To the moon, Alice!
 

Anyone catch the Mythbusters lunar landing episode yesterday?

They busted a few of the most common conspiracy theory claims. Nothing amazing, all stuff you can find refutations of online easily. But it was good to see them actually do it.

Of course, using NASA equipment to support the veracity of something that NASA is supposedly lying about isn't likely to appease many conspiracy theorists, but that's another story.

What I love is that the one that I see pop up most often, the "how can the flag be waving with no atmosphere!" turns out to be all but definitive proof that it DID happen. Turns out, the flag is MORE likely to wave with no atmosphere since, without air resistance against the surface of the flag, it oscillates back and forth much more easily. Hah!

It was also great to see what a HUGE moon-landing/NASA geek Adam Savage is. Major geek, he was in freaking heaven.

But the real takeaway was the discovery that the Zero-G airplane thingy doesn't do only weightless. They also do moon gravity. That had me WAY more excited than weightlessness. The thought that I'd get to feel what it's like to walk at 1/6th gravity? OMG that's so freaking awesome!! And I was shocked to learn that it only costs $5000. $5K. I'm not going to go out any time soon and do it, but that's bloody attainable! I could put moon gravity on my Discover Card.

And with Virgin Galactic set to debut at a mere $200K, it became suddenly very clear to me last night that there is a shockingly good chance that I will make it into orbit in my lifetime. Without a shadow of a doubt, the moment the ability to get into space is priced to where it's equivalent to a slightly spendy vacation, I'm there. $200K is well out of that range, but not so far out that I can't imagine it dropping into that range in short order.

So freaking exciting.
:iSm:

I recorded it and will eventually watch it. Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog (and long time battler of the moon hoax believers) was involved in the show to some degree (so that'll just strengthen the argument that it doesn't mean anything since the results were pre-determined).

I must admit, though, I am concerned about the topic getting the shows standard levity and semi-shoddy procedures. To me this is a vastly more important issue than "will a plane take off on a treadmill." But then, it's all probably moot for when they show is over, half the audience probably switches over to one of the alien or ghost or magical ancients shows that flood The History Channel.

But it is good to have the occasional show on the right side.

Because Adam is SUCH a moon landing geek, they went to great lengths to be very accurate on this one. Much less silly than normal. No, "Well that didn't work so let's blow it up!" Very precise on exactly what they were proving or disproving.

For example, one of the claims they disproved was that the multi-directional shadows in this photo could only have been produced with multiple light sources (which the moon does not have), and thus it's proof that it must be a set. So they proved that they could recreate the photo with a single light source (the key being that the surface of the moon is not flat and the contours make it APPEAR in a photo that the shadows are at different angles). After which they very precisely said, "Now, we know this doesn't disprove that it was done in a studio, seeing as we just did this in a studio. ALL we were showing is that the claim that the photo could ONLY have been done with multiple light sources if false and is therefore not proof that it IS a studio shot." It puts the burden of proof back on the conspiracy theorists, which is where it should be.

I base a lot of hoax debunking on common sense via my own personal experience. It took hours and freaking hours for Armstrong to leave the LEM and get down that frelling ladder. We waited and waited and waited.

If it was a hoax, they wouldn't have bothered with such boring realism. 45 minutes would have convinced the world. More than 2 hours was not necessary.



As for Virgin Galactic's eventual price drops, it's too little too late for me. Even at, say, $5,000, I won't pay that for 5 minutes in orbit. I might have when I was younger, but there's a lot of extravagant spending I wouldn't bother with now - even if I had the money.



* * * * *

I've lately become interested in 9/11 hoax theories (by lately, I mean since yesterday). A project I'm working on has led me to a lot of videos of the Trade Center collapse, and there are some very fishy-looking things that I wouldn't mind further tin-foiled and/or debunked.

I'll say unequivocally that the day that I can go into orbit (it would have to be more than the Virgin Galactic suborbital tease) costs $5000 (or the inflation-adjusted equivalent), I will start making arrangements.

Will you take a dime into outer space for me?

iSm, for your debunking needs I'd start with a very detailed Popular Mechanics article from a few years back that took them on one by one. I'll find the link later if you can't but a quick search will probably turn it up.

GD, good to hear. If you are interested in the debunking in general, do check out the Bad Astronomy site if you haven't, as he's been doing it for years.

ETA: Remembered I still have it bookmarked. Here is the Popular Mechanics article. And if you want to read a pretty good rhetorical trashing of the supposed conspiracy that would have been behind a "the US government did it" then I recommend one of the chapters in The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi.

I just don't understand how anyone could justify spending $40 million for a week at the ISS.

Do you realize what you could do with $40 million? To throw it away for a weeks vacation in space is totally CRAZY.

Well, it's not like that $40 million is just going to disappear from the face of the earth never to be seen again. And the same argument could be made against having $40 million in the first place. Or for spending $10,000 on a week long vacation. Or for paying $120/month for cable.

I watched the first half last night, a much better show than the season premier.


My experience with conspiracy theorists is that they are not on a quest for scientific truth. Whatever their motivation they will cling to their beliefs long past the point of reason. The best you can hope for is to prevent them from pulling in people who are uninformed on the topic. Shows like the Mythbusters moon-myths help tremendously with that.

Thanks for the link, Alex. But, sorry, I found the assertions about the tower collapse essentially flimsy and unconvincing. I would have expected some discussion of the physics involved, not merely "Expert A says it would happen like this."

In fact, and though not conclusive to me either, slow-motion video of the collapse makes it appear as though it is decidedly NOT happening the way the article states it does.


Oh well, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Did you see the Nova episode "Why the towers fell?" I thought it was an excellent analysis from an engineering perspective.

I don't see how you could fail to lose sleep over it if you are giving serious contemplation to the idea that our government blew up the World Trade Center. I know if I thought that, I'd feel pretty compelled to move to a safer country pretty much immediately.

Would you have understood the physics involved if instead of "Expert A says.." they essentially provided "Expert A says and here's the math"? Regardless, that is just the starting point, if you want the physics of it all, follow up on the experts and reports the PM article references.

Though I'm not sure what is unconvincing about "steel gets hot, hot steel loses integrity long before it is actually melting, so building falls down." And even if that is hard to believe what is the alternative explanation that is easier to believe?

Nope, still say they never got to the moon the first time. Did MB debunk the powdery dust remaining underneath the capsule on takeoff / landing ?

First off, I don't give serious contemplation to the idea that our government blew up the Towers. I just find several things about the collapse visually nconsistent with expert explanations. That doesn't mean the experts aren't right, or that I don't believe them. Just that it's one of those oddities (and there are many) where things don't appear as perhaps they should if what's happening is in fact what's happening.

Do they cover the moon landing in schools there? I met some people from Australia a few months ago and they also believed the moon landing was staged/hoax. These guys were in their mid 20s.

Their main points were the flag waving (which MB just took care of), shadows where there shouldn't have been and that they could see "strings" as if there were puppeteers controlling the moves.

GD, that is exciting.
:)

Not in schools (far as I can tell) but I've always wondered why none of that fine dust at the base of the lunar lander blew around on landing or takeoff ?

I find it so interesting to get other perspectives on it. I never really heard of people who thought the moon landing was a hoax until I was an adult. I never met anyone who thought that until I met those guys from Oz.

First, people generally overestimate how powerful those thrusters were. Considerably less power is needed to reach orbit from the moon than from the earth (notice how the lander essentially just self launched back up into orbit rather than requiring a giant-ass three-stage rocket with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fuel).

Second, this is particularly true for the landing. You don't need to apply full thrust at the moment of impact and the Apollo astronauts weren't, they used maximum thrust at deorbit and a much smaller thrust at landing. By the time they landed they only had about 3,000 pounds of thrust going, which works out to just 1.5 pounds per square inch. Which is not much at all.

Third, dust was displaced by the landing and take off, and can be seen in the pictures and videos (and also there is more in the lift off than in the landing, just as you'd expect since more thrust is used at the moment of lift off then at landing). It just isn't as much as much as most people expect. This is both because the thrust power isn't as much as people expect and also because in the absence of an atmosphere the only dust displaced will the dust directly hit by the thrust exhaust, there will be no secondary wind as on earth. And finally, there simply isn't much dust to be blown around; scientists weren't sure how deep the moon dust would be, turns out it is only a couple inches.

It's because there's no air on the moon, so things don't move like we expect them to on Earth. Here's a link for you to the website Alex referenced.

Thanks Steph, I was just coming back to add that after forgetting.

Here's similar information from Michael Shermer (reprinted illegally, I'm sure).

It sure seems to me that the number of individuals who see a conspiracy about the moon landings is directly proportional to the popularity of the United States worldwide.

Needless to say there is currently a definite uptick in conspiracy theorists worldwide.

Also, I watched the Mythbusters episode and am generally pleased with it.

However, while I agree with the outcome of their slowed-video experiments I thought they did a horrible job of explaining it and the interpretation of the results. I think this is primarily because they didn't have time for everything they crammed into the show.

Also, I wish they had acknowledged that while the reflector proves there is something man made on the moon it doesn't necessarily prove that humans have been on the moon (and in fact most of the hoaxers say that the reflectors were put there by the unmanned satellites they admit did orbit the moon).

A dime of what? Wouldn't that be intergalactic smuggling??

I enjoyed the show as well.

But I've got one stupid question. I've seen some pretty detailed pictures of the moon. Why isn't it possible to just take a picture of the lunar lander to or Apollo 15 landing site showing the things left behind to prove we landed there? Or would people just think those phtos were faked as well? Or is it that the angle is never right to get it?

From Earth? Because those things are small and we're far away.

How small? The biggest things left behind by the Apollo missions were abour 20 feet wide. When we point Hubble at the moon it has a resolution of about 100 feet per pixel.

Europe's SMART-1 satellite took pictures from orbit around the moon and I think it never had a resolution better than 50ft per pixel or so.

Keep in mind that all those really high resolution photographs in Google Earth are taken from airplanes only a half dozen miles away at most.

You mean like this?

That's what I thought, but I was thinking that if Hubble can take pictures of things light years away, why not a twenty foot size item on the moon? But what I forgot is that the things Hubble is taking pictures of light years away are huge galaxys; and they are emitting their own light.

Cool! Thanks! But the problem with those pictures are 1) that they are only spots, and 2) what's the proof that they are the Apollo 15 landing site? It's good enough for me (not that I ever doubted we landed, of course), but the skeptics may not be convenced.

The skeptics are not looking for truth. They have a separate agenda.

Perhaps they just like to question stuff
Perhaps they don't like the US
Perhaps they just like to piss people off by arguing absurd points.

Whatever it is, they will never be convinced by something as trivial as facts.

No, the ones creating and perpetuating the conspiracy theories will never be convinced. All you can hope to do is put enough factual information out there so that otherwise uninformed people will be exposed to it rather than the idiocy.

Penn Jillette used to have a radio show and would podcast the episodes. During one episode (actually I think it stretched to two) he had Phil Plait on to help debunk Joe Rogan and his conspiracy theories of the moon hoax. From listening to that debate I learned 2 things: 1) Rogan is a lunatic, and 2) these moon hoax believers cannot be convinced, because they don't appear to be looking for actual truth. Like you guys said above, they must have some other agenda.

Everytime Plait gave a great rebuttal to some of the "evidence" Rogan presented, Rogan would start throwing out even more absurd questions and myths. And in true Joe "I can't shut-up for 10 seconds" Rogan fashion, never really gave Plait much time to complete a thought. This gave the appearance of Rogan having more ammunition and "proof" than Plait and it almost seemed like the moon hoax theory had some validity. Penn didn't know what to make of it. He was hoping to shut Rogan up for good but his efforts seemed to be back firing with Rogan winning the debate.

Yeah, I'd heard the shows. Plait thinks he did pretty well in the first show and then got stomped on in the second.

We should just round them all up and send them to a moon base to get them out of the way. They could live in the unit next to those who think Elvis never died which is next door to the one with all the people who think Walt Disney's head is frozen and stored under POTC in Disneyland.

So what you are saying is that if I believe in Elvis, I get to go to the moon base?


ELIVS LIVES!

I think this is quite true, because most of the skeptics I know also hate seeing people happy, often calling them "stupid". So, it's like they want to debunk anything and everything to prove to the world that they are "smart" and the rest of the world is "stupid", when in reality, they're just using "skepticism" as a facade for their own insecurities about why they don't fit in with the world. And, I've noticed they're not very happy people in general.

I'm not saying all skeptics are like this, but a lot of the ones I've met are constantly wanting to debunk everything to the point of obsession. I've had to restrain myself from saying, "The rest of the world are not all nutjobs. It's just you."

Methinks mayhaps YOU are also a huge moon-landing NASA geek, too, GD. I missed it, but I'm hoping they'll show it again sometime this weekend!

:)

~G.

I'm insanely excited about the prospect of myself getting to space. And of course the space program in general is awesome. But Adam owns his own space suit. Got nothing on that.

Now THAT'S dedication to mid-century vintage! I wonder if he's seen "Astronaut Farmer"?


also- I would have given you mad mojo for Elvis Lives, Moonliner, but you spelled Elvis wrong.... sorry can't diss the King like that. weak. :D

I just watched it last night. Now I want my own space suit too!

Wow, that's amazing! I can understand why they don't want this episode aired, but at the same time their freedom of speach is being squelched by big corporations.

And it's scary how easy it is to hack into the system, which is disconcerting as we move into a paperless monitary system.

If you're gonna screw up, do so with conviction!