Part two of the debunking of David Milne’s much-published “Nine Space Oddities”, which accompanied his nonsensical article claiming the lunar landings were faked. Part one, lunar golfing on Apollo 14, can be read here.

So, point two:

2. “A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16′s Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon.  Who did the filming?” [sic]

This is a particularly clever little conspiracy theory, due to the simplicity of it. A mere “who did the filming?” is enough to cast doubt in the latent viewer’s mind. This also begins an interesting and apparent issue the writer has with Apollo 16, but more of that later.

Firstly, the truth: yes, the Apollo 16 lunar module ascent stage can be seen lifting off from the moon. As I’m a big fan of facts and evidence, here’s a video of it:

Now, on first inspection, it does appear odd. After all, the two astronauts – in this case Charlie Duke and John Young – are inside the lunar lander Orion. So, who pans up? After all, even if the camera was mounted somewhere on the lunar surface, panning to follow the lander as it lifts off is a human requirement, so shouldn’t the video just show the lift off and then the Orion going out of sight? Like, er, this?

Oh. Oh dear.

The footage above is of the Apollo 15 lunar lander, Falcon, lifting off from the moon. It is the first moon-based shots of a lunar module lifting off from the lunar surface. Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 also had footage of the lunar module’s lifting off from the moon.

So what was different about these three missions? Ah, yes, this little buggy:

The Lunar Rover

Introducing the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, a most useful contraption which allowed for a much wider scope of exploration of the lunar surface.

Fantastic as the LRV was, it was heavy. In space flight, weight is everything – it controls the amount of fuel you have and use, your ability to fly in the air and the cost of the mission due to these things. The LRV was considered an essential piece of kit, but it was heavy – unloaded, it weighed 209kg. That’s a fair amount for a lunar mission. Now, the LRV only serves one purpose (to explore the moon), so why bring it back to earth – especially considering you’ve already got an extra payload in the form of moon rock samples?

Simply, you don’t – and you should be beginning to see where I’m going with this. Yes, the LRV was left on the surface of the moon, providing a perfect platform for a camera on which to film the lunar module’s ascent. The LRV was equipped with cameras, as this diagram shows:

A diagram of what was on board the Lunar Roving Vehicle

You can click to enlarge the picture.

May I draw your attention to the left hand side of the picture. Around the middle of the page, there’s an interesting little part of the LRV labelled. It reads: Television Control Unit. Things should be beginning to look fairly clear now.

For yes, the simple answer to the question is thus: the LRV was left on the surface of the moon, positioned with the camera pointing at the bound-for-lunar-orbit Lunar Module. When the astronauts left the surface, the camera was left on.

This explains the footage of Apollo 15 (which is conveniently never mentioned in the article), but what about the panning? Well, we’re back to the “television control unit”, which as the name suggests means that the camera on the LRV could be controlled remotely. It could be told to pan remotely. Not by the astronauts – they had plenty to do with the actual lift off – but by Mission Control.

Due to the time delay from the moon to the earth, the operator at Mission Control gave the order for the camera to pan up six or seven seconds before the lunar module actually launched. So, as a simple example, the timeline would look like this:

10:00.00am: Mission Control gives the order for the camera to pan.

10.00.07am: The lunar module lifts off from the moon just as the camera receives the earlier signal to pan up. The lift off is therefore captured on film.

EDIT 13/08/09

The exact timing of the “pan” signal is between two and seven seconds. I have seen different numbers written in different places and cannot give a definitive answer, but it has been suggested that the delay was only two to three seconds by a very clever person on the BAUT forum.

However, it is universally true that there was a delay – just the exact length is a minor debate point.

/ EDIT

Apollo 15 carried a camera capable of panning, but technical difficulties during the mission with the camera itself meant the pan was not possible. The idea was continued over to Apollo 16, which is a little off, timing wise. On Apollo 17, the timing is perfect – what with practice, and all.

[Thanks to commenters and forum members for the Apollo 15 correction!]

On the Lunar Surface Journal for Apollo 16, during the EVA astronaut Charlie Duke speculates on a good position to position the LRV to allow for a good shot of the lift off:

166:10:21 Young: This ridge would be a good place to park the Rover. Up north of it. I don’t know if you can stand it thermally.

166:10:28 Duke: I don’t think they can pan the camera like that, when we lift off.

This is a good example of how the move was planned and thought about well in advance.

Now this may seem like a nifty trick of timing – is such a thing, mere seconds, really possible?

Well, yes. If one looks at the surface journal for Apollo 17, you can see how detailed the countdown was:

188:01:27 Schmitt: Ten seconds.

188:01:28 Cernan: …10 seconds.

188:01:29 LM Crew: Abort Stage.

188:01:30 Cernan: …pushed. Engine Arm is Ascent.

Knowing the timings for each command, the operator at Mission Control took his cue here to give the command for the camera to pan. Space flight relies heavily on split second timing, and the camera pan is simply a nice utilization of that with which everyone was familiar.

Quick Explanation

The camera which filmed the lift off was mounted on the left-behind Lunar Landing Vehicle. At a signal in the count down to lunar ascent, a controller at Mission Control gave the order for the camera to pan up.

Oh, And…

Earlier, I briefly touched on something I first thought when I read the original article: a lot of the points involve Apollo 16. I’m not entirely sure why this is, but it sprang out at me immediately. For example, Apollo 17 also has a pan up of the lunar ascent, but is not mentioned. Apollo 16 is, and is throughout the entire article. It puzzled me.

I do have a reason why I think - personal opinion – this may be the case. Apollo 16 is incredibly useful for debunking the hoax theory (as we will later see). A lot of things happened on this mission which are useful in showing up the conspiracy theories, and I think by mentioning it often in conspiracy literature, there is a subliminal attempt to discredit Apollo 16. Now, this is only a theory, but conspiracy theorists are a diligent lot; by adding “Apollo 17″ to this theory alone, their theory gains credibility. It’s merely something I’ve pondered, but interesting nonetheless.

Extra Reading

The Lunar Landing Rover

Apollo Lunar Surface Journals