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Our Year Ender: Don Ecker

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Don, with all of the fascinating material you have on the moon, have you ever thought of putting together something for TV/Cable and pitching it to anyone? Or even creating a video that you sell through the DMR website?

Bunson, have you ever dealt with TV people? Well I have and, believe you me, by in large you end up wanting to punch holes in walls. I been there so many times it is a wonder my hair isn't a hell of a lot more grey than it is. Several times I thought I was spear-heading the definitive show on Lunar mysteries ... and ended up scratching my ass. Sorry to be so .. blunt .. but that is the bottom line. 99% of TV people could not care less ... they have their ideas on how something like that should run ... then 8 outta 10 times will bring in the morons that have already been to the Moon, then to top it off they want to bring in some skeptical guy .. or gal ... and explain how all this is so much ... bull shit .. but of course they don't say bull shit ... sumpin like bovine excrement. Bottom line? It's all a crock of shit ....

jus' saying though ...

Decker
 
... then 8 outta 10 times will bring in the morons that have already been to the Moon ....

Anyone who has actually been to the Moon is not a moron. What's more, it took a tremendous amount of courage and training. It was one of mankind's finest accomplishments.
 
Anyone who has actually been to the Moon is not a moron. What's more, it took a tremendous amount of courage and training. It was one of mankind's finest accomplishments.

No no no ufology. Maybe I should have included a /sarc in that note. I am speaking about the Andrew Basiago's of the world. The delusional people that inhabit the field, not astronauts. The ones that TV people glom onto that are willing to wear the tin-foil hats on the TV. We are hopefully clear now, yes?

Decker
 
No no no ufology. Maybe I should have included a /sarc in that note. I am speaking about the Andrew Basiago's of the world. The delusional people that inhabit the field, not astronauts. The ones that TV people glom onto that are willing to wear the tin-foil hats on the TV. We are hopefully clear now, yes?
Decker

OK Don ... you had me worried there for second ... whew. I've seen shows where they have brought actual astronauts on to comment on the Moon conspiracy, so I thought that's what you were talking about. It seems reasonable to believe that some weird have been observed on an around the Moon, but what exactly they are ( were ) remains a mystery. I think it's also possible that some Apollo astronauts saw more than they'll ever tell while they were up there.
 
Right. Now let's talk about why many moon phots were faked?

I'm no big expert on this subject, but my very brief look at the Moon conspiracy evidence suggests to me that the proponents have either exaggerated or misinterpreted the evidence they present. I'm not so sure there aren't also blatant fabrications and/or distortions based on hearsay. The reasons I'm of this opinion is that I've considered both sides of the story and the explanations offered seem perfectly acceptable for most of it, and the remainder can be explained as errors made by faulty assumptions. For example, according to an article I read someplace ( speaking of hearsay ) a lot of the Apollo stuff was stuffed away in cardboard boxes and never properly cataloged. When it was found years later inside various offices, nobody knew for sure where it had come from. But it was presumed it was all Apollo related and used by some people as evidence for the Moon conspiracy.

So here's where the people looking at the photos made their faulty assumptions: They assumed that the photos they were looking at were supposedly taken on the Moon and that they represented part of the evidence that we never went there. What they didn't consider is that the Apollo program had a training and testing center out near the Barringer meteorite crater and that films and photos were taken there also. Given the lack of documentation and proper filing, the photos that appear to be staged may have actually been staged. So what? That doesn't mean we didn't go the moon. It just means they were taking pictures out at their training center. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that some of those photos were used for promotional purposes because they were readily available, good quality, and cleared for release. Again this is no reason to think we didn't also actually go to the Moon.
 
Yes - I didn't say no-one went to the moon but some of the phots, a lot had to be faked. One of the strongest pieces of evidence about it comes from the makers of the cameras. One thing that bothers me is the footage of one astronaut sort of falling over, and then he is righted but not by himself. It looks really wrong in terms of the physics - even in 1/6th gravity.
 
Yes - I didn't say no-one went to the moon but some of the phots, a lot had to be faked. One of the strongest pieces of evidence about it comes from the makers of the cameras. One thing that bothers me is the footage of one astronaut sort of falling over, and then he is righted but not by himself. It looks really wrong in terms of the physics - even in 1/6th gravity.

I've seen the footage you're talking about and I've also seen it addressed, I want to say it was on Fact or Faked but I might be wrong about that, anyway moon hoax proponents have always maintained that it was due to one of the astronauts being hooked up to a crane or something similar and then being yanked back up, but they actually did that on this show and the resultant footage looked nothing like the original. Their hypothesis was that because the astronauts spacesuits were constantly pumped full of air it made him getting back to his feet look unnatural, but it's actually exactly what you'd expect to see from someone in a pressurized suit. Makes sense to me but who knows for sure? I've always thought that, as far as conspiracies go, the moon hoax is one of the weakest in terms of evidence.
 
I think your missing the point. My take is that they my take it that they did go to the moon but for various reasons, had to fake a lot of footage and photos. It could be cos the real stuff didn't come out well or there were things on the moon they did not want the public to see. NASA never addresses specific questions that come from those who believe a conspiracy. They just ridicule them and avoid explaining things and lots of things don't add up while still allowing them to have gone to the moon.
 
I think your missing the point. My take is that they my take it that they did go to the moon but for various reasons, had to fake a lot of footage and photos. It could be cos the real stuff didn't come out well or there were things on the moon they did not want the public to see. NASA never addresses specific questions that come from those who believe a conspiracy. They just ridicule them and avoid explaining things and lots of things don't add up while still allowing them to have gone to the moon.

No I get your take I just don't agree with you and furthermore I think that most of the points of these moon hoax proponents have been answered satisfactorily, from many different sources including NASA as you can see in the article from NASA.gov that I'll post. Like most conspiracies, it doesn't matter because no amount of evidence or logic is going to convince some of these people that they're wrong. Besides this article from NASA, there are other articles and papers from NASA addressing concerns of the moon hoax proponents like the Van Allen radiation belt and many more aspects of their theories. Why should they have to answer every single conspiracy theorist question that comes up, why should they have to waste their time?

The Great Moon Hoax


The Great Moon HoaxMoon rocks and common sense prove Apollo astronauts really did visit the Moon.

Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer)

February 23, 2001 -- Last week my phone rang. It was my mother ... and she was upset.
"Tony!" she exclaimed, "I just came from the coffee shop and there's an [adjective omitted] man down there who says NASA never landed on the Moon. Everyone was talking about it ... I just didn't know what to say!"
That last bit was hard to swallow, I thought. Mom's never at a loss for words.
But even more incredible was the controversy that swirled through her small-town diner and places like it across the country. After a long absence, the "Moon Hoax" was back.
Above: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon in 1969. [more information]
All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Guests on the show argued that NASA technology in the 1960's wasn't up to the task of a real Moon landing. Instead, anxious to win the Space Race any way it could, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios. Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on another world, the rollicking Moon Buggy rides, even Al Shepard's arcing golf shot over Fra Mauro-- it was all a fake!

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Fortunately the Soviets didn't think of the gag first. They could have filmed their own fake Moon landings and really embarrassed the free world.
Shows like Conspiracy Theory ought to be as tongue-in-cheek as they sound. Unfortunately, there was an earnest feel to the Fox broadcast, enough to make you wonder if the program's makers might have fallen under their own spell.
According to the show NASA was a blundering movie producer thirty years ago. For example, Conspiracy Theory pundits pointed out a seeming discrepancy in Apollo imagery: Pictures of astronauts transmitted from the Moon don't include stars in the dark lunar sky -- an obvious production error! What happened? Did NASA film-makers forget to turn on the constellations?
Most photographers already know the answer: It's difficult to capture something very bright and something else very dim on the same piece of film -- typical emulsions don't have enough "dynamic range." Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their sunlit spacesuits were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper exposure for a glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too faint to see.
Here's another one: Pictures of Apollo astronauts erecting a US flag on the Moon show the flag bending and rippling. How can that be? After all, there's no breeze on the Moon....
Not every waving flag needs a breeze -- at least not in space. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who's set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). So of course the flag waved! Unfurling a piece of rolled-up cloth with stored angular momentum will naturally result in waves and ripples -- no breeze required!
Left: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin deploy a U.S. flag on the Moon in 1969. [more]
The Fox documentary went on with plenty more specious points. You can find detailed rebuttals to each of them at BadAstronomy.com and the Moon Hoax web page. (These are independent sites, not sponsored by NASA.)
The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn't return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth.
"Moon rocks are absolutely unique," says Dr. David McKay, Chief Scientist for Planetary Science and Exploration at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). McKay is a member of the group that oversees the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at JSC where most of the Moon rocks are stored. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," he added.
"For example," explains Dr. Marc Norman, a lunar geologist at the University of Tasmania, "lunar samples have almost no water trapped in their crystal structure, and common substances such as clay minerals that are ubiquitous on Earth are totally absent in Moon rocks."
"We've found particles of fresh glass in Moon rocks that were produced by explosive volcanic activity and by meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago," added Norman. "The presence of water on Earth rapidly breaks down such volcanic glass in only a few million years. These rocks must have come from the Moon!"
Right: A glass spherule (about 0.6 mm in diameter) produced by a meteorite impact into lunar soil. Features on the surface are glass splashes, welded mineral fragments, and microcraters produced by space weathering processes at the surface of the moon. SEM image by D. S. McKay (NASA Photo S71-48109).
Fortunately not all of the evidence needs a degree in chemistry or geology to appreciate. An average person holding a Moon rock in his or her hand can plainly see that the specimen came from another world.
"Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere... like the Moon.
Meteoroids are nearly-microscopic specks of comet dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph -- ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch, but they're also extremely fragile. Meteoroids that strike Earth's atmosphere disintegrate in the rarefied air above our stratosphere. (Every now and then on a dark night you can see one -- they're called meteors.) But the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it. The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters.

"There are plenty of museums, including the Smithsonian and others, where members of the public can touch and examine rocks from the Moon," says McKay. "You can see the little meteoroid craters for yourself."
Right: Nick-named "Big Muley," this 11.7 kg Moon rock was the largest returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts. One side of Big Muley was peppered with meteoroid "zap pits." Below right: A close-up view of 1 mm diameter zap pits shows tiny craters lined with black glass surrounded by a white halo of shocked rock. [more]
Just as meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon so do cosmic rays, and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks, too. "There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don't normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays," says McKay. Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn't. Earth's most powerful particle accelerators can't energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies.
Indeed, says McKay, faking a Moon rock well enough to hoodwink an international army of scientists might be more difficult than the Manhattan Project. "It would be easier to just go to the Moon and get one," he quipped.
And therein lies an original idea: Did NASA go to the Moon to collect props for a staged Moon landing? It's an interesting twist on the conspiracy theory that TV producers might consider for their next episode of the Moon Hoax.
"I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples -- not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren't all NASA employees, either. We've loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]."
Even Dr. Robert Park, Director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society and a noted critic of NASA's human space flight program, agrees with the space agency on this issue. "The body of physical evidence that humans did walk on the Moon is simply overwhelming."
"Fox should stick to making cartoons," agreed Marc Norman. "I'm a big fan of The Simpsons!"

Parents and Educators: Please visit Thursday's Classroom for lesson plans and activities related to the Moon Hoax.
Web Links
BadAstronomy.com - A point-by-point rebuttal of claims in Fox's Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (external site)
NASA's Moon Hoax -- This thorough site addresses recent and older claims that the Moon landings were faked (external site)
Comments on the FOX Moonlanding Hoax special -- from the University of Arizona's Jim Scotti.(external site)
JSC's Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility Tour -- see more pictures of Moon rocks in the Pristine Sample Laboratory Display Cabinet
Moon Rocks -- lots of Moon Rock links from NASA Spacelink
 
Yes - I didn't say no-one went to the moon but some of the phots, a lot had to be faked. One of the strongest pieces of evidence about it comes from the makers of the cameras. One thing that bothers me is the footage of one astronaut sort of falling over, and then he is righted but not by himself. It looks really wrong in terms of the physics - even in 1/6th gravity.

Goggs, the point I made about photos and film being taken at the Barringer training facility being wrongly interpreted as Moon shots may explain how some pictures came into existence that were not taken on the Moon as a normal part of operations, but then found decades later by the Moon conspiracy theorists and promoted as their evidence. Astronauts ran lunar rover simulations and practiced soil sampling techniques wearing replica space suits in the shadows of the San Francisco Peaks. The training gave them the skills essential for the first succesful manned missions to the Moon.
nau.ph.426.466.jpg
 
No ufology I know what you are referring to but I wasn't mistaking the two.

@Muadib - I don't at all agree with most of the conspiracy points but I will find the exact links and times of the few things that do bother me. One of the biggest is when the photos have things that should be in shadow, in brilliant colour detail. I know about reflected light and earthshine but the argument they use for 'no stars' actually means those parts should be in shadow. I still haven't heard a good explanation for the lack of blast marks. I don't think there should be a crater but looking at the lunar dust etc mmm.

Anyway I will get back to you on the specific points. One thing though, if you believe the JFK assassination could be covered up and 9/11 was a conspiracy, I have no problem in them making lots of perfect phots for the public when the real ones had little chance of coming out so brilliantly. Ask a photographer to mount a camera on their chest, while wearing a spacesuit in an extreme and new environment.....you get the point. As I said. I think they went to the moon. I think they faked a lot of phots cos I just don't believe how perfect a lot of them came out, and neither does Hasselblad.
 
The revelation from RFK, Jr. that his dad didn't believe in the Warren Commission, or accept the lone gunman theory is telling. Too bad we didn't hear any of that in the 60s, or maybe RFK feared for his own life. Consider what happened after all.
 
No ufology I know what you are referring to but I wasn't mistaking the two.

@Muadib - I don't at all agree with most of the conspiracy points but I will find the exact links and times of the few things that do bother me. One of the biggest is when the photos have things that should be in shadow, in brilliant colour detail. I know about reflected light and earthshine but the argument they use for 'no stars' actually means those parts should be in shadow. I still haven't heard a good explanation for the lack of blast marks. I don't think there should be a crater but looking at the lunar dust etc mmm.

Anyway I will get back to you on the specific points. One thing though, if you believe the JFK assassination could be covered up and 9/11 was a conspiracy, I have no problem in them making lots of perfect phots for the public when the real ones had little chance of coming out so brilliantly. Ask a photographer to mount a camera on their chest, while wearing a spacesuit in an extreme and new environment.....you get the point. As I said. I think they went to the moon. I think they faked a lot of phots cos I just don't believe how perfect a lot of them came out, and neither does Hasselblad.

I'm definitely interested in hearing what you have to say on this but I doubt that you're going to present anything that I haven't heard before because I've looked into this one pretty extensively over the years. I realize that you don't believe they didn't go to the moon, my post was more about showing that you were wrong about NASA never addressing the conspiracy, that's something you hear all the time in conspiracy theory circles, that nobody listens to them or nobody takes a look at their evidence and 9 times out of 10 it's a complete fallacy.

The thing is, the logic you're using to justify belief in this just doesn't hold up. Just because you think something strange went on with the JFK assassination (and I'm with you on that btw) or 9/11 (not with you there, though I do believe elements of the government may have had foreknowledge of the event) does not mean that every conspiracy theory has an equal chance of being proven true. Just because a=b, it does not hold up that a=c,d,e,f, and g. It's faulty reasoning and it's something I hear time and time again from conspiracy theorists. I've gotten a little off topic here but I just wanted to give you my objections to some common conspiracy talking points and I'll look forward to seeing what you have to say on the moon photo hoax. We can't really call it the moon hoax anymore because you think they went to the moon which is good because the belief that they didn't really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
 
Excellent video of STS 48 case


There is a second streak to the far right too, just after the flash, but its not as noticeable as the one directed at the object. Maybe who ever fired from below was hoping the object would turn and go back the way it came. We'll never know, but the fact the object made a sharp right turn and flew out to space. ( ice particles ya right!)
I must admit I don't see anything special in this video. I'm fairly certain the bright specs are very close to the craft, and once the crew initiates the maneuvres for the water dump the particles are blown off to the side. The flash comes from the nozzles firing the gas that moves the shuttle.
 
I must admit I don't see anything special in this video. I'm fairly certain the bright specs are very close to the craft, and once the crew initiates the maneuvres for the water dump the particles are blown off to the side. The flash comes from the nozzles firing the gas that moves the shuttle.

Then you should listen to my interview with Dr. Jack Kasher.

Decker

Dr. Jack Kasher on DMR! | The Paracast Community Forums
 
Alright, that was a good interview.

But it hinges on one thing: The particle/ufo that slows down, turns, and takes off.

Did you consider the following?:
1) The particle is moving about the shuttle.
2) As the nozzle fires, the particle approaches the stream of gas.
3) Initially, the particle is cushioned by just the very edge of the stream, so it slows down in seemingly 'intelligent' fashion.
4) Finally it gets caught by the force of the stream, and 'takes off'.

Anyways, that's what it looked like to me.
 
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