I think it's a wind up - "you can see the strings" ?? Is that just a general phrase or is he thinking of literal thunderbirds?

No the flag waving urban myth is quite common.People will believe anything their mate in the pub tells them.Point out that NASA may have just considered the value of good photoes, given that the whole race to the moon was a PR exercise, and therefore sent up a flag with wire in it so it looked good, and you will get nowhere.

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Blog...http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets. Nye Bevan

Would you even need a wire? If you unfolded a flag in low grav, wouldn't it stay that way for a while?

Only a bit.

I often wonder how the conspiracy theorists (or 'twat-faced thick bastards' as we refer to them chez Armsteen) explain the filmed experiment to prove Galileo - a hammer and a feather dropped at the same time fell together at the same acceleration and hit the ground simultaneously. Show me how THAT was done before CGI.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

Oh but we didn't have the technology because it was 40 years ago and of course everything was more primitive then so the hammer and feather must've all been on strings or something! FFS. As I've said before, we can no longer cross the Atlantic at supersonic speed in a passenger plane. Does this mean Concorde didn't exist? Of course not. The Romans used concrete in building; following the end of the empire the method of making it was then forgotten about for hundreds of years. Does this mean they didn't actually use concrete? No. We haven't been able to figure out till recently how the pyramids were built. Does this mean they were constructed by aliens because, like, how could people 4,000-odd years ago have known something we didn't? Like shit it does.

Morons.

Sadly I don't know,but I would imagine they weren't taking any chances.

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Blog...http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets. Nye Bevan

More than you could ever want to know about the Apollo flags - and loads of other good Apollo-conspiracy-theory-debunking info on that site

The conspiracy theorists display an undeserved faith in the ability of the US government to keep a secret. This is the state which failed to cover up Watergate, Clinton’s sexual activities and Guantanamo Bay and many, many more far less sensational stories than “moon landings were fakes”, they simply lack the competence. The sheer number of people that would need to have been in on the fakery, coupled with the potential for vast financial reward for a whistleblower’s story, stretches credibility way beyond breaking point.
The absolute clincher however is that, to my knowledge, at no time did the USSR ever question or dispute the moon landings. At the time the Soviets were running a huge espionage operation in the USA and it would have been the biggest propaganda scoop of the Cold War for them to have been able to call the US out as liars when they had just been trumped in the race to the Moon. The fact that they never did is overwhelming evidence.

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

Yeah, the Soviets were tracking the Americans all the way to the moon and back - they had more reason than anyone to call fake. And as you say, I seriously doubt that the 400,000 or so people who worked on the American space program, plus their families, friends, the media, the local merchants and hoteliers who served them etc etc etc would all, every one of them, be able to keep the secret. Plus it's kind of hard to fake the launch of something that can be seen three states away.

I was at the Cape for Apollo 15 and 17. Saw the Saturn Vs from 1/4 mile, and the launches from 3 1/2 and nine miles. Watching a launch on TV pales in comparison. You had to be there to appreciate just how powerful the Saturn V was.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

One of my favourite conspiracy theories is this.

I'm envious of you.

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'Because we've reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us'

So am I, I'd give my right tit to be able to go back in time and see a Saturn V launch. I've been to a space shuttle launch which was amazing but nothing would beat the Saturn.

Story about a driver doing a U-turn on a motorway:

Can't we get him to tell us where he lives so we can go round and slap him around the head?

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)