Mythbusters Moon Landing Special, Discovery at 8pm

meglome

Mythbusters Moon Landing Special, Discovery at 8pm. So CT's take a look and lets see what you think after the show.

toiletduck

I watched it. Was pretty good especially the flag in the vacuum chamber.

Mahatma coat

anone got any youtubery of the more interestin bits?

Shazbot

The flag waving in a vacuum myth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBCfuKs9i8

The more interesting one of all the ones covered. Usually the first target of the conspiracy theorists and they cover it well.

Penn and Teller also covered this on their show Bull****! They had a Nasa scientist on the show and said the exact same thing.

Mahatma coat

anything about the croshairs on the photos andthe supposed superimposition of the astronauts

bonkey

Whatever about the superimposition...there's some good information here about the crosshair issue.

meglome

Mahatma coat wrote: »

anything about the croshairs on the photos andt he supposed superimposition of the astronauts

Nope they didn't do that one. Now if I can remember correctly...

1. Picture with shadows pointing in different directions, seen as proof that there was more than one light source... They showed on their mock-up set that just topography alone can cause shadows to point in different directions with only one light source.
2. Video of astronaut dropping a hammer and a feather and both landing at the same time... With air resistance on earth this isn't possible but in a vacuum all things are equally effected by gravity so fall at the same rate, they showed this in a vacuum.
3. Picture of Neil Armstrong climbing onto the ladder of the moonlander, the moonlander is in shadow but he isn't so proving two light sources... They made a mock-up of the moon dust with material with the same reflective quality and set-up a scale model with only one light source. Unsurprising since the moon is so bright in the night sky it's surface reflects quite a lot of light and so the model of Neil Armstrong was not in shadow but appeared as he did in the Nasa photos.
4. Clear bootprints can't be made in dry sand/dust... True on earth but in a vacuum they appear exactly like the ones on moon landing pictures.
5. The flag 'waving'... They showed that on earth the flag would not be affected as it was in the moonlanding video but in a vacuum the flag moved identically to the one in the video.
6. They went to an observatory (Apache mountain if I recall correctly) and had them point a laser at the reflector mirror which was supposedly left by the moonlanding crew and sure enough they got a reflection directly back proving the mirror is exactly where it's supposed to be.
7. The way the astronauts walked on the moon wouldn't be that way in reality... They showed they couldn't match the moonwalk on earth but when brought up in a high altitude jet by Nasa in a weightless environment they could do it no problem.

Thoughts?

Mahatma coat

Well, I was always fairly sure that they sent People to the moon, just had me curiosities as to whether Armstrong was the first or not.

and there are a lot of those conspiracy theories that need a nice clean logical answer, some still dont have them,and until then this will always be a bone of contention with some

meglome

Hey Kernel didn't you say that you didn't believe in the moon landing?

littlebitdull

"They went to an observatory (Apache mountain if I recall correctly) and had them point a laser at the reflector mirror which was supposedly left by the moonlanding crew and sure enough they got a reflection directly back proving the mirror is exactly where it's supposed to be."


Sure they proved that there is a mirror there. Sure they can say that proved that men walked on the moon.

But that does not prove the first one. So it proves they did it - just not when.

King Mob

littlebitdull wrote: »

"They went to an observatory (Apache mountain if I recall correctly) and had them point a laser at the reflector mirror which was supposedly left by the moonlanding crew and sure enough they got a reflection directly back proving the mirror is exactly where it's supposed to be."


Sure they proved that there is a mirror there. Sure they can say that proved that men walked on the moon.

But that does not prove the first one. So it proves they did it - just not when.

Nope but the hours of video footage, thousands of photos, tons of telemetry data and alot of geological sample which have been independently tested all confirm that they when to the moon and when.

Mahatma coat

right then King Mob, you should be able to answer his questions, start providing some of this telemetry or videos or geological records, that would be a POSITIVE contribution

King Mob

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Further_reading_and_external_links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Further_reading_and_external_links

http://history.nasa.gov/ap11-35ann/missions.html

Mahatma coat

cool, we're getting places, now if you'd like to put a bit of context to your links we'd be on a winner

King Mob

There's loads of information out there on the web about the Apollo program. And if people were serious about learning the truth about it they shouldn't assume everything that challenges their world view is a conspiracy.

Kernel

Wasn't 100% impressed by the mythbusters special, although I did like the flag/vacuum demonstration. Mythbusters has a bit of an agenda, like Penn & Teller's Bull****!, which I distrust. Saw a better documentary on the apollo 11 program on Discovery Science (narrated by Neil Morrissey?), and it was much more thorough. Although it pushed me more towards the believer stance, I'm still undecided!

King Mob

Kernel wrote: »

Mythbusters has a bit of an agenda

Care to elaborate?
I've never seen Mythbusters have any agenda other holding ideas up to experiment.

meglome

Kernel wrote: »

Wasn't 100% impressed by the mythbusters special, although I did like the flag/vacuum demonstration. Mythbusters has a bit of an agenda, like Penn & Teller's Bull****!, which I distrust. Saw a better documentary on the apollo 11 program on Discovery Science (narrated by Neil Morrissey?), and it was much more thorough. Although it pushed me more towards the believer stance, I'm still undecided!

Well as King Mob said above I've never seen an agenda with Mythbusters, well other than it's entertainment and not a science show as such. What agenda do you mean?

I also had a good read of the link that Bonkey posted http://www.clavius.org/photoret.html. I always thought there was potential for NASA to have manipulated some images to improve them. But after reading most of this I take that back.

I can't see any reason not to believe that they went to the moon as they say they did. The evidence shows clearly they landed on the moon. Stuff like passing through the Van Allen radiation belt is argued by both sides but with so much other evidence to show they did it then we have to assume that crossing the Van Allen radiation belt is very possible.

What doubts can you have remaining?

Kernel

meglome wrote: »

Well as King Mob said above I've never seen an agenda with Mythbusters, well other than it's entertainment and not a science show as such. What agenda do you mean?

The agenda of disproving conspiracy theories. Perhaps agenda was the wrong word, too strong. Bias would be better. Although Penn & Teller's bull**** would be a lot more bias. I mean, a lot of those experiments were carried out with a huge amount of input from NASA themselves. Including providing the material to test the footprint theory. Having an independent science institute assisting would have been less bias in my mind.

meglome wrote: »

What doubts can you have remaining?

The progression to the moon was still simply too quick and too convenient for my liking. It makes me suspicious in the light of the space race against the communist USSR and the political climate of the cold war. For NASA to have accomplished the mission, it was incredibly fortuitous and foolhardy in the extreme to have sent men up to the moon with the equipment that they had. Photographic anomolies are also too easily dismissed.

King Mob

Kernel wrote: »

The agenda of disproving conspiracy theories. Perhaps agenda was the wrong word, too strong. Bias would be better. Although Penn & Teller's bull**** would be a lot more bias. I mean, a lot of those experiments were carried out with a huge amount of input from NASA themselves. Including providing the material to test the footprint theory. Having an independent science institute assisting would have been less bias in my mind.

They've never really tackled any conspiracy theories other than the moon and an airline one I think.
Also they don't go out to disprove anything, rather then hold claims up to evaluation and experimentation.

Penn and Teller though: biased as hell, they're the first to admit it. But they ain't wrong.

Kernel wrote: »

The progression to the moon was still simply too quick and too convenient for my liking. It makes me suspicious in the light of the space race against the communist USSR and the political climate of the cold war. For NASA to have accomplished the mission, it was incredibly fortuitous and foolhardy in the extreme to have sent men up to the moon with the equipment that they had. Photographic anomolies are also too easily dismissed.

Simply because you think it was "too quick and too convenient" does not make it so. All the "Photographic anomalies" have rational explanations and are not just dismissed.
Perhaps you can tell us exactly what was wrong with their equipment?

meglome

Kernel wrote: »

The agenda of disproving conspiracy theories. Perhaps agenda was the wrong word, too strong. Bias would be better. Although Penn & Teller's bull**** would be a lot more bias. I mean, a lot of those experiments were carried out with a huge amount of input from NASA themselves. Including providing the material to test the footprint theory. Having an independent science institute assisting would have been less bias in my mind.

Every so often Mythbusters mention conspiracy theorists and I'm guessing this is due to the large volume of email they receive so maybe not unsurpirsingly they show a bit of CT bias. And I mean to the people themselves as opposed to the theories, some of the abuse towards people involved in the 911 investigation was pretty nasty so I would be shocked if Mythbusters weren't on the receiving end of some too. From what I've seen in here no matter what evidence is put in front of some people they won't believe it. I wonder is there anything on the net about this?

Kernel wrote: »

The progression to the moon was still simply too quick and too convenient for my liking. It makes me suspicious in the light of the space race against the communist USSR and the political climate of the cold war. For NASA to have accomplished the mission, it was incredibly fortuitous and foolhardy in the extreme to have sent men up to the moon with the equipment that they had. Photographic anomolies are also too easily dismissed.

They threw billions at this to get there before the Soviets so cash and foolhardiness were irrelevant when compared with America being shown up by communists. What exactly are you suspicious about? If you read that link that Bonkey originally posted it gives a very detailed and concise explanation of the photo anomalies. Which is much more believable than the CT stuff I've read.

Mahatma coat

for mee the question was always, Was Armstrong the First man ON the moon, he may well have been the first to go there AND Get back, how many were sent ahead on one way trips we never heard about?

Four-Too

Mahatma coat wrote: »

for mee the question was always, Was Armstrong the First man ON the moon, he may well have been the first to go there AND Get back, how many were sent ahead on one way trips we never heard about?

LOL, are we still at playschool?

I could imagine the elites sending some dumb feck on a space mission, just as a guinea pig to see how he dies in the strange atmostphere, then busting their gut laughing when they see him die on a video.

Mahatma coat

I always considered that it made sense tosend men quietly on a one wy trip first, just to make sure that when they did publicise the event they wouldnt be left with egg on their faces and some very crispy astronauts burnt up by radiation which was worse than being defeated by the Ruskies.

Word is that Yuri Gagarin wasnt the first man in Space, just the first to survive.

Captain Chaos

And monkeys were sent into orbit first why....

Mahatma coat

yeah, but ya cant expect a monkey to pilot a craft to the moon, land it and carry out a mision, like say, plant reflective mirrors that future astronauts can use for guidance and future astronomers can use as evidence that someone went to the moon.

King Mob

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I always considered that it made sense tosend men quietly on a one wy trip first, just to make sure that when they did publicise the event they wouldnt be left with egg on their faces and some very crispy astronauts burnt up by radiation which was worse than being defeated by the Ruskies.

Or you could test a spacecraft in varying stages. From unmanned launches to manned orbits and reentries all the way up an orbit around the moon.

Also the were many accidents in the early space program that weren't covered up in anyway.
Apollo 1 and X-15 flight 191 come to mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-15_Flight_191

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Word is that Yuri Gagarin wasnt the first man in Space, just the first to survive.

Interesting article here: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115

Mahatma coat wrote: »

yeah, but ya cant expect a monkey to pilot a craft to the moon, land it and carry out a mision, like say, plant reflective mirrors that future astronauts can use for guidance and future astronomers can use as evidence that someone went to the moon.

That's not what those reflectors are used for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment

Kernel

Well, thanks for that chaps. I have now researched and believe that several cosmonauts deaths were covered up by the Soviets. This is something I wasn't aware of before this thread.

meglome

Kernel wrote: »

Well, thanks for that chaps. I have now researched and believe that several cosmonauts deaths were covered up by the Soviets. This is something I wasn't aware of before this thread.

But what doubts remain about the US moon landing?

Kernel

meglome wrote: »

But what doubts remain about the US moon landing?

Sorry meglome, I forgot to reply to your question, and have been pressed for time lately. Anyway, as I mentioned, in the political climate of the time, it seemed too perfect that the Apollo 11 mission was such a success. The photographic anomolies such as the positioning of the chest cameras, and the subsequent photographs produced are still suspicious to me. Also, how would the film have survived the radiation of the Van Allen belt? There is also evidence of alterations on many of the photographs. It's possible that even if the mission was a success then NASA staged or touched up many of the photos.

King Mob

Kernel wrote: »

it seemed too perfect that the Apollo 11 mission was such a success.

Maybe it was all the money they pumped into the program, or the thousands of hours of training and testing, or the huge amount of effort and work put in by everyone involved in the mission?

Kernel wrote: »

The photographic anomolies such as the positioning of the chest cameras, and the subsequent photographs produced are still suspicious to me.

Please explain further. You do know the are thousand of really crap photos taken during the mission that didn't appear in the news and such? And that the crew had a lot of training and practice with the chest mounted cameras before launch?

Kernel wrote: »

Also, how would the film have survived the radiation of the Van Allen belt?

Who said the Van Allen belt would do anything to the film? They where in metal canisters inside the craft.

Kernel wrote: »

There is also evidence of alterations on many of the photographs. It's possible that even if the mission was a success then NASA staged or touched up many of the photos.

Can you please point out these anomalies? Is it possible that Nasa only slightly touched up certain photographs for artistic proposes?

What about the mountain of other evidence besides the photographs such as the samples brought back by all the Apollo missions and the tracking of the capsules by a load of radio telescopes?

But the big question is: If they faked it, how come the Russians never said anything?
Wouldn't the fact that the space race was about a climate of oneupmanship mean the Russians have pointed out this so called evidence?
They certainly would have known being able to track the Apollo missions and being well able to analyse the photos.