This seems appropriate to post now, since I’m on the East coast giving my Moon hoax talk at New England College in New Hampshire and the St. Andrews school in Delaware.
It’s been claimed that if you speed up Apollo footage of the astronauts on the Moon by two times, it looks like they are moving normally. This must mean that NASA filmed them in a studio, and simply slowed down the video by a factor of two to make it seem like lighter gravity.
Brilliant! Except for one problem: it doesn’t work.
First off, slowing the film by a factor of two is wrong. The time it takes for objects to fall depends on the local gravity: in fact, on the square root of the local gravity. Since the Moon has 1/6 the gravity of Earth, things take 61/2 or about 2.45 times longer. Doubling is close, but not quite right. For those doing the math at home, remember that the distance an object falls equals 1/2 a t2 (from Newton; a = acceleration due to gravity and t = time). Solve for t. Voila.
Another problem is that this only works for things falling under gravity. The motion of the astronauts’ arms, legs, etc. still look normal when viewed at normal speed. When doubled, the astronauts’ movements look cartoonish. You can see this for yourself on a YouTube clip someone kindly posted:
See how silly this is? Mind you, Joe Rogan used this as support of hoaxery when we debated on Penn’s show. I told him he was wrong, and he said he was right. You be the judge.
But I’m right and he’s wrong.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Did you catch in the audio how they remarked on the house passing a bill for the NASA budget 277 to 60-something, and that it included the ’shuttle’?
Pretty neat.
(also, if one were interested they could look up the date of said legislation and see that it correlated with the moonwalk, which is more evidence to give moonbats. er. moon landing hoax buffoons. er. Joe. to chew on.)
March 29th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
zzzzzzz…..
wazzat? you said something that I haven’t heard you say about a hundred times before? no way.
boooooring.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Unrelated to the main point of this post, I like how the astronauts in the second clip sound like tourists at any attraction here on Earth. “Hey, get a picture of me jumping! OK, now let me get you! Strike a pose!” Just what I would do on the Moon.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
There was also an echo about half-way through, where one thing was said by someone, and then you hear it out the other side a couple seconds later…
March 29th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Hey, it was cool to watch the footage. Must go looking for more. Thanks for sharing.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I was going to feel all special and guess Apollo 17 and 16, but then I realized the description on Youtube already says that
March 29th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
While I don’t believe the Moon (that one there) landing was hoaxed at all, the footage really doesn’t look silly. That’s probably why it get traction with conspiracy theorists. The only thing that actually looks wrong is the arm movements in the second clip when one astronaut is saluting the other. Besides that, it does actually look pretty normal.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
you’re in MY neck of the woods and you didn’t stop by to say HI???
I’m crushed…
March 29th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
When is the NEC talk? I’m 10 minutes away from there!
March 29th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
AAH! I missed it…
March 29th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Those Japanese Godzilla movies should have changed the speed of the film by a factor of the square root of the scale of the models (buildings, cars, etc).
March 29th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Phil, just bitch slap Rogan next time. Maybe it’ll activate some neurons. Sometimes violence *is* the solution.
>>> you said something that I haven’t heard you say about a
>>> hundred times before?
It needs to be said, Dave. The ignorance continues and needs to be countered.
Hey, what ever happened to Planet X? I had a whole tourism thing planned for that place.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I found the second clip interesting because the flag does look as if it’s moving very slightly while no-one is touching it. However, so does the horizon of the moon and by roughly the same amount, so unless NASA’s studio at Area 51½ is really unstable I would assume that it has something to do with the quality of the footage or the camera.
N.B. I am not a HB. I just thought that this may be what the conspiracy theorists are seeing
March 29th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
I just thought of something …
“Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the Moon ..”
etc. Where does that come from – ok, just some old English
reggae-influenced post-punk band.
_Except_ that their drummer just happens to be well known to be the son of a senior CIA agent.
I think it’s time we all started looking a little more closely to the lyrics of that song. For example, look at the last verse
“Some may say
Im wishing my days away no way
And if its the price I pay, some say
Tomorrows another day, youll stay
I may as well play”
“play”! exactly, play _acting_ to be precise!
March 29th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
What Phil said; and then there’s the dust. When the video is sped up, the dust being kicked up falls too rapidly if it were on Earth at normal speed, so – since it is actually on the Moon under lunar gravity, speeding it up the video simply looks wrong.
March 30th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Not to mention you don’t jump a foot off the ground without putting some thigh into it. The jumper there barely bent his knees. That little leap was all calf. Try it!
March 30th, 2007 at 12:44 am
At 1:10 (going by YouTube’s countdown) as the camera is adjusting for exposure, it also zooms in ever so slightly…GASP! Was this a product of ground control, post production, or the camera, say, changing focus or sumpthin’?
I’m also amazed at how far that dust flew in the first clip. Try recreating that in an earth bound studio whatever the camera speed.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:51 am
There are no stars!
March 30th, 2007 at 1:52 am
Heh… I didn’t realize the clip started in normal speed at first, so I was watching it closely going, “I donno, it looks pretty normal to me, those hoaxers have a point.” (Not that I believe them, just I could see where they were coming from.)
Then the actual speeded up clips started. *facepalm*
March 30th, 2007 at 2:43 am
I’d like to see someone jump that high with that much gear and without bending their legs… the arm movements don’t look right either, they are too fast — again, no one could move that quickly with all of that gear on.
March 30th, 2007 at 3:35 am
Observer , see the link above concerning moon hoax , also as a simple experiment , tonight ,go outside and look to the South. that very bright “star”you see is Jupiter . Try to photograph it with your cell phone . I’ll wager you won’t capture anything .
March 30th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Trcarroll,
Jupiter is appearing in the pre-dawn sky, not at night. The bright star visible after sunset is Venus.
To add to your point, you also should note that the foreground should also be properly exposed (don’t know if you can change exposure times on a cell phone camera).
Back to the clip,
I remember reading about that conversation on Apollo 16 for the shuttle being approved. Goes to show just how far back the program dates.
Oh, neat clips Phil! But I’m sure the hard core HBers won’t be convinced by anything short of going to the moon themselves. Even then, they’ll claim the stuff was put there in recent times, not the 1960s-70s.
The way I see it, the HBers picked Apollo because it had a human proxy present on another world, rather than having doubts about space technology.
If they really did believe their own arguements, then you’d hear claims about all space missions, manned and unmanned.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:02 am
If you speed the audio and video up on any moon-hoax sycophant interview, they move and sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I think that provides conclusive prove that the whole moon-hoax movement is really a plot by the order Rodentia to abscond supremacy on the planet from primates.
Er wait, that was just lunacy.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Wait! You’re coming to New England College? That’s practically in my backyard!
When? I went to their website, and can’t find an event with your name on it…
March 30th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Chip: It’s more than just the dust falling… notice how the dust doesn’t billow… it just goes up in the air and travels in a straight line. If there were any air present, you’d see it billow up and make a nice cloudy effect.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:26 am
See how silly this is? Mind you, Joe Rogan used this as support of hoaxery when we debated on Penn’s show
Yeah, but Joe Rogan is an idiot, IMHO.
I lost any respect I had for him after hearing him on Penn Jillette.
It’s more than just the dust falling… notice how the dust doesn’t billow… it just goes up in the air and travels in a straight line. If there were any air present, you’d see it billow up and make a nice cloudy effect.
It’s been my experience that no matter how many times I expain/show this to an HB, they simply refuse to believe it. I’ve got one friend who believes in the moon hoax so religiously, you could go blue in the face showing him all the evidence contradicting his beliefs and debunking all the quackery behind the moon hoax; he simply refuses to believe it, and of course, I’m the one who’s closed minded!
March 30th, 2007 at 5:43 am
The saluting motion really showed up your point, but I think the most telling thing was the way the astronaut got up after he had fallen. There’s no way he does that on Earth.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I counted to ten to allay my anger prior to calling you, but I fear I may still have sounded a tad irate. New HAMPSHIRE??!
March 30th, 2007 at 6:26 am
I wonder if the conspiracy theorists ever thought to consider the weight of the gear (360 lbs on earth) when the astronauts jumped around like that. that’d be an unnatural amount of air, unless the actors were also supermen. Yes, I think earthbound supermen sounds much more realistic. I suppose the gear could be lighter if it’s faked gear, but it still looks pretty darn heavy.
I agree with paul, the thing that totally proves your point is the snappiness of hand gestures. in 2x speed they look way too fast.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Have these people actually seen the Apollo documentaries from Spacecraft Films? The ones where they don’t bother to do anything but just show all the footage from the Apollo missions?
I watched the Apollo 15 one while I was sick with the flu. It was appropriately rather boring, but exactly what you’d expect: people trying to do science, occasionally noticing something interesting, occasionally screwing up. It didn’t really make great TV, as you’d think if they were faking the landings. But yeah, I liked watching them dig trenches with the dirt flying up in perfect little sprays. I liked watching them bound around, partly clumsily, partly effortlessly.
Still, I would think those documentaries should be the perfect answer to deniers. I suppose maybe someone could watch one and still think it was faked, but sometimes when all you talk about is others’ impressions of things, it can be easy to insulate yourself. It’s a lot harder when you’re watching the real thing in real time.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Despite all the physical evidence and basic logic, the U.S.S.R would NEVER keep quiet about such a thing as this. They probably tracked all the Apollos from launch to landing or orbit. Assuming they had thea ability to then they probably backtracked the source of the transmissons from the moon. If ANYTHING had been amiss they would have shouted it. Let alone keeping thousands of people quiet, the stupid hoaxers are just grasping and need to get over it and move on with their lives.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Besides, if FedEx can’t fake a moon walk in their commercial with 2007 technology and an advertiser’s budget, how can we expect anyone to have been able to do so in 1969?
I know it’s off topic (sorta) but it really fries me to see people floating around on the moon when these idiots make a commercial.
My wife says “You’re the only one who would notice that.”
That’s the problem!
March 30th, 2007 at 7:16 am
MArtin: Yeah, I’m sure the Hoakers would say they just wore fake suits, except,,,from the motion of the dust, they HAVE to be in vacuum and there ain’t no way they could at the same time be wearing fake suits.
Back in 1970, I was living in Houston. There was an underground newspaper called the Space City News which had a letter to the editor that purported to “prove” we could not possible have launched a space ship into orbit. They used very simple algebra to show that the quantity of fuel used was insufficient to get all that mass into orbit, which if they had to put the entire craft AND all the initial fuel into orbit would have been correct however, they totally ignored the fact that less than ten percent of the launch mass ended up in orbit.
Shows what happens when people don’t understand calculus.
GAry 7
March 30th, 2007 at 7:20 am
They look like deranged, caffienated Thunderbirds puppets to me.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Addendum: Don’t we have recent lunar orbital pics of the early landing sites, with flags, lunar rovers, etc, left intact on the surface?
Think I recall seeing such somewhere,,,
GAry 7
March 30th, 2007 at 7:20 am
But the fungineers at Futurama came up with such a better explaination!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kYZnnhRqo
March 30th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Yeah, fake lightweight suits could have been used, and why not a couple of wires attached to the astronauts to give them an extra few inches of clearance when they jump?
The goal of Moon landing deniers is not to prove the Moon landings were faked (no matter how much they say otherwise) it is just to sow enough seeds of doubt to convince the casual reader that what they are saying could be true. If a conspiracy did exist, and was finally, fully uncovered, then that would be the fun in that?
March 30th, 2007 at 7:29 am
[The USSR] probably tracked all the Apollos from launch to landing or orbit. Assuming they had thea ability to then they probably backtracked the source of the transmissons from the moon.
Call me crazy, but I think I read somewhere that they did exactly that. I can’t remember for the life of me where I heard/read that though.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Phil, do you have some place on your site where you mention upcoming speaking events? If I had known you were in Henniker, I would have gone to the presentation. Do you know if you’ll be in New Hampshire again any time soon?
March 30th, 2007 at 8:04 am
I recall seeing a mocumentary about the faking of the moon landings a year or so ago, where the film-maker took archival NASA footage, and with some very clever editing and narration made quite a convincing story.
Wish I could remember the title of it.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
That’ll teach me for posting without researching first!
It’s called “Dark Side of the Moon” and it appeared (in Canada) on the CBC’s “The Passionate Eye.”
Here’s a link: http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_161103.html
March 30th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I might be a good idea to update the story with advice to turn off the sound when viewing the video the first time. Otherwise, the speeded up sound on the fast versions greatly enhances the cartoonish effect; but this aural impression is not relevant to the point which is supposed to be being made.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Phil – As others said, it would have been good to know that you were speaking nearby in NH!
March 30th, 2007 at 8:22 am
I think it’s obvious that the reason the “astronauts” appear cartoonish when the film is speed up to normal speed, is that they are actually puppets. The wires/strings have obviously been ‘removed’ by covert NASA CIA goons looking to fool the American public.
… and what’s this “Gravity” thing you keep talking about … that can’t be real.
*:p
March 30th, 2007 at 8:34 am
This whole moon hoax thing and other conspiracy theories seem to me something typical American. For an average American it seems to be pretty normal to think the Federal Government and hence all organisations linked somehow to the Government (as NASA) is doing all kinds of evil things to cheat and deceive the American citizens with the goal to take away their freedom.
What do you think? I mean we have a lot of idiots on TV and in the media over here. But I have never heard about the moon hoax until an American firend of mine told me. (And I have seen Capricorn, but always thought: yeah great plot and at least a happy end). Anyway: Go on like that
March 30th, 2007 at 8:54 am
This film was interesting to look at. It’s funny, because the first film could almost be mistaken for normal if you aren’t doing the math related to the speed of the sand and other objects falling. However, the thing that nobody can deny is how goofy the astronauts look in the second film if the speed is doubled. It’s like watching some footage from an old Charlie Chaplin movie where everybody looks as if they’ve taken large doses of speed. It just isn’t realistic, period. HBs can take another argument and eat it.
Oh, and The_German, most Americans actually don’t believe in things like people saying the Moon landings were faked. It might seem “typical” because those kind of people receive a disproportionately large amount of face time on our news compared to people who actually know what real science is. However, if you ask the average American if he/she thinks the landings were faked, you are quite possibly going to offend them, rather than elicit a response like “yeah, I believe nothing our government does is real”.
Sure, Americans tend to enjoy a good conspiracy theory now and then, but honestly, not that many of us actually believe them. Certainly not enough to be called “typical”. Yes, there are some sane people left in our country. I hope Germany doesn’t have too many goofy hoax theories of its own! Hope that helps!
March 30th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Wasn’t there a survey a little while ago that claimed that a significant proportion of the american population *did* indeed believe the moon landings had been faked?
Regardless, from now on my standard answer to this will be “But then why didn’t the USSR blow the lid off this? Surely you don’t believe that the soviet union was involved in HELPING the Americans pull this hoax off… do you? I mean… you aren’t that stupid… are you?”
If you turn it around so that they are the ones having to defend a ridiculous belief, maybe they will just be quiet:).
March 30th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I’ve debated many lunar hoax theorists in person and on youtube, and found that no amount of evidence presented would ever convince them. It’s almost like a fundamentalist religious person making spurious claims, you debunk one and they just throw up another. Some CTers are going to mind-boggling lengths to try and sow doubt, including claims that if you play recordings of the astronauts’ speeches backwards you can ‘hear’ hidden messages saying the landings were fake. I’m afraid that I’m starting to think that conspiracy theories could be symptomatic of some form of mental illness.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:15 am
DER …let’s see….wires with perfect counter balance weights…tons of really clear triple light sourced shadows occurring in all Apo moon missions….never a jump more than 2-3 feet. ,,,,when it could be 6x earth jump height………..no special lense optics brought along for the unobstucted view of stars and etc,,,,,,,.appearance of glove size changes——POSITIVELY scotch tape to hold square USA flag and words UNITED STATES CRINKLED-ONTO LM…………..ONLY ONE FOOT PRINT IN LARGE AREA without a second print–hopping on one foot???—unreal horizons—-attatched to the top of life support sack ——-very visible wire light glint on moving film footage when examined frame by frame!….check this NASA panorama out for a blatantly severe example of 3 light sources———
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15pan1480225.jpg
MONEY MONEY MONEY—BOTTOM LINE–UUHHH—PHIL???—-WANT MORE?
March 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
[...] “Double your Moon pleasure“, no Bad Astronomy. Ainda e sempre a falsa questão da fraude da missão Apollo; [...]
March 30th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Phil …
I Wiish I’d Known, I Liive Riight in Henniker!
In Fact, a Friend of Miine Called me From The Cafe …
If Only he’d Told me you Were Speaking, I Would’ve Come Runnin!
March 30th, 2007 at 10:57 am
You are so right Phil. These skeptics are fools.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:58 am
The_German: the 9/11 conspiracy theories are pretty popular in Germany based on what my contacts say. It’s part of the lamentable and growing trend of anti-Americanism. Andreas von Bulow’s book on the topic was a big seller there.
The attraction of conspiracy theories, in my (not so) humble opinion, is that it allows the conspiratist to know everything perfectly, at least in *their* mind. All mysteries and unknowns are removed, and everything can be attributed to a single cause.
If I live to my 80’s I want to see if there are people who deny 9/11 even happened.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:01 am
@EGMAG:
only one of several possible eplanations: for the panorama several pictures were taken, maybe at different times. The best were taken and put togethetr to make up the panorama. I do not say it was like that, but it very simply explains for example the fact that the shadows of the astronaut and the moon buggy seem to point in different directions. Now use Occams razor!
@MAttJ: I hope I did not offend you, it wasn’t meant that way. But if I look at conspiracy theories: Almost all popular one I know of caome from the US. My impression always has been believing “THEY” faked something is something quite popular in US (THEY usually includes some government authotities).
In Germany we generally believe our politicians are not to be trusted. They are greedy liars only looking how to get mor money for themselves and do not care about the rest of the country. But I generally have never heard of any conspiracy theory involving the government (ok. we did not land on the moon. Hmmm but maybe the CIA (or wahtever was there before) influenced the German elections in 1933 with the result Hitler came in power. Hitler ofcourse was also paid by the CIA. He started the war and lost it purposly so the Americans could take away all the German roccket scientist after they won because they knew they would need them to make the moon hoax more credible).
Ofcourse we have also UFO believers and all that stuff. But you do not see them in media or TV.
Anyway thank you for your reply
March 30th, 2007 at 11:18 am
@quite_desperation: I think the question is what means “very popular”. I know there is such a book. But as far as I know the author collected facts which were part of very popular conspiracy theories coming from the U.S.
I am a member of a local “Verein” in a town with 1000 inhabitants. We meet usually for training once a week. Regulary we are about 30 people. Only one of these read that book and we had a lot of discussion when he came up with it. The result of the discussion was he never mentioned it again!
For the anti Americanism: Do not worry to much. This is also part of the TV and media world. It is a fact that 80% of the Germans do not agree with the policy of president Bush. For the media it is ofcourse easier to calll this anti Americanism than to stay with the truth which is we do not like the policy of the Bush administration to much.
If you ask a German let’s say about 40 years old: What is the best president the US ever had the answer will be “Bill Clinton”. People 10 years older will maybe say “Jimmy Carter”. As far as I know Ronald Reagan was voted the most popular one in the US.
But this now is leading to far away….
March 30th, 2007 at 11:20 am
”MONEY MONEY MONEY—BOTTOM LINE–UUHHH—PHIL???—-WANT MORE?”
Is this guy saying that you can get paid for saying there is no moon hoax?
And why must there be only one light source?
Was there any part of that semi-coherant rant that has not been answered in depth on the ‘moon-hoax’ part of the site?
Can that guy vote?
March 30th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Yes, he can vote. And he did. In 2000 and 2004…
March 30th, 2007 at 11:49 am
–2nd half–famous open flap salute as seen from back–while still foto shows front of flap secured same time foto. Cut out here is the glint on the suspension wire seen slow frame ,
March 30th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Just ignore EGMAG, he’s just rying to get hits for his website he’s got linked in his posts.
March 30th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
The hand gestures don’t really prove it for me because they could have had the actors move their hands quickly while filming in order to make it look right when slowed down. (I’m just playing devil’s advocate on that one…)
However, what really should be pointed out is what Paul said, that the way the astronaut got up after falling wouldn’t be possible in Earth’s gravity. Everything else can be refuted – the equipment might be a lightweight fake version of a suit (after all, in a studio, a suit isn’t necessary), the hand motions could be faked, etc.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Here’s a technical aspect nobody’s mentioned – the footage is interlaced. If you speed up interlaced footage you need to first deinterlace it or there will be very obvious frame blending artifacts in the fields of the resulting footage. Even with progressive footage, you will see frame blending on individual frames. It will be really obvious. (It wouldn’t necessarily be obvious in the YouTube footage which has been shrunk and compressed to death, but it would be in the original which the YouTube footage came from.)
March 30th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
In the very near future the billionaires of today shall be able to book passage to the lunar surface—sort of like the millionaires of today can go to the International Space Station through the Russian officials.
When those lucky folk upload their “home movies” back to earth we shall all get another look at the so called “hoax”……..
March 30th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Come on, don’t be fooled! Obviously the astronauts were told to move their arms quicker just so that they would look normal when the video was slowed down.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I actually recall this used as a special effect on a TV show. I think it was an episode of The Outer Limits about happenings at a moonbase. It was only used for a few seconds at the beginning of the show.
I thought it was pretty clever but they couldn’t do it inside. That’s why scifi movies have to invent cheap artificial gravity at some very early date. I say cheap because of how the fundamental forces are linked suggests you would need a [profanity deleted] amount of electricity to produce a small amount of gravity since it took so much energy to show that the weak atomic force connects to electromagnetism at high energies.
Or a number of scifi TV shows have explained that everyone wants to walk around in magnetic boots. I think Rod Brown and the Rocket Rangers had “gravity boots”. I recall an episode when they knew a suspect was a spaceman because his bootprints were so deep he was still wearing his gravity boots while he was on Earth.
I imagined that if I had to do a show about the moon I’d use slow motion for people moving in the background and try just a few scenes such as having 2 actors in the foreground chatting while one flips a coin and catches it. I anticipated that as Phil Platt points out, a 6 times reduction would be impossible. I’d have to settle for 4 times. The specific shot would mean the actors would have to move their lips in response to a gibberish speed recording of their own voices and afterwards they’d have to redub it.
Also, a drink in a bar in a moonbase would have the hazard that moving it sideways would tend to slosh so high it would likely slop over the edge of the glass.
A few such effects casually spread thru the story would give the feeling of being in another environment — the moon or Mars. And to me, that feeling of otherness is a thrill I want in scifi.
Trouble is, I can’t write stories.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Hey Phil, I heard this Fun Fact on David Letterman tonight:
“Over 50% of people who believe the Moon landings were faked also believe the Moon is fake.”
March 30th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Marvin the Martian made an interesting comment. He referred to “supermen”.This raises another question for the mooninites, Why couldn’t the government have found better looking actors? Don’t get me wrong, Neil Armstrong was not an ugly man, but this is the almighty government, surely they could have found some 1960’s picture of supreme masculinity. I mean, if this is PR, you go all the way.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
dhm – I think it is possible to simulate 1/6g in an airplane by flying a similar but slightly flatter trajectory to that used for 0g. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that NASA used this to train astronauts in the 1960s. You could only get 30-40 seconds on each go, but you could edit dozens of snippets together to make a film. The movie Apollo 13 did this to film the 0g sequences. The hard part would be filming exteriors; no room to drive around a moon buggy even on a 747, and no vacuum! You’d have to use blue screen or CGI or something behind your hopping 1/6g astronauts
Closeups in a bar scene shouldn’t be a big problem, so you can make Greedo fall down slowly after Han shoots him…
March 30th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I’m going to invent a falling hydraulic elevator movie studio and make a fortune off of Hollywood! (Maybe even NASA)
March 31st, 2007 at 1:18 am
My guess is that the Moon hoaxers believe that the dust doesn’t billow because they used grains of sand or small pebbles – something large so that they aren’t affected very much by air. It does look like the astronaut gets up very oddly (that would be hard to do on earth), but I remember Joe claiming that the astronauts had wires attached to them – and that’s why they moved weird (leaning forward at an odd angle) when they hopped across the landscape. I did notice that the astronaut does kick the dirt a long way when he falls. It looked like it might’ve flown 10 or 15 feet.
March 31st, 2007 at 2:17 am
actually, the moon landing was done with g.i. joe dolls by my son using standard vhs in 1993 when he was 10. the alien lights over phoenix transported it back to 1969 via time travel. Of course we all know there are no stars in my basement. the little wires are lights from the miniture alien ships outside the basement windows beaming up the footage to transport.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:49 am
What gets me is, speeding the footage up by 2.45x will make the gravity look Earth-like even when film genuinely is taken on the moon. So how the heck is this supposed to be evidence that these films aren’t from the moon?
March 31st, 2007 at 5:06 am
Check out the dust kicked up by the feet of the astronauts, especially when one falls. It doesn’t look Earth-like at any speed.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:37 am
EGMAG, I’m doing an article on spotting whackdoodles by their egregious use of capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure, which I’m thinking of calling “Text-frothing: Your Guide to the Fringes.” Do you mind if I use your posts here in the article?
This is merely a formality, you understand, since it’s a public forum and I’m using it with full attribution, but I thought I’d check. I may be able to swing you a grade-school science textbook as a honorarium – I try to find gifts that people need.
Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you
March 31st, 2007 at 7:06 am
I do not know when you will be in Delaware but…
Welcome to the First State!
Did You Know…
St Andrews School was used as the set for Dead Poets Society.
Many of the space suits used today were made in Dover,De.
BTW Delaware does have a observatory…Mt Cuba in New Castle County.
Ger
March 31st, 2007 at 8:39 am
The_German: Most Americans don’t believe the moon hoax whack jobs. I can understand that it might seem that way because of its portrayal in the media. It’s basically the same as so many Americans thinking there is rampant anti-Americanism in Germany. Having the pleasure of growing up in Darmstadt, I know better then that. The media makes everything sound worse in order to get ratings. While it is true that it seems like the majority of conspiracy theorists start this garbage in the U.S., I think that can be attributed to a lot of people having way too much time on their hands.
BA: Please make a list of any upcoming speaking engagements. I have kept up with you since I first heard you on Coast years ago and you have taught me so much. Thanks for all you do.
March 31st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Wow! 75 comments and counting. Who knew the Moon landing hoax was as popular as grammar and spelling…
March 31st, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Nobody applauded Darrin Cardani for his comments on interlaced video which I think is a brilliant point. Nowadays your garden variety of video editing software has interlacing/de-interlacing filters but back it 1969 it was even difficult to broadcast the transmission worldwide in real-time with decent NTSC-PAL and NTSC-SECAM conversion etc.
BTW I’m also German and I can assure you most of us aren’t anti-American but many are anti-Bush.
March 31st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Claim: Speeding up the video makes it look like Earth normal actions.
Reality: No, it does not look normal. The astronauts still look light and effortless. Their hand and arm motions become fast and furious. They look like sped up film motions from the silent film era. They do not look like normal fast hand motions. They are too jerky, start and stop to instantaneously. People’s arms don’t react that quickly. The astronauts effortlessly jump high or bounce around, and even stand up from knees without effort. Dust and dirt are kicked up and fall parabolically, not floating in the air like light powdery dust does in air. The dirt flys long distances from light kicks.
Claim: The light, effortless motion is because the suits are fake, and therefore actually light weight.
Reality: Difficult if the suits actually have to protect against pressure. See dirt arguments. If dirt is also faked, the suits still look bulky. Tried running around in three layers of snowsuit? Not very effortless, is it?
Claim: The light, effortless motion is because the “astronauts” are on wires. You can even see a wire glint in the light.
Reality: The astronauts move around in circles and tumble a lot without interfering with wires. Wire technology at the time could not fake it. What you see glinting in the light is the antenna on top of the PLSS, which is flat and narrow, not round. The cross-section perpendicular to the line of sight changes, which is why it is only rarely visible glinting.
Claim: The dirt/dust could be faked by using wet dirt instead of dust, or pebbles.
Reality: Wet dirt might eliminate the dust clouds, but it would be difficult to kick wet dirt lightly and have it move as far as it does in those videos. Try kicking dirt and see how far you can get it to fly, and what kind of effort it takes. Then look at how lightly the astronauts kick the dirt.
Claim: That panorama picture linked above shows multiple light sources. The shadows fall in different directions.
Reality: The shadows fall in different directions because it is a panorama. That photo is a composite photo of an astronaut taking pictures as he turns around in a circle, then the photos are digitally stitched together to show one long picture. The first picture is down sun, shadows falling away. Turn 45 deg clockwise, then turn 45 deg clockwise. The astronaut picture is 1/4 turn CW from down sun, and his shadow falls to the left. Continue process as you go around, and at 180 deg, shadows fall toward the camera. Continue, and the shadows of the rover fall right, which is also down sun. The surroundings circle the camera, but the view is cut and opened up and layed out flat. Therefore, the light direction appears inconsistent.
Claim: Short video clips could be faked and strung together like the movies. See Apollo 13, etc.
Reality: Get the Spacecraft Films DVDs. They show continuous video from the Moon running for hours at a time. Camera on and running, left running while astronauts do their thing.
March 31st, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Claim: Astronauts never jump more than 2-3 ft high when they should be able to jump 6x normal height. 6 x 2 ft = 12 ft.
Reality: There are several arguments here.
1. The astronauts jump 2 – 3 feet high wearing bulky space suits and heavy backpacks. The best atheletes on Earth jump 3 feet high wearing tennis shoes and loose shorts.
2. There is video of astronauts jumping, such as the salute shown, or Armstrong on the LM climbing the ladder. Such video shows remarkable agility and lightness for jumping. That video shows the astronaut leap over 1 foot high without bending his knees. You try that. Armstrong leaps from the LM footpad to the first rung on the ladder – ~ 3 ft. In Armstrong’s case, wire support is exceedingly unlikely because he immediately crawls into the LM and closes the hatch. How does he do that wearing wires? When does he disconnect the wires without being seen to do so?
3. Spacesuits are a bit constricting, even if they don’t weigh as much. They are bulky, which you can see when the astronauts fall down and have to get up, or try to reach to the ground. See Charlie Duke pushing a core sampler into the ground, then squating to pull the core sample out. He has to do some bizarre body contortions to put one knee down to get low enough to pull the tool out of the ground. That is not an outfit designed for moon gymnastics, calesthenics, and track and field.
4. While the space suits are fairly damage resistant, ultimately those pressure suits where the life-preservation of the astronauts. It would not be good to get a puncture through the pressure restraint layer, or a crack in the helmet. The astronauts wisely limited their antics to lower speeds and smaller jumps.
5. Also consider they felt awkward with the light weight but normal inertia effects. This made their center of gravity different, and made their reactions unnatural. Thus they were hesitant to over do because their motion reacted different than their reflexes expected. Witness them falling over such as in that video, where the astronaut is bouncing along and gets off balance and falls sideways.
March 31st, 2007 at 7:46 pm
About my travel– for some reason, I was quiet about this trip. I just didn’t think to advertise it, which was dumb, but there’s a lot going on right now in my life and I simply didn’t think to do it. I apologize to everyone!
April 1st, 2007 at 6:26 am
Ah, no bad, but if you make it down here to Georgia, let us know or we’ll have to nail your voodoo doll to a sacred tree,,,
GAry 7
April 1st, 2007 at 9:19 am
I have always been a firm believer in the reality of the NASA moon program, but after hearing Joe Rogan and Phil Plait slug it out on Penn Jillette’s show, I have changed my mind.
Joe Rogan is right, the deeper you dig the more suspicious everything becomes. All the information you need is readily available on the net, but I did find one site that sums it all up in a neat little package and after reading this I think most of you will change your mind too.
Moon Hoax
April 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
Come discuss it at the BAUT forum then, if you are so inclined.
I guess if it’s on the net, it must be true!
Pete
April 1st, 2007 at 10:01 am
Yes, Thomas Siefert/b>, if it’s on the net (and even better, podcasts) it must be true.
April 1st, 2007 at 10:08 am
Definitely a great APOD picture and so Bad Astronomy appropriate.
April 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Marko Says: “Nobody applauded Darrin Cardani for his comments on interlaced video which I think is a brilliant point. Nowadays your garden variety of video editing software has interlacing/de-interlacing filters but back it 1969 it was even difficult to broadcast the transmission worldwide in real-time with decent NTSC-PAL and NTSC-SECAM conversion etc.”
I was applauding, but I was too busy to respond at the time. The TV signals from the moon were even weirder than that, though. Except for Apollo 11, all of the TV cameras on the landing missions were color, but they couldn’t manage a true NTSC color signal in that small of a box with mid-60’s technology. The cameras were actually opto-mechanical with a filter wheel spinning in front of a single B&W vidicon tube. The wheel was synchronized to the scan speed so that the image frames were sent in sequential red-blue-green sets. There was a fairly major amount of signal processing done at the receiving end to convert it to NTSC so that it could be broadcast by the networks. That’s why the images seem to stream colors whenever something moves quickly through the frame.
Irishman – Bravo on doing a great condensation of several debunking sites into a couple of posts! One thing you left out about the “multiple light sources” argument, though, is that multiple sources will create multiple shadows on EACH object, not just different angles on different objects.
And, finally, for those who talked about the wires, the astronauts actually were trained on a wire rig. They had a large wall, like a rock-climbing wall, tilted back about 20°. This created a gravity vector towards the wall of 1/6 g. The trainee was suspended horizontally by a very sophisticated wire rig that supported the other 5/6 of their weight allowing them to bounce around the wall realistically.
- Jack
April 1st, 2007 at 5:06 pm
As far as the jumping part goes: Even if we set up a large dome with Earth normal atmosphere and temperature so we can dispense with heavy, clumsy, bulky suits and just give our athlete an ordinary track uniform and shoes, figuring out how high he can jump in different gravity fields is not nearly as simple as just multiplying his earth performance by the difference factor.
I’ve only seen one good article on this: astonomer Robert S. Richardson’s “Space Technology of a Track Meet”
Richardson analyzed how athletes’ bodies actually work in various events and tried to work out how differing gravity would effect the impulse from their muscles, the leverage of their limbs, interaction with the ground, and all the other things that might be different between here, the Moon, and the other planets.
Turns out that for jumpers, the important factor is not how high the feet get off the ground, but how much the center of gravity is raised. The hight of a bar that can be cleared on the moon works out to significantly lower than six times what the same person could clear on Earth.
Lots of other neat things in it about how athletes might have to vary their techniques to achieve optimum performance on light and heavy planets. The astonauts hopping instead of striding is a case in point.
April 1st, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I would have applauded the remarks about interlaced video, but I don’t know what that means.
Jack, great additional comment about the multiple shadows. At one point it crossed my mind, but got lost in the shuffle. The key point in my mind was to explain the differing shadow directions in the linked picture, but it is also useful to understand what is missing for the picture to be a hoax as claimed.
As for the training rig, yes they did several gimmicks to try to train for low gravity. Vomit Comet runs gave short bursts of low g, and water tank immersion was also used, which is the backbone of spacewalk testing even today. You are correct, they did rig up a harness system with a sloped wall. However, I would hardly call the cables supporting them “wires”, and that left them stuck on one side, not able to turn around. Hardly anything like the freedom of motion shown above.
What seems to be suggested above (and elsewhere) is the idea that the astronauts are upright in a studio hanging from some catwalk/framework above. It would have to be a complicated rig that moved freely in various directions, allowed for the astronaut to piroutte in place without tangling, and allow them to circle each other, get in close proximity to exchange hardware, etc. And it would have to do so while being seemlessly recorded. Plus, since it is on Earth, the support cables would have to support minimum 200 – 250 lbs while being so thin as to be invisible.
James, that’s a great point that I neglected to consider at all. Human performance is not entirely a factor purely of gravity. Leverage, response time, inertia, etc all play a role. Additionally, as you say, high jump is not just about vertical jump height. Clearing the bar is accomplished by contortionist moves to go over the bar higher than the cg ever gets. Thus the “Fosbury Flop”, as it’s called. (Spelling?)
Lots of factors affect the reality instead of the simplistic expectation of 6x performance.
April 1st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Irishman Says: “As for the training rig, yes they did rig up a harness system with a sloped wall. However, I would hardly call the cables supporting them “wiresâ€, and that left them stuck on one side, not able to turn around. Hardly anything like the freedom of motion shown above.”
I realized after posting that I might be giving the HB’s more ammunition for their arguments. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that this rig was used for anything other than to develop a physiological “feel” for walking in 1/6 g. The cables were, as you said, not thin. Not only were they visible, but the multiple suspension points on the trainee’s body had wide padded slings to support their weight. This was definitely NOT a stealth rig that would fool anyone.
- Jack
April 4th, 2007 at 2:41 am
To PJE:”Them words are fighting words ’round ‘ere”
Did you check the link I provided? ;_D