Whitey Grandad

Ok, so is it time for the next?

No, this one's a copy and hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. My version was much better and the bint's stomach was a bit flatter. I had to swap it for a roll of toilet paper when I got desperate so I don't know where it is now. Tokyo, thanks for the tribute but please feel free to find another anytime you fancy...

The trajectories were designed to avoid the densest parts of the belts, or rather to negotiate the weaker parts. I don't consider the photos to be pristine, just very good. I would say that the evidence we have, the photos themselves, neither prove nor disparove whether the particle radiation would have degraded them enough to be significant. Do you accept that they could have gone there and back without being degraded?

Very decent of you. As far as I know with my limited experience of these matters the only cameras that flash are the Gatso and I did not think that there were any mobile versions of those. It would have been a double flash, surely?

It will only be a simulated apocalypse.

Good, now you are realising what really matters.

Once again, you are confusing speed with driving safely. Please note that I said 'speed' and not 'driving too fast'. A safe driver will be concentrating on the road and all that is going on about him. He adjusts his speed to suit the ambient conditions and perceived dangers. He is not staring at his speedometer.

But do they actually make the world a safer place?

Not at all. You are confusing 'driving at a lower speed' with 'driving more safely'. 'Avoiding punishment' for what exactly? One moment you talk about obeying laws, the next you are in favour of false evidence.

Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so,ad infinitum. (The Siphonaptera, by Augustus De Morgan, 1872, after Jonathan Swift'sOn Poetry: a Rhapsody, 1733)

It's my plot, I'll take it wherever I like.

Such zealotry cannot be for real, unless he is an 'elf & safety inspector.

So, as far as the film is concerned the only way to find out is to send it out and back. It does not seem unreasonable to me for the film and its photos to have survived such a journey. The dosimeters did and these normally work on the same principle. Clavius do (does?) explain the difference between intensity and strength of radiation and between particles, whihc are straightforward to screen, and rays which are less so.

Quite a good chance. We know this because the film went to the moon and back. Nukes in outer space have a very short-term effect. There is an instantaneous (almost) burst of radiation but no blast and no radioactive fall-out (or fall-up).

Quite true. I wasn't actually thinking of looking for evidence of moon landings, rather that a high resolution earth-based telescope would have been used for other astronomical purposes such as mapping the moon, or indeed Mars or Mercury which have very thin atmospheres.

No earth-based telescope can give results sufficiently detailed of the moon's surface. If they could have, they would have, but they haven't.

I wouldn't call them pristine, but that report doesn't say that they would be ruined, just that colour negative films were more likely to be affected that positives, which I believe was the type used on Apollo? At the time of the landings there was a lot of talk about monitoring solar flares and maybe having to abort the mission or EVA if there were an eruption. They tell us that airport x-rays won't affect your photographs but I don't believe that. All radiation will have some effect but the real question is how significant. It would have been easy for a faker to have stuck the slides in an x-ray for a few minutes if they had wanted to.

Yes, I built it and I am in total control. It explains a lot.

I haven't seen any lies, yet.

Just in case your comment is not tongue-in-cheek: There is a mini newspaper produced by The Independent and called simply 'I' The Guardian is notorious for spelling mistakes and was nicknamed 'The Grauniad' by Private Eye.

I would leave out the second part about not being driven all day. They may have a photo somewhere.

I watched that programme last night and wasted another hour of my life. Noting but a load of dimwits saying 'believe me, it was all faked' and 'ooh, it was ever so difficult, far too difficult for me to understand'. The crosshairs appear to 'disappear' when they are swamped by saturated white surfaces. It's nothing other than overexposure off the photographic emulsion in those areas. Ok then Pap. We've spent long enough on this, let's take the conspiracist points one at a time and we'll try to convince you. Please pick one to start.

That's a good point. Speaking the language is good training for the mouth and its muscles and uses a different part of the brain which helps to memorise the words and phrases.

There is no cheese on the moon. I think we can all agree on that?

It might have been someone taking a photo of their wife/girlfriend/dog/tortoise or all four?