• CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I typically use this line but I don’t know that the Soviets had the technology to track the flight completely at the time or to verify the landing.

      • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        The Russians kicked our* asses all through the Space Race. I’m sure they could at least intercept comms and look through their telescopes.

        • It was the nicest thing the USSR ever did for us. Borrowing from a blog piece I did, Eisenhower freaked out over the successful launch and orbit of Sputnik 1. Ike passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 [… and secured] a grant extended to Fairchild Semiconductor to further its development on the transistor… in the fecund economy of California.

          Hence the US is now the big tech capitol of the world (though depending more and more on patents rather than innovation since the 2010s, so maybe not for long.)

        • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          While it’s definitely true they could’ve intercepted comms, I don’t know that they did do that. And telescopes would only get them to confirming things up to orbit probably.

          I still think it’s likely they knew it was real, I’ve just never been able to confirm that they did for myself and so the argument I’m using it much weaker without that piece of evidence. Not to mention that Russia has had state actors promoting the conspiracy theory in recent years which makes things confusing

          • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Well it’s certainly not proof per se*, but considering all the bugs and spies the USSR planted it seems like a no brainer that they would be listening in on any and all unencrypted over the air communications.

      • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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        1 month ago

        If I remember correctly, it was pretty easy to intercept the communications. The Americans also dropped a few mirrors on the moon and the Soviets used them to fire lasers at the moon.

        • marcos@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Not only intercept, but they could easily check if the signal was coming from the Moon.

          What they couldn’t do was get a photo of the ship.

      • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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        1 month ago

        Pretty sure they had the radio technology to intercept the radio communications and validate that they actually went far enough to reach the moon.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        They absolutely had the tech to point a big antenna at the moon and listen in on communications and watch the video broadcasts.

    • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.org
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      1 month ago

      It is impossible to fake something has thousands of people that are “in on it” and even today thousands of scientists (and maybe everybody with a slightly better telescope/laser? Unsure) would somehow need to be part of it because you can just use a telescope to see the stuff that was left behind and the laser reflectors are being used today. There’s absolutely no chance it’s not real.

      • SteveTech@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        I’m not a radio engineer, but my understanding is you’re just bouncing signals off the moon itself, there isn’t a device that echos the signal back or anything. There are mirrors on the moon to reflect lasers back though.

        • Strykker@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          They left a couple retro reflectors on the moon during the moon landings so we can bounce lasers off them to accurately measure the distance to the moon.

        • tyler@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          I think that’s what they meant, cuz a ping to a radio device wouldn’t prove much, just that you are getting signals from up there. A laser would prove definitively.

      • cheddar@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Couldn’t such device be delivered without people, like a remotely controlled rover? How does that prove that people made an actual landing on the Moon?

        • yuri@pawb.social
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          1 month ago

          Because there’s like 6 of em, and we know exactly which mission launched each one.

    • Deme@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      You’d need either the biggest space telescope ever that doesn’t yet exist, or a lunar orbiter. The latter is how other space agencies have taken pictures of the landing sites.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Now I’m curious, what’s the resolution (like in meters) of a good home pro telescope watching the moon at say the best of times?

        • Deme@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          I’m no astronomer or astrophotographer, but this picture of the moon clocks in at around 320 meter angular resolution. That being said, a lot of post-processing goes into a shot like that, so some detail may be lost due to that. The atmosphere of the Earth is pretty difficult to deal with as its disturbances cause fuzziness and shimmering. Stacking multiple frames can help, but it’s still never perfect. Earth based telescopes sometimes shoot a laser up along their line of sight to get an idea of how the atmosphere is messing with them.

          For comparison, The Hubble space telescope gets around 90 m angular resolution for objects at the distance of the Moon.

      • cheddar@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Isn’t this because Hubble is actually made to look deep into space and not under its nose? I’m sorry, but I’m not watching a 14 minutes video for that.

        • Deme@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          I did a two minute internet search and every result says that the Hubble doesn’t have the angular resolution for this. It could resolve a football field on the moon, but not anything smaller.

          It was made to look at nebulae and galaxies, and those are a lot bigger, even in apparent size.

          Focal distance doesn’t matter when the aperture is so infinitesimally small compared to the distances. All space telescopes are focused to infinity no matter what they’re observing up there.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The greatest proof we have that the United States was the First Nation to land a man on the moon and did so in July of 1969 is that their primary geopolitical enemy had beaten them at every previous step in the space race and didn’t contest it. If there was a chance that any aspect of it was faked the USSR would’ve used it as propaganda and a cudgel. Instead they confirmed the moon landing. It may be hard for some people to believe we set foot on the moon, but it’s much harder to believe the ussr covered America’s ass on this one.

    It’s actually the same basic evidence that we have that Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into outer space alive and return alive. If it hadn’t happened the United States would’ve contested it.

    • yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      imo, that’s why flat earth stuff usually doesn’t make sense at its core. how do you explain that all those governments from around the world that hate each other all collectively agreed to lie to you

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Okay, just to go full conspiracy theorist on you for a second:

      The USSR could’ve covered USA’s ass on this because their own achievements were fake too, and they didn’t want it to come out

      I don’t have any evidence for this, nor do I believe it myself, but just playing devil’s advocate here

      • rekorse@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That doesnt work in the long term unless you kill everyone that knows about it. Its a weak plan at best.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Oh that’s definitely true, but that could be said for literally every conspiracy theory, ever.

          My comment was working on the assumption that you already believe in conspiracy theories, and was meant to explain how one could then rationalize this particular one

          • rekorse@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            Well assume I do and that was my response. I’m sure thats not all it takes to convince someone a conspiracy isn’t true.

            How do conspiracy folk answer that counterpoint?

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Did you know, that all Panda bears 🐼 worldwide are all owned by the Chinese government? Pandas outside of China are only on loan.

    Just some useless information because of the username…

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yeah, that Panda is a leftover from better times when China gave them as diplomatic gifts. Its the offspring of 2 Pandas that were originally given to mexico before the 1980’s when China stopped gifting and started the lending thing.

        There are 2 more, that are not considered a loan, in Taiwan. But they are more a “F*ck your independence, you belong to us anyways”-gifts with the Chinese arguing that it was an inner country transfer and not a gesture to a foreign nation.

        Nevertheless, all Pandas outside of China have been political pawns for the Chinese government including Xin Xin in Mexico.

    • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
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      1 month ago

      I’ve seen some recent news about China gifting Brazil a panda in a diplomatic move. So, they don’t own all pandas, or wasn’t it really a gift?

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        It might have been on loan, but described as a gift as there’s limited numbers they loan out.

        Part of the reasoning for the loan system is that there’s a limited number, and the terms of the loan allows China to take them back in the event the zoo fails to care for them appropriately, which happens with depressing regularity.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        They are given as a loan. The Wikipedia page about Panda diplomacy someone else linked is quite interesting and explains it all.

    • femtech
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      1 month ago

      Fuck, one of my sisters coworkers said some crazy shit like that. Saying space is a hologram.

      • Sabata@ani.social
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        1 month ago

        Space hologram is just idiot speak for collective hallucination. We can’t properly perceive the great old ones. Wake up before the moon dose or its over for humanity.

    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      …and the USA, and the USSR ! So many assumptions make for a very feeble theory imho