(Merged) Fetzer / Burton Apollo Hoax debate thread

[Duane Daman]

This video shows that the "earthrise" photos from Apollo 8 and 11 were really the same photo.

Really?

Here is the image I showed (AS11-44-6551). The "AS11" refers to the mission, "44" refers to the film roll number.

Here is a similar image from Apollo 8 (AS8-14-2383):

Check out the cloud patterns on each. Check out the land masses. Are they the same?

Many earthrise photos have been taken by unmanned missions, including Soviet missions and NASA's Clementine mission, just to name a few.. There are only a handful of Apollo photos showing the image of "earth" in the "lunar" sky, all of which could have been easily photoshopped.

Except that Photoshop did not exist in 1968 / 69 / 70. Or are you claiming yet another "conspiracy"?

Yes, really.

The same image of earth was used for both the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 "earthrise " photos .. If you had watched this video, instead of parading out a differnt photo, allegedly taken from Apollo 8, you would know this.. Though I'm sure you would rather die than to admit NASA faked their Apollo phtography.

How about watching this video again to see the evidence of the Apollo 8 / 11 photo fakery, along with other identical photos that were passed off as coming from different "missions".

As for "photoshop" not existing during Project Apollo, I used that "term" to describe any type of image tampering, or compositing of images into a photo, which was available during that time, along with front screen projection and small scale models, that were used to stage the distance shots taken on the "moon".

*edited to add bolding for the blind, dishonest, insulting apollogists on apollohoax.net

Edited November 18, 2010 by Duane Daman

[Duane Daman]

2

Many earthrise photos have been taken by unmanned missions, including Soviet missions and NASA's Clementine mission, just to name a few.. There are only a handful of Apollo photos showing the image of "earth" in the "lunar" sky, all of which could have been easily photoshopped.

So Duane, what images earthrise images do you find when you look at the Apollo 8 images galleries (or better yet the actual film)? That would be primary research. Why not tell us what you find.

BTW, when you find those A8 earthrise photos why not check to see if the weather patterns depicted match the actual weather on the date the photos were taken.

Of course the "Apollo 8" Earth weather pattern images match the weather patterns that same day, since the "Apollo 8" image of Earth was "borrowed" directly from the ATS3 satellite images that NASA had operating since November,1967.. That's how NASA faked their "half way to the Moon" transmission images of Earth.

"The following ATS is the oldest active communications satellite by a wide margin. Launched in November 1967, it is still in service more than 28 years later. Among its widest known achievements are the first full-disk, color Earth images transmitted from a satellite.Its imaging capability has served during disaster situations, from the Mexico earthquake to the Mount St. Helens eruption. ATS-3 experiments included VHF and C-band communications, a color spin-scan camera, an image dissector camera, a mechanically despun antenna, resistojet thrusters, hydrazine propulsion, optical surface experiments, and the measurement of the electron content of the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Because of failures in the hydrogen peroxide systems on ATS-1, ATS-3 was equipped with a hydrazine propulsion system. Its success led to its incorporation on ATS-4 and ATS-5 as the sole propulsion system.13

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4217/ch6.htm

Here's an example of one of those ATS3 color satellite images of Earth .. Again, how "clever" of NASA to pass off their weather satellite images as being their Apollo "half way to the Moon" images.

Edited November 18, 2010 by Duane Daman

[Len Colby]

Many earthrise photos have been taken by unmanned missions, including Soviet missions and NASA's Clementine mission, just to name a few.. There are only a handful of Apollo photos showing the image of "earth" in the "lunar" sky, all of which could have been easily photoshopped.

Except that Photoshop did not exist in 1968 / 69 / 70. Or are you claiming yet another "conspiracy"?

LOL you are obsessing with trivial details, just because it did not exsist would not have prevented them from using it.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Peter Presland has reposted the article with links and the following note:

I operate a site with the same (later version) of that software (Mediawiki

- same as used by Wikipedia). I have re-posted the entire moon hoax article

there and fixed the footnotes (also tidied up some grammatical glitches).

There are 476 of them - lots in Russian and some very interesting ones too.

Here is where everyone can find it: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Moon_Landings_Hoax

Why does Jim not supply any references (e.g. the numerous [1] we see) and why does his link go do a dead page?

What standards of "evidence" does Jim use? It would seem it is "evidence" if it agrees with his opinion.

Kevin West: "Why would it be easy to see stars on the moon? All of the missions were during the day, with everything around them brightly illuminated by direct sunlight. To see stars, your eyes need to be dark adapted". Perhaps the Soviet cosmonauts had superior vision as well as superior space technology, as reported in http://en.metapedia....wiki/Moon_Hoax:

"Soviet cosmonauts (Leonov, Lebedev, Savinykh) on the dayside of the orbit; light from the Earth (Earth albedo 0.367, Moon albedo 0.12) did not hamper them see the stars.[1] For example, Leonov says that "the brightest of the stars can be recognised when they are farther than 30° away from the daylight luminary [the Sun].[1]"

"On the Moon, the sky is black—-even during the day-—and the stars are always visible.[1][1]

"In fact, the Moon is about the poorest reflector in the solar system... The Moon reflects only 7% of the sunlight that falls upon it.[1]"

Kevin appears to be relying upon a faulty analogy comparing visual experience on the Earth with those that take place in the vicinity of the Moon.

Why would it be easy to see stars on the moon? All of the missions were during the day, with everything around them brightly illuminated by direct sunlight. To see stars, your eyes need to be dark adapted.

[Len Colby]

The cosmonauts were not on the surface of the moon!

[Peter McKenna]

"Of course the "Apollo 8" Earth weather pattern images match the weather patterns that same day, since the "Apollo 8" image of Earth was "borrowed" directly from the ATS3 satellite images that NASA had operating since November,1967.. That's how NASA faked their "half way to the Moon" transmission images of Earth."

You may want to do a little bit more research into the ATS-3 Duane, It's in geosynchronous orbit. Not ideal for supposed faked Apollo earthrise shots. Where did this come from?

Edited November 19, 2010 by Peter McKenna

[Duane Daman]

"Of course the "Apollo 8" Earth weather pattern images match the weather patterns that same day, since the "Apollo 8" image of Earth was "borrowed" directly from the ATS3 satellite images that NASA had operating since November,1967.. That's how NASA faked their "half way to the Moon" transmission images of Earth."

You may want to do a little bit more research into the ATS-3 Duane, It's in geosynchronous orbit. Not ideal for supposed faked Apollo earthrise shots. Where did this come from?

I've done plenty of research on this subject .. The ATS-3 satellite photo originally came from a NASA site.

Here's a link showing full disk, color images of Earth .. There's no difference between the images taken by NASA satellites, Soviet unmanned missions, and the alleged manned Apollo missions.

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2003NEW/NEWSTUFF/DDEARTH.html

Here'a an image of Earth that was taken by the ATS-3 satellite .. It looks no different from the Apollo TV transmissions, allegedly taken about half way to the Moon.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-168/contents.htm

I don't see any reason why NASA couldn't have used these images for their Apollo "earthrise" photos as well by simply reducing the image size .. There are even examples of Apollo "earthrise" photos where it's obvious the terminator line has been tampered with, and as we saw in the video I posted here, one of the Apollo 8 "earthrise" photos was reused to fake an Apollo 11 "earthrise" photo, by flipping the image of earth over and adjusting the "lunar horizon".

"ATS-3

Source: Encyclopedia Astronautica (http://www.astronautix.com/):'ATS-3'

American communications technology satellite. One launch, 1967.11.05, ATS 3. The goals for ATS-3 included investigations of spin stabilization techniques and VHF and C-band communications experiments.

In addition to fulfilling its primary mission, it also provided regular communications service to sites in the Pacific basin and Antarctica, provided emergency communications links during the 1987 Mexican earthquake and the Mt. St. Helens disaster, and supported the Apollo Moon landings." .. *LOL .. I bet it did!*

The satellite also provided the first color images from space as well as regular cloud cover images for meteorological studies. Spacecraft: Spin stabilized, drum solar array providing 175 W BOL, NiCd batteries. Payload: C-band and VHF communications packages, Earth imaging camera.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/ats3.htm

[Evan Burton]

Just because it could have been done does not prove that it WAS done. Besides, you have account for the fact the the weather patterns associated with the Earth matched that seen in the images... and the live video images.

The ATS supported communications

[Evan Burton]

Let's talk about some of the various claims made in the thread. The first I want to address is the missing Apollo tapes.

First off, let's get one thing completely clear: there is NO MISSING FOOTAGE. Every second of the EVA that had footage taken has been recorded and is available. What is missing is the backup tapes, which would have allowed for a better quality version of the EVA. Let me explain.

The TV broadcast had to share limited bandwidth with what was considered more important data: spacecraft systems telemetry, communications, biomedical readings, etc. Because of these limitations, it was sent at 320 lines per frame and 10 frames per second (called Slow Scan Television - SSTV). This format is not compatible with standard TV broadcast format, so a conversion took place at the ground receiving stations. The signal went out and the Apollo 11 EVA was broadcast around the world.

The original SSTV tapes were packed up from all the receiving stations and sent back to NASA for storage. They were now backup tapes, in case a portion of the footage could not be broadcast or was destroyed (highly unlikely since the footage was sent around the world). It was still in the format which was incompatible for broadcast. These tapes were kept in a protected area for many months after the Apollo 11 mission, then sent to longer term storage. This longer term storage contained massive amounts of 1" magnetic tapes, all with various telemetry data: engine performance, communications, fuel cell performance, tracking data, etc. There were tens of thousands of these tapes.

In the mid-1970s, the producers of magnetic tape began to apply a new type of magnetic tape. This turned out to have problems and after a few years the tape would degrade. This led to a shortage of good quality, usable tape. NASA made the decision to recycle tape that was no longer necessary. They looked for tapes that could be re-used, degaussed them, and used them for current missions.

Because of poor archival practices, the Apollo 11 SSTV were mislabelled and probably re-used. For years it was available, and was then inadvertently (probably) re-used. They may still be amongst all the archival tapes, but the chances are not good.

It was not until around 2003 that Apollo TV engineers - who steadfastly deny any claims of a hoax - realised that better quality EVA footage could be available.

[Duane Daman]

Just because it could have been done does not prove that it WAS done. Besides, you have account for the fact the the weather patterns associated with the Earth matched that seen in the images... and the live video images.

The ATS supported communications

I have accounted for the fact that the weather patterns associated with the ATS-3 satellite Earth images matched that seen in the Apollo Earth images .. As for the "live" transmitted video images of Earth, it's been proven they were NOT really live, but were actually playbacks (to quote Armstrong's unscripted line) for the Apollo 11 TV show, that was supposedly being broadcast live from "around 130,000 miles out" (to quote Armstrong's scripted line).

Lamson asked me why the weather patterns of Earth matched the Apollo images of Earth.. I showed him how it was done.. The fact that the ATS satellite images of Earth match the Apollo Earth images, is just one more reason, in a very long list of reasons, of why the Apollo photography is highly suspect.

Considering the fact that it has been proven that NASA passed off an Apollo 8 Earth image as being taken on Apollo 11, shows that they can't be trusted to be truthful about their Apollo photography.. Combine the faking of the Apollo 8 / 11 "earthrise" photos with a long list of other obvious Apollo photo fakery, and it becomes clear that something is wrong with this picture also.

NASA claims the ATS only supported communications, but as I have proven, it could also easily have been used to stage the Apollo Earth images.

[Evan Burton]

Just a minute.. because the weather patterns on an Apollo image match the weather patterns known to exist, that's proof they were faked???

Huh?

And you have NOT demonstrated any such thing about the live video feeds. You have given a hypothesis which might be possible in one case, but cannot account for ALL the other live video feeds.

[Craig Lamson]

Just because it could have been done does not prove that it WAS done. Besides, you have account for the fact the the weather patterns associated with the Earth matched that seen in the images... and the live video images.

The ATS supported communications

I have accounted for the fact that the weather patterns associated with the ATS-3 satellite Earth images matched that seen in the Apollo Earth images .. As for the "live" transmitted video images of Earth, it's been proven they were NOT really live, but were actually playbacks (to quote Armstrong's unscripted line) for the Apollo 11 TV show, that was supposedly being broadcast live from "around 130,000 miles out" (to quote Armstrong's scripted line).

Lamson asked me why the weather patterns of Earth matched the Apollo images of Earth.. I showed him how it was done.. The fact that the ATS satellite images of Earth match the Apollo Earth images, is just one more reason, in a very long list of reasons, of why the Apollo photography is highly suspect.

NASA claims the ATS only supported communications, but as I have proven, it could also easily have been used to stage the Apollo Earth images.

Well Duane, you show us images of earth and them claim you "have accounted for why the weather patterns match". Sadly for you you have done nothing of the sort. Can't see a single image in those you posted that shows the same earth image as the A 8 images. Not a single one with the same cloud patterns, not a single one showinghte same geography. Not even one showing the same lighing. You have not even shown that the ATS camera was pointed at the correct part of earth at the time the Apollo 8 images were made.

Waving your hands and making a claim is not the same as actually PROVING your claim. Your hands are waving.

But thanks for playing, at least you are entertaining.

[Duane Daman]

Just a minute.. because the weather patterns on an Apollo image match the weather patterns known to exist, that's proof they were faked???

Huh?

Right .. They could have easily been faked using the ATS-3 satellite images for the Apollo "half way to the Moon" images and also for the "earthrise" images, one of which has already been proven to be fake.

And you have NOT demonstrated any such thing about the live video feeds. You have given a hypothesis which might be possible in one case, but cannot account for ALL the other live video feeds

If the ATS-3 satellite image was used to fake an Earth image during one "live" video feed, then it could have been used to fake the Earth images in all of the "live" feeds.

The point is very simple .. NASA had a means to fake all of the Earth images, allegedly taken during the Apollo manned missions, by using their ATS-3 satellite images.

[Evan Burton]

But what about the times when ATS-3, a geosynchronous satellite, was taking images on the OPPOSITE side of the Earth to what was being seen on the Moon.... and those lunar images match known weather patterns?

[Evan Burton]

Next, the claim of flawless performance. To most people, everything seemed fine with every mission bar Apollo 13. After all, missions were launched, the crew landed, an area of the lunar surface was explored and the crew all returned safely. NASA did its best to minimise, however, the problems that occurred - problems that could have led to scrubbing a landing to near fatal events. In fact some NASA officials wanted to end the landings after Apollo 12, fearing that there could be loss of life. Others felt that valuable experience was being gained from each mission, and that they should continue.

Examples of incidents not well known:

Apollo 10: Incorrect switch setting led to problems during LM ascent stage / descent stage separation above lunar surface. Quick action brought the situation under control, but they were about 10 seconds away from an unavoidable crash into the lunar surface.

Apollo 11: Apart from the 1201 / 1201 computer alarms, after landing some of the fuel solidified in the DPS fuel lines, leading to a buildup of pressure. Engineers on the ground discussed the problem. Some thought it should clear itself. Others thought the pressure buildup could cause an explosion, and so the engine should be "burped" (briefly fired) to clear the blockage. They were planning to burp the engine but before the instructions could be passed, the blockage cleared by itself.

Apollo 12: Lightning strikes during launch. Caused systems loss in CSM. Luckily the Saturn V was designed to fly by itself, with the flight computer in the launch vehicle and not the spacecraft. A reversion mode allowed the spacecraft to continue flying and systems re-set once in orbit. There were fears that the strike could have damaged the re-entry parachutes, however it was decided there was nothing that could be done about it so the mission may as well continue as planned.

Apollo 14: Securing a hard dock between CSM and LM took several attempts and required more than normal force. It was feared that when the ascent stage returned to lunar orbit, they may not be able to dock and the astronauts may have to conduct a contingency EVA to return to the CM. Also, during the landing,there were two problems. What was believed to be a ball of solder escaped detection was and causing the LM ABORT switch to be made / unmade. Solved by a software workaround before the powered descent. In addition, the landing radar did not lock on until near the mandatory abort point.

Apollo 15: A short circuit in one of the control systems led to situation where there could be uncommanded activation of the CSM's SPS engine. After the LM had redocked and prior to the jettisoning of the LM, the lunar dust caused problems with the crew getting proper seals on their pressure suits (crew wore the suits for jettisoning after the Soyuz 11 disaster). There were also problems getting a proper seal on the CSM / LM tunnel inner hatch.

Apollo 16: Vibrations during the firing of the S-IVB stage during LOI. Luckily the vibration did not reach a point where they had to prematurely shut down the S-IVB's J-2 engine. After undocking in lunar orbit, there was a problem with one of the SPS engine's control circuits. They were considering aborting the mission but decided there was enough redundancy. On the surface, Charlie Duke fell over and landed on his PLSS backpack. Although there was no damage, the PLSS was not designed for this treatment and Duke was quite unnerved by the incident. He made sure he was a lot more careful after that, saying he he thought he was going to die.

ASTP: During splashdown, the crew failed to correctly actuate a system and subsequently gases from the CM's reaction control system and chute pyrotechnics were brought into the CM cabin when a vent opened. The crew began choking from the noxious gases, and had to don emergency oxygen masks.