Image from "LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites"

Thanks to favorable lighting and high resolution, a photo of the Apollo 14 site shows not only the lander but also the surface experiment package deployed by the astronauts. Best of all, the 150-meter path made by the astronauts walking from the lander to deploy the package is also visible. This photo should convince most remaining doubters that twelve astronauts from planet Earth really did walk on our Moon four decades ago.

David Morrison seems to be stunningly naïve about what will "convince most remaining doubters" about the Apollo Moon landings. If the doubters are willing to entertain the idea that thousands of people are still actively covering up their involvement in faking live television broadcasts from the Moon, will a bunch of easily Photoshopped pictures of the alleged landing sites from a satellite be at all convincing? I predict that the doubters will follow James Randi's argument against Uri Geller by saying something like, "We were able to make an image that looks just like the LRO image in five minutes through trickery, so why should we believe that NASA did it for real?" Personally, I think the LRO images of the Apollo landing sites are wonderful, but the idea that they will convince even a single doubter in this age of easy, at-home photo manipulation seems to be the result of an idealism that's been proven wildly unrealistic by claims that the hoax believers have been making for decades already.

David Morrison responds: The point is well taken, and perhaps I am naïve. Following the argument to the extreme, even if we sent a new group of astronauts to take photos and collect artifacts at one of the Apollo sites, the hardcode conspiracy theorists would claim that expedition was also faked, and so on ad infinitum. A more realistic target are the millions of young people from outside the U.S., like many Indian college students I have met, who have been told their whole lives that Apollo was faked and have never heard the counterarguments. I still have faith that they might respond to these Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photos.

I just wanted to say that I agree with your response to my letter, except that the "hardcore conspiracy theorists" don't really know national borders, either. I mean yes, millions of students from the world around (and even within the U.S.) will respond well to the LRO photos, but there will always be a small subset of them who will be contrarians to the bitter end. They will never be reachable, and so I think it's important to focus our energies and arguments on those who are more reasonable. I suppose I'm trying to say that you and I are probably on the same page, and perhaps "stunningly naive" was a bit overblown. Thanks for the reply. Keep up the good work!