… one giant Moon hoax debunking for mankind.
A small museum in Waponeketa, Ohio — Neil Armstrong’s hometown — has a display up countering Moon hoax claims.
Museum education specialist Andrea Waugh says claims that it was faked are easily debunked.
Yeah, usually. It’s easy to debunk them, but it’s hard to argue with a Moon hoax believer about them. Hopefully Bart Sibrel and Joe Rogan won’t visit. But I’d love to! It would be fun to set up a whole exhibit countering Moon hoax silliness. Kids could take pictures, showing why there are no stars in the sky. A mini vacuum chamber could be set up with a flag in it, and they can make it wave by turning a crank (and there are so many Moon hoax cranks to choose from, har har). They could try to blast a crater into a simulated lunar surface with a rocket exhaust set to 1 pound per square inch of pressure (the pressure from the lunar lander rocket). A geiger counter and alpha particle source can be used to show how some radiation can be stopped by a piece of glass.
I can think of lots more, too. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should get funding for this. I’m too busy right now to draft up a proposal, but if anyone from the Smithsonian is reading this, I’m available for consultation.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
just make sure you do it mythbusters style: ” here’s how it happend, here’s what would happen if the myth were true.”
Like your lander idea, let the kids land the lander at low thrust (like they did in real life) then let the kids see what would happen if it “tried” to land under full thrust (like the hoax believers _think_ it did). It might… you know.. not land. Hillarity would ensue.
April 9th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
with the massive amount of hocus pocus BS in the main stream media any display, media activity to straighten things up for the average joe (very average in case of the US public education) is a good and needed thing. not only astronomy, knowledge about societies, religions, biology…
gee, humanity drowns in stupidity and dangerous silliness
regards
peter
April 9th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Poor Walther Müller, he never seems to be remembered!
April 9th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I thought about it recently… how one could fake a moon landing with autonomous space craft with transmitters on them, phony radar and optical targets, dropping the astronauts from a high altitude balloon into the ocean, filming in a vacuum chamber, hiding the astronauts in a secret location, a world network of phony communications systems…
It turns out being a lot easier to just go there.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
…or to put it another way, drbuzz0…
We chose to go to the moon, not because it was hard but because it was easy.
April 10th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Now, ol’ Brer Phil, I is done been thinking bout this topic of whether yous otter wrestle with dat der tar baby, Joe Rogan and ilk, and I is come to de conclusion dat if’n you do, you jest gonna get tar all over you. whereas de tar baby is still gonna be a tar baby and his friends is still gonna be tar babies, and so I would give you de same advice your mother would give you, “Don’t be getting no tar on dem clothes!” - Brer MO Man
April 10th, 2007 at 7:49 am
My wife and I (who both turn apoplectic when we have to endure moon hoax silliness) visited the Armstrong museum in Wapakoneta about a year ago, and found it to be a rather dignified tribute to a dignified individual, who happens to be rather reserved about his accomplishments. I was surprised to read the article about a display at the museum countering the moon hoax claims, to me it would seem to detract from the dignity.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Can’t we just have an astronaut punch each and every moon hoaxer?
April 10th, 2007 at 10:07 am
No, not enough astronauts to go around!
April 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I’ve been to the museum a couple of times. It has Armstrong’s Gemini spacecraft, and the little thruster that got stuck is on display off by itself, cut in half sagittally to show the innards. It also has one of the nicest samples of moonrock I’ve yet seen.
The gift shop, when I was there last, also had autographed portraits of Buzz- exorbitantly priced of course!
April 10th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Punching out moon hoaxers would do no good. They’d just atribute that action to the church of science, rather like the persecution of Galileo. People who believe in such hoaxs seem to think bad guys(hoaxers) are SO smart they can do what no other human could ever do,,,keep a secret forever.
Dr. Buzzo and Mikhail: Right on. It really is a lot easier to just go to the moon than it would ever be to pull off such a hoax AND keep that action a secret. Unfortunately, hoax believers are prone to paranoid delusions. They’re just sick. Pity them,,,
GAry 7
April 10th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Great idea, Phil! But you know, you wouldn’t even need a vacuum in the chamber–just make sure it’s sealed off to keep any gusts out, and make sure there’s nothing in there to create significant amounts of wind.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Since all children today were not alive when humans first walked on the lunar surface, there must be some education about hoax theories. Hollywood has so much power with it’s special effects, along with the gaming industry, that a short tutorial on why some people believe that man did not actually walk on the Moon is a mandatory exercise in reason and a fact accomplished for all mankind.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Incidentally, I see that Google is now placing ads between your blog posts. One that I just saw was for “Toilet Compost Blog”. The word “toilet” gets attention every time.
April 10th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
>>It turns out being a lot easier to just go there.
yup, always been my rationale, ever since I heard of hoax theory. Of course, being a space buff, I knew how easy it was.
April 10th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Very nice museum, worth a trip even before they decided to fight the good fight!
April 11th, 2007 at 3:07 am
This is pretty cool! My first reaction was “how sad that this is even necessary - the museum space could have been put to better use if people would only stop believing this nonsense”. However, I thought twice. In fact, it’s a very good way of teaching critical thinking, and the “controversy” may serve to bring more people in.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Got a new home email address - too much spam. hwiseman@sbcglobal.net
April 11th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
It never ceases to amaze me how utterly ignorant the average American is cable of being. Could someone please tell me how we became the richest and most powerful nation on this planet? If you dont believe that the average joe is completely daft, just watch the ‘Man on the Street’ segments Jay Leno does. I want to shoot those people to put them out of their misery.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:27 am
They bankrolled the winners in both world wars and got paid back with interest. Then the space programme created a huge national interest in science and engineering, resulting in an entire generation of of kids becoming engineers, and the US leading the world in technology.
BTW the hoax belivers are only about 6% of the population, but they can really shout loud, creating the illiusion of a controversy.
Most Americans think that the balance of the evidence is in favor of the US going to the moon.
Much more dangerous are people like the Discovery Institute, because evolution is so poorly understood by many (I know about it cause I liked dinosaurs, not because I was taught at school (but I didn’t do biology)) and religion is taught so well.
Fight the little lies…
…they warm you up for the big ones.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
By the way, shouldn’t that be One small museum for a man?