Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Moon landing 1969

86 replies

Yorkshiremum17 · 12/07/2019 20:50

Just watching a programme about the 1st men on the moon. I'm still not convinced that we actually did it. I would love to think that we did, but I just don't think that the technology of the time was capable of doing that.
What do you think, did the human race actually land on the moon in 1969 and return safely to earth?

OP posts:
GrimDamnFanjo · 13/07/2019 00:12

Interesting thread. I do believe the moon landings were real but it's interesting to read why others don't...

Brahumbug · 13/07/2019 00:38

Well professor Van Allen disagreed, he thought passing through the belts was not a problem. The modern Airbus A380 has more computing power than all the computers in the world in 1969. Yet historians would have us believe that the battle of Britain was fought with planes that had NO COMPUTERS AT ALL, clearly anybody who claims that they flew in a plane at that time is lying.

Brahumbug · 13/07/2019 00:51

James Van Allen statement on the Apollo mission
forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?3885-Statement-from-James-Van-Allen-on-radiation-effects

Brahumbug · 13/07/2019 00:55

Why the obsession with computers? You don't need computers to automate a rocket flight. The early Soyuz flights were fully automated, making the cosmonauts redundant, yet they had even less computing power than the Americans. Isaac Newton could have done the calculations for the flight 400 years ago using his own formulae and laws of motion.

Ginormoustrawberry · 13/07/2019 01:35

Dad, is that you? Hmm

ErrolTheDragon · 13/07/2019 08:06

Why the obsession with computers? You don't need computers to automate a rocket flight

The Germans were able to get flying bombs and rockets to pretty much where they intended to at the end of WWII.

Isaac Newton could have done the calculations for the flight 400 years ago using his own formulae and laws of motion.

Rocket science is, well, just rocket science.Wink

Aragog · 13/07/2019 08:23

Yes I do believe it.

There is no way so many people could have held such a massive secret for so long. We didn't just visit once either m, so even more people involved.

Pretty much all scientists and space people believe we went. Why wouldn't I choose to believe them over ransoms of some conspiracy sights?!

Aragog · 13/07/2019 08:27

We stopped going due to other priorities didn't we? Cost and the fact that there wasn't really much more they could do at the time once they'd been a number of tunes.

Hence new space explorations started instead. It's costly - you can't just keep sending people there and back for the fun of it, there has to be good reason and once the initial visits were done there probably wasn't and NASA etc would have other priorities to work on.

TheFaerieQueene · 13/07/2019 08:35

Yes, they landed on the moon in 1969. It was one of the most remarkable achievements in human history.

If you don’t believe it OP. It really doesn’t matter and doesn’t diminish the event.

Silvercatowner · 13/07/2019 08:46

I do believe - I watched it happen. It was one of the most awesome, amazing things I have ever seen. It wouldn't happen today - the risks those astronauts took were unbelievable. I know stuff went wrong but it's incredible that it wasn't a complete disaster.

Macca84 · 13/07/2019 09:28

So you believe they didn't go in 1969, but went at a later date, set up the landing site to match the pictures they faked in 69...?? 😂

I'm sorry, but you're asking for sensible debate about a ridiculous argument. To not believe we went to the moon is actually moronic.

ErrolTheDragon · 13/07/2019 22:31

I happened to be talking with one of my brothers today and this subject came up....he's in no doubt, having met Buzz Aldrin.

HeronLanyon · 13/07/2019 22:38

I too met buzz aldrin (lived close to a relative of mine). Remember as young kid watching this. Seems like yesterday. Seems like centuries ago. Another world.

NotDavidTennant · 13/07/2019 22:59

The first trans-atlantic flight was made in a wooden biplane using a sextant for navigation.

You can achieve a lot with low-tech solutions if you're willing to take risks.

Heatherjayne1972 · 14/07/2019 06:18

Of course we went to the moon!

1969 was the height of the Cold War. It was a ‘space race’ between the Russians and the USA The Russians were watching carefully and if the us hadn’t gone the Russians would have been the first to shout - and they’d have been very vocal about it too!

Pineapplefish · 14/07/2019 06:33

OP, I recommend reading Moondust by Andrew Smith.

MorvaanReed · 14/07/2019 06:59

So those that have doubts, when did the lying and faking start? Project Mercury 1958 - 1963 that put men in orbit of the earth; Project Gemini 1961 - 1966 that got us orbiting the moon or did all the BS start with Apollo?

Technologically there was a pretty big run up to actually doing it.

Apolloanddaphne · 14/07/2019 07:23

Of course the moon landings happened. I think we rely so much on advanced technology now that we can't believe that there was ever simpler way to do things. A way that took man power and brain power. I recall watching it in 1969. It was amazing then and is still amazing now.

ErrolTheDragon · 14/07/2019 08:46

I think we rely so much on advanced technology now that we can't believe that there was ever simpler way to do things. A way that took man power and brain power

Complex engineering to be sure - technology not 'tech'. For instance, Armstrong test piloted the x-15 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorthAmericann_X-15

You really do need more 'tech' to drive from A to B taking account of variable traffic!

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/07/2019 08:56

Ye gods!

5000 years ago the pyramids and other great edifices were built wthout cranes, or any other mechanical equipment. All the maths for designing them was done by hand, no calculators.

Many human first, huge achievements were made pre-mechanisation, pre-computerisation - from sailing round the world on a 'raft' to powered flights. All done with the most simple of instruments.

And after all of that you want to quibble abut men in a tin can making it to the moon WITH revolutionary computing equipment on board?

Phsaw!

MockerstheFeManist · 14/07/2019 09:09

The landing sites are now visible from Earth using the most powerful high res telescopes.

No.

The landing sites have been photographed by a satellite in lunar orbit.

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html

The Apollo landers and the Soviet Lunakhods left laser reflectors on the lunar surface whch are used to bounce lasers and measure the exact distance between the Earth and Moon. These insturments confirm that the moon is slightly oscillating due to the effects of the meteor strike observed by the monks of Canterbury Cathedral in 1178.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater)

Am at a complete loss to understand what the denyers say did happen? There was a Saturn V rocket. Millions of people camped out on the cape and saw it go up. The USSR never queried the moon landings. Were they also in on the conspiracy?

(Yes, according to the 1977 April Fools Day spoof documentary Alternative 3 made by Anglia TV which started the whole Lunar conspiracy speculation.)

MadisonAvenue · 14/07/2019 09:16

I wish they shut-up about this,I was born '69 .Stop it.

Me too, a few days after they'd landed on the Moon.
I don't like the constant reminders that 1969 was 50 years ago 😳😂

HeronLanyon · 14/07/2019 09:30

Just been sorting through old American newspapers from 50s onwards (including moon landing issues). Blimey the build up and media coverage from the late 50s is far deeper and more detailed than I had realised ! In depth descriptions and diagrams (clearly hand drawn often which is quite moving) and interviews and explanations of trials and tests etc. The Gemini programme particularly fascinating.

In the depths of our and us and world political mess it’s been interesting. Think it would be similarly good (better as moon race and monies have problematic side obviously) for my own political ‘mental health’ to go back to reporting of setting up of nhs and welfare systems.

janesmore · 14/07/2019 09:48

I always believed the moon landings happened when they did. However I then met Neil Armstrong and now have some niggling doubts.... on balance I am still convinced they did.

SirTifiable · 14/07/2019 12:25

These arguments are called PRATTs.

Point Refuted A Thousand Times.

Yet still they are dragged out by halfwits as something new.

Just a few points.

  1. The flag. Yes there is no wind on the moon. The flag was wired so it stood out straight. NASA knew there was no wind on the moon and a droopy flag makes for bad publicity. So they wired it.
  1. The computers on the lunar lander. They were not the size of houses. They were not PCs or tablets. They were single circuit boards running tightly compiled machine code dedicated to single tasks. Rather like the myriad of tiny chips on your laptop’s motherboard that do just one simple task very efficiently. The astronauts didn’t spark up Windows and do stuff in Excel.

Any more?