Sceptism, Space and Sanity

An iconic image taken by the crew of NASA's Apollo 8.  It's Christmas Day, 1968 and the whole world is in awe as the astronauts take a photograph of our fragile home rising above the desolate and lifeless lunar surface.

ANDY FLEMING debunks some of the outrageous conspiracy theories surrounding astronomy, space and, of course, NASA.

It seems to be a sad fact that astronomy, space and space travel, like any other subject attracts its fair share of crackpots, charlatans and conspiracy theorists, These charlatans who usually know very little about the subject, but irresponsibly purvey nonsense to a gullible and largely scientific illiterate general public, usually have a hidden agenda... and it's normally quite boring and mundane: selling something.The subjects that they consider themselves qualified to speak about include UFOs and aliens, the so-called NASA Apollo Moon landing "conspiracy", the Nazca Lines in Peru, Planet X, Niburu, Nemesis, the Orion constellation/Pyramids of Giza myth, Red Dwarf and Brown Dwarfs orbiting the Sun, (the Sun may indeed be a member of a binary star system, but there is, as yet no evidence) and of course the 2012 Armageddon of Planetary/Galactic alignment.

There is an exciting and absorbing conspiracy theory for every particular astronomical taste. 

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Unfortunately, they all share one thing in common... they all lack evidence or what evidence there is either circumstantial, is not reproducible, or has a much simpler explanation.  This latter point is important... it's called Occam's Razor and it's the important guiding scientific principle that states that where there are a variety of explanations to phenomena available, then on balance it will be the simpler explanation that will be correct.  If it quacks and looks like a duck, then chances are it is a duck.

There are of course some excellent sites that specialise in debunking these conspiracy theories and I would not, as an amateur astronomer presume to compete with them here.  For example that famous debunker astronomer Dr Phil Plait has a superb website over at the Discover Magazine blogs called Bad Astronomy.  Closer to home in the UK, a colleague of mine from the Cleveland and Darlington Astronomical Society Neil Haggath, B.Sc.(Hons.) MBCS, CITP, FRAS hosts the wonderful Space and Sanity website.  The site rationally and convincingly debunks many of the conspiracy theories and scams listed above, also adding the "Name a Star" business rip-off, "Seeing" the Future, "Psychics" and "Mediums", The "Face on Mars", and "Mars as Big as the Moon".

The Apollo 11 landing site in Mare Tranquillitatis, taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). That very bright white spot near the left hand edge of the image, just above centre, is the descent stage of the Lunar Module Eagle – LRO was of course looking down on it from above. The smaller white dot, just below it, is the ALSEP (standing for Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package) – a package of scientific instruments deployed on the surface by Armstrong and Aldrin. The narrow dark lines, extending from the LM, are the trails of the astronauts’ footprints in the surface dust.  (Courtesy NASA/Space and Sanity)

To an informed sceptic many of these latter theories would be hilarious were it not for the fact that the gullible are being systematically ripped off both intellectually and financially by charlatans (remember the books, DVDs and all the other merchandise), but the one hoax that I do find particularly odious and offensive is the so-called Apollo moon hoax conspiracy.  In a slur on the human mind and intellect, this is the absurd notion that the most momentous human achievement in history, the Apollo Moon landings of 1969-72, never infact happened, and NASA, thousands of contracts, and hundreds of thousands of employees have been pulling the wool over the eyes of the global population ever since.  This barmy conspiracy surfaced in the mid 1970s following the release of a particularly bad science fiction film about a faked manned landing on the planet Mars starring O J Simpson... it was titled Capricorn One.

This photo is a close-up of the area around the LM. The LM descent stage – seen from above, remember - now shows as a big white blob, and you can just about make out that its shape is something other than round; its hull is in fact octagonal. But what about those four small white spots, forming a square near its corners? Well, they are its four footpads! The landing legs are angled outwards from the hull (obviously, for stability), so the footpads are visible in the aerial view. Each circular footpad is 86 cm across – so we would indeed expect them to be discernible at the resolution of LRO’s camera. We also see the trails of the footprints very clearly in this close-up – the “wiggly” nature of the tracks being entirely consistent with their being made by the boots of humans, rather than by anything mechanical. (Courtesy NASA/Space and Sanity)

Space and Sanity effectively demolishes every aspect of the Apollo hoax with potent evidence and rationality... the shadows, the real reason why you can't see stars in the photographs, the flag, the radiation, infact the whole enchilada of phoney 'evidence'.  There's also a good sprinkling of photographs from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2008... guess what... with an altitude of just fifty kilometres above the lunar surface and a camera resolution of just fifty centimetres it has photographed the Apollo landing sites and the along with much of the Apollo hardware even the astronaut's footprints and lunar rover tracks are visible!

Using Occam's Razor, one is also left realising that the whole Apollo project was true... anything else would have been hideously complicated, totally impractical and horrendously expensive.  It all boils down to one salutary personal decision... will you continue to believe in misinformation, or will you learn some science and accept the evidence.  As a firm believer in human nature, I know you'll decide on the latter!



Tools/links
Space and Sanity by Neil Haggath
Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit