20th of July 1969 – The United States of America have managed the impossible.
Under the eyes of the whole world, watching their TV screens in awe, Neil Armstrong is the first man to ever set foot on the moon.
“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”, at least that's what everyone is supposed to believe.
Since this historic day there has been an unending stream of disbelieve, supposed prove of faking the landing as well as sworn accounts by eyewitnesses. So far non of these have succeeded in providing evidence, that the Apollo 11 operation has not been what NASA says it was.
We all know one or the other myth about this topic. But how much do we really know? As most of our so-called knowledge is based on what someone told us, we will try to take a look at some of the most known conspiracies out there regarding the moon landing.
One name that will inevitably come up when talking about conspiracies regarding the moon landing is Bart Sibrel, author and director of the documentary “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon”, in which he examines moon landing footage and provides his own views.
Most of Sibrels claims are based around his belief, that NASA accidentally send secret footage of astronauts staging the moon landing to him. According to Sibrels, this footage was send to him while he assumed the Apollo 11 to still be in low orbit. Sibrel also claimed that NASA crew members used a transparency image of the earth in the background of their shots to give the illusion they were en ´route to the moon.
NASA has rebuked his theory by stating that the information Sibrels was using had been widely accessible and simply showed the astronauts practising for the live telecast that would occur when they did eventually land on the moon.
Although rebuked by NASA, the theory of the Apollo 11 mission being staged inspired more conspiracies.
Possibly the most famous one is the “waving flag”. Sibrel claims, that the flag is obviously moving in some photos with Buzz Aldrin (the man to land on the moon along with Neil Armstrong). He argues, that this is because of indoor fans used in the studio where they were “shooting” the fake moon landing. Why even use fans? If we believe Sibrel then the cooling systems usually used in the spacesuits were too heavy to operate on earth, hence the need for external cooling, bringing the fans into action.
A very simple way of disproving this thesis is by comparing the photos and animating them. Doing that clearly shows Buzz Aldrin moving, the flag however remaining stationary.
Another well known myth is surrounding the photograph of Bazz Aldrin's footprint on the moon. The basic theory is that the ability of moon dust to hold together this footprint and preserve in the way it did is unlikely. This theory held by many critics has however been rebuked by several sources. While the general idea was, that the prints could not remain like that because of the lack of moisture on the moon, many experiments have proven that to be simply false.
One such experiment was conducted by Mythbusters (http://www.dsc.discovery.com/tv/mythbusters) as part of their special episode on The Moon Landing Myths. Because the astronauts had described the texture of moon dust as being similar to wet sand the Mythbusters tested a footprint of a spacesuit on both wet and dry sand in a vacuum to recreate the moon's atmosphere. The lack of gravity combined with the difference in environment meant that because sand and rock is not weathered on the moon at the same rate as on earth the sand has the ability to “lock” together therefore preserving the footprint perfectly.
So far it looks like that against all odds and the opinions of critics the NASA actually managed to put a man on the moon. This is supported not only by the fact, that no counter-thesis has proven to be true yet but also by additional landings on the moon between 1969 and 1972.
As is the nature of human beings, there will always be some kind of conspiracy theory, not only about the moon landing in specific but about everything in general.
Possibly the only way to actually prove either the critics or NASA wrong is to launch additional missions to the moon, checking the facts and recounting the Apollo 11 mission. Up until then its on us to make up our own minds about this topic.
Possibly the only way to actually prove either the critics or NASA wrong is to launch additional missions to the moon, checking the facts and recounting the Apollo 11 mission. Up until then its on us to make up our own minds about this topic.
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References:
-http://www.en.wikipedia.org
-http://www.nationalgeographic.com
-http://www.lunarscience.gov.org
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