Landing on the Moon

So did we land on the moon?

I think the answer is yes but there is a big but to this.

Imagine you have to succeed no matter what. after all its the middle of the Cold War Russia has become the first country to send a man into space. USA is starting to lose the space race. 

 NASA will do anything to make sure the USA becomes the first country to land on the moon.

What I believe is that NASA did land on the moon, with a studio set as back up. So as Neil Armstrong stepped on to the Lunar surface to utter the most famous words in history "One small step for man one giant leap for mankind", there was a stunt double (for want of a better word) was doing the same thing on a studio set maybe at the same time or several days before. 

 Why would NASA do this well its not unusual to rehearse any live event these days with stand ins to get camera angles correct and to work out security issues. So why wouldn't NASA do this way back then. I mean this has got to be the most important event on the entire planet, you are not going to muck this up are you. 

Now if NASA have a prerecorded studio version, they can use this to test transmission times to their various tracking stations around the world. 

Could you imagine if the video transmission failed on the lunar module, or due to unforeseen circumstances the astronauts where unable to land on the moon NASA would be humiliated.  You would need some kind of backup. 

 Plus at one point there was a 2 minute gap in transmission, was this NASA switching over to the prerecorded sequence, or switching from prerecorded to live.

Are electric cars really as green as we think

 If we all switched to electric powered vehicles won't the overall consumption of electricity go up since everyone will need to charge their cars or vans.

 I think switching to electric vehicles will just move the pollution problem not solve it. Sure cities will eventually be cleaner, but how will we produce all this extra demand for electricity. Short term extra energy production will mean fossil fuel powered stations staying online longer than previously planned, while newer greener options are looked at and built. So what does this mean. It means we will need more wind farms, more tidal and more hydro electric solutions, and quite possibly more solar powered stations.

 This date of 2030 ish (will probably change) be used for all new cars in the EU will be electric is not that far off. But have governments prepared for the increase in the extra electricity consumption. I doubt it. 

Average UK energy consumption in the UK is about 3940 kWh  per year. The global average is 3370 kWh (data from EC4U) . Now when you start charging a car this energy consumption increases to about 7324 kWh. This means an increase of about €500 per year (data from Virta). While this is cheaper than your annual fuel bill, an average fuel bill comes in at about €3000 a year. It does mean more demand for electricity, and how is this demand going to be met.

There is an interesting article on Energy Matters about the cost of electric cars. 

And how will you charge electric vehicles if you live in a flat, not all flats have allocated parking and also some houses have street parking only so how do they charge their cars.

Its quite worrying that governments can pass this kind of legislation without thinking through all the possible consequences of what could happen.