NASA's Mars Missions are Fake

I just realized my last post was off-topic. I was thinking about posting in another thread but ended up here.

Anyway,

How do a few edited photos equal an obvious conspiracy? If the main purpose is to pocket the money tax payers put into the NASA budget, then they're not going a good job at maximizing their profit. They don't have to fake so many space missions, which can be argued that it is not necessary to accomplish their goal of stealing tax dollars. Besides, you can't just pocket billions of dollars and leave no paper trail. The banks are privately owned and whenever a person deposits anything over $10,000 on a single transaction, into ANY bank in the United States, the bankers are required to turn the account information over to the feds for background checks. The IRS is usually involved, meaning they're in on the conspiracy too. As with the banks.

Or wait, I know what's coming.. "They unload the money into an off-shore account." Point is, these Mars missions (from the Viking to Freedom & Independence rovers) have brought in enough money for NASA employees (whoever is 'in on it') to become the wealthiest people on the planet. That's just the Mars missions, then you add the Moon, other planets, comet and asteroid research, as well as the various deep space probes launched in the last couple decades and we're talking about some serious money. How much money does one need? Once you become a billionaire, you have enough money to last a lifetime. If they spend this loot like a rockstar, they're easily going to get nailed to the wall by the IRS. Oh wait, they're in on it too.

I read someone suggest that the Mars mission was faked somewhere out in the Atacama desert. That's a nice hypothesis, however, there's not a single crater in the Atacama desert that I know of. But if you look at all the pictures, and there are tens of thousands of them if you count the Mars satellite photos, there are clearly hundreds of craters in them. So, did NASA take the time (and money) to rent out some excavators, have them hauled out to one of the highest points of elevation on the planet and start digging them hundreds of 'fake' impact craters for their 'fake' photo? That would've cost a lot of money and taken a shitload of man hours.

Now here comes the hand-waving, ridiculous explanations and failed logic...

I read this thread and couldn't resist replying.  Your photos are not evidence of anything but the fact that NASA takes photos for science, not press releases.  I found comprehensive explanations for these color variations with 2 Google searches ("mars blue sky" and "nasa alter mars").  It took me maybe 4 minutes.  You're so lazy that you won't even spend 4 minutes examining any other possible explanations for the colors you see.  You don't do any research into the nature of the photo, the camera that took it, the optical settings used, or even into what we ought to expect to see.  Your photos mean nothing. 

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/mars_colors.html

Astronomical digital imaging is a fiercely complex topic. Most people assume that taking a digital picture is just like taking one with film: you point the camera, take the shot, and then look at the pretty color picture. In reality, things are a lot tougher than that...[A]stronomical images are taken in different filters. Each image is not really color, but greyscale (what some people erroneously call "black and white"), with each pixel representing the brightness of the target in the filter's color.
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The martian rovers, as an example, carry a set of filters with them. These filters are designed to maximize the science returned from Spirit and Opportunity. They are not really designed to make a "true color" picture; that is, what you would see if you were standing on Mars. When the images from Mars are returned to Earth, and then processed to make a color image, what you are seeing at best is an approximation to what your eye can see. In reality, it may be very different. The filters on the rovers do not correspond to the color sensitivity of the human eye. Some of the filters only let through infra-red light, which is invisible to our eyes!
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To make these single-filter images into a color composite is not easy. If the red filter lets in less total light than the blue, you need to compensate for that when you add the images together. If the red filter is wider (lets in a wider range of reds) than the blue filter, you have to compensate for that, and so on.
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But one of the cameras onboard the rover can detect infrared.  So when it looks at the blue tab, it sees blue coming from it, as well as infrared. In the infrared filter, that blue tab is actually quite bright. When that infrared filter greyscale image is used to construct a color image, the blue tab turns pink. It's not "really" pink. But then, in the other picture it's not really that exact color of blue either. Remember, the color is only an approximation.

When he says it "turns pink," he really means that it is "assigned pink."  This should be obvious, since we can't represent colors we can't see with anything other than colors we can see.  The infrared data has to be represented in the photo with colors that can be produced by a computer monitor.  Obviously.

This page, linked in the Bad Astronomy explanation, has a video showing an astronomer actually doing this with Hubble photos.

NASA is not altering Mars colors.  The title of the article isn't totally accurate, but the information inside is, and it's very detailed. 

As Dr. Bell explained in his email, and as visible by viewing the Raw images hosted by NASA. The color-chips are not as simple as they appear. The pigments are designed to have different brightness at a variety of wavelengths. Not just RGB values. So as to "provide different patterns of brightnesses regardless of which filters we used". The blue pigment is very bright in the near-IR range. Thus the L2 plate has a very bright recording of the blue pigment.

It even includes a personal email from the scientist in charge of that particular camera and the images it produced, Professor James Bell of Cornell University:

Thanks for writing. The answer is that the color chips on the sundial have different colors in the near-infrared range of Pancam filters. For example, the blue chip is dark near 600 nm, where humans see red light, but is especially bright at 750 nm, which is used as "red" for many Pancam images. So it appears pink in RGB composites. We chose the pigments for the chips on purpose this way, so they could provide different patterns of brightnesses regardless of which filters we used. The details of the colors of the pigments are published in a paper I wrote in the December issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets), in case you want more details...

The paper he references can be found here

Forum user Garygreen - i'm glad you chose to post here again, I think its great how diligently and thoroughly you document your assertions with citations and information.  You set a great example, even if we dont agree on the shape of the Earth.

GG why doesn't NASA have unfiltered true color pictures from Mars?

GG why doesn't NASA have unfiltered true color pictures from Mars?

Partly because of the fact that there is no such thing as an unfiltered, true color CCD camera.  All CCD and CMOS sensors (except for Foveon sensors) have red, green and blue filters on the sensors.

GG why doesn't NASA have unfiltered true color pictures from Mars?

1.  Partly because this is not technically possible.  I don't know exactly what you mean by "unfiltered," but that's not the way cameras work.  I guess you didn't actually read the material I posted.  From "NASA not altering Mars:"

Basically, the heart of a digital camera is the charge coupled device or CCD. This CCD converts light hitting it into electrical impulses, the brighter the light, the stronger the impulse. Now, CCD's are color-blind. All they do is signal how bright the light hitting them is. All well and good for black and white photography. But for color we need to do more. To get a color-picture. We need to record images via the CCD using a series of 3 filters. A Red filter, a Green filter, and a Blue filter. These are then recombined afterwards to give a color-representation of the picture. (Note, cheaper options like the Bayer filter pattern are often used in commercial digital cameras, but they use interpolation and are subsequently less accurate than 3-filter methods.

Quite a big deal has been made of NASA not sending 'True Color' images back from Mars. The problem with this argument is the fact that no digital images are ever 'True Color'. They are all composites. We cannot at present make a digital camera that sees images as the human eye does. The human eye also has 3-color receptors, but, being biological, there is a range over which the receptors pick up the colors.

Here is a diagram explaining what he means, found here:



2.  Partly because, as explained in my previous post, the cameras are designed to capture wavelengths that our eyes can't see, like infrared light.  These wavelengths have to be digitally represented in wavelengths we can see, like those produced by a monitor.

3.  Partly because these particular cameras are not designed to take vacation photos.  They're designed to record scientific data, not take the prettiest pictures possible for a press release.  These photos are, if anything, evidence that NASA's goal is not just to impress the public for tax dollars.  It's to do research.

garygreen,

At risk of drifting off topic here, I would also like to extend a hearty congratulations to your thorough explanation of the topic - it was a very interesting read and most certainly the way debates and discussions should be conducted. Very thorough, and void of the petulant one-upmanship I have come across. With more posts like yours, the search function would yield far less frustrating results.  I will be most interested in the responses you receive from proponents of the conspiracy.

All the best,

Pilgrim.

GG why doesn't NASA have unfiltered true color pictures from Mars?

Technically, even our eyes work by combining several filtered images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision

If the earth is an infinite plain there would be no separate planet Mars. The region that we call Mars would simply be a distant region of earth. This might explain why the skies are blue there. (reference; Worlds Beyond the Poles by Amadeo Giannini)

Earth, which is not a planet can be infinite and there can be planets above.

Earth, which is not a planet can be infinite and there can be planets above.

LOL talk about arrogance. So, just because we live on something means it's infinite? Seriously that's more retarded than the FET. Apparently everything in space has no problem getting through the earth's crust without leaving any evidence of that. Please try and use a little bit of your brain before you post retarded theories like this.

Quote from: iwanttobelieve on June 30, 2012, 09:53:15 AM

Earth, which is not a planet can be infinite and there can be planets above.

LOL talk about arrogance. So, just because we live on something means it's infinite? Seriously that's more retarded than the FET. Apparently everything in space has no problem getting through the earth's crust without leaving any evidence of that. Please try and use a little bit of your brain before you post retarded theories like this.

It is not his theory and it is not retarded. As a matter of fact Infinite plain is a theory to which many flat earthers suscribe.  In this model the earth is like a galactic floor (infinite) This theory makes a lot more sense then a finite disc model with edges from where one can fall into outer space.

Do you guys really expect us to believe that NASA spent billions of dollars to send robots to mars and did not take true color pictures of the martian surface?

Everything is conveniently tinted red due to special filters, used for vague unexplained "scientific purposes", since NASA is a scientific organization and all...

What a massive load of horse manure. Your delusions are sad beyond belief. I feel more pitty than disgust.

Do you guys really expect us to believe that NASA spent billions of dollars to send robots to mars and did not take true color pictures of the martian surface?

Everything is conveniently tinted red due to special filters, used for vague unexplained 'scientific purposes', since NASA is a scientific organization and all...

What a massive load of horse manure. Your delusions are sad beyond belief. I feel more pitty than disgust.

I take it you're an expert on extraterrestrial photography?
As we already said, there is no such thing as a camera that takes true color photos. All camera's work by using different filters and combining them.
The scientific value of filtered images is explained here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/FAQRawImages/#q15.

Quote from: Tom Bishop on June 30, 2012, 04:25:10 PM

Do you guys really expect us to believe that NASA spent billions of dollars to send robots to mars and did not take true color pictures of the martian surface?

Everything is conveniently tinted red due to special filters, used for vague unexplained 'scientific purposes', since NASA is a scientific organization and all...

What a massive load of horse manure. Your delusions are sad beyond belief. I feel more pitty than disgust.

I take it you're an expert on extraterrestrial photography?
As we already said, there is no such thing as a camera that takes true color photos. All camera's work by using different filters and combining them.
The scientific value of filtered images is explained here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/FAQRawImages/#q15.

A true color image is an image one would see with the naked eye. Any camera you find on the market generally captures true color images. Why is NASA sending up red tinted cameras and no regular cameras?

What you are proposing is ludicrous.

Quote from: Alatus_leo on June 30, 2012, 04:39:46 PM

Quote from: Tom Bishop on June 30, 2012, 04:25:10 PM

Do you guys really expect us to believe that NASA spent billions of dollars to send robots to mars and did not take true color pictures of the martian surface?

Everything is conveniently tinted red due to special filters, used for vague unexplained 'scientific purposes', since NASA is a scientific organization and all...

What a massive load of horse manure. Your delusions are sad beyond belief. I feel more pitty than disgust.

I take it you're an expert on extraterrestrial photography?
As we already said, there is no such thing as a camera that takes true color photos. All camera's work by using different filters and combining them.
The scientific value of filtered images is explained here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/FAQRawImages/#q15.

A true color image is an image one would see with the naked eye. Any camera you find on the market generally captures true color images. Why is NASA sending up red tinted cameras and no regular cameras?

What you are proposing is ludicrous.

Because then they can't use the camera for the scientific purposes listed above.

Thanks for your last post Tom, I was voing to say something like that.

Tom don't you know everything NASA does is infallible. How could a regular picture of Mars belp anyone, all the pictures must be filtered. Only a scientist is qualified to know what he is looking at.

By knowing the exact filters used, wouldn't a true colour image be relatively easy to manufacture given the raw data?

Tom don't you know everything NASA does is infallible. How could a regular picture of Mars belp anyone, all the pictures must be filtered. Only a scientist is qualified to know what he is looking at.

Everyone is allowed to search Google for keywords such as "NASA filter usage."

By knowing the exact filters used, wouldn't a true colour image be relatively easy to manufacture given the raw data?

Do you mean something like this?
http://www.ominous-valve.com/pancam.html

And this should help you generate your "true color" images.
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/projects_1.html

So why aren't they doing it?

So why aren't they doing it?

They are: http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/true_color.html

Knock yourself out, there are thousands.

A true color image is an image one would see with the naked eye. Any camera you find on the market generally captures true color images. Why is NASA sending up red tinted cameras and no regular cameras?

What you are proposing is ludicrous.

You're creating a false choice.  NASA did not choose between 'true color' and 'false color' when designing its camera.  This is because digital cameras do not capture 'true color' images.  That is, basically all digital cameras use RGB filters in a manner similar to the pancam on Mars.  The photos produced are always and necessarily only an approximation of what we would see with our eyes.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/digital/digital-camera4.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera#Methods_of_image_capture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/projects_1.html

The two Panoramic Cameras (called Pancams) on each of the Mars Exploration Rovers work somewhat like a pair of human eyes. Each camera's light sensitive "cells" are called pixels, and they are part of a light detecting "eye" called a Charge Coupled Device, or CCD. However, unlike the human eye, the Pancams only measure one single wavelength or color at a time. In front of each camera is a filter wheel with eight different filters (seven colors plus one filter for looking at the Sun), each of which allows only certain wavelengths to hit the CCD. The filter wheel in front of the camera in the left Pancam eye of each rover has six filters which span the colors that we can see, from blue to green to red. The other filters can detect colors of light that we cannot see, called "infrared." When we want to take a "true color" picture of Mars, we actually take six pictures of the same exact spot - once with each of the six filters on the Pancam's left eye. Afterwards, we use computer software to combine the separate pictures and to calculate the proportions of primary colors - red, green, and blue - that the rover was seeing. We then combine these three "RGB" images into a single picture which your computer can then display as an estimate of the actual colors that you would see if you were there on Mars. Digital cameras that you can buy in stores work in a similar way, except that the filters are bonded directly onto the CCD, and the RGB images through the different filters are combined automatically for you by the camera's electronics.
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It's important to point out that this is only an estimate of the true color of each of these scenes from Mars. As mentioned above, everyone perceives color differently, and different computer monitors and printers display color differently. The colors also vary with time of day, and even from day to day because of different amounts of dust and clouds in the Mars atmosphere. And there are also sometimes small calibration problems with the images that can cause errors in the true color calculations.

The pancam is simply a more sophisticated version of a 'regular camera' (whatever that means).  But, it wasn't designed to best approximate 'true color' because that's not the most useful thing for that camera to do.  Here are some examples:

• Pancam images can be stitched together to build multispectral panoramas of the full scene around the rover, and even full three-dimensional models of the surrounding terrain.
• Panoramic imaging provides information on the morphology of the site, on the lithology, distribution, and shape of nearby rocks, and on local features like fluvial terraces, depositional bars, and dunes that may be present. This information will be relevant to understanding what processes have affected the site, particularly when merged with compositional data.
• Multispectral panoramic imaging will provide information on the mineralogy of materials to supplement and complement data obtained by other instruments.
• Images of the Martian sky, including direct images of the sun, help determine dust and aerosol opacity and composition.
• The generated digital terrain models help guide rover traverse paths.
• Pancam provides information to guide the selection of the most interesting targets to look at with other rover instruments.

And, he also describes the usefulness of false color images here:

The purpose of these images, unlike the true color images we produce is to enhance subtle differences in color. These differences are sometimes so small that a person looking at them would not be able to see them at all - something you can see by comparing a true color image with its corresponding false color version. Images like these allow scientists to quickly asses even subtle color differences, and to choose the most interesting regions for possible study with the rover arm instruments. Subtle color changes may indicate changes in the materials making up rocks and soils, or how these materials are concentrated or deposited.

And, here is a much more technical explanation of the scientific objectives of the pancam:

The scientific goals of the Pancam investigation are to assess the high-resolution morphology, topography, and geologic context of each MER landing site, to obtain color images to constrain the mineralogic, photometric, and physical properties of surface materials, and to determine dust and aerosol opacity and physical properties from direct imaging of the Sun and sky. Pancam also provides mission support measurements for the rovers, including Sun-finding for rover navigation, hazard identification and digital terrain modeling to help guide long-term rover traverse decisions, high-resolution imaging to help guide the selection of in situ sampling targets, and acquisition of education and public outreach products. The Pancam optical,  mechanical, and electronics design were optimized to achieve these science and mission support goals.

 

e: Sorry to make this so long, but I noticed something else when looking at this "evidence."  All of the examples of changing colors they show in the video and on Ski's website are panoramas.  This is relevant for several reasons:

1.  Neither Tom, nor the original authors, have made any attempt at all to investigate the optical settings used to take the photo.  This make their conclusions specious.

2.  It's perfectly reasonable to think that those who made the panorama choose filters that would bring out the most surface detail over displaying 'true color.'  This could include preferring  infrared light that pierces atmospheric dust more easily than optical light.

3.  That's actually exactly what happened.

Here is a panorama that features the pink tab: http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/independence.html

This mosaic is an approximate true color rendering generated using the images acquired through Pancam's 750, 530, and 480 nm filters.

This technical manual shows that those are filters are L2, L5, and L6, respectively. 

This image also shows the pink tab: http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/images/False/Sol001B_P2303_1_False_L256_pos_14.jpg
It comes from this page of false color pancam images, which shows it was taken with filters L2, L5, and L6. 

It's just because the people who made the panorama chose those filters.  That's all.

Here is a panorama made using a different set of filters: http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/mars-dec-2005.html

All this is nice. There are billions of people on earth who like to see near true color images taken with a regular camera. They could have spent an extra 500 - 5000 dollars and sent a regular camera also. It is a little difficult to believe they spent all that money on the explorer and only get "filtered pictures".

All this is nice. There are billions of people on earth who like to see near true color images taken with a regular camera. They could have spent an extra 500 - 5000 dollars and sent a regular camera also. It is a little difficult to believe they spent all that money on the explorer and only get "filtered pictures".

It won't work at conditions it will be subjected to. It has to crash land on mars, endure -100 degrees C temperatures and sandstorms. You'll need a bigger vehicle to carry 2 robust camera's. It'll cost a lot more than 5000$. I don't blame them for taking only 1 camera along. Anyway, nobody is complaining about it, so why should they bother?

All this is nice. There are billions of people on earth who like to see near true color images taken with a regular camera. They could have spent an extra 500 - 5000 dollars and sent a regular camera also. It is a little difficult to believe they spent all that money on the explorer and only get "filtered pictures".

Waste of power.  Plus, digital cameras don't like the cold.

All this is nice. There are billions of people on earth who like to see near true color images taken with a regular camera. They could have spent an extra 500 - 5000 dollars and sent a regular camera also. It is a little difficult to believe they spent all that money on the explorer and only get "filtered pictures".

This guy thinks that you could send an extra camera to mars for an extra 500-5000 dollars.  Its much more than a simple camera cost.

This is all so dumb. There's the people asking for "true color, not filtered" and then the perfect explanation with a ton of sources as to why there is no such thing. All cameras use filters. All of them. Every single one. Digital. Polaroid. All of them. You cannot produce color without these filters. Even the human eye does it. And camera technology is nowhere near as advanced as the human eye. So maybe, if you want true color, you can be the next Mars Rover. We'll have Happy Rover, Ski Rover, and Markjo Rover.

Again, it can not be done. Every time I take a picture on a digital camera, I am (somehow) still surprised that it doesn't look quite the same as it does when I look directly at the object/person I took the picture of (color-wise). As someone said previously, not everyone sees color the same way. So I don't need to see responses such as "it doesn't look that way to me" because I don't care. I'm not you, of course it doesn't.

If you would actually read what garygreen is saying, (and I will say it again) a true color, digital image is not possible.

All this is nice. There are billions of people on earth who like to see near true color images taken with a regular camera. They could have spent an extra 500 - 5000 dollars and sent a regular camera also. It is a little difficult to believe they spent all that money on the explorer and only get "filtered pictures".

That would all be well and good if putting a 'regular camera' (still don't know what y'all mean by that) only cost you the money you spent on the camera.  Aside from the environmental reasons already provided about why you can't just strap an off-the-shelf camera from Best Buy onto your Mars rover, there are also weight, space, and energy constraints.  The causes of these constraints are numerous, but the point is that putting a 'regular camera' on the rover will cost you space, energy, and weight that could be devoted to other scientific instruments.  Since they already have a camera specifically designed for their rover, it makes little sense to add another, less sophisticated camera that also doesn't take 'true color' images.

The pancam can do all of the things a regular camera can do, like approximate 'true color' images.  Those images have been linked in this thread already.  It can also do a bunch of things a 'regular camera' can't do, like accomplish all of the science objectives quoted in my previous post and described in great detail by the paper I linked, written by the team who built and operate the camera.  A 'regular camera' can do none of the things the pancam can do.

Again, there is not any such thing as an 'unfiltered' photo.  That's not how cameras work.

Every time I take a picture on a digital camera, I am (somehow) still surprised that it doesn't look quite the same as it does when I look directly at the object/person I took the picture of (color-wise).

Between variations in the sensor, the lenses, the exposure metering, lighting, filters, internal processing and compression, the display and a bunch of other factors, I'd be surprised if the picture did look exactly the same as what I saw.