Okay, I'm going to ask a really stupid question, but this has bothered me since I first saw the moon landing 55 years ago.
Distance to the moon: 226,000 miles
Speed of light: 186,000 miles per second
Time for audio to transmit from earth to moon: 1.2 seconds
Sometimes when the astronauts communicate back and forth with Mission Control, the responses seem almost instantaneous. Shouldn't there be a delay of almost two and a half seconds between comments between each other, for the signal to transmit, and then return? Or am I missing something? Not looking to get banned. Just never understood this.
You're absolutely right, the physics of the speed of light cannot be circumvented.
Bear in mind that for the conversations between the two astronauts in the cramped Lunar Module, there would be no perceived delay since they were in such close proximity.
Also don't forget that there was Command Module Pilot Michael Collins in lunar orbit. Michael Collins played a crucial role in the lunar activities, even though he wasn't physically on the Moon's surface. He was responsible for maintaining communication between the astronauts on the Moon and Mission Control in Houston, providing vital information and updates to both parties. He also kept track of the Lunar Module's systems, making sure everything was functioning properly.
The delay was only for Earth-Moon communications. When the astronauts are talking to Houston you can hear the transmission delay.
It took me years to understand this and it still kind of boggles my mind how they did it. They didn't break any loss of physics but they broke some laws of perception based on who is on which side of the delay. Obviously, the delay goes both ways. So they had tape recorders on each side of the transmission.
Imagine two tape recorders - one with Houston, one with the astronauts on the moon.
When someone in Houston spoke into their microphone, it recorded on their tape immediately while also transmitting to the moon with a delay.
On the moon, the astronauts heard Houston's voice playing from their tape recorder after the 1.2 second delay of it traveling through space. But their response into their mic recorded instantly on their own tape.
Back in Houston, after another 1.2 second delay, they heard the astronaut's response playing from the recording on the Houston tape.
So each side heard the other's voice with a delay, but their own voices sounded immediate because they were listening to the locally recorded tapes, not the live transmission across space.
This tape recorder trick created the illusion of an instantaneous conversation, when in reality there were those 2.5 second delays between transmissions traveling the quarter million miles to the moon and back.
This is a pretty ingenious system gave the impression of a natural real-time dialogue despite the physical limitations of the signal transit time. NASA's engineers deserved high praise for that clever solution.
As for the skeptics, it's true that some people have used the lack of a noticeable delay in some recordings as "evidence" that the Moon landings were faked. However, it can also be argued that since they were faking the moon landings and that everything was pre-recorded they would have not overlooked this obvious physics detail and they would have edited in the appropriate delays.
Okay, I'm going to ask a really stupid question, but this has bothered me since I first saw the moon landing 55 years ago.
Distance to the moon: 226,000 miles Speed of light: 186,000 miles per second Time for audio to transmit from earth to moon: 1.2 seconds
Sometimes when the astronauts communicate back and forth with Mission Control, the responses seem almost instantaneous. Shouldn't there be a delay of almost two and a half seconds between comments between each other, for the signal to transmit, and then return? Or am I missing something? Not looking to get banned. Just never understood this.
You're absolutely right, the physics of the speed of light cannot be circumvented.
Bear in mind that for the conversations between the two astronauts in the cramped Lunar Module, there would be no perceived delay since they were in such close proximity. Also don't forget that there was Command Module Pilot Michael Collins in lunar orbit. Michael Collins played a crucial role in the lunar activities, even though he wasn't physically on the Moon's surface. He was responsible for maintaining communication between the astronauts on the Moon and Mission Control in Houston, providing vital information and updates to both parties. He also kept track of the Lunar Module's systems, making sure everything was functioning properly.
The delay was only for Earth-Moon communications. When the astronauts are talking to Houston you can hear the transmission delay.
It took me years to understand this and it still kind of boggles my mind how they did it. They didn't break any loss of physics but they broke some laws of perception based on who is on which side of the delay. Obviously, the delay goes both ways. So they had tape recorders on each side of the transmission.
Imagine two tape recorders - one with Houston, one with the astronauts on the moon.
When someone in Houston spoke into their microphone, it recorded on their tape immediately while also transmitting to the moon with a delay.
On the moon, the astronauts heard Houston's voice playing from their tape recorder after the 1.2 second delay of it traveling through space. But their response into their mic recorded instantly on their own tape.
Back in Houston, after another 1.2 second delay, they heard the astronaut's response playing from the recording on the Houston tape.
So each side heard the other's voice with a delay, but their own voices sounded immediate because they were listening to the locally recorded tapes, not the live transmission across space.
This tape recorder trick created the illusion of an instantaneous conversation, when in reality there were those 2.5 second delays between transmissions traveling the quarter million miles to the moon and back.
This is a pretty ingenious system gave the impression of a natural real-time dialogue despite the physical limitations of the signal transit time. NASA's engineers deserved high praise for that clever solution.
As for the skeptics, it's true that some people have used the lack of a noticeable delay in some recordings as "evidence" that the Moon landings were faked. However, it can also be argued that since they were faking the moon landings and that everything was pre-recorded they would have not overlooked this obvious physics detail and they would have edited in the appropriate delays.
I've had the same concerns.