Moon landing conspiracy theories 1

Moon landing conspiracy theories

Astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in NASA's trainingmockup of the Moon and lander module. Conspiracy theorists say

that the film of the missions was made using similar sets to thistraining mockup.

Jim Lovell training for Apollo 13

The Moon landing conspiracy theories claim thatsome or all elements of the Apollo program and theassociated Moon landings were hoaxes staged byNASA and members of other organizations. Variousgroups and individuals have made such conspiracyclaims since the mid-1970s. The most notable claim isthat the six manned landings (1969–1972) were fakedand that the twelve Apollo astronauts did not walk onthe Moon. Conspiracy theorists (henceforthconspiracists) base their claims on the notion NASAand others knowingly misled the public into believingthe landings happened by manufacturing, destroying, ortampering with evidence; including photos, telemetrytapes, transmissions, rock samples, and even some keywitnesses.

Conspiracists have managed to sustain public interestin their theories for more than 40 years despite therebeing much third-party evidence for the landings anddetailed rebuttals to the hoax claims.[1] Polls taken invarious locations have shown that between 6% and20% of Americans surveyed believe that the mannedlandings were faked, rising to 28% in Russia. Even aslate as 2001, the major television network Foxbroadcast a documentary named Conspiracy Theory:Did We Land on the Moon? claiming NASA faked thefirst landing in 1969 to win the Space Race.[2]

Since the late 2000s, high-definition photos taken bythe LROC spacecraft of the Apollo landing sites havecaptured the lander modules and the tracks left by theastronauts.[3][4] In 2012, images were released showingthe Apollo flags still standing on the Moon.[5][6]

Origins

The first book about the subject, Bill Kaysing'sself-published We Never Went to the Moon: America'sThirty Billion Dollar Swindle, was released in 1974,two years after the Apollo Moon flights had ended. TheFlat Earth Society was one of the first organizations toaccuse NASA of faking the landings, arguing that theywere staged by Hollywood with Walt Disney sponsorship, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and

Moon landing conspiracy theories 2

Photo of Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan withthe Earth in the background

directed by Stanley Kubrick.[7][8] Folklorist Linda Degh suggests thatwriter-director Peter Hyams's 1978 film Capricorn One, which showsa hoaxed journey to Mars in a spacecraft that looks identical to theApollo craft, may have given a boost to the hoax theory's popularity inthe post-Vietnam War era. She notes that this happened during thepost-Watergate era, when American citizens were inclined to distrustofficial accounts. Degh writes: "The mass media catapult thesehalf-truths into a kind of twilight zone where people can make theirguesses sound as truths. Mass media have a terrible impact on peoplewho lack guidance".[9] In A Man on the Moon, published in 1994,Andrew Chaikin mentions that at the time of Apollo 8's lunar-orbitmission in December 1968, similar conspiracy ideas were already incirculation.

Public opinion

There are subcultures worldwide which advocate the belief that the Moon landings were faked. By 1977 the HareKrishna magazine Back to Godhead called the landings a hoax. The reason they gave is that the Sun is 93,000,000miles away and according to Hindu mythology the Moon is 800,000 miles farther away than that, making the Moonnearly 94,000,000 miles away. To travel that span in 91 hours would require a speed of more than a million miles perhour, "a patently impossible feat even by the scientists' calculations."[10]

James Oberg of ABC News said that the conspiracy theory is taught in Cuban schools and wherever Cuban teachersare sent.[11][12] A poll conducted in the 1970s by the United States Information Agency in several countries in LatinAmerica, Asia, and Africa found that most respondents were unaware of the Moon landings, many of the othersdismissed them as propaganda or science fiction, and many thought that it had been the Russians that landed on theMoon.[13]

In a 1994 poll by The Washington Post, 9% of the respondents said that it was possible that astronauts did not go tothe Moon and another 5% were unsure.[14] A 1999 Gallup poll found that 6% of the Americans surveyed doubtedthat the Moon landings happened and that 5% of those surveyed had no opinion,[15][16][17][18] which roughlymatches the findings of a similar 1995 Time/CNN poll.[15] Officials of Fox television said that such skepticism roseto about 20% after the February 2001 airing of Fox network's TV show Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on theMoon? seen by about 15 million viewers.[16] This 2001 Fox special is seen as having promoted the hoaxclaims.[19][20]

A 2000 poll held by the Russian Public Opinion Fund found that 28% of those surveyed did not believe thatAmerican astronauts landed on the Moon, and this percentage is roughly equal in all social-demographic groups.[21]

In 2009, a poll held by the United Kingdom's Engineering & Technology magazine found that 25% of thosesurveyed did not believe that men landed on the Moon.[22] Another poll gives that 25% of 18–25-year-olds surveyedwere unsure that the landings happened.[23]

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Claimed motives of the United States and NASAThose who believe the landings were faked give several theories about the motives of NASA and the United Statesgovernment. The three main theories are below.The Space RaceThe United States government deemed it vital that it win the Space Race against the Soviet Union. Going to theMoon would be risky and expensive, as exemplified by John F. Kennedy famously stating that the United Stateschose to go because it was hard.[24]

A main reason for the race to the Moon was the Cold War. Philip Plait says in Bad Astronomy that the Soviets—withtheir own competing Moon program and a formidable scientific community able to analyze NASA data—wouldhave cried foul if the United States tried to fake a Moon landing,[25] especially since their own program had failed.Proving a hoax would have been a huge propaganda win for the Soviets. Bart Sibrel responded, "the Soviets did nothave the capability to track deep spacecraft until late in 1972, immediately after which, the last three Apollomissions were suddenly canceled."[26]

However, the Soviets had been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon since 1959,[27] and "during 1962, deepspace tracking facilities were introduced at IP-15 in Ussuriisk and IP-16 in Evpatoria, while Saturn communicationstations were added to IP-3, 4 and 14",[28] the latter having a 100 million km range.[29] The Soviet Union tracked theApollo missions at the Space Transmissions Corps, which was "fully equipped with the latest intelligence-gatheringand surveillance equipment".[30] Vasily Mishin, in an interview for the article "The Moon Programme That Faltered"(Spaceflight, March 1991, vol. 33, 2–3), describes how the Soviet Moon program dwindled after the Apollolandings.FundingIt is claimed that NASA faked the landings to forgo humiliation and to ensure that it continued to get funding. NASAraised about US$30 billion to go to the Moon, and Bill Kaysing claims that this could have been used to "pay off"many people.[31] Since most conspiracists believe that sending men to the Moon was impossible at the time, theyargue that landings had to be faked to fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise: "achieving the goal, before thisdecade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".[24] Others have claimed that,with all the known and unknown hazards,[32] NASA would not have risked the public humiliation of astronautscrashing to their deaths on the Moon, broadcast on live TV.[33]

Vietnam WarIt is claimed that the landings helped the United States government because they were a popular distraction from theVietnam War; and so manned landings suddenly ended about the same time that the United States ended its role inthe Vietnam War.[34]

Conspiracists and their main proposals• Bill Kaysing (1922–2005) – an ex-employee of Rocketdyne,[35] the company which built the F-1 engines used on

the Saturn V rocket. Kaysing was not technically qualified, and worked at Rocketdyne as a librarian.[36] Kaysing'sself-published book, We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle,[37][38][39] made manyallegations, effectively beginning the discussion of the Moon landings being faked. Kaysing maintains that,despite close monitoring by the USSR, it would have been easier for NASA to fake the Moon landings, therebyguaranteeing success, than for NASA to really go there. He claimed that the chance of a successful mannedlanding on the Moon was calculated to be 0.017%.[40] NASA and others have debunked the claims made in thebook.

• Bart Sibrel (1964-) – a filmmaker, produced and directed four films for his company AFTH,[41] including a film in 2001 called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon,[42] examining the evidence of a hoax. The arguments that Sibrel puts forward in this film have been debunked by many sources, including Svector's video

Moon landing conspiracy theories 4

series Lunar Legacy, which disproves the documentary's main argument that the Apollo crew faked their distancefrom the Earth command module, while in low orbit. Sibrel has said that the effect on the shot covered in his filmwas made through the use of a transparency of the Earth. Some parts of the original footage, according to Sibrel,were not able to be included on the official releases for the media. On such allegedly censored parts, thecorrelation between Earth and Moon Phases can be clearly confirmed, refuting Sibrel's claim that these shots werefaked. On September 9, 2002 Sibrel was punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin after Sibrel confronted Aldrin withhis theories[43] and accused the former astronaut of being "a coward, and a liar, and a thief". The Los AngelesCounty district attorney's office refused to file charges against Aldrin, saying that he had been provoked bySibrel.[44]

• William L. Brian – a nuclear engineer who self-published a book in 1982 called Moongate: Suppressed Findingsof the U.S. Space Program, in which he disputes the Moon's surface gravity.

• David Percy – TV producer and expert in audiovisual technologies and member of the Royal PhotographicSociety. He is co-writer, along with Mary Bennett of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (ISBN1-898541-10-8) and co-producer of What Happened On the Moon?. He is the main proponent of the'whistle-blower' accusation, arguing that mistakes in the NASA photos are so obvious that they are evidence thatinsiders are trying to 'blow the whistle' on the hoax by knowingly adding mistakes that they know will be seen.[45]

• Ralph René (1933-2008) – an inventor and 'self taught' engineering buff. Writer of NASA Mooned America(second edition OCLC 36317224).

• James M. Collier (d. 1998) – American journalist and writer, producer of the video Was It Only a Paper Moon?(1997).

• Jack White (1927-2012) – American photo historian known for his attempt to prove forgery in photos related tothe assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

• Marcus Allen – British publisher of Nexus who said that photographs of the lander would not prove that theUnited States put men on the Moon. He said, "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem – the Russiansdid that in 1959, the big problem is getting people there". He suggests that NASA sent robot missions becauseradiation levels in space would be deadly.[46] Another variant on this is the idea that NASA and its contractors didnot recover quickly enough from the Apollo 1 fire, and so all the early Apollo missions were faked, with Apollo14 or 15 being the first real mission.[47]

• Aron Ranen – states in his documentary film Did We Go? (2005) that "right now I'm about 75% believing wewent". However, on July 20, 2009, Ranen appeared on the show Geraldo at Large to argue that no one has landedon the Moon.

• Clyde Lewis – radio talk show host.[48]

• David Groves – works for Quantech Image Processing and worked on some of the NASA photos. He examinedthe photo of Aldrin emerging from the lander and said he can pinpoint when a spotlight was used. Using the focallength of the camera's lens and an actual boot, he allegedly calculated, using ray-tracing, that the spotlight isbetween 24 to 36 centimetres (unknown operator: u'[' to unknown operator: u'[' in) to the right of thecamera.[49] This matches with the sunlit part of Armstrong's spacesuit.[50]

• Yuri Mukhin – Russian opposition politician, publicist and writer of the book The Moon Affair of the USA (2006)in which he denies all Moon landing evidence and accuses the United States government of plundering the moneypaid by the American taxpayers for the Moon program. He also claims the Central Committee of the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union and some Soviet scientists helped NASA fake the landings.[51]

• Alexander Popov – Russian doctor of physical-mathematical sciences and writer of the book Americans on theMoon – A Great Breakthrough or a Space Affair? (Moscow, 2009, ISBN 978-5-9533-3315-3) in which he aimsto prove that Saturn V was in fact a camouflaged Saturn 1B[52] and denies all Moon landing evidence.[53]

• Stanislav Pokrovsky – Russian candidate of technical sciences and General Director of a scientific-manufacturing enterprise Project-D-MSK who calculated that the real speed of the Saturn V rocket at S-IC staging time was only half of what was declared.[54][55] His analysis appears to assume that the solid rocket plumes from the fuselage

Moon landing conspiracy theories 5

and retro rockets on the two stages came to an instant halt in the surrounding air so they can be used to estimatethe velocity of the rocket. He ignored high altitude winds and the altitude at staging, 67 km, where air is about1/10,000 as dense as at sea level, and claimed that only a loop around the Moon was possible, not a mannedlanding on the Moon with return to Earth. He also allegedly found the reason for this – problems with the Inconelsuperalloy used in the F-1 engine.[56][57][58]

• Philippe Lheureux – French writer of Moon Landings: Did NASA Lie? and Lights on the Moon: Did NASA Lie?(Lumières sur la Lune: La NASA a-t-elle menti?). He said that astronauts did land on the Moon but to stop otherstates from benefiting from scientific information in the real photos, NASA published fake images.[59]

The hoax claimsMany conspiracy theories have been put forward. They either claim that the landings did not happen and that NASAemployees (and sometimes others) have lied; or that the landings did happen but not in the way that has been told.Conspiracists have focused on perceived gaps or inconsistencies in the historical record of the missions. Theforemost idea is that the whole manned landing program was a hoax from start to end. Some claim that thetechnology to send men to the Moon was lacking or that the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind,coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays made such a trip impossible.[37]

Vince Calder and Andrew Johnson, scientists from Argonne National Laboratory, gave detailed answers to theconspiracists' claims on the laboratory's website.[60] They show that NASA's portrayal of the Moon landing isfundamentally accurate, allowing for such common mistakes as mislabeled photos and imperfect personalrecollections. Using the scientific process, any hypothesis that is contradicted by the observable facts may berejected. The 'real landing' hypothesis is a single story since it comes from a single source, but there is no unity in thehoax hypothesis because hoax accounts vary between conspiracists.[61]

Number of conspirators involvedAccording to James Longuski (Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering at Purdue University), theconspiracy theories are impossible because of their size and complexity. The conspiracy would have to involve themore than 400,000 people who worked on the Apollo project for nearly ten years, the 12 men who walked on theMoon, the six others who flew with them as Command Module Pilots, and another six astronauts who orbited theMoon.[62] Hundreds of thousands of people—including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilledlaborers—would have had to keep the secret. Longuski argues that it would have been much easier to really land onthe Moon than to generate such a huge conspiracy to fake the landings.[63][64] To date, nobody from the UnitedStates government or NASA who would have had a link to the Apollo program has said the Moon landings werehoaxes. Penn Jillette made note of this in the "Conspiracy Theories" episode of his contrarian television show Penn& Teller: Bullshit! in 2005. He said that, with the number of people that would have had to be involved, someonewould have outed the hoax by now. With the government's track record of keeping secrets (noting Watergate),Jillette said the government could not have silenced everyone if the landings were faked.

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Photograph and film odditiesConspiracists focus heavily on NASA photos. They point to oddities in photos and films taken on the Moon.Photography experts (even those unrelated to NASA) answer that the oddities are what one would expect from a realMoon landing, and not what would happen with tweaked or studio imagery. Some of the main arguments andcounter-arguments are listed below.1. In some photos, crosshairs seem to be behind objects. The cameras were fitted with a reseau plate (a clear glassplate with crosshairs etched on), making it impossible for any photographed object to appear "in front" of the grid.This suggests that objects have been "pasted" over them.

• This only appears in copied and scanned photos, not the originals. It is caused by overexposure: the brightwhite areas of the emulsion "bleed" over the thin black crosshairs. The crosshairs are only about 0.004 inchthick (0.1 mm) and emulsion would only have to bleed about half that much to fully obscure it. Furthermore,there are many photos where the middle of the crosshair is "washed-out" but the rest is intact. In some photosof the American flag, parts of one crosshair appear on the red stripes, but parts of the same crosshair arefaded or invisible on the white stripes. There would have been no reason to "paste" white stripes onto theflag.[65]

2. Crosshairs are sometimes rotated or in the wrong place.• This is a result of popular photos being cropped and/or rotated for esthetic impact.[65]

3. The quality of the photographs is implausibly high.• There are many poor-quality photos taken by the Apollo astronauts. NASA chose to publish only the best

examples.[66][67]

• The Apollo astronauts used high-resolution Hasselblad 500 EL/M Data cameras with Carl Zeiss optics and a70-mm film magazine.[68]

4. There are no stars in any of the photos; the Apollo 11 astronauts also claimed in a post-mission press conferenceto not remember seeing any stars.

•• The astronauts were talking about naked-eye sightings of stars during the lunar daytime. They regularlysighted stars through the spacecraft navigation optics while aligning their inertial reference platforms.

• All manned landings happened during the lunar daytime. Thus, the stars were outshone by the sun and bysunlight reflected off the Moon's surface. The astronauts' eyes were adapted to the sunlit landscape aroundthem so that they could not see the relatively faint stars. Likewise, cameras were set for daylight exposure andcould not detect the stars.[69][70] Camera settings can turn a well-lit background to black when the foregroundobject is brightly lit, forcing the camera to increase shutter speed so that the foreground light doesn't wash-outthe image. A demonstration of this effect is here [71]. The effect is similar to not being able to see stars from abrightly lit car park at night—the stars only become visible when the lights are turned off. The astronautscould see stars with the naked eye only when they were in the shadow of the Moon.[72][73]

•• An ultraviolet telescope was taken to the lunar surface on Apollo 16 and operated in the shadow of the lunarmodule. It took photos of Earth and of many stars, some of which are dim in visible light but bright in theultraviolet. These observations were later matched with observations taken by orbiting ultraviolet telescopes.Furthermore, the positions of those stars with respect to Earth are correct for the time and location of theApollo 16 photos.

• Photos of the solar corona that included the planet Mercury and some background stars were taken from lunarorbit by Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot Al Worden.[74]

• Photos of the planet Venus (which is much brighter than any of the stars) were taken from the Moon's surfaceby astronaut Alan Shepard during the Apollo 14 mission.

5. The angle and color of shadows are inconsistent. This suggests that artificial lights were used.

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• Shadows on the Moon are complicated by reflected light, uneven ground, wide-angle lens distortion, and lunardust. There are several light sources: the Sun, sunlight reflected from the Earth, sunlight reflected from theMoon's surface, and sunlight reflected from the astronauts and the Lunar Module. Light from these sources isscattered by lunar dust in many directions, including into shadows. Shadows falling into craters and hills mayappear longer, shorter and distorted.[75] Furthermore, shadows display the properties of vanishing pointperspective, leading them to converge to a point on the horizon.

• This theory was debunked on the MythBusters episode "NASA Moon Landing".6. There are identical backgrounds in photos which, according to their captions, were taken miles apart. Thissuggests that a painted background was used.

• Backgrounds were not identical, just similar. What appear as nearby hills in some photos are actuallymountains many miles away. On Earth, objects that are further away will appear fainter and less detailed. Onthe Moon, there is no atmosphere or haze to obscure faraway objects, thus they appear clearer and nearer.[76]

Furthermore, there are very few objects (such as trees) to help judge distance. One case is debunked in "WhoMourns For Apollo?" by Mike Bara.[77]

7. The number of photos taken is implausibly high. Up to one photo per 50 seconds.[78]

•• Simplified gear with fixed settings allowed two photos a second. Many were taken immediately after each otheras stereo pairs or panorama sequences. The calculation (one per 50 seconds) was based on a lone astronauton the surface, and does not take into account that there were two astronauts sharing the workload duringEVA.

8. The photos contain artifacts like the two seemingly matching 'C's on a rock and on the ground. These may belabeled studio props.

• The "C"-shaped objects are most likely printing imperfections and do not appear in the original film from thecamera. It has been suggested that the "C" is a coiled hair.[79][80]

9. A resident of Perth, Australia, with the pseudonym "Una Ronald", said she saw a soft drink bottle in the framewhile watching one of the manned landings as it happened.

• No such newspaper reports or recordings have been found. Una Ronald's existence is claimed by only onesource. There are also flaws in the story, e.g. the statement that she had to "stay up late" is easily discountedby many witnesses in Australia who watched the landing in the middle of their daytime.[81]

10. The book Moon Shot contains an obvious composite photo of Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon withanother astronaut.

•• It was used instead of the only existing real images, from the TV monitor, which the editors seemingly felt weretoo grainy for their book. The book publishers did not work for NASA.

11. There appear to be "hot spots" in some photos that look like a huge spotlight was used.• Pits on the Moon's surface focus and reflect light like the tiny glass spheres used in the coating of street signs,

or dew-drops on wet grass. This creates a glow around the photographer's own shadow when it appears in aphotograph (see Heiligenschein).

• If the astronaut is standing in sunlight while photographing into shade, light reflected off his white spacesuityields a similar effect to a spotlight.[82]

•• Some widely published Apollo photos were high-contrast copies. Scans of the original transparencies aregenerally much more evenly lit. An example is shown below:

12. Who filmed Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon?•• The Lunar Module did. While still on the steps, Armstrong deployed the Modularized Equipment Stowage

Assembly from the side of the Lunar Module. This housed, amongst other things, the TV camera. This meantthat upward of 600 million people on Earth could watch the live feed.

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Environment1. The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation beltand galactic ambient radiation (see radiation poisoning and health threat from cosmic rays). Some conspiracists havesuggested that Starfish Prime (high altitude nuclear testing in 1962) was a failed attempt to disrupt the Van Allenbelts.

• The spacecraft moved through the belts in about four hours, and the astronauts were shielded from theionizing radiation by the aluminium hulls of the spacecraft. Furthermore, the orbital transfer trajectory fromEarth to the Moon through the belts was chosen to lessen radiation exposure. Even Dr. James Van Allen, thediscoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too harmful for theApollo missions.[83] Plait cited an average dose of less than 1 rem (10 mSv), which is equivalent to the ambientradiation received by living at sea level for three years.[84] The spacecraft passed through the intense innerbelt and the low-energy outer belt. The total radiation received on the trip was about the same as allowed forworkers in the nuclear energy field for a year.[85]

• The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the Moon. Irene Schneider reports that 33 of the36 Apollo astronauts involved in the nine Apollo missions to leave Earth orbit have developed early stagecataracts that have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure to cosmic rays.[86] At least 39 formerastronauts have developed cataracts; 36 of those were involved in high-radiation missions such as the Apollomissions.[87]

2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation.• The film was kept in metal containers that stopped radiation from fogging the film's emulsion.[88] Furthermore,

film carried by unmanned lunar probes such as the Lunar Orbiter and Luna 3 (which used on-board filmdevelopment processes) was not fogged.

3. The Moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted.• There is no atmosphere to efficiently bind lunar surface heat to devices (such as cameras) that are not in direct

contact with it. In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiativeheat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was enoughto control the temperature of the film within the cameras; Moon lander temperatures were controlled withsimilar coatings that gave them a gold color. Also, while the Moon's surface does get very hot at lunar noon,every Apollo landing was made shortly after lunar sunrise at the landing site. During the longer stays, theastronauts did notice increased cooling loads on their spacesuits as the sun and surface temperature continuedto rise, but the effect was easily countered by the passive and active cooling systems.[89] The film was not indirect sunlight, so it wasn't overheated.[90] Note: The Moon's day is about 29½ Earth days long, meaning thatone Moon day (dawn to dusk) lasts nearly fifteen Earth days.

4. The Apollo 16 crew could not have survived a big solar flare firing out when they were on their way to the Moon.• No large solar flare occurred during the flight of Apollo 16. There were large solar flares in August 1972,

after Apollo 16 returned to Earth and before the flight of Apollo 17.[91][92]

5. The flag placed on the surface by the astronauts fluttered despite there being no wind on the Moon. This suggeststhat it was filmed on Earth and a breeze caused the flag to flutter. Sibrel said that it may have been caused by indoorfans used to cool the astronauts, since their spacesuit cooling systems would have been too heavy on Earth.

• The flag was fastened to a Г-shaped rod (see Lunar Flag Assembly) so that it did not hang down. The flag onlyseemed to flutter when the astronauts were moving it into position. Without air drag, these movements causedthe free corner of the flag to swing like a pendulum for some time. The flag was rippled because it had beenfolded during storage—the ripples could be mistaken for movement in a still photo. Videos show that when theastronauts let go of the flagpole it vibrates briefly but then remains still.[93][94][95]

• This theory was debunked on the MythBusters episode "NASA Moon Landing".

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6. Footprints in the Moon dust are unexpectedly well preserved, despite the lack of moisture.• The Moon dust has not been weathered like Earth sand and has sharp edges. This allows the Moon dust

particles to stick together and hold their shape in the vacuum. The astronauts likened it to "talcum powder orwet sand".[77]

• This theory was debunked on the MythBusters episode "NASA Moon Landing".7. The alleged Moon landings used either a sound stage, or were filmed outside in a remote desert with the astronautseither using harnesses or slow-motion photography to make it look like they were on the Moon.

•• While the HBO Mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon", and a scene from "Apollo 13" used the sound-stageand harness setup, it is clearly seen from those films that when dust rose it did not quickly settle (some dustbriefly formed clouds). In the film footage from the Apollo missions, dust kicked-up by the astronauts' bootsand the wheels of the Moon rovers rose quite high (due to the lunar gravity), and settled quickly to the groundin an uninterrupted parabolic arc (due to there being no air to uphold the dust). Even if there had been asound stage for hoax Moon landings that had had the air pumped-out, the dust would have reached nowherenear the height and trajectory as the dust shown in the Apollo film footage because of Earth gravity.

• During the Apollo 15 mission, David Scott did an experiment by dropping a hammer and a falcon feather atthe same time. Both fell at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time. This proved that he was in avacuum.[96]

• This theory was debunked on the MythBusters episode "NASA Moon Landing".

Mechanical issues

Under the Apollo 11 Lunar Module

1. The Moon landers made no blast craters or any sign of dustscatter.[97]

• No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion Systemwas throttled very far down during the final landing. The Moonlander was no longer quickly decelerating, so the descent engineonly had to support the lander's own weight, which was lessenedby the Moon's gravity and by the near exhaustion of the descentpropellants. At landing, the engine thrust divided by the nozzleexit area is only about 10 kilopascals (1.5 PSI).[98] Beyond theengine nozzle, the plume spreads and the pressure drops veryquickly. In comparison, the Saturn V F-1 first stage enginesproduced 3.2 MPa (459 PSI) at the mouth of the nozzle. Rocketexhaust gases expand much more quickly after leaving the enginenozzle in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. The effect of an atmosphere on rocket plumes can be easily seen inlaunches from Earth; as the rocket rises through the thinning atmosphere, the exhaust plumes broaden verynoticeably. To lessen this, rocket engines made for vacuums have longer bells than those made for use onEarth, but they still cannot stop this spreading. The Moon lander's exhaust gases, therefore, expanded quicklywell beyond the landing site. However, the descent engines did scatter a lot of very fine surface dust as seen in16mm movies of each landing, and many mission commanders spoke of its effect on visibility. The landers weregenerally moving horizontally as well as vertically, and photos do show scouring of the surface along the finaldescent path. Finally, the lunar regolith is very compact below its surface dust layer, further making itimpossible for the descent engine to blast out a "crater".[99] In fact, a blast crater was measured under theApollo 11 lander using shadow lengths of the descent engine bell and estimates of the amount that the landinggear had compressed and how deep the lander footpads had pressed into the lunar surface and it was found

Moon landing conspiracy theories 10

that the engine had eroded between 4 and 6 inches of regolith out from underneath the engine bell during thefinal descent and landing.[100],pp. 97–98[101]

2. The second stage of the launch rocket and/or the Moon lander ascent stage made no visible flame.• The Moon landers used Aerozine 50 (fuel) and dinitrogen tetroxide (oxidizer) propellants, chosen for

simplicity and reliability; they ignite hypergolically – upon contact – without the need for a spark. Thesepropellants produce a nearly transparent exhaust.[102] The same fuel was used by the core of the AmericanTitan rocket. The transparency of their plumes is apparent in many launch photos. The plumes of rocketengines fired in a vacuum spread out very quickly as they leave the engine nozzle (see above), further lesseningtheir visibility. Finally, rocket engines often run "rich" to slow internal corrosion. On Earth, the excess fuelburns in contact with atmospheric oxygen. This cannot happen in a vacuum.

Apollo 8 launch through the first stage separation Exhaust flame may not be visible outside the atmosphere, as in thisphoto. Rocket engines are the dark structures at the bottom center.

The launch of a Titan II, burning hypergolicAerozine-50/N2O4, 430,000 pounds-force

( MN) of thrust. Note the near-transparencyof the exhaust, even in air (water is being

sprayed up from below).

Atlas uses non-hypergolic kerosene(RP-1) fuel which gives a bright and

very visible exhaust, 340,000 lbf ( MN)of thrust

Bright flame from first stage of the Saturn V,burning RP-1

3. There should not have been deep dust around the Moon landers, given the blast from the landing engines.• The dust is created by a continuous rain of micro-meteoroid impacts and is typically several inches thick. It

forms the top of the lunar regolith, a layer of impact rubble several meters thick and highly compacted with

Moon landing conspiracy theories 11

depth. On Earth, an exhaust plume might stir up the atmosphere over a wide area. On the Moon, only theexhaust gas itself can disturb the dust. Some areas around descent engines were scoured clean.[99]

Note: Moving footage of astronauts and the Moon rover kicking-up Moon dust clearly show the dust kickingup quite high due to the low gravity, but settling quickly without air to stop it. Had these landings been fakedon the Earth, persistent dust clouds would have formed. (They can be seen as a "goof" in the movie Apollo 13when Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) imagines walking on the Moon). This clearly shows the astronauts tobe (a) in low gravity and (b) in a vacuum.

4. The Moon landers weighed 17 tons and made no mark on the Moon dust, yet footprints can be seen beside them.• The lander weighed less than three tons on the Moon. The astronauts were much lighter than the lander, but

their boots were much smaller than the 1-meter landing pads. Pressure (or force per unit area) rather thanmass determines the amount of regolith compression. In some photos, the landing pads did press into theregolith, especially when they moved sideways at touchdown. (The bearing pressure under the lander feet, withthe lander being more than 100 times the weight of the astronauts, would in fact have been of similarmagnitude to the bearing pressure exerted by the astronauts' boots.)

5. The air conditioning units that were part of the astronauts' spacesuits could not have worked in an environment ofno atmosphere.

• The cooling units could only work in a vacuum. Water from a tank in the backpack flowed out through tinypores in a metal sublimator plate where it quickly vaporized into space. The loss of the heat of vaporizationfroze the remaining water, forming a layer of ice on the outside of the plate that also sublimated into space(turning from a solid directly into a gas). A separate water loop flowed through the LCG (Liquid CoolingGarment) worn by the astronaut, carrying his metabolic waste heat through the sublimator plate where it wascooled and returned to the LCG. Twelve pounds (5.4 kg) of feedwater gave about eight hours of cooling;because of its bulk, it was often the limiting consumable on the length of an EVA. Because this system couldnot work in an atmosphere, the astronauts needed large external chillers to keep them comfortable duringEarth training.

• Radiative cooling meant there would have been no need to drink water, but it could not work below bodytemperature in such a small volume. The radioisotope thermoelectric generators could use radiative coolingfins to allow indefinite operation because they operated at much higher temperatures.

Moon landing conspiracy theories 12

Surveyor 3 with Apollo 12 lander in background.

6. Although Apollo 11 had made a landingwell outside its target area, Apollo 12 madea pin-point landing, within walking distance(less than 200 meters) of the Surveyor 3probe, which had landed on the Moon inApril 1967.

•• The Apollo 11 landing was severalkilometers southeast of the middle oftheir intended landing ellipse, but stillwithin it. Armstrong tooksemi-automatic control of the landerand steered it further down rangewhen it was noted that the intendedlanding site was strewn with bouldersnear a middling-sized crater. By thetime Apollo 12 flew, the cause of themistake in the landing site was found,procedures were bettered and allowedApollo 12 to make its pinpoint landing. Apollo 11 fulfilled its role by simply landing safely on the Moon and apinpoint landing was not needed on its mission.

•• The Apollo astronauts were highly skilled pilots and the lander was a maneuverable craft that could beaccurately flown to a specific landing point. During the powered descent phase, the astronauts used the PNGS(Primary Navigation Guidance System) and LPD (Landing Point Designator) to foretell where the lander wasgoing to land and then they would manually pilot it to a chosen point with great accuracy.

7. All six lunar landings happened during the first Presidential administration of Richard Nixon and no leader of anyother state has claimed to have landed astronauts on the Moon, even though the mechanical means of doing soshould have become progressively much easier after almost 40 years of steady or even swift technologicaldevelopment.

•• Other states and later U.S. Presidents were less interested in spending great sums to be merely the secondstate/President to land men on the Moon. Had Nixon's administration faked the Moon landings, the Sovietswould have been happy to argue for a hoax as a propaganda victory, but the Soviets never did. Furtherexploration by the United States or USSR, such as building a Moon base, would have been much more costlyand maybe too provocative to be in any state's self-interest during the Cold War.

• The development of the Saturn V rocket, the Apollo CSM and LM and the flights up to Apollo 8 (which orbitedthe moon) were made before Richard Nixon became president in January 1969. Furthermore, Nixon did notpersonally care much for the program begun by the man who defeated him in the 1960 Presidential Election,and his administration pushed for NASA to nix Apollo 18, 19, and 20 in favor of the space shuttle program.

Transmissions1. There should have been more than a two-second delay in communications between Earth and the Moon, at adistance of 400,000 km ( mi).

• The round trip light travel time of more than two seconds is apparent in all the real-time recordings of thelunar audio, but this does not always appear as expected. There may also be some documentary films wherethe delay has been edited out. Reasons for editing the audio may be time constraints or in the interest ofclarity.[103]

Moon landing conspiracy theories 13

The relative sizes of, and distance between, Earth and Moon, to scale, with a beam of light traveling between them at the speed of light.

2. Typical delays in communication were about 0.5 seconds.• Claims that the delays were only half a second are untrue, as examination of the original recordings show.

Also, there should not be a consistent time delay between every response, as the conversation is beingrecorded at one end – Mission Control. Responses from Mission Control could be heard without any delay, asthe recording is being made at the same time that Houston receives the transmission from the Moon.

3. The Parkes Observatory in Australia was billed to the world for weeks as the site that would be relayingcommunications from the first Moonwalk. However, five hours before transmission they were told to stand down.

• The timing of the first Moonwalk was changed after the landing. In fact, delays in getting the Moonwalkstarted meant that Parkes did cover almost the entire Apollo 11 Moonwalk.[104]

4. Parkes supposedly had the clearest video feed from the Moon, but Australian media and all other known sourcesran a live feed from the United States.

• While that was the original plan, and, according to some sources, the official policy, the AustralianBroadcasting Commission (ABC) did take the transmission direct from the Parkes and Honeysuckle Creekradio telescopes. These were converted to NTSC television at Paddington, in Sydney. This meant thatAustralian viewers saw the Moonwalk several seconds before the rest of the world.[105] See also The ParkesObservatory's Support of the Apollo 11 Mission [106], from "Publications of the Astronomical Society ofAustralia". The events surrounding the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying the live television of theMoonwalk were portrayed in a slightly fictionalized Australian film comedy The Dish (2000).

5. Better signal was supposedly received at Parkes Observatory when the Moon was on the opposite side of theplanet.

• This is not supported by the detailed evidence and logs from the missions.[107]

Missing dataBlueprints and design and development drawings of the machines involved are missing.[108][109] Apollo 11 datatapes containing telemetry and the high quality video (before scan conversion from slow-scan TV to standard TV) ofthe first Moonwalk are also missing. See the documentary film Did We Go? (2005).

Tapes

Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before thescan conversion

Dr. David Williams (NASA archivist at Goddard Space Flight Center)and Apollo 11 flight director Eugene F. Kranz both acknowledged thatthe Apollo 11 telemetry data tapes are missing. Conspiracists see thisas evidence that they never existed.[110] The Apollo 11 telemetry tapeswere different from the telemetry tapes of the other Moon landingsbecause they contained the raw television broadcast. For technicalreasons, the Apollo 11 lander carried a slow-scan television (SSTV)camera (see Apollo TV camera). To broadcast the pictures to regulartelevision, a scan conversion had to be done. The radio telescope atParkes Observatory in Australia was able to receive the telemetry from

Moon landing conspiracy theories 14

Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scanconversion

the Moon at the time of the Apollo 11 Moonwalk.[111] Parkes had abigger antenna than NASA's antenna in Australia at the HoneysuckleCreek Tracking Station, so it received a better picture. It also receiveda better picture than NASA's antenna at Goldstone Deep SpaceCommunications Complex. This direct TV signal, along with telemetrydata, was recorded onto one-inch fourteen-track analog tape at Parkes.The original SSTV transmission had better detail and contrast than thescan-converted pictures, and it is this tape that is missing.[112] A crude,real-time scan conversion of the SSTV signal was done in Australiabefore it was broadcast worldwide. However, still photos of theoriginal SSTV image are available (see photos). About fifteen minutesof it were filmed by an amateur 8 mm film camera and these are alsoavailable. Later Apollo missions did not use SSTV. At least some of the telemetry tapes from the ALSEP scientificexperiments left on the Moon (which ran until 1977) still exist, according to Dr Williams. Copies of those tapes havebeen found.[113]

Others are looking for the missing telemetry tapes for different reasons. The tapes contain the original and highestquality video feed from the Apollo 11 landing. Some former Apollo personnel want to find the tapes for posterity,while NASA engineers looking towards future Moon missions believe the tapes may be useful for their designstudies. They have found that the Apollo 11 tapes were sent for storage at the U.S. National Archives in 1970, but by1984 all the Apollo 11 tapes had been returned to the Goddard Space Flight Center at their request. The tapes arebelieved to have been stored rather than re-used.[114] Goddard was storing 35,000 new tapes per year in 1967,[115]

even before the Moon landings.

Apollo 16 Lunar Module

In November 2006 Cosmos Magazine reported that about 100 data tapesrecorded in Australia during the Apollo 11 mission had been found in a smallmarine science laboratory in the main physics building at the CurtinUniversity of Technology in Perth, Australia. One of the old tapes has beensent to NASA for analysis. The slow-scan television images were not on thetape.[116]

In July 2009, NASA indicated that it must have erased the original Apollo 11Moon footage years ago so that it could re-use the tape. In December 2009NASA issued a final report on the Apollo 11 telemetry tapes.[117] Seniorengineer Dick Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings duringthe Apollo missions, is now in charge of the restoration project. After a three-year search, the "inescapableconclusion" was that about 45 tapes (estimated 15 tapes recorded at each of the three tracking stations) of Apollo 11video were erased and re-used, said Nafzger.[118] In time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, LowryDigital has been tasked with restoring the surviving footage. President of Lowry Digital Mike Inchalik said that, "thisis by far and away the lowest quality" video the company has dealt with. Nafzger praised Lowry for restoring"crispness" to the Apollo video, which will remain in black and white and contain conservative digitalenhancements. The $230,000 restoration project that will take months to complete will not include sound qualityimprovements. Some selections of restored footage in high definition have been made available on the NASAwebsite.[119]

Moon landing conspiracy theories 15

Blueprints

Apollo 15 Lunar Rover

The website Xenophilia.com documents a hoax claim that blueprintsfor the Apollo Lunar Module, Lunar rover, and associated equipmentare missing.[120] There are some diagrams of the Lunar Module andLunar Rover on the NASA website and on Xenophilia.com.[120]

Grumman appears to have destroyed most of theirdocumentation,[121][122] but copies of the blueprints for the Saturn Vexist on microfilm.[123]

An unused Lunar Module is on show at the Cradle of AviationMuseum.[124][125] The Lunar Module designated LM-13 would havelanded on the Moon during the Apollo 18 mission, but was instead put into storage when the mission was cancelled.Other unused Lunar Modules are on show: LM-2 at the National Air and Space Museum and LM-9 at KennedySpace Center.[126]

Four mission-worthy Lunar Rovers were built. Three of them were carried to the Moon on Apollo 15, 16, and 17,and left there. After Apollo 18 was canceled, the other Rover was used for spare parts for the Apollo 15 to 17missions. The only rovers on display are test vehicles, trainers, and models.[127] The "Moon buggies" were built byBoeing.[128] The 221-page operation manual for the Lunar Rover contains some detailed drawings,[129] although notthe blueprints.An original Saturn V rocket is on display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.[130] Therocket components are also on public display, as is much of the original equipment used on the Apollo missions.

TechnologyBart Sibrel cites the relative level of United States and USSR space technology as evidence that the Moon landingscould not have happened. For much of the early stages of the "space race", the USSR was ahead of the United States,yet in the end, the USSR was never able to fly a manned craft to the Moon, let alone land one on the surface. It isargued that, because the USSR was unable to do this, the United States should have also been unable to develop thetechnology to do so.For example, he claims that, during the Apollo Program, the USSR had five times more manned hours in space thanthe United States, and notes that the USSR was the first to achieve many of the early milestones in space: the firstman-made satellite in orbit (October 1957, Sputnik 1);[131] the first living creature in orbit (a dog named Laika,November 1957, Sputnik 2); the first man in space and in orbit (Yuri Gagarin, April 1961, Vostok 1); the firstwoman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, June 1963, Vostok 6); and the first spacewalk (EVA) (Alexei Leonov inMarch 1965, Voskhod 2).However, most of the Soviet gains listed above were matched by the United States within a year, and sometimeswithin weeks. In 1965, the United States started to achieve many firsts (such as the first successful spacerendezvous), which were important steps in a mission to the Moon. Furthermore, NASA and others say that thesegains by the Soviets are not as impressive as they seem; that a number of these firsts were mere stunts that did notadvance the technology greatly, or at all, e.g., the first woman in space).[132] In fact, by the time of the launch of thefirst manned Earth-orbiting Apollo flight (Apollo 7), the USSR had made only nine spaceflights (seven with onecosmonaut, one with two, one with three) compared to 16 by the United States. In terms of spacecraft hours, theUSSR had 460 hours of spaceflight; the United States had 1,024 hours. In terms of astronaut/cosmonaut time, theUSSR had 534 hours of manned spaceflight whereas the United States had 1,992 hours. By the time of Apollo 11,the United States had a lead much wider than that. (See List of human spaceflights, 1960s and refer to individualflights for the length of time.)

Moon landing conspiracy theories 16

Moreover, the USSR did not develop a successful rocket capable of a manned lunar mission until the 1980s – theirN1 rocket failed on all four launch attempts between 1969 and 1972.[133] The Soviet LK Lander Moon lander wastested in unmanned low-Earth-orbit flights three times in 1970 and 1971.

Deaths of NASA personnelIn a television program about the hoax allegations, Fox Entertainment Group listed the deaths of ten astronauts andof two civilians related to the manned spaceflight program as having possibly been killed as part of a cover-up.• Theodore Freeman (killed ejecting from T-38 which had suffered a bird strike, October 1964)• Elliot See and Charlie Bassett (T-38 crash in bad weather, February 1966)• Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom, Edward Higgins "Ed" White, and Roger B. Chaffee (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)• Edward "Ed" Givens (car accident, June 1967)• Clifton "C. C." Williams (killed ejecting from T-38, October 1967)• Michael J. "Mike" Adams (X-15 crash, November 1967. The only pilot killed during the X-15 flight test program.

He was a test-pilot, not a NASA astronaut, but had flown the X-15 above 50 miles)• Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. (F-104 crash, December 1967, shortly after being selected as a pilot with the Air

Force's (later canceled) Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.• North American Aviation employee Thomas Ronald Baron (automobile collision with train, April 1967, shortly

after making accusations before Congress about the cause of the Apollo 1 fire, after which he was fired). Baronwas a quality control inspector who wrote a report critical of the Apollo program and was an outspoken criticafter the Apollo 1 fire. Baron and his family were killed as their car was struck by a train at a train crossing. Ruledas an accident.[134][135]

• Brian D. Welch, a leading official in NASA's Public Affairs Office and Director of Media Services, died a fewmonths after appearing in the media to debunk the Fox pro-Moon hoax television show cited above.[12] Hisobituary claims he died of a heart attack at the relatively young age of 42.[136] Conspiracists find his age at deathsuspiciously young and would note that heart attacks can be induced, for example, through the stress of torture orthrough ingestion of certain chemicals. Brian Welch's death is a blow against the alleged hoax since he was adebunker of hoax claims. Conspiracists would argue his death was to prevent any public reversal of his positionafter he had served his role of debunking hoax claims and to stop his leaking of any inside info about a hoax.

Two of them, X-15 pilot Mike Adams and MOL pilot Robert Lawrence, had no connection with the civilian mannedspace program of which Apollo was a part. All of the deaths listed occurred at least 20 months before Apollo 11 andthe subsequent flights.As of August 2012, eight of the twelve Apollo astronauts who landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972 stillsurvive, including Buzz Aldrin. Also, nine of the twelve Apollo astronauts who flew to the Moon without landingbetween 1968 and 1972 still survive, including Michael Collins. There is no evidence to support Gelvani's claim thatApollo 15 astronaut James Irwin was about to come forward before his death from a heart attack in 1991. Irwin hadsuffered several heart attacks in the years before his death.The number of deaths within the American astronaut corps during the run-up to Apollo and while the Moon landingswere happening is similar to the number of deaths suffered by the Russians. During the period 1961 to 1972, at leasteight Russian serving and former cosmonauts are known to have died:• Valentin Bondarenko (ground training accident, March 1961)• Grigori Nelyubov (suicide, February 1966)• Vladimir Komarov (Soyuz 1 accident, April 1967)• Yuri Gagarin (MiG-15 crash, March 1968)• Pavel Belyayev (complications following surgery, January 1970)• Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev (Soyuz 11 accident, June 1971).

Moon landing conspiracy theories 17

Also, the overall chief of their manned-spaceflight program, Sergei Korolev, died while undergoing surgery inJanuary 1966.

Stanley Kubrick involvementFilmmaker Stanley Kubrick is accused of having produced much of the footage for Apollo 11 and 12, presumablybecause he had just directed 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is partly set on the Moon and featured advanced specialeffects.[48] It has been claimed that when 2001 was in post-production in early 1968, NASA secretly approachedKubrick to direct the first three Moon landings. The launch and splashdown would be real but the spacecraft wouldstay in Earth orbit and fake footage broadcast as "live from the Moon”. No evidence was offered for this theory,which overlooks many facts. For example, 2001 was released before the first Apollo landing and Kubrick's depictionof the Moon's surface is much different from its appearance in Apollo video, film and photography. Kubrick did hireFrederick Ordway and Harry Lange, both of whom had worked for NASA and major aerospace contractors, to workwith him on 2001. Kubrick also used some 50 mm f/0.7 lenses that were left over from a batch made by Zeiss forNASA. However, Kubrick only got this lens for Barry Lyndon (1975). The lens was originally a still-photo lens andneeded changes to be used for motion filming. The mockumentary based on this idea, Dark Side of the Moon, couldhave fueled the conspiracy theory. There was a similar hoax article, originally posted as a joke, but which has beenquoted as in earnest by conspiracy theorist Clyde Lewis.[137]

Academic workIn 2002, NASA granted US$15,000 to James Oberg for a commission to write a point-by-point rebuttal of the hoaxclaims. However, NASA cancelled the commission later that year, after complaints that the book would dignify theaccusations.[12] Oberg said that he meant to finish the book.[138][139] In November 2002 Peter Jennings said "NASAis going to spend a few thousand dollars trying to prove to some people that the United States did indeed land menon the Moon," and "NASA had been so rattled, [they] hired [somebody] to write a book refuting the conspiracytheorists". Oberg says that belief in the hoax theories is not the fault of the conspiracists, but rather that of teachersand people (including NASA) who should provide information to the public.[12]

In 2004, Martin Hendry and Ken Skeldon of the University of Glasgow were awarded a grant by the UK basedParticle Physics and Astronomy Research Council to investigate Moon landing conspiracy theories.[140] InNovember 2004, they gave a lecture at the Glasgow Science Centre where the top ten claims by conspiracists wereindividually addressed and refuted.[141]

Moon landing conspiracy theories 18

MythBusters specialAn episode of MythBusters in August 2008 was dedicated to the Moon landings. The ‘’MythBusters’’ crewscientifically tested many of the conspiracists’ claims. Some of the testing was done in a NASA training facility. Allof the claims examined on the show were labeled as having been "Busted", meaning that the myths were not true.

Third-party evidence of Moon landings

Imaging the landing sites

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photo of Apollo 17 landing site (click to enlarge)[3]

Apollo 11 landing site – "There the lunar modulesits, parked just where it landed 40 years ago, asif it still really were 40 years ago and all the time

since merely imaginary." –The New YorkTimes[142]

Conspiracists claim that observatoriesand the Hubble Space Telescopeshould be able to photograph thelanding sites. This implies that theworld's major observatories (as well asthe Hubble Program) are complicit inthe hoax by refusing to take photos ofthe landing sites. Photos of the Moonhave been taken by Hubble, includingat least two Apollo landing sites, butthe Hubble resolution limits viewing oflunar objects to sizes no smaller than60–75 yards (55–69 meters), which isinsufficient resolution to see anylanding site features.[143]

Leonard David published an article onspace.com,[144][145] on April 27, 2001which showed a photo taken by theClementine mission showing a diffusedark spot at the site NASA says is theApollo 15 lander. The evidence wasnoticed by Misha Kreslavsky, of theDepartment of Geological Sciences atBrown University, and Yuri Shkuratovof the Kharkiv AstronomicalObservatory in Ukraine. The European Space Agency's SMART-1 unmanned probe sent back photos of the landingsites, according to Bernard Foing, Chief Scientist of the ESA Science Program.[146] "Given SMART-1’s initial highorbit, however, it may prove difficult to see artifacts", said Foing in an interview on space.com.

In 2002, Alex R. Blackwell of the University of Hawaii pointed out that some photos taken by Apollo astronauts[144]

while in orbit around the Moon show the landing sites.

The Daily Telegraph (London) published a story in 2002 saying that European astronomers at the Very LargeTelescope (VLT) would use it to view the landing sites. According to the article, Dr Richard West said that his teamwould take "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites". Marcus Allen, a conspiracist, answered thatno photos of hardware on the Moon would convince him that manned landings had happened.[147] As the VLT iscapable of resolving equivalent to the distance between the headlights of a car as seen from the Moon,[148] it may beable to photograph some features of the landing sites. Such photos, if and when they become available, would be thefirst non-NASA-produced photos of the sites at that definition.

Moon landing conspiracy theories 19

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched their SELENE Moon orbiter on September 14, 2007(JST) from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE orbited the Moon at about 100 kilometres ( mi) altitude. In May2008 JAXA reported detecting the "halo" generated by the Apollo 15 lunar module engine exhaust from a TerrainCamera image.[149] A 3D reconstructed photo also matched the terrain of an Apollo 15 photo taken from the surface.On July 17, 2009, NASA released low-resolution engineering test photos of the Apollo 11, Apollo 14, Apollo 15,Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 landing sites that have been photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as part ofthe process of starting its primary mission.[150] The photos show the descent stage of the landers from each missionon the Moon’s surface. The photo of the Apollo 14 landing site also shows tracks made by an astronaut between ascience experiment (ALSEP) and the lander.[151] Photos of the Apollo 12 landing site were released by NASA onSeptember 3, 2009.[152] The Intrepid lander descent stage, experiment package (ALSEP), Surveyor 3 spacecraft, andastronaut footpaths are all visible. While the LRO images have been enjoyed by the scientific community as a whole,they have not done anything to convince conspiracists that the landings happened.[153]

On September 1, 2009, India's lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 took photos of the Apollo 15 landing site and tracks ofthe lunar rovers.[154][155] The Indian Space Research Organisation launched their unmanned lunar probe onSeptember 8, 2008 (IST) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The photos were taken by a hyper spectral camera fittedas part of the mission's image payload.[154]

China's second lunar probe, Chang'e 2, which was launched in 2010, can photograph the lunar surface with aresolution of up to 1.3 meters (4.3 ft). It spotted traces of the Apollo landings.[156]

Moon rocks

Genesis Rock brought back by Apollo 15 – olderthan any rocks on Earth

The Apollo Program collected 382 kilograms ( lb) of Moon rocksduring the six manned missions. Analyses by scientists worldwide allagree that these rocks came from the Moon – no published accounts inpeer-reviewed scientific journals exist that dispute this claim. TheApollo samples are easily distinguishable from both meteorites andEarth rocks[157] in that they show a lack of hydrous alteration products,they show evidence of having undergone impact events on an airlessbody, and they have unique geochemical traits. Furthermore, most aremore than 200 million years older than the oldest Earth rocks. TheMoon rocks also share the same traits as Soviet samples.[158]

Conspiracists argue that Marshall Space Flight Center DirectorWernher von Braun's trip to Antarctica in 1967 (about two years beforethe Apollo 11 launch) was to gather lunar meteorites to be used as fakeMoon rocks. Because von Braun was a former SS officer (though onewho had been detained by the Gestapo),[159] the documentary film Did We Go? suggests[110] that he could have beenpressured to agree to the conspiracy to protect himself from recriminations over his past. NASA said that vonBraun’s mission was "to look into environmental and logistic factors that might relate to the planning of future spacemissions, and hardware".[160] NASA continues to send teams to work in Antarctica to mimic the conditions on otherplanets.

It is now accepted by the scientific community that rocks have been blasted from both the Martian and Lunar surfaceduring impact events, and that some of these have landed on the Earth as meteorites.[161][162] However, the firstAntarctic lunar meteorite was found in 1979, and its lunar origin was not recognized until 1982.[163] Furthermore,lunar meteorites are so rare that it is unlikely that they could account for the 382 kilograms of Moon rocks thatNASA gathered between 1969 and 1972. Only about 30 kilograms of lunar meteorites have been found on Earth thusfar, despite private collectors and governmental agencies worldwide searching for more than 20 years.[163]

Moon landing conspiracy theories 20

While the Apollo missions gathered 382 kilograms of Moon rocks, the Soviet Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 robotsgathered only 326 grams combined (that is, less than one-thousandth as much). Indeed, current plans for a Martiansample return would only gather about 500 grams of soil,[164] and a recently proposed South Pole-Aitken basin robotmission would only gather about 1 kilogram of Moon rock.[165] If NASA had used similar robot technology, thenbetween 300 and 2000 robot missions would have been needed to collect the current amount of Moon rocks that isheld by NASA.On the makeup of the Moon rocks, Kaysing asked: "Why was there no mention of gold, silver, diamonds, or otherprecious metals on the Moon? It was never discussed by the press or astronauts."[166] Geologists realize that goldand silver deposits on Earth are the result of the action of hydrothermal fluids concentrating the precious metals intoveins of ore. Since in 1969 water was believed to be absent on the Moon, no geologist would bother discussing thepossibility of finding these on the Moon in any great amount.President Nixon gave 135 sovereign states, all 50 U.S. states and the U.S. territories each an Apollo 11 Moon rockand Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock. Many of these Moon rocks have been stolen, destroyed, or are missing. Theloss of so many Moon rocks has been used by conspiracists to bolster their claim that man never went to the Moon.NASA counters that accusation by stating that the vast majority of Moon rocks and soil gathered on the Moon aresecurely held at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. NASAalso points out that independent scientists have studied the Moon rocks since they were brought toEarth.[167][168][169]

Missions tracked by independent partiesAside from NASA, a number of groups and individuals tracked the Apollo missions as they happened. On latermissions, NASA released information to the public explaining where and when the spacecraft could be sighted.Their flightpaths were tracked using radar and they were sighted and photographed using telescopes. Also, radiotransmissions between the astronauts on the surface and in orbit were independently recorded.

Retroreflectors

Apollo 11 retroreflector, still with its protectivecover

The presence of retroreflectors (mirrors used as targets for Earth-basedtracking lasers) from the Lunar laser ranging experiment is evidencethat there were landings.[170] Lick Observatory attempted to detectfrom Apollo 11's retroreflector while Armstrong and Aldrin were stillon the Moon but did not succeed until August 1, 1969.[171] The Apollo14 astronauts deployed a retroreflector on February 5, 1971 andMcDonald Observatory detected it the same day. The Apollo 15retroreflector was deployed on July 31, 1971 and was detected byMcDonald Observatory within a few days.[172] Smaller retroreflectorswere also put on the Moon by the Russians; they were attached to theunmanned lunar rovers Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.[173]

Moon landing conspiracy theories 21

Notes[1] Plait 2002, pp. 154–73.[2] "The Great Moon Hoax" (http:/ / science. nasa. gov/ science-news/ science-at-nasa/ 2001/ ast23feb_2/ ). NASA. . Retrieved July 30, 2012.[3] "NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites" (http:/ / www. nasa. gov/ mission_pages/ LRO/ news/ apollo-sites.

html). NASA. . Retrieved September 22, 2011.[4] "The illuminated side of the still standing American flag to be captured at the Apollo 17 landing site." (http:/ / lroc. sese. asu. edu/ news/

index. php?/ categories/ 2-Featured-Image). Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera News Center. July 27, 2012. .[5] "Apollo Moon flags still standing, images show" (http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ news/ science-environment-19050795). BBC News. July 30,

2012. .[6] "American Flags From Apollo Missions Still Standing" (http:/ / abcnews. go. com/ blogs/ technology/ 2012/ 07/

american-flags-from-apollo-missions-still-standing). ABC News. July 31, 2012. .[7] In 1968, Clarke and Kubrick had collaborated on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which realistically portrayed a fictional moon mission.[8] Schadewald, Robert J. (July 1980). "The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet" (http:/ / www. lhup.

edu/ ~dsimanek/ fe-scidi. htm). Science Digest (New York).[9] van Bakel, Rogier (September 1994). "The Wrong Stuff" (http:/ / www. wired. com/ wired/ archive/ 2. 09/ moon. land. html?pg=5& topic=).

Wired (Condé Nast Publications). . Retrieved August 13, 2009. "Millions of Americans believe the Moon landings may have been a US$25billion swindle, perpetrated by NASA with the latest in communications technology and the best in special effects."

[10] Psychic Vibrations, by Robert Scheaffer, 2011, ISBN 978-1463601577, p. 229, reprinted from the Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1977[11] Oberg, James (July 1999). "Getting Apollo 11 right" (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20030402094521/ http:/ / abcnews. go. com/

ABC2000/ abc2000science/ oberg2000. html). ABC News. Archived from the original (http:/ / abcnews. go. com/ ABC2000/ abc2000science/oberg2000. html) on April 2, 2003. . Retrieved August 13, 2009. "I'm told that this is official dogma still taught in schools in Cuba, pluswherever else Cuban teachers have been sent (such as Sandinista Nicaragua and Angola)."

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Citations

References• Chaikin, Andrew (2007). A Man on the Moon. ISBN 978-0-14-311235-8. "We choose to go to the Moon! We

choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things – not because they are easy, but because they arehard." –President John Kennedy, speaking at Rice University, September 12, 1962.

• Harrison, Guy (2012). 50 popular beliefs that people think are true. Prometheus Books.ISBN 978-1-64614-495-1.

• Kaysing, Bill (2002). We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. Pomeroy,Washington, USA: Health Research Books. ISBN 0-7873-0487-5.

• Lheureux, Philippe (2000). Lumières sur la Lune (http:/ / lheureux. free. fr/ ). Editions Carnot.ISBN 2-912362-49-0.

• Longuski, Jim (2006). The seven secrets of how to think like a rocket scientist. Springer. ISBN 0-387-30876-8.

Moon landing conspiracy theories 26

• Mindell, David A (2008). Digital Apollo. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-13497-2.• Plait, Philip (2002). Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing

"Hoax". John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-40976-6.• Ramsay, Robin (2006). Conspiracy Theories. Pocket Essentials. ISBN 1-904048-65-X.• Woods, W. David (2008). How Apollo Flew to the Moon. Springer Praxis. ISBN 978-0-387-71675-6.

Further reading• Loxton, Daniel (2010). "Top Ten Busted Myths". Skeptic 15 (4): 74• Morrison, David (November 2009). "Moon Hoax Resolved: New Lunar Orbiter Images Show Moon Landers,

Astronaut's Tracks". Skeptical Inquirer 33 (6): 5–6• Talcott, Richard (November 2010). "Astronomy mythbusters (Myth #10: NASA faked the Moon landings)".

Astronomy Magazine 38 (11): 56–57

External links• Clavius.org (http:/ / www. clavius. org/ index. html) is devoted to analyzing the conspiracists' claims and

attempting to debunk them.• Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (http:/ / history. nasa. gov/ alsj/ frame. html) Photos, audio, video and complete

communication transcriptions of the six successful landings and Apollo 13• Hoax: Lunar Landing (http:/ / www. dmoz. org/ Science/ Science_in_Society/ Skeptical_Inquiry/ Hoaxes/

Lunar_Landing/ ) at the Open Directory Project• "A Moon Landing? What Moon Landing?" (http:/ / select. nytimes. com/ gst/ abstract.

html?res=F20F12F739581B7493CAA81789D95F4D8685F9). The New York Times. December 18, 1969.Retrieved August 5, 2008., John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, December 18, 1969, p. 30.

• Vocal Minority Insists It Was All Smoke and Mirrors (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 07/ 14/ science/ space/14hoax. html?bl& ex=1247803200& en=4f6c239061ec1334& ei=5087 ) John Schwartz for The New York TimesJuly 13, 2009

• Buzz Aldrin Punches Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorist In The Face (http:/ / www. huffingtonpost. com/ 2009/07/ 20/ buzz-aldrin-punches-moon_n_241664. html) – video report by The Huffington Post

• ABC News Refuting the Most Popular Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Theories (http:/ / abcnews. go. com/Technology/ Apollo11MoonLanding/ Story?id=8104410& page=1)

• Darryl Cunningham Moon Hoax Comic (http:/ / darryl-cunningham. blogspot. com/ 2010/ 07/ moon-hoax. html)

Television specials• Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001) (TV) (http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt0277642/ ) at the

Internet Movie Database• Opération lune (2002) (TV) (http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt0344160/ ) at the Internet Movie Database• The Truth Behind the Moon Landings (2003) (TV) (http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt0425571/ ) at the Internet

Movie Database

Article Sources and Contributors 27

Article Sources and ContributorsMoon landing conspiracy theories  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=543492856  Contributors: *Wilfred*, -- April, 21655, 21stCenturyGreenstuff, 23skidoo, 2toise,4twenty42o, 5 albert square, 75pickup, 8limes, A Quest For Knowledge, A1aram, Aa35te, Aaron Schulz, AaronKeys, Abc60, Ace Baker, Achernar Dni, AdamWill, Adashiel, Addshore, Adhib,Adrianw61, AdultSwim, AeonicOmega, Aeonx, Aflint, Afterwriting, Agvulpine, Ahoerstemeier, Airplaneman, Ajacks01, Akamad, Akhel, Alan Liefting, Alansohn, Alarics, Aldaron, Aleenf1,Alethiophile, Alex.tan, Alex3192, AlexTheMartian, Alexei Kopylov, Alexthe5th, Algr, Allpower, Allthenamesarealreadytaken, Almazi, Alvis, Amaury, AnOddName, Ande B., Andonic,AndrewWTaylor, Andrewpmk, Andy M. Wang, Andyroo316, Anon2, Anonymous101, Antandrus, Anton000, Anyeverybody, Apachegila, Arbor to SJ, ArglebargleIV, Arijin, Arjuna909,Arnavion, Art LaPella, Arthur Rubin, Asams10, Asarlaí, Asbestos, Ascidian, Ashley Pomeroy, Ashmoo, Asnac, Astronaught, Astudent, AvicAWB, Avnjay, AxelBoldt, Axlalta, Aymatth2, Az29,Azeu, BD2412, Bagatelle, Balaji s mca, Barek, Bart133, Baseball Bugs, Basilo12, Batmanand, Baylink, Bdell555, Beaumont, Becritical, Beginning, Bejinhan, Belarm, Beliversofbible,Bellerophon5685, Bender235, BerserkerBen, Bertieahern, Betacommand, Bevo, Bhamv, Bigpop, Billso, Billy Button, BillyH, Bjeversole, Bkwillwm, Blatant3, Bletch, Blue520, BlueWeirdo,Blueshirts, Bnynms, Bob Pervert, Bobo192, Bogdangiusca, Boing! said Zebedee, Bongwarrior, Brandmeister (old), Brian C82, Brian0918, BrickBreak, Broodlinger, Bryan Derksen, Bubba73,Buck O'Nollege, Bungalowbill430, Burgher, Burningjoker, Byron Farrow, C.Fred, CASfan, CSumit, Cahinton, Callum133, Calton, Canadian Bobby, Canjo, Canley, Canterbury Tail, Captain02,Cardamon, Carfiend, Casliber, Casper2k3, Catgut, Catiline63, Cdnemery, CesarB, Cgjoker, Cgtdk, Chaheel Riens, Chairboy, Chairman21, Charles Matthews, Chensiyuan, Chevrolet1960,ChiZeroOne, Chinju, Chitrapa, Chivista, Chris the speller, Chris65536, ChrisHodgesUK, Christofurio, Christopherlin, Christopherse, Chubbles, ChuckOp, Chunkala, Churchh, Ckannan90, Ckatz,Cla68, Clausewitz01, Cleared as filed, Closedmouth, ClovisPt, Clutch, Colchicum, Coloneloftruth, Comedian x, Cometstyles, CommonsDelinker, Comtraya, CosineKitty, Cosmored, Cp111,Cpldread, Cremepuff222, Csernica, Cumulus Clouds, Curps, Cyan, CyberDragon, Cybercobra, Cyde, Czolgolz, Czyrko, DCAnderson, DJ Clayworth, DMacks, DSatz, DaddyWarlock,DagErlingSmørgrav, Dale Arnett, Dan Guan, Dana boomer, Daniel Klein, Daniel@GeekREalms.com, DanielNuyu, Danny, DannyQuack, Darren23, Darryl Hamlin, DartFrog, Darth Panda,DarthVader, DaveDave111, DaveR, Davejenk1ns, David Kernow, David Latapie, David Shay, David7gt, Davidhorman, Davis21Wylie, Davken1102, Dc lereverend, Dcoetzee, DeLarge,Deandick, Deanlaw, Deathawk, Debresser, Deckiller, Deinonychus, Delirium, Dersen, Deville, Dgw, Dhaluza, Diablo SV, Dialagranny, Dick Shane, Dinferno, Discospinster, Discretoboy,DiverDave, Dmmaus, Dmr2, Dnvrfantj, Docbengal, Docob5, DoctorWho42, Doctorindy, Dolmansaxlil, Dominic, DonFB, DonQuixote, Dongwenliang, Donner60, DoubleBlue, Doublediapason,Dr.K., DrNegative, DrShalafi, DrVonDoom, Drahgo, Dreadstar, Dream out loud, Drilnoth, Drmies, Drpaule, Ducknish, Dude1818, Duncan, Duncanw56, Dusti, Dycedarg, Dysprosia, E0N,E4mmacro, ENpeeOHvee, ERcheck, ESkog, EamonnPKeane, Earthsound, Ebyabe, Echuck215, Ed Poor, EdDavies, EdGl, EdX20, Edkollin, Edwahunn, Edwardbains, Ego White Tray,EinsteinEnergy, Ekotkie, El monty, Em-El, Emdx, Emigdioofmiami, Enceladus, Epbr123, Erechtheus, Ergative rlt, Erianna, Erick880, Erik9, Escape Orbit, Etativel, EuPhyte, EvaXephon,Evercat, Evil Monkey, Exigentsky, Expatkiwi, 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Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:Apollo 11 Crew During Training Exercise - GPN-2002-000032.jpg  Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_11_Crew_During_Training_Exercise_-_GPN-2002-000032.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASAFile:ALSEP Ap13-70-HC-77.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:ALSEP_Ap13-70-HC-77.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Original uploader wasAndy120290 at en.wikipediaFile:Apollo17.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo17.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASA

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 28

File:Apollo11 under LM.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo11_under_LM.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASA/Neil Armstrong.File:Apollo8Launch.ogg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo8Launch.ogg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: unknown. Original uploader was Bubba73 aten.wikipediaImage:Apollo6Interstage.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo6Interstage.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: see below Original uploader was Bubba73 aten.wikipediaImage:Gemini-Titan_11_Launch_-_GPN-2000-001020.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Gemini-Titan_11_Launch_-_GPN-2000-001020.jpg  License: PublicDomain  Contributors: NASA/KSCFile:Atlas missile launch.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Atlas_missile_launch.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Bomazi, Cobatfor, Dual Freq, Ibonzer,Tom, Uwe W.File:Apollo 11 launch.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_11_launch.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASAFile:Surveyor 3-Apollo 12.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Surveyor_3-Apollo_12.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASA, Alan L. BeanFile:Speed of light from Earth to Moon.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Speed_of_light_from_Earth_to_Moon.gif  License: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors: en:User:CantusFile:Apollo11C.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo11C.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASAFile:Apollo11D.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo11D.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NASAFile:Apollo16LM.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo16LM.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Apollo 16 astronauts Original uploader was Bubba73 aten.wikipediaFile:Apollo15LunarRover.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo15LunarRover.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Huntster, Ke4roh,LeastCommonAncestor, Mike Peel, TheDJFile:Apollo 17 LRO.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_17_LRO.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Bubba73File:Lroc apollo11 landing site 20091109 zoom.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Lroc_apollo11_landing_site_20091109_zoom.jpg  License: Public Domain Contributors: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityFile:Apollo 15 Genesis Rock.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_15_Genesis_Rock.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Evil Monkey, Josette, Ra'ike,Soerfm, Tm, 1 anonymous editsFile:Apollo 11 Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apollo_11_Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment.jpg  License: Public Domain Contributors: NASA

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