NASA Apollo moon hoax

Did man land on the moon in July, 1969 ? Time : 4:17 pm July 20 EDT

Several theories have been put forward saying it's just an elaborate hoax. And NASA has strongly refuted such claims too. So, what is the truth ? Did man (or human being to be more politically correct) land on the moon ?

Did man land on the moon ? Was it just an elaborate hoax ? On July, 1969 at 4:17 pm July 20 EDT , Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin supposedly landed on the moon. But there are several conspiracy theories which say that all the moon landings were probably faked in Area 51 on Earth !!!

Here are the theories and evidences to get you going.

From http://www.weeklyuniverse.com/skies/skies2.htm

... The spacecraft should be able to take with itself a minimum weight of ~175 tons. No such spacecraft were developed before the flight to the Moon, none even close to that; today's most powerful spacecraft's weight carrying capabilities couldn't approach even the numbers thrice smaller than this. (For example, one of the most modern Russian carrier rockets, Titan-4, which is approximately equal to the Space Shuttle carrier rocket by its parameters, is able to carry only about 17.5 tons of weight.) ...
More at http://www.weeklyuniverse.com/skies/skies2.htm

But there are others who say that the hoax theory is a hoax :

Photography

Most of the theories that concern the photographs are due to a failure to understand how photography works.

Photographs are only two dimensional records of light falling on a chemically treated sheet of plastic. They can easily give a misleading picture of the nature of an unfamiliar three dimensional world, especially if have already decided what you want to see and have no understanding of photography's strengths and limitations.

Equipment

Millions, if not billions, of dollars were spent in equipping the Apollo missions. In order to successfully land on the moon, NASA needed to either buy in the absolute latest in technology, or develop it themselves. So it should come as no surprise that some of the equipment used was totally unheard of in the 1960s and, because it was designed to work in an alien environment, is still a novelty 30 years later. So most people don't have any experience of this equipment, or understand how it worked.

This lack of understanding is the source of many of the hoax theories. Rather than finding out how this equipment worked, many hoax proponents prefer to take a poor guess at how they think it might have worked, and then show how their own guess wouldn't work.

So why has NASA never been back in the last 30 years and why haven't the Russian's been ?

As the main driving force was political, once the first landings had been accomplished and the USSR soundly beaten, the government finance started to dry up. The Apollo missions were incredibly expensive and people were starting to wonder if it was worth it now we knew it was just a dry lifeless rock and that the Russians weren't in the running anymore. The USSR space program had hit a number of very explosive failures and weren't so keen to go either now. There's little glory in being second on the moon. Within a decade or so and the USSR had enough problems running the country and their nuclear reactors to even consider trips to the moon.

The military weren't so bothered either. The idea of some kind of missile base on the moon was never a consideration. By the time it took the missiles to reach Earth everything would be over anyway. What was much more practical was satellites, spy and otherwise, and any military developments could be achieved easier and cheaper in low orbit than on the moon anyway. So the military preferred the money to be spent on the Shuttles.

That just leaves scientific reasons. The scientists would love to go back to the moon as there's bound to be lots more to discover. Unfortunately the scientists aren't in charge of handing out the money. If you're American ('cos lets face it, they're the only ones who could afford it) and you want to go back to the moon, then tell your politicians that. They need convincing.

http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/index.html


Books:
Bill Kaysing's We Never Went to the Moon

Other moon hoaxes:
First Man On The Moon
Flying The Flag
Landscape Backdrops?
Whistle Blowers
Good Reasons For Hoaxing

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

And NASA says :

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/02/19/nasa.moon/

The theorists point to supposed oddities in NASA moon shots to boost their claim. Among the most prominent: The U.S. flag should not be waving. Camera crosshairs should not be behind lunar features in the distance. Stars should be in the background.

Plait and other scientists dismiss such notions. Flags can ripple in a vacuum and the U.S. one is doing so because an astronaut is moving the pole to which it is attached.

Camera crosshairs appear to be behind white objects in some images because the images bled slightly during development, like overexposed film. And why are the stars absent? They are too faint for the camera to pick up, according to Plait.

"From the very first moment to the last, the program is loaded with bad thinking, ridiculous suppositions and utterly wrong science," he said.

NASA adds another line of defense. The program never raised the issue of more than 800 pounds (363 kg) of lunar rocks that astronauts brought back to Earth.

"Geologists worldwide have been examining these samples for 30 years, and the conclusion is inescapable. The rocks could not have been collected or manufactured on Earth," the NASA site said.