People keep saying the moon landing was faked because of the flag moving, but they miss the real physics

I watched a video last night where someone said the flag waving proved it was a soundstage. The thing is, they put a horizontal rod in the top of the flag to make it look unfurled in the still photos. When they planted it, the pole vibrated and the flag kept moving because there's no air to slow it down. That's basic inertia, not wind. I saw a NASA engineer explain this in a 2019 talk. Why do so many people fixate on the flag and ignore the actual, simple science?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jenny1d ago

Isn't it weird how people latch onto one visual detail and ignore the whole explanation? It's like when someone sees a magician and just shouts "wires!" without even trying to figure out the trick. @nathang67 is right about the air thing, and it's the same with other stuff, like seeing steam from a manhole cover and yelling "earthquake!" instead of just, you know, city pipes. We see something that looks odd to us and jump to a big story, instead of checking the simple facts first. The flag thing is a perfect example of that.

nathang671d ago

You know, I read that same thing about the horizontal rod. It was in an old article from a science magazine I had lying around. The lack of air resistance is the key part everyone forgets.