This should be an interesting topic for all the Conspiracy Theory buffs in this forum. We have slightly talked about it
here, but not much to start a discussion.
Since nearly everyone in this forum is a tech-fellow, this should be funny to discuss in a civilized way ^_^.
First, let me explain what this topic is about. I am going to show a few videos proving that the whole Moon landing was a big hoax. That NASA had faked the whole Apollo project and that mankind was not even close to the Moon.
This is actually a very old topic, but that does not mean that everything is explained today and that every piece of footage is accurate. On the contrary. First, let's start with a classic video that aired in the Fox channel in 2001:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...35117048624484
it is a very good video, but in my opinion, the following ones are better:
What happened on the Moon, Part 1:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...74363747128107
What happened on the Moon, Part 2:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...81932896358451
Part 1 and Part 2 together are nearly 4 hours of video, freely available on video.google.com
This video is a press conference of the Apollo 11, with the "3 amigos":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RcKLAo62Ro
It does not show much, except that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Aldrin was more ashamed and embarrassed than displaying a lot of joy and pride for the centuries biggest accomplishment: Mankind stepping it's foot on the Moon.
Even a few other videos with the supposed "unedited footage" are found on the net:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdgpN8omSM
The above video is 8 minutes long, colored and very interesting. Wikipedia also has a very interesting article about the "Moon Landing Hoax" found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Landing_Hoax
Some of the most popular conspiracy theories were:
- Issues with crosshairs (fiducials) that were etched onto the Reseau plate of the cameras
- The quality of the photographs is implausibly high
- The color and angle of shadows and light are inconsistent
- Identical backgrounds in photos are listed as taken miles apart.
Remember that at the time of Apollo, the Soviet Union had five times more manned hours in space than the US. They were the first to achieve (directly copied from Wikipedia's article):
1. First manmade satellite in orbit (October 1957, Sputnik 1).
2. First man in space (April 1961, Vostok 1).
3. First man to orbit the earth (April 1961, Vostok 1).
4. First to have two spacecraft in orbit at the same time (but it was not a rendezvous, as frequently described) (August 1962, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4).
5. First woman in space (June 1963, Vostok 6).
6. First crew of three astronauts onboard one spacecraft (October 1964, Voskhod 1).
7. First spacewalk (EVA) (March 1965, Voskhod 2).
If you never have seen those videos, please take the time to do so before judging whether or not they have a point. Again, this is a very old topic. In fact, hypothesis of men never landing on the Moon started right in 1969, when the "live" footage was first transmited to Australia, edited and sent to the rest of the World. Books started to be written right after (I think the first was published in 1974), been presented in films (James Bond: Diamonds Are Forever) and even games (Duke Nukem 3D, GTA - Vice City and GTA - San Andreas).
So, please, discuss this in a civilized manner. Don't turn this in another anti-American thread. The fact is, if NASA really did go into the trouble of lying to the whole World, I believe the World deserves an apology from US and NASA just like Germany and Japan did after their acts of War.
What I think? Men has never been on the Moon. The risks were far too big, including radiation and technical difficulties for that time. I do, however, think that USA has actually sent things to the Moon, but no men. The whole crew was just orbitating the Earth atmosphere, were it's safe, until they returned back to Earth. The whole thing was filmed inside studios, most likely in Nevada/Area 51.
So, once again Linux fellows... What do you think?
Also, it's important to say that the original videos filmed on the "Moon" were "misplaced" by NASA in 2006 and are still "missing"(<could not find a good link yet about it>).