Build two human-sized robust mainly dumb androids with nuclear batteries, cameras, touch sensors and controllable joints and send them to the Moon in the vicinity of an Apollo landing site. Link them to virtual reality set-ups on this planet. Train people to use them through an interface and a stage set up to look like the site in question with an appropriate delay. Make them available to scientists, people who believe the moonlandings were a hoax, politicians, winners of a lottery and randomly selected members of the population. If one breaks down, use the other one as an interface to repair it.
This will address a number of problems:
- The problem of not sending humans to the Moon and having to explore it with less flexibly-designed machines will be partly solved. The situation won't be ideal because of the delay and bandwidth problems, but will still be better than nothing. Tools for tests and experiments could be sent with them to enable more sophisticated experiments to be carried out on site.
- The hoax believers will be able to visit the Moon virtually and do almost anything they like up there, like try to wander off set, see if there's artificial lighting, make sure it's not just slowed-down video and so forth. It will at least stimulate their creativity regarding ideas of the Moon hoax.
- The proposition that being on the Moon gives people a healthy perspective on life, world peace, politics and so forth will be tested and possibly confirmed. Politicians and probably others (e.g. Richard Branson) will be able to "go to the Moon" and see this planet small enough to be blotted out with the palm of one hand, and also have the kind of insights such as led to the concept of nuclear winter. Randomly chosen people, who might not be that interested at first, distributed fairly evenly through the population of Earth will have a different and possibly influential perspective.
- The lottery will subsidise or maybe even entirely fund the project.
- The androids would be self-maintaining to some extent.
- It would be cheaper and easier than sending astronauts.-- nineteenthly, May 31 2012 Nuclear batteries for human cardiac pacemakers. http://home.comcast...lear_pacemakers.pdf [UnaBubba, May 31 2012] Mr iBad Mr_20iBad [oscil8, Jun 02 2012] I like the idea, but don't think we should make use of this technology available to apollo-deniers, on account of me wanting a go first. However, if it turns out to be necessary for me to disbelieve the Moon-landings in order to join in, then that's perfectly feasable too.-- zen_tom, May 31 2012 Clearly there is a loophole there, in that pretending to believe they're a hoax would get you a go. I personally was wondering about bandwidth problems because of frame rate and resolution on the camera.-- nineteenthly, May 31 2012 I have already set this up and flown the Androids to the moon using some cheap mostly complete soviet technology from the early 1970s. If you would like to wire me the money I will be able to let you browse through my garden.. sorry lunar landing site through the use of the internet. Via a black and white monitor. Owing to the delays you will have to request the co-ordinates that you would like to view and I will instruct my droids to go there and send back an image to your email address for a mere $1m setup + $100k per image, if you are able to get lottery funding then I will be happy to accept their payments.-- PainOCommonSense, May 31 2012 I appreciate the problem. The interaction via the androids should help to overcome this. For example, it could be left up to the individuals who suspect that the scenario you describe is the case to detect and transmit signals from the appropriate location on the Moon, or to choose something about the interaction which can't be faked. What this would be is another question, which could probably be answered by going through www.clavius.org until you find the kind of claim which could be refuted only if they were actually on the Moon. For instance, building a large enough cairn to cast a shadow or spelling out a word which can be seen from orbiting probes. I'm sure there's a way of doing this. For instance, pick up the laser reflector and change the angle at a rate you choose, then have it confirmed by observatories.-- nineteenthly, May 31 2012 If anybody has a 'nuclear battery' small enough to fit into a human-sized armature, it's news to me. However, if you're prepared to go a bit bigger, the Heathen Institute of Inadvisably Applied Science & Specialty Pet Grooming would be happy to lease you a pair of Nuclear Powered Giant Space Rhinoceroses. They're only about twice the size of a Tatooine Sand Crawler, and they come with their own giant space wasp deployment system. Best of all, they're already rigged with a hi-def video feed for the pay- per-view channel.-- Alterother, May 31 2012 Another option for power might be to have solar-recharged batteries and have long periods of down time, or a solar array nearby into which they could be plugged when low on power.-- nineteenthly, May 31 2012 Just like a conventional nuclear powered android on the Moon, except there's two of them in this instance.-- ytk, May 31 2012 Except that strictly speaking they're not androids but remote- controlled ambulatory rovers.-- nineteenthly, May 31 2012 Sure, and they could start working on building lunar base right away!-- Inyuki, May 31 2012 Alterorder Inc. will be happy to help with the excavation. Our space resources specialize in that sort of thing.-- Alterother, May 31 2012 See what you don't understand, [Alter]. <link>-- UnaBubba, May 31 2012 [19thly], how do we know that you've really gone to the moon with these devices? How do we know you haven't just put a couple of robots inside a hollow sphere, reduced the gravity a bit and used projectors to show the sort of scenery your viewers expect, to create this illusion?-- UnaBubba, May 31 2012 The hollow sphere could be defeated simply by having the androids walk away from each-other.-- Voice, May 31 2012 The universe is a toroid, in all directions. The sphere is obviously the same sort of thing. That's what scientists do, to fool the unwary.-- UnaBubba, May 31 2012 Thanks, [UB].-- Alterother, May 31 2012 Someone's gotta defend the fundamentalist kooks. ;)-- UnaBubba, May 31 2012 A cheaper way would be to get some NASA bod to go on TV and say it was all a lie.
The conspiracy theorists would spend all their time trawling data to find proof that it did actually happen.
So, it would tend to reduce disbelief.-- not_morrison_rm, May 31 2012 I saw part of a video recently, of some Midwestern lackwit disproving the fact that the Earth is rotating, by flying a model helicopter off the roof of his pickup truck.
The "dingaling factor" is embedded a lot deeper in the gun-totin', gawd-fearin' psyche than we know, sadly.-- UnaBubba, Jun 01 2012 Link, [UB]?
There needs to be some kind of interaction which can be observed or detected from a distance. Using a satellite to observe them is liable to lead to accusations of faking. Manipulating laser reflectors seems to be one answer and there may be others.
I've not checked the link yet but i definitely have the impression that nuclear power would be adequate. I would like it to be possible for them to disappear over the horizon from the landing site. The larger the range over which they can wander, the less feasible the idea of a hoax becomes.-- nineteenthly, Jun 01 2012 //interaction which can be observed or detected from a distance.
Ach, you could fake that up with weapons salve..-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 01 2012 The androids are unlikely to effect a sea-change in perspective when they have to contend with Mr iBad's iosbots beaming an Instagrammatic counter-perspective back to earth-- oscil8, Jun 02 2012 I suppose you could give the two robots their own conspiracy site, they could spend all their time arguing about the possibility of these so-called "humans".
Topics to include lots of grainy videos of "humans", they can argue about the directions of shadows etc. Although I suspect conspiracy theorists are immune to satire?-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 02 2012 random, halfbakery