re: McElroy showing off his Bama education

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Only the US, Russia (1966), and China (2000) have landed a vehicle on the moon and returned it to Earth. Only the U.S. has landed humans.

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Ok, so it has been done several times, one of which was 3 years before we did a manned landing and return. So, why is it to hard to believe?

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If that is true, that humans only add a little weight, then why have China and Russian not done it?

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What would they gain except for "pride"? It's expensive and many countries, including the US have ignored the moon for a long time. (Ignored as a whole) We pretty much gained any unknown information with our manned missions. Remember, we have done it six times. I mean what would we have to gain by lying about it? Pride? "We won the race!"? I guess, but it sure would be an expensive way to get bragging rights.

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And the ability to waive it in the face of the U.S. that they can do it too.

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Your argument is that they would have the right to say, "We did it too after you did it!"? Not sure there would be a whole lot of pride left in that.

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If it really is as simple as adding a little weight, then why haven’t Russia and China done it?

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Look. We already had landed and returned and have done it numerous times. People had gone into space many times before that, so it's not like there would need to be food, oxygen, payload.....tell me the difference in landing and returning and landing and returning with people on board. Other than danger, which would be present with manned or unmanned missions.

You're the one that made the argument that it could be a pride thing if Russia or China went up. How about an embarrassment angle if they went up and could not return after we had done it successfully? (Mind you, I don't think pride has anything to do with it once we or Russia had landed a manned mission. The pride angle was won and ended with the landing. Once we have had several manned missions, collected samples and returned what is there to be gained to keep going back?

I just don't think "Why hasn't China or Russia done it?" is a valid argument for saying we haven't done it.

Just for clarification. We claim to have done it six times. Do you think we lied about all six times?

Apollo 11
Apollo 12
Apollo 14
Apollo 15
Apollo 16
Apollo 17
were all claimed to be manned landings and returns. Your belief is that all were hoaxes? Or, you at least have doubts?

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But, we have landed vehicles and remote rovers on Mars too. That doesn’t prove we have landed a man on Mars.

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So you do think we lied about 6 manned missions on the moon.

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But all the proof that we actually walked on the moon and returned originated directly from NASA.

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Where else could it possibly come from?

I mean using your logic how do we know Russia and/or China landed anything on the moon? All the information we have saying that they brought moon rocks back comes from them, right?

Hey. You can believe what you want to believe. That's ok. All I am saying is if you can have unmanned missions land on the moon and return, it just seems reasonable that you could do manned missions. I just don't think that the US could lie about sending 6 manned missions to the moon and return and somebody (besides conspiracy theorists) not expose it as a hoax.

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Well, you have not answered why the former head of the Russian space program publicly and repeatedly said he does not believe it. He has stated he has not seen proof that Americans walked on the moon, despite searching for the proof. Why do you think this is?

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He has an opinion, just like you. He's saying several of the same things you're saying. More on him below.

It's interesting to me that the Soviets never formerly denied our 6 manned moon landings, despite being one of the most powerful superpowers at the time.

I'd be shocked if KGB agents hadn't infiltrated our own space program.

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And you haven’t answered why Russia, despite beating us to the moon - in 1959 with a crash landing unmanned vehicle- and putting a man into space before us - Yuri Gagarin in 1961 - and safely landing a vehicle on the moon before us - Luna 9 in 1966- just decided not to put a man on the moon.

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They had insufficient funding and political infighting whereas the US generally united behind beating the Soviets to the Moon, after Kennedy's challenge.

There's also the failure of the N1 rocket and the death of Korolev. They fell behind in the race to the Moon and could never catch up.

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Many that question the moon landing question the timing of it.

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The entire space race timeline is enough to raise some eyebrows

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That's just opinion though, it doesn't really mean much.

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Combined with those who say it didn’t happen - both Russians and Americans who were involved in their space programs, it certainly could lead someone to ask questions.

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Who, that was actually around at the time and has firsthand knowledge, denies it happened?

Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian that you keep pointing to as some type of "authority", is more of a far Right military figure and politician, than a scientist, and was like 5 years old when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon. He was also dismissed from his position and was known to be a loose cannon.

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People that worked inside the Apollo program and people in the Russian space program

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Who are these people?

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Again, I don’t think we are arguing whether we have landed on the moon. We have. As those pictures prove, there is junk and rover tracks on the moon.

But, we have landed vehicles and remote rovers on Mars too. That doesn’t prove we have landed a man on Mars.

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My guy, if you'll read my post again I said to pay careful attention to the SELENE evidence, which showed that the terrain in a photo sent back from the moon in 1971 turned out to be a very close match to the actual terrain as mapped by the SELENE mission in 2008 despite that information not being available at the time. A photo sent back from the moon in 1971 that shows an astronaut walking on the Lunar surface.

But honestly, I could take you to the moon and show you the landers and the flags and the footprints, and you would tell me that NASA could have put all that stuff there remotely to trick people who came to the sites years later. You claim to be "keeping an open mind" while at the same time refusing to accept that the evidence clearly shows that people have indeed walked on the moon. You aren't being open-minded, you're being contrarian. They are not the same thing even though most contrarians claim that they are.

Remember, this not a case where the US is claiming to have done something simple, easy to fake and difficult to disprove, nor is it a claim that other countries are unlikely to challenge. This is a case where the US is claiming to have done arguably the most incredible thing in the entire history of humanity. To fake this would involve not only sending manned missions to the vicinity of the moon, but depositing landers on the moon, conducting all of the scientific experiments that the astronauts were going to claim to have conducted, gathering moon rocks and other data points, leaving tracks and reflectors and all the other detritus to make it look like people had been on the surface, and then building a soundstage and filming the entire fake surface excursions - excursions which were hours and hours in length - in a way that would seem like a completely believable simulation of the moon's gravity, so believable in fact that despite being in a highly-charged war for national prestige with the Soviet Union, the Soviets would not only not challenge that the landings had occurred but would shut down their own manned lunar program in response. Think about the effort, expense, and risk required to do all of that. It would be simpler to put actual men on the moon than to try and pull all of that off, and they did it not once, but six fricking times.

Oh good Lord. PLEASE scroll to the top of this page and read my post again. The evidence is right there. It's right in front of you.

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Bill Kaysing, a former Navy officer and a technical writer for Rocketdyne, who manufactured the engines for the Saturn rocket, is the one who originally made the claims.

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Here's a direct quote from Bill Kaysing:

"The astronauts were launched with the Saturn V. Then, in order to account for their disappearance, they simply orbited the Earth for eight days and in the interim they showed these fake pictures of the astronauts on the Moon. But on the eighth day the command console separated from the vehicle and descended to Earth as, of course, was shown in the films."


Now, you tell me: could the Soviets not have absolutely known if, instead of going to the moon, the Apollo missions launched and then just orbited the Earth for a few days?

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You have to be entirely braindead if you think the moon landing was real at this point. Just because something is on TV does not make it real.

And another thing: If someone from the government or the media are moving their lips they are LYING, 100% of the time.

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This is the type of well thought out, fact driven argument I come to tRant for.

It's also worth pointing out that Kaysing left Rocketdyne 6 years prior to Apollo 11, and based his opinions on "hunches" and "feelings".

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Even before July 1969, he had "a hunch, an intuition, ... a true conviction" and decided that he did not believe that anyone was going to the Moon.

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Kaysing also claimed that NASA staged both the Apollo 1 fire and the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, deliberately murdering the astronauts on board, suggesting that NASA might have learned that these astronauts were about to expose the conspiracy and needed to guarantee their silence.

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