Why are NASA astronauts (still) lying?

[smartcooky]

On a separate point, and given the lack of HB posts, is this the best that the HB "community" can put forward? Or have they retreated into their own little enclaves and no longer even want to try and support their fallacies?

I would like to believe that the majority of them (the casual ones?) have been so-often presented with an incessant barrage of indisputable science, plain commonsense and pure logic every time they raise their heads, that finally, some of it has actually gotten through their thick skulls into what passes for their brains.

Of course, there will always be the hard core idiots like Sibrel, Hunchbacked, that Swedish nitwit and "he-from-down-under-who-shall-not-be-named", who are probably so invested in believing their own lies that it would represent the most acute embarrassment and a serious loss of face were they to admit they are wrong. As a result, they no longer come to places like here and JREF, where their BS gets called for what it is by people who are experienced in the fields of space-science, astronomy, physics, photography, maths etc. Rather they only frequent the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions, where they will find like-minded conspiritards only too willing to be devoted disciples who hang on their every word.

Its easy to be a big fish in a small pond, but it ain't so easy to be in the ocean.

[darren r]

the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions

You're right. As wrong-headed as HB's like Allan are, it's much preferable that they come here and engage with the people on this site, have their beliefs challenged and maybe even learn something, than spend time in hellish echo chambers like the sites you mention, endlessly feeding each others paranoia and preening arrogance. All those environments encourage is the sort of mindset that believes it is perfectly acceptable to 'phone up bereaved parents, accuse them of being 'crisis actors', tell them that their daughter never existed and that the incident in which she died was a false flag hoax.

[Allan F]

This post is based on my video at

Clearly, four recent NASA astronauts -- plus a bevy of Apollo boys -- claim outright that you cannot SEE stars from the vacuum of low earth orbit (or cislunar space re Apollo, same thing), which is clearly a LIE. Let's start with that and leave the faked imagery for later.

The question has nothing to do with the usual BS that stars do not register on film. We are only talking about what these NASA people say they can SEE in space. By the laws of physics and simple common sense, these people are lying. I ask, Why?

Allancw is baaaack.

Hmm - just found this quote from Apollo 11:

071:59:20 Armstrong: Houston, it's been a real change for us. Now we're able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time on the trip. It's - the sky is full of stars. Just like the night side of Earth. But all the way here, we've only been able to see stars occasionally and perhaps through the monocular, but not recognize any star patterns.

How about that? The astronauts actually could see stars from space.

[ChrLz]

Yes, it's so, so strange that allancw didn't provide the actual quotes and context - the only reason I can think of is to deliberately mislead people - and surely that couldn't be the case?


Just in my opinion of course..  it is the true mark of a decent, thinking person to:
- ask questions about things they may not fully understand (instead of blithely asserting something or calling people liars, only to then discover it was their own lack of knowledge that was the problem..)
- politely engage in discussion and answer ontopic questions (even when they begin to realise that those questions will reveal that lack of knowledge)
- admit their errors (rather than cowardly change the subject) - it is *only* after you admit errors/lack of knowledge that you can learn those new things..
- bravely admit when they were wrong and apologise for any insults they may have used (like calling people liars) once it finally becomes clear to them that their entire argument was fatally flawed.

Again in my humble opinion - if you have stopped learning, you may as well call it a day - your useful life has ended.. no matter how much 'fun' you can get from hanging around people who are even more gullible and less-informed than you are.. (I refer to the video link posted on Allan C Weisbecker's 'Apollo 13' thread..)  And if you also can't admit when you get it badly wrong nor apologise to those who corrected you and those you called liars, then... well, the readers will judge what sort of person that is.

It's your choice of course, Allancw.. what sort of person are you?

[sts60]

From what I've seen, either no one much believes in the Apollo hoax anymore or else no one much cares.  I admit we don't get conspiracists of any stripe here very often these days, but even the few I know personally tend to think hoax belief is ridiculous.

I think that LRO's clear imaging of Apollo landing artifacts on the Moon pretty much was the coup de grace for most casual HBs - i.e., those whose identities weren't wrapped up in denying this particular part of reality.  Sadly, Allan seems to be too emotionally invested in disbelieving Apollo to be able to acknowledge errors and learn about the subject. 

It's rather like David C/rocky/cosmored/etc., whose belief system won't even permit him to consider that somebody might honestly disagree with him - not that they are right; he literally can't conceive that anyone who doesn't buy his claims could be honestly wrong.  It's a sad, cramped, paranoid little world such THBs (True Hoax Believers) inhabit.

[ChrLz]

Forgive me for this slightly/almost/off/ontopic contribution. But I'm excited to have finally got an Iridium flare pic (less than an hour ago - woohooo!), and hopefully this might show I have at least a little expertise with photographing stars and stuff...

Sony α57 DSLR with 18-55 kit lens, 30 seconds @ f5.6, ISO 200, on tripod using 2-second delay.  This crop is reduced to about a quarter of original size and cropped very slightly.  It's had a minor contrast adjustment but has not been noise-processed or enhanced in any other way, so it's barely out of the developing tank...  I think many here will recognise the background stars, and thereby also understand why only some of them show noticeable trails...    The flare was a -8.1, by the way - I drove about 60km to get right under it..

[Sus_pilot]

Very nice. I like the resulting composition.  That's one of the most visually pleasing flare photos I've ever seen.

[Zakalwe]

Nice iridium flare image!

It does make me chuckle a bit when you hear HBs banging on about stars appearing on photos. it's clear that the vast majority of them have never tried to take images of the sky. if they did, then they'd realise just how blooming hard it is!

The other thing that stands out is when jokers like Weisbecker think that a smattering (or even a lot) of terrestrial daytime photography knowledge makes them experts in night-time photography. It doesn't. In fact, such knowledge tends to be a hindrance as the two disciplines are so very different. To get any sort of detail in night-time astro-images can take many hours of exposure.
This image that I am working on has over 8 hours exposure in it, and it probably needs another 4-5

[ChrLz]

Nice iridium flare image!

Thanks - nice deep sky image!!  I'm afraid I'll never get to that level of astrophotography - my eyes glaze over when you say it takes hours - I'm into the highest form of efficiency, which is of course .. laziness!

I'll let you dedicated guys take the really hard stuff..

[Kiwi]

Forgive me for this slightly/almost/off/ontopic contribution. But I'm excited to have finally got an Iridium flare pic (less than an hour ago - woohooo!), and hopefully this might show I have at least a little expertise with photographing stars and stuff...

Well, it looks as if we're not going to get any sensible and courteous replies from AllanCW, so we might as well discuss something else.

Nice shot.  I've seen heaps of Iridium flares -- quite a few just by accident. The first time I looked for a -8 flare it was heavily overcast, but I still watched and didn't see the satellite, but briefly saw a beam of light coming through the clouds a bit below the right location.

Looking closely at your photo and taking some rough measurements, there's a little dot in it which might just be the bright centre of the magnificent Omega Centauri globular cluster.

Here's a closer look at Astronomy Picture of the Day:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100331.html

And, while not quite as pretty, this darker exposure gives a bit better idea of the 10 million stars in it:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110615.html

In both cases, click on the captioned photo to see a bigger copy.

Omega Centauri is usually a naked-eye sight from the back of my house, but tonight the moon is too bright and the sky a little hazy so I couldn't see it after about a minute outside.  Under better conditions I can usually dark-adapt sufficiently to see it about 12-18 seconds after getting outside from a normally-lit room.

[Zakalwe]

Looking closely at your photo and taking some rough measurements, there's a little dot in it which might just be the bright centre of the magnificent Omega Centauri globular cluster.

Yep, it's the right part of the sky:

[Kiwi]

It does make me chuckle a bit when you hear HBs banging on about stars appearing on photos. it's clear that the vast majority of them have never tried to take images of the sky... when jokers like Weisbecker think that a smattering (or even a lot) of terrestrial daytime photography knowledge makes them experts in night-time photography. It doesn't. In fact, such knowledge tends to be a hindrance as the two disciplines are so very different. To get any sort of detail in night-time astro-images can take many hours of exposure.

This image that I am working on has over 8 hours exposure in it, and it probably needs another 4-5

You must be a saint to have the patience to work at that. I prefer to look at other people's photos instead of taking my own, even though I live in a near-dark sky area under all the southern hemisphere goodies.

My astronomy program and books don't go as deep as the objects in your photo, so I'm wondering what the dark orange object at 3 o'clock from NGC 3718 is.  If you doubled the radius of the green circle around NGC 3718 in the smaller copy, it would probably reach the object.

Is it a more distant edge-on galaxy, or an aberration? And what exactly is the fuzzy white pair at 11 o'clock from that object?

[Zakalwe]

You must be a saint to have the patience to work at that. I prefer to look at other people's photos instead of taking my own, even though I live in a near-dark sky area under all the southern hemisphere goodies.

My astronomy program and books don't go as deep as the objects in your photo, so I'm wondering what the dark orange object at 3 o'clock from NGC 3718 is.  If you doubled the radius of the green circle around NGC 3718 in the smaller copy, it would probably reach the object.

Is it a more distant edge-on galaxy, or an aberration? And what exactly is the fuzzy white pair at 11 o'clock from that object?

Thanks very much. A big part of the data acquisition is automated...my observatory is controlled from inside my house. Once it's all up and running then it's just a monitoring job. The hard work is in the post processing...there can be as many hours put into processing the data as acquiring it.

The objects to the right of NGC3718 is the Hickson 56 group, which lies about 400 million light years from us.

Regarding the "fuzzy white object" is that the galaxy in the lower part of the image (NGC 3729)? Thats another galaxy that is gravitationally interacting with NGC3718. Or do you mean the blob that lies "below" the Hickson group? if so, then thats the snappily named galaxy SDSS 588013384351678583

The most distant object that I've found in the image is SDSS 587732136993816762  which is over 1.1 billion light years distant. Not too bad for a bloke in cloudy Lancashire with an 80mm refractor in his back yard. If you're interested then you can see more of my image here

[smartcooky]

Omega Centauri is usually a naked-eye sight from the back of my house, but tonight the moon is too bright and the sky a little hazy so I couldn't see it after about a minute outside.  Under better conditions I can usually dark-adapt sufficiently to see it about 12-18 seconds after getting outside from a normally-lit room.

My guide for finding Omega Centauri is to

1 locate the tail star of the Crux
2.locate the outer of the two "pointers"
3. Imagine them to the Base of an equilateral triangle with its Apex to the north
4. You will find Omega Cen there Apex of that triangle would be.

Works every time!   

[Morgul]

Rather they only frequent the conspiratorial "yes man" forums like David Icke, Cluesforum, Above Top Secret and Godlike Productions, where they will find like-minded conspiritards only too willing to be devoted disciples who hang on their every word.

Ugh.  Thanks, Smartcooky.  Thanks a lot.  Not being familiar with all of those places you mentioned, especially cluesforum, I decided to go take a look at them the other day.  I've had a splitting headache and a case of nausea ever since.  The ignorance that runs rampant on those forums is unbelievable.

I just don't understand some people.