's comments are coming from.

That's fair enough, and I understand that. It is for that very reason however that I get bothered when people use the phrase "conspiracy theorist" as if "we" are all of the same mind - as if to imply anyone who believes in any sort of conspiracy is a nut.

To be honest, the term "conspiracy theorist" isn't one I care for in the first place. I don't consider myself to be one, but I know there are many here who go and call me that simply because information I've read about certain things has me question certain events that have taken place in our history.

Most of the time, almost always, when the phrase "conspiracy theorist" is used, it is meant in an unflattering way, and that is why I tend to take offense to it.

Left Field,
I've noticed a propensity for hoax proponents to frequently believe all the conspiracy theories...the Moon hoax, 9/11, US government conspiracies, Illuminati, et al. This is not to say it's a universal trait, but it does seem to be pretty common. There are frequently political undercurrents (if not direct hatred) towards the US government that, through some sort of "guilt by association", NASA becomes an evil government entity, incapable of doing anything "good", directly driven by the DoD and CIA..

Additionally, so many of the hoax proponents, in the Apollo area particularly, are just uneducated in the science of space flight and rocket ships. I'm living proof that it doesn't take a full blown rocket scientist to understand the science. To the uninitiated, the LM looks ludicrous. The dust movement on the Moon looks "wrong". And the idea of getting all that antiquated technology to work right seems impossible. Especially to the younger visitors who grew up with PCs, cell phones and networking, the 60s must have been populated by hairy humanoids living in caves. Color TV a new invention, rotary dial phones, using an "operator". And the massive computers just had text graphical interface, no CPU cycles wasted on pretty graphics. Programming was bare bones. But they worked with the cutting edge technology of the day. One day, hopefully, our grandkids will look back at our antiquated ways with amusement.

It was a whole different time, to be sure, but Apollo's contemporaries include the C-5A Galaxy, the 747, the SR71 and the XB-70. The technolgy was there.

No offense intended with the "CT" moniker, let us know what you prefer. Look forward to a good discussion.

Sorry but that is your problem not mine.

That you put your interpretation on a phrase and then chose to attack something that was never said says more about you than me. It is the reason I was so angry about your post (maybe too angry.. I should have counted to 10 before posting my reply) however I truly despise having words put into my mouth in the way that you did. You totally misrepresented what I said.

I have consistently defended hoax believers when they have been the victims of personal attack. I have consistently defended their right to post their beliefs here, even when I believe them to be wrong. I have always tried (to the best of my ability) to moderate this thread fairly. All points of view are welcome here. Trolls are not, whatever side of the argument they are on. I resent your implications to the contrary.

There was no attack against conspiracy theorists (or what ever you would prefer to call them) made or implied in my post. I repeat it was all in your head based on YOUR dislike of the phrase.

My post was a specific response to MIDs comment. I was simply making a prediction on the future of this thread and attempting to do so in a light hearted way. A prediction made on the basis of the past history of this thread (and those which precede it). It was nothing more and nothing less. You clearly (and despite your protestations to the contrary) did not understand the point of my post. I hope you do now and we can lay this to rest.

I didn't put words in your mouth. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant, but I certainly didn't put words in your mouth.

And the only thing my comment says about me is that I don't like being referred to as a "conspiracy theorist" do to the other thoughts that are usually associated with the comment.

ETA: I'll get to your comment in a bit there busdriver.

Really? Then please point out where I said that those who believe in certain conspiracies are not welcome here OR that a person who believes in one conspiracy must therefore believe in them all.

Apparently, you'll find it in the same place I accused you of making personal attacks and deragotory comments - which by the way, I did not do.

I never said you did the things you are stating above either. Read my comments more carefully.

Maybe you can explain what you meant by "...if that doesn't happen then, once this thread disappears from the first few pages of this forum, then some new, fresh faced, conspiracy theorist will find their way to this site. They will start a new thread, posting the same old, tired, disproved, nonsense...

What exactly was the part in bold supposed to mean? What exactly is a "new, fresh faced, conspiracy theorist"?

Just my guess here, but I assume that Waspie meant someone who is new to the site, who believes in the conspiracy theories put forth in this thread, or the site as a whole, and hasn't read this thread at all to see that whatever arguments they plan to put forth have almost certainly been discussed ad nauseum previously.

As Wapsie also said, the fact that you take offense to the term "conspiracy theorist" is your issue, not anyone else's. What would you rather call them? They either believe in or perpetuate the conspiracy theories, therefor, regardless of how you feel about it, the name is relatively accurate.

I'm not saying you're wrong to be offended by it, but, since you weren't being singled out as being a conspiracy theorist - you've been here a while, so you don't qualify for the "new, fresh faced" category - I just don't see the reason behind being offended by someone using that term to refer to a group of people who believe or perpetuate the conspiracy theories. I don't like being referred to as a Pro-Apollo Nutter ("PAN" for short), and I know in some circumstances its mean derogatorily, but still, I tend to accept it as its a relatively accurate description.

Now, if Waspie had dropped the "N" word or the "C" word, then I could see being offended...



Cz