Why not just fake mars?

Hi

This is my first post altough i have been reading here for a long time.

I am very interested in the moon hoax idea and have come up with one big question if NASA faked the moon landing then why have they not since faked a mars landing or even a venus landing? with todays computer power and the ability to make such realistic CG locations wouldnt NASA simply Fake a mars landing just to get positive press after there recent Shuttle problems. I personally believe the moon landings happened and this is one of the biggest reasons for my belief.

Any thoughts?

tom

Well if they were going to do that, then they need to appear to be doing the 'real' thing. That is, doing the research, sending probes, etc.

Now, with the latest problems, if they were to fake a Mars landing, would anyone believe that? I don't think so, there would be too many questions asked.

Maybe in a few years, when they are back on track, but at the moment it seems totally unrealistic.

I think SonOfDaedalus makes a great point--it would be extremely strange for NASA to all of a sudden have a Mars landing come out of nowhere right now. However, I think you (popek) make an excellent point as an argument against the moon hoax. If they did it once, why not do it again? Lord knows they need something to make themselves look better than they have recently. I guess it just depends on whether they go for the PR route like most "science" institutions seem to do, or if they go for real science.

There is this 1960's or 1970's movie called Capricorn One, where NASA and the gov fake a Mars landing. And then they try to kill the astronauts for some reason. Well one astronaut manages not to get killed, and shows up at his funeral where of course there are camera crews. The end.

How about: because the moon landing were genuine and were not filmed in a studio. They are not hoaxes.

Actually Frosty, I believe that's the point popek is trying to make--they didn't fake the moon landing because they haven't faked Mars yet. If the moon was hoaxed, they did a great job and could've pulled Mars off easy. Mars would've been a great PR pull if they did it; would've led to tremendous public support and increased funding. If they already had everything lined up from the moon landing, why not just tweak the set a little bit, maybe throw in a red filter to the camera, and reap the benefits? Because they didn't fake the moon and didn't have everything lined up for a sequel.

I saw that one, some argue that the video was real I was told in te 1960's they had no clue of what the surface of Mars looked like.

You know, just to play devil's advocate here, that could be a reason they didn't fake Mars in light of faking the moon landing. Lack of a decent enough understanding of the planet to fake it, along with too obvious a lack of technology. By the time they got enough of a "backstory", it was already too late--no funding, and no one would believe they made such a voyage on a shoestring.

Hmmmm....I dunno. Still interesting though.

I dont think NASA would gain much by 'reachingvenus or mars' actually.. People would go 'WOW!' but they would probably not get much more money since there's no idea in us going to those planets except for scientific reasons..

In 50 years maybe, because of over-population, but not now.

That's true in the current political climate Thain, but if there were still a space race, US vs. USSR (or equivalent), things might be a bit different. Right now no one really cares about getting anything off the ground, but the reasons haven't really changed much since the 60's, other than we no longer have a desire to be first.

Well firstly, I believe the moon landings were real.

Why would NASA want to fake a Mars landing anyways? What would the real point be?


One last thing, as for landing on Venus, from what I understand, it is not possible, not only is it to hot, but the atmospheric pressure is to extreme.

Look at the state of space travel at the moment 1 Shuttle Disaster and 1 VERY near miss in 2 missions, people dont seem interested in space anymore
my point as Mcory pointed out is IF they faked the moon (which i dont believe they did) why not fake a mars landing to get peoples interest in space Back and give themselves some much needed PR

Oh and NW guy i have seen that movie they try to kill them because the astronauts are not on the ship as it has a fualty oxygen filter system so the US gov. sends the ship and puts the men in a studio pretending that they went with the ship when it returns is blows up in the atmosphere so the Gov. have to kill the men so noone will ever know, its actually a great movie and i could see that If it was 24 hours from launch and had cost them that much and they found the ship could do it but the crew couldnt that might in a very round about way be a good reason to hoax it
whereas the moon landings had no reason to be hoaxed,

Surely the Russians used Radar to track the flight and were listening in to the radio transmissions if they had thought for a second it was a hoax they would of had a field day! If the US's biggest enemy at the time who would do anything to get some bad press about the states say it happened then i believe them! They have no reason to believe it was a national upset that the USA beat them but they didnt even try to say it was a hoax

The capsule returning to earth failed, which ment the world thought they were dead. Needless to say them being alive was a major embarrassment to the government so they tried to kill them off for real.

Bad movie, but an interesting concept.

One could make an argument that NASA would've had to put a "Mars mission" hoax into action years ago, as kind of a rainy day plan. In which case, you could argue that the next oportunity NASA will even have to pull such a hoax will be early next decade.

Unless Spirit and Opportunity aren't really on Mars.

whose to say they havent already made it to mars.
both there probes landed no real problems while a british one burned up or some thing. this could be used to say they "launched" these probes from the surface thats why they both "landed" with no problems and also why they have continued to work well over predetermined estimates.
(probably unlikely, but who knows)

as for the moon landing i am unsure if it happened. from what ive seen i feel that the actual video might of been faked, but thats not to say it didnt happen.

And I just have to wonder is there any brains behind such logic... if they would have had the ability to send lander there at first place to launch probe for landing there they wouldn't have any reason to "fake launch and land one".


Landing there is possible and it has been done, but getting anything to survive there longer than moment is the hard part, temperature is 450°C (~850°F) which is more than enough to melt lead, or tin which is used in electronics. (if there would be any complex electronic component which could survive such temperature)
And to top of that pressure is crushing, one that you would experience in about depth of one kilometer (~3000 fts) underwater.

the reason to fake the probe landings would be for misinformation. to give the public the idea they are less advanced in there abilitys than they actually are.
(this might help you understand what i was thinking. and also i found it hard to reply to your comment because of the poor sentence structure.)

It might be strange NASA hiring 3d modellers

Do NASA even have enough funds to attempt anything more?
Someone told me that because Bush wants a Moon colony setup, NASA would only have one chance of doing it due to the lack of funding.

Why are people so intent on making landings on Mars (or anywhere else for that matter) impossible or faked what would be the purpose. NASA is not the only Space agency to land something on another World. ESA landed Huygens on the Moon Titan! I suppose they are in on it too. (whatever that may be.)