Surely it's the other way round: the astronauts who are brainwashed are the ones who are all-in-a-day's-work blasé about what they've done.

I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be one of the handful of people in human history who can look up at the night sky, point a liver-spotted finger at the big white disc up there, and say, "See that? I've been there, me."

If it was me, given the choice between talking about how my mambo was coming along and walking on the Moon, I know what my preferred topic of conversation would be.

As a moon landing non-believer

The David Icke webpage is over here

The Russians would have said if the moon landings were a fake. Also the moon rocks are a bit of a giveaway. And the radio signals. As in a way is Apollo 13.
Buzz Aldrin is a self publicist (which is fair enough given he actually has something to publicise), but being a prat does not mean he didn't go to the moon.

The moon landings happened. To organise a conspiracy to hide the fact that they didn't would actually have been more work than going there (come on, we all know how hard it is to even arrange an evening out). It is not actually that difficult. Bloody expensive and bloody dangerous, but in the scheme of things probably easier than the LHC. The major problem really is the cost - NASA spent something like 1.5% of the USA's GDP for 10 years to get to the moon. A phenomenal sum of money.

And I agree with your views on Brian Cox - Physics does not deserve him. Did a great Horizon on energy a while back too.

by a strange co-incidence I'm currently reading 'How Apollo Got To The Moon'* and am struggling with some of the orbital dynamics theory (insert favourite drummer joke here).

All I will say is, if the whole thing were faked, there are still departments in NASA devoted to churning out documents covering the operation of the most trivial components. I suspect it would have been easier to actually fly to the moon than carry out such a massive fraud

*http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apollo-Springer-Praxis-Books-Exploration/dp/0387716750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270485205&sr=8-1

I don't wish to come across as trollish, but how can you possibly not believe that we have landed men on the moon? And not wishing to ascribe my own values to Prof Cox, but speaking as someone who has read a lot of the stuff he has put on various blogs over the years, I can be sure that he regards the moon-landing conspiracy theories as bizarre and silly, and certainly doesn't subscribe to such a view himself.

I really think you should do a little more study into the subject of Apollo if this (wonderful) series has raised your interest. The evidence for is overwhelming and the theories against illogical and stupid. And really getting an idea of what it must be like to sit on top of a huge bomb to be hurled to a destination where the failure of one of millions of components would doom you to the loneliest death imaginable will also illustrate why those who have done it, like Buzz Aldrin, are entitled to mention it every so often.

as far as Dr Cox is concerned (in both senses)

Re stimpy's post I rather like the old crack about 2001 being so expensive it would have been cheaper for Kubrick to use real spaceships.

but felt each episode could have been cut to 45 minutes: they all had a point to make but still rather seemed to be trying to fill out an hour. And I could have done without some of the spurious location shots, too. All the same, jolly good and great to see an expert presenter rather than a celebrity and to see the beeb fulfilling its educate, inform and entertain remit.

In passing, a recommendation for Moondust by Andrew Smith in which he tracks down each of the moonwalkers. It's a great book and I'd defy anyone to be a non-believer after reading it.

EDITED: Cox presented one

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00llgs8

of the many anniversary programmes for Apollo only last year, and went out of his way to say how inspirational he saw the flights as being. Sorry it's not all here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/moonlandings/

but here's a bit:

However, as a scientist, he would surely have to admit that the data from manned spaceflight isn't of central importance in a tour of the whole solar system-any more than it was in the superb series The Planets that the Beeb did a few years ago:

http://www.bbcshop.com/Science+Nature/The-Planets-DVD/invt/bbcdvd1003

Manned voyages make a great plot device for educational shows though, and has been used quite recently in fact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_with_Spacemen

for non - believers and conspiracy theorists in general - Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch, which debunks the whole genre.

http://www.clavius.org/

Prof Cox did also say in an earlier episode that it was mankind's greatest achievement.

and at this point would normally hide in a corner or apologise for being so silly and congratulate you all on being right. The general response is what I would expect here although the David Icke and Wolverhampton comments are a little out of place. I'm not claiming to be the son of God and you could show me Wolverhampton and I could see it with my own eyes, I'm sorry it is not so straightforward or conclusive with the moon landings. However this is something I have given considerable thought to and I have a couple of things that are not clear to me.

Was the available technology really capable of this in 1965.

How a manned craft travels through The Van Allen radiation belt has never been truly explained away.

The actual process of landing on the moon defies accepted wisdom. I have seen a NASA produced film that suggests Aldrin rammed a pen into a hole where a switch had broken to facilitate a landing. Incongruous at best.

I would like the process for taking off from the moon fully explained. Even in low gravity the idea of a take off in those conditions being successful when so much could go wrong is beyond my comprehension.

Re entry caused huge problems for the Space Shuttle 20 years later how was it possible in the 60's?

The development of the shuttle took longer than Apollo and eventually has been shelved.

Why didn't the Russians go just to prove they could?

I have no interest in dismantling footage or images from Apollo missions or entering discussions on conspiracy theories. I just find the whole thing beyond my comprehension, maybe I'm just too stupid. The Cox footage shown above is fascinating as I can read it as a "don't ask me that question because I don't want to answer it" response. If it is ever proved that the landings didn't happen the consequences to science and scientists would be enormous, why would we ever believe anything they told us again. I want someone like Cox to explain away my questions the same way he explained why there could be life under the surface of Mars. I have great admiration for and faith in science and people like Brian Cox have the capacity to open the most complex theories to someone like me. Would any of them put their head above the parrapet on this subject? Probably not but while people are quick to say of course it happened and that those that question it are deluded it will always be easier to say it did than explain the reasons why it was faked.

At the peak of the programme, there were 400,000 people working on the Apollo missions (which was mostly outsourced).

If the whole thing was faked, the question arises: what were all these people doing for all those years? Are they all party to the conspiracy? If not, were they all being paid to do nothing? Were they designing and engineering components to inaccurate specifications? Did they build a working rocket that was never used? Are they all too scared to speak?

Also, just because you don't fully understand something, is that a reason to say it didn't happen?

Years ago I was vaguely amused by this whole moon hoax business, when it was just an enjoyably nutty piece of outsider paranoia. But I've watched it creep inexorably into the mainstream and take an unsettling foothold there, so much so that last year I caught GMTV trailing a celebration of 40 years of Apollo with the words "If it really happened, of course..." That would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

I just think we have to trust history. Because the alternative is just too slippery to contemplate. I hate to invoke Godwin's Law but I really do believe that Apollo denial is one step away from holocaust denial, and plays into the hands of anyone who wants to rewrite history through rumour, whisper, insinuation and misinformation.

Apollo was a very real achievement, and the more this nonsense circulates the more it not only undervalues but insults the very real bravery and vision of the people who put a man on the moon.

he does make it clear that the whole thing is, as it is to most people, beyond comprehension. Thats because most of us aren't astro-physicists.

But lack of knowledge or comprehension can't possibly be used as a reason for non-belief in an established historical fact and, although the comparison may initially seem extreme, a similar process is followed by Holocaust deniers. They can't(or won't) comprehend the mechanics of the genocide so make a fallacious logical leap into saying it didnt or couldn't have happened.

Its a disturbing way of thinking which seems to be spreading.

In answer to the many questions...

1) The technology was available in 1965. Just.
2) The Van Allen belts are fairly thin and they don't stay in them. So there weren't any harmful effects.
3) It wasn't landing - it was before take off. A switch had broken off - so they stuck the end of a pen in to flick a switch.
4) There were a lot of risks - but they made the rocket engine in the Lunar Module as simple as possible to limit them. Essentially it worked on just mixing two types of propellant together and they combusted without an external ignition.
5) The shuttle is fairly big in comparison to an Apollo capsule - and uses a different type of re-usable protective material (Apollo's was ablative). In essence the technology was developed in the 50s for re-entering nuclear warheads - and worked quite nicely.
6) Development of the Shuttle took roughly the same amount of time (around 10 years) - as it's been in service since 1981.
7) The Russians tried. I suggest you Google 'Russian N1 rocket' and have a watch. They failed.

Next...

Frankly, if I can watch satellite TV (and, not to mention, drive to Wolverhampton under the guidance of a Sat Nav) I'm pretty certain NASA could have got a couple of blokes to walk on the moon.

ep of Jon Ronson's 'For The Love Of....' late night discussion series on the moon hoax. There are a couple of right smug bastards in the mix but its amusing stuff

In that clip of Dr Cox he is simply stating 'if you are stupid enough to believe in the hoax then fine, just don't ask me to waste my breath trying to convince you otherwise, as you Sir, are a dick for asking the question'. Thats his POV and he's entitled to it. I'd rather his big brain tell me all the good things he wants to impart. Leave the 'did we land on the moon?' shows to Richard fucking Hammond.

Many of the questions about the moon landing can be answered by a little research but thats still not enough for a lot of people. They will dismiss the scientists as in the pay of Da Man at NASA and that people are just too scared to speak up.

Those people being all the astronauts, all the Apollo technicians, the upper echelons of the US and Soviet governments etc etc etc

By their logic... since none of us have actually personally witnessed a species evolve, should we all be Creationists?

(Actually, I didn't see with my own eyes, and don't grasp the science of, a 6 day creation either...)

is it is really really hard for people to take your POV seriously.

I think the majority of the people responding to you on this thread, if not in some respects all of them have done extremely well in treating you with the respect you deserve as an overall human being. That is a credit to the word website I think.

My sister believes in horoscopes but she is an intelligent and wise person in all other respects. Human beings have always held strange believes based on intuition rather than fact. That is why people didn't initially believe the word was round: it doesn't look like its round!

It is hard though for people who trust in fact and established knowledge not to laugh at things like disbelieving in the moon landings or believing that everyone born in one year has the same personality and goes through the same sequence of events.

They just seem so wrong. I am sure Dave you have similar topics that you would feel the desire to laugh out of the water.

However it really would be in your best interests in terms of understanding reality fully if you could listen to some of the arguments presented above and even read some of the books. The moon landings happened.

I know of a teacher who teaches primary school children that the moon landings may or may not have happened and openly tells them that he thinks that they didn't.

We need to engage with these people, rather than laugh them off or dismiss them. Just as we need to engage with climate change deniers. Explain things respectfully to them. Dave is right and Brian Cox was wrong, someone who is as good a science populariser and communicator as he is should make the case for how they happened. I understand why he doesn't even want to give the ridiculous notion the time of day. But he should. It is in the interests of people becoming better educated.

...and busted them.

So there!

The Apollo 11 mission left behind on the surface of the moon 2-foot square array of 100 reflectors. Each reflector comprises of three mirrors arranged in such a way that any light falling on the mirror is returning in precisely the opposite direction to where the light came from. (See the Wikipedia article on Corner reflectors for details). The Apollo 14 and 15 missions also left behind similar arrays of mirrors, and there's also another on a Soviet made lunar robot.

It's possible for anyone to point a laser at the various sites on moon and detect any one of these reflectors. Detection itself is somewhat tricky, but it can be done.

The pictures at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.h... and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_20091110...

These are images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and they clearly show trails of footprints around the descent stage of the LEM.

QED

the respectful tone of the comments stopping just short of patting me on the head and saying there, there. However nothing here has convinced me although there are some things I need to investigate further. I am staggered that the holocaust was raised and frankly if it takes that to make a point about the moon landings then you really are trying too hard, I'd rather you told me I was a prick. Some of the explanations given are frighteningly simplistic and I suspect not 100% accurate but are explanations none the less. With the greatest respect I will keep my opinion and hold on to my "kings new clothes" belief that too many things do not add up, please don't hold that against me.

The original post was meant to be about some great telly that opened an old cynics minds to the endless possibilities of deep space, I wish I had left it there. Brian Cox is a fantastic presenter and one I look forward to seeing more of.

and helpful replies, I doubt your evidence will "believed" this moon denial seems a rather persistent piece of nonsense. Odd that the moon landings are the main focus of this sort of feeble conspiracy theory. It would be interesting to see if it first appeared before or after the release of "Capricorn 1 " which must the most influential b movie in history.

Here's my proof not that it will mean much to DA seeing as the person in question is "brainwashed" but I've sat 20-30 feet from Colonel Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jnr while he discussed his time on the moon and the rest of his life. Seemed a very funny, sparky intelligent man particular considering his "brainwashing".

I've also met 2 cosmonauts but nobody bothers to deny "earth orbit" (probably because there's not been a bad b movies made about it) so they just spent their time talking about science and the practicalities of the Mir space station etc fascinating stuff a lot more interesting than moon landing hoaxes.

I imagine the people who lived in the ruins of the Parthenon also found it hard to accept (a better word than believe here) that their ancestors built all that stuff.

On a packed dirty train on a wet day one can well understand that feeling-and yet one is surrounded by tech of quite stunning complexity, much of it with its roots in the same era as that which put people on the Moon, and kickstarted by the Space Race and Cold War.

Sitting in an economy seat on a 20 year old 747 watching multichannel TV it can be hard to believe there was once a Concorde ;-)

If people were going to the Moon nowadays the myths would not have taken hold the way they have, I am sure. It will be interesting to see how an eventual human return there will affect the narrative-I hope I live to see it. Oliver Morton's words seem astute to me:

Another missing area that Benjamin would surely be fascinating on is Apollo denialism - the increasingly widespread and intriguingly perverse belief that the Apollo missions did not take place, and that all evidence that they did was faked. I would love to read a full account of this preposterous idea's origins, and of whatever strange comfort it brings to the lives of those who believe it. Does it just represent a free-floating propensity to conspiracy theory that will alight on any epochal event? Or is it in some ways a distorted mirror of the disappointment at the heart of Benjamin's book, a way of dealing with Apollo's lack of impact? Is it a way of avoiding the space-age version of the question Bruce Springsteen once asked about America - "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?" - by denying that there was ever a dream in the first place?

-- http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jan/18/featuresreviews.guardianrevi...

And while Professor Cox is evidently too exasperated to deal with this and/or really doesn't see this as the best use of his limited time, plenty of others do. See e.g. the book by David Woods that stimpy mentions, and the websites that the book was drawn from

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/

and

http://history.nasa.gov/afj/

or this

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

to name some good examples.

but isn't it all just a massive waste of money?

Going to the Moon was a fantastic achievement, but (honest question here), was it really worth it?

It's mentioned above that NASA use(d) 1.5% of the USA's GDP. Wouldn't that money be better used to alleviate poverty, end world hunger or similar?

Hey, I'm as interested in what's out there as the next guy, but I seriously think, as a race, we've got our priorities wrong sometimes.

Hello,

I normally don't comment on posts or reviews of Brian's programmes, but had to jump in. One can say whatever they want about Brian, but when they suggest he mightn't believe in the Moon landings, I am compelled to defend him!

Others have done a good job trying to convince Dave that he is wrong to believe such a ridiculous conspiracy. Hopefully, he will take some of their suggestions and do some further research on the subject. I would add the documentary "For All Mankind" to the list.

I'd just like to give you some idea how important the Apollo missions are to Brian and me. Our shared love of the Moon landings is the reason we are together.

1. Our son's middle name is Eagle - after the lunar lander. (I chose the name ;)

2. Our house is filled with Apollo memorabilia - models of the space craft, books, DVDs, framed Life magazines from the era, huge canvas prints of Apollo photographs, even the Aldrin-designed Moon lamp...

3. He recently got to meet Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan and said it was the best day of his life... then quickly adding "After George being born, of course." Not really sure he meant it though ;)

4. Our website url is apolloschildren.com This is what we wrote in 2003 to explain the name.

The Apollo Moon missions of the late 60s and early 70s were dazzling technological feats, inspired at once by the best and worst of the human spirit: the desire to explore, the fear of losing the race, the quest for knowledge and a fierce national pride. They were also, the more romantic of us may say, our first small step towards a greater understanding of how we fit into the vast and beautiful cosmic ocean.

The technological legacy is unquestioned and the scientific legacy rich. Yet perhaps the most important gift to the world to emerge from these myriad motivations are the generation who have come to be known as Apollo's Children, the generation who, as they watched the Eagle land on the sea of Tranquillity had an indelible image of humanity's limitless potential imprinted on their psyche. The generation that went on to invent the web, decode the human genome, and push further out from our now not-so-constraining shores. And we haven't changed for millennia. The Great Civilisations of antiquity had their own shores to leave, their own races to win, and crucially their own desire to know what lies beyond the horizon.

We have always been Apollo's Children.

The Moon landings were real. To believe otherwise is to deny Mankind's greatest ever achievement.

The clip of Brian "refusing" to talk about the possibility of the Moon landings being faked was on the way to Apache Point: http://www.physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apollo.html

Hopefully, Dave, this "denialism" is merely a blip. ;)

Word editor Mark Ellen has been dead for several years. He was bludgeoned to death by Chrissie Hynde following an altercation at a dinner party.

The 'Mark Ellen' that appears in photographs and podcasts is, in fact, an animatronic double operated by Fraser Lewry. His increasingly sporadic appearances on the podcast are a result of the robot's temperamental circuitry, which cause it to indulge in bouts of verbal diarrhoea and uncontrolled giggling.

...is in fact Paul McCartney.

I work with some very high tech stuff and what appear to me to be miraculous advances happen all the time - but this is true in teh consumer electronics area too Google Earth/Street view for instance. I understand that particular technology very well, its an incremental advance on stuff which has been around for a long time, but somebody has had the money and the vision to take it beyond what anyone conceived of 10 years ago. But it didn't arrive from a clear blue sky (or outer space)

The time when anyone of average intelligence and education could comprehend the whole of the machines or systems they encounter in everyday life, or even that they work with for a living, is probably long gone. This is distressing for some people - but there is a famous quote that not only is the universe stranger than we know, its stranger than we can know

became Paul McCartney after being mistaken for him while interviewing Suzanne Vega in New York. His sense of not wanting to disappoint the man led to him going on a US Tour, The real Paul McCartney sent his thanks and is now the Old Man Of Hoy.

It is no coincidence that Ellen's donning of the Spies Like Us hitmaker's mantle coincided with some of Macca's most rum ideas. Give My Regards To Broad Street, The Frog Song and Biker Like An Icon were all from Macca's 'Off Me Head' box of in jokes.

Ellen has long wanted to reveal all and it was only a last minute name change that stopped him touring as Ricky and The Love Trousers.
Thankfully he stopped using Macca's cast off tunes and now writing his own material has made some of the best albums of Macca's career

What a fantastic thread. I'm hooked.

Its up there with Andrew Collins Deux Ex Machina appearance last year to answer his critics. Thrilling stuff.

Never mind all this moon landing nonsense. It's come to my attention that Brian Cox was NEVER in dance/pop combo 'D:Ream'. He's far too old.

He also looks NOTHING like he did in the Bourne films either. Perhaps his wife would care to explain THAT!

point at which I usually retire from any form of verbal argument and feel a little bit isolated to say the least. The good natured responses are the very reason why this is the only forum I participate in. Trust me there is no need to feel emabarassed for me I am quite capable of that myself. I do not regret my view I genuinely do not make a habit of subscribing to weird conspiracy theories, for some reason I feel the need to question this. I do regret airing it in a thread where I wanted to praise Brian Cox and I definately regret not researching his viewpoint further. Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. I am still intrigued as to how Mrs Cox found this thread, to suggest she found it on Google suggests she spends her time searching her husbands name, which I doubt. I don't remember family members leaping to the defence of other celebs metioned here. I do not apologise for my opinion, I do apologise to the Cox's for questioning their viewpoint without facts to back it up. Be careful out there people you'll never know who's watching and reading what you write. Praise be to The Word Blog where a thread about a review of The Falls new album elicits a bigger response than this nonsense. Anyway I'm off for a lie down and continue watching Lionel Messi dismantle Arsenal.

I have some empathy.

I once started a thread which was somewhat umcomplimentary about Andrew Collins which kind of grew arms and legs. Much to my horror, Andrew Collins then began posting in the thread.

Then, in a sort of surrealist role reversal, it transpired that Andrew Collins was now posting about me on his own blog.

It felt like Charlie Kaufman was in charge of my life.

Sorry Dave - I'm with you all the way on the godlike genius of Justin Currie but I must add my tuppence-worth to the er, couple of posts above disagreeing with you.

A point I've heard raised frequently by people convinced that the moon landings were faked is "but it was 1969" as if that was the era of the Wright brothers. For such an unimaginably distant, primitive time, humans had already done some fairly advanced stuff like y'know, splitting the atom. Also, Concorde was first flown in 1969 and as we know is sadly no more - a rare example of technology actually regressing.

that was one of the gentlest and most good-natured shoeings I've ever witnessed on an internet forum.

... as if that was the era of the Wright brothers."

Isn't it amazing that mankind went from getting a plane off the ground to the moon in a matter of only 66 and a half years? That's astonishing progress.

I feel like becoming a moon landings denier myself just to give him some company!

Sadly, common sense prevents me...

Dave Amitri? Are you effin kiddin' me? You don't believe in the moon landings? How old are you? Are you willing to stand before those great men and tell them to their faces that they are liars? I'm apoplexed at your temerity! how dare you! I want to slap you into reality! Why can't you and your ilk accept that man (as a whole) has done great things? I'm just so angry that I can't get it off of my chest in an intellectual way (SEE?) Urrgh!!! you've gone down in my estimation.I'm disappointed.

…sort of.

Man may well have walked on the Moon, but they brought back some well dodgy photos.

Beautifully lighted compositions perfectly focused with zero camera-shake. Ideally suited for lengthy magazine special editions, taken with modified Hasselblads stripped of their viewfinders (a make of camera famously difficult to get results with, used almost exclusively by top professionals, made more awkward by the inability to see what you’re shooting).

We’re led to believe astronauts with little photographic experience, bobbing around in zero gravity, took these fantastic photos, whilst wearing clown gloves and huge helmets.

I worked in the industry for a lot of years and never spoke to a pro photographer who was entirely convinced of their authenticity. They look great on the page, but in many of them the shadows and reflections aren’t right. I can never work out how to put photos up here, so can’t illustrate the inconsistencies, but they’re there.

I’ll understand that for many of you, Luna photographic denial will make me some sort of moron, but hey, I’ll live with it.

A couple of other points.

If the world’s biggest superpower spending vast funds to stick a finger up at the world’s second biggest superpower is man’s greatest achievement, we might as well give up now. It was certainly one great big fuck off gesture, but come on, they could have discovered the cure for cancer, wiped out poverty and world hunger instead.

When Kennedy announced America’s intention of putting a man on the Moon, this was in a country where segregation was still rife, universal health care was minimal, they were at war, and the murder rate was close to 10,000 a year (up to nearly 15,000 by 1969). I’m not sure a man on the moon should have been a priority.

Secondly, while I’m in the process of winding the massive up to unprecedented levels of Daily Mail-type indignation, I’d like to point out that the Beatles were overrated, John Lennon was a bit of a shit and Paul McCartney looks like your Nan.

from Apollo 8 is a very good way to appreciate how much more movie film was taken-it really sets the clips we always see in context.

http://02e5a89.netsolstores.com/apollo8leavingthecradle.aspx

-ve it!!! You're the shit stream.YOU are what's wrong with societies today.Yes you!!The pampered youth.You need a good fuckin' kicking all the way to Pluto(planet)never mind the Moon.

The next time I meet one of you assholes mano a mano expect a Buzz.

were fiddled about with before being released - so what? Its a huge jump (for mankind) from that to suggest that 'well if they lied about that, they could lie about us going at all'.

Anyone interested in the real meat 'n' veg of what they used and how they used it can work their way through this lot. Much too complicated for me but I'm sure Patrick will translate it all into simple language for us. It's only a few Mb's worth..

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/apollo.photechnqs.htm

Oh, and Hello Mrs Cox. Please let us know what your favourite Nick Drake album is and your thoughts on The Fall.

What with this and the Fall thread kicking around right now, there is an awful lot of undercracker torsion in this manor right now. And while it might be entertaining in a passing fancy kind of way, it's not really getting us anywhere, is it?

Can't we all just, oh I don't know, go and hug a tree and frolic. Or something?

otherwise who built these?

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread340265/pg1

Mmmmm one of these pics looks like a Tardis...

back off from confrontation is that anger and aggression are a part of my life I have had to learn to leave behind. I feel comfortable here and have gone as far as I am prepared to in an online forum. I appreciate leicester_bangs support yet the reaction of a couple of posters I recognise only too well and leads me to believe that anger and frustration play a big part in their own lives. It is only the truly brave that threaten others online and the lowering of estimation is reciprocal I assure you. I would be happy to discuss my views with anyone face to face and in another life would have happilly taken it further, thankfully that is not the case now and we can all rely on Fraser to keep the peace. It is no coincidence that this thread only broke down when an opposite view was put more aggressively than mine, I have learnt that people generally react to you as a mirror of your own behaviour, anyone can start an argument it needs two people for the argument to continue.

Echoing Lenny Law it would be great if from this Mr & Mrs Cox joined the Word family and joined in with some of the other nonsense and sharing of opinions that goes on in these parts. It is a unique internet place and they must have some great insight into the music industry and that other hot topic The BBC.

but I'm not going to be impressed until Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin post their thoughts on the matter. Surely they've got Google Alerts.

I always find it interesting when two factually opposite viewpoints clash among intelligent people. I was hoping the debate would continue and someone would eventually admit they were wrong. But I suppose that's too much to hope for (from the amount of background reading material cited by various people above, it's probably fair to say the debate is beyond the scope of this forum, which is a shame)...

Long live freedom of speech and intelligent debate!

welcome our new ant overlords

Well, let's hear it from the man himself...

I can't respect the opinion that you hold and I don't think it's possible or fair to expect the members of this forum not to judge you negatively for holding this opinion. Expressing a belief that the moon landings were faked is many, many orders of magnitude more extreme than, for example, denying anthropogenic global warming. If you think through the implications of your belief, it would require a conspiracy of absurd proportions through the US and many of its allies and enemies (You think the USSR and China wouldn't have been monitoring every bleep transmitted through the entire space program?).

Many have pointed out excellent sources for more-detailed answers to some of your questions (I'd recommend the Bad Astronomy site as a starting point) and I'd strongly suggest you do as much research as it takes for you to at least be able to strongly argue your belief, if you continue to hold it. People will think less of you, and will have a right to think less of you for holding this belief. After all, beliefs and attitudes are all we really have to go on when judging someone.

I'd also recommend a basic primer in pseudoscience and critical thinking to help you navigate the waters, and I can think of none as wonderful or readable as Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World.

Obviously entire books have been written rebutting the moon-landing hoax conspiracy, so I'll offer a couple of more general points for thought:
- Most conspiracy theories rely on 'anomaly hunting'. Protagonists will spew out a flood of perceived anomalies, each requiring careful and detailed rebuttal. Instead of conceding the rebutted points, they move immediately to another raft of anomalies. This is the main debate technique used by moon-landing deniers, as well as creationists, WTC truthers etc. It has the effect of constantly moving the goalposts

- Unless you are a relevant specialist, go with what the relevant (and I mean relevant!) specialists think, unless you possess specific knowledge to the contrary. You say you aren't a scientist? Look at what the majority of astrophysicists and rocket scientists say about the capabilities of space flight in the 60s. You can't use ignorance as a defence for your beliefs. Sometimes, of course, the consensus opinion of specialists is wrong. Mostly, however, they are right. The flip side of this is to not place your trust in the lone-crank specialist who is at odds with the rest of the specialist community. Despite what the world of fiction would have us believe, they very rarely turn out to be right.

- Finally, ask yourself this: "What evidence would convince me that the moon landings were not faked, and that man landed on the moon?" Once you've answered this question, go forth and try to find the evidence. If there is no evidence that would convince you otherwise, you've got yourself a non-falsifiable hypothesis, and there's nothing that will sway you from your belief.

Sorry if I've rambled or appeared patronising, but when I see this sort of thinking intersect with the warm, fuzzy world of Word, I've got to react.