http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article2432999.ece
No-fly zones will come into effect on the moon for the very first time by the end of this month! Why, even buffer zones that spacecraft may have to avoid will come into existence. The reason: avoiding any spraying of rocket exhaust or dust onto certain historical sites and artefacts on the moon.
The historical sites are of course the Apollo landing sites and artefacts present on the moon. And the “recommendations” are for preserving and protecting these historical sites. There are currently more than three dozen historical sites that preserve the more than four-decade-old remains.
“Apollo 11 and 17 sites [will] remain off-limits, with ground-travel buffers of 75 metres and 225 metres from each respective lunar lander,” states the July 20 guidelines of NASA. Science journal had obtained the guidelines.
I hope someone informed the aliens...
Who will enforce these stupid laws? I suppose aliens too.... or nazis
(hint: they have secret Moon base there)
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
They don't want anyone looking at the supposed "landing sites" too closely.
Even when I was a kid reading about this, I was like "How did they get it exactly right?" There must be at least a million things that can go wrong. I mean, if you came in just a teensy bit hot or if the LZ was tilted even slightly off the expected level, the craft could simply roll over. Then what? No real service craft that I am aware of and which lands on Earth uses this method of landing. And the same problem applies to takeoff. All of this was required to launch with sufficient precision from Earth:
And you don't even see the ground crew which surely numbered in the hundreds. But all you need to launch from the moon is a tiny little platform mounted on shock absorber legs and two astronauts. My skepticism on this issue is constantly increasing.
Clayton -
You think they've faked the moon landing? What about moon rocks?
I heard it is much easier to land and go up in a moon than in earth. And they were ready for an earth atmosphere, so no suprise they got pretty much everything right in easier conditions with lower gravity.
I heard it is much easier to land and go up in a moon than in earth.
It requires 1/6th as much energy and the payload would be much smaller. Look, I don't doubt that NASA really solved all the technical problems that would be required in order to land on the Moon and I don't doubt they really built all the equipment to do it with. What I doubt is that it was actually done. I believe the experts if they say that it is much easier to take off and land on the moon. But the fact remains that just as many things can go wrong when landing on or taking off from the moon as can go wrong on Earth - irrespective of scale. Yet there is a marked difference in the level of preparations, equipment and manpower used to launch rockets from Earth compared to those used to take off and land on the moon.
Here's the best video on fakery I've found yet:
Good luck debunking it.
What about them? If no one's ever been to the lunar surface, then nobody has any genuine reference by which to debunk the moon rocks.
Here is a rocket that launched from Earth and performed a very similar mission to what the Lunar Module was supposed to perform, namely, launch two astronauts into an exact orbit. I'm not sure if the Gemini space module was lighter than the Lunar Module but my guess is that it was. Anyway, assuming they are equal weight, the rocket required to get off the Moon must be on the order of 1/6th that required to get off the Earth because the Moon is 6 times less massive than Earth. But scale is not what is bothering me, what bothers me is the absence of precision in the Lunar Module's launch configuration. Look at the Gemini launch tower, it is as tall as the rocket itself. Its purpose is not only to permit servicing and entrance to the rocket but also to provide an absolutely precise reference against which to align the rocket. It is built on a huge concrete pad that is incredibly stable and immune to shifting, tipping or rotation. It would have to have been laid out many months in advance with the work of hundreds of men including experts in surveying according to specifications laid down by the rocket scientists. And the Lunar Module is supposed to replicate all this precision on four spindly legs and a tiny metal platform. I'm sure that, on paper, all the calculations are exact and so on. But exact calculations are never sufficient because of the presence of error in measurement or the oversight of variables that were not originally understood to be important until after failure. Look at the history of rocketry itself. It's an incredibly messy business. It took many decades to get it right, especially on a large enough scale to launch things into Earth orbit. And the Gemini launch pad is a culmination of all those decades of learning. But the Lunar Module replicated all that learning on a heavenly body 250,000 miles distant in a tiny metal platform that was not put through the same rigorous testing that the tried-and-true concrete launch pad and rocket launch tower was. And it was successful the first time, every time. It is an understatement to say this strains credulity.
It gets worse. Not only have they lied about JFK 1963, 9/11, 7/7, the Moon landings (the space program was, of course, real but its purpose was to win the race to ICBMs and satellite technology, not to put a man on the moon), but I'm beginning to believe they lied about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well. The bombings of H&N have a similar narrative: American grit and determination in the face of overwhelming odds overcomes all obstacles and succeeds in proving American superiority with resounding force. In a matter of four short years, we go from firecrackers to weapons that can destroy entire cities based on the most abstruse ideas in modern physics. Unlike conventional weapons which took decades of experimentation to get the explosive mixtures right (at the cost of many eyebrows and thumbs), these weapons work first time, every time. No duds, no accidental detonations.
Look at photos of Dresden or Tokyo after fire-bombing and compare them to the photos of Hiroshima.
Look at footage (avail. on YT) of India's "Smiling Buddha" nuke test, or of China's nuclear test or Britain's "thermonuclear" test. China's is so fake, a child could see it. India's looks fake to me - a modest amount of underground excavation and conventional explosives could easily produce the same effect. Britain's footage is believed to be fake. Yet, all the long-faced experts at the IAEA accept every one of these countries as genuine nuclear powers.
Now, is it possible to simulate the effect of a multi-kiloton or multi-megaton explosion? In the case of multi-kiloton, certainly. In fact, it's too easy and - if nuclear weapons are a hoax -then this would explain why we now have hydrogen weapons of multi-megaton yields... no private party could ever verify what such an explosion would look like.
For kiloton-scale explosions, look at footage of Operation Sailor Hat - an extremely large conventional explosion looks an awful lot like a shrunk-down version of what nuclear explosions are supposed to look like. Or, look at the shockwave from this detonation of the PEPCON rocket-fuel production facility in Nevada with a force equal to about 1 kiloton:
It is uncannily similar to the shockwaves in nuclear test videos.
For megaton-scale explosions, it doesn't really matter since nobody can produce explosions that big except - supposedly - nuclear governments. I'm still uncertain whether all nuclear bombs are a hoax (though I'm leaning more and more in that direction) but I'm fairly confident that H&N and many of the "nuclear" tests by supposed nuclear powers are just lies.
Operation Sailor Hat:
Explosion of the rocket Delta II, actually pretty small in terms of energy released but the visual scale is absolutely massive:
A liquid propane gas explosion in Illinois, 1983:
Note the way the fireball mushrooms up just like in the videos of nuclear explosions.
Clayton, how does one fake radiation and its effect on the victims?
Last I checked, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable. I wonder if they even have elevated levels of background radiation. As far as faking radiation more generally (at nuclear sites, etc.), you will recall the "dirty bomb" that is so often talked about by the National Security Theater Establishment. Just put some radioactive material on top of your massive stack of conventional explosives and - voila - you have radioactive fallout. As far as faking radiation victims, well, maybe that part wasn't faked at all... :-/
I've been looking into radioactivity and I must say that nuclear radiation is incredibly energetic. There is no doubt about the physics behind radioactivity, nuclear decay, etc. I'm pretty hesitant to say nuclear bombs, generally, are not real - the above posts are more about exploring all the ways you might be able to fake it. However, I am highly skeptical of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, in particular. All physicists knowledgeable in the matter say that nuclear bombs are perfectly consistent with all known physical laws. All the nuclear physicists say that nuclear bombs are real. But I remain skeptical that the Manhattan Project actually developed the first nuclear bomb and successfully dropped nuclear weapons on Japan - even if nuclear bombs were later successfully developed.
Do you think all of the declassified documents on the matter are faked as well?
Once you see one Big Lie for what it is, you are inclined to question everything.
Still, I don't think that "technology wasn't advanced enough at the time" is a sound premise for doubt. If anything, secret technology is likely to be more advanced than the public is generally led to believe.
I don't think there is sufficient basis in fact for disregarding the moon landing or the atomic bombings... I'm not saying it's impossible, or that one can't always speculate about motives, but I don't think that doubting their technology is a bias that will be confirmed by reality in general. Not when you consider some of the shit that's going on.
Most people don't realise how grossly expensive and impractical nukes are - that it's more about status than utility, and that you generally can get the same results with much simpler weapons systems - but I'm pretty sure they exist. A grossly expensive, impractical, immensely destructive status symbol considered necessary to keep us all safe in our beds at night is a pretty good metaphor for the state generally, don't you think? :p
Big Lie
government?
All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1
I admit that the precision involved with the moon landings does sort of beggar belief... Especially the coming-back part. When you really think about it. :p
A Saturn V to get there, and a tin can to get back...
Assuming it is all true, the people involved are basically demi-gods, aren't they? I mean, normal human beings just can't do this sort of thing. It's when stories take on this vaguely Herculean quality and embed themselves in the popular consciousness as they do, that one does have to wonder if they haven't seen this movie before...
Exactly. Z's Hitler quote to which you refer is precisely what I had in mind.
Still, I don't think that "technology wasn't advanced enough at the time" is a sound premise for doubt.
It's not about the advancement of technology, it's about the amount of trial-and-error required to get anything right. The more abstruse the principles on which a device is based and the more sophisticated the equipment required to build the device, the more trial-and-error is required. Look at stealth technology, for example. The earliest work on stealth began around the end of WWII and didn't reach its culmination in real weapons until at least three decades later.
If anything, secret technology is likely to be more advanced than the public is generally led to believe.
I'm disinclined to believe this. While it is true that the government would like to maintain a technological edge on the general public, I think reality usually works out the opposite. The reason is that creativity is a market process that cannot be replicated - let alone superseded - by secret labs.
I don't think there is sufficient basis in fact for disregarding the moon landing
Look at the video linked above. It is genuine footage relased by NASA - much of it broadcast "live". Look at the mistakes that the wire-work professional points out. They are nothing short of damning. I would love to hear someone debunk it.
Most people don't realise how grossly expensive and impractical nukes are
Good point.
- that it's more about status than utility, and that you generally can get the same results with much simpler weapons systems - but I'm pretty sure they exist. A grossly expensive, impractical, immensely destructive status symbol considered necessary to keep us all safe in our beds at night is a pretty good metaphor for the state generally, don't you think? :p
Yes, it certainly is. And, as I said, all the science seems to indicate that nukes - in general - are real. What I specifically have strong doubts about are the reality of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (and the Trinity test, etc.) If these were faked (and it's well within the realm of possibility, look at the videos I linked above), then that casts a cloud of doubt on all nuclear weapons.
However, the most crucial aspect of the State is the Big Lie - without it, there can be no State. The Big Lie is the generalization of the Divine Right of Kings. It is the bullshit that supposedly proves with certainty that government is inevitable, necessary, beneficial. With the advent of "secular government", the Divine Right of Kings argument no longer carries enough force to serve as the Big Lie foundation on which the State rests. Nuclear weapons, communist spies and assassins, and now terrorism (maybe one day extra-terrestrials?) play the role that the Big Wise Man in the Sky used to play when society was more theological.
Clayton:It gets worse. Not only have they lied about JFK 1963, 9/11, 7/7, the Moon landings (the space program was, of course, real but its purpose was to win the race to ICBMs and satellite technology, not to put a man on the moon), but I'm beginning to believe they lied about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well.
Well, that's a relief! Before, I was actually afraid of nuclear proliferation. I'll sleep better knowing that nuclear arms are really just a figment of our collective imagination, put into our heads by the Illuminati. Or was it the Tea Party? No wait-- it was the Freemasons, right?
You seem very certain of what they lied to us about, which you manage to narrow down to pretty much everything. But you don't seem to define just who "they" are or exactly why they're doing what they're doing. Crime requires motive, method, and opportunity. Conspiracy theories generally lack all three, but free their advocates from the need for both reason and guilt by blaming all the world's problems on some third-party Boogeyman.
z1235: "All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility... "
Not that it matters, but that part was almost certainly written by Haushoffer, not Hitler.
Since the democratic world is more or less built on two-party (world view) systems, there are usually two big lies. The first is the official story, built up by those currently in charge. The second is the conspiracy theory, started by those seeking power, which is not really meant to explain anything, but to cast doubt on those currently in office. Reality usually bears little resemblance to either, since each side fits the evidence to their world view, instead of the other way around.
All this is going way off topic, however, and I wish some editor will finally delete all this silliness, so I can talk about how the CIA is beaming microwaves into my fillings!
Escape velocity on Earth is 11.2 km/s. Escape velocity on the Moon is 2.4 km/s. The speed of sound is .343 km/s.
A launch vehicle built to the 11.2 km/s escape velocity would have to withstand over 32 g's of force. This is way over the top for rocket designs. To solve this problem you need a longer burn, which means a much larger rocket to carry the propellant. As you leave Earth's atmosphere, the escape velocity decreases.
A return vehicle built to the 2.4 km/s escape velocity is much more practical, and would be designed to withstand around 7 g's. That means the lunar vehicle would be more efficient several times over compared to the rocket needed to leave Earth's atmosphere. It means a much shorter burn, which would make a lunar launch appear almost like a gun shot whereas on Earth you need a constant burn to reach the point where the escape velocity is within the threshold of the rocket design.
Naturally, you would build vehicles to withstand greater g's than indicated by the physics for safety reasons. However, the amount of fuel would go up exponentially.
As for launch, the Saturn V used liquid Hydrogen as the main propellant. This requires a ground team and propellant farm near the launch facility. Liquid hydrogen dissipates over time, requiring the tank to be cooled and pressurized. Since the vehicles aren't made to be a thermos bottle (serious weight issue if they did), there is venting of the fuel and a constant resupply from the propellant farm.
The lunar module used Aerozine 50. This is the preferred fuel for spacecraft because they can remain refueled indefinitely. There's no need for a propellant farm or a ground crew.
@KC Farmer: OK, but I specifically noted that scale is not the problem. I believe NASA solved all the relevant technical problems that they knew of and built the Lunar Module according to those specifications. But that doesn't address my issues: Lack of testing and apparent lack of similar care to precision and fail-safety in the design of the Lunar Module versus similar Earth rocketry (regardless of scale).
Think about it, when we started orbiting the Earth, we were very careful... first we sent up probes, then we sent up test animals to see what happened to them, and so on. After many test launches, we finally put a man in retrograde orbit. However, with the Moon landing, we were so damn sure we had solved every possible technical problem that could arise when landing on and launching from an environment 250,000 miles away, that we didn't even need to test the full sequence. The Surveyor program (unmanned "soft" landings on the Moon) crashed 2 out of 7 times. But Apollo got it absolutely perfect: six out of six landings and launches, no mistakes, no crashes. So, I guess their gung-ho confidence turned out to have been fully justified.
As an aside, this reminds me of the Fat Man bomb drop - the physicists were so sure the bomb would work they didn't even test it. Hell, you can accidently reverse a wire no matter how many PhD's you have. I work in validation engineering... and our motto is: if it isn't tested, it doesn't work.
I assume the psychoanalysis comes free of charge. Thanks, this will lower my psychiatrist bill.
And, yes, I'm sure that I'm being lied to on many counts. In fact, the government is very explicit that they reserve the right to lie to us for "national security" reasons.
As for precisely who "they" are, I frankly do not know. The police do not know the identity of many perpetrators of crimes but that doesn't make the crimes themselves disappear.
As for their motives, I think those are fairly obvious: to stay on top. It's like that schoolyard game King of the Hill. Knowing that this is the motive helps eliminate a lot of suspects - whoever is behind the Big Lies are among the most powerful people in the world.
And note that "means, motive, opportunity" is a criminal defense not a criterion for investigative suspicion. The essence of the legal argument is that "If the prosecution cannot prove that the defendant had means AND motive AND opportunity, then you cannot convict the defendant. Here's my arguments and evidence showing that the defendant did not have at least one of means, motive or opportunity to commit this crime, therefore, you should find my client not guilty." Such a line of reasoning has no applicability to investigative suspicion, which is based on all available evidence and must handle all likely hypotheses with equal care.
Oh yeah, no testing except for all the testing of the Saturn V rocket, the unmanned Apollo 4, 5, and 6 missions. The manned Apollo 7 mission, which only went into Earth oribit. Apollo 8 that went all the way to to moon without landing, two more manned test flights, and then finally Apollo 11 where the landing was attempted. Oh and no mistakes except Apollo 1 where the astronauts burnt to death, and Apollo 13 where the Service Module suffered a catostrophic explosion almost resulting in the death of the crew. But those were just part of the conspiracy, right?
Yeah, lets build all this infrastructure that's capable of going to the moon, but lets NOT do it, because...conspiracy! I saw a smudge on some lunar photos!
You are aware that the landers have been photographed by more recent lunar orbiters, and you can see the landers, tools, and foot paths from the astronauts, right?
If true, I will gladly lay aside my skepticism. Please provide a link.
You can find them right on wikipedia. I'm at work right now and can't go digging for original source images, so if that's not good enough for you that's ok. The better ones are also NASA images, but a Japanese mission has also photographed some of the landing sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories#Imaging_the_landing_sites
You also have evidence in the geology of the moon rocks, and the fact that the samples can be correlated to Soviet samples obtained from sample-return landers. In order for that to work, there would have had to have been collaboration between the Soviet and US space programs...that's a big stretch.
Hope this helps put it to rest in your mind
I was considering posting those pictures, but one could argue that they're simply just some crater with some random footsep-like paths around it. Then again, I doubt there are many path-like formations on the moon.
The thing is, we cannot take a good image of the lander with any telescope we currently have. So until then, 100% concrete proof is tough. That is what gave me an idea of a science project: a cheap, gigantic, powerful telescope. Yeah, and while I'm at it I can give pigs some wings.
But that doesn't address my issues: Lack of testing and apparent lack of similar care to precision and fail-safety in the design of the Lunar Module versus similar Earth rocketry (regardless of scale).
Can't really say "regardless of scale" where rocketry is concerned.
You do realize that Eagle was LM-5. Spider (LM-3) and Snoopy (LM-4) were previously tested; Snoopy was tested operationally (descent stage landed, while ascent stage separated around 14km above the lunar surface and is still out there in solar orbit).
Testing must also balance cost. These spaceflight/operational tests are extremely expensive missions, so you're not going the see the type of testing you'd see in something like say an automobile or an airplane. BTW, what products do you perform validation engineering on? NASA determined that 4 progressively complicated tests were sufficient, and they even cancelled 1 of them (LM-2) because schedule was also a priority. Even back in the early days of NASA, cost and schedule were king - although they weren't as seemingly lax with safety as they seem to be these days (but they say they're all about safety).
The Surveyor program tested the feasability of a "soft" lunar landing. It was designed with an impact trajectory. "Crashing" isn't a necessarily bad thing in testing, as you learn more about limitations or have opportunities to identify design flaws. Also, Apollo used a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. These are two totally different trajectories, but Apollo did build upon the successes of the Surveyor program.
Surveyor 2 failed due to an error in the insertion point and a vernier engine failure during a midcourse correction. Surveyor 4 lost radio contact about 2.5 minutes prior to landing. Belief is that a solid fuel retro rocket may have exploded either during or shortly after the radio failure. Neither of these failures point to a "soft" landing as not being feasable.
Apollo was hardly "perfect". Apollo 1 was a disaster that cost the lives of three astronauts. Apollo 6 didn't perform well, but NASA was able to identify vibration fixes and man-rated the vehicle. Apollo 11 had navigation errors and computer alarms that were corrected. Apollo 12 had 2 lightning strikes. Apollo 14 had two docking failures, faulty LM abort switch, and a delayed radar landing acquisition. Apollo 13 was also a failure, and took an amazing effort to save the lives of the three astronauts on board. Apollo 16 had a malfunction in a backup CSM yaw gimble servo loop and a malfunction in the LM ascent stage de-orbit.
As for testing, each flight component was rigorously tested prior to flight. NASA is well known for pushing for double and triple redundancy of components, something that drives the costs up. In fact, the amount of testing done for the Apollo program was well above the level of testing performed by current rocket programs.
As for animal testing, that was done to see whether or not the radiation would kill people.
Lack of testing
Since when is the government concerned with costs of human lives? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA
Yes, you can. I understand that much of the infrastructure required for an Earth-based rocket is the result of its scale, as you noted the constant refueling of the liquid hydrogen until launch is initiated. Nevertheless, the need to have extremely precise orientation of the rocket is the same on the Moon or on the Earth. Even a slight misalignment of the launch platform would send the austronauts into a Moon orbit that would never intersect the Command Module, stranding them forever. And this is just a "for example", I'm not soliciting a debate on the specific technical problems and how/whether they were/could be solved. The point is that there are innumerable ways to get it wrong, where even slightly wrong is still fatally wrong.
They never even launched an animal into Moon orbit. They did this before launching a man into LEO, why not for Moon orbit? It seems like a reckless act to assume that radiation levels in the 250,000 miles between Earth and the Moon are not deadly. As an aside, 1969 was the peak of the 20th Solar Cycle. Space radiation was at elevated levels during that time.
The motivation and incentives to lie are overwhelming and extremely tempting with no way for anyone with less resources than a government to detect the fraud, at least, not for a very long time. I looked over the photos and I have to say I plan to wait until a third-party (preferably a private third-party) can image an Apollo site in detail before rendering judgment. In the meantime, I suspect fraud and I will continue to look for artifacts of fraud in the available information on Apollo.
I think the radiation argument has been countered by saying that 1) the belt has a hole in it which they tried to go through 2) they are only exposed for a small amount of time 3) they are well protected from the radiation.
@Wheylous:
1) Wha?
2) Well, they spent days above LEO, hardly a "small amount of time" if the radiation levels in open space had turned out to be on an order with Chernobyl
3) How? The CM's and LM's walls were not radiation hardened against any kind of serious radiation. High-energy gamma rays will go right through solid lead like it's not even there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray#Shielding "Shielding from gamma rays requires large amounts of mass..." Hardly compatible with the weight limitations of a spaceship.
About the belt having a hole: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/ - Ctrl + F "van allen"
Sorry if you've already considered these.
@Wheylous: But most of that is circular (assuming we went to the Moon, yada yada yada). What I'm trying to say is that unless we actually went to the Moon or sent some animals out to the Moon we don't know actually know what the radiation levels out there are. We can guess but we can't be sure. When the Starfish Prime nuclear test was done in 1958, 150 miles above earth, the electro-magnetic pulse it generated was massively stronger than had been expected and the radiation became trapped in a belt above the Earth - it's still there. The lingering radiation from Starfish Prime was so intense that it wiped out a third of existing satellites (there were only a small number of satellites at the time but the effect of Starfish Prime was dramatic). This, too, was a surprise. Until someone sent a monkey or something out to the Moon, no one could possibly know for sure what the radiation levels in space are and sending a human out into that is reckless and irrational from the perspective of the goals of the Space Race. What the hell good is a spaceship full of dead astronauts?
Now you're talking like an FDA bureaucrat! It's all in the risk factors. You're just outright wrong that "nobody could possibly know for sure". NASA had been sending out various probes, such as Pioneer 4, for over a decade before Apollo 11. These probes had radition sensing equipment. Astronomers had a pretty good handle on the possible radition effects, of course there was a risk, but not so much as to make it "reckless", and certainly not so much as to suspect some kind of conspiracy.
After listening to coast to coast for some time now, I believe the people on coast believe this:
- Nasa and those astronauts did goto the moon.
- they also shot the fake footage, just in case (not for conspiracy reasons, but probably for the USA vs USSR spacerace reasons)
- they seemed to have released some of both to the public