ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: VanHalenBelt on October 16, 2015, 03:37:05 PM
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Greetings everyone at this cool web site!
There are two main problem "categories" I have that make it hard for me to believe any human has ever walked on the moon, but there is a common thread in both: my instinct. This will make it hard to question, answer, or argue in any way, my reasons. We can argue until the end of time about whether a piece of data is true of false, but at the end of the day all we have left to form our opinions is our own brains and eyes. Our senses. Our intuition. We decide what we trust as the final step.
The first problem I have is the technical explanations provided by NASA about the Apollo missions. When I go through all the materials available from NASA on the subject of Apollo missions I am left unable to trust what I am seeing. In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how. In my late teens I already began to wonder if the moon landings were faked. As an adult this feeling has only grown. Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
So there you go. I know this post might not get us very far--some whack-o talking about his own observations and instincts but I would contest this is the most important tool we have for figuring things out. Bless you all.
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Greetings everyone at this cool web site!
There are two main problem "categories" I have that make it hard for me to believe any human has ever walked on the moon, but there is a common thread in both: my instinct. This will make it hard to question, answer, or argue in any way, my reasons. We can argue until the end of time about whether a piece of data is true of false, but at the end of the day all we have left to form our opinions is our own brains and eyes. Our senses. Our intuition. We decide what we trust as the final step.
That's great. I trust science, engineering, and provable facts.
The first problem I have is the technical explanations provided by NASA about the Apollo missions. When I go through all the materials available from NASA on the subject of Apollo missions I am left unable to trust what I am seeing. In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how. In my late teens I already began to wonder if the moon landings were faked. As an adult this feeling has only grown. Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
Your feelings are irrelevant. There is a vast amount of material out there describing, in minute detail, how Apollo was achieved. If you let your feelings ignore that, there is no point in you even joining this forum, never mind posting.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
How they 'look' to you and what you feel about them means jack. The photographs, film and TV contain demonstrable proof whether you like it or not.
So there you go. I know this post might not get us very far--some whack-o talking about his own observations and instincts but I would contest this is the most important tool we have for figuring things out. Bless you all.
Yep. You pretty much nailed it.
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Welcome.
Consider this: there have been hundreds of peer-reviewed papers written by hundreds of scientists all over the world on their examination of lunar samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts. In the early 1980s, scientists were able to show that terrestrial mineral and crystal deposits 65 million years old were similar to those found routinely in lunar ejecta (this led to the now widely accepted theory that the consequences of an asteroid impact had wiped out the dinosaurs).
Apollo was massive. Videos and pictures taken, telemetry with real time biomedical data, testemonies of astronauts that went, sixty scientific experiments left on the surface of the Moon and data received from them, the 840 pounds of rocks and 6 foot long intact core tube samples brought back, which have been studied around the world and verified to be non-terrestrial, satellites launched from SIM bays into lunar orbit and data received, reflectors left at the landing sites, etc. etc.
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The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
Well, it was staged, in a sense. The Moon landings didn't happen by accident. They were planned and organised. The astronauts had itineraries that they had to adhere to, experiments they had to perform. I don't know what else you'd be expecting it to look like.
And, I'm sorry, if you're going to claim 'looks fake' on here, you're going to have to do better than that. Why does it look 'fake' to you? What would you expect a Moon landing to look like?
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Yeah, I just can't care about "but it looks fake to me and I can't explain why." So what? Why should I care?
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There was little to nothing taught to us about how.
How much of that would have been appropriate for high school? Conversely, how far did you go in formal education, in the directions that would have facilitated understanding the deeply technical foundations of a monumental engineering effort? To those of us who obtained an appropriately thorough education on that topic and have gone on to practice it as our profession come to a very different conclusion than you. Not only do we find the Apollo scientific and technical documentation thoroughly correct and comprehensible, we note that it would have been nigh unto impossible to fake without actually having solved the problems it purports to solve.
Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
Nonsense. The only definitions that rightly pertain to a scientific discussion of space engineering are the rather rigid definitions used by the science itself. You either are conversant with them and can have a productive discussion, or you will have to learn them.
And I agree with my colleagues: the correctness and completeness of the Apollo engineering record, or any such scientific exposition, are utterly irrelevant to how you feel about them.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
Unless you find a way to express the reasons why you believe the photographic record to have been staged, there is no rational basis upon which to consider your statement.
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In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how.
Assuming you'd actually like to answer that question, I'd like to recommend the excellent book How Apollo Flew to the Moon by W. David Woods. You can find it on Amazon.
The title perfectly describes the contents: it tells you exactly how Apollo flew to the moon, system by system, step by step, in great detail. But it's somewhat above elementary school level.
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I kind of stumbled on your chosen screen-name. "VanHalenBelt" which tells me you haven't really looked into the information available. It is a common error by people not conversant in the subject to mistake Van Allen and Van Halen - even though one is a musician of a sorts, and the other was a well-respected scientist with a very large and well-reputed scientific output through his career.
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It's also a common joke, even amongst us. That's how I took it, until proven otherwise.
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I'd like to thank every response here, and anyone who reads my post. I especially appreciate the tone here--I can tell this is an enlightened group and potentially a source of quality information. You all have given me reason to continue learning more and never stop respecting all sides of this argument. My main point was to come here and express how extremely valuable I believe our own observations are, and making our own decisions about whether to accept any single piece of data as fake or real. This means not necessarily believing anything blindly, or due to pure faith in an information source, but always "testing".
It may seem whimsical and quite non-scientific, but I have done this completely on purpose because unlike 1969 we now live in an age of massive information AND dis-information. This makes navigation of all the data harder than ever. While I may not currently believe humans have ever walked on the moon the situation could change. So, thank you all.
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In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how.
Assuming you'd actually like to answer that question, I'd like to recommend the excellent book How Apollo Flew to the Moon by W. David Woods. You can find it on Amazon.
The title perfectly describes the contents: it tells you exactly how Apollo flew to the moon, system by system, step by step, in great detail. But it's somewhat above elementary school level.
And when you have finished reading this marvellous book, I shall recommend that you watch the film "In the Shadow of the Moon" from 2007, where members from all the Apollo missions that went to the Moon are sharing their experiences with the audience - and when you have read the book and watched the movie I would like you to tell us: Are all these fine old men sitting there lying to our face as you seem to think?
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I would also recommend Moon Machines. As recounted by the people who actually designed, built and tested the hardware that went to the moon.
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...unlike 1969 we now live in an age of massive information AND dis-information.
A reasonable proposition. The error many make in that respect is to consider only Establishment sources as disinformative and respect "maverick" or self-proclaimed truth-seekers as conversely informative. It cheapens the debate because it sets aside all the factual and expert analysis and simply reduces it to a matter of politics or preconceived loyalties. The simple summary is that where space is concerned, there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, delight in spewing quite a lot of bunk. What might give you pause is the notion that among aerospace and scientific specialists, there simply is no controversy over whether Apollo was real. It is rare almost to extinction to find anyone who disputes the science of the Moon missions who can actually speak about it with an expert understanding. When the relevant experts unanimously agree on a thing, it's hard to argue that it's "really" fake.
Let me also endorse the book you were recommended. I have read it, and it's meant to bridge most of the gap between high school physics and professional aerospace where Apollo is concerned.
On my shelf I have several of the standard references in spacecraft design, control, and propulsion. These are naturally dense tomes, as they're mean to inform those who do that sort of thing as their profession. While it may seem exotic and romantic, spacecraft design today is pursued no differently than designing cars or airplanes, and for the same private and commercial purposes. There is considerable disadvantage and liability in producing products that do not function as requested. Hence there is no value in writing reference books of duplicitous or vacuous claims.
The problems of control, for example, make extensive use of linear algebra, calculus, and control theory -- subjects that are beyond nearly every high school students and even most college students who do not pursue a math or engineering background. These tools allow us to reason about control problems using a generalized framework. It's how the "pros" do it. But try to explain equivalent concepts in a high school physics class would be problematic, as most would simply not yet have had the mathematical background or understanding. There is little value in describing some other way of solving those problems, because that's not how the problems are actually solved. Hence you may have been exposed to quite a number of simplifications and approximations. These are not necessarily wrong, but it will require some additional effort to extend a high school understanding to a full appreciation of Apollo.
Those same methods used today to control spacecraft were used in Apollo -- and in many cases developed for Apollo. In addition to the modern references, I have several feet of shelf space containing papers written back in the 1960s. The same mind-numbing math appears in them, in some cases even more complicated: the LM, for example, used a non-orthogonal set of control axes in order simplify control along its specialized flight path. This is important because if Apollo were hoaxed, then we question why such rigorous underpinnings need to be provided for a cover story. And if that rigor actually pans out in real life, then what was to prevent Apollo from actually working? A throw-away cover story abandons detail after a certain amount of effort. And diligent students will subsequently discover that deficiency. Conversely, successful deception avoids verifiable details. It paints in broad strokes. NASA provides volume after volume of verifiable detail, and decades of ongoing interest have focused considerable expert attention on that detail.
For example, the design of the onboard computer has survived. Hobbyists have rebuilt versions of it. Other hobbyists have written software emulators. The original computer source code has survived, and runs on those emulators. It actually does what the Apollo documents say it will do. So you have to ask yourself why NASA would design a fully functional flight computer and write fully functional computer programs for it if none of that were ever really going to be used.
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Greetings everyone at this cool web site!
There are two main problem "categories" I have that make it hard for me to believe any human has ever walked on the moon, but there is a common thread in both: my instinct. This will make it hard to question, answer, or argue in any way, my reasons. We can argue until the end of time about whether a piece of data is true of false, but at the end of the day all we have left to form our opinions is our own brains and eyes. Our senses. Our intuition. We decide what we trust as the final step.
While you are correct that we can't debate your feelings, but I suspect your feelings are based on a lack of knowledge, either because you didn't want to look up information that is available concerning the moon landings. or cursory disregarded it.
The first problem I have is the technical explanations provided by NASA about the Apollo missions. When I go through all the materials available from NASA on the subject of Apollo missions I am left unable to trust what I am seeing. In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how. In my late teens I already began to wonder if the moon landings were faked. As an adult this feeling has only grown. Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
So there you go. I know this post might not get us very far--some whack-o talking about his own observations and instincts but I would contest this is the most important tool we have for figuring things out. Bless you all.
Again You need to read about the technical. What they look like to you is irrelevant, unless that is you have a photography back ground and converse about the images as a professional. Let me give you a link to all the surface images, perhaps you could select one or more and describe why you think they are not taken on the moon.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html
The rest of the group have given some excellent book and videos. I'll add one more that tells a little of the development of the Saturn, good stuff
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I kind of stumbled on your chosen screen-name. "VanHalenBelt" which tells me you haven't really looked into the information available. It is a common error by people not conversant in the subject to mistake Van Allen and Van Halen - even though one is a musician of a sorts, and the other was a well-respected scientist with a very large and well-reputed scientific output through his career.
LOL I just thought he might be a rocker, it could be a joke as well.
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It may seem whimsical and quite non-scientific, but I have done this completely on purpose because unlike 1969 we now live in an age of massive information AND dis-information. This makes navigation of all the data harder than ever. While I may not currently believe humans have ever walked on the moon the situation could change. So, thank you all.
Along with the rock and core samples the last 5 lunar landings set up the ALSEP's that functioned till Sept 1977 when they were shut down due to budget constraints. While they were functioning, they sent back over a trillion data points of information that scientists from around the world have been studying and writing peer reviewed reports and papers about. So much data eventually led to storage problems as this link explains:
https://poikiloblastic.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/the-long-road-to-alsep-data-recovery/
As for the rock samples, any qualified scientist can request access to them via this link:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/sampreq/requests.cfm
Some points to ponder:.
-> Why have the Russians confirmed all 6 of the Apollo moon landings?
-> 400,000 people were involved with the project, yet nobody has come forward with evidence that the landings never happened. Why? Keep in mind that every component for a manned mission had to meet rigorous testing criteria that guaranteed 99.99992% reliability. That's a big part of the reason why all 32 Saturn launches were successful even though they expected a 50% failure rate for the Saturn 1.
-> Scientist from around the world have verified and peer reviewed all of the lunar rock & core samples plus all the data transmitted back to Earth by the ALSEP's left behind.
-> Apollo 16 included a UV telescope that took pictures of the Earth and other points of interest. So far no astronomer has found any discrepancies with these pictures:
http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/apollo-to-the-moon/online/later-missions/apollo-16.cfm
-> Hoax believers have for the last 46 years tried to find evidence that the landings were faked and have found nothing. The proof they failed is that despite all their efforts, the missions are still in the history books. If the USA had hoaxed the missions, a story of that magnitude would of been seized on by investigative reporters and news networks. Not just the USA but countries from around the world would have gone after the biggest scoop in history. So why haven't they?
-> Russia, China, India and Japan have all flown missions to the moon. So far, none of these countries have brought forth any evidence that it's impossible to do manned missions to it.
-> 3rd party evidence that verify's the Apollo missions made it past the VAB's and landed on the moon as detailed in this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings
Along with the book recommendations others have made, you should take the time to go through some of the pdf's in this link dealing with the design considerations and actual results from the ALSEP's so you can get a better idea about how much work was required to pull off these missions.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/ALSEP/
There's ton's of information here including details about the snap-27 RTG that powered some of the lunar experiments using plutonium 238. Here's one for example that explains thermal considerations and also how to fuel the RTG from the fuel capsule stored on the outside of the lunar module:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/ALSEP/pdf/ALSEP%20%23298%20-%20Sum_ALSEPSubPkg2_ThermControlDesign_ATM%20821.pdf
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It may seem whimsical and quite non-scientific, but I have done this completely on purpose because unlike 1969 we now live in an age of massive information AND dis-information. This makes navigation of all the data harder than ever.
One of the biggest frustrations in debating moon hoaxers is their stubborn claim that can't really know anything, that everything we think we know about Apollo was simply asserted by the government and we're all forced to take it on faith because there's no other way to know.
That shows a complete lack of understanding of education in general and of a science or engineering education in particular. My college lectures weren't just simple recitations of facts we were expected to accept without question, memorize and regurgitate on tests. Yes, many facts were certainly stated but we were also expected to ask why they were true and to understand the answer and see for ourselves that it was correct. In math, we were given derivations and proofs, not just formulas. We had many physics laboratory sessions where we conducted some experiment so we could see, with our own eyes, some particular principle in action. In engineering, we designed and built devices that applied those physical principles toward some goal or to meet some need. If our understanding or application of those principles was incorrect, our devices simply didn't work.
The idea wasn't just to acquire facts already known. It was to learn how to acquire new facts and how to determine that they really are facts.
So the government doesn't just say that we went to the moon. They published detailed records of every mission and cataloged the results: photos, data, samples, recordings. They also published a mountain of scientific and engineering documents explaining in very great detail this is how we did it. An engineer like me can look at those documents and the surplus hardware sitting in museums and say I don't have to take it on faith because yes, I do understand how it all worked. Everything fits together. The numbers all check out. Every subsystem could do what it was designed to do. The entire system could do what it was designed to do -- to carry a crew to the moon and back.
So against all that, why should I conclude that the missions never actually happened?
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Greetings everyone at this cool web site!
G'day and welcome to Apollohoax.
There are two main problem "categories" I have that make it hard for me to believe any human has ever walked on the moon, but there is a common thread in both: my instinct. This will make it hard to question, answer, or argue in any way, my reasons. We can argue until the end of time about whether a piece of data is true of false, but at the end of the day all we have left to form our opinions is our own brains and eyes. Our senses. Our intuition. We decide what we trust as the final step.
I'd respectfully submit that there's an extra step you can put into the process - checking with subject matter experts. I'm more likely to believe a car mechanic than my doctor when they offer opinions about the health of my car. But I'm more likely to believe the doctor when they offer opinions about my health. In the case of the Apollo program there are hundreds of experts in all sorts of aspects of the programs. Many are Americans, but many others are not.
For example, I've spoken to fellow Aussies who worked at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station through the Apollo missions. They all have no doubt that when they pointed their dish at various points in the sky during the mission, they were tracking a spacecraft heading from the Earth to the Moon, orbiting and landing on the Moon, and returning to Earth. Now that in itself isn't proof of everything - merely of their part of the mission. But, as others have pointed out, there are the hundreds of scientists who've studied the Apollo rocks and have no doubt that, thanks to the documentation provided, the rocks were collected on the Moon by humans.
The first problem I have is the technical explanations provided by NASA about the Apollo missions. When I go through all the materials available from NASA on the subject of Apollo missions I am left unable to trust what I am seeing. In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID.
Lucky you. I got taught nothing about space or space exploration at school. But the school library kept me happy with a heap of books.
There was little to nothing taught to us about how. In my late teens I already began to wonder if the moon landings were faked. As an adult this feeling has only grown. Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
Can you give us an idea of what sort of feelings? What about them do you find unreliable or untrustworthy or [insert your choice of word here]?
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
Well, why don't you share a few with us?
Actually, why not visit www.clavius.org first and read through that site, then come back to us.
In the meantime, keep in mind the Moon is not the Earth, and the things the astronauts did on the Moon were limited by consumables and the physical limitations of the spacesuits. So what might look fake to you might be entirely reasonable in the light of these limitations.
The other thing to keep in mind with the videos in particular, is that they exist. What this means is that we can point to some videos lasting up to half an hour in which the astronauts start close to the camera and over the course of several minutes move a couple of hundred metres away, all the while moving in a way that doesn't happen on Earth (I'm thinking in particular of the walk of the crew of Apollo 16 to House Rock). If this footage was faked, how was it done?
Then there are the quirky things. Some people have suggested that the conversations between the astronauts and Mission Control were pre-recorded. The problem with this is that Mission Control passed on news from Earth which included live sports scores - half-time football scores, or end of day golf scores. Seriously, if NASA pre-recorded those conversations, how could they possibly know Jack Nicklaus was going to be 3 under at the end of the third day of the Thingamajig Open?
So there you go. I know this post might not get us very far--some whack-o talking about his own observations and instincts but I would contest this is the most important tool we have for figuring things out. Bless you all.
I'd respectfully disagree and say that instinct isn't that important as a tool for figuring things out. I know mine is next to useless: I remember one occasion when my instinct told me to slow down before I came over a hill and saw a mobile speed camera in front of me; but I also know there have been dozens of occasions when my instinct has given me no such warning.
But, as I suggested, visit the Clavius site and have a bit of a read, then let us know what your questions are.
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Like the 'nick. I have the t-shirt:
http://grok.amorphia-apparel.com/design/vanallen/
Unfortunately there are almost no places I can wear it where people will get the joke. The kind of people who know about Doctor Van Allen aren't usually so familiar with metal as to recognize a band's logo right off. And the people who recognize the logo... (but nay, I won't stoop to stereotypes about rock musicians. Okay, maybe drummers.)
(I also have this one: http://www.spreadshirt.com/darmok-and-jilad-C3376A5492607?gclid=CKGNx_PrycgCFYdbfgoda64JIA&ef_id=VeyZ1AAAAZ0nle2T%3A20151017154121%3As which I also have to explain to most people. Sigh).
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Like the 'nick. I have the t-shirt:
http://grok.amorphia-apparel.com/design/vanallen/
Unfortunately there are almost no places I can wear it where people will get the joke. The kind of people who know about Doctor Van Allen aren't usually so familiar with metal as to recognize a band's logo right off. And the people who recognize the logo... (but nay, I won't stoop to stereotypes about rock musicians. Okay, maybe drummers.)
(I also have this one: http://www.spreadshirt.com/darmok-and-jilad-C3376A5492607?gclid=CKGNx_PrycgCFYdbfgoda64JIA&ef_id=VeyZ1AAAAZ0nle2T%3A20151017154121%3As which I also have to explain to most people. Sigh).
Cool shirt but I'm past wearing logo embossed t-shirts. maybe 30 years ago.
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Yah...my response to the idea that the science behind Apollo is being distorted in order to make the project seem plausible usually that "there is no bright line." That is; there isn't a visible break between any of the science that is pointed to, and the science that can be demonstrated on my kitchen table.
This is not to say such a distortion is impossible, but it would be mind-bogglingly difficult. And where would the lacunae lie? Take, say, problems a hoax believer might have with the radio link. I only work with low-powered FM radios across extremely short distances. But when I attempt to apply the tools used by broadcast engineers, they seem to give results that agree with my experience. So I know the physics is "correct" at my level. I suspect very strongly that it is "correct" at the level of those broadcast professionals, and it would be a little odd to think that they are all either grossly incompetent or in on a massive conspiracy.
And they say that when they look at the Apollo equipment, link budgets, etc., all the tools that NASA used seem to work for them and agree with the experience they have with their own equipment. So I don't see a break from me to the pros, and the pros don't see a break from them to people who actually do space-based applications. Okay, maybe not the cleanest example. But you get the idea.
The other problem being; assume you hide the truth of Apollo at some arbitrary point safely above any physics I'm likely to use in my daily life. The gotcha here is "likely." What if I go to a Maker Faire and get enthused about something more scientifically advanced than my usual fare, and that ends up on my kitchen table? How does the hoax accommodate not only people who are at vastly different experience levels, but people who learn and experiment and move upwards?
That's the problem, whether you are talking Apollo Hoax or 9-11; it requires that all the people being lied to are stable at a platform of limited understanding in all the required sciences, and that only a selected few are privy to the dangerous science that disproves the hoax; a selected few that can be suborned. The hoax believers don't see to understand the way those sciences they point at as potentially false have in fact permeated entire industries and are the daily accomplishment (and thus, daily tested) by millions of people spread out across industries governmental, private, and personal/hobby.
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Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
Both these statements are bare assertion and present you with a dichotomy. On one hand you argue that it is impossible to argue technical matters, but on the other you are not prepared to offer any insight in to the technical matters which you disagree upon.
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Greetings everyone at this cool web site!
There are two main problem "categories" I have that make it hard for me to believe any human has ever walked on the moon, but there is a common thread in both: my instinct. This will make it hard to question, answer, or argue in any way, my reasons. We can argue until the end of time about whether a piece of data is true of false, but at the end of the day all we have left to form our opinions is our own brains and eyes. Our senses. Our intuition. We decide what we trust as the final step.
The first problem I have is the technical explanations provided by NASA about the Apollo missions. When I go through all the materials available from NASA on the subject of Apollo missions I am left unable to trust what I am seeing. In elementary school we were taught about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong--primarily what they DID. There was little to nothing taught to us about how. In my late teens I already began to wonder if the moon landings were faked. As an adult this feeling has only grown. Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
So there you go. I know this post might not get us very far--some whack-o talking about his own observations and instincts but I would contest this is the most important tool we have for figuring things out. Bless you all.
My bolding, well all I have to say concerning your lack of initiative in typing your concerns, then no one will be able to help you see why they are not in error or that they looked stage or faked. The choice is yours really learn or continue to be ignorant of the events of Apollo.
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They have always looked fake to me.
That seems to be understandable for an earthbound "common sense"/instinct in the first place. Since our ancestors never experienced a space environment it stays i.e. completely counter-intuitive to have a black sky at bright daylight.
It may never look like this from earth, but on the moon it actually does. You can not feel that. That´s why knowledge counts more than "looks staged for me".
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They have always looked fake to me.
That seems to be understandable for an earthbound "common sense"/instinct in the first place. Since our ancestors never experienced a space environment it stays i.e. completely counter-intuitive to have a black sky at bright daylight.
It may never look like this from earth, but on the moon it actually does. You can not feel that. That´s why knowledge counts more than "looks staged for me".
Indeed. Also, the moon has no atmosphere, so no atmospheric haze, and has no features, like trees, to give an obvious sense of scale, meaning far away objects can look quite a bit closer.
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"Common Sense" isn't a description of a methodical, scientific understanding. It is the description of what "looks right" and "feels right" to experience (personal and evolutionary) in one of the stranger places of the universe; deep in a gravity well under a crushing envelope of gas and at a temperature almost exactly the triple point of water. Almost nothing behaves "normally" down here -- not, at least, by the standards of the universe.
(And throw in...at one-meter scale, with reaction speed and average momentum and muscle power also tuned to within a magnitude of that same meter stick applied as acceleration or volume filled with that much water. We really haven't much instinct or "common sense" for what happens around masses much bigger than we can lift, motions faster than we can run, or anything scaled a magnitude smaller or larger than we are.)
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"Common Sense" isn't a description of a methodical, scientific understanding.
It's the antithesis of it. We evolved the scientific method precisely because intuition is so often wrong.
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The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
But you have no reference points other than your own experience on Earth, which is a totally different environment.
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My main point was to come here and express how extremely valuable I believe our own observations are, and making our own decisions about whether to accept any single piece of data as fake or real. This means not necessarily believing anything blindly, or due to pure faith in an information source, but always "testing".
Observations made by someone with no experience or ability in the field are practically worthless. In law, eye-witness accounts are held in high regards, but not in science. "Testing" and checking sources is a good way to winnow real knowledge from a mountain of garbage, but don't fall foul of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
While I may not currently believe humans have ever walked on the moon the situation could change. So, thank you all.
Personal belief makes no difference to the facts. In fact, allowing personal belief to sway you is a common logical fallacy. Please don't confuse a belief with an evidenced fact, or fall into the whole post-modernist fallacy of "I'm entitled to my belief and you must respect my belief in the same way as facts". I respect your right to hold any belief, but kindly request that you respect my right to point and laugh if your belief is utter nonsense. ;)
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Since agreeing upon "definitions" is essential before a healthy argument my feelings about the technical materials almost make it impossible to have a scientific conversation on the matter.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
Both these statements are bare assertion and present you with a dichotomy. On one hand you argue that it is impossible to argue technical matters, but on the other you are not prepared to offer any insight in to the technical matters which you disagree upon.
Further to that, Vanhalenbelt...
1. Why would your 'feelings' make it so impossible to discuss - what part do they play in a conversation about science and logic and evidence?
2. Will you at some stage be specific and bring examples? Just pick a couple of the things that have left you so in doubt, or that look the most 'fake'. Please pick the best that you have.
If those best examples (and thus your 'feelings') can be shown to be incorrect, would you change your position?
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People ask me how to become a good interpreter of photographs. Well, there are lots of mathematical techniques we can use to make the data more comprehensible. But the best advice is simply to pay very close attention to the world around you, especially when nothing exciting is happening. Too many people want to limit their observations of the world to momentous occurrences or mysterious circumstances. A proper understanding comes from trying to explain the mundane and disinteresting.
For example, just looking up from my computer screen, I see a peculiar shadow cast on the wall by the edge of the television. It's a multiple shadow with the inset shadow having a sharp edge. Now I know from study and experience that fuzzy shadows are cast by wide area light sources, and sharp-edged shadows are caused by more localized "point" sources. But now I want to know exactly what light sources behind me are causing this. The "point" light source turns out to be a splash of sunlight on the dining room wall. The softer light source is simply the diffuse interreflection of sunlight on the white walls. And I actually ended up being a little surprised because the "point" light source was actually broader in subtended angle (as seen from the edge of the TV) than inferred from the shadow.
Similarly there's a peculiar glow on the walls and ceiling. It's sun reflecting off the hardwood floor. You wouldn't think it would be reflective enough, but it is. These and similar kinds of observations free us from intuition. Or more accurately, they tune our intuition to incorporate more discoverable behaviors of the natural world.
The notion that the lunar environment presents several challenges to perception is paramount. The Moon isn't wholly an alien environment. But just enough to give us pause. John Young famously noted that it was hard to reconcile the sunlit terrain and the black sky. Part of him believed it was night, and part believed day. The attenuation of saturation and contrast with distance was noted by Leonardo in his notebook instructions on painting. It's absent on the Moon. The lunar surface is barren, denying the eye things like vegetation to establish scale with distance. While there is gravity, it's far less than that on Earth, throwing us off balance because the angular rates of falling are too small to notice quickly. Even people who see craters in photos as embossments rather than depressions are exhibiting a million-year-old predilection for believing light always comes from above.
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One of the first debunking phrases was something like the moon is not the earth
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Its my impression that most people who have issues were not round at the time. Its rare to find someone who was who does.
I was a child living in a remote part of the world at the time but I could still follow the missions. There were live mission broadcasts from Voice of America, there were daily news papers, with feature articles and specials on Apollo. There was National Geographic and Life magazines, children's books explaining what we knew about the Moon, what to expect when we got there, how spaceflight worked. There were those gloss Life books on space travel, the planets, the universe, doing much the same thing but at a more adult level. There were books by Patrick Moore and Arthur Clarke that were more in depth, entering into some of the mathematics. There were encyclopedia articles (usually not much good because they got out of date so quickly, but the annual summaries were great). There was even the Apollo documentary feature film at the local cinema (dubbed).
My mind boggles at what resources would have been available to me in North America or Europe! Certainly a chance to watch live TV and see some of the hardware.
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My main point was to come here and express how extremely valuable I believe our own observations are, and making our own decisions about whether to accept any single piece of data as fake or real.
This is a good start on a skeptical approach. The heart of which is withholding judgment and seeking out perspectives until one finds an argument to be the better explanation for what is known.
However skepticism is not how you introduced your thinking.
The second problem I have is my own observations of the pictures and videos of humans on the moon. They look staged and fake to me for more reasons than I would ever want to type. They have always looked fake to me.
You have made a judgment about them of looking fake. This essentially closes your mind to further inquiry and set up the mental state in which others to prove you wrong. When in fact the claim of fakery requires a proof by the claimant.
The more skeptical approach is to look at the photos and say something like, "I don't understand how these could be made on the moon? Or, "I don't understand how these differ from photos shot on earth?" Or, "This looks funny to me, how did that happen?" Responding to not understanding with a question opens up the mind to accept a solution. That is skepticism in practice.