Serious question, did I make the wrong call on the moon landing debate?

I got into it with my buddy last night about the moon landing. He swears it was staged in a studio because the flag looks like it waves. I told him the whole vacuum thing explains that, and the shadows are weird because of the surface reflecting light. But then he brought up that Van Allen belt radiation thing, saying they would have been cooked. Now I'm second guessing myself. Did I mess up by not looking into that more before arguing, or is his point just junk science? Anybody here actually dug into the radiation claims and can set me straight?

2 comments

2 Comments

jason9589d ago

My buddy believed that Van Allen thing until he actually looked up the Apollo 11 radiation badges...

rivera.jake9d ago

Watched a doc on the Apollo dosimetry data and it changed my mind pretty quick. The badges showed actual readings, not just theoretical maximums. Turns out the Van Allen belts are way more spread out than people think, so the spacecraft passed through the thinner parts in under an hour. You can argue about a lot of things with Apollo but the radiation data is clear as day if you take ten minutes to look it up.