>>The thing that bothered me is that they kept showing the NASA spokesperson evading the questions. I couldn't tell if it was how he answered, or if it was edited to make him look like he couldn't answer. Is there any place that rebutts the arguments on the special?

The rebuttals are all over the net.


Like I said, to a non-scientist, it was pretty convincing. Why did the flag wave with no atmosphere, why was there no blast crater, etc, etc? I'd like to know.

"Flag Waving" - If you watch the all of the movies really closely, the flag isn't waving as you and I know it from watching flag shere on Earth. It 'waves' in a crinkly in part because expansion and contraction due to heating and cooling. But, during launch of the upper stage of the lander it flapped a couple of times due to exhaust passing by.

"Blast Hole" - Again, assuming the behavior of a rocket engine in the atmosphere was the same as behavior of a rocket engine in the vacuum of space.

Have you gone to the NASA site and watched some of those videos taken by cameras strapped to the outside of the rocket and pointed toward the engine bell? When the rocket is in the lower atmosphere the exhast has the familiar "blow torch" look, and most of the gases shoot straight down. As it climbs into the thinner atmosphere, and finally space, the 'torch' spreads out until gases are escaping almost perpendicular to the axis of the rocket, and disappears, but gases are still thrusting. Without the atmosphere to confine the exhaust gas it will spread almost equally well in all directionsalmost to 180 degrees, but the vector sum of the reaction force remains pointing upward. So much so, that the difference in 'blast' behind the engine has reduced considerably. It can kick up some dust as the lander approaches the surface of the moon, but there is not enough exhaust gas shooting straight down to scoop out a hole on the surface.
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