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reSee.it AI Summary
I believe that anyone who watches this documentary will question the authenticity of the moon landing. The film, "American Moon," covers various aspects, including NASA simulations, propaganda, and the moon hoax theory. It discusses topics like the Van Allen Radiation Belt, how the landing was allegedly faked, and technical details about the Lunar Module. The documentary also critiques the photography from the mission, examining issues like shadows and light. Ultimately, it presents a compelling case for those who doubt the moon landing narrative.
@AntiDisinfo86 - Shane St Pierre
No one can watch this and STILL THINK we went to the moon. NO ONE. The people who want to maintain their beliefs will NEVER watch this. All-in-one moon landing debunk doc: American Moon (English Version) Timestamps & Chapters 3:19 - 3:50 NASA Simulator 20:58 - 21:21 NASA Simulator 21:24 - 24:47 - 10 Years of Propaganda 24:48 - The Moon hoax Theory 59:58 - 1:14:55 Van Allen Radiation Belt - Ralph Rene 46:29 - 50:28 - How They Faked It 52: 51 - 56:44 - Moon Simulator 1:17:38 - 1:20:49 Engine Dust Imprint 1:20:39 - 1:23:05 Dust Foot Pads 1:26:59 - 1:30:29 Engine Noise 1:30:36 - 1:25:36 LEM Schematics & Lost Tapes 1:35:50 - 1:40:31 Radio Delay 1:40:32 - 1:46:38 Rover TV Broadcast 1:46:38 - 1:56:16 Lunar Dust and Footprints 1:56:16 - 2:04:20 Steel Wires 2:04:29 - 2:16:41 Air on the Moon 2:16:42 - 2:31:03 Photography & No Radiation Damage 2:31:05 - 2:36:03 Photography - Thermal Contraction 2:36:03 - 2:37:26 Photography - Brittle 2:37:27 -2:49:10 Photography - Artificial Light vs Sunlight 2:49:10 - 2:57:29 Photography - Shadows 2:57:20 - 3:00:25 Photography - Soft Edges 3:00:27 - 3:21:55 Photography - Backlight 3:22:03 - 3:23:19 Photography - Reshoot 3:23:19 - 3:00:00 Conclusion - Astronots Interviews
Video Transcript AI Summary
In 1961, President Kennedy announced the US would land a man on the moon before 1970. Some believe the US realized they couldn't overcome the obstacles and faked the missions using simulation systems. NASA administrator James Webb reorganized the space agency for the lunar project, gaining political support. Kennedy expressed skepticism about the cost, suggesting unmanned missions were more practical. Khrushchev dismissed a joint mission. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson continued the program. The Soviet program failed due to Sergei Korolev's death and rocket explosions.
The Vietnam War and Apollo program costs strained the US budget. General Phillips reported technical problems with the Apollo program. A fire killed three astronauts during a simulation, suspending the program. NASA considered stopping, but continued due to the public commitment. NASA allegedly decided to stage the moon landings in a studio, using existing simulation technology.
Bill Casing claimed the moon landing was faked due to technical impossibility. Ralph Renee claimed astronauts couldn't cross the Van Allen belts. The internet spread the moon hoax theory. Films like Capricorn One reinforced the idea of a staged landing. Debunkers cite Russian silence, the number of people involved, retroreflectors, and moon rocks as evidence. The Van Allen belts' radiation, the lunar module's design, missing crater, dust, and flame, telecommunications delays, live broadcasts, dust behavior, and waving flags are questioned. Photos are analyzed, citing radiation damage, camera function, lighting, shadows, and backlighting. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins' behavior and careers are examined.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: In nineteen o two, French filmmaker Georges Melies created a visionary film which seemed to anticipate in many ways the Apollo missions to the moon of the nineteen sixties. Melies film, of course, was just a fantasy. And the Apollo missions, were they real or were they just a modern and more sophisticated version of the same fantasy? The story of the Apollo missions began in 1961 when President Kennedy announced before the world that The United States intended to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade or before 1970. This caused quite a stir as up to that point The United States had only been able to launch an astronaut, Alan Shepard, in a short suborbital flight of only fifteen minutes.
Never having even sent a man in Earth orbit, setting the goal of reaching the moon in less than nine years sounded like a far fetched idea to say the least. But it is at that point according to the official narrative that The United States set in motion a powerful technological machine that would actually allow them to reach the goal established by Kennedy a few months before the end of the decade in July 1969. Those who don't believe that we went to the moon instead maintain that The United States did launch into this titanic enterprise, but they reached a point around 1967 in which they realized they could not overcome all the obstacles posed by such an ambitious project. And at that point, the only option left was to pretend to go to the moon. As they could not admit to the entire world that they were unable to achieve their goal, The United States would have chosen to fake the missions by using all the simulation systems they already had in place, which allowed them to replicate an entire lunar mission from beginning to end.
For the people watching at home, it would have made no difference. Let's see now more in detail what happened during the historic decade of the lunar missions. History books tell us that in the nineteen sixties, the so called race to the moon took place. It refers to the competition between The United States and The Soviet Union about who could reach the moon first. If we take a closer look at the events however, we will realize that it was actually a one-sided race without a real opponent.
It was only the Americans who truly tried to the end, driven not so much by the competition with the Soviets, but rather by the monstrous propaganda machine they themselves had set in motion at the beginning of the decade. Officially, the so called race to the moon began on 04/12/1961 when the Soviets managed to put into orbit the first human being Yuri Gagarin. It was then that president Kennedy vice president Johnson to assess what the actual possibilities were for The United States to beat the Russians into space. This is where a very important figure comes into the picture, NASA administrator James e Webb. Johnson consulted with Webb and a few days later returned to Kennedy with an answer.
Among the contemplated possibilities, one was to send a man to the moon. Two weeks later, president Kennedy delivered the following speech in front of congress.
Speaker 1: Now it is time to take longer strides, time for a great new American enterprise, time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement. I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals. First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
Speaker 0: From that moment on, NASA administrator James Webb threw all his energies behind the Luna project. From NASA's historical archives, we read, Webb who had endorsed the Apollo program to Kennedy now had his priorities fixed on the manned Luna landing and he reorganized the space agency accordingly. An excellent mediator, Webb managed to gather the support from prominent political figures such as Senator Kerr from Oklahoma. From the NASA archives we read, Kerr told his congressional colleagues that Webb was enthusiastic about the program and that if Jim Webb says we can land a man on the moon and bring him safely home, then it can be done. This endorsement, concludes the document, secured considerable political support for the Luna project.
Behind the scenes however, Kennedy remained skeptical about such a monumental task. On 09/18/1963, Kennedy summoned Webb at the White House to express his doubts about the Luna project. Thanks to a recently released recording, we can listen to the actual conversation between the two men.
Speaker 2: The balloon landing gave us the impetus to build big boosters and to tailor them specifically for the purpose. Therefore, they're going to succeed. Otherwise, they would not have succeeded on beneficence. But this looks like a hell of a lot of dough to go to the pool when you can go and learn most of what you want scientifically through instruments and putting a man on the moon really is a stud and it isn't worth that many billions.
Speaker 0: Only two days later, in front of the United Nations, Kennedy made one last attempt to engage the Soviets in going to the moon together.
Speaker 1: Finally, in a field where The United States and The Soviet Union have a special capacity in the field of space, there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon.
Speaker 0: Khrushchev's response was not long in coming, but it was certainly not encouraging. One month later, at a meeting with the foreign press, the chief of the Kremlin stated, at the present time, we do not plan flights of cosmonauts to the moon. I have read a report that the Americans wish to land on the moon by 1970. Well, let's wish them success, and we will see how they fly there and how they will land there, or to be more correct, moon there, and most important, how they will get up and come back. We do not wish to compete in sending people to the moon without thorough preparation.
Speaker 1: They took off their hats.
Speaker 0: At that point, Kennedy realized that the die was cast and that The United States would have to go it alone.
Speaker 1: This nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it.
Speaker 0: The day after, in Dallas, John Kennedy was killed. But at that point, the LUNA program had been launched and passed directly into the hands of the new president Lyndon Johnson. In the meantime, the Soviets were still trying to develop a Luna program and was secretly training their cosmonauts for it. But their program ended abruptly for a number of different reasons. The first was the unexpected death of Sergei Korolev, the father of the Russian space program.
Speaker 3: During routine surgery in January 1966, Karaliev died. The one figure with the authority and vision to galvanize the system behind the goal of beating the Americans had gone.
Speaker 0: The man who had launched the first satellite, Sputnik, who had put the first man in orbit, Gagarin, the man who had conceived the entire Soviet space program was gone without leaving a successor, and there was no one capable of replacing him at that point. This led to a series of internal divisions at the top of the Russian space agency, which resulted in a streak of dramatic disasters. Four heavy rockets of the new n one kind designed to reach the moon exploded during testing on the ground. It was the end of the Soviet Luna program as described by Roald Sagdev, the former director of the Russian Space Agency.
Speaker 4: Very few people remember that in parallel with American Apollo program, Soviets attempted to have their own program. But this Soviet program on kind of counterpart to American Apollo, it failed. It failed because the large rock rocket, Russian counterpart to Saturn five, exploded several times, even without getting chance to to take off the launching site.
Speaker 0: In the meantime, the situation in The United States was rapidly changing.
Speaker 5: This evening, I came here to speak to you about Vietnam. I do not have to tell you that our people are profoundly concerned about that struggle.
Speaker 0: The Vietnam War now completely occupied the minds of the Americans while regurgitating an ever increasing share of the national budget. At the same time, the cost of the Apollo program was spiraling out of control. As this documentary of the time explains, the cost of the Luna project had soared beyond all expectations even before a single rocket had lifted off the ground.
Speaker 6: The status of fabrication and testing of Apollo hardware was such that the program had reached and passed its peak costs. Before a single manned Apollo mission was launched, the program itself began to go out of business.
Speaker 0: In 1965, General Samuel C. Phillips, director of the Lunar Landing Program, presented NASA executives with a report that exposed in no mild terms the state of confusion and shortcomings suffered by the Apollo program. In particular, Phillips pointed his finger on the command module and the second stage of the Saturn rocket, which had been contracted to the aerospace company North American. After four and a half years and a little more than a year before first flight, wrote Phillips, there are still significant technical problems and unknowns affecting this stage. Technical problems with electrical power capacity, service propulsion, structural integrity, weight growth, etcetera have yet to be resolved.
Delayed and compromised ground and qualification test programs give us serious concern that fully qualified flight vehicles will not be available to support the Luna landing program. There is little confidence, concluded Phillips, that North American will meet its schedule and performance commitments within the funds available for this portion of the Apollo program. In this recorded conversation with president Johnson, NASA administrator Webb can be heard complaining about the lack of funds needed to keep the Apollo program within schedule.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, these people have got a fly and put men up there, and it's it's awful it's awfully hard to go to North America and say, we're gonna cut you back a 130,000,000 under your own estimate of doing the work and demand even more work for a 130,000,000 less, and you gotta find a way to do it.
Speaker 0: Instead of being resolved, the problems denounced by Phillips kept piling up, sending the cost tally into a seemingly endless spiral. A fuel tank from the command module exploded during a test. The environmental control system of the command module didn't work and had to be redesigned from scratch. The second stage of the Saturn rocket had exploded once in 1965 and then again in 1966, considerably delaying the program itself. Cracks had been found in the structure of the rocket and in the fuel tanks.
The LUNA module design was also progressing among continuous problems and consequent delays.
Speaker 7: They find hundreds of problems, things that weren't built right, weren't installed right, or electrical wires that are frayed, possibly broken, and most alarming of all, there are fuel leaks everywhere in the system.
Speaker 0: This brings us to 1967, the year of the crisis. In January year, Thomas Barron, a North American inspector in charge of security verifications, presented a 50 page report revealing that the problems denounced by Phillips had been anything but resolved. Among the most prominent issues, Barron listed difficulties with people, parts, equipment, and procedures, not to mention poor safety practices and the accidents they caused. In particular, Barron denounced a lack of coordination between people in responsible positions, a lack communication between almost everyone, the fact that people in responsible positions did not take many of the problems seriously. Barron then added, we should not compromise the safety of the astronauts just for the benefit of a schedule.
As if to confirm Barron's premonitions, on January 20, the rocket that was supposed to take the first manned flight into orbit exploded during the testing phase. And then seven days later, tragedy struck. During a ground simulation of Apollo one, the first Saturn mission with men on board, the three astronauts Virgil Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died on the launch pad, burned alive inside the capsule that was supposed to take them into space three weeks later. Just moments before his death, Grissom had complained about the malfunctioning of the communications between the capsule and the control tower.
Speaker 5: Hey, how are you gonna get to the moon if we can't talk between three buildings? I can't hear that. I thought you were saying. Jesus Christ. But how are you gonna get to moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?
Speaker 0: They were his last words. A few seconds later, a blaze engulfed the interior of the cabin which was pressurized with pure oxygen. The first to call out the fire was white. Then came the desperate scream from Chaffee. Then nothing else.
In a few seconds, it was all over. The Apollo program was suspended indefinitely, even before a single capsule had been launched into space. The technical commission charged with discovering the cause of the fire was entrusted to astronaut Frank Borman. At the end of the investigation, it was concluded that the Apollo capsule needed to be redesigned from top to bottom. This added another year of delay to the already tight program schedule.
At that point, many felt that the Apollo program was over even before it started.
Speaker 8: That was quite a shock. I almost had to pull over to the side of the road, catch my breath because I thought, well, this is this is the end of our future. The program started to just churn, churn and churn and churn.
Speaker 0: With the months passing fast, the 1969 deadline was getting closer and closer. In March 1967, NASA administrator James Webb testified in front of the house committee on science and astronautics. This was a very different person from the one who had enthusiastically supported president Kennedy's project six years before. But my own judgment, declared Webb, is that if we get this done by the end of 1969, we will be very, very fortunate. The possibility of doing all the work necessary is less this year than it was last.
And I testified at this table last year that it was less at that time than it had been the previous year. In other words, according to the director of NASA himself, the closer they were getting to the end of decade, the more the dream of reaching the moon was slipping away. And one year after these statements, the same James Webb suddenly quit NASA. Inspired Kennedy from the beginning, the man who personally rewarded the astronauts on their return from the first orbits, the man who had done everything possible to allocate the funds to go to the moon, inexplicably abandoned the project of his life, a step away from its realization. On 10/07/1968, less than three months before the historic Apollo eight mission around the moon, James Webb retired from NASA and returned to private life.
NASA's deputy director Robert Siemens had also inexplicably resigned in January of the same year. When the Washington Post asked him, there must be some reason why you're leaving right now. Why not stay until you get to the moon? Seaman sternly replied, look, I've been down here seven years. I only intended to stay too.
But it's clear that his resignation must have had something to do with a catastrophic situation in which the Apollo program found itself at that point. Possibly even more surprising was the resignation of astronaut Walter Shura, which came only four days after James Webb's resignation. Chitta was one of the legendary Mercury seven, the original group of astronauts that had started the entire space program back in the fifties. He had already flown on both the Mercury project and the Gemini project. And given his long experience, he was certainly due to be sent to the moon with the Apollo program at some point.
Yet inexplicably, only a few months before the first lunar missions, Shira gave up the possibility of triumphantly crowning his lifelong career and chose to retire instead. Why these people who had dedicated the best part of professional life to the space program chose to resign just months before the final achievement is a question that remains to be answered. In fact after the Apollo one fire, many at NASA wondered whether they should just stop altogether. But they realized they could no longer withdraw from the race for they were held hostage by the very challenge they had thrown to the world a few years before. This sentiment was well summarized by Chris Kraft, the former Houston Space Center director.
Speaker 9: After the fire, I don't think we would have continued had we not made the commitment. The country made the commitment and they would have looked like a bunch of gooks if they hadn't continued on in the eyes of the world and in their competitive position with in the Cold War.
Speaker 0: It is at this point, according to the alternative theory, that the heads of NASA decided to stage in a studio what they would have not been able to achieve in reality, the moon landings of the Apollo missions. After all, by that time, NASA had developed all the technology needed to simulate a complete mission to the moon and back without ever having to leave the Earth. As we will later see, all they would have needed to do was to use the images produced by the simulators to pretend that they had really landed on the moon. There was another reason why The United States could no longer withdraw from their commitment to go to the moon. It was the domestic public opinion, which had been galvanized by a decade of relentless propaganda in which the conquest of the moon had been sold to the public like something imminent and certain.
These clips from the propaganda films of the time help us to understand the spirit of the era.
Speaker 10: Sometime in the future, American astronauts will explore the moon. This is the first of the big Saturn five. Someday it will carry three men and equipment to the moon and back. In a few short years, this scene of man on the moon will be a reality. This is the Apollo command module.
The spacecraft like this will one day carry astronauts to the moon and back.
Speaker 6: This is a lunar module. A similar craft will one day allow two astronauts to sit gently down on the surface of the moon.
Speaker 10: Kennedy Space Center, a reality in the preparation for manned lunar landings.
Speaker 0: The press had done its part as well. More and more often, magazines were publishing articles showing modern man projected to the conquest of space. Adventure books set in space multiplied, making the public ever more familiar with the idea of colonizing other planets. For a nation raised in the myth of the Far West, the new space frontier was only the natural extension for their spirit of conquest. Thus, interplanetary rockets, new satellites, and spaceships of all kinds became every day more familiar for the American public.
New guides to space were born every day, such as those published by Hammond or by Doubleday, which illustrated the upcoming Apollo missions in utmost detail. There was even a guide to space for elementary teachers. Kids in schools spent their time building their rockets, dreaming of going to the moon one day.
Speaker 11: If I ever go to the moon, I think it'll be very fun. I just hope to go very, very soon, and I hope I'm not really that old.
Speaker 0: Walt Disney had created an entire section of Disneyland dedicated to space travel called Tomorrowland. Meanwhile, Disney regularly published books and comics in which his most famous characters went into space. Then you had children's coloring books with daddy taking his kids to visit the moon. You had model books with cardboard rockets and astronauts figurines to cut out. You had three-dimensional books describing in detail every aspect of life in a space station.
And at the center of everything, there was always the astronaut, the new mythological figure that had replaced the old hero of the West in the popular lore.
Speaker 5: Think of what of the original astronauts.
Speaker 0: After ten years of such relentless propaganda, one thing can be affirmed with certainty. Had NASA not been technically able to send men to the moon or had it been too risky to do so, they would have had to fake it. They had no alternative at that point. With the entire nation already focused on the new frontier, it would not have been possible to admit the failure of the space project without the US government losing its total credibility in front of its population. This is, in essence, the thesis proposed by Bill Casing, the man who went down in history as the father of the so called moon hoax theory.
Speaker 12: The reason I believe that NASA and the government faked the moon landing was basically it was technically impossible to do it, and they simply had to come up with some sort of alternative that they felt the public would believe.
Speaker 0: Kasing was a former employee at Rocketdyne, the company that built the engines for the rockets used in the Apollo program. Only four years after the end of the Apollo missions in 1976, Casing published a book called We Never Went to the Moon in which he listed the various reasons why he believed it was not possible for man to have gone to the moon. Casing maintained that the entire series of the moonwalks had been filled in a secret NASA facility instead. Casing's book caused quite a stir and was followed a few years later by a similar book written by independent researcher Ralph Renee. His book was called NASA Mooned America.
In particular, Renee claimed that it would have been impossible for the astronauts to safely get across the Van Allen belts, the two radioactive belts located around the Earth that one needs to traverse in order to reach the moon.
Speaker 13: There is absolutely no way they went to the moon with what they had. In fact, there's no way they can go today. There's no way they can go tomorrow. You don't send man where you haven't sent the monkey. As
Speaker 0: time went by, the theorist proposed by Casing and Renee began to gain traction. But it was only with the advent of the Internet that the so called moon hoax theory began to spread at a worldwide level. Since the Internet, NASA has placed all the pictures taken by the astronauts online in high definition. All the films and TV recordings from the same missions have also been published through their official distributor, a company called Spacecraft Films. Thanks to all this material, any independent researcher can now personally examine all the original footage and pictures from the lunar missions.
This has generated a flurry of highly researched books and documentaries that seriously question the fact that man has gone to the moon. Hollywood has also played its part in reinforcing the idea that men never went to the moon. In 1979, only ten years after the first lunar mission, the film Capricorn one was released. Officially, the film told the story of a fake mission to Mars, which NASA staged in a TV studio in order to avoid the real dangers of a mission in space.
Speaker 14: You don't really think you're gonna get away with this? Well, I don't know. It's a chance. Maybe it's not a very good one, but it's a chance.
Speaker 0: But Capricorn one was clearly referring to the recent lunar missions, as in fact, the film's slogan read, would you be shocked to find out that the greatest moment in our recent history may not have happened at all? The producers didn't mince words when suggesting that NASA could have easily fooled the entire world with the fake Apollo missions.
Speaker 15: I believe had they wanted to, that NASA could indeed have pulled off the greatest hoax of all time, never sent anyone to the moon, and recreated it in a television studio.
Speaker 0: If they were able to make it look real with a budget of only $4,000,000, suggested the producers, the same could have certainly been done by NASA, which had practically unlimited funds and resources.
Speaker 14: Tremendous Capricorn one.
Speaker 0: And Capricorn one is not the only Hollywood film to have suggested that the lunar landings were filmed on earth. In the James Bond movie, diamonds are forever, Sean Connery accidentally finds himself running across a movie set where the lunar landings are being staged. There
Speaker 14: he is behind the rock. Come on.
Speaker 16: What the hell is this, amateur knight? Stop him, Harry.
Speaker 0: In the animated movie, The Minions, released in 02/2015, the group of characters also accidentally comes across a movie set where the Apollo missions are being filmed. Caught. And in yet another Hollywood blockbuster, The Coneheads, the famous comedy with Dan Aykroyd, the producers openly made fun of the idea that men really went to the moon.
Speaker 11: Chicken embryos, seasoned patties of ground edible flesh. I'm not really hungry. Just some tang. Ah, tang. The drink the astronauts took to the moon.
Speaker 16: Astronauts to the moon. Obviously,
Speaker 0: there are also those who are absolutely convinced that we went to the moon and openly defend the official narrative by NASA. These people like to call themselves debunkers. Among the best known and most active, we should mention Phil Plait, editor of the website Bad Astronomy, Jim Oberg, journalist and expert in space issues, The Italian, Paolo Ativissimo, editor of a website on the moon hoax and collaborator of the Apollo Lunar Journal, NASA's official website on the Apollo missions. As an official activismo represents a particularly authoritative voice in the field of the lunar debate. Among the debunkers, we should also mention Jay Windley, editor of the website Clavius, and the world famous Mythbusters who have devoted an entire episode from their show to debunking the so called moon hoax theory.
Not only do these people believe that we went to the moon, but they claim that there is irrefutable evidence to prove it. We shall therefore begin by analyzing this evidence one item at a time. The first piece of evidence commonly cited in favor of the Apollo missions comes in the form of reasoning. If it's true that NASA faked the moon landings, goes the argument, why did the Russians keep mom instead of exposing the hoax to the entire world? There are in fact different reasons why the Russians would not have exposed the fake landings in any case.
The first one is that given their position, no one in the world would have believed them. Just imagine if the Russians who had just lost the race to the moon had tried to suggest that NASA faked the moon landings. The Americans would have ridiculed them in front of the entire world calling them sore losers. With more than a half a billion people having just witnessed the moon landings on television, it would have been very easy to dismiss any Russian accusation with a laugh. Had the claim come from a neutral nation then maybe it would have been somewhat believable, but coming from the same people who had just lost the race to the moon no one would have taken them seriously.
There is also a second very important reason why the Russians would not have exposed the hoax in any case. With the Apollo mission still in progress, serious talks between the Americans and the Russians about a joint space program had already been on their way. The times were no longer those of Kennedy and Khrushchev and the Nixon administration had made some serious progress towards a substantial detente with the Soviet empire.
Speaker 14: We have opened a new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
Speaker 0: On 05/24/1972 in Moscow, with the Apollo mission still in full swing, Richard Nixon signed a historic agreement with the Soviets on space cooperation. And less than a year after the last Apollo mission, the same American astronauts were traveling to Russia to meet their Soviet colleagues. They took part in joint press conferences, visited their space center, got familiar with their spaceship Soyuz, and paid homage to the grave of the heroes of the Soviet space program, Sergei Kareliov and Yuri Gagarin. A few months later it was the Soviet cosmonarch's turn to visit The US and get acquainted with the American way of life. They visited the Houston Space Center, familiarized with the American spaceship Apollo, and worked together with their counterparts to perfect the system that would allow their spaceships to connect to each other during future joint missions.
Speaker 2: All of
Speaker 0: this would culminate only three years after the last Apollo mission in the historic encounter between the American spaceship Apollo and the Russian spaceship Soyuz. These are the words by Soviet cosmonaut Leonov before departing for the joint mission with the Americans in space.
Speaker 17: Chairman of the state commission, the crew of the Soyuz spaceship is ready for the joint flight with American spaceship Apollo. We have the great honor of participating in the first international flight of manned spaceships. The fulfillment of this experiment will yield still broader possibilities in our space research.
Speaker 0: On the American side, the tone of the comments was just as appeasing. The mission climaxed more than three years of planning and preparation, a time during which differences in language, in technology, in political creed were set aside in favor of the common goal. In fact, the joint mission between the Russians and the Americans would pave the way to what is today the International Space Station, a place where astronauts from The US, Russia, Italy, Japan, and many other countries work elbow to elbow in the international space program. In conclusion, had the Russians exposed the lunar hoax by the Americans, not only would the entire world have laughed at them, but nothing of what followed in terms of space cooperation with the Americans would have ever been possible. Faced with a possible bluff by the Americans, all that would have been left for the Russians to do was to bite the bullet and look at the future with a smile on their face.
Speaker 2: As old philosopher says, best part of a good dinner is not what you eat, but with whom you eat.
Speaker 0: The second piece of evidence often used in favor of the moon landings is the following. With over 400,000 people involved in the NASA project, goes the argument, someone sooner or later would have spilled the beans. But it's the very premise to this argument that is flawed. Nowhere does it say that all 400,000 NASA employees had to be informed of the scam being perpetrated. In fact, the Luna landing project had been split among thousands of different companies that worked all over The United States, totally independent from one another.
The employees from Grumman were building the lunar module in their factories in Long Island. The technicians from ILC were designing the spacesuits in their laboratories in Delaware. The employees from Boeing were building the Lunar Rover in the state of Washington. The people from McDonnell Douglas worked on the Saturn rocket in their factories in California. The technicians from General Motors were producing the tanks for the command module at their home in Indiana.
The experts from the Link Group developed the flight simulators in their factories in New York. As told in this documentary from that era, there were about 20,000 different companies working at the same time on the Apollo project from all over The United States.
Speaker 10: More than 90 of the work is conducted by contractors spread across the nation. In fact, some 20,000 prime contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers located in virtually every state are participating in the manned spaceflight programs.
Speaker 0: Thus the idea that all these people had to be in on a plan to fake the moon landings is simply ludicrous. When a soccer player chooses to sell out a game, he certainly does not inform the rest of his team of his intentions. He acts alone and the first ones to be duped are in fact his own teammates. Another example is the so called Volkswagen scandal. In 02/2015, it was revealed that the German automaker had deceived the entire world by selling them cars whose engines exceeded the established emission regulations.
But this doesn't mean that the entire body of 600,000 workers at Volkswagen had been informed of the scam being perpetrated. All that was needed was a restricted group of managers and technicians in the know without everyone else necessarily being informed of what was going on. Also in the case of the Apollo missions, all that was needed was a small group of NASA's top managers who decided to fake the moon landings while everyone else at the agency would have believed that the missions were real. For the hoax to succeed for example, it would have been sufficient to take control of the television signal that was received by the stations on earth. Officially the images from the first moonwalk were transmitted directly from the moon and were broadcasted in real time by the television stations all over the world.
But if the same moonwalk had been pre recorded in a studio instead and was then rebroadcast to the receiving stations by a satellite or any other means, then the first people to be juped would have been the very technicians at NASA who were following the moon landings from Houston Space Center. And with them, the entire world would have been deceived. There is also according to the debunkers some physical evidence for the moon landings which they claim to be irrefutable. One such piece of evidence is the presence on the moon of the so called retro reflector. This is an object capable of returning a laser beam to Earth, which was allegedly left by the astronauts on the surface of the moon.
According to the Mythbusters, this retro reflector represents irrefutable and conclusive evidence that man went to the moon.
Speaker 18: There's time for just one final test, and not just any old test, but the ultimate proof of man's moon mission. What's this?
Speaker 19: A reflector. In fact, it's called a retroreflector made up of many tiny prisms just like them. If there was a retroreflector on the moon and we knew its exact location and we had a powerful enough laser
Speaker 5: they hope.
Speaker 19: We could detect the reflection and prove there is man made equipment on the moon.
Speaker 20: So what you're saying is that we get a really big laser and point it at the reflector on the moon, and if we get a signal back, that means that we were in fact there. Precisely.
Speaker 0: In order to prove their point, the Mythbusters conducted an experiment from the Apache Point Observatory in New
Speaker 20: Mexico. This thing right here is the Apache Point Observatory, and these guys have the tools that we need to put the final nail in the coffin on the moon landing hoax. That's the location where Apollo fifteen landed on the moon. That is so cool. Conducted
Speaker 11: Initiating laser on retro reflector from Apollo fifteen. And there's a spike beginning to stand out.
Speaker 0: Is that it?
Speaker 11: That's the return from Apollo fifteen. Light returning from the laser retroreflector at exactly the wavelength and distance that we were expecting.
Speaker 19: It's really thrilling to watch it happen in in right in front of us.
Speaker 18: Not just thrilling, but conclusive.
Speaker 19: We shined that laser at the moon on the second test and we got a clear spike back. Photons came back to our receptor. Now the only way that that could happen is if there was a piece of man made equipment up on the moon to reflect them back.
Speaker 0: It may seem like conclusive evidence, but it is far from that. It's in fact perfectly possible to bounce a laser beam off the lunar surface and detect it on earth without the aid of any particular instrument. This kind of experiment had already been successfully conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962, six years before the Apollo missions. From the December 1966 issue of National Geographic, we can read four years ago a ruby laser considerably smaller than those now available shot a series of pulses at the moon 240,000 miles away. Reflected back to earth with enough strength to be measured by ultrasensitive electronic equipment.
A similar experiment was replicated by the Soviets one year later. From the New York Times of 11/04/1963, we can read, a concentrated beam of light has been bounced off the moon and detected on Earth by a Soviet observatory in Crimea. The feat duplicates an experiment conducted late last year by engineers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was six whole years before the Apollo missions and it was already possible to bounce a laser beam off the moon with no need of a retroreflector. Furthermore, assuming that such an object is actually present on the moon, this doesn't mean that it was brought up there by astronauts.
A retroreflector could have been easily placed on the surface of the moon by an unmanned probe. The Soviets had done exactly the same thing in the same years when they sent retro reflectors to the moon with their unmanned probes, Lunacod one and Lunacod two. In no case then can the the Another piece of evidence for the lunar landings often mentioned is the moon rocks. All those samples of rocky material that the astronauts allegedly brought back to earth from their missions to the moon. Being composed of different material than the Earth, claim the debunkers, these rocks are the tangible proof that man went to the moon.
From the debunking site Clavius, we can read, the lunar surface samples returned by the Apollo missions are considered by many to be the most compelling evidence that the missions were authentic. On its own website, NASA writes, moon rocks and common sense prove Apollo astronauts really did visit the moon. In reality, these alleged moon rocks by themselves don't prove anything. Even accepting that their composition is different from that of the Earth, we must remember that many meteorites originating from the moon have been retrieved in Antarctica.
Speaker 21: Well, I got phone call once, a fellow at the Smithsonian. He said, Jerry, we have now a meteorite, which I just brought back from Antarctica, which is from the moon. Whole assembly of scientists attacked this object. At And the end of a year and a half, the conclusion was it was a moon rock. It was unambiguously a moon rock.
Speaker 0: And it's certainly a curious coincidence that Wernher von Braun and some of his NASA colleagues visited Antarctica in 1967, exactly one year before the beginning of the lunar missions. As stated by the New World Encyclopedia, the expedition was one of the first to systematically search the ice surface for meteorites believed to originate from the moon for later use as a reference material. Nothing forbids that this reference material could have been later used as original after the Apollo missions. Furthermore, it is possible that the diversity of the lunar rocks rocks was obtained with some special processing here on Earth as suggested by Bill Wood, an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 22: And then I think the vast majority of the hundreds of pounds of moon rocks that we claim to have are made here on Earth. They can be irradiated or exposed to a vacuum or modified in certain minor ways so that they appear slightly different.
Speaker 0: In fact, in 02/2009, it was discovered that a lunar rock donated by the American astronauts to a Dutch museum was actually a piece of petrified wood, a cheap earthly fake presented to the world as if it were a precious lunar rock. But even if these rocks really came from the moon, they could have been retrieved by an unmanned probe and not necessarily by humans. Again, the same thing was done by the Soviets with their unmanned probes Luna sixteen, twenty, and 24. Thus in no case, regardless of their origin and composition, can the so called lunar rocks be considered proof that man went to the moon. And one is left to wonder why would NASA feel the need to state that the lunar rocks prove that we went to the moon when they are the first ones to know that this is definitely not the case.
According to the debunkers, the landscape seen in the Apollo pictures are too large to have been recreated in a studio. In reality, those who support this idea are not familiar with the great illusory capacities of cinematography. This, for example, is a scene from the film Magnificent Desolation produced by IMAX in 02/2005. As one can see, the depth of the terrain in the background is quite similar to that of the Apollo missions. And yet this is the actual set where the scene was filmed.
Only the terrain in the foreground is real. The rest of the landscape is projected as a backdrop with the use of special effects. The only difference with the nineteen sixties is that today the background images are superimposed to a green screen with a digital technique. While in the past the background images were projected onto a highly reflective screen with a technique called front projection. One of the first ones to use the front projection was Stanley Kubrick in the film 2,001 a space odyssey.
This is the famous opening scene with the monkeys in the African desert. As one can see, the savannah in the background appears to be immense. And this is the studio where the scene was shot. Only the first part of the set is real, the one in the foreground. The rest is a photographic image which is projected onto this highly reflective silk screen.
Here is another example of the use of front projection from the same Stanley Kubrick film. The terrain in the foreground is real and we are in the studio, while the image in the background is the result of a projection onto a highly reflective screen. One way to know whether the front projection was used is to verify whether there is a continuous separation line between foreground and background crossing the entire image from left to right. This is actually the line separating the real terrain in the studio from the projection screen in the background. And curiously enough, we noticed that in many of the Apollo pictures, a continuous line crossing the frame from left to right is present.
This line separates the terrain in foreground from the distant hills in the background. In fact, if we take a closer look at some 360 degrees panoramas from the landing sites, we realize that the continuous line separating the foreground from the background is uninterrupted for the entire 360 degrees in whatever direction you look. This means that either the astronauts have landed on some kind of truncated cone separated for 360 degrees from the distant hills or the images have been shot in the studio. And the continuous line separating the foreground from the background is just the separation line between the real set and the projected image. Furthermore, at the time of the Apollo missions, Hollywood had already developed a mobile front projection system, which could have also allowed to film moving scenes with the distant background projected on a screen.
Another technique used to obtain similar results was that of painted backdrops, as in this example from a Hollywood film from the fifties. Nicola Pecorini has worked extensively in Hollywood as a cinematographer, making films for Sylvester Stallone, Terry Gilliam, and many others. We asked him about this alleged impossibility of creating such large sets in a studio.
Speaker 23: Said in order me, I'm going with the wind, and they very cheddy. Another
Speaker 0: technique for which Hollywood is famous is that of miniaturization. Apparently huge situations can be reproduced in a studio to the smallest detail. Small scale models are also regularly used in Hollywood with great effectiveness. In fact, there are serious suspicions that the images of the lunar module departing from the moon were actually filmed in a studio using small scale models. In conclusion, if we were to believe that everything we see on a screen is real, we would also have to believe that New York was submerged by a devastating tsunami, that gigantic gorillas can climb the Empire State Building, and that the magical Kingdom Of Oz actually exists.
Another proof of the moon landings according to the NASA supporters are the images of the lunar surface sent to the earth by unmanned probes in recent years. In 02/2009, the American probe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter completed a full mapping of surface, sending back the images of what purportedly are the landing sites of the Apollo missions. Obviously, it's hard to consider these images as an actual proof of the landings when NASA itself is suspected of having falsified the pictures from six entire missions to the moon back in the sixties. Today, a kid armed with Photoshop could produce images similar to these in no more than half an hour. Somewhat different is the case of the Japanese probe Kaguya.
In 02/2008, this probe scanned the entire lunar surface, sending back altimetry data that allows us to recreate the exact morphology of the lunar terrain on a computer. According to the debunkers, the fact that the images generated by Kaguya show a terrain very similar to the one seen in the Apollo pictures proves that the lunar missions were real. One example often used by the debunkers is the one of Hadley Rill, this large canyon carved on the lunar surface where the Apollo fifteen mission allegedly landed. In fact, there is no mystery here at all. As confirmed by this 1966 documentary, NASA had already sent probes to photograph the lunar landing sites from up close well before the Apollo missions had started.
Speaker 10: Charting actual landing sites for the astronauts is the job of lunar orbiter. Two of the 850 pound satellites have orbited the moon photographing and mapping wide areas, sometimes sweeping as low as 25 miles above the surface. Here are some of the pictures, pictures helping to determine the height and slope of lunar mountains and the depth of craters.
Speaker 0: So accurate had been the photographic surveys that NASA had been able to build a gigantic moon globe which replicated the entire lunar surface in utmost detail. All it would have taken at that point was to film the moving surface of this globe using for example this circular rail to give the impression of really flying around the moon. Furthermore, for the Hadley Rail area in particular, NASA had built a three-dimensional model reproducing the Apollo fifteen landing site to the smallest detail. This three-dimensional model was then hung from a ceiling upside down and was illuminated by special lights that simulated the sunlight. By filming the model with this special camera, which could get as close as a few inches to the surface, NASA was able to film the entire lunar landing approach as if it were the real thing.
The images were sent to the monitors in the simulator making them look like actual images seen from the window of the LUNA module. This documentary from NASA explains how the LUNA landing simulator worked.
Speaker 6: To the left of the simulator is a three-dimensional mosaic of the moon's surface. Through closed circuit television it presents typical lunar landing displays marked by craters, mounds, and boulders. The mosaic gives the astronaut a realistic feel for his final landing approach. Lunar module motion is simulated by moving the map up and down for vertical motion. A camera on a dolly track provides lateral movement.
Lights around the camera lens simulate lunar lighting conditions. With these two simulators, a crew can practice the basic flight elements of the Apollo mission from launch complex to landing on the moon and return to Earth.
Speaker 0: As one can see, the images produced by the simulator are so similar to those of the actual landing that the initial argument by the debunkers can be reversed. Not only was NASA able to replicate the exact morphology of the landing sites in the studio, but they could have in fact simulated the entire lunar landing using the very images from their simulator without the need of actually going to the moon. The possibility of verifying the lunar landing sites from up close presented itself in 2007 when Google launched the international competition Lunar XPRIZE. In this competition, Google offers a prize of $30,000,000 to the first private organization that would land a probe on the moon with a robot capable of covering at least 500 meters while sending live images back to Earth.
Speaker 24: Take video and pictures and send them back to
Speaker 19: Earth so we can all share what your spacecraft can see.
Speaker 0: More than 20 teams from all over the world announced that they were entering the competition. Google also established an additional prize of $4,000,000 for any team who would be able to broadcast live images from any of the Apollo landing sites. At that point, Astrobotic Technologies, a company based in Pittsburgh, announced they intended to visit the most famous landing site of all, the one of Apollo 11. But NASA didn't seem too happy about this initiative. And in 02/2011, they officially requested a two kilometer no fly zone to be established all around the Apollo landing sites.
The purpose, said NASA, was to preserve the landing sites from possible contamination.
Speaker 25: NASA is taking steps now to preserve the steps they took decades ago on the surface of the moon. They are protecting American landing sites on the moon for historic preservation, presumably because you never know who or what will go back there. And there are a number of missions vying to go back with unmanned craft. They just wanted to clear the area off limits.
Speaker 0: The request from NASA must have been taken very seriously since the participants suddenly decided to forego a $4,000,000 prize. From this 2012 article titled rocketeers obey NASA moon rules, we can read, the organizers of the $30,000,000 Google Luna X Prize say their contestants will abide by NASA's appeal to stay away from the Apollo landing sites. One of the teams, Pittsburgh based Astrobotic Technology, had planned to take a close look at Apollo eleven's artifacts and footprints, but president John Thornton said the venture has shifted its primary target to the lunar North Pole. In conclusion, not only is there no actual proof that man went to the moon, but now that we had the possibility of at least checking out the landing sites from up close, NASA has chosen to impose a no fly zone all over these areas. And all of this just to preserve some footprints that apparently no one will ever be able to see anyway.
Let's now examine the most important evidence against the lunar landings or the reasons why many people don't believe that we went to the moon. The first issue and definitely one of the most important is the problem of radiation represented by the Van Allen belts. Earth is surrounded by two highly radioactive areas called the Van Allen belts. They were named after their discoverer astrophysicist James Van Allen. These belts are located between a minimum of 1,000 miles and a maximum of 25,000 miles from the surface of the earth.
Up to this day, every single mission with men on board from the American Gemini to the Russian Soyuz, from the space shuttle to the International Space Station has kept well below this dangerous area of radiation, rotating in what is called low Earth orbit. The only men in history to have allegedly ever crossed the Van Allen belts are the astronauts from the Apollo missions. This crossing, however, poses some problems that apparently have not been resolved to this day. Let's take a closer look at the history of the Van Allen
Speaker 5: belts. In
Speaker 0: January 1958, The United States launched their first satellite, Explorer one. This satellite carried some special instruments designed by scientist James Van Allen, whose purpose was to measure radioactivity in space. The satellite had been launched along an eccentric orbit ranging from a minimum height of 200 miles to a maximum of 1,600 miles. Thanks to this eccentricity, Van Allen made a double surprising discovery. Not only did radioactivity increase as we moved away from Earth, but beyond a certain point, the Geiger counter suddenly dropped to zero before resuming normal operation.
This is how James Van Allen describes that experience.
Speaker 26: And I began to understand that what was going on here because we had segments of this orbit when it came down to low altitude, which looked quite normal. Then we had a very rapid change, very rapid increase in counting rate and then it dropped back to nothing. And then a few minutes later it came up from nothing to a very high rate and then dropped back to a normal value. And this pattern was repetitive. It seemed to be a systematic pattern.
Speaker 0: The reason for the sudden drop to zero was due to the fact that the radiation became so intense beyond a certain altitude that the Geiger counter simply went off scale.
Speaker 14: And now we'll jump above 600 miles and we'll see what happens when we get closer to the source of radiation. Uh-oh, it
Speaker 1: goes back down to zero
Speaker 14: again. Yes?
Speaker 26: The transition said yes. It went into something that was strong and then went to zero. Therefore, obviously, it had encountered intense radiation.
Speaker 0: It was the discovery of the so called Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut shaped belts located in the magnetosphere which protect life on our planet by trapping the most dangerous radiation coming from outer space. In 1959, Van Allen wrote, our planet is ringed by a region, to be exact two regions, of high energy radiation extending many thousands of miles into space. The discovery is of course troubling to astronauts. Somehow the human body will have to be shielded from this radiation even on a rapid transit through the region. Later on Van Allen published another article called The Danger Zone.
Earth is wrapped in deadly belts of radiation. Speaking of the inner belt, Van Allen wrote: Owing to the great penetrability of the high energy protons therein, effective shielding is quite beyond engineering feasibility in the near future. The article concluded by saying all manned spaceflight attempts must steer clear of these two belts of radiation until adequate means of safeguarding the astronauts have been developed. This film from the California Academy of Sciences also underlines the need to protect astronauts through the radiation belts, which are openly termed as deadly.
Speaker 1: The existence of the Earth's radiation belts presents a very serious hazard to future space travel. What is the intensity of this radiation? What does it consist of? How much shielding will the first space travelers need in order to penetrate these deadly areas of radiation safely?
Speaker 0: The need to develop new technologies to protect men from radiation had been clearly recognized by President Kennedy himself.
Speaker 1: Third, medical space research may lead to new safeguards against hazards common to many environments. Specifically, our astronauts will need fundamentally new devices to protect them from the ill effects of radiation.
Speaker 0: The Soviets also feared the effects of radiation in open space.
Speaker 27: Of course, we were worried to go out into the unknown of space. Of course, we were fearful. We had no idea how a human would be affected by the radiation. We suspected that possibly the radiation could even penetrate through the craft itself.
Speaker 0: In fact, NASA had taken the problem quite seriously, developing a system to study human tolerance to the effects of radiation.
Speaker 14: At Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, development of a plastic man with the same atomic composition as human tissue enabled scientists to accurately determine the depths of radiation penetration, as well as doses, without actual human exposure.
Speaker 0: But then something curious happened. When the time to launch the first astronauts towards the moon came, the problem of radiation magically seemed to disappear. Without developing any particular method of protection and without even having sent a monkey through the radioactive belts, in 1968, the Apollo eight mission was launched towards the moon. It would have been the first human mission to cross the Van Allen belts. The ship carrying the three astronauts had only a very thin aluminum covering and no specific protection against radiation whatsoever.
Speaker 22: No, no. The walls of the craft were made as thin and light as possible. The Apollo capsule itself was made unusually thin. In fact, they couldn't even initially carry enough air inside to be the equivalent to sea level air pressure. They ran it at reduced pressure in order to be able to make the walls thinner.
Speaker 0: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were the first three humans to ever venture across the radiation belts. And yet during their trip to the moon, that crossing seemed to be the least of their worries. These are the three astronauts broadcasting from somewhere halfway between the Earth and the moon.
Speaker 5: This is coming to you approximately halfway between the moon and the Earth.
Speaker 0: It seems that the most interesting thing to talk about is the behavior of the toothbrush in absence of gravity.
Speaker 5: You can see Bill's got his toothbrush
Speaker 0: In the Apollo eight mission report, a two fifty page document filled with technical information of all kinds about the mission just completed, the crossing of the Van Allen Belt is not mentioned once, not even in passing. It was as if the problem of radiation, with all the dangers described by Van Allen, suddenly had never existed. After Apollo eight, another eight missions followed the same route, each crossing twice, one on the way out and one on the way back, the Van Allen radiation belts. Some debunkers maintain that the problem with the Van Allen belts was solved by plotting an exit and reentry course that would avoid the thickest area of radiation. In this regard, the debunking website Clavius writes: The Apollo navigators plotted a course through the thinnest parts of the belts.
Each mission flew a slightly different trajectory, but the orbital inclination of the Translunar Coast trajectory was always in the neighborhood of 30 degrees. A spacecraft following that trajectory would bypass all but the edges of the Van Allen belts. In his book, Actavisimo also wrote: To get around them or to cross the less intense zone you just need to follow an inclined path, which was done by all the Apollo vehicles, both on the way out and on the way back. But this statement is contradicted by NASA itself. For example, in regards to the Apollo fourteen mission NASA writes: The translunar injection trajectory lay closer to the plane of the Geomagnetic Equator than that of previous flights, and therefore the spacecraft traveled through the heart of the trapped radiation belts.
Despite this, NASA has always dismissed the radiation problem, publishing data on the doses allegedly received by the astronauts well below the danger levels. In this regard NASA wrote Apollo astronaut doses were negligible in terms of any medical or biological effects that could have impaired the function of man in the space environment. In fact, according to the debunkers, a lunar mission of a few days like the Apollo missions entails a total of radiation equivalent to one x-ray scan or three years of life on Earth. Problem solved then. Obviously Van Allen must have been mistaken when he said that it would have been necessary to protect the astronauts through the radiation belts even on a rapid transit through the region.
At this point though, we are left in a conundrum. If it's true that the problem was so brilliantly solved in the sixties, why are the Van Allen belts being called dangerous again now that NASA wants to travel to the moon with the Orion project?
Speaker 28: My name is Kelly Smith, and I work on navigation and guidance for Orion. We are headed 3,600 miles above Earth, 15 times higher from the planet than the International Space Station. As we get further away from Earth, we'll pass through the Van Allen belts, an area of dangerous radiation. Radiation like this could harm the guidance systems, onboard computers, or other electronics on Orion. Naturally, we have to pass through this danger zone twice, once up and once back.
But Orion has protection. Shielding will be put to the test as the vehicle cuts through the waves of radiation. Sensors aboard will record radiation levels for scientists to study. We must solve these challenges before we send people through this region of space.
Speaker 0: What does it mean we must solve these challenges before we send people through this region of space? In the nineteen sixties, the radiation received by the astronauts was the equivalent of a simple x-ray, and today we must solve these challenges before we send people through this region of space? We are thus faced with a puzzling situation. Up until 1968 the Van Allen belts were considered very dangerous by the scientific community at large. Then during the Apollo missions they were suddenly no longer dangerous and could be safely crossed.
While in recent times they have gone back to be considered very dangerous. Even modern astronauts curiously admit that we are currently unable to go beyond the low Earth orbit and that perhaps one day we may be able to reach the moon and other planets.
Speaker 29: Plan that NASA has is to build a rocket called SLS, which is a heavy lift rocket. It's something that is that is much bigger than what we have today, And it will be able to launch the Orion capsule with humans on board as well as landers or other components to destinations beyond Earth orbit. Right now, we only can fly in Earth orbit. That's the farthest that we can go. And this new system that we're building is gonna allow us to go beyond and hopefully take humans into the solar system to explore.
So the moon, Mars, asteroids, there's a lot of destinations that we could go to, and we're building these building block components in order to allow us to do that eventually.
Speaker 0: And certainly, this interview with astronaut Alan Bean doesn't help us clarify the situation. As a crew member of the Apollo twelve mission, Bean is theoretically one of the very few human beings to have ever crossed the Van Allen belts. And yet, not only isn't he sure of having ever reached them, but in fact, he doesn't even know where the belts are located.
Speaker 30: Any ill effects from the Van Allen radiation belts?
Speaker 31: No. Now I'm not sure we went far enough out to to encounter the Van Allen radiation belt. Maybe we did.
Speaker 0: And listen to Bean's reply when he is told that the Van Allen belts are located between the Earth and the moon.
Speaker 30: The belts are 1,000 miles to 25,000 miles above the Earth.
Speaker 31: We then we went right out through them.
Speaker 0: It's a curious response indeed. After all, Activisiono himself wrote in his book, All astronauts are trained in plotting trajectories, rendezvous and orbits by using a ruler and in orientation by using the stars. Are we truly to believe that one of the few astronauts who ever crossed the Van Allen Belts doesn't even know where they are? Or maybe Alan Bean, in a moment of distraction, has let an uncomfortable truth slip out by mistake.
Speaker 31: I'm not sure we went far enough out to to encounter the Van Allen radiation belt.
Speaker 0: Question. Can you explain why NASA, despite everything Van Allen had written on the dangers of radiation, has sent the first astronauts through the radioactive belts without any specific protection and without even sending a monkey first in order to evaluate the effects of radiation on a biological organism as complex as the human being. If it were true, like the debunkers maintain, that a lunar mission entails a total of radiation equivalent to an x-ray, why does NASA describe today the Van Allen Belts as an area of dangerous radiation? If it's true like NASA maintains that during the trip to the moon fifty years ago, the astronaut doses were negligible, why does NASA state today in regards to the Van Allen Belts that we must solve these challenges before we send people through this region of space? How is it possible that one of the very few astronauts to have ever crossed the Van Allen Belts doesn't even know where they are and even doubts having gone far enough out to encounter the Van Allen belts?
Let's now discuss the actual lunar landings. We will start by examining the lunar spaceship or LEM, which has allegedly brought 12 astronauts to walk on the surface of the moon in the course of six different missions. The LEM or lunar module is the vehicle that was designed to carry astronauts to the surface of the moon. But this very LEM raises so many questions that many doubt this vehicle has actually ever reached the moon. They suspect this is only a mock up model sitting on a movie set instead.
Seen from a distance the Lem appears like a technological wonder, but once we get up close we realize that it looks more like a mock up model somehow put together with steel tubes and papier mache held together with simple Scotch tape. What immediately catches the eye is the large amounts of Scotch tape haphazardly placed here and there as if it were a last minute job. With temperatures that can reach over 200 degrees in the sun, doesn't seem like a smart idea to use Scotch tape everywhere. The debunkers, however, claim that there is a specific reason for the use of Scotch tape. But this explanation doesn't stand to scrutiny.
As one can see, the LEM is full of metal rivets everywhere. There is therefore no explanation for the sloppiness in the construction of the LUNA module, with the engines covered with aluminum foil, the external panels not even lining up with each other, and the Scotch tape that seems added at the last moment just to keep together pieces that would otherwise fall apart. The LUNA module cost over $2,000,000,000 at the time, which is the equivalent of $21,000,000,000 in 2016 currency. Are we truly to believe that NASA has spent all this money to send a vehicle covered with loose pieces of cardboard into space? The second problem posed by the LEM is that there is no crater in the sand caused by the jet of the engine during the landing.
According to the debunkers, this crater should not exist at all because the LEM uses very little power when it lands, they say, and it does so on a rocky volcanic surface anyway. But the surface where the LEM supposedly landed is not rocky at all, like activismo claims. Neil Armstrong himself refutes the statement when he describes a fine grained, almost powdery surface instead.
Speaker 5: The surface appears to be very, very fine grained as
Speaker 2: you get close to it.
Speaker 5: It's almost like a powder.
Speaker 0: A similar comment is made by Alan Shepard, one of the astronauts from Apollo fourteen.
Speaker 5: The soil is so soft that it comes up all the way to the top of the footpath.
Speaker 0: James Irwin from Apollo fifteen even describes a layer of soft soil about six inches deep around the LEMS foot pads.
Speaker 5: No wonder we slipped. They bled really soft dirt there around the the front foot pad. There is like about six inches deep of soft material.
Speaker 0: In fact, during the landing approach, we can clearly see large amounts of dust being blown away by the lens engine.
Speaker 5: But
Speaker 0: then, why is there no hollow underneath? This animation helps us better understand what should have happened during the landing on the moon. Just like this leaf blower, which blows away the dust on the surface and reveals the hard rock underneath, we would expect to see a hollow in the sand under the LEM, revealing the hard terrain under the surface. But the hollow is not there. This animation shows the landing of the Phoenix probe on Mars, which took place in 02/2008.
As one can see, the Phoenix also uses rockets to land on the surface of the planet. And these are the actual images sent back to Earth by the Phoenix after it landed. As one can see, the sand on the surface has been blown away by the rockets, which are seen above revealing the hard terrain underneath. Why hasn't the same thing happened under the luna module? Question.
If a simple leaf blower can remove the dust from the surface revealing the hard rock underneath, why has the same not happened under the engine of the LEM? And why do we still see several pebbles sitting under the engine, which weren't even blown away during the landing of the LEM? Given that James Irwin described about six inches deep of soft material around the foot pads, why is there no hole in the sand under his LEMS engine cone? A problem connected to the missing crater under the rocket is the total absence of dust in the landing foot pads. If this is the dust being blown in all directions during the landing, why is there no trace of the dust in the foot pads whatsoever?
In this case, activismo seems to have a very particular explanation as well. But the statement by activissimo is demonstrably false. All one has to do is check the original video from the landing of Apollo 11 to realize that Armstrong orders the engine shut off right after the contact lights have come on, which is before the LAM actually touches the ground.
Speaker 5: Contact light. Okay. Engine stopped. APA at a descent. At a descent.
Speaker 0: Also, in this statement released after the mission, Armstrong confirms that the engine shut off took place just before the LAM touched the ground.
Speaker 14: In any case, the engine shut down was not very high above the surface. It was quite close.
Speaker 0: Furthermore, the absence of dust in the foot pads can also be noticed in other missions, such as Apollo 12 or Apollo 14, which means the explanation by activissimo is not valid anyway. In any case, the debunkers must make up their mind. You cannot maintain that the jet from the engine was too weak to create a hollow in the sand and yet strong enough to completely blow off the sand from the foot pads during the moon landing. One of the two statements must be false. We then ask the following questions: given that this is the amount of dust thrown around by the descent engine, why is there no dust whatsoever in the LEMS foot pads?
How is it possible that the jet from the engine is at the same time strong enough to wipe the foot pads clean but weak enough not to even form a crater in the sand during the moon landing. Let's now examine one of the most important problems regarding the LEM, the absence of a visible flame under the engine during the departure from the moon. The lunar module consisted of two separate blocks placed one above the other. Each block was equipped with an independent engine. The first one was used to land the entire spaceship on the lunar surface.
The second was used for the lift off of the upper part of the spaceship, the one carrying the astronauts. Both engines used a special kind of fuel called hypergolic. This is a fuel that burns on simple contact between two chemical components with no need for an actual ignition system. The debunkers claim that the reason for the missing flame is due precisely to the use of hypergolic fuel. On his website Bad Astronomy, debunker Phil Plait writes: There is actually a simple reason why you cannot see the flame from the lander when it took off.
The fuels they used produced no visible flame. In his book, activissimo also writes, the product of combustion from these fuels is colorless and transparent. This is why there is no flame under the limb when it takes off. But these statements are false. Hypergolic fuels produce a clearly visible flame both on earth and in the vacuum of space.
This is a test from the engine of the rocket SpaceX which uses hypergolic fuel. As one can see, the flame is clearly visible during the combustion. And this is a test of the LEMS ascent engine, exactly the one we are discussing now.
Speaker 32: To keep it simple, it used so called hypergolic propellants, a rocket fuel and an oxidizer that explode on contact.
Speaker 0: The long flame from the hypergolic fuel is clearly visible under the LEMS engine during combustion. In the original images from the Apollo missions, however, there is no visible flame. This is Apollo 15 lifting off from the moon. This is Apollo 16, and this is Apollo 17. In all cases there is no visible flame under the engine during liftoff.
Some might think that hypergolic fuel, which is clearly visible on Earth, for some reason may become invisible in the vacuum of space. But it is not so, and there are several examples to prove it. This is a Draco engine which uses hypergolic fuel tested in a vacuum chamber. As one can see, the flame produced by the engine is clearly visible. The space shuttle also uses hypergolic fuel for its orientation rockets, and the emissions from the rockets are clearly visible during the maneuvers in the vacuum of space.
This is another image from the shuttle maneuvering in space. The jet from the hypergolic fuel is clearly visible. This is a Soyuz spaceship, filmed as it approaches the International Space Station. The Soyuz also uses hypergolic fuels for its directional rockets, and also in this case the jets are clearly visible despite being in the vacuum of space. In fact they are even more visible because they are pitched against the blackness of space.
All these examples show how hypergolic fuels are also clearly visible in the vacuum of space. We then ask the following question: Given that this is the LEMS ascent engine tested on Earth, why is there no visible flame under it when it takes off from the moon? Not only does the LEMS engine not release any flame from the nozzle, it also seems to produce no particular noise. This is the noise produced by the LEMS ascent engine during a ground test. Yet during the ascent from the moon, no particular noise can be heard inside the cabin.
Speaker 2: Very smooth. Balance comes along.
Speaker 0: Only the calm voice of the astronauts with no engine noise in the background.
Speaker 2: Very quiet ride. There's that much crater on there.
Speaker 0: There's Some debunkers claim that the engine sound gets dispersed into the vacuum of space outside the cabin, and therefore no particular noise should be heard from the inside. But the cabin is pressurized, and the engine is located right in the middle of it between the two astronauts. This NASA technician shows us exactly where the engine is located inside the LEM.
Speaker 33: This is the upper docking hatch through which the astronauts will enter the LEM from the command and service module. Mhmm. They will step down here on the as ascent engine cover. The engine we looked at before is right on the other side of this cover.
Speaker 0: And the very website Clavius states that the ascent engine is mounted inside the spacecraft, not attached to the bottom of it. Activismo also confirms that the astronauts inside the LEM are literally sitting on the engine. Thus the engine, which is in direct contact with the pressurized environment of the cabin, should definitely be heard. Another explanation by the debunkers for the lack of engine noise is that the microphones used in aerospace for pilots and crew are built to operate in a noisy environment. You have to speak very close to the microphone in order for the sound to be picked up.
But there is no such thing as magic microphones capable of fully excluding the background noise. If the engine noise can reach the ears of the astronaut, it will necessarily be picked up by the microphone as well. Furthermore, during the liftoff of Apollo fifteen, a curious thing happened. Moments after takeoff, one of the astronauts turned on a portable recorder placed inside the cabin in order to have some musical background.
Speaker 5: Good lift off. Automated.
Speaker 0: As one can hear, the music coming from the recorder is clearly picked up by the microphone, while the noise from the engine which is pushing at full throttle at this time cannot be heard at all. Question. Given that as confirmed by the debunkers, the astronauts are literally sitting on the engine, why don't we hear any sounds from the engine during liftoff? Given that during the Apollo fifteen liftoff, we are even able to hear the music from the tape recorder in the cabin, why don't we hear the sound of the engine as well? The lift off from the moon is possibly the most delicate moment of the entire mission.
The astronauts must keep their total concentration and they must be able to communicate with one another instantly in case something were to go wrong. Why then put their safety at risk by playing loud music inside the cabin, which could have distracted them from the operations and could have kept them from communicating clearly in a moment of distress. Obviously, in order to verify whether the lunar module was actually capable of landing and taking off from the moon, all one would have to do is to take the original designs from the LEM and feed them into a modern simulation computer. With today's computers, it would be very easy to verify all of the LEM's functionalities without the need of actually sending the machine into space. Unfortunately though, the original designs from the lunar module are nowhere to be found.
Apparently, Grumman, the construction company, chose to get rid of them because they took up too much space. To justify this incomprehensible act, the debunking website Clavius writes, Grumman is an aerospace engineering firm, not a museum. It did not wish to house the 100,000 cubic feet or so of design documentation at its expense. But then why not donate them to a museum? The LEM is the only machine that has ever carried human beings onto another celestial body.
Its historical value is unique and there must be dozens of museums around the world that would have killed just to be able to display its construction designs. Instead, we are asked to believe that all this documentation has been turned into trash just because there wasn't enough space to store it. Even more disconcerting than the disappearance of the LEM designs is the disappearance of the original tapes that contained the images from the first moonwalk by Neil Armstrong.
Speaker 34: Now nearly forty years after the first moon landing, NASA has confessed that the original film depicting Neil Armstrong's giant leap has been lost. Well, not lost, says NASA, just can't be found.
Speaker 0: We are simply talking about the single most important document in the history of mankind. The first step of a human being on another celestial body, which was recorded on magnetic tape by the receiving stations on earth. As such, one would expect these tapes to be kept under lock in a thermally controlled environment in a place accessible only to a restricted number of people. Instead, NASA candidly tells us that the original tapes no longer exist. So shocking was this fact that filmmaker Aaron Rannan wanted to verify it in person, interviewing the former flight director of the Apollo eleven mission, Gene Krantz.
Speaker 14: I haven't seen anything that indicates the telemetry data is even in existence. And as I said, even if we had it, we don't have the machines to play it back.
Speaker 35: But your you your own research has shown the telemetry data is missing.
Speaker 14: That's right.
Speaker 0: Also from NASA's official archives at Goddard Space Center in Maryland, Aaron Rannan received the same embarrassing answer.
Speaker 36: We have been unable to track it down. I mean, we don't know where this telemetry data ended up, and we don't know what path it may have taken. So unfortunately, I'm afraid I can't really give you much of a clue as to where this data ended up and it it still exists or not.
Speaker 0: But listen to what the explanation by the debunkers is for this unconceivable fact. So according to activissimo, there is an actual procedure at NASA that leads to the automatic cancellation of tapes if people no longer request them. Even if those tapes contain simply the most important documentation in the history of mankind.
Speaker 2: Beautiful Mike, really is.
Speaker 0: One thing should be clear. In itself, the loss of the original tapes of the moonwalk would not represent an irreparable damage. There are copies of the same moonwalk recently digitalized which are even better than the lost original. The problem is that besides the moonwalk those tapes also contain some important telemetry data ranging from the astronauts heartbeat to the very location of the LEM in space at the time. This means that if the LEM had not found itself on the surface of the moon at that time, or if the situation on board had been any different from what we were told, the telemetry data would have clearly revealed it.
So if one chooses to, he can believe the story of the tapes that were erased because they were too expensive. For everyone else, one question becomes unavoidable. What was so important in those tapes that NASA had to come up with such a preposterous excuse just to ensure they would no longer be available to scientists and researchers from modern times? Let's now take a closer look at the telecommunications between Earth and the Moon. There are several elements that don't add up in this area, like for example the delay in the radio communications between Houston and the astronauts.
The Earth and the moon are about 240,000 miles apart. For this reason, a radio signal takes about one point three seconds to reach our satellite and another one point three seconds to come back to Earth. This means that when Houston asked a question to the astronauts on the moon, the reply should have taken at least two point six seconds to come back to earth. One point three seconds for the question to reach the astronaut, one point three seconds for his answer to come back. There are some cases, however, where the answer from the astronaut comes back much faster.
Here is one example.
Speaker 16: Roger, Jim, copy. And are you progressing towards Dune Crater now?
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 0: The answer is almost immediate. It takes a little over a second for it to come back.
Speaker 16: Roger Jim, copy. And are you progressing towards Dune Crater now?
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 0: This is the soundtrack from the original audio. This segment contains the question coming from Houston, and this is the answer by the astronaut. The gap between the end of the question and the answer is only one point one seconds.
Speaker 16: Roger, Jim, copy. And are you progressing towards Doon Crater now?
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 0: Too short for this communication to have really come from the moon. To examine the audio delays, we have obviously used the original unmodified tapes from NASA distributed around the world by Spacecraft Films. If there is one thing everybody agrees on, it's that the DVDs by Spacecraft Films are the only originals that can be used as reference for any kind of research. Paulo activissimo confirms this in one of his conferences. In this conference, activissimo also confirms that the original tapes are unedited and uncut.
The same thing is confirmed by Clavius, one of the most authoritative debunking websites on the luna issue. The DVDs by Spacecraft Films writes Clavius, contain the digital transfers of original Apollo film and video unedited. What is interesting is that if one checks the Apollo journal website instead, where NASA has reloaded the lunar transmissions broken up in small clips, The audio delay appears to be inserted correctly. This is the audio track from the same scene downloaded from the Apollo Journal. The question coming from Houston is unchanged, while the answer seems to have been moved up to some four seconds later.
Speaker 16: Roger, Jim, copy. And are you progressing towards Doon Crater now?
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 0: It's as if someone in reloading the clip had realized that the answer too soon and had inserted a pause to produce the proper delay. But in the original audio from spacecraft films, this delay does not exist. This conversation cannot have taken place between the Earth and the Moon. Here is another example where the astronaut's answer comes too quickly.
Speaker 16: We're interested in either documented samples or a rake sample there if you if you think it looks like a good area for a rake
Speaker 5: sample. Okay. Understand, Joe.
Speaker 0: One point six seconds. The reply comes at least one second too soon for having originated on the moon. There's even one case from the same mission where the answer takes less than a second to come back to base. Nine tenths of a second to be exact. It's as if this astronaut were standing in a room next door rather than actually being on the moon.
Speaker 16: Rover, this is Houston.
Speaker 5: Go ahead.
Speaker 0: Question. Given that we have examined the original videos from spacecraft films and that the debunkers themselves acknowledge that these videos are unedited and uncut. Can you explain why in several instances the delay between the question and the answer is far shorter than it should be if the conversation had truly taken place between the Earth and the Moon? Another aspect of the telecommunications that raises serious questions are the live television broadcasts from the
Speaker 5: moon. The
Speaker 0: first three lunar missions, Apollo eleven, twelve, and 14, had sent some rather poor TV pictures back to Earth. But beginning with Apollo fifteen, the technology for the live broadcasts had definitely improved. Not only did the astronauts now have the Luna Jeep called Rover, but they also had a new color camera that was mounted right in the front of the Rover. This allowed the public to follow the different operations on the lunar surface on live television. This camera dubbed Rover TV was remotely operated by a specialized technician from Houston.
To transmit the images back to Earth, the astronauts used a special umbrella shaped antenna, which was also mounted on the rover. Obviously, the astronauts could only broadcast live images when the vehicle was stopped between one station and the next because the umbrella needed to be pointed with great precision towards the earth before any broadcast could begin. The earth and the moon are some 240,000 miles away, and a small error in the angle of sight would be enough to completely miss the target. From the NASA website, we can read, the high gain antenna produced a beam tight enough that an adequate TV signal could be received by 85 meter dishes on earth. This antenna had a nominal gain of 24 decibels in the center, which dropped to 20.5 decibels on a 10 degrees cone.
In other words, by increasing the transmission angle, the signal would rapidly degrade. Pointing the antenna with sufficient accuracy was tricky, writes NASA. A preliminary alignment made by sighting along the transmitter mast had to be done carefully. After that, the astronauts carried out a precision pointing by using an optical device mounted directly on the antenna. From NASA's training manual, we read bore sighting the high gain antenna to the earth requires an optical aid since a full earth subtends an angle of less than two degrees when viewed from the lunar surface.
This is the aiming reticle from the optical device. Each square represents an angle of three degrees. The high gain antenna pointing, states NASA, must remain within 2.5 degrees of Earth. This occurs when the Earth's image is within the bull's eye of the optical sight. The video signal will degrade extremely rapidly beyond that point due to the very narrow antenna radiation pattern.
In other words, even a misalignment of a couple of degrees in pointing the antenna would have resulted in the Earth target being missed. We must keep in mind that both the TV camera and the transmitting antenna are mounted on the rover, which means that any oscillation of the camera implies an equal oscillation of the antenna. This is a well known problem for television crews who broadcast images via satellite. Their mobile units are normally equipped with special pods that are extended once the transmitting vehicle is in position in order to avoid oscillations of any kind. And on Earth, the margin of error is much larger than that of a broadcast from the moon, since the distance from the geostationary satellites on Earth is much shorter than the distance between the Earth and the moon.
It is therefore evident that in order to maintain the live connection with the Earth, the rover needed to remain practically still for the entire duration of the broadcast. What we have instead is a series of situations in which the astronauts violently shake the rover, thus also the antenna, without the broadcast ever breaking down. This usually happens when one of the astronauts touches the rover to drop or retrieve some tools. In order to assess the actual oscillations, one needs to look at how much the line of the horizon in the background moves up and down. Being equipped with very soft suspensions, the rover shakes quite visibly as soon as anyone touches it.
Yet, as we have said before, the television signal never breaks down. We must remember that each oscillation of the camera corresponds to an equal oscillation by the antenna. And yet, as if by magic, the television signal never breaks down nor does it degrade at all. Seen through the optical device, the oscillations of the antenna must have looked something like this. Question.
On Earth, transmitting vehicles are normally equipped with stabilizing pods in order to keep them from shaking during the broadcast. Why didn't NASA think of placing something similar on the rover since it was supposed to broadcast from a distance dozens of times higher than a simple Earth satellite? Given that, according to NASA's manual, the high gain antenna pointing must remain within 2.5 degrees of Earth, and that the video signal will degrade extremely rapidly beyond that point. How was it possible to broadcast images with such violent oscillations without the signal breaking nor degrading during the live feeds from the moon? Let's now examine another interesting problem, the behavior of the dust on the moon.
On Earth, the dust remains attached to objects thanks to the humidity of the air. On the moon, however, there is no atmosphere and therefore there is no humidity. Theoretically, lunar dust should not be able to stick to any particular surface. Looking at the images from the Apollo missions though, we have dozens of situations in which the lunar dust sticks everywhere. That happens mostly on the astronauts suits with dust sticking not only to the lower part of their legs, but also to the arms, trunk, and even the backpacks.
Often, it's the astronauts themselves who notice the amount of dust that sticks to them.
Speaker 5: I am covered from hand to foot with dust. Now we got some work to do here. Boy, they're all dirty. You ought to see you back. I couldn't have gotten any dirtier than you.
Speaker 0: From Houston Center, someone has noticed the problem as well.
Speaker 2: Looks like you guys have
Speaker 5: been playing in a cold bin.
Speaker 0: Dust inexplicably sticks to the surface of the cameras and their lenses too. The astronauts often complain about this.
Speaker 2: I haven't checked the dust on the lens on these cameras.
Speaker 0: Sometimes the problem is so serious that they can't even read the settings.
Speaker 2: So much dust on the camera, it's
Speaker 5: hard to read the settings.
Speaker 0: Same problem for the television cameras used by the astronauts. In this case, we notice several speckles of dust that are stuck to the camera lens. Here instead, the entire lens is covered by dust. The lighter spots are the only areas of the lens not covered by dust. Sometimes the astronauts realize this by themselves.
Speaker 5: I think we need to dust the TV lens. It's pretty dusty.
Speaker 0: In other cases, the request to clean the lens comes directly from the control center.
Speaker 5: Troops, before we leave this area, we want you to brush the LCRU and the TV camera lens.
Speaker 0: These images shot on Earth show dust particles that stick to the lens because of humidity. Why does the same happen on the lens used by the astronauts given that there is no humidity on the moon? Also, the Gnomon. This color chart used by the astronauts simply refuses to stay clean.
Speaker 5: Gnomon's pretty dirty, unfortunately, Joe. There's no way to keep that color chart clean with all this dust. Roger.
Speaker 0: It's not just the astronaut's suits and instruments that get covered with dust. For example, look at the lunar rover with the frame and the engine protections fully covered with dust. Or the fenders from the rover with dust sticking on the inside of the wheels and on the outside as well. Some debunkers have suggested that all this dust may stick to objects because of some kind of electrostatic effect. But this explanation is not plausible for at least two reasons.
First of all, we're talking about completely different materials from one another. The astronaut suits, the photo cameras, the surface of the lunar rover, the lenses from the TV cameras. Secondly, NASA itself excludes this possibility when they explain that an electrostatic effect can possibly take place in the shadow areas of the moon, but in the areas hit by sunlight this effect is instantly dissipated by the solar wind. From this NASA document, which studies the electrostatic charges on the surface of the moon, we can read, in the photoelectron dominated daylight plasma region the charge dissipates almost instantly in all cases. Thus charging on the lunar day side is not an issue.
Furthermore in some cases more than dust we seem to be looking at actual mud. Look for example at this wheel from the lunar rover. Or this other image from the wheel of the rover with the rim that seems completely covered in mud. It's as if we were looking at a muddy wheel from all terrain vehicle down on Earth. There's also another even more puzzling example.
This is a thermal degradation experiment conducted during the Apollo fourteen mission. How could sand have compacted itself enough to appear like mud in a moistureless environment? There is also another detail worth mentioning. These metal plates have a series of letters and numbers engraved on their surface. Subsequently, these letters and numbers have filled up with sand.
But how can the sand preserve the shape of the number once dislodged from the original place where it was formed? Here, for example, we can see the number five, which has kept its shape even after being dislodged from the engraving. And here is the number three, also keeping its shape after it was dislodged. How can the sand keep the original shape after having been dislodged from the engraving if we are truly in a moist moisturous environment. Possibly the biggest problem of all is the one posed by the footprints that the astronauts allegedly left on the surface of the moon.
Wherever they go, the astronauts leave very sharp footprints on the ground. But how is it possible for lunar dust to remain so hardly compacted to the point of maintaining the shape of the boot, being that there is no atmosphere on the moon and therefore there is no humidity? We know that in order to give sand a specific shape, it is necessary to wet it first. If the sand is dry, the sand grains won't stick to each other, and the shape will not be preserved. The debunkers, however, maintain that lunar dust, which is called regolith, is much sharper than the sand on Earth.
For this reason, they argue, the simple pressure from the boot is enough to compact it even in total absence of moisture. In order to prove that theory, the Mythbusters have asked NASA for an exact replica of the moon boot and for a certain amount of a special dust prepared by NASA, which has very similar characteristics to lunar dust.
Speaker 18: So for this test, NASA has given us a lunar regolith simulant.
Speaker 35: Manufactured to test equipment that is going to the moon. It's very similar to lunar dust in the fact that each particle is very sharp. Dirt on Earth has been weathered, so it's very smooth. So this is as close to lunar dust as we can get.
Speaker 0: It's one kind of dust that Paolo Ativissimo is also very familiar with. The Mythbusters have conducted their experiment in a vacuum chamber in the total absence of moisture, thus replicating the same conditions found on the moon.
Speaker 18: The rig is ready to take its one legged step and the vacuum chamber has been vacuumed.
Speaker 35: Boot stop, vacuum. Here we go. In three, two
Speaker 0: We noticed that the Mythbusters have even added some counterweights to their device in order to simulate the exact weight of the astronauts foot on the lunar soil.
Speaker 5: One.
Speaker 16: Yeah. Let's take that. Yeah.
Speaker 35: Look at that. We made a footprint inside of a vacuum, and
Speaker 32: there was no water vapor, which is what this conspiracy theory is all about.
Speaker 35: In your face, conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 0: The Mythbusters seem very eager to celebrate, but in reality, they have succeeded at all in replicating the original footprints by the astronauts. Just look at how solid and squared the little bars of sand that have formed under the astronaut's boot are. They are almost perfect geometric solids with sharp edges and well defined contours. These sandbars are so solid and compacted that they even retain their shape after they have broken in pieces. It's as if we were looking at a clay model that has later dried up in the sun.
It is clear that we are looking at a very different result from the one obtained by the Mythbusters in the vacuum chamber. If we were to break apart or even just try to move one of these sandbars, they would certainly not remain compacted nor would they retain their shape. In conclusion, the Mythbusters with their experiment have proven the exact opposite of what they intended to prove. In absence of humidity, it's absolutely impossible to replicate the astronauts footprints. Question.
Given that there is no moisture on the moon and that the solar wind dissipates electrostatic charges almost instantly, can you explain why the lunar dust sticks to all kinds of materials from the astronaut suits to the photo cameras, from the rover surfaces to the TV camera lenses? Can you explain how the rover's wheels can gather so much thick dirt on them as to look like they're covered in mud? Can you explain how the lunar dust can stick together to such an extent, even preserving the shape of the numbers after they were moved from the engravings in which they had formed? Given that the Mythbusters have replicated the lunar conditions on the vacuum and with the sand simulant. Can you explain why they were unable to reproduce the astronauts footprints from the original photos?
If it's true, like many believe, that the Apollo missions were filmed in a studio on Earth, one of the biggest problems would have been to simulate the lunar gravity, which is about one sixth of the gravity on Earth. The most common technique to obtain such an effect has always been the use of steel wires. Extremely thin and invisible to the camera, steel wires were already in use in the early nineteen sixties in movies such as Mary Poppins. And even today they're regularly used, like in the film Magnificent Desolation, precisely to replicate the lunar walks of the Apollo missions. Connected to a sophisticated system of pulleys and counterweights, steel wires allow the astronaut to reduce his weight until a perfect simulation of the lunar gravity is achieved.
Another way to obtain a similar effect is to connect the steel wires to balloons filled with helium. This system was used for example in the television series From the Earth to the Moon produced by Tom Hanks. This also produces the effect of reducing the astronauts weight until lunar gravity is simulated. There is a problem however with steel wires. While they are normally invisible to the camera, they may get hit by the light at a particular angle, making them momentarily visible on the screen.
And this is exactly what seems to have happened in the sequence from Apollo 14. While the astronauts are busy near the LEM, at one point, some flashes of light can be seen above the head of one of them. The initial flash is certainly caused by the antenna mounted on the backpack. This antenna, which is about one foot long, often reflects the light that hits it. But then there is a second flash right above the first one which cannot be attributed to the antenna and looks exactly like one caused by a steel wire.
Let's watch again in slow motion. This is the contour of the astronaut with the backpack on his shoulders. This is the antenna causing the first flash of light, and this is the second flash of light, definitely above the first one which cannot be ascribed to the antenna. There is something else reflecting the light, some three feet above the astronaut's head, And this something cannot be a flare in the lens from the first flash because the second flash occurs after the first one and not simultaneously. A similar case occurs during the Apollo seventeen mission.
Here too, we see a double flash of light from the antenna, and then another flash much higher right above the astronaut's head. In this case, this cannot be a flare inside the lens either, because the flash above occurs after the ones below and not simultaneously. There is something else reflecting the light a few feet above the astronaut's head in a space that should be totally void of objects of any kind. The debunkers, however, maintain that these are not flashes of light on steel wires, but simple defects due to the video conversion. On his website, activismo writes, they are not wires or cables.
They are usually compression artifacts or mistakes introduced by the video conversion from one format to the other, for example for the publication on YouTube. The original videos, which we should always use as a reference instead of using copies converted so many times, do not present these phenomena. But activissimo is wrong. What we have just shown you are the original non converted videos by spacecraft films. The same originals that activissimo says should be used for reference or analysis.
Anybody who owns the original videos can verify that the flashes of light we have shown are already there. They are not the effect of compression or video conversions as claimed by activismo. Furthermore, the flashes of light aren't the only thing suggesting that steel wires were used in the scenes from the moon. There are also several instances in which the astronauts seem to be rising from the ground with no effort whatsoever as if some invisible force were pulling them up. Let's analyze some of these situations.
This astronaut is leaning on the ground and then he suddenly gets up with no apparent effort. It's as if a mysterious force was suddenly pulling him up from the ground. Here, the astronaut is suddenly pulled upwards and then remains dangling while rotating on himself. Let's watch it again. Here, the astronaut is first pulled up and then seems to remain floating in midair.
It looks like a puppet hanging from some invisible strings. Here, the fallen astronaut gets up from the ground as if a mysterious force were pulling him up through his backpack. Let's watch it again from up close. Here, the astronaut is working with some tools when suddenly a mysterious force yanks him upwards and to his right. Let's watch it again.
There is even a situation where the astronaut complains that he cannot get up and he almost seems to wait for someone or something to pull him up.
Speaker 5: But I can't get up.
Speaker 0: The astronaut waits until a mysterious force helps him up.
Speaker 5: Here we go. In
Speaker 0: this case, the astronaut falls forward, but somehow remains suspended in midair. In fact, if we look more closely, we notice that he first remains floating in midair, then a mysterious force pulls him upwards. Here we have a case of apparent levitation. The astronaut on the left takes a leap forward and then remains floating in mid air, his legs dangling, while a strange force pulls him upwards. Let's watch it again in slow motion.
And finally, here's a very curious situation. Look at the movement the astronaut manages to make with both his legs, first forward and then backwards without leaning onto anything. It's as if his feet were free to slide first forward and then backwards on the ground underneath. If we straighten the frame in order to place the astronaut vertically, we will see that he is not just lifting himself on his toes. The entire lower part of the leg from the knee down is sliding forwards then backwards.
But how is it possible to slide with both feet at the same time first forward and then backwards without an external force pulling you upwards in the meantime? Question. Given that these are not artifacts from video conversion nor are they glares inside the lens, can you explain what these flashes of light sometimes appearing over the head of the astronauts actually are? Can you explain how it is possible to make a movement such as this one, this one, or this one without some kind of external force pulling you upwards. The last set of evidence includes elements that suggest the presence of air on the set of the luna pictures.
As we all know, there is no atmosphere on the moon, which means the astronauts should be moving in a situation of absolute vacuum. There are different elements, however, suggesting that we are in the presence of air instead. One such element is the behavior of the clouds of dust behind the wheels of the rover. If we were in the absence of air, all the sand lifted by the wheels should follow a perfect parabolic trajectory from the moment it leaves the wheel until the moment it falls to the ground. Being that there is no air to slow them down in their path, both the heavier particles of sand and the lighter ones should follow the same parabolic trajectory.
On Earth instead, the lighter particles of sand are slowed down by the impact with the air and remain suspended for a few seconds in midair, forming the typical clouds of dust that can be seen behind the car wheels. This phenomenon can be observed in many different situations, simply kicking up some sand during a golf game or during a motocross race. But it is a phenomenon that can also be observed behind the wheels of the Lunar Rover, where instead it should not happen. For example, look at these clouds of dust that remain momentarily suspended in midair behind the rover's wheels. As we have said before, without an atmosphere, no cloud should be forming at all.
All the sand particles, both the heavier and the lighter ones, should follow the same parabolic arch. This is also confirmed by Clavius. If an atmosphere is dense enough, writes the website, it can hold small particles suspended against gravity for a short time. None of that would happen on the moon because there's nothing to keep the dust particles suspended. And yet, small clouds of dust form repeatedly behind the rover's wheels and briefly suspended in mid air before falling to the ground.
All of this should not happen if we were actually on the moon, where no atmosphere is present. Here is another situation suggesting that we are in the presence of air. The golden material on the right is a thermal covering mounted on the front of the rover. We often see this covering float up and down during the rover's transfers from one station to the next.
Speaker 16: Sounds good.
Speaker 0: When the rover is stationary, however, this covering should not move given that there is no air to lift it up. There is a situation, however, where the covering seems to be moving by itself. At first, we cannot tell whether it was the astronaut who touched it. But then we see that while the astronaut is brushing the dust away, the thermal cover floats by itself more than once as if a soft breeze were lifting it from below. There is also another curious case, again during the Apollo sixteen mission.
When one of the astronauts closes this flap on the rover, we notice a puff of dust being blown upwards. Let's watch it again in slow motion. Some may suggest it could have been a vibration to move the sand. But in reality, the entire rover is covered by sand. If there was a vibration, all the sand would move at once.
Here instead, the sand is blown upwards in one specific spot only and exactly next to the flap being closed. Let's now tackle one of the most debated and well known issues in the entire Luna discussion, flags waving in the vacuum. In the videos from the Apollo missions, we can often see the American flag waving, but it's hard to tell whether it waves because it was moved by a gust of air or just because the astronaut is touching the flagpole. The Mythbusters have conducted an experiment in a vacuum chamber to prove that even in absence of air, the flag can continue waving for a while after the astronaut has touched it.
Speaker 32: This is flag waving test in a vacuum. And stop.
Speaker 35: Hey. It's moving a lot. So
Speaker 32: the vacuum, the flag moved, you know, not just a little bit. It actually moved quite a bit. So that proves you don't need wind in order to move the flag in a vacuum.
Speaker 0: But then it's the Mythbusters themselves who raise the ante by throwing this challenge.
Speaker 18: So unless someone finds a shot of the flag flapping without an astronaut manipulating the flagpole, it's Mythbusters.
Speaker 0: Unless someone finds a shot of the flag flapping without an astronaut manipulating the flagpole, they said. Well, we have found at least three situations where the flag waves without anyone touching it. The first one is from this television sequence from Apollo 15. Here, one of the two astronauts is standing next to the flag, having his picture taken by his colleague. This is one of the shots taken.
And this is the camera mounted on the rover broadcasting the images on live television. Okay. After a while, the astronaut exits frame to the left.
Speaker 5: Can I get a frame there, Joe?
Speaker 0: A few seconds later, one of the two astronauts walks back in front of the camera headed to the LEM. After he passes, we notice that the flag is waving without anyone having touched it. Let's watch again. Some debunkers have suggested that the astronaut could have touched the flag with his elbow as he was passing by. But a simple triangulation with the photographic image shows that this was not possible.
In order to fill up the frame to this point from the top of the head to the waist, the astronaut must have been somewhere halfway between the flag and the camera. There is too much distance for him to have touched the flag with his elbow. Other debunkers like activissimo accept the fact that the astronaut did not touch the flag, but suggest that the waving was caused by some kind of electrostatic discharge. As we have seen earlier, however, there cannot be any electrostatic phenomena on the sunny side of the moon because the solar wind almost instantly dissipates any possible charge that were to accumulate. Furthermore, a hypothetical electrostatic effect could take place at most when the astronaut is right next to the flag, a few inches away.
But as we have seen before, the distance between the astronaut and the flag is quite substantial. In any case, if we look more closely at the astronaut entering frame, we notice that the flag begins to move even before the astronaut passes by. This clearly excludes both an electrostatic discharge and the possibility that the astronaut could have touched the flag with his elbow. The only plausible explanation for the waving of the flag seems to be a displacement of air caused by the astronaut walking by. Here's another case in which the flag waves without anyone touching him.
Speaker 5: Come around here and give
Speaker 0: me This is the famous scene from Apollo 16 where the astronauts photograph each other while jumping next to the flag. Initially, the first astronaut proceeds to take a picture of his colleague and asks him to jump high in the air.
Speaker 5: Okay. Here we go. A big one. Off the ground. One more.
There we go.
Speaker 0: Then when they trade places, we notice that the flag waves without anyone touching it. If we speed up the playback, the flag's movement becomes even more evident. A little later when the second astronaut has also taken the picture, they both walk by the flag making it wave again without anyone touching it. Again, the same shot in fast forward. There is finally a very interesting case in which the flag waves repeatedly by itself more than once while the astronauts are on board of the lunar module.
This is the Apollo fourteen mission at the end of the second and last lunar excursion. The two astronauts are getting ready to reenter the lamp when one of them accidentally trips into the television cable causing the camera to fall to the ground. After a few seconds, the same astronaut approaches the camera and puts it back in position while his colleague begins climbing the ladder of the lamb. After this, the first astronaut heads back to the lamb. From this moment on, no one will touch the camera again.
The first astronaut completes some loading operations by means of a pulley, then climbs the ladder as well. As the two astronauts close-up the lamp and prepare for departure, the camera continues to take in the empty scene. Fifteen minutes go by without anything happening at all. But then at some point without anyone possibly touching it, we noticed the flag waving and partially entering frame on the right side of the picture. After fifteen seconds the flag moves in the other direction returning to the original position.
After another twenty seconds, the flag enters frame again as if a light breeze were moving it. The flag remains visible for about half a minute, then disappears again to the right. A couple of minutes later the same thing happens for the third time. The flag enters frame from the right, it exits, then waves back in, and eventually disappears from sight. As we have said before, both astronauts are already in the LEM, and there's no one else around who could have touched the flag.
Furthermore, by using this white object as a reference, we can establish that the frame does not pan from left to right, but it remains fixed. In other words, it is not the camera moving sideways, it's the flag actually waving as it enters and exits frame by itself. Some debunkers have suggested that waving of the flag could be caused by emissions of gas from the lamp during the depressurization process. But this explanation does not stand up for at least two reasons. First of all, any ejected gas would immediately disperse its pressure into the vacuum of space, and would not be able to create the turbulence needed to move the flag.
Secondly, we have seen that the flag always moves initially from right to left. In other words, it always moves towards the LEM before going in the opposite direction. In no case, therefore, any hypothetical gases expelled from the LEM could attract the flag towards the LEM itself. Question. Given that there is no atmosphere on the moon, can you explain what slows down and suspends the sand particles in midair forming small dust clouds before they fall to the ground?
Given that the flag begins to move even before the astronaut reaches it, which excludes both a static discharge and a physical contact, can you suggest anything different from the displacement of air to explain the flag's movement? Given that this flag waves not once but twice without anyone touching it, can you explain what caused this flag's movements? Given that the astronauts have been in the lamp for at least fifteen minutes and that there is no one else around who could have touched the flag, can you suggest anything different from a displacement of air on the set to explain the flag's repeated movements? Let's tackle now one of the most well known and debated aspects of the entire lunar discussion, the photographs from the Apollo missions. In order to analyze them in detail, we have turned to the experience of some world famous photographers who have worked for all the most important magazines in the world.
All these photographers were already professionally active in the nineteen seventies using the same cameras and the same kind of film used by NASA for the Apollo pictures. Let's briefly introduce them. Tony Torenbert, photo reporter, portrait artist, well known fashion photographer. Starting from the nineteen seventies, he has worked for some of the most prestigious magazines in Italy and around the world. Torenbert has also authored several books on photography and currently runs a photo factory where he regularly teaches photographic technique.
His works have been presented in several expositions around the world including the Biennale of Venezia and the Triennale of Milan. Aldo Fallai, world renowned fashion photographer with more than forty years of international career under his belt. Starting from the nineteen eighties, he has been the official photographer for Giorgio Armani. With his sophisticated and elegant style, Fallai has to creating the fashion image that has defined the Armani trademark across the globe. Falais has published several photography books and his pictures have been presented in many international exhibitions on his name.
Oliveira Toscani, a fashion photographer known all around the globe. From the nineteen seventies, he has literally transformed the concept of fashion pictures with his nonconformist irreverent style. Besides having worked for all the most important magazines in the world, Toscani has authored some of the most revolutionary advertising campaigns of their times, such as those of Benetton, Fiorucci, and Jesus Jeans. Peter Lindbergh, among the top photographers in the world for forty years. Lindbergh is credited with launching on the world stage the so called supermodels.
The team of models including Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatiana Patitz, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, which dominated the fashion scene around the world in the closing decade of the last century. Lindbergh is the only one among the professionals elite to have been asked three times to photograph the prestigious Pirelli calendar in 1996, 02/2002, and in 02/2017. The favorite personal photographer by many movie stars from Charlotte Rampling to Penelope Cruz, from Uma Thurman to Nicole Kidman, Lindbergh is considered today simply one of the best living photographers in the world. Also Massimo Mazzucco, the author of this film has worked as a fashion photographer for over twenty years, working for important magazines in Italy, United States, Germany, and Australia. Before we analyze the lunar pictures in detail, however, we should try to clear the field from some incorrect arguments that are sometimes used by those who claim we never went to the moon.
One of the most recurring mistakes is to state that these pictures are fake because there are no stars in the sky. It is in fact correct that there are no visible stars in the sky, whether the pictures were taken on Earth or actually on the moon. The lens settings and the exposure times that the astronauts used were printed directly on the back of the photo cameras. Lens aperture between eight and eleven in full sun, shutter speed one two hundred fiftieth of a second. Anyone who has taken night pictures with the old film cameras knows that at one two hundred fiftieth of a second it's impossible to catch the light of the stars.
In order to see the stars, one must extend the exposure time to at least one full second, if not two or four seconds. It is therefore correct that there are no visible stars in the Apollo pictures, whether these were taken on Earth or actually on the surface of the moon. Another wrong argument often used to suggest the lunar fakery is that of the so called fiducials, these small reference crosses that appear on all the pictures taken on the surface of the moon. There are cases, some claim, in which the cross seems to disappear behind the objects in the picture. And since the crosses are engraved on a glass located in front of the film, their absence, these people claim, is a blatant proof of manipulation.
If we take a look at the high definition originals, however, we will find that the crosses are always present. Sometimes their edge is washed away by the bright objects behind them, but the cross never completely disappears from the picture. In conclusion, neither the absence of stars nor the apparent disappearance of the crosses can be used as a proof that the luna pictures are fake. Let's take a look now at some of the real problems with the luna pictures. To begin with, we must ask ourselves whether the film containing the lunar pictures has ever been on the moon at all.
For on this film, there is absolutely no trace of what should have been the damage caused by the radiation present in outer space. Cosmic space outside the Van Allen belts is filled with radiation of all kinds. You have solar eruptions hurtling through space alpha particles, protons and electrons at over 1,000 miles per second. And then you have ultraviolet rays, x rays, gamma rays, and cosmic rays, which originate directly from the heart of our galaxy and are the most dangerous and penetrating of all. As explained in this documentary on cosmic rays, the fact that these particles are practically unstoppable is due to their extremely high velocity.
Speaker 19: The key to cosmic rays transformational energy is speed.
Speaker 11: So even if it has really tiny mass, like most cosmic rays, they've got enormous velocity. So their kinetic energy can be really, really large.
Speaker 19: These charged particles could hurdle right through a spaceship and penetrate astronauts like tiny ballistic missiles.
Speaker 0: Obviously, if cosmic rays can penetrate spaceships, they can just as easily penetrate the body of a photo camera. And it's well known that all these radiations are very harmful to photographic film. This is explained by Douglas Arnold, who was assistant managing director for Kodak at the time of the Apollo missions.
Speaker 37: You have an enormous amount of radiation in space, and potentially, it affects film, of course. And of course, as you as you will well know, it is prime effect is on contrast.
Speaker 0: An extreme example comes from the pictures of Chernobyl. This is Igor Costin, the Soviet photographer who shot some of the most famous images of the nuclear disaster of nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 27: I processed my pictures, and I noticed the negatives were black.
Speaker 0: The effects of radioactivity are clearly visible on film. The emulsion shows some very heavy graining and the colors are visibly altered. But even less powerful radiation can seriously damage photographic film. This technical bulletin published by Kodak shows the damage that can be caused to photographic film even by a single pass under an airport's x-ray scanner. On the left, an original shot.
On the right, the same film after a single pass under the scanner. After five scans, the film is completely ruined and the image is barely visible. This is a well known problem to professional photographers. Here's another example with a 400 ASA film. The difference after a single scan is quite evident.
Contrast and color saturation disappear, and a general fog seems to be covering the entire image. Even with sensitivities closer to those used in the Apollo pictures, the damage caused by a single pass under the scanner is evident. The graining is present all across the picture, and it becomes particularly visible in the darker areas of the image. Here is another example at 200 ASA. A single pass under the scanner has completely ruined the blackness of the night sky.
In the pictures from the Apollo missions, however, the skies are perfectly black. The color saturation is fully preserved, and there is no graining whatsoever in any part of the picture. And we must consider that the pictures from the Apollo missions have been exposed to cosmic rays, which are much more powerful and penetrating than simple x rays. This educational film from nineteen sixties describes how cosmic rays leave a very evident mark on photographic film.
Speaker 14: Well, we don't get a picture in the conventional sense, but the charged particles do leave identifying tracks behind. Here's an exposure which was made on a balloon flight. It shows a primary cosmic ray particle hitting a nucleus in the film emulsion. Also, you see an enlarged photograph of one of these emulsion plates.
Speaker 0: We must keep in mind that this experiment was conducted with a balloon flight, well below the Van Allen belts, where only a small part of the cosmic rays from outer space manages to penetrate. On the moon however, you don't have the protection from the magnetosphere and the amount of cosmic rays that can damage both humans and film is definitely much higher. This is explained by doctor David Groves, an expert in photographic analysis.
Speaker 38: We're protected on Earth by a nice thick atmosphere, and that combined with the magnetic field keep these ionizing particles away from us unfilm of course. In space, you're not offered that protection.
Speaker 0: In fact, thanks to the probes that have explored the moon in recent years, we are able to quantify with some accuracy the fluxes of radioactive particles present in the cosmos. From this document published by NASA, we can read: The cosmic ray flux per square centimeter of lunar surface per year contains an amount of particles that translates to 4.5 particles per second per square centimeter. This document published by the National Council on Radiation Protection offers a similar amount. Four particles per square centimeter per second during a minimum of solar activity. This amount can be reduced up to four times during a solar activity peak.
Thus, on the moon, we have an average flux that can range from one to four radioactive particles per second per square centimeter. A true downpour of cosmic rays capable of penetrating any object they were to find in their path. Considering that the photo cameras have been on the lunar surface for up to eight consecutive hours with no specific protection against radiation, each roll of film should have received tens of thousands of impacts from the cosmic rays, damaging the pictures in a visible way. Instead, the pictures taken by the astronauts show no damage whatsoever due to radiation. Colors are perfect.
The contrast is fully preserved, and there is no visible sign of graining on the emulsion. This apparently inexplicable fact is remarked both by Douglas Arnold and David Groves.
Speaker 37: If you look at the results, top quality duplicates, you can see that there's there appears to be no effect whatsoever.
Speaker 38: I would expect to see on the transparencies evidence of small bright dots where a high velocity nuclear particle had impinged on that film. I have no evidence whatsoever that this has occurred.
Speaker 0: But how is this possible? After all, it's NASA itself in this document from the Skylab project who writes, the radiation environment encountered during Earth orbital missions was studied extensively. The results indicated that the radiation environment could severely damage unprotected film. The energy level of the intergalactic cosmic rays, explains the document is so high that no practical method exists for eliminating cosmic radiation damage. This degrading factor must be accepted and though significant it should not be unacceptable for short term exposure or with relatively insensitive film types.
We then asked the following questions. Given that according to NASA, no practical method exists for eliminating cosmic radiation damage and that this degrading factor must be accepted, where is the degradation significant but acceptable that should appear on the lunar pictures? Given that this is the result of cosmic rays impact on film within the magnetosphere where radiation is weaker than in external space, can you explain why on the lunar pictures there are no visible signs of radiation damage? Given that this is the result of a simple X-ray scan which lasts only a few seconds, can you explain why in the Apollo pictures, which have been exposed to cosmic radiation for up to eight consecutive hours, there is no visible greening whatsoever. Given that the lunar surface gets hit by an average of one to four particles per square centimeter per second, and that the cameras have been out on the surface unprotected for up to eight consecutive hours, can you explain why on the lunar pictures there are no signs of degradation due to the radiation?
Another question to be answered is how could the cameras have worked on the moon given the extreme temperatures, especially the cold, that are found on the surface of our satellite? Being that there is no atmosphere to soften the transition between sun and shadow, on the moon, temperatures can easily go from 200 plus degrees in the areas hit by the sun to temperatures of more than 200 degrees below zero in the shadow.
Speaker 7: In space, you're facing the sun, it's 240 degrees. The dark side is 240 degrees below zero.
Speaker 21: The environmental hazards were really tough, like thermal control. I mean, it gets you get in the shadow on the moon, and it can drop hundreds of degrees below zero.
Speaker 0: But how can a camera keep working in such extreme conditions given that its delicate mechanisms are subject to the effects of thermal expansion and thermal contraction? Let's take for example Neil Armstrong's descent to the lunar surface. From the moment the hatch is open and the cabin is depressurized until Armstrong actually touches the ground, some thirty minutes go by. The entire descent of the astronaut takes place in the shadow area of the LEM, which means in an environment at some 200 degrees below zero. Once Armstrong touches the ground, his companion lowers the camera for him through the open porch.
Armstrong straps the camera to his chest
Speaker 5: Camera installed on the ICU bracket.
Speaker 0: Walks a few steps back and takes the first set of pictures, always remaining in the shadow of the lens.
Speaker 5: I'll step out and take some of my first pictures here.
Speaker 0: This is the full sequence of shots taken by Armstrong without ever leaving the shadow area of the lunar module. But how can this camera keep working in an environment at about 200 degrees below zero? We know that photo cameras have a tendency to jam at much less extreme temperatures due to the thermal contraction that affects the film transportation gear wheels. This promotional video by Audi, which plans to send an unmanned rover to the moon, explains how even ten minutes spent in the lunar shadow can bring the vehicle's mechanical parts to a complete blockage due to thermal contraction.
Speaker 39: Another danger to look out for, shadows, which could instantly damage the rover. That's because of the moon's extreme changes in temperatures and lack of atmosphere. The rover is made from different materials, all of which expand and contract when their temperature changes. If the rover were to drive into a shadow, it could cool down to 50% of its normal temperature in under ten minutes. This could lead to parts contracting too fast and ultimately render the rover immobile.
Because of
Speaker 0: the lack of atmosphere, the heat dispersion on the moon takes place by irradiation. And we know that Armstrong's camera has spent more than half an hour in an environment at 200 degrees below zero. This radio communication confirms that thirty five minutes have gone by from the moment the cabin was depressurized and the astronaut survival backpack called PLSS has been activated.
Speaker 6: Thirty five and a half minutes of PLSS time expended now.
Speaker 0: Also, this table describing the timeline of the operations on the moon indicates that some thirty minutes have passed from the cabin's depressurization until the moment Armstrong gets a hold of the camera. This means that the camera has had plenty of time to irradiate and dissipate a good part of the heat it had accumulated while in the cabin. How can this camera keep working after having spent more than half an hour at 200 degrees below zero without suffering the consequences of thermal contraction on its mechanical parts? Question. Given that the Audi technicians fear the complete blockage of the mechanical parts of their rover after only ten minutes spent in the lunar shadow, how can a camera keep working after having spent over half an hour in the same shadow, its mechanical parts being far more precise and delicate than those of a lunar rover.
Another problem connected with the cold environment is that at such low temperatures, the photographic film loses its flexibility, becomes rigid, and may easily break during the transport within the camera. Even though we are in the vacuum, the film touches the camera body all along its path. Since the camera irradiates and progressively loses heat, so does the film inside. And we know that below a certain temperature, photographic film becomes rigid and brittle, almost like glass. Let's now examine the problems related to the type of lighting used for the LUNA pictures.
There are in fact different elements suggesting that an artificial source rather than the sun was used to illuminate the set. This would obviously mean that the pictures were taken on earth and not on the moon. The first element suggesting the use of artificial light are the so called hotspots. The sun is a huge extremely powerful source of light capable of illuminating entire planets with its rays. For this reason, when the sun illuminates a large flat expanse, the light reaches every visible point with the same intensity.
Whether we observe an area closer to us or one in the distance, the luminosity of the ground is practically the same everywhere. This is due to the fact that the sun is thousands of times larger than the earth, which means it can easily illuminate any portion of its surface with the same intensity. If we use an artificial light source instead, like for example a movie light, the area of illuminated terrain will be much smaller. Furthermore, at the center of the illuminated area, we will see what is called a hotspot, while as we move away from the center, we will notice a substantial decrease of luminosity called falloff. If we now examine some pictures from the Apollo missions, we will notice the same phenomenon that we saw in the pictures taken with an artificial source.
A noticeable hotspot in the center of the image and a just as noticeable drop of light as we move away from the center of the illuminated area. There is no reason why this area should appear darker than this one. This area darker than this one or this area darker than this one. As we have seen before, when the sun illuminates a large expanse of land, its light reaches every visible point with the same intensity. If we use an artificial light instead, the illuminated area becomes brighter in the center and ever more dark as we move towards the edges.
A blatant case of hotspot is found in one of the most famous pictures from NASA. This shot of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo eleven mission. Here the difference on the terrain is already visible to the naked eye, but it becomes absolutely evident for everybody after we increase the contrast. An opinion on this picture was asked of Jan Lundberg, the Hasselblad technician responsible for providing NASA with the cameras for the Apollo missions. When shown the Aldrin picture, Lundberg had to acknowledge with some embarrassment that the image seems to have been shot under a movie light and was unable to provide a valid explanation for that.
Speaker 15: Yes. It it seems like he's standing in the spotlight, and I can't explain that. That that escapes me. Why? So maybe you have to find Armstrong and ask him.
Speaker 0: The professional photographers were also very surprised by this noticeable and inexplicable fall off of light in the distance.
Speaker 23: Totally spotless. It is totally spotlights. No. It's not like at all a a a knife turned over there. Yeah.
That is funny. You know, that that is, like, totally lit. It's absolutely true. And I know these pictures. I've never thought of all
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 0: A cityo, for those who are not professionals, is a large and powerful movie light. And curiously enough, a similar image was obtained in this documentary on the moon landings by using just that, a large movie light. As one can see, the results are very very similar to those present in the Aldrin picture. According to Paolo Ativismo, however, there is a different explanation for the fall off of light in the distance. It would have been the engine of the LEM, he claims, to blow the dust away during the landing thus revealing the lighter sand underneath.
But this hypothesis by activismo doesn't hold water for at least two reasons. The first one is that the hotspot phenomenon takes place in different missions and in different situations, some of which are definitely far away from the landing area of the LAM. It is ludicrous to think that the lunar module would have gone around to neatly blow the dust off all these areas before it landed. Secondly, NASA itself denies the fact that the sand under the surface of the moon is lighter than the one on the surface. It is in fact the exact opposite.
In this report on the surveyor missions published in 1969, NASA wrote observations of the fine grained parts of the lunar surface disturbed by the landing and liftoff of the SEVEA six spacecraft have shown that the lunar material exposed to depths no greater than a few millimeters has a significantly lower normal luminance factor than the undisturbed surface. In other words, the ground swept by the lunar module's jet should appear darker than the rest if anything, and certainly not lighter like activismo says. Another theory put forth by the debunkers to explain the inconsistent illumination of the terrain is the so called vignetting effect, a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in pictures when the corners of the frame appear darker than the rest of the image. But vignetting is a defect that only occurs in the low cost lenses and certainly not in the Zeiss lenses used by Hasselblad, which are simply the best in the world. Furthermore, several pictures show how the difference between hot spot and fall off is present in the center of the picture as in the case of this image reflected in the astronaut's visor.
And since vignetting never takes place in the center of the image, we can state with certainty that we are facing a real phenomenon on the ground and not a case of vignetting.
Speaker 7: This
Speaker 23: is supposed to come from the sun?
Speaker 40: Yes. The sun and the the sun behind. This is
Speaker 23: the photograph. Ridiculous thing because then, absolutely, you'll read that this is darker here. It's like it's when you have a spot where it's just not strong enough. Right. Come here.
Really. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Here's another similar example in which the illumination problem is quite obvious. If we look at sides of the astronaut photographer, we noticed that on the left the ground is brightly lit, while on the right there is a dramatic decrease in luminosity. If this scene were truly illuminated by the Sun, this area of the ground would appear as brightly lit as this one. Finally, as a possible explanation, a phenomenon called Heiligern shine has been suggested. It refers to that peculiar halo of light that sometimes appears around the shadow of the photographer in some particular situations.
But the Heiligen shine effect only occurs when the sun is located exactly behind the photographer's head along with the axis of the lens. This is the reason why the halo effect which is due to a retroreflection phenomenon on the ground, appears all around its shadow. As we have seen instead, many of the hotspots in the NASA pictures occur when the light source is placed on the side of the photographer and not behind his head. Question. Given that the sun should illuminate the whole landscape with the same intensity both close and far away, can you explain the reason for the noticeable falloff of light seen in many of the Apollo pictures?
In this particular case, the falloff takes place in the center of the frame thus excluding a vignetting problem and with the source placed on the side thus excluding the Heilig and Schein effect. Can you explain the reason for the noticeable fall off of light that can be seen on the terrain right behind the astronaut photographer? Another problem found in certain lunar pictures is the direction of the shadows, which should be parallel to each other had they been generated by the sun, but inexplicably diverge on the ground instead. Because of the enormous distance separating us from the sun, all the shadows generated on Earth by the solar rays are parallel to each other. We can see them parallel, however, converging or diverging depending on the angle with which we photograph them.
If we shoot a picture with the sun behind our shoulders, the shadows will seem to converge as they move away from us. If we take a picture with the sun in front of us instead, the shadows will seem to diverge on the ground. This is due to the phenomenon called perspective. In reality, the shadows created by the sun are always parallel on the ground. We may see them converge or diverge simply because we are photographing them along the vertical axis of the image.
If we instead take a picture with the sun at 90 degrees on our side, we will see that the shadows will always appear parallel to one another in all cases. The same thing happens with train tracks, which seem to converge if we shoot them along the vertical axis axis of the image, but will remain perfectly parallel if we shoot them along the horizontal axis. There are some Apollo pictures, however, where the shadows inexplicably appear to diverge from one another even though the sun is on the side relative to the photographer. This is the most famous example of all. Judging from the LEMS shadow, the sun is located some 90 degrees to our left.
Despite this, the shadows of the rocks in the foreground are not at all parallel to that of the LEM, but they clearly diverge from it instead. This is theoretically impossible. As we have seen before, when the sun is on the side, the shadows must be absolutely parallel to each other. If we use an artificial light instead of the sun and we place it much closer to the objects we are photographing, then the shadows will diverge from each other even though the source remains on the side. This is due to the fact that the closeness of the source creates a strong angle with the objects being photographed.
If we use instead, it's practically infinite distance makes the shadows appear parallel anyway. Let's go back now to the NASA picture. While these diverging shadows cannot be explained with sunlight, they immediately become justified if we imagine an artificial source placed near the left side of the image. We're talking about a situation akin to this one. This is the set of the television series From the Earth to the Moon.
As one can see, the large artificial source imitating the sun which is placed on the side produces shadows that are clearly diverging from each other. This is due to the closeness between the source and the objects being photographed. In fact, in the case of the NASA picture, all we need to do is to extend the direction of the shadows backwards and we'll find that the source is located just outside the left edge of the frame. This obviously cannot be the Sun. It must be an artificial light.
The Mythbusters have conducted an experiment trying to find an explanation for the diverging shadows in the NASA picture. First, they created some parallel shadows on the ground, then they started to modify the topography by inserting holes and mounds until the shadows diverged from each other. But the Mythbusters have made a huge mistake. Instead of using the sun, they themselves used an artificial source, which makes their experiment absolutely null. In the best case scenario, they have proven nothing at all.
While in the worst case, they have just confirmed that NASA also used an artificial source of light like the MythBusters did. Other debunking sites have tried to offer a similar explanation by showing that in some cases, the roughness of the terrain can generate shadows that seem to go in different directions. But this is not the case with the NASA picture. Here, the terrain is practically flat. On all the rocks in the lower part, the smaller ones, have shadows clearly pointing in the same direction.
The point here is not to find different pictures taken on Earth where the shadows seem to diverge due to the terrain. The point is to explain why in the NASA picture all the shadows lead back to a source that is placed just outside the left edge of the frame and that obviously cannot be the sun. We have shown the same picture to the professional photographers. Torrenberg happens to have a picture in his studio which clarifies exactly the problem we are talking about.
Speaker 40: Look at the shadows here and the shadow there. Can this be this?
Speaker 23: No. But they're getting worse and worse, I have to say. Look. Do you have a picture? It's like one shadow comes from here, one shadow comes from here, and there's only one sun up on here.
Speaker 40: According to those shadows, where would you place the source more or less?
Speaker 23: Very funny. Because the source should be like here because that would give a light like this, and that would give this shadow here.
Speaker 40: Right.
Speaker 23: But only if it's like a pretty close source.
Speaker 0: Question. When the sun is on the side, all shadows on the ground must appear parallel to each other. Can you explain why in this NASA picture, the shadow of the lamb and those of the rocks in foreground appear to be clearly diverging instead? Given that this scene is supposedly lit by the sun, which is millions of miles away, can you explain why the shadows lead to a source that is located not far from the left edge of the image instead? Given that the photographers we interviewed placed the light source a few meters away from the left edge of the frame, can you explain how this could be the sun?
There is also another series of images from the Apollo twelve mission suggesting the use of an artificial light. In all these shots, we can notice on the ground the dark shadow of the astronaut who supposedly took the pictures. If we close in on any of these shadows, however, we will notice that they are entirely surrounded by a grayish, blurred kind of edge. This blurred edge in the shadow is absolutely unnatural for having been caused by the sun. Since the sun is millions of miles away, it generates sharp, well defined shadows on the ground.
If you use an artificial light instead, you will get this kind of shadow with soft and blurred edges. Some may suggest that the blurring of the shadow is simply due to a focusing mistake, but this is not the case. If we observe the ground next to the shadow, we will see that it is perfectly in focus from the closest point to the farthest one. The depth of field here is absolute. This is not a focusing mistake.
It's really a kind of light source that generates a blurred shadow on the ground and which therefore cannot be the sun.
Speaker 40: If you turn this way Mhmm. And look at look at the edge. What does that tell you?
Speaker 23: I don't know, but it's not very weird.
Speaker 40: Could that be the sun? Does the sun cast shadows that soft?
Speaker 23: No. Because you you see the shadows here, they are absolutely tough. No? Right.
Speaker 0: Question. Being millions of miles away, the sun casts sharp shadows on the ground. Can you explain why in these pictures, there is a soft edge all around the astronaut's figure instead? Let's now tackle the most important issue in the entire discussion on the lunar pictures, back light photography. When we shoot a picture with the sun in front of us and the subject in the shade, we say that the picture is taken in backlight.
In backlight photography, the subject in the shadow is always darker than the ground directly hit by the sun. Let's use as an example this picture taken in backlight. As one can see, the entire part of the subject in the shadow, the cabin, is much darker than the sand underneath. The reason is simple. The sand gets hit directly by the sunlight, while the cabin is lit only by the reflection of the sand, plus the diffusion caused by the atmosphere.
Obviously, the light reflected from the ground is always only a fraction of the light it receives, which is called incident light. For this reason, it is absolutely impossible to balance incident light and reflective light in backlight photography. Photography. The ground illuminated directly by the sun will always be brighter than the subject in the shadow. One of the techniques used by professional photographers to get around this problem is to use a highly reflective portable panel.
Let's look at this example. Here, the photographer is shooting the model in backlight. As one can see, the subject in the shadow is much darker than the ground lit by the sun. But if the photographer adds a reflecting panel which bounces the sun rays back onto the model, then he can get a good balance between the illuminated background and the face in the shadow. The difference is obvious.
While the luminosity of the background is unchanged, now the luminosity of the face is balanced with the one of the ground. Here is another example. The sunlight which comes from behind is bounced off this reflecting panel and goes to hit the model who is in the shadow. In this way, the luminosity of the model is perfectly balanced with the one of the background. Another technique used to balance the background light on the subject in the shadow is the use of a portable flashlight.
This secondary source will illuminate the part of the subject in the shadow. In this example, we can see on the left a picture with only available light, while on the right, an additional flashlight is used. The difference is clear. On the left, you have no balance between light and shadow. On the right, you do.
But without these additional sources, it is absolutely impossible to balance the light hitting the ground and the one reflected onto the shadows in backlight photography. On the moon, however, something miraculous seems to have happened. Despite the fact that the astronauts did not have any portable reflectors nor additional lights, there is a whole series of photographs taken in back light in which the entire shadow area of the LEM appears perfectly illuminated. As we can see, the luminosity of the astronaut in the shadow is practically the same as that of the terrain in the background, which is hit directly by sunlight. Not only would this be impossible on Earth without the use of reflecting panels, but it is even more inexplicable on the moon where you don't even have the atmosphere as a secondary source of refraction.
In other words, while on Earth, we have both the ground and the atmosphere reflecting light onto the shadow part of the subject, on the moon, we only have the ground to do so because the sky is completely black. And the lunar surface is known to have a very low reflectivity as it can only reflect back about 8% of the light it receives. In fact, in this 1964 document, NASA wrote, there is one characteristic associated with the near vacuum on the lunar surface, which may be extremely important to photography. There will be virtually no diffusion of light. Since the lunar surface itself is a poor reflector, the subject material for photography will be either in full light or in full and complete shadows.
In other words, according to NASA itself, the shadow area of the LAM should have looked more or less like this. We have such an abundance of luminosity instead that even in the shadow area, we can clearly see all the smallest details. In this photo composition created by NASA by joining several pictures, we can see clearly how the sun is on the opposite side of the LEM. This being the only source of light, one wonders what could have lit the shadow area of the LEM so effectively. Despite not being professional photographers, some debunkers insist that the mere reflection of the sand would have been sufficient to illuminate the shadow area of the lens.
Speaker 20: Conspiracy theorists are saying that the shot had to have been faked using a fill light. Personally, I think it's because the moon's surface is reflective.
Speaker 0: To prove their point, the Mythbusters conducted a small scale experiment in which they tried to reproduce the pictures from the Apollo missions.
Speaker 19: Alright. You ready? I'm set. Alright. Here we go.
Taking the photo. Let's see. There it is.
Speaker 20: Oh, there you go. He's standing full on in the shadow, and you'd think you wouldn't be able to see him. He'd be dark, but he's not. He's bright as day.
Speaker 19: With a single light source with the surface of the same reflectivity as the moon, our astronaut is clearly visible, busting that myth.
Speaker 0: But the Mythbusters have made a gross mistake again. After removing every possible source of reflection by using black paper all around the set, they forgot to remove the one of the two who was wearing a bright white shirt. Obviously, this white shirt acts as a large reflector towards the dark area of the limb. The same experiment replicated by two Russian photographers shows how important is the presence of a white garment reflecting light onto the astronaut. In any case, the problem is not simply to be able to see the astronaut in the shadows.
As every photographer knows, all you need to do to see in the shadow is to open up the iris in your lens. The problem here was to balance the luminosity of the shadow area with the one of the ground illuminated directly by the light source. And if we look more closely at the results, we will see that the Mythbusters were not able to balance the luminosity of the background with the one of the astronaut anyway. As one can see from the direct comparison, the sand illuminated by the sun is darker in the NASA picture and is lighter in the Mythbusters one, while the astronaut is lighter in the NASA picture and darker in the one from the Mythbusters. In other words, there is a much larger difference between light and shadow in the Mythbusters picture than in the NASA picture.
Also, from this image from their own set, one can clearly see how the astronaut in the shadow is definitely darker than the terrain illuminated directly by the light source. It's a much different result from what we see in the Apollo pictures. Thus, the Mythbusters again have proven the exact opposite of what they intended to prove. That without additional lights, it's not possible to balance the area in the shadow with the area hit directly by the light source, not even using their white shirt as an additional reflector. In any case, the idea that the sand is sufficient to illuminate the shadow area of the land can be easily refuted by using the same NASA pictures.
All we need to do is to look at other pictures taken with the same source of light, what supposedly is the sun, to realize that the shadow area in these pictures is practically pitch black. If the lunar sand truly had these magical reflecting powers, this part of the rock should more or less have the same luminosity as the terrain in the background. These panels should be almost as visible as the illuminated sand, and this shadow area of the rover would be clearly lit as well. Instead, everything that is not directly illuminated by the sun appears as a deep black shadow. This proves that the sand is not sufficient to brighten up the shadow areas by itself.
For this same reason, we can also discard the idea that it was the earth to illuminate the shadow area of the lamp. If the earth shine were truly that powerful, all the other shadow areas of the lunar terrain should be illuminated as well. But this is not the case. There is therefore no valid explanation for the practically identical illumination of the area hit directly by the sun and the shadow area of the lamp. In fact, the professional photographers we interviewed believe that in order to achieve such results, large reflecting panels or additional lights placed on the side of the photographer are needed.
Speaker 40: The main problem here is backlight. On the moon, you have no sky behind you to refract the light and you only have the sand. They did not have any artificial illumination. They do not have any reflectors or any flashes. Just a camera, which was Hasselblad with the 60 millimeters and the Ektachrome from the good old days.
Speaker 23: I was I was feeling, if this is happening, where is this coming from? And if if I was already thinking when I saw the first picture that that
Speaker 40: Yeah. That
Speaker 23: you step
Speaker 40: down skip up.
Speaker 23: If you step down in the light like this, you will never have that reflection like this even if it comes from here.
Speaker 40: Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 23: Now, it's totally a strange light.
Speaker 40: Here too, we have you can see they have almost the same luminosity in the front and the back. Now my experience tells me you have at least two stops difference when you turn around in backlight, and that's when you have the atmosphere.
Speaker 23: Yeah. But that is totally lit with the reflector. You
Speaker 40: tell me. That's that's the whole that's the whole discussion.
Speaker 23: I would say that is totally I I I don't wanna I don't wanna get into it's fake or or or the moment landing was fake, but these pictures are fake. That is I think, I would say a 100% sure. Okay. Because because all this cannot exist that way. So if you ask me as a photographer Yes.
Speaker 40: I am.
Speaker 23: I have to say this cannot be on any move or something with one single light. Sun that light is totally if you see that, I mean, that's a movie light. No? Because you have the source here that should be all black. If it will not be black, then this would be burned out, burned out, burned out.
Then you get some texture here. But like this is absolutely impossible. Absolutely impossible. Oh, what happened there?
Speaker 40: That's supposed to be the sun. Does that look like the sun to you?
Speaker 23: If this is the sun and the only light and this is how whatever reflects, which is ridiculous because there can nothing can reflect this, then this would be so burned out and bleached out not to get any structure here. Yeah. That's my
Speaker 40: Same as the others. I've said the same thing.
Speaker 23: That would be unbelievable. If this is the sun, there must have to be here because that would be just black. So what is it? Yeah. Yeah.
This is impossible without reflectors. It's really impossible without reflectors. Okay.
Speaker 0: With this comment, Torenbert well summarizes the professional's opinion. And maybe it's not a coincidence that on the set of the IMAX film, large reflecting panels were used right behind the lamp in order to replicate the NASA pictures. A source of light placed behind the LUNAR module and large reflecting panels used to bounce the light onto the dark area of the LEM. By using this technique, the luminosity in the shadow area is perfectly balanced with the one of the terrain illuminated directly by the source, exactly like in the Apollo pictures. In 02/2014, the NVIDIA software company created a computer simulation, thanks to which they believed to have identified the source of light that could have brightened the shadow area of the limb.
In their opinion, it was the photographer's white suit, Neil Armstrong himself.
Speaker 24: There is a huge glowing bright white light. And as we analyze that video a little more, we realized it's Neil Armstrong himself. The bright white space suit that he was wearing reflected all that sunlight off of him and back onto Buzz Aldrin. So essentially, Neil Armstrong himself was a light source in that scene.
Speaker 0: But the professional photographers explain how the white suit could at best partially brighten up the companion's figure. But it's too small and too far away to be able to illuminate the entire shadow area of the lamp. In order to conclusively discard this hypothesis, all one has to do is to look at the television images from the very Apollo missions. Here, for example, there is an astronaut hit by sunlight who is moving right outside the edge of the frame. We can see how the reflection from his white suit partially brightens the underside of the rover, but does absolutely nothing to the lens in the shadow, which is much larger and far away.
Here, the same astronaut enters the field of view from the right. And, the light he reflects goes to partially brighten the underside of the rover, but it has no effect whatsoever on the darkened mass of the lunar module. And finally, there is another detail suggesting the use of a secondary source of light, either a reflecting panel or a small flashlight. And it's this shiny glare repeatedly appearing on the heels of the astronauts' boots.
Speaker 23: The same here. And it's true. You see them in the in the shoes. You see them reflected.
Speaker 40: You do? Can you show me again?
Speaker 23: Yeah. Yeah. Toss where does this light come from? What's in the in the shoes, you have that that shine. This here's the shoes.
See, that's the shoes you're gonna see.
Speaker 14: Right.
Speaker 23: That's yeah.
Speaker 40: Could that be a flashlight?
Speaker 23: A flashlight or reflector or anything. No? Yeah.
Speaker 0: Given NASA's statement that since the lunar surface itself is a poor reflector, the subject material for photography will be either in full light or in full and complete shadows, can you explain why the side of the LEM in the shadow is brightly illuminated instead? As we have just shown, the reflection from the sand is not sufficient to brighten up the parts in the shadow of the lunar landscape, and the astronaut suit is too small and too far away to brighten up the dark side of the LEM. Can you then explain what source of light has managed to illuminate so clearly the dark side of the lunar module? Given that the lunar soil reflects only 8% of the light it receives, how is it possible that the shadow area of the LEM which is lit only by reflected light has a similar luminosity to the terrain hit directly by the Sun? Given that not even the myth busters with their experiment have managed to balance the reflected light with the one hitting the terrain, can you explain how that could have happened with several of the Apollo pictures?
Given that the professional photographers we interviewed have stated that these pictures would not have been possible without the aid of reflecting panels and additional lighting, can you explain how they could have been taken by the astronauts on the moon who didn't have any reflecting panels nor additional lighting. Faced with this apparent falsification of the lunar pictures, several people have suggested an extreme didn't possibility that man did go to the the moon, but the pictures were later reshot here on Earth because for some reason, they had not turned out properly the first time around. But this is not possible for at least two reasons. First of all, the use of studio lighting is evident in all the different missions from Apollo eleven to Apollo seventeen. One would have to explain what exactly the photographic problem was that would have forced NASA to reshoot all these pictures in a studio for six missions out of six.
Secondly, anyone can verify how the photographs and the television pictures match each other perfectly in that every single detail present in the television pictures is also present in the photographs. This means that both the pictures and the television images were shot at the same time and in the same place. In other words, the set is the same for the pictures and for the TV images. And since the television images have always been broadcast live, this means that also the photographs must have been taken at the same time and not later. Or possibly before if the television scenes were prerecorded in a studio, but certainly not after the date of the live broadcast.
At this point, we are left with only one consideration to make. If it's true, like all this evidence seems to suggest, that someone at NASA decided to fake the lunar landings, they would have certainly needed to convince the astronauts to play their role all the way through to the end. It could not have been possible to fake the lunar landings without their full cooperation. And astronauts are some exceptional people, courageous and motivated by a deep sense of pride which comes from constantly putting their lives at risk in order to advance the progress of science. It must have not been easy for them to participate in such a fraud just to satisfy the need of The United States to affirm their leadership in front of the entire world.
Let's then take a closer look at the story of the three most famous astronauts of all, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, the historical crew of Apollo eleven. On 07/24/1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins triumphantly return from the most important mission ever accomplished in human history. They have just been on the moon. They are the first human beings to have ever visited another celestial body and to have safely returned from it. On the recovery ship, they are welcomed by president Nixon in person.
After a brief exchange in front of the cameras, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins are placed in quarantine for a few weeks of isolation. Then on September 16, they appear for a press conference in front of the global members of the press who welcome them with a standing ovation. Everyone expects to see three absolute heroes radiating with happiness and pride for their incredible achievement, But their faces appear somber, tense, somehow preoccupied instead. They seem uncomfortable, and there are several truly embarrassing moments during the event. When the three astronauts are asked the meaning of a mission that has brought mankind on another celestial body for the first time, the three don't seem too eager nor too enthusiastic about answering the question.
Speaker 23: Many of us and many other people in many places have speculated on the meaning of this first landing on another body in space. Would each of you give us your estimate of what is the meaning of this to all of us?
Speaker 0: And when Armstrong describes their achievement as the beginning of a new era, he seems more like a person forced to read from a script than someone actually convinced of his own words.
Speaker 41: The entire program, it's a beginning of a new age.
Speaker 0: Possibly the most embarrassing moment of all comes when the famous astronomer and journalist Sir Patrick Moore asks the astronauts whether they could see stars from the moon.
Speaker 19: When you looked up at the sky, could you actually see the stars in the solar corona in spite of the glare?
Speaker 0: But not one of them surprisingly remembers having seen a single star by the naked eye.
Speaker 41: We were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the moon by eye without looking through the optics.
Speaker 0: Even Collins, who was left orbiting the moon while the other two descended on the surface, does not remember seeing a single star.
Speaker 41: I don't remember seeing any.
Speaker 0: This is a truly disconcerting fact given that their colleagues from the Gemini missions who flew in space a few years before them recall the long hours spent looking at the stars.
Speaker 10: We'd spend several hours just with our faces pressed up against the window at night with all the lights turned down low and watching the stars.
Speaker 0: Also, the astronauts from the shuttle missions, like for example James Riley, recall seeing literally millions of stars in outer space.
Speaker 41: What are the stars like in space? Like, they just brighter than on Earth? Or how how would you describe it? The they're brighter, but they're different. And a lot of things different about it.
One, you don't have the atmospheric distortion, so they don't twinkle right. So you see lots of points, and you see lots of points in that literally millions of them.
Speaker 0: One wonders where the Apollo eleven astronauts have truly been in the crucial eight days of their mission given that they don't remember seeing a single star by naked eye. Another surprising fact is that instead of pursuing a successful career within NASA after their triumphant mission, the three astronauts suddenly decided to leave the space agency. A little over a year after their mission, with the Apollo program still in full swing, all three astronauts resigned from NASA. Armstrong literally disappears from the scene, moves to the country, decides not to give any more interviews, and shuns the public eye. And when NASA celebrates the completion of the Apollo program, which has carried 12 men to the moon in the course of three years, the most important of all, Neil Armstrong refuses to take part in the ceremony.
Buzz Aldrin also falls into a deep state of depression, which leads him towards the abuse of drugs and alcohol. I thrived on addictive substances, alcoholism, and clearly that began to predominate in my unstructured life. In 1973, he appears in a photo in Paris Match, definitely changed in his physical aspect. To the French magazine, Aldrin declares, they think of us as heroes, but the moon has destroyed us. In a 1994 interview, Aldrin is asked to give some advice to the young people who want to become astronauts in the future.
But instead of encouraging them and inspiring them with enthusiasm, he warns them against possible disappointments.
Speaker 42: Space and its frontier certainly are new and challenging. And because they're new and challenging, they're also uncertain. And I think anyone aspiring that as a career field has to be equipped with a lot of patience and the ability to cope with things not turning out exactly the way they may perceive that they would ahead of time.
Speaker 0: Why would a man who has just accomplished the most important mission in the history of mankind warn young people against the risk of disappointments and failures.
Speaker 33: Ladies and gentlemen, Neil Armstrong.
Speaker 0: Armstrong sometimes reappears in public, but it's definitely not to sing a praise for NASA. In a ceremony hosted by Bill Clinton in 1994, Armstrong makes an ambiguous and mysterious statement. While talking to a group of students, he mentions some of truth's protective layers that young people should try to remove in order to go on.
Speaker 41: We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers.
Speaker 0: Later on, Armstrong stuns reporters again when he refuses to take part in the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo mission. In 02/2004, filmmaker Bart Sebrell produces a documentary called Astronauts Gone Wild, in which he interviews the astronauts from the Apollo missions and asks them to swear on the Bible that they really have been on the moon. We must keep in mind that in The United States, a sworn testimony filmed on camera can be used in a court against the person who has made that testimony. And in The United States, perjury is a crime that can even end you up in jail. We don't know if this is the actual reason, but it's interesting to notice that once Neil Armstrong realizes he is being filmed by Cibrelle's camera, he refuses to swear on the Bible.
Speaker 30: I wanted to give you the opportunity to swear on the Bible that you walked on the moon. Will you put your left hand on the Bible and swear to God that you walked on the moon?
Speaker 5: Gentlemen, Mr. Cybro.
Speaker 30: Yes? If you really walked on the moon, why would you not do that? So why don't you just put the
Speaker 0: Even after Sibrelle offers him $5,000 in cash to be given to charity, Armstrong still refuses to swear.
Speaker 30: Yeah, dollars 5,000 cash. You can give it to charity if you'd swear on the bible that you walked on the moon.
Speaker 35: Please, be charity.
Speaker 0: It'd be fine.
Speaker 30: Why don't you swear to why not? Why won't you do it?
Speaker 0: Buzz Aldrin also refuses to swear.
Speaker 30: Why don't you swear on the bible that you walked on the moon? Please. Why don't you swear on the Bible that you walked on the moon? Why don't you swear on the Bible that you walked on the moon?
Speaker 0: Sibrelle keeps insisting and even insults Aldrin until the former astronaut hits him with a punch. But at the end of the day, just like Armstrong did, Aldrin also refused to swear. Michael Collins too, the third Apollo astronaut refuses to swear and actually runs from Sibrelle as if he had seen the devil.
Speaker 30: Well, asking you to swear in the Bible that you orbited the moon.
Speaker 14: Would you please go away?
Speaker 30: Well, if you really orbited the moon, why won't you swear in the Bible that you did so? I just don't understand why if you orbited the moon, you wouldn't have a problem about swearing the Bible on it.
Speaker 0: Sibrelle certainly doesn't have a pleasant approach, but if someone has really been on the moon, why not swear anyway? All you would have needed to do to get rid of the nuisance would have been to stretch your hand out and swear on the Bible. On top, Armstrong could have given $5,000 in charity by simply performing that act. But none of the three astronauts wanted to do it. Why?
Speaker 14: Okay, Gus. That's enough. Take it away. All right. Here we go now.
Hold it. One smile. That's fine. Hold it. Steady.
Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Where's the moon? Hey, Sully. Okay, boss.
Come on, make it snappy. Get in there and steady it. How's that? Okay. All right, here we go again now.
Steady, hold it. Come on, Betty, come on. Give me a smile. That's right. Hold it.
Hold it. Okay. Wrap it up.
@AntiDisinfo86 - Shane St Pierre
@gregreese Yikes. Now we see how crucial and damaging that q post was “Israel will be last” Or some shit Just means sit back while we use Israel to destroy the world. Don’t worry trumps got this 5d chess We are fucked
@AntiDisinfo86 - Shane St Pierre
Black sun anyone ? https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLKY82UU/ https://t.co/IcZwzCCitL
Video Transcript AI Summary
Below the Earth's surface lies the black sun, responsible for creating the sun, moon, and polar lights. The black sun's coil-like motion generates an electromagnetic field, with the North Pole as its center. Polaris, the pole star, sits atop the firmament. The black sun's electromagnetic field creates stars as reflections of Earth's energy spots. Refraction from Polaris separates cosmic energy into positive (sun) and negative (moon) polarities. When the sun and moon are in the same constellation, there is a new moon. When opposite, a full moon occurs. The black sun's varying motion affects the proximity of the sun and moon, influencing their visibility.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: K. Below the surface of the realm of Earth, there is the black sun underneath that is the source, and then that is what is responsible for the creation of the sun and moon. It's always rotating around the earth at all times, and the polar lights are from the black sun below as well. It comes from the big hole at the magnetic north. It's called Hyperborea.
That's actually at the North Pole. There's 4 continents called Hyperborea. The black sun is moving in a coil like motion that is creating an electromagnetic field with and centrifugal like directions from below to above. As above, so below. As within, so without.
Its motion center is the magnetic north, the center of the earth. The north pole star is called Polaris. Okay? Polaris is the pole star. It's the very center just up on the top of the firmament since the beginning of creation.
Okay? And it's up from the magnetic north from the center of the earth. On the top of the ceiling of our tardoidal field of our firmament, the black sun's electromagnetic field creates the stars as reflections of the great depths and the energy spots of the earth. Okay? So, like, the stars are like holes in the firmament.
Okay. Now the black sun you see here, it's always rotating and also the diameter of the black sun's motion is always changing. It's always oscillating in and outward. Okay. This is a fact that makes the electromagnetic field a mechanical dynamic that goes in and out.
It's a fluctuating to our hyperbola. We have to understand how light works. Okay? Everything comes from the center. Right?
That is the pure dielectric light, the pure white light right here. That's actually invisible. We can't see that. Okay. And then it hits the firm.
It hits the prism, the top of the dome, and then it gets refract it out. And then we see the electromagnetic spectrum, which creates the sun and the moon and everything else. Okay. So at the top of our toroidal hyperbola, where Polaris is fixed, okay, there is a reverse direction refraction of the cosmic energy that comes from the black sun down below that is always circulating and always oscillating at all times. This refraction separates the cosmic energy to the positive side, the the cathode.
It creates the sun. And then to the negative side, the anode, which creates the moon, the negative and positive polarity. Okay. These are the refracted energies that are focused and then reflected from Polaris as it comes down. Notice the symbol here.
Notice the symbol. That's where they get their symbol from. That's all that it is. This is where it comes from. The sun and the moon.
The male and the female energy. Okay. So the sun is the positive polarity, and the moon is the negative polarity. The positive refraction of the cosmic energy works like a limit to the negative refraction when both of these refractions are close to each other. Because of this, we have the phases of the moon.
That's why there is a relationship between the constellation difference between the sun and the moon, and the moon's phases. Okay. Pay attention because this is important here at this part. When the conical shape refraction that creates the sun is in the same constellation as the constellation as the refraction that creates the moon. The first one neutralizes the second.
And in this case, we have a new moon. So, basically, what's that saying is when the sun is in the same constellation as the moon, they're both together, so you don't see the moon because the sun neutralizes the other because it overtakes and overpowers the light that the moon gives off because the sun is the light of the world. Okay. But on the other end, when both of these refractions are opposite of each other and when both of the sun and moon are in harmony with each other as they're circulating around the earth, when that happens, there is no neutralization of the moon's conical refraction from the sun's energy. So in so in this case, we have the full moon.
Duh. Because they're both opposite of each other. The sun is farthest away from the moon, and they're circling around the earth. So you can see the moon the full moon in all of its glory, in all of its wonder and its beautiful light. You can see the full moon.
Okay? So as the sun's refraction gets closer again, it starts catching back up to the moon, and then it starts going back into the crescent. And we start having the the down phases, and the moon starts waning down, and it starts getting closer to another new moon. It's all about the black sun in the center of vortex and its angles. When the angle of incidence of the black sun is bigger, the sun and moon are very close.
When they are in the same constellation, that's what gives us the new moon. So in this case, when the conical refraction of the sun is bigger, it neutralizes and takes away the light from the moon. K. The black sun is spinning. It's farthest away.
It's farthest circle, and then the the sun and the moon are its closest. But then this black sun starts getting doing smaller circles, and then the sun and moon are harming together, and they're farther away from each other. When the angle of incidence is at its smallest, we have the full moon, and we can see the light of the moon. And in that case, the 2 refractions are opposite and they do not affect each other. And so the sun and the moon are both visible.
And then soon after that, the cycle goes back and continues. This black sun starts doing bigger circles, and the sun and moon start getting closer and closer together. As above, so below. As above so below. You gotta understand as above so below.
@AntiDisinfo86 - Shane St Pierre
Impossible Day on a globe.... remember this? 🤣 https://t.co/Vp8cHprjKn
Video Transcript AI Summary
The speaker points out that in a video by the Weather Channel, it is shown that sunlight covers 60 to 70% of the globe, which contradicts the heliocentric model where sunlight can only cover up to 50% of the globe. They suggest that this is only possible on a flat Earth model, where a small and local sun circulates over the flat Earth. They use a map from the Weather Channel to demonstrate this.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Only found one video and that was also made by the weather channel, trying to demonstrate this event on the globe. And as we can see here, the light of the sun clearly covers 60 to 70% of the globe. So we have 60 to 70% of the globe wrapped in sunlight. That's impossible on the heliocentric model. Sunlight cannot cover more than 50% of the globe, but as you see on this simulation by the weather channel, To be possible for the sunlight to cover all those regions on earth, it's necessary that the sunlight covers between 60 to 70 percent of the globe.
Only on the flat Earth model, even this map By weather channel, I convert it into a flat Earth map and you can see here, it's better explained with a small and local sun Circulating over the flat earth, we can see how this is possible for a day like July 8th.