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

[smartcooky]

Also, I think NASA must have dropped some navigation aids on the lunar surface before they attempted any manned landings.[/i]"

How many times do you need to be told that you do not need to accurately know where you are on the surface of the Moon (or any other planetary body for that matter) in order to make a rendezvous, when

a. both parts of a two part spacecraft start in an equatorial orbit
b. one part lands near the equator while the other part remains in an equatorial orbit.

It is a simple, fundamental fact regarding orbits that you fail to grasp.

A BODY IN AN EQUATORIAL ORBIT PASSES OVER THE SAME GROUND ON EVERY ORBIT. So if you are on the equator, a body on an equatorial orbit is going to pass right over top of you on EVERY orbit.

[Captain Swoop]

35mm has no paper backing, but you had to use a can opener to ease the cap off the flat end of the cassette without bending it too badly or damaging the film inside.

I found that giving the 'top hat' a hard slam onto a bench would pop the cassette open without needing a can opener.
I used to buy a bulk roll and use it to load up re-fillable casettes.

[Zakalwe]

You're funny, Alex. You've got practitioners telling you how it is and you choose instead to believe an anonymous self-confessed crank.

Why is it so hard to accept?

It's called confirmation bias, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias


"People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. For example, in reading about current political issues, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations)." (emphasis mine)
Alexsanchez is trashing about, clasping to ANY source that he believes supports his views, yet he ignores what people experienced in the field on here are telling him. He grasps the words of a clearly biased person because that person's views in more in line with his own deeply entrenched ideas.

And Alexsanchez....I'm STILL waiting for a response on your "bet" <taps fingers on desk, checks watch, crosses another day off calendar....)

[alexsanchez]

"NASA must have had a less massive version.

Also, I think NASA must have dropped some navigation aids on the lunar surface before they attempted any manned landings."

Alex, what do you think of people who just parrot anonymous third party speculation?

Buzz Armstrong said they "couldn't see stars on the moon."  Therefore, you can't get a bearing from a star for navigation.  Therefore, you are all stuck on the moon.  The optics were just a telescope.  If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.  Nobody went anywhere.  End of story.  Sorry.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/aot.htm

[Andromeda]

If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope. 

That is completely, utterly, demonstrably false.

Clearly you have never looked through a telescope.

[Glom]

"NASA must have had a less massive version.

Also, I think NASA must have dropped some navigation aids on the lunar surface before they attempted any manned landings."

Alex, what do you think of people who just parrot anonymous third party speculation?

Buzz Armstrong said they "couldn't see stars on the moon."  Therefore, you can't get a bearing from a star for navigation.  Therefore, you are all stuck on the moon.  The optics were just a telescope.  If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.  Nobody went anywhere.  End of story.  Sorry.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/aot.htm

Everything is wrong with that. First, telescopes are light collectors. Secondly, Aldrin was talking about with the glare of the surface getting in your eyes. Using the telescope shields the glare.

[RAF]

Nobody went anywhere.  End of story.  Sorry.

What are you "sorry" about?...it's not like anyone here believes a word you say or takes you seriously, because you are a sock, and we all know it. You lost the right to post here when you were banned, yet you "game" this and other boards, because you simply can not accept what is obvious to EVERYONE ELSE...YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Why don't you spread your ignorance somewhere else...like godlikeproductions, where you will find people just as ignorant as you.

[Bob B.]

If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.

That's one of the most ignorant things you've said, and that's saying something.  Without a telescope you are limited to the amount of light that passes through your pupil.  A telescope takes all the light that passes though the objective and a focuses it down to a narrow beam that that can pass through your pupil, allowing more light to enter your eye than could otherwise without the telescope.  For instance, the maximum fully dilated pupil in a young person is about 7 mm.  If you have a telescope with a 70 mm objective, you've multiplied the amount of light entering your eye by 100.  This allows you to see faint objects that are impossible to see with your naked eye.

[Jason Thompson]

Buzz Armstrong

Now you are clearly trolling. What exactly are you trying to achieve here? Because whatever it is all you're doing is making yourself look even more ignorant than the average HB.

The optics were just a telescope.  If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.

And now you look more ignorant than, well, just about anyone. This is undoubtedly the single most stupid thing you have said this entire time. Clearly you have never looked into a telescope, or taken the time to understand anything ahout the history of astronomy and how the invention of the telescope revealed many things previously unseen.

Once again: do you undertstand that liftoff and rendezvous were separate procedures, and hence meeting the CSM in orbit was not the one-shot deal you are making it out to be?

[RAF]

If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.

That's one of the most ignorant things you've said, and that's saying something.

I agree....not only does it demonstrate a COMPLETE IGNORANCE  regarding how telescopes work, it assumes that we are all as ignorant as he is.

Here's a "clue" Poncho...you're not going to fool anyone but yourself with this asinine display of stupidity.

[RAF]

...whatever it is all you're doing is making yourself look even more ignorant than the average HB.

I call "shananigans"...no one could be this "dopey".

...but if he is, the very last place he should be posting is on a BB where scientifically minded people participate.

[alexsanchez]

If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope. 

That is completely, utterly, demonstrably false.

Clearly you have never looked through a telescope.

Yes I have.  Next?

[raven]

Buzz Armstrong said they "couldn't see stars on the moon."  Therefore, you can't get a bearing from a star for navigation.  Therefore, you are all stuck on the moon.  The optics were just a telescope.  If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope.  Nobody went anywhere.  End of story.  Sorry.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/aot.htm

Who's "'Buzz' Armstrong"?
You can if looking the telescope blocks out the ambient light sources that would make it so that you could not see stars and allowing your eye to dark adapt, which is exactly what it was for. In fact, Neil Armstrong, in a much quote mined by conspiracy theorists interview during the Apollo 11 post-mission press conference says directly "We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the Moon by eye without looking through the optics." [bolded for emphases]
As often pointed out ,the moon has no atmosphere. The only thing stopping you from seen stars on the surface are the amount of light from other sources making stars hard to see. Things like, the sunlit lunar surface and the lighting in the cabin,or the sun shining through the windows.
The optics allowed them to block out most of that light and take star sightings for making alignment checks.

[Andromeda]

If you can't see a star with your eyes, you can't see it with a telescope. 

That is completely, utterly, demonstrably false.

Clearly you have never looked through a telescope.

Yes I have.  Next question.

Then you are deliberately lying.

Next troll.

[raven]

Even if he's telling the truth as he saw it, the atmosphere itself acts as a source of light that screws up the night vision required to see stars. Something that does not apply to the moon.