A couple of weeks ago when I was in Vancouver, I had the amazing opportunity to watch the IMAX film “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D” narrated by Tom Hanks. The film was shown on the 8 story high IMAX screen at Canada Place downtown.
The idea that human beings not only traveled to the moon but landed and walked on it six times from 1969 – 1972, with computer technology equivalent processing power-wise to today’s $10 calculators… is absolutely mind-boggling. This film is amazing. I hope it comes to our local Lubbock IMAX theater, because I want to take my entire family to see it. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Traveling to and walking on the moon is such an amazing feat, even considering today’s technology, much less technology from 30+ years go, that it really does make one wonder: did we (the United States) really do this? The Fox TV show “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” from February 2001 got a large amount of press and probably planted (and/or fertilized) this seed of doubt in the minds of many– who watched or just heard about this show. Interestingly (and probably tellingly) Fox.com does not have any webpages on its site (indexed by Google) about moon conspiracy theories now.
Phil Plait who runs the Bad Astronomy website and blog has written a pretty thorough response to this TV show which debunks all of the moon landing conspiracy theories the episode raised and I have heard about. NASA also has a site on this topic titled “The Great Moon Hoax” worth reading, and Redzero’s “Moon Hoax” website is also good. Science@NASA has lessons related to the Moon Hoax available on the website Thursday’s Classroom for teachers and students.
My thought after watching “Magnificent Desolation” was, can we see the lunar landers, moon rovers, and footprints the astronauts left on the moon using earth-based telescopes, or cameras on satellites or spacecraft? Others have certainly thought of this too, and some of the sites above have related links with photos. This one from space.com includes images some researchers claim show Apollo 15 landing evidence. The images are not conclusive, but certainly worth seeing and pondering.
China announced last week its national plans to land on the moon by 2017. I guess the next folks who land on the moon can provide the conclusive proof our Apollo space missions were real, sending back live images of the moon’s surface when they pass over the landing sites of the 6 Apollo missions which DID land….. showing the lunar modules which were left on all the missions. Maybe the Chinese could provide this footage in 2007 if they orbit the moon. According to NASA, however (and may other folks much smarter than me), we already have conclusive proof: we have moon rocks that the astronauts brought back– which are clearly not of earth origin, and we have 9 of the original Apollo astronauts still alive to tell this tale.
What courage and bravery our astronauts had to take part in such an undertaking! Not just those in the Apollo program either– those in the Mercury and Gemini programs, and all those astronauts who have followed them! Few of us will likely ever have an opportunity to walk on the moon ourselves, but the “Magnificent Desolation” film can bring us closer to that experience than we’ve ever been before! Maybe we can convince the Chinese to bring an actual IMAX camera with them in 2018 when they land, and get them to choose one of the former Apollo mission landing sites! Conspiracy theorists would have a lot of problems debunking that footage! 🙂
BTW, if anyone has an “in” with a selection committee for the next “teacher in space,” please get them to advance my name to the top of the list. Space travel opportunity? I’m in! 🙂
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On this day..
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- Gangnam Style Videos: USNA vs USAFA vs Westpoint – 2012
- iPhoto ’11 First Impressions – 2010
- UNT Socialists Protest Upcoming Speech by former President Bush – 2010
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- RockMelt: A Chrome-based Browser for the Facebook Generation – 2010
- Riding the Shanghai Maglev at 267 miles per hour (431 km/hr) – 2009
- Boingo WiFi Charges in China – 2009
- Exploring, Learning and Communicating with Wordle – 2008