The Apollo Moon Hoax: Why Is There No Lunar Dust on the Lander’s Footpads?
Introduction
For my continuing series in the Apollo Moon Hoax, I am going to address a claim that follows along the lines of the NASA stagehands not doing their job right — not placing any dust on the lunar module’s footpads.
All posts in this series:
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: An Overview
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: Why Haven’t Any Pictures Been Taken of the Landing Sites?
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: There Is a “Prop Rock” Labeled with a “C” (Updated)
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: Huge, Deadly Temperature Variation Claims
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: “No Stars” Claim and an Explanation of Dynamic Range
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: How Could the Astronauts Take So Many Photographs?
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: Why Is There No Blast Crater Under the Lunar Module?
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: Why Is There No Lunar Dust on the Lander’s Footpads?
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: Footprints Need Water to Form, Right? And How Hoaxers Argue
- The Apollo Moon Hoax: All the Photos Are Way Too Good!
The Claim
The basic claim goes as follows: When looking at the pretty pictures of the golden footpad of the Apollo lunar module (LM — see photo below), there doesn’t appear to be a single grain of dust on it, as though the module was just “placed there.”
Lunar Module Footpad - AS11-40-5926
Obviously, the NASA people who didn’t put the dust there were trying to tell future generations that this was a faked event, leaking this information out so no NASA higher-ups would realize.
The Lunar Atmosphere vs. Earth’s Atmosphere
There isn’t any. Simply put, the mass of the entire atmosphere of the moon is less than the amount of gas expelled by each Apollo descent engine.
As a result, if you were to pick up a handful of lunar dust and drop it, it would fall straight down with an acceleration about 1/6th that in Earth’s gravity. It would land directly below where you released it.
But it would appear to fall faster than that when compared with actually dropping flour-like substances on Earth. This is due to Earth’s atmosphere, which adds a resistive force to the dust settling down. In addition to this resistive force preventing its downward motion, Earth’s atmosphere is not still – it moves around. This allows any light material to billow out, creating clouds of material, and rarely landing directly below the location you released it.
The Lunar Module’s Descent Engine Shut-Off
The Apollo LMs had an antenna that when it came into contact with the lunar surface would trigger a light inside the craft. This light would be a signal to the astronauts to shut off the engine. Hence, the engine would be shut off before the craft landed.
Putting the Pieces Together to Debunk the Claim
At this point, we have two facts. First, lunar dust will drop straight down if it is released – be it from an astronaut that picks it up or from the force of a rocket engine’s exhaust (which, while not strong enough to create a crater was strong enough to suspend lunar dust). Second, the Apollo engines were shut off before the craft landed.
Consequently, as soon as the engines shut off, the source of a temporary atmosphere that surrounded the craft was terminated, and the dust that was suspended in it immediately dropped towards the lunar surface. The craft still had both a horizontal component to its trajectory, and the legs were above the majority of any of the temporary atmosphere that suspended the dust.
Hence, when the craft landed, it landed both to the side of the settled dust, and the dust would have already settled before the craft touched down, preventing any from being deposited on the LM’s footpads.
Final Thoughts
This claim is yet another one that hinges upon a perceived anomaly. And yet, this anomaly is common sense here on Earth but our common sense does not serve us well when trying to understand the lunar environment. When you hear a hoax claim, try to think about what would really happen in the environment of the moon, and you will be on your way to debunking the claim yourself.
Exposing PseudoAstronomy 
The absence of an atmosphere on the moon means that dust travels farther and faster the earthly dust. The dust picked up by the lander is clearly visible in the final moments of the descent video. Aldrin even remarks on it…”Picking up some dust”. But the dust streaks rapidly away in all directions, because there is no atmosphere to slow it down. When the engine is cut, the dust dissapears off towards the horizon.
Comment by Jim — July 17, 2009 @ 1:50 pm |
That is correct, thank you. Zero atmosphere is a vacuum with no forcing energy to stop and slow down particles in space or on the moon. However the moon does have slight force of gravity to slow down and bring those moon dust particles back down but far away. Remember on Apollo 14 with Allen Shepard first and only one to hit a golf ball on the moon as he really did and remarked there it goes ‘miles and miles’. Rocket engine force in space is continuous as the longer the engine fires the faster and faster the ship will go without ever slowing down until another force of energy is encountered or used (i.e. ‘Retro Fire’ and return to the THICK atmosphere of Earth) …And the planets (or whatever planet) gravity starts to pull it in and so on. For an easy example, a ship as Apollo traveling at 17,000 plus miles per hour re-enters the Earth’s THICK atmosphere by just friction of the ship alone falling down to the surface takes that 17,000 plus miles an hour speed all the way down to apx. 320 MPH, then the shoots are deployed still slowing down the ship to just 25 MPH and ‘Splash Down’ …and done!
Comment by Lorne Ernst — August 31, 2013 @ 1:10 am |
so a boot mark of a human makes a clear detailed foot print but the heavy LM leg has nothing. makes no sense.
Comment by ross — June 18, 2016 @ 4:40 am |
Have you picked up a LM and looked under the pads?
Comment by Woof — August 21, 2016 @ 10:58 am
The lunar atmosphere is so thin, that It was reported at the time that when depressurizing the LM,
the gas vented from the cabin increased the lunar atmosphere by about 5% !
Comment by Mainsqueezer — July 17, 2009 @ 3:41 pm |
Looks like a plus for terraforming. Yay for space conquoring!.
And yes, I probably did spell that wrong.
Comment by sasracer — July 18, 2009 @ 2:34 pm |
Yes, some of the ALSEP instruments set up on the moon easily detected the presence of the astronauts. Not only did the seismometers detect their footsteps, but the particle detectors saw the water vapor emitted from the cooling units in their backpacks. Even after they left there were some disturbances to the instruments from occasional venting of stuff inside the descent module left at the landing site.
Comment by Phil — July 9, 2012 @ 9:25 am |
Read section 1 of NASA’s paper called ‘The Apollo Experience, Lessons Learned for Constellation Lunar Dust Management, by Sandra Wagner Section one deals with Surface Obscuration during Descent. Your conclusion about a thin layer of dust is just musings. NASA doesn’t agree with you.
Comment by sailincpl — July 29, 2013 @ 8:15 pm |
i read the paper…… exactly what was your point? the paper says (quote) “During the final phase of the lunar module descent, the interaction of the descent engine exhaust plume with the lunar surface resulted in the top layer of the lunar soil being eroded away. The particles were picked up by the gas stream and transported as a dust cloud for long distances at high speed.”
the paper also talks about other missions landing in different places with different amounts of dust. i think you believe you made a point, but you did not. explain what you meant.
Comment by kmrod — January 27, 2015 @ 12:20 pm
I find that impossible to believe.
Comment by Steve Spreckley — April 25, 2016 @ 1:21 am |
OK, It has taken me ten minutes to settle all my sceptical point except one. I understand why there would be no dust ON the footpads of the lander, but why is there almost two inches of dust for Edwin Aldrin to step in, right at the landing site? Thanks for the site; I’d like email to read your reponse when you get to it. Daniel
Comment by Daniel Leibrant — October 27, 2009 @ 11:08 pm |
Believe it or not, the pressure of an astronaut’s foot was actually quite a bit greater than that of the descent engine right before landing. The total engine thrust was greater, but it was spread out over the much larger nozzle. So it only removed the very thin layer of very light dust directly below it, leaving plenty of dust for Aldrin to make his impression a ways away.
Comment by Phil Karn — February 18, 2010 @ 10:54 am |
I was just reading this and gasping at how big an idiot the author was. Then I got to the part where he was debunking the idiotic myth and took a sigh of relief.
Comment by Me — July 28, 2010 @ 8:01 am |
The Descent lunar module engine expels over 9,000 Lbs of thrust. When the switch was toggle to shut the engine down, it was no more then three feet off the surface. The lunar module at descent weighed 5,183 lbs, trapping the engine exhaust between the lunar module and the moon surface at a ratio of 4 to 5 (around 5,000lbs of thrust). Evidence of large amounts of moon dust was apparent from watching the LRV bouncing around the lunar surface. We also know there is no atmospheric pressure, and gravity is only .16 of the earth leaving the dust resistant at 6%, and blowing the dust at 83% of the action force, which would have force the faster sand, right below the full thrust, to collide with the outside slower dust in a violent nature. This would have force the inside sand to create an upper ward dust storm slamming into the lunar module, spreading dust every where, and that includes the landing footpads as well.
Comment by Len — September 1, 2010 @ 7:11 pm |
Most of what you said makes little sense, but I’ll simply point out that on the moon, with no atmosphere, the descent engine exhaust blew the dust radially outward in flat sheets that hugged the ground. There was no reason for it to rise above the surface.
The movies of the landings even show “shadows” made in the sheet of dust by small rocks and other surface irregularities. These shadows clearly moved as the LM moved horizontally, further showing that the dust closely hugged the surface.
Comment by Phil — December 12, 2010 @ 3:22 am |
Yep dust should be on the foot pads even foot prits are half under the foot pads which is impossible but not if the stage crew placed them when they lifted the llm in place.
experts have said the thrust from the engine should have made a blast crater and none is shown.
Also the sound recorded inside does not show the true thrust sound.
Again cover up fake landings and time will prove this.
Comment by cool jay — May 27, 2012 @ 6:37 am |
So who are these “experts” who say there should be blast craters?
Look more carefully at the pictures taken under the lunar module. Many show very obvious scouring of the surface where all the loose dust was blasted away. This was especially obvious on Apollo 11 because the engine wasn’t shut off until the LM had touched down on the surface.
Comment by Phil — July 9, 2012 @ 9:28 am
Nope – there are no ‘foot prints (not prits) half under the foot pads’. You clearly have no clue what you are talking about my friend.
Comment by Chris Carter — June 8, 2019 @ 10:32 pm
the hummle telescope should get some real photos of the lunar site space modules
Comment by peter — September 25, 2011 @ 9:07 am |
The Hubble is not able to resolve something that small so far away. Any telescope, even one in space where there’s no atmosphere in the way, has limits. The larger the telescope diameter, the smaller the angle it can resolve. Although the Hubble is quite large (2.4 meters) the Apollo hardware is so small and so far away that even the Hubble can’t see it.
But we do have a telescope that has seen all the Apollo sites quite well: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). It has a telescope only 195mm in diameter, but it is so much closer to the moon (it has been less than 50 km from the surface) that it can easily see the Apollo sites. Check out http://www.lroc.asu.edu/ for some spectacular photography.
Comment by Phil — July 9, 2012 @ 9:43 am |
Anything is possible when dealing with government programs, the government injected there own people with psypallis so it could be a hoax.
Comment by mark — August 26, 2012 @ 11:19 am |
Nope, anything is *not* possible with the government. They have to obey the same laws of physics and mathematics as anyone else.
What always amuses me about claims like yours is that you expect us to believe that the government was too incompetent to actually land on the moon and, at the very same time, supremely competent at pulling off a massive hoax involving hundreds of thousands of people and keeping it all under wraps for over 40 years!
Comment by Phil — August 26, 2012 @ 7:59 pm |
Why would it be so hard to keep secret? If you were to take all the people who have worked at the Pentagon, Area 51, and who’ve worked in the CIA over the last 40 years, how many of them have told the press or wrote a book about all the secrets they have been privy to? Why haven’t any of those employees, who have seen top secret information, spilled the beans? Because it’s not so hard to get people to keep a secret by means of threats, including death threats to the employee, their family, threats of imprisonment, financial ruin by way of the IRS, and so forth.
If the secret is something that would be earth shattering, all the more easy to get people to keep it secret because government employees would know exactly the penalty for not keeping the secret; they would know exactly what’s at stake. we still can’t even get the full story on the Kennedy assassination which still doesn’t make sense and was most likely done by the CIA and the Mafia.
Getting back to the moon landing hoax, anyone involved would keep it secret because if they work for NASA or the US government they know what would happen if they reveal the secret. We’re talking about large amounts of money here. Aerospace contracts worth billions. This was something so monumental it could affect the stock market. The stock market goes up or down simply as a result of investor’s attitudes. If faith in the United States ability to master technology is lost this would in turn affect the stock market. If the reverse happens then the market goes up.
People are so sure that there could never be secret meetings that plan the future of our world yet these things do happen. Do you honestly think the world turned out the way it did by accident? It is all about money. That;s it, plain and simple. Want to shut people up in other countries, pay them billions of dollars and they’ll claim that they see the Apollo landing site with their country’s lunar orbiter. It’s not so hard to get people to go along with things if you give them tons of money.
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 21, 2016 @ 8:01 am
Believe that big fierce mean ugly conspiracy shit, and you won’t even be able to prove you’re not a brain in a vat.
I think we’re done here.
Comment by Woof — November 21, 2016 @ 11:38 am
GovernmentS… plural, if we’re to believe the conspiracy theory. It would have to involve all the countries that were involved, such as my turf Australia, as we received the transmission from Apollo 11. It would also have had come up with a way to leave the reflectors on the surface of the moon, which observatories around the world use. Then you’d have the thousands of people involved in the conspiracy that need to keep it a secret. Then the people that enforce said secret keeping. When you do all that it’d be easy just to go to the damn moon and be done with it.
Comment by bersaba — January 15, 2014 @ 5:47 am |
This article is wrong. Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad talks about the dust from 300 feet down and a actually has to fly the eight ball the last 30 feet.
There was so much dust that they actually thought they overshot the parking lot. Because of the protocol NASA had for controlling dust and because they weren’t sure where they exactly where, they conducted a clandestine SEVA.
So supposed scientists talking about rocket PSI and a lack of atmosphere are full of ****. Dust was a real concern for all flights. They even had a paper on it called, “The Apollo Experience, Lessons learned for Constellation Lunar Dust Management.”
The first chapter dealt with Surface Obscuration During Descent.
End of ******** please, where is the dust on the feet of the LEM and why is the soil beneath the vehicle not disturbed. Dust was an issue supposedly for Apollo 12, and all subsequent flights, why was there none in the photos.
Comment by sailincpl — July 29, 2013 @ 8:05 pm |
Absolutely nothing that you said negates what I wrote in the blog post.
Comment by Stuart Robbins — July 31, 2013 @ 9:14 pm |
here is some dust on the footpads (zoom in)
and here is a picture clearly showing radial markings of a blast pattern going away from the engine
next?
Comment by kmrod — January 27, 2015 @ 12:25 pm |
Everyone who sees any radial blast patterns has one heck of a wild imagination. I’ve seen several high resolution photos and none of them contained evidence that the descent engines had disturbed the surface at all. There was still plenty of dust and pebbles. As for the LM’s footpads, I do see a tiny bit of dust which has settled into some creases.
Comment by LooneyModule — December 9, 2015 @ 11:01 pm
When you download the photo of the LM leg , zoom in close up and the White stuff surrounding the ball joint resemble styrofoam or otherwise known as packing material, in addition, the leg seems held at that angle by two metal rods attached via metal screws , They either has futuristic elasticated metal or was this needed to keep the leg from leaving over under the weight of it in the studio
Comment by ross Adams — June 18, 2016 @ 5:17 am |
Ridiculous. There was dust. Apollo 15 stated their view was obscured by dust starting at 60 ft above the surface. They reverted to IFR allegeding using radar to know their height above the surface. Yeah right.
The dust which obscured their total view would have been above the footpads!
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html
Why not use the transcripts? From Apollo 15
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.landing.html
“104:41:36 Irwin: 120 feet. Minus 6.
104:41:39 Scott: Okay. I’ve got some dust.
[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief – “I could see dust – just a slight bit of dust. At about 50 to 60 feet, the total view outside was obscured by dust. It was completely IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). I came into the cockpit (that is, switched his attention from the view out the window to the instrument readings that Jim was giving him) and flew with the instruments from there on down.”]
104:41:40 Irwin: Minus 5; 100 feet at 5; nine percent fuel; minus 5.”
DUST! DUST! The total view outside was obscured by dust on landing Apollo 15! It was IFR rules!! They flew by instruments from 50 to 60 feet above the surface!
Look at this image: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/AS15-87-11842.jpg
You can see the Descent Engine Nozzle almost touching the ground. There’s no crater! There’s no dust on the pads. There is no sweeping.
The caption of the photo states
“Compared to some other missions, there doesn’t seem to be as much evidence of sweeping by the Descent Engine exhaust as there is in some other missions, particular Apollo 12.”
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/images15.html#Mag86
No evidence of sweeping, despite the transcript they had to fly the last 60 feet down by instrument because the dust obscured their view? Really? And there’s no dust on the pads?
There are photographs allegedly taken by the orbiting Command Module of the landing site. It mentions the lighter soil disturbed by the descent engine. No sweeping? No dust? NASA contradicts itself.
hq..nasa.gov/alsj/a15/as15p9798det.jpg
Check out this photo of the crushed Descent Engine Bell of Apollo 15. It’s amazing the LM didn’t destroy itself; it allegedly landed off horizontal, tilted. There is no sweeping.
The astronauts tossed a white duffle bag under the LM. Dust stuck to it. Dust stuck to their spacesuits in other photos. But not on the pads when it obscured their view 50 ft above the surface when landing?
Another photo of the lighter soil caused by sweeping upon landing:
Notice the sweeping yards and yards away form the LM
hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/as15p9377detKaguya.jpg
You can reason all you want about the lack of dust on the pads or of lack of sweeping or craters caused by the Descent Engine, but the historical photographic and transcipted records of the landings contradict themselves and you!
Thank you.
Comment by Scott — August 15, 2015 @ 2:19 pm |
Why would the dust have to be above the pads? What’s being obscured is the lunar surface. The dust just has to be between the surface and the Mark I eyeball.
Comment by Woof — October 15, 2015 @ 6:43 pm |
@Scott
You did what I call a “Jarrahdox.” You used a transcript from Apollo 15 to prove how much blown dust there was and how they had to use IFR to land the LM. Would there be a lot of dust and would they have to use IFR if the mission was faked?
You did it again when you showed pictures from orbit with supposed sweeping of the surface. The surface of what? Sweeping from what?
I don’t see any sweeping of the surface in the pictures you showed. Neither do you. Somebody at JAXA thought he could see discoloration from the exhaust. That’s where this claim came from. I think that person was wrong. All we’re seeing is normal difference in surface brightness due to its varying slope.
I had never seen that picture of the crushed engine nozzle before. Thanks for pointing that out. I can’t think of any reason there would be a crushed nozzle in a fake mission, can you?
As Phil Plait would say, “We’re done here, right?”
Comment by Astrobrant — June 16, 2016 @ 10:40 am |
Basic questions.
Why are the struts and footpads covered in gold Mylar?
Yes, I understand gold Mylar is used to deflect heat. …from the footpads?
How come they are still covered in gold Mylar after being sand/dust blasted by a 10,000lb rocket engine?
Comment by Tim Heritage — August 26, 2015 @ 9:57 am |
Deflect heat… from the sun. The point?
The engine exhaust goes down, hits the surface, then blows dust radially outward. At no point are the struts or pads in the dust blast pattern.
Comment by Woof — October 15, 2015 @ 6:46 pm |
This makes sense but the video of the moon rover kicking up dust seems to disprove a lot of what you are all saying. Fun at home experiment. Creat a vacum with out of pvc like we use to do in science class, fill will sand and drop any object. In ever drop there are noticeable flakes on top of the object. I don’t think nasa faked the whole thing but there are some interesting things that don’t seem right.
Comment by S en — June 15, 2016 @ 7:06 am |
gold mylar melts at around 200 degrees celcius. even pure gold would melt at the temperatures of the exhaust, let alone the sand blasting. and indeed, why put gold mylar on lander foots. To protect the styrofoam? what a joke. And your argument of on the one hand saying that sand blows out radially, and otherwise falling down vertically (in vacuum) just shows that you didnt pay attention in physics class, or probably never had any.
Comment by henk — August 21, 2016 @ 4:00 am |
@ henk, your comment is very interesting. gold would melt or i was thinking there would be noticable scorch marks. Since you seem to grasp physics better than the authors of this site, I wanted to ask you if you thought it odd that despite the low gravity on the moon the astronauts weren’t able to leap higher off the ground or do incredible feats like lifting something that would be extremely heavy on earth but light as a feather on the moon. the hitting of the golf ball didn’t impress me because i’ve seen golf balls on earth go farther when hit than the one hit on the moon. if anything the golf ball should have gone off into space since the moon’s gravity wouldn’t be strong enough to pull it back down due to the golf ball’s velocity.
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 6, 2016 @ 5:00 pm |
Congrats.
Pretty much everything you said right there is wrong.
Comment by Woof — November 6, 2016 @ 6:11 pm
You seriously think that the golf ball hit on the moon should have had escape velocity to leave the moon’s gravitational influence? You do realise that the astronaut wouldn’t have been able to swing the golf club with much force, due to his bulky spacesuit? You clearly have no clue my friend, lol.
Comment by Sailor Man — June 8, 2019 @ 10:45 pm
@woof
sorry woof but everything I said is correct. The astronauts didn’t leap high off the ground and they should have been able to lift objects that they wouldn’t be able to lift on earth. The weight on the moon is only 16.5% of what you weigh on earth. So if you weigh 200lbs on earth your weight on the moon would be 33lbs. The astronauts should have been leaping much higher and the golfball hit should have taken off into space because it weighed even less than on earth. There is also no resistance on the moon, nothing to slow it down. It’s called the laws of physics.
The videos of the astronauts on the moon just look as if the video was shot in slow motion. If you speed it up they look like they are on earth on a studio made to look like the moon’s surface.
If you are such a believer that man landed on the moon then answer this question: why is radiation in space a problem for NASA to plan a return trip to the moon when it shouldn’t be if we already made it to the moon?
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 10, 2016 @ 12:07 am |
Do you have a physics degree? Just asking.
Yes, the moon’s surface gravity is 1/6 g. But it’s not just your body mass/weight you have to worry about. How about all that stuff you’re carrying? The suit and PLSS would easily double your mass/weight. And it’s not like wearing the suit is like wearing shorts and sneakers. It’s stiff and hard to move in. AND there’s the different between mass and weight. To jump you have to accelerate your (and the suit’s etc) MASS upwards, not the WEIGHT. Doesn’t make a difference if you’re on the moon or sitting at home.
AND THEN… You’re standing around in a vacuum and have this great idea. “Hold my beer!” you say. “I’m gonna see how high I can jump!” So you give it a shot, screw up, land on your head, bust your helmet, and die in a quick but painful way. Sucks to be you. The astronauts weren’t there to do gymnastics.
The golf ball: It would need to be given lunar orbital speed (at least) to have “taken off into space”. Off the top of my head I think that’s on the order of 5000 mph. Can you hit a golf ball 5000 mph? In a stiff and awkward pressurized suit? With no practice? I didn’t think so.
To me the sped up video just looks stupid. Your mileage may vary.
The Apollo astronauts got the equivalent of 1 or 2 chest X-rays per mission. Not a big deal, but people are more worried about such things these days. We’re not going up against the Rooskis for world domination. There is also the problem of solar flares. One of those at the wrong time would have caused a mission abort and some sick (though probably not dead) crew. You’d want something with more safety margin for more regular operations in the near future.
Comment by Woof — November 10, 2016 @ 2:13 am |
Wow woof you have all the answers! To bad they are all wrong but I give you A+ for effort.
you state that the astronauts received radiation equivalent to 1 or 2 x-rays per mission. Where did you get this information? From NASA? So we are to trust the hoaxers with providing us with honest information? Same goes with the speed needed to leave the surface of the moon. The only info we are given is from the hoaxers themselves. If there was an independent investigation done by a non government entity such as a corporation that has no ties to NASA or the US government, then I would consider what you are saying. This conspiracy runs deep and involves many governments even the Chinese.
Let me ask you something since you seem to be the man with all the answers, if radiation in space was not an obstacle during the Apollo missions then why does NASA claim that radiation is an obstacle to going back to the moon, to Mars and beyond. Radiation in deeper space is the same as radiation close to earth. Also if radiation is not an issue then why does our own planet protect us from it? Is it an accident? No. There is a reason for this layer of protection. If we don’t have it all life on earth will die.
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 20, 2016 @ 7:53 pm
So I can’t use information from any knowledgeable source, right? Got it. OK, you win!
OR, since to be fair YOU can’t use those sources either, I submit that there’s NO radiation in space, no Van Allen belts, etc, so there’s no problem. Now I win! Prove me wrong. (Remember, no checking with knowledgeable sources!)
For quick trips radiation is not a problem. On longer trips it is. Go sunbathe for 10 minutes. You’ll be fine. Then do it for several hours at a time for a couple of weeks. You WON’T be fine.
Why does our own planet protect us from radiation? Well, Bunky, a planet doesn’t have motivation. It happens to have a circulating liquid outer core which gives rise to a geomagnetic field. We evolved to live in that field. End of story.
If we’d not had that geomagnetic field, back in the day of single-celled ocean-dwelling organisms, “we” would have either stayed at that level or evolution would have found a way to deal with it.
Comment by Woof — November 20, 2016 @ 10:05 pm
“The surface of the Moon is baldly exposed to cosmic rays and solar flares. When cosmic rays hit the ground, they produce a dangerous spray of secondary particles right at your feet, and trigger little nuclear reactions that release yet more radiation in the form of neutrons. The lunar surface itself is radioactive!”
– Robert Naeye, PhD, NASA. Dr Robert Naeye is now Editor in Chief of Sky & Telescope, the world’s most respected and influential popular astronomy magazine.
The above is a quote from an actual NASA scientist. The lunar surface is radioactive. You don’t have to be a scientist to know that radioactivity is dangerous. I don’t recall the Apollo 11 spacesuits having a lead lining or NASA even mentioning that they did. The Saturn V would not be able to lift all that weight off the surface of the earth.
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 20, 2016 @ 11:50 pm
Wait, what? You’re believing what a NASA scientist tells you? When did you go over to the dark side?
Meanwhile, back in reality…
EVERYTHING is radioactive. YOU are radioactive. For instance, you’ve got a load of potassium-40 in your body. From Wikipedia: “In a human body of 70 kg mass, about 4,400 nuclei of [potassium-40] decay per second.” There’s nothing lead-lined that will protect you from that.
Like any poison, it’s all about the dose.
The lunar surface CAN’T be that radioactive. There are several places around the world where you can actually touch moon rocks. There is a distinct lack of people touching these rocks then keeling over dead.
Comment by Woof — November 21, 2016 @ 1:08 am
Many moon landing brainwashees state that if Russia knew that the US faked the landings, they would have called the US out on it. That is unless the Russians also had secrets that they didn’t want known. As an educated individual (I have a Master’s degree in Computer Science, a Master’s in Engineering, as well as a PhD in Applied Physics), I learned about what is called the scientific method. This is a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. The key word is experiment and then experiment some more. The space program is no different. In the early days of the space program no one was really sure what would happen to a person sent into space. Animals were sent first so there was some idea of what to expect. However things can always go unexpectedly especially when it involves a human sitting on top of a huge rocket being blast off into space.
According to Pravda published 12.04.2001 The first man in space was not Yuri Gagrin. As over 40 years have now passed since Gagarin’s flight, new sensational details of this event were disclosed: Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin’s famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday, 12 April 2001.
According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959.
“All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published,” Mikhail Rudenko said.
He explained that all these pilots took part in so-called sub-orbital flights, i.e., their goal was not to orbit around the Earth, which Gagarin later did, but made a parabola-shaped flight.
“The cosmonauts were to reach space heights in the highest point of such an orbit and then return to the Earth,” Mikhail Rudenko said.
According to his information, Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov were regular test pilots, who had not had any special training, Interfax reports.
“Obviously, after such a serious of tragic launches, the project managers decided to cardinally change the program and approach the training of cosmonauts much more seriously in order to create a cosmonaut detachment,” Rudenko said.
Of course these things are hidden from the public because the public doesn’t want to know about those who sometimes have to sacrifice their lives in the pursuit of science. The same goes for the American space program. There were unexpected incidents that were told to the public such as the deaths of Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (then known as Cape Kennedy), Florida. He was the first of the Mercury Seven to die and under rather suspicious circumstances. Incidentally Grissom also spoke freely to the press about how the Saturn V rocket was what he considered a lemon. I’m not going to argue with that. Amazingly, the Apollo program goes off without a single mishap (not including Apollo 13 which interestingly occurs at the lowest ratings point of NASA launches; however, a mishap in space would bring viewers back) not even one circuit goes bad? everything went picture perfect, if only the Russian scientists were as skilled as American scientists and had American know-how. Don’t make me puke. It is highly unlikely that astronauts can be sent from earth to the moon and everything goes exactly as planned. No in fact it all went even better than planned. Impossible. The margin for error was just too small, our technology too primitive.
Comment by Cody Nundy — November 21, 2016 @ 5:43 am
Yeah, I’ve heard about the pre-Gagarin cosmonaut stories. No confirmation, though. Anyway… your point?
There was one cosmonaut who got killed in training. He was in a 100% O2 atmosphere, and he (oops) tossed an alcohol swab onto a hot plate.
Grissom, White, and Chaffee died in pre-launch Apollo 1, yes. (On my birthday. Yay me.) Not much suspicious about that. 100% O2 atmosphere (again), lots of flammable stuff, and an ignition source (probably a spark from chafed wiring). Complacency killed them. Same with Challenger and Columbia. You do something dodgy over and over without disaster, you start treating it as normal. NASA really needs to kick that habit. Anyway, looking for a point again…
Grissom didn’t say anything about the Saturn V. The Apollo 1 booster was a Saturn IB. The Block 1 Apollo capsule had issues, but what he hung an actual lemon on was the Apollo capsule SIMULATOR. It had issues.
There were 13 Saturn V launches, and none of them failed. (Some had some problems, but no mission fails.)
What counts as a mishap? Most functions were triple-redundant. If one failed, the others kept it going. You might not ever even hear about it. THAT’S how we went to the moon with our “primitive technology”.
If you’re saying that Apollo 13 was an intentional failure, well, you’re going to have to meet me out back to get your well-deserved ass-kicking.
Comment by Woof — November 21, 2016 @ 9:24 am
@Cody
What are you talking about no circuits going bad, there were glitches and failed systems on every mission. Apollo 10, the LM ascent stage blew its airlock seal and hurtled off into space ahead of schedule just after the crew got back on board the command module… Apollo 11, the guidance computer rebooted itself 4 times during the descent leaving several seconds at a time without thruster control and nearly causing an abort, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning on launch causing electrical chaos and came within a few seconds of using the escape system to abort the mission, Apollo 13 obviously had the faulty wiring in the o2 tank that crippled the service module, also had pogo oscillations during the s2 stage that cause part of the engine to fail and luckily happened near the end of the burn as the engine was shut down before it failed completely, Apollo 14 the LM had a faulty short appear in the abort switch just prior to the decent module ignition, if it had shorted after the descent began the computer would have separated the descent module and started an emergency ascent, then during the descent itself the radar altimeter failed to acquire any data till the lander was very low again almost near the abort limit. Apollo 15 had an oxygen leak in the LM through the urine transfer device which caused some concern till it was fixed, Apollo 16 the guidance computer lost its navigation data and went into gimbal lock just prior to the lunar insertion burn, Ken Mattingly had to realign the system manually using the sun and moon for reference.
All in all, the missions were extremely risky, and only extreme redundancy, quick thinking of flight and ground crews, and luck saved many if not most of these missions from disaster.
Comment by Clint — January 5, 2017 @ 1:27 pm |
Why is there so little ‘moondust’ on the moon? Why didn’t the LM sink? In the entire moon’s existence, and with low gravity, why are footprint impressions so shallow? Just curious.
Comment by Frank Soto — June 27, 2017 @ 3:14 am |
Hi Frank, Yup you are curious and lazy. Do some REAL in depth investigation for yourself if you are capable. “Why is there so little ‘moondust’ on the moon?” How much would you expect there to be? “why are footprint impressions so shallow? “How deep do you think they should be?” “Why didn’t the LM sink?” Try to answer this and the other questions yourself. You may be able to educate yourself in the process. Why do you need to be spoon fed answers? John.
Comment by John Adkins — March 24, 2018 @ 1:31 am |
There’s really nothing kind I can say about the intellect of anyone who could argue that the Apollo 11 lander was actually on the moon. It was a really great attempt to con the American public but time and better technology have easily revealed the lies. It’s now just a matter of faith. You either believe in NASA or you don’t. Too many former employees and contractors of NASA and Disney have come forward with their stories of what actually occurred.
Comment by outsourcedguru — May 4, 2018 @ 7:27 pm |
What stories?
Put up or shut up.
Comment by Steve Plegge — May 5, 2018 @ 2:59 pm |
Troll much?
Comment by outsourcedguru — May 8, 2018 @ 5:56 pm
@outsourcedguru, I agree that you need to provide some evidence to back your claim, like some actual photos of the set, taken from angles where it’s obvious we’re looking at such. A lot of people have taken photos of many other film sets before, so why not this one, if it’s real?
Comment by Rick K. — May 5, 2018 @ 7:29 pm |
No, actually I don’t. You swallowed the we-went-to-the-moon story without any concrete evidence other than the total b/s coverage and claims by NASA so you shouldn’t force the rest of us to live up to a different standard. Look at the photos. If you can’t see that they’re obviously staged then I feel sorry for you, really. There are zero stars seen in the sky in any of the photos. The lighting is staged, with multiple point sources which cast contrasting shadows.
If Neil was the first person to set foot on the moon then who conveniently took his photograph of his descent down the ladder? Why is the flag waving in some of the videos of later landings? Use your brains.
Observe the absence of a dust crater under the lander and compare this to the clouds of dust in the downward-facing video of the supposed landing from just before this. Pristine, gold-foiled landing gear without a touch of dust on them. For the time, it was probably compelling but from today’s standards, it’s just rank amateur hour at Disney Studios and a sad testimony at the people who persist in believing this story.
Comment by outsourcedguru — May 8, 2018 @ 5:56 pm
@outsourcedguru – I’m afraid you have it backwards here. You are the one making the extraordinary claim–that the entire Moon landing was faked, despite all the evidence that it actually happened. You are the one required to provide evidence to back your claim.
Instead of evidence, you resort to insults and a series of already-refuted “What about…?” questions that do nothing to support what you’re insisting is “true”. Why should anyone believe you?
Comment by Rick K. — May 9, 2018 @ 5:45 am
@ Rick K. “Why is the flag waving in some of the videos of later landings?” where was this refuted? i must have missed that. i dunno, as an observer trying to stay unbiased, it looks like the “hoax debunkers” answer some of the questions well, but completely ignore some and/or claim they’ve already been debunked. i also have seen the videos of astronauts making contradictory claims about the stars being visible/not visible, with no explanation. so i’d like to see if someone could explain this without trying to protect their ego. so far, the “conspiracy theorists” actually seem to present a more compelling narrative overall.
Comment by skeptikol — June 30, 2018 @ 3:58 am
@ skeptikol – Sorry, as I stated in my previous post, I don’t play the “What about…?” game. If you haven’t seen that particular concern addressed elsewhere, look up the historical information about the Apollo landings and you’ll learn quite a bit about what went right (and wrong) on the several visits by humans to the Moon.
If you’re locked into accepting one of the many different conspiracy theories about the Apollo missions to the Moon, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I could show you a mountain of proof and you’d say it was faked, or that I’m in NASA’s pay, or something other reason you don’t believe any of it. You should look at the evidence instead of relying on a bunch of questions posed by folks with a lot of ideas what happened but nothing reliable to back up their claims.
Comment by Rick K. — July 2, 2018 @ 11:57 pm
@Rick Face it, you’re programmed to believe things that you’re told. I feel sorry for people who stare at their television sets and don’t see “actors”. Smart people look at vintage videos of Apollo and just shake their head, much like Walter Cronkite did. NASA had to redact their own actors’ disgusted comments from the transcripts.
Comment by outsourcedguru — July 7, 2018 @ 10:23 am |
You simply can’t conceive of the possibility that some of us just might know something for reasons other that “we were told”, can’t you? Some of us understand enough physics and engineering to understand exactly how it was done, how it all fit together, and that the phenomena is consistent with the laws of physics and math that we already know and see in our professions and elsewhere every day.
Just because YOU don’t understand doesn’t mean no one else can.
Comment by Phil Karn — May 22, 2020 @ 12:01 am |
It’s not that I don’t understand it [the acted-out storyboard], it’s that the physics don’t work. You can’t blast the landing gear like that in a flour-like powder and not have a crater underneath. Use your brain instead of your mouth.
Comment by outsourcedguru — June 19, 2020 @ 2:38 pm
Please explain why “the physics don’t work”. I’m intrigued and would like to learn.
Comment by Phil Karn — June 19, 2020 @ 3:37 pm
Fake landing. Time will prove it. They can fool all the people all the time.
Comment by Alineoh — November 15, 2018 @ 3:02 pm |
look at the legs of chang er vehicle that landed on the moon, notice the scour mark caused by jet streams flowing pass and beneath the pad of the four legs. it caused an indentation to the moons dusty surface as it should be, much like streams scouring the river bed down stream of the piers, causing the leg being partially sunk. The landing pad of appolo looks too much like it is being hoisted down.
Comment by john — January 20, 2019 @ 7:15 pm |
I’m more interested in why the footpads are so junky looking. They literally look like rubber or plastic plates wrapped in gold foil. The entire lander looks pretty flimsy, like something put together by dad in his garage so his kids could pretend to be astronauts. How could something that crappy looking protect the occupants from radiation? Or is there no radiation out there at all, and they lied to us about that, too? I really don’t know what to believe anymore.
Comment by Viv — July 15, 2019 @ 11:58 am |
Ok you forget to explain the traces of the thrust on the surface : it should have cleaned the soil from the dust even if the engine is stored before landing…
Comment by Eric Schneider — December 26, 2019 @ 12:09 am |