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
Older: Episode 103: Exploding Steak
The Americans can’t even keep secret what happened in the Oval Office. How many thousands of Americans at NASA, CIA, FBI etc etc must have been in on the moon landing “fake”? What a remarkable secret it must be when so many keep it for so long. Not one leak…..A conspiracy theorist will always find a reason to reject the evidence staring at him or her in the face.
Adam Black May 14.
Hmmn. I don’t think thats much of an argument. Surprisingly few people would need to be involved. Certainly not thousands. The components were manufactured by various contractors and assembled by Nasa. Provided the overall design was halfway feasible, none of the contractors could be certain of where the package ended up.
The rocket was launched by “Launch Control” which involved a great many people, but then “Mission Control” took over. Mission Control needed only a few people, and the others involved were the astronauts and, if it were faked, a film crew.
One can assume all parties involved were highly dedicated and faithfull servants with a great deal to lose if they went public.
The “Americans” have thousands of security personell operating in a great many agencies involved in covert activities throught the world. How often do we hear of one of these people releasing high grade secret imformation? We don’t! High grade secret imformation is entrusted only to
personell of considerable rank. There clearly must be tens of thousands of pieces of top grade intelligence that we will never be exposed to public scrutiny.
I cannot say definitely that manned moon landings did not occur. I would be more inclined to believe it if a manned craft were flown more than five hundred miles from the surface of the planet. We know what happened when the shuttle went as high as three hundred and fifty miles, oddly the Apollo missions had no such problems.
The photographs the lander on the moons surface, are most odd. It would have required 3,000 lbs of thrust to a point very close to the lunar surface to land the craft, yet we see no disturbance of the surface, tho the astronauts footprints demonstrate (1/6 gravity mind you) that it is loose soil.
The stars should be dramtically visible and easily photographed from the lunar surface.
There should be dust, observed to be billowing up, in the dish shaped feet of the craft.
In 1/6 gravity and zero atmospheric pressure, the astronauts should have been capable of astonishing feats.
And thats only a start, there are many many other anomalies that demand observation. It is perfectly obvious that there is good reason to doubt that manned moon landings actually occured.
If you mean by “The evidence staring us in the face” is hearsay evidence, the evidence of dubious photographs and alleged artefacts to which we must accept the stated provenance, I doubt your case would have much probability of success in a court of law, given the doubt that can be raised against it.
I suggest you watch the interview of the astronauts who made the first landing, after the “debriefing period”. They certainly don’t appear to be triumphant pioneers in their mannerisms and speech.
In the critical political period at that time, could it have been faked for the obvious benefits of such a demonstration of
nations prowess and it’s superior system?
Of course it could have been faked. Would it have been faked? Well, Richard Nixon was the President.
Could it be kept secret.? Yes definitely.
We’ll know more in 2026.
They certainly don
I certainly agree. I think the most revealing evidence against the landing is in the prowess of the production on an alien planetary object that is supposedly being filmed live.
There is a lot of editing and cuts from one camera to another and WHo is holding the camera and panning it upwards as they are leaving the Moon?
Hi M. Have you ever heard of something called ‘remote control’? All the ‘editing’ was done at mission control. And for the record, they only have one shot of the lander taking off because that shot is very difficult to get by remote control due to a radio signal delay of about 2 seconds. I believe they only pulled it off on the last mission.
Actually the delay was 8 seconds.
Dust doesn’t billow in a vacuum. It would blow straight away from the lander in a parabolic arc and stay where it hit the lunar surface.
If everything could be proven on earth who says the government couldn’t have done the same to fake it?
These things were proven with things we learned from our time on the moon. It would have been hard to test for things you don’t know about. By the way, where did all those moon rocks come from if we were never on the moon?
I do feel sad for people who don’t believe the moon landing. They are essentially saying that humanity lacks the will, imagination, intelligence, innovation, skill, bravery, and determination to do something difficult and astonishing. How can we move forward with that mindset?
Matt. June 18.
Complete non sequitur. The people challenging the manned moon landings as fact are not saying anything of the sort and you misrepresent them. Undoubtedly all of the attributes you list were present and acted out. But with the best will in the world when a designated task proves for technical reasons impossible, (and it still is and will be so for deades yet) other human qualities may come into play.
You have to understand the political imperative at the time to prove technical superiority over the Communists, to realise the importance of this pragmatic, but now clearly obvious fraud.
The Apollo astronauts remain some of the greatest patriots and heroes in American history, not only for their proven achievements, but for acts of personal sacrifice of a gravity and importance will not be appreciated for a long time yet.
They are even greater men than you realise.
Impossible and will be for decades yet? You do realize we can already manipulate DNA and create new biological organs from stem cells? The only thing that’s keeping us off MARS is budget. Whilst going to the moon is easily within technological possibility, it is also unfortunately very expensive.
I would suggest that you not say any of this BS to anyone who has actually been to the moon. Buzz Aldrin decked someone who tried to mouth off about his favorite conspriracy theory. You do not tell a great hero that his life’s greatest accomplishment is a lie to his face without getting an appropriate response.
Oh gosh….the government did not fake it but your girlfriend did! Hah! take that you non believers!
because you “wankers” haven’t done it yet? we’re going to Mars…
The moon landing took place at the height of the Cold War.
Yet the Soviet’s didn’t come out and claim the whole thing was a fake?
Surely if anybody in the World was going to claim it was faked it would have been the Soviets?
Thank you. Finally, someone gets it. The only people with the actual means to disprove the moon landing were the soviets. everyone else’s crackpot theories are unscientific but the soviets would have had the means and the motivation to claim that the whole thing never happened, had it never happened. Guess what tin hat lovers, America went to the moon.
Using that as a point of argument is simply fallacious. You’re assuming peoples of a totally different mindset would exhibit the same (egotistic) behavior.
Perhaps if Russia went to the moon then the Americans might have tried everything to disprove it, but that presumption has no bearing on what the Russians might or might not do.
I’m sure if you lent NASA $20 billion or so from your piggy bank they could.
“humanity lacks the will, imagination, intelligence, innovation, skill, bravery, and determination to do something difficult and astonishing”
Just look no further than the last 20 years! Was it innovation that brought us G.W. Bush? Was it intelligence that brought us the Irag and Afghanistan Illegal Occupastions? Was it imagination that opened the doors to Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo? Was it skill that dropped the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Was it bravery to assasinate an foreign national before taking him to court? And was it determination that led to the bailing out of the Big Banks after they looted the treasury?
Where is all this intelligence, innovation, skill, bravery, and determination that you speak of?
Those things haven’t esisted in America since, well, the MOON LANDING.
What’s wrong with you people?
Do you really don’t believe on the moon landing?
If you read all the details about the project, every single step you won’t find any science gap or mistake.
1000′s of scientists around the world are unanimous about it including the Soviets that in 1969 were deeply frusrated because there was no choice other than recognizing the Apollo Program success.
Hoax people, better u come up with more plausible argument because everything you guys say doesn’t make any sense.
you are soooo correct on this one.We could have done so much more in the ntiervening years, but the governemtne decided instead to write rules and regulations for every facet of life instead.
Mauro July 24
You’ll find that your statements are all untrue if you take the time to some proper research. You’ll find many absurd anomalies in the science and the photographic record.
Just the experiences of the astronauts in the shuttle at only three hundred and fifty miles above the earths surface should tell you something. The intense conditions hostile to humans is the obvious reason we haven’t been to the moon and won’t be going to Mars soon, or even venturing more than a few hundred miles from the Earths surface.
Apart from the alleged moon landings, we’ve never had manned orbits even a thousand miles up. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?
At the time the Russians had no way of knowing whether manned missions were occuring and by the time they did have the tech to track, the whole programe was abruptly cancelled. You’ll find many Russian scientists and American too, highly sceptical still, if you take the time to do the work.
Are you that stupid the shuttle was made for geosync orbit,who the hell would observe the earth 1,000 miles above it::oh and by the way the engines on the saturn rockets produce a lot more thrust than the srb and engines on the shuttle which made it possable to go too the moon
John Dee July 24
You say the reason that the Soviets didn’t say that Apollo 11 was a hoax is because the Soviets didn’t have the technology to do so. Well that’s just flat out wrong. In case you don’t know the soviets actually beat the US into space so they would certainly have the technology to determine if the Apollo 11 landing was faked. Also you point out that there has never been a maned orbit 1000 miles above the surface and well thats because that would be a waste on fuel. Since you don’t need to be that high above Earth to orbit (Yuri Gagarin orbited between 105 and 203 mi and Alan Shepard [First American in space] orbited at around 116 mi) And you’d actually be hard pressed to find any scientist in physics, astronomy, cosmology or astrophysics who believes that the moon landing was faked.
Anyone who believes the moon landing was faked is a retarded idiot. Just read any of the myriad evidence that it really happened and you’ll realize how idiotic the assumption that it didn’t is.
Wow excellent argument. I’ll start believing everything NASA tells me now.
The moon landings were completed 6 times.
The last Apollo mission, 18, was not a landing.
11, 12, 14 ,15 ,16 ,and 17 made it there and returned.
Nasa has a great library of photographs.
Of course they went to the moon 6 times.
But why do hoax believers only seem to have questions regarding Apollo 11?
maybe man did get to the moon. they just never came back. maybe it was a one way ticket.
why did bush a few years back suddenly show an interest to get to the moon again. could it be they are worried that the chinese will in time find out the truth?
Bush also faked the invention of the Internet and smartphones that can fake-store entire movies in the palm of your hand. There are millions of crazy morons around who actually type messages into keyboards hoping that someone on the other side of the planet will be able to read that. I guess soon they are gonna wanna make us believe that pictures can be sent through nothing but thin air and the earth has existed for over 6000 years. I guess you and me are the only sane people in a world of morons. (sent from my iphone somewhere in Europe 10000 years in the future from your vantage point)
How does returning to the moon stop China from making its initial visit? All subsequent probes and telescopes looking at old landing sites find the evidence required of actual visits.
Robert Weeks says:
I would suggest that you not say any of this BS to anyone who has actually been to the moon. Buzz Aldrin decked someone who tried to mouth off about his favorite conspriracy theory. You do not tell a great hero that his life’s greatest accomplishment is a lie to his face without getting an appropriate response.
July 4, 2011 at 12:29 AM #
Reply
Mr “Buzz” Aldrin asked that dude to “get away from me” before that dude called him a “coward and A liar”.
A then 70+ year old man knocked out a MUCH younger man with a single punch.
Mr Aldrin was sued over this incident.
The judge threw out the case…
If you tell a national hero that he is a fake and a liar to his face.. you get wasted.. yer own fault.
Go Aldrin!
Go to Mars – Cydonia much more interesting than the Moon.
It’s funny, I always thought it would be impossible to prove that we went there, but on Mythbusters they showed that we left a laser reflector there, and proved that it is still there. There’s no way around it, unless the Mythbusters are secret government agents too. People who believe that the landings were faked are just not that bright.
Do you have any idea it is to place a reflective surface on the moon? Certainly not proof of our having landed, much less taken off after. The motive for creating disinformation of this sort, is overwhelming; and for that matter, the Russians were terrified we would discover their fake advances in technology. They were both glad to accept the lie and save face.
Scientifically speaking, the Saturn rockets couldn’t have delivered the payload with 800 times the fuel they used in those missions. Not only didn’t they happen; they couldn’t have happened.
pls dont argue with theses guys. they believe every thing they see on tv and read in there papers.They still believe JFK was killed by a lone assassin and the trade towers was the work of Bin laden. But to really understand whats going on behind the scene pls do a research on the illuminati, the jesuit order and the freemasons.
The Internet is an illusion created by the freemasons. The Twin Towers have never existed and all islamist terrorists from Bali to Madrid to London to Mumbai to New York to Kabul to Baghdad are Mossad agents just like the Jewish actor who played Bin Laden until he retired on George Bush’s ranch. If only people could get rid of the alien implants and realize that pictures cannot travel through air and man cannot fly to the moon.
Have you ever thought that they put the layzer on a satilight WE HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THE MOON GET OVER IT.
Um, wow the ability of those like you to ignore all scientific evidence to believe what you will amazes me, I thought I was stubborn in my beliefs but you have me beat by miles, I almost admire your almost unimaginable ability to believe that which is proven false.
The beauty is, that you can’t scientifically prove something DIDN’T happen. How convenient. But someday, someone will go to the very spot on the moon where we supposedly left a ton of junk; and if it is not one of our guys, look out. Will the Chinese keep our little secret?
If there really is an American flag on the moon, the Chinese could bring back and auction it on eBay.
Pure pwnage.
You have never put your message on something which the moron believers call the Internet where imaginary people can exchange crazy messages at the speed of light. We have never invented the Internet – get over it.
Those of us born before before 1999 know for a fact that the first time the moon landing was ever mentioned was when it was declassified in 1999. We also know that even the Cronkite broadcasts are fake. Similarly, the Vietnam war was a hoax propagated solely to support deficit spending. There is no polio vaccine, btw, and Nixon was most certainly never president.
THE INTERNET: A place where fools can meet to discuss and reaffirm their beliefs.
And I like the Saturday Night Live theory that Reagan believed he was filming a movie, and reading from a script, during his years as President …
Hi!
I chose episode 104 to do my assignment for my psychology class. The moon foot print is interesting to me. What is the psychology behind that is out there for me, lol ! Who would ever thought that had to do anything with psychology beats me. Well, it is an assignment for psychogy, Whatever, it still is something that would be good to know.
Oh my god. will you conspiracy theorists shut the hell up? did they not say in the article that the astronauts put reflectors on the moons you can bounce lasers off of? Forget all the supposed video evidence you say is faked. forget it. none of that matters if there are reflectors on the moon. the experiment to prove those reflectors are there has been done by THOUSANDS of people, all over the world. how did those reflectors get there if astronauts never got there? explain that, you conspiracy theorists. explain that.
Right, placing a reflector on the moon (easy and small payload) proves that we delivered a huge payload and brought it back. Please.
Hey Brad you ever think they could of just sent probes out to the moon to place the reflectors out there? i guess not just because we put stuff on the moon doesnt say we were there, i watched a video in sociology on the conspiracy video and myth busters dont explain why there isnt any types of stars in the sky in any of the pictures
im a project on this being real can anyone give me a heads up to explain why there wasnt a crater under apollo 11?
The exhaust from the lander’s engine was spread-out so that there were only a few pounds per square inch of lunar surface. Just enough to blow some of the dust away.
why wasnt there any stars in the sky? in any of the pictures?
There wasn’t a crater because there wasn’t enough thrust to blow a hole in the moon and because the gravity is lower the Eagle lifted off.
wow your really smart aren’t you? first off it cost loads of money to send humans to the moon and secondly if we have already been there several times why would we need to go again? the moon is just dust and rock. it would be a waste of money, time and effort.
So it only took 6 trips to ascertain that is was all a ridiculous waste of time, money & effort? Interesting.
A Saturn V rocket plus launch in 1969 cost $185 million USD. 8 Saturn V rockets where launched (Apollo 10 – 17) not counting Apollo 9 as it did not leave earth orbit. 8 x 185 = 1480. Total cost of the Apollo program as reported to congress in 1973 was $23.9 Billion USD (at 2005 prices that would be $170 Billion USD) and the lives of 3 men.
Why spend $23.9 Billion USD on getting to the moon if you intend to fake it? Certainly it would have been cheaper to fake it.
Although the Russians at the time denied having their own Moon program the fact is that did. It was called the Luna program and it was a unmanned program. In fact their probe Luna 9 was the first man made object to land on the moon and send back data. in 1970 they launched Luna 17 and carried a small robot lunar rover called Lunokhod 1.
So the Russians had the means to confirm if NASA had gone to the moon as early as 1970.
It is cheaper to fake the moon landings so if it was faked where did all that money go?
With all the evidence out there the rational mind can only conclude that MAN WENT TO THE MOON!
Fact is, all that proves is that we spent the money and sent some guys into orbit.
The lasers bouncing off reflectors in no way prove men have walked on the moon. If a rover can crawl on mars, why can’t a piece of metal be placed on the moon. I am not saying that have, or have not walked on the moon, but making an argument in favor based on the fact that there is a reflector on the moon is a poor choice. If you can throw a rock across a bridge that doesn’t mean you can jump over it. The rock it there you can see it! So what did you place it there or throw it there, it being there doesn’t prove anything it doesn’t evan suggest it. Its a horrible point to raise if you are a believer.
agreed just because the reflectors are there dosnt mean anything
So I gather the moon is a theory. No science or pictures or physical evidence can be introduced with out challenge and ridicule.This seems to be evolution and god theories. You can re-right or change the evidence to read as you please and make into fact your argument. Us humans sure seem to have no limit on creating realities and trying to push it off on others as reality endlessly. My father believed no moon and I being taught in school it happened. My problem is I never took the time to research due to my limited scientific training I have to go a little slower. I imagine since I found a controversy that questions our great American achievement I will see.
I like turtles.
My friend and I are both 47 year-old skeptics on the ‘manned’ lunar landings. We both were young children at that time and remember the events quite lucidly. The recent NASA Mars program failed at its first attempt to land a probe on Mars and the second attempt at “bouncing” a probe was successful to a point. I still have the National Geographic issue detailing the Mars probe’s excursion and the photos are stunning to say the least. It would be difficult to honestly say the Mars probe was a hoax because the technology and evidence is irrefutable, unlike the lunar landings videos and pictures from 40 years ago which bear as much circumspect evidence as there is undeniable truth. Moon rocks, coincidentally, have been shown to be identical to earth rocks. Saying those rocks are from the moon becomes a moot point.
Obviously our NASA shuttle program has just recently been scuttled for budgetary and compulsory reasons. Why? It’s clear the shuttle program suffered tragic losses and it appears to the casual observer that our technology is still in its infancy to continuously put man in space and safely return without the possibility of disastrous failure. Now NASA is contracting to design and build a new-age jet airplane that will carry a newly designed space shuttle to the outer reaches of our earth’s atmosphere and launch shuttles without using giant rocket thrusters, thus saving a great deal of money, time, equipment and quite likely lives. The new Space Station is really our next giant leap for man-kind and is actually really cool to see streaking across the night sky. I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it take the time to watch it when it’s scheduled to fly over your part of the country.
My argument for the falsifying of manned lunar landings is best defined by this simple question: If the Hubble space telescope can take alarmingly beautiful images of the Mars probe and time lapse its trip along the rim of that giant crater, and photograph incredible nebulae, distant solar systems and other heavenly bodies millions of light years away, why then can the Hubble not show a simple image of an American flag, rover tracks, footprints and other clear pictures of Apollo junk?
Saying the lens is too small and would need to be 75 meters wide and that it would be a waste of time to aim the Hubble at the moon is about as believable as dust settling everywhere BUT on the LEM. Any telescopic picture I can find of the Apollo junk left behind is blurry and in some cases appears to be superimposed, and quite simply isn’t as undeniable as a satellite image of my friggin license plate.
I’m not saying man didn’t put crap on the moon, I’m just saying I doubt man actually walked on the moon.
Moon landing was an ilusion.
Life is just an ilusion.
illusion is spelled with 2 LL’S retard.
and i think the floorist makes the best argument yet why cant we see pics of the lunar rover there or the base of the LEM.
people know the truth there jus scared to talk about it. think about it if they can kill a president in downtown dallas in front of a whole lot of people and then kill off people that were involved (OSWALD,RUBY,MONROE,AND BOBBY KENNEDY)THESE ARE PEOPLE THAT KNEW OF PRECIOUS US SECRETS AND WILL NEVER KNO CUZ THEY WERE SILENCED TO DEATH…WAKE UP FOLKS THERE IS A HIGHER POWER AT WORK HERE THIS IS NOT JUS HERE IN THE US BUT EVERY CORNER OF THE COUNTRY THERE EYES ARE WATCHING U…..WILL SOON FIND OUT IF ONE THEORY IS TRUE AND THAT DATE IS DECEMBER 21 2012..WHEN TRULY NWO BEGINS..
The overall problem is, this was cold war, russians have been working on moon project for some time prior to america, and we all know that who ever wins the moon race will win the cold war, and suddenly america who started later can amazingly be the first to sucessefully land a man on the moon? Cmon? Besides history doesn’t help america, your government has been faking events and distorting realities even before tv exists. Look ate 9/11 for example, man your history has to many hoax, it’s hard to believe in anything you make :/
Nice blog here! Also your site quite a bit up fast! What host are you the use of? Can I get your affiliate hyperlink on your host? I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol
we don’t know anything!?
I think they need to bust 1 more, Van Allen Radiation belt.
in 1998 we flew the space shuttle 350 miles above our atmosphere, our astronauts started experiencing streaking lights and seeing “shooting stars” with their eyes closed. This was affects from radiation penetrating their body. NOW in space the radiation is 10x more dangerous than on earth because of cosmic radiation which can rip tear your DNA . Now please explain how we flew 25,000 miles THROUGH this radiation in 1969, when in 1998 we could only be 650 miles from where it starts and started experiencing problems?
tldr: Van Allen radiation belt starts at 1,000 miles out of our atmosphere and ends 25,000 miles (every mission in history has been UNDER this 1,000 miles, usually under 200 to be safe EXCEPT the Apollo missions.)
if you arent dumb. you would clearly see nasa is the biggest lier ever. they never made it too the moon
if you werent dumb. you could clearly see nasa is lieing
i have 4 original NASA slides ( glass with silver binding the glass) marked by nasa these are the real deal, interested?
I’ve been studying the moon landings recently and concluded that they happened on phobos not our moon and we were assisted by extraterrestrials.Prove that wrong you septics!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BTW, before someone says it would be impossible to see an Apollo spacecraft on the way to the moon through a small telescope, it’s not. Someone in a network of amateur radio operators, who were also amateur astronomers. had spotted the spacecraft and broadcast the coordinates to the rest. I was with a group of amateur astronomers that included one of the amateur radio operators. The spacecraft appeared as an occasional faint, barely visible flash through the telescope. Actually there were six objects visible. They were the Apollo spacecraft complex, the S-IVB stage of the Saturn V and four panels shrouded the lunar module before it was attached to the command module.