Undergraduate, Peer-Reviewed Science Journal
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Issue 2, January 2004 Selby
Cull, Senior Research Editor, Science Journalist In
Part 1 of this series,
lines of evidence were presented that are commonly used to support
the claim that the missions to the moon never happened. Rebuttals
to those claims were also presented. Here, the final 10 claims of
Moon-hoax proponents are presented for your scrutiny.
Starless
Skies Possible evidence: Although stars should be visible day and night from the moon, none of the Apollo photographs show stars (Figure 18). Clearly, say conspiracy theorists, this shows that the images were faked. Response: It seems that conspiracy theorists who make this claim have never used a camera. The lunar surface was extremely bright, the astronauts were clad head to toe in white, and the stars were faint in comparison. An astronaut wanting to snap a picture of his buddy on the moon would have to use an extraordinarily short exposure time. Such short exposure times were enough to capture blindingly white astronauts, but not long enough to expose faint stars, so none are visible.
Film Fondue Possible Evidence: Temperatures on the moon range between –230° and 250° F. If you stick camera film in an oven at 250 degrees, it melts — so why didn’t the moon film melt? Response: For one easy reason: there is no atmosphere on the moon. Heat can be transferred in three ways: conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction and convection require air. In an airless environment, radiation is the only way heat is transferred, so the film never got close to the extremes of -230 or 250 degrees.
Fried Astronauts
Possible evidence: “Any human being traveling through the Van Allen Belt would have been rendered either extremely ill or actually killed by the radiation within a short time thereof,” says Moon-hoax proponent Bill Kaysing. Response: The Van Allen Belt does indeed contain enough radiation to kill a man — if he stayed there long enough. While passing through the Belt, the Apollo astronauts were exposed to an average radiation dose of 0.167 mSv per second. (One mSv is equivalent to 12,000 high-energy protons striking a person’s body.) Thirty straight days of 0.167 mSv of radiation per second would have killed them. Fortunately, the astronauts passed through the belt in less than an hour and a half. There is about a 1 in 1,000 chance that one of the astronauts may develop cancer later in life as a result of this exposure; however, at the time, the astronauts would not have even felt queasy.
Moon Junk When the Apollo missions left the moon, each left behind equipment, rovers, and landers. Possible evidence: Many conspiracy theorists have claimed that Earth-based telescopes are unable to see any Apollo equipment still on the moon, which proves that no missions ever landed there. Response: The problem with this argument is that no telescope ever made has enough resolving power to see Apollo equipment on the moon. The most powerful optical telescope in existence is the Hubble Space Telescope. The moon is 239,000 miles away, and the smallest features the Hubble can make out are 300 feet across. The largest piece of equipment that the Apollo astronauts left on the moon was the Lunar Module’s footpads — 31 feet across. To see Apollo debris left on the moon, we need to increase our telescopes’ resolving powers by at least an order of magnitude.
A Tight Fit To get from the Command Module of the Apollo spacecraft to the Lunar Module, astronauts had to crawl through a small tunnel. Possible evidence: Investigator James Collier has proposed that the moon landings were a hoax because the tunnel connecting the Command Module and the Lunar Module was too narrow — the astronauts would not be able to fit through with their spacesuits and backpacks on. Response: He is right about one thing: the tunnel was too narrow. That is exactly why the astronauts’ suits and backpacks were stored in the Lunar Module, not the Command Module. The astronauts passed through the tunnel, then put on their suits to go out onto the moon.
An Impossible Fit
During Apollo 15, 16, and 17, the Lunar Roving Vehicle was transported to the moon onboard the Lunar Module. Possible evidence: Many hoax advocates claim that the Lunar Roving Vehicle could never have fit inside the Lunar Module because it was too large. Response: They are right. The Lunar Roving Vehicle was 11-by-4 feet, and the Lunar Module was only 5-by-4 feet — which is exactly why the Lunar Roving Vehicle was designed to fold up for transport. Once the astronauts reached the moon, the Lunar Roving Vehicle was lowered onto the surface and unfolded (Figure 20).
Rocking the Lunar Module The
Apollo astronauts descended to the lunar surface aboard the Lunar
Module, a small craft designed to hold two people. Response: Rene forgets that the Lunar Module had a built-in feedback control system to keep it balanced. During descent, the Lunar Module’s engine nozzle shifted positions slightly to accommodate changes in center of mass — a process called “gimbaling the nozzle.” As the Lunar Module ascended, a series of smaller rockets fired as needed to keep it centered. All rockets do this. As a rocket burns, the amount of fuel it carries changes, and much of it ends up sloshing around within the rocket, changing its center of mass rapidly. This is nothing new and certainly not a novel feature of the Apollo missions.
A Drab Liftoff Possible evidence: On Earth, when a rocket takes off, it produces a huge column of flames and smoke; yet this did not happen when the top half of the Lunar Lander took off from the lunar surface. Many conspiracy theorists believe that this shows the lander never took off at all. Response: The rockets in the lander used a mixture of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide. When these two chemicals come in contact with each other, they ignite and produce a transparent flame. Such a combination is used on Earth as well, with the same results. In addition to this, when a rocket takes off on Earth, the Earth’s thick atmosphere constrains the flame into the dramatic narrow column we recognize from launches. Since there is no atmosphere on the moon, the flame was spread out over a large distance. Even if the flame had been visible, it would have looked more like a large mushroom than the usual straight column.
Absent Engines The
Apollo astronauts were connected to mission controllers in Houston
via radio. In addition, the microphones used were specially designed to pick up only sounds very close to them, and they were located inside the astronauts’ spacesuits, away from any random cabin noises. Even if the rockets had been audible, the microphones would not have picked them up.
2K RAM The Apollo guidance computer had 2K of RAM. Today, pocket calculators have more RAM. Possible evidence: Many hoax advocates believe that 2K was not enough computing power to get to the moon. Response:
In fact, most of the computing, number crunching, and data analysis
needed for the Apollo missions was done on several mainframe computers
at Mission Control, which then transmitted the results to the guidance
system. The guidance computer (Figure 21) needed only to act on
the information it received from Houston. It ran only one program,
which was written in ROM, so only a tiny bit of RAM was needed to
hold temporary data. On a side note, the Mercury missions between
1961 and 1963 flew with no computer guidance system at all. Conclusion Over the past decade, Moon hoax advocates have brought up many intriguing points regarding the Apollo missions to the moon. None of them, however, are indisputable evidence of fraud, and most are misunderstandings of basic physics or mission specifications. Several lines of evidence point to an actual Moon landing. The 880 pounds of Moon rocks brought back to Earth are the most obvious evidence, as well as the testimonies of 12 astronauts. More than 30,000 photographs were brought back from the Apollo missions, as well as hours upon hours of video footage. The surest evidence, though, that men have walked on the moon is in lasers. Apollo astronauts placed a reflecting mirror on the moon for scientific purposes. If you point a laser at that precise point on the moon, the beam is reflected back. Scientists have used this method to measure the distance to the moon with amazing precision, and it is from such experiments that we know that the moon is slowly receding away from the earth. Unless there are mysterious mirrors growing on our natural satellite, NASA put men on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. Discuss this article!
Further Reading Journal
of Young Investigators. 2004. Volume Ten.
Copyright © 2004 by Selby Cull and JYI. All rights reserved. |
JYI is supported by: The National Science Foundation, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Science Magazine, Science's Next Wave, Swarthmore College, Duke University, Georgetown University, and many others.