I don't believe we've been to the moon and SpaceXs failure further convinces me.

[MrsRobinsonsHandprints]

I know I've posted this before and the majority of you think I'm batty, but I don't think we've landed on the moon.

3 billion USD, a giant leap in technological advances and yet it can't even launch.

There are Russian reflectors on the moon too but they have not sent a manned mission there, so reflectors don't prove the manned moon landings on their own.

there have been some very interesting counter arguments that I am currently working through.

Where did you do your astrophysics or engineering PhD and post-docs?

The US Congress realised the private sector can get the job done far quicker and cheaper than NASA can as the private sector isn't bound to lobbyists. NASA have spent the better part of 10 years and 50bn building a rocket called the SLS which is designed to take people to lunar orbit. NASA has contracted SpaceX to build the lunar lander. It's not like 3bn went up in smoke in this one successful test launch of the heaviest and most powerful rocket ever built.

True, but whilst I suspect you know the following it may need to be spelt out for the benefit of others:

History has it that first return from the Apollo 11 Lunar Retro Ranging Reflector (LR3) was recorded on 1st Aug '69 at Lick observatory...the Russian reflectors carried onboard a couple of Lunokhod rovers arrived after that date...

So as to allow a 1st Jan '69 hit:

Either Aldrin/Armstrong deployed their LR3 as history says they did on July 20th '69... or

America put that one there by means never revealed, such as a top secret unmanned and unacknowledged mission....or..

The scientists who got the first "hit" at Lick observatory and those elsewhere in the world who used the device in the following weeks were lying in late '69 and have continued to lie for decades.

When you combine the reflectors with repeated radar tracking of several ships, the visual evidence that’s been collected since of a disturbance on the moon’s surface, the deaths of three astronauts during a test launch, the highly-publicised failure of one mission…

how far down the ‘fake’ rabbit hole do people want to go?

Vegetus · Today 08:19

The US Congress realised the private sector can get the job done far quicker and cheaper than NASA can as the private sector isn't bound to lobbyists.

They've long had private involvement, haven't they? There was a shuttle which blew up, because the contractors reused an O-ring in the fuel pod, which wasn't supposed to have been done.

The Russians, who had the biggest stake in proving the Americans never went to the moon... didn't.

There was a shuttle which blew up, because the contractors reused an O-ring in the fuel pod, which wasn't supposed to have been done.

Err...Say what? That sort of statement, thrown in as "fact" is what has had those with perhaps more than a very superficial passing level of knowledge of aviation/spaceflight climbing the walls during this "debate".

You need to do much more research - Sounds like you are on about the Challenger accident and that had nothing to do with fuel pods (whatever they are) or O-rings being reused

I'll help - The contractor, Morton-Thiokol, knew of something known as O-ring erosion, especially at low ambient temps and as a result M-T junior management very much warned NASA against launch on what was going to be a very cold day.

NASA went ahead anyway and the Challenger accident happened..

But there was much more to it than that, but that's the gist.

notimagain · Today 08:44

Err...Say what? That sort of statement, thrown in as "fact"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

The cause of the disaster was the failure of the primary and secondary redundant O-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle's right solid rocket booster (SRB).

That confirms exactly what @notimagain said.

This is the very next sentence after your quote: The record-low temperatures of the launch had stiffened the rubber O-rings, reducing their ability to seal the joints.

No-one would be mocked for asking informed and relevant questions. No-one has on this thread, it's all stuff like "we didn't have the technology" when we patently did.

The whole Challenger disaster occurred because people who thought they were good at maths turned out to be useless at statistics and risk.

Ultimately, a 1/1000 risk, multiplied by a 1/1000 risk is not 1/1,000,000.

I was at Uni when the disaster happened, and followed Feynmans report when it came out. We won't see his like again. Or Carl Sagan. Unless TikTok goes nerd.

Not sure what's worse really, the completely unqualified people utterly convinced it was fake based usually on only cursory inspection of poor evidence, or the completely unqualified people utterly convinced it was real based usually on only cursory inspection of poor evidence.

Some of Boston Dynamics Atlas videos are almost certainly fake (for competitive and strategic misinformation/misdirection), but most are real and their robots are real, so vast swathes of people will automatically accept all their videos are real.

@MrsRobinsonsHandprints if the SpaceX launch reinforces your beliefs that the moon landings were faked, how many successful launches would it take to convince you that the moon landings were real?

So just to be clear about this - initially after what looks like zero research you chucked in pretty much a word salad involving "fuel pods" and incorrect claims about reusing O-rings.

You then followed up with a link to wiki, which has been pointed out actually sets the story straight but you don't even think of perhaps adding an "oh yep, I got that slightly wrong".

Can you perhaps now understand why people with some knowledge of this topic are coming over as just a little frustrated?

Let’s not forget the Columbia disaster either. The Columbia disintegrated during re-entry because debris from the external tank had damaged the thermal protection system tiles of the orbiter’s left wing during launch.

Well not with your work computers obviously but also many of the calculations were made on earth before the launch. You can look up details of this. You generally don't need the onboard computer for anything too complicated if you're heading for a predetermined point.

True.

I was at Uni in the early 70s and as part of a science degree spent some time working briefly with the micro computers of that era, so stuff not that on from the Apollo era equipment.

They wouldn't do anything fancy and they were a pig to program (toggle switches, registers and all that) but they were fine for heavy mathematical processing once you'd loaded commands and data in the correct order 😱.

The Apollo onboard computers data entry was done by numeric keyboard, using numeric "verbs", "nouns" there was no fancy screen, no mouse etc.....just enough functionality to get the mathematical processing up and running...which was all that was needed.

I think that's now long forgotten and many people equate "technology"/"computing power" to what they have on their smart phones, not realising that a lot of that "technology" they are walking around with is soaked up running graphics, apps etc.

I suspect it's that that has lead to comments such "how could they have got to the Moon with technology that doesn't use colour screens and touch pads".

Answer is: They weren't needed.

Yes, I'm very keen to hear about a specific piece of 'technology' which is absolutely necessary for getting to the moon and back which wasn't available in 1969. Because that would certainly be a clincher, right?

@MrsRobinsonsHandprints It’s good to question things. I don’t know with any certainty either way. But I do ask why have we not been able to send astronauts to the moon since the 70’s. Why could we build a rocket powerful enough back then but not since?

Copy and paste from space.com

We have only managed to put astronauts on the moon six times so far. These moon landings took place in a three-year period between 1969 and 1972 and were part of a series of space missions called the Apollo missions.
The type of rocket used to get the astronauts to the moon was an extremely powerful one called a Saturn V, which is no longer produced. This means that, at the moment, we do not have a rocket powerful enough to get people to the moon – let alone build a space station there.

"Camberwell Carrot you're go for launch..."

re movement of the flag - because of the lack of gravity, the motion from the flag being planted wouldn't arrest in the same way it would in earth's gravitational environment. With no mass to stop it, the motion of it being planted in the ground would make the flag ripple for a very long time.

My Maltese family would like A Word ;)

Not sure what's worse really, the completely unqualified people utterly convinced it was fake based usually on only cursory inspection of poor evidence, or the completely unqualified people utterly convinced it was real based usually on only cursory inspection of poor evidence.

Welcome to the real world - most of us are completely unqualified in a great many areas and navigate through life based on a quick inspection of the evidence available to us.

I call it the 'bus stop principle'. I have zero knowledge of building, maintaining or driving buses. I have very little idea of how they manage to timetable the things. Haven't a clue how to manage a bus depot.

Nonetheless, I will stand at a bus stop in the conviction that a bus really will turn up when (or close to) the app/printed timetable says it will. I have some experience of buses turning up, so a cursory inspection of my app leads to me being convinced the bus will arrive.

While this can be a bit worrying when you're standing in the middle of the Welsh countryside gazing at nothing but fields, it usually works.