If the moon landing was faked, why are retro reflectors returning light?

I seems like the majority of moon conspiracies have been debunked beyond debunked, so here's one I can't seem to get past. The moon has a number of retro reflectors which will return light to earth if a powerful enough laser (around 1 gigawatt) sends a pulse.

The official story is that these retro reflectors were mounted on the moon by the Apollo 11, 14, and 15 missions. There are only a few select active observatories in the United States which can effectively conduct this experiment, but to this day every single one has been proven to be true.

The Laser Ranging Retro reflector experiment was deployed on Apollo 11, 14, and 15. It consists of a series of corner-cube reflectors, which are a special type of mirror with the property of always reflecting an incoming light beam back in the direction it came from. A similar device was also included on the Soviet Union's Lunakhod 2 spacecraft. These reflectors can be illuminated by laser beams aimed through large telescopes on Earth. The reflected laser beam is also observed with the telescope, providing a measurement of the round-trip distance between Earth and the Moon. This is the only Apollo experiment that is still returning data from the Moon. Many of these measurements have been made by McDonald Observatory in Texas. From 1969 to 1985, they were made on a part-time basis using the McDonald Observatory 107-inch telescope. Since 1985, these observations have been made using a dedicated 30-inch telescope. Additional measurements have been made by observatories in Hawaii, California, France, Australia, and Germany.

If we never went to the moon, who or what put these things there?

reply to post by Quarantine


You have a very good point there, and I have never doubted going to the moon. But what I think alot of people are debating is did we go there when we claimed we did. Those reflectors could have been put there on later missions.

reply to post by Quarantine


Hey I just finished watching 'mythbusters' too. Although they made some excellent points regarding the 1/6th gravity and how they disproved the slow motion recording, its still a show. Its still on TV. Its MIGHT still be propaganda. Until then you can continue to eat what they're spoon feeding you.

I honestly don't care about the other theories because they all leave room for obvious controversy, except for this one. Maybe the missions were all bogus, unfortunately it's something we'll never know. But you still can't deny that we have paid a visit or two to the moon based on the facts.

I wonder if that's why NASA air brushed out areas of their photos that I was reading about in another thread. I think the OP said it was to cover up a "secret hidden base" or something.. Covering up reflectors seems much more logical.

I do not support the moon hoax theory at all, however the moon hoax believers say that the reflectors were put there by un-manned missions. (they have a rebuttal for everything) For whatever reason, people like to create their own theories about NASA photos/video just to create controversy. (esp the ones who are selling books and dvds). I believe the mythbusters did a fair job on this episode... at least some effort to explain why certain theorist arguments are without merit.

At one point near the end, Adam says there is additional footage because there wss more material than could be covered in the 60 minute program.. I looked on their website, but didn't see anything. Does anyone know where that additional footage is? I would sure like to see what else they did.

I found a contact e-mail on their web site and asked if and where we could see the additional footage, we'll see if I even hear back.

I believe that the moon landings happened, but I don't think that the reflectors are the definitive proof that people try to make it out to be. Just because something man made is on the moon doesn't mean that a man personally put it there. And unmanned probe could have placed the reflectors there just as easily. The Soviets even had a rover on the moon at about the same time in history, which could also have placed a reflector. The technology existed for an unmanned mission to place the reflectors.

I think the best way to prove that a manned mission was successful is to point our best telescopes at the sites and let those who do not believe look at the evidence directly.

If you can use a large telescope from earth to aim a laser to hit a reflector on the moon, how come you can't use one to photograph the landing sites in detail?

Somebody is lying! I wish they would coordinate and get their storys straight. After all these years they still can't close the gaping holes in the story line. Poor planning and coordination is the problem. Did they think we would just forget about the moon landings and go away?

[edit on 28-8-2008 by Cyberbian]

Originally posted by Cyberbian
If you can use a large telescope from earth to aim a laser to hit a reflector on the moon, how come you can't use one to photograph the landing sites in detail?

Somebody is lying! I wish they would coordinate and get their storys straight. After all these years they still can't close the gaping holes in the story line. Poor planning and coordination is the problem. Did they think we would just forget about the moon landings and go away?

[edit on 28-8-2008 by Cyberbian]

Telescopes are not powerful enough yet to view such small detail. They are designed for looking at light emitting giant bodies, not some 50 foot square area of a dusty rock

sorry

Hi all

Its been a long ol' time since I wrote on the forums here....yes ok, I've been busy. But I do recall getting some very pleasant, informed and above all rational replies in the past.......rational meaning that I didnt feel the urge to mail anyone a lifetimes supply of antipsychotics!

So.....arhhh the moon landing and the reflector thing/

This is a pet conspiracy of mine, but I tend to try and approach it from a more behavioural, humanistic angle.
The reflector thing, as was mentioned above, I believe is down to unmanned placement. Because, try as I might, I just can't get my head around the whole concept that in the 60's, in equipment that was rudimentary at best, and while there was a huge PR war going on with the Soviet Union (politics immediately undermines all truth if you look deeply enough), that man took off from Earth, flew to the moon, landed, wandered about a bit getting holiday pics and then managed to get back.
Lets be honest, if they could do it then, the ESA could do it tomorrow. And they make NASA like look people who build Deathstars.

But the behavioural side of the event is simply this.

We have (to our knowledge) NEVER been back!

Are you honestly telling me that, given Humanities natural habit of finding new environments and bleeding them dry of resources, or monopolising them for factional advantage, one world power or another hasnt taken advantage of this ability.
That what they say they found resourcewise in the 60's was it?

Bearing in mind that analytical equipment for say, scanning for or extracting minerals etc, today is a million times more advanced that the tinkertoy gear they had in the 60's. And there nothing on the moon worth mining and generally raping, in the same manner as we have done to the Earth?

It is human nature to behave as I pointed out,
So, given that we have never publically returned, it is opposite to human nature and so is not true.

Why would we build the Hubble telescope if we could have something as large and secure as the moon to build a telescope on? With all that space we could build one ten times as large and powerful.
And think of the strategic value of having a moon base......stick a few nukes up there and you could rule the world, let alone the surveillance and communication opportunities.

How long has Earth had those crappy space stations orbitting about up there? Why waste the resources when you can resource a moonbase?

Now, after rants like this, I generally get the reply that its too expensive to go back to the moon.
Err, have you checked out the US military budget recently...or the money the US is planning to give to Israel over the next 8 years?
And lets be honest, money is a joke with no real value (fractional reserve banking)......but controlling the moon? Now thats an investment!

reply to post by Napalmtheelf


I'll put out a very blunt example for you.

You go abroad to lets say to another continent (referring to moon) , while there you go and have a drink in a pub (referring to scans and exploring new places) , then you get your face bitchslapped and ass kicked out of the pub
with a warning that you dont belong here and go away, you return to your home..

Would you go back to that pub next day, next week, next month?

Originally posted by Napalmtheelf
if they could do it then, the ESA could do it tomorrow. And they make NASA like look people who build Deathstars.

Why do people just invent rubbish like this. No they couldn't, you are outright lying here. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, but you feel like you should talk about it anyway.

Why? ESA is a decade away from a manned landing by themselves, at the least. They have no capsule, launch system, orbit breaking plans, experience with landing etc etc etc. It's just ignorance to say "oh they did it 50 years ago so why dont they just go do it now!".

We didn't land on the moon it was a shuttle remote controlled with robots

the landing was a video done by Hollywood and NASA

a reply to: Quarantine

Light has been reflected off the moon surface since 1961 or 2 , topographic maps of the Lunar surface are made by reflecting laser light off the moon surface. if there are reflectors on the Moon , which I doubt, they could have been put there by one of the unmanned missions ,human intervention would not be needed.

a reply to: unclegilly

First landed probe was in 1966, made by USSR (Luna 9). First landed probe by USA 2 June 1966 (Surveyor 1). Before that - only impactors, flybys; orbiters. All of the landers before that - failed.
BTW: why post on such old thread?

A laser beam consisting of billions of photons is fired at the Moon every year to calculate its distance from Earth.

Only one or two photons return!

This doesn't convince me that the light is being returned by special, man-made reflectors.

If I shine a light at a mirror I expect all the light to be reflected.

a reply to: CJCrawley

Photons goes through 100km atmosphere twice. If there was no atmosphere on earth, 5mW laser beam could be reflected on those mirrors.

"It provides a measurement of the round trip distance between the Earth and the moon" And? Is that the only experiment? How often would they have to check to see how far away the moon is? And why?

a reply to: Napalmtheelf

Why haven't we got back to the moon, let's see...

NASA's 2015 Budget : $18.01 billion


Now...

The Apollo mission cost 25.4 Billion US dollars. In today's money, that's about 150 Billion dollars.

+ There is the ISS that takes a lot of money...
The cost of the International Space Station, including development, assembly and running costs over 10 years, comes to €100 billion.

originally posted by: unclegilly
a reply to: Quarantine

Light has been reflected off the moon surface since 1961 or 2 , topographic maps of the Lunar surface are made by reflecting laser light off the moon surface. if there are reflectors on the Moon , which I doubt, they could have been put there by one of the unmanned missions ,human intervention would not be needed.

Exactly - they bounce it off of the surface and always have, reflectors or no reflectors.
Also as was pointed out the reflectors (if they're there) could have been put there later.