Some Americans still believe moon landing is a hoax | Hacker News Reader

Some Americans still believe moon landing is a hoax

technology.sympatico.msn.ca

9 pointskunqiana21 comments

I think the biggest debunking argument there is is that even if the public could have been duped there is no way they would have been able to dupe the Russians, they had by far the best incentive to prove that the Americans had pulled a hoax. That would have been the PR coup of the century.

I don't think authorities ever helped this idea. The rebuttals I've seen have always been tenuous at best (maybe it's hard to rebut such wild claims) and when you hear things like the original footage was taped over due to a shortage of tape it doesn't seem all that surprising that people will be skeptical. Interestingly, the wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Moon_Landing_hoax_conspi...) probably does the best broad analysis I've read.

I am not a proponent of the moon landing hoax theories. But you have believe that if the United States could land men on the moon they could fake it.

I used to have a fan and a switch wired to two bits of the printerport on my computer with a very early version of the webcam software streaming the video out to the viewers.

The number of times that I received mail that it was faked and that I should put up a special text for some viewer somewhere to prove that it was real were beyond counting.

The funny thing is that even though it was peanuts to set this up faking it would have been a lot harder.

Same with the moon landings, imagine how many people would have to be in the know, how would you ever get them all to be quiet, you can't just go and bury them in a pyramid somewhere...

Sure, many thousands of people were involved with the Apollo project. But, maybe only a few people would have to be in on the fraud.

If more than two people know about it it is not a secret any more.

Watergate would have been a lot easier to conceal than a fake moonlanding.

Including people building the set, lighting it, constructing the delay lines in order to make the transmissions simulate eme delay and so on.

You'd have to do it 'the cube' style and even then too many people would have known the truth.

Governments are better at keeping secrets than they are popularly given credit for. As an exercise, I would like you to try to identify United States intelligence operatives.

Valerie Plame

That was my first thought :)

I would suggest that governments are not as good at keeping secrets as they are popularly given credit for. The atomic bomb secrets were exposed to foreign governments multiple times, and the Apollo project involved considerably more people under far more scrutiny.

I don't think that's true. I think people underestimate the difficulty of keeping conspiracies secret - and I think the difficulty increases exponentially with each new person who is a part of it.

One of the US's most precious secrets of the 20th century was how to develop nuclear weapons. There are theories that the atomic bomb was invented once, during the Manhattan project, and all subsequent countries learned how to do it through espionage - including the Soviet Union. If we couldn't keep that secret - a known secret, but still a secret - I doubt we could keep something as public as the moon landings secret.

Also, as a counter to your premise, consider acting. Good acting is hard. When faking something, it's difficult to be conscious of all of the things that you would do where you actually doing it.

In that case, the Indians and Chinese are completely full of it. They have their own satellites orbiting the moon and have surveyed the six landing sites. Even if it were possible for the U.S. to keep a hoax under wrap, wouldn't another country like to blow the hoax wide open?

Unless of course, they are lying as well in order to have bragging rights of their own. ;)

I don't buy into any of the moon-landing hoax theories. I just don't see the evidence for them, and I think they do a disservice to the brave men who went to the moon. Having said that, in the cold-war era, I can absolutely understand how some people would question this as reality. Given the understanding of technology and the geopolitical landscape during those years, its no wonder that the moon landing was scrutinized by skeptics.

Well, then, hell. We've got enough smart people here on HN. Let's send someone up there for a look. :)

EDIT: I nominate pg for commander. He could then write an essay from the surface.

Consider this - if they in fact did NOT find the lander where it was supposed to be, that would be a huge bargaining chip in talking to Americans on virtually any subject. I.e. they would keep it under the wraps at all costs. Rebutt this :)

Touche'! You do realize that you have now given the crazies another argument to support their theories?

The absence of evidence theory never fails.

I think the biggest contributor to this maybe the fact that no one else has done it even until today. No one is even close to doing it again. 40 years later with technology leaps and bounds better than back when it was done. Or maybe it is technology that is holding us back. The idea that not everything is perfect and we can't run a mission till everything is.

Do you guys remember when Buzz Aldrin punched the guy who was doubting the Lunar Landing? (It's mentioned in the article)

Here's a video:

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2009/7/20/remember_the_...

Man that was a good connection.

Truth hurts.

That should teach him to respect his elders and betters.

I had fun at one place of work by saying each time someone brought up the moon landing, you mean 'the alleged moon landing.' One gent knew I was joking but the rest weren't sure, so the two of us had a good laugh.

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