NASA (as well as popular radio ham journals) even sold documents showing you how to do it, such as this one. The images were used in many journals and research programmes, even daily newspapers and no-one has ever questioned them. They were used in conjunction with weather charts and no-one has ever questioned these. As mentioned in section 2, I’ve done it myself in the 1980s. Contributors to this amateur radio website describe receiving and processing ATS-3 signals in the early 1970s, and here’s one produced in 1972 by a Czechoslovakian and US amateurs (figure 5.9.3). The section on Apollo 12’s first day used a NIMBUS-3 image captured by an amateur enthusiast. The QST magazine has regular articles about weather satellites, showing just how secret the whole business was!

Figure 5.9.10: Hurricane Bernice on July 15th 1969 (left) and 16th (right).

The quick answer is: they couldn’t and didn’t. They were relying on ground and atmospheric data to predict the track of the hurricane, there is no way they could predict that it would end up in that shape.

They also didn’t have weather satellites “long before” Apollo - in fact it was just a few years - the science was in its infancy. This 1973 publication (which contains the images of Hurricane Bernice’s development in July 1969) summarises the state of the art nicely:

"Knowledge of the physical behaviour of this kind of storm has progressed to the point where it is possible to issue alerts and provisional warnings to the public for areas which may be affected by them. But so far, it is impossible to predict the exact times and locations at which these severe storms may occur."

and

"The public benefit [of satellite information] is tremendous but the system is too new for its potential to be fully realised"

So even after Apollo had finished the science of satellite meteorology is still in relative infancy and could not do what Jarrah claims. This 1968 article also makes an interesting point when discussing the use of satellite data in predicting the development of hurricanes:

“Satellite data, which have become increasingly available during recent years, have helped in the detection and tracking of the hurricanes…They have not been used, however, in the development of forecasts of hurricane motion”

Showing that, during the Apollo era at least,while you can tell where a hurricane might be heading, you can’t tell what it will look like when it gets there.

Even by 1972 we have comments like this in the Mariner’s Weather Log,

“The meteorologist is often asked whether satellite observations have reduced the need for ship reports. Quite the contrary is true. Before the satellite meteorologist can understand what he sees in the pictures, he must compare them with other known data…”

Showing that satellite images were not (and still are not) the be all and end all of weather forecasting.

This paper from 1975 looks at the use of satellite imagery to predict hurricane development, and is interesting in that it uses images downloaded in Berlin from US satellites. However, in a response to it a contributor to the journal notes the need for experienced satellite image interpreters and wonders whether different people would arrive at different interpretations. Clearly the early years of satellite meteorology not only required the development of instrumentation that complemented visual ones but also the training of meteorologists in interpreting the data correctly. Even by the mid 1970s this was still under debate.

This page, written to commemorate 50 years since Apollo 11’s landing, as well as this article, use modern computers to input the known weather details for Apollo 11 and 17 to see what the computer could come up with. It is close, but even modern technology can’t get it absolutely right (figure 5.9.11). You could not, absolutely not, have predicted the Earth as seen by Apollo using the weather data they had.

The images were also distributed to newspapers well in advance of the events they related to, and again you may have noticed regular inclusion of images printed in the Sarasota Herald Tribune every day that could not be manipulated after the fact. Figure 5.9.9 shows one issued in advance of Apollo 12’s splashdown, and while Apollo 12 doesn’t have any images of Earth taken on this date it does show that the images were available and not some carefully controlled secret.

Figure 5.9.9: Press photo sold on eBay showing the satellite image of landing area of Apollo 12 compared with ESSA view of the landing area on the 22nd (top and bottom left) and the 23rd (bottom middle and right).

There are a couple of things worth pointing out here. Firstly, we can check the ESSA data to make sure that it is actually from the date it is claimed to be, and indeed it is. The cloud patterns around the landing area on the 23rd are very different on the days 22nd (there is no global ESSA mosaic for the 24th). The second point is the source - it is given as ESSA in the photograph, but it seems highly unlikely given the way that ESSA images were compiled. My opinion, and I am happy to stand corrected, is that this is an ATS-1 view of the landing area. An image dated the 23rd would actually not have covered the landing area until as late as 02:00 GMT on the 24th, and even a west coast press photo at 8 hours behind GMT would struggle to get that image collated, processed, georectified to produce the correct 3D view of the Earth and then released on the 23rd.  There are also subtle differences between the image shown and the ESSA view. A single ATS-1 image, however, would simply need to be processed and then released. While we don’t have access to any, we do know the satellite was still active, and it seems the newspaper is mistaken.

The point remains: the satellite image was freely available and published in a newspaper.

A further indication of how available these images were is indicated in this paper. It is based on the activities of a UN cruise off West Africa using a Bureau of Commercial Fisheries vessel (the ‘Undaunted’) registered in Miami. The vessel was fitted with receiver terminals for both ATS and ESSA satellites. The authors discuss how the images were obtained and their quality, give a couple of example, and also make this comment:

“To supplement the shipboard TV -pictures, 276 ESSA-6 pictures of African coastal waters during September 15 -December 1, 1968, were purchased from the Mulemba Astronomical Observatory. Luanda, Angola.”

At the time Angola was still effectively a Portuguese colony. Not only were they able to download them on board, they were able to get copies from an African observatory to verify that their images were accurate. Likewise this article, discussing what was then Rhodesia’s attempt to download satellite imagery for weather forecasting says:

“Meteorological Office technicians now regularly record the pulses emitted by weather satellites, particularly Nimbus II, as they pass over southern Africa – but instead of using the sophisticated equipment designed for the purpose which may be imported from Britain or America at a cost of between £10 000 and £18 000, they use equipment designed, constructed and adapted in their own workshops at a cost of less than £200.”

and

“Outside Rhodesia, Kenya is believed to be the only country in Africa at present tapping the information available from the American weather satellites as they cross and re-cross the skies of this continent.  The weather pictures recorded in Salisbury are made freely available to forecasting stations in other parts of the sub-continent.”

Two African countries there helping themselves to satellite data freely available. Similarly this article describes how

“…in 1974 in an attempt to investigate the possibility of receiving satellite signals. Results with relatively unsophisticated apparatus showed that these radio signals could be tracked very well. Since very strong signals were received from the weather satellites ESSA 8 and NOAA 3, it was decided to develop the necessary apparatus for the demodulation of picture data from weather satellites.”

The page also mentions Russian Meteor satellites and their broadcasting frequencies. Countries all over the globe were clearly making use, officially or otherwise, of the satellite transmissions showing the weather.

Given the ready availability of satellite transmissions and the relative ease of decoding them, suggesting that the satellite images themselves were faked really is clutching at the flimsiest of imaginary straws.

A side argument here is a claim by some morons (specifically Jarrah White, but others have joined in the straw clutching) that satellites had been used by NASA to predict the weather, then they were able to predict where the clouds would be and therefore make fake images to put in the broadcasts.

Here, for example, is Jarrah’s knee-jerk take on it, which he repeats on many of his youtube uploads:

“...these videos have been compared with photos of earth taken by weather satellites in orbit at the time. Naturally, the pro-NASA side has been quick to call this "evidence". This trait is typical among propagandists: they present a piece of data or video that they don't know how to fake, and they assume that anything they don't know how to fake must be evidence that Apollo was real. Considering that NASA had many weather satellites in orbit long before and during Apollo, and that meteorologists had been using such satellite photographs to predict cloud formations and thus make forecasts for the week's weather, I'd say that's how NASA was able to get the cloud positions right in these videos.”

I’d argue first of all that his response is typical of liars who make stuff up about Apollo - they get evidence that blows their crap out of the water and they respond by making things up. I call it more than evidence, I call it proof.

Jarrah also says that

“Apparently the cloud formations seen in these telecasts are similar to those seen by weather satellites”.

Here’s the thing Jarrah, they aren’t similar, they match perfectly, which is remarkable given that the images hadn’t been completed at the time of the broadcasts. The use of the word ‘apparently’ also suggests he hasn’t actually seen any of the satellite images, so he’s trying to pass a judgement without knowing what he’s actually making a judgement about.

As was discussed in the introductory pages of this research, in the early days of satellite meteorology weather images were used to verify other data, not to predict the weather. Even those NASA staff with access to them recognised that they weren’t that good, eg Richard Underwood, a key figure in Apollo photography procedures

“These were rather rudimentary satellites compared to today's satellites, but you had the general idea”

They were still unclear as to how clouds behaved and what the satellite images were actually showing, and much of the early research publications are based around ‘ground truthing’ satellite data. How, for example, could they have taken the satellite image of Hurricane Bernice from the day before launch and converted that into what was visible the day of the broadcast, as shown in figure 5.9.10.

That’s right, no computer terminals, no banks of whirring tapes, just a bunch of guys gathered round some print-outs.

Jarrah also needs to consider that the TV broadcasts were made before the satellite images were available, so in order for his scenario to be true it’s actually the weather forecasters who are having to fake the data to match Apollo images. Which is it Jarrah? Were all the world’s meteorologists in on it, given that anyone could get these satellite images? Is everyone wrong except you?

In a nutshell Jarrah, and everyone else who tries to dismiss the weather satellite data, is just desperately clutching at straws to try and handwave away the proof of what they are: ignorant bullshit artists.

Speaking of bullshit artists, this site came to my attention thanks to a moon hoax social media group. It was posted as a way of saying that the Russians never said “but it was faked”. They seem to have mistaken “some Russians are saying it was faked” for “actual Russians who know what they’re talking about said was faked at the time”, but whatever.

One article on there, namely this one, makes some claims that are relevant to this discussion, so let’s have a look.

We have to make allowances for Google translate, but in a nutshell their argument is that NASA used the ATS satellites in geostationary orbit to fake the Apollo images, and that they were able to do this by not releasing many images of Earth.

Let’s examine their nonsense.

One of their first objections to the available satellite image record is that ATS-1 only posted black and white images. This is despite them finding this website stating that:

“Experiments successfully conducted with the ATS-1 included photographs of earth, color television transmission, and a demonstration of multiple access capability with several ground stations at the same time”

They conclude from this that there should be images of Earth in colour. The problem is that the colour television images are just that: colour television. ATS-1 was a multi-purpose satellite, and could be used to relay TV pictures. It had, however, no colour capability of its own.

The authors then turn their attention to ATS-3, which genuinely did have colour capability, at least for the first few months if its life before the cameras malfunctioned. In their version of events, the successful deployment of Soviet satellites in a Molniya orbit (an eccentric one designed to maximise coverage of the USSR) forced NASA to show colour images. Then, for some reason, they decided to stop.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. The colour images (and there were far more than the three claimed in the article, and not all of them were fully illuminated disks) were published because they existed. They existed because they could be taken. The Soviets had no influence on them whatsoever - in fact, the main role of colour was to help determine cloud heights, not act as a background for Apollo. The partial disks, they claim, were hidden so as to reserve them for faking Apollo photographs. Again, nonsense, as can be seen from the many examples of partial disks available in the data catalogs that were freely available (figure 5.9.13).

Figure 5.9.12: analysis of a hemisphere’s weather data.

Source: Youtube

Obviously “Scott” needs to research how many satellites were working simultaneously, but “Xiaoyaozi”, the facebook name for the fake “Dr. Rasaviharii” (whatever he says, he’s not a doctor, he doesn’t work for the Chinese Space Programme) is desperately flailing to cover up the holes in his theories. I assume by “NASA website” he means the ALSJ (who do reference this site), which may be hosted by NASA but isn’t run by it. You may not like the source, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s also telling that he can’t be bothered to verify the data. He’s either lazy or scared that it might shake his foundations too much.

Granted it is difficult to deny the interlinked nature of the various organisations involved. ESSA, NOAA, JPL, NASA are all involved in building and launching satellites and operating them afterwards, but while many hoax believers will raise a big “A-HAA!” at this, it is not in itself proof of anything and merely adds more players into the cast of alleged fakers.

The other factor to bear in mind here is that the satellite images were 'free to air' broadcasts. Anyone could download them providing they had the equipment. As this 1968 first day cover in figure 5.9.2 shows, 45 countries used the data that these satellites collected.

Figure 5.9.2: First day cover from my collection celebrating the launch of ESSA-8 in 1968

An advert in a well known journal in 1969 has adverts for ‘inexpensive’ satellite receiver systems (see figure 5.9.4)

Figure 5.9.4: 1969 Advert for satellite receiver system.

There is an interesting corollary to this argument. While the photographs are not exact replicas of Apollo images, the powerful modern computing techniques applied to the available data at the time were able to produce good facsimiles of them. Despite not having the computing power to predict what the visual appearance of Earth’s weather system would look like, Apollo photographs are a very good match with those created by 21st century computer models. In other words the modern techniques verify the accuracy of Apollo’s imagery. This can only be because it’s genuine.

By way of comparison with modern technology, figure 5.9.12, taken from a video promoting the DoD’s DMSP programme, shows just how advanced the interpretation of weather images from space in the early days of the science.

Not to mention this film, again freely available, that showed the passage of night and day across the Earth’s disk.

The authors then move on to construct ever more elaborate strawmen. They have managed to find two special publications (Life Magazine and Look magazine) both of which contain one image of Earth, namely AS11-36-5355, but seem to think this is the only image of Earth published by anybody anywhere. Anyone who has perused the entirety of my site will know that this is nonsense - many images of Earth from the mission were available in a variety of publications. They are puzzled as to why the image’s metadata aren’t published, but they really need to take that up with the publishers. NASA themselves were quite free with the information, as shown in the contemporary print below from my own collection (figure 5.9.14).

Figure 5.9.14: Original print of AS11-36-5355, from my own collection, with image details on the reverse shown above.

Likewise they need to contact the owners of other publications and websites to ask them why they produce different distance and date figures from NASA’s, and edit the image differently. The actual facts have been freely available for over 50 years, you just need to be prepared to look for them. They are not different images taken on different days, they are the same image that people have given the wrong information for. Do your research!

There’s a lot more strawmen production and “this is what they must have done” involving nothing more than fabrication and ignorance.

Different images of Earth are claimed to be reproductions using satellite images with no proof. They claim that because geostationary satellites can be placed in transfer orbits that allow them to change position, then they must have moved them around. They would have been very busy, because at the same time as Apollo 11 was photographing Africa ATS-3 was firmly positioned over the mid-Atlantic. They claim ATS-1 was imaging Australia, despite the fact that it didn’t cover Australia. Figure 5.9.15 shows images of Earth taken at different times (which can be confirmed by the clouds on ATS-3 images!) but all over the same spot. In other words, it didn’t move, it couldn’t have within the time available and wouldn’t have had the fuel!

It’s worth bearing in mind here that an image was taken every 20 minutes by ATS-3, any sudden movement from side to side would have been noticed very quickly. They note in their article that the ATS images don’t change latitude much, but while (for example) Greenland is obviously visible in Apollo 11 views, it is barely visible at all in ATS-3 shots. While they point at the Molniya orbits and the photos taken by Zond showing similar angles (see this section), they can’t produce any actual evidence for anything producing similar photos for Apollo 11 - except Apollo 11!

Likewise their accusation that ATS-1 images were used to fake three different views of Australia (figure 5.9.16).

Like many hoax idiots, they assume that NASA is behind this flickr account and claim all other images of Earth have magically appeared in 2004 when in reality they were publicly available at the time - even appearing on CD-ROMs available in the late 90s. Original prints showing Earth come up regularly at auctions and on sites like this. My own site has plenty.

They ignore all the 16mm and TV images of Earth and seem to think that the only images that exist are ones in popular magazines, not realising that documents like this published all of them. They don’t seem to know that there are images taken at regular intervals that can’t possibly have been taken by a satellite because it couldn’t have moved that far or that fast.

They don’t trust the electronic versions of the photographs but don’t seem willing or able to find the many original copies that exist out there.

They base a hefty chunk of their hoax claims on the editorial decisions of magazine editors rather than the facts that are available to anyone who cares to look: Apollo happened, weather satellites are the nail in the coffin of the hoax, not some magic wand they can wave at their illusions.

Doesn’t matter whether the cow that laid the turd is Australian or Russian - bullshit is bullshit. Starting with a conclusion, bending what few facts you’ve bothered to find to fit, forcing in a bunch of “maybes”, “could haves” and “secret stuff” isn’t going to make it smell any less.

We get a recent and particularly aromatic addition to this particular section in the form of a facebook post on a moon landing hoax group, a group that helpfully collects all the world’s stupid in one place where we can keep an eye on them.

The poster first became noteworthy by declaring that images from the surface were fake because they didn’t show the Americas, which was mainly because he couldn’t tell the difference between am and pm when setting the time in his astronomy software. That post disappeared, to be replaced by one that didn’t understand time zones, didn’t understand that the landing and the photography happened at different times, got the date of his chosen photos wrong and didn’t seem to realise that there was a camera in orbit at the same time as on the ground. A collection of screenshots are shown in figure 5.9.21 for your amusement, and to record for posterity that he offered £10k (twice) to prove him wrong.

Figure 5.9.15: Images of Earth taken from the original 70mm catalog compared an the ATS-3 image from the same day. The Earth images were taken over a span of about 5 hours.

There is no way ATS-1 could move over that distance in order to photograph all of Australia.

They make the same kind of claims for Apollo 15 and AS15-91-12342 (figure 5.9.18), claiming that the show the continents in exactly the same position as the 1967 ATS-3 photo, and therefore must have been taken by ATS-3 at a different time.

Unfortunately for them there is an ATS-1 image available for the last image on the 22nd, (figure 5.9.17). It should be obvious from it that Australia is considerably off camera. They also conveniently ignore AS11-37-5506’s view of Australia, where it is even more central.

Figure 5.9.17: ATS-1 image taken 22/07/69. Source.

The authors handwave away any possible counter-arguments by claiming that there might have been other satellites covering the areas launched in secret, despite the fact that even military satellite launches were well publicised (figure 5.9.20). Rocket launches are noisy and very visible. They’re difficult to hide and the end results can be seen from the ground.

Well, for one thing the continents are not in an identical position, and for another this article, this article and this article all have ATS-3 in a position much further west at the time of the mission (figure 5.9.19). Compared with the 47 degrees West claimed by the authors.

Figure 5.9.19: Position of Africa in Apollo 15 image compared with ATS-3 when lined up with South America (top left), and the position of ATS-3 as reported in scientific reports.

Figure 5.9.18: Apollo 15 image compared with ATS-3 image in the Russian article.

When another user pointed out (for a different reason, see here) that a black and white photo existed he declared that it was a satellite photo, saying this (figure 5.9.22).

There’s a lot of word salad there, and as you might imagine very few of those words are actually his. It’s heavily lifted from this publication. In a nutshell, what he’s trying to intimate is that you can’t see city lights, therefore it’s a fake because satellites also don’t see them. The reality is that you can’t see city lights for pretty much the same reason you don’t see stars in Apollo photos: exposure time. It doesn’t help his case that the article in question discusses infra-red data, not visible spectrum, and is based on a study of satellite instruments carried on a plane - instruments way beyond the capabilities of Apollo era satellites. He also misses out a key phrase in his cherry picking. Here’s the exact quote:

“In other words, urban lights emit, on average, significantly lower power than solar radiation reflected by soils. However, the difference between the two sources becomes small in the narrow spectral bands in which city light emission is concentrated.”

In other words, if we look at (for example) orange sodium lights and compare it with the same light frequencies in solar radiation reflected back, there isn’t much between them. However, reflected sunlight isn’t just orange - it’s blue, green red, brown, yellow and all points in between. There’s also much more of it. Images showing city lights at night are invariably either long exposures or composites, not fast exposure ones.

On top of that, we also know that there are whole sequences of these black and white images that show the Earth rotating - something not possible with a geostationary satellite, and that rotation shows views not consistent with the actual satellite view (in terms of the visible landmasses). He also doesn’t know that there are matching colour photos taken at similar times as the black and white ones.

What he’s doing, as he has done all along, is demonstrate his lack of knowledge of the subject, his lack of awareness of just how many Earth images there are, and a willingness to cherry pick information that suits his narrative even when it doesn’t. Sadly, the thread got deleted. Why? Figure 5.9.23 has the explanation, given to someone wondering why entire threads were deleted.

,,

That’s right, you really don’t need any help to look really dumb, you manage it all by yourself.

Speaking of dumb, it’s worth checking a new claim about satellites, discussed in the Apollo 11 section here.

It was originally claimed by Bart Sibrel that the views of Earth were done in LEO by superimposing a transparency of Earth on the window. For years hoax morons have swallowed that bullshit whole and made merry without, despite all the flaws, misrepresentations and outright lies in his arguments.

The new claim is shown below in figure 5.9.24.

Figure 5.9.21: Selected screenshots from a hoax group trying to claim the same image is faked differently for different reasons.

Figure 5.9.22: Selected screenshots from a hoax group claiming that an apollo image is a weather satellite view. Also included is a cropped version of the image.

Figure 5.9.23: facebook group admin explanation for disappearing threads

Figure 5.9.5: Amateur enthusiast builds his own satellite receiving kit (1966) (Sourced from ebay)

5.9:   NASA owns the satellites, they have all the opportunity to fake satellite images

It is another feature of those who believe that the moon landings were faked that NASA is some omnipotent organisation that both controls and dictates all of the scientific information worldwide on any facet of the space programme by anyone, ever. This is despite the fact that they hold them to be incapable of the most basic science in the alleged fakery.

They are unable to grasp the idea that once the satellites were launched, they were no longer the responsibility of NASA but of the organisation that paid for them. It’s like assuming Ford are still entirely responsible for everything that I do in my car.

Figure 5.9.1: Social media arguments against the use of satellites

Figure 5.9.3: Right - Amateur radio receiver image of a Polar Orbital satellite from 1972 (source). Below, images published in editions of ‘QST’ from 1969 from NIMBUS satellite (Sources: QST June 1969 & QST September 1969.

‘Inexpensive’ is debatable, $5171 was a lot of money back then, but you could always just make your own (see figure 5.9.5 above).

Readers who looked over Apollo 16’s pages here will recall how The Guardian were publishing satellite images supplied not by ESSA, or NASA, but by a British university that had its own receiving equipment (figure 5.9.6)

Figure 5.9.6: ESSA satellite images printed in The Guardian. Source.

Figure 5.9.11: Computer modelling of Apollo era data in comparison with actual photos (sources given in text).

Figure 5.9.13: Partially illuminated ATS-3 images from the Apollo 11 period, reproduced from the data catalog.

Figure 5.9.16: Three images of Australia used in the Russian article. They were taken (left to right) at 01:00 20/07/69, 04:15 21/07/69 and 05:07 22/07/69

Figure 5.9.20: First day covers commemorating ‘secret’ satellite launches available on eBay

Figure 5.9.24: hoax claims

So, we’ve now gone from a transparency of a bit of Earth to a satellite image.

No. Just no.

Firstly, as already discussed, there was no colour satellite covering the views shown.

Secondly, the views rotated over time, including during the live broadcast showing Hurricane Bernice.

Thirdly, the only satellite that could have produced the images took 24 hours to produce a whole day’s footage of Earth. Those images then needed compiling into a realistic sphere, colourised, then converted to a transparency. They simply weren’t available during the timeframe required.

Finally, someone had to do all that. Someone had to do the projection, someone had to coordinate it all. Someone had to convince the team at Goldstone that they weren’t getting a signal broadcast from Langley. All on live TV. That’s right, live TV. The claims that the images and radio were not coordinated is garbage. It’s a combination of goalpost moving and clutching at straws producing an ever more complex hoax scenario involving even more people. It doesn’t stand up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny.

We have similar arguments employed in response to a similar comment regarding an Apollo 17 TV transmission (figure 5.9.25)

Figure 5.9.25: Facebook claims about weather satellites.

We’ll deal with Crouching Dimwit, Hidden Brain cell’s comment first.

No-one is taking NASA’s word for it, because NASA haven’t actually made the claim. They have (as discussed elsewhere on this site) looked at very early LEO Apollo missions and satellite data, but they have never (to my knowledge) tried to assert that the weather and cloud distribution confirms Apollo. That’s down to me and people like me.

Secondly, NASA doesn’t control the weather satellites. That’s a different set of organisations. They also don’t control access to those images, nor do they control the Soviet weather satellites. Not one person, or organisation, has ever come out and said “These are wrong”. Ever. Because they aren’t.

Jarrah’s response needs more thought. His use of the word ‘propagandist’ is a typical piece of poisoning the well from him. This website isn’t propaganda, it’s an honest attempt to refute idiocy and ignorance. It makes him out to be some sort of victim fighting against the bad guys. He isn’t.

We have all seen weather forecasters predict the directions of clouds - IN MODERN FORECASTS. We’ve also all been victims of them getting that wrong. As outlined elsewhere, the predictive skills of forecasters do not get things exactly and precisely right, and certainly at the time of Apollo much of the work in satellite meteorology was in verifying their ability to forecast, not use them to forecast.

I’ve watched his video and he spends a lot of time getting hung up on semantics. He also claims to have found reports from NASA proving you can predict cloud movement using satellites.

This is the first one. The first point to make is that it is from 2005, using much more advanced satellites than were available to Apollo. The second point to make is that the study is not about predicting cloud movements, it is about comparing a model what happens during cloud seeding with actual imagery. It’s is confirming the accuracy of a model, not predicting how clouds move.

The second one he cites is from 2008, 40 years after Apollo 8! It is also, again, using data to confirm the accuracy of a model, and the report concludes that the predictions are ‘reasonable’ for the short term, less so for the longer term. 40 years after humans first photographed Earth from lunar orbit, meteorological models are still not good at predicting the future.

This is the final one he uses, and this one is at least from the Apollo era. Again, it’s using actual imagery to confirm how well a model does, but in no way can it be said that this model is accurate enough to show a precise and exact model of Earth’s cloud distribution with the accuracy shown by Apollo imagery.

Jarrah does point out that there are well know global patterns that recur regularly, and infers from this that the images are just using what we now know to fake the imagery. However, we only know that these patterns occur regularly because of satellite meteorology. We didn’t have decades of observation to back up this idea 50+ years ago. Furthermore, while we can say that there will always be, for example, an ITCZ, or a south Pacific ‘V’ cloud distribution, we can’t make exact and precise predictions of exactly what those patterns will look like and when they will appear. The only way we can do that is with precise, 100% accurate computer modelling, and we’re only now acquiring the ability to do that.

To clarify the point, this article describes how the use of satellites to actually forecast weather only really became possible with the introduction of atmospheric sounding instruments (eg looking at temperature, moisture and water vapour) on Nimbus 3 in April 1969, describing how meteorologists stayed up “all night” to analyse data and show the position and movement of atmospheric currents not visible to normal cameras. Even these instruments were unable to penetrate cloud cover, and it wasn’t until the use microwave sounders from 1978 onwards that complete atmospheric profiles (the kind previously gathered by balloons) were available to forecasters.

This 1969 article discusses the potential uses of satellites, again describing the limitations mentioned above. The mathematical models of weather development using computers are promising, it says, however:

"Although the accuracy of current forecasts usually deteriorates rather rapidly beyond 48 [hours], integrations for up to 5 days, with even the present rather crude model, produce coherent atmospheric patterns that retain some reality in their broad features though they may be incorrect in detail. These and other investigations encourage us to believe that, given adequate observations and computing facilities, it should be possible within the next few years to produce reliable forecasts of the basic weather patterns for 5 to 7 days ahead, and a useful indication of general trends over periods of perhaps 2 to 3 weeks."

So short term forecasting is reasonable, but the kind of forecasting required in Jarrah’s view of the state of the art at the time just isn’t available. Furthermore, it says that:

"...it is one thing to measure the spectral distribution of radiation received by the satellite from the underlying atmosphere, and quite another to deduce from these measurements the vertical distribution of atmospheric temperature or humidity with the accuracy required for use in numerical forecasting."

It’s that vertical distribution that was only just beginning to be measured at the time of Apollo.It confirms my view stated earlier that:

"…the accuracy of the observations required by the sophisticated mathematical models of weather prediction...impose stringent requirements on the measuring techniques and a basic network of conventional surface and upper-air stations is likely to be required for many years in order to check and calibrate the new methods."

Similarly this article in the November 1970 edition of ‘Popular Science’, says

“Reliable long-range weather forecasting will take more than a continuous survey of the atmosphere from orbit.”

And that

“Today, while we know the general equations [of the Earth’s energy balance], we do not know many of the numerical figures we would have to feed into the computer.”

It concludes that a reliable five day forecast will be available “10 years from now”.

There’s even the evidence during Apollo 13 (see here), where the world’s first global forecasting model was attempted using inputs from both conventional and satellite records - most forecasts were restricted to regional models at best. Later modelling attempts (see this 1972 report) were still trying to work out cloud free areas for space based observations. The position is best summarised in this article in “The Military Engineer” in 1973:

"The public benefit is tremendous but the system is still too new for its potential to be fully realized."

Then we have this quote from May 1969’s Spaceflight magazine discussing the next generation of NIMBUS satellites, which says that:

“At present the cloud pictures and radiation data from satellites currently provide a great deal of valuable information, but it is mainly qualitative in character and difficult to incorporate directly into numerical production [sic] models.”

In other words, when Apollo was taking photographs, 16mm film and live TV views of Earth, weather forecasters were only just acquiring the ability to take the measurements that would have been needed to predict with absolute certainty the weather patterns shown in them. That certainty would not come for decades, and is arguably still not totally there. Forecasters were certainly not getting it right from satellite images just before Apollo 11 - this news report highlights how a sudden tropical thunderstorm in California  “sneaked in because a weather satellite failed to spot it”.

He also gets hoist by his own petard by nitpicking over the difference between weather and cloud patters - he does it himself, and many of the reports he has looked at discuss broader scale weather, not specifically the precise form and distribution of clouds that may or may not be associated with them.

There’s also the small matter of Landsat’s exact replication of the Antarctic ice flows seen in the Apollo 17 imagery. Where are your computer models for that?

Again, Jarrah, you don’t “know” anything, you’re just retro-fitting your nonsense to cope with inconvenient facts. This website was the first to really, fully and completely explore the satellite data aspect of Apollo imagery. Now you know it exists you have to come up with ever more complex scenarios to explain them.

And again, it is a moot point: it doesn’t matter whether or not something was possible (it wasn’t), the question is “was it done”. If you think someone managed to produce real time computer models showing how Earth could have looked days in advance and then made live TV, 16mm film and high resolution photographs on the back of that prediction, prove it. Find who did it, where and when. Show us the computer models and graphics processors. You can’t because it didn’t happen.

You’re also forgetting that these allegedly fake Earths are backed up by actual satellite images. In other words, ‘they’ somehow used satellite images to model Earth’s likely cloud distribution, and it just so happens that the satellite images taken later are an exact match. This isn’t possible now (just good estimates) and certainly wasn’t then. 100% accurate predictive satellite photography is just not a thing.

In reality, this is the same old hoax tactic: make a claim, find out it’s stupid, move the goalposts. Bad news: it’s still stupid.

One final point about satellites is a claim made by Marcus Allen in a youtube debate that satellites could have been used to somehow simulate the Apollo missions and fool the casual, or even expert, observer. That claim is repeated in a book Allen co-authored with Trevor Weaver that collates all the ‘evidence’, saying:

"It was not only the astronauts that required extensive training but It was not only the astronauts that required extensive training but also the mission controllers. To do this NASA created many simulation exercises that covered the complete mission. on 13 December 1967 NASA launched the TETR-A satellite (TEst and TRaining satellite) (App 2.05). The purpose of this satellite was to simulate transmissions coming from space and the Moon so that the controllers at Mission Control in Houston could rehearse the complete Apollo missions. These simulated transmissions would also appear to be a perfect source for the fake transmissions later to be used on the 'real' Apollo missions. These were not only intended for the training of Mission Controllers but also to check out all the communications and ancillary equipment."

The specific satellite he quotes are the TETR series. These were a series of satellites launched in 1967-8, with another in 1971. The satellites themselves were a simple octahedron design with an S-band transponder. The simplest descriptions of them usually just say this:

“TTS, TETR, TATS (Test And Training Satellite) were four very small magnetically stabilized satellite instrumented with a s-band transponder to provide training to Apollo ground stations.

Its external configuration was an octahedron, 28 cm on each side. It was powered by solar cells mounted on the octahedron surfaces and nickel cadmium batteries. The instrumentation included the 9.5 Watt s-band transponder, a PAM/FM/PM telemeter encoder and 100 milliwatt VHF transmitter. The spacecraft was built by Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, Inc. (TRW).” (Source)

TRW were also responsible for building communications satellites, and also the descent module engine. They were launched on the same rockets that sent the Pioneer probes on their missions, but

This publication describes how they were used as tracking targets for the newly formed Manned Space Flight Network of tracking stations so that ground personnel could become experienced in tracking orbital targets, providing:

“targets for checkout and training of equipment and operations personnel"

TETR-A didn’t quite go according to plan, ending up being placed in a lower orbit that designed, but it still made 600 orbits and took part in 4 successful missions before re-entering the atmosphere in April 1968 (Source). TETR-C wasn’t launched until after Apollo 11 (Source), so that leaves TETR-B, and D (C never even reached orbit). TETR-D was launched to coincide with Apollo 16, so obviously wasn’t available for the earlier missions - in addition to that, its S-Band transponder failed soon after launch, so it couldn’t have simulated any Apollo S-Band signals.

The most detailed source of information about TETR-B comes from this page at Honeysuckle Creek.

Launched on 06/11/68, it was to provide:

“an active, orbiting target for training MSFN Unified S-band system personnel.”

Particularly acquiring and handing over a moving target at each of the fixed and mobile monitoring stations of the network. The intention was to provide a minimum of 3 hours acquisition and tracking experience at each stations, and a minimum of 10 handovers.

The key element here, however, is the remote “voice tests”, sent using SCAMA (Switching, Conferencing, and Monitoring Arrangement) to those stations capable of receiving them. What isn’t clear is what specifically those voice tests were, and how they were sent, but this document outlines that they tested how intelligible voice transmissions were, whether there were drop-outs, distortion and so on.  This earlier bulletin from Honeysuckle Creek states how:

"The satellite will also enable the MSFN to exercise the voice communications system when the satellite is in view of two stations simultaneously by uplinking voice from one station and receiving it at the second station."

There’s also quite an assumption about what ‘voice’ means. The assumption by the Apollo hoaxers here is that it voice, when in reality it could just be a tone that could be evaluated for consistency. Honeysuckle Creek personnel do mention the use of scripts to ensure the use of correct terminology (and even trying to emulate American accents) in simulations, but it isn’t clear as to whether which sort of mission simulations they mean. This page has recordings made in the 1970s of both TETR-B and TETR-D (TETR-4) by amateurs, but this is likely to be satellite transponder data rather than ‘mission voice’.

So, despite the initial evidence suggesting that they were only capable of sending tracking telemetry (something I freely admit I believed for some time), the transmitters aboard the satellites were capable of relaying voice.

Does this mean that they could fake Apollo transmission?

Well, as they were LEO satellites they certainly wouldn’t have been able to do so for the hours at a time that the live TV broadcasts from Apollo, or the continuous voice transmissions. The stations relaying actual Apollo comms are clearly identified, as are the various handover and acquisition times, Those times are absolutely not consistent with the actual record. We also know that the Apollo transmissions contained ‘live’ data on, for example, news and current affairs, so they couldn’t have pre-recorded those transmissions - they had to be real time and continuous.

Interestingly, the document referenced above has this to say about them:

“Generally speaking, the first two TETRs were not as useful as had been hoped originally, for two reasons: first, they were not in operation long enough; and, second, the timing was off; for example, TETR-B was orbited too close to the Apollo-8 flight to thoroughly exercise the network before it went on 'mission status'."

And that:

“While the TETRs were useful in testing the network in the area of satellite acquisition and handover, they of course could not simulate the lunar phases of the Apollo mission”

concluding that the Lunar Orbiter probes proved more useful to the training of tracking staff. Honeysuckle Creek personnel also mention Ranger and Surveyor as invaluable learning tools. This press release for Lunar Orbiter V confirms that those were used for tracking training:

“All three operating Orbiters are used as tracking targets by the NASA Manned Space Flight Network stations, providing a valuable method of exercising and evaluating the tracking network and the Apollo Orbit Determination Program”

The reasons why TETR weren’t of any use for ‘faking’ the lunar aspects should be obvious. The elliptical orbit of TETR-B was at an inclination of 33 degrees - considerably less than the roughly equatorial orbits of the Apollo craft in their Earth Parking Orbits pre-TLI, and certainly not consistent with a spacecraft heading towards the moon. They also moved very quickly across the terrestrial sky, which means they couldn’t be used easily by the much bigger dishes used for Deep Space tracking. In short they weren’t anywhere near the moon, so couldn’t really simulate being at the moon! See this Clavius page for additional arguments as to why TETR-A would not have fooled anyone. The actual simulation of mission communications (certainly at Honeysuckle Creek) was done “in house” with set ups and even members of staff role playing as astronauts, everything was done on the ground.

You‘d also have to wonder why, if the Apollo astronauts were in a CSM in LEO all the time, why would they need an orbiting satellite? Just use the CSM! The more complicated conspiracy theory that the voice transmissions apparently relayed to an S-IVB now have to include relaying a continuous signal via a satellite in LEO to an S-IVB in cislunar space and ultimately in lunar orbit. That’s a large amount of potential failure points! Or they could have used the existing relay network of Intelsat and ATS geostationary ones that passed TV and comms signals to and from the moon?

The TETR satellites were also still being used for training while Apollo missions were actually happening (see here) - it would have been very obvious which was which, and certainly when you listen to the oral histories the ground crews at Honeysuckle were very clear which was which. They could even distinguish between different spacecraft in lunar orbit when the CSM and LM separated, they’re not going to be fooled by a re-broadcast from Earth orbit. You can also add in the fact that one month after launch, the only one available for Apollos 8, 10 and 11 had technical problems that prevented the S-Band system working properly - only one actual Apollo simulation was managed with TETR-B.

Hilariously, in order to cover up the huge gaping holes in their dumbass theory, some claimants argue that the TETRA satellite was setn from Earth orbit to the moon in order to transmit fake voice signals:

“They say it was deorbited 6 months later. But was it? Or was that Tetra A satellite still transmitting? That could have been put into orbit around the moon quite easily being an unmanned craft.”

Yes, that’s right, they launched a small satellite into Earth orbit for 6 months, then (without any of the fuel required) sent it to the moon somehow. It then orbited the moon without anyone noticing. Can we see the evidence for that? No, we can’t, it’s bullshit. It’s what educated and informed people call “pulling it out of your ass”.

And finally, again, even if they could have been used to transmit the mission audio and TV, it doesn’t mean they did.

There’s another element to the role of satellites that has reared its head of late, namely that the film and photography techniques used in cold war era spy satellites (like those already used in this study) proves that Apollo film cameras couldn’t have worked. It follows on from work by the so-called Apollo detectives who put some bog-standard off the shelf film through a vacuum test a few times and came up with perfectly reasonable photographs that a competent developer could have corrected. The emulsion on the film, they claim, would have outgassed and ruined the results. These early spy satellites used pressurised film containers to prevent that happening, therefore Apollo cameras couldn’t have worked.

As usual, their version of events tells only half the story.

Their analysis starts with discussion of the image shown in figure 5.9.26. Taken on August 18th 1960 by Discoverer X14, the first successful use of the film recapture process (designed to prevent interception of TV transmissions of the type used in weather satellites.

The ‘free to air’ aspect extended to official co-operation between the USA & USSR, who (as described in this document) agreed to share data about and from their meteorological satellites. Of course the USSR was not the only political rival to the US. China were also very much ideologically opposed, but that didn’t stop them making good use of US weather data, as detailed in this book on the Chinese space programme:

"At the end of the 1960s, China developed its first meteorological satellite cloud image receiver and began to obtain meteorological satellite images from ESSA satellite."

This article by Hank Brandli (the man who ‘saved Apollo 11’) describes how it was believed China were intercepting the freely available American images and supplying misinformation to counter their results.

“Evidence indicated that the Chinese and possibly the North Vietnamese also were processing daytime satellite photos, sometimes, intercepted surface observations reported bad weather when the satellite photos indicated just the opposite”

He also confirms that

“Anyone who had VHF receiving equipment could use the U.S. Weather Bureau and NASA satellites”

So the Chinese were more than happy with the veracity of US images to use in their own forecasting.

This exchange in a US Congress Senate Committee in May 1969 also confirms that their weather satellite image were freely availably, including to communist countries, and that “anyone who wanted to” could build a receiver (figure 5.9.7).

Figure 5.9.7: House of Congress discussion of ESSA activities.

This video from Pathe News describes how the UK, which doesn’t yet have its own weather satellites, is building receiver stations for American ones. This document describes Canada’s use of the images,supplies examples of ones downloaded by its Toronto receiving station (figure 5.9.8), and mentions that 90 other countries have the same capability.

Figure 5.9.8: examples of Canada’s satellite image downloads.

Figure 5.9.26: Discoverer XIV image of Mys Shmidta airfield

They argue that it is of poor quality, and little detail can be resolved. As the camera system for this early Corona satellite was unpressurised, that must be what’s causing it.

What they haven’t bothered to do is establish any further information about the image. It was actually taken on the second orbit of the probe, and the available documentation indicates that it suffered a brief hiccup in its orbital stability. Ironically, that orbital hiccup is what arguably led to the discovery of this previously unknown airfield just a stone’s throw from Alaska. Figure 5.9.27 shows the area covered during this orbital pass, obtained from the Earth Explorer website.

Figure 5.9.27: coverage of Eastern Russia on Discoverer XIV’s second orbit. Mys Shmidta airfield is roughly at the location of the blue dot.

The airfield falls within the much larger covered by one photo, which was taken towards the end of the photographic sequence. The airfeld photo is an oblique one, which shows that it was taken at an angle, rather then vertically down like others in the sequence. That oblique angle means the entire image covers a much larger area than would normally be the case, which dramatically reduces the amount of detail that could be expected from an already unambitious resolving power of around 10 feet. Figure 5.9.28 shows the actual image.

Figure 5.9.28: Image DS009009002DV058 from orbit 2.

The red square outlines the area in the photograph given in figure 5.9.26. As you can see, the area covered by the image is a very small area of the photograph, and it’s around 400 miles from the camera, rather than the usual 100 miles straight down. Similarly, rather than being a photograph roughly 325 miles long by 25 miles wide it’s an area around 750 miles long by 75 miles wide.

Despite that, however, the images available at Earth Explorer show that the actual quality is much better than the example shown by the ‘detectives’ (see figure 5.9.29).

Figure 5.9.29: Above -  entire image width view of the area around Mys Shmidt, right, close up of the same area shown in figure 5.9.26, correctly oriented to north.

It’s certainly of better quality than the one commonly seen on line, and good enough to reveal an airstrip! The detectives complain that you can’t make out much, and even suggest that there should be lots of snow there, and that this is because the film is damaged by the radioactive vacuum in which it’s operating. Well, there aren’t actually many roads to see, because it’s the arse end of nowhere - there isn’t actually that much there now, and as for snow - it’s August. Even this part of the world has summer.

It’s also worth pointing out that this was on only the 2nd orbit. It did 17 in total before the film was ejected and caught in the Pacific. If the damage was done so quickly, then by golly the stuff at the end of this short mission (only around 30 hours) would be ruined. Let’s see (figure 5.9.30).

Figure 5.9.30: Above left - location of a Discover XIV strip taken on orbit 14. Above - fill width section of the strip. Let - close up of the Lockheed Martin facility at the eastern end of the strip.

Looks pretty detailed to me, and seemingly no deterioration in quality compared with the earlier part of the mission.

To cut a long story short, the various satellites used in early military reconnaissance either used no pressurisation at all, because it added mass and complexity to the system, or if they did it was (as with the lunar orbiter system discussed here) to protect the photographic process, not the film. Small amounts of pressure helps keep film clamped to its photographic surface, helped stop the very wide negatives from curling, and prevented build up of water vapour from outgassing film causing it to hover above the platens. The relatively poor quality of the photograph on which the detectives have focused their myopic and watery gaze is nothing more than film grain seen on a very small section of a photograph covering a very large area. Later missions used better film and were capable of recording far more detail.

Even for the much longer mission and ridiculously complex film path of the Hexagon satellite, where the system was pressurised, documents like this report that the

"photographic properties of the film were negligibly affected by moisture content"

Yes, film outgasses, but not to the extent that it will ruin the image, and even more so when you develop a film that minimises that issue.

This document shows that this kind of problem was already considered for Apollo:

"When cameras and films must operate in high vacuum, camera lubricants are required which will not poison the vacuum environment if the camera is exposed to the full vacuum. Cameras have been used directly in vacuum, and in certain applications they have been enclosed in housings in which a partial pressure of air or nitrogen has been  maintained. Few problems occur with respect to film exposure or its sensitivity in a vacuum. The major problems have been the generation of static, particularly with the high-speed cameras. In general, these problems are avoided by correct selection and treatment of film."

and

"In planning the Apollo missions, a hermetically sealed magazine was considered to maintain a suitable environment for the film. Many years of experience had included the use of photographic film in vacuum systems such as electron microscopy and electron beam recording, and this experience indicated that the disturbance caused by the vacuum environment should not prove too serious. This was confirmed by tests of extended exposure to vacuum conditions, and the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions were carried out with a conventional unsealed magazine. Thus the film was exposed to the high-vacuum lunar environment. The results of these missions substantiated the validity of this decision and of the earlier observations."

In several experiments on film in a vacuum chamber reported here no significant impacts on the films were found.

In short, by comparing these missions with the cameras and film used for Apollo, you’re not just comparing apples with oranges, you’re comparing apples with elephants. They’re completely different systems, with different mission profiles and processes. Even when you do attempt to crowbar in a reference, it still doesn’t work, because the photographs they produce in an environment the detectives claim is universally hostile to film, the evidence shows otherwise, no matter how much you try and rig your results.