That's where so many conspiracy theories go off the track. To watch all these technicians and engineers day and night to keep them from spilling the beans requires a large army of agents who are in on the secret as well. At some point more people are "in" on the conspiracy than out.

The "compartmentalization" or "need to know scenario" is well covered at Clavius as well.


At the other end of the spectrum we consider the possibility that only a few top people at NASA knew of the conspiracy. And so all of the contractors and most of the folks working at NASA truly believed the lunar landing was a fact.

This has two advantages. First, it is well known that the probability of keeping a secret diminishes rapidly as the number of people who know the secret increases even slightly. So by keeping this number to an absolute minimum you'll reduce the number of people who can spill the beans. Second, the NASA employees and contractors will go to their graves staunchly asserting that NASA did what it said it did.
The big disadvantage is that the contractors now believe they must actually build the space hardware. Grumman must actually believe it is building a lunar lander, North American must actually build a command module, Boeing and others must actually believe they are building a moon-capable rocket. Integration teams from all these companies must make the products work together. Quality control officers from NASA must meticulously inspect the work.
These engineers are not dummies. The whole reason NASA hires them to build its spaceships is because they have the expertise to do it. And so when NASA tells Grumman to build a lunar lander, it knows that Grumman engineers are going to go out and discover for themselves just what problems are involved in landing on the moon, and then proceed to solve them. If NASA executives are bent on fooling everyone then they couldn't care less if Grumman succeeds. But Grumman would care. And the NASA quality control people would care. If Grumman falls short, Grumman will know it, and so will the NASA employees who inspect the work. In short, this scenario will produce equipment capable of going to the moon. But our cardinal premise is that NASA couldn't do it. So if the equipment worked, then what was to prevent NASA from actually performing a lunar landing? Remember, the most airtight scam is the one that's not really a scam. If they wanted people to believe they had landed a man on the moon, and they had the machinery to do it, the smart thing to do would be to actually accomplish the landing.

I see how you you are. You're trying to get me winded up again. :shifty:

Conspiracy nuts, hoaxers and atheist types (of any philosphy, concept or idea) just can not be reasoned with. There are no shortage of conspiracies.

A good example are the 9/11 truthers. Rosie O'Donnel, the emminent architectural engieer of fame that is co-host on The View - as if she's any sort of authority on anything but her fat ass - stated unequivocally that "fire can't melt steel." HOW is anybody going to reason with such an ignorant slut as that?

Then there are the HAARP, chemtrail or Flt 800 "shoot-down" conspiracies (to mention a few, and not ignoring any others). You're just not going to budge these individuals a fempto-meter.

Once I was witnessing - evangelism - to an individual. And they threw out questions as objections to having faith. What about this? What about that? Oh, and then there's this contradiction. Oh, yeah, well then there's that contradiction. After rebutting each and every one, it dawned on me, "You're not going to accept anything I have to say, are you?"

"Oh, no. I'll concede what you say is indeed compelling. And I've heard it all before; I just can't be convinced of any of it."

"Then, why are you wasting my time?"

"Oh, I just wanted hear what you had to say about it."

In another case, after a day of open air evangelism, I approached an individual sitting on a wall adjacent to the sidewalk. Our bus was parked a few feet away and the team was getting ready to leave. I approached the individual and inquired, "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

He replied, "I'm not here."

I knew exactly what he was getting on about; nothing more than New Age philosophy bhuddist existentialism. "Right." I replied.

"Neither am I." and immediately got on the bus and we left in short order.

According to the rules of logic, no belief is necessary in and of itself despite any arbitrary argument's conclusion reasonably following its premises, being valid and, indeed, outright sound. For inductive reasoning, belief does not necessarily follow a strong argument (despite it being cogent).

One must not necessarily believe anything. However, the converse is not true; one's belief must necessarily be predicated either deductively valid (and preferably sound), or inductively at least weak (and preferbaly strong); for the latter cogence is preferable.

While an unfounded belief is irrational (it could be indeed true), unbellef is existentially dependent upon how compelling an argument must be for it to become convincing.

Would the Frenchman hoaxhead be Krazy Frenchman?
The secret squirrel of the Ubisoft forums.:haha:

Those who tell lies usually possess an inordinate desire to protect the lies.:nope:

I'm sure Buzz Aldrin has been getting loads of laughs over the chuckleheads and their hoax mania.

There was a London street preacher that announced to his audience that every atheist was a fool because the Bible said so. A well known atheist in the crowd shouted back that was a slanderous insult, which he took personally, and he would sue the preacher for damages.

"Its not slander to tell the truth."

"And its not truth unless you can prove it! You'll have to go to court to prove I'm a fool, or I'll take every pound you've got!"

"I don't have to go to court to prove you're a fool," said the preacher calmly. "You say you're an atheist?"

"Yes, and not just a casual one. I've spent my whole life proving God doesn't exist. Its a pernicious myth!"

"You've spent your whole life proving God doesn't exist - through no small amount of effrort either I would speculate - , have you?" replied the preacher.

The well known atheist being involved in numerous lawsuits and lobbying for legislation was no stranger to the front pages of the newspaper, "YES!"

"Tell me this: if a man who spends his entire life fighting against something that doesn't exist isn't a fool, who is?"

Yes and I've pointed out to him about all the scientists and engineers outside the USA's sphere of influence who have confirmed the landings plus the lunar rocks and core samples as being real. Yet we are supposed to believe according to him that the CIA is large enough to keep everybody toeing the line? It doesn't matter. We all underestimate the CIA's abilities but of course it's not odd that he's not in any danger even though supposedly coming close to exposing the faked landings.

Anyway, I find it's pointless arguing with him. He seems to think he will eventually re-write the history books and be regarded as another Galileo such is the extent of his delusional behavior. I see he's getting closer to 400 videos posted about the subject yet the amount of views of all of them is just a fraction of SG Collins video. I was once worried that these pro-hoax nuts were gaining ground but I think I've been over-estimating them by a fair bit.

Succinctly put; such is the preemminent premise to a compelling argument in favor of the credibility and integrity of the account of the Apollo program.

The scope of the Apollo project is stupifying to contemplate. The effort was a national one and of epic proportions. The only thing that could be equivalent in contemporary times would be a manned Mars landing. I am, however, extremely skeptical that neither any nation could repeat such endeavor in today's socio/economic climate, nor is it conceivable it can be accomplished collectively on a global scale. Neither would be possible without some extreme transcending will on par with The Cold War struggle (which the Apollo program was an outgrowth of).

One only needs to peruse the collossal and incomprehensible mound of technical documentation that exists pertaining to all the aspects of the Apollo program. The interdependant disciplines necessary for all the various components necessary to be designed, manufactured and then assembled into a whole to function as a system is staggering; the Manhattan Project pales in comparison. How long did that remain a secret until the commies could build their own?

And the spin-offs into contemporary commercial technology is just as mind-boggling. In fact, its that argument in and of itself that is the most compelling reason to commit the economic resources on a global scale necessary for a manned Mars mission. The financial returns on such investment - albeit initially nearly astronomical - would be likewise of similiar magnitude (if not orders greater). Imagine all the thus far unknown technology and scientific breakthroughs that would get patented and then incorporated into consumer products; every aspect of life as we know it would be altered.

Just the water recycling sub-system of a Mars mission would be a transcending development. And the list of such technological breakthroughs necessary is endless.

Sorry. I couldn't resist.:D

Yes, I was reading about how they are trying to come up with a different way of feeding anybody on a Mars trip as the usual freeze-dried fare is not practical due to how limited water usage will be.

I agree with your assessment of the guy. Let the conspiracist have his fantasy. Pathetic as it is, it's likely all the claim to fame he has or will ever have.

The blind stubbornness of most conspiracy theorists does remind me of the joke about proponents of the alternate JFK assassination theories. When two of them find themselves in heaven before God, they ask him "who really killed JFK?" God soberly replies," Lee Harvey Oswald did."

One conspiracy theorists turns to the other and says. "Geez, even God is in on it. The cover-up is bigger than we thought." :03:

• This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh; people who boast of their ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
• The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
• Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely the are to think so.
• Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills.
• “In my early days it was an article of faith among a self-styled ‘intellectual elite’ that they could teach calculus to a horse…if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were right..if ‘starting early enough’ is defined as a million years or more.”

Source: The Notes of Lazarus Long (Time Enough For Love)

Reasoning with conspiratists is akin to trying to teach a dog algebra.

With the special effects technology we have these days, we could conceivably put on a mission to mars photoplay that would rival Orson Well's panic producing radio play and actually make people believe it happened.
The hoax sayers would have a joygasm.
I'm surprised the hoaxnauts haven't blamed the belief in an actual moon landing on theCIA's MK Ultra experiments.:hmmm: Both projects did start around the same time period.:ping:

That is the nice thing about conspiracies, both back then and today. All one has to do is make the claim and any contrary evidence is only further "evidence" of the conspiracy.

The more evidence that refutes the conspiracy, the more people believe the conspiracy.

Due to human nature, we expect someone to disprove a conspiracy that we happen to agree with, instead of first trying to prove it.

Anyone that tells you that a conspiracy is false, is part of the conspiracy. After all, only a select few "know" the "truth". :doh:

Nice choice of language.

Keep in mind this is a forum aimed at all age groups.

My bad. The oblique reference to a well known line of a long running Saturday Night Live sketch may not be so well known to an international audience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend_Update

SNL's version of "Point/Counterpoint" featured Curtin and Aykroyd making ad hominem attacks on each other's positions on a variety of topics. Aykroyd regularly began his reply with "Jane, you [expetive deleted]", which became another of the many SNL catch phrases (Curtin frequently began her reply with "Dan, you pompous [explitive deleted]").

But you're right, I should've gone all Emily Litella on O'Donnel regarding her 9/11 truther drivel and based on her stupid support of the Eagle Right's Ammendment, no wonder she thinks that way.

The one thing the conspiracy people had never explained is, if man was never on the moon how is it people, many people, have been able to bounce lazers off the reflectors left there by the men who were there.

see: Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment

They'd say that they were put there by robotic landers.

Like they were around in 1969. I guess if you will believe that, you believe anything. Wonder if they could explain just how that would work?

Now you have robots that not only can land, set up a communications relay station but can also plant and aim an entire array of reflectors? Seems to me that in the 1969 sending a human up there to do all that would actually be easier than designing a machine to do it.

Surveyor 3:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...adSurveyor.jpg

It not only managed an unmanned landing on the moon, but it did it in 1967, and made a pinpoint landing not far from Apollo 12's landing site. Such precision could only be the result of alien technology.


That's why they faked the whole landing. They needed to come up with something to hide the fact that they were using very sophisticated robots, so they made up the completely unbelievable "men on the moon" thing. All the footage from the missions was real, they simply covered up the fact that Armstrong, Aldrin, and the rest were androids.