In think frenat and DEBUNKER made some rather detailed answers to the many points you made, but I don't think points such as the ones you raised require too much complexity:


Footprints: You really don't need a discussion of the silicate nature of the lunar surface dust or anything too technical. Footprints happen because someone steps upon a compressible surface. People did that when they stepped on the moon. I suppose it goes without saying that gravity is required for a man to actually "step" onto a surface, but your statement regarding your understanding that footprints were impossible because of the gravity is an illustration of non-understanding. This is really very elementary.

Leaping huge distances: No. An Apollo astronaut in his EMU was carrying a mass of about 365 pounds. Put 180 pounds of weight on your shoulders and see how far you can "leap" here on earth. Multiply that by 6 and you'll see that "huge" leaps on the moon are physically impossible in such a configuration. There's a difference between mass and weight, you know.

The Russians: The Soviets didn't go back in the 1960s because they couldn't. They failed to develop effective boosters for their lunar program90, and their booster and launching capability was destroyed in 1969 in one of a series of catastrophic failures they experienced.

No stars in photos or film: A pretty concise explanation of this utterly natural photographic result has been given. Simply put, you cannot photograph dim objects and very bright objects and have the dim objects come out on film, since the camera is set to properly expose the bright objects. Your eyes do this as well. This too is elementary understanding of physical reality.

The camera that films Armstrong:...was carried in the descent stage of the LM and deployed prior to Armstrongs exit...just like every other Apollo lunar surface TV camera was.

Magnesium flares on the moon that might have been lit to show people on earth they were actually there: You're joking, right? We're watching TV and we need to go outside and look for a magnesium flare up there on the moon?

You are obviously a complete novice to basic science. It would serve you better to ask some questions, after doing a little investigation, and some basic learning on your own, then to come here and say some of the things you said ...

"...why didnt the Russians go too?, probably becuase they couldnt and they were far ahead of america at the time and still alot further ahead now than america in terms of ballistic research."

Read what you wrote and see if you can see the contradiction--they didn't go because they couldn't and yet they were far ahead of the Americans???

"i'd also like to find the testimony of amatuer astronomers who witnessed them itself, a very easy thign to do."

The 'testimony of amatuer astronomers who witnessed them itself" (..."them itself"???) Witnessed what? Apollo landings? Via their telescopes perhaps? If that's the case, you won't find any such testimony, since no one with any telescope could've seen what was happening on the lunar surface.

But then again, it is most difficult to understand what you're saying here.

I have addressed people like you before. You do not contribute to discussion You place a bunch of convoluted, rather silly mis-interpretations onto this forum, and embellish them with snide comments like, "Oh right, they werent," and expect that this is somehow contributory.

You also say, "My reason for this is not evidence against but evidence for, which is non existent..."

A point I have made before, and which I suppose I must make again, is that besides the fact that "evidence for" is voluminous, and incontrovertible; if one accuses (i.e., you're saying that the whole thing was faked), then the accuser must PROVE HIS CASE. And that would be your job, as an accuser. It is not our job to prove we did it.

As such, if this post is your "indictment", as-it-were, it would have to be thrown out of court for its lack of substance. You admittedly come here without "evidence against". Thus, your case is dismissed for lack of merit.

Personally, I welcome questions regarding this topic, but I do not appreciate someone with a complete lack of knowledge--colored with attitude--coming forth and putting such silliness up for all to read. As I said, gain a little knowledge first, ask legitimate questions instead of making silly statements, and perhaps use a little more discretion with your written english. Properly constructed sentences, with correct spelling and punctuation helps make you look a little more legitimate as well.

Regards.

Another valuable contribution to the idea of discussion...

The moon's gravity is one-sixth that of the Earth's; a man who weighs 180 lbf (pound-force) on Earth weighs only 30 lbf on the Moon. (The equivalent metric weight (or force) is the Newton, where 4.45 Newtons equal one pound-force.)

Further about the VLT's capabilities, the email from Dr. Boffin does mention it is able to image the landing sites....

"It is correct that ESO's VLT is technically able to produce extremely sharp "images" by means of the interferometric technique when several telescopes are coupled together.

In fact, in its interferometric mode, the VLT has indeed a resolution equivalent to about 2m at the distance of the Moon. Thus it could barely distinguish the lunar modules

I am afraid that no "image" exist yet.

And remember, the tracks made by the lunar rovers are many meters in length, and would be quite visible with the VLT.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../24/nmoon24.xml

The above link is to the article which explains the ESO's goal back in Nov.24, 2002 to image the Apollo landing sites...

Conspiracy theorists, you have a problem. In an effort to silence claims that the Apollo Moon landings were faked, European scientists are to use the world's newest and largest telescope to see whether remains of the spacecraft are still on the lunar surface.

Dr Richard West, an astronomer at the VLT, confirmed that his team was aiming to achieve "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites".

Supporters of the conspiracy theory welcomed the news that astronomers are to photograph the landing sites. Marcus Allen, UK publisher of Nexus magazine and a long-time advocate of the theory, said: "I would be the first to accept what they find as powerful evidence that something was placed on the Moon by man."

He added, however, that photographs of the lander would not prove that America put men on the Moon. "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem - the Russians did that in 1959," said Mr Allen. "The big problem is getting people there."

According to Mr Allen, Nasa was forced to send robots to the Moon and faked the manned missions because radiation levels in space were lethal to humans. "We know that no lead shielding was carried on Apollo, so how were 27 astronauts able to survive a journey of several days to and from the Moon?"

Also note - Dr. West retired from the ESO last year, which was confirmed to me in an email from the ESO. But no landing site images were ever produced by Dr. West and his team in over two years during the project. The project was shelved after his retirement. Despite a dedicated project, and despite the technical ability to image the sites, they came up empty. It's interesting that they never issued a follow up press release to explain why they were never able to image the sites.

The tracks may be many meters in length but only about a meter in width. Thus they would be very hard to make out.

It is unfortunate that they did not image the landing sites. I still beleive that at the VLTs greatest resolution the image would be in infrared.

You are speaking in units of force (foot-pounds / newtons). A man (or anything else) weighs in units of mass (pounds or kilograms), not in units of force. Your basic idea is correct, however.

A man who weighs 180 pounds on the earth will weigh 30 pounds on the moon (and, of course, he would be "dead" weight if on the surface attemting to prance around, since vacuum is relatively unhealthy for the unprotected human organism).

An Apollo astronaut who weighed 180 pounds would weigh approximately 365 pounds in his EMU and PLSS on earth. That of course means he would weigh approximately 61 pounds (+/-) on the moon's surface.

As to long leaps on the moon, it must be understood that weight is a variable. It is dependent on the gravitational field. Mass, however is a constant. It is the same everywhere, regardless of the gravitational field.

Even a spacecraft in zero gee, although weighing nothing, still has a great mass. A 20,000 pound spacecraft in LEO has 0 weight, but it still carries 20,000 pounds of mass, and indeed, an incredible amount of potential energy, since it's traveling at about 5 miles per second. If you were floating along in a crossing orbit (say, a polar orbit), and this spacecraft happened along and struck you at a tangent, it would...despite the fact that it had zero weight...annihilate you. This is because it would strike you with massive force, which is a function of mass. Weight has nothing to do with it.

But back to jumping on the moon...

A man has a limited amount of force potential in his body. A well conditioned, 180 pound man could perhaps vertically jump maybe 18-24 inches on earth. One would then somewhat logically say that if he were on the moon in 1/6 G, he ought to be able to jump perhaps 9-10 feet high. This would be true...

However, the man requires an additional 185 pounds of mass on his back in order to survive on the moon. Therefore, he is now a 365 pound man (mass). A well conditioned 180 pound man on earth, wearing a 185 pound suit, might be able to jump up off the ground perhaps 3-4 inches (try it). Therefore, in 1/6 G, his vertical ability to jump would be reduced to 18-24 inches. Indeed, this is the effect we observed on Apollo EVAs where men jumped (and only rarely was 18"-20" actually attained. It was also ill-advised).

Another factor limiting the vertical jump (or any other jump) on the moon is that with the EMU and PLSS in place, the center of mass was aft of the centerline of the body. This required a forward leaning attitude in order to maintain stability on the surface of the moon. It also inhibited the ability to make vigorous verticle jumps as one had to make sure the center of mass was maintained in order to avoid pitching backward when jumping.

Essentially, the premise which states that since man weighs less on the moon
than he does on the earth means that he should be able to jump 6 times farther is essentially correct. However, people don't take into account the effects of actual mass when they make the assumption that things like 10 foot jumps and great leaps should be easy on the moon.

Regards.

It also mentions that the VLT is only sensitive to objects with a high surface brightness, such as stars and the nuclei of active galaxies. This makes it unsuitable for observing most objects in the Solar System apart from the Sun.

This could be why its not being used to take pic of the Apollo land site,another is that debunking the moonhoax believers is hardly high up on NASAs "to do" list.

Well, put it this way - the ESO organized a team for the specific project goal of imaging the landing sites with the VLT. I'm sure they know what it is capable of imaging, and the landing sites and their brightness are already known. They would not have gone through organizing a project without knowing these facts. And as Dr. Boffin clearly says, they could in fact image these sites with the VLT. Neither he, nor any other VLT personnel, have said they abandoned the project because of lack of brightness on the moon.

They would look silly after years and major money on the project before someone said "Hey, this thing can't image any landing sites - they aren't bright enough!"

And as for "more important" things to do with the VLT, that is incorrect, because the fact remains that they had a dedicated project that spent years towards achieving their solitary goal of imaging the sites.

The VLT project is not the only one that has stated the goal of imaging the landing sites. The SMART-1 probe was also being heralded as the "nail in the coffin" of the Apollo hoax believers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7091082/

The above link has the headline "Moon probe could kill conspiracy theory" with a sub-heading which states "SMART-1 sending back imagery of Apollo sites"

From the link....

"We are observing some of the landing sites for calibration and ground truth purposes," said Bernard Foing, chief scientist of the ESA science program.

Foing told SPACE.com that the SMART-1 orbiter circling the moon has already covered the Apollo 11, 16 and 17 landing sites, as well as spots where the former Soviet Union’s Luna 16 and Luna 20 automated vehicles plopped down. The images have not yet been released.

Detailed search planned
Given SMART-1’s initial high orbit, however, it may prove difficult to see artifacts, Foing explained. Using its ion engine, the probe has successfully spiraled farther down to an altitude closer to the moon.

Foing said that each Apollo site, where the engine blast of the two-person landing craft stirred up the landscape, could be worthwhile targets for SMART-1 imaging.

"We shall search for them, with measurements not only in black and white, but also in three colors, giving some information about minerals, weathering or [rocket engine] plume disturbance," he said.

SMART-1 operators also plan sequences that keep the probe’s camera specially trained on some landing sites as it sweeps overhead, Foing said. Along with these observations and others, the spacecraft will also be busy gleaning data in preparation for future international lunar exploration missions, he emphasized.

Sounds quite promising. The chief scientist of the ESA science program knows what the probe's camera is capable of - imaging the landing sites as the probe spirals to lower orbit of the moon. That he states this as a goal is also evident.

But hold everything! A peek at the official ESA - SMART-1 website states this is simply impossible! And they never actually intended to image the sites! Below is from the FAQ page of the website......

Will SMART-1 be able to see evidence of NASA’s Apollo moonlandings?

Despite the fact that SMART-1 will cover virtually the whole Moon with observations by with several instruments, unfortunately we will not be able to image the Apollo landing sites with enough resolution to detect the presence of any remains from the Apollo missions.

A resolution of about 1 metre would be necessary for that. We have a camera with a resolution of 0.005176°, which translates into a resolution of about 90 metres from an altitude of around 1000 kilometres. In order to image the Apollo remains with our camera, we would then need to fly at an altitude of about 11 kilometres. This is due to the fact that the optics of our camera were designed for the specific scientific needs of this mission. We could have easily designed an optical system with a narrower field of view and capable of detecting the Apollo remains, but alas this was not a mission goal.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMFQEQ3K3E_0.html

The first article is dated March 4, 2005. The chief scientist explains one of the goals of the probe is the imaging of the landing sites. The second link totally contradicts the ESA scientist! Not only does it say it is technically not possible (barring orbiting at an altitude of 11k) but that this was not even a mission goal!

The VLT and the SMART-1 are both capable of imaging the landing sites. They both had expressed it was a goal to do so. Now, they are both whitewashing the entire issue!

Have they in fact found no evidence of any Apollo landing sites, and simply said they could not or did not image the sites? I find their reasons for coming up empty are not only puzzling but also very weak. The media blasted out headlines that the conspiracy was going to be put to rest - but the only result of the VLT and SMART-1 projects is stronger support for the case of a hoax.

This is a composite picture of the area that Apollo 15 landed in. This mission spent 3 days on the moon's surface, far longer than earlier missions. This gave the astronauts more time to stir up dust in the surrounding area. This, coupled with the disturbance cause by the lander's rockets made enough of a mark on the lunar surface to be just visible on the photograph. The dark spot indicated by arrow A corresponds exactly to that landing site. Arrows B & C show recent meteor impacts.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missi...tos_010427.html

Now I'd be the first to admit that this isn't conclusive proof, but still evidence and the clearest pictures we're going to get until SELENE or someother mission.

Unfortunately better pictures won't put an end to the hoax theories, that I can guarantee.

This lack of understanding is the source of many of the hoax theories. Rather than finding out how the Apollo space program worked, many hoax proponents prefer to take a poor guess at how they think it might have worked, and then show how their own guess wouldn't work.

VLT Latest News

http://www.eso.org/outreach/ut1fl/news.html

I guess debunking some ignorant hoax proponents isnt high on NASAs to do list.

Arrow A spot is claimed as the landing site. Arrows B & C are said to be meteor impacts.


I've added some arrows pointing to many spots. They could be said to be "inconclusive proof, but still evidence" of anything from a luxury hotel resort to a 1975 Crown Coach School Bus.

It's not evidence of landing sites in the least. It's simply an image with many little black dots.

Sure, some will say high-res images of landing sites are faked, and that may or may not be valid. But at least they need a whole lot better than this to change anyone's mind.

I'm sure a picture like this can be validated by lots of astronomers as the 15 land site.
But you are right,It means nothing to "Joe shmoe".

Its like all the images with many little white dots,"proving" alien space ships on Earth.

What does convince most of the world is the myriad of hard evidence that points to one conclusion only,that the Apollo missions took place as documented by NASA.

Here is a good link.

http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/

You mean they aren't alien space ships?

Another good pro-Apollo site is http://www.clavius.org/, and where I debate Apollo, 9/11 and JFK http://apollohoax.proboards21.com/ with most of the entire forum members! I have a good time being a thorn in their side!

Bet you do.

Jays site is one of my favorites.
Im sure you have seen-The Truth Behind the Moon Landings ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425571/

Credited cast:
Buzz Aldrin
Bill Kaysing
Patrick Moore
Neil Morrissey .... Narrator
Jay Windley
(more)

"It's not evidence of landing sites in the least. It's simply an image with many little black dots."

Well your images of green sweaters and arms and squirells aren't evidence in the least either...

They're much better than little black dots! And it's a green shirt, not a sweater. As for squirrels, well, you said that, not me!

To you perhaps...



Either way your "evidence" is pathetic in comparison to NASA's

There not??

OK - maybe I should know better than to think "shapes" that look just like arms with skin tones, and people with colored shirts, skin toned hands and faces (just coincidentally where they should be) are anywhere near as convincing as the little dots!

Or perhaps it is my fault turbo. Perhaps I should take some random conspiracy theorists word over all the preofessionals at Nasa's. Perhaps I have been to blind or ignortant to see the obvious fact that the following picture is a bare human arm like you claim it is!

[attachmentid=20667]

Nasa's evidence completely out does yours in every way I'v seen, not just in the photo of the landing area.

Here is a site I found,I know theres nothing to convince a HB but a fun site for anyone else interested in the Apollo missions.

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~durda/Apollo/landing_sites.html

Of course, NASA always tells us the truth, just like every Gov't organization that depends on billions of bucks in funding in order to justify their continued existence!! Yup, no reason to ever lie!! You just keep telling yourself that, lonely!

Hold on though - proof of the landings is under way! The VLT will take images of them......oops, forget that, they dropped the project without any images, or any word as to why!

But the SMART-1 probe will soon take images of the sites when they go to a lower orbit......er, nix that, too. They now say they can't do it, either!

So, that doesn't matter - the little dots are all the "proof" you really need?

As a "random conspiracy theorist", with absolutely zero to gain from saying Apollo was all a hoax, that suits me just fine.

I'd like to think that humans went to the moon. I actually kind of believe it. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. One of the most peculiar things is when the lander lifted off from the base module on the moons surface, the camera follows the craft up away towards the sky. Who was aiming the camera? Who was tilting the camera to keep the craft in the center of the screen?

Like I said before, I do think that we went but, there are a lot of questions that I'd like to hear the answers to.

Can a sheet of metal that is thinner than tin foil really stop Van Allen belt radiation?
Why do photos taken from the lander pointing north look exactly like photos taken from the lander pointing south? Over lay them, they match up exactly.
Why is it that a telescope that is "powerful enough too see a candle on the moon" is unable to give us pictures of the landers? They are made of metal, don't they reflect sunlight?
Most importantly, if we were able to go there in the late 1960's, why would it be so hard to return there today? Did no one keep the Saturn V blueprints?

Not so much that I'm doubting but, I'd really like to hear an "official" answer that made sence... for a change.

We would all like the "official" answer but unfortunately we have to accept NASA's ie U.S. goverments answers.

I however believe man did go to the moon, but on the there hand " the one with the hidden ace" there is very much undisclosed info.

If NASA had any reason to classifie pics or vid it would be due to illigel weapons or hidding an impending danger,or something other worldly. No other reason for classification..........!

Unless it was just to upstage the soviets,so they had to fake it, like thats never happened befor ya right. I find it a bit wierd that almost every u.s. venture somehow had an alterier motive, hmmm

I took it as a given that man landed on the moon until a few years ago. After all, they showed us photos and films of the Apollo missions. The newspapers and TV news reported it as undisputed truth, despite the fact that NASA completely controlled all the footage shown to the public.

But the more I looked into the oddities, the more I became convinced we never went. The answers given by NASA and it's supporters have failed to convince me to revert to my original belief in the landings. The VLT and SMART-1 no-shows have only strengthened my opinion. And the notion that many of the anomalies in the Apollo 12 video clip are really all "gold reflective foil", when absolutely none of it is gold or reflective, is patently absurd.

I wish we had landed men on the moon. And I hope we really do land men there in the future - if and when we overcome the radiation (yes, it is a major problem to overcome, as we can see by the recent studies), solar flares (no, the Apollo astronauts were not just "incredibly lucky to avoid them") and all the other environmental hazards present in deep space.

Silver Thong:
Until about eight years ago I never questioned the Luner Landing either. All I'd ever seen were pictures and video of men on the moon. Then I saw some vidoe that were sped up and it really did look like men walking on the EARTH! This prompted me to keep digging. I'm sure that you saw the FOX T.V. special about this subject. This also led me to really think about it.

I still believe that we went there but, I think that most of that is because I want to believe that we went there.

There are just a lot of questions that I have now.

How about this, (and here's where I'm a traitor to my belief in the Luner Landing), maybe we have not gone back to the moon because if we did there would be irrefutable evidence that we never went there in the first place. (!?!)

The footage was taken by a remotely controlled camera, mounted on the LR which was left behind. They knew exactly how fast the lander would ascend, so knew how fast it had to pan up. It could all be set up in advance of the take off and triggered remotely from Earth.




The shielding on Apollo was more than just "thinner than tin foil".
What you have to realize that the radiation involved isn't the same kind or intensity as you might get from a nuclear bomb. You don't fall sick and your hair doesn't all fall out. It's been calculated that travelling at speed through the Van Allen belt would result in exposure of 1 rem. Radiation sickness symptoms don't start to show until you get around 25. Once you reach 100 you're going to be ill. 500 and you're probably dead. So the exposure the astronauts received is "pretty" mild.The astronauts risked it because they thought it was worth it. This, and all the other risks they faced, is what makes them remarkable people.




What Apollo photos taken from different points actually show is a slight variation in the angle you can see the mountains. (No North/South pictures have the same exact background.) This is called parallax and is often used on Earth to estimate distances from photographs. Parallax is very hard to fake and would be impossible with a 'backdrop'. Rather than proving they're a fake background, the photographs prove they are three dimensional, large, distant objects.

So these 'hills' are actually mountains, and they're far away. So the astronauts would have to travel a long distance before they'd ever stop being in the background.



If only it was that easy! The biggest problem with this is that they simply are not powerful enough. The lunar landers are very,very,very small in astronomical terms and they're pretty far away as well. There isn't a telescope in existence that could take a picture of one.Not yet.And even if it was it won't put an end to the hoax theories.



As the main driving force was political, once the first landings had been accomplished and the USSR soundly beaten, the government finance started to dry up. The Apollo missions were incredibly expensive and people were starting to wonder if it was worth it now we knew it was just a dry lifeless rock and that the Russians weren't in the running anymore.

The scientists would love to go back to the moon as there's bound to be lots more to discover. Unfortunately the scientists aren't in charge of handing out the money. If you're American ('cos lets face it, they're the only ones who could afford it) and you want to go back to the moon, then tell your politicians that. They need convincing.

In deference to Hazzard, who has already commented on these questions I should like to interject a few comments here, perhaps to clarify and maybe simplify a bit.

Understanding is the key to this silly business. If one has no particular background in the area, and wasn't around when these things actually took place, it is understandable that such a person could watch Fox TV, see something like that lunar landing "special" they put on some years ago, and actually sit there saying, "Wow, hey...maybe they did fake it!"

To those of us who are knowledgable, that show was typical of alot of Fox TV. It made me laugh.

That some people actually buy into the incredibly silly notions presented there is somewhat disturbing, and sad, especially given the fact that Apollo is, as I've probably stated before, the most documented project in human history.

At any rate---

The person who was aiming the camera at the LM as it ascended from the lunar surface was named Ed Fendell, one of the flight control people in the Manned Operations Control Room at the MSC in Houston. He manually controlled the camera pitch from his console in mission control, taking into account the delay between his commands and the actuation of the pitch command at the camera, which, as Hazzard indicated, was mounted on the LRV for Apollo 15, 16, and 17. There actually was a real person doing that. He got pretty good at it by Apollo 17, too!

__________________________________________________________________________
The answer to the van Allen radiation question is no, a piece of metal that is thinner than aluminum foil cannot stop a significant amount of van Allen radiation. Besides the fact that Apollo spacecraft were built of much sterner stuff, the CM shielded the crews from van Allen radiation as they passed through the van Allen belts briefly on their way out, and of course on their way back into Earth. The CM was made of multiple layers of steel honeycomb and aluminum and steel sheeting, varying in thickness from approximately 1 to 4 inches in total thickness depending where you were measuring. Plenty of shielding for the exposure to the belts that Apollo crews received.
__________________________________________________________________________


Photos taken pointing to the south cannot possibly look exactly like photos taken pointing to the north. The light in such photos would be coming in directions 180 degrees apart, and the backgrounds would be different as well (at least in the J missions, where mountainous terrain was around the landing site). This question needs a little more detail and clarification...an example would be nice.

___________________________________________________________________________
The telescopic question has been answered ad nauseam. There simply isn't any capability of seeing a LM on the surface of the moon with any clarity with existing telescopes. The Hubble cannot even image to that degree of smallness. Of course, there was an arguement regarding the VLA and it's resolution capability. Unfortunately, and despite the fact that trying to image the Apollo landing sites with this array would have stretched the array's capability to its absolute limits, the project has been abandoned...very likely because either the capability of the telescopic array was just a little too low for the task, or that funding was cut off in order to make way for more important projects.

The resolution issue is mis-understood. Even with a resolving power of say, 2 meters, this means that the smallest objects seen in an image would be about 7 feet accross, and at that, they would be obscure tiny specs in the image. In order to produce a telescopic image clearly showing evidence of Apollo artifacts on the moon (the largest of which is the LM descent stage), you would need resolution meaured as a mere foot or perhaps less. Then, you just might see something in the picture that looked enough like a LM to convince someone. That capability is unfortunately non-existent presently.

A telescope that is powerful enough to see a candle on the Moon? What telescope? Candles don't exist on the moon, and even if an Apollo astronaut brought one along...one certainly couldn't light it.

___________________________________________________________________________
Why would it be so hard to return there today?

It would be as hard today as it was in the 1960s. Flying to the Moon was not an easy thing, and it will not be easy when we attempt to do it again. However, it is not, nor has it ever been impossible to return to the Moon, or for that matter, to go to Mars. I think your question should rather be, "why haven't we gone back?"

Many a former astronaut asks the same question, as do many other people who were involved in the Apollo Program.
The scrapping of Apollo was Nixon's responsibility. It wasn't so much that Apollo was that expensive. It was the fact that Viet Nam was more expensive. It was also Nixon's wish to gut Kennedy's program and invest funding in his own space project; something that he could claim as part of his legacy. That was the Shuttle.

Unfortunately, the Shuttle couldn't beat his resignation, couldn't get airborne on schedule at all, and is no one's legacy in particular.

As to the Saturn V "blueprints", yes, they exist, but all the tooling and manufacturing hardware were scrapped decades ago. The Saturn V, and the Apollo spacecraft have long since been obsolete technology. Other technology, more advanced currently exists, and it seems that NASA again has another plan to put it to use...maybe.

Only time will tell is this is serious or if this is just another bunch of talk.

Regards.

What is "undisclosed" about project Apollo? Every single piece of documentation is available for public inspection. Every single photograph (even the hundreds of crappy shots that are unrecognizable) are available. Every report, every debriefing, every 16 mm film, every hour of video... every thing is available for one to see...

I will say that technological development in the 1960s as pertains to Apollo was classified. The reason for that should be obvious...and it had nothing to do with illegal weapons, anything "other-worldly", or any impending danger. Indeed, the impending potential danger was made public, and the whole world saw us try this thing live on TV (something the Soviets would never do).


Regards.

Great answers folks. Thanks for the thoughts to think about. I'm going to have to mull over this one for quite some time!
As I stated before, I do believe that we probably went but, I might not bet the family farm on it.

Just my opinion here but, I think that the Shuttle program was a waste of money. I think that we would've been far better off to have stuck with the rockets like before and continued going to the moon. A lot of the shuttle is wasted weight on the launch pad. For instance, it carries it's wings into orbit. How much do they weigh? Wouldn't it make more sence to use that lifting capacity to carry more cargo? Parachutes weigh a lot less than those wings and are just as effective at reurning people from orbit. I think that if we'd stayed with the rocket idea we'd have been on Mars by now. IMHO.

Interesting, but I just read recently that the NASA administrator said essentially the same thing you did...that being that the Shuttle was a 'billion dollar waste of money'. It is actually a multi-billion dollar waste of money. I actually hate to say that, but the fact is it's true in large part.

This is because of a couple of factors.

First, the Shuttle was built with reduced funding and is a compromise vehicle which is not totally reusable as originally planned. This, on the surface, would seem to have saved some money. However, as is utterly obvious, the vehicle had, and has flaws which have caused disasters to occur, and as such, has cost billions in re-design and manufacture, not just of SRMs, OV and ET components, but in the complete fabrication of a new OV. Of course, the expenditures on "fixes" has not ended, as we've all seen.

Secondly, the basic fact of the matter is that the Shuttle isn't doing anything. Blunt, of course, but facing facts, we must acknowledge that this vehicle essentially exists largely for the sake of its existence. There is no space exploration being done by it (of course, no space exploration was ever intended for it), and its original mission has only occupied a very small percentage of what the vehicle has executed in it's roughly 25 years of operation (the construction of the ISS would be that portion). As such, this shows another reason whythe Shuttle has been a large scale waste of money.

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...Of course, I have not mentioned the most significant cost of the Shuttle program. The loss of 14 human lives is most certainly the greatest cost. I think that probably goes without saying. It makes the pragmatic aspects of the Shuttle analysis all the more bitter. I am frequently depressed when I think of the fact that from 1961 through 1972, we launched 27 manned space flights, each one expanding the envelope and pressing into unknown territory--and all of the 59 men who flew those flights returned safely to the Earth...not even a scratch. The Shuttle flew 25 missions from 1981 through 1986, and we destroyed a multi-billion dollar spacecraft and lost 7 people in that time, while no unknown territory was being explored by these missions--they were flying into a known realm. Of course, we must add another 7 people to that toll as of 2001. Rather pitiful, I'd say.
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The Shuttle's originally conceived mission was to serve as a workhorse vehicle, carrying cargo, equipment and crews into LEO for the purpose of serving as a "truck" of sorts, a support vehicle which would be very reliable and which would service and supply projects in orbit, such as a space station, and the fabrication of exploration vehicles for the return to the Moon and the exploration of Mars. Being that there have been no such exploratory programs in development in the past 3 decades, the Shuttle hasn't had much of a purpose, although it was essential in the eventual fabrication of the ISS...despite the fact that it took many years to actually get funding to build the thing.

The fact is that we've spent more money attempting to safe the Shuttle than we would've spent had we designed and built the more costly, but completely re-usable vehicle that was originally intended.

#

As to your point regarding the Shuttle carrying its wings into orbit, I feel it makes complete sense to do so...from the perspective of what the Shuttle was originally supposed to be doing, mind you.

The idea was that the Shuttle would be a highly reliable, frequently flying cargo and personnel carrier in support of exploratory projects and a space station. Having a winged vehicle would ultimately be less costly than parachute recovery vehicles because it would eliminate the cost of a vast recovery force. One would not need ships and planes all over the world to recover vehicles, and there would be no need for all the specialized survival training necessitated by the possibility of an aberrant entry trajectory and a potential landing in hostile terain.

However, parachute recovery is proven and safe, as you say. Indeed, I believe current plans for NASA moon projects includes that mode, but as to a supply vehicle for LEO support, wings make sense. It is fundamentally correct, however, to imply that NASA should've resisted putting its eggs in the Shuttle basket exclusively. They realized this after Challenger and have used many conventional rockets since, although not for any manned flights (since we have no such spacecraft today).

But I would agree that if Apollo applications and Saturn technology had been retained, and refined, along with a re-usable shuttle vehicle, that we might well be where it was envisioned we would be by people like von Braun as early as the mid to latter 1950s: a manned presence on the moon and in orbit around it, a substantial manned presence in Earth orbit, a routine and frequent Shuttle flight program in support of these things, and by now, 2005, we would've already seen man's first explorations of Mars.

Regards.

that's what I said, Neil Armstrong said Aliens warned them never to come back again.

"NASA completely controlled all the footage shown to the public"

This statement disproves your bare arm theory, because if they did, why would they let one of the "film crew" members stick their arm right in front of the camera and keep the shot anyway?

"Of course, NASA always tells us the truth, just like every Gov't organization that depends on billions of bucks in funding in order to justify their continued existence!!"

You believe EVERYTHING the government does is a corrupt pool of conspiracies and evil agenda's and twisted mad men.

"So, that doesn't matter - the little dots are all the "proof" you really need?"

Yes because that one photo is all the proof there is huh turbo..

"Hold on though - proof of the landings is under way! The VLT will take images of them......oops, forget that, they dropped the project without any images, or any word as to why!

But the SMART-1 probe will soon take images of the sites when they go to a lower orbit......er, nix that, too. They now say they can't do it, either!"

What kind of evidence is this? Why would nasa even propose a plan to take images of the landing sight at all if they knew they had never been there? To screw themselves over perhaps?

Because it isn't NASA that planned these projects.. The VLT is part of the ESO - the European Space Observatory. The SMART-1 is a space probe of the ESA - the European Space Agency.

IMO, they did not know the landings were faked before they announced to the world that they planned to image the sites. When they didn't find the sites, they quietly dropped the projects and either gave no reason why (in the case of the VLT), or flip-flopped and said they actually could not image them (in the case of the SMART-1).

No, it doesn't. I asked MID about this earlier. He confirmed to me that the Apollo 12 video was basically run "live" on TV, so any mistakes would have been shown to the public. And the Journals contain the dialogue of the astronauts as they were filming. These Journals are also in the public domain, so they are a back-up for the video dialogue.



Well, maybe not everything, but off the top of my head, these come to mind...

JFK Assassination
RFK Assassination
MLK Assassination
The Bay Of Pigs Invasion
Iran-Contra
Watergate
9/11
WMD's
Attack on the USS Liberty
The Gulf of Tonkin
Oklahoma City Bombing
1993 WTC Bombing
Pearl Harbor
Sinking of the USS Maine
PNAC
The Ruby Ridge Incident
Operation Northwoods

I can add another 30 or 40 easily conducted just by the CIA alone..



???

"I can add another 30 or 40 easily conducted just by the CIA alone.."

Wow, aren't you cool...

"live" on TV, so any mistakes would have been shown to the public.

What would be the point of them filming live as you say if it was filmed in a studio? That would make it incredibly easy to make a mistake.

Also, filming something like this would cost billions and billions of dollars and thousands of people to film, why has no one come foreward?

And where did the 100 pounds of moon rocks come from? An unmanned spacecraft would be pretty much impossible. They would have to launch it into the atmostphere somehow.. people might notice something like that and ask what NASA is launching into the atmosphere.. Where did the shuttle go if not to the moon? I couldn't have possibly just been in orbit. People followed what was going on very closely, not just the russians, normal civilians watched the shuttle on its path to the moon. Not a single person came foreward saying "hey, the shuttle is just in orbit, whats up with that?"

No way! Really and for sure? Or is it just because of my "Dark Glasses Guy" Smiley?

Anyway, thanks, dude!

Sorry..just a silly bit of nothing to a silly post of nothing

But joking aside, it was hardly meant as a boast, lonely. If you really dig into all this stuff, you'll find literally hundreds of documented facts about past events that you won't read about or hear from your Prof. in your History 101 class. Knowing the "unwritten history" is not something to be bragged about, and definitely not something to be happy about.

For Walken, it should be mentioned that the fist lunar landing happened 36 years past, not 50. And the question as to why we haven't returned has been answered in some depth.

...and Neil Armstrong has never once mentioned "aliens". Oddly, if he had been so warned, one would have to wonder why he never said anything and just let the other 18 guys go after him. And, as that happened, how come nothing happened to them???

Strange world...

What does this mean? The Shuttle going to the moon thing is somewhat confusing, since the shuttle can't, and obviously hasn't.

im sorry, i aint gots no learnins

If I'm not mistaken Fendell "failed" on Apollo 15 and 16,but as you indicated,practice makes perfect.

There is some modicum of truth to that, but actually Hazzard, "failure" is probably too harsh a term to use (after all, 'Failure was not an option' )

In reality, all three of the J mission liftoffs were seen. What actually failed on Apollo 15 was the motor that allowed the camera to be pitched up. Thus, you saw the ascent stage of the LM flash up and out of the frame, but nothing more.

On Apollo 16, what failed was John Young's parking of the LRV.
You see, the LRV had to be parked at exactly the right distance and position in order for Ed Fendell to do his thing with the camera and clearly follow the LM. Ed actually never looked at the screen while he did this thing. He had calculations based on precise times as to when he would send the commands to the camera. These were based upon the LRV position. Ed Fendell only ever looked at the clock when he did these things...he never saw the results until they were played back for him (we all saw it before he did!).
The LRV was parked at the wrong place, too close to the LM and in a bit of a gully which rendered the TV camera at a slightly skewed angle.

All we got to see on 16 was about 6 seconds of the ascent before the ascent stage won the race with the camera.

On Apollo 17, everything was right, and we got to see the whole deal, following the LM perfectly for over 25 seconds. In fact, he picked it up briefly at 45 seconds after launch and then pitched back down to the descent stage.

So, he actually didn't fail. He couldn't do it on 15, and the LRV was mis-parked on 16.

He was a victim of circumstance!


Regards.

You sure know your Apollo,MID.

Have you seen the clip of the lonley american flag after they blasted of from the moons surface on Apollo...hmm?....was it Apollo 15.

I am going to laugh when humans actually make it to the moon and it's compleatly different than what they said it was like.

lol:D me too

Thanks, Hazzard.

Yes, I know what you're talking about. The Apollo 17 departure sequence featured just such a scene about 3 minutes after Challenger's liftoff from the surface. The camera pitched back down to the landing site and showed the LM descent stage, and the camera then panned around the now deserted site, finally focusing the American flag in the center of the frame with the mountains in the distance. Fendell held that view for a little while...something tells me he probably did so purposely. It was a rather poignant view....still is.

Regards.