Indian satellite confirmed US moon landing: scientist
September 2, 2009
Picture of the lunar polar region taken by Chandrayaan-1's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on 15 November 2008. Taken over the polar region of the moon, the picture shows many large and small craters. To the lower left, is the brightly-lit rim of 117 km-wide Moretus crater. Credit: ISRO
India's first lunar mission has captured images of the landing site of the Apollo 15 craft, debunking theories that the US mission was a hoax, the country's state-run space agency said Wednesday.
"The images captured by a hyper-spectral camera fitted as a part of Chandrayaan-I... has reconfirmed the veracity of the Apollo 15 mission," said Prakash Chauhan, from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
NASA's 12-day Apollo 15 mission in 1971 was the first designed to explore the surface of the moon in great detail and over a long period.
But it and others in the Apollo project, including the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, when astronauts first stepped on the moon, have been the subject of a catalogue of conspiracy theories ever since.
Chauhan said Chandrayaan-I, which India launched late last year, located the Apollo 15 landing site by identifying disturbances on the moon's dark surface.
"The disturbed surface is bright," he said, in a presentation in the western state of Goa, where a conference on space missions is being held.
"Our images also show tracks left behind by the lunar rovers which were used by the astronauts."
US, Japanese and Russian scientists have previously found evidence of Apollo 15's landing site by studying photographs.
Chauhan said Chandrayaan-I's findings were further, "independent corroboration" of the landing, adding to other evidence of the Apollo missions, including photographs and analysis of rock samples.
The images were among 70,000 taken by the Chandrayaan-I craft before the mission was aborted last weekend. Scientists blamed a computer malfunction for cutting communications with the orbiter.
(c) 2009 AFP
Jul 17, 2009 |
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...just the faking of "half-way" to the moon shots a a day before they "stepped" on it, being 3 days away... lets see.
Is there a link to a higher-resolution shot? This one doesn't show anything unusual.
Unbelievable!
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There was more than one, you know.
As for it being easy to fake, that's an attitude I see mostly among people who don't have much understanding of what was actually involved or all of the material and documentation that went into and came out of the program. Maybe the general public could have been fooled, but no credentialed scientist or engineer of any significance anywhere in the world has expressed the least skepticism about the Moon landings in the last 40 years.
There are people in orbit right now. You do believe that don't you?
So tell me how easy it would have been to fake the return of the moon rocks and the discovery of the almost zero amount of water in those rocks. If someone just picked up 800 pounds of rocks at random on earth and tried to pass them off as moon rocks, they would have been laughed into oblivion. Try to duplicate those rocks on earth, I dare you. Use the biggest oven you have to fry the hell out of earth rocks and you will still end up with rocks with a significant amount of water left over. Try it, see what you come up with. Don't you think it would have been in the communist's best interest to have seen through this so-call landing hoax and exposed it if it was so easy to pull off? I happen to have been on the Apollo mission myself at Goddard Space Flight Center on Apollo Tracking and Timing, the transponder used to figure out how far out the Apollo craft were from Earth and the atomic clock network used to keep data flowing seamlessly from one ground station to another when one tracking station disappeared and another came into view of the moon. I held a moonrock in my own hand, shown to me by the geologist who sliced up samples of moonrock for analysis, believe me, it was the most alien looking rock I ever saw. I was in awe. I dare you to duplicate those rocks with ANY technology you can get your hands on. Of course there may have been lunar rocks picked up from Antarctica and such but not 800 pounds of it and even possessing a genuine moonrock which hit the earth from an asteroid strike hitting the moon and blasting some of that material to Earth, no way could you 1) Get enough that way to make up 800 pounds of it and 2) get the variety picked up by the astronauts. To say nothing of the mirror left on the moon and such. How could they have had a robot probe land on the moon and correctly position it to aim incoming laser light from Earth to the moon and back? To do that trick with robots would have been WAY smarter than anything around in 1970. It may not even be possible TODAY with robotic craft.
Even if you don't trust any of the photos taken, there are two nails in this coffin. The first is the "mirror" as gattigar pointed out (it's actually not just a flat mirror, but a series of cells that each have three orthogonal mirrors so that any light coming in is reflected directly back at the sender). It allows us to use lasers to determine the distance to the surface of the moon.
The other nail is the video footage of movement on the moon. It cannot be faked in a 1g environment. Not with harnesses, not with slow motion - the movement is just never right. It cannot possibly be a sound stage.
More ad hominem: this, like virtually all conspiracy theories, is just a way for morons to feel like they have a leg up on the intelligent and educated.
Also, some people here should go back and read what is actually written, and then think about their assumptions and rude unwrranted statements.
I thought "manned" was implied. Even for me, unmanned landings don't warrant much skepticism.
I think I can speak for the vast majority of us when I say that we totally agree with your final statement. You ARE a dumbass.
Until the Apollo 11 landing site been imaged I will keep an open mind. Dig into it and there were some odd things about that mission.
Anyone who wants to know how big the government's lies can get should read "Gold Warriors" by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave. Then a lie as trivial as a faked moon landing won't seem quite so ridiculous.
Note to "Sonhouse":
I seriously doubt that you are what you claim.
Apollo 11 "brought back" 21.7 kg. of rocks, not 800 pounds.
Apollo 11 21.7 kilograms
Apollo 12 34.4
Apollo 14 42.9
Apollo 15 76.8
Apollo 16 94.7
Apollo 17 110.5
As for your claim of no water, see Alberto Saal of Brown University.
As for the reflector - they used corner cube reflectors. Whatever direction the light enters, it goes back in that same direction. No biggie there.
If you worked at Goddard you wouldn't mind telling us your name would you?
If they want to believe it, let them. Don't give them column inches by debating with them on what is presumably a scientific article forum.
He never said that Apollo 11 brought back 800 lbs of rocks. He OBVIOUSLY meant the Apollo missions to the moon brought that much back. And if you add up YOUR numbers they equal 838.2 lbs of moon rock. Leave it to a NASA employee to add in a margin of error...just in case :)
The typical skeptic talking points and how to debunk them are as such:
1:There are no stars in the sky in the Moon landing footage
Answer: There are also no stars in the sky during the day on Earth either. When the Moon is in view of the sun the infinetesmal amount of light produced by stars is very difficult to see. Just because the sky isn't blue, due to a lack of water vapor, doesn't mean you should be able to see the stars when the closest star is in full view.
2:The flag waves and the moon has no wind to speak of
Answer: There's actually a small motor on the flag that moves an actuating arm to give the appearance of the flag "waving in the wind". In reality since there is almost no atmosphere there is very little drag on the flag. If Aldrin hung a standard flag and gave it a little push at the corner it would also appear to wave for an extended period of time due to the lower gravity and lack of atmospheric friction.
Those are the two biggest points. There's even greater evidence in the physics experiments that were performed on the moon. One astronaut dropped a hammer and a feather in front of the camera and both hit at the same time. So in order to "hoax" this you would need to built a completely air tight room, pump all the atmosphere out, and hope the vaccuum didn't destroy the cameras and their film.
So anyone who's still skeptic, feel free to bring up a point and I'll educate you on that as well. We went to the Moon, we're a fairly amazing species, stop trashing our history.
The facts are clear:
1. Thousands of people worked on the moon landings, many of them on crapola salaries. In the 40 years since, do you not think one of them would go for the money by exposiing this? It would be a LOT of money.
2. US were hated by several powerful foreign powers at the time, Russia and China notably. Both had the technology to track the mission by radar. Both had the ability to get directional and distance information from the radio transmission from the surface.
3. The scientific equipment left by the missions has been used over and over again by numerous international academic organisations, including Russia, notably the visibly light mirrors as previousy mentioned. It is fairly trivial for anyone on earth with a laser and some precision alignment equipment to test this out.
4. Most damning of all, the people who believe in a moon hoax usually also believe in alien abduction, lizard people, the loch ness monster and angels. Not a rigorous scientific proof, I rgrant you, but it does reflect on how thoroughly they research their subjects.
Needless to say, we American kids were outraged and utterly shocked that our classmates, Frenchies, Brits, Aussies, Dutch, Sur Americanos and German friends were smugly delighted by Sasha's revelation. I remembered this when 9/11 occurred and among our so-called friends was the same sense of smug "chicken coming home to roost" delight I had experienced as a child.
The lesson: We may well have allies and friends in the world, but the bottom line is that they stand with us because we are strong but they will abandon us the moment we weaken. President Obama attended the same school in Jakarta, although he was younger. One wonders what lessons he learned?
Try proving to someone that the earth is round. When you go outside and look it looks pretty flat no amount of convincing would prove it to them. Remember the old argument: the Earth can't be round--and SPINNING nontheless!! if it were, we would all be flung off.
the Apollo 11 site HAS been imaged:
http://lroc.sese....Site.pdf
At least a Moon Landing conspiracy theory would have a motive. I'm surprised people still think 9/11 was a conspiracy... if it was, talk about "Conspiracy FAIL"
The moon landing was pretty well publicized, leading me to believe that there must have been a plethora... a veritable cornucopia... of people out there with large telescopes watching the landing. These in addition to all the others that would've called a foul...
They did go more than once, they went 6 times between 1969 and 1972. It would have been 7 if Apollo 13 hadn't malfunctioned. Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission to successfully land on the moon.
Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were canned due to budgetary cuts, although 18 was used to dock with Soyuz as a test. This is the real reason we haven't gone back. The entire Apollo program is estimated to have cost $25 billion. That's the equivalent of $140 billion in today's money.
We paid that then because Kennedy wanted to, and there was a 'space race' going on at the time where nobody wanted Russia to get there first. Now we have other priorities.
No conspiracy, just plain old govt budgets.
I do not believe there was a 9/11 conspiracy (if there was, I have seriously underestimated the evil of man), but the motive would be the same as just about any other. Power. Look at how much power and control it allowed the federal government to exert. Policies were enacted that would have been unthinkable in any other circumstance (and should have been in this circumstance). It was ultimately used to justify a war (maybe you heard of that?) and the violation of human rights at home and abroad. No motive. Sheesh! Where have you been for the past 8 years?
9/11, however, hurt a fair amount of people. As for motivations... where to begin? The creation of an eternal invisible enemy, and an excuse to invade foreign countries and perpetuate war profits? A way to cover up a couple trillion dollars missing from the Pentagon budget (matter being investigated where the "plane" hit)? A way for Silverstein to collect double the insurance money on the WTC? All of the above? Finding motivations for it is the easiest part of it all.
http://www.physor...198.html
-What was faked was not the moon landings but the idea that we and the Russians stopped extraorbital manned flights after Apollo. We most likely flew manned and unmanned missions, mostly to deal with potential impactors, ever since, using the many secret launch bases scattered throughout the USSR.
Soviets launched 16 probes toward Mars and none made it? A third of all public missions to Mars failed? Most could have been used to monitor, land on or deliver payloads to asteroids with earth-crossing trajectories using Mars for gravity assist. How many asteroids have narrowly missed this planet since, and which ones had been nudged by secret probes or even manned suicide spacecraft?
The real truth is that it was entirely possible to do this, given the tech developed during the space race and the secrecy enveloping the Soviet Union. Given also that the greatest danger to civilization is an impact, we could expect the effort to be made even though, because of the danger and possible sacrifice, it would have to be done in complete secrecy. Not to mention that it would have been a joint effort between two supposed cold war 'enemies'.
If you're looking for a pattern, you'll always find one. Conversely, if you're looking for a way to fake something, you'll always find it.
The truth lies in probability and difficulty. To fake the moon landing would have taken MORE effort than actually performing the Moon landing.
The same thing can be said of 9/11. For that to be a conspiracy the amount of people involved would make it a common knowledge incident way before the 9/11 commision was even formed.
otto,
Going to the moon, and going to Mars are wholly different degrees of difficulty. Going to the Moon, if you're off by an inch you can still make it. Going to Mars, if you're off by an inch, you end up tens of thousands, if not millions, of miles away.
Yes I know. And we have since shown how easy it is to do so, and further to the outer planets and their moons, in force and with the same tech? Only Mars seemed to prove difficult- for a time.
And look at the time we wasted on the Shuttle, when now we're back to capsules and cargo lifters. And how Hubble, which could possibly have seen activity out there, was launched years late and myopic. The soviets built a huge telescope with similar optical problems, good only for widefield surveys to detect asteroid-sized objects is my guess. And little used (publicly) as a result. And conspiracy theorists are led to waste their time on dead-end moon theories-
It's not a motive if the costs greatly outweight the benefits. Saying 9/11 was used to invade privacy, invade foreign countries, etc. is like saying you're going to smash yourself in the face with a hammer to pop a zit. Not only would it clearly cause more damage than benefit, there are also MANY other more effective ways to accomplish the task. It's not worth going in to detail in a "moon landing" article to discuss what those things are, though.
That was a pretty naive statement. It's not a cost if you don't have to pay. As in, if 9/11 was a conspiracy then "they" (the conspirators) successfully dished the cost off to terrorism. So the cost was zero, the benefit was crazy amounts of power and control. Again, playing the devil's advocate here.
http://www.theoni...ces_neil
-Better send Neil those pics fast!
Yeah...here's another little diddy from that "highly respectable site" http://www.theoni..._willing
You must be kidding
No. An Ex-smoker! lol
I wonder: has LROC imaged the 'missing' Lunokhod yet? To my thinking, those missions have great historic value as well - after all; they were the first rovers ever.
And speaking of astounding Soviet achievements, would there ever be any chance of learning how well the Venera landers have stood up over the decades? They are of great historic value as well, of course - the very first landings on another planet, ever... and the most difficult planet to even think of landing anything on, at that! The fact that they continued functioning for entire hours under those hellish conditions is still utterly mind-boggling... I wonder what's left of them now?
nothing said about it showing the apollo 15 landingside. just a hook for the moonnerds.
me myself haven't been to the moon, nor have measured any he3 content in any rocks. so i still think someone painted it up the sky or i just dont care.
Seriously, why do these stories never contain the images they talk about?
I guess if they did I would be screaming "Photoshopped"!
Heh heh..
great! :D
Lets say for the sake of argument:
They launched the Apollo 11 rocket but it never actually went to the moon, just orbited the planet. Now everyone who worked on the rocket and capsule within the agency could have done everything they were supposed to do on the assumption that the mission really was the moon. That right there is the majority of the people involved. Who's left? The controllers in the command center (people competing directly with the Russian space agency). how many would need to be in on the conspiracy? Only the ones who needed to be sure of the actual rockets path - something that could be done in a closed room away from the rest of the NASA staff (very probably not even at the NASA location).
As for the footage? Couple guys in spacesuits some sand some wires and a cameraman.
And on the 'return' mission any artifacts necessary could be placed by the astronauts (footprints and flag) without any knowledge from the NASA staff at all (just needed a flag).
I can't say thats too many people to keep quiet (especially if those participating came up with the idea which is possible).
Side note - 2 out of the 3 Apollo 11 astronauts committed suicide (not proof but people who kill themselves typically have something large bothering them and lying about an achievement like that to entire world could wear an honest man down).
Second side note - recently tested rocks given to the Dutch from the Apollo 11 mission (given directly form the astronauts) were revealed to be fakes (either they intended to play a prank or they didn't actually have any moon rocks).
And everything I said (except that last bit about the rocks) could be wrong but can't completely be dismissed as an impossibility.
Erm, all 3 Apollo 11 astronauts are still alive and well. This sort of easy-to-verify statement does nothing for the varacity of the rest of your post.
http://www.youtub...rWvEHPK8
Armstrong's behavoiur has always been strange, too.
I don't know what to think about the whole story.
Conspiracy theorists don't think things through. Paranoia is their business. They're more slimy and despicable than the enemies in their fiction.
My favorite conspiracy debunking Youtube video.
http://www.youtub...3iQqTdns
Meanwhile, Myria, if you were invited to an interview under false pretenses you'd probably be pretty pissed too. Aldrin went to the interview for his book and got jumped by a conspiracy nut. I'm surprised he didn't punch him during that meeting and thankful he did later on.
Because that's what these people need. A strong knock to the head.
How would you explain the radio records of the Chinese and Russians in that case?
Aw, you're just pissed off because the nut blind-sided an old guy. Look at what he did for his country, and that's the kind of respect he gets? And yet I byouse the same time you rail against Obama and his cronies and the dastardly plans they have for the US, am I right?
I assume there are still unanswered questions about the anomaly in the video- I didn't look for an English version- but if there are we should look at them, because it's fun and because it's a chance to learn something new. I learned thus morning about Black Eagle Gold and plan to buy the book.
Some advice- stop watching Fox News! It's making you paranoid- on purpose. A very real Conspiracy to further separate conservatives from the mainstream by radicalizing them.
(ugh checked the suicide thing though - I repeated what I heard from someone who was misinformed and I'm sorry for wasting your time - I'll check everything first before I stick my beak in next time)
From the doppler shift it is an easy excercise to determine the velocity of a spacecraft. Hams monitored the radio transmissions.
And Gideon, as for bouncing radio off the moon, yes this is "easy" hams do it. What would be more difficult is to have that radio signal mirror the doppler and time lags through its WHOLE flight along with amateur telescopes that could track the launch...the far more plausible occurance is that we landed on the moon.
He beat me to it but yeah, read above.
The Russians and Chinese would have demolished us in the world press if they didn't have convincing evidence that we did go to the moon.
The people who were designing and building the rockets, the capsules and the landers would have known the physics. They would have known whether what they were building would make it to the Moon or not.
So if they built something that could go to the Moon, why fake it?
... and if Apollo 11, and all the others, just orbited the Earth, the Russians, the Chinese, even the Australians, would have noticed.
Yeah but North Korea doesn't tell us many of theirs and at the time, neither did Russia or China, especially when they were our competitor in the space race.
I bet that if you gave them the chance of going for a walk outside without a suit, they'd soon change their mind.
I think youre losing sight of the fact that, above a certain level, all the major nation-states have been on the SAME SIDE for quite some time now. The best and most useful Enemies are the ones you create yourself. :-)
-There is Order at the top, not Chaos.
For anyone with any sort of experience at the 'top', the opposite is, in fact, true.
Spoken like a trrue conspiracy theorist.
This gang of thugs and mercenaries you're referring to would waste their time with the UN and politicing while we spend our days mucking about to their wills eh?
If that was the case, why bother engaging in the long game scam. It'd be far faster and easier to chemically subjugate.
There is no possible way for few to oppress many indefinitely. Either the many will organize against the few, or the many will chaotically fend for themselves, making the goals of the few unattainable.
Your own views on a NWO of sorts exemplify my point.
You're leaving out most of the personnel at the various tracking stations around the world, who have to point their antennas in the right direction and track the spacecraft as it moves, not to mention the virtual impossibility of maintaining constant communication under those circumstances.
Meanwhile, to fake the footage - and we're talking dozens of hours' worth - you don't just need cameramen, you need props guys, special effects people, people to deal with the wires, basically most of the people you need to make a movie, possibly even more people than you need to make a movie. Rent "Apollo 13" sometime and sit through the 7-minute credit roll to see how many it would really take.
You're leaving out most of the personnel at the various tracking stations around the world, who have to point their antennas in the right direction and track the spacecraft as it moves, not to mention the virtual impossibility of maintaining constant communication under those circumstances.
Meanwhile, to fake the footage - and we're talking dozens of hours' worth - you don't just need cameramen, you need props guys, special effects people, people to deal with the wires, basically most of the people you need to make a movie, possibly even more people than you need to make a movie. Rent "Apollo 13" sometime and sit through the 7-minute credit roll to see how many it would really take.
And we know how good they are at covering their own.