NASA's 30 Billion Dollar Scam

[nomuse]

I want to say something about myself
I am an atheist and a sceptic and I love science, especially astronomy.
I used to be an amateur astronomer before I had my children, when I could not look at the stars anymore and I used to believe that Neil Armstrong had been the first man on the moon.
Then one day I came across a website of someone proposing the moon landing hoax and at first I did not want to believe it, until I found the inconsistencies in the pictures.

 I was going to send a few pictures but my computer is not behaving at the moment

Welcome to the forum, and I hope we have an engaging conversation, but I really have to point out...

Every single Apollo Denier ever, from Bill Kaysing on down to the least YouTube commenter, has said exactly the same thing.  Apparently they were ALL space buffs, dragged kicking and screaming into an unwelcome reality due to seeing the wrong picture or making one (poor) calculation.

So forgive us if we don't give much weight to that.

[gillianren]

A true skeptic wouldn't go from total believer to total hoax believer over a single website.  A true skeptic would check out the quality of the HB site, discover that there isn't any, and remain just as convinced of the reality of Apollo.

[Jason Thompson]

Indeed. We hear this one a lot. In most cases it is more accurately stated as 'I used to not even think about it, but then I saw one book/website/TV show and was instantly converted without any further effort on my part'.

[nomuse]

Yah.  That's the other weird "quantity of evidence" thing that gets me about the HB's.

They are presented with nineteen preposterously stupid and obviously wrong reasons that other, apparently normal and educated people are using as support for their own belief.  And then one more thing, which isn't as immediately as obvious and wrong as the other ones.

And that's all they need.

Of course, that just underlines that the Hoax Belief process is an emotional one, not a logical one.  Because when they finally do realize that reason #20 is just as stupid and wrong as reason #1, they immediately cleave to a #21 and a #22.

At no point, it seems, does anyone look and say "If I was so absolutely certain before on the basis of what I know was poor evidence, what makes me believe I should be absolutely certain now -- on what looks on first glance like substantially similar evidence?"

[nomuse]

Although it hardly matters, I'd been a very amateur astronomer and had some interest in space exploration.  Mostly the later robotic stuff, though; I was almost completely ignorant about Apollo.  When I ran into my first HB site my first reaction was how grotty and poorly organized it was -- it had that same appearance of truth and accuracy as the cover to the Weekly World News.  I still read, and I have to say I found what they were saying was not impossible.

So I did a little more looking around.  And very quickly found some acerbic commentary that took apart several of the common arguments with directness and simplicity and in ways that matched much better with my own experience with astronomy, physics, photography, etc.  And after that, I don't think I've seen more than a dozen Hoax Believer claims that didn't make me go, "Really?  You are going with THAT?"

The most convincing on the side of reality is still one of scale and scope.  You don't fake WWII with a couple of prop tanks and a guy who can do a convincing German accent on a radio.

[Donnie B.]

I want to say something about myself
I am an atheist and a sceptic and I love science, especially astronomy.
I used to be an amateur astronomer before I had my children, when I could not look at the stars anymore and I used to believe that Neil Armstrong had been the first man on the moon.
Then one day I came across a website of someone proposing the moon landing hoax and at first I did not want to believe it, until I found the inconsistencies in the pictures.

 I was going to send a few pictures but my computer is not behaving at the moment

Oh my heavens.  It's deja vu all over again.

[JayUtah]

Then one day I came across a website of someone proposing the moon landing hoax and at first I did not want to believe it, until I found the inconsistencies in the pictures.

And you just believed it without any sort of skeptical analysis.  Sure...

Before you get all excited (because, looking at your site, I can tell we've seen all these arguments before), why don't you come across my web site http://www.clavius.org and see if that doesn't help.  Seriously, if you post the same nonsense that your predecessors have done for the past ten years without addressing the rebuttals to them that have been on the table for that same length of time, I'm pretty sure you won't like the comments you've received.

[sts60]

I want to say something about myself
I am an atheist and a sceptic and I love science, especially astronomy.
I used to be an amateur astronomer before I had my children, when I could not look at the stars anymore and I used to believe that Neil Armstrong had been the first man on the moon.

Well, let's not forget all the other guys who walked on the Moon or orbited it, nor all the unmanned probes that passed, orbited, or landed on it. 

Then one day I came across a website of someone proposing the moon landing hoax and at first I did not want to believe it,

We get that story ("I didn't want to believe it was a hoax") a lot from people who clearly have an axe to grind... so although it may actually be the case with you, please understand that people will have an eyebrow raised at that claim.

until I found the inconsistencies in the pictures.

 I was going to send a few pictures but my computer is not behaving at the moment

We'll certainly be interested to look at your claims.  However, please also be aware that most of these "inconsistencies" have already been thoroughly debunked in detail. 

Also, I have yet to encounter one Apollo hoax believer who is even dimly aware of the sheer breadth and depth of the Apollo record, let alone how their "theory" fits into that record, let alone how it can account for the record - the imagery, samples, personal testimony, telemetry, tracking results, hardware, development and test records, and the technical, scientific, and managerial legacy.  There is literally far more information than any one of us could possibly digest, and it goes into a damn near fractal level of detail.  You should be aware that you'll probably be asked how your claims account for that.

[sts60]

Eternidad195, let me add... Please don't come in here waving your hands about things like "compartmentalization" and "scotch tape".  Some of us actually work in this field.  But there are plenty of regulars on this forum who simply took the time to edcuate themselves about how spaceflight actually works and can (and have) debunked such silly claims themselves.

What I'm getting at is... it pays to review sites like Clavius, or to search this site or its predecessor (apollohoax.proboards.com), for the claims you are thinking of presenting, to see if they've already been addressed a hundred times before.  Frankly, I doubt you will be able to surprise us, and you certainly won't be able to bluff your way with appeals to incompetent nincompoops like Jack White or Ralph Rene as "experts".  I am not saying this is what you will do, but I am trying to save you some time and effort (and possibly embarrassment).

[nomuse]

Double-standard, isn't it?

I realize and accept that the strongest evidence in favor of the reality of Apollo is one of scale and consistency.  But as honest skeptics, all of us here do feel bound to look at any testable claim the Hoax Promoters make.  Each time they come up with a new one, ("Is it possible the Moon Buggy (sic) could have run so long on mere batteries?") we feel it worthwhile both as an intellectual exercise and as an exercise of intellectual honesty to take a look at the numbers, check the references, do the math, and see if the thing really is as impossible as the Hoaxie claims it is.

Now imagine one of us, with the same attitude of careful skepticism, were to adhere to the idea that there had been a hoax.  What would be the first requirement?  To visit Clavius and to be able to answer the majority of the objections raised there.

To do anything else would be at the very least lazy, and smacks of intellectual dishonesty, and shows a lack of willingness to test one's beliefs.

[Eternidad195]

Here is my new page

http://apollo22.blogspot.co.uk/

[Sus_pilot]

Here is my new page

http://apollo22.blogspot.co.uk/

Annnd...?  What about it?

[sts60]

Here is my new page

http://apollo22.blogspot.co.uk/

Oh, for heaven's sake, Eternidad195.  First of all, that mammoth page is almost unreadable with all the junk you've loaded it up with. 

Second, it's just a bunch of stuff - as far as I bothered reading - copied from the late, famously incompetent Jack White, who literally could not tell which side of the Lunar Module he was looking at.

Third, it's ridiculous.  The very first bit is about how the latter, etc. look wider in one picture than another.  They are taken from different angles and thus one expects the same object to appear different. 

Fourth, didn't I advise you to read Clavius and look some of these claims up before posting?  Like the idiotic bits about "cardboard" and "scotch tape"?  Jack White had no idea what he was looking at; that's not the structure of the LM, that's part of the thermal and micrometeoroid shield.   You just copied his stuff without bothering to see how it's already been debunked many times over.

You didn't put any thought into this at all, apparently.  You're just regurgitating the same drivel from the same clueless ignoramuses that have been shredded a hundred times before.  And you want people to wade through all that again, this time on your cluttered web site?

[Dinorupe]

What i find utterly hilarious is that a  group of normal everyday people declare that there issues with photos,not one has ANY expertise in photoanalysis or in fact any scientific discipline,it does not look right (based upon their experience with terrestrial photos) ergo its all a fraud!!!!!
Whilst on here there are literally reams upons reams of scientific data from people who are qualified to know what they are talking about.

To clarify im not a scientist by a loooong shot so its not an elitist comment just an observation.

[sts60]

By the way, I didn't see any attribution to Jack White or the site from which you copied his crap.  That would be plagiarism.  Did you credit the images anywhere?