From chaos.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be!baeck Thu Feb 23 02:50:32 1995
Path: chaos.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be!baeck
From: baeck@esat.kuleuven.ac.be (Walter Baeck)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: MOON LANDING
Date: 17 Feb 1995 05:06:13 GMT
Organization: K.U.Leuven,ESAT

Hello to all. In this post, I'm gonna try to summon up the most frequently returning reactions I've had to my article, together with an appropriate reply. I've noticed the article itself has gone -due to time limits, I guess. If anybody would still like to read it, I can esaily mail it through. Just request this from baeck@esat.kuleuven.ac.be . Maybe I should repost it (properly from the first try, this time) ? Or is this discussion already dead ? Anyway, here goes.

1. Photographs were not all taken on the Moon itself.
A few posters agreed, and even provided some more info on where the "Earth" shots had been made. It's not an essential element of Mark Peeters' theory; he just wants to show you shouldn't trust pictures for a final proof - and most people can understand his point.

2. "Live coverage" of the moon landing was NOT broadcasted live.
I personally didn't know this, and found it quite an interesting little fact. It even seems Nasa has admitted it. Mark Peeters claims that the films might as well have been shot right here on Earth - only little special effects would be needed for that. One of our Monday Meetings was attended by two professional cameramen or videoproducers, or whatever, and they told about a TV documentary which examined the possibility of faking the coverage of the event, with TV-tools from that time. The conclusion was that this would certainly have been possible. But then again, all of this is just meant to illustrate that you can't use images of the moon landing alone, as proof.

3. Catholic Church on the virgin Mary.
Some have argued how this may have been technically possible - but the point was just to illustrate a worldwide-spread deception, upheld by a mighty institution. This was only necessary because some people asked the evident question : "But WHY, such a complicated conspiracy which involves the cooperation of so many different people..?" However, in alt.conspiracy, this question doesn't really seem to be paid too much attention to..

4. Bullet in the Head !!
- If that's Mark Peeters' head, I agree that this would be the most human solution =3D) - The argument of supersonic bullets has occured a lot of times. Unfortunately, the Monday Meetings had also discussed this experiment already - and concluded it would make no-one change his opinion. Let me explain this a little further. Mark Peeters says all objects flying through air at near-sonic speeds, build up a layer of immoblized air at their front surface. The longer (and the faster) the flight, the larger this layer gets. Eventually, it would weigh so hard on the wings of a supersonic aircraft that they'd break; or the plane would just crash because of overweight. (You'd probably have to witness him saying this before you believe that's really the way he thinks !) A bullet can break through the sound barrier for a brief period of time, according to this theory, but will eventually be slowed down by this layer of air, like any other flying body. Now, the audience knows as well as Mark Peeters that a bullet can't keep flying faster than sound forever - at some point, it will inevitably lose speed and drop down. But this is due to ordinary air friction, instead of weird air layers. So an experiment with a bullet would convince neither party it's wrong. Even a proven momentary supersonic speed would fit in Mark Peeters' theory. For the same reason, the shock wave generated by fighter jets is no proof either - Mark Peeters' theory explains it as part of the air layer in front of a plane flying nearly at the speed of sound.

5. Watching satellites through telescope.
This is the most useful hint I learned here. For some reason, the Meetings had never come up with this idea so far - although there had been some fantasizing about watching the Lunar Mobile (left on the Moon by the astronauts) through a telescope. But we feared that it would just be too small and too remote to see it clearly, and to decide a 100% sure it is a man-made vehicle and not some rock or so. Satellites are somewhat closer to the Earth surface however, and might therefore be a useful proof! I'll get this over to him and see how he thinks about it.

6. Why does he think space flight is impossible ?
- Because flying faster than sound is impossible (see above), and space flight would certainly require supersonic speeds. - Even if there were no physical limitation on the speed of flying objects, theoretical calculations show that there is no type of fuel known to Man, which is powerful enough to allow a rocket to escape from the Earth's gravitational field. You see, any fuel used by a spacecraft has to be lifted along till a certain height, in order to be used there. So you have to make an optimum compromise between the weight of a type of fuel, and the energy it can produce by oxidation (burning). Mark Peeters says the figures of produced energy per unit of weight exclude all existing fuel types from serving for a space rocket. He admits nuclear power could be a solution - but rocketry technology isn't just that far yet !

7. Your friend is just a luna-tic...
Hm, don't tell _me_ ! I've realised that after a few times on these Meetings - but the real issue is: can we actually prove the landing of human beings on the moon, in some scientifical way (or other); or is it just something you have to accept, in good will? Then the whole space science is reduced to the level of religion - something you just have to take someone's word for.

As an ending, I'd like to thank everyone who took the effort to post a reaction. I knew the Net is great - now I've just seen it proven !

Walter. baeck@esat.kuleuven.ac.be