I can easily understand how someone could consider everything NASA (or technologists generally) claims to do as being faked. Everything they claim to do is really hard to verify for almost anyone. And, a lot of it might actually be easier to pull off by faking it – CGI is pretty impressive nowadays and it's not that hard to believe that a lot of images and even video are manipulated or even generated from whole cloth.
If you had to verify, personally, that the ESA actually controlled a spacecraft that orbited a comet, etc., how would you do it? Myself, I accept that I'm really trusting a network of people and that I can't practically verify almost anything I'm told.
If you had to verify, personally, that the ESA actually controlled a spacecraft that orbited a comet, etc., how would you do it?
Good question. Intercepting the data stream sent back from the spacecraft would probably be possible (direct imaging at that range isn't in the cards), but it would take some rather sensitive equipment. It might be possible to find amateur astronomers who tracked it during its launch or during its flybys of Earth in 2005, 2007, and 2009, though, and derive a trajectory from that; it's not "personal", but if you don'...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: