(Yes, of course I know that’s not the Enterprise-D and that TNG came out in 1986, but you try making a better debunking joke.)

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    171·
    2 months ago

    I’ve been to the NASA space center and they’ve got a very vivid recreation of the moon landing in a museum. I have no doubt you could have faked the video. But how they got a moon lander and a flag up there remains a mystery.

    Also, we landed on the moon six different times. Even if you’re skeptical of Neil and Buzz, it kept happening through Cernan. By Apollo 17, it was barely newsworthy.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      111·
      2 months ago

      And the old saying “three people can keep a secret, if 2 are dead” comes to mind. The number of people who would know, just in astronauts, tells me someone would’ve squealed.

      There was a movie in the 1980’s that used this premise, but the astronauts weren’t supposed to know (I think), or were only told pretty late. Capricorn One (with OJ Simpson if memory serves). Not a great movie, hell, not even good, just an interesting concept.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        The number of people who would know, just in astronauts, tells me someone would’ve squealed.

        There are definitely conspiracies that have happened in the US that have stayed (officially) sealed for decades at a time. There’s also no shortage of (unofficial) leaks and Deep-Throat style informants willing to sell you a story about the moon landing being a hoax.

        I wouldn’t say the problem is that nobody squealed. I’d say the problem is that folks who claim they were in the room when Kubrick shot the B-roll for the moon landing from a Hollywood sound stage are not sources that stand up to prolonged interrogation.

        Capricorn One (with OJ Simpson if memory serves).

        I’ve heard of it. Mars instead of the Moon. An interesting premise.

        I’m also partial to For All Mankind as a “What If” of the US and Soviets continuing the space race for another forty years. Both explore interesting concepts about the intersection of politics and space exploration.

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
          21·
          2 months ago

          For sure.

          Stuff can be kept secret, it’s just difficult, and is usually accomplished via all sorts of obfuscation.

          Like doing something layered deep within something else, making it appear to be a day-to-event (hiding materiel in containers labeled as something else, making it weigh and move normally, then having military deliver it as usual, because who would think these drums of fuel are actually heavy water, or something like that).

          The moon landings were live. Quite a bit harder, I’d think.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            The moon landings were live.

            That is, again, a thing skeptics will dispute for this or that reason.

            But that’s the thing with conspiracy theorists and skeptics. Ask a flat earther how you get live images from space and they’ll just tell you “We don’t, its fake”.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      5·
      2 months ago

      I have no doubt you could have faked the video.

      Nope. In order to fake the video with a live background and real shadows, you would have to have had a single sun-equivalent light source to make all of the shadows point in the exact same direction, while at the same time no light whatsoever coming from any other direction.

      CGI wasn’t a thing in 1969. Ultimately, if you wanted to fake a moon landing in 1969, you would very quickly find out that it would be far simpler and far less expensive to just go to the moon.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        2 months ago

        That doesn’t even take into account the dust. In the moon landing footage, lunar regolith doesn’t billow like it would in an atmosphere. Whenever it’s kicked, it falls back to the surface in a neat parabola every time.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        you would have to have had a single sun-equivalent light source

        Sprinkled into the Moon Landing Hoax lore are all sorts of arguments about lighting coming from the wrong angles and producing bizarre shadows, objects moving inconsistently with microgravity, and technical components (including the cameras used to film the landing itself) being impossible to operate from the lunar surface.

        The root of hoax theory isn’t merely that it was faked, but that a savvy observer of the footage can identify the Hollywood legerdemain.

        CGI wasn’t a thing in 1969.

        If you want to get hard-core in your Moon Hoax theories, you’ll inevitably run into people who claim it was.