Moon Landing solution??

Question

If the moon landing is real, could telescopes zoom in and locate the flag and debris, left behind? I would assume this would put the debate to rest.

Answer 1

Not really. Maybe after a few more decades.

Answer 2

What about the *mysterious* footprint and the C rock and the awkward disappearances of the crew members and the fact snot-green aliens have been stealing our ozone for the last decade only because president Bush smokes marijuana in Vietnam, married with Elvis Presley and taking a c**p in a Bigfoot's shack, while the LHC is making a gigantic black hole in the center of the Earth, after which Nibiru crashes into the Moon, releasing devastating solar flares that consume our geomagnetic field, letting go of the black hole that sucks in God and his Holy Light.

So we couldn't have ever stepped on the Moon.

How about that?

Give it a rest, ignorant people always believe in sh*t like 2012 and deny logical things like the Moon landing.

Because if it was all "normal" (without such stupid affairs and prophecies), there would be nothing *exciting* to discuss.

You sicken me.

P.S.: "You" as in people who are like that, no offence to the questioner.

P.P.S.: Excuse the aggression, but I just can't stand such questions. These questions point to general ignorance amongst people, and in my opinion ignorance is devastating.

Just look at how much damage conspiracy theories have done already, thanks to the history channel... I hope it goes off air soon.

Answer 3

Unfortunately no telescope now in existence has the power to see the Apollo remnants.

EDIT 1:

I agree that the response below is a bit over the top.  For the record, I didn't think you were advocating a hoax.

To answer your second part first, no it probably wouldn't put the matter to rest.  The conspiracy theorists already deny or try to explain away a huge mountain of already-existing evidence.  If you were somehow able to provide recognizable pictures of the landing sites, they would just claim those are fake too.

Don't make the mistake of assuming conspiracy theorists are convinced by evidence.  The majority I've encountered simply WANT to believe in a conspiracy.  It's part of an anti-government, anti-authority, anti-intellectual worldview.  The conspiracy theories which identify governments or pseudo-governments as perpetrators are propounded only as reasons why you, like the conspiracists, should believe that authority is invariably deceptive and oppressive.

How do I know this?  Because in my ten or so years of studying this phenomenon, 99 times out of 100 when the hoax evidence is discussed and refuted, the conspiracy theorist "falls back" to his "How can you possibly believe that evil government?" rhetoric.

And often a conspiracist will say, "I would change my mind if only this or that bit of evidence were avilable."  But in some cases the evidence WAS available, and they just didn't know it.  They proposed a change of heart thinking they'd never have to make good on it.  And sure enough: when you confront them with the evidence they say would change their minds, they DON'T change their minds.  The come up with some new bit of evidence.  Logicians call this "ad hoc revision" or "moving the goalposts."

Now to the practical part of your addendum.  The Hubble Space Telescope can't see anything smaller than about 90 meters in size on the lunar surface.  That's just the way optics works.  You need a much bigger telescope to see more fine detail.

We have put a few spacecraft in lunar orbit with cameras that can detect broad effects of the Apollo landings, such as the plume effects on the dust.  But their lenses and sensors are still not fine enough to see details as small as flags and lunar module descent stages and rovers.

If we could put a big spacecraft like Hubble or Keyhole in lunar orbit, we could get the kind of pictures that would identify Apollo remnants.  But of course that's very costly.  It takes our biggest rockets just to get those behemoth surveillance spacecraft in low orbit.  We have no way yet of getting something that big to the Moon.  And who would pay billions of dollars just to confirm what most of the planet already believes anyway?

Answer 4

Couldn't they just say the pictures from the telescope were fake?

Answer 5

Well, to do so, (at least from the vicinity of the Earth), you'd need a mirror about the size of a football field to get that kind of resolution. (Figure, the landing pads on the LM are about 18 feet apart, and you'd need resolving power of about 1/2 that distance, from 238,000 miles away...)  Currently, we don't have scopes powerful enough to see that kind of resolution.

Besides.... why would you trust a NASA telescope, producing grainy, fuzzy pictures - when they're the same entity that sent the astronauts there in the first place...?    

Answer 6

Those who believe the moon landing was fake would surely be able to come up with some mythical reason why the telescope is fake.

Answer 7

Hi tehrays13,

My apologies if my fellow answerers get aggravated when the moon landing hoax question get brought up. I gets asked quite often and usually the questioner is pretty argumentative as well as ignorant.

Your question was answered pretty well by Phil Platt on his blog BadAstronomy recently. The answer summed up is a lack of resolution but here's a link to his much more deatiled answer:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast...

Answer 8

No, this is beyond the ability of any telescope in existence and that of any telescope that is likely to be built.  The things left on the Moon are too small and too far away.  If you compare the ratio of sizes to their distance with the ratio of size to distance of a distant galaxy, you will find it is a lot smaller.  Galaxies are very big.  

The Hubble telescope orbits fairly close to the Earth, compared to the distance to the Moon it may as well be on the surface.  In any case the brightness of the Moon might be too much for the light sensitive screens in the HST as it is designed to look at much more distant and dim objects.  

One probe orbiting the Moon has photographed one of the landing sites and you can see that the surface of the Moon has been slightly disturbed, but you cannot see the actual equipment.

Suppose that an image was produced, by some miracle of physics.  The people like Bart Sibrel who have been lying their heads off about this would say that the image was faked anyway.  What is another lie when they have already told dozens?

Answer 9

This reasonable sounding question is asked every day and the answer remains the same.  No telescope has the necessary resolution.  The junk we left behind, even the descent modules, are just too small.  Even if the Hubble had the resolution, and it doesn't, no respectable astronomer would bother with this silly hoax.  Time on the Hubble, or any other major telescope is valuable. Wasting ones time with fruity conspiracy types would ruin ones reputation.  Losing the respect of all your colleages, that would be a VERY stupid thing to do.  Your career would be finished.