Astronauts - or Astro-Nots?
 

Here's one for Capt Ed and the other conspiracy theorists - though it does make you think; especially as we seem to be lacking in a lot of the required technology today to do what they did in 1969 - the Mars Lander mission is one such case.
http://www.angelfire.com/ut/aylett/eth69.html

Was it all just a myth to scare the heck out of the Russians - and bolster the US public morale - deflecting attention from the body bags returning from Vietnam?

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:) Happiness is a warm L1011 :)

I attended a talk by Eugene Cernan, "the last man on the moon." He spoke of the 1960s as a decade torn out of the 21st century and experienced before its time.

Is this another fantasy website of your own design?
The 'third astronaut' in the visor is such a poor 'cut and paste', I know you can make better forgeries than that.
Have you got nothing better to do?

Guv, a bit of your entertaining tongue-in-cheek here I think, but for anyone (surely no-one here) doubting the Apollo prog. I suggest you get a copy of the BBC's anniversary TV programmes in which Gene Kranz, the Mission Director, talks about what they did and how they did it. Passion like that from a truly inspirational character can not be simulated.

That site is terrible!!!

Apart from the spelling and grammar being about the standard of a child of eight, which we're not now allowed to mention on PPRuNe, his/her understanding of so many details is appalling - but he bases so much of his case on those misunderstandings. For example, the point he uses time and again about no lunar atmosphere, hence dark shadows. Does he not understand that there is very, very bleak light, unattenuated by atmosphere, and that light is reflected off everything?

He gets very confused about whether the far face of the moon is the far side or the dark side, ignoring the phases of the moon, and consequently seems to think that we always have a full moon as seen from Earth, since the near side is the light side!

He has no idea whatsoever what the Van Allen Belt is, doesn't understand the propagation of radiation and convection of heat in a vacuum and in an atmosphere... I could go on and on...

To suggest that the whole thing was a scam, that NASA would waste so much effort in convincing us of a lie, is just plain stupid. When you add to that the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, this is no more nor less than a gross insult.

Hugmonster. Any worse than the cr>p we see / read here from time to time?

Yeah, yeah, We've all seen 'Capricorn One'!!

Wasn't OJ's acting TERRIBLE? (even then!)

Seriousley, though, it cost $25bn to go there. If it was faked, it would have cost 10 times as much in shush money. Why has no-one senior (now retired) come forwards?
If it was a fake, where did they get the 000's of pounds of lunar samples? The Soviet Luna 16 only brought back a few ounces.
If they didn't go, the Soviet radar would've picked that up after Saturn 5 launch.
They just kept quiet? Hogwash, that's cold war dynamite!!
When Apollo 11 was launched, they seemed in a hurry to get Luna 15 up there!!
Did it divert attention from Vietnam? No, it actually became yet another thing for the hairies to slag the US Govt off!!!
Remember, Apollos 18 to 20 were cancelled because Congress cut the NASA budget.

Lets have an end to all the sad, paranoid, 'of-course-there-wouldn't-be-any-evidence-that's-how-the-bad-guys-work', Oliver Stone-type personality-disorder anoraks.

The truth may be out there, but it is rarely that complex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by swashplate (edited 09 September 2000).]

The main problem is that he doesn't appear to intend it to be a humour site. He has obviously never tried to take somebodys picture in bright sunshine - you use fill-in flash to reduce shadows, which may also produce a second set of shadows - incidently it is really hard to compose a decent photograph through a helmet, although at one stage he says it would be difficult to survive daytime lunar temperatures; which is probably true if you forget your spacesuit, especially if you forget to reinforce the knees in case of accident. They are also stiff and heavy so you can't jump six times higher tah on earth (you can however hit a golf ball a long way, even without a decent club).
The main reason the US went to the moon 1n 1969 was because JFK said they would; and the main reason why they didn't stay ther was because arms limitation treaties made the moon out-of-bounds for military use.

According to Michael Parkinson (Night of 1000 shows, saturday) the lunar landing was broadcast live from the BBC Television Centre