Apollo Moon "Hoax" - Photographic "Evidence" Questions

astrostu · Dec 14, 2006

RMThompson said:
I want to know how you debunk the fact a camera was on the ground as the lander took back off?

trust me, I dont think it was a hoax, Im just curious as how to answer this!

I don't know the specifics of this*, but I do know that all Apollo missions left equipment on the lunar surface. One of these was a video camera. I've actually been told that the controllers for the first ascent didn't remember that there was a lag between Earth-Moon communication, and they didn't pan with the craft as a result. So this was adjusted for future missions.

*This is one reason why most scientists will not debate hoax conspiracists. There are so many nit-picky arguments that can be rattled off that it's nearly impossible to be familiar enough with all of them to convincingly debunk them. And what I find most telling is that in practically every case, if you debunk a claim then there is no rebuttal from the conspiracist, they move right on to the next one in order to trip you up. I don't mean to insult DSG at all by this, but his posts are a prime example above, where I provided counter explanations for what he said, and he just went right on to the next one, without providing rebuttal. This is one reason why I'm semi-warry about doing a public planetarium show about this. :er:

toastydeath · Dec 14, 2006

astrostu said:
I don't know the specifics of this*, but I do know that all Apollo missions left equipment on the lunar surface. One of these was a video camera. I've actually been told that the controllers for the first ascent didn't remember that there was a lag between Earth-Moon communication, and they didn't pan with the craft as a result. So this was adjusted for future missions.

There are reflectors on the moon to do distance measurement using lasers.

Remi M. · Dec 14, 2006

astrostu said:
I don't know the specifics of this*, but I do know that all Apollo missions left equipment on the lunar surface. One of these was a video camera. I've actually been told that the controllers for the first ascent didn't remember that there was a lag between Earth-Moon communication, and they didn't pan with the craft as a result. So this was adjusted for future missions.

*This is one reason why most scientists will not debate hoax conspiracists. There are so many nit-picky arguments that can be rattled off that it's nearly impossible to be familiar enough with all of them to convincingly debunk them. And what I find most telling is that in practically every case, if you debunk a claim then there is no rebuttal from the conspiracist, they move right on to the next one in order to trip you up. I don't mean to insult DSG at all by this, but his posts are a prime example above, where I provided counter explanations for what he said, and he just went right on to the next one, without providing rebuttal. This is one reason why I'm semi-warry about doing a public planetarium show about this. :er:

Same reason I stopped replying. It's like a atheist arguing with a evangelical christian. Nobody is going to get anywhere.

PetersCreek · Dec 15, 2006

Aw what the heck...

DSG said:
There are no stars in the background...One blatently obvious flaw in all the official NASA photos and videos.

Could you please demonstrate the use of color slide film with the dynamic range necessary to record a properly exposed sunlit 18% gray card using an exposure of 1/125 sec @ f/16 (±1 stop, assuming ISO-100) that would also capture a visible starfield in the same frame? It doesn't even have to be the entire starfield. How about just those stars (and other celestial objects) with an apparent magnitude down to, let's say, 2? That'll leave out a whole bunch of stars visible to the naked eye...down to about magnitude 6...but should cover the essential, recognizable consellations and asterisms, including the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor). Please post your unretouched results here.

Here, many of use are endevour to preserve shadow detail without blowing highlights in demanding photographic situations. If you can offer an easy, fool-proof, in-camera solution, you stand to make a bundle.

Never understimate how ruthless the military can be to protect their secrets.

Then why haven't you (or anyone else) and your "irrefutable" evidence been "eliminated"? Your view of the military is rather cartoonish.

the Rocket engine on the Lunar lander was powered by two hypergolic propellants...<snip>...When these two are combined and combust they produce huge opaque billowing clouds of orangey coloured smoke....Therefore they would'nt have been able to film the lander taking off for all the smoke!!!

Nitrogen tetroxide produces an opaque orange vapor cloud on contact with air, and Aerozine 50 produces a white vapor cloud. They burn quite cleanly in a vacuum...and the plume is practically invisible once the engine acheives steady-state operation.

You should also bear in mind that the ascent capsule would have to reach or exceed a velocity of at least 4500mph to escape the Moons gravity...

Incorrect. The Space Shuttle doesn't even acheive the Earth's escape velocity. It achieves orbital velocity. Similarly, the LM only had to reach the velocity necessary to achieve Lunar orbit and redezvous with the CM. The CM didn't have to reach Lunar escape velocity, either. It only had to reach a transfer orbit that would bring it back to Earth.

Who exactly is "pulling out wide" and panning the camera up to follow the acsending ascent capsule?...They would have had to leave one Astronaut behind to work the camera!!!

Um...it's called a remote control and I'm almost embarassed for you that I have to explain that. Remotely controlled cameras, operated by Ed Fendell in Mission Control, were used on Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17.

RMThompson · Dec 15, 2006

AGAIN I think we went, I just want to play devils advocate.

First, whats up with this picture? Where did the second light come from?

SECOND... read this:

It boils down not to just studying the photographs for signs of fakery, though I have examined every available Apollo photo for more than three years (and discovered many fakes). Very simply, it amounts to a study known to many businesses...A TIME AND MOTION STUDY. The elementary question is: was it possible to take the known number of photos (from NASA records) in the amount of time available (from NASA records)? But before you read my study, to understand it you need to know some basic information about the Apollo missions:

1. Of seven Apollo missions to put "men on the Moon", six were claimed to be "successful". (Apollo 13 was "aborted".)

2. Each of the six successful missions landed two astronauts "on the Moon" in a flimsy craft NASA originally had called the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to LM), an unproven craft which never had an opportunity for a lunar landing test flight. But it landed and then took off six times with spectacular "success" on Apollo missions 11 and 12, and 14 through 17...once even landing within 200 feet of a pre-selected target.

3. Two astronauts rode each LEM to the Moon surface while one remained in the orbiting Command and Service Module (CSM) awaiting their return.

4. During their Extra-Vehicular Activity (lunar surface exploration) each of the two wore a bulky inflated spacesuit with clumsy gloves, greatly limiting mobility. On their backs they wore a huge and heavy Life Support System (PLSS) backpack containing an oxygen tank and circulating water air conditioning system which pumped refrigerated water throughout the suit to counteract the 200+/- degree heat (and cold) of lunar conditions. Pumps circulated both refrigerated air and water to the liquid cooling undergarment, as well as dehumidifying, removing carbon dioxide, and providing all other functions needed to survive harsh conditions in the confining suits.

5. The principal objective of all six missions was SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH projects to be carried out by the two astronauts. Most of the projects, which numbered about a half dozen each mission, were remarkably similar on all six missions. All of these science experiments involved unpacking equipment from stowage bays, assembling it, transporting it to its location, setting it up, and then doing the experiments. As you might imagine, each of these research projects would require a major portion of the TIME of the two men for each experiment.

6. Another major project besides operation of the packaged experiments was the Geological Study, which involved searching for different specimens of rocks and soils in various locations, documenting and collecting samples to return to earth. This obviously occupied much of their TIME.

7. Considerable TIME was needed for "housekeeping chores". After landing, the LEM had to be inspected to make sure it had not been damaged. Communications equipment to put them in contact with Earth had to be set up and operated, including radio and television antennas and TV cameras. The US flag was planted in the moondust on each mission. All of this was done before any experiments were initiated. Oh, and don't forget the "ceremonial" chat with President Nixon during Apollo 11.

8. The first three missions required the astronauts to walk to each experiment location. The last three missions were supplied with a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) to travel to distant locations miles away from the LEM. The partially pre-assembled LRV was attached to the outside of the LEM. The rover floor served as a pallet which was hinged to the outside of the LRV. The wheels were folded under. The "pallet" was lowered by hand to the lunar surface, and the wheels rotated into position. After the wheels were down, the vehicle had to be outfitted with all of its considerable equipment from various storage bins of the LEM. Oddly, not a single photo exists in the public domain (at least that I could find to date) of the astronauts assembling and equipping the LRVs. The battery-powered rovers had a top speed of about 8 mph, only slightly faster than walking...much like a golf cart. During the LRV travels ("traverses"), both men rode, and when moving, had no opportunity for photography. Also, the time taken in assembling the rover was not used for any photography. Though I could find no time given by NASA, surely it is reasonable to guess that it took at least an hour to unload, assemble and equip and test a rover?

9. Almost incidental to the main astronaut tasks was PHOTOGRAPHY. Each astronaut had his own camera. (Apart from the Apollo 11 EVA.) It was a square-format specially-built Hasselblad. It was mounted on a chest-plate for the astronaut to operate. The astronaut had to manually set the shutter speed and apertures while wearing bulky, pressurized gloves and without being able to see the controls. The cameras had NO VIEWFINDER, so the astronaut could only guess at what was being photographed. Each camera had a bulk film magazine holding more than a hundred exposures. The film (mainly Ektachrome color film) had a very narrow exposure range, which required PERFECT aperture and shutter settings, because according to NASA, the cameras did not have automatic exposure capability.

10. It is important to know that although each man had his own camera, they ALMOST NEVER USED THEM AT THE SAME TIME. Usually one of them was photographing the other doing some task. Therefore having two cameras DID NOT TRANSLATE TO TWICE AS MUCH TIME FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, as one might surmise. Now that you understand the missions, here is my discovery of NASA overzealousness, which has been successfully hidden till now.

A TIME AND MOTION STUDY

For more than three years I have been collecting and analyzing nearly all the significant photos from the Apollo missions. These official photos are readily available on multiple NASA websites for downloading. Recently I noticed they were taking up many gigabytes of memory on my computer's external hard drive, so I began organizing them and deleting duplications. I did a rough estimate of the number of Apollo photos, and was amazed that I had thousands!

I visited several official NASA websites to find HOW MANY PHOTOS WERE TAKEN on the surface of the Moon. Amazingly, NASA AVOIDS THIS SUBJECT almost entirely. Two days of searching documents and text were fruitless. But Lunar Surface Journal, one of the sites, lists every photo with its file number. So I undertook to make an actual count of every photo taken by astronauts DURING EXTRA-VEHICULAR ACTIVITY (EVA), the time spent on the surface out of the LEM.

Here is my actual count of EVA photos of the six missions:

Apollo 11........... 121
Apollo 12........... 504
Apollo 14........... 374
Apollo 15..........1021
Apollo 16..........1765
Apollo 17..........1986

So 12 astronauts while on the Moon's surface took a TOTAL of 5771 exposures.

That seemed excessively large to me, considering that their TIME on the lunar surface was limited, and the astronauts had MANY OTHER TASKS OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAPHY. So I returned to the Lunar Surface Journal to find how much TIME was available to do all the scientific tasks AS WELL AS PHOTOGRAPHY. Unlike the number of photos, this information is readily available:

Apollo 11........1 EVA .....2 hours, 31 minutes......(151 minutes)
Apollo 12........2 EVAs.....7 hours, 50 minutes......(470 minutes)
Apollo 14........2 EVAs.....9 hours, 25 minutes......(565 minutes)
Apollo 15........3 EVAs...18 hours, 30 minutes....(1110 minutes)
Apollo 16........3 EVAs...20 hours, 14 minutes....(1214 minutes)
Apollo 17........3 EVAs...22 hours, 04 minutes....(1324 minutes)

Total minutes on the Moon amounted to 4834 minutes.
Total number of photographs taken was 5771 photos.

Let's arbitrarily calculate a MINIMUM time for the OTHER tasks and subtract from available photo time:

Apollo 11....subtract 2 hours (120 minutes), leaving 031 minutes for taking photos
Apollo 12....subtract 4 hours (240 minutes), leaving 230 minutes for taking photos
Apollo 14....subtract 3 hours (180 minutes), leaving 385 minutes for taking photos
Apollo 15....subtract 6 hours (360 minutes), leaving 750 minutes for taking photos
Apollo 16....subtract 6 hours (360 minutes), leaving 854 minutes for taking photos
Apollo 17....subtract 8 hours (480 minutes), leaving 844 minutes for taking photos

So you decide. Given all the facts, was it possible to take that many photos in so short a time?

Any professional photographer will tell you it cannot be done. Virtually every photo was a different scene or in a different place, requiring travel. As much as 30 miles travel was required to reach some of the photo sites. Extra care had to be taken shooting some stereo pairs and panoramas. Each picture was taken without a viewfinder, using manual camera settings, with no automatic metering, while wearing a bulky spacesuit and stiff clumsy gloves.

The agency wants the world to believe that 5771 photographs were taken in 4834 minutes! IF NOTHING BUT PHOTOGRAPHY HAD BEEN DONE, such a feat is clearly impossible...made even more so by all the documented activities of the astronauts. Imagine...1.19 photos every minute that men were on the Moon –- that's one picture every 50 SECONDS!

PetersCreek · Dec 15, 2006

Seek and ye shall find...

BoblyBill · Dec 15, 2006

RMThompson said:
The agency wants the world to believe that 5771 photographs were taken in 4834 minutes! IF NOTHING BUT PHOTOGRAPHY HAD BEEN DONE, such a feat is clearly impossible...made even more so by all the documented activities of the astronauts. Imagine...1.19 photos every minute that men were on the Moon - that's one picture every 50 SECONDS!

I know from my limited experience that I can take 5 or 6 pictures a minute changing exposures between each one. Granted... I have a little bit more modern camera than what they had on the moon so that really doesn't mean much... I just thought that I'd put that in... thanks

astrostu · Dec 15, 2006

First, where's your evidence for a second light source in that image?

Second, have you ever taken a panorama? You aim the camera at a spot, take a shot, rotate slightly, take another shot, etc. You can easily rack up 20 shots in 10 seconds doing this, easily accounting for this "one picture every 50 seconds." There's a different between average and actual. Same with stereo pairs: They aimed at an object, moved a step or so over, and took another shot ... takes 2 seconds and that's 2 pictures. It is not hard to easily rack up hundreds of photos very quickly by doing this. When I go on trips, I'm not constantly with my camera, but I can come back from a 30-minute excursion with 200 pictures easily.

PetersCreek · Dec 15, 2006

RMThompson said:
SECOND... read this:

It boils down not to just studying the photographs for signs of fakery...

For the sake of good form, I'd like to point out that the bold, quoted text in post #50 is from an article entitled, The Skeleton in NASA's Spacesuit, written by Jack White.

Attribution is nice. Linking to lengthy articles is even nicer. Ya know...copyright stuff and all that.

Jack White makes a lot of claims and accusations. The problem is, the man just flat doesn't know what he's talking about. His claptrap has been authoritatively rebuked time and time again.

Greig Dempsey · Dec 16, 2006

PetersCreek said:
Aw what the heck...

Could you please demonstrate the use of color slide film with the dynamic range necessary to record a properly exposed sunlit 18% gray card using an exposure of 1/125 sec @ f/16 (±1 stop, assuming ISO-100) that would also capture a visible starfield in the same frame? It doesn't even have to be the entire starfield. How about just those stars (and other celestial objects) with an apparent magnitude down to, let's say, 2? That'll leave out a whole bunch of stars visible to the naked eye...down to about magnitude 6...but should cover the essential, recognizable consellations and asterisms, including the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor). Please post your unretouched results here.

Here, many of use are endevour to preserve shadow detail without blowing highlights in demanding photographic situations. If you can offer an easy, fool-proof, in-camera solution, you stand to make a bundle.

Then why haven't you (or anyone else) and your "irrefutable" evidence been "eliminated"? Your view of the military is rather cartoonish.

Nitrogen tetroxide produces an opaque orange vapor cloud on contact with air, and Aerozine 50 produces a white vapor cloud. They burn quite cleanly in a vacuum...and the plume is practically invisible once the engine acheives steady-state operation.

Incorrect. The Space Shuttle doesn't even acheive the Earth's escape velocity. It achieves orbital velocity. Similarly, the LM only had to reach the velocity necessary to achieve Lunar orbit and redezvous with the CM. The CM didn't have to reach Lunar escape velocity, either. It only had to reach a transfer orbit that would bring it back to Earth.

Um...it's called a remote control and I'm almost embarassed for you that I have to explain that. Remotely controlled cameras, operated by Ed Fendell in Mission Control, were used on Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17.

It would have been very easy to take photographs of the most magnificent sight human beings had ever seen by pointing a correctly set up camera at the sky away from the sun but they didn't. Not only that, stars were never mentioned on any of the missions. On return, Armstrong said it wasn't possible to see stars from the lunar surface. Collins said he didn't see any. Neither statements are plausible. It would not have been possible to create a photograph of the fixed stars with any of the planets because it would have given the game away that it was taken from earth.

Two outspoken critics of Apollo met untimely deaths, Grissome in a fire
Apollo Astronaut Was Murdered, Son Charges

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/2/11/00539 (scummy website)

and

Thomas Ronald Baron was a quality control inspector for NASA and committed suicidewith his family after a congressional hearing. This is America we're talking about, let's not forget JFK, the CIA and the Warren commission .

Do you actually know anything about the burning of Aerozine 50 in a vacuum are are you assuming tha NASA is telling the truth ?

Greig Dempsey · Dec 16, 2006

darich said:
I'm at work and won't reply at length but shadows can be at different angles from 2 objects lit by one source. All it takes is a slight slope on the ground where ONE shadow falls.
Also surely if an image was exposed for a man in a white suit and reflective visor the background would be dark and therefore not show the stars?

That said, I don't believe we were there - crosshairs on photos obscured by rocks, astronaughts seem to be lit from more than one source, and dust from the boots not rising 4 times higher than it would on earth since gravity is a quarter.

I'll have a look at the you tube videos at home and might have further input.

You may be right about a slope but the video displays dramatic shadow size differences at all points in the vicinity. There are numerous photographs of the ground tthat demonstrate it was very flat also.

Here is a page that shows NASA manipulates photographs in its own archives over time.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/spotlightchange.htm

Tiberius · Dec 17, 2006

n return, Armstrong said it wasn't possible to see stars from the lunar surface. Collins said he didn't see any. Neither statements are plausible.

Can YOU see the starts when the sun's out? The moon's surface is inherently very reflective. The dynamic contrast would make it near-impossible to see any stars.

Also, your insinuation that the Apollo 1 Tragedy was an act of murder is an utter outrage and an offense to White, Chaffee, and Grissom.

In your second post, it looks like the old image was a scan of an early print and the later images are the exact same shot in more clarity (likely when they decided to revisit the source material and convert it directly to digital).

Greig Dempsey · Dec 17, 2006

Tiberius said:
Can YOU see the starts when the sun's out? The moon's surface is inherently very reflective. The dynamic contrast would make it near-impossible to see any stars.

Also, your insinuation that the Apollo 1 Tragedy was an act of murder is an utter outrage and an offense to White, Chaffee, and Grissom.

In your second post, it looks like the old image was a scan of an early print and the later images are the exact same shot in more clarity (likely when they decided to revisit the source material and convert it directly to digital).

It would be easily possible to see stars on the moon's surface if one turned one's back to the sun. There is no atmosphere to cause scattering of light. The sky would be black.

Grissom's family (particularly his son) very strongly believe he was murdered and he has researched the matter in great detail.

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/2/11/00539

It is clear from the pictures that the image has been manipilated to remove the very obvious spotlight effect (mentioned by the man in charge of supplying the apollo cameras for Hasselblad on a video) even from the second picture in 2003 .The spotlight effect is noticable on a large number of apollo photographs and videos including this one.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8-_7uFL0iw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8-_7uFL0iw[/ame]

The background is dark at the beginning but as we follow the rover the scene becomes brighter and brighter. Basically the difference between twilight and broad daylight.

astrostu · Dec 17, 2006

Greig Dempsey said:
It would be easily possible to see stars on the moon's surface if one turned one's back to the sun. There is no atmosphere to cause scattering of light. The sky would be black.

Do you really honestly believe this? Have you actually thought this through? Or are you just trying to antagonize people?

Your only posts on ThePhotoForum have been pro-hoax in this particular thread ... are you here to discuss photography or are you here to perpetuate these incorrect, inflammatory views that have been debunked countless times?