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Spaceflight C‑class Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spaceflight, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of spaceflight on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpaceflightWikipedia:WikiProject SpaceflightTemplate:WikiProject Spaceflightspaceflight C This article has been rated as C-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article was nominated for deletion on 2007-02-07. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Archives

1

What Now?

We have the Apollo missions tracked by independent parties article, now it is time to decide what to do with this article. Here are some ideas:

1. Merge into hoax article.
2. Merge Moon Rock section into a section named Analysis or Independent Analysis.
3. Or that big one: AfD/Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings
4. Leave it as it is, possibly deleting the other article.

So now is the time to decide! Lets get this done. Branson03 16:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason to delete it. Bubba73 (talk), 17:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I forgot the leave it the way it is. Instead of delete, it could redirct to something. Most of the stuff on this page is on the new article. Branson03 02:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's time to look at the results of the merge debate, and probably merge it. There's no need to duplicate the stuff here as it's covered in the Apollo missions tracked by independent parties article, and once you remove that there is not much left to merge into the "main" article. I concede the main article is rather long, but I've put on the talk page there a way of extracting the rather bloated trivia section into a separate article. LeeG 21:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Leave it as it is - no need to merge, and certainly not delete. If people have a problem with the newer article, that should be deleted or merged into this one. We did not go 11:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Read all of the talk page We did not go. You will find that the majority consensus agreed that Apollo missions tracked by independent parties would be created, It was supported by both sides of the revert war. If you don't want this page merged, then don't suggest merge on the other article and not this one. Branson03 12:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Leave it the way it is, perhaps deleting the new POV fork. Gravitor 14:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

What POV fork? There is no POV fork. Branson03 17:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Remeber What Lunokhod said, do we need a independent evidence for everything that ever happened? Like Independent evidence for 9/11 or Independent evidence for the American Revolution. Branson03 20:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

First we should decide what to do with the sections that are not in the missions tracked article, below is a list of them. Should they be merged, stay, deleted, etc. We shouold also look at the results of the merge with the hoax article, if we merge it, all we need to do is redirect to the hoax article, and we will be done. Branson03 14:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

1. Definition of Independent evidence
2. Significance of independent evidence
3. Existence of Moon rocks
4. Evidence of landing (unmanned or human)
5. Tracking visually and by radio
6. Future plans that may generate evidence

Well, one way to clean up the mess that was made would be to make the 'missions tracked' a sub-article, and make simply a list of the missions that were tracked independently part of this article, with a link to the independent tracking page. Gravitor 17:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that we can lose the definition - as the word "evidence" is the one causing problems, and it's also the part that makes this appear as original research. We could pop a paragraph into the "main" article (I think in this section. The paragraph would state that in addition to the critiques raised, most of the missions were tracked or otherwise observed by third parties, and a link to the observations article. The moon rocks section is again becoming part of a debate (see below), but to my mind it can go into the main article - oh, wait, it's already there. All that's in the evidence of landing section is the retroreflector - in the main article already. The radio tracking bits are in the new article, just under missions rather than being in a separate section The future plan is just that, and can be dumped into the main article somewhere near the bottom. That lot does not add too much to the article, and I've set out over there how to split out the trivia section to make it a more reasonable size. In other words - all of the stuff on here is pretty much duplicated elsewhere, bar the highly controversial opening gambit, and if we really want to keep it, chuck it in the main article. LeeG 22:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. -- ArglebargleIV 18:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Your links to the main article are ridiculous. This article is NOT ABOUT THE HOAX. You have presented exactly NO evidence that the people who made these observations did so because of the hoax. Oh, wait a minute - they did it 10 years before the hoax even emerged! It's pathetic to insist that this has anything to do with the hoax! Gravitor 20:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

As is repeated many times, the collation in one place is in the context of the hoax. The use of the word "evidence" can only relate to the hoax. This article only exists because the hoax exists. LeeG 20:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense - you've presented no evidence for this. It's entirely reasonable to present all of this in one place. That doesn't make it part of the hoax. Gravitor 20:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is it reasonable to present this in one place if there is no need to present evidence of something that is generally accepted as happening? Where else does this reasonable thing happen? It does not. Misplaced Pages remains the only place this stuff is collected. As Keel wrote, presentation of this stuff is only necessary due to conspiracy theories. LeeG 20:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not what Keel wrote, as you well know. I don't know why you are so afraid of evidence in the area of NASA. Gravitor 22:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I concede it does not say that exactly. He says "In this time of rampant conspiracy theories, one point of documenting these observations is to demonstrate independent evidence, from non-governmental observers, that large objects exhibiting exactly the configuration and behavior of the Apollo spacecraft were seen en route to and from the Moon.", ergo, it is connected to the hoax. LeeG 22:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

In the same way that sugar is connected to Twinkies. Sugar is used in making Twinkies, but you don't find the sugar article as a sub-section of the Twinkies article, do you? Of course not, there is a passing mention that sugar is one of the ingredients. Your current edit is correct - a small mention of the hoax near the bottom of the article is appropriate. Carfiend 00:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I missed the discussion on why the salient bullet point is at the bottom of the list, and why my "correct" edit was changed a little, so I am going to make a few changes to that section, but leave it materially the same. LeeG 21:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the "why do it" section belongs after the "definition" or in the "definition" section. They both set the scene, and would flow better if it read that way, rather than telling someone why anyone would want this stuff at the end. LeeG 21:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Moon Rocks

I removed the speculation, NASA commentary and irrelevant material from this section - the article is not called 'Nasa's account of the Apollo program'. There is no independent confirmation of the amount of 'Moon Rock' that NASA claims it has. Gravitor 17:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Wahkeenah - use the talk page. Reverting without comment is not constructive. Gravitor 21:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

You also removed the link to the hoax article I notice - that was not discussed here, so it's going back. This is inextricably linked to the hoax, so the link should stay. In fact that seems to be discussed above at length. LeeG 22:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

yes - and you have failed to make your point. Unless you have evidence of a time machine in use (not the most unlikely claim from the NASA camp) what you are claiming is impossible. Please discuss your changes here, rather than reverting without meaningful comment. As established, this article is tangentially at best related to the hoax. It is certainly not the main motivation for collection of evidence. You know that that is true, and yet you continually revert, without comment. It's not productive. Gravitor 22:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into a revert edit war with you. I have had a sit down, and a cup of tea, and will skip over the allegations of my "continual reversion" when I have done it once, and "without comment" when there is a comment above. Read above "4 users think that this topic is related in some manner to the Apollo Moon landing hoax accusations, whereas 2 do not." and below that two other editors state that it's linked to the hoax. That's six to two - I know it's not a consensus, but a distinct majority, and now we show the minority position, which is, to be honest, a bit strange to say the least. I'll not revert for fear of winding up on WP:LAME. LeeG 23:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I, also, do not want an edit war, but if four users thought the moon was made of cheese, and two did not, I would not accept the article saying the moon was cheese - the truth is not something we vote on. It is very clear that the evidence presented was not collected in response to the hoax accusations, and the sites listing it are neither hoax sites, nor predominantly hoax response sites. The original publishers of the evidence were space enthusiast journals years before the hoax even surfaced. Gravitor 17:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

However, the evidence is useful ammunition against the hoax theories that came afterward. You never address that point. The evidence and observations can and must be considered in the context of the hoax claims. -- ArglebargleIV 18:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I do address that point - I am happy to have a sentence or two in the article, near the bottom, that says that this plays a small part in a minor controversy, what I am absolutely opposed to is the idea that this is the framing story of the evidence. Gravitor 19:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Good news - so we can insert a section at the bottom that is called "reasons for collecting evidence" with the content "the only reason for collating all this evidence in one place (cite = Bill Keel's page, see Gravitor's helpful direction to the word "evidence" above) is in the context of a minor controversy (see Gravitor's opinion, above), that of the lunar landings being a hoax. This collection rebuts that claim." or something like that? LeeG 20:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

So, if I put the items back, you'll leave them? I doubt that. Your argument is irrelevant:

• the nature of this project is that a majority see the sensible side of any debate, and under no circumstances would a majority say the moon was made of cheese. It's a pointless hypothesis.

It's not pointless - your idea that a majority of people voting on a page makes it true regardless of the facts is ludicrous. Tell that to the folks at the evolution page. Gravitor 19:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• the second part of the statement cuts to the heart of the problem - this "evidence" has been collected nowhere in the whole wide world but on this page. It is therefore original research, and the reason for it being collected on one page is directly connected to the hoax as it was written as a direct spin off from the hoax.
  I restate, merge this article with the hoax page, delete the controversial opening statement, and be done with it. LeeG 17:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. This is not about the hoax. The evidence appears elsewhere, and is well documented. There is no original research. Gravitor 19:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Please give me a link, an ISBN, a journal, that collects more than one of these sources, ideally using the phrases "independent evidence" and "moon landings". There is no such thing. This article is original research, as it only appears in one place - Misplaced Pages. If I missed the link, indulge me and reproduce it below. Thanks in advance. LeeG 19:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If you had read the article, you would know that there are links in it to just such a site. Gravitor 19:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Please, help me out, I cannot see it. I have read this article many, many times, and I cannot see it. Just do a quick copy and paste here. I am not asking much, maybe 20 seconds of your time. LeeG 20:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html

So we are ignoring this part of that page "In this time of rampant conspiracy theories, one point of documenting these observations is to demonstrate independent evidence, from non-governmental observers, that large objects exhibiting exactly the configuration and behavior of the Apollo spacecraft were seen en route to and from the Moon." to say this has nothing to do with the hoax accusations? LeeG 22:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

No. If you read my posts above, you will see that I do not oppose a sentence saying that one reason for keeping these kinds of pages is the hoax. It is NOT the only, or the main reason, and was not one of the reasons for collecting them in the first place. It is a minor reason, that emerged late in the history of the evidence collection, and should not have a prominent place in the article. Please read posts before replying to them. Gravitor 22:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

One is going in then, as you have no objections. LeeG 22:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Please try not to get this page protected again. Branson03 16:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

More than a fair point. I am hoping that by containing ourselves to the talk page we can avoid that. LeeG 18:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Well done Lee - that looks like a good start. Carfiend 00:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Independent evidence for NASA'a claim of quantity of Moon rocks

Has anyone independent ever seen / weighed / confirmed the quantity of rocks NASA claims? Gravitor 22:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Not that I have seen. It's just a claim at this point. Carfiend 00:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Science Apologist - can you explain why you think this is not relevant? Carfiend 00:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing references to hoax believers

Per WP:WEIGHT the extreme minority of the hoax believers should not be pandered to. This is an article that is meant to present the independent evidence for the landings, not the attempted counterarguments by simpletons who believe in conspiracy theories. --ScienceApologist 00:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This is not about the hoax. It's about independent evidence for the landings. I can't help it if you are offended that there is no independent evidence for NASA's claim to have Moon rocks. You can't blame that on a conspiracy. Carfiend 00:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Lets assume that the moon hoax idea never came up. The you wouldn't need evidence for the moon landings, because everyone knows that it happened. This title is the problem with the article, not the article itself. Thats why I suggested moving it to Apollo missions tracked by independent parties, a title that better fits the article, and a non-hoax article, just as Gravitor and Carfiend wanted. Branson03 00:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That isn't true. Keel's site is not primarily an anti hoax site, neither are the journals he cites. Even if it were true, it would be irrelevant, since much knowledge is not 'needed' strictly speaking. The problem with the 'tracked' article is that it does not cover other evidence. Gravitor 01:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The move is appropriate. I have been bold and done it. --ScienceApologist 01:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The move is inappropriate. I have been bold and undone it. Gravitor 01:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

We should look at some possibilities for a new title that fits everything, and does not label it as evidence, but information. One of the two articles can be moved to the new title, and the other redirected to the new title. Branson03 01:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I am open to exploring that, but we should reach consensus through discussion, not by provoking revert-wars by wading into a topic that is contentious. Gravitor 01:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, "evidence" is inappropriate but talking about independent tracking is fine. Branson03 is correct in stating that these articles need to be written from the perspective that the Moon Landings did occur per WP:WEIGHT. We cannot pander to the hoax woo-woos. --ScienceApologist 12:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, as you can plainly see, there is more evidence than simply tracking. Also, please try to elevate your contributions above name-calling. Gravitor 15:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Please explain yourself ScienceApologist

If you tag something as disputed, please have the courtesy to explain why on the talk page, that way we have a chance to reach consensus. Gravitor 01:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I dispute that commentary on psuedoskepticism regarding the origin of moon rocks belongs on this page. It is factually incorrect according to the title and POV. --ScienceApologist 12:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree - it is the independent evidence, or lack of, that belongs on this page. No commentary is required. The title is fine, and the facts are not a point of view. Gravitor 14:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

More merge stuff

We may have missed this (see above) in amongst all the talk here, it's tricky to spot, so I am putting it down here too where it may actually get read:

As an uninvolved reader, I think the merge should go ahead anyway. The Hoax Accusations article is older, and this article makes sense only in its context. Generally when there is a debate, it helps to present both sides of the debate together. Note that I am a college science major, and I believe that accusations of hoax moon landings are nonsense. I just want to structure the articles in the best way possible. YechielMan 18:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The more people that read this mess, the more that agree it is only makes sense in the context of the hoax allegations. LeeG 21:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

We already have Apollo missions tracked by independent parties. I would say anything that is already in that article that is also in this article could be stricken from this article. If there is anything still left in this article of a factual nature, it could be added to "Apollo missions tracked by independent parties". Anything that's left after that should be small enough to make for a quick introductory paragraph within the hoax article along with the link to "Apollo missions tracked by independent parties". Wahkeenah 01:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That is the most sensible solution. It would also help out with the issue raised on grammar by the editor below. It would be good if we could return to (I think) Arglebargle's suggestion that the other article covered general tracking of space missions by earthbound folks. It may be interesting to a wider audience, realising they can see the ISS, for example, if they know where to look. LeeG 10:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Grammar and sentence flow need work

You should be aware that there are multiple grammatical errors in the article, resulting in some nonsensical statements. Because improving the grammar could potentially alter the intended meaning of some of the sentences, and also because of the history of edit warring here, I am not willing to clean this up myself; however, if there is an editor working on this article who has good writing skills, this would be a good time to break them out. Risker 03:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• See previous section. Also, now that the two most notorious edit warriors have been blocked, things should go more smoothly here. Wahkeenah 02:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Move request

I wholeheartedly oppose this. This is a page documenting independent evidence, something that space journals, webpages and historical sites all do. It is NOT a hoax page. There is no mention (except for one small note at the bottom of the page) of the hoax. The evidence was collected a decade before the hoax even appeared. The user who requested this is on a campaign to try to make this look like a hoax page when it is not. It cites space enthusiasts and journals, not hoax advocates. Please leave this page to be what it is intended, a catalog of independent accounts of the Moon landings. 'Independent tracking' is not a suitable title, because it excludes evidence such as Moon Rocks. Gravitor 01:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support move request. "Evidence" is a POV term that should be avoided in article titles. It naturally cast the assumption that the topic needs evidence of some sort as if it was on trial. I can see the contention regarding moon rocks so I can support a different titles that excludes the words evidence. Perhaps Independent corroboration of the Apollo Moon landings ? 205.157.110.11 03:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments copied from (deleted) Talk:Independent evidence for the Apollo Moon landings by Stemonitis 13:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The information should be merged with both the moon landings article and the moon landing hoax page. Right now this page basically constitutes a POV fork. WesleyDodds 01:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I am removing the listing related to this from the Misplaced Pages:Requested moves page, because that page does not deal with merge discussions. The merge discussion itself can continue, of course. Dekimasuよ! 06:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

If this should be moved anywhere it's to the Moon Landing page itself as it corroborates the official line that the moon landings happened. A page discussing the potential moon conspiracy should do just that. One page for the official view and substantiating evidence. One page for the conspiracy view and substantiating evidence. My 2c. VonBlade 14:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be a POV fork, which is against policy. Bubba73 (talk), 15:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Fork or not, the moon landing conspiracy/hoax is one of the most famous conspiracy theories out there, right behind Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. I think it deserves its own page. So, my vote is against merging. Shostie 00:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not neutral? Not accurate? Apparently the hoax article isn't disputed...

What's with the not-neutral/accurate tags? The hoax article doesn't have any of these tags on, but then again, as one editor pointed out, the hoax theorists are a small group with a big voice.

I understand that since this is independent evidence, it may be disputed as it is not official, but shouldn't the same tags at least be applied to the hoax accusations page?

The Soviet Union were said to have tracked NASA to the moon, the equipment is proven to be there to this day, etc. etc. And as the Flat Earth Society "rightly" point out, they can't have been real because the Earth shown was a sphere. (So no ones ever been into space??)

That's just my opinion, and I've got nothing against the editors of either articles, I just think it should be fair: if we're to say that this article is disputed, I'm pretty sure most people will agree that the hoax accusations are disputed. --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 11:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you are suggesting that the tag should be removed here. I agree. Bubba73 (talk), 13:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the tag. I don't see what is not neutral. The tag says to see the talk page, but I don't see anything about it here. Bubba73 (talk), 13:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this count as indpeendent evidence?

The third bulleted paragraph at Examination of Apollo moon photos#There are no stars in any of the photos (the one starting with "payload restrictions") talks about how UV photographs taken with a UV camera showing the Earth with stars in the background agrees with data obtained later with a European satellite. Does this count as independent evidence? Bubba73 (talk), 21:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge tag

I have altered the merge tag. As this article is of a decent size, and can stand alone, it is appropriate that it should stand alone from the Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations article, however, as Apollo missions tracked by independent parties covers much of the same material and is directly related, that seems the more appropriate merge. SilkTork 13:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Bubba73 (talk), 15:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

If this article is merged with the other, which one will be the title - Independent evidence for Apollo Moon Landings or Apollo missions tracked by independent parties? Branson03 18:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The former, because it would encompass the latter. Bubba73 (talk), 21:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The former is Independent evidence for Apollo Moon Landings, right? Just want to make sure. Branson03 16:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it isn't really clear - independent of what? NASA? The U.S. government? The U.S.?

Merged. Editing still to be done. SilkTork 17:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Apollo missions tracked by independent parties

Brought over. SilkTork 17:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

POV fork

This page is a POV fork of Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings. It has been started in an attempt to delete content from that page, following a content dispute that remains unresolved. That page is still protected, and the creation of this page is yet another attempt to avoid consensus building and find an administrative alternative to collaborative editing. Gravitor 08:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain why you think that this article is a POV fork? In particular, could you explain what POV it is catering to, and that POV that it is ignoring? Also, could you please discuss changes on the talk page? I reverted your deletion and redirect. Lunokhod 10:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Gravitor, There is no consensus on your article. It only looks like it because it hasn't been edited for awhile. This article is moving towards consensus, because everyone (except you and Carfiend) thinks this was a good idea. Branson03 15:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This is pretty funny given that the previous article was Gravitor's content fork from the hoax article. Wahkeenah 19:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see any POV in this article. It is a simple statement of facts. Bubba73 (talk), 21:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This is an attempt to make an end run around the article that is currently locked - to avoid having to use Misplaced Pages process and reach consensus. Gravitor 00:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide some specific verifiable, reliable sources that have evidence that these observations did not take place? Bubba73 (talk), 00:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Which observations? Gravitor 22:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Message for Gravitor

Gravitor: I apologize in advance, but I am no longer going to respond to you until you start responding to the questions asked of you on the talk pages. If you read through these, you will see that most of us have responded to every concern you have brought up (even though you might have disagreed). You, on the other hand, consistently evade our questions. As one example: Why don't you answer my question above as to why you think that this article is a POV fork, and describe that POV that the article is catering to? I am glad to see that your level of disruptive behavior has diminished somewhat since the filing of the RfC on your behavior, but as a professional editor in real life, I still find your behavior unacceptable. So, once again, I apologize for ignoring you in the future; you are just a colossal waste of my time. Lunokhod 09:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I accept your apology. Gravitor 22:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge with evidence article

This should be merged into the original article - as above - this is a POV fork. We did not go 11:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose the user who put the merge tag on has only 4 edits on wikipedia. Most likely he/she hasn't read the entire talk page on the evidence article. As we all know this page was agreed by most that it should be created, and the rest of the stuff we are dealing with now. Gravitor said that it has nothing to do with the hoax. But it does! Who needs evidence if they already believe that the moon landings happened. This article puts the old one into a new POV, one that more people will want to read. 6% of Americans don't believe the moon landings happened. so 94% of Americans would not want to look at an article with evidence of the moon landings. This one has to do with tracking and observations of apollo missions. The other one's title doesn't fit most of the sections. Evidence of Moon Landings has nothing to do with the missions, which is one of the sections. And last, on the Independent Evidence article, We did not go said: "Leave it as it is - no need to merge, and certainly not delete." Then he puts the merge tag on one of the articles and not the other. Branson03 12:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I fail to see how this is a POV fork. Bubba73 (talk), 23:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - the reason this is here was to split it off from that very same article, see the talk page there where it is discussed ad nauseum. I too fail to see how this is a point of view fork, and would appreciate somebody setting out for me, using very small words, how it is such. LeeG 03:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

We did not go is just saying it is a POV Fork, because Gravitor said it was. POV Forks is when the NPOV rule is broken. The article is in a NPOV. For We did not go, a non-NPOV would be if the hoax article said that it is fact, not a theory, because it has never (*and never will be*) proven. (The *s represent a non-NPOV statement). Branson03 22:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't even think that We did not go is coming back. Branson03 14:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - as Gravitor kept saying, "This has nothing to do with the hoax." OK, now I'm quoting Gravitor, which is scary. But that by itself does not disqualify my opinion on the matter. :) Wahkeenah 23:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - this is a clear POV fork. Gravitor 14:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Please, explain why this is a POV fork, I have read the WP:POV_fork page, and I do not understand how this is such. Feel free to assume I know nothing about WP policies, and start from first principles. LeeG 21:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please explain. This is not written in a POV, it is just a statement of facts. If this article is a POV fork, Then the page User:Branson03 is a POV fork. Branson03 18:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I see that Gravitor has posted here, and on several other pages, but has not answered a very simple question. As a result I conclude the stance cannot be justified, therefore I'll remove the merge tag from this page sometime tonight (again giving more than adequate time for a response). LeeG 17:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support - this is a POV fork that should be deleted. Carfiend 00:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Result of this debate was keep (oppose), because it is not a POV Fork after reviewing WP:POV_fork. How is it a POV Fork, I will answer that for everyone: It's not! Branson03 00:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

On what basis did you announce the result? Who decided how long the poll was to last, or what margin the vote needed to be? Oh, you, because you can make whatever rules fit your POV, I forgot! It looks like a tie to me at this point. Gravitor 01:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I was speaking because the tag was removed as on the talk page. Branson03 01:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Jodrell Bank

I saw a show on TV that showed tracking of Apollo by Jodrell Bank. In the dopler, you could definitely see that they had landed on the moon. This website discusses Jodrell's tracking of unmanned missions. Is there a source of their tracking of manned lunar missions? Bubba73 (talk), 19:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is another mention of it. Bubba73 (talk), 19:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Add this

Link to the Elaine Halbedel photos: . Cesarakg 03:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge edit

I think I have merged the material so there is no duplication of material, and no evidence has been lost. Though I would welcome someone casting their eye over the whole thing. SilkTork 17:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Future plans that may generate evidence

I've removed most of this section again. It's simply original research and the cites say nothing about the speculation it contains.

This NASA link is about sightings of Mars landing sites. It says nothing about the moon, nor does it speculate anything about seeing the Apollo landing sites. And this page has nothing to say about photographing Apollo landing sites, as the cite claims it does. I've left the last cite in, as it least it says what the article claims it says, however, it remains speculations, --Escape Orbit 14:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not enough to say; "it's been done on Mars, so therefore could be done on the Moon", as this; "The Descent Module of the Apollo landers, lunar rovers, ALSEP and perhaps the flags could be seen from orbit. The much smaller Mars landers have been photographed from Mars Orbit." effectively states. Says who? It is speculation by a Misplaced Pages editor. Perhaps good speculation, but speculation all the same. The cite provided merely shows it happening on Mars, it says nothing about the moon. So what we have here is original research, or at the very least original synthesis. Either way; not acceptable. --Escape Orbit 20:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

retroreflectors

Quoting from edit summary: "But they do not prove that the part that went to the moon was manned. One variety of the Apollo hoax theory holds that the lunar part was unmanned, even if the stack was launched with people.)" OK, at least that is conceivable, that the CM was manned but the LM was not. So I'll let it stand. An earlier edit summary mentioned "limits of evidence", but there is no evidence that an unmanned LM landed and deployed retroflectors. Bubba73 (talk), 04:56, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

By far the most sensible interpretation of the evidence is that the Soviet retro-reflectors were placed by un-manned probes, and the US ones by the manned Apollo missions, just as each country claims. But it's particularly important to be rigorous here, I think, since one of the main criticisms of the hoax theories is that their interpretations of the evidence overstate their case. LouScheffer (talk) 11:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

National Geographic, December 1966 (before the first landing) reported that scientists at MIT had been bouncing laser beams off the surface of the Moon. Apparently a retroreflector is not needed. Dr. Caroll O. Alley (U of Md) confirms that a 6 mm laser beam will diverge to a width of kilometers by the time it travels teh 4000000 km to the Moon. It does not remain 6 mm. There is no way to tell if the beam has hit Apollo's or Russia's rover retroreflector. User:RogerMartin

Yes you can tell - by how much of it gets reflected back. Just bouncing off the surface returns an extremely low percentage of the photons. The rate of return for a retroreflector is much higher. You can also tell by the return time of the photons. If they are just bouncing off the surface, there is a wide spread in the return times. The return times for a retroflector are in a narrow range. Bubba73 05:45, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

wp:notaforum

Proposal for a new section called "Criticism" or something like that

Whatever the hoax proponents : opponents ratio (1:10 or 1:4) and whatever the ratio between the correspondent sources, I think that the point of view of the hoax proponents deserves a little coverage in this article too, as per WP:Weight. It's currently exactly zero. I can try to add such a relatively short section in which their criticism to the provided evidence is presented. Do you mind? I'm asking in advance because I wouldn't like to do work which will be subsequently annulled (once bitten, twice shy). --Лъчезар (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm against it. The claims of the hoax proponents are well-covered in Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories. This article was spun off that article because hoax proponents claimed that there was no evidence of a manned Moon landing other than that provided by NASA. Bubba73 (talk), 19:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The same way as the main article refutes the claims of the hoax proponents, they refute most of the evidences provided in this "spin-off" article. I think that that should be shortly covered somewhere too, probably here as the evidences are presented here. --Лъчезар (talk) 19:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything from reliable sources that disputes this evidence? Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories also applies, and so does wp:undue. Bubba73 (talk), 19:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It depends on whether you'll recognise a 2009 book written by a doctor of physical-mathematical sciences a reliable source... --Лъчезар (talk) 05:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Such a person may be outside his area of expertise in this. Just because a person is an expert in one area doesn't mean he is an expert in another. Bubba73 (talk), 14:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Rocket science is just one of the special physical-mathematical sciences. But he especially claims that all arguments that require more than high school knowledge of physics to be understood have been omitted from his book. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

There is more to it than rocket science. There is the age of the rocks, the retroreflectors, the observations, the SELENE photograph, etc. Anyone can "deny" the evidence because it contradicts what they want to believe. What matters is looking at the evidence objectively. Bubba73 (talk), 18:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Popov was helped by over 40 other people, most of which professors, doctors of sciences, cosmonauts, rocket experts and even the chief designer of a space station - see this. --Лъчезар (talk) 09:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't read Russian, but it is interesting that the book is at FictionBook.lib. Bubba73 (talk), 13:20, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

This is just one of the many places where it can be found.

Part of the reason there are two articles, one covering independent evidence, the other covering conspiracy theories, is that it proved very difficult to neutrally cover both subjects on the one article, as they effectively contradict one another. What's clear about the conspiracy theories in general is that no matter what detail either side of the argument goes into, the other side always has an answer to dispute it. It's a never ending spiral. The end result was a very messy article that didn't do either side, or indeed Misplaced Pages, justice.

Adding a 'Criticism' section to this article would effectively get us right back where we started, with different editors chipping in with small contributions that dispute the line before it. No-one wants to read that kind of mess. Far better for the two to remain separate. --Escape Orbit 12:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, then what about creating a new article devoted to this? --Лъчезар (talk) 12:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The arguements of conspiracy theorists are already covered in Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories. Bubba73 (talk), 13:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Except for the denials of the evidence. Perhaps I can add a separate section about this there? Or better create a new article called "Alexander Ivanovich Popov"? --Лъчезар (talk) 16:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any critical examination of the evidence from a reliable source. Just denying evidence because you don't want to believe it is not good. Bubba73 (talk), 20:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

And if Popov believes that the Saturn V was really a Saturn IB, it has no bearing on any of this evidence. Bubba73 (talk), 23:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Popov's book is big - some pages aim to refute the evidence, some are devoted to Saturn V, etc. But I understand that for you to recognise a source as reliable, it must be on your side (i.e. anti-hoax). Our argument is like a dispute between deaf and I stop it. --Лъчезар (talk) 08:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

As I recall, this article was actually started by someone who believed the moon landings to be a hoax. I think his premise was that there was no independent evidence, and he started this article and dared anyone to come up with independent evidence. Lo and behold, there was indeed independent evidence. He may have actually discovered some of the independent evidence himself. Baseball Bugs carrots 09:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations, this means that there have been at least two persons who converted from pro-hoax to anti-hoax. Good job! --Лъчезар (talk) 10:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

He never converted. Baseball Bugs carrots 10:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, one converted (not me - as far as I can tell he's the most active editor of these pages!) is enough too. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow. Baseball Bugs carrots 16:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Hint: see who voted for deletion of this article a couple of years ago :) --Лъчезар (talk) 18:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Either spell it out or keep quiet about it. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you give up? He is User:Bubba73, as you can see here. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The article started out as a content fork, initiated by a hoaxster for the purpose of making a "point", namely that there was "no independent evidence". His strategy backfired, because there's plenty of independent evidence, thus destroying one of the pillars of hoaxsters thesis. So once that fact was established, I think Bubba73 backed off from arguing against the article, as the main article was already fairly large. I'm sure he can elaborate on this better than I can. Baseball Bugs carrots 18:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

How can one know for sure that various entities and "evidence" referred to in the article really are independent of NASA and the US government? Servant David (talk) 01:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

The editors have tried to keep it that way. Do you have any specific concerns? Baseball Bugs carrots 01:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. So, no one "converted". Not surprising. This is what can be expected for the near future too, for both directions of the possible "conversion". Everyone will keep believing in what they already believe. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

We see this same debate every few months. The facts support the historical record. The alleged "clues" supporting a conspiracy do not stand up to scrutiny. The fact that people believe in a hoax says a lot about those people. Certain people like to believe in conspiracy theories, for various reasons. Baseball Bugs carrots 18:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's stop this discussion. It's fruitless and long since deviated from the initial topic about this Misplaced Pages article. --Лъчезар (talk) 09:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The Selene photo is neither a photo nor an evidence

The Selene (Kaguya) photo is not a real photo but computer-reconstructed image from many photos taken from the Japanese. And it's not an evidence because the Moon landscape image may have been taken not by Apollo astronauts but by an unmanned module such as a Surveyor. The presence of a "moon-walker" on it is not a proof because the foreground may have been in a studio with this image as the background. I've seen such very convincing picture in the Pleven Panorama. The foreground is real but the background is painted. Even though it's only about 10 metres away from the visitor, it's very convincing. So the entire battlefield (both foreground and background) seems real. --Лъчезар (talk) 08:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Nor is SELENE and JAXA truly an independent third party, as the collaboration between Japan and NASA extends back 40 years. Japan astronauts have flown on 13 different shuttle missions, five of which happened after 2008. JAXA is quite dependent on NASA to provide a pivotal role in its space program. Veritatis in lege (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, the Kaguya FAQ says:

KAGUYA (SELENE) observes the entire lunar surface using mission instruments such as Terrain camera, multiband imager, etc. This means that KAGUYA provides images where Apollo were landed with 10 meter resolution of Terrain Camera. Since Apollo lander and rover were too small to detect with 10 meter resolution, it is difficult for us to provide discernable images of the landing sites of the Apollo.

--

As the article says, it is a reconstruction from SELENE photographs of the actual lunar landscape. There is no way that the Apollo photograph could have faked that. Bubba73 (talk), 15:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't understand. The landscape may be real but the presence of the lunar rover could be as in the Pleven Panorama. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what that has to do with it at all. The Apollo photo was taken on film and brought back to Earth. The SELENE spacecraft is not on the surface of the Moon - it orbited above. Its photos had a resolution of 10 meters, so the artifacts on the Moon are too small for it to see them. The SELENE photographs were in 3-D and stored in a computer. A computer was used to reconstruct what the landscape would look like from the surface. It matches the terrain of the Apollo photograph, and it is independent evidence. Bubba73 (talk), 19:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to explain. I don't claim that Selene should show any artificial objects on the Moon should they be there, so it's natural that there's nothing like this on its photo. Instead, I claim that the landscape of the Apollo photo may have been taken by an unmanned spacecraft instead, and used as the background in a studio to make the photo on the left. Therefore, the Selene photo proves the landscape but doesn't prove the presence of the lunar rover. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

None of this matters, since everything talked about here is Original research. Misplaced Pages is not a forum, so let's try to stay on the task of creating an encyclopedia. If you can find a source to support making a change, that would certainly be worth discussing.
— V = I * R (talk) 13:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course, you're right. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the photo was taken by an unmanned spacecraft. If you say that, it is your wp:OR and POV. (Also notice the footprints in the photo.) Bubba73 (talk), 16:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The footprints in the foreground also can be made on earth. OK, I'll shut up finally. As long as the official sources support your side, I can't do anothing more. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

LRO

This is not "independent" evidence, but it's evidence that the ball game is over for the conspiracy theorists: Now they can go back to trying to figure what really happened to Che Guevara. Baseball Bugs carrots 18:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I was just going to note that but you overtook me! Yes, you're right that it's not an independent evidence, but if you agree, I can rename the article to just "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings", removing the word "independent", and everything will be OK. If you don't afree, I'll have to delete the section as irrelevant to the article's title. As to the "ball game", don't play wishful thinking, it's not over - as Popov notes, any photo made since the mid-1990s can't be an evidence because anyone can now put even a pink elephant there! Last not least - please leave Cuba alone. --Лъчезар (talk) 07:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem with the conspiracist thesis is that it typically "uses the theorem to prove the theorem". Their basic premise is that everything NASA says is a lie. However, there is not yet any valid source that can prove that NASA lied about the Apollo program. So it's an "if-then" situation in which the "if" portion is assumed to be true - without any evidence backing it. Certainly, any photograph anywhere can be manipulated - just as the hoaxsters often manipulated the evidence to try to make their points. But there are many eyes watching this program. The relative lack of coverage by the mainstream media shows how little importance there really was to "proving" the Apollo flights occurred. There was never actually any doubt, except in the minds of a few, for somewhat understandable reasons. Baseball Bugs carrots 21:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

uses the theorem to prove the theorem - yes, exactly. In order to "prove" or at least have "evidence" of a conspiracy/hoax, they have to assume that there was a conspiracy/hoax. Bubba73 (talk), 21:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the chicken and egg problem, in our case "who holds the burden of proof"? The problem with the hoax debunkers is that they believe what their authorities say. Whoever lied for the 11 September events may have lied for the Apollo, USS Maine, etc., etc. --Лъчезар (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The accusers hold the burden of proof, and they have failed to prove anything except their ignorance of science and technology - and even of 9th grade level physics, for that matter. Start with the "waving flag" nonsense, and go downhill from there. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:01, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

If the burden of proof is not at NASA, why a special page devoted to that proof (evidence) exists? --Лъчезар (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

LRO is not *absolutely* independent, but it is largely so. Although the probe was launched by NASA, the team that built the camera and interprets the images is not. From the web site, "The LROC Team consists of scientists, staff, student researchers and an Instrument Development Team that come from various disciplines: Planetary Geology, Geography, Engineering, Information Technology, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Business. Scientists working on the LROC team are faculty and researchers from various academic institutions, government and the private sector: Brown University, Cornell University, Washington University in St. Louis, John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Arizona, DePaul University, Adler Planetarium Museum, Malin Space Science Systems, United States Geological Survey, Ohio State University, SETI Institute, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, University of Münster, DLR Berlin, and the University of Hawai`i at Manoa." LouScheffer (talk) 20:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

All these are U.S. institutions. Somewhat independent of NASA maybe, but not independent of the U.S.! --Лъчезар (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Two of these, the University of Münster, and DLR Berlin, are not U.S. institutions -they are both in Germany. LouScheffer (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't mean that these two German institutions have control on how the LRO is used. This control is still in the hands of NASA. --Лъчезар (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Prove it. Baseball Bugs carrots 09:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It's obvious. The LRO is controlled from Houston. And most importantly, the images are published by NASA, not the Germans. --Лъчезар (talk) 10:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The question will arise as to what to do with these articles. Not all the conspiracists are going to go away, although they will be hard pressed to demonstrate that the current program is a ruse. Instead of "Independent Evidence", which has a POV-ish edge to it, perhaps "Independent Observations" would be better. Baseball Bugs carrots 21:03, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• Where are the Lunar Rovers? There is no mention of them in the LROC News site. Dr.K. logos 21:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Probably too small to be visible in the initial photos. There's also the question of what was done with them. I'm assuming they were parked near the LM's, as opposed to being re-packed, which would be seem to be a pointless thing to do, unless there was a reason to that I'm unaware of. Baseball Bugs carrots 22:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Thanks Bugs. I agree with you that they should have been parked near the LMs. I also thought about the repacking and I agree that it would be pointless to stow them inside the descent stage again. I guess that at this orbit height the LRO doesn't have the resolution to capture the LRV. Dr.K. logos 22:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
      • As I understand, these are relatively low-res photos from an initial sweep, and they expect to get better photos later in the mission. Lunar orbiters never seem to get much attention. There was a lunar orbiter in the 1960s that mapped the entire surface of the moon, a great achievement in itself, and an essential prequisite to finding suitable landing areas for the Apollo craft. Cameras were not so high-res then, and even with the effort they made to find rubble-free areas, Armstrong, for example, had to do some last-minute maneuvering to keep from crashing into objects that weren't apparent from the orbiter photos. He focused totally on the landing and pretty much kept his mouth shut until he knew he was going to land safely ("Kicking up some dust"), and once on the ground he announced, "Tranquility Base here; the Eagle has landed", prompting Mission Control to comment about "a bunch of guys about to turn blue here" from holding their breath while Armstrong lowered the craft in nearly radio-silence. Baseball Bugs carrots 22:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
        • Thanks. From what I read about the LRO, I think it has the resolution, even at this orbit, to discern the LRV(s) but they may not have been observed yet, I would guess, because they don't cast as long a shadow as the LM, due to them being substantially lower. Also the rover reflectivity may not be as high as that of the other components, in effect making the rover pixels hard to detect. Dr.K. logos 22:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The rovers were left near the LMs (A15, 16, 17). Someone pointed out some rover tracks on one of them. The rovers are pretty low - the LM descent stage is about 10 feet tall.

I don't think good photos was the problem for Armstrong. Early in the A11 descent, they knew that they were "long" - i.e. going to overshoot the planed landing site. Bubba73 (talk), 23:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Bubba73. Your comments confirm my thoughts about the detectability of the LRVs in the current pictures. Dr.K. logos 00:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Bubba73 is your go-to guy on all things Apollo. :) I wonder, assuming the orbiter is going to re-map the entire lunar surface, whether we will see the Moon on Google Maps at some point - complete, maybe, with "street views"? Although the roads there are largely unpaved. Baseball Bugs carrots 00:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Google moon maps? This idea is out of this world. ;) Dr.K. logos 00:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The rovers are 3 meters long and (I think) a little less than 2 meters wide. That would be as few as 2 pixels at this resolution. Bubba73 (talk), 00:59, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Once the higher-res photos come in, it's possible the rovers will be spotted, and then on the lower-res photos, their presence will be detectable. It's hard to tell much initially, from 2 pixels. The most telling sign of the LM towers is the shadows. Baseball Bugs carrots 01:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) @Bubba73: That was my estimation also based on the fact that the descent stage of the LM, which can be considered a square of side 3.7 m, occupies three to four pixels, as the citation mentions. Dr.K. logos 01:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

There are two bright spots near Apollo 15, but I can't tell what they are. One is to the right, about 3:00 o'clock, the other is about 7:00 o'clock. Bubba73 (talk), 03:53, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I can see the bright spot at three o' clock. But I can't see the one at 7. Except if it is the one adjacent to a small crater, in which case it may just be part of the crater image. Dr.K. logos 17:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

It is right between two craters, and is closer to the LM than the one on the right. Bubba73 (talk), 17:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, it is the same as the one I originally thought. This spot is too close to the craters to be considered independent. There are other craters in the pictures with similar bright spots at their perimeter. Dr.K. logos 17:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

←As mentioned, these are the first preliminary photos, and LRO hasn't even reached its intended lunar orbit yet. The intended orbit will yield pictures with a resolution two to three times better than the ones we currently see (if the press releases from NASA are correct). I expect we will clearly be able to see the rovers as well as the tracks then. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:58, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

• What has all this discussion above to do with the Misplaced Pages article?!
• The LRO is an U.S. only enterprise, and is not an independent source. But if I delete all text about it from the page, an "edit war" will start immediately. So, let the readers determine whether they're independent or not. I'm sure that any reasonable reader will find their "independence" claim laughable. Reader's intelligence must not be underestimated. --Лъчезар (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Other NASA-based sources of evidence or material are also cited in this article. However, we should also get fully "independent" (by those criteria) imagery from other nation's spacecraft in the next few years. Possibly then though the hoax theory supporters will claim that countries like China are also part of the conspiracy? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 10:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree on everything you wrote but the last sentence of yours. If a Chinese spacecraft proves the Apollo landings, most of the "hoaxters" will shut up, including myself :) --Лъчезар (talk) 10:53, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Have there been any statements from the Russians, Chinese, etc., about this event? Baseball Bugs carrots 12:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the article to "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Moved to "Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings". Pretty clear consensus that "Independent" was unclear or incorrect, and eventual development of more clear "third-party" as neutral term in keeping with article scope. DMacks (talk) 07:36, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings → Evidence for Apollo Moon landings — The page contains non-independent evidence. Since this material is interesting and to delete it would be a clear loss, I propose to bring the article's title in concordance with its content instead. Thus my proposal to remove the word "independent" from the title. Лъчезар (talk) 13:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Then you might as well roll the whole thing into the hoax article, as this article was originally a content fork of that article, created by a hoaxster who thought there was no independent evidence. Baseball Bugs carrots 14:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Another alternative would be the more neutral title "Observations of..." Baseball Bugs carrots 14:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

How about Evidential Analysis of the Apollo Moon Landings Hoax Conspiracy Theory? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 14:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That's only 10 words. We need more. Baseball Bugs carrots 14:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Baseball_Bugs, you are right. OK. How about Evidential Analysis of Just Why Exactly the Apollo Moon Landings Hoax Conspiracy Theory is Complete and Utter Tosh? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 15:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That might be considered pushing the POV a tad. Regarding the title "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings", the flaw with that is that the entire history of the space program is evidence for the moon landings. This article was begun by a hoaxster who's been gone for over 2 years, so maybe it's time to fold this info back in to the other articles. I'd like to hear Bubba73's opinion on that first, as he was among the first to complain about it being a POV content fork. Baseball Bugs carrots 15:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to think about it more, but at present I am not in favor of the name change. That would allow in all evidence of the Moon landing, which is literally overwhelming. There were over 5,000 still photos taken on the surface of the Moon, many hours of video from the moonwalks, a good amount of 16-mm movie film, and that is just the photography. The original intent of this article was to give evidence that did not come directly from NASA. Bubba73 (talk), 16:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Then the LRO stuff probably should stay with just the main hoax article, in order to keep this one "pure". Baseball Bugs carrots 18:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Seriously for a moment, I would have thought a lot of the material here like rocks, reflectors, etc are from NASA sources, at least originally. The issue here is about what constitutes "independent" - a reasonable and objective view is to take verifiable Nasa science, like that of the moon rocks, as valid and "independent". We have to do that, and not take into account the more extreme hoax believers viewpoint, because no matter what other "independent" material is proffered, it will never satisfy such extreme believers as valid. In the related article, we are discussing what they would say if China sends a mission, lands next to Apollo 17 and brings back Harrison Schmitt's hammer. They would likely say "the Chinese are in on the conspiracy" for some arcane reason. Nothing will satisfy and so we have to go back to reasonable views of what constitutes independent evidence. The LRO is good enough for the world's media today and it should be good enough for us. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The article was started by a hoaxster who claimed there was no source for the facts of the moon landings except NASA itself. So the idea of the article was to present evidence from non-NASA sources. If the article has strayed from that, then maybe it needs to be reigned in and/or distributed. Baseball Bugs carrots 18:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The rocks have been studied by independent scientists and verified that they are from the Moon. Independent scientists are using the retroreflectors, etc. Bubba73 (talk), 18:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, which is exactly analagous to LRO, where an independent academic team are studying material provided by Nasa. I think the case is clear-cut to leave this article alone, it is a valuable reflection on the weight of evidence and it is (largely) of an independent nature. The new LRO evidence does not change that and indeed strengthens it. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 19:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that independence comes in various degrees, from photos provided by NASA itself (not independent at all), to as independent as practical (a probe designed, built, and operated by a country opposed to the United States). Even this is not completely independent, as some conspiracy types have argued (with a straight face) that Russia knew the moon landings were a hoax, but did not expose the USA since the USA had equally good evidence the Russian feats were hoaxes too. So I think the right title would be "Evidence at least partially independent of NASA for the manned moon landings", but that's a lot to type (or say). LouScheffer (talk) 19:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do not add disclaimers on the matter to the article while it is still being discussed on this page. Apart from anything else, opinions of the neutrality or otherwise of other organisations is just that; uncited opinions. It cannot be added without cites discussing this in relation to the article subject.

If we are to question other academic organisation's and other country's space programmes "independence", because they might possibly be co-operating or receiving funding from the US Government, then we may as well give up now. Nothing is truly independent in the science and space industries, the possible influence of the US Government is everywhere. Discounting, or adding disclaimers to, this evidence is pointless. The possibility of co-conspiracy is everywhere if you wish to believe it, and Misplaced Pages is not immune from suspicion. So I say we continue to consider that evidence outside the immediate confines of NASA and the US Government as independent, and let the doubters reach their own conclusions about the possibility of the conspiracy being even wider than previously believed. --Escape Orbit 22:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we are in agreement here. While there can surely be dependent evidence, evidence you can show to be completely independent is hard to find (since most institutions/scientists share funding, government support, some facilities, etc.). However, I believe we should explicitly call this out in the article - especially when arguing against hoax/conspiracy theories, it is particularly important to be completely above board about your evidence. It's much better to state the limits of independence up front, rather than to present them as independent and then have the opposing side point out that the person involved obtained their funding from a non-neutral source. This is exactly what gets the drug companies in trouble all the time - they present evidence as independent, then it turns out the investigator salary/grant was paid for by the side who's view they espoused. LouScheffer (talk) 00:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that we can insert an uncited desclaimer about the evidence. If we can find a reliable source stating that the evidence presented by academia may be tainted due to funding from external sources such as government or corporations, then maybe we can include it, even though doing so could be considered as WP:SYNTH. But just declaring so because we happen to believe it, is WP:OR. Dr.K. logos 00:45, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There are many, many reliable sources documenting common sources of funding, inter-agency agreements, use of common facilities, and so on. There are also many statements that studies are questionable when funding comes from an interested party. These are also very easy to document - see conflict of interest statements at many professional societies. So you could have something like "Independence may be sacrificed when funding comes from a non-neutral source (ref, ref, ref.) In many of the cases in this article, funding comes from the USA government (ref, ref) or NASA (ref, ref), and many space organizations have cooperative agreements (ref, ref). " Even better might be to call out the funding source in each section. LouScheffer (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Just declaring that the evidence here may be tainted due to the presence of studies about the interrelation between funding organisations and academia is slightly on the WP:SYNTH side. That is, we use general studies so that we can apply their results in this particular topic. This can be solved by finding WP:RS stating explicitly that the academic results regarding the space program are suspect due to funding connections. On the second point about declaring the funding sources, I don't disagree. It's public information. No reason hiding it from the reader. Dr.K. logos 01:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively we could rename the article "Third party evidence for Apollo Moon landing", thus bypassing the independence issue. Dr.K. logos 01:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This makes sense - it's hard to verify that something is independent, but it's relatively easy to verify that is was not done by NASA and the US government. And it fits the evidence that is already on this page. LouScheffer (talk) 01:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Thank you very much. Dr.K. logos 02:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"Third party" sounds good to me, because NASA could still be involved some way. However, are there a first and second parties? Bubba73 (talk), 02:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it is: The first party is the Government, the second party is NASA, the third party is everybody else. Dr.K. logos 02:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

But the LRO is a NASA evidence, not "third party". OK, I admit that I haven't thought about the initial materials by NASA brought in 1969-1972. To exclude that large material, what about the following title: "Post-factum evidence for Apollo Moon landings"? --Лъчезар (talk) 09:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Yet another title that no one would think to look for. And the article also includes observations made during the missions, not just after-the-fact. Baseball Bugs carrots 09:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, haven't thought of that. But "third party" implies that besides NASA there is yet another party (US Government). But NASA is a governmental agency, so it's subordinate to the government and not a separate party. Then who is the other party? --Лъчезар (talk) 09:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The same question Bubba73 raised. The point of this article is other parties besides NASA making observations. Whether that would be second, third, or tenth party is unclear. Baseball Bugs carrots 10:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Then the title can start with "Other party..." or "Non-NASA..." or something like that, but the problem is that the LRO is not non-NASA. OK, what about renaming it to just "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings", as I initially proposed, and move all the initial NASA evidence such as Moon rocks etc. from the base article to this article, thus making the base article shorter? --Лъчезар (talk) 10:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't work, because the entire history of the space program leading up to and including the Apollo flights, both American and Soviet, is "evidence". The purpose of this article was to isolate observations by non-NASA sources. If there are questions about the LRO, then it could be removed from here and simply retained in the main hoax article. The exception would be if other parties have independently intercepted the signals and confirmed that they are what NASA says they are. I don't know if anything like that has been or can be done. Baseball Bugs carrots 10:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Moving all the LRO stuff to the main article would settle the issue. But I don't agree that the "entire history of the space program" can be an evidence for a particular part of it, which even proved to be a "deaf branch" and had much more political than scientific impact. --Лъчезар (talk) 10:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the "deaf leaf branch" reference. Baseball Bugs carrots 10:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about my non-precise wording. This was just a literal translation of the Bulgarian phrase. In the tree of evolution, there are some branches that have not developed. So I made a comparison to them. Probably the best rough English equivalent would be to say "deadlock". --Лъчезар (talk)

How can you possibly remove the best evidence yet (independent academic research analysis of the LRO evidence) from this article? Just to satisfy people who wouldn't believe in the landings if you took them there on a trip and allowed them to wonder around taking their own photographs? You will never satify this element and their sole aim in this particular debate is to get the LRO evidence out. Then they will start to try to get it removed altogether from other pages. 81.149.153.146 (talk) 10:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Because there is a question about whether it's "independent" or not. If that's in question, then it shouldn't be in this page, but in the main page. Don't worry about it being removed from the hoax article. That won't happen. Baseball Bugs carrots 10:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It's as independent as lots of the other evidence in this page, such as rocks and reflectors, both originally supplied by Nasa. Don't be fooled. This is part of a campaign to get the LRO images off, because they are fatal to The Cause. 81.149.153.146 (talk) 11:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Nothing can be further from the truth. It's not fatal for anything or anybody. And as I said not once, the LRO stuff is interesting and welcome, but not under the heading "Independent evidence". Isn't that obvious, or are you a conspiracy theorist against the conspiracy theorists? :) --Лъчезар (talk) 11:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course! As I said, they're very interesting! :) --Лъчезар (talk) 10:58, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

In normal US usage, third party means someone not involved in the dispute. So in this case, the first party is the US government (in particular NASA), which claims the landings happened. The second party is the hoax proponents, who claim that it did not. A third party source is someone who provides some evidence, but is not involved in the dispute. A practical part of being a third party is a willingness to publish/discuss no matter which way the evidence turns out. LouScheffer (talk) 11:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation! --Лъчезар (talk) 13:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

That stands to reason. In any case, the LRO results probably do not qualify as "independent", unless there are technical reasons why it could be - such as signals being intercepted by independent observers. It's a little misleading to say NASA is a party to a "dispute", as there is no real dispute except on the hoaxster side. They like to delude themselves that NASA is in a dispute with them and somehow worried about the hoaxsters, when actually the hoaxsters have been mostly ignored by NASA and are of no real consequence. Baseball Bugs carrots 11:31, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact that NASA sent the LRO and published these images speaks that they don't ignore the "hoaxters" at all. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Other (perhaps more important) reasons are to confirm that the targeting is working as designed, and to calibrate the instruments in the few cases where the "ground truth" is known. LouScheffer (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

reply to Лъчезар: NASA didn't send LRO for that purpose. Bubba73 (if you can read this you can go to my talk page), 15:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems that most participants of this discussion agree with the name "Third party evidence for Apollo Moon landings". I agree with this, if the "New lunar missions" section is moved to the main article (or if you prefer, to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, if its contents is not already there). Another possibility is to move everything back to the main article, which however will become even larger in this case. --Лъчезар (talk) 17:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

According to the definition of a third party, the LRO team is a third party. Therefore their analysis should remain here. It doesn't matter that the hardware is supplied by NASA. The interpretation of the data collected by the hardware is given by the LRO scientists. Dr.K. logos 21:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

But the images are produced and published by NASA. If the LRO stuff remains here, the article will lose its credibility as nobody will understand how the LRO images can be third-party. My proposal was in the interest of the article, not in the interest of the "hoaxters" who surely laugh when they see the LRO images declared "independent". Do you seriously think that if the old NASA photos that are said to be taken on the Moon weren't convincing enough, the new 2009 photos taken remotely will be, given the capabilities of today's image processing software?! Of course, everybody will continue believing in what they already believe and the pro-/anti-Apollo ratio will remain the same. --Лъчезар (talk) 17:56, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

We have to find out more about the telemetry path. If the signal from the LRO goes directly to a university data analysis centre then there is no problem because the third party, the university, receives the raw data and analyses it. If the telemetry data goes from the LRO to NASA headquarterts and then to the the third party, yes, in this case, we have the proverbial "Houston we have a problem". Dr.K. logos 18:34, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

That's the question I was trying to raise earlier also. If the photos are essentially being produced by NASA, then they are not independent. If the signals are intercepted by an independent party, then that's independent evaluation. It's kind of like with the moon rocks. Obviously the rocks came from NASA sources. But if an independent party determines they are lunar, then that determination is independent evidence. Baseball Bugs carrots 22:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Precisely. Dr.K. logos 22:33, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

This debate stretches the brain, but it's based on the conspirator's mis-assumption that Nasa are perfidious and might fabricate the evidence. How can this possibly be a reasoned argument, given that other nations including China are also planning hi-res Lunar imagery, so any fraud by Nasa would quickly be revealed in the next few years? I'm afraid giving in to this type of silly debating point by the conspiracy-mongers is just surrendering reason for factoidal nonsense. We need to stay on the main plot. The LRO material is excellent, outstanding evidence and the best to date. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 07:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The point of the article was to establish non-NASA sources, to counter the conspiracist charge that all information comes from NASA. It was actually started by a hoax believer who didn't think there was any. Oops! Yes, that approach could be interpreted as assuming malevolence on NASA's part, but keep in mind that if the only source of information on any phenomenon is the organization that produced that phenomenon, it's reasonable to expect verification. As an example, what if the only source for information about GEICO was GEICO itself? It might be perfectly valid information, but more is needed. So the information in this article serves a good purpose, and we need to be sure the information qualifies as independent. If it's not independent, obviously it has other places - namely, in the main hoax article, and certainly in the main Apollo article also. But not in this one. Over time, as more and more independent sources verify the remnants of the Apollo project, this hoax story is going to fade away. But we're not quite there yet. Baseball Bugs carrots 08:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Amen. Magna est veritas et praevalebit! --Лъчезар (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Da. Baseball Bugs carrots 14:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Now when I read the article more carefully, it contains some observations of the flights, not the landings. So perhaps a name like "Third-party evidence for Apollo flights and landings" would describe its content better. --Лъчезар (talk) 14:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Tracking

Tidbinbilla is/was part of NASA's Deep Space Network, so it isn't independent. Carnarvon is unclear. It doesn't seem to have been owned by NASA. Bubba73 (if u cn rd ths u cn go to my talk page), 20:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Circumstantial evidence

I would like to believe that Neil Armstrong was the first human to step on our moon in July 1969 and made that giant leap. Unfortunately, however, all the evidence of him doing so is circumstantial. All the links and references to third parties following the procedure yield nothing concrete. There are falsified photos for sure, maybe some poor quality real ones. Maybe he and Buzz did walk on moon but you would have to ask them. They didn't sound very convinced when they gave their press conference afterwards. Why did the NASA 40th anniversary recordings suddenly stop after the lunar module left the moon's surface? Bewp (talk) 20:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a discussion page, not about font sizes. Delete it if you want. Bewp (talk) 17:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Age of the oldest rocks on the Earth

Reference to: http://en.wikipedia.org/Oldest_rock 'Since 2008, the oldest rock on Earth has been discovered by McGill University in the Nuvvuagittuq Belt on the coast of Hudson Bay, in northern Quebec, and is dated from 3.8 to 4.28 billion years old.' This would seem to make the text in the article viz: 'The Moon rocks are up to 4.5 billion years old, making them 700 million years older than the oldest Earth rocks, which are from the end of the Hadean eon, 3.8 billion years ago.' out of date. I suggest instead: 'Moon rocks may be up to 4.5 billion years old; of comparable age with the oldest Earth rocks.'15.203.169.107 (talk) 14:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sufficiently powerful telescopes on earth to directly see Apollo objects

Is there any optical telescope on earth that is sufficiently powerful to directly view an unambigiously identifiable Apollo object? Can one sit a "conspiracy believer" down at the eyepiece and directly show them the goods "see the landing stage for yourself with your own eye fool!" If there isn't such a telescope, how big would one have to be to "read the rover's licence plate"? Roger (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No, see Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories#Imaging the landing sites. Bubba73 16:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

On the nature of evidence

I guess I have to begin by making it clear that I believe Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. If I don't point this out right away, someone will misinterpret the following comments.

This article sets out to provide non-NASA evidence of human moon landings. That means every single item discussed should pass two tests: (1) It should have nothing whatsoever to do with NASA, and (2) it cannot have come about without a physical human presence on the moon. Let's look at a couple of sections and see if they pass these tests:

-Moon Rocks: Yes, there are moon rocks on Earth. But robots from at least 2 countries have succeeded in returning moon samples to Earth. There is nothing about the rocks themselves that allows us to differentiate between a human and a robotic moon mission. Hence this section is irrelevant to the article.

-Retroreflectors: Yes, some have been placed on the moon. Is there anything about them that requires humans to walk on the moon? Nope. Hence this, too, is not evidence of a human presence on the moon.

-Apollo equipment brought back from the moon: Not only does this fail the second test (human physical presence), but it fails the first one (NASA connection). The equipment belongs to NASA and left NASA's hands before ending up in whatever third-party lab or museum it ended up in. A forensic scientist investigating a crime wouldn't be too happy about the chain of evidence being tampered by the suspected criminal (Yes, I watch too much CSI). So all the careful itemization of Apollo equipment on Earth is irrelevant to the article.

These are just some quick examples, but if we go through the article systematically, we'd find many more. Someone above suggested that the burden of proof should lie with the skeptic, not the person making the claim. Aside from the fact that this flies in the face of everything we've learned about the scientific method (!!!), it also misses the point completely. The article is supposed to provide third-party evidence of humans on the moon. That means that the burden must be met not by the conspiracy theorists, nor by the scientists, but by the AUTHORS WHO CHOSE TO WRITE SUCH AN ABSENT-MINDED ARTICLE.

I'll get off my pedestal now.70.29.74.58 (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The point of this article is not to "provide non-NASA evidence of human moon landings". It is to report what reliable sources say about the moon landing conspiracy theory. We have a plethora of sources which discuss these facts when it comes to the conspiracy theory, so therefore we present them in the article. The conclusion of the scientific and historical community, based on the available evidence, is that the moon landings happened, which we also present in the article. This article is not, and cannot be, an essay intended to convince the reader the landings occurred. It is only a report of what the reliable sources say.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Soviet sources?

Considering that the Space Race was an affair between East and West during what was probably the greatest intelligence and counter-intelligence operation in history, that is the Cold War, I'm kinda surprised that the article currently doesn't mention any sources or documents of the other party in the race, that is contemporary Soviet sources and authorities. Don't they exist? --79.193.33.197 (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race by David Scott and Alexey Leonov, Lenov talks about how they (the Soviets) monitored the landings. It is in the first sentence of the "Observers of all missions" section, referenced by note 24. And see the rest of that paragraph. Bubba73 19:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

LRRR?

What does this abbreviation stand for? At first, I though it was Lunar Lander RetroReflector but that would be LLRR. Then I thought it was Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment but that is LLRE. I also checked the wikilinks and sources and can't find it there either. Can someone in the know spell it out the first time it is used so others can figure it out? MilCivHR (talk) 16:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, forgot to Google it first. Assuming this is not a reference to the ruler of Omicron Persei 8, I will update the page with "Laser Ranging Retroreflector." MilCivHR (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

This was changed and ultimately removed because "Direct quote so cannot change wording." However, per http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:MOS editorial brackets are allowed to clarify info (see specifically the second bullet under http://en.wikipedia.org/Manual_of_Style_%28punctuation%29#Sentences_and_brackets) and http://www.netplaces.com/grammar/punctuation-pairs/making-a-rare-appearance-square-brackets.htm (Sorry, haven't figured out how to do the short links yet) I will leave it for a day or two for comment and then re-add. MilCivHR (talk) 21:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd prefer to explain what LRRR is before the quote, and leave the quote unchanged. I've tried this, take a look and see what you think. LouScheffer (talk) 13:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That works for me. Thanks MilCivHR (talk) 13:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Van Allen Radiation Belt. No Pictures of the UNIVERSE from the moon perspective...

I take it that this is the site where you all are "Officially" trying to cover up the deal...

Look, None of this evidence on this page supports the Idea that a HUMAN landed on the moon. Okay? its just "Filler" b/c you know that most dumb Americans won't read it, they'll just google it, read the 1st couple lines, see that there is a WHOLE PAGE (seemingly) of "Proof" but really the bottom line is this...

Until you can explain HOW they were protected from the RADIATION in the Van Allen belt, AND tell us why there is NO PICTURES taken of the UNIVERSE from the moon perspective... AND explain the footage from a documentary Titled "Astronauts gone wild, the moon land hoax" that catches them red handed holding up a transparency and saying they were ??? miles out. when in fact they were still in earths orbit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.238.176.117 (talk) 02:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

While Phil Plait and others have already addressed those concerns on multiple occasions, that's not what this page is about. This page is about the presentation of evidence from reliable 3rd-party sources that supports the moon landings...not to make conclusions or (dis)prove any hypotheses. Misplaced Pages is not a forum, and it's not the job of anyone here to explain, prove, or disprove anything (in fact, Misplaced Pages policy prohibits it). You have provided no evidence or sources or any information at all. If you have sources/suggestions to improve the article please make them known; otherwise assume good faith before making accusations toward editors. Amity Lane (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Retroreflector comment

Can we dispense with the comment "Strictly speaking, although the reflectors are strong evidence that human-manufactured artifacts currently exist on the Moon, and their locations are consistent with NASA's claims, they do not prove humans have visited the Moon."? There are two reasons:

1. I was watching the DVD of the Apollo 11 moonwalk today, and one of the sound options is to listen to the conversations among the flight controllers in Mission Control (which I was doing). One of the controllers said that Lick Observatory reported a laser return from the retroreflector. The flight director decided to not relay that information to the Apollo crew. This was after Aldrin was back in the Lunar Module but while Aldrin was still on the surface. It was reported by TV news coverage at the time and it is also in the book I cited.
2. There is no specific explanation of how the retroreflectors got there otherwise. (In a court of law this would be called "assuming facts not in evidence.") Bubba73 01:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the transcript is here, then click on "EASEP Deployment and Closeout". The discussion is at 111:32:09 and Houston told Mike Collins about it at 112:34:29. But there are comments that they tried but did not succeed at that time. Bubba73 02:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the statement is needed, since of the five retroreflectors on the moon today, two were not the result of manned landings. Therefore, the presence of reflectors does not prove that people were there. It's important, especially in a case like this, to stick to *exactly* what the evidence proves, and to not make claims beyond the evidence. Understanding and explicitly stating the limits of your data boosts, not hurts, the credibility of the person making the claim. It puts them solidly in the camp of science and engineering, as opposed to law, politics, or religion, where routinely try to ignore any evidence that is not in their favor. LouScheffer (talk) 04:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

For #2, the obvious alternative explanation is that spacecraft were indeed launched to the moon, but the landings were not manned. LouScheffer (talk) 04:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, but there is no evidence that the three US ones got there any way other than being carried by manned Apollo missions. Bubba73 04:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

And the point of the retroreflector being detected while the Apollo 11 astronauts were there would be really strong evidence (although comments in the NASA report say that it wasn't actually detected until about 11 days later). But if it was detected while they were still there, how did it get there? It couldn't have been afterwards. It couldn't have already been there because they missed the landing site by a few miles. It certainly was there by August 1, so what unmanned rocket flew to the Moon in that time period and was able to land precisely at the Apollo 11 landing site? Bubba73 05:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure, the timing and location is strong evidence that NASA sent the retroreflectors to the moon at that time. But suppose Apollo 11 was unmanned - then you would see exactly what you describe, as far as the retro-reflector is concerned. A giant rocket takes off, a few days later they announce a landing, and a new retro-reflector appears, just where they claim. But this is also *exactly* what happened when the Russians sent up their unmanned moon rovers with retro-reflectors. (You can see the retro-reflector in the picture). So the reflectors are good evidence that the moon missions happened on the times and dates NASA claimed, and landed where they said they did, but it's not good evidence that there were people on board. LouScheffer (talk) 11:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

But the lunar module couldn't land by itself and the retroreflectors couldn't deploy themselves. Bubba73 23:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The Soviet landers indeed landed themselves, then on command, deployed their retro-reflectors. So it's certainly possible, and arguably easier than sending humans to do the job. LouScheffer (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

But there is no evidence that the US had hardware that could did it at the time. You suppose that Apollo 11 was unmanned and took the retroreflector there. That assumes a multitude of facts for which there is no evidence and is contrary to all known facts.

The photo of the Apollo 11 retroreflector on the Moon shows the Lunar Module in the background. The LM couldn't get to the Moon automatically. The photo also shows footprints around the retroreflector. How did they get there, if there were no humans? Bubba73 05:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't absolutely prove it 100%, but what can be proven absolutely? It is way, way, way beyond reasonable doubt or the shadow of a doubt. Bubba73 05:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

If someone wants to make the argument that the reflectors got there some other way, they have to assume most of the elements of the conspiracy theory. One cannot assume to be true what they are trying to prove to be true - that is a logical fallacy. Bubba73 03:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

"destroyed"

The significance of the word "destroyed" in the following sentence is unclear:

Some 10 kg (22 lb) of the Moon rocks have been destroyed during hundreds of experiments performed by both NASA researchers and planetary scientists at research institutions unaffiliated with NASA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.219.18 (talk) 04:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I though it an unusual word, slightly sinister. I assume it means that destructive forms of testing and analysis were performed on the rocks, crushing, powdering, heating, dissolving in acids etc. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Used up? Consumed? Canterbury Tail talk 18:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

'Used up', or maybe even just 'used' sound better to me. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:08, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. "Used" says all that needs to be said. Their actual fate isn't that relevant, and trying to describe every eventuality with just one word is impossible or confusing. --Escape Orbit 19:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

That looks like a consensus for a minor change so I have made it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Kettering Grammar School

Kettering Grammar School would certainly have tracked all the Apollo missions. I will look for sources to confirm this. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

This page contains one reference, here is another. Both mention some monitoring of the Apollo missions . Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:55, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

This specifically mentions 'on the way to the moon' but the tracking was done by one of the group from Florida. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:00, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Misleading propaganda in the article

Table Mountain Observatory, Madrid Apollo Station, Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone is all a part of NASA, yet in some how they're all included in the list as "independent".

Sven Grahn used a NASA tracking station, so no independent verifications there either...

kinda amazing (..or not) that an article on[REDACTED] contains false misleading propaganda in a desperate attempt to prove that there exists independent verifications for the moon landings (which it doesnt) 91.145.38.53 (talk) 20:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

You might like to read the section immediately above. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

No i dont because this isnt about me, its about the article contains misleading propaganda 91.145.38.53 (talk) 23:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

You will get further with interacting with other users if you stop labeling everything as propaganda. Calling everything you don't agree with propaganda isn't helping with putting your point across, so please do so in a more neutral manner. Canterbury Tail talk 12:46, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Why did NASA bother with all of those tracking stations, if they were going to fake the Moon landing? Bubba73 05:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

No, because it IS misleading propaganda. The article contains pure lies, why? please address THAT very problem instead of using me as the problem, focus on the subject not on the person! 91.145.38.53 (talk) 09:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Propaganda is an intentional effort to mislead the public. It is not possible for you to simultaneously call the article propaganda and assume good faith. You can violate behavioral guidelines or you can continue to edit at Misplaced Pages, but not both. VQuakr (talk) 16:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Isn't this about where we tell the Anon editor that this page isn't his personal axe-grinding forum...? Ckruschke (talk) 19:23, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

In theory at least, the IP's comments are germane to the article. Why the IP thinks that the above listed observatories cannot be mentioned in the article has not been put forth, but WP:NOTAFORUM does not seem to really be an issue here. WP:BLP, WP:CIVIL, WP:V, WP:SOAP, and WP:NPOV are issues. VQuakr (talk) 19:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree, they are making relevant points, however are not presenting them in a good manner. I'm trying to explain on other talk pages that they need to approach it in a more neutral manner to get their point across but that labeling everything everyone else edits as propaganda and lies doesn't allow others to pay attention to their actual point. Canterbury Tail talk 20:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Boy - if you can get IP's to also stop posting "this page sucks" while simultaneously giving no concrete information or edit requests, you'd deserve some kind of award... Ckruschke (talk) 17:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

Lets see. They actually represent a useful other side of the discussion that few editors view things from, the it didn't happen side. Most editors are from the it did happen side, so it will be valuable to have some insights from the other perspective if they can remain civil and approach it in an encyclopaedia building manner rather than a "you are all part of this huge conspiracy" manner. Canterbury Tail talk 18:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

91, do you have any evidence of Mercury-Atlas 8 or Gemini 4 that didn't come from NASA? Bubba73 23:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The article has a mix of evidence, some completely independent of NASA (for example, the QST guys) to those that had *some* NASA involvement, but not in a way that could support a conspiracy. For example, the Parkes radio telescope was built and staffed by Australians not working for NASA. But NASA did hire them to help broadcast the lunar landings. Or the moon rocks, which *were* brought back by NASA, but analyzed by a university lab in Australia that concluded they were older than any Earth rocks. To me, this seems like an independent verification of NASA claims (the rocks are indeed not from Earth), but conversely you could claim that since NASA had possession, they could have doctored the evidence. So perhaps it would be worthwhile to separate the article into two parts; those completely independent of NASA, and those that had some NASA component, even if small, or open, or hard to fake. LouScheffer (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea. We need to be neutral and the fact that a lot of people believe it was all faked does need to be taken into account. Canterbury Tail talk 13:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I divided the evidence. Still needs cleanup. LouScheffer (talk) 13:36, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Table Mountain Observatory, Madrid Apollo Station, Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone is all a part of NASA but is STILL listed in the article, who is supposed to be about INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION. VQuakr guess what? tell someone who cares because i DONT! admins who is protecting false misleading propaganda in an article and dont allow it to be changed to the truth should never be respected or even tolerated. 91.145.38.53 (talk) 03:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Stop attacking other editors, you have been warned several times and I'm about done defending you. If you don't try and start operating as a member of Misplaced Pages's community you will be blocked from editing permanently. If you read this talk page you'll see people are taking steps to try and address some of the issues you are raising and other editors are trying to work with you.

P.S. VQuakr isn't an admin. In fact I see no admins other than myself involved in these articles, and I'm only involved from an administrative non-editing perspective due to disruptive editing and personal attacks. Canterbury Tail talk 12:32, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Warned for discovering the very FACT that this[REDACTED] article contains false and misleading propaganda? thats why i have no respect for the admins anymore, "PROTECT THE LIE!" (no matter what)

So i repeat, Table Mountain Observatory, Madrid Apollo Station, Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone is all a part of NASA but is listed in the article as independent... WHY?

address this problem! comment on subject 91.145.38.53 (talk) 14:17, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Table Mountain and Goldstone were/are run by JPL, which is managed by Caltech, and has little to do with manned space flight. But JPL does get its funding from NASA, so I can see where you think this evidence might be tainted. So I removed it. For the Madrid Apollo station, there is solid evidence that most of the people who worked there were not employees of NASA, but of the Spanish space agency INTA. I linked to this document and left this in. For Honeysuckle creek it was not clear whether the workers were employees of NASA, or one of the local Australian agencies. So I removed this as well. LouScheffer (talk) 01:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

ANY OBSERVATORY, who have HAD or HAVE anything with nasa to do today - should be deleted if its included in the "independent" section 31.209.16.177 (talk) 14:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Surveyor III - How was camera detached?

The photo of the Apollo 12 astronaut next to the Surveyor is labelled Pete Conrad. But Alan Bean sells the same photo, autographed photo for $239, on the web site AstronautCentral.com. So which astronaut is it? Does anyone have a photo of either the astronaut detaching the Surveyor III camera? Any photos of the Surveyor after the camera was removed? It had to be attached strong enough to withstand a lunar landing. There are photos of him standing next to it, without any tools. One would think he would need a wrench, screw driver, and cable cutters. User:RogerMartin

I'll get back to you on that. But you should create an account, see wp:account. Bubba73 05:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

See this and here is a link to all of the B&W photos taken near Surveyor 3. Since there is a stripe on the astronaut's left arm, that should be Conrad, not Bean. Bubba73 06:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Bean has a narrow strap on his left arm, holding what appears to be a watch or perhaps a gauge of some kind. Conrad has a wider strap on his left arm. So I think it is actually Bean in that photo. Bubba73 06:35, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

According to the NASA report below, "The astronauts removed the following material from Surveyor 3 with a pair of shearing cutters:" LouScheffer (talk) 13:37, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is info from the first link:

AS12-48-7133 (OF300) ( 171k or 948k ) 134:16:43 "Tourist" picture of Pete at the Surveyor III spacecraft. We know this is Pete because he has his tongs attached to his hip mounted "yo-yo". Note that his footprints are not any deeper than those he made around the LM.

AS12-48-7133/4 Red-Blue Anaglyph ( 393k ) Red-blue anaglyph by Patrick Vantuyne.

AS12-48-7134 (OF300) ( 185k or 1014k ) 134:16:54 Pete is "jiggling" the spacecraft to see if it is firmly planted.

Al lent the camera to Pete, who took two "tourist" pictures of Al before returning the camera to him.

AS12-48-7135 (OF300) ( 179k or 1006k ) 134:17:30 Pete's "tourist" picture of Al at the Surveyor III spacecraft with the LM in the background.

AS12-48-7136 (OF300) ( 176k or 979k ) 134:17:30 Similar to 7135. Bubba73 06:28, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

And you might be interested in reading this report. Bubba73 06:45, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Bubba73 for the link to the report. Just as I suspected: on the Surveyor 3 material supposedly brought back to Earth, "all participating investigators concluded that no material or surface features were found that definitely could be stated to be meteoritic in origin." (page 11) User:RogerMartin

"Meteoric origin" means from a meteor. In this video, about 3:30-3:45, you can see them practicing to cut the cables. Bubba73 06:58, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Apollo 16

Youtube isn't a reliable source, but this is interesting. Bubba73 04:47, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the article

The sources for the evidence in this article don't meet Misplaced Pages's definition of third party sources: Misplaced Pages:Third-party_sources. A change of name is needed.

Specifically, Misplaced Pages defines third party sources as those which are "not paid by the people who are involved". According to the article, the first party is the US government, therefore most organizations cited as sources fail to meet this definition (e. g.: the University of Arizona). Elendaíl (talk) 22:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages definition is probably not the right one in this context. More skeptics (I suspect) would be more concerned about NASA involvement than exchange of money. For example, the samples that NASA says were from the moon were brought back by NASA itself, giving NASA the opportunity to doctor them to make them more moon-like. This consideration would apply whether the receiving organization took any US government money or not. Overall, I suspect it's probably better to note any potential conflicts of interest than to remove the material entirely. Other editors are welcome to weigh in. LouScheffer (talk) 04:08, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm confused. How is it possible that Misplaced Pages's definition of third party sources doesn't apply to an Misplaced Pages article (this one) which is precisely about third party sources? Do you mean that Misplaced Pages's definition of third party sources is wrong? Can you elaborate?

Regarding the rest of what you said, I fail to see the relation to my proposal:

- This proposal is about meeting Misplaced Pages's definition, i.e., about making this a better Misplaced Pages article. Whatever skeptics might be concerned about is not relevant to the proposal.

- Noting potential conflicts of interest would certainly be great, but it wouldn't change the fact that the contents of the article don't meet Misplaced Pages's definition of third party. In other words, it doesn't help in this regard.

- My proposal doesn't suggest removing material.

Elendaíl (talk) 05:37, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that there is a certain innacuracy with the current name. Elendaíl, do you have a suggestion for a better name? Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I deliberately avoided suggesting a new name in the hope that a proposal would be made by some of the authors of the article or someone more knowledgeable of the topic than myself. Since that hasn't happened, I'll give it a shot:

My take is that this article provides evidence of the moon landings which doesn't come directly from NASA. Unfortunately this yields a very ugly title for the article: "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings which doesn't come from NASA". I don't think many people will be happy with that ugly name.

However, I haven't been able to find any other Misplaced Pages articles which describe exclusively moon landings evidence, so I think that a practical solution is to completely drop the "third party" part and simply leave it as "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings". That means that evidence which comes from NASA could (and should) be included as well, and the article itself would change substantially, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

What do you think? Elendaíl (talk) 16:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm unsure. If we include evidence from NASA, there will be a huge amount. This article started as a spin-off from the "hoax allegations" article because conspiracy theorists don't believe any evidence that comes from NASA. Bubba73 23:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

This discussion has happened before. Please see Proposal to rename the article to "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings" a few threads above. Dr. K. 02:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Bubba: It doesn't look like having a huge amount of evidence is something negative. Regarding the origins of the article, I'm aware of them, but I don't see how that affects my proposal. Can you elaborate on both ideas?

@Dr. K: I read the discussion you mentioned before creating my proposal. Actually, that discussion was part of the reason why I created the proposal. I was disappointed to see that a wrong name ("Independent...") was replaced by an almost equally wrong name ("Third-party..."). That discussion doesn't address the point I'm making here. Elendaíl (talk) 03:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

There is so much evidence from NASA that you could barely scratch the surface. And people who believe that the landings were a hoax dismiss all evidence from NASA anyway. Back in the original article years ago, hoax believers stated that there was no evidence for the Moon landings other than what NASA supplied. That was the genesis of this article. Bubba73 03:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I understand what you say, but I still can't see the relation. Can you be a bit more specific about how those ideas relate to my proposal? Elendaíl (talk) 06:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The main job of the title is to tell the reader, as succinctly as possible, the contents of the article. I think the current title does that very well. Even if it is not pedantically correct (which is likely impossible, see the paragraph below) it correctly covers the spirit of the article. "Third party" immediately brings to mind sources that are not beholden to either of the two positions - as the definition in Misplaced Pages states "A third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered". A title such as "Evidence for moon landings" does not tell the user what the expect, probably thinking it would lead to a huge pile of internally consistent NASA documentation.

Third-party-ness is not a completely binary property. For example, Misplaced Pages after independence, states "not paid by the parties involved". But given the interlocked nature of the world economy, finding any organization who has solid evidence for or against the moon landings, but has never been paid in any way by the USA government, is likely impossible. For example, the USA government did pay India, China, France, and Russia during WW-II, and paid Germany and Japan during reconstruction after the war. So does this mean evidence from their space agencies cannot be used? Likewise. almost every scientific instrument in the USA either belongs to a university (surely contributed to by the government) or a foundation (granted a tax break, i.e. paid, by the government). Now a rational person says "sure, we helped Russia during WW-II", but by the spaceflight era we were enemies, and surely they would have been delighted to point out the USA was faking. Likewise, they find it hard to believe a professor with evidence against the landing would refrain from publishing just because their university took federal money. So they mentally weight the closeness of connection of the "paid" part, and rely on the their best judgement of the "independent" part. Supporting this, I think the best we can do is to point out where any conflicts exist, and let the reader judge.

Of course, if you have ideas for a better title, feel free to discuss. LouScheffer (talk) 18:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

You make an interesting point here. However, I asked you for clarification about your previous comment above and you haven't replied yet. I think that before we continue with this part of the debate it would be helpful that you make those clarifications so that we can understand better the point you're making. Elendaíl (talk) 21:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

At one point the title had "independent" instead of "third-party" and it might have had another name or two. Bubba73 21:39, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

It's been three months since I made this proposal and nobody has addressed my concerns or provided the clarifications that I requested. I guess that this article is so unimportant that there's just not enough interest in it to keep a discussion going. Since it looks like I am the only person still interested in improving the article, I'll just go ahead and rename it. I'm aware that this is not the best solution, but I lack the skills and the knowledge to do much better. I hope that at some point someone more knowledgeable gets interested again and does a better job.

However, just in case, I'll wait a couple more days to see if someone might be willing to give a hand here.

Elendaíl (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

What do you want to rename it to? There is a recent book Moon Hoax: Debunked! by Paolo Attivissimo that covers just about all, if not all, of this stuff. Bubba73 19:08, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Elendaíl: I think the title is fine where it is; WP:3PARTY is an essay about sources, not about the more generic use of the term "third party". Please get consensus for a new title via a move request before moving. VQuakr (talk) 19:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@VQuakr: LouScheffer already said the same above. I replied to him and he didn't reply anymore (about this concern). Allow me to repeat my reply to LouScheffer: How is it possible that Misplaced Pages's definition of third party sources doesn't apply to an Misplaced Pages article (this one) which is precisely about third party sources? Do you mean that Misplaced Pages's definition of third party sources is wrong? Can you elaborate?

@Bubba73: I wrote my proposal above (16:50, 17 January 2016). I'm afraid that once again I fail to see the relation of what you say with my proposal. Also, I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to answer my questions above.

Elendaíl (talk) 00:48, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

My replay is the same as before. "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings" is not appropriate because this article is a spin-off of Moon landing conspiracy theories. Conspiracy buffs don't believe ANYTHING that comes from NASA. Secondly, if the article was truly "Evidence for Apollo Moon landings" it would include an enormous amount of evidence from NASA, and that is already in dozens of articles about the Moon landing. Bubba73 01:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I see no consensus at all to move this page to a new title. Any unilateral moves of this page will be reverted. I suggest as a minimum that a formal move request should be filed, if it must, at WP:RM. That would include proposing the new title. Otherwise, the article should remain at its existing name. I also agree with VQuakr. Dr. K. 01:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Bubba: I would say it's not totally civil to repeatedly ignore my questions or requests for clarifications and then change the topic. I think it would be nicer if you answered.

@Dr.K.: Consensus, as per Misplaced Pages:Consensus, is close to being achieved by virtue of lack of response to the concerns I raised, and therefore, lack of quality arguments supporting the current title. Anyway, I would certainly prefer to reach Misplaced Pages:Consensus through agreement. Since you agree with VQuakr, I would appreciate that you addressed the concerns I raised to him (and also to LouScheffer).

Elendaíl (talk) 03:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Consensus, as per Misplaced Pages:Consensus, is close to being achieved by virtue of lack of response to the concerns I raised, and therefore, lack of quality arguments supporting the current title. Nope. Consensus is not achieved this way. We have here three editors who disagree with you. End of story. You have no consensus currently. That you think our arguments don't address your concerns is immaterial. That's your problem, not ours. Since you don't have consensus, you cannot move this article to a new title. If you still disagree, as I said before, you can request a page move through WP:RM so that more people can voice their opinions. But I am not about to start any lengthy arguments with you since I have already expressed my opinion and I simply have better things to do than repeating myself. Dr. K. 04:33, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Elendaíl, Misplaced Pages itself supports the meaning used in the current title. From Third party, "Third-party source, a source of information independent of the first and second parties in a situation". The page you cite, Misplaced Pages:Third-party_sources, does NOT define what the phrase "Third party" means for every usage, only what it means in the context of a source cited in a Misplaced Pages article. You can tell it's a specialized usage by the more general disambiguation page Third party. This is supported by the common dictionary definitions of "Third party" as well:

• "One other than the principals involved in a transaction" (Free dictionary)
• "a person other than the principals" (Webster's)
• "a ​person who is not one of the two ​main ​people ​involved in an ​argument or ​legal ​case" (Cambridge dictionaries)

In my opinion, and seemingly that of many others, the current title is fine. There was quite an extensive argument (back when the title was "independent evidence for..." ) and at that time there was a concensus of editors that "Third party" was the best of the alternatives suggested. LouScheffer (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for answering my questions, LouScheffer. The definitions you brought up actually strengthen my point. I'll go over each one by one:

Third-party source, a source of information independent of the first and second parties in a situation: This one equals "third party" to "independent". Since it has been established that "independent" is incorrect, "third party" is incorrect as well.

One other than the principals involved in a transaction: This definition is for a completely different context and doesn't apply here. There are no principals and no transaction in this case.

A person other than the principals: Does not apply. No principals and no "person".

A ​person who is not one of the two ​main ​people ​involved in an ​argument or ​legal ​case: Does not apply. Same as above.

In summary, out of four definitions, only one applies to this case and it clearly shows that the title is incorrect.

Misplaced Pages:Third-party_sources defines the phrase "Third party source", which is a specialized usage indeed, the usage made in the case at hand. Therefore, it is even more relevant than the definition of "Third party" alone. Also, it does not restrict the definition to the context of a source cited in a Misplaced Pages article, as you can see clearly in the heading of the page: "A third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered " It is not suggested at any point that this definition is restricted to Misplaced Pages sources.

Regarding the previous discussion, as I said earlier, it doesn't address the point I'm making here.

I think it might be worth at this point to make a couple of reminders:

From Misplaced Pages:Consensus: Determining consensus: Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Misplaced Pages policy.

From Misplaced Pages:Wrongful consensus (Example of wrongful consensus): Refusing to allow edits unless approved by one or a few editors acting as owners, several editors agreeing on the refusal, regardless of the quality of the offered edits.

From Misplaced Pages:Closing discussions: Consensus is not determined by counting heads.

Elendaíl (talk) 18:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I also fully agree with the points made by LouScheffer. That makes it four editors who don't agree with your points. If you don't find them "quality arguments" it seems that the problem lies with your analysis of the points already made not with the points themselves. I think the discussion is over. Dr. K. 19:11, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to quote some policies and guidelines which seem to be ignored or violated throughout this discussion:

Misplaced Pages:Etiquette: Concede a point when you have no response to it.

Misplaced Pages:Etiquette: Do not ignore reasonable questions.

Misplaced Pages:Etiquette: If someone disagrees with your edit, provide good reasons why you think that it is appropriate.

Misplaced Pages:Civility: Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of your fellow editors.

Misplaced Pages:Civility: Present coherent and concise arguments.

Misplaced Pages:Consensus: Determining consensus: Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Misplaced Pages policy.

Misplaced Pages:Wrongful consensus: Refusing to allow edits unless approved by one or a few editors acting as owners, several editors agreeing on the refusal, regardless of the quality of the offered edits

Misplaced Pages:Closing discussions: Consensus is not determined by counting heads.

Misplaced Pages:Third-party sources: A third-party source is not paid by the people who are involved.

Misplaced Pages: Talk page guidelines: Stay on topic.

Misplaced Pages: Talk page guidelines: Communicate: If in doubt, make the extra effort so that other people understand you. Being friendly is a great help. It is always a good idea to explain your views; it is less helpful for you to voice an opinion on something and not explain why you hold it. Explaining why you have a certain opinion helps to demonstrate its validity to others and reach consensus.

Elendaíl (talk) 20:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• C-Class spaceflight articles
• Low-importance spaceflight articles
• WikiProject Spaceflight articles