NASA photographic record of Manned Moonlanding:Is there evidence of fabrication?

[Bob B.]

I realize I don't know it all and education is a journey and not a destination

Education is a very fun and rewarding journey.  I am constantly investigating new things just for the sake of learning.  It is one of my favorite pastimes.  I've been teaching myself about space technology and space science as a hobby for 20 years and it's been a blast.  It probably won't stop until I drop dead (hopefully not for a very long time). 

[Luke Pemberton]

What I did say is that I can prove to anyone who is not  willfully denying what has been proved is that in the specific circumstances of Apollo, the photographs claimed to have been taken on the moon were not.

You claimed that the photographs would be fogged, yet are unable to explain why. Why should the film be fogged?

[Romulus]

All I've asked in your absence is why you claimed the two photographs you posted on the first page were in large part "totally undeveloped".  You haven't answered that question.  Would you please do so?  Thank you in advance.

Fair question. In the photos posted, there are large areas of what appear to be a shadow. In that shadow there is very little if any light exposure of the film in the photo. If radiation fogging were there in even small amounts, photos like this would reveal it.

I've shot and processed a fair amount of Ektachrome (btw, the spelling really does matter, since it's indicative of how well you've researched a subject) in my life.  I've shot formats ranging from 70mm in a borrowed Hasselblad to 120/220 in a variety of TLR cameras, to what seem like miles of the stuff in 35mm, mostly Canons.  I can also tell you that the range of the film was kind of narrow and unforgiving, unlike a negative film such as Kodacolor II or the pro-series films, such as EKTAR 100.  You had to be sure to use fill lighting with the Ektachrome series when shooting in a studio setting.

With that, I am wholly unfamiliar as to how one would "partially develop" (process) roll film in either a manual film tank or automated processing machine.  Further, I'm not sure how one could partially process even sheet film, except, perhaps something like Kodalith (monochrome product insensitive to red light) where one could see the image forming.

Finally, if film is fogged, it's generally fogged all over.  In the images selected, if they were fogged by radiation, I would expect to see streaks of light gray or a gray haze over the entire scene, not just the shadowed areas.

Please respond specifically to these points, Romulus.
[/quote]

I have many demands to respond but you ask, so I'll try. My underlying "theory" here is that radiation fogging woudl be easiest to detect in portions of the film negative that were unexposed to light, or only exposed to very low levels, as opposed other areas of the negative. this is true, isn't  it ?  (I already know the answer BTW)                         

[ka9q]

I have the entire collection in the form of an original 'Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moonm' (at a very good price I might add!), as well as another smaller book 'The moon as viewed by lunar orbiter', which has Farouk El Baz as co-author, is easy to find second hand and not too expensive. I'd recommend the latter as a budget purchase for any enthusiast of Apollo era space exploration

The images are remarkably free of defect, the only issues seemingly from problems in developing the film rather than radiation damage of any kind. The detail in some of the high resolution ones is extremely good (in some cases comparable with the LRO).

If you like Lunar Orbiter, you'll love the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP). Several years ago, a guy named Dennis Wingo learned that NASA still had the tapes of the raw receiver output signals from the Lunar Orbiters as they scanned their films. Dennis realized that he could make much higher quality images by directly digitizing these tapes.

Digital imagery wasn't around in the 1960s, so all the Lunar Orbiter pictures you see in books are multi-generation copies of photographic prints generated from the received signals. At the time, the tapes were only useful as backups should an optical printer fail in real time. Very similar backup tapes were made during the Apollo 11 EVA, but unfortunately those tapes were recycled in the early 1980s so we can't do for them what Dennis has done for Lunar Orbiter.

He convinced NASA to give him all the LO tapes plus some funding to set up shop in an abandoned McDonalds' at NASA Ames. He finished digitizing them all a while ago. Their quality is indeed dramatically better than the older versions made from photographic prints. Go to www.moonviews.com to see some of their work; it's also been incorporated into the regular NASA planetary databases.

Dennis and his organization also conceived the ICE/ISEE-3 Reboot Project last year. I was involved in that project so I visited their site in August. Big piles of videotape cans were still stacked up around their McDonalds' building, and several heavily rebuilt 2" quad videotape recorders were still operating. 2" quad was the first type of videotape invented and the broadcast standard through the 1970s. The LO recorders didn't actually record standard video; they were modified to operate as wideband instrumentation recorders.

The LOIRP was quite successful and a real bargain for NASA. They supported the project because lunar cratering rates are a topic of scientific interest, and by comparing today's LRO images to high quality LO images from 50 years ago those rates can be easily determined.

[JayUtah]

I do not believe photography in space is impossible and I never said anything remotely resembling that.Did I?

You say the photography purported by the Apollo astronauts is impossible for radiation and thermal reasons.  You deferred the thermal argument for later.  You attempted a quantitative argument with respect to the x-ray component of radiation by citing David Groves, but your followup to the rebuttals against it are mired in questions you refuse to acknowledge.  You have attempted no quantitative argument with respect to the particle nature of radiation.

[Abaddon]

My very first job was a lithographic technician making printing plates.

The negatives were pure black and transparent. Underexposed for me then was when the black was not solid. Over exposed was when the fine detail was lost to the black.

Simplistic, I know but I wasn't working with colour and that was the extent of my photographic knowledge.

Close or completely irrelevant?

There is little or nothing which will give you a finer appreciation for colour than operating in a print environment. I bear the scars on my back from years ago.

[Romulus]

What I did say is that I can prove to anyone who is not  willfully denying what has been proved is that in the specific circumstances of Apollo, the photographs claimed to have been taken on the moon were not.

You claimed that the photographs would be fogged, yet are unable to explain why. Why should the film be fogged?

It's really simple. It takes only minute quantities of radiation to  fog film. It is simply impossible for the Apollo film to have completely avoided any damage from radiation fogging, and yet there is zero evidence of it in the places where it would be easiest to detect even if it were very very minor.

[Sus_pilot]

Since I jazzed a quote, bear with me.  I'll grant that "light (as in "not severe") fogging might be easier to detect in a dark area, I would contend that it would be evident elsewhere, such as contrasting areas of the Mylar, etc.

I am still curious as to how one would under develop portions of an Ektachrome transparency, and know, in advance where to do it.

[Chief]

I believe you. and I have respect for a man  THAT CAN, and does, and doesn't pretend. But face it, an aircraft engineer is not necessarily educated in the fields required to understand the  radiation enviroment in space and it's effects. I have been doing it for close to 40 years  now and I learn something totally new on a regular basis. As I said before, Mr Windley seems to believe education is a destination he has reached and I have never journeyed to. He is wrong. The difference between myself and  Mr Windley (or Bob) is that I realize I don't know it all and education is a journey and not a destination where one can claim victory because he is at the "finish line" and you haven't reached it yet. To be blunt, Mr.WIndley is aware he is lying.



I have been schooled by people who have no education at all when they brought up details I had never noticed, an dI've noticed some of the most educated turn out to be dull ,boring windbags..                       

I think relative intelligence is difficult to conceal. People like Mr.Windley and Bob have very narrow ranges of expertise, but when they step out of them their ignorance and inadequacies become readily apparent and they feel the need to begin the ad hominem attacks side stepping and handwaving.

Actually an Aircraft Engineer has no need to know about radiation in space at all. That's a bit of a wasted statement. For my personal interest I would like to know more.

I afraid to say that, even if Jay and Bob have narrow ranges of expertise, which I cannot comment on, I don't get the impression that either of them consider themselves 'completely educated'.

Considering they are specialists in their fields, and again, have put the theory to the test. They may know more than you on this subject.

If you see a red car but you decide it might not be red, but experts in the field say it is red because of their experience and knowledge, it does not mean that they have to keep learning more about it to be sure. The car is red. It is a fact and it was theie knowledge and experience which lead them to that conclusion.

Now if you still insist that the car is not red, you need to prove it.

[JayUtah]

Not to be unnecessarily insulting, but I personally find the author to not be credible...

Then show what part of his work is in error.  It's easy simply to call someone a liar.  That's just words.  To show someone is a liar requires you to understand and show that what he produced was dishonest.  Do so, please.

...and I do not consider that book to be hard evidence.

Changing horses.  You claim the figures are not published, but they are published.  Whether you believe them or not is a separate matter.  Will you withdraw the claim?

[JayUtah]

It's really simple. It takes only minute quantities of radiation to  fog film.

How much?  Give me a number and show how you derived that number.

It is simply impossible for the Apollo film to have completely avoided any damage from radiation fogging...

You haven't shown this.  You've only shown that you read Groves and believed him without question, and that you do not know the flux densities of solar emissions across the spectrum.

[Luke Pemberton]

It's really simple.

Then explain it to us if it so simple, but please offer quantification as that is how radiation sciences are measured, according to well defined parameters.

It takes only minute quantities of radiation to  fog film.

How much is minute? Do you account for the photon energies?

It is simply impossible for the Apollo film to have completely avoided any damage from radiation fogging, and yet there is zero evidence of it in the places where it would be easiest to detect even if it were very very minor.

Why is it impossible?

[Romulus]

I do not believe photography in space is impossible and I never said anything remotely resembling that.Did I?

You say the photography purported by the Apollo astronauts is impossible for radiation and thermal reasons.  You deferred the thermal argument for later.  You attempted a quantitative argument with respect to the x-ray component of radiation by citing David Groves, but your followup to the rebuttals against it are mired in questions you refuse to acknowledge.  You have attempted no quantitative argument with respect to the particle nature of radiation.

I am not using David Groves for anything but to establish something as fact that we should all already know, that very tiny amounts of x ray radiation exposure can be detected by film and will be evident in developed photographs from negatives exposed to radiation. You are carefully skirting admitting this. The effects of x radiation on chemical emulsion film is how it was discovered in the first place. Many dosimeters work on this principal. Admit it, X radiation fogs photographic film in detectable ways in very tiny amounts and there is not a single example of radiation fogging in the photographs from Apollo where it should be most evident.Putting aside personal interests, this seems a bit suspicious to you, doesn't it Mr.Windley?

[Bob B.]

It is simply impossible for the Apollo film to have completely avoided any damage from radiation fogging

You keep saying that but we're still waiting for you to provide some quantitative poof.  So far you've presented nothing that supports your ascertain.

[Romulus]

It's really simple.

Then explain it to us if it so simple, but please offer quantification as that is how radiation sciences are measured, according to well defined parameters.

It takes only minute quantities of radiation to  fog film.

How much is minute? Do you account for the photon energies?

It is simply impossible for the Apollo film to have completely avoided any damage from radiation fogging, and yet there is zero evidence of it in the places where it would be easiest to detect even if it were very very minor.

Why is it impossible?

X radiation of any wavelength is very damaging to film in minute quantities. X rays were discovered with their effects on  photographic film .