For reference, I have already told them why the sky has no stars (it’s because of camera exposure, the moon surface is very reflective so lower exposure is used to not overexpose the image) and why the flag wasn’t drooping down (there was an extending arm in the stand to hold it upright, as a flag drooping down is a sad flag). I have also explained that the videos of the moon landing were upscaled/remastered when they asked why the video quality of the clips were so good.
Currently, their main argument is the fact that the U.S. were able to do the moon landing in the mid 20th century while are experiencing delays for the current moon mission. They argue that, if the moon landing could be done way back then, with modern technology, it should be possible to quickly get back to the moon. They also argue NASA could have just reused the same designs as the Apollo missions if they actually went to the moon.
I have argued that NASA’s budget is a fraction of what is used to be, and that the addition of new modern technologies introduces additional parts that could break and thus need to be tested. I have also mentioned that the Soviet Union would immediately call out the US if they faked the moon landing, and that samples of moon rocks were sent to Soviet scientists to study and verify. They insist that the Soviets were scared of what the US would do if they spoke out against a fake moon landing, which I didn’t agree with (given they were both nuclear superpowers)
They then argued that it’s impossible to tell whether the moon rocks are actually from the moon landing, they could be samples collected by rovers. I responded that no rovers had successfully collected moon rocks at the time, and then they switched to arguing that it’s impossible to verify the rocks are from the moon. I followed up by saying there are methods of doing that (through the composition of the rocks and such). They then asked how anybody knows what moon rocks look like if nobody else has been to the moon, and I got kind of stumped. I tried to explain that there are models to how the moon formed, how we know the rocks aren’t from Earth, satellites that map out the surface, etc., but they reiterated that no one can “prove” that they were from the moon without going there in the first place.
One interesting thing they also mentioned is that, if the US really did do a moon landing, why the Soviets (during cold war era) or Chinese (in modern era) didn’t do what they do best and copied their designs to land on the moon. Given that the US and China are having a new space race with the goal of being the first to establish a lunar base, they argue that China could just copy the Apollo program designs if the US really did do a moon landing.
To summarise, their main points/questions right now are: a) Explain why the US hasn’t gone back in so long, and why with modern technology it seems so difficult? (especially given that NASA has been experiencing numerous delays in the Artemis missions, that certainly hasn’t given them a good impression…) b) How do you verify moon rocks without having actually been on the moon? How did scientists figure out what a moon rock looks like? c) Why aren’t the old Apollo designs being reused for a moon landing? (by either the Americans or the Chinese)
They say that there isn’t strong evidence either side (but believes that it is false, saying that “we will see” once someone else lands on the moon)
And what other points can I bring up to definitively say, yes, the moon landing wasn’t faked?
edit:
Another thing, they also can’t believe that astronauts could bring and ride the little moon buggies. I am also partially interested in how that was achieved to be honest!
You are wasting your breath with someone who is dead set in whatever they believe. They won’t be convinced until you’re converted.
You cannot argue with stupid, dont bother.
This’d be my answer. A friend (former at this point) of mine fell down a conspiracist rabbit hole, and at one point started insisting the moon landings were faked. Now, I happen to know a lot (or more than most, anyhow) about the Apollo program, and absolutely nothing I could say helped. Either they pivoted to some new bullshit argument they’d heard on some YouTube video, or just dismissed things as lies when convenient.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
I lost a good friend a similar way. He insisted there was a global conspiracy to suppress “free energy” (over unity generators), among other things.
My background allowed me to personally prove some of his arguments wrong from almost first principles. He then accused me of personally being part of the conspiracy. At that point I concluded he was a lost cause and parted ways.
Most of his “evidence” was in YouTube videos. I went through a couple. It mostly had the build-up, explanation, consequences, and conclusions. It missed any actual evidence. It’s amazing how someone can fill 2 hours with nothing of substance.
At least my friend didn’t accuse me of personally being in on any conspiracy, but every time I saw them it turned into them trying to “gotcha” me with their latest conspiracy. Eventually they went off the deep end into flat Earther bullshit and at that point I just gave up and we lost touch because I haven’t had any interest in hanging out.
It perplexed me quite a lot. I think it was the only way he could mentally maintain his worldview.
Dealing with that mindset is exhausting. I try and keep an open mind. Unfortunately it’s possible to have it so open your brain falls out.
“Exhausting” is exactly how I would describe it.
But yeah, I try to keep an open mind too, and I didn’t mind (har har) my former friend’s previous witchcraft woo woo at all because it was harmless, but once they (and their partner, gah) started getting into conspiracy stuff they got weirdly belligerent about it, and it just got worse and worse the deeper they went. The last time I saw both of them, I was grilled for 2h about basic fucking geometry (turns out flat Earthers don’t understand perspective at all) and after that I just decided that I’ve had enough
Even better, one up them. “You think the Moon is real?!?”
You believe in the concept of a moon?
I like my moons like I like my plans: in concept form only.
The flat earth people often say it’s a hologram
The flat earth people
Use GPS navigation to drive around.
To add to that: You can’t reason someone out of an argument they didn’t reason themselves into.
If it were faked, the Soviets would have had a field day. They didn’t. If all the other facts didn’t work, I find that most convincing. The nemesis had to accept it begrudgingly.
Between the 70s and today, the motivations for moon landings have changed. Back then: fuck the commies, we go first, and science. Turns out the moon isn’t that interesting to continue sending people there. Rocks and dust, yawn. Not worth the ROI. The reason why there is renewed interest now is because people think realistically they can build a base on the moon. That was science fiction in 1969.
For your own mental health, give yourself a time frame and if they still think it’s fake allow yourself to let it go. Chances are they don’t want to be convinced and you have to let nature take its course and hope the seed of doubt you have planted comes to life and blossoms.
Well even that is assuming that there ever was a competition and the whole nation divide isn’t orchestrated by cabal overlords. Not saying I believe that but with the new knowledge of how the world is run, it’s tough to be sure of many things. It’s like “entertain every possibility, we’ll maybe see or we won’t”
This is the best possible argument.
Nothing about science or technology, simple James Bond spy stuff
There is a mirror left on the moon you can shoot a laser at and have it bounced back to you, no other celestial object can do that. Its also foundational knowledge for gps.
Their answer to that is “the mirror was placed by robots. We had the tech to get robots there, but not living people.”
I’ve had to deal with these people before.
The answer my friend gave to that was “well have you tried this yourself? No? Well why do you believe there actually is a mirror there? It’s just another NASA lie”
The response to that is to tell them, ‘I thought you did your own resesech but now you balk at the idea of doing a resarch project to verify a claim, you don’t want to do your own research, you want to believe lies.’
And if they say they dont have the capability to do that experiment, then retort they most certainly don’t have the capability to do any of their own research.
And you think that’ll convince them?
Either that or it will make them mad so its a win-win
Yep, the laser array is the definitive answer.
One would think, but like I just said in another comment, my conspiracist ex-friend’s reply was “well have you tried this yourself? No? Well why do you believe there actually is a mirror there? It’s just another NASA lie”
You can do tours at Long Range Laser places. There’s two in the US and one on France. Take your idiot friend to one.
Oh they’ve since fallen even deeper into the conspiracy rabbit hole and they hit the flat Earth at the bottom, at which point I stopped wanting to spend time with them since listening to them really fucking tedious.
Frankly I’m not entirely sure they even believe in the Moon anymore at this point, considering how flat Earthers usually evolve
Wait, what is the moon to flat earthers, if not the moon?
Many of them legitimately think it’s a hologram, because reasons.
I’ve been vaguely aware of the conspiracy theory before but I looked into it yesterday for a bit, and apparently some moron filmed an atmospheric refraction phenomenon and concluded that the Moon is a hologram: https://sopuli.xyz/post/42150922/22267576
The moon landing was faked, but they hired Stanley Kubrick to direct the shoot, and he insisted that they film on location.
Yay, it’s catching on, I don’t have to type it every time.
Don’t bother arguing with stupid. They’ll drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
theres retroreflectors on the moon that were intentionally. imstalled so that precise aiming of a laser would signify someone installed it on the moon if you saw the reflection back
theyre used to measure the moon earth distance but the fact that installation is there in that time period shows man was on the moon
Okay that is actually kind of cool. I never knew this was done! I am anticipating that they would ask whether they were placed by humans or rovers/landers/non-human methods, so was it possible (at the time) to put these retroreflectors on the moon without human intervention? I’m assuming, like the collection of moon rocks, it was not (otherwise why would they bother with having humans doing it with all that human error?)
To be fair (basically the only time I’ll say that in reference to Moon landing deniers) there are also retroreflectors like those mounted on some of the unmanned landers and rovers that have been sent to the Moon as well. So this alone isn’t going to “convince” him. It does indicate that the Americans were able to launch something to the Moon and land it at the same time that the Apollo missions were underway, so if you were dealing with a rational person who could be convinced by reason this would still count for something.
Unfortunately, I doubt that’s what’s going on here.
Without the ability of a private person to verify that, though, it’s no more persuasive than explaining all the other things we did up there.
And if the person is capable enough to actually use a laser to accurately target and measure the reflection of these retroreflectors, they’re not a moon landing denier.
you cant win everyone. similar to flat earthers who refuse to go on a paid trip to see 24 hour sun is up day, they will believe the shit till the end
There was an interesting article about how the moon landings could have been faked with 1960’s technology and it turns out you’d need such obscenely expensive equipment that just going to the actual moon would be the cheaper alternative.
The impossibility of faking the landing is a good proof IMO.
That sounds awesome. I’ll see if I can find it
Here’s something, at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhp-FTYSGe8
I saw a guy on YouTube talking about the capability of videotape tech at the time. Upshot was that it was that the footage had to have been broadcast live, it couldn’t have been prerecorded. Didn’t convince my idiot acquaintance of course.
You could always try the Buzz Aldrin approach: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/hqoYiUAppmI
Explain why the US hasn’t gone back in so long, and why with modern technology it seems so difficult?
The Apollo program took 4.5% of the US budget. NASA’s entire budget now—including space telescopes, earth satellites, and interplanetary probes—is less than half of one percent.
Woah that is kind of insane, I did not know that the modern budget was that much lower! :0
If traveling to the Moon is so expensive, why were six crewed missions sent? Wouldn’t one have been enough?
Why build one when you can build two at twice the price!
/s Contact quote
Seriously though, the cost was largely in the preparation. At some point you want to get more out of all that work. Yes, it was expensive for each actual launch. I wonder what the cost of stopping at the first one would have been. I’m WAGing that half the cost was getting there the first time. The other half was 5 more. That would be an interesting stat to know.
Ask what proof would change their mind and show them. Then when their mind is not changed, you will understand
This is it.
There’s a movement post-BLM where it’s not their job to explain racism to the ignorant. Very often, ignorant people refuse evidence. They waste everyone’s time and energy.
Their arch enemy, the Soviet Union, congratulated them on the achievement. They would have loved to take the US down a peg or two.
Mock him for being incurious, stupid and failing google-fu.
Or show him some of these links, your call.
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/moon-landing-conspiracy-theories-debunked
https://starwalk.space/en/news/was-the-moon-landing-fake
https://askanexpert.asu.edu/earthspace/top-question/moon-landing
For the Artemis vs Apollo stuffs:
https://spaceinformer.com/artemis-vs-apollo-comparison/
And just to see how stupid he is, maybe ask if the earth is flat. If they say yes… just have him go watch this entire channel…
The reason I’m calling him stupid is because he’s either never actually searched or done any kind of research beyond conspiracy theory memes, or has immediately discounted the vast majority of people patiently explaining why he’s wrong.
As for why china didn’t try to go… they didn’t have a space program until recently. As for the soviets? Well. Why go when we happily shared our research with them? One of the main motivations was propaganda. It was a sort of proxy war and we won. Beyond that, there wasn’t much point in duplicating efforts.
Another point of fact that many people don’t address is how impossible it would be to fake the radio transmissions without getting caught.
Something had to go to the moon. Tiny changes in antenna alignment were sufficient to cause a loss of contact with the CSM. (A fun movie about this is called The Dish and is based on a true story.)
The thing is that the CSM wasn’t going straight to the moon, it followed a transfer orbit that intersected both earth and the moons orbit (and at a time when the moon would be there!)
This path meant that you couldn’t just point an antenna at the moon.
It also meant that you had to keep a lock on the CSM’s path or risk losing it forever (The Dish, they almost lost it.)
HAMmies had their own rigs which could listen in, as did virtually every government.
The precision required to catch the signal meant you could track its location in real time.
It also means we have tons of recordings with the appropriate amount of signal lag.
And there would be no way to fake those signals by broadcasting from earth- everyone paying attention would know. if ever the entire world watched something that first landing was it.
I will note that indeed. Don’t worry, they do believe that the Earth is round, they’re not that nuts!
You cannot successfully argue with a pigeon.
No technical rational explanation will ever get to them.
Most are there because they want to belong to a community, and because they like the idea of being right where everyone else is wrong, so that they’re the important ones for once.
That’s how you get to them: feed their need to belong, and their need to find enough self-esteem some other way.
You can’t use logic to talk someone out of a position they didn’t use logic to decide on in the first place.
Those kinds of people should get nothing but scorn from the rest of us. No conversation, no attempting to change their minds.
Just pure, unadulterated scorn and derision. Nothing else. Fucking morons aren’t useful for anything other than diluting the gene pool anyway.
In the current age of the Internet that doesn’t work. It used to be people were afraid of being shunned by their community as then they would have nothing. Now with social media there are echo chambers that amplify views deserving of shunning and give refuge to those who would otherwise be shunned.
But deprogramming people like this is hard, and won’t always work. So I won’t blame anyone for shunning people like this, but just know it’s not really solving anything.
Then let them. What does it matter to you? People are allowed to be complete morons if they wish.
It matters to me because the sheer number of these morons who are being exploited by the rich are actively making my life and the lives the people I care about worse. To do nothing about it is to admit defeat and accept this as the way of the world. I don’t want to do that, I’d rather at least try something, even knowing the likelyhood is low.
And I don’t think pure doomerism is helpful either. By encouraging against any kind of deprogramming, you tacitly make it easier for the morons to spread without resistance.
That type of thinking is no different than the christians who believe that unless everyone else believes as they do then they ALL go to hell.
That ype of “enforced community” bullshit is exactly that. Bullshit.
People spend way too much of their time worrying about everyone else. Yes, helping when you can is a good thing.
You, however, are the one professing all the doom here. If not everyone believes the right things then we are all doomed.
Except who decides what those right things are, and what will happen when you teach society to think in that way, and then some demagogue takes control, and decides to subtly start changing what those right thoughts are?
Why, you get what we’re going through right now, don’t you…
So no, group think is never a good idea even if the thoughts are the “right” ones.
