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

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Not even trying any more, are you Alex?

Give up and go somewhere where your nonsense will be appreciated like abovetopsecret or infowars.

Just stating the facts.  You like my "nonsense" otherwise you wouldn't have posted a comment.  And, how do you know it's nonsense?  You only know what you think you know because that's what you've been told.  You believe what you want to believe.  It's comforting for you to say you think like most people.  I understand about wanting to fit in.  For 40 years I thought we went to the moon.  Then I looked into it. I also believed muslims with box cutters brought down the WTC, and that kerosene melts steel such that 110 stories collapse all at once.  (I can't believe I fell for that one.)  But that's what woke me up.  What else were they lying about?  It scares you to think that the moon landings might have been faked, doesn't it.  You're afraid of the mere possibility.  It's easier to just say something is nonsense than face the truth, or even face the possibility.   How do you know what you think you know?  Did you figure it out, or did you just take somebody's word for it?  Do you believe everything the govt tells you?

What's 9/11 got to do with Apollo?

Go home son, you're Embarassing yourself now.

You've shown repeatedly that you have no idea what you're talking about. You're not an engineer or an expert in any field related to Apollo. You're just a common, lying troll. Good day to you.

[Jason Thompson]

Didn't stay 'outta here' for long, did you?

6 times they found nothing interesting?

Nothing interesting by whose criteria?

And, what's the difference between moon rocks from the moon, and moon rocks from Antarctica?

Apart from the ones from Antarctica showing clear signs of having come screaming through the atmosphere at several thousand miles per hour, been subject to heating as a result, and then been sitting around on a sheet of ice for god only knows how many years? Or the ones from Antarctica being rocks and the Apollo samples including soil and core tube samples? Do you know what zap pits are?

Just stating the facts.

You have not stated anything like a fact in your entire time here.

You like my "nonsense" otherwise you wouldn't have posted a comment.

That's about as logical as anything else you have said. I don't like your nonsense. I comment on it because it is wrong, and if nonsense like yours goes unanswered people may mistake it for a fact.

And, how do you know it's nonsense?  You only know what you think you know because that's what you've been told.

Bull. People here have hands on experience in the fields you are trying to lecture us all in. There are people on this forum who have built aerospace equipment, who have worked with the technology and the methods you say don't work. What makes your knowledge better than theirs?
 

For 40 years I thought we went to the moon.  Then I looked into it.

Oh how tedious. The 'I used to be a believer' rubbish springs forth again. Don't any of your hoax believer friends have anything more original than that? You haven't looked into it with any kind of rigour, because you and your comrades always, and I do mean always, show up amazing gaps in your knowledge of the availability of the record.
 

It scares you to think that the moon landings might have been faked, doesn't it.  You're afraid of the mere possibility.  It's easier to just say something is nonsense than face the truth, or even face the possibility.

We're scared? You're the one resorting to insults and dismissals rather than dealing with the substance of the arguments. You're the one who flounced off when you realised we knew you were just using a sock puppet. Who's acting scared here?

Do you believe everything the govt tells you?

Which government? Do you believe my government and yours are one and the same?

I seem to be the only one doing research.

I've already pointed out the low quality of your 'research' in an earlier post. Do you have anything to say to that that isn't a childish insult?

Handwaving?  I'm just talking way over your head.

Ha! You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. It's much easier to believe we just don't understand your arguments than to acknowledge we do actually know what we are talking about and that you might be wrong, isn't it?

I just need to fly over a landing site and beam back a camera image.  If there's no descent stage, then they didn't go.   Until the time comes that somebody does that,

Been done.

all we can prove is that it was infinitely easier to fake it than go to the moon, and that's a fact.

No, that's an assertion. Care to back it up with anything like telling us how it was faked and why that is easier than going to the moon for real? No? Thought not.

I happen to know that they didn't go to the moon because they would have needed to do an IMU alignment on the moon, which they couldn't do, because they had no survey marker on the moon.

Prove they needed to know exactly where they were, and explain why they couldn't do an IMU alignment while sitting in a gravitational field (thus providing the attitude information) with an unobstructed view of the stars.

And, anybody who wants me to prove I'm an engineer, and that I worked on the Delta rocket, and the ISS, you need to put up some money and bet me.

Is that what you say to prospective employers when they ask for your employment history? You are making claims that rely on your claimed expertise in the field. If you want to be taken seriously, why would you have trouble proving your credentials?

A Director of Engineering at Boeing is a former co-worker.  Another co-worker is a Chief Engineer at General Dynamics.  I used to party with those guys.  I've used them as work references.  My college roommate is a director of engineering at Panasonic.

Why do we care what your friends do? The question is what you do. The secretary of a company can claim to be a co-worker of the director of said company. That doesn't confer any technical expertise on the secretary.

In short, alex, provide your credentials, then explain why your argument about what they needed to do on the Moon is more valid than the reams of documentation detailing how they actually did it up there. Stop with the handwaving and telling us what your colleagues do.

[RAF]

Why do we need the man's credentials when it is already patently obvious that his "engineering skills" are limited to throwing a few buzzwords around with no understanding of what they mean?

Because even though that is obvious, I at least try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt...or to put it another way, I give them all the rope they need to hang themselves.

[twik]

I just need to fly over a landing site and beam back a camera image.  If there's no descent stage, then they didn't go.   Until the time comes that somebody does that, all we can prove is that it was infinitely easier to fake it than go to the moon, and that's a fact. 

Seriously - you expect us to believe that you did indepth research, and you're unaware that pictures of the landing sites were taken, and sent back to Earth? This single sentence indicates that you know very little about Apollo.

As far as "not finding anything of interest," one of my graduate-level final exams was a single sentence: "Describe the differences in chemistry that could be done on the Moon." Sorry if they didn't find slavering monsters, or sexy catwomen. Anyone who had a real science background would find the data that were returned very interesting.

Finally, to your claim that you are an engineer, and faking the landings would be "infinitely easier," please explain how they obtained hours of unbroken video, showing (1) low gravity, (2) a vacuum, and (3) a very large area of operation. If you can come up with a convincing explanation for the above three points (all three at one time, remember), I'll give you credit for being a truly brilliant engineer, because no one yet has been able to explain that.

[Echnaton]

Funny that, on some other site, they were calling me a government shill for saying the ISS was real.  How come nobody here can debate my arguments?  Only call me a liar repeatedly.  Is anybody here over 15?  I'm just asking because you never know.

Ultimately it doesn't mater how you think you are treated and you can whine about it until the heat death of the universe. The only thing that maters is, can you prove that the missions were faked.  If you let yourself get sidetracked, you will not make your case and will end up looking like another in a long line of silly posers that have visited this board.  How your presence here will be seen by readers is entirely up to you. 

[RAF]

How your presence here will be seen by readers is entirely up to you. 

...and since you started here by lying about your credentials, as if simply being an engineer made anything you said, right, then we can only evaluate your posts based on that pointless deception.

as I posted earlier, sanchez...you are your own worst enemy.

[sts60]

... And, anybody who wants me to prove I'm an engineer, and that I worked on the Delta rocket, and the ISS, you need to put up some money and bet me.  A Director of Engineering at Boeing is a former co-worker.  Another co-worker is a Chief Engineer at General Dynamics.  I used to party with those guys.  I've used them as work references.  My college roommate is a director of engineering at Panasonic.

That's nice.  I used to work for Max Faget and Caldwell Johnson, as well as working with other Apollo-era and later engineers and astronauts.

But I'm still a little confused (as I indicated in this post) about your various assertions about your background.  The reason I am asking about it is that you have pointed to your "30 years in aerospace" to lend expertise to your opinions.

You said you worked at Vandenberg and KSC, but then said you actually worked on the Cape side on an AF contract.  You said you worked on replacing a computer system and also on FOV-1.  By the latter, are you referring to the range safety system?

You also said you worked ISS GNC.  Where does that fit in?  Who were you working for and where?  And what did you actually do?

Also, what's your educational background?

Thanks in advance for sorting this out.

[JayUtah]

How come nobody here can debate my arguments?  Only call me a liar repeatedly.

Because your argument is based entirely on your claim to be a skilled engineer.  There is no argument you have made that doesn't trace its way back to a premise that requires us to accept that you know what you're talking about regarding guidance, rocket propulsion, etc.  And since you offer only vague, unverifiable credentials and qualifications (some of which seem very suspect) to support that premise, and since you cannot demonstrate that you know what you're talking about -- i.e., you make classic layman's mistakes and then try hard to cover them up -- there can really be no other kind of refutation.

Your arguments are all, "Apollo had to be fake because they claim to have done this, but because I'm an expert I know that the real way to do it would have been this other way."  How does that not put you on the hook to demonstrate your expertise?

"They can't have effectively rendezvoused in lunar orbit because the LM didn't know exactly where it was at liftoff," is exactly that kind of naive argument.  You presuppose that precise liftoff coordinates are required because you think of the liftoff and rendezvous as something like a one-shot deal -- hitting a bullet with another bullet, so to speak -- and that if you don't get the initial conditions exactly right the first time, that ballistic experience results in a miss.  So you think that the starting coordinates have to be known right down to the foot, and the ending conditions of the CSM orbit have to be known right down to the foot, and the ascent engine maneuver is a critical burn that has to be guided with sub-arcsecond precision.

That's is how the naive layman thinks about liftoff and rendezvous.  It's not what actually happens, either in Apollo or in Earth orbit rendezvous as practice for the last 40 years.  You're trying to parlay your layman's intuition as if it were expert knowledge.  You can fool other layman, but you can't fool practiced engineers.  Rendezvous is accomplished in two or more steps.  The first step is simply to get to an orbit -- any parking orbit will do.  Then with both spacecraft in stable orbits (i.e., in which they can remain indefinitely), the active spacecraft -- at its convenience -- begins the second and subsequent steps, which are phasing and terminal closure maneuvers that require only observation between the two orbiting vehicles.  Ascent cares very little for what spot in the sky you're trying to hit or what spot on the ground you left from -- orbital parameters will be determined by observation upon insertion.  Phasing and terminal guidance between two orbiting spacecraft cares not one whit where the spacecraft originated from on the ground.  Yes, you can do it well if you take care at each step.  But it's not the life-or-death difference you make it out to be.

Decoupling ascent guidance from terminal guidance is what smart engineers do.  Not realizing that you can do that is a sign of someone who's just pretending.

Is anybody here over 15?  I'm just asking because you never know.

I'm a middle-aged professional engineer.  I worked for Doug Ball and a bunch of others at Boeing, Ed Thompson and Sam Drake at Rockwell, the Cassetts at Northrup Grumman, and Fred Stecker at ATK.  I've also contracted for Lockheed, TransOrbital, Hughes, Orbital Sciences, and the United Space Alliance.  Unlike you, I'm known around the Apollo hoax debate by my real name and real accomplishments.  Sorry, but the "everyone's anonymous on the internet" argument doesn't work here.  Well, it works, but it undermines only you.  I'm sure in some parts you can convince a bunch of apathetic laymen that you're some kind of engineer.  But here you will be required to demonstrate your expertise.  If you cannot, your reliance on claims to expertise will be addressed appropriately.

What makes this worse is that you show up making the same distinctively wrong-headed, layman's argument -- using the same naive assumptions -- that someone else made last year on the previous incarnation of this forum at another URL.  And you seem to know about that previous claim.  Want to explain how and why?

[RAF]

I'm a middle-aged professional engineer.

Ouch...if you are middle aged, what does that make me?

As a point of reference, my Son turns 35 this Saturday...so I guess I am getting old...darn it.

Then again, one of the advantages of being this age, is that I witnessed the entire manned space program from the very beginning, and I wouldn't change that for the world....still remember my Dad waking me up, and both of us watching Al Shepard blast off into space...exciting times.



Apologies for dragging this so far "off topic".

[gillianren]

According to my reading, I'm officially middle-aged to the obstetrical community.  I'm a year older than your son.

I freely admit that I'm not an engineer.  However, that isn't at all the same as just taking what I've read as fact without thinking about it.

[Donnie B.]

And, anybody who wants me to prove I'm an engineer, and that I worked on the Delta rocket, and the ISS, you need to put up some money and bet me.

Okay, alexsanchez, you're on.  I bet you $10,000 (even odds) that you cannot prove to my satisfaction* that you are a degreed, competent** engineer.  The bet becomes official once you show that you have that much money to your name.

* I am the only arbiter of "my satisfaction".  All proofs submitted to me will be verified by any means I may choose to employ, and may be shared with other members of this forum at my discretion via private messages, but not posted publicly.
** The degree must be from a recognized, accredited engineering school.  Competence may be demonstrated through references from one or more other degreed, competent engineers.***

*** The competent part is important.  I worked with a degreed engineer whose only talent seemed to be faking Workman's Compensation claims.

P.S. I am approximately as amenable to proof as Heiwa, alexsanchez, or the Tortoise.

[RAF]

...or the Tortoise.

I am unfamiliar with "the Tortoise"...sounds like a Batman villian.

[RAF]

According to my reading, I'm officially middle-aged to the obstetrical community.  I'm a year older than your son.

I assume this was not intended to make me feel any better?

Kidding...

I freely admit that I'm not an engineer.  However, that isn't at all the same as just taking what I've read as fact without thinking about it.

You possess what used to be known as "common sense", but in a good way.

..and even if you do not understand the "particulars", you have a "nose" for detecting faulty arguments...something I've been trying to develop over the years...with limited success.

[Jason Thompson]

Another thing:

A Director of Engineering at Boeing is a former co-worker.

Cool. You can ask him about Boeing's work on constructing the Lunar Orbiter probes, the first stage of the Saturn V and the Lunar Roving Vehicle.

Another co-worker is a Chief Engineer at General Dynamics.

Another excellent one. You can talk to him about the General Dynamics manned lunar spacecraft proposals that were part of the contract bidding at the start of Apollo. You can ask about the work they did designing the Little Joe II solid rocket used for testing the Apollo launch abort and escape systems. Talk to him about the company's Atlas rockets that were used to launch the first manned orbital missions. You could even ask if he was at the company in the early 90s when Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders was chairman and CEO.

I am assuming that you think these people will support your assertion that Apollo was faked because the engineering was not up to the task, in which case we would certainly be interested to hear from them. After all, one of them had a plan for the entire manned lunar epxloration program drawn up and submitted, so they must have had some idea of the engineering challenges involved. Alternatively, you made the classic layman mistake of thinking NASA did it all themselves rather than contracting the work out, and in fact had no idea that Boeing and General Dynamics played such a key role in the entire Apollo program (or manned spaceflight in general). Given some of your earlier assertions I'm inclined to believe this is more likely....

[ChrLz]

Jay has proved his expertise, and others have now put their experience up including naming names and programs.

In my case I don't have space-type expertise - it's just a hobby - but I'm happy to provide information to the moderator here (and have done so elsewhere) to prove my background in marine sciences (including managing a marine research centre), in engineering and also photography/digital imaging.

I'm betting, 'AlexSanchez', that you will not do so.  Because you told lies.

Now that might be an ad hominem... but I'll happily and graciously apologise for it WHEN(IF) you prove your background.

There you go, another reason why you should show us the proof - you could embarrass at least one of us into an apology.

BTW, on Youtube you have said "Where's a design document for the lunar lander?"  Seriously?  Which one/s did you want to see?  And is that an indication of your research skills?  Your visit here is NOT going to go well.

Perhaps you need to phone one of your alleged acquaintances before proceeding...