Just over half a century ago, after months of hard work by NASA and its sponsors, 600 million people held their breath as the door to the Apollo 11 Lunar Module opened. They simultaneously exhaled, either as a sign of relief or resignation, as two American astronauts stepped out, setting foot on the moon. There were no Hollywood animations. This was no conspiracy.
Yet today, some still refuse to believe that the moon landing truly occurred. These are the same people who question other historical occurences: the Magna Carta signing, the American Revolution and the Holocaust. And how is the moon landing any different?
The short answer: The Space Race existed.
About a decade following the close of World War II, a new conflict emerged: the Cold War, fought between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist U.S. Space became the countries’ new means of competition, a way of expressing their supremacy in technology. To some extent, it even represented their political systems, or as president John F. Kennedy would say, “national security.”
Despite the Soviet Union’s early advantage in the race as the first to send a satellite into orbit, as well as both a man and woman into space, an exasperated Kennedy was determined to win. He asked vice president Lyndon Johnson what to do, and after months the two ultimately decided to invest in what would become the Apollo program at NASA.
On July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 entered the moon’s orbit. There, they met the Soviet spaceship Luna 15, an unmanned spacecraft that was meant to fly to the moon, pick up and fly back before the American astronauts came home. However, from about two miles above ground, the Luna 15 crashed into a mountain before reaching its planned landing site.
On July 24, 1969, the American astronauts returned home, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean, moon rocks onboard. The mission was a success, and the U.S. won the space race.
So, you ask, why does this mean that it actually happened?
If the United States had faked the moon landing, then the Soviet Union would have certainly revealed that secret — they weren’t exactly the type to lose. But they didn’t.
Let’s say for the moment that the landing was indeed faked, and somehow the Soviet Union managed to not find out.
Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country, coming from tens of thousands of corporations, played roles the Apollo program. Could their work have all been faked? Could they have all been part of a scam? Probably not. Half a century has passed since then, so the number of people who are likely to know about and protect the apparent scam, factoring in the employees’ families and friends, is in the neighborhood of 2 million.
Is it even possible that after half a century, not one of those 2 million people uttered a word about the whole thing?
Maybe you’re still not convinced. After all, it is possible that the Soviet investigators missed out on some important details, and maybe those 2 million people really did keep their mouths shut. But NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has something to say about it, too.
The orbiter has high-resolution photographs of the landing sites of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17, in which the physical landing sites, indicated by scorched rocks, are clearly visible, as are the footprints that emerge from them.
However, on earth, footprints generally disappear within a few weeks, whether it be wind flattening out sand in the desert, rain turning dirt to mud in the forest or animal activity. Without wind, rain, glaciers, avalanches, life or other means of moving around particles as there are on earth, it is nearly impossible to fake those photographs that were taken years after the initial landing.
Additionally, numerous pieces of scientific equipment, including seismometers, the lunar laser ranging retroreflector array and lunar rovers report the same information that the astronauts did decades ago.
OK, sure, you say. But what about those weird photos they took?
Some skeptics believe that the landing was fake because it appears that the American flag was flapping in the wind. In truth, the flag was specially designed by NASA so that it wouldn’t droop down in pictures. Since it looks exactly the same in all the pictures, it doesn’t make much sense that it really were flapping.
As for why the sky appeared to have no stars, it is because the camera, focused on the white space suits and reflective ground, wouldn’t have been able to capture small, dim dots in the black sky. This is self-explanatory to anyone who has used a camera.
The conclusion is clear. We really did land on the moon and saying otherwise is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of people who made it happen.