Colonsushi is correct. There are no laser beams coming from the moon, there is no laser transmitter there. What is there is a laser target that reflects any laser that hits it back to the ground base for the experiment. Now, before your head explodes, by stating ,"But the moon is revolving, yada yada yada." The moon revolves at the same speed at which it orbits the earth. so the laser target reflects the laser beam fired at it to the same place every time. BTW. the moon moves one to two inches away from the earth every year. We should not worry, because it is estimated that it will be 50 billion years before the moon leaves us to travel across space. cylemessenger is not going to be educated by anyone and just wants to argue. Ignore him. We know that 12 Americans have walked on the moon's surface, a very small fraternity indeed.

we went to the moon, people. on july 20th, 1969, neil armstrong, buzz aldrin. video was beamed from the moon to earth. it happened.

back then there was no such thing as "photoshop" either. i know, i know, i'm sure there was some sort of way nasa could have staged the entire thing, but really, why would they waste millions of dollars, effort, and time to fake something like a moon landing?

we also need to keep in mind that the space race occured during the 1960s, a time very stressful on our nation. we had the human rights struggles and the vietnam war. it was a rough time on every american, including the astronauts and the nasa engineers. to some of those americans, the thought of a human being venturing out of the realm of our little world and stepping onto another helped connect us. the moon landing, in a sense, brought hope. why would nasa want to take that hope away by faking the whole thing? it seems illogical to me.

in my head i can see where some people think it's a fake (it's an otherwordly idea), but i my heart i know that nasa would not gear everyone up for something as amazing as a moon landing and fake the entire thing. for what? fame? that's my only guess. it's been almost fifty years and i've never heard any conspiracy proof.

think what you like. we went to the moon and back. that's just my opinion.

I saw this and decided I should see what was being said. You all have confirmed to me that some subjects should not be discussed on a full stomach. Please understand that even when the NASA Lunar orbiter takes its images of the moon in late 2008 their will still be people who will call the images fake. Just as when the European lunar probe images are released the Europeans will be charged as part of the conspiracy.

The laser reflectors left on the Moon in the ALSEP packages are called Corner Cube RetroReflectors. They are a special form of prism that reflects any light beam from any angle directly back in the direction it came from. It's the only form of optical device that would require no active orientation device to correctly align the reflection of a beam sent from Earth so that it returned to Earth. The reflectors just have to sit there and they can be used by anyone on Earth with a powerful laser who wants to do the experiment. It can be done anytime the Moon is visible in the observer's sky. Since someone dug up this thread from before I joined the board I'll add this-The Moon landings happened, they were witnessed by 1/6th of the people on Earth (anyone who could find a TV)live. The technology to fake the landings enough to fool a sophisticated observer didn't exist then and it doesn't exist now. Half a million people who worked on Apollo would have to be in on the conspiracy and have kept quiet for all these years. Thinking the landings didn't happen is MONUMENTALLY STUPID! Get over it.

Switching this 180 degrees, it would be interesting to see how close the Mythbusters could get to faking the famous shots though. I really hope the lunar orbiter takes some really nice images of our rocky neighbour.

Wish we had a space agency worth talking about

Another super myth...
That the poster should have reveiwed the million previous posts...

The Myth Mod will shut down people for being rude, offensive, etc...

This Moon Conspiracy thing tpos the LIST. Why does the moderator allow such offensive posts?

As`a Naval Aviator, I take offense to this Moon Conspiracy nonsense. A graduate of my College was killed training for a Moon mission. Why are 911 sites...shut down...but these are not.

I don't think the moon landing was faked mainly because I don't think the government would have much to gain from such a thing.
On the other hand though it would be interesting to see if amateurs on a limited budget could create a realistic moon landing video in a studio.
If anything it would prove or disprove that such a thing would be possible

I'm a little confused here, I'm failing to see why you are so offended by my post macdaddy.

I am in no way suggesting that the US (please note my screenname and hence my location) did not go and cruise around on the moon, simply that as Poetic says it would be interesting to see how close the Mythbusters could get to producing a lunar rover video for example.

nobody seems to be lending much credence to the consipricy theorists on this board from my reading.

We (in the UK) have little space industry to speak of FYI, certainly no manned flights. Our astronoughts have had to become US citizens to get into space!

I keep seeing a common statement that no telescope on earth or in orbit has the resolution to see objects on the moon. Yet we have satellites orbiting earth that can read the numbers on a liscense plate going 70 miles an hour. I find it incredibly hard to belive that we neither have anything in stock nor willing to build anything that could image the moon like we have our planet and the surrounding planets and their moons. What is the government afraid of? Is there something on the moon we arent supposed to see? Im not saying it was faked or that little green men live there. But it seems extremely dubious that after imaging everything else in the surrounding million miles plus that we cant spend a little money to get a good look at our own moon from time to time. If we indeed plan on putting a colony on the moon, then it might behoove us to be able to take a peek at them from time to time to see how they are doing. Not to mention anthropologist would just kill for a chance to gander at the moon for a bit. How bout a simple rover like the ones on Mars? The cost would be a fraction of what it cost to send them to Mars. I know why they dont. There is a big sign on the darkside of the moon that says 0001 Pearly Gates Drive. Thats right the moon is where God is. Big phat house all blinged out. LOL... Seriously though. Why not show us whats up there?

Spy satellites can't read the letters on a license plate going 70 mph. That violates the rules of optics. When you hear that a spy satellite might have 3" resolution what that means is that it can distinguish a white line 3 inches wide from a dark background or vice-versa. It doesn't mean they can read the letters on a plate or the print on a newspaper. Google the Dawes Limit. Even at that, the spy satellites are somewhere around 150 to 250 miles up. That is a huge difference from the 240,000 miles to the Moon. Nobody has been interested in doing what you're suggesting for some time because we have photographed the Moon repeatedly from 4 feet away and 40 to 50 miles away. Right now there are satellites orbiting the Moon from several nations taking photographs and no one's turned up anything that's really at odds with prior photos. All that being said, in October of this year, the US will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter into Lunar Orbit to survey new sites for future landings and do other research. This spacecraft will be able to image the Moon's surface down to about .5 meters. This will be more than adequate to see the landing sites. Not much of anything has changed on the Moon in the last 40 years so there was little point in going to the trouble of proving something happened that all educated people know happened. It's actually considerably harder to land on the Moon than on Mars. A Lunar Lander has to carry the fuel to completely slow it's approach to the surface while a Mars Lander has a number of options for entry that don't require much fuel; aerobraking, parachutes, cushion balloons, and several untried concepts.

Dfez, you are mostly right, just one thing you got wrong... Yes spy satellites can read a liscense plate. Of course the 70 mph was a bit of a n exaggeration. But I have first hand experience in the abilities of spy sats. And I can say beyond a shadow of doubt that in the early 90's, we could read highway signs with no trouble. Rumors at that time had it that it wasnt going to be long before optics had reached the point of being able to literally read a liscense plate. It wasnt that big of a jump and now that its been nearly 20 years since, I dont find it to be that big of a leap of logic to assume that they have indeed improved by that much. Its been a while since I have been in a place to witness these capabilities, but I still maintain contact with those that do. Although I no longer posess the clearance that I once did there are a few things that one can read between the lines and understand. With that being said I can assure you that there are technologies at our disposal that arent common anymore. Wonders have been achieved with light amplification and laser imaging. Along with optical sensing advancements we can do alot more than once thought. Imagine this if you will, if google can employ a satellite that can tell the brand of bikini people wear in Austrailia, do you honestly think the US Govenrment could do any less? Trust me when you think you know everything there is to know, you turn the page and find a whole new world to explore.

If they can do much better than .02 arc second resolution, they are employing magic. No matter what you do to an optical system, it has a level of diffraction that you can't get past no matter how much you magnify it. I know what went into making the Hubble mirror 1/97 wavelength and I just don't think that you could make a system much better than that; especially when it's launched into orbit. I'd buy that you might be able to read a road sign along the Interstate and that would be with perfect seeing. I honestly don't think Google can approach what you are claiming from space. I can just make out which of my cars is parked in front of my house and that is only by the color.

I meant common knowledge not common anymore. Anyway, telescopic lens technology isnt the end of imaging technology. This much I have seen first hand, snd that was nearly 20 years ago. As for reading a liscense plate, well we could tell you what state it was from in '94, that is if we knew what a plate looked like from that state. We still couldnt tell you what the digits were though. We lost resolution when we tried color optics, but when we used b/w it was significantly improved. Digitization was tried as well but back then digital resolution only made things blocky and pixilized which ended up degrading the ability to get refined photographic images. Suffice it to say there were technologies in the works when i left the facility in 99 that were significantly better. I myself was beginning to test a crude laser imaging sensor that allowed for higher degrees of resolution between light and dark from father distances. Problem we found with it was that it was too heavy and demanded way too much power for our needs at the time. So no not magic, just a different way of doing the same stuff.

The moon landing was real. It just didnt happen the way most people think it did. first of all when the astronauts first got into space they saw UFO's to which there are recordings video/audio of then saying "Bogey at 10o'clock high". Also when Armstrong first stepped on the moon he didnt say the "one small step for man, on giant leap for mankind" It was "Who else has been here?" supposedly there are roads and small structures on the moon, so obviously they couldnt show the actual footage they had to make a fake.

dear lord why?

The program which busts all the wacko conspiracy theories on the National Geographic Channel is on currently and will be on again tonight at 1 AM EST (early sat. morning) and it will be on again Sunday Feb.24 at 12 PM EST. Watch and learn.

quote:

Originally posted by myth_finder1:
The moon landing was real. It just didnt happen the way most people think it did. first of all when the astronauts first got into space they saw UFO's to which there are recordings video/audio of then saying "Bogey at 10o'clock high". Also when Armstrong first stepped on the moon he didnt say the "one small step for man, on giant leap for mankind" It was "Who else has been here?" supposedly there are roads and small structures on the moon, so obviously they couldnt show the actual footage they had to make a fake.

Well, it's a tie!

Wins first prize for both humor, unintentional category, and gullibility, Feb 23, 2008.

Congratulations to all those who also submitted entries on the board, but this one is head and shoulders the absolute winner.

Yay! I win!!

quote:

Yes spy satellites can read a liscense plate.

Uh, no, they can't.

quote:

I have first hand experience in the abilities of spy sats. And I can say beyond a shadow of doubt that in the early 90's, we could read highway signs with no trouble.

No, you don't, and no, you can't. Information on reconnaissance capabilities is classified, and revealing such capabilities is strictly forbidden by your clearance agreement - which you would know, if you had one.

You would also know that satellites, for the most part, image pretty much straight down, making reading of vertical signs and license plates problematic, at best, even if it were possible.

Finally, you would know that Google, despite it's labeling, doesn't use satellite imagery for its highest resolution images; when you get down to street level or so, they switch to aerial imagery. The satellite imagery they employ is nicely and transparently intermixed with their higher resolution aerial imagery, but it is used strictly for overview purposes, with resolutions of approximately 1 meter.