h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I first searched for information on this subject I searched under Moon, and consequently did not find your article. I therefore set about writing one of my own asking the questions that most concerned me. Although I have now found your article it does not answer all the questions I raised in mine. I would therefore be very much intersted to hear your comments on the questions I raised - my article is A661808 - Moon Landings Fact or Fiction. I am not fully convinced one way or the other at the moment but I am curious to know more about it.

Hi there Suzie Wand, It's good to meet you.

My bit on the alleged moon landing hoax isn't yet finished so I'm afraid you won't find all the answers there yet. I just add a bit now and then after researching it, but it's slow going as it takes second place to my attempts to finish my h2 uni project on the Apollo Missions.
If you've also seen them then you'll probably realise that I'm not in any doubt that it all really happened, but then I was lucky enough to have seen those events (on TV) at the time, so I'm what you might call biased.
The questions that you raise are all ones that are raised as 'evidence' of a hoax by conspiracy theorists and all have relatively straightforward answers. There is a lot of info on them on the www and I'll try to find you some links and post them later.

In the meanwhile I'll try to answer them briefly and I hope that I can convince you that the Americans really did pull off one of the most amazing technical feats of the 20th Century.

I'll have a bit of a think about your questions and get back to you when I've put something together. In the meanwhile consider one question that caused quite a bit of embarressment to one particular CT on a phone-in show some years ago. It was a question he couldn't answer and it was...
Dave Scott, commander of Apollo 15 performed a 'gotcha' on the lunar surface while standing in front of the lem when he dropped a feather and a hammer to demonstrate Galileo's theories on gravity. The hammer and the feather fell slowly together to the surface. How would that be possible on Earth?
All the best,
A.M.

Hello agin Suzie Wand.
I've posted a couple of website references to the bottom of my conspiracy page as they are not permitted in the forums. I hope they help.
Meanwhile to answer your questions as best I can

a) CT's say the American flag is seen to be waving in the wind because the film taken of the event has been shot in an earth bound studio and has been caught by a stray gust. Oddly enough, each of the pieces of film they cite has one thing in common which is not mentioned by the CT, that is that an astronaut is holding the flag or its post. This is being a bit selective with the facts. The waving material of the flag was just a consequence of the astronauts efforts to 'screw' the post into the surface where it naturally followed the twist being applied to it. The surface material (regolith) was extremely compacted and all crews had difficulties pushing into it. Buzz Aldrin had difficulty inserting his flag post more than a few centimetres. Later he was unable to hammer a core sample tube in further than a foot or so. (The flag blew down when Eagle took off)

b) Engine noise. No engine noise can be heard on the transmissions. That's a consequence of several factors. Both the descent and ascent engines of the lem were operating in a vacuum. They were outside the pressure cabin that housed the astronauts. Basic physics will tell you that sound can't travel in a vacuum. The only possibility of any sound being picked up in the cabin would be that transmitted thro' the framework of the lem's body. Even then, the interior of the cabin was only at about 4 psi. which is about one third atmospheric pressure. The lower the pressure the greater difficulty there is in transmitting sound. Also, during the time the engines were firing both occupants were always suited up. The microphone was inside the helmet and insulated to an extent from external noise by the pressure bowl. The microphones in the helmets only picked up sound from their immediate vicinity, in this case from inside the helmet. In most cases the microphones also had a 'vox' facility which means that it only transmitted as it received sound at a certain level, that is when the astronaut was speaking directly into it. Altogether quite enough to cut out any residual engine noise.

c)There are various aspects to the 'altered' photographs charge, but the 'crosshairs' one is another example of an exposure problem. The crosshairs are formed on the photographic film by a plate immediately adjacent to the film causing under exposure. In the cases where it seems to disappear behind the object being photographed, that object is always white and in strong contrast to its surroundings and reflected sunlight. This combination tends to 'bleed' through and mostly obliterate the crosshair. Enlargement of the photograph and closer examination usually shows the crosshair to be present in a diminished form, but it's a matter of degree how much is left.

d) Why, if they didn't really land on the Moon, did the Russians and other nations with space tracking equipment not come forward at the time?
This question really contains its own answer, doesn't it? The USSR was quite capable of tracking a spacecraft to the moon and at the height of the 'cold war' would have been unlikely to miss a chance to blow the gaff on their only other competitor in a race to the moon. Other countries, notably Australia Spain and to a lesser degree the UK were involved in the Apollo program but their tracking stations were manned by their own nationals. I think its unlikely that they would have been party to a hoax of this nature. Clearly, non of them thought it was a hoax.

e)Was NASA capable of staging such a hoax.
Capable as in technically? Well possibly. They did have 28 billion dollars to play with. But they would not have been able to keep it under wraps for the last thirty year. Of the 400,000 people involved in the Apollo program, not one has come forward to provide evidence of a hoax or cover-up.
Capable as in ethically? - definitely not.
Anyway, it would probably be easier to fly to the moon.

f) Could they photograph the materials left on the moon.
There are no telescopes on Earth that could get down to that degree of resolution. NASA probably 'could' place a satellite in a low enough lunar orbit to photograph some of the landing sites, but why would they? At present there is no funding for lunar exploration, although I think there is another probe mooted in a few years, but it isn't for that purpose. If the only reason for doing so would be to try to convince a few people who can't in the main get their basic facts right there wouldn't be a whole lot of point and would probably find that the CT's would deny their authenticity anyway.

g) If they were successful, why have there been no attempts to build a base on the Moon?
In a word... Cost. The Apollo program got twelve men to the surface of the moon and the maximum time they were able to keep them there was three days each mission at a total cost of 28 billion dollars in 1973 money. Three Apollo landings were cut primarily because of cost. The international space station is at present way over budget and is cutting back further functions. Can you imagine the cost of setting up a permanent moon base? Apart from cost what would you want a moon base for except for further lunar exploration? The ISS can fulfil most other functions that a lunar base would be likely to be called upon.

Hope this helps. All the best
A.M.

Hello Austin

Thanks for your reply, it has given me plenty to think about. Most of my arguments stem from a TV programme called Conspiracy Theory - Did we land on the Moon - Narrated by Mitch Pileggi have you seen it?

I have not had chance to go through the links you have added to your article yet, but when I do and if I still have queries - which I'm sure I will - I hope you will not mind if I come back to you. Like you I viewed the first Moon Landing on TV, and was totally sure it happened until a few years ago when I watched a late night chat show discussing the issue, then the programme mentioned above was shown and I have been thrown into a sense of confusion, which I would really like to dispell! Bye the way on the TV the photos with cross hatching showed the marks up in black, rather than white, so shouldn't they show up more against white objects?

Look forward to debating with you.
Suzie

Hello Suzie.
Yes I saw the Conspiracy program, I've got a copy of it somewhere, I'll have to dig it out again. I think this is the infamous Fox TV program and is mainly the subject of one of the references previously given. Most of your questions are referred to there and probably give better explanations than I can, but I'd still enjoy discussing it with you.
With regard to the 'crosshairs' issue. The black crosshair would show up better against the lighter white background if they were two separate objects adjacent to one another at a similar distance from the camera, but they are not. The crosshair registers on the photographic film as a result of the film passing over a glass plate on which the crosshairs are etched. The plate is mounted just in front of the focal plane thro' which the photographic film is transported. a clearance of about 1/800 millimetre between film and glass prevents scratching of the film as it moves across the glass but leaves the slightest of gaps.
As you probably know, light tends to 'bend' or scatter as it passes from one medium to another. This is the reason that telescope and binocular lenses are coated to minimise this effect.
When the image of an external object that is over-exposed, passes thro' the glass plate and registers on the film while covering one of the crosshairs, some of the light is bent/scattered sufficiently to bleed into the image that should have formed from the shadow cast by the crosshair which tends to pretty much wipe it out.
This is not helped by the nature of the film emulsion which uses light sensitive silver halides to react with the light to register the image on the film. The excess light from the over-exposed image tends to bleed through the emulsion in much the same way as water does thro' blotting paper,eating into the line of the crosshair from both sides.
The loss of intensity of the crosshair's image gives the impression that it 'disappears' behind the over-exposed image when it does not. If you take a careful look at any of the examples put forward by CT's you will see that they are always of a crosshair over white and highly reflective objects which are over-exposed in the photo.
There are however, other examples where the crosshair can be seen to be reduced in intensity, but still just visible over correctly exposed images. In some cases they are adjacent to the example given by the CT but that aspect is conveniently ignored.
In the end it doesn't really prove much one way or the other, because what is the alternative explanation? Do they think NASA painted the crosshairs on a studio backdrop, or was it the action of a 'whistle blower' leaving a message for posterity that they haven't followed up for thirty years? It certainly doesn't prove that there were no moon landings.
All the best,
A.M.

Hi Austin

I have been looking for the links you mentioned you had posted at the bottom of your article but they do not appear to be there?
Would you please let me know what they are.

Thanks

Suzie

Hi Suzie,
Sorry about the missing references. When I last updated the page it was rejected by h2's moderators because one of the links was 'broken' so I had to remove them. When I originally put them up they seemed okay and worked for me. We weren't permitted to put links in conversation forums at that time but we are now, so try these:
Bill Plait's Bad Astronomy. (mostly on the Fox TV programme
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html#crosshairs
and The Apollo Archive, a general page on Apollo, scroll to the references at the bottom:
http://www.apolloarchive.com/
All the best
A.M.

Hi Austin

My husband and I looked through the links you kindly provided and visited quite a few interesting sites. I must admit that I am more convinced than my husband that the moon landings did actually take place, my main reasons being:

1. I cannot see why the Russians and other nations with tracking equipment would not have exposed the hoax at the time.

2. By now I think if it had been hoaxed, someone involved would have blown the whistle or advancing technology would have exposed more flaws in the evidence.

There are a few points that still bother me though:

1. The death of Thomas Ronald Baron. One of the websites we looked at suggested that he was more likely to have committed suicide than been assasinated. I think the timing and circumstances of his death were suspicious, but I think his wife (and child?) were in the car at the time. This to me makes it very unlikely it would have been suicide. Also where is his 500 page report - has this been traced in its entirity?

2. The Flag. Not being an expert in low gravity environments, I cannot agree or disagree with the experts who say its behaviour is normal, but there appear to be shots of astronauts which show the flag in the background in various positions, including some with the bottom corner turned upwards - and no astronaut shaking the pole!

3. I cannot find any argument explaining why the crater formations on some of the moon landing shots look remarkably like formations in area 51 (shown from Russian spy satelite photos) - I realise craters can be similar in appearance, but I am sure I can remember seeing shots which showed a number of features which looked identical?

Hi Austin

My husband and I looked through the links you kindly provided and visited quite a few interesting sites. I must admit that I am more convinced than my husband that the moon landings did actually take place, my main reasons being:

1. I cannot see why the Russians and other nations with tracking equipment would not have exposed the hoax at the time.

2. By now I think if it had been hoaxed, someone involved would have blown the whistle or advancing technology would have exposed more flaws in the evidence.

There are a few points that still bother me though:

1. The death of Thomas Ronald Baron. One of the websites we looked at suggested that he was more likely to have committed suicide than been assasinated. I think the timing and circumstances of his death were suspicious, but I think his wife (and child?) were in the car at the time. This to me makes it very unlikely it would have been suicide. Also where is his 500 page report - has this been traced in its entirity?

2. The Flag. Not being an expert in low gravity environments, I cannot agree or disagree with the experts who say its behaviour is normal, but there appear to be shots of astronauts which show the flag in the background in various positions, including some with the bottom corner turned upwards - and no astronaut shaking the pole!

3. I cannot find any argument explaining why the crater formations on some of the moon landing shots look remarkably like formations in area 51 (shown from Russian spy satelite photos) - I realise craters can be similar in appearance, but I am sure I can remember seeing shots which showed a number of features which looked identical?

Best wishes
Suzie

Hi Suzie.
I think that you can be reasonably sure that the USSR would have blown the gaff if they thought that there had been a hoax perpetrated by the USA. Also apart from all those people employed in the Apollo program (est 400,000) there were many other countries who were provided with lunar rock samples for scientific study. CT's claim that the samples were manufactured on Earth. I would think that after close scrutiny by those scientists they may have said something if they suspected the samples were not genuine.
Thomas Ronald Baron
CT's say Thomas Baron was a 'whistle blower' who was silenced by NASA after a producing a critical report which proved NASA was unable to go to the moon and which subsequently, suspiciously, went missing.
Baron was a quality control engineer employed by North American Aviation (NAA) and based at the Kennedy Space Centre from Sept 1965. In 1966 he prepared a 55 page report outlining his concerns on safety and irregular practices in the construction of the Apollo Command and Service Modules for which NAA was contracted. He sent the report to the highest level of management at NASA who duly contacted NAA as they considered it to be a NAA problem. Some of the concerns were found to be valid and were acted on by NAA but the report was largely dismissed as being over critical. Disappointed by the response Baron leaked the report to the media and was suspended by NAA on 5 Jan 1967.
Baron enlarged his report to some 500 pages documenting what he saw as safety and procedural violations. During his employment with NAA he had earned a reputation as a zealous stickler for procedures and rules in an industry that was constructing a state of the art spacecraft on which the rule book was being written as they went along and where constant change necessitated a flexible approach. He had earned the nickname D.R. for 'Discrepancy Report'.
After the Apollo 1 fire on 27 Jan 1967, Baron submitted his report to the congressional inquiry into the disaster and he later appeared before a sub-committee to give evidence. The significance of the disappearance of his report after the inquiry hinges on its relevance to the fire. The committee decided that although it contained some valid points the majority of it was inadmissible as it contained hearsay and references to unnamed sources which were not acceptable as evidence to the inquiry. They also accepted that NAA had been implementing some of changes from the earlier report at the time of the fire. If anything the report was critical of NAA and it would have been in NASA's interest to have it published as it would tend to shift the responsibility for the fire in NAA's direction. Baron had after all taken his original report to NASA for further action after his warnings were, he considered, being shelved by NAA.
The 500 page report was never in either NASA's or NAA's hands. It went from Baron to the inquiry where the relevant parts which were accepted by the committee were included in their report. Baron's death a week or so after the committee published their findings would have left them with no-one to return the report to. It probably still remains with the filed committee papers or possibly would have been returned to his estate, although that's speculation on my part. As far as I'm aware it remains lost although certain parts of it have been published on the Internet. I haven't been able to find that yet though. Under the circumstances I really don't think its 'disappearance is suspicious. Some of it is here http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollo204/barron.html

Baron died along with his wife and stepdaughter in an accident on a railway crossing when in collision with a train. The official verdict was suicide. How NASA or NAA 'agents' contrived to make him drive into the train are not discussed by the CT's but I could think of easier and more certain ways of ensuring his death without involving his family. They also didn't make much of a job of it by leaving it until after he had testified to the congressional inquiry to silence him. It just doesn't make sense, personally I favour the likelihood that it was simply an untimely accident.
In favour of the suicide finding was the evidence that it was the act of an obsessive man, who's reports had been largely rejected by his employer and a public inquiry, who had been fired from his job which involved reporting on a project which had been demonstrably lacking in quality, for which he may have felt some responsibility. The fact that his family was with him doesn't rule out suicide. It isn't uncommon for suicides to take others with them, whether to save them from family grief or that they can't face doing it alone. There are a number of cases in the UK alone where suicides have killed family members first.
More Flag Waving.
Yes there are shots of the US flag which are not flat. The flags used were made from lightweight material and when on the moon weighed 1/6 of their Earth weight. They didn't have the weight to hang straight and even out their folded creases. Take a look at these if the links works:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/as17-134-20384.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/as17-134-20386.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/20116890.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/as17-140-21354.jpg

Area 51
Fox's film links Area 51 with Apollo by juxtaposing photo's from Area 51 airbase with those of a craterfield. I haven't really got involved with the Area 51 thing, but most of the aerial photo's of it that I've seen don't show a crater field as part of its complex. (I stand to be corrected on this). None of the websites I can find mention Apollo or a crater field as they seem to be more concerned with aliens, UFO's or secret aircraft. The Fox film is the only source I can find that links the two.
NASA did construct artificial lunar landscapes for astronaut training (no surprise there then.) It may well be the case they did it in Area 51 as well, I don't know but I've never seen any reference to it, but it would seem a logical to put it on an airfield where astronauts could easily fly in for training. Area 51 is also near the Nevada Test Site (same state) for nuclear weapons which produced craters and was also used for astronaut training. Another artificial site used by them was at the Flagstaff Arizona near Sunset Crater. Given the film's persistent use of unrelated photography to 'prove' a point, I don't think they have proved anything with this and are misleading with their 'questions'.
All the best,
A.M.

Hi agin,
Just a bit more about the Nevada Test Site
Well, you learn something new every day. Just guess where the Nevada Test Site is.
It's 70 miles from Las Vegas. Adjacent to Groom Lake (more commonly known as Area 51)
Try these links to see the crater field and especially Sedan Crater which looks very like the one in the Fox film. (but then they all look alike anyway)
Photo Library http://www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/photos&films/crater.htm
Crater field http://www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/photos&films/Images/photolib/8X10/NF474.JPG
All the best
A.M.

A further demonstration of why there was no engine noise in the air-to-ground transmissions from the lunar module can be seen in the several videos recorded from the Space Shuttle cabin during launch. These videos are available from the NASA web site.

At launch, the astronauts are violently shaken by SRB ignition. Over the next 60 seconds or so, the wind noise on the exterior of the shuttle builds up to a very high level. But then a curious thing happens: the wind noise dies down, even as the shuttle continues to accelerate. The reason, of course, is that the shuttle is climbing above the atmosphere, and sound cannot propagate through a vacuum. It becomes almost silent even before the SRBs stop firing. After the SRBs are jettisoned, the ride on the liquid-fueled main engines is remarkably quiet and smooth.

The entire flight of the lunar module was in hard vacuum, so there's very little reason to expect much noise within the cabin from the engines.

Most of the craters on the lunar surface are produced by the impact of asteroids and meteoroids (natural space "junk") hitting at VERY high velocities unimpeded by any atmosphere.

These speeds are SO high that the energy released in their impact is considerably more than the meteoroid's weight in a high explosive like TNT. So it is quite natural that they'd leave craters closely resembling those made by surface explosions.

Area 51, as has already been stated, is located next to the Nevada Test Site where countless nuclear weapons were tested, leaving many craters. So it should not be at all surprising that at least some of the craters in that area should resemble the craters on the moon.

The entire lunar surface has been steadily bombarded for eons (billions of years) by a steady rain of meteoroids of all sizes. They range from a few huge asteroids that formed the big basins that became the maria ("seas") down to countless microscopic dust particles that constantly churn the surface into the dusty powder familiar in the Apollo photos. The ground is literally compacted rubble (regolith) that is churned again and again over very long periods of time.