Did you need that moment in history? I taped the cricket

TimsonM says:

12:32pm | 17/07/09

They haven’t been there, that is why they “lost” the originals.

Winsor Dobbin says:

02:42pm | 17/07/09

The whole moon landing thing is a charade that simply became too big a lie for the Americans to turn back on their invention. Remember this was the time of the Cold War when the Americans would do anything to get one over on the Russians, If it was really that easy to have man walk on the moon 40 years ago, wouldn’t there have been thousands of subsequent expeditions, landings, even attempts to stay up there?

Ed Michaels says:

02:52pm | 17/07/09

See, I would think, if they didn’t land on the moon, there would be someone that would give an interview about the hoax. I mean, if a lost backpacker can garner $200,000 for his story, surely some technician, camera operator, floor director or tea lady would be willing to talk for 4 or 5 million.

Adrian says:

03:40pm | 17/07/09

Well, it isn’t “that easy” to go to the moon - it takes a tremendous amount of work and money, and once NASA scrapped the Saturn rockets they didn’t have a vehicle that could get out of Earth’s gravity. From the Saturn V Wikipedia article:

“From 1964 until 1973, a total of US$6.5 billion was appropriated for the Saturn V, with the maximum being in 1966 with US$1.2 billion.[18] Allowing for inflation this is equivalent to roughly $32-45 billion in 2007 money.[19] This works out at an amortized cost of $2.4-3.5 billion per launch.

One of the main reasons for the cancellation of the Apollo program was the cost. In 1966, NASA received its highest budget of US$4.5 billion, about 0.5 percent of the GDP of the United States at that time.”

Spending half a percent of a nation’s GDP on an annual basis is a massive opportunity cost to an economy. As you may recall, the US economy in the 70s was a trainwreck, and it’s no surprise the funding for the Saturn rockets was scrapped.

The fact they got up there at all is a miracle of modern science and engineering - the fact they don’t go there anymore is perfectly understandable.

DJG says:

03:46pm | 17/07/09

The most uncelebrated event in American history. Why? It never happened ,thats why.

Julie Coker-Godson says:

05:44pm | 17/07/09

My late father used to work for NASA through Tidbinbilla in the A.C.T. although he was not there at the time of the Moon landings.  I was privileged to see a lot of beautiful photos that were taken of that time and some that I don’t ever recall having been publicly released and I don’t follow the view of the sceptics.  I do believe they landed on the Moon in 1969.  Our own people were involved at Honeysuckle Creek ( I have visited there, too before it closed) and at Parkes.  I assume you sceptics aren’t going to call them all liars are you?

David says:

09:44pm | 17/07/09

My only problem with the moon landing is that all the blueprints of the Apollo rockets (whatever they were called) have apparently gone missing..

Oh - and the Van Allen belts.

never mind… I’d like it to have happened so I prefer to choose that. it did.