Moon Hoax:Science Claims
From SkepticWiki
Moon Hoax theorists try to rely on science to make their case. Usually, they often demonstrate nothing more than their own lack of knowledge.
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[edit] Micrometeorites
The Moon Hoax theorists claim that the astronauts would have never survived the journey to the moon. Space, so we are told, is filled with tiny grain-sized meteorites travelling at high velocity, and as the spacecraft must also be travelling at a high velocity then even the tiniest micrometeorite would shear a hole in the spacecraft. The air would then leak out and the astronauts, the hoax theorists claim, would suffocate. Some even go so far as to dramatically describe explosive decompression.
[edit] Discussion
The first problem with this argument is that space is hardly "filled" with micrometeorites. It couldn't be said to be "filled" with anything! Space is really, really, really big, and is mostly, well, empty space. So it's actually quite rare for a micrometeorite to collide with something as tiny as a 3-man spacecraft.
However, it is possible, and, over time, is bound to happen. But such a collision wouldn't be the catastrophe that the theorists claim it would be. The relevant equation is the formula for Kinetic Energy:
So the Kinetic Energy of the micrometeorite, and thus the energy it has to poke a hole into the side of a spacecraft, is equivalent to one-half its mass times the square of its velocity relative to the spacecraft. Although its velocity can be great, its mass is very miniscule. By placing the numbers into the equation, we get:
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So, a typical micrometeorite at a typical velocity will only have 0.000000005 joules of energy on impact with the spacecraft. This wouldn't even budge a stick of butter, let alone punch a hole through it.
[edit] No Rocket Flame
This claim has to do with the idea that rockets should have flames when ignited. When the Lunar Module takes off and lands, we should see a flame, the hoax theorists tell us. As there is no visible flame, this means, they say, that it was obviously filmed with models.
[edit] Discussion
Yes, well, reality doesn't always work the way it's portrayed in 1950s B-movies. For the Lunar Modules, NASA used dinitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50 (50% hydrazine, 50% unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine) as the fuel. When ignited, the propellant and exhaust they produce is invisible. So we shouldn't expect to see a flame or anything else when the rocket is ignited.
(Note: some skeptics claim that the lack of air on the moon is the reason why there is no flame, as you need oxygen to make fire and the moon has no air. But rockets that produce a flame supply their own oxygen in the fuel; the flame would be less pronounced on the moon, but it could still show up in a photograph or video. In this case, the point is that the fuel used does not produce a flame at all, regardless of whether or not you're in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.)
[edit] The Van Allen Belt
The Van Allen Belt is a belt of radiation surrounding the Earth. It exists because the Earth's magnetic field protects us from harmful radiation from outer space, mostly from the solar wind. The hoax theorists tell us that there is no way humans can travel through the radiation belt and survive, so there is no way we could have gone to the moon.
[edit] Discussion
They're basically right about everything except not being able to travel through it safely. Radiation poisoning is the result of two things: how much radiation one is exposed to, and for how long.
For the first part, it really isn't all that much. The hoax theorists talk about the thin shielding of the spacecraft, but they don't say (and perhaps don't realize) that that is all that's required to shield low-energy particles. The actual dose the astronauts would have received is about 2 rem, less than a standard chest X-Ray.
Of course, even that amount can be dangerous, if you get enough of it. This is why the radiologists go into that little room to operate the X-Ray machine: so they are shielded from it and any cumulative effects from it. This is where the second part of the equation comes in: how long were the astronauts exposed to this level of radiation? Calculations by the theorists usually look at the thickest part of the Van Allen Belt, but that isn't where the astronauts went through it. The Van Allen Belt is, well, a belt; it exists mainly around the equator and tapers off the further north or south you go. To minimize any potential dangers, NASA sent the Apollo crafts just on the outskirts of the belt, where the radiation is lowest and the belt is thinnest. So they weren't in the belt for very long at all.
Even so, it is possible that the astronauts are at a higher risk of cancer because of their trip through the belt. One might think the risk would be worth it to walk on the moon!
It should also be noted that the Apollo craft are not the only craft to have entered the Van Allen Belt. Gemini 11 flew deep into the belt. Zond 5 carried a payload of turtles, wine flies, meal worms, plants, seeds and bacteria around the moon in 1968. The ISS travels through the southern magnetic anomaly (a point where the van allen belts are rather closer to the earths surface than elsewhere) several times a day.
[edit] Way Too Hot
Since there is no air on the moon to insulate the heat, the moon goes from extremes of temperatures, 200°F in the sunlight to -200°F at lunar night. As the astronauts were on the daylight side, according to hoax theorists, they should have fried! Also, the film in the camera should have melted, too.
[edit] Variation: Way Too Cold
Some theorists claim that, since there's no air on the moon, there's nothing to insulate the heat, and therefore the astronauts should have frozen. (One wishes these conspiracy theorists would make up their minds!)
[edit] Discussion
First of all, there's a difference between heat and temperature. Temperature refers to how fast the atoms in a body are moving. Heat is the overall energy these atoms have. This is important: you can stick your hand into a 400°F oven and be fine (if a bit warm), but accidentally touch the 400°F metal rack and you get blistered. They are both the same temperature, but the amount of heat in the metal rack is greater.
Second, there are three ways heat gets transferred: conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is like touching the metal rack of the oven: heat goes directly from one object to the other. Convection is heating through the air, much like putting your hand in the open air in the oven. Radiation is heat directly from a source of infrared radiation like the sun.
On the moon, there is no air, so there can be no convection. Also, the astronauts wore spacesuits with insulation, so they could not conduct heat with the surface or anything else. It really doesn't take that much insulation to keep from radiating heat away from the body. So the point about losing heat to a vacuum is irrelevant; it's much easier to keep an astronaut warm in deep space than it is in, say, Antarctica.
That leaves radiation. The heat from the sun can be great, but, looking at the shadows in the pictures from the moon, it's easy to tell that the sun was low in the lunar sky. In fact, the missions deliberately took place not long after lunar sunrise. With the sun low in the sky, they didn't get the direct rays of the sun heating up everything from overhead; also, since this was in sunrise, the sun didn't have much of a chance to heat up the ground yet. The temperature doesn't go directly from -200°F to 200°F; it takes time to heat it up. The missions took place during this time when the temperatures were much more comfortable. Also, it's very easy to deal with heat radiation by covering the object with something white, like, say, a spacesuit.
[edit] Starfish Prime
Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test. Moon Hoax theorists claim that it resulted in an extremely radioactive belt around the planet that would have been worse than the van Allen belts. These belts did exist however since the test was carried out 7 years before Apollo 11 it is likely that much of the radiation had returned to earth. In any case the belt was narrow and easy to avoid.
