Why are there so many skeptics about the moon landing?

Question

Why are there so many skeptics about the moon landing?

Answer 1

They must be that same people that think that their cat can see ghosts, and there is an awful lot of them.

Answer 2

Because Fox TV put on a show suggesting it was a hoax and treated it like a documentary.  The SIX manned moon landings weren't faked. 400,000 people were involved in making the Apollo 11 moon landing happen. The Apollo Moon landings were among the most completely documented and observed events in history. The conspiracy "theories" that claim otherwise are a bunch of nonsense without even a single compelling piece of evidence. Most of the questions raised are based on ignorance of basic physics and optics. Video special effects were in their infancy in the late 60's so that faking a landing on the Moon would probably have been more difficult than actually going there, and it seems highly unlikely that the hundreds or even thousands of people who would have had to be involved in such a conspiracy would have kept it a secret for so long. Ultimately you'll have to decide for yourself if the marginal evidence offered to show this was all a hoax is compelling enough to overturn the overwhelming evidence that it actually occurred, but make sure you check the facts carefully, you need to be a little skeptical of the skeptics, too. For more detailed debunking of this ill-conceived notion, see sources.

Flag Waving

The answer is, it isn't waving. It looks like that because of the way the flag was deployed. The flag hangs from a horizontal rod which telescopes out from the vertical one. In Apollo 11, they couldn't get the rod to extend completely, so the flag didn't get stretched fully. It has a ripple in it, like a curtain that is not fully closed. In later flights, the astronauts didn't fully deploy it on purpose because they liked the way it looked. In other words, the flag looks like it is waving because the astronauts wanted it to look that way. Ironically, they did their job too well. It appears to have fooled a lot of people into thinking it waved.

Shadows Not Parallel

the Sun really is the only source of light. The shadows are not parallel in the images because of perspective. Remember, you are looking at a three-dimensional scene, projected on a two-dimensional photograph. That causes distortions. When the Sun is low and shadows are long, objects at different distance do indeed appear to cast non-parallel shadows, even here on Earth. If seen from above, all the shadows in the Apollo images would indeed look parallel. You can experience this for yourself; go outside on a clear day when the Sun is low in the sky and compare the direction of the shadows of near and far objects. You'll see that they appear to diverge. Here is a major claim of the HBs that you can disprove all by yourself! Don't take my word for it, go out and try!

Who Filmed Neil Armstrong

A Lunar Module camera provided live television coverage of Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT.

Radiation Hazard

The time on the moon was limited to avoid radiation effects. Armstrong and Aldrin spent less than 3 hours on the Moon.

According to the Vision for Space Exploration, NASA plans to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 and, eventually, to set up an outpost. For people to live and work on the Moon safely, the radiation problem must be solved.

"We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a few days," says Harlan Spence, a professor of astronomy at Boston University.

"The first global mapping of neutron radiation from the Moon was performed by NASA's Lunar Prospector probe in 1998-99. LEND will improve on the Lunar Prospector data by profiling the energies of these neutrons, showing what fraction are of high energy (i.e., the most damaging to people) and what fraction are of lower energies.

With such knowledge in hand, scientists can begin designing spacesuits, lunar habitats, Moon vehicles, and other equipment for NASA's return to the Moon knowing exactly how much radiation shielding this equipment must have to keep humans safe."

"The recent Fox TV show, which I saw, is an ingenious and entertaining assemblage of nonsense. The claim that radiation exposure during the Apollo missions would have been fatal to the astronauts is only one example of such nonsense." -- Dr. James Van Allen

Yes, there is deadly radiation in the Van Allen belts, but the nature of that radiation was known to the Apollo engineers and they were able to make suitable preparations. The principle danger of the Van Allen belts is high-energy protons, which are not that difficult to shield against. And the Apollo navigators plotted a course through the thinnest parts of the belts and arranged for the spacecraft to pass through them quickly, limiting the exposure.

Men Who Knew Too Much Killed

We landed on the moon 6 times. Twelve astronauts walked on the moon, while 6 more orbited. In addition, Apollo 10 and 13 orbited the moon (with 3 astronauts each) without landing. From the total of 24 astronauts who went to the moon with or without landing, only 3 have died and these men are mostly in their 70's now.

Men who walked on the Moon

Name Mission Age Now

Neil Armstrong Apollo 11 77

Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11 78

Pete Conrad Apollo 12 died 7/8/99 age 69

Allen Bean Apollo 12 76

Alan Shepard Apollo 14 died 7/21/98 age 74

Edgar Mitchell Apollo 14 77

David Scott Apollo 15 76

James Irwin Apollo 15 died 8/8/91 age 61

John Young Apollo 16 77

Charles Duke Apollo 16 72

Eugene Cernan Apollo 17 74

Harrison Schmitt Apollo 17 73

Men Who Orbited the Moon Without Landing

1. Frank Borman - Apollo 8 age: 80

2. Jim Lovell - Apollo 8, Apollo 13 (intended to land) Age: 80

3. William Anders - Apollo 8 age: 74

4. Tom Stafford - Apollo 10 age: 77

5. John Young - Apollo 10 (later landed on Apollo 16) age: 77

6. Eugene Cernan - Apollo 10 (later landed on Apollo 17) age: 74

7. Michael Collins - Apollo 11 age: 77

8. d**k Gordon - Apollo 12 (had been slated to land on Apollo 18) age: 78

9. Jack Swigert - Apollo 13 age: 77

10. Fred Haise - Apollo 13 (intended to land; had been slated to land on Apollo 19) age: 74

I would say that 3 men having died, out of 24 who went to the moon, is not outside the normal death rate for any group of men. In addition, these men died in 1991, 1998, and 1999. This ranges from 19 to 27 years after the last moon mission. If they wanted to keep them quiet, they certainly would have done it much sooner.

Lastly, since we were in a space race with the Soviet Union and they were monitoring our space flights, do you think there is any chance that they wouldn’t have exposed us if it had been a hoax?.

Answer 3

They just want attention.

Answer 4

People are taught that being open minded means listening to both sides of the story.  There are a lot of cases where one side is just wrong and listening to both just confuses people.  

Answer 5

It's because the popular media, television, and the Internet are huge vats of gooey misinformation and rancid rumor. Anybody can get any outlandish claim published or aired.  They dress up their bogus claims to look legitimate and this fools the majority of people who are exposed to it.  In addition, healthy skepticism and rational thinking are considered by many to be affronts to their freedom to claim and believe whatever they want.  Even plain facts are regarded as authoritarian and repressive.

Any idiot with a conspiracy theory and a claim of special inside information can become an icon in this society of pervasive intellectual laziness, undisciplined self-indulgence, and ego.

Answer 6

Because people love consipracy theories, although if you think about how many people would have had to be "in on it", that alone should tell you that is couldn't possibly be faked and kept a secret for 40 years.

All the "evidence" given by conspiracy theorists is refuted on reputable websites.

The media has also contributed to this.  Just because there are 2 sides to an argument, doesn't meant that they both should be regarded equally.

"Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." - Unknown

Answer 7

I think its because conspiracy theories allow their believers to see themselves as smarter than the rest of supposedly gullible population. They see all the "facts" and come to conclusions that they see as obvious while very few see it the same way, so they come up with the idea that they are somehow SO much smarter than everyone else. Feelings of superiority are hard to give up so they continue in the minds of these theorists even when credible information thoroughly uproots their original hypotheses. The human mind is a wonderful and scary thing.

Answer 8

Because it is easy to criticize.  

Answer 9

1) because we haven't been back

2) Back in the 60's th goverment did a lot of sneaky things

3) It was a big deal for us to have some big win in the space race over the soviets.  When they got sputnik up before us it was a huge boon to them and a big loss to us

4)  We didn't have the kind of openess to government programs back then that we do now

5) there are some big scientific questions that once you raise doubt with 1-4 people begin to ask again.  One of the biggest is cosmic and soldier radiation.  Once we get outside the earth's magnetic field the astronauts would be exposed to intense radiation.  

Answer 10

The there is a bit of frustration that the general public (you and me) is not provided more copies - we have to pick one page at a time to dig our teeth into something...  You have to have faith!!!

Answer 11

Seems people have to believe something so oftentimes facts does not impress some. Many witnessed Jesus bringing the dead to life again and some chose not to believe...james the hollow earth man

Answer 12

You have an entire generation of people who were born after the last moon landing took place. Because they weren't around to watch live coverage of the landings on TV, they are more likely to believe the moon landings were faked. Those of us who actually watched them believe they were real.

Answer 13

I have watched all the available documentaries about the Moon Landings being faked (about 6 of them - I do have most of them downloaded)- and while there is credible evidence to suggest it was - I have read from a source, I consider reliable - that only the Apollo 11 Landing was hoaxed.

It is understandable it could be - because of the intense pressure of having so many things working the first time - tried out - with no second chances available.

Here is that source:

http://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_M...

(also www.figu.org [English Discussion Board])

I have researched the Billy Meier UFO Contact information, about the Plejarens for the past 5 years --- and have taken an interest in UFOs, etc for the past 30 years...

I do think the Plejaren information is worth taking note of.

Answer 14

The people raising "scientific" questions about the authenticity of the Moon landings are not scientists.  They're not even close.  That's why you get vague, handwaving claims about "soldier radiation."  (Solar?)  The conspiracy theorists use big words to impress laymen into buying their books and videos, but they don't fool real scientists and engineers.

There are no scientifically, technically, photographically, or historically valid reasons to doubt the authenticity of the Moon landings.  Why do they doubt the Moon landings?  One of the major conspiracy theorists, Bart Sibrel, owns a company called AFTH LLC.  That company's only products, that we can determine, are his Moon hoax videos.  The company reports yearly revenues in excess of $200,000, apparently all from the sale of Moon hoax materials.  How's that for a reason for "doubting" the Moon landings?