After 50 years of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, there are still skeptics who do not believe it really happened. But why is it impossible to have feigned the arrival of man on the moon?
Beginning in the 70s, conspiracy theories became important in various sectors of society. A common theory was, for example, that film director Stanley Kubrick helped NASA by falsifying the historical images of its successful landings on the Moon.
Therefore, Howard Berry , an expert in film production, has decided to explain in an interview for The Conversation , why it is impossible that the arrival of humans on the moon has been a montage .
Despite not being an engineer or a scientist, Berry can refute the most famous theories and affirm how filming would have been impossible to falsify.
«IT WAS FILMED IN A TELEVISION STUDIO»
There are two different ways to capture moving images:
- For film , real strips of photographic material to which a series of images are exposed.
- By video , an electronic method of recording on various media, such as moving a magnetic tape.
A standard motion picture movie records images at 24 frames per second, while television broadcast is usually 25 or 30 frames, depending on where you are in the world.
If the arrival to the Moon had been recorded in a television studio, then it would be 30 frames per second, which at that time was the television standard.
However, the video of the first lunar landing was recorded at ten frames per second on SSTV (slow scan television) with a special camera.
«THEY SLOWED DOWN TO MAKE IT SEEM LESS SERIOUS»
When people who move in slow motion are observed, they appear to be in a low-gravity environment.
Decreasing the speed of the film requires more frames than usual, so it starts with a camera capable of capturing more frames in a second than a normal one, which is called a supercar .
When this is played at the normal frame rate, the recording is played for a longer time.
If the camera cannot be overloaded, but it records at a normal frame rate, it may instead artificially slow the images. However, a way to store the frames and generate new additional frames is needed to reduce the speed.
At the time of transmission, magnetic disc recorders capable of storing slow-motion video sequences could only capture 30 seconds in total , for 90 seconds of slow-motion video playback.
To capture 143 minutes in slow motion , you would need to record and store 47 minutes of live action , something impossible at that time.
«NASA HAD SECRET TECHNOLOGY»
They had a secret storage recorder, but hardly had a capacity three thousand times more than normal.
«THE FLAG MOVES AND THERE IS NO WIND ON THE MOON»
Once the flag is released, it sits gently and then does not move at all in the remaining images. In addition, there is no wind inside a film studio.
Nor can it be the atmosphere of a desert, as it is very hot and you can usually see the heat waves present in the recorded images.
«LIGHTING IS THE PRODUCT OF A SPOTLIGHT; THE SHADOWS LOOK STRANGE »
The focus is the Sun. The shadows confirm it. If the light source were a close focus, the shadows would originate from a central point.
But because the Sun is far away, the shadows are parallel in most places instead of being produced from a single point.
Although, the sun is not the only source of illumination, because the light is also reflected from the ground. That can make some shadows not seem parallel.
«STANLEY KUBRICK FILMED IT»
Stanley Kubrick could have been asked to fake the Moon landings. But since he was such a perfectionist, he would have insisted on filming him there. Besides, Kubrick didn’t like to fly.