Did We Land On The Moon? Did we land on the moon?

[s243a 0]

They used to goto space in rockets that were useless after one trip. Now they are using shuttles which can be reused many times.

It is actually more expensive in terms of mass to LEO to fly the shuttle then it is to fly many expendable vehicles. This is due to the large amount of labor that needs to be used to prepare the shuttle for each flight. The shuttle is also not fully reusable because it drops its external tank and solid rocket boosters. It is expensive to recover and refurbish the tank. A true reusable lauch vehicle shold be single stage to orbit. It will probably be partly based on hypersonic air breathing technology (scram jet, falcon).

Have you heard of the X-Prize?

The x prize helped to spur more private investment in aero space technology. However Burt Ruttens space ship one is only a suborbital vehicle. Not only can it not reach orbit but it cannot survive reentry. I would love to take a ride in it but it is only a baby step towards a non government funded space program.

The computers on the old space vehicles are now so far out of date they belong in a museum. Computers are 1000's of times smaller and faster able to control much more of the space craft.
I'll admit, we are still using rockets to get off the earth. That hasn't changed much but everything else about the space craft has. Better materials, better computers, better tools.

I agree that the computers have gotten better but what does this mean in terms of rockets? It means better control systems. As a consequence longer rockets could be built. However, this does not mean much in terms of performance since the performance of a rocket depends on the mass ratio and the specific impulse.

[no9t9 0]

It is actually more expensive in terms of mass to LEO to fly the shuttle then it is to fly many expendable vehicles.

I am not talking cost. I am talking about improvement in technology in the last 35 years.

 

The x prize helped to spur more private investment in aero space technology.

Same as above. I am only mentioning improvements in technology over the last 35 years. Going into space for non-government organizations was unheard of 35 years ago. Yes it is suborbital, but I don't believe it will be much harder to get into outer space.

 

performance of a rocket depends on the mass ratio and the specific impulse.

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rather than talk about performance of a rocket, it is better to talk in terms of efficiency. Efficiency takes the mass out of the equation which is a variable that is never constant anyway.

 

But, I have no idea what the efficiency of todays rockets are compared to 35 years ago. It's like cars, the fundamentals of the technology hasn't changed. But, they have become more efficient with incremental improvements.

[yomi 0]

I also wondered why the flag flaping in the moon.sometime I think it is America government to treat USSR.

[FiReStOrM 0]

thats a bit an awkward topic i must say lol

[jjhou 0]

If you would have watched it you would realize that the landing on the moon was a giant hoax. You can see in the movie objects castings shadows in 2 different parts. Is there anyone here who is able to explain that?NASA. There was someone on the documentary representing NASA. He just sad that they landed on the moon. He never sad anything like..guys, objects cast shadows in different parts because... He just sad no not true.

[Dawid 0]

I know that there is a lot of ideas and pieces of evidence floating around saying that the moon landing did never infact occur at all. Although these bits of evidence and stuff does make me think for a little while I still like to think that we definately did land on the moon. The world changed drastically after the moon landing and it was one of the most influencial television events in history as most of the world watched "live" as Neil Armstrong too his first steps and misread his line(that's right, he was meant to say "one small step for A man" not just "one small step for man" but the next sentance was one which is too prolific for me to dismiss the moon landing as a conspiracy "one giant leap for mankind"- That's just amazing, I would've loved to have been watching that when it happend, it must have truley been so inspiring.

[whyme 0]

This is all really sensitive stuff, so we can not turly prove which isde is right, or which side is wrong, untill we make space travel avabile to the public.

[CodeName_88 0]

Evidence circulating that we didn't land on the moon? Could you specidy some piece of evidence? And yes, the landing was influential. I heard from three or two days that they discovered a planet which is two hundred light years away from Earth, and that it is larger than Jupiter, and its moon is larger than the Earth. I dunno if we could ever reach that planet, it would be WAY cool to do it. What type of shuttle or spaceship would they use? How much time would they need to reach there? Is there any life on it? You take the brainstorming

[Danieluchis 0]

This is all really sensitive stuff, so we can not turly prove which isde is right, or which side is wrong, untill we make space travel avabile to the public.

i think they're already available, didn't you hear that old new of Lance of N'sync going to space or something like that, anyways i once read an articles about this topic, and they got this picture of Neil Armstrong (err... sorry if i type if wrong) with the USA flag, and they were arguing that the lights didn't match the trayectory of the sun and how whas the flag moving if it supposed that in space there's no air (in my opinion i think the cosmonaut just move it a little) and those stuff, anyways a very interesting topic here

[sonyguy 0]

I've seen millions of documentary programs and newspaper articles about this conspiracy of landing on the moon, personally, I don't think we did land on the moon, the evidence is right there to show this! There are photos of of the flag waving in the wind and I think that the Americans were so desperate to get to the moon before the russians, they faked it + fooled the world. In interviews with Buzz Aldrin he hates talking about what was supposed to be landing on the moon, could it be because they didn't actually land there? Around 160,000 pictures were taken during the mission, but only a handful are available to the public.

[elevenmil 0]

Come on people, we landed on the moon. I hate these arguments that people make, but the initial evidence presented makes it valid I guess. To me, space has zero gravity. When you put up a flag at zero gravity, any motion that flag gained by its initial movement would remain constant, thus the flag would wave in space. I don't know if that is scientifically substantial validity, but that's my view...

[Wyllt 0]

Ok, this is just plain silly.All of these arguments are ancient and pointless."Waving Flag"There are a multitude of possiblilites to explain this, and they have been covered in this thread over and over again. Suffice it to say, there is a reason why it APPEARS to be waving in the non existant wind."No dust on the lander"Again, this has been covered, but I will repeat it, dust takes a very long time to settle, and a picture would not necessarily show dust, no matter how clear it was."Second Light Source"Again, it has been covered, but again it bears repeating, EARTHSHINE!!! The earth IS a light source."Van Allen belt radiation"There are several methods through the Van Allen belt wich minimizes radiation, it is easy enough to avoid the heaviest areas of the radiation belt, and this is exactly what the appolo missions did. Also it DOES NOT require 2m of lead shielding to protect against said radiation. This is an urban legend that is completely false, the fact is 2m of shielding would probably protect you from a nuclear blast, and do you really believe that the van allen belt is putting out THAT much radiation? The Radiation in the Van Allen belt is not the same as electomagnetic radiation, and if I recall correctly metal is fairly useless against particle radiation, the shielding of choice is I belive polyetheline (sp?), back in the appolo age they used something else, but there are numerous materials that work just fine and dandy.I have seen a similar documentary, and it is compelling, but the arguments are made by people who don't have a basic understanding of physics, and NASA doesn't bother refuting them because they are silly arguments. That are not fully researched.There I believe that I have refuted all the evidence agains the lunar landing. If people still choose to believe something they saw on a deliberately biased documentary I refer them to Chariots of the Gods. Or if that reference was a little vague let me relate a little story my Grade 11 physics teacher told us about analysing data to "prove" something. One of his students (or so he claimed, personally I believe it was probably him) proved conclusively that three hole punched lined paper was a message from Alpha Centauri. His argument was extremely interesting, but of no real value, in his paper he demonstrated that by taking the length of the paper and multiplying it by the number of lines, and then doing something about the radius of the holes you end up with pretty damn close to the exact distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Very interesting little paper, I read it, quite amusing and throughly convincing, however you then had to realize all the crunching he had to do to fit the theory. When you start out with a theory you are already convinced is true it is pretty easy to skew the evidence in your favour.

[allabout42 0]

1. American flag flaping on the moon which everybody knows has no atmosfere.

2. Photos made by the astronauts in (NASA says) different locations seem identical.

3. Shadows in the same photos suggest 2 different light sources, but on the moon the sun is the

only light source.

4. No dust present on the moon lander.

5. If you double the speed of the tape with the astronauts walking on the moon, you will see

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Wow I never thought about this. It kinda does make you wonder though....

[bjrn 0]

I can't believe no one has posted this quote yet (it's from a comment to a story on Slashdot). I don't have much to add to the discussion here in itself, but I just thought that this quote had to be posted, it's just priceless

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

[Munchie 0]

If we havent actually landed on the moon yet, how do we know there should of been dust on the moon lander? :(but yeh statement 3 "Shadows in the same photos suggest 2 different light sources, but on the moon the sun is the only light source." seems a really good point ~ Munchie ~