Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Apollo 15

The first point I analyze is the experiment performed by Apollo 15 crew, dropping and filming a hammer and a feather on the Moon.

A simple analysis of the movie can prove that the experiment is real and that any hoax supporter is wrong.

In the movie, you can see that hammer and the feather to hit the ground at the same time. This is because the Moon has no atmosphere and the only force acting on the two objects is the gravity.

More over you see that the speed of the objects increases less than we are used to observe on earth. This is because the Moon is smaller and less massive than the Earth, and then has a weaker gravitational field on its surface.

I have downloaded the movie of the experiment, you can see it at this link:

The Apollo 15 Hammer-Feather Drop

I have then captured the 35 flames from the hammer release to the ground impact. And i have drown over them lines that helped me to measure the altitude of the two objects in each frame. Here are some of the pictures:

I have then used the frame rate indicated in the MOV file (29FPS) and placed the point on an altitude vs time diagram. Then I have calculated a polynomial best fitting curve, and you can see that a parabola fits the points very well:

The equation in the diagram shows a vertical acceleration smaller than the moon gravity, but for sure more compatible with the moon than with the earth. The error can be due to a wrong initial altitude extimation (I supposed 1.5 meters) or by a wrong FPS indication.

I have also plotted the trajectory of a mass falling on the ground, and slowed down by air drag. You can see that the curve is very different.

We can then asses that the hammer and the feather are falling because gravity only and they are not slowed down by air drag and they fall down slowly just because Moon gravity is low.

Back to index