Moon Landing Hoax, or when you are surprise by it

So you are giving a presentation on Yuri Gagarin, the Space Race and the Cold War, and of course you have to go to the point that at the end the USA won it because they were the first to put a man in the Moon. And you get the questions:

* Do you believe that the Americans landed in the Moon?
* I think that everything was staged in a Hollywood set, don't you?
* It was fake, wasn't it?
Put this clear and straight: rejecting or getting into the conspiracy is rejecting good science (in this case rejecting the Moon Landing).
I'm usually stopped in my next thoughts with this type of questions. Basically for me is like someone that ask me do you believe the Earth is round? we know it is flat, and I overflow with different thoughts. some very disrepectful, others of totally atonishent, and stunned on how to answer the obvious. [the Earth is not round but kind of an spheroid to be precisely annal]

How to answer in real time?

To be honest no idea. I'm not good for sharp, incisive, quick and on the spot answers. But I'm good at preparing scenarios and work then on that.
One good advice in those situations is to assume that most people do not care about Space Exploration, but heard about the Moon Hoax (today with Internet is very easy to get into this kind of crap) and they are trying to make a conversation funny at the expense of you. You can bet that few people are hard core conspirationists or deniers. At least is a good thought for me in order not to boil and just explode in a torrent of arguments.
Answer directly and honestly to the questions done:

• No, I do not believe. I know by facts that they landed in the Moon
• No, I do not think so. It will be a horrible expensive movie, and there is no way of keeping actors silent about it
• No, it wasn't fake

Ask some rethorical questions:

• Malta temples, Egypt Pyramids, the Great Chinese Wall, Mayan Piramids, Machu Pichu, who do you think have built them?
• If they are true conspirationists they will answer that Aliens, the Heeches, or some kinda-Prometheus extraterrestrials did them. And I have no more tips on how to deal with them in real time. Rest of the blog is not for confronting this type of people. Sorry.
• If they shrug, or answer of course humans and we all agree that the Homo Sapiens have been the culprits of those amazing structures. And also that Homo is incredibly resourceful, shows a lot of ingenuity and have built and builds surprising stuff (add Suez and Panama channel to the list) against all odds (Malta temples), you can continue reading
• Why do you deny the creativity and ingenuity to put people on the Moon, but accept the others?

Setting the boundaries for a more rational conversation, then you can ask what specifically have read or watch, or specifcally what makes them think the landing was a hoax.
Usually what follows is a rough memory of something they had read like the flag is moving in the pictures (or more related to the pictures, if someone picked on some more deep argument -rare- maybe they will point that there are grades of shadows and with no atmospherem no difraction, so no grades of shadow. Most of the arguments that can put you in an akward situation (basically you have no idea and the objection looks reasonable) follow a pattern of God in the Gaps, or more appropiatte, Gaps in your Knowledge (and in the proto-denier in front of you). Most are frankly weird and totally illogic (like the movie thing) that argument against that is a waste of time: just go back, think carefully and rationally and come back. If not Death Star is real and in a galaxy far far away Yoda is awaiting you.
All of the conspirationist's arguments have been debunked and I will only point to this excellent article by Phil Plait in Bad Astronomy: Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax. Just read it and be ready to calmly debunk your proto-denier that she/he is just bored and seeing the opportunity of making some hotly debated at your expense.

Taking the attack not seriously

The Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy is ... nonsense, so it is good to make some ironic, fun of, and intelligently mock it. Dean Burnett has a very good article (and serious when you read 2nd time): The moon landings were faked (and other science confessions).

"Yes, the moon landings were faked. You can take my word on this, I'm a scientist. A scientist who wasn't even born at the time and who has no official connection to space travel or any space-based discipline, but you know us scientists, we're all in on it together"

"...the whole moon landing saga was just realistic CGI. That's right, all the footage you've seen of the supposed moon landing is entirely computer animated. The USA had access to computer technology decades ahead of what was normal in the 1960s in order to do this..."

"...so now that I've let the cat out of the bag with regards to the moon landings, it's only a matter of time before the true extent of the deceptions carried out by the scientific community come to light. So, in the interests of transparency, here are some other conspiracies and outright lies that science has been feeding people..."

"Although rational types have been decrying antivaxxers for years, unfortunately they are correct. Vaccinations are unnecessary; they're a cover for the true nature of disease. It was discovered long ago that all diseases were actually spread by the Dodo. Upon this realisation, scientists decided to initiate a brutal extermination campaign, which lead to their apparent extinction. However, racked by guilt over their actions, the science community concocted the whole vaccine story to explain why people weren't getting so sick anymore, and have persevered with it to this day."

"The theory of relativity is, as many have guessed, made up. It doesn't make any sense when you think about it, time slowing down as you go faster? Gaining mass as you approach light speed? It's all based on an incident Einstein experienced when on a particularly long train journey where his watch was broken and he went to the buffet car a few too many times."

"THE WORLD IS ROUND = It isn't I'm afraid. It's flat. But it's not static, the land is constantly moving across it like a supermarket conveyer belt. Hence we get night and day, night is when the belt is on the underside of the Earth."

Enjoy it!

Why?

I asked myself this questions many times. People regards basic facts as lies and create a increasingly unattainable position disguised as (conspirative) "theory". I didn't read it, but Michael Shermer's book Why People Believe Weird Things maybe have some very good insights into this.
Also a shorter paper by the UWA Cognitive Science Laboratories: NASA faked the moon landing-therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science is a great source for start wondering about this phenomenon.

Remembering Yuri Gagarin and The Space Race

Last week was April 12th, and in that day but in the year 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first man in Space onboard the Vostok 1. That prompted some people to create a celebration around the World: Yuri's Night

I tried my wife the day before to through a party at our house and take the opportunity to dine with friends. She retorted no way a Nerd dinner, but why not offer to give a presentation about Yuri Gagarin in the school of our daughters? I accepted and needed some time to research again, collect information and remember my old memories about the Space Race

Yuri Gagarin and the Space Race

The result are 2 presentations. One oriented to kids from 6-7 years old to 11-12; and another for a more older audience. For the former using the figure of Yuri Gagarin as a hook to talk about astronauts, how they go to space, the challenge of living there, and finalising with Carl Sagan's message A Pale Blue Dot. The latter stressing more about the Space Race and the Cold War.

Tired of MS PowerPoint and the dry lineal logic of putting slides in one dimension, I decided to give Prezi a new try.

Yuri Gagarin

In honor of Yuri Gagarin and all the astronauts (and cosmonauts) that came after him:

• Remembering him
• Remembering his flight
• After that it is important to get into some facts: how do you go to Space (rockets)?
• and where you can survive (capsules)
• we need all these technology because Space is or has:
  • Weightless
  • Radiation
  • No air
    • so Earthlings can not survive outside our planet, technically above 6000 meters high we need special equipment and assistance (comercial planes are a sort of a space capsule!)
• starting from Yuri Gagarin all women and men in Space realized that our planet is a tiny capsule that we must protect. It is the only place that we can live so far. This fantastic composition of our planet as seen from the International Space Station, ISS, is super, Wow and also gives you a clear view of our unique and only true home in space
• and finishing with Carl Sagan's message A Pale Blue Dot. Started as a bitter race between the 2 superpowers of that time, but ended in collaboration and providing a visual view of our fragile planet.

And here Yuri Gagarin 52th Anniversary (of the flight, of course)

Click here to see the presentation

Links to more info and things left out

In any presentation better to be short and to the point (Yuri's First Man in Space, Flying into Space, Our Unique only home; so always I'm prunning a lot of information. Here a short list of some nice videos and additional information that didn't make into the final presentation:

• More videos remembering that First Amazing flight:
• The Day Earth Stood Still; 50 Years of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, First Human in Space
• 52nd Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, First Human in Space
• Vostok 1
• Yuri Gagarin: 108 minutes that changed the World
• Yuri Gagarin; The Man, The Brand, The Legend
• Chris Hadfield's Special Message For Yuri's Night 2013
• After him the next Firts for manned Space exploration:
• Flashback to America's First Space Flight, Alan Sheppard on the first sub-orbital flight for the USA
• 1965, First Space Walk (Alexey Leonov)
• Valentina Tereshkova, first woman cosmonaut
• First man in the Moon
• Living in Space:
• A Cool and Candid Look Inside the International Space Station
• Waking up, working, and going to sleep in Zero G
• Astronaut demos drinking coffee in space
• Back to 2001 Space Odissey:sadly (at least for me) Arthur C. Clarke imagined in 1968) that in 2001 we will be going to Jupiter (Saturn in the book, Jupiter in the movie). But in 1972 was the last time we sent people outside low Earth orbit and never came back to deep space. Maybe in 2018 some 2 lucky persons will go to Mars

The Space Race

The second presentation is an extension of the first one. Using the same template and basic flow structure but stressing how the Space Race was a collateral effect of the Cold War:

1. Click here to see the presentation

2. 

   
   

   A new section on how the rocket technology was developed. At least naming 4 key scientists and engineers:
   
   1. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, he is considered one of the pioneers in rocket science, and he developed the theory that helped to put rockets in space. Born Russian and died as Soviet;
3. Robert H. Goddard, who is credited with creating and building the first liquid-fueled propeled rocket. US citizen, physics and inventor, he wrote several theory papers on space travel and develop and invented key technologies (three-axis control, thrusters, gyroscopes, and he built liquid-fueled rockets);
4. Wernher V.Braun, leading engineer for the development of rocket technology in Germany (see the entry of Hermann Oberth, another founder father of astronautics and rocketry, not mentioned in my Prezi, but very important)). Worked in the infamous V1 and V2. The V2 rocket is the template for both USA and URSS rockets after the WWII
5. Sergei Korolev was the Chief Designer for the URSS Space Program. With Valentin Glushko who designed the engines for the rockets are both pivotal to the URSS Space Program development, keys to the early and first successes in the Space Race. The R7 rocket, based on the V2 learnings, and its continuous evolution is one of the most capable and reusable rocket still used today), deploying payloads into space, like Progress capsule) and Soyuz

There was a funny and denialist article on the New York Times in January 13th 1920, arguing that Goddard's ideas to reach space were unrealistic and incredible it attacked him on not knowing Newton's Laws of Motion! In 1969 after Neil Amstrong landed in the Moon the NYT retracted with a simple paragraph saying: Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error

Some messages from this section:

1. Need the basics: both in Physics and Engineering
2. There is a lot of technical ingenuity and trying and trying and trying again
3. Most of the pioneers they were on this because they have some philosophical question to answer, or they liked to think about daring things, and basically just fun solving a puzzle
4. But you need big budgets to develop some technologies (or most of them) and one reason why societies engage in huge expenditures are:
• They are trying to kick some ass of another society (usually under the lame excuse that we have to defend ourselves)
• Some weird, but powerful and agregating belief, usually under the excuse of some religion, and well managed by some organized church
• Defending the honor or doing what it is Right also is used
• and the pure fun is gone

After the end of the WWII is clear the declining of the European colonist powers, and the emergence of a bi polar world run by the US and the URSS. Spectacular facts that marked what was coming were the 2 atomic bombs ever blasted on a real war scenario, let's hope it will never happen again; the Yalta conference where the World was divided; and the strategic bombing developed and refined by the US during the war.

Arguably some can say that having air superiority is not a necessary condition to win a war, but no one can argue that not having air superiority puts your side in the looser side, or at least the side that will suffer the most terrible consequences. At the end of the WWII USA has showed that they have air superiority, and were able to carry deep missions in enemy territory, and deploy atomic warheads. The last not a marketing bluff. The URSS was clearly behind in that capability and after Yalta a offensive/defensive gap was in favour of the US.

Clearly the V2 rockets didn't help Germany in their effort, but looking beside the terror, both countries were able to understand the capability and potential of using rockets to deploy atomic warheads deep into enemy territory: quicker than planes, technically almost un-stoppable, and cheaper to fly and maintain than huge air forces.

The Space Race is a direct son of the Cold War.

The Cold War can be describe as a Red Queen Effect: any move from one adversary is matched by the other in a continuous race, at least technically. A game strategy was defined: MAD, clearly a game devised to minimize the risk of total atomic annihilation.

The Space Race technically was advancing on the same direction and similar objectives, but each side had its own flavour on how to run it:

• The US choosed the show business, astronauts presented like american football players, a new kind of heroes, everything live and on TV, the margin for error nil, it cannot risk killing an hero in front of the cameras, management centralized with the creation of NASA in 1958 but with an open approach and relying on different actors and contractors, inclusive of all the participants in the project (I need to include this reference to a paper on early Space Exploration: Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science] by Homer Edward Newell. I didn't read it but it covers a lot of topics how the US Space Program was created and managed, and much more)
• The URSS approach is a mirror of the US: close, secrecy, one coordination, hierarchichal in both management and economic development. Cosmonauts like in the US national heroes (what else? Those women and men just have plain courage, my kudos for all them)
• The URSS was able to score the first Firsts with a combination of great technically ingenuity and fantastic engineers, and having some advantage in knowing much more of the moves of the US;
• Yuri Gagarin first flight was pushed ahead because they knew that the US was close to send one man in Space. They risked Yuri's life (50/50 chance) knowing that it the flight failed even killing Yuri, they will be able to cover it;
• That cover up and secrecy was kept until the collapse of the URSS
• Nedelin Catasthrophe
• the death of Vladimir Komarov

There are some great videos (recreations) from the BBC: Space Race.

However the URSS kicked in first, by mid 1960's the US started getting the advantage. But the death of Sergei Korolev in 1966 severily impact the continuation of the URSS program to reach the Moon. The N1 rocket, the most massive rocket ever built failed in the only 4 attemps (starting in early 1969 and the last launch in late 1972. In 1974 the N1 program is cancelled and the URSS accepted that they will not send a cosmonaut to the Moon.

The NASA engaged in a step by step approach, and after the testing of several procedures and concepts during Mercury and Gemini, the Apollo missions run from Apollo 7 to Apollo 17.

The Apollo 11 mission is the landmark: First Man in the Moon. Sadly after that and with a clear confirmation that the URSS abandoned the goal, the enthusiasm falls quickly. Several Apollo missions to the Moon are scrapped after 1972. After 41 years no astronaut has ever returned to the Moon. And there are no plans for NASA going in a mid future.

We can say that the end of the race is the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Still the Cold War is racing but at least this is a milestone for future collaboration that ended in 1998 with the first modules of the ISS in Space, a joint effort that since 2000 has been tripulated until today.