China

Laser Chick said:

This is a bit off topic but can anybody clear this up. I guess I could just google it but I want member info and feelings on this, here goes.........

Most believe we went to the moon but some believe it was all just hollywood and propaganda.
The landings were done on parts of the moon that face the earth and good sized equipment was left behind. There is no wind to cover the items with dust and with today's advanced optics. Can't humans look at the moon with today's equipment and "see" the items and prove them right or wrong?
I realize that the moon is ~ 238,900 miles away from earth but still....

Thoughts and facts???

Also, is there anyone here who feels that the USA did not go to the moon?

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As far as this question a few of us asked on a thread quite recently and RB Astro gave a good link as to it. The answer is no as are biggest earth telescopes arn't even close in size as far as mirror width. The hubble neither has the set up to even be close. Its surprising how much bigger they would have to make it. Mabey I can find the old thread but maby RB or others will.

GSS said:

As far as this question a few of us asked on a thread quite recently and RB Astro gave a good link as to it. The answer is no as are biggest earth telescopes arn't even close in size as far as mirror width. The hubble neither has the set up to even be close. Its surprising how much bigger they would have to make it. Mabey I can find the old thread but maby RB or others will.

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You can do it, just not with Earth based telescopes or Hubble. See my earlier post!

It was the Tarantula thread that was stared by RB astro
Edit...... I just saw your previous post diachi, forgive my answer as I was stuck on what we could see through scopes that are available on earth, or even the hubble. Where has that link you found been hiding and is it the limit of what we can see on the surface? I'm wondering about seeing the lunar rover.

Playing devil's advocate - no, we didn't land a human on the moon. Only a lunar rover. It sent back some pictures, reading, and samples, and left behind some stuff, most notably, the mirrors.

NASA released additional THOUSANDS of photos only now in 2016, because they literally could not create them faster, and well enough, earlier.

:eg:

Personally, while I'm 100% for an eventual manned mission to mars, and elsewhere, I don't think it's a sensible option for the time being. More exploration using rovers, and limited AI devices should be pushed forward first, with emphasis on human survival and habitation put on a back burner.

InfinitusEquitas said:

NASA released additional THOUSANDS of photos only now in 2016, because they literally could not create them faster, and well enough, earlier.

:eg:

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AFAIK those images were always available to the public - just no one had bothered to digitize them and such until recently. As far as I know (don't quote me on it!) one guy went through them all and did just that.

As far as i understand the chinese lunar program involves sending an orbiter as well and a lander (on the far side?) so if need be they could produce images of american and russian lunar mission remains if they want to (i'm not sure why they would, unless they want to show off the resolution of their lunar orbiter cameras).

When it comes to asian countries surpassing the development level of the us and western europe: fly over there and have a look for yourself. You will probably find things to be a bit chaotic and haphazard compared to what you are used to, but also that much of it 'just works' and affordably so.

If you were to land in say singapore, you'll find a public transport system from the airport to city central that works like clockwork and gets you there much faster than you could drive. In bangkok you will find elevated toll (about $1) roads that bypass much of the cities congestion, and once in the centre myriad options of public transport at low prices as well.

When looking at large cities things seem to simply work better there, and certainly more cost-effective. Perhaps it's due to a bit less democracy and a bit more planned development over the long term - i'm not really sure - but overall it seems infrastructure in asia is executed better compared to western europe or the us.

Benm said:

it seems infrastructure in asia is executed better compared to western europe or the us.

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It's not so much that it is better, but that it is so much newer.

100% agree with you, seems like complete and utter chaos, but somehow works. It does take a certain amount of getting used to.

Culturally, socially, the biggest culture shock to me was with personal space, at least as compared to the US.

IMO chinese tourists also surpass ALL others in terms of rudeness.

Laser Chick said:

Most believe we went to the moon but some believe it was all just hollywood and propaganda.
The landings were done on parts of the moon that face the earth and good sized equipment was left behind. There is no wind to cover the items with dust and with today's advanced optics. Can't humans look at the moon with today's equipment and "see" the items and prove them right or wrong?
I realize that the moon is ~ 238,900 miles away from earth but still....

Thoughts and facts???

Also, is there anyone here who feels that the USA did not go to the moon?

Click to expand...

GSS said:

As far as this question a few of us asked on a thread quite recently and RB Astro gave a good link as to it. The answer is no as are biggest earth telescopes arn't even close in size as far as mirror width. The hubble neither has the set up to even be close. Its surprising how much bigger they would have to make it. Mabey I can find the old thread but maby RB or others will.

It was the Tarantula thread that was stared by RB astro
Edit...... I just saw your previous post diachi, forgive my answer as I was stuck on what we could see through scopes that are available on earth, or even the hubble. Where has that link you found been hiding and is it the limit of what we can see on the surface? I'm wondering about seeing the lunar rover.

Click to expand...

Thanks GSS, yes it was in my Tarantula Thread.
http://laserpointerforums.com/f48/tarantula-now-updated-horsehead-95844.html

@Laser Chick:

As Diachi and GSS said: it's not possible from ground based telescopes.

Even with super close up imagery by the world's best astronomers of the lunar craters, which are anything from a few hundred meters to a few miles across, from earth it's optically not possible to capture at a resolution of a few meters, which is what's needed to see the Apollo landing sites.

Now interesting you bring up the moon hoax.

After our visit from our Flat Earth friend last year, see: http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/keeping-small-dot-over-one-mile-distance-95530-10.html
I stumbled upon the Moon hoax theories, lot's of them, so I wanted to see what evidence they have.
There's a lot of videos on youtube about the moon hoax, some evidence is presented in a way that sounds convincing.
They even say Stanley Kubric directed the Apollo landings and he gives his secret away in his film "The Shinning".

In the end I still believe we went, they haven't convinced me that it was a hoax but it's 'interesting' to spend some time watching their evidence and weighing it up.
Here's a few of the more popular youtube vids on the subject:








RB

Yes it is newer, South Korea was putting in fiber when our private infrastructure was investing in cellphone wireless, now their internet shames ours.
Japan was destroyed after WWII and got the latest of everything after the war, they rebuilt from the best of everything new, but the whole world has been tied to our economy and many are in trouble, however China is now a world economic player, they have a world default currency and set prices, an entire generation of Japanese and Chinese people have worked like slaves to build the future we see today for their children, meanwhile our government has spent our children's future.

South Korea is an industrial Giant, they have an impressive technology center where they teach and develop technology strictly for market, all those SAMSUNG TV's in your house were made in Korea, but even they have become wealthy enough to export labor as has Japan.

Still 1% of the worlds wealthiest people control 40% of the worlds wealth, but it has less to do with our direction than our teaching of our children, this is Americas biggest failing. This is why we fall behind, participation trophies and socialist values in American schools end up teaching the future citizens that the value lays in most everything other than technology, we lost a lot of our religion and now we don't have a guideline on how to behave, I can't...don't want to believe it, I thought free from the bonds of religion we would excel, but rather without the basics much has atrophied and academic excellence is found mostly in genius visa students from abroad and very little in domestic students.

Thank you very much for the replies and information!!

InfinitusEquitas said:

IMO chinese tourists also surpass ALL others in terms of rudeness.

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You could precieve it that way. I was in asia (indoensia, thailand) recently, and there has been quite an increase in tourists from both china and russia - whereas traditionally most tourists were australian, western-european or american.

I don't think chinese tourists are intentionally rude, many are just new to the concept of international travel and the need to adapt to the country you are visiting. One thing that doesn't help either is that chinese tourists tend to travel in large groups that share the same basic etiquette at home, and doesn't question their behaviour that much since the whole group does the same.

Russian tourists groups have similar issues. I know it is a stereotype, but you will often find them drinking hard liquor before lunch can continuing that until late at night. Some western tourists drink just as much and start just as early, but they usually don't travel in large groups resulting in a very noisy affair.

And as far as development of infrastructure in asia goes: There is a fair amount of leapfrogging going on there. They do skip building infrastructure that is now becoming obsolete in the west (like POTS lines etc).

You could easily find hotels and homes that, for example, have a 4G to wifi system in place but no copper wire to connect to the internet. In the phillipines many (longer distance) busses have free wifi on board powered by a similar type of connection. In europe this kind of service is fairly rare, but available on trains in several countries.

With that in mind internet connections are available on aircraft as we speak, and they are cheap too - on emirates airlines you get 30 mb free, and a whopping 500 mb for (a symbolic) $1 in flight. It isn't available on all aircraft and all over the world yet, but it shows what awaits us soon.

Based on personal observations of course, but to me it seemed like in terms of just rowdiness/being loud, Israeli's in their 20, early 30's were the worst. Not bad mind you, very friendly, just ridiculously loud and energetic.

Still, IMO, russians are more considerate in general, and definitely more like europeans/americans when to comes to personal space.

I have similar experiences with larger groups of Isreali tourists. They do get very loud when in groups of say 20, but are quite pleasant and polite when travellig in smaller numbers (solo, couples, hand full of friends).

I'm not sure how much this has to do with being isreali, or just a rather lange bunch of early-20s people that go on a party holiday. I doubt a group of similar size and age range of dutch people would be any less unpleasant.

Afaik the isreali groups often consist of people that have finished their mandatory military service and then go travel with their mates somewhere afterwards. These groups are usually mixed gender, probably because isreal drafts women for service as well as men.

Then again, if you're looking at problematic hordes of tourists, you should probably also include hordes of american students that go to mexico for spring break and such. Due to distance and cost limitations you'll hardly find those anywhere but in mexico - i guess cancun puts them on an artifical island for a reason

As an american, russian, jew, from a muslim/asian country, with a very soft spot for israel, I must admit while I try to be objective, it's possible at times I am inadvertently, though not intentionally, somewhat biased. Incidentally, I also spent my last vacation in Cancun Mexico, and have been a repeat visitor there

With that disclaimer out of the way, I still think israeli guys, whether it's a group of 3 or 10, are the most LOUD annoying, and friendly bastards you can come across. Military services does leave them quite a bit less inhibited than most people. I've had the pleasure of also dealing with groups of swedes, norwegians, germans, french (i love french girls, their accent should be illegal) and pretty much all former soviet block countries.

It's true, americans do tend to stay fairly limited to mexico and the carribean. It's mostly a matter of logistics. Traveling to australia or asia for example, means a difference of at least 12 hours, and 14+ hours in the air. So while I can hop on a plane from NYC in the morning, and be enjoying mojitos in a pool by mid afternoon in mexico, doing the same with say Ko Phi Phi (my favorite thai destination) means ~22 hours of travel and 12 hours of jetlag. It's just impractical given the custom of american vacations which are are only a week or maybe two weeks long.

I'm extremely torn currently on whether to book a vacation to asia, (vietnam or thailand) or go the easy route and do dominican republic currently.

As for Cancun, the resort areas specifically, it's a 100% artificial experience, and pretty much everyone, american or otherwise, sticks to the all inclusive resorts. That's kind of the whole point... zero stress, zero anything really, just beach, sun, pools, and as much booze and food as you can consume.

Most europeans go on holiday within europe as well. Destinations like spain are very popular for brits, dutch and germans. And you do get the very loud groups of youngsters there as well during school holidays, believe me

Asia isn't that close for us either. If you take bangkok for example, a direct flight from amsterdam takes 12 hours or so. The more affordable options usually have a stopover in dubai or qatar, and including the wait will take you at least 15 hours in total.

From the US it makes a big difference where you depart. From NY it would be quite an ordeal, but from LA it is relatively close. Manila would be roughly equally far from western europe and eastern america.

I've noticed that the philipines attract more american tourists than most other east-asian countries, perhaps this is for historical reasons, but practial ones will probably play a role as well.

Chinese tourists have easy access to souteastern asia obviously, so their increasing number is just a consequence of increasing income. It seems they prefer all-inclusive like things for the moment, and those are being built or already available in many countries.

Things like the hotel zone in cancun are pretty horrible in my opinion, but then again, if you only go for the climate, i suppose it doesn't really matter what place or even exact country you end up in

but there's some kind of problem between the people of Hong Kong toward main land Chinese... and the people of Hong Kong get offended if you tell them that they are Chinese...not even google can tell me why....