From: del@branta.demon.co.uk   
      
   On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, in sci.space.tech,   
   gwlucca  said:   
      
   >I've armed my son with explanations of the bad science, bad astronomy,   
   >bad photography, and bad thinking for almost all of the arguments. The   
   >last holdout argument for these two Italian high school teachers seems   
   >to be, "But how could a little capsule lift off from the Moon when it   
   >took such a monster spacecraft to get them off the Earth?"   
      
   That's simple maths, making it both the easiest argument to debunk, and   
   yet paradoxically the hardest at the same time.   
      
   >I've armed my son with data on relative escape velocities (Moon roughly   
   >20% of Earth), weights (of Saturn V booster at launch vs. the returning   
   >part of the LEM) but I'm looking for an argument that even a   
   >math-and-science idiot might understand.   
      
   I'm all out of ideas, I'm afraid. For not-maths-idiots, the mass ratio   
   of the two cases are in the ratio exp(100%/20%)=148, which is why the   
   Saturn had to be much bigger than the lunar ascent stage. If they don't   
   grok that, I'm not sure where to go.   
      
   Perhaps you could just blind them with science and use the word   
   "exponential" at them until they're intimidated? Say "The Earth is five   
   times harder to get away from, which is why the rocket had to be   
   *exponentially* bigger!"   
      
   Alternatively, you could appeal to their sense of plausibility: if it's   
   all a fake by clever hoaxers, then if they were so clever, why didn't   
   they just fake a smaller Saturn, or a bigger lunar ascent stage?   
      
   --   
   Del Cotter   
   NB Personal replies to this post will   
   send email to del@branta.demon.co.uk   
   Please send your email to del2 instead   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)