Boxing Day Special: NASA faked the moon landing - a Christmas gift from WUWT

As a Christmas special, Anthony Watts paraded out Christopher Monckton, who wrote how his religion frowns on lies while proceeding to tell lie after lie after lie.  He spent much of the article wrongly accusing climate and other earth system scientists all around the world of fraud, deception, being on the take, profiteering and being socialists. (And using a verb as an adjective in the process.) Lots of bedazzled WUWTers bowed their heads and chanted homage to the lord (Monckton), while atheistic WUWTers chastised him for bringing religion to WUWT and socialist WUWTers objected to Monckton's suggestion that socialism is immoral. (Archived here - and updated here in case anyone wants to waste time wading through 342 comments just to learn about the myriad weird and illogical non-reasons people come up with to justify their rejection of science. Or to collect more evidence of just how nutty Christopher Monckton is - eg his comments about how species could not have evolved and his illogical comments trying to justify his claims that climate science is a hoax.)

Then Anthony gave us some insight into how the Watts family spends its leisure time.  Anthony wrote an article saying how his children are off playing their favourite game - find the money.  Yes, quite literally.  He hides coins around the house and says it keeps his children amused for hours looking for them. He gave instructions so his readers so they could teach their children how to play 'find the money'.  He even posted a number of snapshots showing how to hide the coins in plain sight. Very educational and intellectually stimulating, eh? (Archived here.)

After that Anthony gave his readers an article about the Apollo 8 moon mission, with what is known as the Genesis or Christmas Eve broadcast - passages from Genesis that were recited by the astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders. (Archived here - updated archive here.)

Anthony included this historic shot taken by the astronauts as they orbited the moon.  His article contained no swipes at climate scientists or anyone else, which made a nice change.

Earthrise
Credit: NASA

In the comments several people joined in an argument about whether or not the moon rotates.  Some said it did and some said it didn't.

Gerald Kelleher says (excerpt):

December 25, 2013 at 12:30 am
This is one wonderful insane world because when people can force themselves to believe the moon spins when clearly it doesn’t then forget interpreting climate !...

...For goodness sake give the world a magnificent Christmas present this year and deal decisively with this issue because if you can’t get rid of the mindnumbing idea that the moon spins as it orbits the Earth then what can be said of getting rid of the notion that humans can control the Earth’s temperature.

Gareth Phillips says (excerpt):

December 25, 2013 at 2:58 am...The mon does not actually spin or rotate on it’s own axis, it’s can’t if it keeps the same face to the earth....

Here is what we would see over time if the moon wasn't in a synchronous rotation with Earth.  That is, if its speed of rotation was longer or shorter than the time it takes to go around Earth.

Update

There's more from Gerald Kelleher, who is a very confused bloke but doesn't know it.  He not only asserts that all the world except he is wrong and that the moon doesn't rotate, he hasn't grasped the difference between sidereal and solar days.  He says (excerpts - archived here):

December 25, 2013 at 2:09 pm
People who believe that the moon spins are a troubled people and always have been that way despite its persistence as mainstream policy and it comes from the same group who will announce to the world that all the effects within a 24 hour cycle such as daily temperature rises and falls are not due to the rotation of the Earth by virtue that they insist that there are more rotations of the Earth in a year than there are days -

” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard

It is an intractable problem for the necessary intellectual and interpretative talent is not available at the present time to square away the 24 hour AM/PM system with the Lat/Long system which keeps the Earth turning at a rate of 15 degrees per hour is being obscured by a bunch of cretins who can’t seemingly begin with the fact that when you wake up tomorrow you not only wake up to another day but also another rotation of the planet and they never,ever fall out of step.

All I can see are bluffers with a lot of voodoo thrown in. People think the ‘climate issue’ is the problem but it is much,much bigger than that – it is a uniquely human problem that started a few centuries ago.

In a later comment, Gerald maintains that NASA is wrong on another score or, more properly, a variation of the moon rotating score - writing (excerpt):

...For $17 billion the wider public has an organization that once landed men on the moon yet has the population believes the far side of the moon receives sunlight due to rotation -(December 25, 2013 at 2:57 pm)

We've got a couple of live ones! NASA faked the moon landing...

The comments section housed other gems.  Or perhaps I should refer to them as lumps of coal for Christmas. After all,  WUWT readers don't like to think that climate deniers like them also number people who think that NASA faked the moon landing. You could say it's a Christmas gift from Anthony Watts to Stephan Lewandowsky et al (Archived here.)


Dorian Sabaz says:

December 25, 2013 at 4:21 am
Here is a question for all to consider….

Why are there no photos of the Earth from the Moon surface?

You’d think after thousands of years of looking at the Moon from the Earth, that when finally Man stands on the surface of the Moon the first thing any astronaunt would do, is take a photo of Mother Earth…no?

That photo you show above is only from an automated probe going to the Moon. Where are the photos of the Earth from the Moon?

Afterall, from the surface of the Moon, the Earth would look about four times larger as that of the Moon seen on the Earth. It would be very spectacular, considering there would also be no atmosphere too, just black sky. And much of the time the Sun would be in opposition, that is, the Earth would be between the Moon and the Sun, it would make it perfectly large, clear and beautiful.

BUT NO. THERE ARE NO PHOTOS OF THE EARTH FROM THE LUNAR SURFACE.
WHY?

Oh…before you point out that single ridiculous photo of the Earth in the back drop of the lunar lander (the only supposedly photo of the Earth), take a very close look at where the Earth is, the Moon does not rotate on its axis with respect to the Earth, thus it is always facing the same way, that photo shows the Earth as if it rising, and that can not be, the Earth must be straight up. Use common sense. The Earth can never rise or set on the Moon.

So where are the photos? After the greatest adventure of Mankind, it seems EVERY SINGLE ASTRONAUNT forgot to take a photo of the Earth FROM THE MOON’S LUNAR SURFACE.

Now isn’t that interesting.

bruce1337 says:

December 25, 2013 at 8:36 am
Just for the record: Here’s another one who doesn’t buy the manned moon landings anymore. While there’s a mountain of inconsistencies to discuss, this is probably neither the time nor place to do it. Just this one teaser: 44 years of technological progress, and modern heavy lift vehicles still don’t come anywhere close to the Saturn V’s capabilities. cAGW isn’t the only grand deception of the TV era…

To finish, here is another comment from WUWT.  Alan Robertson says (my bold italics):

December 25, 2013 at 7:28 am
Hello, Dorian. It’s a pity that you chose to run from the conversation. However, there is a positive aspect resulting from your unfortunate statements.

You are serving as a prime example of how people will not be shaken from their mistaken beliefs, no matter how much truthful information is given to them.

Thank you, Merry Christmas.

That could apply to 98.4% of people who comment at WUWT, although they'd have to leave WUWT if they were interested "truthful information" about climate.".