Did we really land on the moon in 1969?

Question

Think about this. Throughout the history of mankind, what revolutionary events were perfected on the first try? Did the first airplane make a successful flight across any length of distance? No. So you believe that the first attempt into outer space, to land on the moon, was actually successful? How could they have known about and factored in the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays? Not to mention the landing itself. This is a far far more improbable mission than flight, yet is succeeded without issue? No way.

Have we been to the moon since? Sure, I believe so. But I absolutely 100% believe the first landing was faked. Think about the motives to get on the moon first, and ASAP:

1. Cold War — The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race against the Soviet Union.

2. Money — NASA raised approximately $30 billion to go to the Moon. This amount could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity.

3. Risk — This argument assumes that the problems early in the space program were insurmountable, even by a technology team fully motivated and funded to fix the problems. The chance of a successful landing on the moon was calculated to be 0.017%.

4. Distraction — According to hoax proponents, the U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities suddenly stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.

5. Delivering the promise — To seemingly fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Answer 1

1,,,,, ??? win the race? by going to the moon? no. war isn't about the moon, its about the earth. what do you think they where in space for? to monitor the earth from satellite. the cold war brought up completely different issues that don't have much to do with the moon.



besides russia was already orbiting the moon with unmanned satellites.



2. you have no idea how much money is invested in different departments of the government and social help and health services do you?



3. early?..... going to the moon wasn't early. and there where some failures during the mission. (ever watched apollo 13?)

obviously the calculations where wrong of you have the wrong info.



we land robot after robot after robot after robot on distant planets and have failed only about twice?



4. HAHAHAHA. ok. you can't distract from war just by saying "look at the moon" war kills people and their family members. tax payers pay for war and don't forget.



5. you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

yes we can. and we did it six times..











keep in mind, scientists, government and corporations don't invest 30 billion dollars and a total of 12 lives, on something they think has a .0017% chance of success.



when they do it, they do it right. they aren't idiots.



and by the way, the wright brothers where bicycle repairmen, not scientist. nor did they have 30 billion + backing them up.



both dropped out of high school.



Wilbur "expressed unease over his own lack of ambition."





if two idiots like that can build a working plane in a few attempts, what do you think a group of 200,000 + scientist, engineers and military personal not to mention the outside corps that helped engineer the program can accomplish.

Answer 2

A couple things.



"How could they have known about and factored in the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays?"



This part doesn't make much sense. You ask how we could have known about the Van Allen belts (for example) without acknowledging the fact that we clearly knew about them because they are named after the person who discovered them. To the best of my knowledge their existence was confirmed in the late 1950's (10 years before Apollo 11). Furthermore, the time spent passing through the Van Allen belts was minimized so that the astronauts were not exposed for an extended time period.



As for the the other problems you mention. These were risks that the astronauts were made aware of. There are risks involved in no matter what you do.



"3. Risk — This argument assumes that the problems early in the space program were insurmountable, even by a technology team fully motivated and funded to fix the problems. The chance of a successful landing on the moon was calculated to be 0.017%."



It is also statistically unlikely that you were conceived by your parents versus all of the other possibilities. What is your point?



"5. Delivering the promise — To seemingly fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.""



Kennedy did not "promise" anything. He challenged America to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.



"2. Money — NASA raised approximately $30 billion to go to the Moon. This amount could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity."



Ok let's assume NASA paid off everyone in the government with all that money. That still doesn't address the fact that the Soviet Union didn't protest NASA's 'claim' of Apollo 11 successfully landing on the Moon.



"1. Cold War — The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race against the Soviet Union."



The U.S. also considered it vital that Germany and Japan be defeated in World War II. Are you claiming that we then didn't defeat Germany and Japan?



"4. Distraction — According to hoax proponents, the U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities suddenly stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War."



Popularity waned after Apollo 11. I.e. it was hardly a "popular distraction" after Apollo 11, yet there were still 6 more missions that actually went to the Moon.

Answer 3

it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Moon has been landed on.



There is a mirror on the moon that NASA uses to measure the distance from the Earth and the Moon with a laser, accurate to 1 cm. And how did that mirror get there? It was placed there by the Apollo astronauts.



Plus your 5 "explanations" are pure conjecture.



And recently, they tested the "irrefutable facts" that the lunar landing were hoaxed, guess what? Each one not only dismissed the claim, but also ironically proved beyond a doubt that the lunar landings did happen.



Take the walking on the moon theory is actually slowed down footage. They tested slowing it down, and a rig to suspend the astronauts. Neither one could be replicated like the infamous footage. BUT they replicated it successfully using the Vomit Comet by actually replicating 1/6 gravity. Same gravity on the moon.



And the radiation, the amount of radiation in the Van Allen's belt, a 30 minute exposure is equal to a single dental X-ray. That's it. Long term exposure, say weeks to months may reach toxic levels. And that includes solar mass ejections and solar winds. But they were NOT there for weeks to months. Days. Too short a time to cause damage.



And by the way, the light to make the astronaut shine in a shadow was being reflected off of the moon.

Answer 4

>>Throughout the history of mankind, what revolutionary events were perfected on the first try?<<



If you believe it was perfected on the first try I suggest you read up on the space program. The Apollo 11 landing came after numerous test flights. In fact Apollo 11 was itself a test flight. It was by no means perfect, but it worked.



>>Did the first airplane make a successful flight across any length of distance? No.<<



Nor did the first rocket. However, the first of a number of later models of aircraft DID make successful maiden flights over great distances.



>>So you believe that the first attempt into outer space, to land on the moon, was actually successful?<<



If you think that the moon landing was the first mission into space you are even more ignorant than I thought. The early days of rocketry were beset by failures. Virtually every space flight involving humans had some problems. By the time of Apollo 11 NASA had a few thousand hours of manned space flight under its belt and had tested the spacecraft that would actually be used extensively.



>>How could they have known about and factored in the Van Allen radiation belts,<<



Discovered in 1958, over a decade before any human went as far as the Moon.



>>solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays?<<



Discovered and studied for a very long time prior to the manned flights to the Moon. By the time of Apollo 11 there had been manned and unmanned flights into space, including several lunar probes, so the environment was not unknown. Some forty or so probes between 1958 and 1969 carried instruments for measuring radiation flux and energy.



>>Not to mention the landing itself. This is a far far more improbable mission than flight, yet is succeeded without issue? No way.<<



Why is it so hard to believe? By 1969 both the US and the USSR had made UNMANNED soft landings on the Moon. If they can do it with a craft remotely operated from Earth, why not with one with two pilots aboard?



>>Think about the motives to get on the moon first, and ASAP:<<



Yes, all of which are served equally well by ACTUALLY going there first. One does not need to examine motives if there is no evidence of a crime. Your first task should be to ascertain if it actually WAS faked, not look at the reasons it might have been.



>>1. Cold War — The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race against the Soviet Union.<<



You don't win by faking it. If it's so clear to you it was faked, why didn't anyone in the USSR cry foul at the time, or are they all stupid?



>>2. Money — NASA raised approximately $30 billion to go to the Moon. This amount could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity.<<



Or it could have been used to build the huge construction, testing and launch facilities, and massive rockets, that simply did not exist when the project began. You can literally SEE where the money was spent, and much of that stuff is still used today.



>>3. Risk — This argument assumes that the problems early in the space program were insurmountable, even by a technology team fully motivated and funded to fix the problems. The chance of a successful landing on the moon was calculated to be 0.017%.<<



Yes, in 1963, by a team at Rocketdyne who were having trouble sorting out combustion instability problems in the F-1 engine.Nearly five years of hard work later they had fixed it, and the probability of success increased accordingly. Before the Wright brothers no-one thought we'd be crossing the oceans in powered aircraft, but people worked the problems.



>>4. Distraction — According to hoax proponents, the U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities suddenly stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.<<



Again, served equally well by a real landing, but irrelevant anyway. Most of the people complaining about Vietnam also protested the waste of money on Apollo.



>>5. Delivering the promise — To seemingly fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."<<



Again, fulfilled by a real landing.



Do you actualy have any EVIDENCE it was faked, or is it just that you can't believe that a huge group of very talented and capable people, given the support they needed, were capable of designing and building a spacecraft, then flying it to the Moon? Your personal incredulity has no bearing on reality.

Answer 5

The Apollo program was far from perfect, you should learn about it before you troll around.



- Apollo 1 ended in a fire during a ground test, with three dead astronauts.

- Apollo 8 was initially planned to be the first Lunar Module test flight. Because of the delays in the , Apollo 8 switched with Apollo 9. The new Apollo 8 instead flew already earlier to the moon than planned - as lunar orbital mission, because the Apollo 7 test was almost too perfect and there had been intelligence reports that the USSR plans to send humans around the moon with a Zond mission.

- All initial Saturn V flights suffered from massive Pogo-Oscillations, with one flight nearly ending in a abort, when 7.5 cm vibrations struck the center engine of the second stage. Luckily, nominal shutdown was close enough to fly with only four engines.

- Apollo 13 had an explosion in space, the most severe accident in the US spaceflight history without loss of life.

- Apollo 12 got struck by lightning, and required minor repairs in space. It was not sure until landing, if the parachute mortars would fire.



So, your ignorance is the only thing that is perfect. There had been many Gemini missions and 4 Apollo missions to test everything, before Apollo 11 landed on the moon.



1. The cold war also meant, that the Russians watched the flight closely. The cosmonauts of the Russian lunar landing program actually watched the first steps of Armstrong on the moon - over their own tracking stations. They knew where and how fast the spacecrafts have been, thanks to milli-arcsecond accuracy of the antennas and Doppler-Shift.



2. 30 billion subtracting the really build hardware? Do you think the Saturn V fireworks, which millions of people saw, had been inflatables? Or that the USSR does not use their own radar to make sure a large object travels to the moon. And how can you explain that the third stage of Apollo 12 lately returned into the Earth-Moon system, after a guidance error send it into solar orbit?



3. The number of 0.017% was calculated in 1957, before Sputnik flew into space and when 30-40% of all rockets had been still exploding. An inquiry of the US congress resulted in 1966 with 99.9965% chance of success.



4. The Apollo program started already in 1961, before Vietnam, with the speech of Kennedy. Combat units had been deployed in Vietnam not before 1965. The first research for lunar landings actually happened already in 1953, but without any hopes of getting done before 1970.



5. In that case, all programs which held their promises with year long delays (which are 65% of all projects) should be faked. Sorry, but this logic does not hold water. Without the Apollo 1 accident, the landing was actually planned for 1968, to make sure delays can't break the promise... and delays had been inevitable in such projects.

Answer 6

1) Twelve 12 American astronauts have walked on the moon. Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin Apollo 12: Pete Conrad & Alan Bean Apollo 13: << failed to land on the moon >> Apollo 14: Alan Shepard & Edgar (Ed) Mitchell Apollo 15: David Scott & James Irwin Apollo 16: John Young & Charles Duke Apollo 17: Eugene (Gene) Cernan & Harrison Schmidt 2) Why haven't we been back? a) American astronauts visited the moon on six occasions. b) The "moon race" was an extension of the cold war. It was mostly about national prestige. We got there first and achieved our primary objective. There was some good science: surveys, measurements, sample collection. But it was mostly about being there first. Once we achieved our primary objective, there was no political will to go back. There still isn't. Perhaps, if we discover He3 or something else valuable, there will be. c) I used to travel to Crested Butte, Colorado every year to ski. Because I don't go anymore, does it mean that I never went? 3) What about the Van Allen radiation belts? Wouldn't it have killed the astronauts? The existence of the Van Allen radiation belts postulated in the 1940s by Nicholas Christofilos. Their existence was confirmed in *1958* by the Explorer I satellite launched by the USA. The radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts is not particularly strong. You would have to hang out there for a week or so in order to get radiation sickness. And, because the radiation is not particularly strong, a few millimeters of metal is all that is required for protection. "An object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per *year*." "In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [6]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation." When the astronauts returned to Earth, their dosimeters showed that they had received about as much radiation as a couple of medical X-rays. 4) The U.S. government scammed everyone? In 1972, there was a politically motivated burglary of a hotel room in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. There were only about six or eight people who knew about it. However, those people, including Richard M. Nixon, the President of the United States, failed to keep that burglary a secret. It exploded into a scandal that drove the President and a number of others from office. If six or eight people couldn't keep a hotel room burglary a secret, then how could literally thousands of people could have kept their mouths shut about six faked moon landings? Not just one moon landing, but six of them! 5) What about the USSR? Even if NASA and other government agencies could have faked the six moon landings well enough to fool the general public, they could NOT have fooled the space agency or military intelligence types in the USSR. The Soviets were just dying to beat us. If the landings were faked, the Soviets would have re-engineered their N-1 booster and landed on the moon just to prove what liars Americans are. Why didn't they? Because the landings were real and the Soviets knew it. 6) Why does the flag shake? Where are the stars? Who took the video of Neil Armstrong? Take a look at the first two websites listed below. They deal well with all of the technical questions. 7) Finally, please tell us what you would accept as definitive evidence that the six moon landings were real. Is there anything?

Answer 7

This is all just long-debunked crud from Bill Kaysing's book. He worked briefly as a librarian for one of the Apollo contractors. (He was an English major.) Then ten years after he left "for personal reasons" he became disgruntled with the U.S. government's treatment of veterans. Someone suggested he should write a book embarrassing the government, saying something outrageous like the Moon landings were faked. So he did. Where did I learn all this? From Bill Kaysing's press kit!



The first landing mission was Apollo 11. Eleventh flight, not the first flight. And an entire program -- Gemini -- was undertaken to do nothing more than investigate the problem.



How could they have known about the Van Allen belts? Because they were well-known prior to Apollo. Simply look at the dates. Dr. Van Allen helped them plan the trajectory, and he called these hoax theories "nonsense." Kaysing was an English major. He doesn't know anything about science or engineering.



You say it's "improbable," but can you show me a qualified astrophysicst or engineer who doubts it? The only people who promote and believe these theories have no training or experience in science or technology. They're basically just people trying to sell you something.



Cold War? Yes, we tried to win. Why does that mean it has to be faked? Why can't a REAL landing also win? I've always thought this was the most idiotic claim. Conspiracy theorists can't consider any way of winning a race except for cheating. Sigh. But then again Kaysing wasn't a very logical guy.



Okay, so $30 billion was used to bribe people. Where's the evidence of it? Where's all the extravagant expenditures from people who were bribed? What good is a bribe if you can't spend it on something? Consider this also: the people who would allegedly have been bribed were, at the time, people with highly established reputations in the aerospace field. Those kinds of people tend not to be coin-operated. Why would they wreck their life's work and reputations just for some money?



Risk. Hm, where did that 0.017% figure come from? I know where. It comes ONLY from Bill Kaysing's book. He claims to have seen a report published in the 1950s that arrived at this figure. He doesn't show you the report, or give you any evidence that it ever existed. He just swears up and down that this is the figure. And he wants you to buy his book.



In 1961 when Apollo was proposed, the war in Vietnam was not going badly. In 1968 when the war was in one of its worst periods, the same people were protesting Apollo too. It didn't distract at all, and it couldn't have been intended to do it. Here Kaysing just re-invents history in order to make it fit his book.



Yes, Kennedy asked the nation to commit to a manned Moon landing before 1970. But what Kaysing didn't know and doesn't tell you is that Kennedy had to be strongly persuaded that NASA could do it, prior to making this statement. At first he said no. It was only when L.B. Johnson and the top NASA people proved to him that it could be done that he agreed to make a public challenge. To hear conspiracy theorists tell the story, Kennedy just up and decided all this on his own and NASA was supposedly caught like a deer in the headlights.



And one again there's nothing in that line of reasoning that says the landings have to be faked. REAL landings would neatly satisfy Kennedy's challenge. More illogic.



So now that you've demonstrate no more thought on the subject than to read some bored and disgruntled librarian's rambling anti-government tirade, do you really want to be asking this question of people who really know the subject?

Answer 8

OK, your points 1,4 and 5 are totally irrelevant anyway. They could be achieved even better with a real landing.



1. Obviously the russians had no problem with accepting our success.



2. If you bothered to do some real research (instead of repeating stupid Hoaxarguments) you would realize that a fake would still require convincing hardware.



3. Another idiocy, that "chance" was calculated in 195x, to any sane mind it would be clear that 10 years of development would change that.



And how did you come up with the "first try" nonsense? Might there be a reason why the landing wasn't done with Apollo1? Does "Gemini" ring a bell?

Answer 9

The entire USSR space agency admitted the mission was a success, and they had far, far more equipment than you for determining the truth or falsehood of such a matter.



You cannot fake a radio transmission from the Moon. If it was faked, anyone with directional radio equipment (i.e., the USSR) would have spotted it instantly.



Additionally, Apollo 11, 14, and 15 left retroreflectors on the Moon which are still visible to this day. Anyone with a sufficiently powerful laser and telescope can see them. They enable precise measurements of the distance to the Moon.

Answer 10

1. Which means that the Soviets would have been trying to get there too and that they could have easly traced the signail. And becuase they never disporoved the moon landing it means we landed there.



2. Or it could have been used to pay for loads of equipment and rocket parts did you ever think of that.



3. Where did you get that number from your head.



4.based off number 2 it cost alot meaning that they thought it was not worth it any more.



5. Well Kennedy did not really mean that he just said that because it sounded good.

Answer 11

They didn't just build a space ship and fly there. They had a couple of decades of experimentation in rocketry.

Project Mercury proved that people could withstand the rigors of space flight.

Project Gemini built on that and proved that 2 space craft could successfully rendezvous and dock.

Project Apollo found the best ways to achieve lunar orbit as well as landing.

Every stage built upon all previous ones dating all the way back to the first rockets used by the Chinese centuries ago.

Answer 12

You lost it with the belts issue. Bit of research will show you are wrong.



Oh and the first attempt into outer space. Brush up on the industry that led to apollo and what it achieved.



Edited to add "without issue" from the OP.



Two words to add. Mission Control.

Answer 13

They knew about the Van Allen belts, solar flares, solar wind, CMEs and cosmic rays. It was a calculated risk.



All you have is conjecture and speculation. There is no sound evidence whatsoever to support the hoax ideas.

Answer 14

Your question is in the same genre as "Is the Earth really round (spheroid)?" Find something else to do with your intellect, instead of focusing on far-fetched conspiracy theories and asking silly questions.

Answer 15

http://www.clavius.org



So you think that at the height of the cold war, with the Russians monitoring our every move and listening to all NASA transmissions, that the US faked not one, not two, but six missions to the Moon? Get real.

Answer 16

You know we didn't.



Check this out:

Lawn furniture or super groovy interplanetary spaceship of the naive 60's?

http://moonmovie.com/images/AS11-40-5922HR.jpg

(make sure to enlarge in order to really get a good look at American engineering at its finest)



Do some research on this guy:

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

Answer 17

Except a fake would have been extremely obvious.

Answer 18

no