In addition to the
arguments rebutted above, there are others which the
Moon landing conspiracy theorists say gives the game away for the
NASA hoaxsters.
The flapping flag:
Those believing in a NASA conspiracy claim that the film of the Apollo astronauts planting the American flag into the Moon’s surface clearly shows the flag flapping as if in the wind. There is no wind on the Moon, so this flapping must be due to the breeze in the desert, or the air conditioning in the studio, where the hoax was filmed.
Well, indeed the flag (which is supported outwards by a pole across the top, attached at right angles to the top of the vertical pole) does flap, however this is not due to any wind. As the astronauts were planting the flag in the lunar ground, they did so with a twisting motion, thus causing the “pendulum” swinging motion of the flag. On the Earth, this motion is dampened by the air in the atmosphere. However, there is no atmosphere on the Moon, and as oppose to showing the flag flapping is indicative of a hoax, it actually serves to show that the flag was in fact planted on the Moon. Since there is not air to dampen the swinging of the flag fabric, the motion continues for far longer than on the Earth, thus giving the illusion of flapping in the wind.
The use of the cameras:
Many argue that the astronauts could not have operated the cameras with their cumbersome gloved hands. Not true – the cameras were designed to be operational with the large gloves of the spacesuits used. There is also an argument that the photos are too well framed to have been taken by the astronauts’ chest-mounted cameras, with which it was not possible to look through a viewfinder. Again, this is not a good argument. The astronauts received a great deal of training in the use of the chest cameras, and were even instructed to take them home and practice using them in their everyday lives. It is far from unreasonable to say that they would have learned to frame pictures correctly.
Slowed down film:
If you speed up the film of the astronauts moonwalking (in the literal sense, rather than doing their Michael Jackson impersonations!) it, apparently, looks remarkably like they are jumping around in the normal gravity of Earth. Well, it does (kind of) look like that. However, the relationship does not work both ways. If you make a film of someone leaping around at normal speed on Earth in a similar spacesuit to that used in the Apollo missions, then slow it down, the film loses that particular weightless and “floaty” quality that is seen in the Moon landing films.
Reasons why we DID land on the Moon:
- Thousands of NASA scientists, technicians, and engineers worked on the Apollo program. If it was a hoax then the NASA bigwigs would have had to fool the very people working on getting men to the Moon, or else, all the thousands of Apollo workers would have to have been very good at keeping secrets for the last forty years.
- When a meteorite collides with the Moon or the Earth, tremendous heat is produced from the high energy collision. This heat is enough to melt some of the debris that is thrown out of the crater. In such situations, “Spherules” are produced. These are tiny globules of molten rock and sand that cool as they fall back to the ground. On Earth, spherules are far from spherical due to the gravity and atmosphere. However, on the Moon, niether of these factors are as significant, so spherules are almost perfectly round. The Apollo missions brought back hundreds of these spherules. Dating tests on these have shown that many are billions of years old, and therefore cannot be manmade and must be lunar in origin.
- The most striking evidence that men landed on the Moon is still up there. I’m not talking about the flags and other paraphernalia left up there by the astronauts, although if we were to return and find it, this would be conclusive evidence. What I’m referring to in this paragraph are the laser reflectors left on the Moon, which are still used today to measure the Earth’s exact position in the Solar System. Lasers are beamed up to the locations of these reflectors and the time taken for the reflected beam to return is used to calculate the Earth’s position.
- The Jodrell Bank radiotelescope's scientists snooped in on the astronauts' radio transmissions and monitored the actual landing of the "Eagle" lunar landing craft for their own interest. Their records still exist.
- If NASA really wanted to fake the Moon landings, they would not have been caught out by such trivial and obvious things that are cited as evidence by the conspiracy theorists.
- Plus, with all the effort taken to construct such an elaborate hoax, wouldn’t it have been easier just to do it for real?
With every great expedition, exploration, and discovery, there has been doubters and disbelievers. People refused (and still refuse! - see
Flat Earth Society) to believe the Earth was round, and the Earth moved around the Sun. This is no different, except that in modern times such things are refuted on the basis of some sinister conspiracy, derived from circumstantial or ill-informed evidence.
Face it – we landed on the Moon!
Well...I think we did anyway!
I must credit Channel 5's excellent documentary on this issue.