why was the usa the only one to go to the moon?

[twik]

alexsanchez, I understand why you would not want your name on the internet. It's good online safety.

However, you must understand that we know that humans lie. So, if you say you have a patent, and cannot give us evidence to that effect, we must only conclude that you are lying. Just as you say governments ALWAYS lie.

On the other hand, Apollo is confirmed with multiple forms of eyewitness, documentary and physical evidence. It's much more believable than one unidentified person saying he has a patent somewhere.

[gillianren]

Okay, let's assume that one photo is actually found to be faked.  No one has shown it yet, but let that go and let's play pretend.  One photo, out of the thousands, is not only a fake but an obvious fake.  One that even someone as ignorant as Jack White would be able to legitimately show is fake.  Okay, we'll pretend that for the moment.

So what?

What you have done is falsify a single photo.  The fact that it's fake gives you a reason to reinvestigate a lot of other things, including and especially all the other photos on that roll, but you have not proven that anything else is fake just by showing that a single photo is.  You still have to answer for all the other evidence.  You have to explain the other facts--and there are a lot of them.  You can't just say, "Well, that one photo is fake, so of course everything else is fake."  Because if a single piece of evidence, no matter what it is, cannot be shown to have been faked, well, that single piece of evidence is from an authentic trip to the Moon.  The more pieces of evidence that cannot be faked (and I can name plenty just off the top of my head despite not being an expert), the less any single faked piece of evidence means.

And remember, no one has shown a photograph was faked.  So far, all the "smoking guns" have instead been misunderstandings, and usually obvious ones, on the part of the people making hoax claims.  Most of the major hoax arguments have incredibly simple responses, many of which don't even require understanding much about science.  Certainly not more than you can pick up by just walking outside and looking at the world around you.

[nomuse]

I'm trying to coin a new phrase, something about a recursive bundle of straw.

Every Hoax Believer I've run into starts with one argument, but it is always presented in the context, "Plus all the other evidence."  When they switch to a different argument, it is still presented as, "Among the other evidence."

Even if you manage to follow their Gish Gallop all the way around the track back to the starting gate, only the specific argument of the moment is ever open to question.  All the others retreat to a Schrodinger-esque "Have not been proven or disproven."  No matter how thoroughly you exhaust their stack of arguments, they will always hold on to, "All the other stuff we were discussing."

[Noldi400]

Okay, let's assume that one photo is actually found to be faked.  No one has shown it yet, but let that go and let's play pretend.  One photo, out of the thousands, is not only a fake but an obvious fake.  One that even someone as ignorant as Jack White would be able to legitimately show is fake.  Okay, we'll pretend that for the moment.

So what?

What you have done is falsify a single photo.  The fact that it's fake gives you a reason to reinvestigate a lot of other things, including and especially all the other photos on that roll, but you have not proven that anything else is fake just by showing that a single photo is.  You still have to answer for all the other evidence.  You have to explain the other facts--and there are a lot of them.  You can't just say, "Well, that one photo is fake, so of course everything else is fake."  Because if a single piece of evidence, no matter what it is, cannot be shown to have been faked, well, that single piece of evidence is from an authentic trip to the Moon.  The more pieces of evidence that cannot be faked (and I can name plenty just off the top of my head despite not being an expert), the less any single faked piece of evidence means.

And remember, no one has shown a photograph was faked.  So far, all the "smoking guns" have instead been misunderstandings, and usually obvious ones, on the part of the people making hoax claims.  Most of the major hoax arguments have incredibly simple responses, many of which don't even require understanding much about science.  Certainly not more than you can pick up by just walking outside and looking at the world around you.

That reminds me of something that Vincent Bugliosi said about the prosecution case in a criminal trial:

It's a fallacy to think of it as a chain, 'only as strong as its weakest link'.  The defense often tries to take that approach, arguing that if any piece of evidence fails, the entire chain fails.

Bugliosi pointed out that it is, rather, a rope. Each item of evidence is like a strand in that rope, adding to its strength. Even if one item fails - say, for example, DNA is thrown out on a technicality, the other strands still hold.  Even if doubt could be introduced about the photographic record, there are still hundreds of kilograms of rocks and soil that the international scientific community agree are genuine.  And so on and so forth. Even if a person has what they believe to be legitimate doubts about some aspect of the record, there is just so much other evidence that the case is overwhelmingly convincing.

And as Penn Jillette once pointed out: Moon hoax? Two words....   Watergate.  Lewinski.  The government can't keep ANYTHING secret for long, much less a huge conspiracy.

[gillianren]

I looked it up once, and both Watergate and Iran-Contra were kept secret for almost exactly the same length of time.  Eighteen months, I believe; I'd have to look it up again.

[onebigmonkey]

I'm trying to coin a new phrase, something about a recursive bundle of straw.

Every Hoax Believer I've run into starts with one argument, but it is always presented in the context, "Plus all the other evidence."  When they switch to a different argument, it is still presented as, "Among the other evidence."

Even if you manage to follow their Gish Gallop all the way around the track back to the starting gate, only the specific argument of the moment is ever open to question.  All the others retreat to a Schrodinger-esque "Have not been proven or disproven."  No matter how thoroughly you exhaust their stack of arguments, they will always hold on to, "All the other stuff we were discussing."

'Etc'. Don't forget 'etc'. No good CT-er can manage without a good 'etc' to pad things out when actual ideas are thin on the ground.

[alexsanchez]

Alexsanchez,

Can you stick to one point rather than a gish-gallop of stuff please?

Can you please reply to the points that I raised in this post?
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=348.msg10717#msg10717
Specifically
Please explain the difference in sample return quantities between the American and Russian Lunar missions,
Where and when were the alleged USA robotic sample return missions?
If the US samples where returned robotically, then why do you insist that  a Lunar ascent is impossible without accurate co-ords?
Why did the US have 380Kg of Lunar rocks if they were all sourced from the Polar regions? Why does other sovereign states that have polar territories not have similar amounts?
Please explain the difference between moon-derived meteorites and the Apollo samples.
Please detail your qualifications that allows you to comment on the study of Lunar rocks.

Thanks in advance.

The issue of moon rocks is purely a matter for debate.  By that I mean I could just as well take either position.  If I accept the govt's assertion that the moon landings were real, I would use the same arguments as you.  However, given the number of lies and cover-ups engaged in by the govt, i.e., JFK, etc., I assert that the moon landings were fake.  I also assert that the Soviet Union lied about bringing back their moon rocks and that they only had rocks from Antarctica, or Siberia, if anything.  It's safe to say the Russians were adept at political propaganda and would not have hesitated to lie about it.  So maybe there are no rocks that were brought back from the moon.  But if the govt gives a geologist a rock and says it's from the moon, the geologist will assume it's from the moon, having nothing to go on to prove otherwise.  Moon rocks from Antarctica could be reconditioned to appear to have come from the moon.  No university researcher would cast doubt on the moon rocks as that would make them lose their funding.  Also, the leading scientific theory is that the moon is just a chunk of the earth that was blasted off a few billion years ago, so the composition of the moon rocks would be the same as earthly material.  Scientists would not be backing that theory if the alleged moon rocks were different in composition from rocks found on earth. 

I cast doubt on the lunar ascent for several reasons.  One being is that there is no record of the LM being tested for ascent or descent on earth (that I know of.)  They could have used a helium balloon to simulate 1/6 gravity.  The only video I've seen was Armstrong parachuting to safety after losing control of the LLTV.  And, regardless, the LLTV was not a LM.  I think NASA simply would not have attempted a moon landing with an untested LM, let alone have it work flawlessly 6 times.  I guess you could say the ascent was mathematically possible, but there are some grave problems with navigation to overcome.  First, you don't know exactly where you are on the moon due to the manual landing, and the fact that the moon had never been surveyed (no one had been there to do one) meaning there could be no IMU update to moon coordinates.  That leaves radar and optics (star finder) for navigation.  The star finder was useless on the moon (my assertion) because the astronauts claimed they couldn't see stars with the naked eye.  That means they had to rely on radar to rendezvous with a speeding bullet.  Getting to the exact orbit would be extremely difficult because the LM IMU did not have the inertial coordinates for the moon, they only had earth coordinates, and rough one's at that due to the gyro drift rate.  They wouldn't even have a gyro-compass to get a bearing before liftoff.  No theodolite bearing.  How do you lift off from an unknown location with an unknown bearing?  A Kalman filter takes time to settle out.  While sitting on the moon, the moon is rotating, and that rotation is is being fed into the gyros.  You can't just land on the moon and take off 2.5 hours later and get into a perfect orbit.  You could argue that they used dead reckoning and mid-course corrections in flight and flew to the dark side of the moon and used the star finder, but that's just smoke and mirrors. The least documented part of the mission, and the most complicated by far, is the rendezvous.  Note that before every space shuttle mission (and every rocket launch) a very careful IMU alignment was done to earth coordinates.  They don't just rely on radar to get to the ISS. 

None of this is definitive proof against a lunar ascent, but it explains the unlikelihood.  But there's no way for anyone to prove anything.  The retro-reflectors don't prove anything.  You only get a couple photons back from a laser burst according to UCSD.  You can slant an experiment to show anything you want.  Everything is hearsay.  NASA controls all of the information.  The missions were infinitely easier to fake than conduct for real, and faking guaranteed 100% success, including faking Apollo 13 to make it look like everything wasn't a success.  No one can deny the govt had the means and the motive to fake it.

Regarding an AULIS pic I put up, after some graphic analysis I have come to the conclusion that the claim is unsubstantiated by the photos.
http://aulis.com/imagesfurther%20/compositevalley.jpg

[Abaddon]

alexsanchez, I understand why you would not want your name on the internet. It's good online safety.

However, you must understand that we know that humans lie. So, if you say you have a patent, and cannot give us evidence to that effect, we must only conclude that you are lying. Just as you say governments ALWAYS lie.

On the other hand, Apollo is confirmed with multiple forms of eyewitness, documentary and physical evidence. It's much more believable than one unidentified person saying he has a patent somewhere.

I gave my real name and a link to a patent of mine up thread. Am I scared? Nope.

[dwight]

My real name is plastered all over the first page of this website. To date exactly 0 people have threatened me or stalked me based on my position of Apollo.

[Peter B]

...It's a fallacy to think of it as a chain, 'only as strong as its weakest link'.  The defense often tries to take that approach, arguing that if any piece of evidence fails, the entire chain fails.

Bugliosi pointed out that it is, rather, a rope. Each item of evidence is like a strand in that rope, adding to its strength. Even if one item fails - say, for example, DNA is thrown out on a technicality, the other strands still hold.

The term Michael Shermer has used is 'convergence of evidence'.

Even if doubt could be introduced about the photographic record, there are still hundreds of kilograms of rocks and soil that the international scientific community agree are genuine.  And so on and so forth. Even if a person has what they believe to be legitimate doubts about some aspect of the record, there is just so much other evidence that the case is overwhelmingly convincing.

So let's summarise the evidence relating to the Apollo rocks.

1. The Apollo rocks total about 380 kilograms. That's more than 1000 times the material brought back by three unmanned Soviet sample retrieval missions.

2. The Apollo rocks show signs of having formed in a low gravity vacuum, in the absence of water. Geologically they're very obviously not from the Earth.

3. The Apollo rocks definitely aren't lunar meteorites as, unlike the lunar meteorites, they show no sign of having passed through the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, or of being contaminated by terrestrial factors like water. Instead, they show signs of alterations by impact by micrometeorites ('zap pits') and by solar radiation. Therefore the Apollo rocks were very obviously not collected in Antarctica. The fact that the origin of lunar meteorites was determined by comparing them with Apollo rocks is one little piece of irony.

4. The Apollo rocks definitely weren't collected by unmanned sample retriever missions. As pointed out above, the total weight of Apollo rocks is more than 1000 times that collected by three Soviet unmanned sample retriever missions. The Apollo rocks were often photographed on the ground prior to collection, and the photos often include astronauts. How then were the photos taken? If they were taken on the Moon by hypothetical sample retriever spacecraft, how did the astronauts get in the photos? But if they were taken on the Earth at a secret fake Moon set, what material was used to make the set? If lunar material, how much more "stuff" needed to be brought back to the Earth to dress the set? And if terrestrial material, how did it not contaminate the genuine samples? Therefore the Apollo rocks were very obviously not brought back to the Earth by unmanned sample retriever missions. In any case, the idea that unmanned spacecraft could safely land on the Moon when guidance problems prevented manned spacecraft from doing exactly the same thing is a second piece of irony.

5. The current consensus on the formation of the Moon was built on more than a decade's study of the Apollo rocks. The idea that the current consensus demonstrates the Apollo rocks are fake in some way when they were actually the foundation of the theory is a third piece of irony.

Three pieces of irony in a single subject? Either you know nothing about the lunar rocks, or you're trying to look ignorant.

[Noldi400]

...It's a fallacy to think of it as a chain, 'only as strong as its weakest link'.  The defense often tries to take that approach, arguing that if any piece of evidence fails, the entire chain fails.

Bugliosi pointed out that it is, rather, a rope. Each item of evidence is like a strand in that rope, adding to its strength. Even if one item fails - say, for example, DNA is thrown out on a technicality, the other strands still hold.

The term Michael Shermer has used is 'convergence of evidence'.

Even if doubt could be introduced about the photographic record, there are still hundreds of kilograms of rocks and soil that the international scientific community agree are genuine.  And so on and so forth. Even if a person has what they believe to be legitimate doubts about some aspect of the record, there is just so much other evidence that the case is overwhelmingly convincing.

So let's summarise the evidence relating to the Apollo rocks.

1. The Apollo rocks total about 380 kilograms. That's more than 1000 times the material brought back by three unmanned Soviet sample retrieval missions.

2. The Apollo rocks show signs of having formed in a low gravity vacuum, in the absence of water. Geologically they're very obviously not from the Earth.

3. The Apollo rocks definitely aren't lunar meteorites as, unlike the lunar meteorites, they show no sign of having passed through the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, or of being contaminated by terrestrial factors like water. Instead, they show signs of alterations by impact by micrometeorites ('zap pits') and by solar radiation. Therefore the Apollo rocks were very obviously not collected in Antarctica. The fact that the origin of lunar meteorites was determined by comparing them with Apollo rocks is one little piece of irony.

4. The Apollo rocks definitely weren't collected by unmanned sample retriever missions. As pointed out above, the total weight of Apollo rocks is more than 1000 times that collected by three Soviet unmanned sample retriever missions. The Apollo rocks were often photographed on the ground prior to collection, and the photos often include astronauts. How then were the photos taken? If they were taken on the Moon by hypothetical sample retriever spacecraft, how did the astronauts get in the photos? But if they were taken on the Earth at a secret fake Moon set, what material was used to make the set? If lunar material, how much more "stuff" needed to be brought back to the Earth to dress the set? And if terrestrial material, how did it not contaminate the genuine samples? Therefore the Apollo rocks were very obviously not brought back to the Earth by unmanned sample retriever missions. In any case, the idea that unmanned spacecraft could safely land on the Moon when guidance problems prevented manned spacecraft from doing exactly the same thing is a second piece of irony.

5. The current consensus on the formation of the Moon was built on more than a decade's study of the Apollo rocks. The idea that the current consensus demonstrates the Apollo rocks are fake in some way when they were actually the foundation of the theory is a third piece of irony.

Three pieces of irony in a single subject? Either you know nothing about the lunar rocks, or you're trying to look ignorant.

Don't forget...

6.  Scientists from nations all over the world, many of which have no particular affection for the US, have independently reached these conclusions.  This is not "NASA propaganda".

[LunarOrbit]

I'm going to take Alex off of the moderation list since he has managed to remain polite.

[Noldi400]

That leaves radar and optics (star finder) for navigation.  The star finder was useless on the moon (my assertion) because the astronauts claimed they couldn't see stars with the naked eye.

Seriously? Seriously?

Do you really not understand that looking through the "star finder" is not naked eye?? Even you referred to it as 'optics'.

I'm sure the resident experts will chew this post up like tissue, but that one really jumped out at me.  BTW, you whole pose is one long Argument from Incredulity. You can't believe it, so "it ain't so".

[Laurel]

I think NASA simply would not have attempted a moon landing with an untested LM, let alone have it work flawlessly 6 times.

NASA didn't attempt a Moon landing with an untested LM. An unmanned LM was tested during Apollo 5. Manned LMs were tested in Earth orbit on Apollo 9 and in lunar orbit on Apollo 10. Only after these successes did they actually try landing a LM on the Moon. Shouldn't someone who has done even basic research on the Apollo program know this?

Also the LM did not work flawlessly. If it did, the Eagle wouldn't have had those program alarms during its descent.

[frenat]

Alexsanchez,

Can you stick to one point rather than a gish-gallop of stuff please?

Can you please reply to the points that I raised in this post?
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=348.msg10717#msg10717
Specifically
Please explain the difference in sample return quantities between the American and Russian Lunar missions,
Where and when were the alleged USA robotic sample return missions?
If the US samples where returned robotically, then why do you insist that  a Lunar ascent is impossible without accurate co-ords?
Why did the US have 380Kg of Lunar rocks if they were all sourced from the Polar regions? Why does other sovereign states that have polar territories not have similar amounts?
Please explain the difference between moon-derived meteorites and the Apollo samples.
Please detail your qualifications that allows you to comment on the study of Lunar rocks.

Thanks in advance.

The issue of moon rocks is purely a matter for debate.  By that I mean I could just as well take either position.  If I accept the govt's assertion that the moon landings were real, I would use the same arguments as you.  However, given the number of lies and cover-ups engaged in by the govt, i.e., JFK, etc., I assert that the moon landings were fake.  I also assert that the Soviet Union lied about bringing back their moon rocks and that they only had rocks from Antarctica, or Siberia, if anything.  It's safe to say the Russians were adept at political propaganda and would not have hesitated to lie about it.  So maybe there are no rocks that were brought back from the moon.  But if the govt gives a geologist a rock and says it's from the moon, the geologist will assume it's from the moon, having nothing to go on to prove otherwise.  

Because geologists are stupid and gullible and the word of the government is the only thing they have to go on?

Moon rocks from Antarctica could be reconditioned to appear to have come from the moon.  No university researcher would cast doubt on the moon rocks as that would make them lose their funding.  Also, the leading scientific theory is that the moon is just a chunk of the earth that was blasted off a few billion years ago, so the composition of the moon rocks would be the same as earthly material.  Scientists would not be backing that theory if the alleged moon rocks were different in composition from rocks found on earth. 

Again, geologists are not as stupid as you think they are.  There is no evidence that "reconditioning" can even be done let alone be convincing.  Genuine Moon rocks show many characteristics that other rocks or rocks from Antarctica simply don't.  As for the "lose their funding" nonsense, that is a lame copout that doesn't even begin to explain why geologists in other countries around the world including those hostile to the US at the time would go along with it.

I cast doubt on the lunar ascent for several reasons.  One being is that there is no record of the LM being tested for ascent or descent on earth (that I know of.)

Nor should there be.  A craft that is designed to operate solely in a vacuum should be tested solely in a vacuum.  Good thing it was.

They could have used a helium balloon to simulate 1/6 gravity. 

Or jet engines like they did on the trainer?  That craft would be good for training but not for the actual article.  Good thing again that they tested it in space.

The only video I've seen was Armstrong parachuting to safety after losing control of the LLTV.  And, regardless, the LLTV was not a LM. 

At least you got that part right.  Too bad you didn't know they had hundred of successful flights besides that.

I think NASA simply would not have attempted a moon landing with an untested LM, let alone have it work flawlessly 6 times.

Good thing they tested it then.  Haven't you researched this at all?

I guess you could say the ascent was mathematically possible,

Nobody that actually understands it would say that.

but there are some grave problems with navigation to overcome.

Only in your mind and you haven't proven it.

First, you don't know exactly where you are on the moon due to the manual landing, and the fact that the moon had never been surveyed (no one had been there to do one) meaning there could be no IMU update to moon coordinates.  That leaves radar and optics (star finder) for navigation.  The star finder was useless on the moon (my assertion) because the astronauts claimed they couldn't see stars with the naked eye.  That means they had to rely on radar to rendezvous with a speeding bullet.  Getting to the exact orbit would be extremely difficult because the LM IMU did not have the inertial coordinates for the moon, they only had earth coordinates, and rough one's at that due to the gyro drift rate.  They wouldn't even have a gyro-compass to get a bearing before liftoff.  No theodolite bearing.  How do you lift off from an unknown location with an unknown bearing?  A Kalman filter takes time to settle out.  While sitting on the moon, the moon is rotating, and that rotation is is being fed into the gyros.  You can't just land on the moon and take off 2.5 hours later and get into a perfect orbit.  You could argue that they used dead reckoning and mid-course corrections in flight and flew to the dark side of the moon and used the star finder, but that's just smoke and mirrors. The least documented part of the mission, and the most complicated by far, is the rendezvous.  Note that before every space shuttle mission (and every rocket launch) a very careful IMU alignment was done to earth coordinates.  They don't just rely on radar to get to the ISS. 

This has already been answered.  Ignoring the answers doesn't make you look good.

None of this is definitive proof against a lunar ascent, but it explains the unlikelihood.

Only in your mind.

But there's no way for anyone to prove anything.  The retro-reflectors don't prove anything.  You only get a couple photons back from a laser burst according to UCSD.  You can slant an experiment to show anything you want.  Everything is hearsay.  NASA controls all of the information.  The missions were infinitely easier to fake than conduct for real, and faking guaranteed 100% success, including faking Apollo 13 to make it look like everything wasn't a success.  No one can deny the govt had the means and the motive to fake it.

Lots of opinion on your part, no proof and pretty much everything wrong.

Regarding an AULIS pic I put up, after some graphic analysis I have come to the conclusion that the claim is unsubstantiated by the photos.
http://aulis.com/imagesfurther%20/compositevalley.jpg

You mean Jack White had no idea what he was talking about?  What a shocker!