Was the moon landing for real ???

[Koen1]

Koen, not to shoot you down or anything, I see where your coming from, and what your line of logic is here. However it just doesn't work that way. Adding payload to an existing mission simply does not happen.

Oh? Of course, the moon buggy was crucial to the mission, right? And if you can bring an entire buggy, of course you could never bring anything else?

Putting a base module on the moon would be a mission completely independent. That mission would have to be designed from the ground up to do specifically that to ensure success, and the cost would be an exponential growth due, not only to additional fuel costs, but engineering costs, training, staffing, etc. etc. etc.

Yes, probably. But where's the difference with any other space mission?

Chances are a saturn 2 couldn't even get the additional payload there without serious modifications. It could be done, by simply launching an extra large LEM, which detached from the ERV which we would come back home in, leaving the LEM behind. So that on successive missions, we keep adding on.

Or you could scratch the return flight for a while, leave the guys up there to continue construction, and fly them back a few years later after constructin is finished and actual landing bays / hangers have been built to 'park' and refuel spacecraft... Trips to the moon become a lot more economic if you don't need to get back to earth immediately. And it is no secret that rockets were launched almost every other day for consecutive years at Kennedy center. A lot of them can be accounted for as carriers of satelites and official Nasa missions, but quite a lot are also unclear... Could well have been shipments of cargo... 

This is precisely what they plan on doing on Mars, and hopefully upcoming moon missions that have been announced, but very little detail is known about the strategies of those missions.

Now, all that being said, playing devil's advocate.. what they COULD have done, is figure out a way to bring the Apollo CSM to the surface, and leave THAT behind. since it went into orbit with them, it should be possible for them get it down with some extra fuel and drawing board time. Detaching and launching from on top of it would be problematic, however, not insurmountable. The best reason for NOT doing this, is that they had no reason to at the time. Apollo were fact finding missions.

Really? Looks more like they were propaganda missions to convince the world population that the US was fantastic and way better than the USSR... After all, what facts did they find during the missions? That moon buggies work? That hopping around on the moon a few hundred feet from the lander is fun?

We simply did not know enough about the moon's environment or resources back then. Bringing a huge HAB with us on a fact finding mission, was simply not wise, back then, when we didn't really have the ability to send probes to find out what we have to work with once we get there. Think of the Apollo missions as the equivalent to our Mars probes. Back then we had to go there, we couldn't just send robots.

And we still can't really... We can barely get a rover to send us a bunch of pictures... But apparently to get some real work done we still need to send manned missions...

Well of course it depends on what you prefer to believe too.
For a government that managed to acquire large numbers of nazi scientists and secret service personnel during operation Paperclip only to incorporate them smoothly into their own military-industrial complex (Werner von Braun was the father of the nazi rocket program, which was simply moved to the US and continued; and many secret service agents of the nazi intelligence network both in Europe and the US simply switched sides to the US and not long after the war got incorporated into the CIA and later NSA), while at the same time developing computer technology (RAM was a german invention), nuclear weapons, and later stealth technology, who had (has) a secret service sub-branch that operates in deep secret and owns (owned) quasi-clandestine companies for independant gathering of funding, is (was) involved in massive drug trafficing, has (had) millions if not billions of dollars at their disposal through such unofficial and often illegal activities (all CIA), spends billions of weaponry and warfare and only millions on national healthcare and social security, and sets up entire nations governments only to take them down when they don't jump when told (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc),
it does not at all seem very difficult to finance and run such a moonbase project secretly... Using the guise of the Apollo and satellite, and possibly later even ISS launches, and keeping the costs out of the books (which is apparently quite easy for the military), not informing the civilian government officials (as is apparently also common practise in deep dark projects), the needed materials and personnel could well be prepared and transported there.
But if you choose to believe there are no such clandestine and deep secret operations and government branches, and that you have been told exactly what has been going on in all honesty, then of course the entire idea is rediculous.
Fortunately nobody is so blind to believe that... right?

Again, I am not saying I am convinced there truly is a base on the moon. But I am saying that it is not at al inconceivable that one was built, and that it is als well possible to do that without us, the greater public, knowing about it. And additional costs would not necessarily have to be a problem, if the project was ran and funded covertly. After all, they would not show up as additional costs on any official government balance sheet...
If it were up to me, after spending many billions already, and after figuring out that the greatest problem in getting things into space is the initial kick out of our gravity well and into orbit, I would have spent a few additional billion to make sure we can have a bunch of guys up there permanently, in a complex that is a bit more livable than the tin cans of the hab modules. Advantages are clear: construction of large space ships without the need to launch them out of the earths gravity well and thereby saving quite a bit of design, construction, and fuel problems,the possibility of undetected launches, and less trouble with the microgravity-related physiological effects so astronauts can actually spend a decade or two in space, rather than the brief periods they can when they have to land on earth again. And of course one could set up radio-telescopes etc to study space without the obstruction of the atmosphere. Basically you could do everything the ISS and the Hubble were/are used for, in the same place, and in greater comfort and more direct control than the other 2. If the ISS and the Hubble are considered important enough to spend hundreds of billions on, then how important would a place be where you could combine all their advantages at comparatively little cost? Is it really that unrealistic? I don't think so. If it were up to me, I would have built a large moonbase to do all those things, and never have built the ISS or Hubble. Unless perhaps I wanted to distract the public, make them think we need to build the ISS and Hubble because we don't have anything like that yet... That might be worth the trouble...

[gn0stik]

nm

hehe, I almost went there too. No sense in arguing a point when one hasn't really been made.

I guess that burn was meant for me?

Anyways here's some of their footage from jaxa.

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya.swf

No, not at all, intersting footage though, I wish I knew what the Japanese words translated to. Awesome how it gets completely black as it travels to the dark side. this footage appears to be stepped down, and accelerated.

anyone know Jaxa's orbital altitude? The fisheye lens can be quite deceptive.

[gn0stik]

Oh? Of course, the moon buggy was crucial to the mission, right? And if you can bring an entire buggy, of course you could never bring anything else?

I thought this was self-evident. Apparently not. The buggy was planned as part of the missions it was on from the beginning. Every ounce is accounted for, and calculated to determine fuel needs and approach strategies.

Or you could scratch the return flight for a while, leave the guys up there to continue construction, and fly them back a few years later after constructin is finished and actual landing bays / hangers have been built to 'park' and refuel spacecraft... Trips to the moon become a lot more economic if you don't need to get back to earth immediately. And it is no secret that rockets were launched almost every other day for consecutive years at Kennedy center. A lot of them can be accounted for as carriers of satelites and official Nasa missions, but quite a lot are also unclear... Could well have been shipments of cargo... 

I don't even know how to address this really, as I prefer not to dwell on conjecture. We can learn a lot more from examining claims and addressing proofs of those claims. The most glaring part of this bit, is that we are working from the assumption that we had the technological prowess to subsist on the surface of the moon for extended periods in the 60's, and then retrieve said astronauts on subsequent missions. There is no evidence that this is the case.

As to the "economy" of not having to come back to earth immediately, that would only be true if we had resources to work with on the moon. Or a having them, had the ability to process them in a meaningful way, and put them to use somehow. Otherwise additional life support requirments, the fuel costs of getting them there, and then having to design and engineer vehicls that are capable of bringing back more people than the appolo erv's were designed for, again adds to the cost of the mission, not reduces it. It likewise does not mean they would get more bang for the buck.

Really? Looks more like they were propaganda missions to convince the world population that the US was fantastic and way better than the USSR... After all, what facts did they find during the missions? That moon buggies work? That hopping around on the moon a few hundred feet from the lander is fun?

First, your lack of historical knowlege is frightening. The US was better than the USSR, we didn't need a moonshot to tell us that. By the sixties everyone had already read Animal Farm, and Brave New world. We'd already dealt with the bay of pigs, and the cold war was in full swing. The Evils of rampant communism were well known. Duck and Cover were household words, and spies, and assasinations were modus operandi. Second, if you don't see the scientific value of taking core samples on the moon, there is no point in discussing this any further. You are simply too far down the rabbit hole. However, hopping around on the moon was fun, I'm sure, and the buggies went a bit farther than a few hundred feet. Maximum range from the LM of the LRV was 5Km. The longest traverse was like 12.

And we still can't really... We can barely get a rover to send us a bunch of pictures... But apparently to get some real work done we still need to send manned missions...

The mars rovers have performed orders of magnitude better than anyone ever expected. On all accounts the rover missions was a resounding success. It took a couple tries, but was well worth it from the data we've gathered. There are thousands of pictures that have been sent back in many spectrums of light, and tons of data. It will take years to go through everything. And they are still going, they haven't given up the ghost yet, in spite of mechanical set backs and problems along the way.

Well of course it depends on what you prefer to believe too.

Truth is not subjective to desire. It's not subjective at all.

For a government that managed to acquire large numbers of nazi scientists and secret service personnel during operation Paperclip only to incorporate them smoothly into their own military-industrial complex (Werner von Braun was the father of the nazi rocket program, which was simply moved to the US and continued; and many secret service agents of the nazi intelligence network both in Europe and the US simply switched sides to the US and not long after the war got incorporated into the CIA and later NSA), while at the same time developing computer technology (RAM was a german invention), nuclear weapons, and later stealth technology, who had (has) a secret service sub-branch that operates in deep secret and owns (owned) quasi-clandestine companies for independant gathering of funding, is (was) involved in massive drug trafficing, has (had) millions if not billions of dollars at their disposal through such unofficial and often illegal activities (all CIA), spends billions of weaponry and warfare and only millions on national healthcare and social security, and sets up entire nations governments only to take them down when they don't jump when told (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc),
it does not at all seem very difficult to finance and run such a moonbase project secretly... Using the guise of the Apollo and satellite, and possibly later even ISS launches, and keeping the costs out of the books (which is apparently quite easy for the military), not informing the civilian government officials (as is apparently also common practise in deep dark projects), the needed materials and personnel could well be prepared and transported there.
But if you choose to believe there are no such clandestine and deep secret operations and government branches, and that you have been told exactly what has been going on in all honesty, then of course the entire idea is rediculous.
Fortunately nobody is so blind to believe that... right?

Of course there are clandestine operations, and black ops groups, in every country in the world. On the other hand... Wow... Just..... Wow. No words.

Again, I am not saying I am convinced there truly is a base on the moon. But I am saying that it is not at al inconceivable that one was built, and that it is als well possible to do that without us, the greater public, knowing about it. And additional costs would not necessarily have to be a problem, if the project was ran and funded covertly. After all, they would not show up as additional costs on any official government balance sheet...
If it were up to me, after spending many billions already, and after figuring out that the greatest problem in getting things into space is the initial kick out of our gravity well and into orbit, I would have spent a few additional billion to make sure we can have a bunch of guys up there permanently, in a complex that is a bit more livable than the tin cans of the hab modules. Advantages are clear: construction of large space ships without the need to launch them out of the earths gravity well and thereby saving quite a bit of design, construction, and fuel problems,the possibility of undetected launches, and less trouble with the microgravity-related physiological effects so astronauts can actually spend a decade or two in space, rather than the brief periods they can when they have to land on earth again. And of course one could set up radio-telescopes etc to study space without the obstruction of the atmosphere. Basically you could do everything the ISS and the Hubble were/are used for, in the same place, and in greater comfort and more direct control than the other 2. If the ISS and the Hubble are considered important enough to spend hundreds of billions on, then how important would a place be where you could combine all their advantages at comparatively little cost? Is it really that unrealistic? I don't think so. If it were up to me, I would have built a large moonbase to do all those things, and never have built the ISS or Hubble. Unless perhaps I wanted to distract the public, make them think we need to build the ISS and Hubble because we don't have anything like that yet... That might be worth the trouble...

Space 1999 baby. remember that show? It'll happen. I have no doubt. I just don't think it has yet. To be honest, I didn't even know that's what we were talking about until now. I thought it was that the moon landings were faked, not that, not only were they NOT faked, but we have bases there. I'm thoroughly confused now. I think I'm done here. What's that old addage about arguing on the internet?

Regards,
Rich

I'll leave you with a little something for your reading pleasure.
http://www.google.com/moon/

[Freezer]

Here's some more information on the imager's path.  I hope we can get some non-manipulated high resolution images.  I wonder if their images go through the same type of processing as NASA's images.  There's two videos so far, but I'm waiting for the images.

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_e.html

[Cap-Z-ro]

Evening all -

According to the  ground sources - NASA is in existence solely to serve as a tool to keep hidden technology which would benefit humanity, in order to further a global domination agenga.

That wood make NASA a rather high budget soap opera to occupy the advanced geek.

With other televised productions geared to capture the interest of every relevant social class, so they won't be so likely notice the slow erosion of society happening all around them.

Regards