Sectorgame

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

That about covers everything...

Seriously though, there are a lot of idiots out there actually believing the moon landings were faked.

I believe they were faked. Without a doubt, whatever they try and say.

And I believe that the only reason George Bush wants to "bring America into the heavens™" is because China has expressed its intentions to colonise the Moon and Mars. He's simply trying to get there before the Chinese. It's a modern space race, f### 'exploration' right off.

If they could go to the moon in 1969 with roughly 9 years of preparation and planning (from scratch), then why are they saying the earliest they can go there again is about 2020? Simple. They're now doing it from scratch, for real.

Sorry, I like conspiracies.

Um...do you have any actual reason why you believe they were faked? Anything that can stand up to the debunking in Hunter's link? Anything other than just a feeling of paranoia and/or distrust of government? I'm curious...

As for your other statements, I'm inclined to agree that Bush's statements may be in some part motivated by China's recent stated intentions, but I don't necessarily see a problem with that. This ties into your statement about the amount of time required to reach the moon. The general feeling about space exploration was far different at the time of Kennedy's speech in 1961 than it is at the time of Bush's speech in 2005. Back then, after the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the United States found itself in a bit of a scientific lurch. The Soviets had gotten a huge jump in the realm of space exploration/technology, and we had a lot of catching up to do. Mix that sentiment with the tensions of the Cold War, and space exploration suddenly takes a very high priority. Public sentiment was heavily behind the whole "space race" ideology, interest was high, and government support was freely forthcoming (I'm guessing at a far greater comparative rate than today, although I don't have any facts on that.) The actual Apollo command capsules weren't much more than larger, beefed-up versions of the original one-man Mercury capsules; once you solve the problem of how to land on the Moon, it's just a simple issue of hooking the LEM and the CM on top of a bigasss Saturn V rocket and blasting away. (It's obviously much more complicated than that, but the underlying issues with landing on the Moon at that time were relatively simple.)

Today, however, things are much different than during the 60s. Not only is public interest about the space program much reduced (at least it was before the Columbia incident and current Discovery mission), but there is also no perceived threat to national security like the Soviets presented. (China does somewhat fulfill this role, but to nowhere near the same extent that the USSR did.) Add to that the fact that, for better or worse, the US's manned space program has been entirely based on the shuttle fleet for the last twenty years. The shuttles are designed pretty much for carrying large amounts of cargo to a relatively low Earth orbit and coming back to Earth; you can't exactly fire one off at the Moon in the same way you can a small capsule. NASA's budget isn't exactly huge, either. A lot of changes need to be made (certainly not the least of which is some sort of shuttle replacement) before we're ready to do anything besides orbiting again. In that light, I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the current push for the Moon will take somewhat more time than the initial one did.

Top Gun wrote:Um...do you have any actual reason why you believe they were faked? Anything that can stand up to the debunking in Hunter's link? Anything other than just a feeling of paranoia and/or distrust of government?

You hit the nail on the head. I simply do not trust the American government.

Your arguments make perfect sense, but I'm an idiot so I'll stick by my original opinion Don't take it personally.

Uh, what makes the "American Government" any different than ... any other government, really? And can you be sure the american government of today is the same government of the 1960's ?

As with everything, empires fade and become corrupt over time.

Btw your sig might be considered insulting

I call false advertising!

I live in houston texas, right next to johnson space center. I have been there many times. If you ever make it out here, you should go see the saturn V rocket displayed out in the front lawn. If you tell me a rocket that mighty couldnt get men to the moon and back... your a fool. Hell....some people say that particular rocket could make it to mars but thats beside the point. The USA had ample capability/technology to make it to the moon and back so why even bother faking it?

MatthewPapa wrote:I live in houston texas, right next to johnson space center. I have been there many times. If you ever make it out here, you should go see the saturn V rocket displayed out in the front lawn. If you tell me a rocket that mighty couldnt get men to the moon and back... your a fool. Hell....some people say that particular rocket could make it to mars but thats beside the point. The USA had ample capability/technology to make it to the moon and back so why even bother faking it?

Frankly I don't care one bit if you *think* it *could* get men to the Moon, that all depends on the techical capabilities of the rocket itself.

I'm sorry but I just don't trust America in any way. Not now, now then, not ever. I don't need to give any of you my reasons. And before you launch your holy American pride on me - STOP - that's my last post for this topic thanks. You'll only annoy me.

And Hunty, cheers. Thats the whole point.

The Russians seemed to trust the US moon landings at the time.........

Pah. Why are you even arguing with him? There's always a lone conspiracy nut in every group. And at his age, I expect nothing less from him than this.

I mean c'mon! look at the tin foil cap he's wearing in his avatar!

"Thats the whole point?"

We don't like being insulted.

You're right, America didn't land on the moon, they secretly donated the billions of dollars to feeding starving children in Africa.

Seriously... you know that if there's something stupid and frivilous to waste money on, the US gov't will.

Robo wrote:Your arguments make perfect sense, but I'm an idiot so I'll stick by my original opinion Don't take it personally.

Woot! I made perfect sense!

Robo wrote:I believe they were faked. Without a doubt, whatever they try and say.
If they could go to the moon in 1969 with roughly 9 years of preparation and planning (from scratch), then why are they saying the earliest they can go there again is about 2020? Simple. They're now doing it from scratch, for real.

I got one big word for that FUNDING you know, money the stuff you pay for people to design, test and certify the equpiment required by such a task. Anybody seen a functional Saturn V anywhere? I haven't, and since that one of the corner stones of the Apollo program it's no wonder that he set such a far off goal. Yes, I realize that he increased funding recently, but not nearly enough to let us go to the moon within 2020 considering they have to redesign most of the equipment seeing as that technology has surpassed the orginal technology that was used.
EX1: The computer in the LEM is about as powerful as a pocket calculator.