One motive given for the USA to have faked one if not all of the moon landings was to "beat" the USSR in the Space Race. The USSR had the same, if not greater, capability to carry out such a massive deception on the people. Why didn't they fake a landing?

They probably figured that either it was a fake landing that everybody believed, or it was a real landing. Either way, they would have been second, the mission would have helped not a jot in any military advantage, and the money was better spent on doing something else first.

A question I have always had is;

If the US faked a moon landing, why didnt all the competing countries "out" us?

Surely they had the technology, (telescopes) to be able to discern whether or not we are actually sending something to the moon? What would their motive be for allowing the US to appear to be technologically superior to them in their own peoples eyes and in the eyes of the rest of the world?

That question has always been the thing that has prevented me from believing the moon landing was a hoax.

I can see why our government might want to perpetuate such a hoax, and I can see that they COULD have pulled it over on us, as most of us dont have the means to check for ourselves, but on the entire world? People and scientists that have the ability to see for themselves? And who would have every motive to want to make us look bad and like liars and incompetent? It just has never made sense to me.

I concur with Illusionsaregrander's opinion on this one. Russia would have been the first ones to call NASA's bluff on this one if there was even a thought it were a hoax.

There were 2 groups of contractors from Australia who tracked the Apollo translunar telemetry, who stated there is no way they could have been fooled by transmission from low earth orbit.

The MSFN operators absolutely can't be fooled by a satellite. Their antennas must be precisely aimed, and a satellite doesn't follow the same path in the sky as an outbound or inbound Apollo spacecraft. They'd know. Their ability to locate the spacecraft in the sky is nothing short of legendary. They took great pride in being able to use the Doppler shift of the radio signal to determine the flight path of the spacecraft. When compared later with flight records, the MSFN ground station operators were proud to have observed motion of the spacecraft due to such subtle effects as waste dumps and sublimator operation.

Honestly, don't you think Russia wasn't tracking this telemetry as well? You can bet you rear end they were.

If there were a NASA moon hoax, one of the contractors would have stepped forward and said so. This is not the case. The people who were involved did in fact track translunar telemetry. A pretty compelling argument against a hoax theory if you ask me.

There was this article that NASA lost telemetry data tapes... well actually it was National Archives who misplaced the tapes, and perhaps not lost but National Archives stores a vast amount of data from all government agencies so not at all surprising.

What matters here is the testimony of the people who actually did the work. If it were entirely NASA it would be one thing, but there were tons of contractors involved (some from different countries) none of whom are under gag orders or non-disclosure, and none of whom are asserting the lunar landing was a hoax.

The people who are making these claims, are the ones who instigate conspiracy theory in general... and who stand to profit from it. It makes for an interesting topic to "question reality", and hey.. it's fun and easy to do.
They are the ones who have a book to sell ya, or are willing to come lecture at a seminar near you (for a small fee).

What NASA *should* have done was put a solar beacon on the moon, which transmits some kind of data, even if only a "beep beep" from the moon. I truely don't believe that NASA had a clue that the credibility of missions would be in question 30+ years after the fact.

I know this really all wasn't solicited by the OP, but the US/Russian relations as far as space exploration goes has been great for many years. It is unfortunate if the political aspects of the war diminishes these relations.

Thanks for the post....

Actually its quite simple, US faked the lunar landing, USSR was the only competition, they knew about it and let them do their thing saving themselves billions for trying. US saved themselves also enough money for the cold war.

This space program thing wasn't that big! Warrfare was (and stil is)!!! There is (for the time being) not enough money to earn. have anyone ever thought waht the Apollo program would have costed if everything was real?

They tossed a coin and US won as being the party to fake the landing, justifying taxpayers money spending (which really went to warfare program).

I know, i have no prove, but if I had, I wouldn't be sitting here!

The were many reasons they elected not to:

a) the risk of being caught far outweighed the benefit

b) Soviets were proud people and "faking it" (which still would take some ingenuity) would be so humiliating that I don't doubt for a second that most skilled personnel would refuse to do it. I grew up there and that I'm sure about.

c) the sheer number of people involved in the "real" effort was so huge that the truth would probably be impossible to contain anyway!

Originally posted by Phage
Is it not true that the KGB could have dealt with anyone coming forth with the truth, turning them into an "unperson".

KGB was powerful but not to that extent, and in this era. In addition, eliminating (many) thousands of (talented) people who are reponsible for your ballistic missile program hardly seems like a wise move under any regime.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
In addition, eliminating (many) thousands of (talented) people who are reponsible for your ballistic missile program hardly seems like a wise move under any regime.

Not thousands, only the "rats".

I'm not picking on you buddhasystem. Being an "insider" you're helping make my point. The difficulties of faking a lunar landing overwhelm any incentive to do so. If that were not the case and the USA had done it (faked it), the Soviets probably would have as well.

This argument doesn't prove the landings weren't faked, there's a ton of real evidence for that. It does help point out how absurd the idea is.


[edit on 21-8-2008 by Phage]

maybe because nobody faked the moon landing and USNA went to the moon for real.
[- but it was just a publicity-cold war- space race thing, had nothing to do with space exploration-]

It is more likely that they went to the moon with different technogy, and do not want to tell us about that. This is probably the truth behind it.

But very good question, because in theory they could of just faked it before usa, but like i say america i believe went there before and we where not told.