Journeys to the Moon take days due to orbital mechanics and energy-efficient transfer trajectories.
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Astrodynamics and mission analyses verify that traveling to the Moon requires days of transit via carefully calculated transfer trajectories governed by orbital mechanics.
Furthermore, the orbital transfer trajectory from Earth to the Moon through the belts was chosen to lessen radiation exposure. Even James Van Allen, the discoverer
Conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA, possibly with the aid of other organizations. Such views are considered fringe. The most notable claim of these conspiracy theories is that the six crewed landings (1969–1972) were faked and that twelve Apollo astronauts did not actually land on the Moon. Since the
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To date, nobody from the United States government or NASA linked to the Apollo program has said that the Moon landings were hoaxes. Penn Jillette made note of this in the "Conspiracy Theories" episode of his television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in 2005. Physicist David Robert Grimes estimated the time that it would take for a conspiracy to be exposed based on the number of people involved. His calculations used data from the PRISM surveillance program, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the FBI forensic scandal. Grimes estimated that a Moon landing hoax would require the involvement of 411,000 people and would be exposed within 3.68 years.
On Earth, objects that are farther away appear fainter, paler, bluer and less detailed, due to aerial perspective. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere or haze to obscure faraway objects, thus they appear clearer and nearer; a large object far away and a small object nearby are difficult to distinguish. Furthermore, there are very few objects such as trees to help judge distance. One such case is debunked in "Who Mourns For Apollo?" by Mike Bara. 7. The number of photos taken is implausibly high—up to one photo per 50 seconds. Simplified gear with fixed settings allowed two photos a second. Many were taken immediately after each other as stereo pairs or panorama sequences.
The Apollo spacecraft passed through the inner belt in a matter of minutes and the outer belt in about 1+1⁄2 hours. The astronauts were shielded from the ionizing radiation by the aluminum hulls of the spacecraft. Furthermore, the orbital transfer trajectory from Earth to the Moon through the belts was chosen to lessen radiation exposure. Even James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen belt, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too harmful for the Apollo missions. Phil Plait cited an average dose of less than 1 rem (10 mSv), which is equivalent to the ambient radiation received by living at sea level for three years.
The total radiation received on the trip was about the same as allowed for workers in the nuclear energy field for a year and not much more than what Space Shuttle astronauts received. 2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation. The film was kept in metal containers that stopped radiation from fogging the emulsion. Furthermore, film was not fogged in lunar probes such as the Lunar Orbiter and Luna 3 (which used on-board film development processes). 3. The Moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted. There is no atmosphere to efficiently bind lunar surface heat to devices that are not in direct contact with it.
In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiative heat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was enough to control the temperature of the film within the cameras; Lunar Module temperatures were controlled with similar coatings that gave them a gold color. The Moon's surface does get very hot at lunar noon, but every Apollo landing was made shortly after lunar sunrise at the landing site; the Moon's day is about 29+1⁄2 Earth days long, meaning that one Moon day (dawn to dusk) lasts nearly fifteen Earth days.
The timing of the first moonwalk was changed after the landing. In fact, delays in getting the moonwalk started meant that Parkes did cover almost the entire Apollo 11 moonwalk. 4. Parkes supposedly had the clearest video feed from the Moon, but Australian media and all other known
This implies that the world's major observatories (as well as the Hubble Program) are complicit in the hoax by refusing to take photos of the landing sites. Photos of the Moon have been taken by Hubble, including at least two Apollo landing sites, but the Hubble resolution limits viewing of lunar objects to sizes no smaller than 55–69 m (60–75 yd), which is insufficient resolution to see any landing site features. In April 2001, Leonard David published an article on space.com, which showed a photo taken by the Clementine mission showing a diffuse dark spot at the site NASA says is the Apollo 15 lander.
The Daily Telegraph published a story in 2002 saying that European astronomers at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) would use it to view the landing sites. According to the article, Dr. Richard West said that his team would take "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites." Marcus Allen, a conspiracist, answered that no photos of hardware on the Moon would convince him that human landings had happened. The telescope was used to image the Moon and provided a resolution of 130 meters (430 ft), which was not good enough to resolve the 4.2 meters (14 ft) wide lunar landers or their long shadows.
The Apollo 15 retroreflector was deployed on July 31, 1971, and was detected by McDonald Observatory within a few days. Smaller retroreflectors were also put on the Moon by the Russians; they were attached to the uncrewed lunar rovers Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2. == Public opinion == In a 1994 poll by The Washington Post, 9% of the respondents said that it was possible that astronauts did not go to the Moon and another 5% were unsure. A 1999 Gallup Poll found that 6% of the Americans surveyed doubted that the Moon landings happened and that 5% of those surveyed had no opinion, which roughly matches the findings of a similar 1995 Time/CNN poll.
The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. It orbits around Earth at an average distance of 384,399 kilometers (238,854 mi), a distance roughly 30 times the width of Earth. It completes an orbit (lunar month) in relation to Earth and the Sun (synodically) every 29.5 days. The Moon and Earth are bound by gravitational attraction, which is stronger on the sides facing each other. The resulting
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The gravitational attraction that Earth and the Moon (as well as the Sun) exert on each other manifests in a slightly greater attraction on the sides closest to each other, resulting in tidal forces. Ocean tides are the most widely experienced result of this, but tidal forces also considerably affect other mechanics of Earth, as well as the Moon and their system.
The lunar solid crust experiences tides of around 10 cm (4 in) amplitude over 27 days, with three components: a fixed one due to Earth, because they are in synchronous rotation, a variable tide due to orbital eccentricity and inclination, and a small varying component from the Sun. The Earth-induced variable component arises from changing distance and libration, a result of the Moon's orbital eccentricity and inclination (if the Moon's orbit were perfectly circular and un-inclined, there would only be solar tides). According to recent research, scientists suggest that the Moon's influence on the Earth may contribute to maintaining Earth's magnetic field.
The cumulative effects of stress built up by these tidal forces produces moonquakes. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour – significantly longer than terrestrial quakes – because of scattering of the seismic vibrations in the dry fragmented upper crust. The existence of moonquakes was an unexpected discovery from seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972.
The most commonly known effect of tidal forces is elevated sea levels called ocean tides. While
The Moon's orbit is slightly elliptical, with an orbital eccentricity of 0.055. The semi-major axis of the geocentric lunar orbit, called the lunar distance, is approximately 385,000 km (239,000 mi), or 1.3 light-seconds, comparable to going around Earth approximately 9.6 times. The distance between the Moon and Earth varies from around 356,400 km (221,500 mi) (perigee) to 406,700 km (252,700 mi) (apogee), making the Moon's distance and apparent size fluctuate up to 14%.
The Moon makes a complete orbit around Earth with respect to the fixed stars, its sidereal period, about once every 27.3 days. However, because the Earth–Moon system moves at the same time in its orbit around the Sun, it takes slightly longer, 29.5 days, to return to the same lunar phase, completing a full cycle, as seen from Earth. This synodic period or synodic month is commonly known as the lunar month and is equal to the length of the solar day on the Moon.
Unlike most satellites of other planets, the Moon's orbital plane is closer to the ecliptic plane than to the planet's equatorial plane. The Moon's orbit is subtly perturbed by
The gravitational attraction that Earth and the Moon (as well as the Sun) exert on each other manifests in a slightly greater attraction on the sides closest to each other, resulting in tidal forces. Ocean tides are the most widely experienced result of this, but tidal forces also considerably affect other mechanics of Earth, as well as the Moon and their system.
The lunar solid crust experiences tides of around 10 cm (4 in) amplitude over 27 days, with three components: a fixed one due to Earth, because they are in synchronous rotation, a variable tide due to orbital eccentricity and inclination, and a small varying component from the Sun. The Earth-induced variable component arises from changing distance and libration, a result of the Moon's orbital eccentricity and inclination (if the Moon's orbit were perfectly circular and un-inclined, there would only be solar tides). According to recent research, scientists suggest that the Moon's influence on the Earth may contribute to maintaining Earth's magnetic field.
The cumulative effects of stress built up by these tidal forces produces moonquakes. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour – significantly longer than terrestrial quakes – because of scattering of the seismic vibrations in the dry fragmented upper crust. The existence of moonquakes was an unexpected discovery from seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972.
The most commonly known effect of tidal forces is elevated sea levels called ocean tides. While the Moon exerts most of the tidal forces, the Sun also exerts tidal forces and therefore contributes to the tides as much as 40% of the Moon's tidal force; producing in interplay the spring and neap tides.
The tides are two bulges in the Earth's oceans, one on the side facing the Moon and the other on the side opposite. As the Earth rotates on its axis, one of the ocean bulges (high tide) is held in place "under" the Moon, while another such tide is opposite. The tide under the Moon is explained by the Moon's gravity being stronger on the water close to it. The tide on the opposite side can be explained either by the centrifugal force as the Earth orbits the barycenter or by the water's inertia as the Moon's gravity is stronger on the solid Earth close to it and it is pulled away from the farther water.
Thus, there are two high tides, and two low tides in about 24 hours. Since the Moon is orbiting the Earth in the same direction of the Earth's rotation, the high tides occur about every 12 hours and 25 minutes; the 25 minutes is due to the Moon's time to orbit the Earth.
If the Earth were a water world (one with no continents) it would produce a tide of only one meter, and that tide would be very predictable, but the ocean tides are greatly modified by other effects:
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