The Moon Landings. A great achievement or an elaborate hoax?

[Dodger]

Fifty years ago today, two American astronauts became the first humans to set foot on the moon. I missed it by sixteen years, but I’ve always been fascinated by space exploration and particularly the moon landings.

I think it was a fantastic achievement when you consider the technology available at the time but I’ve been disheartened by the number of people who believe the whole thing was faked. Before this week I thought it was only a tiny minority, but now I’m almost tempted to believe the opposite is true.

I don’t always believe what I’m told. I’m not convinced JFK was killed by a lone assassin and I think it’s highly probable the Royals killed Diana, but I just don’t understand how NASA could have possibly faked the moon landings.

Conspiracies seem to be the in thing these days but I wonder how many of these people have actually bothered to think it through for themselves. Are they just jumping on a popular bandwagon or do they really believe, for whatever reason, that we’ve all been the victims of some elaborate scam? Maybe you’re one of them. If so I want to know why you think it was hoaxed and what gave it away.

I’m interested to know what others think of these conspiracy theories and why so many people feel the need to trash one of humankind’s greatest achievements.

[Carlos Hazday]

Maybe because humans are scared of what they don't understand?

One of the recurring memories today are of playing with a cardboard lunar lander. A giveaway from Gulf gas stations. I wonder what one of those sheets, full of creases calling to be bent, is worth today? To me, it was a lesson in hard work. Both the landing and folding the damn thing properly!

[drpaladin]

[Former Member]

Well, how could the moon landings be true if the Earth is flat?

Spoiler

This is sarcasm, if you have to ask.
;–)

I watched the live broadcasts of the first manned orbit of the moon as well as the moon landings. It was thrilling and inspiring. But not as much as Star Trek where there was someone who looked like me on the show! You’ll notice that Mae Jamison cited Nichelle Nichol as Uhura as her inspiration for becoming an Astronaut.
 

Special effects technology in the Sixties was not sophisticated enough to produce what we all saw on TV.
 

I do have to point out that if the Apollo astronauts were really doing for ‘all mankind,’ the flag they planted on the lunar surface should have been a United Nations flag…
;–)

 

[Thorn Wilde]

What, haven't you seen 2001, @droughtquake? Everyone knows Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landing.  

[Former Member]

NASA didn’t have the budget to build even one Monolith!
;—)

[Thorn Wilde]

2 hours ago, droughtquake said:

NASA didn’t have the budget to build even one Monolith!
;—)

That’a what they want you to think... 

[Former Member]

2 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

That’a what they want you to think... 

No, that was the NSA who built that mysterious, featureless black building!
;–)

Edited July 27, 2019 by Former Member

[Dodger]

My verdict. Without doubt this was a great achievement and it's a shame not everyone is able to recognize it as such. I've yet to see a single piece of legitimate evidence that suggests these were faked. As good as NASA were at the time,  I don't believe they had the kind of technology it would have taken to pull off such a brazen stunt. Not under the scrutiny of the entire world, and with such keen interest from the Soviet Union. It would have been far easier to simply do it for real.

Also, for many of those directly involved, the temptation to come forward and expose what would have been the world's biggest scam, would surely have proved irresistible. With supposedly 300,000 people involved in the Apollo project, we would have had more whistle-blowers by now than a Caribbean street carnival. 

Finally, if they did somehow manage to stage such a hoax, then it would have happened only the once. No way would they have attempted it further six times with so much to lose and little left to gain. That's common sense, but you're only cool if you believe it was a conspiracy.

[Thorn Wilde]

I feel the need to share a story that Neil Gaiman shared on the subject of impostor syndrome, that feeling that you don’t really deserve recognition because you’re not really special, you don’t belong, and any second people are gonna find you out, point and say, “What’s that person doing here??” He was at a big party full of Hollywood types, the wealthy and famous, and feeling out of place. But he ended up speaking to a person who shared his first name, who also admitted he felt like he didn’t belong in such exclusive company. So Neil Gaiman said to him, “Well, you were the first man on the moon. That has to count for something.”

I love knowing that Neil Armstrong was such a humble individual, though I’m sure some would use that as “evidence” that the moon landing never happened.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Thorn Wilde

[Former Member]

21 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

I feel the need to share a story that Neil Gaiman shared on the subject of impostor syndrome, that feeling that you don’t really deserve recognition because you’re not really special, you don’t belong, and any second people are gonna find you out, point and say, “What’s that person doing here??” He was at a big party full of Hollywood types, the wealthy and famous, and feeling out of place. But he ended up speaking to a person who shared his first name, who also admitted he felt like he didn’t belong in such exclusive company. So Neil Gaiman said to him, “Well, you were the first man on the moon. That has to count for something.”

I love knowing that Neil Armstrong was such a humble individual, though I’m sure some would use that as “evidence” that the moon landing never happened.

Are you also suggesting a link between imposter syndrome and having the first name ‘Neil’? Is this why Neil Tennant wears those outrageous outfits that often disguise his appearance? Was this how Neil Patrick Harris was able to so convincingly portray not only a teenaged doctor early in his career, but later a womanizing Lothario?
;–)

[Snowblind]

I remember very vividly watching all the live broadcasts on the Apollo missions. We had two TV's in the house. One was a black & white portable Philco tv and the other one was a black and white Zenith TV on 4 legs. The old Zenith was in the family room, basement.  I sat and watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon on the big Zenith.  Amazing how conspiracy theorists years later can question a historical event such as this.

[MrM]

I made a convert of a Millennial Truther using this film which, I argue, is the best retrospective ever made of the Apollo 11 mission.  
 

I always fight vigorously against such truthers because my dad worked the Atlas Missile program for fifiteen years before the Mercury System was put up on the launch pad. Here in San Diego an entire area of the city was developed due to this project. If you are familiar with San Diego at all you may have heard of the communities of Kearny Mesa, Linda Vista, Claremont, Tierrasanta . . . All of these areas were subdivision projects for all the engineers, electricians, scientists, mechanics, support, etc. that came by their hundreds to work the General Dynamics Astronautics project. The whole of Kearny Mesa was dedicated to the facility that, seriously, looked like Area 51 and was, in its time, perhaps just as top secret because of the missile development done there. My entire childhood my Dad would take me out to Astronautics and would tell me the stories of meeting Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong as well as Wernher von Braun who founded the whole project in the 50s.

What happened on August 20, 1969 was as real as the day is long! The San Diego I remember as a kid came to exist because of that project! You’d not see any of what lingers of those days now thanks to San Diego’s penchant for erasing its past and replacing it with banal things like condos and day care centers. But the structure of what Astronautics created still exists and all those that move here think that these places have ‘always been here.’

General Atomics, SPAWAR, Illumina, Raytheon, Qualcomm, SONY Game Development, etc. all have to thank Astronautics and Apollo 11 for their existence today. 

When idiots tell me that spending money on space travel is ‘foolish and wasteful’ I go into my litany of how the Space Program BUILT modern America and the modern world we know today! We wouldn’t have half the technology we have today if not for the Apollo Mission! Scientists and Engineers need a great inspiring goal to work toward to do whatever is necessary, invent whatever is necessary, believe whatever is necessary to reach that goal!

There was, in the time of America’s Renaissance, no higher (literally) goal than to put men on the moon! When we did that, the magnificent fallout of knowledge and technology we earned in the reaching for that goal are still laurels we still rest on to this very day!

Computers, Smart Phones, microwave ovens, new high-energy medical technologies, enclosed air systems, I could go ON AND ON!

Edited July 30, 2019 by MrM

[Former Member]

On 7/20/2019 at 12:57 PM, Dodger said:

I think it’s highly probable the Royals killed Diana

There was a relatively recent meme with Betty Windsor ordering 007 to ‘Make it look like an accident, James.’ with a different blonde target in mind.