Moon landing anniversary coming up

[Faustian]

Area 53? Is that a next door neighbour to area 51?

[shygye]

I always liked area code 555.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Isn't Area 51 were they reverse engineer alien technology?

[Flashermac]

6% remain convinced moon landings were fake

 

 

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

The New York Times

 

 

 

They walk among us, seemingly little different from you or me. Most of the time, you never would know of their true nature  except that occasionally, they feel compelled to speak up.

 

Take an example from Lens, The New York Times' photography blog. A recent feature, "Dateline: Space," displayed stunning NASA photographs, including the iconic photo of Neil Armstrong standing on the lunar surface.

 

The second comment on the feature stated flatly, "Man never got to the moon."

 

The author of that post, Nicolas Marino, went on to say, "I think media should stop publicizing something that was a complete sham once and for all and start documenting how they lied blatantly to the whole world."

 

Forty years after men first touched the lifeless dirt of the moon  and they did. Really. Honest.  polling consistently suggests that some 6 percent of Americans believe the Apollo 11 landing and five subsequent missions were faked and could not have happened. The landings, one of the greatest gambles of the human race, were an elaborate hoax developed to raise national pride, many among them insist.

 

They examine photos from the missions for signs of studio fakery and claim to be able to tell that the U.S. flag was waving in what was supposed to be the vacuum of space. They overstate the health risks of traveling through radiation belts that girdle our planet; they understate the technological prowess of the U.S. space program; and they cry murder behind every death in the program, linking them to an overall conspiracy.

 

And while there is no credible evidence to support such views, and the sheer unlikelihood of being able to pull off such an immense plot and keep it secret for four decades staggers the imagination, the deniers continue to amass accusations to this day. They are bolstered by such films as a documentary shown on Fox television in 2001 and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon" by Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker in Nashville, Tenn.

 

"There are smart, normal people who buy into these conspiracy theories," said Philip Plait, an astronomer and author who counters the conspiracy theorists point by point and at excruciating length at his "Bad Astronomy" Web site. He is one of many people who have joined the fight to affirm that It Happened. A group effort, at www.clavius.org, debunks with gusto; its main author, Jay Windley, named the site for the moon base in Arthur C. Clarke's classic science fiction novel, "2001: A Space Odyssey."

 

Even though the so-called evidence from the conspiracists clearly can be proved wrong, Plait said, understanding the proof can require a working knowledge of history and photography and of science and its methodology. "You've got to do the work; you've got to put the elbow grease to it," he said, "and most people don't do the work. So these things get traction."

 

 

Continued

[Bangkoktraveler]

I say the moon landing was real because the Russians and the USA were at a race and if one side faked the data, the other side would have let the world know about it. But then, one could say both sides were in in it, but if that was true, the Cold War was really one big game.

[cavanami]

Mr. Tin Hat rising to the occasion...I must rule that the moon land did in fact happen.

Why...because I say so and anyone that disagrees is stupid (how's that for an answer like a pol would give, no facts, just name calling)

[Bangkoktraveler]

Mr. Tin Hat rising to the occasion...I must rule that the moon land did in fact happen.

Why...because I say so and anyone that disagrees is stupid (how's that for an answer like a pol would give, no facts, just name calling)

 

 

I agree with your logic but not with your answer. Shouldn't Mr. Tin Hat be Mr. Aluminum Hat?

[Flashermac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat

 

 

[CTO]

Nasa never destroyed the tapes - the drama's they go to when they took photo's - original slides from 'Blads developed then ONCE ONLY copies made - from the copies - another round of dupes made - then again - if you see a 4th generation dupe your lucky - they never destroy anything copying everything many times over.

 

I got the day off school got a bit boring waiting for it to happen - I have a "copy" no idea what generation - third though I think - of the landing.

[shygye]

NASA still can't find its lost original moon landing videotapes. But that first moonwalk never looked better, thanks to new digitally refurbished copies unveiled Thursday.

 

The original live video was ghostlike and grainy. NASA and a Hollywood film restoration company took television video copies of what Apollo 11 beamed to Earth on July 20, 1969, and made the pictures look sharper.

 

The pictures themselves are not new. But some details are. Originally, Armstrong's face visor was too fuzzy to be seen. The refurbished video shows his visor and a reflection in it.

 

The original videos beamed to earth were stored on giant reels of tapes that contained 15 minutes of video along with 13 other channels of live data from the moon. In the 1970s and 1980s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes and erased about 200,000 of those tapes and reused them.

 

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