Non Believers

[hammer01301]

I am becomeing more and more frusterated with people who think Man walking on the Moon was just a Hoax. Instead they believe websites run by People who try to disprove every move the US government makes. Any one else have problems with these "Non Believers?"

[stargazer0105]

I do have a problem with it. It's just everyone is entitled to their opinion. As long as they're not trying to put me down they're more than welcome to believe what they want.

[Boomerang]

What i have a problem with is chaperones who get up in front of a group of school kids who are listening to a tour guide talk about the apollo command module and tell them that we never landed on the moon. It has happened to one of our tour guides at the nASA Langley Visitor center.

[meg]

ok, so i just need to vent. i did a presentation on my passion today in my history/english class. i did it on camp and wore my flight suit. everyone told me that they could tell how much i love camp cause when i first mentioned it, my face just lit up. anyhoo, i opened it up for questions at the end. there were tons. it seemed like everyone was thrilled about camp and some people were asking how they could sign up. so someone asked if the columbia incident hindered my passion and i got all upset. (im going to preface this by saying it sounds as if i was really negative about the people's views in my class, i wasn't. it went a lot better than it seems stated here, but since this is a vent, its gonna be mostly negative. im not a negative person. im happy, and peppy. lol...anyhoo.) i told the kid who asked that nasa and the community of space people have lived and learned from two other accidents. apollo 1 and challenger were disasters yet we learned from them and haven't made the same mistake again. then i brought up a comment i heard on a radio station just after feb 1st. they said they didn't even wonder why people didn't want to support nasa cause it would be like if you had five cars and you went out of your house in each car and you had an accident in two out of the five. i became incredibly upset and was tempted to call in. it's not two out of five. it's two out of like 115. then i told the class that i was incredibly disappointed that people were completely oblivious that people were even being sent into orbit and coming back to earth regularly until columbia, thought im happy that mars is sparking new genuine interest. since the disaster, it seems as if everyone is interested in nasa and thinks they know the answers. they don't. they have only heard some opinions of others and haven't allowed themselves to form their own. they are taking others thoughts and projecting those. they don't know anything about it. i mean, they don't even know the answers to some of the simplest questions about space or spaceflight. so why do they think they have the right to say that we should end human spaceflight. it was pretty much unanimous in my class of 40some that it is a waste of money, a waste of time and human beings. it makes me livid. i just hope its not people like this who make our decisions that we have to live by. it doesn't even factor into their lives at all. grrrrr. i think we should get together and get one of us into office so we can make space exploration the number one focus of the nation. what do you guys think? representation of the united states by hab 1?!?

[Benji]

I love people like my brother who don't think we did but have no reasoning for it.

"So, where's your proof we didn't land on the Moon?"

"Well, the flag waving, for one."

So, I explain why the flag appeared to wave. "What else you got?"

"Well, uh... I just don't think we walked on the Moon."

"Can you back that up? C'mon, throw me a curveball. You gimmie your proof, I'll tell you why you're wrong."

"I just don't think we did it."

"Uh, huh."

[stargazer0105]

ok, so i just need to vent. i did a presentation on my passion today in my history/english class. i did it on camp and wore my flight suit. everyone told me that they could tell how much i love camp cause when i first mentioned it, my face just lit up. anyhoo, i opened it up for questions at the end. there were tons. it seemed like everyone was thrilled about camp and some people were asking how they could sign up. so someone asked if the columbia incident hindered my passion and i got all upset. (im going to preface this by saying it sounds as if i was really negative about the people's views in my class, i wasn't. it went a lot better than it seems stated here, but since this is a vent, its gonna be mostly negative. im not a negative person. im happy, and peppy. lol...anyhoo.) i told the kid who asked that nasa and the community of space people have lived and learned from two other accidents. apollo 1 and challenger were disasters yet we learned from them and haven't made the same mistake again. then i brought up a comment i heard on a radio station just after feb 1st. they said they didn't even wonder why people didn't want to support nasa cause it would be like if you had five cars and you went out of your house in each car and you had an accident in two out of the five. i became incredibly upset and was tempted to call in. it's not two out of five. it's two out of like 115. then i told the class that i was incredibly disappointed that people were completely oblivious that people were even being sent into orbit and coming back to earth regularly until columbia, thought im happy that mars is sparking new genuine interest. since the disaster, it seems as if everyone is interested in nasa and thinks they know the answers. they don't. they have only heard some opinions of others and haven't allowed themselves to form their own. they are taking others thoughts and projecting those. they don't know anything about it. i mean, they don't even know the answers to some of the simplest questions about space or spaceflight. so why do they think they have the right to say that we should end human spaceflight. it was pretty much unanimous in my class of 40some that it is a waste of money, a waste of time and human beings. it makes me livid. i just hope its not people like this who make our decisions that we have to live by. it doesn't even factor into their lives at all. grrrrr. i think we should get together and get one of us into office so we can make space exploration the number one focus of the nation. what do you guys think? representation of the united states by hab 1?!?

I've had almost the exact same experience. (this is really starting to creep me out meg )

[Space Nerd]

I learned after my first trip to camp that trying to talk to a school about anything to do with space can be brutal. I came back and talked to my school board as an 8th grader and even they were a little unappreciative to hear my speech. Then in my sophmore year i tried to do a presentation on the history of the space program. This went down horribly especially after i finished my presentation and my teacher told me that i should have talked about something the class would like. I guess space just isnt important in schools today, some people still think that the shuttle landed on the moon. I really think that we need to teach about the space program and what its done for us in schools. But then again thats just me.

[stargazer0105]

I know, the only difference I have is that my teachers support me (or at least pretend to) most of the time, although I don't talk about it as much since I transferred schools.

[meg]

yeah, i get some support from certain teachers, but not a lot. i attempted to talk to our president about the extended camp to inquire about a scholarship, but im sorry silly girl, it's a school focused on sports. why would we ever spend money on something else? good job though chasing a dream you'll never catch.

though, i have been the topic of discussion at the lunch table in the faculty lounge. one group is debating whether or not i will succeed. nice huh? and the other is talking about how cool camp and my dreams are.

[AstroGirl]

I learned after my first trip to camp that trying to talk to a school about anything to do with space can be brutal. I came back and talked to my school board as an 8th grader and even they were a little unappreciative to hear my speech. Then in my sophmore year i tried to do a presentation on the history of the space program. This went down horribly especially after i finished my presentation and my teacher told me that i should have talked about something the class would like. I guess space just isnt important in schools today, some people still think that the shuttle landed on the moon. I really think that we need to teach about the space program and what its done for us in schools. But then again thats just me.

OMG that is aweful! I guess you should have done your report on Kobe Bryant or something, right? I would have kicked my teachers aft (tehee .. aft) after that! People at my school have varying degrees of interest in space, but most think it's interesting and would never get that ... evil ... about it. An astronaut graduated from there, so the teachers at least are big on it lol. In my middle school, we spent the better part of the sixth grade studying flight and space, and we went on a field trip to this simulator place. That was when I first decided I wanted to be a space-person. The teachers at my old school were all very supportive of space, as were a lot of the students. I still know people who do not support space at all, and a lot more who couldn't care less, but none of them are teachers in charge of educating the leaders of tomorrow!

As for the moon thing ... last night I was acting stupid so I was like "Hey, what if, because in 1969 everyone was on drugs, the moon landing was just one collective acid trip!" LOL of course I believe we went to the moon. But I'll tell you for sure if we went or not when I get there.

[ApolloXI]

I have a good link about the hoax ideas and how to prove non belivers wrong. http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/News/2001/ ... anding.asp
In my physics class last year we broke up into two groups stop Nasa fonding or keep it. You all now what side I was on. Some kids thought they knew things about space history but I was able give the true facts with the good old Space Camp book "Thorrtle Up!," I am not stereotyping the south but in the south some parnets teach thier children the goverment doesn't what it is doing and lies to the people. So those children do not know the full facts of your country. Most of the class said that we should stop fonding NASA right now b/c there is a war. But the funny thing is that NASA has helped put up some of the satlites the millitary uses. I laughed when I walked out because I saw one boy who had disliked NASAbut His shoes where about $80 which we all know sneakers where advanced because walking on the moon could be dangerous b/c of sharp rocks.

[ApolloXI]

We all rember that Buzz Aldrin had punched a moon hoax twit to the ground well he is back. This week in Nashville, TN he is going to present his latest flim about a goverment Cold War hoax. Here is the article ion the Tennessean. I feel that as a group who are into space exploartion we need to show people that it did happen. I will wirte into the Tennessean and put my feeling to the fool hearted nut job needs to cont. to be kicked in the butt on the way out.
Moon shot or not?
By KEVIN NANCE
Staff Writer
Nashville filmmaker continues to challenge landing with new movie

Like most American youth, Bart Sibrel grew up convinced that the Apollo space missions to the moon were humanity's greatest technological achievement. The son of an Air Force veteran, he idolized the astronauts, so much so that the walls of his bedroom in Bellevue were covered with posters of them walking on the lunar surface.

Now Sibrel, a Nashville filmmaker, says the moon landings were a gigantic and ruinously expensive Cold War hoax perpetrated by the United States government to fool the Soviet Union into believing it had lost the space race.

''They didn't go to the moon,'' he declares. ''I'd bet my life on it.''

To prove his controversial theory, Sibrel has spent much of the past decade working on two films, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon and Astronauts Gone Wild, the second of which premieres next week at Belcourt Theatre as the kickoff of a projected national tour of college campuses.

Along the way, Sibrel, 39, has become perhaps the world's most visible and doggedly aggressive moon-landing conspiracy theorist. Astronauts Gone Wild documents his relentless pursuit of the Apollo astronauts, each of whom he ambushes with a challenge to swear on a Bible, ''on penalty of eternal damnation,'' that he walked on the moon.

Some of the men comply, if reluctantly and angrily; others refuse. The most eminent refuser is Neil Armstrong, famous as the first man to walk on the moon, who says: ''Mr. Sibrel, knowing you, that's probably a fake Bible.''

''If I walked on the moon, I would think that anyone who thought otherwise was hysterically funny,'' Sibrel says now.

''I'd say, 'Bring me a stack of Bibles.' But he didn't.''

Elsewhere in Astronauts Gone Wild, an initially welcoming Edgar Mitchell orders Sibrel out of his house, growing so angry that he kicks Sibrel in the rear end on the way out.

''If you continue this,'' Mitchell fumes, ''I will personally take you to court.''

''I hope that you do,'' Sibrel responds. ''I invite you to.''

And in a sequence that made national headlines when it happened in 2002, Edwin ''Buzz'' Aldrin punches Sibrel in the face after being confronted outside a hotel. ''You're a coward, a liar and a thief!'' Sibrel yells, and pow!

A smoking gun?

Born in Dayton, Ohio — which, he now notes with a certain irony, also is the hometown of the Wright Brothers and Neil Armstrong — Sibrel moved to Nashville with his family when he was 12.

Two years later, he became interested in the theater, making his stage debut as an actor in The Robber Bridegroom at Circle Players and going on to perform in more than 20 local productions over the years.

Eventually he began to write plays and then to film them, which led him into a career in video production. He worked as a weekend cameraman and editor for WSMV-Channel 4 in the mid-1990s and since has made music videos, TV commercials (including a series of pro-Tennessee Lottery ads that featured a Church Lady-like character but never were broadcast) and other programming for cable networks such as TLC and the Discovery Channel.

As a young man, he heard of the moon-landing hoax theory and initially decided against pursuing it as a film topic. Later, however, he began studying the Bible and experienced a religious conversion to Christianity that convinced him that he should investigate the hoax theory.

''When I finally decided to do what was right in my personal life — not sleeping around, not doing drugs — I went to a church that took sin seriously,'' he says. ''I started thinking, 'Yeah, there's right and wrong, and there's judgment. If they faked going to the moon, this is important, and they should be held accountable.' ''

Sibrel spent five years — and, he says, more than $750,000 provided by a group of investors ''who wish to remain anonymous'' — researching and making A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon, copies of which he now markets for $29.95 on his Web site, www.moonmovie.com.

In the film, Sibrel argues that the Apollo spacecraft orbited the Earth but never landed on the moon, in part because the Van Allen radiation belts that surround the Earth would have been deadly to the astronauts. (James Oberg, an aerospace writer and MSNBC commentator, says this is ''ludicrous.'')

Sibrel also questions numerous aspects of the NASA photos of the moon's surface, noting that shadows of objects near each other — which should run parallel to each other since the only source of light was the sun — converge at angles suggestive of multiple light sources. (Oberg and others scoff at this.)

The famous moon-walk videos? They were faked, Sibrel contends, probably shot on a film set constructed at a top-secret military base.

What Sibrel calls the ''smoking gun'' of A Funny Thing Happened is a piece of video footage that he thinks NASA sent him by mistake.

On the tape, marked ''not for public consumption,'' members of the Apollo 11 crew inside the lunar module are shooting footage through a porthole-shaped window of what appears to be Earth in the distance, surrounded by empty space.

In Sibrel's interpretation of the ''window shot,'' as he refers to it, the astronauts actually were fabricating an image of the planet to make it appear to be 130,000 miles away, when in fact the spacecraft was only a few hundred miles from Earth.

''It's a fake shot of being halfway to the moon, no question about it,'' Sibrel says. ''And if they were faking that, the whole thing was fake.''

'Junior-high howlers'

NASA's policy is not to respond directly to moon-hoax theorists, but the airwaves and the Internet are full of scientists and others who offer dismissive rebuttals of Sibrel's ideas.

''His video is very Madison Avenue, but the style hides a total absence of substance,'' Oberg says. ''His understanding of science is laughable — he says all these junior-high howlers — and he counts on his audience to know even less.''

If the videotape of the Earth in the ''window shot'' were taken from Earth orbit, as Sibrel originally thought, then the cloud cover would have been moving quickly, since an orbiting spacecraft would have been traveling at 17,500 miles an hour, Oberg says.

And he guffaws at Sibrel's more recent theory that the image of the Earth was created with the help of a photographic transparency somehow attached to the porthole.

''It's preposterous,'' Oberg says. ''They spend billions on an elaborate hoax and then use a transparency stuck on a window with Scotch tape? Why wouldn't they simply have brought a video cassette recording of a studio shot?''

Two others — Phil Plait, a California astronomer who has a Web site called badastronomy. com, and Jay Windley, a Utah engineer who runs www.clavius.org, which specifically debunks Sibrel's arguments — say there's an innocent explanation of the ''window shot'' footage.

''What you're seeing is the astronauts practicing for a press conference,'' Plait says. ''And 'not for public consumption' does not mean 'secret' or 'classified.' NASA was simply very PR-conscious, and they didn't want people to see an unpolished press conference. Everything that Bart is reading into this is just nonsense.''

Sibrel, though, is unfazed.

''It's very hard for people to accept that the moon landings were fake, because it involves such national pride,'' he says. ''I've talked to scientists who say that if they saw Neil Armstrong confess on national TV that it was fake, they would still think we went.''

Getting there

Astronauts Gone Wild, by Nashville filmmaker Bart Sibrel, will be screened at 7 p.m. Thursday, with a reception starting at 6:30 p.m., at Belcourt Theatre, 2102 Belcourt Ave. in Hillsboro Village. Tickets are $7 at the door.

Note: Sibrel's first film on the subject, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon, sells for $29.95 a copy on Sibrel's Web site, www.moonmovie.com.

Tennessean arts writer Kevin Nance can be reached at 259-8238 or by e-mail at [email protected].

[Space Nerd]

Well i guess Ignorance really is Bliss....