Comments by "H. de Jong" (@h.dejong2531) on "How Do We Know What the Milky Way Really Looks Like?" video.

Close to aborting: Yes. The descent module had about 45 seconds worth of fuel left. The ascent module is entirely separate: separate engine, separate fuel tanks. The fuel state of the descent module has no influence on the ascent module. The lunar rover was driving at less than 10 km/h, so that's the maximum speed imparted on the dust by the wheels. In 0.16 G, reaching an altitude of 2 ft is about what you'd expect. No atmosphere necessary. They didn't bring a baseball. They did do some experiments, one with a golf ball and another with a javelin. Several astronauts reported seeing stars. They had to be in the right place to do that: in the shadow of the LM, or in the CM on the shadow side of the Moon. Most of the time, Collins was in bright daylight, so it's no surprise he didn't see stars. The focus of the Apollo missions was the Moon. So everything they did was focused on that. Taking photos of the stars wasn't a priority. Remember they had to use photographic film, which severely limited the number of photos they could take.
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@michaellyne8773 Every moon hoaxer argument falls apart with 5 minutes of examination. "shadows going the wrong way": shadows are only parallel if both shadows fall on the same surface. The photo used by hoaxers shows one shadow on a flat surface, and the other going through a crater. That argument fails. Moon dust doesn't need moisture to clump together. It consists of irregular shapes that can interlock under pressure. That argument fails as well. I could go on, but you'd just stick your finger in your ears and go 'lalalalala I can't hear you'. You've fallen for nonsense thought up by charlatans who wanted to make money selling books.
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@michaellyne8773 The astronauts were used to small spaces. Look up the Mercury and Gemini capsules: the astronauts had a seat, and a tiny bit of elbow room. Yet they spent up to 12 days in those tiny spacecraft. None of them would let that get in the way of a chance of walking on the moon. Many astronauts were Air Force test pilots, well used to danger (in the 1960s, there were test pilot fatalities every year). That didn't stop them from doing their job either. You may be claustrophobic and risk-averse, that does not say anything about the astronauts.
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@michaellyne8773 From 1958, 5 missions studied the van Allen belts. Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 confirmed the existence of the belt. The trapped radiation was first mapped by Explorer 4, Pioneer 3, and Luna 1. So you're contradicting yourself. Either these missions failed and we have no idea there's a radiation belt, or they succeeded and we have a map that shows the radiation intensity for each location, allowing us to plot a safe trajectory. You still don't understand how radiation works. The total dose is intensity times duration. And you have no idea how fast the Apollo spacecraft was. After the translunar injection burn, it was traveling at 10 km/s. The van Allen belts stretch out over 30,000 km, with the high-intensity areas limited to 30% of that. That leads to 1 hour spent in high-intensity areas, and 2 hours in lower intensity areas, (1-10% of maximum intensity). This leads to a total exposure of 1% of a lethal dose. In summary: on one hand we have science: we measured the van Allen belts, and we found a way to get through them without killing the astronauts. On the other hand we have your bluster and handwaving that isn't based on data.
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Yes. Much sooner than that, actually. Polaris won't be the North Star in a few thousand years. The constellations are visibly different now compared to the first decently accurate star catalog from 2000 years ago.
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@michaellyne8773 It'd be difficult, but not impossible. I don't get people like you: you read a detailed account of how it was done, and you blithely dismiss that with "derp, must be fake" without having any evidence to support your claim.
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@michaellyne8773 Those aren't anomalies, they are your lack of understanding. Moon hoaxers argue from ignorance: "I don't understand this, so it must be fake". Russia had a number of 'firsts' in the space race. What you're ignoring is that the Americans were only months behind in many cases. After Sputnik, the USA started investing massively in spaceflight. Within years, they had overtaken the Russians, by outspending them: in 1970, the US space budget was 7 times higher than that of the USSR.
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@michaellyne8773 For radiation, there are 2 important variables: 1. the radiation intensity 2. the amount of time you are exposed to this intensity. You can multiply these two and get the total radiation dose. Humans die if they receive a dose of about 300 Rad. In 1958, James van Allen and his team used the Explorer 1 satellite to discover the belts that were later named after him. He also measured the radiation intensity. This is what he found: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week, you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. When the Apollo astronauts flew through the van Allen belts (which took about _one hour_), they received a dose of radiation of between 0.16 and 1.14 rads, or less than 1% of a lethal dose. You can see why other missions stay below the van Allen belts: most missions are too long to be survivable without shielding. Again, you're arguing from ignorance instead of reading up on the van Allen belts.
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These days, we have accurate measurements of the position of a billion stars. We're a lot closer to knowing the galaxy's shape accurately than we were 30 years ago.
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Those films aren't "the truth". They're full of errors and downright lies.
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You should watch the video: we don't have to guess.
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@mrs6968 Have a look at this. Gaia is a satellite that measures the positions and motion of stars very accurately. Using Gaia data, scientists made this visualization of how those stars will move over the next few million years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lgSRVUSxM
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The 8 classical planets are within ~10º of the ecliptic plane. We have lots of KBOs at much higher inclination angles. And our ecliptic is at a large angle relative to the Milky Way's plane.
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Scientists use km.
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No, it makes Earth the center of the observable universe. Observers on any planet in the universe would see everything else moving away from them too.
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Voyager : no, the cameras on the Voyagers no longer work. The New Horizons team recently published results of some parallax observations.
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