[amsat-bb] Re: Evidence of moon landings....!

[John P. Toscano]

William Leijenaar wrote:

> The news is full again of the moon landings, where NASA claims to have new evidence, which makes me laugh again. I have the same idea like LeRoy, KD8BXP. When the information is only from one source it is not reliable at all, every scientist should know. 
>  
> This doesn't mean that I state no man has been on the moon, for me it is just not clear.

William:

If one is truly skeptical of the truth of NASA's claims to have landed 
men on the moon and brought them back to earth safely, then it is only 
natural to claim that nothing that NASA says will be accepted as proof 
of having accomplished the deed. The only thing that NASA could do to 
convince a true skeptic is to land that person on the moon and bring 
them home again. (Wouldn't that be a treat?)

On the other hand, we should be clear that NASA is *NOT* claiming that 
these pictures are "evidence that they really were there". They are 
(rightly) very proud of the extreme resolution of the pictures coming 
from the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and wanted to "show 
off" how good the pictures are. Of course, they chose to image targets 
that would pique the interest of as many folks as possible. For that 
reason, choosing to show photographs of the moon landing sites surely 
fulfills the criterion of generating lots of interest.

You are certainly entitled to your disbelief. But attributing these 
photos to a claim by NASA as evidence of the moon landings is a little 
bit too negative for my taste. I think that they are fully aware of the 
fact that any "proof" they could provide would be discounted by the 
skeptics because of its source. The web pages I saw never said anything 
about offering proof of prior successful landings on the moon. They are 
simply "showing off" their latest interesting photos.

By the way, do you also believe that all of the fantastic pictures from 
the Hubble Space Telescope were created in Photoshop instead of being 
real images of far away space objects? Oh, sorry, that's a bit 
off-topic, and only a rhetorical question. No need to reply to that.

> I would like to see pictures from another nations satellite, in higher resolution. I believe we will soon know, as there are several countries wanting to go to the moon. I am looking forward to their pictures and the state of the equipment left on the moon, in case the landings were no film studio work :o)

I, too, would welcome more pictures! (See, it really is an interesting 
target to photograph!)

> For the moment I keep it more close to the earth with my small transponder work,

The AMSAT community is indeed highly indebted to you for your hard work 
in this area. Thank you very much for your efforts in making small 
linear transponders for satellites.

> Maybe in the future there will be a chance to have a moon-ponder :o)

Maybe, and maybe not. But if no one ever dreams of it, it will certainly 
never come to pass. Wanting to take the journey is the very first of 
many, many steps in the journey, but one that is not optional if the 
journey is ever going to be undertaken.

73 de WØJT