I've just had an old friend come up and visit, I was the best man at his wedding, and I've scarily known him for 40 years, sadly now he is divorced..... or is that gladly ? anyway we were chewing the cud and putting the world to rights like we usually did, but much to my dismay he firmly believes man didn't land on the moon during the Apollo missions of the sixties. in much the same way that I didn't catch a trout and he did (albeit a tiddler) we released it.... it was too small it would have barely made a sandwich let alone a meal....Anyway he pointed out various things which have all been disproved but for your entertainment I will outline them here :)
1. No blast crater or any sign of dust scatter as was seen in the 16mm films of each landing
* No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion System was throttled very far down during the final landing. The Lunar Module was no longer rapidly decelerating, so the descent engine only had to support the module's own weight, diminished by the 1/6 g lunar gravity and by the near exhaustion of the descent propellants. At landing, the engine thrust divided by the nozzle exit area is only about 10 kilopascals (1.5 PSI) Beyond the engine nozzle, the plume spreads and the pressure drops very rapidly. (In comparison the Saturn V F-1 first stage engines produced 3.2 MPa (459 PSI) at the mouth of the nozzle.)
Rocket exhaust gases expand much more rapidly after leaving the engine nozzle in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. The effect of an atmosphere on rocket plumes can be easily seen in launches from Earth; as the rocket rises through the thinning atmosphere, the exhaust plumes broaden very noticeably. To reduce this, rocket engines designed for vacuum operation have longer bells than those designed for use at the Earth's surface, but they still cannot prevent this spreading. The Lunar Module's exhaust gases therefore expanded rapidly well beyond the landing site. However, the descent engines did scatter a lot of very fine surface dust as seen in 16mm movies of each landing, and many mission commanders commented on its effect on visibility. The landers were generally moving horizontally as well as vertically, and photographs do show scouring of the surface along the final descent path. Finally, the lunar soil is very compact below its surface dust layer, further making it impossible for the descent engine to blast out a "crater"
2. The launch rocket (Lunar Module ascent stage) produced no visible flame.
The Lunar Module used Aerozine-50 (fuel) and dinitrogen tetroxide (oxidizer) propellants, chosen for simplicity and reliability; they ignite hypergolically –upon contact– without a spark. These propellants produce a nearly transparent exhaust. The same or similar hypergolic fuels are used by several space launchers: the core of the American Titan, the Russian Proton, the European Ariane 1 through 4 and the Chinese Long March. The transparency of their plumes is apparent in many launch photos. The plumes of rocket engines fired in a vacuum spread out very rapidly as they leave the engine nozzle, further reducing their visibility. Finally, rocket engines often run "rich" to slow internal corrosion. On the earth, the excess fuel burns in contact with atmospheric oxygen. This cannot happen in a vacuum.
then we have the pictures especially this one of Buzz Aldrin in the shadow of the moon lander yet he is visible, how could this be ?
Well to put it simply the surface of the moon is made up of mainly silica which reflects light, and the moon is also very brightly lit because it has no atmosphere to hinder reflections so light is scattered rather evenly, so Buzz Aldrin was backlit but by the surface of the VERY bright moon, and he did after all have a VERY inconspicuous WHITE space suit on, you could do the same thing here on earth by standing in shadow but somebody holding up a white board to illuminate you with natural light, they do it all the time when filming you have probably seen them on film sets holding up white boards, which in turn reflects light so showing up in the camera, this particular myth has been busted wide open, when the exact same scene was recreated to test this, the team built a much larger scale (1:6) replica of the landing site, including a dust surface with a colour and albedo similar to lunar soil. The team then took a photograph which was nearly identical to the original NASA photo from Apollo 11. The team (Mythbusters) explained that the astronaut was visible because of light being reflected off the Moon's surface.
There are no stars in any of the photos. The Apollo 11 astronauts also claimed in a press conference after the event to have not remembered seeing any of the stars.
* The sun was shining. Cameras were set for daylight exposure, and could not detect the faint points of light.
The color and angle of shadows and light are inconsistent.
* Shadows on the Moon are complicated by uneven ground, wide angle lens distortion, light reflected from the Earth, and lunar dust. Shadows also display the properties of vanishing point perspective leading them to converge to a point on the horizon.
The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt and galactic ambient radiation . Some hoax theorists have suggested that Starfish Prime (high altitude nuclear testing in 1962) was a failed attempt to disrupt the Van Allen belts.
* The Moon is ten times higher than the Van Allen radiation belts. The spacecraft moved through the belts in just 30 minutes, and the astronauts were protected from the ionizing radiation by the aluminium hulls of the spacecraft. In addition, the orbital transfer trajectory from the Earth to the Moon through the belts was selected to minimize radiation exposure. Even Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too dangerous for the Apollo missions. Dosimeters carried by the crews showed they received about the same cumulative dosage as a chest X-ray or about 1 milligray. Plait cited an average dose of less than 1 rem, which is equivalent to the ambient radiation received by living at sea level for three years
* The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the Moon. Irene Schneider reports that thirty-three of the thirty-six Apollo astronauts involved in the nine Apollo missions to leave Earth orbit have early stage cataracts that have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure to cosmic rays during their trip. However, only twenty-four astronauts left earth orbit. At least thirty-nine former astronauts have developed cataracts. Thirty-six of those were involved in high-radiation missions such as the Apollo lunar missions.
2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation.
* The film was kept in metal containers that prevented radiation from fogging the film's emulsion. In addition, film carried by unmanned lunar probes such as the Lunar Orbiter and Luna 3 (which used on-board film development processes) was not fogged.
3. The Moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted.
* There is no atmosphere to efficiently couple lunar surface heat to devices such as cameras not in direct contact with it. In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiative heat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was adequate to control the temperature of the film within the cameras; lunar module temperatures were controlled with similar coatings that gave it its gold color. Also, while the Moon's surface does get very hot at lunar noon, every Apollo landing was made shortly after lunar sunrise at the landing site. During the longer stays, the astronauts did notice increased cooling loads on their spacesuits as the sun continued to rise and the surface temperature increased, but the effect was easily countered by the passive and active cooling systems. The film was not in direct sunlight, so it wasn't overheated.
* Note: all of the lunar landings occurred during the lunar daytime. The Moon's day is approximately 29½ days long, and as a consequence a single lunar day (dawn to dusk) lasts nearly fifteen days. As such there was no sunrise or sunset while the astronauts were on the surface. Most lunar missions occurred during the first few earth days of the lunar day.
4. The Apollo 16 crew should not have survived a big solar flare firing out when they were on their way to the Moon. "They should have been fried."
* No large solar flare occurred during the flight of Apollo 16. There were large solar flares in August 1972, after Apollo 16 returned to Earth and before the flight of Apollo 17.
There is so much more evidence such as the 300 KG of moon rock, unlike ANY rocks on earth and much older than anything we have on earth, then of course there is the Russian element, do you think for one second the Russians would not have exposed the Americans as liars given the chance ? of course they would, it would have been a massive propaganda boost for their country, but for every solid bit of evidence you produce to a "flat earther" ;¬) they come back with ever more ridiculous claims, but that is the beauty of conspiracy theorists there is simply no telling them, and probably the ONLY way to convince them would for them to be landed next to the landing sites themselves so they could touch them with their hands.... then and only then would they believe
to be honest, with all the overwhelming evidence that we did in fact land on the Moon, I find it very hard to believe that anybody these days can think differently... but live and let live.... unless of course you are the man on the Grassy Knoll ;¬)
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