Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings

AS12-48-7134: Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad with the unmanned Surveyor 3, which had landed on the Moon in 1967. Parts of Surveyor were brought back to Earth by Apollo 12. The camera (near Conrad's right hand) is on display at the National Air and Space Museum

Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings is evidence, or analysis of evidence, about Moon landings that does not come from either NASA or the U.S. government (the first party), or the Apollo Moon landing hoax theorists (the second party). This evidence serves as independent confirmation of NASA's account of the Moon landings.

Independent evidence

In this section are only those observations that are completely independent of NASA—no NASA facilities were used, and there was no NASA funding. Each of the countries mentioned in this section (Soviet Union, Japan, China, and India) has its own space program, builds its own space probes which are launched on their own launch vehicles, and has its own deep space communication network.

SELENE photographs

In 2008, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) SELENE lunar probe obtained several photographs showing evidence of Moon landings.[1] On the left are two photos taken on the lunar surface by the Apollo 15 astronauts August 2, 1971 during EVA 3 at station 9A near Hadley Rille. On the right is a 2008 reconstruction from images taken by the SELENE terrain camera and 3D projected to the same vantage point as the surface photos. The terrain is a close match within the SELENE camera resolution of 10 metres.

The light-coloured area of blown lunar surface dust created by the lunar module engine blast at the Apollo 15 landing site was photographed and confirmed by comparative analysis of photographs in May 2008. They correspond well to photographs taken from the Apollo 15 Command/Service Module showing a change in surface reflectivity due to the plume. This was the first visible trace of manned landings on the Moon seen from space since the close of the Apollo program.[2]

Chandrayaan-1

As with SELENE, the Terrain Mapping Camera of India's Chandrayaan-1 probe did not have enough resolution to record Apollo hardware. Nevertheless, as with SELENE, Chandrayaan-1 independently recorded evidence of lighter, disturbed soil around the Apollo 15 site.[3][4]

Chang'e 2

China's second lunar probe, Chang'e 2, which was launched in 2010 is capable of capturing lunar surface images with a resolution of up to 1.3 metres. It claims to have spotted traces of the Apollo landings, though the relevant imagery has not been publicly identified.[5]

Apollo missions tracked by independent parties

Aside from NASA, a number of entities and individuals observed, through various means, the Apollo missions as they took place. On later missions, NASA released information to the public explaining where third party observers could expect to see the various craft at specific times according to scheduled launch times and planned trajectories.[6]

Observers of all missions

The Soviet Union monitored the missions at their Space Transmissions Corps, which was "fully equipped with the latest intelligence-gathering and surveillance equipment."[7] Vasily Mishin, in an interview for the article "The Moon Programme That Faltered," describes how the Soviet Moon programme dwindled after the Apollo landing.[8]

The missions were tracked by radar from several countries on the way to the Moon and back.[9]

Kettering Grammar School

A group at Kettering Grammar School, using simple radio equipment, monitored Soviet and U.S. spacecraft and calculated their orbits.[10][11] According to the group, in December 1972 a member "picks up Apollo 17 on its way to the Moon".[12]

Apollo 8

Main article: Apollo 8

Apollo 10

Main article: Apollo 10

Apollo 11

Main article: Apollo 11

Apollo 12

Main article: Apollo 12

Paul Maley reports several sightings of the Apollo 12 Command Module.

Apollo 13

Main article: Apollo 13

Chabot Observatory calendar records an application of optical tracking during the final phases of Apollo 13, on April 17, 1970:

Rachel, Chabot Observatory's 20-inch refracting telescope, helps bring Apollo 13 and its crew home. One last burn of the lunar lander engines was needed before the crippled spacecraft's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. In order to compute that last burn, NASA needed a precise position of the spacecraft, obtainable only by telescopic observation. All the observatories that could have done this were clouded over, except Oakland's Chabot Observatory, where members of the Eastbay Astronomical Society had been tracking the Moon flights. EAS members received an urgent call from NASA Ames Research Station, which had ties with Chabot's educational program since the 60's, and they put the Observatory's historic 20-inch refractor to work. They were able to send the needed data to Ames, and the Apollo crew was able to make the needed correction and to return safely to Earth on this date in 1970.[6]

Apollo 14

Main article: Apollo 14

Corralitos Observatory photographed Apollo 14.[6][21]

Apollo 15

Main article: Apollo 15

Paul Wilson and Richard T. Knadle, Jr. received voice transmissions from the Command/Service Module in lunar orbit on the morning of August 1, 1971. In an article for QST magazine they provide a detailed description of their work, with photographs.[22]

Apollo 16

Main article: Apollo 16

Jewett Observatory at Washington State University reported sightings of Apollo 16.[6]

At least two different radio amateurs, W4HHK and K2RIW, reported reception of Apollo 16 signals with home-built equipment.[23][24]

Bochum Observatory tracked the astronauts and intercepted the television signals from Apollo 16. The image was re-recorded in black and white in the 625 lines, 25 frames/s television standard onto 2-inch videotape using their sole quad machine. The transmissions are only of the astronauts and do not contain any voice from Houston, as the signal received came from the Moon only. The videotapes are held in storage at the observatory.[25]

Apollo 17

Main article: Apollo 17

Sven Grahn of the Swedish space program has described several amateur sightings of Apollo 17.[26]

Independent research consistent with NASA claims

In this section is evidence, by independent researchers, that NASA's account is correct. However, at least somewhere in the investigation, there was some NASA involvement, or use of US government resources.

Existence and age of Moon rocks

A total of 382 kilograms (842 lb) of Moon rocks and dust were collected during the Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 missions.[27] Some 10 kg (22 lb) of the Moon rocks have been used in hundreds of experiments performed by both NASA researchers and planetary scientists at research institutions unaffiliated with NASA. These experiments have confirmed the age and origin of the rocks as lunar, and were used to identify lunar meteorites collected later from Antarctica.[28] The oldest Moon rocks are up to 4.5 billion years old,[27] making them 200 million years older than the oldest Earth rocks, which are from the Hadean eon and dated 3.8 to 4.3 billion years ago. The rocks returned by Apollo are very close in composition to the samples returned by the independent Soviet Luna programme.[29] A rock brought back by Apollo 17 was accurately dated to be 4.417 billion years old, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 million years. The test was done by a group of researchers headed by Alexander Nemchin at Curtin University of Technology in Bentley, Australia.[30]

Retroreflectors

AS11-40-5952: Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment as left on the Moon by Apollo 11
Plot of arrival time of photons (Y axis) for each of many laser pulses sent to the Moon (X axis). This data, along with similar data from the other landing sites, shows there are man-made objects on the Moon in the locations of the Apollo landings. Credit: The APOLLO (Lunar Laser Ranging) Collaboration

The detection on Earth of reflections from laser ranging retro-reflectors (LRRRs, or mirrors used as targets for Earth-based tracking lasers) on Lunar Laser Ranging experiments left on the Moon is evidence of landings.[31][32][33][34]

AS14-67-9386: Retroflector left on the Moon by Apollo 14

Quoting from James Hansen's biography of Neil Armstrong, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong:

"For those few misguided souls who still cling to the belief that the Moon landings never happened, examination of the results of five decades of LRRR experiments should evidence how delusional their rejection of the Moon landing really is."[35]

The NASA-independent Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, McDonald, Apache Point, and Haleakalā observatories regularly use the Apollo LRRR.[36] Lick Observatory attempted to detect from Apollo 11's retroreflector while Armstrong and Aldrin were still on the Moon but did not succeed until August 1, 1969.[37] The Apollo 14 astronauts deployed a retroreflector on February 5, 1971, and McDonald Observatory detected it the same day. The Apollo 15 retroreflector was deployed on July 31, 1971, and was detected by McDonald Observatory within a few days.[38]

The image on the left shows what is considered some of the most unambiguous evidence. This experiment repeatedly fires a laser at the Moon, at the spots where the Apollo landings were reported. The dots show when photons are received from the Moon. The dark line shows that a large number come back at a specific time, and hence were reflected by something quite small (well under a metre in size). Photons reflected from the surface come back over a much broader range of times (the whole vertical range of the plot corresponds to only 30 metres or so in range). The concentration of photons at a specific time appears when the laser is aimed at the Apollos 11, 14 or 15 landing sites; otherwise the expected featureless distribution is observed.[39] The Apollo reflectors are still in use.[40]

Strictly speaking, although the reflectors are strong evidence that human-manufactured artifacts currently exist on the Moon, and their locations are consistent with NASA's claims, they do not prove humans have visited the Moon. Smaller retroreflectors were carried by the unmanned landers Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2. The Lunokhod 2 reflector has been in use since 1973.[40] The location of Lunokhod 1 was unknown for nearly 40 years but it was rediscovered in 2010 in photographs by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and its retroreflector is now in use. Both the United States and the USSR had the capability to soft-land objects on the surface of the Moon for several years before that. The USSR successfully landed its first unmanned probe (Luna 9) on the Moon in February 1966, and the United States followed with Surveyor 1 in June 1966, but no unmanned landers carried retroreflectors before Lunokhod 1 in November 1970.

Photographs

New lunar missions

Apollo 11 landing site photographed by LRO

Post-Apollo lunar exploration missions have located and imaged artifacts of the Apollo program remaining on the Moon's surface.

Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission beginning in July 2009 show the six Apollo Lunar Module descent stages, Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) science experiments, astronaut footpaths, and lunar rover tire tracks. These images are the most effective proof to date to rebut the "landing hoax" theories.[41][42][43] Although this probe was indeed launched by NASA, the camera and the interpretation of the images are under the control of an academic group — the LROC Science Operations Center at Arizona State University, along with many other academic groups.[44] At least some of these groups, such as German Aerospace Center, Berlin, are not located in the USA, and are not funded by the US government.[45]

After the images shown here were taken, the LRO mission moved into a lower orbit for higher resolution camera work. All of the sites have since been re-imaged at higher resolution.[46][47]

Further imaging in 2012 shows the shadows cast by the flags planted by the astronauts on all Apollo landing sites. The exception is that of Apollo 11, which matches Buzz Aldrin's account of the flag being blown over by the lander's rocket exhaust on leaving the Moon.[48]

Ultraviolet photographs

AS16-123-19657: Long-exposure photograph taken from the surface of the Moon by Apollo 16 using the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. It shows the Earth with the correct background of stars (some labeled)

Long-exposure photos were taken with the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph by Apollo 16 on April 21, 1972, from the surface of the Moon. Some of these photos show the Earth with stars from the Capricornus and Aquarius constellations in the background. The European Space Research Organisation's TD-1A satellite later scanned the sky for stars that are bright in ultraviolet light. The TD-1A data obtained with the shortest passband is a close match for the Apollo 16 photographs.[49]

Apollo missions tracked by non-NASA personnel

This section contains reports of the lunar missions from facilities that had significant numbers of non-NASA employees. This includes facilities such as the Deep Space Network, which employed (and still employs) many local citizens in Spain and Australia, and facilities such as the Parkes Observatory, which were hired by NASA for specific tasks, but staffed by non-NASA personnel.

Observers of all missions

The NASA Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN) was a world-wide network of stations that tracked the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions. Most MSFN stations were only needed during the launch, Earth orbit and landing phases of the lunar missions, but three "deep space" sites with larger antennas provided continuous coverage during the trans-lunar, trans-Earth and lunar mission phases. Today, these three sites form the NASA Deep Space Network: the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Goldstone, California; the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex near Madrid, Spain; and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, adjacent to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, near Canberra, Australia.

Although most MSFN stations were NASA-owned, they employed many local citizens. NASA also contracted the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, to supplement the three deep space sites, most famously during the Apollo 11 EVA as documented by radio astronomer John Sarkissian[50] and portrayed (humorously and not quite accurately) in the movie The Dish. The Parkes Observatory is not NASA-owned; it is, and always has been, owned and operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), a research agency of the Australian government. It would have been relatively easy for NASA to avoid using the Parkes Observatory to receive the Apollo 11 EVA television signals by scheduling the EVA at an earlier time when the Goldstone station could provide complete coverage.

Apollo 11

Main article: Apollo 11

Apollo 12

Main article: Apollo 12
Surveyor 3 camera brought back from the Moon by Apollo 12, on display at the National Air and Space Museum

Parts of Surveyor 3, which landed on the Moon in April 1967, were brought back to Earth by Apollo 12 in November 1969.[53] These samples were shown to have been exposed to lunar conditions.[54]

Plans

As new research facilities such as orbiters and telescopes are built, the question arises whether they can see Apollo artifacts on the Moon.

See also

Citations

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  2. Attivissimo 2013, pp. 50-52
  3. drbuzz0 (November 7, 2009). "Apollo 15: Confirmed Times Three". Depleted Cranium (Blog). Steve Packard. Retrieved May 2, 2013.
  4. Chauhan, Prakash; Kirankumar, A. S. (September 10, 2009). "Chandrayaan-1 captures Halo around Apollo-15 landing site using stereoscopic views from Terrain Mapping Camera" (PDF). Current Science. Current Science Association in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences. 97 (5): 630–631. ISSN 0011-3891.
  5. Lina, Yang, ed. (February 6, 2012). "China publishes high-resolution full moon map". English.news.cn. Beijing: Xinhua News Agency. Retrieved May 2, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Keel, Bill (August 2008). "Telescopic Tracking of the Apollo Lunar Missions". Bill Keel's Space History Bits.
  7. Scott & Leonov 2004, p. 247
  8. "The Moon Programme That Faltered". Spaceflight. London: British Interplanetary Society. 33: 2–3. March 1991.
  9. Hansen 2005, p. 639
  10. Perry, G. E. (1968). "A school satellite tracking station as an aid to the teaching of physics" (PDF). Physics Education. 3.6: 281. doi:10.1088/0031-9120/3/6/301.
  11. Roberts, G. (1986). "The Amateur and Artificial Satellites". Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. 45: 5. Bibcode:1986MNSSA..45....5R.
  12. Christy, Robert D. "Kettering Group Timeline". zarya.info. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  13. Swaim, Dave (December 22, 1968). "Apollo 8 Mission Leaves Earth on Historic Voyage". Independent Star News. Pasadena, CA. p. 1. Retrieved May 9, 2013. The TLI firing was begun at 7:41 a.m. (PST) while the craft was over Hawaii, and it was reported there that the burn was visible from the ground.
  14. Hynek, J. Allen (April 1976). "The Corralitos Observatory Program for the Detection of Lunar Transient Phenomena". NASA Technical Reports Server. NASA.
  15. 1 2 "Bochum". A Tribute to Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station.
  16. Portillo, Michael (June 2, 2005). "The other space race: Transcript". OpenLearn. Retrieved February 6, 2006.
  17. "Recording of Russia's lunar gatecrash attempt released". Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. 3 July 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2009.
  18. Brown, Jonathan (3 July 2009). "Recording tracks Russia's Moon gatecrash attempt". The Independent. London. Retrieved July 20, 2009.
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  20. "Otter Creek-South Harrison Observatory". Lunar Eavesdropping in Louisville, Kentucky.
  21. Apollo 14 image
  22. Wilson, P. M.; Knadle, R. T. (June 1972). "Houston, This is Apollo...". QST. Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League: 60–65.
  23. "432 Record, W4HHK Apollo 16 Reception". QST. Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League. June 1971. pp. 93–94.
  24. "K2RIW Apollo 16 Reception & 2300 EME". QST. Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League. July 1971. pp. 90–91.
  25. Kaminski, H. (October–November 1972). "Sternwarte Bochum beobachtet US-Apollo-Mondexperimente" [Bochum Observatory Observed U.S. Apollo Moon Experiments] (PDF). Neues von Rohde & Schwarz (in German). 57. Munich: Rohde & Schwarz. pp. 24–27. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  26. Grahn, Sven. "Tracking Apollo-17 from Florida". Sven's Space Place.
  27. 1 2 James Papike; Grahm Ryder & Charles Shearer (1998). "Lunar Samples". Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry. 36: 5.1–5.234.
  28. Pearlman, Robert (September 27, 2000). "House Passes Bill to Award Apollo Astronauts Moon Rocks". Space.com. New York: TechMediaNetwork, Inc. Archived from the original on October 17, 2000. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  29. Laul, JC; Schmitt, RA (1973). "Chemical composition of Luna 20 rocks and soil and Apollo 16 soils". Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. 37 (4): 927–942. Bibcode:1973GeCoA..37..927L. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(73)90190-7.
  30. Pendick, Daniel (June 2009). "Apollo sample pinpoints lunar crust's age". Astronomy. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing. 37 (6): 16.
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  35. Hansen 2005, pp. 515–516
  36. Bouquillon, S.; Chapront, J.; Francou, G. "Contribution of SLR Results to LLR Analysis" (PDF). Paris: Observatoire de Paris. Retrieved July 26, 2007. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the "Journées 2005 Systèmes de référence spatio-temporels," held at the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, September 19–21, 2005.
  37. Hansen 2005, p. 515
  38. Bender, P. L.; Currie, D. G.; Dicke, R. H.; et al. (October 19, 1973). "The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment" (PDF). Science. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science. 182 (4109): 229–238. Bibcode:1973Sci...182..229B. doi:10.1126/science.182.4109.229. PMID 17749298. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  39. Murphy, Tom. "APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation)".
  40. 1 2 Williams, James G.; Dickey, Jean O. (October 2002). Lunar Geophysics, Geodesy, and Dynamics (PDF). 13th International Workshop on Laser Ranging.
  41. Hautaluoma, Grey; Freeberg, Andy (July 17, 2009). Garner, Robert, ed. "LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites". NASA. Retrieved July 18, 2007. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo Moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.
  42. Astronomy. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing: 22. November 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  43. Robinson, Mark (July 17, 2009). "LROC's First Look at the Apollo Landing Sites". LROC News System. Retrieved July 17, 2009.
  44. "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera - Our Team".
  45. "Institute of Space Systems".
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  47. Robinson, Mark (October 28, 2009). "Exploring the Apollo 17 Site". LROC news system. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  48. "Apollo Moon flags still standing, images show". BBC News. London: BBC. July 30, 2012. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
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  50. Sarkissian, John M. (2001). "On Eagle's Wings: The Parkes Observatory's Support of the Apollo 11 Mission". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing for the Astronomical Society of Australia. 18 (3): 287–310. Bibcode:2001PASA...18..287S. doi:10.1071/AS01038. Retrieved May 2, 2013. October 2000 website version, part 1 of 12: "Introduction." Original version available from CSIRO Parkes Observatory (PDF).
  51. "The Fresnedillas (Madrid, Spain) MSFN station". A Tribute to Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station.
  52. "Madrid Apollo Facility NASA/INTA Personnel Roster" (PDF). February 29, 1972.
  53. Oberg, James (November 2007). "50th anniversary of first microbes in orbit". Astronomy. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing. 35 (11): 2.
  54. Price, P. Buford; Zinner, Ernst (2004). "Robert M. Walker" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 6, 2007.
  55. Matthews, Robert (November 24, 2002). "World's biggest telescope to prove Americans really walked on Moon". The Sunday Telegraph. London: Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved May 15, 2013.

References

External links

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