Maybe you're right about the moon landing, Balantz ;)

[Nikki Stone 1]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35190496

Amazing that we can't get back there.  Behind schedule, over budget...
 

[Mike]

I think we have to ask a few questions about that.

Are all of the space flights other than the moon landing also fake? The unmanned probes?

Are the photos taken from earth orbit fakes?

Is all of the information from the space probes collected and analyzed by the academic community faked?

Was all of the work by others, the Russians for instance, also faked?

If those are not all fakes, then it would be difficult to fake moon landings within that context since data from the faked operations would have to be consistent with that from the ones that weren't faked.

[Nikki Stone 1]

Actually, I don't think that there's the need to take it that far.  Non-human space exploration makes sense as do its results.  I don't have a problem with that. 

[Mike]

Actually, I don't think that there's the need to take it that far.  Non-human space exploration makes sense as do its results.  I don't have a problem with that. 

My point is that we can't see the moon landings as fake without calling the credibility of all those other things into question. On the other hand, if those other activities are not fakes, then faking moon landings would be almost impossible. Many of the same people worked on multiple programs including the moon shots and the data was all shared.

[Nikki Stone 1]

I don't know about that, Mike.  Chances are that the specialized groups working on this stuff have security clearances with "compartments": they might know about their portion of the research but not about the others. 

But even if they realize, scientifically, that what the government is saying can't be true, there is also the fear phenomenon: remember that a number of specialized people knew, for example, about the US plans for Vietnam, but only Daniel Ellsberg actually ran with the information.  The specialists were so tied up in legal documents, that there was an utter fear of serious jail time or the death penalty for treason.  When you get high enough up, you fear being killed. 

My guess is that the highest level scientists would have to be in on the hoax, if there were one, and the others would be tied up in national security paperwork and be afraid of losing their reputations, freedom or lives if they said anything.  Low level employees might let things slip but they would be quickly discredited by the high level scientists and lose their jobs and access.  The government also follows up on people who might be a danger in security matters.

In addition, people working within the Military Industrial Complex often end up subscribing to the idea that people shouldn't know certain "secrets".  The higher they go in that culture, the more they have assimilated to it.

In reality, the idea of a moon hoax seems unlikely, although I am intrigued by several things:

1.  Why the moon landings all occurred during the Vietnam War under Richard Nixon, and then abruptly stopped, never to be repeated.  We have been told it was the expense, but certainly, the technology was terribly expensive then, added on to the cost of a major war in Vietnam, secret wars in Cambodia and Laos, and all kinds of other actions around the globe PLUS a major increase in social spending with the War On Poverty. 

2.  Why NASA threw out ALL the boxes of the original film of the moon landing.  The 40th anniversary of the moon landing had to be told using television footage, not the original NASA footage, because someone had "inadvertently" thrown out all the boxes of film.  Compare this to the Nixon tapes from the same era.  Every "expletive deleted" has been preserved not only in transcript form but in the tapes themselves:  http://www.whitehousetape....net/tapes/nixon/overview
This is all analog technology from the same era.  The politically charged Nixon tapes were deemed precious to preserve and to document in other media, but the original video and tapes of moon landing--a major event in all of human history--were not deemed precious enough to preserve?  The boxes of tapes were thrown away?  Why didn't the National Archives have them?

Like I said, I find a hoax hard to stomach, but is it impossible?  No.  Could you get scientists to go along with it?  Yes, especially if you tell them that the future of the "free world" is at stake and you tie them up in legal agreements.  And there's always killing people off, like David Kelley in the UK, a scientist who wanted the truth known.  The key is having a few people with ALL the knowledge, others with compartmentalized knowledge, and a complaint mainstream media.

[Mike]

There are thousands and thousands of people working in the international space exploration community. It would be absolutely impossible to fake a mission within that context, and the lunar missions are thoroughly integrated into the larger space exploration context.

If the other US space missions, and all the work the Russians have done are not fakes, then certainly everything that happened in the lunar missions is completely feasible and believable. They really all have to be fakes, or none of them. There is too vast a body of data, and too many people involved, and all of the data from all of the missions builds on and integrates with the rest if the data.

I think it would actually be far easier to just go to the moon than it would be to fake going there. I know several people who worked on various aspects of the space program, and have asked them how one would go about faking lunar landings if they wanted to, and the consensus is that it would just be too hard to do. One of the people worked on the photography, on the lunar program, later on the Mars missions and then on other projects. There would be no way to fool him on one set of missions and not on the others. One problem is that no one could know in advance how to go about fooling the scientists.

It doesn't matter if people are compartmentalized, the data in each compartment would all have to be flawlessly faked, and there is no possible way for that to be accomplished. It would be a far greater endeavor, far more difficult than just going to the moon was.

1.  Why the moon landings all occurred during the Vietnam War under Richard Nixon, and then abruptly stopped, never to be repeated.  We have been told it was the expense, but certainly, the technology was terribly expensive then, added on to the cost of a major war in Vietnam, secret wars in Cambodia and Laos, and all kinds of other actions around the globe PLUS a major increase in social spending with the War On Poverty.

Virtually overnight public support for the Apollo program, and for NASA in general evaporated, It was amazing to witness that. 

2.  Why NASA threw out ALL the boxes of the original film of the moon landing.  The 40th anniversary of the moon landing had to be told using television footage, not the original NASA footage, because someone had "inadvertently" thrown out all the boxes of film.  Compare this to the Nixon tapes from the same era.  Every "expletive deleted" has been preserved not only in transcript form but in the tapes themselves:  http://www.whitehousetape....net/tapes/nixon/overview
This is all analog technology from the same era.  The politically charged Nixon tapes were deemed precious to preserve and to document in other media, but the original video and tapes of moon landing--a major event in all of human history--were not deemed precious enough to preserve?  The boxes of tapes were thrown away?  Why didn't the National Archives have them?

NASA was so rapidly downsized that it doesn't surprise me. That is one thing people worried about at the time with the quick and drastic dismantling of NASA.

Nixon's tapes not disappearing and then becoming public is another mystery.

[usrename]

1.  Why the moon landings all occurred during the Vietnam War under Richard Nixon, and then abruptly stopped, never to be repeated.  We have been told it was the expense, but certainly, the technology was terribly expensive then, added on to the cost of a major war in Vietnam, secret wars in Cambodia and Laos, and all kinds of other actions around the globe PLUS a major increase in social spending with the War On Poverty. 

IIRC, the first official bill signed by Nixon was the budget that completely cut future NASA funding.  The funding for the moon shots was passed by Kennedy.  One of the ironies that still irks me is the fact that Nixon’s signature was put on the plaque that went up with Apollo 11.  It created some controversy at the time, too.  Pat Buchanan was involved in writing the message that went on the plaque.

By the way, I watched a lot of the Saturn V launches.  They rattled the dishes on the shelves over twenty miles away.  They were real enough.

[Nikki Stone 1]

Username,

I started this thread somewhat tongue in cheek.    I know balantz has a soft spot for the faked moon landing stuff, and I was having some fun with it.  But if one were going to fake a moon landing, one would not fake the actual rocket take off or splash down. One might have a rocket in earth's orbit for a bit while faking the astronaut moon walk on a sound stage.  One need not fake the science, as Mike believes, just the event itself.  And yes, one could get scientists at high levels not to talk.

However, I personally am sufficiently satisfied that an actual moon landing occurred.

[Mike]

One need not fake the science, as Mike believes, just the event itself.  And yes, one could get scientists at high levels not to talk.

But you would. You can't have international observers tracking the Apollo so far and no farther, sort of to the moon but not actually, and have thousands of people independently looking at the data - half of which is faked somehow. You would have to actually go to the moon to know how to subsequently fake it and have anyone buy it. Even then it would be nigh on impossible. It would be much more difficult to fake the data, let alone half of the data, then it would be to go to the moon - verging on the impossible.

At some point, real events would have to cease and fake ones begin. If we accept that everything about space exploration is real, except for the actual landing on the moon, then where did real stop and fake begin? Did they stay in earth orbit? Did they orbit the moon but not land? If you go that far, why not just land on the moon? The difficult parts of the journey are escaping earth gravity and rendezvousing with the moon. If you can do those, you can most certainly land on the moon.  Why do all of that and than not land on the moon? What would the purpose of that be?

[Nikki Stone 1]

You're assuming that everyone else has the technology to follow you.  Not even the Soviets had reached the moon and they had been out in orbit.  A big enough lie and enough people on board and it could be done.  One thing I do believe: if this fake moon landing thing were to have been done, NATO would have to have been privy to it, and certain allies (like Great Britain) would have been told.  There would have to be a chorus of protest if the USSR called foul.

As I said, Mike, I have no doubt that the Apollo missions got to the moon.  I believe the public space program stopped because much of space exploration is becoming privatized.  Corporations will own pieces of outer space and/or the moon, not nations.

[followthemoney]

Fake Space Shuttle launched on TV today! 

I saw it on my Fake TV.   

http://faketv.com/

[nogod]

it still puzzles me that anyone would even dream that the Apollo missions were faked.

sure you can sit in your arm chair smoking your pipes thinking" yea they could have."

but truthfully the scope of a cover up on that kind of scale would and can never work.

 

[asdjrocky]

Please tell me we are not moon landing deniers.

Please?

[Jamastiene]

Please tell me we are not moon landing deniers.

Please?

Well, if anyone ever claims I've ever landed on the Moon, I'd have to deny it. I've certainly never been there. 

[followthemoney]

it still puzzles me that anyone would even dream that the Apollo missions were faked.

sure you can sit in your arm chair smoking your pipes thinking" yea they could have."

but truthfully the scope of a cover up on that kind of scale would and can never work.

 

The cover up would have been more complex than the actual Apollo mission.   

A secret is best kept between two if one of them is dead. 

Where are the dead bodies hidden?

However, I do like the skepticism that leaves nothing beyond question.  So much better than the believing masses who turn out for elections between the two faces of the power elite as though they were real. 

No cover up is needed when the people are determined to deceive themselves.