Did we land on the moon?

Of course we did.

We read Joe's and Jit Bags (Grinch) site today and saw that Joe doesn't really believe we landed on the moon. It's an interesting idea but here's whats wrong with it. While technology in the 1960's was not very advanced, it doesn't mean we didn't land on the moon. Case in point, even though much of the current technology we have today, never existed prior to the 1990's, people still lived and got by just fine. Even prior to automatic electronic calculators, which only really made their first appearance in the early 1960's, we still had automatic adding machines and prior to that an abacus! So, just because advanced technology didn't exist, doesn't mean it wasn't "doable" with their current technology of that era. Remember they built a submarine during the American Civil War. German's had U-Boats with no computer electronics on board. We were smarter when we had less computers working for us.

Additionally, remember that it was a cold war era, we and the Russians already had spy tracking satellites capable of tracking intercontinental ballistic missile launches in a MAD response situation so, they could easily track a rocket to the moon. And we had ground radar since WWII. Further, you could see the landing site, with an advanced telescope, from earth. There is also a mirror on the moon that was left by an Apollo mission that tracks the moons orbit using ground lasers even today, which they also had in the beginning stages, in the 1970's.

Further, hundreds of moon rocks were brought back to earth by the Apollo missions. These rocks are unlike any other on earth in which they have micro meteor craters in them. Pieces of dust in space can travel at 50,000 miles per hour because there is no resistance. So these pieces, although very fragile, impact rocks and cause micro craters. Even particle accelerators on earth can't create this level of impact by firing neutrons at them. A lot of people gauge the moon landing about how things physically react with the environment on earth. But, its a completely different environment, there is no air and 1/6 normal gravity and no shielding of intense light.

So then why are they shadows going in different directions in some pictures? People who don't think we landed on the moon see shadows going in different directions and theorize that it is because of different light sources. Also incorrect. Light, does behave much the same way on the moon than as on earth however, there is no atmosphere filtering it. However, if you are on earth and two people are standing at two different distances during full daylight, they're shadows will fall in different places because they're position in relation to the sun to the earth changes as they move closer or farther away from the viewer. This is why when you walk down a side walk you shadow seems to be walking next to you, following you; it does not remain in the same position all the time while walking. Your position is changing in relation to the direction of the light source to your eyes. The sidewalk, acting as a straight line, gives your brain a reference point for your moving shadow.

Why does the dust fall after the footprint is made? The moon is a much smaller mass than the earth so there is one sixth the gravity on the moon and no air. If a person steps on the moon, the particles do fall back to the moon but not in a regular falling arch formation like on earth due to the low gravity and no air resistance to particles.

Why is the flag waiving? Air is not required to make a flag wave. A flag waves when also shaken or waved by another force, say a person. So when the astronauts were planting the flag in the ground, it continued to wave after the pole was shaken to push it into the lunar soil. Due to no atmosphere and low gravity, it stays "a float". If the moon landing was made on a sound stage, why would they create artificial wind to make the flag wave? They knew the moon didn't have air! Additionally, even in the 1940's movies were made on sound stages, very few where shot outside if you want to expertly control the environment.

Why can't we see stars in the background? The cameras of the 1960's were not that advanced. In fact, even with modern cameras that use an automatic iris, it closes to prevent too much light or "over exposure". Since the surface of the mars and space suits are gray/white the camera adjusts to see objects that are closer and more brightly lit rather than objects that are father and very dimly lit compared to closer objects. If you turn on a flash light outside and place it on top of you facing down toward your face and try to look at the stars, it's very hard to see them, if at all. And your eyes are much better than most modern cameras at detecting light variations and subtlety in color, not with standing 1960's era cameras.

How did the rover get up there? Heh. Well we did not go to the moon just once as a lot of people think. We went to the moon six times total. That amount doesn't include the flybys and experimental launches to the moon. The rover was deployed from a payload module during the Apollo 15 mission.

"The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photography of the lunar surface. Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon due to a malfunction, but also returned photographs. The six missions that landed on the Moon returned a wealth of scientific data and almost 400 kilograms of lunar samples. Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments." - Nasa.gov.