230

Is there any concrete, solid proof of this space odyssey?

Is there a way that I personally have a look a it? Let's say, with a nice telescope ?

Sklivvz
  • 78,578
  • 29
  • 321
  • 428
Rabskatran
  • 4,443
  • 6
  • 21
  • 22
  • 180
    Anytime anyone requests "irrefutable" proof of anything, it's always helpful to first ask, "what do ***you*** consider rock-solid proof?" Until that baseline is first established, their query will never be satisfactorily answered. (Of course, their baseline might be unreasonable, but then the discussion can turn to what we all consider sufficient proof of something to believe in its veracity.) So, Rabskatran, other than going there yourself, what would you consider to be rock-solid proof of the moon landing? –  Mar 22 '11 at 16:02
  • 5
    @Rabskatan All the irrefutable proof I've needed: **[My father told me it happened](http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmayhew/5317840322/)** <- clicky,clicky. See answer by @Sklivvz for more details :) – Rusty Mar 22 '11 at 16:37
  • 9
    @Avi: Even if I go there myself, those NASA bastards could actually be tricking me to go into a special vacuum tank that makes me feel like I'm in the moon right? What's the proof that the place I go to was the real Moon, not that special tank? What's the proof that I were actually on the Moon, not a specially prepared Movie set in Nevada desert? – Lie Ryan Mar 22 '11 at 16:38
  • 46
    Is there any concrete-solid proofs that north pole exists? Or of a creature like platypus actually existing? Or of anything? If yes, then there's indeed concrete-solid proofs of the space mission. If no, then *-- the rest of this message has been deleted by The Order.* – Ilari Kajaste Mar 22 '11 at 17:59
  • 2
    Phil Plait, the "Bad Astronomer" has de-bunked most of the claims of the moon hoax believers. So in addition to all the evidence we have of man walking on the moon, we also have rational, scientific explanations for why all the 'evidence' proving it was faked is garbage. In addition, wouldn't the Soviets have cried foul if we hadn't actually gone? – fred Mar 22 '11 at 19:27
  • 9
    @fred I was just thinking the same thing. The USSR would have killed puppies for any mildly credible evidence that the whole thing was a hoax. Puppies I tell ya'. – Rusty Mar 22 '11 at 19:50
  • 46
    No, no proof at all. No man really walked on the Moon. Not because of the NASA bastards but because there is no America. It's a hoax by the Spaniard bastards and Columbus. – ypercubeᵀᴹ Mar 22 '11 at 21:59
  • Viewing this documentary may help: **[What happened on the moon ?](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wlsp_what-happened-on-the-moon-1_tech)** – Maxime Pacary Mar 22 '11 at 22:52
  • 2
    @Sejanus : If you want I can ask "Has Michael Jackson really died?". – Rabskatran Mar 25 '11 at 13:22
  • 4
    "Has X really died" could be a category (tag) on its own. From Adolf Hitler to Andy Kaufman, no one really died, just pretended... –  Mar 26 '11 at 10:36
  • 1
    [What speed does an object need to escape from earth? Has any object ever achieved this speed?](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/8057/what-speed-does-an-object-need-to-escape-from-earth-has-any-object-ever-achieved) – Tamara Wijsman Apr 05 '11 at 01:26
  • I have no doubt it happened, but can't prove it without a giant telescope or a personal spacecraft. At the risk of going meta, here is a list of arguments against some of the hoax-based arguments, form Phil Plait's blog: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html – puppybeard Apr 07 '11 at 09:21
  • 52
    If we faked landing men on the moon so many years ago, we would have faked landing men on Mars by now. – JD Isaacks Apr 08 '11 at 19:03
  • 2
    I think a much more controversial question is "Did US really landed on the moon in 1969?" – Jader Dias Apr 11 '11 at 20:29
  • You might be interested in http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3800117/New-pics-nail-man-on-Moon-doubters.html – JoseK Sep 07 '11 at 10:21
  • 2
    "We've been to the 'moon' nine times. Why did we fake it nine times? If we faked it." Quote from amazing **In the Shadow of the Moon** 2007 movie. – Tomas Voracek May 15 '11 at 22:03
  • 32
    Nobody walked on the moon. They bounced. – Mike Dunlavey Nov 30 '11 at 22:01
  • 4
    Here's a completely non-technical argument, which I like very much because it is easily understood by the, uhm, skeptical-but-on-the-wrong-side-of-this-argument. **Somebody would have squealed on Wikileaks by now.** That's the "no deathbed confessions" argument with a new twist. – Jens May 08 '12 at 14:53
  • @Rusty: Indeed there is no moon. See http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm (and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTKedyQQkZQ) – ShreevatsaR Jun 22 '12 at 14:40
  • 2
    @Rabskatran We were all playing a prank on you :) There was no landing on the moon. Guys, you can come out now, I told him. – oxygen Nov 05 '12 at 00:16
  • @Jens Wikileaks is in on it too. – oxygen Nov 05 '12 at 00:18
  • 2
    @Tiberiu-IonuțStan Man, it must have been hard getting Wikileaks to keep quiet about it. They can't keep a secret for crap. – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Jun 20 '14 at 17:58
  • See this [NVidia experiment](http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/11/11/maxwell-apollo-demo/). It is not proof of the landing, but it debunks one of the conspiracy theorists' claim which states that the lighting in the photos is incorrect. – Hello World Dec 29 '14 at 18:55
  • 2
    @Rusty Do not try and land on the moon. That's impossible. Instead ... only try to realize the truth. – Andrew Grimm Jan 29 '15 at 01:52
  • @FrostyZ That "documentary" isn't very good. Consider one simple claim: the edge of the window would be out of focus. The shot was f/22--that gives you a huge depth of field. If there's some distance between the camera and the window it's going to be sharp enough. – Loren Pechtel Sep 21 '15 at 19:48
  • http://phys.org/news/2016-01-equation-large-scale-conspiracies-quickly-reveal.html – JasonR Feb 08 '16 at 13:56
  • 2
    For an entertaining view of why the moon landing was faked, see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344160/ . It's great fun once you realise what they're trying to do. It took me a while to catch on. – hdhondt Jan 25 '17 at 00:17
  • 1
    The solid proof is that even the Soviet Union didn't refute this claim. – asmaier Jul 12 '18 at 15:18
  • Related: [NASA Just Announced a Bold 3-Part Plan to Send Humans to The Moon And Mars](https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-nasa-just-announced-its-bold-new-plan-to-send-humans-to-the-moon-and-mars) – kenorb Oct 17 '18 at 15:44
  • I tend to repeat this experience claim, but I've read a few chapters of a uni book called "The basics of cosmic flight". It convinced me that cosmic flight is an endevour just like any other. Period. – Ate Somebits Feb 02 '21 at 01:03

2 Answers2

284

Besides

lunar command module

lunar rocks

enter image description here

no we don't have any evidence ;-)

The artifacts of the mission have been seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and probably other satellites. They can't be seen from Earth.

Apollo 14 landing site

Sklivvz
  • 78,578
  • 29
  • 321
  • 428
  • 1
    Here are actual lunar pictures with Apollos' crew artifacts left on Moon http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html – Andrey Mar 22 '11 at 17:38
  • 3
    I agree, the skeptics are a victim to conspiracy theories and sensationalism. – Sid Mar 22 '11 at 17:39
  • 119
    To play devil's advocate, all of the above-listed evidence was provided by or affiliated with NASA. The mirror would be perfect evidence except that placing a mirror on the moon's surface is trivial compared to landing people there. – FYG Mar 22 '11 at 18:10
  • 2
    @sidcool - and stupidity and ignorance mainly – themerlinproject Mar 22 '11 at 18:15
  • 4
    @FYG Given the state of the mirror pictured...Designing the decent system required to duplicate that landing would be far from trivial. I'd consider adding a pilot :) – Rusty Mar 22 '11 at 20:04
  • 77
    @Sklivvz: You don't seriously consider the rocks rock-solid, do you? :P – configurator Mar 22 '11 at 21:02
  • 138
    If this whole bunch of evidence was all faked by NASA and the US government, the Russian and the Chinese space agencies would have jumped with great pleasure to debunk this a very long time ago. It's been over 40 years since Apollo XI; how much longer do we need to wait for those guys to come forward with their accusations (with hard evidence) of fraud by NASA? – Andy Mar 22 '11 at 23:13
  • 27
    @FYG: The photo from LRO actually was taken by an instrument provided by ASU, a university. I've worked with a very similar camera, and I can tell you this much. While NASA provides the raw data feed, they do not provide the images themselves, they come through the processing power of the unversity. All of this data is publicly available, from the raw stream, or will be at some future date. The tools to look at and process the data are usually publicly available as well. If one says those images are fake, they need to change the raw image, which would leave evidence of tampering. – PearsonArtPhoto Mar 23 '11 at 15:44
  • @Andy: Great point. @Pearson: Great argument to counter the devilish advocacy! – FYG Mar 23 '11 at 23:39
  • 2
    @Andy, you have a great point but unfortunately I don't think it passes any skeptical tests -- the fact is, we don't have any information about what the Russians or Chinese do know, or any reasoning they would have to expose or not expose fraud. That's all pure speculation, even if it's "good" speculation. For the record I "believe" that you are right but I'd like to stick to evidenced assertions here. – Nicole Mar 26 '11 at 19:13
  • 34
    @Renesis: I don't agree. Skepticism is about balancing available evidence against how much claim is extraordinary. We have a lot of positive evidence (which is what I presented in the answer) and also negative evidence (the absence of complaints from the Soviet Union). What is more likely, that the US did go to the moon and the Russians had nothing to say, or that the US did not go to the moon and the Russian decided to be quiet? – Sklivvz Mar 26 '11 at 19:56
  • 1
    @Sklivvz The positive evidence I'm fine with, but there are too many leaps of speculation to get to the point where the absence of complaints from the Soviet Union means anything. – Nicole Mar 26 '11 at 20:26
  • 5
    @Renesis: got that. I am just saying that the "it's a fake and the Russians are within the conspiracy" just sounds too extraordinary to be believable without proof. "it's true and the Russians have nothing to say" is much more reasonable. It would be extremely circumstantial by itself, but I believe it was always meant as a further hint, if not proof, of where the truth may lie. – Sklivvz Mar 26 '11 at 21:24
  • 1
    @Sklivvz: Exactly, it's not very rational to believe a substantial portion of the world population is all in on a conspiracy, without anyone ever blowing the whistle about it. – Decent Dabbler Mar 28 '11 at 05:26
  • 25
    Here's a little secret. The probability of a *really important* secret being leaked is the square of the number of people involved. So if you're going to say, assassinate President Kennedy, that's the kind of thing that you need to keep less than 10 people in the know about, or there's no chance of keeping the secret. 40,000 engineers on the other hand? Not a chance. 2/3 of those people would be going straight to the press, I'm not kidding. Engineers can't keep secrets for shit. – Ernie Jun 13 '11 at 16:34
  • 2
    @Ernie I don't understand. Probability, when expressed as a number, is between 0 and 1. Even if only one person were involved, 1² = 1, so a single person will tell his own secret 100% of the time. – Carson Myers Jun 17 '11 at 08:22
  • 2
    @Carson: I think he wants to say "proportional to the square of the number of people involved" – nico Aug 30 '11 at 12:54
  • 2
    @nico: it still wouldn't make sense. if N people are involved and the probability of a person keeping the secret is P, then the probability of having nobody speak is P^N. So the relationship is actually exponential, not quadratic. – Sklivvz Aug 30 '11 at 15:09
  • @Sklivvz: I don't know where he derived that formula, I was just replying to the fact that even if N is not bound to [0;1] you can generate a bound value of probability that would be proportional to its square. Such as p^(n^2), just to say one ;) – nico Aug 30 '11 at 16:54
  • 7
    "placing a mirror on the moon's surface is trivial" umm...what is your definition of 'trivial'? – DA01 Aug 30 '11 at 20:39
  • 16
    We left trash on the moon, in the form of mirrors and lunar modules. If one wants proof, they should buy a telescope large enough to observe it. The real issue is that a person who puts faith in disbelief will ignore the obvious solution "we put it there" and prioritize the value of non-obvious solutions "it's a lunar module shaped rock!". No amount of evidence can overcome one's ability to reject evidence. One must entertain multiple possibilities and then pick the most likely explanation, not the one with the higher entertainment value (conspiracy theory, etc). –  Sep 02 '11 at 16:30
  • 5
    What? No mention of the Mythbusters? That's one of my favourite episodes. – MBraedley Jun 22 '12 at 14:51
  • 1
    No, sorry, they took it to themselves to disprove the conspiracy theories, but the OP asks for positive proof of the landing... – Sklivvz Jun 22 '12 at 17:27
  • 8
    Can't believe nobody's said it yet, but: Obligatory xkcd http://xkcd.com/1074/ – Polynomial Jul 16 '12 at 10:21
  • @Sklivvz theres also one additional thing, the moon landing was during the cold war, a race to put man on the moon between USA and Russia. And Russia at no point claims USA faked it. When they had a good political reason to do so during the cold war. As Russia would not easily admit defeat in that regard. – Dave Dec 04 '14 at 06:18
  • 1
    @Polynomial That really made me giggle. Actually not the punchline, but "atop 3000 tonnes of fuel, where else do you think they were headed?" William Anders thought there was a one third probability that he was headed for oblivion! – Selene Routley Jun 07 '15 at 01:35
  • 5
    @user2767 "Buy a telescope large enough to observe it"? Not even the Hubble telescope could do that. (http://science.howstuffworks.com/question188.htm) – JohnFx Jul 06 '15 at 00:20
  • It could be nice to link to this site in the answer since it seems to be a really giant resource about debunking the alleged hoax: http://www.clavius.org/ – Maurycy Jul 06 '15 at 20:04
175

I've spent a great deal of effort arguing about the moon landing, and done a great deal of research (the google kind, not the graduate kind) into the claims about the moon landing "hoax." The biggest struggle I've had is that I (obviously) don't possess all the knowledge from every scientist who worked on Apollo, and the person I'm arguing with will normally ask more and more detailed questions until I can't answer them, and they say something like "see? You find out it's a government cover-up if you dig deep enough."

Most of the claims I hear are technical in nature, and are easy to debunk if you can go read about the subject and then follow up with the person (and the person is willing to appeal to fact, which in many cases, is doubtful). Some of the technical claims I hear:

  • We could never go to the moon, because it's impossible to send a man through the Van Allen belts
  • We could never go to the moon because it would take an absurd amount of energy to keep the astronauts warm
  • We could never go to the moon because they couldn't take enough oxygen.
  • The president couldn't have made a phone call to Neil Armstrong on the moon.
  • We couldn't have broadcast footage live from the moon.
  • The flag waved in the wind when they put it on the "moon" and there's no wind on the moon.
  • It would have been easier and less expensive to use a sound stage on earth, so that's what they did.

All of these are founded on a misunderstanding of some scientific discipline or the other. Most people don't know that the Van Allen belts aren't made of "radiation," but high energy charged particles. Or that the astronauts were plenty warm from being in direct sunlight the entire time, and had to keep cool.

These are supplemented with claims that the US would do anything to win the space race. Since the technical challenges are insurmountable, it follows that the landings were faked in order to win. Of course, the technical challenges aren't insurmountable -- and the evidence that the moon landings are real is overwhelming.

There's a few things that I think are very convincing evidence that the moon landings happened:

  • independent astronomers the world over tracked the command module on its way to and from the moon (eg., here)
  • all the Apollo missions brought back much more lunar material than has ever been found on earth (382 kg, as opposed to the 50-ish kg found as meteorites)
  • the moon rocks were studied by top geologists from all over the world and there are no disputes that they are of lunar origin, and that they didn't fall through the earth's atmosphere unprotected.
  • The oldest moon rocks are around 4.5 billion years old, approximately the age of the earth itself. These couldn't be found on earth due to plate tectonics happening over the course of its lifetime.
  • The Soviets' Luna 16, 20, and 24 probes brought back lunar material and matched the Apollo moon rocks.
  • the LRO photographed the landing sites, and SELENE mapped the geography of the landing sites and found that it matched the photos taken on the moon (which they could not if the photos were faked). (here, and here)
  • the video footage of the moon landings is consistent with a low gravity environment in a vacuum, and would have been impossible to film on earth in the 60's and 70's.
  • there are mountains and mountains of evidence, and yet nobody of reputable scientific background has been able to disprove that we went to the moon. Indeed, not one shred of evidence has been disproved -- all claims that I have heard about the footage and pictures are easily explained and do not contradict the evidence.
Carson Myers
  • 2,755
  • 1
  • 16
  • 16
  • 37
    I can vouch for the geologists thing as my father was one of the geologists who got to experiment on the moon rocks and he doesn't seem like the conspiracy type. – JohnFx Jun 04 '11 at 20:08
  • it's not that you can't send a man through the van allen belts; it's that the van allen belts protect the earth and all life on it from very harmful radiation. http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/24jun_electrostatics/ curious why they'd need that force field if they didn't need that for apollo, none of those guys got sick from the radiation deep space is awash in. – user16081 Feb 01 '14 at 15:04
  • 12
    @user16081 The Van Allen belts are dangerous because they trap and channel high energy particles from the sun to the poles of the planet. Travelling through them exposes you to these particles which are very harmful. Conspiracy theorists just exaggerate the amount of damage a human would sustain over the few hours it takes to traverse them. Solar radiation was very much a concern for the Apollo astronauts even though they took place during solar minimum - they didn't get sick because they were only exposed for a couple of weeks. Humans on Earth need to survive the radiation for a lifetime. – Carson Myers Feb 02 '14 at 04:12
  • 1
    *"the astronauts were plenty warm from being in direct sunlight the entire time, and had to keep cool"* In all honesty, Apollo 13 on the return trip was in sunlight but still got rather chilly. Excess heat given off by the electronics provided a good amount of heating of the spacecraft as well. In a small, well-insulated space, you don't need to add a lot of energy before you have to remove excess heat rather than deliberately add heat. And [thermos bottles rely on vacuum's insulating properties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_flask) as well, matching a spacecraft surrounded by a vacuum. – user Dec 17 '14 at 14:25
  • 7
    @CarsonMyers the Apollo missions did **not** take place during Solar Minimum. 1969 to 1972 was very close to Solar Maximum, which you can see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle. There was actually 1 big solar flare in August 1972 that happened between Apollo missions. It would have seriously sickened any astronauts on the Moon, although if inside their ship, not so much. You can read about that here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/27jan_solarflares/ – DrZ214 Jul 21 '15 at 01:42
  • The translunar trajectory of the Apollo missions also avoided the densest section of the Van Allen belts. – Russell Borogove May 24 '20 at 15:22