A very well known, and controversial conspiracy, is that of the 1969 moon landing of NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft. The theory is that the first manned moon landing was in fact a hoax, set up by the US government for a host of political reasons. This conspiracy theory first gained attention after Bill Kaysings self-published book, “We Never Went to the Moon: Americas Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle” was released in 1974, only two years after the final Apollo moon landings. Interestingly, a number of polls have indicated that somewhere between 6 and 28% of people believe that the moon landings were hoaxed. There are many so-called “proofs” as to why the moon landings were faked, we will look at some of the most commonly known of these proofs.
So, is it possible to debunk this theory scientifically? The answer is yes. It is more than likely that when placing the flag onto the surface of the moon, the astronauts of Apollo 11 had to move the flagpole back and forth in order to steadily secure it into the ground. The force of these motions could easily cause the flag to ripple, leaving the flag as it appears on photographs, thus explaining away the belief that a breeze caused the ripple. Also, throughout footage, and in photographs of the moon landing, we can clearly see that the flag remains in an upright position. If it were the case that the flag was actually placed inside a studio, then it would have to be made of a material that could keep it in an upright position, and if this were the case, then any breeze would not affect the flag at all.
Another prominent theory as to why the moon landings were faked is that in most of the photographs taken on the moons surface, there are no visible stars in the sky. Conspiracy theorists claim that if the photos were actually taken on the moon, then there would be a host of visible stars in the background. This theory can also be debunked scientifically, firstly by the fact that the surface of the moon is clearly lit by the sun, which would cause a lot of reflection, thus making it difficult to see the stars in the sky. Secondly, the cameras used needed to be set in high light in order to take crisp pictures, and because of this, the camera could not gather enough light from the very dim stars to be seen.
One of the main points made by conspiracy theorists is in reference to the lighting and shadows in the footage of the moon landing. The evidence for the conspiracy includes the shadows being far to light and the existence of peculiar non-parallel shadows. The proponents of the theory argue this is evidence for the moon landing being filmed on earth (some propose at area 51) using studio lighting. This photo is commonly used as evidence. They argue that only artificial lighting could produce the detail seen in shadows (as shown in the photograph)
and that only multiple light sources could produce shadows of varying directions. Although this seems convincing at first there are alternative explanations of these phenomenons. The argument stems from the idea that there would only be one consistent light source while on the moon – that of the sun. In reality the lights being reflected by the earth as well as the light being reflected from the moon itself are both factors. In the first example the ability to see the detail in where it would appear there should be shadow is easily explained through the reflection of light from the ground which can be demonstrated through the shadow on the upper side of the arm. The non-parallel lines can also be explained when the earth as a light source is taken into account but an alternative explanation is also available. The angle of the shadows would vary based on the slope of the ground below the astronaut. In the photos normally cited as evidence this is quite obviously the cause and this is certainly a more realistic explanation. So it seems the fall of the shadows in the footage and photographs are coherent with the lighting that would be present on the moon and so do not support the theory that it was a hoax.
The motives given for faking the moon landing are often related to the cold war and the need for America to win as a way to prove it was at the forefront of space exploration and research. This also means that the Soviet Union would gain a great amount of political gain if they somehow proved the moon landing to be a fake. The fact that this did not occur and that the theory of the faking of the moon landing only occurred later is evidence that the Soviets, even though there would be benefit to proving this, were unable too. In fact the Soviets tracked the mission through satellites for the majority of the journey.
Another possible motive for hoaxing the moon landings was to ensure that NASA continued to receive funding. A lot of the American public felt that the money placed into funding NASA, for example the Apollo 11 moon landing cost an estimated $30 billion US Dollars, and considering that the United States does not have a national health service, could have been put to better use. The theory is that NASA needed to make some vital progress to show something for the huge amount of government funding that it was receiving, and as viewers of the Apollo 11 moon landing would agree, it was one of the most inspirational and memorable moments of the modern era, a sort of “I was there” moment. In the 1960’s, US president John F. Kennedy set a goal of man landing on the moon by the end of the decade, if this deadline was not met, then this would cause even more anger and frustration at the massive budget that NASA was given. There is no real way to say that this theory is false, but what we can say however, is the fact that the Vietnam war was ongoing during this time, and the government expenditure on this by far caused more anger and frustration than NASA ever did, so perhaps a solution to the Vietnam war would have been a better solution to anger of government spending.
So, in conclusion, we can say that there are many so-called “proofs” that conspiracy theorists like to use to argue that the Apollo moon landings were hoaxed, but as we can see from the proofs given above, there is plenty of sound scientific reasons to debunk them. As for the motives for hoaxing the Apollo landings, we cannot say that the US did not have its motives for hoaxing the moon landing, but we can say that they may be debunked by proof that the Apollo landings actually happened, for example, there have been no further moon landings since the Apollo program, and during the Apollo 11 landing, samples of moon rock were taken from the surface of the moon, and various scientists, both of NASA and independent researchers have verified that these samples are unobtainable anywhere on Earth, and that they did in fact come from the surface of the moon. So, taking everything into account, it seems more than likely that the Apollo moon landings were not hoaxes, and did in fact take place.
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