NASA claims to have sent manned missions outside low earth orbit, and we can only take their word for it (or not).

The fact that the USSR never sent a man to the moon, despite having the technology to send unmanned craft to land on the lunar surface, collect soil samples and then return safely to earth would suggest that they believed travelling through the radiation of the Van Allen Belts would be fatal to humans.

NASA claims to have sent manned missions outside low earth orbit, and we can only take their word for it (or not).

The fact that the USSR never sent a man to the moon, despite having the technology to send unmanned craft to land on the lunar surface, collect soil samples and then return safely to earth would suggest that they believed travelling through the radiation of the Van Allen Belts would be fatal to humans.

Untrue. The unmanned crafts used to go to the moon were far less complex than what is required to safely transport humans to the moon and have them return alive. It had nothing to do with the radiation, but rather that the Russians didn't have the technology to send a man to the moon and back safely. Once they lost the race to send a man to the moon they realized that the costs of trying to achieve doing so while still "finishing second" were not worth it.

There is also an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Apollo missions did make it to the moon and back, I'm not entirely sure how you can discount it all.

There is also an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Apollo missions did make it to the moon and back, I'm not entirely sure how you can discount it all.

You mean like all the original film footage from the Apollo missions and all the original telemetric data that NASA should have rooms full of, but has actually "mislaid" - in its entirety? That sort of evidence?

What do you find lacking in the NTSC tapes that makes you question why the SSTV format tapes went missing?

What part of the explanation given about the missing SSTV tapes do you find suspicious?

What are the differences between the SSTV tapes and NTSC tapes that you find reason to doubt the validity of the NTSC tapes?

What do you find lacking in the original footage from the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 landings?

Your questions seem to suggest to have a problem understanding the importance of original data formats and source material. Here's an idea: next time you make an international flight, why don't you take a photocopy of your passport and see if the immigration authorities share your confusion.

A photocopy of my passport is a legitimate form of non-official identification in many foreign countries, perhaps you haven't travelled enough to know this. Getting onto a plane with a photocopy of a passport is a different situation entirely, for understandable reasons. But using it as identification in a non-airport environment has been done for years and is in fact recommended in many places, this is known to anybody who travels.

Nevertheless, why is the original data from Apollo flights 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 not sufficient for you?

Specifically, how does the NTSC tape data from Apollo 11 differ from the original data from Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17? What particular anomalies have you found in the NTSC copy of the Apollo 11 tape when compared to the originals in the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 landing tapes? Are these anomalies possible from the conversion SSTV to NTSC? If not, then how would you suggest these anomalies were created?

A photocopy of my passport is a legitimate form of non-official identification in many foreign countries, perhaps you haven't travelled enough to know this. Getting onto a plane with a photocopy of a passport is a different situation entirely, for understandable reasons. But using it as identification in a non-airport environment has been done for years and is in fact recommended in many places, this is known to anybody who travels. Bla, bla, bla...

I've lived in four different countries and been to further 45 (give or take) for work or just travelling, and I can assure you that in virtually all cases, this would be impossible with a photocopied passport! You're fucking hilarious!

I've lived in four different countries and been to further 45 (give or take) for work or just travelling, and I can assure you that in virtually all cases, this would be impossible with a photocopied passport! You're fucking hilarious!

It says it right here on the International Travel page for US citizens to carry photocopies with you: http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/go/checklist.html

Another article: http://lifehacker.com/5656981/use-a-passport-photocopy-for-non-official-identification-while-traveling

You should do some research. I like how you've also switched from it being a 100% correct conclusion to now being "virtually all cases". It seems you aren't able to even make your false equivalencies solid enough to deal with scrutiny.

Furthermore, you've still never answered why the original footage from Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 isn't good enough for you, or how it differs from the Apollo 11 footage in a way that makes you believe the Apollo 11 footage was altered and therefore no longer legitimate.

I don't think it's necessary at the moment, but if required, I can explain to you why a passport is different from magnetic tape, from the materials used to methods of distribution and dissemination as well as how they store information, but I truly hope it won't come to this. I trust you recognize that these are two different mediums serving two different purposes, what doesn't make any sense is why you would bring up something so undeniably different in order to support your point in the first place.

Perhaps it's just difficult for you to be able to stay on topic, we're talking about the moon landing footage and you are bringing up photocopied passports. This is as simply as I can phrase this, please try and read the sentence and question in its entirety before responding.

QUESTION: what is the most significant difference between the original footage from the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 and the NTSC footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing that makes you discount the NTSC Apollo 11 footage?

Please, don't bring up photocopies, it has no bearing on this conversation.

[deleted]

Rule 10. No personal attacks. Removed.

Let me guess, you're 12 and you've just discovered Wikipedia?

Wow sick burn, bro. You completely delegitimized my point with that.

The Soviet's failure to go to the moon was because of their rocket issue... not because they believed the Van Allen belts would be fatal to go through... And it's not like they would have cared about sending men to their deaths. The first manned Soyuz rocket was sketchy and the astronauts knew they were going to die (they complained about several glaring issues before launch)... and cursed the Soviet's mission control over the radio during re-entry as the capsule failed.

Firstly, stop quoting wikipedia at me. Secondly, try to understand that the information released by "official sources" which is cited on wikipedia, may not be the whole truth, or even any part of the truth.

Quit trying to debate me and go back to masturbating to the idea that everything is a lie and everyone's out to get you.

http://www.clavius.org/envrad.html multiple questions answered

This site focuses and radiation danger. And acts like it is no big deal.

Protons in the inner belt have energies in excess of 7 × 108 electron volts, enough to enable them to penetrate about 10 cm (4 inches) of lead. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1369043/ionosphere-and-magnetosphere/272041/Van-Allen-radiation-belts

How hot are the Van Allen Belt's high energy plasma??? Only hotter than any substance on earth can withstand (about 10,000K).

You don't understand the difference between temperature and heat. What is the specific heat of plasma?

From the article i linked:-

The Van Allen belts are full of deadly radiation, and anyone passing through them would be fried.

Needless to say this is a very simplistic statement. Yes, there is deadly radiation in the Van Allen belts, but the nature of that radiation was known to the Apollo engineers and they were able to make suitable preparations. The principle danger of the Van Allen belts is high-energy protons, which are not that difficult to shield against. And the Apollo navigators plotted a course through the thinnest parts of the belts and arranged for the spacecraft to pass through them quickly, limiting the exposure.

Also:-

It would require six feet (two meters) of lead in order to shield from the Van Allen belts. The Apollo spacecraft had nowhere near this amount of shielding and so could not have provided the astronauts adequate protection.

The "six feet of lead" statistic appears in many conspiracist charges, but no one has yet owned up to being the definitive source of that figure. In fact, six feet (2 m) of lead would probably shield against a very large atomic explosion, far in excess of the normal radiation encountered in space or in the Van Allen belts.

While such drastic measures are needed to shield against intense, high-frequency electromagnetic radiation, that is not the nature of the radiation in the Van Allen belts. In fact, because the Van Allen belts are composed of high-energy protons and high-energy electrons, metal shielding is actually counterproductive because of the Bremsstrahlung that would be induced.

Metals can be used to shield against particle radiation, but they are not the ideal substance. Polyethylene is the choice of particle shielding today, and various substances were available to the Apollo engineers to absorb Van Allen radiation. The fibrous insulation between the inner and outer hulls of the command module was likely the most effective form of radiation shielding. When metals must be used in spacecraft (e.g., for structural strength) then a lighter metal such as aluminum is better than heavier metals such as steel or lead. The lower the atomic number, the less Bremsstrahlung.

The notion that only vast amounts of a very heavy metal could shield against Van Allen belt radiation is a good indicator of how poorly though out the conspiracist radiation case is. What the conspiracists say is the only way of shielding against the Van Allen belt radiation turns out to be the worst way to attempt to do it!

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#Implications_for_space_travel

And the 10,000K temperature of the plasma?

So have we not sent Voyager, Cassini, Rosetta or any of the other space probes on deep space missions? No Mars rovers?

That's like looking at the center of a bonfire and going "Wow, it's a thousand degrees!" then looking at the people who are sitting comfortably a few meters from it and wondering how they're not dead. That temperature isn't standard across the board, it's possible to maneuver around the worst parts, as we did.

I don't like it when people pretend to understand physics.

You don't like it when people ask questions you mean? You the thought police? My hands are up don't shoot.

That seems backward. Your rhetorical question contained a false implication.

You don't like it when people give you unsolicited answers you mean? You the thought police? My hands are up don't shoot.

Honky, please.

Get a teapot and boil some water. Would you rather put your hand in the steam or immerse it in the boiling water? Plasma is to gas as gas is to liquid -- it is more sparse and less effective at transferring heat by conduction. It transfers heat in other ways (radiation) but what makes plasma corrosive is that it is like a slow-motion fire,or a redox reaction like bleach being mixed with hydrogen peroxide.

If you really wanna ask questions, go for it. The Van Allen belts are more hazardous than normal because the sun supplies electrically charged nuclear reaction products to them. But the parent of this is full of answers: there are better materials than lead for shielding against protons.

Your rhetorical question contained a false implication.

Rhetorical--the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast.

My numbers were not exaggerated or false they came straight from wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29#/media/File:Plasma_scaling.svg

I really think it unwise to put your hand in 10,000k steam, but you go ahead since you say it is different.

I really think it unwise to put your hand in 10,000k steam

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. But if you put your hand in 10,000k plasma at near-vacuum pressure, your hand is going to be damaged by the vacuum before it changes temperatures. In terms of temperature change, it's going to freeze solid eventually, due to radiative cooling.

That's actually a great site, thanks for showing me.

The only thing that sticks out in my head that that website doesn't address, is that we haven't sent anybody outside of the VAB since Apollo. Nobody has.

"With the exception of the manned lunar flights of the Apollo program, all human spaceflights have taken place in LEO"

Red herring, based on a single sourced statement

How is it a red herring fallacy? I am not using this statement to distract from anything, I am making a singular statement.

Description of Red Herring

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

Topic A is under discussion.

Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).

Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

No not you, the guy making the claim what we have never gotten past the van Allen belt. It's sourced from a Nasa video no?

Oh, got it!

Yeah, usually when the viewpoint is based on a statement from one person, if you dig into it, it usually ends up being a misinterpretation or mistake.

it could very well be true, I just am suspicious about any single source allegation.

There are so many reasons why we haven't gone beyond LEO since. Money is #1. NASA didn't have a heavy-lift vehicle that could send a manned spacecraft beyond HEO (high earth orbit) and they were being drained of money with the Space Shuttle program which could barely get to Hubble at 350mi or so above the earth. So ignoring the launch vehicle problem, the only place we have the technology to go to right now is a brief trip to the Moon. They still haven't solved the problems of long-term radiation exposure astronauts would have in an extended deep-space mission. It can be solved, but it will take a lot of money to experiment with actual rocket launches.

Side note: I'm an amateur space historian. When I see/hear someone say that the moon landings were faked, it's so cringy. It is exactly as stupid and ignorant as hearing someone say they believe in creationism and that evolution is a lie. I love a good conspiracy and I'm convinced of several being accurate because I looked at the evidence for and against with an open mind. The Apollo missions were not faked.

For the last damn time: We. Didn't. Go. Through. The. Belt, and NASA isn't lying when they say we cant. We went over it. It's been said before. The Van-Allen belt counter argument is one of the worst you can make, because it's been debunked time and time again. You act like not sending anything beyond LEO is some shocking revelation, but it's really not. There's no fucking point. We went to the Moon, and found it's not worth the cost of going back. We're not going to Mars, and we're not going to Venus. Both would cost an insane amount and really wouldn't accomplish anything a rover can't.

What is so scary about humans having gone to the moon, that you cant possibly conceive that we went?

Edit Yes, down-vote instead of rebutting, it's much more effective at proving your point.

Why would you think we can't send a person through the Van Allen belts? Also, we haven't done it since because its expensive and there is not much of a reason too, unless you were going to Mars or somewhere else, in which case there are still a shit ton of other problems that are worse than the Van Allen belts.