from sbeak@sopuli.xyz to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 06 Mar 04:55
https://sopuli.xyz/post/42150922
For reference, I have already told them why the sky has no stars (it’s because of camera exposure, the moon surface is very reflective so lower exposure is used to not overexpose the image) and why the flag wasn’t drooping down (there was an extending arm in the stand to hold it upright, as a flag drooping down is a sad flag). I have also explained that the videos of the moon landing were upscaled/remastered when they asked why the video quality of the clips were so good.
Currently, their main argument is the fact that the U.S. were able to do the moon landing in the mid 20th century while are experiencing delays for the current moon mission. They argue that, if the moon landing could be done way back then, with modern technology, it should be possible to quickly get back to the moon. They also argue NASA could have just reused the same designs as the Apollo missions if they actually went to the moon.
I have argued that NASA’s budget is a fraction of what is used to be, and that the addition of new modern technologies introduces additional parts that could break and thus need to be tested. I have also mentioned that the Soviet Union would immediately call out the US if they faked the moon landing, and that samples of moon rocks were sent to Soviet scientists to study and verify. They insist that the Soviets were scared of what the US would do if they spoke out against a fake moon landing, which I didn’t agree with (given they were both nuclear superpowers)
They then argued that it’s impossible to tell whether the moon rocks are actually from the moon landing, they could be samples collected by rovers. I responded that no rovers had successfully collected moon rocks at the time, and then they switched to arguing that it’s impossible to verify the rocks are from the moon. I followed up by saying there are methods of doing that (through the composition of the rocks and such). They then asked how anybody knows what moon rocks look like if nobody else has been to the moon, and I got kind of stumped. I tried to explain that there are models to how the moon formed, how we know the rocks aren’t from Earth, satellites that map out the surface, etc., but they reiterated that no one can “prove” that they were from the moon without going there in the first place.
One interesting thing they also mentioned is that, if the US really did do a moon landing, why the Soviets (during cold war era) or Chinese (in modern era) didn’t do what they do best and copied their designs to land on the moon. Given that the US and China are having a new space race with the goal of being the first to establish a lunar base, they argue that China could just copy the Apollo program designs if the US really did do a moon landing.
To summarise, their main points/questions right now are: a) Explain why the US hasn’t gone back in so long, and why with modern technology it seems so difficult? (especially given that NASA has been experiencing numerous delays in the Artemis missions, that certainly hasn’t given them a good impression…) b) How do you verify moon rocks without having actually been on the moon? How did scientists figure out what a moon rock looks like? c) Why aren’t the old Apollo designs being reused for a moon landing? (by either the Americans or the Chinese)
They say that there isn’t strong evidence either side (but believes that it is false, saying that “we will see” once someone else lands on the moon)
And what other points can I bring up to definitively say, yes, the moon landing wasn’t faked?
edit:
Another thing, they also can’t believe that astronauts could bring and ride the little moon buggies. I am also partially interested in how that was achieved to be honest!
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
You cannot argue with stupid, dont bother.
This’d be my answer. A friend (former at this point) of mine fell down a conspiracist rabbit hole, and at one point started insisting the moon landings were faked. Now, I happen to know a lot (or more than most, anyhow) about the Apollo program, and absolutely nothing I could say helped. Either they pivoted to some new bullshit argument they’d heard on some YouTube video, or just dismissed things as lies when convenient.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
I lost a good friend a similar way. He insisted there was a global conspiracy to suppress “free energy” (over unity generators), among other things.
My background allowed me to personally prove some of his arguments wrong from almost first principles. He then accused me of personally being part of the conspiracy. At that point I concluded he was a lost cause and parted ways.
Most of his “evidence” was in YouTube videos. I went through a couple. It mostly had the build-up, explanation, consequences, and conclusions. It missed any actual evidence. It’s amazing how someone can fill 2 hours with nothing of substance.
At least my friend didn’t accuse me of personally being in on any conspiracy, but every time I saw them it turned into them trying to “gotcha” me with their latest conspiracy. Eventually they went off the deep end into flat Earther bullshit and at that point I just gave up and we lost touch because I haven’t had any interest in hanging out.
It perplexed me quite a lot. I think it was the only way he could mentally maintain his worldview.
Dealing with that mindset is exhausting. I try and keep an open mind. Unfortunately it’s possible to have it so open your brain falls out.
“Exhausting” is exactly how I would describe it.
But yeah, I try to keep an open mind too, and I didn’t mind (har har) my former friend’s previous witchcraft woo woo at all because it was harmless, but once they (and their partner, gah) started getting into conspiracy stuff they got weirdly belligerent about it, and it just got worse and worse the deeper they went. The last time I saw both of them, I was grilled for 2h about basic fucking geometry (turns out flat Earthers don’t understand perspective at all) and after that I just decided that I’ve had enough
Even better, one up them. “You think the Moon is real?!?”
You believe in the concept of a moon?
I like my moons like I like my plans: in concept form only.
The flat earth people often say it’s a hologram
Use GPS navigation to drive around.
To add to that: You can’t reason someone out of an argument they didn’t reason themselves into.
Wait, y’all believe in the moon?
I don’t even believe in y’all
I don’t even believe in myself.
Not only do some conspiracy theorists not believe in the Moon, there are so many of them that there's a variety of these beliefs.
So yeah. Poe's Law, there's nothing so dumb that you won't find someone actually believing it.
You missed cheese moon
That’s not a conspiracy theory you dumdum, that’s just fact
I went down a rabbit hole and read/watched a bunch of holographic Moon stuff and holy fuck are these people stupid.
My favourite “proof” is the “lunar wave.” Some idiot filmed the Moon and saw an atmospheric refraction phenomenon, and concluded that the only logical explanation for the (honestly pretty fun-looking) wave he saw “on” the Moon was that MAYBE THE MOON ISN’T WHAT WE THINK IT IS, I’M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS HERE. Other morons then latched on to this, and made the logical conclusion that this “lunar wave” supports their belief that the Moon is a hologram, because of course it does.
So… The Orville and the episode where they planted a fake star to trick a planet that believed in astrology signs to release their crewmate… lmfao
Literally the Moonfall movie 🤣
It sounds like you’d literally have to take your friend to the moon in order for them to believe anything, but there are reflective sensors (I don’t know exactly what they are called or what they do) that scientists shoot lasers at for science.
Maybe you can find a video that explains them and shows a scientist interacting with them? Although, I suspect they’d just claim that was all faked too.
theres retroreflectors on the moon that were intentionally. imstalled so that precise aiming of a laser would signify someone installed it on the moon if you saw the reflection back
theyre used to measure the moon earth distance but the fact that installation is there in that time period shows man was on the moon
Okay that is actually kind of cool. I never knew this was done! I am anticipating that they would ask whether they were placed by humans or rovers/landers/non-human methods, so was it possible (at the time) to put these retroreflectors on the moon without human intervention? I’m assuming, like the collection of moon rocks, it was not (otherwise why would they bother with having humans doing it with all that human error?)
To be fair (basically the only time I'll say that in reference to Moon landing deniers) there are also retroreflectors like those mounted on some of the unmanned landers and rovers that have been sent to the Moon as well. So this alone isn't going to "convince" him. It does indicate that the Americans were able to launch something to the Moon and land it at the same time that the Apollo missions were underway, so if you were dealing with a rational person who could be convinced by reason this would still count for something.
Unfortunately, I doubt that's what's going on here.
Without the ability of a private person to verify that, though, it’s no more persuasive than explaining all the other things we did up there.
And if the person is capable enough to actually use a laser to accurately target and measure the reflection of these retroreflectors, they’re not a moon landing denier.
you cant win everyone. similar to flat earthers who refuse to go on a paid trip to see 24 hour sun is up day, they will believe the shit till the end
Arguing with a fool is like wrestling a pig - all that happens is you both get dirty and the pig likes it.
You cannot successfully argue with a pigeon.
The Russians admitted it.
That would be my main argument as well - if it had been faked, the Soviets would have known and cried foul.
If it were faked, the Soviets would have had a field day. They didn’t. If all the other facts didn’t work, I find that most convincing. The nemesis had to accept it begrudgingly.
Between the 70s and today, the motivations for moon landings have changed. Back then: fuck the commies, we go first, and science. Turns out the moon isn’t that interesting to continue sending people there. Rocks and dust, yawn. Not worth the ROI. The reason why there is renewed interest now is because people think realistically they can build a base on the moon. That was science fiction in 1969.
For your own mental health, give yourself a time frame and if they still think it’s fake allow yourself to let it go. Chances are they don’t want to be convinced and you have to let nature take its course and hope the seed of doubt you have planted comes to life and blossoms.
Well even that is assuming that there ever was a competition and the whole nation divide isn’t orchestrated by cabal overlords. Not saying I believe that but with the new knowledge of how the world is run, it’s tough to be sure of many things. It’s like “entertain every possibility, we’ll maybe see or we won’t”
Going to the moon is expensive and has essentially no direct revenue. There are no resources to be had on the moon that provide worthwhile efficiency over what we already have on earth, and most of the basic science was done by the Apollo missions.
Getting moon rocks, which have a unique microscopic texture due to no water erosion, was one of those “basic science” bits I mentioned before. They don’t really prove the moon landing except that “they’re from the moon” is the simplest answer for why these rocks have that unique texture.
Because thre 1960s were fifty years ago.
The industrial base to build an Apollo rocket isn’t there anymore than the industrial base to build a 1965 Buick skylark or an Atati 2600. You could throw money and rebuild all those factories, but it’d dramatically balloon the cost even before you start to recon with correcting the inevitable mismatch between the original spec and what your rebuilt factory can make.
(And even if we did just rebuild Apollo, we’d wind up with a rocket that didn’t have the advantage of 50 years of advancement.)
That was really helpful, thanks! I will try bring up some of those points in the future. Makes sense that going to the moon is expensive especially given that NASA’s budget is so much smaller now.
The Saturn V rocket was also massive overkill on power. It had about 50% more thrust than a falcon heavy that is currently being used for planned moon missions.
they do not provide proof. why should you? he could as well argue my bookshelf didn’t exist, since none of you have seen it yourself. but is this a discussion worth having?
also: the underlying idea, that modern tech could do better whatever a human has done without it, is just naïve. we do not build much rounded shapes in windows and stuff anymore bc our machines work best and most efficient for straight cuts if we want to make use of their power we have to build a certain way.
Well do you have a bookshelf?
i will not further discuss my bookshelf or any other interior item of mine without an attorney.
I knew it, your bookshelf was faked!
cease your investigations.
YOU’LL NEVER SILENCE ME
The Apollo program took 4.5% of the US budget. NASA’s entire budget now—including space telescopes, earth satellites, and interplanetary probes—is less than half of one percent.
Woah that is kind of insane, I did not know that the modern budget was that much lower! :0
If traveling to the Moon is so expensive, why were six crewed missions sent? Wouldn’t one have been enough?
Why build one when you can build two at twice the price!
/s Contact quote
Seriously though, the cost was largely in the preparation. At some point you want to get more out of all that work. Yes, it was expensive for each actual launch. I wonder what the cost of stopping at the first one would have been. I’m WAGing that half the cost was getting there the first time. The other half was 5 more. That would be an interesting stat to know.
Don’t bother arguing with stupid. They’ll drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Why do you give a shit about an idiots beliefs?
In fairness, at some point we all have to learn the hard way that no amount of evidence will convince some people to change their mind about their deeply held beliefs.
You cannot prove a negative. For example, if I say “prove that you are not a murderer” there is nothing you could possibly do to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have never murdered anyone. This is why you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on someone who claims it was a fraud, not the other way around.
They don’t say that it was definitively faked, but claims that there isn’t enough evidence that it was not. They say that “we will see” once China lands on the moon.
“Humans landed on the moon” is a positive statement.
Yes, but it still applies because we’re talking about a conspiracy therist.
What?
My guy said you can’t prove we did not send humans to the moon.
You can certainly prove that we did send humans to the moon.
no we didnt. no one gone to the moon
As others have said, you can’t change irrational beliefs with facts. This fact will become obvious if you change tacks and start asking this person pointed questions that highlight the contradictions in their belief.
If you do it well, they get enraged by their inability to come up with good answers, and abruptly stop talking to you about it (or stop talking to you at all).
(Also, you can often tell if their belief is rational by whether they ask you sincere questions seeking to understand why you think it’s real, in case they’re wrong.)
The real conspiracy is that the moon landing was just a way to get the public to be enthusiastic about devolping weapon systems.
Just as bad, we have Johnson on tape selling it to Kennedy as a way to get past the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Kennedy didn’t believe in it at all.
Johnson wanted the pork for his constituents.
In Johnson’s defense a little, many of his constituents were quite poor and this did bring a lot of development to the area.
It also put the Soviet Union in a tough position of having to try to keep up (though they did have a stellar space program already, but going to the moon was a waste of resources).
Hell, IIRC, they had the first lander on the moon. They were well ahead of the US in many ways.
We’re still doing it too. Pretty much all of our modern telescopes, like JWST, are built by defense contractors who then use the expertise and technologies they develop for military applications.
Here are images of the moon’s surface where you can make out details like rover tracks.
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10818
Other countries took photos of the Apollo landing sites as well, including China.
The best ones so far were taken by the Indian Chandrayaan orbiters.
Really shows how deep this conspiracy goes ! :)
wtop.com/…/the-experiment-still-running-on-the-mo…
Stop trying to argue to convince them. Ask them “Why?”
Why would the moon landing be faked? What’s to gain from it? (Correct answer, nothing, and everything to be lost when someone leaks).
There’s answers to all of their questions, but I guarantee they can’t give an answer to Why?
That’s no moon.
There was an interesting article about how the moon landings could have been faked with 1960’s technology and it turns out you’d need such obscenely expensive equipment that just going to the actual moon would be the cheaper alternative.
The impossibility of faking the landing is a good proof IMO.
That sounds awesome. I’ll see if I can find it
Here’s something, at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhp-FTYSGe8
I saw a guy on YouTube talking about the capability of videotape tech at the time. Upshot was that it was that the footage had to have been broadcast live, it couldn’t have been prerecorded. Didn’t convince my idiot acquaintance of course.
You could always try the Buzz Aldrin approach: m.youtube.com/shorts/hqoYiUAppmI
Their arch enemy, the Soviet Union, congratulated them on the achievement. They would have loved to take the US down a peg or two.
Just tell them that with a telescope they can see the US flag on the moon.
It’s not like they would try or something
Even if not, there’s more than a few retroreflectors (fancy mirrors)up there, installed so we can get laser distance measurements.
Two points,
My first question will be “which landing, of Apolo 11, Apolo 12, Apolo 14, Apolo 15, Apolo 16 ot Apolo 17?”
My grand pappy worked on parts used for those moon buggies. He was pretty knowledgeable about them and proud of his work.
Would be pretty shitty for him to have learned it was all staged.
He was a hard ass too, ex British Navy.
I don’t think it wise to hire people like him to work on projects you intend to use to lie to and betray the public.
Pretty sure it’d be more cost effective and safer to just hire joe schmoe to work up some gadget in his garage, or to handle it in house. Why hire outside professionals and actually do the real work to just lie about the outcome.
Mock him for being incurious, stupid and failing google-fu.
Or show him some of these links, your call.
rmg.co.uk/…/moon-landing-conspiracy-theories-debu…
starwalk.space/en/news/was-the-moon-landing-fake
askanexpert.asu.edu/earthspace/…/moon-landing
For the Artemis vs Apollo stuffs:
spaceinformer.com/artemis-vs-apollo-comparison/
apollo11space.com/apollo-vs-artemis-how-technolog…
And just to see how stupid he is, maybe ask if the earth is flat. If they say yes… just have him go watch this entire channel…
The reason I’m calling him stupid is because he’s either never actually searched or done any kind of research beyond conspiracy theory memes, or has immediately discounted the vast majority of people patiently explaining why he’s wrong.
As for why china didn’t try to go… they didn’t have a space program until recently. As for the soviets? Well. Why go when we happily shared our research with them? One of the main motivations was propaganda. It was a sort of proxy war and we won. Beyond that, there wasn’t much point in duplicating efforts.
Another point of fact that many people don’t address is how impossible it would be to fake the radio transmissions without getting caught.
Something had to go to the moon. Tiny changes in antenna alignment were sufficient to cause a loss of contact with the CSM. (A fun movie about this is called The Dish and is based on a true story.)
The thing is that the CSM wasn’t going straight to the moon, it followed a transfer orbit that intersected both earth and the moons orbit (and at a time when the moon would be there!)
This path meant that you couldn’t just point an antenna at the moon.
It also meant that you had to keep a lock on the CSM’s path or risk losing it forever (The Dish, they almost lost it.)
HAMmies had their own rigs which could listen in, as did virtually every government.
The precision required to catch the signal meant you could track its location in real time.
It also means we have tons of recordings with the appropriate amount of signal lag.
And there would be no way to fake those signals by broadcasting from earth- everyone paying attention would know. if ever the entire world watched something that first landing was it.
I will note that indeed. Don’t worry, they do believe that the Earth is round, they’re not that nuts!
There is a mirror left on the moon you can shoot a laser at and have it bounced back to you, no other celestial object can do that. Its also foundational knowledge for gps.
wtop.com/…/the-experiment-still-running-on-the-mo…
Yep, the laser array is the definitive answer.
One would think, but like I just said in another comment, my conspiracist ex-friend’s reply was “well have you tried this yourself? No? Well why do you believe there actually is a mirror there? It’s just another NASA lie”
You can do tours at Long Range Laser places. There’s two in the US and one on France. Take your idiot friend to one.
Oh they’ve since fallen even deeper into the conspiracy rabbit hole and they hit the flat Earth at the bottom, at which point I stopped wanting to spend time with them since listening to them really fucking tedious.
Frankly I’m not entirely sure they even believe in the Moon anymore at this point, considering how flat Earthers usually evolve
Wait, what is the moon to flat earthers, if not the moon?
Many of them legitimately think it’s a hologram, because reasons.
I’ve been vaguely aware of the conspiracy theory before but I looked into it yesterday for a bit, and apparently some moron filmed an atmospheric refraction phenomenon and concluded that the Moon is a hologram: sopuli.xyz/post/42150922/22267576
Their answer to that is “the mirror was placed by robots. We had the tech to get robots there, but not living people.”
I’ve had to deal with these people before.
The answer my friend gave to that was “well have you tried this yourself? No? Well why do you believe there actually is a mirror there? It’s just another NASA lie”
The response to that is to tell them, ‘I thought you did your own resesech but now you balk at the idea of doing a resarch project to verify a claim, you don’t want to do your own research, you want to believe lies.’
And if they say they dont have the capability to do that experiment, then retort they most certainly don’t have the capability to do any of their own research.
And you think that’ll convince them?
Either that or it will make them mad so its a win-win
The moon landing was faked, but they hired Stanley Kubrick to direct the shoot, and he insisted that they film on location.
Yay, it’s catching on, I don’t have to type it every time.
Ask them what type of evidence would convince them and go from there. If what they say is reasonable, present it. If not, then there’s nothing that will convince them
You can’t use logic to talk someone out of a position they didn’t use logic to decide on in the first place.
Those kinds of people should get nothing but scorn from the rest of us. No conversation, no attempting to change their minds.
Just pure, unadulterated scorn and derision. Nothing else. Fucking morons aren’t useful for anything other than diluting the gene pool anyway.
In the current age of the Internet that doesn’t work. It used to be people were afraid of being shunned by their community as then they would have nothing. Now with social media there are echo chambers that amplify views deserving of shunning and give refuge to those who would otherwise be shunned.
But deprogramming people like this is hard, and won’t always work. So I won’t blame anyone for shunning people like this, but just know it’s not really solving anything.
Then let them. What does it matter to you? People are allowed to be complete morons if they wish.
It matters to me because the sheer number of these morons who are being exploited by the rich are actively making my life and the lives the people I care about worse. To do nothing about it is to admit defeat and accept this as the way of the world. I don’t want to do that, I’d rather at least try something, even knowing the likelyhood is low.
And I don’t think pure doomerism is helpful either. By encouraging against any kind of deprogramming, you tacitly make it easier for the morons to spread without resistance.
That type of thinking is no different than the christians who believe that unless everyone else believes as they do then they ALL go to hell.
That ype of “enforced community” bullshit is exactly that. Bullshit.
People spend way too much of their time worrying about everyone else. Yes, helping when you can is a good thing.
You, however, are the one professing all the doom here. If not everyone believes the right things then we are all doomed.
Except who decides what those right things are, and what will happen when you teach society to think in that way, and then some demagogue takes control, and decides to subtly start changing what those right thoughts are?
Why, you get what we’re going through right now, don’t you…
So no, group think is never a good idea even if the thoughts are the “right” ones.
Tell them the landing was real, because if it wasn’t then how would the aliens on the dark side of the moon have told us not to come back?
(This is something my co worker unironically believes)
Never accept the premise of assholes.
They’ve made the dumbass claim that the earth is flat, so it’s their job to prove it. All you have to do is reject every idiotic piece of faulty logic they cough up as stupid.
They made the claim, make them do all the lifting, then just be dismissive, and give them nothing that resembles frustration.
Point out that their theory can be completely ignored without consequences.
There is precedence for punching them in the face. If its good enough for someone who was involved in the missions, it seems like a reasonable place to start.
The Apollo missions were staged, that’s 100% a fact.
Jokes aside, yeah Soviets are the answer. If there was the slightest inkling that we faked it, they wouldn’t have come out to congratulate us.
I think the most convincing evidence that we did go to the moon has to do with the dynamics of the moon dust in the original Apollo footage. If you look at the footage you’ll see the dust gets kicked up pretty high, higher than what you’d expect given Earth’s gravity, and it falls at a slower rate too.
So the question is: if they faked this footage then how did they get the dust to behave like this?
One possible explanation is that the footage was filmed underwater. The issue with this, though, is this is not at all how you’d expect dust to behave underwater. (you can go to the beach, kick up a bunch of sand underneath the water and see for yourself).
Another possibility is suspension cables. I guess you could explain the astronauts perceived lower gravity with suspension cables, but for pieces of dust? You can’t have suspension cables for individual pieces of dust.
So the simplest explanation is that this footage really was actually taken on a lower gravity environment, such as the moon.
Oh that is a good bit of evidence!
If someone is denying the moon landing, I doubt pointing out the mechanics of dust particles in low-g environments will do the trick.
The strongest evidence is the fact that modern equipment can see the actual tracks the A11 astronauts left while hiking and driving on the moon.
If that’s not enough, it’s probably best to drop the matter. You can’t use evidence to convince someone who does not want to be convinced.
The problem with this is that if you’re someone who thinks the moon landing is fake then you’re simply just going to dismiss this as yet another example of NASA propaganda. Because though those tracks are there, no one can actually see it for themselves (unless you happen to have a really high powered telescope, which is unlikely). The moon dust thing though, that’s something you can reason through and examine for yourself
If you want to address this question, show him some videos about Boeing and Airbus and how they can’t bring back airplane models they stopped production on because of massive supply chain issues. See if your friend is willing to accept that they can’t bring back the 747, for instance.
If this is a problem for aircraft, it is likely also a problem for spacecraft.
it was faked. dont try to pretend otherwise
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_loUDS4c3Cs
An interesting take on the technical hurdles it would have taken to even be able to fake what we saw during the moon landing.
tl;dw: It might have just been easier to go to the moon instead.
This is why my go-to is to tell them that the moon landing was faked, but NASA hired Steven Spielberg to direct it and he demanded that they shoot on location on the moon
Why bother? That person is either dumb as rocks, and you can’t do anything about that, or they’re having a little fun with you.
You’re asking then to trust the government. It’s a big ask.
Apollo 11 landing site taken by ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/cd8c60d9-e74d-4137-9103-76a8bd1b5d7b.png">
My go-to is to just beg them to play Kerbal Space Program
In the 1960s, getting to the moon was the most important thing in the solar system. The Soviet Union and the US spent ungodly amounts of money and risked uncountable lives in this endeavor. We did the thing, and now we’ve done the thing. We aren’t willing to risk those lives or spend that money anymore. New missions have to be much, much cheaper and much, much safer.
Technology has definitely improved, but there is a physical limit to the amount of energy that you can pull out of a given mass of kerosene and liquid oxygen. Getting to space hasn’t gotten any lighter, and fuel mass has always been the biggest hurdle. Again, play KSP. It will brand the tyranny of the rocket equation into your soul.
They could, in the same way that we could start sending children underground to mine for coal again
a) Been there, done that. Anything new will involve sending more mass than the Apollo missions had to deal with. Tyranny of the rocket equation: more mass means more fuel means more thrusters means more mass means more fuel…
b) I could do some research and come back, but there is no answer to this that will satisfy a moon landing denier, because any explanation would require a baseline understanding of chemistry and also trust in the institutions that examine these moon rocks.
c) The answer to a also applies here
Ask what proof would change their mind and show them. Then when their mind is not changed, you will understand
This is it.
There’s a movement post-BLM where it’s not their job to explain racism to the ignorant. Very often, ignorant people refuse evidence. They waste everyone’s time and energy.
As an aside for anyone interested in this particular conspiracy theory, check out the great black comedy mockumentary Operation Avalanche
Aren’t there reflectors in very specific places on the moon that will respond to high powered lights shown at them?
There are indeed. I think at least 1 mission laid out 3 reflectors in a triangle so the distance to the moon could be calculated?
You don’t, the same as “flat earthers” they’re too far down the rabbit hole
I might spend time explaining to flat earthers why earth is not flat because it is important to know especially if you work in large construction projects and other jobs that require taking into account earth’s curvature.
Proving moon landing on the other hand is totally pointless. It makes no difference to you or the person you’re arguing with if the landing was real or staged so I’d second avoiding this kind of discussions.
Unless your friend is a scientist studying the moon rocks or a US astronaut that is
I kind of doubt his friend designs skyscraper… but it is just my opinion
And if they did then thinking the earth is flat would be a good reason to fire them since it can cause issues with the design
I always felt that the most compelling argument that we did it was that faking it was too risky. If America faked it and the USSR went up and found no evidence that America got up there then that would have been impossible for America’s position on the global stage. Remember the Apollo missions happened during the Cold War. Irrefutable proof that America pretended to go to the moon would have been deeply damaging to idea that the might of capitalism was greater than the communists.
America left lots of stuff up on the moon with the idea that someday someone would go back up and see it.
It’s also not really a big deal if your friend doesn’t believe we went to the moon. What is their ignorance harming, really? They’re another cog in the great machine of capital and neither their intelligence nor wisdom is required to keep it spinning
Don’t waste your time. At this point it’s willful ignorance.
No technical rational explanation will ever get to them.
Most are there because they want to belong to a community, and because they like the idea of being right where everyone else is wrong, so that they’re the important ones for once.
That’s how you get to them: feed their need to belong, and their need to find enough self-esteem some other way.
Hearsay is worlds apart from firsthand observation. Just saying.
Why would they? Nothing of value came from any of those missions and the risk is enormous.
Because transistors are a lot more sensitive to EM than valves. Our current technology miniaturized lots of things, but that also means that a single piece of conductive material (like moon dust) or a single electron (from an em pulse) in the wrong place can wreak havok to it. Old computers required lots more electrons and space for their actual function so they were a lot more resistent to random variations. And we can’t make old computers anymore because we don’t have the factories for them, and you’re not going to create an entire factory just to produce a couple pieces for one mission, so they have to focus on isolating and making things more resistent.
The moon is constantly being bombarded by unfiltered radiation because of its lack of atmosphere. This makes it so they’re composed of minerals that rarely occur on earth (they usually bind with oxygen or nitrogen in the atmosphere), have different isotopes (because of the radiation) and are much older (because no interference from tectonic movement/rain/wind/etc)
Because they can’t for the same reason the US can’t, they don’t work with modern electronics, and no one can produce old electronics.
There is very strong evidence, your friend can corroborate for himself by spending a few thousand dollars (or he can understand that if anyone wanted to they could). First you need to buy a very powerful laser, then a very sensitive sensor, you hook them so they very close together and fire at the moon, you will never get a reading back, because the moon surface is a difuse reflector with a rough surface the light will scatter and go everywhere. However, when the astronauts went to the moon they left retroreflectors in specific locations, so if you pointed at one of those you would get the signal back approximately 2.5 second later.
I guess it’s easier to ask them “what evidence would convince you” because the answer will be none, of there was any evidence that would convince them they would have been convinced already.
Not sure what’s there to not understand about this, so I’ll just say same way cars get to a dealership and you ride them afterwards.
can’t logic someone out of somewhere they didnt logic themselves in.
So first try to understand how your friend feels and what is really going on with them.
Ya’ll believe in the moon?
The reason we can’t build the same thing as before is because the tooling is all gone, the set up of tools used to make those parts no longer exists. Half of designing a large complex thing is setting up all the machinery to actually produce what you want, testing and checking and dialing everything in, verifying that what you’re getting out is with in tolerances and will fit together properly. Building test segments and measuring how the behave and then going back and readjusting all the tools to account for differences and altering the design to match what you can actually make. Also all the people who knew the ins and outs of the old designs and manufacturing processes to make them are retired (and probably have forgotten some stuff) or dead. Recreating those production lines, manufacturing methods, retesting and dialing it all in, it would be expensive and time consuming, more so than just building something new based on modern manufacturing techniques and using already produced parts.
And we have been doing that… but it’s not getting nearly the same level of funding the Apollo program had, nor the same level of political commitment. Between 1963 and 1971, nasa’s budget was on average double what it is today (accounting for inflation) and they were allowed to focus most of that on a single project for that whole 8 year period. Compare that to today where nasa has hundreds of different projects ( ISS, near earth science satellites, mars rovers, probes to asteroids and outer planets, Artemis) and their goals and plans get whiplashed about every 4 years each time the administration changes. Not to mention Boeing routinely running over budget and over time and forcing nasa to foot the bill for their fuck ups. Blue origin and space X are also behind schedule on their lander projects as well.
So why were we able to do it back then and can’t now? NASA got the funding they needed, got to focus most of it on a single project and got to make a long term plan and stick with it, and private companies were much less willing to screw them over for a quick buck.
you dont have ti provide anything, the weight of the proof is with the non believer :)
but okay lets go:
beyond all the obvious evidence:
the biggest evidence is around how difficult it would have been to stage it. how many people need to be bribed for eternal silence - this includes suppliers, ex workers, employees, crews, etc…why hasnt anyone admitted the lie in their deathbed?
what I am saying is that it is more difficult to stage this (successfully) than actually do the freakin thing.
Literally not worth arguing with a person that believes this. These kinds of beliefs aren’t rooted in logic or reality so you’re not going to change their mind.
Velco them to a stiff board, tilt it so their head is reclined, cover their face with a rag, and pour Tang onto them until they acquiesce.
Gotta put this guy in a room with my high school astronomy teacher. He DESPISED moon landing conspiracy theorists. I still remember when he showed us a documentary about them and kept yelling at every person in it for believing this stuff.
2 Things:
They left a mirror at at least some of the landing sites, and we can bounce a laser off that mirror back to Earth. Proof that we were there.
They have sent probes up to circle the moon, and those probes photographed the sites. You can see lunar landers, abandoned gear, footprints, and the tracks from lunar rovers.
Their logic.
Check out professor Dave on YouTube, he just made22 long videos on the topic
You are wasting your breath with someone who is dead set in whatever they believe. They won’t be convinced until you’re converted.