Ain’t It Cool news has word that there will be a new scifi movie coming out this summer called "Moon".
Here’s the preview:
It looks pretty cool, actually, and I’m looking forward to it. Little bit of "Silent Running" in there, and "2001", and maybe a dose of "Space:1999" and "Sunshine", too.
But there’s one thing. Here’s the poster:
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Nicely done. But then I saw the tagline…
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Uh, movie making guys? The Moon is 240,000 miles away, not 950,000. There isn’t anything that far away except a random telescope or two and some very thinly dispersed dust and solar wind.
Sheesh. That’s a pretty awful mistake to make on a poster! I keep telling these guys that for only a million bucks I’ll be happy to vet what they’re doing. Seems like a bargain to me!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Uh… maybe it takes place in the future when the moon is further away?
April 12th, 2009 at 9:08 am
they changed it to 250,000. Most have scared them Phil.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Reminded me of “Outland” and “Alien” as well.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Maybe that’s where the crew end up after something goes wrong with their spacecraft…
April 12th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Dr. Phil Plait:
Forgot him! I’ll do it for half the price!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
And I’ll do it for half what IVAN3MAN is asking!
Clear skies, Alan
April 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Err.. that should be: Forget him! I’ll do it for half the price!
Damn typos!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I was going to say, how hard can it be to look this up on Wikipedia? But then I did it myself and noticed all the distances there are in kilometers. So maybe the problem isn’t a lack of information, but an inability to do conversions.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hmm… unless the moon base has artificial gravity… I’ve believe I spotted another mistake…
April 12th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Yup, already corrected.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40721
April 12th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Looks interesting, but “over and out”? Blaahhhhhhh! “Please respond, I won’t be listening.”
April 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am
A bit of the trailer reminded me of Solaris.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I love the ending of the trailer, when he’s gazing up at the Earth.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:44 am
See, it takes place on that other moon. You know, the one where everyone hops around in slow motion? Except…only when they’re outside.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
“But then I did it myself and noticed all the distances there are in kilometers. So maybe the problem isn’t a lack of information, but an inability to do conversions.”
It’s easy enough to do conversions. Just type “Xkm to miles” in google, and it will tell you to within a 5 decimal places.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
@Ivan3Man
Don’t get into a bidding war, dude, pretty soon it will be “I’ll correct your science mistakes for half a tuna sandwich!” and nobody likes tuna. Nobody.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am
@mus: I know, that’s what I did to make sure the Wikipedia distances jived with Phil’s. Perhaps the Google conversion feature isn’t common knowledge in Hollywood?
April 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am
@Ivan:
That’s why you’d do the error checking for half price
Also, that trailer looked really good. I’m looking forward to this now. I really dig the HAL-ish AI, that has an emoticon. The line, “Perhaps, you’re imagining things,” and it has the :S face. Something surreal about that, but I can’t put my finger on it.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I was going to say, I definitely saw a good bit of Solaris in there too. The George Clooney one, not the boring Russian version!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:56 am
@ matteus,
You’re absolutely right! A cheese and Marmite sandwich is my absolute minimum rate!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Since I haven’t seen the other flicks, I only “see” the “2001″ parts. But they are really obvious
Let’s see what this movie will be like…
April 12th, 2009 at 10:02 am
@ Ibeechu,
Hey, I spotted that minor error immediately after posting my comment. When we finally get a preview/edit facility here, then we can make such minor errors, left uncorrected, a hanging offence (that’s how it is spelt in the UK).
April 12th, 2009 at 10:15 am
That’s strange. I looked all through the preview and didn’t see any mooning. How can you have a movie named “Moon” without it?
April 12th, 2009 at 10:19 am
It is risen!
April 12th, 2009 at 10:34 am
M-O-O-N, that spells Tom.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist since I can’t see the preview or anything.)
By the way, I DO like Tuna, so I may win this bidding war after all (although Tuna AND Marmite may be pushing it).
April 12th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Maybe the Moon will be blasted out of its orbit by nuclear waste? Sounds like a good premise for a TV series.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
See …
This is Why The Lunar Lander, Was a Two-Seater!
Either he’s Cracking up, And There’s No One to Slap his Face …
Or, There Actually are TWO of him, And No One will Ever Believe him!
April 12th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Perhaps the events transpire 940,000 miles out, and have little to do with the actual moon. >.> Just a guess. I did hear about this movie some time ago and am really keen to see it.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Fly me to this one ..
April 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Looks like a mashup of Space 1999 (the moon setting) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (the slightly mad-sounding computer) to me.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:47 am
That movie looks good! I hope it makes it down here to Australia!
Annoying note though – the website for this film is moon-movie.com. Very similar to another website that I’m sure we all know and love. Darn.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
this movie is directed by david bowie’s kid duncan jones
April 12th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The movie’s coming from the moon……and the moon is coming from inside the house!
April 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Ok that looks good. The line that hooked me was “Why does he look like me?” I gotta go see it now just to see the answer to that one.
April 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Duncan Jones spotted and repaired the error. The poster release was an unauthorized proof.
April 12th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I think the first thing that bothered me in the trailer was the gravity issue. “Argh, don’t use a spray bottle in such a low-gravity setting!! Are you insane?!”
Oh wait, it appears he does kinda go insane in the trailer. Never mind.
I have to admit, the movie could be pretty good.
As for that hickup with the distance error, I can only imagine that it was some wanker who had nothing to do with the writing of the movie, and failed to realize there was a known number for the proper distance. Sometimes movie execs (ok, usually!) take their audiences for idiots.
April 12th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
FINALLY someone has done a cool moon movie, with some reasonable economic proposal. Good for ya, Duncan,,,
Now, if this one makes a good profit, maybe we can convince someone to do a flick(a tv series on SciFi would be even better) of life, death and etc in space colonies. I’d love one that included small colonies, like a couple of hundred meters in diameter, dug out of an asteroid. Could even deal with the low G problem with Bear Parathyroid hormone( you know, the one that prevents bone/muscle degeneration in bears when they hibernate). A tv series has the potential to turn on a LOT of people to the possibilities of space colonization and could help sustain that interest. Now, what author do I know that is really accurate, insightful AND entertaining???
GAry 7
April 12th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Lol… Solaris (The book, or the russian movie, please, not that american crap) Rip-off!!!!!!!
Damn, no creativity at all those days!
April 12th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
“# matteus Says:
April 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
@Ivan3Man
Don’t get into a bidding war, dude, pretty soon it will be “I’ll correct your science mistakes for half a tuna sandwich!” and nobody likes tuna. Nobody.”
I like tuna.
@ Zaphod: I had no idea you were here, too! It’s me, alt_historian!
April 12th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
@ Gary Arsonage,
It would be great to see a movie about life in space, there has already been a decent hard science-fiction manga/anime which I pimp all the time (although I think the manga is somewhat better than the animated series). When I was a kid there was a Saturday morning cartoon about a Mars colony, I only vaguely remember it, and the most vivid memory is actually of a velociraptor that somehow found its way in there.
I wonder if someone could pull off Blish’s Cities in Flight without spoiling it? That would be AWESOME. I think I would explode from impatience just watching the preview if it looks good enough.
For those of you have never heard of it- Go directly to Amazon, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. There are used copies for cents on the dollar- you can thank me later.
April 12th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Directed by Duncan Jones? As in, David Bowie’s son? Nifty. Looks like they could both hit the big time with artistic works referencing 2001 (this and Space Oddity).
April 12th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Orbital distances be dammned, maybe the movie is actually set on Cruithne!
April 12th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
This looks really awesome… I love how they gave HAL emoticons. I am curious though… what can you mine on the moon to provide clean energy?
April 12th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I agree with jmholsin – who’s to say it’s earth’s moon? How about: it’s earth’s moon but many years in the future when the moon has receded? Hmm … what would the solar output be around the time the moon is that far from us … or would the sun have gone ‘kablooie’ before then?
Hey, I’d only charge the movie guys $200k – even though I’m not an astronomer – those are just my googlin’ fees.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@matteus:
You’re right – nobody likes tuna. I’m nobody and I looooooooooove tuna! Heeeere fishy fishy! Hmm; I’ll have to plan another tuna catching trip to Guam.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Man… This movie looks like it’s going to be filled with bad science. And we only have a trailer and a poster!
April 12th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Wow, i think you all seemed to have forgotten is that the average distance between the Moon and the Earth is not constant … When it formed, about 4.5bil. years ago, the Moon was only about 14,000 miles away and it has been drifting away (due to tidal forces and momentum exchange) currently at a rate of approx 1.5 inch/year.
I’m too lazy to use google for calculations to figure out the time when the Moon will be at 950,000 miles mark or even if it can get that far before it will be tidally locked with the Earth.
This brings up another point … whenever some crazy creationist tells you that solar eclipses are “designed” by God (how else do you explain that the Sun and the Moon have roughly the same angular size) you can just laugh, pointing out that in some time there will be no more total solar eclipses (unfortunately)
April 12th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
@MadScientist
According the Wholly Scripture of the United First Tabernacle Taste Buds of Matteus, NOBODY likes tuna. Don’t blaspheme!
April 12th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
@AJ
You too, infidel.
April 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Seems you make a movie with a moon in it without making an ass of yourself.
Moonshine (or rather, sunshine).
Usually you see speculations on mining surface He3, supplied by your neighbor sun for free, for relatively clean and sustainable fusion; albeit there are no such reactors planned. (Though I assume you could also get some deuterium and tritium, which could be used in a putative first generation of fusion plants.)
Dunno if you can do something with solar collectors too. The collectors can be made in place, but transporting the energy in some useful form to Earth feels like a logistics nightmare.
April 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Kinda reminded me of Castaway, just remade on the moon instead of an island. Although I like the moon idea, everything else seems unoriginal so far. Maybe the ending will surprise me and make it worthwhile…
April 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I evolved to like tuna.
I’m withholding judgment until I’ve seen the movie. Trailers can be misleading.
Clear skies, Alan
April 12th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
…and tuna sandwiches.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Studies show that people who don’t like tuna sandwiches…
Have a 75% higher incidence of claiming they were abducted by aliens.
Have a 50% greater chance of believing the evolution is “only a theory.”
Have a 42% lower probability of reading “Death from the Skies.”
Are more likely to claim they have an alien implant.
Clear skies, Alan
April 12th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
@Alan French
80% of tuna lovers believe in an international conspiracy to promote climate change in order to bring about a socialist new world order.
99% of tuna lovers really enjoy chicken salad, and just won’t admit it.
I’ll stop now.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@ Alan French,
Err… on what evidence do you base those claims?
Citations, please.
April 12th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I wonder if they’ll make the same mistake that occurs in movies and TV – and even in a great film, such as “2001 – A Space Odyssey”: When the astronaut is on the outside lunar surface in his spacesuit, the gravity is lunar-like but when he’s inside the lab, where it appears much like a lab on Earth, the gravity is Earth-like.
April 12th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I was just thinking about the premise of the movie; one man on the moon running a mining operation that is 99.99% automatically operated by HAL’s grandson.
It makes me wonder–
1) Why only one guy on this base? Even the tiny lunar lander had two people. Okay, the more people you add then the more complex the need for resources for the crew, so that’s a given, but c’mon…why not three or so?
2) Why even the single crew member? See the 99.99% automatically operated base comment above.
I would bet a month of double-doubles from Tim Hortons that this base is run by one guy, who is cloned in perpetuity. Current clone missed the “trip-back-to-earth-only-to-burn-up-in-the-atmosphere” and Stumbled Upon (TM) his clone. The pretty wife and baby are an endless loop DVD to program the clone and make him think that he has something to live for, ergo he has a legitimate need to work and do his job on this 99.99% automatically-operated moon base. Rinse, repeat.
Only a cosmonaut could handle that length of time alone, ’cause them Russians are the toughest bunch of spacefarers out there.
April 12th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I have a question. Recently I’ve been building a model of a Saturn V rocket, looking at lots of photographs of them and something that appears in the launch photographs has always puzzled me. The exhaust from the engines is massively bright but the first meter of exhaust to exit the engine appears very black in many photographs!
Is that what it actually looked like? Is it something like a reaction to the air that takes a moment or a drop in pressure to occur?
Or is it a photographic artifact? Is it perhaps so bright it’s bleached the negative?
April 12th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
@MarbleMad I might be completely wrong here, but have you considered the that fumes’ temperature changes (discreases) with the distance from the exit – similarly to a good old gas burner (in a chem lab) flames go from dark blue through orange/yellow as the temperature changes …
April 12th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
To Marble
I think the black plume is because the mixture of LOX and Kerosene burned by the first stage is slight above the spectrometry with an excess of Kerosene. That results in a reductive flame and the production of carbon black. This carbon black maybe takes a few milliseconds to burn in contact with air.
About the move, did you notice that it shows stars in almost every scene on the moon surface? They really should have asked an astronomer…
April 12th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Reminded me of the original “we can remember it wholesale”, where interplanetary pilots were motivated to make the long trip because they were brainwashed into thinking the other planet was “home”. Only here with clones. It’s all about the mind-f*ck.
If that makes any sense.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
The ’70s hairstyle in the beginning of the clip and the space-induced loneliness kinda gave me vibes of “Dark Star”. Maybe he should befriend a space alien who looks like a beach ball with claws…
April 12th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
@ 3v1l5w1n
Yeh I know what you’re getting at and I had considered it… but from white to black? Could be but surprising! .. anyone know for sure?
April 12th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Wow… just wow. Who would write 950,000 miles and who would miss this in proofreading and final approval? There are experts movie makers hire so they can avoid gaffes like this…
April 12th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I’m not surprised if it was an error of ignorance. For forty years, I have observed NASA with almost total assistance of all media, educational institutions, and even private advertising … consistently make no significant distinction between the distance from Earth to the moon and the distance the Space Shuttle travels into space. Consequently, an alarming number of Americans actually believe or remain under the impression that the Space Shuttle can travel as far as or even beyond the moon. The distance to the moon (about 240,000 miles), is easily more than 1500 times the distance the Shuttle travels into space (about 150 miles, right?). Why hasn’t NASA more clearly made this distinction?
April 12th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
950,000 miles, eh? Wasn’t there once a movie that said aliens only had to travel 1 million miles to get here? I think you once mentioned it on your old site, Phil…
April 12th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Maybe they mistakenly measured the distance to the L2 LaGrange point and thought since the moon stays with the Earth, it must be there. That’s the only explanation I can think of.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
@MarbleMad
Cool question, that (with my photographer beanie hat on) got me thinking…
Most of the long shots of Saturn V launches (showing the whole rocket) are exposed
for the rocket and sky, so the brighter exhaust is over exposed and doesn’t show
much detail.
But the really cool close-up slow-mo movies of ignition and launch show that
darker first few meters perfectly. Did a bit of hunting and found a pretty good
explanation…
“In general, light emission from rocket exhaust plumes is complicated, they aren’t
simple uniform flames. They have shock waves bouncing back and forth inside,
and various other complexities. Also, since rockets generally perform best if run
a bit fuel-rich, there is actual combustion happening when the plume hits
atmosphere, to complicate things further.
In the case of the Saturn V’s F-1 engine, however, what’s happening is fairly
simple. The F-1’s pumps are run by a turbine, driven by gas from a very
fuel-rich gas generator. The spent turbine gas — which is very smoky and
sooty, as you’d expect from very-fuel-rich combustion of kerosene — is dumped
into the exhaust nozzle partway down, partly just to get rid of it and partly
because it’s much cooler than the real exhaust and helps keep the hot stuff
away from the nozzle wall. (The dump manifold is the tapered ring that runs
around the nozzle about halfway down.) So the emerging exhaust has an
outer layer of sooty turbine gas, and that’s the black area. After a short
distance, it’s mixed enough with air to ignite, which is why the black
disappears fairly abruptly.”
Hope that’s useful.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Millions of human beings are capable of critical thinking, even without scientific or educational credentials. Highly credentialed scientific critical thinking can find six different contradictory causes for one disease. One does not have to read conspiracy theories or NASA paid debunkers to draw reasonable and logical conclusions. Despite great advances in technology, it is increasingly obvious, after 4 decades, that NASA does not yet possess the practical technology to send manned missions safely to the moon and back. Anyone can take NASA images from the NASA site, take them into basic photo software, enlarge them, and see clearly where images of real and/or simulated lunar terrain have been superimposed upon real and/or simulated (or airbrushed) backgrounds. The blurring and airbrushing of the lines between foreground and background were very poorly done by NASA personnel, perhaps unaware that within a few decades, even common folk would have the computer technology at their fingertips to enlarge these images and expose all kinds of sloppiness and errors. No doubt, NASA figured that practical space exploration technology would advance at least equally as rapidly. They were wrong. Clearly many scenes were simulated. I observed the Apollo Moon landings in 1969 on television and believed it completely for some 20 years. However, I have actually seen zero credible scientific evidence that men have ever landed on the moon. The lunar rocks prove nothing. The lasers prove nothing. They will bounce off the Moon itself or hardware left by possible previous unmanned missions. If men had actually landed on the moon, it would have been relatively easy to offer much more credible evidence, rather than the mountain of circumstantial evidence and images which are obviously a blend of real (unmanned) lunar images, simulated lunar terrain, and airbrushing. To expect critical minds to believe that the United States successfully landed men on the Moon six times between 1969-1972 (all during the Nixon Administration), and that no country including the U.S. has ever achieved this (manned Moon landings) either before 1969 or even within the following 4 decades, is simply NOT rational or logical. The statistical probability of this actually happening is becoming increasingly astronomical. Despite all our advances in technology, the United States has not even sent men beyond approximately 150 miles into space since the Apollo Missions! That is like from Brimingham, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. So don’t give me this horse poop about “critical thinking.” Regardless of the truth, anyone in their right mind should seriously doubt the credibility of the Apollo Manned Moon Missions. NASA should either respectfully provide logical explanations to serious questions, and offer credible proof, or just come clean and say we don’t know or we actually simulated that portion. If the “evidence” NASA has presented is all we have, then for all practical purposes, NASA may as well stop mass conditioning our elementary school children about the Apollo Missions. The current reputation of the United States Government and NASA are not such that any citizen or nation would likely be that surprised if NASA admitted to simulating some or all of the Apollo Missions. Any critical thinking mind knows as fact that our government is capable and morally willing to do whatever is necessary to acheive U.S. objectives. Do I know that the Apollo Manned Moon Missions were simulated? No. Do I believe they were simulated? I believe Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 Manned Moon Missions were completely simulated. I don’t believe either the USSR or the US successfully retrieved lunar soil samples or lunar rocks and brought them back to Earth. I beleive the only lunar material we have are the lunar meterorites collected by NASA and other scientific organazations over many decades. If comparing lunar meterorites are the primary method to deteremine whether lunar soil or rock samples are genuine, then any crushed or fired or reformulated variations containing lunar meteorite material would probably be regarded as genuine material of lunar origin by reputable scientists. This does not prove that either manned or unmanned craft retrieved such material directly from the Moon. When lunar soil samples and lasers are used by NASA as arguments for proof, this only encourages critical minds to question and doubt their reasoning, intent, and credibility. NASA should show the proof or come clean, rather than trying to achieve FACT status by simply repeating NASA propaganda millions of times on television with simulated/altered images and artist renderings. The TRUTH doesn’t need lies or simulated evidence … it will continue to reveal itself. The sensory equipment aboard every human mind is far superior to even the vast propaganda machine of NASA. AS we study Nature … we begin to see things as they truly are. But when we overestimate our knowledge and forget our position … Nature will gladly laugh … and embarass us for forty years … maybe even forever.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Almost as bad as the Eddie Olmos goof on the BSG finale where he said: We travelled a million light years….
April 13th, 2009 at 12:53 am
I have to agree with Craig, who thinks the guy is a clone, and the company finds it cheaper to just keep making new ones than send the original home or find and train real replacements. Why not just build a robot?
April 13th, 2009 at 1:28 am
@ Thoth : Consequently, an alarming number of Americans actually believe or remain under the impression that the Space Shuttle can travel as far as or even beyond the moon. The distance to the moon (about 240,000 miles), is easily more than 1500 times the distance the Shuttle travels into space (about 150 miles, right?). Why hasn’t NASA more clearly made this distinction?
Whatmake tehshuttler look even worse?
April 13th, 2009 at 1:30 am
@ Thoth : Consequently, an alarming number of Americans actually believe or remain under the impression that the Space Shuttle can travel as far as or even beyond the moon. The distance to the moon (about 240,000 miles), is easily more than 1500 times the distance the Shuttle travels into space (about 150 miles, right?). Why hasn’t NASA more clearly made this distinction?
What correct the wrong impression people have & make the space shuttle look even worse than it already does in public opinion?
April 13th, 2009 at 7:32 am
I “saw” in that trailer 2001: …, Silent Running, and Dark Star.
And you guys bidding for Hollywood’s dosh are doing it’s wrong. This is Hollywood. My bid is double Phil’s and a tuna sandwich franchise chain, Tun-A-Movies.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:34 am
5,280 feet (1 mile) = 63,360 inches. Assuming a steady speed of 1.5 inches per year, it will take 42,240 years for the moon to travel 1 mile.
The initial poster said 950,000 miles away. Subtract the current distance from that and we see that the moon is some 710,000 miles further away, which would mean the movie would take place in the year 29,990,402,009.
A bit tad beyond the year 5.5/Apple/26.
Good thing they corrected the mistake, eh?
April 13th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Maybe they aren’t supposed to be from earth, but from some other planet with a moon exactly 950, 000 miles from home.
Maybe home is a space station 950,000 miles from the moon.
Maybe this mission to the moon is to try to retrieve it, as it’s been rapidly retreating from earth and they have to stop it before it destroys their Martian colony. Which is when we discover the moon is in fact alive and very curious and wants to see what we’ve got going on our neighboring planet.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Part of the trouble being a science advisor for one of these movies, I imagine, is that they’ll go ahead and put stupid stuff in over your objections, and you’ll get blamed for it because your name is there.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:26 am
@MichaelWilce
Thanks
April 13th, 2009 at 8:39 am
@ Jack:
“Part of the trouble being a science advisor for one of these movies, I imagine, is that they’ll go ahead and put stupid stuff in over your objections, and you’ll get blamed for it because your name is there.”
Yup.
There’s also a huge gap between the people who make the movie and the people who market the movie. Unless you’re an A-lister, you won’t have any control over how your movie is sold.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:40 am
@ Jack redux:
Nice illustrations, BTW.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Cool, I will have to check it out.
@ Gary Ansorge did you ever see the TV movie called “Plymouth” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102681/ It was a fairly decent sci-fi movie made for tv about a mining colony on the moon
April 13th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I wonder how many of the “goof” posters were made, and how much they’ll be worth in the coming years on ebay?
It looks like a combination of “Solaris” and the old TZ episode “Where is Everybody?” to me. 5 will get you ten, the whole movie is just a hallucination he’s having AFTER he gets back to Earth…
April 13th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The answer is that Earth has been completely destroyed and he has set up the computer to tell him periodically that he only has two weeks to go while he watches recordings sent to him before the horrible cataclysm that left pieces of the planet drifting 950,000 miles away. His other version is a Tyler Durden-esque alternate personality who steals the capsule to get back to the chunky remains of the Earth in order to prevent the real moon miner from taking it and consequently killing himself, because albeit in isolation the moon base can be inhabited indefinitely. This is my hypothesis at least.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“Why does he look like me?…and Zaphod Beeblebrox…and Chuck Barris…and Guy Fleegman from “Galaxy Quest”…?”
April 13th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Referencing the earlier post about the lunar gravity thing… Inside the habitat, he could be wearing a suit that’s pocketed with lead shot, or heavy regolith… something to bring his weight up to maybe half of Earth normal… at least that would help with his eventual return to Earth…
Frankly, the fact that he’s on the treadmill, wearing a WAKE UP t-shirt, seems like a bit of foreshadowing to me.
Personally, I’m pretty geeked up! It looks like something that might… just might… be an honest to god SCIENCE FICTION movie! (It’s been AGES since we’ve seen one of those, hasn’t it?)
April 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
# IVAN3MAN Says:
April 12th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@ Alan French,
Err… on what evidence do you base those claims?
Citations, please.
@IVAN3MAN,
It was someone on Opray, so they must be true. Oh, wait, maybe it was Larry King? (Must take better notes!)
Clear skies, Alan
April 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Ooops… Oprah, not Opray. That’s what I get for making up facts and claiming they are based on a show I’ve never watched.
Would you believe Richard Hoagland?
Clear skies, Alan
April 13th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Problems with the movie “Sunshine”:
I just watched this film for the 1st time [last week] with high expectations owing to the reviews I had read [specifically referencing the strong acting and intelligent, science-based script]. The acting was fine, the casting and script was far from intelligent [nor, seemingly, accurate regarding its’ science].
Some examples of contrivance that intruded on my suspension of disbelief:
- Artificial gravity within the next 50 yrs? “Unlikely” is an understatement.
- Crew members get into a number of physical conflicts [the psyche screening appears to have been poor]; plus many of the actors are too young appearing to believe that they have achieved the necessary level of knowledge, gravitas and experience for their roles on the ship.
- The accident that damages the heat shield appears to make no sense … the script seems to indicate that the heat shield wasn’t turned in conjunction with a minor course change [which caused the damage] yet is turned by a much greater degree so repairs can be affected [this much greater "turning" of this shield causes no damage].
- The design of the space suits makes no sense. They are gold like the heat shield but appear to provide no defense when exposed to direct sunlight. What is the purpose of making them gold other than for script contrivance?
- When repairing the heat shield, communication arrays are rotating and hence exposed to direct sun light. Why was the rotating not stopped so the arrays would not be exposed to direct sunlight? This was clearly possible since later in the movie, the rotating was halted by computer problems which precipitated power loss.
- The rendezvous with the 1st derelict craft was the most egregious science error. For the 1st craft to be in its’ position, it would have to be orbiting the Sun [within Mercury’s orbit] at a phenomenal [perpendicular] speed. How could another craft [traveling at least 10s of thousands of KMs per hour directly toward the sun] match velocities. Improbable [as is the possibility that the 1st craft could have managed to engineer an orbit around an object with the mass of the sun – given the approach speed and proximity - that would not have decayed at some point in 7 years].
- The fact that the “physicist” found out about the existence and location of a 5th person on the craft [that could only, logically, have 4] and did not take the time to tell anyone else, was the whip-cream on the sunday . The “fantasy-land” explosion of the payload where said “physicist” could experience it over several seconds was the cherry.
The seemingly positive reference of this movie [from a science and logic perspective] in this post, is puzzling.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
The MHBers point about the altitude of the shuttle vs. the distance to the Moon is completely wrong. Distance doesn’t matter. Energy matters. LEO is about 1/2 way to the Moon (or anywhere else in the Universe.) No one who failed freshman physics should be allow to say anything about any scientific subject.
Ask questions, fine, we’ll make a good faith effort to explain it if you make a good faith effort to understand. Make bald, incorrect assertions, and I don’t see any reason at all to try to be nice.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
And just as off-topic, but more interesting, Gary Ansorge mentioned bears being able to survive hibernation without muscle or bone loss… Seems to me we need to study bears in zero-g… They canceled the Centrifuge Accomodation Module (CAM) on the ISS. Maybe they should replace it with the Bear Accomodation Module (BAM.) And it could be very appropriately named after Stephen Colbert.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
@ Thoth:
blahblahblah, critical thinking, blahblahblah, faked/airbrushed photos, blahblahblah, we never went to the moon.
… I think Phil’s already covered this fairly well. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html and http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html .
Feel free to utterly ignore what he has to say, though. I mean, he must be an agent of the Evil NASA Conspiracy (TM) anyway, right?
April 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
@Thoth,
The idea that the manned missions to the Moon were faked has to be one of the most moronic conspiracy theories in recent history. There is ample evidence that man did visit the Moon and return to Earth, and it doesn’t take much critical thinking to realize that.
AJ has provided the necessary link.
Clear skies, Alan
April 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
@Thoth
How desperate do ‘hoax’ True Believers have to be to cite basic darkroom printing techniques like dodging and burning as ‘anomalies’?
But then no matter how many times conspiracy theorists get a reality ‘Buzz Slap’ they’ll keep on believing… because the fairies at the bottom of their gardens tell them it’s a hoax.
April 13th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
@MichaelWilce,
Probably not desperate. Just completely ignorant about darkroom work and repeating nonsense they heard from someone else.
Clear skies, Alan
April 13th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
940 000 miles?
James Webb will be at about that distance though!!!
Just can’t wait that they do that crazy thing!
April 13th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Apparently, Thoth has buggered off!
April 13th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
This looks really cool, but then you can pretty much cut a good trailer from any footage. Keeping fingers crossed.
One thing that bugs me about attempts at hardcore sf (if that’s what this is) is that they always seem to involve insanity/horror/murder. Yes, I know space is a very difficult environment, and that all the various human reactions to isolation or abandonment cannot be predicted, but c’mon! It’s really not doing the space program any favors when they keep making movies that highlight these aspects. Just make something fun and real and adventurous already! I have enough insanity around me every day as it is.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
@ Supernova Says: (April 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am)
I was going to say, how hard can it be to look this up on Wikipedia? But then I did it myself and noticed all the distances there are in kilometers. So maybe the problem isn’t a lack of information, but an inability to do conversions.
When, o when, will the ole US of A finally join the rest of the world and adopt the metric system?
You’re only a few centuries out of date and out of synch with the civilised nations.
Oh & its also time you adopted degrees celcius, driving on the proper side of the road and started playing cricket instead of that baseball rubbish too!
;-P
April 13th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
@ Thoth :
Ever heard of paragraphs & spacing dude?
Try pressing “enter” on your keyboard a few times, dude.
Oh & try and read all the stuff Phil’s posted on the Moon hoax Conspiracy Theory too.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:16 am
@ Thoth :
“I believe Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 Manned Moon Missions were completely simulated.”
So you believe that ‘Apollo 8′ (Lovell, Anders, Borman) & ‘Apollo 13′ (Lovell, Swigert, Haise) which flew around the Moon *were* real ¬ simulated then? That they plus Apollo 9 & 10 were the only real missions?
I don’t believe either the USSR or the US successfully retrieved lunar soil samples or lunar rocks and brought them back to Earth.
Your basis for this odd belief is .. ???
Your geology & astrochemistry qualifications are .. ???
Thoth, you are calling a huge number of people liars – worse you are calling a huge number of people *superb* inhumanly *good* liars that have never let anything slip.
(The twelve mon-walkers alone plus the CM pilots, all of the 8 & 13 crews, all the ground control people, those working inthetrackingstations atParkes and Madrid and elsewhere , etc ..)
Believing that is far more incredible, far less plausible, far less reasonable than the whole ridiculous idea that the Moon landings were faked.
Occam’s razor alone (not to mention all the evidence) should be enough to dismiss it.
Please do read and think about what the Bad Astronomer has to say on the whole “moon hoax” nonsense here before making yourself look dumb.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Thoth said:
Despite great advances in technology, it is increasingly obvious, after 4 decades, that NASA does not yet possess the practical technology to send manned missions safely to the moon and back
I reluctantly and sadly have to agree with you. For many years I too was an unquestioning believer, but now after reading your post and many others, I have switched my opinion. For example, is it really logical that 40 years ago the lunar module, a flimsy vehicle, really was able to touch down on moon? Very unlikely, it would have been much easier for them to fake the photos/videos, they could have done that with 1969 cinematic special effects. Also, the behavoir of Armstrong and Buzz have greatly troubled and perplexed me. For example, why has Neil been so very, very quiet over these long decades? (A guilty conscience?). Why did Buzz have to go into therapy in 1969 after the moon launch, and why the overreaction punching that guy? (again, a guilty conscience?). This stuff troubles me profoundingly , and I can only conclude that the moon landings were hoaxed.
So sad, but so true
April 14th, 2009 at 6:58 am
just wonder, if we abandon manned space travel, as some folks wish, it would take till thespaceflight hoax will appear.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Correction :
***
So you believe that ‘Apollo 8′ (Lovell, Anders, Borman) & ‘Apollo 13′ (Lovell, Swigert, Haise) which flew around the Moon *were* real & not simulated then? That they, plus Apollo’s 9 & 10 were the only real missions?
***
I forgot to add ‘Apollo 7′ to that list.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:12 am
@ Thoth – and the other Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory Believers. (MHCTBers)
All these people (most still living) have circled the Moon and many have set foot upon the Lunar regolith : (In order of appearance)
James Lovell,
Frank Borman,
William Anders
Apollo 8 – circled the Moon – & took the famous ‘Moonrise’ image – how do the MHCTBers explain that?
Tom Stafford
Gene Cernan
John Young
Apollo 10 – dress rehearsal for Lunar landing.
Neil Armstrong,
Buzz (Edwin) Aldrin,
Michael Collins
Apollo 11 – first Lunar landing. Aldrin would later write an autobiography as well as at least one SF novel.
Charles “Pete” Conrad
Alan Bean
Richard Gordon
Apollo 12 – the second Lunar landing. Alan Bean would later paint many scenes from his Lunar adventure from memory.
John Swigert,
Fred Haise
Apollo 13 – NASA’s “finest hour” amazing rescue story – which also circled the Moon. Plus again, Jim Lovell who would write a non-fiction book ‘Lost Moon” detailing his Lunar voyages in 8 & 13.
Alan Shepherd
Edgar Mitchell
Stuart Roosa
Apollo 14 – third lunar landing – & Al Shepherd was the first American in space with the ‘Mercury’ programme.
David Scott
James Irwin
Fred Worden
Apollo 15 – fourth Lunar landing
Charles Duke
Thomas Mattingly
Apollo 16 – fifth Lunar landing. Plus John Young, again. Both Duke & Irwin later became preachers if that carries any weight for those who think preachers are more honest than, say, scientists. NOT a view I hold personally I’ll add, but one I know some do.
Harrison Schmidt
Ronald Evans
Apollo 17 – sixth & so far last lunar landing. Plus again, Gene Cernan. Schmidt, a geologist was the first and only scientist to walk on the Moon, the other astronauts mostly came from air-force or navy backgrounds.
But according to the MHCTBers *all* of these brave and honourable men (& many more) who have all have different characters, abilities and backgrounds, who have written, painted, and talked about their lunar experiences are consistently and continually lying.
Moreover, the MHCTBers would have us believe that all these men ( & many hundreds more involved in the Apollo program )who have been interviewed, studied, debriefed and questioned are *perfect* flawless liars who have never once “slipped up” and accidentally revealed “the secret.”
Not to the media, not to their partners, not to their kids, not once, ever.
Yeah riiiight.
Given human nature and fallibility, I think the Lunar landing is far more plausible than that absurd “moon hoax” alternative.
I also strongly think that all of these men ( & the many others involved in the Apollo program) are owed an apology by the MHCTBers. (Incl. Thoth.)
April 14th, 2009 at 10:51 am
@ Jeff :
Thoth said: “Despite great advances in technology, it is increasingly obvious, after 4 decades, that NASA does not yet possess the practical technology to send manned missions safely to the moon and back” I [Jeff] reluctantly and sadly have to agree with you. For many years I too was an unquestioning believer, but now after reading your post and many others, I have switched my opinion.
I suggest you maybe read the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait’s many posts on this issue carefully before you do anything drastic like agreeing with the Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theory Believers. Go on, he does a *very* good job of showing exactly why MHCT is utter bilge.
For example, is it really logical that 40 years ago the lunar module, a flimsy vehicle, really was able to touch down on moon?
Is it logical we climbed Mt Everest? Or explored the south pole?
Its not what’s ‘logical’, its what’s ‘possible’ – and, yes, it was done – a remarkable achievement indeed perhaps the greatest thing Humanity has ever managed to do.
Very unlikely, it would have been much easier for them to fake the photos/videos, they could have done that with 1969 cinematic special effects.
Not really no. Fake the Moon rocks? The findings that created a revolution in our understanding of the Moon. Fake the Apollo flights (radio signals & all) so well that the Russians and every other country tracking the spacecraft got fooled? No way!
Also, the behavoir of Armstrong and Buzz have greatly troubled and perplexed me. For example, why has Neil been so very, very quiet over these long decades? (A guilty conscience?).
No. Decades and decades of harrassment and a fishbowl environment and perhaps the whole “what now … ” thing. I suggest you read the recent and extremely comprehensive biography of Neil Armstrong called ‘First Man’ by somebody whsoe name I forget, for insight into Neil Armstrong’s remarkable life & circumstances. Both before, during and after.
Why did Buzz have to go into therapy in 1969 after the moon launch, and why the overreaction punching that guy? (again, a guilty conscience?).
No. Overreaction is NOT a word I’d use when considering Buzz’s response to that odious stalker Sibrel. If Buzz Aldrin – or for that matter *any* of the atronauts I’ve listed above – really had a guilty conscience all they’d need to do is “come clean” & confess. Not a single one, not even the slightly nutty Edgar (”UFO’s are being hid by our Govt &I just lurve New Age pseudo-science!”) Mitchell has so much as dropped a hint of any MHCT fakery.
Ask yourself this :
Could so many people with so much fame and under so much constant questioning really concievably, remotely concievably, keep so colossally huge a secret?
I think the notion that they could – without slipping up, without it getting out somewhere along the line – is just too ridiculous for words. Come on, NOT only the ‘Apollo’ people but the “Kubrick movie makers team” too had to be in on it according to MHCTB mythology – and no individual somewhere lets the “truth” out? Riiight.
This stuff troubles me profoundingly , and I can only conclude that the moon landings were hoaxed.
It deeply saddens and somewhat angers me that *anyone* can entertain the sort of nonsense that is MHCT for more than the briefest span of time.
Like I said, read Phil Plait’s pages on this. Read the works of the astronauts and their biographers telling you about their lives and their missions in full detail. Heck read their bio briefs on Wikipedia online if you’re too lazy to do anything else … Now for fraks sake, what gives you (or the MHCTBers) *any* reason or right to accuse so many brave and honourable people of such appalling lies and what evidence can you possibly have to call all these people dishonest!?
That’s what gets my goat about what would otherwise just be ..well only about the saddest and lamest of all Conspiracy Theories.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I think this sentence of Thoth’s says it all:
So, even if it is true that NASA landed men on the moon, a person in their right mind should doubt its credibility. What a laughable comment.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Forgot to add Buzz Aldrin has written an autobiography too.
In it Buzz Aldrin notes his difficult relationship with his demanding father, some political infighting issues over why he thought *he* & not Neil Armstrong should have been first on the Moon and about his battle with failed personal relationships, alcoholism and depression (I think?) culminating in a nervous breakdown sometime after his Lunar mission.
Yes,astronauts are human with all our frailties.
Buzz also managed to recover pretty brilliantly – its an interesting life story for sure. A successful one despite its ups and downs and yes I admire the guy. I also admire his act in decking that pest Sibrel who repeatedly pushed and harassed Buzz until he snapped.
Buzz Aldrin – he changed the Edwin by deed poll – has also given many talks and written articles and other stuff and played a strong role in advocating human space exploration. Oh & he’s also written or co-written an SF novel too.
If this issue troubles you that much Jeff, try searching for and reading some of what the man has to say. Its sure to put your doubts over his “conscience” utterly to rest.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Todd W. and everybody else,
Thoth has been cross-posting that garbage of his on the “Another Moon Hoax claim bites the dust” (2008/01/30) thread. Click on my name for the link.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Also at the “Moon Hoax believers” (2006/12/26) thread. Click on my name for the link.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
@IVAN3MAN
I was late to the party, but that line just struck me as, well, telling. Truth be damned! Long live the ideology!
April 15th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Thoth, pretty much asking for a metaphorical kicking, said:
True, but very few actually practice it.
Not unless you are prepared to cite examples, they can’t. This sounds like something you made up on the spur of the moment to try to discredit scientists. Instead, it illustrates your ignorance of science.
NASA pays debunkers?
Hey, Phil, didja hear that? You missed a trick – you could have cashed in on the whole debunking malarky. I bet Jay over at http://www.calvius.org is sick!
Dude, no.
First off, we have actually forgotten how to do it.
Second, we have a totally different attitude to risk and safety now than was the case 50 years ago.
Third, if it is so “obvious” that we “never had” the technology, it should be simple for you to demonstrate this, right?
If you want anyone to believe this crap, you had better provide some examples, hadn’t you?
What do you mean, “clearly”. Give one convincing example.
I have to say that the opposite seems true to me.
Nowhere on earth will you see dirt or dust following a perfectly ballistic trajectory as it flies off a tyre.
OK, so what changed your mind?
Well, perhaps you’ve never, y’know, looked?
Wrong. The rocks are impossible to simulate to the required detail. All on their own, they would prove that we went to the moon.
Aside from the fact that (a) lasers do not reflect as well off the lunar surface as they do off the reflectometers, and (b) laser reflectometers are only found at the sites where NASA tells us they are, i.e. 3 or 4 of the Apollo landing sites.
BTW, if you accept that unmanned craft made it to the moon, why not manned craft?
Seriously, dude, the evidence is credible.
You have yet to offer any evidence that any of it is not. Or, come to think of it, so more than emit hot air.
Prove that any of the images are fakes.
Why not?
It took a huge concerted effort to get those 12 heroes to the moon and back. No-one since then has (yet) cared to devote the amount of money it would require to become the second nation to land men on the moon.
Do you not think that the Soviets would have called foul when their radar tracking stations showed that the Apollo spacecraft didn’t go to the moon? Oh, wait, the Apollo spacecraft did go to the moon. The Soviets knew they had been beaten to it.
No, it’s about 1. Because it happened.
(a) This proves nothing – NASA has had less funding and othee priorities.
(b) Men have gone up to about 400 miles, which is (roughly) the altitude at which the Hubble telescope orbits.
What horse poop? Judging from your post, you have about as much familiarity with critical thinking as you do with the surface of Pluto. I.e. None at all.
Why?
They have done this.
Why should they do it again.
And, who the hell do you think you are anyway? You seem to know nothing.
What evidence would actually satisfy you that we went to the moon? Be specific, and be detailed.
NASA has never done any such thing as conditioning elementary schoolchildren. Or do you have evidence to support your defamatory accusation?
Actually, every other government on Earth would be surprised if NASA stated this, because that would be an obvious lie. The Soviets tracked their spacecraft and listened to their radio transmissions, for FSM’s sake!
Irrelevant.
But you have not even attempted to explain why.
Again, why?
Utter rubbish!
There are significant differences between lunar rocks and terrestrial rocks. The microscopic evidence of extensive exposure to micrometeoritic bombardment is just one aspect that simply cannot be simulated. The total absence of water is another.
Wrong. The lunar rocks are convincing, because they are real.
NASA has shown the proof. If you don’t believe it because of your own ignorance, this is your problem, not NASA’s. You have still not explained why you doubt the extant evidence. Neither have you specified what evidence you would consider to be convincing.
The truth is already available. 12 men have walked on the moon.
First off, the human mind contains no sensory equipment. Second, NASA’s propaganda machine, as you put it, is so “effective” that they often issue really boring press releases. Wow.
Put simply, I don’t believe you. You are making no sense. You have yet to type anything that has any shred of credibility about it.
Well, I can hear Nature laughing at you now. Perhaps you should do one of the following:
(1) Accept that we actually did go to the moon, because there is ample evidence that we did;
(2) Explain in detail and with specific examples precisely why you feel that men did not walk on the moon; or
(3) Go away, persist in your wacky belief, and remain a laughing stock for the rest of your life.
Whatever you do, don’t post here again, unless you are prepared to support your position with rational arguments and evidence.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Oops.
I meant http://www.clavius.org .
April 15th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Nigel: “Thoth, pretty much asking for a metaphorical kicking, said:”
Thoth could probably make a pretty good rebuttal. There are so many, but for example:
There are significant differences between lunar rocks and terrestrial rocks. The microscopic evidence of extensive exposure to micrometeoritic bombardment is just one aspect that simply cannot be simulated. The total absence of water is another.
Could be rebutted as stating that NASA has some pretty good simulated meteorite labs and they could dehydrate volatiles.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:52 am
@ ThinkAfrica:
Nah, here it goes [SPECULATIVE SPOILER]:
Moon miner nearing the end of his term slowly going bonkers. Relief ship from earth crash lands with body of his replacement, who looks exactly like him. Moon miner goes more bonkers. Evil company on Earth won’t answer his questions. More bonkers still. His computer “friend” turns against him because of his bonkerish behavior. (Hint: the computer “knows!”)
Final denouement: moon miner discovers “replacements” are really clones of himself. He is also a clone. (”Oh…nos!!!”) Evil company’s modus operandi: send clones to moon because “real” humans go nuts. But clones only last a little while before genetic defect kicks in. So, replacement clones kill their predecessors, as did moon miner…a repressed memory he finally remembers… then get on with the work until they in turn are killed by their replacement. Crash landing exposed the game, causing Moon miner to figure it out. Evil company gets its come-uppance when Moon miner returns to earth, exposing the whole scheme.
Hollywood loves its clones. Clones = oppressed workers. Lots of oppressed workers watch movies. Hence, every sci-fi movie must have clones.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
@Thoth: Millions of human beings are capable of critical thinking, even without scientific or educational credentials. Highly credentialed scientific critical thinking can find six different contradictory causes for one disease. One does not have to read conspiracy theories or NASA paid debunkers to draw reasonable and logical conclusions
Correct. People these days do much too much “groupthink” ; what is needed is individual critical thinking.
@Thoth: Anyone can take NASA images from the NASA site, take them into basic photo software, enlarge them, and see clearly where images of real and/or simulated lunar terrain have been superimposed upon real and/or simulated (or airbrushed) backgrounds. The blurring and airbrushing of the lines between foreground and background were very poorly done by NASA personnel, perhaps unaware that within a few decades, even common folk would have the computer technology at their fingertips to enlarge these images and expose all kinds of sloppiness and errors.
I am not aware of any specific cases of this allegation. But Thoth’s main point is correct, they COULD have not anticipated that kids with computers could do this in the future and so they did leave some sloppiness in the still photos/videos. For example, Sibrel says he is an expert in lighting and the photos appear to have “umbrella lighting” on some terrain.
@Thoth: The lunar rocks prove nothing. The lasers prove nothing. They will bounce off the Moon itself or hardware left by possible previous unmanned missions. If men had actually landed on the moon, it would have been relatively easy to offer much more credible evidence, rather than the mountain of circumstantial evidence and images which are obviously a blend of real (unmanned) lunar images, simulated lunar terrain, and airbrushing
I agree with Thoth’s main pt. The point is that the evidence NASA has given the world is circumstantial, weak evidence. Why, for example, weren’t there followup missions to moon? Why didn’t they use recent lunar orbital missions to moon to image the Apollo hardware left behind?
Regardless of the truth, anyone in their right mind should seriously doubt the credibility of the Apollo Manned Moon Missions. NASA should either respectfully provide logical explanations to serious questions, and offer credible proof, or just come clean and say we don’t know or we actually simulated that portion. If the “evidence” NASA has presented is all we have, then for all practical purposes, NASA may as well stop mass conditioning our elementary school children about the Apollo Missions
Any critical thinking mind knows as fact that our government is capable and morally willing to do whatever is necessary to acheive U.S. objectives.
Agreed. If adults stop critical thinking and just blindly believe everything they’re told in TV/print media, then how are the children ever going to learn critical thinking skills?
@Thoth: Do I know that the Apollo Manned Moon Missions were simulated? No. Do I believe they were simulated? I believe Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 Manned Moon Missions were completely simulated. I don’t believe either the USSR or the US successfully retrieved lunar soil samples or lunar rocks and brought them back to Earth. I beleive the only lunar material we have are the lunar meterorites collected by NASA and other scientific organazations over many decades.
Thoth is saying that there is no question that Mercury, Gemini, and possibly Apollo 8 , 10 were authentic. These did not involve the LEM landing on moon. That is the problem, the choreography of landing the LEM and returning it to the lunar module, plus the life support problem, was the reason NASA couldn’t land on moon. Tons of rocks could have been slow baked in NASA facilities to deplete them of volatiles, and they have powerful guns to shoot simulated meteorites at surfaces, the rocks could have been subjected to these.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am
@Jeff
Lots of possibilities you and Thoth list. Could the pictures and video have been faked? Maybe. Could the lunar rocks be fake? Maybe. And so on. The problem, though, is that the burden of proof is on those who are claiming the various pieces of evidence are fake. If someone says that the photos were faked, then they need to not only show how it could have been done with technology available at the time, but also that it was done.
Likewise with the rocks. Need to show not only that the chemical structure of the rocks can be replicated, but also how such could have been done with technology available at the time and that it was, in fact, done Same goes for the micrometeorite bombardment marks, using tech available at that time.
But there is proof besides the photos and the rocks. We have the courses of the rockets tracked by multiple sources from around the world, along with radio transmissions picked up by those same sources. But, of course, they’re all in on the conspiracy, I suppose.
Give Phil’s whole discussion of the moon hoax myth a read. The link is over there under the blogroll (Bad Astronomy – Old Site). Then, if you still think that the moon landings were faked, provide some evidence, rather than merely speculation. Otherwise, all you’re doing is displaying misplaced über skepticism. Here’s an analogy:
I have a sofa that I bought at XYZ Furniture. I have the receipt for it. The charge shows up on my credit card statement, which I also present. You insist that the sofa did not come from XYZ Furniture and that it instead came from ABC Discount Living Rooms, supporting your claim by saying that I could have faked the receipt and the credit card statement. While technically true, that everything could have been faked, you give no evidence that it, in fact, was faked, nor any logical reason as to why it would have been.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Err… The lasers do prove something. The reflectors are special kinds of reflectors in which they bounce light right back instead of being like a mirror in which light is bounced in the same degree at which it entered. Also, I doubt the moon is that reflective.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Jeff, where were the crew of the Apollo 11, 12, 14 – 17 missions hiding whilst the “simulated missions” were taking place? How were the crew reunited with their craft after splashdown without being seen visually or on radar? How did they manage special effects that would have required CGI before it had even been developed? In case you’re wondering about which special effects; the lower gravity as demonstrated by astronauts jumping; as mentioned by Nigel Depledge, the trajectory of dirt from the tyres of the moon buggy; and the Apollo 15 repeat of Galileo’s gravity experiment involving a feaher and hammer which would have required a vast vacuum chamber to fake. You could do it now with CGI but not then.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
And that should be “feather and hammer”. Curse these ineffective bony sausages. And the lack of preview.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I DO miss the BA movie reviews.
PLEASE BRING THEM BACK!!!!
How about you begin with “Knowing”.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
@Todd:
“The burden of proof is on those who are claiming the various pices of evidence are fake”
This is where we disagree. I feel the burden of proof is on NASA to prove that they did land. Why? Because consider Carl Sagan’s famous retort: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. That is, since NASA claims they went to moon, the burden is on THEM to prove it, and Thoth’s point is that they evidence they’ve offered up is weak, not strong , and doesn’t rise to the level of “extraordinary evidence”. What would be? Show us an image from a recent lunar orbiter of the hardware left behind by Apollo.
@Mark:
Where were the crew of the Apollos mission hiding whilst the simulated missions were taking place? How were the crew reunited with their craft”
Only those who faked it know all the specific details. But here’s a likely scenario: the time spent on the lunar surface was filmed on earth in a NASA film studio any time before July 20, 1969 launch. Then the astronauts did launch and possibly even go into lunar orbit. But this is a far cry from them getting out in the LEM and landing/enduring the lunar environment/redocking with command module. Then of course, they would splashdown.
@ Mark
The Apollo 15 repeat of Galileo’s gravity experiment involving a feather and hammer which would have required a vacuum
Not really. Consider this, how do you know it was a feather? It looked like a feather but maybe it was white plastic. I’ve shown that film many times, and I can’t tell for sure it’s a feather. Then it would fall at “g” like the hammer without a vacuum. Then just use slow-mo video like after a football play.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
So they loaded up the tapes inside, oh, lets say the LEM (after all, what would you use that ridiculous looking thing for?), and play them in the correct sequence once in lunar orbit. Just as well no-one in ground control flubbed their lines once on any of the missions. Or were they pre-recorded as well and all they did was lip-synch? At least we know the real™ reason Apollo 13 couldn’t land. They didn’t have time to reshoot all the footage after Jack Swigert replaced Ken Mattingly.
Obviously you would have some proof for this hypothesis of yours, wouldn’t you?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Note: RE: Mythbusters NASA Moon Landing will be run during a marathon this Sunday, 4/19- listed time for my local showing 10P MST.- repeats on Monday.
I also recorded (so don’t look for) another Moon Hoax debunking show – title escapes me, at the moment, that long preceded the MB’s, had very good presentation.
J/P=?
April 15th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
@ Thoth (Hello ..are you there Thoth? Thoth? *crickets* ) & Jeff :
I note you still haven’t answered the point raised on my earlier post above listing the names of all those twenty-four Apollo astronauts who flew to and in many cases landed on it.
Do you really think all those people (and many, many others) are lying?
Not just lying but lying so well about something this big that they have never been caught out or have anyone “crack”?
How many people do you think all up are required to do this supposed hoax of yours?
And do you really think that many people could keep that big a secret?
If not then how about a simple : Oh I should’ve thought of that admission & an apology – not so much to us as to the astronauts you’ve slandered as liars?
But if so, well, talk about an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence!
The Burden of Proof is on you – & we’ve yet to see *any* specific examples.
So go on. If its as obvious as you say you’ll have no trouble showing us some actual evidence will you? Put up or shut up!
… But first check & make sure whatever “evidence” you come up with hasn’t already been debunked by Phil Plait & others (eg. mythbusters) a thousand times already. Eg. odd shadows, no stars, “waving flag”, ad nauseam..
PS. Incidentally, you do realise the Moon rocks obtained by the Apollo missions led to the whole “Big Splash” theory of Lunar formation don’t you? They did show that the Moon was neither captured from independent orbit nor thrown off from the Earth somehow as previously hypothesised but rather formed in the collision between Earth and another planet. That’s at least one major scientific result stemming from the whole Apollo programme.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
@ : Why, for example, weren’t there followup missions to moon?
If you really must have a Conspiracy Theory answer to this – & you don’t – then my choice would be the one jokingly proposed by comedian Ben Elton in his black humour SF novel ‘Stark’ :
The Insanely Mega-Rich bought up all the technology and secretly have their own Apollo “Star-arks” spacecraft ready to emigrate themselves and their chosen elite to the Moon when they’ve fouled up the Earth to the point of Total Toxic Overload. (Elton’s term & idea not mine.)
If its CT you want then Elton’s one makes marginally more sense than that Moon Hoax one..
But really, you don’t need any CT answer for that. Truth is, itcost too much & the political will was gone. The Vietnam War took all the money and effort and the US public (to my way of thinking quite bizarrely) had grown tired of the whole Moon programme. Its a dreary, sad litle answer which isn’t fun at all but it happens to be true.
Actually, IMHO, the lack of return missions is probably the main reason for the popularity of the MHCTBers. If anything good can come out of the whole Moon Hoax baloney, I hope its that NASA and others finally get frustrated enough to say :
“Right we’ll prove it – we *will* go back to the Moon and show you fools that it can be done – and was!”
Besides there’s never been a woman on the Moon and its time that situation was corrected – why the feminists don’t argue for a Moon program on that basis alone is beyond me!
Along with more scientists needing to go there incl. an astronomer or two.
A Far (”dark”) Side Lunar Telescope – Now that’s be a worthy project to follow the HST and LHC!
Sadly, I get the feeling a MHCTBer is so impervious to logic and evidence he wouldn’t believe we’d landed on the Moon even if he was standing on the lunar regolith himself :
MHCTBer : “No way man, you just faked the gravity & all!”
Me:
Me: “Okay, this prove it to you?”
* Takes off MHCTBer’s helmet*
* Messy explosive decompression, blood freezing / boiling ensues *
* Low gravity, slow fall of MTCBer’s corpse * Thump!
Me : “Enough proof for ya at last!” Walks back to Armstrong Base.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Unfortunately, Flying sardines, you left out the final stage:
Fellow MHCTBer’s: “He never came back. He must have gotten too close to the truth and they killed him. He was right!!”
*Fellow MHCTBer’s erect statue to their new martyr and their undying quest for the ‘TRUTH’™ continues…
April 16th, 2009 at 3:06 am
@flying
How many people do you think all up are required to do this supposed hoax of yours?
And do you really think that many people could keep that big a secret?
you’d need the astronauts, certain half dozen mission controllers to mislead the rest, and videographers to fake the lunar scenes, I’d estimate 20 people in all. None is going to rat on the others .
We’ll have to agree to disagree where the burden of proof lies.
@flying
PS. Incidentally, you do realise the Moon rocks obtained by the Apollo missions led to the whole “Big Splash” theory of Lunar formation don’t you? They did show that the Moon was neither captured from independent orbit nor thrown off from the Earth somehow as previously hypothesised but rather formed in the collision between Earth and another planet. That’s at least one major scientific result stemming from the whole Apollo programme.
Yes, but this theory could have come from the lunar meteorites which came to earth plus spectroscopic analysis of lunar surface.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:46 am
@Mark
So they loaded up the tapes inside, oh, lets say the LEM (after all, what would you use that ridiculous looking thing for?), and play them in the correct sequence once in lunar orbit. Just as well no-one in ground control flubbed their lines once on any of the missions. Or were they pre-recorded as well and all they did was lip-synch? At least we know the real™ reason Apollo 13 couldn’t land. They didn’t have time to reshoot all the footage after Jack Swigert replaced Ken Mattingly.
Obviously you would have some proof for this hypothesis of yours, wouldn’t you?
No, no proof, but then again, I’m just conjecturing a hypothetical scenario, only those that faked this know the whole story. It’s NASA’s burden of proof, what are we, children, they’ve given us what they have, and go to sleep again children? I say, “NASA, you put up or shut up”
The video playback of lunar scenes could have been replayed from Houston and fed to the networks, not necessarily carried onboard the command module.
@flying
If not then how about a simple : Oh I should’ve thought of that admission & an apology – not so much to us as to the astronauts you’ve slandered as liars?
I’m a gentleman, and I’ll happily write each one a letter of apology, AFTER NASA gives us hard proof. Like: lunar orbital photos of hardware left behind. Like: let that millionaire shuttle astronaut guy go to the moon and make him the foreman of a lunar Apollo dune buggy retreival team. They’ll return it to earth and display it at Smithsonian, plus he can be there to personally endorse the chain of evidencee that he was on the moon when this was found and now it’s on display.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:46 am
@Mark
At least we know the real™ reason Apollo 13 couldn’t land. They didn’t have time to reshoot all the footage after Jack Swigert replaced Ken Mattingly.
You joke, but this is a pretty good idea. I was rather thinking that the real reason was that the intelligence spooks pulling all the strings in this hoax like that weird numerology stuff and what better than 13th Apollo, at launch 13:13 hours. Haise quipped that Jack walked under broken glass after seeing a black cat walking under the LEM ladder.
And speaking of “LEM”, don’t forget that lemmon that Gus Grisson hung on the LEM after a frustrating training session. I don’t interpret that as him giving the LEM a big endorsement.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:43 am
@Jeff
Regarding burden of proof, you seem to be confused. NASA (and other people from all over the world) claim that humans have landed on the moon. They broadcast videos (source of transmission verified as the moon by people all over the world). The movement of objects in those videos cannot be faked simply by slowing down the footage (Mythbusters showed that fairly well). They have samples of lunar rocks and regolith. They have photographs. Other governments and amateurs tracked the path of the rockets. So, there are more than just 20 people or so involved, and there is ample evidence.
You claim that it was faked, yet you provide zero evidence to support that claim. The burden of proof is, therefore, on you. NASA has provided evidence. People in other countries have provided evidence. Now, it’s your turn.
Quite apart from not currently having any cameras with the appropriate resolution in orbit around the moon, those who believe that it was all hoaxed would just claim that the hardware could have been left behind by unmanned robots.
Well, once we get the funding and engineers to build another lunar lander, then we can go. Shuttle wouldn’t make it, though, and even if it could, it couldn’t get off again. We currently have no functional landing modules ready to go.
Moon hoax believers will just say that he’s part of the conspiracy.
So, what kind of evidence would you suggest that can withstand hoax believers’ arguments, other than planting every last one of them on the moon to see for themselves?
Jeff, you make the claim that it was all faked. You need to provide evidence to support those claims. Again, such evidence need to not only show how it could have been done with the technology in existence at that time, but also evidence that it was in fact done.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 am
@Todd
Moon hoax believers will just say that he’s part of the conspiracy.
So, what kind of evidence would you suggest that can withstand hoax believers’ arguments, other than planting every last one of them on the moon to see for themselves?
This is a good point , I agree. What the moon hoaxers want is solid evidence like I stated above, and by a party not affiliated with the feds that they can trust, maybe Bart Sibrel himself.
this is an argument between gentlemen, I like and respect Phil , and most of you posters. But it boils down to whose burden of proof it is: moon hoaxers say “NASA put up or shut up” ; anti-moon hoaxers say : “MH, you put up or shut up”.
That is the stalemate we’ll be at until they really do produce hard evidence.
Think about it this way, this is the biggest accomplishment in history. Shouldn’t NASA have built into it a POWERFUL independent chain of evidence component , like bringing a civilian that was voted for, along for the ride ? Not all of us are going to be impressed by the usual videos/rocks/lunar reflectors ; we want much, much more and won’t rest until we get it. Until then, we’re at an impasse
April 16th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Jeff wrote “…The video playback of lunar scenes could have been replayed from Houston and fed to the networks, not necessarily carried onboard the command module…”
Yes, but then you have the delay problem. Responses from the moon, or even from a significant distance away from Earth, take time to reach the Earth. So they have to allow for the delay at the appropriate distance and then get the People at Parkes radio telescope to lie about the signal, get the people at Honeysuckle Creek to lie about the signal, and get all the other governments monitoring the flight to lie about the signals. So, as Todd W. pointed out, your 20 people has ballooned way out. And I don’t think the Soviets were likely to have gone along with NASA on this. They weren’t exactly friendly towards the US at the time and any opportunity to upstage or embarrass the US (think Voskhod 1 or Gary Powers) would have been grabbed and trumpeted around the world.
As the other posters have also mentioned, what hoax believers will believe as evidence will shift each time they are given more. Explain what they consider anomalies and they ask for more. Show moon rocks and they’re fakes. If you get pictures from an orbiter, they’ll be faked too. You could be put right on top of the descent stage of any of the Apollo missions and you still wouldn’t believe it.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
@Jeff
As for Gus Grissoms unkind attitude toward the LEM, have you forgotten what he called his Mercury capsule? Liberty bell, which was complete with (painted) crack. Not a ringing endorsement either but it worked.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
@Jeff
But see, the hoax believers have not provided any evidence, while NASA, and other governments and independent observers (which you seem to continuously ignore), have provided quite a large amount of evidence.
Why? What reason did they have at the time to think that anyone would raise any of the questions moon hoaxers raise? Especially considering that they were being watched very closely by others, many of whom were not at all friendly to the U.S. and would, as Mark Hansen points out, jump at the opportunity to show the U.S. out as frauds. And considering the training and physical requirements of space flight, why accept someone to include simply because they were voted for? What if they lacked the physical or intellectual qualities necessary? And even then, hoax believers would still explain it away, saying that THEY got to the person. Even if it was Bart Sibrel, they’d say that the government got to him and made him crack, poor fellow.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
@Mark
As the other posters have also mentioned, what hoax believers will believe as evidence will shift each time they are given more. Explain what they consider anomalies and they ask for more. Show moon rocks and they’re fakes. If you get pictures from an orbiter, they’ll be faked too. You could be put right on top of the descent stage of any of the Apollo missions and you still wouldn’t believe it.
Agreed, there is a percentage of MH people who are nuts and won’t accept anything. I’m not one of them. The things I mentioned before would satisfy me completely, and I’ll apologize.
@Todd
NASA have built into it a POWERFUL independent chain of evidence component, like bringing a civilian that was voted for, along for the ride?
Why? What reason did they have at the time to think that anyone would raise any of the questions moon hoaxers raise?
Agreed. They couldn’t have anticipated it that well. However, my main point is this is what I myself DEMAND, and I can’t speak for the MH community: They’re going back to moon in probably 2020. I would like to see them have a study committee to figure out how to retrieve the Apollo hardware (a reasonable percent of it), to satisfy the critical community (that is my preferred term for the MH ers). It should include guys like Bart Sibrel, and they should do a 5 year study of who this team should include, acceptable to all parties in the issue; and a plan to return some of this to the Smithsonian for the whole world to see for eternity, and some people from the committee to pass down the authenticity of the evidence pledge through time.
If they do this, I myself will go to the Smithsonian, and apologize to you guys personally.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Actually, I like part of Jeff’s plan. Take Bart Sibrel to the moon and trade him in for some Apollo hardware. It’s a win-win situation.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 am
This movie looks interesting from the conspiracy POV. Will sheeple figure how to escape the slaughterhouse? Cross between 2001, Silent Running, Solaris and Idiocracy. But without Cliff Martinez. You’d think a Bowie would get killer music.
Here’s what happens in the Real World after only a couple days on the moon:
CNN, April 20, 2009 – Astronaut Edgar Mitchell claims there “is no doubt we are being visited.” Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments. He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms. Mankind has long wondered if we’re “alone in the universe. But only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we’re not alone,” Mitchell said. “Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. … We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there.” Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents of his hometown “had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities.” They had been warned of “dire consequences” if they did so.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/20/ufo.conference/index.html
In 2004 he told the St. Petersburg Times that a “cabal of insiders” inside the US Government were studying recovered alien bodies, and that this group had stopped briefing US presidents after John F. Kennedy.[7] He said, “We all know that UFOs are real; now the question is, where they come from?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell
Note that neither CNN nor NASA know how to spell the word Moon, unless they’re talking about something else?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon
Who censored Bart Sibrel?
http://www.moonmovie.com/articles_2009/speak-no-evil-youtube-censors-free-speech.htm
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:38 am
"Who censored Bart Sibrel"??? Oh, Moonbase Tango, for a sec I thought you were serious, then I remembered Poe’s Law. Of course you are being satirical, because no one asking about Sibrel could possibly be serious, right?
Right?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[...] it even has a twist right at the end, but the moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. According to Bad Astronomy, the only thing 950,000 miles out is a telescope or two and maybe some space dust. Yikes. [...]
April 25th, 2009 at 11:22 am
He’s a clone, clones only live for a few years as its cheaper to grow them on the moon, than to send a man to the moon every three years, then they die, probably by being made to kill themeselves as thats cheaper to do so as well. They send him fakes messages to make him think he has a family in keeping with the false memories they’ve implanted so as to make him a very happy productive little fella. I hope I’m worng and I haven’t just figured out the whole plot. But seeing as I probably have, oops eh? Will still probably see the movie just to see how clever I’ve been lol.