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 AMI have to agree with liverfool, that episode was just wrong. And the final proof they showed was useless. Spikes in a computerized graph proves nothing. Give us a satellite shot of those mirrors in the surface of the moon, then we’ll talk.
December 4, 2008 at 1:44 AMthey probably rigged the tests or edited it
December 9, 2008 at 1:41 PMi mean if they found out they were faked
do you really think they would be allowed to show it
plus most of their tests were a load of shit and not scientific
This is such a fun discussion. None of us have been to the moon so we cannot confirm nor deny anything from the soil to the lighting. As for the budget to film a fake moon landing you should find out how much the government makes and spends on war. Then you must wonder how much would they be willing to spend to be the first on the moon. I wonder which would be cheaper, going to the moon or faking it? Well, what about all those people that were there and saw the take off of the shuttle? I was not one of those people.
If you weren’t there you cannot say either way if anything happened or not. Mythbusters is on the Discovery Channel folks. A Government funded t.v. program. It would be very foolish for the Government to go on a television show it funds and say it was fake.
So in conclusion, none of us knows the make up of the soil of the moon. None of us have been on the moon. None of us knows what the Government is willing to do or pay in regards to being the first on the moon.
Just remember the choice is yours to make. Come to your own conclusion.
Do you care if we have been to the moon?
Is the validity of what the government tells you important to you?
Do your own research and come to your own conclusion.
Researching is just searching repeatedly until you are satified with the outcome. Perhaps you should ask yourself how far you are willing to search for answers or are you just going to let a box in the middle of the room tell you what to think?
December 10, 2008 at 3:13 PMTo Sara:
I know this is the third time I’ve said this, but THE SOVIETS SENT HUGE NUMBERS OF SPACECRAFT TO THE MOON, AND WERE WATCHING WHAT NASA DID THERE VERY CLOSELY, TOO. Were they in on the conspiracy? The Soviets had international collaborators, who can confirm what they did (such as the French). At any time the Soviets could have blown the whole deal just by sending a simple probe to Tranquility Base, etc. Ask the French what the Soviets could do. People from many countries watched Apollo spacecraft on the way to the Moon through their own telescopes with their own eyes. SOMETHING big went to the Moon when NASA said. The Japanese recently published a photograph from the Kaguya spacecraft showing the rocket exhaust patch from Apollo 15 exactly where NASA says it should be, exactly how big it should be. Has the U.S. paid off the Japanese?
The U.S. government does not control all information. The Soviet Union would have absolutely loved to embarrass them. Why would they possibly have passed up this opportunity, if Apollo was just a hoax? In 1969 what could the U.S. possibly have paid the Soviets to not tell the world that Apollo was a hoax? Please explain that, or stop repeating the same arguments.
There is a limit to what even the most sophisticated and powerful human organizations can do to hide the truth, and this is beyond it, I think. Scientists exist to bring out the truth (not to mention journalists); to say that all of them are “just searching repeatedly until … satisifed with the outcome” ignores how hungry some of them are to surprise people. Remember that the most powerful man in the world was brought down by two young reporters at the Washington Post, and that all of Newtonian physics fell because of some inconsistencies in the last decimal place.
December 12, 2008 at 3:00 PMI thought your episode was FANTASTIC !!! I’d love to know if could buy the small model that you built. It was really amazing !!! Keep the great shows coming. I try to never miss a single one!
December 14, 2008 at 9:55 AMdid we go to the moon….. yes. even the mythbusters proofed it. but did nasa “create” a few photos just incase the mission went belly up or if a photo didn’t come out right? possible
December 14, 2008 at 10:55 AMSólo la gente bruta puede creer en Zeitgest y esas películas mediocres.
Only stupid people can believe in Zeitgest and all those crappy movies.
Mejor pónganse a leer e informarse de verdad, y dejer de tragarse cualquier pendejada que ven.
You should better read true books and truly informed yourself, instead of buying whatever crap you see.
December 21, 2008 at 2:23 AMI cannot believe you guys are arguing about the moon landing ( and yes I believe that Neil truly went to the moon) HA!!!!!
December 30, 2008 at 12:16 AMGreat Job guys, until today I was completely sure it was a hoax. But you completely changed my mind. Great show, enjoy watching every second of it, keep it up.
January 8, 2009 at 4:25 AMQuote:revjim:
did we go to the moon….. yes. even the mythbusters proofed it. but did nasa “create” a few photos just incase the mission went belly up or if a photo didn’t come out right? possible
I dont think NASA create stuff. I think the Buzz Aldrin thing was just enhanced brightness. You can’t blame somebody just for pressing that “fix” button in Picture Manager! Even the mythbusters didn’t get it THAT bright.
January 9, 2009 at 3:34 AMhi is the moon landing real and when is that episode going to air
January 20, 2009 at 11:41 AMNo one never went on the moon like claimed on the documentary “what happened on the moon”.
January 24, 2009 at 6:38 AMyour doc is wrong cause you used the same artefacts/lies like nasa did when they falsed the entire programs appollo. That explain why you obtain the same results with the nasa.
If you think you’re true, explain how the problem of cosmic radiations has been solved ? And Why since appollo, no one went on the moon ? neither russians too.
Perhaps NASA sent craft to the moon but i have my doubts as to whether anyone walked on it.It is possible to collect samples without walking on it…
Something that has not yet been mentioned here:
WHY ARE THERE NO STARS IN ANY OF THE PHOTOS? Go and look for yourself..(google it!)
As for keeping the hoax a secret,it is widely documented fact that agencies like the CIA use hypnosis methods.Wouldn`t the astronauts believe they went?(and others?).America didn`t want to lose the race to the Russians so faked it!!Put your blind patriotism to one side for a moment.
What good would it be using ingredients used by NASA?Or even have them involved in the experiments?Surely they will do everything possible to uphold the story…
A good point has been made here.Why haven`t they been back since?
Can any single one of you explain the lack of stars??
January 24, 2009 at 10:31 AMLuis…
January 24, 2009 at 10:36 AMZeitgeist stupid? All facts presented relating to star constellation movements are FACT! Are you saying astronomers are stupid? They’ve only been studying it for thousands of years…
ARLO !!
Quote you: “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.”
How about if they had film of a moving landscape and had the astronauts in front of it? A b-52 would be more than large enough to house it.Pretty simple idea really.Surprising someone as smart as yourself didn`t think of that…
January 24, 2009 at 11:17 AMFor an explanation of why there are no stars in the photographs try http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html#stars. While you’re there, check out a few other answers to the hokum put forward by deniers.
January 24, 2009 at 4:13 PM@gamma:
Stars- There was tons of ambient light, and the sun was at the horizon. How many stars do you see at dawn? Why not? When you stand under a bright streetlight in the middle of the night, how far beyond the halo can you see? Why or why not?
A B-52 could not accomplish the the extremely high altitude nor the required flight path (parabolic curves) to do what the “zero-g” airplanes can do.
January 25, 2009 at 5:28 AMFor Mooner actually they did try again to go on the moon that was called apollo 13 and for the record how many time did we go to space I’m guessing more than once.
January 30, 2009 at 8:32 PMTo gamma:
You might be able to fake one sequence with your B-52 idea, if you could get a B-52 with wings that didn’t break off. (Good luck!) But there are so many and complex sequences like this, some of them famous, some of them not, that what you are saying will not work in detail. Google the “hippity hop” sequence that shows Gene Cernan of Apollo 17 coming way out of the distance and into the close foreground while the scene remains fixed. Even more difficult are sequences where one astronaut in the background will come forward and interact with one in the foreground (like exchange a tool) then head out of the scene. Keep in mind that there are over a hundred hours of this stuff, most of which TV viewers never even watched but you can now download anytime. A large, representative sample is at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Remember that one could only film a few minutes per “artificial gravity” flight, hence thousands of such flights would be necessary. The lunar sequences often go on continuously for hours sometime. NASA would have needed to be completely masochistic to fake a hundred hours of this stuff just to fill up an archive that nobody watched for decades. That would cost in the billions of dollars right there. Why would they possibly go to such trouble if all they were trying to do was construct a fake? I don’t see how that makes sense.
February 2, 2009 at 10:53 AMeveryone claims that the moon has 1/6 the gravity of earth and this is why the lem needed 1/6 the amount of fuel but who supplied the figure of 1/6th before anyone got there? was it an estimate with a very wide margin of error. or was someone there before that tested the gravity on the moon?would someone in there right mind land somewhere without knowing exactly how much fuel was needed to get out of there????
February 22, 2009 at 11:12 AMwhy would the russians not expose a fake? they agreed to give up on such an impossible trip. 50 years later mankind still can’t go further than earth orbit. technology better 50 years ago?? probably!
February 22, 2009 at 11:14 AMTo bigjohn:
Scientists knew by the first half of the 1700s roughly what the mass of the Moon was based on tidal effects upon the Earth (and Newton’s theory of gravitation). From that it is easy to calculate the Moon’s surface gravity. This was tested by dozens of spacecraft which visited the Moon before people did, not to mention two human missions (Apollo 8 and 10) that orbited the Moon before the Apollo 11 landing.
February 23, 2009 at 4:55 PMarlo: About the whole moon reports that are “classified”, is this true, just wondering because you seem like you are the most educated on this subject.
February 28, 2009 at 6:12 PMThe hammer and feather falling at the same rate in a vacuum is obvious. However, NASA used a FALCON feather–and this will fall, in regular air, at the same rate as a hammer. To bust the myth, mythbuster MUST use a Falcon feather. They did not bust this.
March 2, 2009 at 7:48 PMTo amanda:
Sorry, I’m not sure what “classified” reports you might refer to. Nothing comes to mind.
March 3, 2009 at 4:18 PMI had an opportunity to see few REAL moon rocks brought down from the moon during Apollo missions when I worked as a volunteer at the back rooms of Museum of Natural History at Smithson Ins. during my university years. As a geologist who have seen so many rocks from around the world, those rocks are not the types you can find on Earth, only on the moon. :)
March 10, 2009 at 1:30 AMNormal People,
March 17, 2009 at 2:59 PMYou are feeding the arguement by taking the tin hat crowd on. They have accomplished nothing in life, and their method feeling accomplishment is flaming out in an environment they feel the affect. Just let them live out their pathetic delusions and use your energy for something useful with results.
Just watched the moon landing episode in NZ.Great stuff.
March 23, 2009 at 4:29 AMOne Question,Why could we not take photos of the moon via telescope or passing satellites to see objects left there (vehicle or flag etc).Or is it too far away.
Great show,Keep it up
Man on Moon 99.9%
Ok, let me get this straight, mankind can make a device that can split something you can’t even see (atom) that destroys entire cities, but can’t land a man on the moon? GTFO! Hell, we’ve sent probes out of our entire SOLAR SYSTEM (Voyager) and you think we couldn’t get somewhere much closer?
I’m always amazed that people can say that with a straight face while using a gps device or watching satellite tv.
March 28, 2009 at 12:33 PMThe fact that NASA paid them to show the episode, that only focused on 2 photos… just shows how the overwhelming evidence against them is affecting them, especially after recent footage was leaked from NASA showing how the earth photos were faked…. No one could go to the moon thats why NASA had to stop faking their moon landings to buff up the rockets… It is known that even satellites cant just go to the moon without proper preparation to counter the Van Allen Radiation Belt. The new Moon ships look like buffed up Apollo rockets, with lead shielding to allow the safe passage of humans. According to me Adam and Jamie looked awkwardly hyped up… in the other episodes they would try all other options.. and in this one they focus on 2 photos…. I have lost my respect for Mythbusters. I never had any for NASA. Space is no longer dominated by US so they have been increasingly on the defensive on this. They make it look like those for the conspiracy ate America, and those for the moon landing patriotic Americans.. and NASA nice enough to let the ride the weightless roller coaster..
The most obvious thing about the show is that they had to place the model lander, carefully on the soil so that it looks like the ‘moon landing’. I don’t think the lander, if it really landed on the moon would land like this.. NASA forgot to fake the impact crater, implying that the astronauts were heavier than the ship itself.. You can look at the other photos on the NASA website itself…
March 28, 2009 at 10:36 PMAnyway what they have done is just to spark debate on something that not many people knew, I even doubt the experiments they did were legit.
I think the moon landing was real. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was who is holding the camera?
March 31, 2009 at 4:39 AMYou conspiracy nuts are just that, NUTS. Well thank g-d Obamma is in office. He will finally expose this moon landing lie and best of all show us the UFO’s and the aliens that our government has been hiding from us all these years! The only thing I can’t figure out is who is holding the camera. :)
April 3, 2009 at 3:18 PMResearch the following and you will have your answer
Solar Radiation
Astronaut Life Expectancy
Minimal Required Hull Thickness
OK?
April 4, 2009 at 9:19 PMBusted on the part of motion in microgravity? WHAT?
Sorry, but did you notice how similar the harness movement looked to the Nasa footage or the footage on the plane? It was VERY similar and only slightly differentiated by it’s speed.
Recreate the harness experiment with the added bonus of a time-lapse camera (obviously adjust ratios of weight and time-lapse to tweak them into one fluid, recreation method) and you will get an identical Nasa footage. I can’t believe they called it BUSTED without first exploring this option, as if only a harness or only time-lapse could have been used independently.
April 20, 2009 at 12:58 AMI’m a fairly rational guy and hardly a conspiracy theorist. But a few things stick out in my head which I have yet to hear a rational answer for.
1. Why have we or ANYONE else for that matter, not been able to go back? The answer that there is nothing more to gain to go back strikes me as ridiculous given the amount of money we spend exploring the earth and low orbit outer space (like the space lab for instance). I read somewhere to go back now, it would take at least 10 years to develop a viable program that would take us safely BACK to the moon, when 50 years ago with limited time and comparably prehistoric technology, they were able to it with relative ease. How?
2. Even with today’s advanced technology, we cannot get people anywhere near the Van Allen belt (nor can anyone else for that matter) yet they were able to do this 50 years ago. How possibly could the prospect of colonizing the moon not be of interest to say Russia, Japan, China and the USA? If it were possible to do so, would it not be pursued in earnest? We can’t discover a remote part of the earth without putting up a Starbucks inside a year, but we go to the moon 50 years ago in one of the most important scientific achievements in the history of man, then we along with every one else in the world just drops it?? Why wouldn’t this suggest that we don’t have the technology to do this now, let alone 50 years ago?
3. It would not be difficult to remotely put things on the moon as sending unmanned crafts far into outer space is not an issue. So just because there are man made items on the moon, or that we have moon items here on earth does not seem like the conclusive proof that it is made out to be. Remember that this was a cold war first strike, so that making the Russians feel we had this capability was as important an accomplishment as actually getting a man on the moon. There was ample incentive to “fake” it (why we wouldn’t be called out on it to date is a reason to doubt the skeptics).
Anyway, please don’t flame me. If someone has a reasonable response to my questions, I would be happy to reconsider my thoughts on this. Currently, I DO believe we went to the moon only because the rational explanation that they DID go is easier to swallow that this vast hoax conspiracy, but there are certain major things that don’t add up. Thanks!
April 20, 2009 at 1:55 PMI admit when I read the Hoax theories they seemed to be plausible at the first look. It is so easy to doubt everything mankind has achieved. To re-build the Pyramids would still take years and great amounts of money. And technically we are clearly in a better position now. Why has no one done that ever since? What are facts and what are not? The final prove would be me walking on the moon. But – sure – somebody could even make me believe that by hypnosis…
To answer john’s questions to what I think (nobody “knows” anything):
1. just because we didn’t go back doesn’t mean we weren’t able to. Still most of the oceans are undiscovered, uncounted species are waiting to be explored in the rain forests, vaccines to be found, etc. Why would it be so important to go back. I never saw any need to do it in the first place, other than propaganda. Why climb the Mount Everest? Even though the Wright brothers built a flying airplane I prefer to use the modern version with all the comfort it provides. I guess, a new moon landing would require to design many things from scratch as NASA is sending robots and probes into space nowadays and not people. A moon landing is different to a travel to a space station in earth’s orbit. Or would you honestly just build a replica of the Apollo spaceships and use the old technology? Again why risk human life when you don’t need to?
2. I couldn’t find any scientific article stating that passing the Van Allen belt is lethal for space travelers in a radiation shielded space craft. Where is the evidence for that? Just because the cancer risk goes up doesn’t stop people from smoking either.
3. I agree with you on that point
I like to question many things, too. But while I understand the concepts of a PC, phone, internet, car, etc. I could not design and construct one myself. Hence, I have to believe some can.
April 21, 2009 at 2:51 PMWe will never find out. Thats how conspiracy works. The truth will always be left to the imagination. Its sad but thats reality.
April 28, 2009 at 5:04 AMI think we should take the smarter-than-thou, smug conspiracy theorists (none of whom has a degree in aeronautics or physics) on here and blast them all to the Sea of Tranquility and then they can report back to us with their final breaths what they see on the lunar surface.
May 3, 2009 at 5:04 PMSimply put, if they could do it all that time ago now. Why do we not seem to have been able to repeat it since? All we have recently is some crap footage of a little machine being followed around by a camera on “Mars.”
I have a feeling that this episode probably got them a good sum of funding to help re-cover-up since a lot of people are able to look at it with a more educated view these days and realize what a load of crap it was.
May 10, 2009 at 10:40 PMFrom what I’ve seen there is still a big doubt that man ever walked on the moon.
Hoaxes can be created quite easily as many other Hollywood sci-fi movies show quite well. They’ve fooled a lot of cinema goers for a long while.
Everything can be created and as a photographer, I know that with a little help from ‘Photoshop’ I know many of these things are possible. But some things just cannot be created with tricks, filters or software.
So, until there we see 100% proof I will treat it the same as the Loch Ness Monster and UFO’s.
May 11, 2009 at 3:48 PMIf you think otherwise then it shows just how easy it is to fool a lot of people.
(Excuse the spelling – I’m English!)
Also, There are a couple of pictures using the same background, hills, craters etc. In one picture there is the lunar lander, but in the other there is no trace, or even marks in the soil (that doesn’t blow away.)
It certainly looks like a film set to me, with sloppy editing. No wonder ‘area 51′ is so well guarded, it’s a film set……
May 17, 2009 at 3:19 AMThe Naked Conspiracy took this to the next level :D
June 11, 2009 at 11:59 PMThe Mythbusters synopsis is incorrect. The photo of astronaut descending the leg of the LEM is Aldren, not Armstrong.
http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/apollo.html
Anyone who has watched TV or movies of scenes shot outdoors should know that reflectors are commonly used to fill in shadows. The moon’s surface is such a reflector.
This would have had to have been a huge conspiracy as NASA relied on a global infrastructure. Worldwide tracking stations, recovery teams, etc. The sheer number of people who would have had to have been involved in this conspiracy would have collapsed the ruse by now.
Personally, I feel the conspiracy theory does a great disservice to the families of both American and Soviet astronauts killed in the pursuit of manned spaceflight. Try telling any vet their comrades died in vain.
June 16, 2009 at 12:56 PMMassive conspiracies can be created of course and this isn’t the first one.
The US motion picture industry is world class of course, and they’ve had many years of fooling the public.
Anything can be created and with the amount of evidence about it looks like this scenario is top of the list.
JFK promised that man would walk on the moon and they certainly did, but the moon in question was on a film set, probably secreted in or around area 51.
There are just too many variables to convince me.
(Old England)
June 20, 2009 at 2:54 AMThe suface of the moon has been visited numerous times, by the U.S. unmanned 1959-1968 of what I count to 17 times ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing ) and one unknown because of lost radio contact, by the U.S. manned six times 1969-1972, by the Soviet Union unmanned eleven times 1959-1976 and by India unmanned once (crasch landning 14 November 2008). I have included unplanned crashes and other failures as long as the moon’s surface has been reached. Also, the moon’s suface has been driven on for several tens of miles, and considerable amounts of material (842 pounds of dust and rocks just by the manned U.S. landings) has been collected and been taken back to earth. A total of 12 people have visited the moon (all Americans) and spend a total of 11,5 days on the surface of the moon. That there are still people who seriously believe that moon hasn’t been visited is just tragic and comical. I have myself studied at Purdue University which houses a piece of material from the moon, and which has alumni who has walked on the surface of the moon.
June 21, 2009 at 7:54 PMI know I’ve said this already, but here it goes again:
To those of you who imagine a conspiracy to generate some massive Apollo hoax, please ask yourself – were the Soviets involved in the hoax? The Soviets spent the equivalent of many billions of dollars making rockets that were just as big as America’s in a failed attempt to put humans on the Moon. They tried “cloak and dagger” operations to frustrate NASA, and they sent special missions to the Moon just to try to upstage the Americans (look up “Luna 15″ on wikipedia, for instance). But one thing they NEVER did was accuse the Americans of faking the Apollo Moon landings. (The Soviets did cover up their own Moon landing efforts when it became apparent that they would lose, but they NEVER went into the fantasy land of claiming that Apollo was a fake, despite all of the efforts of the Soviet aerospace industry, the military, and the KGB.)
How is it that the people who claim that Apollo was a fake know more, are smarter, and care more about embarrassing NASA/America than the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union?
Can you agree that the Apollo hoax hypothesis just doesn’t make sense politically, despite what you think or don’t think about the technical issues?
June 24, 2009 at 1:38 PMNASA has faked the moon landing……in the myth when they were proving about the movie that it was slow down to half its speed…..everyone know that the gravity is 1/6 of the earth so ppl at NASA weren’t dump enough to slow it down to half of its speed but they slowed down to 1/6 of their speed…..and when they were proving the flag part…..even if we accept that the neil moved the flag then it wouldn’t have moved so fast…..mythbuster replicated in a place where the value of g is 9.8m/s where as on the moon its 1/6 of it but they both seem to move in the same speed…..how is that possible?……and still people who believe that we have landed on moon….just go to youtube and search moon landing hoax……there you will find Kissinger,Hague and rumsfeld accepting that we fake it along with nixon’s secetary
June 30, 2009 at 3:02 PMTo YousuF:
The “Dark Side of the Moon” video you refer to with Kissinger, Haig and Rumsfeld is a mockumentary, a joke.
How ridiculous this is getting…
June 30, 2009 at 5:51 PMAbout the laser reflector left on the Moon – how does it work so that a laser emmitted here can be received in the same vicinity without significant deflection? Obviously, if the mirror is flat, it can’t be done, since the it would have to be at a perfect right angle to the incoming beam. But even if it is parabolic, just beaming the laser and hoping it will get back would also be hard, because you would still need to search for a point on the mirror that is at the perfect right angle to the incoming beam. It could take a lot of time to find such a point, no?
Can anyone tell how the thing works?
July 1, 2009 at 1:44 PMI think I have an answer to my own question – the beam spot on the Moon is large, and covers the whole deflector, and a small portion of the beam will be deflected at 180 degrees back to the emmitter.
July 1, 2009 at 1:50 PM