What became of the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon?

[Admin]

Astronauts placed six different American flags on the moon during the Apollo program. What became of those flags in the years since, and why were they controversial?

What became of the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon? : Read more

 

[Jan Steinman]

The "proof" that at least one lunar landing occurred is pretty simple, and could be accomplished by a skilled amateur with perhaps $10,000-worth of equipment.

The astronauts left behind "corner reflectors," which are prisms or mirrors arranged such that when a laser is directed at them, the beam will be returned at the same angle.

Natural moon rock and soil does not respond to laser illumination this way.

One would need guidance and tracking gear that a sophisticated amateur astronomy enthusiast would likely already have. It would also need a high-powered laser, and a subsequent detector for the return pulse.

Best of all, the concept is simple, and likely to be understood (if only to be denied) by the simple minds that grasp at conspiracy theories.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

While I am not a moon landing conspiracy believer, I don't see how the presence of the corner reflectors on the Moon proves that they were put there by humans who landed there. Why could they not be placed there by robotic landers?

And, I expect the conspiracy theories are going to become much harder to disprove in the near future, now that the technology has been developed to the point that "deep fake" video can be produced with readily available software. If you can take a video of yourself in your own living room while wearing pajamas and turn it into a video of yourself in your tuxedo shaking hands with the U.S. President in the Oval Office, why believe that somebody else can't fake a video of an astronaut walking on Mars?

I think the best evidence is what Anne Platoff said in the article:
""Do you really think it would be possible to maintain the level of cooperation from everyone involved in the Apollo Program to maintain the hoax for fifty-five years?"

But, there are people claiming essentially the same sort of long-perpetrated official hoax about extraterrestrials not already visiting Earth. So, yes, I think some people will believe conspiracy theories forever.

 

[Jan Steinman]

I don't see how the presence of the corner reflectors on the Moon proves that they were put there by humans who landed there. Why could they not be placed there by robotic landers?

You must be a youngster.

Those of us who actually lived through the manned lunar landings know that they didn't even have "robotic landers" in 1969.

The Apollo Guidance Computer, arguably the most advanced computing device of its time, had 2048 bytes of memory and weighed 32 kilograms. It was a "fly by wire" system that still required live human interaction without the 2.6 seconds it would take for a radio signal round-trip to Earth.

If it had been possible to land such an unmanned craft on the moon, they would have done it before they risked human life to land there.

 

[SilverStar Heggisist]

You must be a youngster.

Those of us who actually lived through the manned lunar landings know that they didn't even have "robotic landers" in 1969.

The Apollo Guidance Computer, arguably the most advanced computing device of its time, had 2048 bytes of memory and weighed 32 kilograms. It was a "fly by wire" system that still required live human interaction without the 2.6 seconds it would take for a radio signal round-trip to Earth.

If it had been possible to land such an unmanned craft on the moon, they would have done it before they risked human life to land there.

It was possible at the time and was done at the time. With the first automated hard landing being the Soviets in 1959, the first soft landing being the Soviets in 1966 and the first rover and automated sample return being the Soviets only one year afted the first moon walk in 1970.

So the technology to land a reflector on the moon by a unmanned system was around before and after. Also since that time there have been modern moon missions that could also in theory deploy reflectors.

I don't deny the moon landing. I'm just pointing out that the ability to send and operate remote landers has been around longer then you think. To give a idea, the very first drone was tested in 1917 only 14 years after the first powered flight.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

You must be a youngster.

Jan, Wrong again! I was at the Cape to watch Apollo 11 lift off in-person, and then watched the landing transmissions on a CRT television when they were first broadcast to the public.

And, I was and am familiar with soft landers on the Moon, Mars and Venus at various times.

Please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program , which states:

"The Surveyor program was a NASA program that, from June 1966 through January 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The Surveyor craft were the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body."

 

[willydogg]

Thousands of earth orbiting satellites and inter gallactic telescopes and ZERO pictures of 3 Lunar Rovers and 3 Lunar Base Modules?? These dont Fade like a flag!!

1969 space travel technology...56yrs later we haven't gone back????
Just take your boosters and Let them ask the questions!!

 

[COLGeek]

Thousands of earth orbiting satellites and inter gallactic telescopes and ZERO pictures of 3 Lunar Rovers and 3 Lunar Base Modules?? These dont Fade like a flag!!

1969 space travel technology...56yrs later we haven't gone back????
Just take your boosters and Let them ask the questions!!

Well, what about these?

Apollo 11 Landing Site - NASA Science

The Apollo 11 landing site as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

science.nasa.gov

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/see-apollo-landing-sites-moon

 

[Unclear Engineer]

COLGeek, Thanks. Photos from lunar orbit are the best evidence that humans landed and walked around on the Moon's surface.

But, die-hard skeptics can just claim the photos are "deep fakes". And they aren't going to go there themselves and see first-hand, so there is no convincing them.

Besides, there are still people walking around on Earth and claiming that the Earth is flat.

Sometimes I think people who do that just like to fluster the folks who have interest in scientific things.

 

[Max Kennedy]

Well, what about these?

Apollo 11 Landing Site - NASA Science

The Apollo 11 landing site as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

science.nasa.gov

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/see-apollo-landing-sites-moon

Exactly! That should have been the go-to evidence given to Apollo moon landing deniers.

 

[Max Kennedy]

"One thing that I keep seeing in articles is that the flags would be bleached white from exposure to sunlight. While this does happen to some flags on Earth, I am not sure about the chemical process involved and if that would occur in a lunar environment," Platoff tells Space.com.

Well, UV radiation on the lunar surface (from incident sunlight) is much stronger than on earth (which has an atmosphere and ozone which filters out most of the UV), and that's all you need for UV-induced chemical degradation of the dye molecules in the flag (and UV-induced chemical degradation of the polymer - whatever it is - from which the flags were made - leading to embrittlement). So yes, you should be pretty sure that that process is occurring in the flags left behind on the moon, and at a much accelerated rate.

 

[Jan Steinman]

It was possible at the time and was done at the time.

Well, four years later, the Soviets did in fact leave a corner reflector on the moon.

But four years in those days of rapid technology development was immense!

That might seem to be "at the time" to you. But there were pocket calculators in 1973, but not in 1969.

1969 -- The first Large Scale Integration (LSI) calculator, Sharp's QT-8, began production using IC chips made by Rockwell. The USA debut of this AC-powered, four function calculator

1973-74 -- Competition to produce cheaper pocket calculators reaches a frenzy. Many models begin to sell for under $100.

(From http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/history_of_electronic_calculators.html)

Regardless, I agree that moon-landing deniers will come up with any excuse for their irrational belief.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I think Platoff was just being honest in saying she doesn't really know. She seems to be thinking that the UV radiation might cause chemical reactions with atmospheric gases or some such non-lunar process.

But, I think that the UV induced loss of color is just destruction of the chemical bonds in the molecules that have the color attribute, leaving residues that do not reflect the same color.

See https://www.naturalux.com/NaturaLux_Lighting_Filters_Fading.htm .

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Well, four years later, the Soviets did in fact leave a corner reflector on the moon.

Strange you would take as fact that the Soviets robotically put corner reflectors on the Moon 4 years later than the U.S. astronauts put some there, and now need to admit that the U.S had done robotic soft landings on the moon prior to the astronauts landing, but still argue that the U.S. could not have put corner reflectors on the Moon without humans landing.

Corner reflectors are not "new technology" in the same sense as the electronics used in computerized robotics. So, it is pretty clear that the capability was there at the time in question by the skeptics.

Making false arguments to skeptics only reinforces their skepticism.

 

[Jan Steinman]

Strange you would take as fact that the Soviets robotically put corner reflectors on the Moon

Crash-landing a spacecraft with a corner reflector attached is hardly "robotically putting."

But, to each his own. You have a powerful need to be right. So be it. The ability to see the other side may be useful to you some day.

 

[Jan Steinman]

Exactly! That should have been the go-to evidence given to Apollo moon landing deniers.

Anyone who believes the moon-landing videos were faked has heard of Photoshop.

Inflexible minds — whether arguing against moon-landings, or arguing for evidence to the contrary here — have a lot in common.

Some people just like to argue. I prefer to find common ground.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Jan, Where does this "crash landing" come into your thinking? The Surveyor spacecraft were designed to demonstrate soft landing capability and did so, prior to the U.S. astronauts landing on the Moon. And, corner reflectors are not something that was invented just in time for the U.S. crewed landing. So it is hard to argue that the corner reflectors that the U.S. astronauts placed on the Moon could not have been placed there robotically.

I am not demonstrating a personal "powerful need to be right" when I debunk something that is actually "bunk" on an Internet forum. Perhaps you could get a better view of somebody with "a powerful need to be right" by looking into a mirror? I am careful to be able to back up what I post as fact. And if I am expressing an opinion rather than a fact, I try to make it clear that it is my opinion, rather than a fact.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Some other misinformation worth correcting concerns the Apollo Guidance Computers. Plural because there was one in the Command Module and one in the Lunar Lander.

These computers were quite primitive compared to what we have today. But, they were a lot more complex than simply "2048 bytes of memory".

First, a "byte" is 8 "bits" of binary numbers, and these computers used 2048 2-byte "words", so it was really comparable to 4096 "bytes" of storage.

But, more importantly, that is only the read/write storage that could be changed during the mission by the astronauts and the sensors on their space craft. There were also 36,864 words of read-only "core rope memory" where the programs to use that data and control the spacecraft were stored.

So, it was still only 77,824 bytes of memory in those computers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer

And that read-only "core rope memory" was hand programmed into the computers, bit by bit. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory , which says

"Unlike magnetic-core memory, the cores themselves are not used to store the data; the way a core is wired controls whether that core represents a '0' or a '1'."

"The software for the AGC was written by programmers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Instrumentation Lab, and was woven into core rope memory by female workers in factories. Some programmers nicknamed the finished product LOL memory, for Little Old Lady memory."

So, that 36,864 words of program memory was not at all volatile - it was a very robust system compared to early home computes like the "Commodore 64", which came much later. It was not going to lose its programs to a software glitch.

So, it is more appropriate to think of the Apollo computers as "Apollo 78s" in terms of capability, and all of their storage was dedicated to the one program function of guidance, with nothing wasted on anything else.

For the times, not too shabby.

 

[Classical Motion]

It was a great system with no boot time. ROM operating system. With pointers to other parts of memory, RAM and I/O Blocks. All the first home units had this.

Years later, I found a boot bit, on the Atari 800, which allowed the OS to be loaded into ram, and switched to that OS in ram with modified pointers for my use.

Then I could modify the OS to preform background sub routines during video blanking interrupts. Such as searching radar screens, and not taking up any computer cycle run time. Game time.

Atari paid me a little for them. But I was young and dumb and had no idea what I was doing.

I was the first in the community to have 64 K of memory, quite a chest puffer at the time.

With life changes, had to switch to chemistry for a time for some certifications and never got real deep into it again. Although did play with micros later for a time.

Precise cheap function is reality today. With this IoT and AI we’re in an inescapable web.

One hundred fold the dependency of electricity. And it will require more juice than industry and transportation.

AI might exterminate us by abiding us.

 

[billslugg]

So, you are telling us this "Moon" thing exists but we have not actually gone there?

 

[Redderek]

I remember the "flat earther" guy that died in his one rocket. His goal was to get to 5000 feet to see the Earth curvature. Ignorance abound, he could have taking a flight to 35000 feet in an airplane. Or used a balloon to go even higher.

 

[Redderek]

This talk about corner reflectors is mundane as a corner reflector is typically a set of mirrors whereby light shining into it will reflect back in the direction the light came from. Usually there is a ±90° capability. Thus, a robotic landing is not critical. Heck, send a ship up to crash and it could contain 10 of these reflectors. When the crash occurs and the contents spill out, high chance one or more will land in a position to provide a good reflection.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

This talk about corner reflectors is mundane as a corner reflector is typically a set of mirrors whereby light shining into it will reflect back in the direction the light came from. Usually there is a ±90° capability. Thus, a robotic landing is not critical. Heck, send a ship up to crash and it could contain 10 of these reflectors. When the crash occurs and the contents spill out, high chance one or more will land in a position to provide a good reflection.

I don't think that a full-on direct impact on the Moon's surface, with no slowing at all, would produce a workable installation of even one-out-of-ten corner reflectors. Corner reflectors' surface angles need to be very precise to send light back exactly to its point of origin 250,000 miles away. Cracking or bending even a little is going to make them ineffective.

So, the fact that they work at all is pretty good evidence that they were put there with some sort of vehicle that could touch down mostly non-destructively. But, I do agree that if you put enough of them on the surface of a vehicle, one would probably work, even if the vehicle falls over on its side. And, if the vehicle survives long enough to aim a microwave antenna accurately at an Earth station, then it could also aim a corner reflector even more easily.

So, I regard the presence of corner reflectors on the Moon as providing high confidence of the ability to make some sort of landing, rather than a straight-in, full speed crash. But, not much more than that.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retroreflectors_on_the_Moon for the list of successes and failures to put corner reflectors on the Moon>

 

[Unclear Engineer]

<<Post deleted by moderator>>

So, you are telling us this "Moon" thing exists but we have not actually gone there?

It is amusing that some anonymous poster on the Internet, with no basis for credibility of his own, will so often claim that he/she/it knows better than everybody else, without providing any supporting evidence at all.

Nobody is going to take that seriously, so why did he/she/it bother to post?

And, why bother to respond?

(Rhetorical questions, not actually asking for a response.)

 

[Jan Steinman]

One hundred fold the dependency of electricity. And it will require more juice than industry and transportation.

AI might exterminate us by abiding us.

"And so it goes," said Kurt Vonnegut.so

We are totally unprepared for the coming decline in fossil sunlight.

Plot economic growth together with energy use. They are in lock-step.

So-called "renewables" are not displacing fossil fuel; they are providing continued economic growth on top of already-flat fossil fuel availability.

When US fracking (notably, the Permian) goes into decline, so will overall energy availability, so will the economy, so will civilization.

"And so it goes." Silly, clever hairless apes, thinking they had everything covered!