While ISS astronauts do a spacewalk this Christmas eve, I thought that this would be the best tribute I could make for them, and for all of my readers, contributors, and moderators.
Audio and some stunning new video follow.
![480px-NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/480px-nasa-apollo8-dec24-earthrise1.jpg?resize=480%2C480)
They recited:
Bill Anders
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.'”
Jim Lovell
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Frank Borman
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.’
And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
Here is the historic audio clip of the text above:
That happened 45 years ago today, when the Apollo 8 astronauts suddenly noticed the Earth “rising” over the lunar horizon. Despite all of the planning for the mission, this event was a complete surprise, and they scrambled to load color film and get cameras ready.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has created a marvelous recreation of the event, using 3D modeling, original audio from the onboard recorder, and the actual photographs of the moment on December 24, 1968, when the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission orbiting the moon were unexpectedly confronted with an “Earthrise” and worked together to snap some of the most viewed photography in history. This is an excerpt from the full public-domain video, narrated by the Apollo mission historian Andy Chaikin:
The full visualization is here.
In 2007, an HD camera aboard Japan’s Kaguya satellite videotaped earth ‘rising’ and ‘setting.’ Set to music by Peter Rundquist, the images bring home the lonely, extraordinary nature of this “pale blue dot.”
h/t to Andrew Revkin for that video
different explorers, but this is just breaking:
25 Dec: AAP: Sydney Morning Herald: Antarctic tourist ship trapped by sea ice
Australian explorers are stranded near Antarctica after their ship became wedged in thick sheets of sea ice.
The Spirit of Mawson voyage, which includes scientists, explorers and tourists, is trapped in Antarctic ice floes and awaiting rescue.
But with the nearest ship with ice-breaking abilities at least two days away, the crew will spend Christmas and Boxing Day stuck about 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
The ship had been on a multi-day tour from New Zealand to visit several sites along the edge of Antarctica…
It is not known how long the ship has been unable to break free from the ice floes…
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority received a distress call on Christmas morning, notifying the rescue co-ordination centre that the ship was trapped in ice and would need help…
http://www.smh.com.au/national/antarctic-tourist-ship-trapped-by-sea-ice-20131225-2zwjr.html
I fully expected to be an Asteroid Miner when I grew up. I find it hard to understand why we gave up a new world(s). Imagine Columbus coming back with evidence of a new world……and Isabella saying it wasn’t more important than giving more tapas away to the peasants on Christmas. Thank God for the Chinese.
“Because of the Moon’s synchronous rotation about the Earth (i.e., the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth), no Earthrise can be observed by a stationary observer on the surface of the Moon.” Quoted from article
This is one wonderful insane world because when people can force themselves to believe the moon spins when clearly it doesn’t then forget interpreting climate !.
Not only can it be clearly seen that the moon doesn’t spin as it orbits the Earth,it can also be clearly seen where this intellectual aberration comes from – a misreading of Kepler’s Somnium by Sir Isaac where Kepler is awkward in his phrasing of the moon’s orbital motion –
http://books.google.ie/books?id=OdCJAS0eQ64C&pg=PA80&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
“The Sun and the Earth rotate on their own axes…The purpose of this motion is to confer motion on the planets located around them;on the six primary planets in the case of the Sun,and on the moon in the case of the Earth.On the other hand the moon does not rotate on the axis of its own body,as its spots prove ” Kepler
For goodness sake give the world a magnificent Christmas present this year and deal decisively with this issue because if you can’t get rid of the mindnumbing idea that the moon spins as it orbits the Earth then what can be said of getting rid of the notion that humans can control the Earth’s temperature.
Thank you – a wonderful clip to wake up and find on Christmas morning.
And thanks to everyone who worked to make it, especially the guys in the tin can for their input.
Thanks for the memories Anthony. I watched that live as a kid and just now shared it with my two boys. All the very best for you and all you family.
“Because of the Moon’s synchronous rotation about the Earth (i.e., the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth), no Earthrise can be observed by a stationary observer on the surface of the Moon.”
Not true. Due to libration, there is a considerable amount of lunar real estate (on or near the boundary between the mean near and far side hemispheres) from which a stationary observer could observe Earthrise/Earthset.
Given the state of manned space exploration today, I’m grateful I’m just old enough to remember the Apollo program (and parts of Gemini).
Gerald Kelleher:
The moon does, in fact, spin as it orbits the Earth. It just happens to spin at the same speed as its orbit (and by “just happens to” I don’t mean it’s a random thing). The phrases “synchronous rotation” and “tidal lock” are interchangeable.
But we all know what you meant 🙂
Merry Christmas to all!
They should have read it in the original Hebrew to avoid translation errors.
Fantastic posting Anthony, I remember it well (I was 13 at the time!). Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas to Anthony, the Mods and all the regular contributors who make this the go to site for so many people.
And someone complained about it, so when the Apollo 11 crew held a communion service after the first moon walk it was not broadcast so as not to “offend”.
Will be off with my wife soon to do the same but in our church.
God bless you all from a wet and wind swept Blighty
James Bull
What a coincidence. Just yesterday I was looking at WW2 and Omaha beach. At the bottom of the page I was linked to Iconic Photos from the 1960s by a news outlet. The landing page had nothing to do with Earth Rise photo. 4 or 5 photos later I came onto Earth Rise. Just sharing.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/iconic-photos-1960s/4
I heard that broadcast on the Dutch radio reporting on the mission (in real time). The comment of the reporter was something like “that was the best Christmas message I have ever heard”.
Curiously, the radio station almost immediately received complaints from some ultra religious people who thought that the use of Genisis was “inappropriate”, bordering in the sacriligous.
The comments of that same reporter (later in the program) on these complaints: “they are about the worst listeners I’ve ever heard of”.
Merry Xmas Anthony and all your helpers and families.
Nadolig Llawen from South Wales.
CodeTech says:
December 25, 2013 at 1:47 am
Gerald Kelleher:
The moon does, in fact, spin as it orbits the Earth. It just happens to spin at the same speed as its orbit (and by “just happens to” I don’t mean it’s a random thing). The phrases “synchronous rotation” and “tidal lock” are interchangeable.
But we all know what you meant 🙂
Merry Christmas to all!
# Garethman. The mon does not actually spin or rotate on it’s own axis, it’s can’t if it keeps the same face to the earth. Imagine a small ball orbiting around a larger ball. Now connect the two with a piece of string. The small ball can still orbit the large ball, but it cannot rotator spin otherwise it would wind the string up. ( I know the earth could theoretically wind the string up due to it’s rotation, but this is related to the moon) Essentially the string is tidal and gravitational forces. So the answer is, the moon orbits, but it does not rotate or spin on it’s axis in the same way as the earth any more than the outer edge of an LP can rotate independently of the centre. Nadoleg LLawen i Pawb! Merry Christmas to all!
Those astronauts were like little kids, weren’t they? Flapping around panicking trying to get the shot, and then Anders just laconically remarks, “it’ll come up again, I think.”
I loved the reading. It was heartfelt, and you could tell how in awe the crew were at their surroundings, and the only way to express it was through God.
The series From the Earth to the Moon captures that beautifully, too.
Nice, Anthony – Thank you, and Merry Christmas to all!
May you and yours enjoy the holidays, Anthony…and all who visit here at WUWT.
Cheers!
A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Anthony, the mods, and all the contributors to this great site.
CodeTech
If you really want to get a sense of how the guys who believe humans have control of the planet’s temperature via fossil fuels then check how you feel about this issue where people force themselves to believe the moon spins when clearly it doesn’t as it orbits the Earth.The first great observational report on the moon using a telescope is,of course,Galileo’s ‘Starry Messenger’ where he discusses the moon’s orbital motion at length and how it appears to us –
http://archive.org/stream/siderealmessenge80gali#page/16/mode/2up
Be mindful that he also discuss what happens when men get ridiculous notions in their heads even when common sense should intervene –
” I have heard such things put forth as I should blush to repeat–not so much to avoid discrediting their authors (whose names could always be withheld) as to refrain from detracting so greatly from the honor of the human race. In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion In their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire
confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive withdisdain or with hot rage–if indeed it does not make them ill. ”
Galileo
Common logic determines that if the moon turned a half a turn for each orbital circuit of the Earth we would see all sides over a 2 month period while if it turned twice a circuit we would see all sides twice over one lunar monthly circuit.
Libration is a lunar orbital trait so at the extreme edges of the same side of the moon we constantly see,the Earth would rise and set on the same horizon and not cross the sky as a rotating Earth does so no,this misuse of libration to force through the idea of rotation is a symptom of a troubled mind,nothing more or less. The gift this Christmas is to at least get rid of that late 17th century nonsense and be seen to do it,maybe then there will be a chance to correct a lot of other material including climate topics.
Gerald, isn’t it magnificent that Dorian provided you an example immediately following your comment.
Here is a question for all to consider….
Why are there no photos of the Earth from the Moon surface?
You’d think after thousands of years of looking at the Moon from the Earth, that when finally Man stands on the surface of the Moon the first thing any astronaunt would do, is take a photo of Mother Earth…no?
That photo you show above is only from an automated probe going to the Moon. Where are the photos of the Earth from the Moon?
Afterall, from the surface of the Moon, the Earth would look about four times larger as that of the Moon seen on the Earth. It would be very spectacular, considering there would also be no atmosphere too, just black sky. And much of the time the Sun would be in opposition, that is, the Earth would be between the Moon and the Sun, it would make it perfectly large, clear and beautiful.
BUT NO. THERE ARE NO PHOTOS OF THE EARTH FROM THE LUNAR SURFACE.
WHY?
Oh…before you point out that single ridiculous photo of the Earth in the back drop of the lunar lander (the only supposedly photo of the Earth), take a very close look at where the Earth is, the Moon does not rotate on its axis with respect to the Earth, thus it is always facing the same way, that photo shows the Earth as if it rising, and that can not be, the Earth must be straight up. Use common sense. The Earth can never rise or set on the Moon.
So where are the photos? After the greatest adventure of Mankind, it seems EVERY SINGLE ASTRONAUNT forgot to take a photo of the Earth FROM THE MOON’S LUNAR SURFACE.
Now isn’t that interesting.
Can I wish everyone a Happy Xmas and hope you all have a wonderful New Year.
This is a special Christmas for me. My wife of 47+ years died a couple of weeks ago. For 18 months she suffered a long painful struggle with cancer. It was a horrible, messy, undignified fight and death with infinite pain and agony. There was nothing peaceful and about it and I took care of her to the end when she died in our bed under home hospice with me giving her morphine every couple of hours for ten days without sleep. Now our 48th Christmas is with her ashes in an urn on the fireplace mantle.
My spirit is like the chaos before the Creation and it feels like my essence is leaking out of my very pores. Yet, the birth of the Christ Child is like the first light that touches me and I feel tendrils of structure starting to reform within me. I remember decades of worship with her beside me and her joy and laughter over the years. It took Christmas morning that started before dawn for me to start to feel again and I had to share with someone. Merry Christmas.
С Рождеством Христовым!
メリークリスマス
The Moon rotates or not depending on the chosen frame of reference.
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:21 am “So where are the photos? After the greatest adventure of Mankind, it seems EVERY SINGLE ASTRONAUNT forgot to take a photo of the Earth FROM THE MOON’S LUNAR SURFACE.”
==
NASA has many interesting photos online. One of Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt with the earth in the background can be seen at http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-001137.jpg
To ilearnedthatinhighschool.
That’s all? After the greatest adventure Man has ever done…that’s all!
Where are the photos, the videos. Where are they?
Just a thought, why is the Earth so small? The Moon from Earth is larger. Hmm, I ask for photos and now videos…and all I get is a blurry peep hole.
I stand by my question….where are the MANY photos and videos that should have been taken by every single astronaunt that put a foot on the Moon, of the Earth? Where are they?
The Earth should be high in Lunar sky, bright big, and beautiful. After all, the Earth is nearly x4 bigger than the Moon. Where are the photos and videos of the greatest event in the history of Mankind!
I truly would like to see them! For there are no where to be found….NOWHERE!
WHY?
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 5:16 am
You seem to be suggesting that we never went to the Moon, that it was all staged on a back lot set somewhere in the U.S. Perhaps you should stop the confirmation bias, do more research and you will find out how silly you sound.
Just another thought ….
If I were an astronaunt and I went to the moon, I would have done something of the following, like people all around the world do with the Moon here on Earth, here is an example:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211322/Thats-giant-leap-mankind-Cleverly-posed-photos-man-jumping-moon-holding–slam-dunking-it.html
Why are there no photos or videos like these? It seems every single astronaunt missed the fabulous Earth photo opportunity. The greatest event in history, and no single American astronaunt took a photo, or video.
Where are the photos or videos of the Earth from the lunar surface? Show us the photos and videos NASA! Lets see our Mother Earth in its full glory!
Where are the photos and videos? Its a simple question. Enough with the thousands of boring photos of the Moon surface. How about the ONE GREAT PICTURE that is the reason why Man went to Moon for! To see the EARTH from the Moon’s surface! Where is it! This should be greatest photo or video ever done. But what do some of you show me, something you can’t even see properly. From the Earth I can see the characteristics of the Moon, the Sea of Tranquility and so on. From the Moon I should definitely be able to see the continents, after all, the Earth is 4x BIGGER.
Use common sense.
Where are the photos of the Earth from the lunar surface? Its a simple question. Stick to the facts, stick to common sense, stick to the science. I just want to see the photos and video, where are they?
Why do they not exist? At least they do not exist in the public domain. What’s the big secret NASA? All I want is to see some photos of OUR REAL Earth, with all its amazing continents, weather patterns, looking larger than life (approximately 4x’s bigger than what we see the beautiful Moon from Earth), from the Moon’s surface.
Where are all the photos and videos? Where?
To Anthony, Willis, Bob , Justthefacts and all of the other moderators and readers of the blog: Bless you all and have a wonderful Christmas!
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:21 am
> So where are the photos?
I would like to rip in to you for posting claims like this with no attempt whatsoever to try to understand it. However, it is Christmas, my family exchanged gifts yesterday so I have some time now, and I assume you don’t know much about photography or trigonometry. It’s an easy enough analysis, and I’ll skip the spherical trig stuff I don’t understand all that well and would take longer than I care to work through. Actually, a couple extra steps with plane trig would probably work. Feel free to ask someone to use a GPS receiver do some of the calculations or look for a Web converter that could be used.
The Apollo landing sites are at http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/landsites.htm and a map is linked from that page. Lunar lat/long 0°N/0°E is the lunar point that, on average, has the Earth at the zenith, the straight up point. Here are the coordinates:
Note three landings were close to the equator and one was close to the prime meridian, let’s “relocate” them to be on those lines and the trig is trivial. Apollo 14 (I saw its launch) landed closest to the “sub-Terran” 0/0 point. From the landing site, the Earth’s elevation would be 90° – 17° = 73°. To get Earth and Moon into the same frame you’d need either a fisheye lens or be looking straight up. I bet the astronauts never saw the Earth from outside the LEM and maybe not from inside it.
The landing furthest way was Apollo 17. From measuring on the map, it looks like that’s some 35° away from the sub-Terran point, so the Earth was 55° above the horizon. They ought to have been able to see the Earth, and that photo ilearnedthatinhighschool refs pretty much proves they could both see it and photograph it. Remember the cameras were attached to the space suits, I don’t think they could see a view finder. (One of the very best things NASA did was train astronauts in photographing the missions, I read an account somewhere about the person who spearheaded that, he’s an unsung hero, one of many.)
I don’t know what the field of view was for the cameras the astronauts had, I suspect it was less that 55° and even if it was greater it would be tough to get Earth and Moon in the same frame.
The answer is three parts:
1) The astronauts could take great, historic photos of Earth and Moon from orbit with long focal length lenses. And did.
2) The astronauts on the surface had little or no chance of capturing both from the surface.
3) The cameras on the surface likely did not have a zoom lens, so the best they could do with an image of the Earth is what Gene Cernan captured.
ilearnedthatinhighschool: thanks for that photo, I don’t think I ever saw that.
The Earth rises and sets, on a 28 (earth day) schedule….
Thanks for the memories… Merry Christmas…
BTW..Duck Dynasty also has high record high TV ratings…
Merry Christmas to all.
Merry Christmas to Anthony and family, to all the dedicated moderators, and to everyone who makes this such a terrific website. If you don’t celebrate Christmas–I hope you have a wonderful day, and thank you for all your contributions.
The mon does not actually spin or rotate on it’s own axis
============
then how can it have an axis? the axis is defined by rotation. It does not exist otherwise.
Rotation period
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The rotation period of an astronomical object is the time that it takes to complete one revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the background stars.
Ric, the Earth appears in some shots from Apollo 11 on the Moon’s surface:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/catalog/70mm/magazine/?40
And as you suggested, there are shots from Apollo 17:
http://www.mcmahanphoto.com/prco-space-apollo17.html
In both cases (I didn’t look for others) the Earth does appear quite small. My guess is that they were using a wide-angle lens on their Hasselblad camera to avoid tight focusing and limited depth of field. That might make the distant Earth appear smaller. As you say, the most widely-publicized photos of the Earth from the Moon were taken in orbit, where there was more camera flexibility.
I’m speculating; perhaps someone with expertise on the subject can chime in.
* * *
Anthony, many thanks for posting this wonderful recollection of the Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast. FYI, Robert Zimmerman has written a book on the voyage and that event: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 : the First Manned Flight to Another World, available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Apollo-Manned-Flight-Another/dp/1439502307
Merry Christmas!
/Mr Lynn
Ric Werme says:
December 25, 2013 at 6:06 am
Ric, thank you for taking the time this morning to post your reply to Dorian. As an aside my daughter lives in Sweden (married to a very nice man for 3 years) and studies Immigration, Migration and Language History. She comes in contact with many younger people who do not believe man ever went to the moon. She has found it futile to even try to discuss the reality as those who take this position grasp at “common sense” to back their claims. None of these people, and I suspect Dorian is like them, have a clue to the limited technology back then, limited as compared to today’s world. They also don’t realize that mission time on the surface of the Moon was limited and tightly controlled so as to get as much scientific data about the Moon as possible. It was not a sightseeing vacation trip. For those of us who lived it, it was an astonishing time and I am forever grateful that the educators in my home town of Hamden, Connecticut who had the foresight to allow us to watch every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launch live during school hours. It truly was history in the making.
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 5:40 am
I should leave well enough alone, but I’ll weigh in here too.
No, you would not. The main reason is that all of those photos show the Moon within a couple degrees of the horizon. (The Moon is about half a degree in diameter, so it’s a convenient yardstick.) The lowest the Earth was from the Moon was 55° so nothing like these would have been possible from the Moon.
Secondly, most, maybe all, of these photos are collages. The only time the Moon is visible near the horizon is when it’s full, and at dusk with the Sun behind the viewer. (The new Moon is visible fairly close to the horizon, but it has to be a couple days old or it’s lost in the glare of the nearby Sun.)
For example, in the first photo the Sun must be off to the right but not by much. Completely bogus. Ditto the fourth.
In the third photo, the Moon is covering part of the boy’s arm. Completely bogus and very lame editing.
In the last two, the person is standing in the same position, look at the plants around him. I’m certain the photos were taken at the same time for later editing. Completely bogus.
I haven’t taken the time to see if the orientation of Moon is possible, there’s little to be gained be that.
I am utterly flabbergasted that you are incredulous that similar photos were not taken from the Moon but are so accepting of photos that are obvious fakes.
relative to the background stars
============
question. If motion is relative, then why do we experience rotation relative to the background stars? Doesn’t this imply there is an absolute frame of reference?
Otherwise, if motion is relative, then a spinning top should be equivalent to a stationary top with the universe in motion, spinning around it. But it isn’t. The spinning top resists anything that tries to tip it over, while the stationary top does not.
ferdberple says:
December 25, 2013 at 6:11 am
It’s all in the frame of reference.
A pedant could claim that the axis the Moon revolves around is the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system.
In any inertial frame of reference, the the Moon does rotate. Period.
Dorian, the object of interest was the moon not the Earth. We didn’t send tourists up there in Hawaiian print shirts with Kodak cameras hanging around their necks. They had scheduled work to do and very little time to do it in. Geesh. Thank heavens we didn’t send you. You wouldn’t have gotten anything done. I’ll bet your teachers were constantly complaining about your lack of attention in school.
That generation strove to put a man on the moon…
This generation strives to put men on welfare.
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 5:40 am
Where are the photos or videos of the Earth from the lunar surface?
================
You are forgetting that from the moon, there is no “earth-rise”. From the moon the earth remains fixed in the sky. None of the manned landing sites would have brought the earth close to the lunar horizon. You would need something like a birds-eye camera to make the shot.
What we need are leaders like Kennedy that heralded a noble cause inspiring men to achieve a monumental task like reaching the moon and direct a charge to create a clean safe energy source like fusion. My Christmas wish. Merry Christmas everyone.
To Dorian Sabaz
In the above comments please read Gerald Kelleher’s quote from Galileo.
THE great moon hoax, the technology did not exist in 1969 to fake it…
Ric Werme says:
December 25, 2013 at 6:53 am
In any inertial frame of reference, the the Moon does rotate. Period.
================
The question of the inertial frame is an interesting one. Consider two situations. The moon is rotating relative to the background stars. The moon is not rotating relative to the background stars.
Now consider both moons in an inertia frame. They should be identical, but they are not. On the second moon, an object will weight the same regardless of where on the surface you measure its weight. However, on the first moon the same object will weigh different amounts, depending upon where you are on the surface, due to the rotation of the moon with respect to the background stars. Objects near the equator will weigh slightly less that objects at the poles.
Thus, because one can establish ones location on the first moon and not on the second, irrespective of the inertial frame, the first moon has an axis, while the second does not.
This is my last comment, I can see this will deteriorate into something stupid.
I only want to see some photos and videos, nothing else. For many years I wanted to see these photos and videos and they have never been published. So I ask, why not?
But, aside for the moment, I do have an other interesting thread of thought. I have been reading this blog for some years and even commented from time to time. But what seems very peculiar and disturbing to me is how, the general concenus here on this blog space can so easily unite and charge the Global Warming Crowd of improprietary and mal-science, when they can’t even question their own beliefs. As has already begun with “Tom in Florida”, perniciousness has so myopically begun, as soon as somebody heralds a thought that you instantly without thought, consider blasphemy.
I asked a simple question, and now the poison will flow. Americans indeed seem famous for this, I am sorry to say.
Whether or not I believe in the Moon landings is immaterial. I asked a question, and the perniciousness begins. Are we not men of science that should always question and enquire? Or do we, who wish to learn and understand, must follow the priests of ignorance, just because they know how to spell the word “silly”, but do not know what it means or how to use it grammatically or semantically correctly in a sentance?
All I ask, is why? As for reasons and answers, I will have to wait for sounder and calmer minds and those less driven with histrionics to provide the answers. Something that this blog is in greater thereof need.
This is what I do not understand, to those of you with sane and inquisitive minds, might find these following questions of interest, to the Tom’s in Florida, I recommend you and take a jump in the Atlantic ocean and temper your histrionics and impudence.
Why I want these photos and videos:
– For many thousands of years Man has watched the Moon, and questioned its purpose and existential being. We have watch the Moon from Earth, so the obvious question has been what would it be like to watch the Earth from the Moon? Like a man living on the plains and looking up at the peak of a mountain (like Hillary looking at Evererst), what view, what wonders of wonders, whould a man see from that peak, or …that Moon! Surely all of Humanity has asked that question. And so I asked it, and what did I get? ….As as if Hillary from Mount Everst, said he saw a blurry mole-hill on the landscape below. I do not believe this…it can not be, why not? Read on….
– The Moon does not rotate on its axis with respect to the Earth. We see the same face of the Moon all the time. But this is not the case of the Earth with respect from the Moon. The Earth would rotate and from the Moon, you would see this rotation…what a wonder that would be! As the probes to Saturn and its moons showed to see how a planet or satellite orbits was a great wonder. But here we are, Man goes to the Moon, no photos or videos of the Earth rotating, which would be so clear to see, since it is FOUR times bigger than the Moon from Earth. Nothing….incredible.
– And think about this one, if you are all serious scientists. What scientist, what adventurer, what explorer, risking their lives, would go thousands of miles to a lonely desolate place where no man has ever gone, and then only comment about the Moon and give some poor commentary about the Earth. Not one astronaunt EVER commented how incredible it is to see the continents from the Moon. No commentary on how the Earth rotates and you see Europe, then Asia, then the Americas. Ah but these comments you hear every single time when astronaunts go up into space and orbit the Earth, or they stay in the space stations. This kind of commentary never ends. And yet on the Moon…. NOTHING. And don’t tell me that the Earth is too far! The Earth is 4x larger than the Moon is from what see from Earth. The greatest spectacle Man has very seen and not a single word about it. Why?
I don’t understand, so I ask questions. Are we scientists, or priests protecting religions. To “Tom in Florida”, I pity you, and all those that follow those who choose the path of ignorance and perniciouness.
I ask simple questions. I’ll let the real men of science to ponder them, the rest of you, like the ‘Tom’s in Florida’ and the Global Warming Community to take a dip in the Atlantic, where all the other ship-wrecks of ignorance and occlusivity belong.
Now I dare you all who fancy themselves as men of science, to ask the same questions, and better yet….get the truthful, honest answer. Or is fear the real honour here.
So for one last time, I ask the honest and simple question, where are all the photos and videos?
I have now said enough, and so for now, enough from me.
Dorian Sabaz
REPLY: Here’s your photo.
I usually don’t like to be a “bah humbug” on Christmas, but let me just say for the record, that it is YOU that has “deteriorated into something stupid.”.
Merry Christmas and goodbye – Anthony
Hello, Dorian.
It’s a pity that you chose to run from the conversation. However, there is a positive aspect resulting from your unfortunate statements.
You are serving as a prime example of how people will not be shaken from their mistaken beliefs, no matter how much truthful information is given to them.
Thank you, Merry Christmas.
upcountrywater says: December 25, 2013 at 6:09 am “BTW..Duck Dynasty also has high record high TV ratings.”
Live by the television and die by the television. Thanks be to our Lord.
Nollaig Chridheil.
Dorian: Here is the form of your logic from which your questions arise. There have been a number of times when I have walked outside at night that I saw no moon and could not therefore capture it on film. If those were the only times I was on this planet and thus returned to my heavenly home elsewhere (let’s say my home was the moon) without pictures of the moon rising in the heavens from where my feet stood on the Earth, my trip could be questioned and there would be those who insisted I was not actually on the surface of the Earth but was just a figment of the malevolent machinations of a secret society bent on some covert operation to thwart its perceived threatening enemy.
How many times have we been on the moon? At those times, could the astronauts see (and thus photograph) the Earthrise from their position on the lunar surface? And even if they could, would there have been any interest at all in photographing the Earth? Why would a scientist, who’s purpose in life was to set foot on the moon, bother with anything other than what was under his feet? My Kodak would have been filled with pictures of moonscapes and any footage at all of the Earth would have been a terrible frivolous and expensive waste.
I remember watching that on TV. Thanks for posting it.
God Bless and Merry Christmas!
(PS Did they find the $2?8-)
Further to photographing Earth:
All of the astronauts (and cosmonauts) who have journeyed to low-Earth orbit and beyond have photographed the Earth from space innumerable times. Yes, Dorian, there are many pictures of the Earth rotating, many with much higher resolution than the astronauts on the surface of the Moon could have taken. So what’s all the fuss about?
/Mr Lynn
Stop with the Moon hoax already. (1) The Soviets, and doubtless any number of allies tracked all or part of those missions. Had they been faked the Soviets would have been the first to exhibit their evidence of a fake. (2) Had they been faked a really large staff was involved; no one in the US keeps secrets; someone involved with such a hoax would have written a best seller by now. (3) Sending a man to the Moon was not that hard after the invention of the V-2 rocket. Figuring out how to bring the crew back alive was the hard part. That is the part that limits sending a crew to Mars, but the hard parts there are not the re-entry problems (as that has been done a number of times now), it is the food and water supply, radiation exposure and how to have enough fuel and equipment to do the lift off from Mars. Much cheaper to do that with robots.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
A Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Prosperous, Happy New Year to all.
Dear Snowsnake,
Your post touched me deeply. My dear father fell gravely ill Christmas Eve a few years ago after a 3 year battle. I packed up and went to his bedside Christmas morning. One week later, New Year’s Eve, after finally getting morphine he so desperately needed, he passed away in my arms. I still miss him but smile every time I lose a fishing lure to some low hanging branch or submerged snag. His ashes are tucked away in a high mountain valley in NE Oregon. His lures are spread all over Oregon.
Yawwn! Oh Dear.
Meanwhile, back at the sharper edge of science, our Chinese friends are carrying on where we left off. And thank God there’s still somebody left to carry on where the Soviet Union left off: goading us onwards! (“Jade wabbit?” you think. ” Duh?” think again..)
I bought my two kids the best Christmas toys ever this year: radio controlled helicopters with flashing LEd lights and LED searchlight. $42 each from a lady with a table in the shopping mall. I’d have killed for such a toy at the age of 12, and they have spent the entire day, obsessively perfecting the art of smooth and elegant landings, and acrobatic flight, in between recharges from a desktop USB.
Then finally, when one of these rugged little machines looked like it had crashed for the last time, I got the box out of the bin and went on line to the manufacturer’s website. They’re made in Guanzou, China, and I can buy as many as I like, for $1.00 a pop! That, and any one of another 50 odd radio controlled air and ground vehicles, including quadricopters, outdoors rated helicopters with cameras, etc.
So I’ll be seeing the same lady, same mall, next Christmas. But it’ll be for a couple of lunar landers.. if she hasn’t already retired, a multi-millionaire ($1 each wholesale, $1.00 for shipping and use of chair and table, and the remaining $40 looks like profit. You have got to love it! )
Dorian Sabaz says:
December 25, 2013 at 7:19 am
You haven’t seen many photos because they don’t exist. I answered your
question three different ways, yet you sound as though you didn’t read it. It
must have gotten posted because other people mentioned it. You haven’t. Why?
BTW, keep reading, I might have an “appeal to authority” to pass on in a few days.
Just for the record: Here’s another one who doesn’t buy the manned moon landings anymore. While there’s a mountain of inconsistencies to discuss, this is probably neither the time nor place to do it. Just this one teaser: 44 years of technological progress, and modern heavy lift vehicles still don’t come anywhere close to the Saturn V’s capabilities. cAGW isn’t the only grand deception of the TV era…
Re: Earth rotation film.
What might be of some help would be a comment/link by Dennis Wingo who has posted on this site many times and is involved with recovering old NASA tapes.
Dennis, where are you?
Actually, I expect the helicopter lady will be financing her own space venture, the rate at which she was swiping people’s debit and credit cards last week and raking in those forty dollar licks..
My own feeling is that there is a new space race afoot, and this time it is for real and won’t grind to a halt. The US may be brilliantly on Mars, but China, India and Asia are hard upon its tail and will not stop until one or other of them is ahead. Their economic power and their technological pride will see to it. And this is a very good thing.
An eternally optimistic New Year to all. See you on Mars.
LK
As I remember it, the verses recited were on the final orbit of the Moon prior to their life-and-death necessary burn for TEI, Trans-Earth Injection.
“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
This was also a wish for their own Good Luck. Shortly after that expression of good wishes, Apollo 8 lost contact with the Earth as it passed behind the moon. 30 minutes later, they had to make the first burn in man-kinds history to return to the Earth.
I well remember this broadcast. As a line from a Billy Joel song goes “when I wore a younger man’s clothes”. The first humans to be out of sight of the Earth.
And yes, the moon does rotate, once per orbit of the Earth. If it didn’t, we could eventually see all around it. But we can only see a bit over 50%, the part facing us. On an absolute basis that is. Relative to Earth, no, That was the original thought that the Sun went around the Earth. We know a bit more now.
The Apollo folks probably could not see the Earth at all when on the surface. Spacesuits limited view to mostly forward, not much up or down. They would have had to point their cameras almost straight up. (A-17 may be an exception) No movies? They didn’t have those cameras, just some video (remember the early camera burnout on Apollo 12 when accidently pointed at the sun?)
So, to the crew of the ISS, Godspeed. They have a problem that needs fixing. And they will fix it. They are still made of the “Right Stuff.”
re: The Count says December 25, 2013 at 8:15 am
Completely agree with your post, Count.
Let me add an interesting factual account of ‘amateurs’ who monitored the moon mission comms (communications) from earth using surplus gear and home-made and modified commercial microwave ‘down converters’ and ‘dishes’. The ‘Soviets’ I’m sure had much more capable equipment!
The following excerpted form: “Tracking Apollo-17 from Florida”
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/Apollo17/APOLLO17.htm
A very interesting and technically-detailed website; more than enough factual details to send a technically competent ‘moon-de nier’ on the road to the ‘trvth’ lest the Dunning-Kruger effect is operative at a high coefficient value.
Merry Christmas and thank you Anth*ny, m o d s and fellow WUWTers.
.
Merry Christmas everyone! Especially to you, Anthony.
@bruce1337 at 8:36 am
But apparently you believe in the Saturn V.
“From the day of our birth, we were meant for this time and place and today, we will land an American on the moon. What ever happens today, I will stand behind every decision you make.
We came into this room as a team, and we will leave as a team. From now on, no person will leave this room and no one will enter, until we have either landed, we’ve crashed, or we’ve aborted.” ~Gene Kranz, Apollo 11 White Team Director, July 20, 1969.
Then, there was this, “LUNAR EAVESDROPPING IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY”
Website: http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/
Interesting observations at the time, plus, Larry made some tapes, too:
Interesting to read this part too (moon ‘de niers’, take note!):
.
personal to DORIAN:
I apologize for being more than a bit grouchy in my earlier response to you.
This is the perfect time of year for us to examine our thinking and see if we want to hold onto mistaken notions of life and the world or let it go, striving for the higher consciousness.
Merry Christmas to you and to all.
Tom in Florida says:
December 25, 2013 at 6:41 am
We didn’t have televisions in my grade school, but I remember foregoing recess one day to stay in and listen to one of the suborbital flights. A few years before Mom had given me the book “You Will Go to the Moon.” http://www.amazon.com/You-will-moon-Blacker-Freeman/dp/0394823400 . It appears that won’t be happening now.
Heck, the US can’t even launch a chimp into Low Earth Orbit any more. Pity.
@Retired Engineer at 8:58 am
remember the early camera burnout on Apollo 12 when accidently pointed at the sun?
Indeed I do.
I remember as well John Young (on camera) tripping on the ribbon cable, ripping out the connection to the Science Package. My “missle man” father was fit to be tied on both occasions.
I also remember Apollo 15 Lunar Liftoff from the pan-and-tilt camera on the rover. It was much more sudden and quicker than I expected. As was the first free-flight of Enterprise as it popped of the back of the 747 on live TV. The night launch of Apollo 17 is hanging on our wall.
Retired Engineer says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:58 am
And yes, the moon does rotate, once per orbit of the Earth. If it didn’t, we could eventually see all around it. But we can only see a bit over 50%, the part facing us. On an absolute basis that is. Relative to Earth, no, That was the original thought that the Sun went around the Earth. We know a bit more now.
I think it is important to define two words. We tend to mix up orbit and rotate or spin. The moon orbits the earth, to keep it’s face toward us it must turn on an axis relative to the earth, my son has just pointed out that if there were thread running through the moon from pole to pole it would move on that thread, so in theory you can say yes, it rotates, but if you consider a table tennis ball on the outer edge of an LP on a record deck, one side painted to face the centre, when the record turns, that same side will always face the centre as does the moon to the earth. But does the ball rotate relative to itself in the same way as does the earth? It depends on your stance!
“Not one astronaunt EVER commented how incredible it is to see the continents from the Moon. No commentary on how the Earth rotates and you see Europe, then Asia, then the Americas. Ah but these comments you hear every single time when astronaunts go up into space and orbit the Earth, or they stay in the space stations. This kind of commentary never ends. And yet on the Moon…. NOTHING”
Dorian,
You just provided evidence that suggests this wasn’t the most elaborate hoax ever. With all the incredible(not yet in existence) technology to create video that simulated this event. The amount of planning and scripting and using unique setting’s that look exactly like the moon…………..they somehow forgot about faking a bunch of pictures of the earth(which would have been the easiest part) and telling the astronauts to be excited and descriptive.
You see, the faked versions of things, will sometimes overlook little details that bust them.
However, if this was faked by hundreds of brilliant people who have remained silent its impossible to fathom that they all forgot the most blatant and obviously appealing element that would appeal most and convince those watching in the most powerful way.
Your evidence of it being faked is part of my evidence that it was not faked. Since what you are asking for does not exist, then, you choose to focus on this one, non existing element as your entire proof and ignore everything else. In essence, you can NEVER be wrong.
I hope you watched the video from upcountrywater. There are no pictures(that don’t exist) to match up with what you insist you need………………………but anybody with a mind opened just a crack on this event, would consider it extremely compelling.
BTW, when you first posted, I thought to myself that you were making a good point and was interested in finding out why there were no pictures like you insist should be there.
After seeing and reading all the evidence here today, I am satisfied that they explain why.
” At those times, could the astronauts see (and thus photograph) the Earthrise from their position on the lunar surface? ”
To Pamela and all the others (intentionally?) missing the point here: Dorian asked for pictures of the Earth from the moon, NOT Earthrise from the moon. While the first moon landing mission had the Hasselblad still camera shown into the space suit. The does not apply to later missions.
The Apollo 17 photo suggested by ihaveareallysiilylongname is, to judge from the curvature of the moon, taken from space , not the lunar surface.
However, this shot is also interesting if we study the shadows, especially those on the suit and the helmet reflection. They do not match the angle of the limb seen on the Earth. Curious.
The Apollo 8 photo, if you up the contrast does not have the slightest sign of a star or even film grain or digital noise in the background. It is all exactly one colour value. Of the 8046 unique hues in the photo the background is just ONE. It has been Photoshopped to one flat colour. Curious.
So there has been some post-production work and the shots are not what the appear to be at face value. One could spend countless hours discussing why but that’s just the observation on the evidence.
Another notable omission that has been noted by many is the total absence of ANY high-res photos of the moon. We have images that plunge billions of light years at abolutely fantastic resolution but we don’t have a decent shot of the lunar surface! The best we have is some (again obviously photoshopped) images from early probes. NASA has a long history of obfuscation and non-disclosure.
Now I would like to state quite clearly that I do not think the whole Apollo program was a scam that was filmed in a Hollywood studio or out in the Arizona desert. But clearly there is an awful lot of information and images that are being withheld.
As with all such situations, once it is noticed that we are not being given the whole picture, certain imaginations run wild.
It seems Dorian is still missing his pic of Earth from moon.
Mike : “Your evidence of it being faked is part of …”
I did not see Dorian suggest anything was faked. He said the lack of images was curious. Why are you jumping in to refute something that no one has said?
Does anyone use the word “crank” any more? It’s funny that discussions about the Apollo missions seem to bring so many of them out of the woodwork.
The moon experiences sunrises and sunsets. The Moon is rotating.
It’s not even “pedantic” to think the moon doesn’t rotate. It’s just wrong. The Earth and Moon are in orbit around each other, and the Earth-Moon system are in orbit around the Sun.
For “relative” purposes, the Moon rotates relative to the Sun, the Galaxy, and the universe. It doesn’t appear to rotate relative to the Earth because of “tidal locking”, a phenomena that is clearly described in the wikipedia entry on “tidal locking”. But to think it’s not rotating is a “crank” theory.
I don’t mind the ‘spinning mooners’ as they would be roughly the same as the guys with the hysterical notion that humans can control the planet’s temperature.An astronaut,if he so chooses,can hop into his lunar buggy and drive to the far side of the moon and choose not to look at the Earth for the simple reason that the moon doesn’t spin.
A planet like the Earth has two surface rotations to the central Sun and subsequently two sunrises/sunsets,this is not an assertion but a 100% observational certainty and best understood through the time lapse of Uranus which turns South to North in terms of its daily rotation and turns East to West to the central Sun at a rate of 4 degrees per Earth year –
For people who get really upset about climate,it would be nice to encounter a soul on this Christmas day who can interpret the time lapse footage above properly.I wouldn’t mind but the polar day/night cycle is well known where a person standing at the South pole will turn in a circle to the central Sun and experience roughly 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of darkness.
A ‘spinning moon’ indeed !,if the extract from Kepler is not good enough to determine why a misreading caused that really silly notion to appear then who am I to object but it is instructive for one really important reason in how the matter is dealt with.
People today don’t realize the emotions involved with the early missions. My entire family was crying when Armstrong stepped down on the moon.
The last 15s of the video linked by upcountrywater is the key point and applies equally well to AGW.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/24/from-the-apollo-8-forty-five-years-ago-god-bless-all-of-you-all-of-you-on-the-good-earth/#comment-1512843
Here is what you do CodeTech – walk/orbit around a central object/Earth with outstretched arms with the arm pointing away representing outer space including the Sun.As you walk/orbit,the same arm points at the Earth hence the same side always faces us while the outer arm sometimes points at the Sun indicating that the far side of the moon also faces the Sun in its monthly orbit of the Earth.
Truly,if you want to know how those with strong convictions about carbon dioxide feel there is nothing better than the idea of a ‘spinning moon’ to bring it out. I imagine people of common sense can differentiate between rotation and orbital motion and especially as it is crucial for understanding global climate but it is not even that – a ‘spinning moon ‘ is a product of April fools day and not the depth of feeling associated with Christmas day.
Gerald Kelleher, if the moon was not “spinning” we would not always be exposed to the same face of it. The only (non inertial) frames of reference in which it is stationary (not “spinning”) is one based on its own surface or one based at the E-M barycentre with an axis drawn from the barycentre to the centre of the moon.
This is what Kepler was telling you. He did NOT say it was not rotating.
The moon rates once per orbit. It’s called tidal locking. Why is that so hard for you to understand.
Index of /history/apollo/apollo-8/images
Index of /mirrors/images/images/pao/AS8
Western Hemisphere visible from Apollo 8 spacecraft
Both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are visible from Apollo 8 spacecraft
Entire Western Hemisphere visible from Apollo 8 spacecraft
View of earth visible from Apollo 8 spacecraft during lunar orbital mission
View of earth visible from Apollo 8 spacecraft during lunar orbital mission
View of earth during return from moon taken from Apollo 8 spacecraft
Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year! The New Year will be great, because I’ve received ( as many have I think ) Anthony’s wonderful calendar, and with it I’ll be reminded daily of the interesting and strident posts that define this excellent website.
Dear Snowsnake (re: 4:43am),
I’m so sorry. And, I am so glad that you woke up with a bit of hope blowing through the windows of your heart this morning. Thank you for honoring us by sharing that.
I wrote this particular Virtual Advent Calendar Door for people like you. I post the link here for it seems to go perfectly with what you wrote above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/15/over-half-the-usa-covered-in-snow-the-most-in-11-years/#comment-1508297
(if link is not correct, it’s from Dec. 20th at 10:24pm on the USA snow cover thread)
Always remember, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18. God sees. God knows. God cares.
With deepest sympathy (and prayers in the months to come),
Janice
…. to you, too, Pamela Gray. Take care, out there.
Ric Werme says:
December 25, 2013 at 9:22 am
I bet the chimp is glad though.
Greg
Thank you for proving Galileo’s point that no matter what is brought in front of you,not even the words of Kepler himself ,will bring you to a more stable and common sense point of view –
“The Sun and the Earth rotate on their own axes…The purpose of this motion is to confer motion on the planets located around them;on the six primary planets in the case of the Sun,and on the moon in the case of the Earth.On the other hand the moon does not rotate on the axis of its own body,as its spots prove ” Kepler
You may fault Kepler for his awkward phrasing of lunar orbital behavior as it travels around the Earth or even the misreading of it by Sir Isaac bit not Kepler,not Copernicus,not Galileo,not Plutarch or any of the great astronomers in antiquity whom we share the observation of the orbital motion of the moon around the Earth ever discuss a silly lunar rotation notion.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=OdCJAS0eQ64C&pg=PA80&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Christmas so close to the December Solstice always appeals to the human mind and spirit and especially those of us in the Northern latitudes,what a notion of a ‘spinning moon does for people I have no idea but it is from the same pretension as the one that creates havoc with planetary climate.Let people take a stand on this issue and be decisive about it because it is the easiest to resolve.
Actually, Gerald, your insistence that the Moon is not spinning, in spite of clear and obvious evidence that it is (sunrise, sunset) is the same as AGW fanatics believing that CO2 drives climate in spite of clear and obvious evidence that it does not.
You definitely have your cause/effect backwards.
“I did not see Dorian suggest anything was faked. He said the lack of images was curious. Why are you jumping in to refute something that no one has said?”
Wow Greg, then I guess you and I are talking about different planets(:
Maybe you didn’t read some of his earlier posts.
Dorian says:
“Why are there no photos or videos like these? It seems every single astronaunt missed the fabulous Earth photo opportunity. The greatest event in history, and no single American astronaunt took a photo, or video”
Since Dorian stated in that post:
“Use common sense”
I made an assumption with high confidence of him suggesting it was faked base on:
Knowing people/groups that vehemently insist that the United States staged this event for this same reason. If you know of a more likely reason that there are no pictures other than the ones stated here that Dorian flat out rejects, then please fill us in.
Greg says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:05 am
Apollo 17 went to lunar highlands, earlier flights went to flatter, safer areas. Taurus-Littrow is not at all flat! See the wonderful panoramas at http://www.panoramas.dk/moon/apollo-17.html that show hills above, crater walls, craters below, topography everywhere. This was the only mission to include a geologist.
The photo is more complex than your one sentence dismissal suggests:
1) The print (either when shot or when printed) is tilted. Schmitt is vertical, the flag pole is vertical, the curving horizon is nowhere near as steep as it appears. It is high – the Earth should be two°, that’s only 36° above the hill, I was expecting 55° – check the panorama.
2) Reorient the photo, and the sun will be shining from the left, just grazing camera-facing surfaces.
2a) Hence, the parts of the flag are sunlit.
2b) Hence, the brightest lit parts of the spacesuit are to the left and top,
2c) The sun reflecting off the helmet is interesting. The helmet has a sunshade, you can see some of its shadow to the right, and it looks like the reflection of the sun is also shaded.
1) Digital noise in the background? I’m sure the images are at least slightly contrast enhanced in the conversion process.
2) Give me a break on the stars. That and the “flapping” flag are the two most annoying and most debunked claims. These photos are shot at daylight exposures, the audio of the Earthrise video said they used 1/25th at f11. While a star’s surface is as bright as the Sun’s, that light is not focused to a point of equal brightness. I think they’d need exposures of several seconds to get stars – and with the lens wide open. There are photos showing a few bright stars, but that’s not what we went to the Moon to collect.
It’s analog film. There may have been adjustments in developing the film, certainly some in the prints, and these images may well be scans of prints, not negatives. Why gripe to us? Please gripe to NASA.
Oh come on, they used Hassleblads, I think 120 film, I think 2.5×2.5 inches. I’m not certain, I never had the chance to use one. I might have held one once, though. Then significantly cropped and lots of black sky for photos release to the public. (Black sky compressess really, really well.) Check out http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html#MagF – there are lots of raw 2300×2300 images. What are you looking for?
Man, you are SO far down the food chain it’s not even funny … how about scheduling a trip to a physical archive (at a uni or well-stocked library/conservatory) and LOOKING at the primary evidence (the actual, original pictures/negatives) for a change?
Two questions:
1) What is the ‘dynamic range’ (brightness range, form dark to light) of the *film* used in the day (developed, this will give you a NEGATIVE from which positive PRINTS are made)
2) What is the dynamic range of the DIGITAL IMAGE made above which is in contention (furthermore to this point too: what was the dynamic range of the digital camera or scanner used to scan either the NEGATIVE or more likely the PRINT.)
And Merry Christmas, too, Greg.
.
Thank you, Anthony – that doesn’t look very “contingent” even after all these years.
@Anthony reply to , Dorian Sabaz at 7:19 am
What is the link and metadata on that Earth-Astronaut-Flag photo? My hat is off to the astronaut who had the artistry and skill to frame it well with a chest mounted camera working with thick gloves.
Of course, with Photoshop, seeing a picture on the internet is no proof of anything at all without a chain of custody.
I remember seeing a live TV shot of Earth via the lunar rover’s pan-tilt-zoom camera. The camera panned, tilted up, caught a gibbous earth in the frame with the gold radio dish on the right, then zoomed in and stopped down to show that it was the Earth.
Link to <Apollo Image Atlas
I always regarded the reading of Genesis by Apollo 8 to be one of the worst abuses of religious beliefs into scientific endeavour. Religion did not get them into lunar orbit, science and engineering did. Genesis says nothing at all about the origins of the moon, its composition or its cratering record – science does and continues to increase our knowledge, through the Chinese robot lander and future missions by many countries.
Link and metadata on Astronaut-Flag-Earth photo above.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-134-20384
Image Collection: 70mm Hasselblad
Mission: 17
Magazine: 134
Magazine Letter: B
Lens Focal Length: 60 mm
Sun Elevation: 16°
Mission Activity: EVA 1
Description: STA LUNAR MODULE; FLAG; LUNAR MODULE PILOT; EARTH; ASTRONAUT
Film Type: SO-368
Film Width: 70 mm
Film Color: color
Others: from Search “Earth” starting at 841 of 1000.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/search/descrip/?search=earth&startrow=841
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-134-20387
Description: STA LUNAR MODULE; FLAG; COMMANDER; EARTH; ASTRONAUT
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-134-20461
Description: STA LUNAR MODULE; LUNAR MODULE; EARTH
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-134-20471
Description: STA LUNAR MODULE; LUNAR MODULE PILOT; LUNAR ROVING VEHICLE; EARTH
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-137-20960
Description: STA 2; SPL 2315; BOULDER; EARTH
(Earth surprisingly low on photo horizon. Mountain in background?)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-137-20961
Description: STA 2; SPL 2315; BOULDER; EARTH
Excellent analysis above about the actual location of the earth with respect to the Moon’s horizon: The “earth” is high above the horizon in every landing site, and …. and so can only be photographed from the moon’s surface if one deliberately gets down low on the ground and photographs “up” towards the zenith. In Anthony’s photo of the earth behind the US flag, that is the arrangement set up.
By the time of Apollo 8 … 11, … 17, not all astronauts were test pilots, combat veterans, and 1000-hour high speed pilots with multiple engineering and aeronautics degrees. But most were. The training and pre-flight rehearsal simply did not leave much time for “play” – and what “play” (unscripted) there was was immediately noticed every time by CapCOM in FL, by NASA fight in Houston, and by the other listeners in the backup crew and the next flight of astronauts who were on the radio.
When we “see” the moon or sun near the horizon here on earth, it is still very, very small (1/2 degree angle) and ONLY appears “large” BECAUSE it is so close to the horizon. The moon or sun from the earth can be covered by a “dot” smaller than tip of your finger. Up high, as at “noon” each day or at the peak of the moon’s traverse, the view simply is NOT “awe-inspiring” as you think it “should be” based on your assumption of what you think it should look like based sizes. Make sure “you” are the telling that 10000-hour well rehearsed, has-already-faced-death-and-lived-through-it combat veteran astronaut and test pilot what “awe-inspiring” actually is. I’m sure he will immediately agree with your definition, and will immediately look up at the earth (which by the way will be covered up by the shielded wrap behind and above the moonsuit’s helmet) and then go fall on his back under the lunar lander and take a picture of the earth framed against the lunar lander legs and pressurized capsule.
At the lunar landing points as pointed out above – it is physically impossible to ever have any view of the earth near the horizon – and impossible to get a fixed photo from those fixed camera without falling over and aiming up. That posture (falling on the surface) was feared (breaking things on the moonsuit, breaking eqpt attached to the moonsuit, scratching lenses and facemasks, and the simple difficulty of getting back up while wearing one: Even the moon rocks were picked up with a very, very expensive “grabber” to avoid bending over and getting unbalanced!
+++++++
Come on!
No other engines have been paid for since that time: NASA was getting budget cuts immediately after Apollo 11 landed. The Space Shuttle is a 1968-1973 era design, and its engines – once fixed by weight, size, and position into the Shuttle structure and weight and center-of-gravity – CAN’T be greatly changed. Even if new technology was “really” desired by NASA (and not all of NASA is budget-fixated NASS-GISS goons and peons) it could not be built, tested and certified for manned flight, and installed without re-designing the Shuttle. No budget. The other challenges (Challenger itself for one and for many deaths!) focused attention on everything but engine development – and the Saturn engines themselves were bigger than what was needed for the missions that the Shuttle could not handle.
Rather, there is a consistent self-limit that NASA inherently set on itself that argued against more “real” engine development: The shuttle HAD to be used as-is because it could not be modified, it was too expensive to build new rockets and new rocket engines because money was needed for the shuttle, and the shuttle needed all of the cargo it could handle (and then some!) to pay for the cost over-runs and schedule delays of the shuttle, and people could design most “stuff” (Keyhole CIA/NSA satellites, the very-similar space telescope were about the biggest wanted), to fit the shuttle so NASA didn’t want other choices available so they needed want to compete against their own shuttle.
Bundling existing engines together worked for all: Russia, China, Euro space launcher from Guiana) and NASA’s Delta models, re-worked and improved Titan (an ex-ICBM that has been much-improved) and even the much-reimproved Atlas – what Glenn original rode up in was an immediate ancestor of what went up a few days ago!
+++++++++++++++
Another writer asked (challenged!) the earth’s photo’s – challenging the (lack of) “shock and awe” that the lunar landers “should have felt” by the earth’s continents going by. (The writer pointed out the frequent comments and much time spent looking at earth by Space Shuttle and close-in orbit astronauts, and the lack of comments by the lunar astronauts -0- using that difference to make the assumed point that the lunar astronauts were not actually on the moon.)
Again, look at the real world positions and relative motion: If anything, that they did NOT look at the earth’s rotation proves that they WERE either near the moon or were standing on it!
The earth is “fixed” in position above the moon’s horizon, and even if the astronaut were orbiting the moon, the earth not NOT rotate any faster than once per 24 hours. Right above the atmosphere in the Shuttle or or in near-earth orbit, the shuttle goes past every landmark and every coast and every continent every 90 minutes!
From the moon’s distance, to “see” changes in the continent positions, one needs to look THROUGH the dense near-continuous white blanket of the clouds, “see” accurately and completely a continent’s edge and outline, then 12 hours later, again look “through” those ever-changing clouds and haze and compare that same continental edge against the fuzzy black line of the earth’s twilight reference point.
And anything that blurry through that much haze with no other reference than a blurry black line that doesn’t move by a 1/4 degree of view in 12 hours ain’t very awe-inspiring – even to test pilots breathing air and working on new lunology that NOBODY will ever be able to see again right at their feet.
Now, compare an earth-bound astronaut: He or she sees a constantly changing landscape going by with views that change minute-by-minute that cover a space outside the window of not 1/4 degree but a full 80 percent of the view port!
After 38 hours of driving through Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico deserts with a never-changing image of the same dark blue-gray mountain silhouette always fixed outside on the horizon, do you remark every 10 minutes, “Look!! Look! There are mountains out there! i can see the mountains (again)!!” The same mountains that I saw the last 10 minutes I mentioned that I could see the mountains……. Or do you mention the things right outside the curb that do change? After the first 6 saguaro cactus pop up holding their arms high in that impossible-to-believe cartoon caricature image, do you mention the next 66,000 cactus …. or just the two that look different because they have 4 arms or three fingers?
With 80-70% of the earth’s surface covered by near-continuous cloud cover, to even make out a specific continental shape would be difficult.
Two questions:
1) What is the ‘dynamic range’ (brightness range, form dark to light) of the *film* used in the day
My notes from a class taught by John Fielder
Contrast is a big deal. But digital cameras generally overdo contrast.
An f-stop is a doubling of light gathering
Camera with Fuji film (6 f-stop dynamic range)
Digital is 13 f-stops.
Human eye has a 25 f-stop range
Hey, I found some Apollo 17 Earth photos without human clutter!
See http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html#MagC, look for links to
AS17-137-20957(OF300) ( 64k or 476k )
143:23:22. Gene took a series of Earth portraits over Station 2 Boulder 2, looking up the slope of the South Massif. He has reset the focus.
AS17-137-20958 (OF300) ( 32k or 272k )
Station 2. Earth.
AS17-137-20959 (OF300) ( 40k or 328k )
Station 2. Earth.
AS17-137-20960 (OF300) ( 68k or 416k )
143:23:22. Another of Gene’s Earth portraits taken over Station 2 Boulder 2.
AS17-137-20961 (OF300) ( 56k or 348k )
143:23:25 Station 2. On his way to rejoin Jack, Gene stopped to take another of picture of Earth, just to make sure.
Oops, I hadn’t saved my edit buffer, again, with more links and notes:
Hey, I found some Apollo 17 Earth photos without human clutter!
See http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html#MagC, look for:
AS17-137-20957(OF300) ( 64k or 476k )
143:23:22. Gene took a series of Earth portraits over Station 2 Boulder 2, looking up the slope of the South Massif. He has reset the focus.
AS17-137-20958 (OF300) ( 32k or 272k )
Station 2. Earth.
AS17-137-20959 (OF300) ( 40k or 328k )
Station 2. Earth.
AS17-137-20960 (OF300) ( 68k or 416k )
143:23:22. Another of Gene’s Earth portraits taken over Station 2 Boulder 2.
AS17-137-20961 (OF300) ( 56k or 348k )
143:23:25 Station 2. On his way to rejoin Jack, Gene stopped to take another of picture of Earth, just to make sure.
The most attractive image is http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-137-20960.jpg for the small 904×911 version, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-137-20960HR.jpg for the 2340×2359 image.
I can’t tell what part of Earth is facing the Moon, well, not with processing the mission time label. Looks like a blue and white marble to me. Maybe it’s all Pacific Ocean.
AS17-162-24047 (OF300) ( 17k or 210k )
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-162-24047HR.jpg
View of gibbous Earth during the outbound trip. Ron Evans mentions this photo and the next one at about 41:15 (mission time from planned launch time) and refers to them as frames 16 (24047) and 17 (24048).
Apollo 17 Earthrise (nice photo):
AS17-152-23274 ( 72k or 190k )
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-152-23274.jpg
Earthrise from lunar orbit. Scan by Kipp Teague.
CodeTech
You have about as much a chance of showing me a spinning moon as you have a flat Earth for both occupy the same level of reasoning,however a round and rotating Earth has to be inferred indirectly whereas we always see the same side of the moon for obvious reasons including that basic analogy I showed you in the last response.Again,discounting ‘spinning mooners’ leaves only the silent contempt crowd and that includes the gang who have come to realize that human control over global temperatures is a non starter just as a ‘spinning moon’ is.
You are amazing people,a concept that is fit for April fools day shows up in a website that prides itself on maintaining a stable position on the complex issue of climate. Of course the resolution of this issue is the thin end of a huge wedge for waiting around the corner are multiple other notions ,some of which are just as much an assault on the eyes as a ‘spinning moon is.
On Christmas day ,for this Christian I won’t waste the theme of a problem that existed long before this nonsense of human control over global temperatures took hold –
“New justifications have now appeared in place of the antiquated,obsolete, religious ones. These new justifications are just as inadequate as the old ones, but as they are new their futility cannot immediately be recognized by the majority of men. Besides this, those who enjoy power propagate these new sophistries and support them so skilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of those who suffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify. These new
justifications are termed ‘scientific’. But by the term ‘scientific’ is understood just what was formerly understood by the term ‘religious’: just as formerly everything called ‘religious’ was held to be unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that is called ‘scientific’ is held to be unquestionable…..Such are the scientific justifications of the principle of coercion. They are not merely weak but absolutely invalid, yet they are so much needed by those who occupy privileged positions that they believe in them as blindly as they formerly believed in the immaculate conception, and propagate them just as confidently. And the
unfortunate majority of men bound to toil is so dazzled by the pomp with which these ‘scientific truths’ are presented, that under this new influence it accepts these scientific stupidities for holy truth,just as it formerly accepted the pseudo-religious justifications; and it continues to submit to the present holders of power who are just as hard-hearted but rather more numerous than before.” Tolstoy to Gandhi
Again,amazing people by virtue of the ability to filter out what is being said and why it is important.
“It took Christmas morning that started before dawn for me to start to feel again and I had to share with someone. Merry Christmas.”
My deepest sympathies, Snowsnake. I am humbled that you’re willing to share your deepest emotions with us at this time that must be both unspeakably sad and joyous for you, and hope today can begin your long healing process. God bless you in the coming years.
Wow, that really brought them out of the woodwork, didn’t it?
BTW if “by the US” you include US companies, the US can launch a chimp (or a human) into low earth orbit in whatever time SpaceX quotes for organising a Falcon 9/Dragon launch. You just need to accept lack of launch escape capability, which may not matter much after the first 30 seconds or so. The Falcon 9 has a perfect record so far.
@ Barbara and Pamela — Do you think that it is mere coincidence that the only three commenters to respond to Snowsnake’s poignant sharing of his heart are female? I know, I know, sample size is too small, lol. Just intriguing to me.
As Christopher Monckton wisely pointed out in his essay, I will not say, here, “I believe X to be true about women and men,” only “I wonder… .”
Still more Earths. You’d think all they took were photos of Earth. 🙂
AS17-134-20461 (OF300) ( 76k or 568k )
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20461.jpg
169:30:33 EVA-3 at the LM. First of a series Gene took from north of the LM. This excellent photograph shows a half Earth over the LM.
AS17-134-20462 (OF300) ( 116k or 692k )
169:30:33 EVA-3 close-out at the LM. Gene took this photograph from north of the LM, showing Jack at the Rover. The object leaning against the north strut is the SEP pallet. Geophone Rock is right of Gene and the ALSEP Central Station is near the righthand edge of the image. The South Massif (left) and (West) Family Mountain (left) are in the background.
AS17-134-20463 (OF300) ( 112k or 660k )
169:30:33 EVA-3 close-out at the LM. Excellent photograph of the Earth over the LM, showing a group of three-axis thrusters and the associated plume deflector. A view created with planetarium program Starry Night Deluxe shows how Earth would have looked with fewer clouds. Research by Ricardo Salamé.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17earth16930.jpg
AS17-134-20464 (OF300) ( 68k or 544k )
169:30:33 EVA-3 close-out at the LM. Earth over the LM.
AS17-134-20465 (OF300) ( 72k or 712k )
EVA-3 at the LM. Earth over the flag.
AS17-134-20466 (OF300) ( 84k or 624k )
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20466.jpg
169:30:33 EVA-3 close-out at the LM. Excellent photograph of the Earth over the U.S. flag.
Gerald:
How many times in an average day does someone point out that you’re a nutter?
“I always regarded the reading of Genesis by Apollo 8 to be one of the worst abuses of religious beliefs into scientific endeavour. Religion did not get them into lunar orbit, science and engineering did.”
Technically you’re right, but I bet religion helps when you have to climb on top of a Saturn V and fly outside the Van [Allen] belts with less physical protection than we usually accord to a tin of peas.
Janice and Snowsnake, it’s been three years since I lost a wonderful, close relationship and four years since I lost my dad. I have struggled to find my heart again. It seems that this go around, that may have changed. Have a blessed year.
“I always regarded the reading of Genesis by Apollo 8 to be one of the worst abuses of religious beliefs into scientific endeavour.”
Thanks, John A., for identifying yourself as this year’s (decade’s?) Grinch.
Merry Christmas to you, too.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20466.jpg
Another one where the lighting does not match the sun position indicated by the crescent of the Earth.
CodeTech
Coming from a guy and a website that supports one of the most hideous notion ever in the form of a ‘spinning moon’ I can comfortably live with insults thrown in my direction. While Tolstoy was correct ,the best observation of people impressed with themselves for no good reason has to be Edgar Allan Poe –
“than the persons thus suddenly elevated by the Hog-ian philosophy into a station for which they were unfitted — thus transferred from the sculleries into the parlors of Science — from its pantries into its pulpits — than these individuals a more intolerant — a more intolerable set of bigots and tyrants never existed on the face of the earth. Their creed, their text and their sermon were, alike, the one word ‘fact’ — but, for the most part, even of this one word, they knew not even the meaning. On those who ventured to disturb their facts with the view of putting them in order and to use, the disciples of Hog had no mercy whatever. All attempts at generalization were met at once by the words ‘theoretical,’ ‘theory,’ ‘theorist’ — all thought, to be brief, was very properly resented as a personal affront to themselves. Cultivating the natural sciences to the exclusion of Metaphysics, the Mathematics, and Logic, many of these Bacon-engendered philosophers — one-idead, one-sided and lame of a leg — were more wretchedly helpless — more miserably ignorant, in view of all the comprehensible objects of knowledge, than the veriest unlettered hind who proves that he knows something at least, in admitting that he knows absolutely nothing.” Poe
When you have as a ‘fact’ that the moon spins in addition to its monthly lunar circuit while all observers who have ever lived on this planet have never seen the far side of the moon apart from imaging from orbiters then take Poe’s commentary to heart for it really is knowing “absolutely nothing”,that goes from you all the way on up.
To Janice Moore (at 12:45 pm ):
;-p
Merry Christmas!
May God bless us all!
Anthony, moderators and others who write and contribute serious time to make WUWT not only possible but the most trusted climate site in the WWW.
Barbara
I am not a Grinch. The apparent rise of the Earth above the surface of the Moon by Apollo 8 is wonder enough – it does not need a religious commentary.
Interestingly Martin Gardner mentioned in one of his books that there was a special edition of Scientific American (I think) published years before on the question of whether the Moon rotates or not with battlelines and invective from both sides to boot. That edition must be rare now.
Whether the moon rotates depends on your frame of reference: from Earth it does not. From the moon it clearly does about every 27.5 days. If one was in one of those dark craters near the poles which never receives sunlight and took a long period exposure of the sky overhead, the familiar streaks of the stars indicating rotation would be clearly evidenced.
Those dark craters would make an excellent site for a telescope as well.
Rik Werme: “2) Give me a break on the stars. That and the “flapping” flag are the two most annoying and most debunked claims. These photos are shot at daylight exposures, the audio of the Earthrise video said they used 1/25th at f11. ”
You know every time I hear “debunking” I know someone needs to use language to fortify a claim that doesn’t stand on its own.
Despite your attempt as a technical reason why we can’t see stars in the these daylight exposed shots the other one you gave has stars (crank up contrast and brightness) and several nuances of blue for the sky.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-152-23274.jpg
So the first flag shot that has just ONE pixel colour out of 8046 for the sky has been ‘shopped, as I said.
Janice Moore says:
December 25, 2013 at 12:45 pm (replying to)
Barbara Skolaut says:
December 25, 2013 at 1:07 pm
Pamela Gray says:
December 25, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Ne’er fear – Us engineer-science-focused-silent-but-deadly-analytical types DID read it, sympathize and empathize, but did not communicate either. Was it not obvious by our silence the compassion we felt? Heck, we all felt that emotion, but chose not to communicate a response. And, being engineers or science-by-trait, training, and attitude, if over distance we could not communicate by a hug or non-verbal but needed something else, then, well … one does not communicate. Silence is, sometimes, just something you put up with. Not being able to communicate with others is not a crisis, but – like a three year circumnavigation of the global, merely another problem (like scurvy or bad water and no toilets and no showers or clean clothes) to be put up with until it ends. Uncomunicated silence during troubles comes with the nature of the beast.
Ah, but such a vital difference is but a survival trait. An essential survival trait.
In a hunter-gatherer society with one part of the group staying in place with children a foot and at hand, those who were constantly talking and communicating survived! Those who the children could hear all the time, were survived by children who could hear the talk and chatter and could always return to their (mothers) safely and quickly A solo child in trouble and out-of-ear-shout would die earlier, and would not reproduce. A child with a silent mother died the more often that silent mother failed to talk or chatter. Worse, a bear, predator or even a competitor (wild hog, deer, snake, or rodent) for nuts and berries and fruit would NOT be scared by a silent mother, and thus the more silent the mother generally was, the more likely that (silent) mother would likely die earlier in life even if close to the home fires. A noisy, chattering bunch scares off both competitors and predators.
Now, in contrast, a chatty, talkative hunter scares off both predators they seek to avoid, AND the prey the hunters need to live; to survive one HAS to be swift, silent AND deadly. Rapid reactions, good eyesite, quick reflects, good strength, good endurance, longer arms and longer legs (faster, more capable distance) … More likely to survive AND bring food back to the tribe, to the family, and to the children. And, a well-fed, well-clothed, well-sheltered wife is a happy wife … equals more children in wife. Again, more likely to survive.
We wonder about instinct, and the evolutionists among us pass on onto “instinct” all sorts of survival traits. Rather, consider that what we call a simple “second thought” or “guardian angel” or “gut feeling” or …. is not exactly what the geese “feel” and why the trout returns to a location only when it must return just before dying to lay more eggs. Surely, IF psi or ESP or pre-cognition were really “exact” sciences or “very clear messages” then ONLY those who had those talents would be living now. That great an evolutionary advantage means after only three or four generations only those who had ESP or pre-cognition or psi-kinetic abilities would survive.
Rather, I would point out that – we all DO have those basic gut-level instincts to different degrees, and those who do not follow them (called Faith, reason, or merely survival as your choice) will not survive. Did not survive.
If your second thoughts say “Stay quiet, look around. Be careful. Do not run around that bush looking for berries” and you, in deed, do not walk around the bush and thus do not meet the grizzly bear, and do not fall down in of the startled bear; and, thus, you may survive one more day to have more children with that well-fed, warm, and well-sheltered but chatty and talkative wife back at the home cave.
Your buddy, drunk on fermented berries and too foolish to listen to his instincts DID walk around the bushes, DID run into the bear, DID stumble while trying to run away, and DID get eaten for that bear’s lunch.
That potential chatty, metro-sexual closet-decorator “hunter” tripping over his shoes and swishing through the berry trees? He’s is more likely to be left dead or starving back in the boondocks, impatiently waiting (while talking to himself) trying to figure out why there never is any deer around to go with his arugula lettuce to take home to his ugly, feminist-liking spousal partner who got rid of their last three children to buy another rug for the cave floor. If he were not killed by the other hunters first .. while looking for snipe in the nearest swamp at midnight.
Does the moon spin? Perform this simple exercise.
Stand facing some one at some convenient distance; now hold your right arm up and towards your friend at a 45 Deg angle with your index finger pointing at your friend and your thumb up. Looking at your thumb nail and holding your arm stationary with respect to your body rotate yourself 360 degrees. You as the earth only saw the thumb nail; however your friend as the sun saw all sides of your thumb. Can you see all sides of any object without rotating it?
Draw your own conclusion.
Merry Christmas and may the New Year provide another year of flat lining Data.
Skunk Works “Cheap Energy for All” solution: A series produced 100MW compact fusion reactor that runs on plentiful and cheap deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen). https://www.solveforx.com/moonshots/solve-for-x-charles-chase-on-energy-for-everyone
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Snowsnake says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:43 am
My spirit is like the chaos before the Creation and it feels like my essence is leaking out of my very pores. Yet, the birth of the Christ Child is like the first light that touches me and I feel tendrils of structure starting to reform within me.
(My father went similarly and yes…it is a spiritual chaos.)
God bless you, your festival of inner renewal, the promise of darkness passing, giving way to the new light. A spring of newness and faith.
Thanks! You gave us the message of the day.
“And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Luke 1:41–42).
John A
I am going to do something original,I am going to show you pictures of the moon as it makes its monthly orbital circuit of the Earth hence the phases –
http://www.apstas.com/astrotas/Sayers/MoonPhases.jpg
If you can see the moon spin then you have that unique problem Galileo spoke about earlier in this thread and here is a continuation of his commentary as apparently the condition is now at a pandemic level in this era –
“I know; such men do not deduce their conclusion from its premises or establish it by reason, but they accommodate (I should have said discommode and distort) the premises and reasons to a conclusion which for them is already established and nailed down. No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous.” Galileo
The funny thing about all this is that fossil fuels will not be an issue in 100 years as alternative sources of energy will surface but future generations will inherit a mess none of you appear good enough to deal with for the simple reason none of you can handle this most basic interpretation of them all.
RA: I was raised by a man who could shoot the eye out of a chipmonk at 300 yds. And he had more stories than a dog has fleas. But he also would say no word to another man who had lost his wife. There is an unspoken word between such men.
Merry Christmas to everyone
Gerald Kelleher:
Nothing you have written in any way impinges or refutes on what I have said. If you are unable to parse English then communication is impossible between us.
Pamela Gray
What did your father have against chipmunk vision?
Here is what a spinning Earth looks like –
By the way,to give people an indication where this idea of human control over the planet’s temperature is going they can look at the few people who genuinely got uncomfortable with a ‘spinning moon’ 150 years ago where the objections got buried and it still remains mainstream policy despite landing people on the moon who can travel to the other side of the moon if they choose not to look at the Earth but cannot avoid the Sun due to the moon’s orbital motion.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
The next one is even more spectacular – the belief that there is one more rotation than there are days in the year,an offshoot of that uncomfortable position that ‘spinning mooner’ found himself in a century and a half ago.
Gerald,
If I put you on a geostationary satellite, then you would find that mysteriously the Earth has stopped rotating.
End of conversation
Martin A: Perhaps Barbara should do an experiment, put a Christmas candle in the middle of her room, and take an old fashioned paper globe. She should keep the globe tight in her hands and walk around the candle. All time the same part of the globe faces the candle. This may invite her to think that the globe does not spin, but she made one rotation in the room and so did the globe. She can also make that the globe does not spin with respect to the chamber. While she walks around the candle, she has to counter-rotate the globe and may note that the candle light now produces one day and night cycle.
Actually it was squirrels, not chipmonks. In Missouri people there bred dogs who would tree a squirrel. Many a pot was filled with squirrel stew thanks to boys like my grandfather.
Ah, but Pamela, does not even that example demonstrate my tongue-cheek observation?
Remember, his bolstorous stories were not told WHILE shooting sharp-eyed squirrels and evil chipmuncks in the woods, but, rather, they were told AFTER hunting those squirrels WHILE entertaining the well-fed and warm mothers (potential mothers) of potential children and future grandchildren back at the warm house and in front of a roaring fire? A well-entertained grandchild IS a survival trait, because it makes the seldom-entertained, often-suffering mother and grandmother feel better about the often-missing hunter.
Ain’t nobody happy unless mama’s happy ain’t just a slogan. 8<)
For remember too, that the silent-but-deadly sharp-eyed squirrel shooter MUST – at the end of the successful hunt – come back to the fire and advertise his success and his talents, must he not? Does not the meek, silent and submissive and never-speaking little pipsqueak get squeezed out of that night's companionship (and its potential future children) with those chatty, talkative women who had not the chance to see any of the that day's or that weeks' hunt? A story-telling "hero" IS as important to survival (after the hunt) as the silent hunting is before the kill.
Boasting around the fire (in the bar) or after the fighting is a man's survival trait for the same reason that marketing works: Sales and presentation to the potential customers of the hunt MUST support the manufacturing and design. But mere talk without the production are also a waste.
Yep. The pile of antlers out by the barn had to match the stories told round the hearth. As for being quiet when hunting, that was hard for me to learn. I couldn’t even talk while we were fishing!
With regards to the spinning moon, or lack thereof, over a period of a single month, we may see almost the same thing from earth whether the moon spins on its axis once a month or if it does not spin at all. And the reason is simple. We only see what is reflected from the sun and visible on earth.
We need to check what full moons looks like 6 months apart. If the same side more or less faces the earth at all times, a full moon in December looks like a full moon in June.
On the other hand, if the moon does not spin relative to the North Star for example, then a full moon will look very different in June than in December.
John A
People who believe that the moon spins are a troubled people and always have been that way despite its persistence as mainstream policy and it comes from the same group who will announce to the world that all the effects within a 24 hour cycle such as daily temperature rises and falls are not due to the rotation of the Earth by virtue that they insist that there are more rotations of the Earth in a year than there are days –
” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard
It is an intractable problem for the necessary intellectual and interpretative talent is not available at the present time to square away the 24 hour AM/PM system with the Lat/Long system which keeps the Earth turning at a rate of 15 degrees per hour is being obscured by a bunch of cretins who can’t seemingly begin with the fact that when you wake up tomorrow you not only wake up to another day but also another rotation of the planet and they never,ever fall out of step.
All I can see are bluffers with a lot of voodoo thrown in. People think the ‘climate issue’ is the problem but it is much,much bigger than that – it is a uniquely human problem that started a few centuries ago.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Gerald: “You are amazing people,a concept that is fit for April fools day….”
Well apart from repeating yourself, you have not managed to advance you argument one iota since you came in,despite all the philosophy and literature quotations.
If you want to insist the the moon is not “spinning” you need to start by defining clearly what you mean that term. Clearly the moon does not maintain the same orientation with respect to the fixed stars, neither is it non rotating with respect to any inertial frame of reference.
It maintains the same face towards the Earth about which it revolves on in about 27.5 days. Thus a line from its centre to a fixed point on its equator describes a vector which changes direction by 360 degrees in that same period.
So now you have to define “spinning” as something it is not doing whilst changing it’s angular orientation in a periodic fashion.
You clearly have a profound understanding of the history and philosophy of science, so I’m sure you will be able to explain that in one line without diverting to Zen Buddhism or two more screen-fulls of quotations.
Mindert Eiting…. ??
Why are you telling
MartinJohn A. how to explain something to Barbara S. which she has never disputed? She only criticized his sneering at the reading of Genesis 1 by the crew of Apollo 8. I could find nowhere where Barbara asserted the bizarre position that the Moon does not rotate. Intriguing Q: Why were you so eager to teach her and not Mr. Kelleher who has repeatedly argued for that position, hm? There’s a creepy “Barbara” in your life, isn’t there — heh, heh. Hope that one is long gone, now. Take care. J.Merry Christmas to you — good for you to stand up for the truth, even so.
******************
@ Barbara — lol. #(:))
************************************
@ Pamela, yes, I remember about that other. Glad the ice is starting to melt. Take care. J.
Greg
You insisted that Kepler asserted a rotating moon when clearly he didn’t so I am dealing with the same convictions that are driving human control over planetary temperatures and a ‘spinning moon’ no less.The quotations certainly substantiate the huge problems that have always existed when some men get hold of notions and run with them to the point where they would rather become ill than change their views regardless of what imaging is brought before them and the issue of the orbital motion of the moon and its monthly phases indicating an orbiting moon and not a rotating one .
For $17 billion the wider public has an organization that once landed men on the moon yet has the population believes the far side of the moon receives sunlight due to rotation –
“Misconception: The same half of the Moon is in darkness all the time-i.e. that there is a dark side of the Moon.
Reality: The Moon has no side that is constantly dark; the front and back are alternately lit as the Moon rotates.”
http://moon.nasa.gov/moonmisconceptions.cfm
You don’t like quotations from people who were not weakminded and that I can understand but their commentaries are definite and pointed and more relevant now than they ever were .It is easy to be a noisebox and express indignation with graphs and whatnot,but terrestrial sciences and astronomy are visual sciences and that is what has been missing for so long.
Every single quote I used is directed to both the idea of a ‘spinning moon’ or human control over planetary temperatures as both defy common sense but I can show people where are the bluster is coming from and even the great Humboldt couldn’t do that –
“This assemblage of imperfect dogmas bequeathed by one age to another— this physical philosophy, which is composed of popular prejudices,—is not only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the mean or medium point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms, for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognise in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended perturbations. It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions.” Von Humboldt ,Cosmos
Greg says:
December 25, 2013 at 1:06 pm
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20466.jpg
Another one where the lighting does not match the sun position indicated by the crescent of the Earth.
=============
I suggest that on your next, clear, crescent moonlit night, you try to imagine where that light source might be that illuminates the moon as you see it.
That light source is 93 million miles (8 light- minutes) away, it is so far away that it can play tricks on the human ability to comprehend the angles.
It always blows my mind.
Dear Janice Moore, my Dutch name does not need question marks because it is not a pseudonym. I responded to Martin and did not check all the details. It does not matter who does the little experiment in the tradition of Martin Gardner. Because you do not know me, the rest of your comment is nonsense. Also merry Christmas to you.
Dorian Sabaz says: “This is my last comment, I can see this will deteriorate into something stupid.”
Too late, Dorian.
.
Thanks Anthony, Great Story , I remember this 1968 Apollo 8 Christmas very well.
We were hooked on the TV at the time, just as we were half a year or so later with Apollo 11 “small step”, in the middle of our night.
I see Afrikaans in your Christmas Wishes (Geseende Kersfees) but sadly no in Dutch : so : Gezegend Kerstfeest.
[Thank you for the reply, and tried to add the phrase, but, nope, the messages are in a single graphic image, your Dutch greeting cannot be easily inserted above. 8<( Mod]
I was lucky enough to work on the Saturn S-IVB early in my career. It was an education. i worked with some fine people and learned a lot of ground-level science and methodology, and how the smartest people can make the most egregious blunders. I left the industry when it was time to move on; it couldn’t last forever.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20466.jpg
Greg says: “Another one where the lighting does not match the sun position indicated by the crescent of the Earth.”
You’re assuming the sun is the only lighting source. Wrong. Surface objects, including the lunar lander, have a high albedo and can light up this side of the flag.
The Earth Rise photo taken around 16.30 hrs U.T. on December 24th, 1968 was actually 4.30 a.m. on Christmas Day for us in New Zealand. What a great Christmas present when we saw the picture days later on our news casts.
Some comments on “the Conspiracy Theorists” who have emerged here.
Dorian Sabaz shows his calibre in his second paragraph at 4.21 a.m.
“And much of the time the Sun would be in opposition, that is, the Earth would be between the Moon and the Sun, it would make it perfectly large, clear and beautiful.”
In the first sentence the sun would be in “opposition,” and in the next “the Earth would be between the between the Moon and the Sun.” Firstly the Sun nor any other celestial object can ever be in “opposition,” as the term is used in astronomy from the Moon as that body does not rotate in such a way that the side facing us ever faces away from the Earth. Dorian’s description is of a conjunction of the Sun and Earth. This only occurs around the lunar phase seen from Earth known as Full Moon.
Interestingly the lunar phase for Christmas 1968 and for the initial period of the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 were both a few days before First Quarter. Remember whatever the lunar phase as seen from Earth, from the Moon the Earth would be in opposite phase. This is exactly what we see in both the Apollo 8 & 17 images that show the Earth, a waxing crescent moon just shy of First Quarter is matched by a wanning gibbous Earth just shy of Last Quarter. Rick Werme has kindly linked us to many images from the Apollo 17 mission that nicely show the transition of the Earth from slightly gibboous to slightly crescent.
Greg at 10.05 a.m.The gibbous Earth shows that it is slightly more than 90 degrees from the sun which is exactly what the shadows on the astronaut & the flag tell us. Any other interpretation is delusional at best.
The flat, evenly black background is what anyone with basic photgraphic knowledge would expect with an exposure designed to capture the brilliant white highlights on the sun lit Lunar Suit and the flag. The exposure is so short and most likely with a very fine, slow speed film that the sky is effectively ‘un-exposed!’
For those who believe that the Earth appears too small in the photos consider this, it is often quoted that the earth is 4 times larger in the sky than the Moon because it is 4 times the diameter. In reality the Earth covers an area that is on average 13.45 tiimes greater than the Moon! Some may say that this backs up their claims even more. Not so. Their claims were and are still flawed because they haven’t taken into account what the image scale of the Moon would look like with the using the same cameras and lenses here on earth. I have been doing just that for over 35 years and even with a standard film lens with a field of 33 x 25 degrees the moon is very small and assuming a very correct exposure their is very little detail to be seen on the surface above what can be seen with the unaided eye The cameras alledgedly had a field of 55 degrees which would mean that the moon would cover less than 1% of the diameter of the field of view. The Earth in the Apollo 17 views is easily 4% of the field of view just by eyeballing it
RACookPE1978 says: “Ne’er fear – Us engineer-science-focused-silent-but-deadly-analytical types DID read it, sympathize and empathize, but did not communicate either…Uncomunicated silence during troubles comes with the nature of the beast. Ah, but such a vital difference is but a survival trait. An essential survival trait.”
That essentially sums it up, though it barely scratches the surface of evolutionary gender differences. Well done.
My wife once said to me, “Did you ever notice when there’s a man and a woman walking together, it’s usually the woman who is talking?”
I replied, “Yup.”
John A says (December 25, 2013 at 1:49 pm): “Gerald,
If I put you on a geostationary satellite, then you would find that mysteriously the Earth has stopped rotating.”
Ouch! Well said.
Only here can a simple “Merry Christmas” post lead to arguments about whether the government is lying about the moon landing or whether the moon rotates.
@Greg at 1:06 pm
RE: jorgekafkazar at 3:48 pm
Jorge is right. The flag is being lit up by difuse light from the lunar ground.
But it is also being lit up by the sun. Just looking at the flag, where would you put the sun?
The flag itself is partially back lit. Note well the upper edge of the flag where there is a round opaque rod supporting the flag. A Very bright top edge in direct sun then darkest red (no backlight, in direct shadow, only diffuse light). That puts the sun left of vertical consistent. Furthermore the projection of the top rod must be pointing below the sun. That puts the Sun at about 10:30, consistent with the Earth.
What I find interesting is that the white stripes as seen by the camera are much brighter than the stars. This is consistent with the stripes are more backlit than the stars sewn onto a one piece dark blue field.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/moon_hoax_not_short_film_explains_why_it_was_impossible_to_fake_the_moon_landing.html
Ask Stanley Kubrick why Hollywood couldn’t fake it.
Bill 2 says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:08 pm
Only here can a simple “Merry Christmas” post lead to arguments about whether the government is lying about the moon landing or whether the moon rotates.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, the mere mention of the moon tends to bring out the lunatics.
Bill 2 says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:08 pm
Only here can a simple “Merry Christmas” post lead to arguments about whether the government is lying about the moon landing or whether the moon rotates.
==============
Ain’t it great, it certainly challenged my mind about orbits.
Good stuff everyone.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all 🙂
The audience of this website tends to be an educated and critical one. I have 3 questions which, if answered satisfactorily, might deliver me from being an ignorant “moon denier”, which I would certainly appreciate:
1) How come the Apollo Ascent Module clearly exceeds its maximum theoretical acceleration within the first second of flight as seen in e.g. the Apollo 17 footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQfauGJaTs)? To elaborate: The publicized data — 4.7 t of gross mass and 16 kN of maximum thrust — would allow for 1.78m/s^2 of upwards acceleration, leaving the vehicle at 0.89m of height after 1s, at best. The footage shows a height in excess of twice that.
2) How come there are pictures of the moon rover showing tire prints neither in front nor behind the vehicle, all the while foot prints are clearly visible (e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg)?
3) Why did NASA go to the lengths it did in order to create perfectly realistic scale models of the moon and an equatorial section of it at the Langley Research Center (see http://apolloreality.atspace.co.uk/)?
Thank you. And of course merry Xmas.
Suppose one were observing the Moon from a very distant location but with high resolution and in the same orbital plane as the Earth–Moon system. Suppose further that the Earth was invisible [with an albedo of, say, zero – a black body]
As you observe the moon with its wobbly movement through space around the Sun, you would, over a sufficient period of time, see all its surface along with its occasional eclipse by the unseen Earth.
How would one explain then that one eventually sees all of the Moon’s surface, other than that, from the chosen frame of reference, the moon rotates on its axis?
The moon does not spin – it is immobile. Everything else in the universe spins & moves.
Mark and two Cats says:
December 25, 2013 at 5:26 pm
> The moon does not spin – it is immobile. Everything else in the universe spins & moves.
Cats know they are the center of the universe and everything spins around them.
The audience of this website tends to be an educated and critical one. I have 3 questions which, if answered satisfactorily, might deliver me from being an ignorant “moon denier”, which I would certainly appreciate:
1) How come the Apollo Ascent Module clearly exceeds its maximum theoretical acceleration within the first second of flight as seen in e.g. the Apollo 17 footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQfauGJaTs)? To elaborate: The publicized data — 4.7 t of gross mass and 16 kN of maximum thrust — would allow for 1.78m/s^2 of upwards acceleration, leaving the vehicle at 0.89m of height after 1s, at best. The footage shows a height in excess of twice that.
2) How come there are pictures of the moon rover showing tire prints neither in front nor behind the vehicle, all the while foot prints are clearly visible (e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg)?
=========================
# 1
What is the film speed, or they just really wanted to make sure and gave ‘er all they had.
# 2
The rover is still there, prove it ain’t.
Janice Moore says:
December 25, 2013 at 12:45 pm
I almost replied, but I was busy hunting down tourist photos of Earth. Thanks for having alternative priorities.
My mother died after a long bout with cancer and a lot of caregiving from my father. Dad was adrift for a while with nothing to make himself feel useful until he decided climbing the 48 mountains in New Hampshire that are over 4,000 feet tall. Then he turned it into an engineering project with a handheld tape recorder, diaries, maps, etc. It’s a pity that GPS receivers weren’t available then.
Snowstake, one thing you may run into is a feeling of guilt if you leave home to go to a museum or even a shopping mall. You’ve spent a long time at home caring for your wife. Mourning is difficult enough under the best circumstances. You can go out, you don’t have to be back in a couple hours. You’ve been cared for your wife for those 18 months, now it’s time to care for yourself.
Merry Christmas, such as it is this year.
May God bless you and yours, Anthony and the moderation crew. God bless the contributors to the phenomenal site.
From the home state of Duck Commander and the Robertson’s, Merry Christmas.
@u.k.(us):
). Again: how?
#1: Film speed seems to be the default, and there are many, many copies in circulation of the same speed. Besides, the audio supports that this footage is indeed supposed to depict events in real time. 1.78m/s^2 is the theoretical maximum acceleration at full throttle (besides the “RS-18” is not throttleable anyway!), and it is quite clearly exceeded by a large (>2) margin. How?
#2: I’m not talking about whether the rover is there or not, I’m saying that there are no tire tracks either in front or behind it, which, considering the boot prints are well defined, seems rather impossible (Compare to this picture:
Imagine if you were on the far side of the moon (from earth) and looked up at local midnight, and noted which constellations of the zodiac were visible, allow time to pass to the next local midnight (about one month later) observe slightly different constellations of the zodiac, and rinse repeat for the whole year, noting that you have now observed all the signs of the zodiac.
Or imagine you are the moon and your friend is the earth. Your friend sits in a chair in the middle of a square room. You face south, facing your friend, then move so you are facing west also facing your friend, then face north also facing your friend, and then move to face east also still facing your friend, and last face south again still facing your friend.
The only way to do this is to revolve around your friend and rotate around your own axis both with the same period.
Or lastly, if the moon didn’t rotate on it’s axis, we would not see the phases of the moon.
The moon rotates is the only conclusion that fits the data.
http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://www.universetoday.com/19699/does-the-moon-rotate/
Cheers!
bruce1337 says:
). Again: how?
December 25, 2013 at 6:47 pm
#2: I’m not talking about whether the rover is there or not, I’m saying that there are no tire tracks either in front or behind it, which, considering the boot prints are well defined, seems rather impossible (Compare to this picture:
=================
If I go back to your previous link/pic:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg
I could argue that the left front tire of the rover was leaving prints in the moon dust, while the other 3 tires were on rocky surfaces.
No ?
bob droege says:
December 25, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Or lastly, if the moon didn’t rotate on it’s axis, we would not see the phases of the moon.
Whether you see a new moon or a quarter moon or a full moon depends only on the angle between the moon and the earth and the sun, whether the angle is 10 degrees or 90 degrees or 180 degrees. It has nothing to do with the moon’s rotation on its axis. However it has everything to do with the revolution of the moon around the common gravitational center of the moon and the earth which happens to be about 1000 miles below the surface of the earth.
There appear to be other anomalies to me. On the airless moon one would expect to see stronger shadow lines and darker shadows than the photo shows. i.e. note that the shadow of the front wheel axle hub onto the front wheel looks very much like an effect of atmosphere. A close look shows several examples of this blended shadow where one would expect a strong demarcation shadow..
I’m probably wrong in this but I’d suggest that this photo was a posed photo of the duplicate LEM that remained on Earth and was possibly carried to the particular location (hence no tire tracks).This would also explain the atmospheric shadow effects.
F. Ross says:
December 25, 2013 at 7:50 pm
=====================
Normally I might let it slide, but somehow you sucked me into your comment.
You should have left me out…. or pasted the full context of what you are replying to.
It happens 🙂
“1) How come the Apollo Ascent Module clearly exceeds its maximum theoretical acceleration within the first second of flight as seen in e.g. the Apollo 17 footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQfauGJaTs)? To elaborate: The publicized data — 4.7 t of gross mass and 16 kN of maximum thrust — would allow for 1.78m/s^2 of upwards acceleration, leaving the vehicle at 0.89m of height after 1s, at best. The footage shows a height in excess of twice that.”
Was there any mechanical assist on takeoff?
Interesting!?
Moon doubters misbehaving and moon louts raving.
Both revert to or incorporate ad hominems as key parts of their conspiracy and loony arguments. Even on this rather special holiday when others seek to share hope and cheer.
I have to wonder if the sks infants and Lewpy are out trolling for their favorite conspiracy theories. I also note that the more evidence laid against their conspiracies the more adamant, indignant and irate they become.
Holiday cheer to all!
Befuddlement and confusion to moon conspiracists and simpletons.
noaaprogrammer says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:08 pm
“Was there any mechanical assist on takeoff?”
===========
Does it count when the astronauts all jump off their seats to lighten the load 🙂
u.k.(us) says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:05 pm
Sorry for any confusion but I abbreviated your post to respond only to the photo at the link you posted as ” 2) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Apollo15LunarRover.jpg “
@u.s.(uk)
“I could argue that the left front tire of the rover was leaving prints in the moon dust, while the other 3 tires were on rocky surfaces.
No ?”
Of course you could. The picture just doesn’t lend itself particularly well to the argument — the surface looks equally ‘dusty’ all around.
@noaaprogrammer
“Was there any mechanical assist on takeoff?”
None that I know of, and none that seems to be at all documented. Just one RS-18 unthrottleable, hypergolic rocket engine…
Werner Brozak says
“Whether you see a new moon or a quarter moon or a full moon depends only on the angle between the moon and the earth and the sun, whether the angle is 10 degrees or 90 degrees or 180 degrees. It has nothing to do with the moon’s rotation on its axis. However it has everything to do with the revolution of the moon around the common gravitational center of the moon and the earth which happens to be about 1000 miles below the surface of the earth.”
But between successive full moons seen from earth, the moon has rotated 30 degrees, yet the same side of the moon is fully lit, The only way for this to happen is if the moon rotates.
Maybe I should have said if the moon doesn’t rotate, we would see what’s called the dark side of the moon, which isn’t dark.
To the moon rotation people,
The moon acts as though it were tethered to the earth with one side of it always facing the earth. Suppose the same was true with the earth to the sun. How many days would there be in a year? The answer: 0. The sun would always shine on one side of the earth and never on the other… days wolud cease to exist. How many days would be in a year if a spot on the earth always faced the same direction relative to say, the center of our galaxy? Then there would be one day per year. I submit that if you are correct, and the moon rotates once per revolution, then there are 366 days in a year because the “tethered situation described above you count as 1, not 0!
Prove me wrong, I had this argument when I was in 6th grade with my teacher. I lost, but above was the argument I came up with.
Question 1) Why should we answer that? Are you claiming that the launch did not take place? That thousands who watched the liftoff and flight are participating in a scam? Long before one tries to game lift off measurements by you-tube, one needs to come to grips with their was a significant live audience, including many serious reporters/journalists who would’ve loved a ripe scandal.
Question 2) Have you actually watched all rover film and personally viewed all rover prints? Why should any of us spend time chasing down archived imagery just to satisfy you when you’ve not bothered to visit Houston, Canaveral/Kennedy, National air and space museum or the Library of Congress to actually research old films and pics? Be ready to allocate days to weeks in just watching/looking. Personally, I remember seeing tracks when watching newsreels, but why trust me? Go, and look yourself! The data is there.
Question 3) Why does the army and marines go to lengths to find beaches and terrain exactly like those they are going to fight over? Why are there small towns and cities built just for military and police to practice fighting in? Training! Training! Training! What do you think? That we shipped a bunch of yahoos into space to stumble around, joke and try for silly dunk shot ops? For the same reason, potential astronauts practice moving in suits under water and get pseudo negative gravity airtime, for training!
And yes, the astronauts training was that regimented and strict. Every footstep, every motion was choreographed for maximum use/effect for science and minimal danger to the astronauts. The astronauts could’ve thrown switches correctly in the near perfect sequence and order while blindfolded. Silly mistakes, wrong switches, slips, stumbles, trips, falls would easily have cost a life.
Perhaps the easiest way for you to drop the moon question is for you to apply for astronaut duty yourself. A small trip to the mars and you do all of science a terrific favor.
What I am trying to say is that if you say there are 365 days in a year because the earth rotates 365 times per revolution then you are defining a rotation in such a way that says that the moon does not rotate relative to the earth.
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:38 pm
“Of course you could. The picture just doesn’t lend itself particularly well to the argument — the surface looks equally ‘dusty’ all around.”
==========
‘cept it is not.
Or there would be tracks.
You think they brushed out all the tracks except the left front ?
Why ?
I hope I keep someone up all f*%#ing night!
You fellows who think the moon doesn’t rotate, take your pick:
http://www.universetoday.com/19699/does-the-moon-rotate/
http://www.universetoday.com/19965/rotation-of-the-moon/
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=142
http://space.about.com/od/moon/a/Does-The-Moon-Rotate.htm
Feel free to use Google to expand your options. Cheers!
bob droege says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:38 pm
But between successive full moons seen from earth, the moon has rotated 30 degrees, yet the same side of the moon is fully lit, The only way for this to happen is if the moon rotates.
Maybe I should have said if the moon doesn’t rotate, we would see what’s called the dark side of the moon, which isn’t dark.
I fully agree now. But to make the point even clearer, I would say that the full moon should be checked again 6 months later. If it is completely the same, then the moon spins on its axis once every 27.32 days. If it is completely different, then the moon does not spin on its axis at all.
And a Merry Christmas to all!
@u.s.(uk)
“‘cept it is not.
Or there would be tracks.
You think they brushed out all the tracks except the left front ?
Why ?”
No, I don’t think that — why would I? Seems to be like that huge traverse crane at Langley Research Center could offer an explanation.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 25, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Well you brought it here. You’re trying to force upon us that because the moon’s rotation is equal to its orbital period that it’s not rotating. Save it for April.
Better yet, consider Mercury. It spends a good part of its year with one side facing the sun, but as it approaches aphelion its rotational inertia takes over and … whoopsie … it does a half turn before tidal force (libration) once again overtakes that inertia. This leaves it swinging through perihelion with its opposite side facing the sun. So on average it rotates one and a half times per orbit.
I shudder to think how you might interpret that. Perhaps you would argue that it rotates through half its orbit, but not the other half. Eh? Or something similarly foolish?
REPLY: Here’s your photo.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wow, just wow. Really an amazing photo.
Apollo 17:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo40/index.html
That sure looks like rover tracks behind the vehicle in several pics. Watch the video for a earth – moon shot as Apollo 17 orbits the moon.
These are a tiny fraction of the photographs available. From the moment they took off through splashdown there are recordings and film.
Look before one leaps.
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm
“No, I don’t think that — why would I? Seems to be like that huge traverse crane at Langley Research Center could offer an explanation.”
=============
I win.
Occam’s razor.
Saturn V rocket versus Langley crane.
(with moon orbit the goal).
Scott Scarborough says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
then there are 366 days in a year because the “tethered situation described above you count as 1, not 0!
Scott Scarborough says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:49 pm
What I am trying to say is that if you say there are 365 days in a year because the earth rotates 365 times per revolution then you are defining a rotation in such a way that says that the moon does not rotate relative to the earth.
Let us for the moment assume a year is exactly 365.000 days and not 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. If you want to add a day and make it 366.000 days, then what would happen if July 1 came every 366 days instead of every 365 days? If July 1 is the height of your summer, then after 183 years, July 1 would come when it would normally be January 1.
An appropriate frame of reference is to assume someone at the North Star has a super powerful telescope and views the earth and the moon. That person would conclude the earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds. The moon rotates once every 27.32 days.
Due to the revolution around the sun the period from full moon to full moon for an observer on earth is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes. And the period from noon to noon is 24 hours.
But are the lunar rover tire tracks missing?
Four wheels: the two far-side (right hand) wheels can’t be seen.
The left front wheel tracks are present, but have been “stepped on” by the more-clearly visible foot print, which pushed up that little mound of loose dust where the print is clearly visible. Yes, the foot
The left rear wheel DOES have chevron wheel tracks visible!
noaaprogrammer says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:08 pm
What’s 4.7t? ton? tonne? Either way, close to 4700 kg. From F = ma, a = 16,000 / 4700 = 3.4 m/s^2. Please display your work and a sketch with a scale. Keep in mind the camera was a video camera with a spinning disk color system, so it transmitted separate red, green, and blue images, hence the “confetti” in the launch debris and color fringing on slower movement.
Give the ascent engine didn’t have a clear path to the ground (I assume the exhaust went on the descent engine parts), pressure buildup may have added some force the the underside of the ascent module, though the acceleration looks smooth enough to me.
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 8:36 am
44 years of technological progress, and modern heavy lift vehicles still don’t come anywhere close to the Saturn V’s capabilities.
I wasn’t aware that during those 44 years there was a need for such lift capability – should such have been developed at enormous expense for the Hell of it?
Gareth Phillips says: December 25, 2013 at 9:30 am
I think it is important to define two words. We tend to mix up orbit and rotate or spin. The moon orbits the earth, to keep it’s face toward us it must turn on an axis relative to the earth, my son has just pointed out that if there were thread running through the moon from pole to pole it would move on that thread, so in theory you can say yes, it rotates, but if you consider a table tennis ball on the outer edge of an LP on a record deck, one side painted to face the centre, when the record turns, that same side will always face the centre as does the moon to the earth. But does the ball rotate relative to itself in the same way as does the earth? It depends on your stance!
What you say about “stance” is partially correct. Take a perfectly round ball and draw a line on the outside of the ball that corresponds to one-half of the circumference of the ball. Drill a hole through the ball such that (a) the drilled hole passes through the geometrical center of the ball and (b) the drilled hole exists the ball at each end of the half-circumference line. Insert a narrow straight pin through the hole in the ball such that the diameter of the pin is infinitesimally smaller than the diameter of the hole drilled in the ball. Prevent the ball from moving up or down relative to the pin by rigidly attaching small washers to the pin just outside the ball. Assume the friction between the pin and the ball and the friction between the washers and the ball are negligible–i.e., you can rotate the pin in your fingers without causing the ball to rotate.
Set up a turn table (or to use your term, an LP) whose planar surface is horizontal and that can rotate about a vertical axis perpendicular to the LP’s planar surface. Place the LP on a table at rest (no translational or rotational motion) with respect to a room that is at rest with respect to an inertial reference frame. Paint a radial straight line from the center of the LP to the outer rim. The LP’s vertical rotation axis and the horizontal radial line form a plane. Just inside the outer rim and on the LP radial line, stick the pin of the pin/ball assembly vertically into the LP. Orient the pin such that before the LP begins rotating, the half-circumference line painted on the ball is in the plane formed by the intersection of the LP vertical rotation axis and the LP horizontal radial line.
Now start rotating the LP about its vertical rotation axis. Because the pin is rigidly fixed with respect to the LP (i.e., stuck into the LP), the same “face” of the pin will always point towards the center of the LP. However, because there is no friction (and hence no torque) acting on the ball, the ball will not rotate–i.e., as the LP turns, the half circumference line will leave the LP vertical axis/radial line plane. To an observer attached to the LP (i.e., rotating with the LP), the LP will appear to be stationary, but the ball will appear to rotate. To an observer sitting in the room that is at rest with respect to the inertial reference frame, the LP and the pin will appear to rotate, and although the pin and hence the center of the ball will appear to travel in a circle, the half-circumference line will not rotate–i.e., the orientation of plane that encompasses the entire half-circumference line will remain fixed.
Thus, to an observer at rest with respect to the rotating LP, both the LP and the pin (but not the ball) appear to be motionless (both translationally and rotationally), while the ball appears to be rotating. To an observer at rest with respect to the room, the LP appears to be rotating, the pin appears to be both rotation and moving translationally, but although the ball exhibits translational motion, the ball does not appear to rotate.
Bottom line, when you say the moon doesn’t rotate about its axis, you’re correct relative to an observer at rest with respect to the rotating Earth. But you’re incorrect with respect to an observer at rest with respect to an inertial reference frame. The connotation of rotation or spin can be debated ad infinitum. As I understand it, however, most physicists define/measure rotation/spin relative to an inertial reference frame. They do this because the laws of physics are invariant with respect to all inertial reference frames, but not with respect to all non-inertial reference frames, and rotating reference frames are non-inertial reference frames.
Scott Scarborough says:December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
To the moon rotation people,
The moon acts as though it were tethered to the earth with one side of it always facing the earth. Suppose the same was true with the earth to the sun. How many days would there be in a year? The answer: 0. The sun would always shine on one side of the earth and never on the other… days wolud cease to exist.
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Ok Scott, but the Sun in fact does not always shine on the one side of the moon, does this not indicate the moon is rotating?
bruce1337 says:
December 25, 2013 at 4:41 pm
I don’t have a perfect answer, but I’m disturbed at how little work you’ve done to research your claim. I trust you know that the tires on the rover are a metal mesh and when one fender was damaged on the Apollo 17 mission people were afraid they’d have to forego much of the buggy travel that was critical to the mission.
From the photo, it appears to me that one astronaut drove the buggy to the stopping point then dismounted. I’ll claim that the low speed while stopping stirred up the surface a little, but the dust fell back onto the track adequately covering it from the low camera angle. The astronaut disembarked, and the relatively high pressure as his boot rocked on the dust left footprints but didn’t raise dust to obscure them.
Here’s what I want you to do. I spent hours this morning going through the raw NASA photos of Apollo 17. I want you to do the same with Apollo 15. Find the original image for this photo, let’s see how it was cropped, and look at the other photos of the buggy to see how the tracks change with lighting and vehicle speed.
A problem with ignorant “moon deniers” is that they make some half baked claim with essentially no support and no effort to resolve the quandary themselves. I suspect a lot just parrot claims they’ve seen elsewhere and are indeed completely ignorant about the hundreds of other relevent photos that are readily available.
At least from my earlier posts you can readily find the Apollo 15 photos (and other missions) and do a semi-decent comparision. If you aren’t familiar with the tires on the buggy (then I have no business answering your question), but do learn about that.
BTW, there’s movie footage of the Apollo 17 buggy being driven without the fender – it’s quite convincing that the fender is a critical piece of equipment.
And do try to come up with a better than 28 word critique. My reply is 323, let’s see a 500 word analysis supporting your concern.
Hi, Ric Werme — re: yours at 6:22pm, I’m the one who was remiss in not acknowledging all your fine work for the truth above about lunar missions and the moon. I was just lazy about THAT. Thank you, so much, (you and several others above, too) for taking so much of your day to educate us. Your excellent instruction was likely wasted on a couple of the fools above, but, it has made this thread a treasure trove for those genuinely seeking truth. WAY — TO — GO!
I’m sorry that your mom is no longer with you. What a cool dad you have! A dad to be proud of. Your advice to Snowsnake was right on target.
Always enjoy your posts,
Janice
******************************************
Oh, Mindert Eiting, my dear Dutch ally, we have had a major communication breakdown. It’s too unimportant to keep on about it, here, but, one thing is very important and that is that you need to know that I was not making fun of your name.
Re: “Mindert Eiting……??????”
Translation: “Mindert Eiting, what in the world did you mean by that post?” (said with a quizzical smile and a slight tilt of the head)
If it had been: “M.E. …. ???!!!”
Translation: “M.E., how in the world could you say such a thing?!” (said with eyes wide open)
And (I could go on and on, heh, just one more) if it had been: “M.E. (ahem)!!”
Translation: “M.E., “I beg your pardon!” (pounded out on the keyboard with a slight frown)
And, bear in mind, that ANY of the above could be said only half-seriously, mostly for dramatic effect… . SOMETHING THAT I LOVE TO DO!!!
#(:))
That you speak (at least) two languages is a fine accomplishment. You have my admiration for that.
Gezegend Kerstfeest! (thanks to Mr. Vermeer above)
Ben D. says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Actually, it doesn’t. As the moon revolves around the Sun, a non-rotating Moon will have a year-long “day” and all longitudes on the Moon will be illuminated.
Sidereal time and mean solar time.
There are only two references to “sidereal” above. A “sidereal day” on Earth is shorter than a “mean solar day” that we use for tracking time. A solar day is the time from noon one day to noon the next. That turns out to vary throughout the year (see Equation of Time on the web) so we use the mean time, derived from the time from one vernal equinox to the next. That varies a little bit too, there are lots of tiny effects people can track.
A sidereal day is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate 360 degrees. A solar day is that time plus a little more time to make up for the Earth’s motion along its orbit around the Sun. That takes 365.2422 solar days, so the Earth has rotate almost one degree more for each solar day. That takes about four minutes.
If you looked at the night sky at the same sidereal time, you would see the stars in the same position night after night.
The arguments about strings and stuff are missing the point – they all refer some definition of a day that is not 360 degrees rotation relative the stars. Until people internalize these concepts, the discussion will stay confused with people talking about solar time being answered by people talking about sidereal time.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 25, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Blah, blah, more quotations.
So, having specifically requested that you define the “spinning” that you say is not happening, without diverging into more pages of quotes, you respond by NOT defining “spinning” and providing two more pages of waffle and quotations.
OK, I think you’ve firmly established that you can not even define the “spinning” that you claim the moon is not doing. That ends that little side-show.
However, the link you keep pushing has pointed the answer to something that has been bugging me for nearly a year, that I’d been overlooking.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=OdCJAS0eQ64C&pg=PA80&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
My spectral analyses of various climate data were persistently off by a small but persistent amount. Harmonics of the annual cycle were just a little longer than they “should” be. I’d checked it over and over and it was still there. I’d derived an estimated correction factor for my frequency axis.
I’d found an oscillation in Arctic ice cover very close to the perigee period.
( 27.6163-27.55455)/ 27.55455 = +0.224%
Now in view of that link, I note:
365.242/366.242=1.0027
There are 365.242 cycles of luminosity in an Earth year. However the Earth rotates 366.242 times, so when working to that level of precision we must not confuse length of day with period of rotation, which is what I was carelessly doing. Inertial effects like tides require an inertial frame of reference. If the lunar perigee cycle is given as 27.545 days, it will have an inertial effect slightly longer in units of rotational period.
So the Earth “spins” 366.242 times per year and the moon “spins” once per month.
Thanks for the link.
UK (US): Check your false premise re: ascent module height after 1 sec which I presume you measured by eyeball off of a youtube video. Lotsa Math at these links.
http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/LM-ascent.htm
http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/LM-ascent.pdf
Imagine an observant being who lives only on the far side of the moon and has no knowledge of the Earth.
As the moon moves along its complex path around the sun, the observer sees the Sun and the “fixed stars” gradually change position so that , in a simplified sense, approximately each half month he sees sunlight moving across his “skyline” and the other half month sees stars gradually moving across his “skyline”
I think that he would conclude that the Moon rotates.
I guess it never occurs to certain folks that the design, engineering and etc. were probably more feasible than pulling off such a wide-ranging and easy-to-expose Hoax!
Re landing hoax, watch this video
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw
Merry Christmas (belated, I apologise)
Thanks, Janice. I did not read all comments. So that little joke still may be missing about a tribal medicine man who got in 1968 from his people the message that Americans went for the first time to the moon. ‘For the first time?’, he said, ‘I do it every night’. You too ‘Gezegend Kerstfeest’.
Thanks, Anthony! I hope everyone enjoyed a very Merry Christmas and will have a prosperous New Year! From the looks of things, the Hockey Team may not have quite as good of a 2014 as we are likely to enjoy!
http://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/the-truth-about-the-global-warming-agenda-by-former-nasa-climatologist/
Ric Werme says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Ben D. says:
December 25, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Scott Scarborough says:December 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
To the moon rotation people,
The moon acts as though it were tethered to the earth with one side of it always facing the earth. Suppose the same was true with the earth to the sun. How many days would there be in a year? The answer: 0. The sun would always shine on one side of the earth and never on the other… days wolud cease to exist.
__________________________________
Ok Scott, but the Sun in fact does not always shine on the one side of the moon, does this not indicate the moon is rotating?
Actually, it doesn’t. As the moon revolves around the Sun, a non-rotating Moon will have a year-long “day” and all longitudes on the Moon will be illuminated.
__________________________________
Sorry for being possibly obtuse Ric, but I understand the moon actually rotates approx 12 times a year relative to the Sun, ie. one who lived on the moon would experience near month long days.
Galileo’s observation is essentially correct in that once men get a conclusion into their heads, and a spinning moon is exceptionally stupid and even more silly than the idea of human control over planetary temperatures,they will do everything possible to support that conclusion to the point that they will override the normal physical constraints between reason and experience.If your minds won’t accept that the moon doesn’t spin as it orbits the Earth by virtue of what your eyes are telling you then what can be said for topics such as climate which is seriously more complex and do not allow for visualization so easily.
You remind me of what Copernicus said about unfortunate people who add an unnecessary conclusion like an irritating notion that the moon spins when it can be seen not to –
“They are just like someone including in a picture hands, feet, head, and other limbs from different places, well painted indeed, but not modeled from the same body, and not in the least matching each other, so that a monster would be produced from them rather than a man. Thus in the process of their demonstrations, which they call their system, they are found either to have missed out something essential, or to have brought in something inappropriate and wholly irrelevant, which would not have happened to them if they had followed proper principles.” Copernicus
You see, all the arguments needed to get rid of the idea of human control over planetary temperatures would come from the same type of people who can quickly dispense with the nonsense of a ‘spinning moon’ so again,this thread is highly instructive for a number of reasons.
For people who are so concerned about planetary temperature fluctuations yet the mainstream view is that 24 hour days and rotations fall out of step even though each and every one of us wakes up to another day and rotation with all its effects where temperatures rise and fall within a 24 hour period in response to the rotation of the Earth.
Ric Werme
I assure you and everyone else here that the Earth turns once a day, 100 times in 100 days and a thousand times in a thousand days.This system is known as the 24 hour AM/PM which is tied to the Lat/Long system using observations with their roots in antiquity.
As the Earth orbits the central Sun,certain stars become lost behind the glare of the Sun for a number of months –
The Egyptians,even though they were unaware of the dynamics behind it,noticed that the star Sirius would miss an appearance by a day after 4 years of 365 days bit show up the next day –
http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30
They even wrote about this important observation which eventually supports the conclusion that 1461 rotations with all its effects fit into 4 orbital circumferences of the Earth which reduce to 365 1/4 rotations for each orbital circuit –
” on account of the precession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years, therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the New Year, whereby all men shall learn, that what was a little defective in the order as regards the seasons and the year, as also the opinions which are contained in the rules of the learned on the heavenly orbits, are now corrected and improved” Canopus Decree ,Egypt 236 BC
If people get this far they can then appreciate how natural noon cycles vary for each of these 1461 days and how the average 24 hour day goes into substituting for constant rotation insofar as ‘average’ and ‘constant’ are more or less the same terms.It ain’t going to be understood by the mindnumbing 366 rotations in 365 day crowd.
In conclusion,the Earth’s orbital behavior around the Sun is altogether different than the moon orbital behavior around the Earth and the orbital component of the Earth changes how we look at topics such as planetary climate and especially the explanation for seasonal fluctuations in temperature.
Aside from and in addition to daily rotation,all locations on our planet turn to the Sun each year as opposed to the moon which constantly keeps the same face to the central Earth. This is why the images of Uranus are important as its distance is so great from the Earth and its unique rotational inclination allows observers to isolate the orbital behavior of that planet where all locations turn once to the Sun by way of its orbital behavior and take over 8 decades to complete a 360 degree polar day/night cycle –
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Uranus_rings_changes.jpg
Many people will naturally feel uncomfortable with the notion that the moon has a separate spinning motion as it makes its usual monthly orbit around the Earth and this is a good thing as the idea is to make lunar/planetary comparisons rather that throw good information after exceptionally poor reasoning.It draws attention to the polar day/night cycle of the Earth and that an observer at the South pole experiences a single day/night cycle over the course of a year that has nothing whatsoever to do with the separate motion of daily rotation to the central Sun.
Gerald Kelleher says: December 26, 2013 at 12:29 am
If your minds won’t accept that the moon doesn’t spin as it orbits the Earth by virtue of what your eyes are telling you……
______________________________
But it does Gerald, we can agree on that….however my mind is free to ‘see’ from other perspectives than my physical location in time and space, and from these other perspectives, the moon is ;seen’ to rotate. If your mind is ‘hard wired’ to the one perspective, so be it, I will understand.
@ATheoK
I sincerely hope that the irony of your appeal to authority is not lost on you, especially considering the main focus of this website and the known facts surrounding it. Besides, I certainly don’t need to sift through all data to call parts of it into question. Lastly, weren’t you the one accusing moon doubters of misbehaving earlier in this thread?
@Ric Werme
“What’s 4.7t? ton? tonne? Either way, close to 4700 kg. From F = ma, a = 16,000 / 4700 = 3.4 m/s^2. Please display your work and a sketch with a scale.”
“t” was meant to refer to metric tons. Substract the moon’s gravity of 1.62 m/s^2 and you get 1.78 m/s^2 of effective acceleration. Here is the one second interval directly after launch with an accompanying, rough scale: http://i39.tinypic.com/4trpqd.jpg
@Ed
“I wasn’t aware that during those 44 years there was a need for such lift capability ”
The ISS doesn’t consist of modules no heavier than 20t by choice. The S5 supposedly delivered 80t into LEO. And if you had actually read your braeunig.us link, you would have noticed that none of the math addressed the question.
_________________________________
I truly wonder how people here are perfectly capable of identifying a conspiracy of interest (that even includes elements of NASA) when it comes to cAGW, yet consider Apollo totally beyond reproach on the basis of the very same fallacious arguments usually employed to defend cAGW.
Ben B
There is nowhere in space you can see a spinning moon,you can see it orbit the Earth and therefore account for its monthly long day/night cycle on the surface however intrinsic rotation with its characteristic maximum equatorial speed and zero polar rotation like the Earth and the planets you cannot.
As an astronomer my reasoning is dictated by physical considerations hence the conclusions are not sought after as the ‘spinning mooners’ or their equivalent in the climate quarter would have it,conclusions do surface but in a non aggressive way ,for instance,it is easy to compare the completely different behavior of the moon around the Earth as opposed to the Earth around the Sun thereby modifying the old ’tilting Earth’ explanations for the seasons.It is not something exclusive to me but to all astronomers and people of genuine scientific standing –
“And though some disparate astronomical hypotheses may provide exactly the same results in astronomy, as Rothmann claimed in his letters to Lord Tycho of his own mutation of the Copernican system,nevertheless there is often a difference between the conclusions because of some physical consideration ….But practitioners are not always in the habit of taking account of
that diversity in physical matters , . . ” Kepler
In other words,you do not have a choice – no matter where you view the moon from,above it or below it,from the planets or deep in space,you will always see the moon orbit the Earth without a separate spinning motion whereas you will not only see the Earth rotate daily from any point in space but see the planet turn once to the central Sun each year by watching the polar coordinates turn in a circle to the central Sun.
Earthrise is possible for a static observer on the moon. It just takes a long time, the effect being due to liberation of the moon’s orbit around the earth as compared to it’s rotation. Overall Earthrise would be visible from about 9% of the moon’s surface.
John Edmondson
You are assigning cause to a rocking moon which is equivalent to planetary epicycles by ignoring the consideration that the moon spends half it orbit going in the direction of our planet’s orbital motion around the Sun and the other half traveling in the opposite direction to the Earth’s orbit.
The so-called ‘Earthrise’ from libration would mean the Earth rises and sets on the same horizon and that is hideous.Of course you put a rover on the moon at the lunar points in areas that temporarily are not seen from Earth and then appreciate apparent libration is a change in orbital perspective.It is that simple.
Fair enough Gerald, I can follow your reasoning based on your definition of rotation wrt equatorial speeds, etc., so I will leave it at that….rotating asteroids?,,no I won;t go there.
After reading through all of these posts, I’m convinced that Gerald is a plant, or playing some kind of trolling game that has no apparent purpose. It seems impossible to me that someone can possibly be so obtuse.
ALL bodies in the universe have some rotation, or “spin”.
The claim of being an astronomer has to be the crowning touch.
So Gerald, did you win your bet?
Not good enough Ben D
The speculative/predictive system which is wrecking havoc with terrestrial sciences and especially these toxic future climate predictions using a minor atmospheric gas has it roots in astronomy where false conclusions were drawn and observations,causes and effects were manipulated to support the wayward conclusions.
One hundred and fifty years ago there were confident men trashing this notion of a ‘spinning moon’ with an air of superiority yet one hundred and fifty years later it is still mainstream policy despite all the technological innovations and that should tell you all something about the issue of human control over planetary temperatures and where the issue is going to go,at least if things continue the way they are.
On the positive side,climate studies and most of terrestrial sciences are only really beginning to open up and once humanity drops its obsession with a minor atmospheric gas,it may discover how little is actually known about things such as what causes the seasons or even the daily temperature fluctuations (given that current scientists imagine 366 rotations in 365 days). It is all to play for.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 25, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Only for you Gerald, only for you. The Earth rotates 360° in 23hrs 56mins. That is an indisputable fact. Only a flat-Earther such as yourself would deny the additional ~1.0028° of rotation required to make a solar day. But you seem to think that your argumentum ad antiquitus gives you the right to call us cretins.
CodeTech
The people making a wonderful lifestyle and reputation out of ‘global warming’ or any of its variants don’t really get upset with their opponents for indeed they are as necessary as the belief in human control over global temperature itself and this I learned from the ‘spinning moon ‘ saga.It only matters that the issue is kept front and center so if it needs a few complaining shills known as ‘science deniers’ then so be it. The peer review process is there to maintain the position of those doing the reviewing and not any original article which may disturb their salaries and pensions leaving common folk to do the dirty work out of misguided convictions like you yourself have shown so if you wish to know how those promoting human control over planetary temperatures feel then this is as good an exercise as any.
Any confusion over orbital motion and rotation should have quickly evaporated leaving observers to enjoy the lunar monthly cycle around the Earth without any rotation so the unnecessary introduction of a a spinning moon would naturally become repulsive and at odds with the enjoyment of the lunar cycle and its phases.
I think you lost me Gerald…. but yeah..those damn astronomers…:)
Gerald, thank you for your useful posts which clarify that there is no such thing as a spinning moon. I usually explain this by having two people stand, facing each other. I ask one to stay still and the other to shuffle sideways around them in a circle always facing them. If the person orbiting the person in the centre spun, in any way, at some point they would have their back to the person in the centre. But they don’t. However, if there was a string on the orbiting person linking the top of their head to the ceiling we would see that after one orbit it would have been twisted , so we could assume against our observation that the orbiting person had spun on their axis. The reality is that the twist in the string results from an orbit , not from a spin. Paradoxically, to stop the string twisting the orbiting person would have to rotate around their vertical axis once every orbit, in effect having their back to the person in the centre for 25% of each orbit. To me it’s fairly obvious that the moon does not spin, only orbit, but I’m surprised at how many people who are otherwise well informed really do believe in a moon spinning. If the moon were suddenly removed from our system and plonked in interstellar space it would not be spinning, if you did this to the earth it would be spinning.
Slacko
You are trying to correlate daily rotation of the planet with stellar circumpolar motion –
The technical qualifiers do not support the conclusion for the expanded view shows the conclusion for what it is – a star in stellar circumpolar motion returns to any fixed point in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds of an average 24 hour day within the 356/365/365/366 day calendar framework. Your abysmal ‘fact’ was a late 17th century invention when they started to model planetary dynamics using watches and therefore timekeeping averages in the same way they now try to model climate using computers.
The problem is not resolving this hugely complex issue but getting people on board who actually like the genuine fact that all the effects within a 24 hour period are due to one rotation of the planet and that tomorrow ,the next day and the day after that will be no different.The only difference is the additional 24 hour day with all its rotational effects on Feb 29th which closes out 4 orbits of the Earth as the 1461th rotation.
So far we have a ‘spinning moon’ conclusion and another conclusion that the Earth’s rotation doesn’t cause the temperatures to go up and down daily ,after all,insisting on 366 rotations in 365 days is an assertion of that tragic conclusion.
Gosh it must be hard to be Anthony! He puts up a beautiful article about an inspiring topic and gets beat on the head by moon landing conspiracy theorists and someone who doesn’t understand that the Moon rotates. The latter I have some sympathy with: if you can’t get your mind around a mental image of what’s happening, you just won’t see it. But the former is more educational. We were posed this challenge:
(2) and (3) don’t interest me. The answer to (3) is obvious, and re (2): What is more likely: that the footprints smudged the tracks (or alternatively the astronauts picked up the moon rover in the light gravity), versus a smart gang intent on committing a hoax picking it up (even with a crane) when it could as easily be rolled and they knew it had to be rolled? Nothing to wonder about there.
But (1) is instructive of how conspiracy theories work: How come, we are asked, when the max. acceleration is 1.78m/s^2 and the max distance travelled should be 0.89m, did it travel twice that? Well let’s not just believe what we are told, let’s use high school physics to calculate it. 4,700 Kilos (give or take – maybe they are tons, not tonnes) and 16,000 N max thrust gives, using F=ma, a=F/m, so a=16000/4700 = 3.4 m/s^2. Then using distance s travelled from a standing start is 0.5*a*t^2, t=1, so s=a/2, or 1.7m, which is (roughly, but this is just a rough-and-ready calculation) twice what the conspiracy theory said it should be. In other words, a figure (wrong) was thrown out and our local believer bought it without checking. Just as it is with climate “science” – all sorts of erroneous rubbish is thrown out there (acidification of an alkaline ocean, “unprecedented” warming that hasn’t even reached known historic levels, the planet explodes… you fill out the list) and all the sheople just buy the lot hook line and sinker.
Lessons: (1) check things – it often isn’t all that hard. (2) if you can’t check everything, check something; someone who discovers that the ocean is alkaline, for example, won’t believe it is eating the shells of sea creatures through acidity. And if you know they lie to you about that, why believe them at all?
Anthony, Best wishes for a Merry Christmas to you, your family, and your moderators, as well as to the larger community. It is interesting to see how the vast majority of posters see the great scientific and engineering achievement of the Apollo program for the historical reality it is.
It is puzzling that some characters straight out of a Lewandowsky faux science project are posting. If we don’t feed the trolls on their pathetic lack of understanding of orbital mechanics and basic history, do we appear to support them? If we all jump on them, and try to enlighten the apparently unenlightenable, does an otherwise excellent thread get hijacked by the trolls and kooks?
Gareth
The point is to demonstrate that the Earth’s polar day/night cycle and experienced at the North/South poles in isolation is indicative of the fact that aside from and in addition to daily rotation,our planet has a second surface rotation to the central Sun.
Up to now they have been trying to force through an explanation for the seasons without including the cause of the polar day/night cycle by squeezing everything into a ’tilting’ Earth towards and away from the Sun. It is much easier to look at the orbital motion of the Earth in isolation from daily rotation and if necessary make comparisons with the moon’s orbital behavior around the Earth,something quite different.
This is not about disproving a ‘spinning moon’ and it is unfair to ask anyone to do so but that being said,it is useful to bring the topic up so we could look at orbital characteristics and get people revisiting these topics once more.
The moon rotates once every orbit around the earth. Does it spin? Can rotate and spin be the same? It does wobble – this is known as libration. Interesting video:
PS: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year all WUWT posters, and moderators…
For the benefit of Dorian Sabaz @ 4:21am here are some more jpeg images for you to search:-
Apollo 10
Apollo 11
Apollo 12
Apollo 14
Apollo 15
Apollo 16
Apollo 17
Mods
Please rescue my last post.
Thanks
I find it shocking, and truly dispiriting, that a debate still needs to be raging over the question of whether the moom is rotating on its axis or not. As has been said by others, one has to have a clear notion of what “rotation” means, and until that is agreed upon, the debate will drag on endlessly. The only meaningful and invariant way of defining rotation is relative to the “fixed stars.” We know that inertial frames (in which there are no Coriolis and centrifugal forces) are those which are non-rotating relative to the fixed stars. The moon is manifestly rotating relative to the fixed stars, with approximately a 28 (earth) day period. An observer on the surface of the moon will experience a “day” and “night,” with a period of about 28 days. That is to say, the sun will rise, and it will set, with about 28 days between sunrises. The observer will be able to measure Coriolis and centrifugal forces, consistent with a 28 day or so rotation period. The mere fact that the earth appears in approximately the same position in the sky always is totally irrelevant. The observer on the moon experiences a rotation.
The suggestions that the Apollo missions, and the moon landings, were faked is simply childish beyond belief. I suppose a psychologist might be able to comprehend the warped thinking of the people who subscribe to such conspiracy theories. As has been emphasised by others, there is nothing that the soviets would have liked more tham to have been able to demonstrate that they were faked. Talented amateurs with surplus equipment were able to monitor the progress of the missions; the soviets were certainl able to do at least as well; there is no way they would have been duped by the sort of infantile tricks that the conspiracy theorists fantasise about.
Finally, as a hard-nosed objectivist, scientist and atheist, I would like to add that I remember vividly, as a 15 year old, watching that live broadcast from Apollo 8 as they orbited the moon, and I found it very, very moving. The King James bible is a beautiful piece of literature, and the readings captured something of the wonder and the glory of what was happening. Thank you, Anthony, for bringing back some memories of that wonderful period in history, when it seemed that we really were about to “make the heavens a part of our world.” It is so sad that that dream never came true.
Chris
Please keep mythology away from WUWT. Those who think the earth is 6000 years old have plenty of other outlets for their views.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 2:21 am
Bollocks! How can you pretend to conflate a 150 year old debate over orbital mechanics with the current climate wars which have their roots in the political desire to excercise absolute control over humanity? You’ve not demonstrated any logical reason to interconnect these two, yet you question the honesty of CAGW skeptics who are also “moon spinners.”
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 2:47 am
If you were an astronomer, which you clearly are not, you would not demonstrate a deliberate ignorance of sidereal time. Such a post makes fun of daily temperature changes being tied to 366 days, a ludicrous idea.
Gareth Phillips says:
December 26, 2013 at 2:43 am
Really? What if every object in our solar system was ..um.. disappeared (to use a WUWT phrase) and only the moon was left? Would it still know what to do? Or would its inertia disappear like magic? AHA! Magic, that’s all you fellas have got now, isn’t it? The magic that allows you to change the frame of reference on a whim.
restalrig says:
December 26, 2013 at 6:22 am
Obviously you aren’t implying that Christians (and astronauts in particular) “think the earth is 6000 years old” – nobody is that ignorant. So I’m at a loss to understand the point you are trying to make.
John A says: @ December 25, 2013 at 11:57 am
I always regarded the reading of Genesis by Apollo 8 to be one of the worst abuses of religious beliefs into scientific endeavour. Religion did not get them into lunar orbit, science and engineering did…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
However a CHRISTIAN nation under a CATHOLIC president was responsible for supplying the $$$ and training for that scientific endeavor.
You forget WHEN that happened. I can remember watching on an old tube type TV placed in a public school that had started the day with the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag that morning.
Have you ever heard of Divide and Conquer? You are a classic example of the end result of one facet of this policy (See: “I Have A Plan To Destroy America” a speech by Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm ) I am an agnostic, a non-christian and I can see this. The attack on Christians is another method for chipping away at our freedom, disguised as usual AS Freedom.
Now we have a even more blatant example, the
United NationsUS Department of Defense training manual on Extremism entiled: AFSS 0910 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND TREATMENT INCIDENTS (EOTI) LESSON PLAN link that contains the following passages:In case you do not get the message from that manual: Despite not having a legal leg to stand on the military also Court-martialed a US soldier for refusing to obey an order when he refused to put on a United Nations uniform and server under a commander from a foreign nation. He was willing to do the job if worn the correct uniform. (His oath is to the US Constitution not the UN.) link Also Obama has been getting rid of US generals as fast as he can 9 High Ranking Military Flag and General Officers Fired By Obama, 1st Time In US History
As I said, I am not a Christian but the attacks on Christianity within our once Christian nations and at WUWT is repugnant to me.
Gareth Phillips says (December 26, 2013 at 2:43 am): “If the moon were suddenly removed from our system and plonked in interstellar space it would not be spinning,”
Actually, it would be. Sorry. 🙂
Chris
Shocking indeed !,when you can’t differentiate between orbital motion and rotation or try to impose the idea that the monthly lunar day/night cycle comes from anything other than its orbital motion around the Earth perhaps you have another debate in mind because there ain’t rotation behind the lunar day/night cycle.
The Earth has both an orbital motion and intrinsic rotation (which involves a rotational gradient between Equator and poles) so that once an object spins,regardless of its orbital motion it will continue to spin through 360 degrees.
The saddest facet of the crowd that had that air of superiority when arguing against lunar rotation a century and a half ago is that nobody remembers them while a ‘spinning moon’ is still mainstream policy along with the mindnumbing ‘fact that the Earth turns 366 times in 365 days ! –
http://books.google.ie/books?id=MfU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA126&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
People here would do well to remember that as they may feel they are making a difference when they are not so there is plenty of room for dismay on all sides.
Christmas has always been a good time to revisit history and many years ago I encountered a popular science book that captured the imagination of the wider population,in this case ,the Longitude story and how an English craftsman turned himself into a one man version of NASA in creating the world’s first really accurate timepiece to determine location on the planet using the principle of rotation at a rate of 15 degrees per hour and once in 24 hours. This great innovator,John Harrison, wrote those principles down himself including the peevish response from the academics much like the way people behave here in this matter –
http://books.google.ie/books?id=_6dVAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA91&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 1:38 am
You’re an astronomer? I’d love to see your last performance review. I can’t find where you work via Google, I assume that’s a different Gerald Kelleher who died a while back.
I did find:
Which seems to be good advice. I’m sure CodeTech will agree.
Oh, from any inertial frame of reference, preferably with a zero velocity relative to the Sun, if you can see features on the Moon, you can determine the length of its sidereal day. It will be less than infinity, i.e. it rotates.
Oh dear, I see we hit a nerve: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/02/science-spin-of-the-worst-kind-national-geographics-when-the-earth-stops-spinning/#comment-1163668 says in small part (let’s keep it that way):
I declare “last round” for comments on rotation and non-sunrise lunar photos. I’m done, I hope.
Slacko
Don’t be naughty. People who imagine the moon spins are much worse in intellectual terms than those who imagine people can control the planet’s temperature via fossil fuels so you certainly lost something in translation. I am interested in how lunar orbital behavior differs from planetary orbital behavior and spinning mooners would be excluded from such a discussion.
Slacko
As to ‘sidereal vs solar time’, when they discovered the flaw they altered the hypothesis much like they shifted from ‘global warming’ to the intellectually suicidal ‘climate change’ when predictions didn’t pan out.
The mainstream no longer proposes the Earth turns once in 23 hours 56 minutes via the comical ‘solar vs sidereal time’ story but have shifted to a new and equally dumb version which uses a conjecture magically pulled out of thin air about an idealized rotation once in 24 hours back in 1820 –
“At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours,” says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. “In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds.” NASA
You are amazing people,truly !.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 2:47 am
after all,insisting on 366 rotations in 365 days is an assertion of that tragic conclusion
Do you deny that in a period of 365 twenty four hour days there are 366 periods of 23 hours and 56 minutes?
@Ron House
“Well let’s not just believe what we are told, let’s use high school physics to calculate it. 4,700 Kilos (give or take – maybe they are tons, not tonnes) and 16,000 N max thrust gives, using F=ma, a=F/m, so a=16000/4700 = 3.4 m/s^2. Then using distance s travelled from a standing start is 0.5*a*t^2, t=1, so s=a/2, or 1.7m, which is (roughly, but this is just a rough-and-ready calculation) twice what the conspiracy theory said it should be. In other words, a figure (wrong) was thrown out and our local believer bought it without checking.”
Well, excuse me, but you don’t seem to realize that there is GRAVITY on the moon. Gravity accelerating objects downwards at 1.62 m/s^2, to be precise. 3.4 m/s^2 – 1.62 m/s^2 = 1.78 m/s^2
Agreed?
bruce1337 says:
December 26, 2013 at 1:32 am
Oops, I forgot to account for lunar gravity. It was late and there were trolls.
Good photo, I don’t have a good answer beyond my suggestion of back pressure from the launch surface.
My dear Werner
How quaint with the ‘denier’ terminology but I trust reasonable people will work this out based on the experience that the temperature at their location rises and falls within a 24 hour period due to one rotation of the planet hence rotations and days never fall out of step in that 1461 days and rotations fit into 4 orbital circumferences therefore there are 365 1/4 days in each year and orbital cycle.
Students will love the astronomical event where Sirius moves just far enough to one side of the Sun to be seen one morning and that our ancestors discovered it takes an extra day and all the effects of one rotation to cover the orbital distance where the Earth’s position in space is fixed by the appearance of Sirius –
From here the 1461 natural noon cycles that cover the 4 orbital cycles are averages to 24 hours and from there the average turns into constant rotation at a rate of 15 degrees per hour and once in 24 hours.
You poor guys are behind the times because they have already changed the story to suit their agenda and it is as equally poor as the one you adhere to.The spinning moon saga taught me that when you own the education system and the self-serving peer review process you can weather any storm or argument against your position,something this website and its followers have yet to learn. Of course academics being academics can take opposite positions without achieving anything and that is why the balance will continue to be with the unfortunate mob who believe humans can control the planet’s temperature.
Ron House says:
December 26, 2013 at 2:50 am
Well let’s not just believe what we are told, let’s use high school physics to calculate it. 4,700 Kilos (give or take – maybe they are tons, not tonnes) and 16,000 N max thrust gives, using F=ma, a=F/m, so a=16000/4700 = 3.4 m/s^2.
This is a subtle point, but the F is the net force. So what you say would be true in outer space. However on the moon, there is a downward force of F = ma = 4700 kg x 1.6 m/s2 = 7500 N. So the net force is now only 16,000 – 7500 = 8500 N. So now a = F/m becomes 8500 N / 4700 kg = 1.8 m/s2. So the numbers are in fact correct.
Anthony,
Thank you for your excellent writing and sense of how to communicate the wonders of science and human accomplishment.
Sadly, it appears a beautiful post that brought back some great memories for myself and many has been infested by trolls and kooks.
@Ric Werme
“I don’t have a good answer beyond my suggestion of back pressure from the launch surface.”
Given the large (>2) discrepancy in observed acceleration, that hypothetical back pressure would need to account for more than the stand-alone thrust of the engine, all in a vacuum environment not conductive to any pressure buildups. I have a lot of trouble believing that.
The moon missions and landings were riveting for me as a youth. This grand undertaking by the Americans in the 60’s/70’s inspired my generation to engineering marvels bring an unprecedented level of civilization to the west. unfortunately the moon/space race didn’t end just because the Americans pulled their space ships back to earth and effectively burned them. The Chinese and Indian’s are now poised to actually win the race with moon bases and real-estate claims extending their boarders to the moon and beyond !! Neither of these two nations blew trillions on foreign oil wars and phony financial structures that were certain to collapse under the weight of their phony foundations.
I’d like to add something personal here: Unlike the apparent majority on here, I am too young to have “witnessed” the moon landings in my lifetime, and therefore have very little emotional attachment to them (beyond a visceral fascination with all things space). I have come to realize that grand deceptions have at times paved the course of history, the AGW topic being merely one battleground in a far larger war, and thus consider nothing beyond scrutiny anymore. Some of you seem to consider that blasphemy, but I’d rather be a heretic than a dupe.
I have not brought up this topic in order to discredit WUWT, as some have alleged, but because my inquiries have called this episode into doubt. Severe doubt. I believe that honesty is the best policy, and that false beliefs will only hinder our progress as a species — progress that needs to entail the conquest of deep space, eventually. In case we have rested on false laurels for nearly half a century, it’d become much more of a priority to actually put our hands and minds towards crossing the final frontier, wouldn’t it?
So, yea, sorry for crashing this christmas party, and many thanks to the mods for allowing me to breach this topic. Please try to keep your minds open everybody, for knowledge begins where faith ends.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 8:31 am
How quaint with the ‘denier’ terminology but I trust reasonable people will work this out based on the experience that the temperature at their location rises and falls within a 24 hour period due to one rotation
You seem to have omitted a little piece, namely the extra 4 minutes. Yes, high noon to high noon is 24 hours and 0 minutes on the average. But one rotation relative to the North Star is 23 hours and 56 minutes. So the 24 hours consists of 23 hours and 56 minutes PLUS a little extra due to Earths revolution around the sun.
When you mention the word above that we are not supposed to mention, note that I have taught astronomy 30 years ago and the basic facts of astronomy have not changed due to the climate change issue. One is a hoax and the other is not.
Yes! Bless the Lord. – http://rogertharpe.wordpress.com
Is some truther website down for maintenance over the Christmas holidays?
It is rather a shame, too. Entertaining as the free-wheeling discussion has been, one has to wonder what led the irrational moon-landing conspiracists and the incomprehensible, schizoid-sounding Gerald to crawl out from the woodwork. I found myself wanting to apologize to Anthony for the ammunition they give to those who look for any opportunity to smear the reputation of WUWT.
Chris Pope’s gentle rebuke above (December 26, 2013 at 6:08 am) should shine the light on these creatures and send them scurrying back into the dark recesses where they belong.
/Mr Lynn
bruce1337 says:
December 26, 2013 at 9:14 am
I’d rather be a heretic than a dupe.
_________________________
Perhaps you should stop fooling yourself.
Do you honestly think that all of those people, from the lowliest NASA tech, through mission control and the astronauts themselves and all media types and anyone peripherally involved could/would keep a secret as big as the one you purport? How is it that you maintain your belief against all evidence presented here by others, as well as the huge amount of evidence out there in the world?
@Alan Robertson
“Do you honestly think that all of those people, from the lowliest NASA tech, through mission control and the astronauts themselves and all media types and anyone peripherally involved could/would keep a secret as big as the one you purport?”
Of course not! Why would everyone in some way involved with the program need to know? It’s an absurd proposition, and nothing less than a straw man. As far as hard evidence is concerned, what is there, really? Yes, that’s right: essentially nothing. However, I for one would prefer not to reiterate the tired old arguments, for no one can provide the proof necessary to truly settle this.
Ric Werme:
Thanks for pointing that out. The best way to deal with cranks and trolls (either online or in real life) is to simply ignore them, always.
Don’t try to “spin ” it,
The Moon , like the Earth both rotates and revolves (twice)
It rotates once every lunar cycle; keeping its heavy side toward Earth. Gravity don’t ya know.
The Moon revolves around the Earth every 28 days or so, one Lunar cycle. It also revolves around the Sun along with Earth.
One Lunar day = One lunar cycle.
The number of days in a Lunar year equals the number of Lunar cycles plus one.
(The one being by virtue of the Moons yearly revolution of the Sun.)
LPs & CDs spin.
Planets and moons rotate and revolve.
So there!
oh yeah, Merry Christmas to all at WUWT . Crew and commenters all.
God bless my favorite site.
Let the truth shine like the rising Earth of Apollo 8.
======================================================================
Maybe The Lew sent them here hoping to prove his paper after the fact?
I surrender – it WAS A HOAX. you can get the full story by watching Stanley Kubick’s ‘The Shining’ and studying the info. here: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/ My Mother’s brother DID NOT work for Grumman at Bethpage, NY in the 1960’s and was NOT part of the LEM Design team and DID NOT tell me about machine parts parts being taken down to minimum spec. for weight savings and DID NOT ever witness directed energy weapon research Demonstrations later on in his work, – and my Father, an electronics engineer on the cutting edge of that technology of the day was totally taken in by his Brother-In-Law’s elaborate deceptions.
bruce1337 says:
December 26, 2013 at 11:14 am
______________________
Oh, I get it. You tricked me in and I wasted my time talking to you. Your words aren’t sincere and you are a hoaxster.
finis
Wbrozek
You begin with the experience that every 24 hour day you wake up,you are also waking up to another rotation of the planet with all its effects therefore it should interest so concerned with planetary temperature rises and falls that the rotation of the planet is behind this effect day in and day out up to and including Feb 29th which completes for orbital circuits of the Earth and the 1461 rotations that fill it .What would be new to most readers here is how the orbital position of the Earth is determined in space where Sirius moves just far enough to one side of the Sun (due to the orbital motion of the Earth of course) to be seen outside the Sun’s glare.
There is no stellar circumpolar motion involved and that is where the guys in the late 17th century jumped the tracks by putting Sirius into stellar circumpolar motion and a rotating celestial sphere structure.If you can’t understand the apparent motion of the stars due solely to the orbital motion of the Earth then there isn’t a chance you will comprehend why those 1461 natural noon cycles within 4 orbital circuits are transferred to the familiar 1461 twenty four hour cycles that make up the same 4 orbital circuits.
You now jettisoned ‘solar vs sidereal’ story demanded 1465 rotations in 1461 days making a mockery of the correlation between daily effects within a 24 hour cycle and its rotational cause where they keep in step.
So,in a website that definitely assumes it has the high superior ground in terms of planetary temperature turns rabid at the sight of the cause of the daily temperature fluctuations and its rotational cause.The ‘solar vs sidereal’ notion is fiction on an industrial scale and it is troublesome for multiple reasons not least how it ties in with the orbital motion of the moon and Earth.Those awful guys in the late 17th century tried to run the daily and orbital motion of the Earth off a common North/South pole axis so they could model solar system structure within a rotating celestial sphere –
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Sidereal_Time_en.PNG
Anyone who feels upset that there is a person who suggests the moon doesn’t have a separate spinning motion will now know how upset the guys who feel that humans can control planetary temperatures feel,the difference being that we can see the moon directly and determine we can’t see all sides,something that would happen were the moon to have a separate spinning motion to its lunar orbital circuit.
Fortunately even some people draw the line above a spinning moon and spare themselves from intellectual oblivion.
“Anyone who feels upset that there is a person who suggests the moon doesn’t have a separate spinning motion will now know how upset the guys who feel that humans can control planetary temperatures feel…” ~Kelleher
Does anyone know what he is talking about? Is someone “controlling the planetary temperatures”? He is using
Ron House
Apologies for the poor proofreading in the last response to Wbrozek.
Not a single astronomer in history ever discussed a spinning moon although they did discuss the phases and what causes the phases even though we share the same conclusion that the moon orbits the Earth along with those from antiquity,Plutarch’s work is exceptionally beautiful in this respect –
http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Moon.html
It is not that none of you find it strange that in Galileo’s great observational report ‘The Starry Messenger’ he discusses at length the orbital motion of the moon and how it creates moonscapes of light and dark
but never rotation for the simple reason it would have been absurd –
http://archive.org/stream/siderealmessenge80gali#page/16/mode/2up
You want the wonders of astronomy and they are there in the pages of both works but they ain’t in an era that believes the moon spins. Apologise to Anthony if you so wish but neither of you are going to extrapolate rotation as a separate motion from its lunar orbital motion from images of the moon over a month –
http://www.stariel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/moon_phases1.jpg
Wish this nonsense would stop but just goes to show that astronomy is rudderless and that any in-depth analysis to discover how the mainstream policy came to promote a ‘spinning moon’ is simply not present at the moment.
Gerald Kelleher says:
December 26, 2013 at 12:34 pm
I need to improve my teaching skills before I resume this conversation with you.
Ask him who is “controlling planetary temperature,” and how, and why.
It doesn’t matter what time of night or year that I drag out my antique 60X telescope to look at the visible moon… I always see the same face of the moon. Can anyone with even a “mild” education really look at the moon and fail to understand why the moon always looks the same? Really?
Alan
If you conclude the moon spins even though you never get to see the far side I suggest you trade your telescope for a microscope. To be a ‘spinning mooner’ is an affliction just as those unfortunate souls who are convinced humans can control planetary temperature like a household thermostat but by a wide margin,those who see a spinning moon definitely exist in an intellectual oblivion that is unique to this era.
You might get the rare person willing to find the notion of a spinning moon repulsive and indeed they have existed as a loose group of people throughout the years but after landing men on the moon where the astronaut can choose to not look at the Earth by virtue that the moon doesn’t spin and the idea is still in circulation can be breathtaking at times.
Some chance that readers have of appreciate the polar day/night cycle and its orbital cause as all locations on Earth turn once to the central Sun apart from and in addition to daily rotation,all planets do –
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Uranus_rings_changes.jpg
Gary Hladik says:
December 26, 2013 at 7:36 am
Gareth Phillips says (December 26, 2013 at 2:43 am): “If the moon were suddenly removed from our system and plonked in interstellar space it would not be spinning,”
Actually, it would be. Sorry. 🙂
So where would it obtain the spin Gary, and how fast would it be spinning ? I’m happy to learn, but I need a bit more information than just a flat contradiction. I agree it may be still moving in relation to other bodies, but spinning on an axis in they same way the Earth does?
No, you were perfectly clear. You just need to stop trying to making sense out of what this fellow is writing. But either way, no point in resuming.
/Mr Lynn
I’ve done a cursory search to little avail. The only evidence I’ve come up with to verify that the moon rotates on its own axis have been several versions of: “if it didn’t, then during the course of it’s monthly orbit we would see more of it from earth, possibly all of it, instead of what we do see, which is only slightly more than half (and would be exactly half if not for libration)”.
While this argument makes perfect sense to me, I think it less than convincing to those who seem to think “tidal locking” of the moon’s orbital period/rotation means the moon is not rotating on its axis – ie the “tetherball” analogy. Does anyone know how we could determine whether tidal locking represents a condition in which all axial rotation of the locked body has ceased and/or how that would look different from what we presently observe? Verifiable sources, please.
The only relevant other data I can think of offhand that might be significant is this. It is not only the earth’s moon that is under tidal lock, but also many other moons of the solar system with their primaries, and also Mercury with the sun. Each of these various other tidally locked objects has a unique orbital period/rotation lock. Yet I still fail to see how what we presently observe would look different from an orbiting object that had completely ceased rotating on its own axis.
Also, on what evidence do astronomers say the moon rotated faster in the past.
Just wondering. Thanks and Merry Christmas![…]
Sorry, there was a problem while posting my previous comment and it starts to repeat after: “Just wondering. Thanks and Merry Christmas!”
Wbrozek
I am enjoying the conversation for here we have this issue which can easily be resolved with the help of the ancient astronomers who were incredibly careful in spotting that Sirius skips an appearance by one day after four cycles of 365 days and even if they were unaware of it,forever defined the Earth’s orbital position using the number of rotations as a gauge.
Sirius is one of the stars that temporarily is lost to the glare of the central Sun and the apparent motion of the star has nothing whatsoever to do with stellar circumpolar motion –
http://isiopolis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/slide1.png
You can see it on the animated graphic –
But in reality it is beautiful and in antiquity coincided with the flooding of the Nile –
http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30
So how do we know there are 365 1/4 rotations in each orbital circuit ?,well you need 4 orbital circuits of the Earth to determine that and it is historical storytelling at its finest and nobody should have a problem with it and especially the only possible use of the apparent motion of a background star to our central Sun.
Only a hard shell of indoctrination prevents people from enjoying just how clever our ancestors are and genuine history rather than the fiction generating machine of the late 17th century theorists .
To the forum
I know you all mean well apart from one sensible person who has enough sense to at least not be caught with the bluffing and voodoo of ‘tidal locking’ but right now you are in a position far worse than the unfortunate people who have this mindnumbing idea that by some act of doing or undoing we can control the planet’s temperature. In an effort to insist the moons spins people are willing to ignore planetary dynamics and especially the motions of the Earth and its effects on planetary temperatures so whatever high intellectual ground you may believe exists,it certainly hasn’t surfaced in this thread.
They say academics are so vicious because the stakes are so low and in this case it may be close to the truth but your fate is that of those who took the sensible view on lunar dynamics over 150 years ago .I will enjoy the lunar orbital phases for what they are and comfortable within the astronomical tradition which never mentioned rotation in respect to the moon. The fact is that a ‘spinning moon’ was conjured up by a mathematician is incidental in the same passage he has the Earth turn to stellar circumpolar motion in 24 hours and Venus in 23 hours !!!.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=gB2-Hqdx_LUC&pg=PA579&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Even the holdouts will disappear once the figure of Sir Isaac enters the picture even those his assertions are a joke and made even worse by his treatment of apparent planetary retrograde motion in what must be the greatest act of intellectual vandalism seen.
At least you all know now how the ‘climate change’ nee ‘global warmers’ feel in their quest to control our planet’s temperature.Perhaps you are all better off joining them because at the moment you act as necessary shills to make it appear there is an intelligent debate going on but as the education system is a well known indoctrination system you can figure out where you stand in the scheme of things.
REPLY: “planetary dynamics and especially the motions of the Earth and its effects on planetary temperatures” Barycentrism is just as much voodoo and idiocy as the moon landing deniers wailing here about photographs. Both sides have pretty much wrecked a thread intended to be inspirational. Thread closed after my final comment. – Anthony
I’m pretty much tired of the whole moon landing denier and barycentrism foolishness that wrecked this thread intended to be inspirational. So, thread closed.
If I could, I’d introduce you folks to Buzz Aldrin: