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.