Why the Moon landing couldn't have been faked

[mikeman7918]

I am a firm believer that Apollo could not have been faked, especially with 1969 technology.  That belief is not blind though, I can prove it:

At the time of Apollo NASA's Kennedy Space Center there were about 400,000 employees, the vast majority of which were hired to build rockets.  NASA also had tens of thousands of private contractors, and if each one only had 20 people in them building rocket parts (which is a long shot because Boeing made the entire first stage and many other companies made huge contributions too, Boeing also has many of it's own private contractors) then that still amounts to well over 1,000,000 people who build the Saturn V's.  If Apollo were a hoax then all these people would have to be in on the conspiracy.  I don't think I need to explain why this is ridiculous.

The only way around this is if NASA built fully functional Saturn V's (funny functional because there are many intelligent rocket scientists at NASA who would notice if the rocket couldn't do it's mission), launched the rockets, and then didn't go to the Moon instead faking it.  If you believe that this happened then I am at a loss for words.

Another thing to note is the technology at the time.  Even modern space movies like Gravity and Interstellar look nothing like real space travel.  Here are images from 2001 a Space Odyssey compared with images from the Apollo missions:

2001 a Space Odyssey:


Apollo:


2001 a Space Odyssey:  (Note the lack of reflections)


Apollo:  (Note the reflections)


2001 a Space Odyssey:


Apollo:


2001 a Space Odyssey was made shortly before the Apollo missions and it represents the best video faking technology that they had at the time.  Real space images look very similar to ones taken during Apollo despite video editing technology changing and improving over time.

[onebigmonkey]

Just a small point - the second photo showing an Apollo EVA is a mock-up. The panorama is a genuine one from Apollo 17, but the image of Earth in the lunar sky is actually from the Apollo 8 Earthrise.

I've done quite a bit on my own website showing that the special effects in science fiction at the time were not up to the standards claimed by people who say it didn't happen. The most convincing images are always the ones using actual Apollo or Gemini images

[Echnaton]

Welcome to the forum, mikeman.  We generally ask everyone who posts official NASA Apollo photos in any kind of discussion about "proof" to use the reference number.  It helps others to find the image at high res or in different scans from the one posted that might reveal more details.

So for this image, it would be noted as AS11-44-6665

[Glom]

But 2001 was British made. The Americans had better faking technology. Of course.

[sts60]

Hi, mikeman7918.  Welcome to the forum.

One correction and an additional note: the total peak Apollo program staffing was about 400,000, not the staff at KSC/Cape Canaveral.  The bulk of this was contractor staffing.  (It so happens I am a NASA contractor.)

While many of these people were literally building the Saturn V, or parts thereof, there were many others building the Command, Service, and Lunar Modules, or working out guidance theory, analyzing the space environment and Moon with unmanned probes, or designing and building EVA suits, or doing flight planning, preparing simulations, or constructing and checking out the gargantuan Vehicle Assembly Building, launch pads, Mobile Launchers, and Crawlers.  Or setting up a planet-wide communications and tracking network.  Or doing many other things.

These people knew their part of the work was sound.  But more importantly, a great portion of these 400,000 understood the larger mission context - they had to know in order to do their jobs.  The ridiculous cartoon promulgated by hoax believers, that only a handful of higher-ups knew what was really going on and kept an army of wrench-turners in the dark, betrays a profound ignorance of how space projects work in the real world.

Moreover, while there is a staggering amount of documentation and artifacts and scientific results corroborating the Apollo record, along with a detailed accounting for the money spent, there is not one shred of evidence pointing to a massive effort that would simultaneously be required to pull off a hoax - even if it was possible to do so, which it wasn't. 

The kicker, though, is that not only would a hoax have to have been good enough to fool all the engineers and technicians and scientists working on Apollo, it would also have to magically anticipate the scientific and technical advances of decades to come, worldwide.  That's simply delusional.

[smartcooky]

Hi, mikeman7918.  Welcome to the forum.

One correction and an additional note: the total peak Apollo program staffing was about 400,000, not the staff at KSC/Cape Canaveral.  The bulk of this was contractor staffing.  (It so happens I am a NASA contractor.)

While many of these people were literally building the Saturn V, or parts thereof, there were many others building the Command, Service, and Lunar Modules, or working out guidance theory, analyzing the space environment and Moon with unmanned probes, or designing and building EVA suits, or doing flight planning, preparing simulations, or constructing and checking out the gargantuan Vehicle Assembly Building, launch pads, Mobile Launchers, and Crawlers.  Or setting up a planet-wide communications and tracking network.  Or doing many other things.

These people knew their part of the work was sound.  But more importantly, a great portion of these 400,000 understood the larger mission context - they had to know in order to do their jobs.  The ridiculous cartoon promulgated by hoax believers, that only a handful of higher-ups knew what was really going on and kept an army of wrench-turners in the dark, betrays a profound ignorance of how space projects work in the real world.

Moreover, while there is a staggering amount of documentation and artifacts and scientific results corroborating the Apollo record, along with a detailed accounting for the money spent, there is not one shred of evidence pointing to a massive effort that would simultaneously be required to pull off a hoax - even if it was possible to do so, which it wasn't. 

The kicker, though, is that not only would a hoax have to have been good enough to fool all the engineers and technicians and scientists working on Apollo, it would also have to magically anticipate the scientific and technical advances of decades to come, worldwide.  That's simply delusional.

Just to add that they also were not all Americans either. An appreciable number of those 400,000 were from other countries. Apollo had to be tracked all around the world, there were DSN (Deep Space Network) tracking stations in Madrid, Spain and at the CSIRO facility in Parkes, NSW Australia.

[smartcooky]

I am a firm believer that Apollo could not have been faked, especially with 1969 technology.  That belief is not blind though, I can prove it:

At the time of Apollo NASA's Kennedy Space Center there were about 400,000 employees, the vast majority of which were hired to build rockets.  NASA also had tens of thousands of private contractors, and if each one only had 20 people in them building rocket parts (which is a long shot because Boeing made the entire first stage and many other companies made huge contributions too, Boeing also has many of it's own private contractors) then that still amounts to well over 1,000,000 people who build the Saturn V's.  If Apollo were a hoax then all these people would have to be in on the conspiracy.  I don't think I need to explain why this is ridiculous.

The only way around this is if NASA built fully functional Saturn V's (funny functional because there are many intelligent rocket scientists at NASA who would notice if the rocket couldn't do it's mission), launched the rockets, and then didn't go to the Moon instead faking it.  If you believe that this happened then I am at a loss for words.

Another thing to note is the technology at the time.  Even modern space movies like Gravity and Interstellar look nothing like real space travel.

Even better mikeman, is that they had no way to film it

If you haven't seen these videos, you should watch them... they are entertaining, funny and very educational about video technology and how, even if NASA could have set up a fake studio of the lunar landing sites and the in-space portions of the account, they simply could not have filmed it

The second is his reply to Jarrah White's rebuttal of teh first video. Its the best takedown of The Blunder I have seen.

[bknight]

I loved those two videos.   I agree with you on his debunking ofJarrah.  Classic indeed