Did US Astronaut land on the moon for real?

[Simon]

We all should get out more!

In your case certainly, or shall we start a wager on how lng before i have to ban you again?

[james_s]

The problem seems to be that people look at all the pieces individually and try to discredit them. What's often ignored is that there's a large amount of pieces which are all internally and externally coherent, with little to no pieces opposing the story they tell. If it were to be all an elaborate hoax with this many people and moving pieces involved, that's absolutely remarkable. You'd expect more issues with the presented facts as new discoveries are made, or people or documents contradicting the official story surfacing. If you weigh the chance of that all working out against the possibility of there actually being a landing, the latter seems to be more likely. No matter how amazing the feat of landing on the Moon is and how much our monkey brains object to the notion of something so unnatural, Occam's razor still applies.

That has occurred to me too. Most individual portions could potentially be convincingly faked given enough effort. Where this breaks down is the vastness of the program, there are just too many individual aspects that nobody could have possibly had the foresight to flawlessly incorporate all of them. Given a choice between trying to fake it and just going there for real, faking it would be a more ambitious project with far greater consequences to failure. It would come out sooner or later, if a nation like Russia honestly believed we had faked it you can bet they would have gone there by now or at least sent a rover to find out. There is just such an overwhelming body of evidence that it all happened exactly as reported that it is just ridiculous to suggest otherwise. The technology clearly existed, there's a retro-reflector there to this day that we can bounce a laser off of.

[CatalinaWOW]

A thought occurred to me during the New Years festivities.  Since some people believe that the moon landings could not have been done because of the risk of death, apparently those people also believe that no one jumps off of mountains wearing squirrel flying suits, or jumps off of helicopters with a jet powered wing strapped on their back, or straps a hydrogen peroxide rocket on their back and jumps across canyons, or jumps off of bridges with a bungee cord strapped to their ankles or  ....   are also all faked.

There is apparently an incredible amount of fakery going on to portray all of these risky activities on YouTube.

[Mr. Scram]

A thought occurred to me during the New Years festivities.  Since some people believe that the moon landings could not have been done because of the risk of death, apparently those people also believe that no one jumps off of mountains wearing squirrel flying suits, or jumps off of helicopters with a jet powered wing strapped on their back, or straps a hydrogen peroxide rocket on their back and jumps across canyons, or jumps off of bridges with a bungee cord strapped to their ankles or  ....   are also all faked.

There is apparently an incredible amount of fakery going on to portray all of these risky activities on YouTube.

If I'd have to point out one thing which seems to be an intrinsic part of human nature, it'd be the lengths humans are willing to go to just to make a senseless claim or a point. The whole Moon thing was essentially a massive undertaking to stick a flag into a rock in space and yell "FIRST!". If that's not exactly what humans do all the time and have done throughout history with gross disregard of the risks involved, I don't know what is.

[james_s]

It could be argued that there is a difference between an individual engaging in a risky activity and a government or other entity sending citizens off on a dangerous mission. This breaks down too though when you consider the hundreds of thousands of citizens who have been sent off to fight wars, many of which turn out to be rather pointless. Send many thousands of people to Vietnam knowing with certainty that a large number of them will never come home, or send a handful of guys to the moon knowing there is a very real chance they will not return but make every effort to return them safely? Given the choice I'd rather take a crack at getting to the moon and back than go to fight some random war for vague political reasons.

Lots of other examples closer to home. Numerous test pilots died trying to break the sound barrier, that didn't stop people from lining up to take a shot at it.

[dzseki]

Actualy, why does it matter if moon landing happened for real or not? What is depending on this exact question?
If nothing else, a lot of technological advancement was credited to the moon (space) project that was later spun off to our daily life, that alone was worth it.

[cdev]

People with relevant skills can help extract new scientific information from old data using new methods.

I have a challenge for you. Volunteer to comb through old NASA moon data. I'm not kidding. People are needed to do that. People do that kind of thing all the time. You don't have to be a scientist. You just have to have a good idea. You don't even need to have a good idea if you do it on your own. You can be looking for swiss cheese. That data that was collected is everybody's its for all humanity and the Moon is all of our Moon.

People who manage this data exist who, within reason, can help you find it. Much of the data they collected has never been looked at with modern tools. Its just waiting for somebody with an idea, relevant skills and time to comb through it. That person could be you.

If you don't ask you will never know.

[forrestc]

I know I said I was done, but I need to correct this:

Can we have access to the engineering details of the landing on the moon? Nope. They're classified.

There is not much classified anymore, and much of it is available if you ask NASA for it.   Some of it was initially classified just because we didn't want the Russians knowing what we were doing.   All that is left is some export-control issues - which basically means if someone outside the US wants the information it will need to be reviewed to make sure there isn't information contained within which isn't exportable to certain countries.

Here's an example of something which might answer a lot of your questions:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790076883.pdf

and a post-action report:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730023037.pdf

A lot of the data which isn't available doesn't exist mainly because it either was done by seat-of-pants engineering, or records of seemingly little value were tossed once it was clear they weren't going to the moon again.   But a lot of it is available for review at the JSC library.

[Bud]

Actualy, why does it matter if moon landing happened for real or not? What is depending on this exact question?
If nothing else, a lot of technological advancement was credited to the moon (space) project that was later spun off to our daily life, that alone was worth it.

What depends on that question is if they lied you or not. If they did, what makes you think everything else you are being told  is true?

[cdev]

Other space missions (unmanned) from several other countries have photographed the sites of the Apollo moon landings from orbit.

There is actually a concern now about historic preservation.

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[james_s]

If historic preservation is a concern, send rovers there to document it and take photos, personally I don't think a bunch of junk left on the moon by humans is of any real historical benefit, it's just not worth dragging it back to earth.

[cdev]

No, they want to preserve its state on the Moon, not on Earth. As a park or something.

And yes it is of historical benefit because once its gone its gone forever.
Luckily the conditions on the moon are much more favorable to it remaining the same than Earth or even Mars.

Because no atmosphere, so no wind or rain, etc.

However you can bet that tourists would immediately screw it up.

[james_s]

Who is ever going to go look at it? The moon doesn't belong to anyone and the stuff left behind is of no real value. If it were possible to bring it back to earth then it could be in a museum where people would actually see it but it's all moot really, it's never going to be practical to go visit the moon in significant numbers so the stuff will continue to sit there. If someone did go there and salvage bits and pieces it wouldn't bother me in the least, it's not like I'm ever gonna notice it's gone.

[cdev]

What if we built a "space elevator" ?

The cost to go into space would fall, a lot.

Just grab a boost from the Earth's own angular velocity.

A space elevator is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation system.[1] The main component would be a cable (also called a tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. The design would permit vehicles to travel along the cable from a planetary surface, such as the Earth's, directly into space or orbit, without the use of large rockets. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end in space beyond geostationary orbit (35,786 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the outward/upward centrifugal force, which is stronger at the upper end, would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary over a single position on Earth. With the tether deployed, climbers could repeatedly climb the tether to space by mechanical means, releasing their cargo to orbit. Climbers could also descend the tether to return cargo to the surface from orbit.[2]

The concept of a tower reaching geosynchronous orbit was first published in 1895 by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.[3] His proposal was for a free-standing tower reaching from the surface of Earth to the height of geostationary orbit. Like all buildings, Tsiolkovsky's structure would be under compression, supporting its weight from below. Since 1959, most ideas for space elevators have focused on purely tensile structures, with the weight of the system held up from above by centrifugal forces. In the tensile concepts, a space tether reaches from a large mass (the counterweight) beyond geostationary orbit to the ground. This structure is held in tension between Earth and the counterweight like an upside-down plumb bob.

To construct a space elevator on Earth, the cable material would need to be both stronger and lighter (have greater specific strength) than any known material. Development of new materials that meet the demanding specific strength requirement must happen before designs can progress beyond discussion stage. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been identified as possibly being able to meet the specific strength requirements for an Earth space elevator.[2][4] Other materials considered have been boron nitride nanotubes, and diamond nanothreads, which were first constructed in 2014.[5][6]

A prototype was launched in 2018 to tether to future stations as well as the International Space Station.[7] It is a miniature version to be further examined before making the decision to build up a large structure in the coming years.

The concept is applicable to other planets and celestial bodies. For locations in the solar system with weaker gravity than Earth's (such as the Moon or Mars), the strength-to-density requirements for tether materials are not as problematic. Currently available materials (such as Kevlar) are strong and light enough that they could be used as the tether material for elevators there.[8]

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How would it work?

Apparent gravitational field

A space elevator cable rotates along with the rotation of the Earth. Therefore, objects attached to the cable would experience upward centrifugal force in the direction opposing the downward gravitational force. The higher up the cable the object is located, the less the gravitational pull of the Earth, and the stronger the upward centrifugal force due to the rotation, so that more centrifugal force opposes less gravity. The centrifugal force and the gravity are balanced at geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO). Above GEO, the centrifugal force is stronger than gravity, causing objects attached to the cable there to pull upward on it.

The net force for objects attached to the cable is called the apparent gravitational field. The apparent gravitational field for attached objects is the (downward) gravity minus the (upward) centrifugal force. The apparent gravity experienced by an object on the cable is zero at GEO, downward below GEO, and upward above GEO.

The apparent gravitational field can be represented this way:: Ref[40] Table 1
The downward force of actual gravity decreases with height: g r = − G M / r 2 {\displaystyle g_{r}=-GM/r^{2}} {\displaystyle g_{r}=-GM/r^{2}}
The upward centrifugal force due to the planet's rotation increases with height: a = ω 2 r {\displaystyle a=\omega ^{2}r} a=\omega ^{2}r
Together, the apparent gravitational field is the sum of the two:
g = − G M r 2 + ω 2 r {\displaystyle g=-{\frac {GM}{r^{2}}}+\omega ^{2}r} {\displaystyle g=-{\frac {GM}{r^{2}}}+\omega ^{2}r}

where
g is the acceleration of apparent gravity, pointing down (negative) or up (positive) along the vertical cable (m s−2),
gr is the gravitational acceleration due to Earth's pull, pointing down (negative)(m s−2),
a is the centrifugal acceleration, pointing up (positive) along the vertical cable (m s−2),
G is the gravitational constant (m3 s−2 kg−1)
M is the mass of the Earth (kg)
r is the distance from that point to Earth's center (m),
ω is Earth's rotation speed (radian/s).

At some point up the cable, the two terms (downward gravity and upward centrifugal force) are equal and opposite. Objects fixed to the cable at that point put no weight on the cable. This altitude (r1) depends on the mass of the planet and its rotation rate. Setting actual gravity equal to centrifugal acceleration gives:: Ref[40] page 126
r 1 = ( G M ω 2 ) 1 3 {\displaystyle r_{1}=\left({\frac {GM}{\omega ^{2}}}\right)^{\frac {1}{3}}} {\displaystyle r_{1}=\left({\frac {GM}{\omega ^{2}}}\right)^{\frac {1}{3}}}

On Earth, this distance is 35,786 km (22,236 mi) above the surface, the altitude of geostationary orbit.: Ref[40] Table 1

On the cable below geostationary orbit, downward gravity would be greater than the upward centrifugal force, so the apparent gravity would pull objects attached to the cable downward. Any object released from the cable below that level would initially accelerate downward along the cable. Then gradually it would deflect eastward from the cable. On the cable above the level of stationary orbit, upward centrifugal force would be greater than downward gravity, so the apparent gravity would pull objects attached to the cable upward. Any object released from the cable above the geosynchronous level would initially accelerate upward along the cable. Then gradually it would deflect westward from the cable.

The field of celestial (orbital) mechanics also includes making highly energy efficient transitions between the zones of gravitational influence surrounding orbiting bodies. Once freed of gravity, the cost of traveling between celestial bodies is fairly low if you effectively use the energy their angular velocity can give you. Its escaping the pull of a planet or moon or the sun that can be expensive if you have no angular velocity to get you started. Apart from this angular velocity, the ultimate speed of any space vehicle is limited by the mass and speed of that mass it can throw behind it.



Visualize sailing the oceans driven by the trade winds.

If you do a gravitational simulation you'll see what I am talking about.

There are technical challenges! This is where engineering comes in.

[forrestc]

Who is ever going to go look at it? The moon doesn't belong to anyone and the stuff left behind is of no real value. If it were possible to bring it back to earth then it could be in a museum where people would actually see it but it's all moot really, it's never going to be practical to go visit the moon in significant numbers so the stuff will continue to sit there. If someone did go there and salvage bits and pieces it wouldn't bother me in the least, it's not like I'm ever gonna notice it's gone.

Assuming the trendline for cost per kilo to orbit continues, within the next 20-30 years space tourism is likely to become a very real thing.   NASA has a stated goal of "tens of dollars per kg" by 2040, and it looks reasonable to expect those prices to be correct.   Some estimates are that the price will drop below $10/kg around 2050, and below a dollar around 2070.    Once you're going to orbit for that cheap, people are going to want to go onto the moon, and see those historic sites.   Note that these estimates are based on past trendlines which have proven fairly stable over the last 50 years.


 

[BravoV]

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/02/health/china-lunar-rover-far-moon-landing-intl/index.html


Curious how the earth's station communicate with it as its at the dark side ? Does China have satellite there ?

[cdev]

yes, they do.

Ultimately, the far side of the moon will be an ideal site for observing the rest of the universe without radio interference from the Earth.

[Mr. Scram]

Who is ever going to go look at it? The moon doesn't belong to anyone and the stuff left behind is of no real value. If it were possible to bring it back to earth then it could be in a museum where people would actually see it but it's all moot really, it's never going to be practical to go visit the moon in significant numbers so the stuff will continue to sit there. If someone did go there and salvage bits and pieces it wouldn't bother me in the least, it's not like I'm ever gonna notice it's gone.

Seeing how NASA still claims ownership of the engines and other stuff it dropped on Earth during the Apollo launches, you can bet you're going to get some strong-arming if anyone goes near the Apollo kit or sites on the Moon.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/jeff-bezosapollo-11-rocket-engines-lost-at-sea/

[james_s]

Space tourism is a LONG way from moon tourism. The moon is a vast distance from the earth, it's by far the furthest from our planet that man has ever gone. There is a huge difference between a jaunt into low earth orbit and a round trip to the moon, and if you want to physically visit the surface of the moon that's a whole new level of complexity. There's a reason we only sent people there a handful of times, it's seriously expensive, difficult and dangerous.

As far as NASA claiming ownership to the stuff on the moon, what are they gonna do about it if someone manages to get there and swipe something? It's not like some random guy is gonna build a rocket in his back yard and get there, it will be a major effort by the government of a large country. I don't think we'd declare war on China or Russia or whatever over it.

[Mr. Scram]

Space tourism is a LONG way from moon tourism. The moon is a vast distance from the earth, it's by far the furthest from our planet that man has ever gone. There is a huge difference between a jaunt into low earth orbit and a round trip to the moon, and if you want to physically visit the surface of the moon that's a whole new level of complexity. There's a reason we only sent people there a handful of times, it's seriously expensive, difficult and dangerous.

As far as NASA claiming ownership to the stuff on the moon, what are they gonna do about it if someone manages to get there and swipe something? It's not like some random guy is gonna build a rocket in his back yard and get there, it will be a major effort by the government of a large country. I don't think we'd declare war on China or Russia or whatever over it.

I can definitely see the US beating its chest over it in warlike terms, but it's probably going to be along the lines of politically pestering those responsible.

[rdl]

“Once you get to earth orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere in the solar system.”

     — Robert A. Heinlein

If space tourism catches on, Moon vacations are almost inevitable.

[dzseki]

Actualy, why does it matter if moon landing happened for real or not? What is depending on this exact question?
If nothing else, a lot of technological advancement was credited to the moon (space) project that was later spun off to our daily life, that alone was worth it.

What depends on that question is if they lied you or not. If they did, what makes you think everything else you are being told  is true?

Politicians lie every once and then (all the time?), we all know it. No one cares much about it - certainly not that much it would turn our world upside down.
After 50 years, I hardly can imagine this would make any difference.

[MrW0lf]

The moon doesn't belong to anyone and the stuff left behind is of no real value.

http://tl2k.org/history/

On July 20, 1969, two American Astronauts landed on the moon of the planet Earth, in an area known as Mare Tranquilitatis , or “Sea of Tranquility”. One of those brave men was Brother Edwin Eugene (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr., a member of Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417, AF&AM, Seabrook, Texas. Brother Aldrin carried with him SPECIAL DEPUTATION of then Grand Master J. Guy Smith, constituting and appointing Brother Aldrin as Special Deputy of the Grand Master, granting unto him full power in the premises to represent the Grand Master as such and authorize him to claim Masonic Territorial Jurisdiction for The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Texas, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, on The Moon, and directed that he make due return of his acts. Brother Aldrin certified that the SPECIAL DEPUTATION was carried by him to the Moon on July 20, 1969.

[Simon]

Yea the mason's, they are a country of their own?

[MrW0lf]

Yea the mason's, they are a country of their own?

More like international jurisdiction I suppose. However they seem to have certain pet country