Question

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Jason Mathias

Fake moon landing argument I see a lot.

 

P1: They claim we went to the moon 50 years ago by using technology. 

P2: We cant go to the moon today. 

P3: We have a lot more advanced technology today than we did 50 years ago. 

P4: It takes technology to go to the moon. 

P5: Therefore, we did not go to the moon 50 years ago. 

asked on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 09:04:19 AM by Jason Mathias

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Answers

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Ed F
1

I think the problem that premise 2 is false, we can go to the moon (in the very near future).  To the extent we can’t at this moment—it’s an ambiguity fallacy in P2 (explained below).  

P3 is absolutely true.   We have state of the art technology to get to the moon—in fact, it’s more than “state of the art” in that it includes breakthrough technologies never used before.   
There has been an ambitious space program underway for several years called the Artemis Program to return humans to the moon by 2024-25 with multiple moon landings over the following years.   Its long term goals include a sustainable human presence on the moon and the deployment of a permanently manned orbiting space station around the Moon called Gateway, from which landing systems to the Moon will be deployed as well as spacecraft launched to Mars and beyond.    Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other private companies will be involved with Gateway.  The first Artemis launch, which will be unmanned, is scheduled for 3 months from now.    For some reason, the mainstream media has not said much about it although it did get some attention in 2019 on the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. 
Here is NASA’s webpage about the program:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram

The problem with Jason’s argument is P2–we “can’t” go to the moon.   As discussed above, we can and likely will soon so the premise is false.  
To the extent we can’t at this moment—what is meant by “can’t”?    This is an ambiguity fallacy    We do have the technology but the program has been massively expensive and has had numerous cost overruns.  

 

answered on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 10:42:10 AM by Ed F

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TrappedPrior (RotE)
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P3 can be questioned - NASA's workforce and funding are far more limited than they were back in 1969. This means it has fewer resources to work with. Furthermore, there is always the possibility that the rockets will fail - during the days of the Space Race, governments were more willing to take those risks...but nowadays, not so much.

Thus we can challenge P4 too - it's more complicated than just "time passes, tech gets better, therefore we should go to the Moon again."

As a result, the conclusion C (what you call P5) doesn't follow from the premises supplied.

(I think in terms of fallacies this falls under causal reductionism - assuming that only one factor, technology, is important in sending people to the moon. It also contains two jarringly false premises.)

answered on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 09:20:07 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Ed F writes:

Hi—I think the article you cited about NASA is outdated—see my posting. 

posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 10:46:18 AM
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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Ed F]

It does mention that there are some programmes in development that could take us to the Moon in the future, but I probably should have pointed that out in my comment.

Thanks

[ login to reply ] posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 02:13:47 PM