back to the Moon...

BlackHole, I too have seen some of the information regarding the moon landing conspiracies. Some of it is rather compelling as evidence to be honest. All I would say is do some research first into them and then make your mind up before you shoot your mouth off. For myself, I am a hung jury on whether the original moon landers truely happened or not. And before you continue to blather on about ´facts´, a lot of the moon landing conspiracies are based on the facts of science itself, not the facts of what we are told and shown. Interresting video though, and certainly a good concept. It certainly makes sense to combine the original apollo technology with more modern technology when building a new moon landing vehicle, however: 1 I feel that they should consider the splash down option used by the original apollo´s rather than the land based landing shown in the video. Sea based splash downs, despite the danger of a sinking landing module, seems to me still to be the safe option over a land based landing for such a re-entry capsule. 2 I think NASA are being optimistic with fitting four men in space suits into the moon landing module of the scale shown in the video. It seems more to the correct scale for a two man operation (with a third man acting as support) like the original Apollo Vehicles. 3 Two alternative approaches for a launch mechanism are shown. Maybe it is me, but method two seems to be a bit too long and narrow to be completely safe for a launch vehicle. There is very little to provide stabilisation on that model during launch. Option one seems more interresting, with reusable launch rockets, simalar to what is currently used on the shuttle program, and also appears to be more aerodynamically stable. 4 It saddens me to see such rockets still being used by NASA as primary launch vehicles in future designs. They burn Waaaayyyy too much fuel, and to be honest, are incredibly cost inefficient. There are alternatives, which would not only be more effective, but also cheaper, if only research was finished on them. 5 NASA should really be looking for cross national co-operation on such projects. The international space station has shown this is possible (with the American, European, Russian and Japanese space agencies working together on it), albeit that it has also highlighted the difficulties too with co-operation between multiple agencies (namely that it one agency encounters difficulty, they can delay all the other agencies parts in the project. Ironically, NASA is the main culprit in delays with the International Space Station). Now we know what the pit falls are, it should be easier for future co-operation projects to work around them for a greater final output of goals. Returning to the moon is a good idea. People have mentioned research etc.... but has anyone else also considered that that a permenant moon base will actually be able to make some things cheaper here on Earth? Or what resources can be aquired from the Moon? Satelites for Earth, for example, would be cheaper to be built and launched from the Moon than from Earth. Why? Because Moon launches require a very tiny fraction of the fuel and material cost that an Earth launch does (thanks to the moons lack of an atmosphere (launches do not need to fight atmospheric friction) and the lower Luna gravity (~1/4 Earth Gravity)). Yes, they would have further to travel to get into position, but in space, as most people should know, you just need an initial impulse to get an object moving, or stopped, which means the in space cost will probably be around the same as it is for an Earth launched satelite. In fact, it will probably be cheaper, as it will be far more easier to get the satelite into the correct position first time with a Luna launch. Good idea, but NASA but does need to really think hard about how they are going to achieve it. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

<A href=´http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077294/´ Target=_Blank>Capricorn One,</a> Ed.

They had a whole hour long TV show about the &quot;fake&quot; lunar landing, and asked <i>both </i> sides for their evidence. Twas fascinating - whilst people did come up with some great perspectives upon why it was obviously fake - everything <i>was </i> explained and scientifically proven to counteract their arguements. The flag waving The light sources/shadows Lack of stars No blast mark How the camera shots were &quot;perfect&quot; when it was mounted on his chest. That is where the laser reflector comes from - it finally went to a lab somewhere where the guy says &quot;we´ve been getting return signals ever since xxxx, where we calculate the distance of moon from the earth. People should have just asked us first, as we have irrefutable evidence that it did occur&quot;

so if the new spaceship goes to the Moon and finds the old landers and the footprints and the flags and Neil Armstrong´s underwear, will the conspiracy theorists shut up then? won´t be as exciting though. we even got a day off school to watch it on telly. I had my Airfix Saturn V rocket in my lap and just sat all day watching James Burke waffle on until it was time for the crackly grainy broadcast. beleive or not i just couldn´t get my mother interested, all she wanted to do was housework. Years later I found out that she didnt actually remember the Moon Landings, Kennedy´s assassination, Watergate, The Falklands War or anything really important, but she could tell you exactly what she was doing when Princess Diana died (sleeping I would have thought)

<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>so if the new spaceship goes to the Moon and finds the old landers and the footprints and the flags and Neil Armstrong´s underwear, will the conspiracy theorists shut up then? <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Nope! They will just say that the items were brought up and planted there by the later lunar party. That or the universe was simly created on day one with fjords, white mice and evidence of man´s lunar escapades, whichever floats floats yer boat.<img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Aye, Druid took the words right out of my mouth. It would be another conspiracy upon the fact that they planted those items on the moon (footprints etc) to fortify their story, so re-enforcing the idea that it never happened in the first place. Then it would be a conspiracy upon a conspiracy to conspire to change perception or a minorities conspiracy theory, whilst conspiring to still decieve the whole world over the moon landing. Or something.

BH2001- I did apologise in adavance, and yes, it may well be founded on my dislike for America (not it´s people, I hasten to add, it is more based on it´s Govt.) However, my opinion (and that is all it is) is based on scientific facts that have all been mentioned between my last post and this - the waving flag especially as I have seen scientists stutter on that one. The shadows are all wrong according to one British photographer and astronomer. There is also Russian propoganda, and as I already alluded to, the fact that up until 21 June 1969 the Russians beat the USA from first man in space to docking and EVA. So, no-one take it to heart please, as one philosopher once said &quot;I may not agree with what you say, but I´ll defend to the death your right to say it!&quot;

but. did you ever see the lander the Russkies were going to use on their planned Moon mission back in the 60s. Titov and Leonov both thanked their lucky stars that it was never used, it was a death-trap. basically an oversize bathtup on legs with a rocket motor. not even any seats. no environment. manual landing gear deployment, ie they would have had to crank it. the podule was welded together, and Russian welding in the Soviet era was appallingly bad. basically, while they had a rocket they had hardly owt else and what they had was hastily cobbled together to keep the Politburo bigwigs happy. they really weren´t much more advanced than when they´d started. the Yanks were way ahead. I don´t hold with this *didn´t go to the Moon* theory, after all, I watched the whole thing on television, and even if Apollo 11 was a fake, which it wasn´t, why fake all the others? including Apollo 13? there were 6 more actual landings, they´re all fake are they? seems a bit pointless that. Or was Apollo 11 the fake but the other were real. its the fakes theory that doesn´t hold water. the shadows and lighting are all wrong? how exactly? they look right to me, considering the Moon has no atmosphere to diffuse light and shadows are deepest black in the high contrast. the flag moves? its made of super-thin tin foil and would shake when someone walked past it. the astronauts are bouncing along on wires? they didn´t have the technology to disguise wirework in the 60s like we do now, otherwise Gerry Anderson would have used it in Thunderbirds! And don´t foget the dropping of the lead weight and the feather - falling at the same rate exactly as predicted in a vacuum. oh yeh and the capsule re-entered Earth´s atmosphere and was burnt all over and fell out of the sky and come down on parachutes and we saw the astronauts get out, so they clearly had been somewhere - maybe they were waiting outside the atmosphere while actors did the fake landings? when you start thinking about how much it would cost and how hard it would be to fake the whole program, you realise it would be easier and a dam sight cheaper after all to go to the Moon anyway! but I don´t think it´s worth going back. Costs too much and I don´t see any practical purpose in it? exploring Mars? gerroff, what good´s that? spend the money where it´ll do some good.

When I see a budget that isn´t full of holes, abuse and squandered - then I would say &quot;spend it where its good&quot;. But lets face it, we´ve seen billions disappear into blackholes of ineffective, inefficient departmental spendings - it doesn´t improve anything anywhere else, so why not spend it landing lumps of metal on the moon? If nothing else, you can point and show what you get for your money - which is alot more than can be said for most things governmental! Heck, the first one can be like the small &quot;bool ball&quot; - and the rest are different countries seeing who can impact closest to it. Interplanetary bool: to be accepted as an olympic sport in 2050.

Bejay- good point about cameras!!! (BTW: the pictures are B&amp;W aren´t they? since colour TV on Earth was in its infancy then) Also the other apollo missions, did any of them actually have any footage beamed back live (even the ones that went wrong like 13)? Lest we forget, true or fake, it is an amazing comeback considering Apollo 1 caught fire on the launch pad and killed all three crew (God rest their souls). My point is, all apollo missions after 11 could easily be faked if there was not live (supposedly) video footage because they could make that later (even if not the 11 mission would be good practise. As for Apollo 13 (great film BTW), it need never have left Earth orbit, they just spend a few days orbitting, and claim something went wrong, but I agree in principle that 13 does somewhat fly in the face of coonspiracists, as I can think of very few reasons to:- 1) The US Govt. and/or NASA could see the flaws in their faking and created it to cast doubt in the minds of theorists. 2) US wanted to make sure the Russians did not get more suspicious than they already were that the moon landings really happened. 3) NASA wanted to maintain the level of interest in space exploration with a dramatic &quot;hollywood would be proud of that&quot; twist plot. Mainly to keep the Govt. funding coming, and partly to give conspiracists and doubtors quiet. But, as I said, they are very flimsy reasons that none of which would I subscribe to as they are all far too weak, any other ideas welcome on this one. One last reason I don´t believe the mon landings happened is this. On every programme or during every debate that arises about the moon landings, the US Govt. and NASA do not defend them. Either because they never happened, or because the public won´t believe them. Whichever, it is a clear case of NASA of the Govt. preferring to save face, than face their critics.