Google Moon: NASA's LRO Attempts to Resolve the Moon Hoax Once and for All

For the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon missions, NASA has sent up a probe called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO for short. The "high quality" photos that the LRO sent back to Earth detail the landing sites of Apollo missions 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17. Google jumped at the chance to include these photos in their new Google Moon program. Anti-conspiracy theorists are currently having a heyday. The anti-hoaxers are going as far as to declare the Moon hoax "over," and, "a closed matter."

Really, though, if conspiracy theorists weren't convinced by photos of men on the moon, then why would a series of blurry, indistinguishable photos of the landing sites convince them? In an age when Photoshop makes image editing a snap, the usefulness of such photos remains dubious. Anti-hoaxers have been much too quick to jump on the "Moon hoax solved!" bandwagon. These anti-hoaxers have historically been the ones to point out the gullibility and stubbornness of hoaxers, claiming that a hoaxer can 'believe almost anything.' In the LRO matter, though, anti-hoaxers have shown themselves to be the gullible ones. Anyone with a bit of common sense should realize that NASA could have Photoshopped these landing site photos much more easily than taking them from an orbiting probe.

In the above photo, the supposed landing site has been expanded. It appears to be nothing more than a few pixels of white and dark light lumped together. This sort of editing can be done in Microsoft Paint - a program that gets shipped with every version of Windows. If NASA had really wanted to dispel the hoaxers with photos, then the LRO should have been equipped with more powerful telescopic lenses.

Have you seen Google Earth or Google Maps lately? A satellite orbiting the Earth can take clear pictures of my apartment and the automobiles parked on the streets nearby. Why, then, can a probe orbiting the Moon not take clear pictures of the Apollo landing sites? Theoretically, a Lunar probe would orbit much closer to the Moon's surface than satellites near Earth do, because the Moon exerts 1/6 of the gravitational pull of the Earth. Therefore, the telescopic lens required for close-up pictures wouldn't even have to be as strong as the ones on Earth-orbiting satellites. A probe orbiting the Moon should be able to take close-up, high quality photos of the landing sites. We should be able to see the remains of the LM quite clearly.

The above picture is a satellite view of a street in Los Angeles. Notice how an automobile is clearly visible. The remnants of the LM on the moon should be visible with a similar clarity from satellite probe equipement, because the LM remnants are of a similar size to - if not slightly larger size than - an automobile. Why was the LRO not equipped with state-of-the-art telescopic lenses for Lunar surface exploration? Wasn't that the whole purpose of the LRO?

Despite what anti-hoax enthusiasts are saying about these new LRO photos, the truth is that they do not settle the conspiracy matter. The photos only shed new light on the Moon hoax dilemma. Rather than answering questions and settling disputes, the photos seem to have opened an entirely new chapter in the Moon Hoax conspiracy.