MythBusters Episode 104: "NASA Moon Landing"
Air Date: August 27, 2008
This episode was based on the urban legend/conspiracy theory which claims that NASA never landed men on the moon, and instead the achievement was intentionally faked for one reason or another.
One of the NASA photos is fake because the shadows of the rocks and lunar lander are not parallel.
busted
The Mythbusters built a small-scale replica of the lunar landing site based on the photograph, using reflective sand similar to that found on the Moon, and a single light to represent the Sun. Next, they took a photo which was exactly the same as the NASA photo, including the differing shadows. The Mythbusters explained that the shadows were not parallel because of the way the light falls on the Moon’s natural topography.
One of the NASA photos is fake because Neil Armstrong can be clearly seen while in the shadow of the lunar lander.
busted
To test this myth, the Mythbusters built a large-scale replica of the landing site, allowing them to take a photo which was nearly identical to the original NASA photo. The Mythbusters explained that Armstrong was visible because of ambient light being reflected off of the Moon’s surface.
A flag cannot flap in a vacuum.
busted
The Build Team placed a replica of the American flag planted on the moon into a vacuum chamber at the Marshall Space Flight Center. They first tested at normal pressure and manipulated the flag. The momentum moved the flag around but the motion quickly dissipated. In vacuum conditions, manipulating the flag caused it to flap vigorously as if it were being blown by a breeze. This demonstrated that a flag could appear to wave in a vacuum, as the Apollo flag did.
A clear footprint cannot be made in vacuum because there is no moisture to hold its shape.
busted
The Build Team first tested whether dry or wet sand made a more distinguishable footprint by stepping in them with an astronaut boot. It was clear that the wet footprint had more detail than the dry footprint. They then placed sand similar in composition to the Moon’s soil in a vacuum chamber and stepped on it with an astronaut boot, which made a clear print. The reason provided for this was that the unique composition of lunar soil allows it to behave differently than terrestrial soil.
The film of the astronauts moonwalking is actually film of the astronauts skipping in front of a high-framerate camera, slowing down the picture and giving the illusion they are on the Moon.
busted
Adam donned a replica NASA spacesuit and mimicked the astronauts’ motions while being filmed by a slow motion camera. They also attached Adam to wires in order to mimic the Moon’s lower gravity. While comparing their new footage with the original footage, the Mythbusters noted an initial similarity, but there were several small discrepancies attributable to filming in Earth’s gravity. In order to film in microgravity, the Mythbusters boarded a Reduced Gravity Aircraft and filmed the exact same movements. Adam noted that the movements were more comfortable and more logical in microgravity, and their footage from the plane looked exactly like the original NASA film. The Mythbusters concluded that the moon landing film is authentic.
The Apollo astronauts left behind special equipment on the Moon like reflectors that scientists can bounce lasers off of.
confirmed
The Mythbusters went to an observatory equipped with a high powered laser. They first fired at the bare lunar surface but did not detect the laser bouncing back. Then they pointed the laser at a reflector left behind by NASA and received a confirmed bounce.
Newer: Episode 105: "Viral Hour"
Hola, soy Gastón y tengo que decir que es obvio que los Mythbusters siendo Estadounidenses no van a ‘traicionar’ a su país autoproclamandose mentirosos…
Pero las pruebas son las pruebas y muchos paises han confirmado que las fotos de la NASA son falsas.
El problema es que ahi en EUA tienen betado el tema y aprovecharon el excelente programa de Mythbusters para poder tapar un poco la farsa, pero disculpenme pero para mi y creo que algunas otras personas no es suficiente…
Lo lamento por los Mythbusters porque soy fan de ellos.
Saludos dedes México.
August 28, 2008 at 9:58 AMPerdone mi espanol malo, no es mi lengua nativa y no tengo ordernador hecho para punctuacion correcto.
Si el gobierno estadounidense hubiera querido atacar a teorias conspiradores, habrian atacado al argumento que los ataques de 9/11 fueron hecho por el gobierno. Seria tema mas controversial y mas importante para atacar.
En mi opinion, el gobierno ya no tiene razon para falsificar esta cosa. Ya no queda nadie del administracion Johnson o Nixon que tendria razon ser mentiroso. Los ataces de 9/11 son mucho mas ambiguos y hay preguntas mas legitimas que esto.
August 28, 2008 at 5:48 PMHow about “Zeitgeist” David? Ill too think the landind is a fake. But its just me. And im from Argentina :D Regards!
August 28, 2008 at 8:17 PMhey,u guys rock, thought i’d chime in for consideration that on the moon, the earth might cast a shine such as the moon does on earth,(pending alignment), thus an additional light source may exist to perhaps factor in on some of the photos taken by nasa. boowee.
August 28, 2008 at 10:00 PMDonley - If you watch it on The Discovery Channel, you will maybe be able to understand ambient light.
August 29, 2008 at 4:18 AMAlejandro - I hope you can watch it on TV. If so, your doubts will be destroyed. The BUSTED the myths…Get it?
Why did the segment “One of the NASA photos is fake because Neil Armstrong can be clearly seen while in the shadow of the lunar lander.” was proven “busted” when they used a replica of the moon soil that had a reflective material in it - (ingredient information provided by NASA) and then the “A clear footprint cannot be made in vacuum because there is no moisture to hold its shape. And then the ” clear footprint cannot be made in vacuum because there is no moisture to hold its shape” theory was “busted” with a different type ‘moon dust’ soil -provided ingredients from NASA, Why wasn’t the same ‘moon soil’ used for both the reflective picture and footprint? Is this because NASA came up with the ingredients for the ‘moon dust’ from their original set? And when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, who was holding the camera?
August 29, 2008 at 3:17 PMRegarding the laser and the reflector. It would have been a better test if you could have independently detected the relection, either by looking at the moon (would you even be able to see the reflection?) or by using your own camera or detector. Computer results provided by someone someone leses computers are inherently untrustworthy. Besides I would like to know just how much equipment you would need to detect the reflection. Could I build one? Or is going to cost thousands of dollars?
And besides everyone (who is anyone) knows that martians in UFO’s gave our astronauts a ride to the moon.
August 29, 2008 at 5:56 PMfoolS, Myth is BUSTED!!
August 29, 2008 at 8:03 PMalthough i am a conspiracy theorist, i do believe that we probably went to the moon, because it would be much harder to fake it accurately then to actually go there.
you also have to think that it would have been a waste of money to pay the hundreds of thousands of people who were employed by NASA and the other companies involved just to fake it.
the question we should be asking is why are some of the government files about the moon classified? Nothing about the moon should be classified information.
our moon is strange, there is nothing else like it that we have found. There is a “natural” bridge across a 12 mile crater; vapor clouds have been sighted; it sometimes has light flashes; and it appears to be hollow…
August 30, 2008 at 8:46 PMIt is nuts to think that NASA could cover up faking the Moon landings. Russia has already admitted that the Soviets were spending the equivalent of billions of dollars trying to beat the United States to the Moon, and former KGB agents have admitted that they threatened to sabotage Apollo launch vehicles in order to delay the U.S. program. Why go to all of this trouble when it would be perfectly obvious to them that the U.S. was faking it and with a small bribe for some NASA employee to blow the whole hoax open to the world? The Soviets were much smarter than this, and even they admitted that the United States beat them to the Moon. The Apollo hoax conspiracy theorists really don’t have a good answer for this, at least not one not involving extraterrestrials.
September 1, 2008 at 2:50 PMHi guyies.
September 1, 2008 at 5:10 PMGreat show. I think this case is close and that the US did go to the moon. All tests looked like they were done correctly.
shelly what you saw of neal armstrong taking his first steps were likely a reenactment of the moment because they could not get that shot without first setting up the camera and then stepping out onto the moon. so no one was holding the camera it had been set up earlier that’s what I think there have been other intances of this in history.
September 2, 2008 at 4:08 AMThe iwo jima picture that is so iconic of the soldiers lifting the flag was a renactment as well becuase something happened to the picture taken a couple days earlier
Brian and Shelly:
Neil Armstrong was filmed descending the ladder and stepping out onto the surface by a remote camera that was mounted on one of the lander legs and released by Armstrong by pulling a lanyard while on the ladder. You can read about this in the Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Operations Plan (from June 27, 1969, see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11flsp.pdf), especially pages 15, 18 and 40. (Those are document page labels, not file page count.) Page 18 in particular shows a sketch of the setup.
September 2, 2008 at 8:17 AMI am a physicist with NASA…going on 16 years now. I just wanted to say to all those still trying to discredit NASA, “shame on you”! Instead of waisting your time on trying to show we (not just NASA but the USA) didn’t go to the moon, try going to school and learning how we can go back again. Go be proud of what this country has done in its short life, and try to add something to it. Be a REAL contributor to the discoveries we are yet to make!!
September 2, 2008 at 11:42 AMAlthough I missed this episode of MythBusters, I remember watching the moon landings as they occurred live on TV. From what I recall, after the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) set down on the lunar surface, a camera automatically deployed from the base of the spacecraft. This event occurred prior to the astronauts exiting the LEM and stepping on the moon. Once the camera was in position and adjusted, either automatically or remotely by mission control, Neil opened the LEM hatch and descended the ladder (shown on live TV) and took the first steps.
September 3, 2008 at 8:32 AMMy father and i watch your show all the time your myth busting is so cool keep up the good work
September 4, 2008 at 9:41 AMThe myth looks fake but its not good job on the myth an i loved that myth it rocks keep it up. You guys are an insperation sorry for the spelling if somethings wrong an i live in Stillwel Oklahoma just want to say you guys ROCK keep up the busting.
September 4, 2008 at 5:32 PMYAY they confirmed it!!!!!
September 6, 2008 at 2:34 AMActually from what I understand, the LEM was designed with a camera in it’s leg at a position to allow it to record the initial exit.
September 7, 2008 at 12:25 PMAs I said above (September 2, 2008 at 8:17 AM), Neil Armstrong’s first step was filmed by the camera on the lander leg that he activated by pulling a cable as he started down the ladder. His exit from the lunar lander was not filmed. This is all explained in the document linked above. There was also a second camera filming through the lander window, but this was not broadcast live and didn’t actually show him exiting the lander hatch. You can watch all of these ad nauseum at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/video11.html#Step
September 9, 2008 at 10:55 AM@Mary
It doesn’t look good for NASA when a rocket scientist doesn’t know the difference between “waisting” and wasting.
It’s amazing that someone employed by a highly skilled agency would hire someone who cannot spell. If you’re a just NASA or United States fanatic, it would help to use spell check, instead of lowering NASA’s standards and making you seem like a liar.
September 10, 2008 at 10:11 PMthe myth caveman arrow, sharpened arrow or a flint arrow head? which was more deadly? I would like to know where the caveman got perfectly straight arrows???? If you test the two then make if real and carve your own arrow shafts!!!!
September 11, 2008 at 9:30 PMIt is easy enough to confirm. We ,the U.S. has had mapping satelites at the moon for quite some time. Turn one of the satelites on the landing site and show pictures of the Tranquility Base, the Lunar Rover, The Flag. I grew up in Missouri where the State Motto is: “Show Me”, so “Show ME”. I want to see the now space junk for which we spent millions. SHOW ME…
September 14, 2008 at 11:07 AM@Sir Blaze
Maybe Mary is a rocket scientist and she mistyped because she made a mistake like a human. You know there’s a lot of those here on planet Earth she bound to be one of them.
September 14, 2008 at 6:26 PMMike:
Pictures of the landing sites have been taken from orbit by American and other spacecraft. Here’s an example:
September 17, 2008 at 10:40 AMhttp://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/apollo15_touchdown_photos_010427.html
Unfortunately, these mapping missions don’t really show the level of detail that most skeptics would like to see. Some upcoming missions will do better. The Terrain Mapping Camera on India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to be launched next month will have the ability to resolve features as small as 15 meters, so roughly the size of the Lunar Module (9 meters across the lander legs). The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter Camera, launching early next year, will resolve to about 3 meters. Either of these should be capable of showing the layout of the areas explored by the astronauts as a bunch of fuzzy patches that one can compare to the published maps that one can download now. Would this be enough? Any more than this means someone needs to write a check for about $1,000,000,000.
Well it only proves. Since mythbusters staged it and was able to replicate. That the original moonlanding was staged.
September 19, 2008 at 10:36 PMI really dont care about what the US did in outer space, im more concerned about what they do on this earth! but the fact that mythbusters replicated with relatively a small budget a moon landing, NASA with a little more budget could have done the same! sadly, this confirms more than busts… not that it matters, again… but what about the flag? couldn’t artificial satellites take a new photo of it?
September 20, 2008 at 5:45 AMMy wife’s Dad, was part of the Recovery Team on the USS Hornet for Apollo 11. The letters we found, after he died, told us again, how proud he was to be part of history. So I guess that if it was faked, then we are safe to say that the your education is fake as well?
September 24, 2008 at 12:09 AM@Sir Blaze
September 24, 2008 at 11:54 AMDon’t point at the speck in someone else’s eye when you have a log in your own. Your grammar is all wrong. You used run-on sentences, extra words, and there is no such thing as a “rocket science.” I suspect you mean ROCKET PHYSICS although I wouldn’t expect a person with your education to know such things. Go find another forum to flame.
To Mike and Mariam:
Oh! I see! Mythbusters has shown that the astronauts moved in a way that is only natural in 1/6th Earth gravity, that the flag waved in a way that it does in a vacuum, and that one needs very special soil to maintain footprints in that vacuum. If you accept that, it means NASA needed to cover a huge stage set with specially-simulated lunar soil, pump all of the air out of the building, put people inside with spacesuits, then put it all inside a giant airplane so that it can fly on a parabolic arc that gives you 1/6 g! Make sense to me! Except… if they were going to all of that trouble, PLUS launch more than a dozen 110-meter rockets in front of thousands of eyewitnesses, PLUS send spacecraft to the Moon anyway (without astronauts) so that astronomers could observe them as they did, PLUS bribe the Soviets so that they wouldn’t tell the world that they knew it was all a fake… ISN’T JUST SIMPLER AT SOME POINT TO JUST SEND PEOPLE TO LAND ON THE MOON AND BE DONE WITH IT? (Pardon my run-on sentences…)
Any night one can walk outside and look at satellites flying overhead, including the International Space Station. If you don’t believe me, do it yourself. Why is it so hard to believe that we can put these massive structures in Earth orbit, yet we cannot send a much smaller craft to the Moon? I just don’t see how this level of skepticism is justified. I really don’t see how it is rational; maybe it isn’t.
September 24, 2008 at 5:10 PMSo, in conclusion, Armstrong really walked on the moon?
September 25, 2008 at 6:37 AMWHAT ABOUT RADIATION !!!!!!!!!
September 25, 2008 at 8:13 AMTo spider:
What about radiation? Does it keep people from reaching the Moon? The short answer is that a person is relatively safe as long as they stay below the Van Allen Belts, starting about 1000 kilometers above Earth (it varies) or quickly transits through them. Once outside, if the Sun erupts in a coronal mass ejection, one can still be fried. Fortunately, this did not happen during any of the Apollo lunar flights. (They were short and the Sun went through a very weak activity cycle around that time compared to what one might have expected.)
Radiation will be a bigger problem on a trip to Mars. The Russians have been thinking about sending animal subjects on a long, distant flight to test this.
A non-NASA page that explains much of about space radiation hazard is:
September 25, 2008 at 10:39 AMhttp://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/16/radiation-sickness-cellular-damage-and-increased-cancer-risk-for-long-term-missions-to-mars/
1 thing
how could they have filmed the 1st feed on the moon (that famouse little jump)
if it was the 1st feed?
who placed the camera there then?
ofc all the info about it that we see is fake they didn’t bring a camera whit them
and nasa had to make those fake things to show russia that they where on the moon
September 28, 2008 at 5:03 PMand that they are the best (cold war)
hans: try reading the comments before yours. Your question about the camera has already been answered multiple times.
October 2, 2008 at 3:29 AMIt’s harder to imagine that they did’nt land on the moon the hole sceptic theory that they did’nt just dose not make sense for me i think with every major event throughout history there is and more than likely always will be things people dont know or cant grasp possibly because the public dos’nt know the full potential or technological advances of the goverment,So i’d say it’s not what were told that should have us sceptical but what were not and just to conclude we did land on the moon!
October 8, 2008 at 6:06 AMThe real conspiracy theorist can shoot holes in anything, so here goes. First of all this country killed one of its Presidents, has politicians that lie about everything under the sun including 9/11, and how we “knew nothing” about it. To think that this couldn’t be faked to make the Russians look bad is insane. 40yrs ago our technology was not what it is now, so take a picture of the landing site and “waving flag” and end it already. Oops sorry but they CANNOT!!!
October 9, 2008 at 11:46 AMTo Tony -
The Russians almost made it to the Moon with cosmonauts, having spent tens of billions of dollar worth to do so. They sent dozens of unmanned spacecraft to the Moon, including long-range rovers, that they could land within a few hundred meters of anywhere the U.S. could put astronauts. Don’t you think that the Americans would have been really, really embarrassed if when the Russians got there, they didn’t find any American hardware? The only thing worse than losing the Moon Race would have been being caught faking it. To think that the U.S. would have risked this with some hoax is the insane assertion.
The Russians have never asserted that the Apollo landings were a hoax. They are the ones who care the most and have the most knowledge about what happened, other than the U.S. The reason, I think, that they have never done this is that they live in the same Universe as the rest of us, while Apollo hoax conspiracy theorists are intent on creating their own little world. I’m afraid that nobody is going to spend an extra billion dollars or so to send a mission to Tranquility Base or take an absurdly high-resolution picture of it just to prove to a few stubborn people what the rest of us already know. You are not that important. Next year Lunar Recon Orbiter will take some very nice pictures of all of the landing sites, given luck, but I’m sure that the conspiracy theorists will find some way around that, too.
October 10, 2008 at 6:33 AMIn 1969 through 1972, the six Apollo landings missions returned some 382 kilograms of Moon rocks and soil, while three unmanned Soviet Luna sample return missions came back with 0.3 kilograms in 1970 through 1976. Soviet scientists showed that the Luna missions had identical isotope ratios and nearly identical composition to the Apollo samples, but they were radically different from Earth rocks or meteorites.
I want to see what kind of mental pretzels the conspiracy theorists need to twist themselves into to explain that one.
October 10, 2008 at 7:35 AMArlo: While i respect your knowledge of these events, i think its a good thing that free thinking citizens of our great nation can and often do question information that is given to us.I do realize that spending a billion dollars especially now is crazy.However i don’t think a picture costs that and i will be looking forward to being proven wrong next year.
October 13, 2008 at 10:42 AMAfter this episode I was watching the Movie Superman II and there is a scene where the bad guys stop on the moon on their way to Earth. They show astronauts on the moon and it was convincing and this was filmed in 1980, they show them walking and bouncing around. How was this done? I’m sure special effects weren’t that great in 1980. If they could do it Mythbusters should be able to re-create it.
October 19, 2008 at 10:05 PMNot sure what makes me scratch my head more. People clinging to far fetched “myths” like faking a lunar landing or people who dismiss everything someone says because they misspelled a word.
I think they are usually the same people. They do not act with reason, they act with artificiality (and I did not spell check that, so count me among the uneducated and dismiss everything).
October 24, 2008 at 12:34 PMI’m happy with the fact that I’ll never know the truth - none of us will.
October 29, 2008 at 6:39 AMDid the US land on the moon? Probably but possibly not! Or possibly but probably not.
If they did - well done and if they didn’t - well done again. Actually doing it or faking it are both pretty tricky if you ask me. I think I’d have a better chance of faking it than getting there!
I think the ‘SHOW ME’ call is a good one. But if we were shown evidence - would we still believe it???
Some of us would - some of us wouldn’t.
What a mind blower :-)
Hi
October 30, 2008 at 2:48 PMI’ve watched the show and was impressed with the effort, but after a while realized that Nasa could have facked it the same way as you did!!!
We’ll never know if they really landed!!
A couple of issues that many people seem to overlook… photographic film emulsion has a melting point of around 120F…During manufacture…photographic emulsions are typically applied to the support at 160F… Roll film of all types also have trouble with extreme cold as this can cause the plastic support to break/fracture…particularly while winding…I’ve read that the special Hasselblad cameras taken to the moon had modified mechanical shutters to account for lower gravity as well as a larger shutter release button, but there is no indication that the cameras were insulated against extreme temperature variations (-180 to 250+F). It seems like a “no brainer” that the film either had to be special or the camera had thermal protection of some kind.
How did NASA manage this obvious technical issue?
November 9, 2008 at 5:08 PMTo MG Boggies:
The Apollo landing sites and times were all picked so that the Sun was just above the horizon for the astronauts walking on the surface (see http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-27_LM_Lunar_Landing.htm).
This way the temperatures were neither too hot nor too cold. If they had tried to explore the Moon either in the middle of lunar day or during lunar night, they would have had a lot more equipment temperature problems beyond their film not working!
Someone needs to say, to people like Adam and Wolfgang, that the “NASA could have faked it like Mythbusters” attitude can only be maintained by those not paying attention. The way Mythbusters got realistic moon walking was with the 1/6th gravity plane ride. I really don’t see how you could use that same technique to fake astronauts running across the lunar surface from one edge of the camera’s view to another (maybe 100 meters), or riding around on a lunar rover then getting off and jumping around. What you are saying isn’t logical.
November 13, 2008 at 5:39 PMThe people who don’t believe we landed on the moon are crazy
November 19, 2008 at 6:11 PMYeah I agree…
We DID land on the moon.
Even if we didn’t, well… hunams would be a little bit backwards.
November 27, 2008 at 4:12 PMI hate to say this, but this particular episode is disappointing. First of all, the gang showed themselves to have already made up their minds about these myths. Second, why disprove/prove NASA myths IN NASA using they’re stuffs. That’s just pure genius.
Busted? This whole episode is busted.
December 2, 2008 at 4:00 AM