Faked Moon Landing

Would Western telescopes be powerful enough to see individual cosmonauts on the surface of the moon?

No. No earthbound telescope has the resolution to discern objects as small as a lunar lander. Not until the LRO began sending back photos this year did we see any pictures of the Apollo landing sites since the astronauts left.
 
No. No earthbound telescope has the resolution to discern objects as small as a lunar lander. Not until the LRO began sending back photos this year did we see any pictures of the Apollo landing sites since the astronauts left.

I never said the lunar lander, I said the orbiter. In sunlight, it is inded fairly easy to spot (its easier to see it in lunar orbit as you know where to look for it, spotting it between the earth and moon is indeed hard...

The orbiter 'pops out' as it clears the shadown and gets illuminated, which helps immensely.
 
Would Western telescopes be powerful enough to see individual cosmonauts on the surface of the moon? If not, the Soviets could have just sent up an unmanned craft and faked the moonwalking somewhere on Earth.

But yes, the fraud would quickly be discovered, and the USSR would be humiliated. The American space program would be emboldened by the Soviet failure, with more ambitious moon projects being planned to rub the Russians' noses in their failure.

The only way the Soviets could escape the ridicule would be to actually launch a real manned moon mission.

So the effects would ultimately be a continued space race. And unlike OTL, where the finish line of the race was a manned moon landing, the finish line of TTL's race would be the establishment of a permanent moon base.

Sadly not.
The practical resolution for an earth-based scope at the time was about a km.

The lander also is too small. Theoretically the takeoff flare would be visible, but this means taking off in dark, and even then its iffy.
The section orbiting the moon is quite easy to see, its a big chunk of shiny metal thats illuminated by the sun when it comes around the curve of the moon..
I'm not sure if it would be possible to spot the separation of the lander from the orbiter....a lot depends on when it happens, if its in 'front' of the moon, dark or light moon background...all sorts of things.
 

Michael Busch

Would Western telescopes be powerful enough to see individual cosmonauts on the surface of the moon? If not, the Soviets could have just sent up an unmanned craft and faked the moonwalking somewhere on Earth.

Not with anything that was available in the 1970's. But there are two problems with that:

1. The size of the spacecraft during launch, cruise, lunar orbit, landing, takeoff, and return to Earth - both in volume and mass. It has to be plausible for the crew they say it had and whatever samples they are supposed to have obtained. That basically requires a human mission in the first place.

2. Telemetry from the surface can be intercepted by anyone who cares to listen. Yes, it can be encrypted, but the data volume etc. has to match again. If it isn't encrypted - which is what you want for the big publicity value of a live video of a cosmonaut - you have to have everything pre-recorded and played back and there will be unavoidable problems (things going too smoothly or too badly, lunar dust not acting the way it actually does, the landscape not matching the real topography of the landing site, etc.).

So - pretty much impossible to do.
 
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