Did NASA Fake The Moon Landings? |
"Of all history's great conspiracy theories - one of the most enduring, and one with which I have particular sympathy, is concerned with men landing on the Moon. Was it all, as some have reasonably opined, not a lunar touchdown but instead a strikingly recreated stunt on a movie sound stage . . . well away from prying eyes?"
Quentin Falk, The Daily Telegraph
| You're joking of course . . . |
Not at all. There are large numbers of people who believe that man has never got beyond low earth orbit, and that the moon landings were an eleaborate hoax. This theory was undoubtably helped along by the release of the film Capricorn One in 1978, which was about a NASA conspiracy to fake a Mars landing.
The most compelling evidence is a series of alleged anomalies in the photographs allegedly taken on the moon of the landing. For example, the photo of Aldrin . Sceptics claim that the camera angle is wrong, that the shadows and lighting are wrong and that the reflections in the helmet show a photographer. Other photographs are believed to show additional (i.e. studio) light sources as the shadows are not all parallel. However, many - if not all - of these effects are susceptible to alternative explanations and ignore the fact that the moon is not an earthlike environment! FOe example the lack of stars in the black sky of some of the photographs shows a failure to understand how strong the lunar sunlight is. Just because the sky is black does not mean you can see the stars.
Other 'evidence' cites the dangers of radiation and micro-meteorites,and claims that man cannot actually survive in space. This seems less compelling, as are the statistical arguments based on the technology not being reliable enought to have succeeded. There are also rumours of new discoveries of video tape recorded prior to Apollo 11's departure which show segments of film purportedly broadcast from the Command Module in flight.
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