Did man land on the moon or NOT!?

[Si Dread]

I'm delighted to think the worst of governments & I have no proof that we did actually land on the moon. I have no proof that an absolutely enormous, ridiculously complicated conspiracy did not take place either... I kinda have sympathy with anyone who doesn't buy the official story.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

 

[ColtDan]

Fake moon landing debunked. Time to shift our focus to the bible

Haha yes

 

[felix]

How an Intern Stole NASA's Moon Rocks

In 2002, rogue NASA interns stole millions of dollars in moon rocks. This is the untold story of how they did it.

Building 31 North's white halls are empty, because it is the middle of the night. NASA interns Thad Roberts and Tiffany duck inside a bathroom, and tear off their clothing. Then they change into the contents of their duffel bags—2mm thick neoprene bodysuits. Like in a bad movie, the suits will help Thad and Tiffany avoid heat sensors armed to feel out threatening climate changes inside a vault. The adrenaline, their attraction, the smell of rubber suits and the fear of failure is almost overwhelming. After pulling on the thermally shielded gear, Tiffany and Thad step back into the corridor, moving toward the turnstile lock that guards their target: NASA's prized stash of moon rocks.

Read this story!

 

[BlindHelperMonkey]

I agree with everything Shambles said about the subject. Humankind's ambitions reach far beyond a nearby inert lump of dust, and there's no point going back there for little return on investment. Our biggest issues are how to maximise our velocity, test out the feasibility of carbon-based humanoids surviving in long term zero gravity, and what the fuck do we do about it when we get there, wherever "there" is. The Moon is cool but it's a plaything when we're talking about the long term evolution of us monkeys

as a prime specimen of evolved simian magnificence, i feel it my duty to gently correct your enthusiastic yet somewhat misguided viewpoint on the moon


not sure who youre speaking for there but in reality our moon is anything but devoid of secrets. in fact its proximity belies the depth of mystery it still holds for the fields of planetary and primordial heliospheric cosmology


the moon you seem to have all figured out, is in actuality a fairly poorly understood celestial object, and when considering its proximity, that in itself is a not an insignificant oddity. for a start we still dont know how it came about, the collision model being only the latest in a long list of theories - but even taken as fact, the numbers involved in the random, by chance positioning where not only is the orbit not erratic, but a perfect circle -the only example of which we know - it is also rotationally synchronised and most incredibly of all.. though miniscule at a shade under 2,200mi in diameter to the sun's 860,000, the moon sits the unbelievably precise distance from the earth so that it exactly covers the sun's body while occluding nothing of the corona so that the overall effect to the observer on earth is of aesthetic perfection. being a sci-fi nerd youll be aware of asimov's genuine proficiency in astronomy independent of bookwriting...


. "there is no reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well.

It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth is among all the planets blessed in this fashion


..so it would seem asimov too understands the mystery that still shrouds this particular subject.



then of course you have the fact of our natural satellite's tremendous size relative to its parent planet - at around a quarter of the earths size and just over 1/80th of its mass. although pluto's charon is proportionally larger, that also is highly unusual, however due to the recent demotion of plutos planetary status, its arguable whether charon even qualifies as a true planetary satellite. either way, the earth's moon is incredibly large when compared to the vast vast majority of others known to astronomy. this alone makes the moon a noteworthy anomaly. when you add the fact the stratified composition is utterly bizarre and to all geological normality- 'inside out' inform - that is heavier elements at the surface with lighter ones below - this defies all known geological formation models.the well observed and documented anomalous 'fluorescent' lights on the moon surface witnessed through telescopes for hundreds of years and in fact so well known they were almost universally thought attributes of the moon's volcanic or tectonic activity - when the fact became established the moon had neither, the lights were suddenly and rapidly dropped from the discussion table.


and talking of anomalous stuff, the reason for the 'ringing like a bell' reverberations of the moon recorded at nasa when a rocket stage was jettisoned onto the surface.. for over four hours(!) ...has to this day never been adequately explained. we are able to view the moons of neighbouring planets in a higher resolution and consequently - more detail, than we can our very own, being too near to the longsighted orbital telescopes to be able to focus in on adequately. the veritable cornucopia however, of catalogued visual anomalies that have been observed suggests there are still many puzzles for us yet to decipher about our silent neighbour up there.



and of course, even the age of the moon is controversial, many reputable labs have dated moon rocks at a billion years older than the oldest such rocks observed on earth. if as appears, this is true - the collision theory goes out the window. which is why the dating is argued over so fanatically



the moon - like mars - displays these peculiar domed and 'bullseye' craters - evidence of massive electrical discharge scarring consistent with plasma physics and the electromagnetic model of the universe indicating perhaps the most easily accessible evidence for a tremendously cataclysmic period in our solar system that is still shrouded in darkness for us


not to mention the apparent 'bottomless' craters, anomalous shape and radically different elemental composition to the earth.. all deserving of further and in depth examination.



so as you can see, to discount the moon so readily as holding no more interest for mankind or science, is complete folly. it may well be the guardian of the most exciting of all, and we therefore disregard it at our peril







other than all that, you were spot on

 

[felix]

Holy shit. That was one of the most enjoyable posts I've ever read on here, thanks so much.

Obviously I am no rocket scientist and know relatively fuck all about it. Compared to you, especially, it seems.

I know the Moon has many secrets and will be the subject of much study for aeons to come. In no way do I think I have it figured out and was admittedly rather dismissive of its importance. Sorry Mr Moon.

But I was thinking about the bigger picture. The Moon might, at best, become a zero-gravity staging post for other longer term projects, and those are the ones that I'm the most excited about. Compared to the places we're gonna head for, the Moon will seem like a boulder you step on just outside your back door, to avoid stepping in the mud before venturing to the shops.

I wish I was cleverer and could live for another 50 years or so.

:D

 

[BlindHelperMonkey]

yeah, there were originally lofty plans to use the moon in just how you suggest, a 1/6th gravity staging post for further expeditions. such a reduction in gravity would dramatically reduce material cost, construction time and effort as well as providing an idealised environment for manufacturing of certain high tech electronics and advanced metallurgy which would benefit greatly from such ready access to such a vastly superior vacuum than can be fashioned today on earth, alas seems that is but a pipedream now. and as such, i really wouldnt stress over it, tis far from certain whether spaceflight will experience the kind of quantum leap youre thinking about in the next 50yrs anyway. for a multitude of reasons western civilisation is now largely in a state of atrophy, following plato's law of societal corruption and downfall that has played out innumerable times throughout history. we were supposed to be george jetson'ing it up with flavoured pills for meals by now. america sold off its sarturn V rockets, large-scale manned pioneers have been sidelined for specialised robotics. there is no overarching ambition, no vision for the betterment of mankind en masse - i mean, look at the movie world - 2001 a space odyssey, the dystopic world of bladerunner was set only a couple years from today.. alien i believe was also set not far from todays date. clearly something has gone wrong, technology for the vast majority of us is hardly more advanced than it was fifteen years ago. and i believe it will be much the same in another fifteen from now also



all in all, i wouldn't be sleeping with the frozen peas just yet

 

[Ceres]

tl;dr

 

[Vurtual]

Cool post BHM (and hello). I was aware of some (a small bit) of that anomalous stuff, but didn't want to complicate the thread like i usually do (but now you have...). However, when you're talking about how anomalous the moon's orbital characteristics are, we've only got a small base to make this comparison (ie planets and moons in our system) - chuck a few hundred billion more systems and it might not be so weird. I tend to think a lot of what we think are 'norms' in planets won't survive contact with other star systems (and for biology/consiciousness too).

Felix: I think maybe that our future expansion/evolution won't necessarily be physical - first we may evolve to use our resources in an increasingly efficient way (buckminster fuller style) and balance our population to it, so maybe won't inevitably need physical 'lebensraum' at all (space or resource-wise); in fact without this sort of evolution, i'd say we won't last much longer anyway (maybe this evolutionary stage is common in intelligent species elsewhere, which would go some way to explain their apparent absence to our instruments (too intelligent to waste radiation, or expand massively into space)). Secondly, there's an awful lot of scope for sci-fi style 'expansion' within the potential future of AI or digital consicousness (eg have you read the Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi (and if you like sci-fi, why not? (though it's quite hard work)) - in that future, the transhumans expand into the solar system (and chew up planets and that), but most of the expansion is internal

(to do an on topic bit) i suspect the moon landing conspiracy is a synthetic conspiracy: created knowingly by some cia types, either to test the limits of people's credulity, and what lies they can get away with, or just as a way to discredit other contemporary conspiracies (jfk/mlk etc) by association. (just think up meta-conspiracies like this and you can have your conspiracy cake and eat it ) This is an interesting article on conspiracy theories.

 

[Ceres]

tl;dr

 

[felix]

all in all, i wouldn't be sleeping with the frozen peas just yet

Haha :D I know exactly what you mean. I've looked at the instructions of our freezer but I don't think it's up to stasis levels unfortunately.

I suspect the problem was that "we" "won" the Cold War, so there hasn't been the political will power to move to the next stage. We've got localised short term resource issues to fight over here on planet earth (like kids fighting in a sand pit) before our heads are knocked together and we eventually realise that the Russians and Chinese are gonna be our partners, not our enemies. It'll be a long fight.

And Ceres, such childish outbursts are beneath a person of your intelligence. Come on.

 

[felix]

Felix: I think maybe that our future expansion/evolution won't necessarily be physical - first we may evolve to use our resources in an increasingly efficient way (buckminster fuller style) and balance our population to it, so maybe won't inevitably need physical 'lebensraum' at all

(to do an on topic bit) i suspect the moon landing conspiracy is a synthetic conspiracy: created knowingly by some cia types, either to test the limits of people's credulity, and what lies they can get away with, or just as a way to discredit other contemporary conspiracies (jfk/mlk etc) by association. (just think up meta-conspiracies like this and you can have your conspiracy cake and eat it ) This is an interesting article on conspiracy theories.

Oh I know about the transhumanism aspect; hence my comments about people being born today who might become immortal in some way soon. It'll just take a couple of quantum leaps in understanding of brains and computing to make that happen. People are working on that all the time.

All of this makes Moon conspiracy stories seem like one of our cats pretending that he sees a mouse under the rug. :D Completely nebulous, but kinda funny. :D

Thanks for your input, Vurtual. I am a huge fan of Bucky, btw. Total legend.

 

[One Thousand Words]

The Chinese are our next great hope with regards to space exploration. They landed a probe there last year with serious plans for a space station and lunar base for future missions to Mars etc.

America is the portugeses of space now. Their historical significance will never be forgotten but as their empire fades, someone else will take the reigns.

 

[dbauman]

I rhink they never went, but im open to arguements lol

 

[felix]

The Chinese are our next great hope with regards to space exploration. They landed a probe there last year with serious plans for a space station and lunar base for future missions to Mars etc.

America is the portugeses of space now. Their historical significance will never be forgotten but as their empire fades, someone else will take the reigns.

Of course. The ESA and NASA and the rest of them will eventually join up to become something bigger and hopefully more altruistic, and then we'll make some progress.

 

[Vurtual]

Felix: I guessed you knew about transhumanism, but i was suggesting maybe the transhumanist stuff could mean we don't actually need to physically go anywhere, and more, maybe the need to expand outwards for the sake of it is a property of a not-quite intelligent species - maybe when we work out how to live with each other and within our means fairly, we'll no longer feel the need to expand anywhere (except cerebrally) (that's to say nothing about exploration of course, which i'm sure we'll always do). The idea of humans colonising space which is so common in scifi is a bit worrying to me - it could be a reason why the putative 'space brothers' haven't paid a visit and shared their tech yet

I can certainly relate with the immortality stuff - i was impatient for the singularity and the upload in my younger days (and still am, though not if it's apple/microsoft) - as i've got older i sort of feel like there's already a sort of immortality anyway (not in a goddy way, but an hindu/einstein, all moments existing eternally as a big whole, sort of sense), so i'm not as bothered (and i never wanted immortality because of fear of death, but for exploration and wonder). I'd love to see some ai come to life before i cark it though (i'm of the school of thought that if you actually get true AI, it would automatically be benevolent (unless tortured into another state by humans))

 

[felix]

Felix: I guessed you knew about transhumanism, but i was suggesting maybe the transhumanist stuff could mean we don't actually need to physically go anywhere

Yep. Interesting point. At some stage we're gonna have to figure out whether it "counts" if we're just sending a bunch of binary signals into deep space, and whether those fabrications are even related to humanity. That's probably what'll happen though, and at this point my head explodes and we venture into unfathomable territory. :D

Oh my god, please just give me another few decades on this earth so I can maybe see what happens. %)

 

[BlindHelperMonkey]

yeah, i was gonna mention transhumanism and the elite's modern day quest for the elixir of youth through a somewhat disturbing manifestation of fusing man with machine, in a bid to download the soul into a suitable vessel to create an avatar of high technology, in essence, to fulfill a self belief in their intrinsic difference from the unwashed masses, or useless eaters as henry kissinger quite openly refers to the elderly as. (and for elderly read: anyone but the elite) in his book 'final days'. it sounds crazy but apparently its the big thing with all the billionaire ceo's nowadays. transhumanism, globalisation and population reduction are the big three hardon inducing subjects for them


total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” ~ted turner, audubon magazine interview

“the planetary regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.” obama’s Science czar john p. holdren, from a book he helped write ‘ecoscience




swell guys.

 

[maxalfie]

It's good to see you around BHM

 

[Vurtual]

yeah, i was gonna mention transhumanism and the elite's modern day quest for the elixir of youth through a somewhat disturbing manifestation of fusing man with machine, in a bid to download the soul into a suitable vessel to create an avatar of high technology, in essence, to fulfill a self belief in their intrinsic difference from the unwashed masses, or useless eaters as henry kissinger quite openly refers to the elderly as. (and for elderly read: anyone but the elite) in his book 'final days'. it sounds crazy but apparently its the big thing with all the billionaire ceo's nowadays. transhumanism, globalisation and population reduction are the big three hardon inducing subjects for them...

Well yes, but that story can be written in various ways - neoliberal style immortal elite or revolutionary-bottom up style code anarchism (the computing tends to favour the latter) - it's up to us how the story goes (the elite have got the power/wealth, but the little people have got the numbers - i'd say the relative strength of networking possible with the larger numbers will give decentralised models an advantage in the long run. (plus i think if we don't manage to get rid of the current top-down economic system and replace it with a sane one, there'll be no human future anyway)

I'm of the view that consciousness is consciousness, and it will recognise its own - if a computer is actually conscious in the way we are (ie with some sort of self-loop), that would automatically tend to produce empathy with other consciousnesses; or increased consciousness leads to increased understanding and universal understanding = universal love in hippy language. If that sort of consciousness is possible in a computer is another thing (i see no reason why not though - i don't think it'll be achieved by just increasing the power of the programming methods we use today though (except maybe obscure ones like cellular automata or genetic algorithms)