If you want to silence the critics, then put another man on the moon (or wait for the Chinese or Google to do it). There is no other way. A fundamental principle of a scientific achievement is repeatability, and so far, only the US has done so. And not for 40 years.

I would wager my retirement savings and everything I own (at 1:2 odds) that the feat will not be achieved during my lifetime. I am 44yrs old. Any takers? You can pay my children…
~peace~

Didn’t say that, Barton. I said that the moon mission was done for grandstanding and with no really big economic driver to continue, it shriveled.

All these were killed in favor of the expensive shuttle program. And we’ve regretted it since.

Which only goes to prove my point. The near space program has economic advantages: weather sats, comm sats, land sats and, yes, even spy sats.

What’s needed is a voice. A strong voice from all who love space exploration. We must be heard, and keep the new program going.

Agreed. Von Braun was one of the best and really knew how to play the game. He couldn’t sell economic advantage so he sold national pride.

The truth is, general public interest in science mostly extends only to what we can get from it. That means derived technology making things better/cheaper or new sources of raw material, etc. Science, for the most part, ranks right alongside farming technique in terms of general interest.

Who ever does the selling had better emphasize the economic advantage. Any science we get from it has to be treated as gravy instead of the main course.

—
“And all this science i don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week:
A rocket man…” — Bernie Taupin

I beg to differ about the Apollo astronauts not having done anything signifigent.

From the samples that were returned, we added to our scientific knowledge of the Earth-moon system.
We gained a better understanding of the moon’s origin, and later how it influenced the Earth itself throughout it’s history.

While Apollo 11 was the main mission to prove we could go to the moon (as well as beating the Russians at something BIG), the later missions were undertaken as missions of scientific exploration.

The main reason Apollo was killed, from what I’ve gathered, is that Nixon wanted to do away with a program associated with the democratic Kennedy administration.
Had this not been the case, and the program left to continue toward the planned goals, we would’ve had bases on the moon, and manned Mars mission. We would’ve even had a nuclear powered rocket engine.

All these were killed in favor of the expensive shuttle program. And we’ve regretted it since.

What’s needed is a voice. A strong voice from all who love space exploration. We must be heard, and keep the new program going.

“Restaurant at the End of the Universe” by the immortal DNA.

- Jack

And yeah… I know, he’s probably of the “ye olde trolle” ilk… but hey… my post isn’t for the troll, it’s for the uncertain and un-informed person that might actually believe the statement made by said troll unless otherwise contradicted.

[[We have never been to the moon, point me a telescope up there and show me the moon buggy then I’ll believe. The truth is we cannot get beyond the radiation belts, that’s why were playing dolly’s with the space shuttle in near orbit.]]

A lunar mission is not in the Van Allen belts long enough to pick up a lethal dose of radiation. As for seeing a moon buggy through a telescope from the Earth — sorry, there’s no telescope with that kind of resolution. The Hubble space telescope couldn’t do it. The detailed pictures you see of scenes on Earth from satellites are shot from a couple of hundred kilometers up. The Moon is 384,401 kilometers away, on average.

The whole purpose behind going to the moon was to prove it could be done with Good-Ol’-Murrican-KnowHow. It was a grandstand stunt and nothing more. After it was done there was little reason to keep repeating it. Part of the problem might have been the way it was sold to Kennedy by Von Braun but the national pride reason was probably the only practical one to offer.

If you think back into the past, the major driver behind exploration/colonization is wealth (or food or living room which are just alternate forms of wealth). Columbus sailed to find a route to the Orient (== wealth). Later Spanish expeditions were to get rich. The English joined the parade if only to rob the Spanish.

If you want regular moon travel / colonization, trips to Mars, whatever, you need to sell the bottom line or you won’t get much backing. Citing starry-eyed dreams will just get you regarded as a Starry-Eyed Dreamer of little consequence.

As far as anyone is concerned, it makes no difference. We have space flight knowledge and experience and expertise, but we have no Moon expertise or knowledge (except for some photographs).

The moon crews didn’t do anything significant. No bases were built. We never went back.

As far as the Hoaxers are concerned, I agree; we might as well not have even done it.

Now get off our earthling butt and go colonize the moon, ya noobs.

It’s appearent that their attitude isn’t to find out the truth, but rather to try and go against authoritive figures, jump on an anti-American/anti-government bandwagon, and preach their own “ideas” as the truth and as a reason why not to trust the govt.

They do not see the double standards they bring up. The “no stars” arguement somehow still lives, but for some reason, it doesn’t apply to shuttle photos, or images from space probes like Voyager, Cassini, Galileo, and others. Nor does the idea seem to apply to Gemini.

They ignore the flight of Zond 5 and others like it because it contradicts their idea that the radiation belts cannot be crossed. I saw one come up with excuses as to not hold the Zond flights as examples of the radiation belts being passble.

The list goes on.
The moon hoax believers simply make themselves unapproachable with logic and reasoning of any sort. They seem to be content to live in their own world.

I also note that the “evidence” they bring up either doesn’t exist or simply is a misinterpretation of an event.
To paraphrase the 9th Doctor, as long as the evidence is invisible, they hold on to it.
But when it comes to evidence that DOES exist, “Nope, can’t see it! Won’t hear it!”

I suppose it doesn’t matter that the Clementine probe took photos of the Apollo 15 landing site. Ah, well.

I suspect (though I can’t prove it) that this is the driving force behind moon hoax belief — a view of the moon landings as a modern-day Tower of Babel, a symbol of man’s treading into the realm of the gods. For reasons I don’t profess to understand, that scares some people. So they don’t want to believe it.

Yossarian: There were scientific rationales for manned moon missions, but I’d concede that they were pretty thin. For me, the real reason to send humans to the moon is, it’s the first stepping stone to the Universe.

I don’t know what you’d do, but I personally would fly out of the hole and arc around and past the donut. Yeah, that’s what I’d do.

And as it turns out, that’s what the Apollo spacecraft did. The radiation belts are large donuts, and the Apollo missions were put on trajectories which carried well south of the most intense regions of radiation. This, coupled with quick transit times through the fringes of the belts, was a planned strategy for minimizing the astronauts’ doses. Dealing the Earth’s radiation belts is easy.

MoonWaggles!

But I do love his name!