Moon landing - a conspiracy?

That's the ticket!

"I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples -- not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren't all NASA employees, either. We've loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

 

Apollo 13.

What possible reason to fake a failure?

 

Some folks just need the tin foil hat award.:thumbs:

 

This can't have been a conspiracy or else Pancho would have told us!!:laugh:

Bro Tony

 

Wouldn't you like to know more about the people who think it was faked?

I mean education level, income, similar demographics. I think that would be fascinating reading.

 

Awwww....3-page warning: This thread will be closed no sooner than 12:30 a.m. ET by one of the moderators.

Lady Eagle,
Moderator :flower:

 

El_Guero said:

I gotta admit. There is ONE strong point to be made against the landings. I don't think this point was made very well. We had alot of 'accidents' before the moon landings, and I do not remember any accidents during the moon landings.

Well, unless you count the aforementioned Apollo 13. Also, it's less well-known (though no secret) that Armstrong and Aldrin had to find somewhere else to land the Eagle at the last minute, and were this close --><-- to having insufficient fuel to take off again.

Of course the manned rocket launches were safer than the unmanned ones. NASA used the unmanned flights as tests to make sure the vehicles would be safe for manned flight. The technology was pretty reliable by the time Apollo 11 launched. In striving to reach the moon, NASA found a successful balance between risk and safety.

By contrast, the reason the Russian space program seemed to take off more quickly than the American, at least at first, was because Kruschev was obsessed with space-race "firsts," so the Soviets took many unnecessary risks to accomplish them. For example, they were the first country to put more than one man in space - by cramming them into a one-man capsule and leaving out the spacesuits - but the American Gemini program was the first to do it with a purpose-built spacecraft.

As a result, the Soviet space program had at least four fatalities caused by faulty equipment, and many injuries. When Brezhnev succeeded Kruschev, he took a much more cautious approach. The Soviet space program faltered, because where Kruschev was too reckless, Brezhnev was too careful.

 

One other thing that benefitted the Soviet program was that instead of scrapping one program (Mercury, then Gemini) then starting on another (Gemeni, then Apollo), they built upon technology that had already been proven. But, yes, they did take unnecessary risks.

 

Hope of Glory said:

One other thing that benefitted the Soviet program was that instead of scrapping one program (Mercury, then Gemini) then starting on another (Gemeni, then Apollo), they built upon technology that had already been proven. But, yes, they did take unnecessary risks.

Even so, the American space program may have been done in three phases, but it still had a single goal: to put a man on the moon and bring him safely back to Earth. The Mercury program put a man into orbit. That having been accomplished, the Gemini program developed the advanced spaceflight techniques (such as in-orbit rendezvous), that would be needed for Apollo, the goal of which was to send men to the moon. Each project did build on the previous one.

If anything, the space race exemplified the fable of the tortoise and the hare. The Soviets were the first out of the gate, but it was the American's slow and steady pace that won the race.

 

Actually, I believe there is different fuel tanks for the descent and ascent modules of the LEM. As I understand it, they nearly ran out of fuel on the descent engine, which could have resulted in a crash landing, making take-off of no consequence. The ascent pod had its own engine and fuel, while the base of the LEM was the launch pad.

 

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