Comments on: Preserving the Moon Landings for Posterity

By: Frank Glover

Frank Glover — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:15:39 +0000

Right. And yet the former Soviet Union, with all the intelligence-gathering resources of the KGB at its disposal, never once so much as *hinted* that we were faking it. It would have been the greatest propaganda coup of all time, but they said nothing…because there was nothing to say. (Except to pretend they were never interested in going to the Moon, when it was clear they could not be first. *That* is the only Moon-related deception, and one the Russians no longer assert. One can easily find video of their heavy-lift launch failures on YouTube today. For all its other faults, even the movie ‘Apollo 18′ got the now-known design of the intended Russian lander right.)

Of course, some will tell you ‘the Russians were in on it, too.’ Such people don’t remember or understand the Cold War, that they would *never* agree to such a conspiracy with the US, especially one that made them look inferior by not appearing to get there, either. Walk quietly away from such people, and hope they take their meds…

And eventually someone, *many* someones, will go back to the Moon. But the theorists will still insist that the sites were faked, even when it becomes possible to buy a ticket there.

By: Nibra

Nibra — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:54:21 +0000

It’s not for safe keeping. It’s so people won’t realize how fake it is. and that there are no footprints up there, no tracks made by a rover and no landing occured. Just another step in what will be known as the greatest propaganda media blitz that ever occured.

By: Frank Glover

Frank Glover — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:52:56 +0000

IIRC, Robert Forward’s novel ‘Martian Rainbow’ had a scene where tourists are observing the Viking-1 lander from a similar fenced off distance. Someone notes that there’s one set of footprints going to the lander and back, and wonders who would dare disturb the site.

The guide tells her; “It was me. Years ago, I had to go to it, in order to attach a plaque made in the last century on Earth, designating it the Thomas A. Mutch Memorial Station. It was meant to be brought here whenever a manned expedition to the site was practical…and I was on it. It fell to me to go put it on the lander. I’m the only one who has ever actually walked up to it.”

That’s not a quote, I no longer have the book, but that was essentially it. And there really *is* such a plaque for that lander, waiting for such a time…

I also recall a pair of paintings in an astronomy magazine, one similarly depicting a Viking lander, the site protected under a large clear dome, clearly surrounded by a large, thriving human colony…

And another painting, depicting a lonely, seriously sandblasted, partly dune-buried lander, many centuries after its arrival. No evidence that humans were ever present. The implication being that civilization on Earth collapsed (or humans may even have become extinct) for whatever reasons, before we could ever get there.

Which outcome will actually happen…?

By: Iain

Iain — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:46:33 +0000

@JMW
Soon doesn’t have to mean next week.
I think within a decade there will be privately funded trips to the moon. Expensive YES, but do-able. Don’t need any tomfoolery nobrain things that you suggest, just money, and there is a lot of that around.

By: JMW

JMW — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:10:22 +0000

@4 Iain – I seem to recall a footnote in Terry Prachett’s “Wyrd Sisters” where a he’s describing a crowd scene, and someone has opened up a stall selling sausages. The footnote says something along the lines of the franchise included the stall, the uniform, the barbecue, and a small gas-powered time machine.”

That’d do it.

By: Iain

Iain — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:34:00 +0000

Won’t be long before they are roped off and souvenir stands pop up. Then comes the fast food place and wrappers and paper coffee cups everywhere. Sigh.
Yes I know it’s on the moon.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:12:10 +0000

Please remember that NASA has already lost/erase the original moon landing tapes for ever and all thats left are the transcribed ones that went out to the media. The originals with there own unique format are lost for ever.

By: JaberwokWSA

JaberwokWSA — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:49:49 +0000

While I agree that these sites deserve protection, I want to play devil’s advocate and ask exactly what purpose will the protection serve?

For million year old footprints or a well-preserved waste bin, you can learn things from the context and content of the artifacts. But, if, in the future, you are unable to even access the site for study, how can you learn anything? Plus, I assume that a lot of records exist that detail everything anyway, so what would there be new to learn?

So, it appears to me to be a matter of saving the sites as a matter of history and sentimentality. But, does it mean anything to have such a record that you can’t access? Examples of this bahavior on Earth might include putting a painting by di Vinci permanently inside a sealed wooden crate. Or placing a cordon a city block wide around the hand and feet prints at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

I can just see it now. Two hundred years from now, a tour group on the moon, and the tour guide saying “If you look to your left 250 feet away, you can see Neil Armstrong’s footprints. Sure it’s there. Just trust me.” If I only had eyes that good.

By: woody tanaka

woody tanaka — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:42:25 +0000

I have no doubt that some scum-sucking parasite of a capitalist will desecrate these sites at some point in the future.