Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 6/11/2004

Question
i waz watching a movie and when they put the flag on the flag
was moving like there was wind on there? or something and
aother when the took the picture there must of been some one
else there to take the picture? and one last thing how come in
the picture there are no stars in the back round?  

Answer
Hi,
Truly spoken!
Regarding the waving of the flag, the nasa people put out an account of how that happened.
Regarding some one to take the pictures, actually if you go thru the real issues of time magazine (i had one long ago), you can actually see the reflection of the astronaut taking the picture, in the "vizor" of the astronaut being picturized.
last but not the least, I also had view-master stereo shots of the lunar landscape, and astronauts moving around and all the time (even the time magazine photos), no stars were visible. I actually was stirred up enough to ask why this was so to the grown ups and they had been hard pressed to reply.
I later reasoned about it by thinking that it was "glare" from the extremely brightly lit lunar surface that was interfereing and erasing stars.
(conviniently forgetting that glare is nonexistent in a space filled with vacuum).
But whaterver the cause, do not subscribe to any conspiracy theories. It is extremely impractical to have such a conspiracy on such a huge scale anywhere in the world. We find it very difficult to hide one single lie in our personal life, then what to say about such a collossal lie?
just forget about there being a conspiracy to fool the world about the apollo missions.
Jayen