Moon Landing?

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin,

beside the deployed U. S. flag

during Apollo 11

Perhaps the most remarkable event of man-kind throughout the 20^th century was that of the first manned mission to Earth’s moon.  The latter half of this industrious era, is perhaps best likened to the age of discovery / exploration which began in the early 15^th century and spanning into the early 17^th century. 

This is evidenced by various milestone accomplishments such as the first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon by the Soviet Union’s “Luna 2” mission on 13 September 1959.  This achievement was followed by the stunning success of Apollo 11 less than 10 years later as the first manned mission to land on the Moon. There have since been six (6) additional manned landings (between 1969 and 1972) and numerous unmanned landings.   

On July 20, 1969, six hours after landing at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with a little less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining), Commander Neil A. Armstrong became the first earthling to step upon the moon. Just prior to this huge exploit, he said these historic words: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”  He took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens; a feat no one had accomplished before him.

Some conspiracy theorists insist that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax. Their accusations flourish in part because enthusiastic, though previous predictions that Moon landings would surly become commonplace has not yet occurred.

In spite of this fact, evidence is readily available to show that manned moon landings did indeed occur. Anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system can bounce laser beams off three retro reflector arrays placed upon the Moon by the crews of Apollo 11, 14 and 15.  Additionally, in August of 2009 NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began to send back high resolution photos of several Apollo landing sites.

These photos show (Click here if you want to see the images) not only the Lunar Rover of Apollo 17 that was left behind but also tracks of the astronauts’ footpaths in the lunar dust.  OK, so these images were obviously taken from a great distance, but then no one has yet stepped forward to dispute their authenticity, therefore common sense dictates that such images are accurate.

But why does the flag (that was left on the moon) look like it’s blowing in the wind if there is no wind? After all, the environment on the moon is said to be a vacuum, therefore absent of such environmental hazards.

The reason the flag’s image looks like that is, that it was originally folded into a small tube for easy transport. When deploying the flag, the astronauts had to unfold it. As practically everyone knows, that there is no wind, and because no patriot would like to see the US flag hang down limp without wind, the flag was “stiffened” with a small metal tube on the top edge.  In short when unfolding the flag, the tube on top had to be extended kind of like a radio antenna, but it became stuck and did not extend to its full length.  As a result, the flag had more folds and crumples than was initially desired by the designing engineers of the day, which resulted in the “appearance” of a wind blown flag.

Then why is it that in the moon landing photos there’s no background stars visible?  The answer to this common question is easy for you to checkout on your own; it’s the same reason you can’t see someone else’s face when they are shining a bright flashlight directly into your eyes.  You see, when the astronauts were on the moon, the glare from the Sun totally overwhelmed the stars.  In fact cameras had to be adjusted to properly expose the astronauts and their surroundings because they were so brilliantly illuminated by the sun, as opposed to the comparable dim light of stars.

There are of course several other arguments a good Moon Landing conspiracy proponent can argue, nevertheless the best reasoning against such a theory is simply that there are now and have always been far too many dummies within the U. S. government to pull it off.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing                                 http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/introduction.htm           http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/moonlanding/moonlanding.htm   http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090123043600AASAnCt http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110531212514AAPMJE4

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html