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Encyclopedia > Apollo moon landing hoax accusations
Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in NASA's training mockup of the Moon and lander module. Hoax proponents say the entire mission was filmed on sets like this training mockup.
Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in NASA's training mockup of the Moon and lander module. Hoax proponents say the entire mission was filmed on sets like this training mockup.

Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations are claims that some or all elements of the Apollo Moon landings were faked by NASA and possibly members of other involved organizations. Some groups and individuals have advanced alternate historical narratives which tend, to varying degrees, to include the following common elements: Image File history File links GPN-2002-000032. ... Image File history File links GPN-2002-000032. ... Colonel Buzz Aldrin, Sc. ... This article is about the former American astronaut. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ... Project Apollo was a series of human spaceflight missions undertaken by the United States of America (NASA) using the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn launch vehicle, conducted during the years 1961 – 1975. ... Still frame from the video transmission of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969. ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (IPA [ˈnæsə]) is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nations public space program. ...

  • The Apollo Astronauts did not land on the Moon;
  • NASA and possibly others intentionally deceived the public into believing the landing(s) did occur by manufacturing, destroying, or tampering with evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, and rock samples;
  • NASA and possibly others continue to actively participate in the conspiracy to this day.

Many commentators have published detailed rebuttals to the hoax claims. According to a 1999 poll conducted by the The Gallup Organization, what Gallup termed an "overwhelming majority" of the US public, some 89 percent, did not believe the landing was faked, while 6 percent did, while 5 percent were undecided.[1] For other uses, see Astronaut (disambiguation). ... This article is about Earths moon. ... Telemetry is a technology that allows the remote measurement and reporting of information of interest to the system designer or operator. ... The Gallup Organization provides a variety of management consulting, human resources and statistical research services. ...

Contents

Origins and history

Folklorist Linda Degh pointed out that the film Capricorn One may have given a "boost" to the hoax theory's popularity in the post-Vietnam War, post-Watergate era when segments of the American public were disinclined to trust official accounts. Degh writes that "The mass media catapult these half-truths into a kind of twilight zone where people can make their guesses sound as truths. Mass media have a terrible impact on people who lack guidance."[2] Capricorn One is a horror/thriller/science fiction movie about a Mars landing hoax. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Watergate redirects here. ...


In his book A Man on the Moon, published in 1994, Andrew Chaikin mentions that at the time of Apollo 8's lunar-orbit mission in December 1968 such conspiratorial stories were already in circulation. A Man on the Moon (ISBN 0140272011) is a 688-page book by Andrew Chaikin, first published in 1994. ... Andrew Chaikin is an author, speaker and space journalist. ... Apollo 8 was the second successful manned mission of the Apollo space program, in which Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to orbit around the Moon. ...


The first book dedicated to the subject, Bill Kaysing's self-published We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle was released in 1974, two years after the Apollo Moon flights had ceased. William Charles Kaysing (July 31, 1922 – April 21, 2005) was a writer who is best known for claiming that the six Apollo moon landings that took place between July 1969 and December 1972 were hoaxes. ...


Predominant hoax claims

A number of different versions of the alleged hoax have been advanced. No one has proposed a complete narrative of how the alleged hoax could have been perpetrated, but instead believers focus on perceived gaps or inconsistencies in the historical record of the missions. Several of these ideas and their most readily identifiable proponents are described below:

  1. Complete hoax — The idea that the entire human landing program was faked. Some claim that the technology to send men to the Moon was insufficient or that the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, Coronal Mass Ejections and cosmic rays made such a trip impossible.[3]
  2. Partial hoax / unmanned landings — Bart Sibrel has stated that the crew of Apollo 11 and subsequent astronauts had faked their orbit around the Moon and their walk on its surface by trick photography, and that they never got more than halfway to the Moon. A subset of this proposal is advocated by those who concede the existence of laser mirrors and other observable human-made objects on the Moon. British publisher Marcus Allen represented this argument when he said "I would be the first to accept what [telescope images of the landing site] find as powerful evidence that something was placed on the Moon by man." He goes on to say that photographs of the lander would not prove that America put men on the Moon. "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem – the Russians did that in 1959, the big problem is getting people there." His argument focuses around NASA sending robot missions because radiation levels in space were lethal to humans. Another variant on this is the idea that NASA and its contractors did not recover quickly enough from the Apollo 1 fire, and so all the early Apollo missions were faked, with Apollo 14 or 15 being the first authentic mission.[4] Yet, some believe the first and only landing occurred on December 11, 1972 with Apollo 17, as this was the first and final mission with a civilian scientist.[citation needed]
  3. Manned landings, with cover-ups
    • William Brian believes that the astronauts may have used "a secret zero gravity device" derived from technology found on a "captured extraterrestrial spaceship," but that NASA was compelled to cover up these facts and others relating to the gravity and the presence of atmosphere on the moon in order to maintain secrecy surrounding the alien space ship.[5]
    • Others believe that, while astronauts did land on the Moon, they covered up what they found, whether it was gravitational anomalies, alien artifacts, or alien encounters. [6] Philippe Lheureux, in Lumières sur la Lune (Lights on the Moon), said that astronauts did land on the Moon, but that, in order to prevent other nations from benefiting from scientific information in the real photos, NASA published fake images.[7]
    • Still, others believe that men did land on the moon, but that the photography was of very low media quality and in most cases unsuitable or even unusable that the U.S. government (NASA), since it had to present proof of the space program's success to justify taxpayers money in order to keep the program alive and not risk cancellation from U.S. Congress, altered, modified and even faked many of the pictures and video, launching a subsequent media campaign with great success. Advocates of this theory state that the equipment used to photograph (Hasselblad cameras privately modified by NASA) had no protection for the film against radiation nor intense lighting conditions present on the moon and in space.[citation needed]

Van Allen belts The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles around Earth, trapped by Earths magnetic field. ... A solar flare is a violent explosion in the Suns atmosphere with an energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. ... The plasma in the solar wind meeting the heliopause The solar wind is a stream of charged particles (i. ... A composite image showing two CMEs (at 2 oclock and 8 oclock), with the sun at center. ... Cosmic rays can loosely be defined as energetic particles originating outside of the Earth. ... Bartholomew Winfield Sibrel is a Nashville, Tennessee-based amateur filmmaker who claims that the six Apollo moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were hoaxes. ... Marcus Allen is the British distributer and publisher of Nexus magazine, and a well known proponent of, as he puts it, news and information that is overlooked, unreported or ignored by the mainstream media. He worked as a photographer in the 1960s, and is a proponent of the idea that... Apollo 1 is the official name given to the never-flown Apollo/Saturn 204 (AS-204) mission. ... is the 345th day of the year (346th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program. ... Philippe Lheureux has written two books on the subject of Apollo moon landing hoax accusations: Moon Landings: Did NASA Lie?, and Lumières sur la Lune : La NASA a t-elle menti!. External links English copy of his book . ...

Suggested motives for a hoax

Several motives are given by hoax proponents for the U.S. government to fake the Moon landings. The government of the United States, established by the United States Constitution, is a federal republic of 50 states, a few territories and some protectorates. ...

  1. Cold-War prestige — The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race against the Soviet Union. Going to the Moon was risky and expensive (John F. Kennedy famously said that the U.S. chose to go because it was difficult.) Despite close monitoring by the Soviet Union, Bill Kaysing believes that it would have been easier for the U.S. to fake it, and consequently guarantee success, than for the U.S. actually to go.[3] p. 29
  2. Money — NASA raised approximately $30 billion to go to the Moon. Bill Kaysing thinks that this amount could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity.[3] p. 71
  3. Risk — This argument assumes that the problems early in the space program were insurmountable, even by a technology team fully motivated and funded to fix the problems. Kaysing claimed that the chance of a successful landing on the moon was calculated to be 0.017%.[3] pp. 26–40
  4. Distraction — According to hoax proponents the U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities suddenly stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.[8] (However, the Apollo program was cancelled several years before the Vietnam War ended.[9])
  5. Saving face — To seemingly fulfil president Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Space Race (disambiguation). ... John Kennedy and JFK redirect here. ...

Public opinions

Opinion polls

A year after the first moon landing, Knight Newspapers conducted a poll of 1721 U.S. citizens and found that more than 30 percent of all of the poll's respondents were "suspicious of NASA's trips to the Moon" with the number rising to over half in some demographic areas. The Newsweek article that published the poll results noted that among the respondents were "an elderly Philadelphia woman who thought the moon landing had been staged in an Arizona desert" and a "housewife" whose suspicions were based on her belief that her television could not "receive signals from the moon." Another respondent said, "It's all a deliberate effort to mask problems at home . . . the people are unhappy - and this takes their minds off their problems."[10] The Knight Ridder building in downtown San José. Knight Ridder (IPA: ) NYSE: KRI is an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. ... The Newsweek logo Newsweek is a weekly news magazine published in New York City and distributed throughout the United States and internationally. ...


According to a 1999 Gallup poll, about 6 percent of the population of the United States has doubts that the Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon. (Five percent had no opinion, while 89 percent believed the landings took place.)[1] It asked, "thinking about the space exploration, do you think the government staged or faked the Apollo Moon landing, or don't you feel that way?" Six percent of respondents answered "yes, staged."[11] [12], p. 156 "Although, if taken literally, 6 percent translates into millions of individuals," Gallup said of this, "it is not unusual to find about that many people in the typical poll agreeing with almost any question that is asked of them; so the best interpretation is that this particular conspiracy theory is not widespread." A 1995 Time/CNN poll also found that 6 percent of the people believe in a hoax[12], p. 156. Fox television's 2001 TV special " Conspiracy Theory: Did We Really Land on the Moon?"[13] may have given a boost to the idea, despite the allegation of many errors of fact and presentation in the program by the Web site called "Who mourns for Apollo?".[14] Fox said roughly 20 percent of the public had doubts about the authenticity of the Apollo program after the show. A Gallup poll is an opinion poll frequently used by the mass media for representing public opinion. ... This article is about the series of human spaceflight missions. ... For other uses, see Astronaut (disambiguation). ... “TIME” redirects here. ... The Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. ... The Fox Broadcasting Company is a television network in the United States. ...


A Dittmar Associates poll in 2006 showed that among 18-26 year old college-educated students “27 percent expressed some doubt that NASA went to the Moon, with 10 percent indicating that it was ‘highly unlikely’ that a Moon landing had ever taken place.”[15]


James Oberg, an American journalist who writes about space (and has worked for NASA's space shuttle program), estimates that "perhaps 10 percent of the population, and up to twice as large in specific demographic groups" believe in the hoax or have some doubts about the Apollo program.[16] "It’s not just a few crackpots and their new books and Internet conspiracy sites," Oberg said in 1999. "There are entire subcultures within the U.S., and substantial cultures around the world, that strongly believe the landing was faked. I’m told that this is official dogma still taught in schools in Cuba, plus wherever else Cuban teachers have been sent (such as Sandinista [sic] Nicaragua and Angola)."[17] In other sources Oberg has tied these beliefs to larger social phenomena: "Myths have a way of blossoming in the fertile soil of scientific discovery . . . from the time of the Phoenicians...to Marco Polo, and including mermaids and unipeds and all these mythological creatures that lurk at the edge of our exploration."[10] James Edward Oberg (b. ... This article is about the space vehicle. ... For other uses, see SIC. Sic is a Latin word, originally sicut [1] meaning thus, so, or just as that. In writing, it is placed within square brackets and usually italicized — [sic] — to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been...


Other opinions

One of the earthrise photos. The Flat Earth Society used these photos as evidence of a faked landing, since they show a spherical Earth.
One of the earthrise photos. The Flat Earth Society used these photos as evidence of a faked landing, since they show a spherical Earth.

Charles K. Johnson, president of the International Flat Earth Research Society, challenged the idea that men had landed on the Moon, claiming that the landings were "faked in Hollywood studios", with science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke writing the script. He was of the opinion that the Apollo program was faked in part to promote what he believed to be the myth of a round Earth.[18][19] Download high resolution version (2457x2411, 646 KB) Description The first photograph taken by humans of Earthrise. ... Download high resolution version (2457x2411, 646 KB) Description The first photograph taken by humans of Earthrise. ... A rendered picture of the Flat Earth model. ... Charles Kenneth Johnson (July 24, 1924, San Angelo, Texas - March 19, 2001, Lancaster, California) was, from 1972 until his death, the president and energetic promoter of the International Flat Earth Society, which he and his wife ran from their home in California. ... A rendered picture of the Flat Earth model. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same...


The International Society for Krishna Consciousness has published articles on its Web site in favor of hoax accusations, in part because it conflicts with their belief that the Moon is farther away from the Earth than the Sun is.[20][21] The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is a new religious movement based on Bengali, or more specifically Gaudiya, Vaishnavism founded by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, referred to by followers as His Divine Grace, in New York in 1966. ...


The late U.S. Senators Alan Cranston (D-California) and Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) were on record as having written to NASA passing on the concerns of their constituents.[10] Alan MacGregor Cranston (June 19, 1914 – December 31, 2000) was a U.S. journalist and politician. ... James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator representing that state. ...


Critiques of hoax accusations

Main article: Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings

Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad with the unmanned Surveyor 3 lander. ...

Conspiracy theory

Hoax accusations have been characterized as conspiracy theories since believers claim that conspirators in the possession of secret knowledge are misleading or have misled the public in pursuit of a hidden agenda—namely, hiding that the Moon landings were faked. The term "conspiracy" has a perfectly straightforward meaning at law (although the term 'conspiracy theory' does not): any agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime.[citation needed] This is the central argument of the prominent critics of the conventional history of the Apollo program. The 2001 Fox special, which examined the issues on each side used that term in its title (Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?). However, the term "conspiracy theory" is highly charged, and many people consider it to be pejorative.[22] For other uses, see Conspiracy theory (disambiguation). ...


The Apollo Moon landing hoax accusations have been the subject of debunking and, according to the debunkers, have been falsified. An article in the German magazine Der Spiegel places the Moon hoax in the context of other well-known 20th century conspiracy theories which it describes as "the rarefied atmosphere of those myths in which Elvis is alive, John F. Kennedy fell victim to a conspiracy involving the Mafia and secret service agents, the Moon landing was staged in the Nevada desert, and Princess Diana was murdered by the British intelligence services."[23] A Debunker is an individual who strongly believes that certain claims are false, exaggerated, unscientific or pretentious and therefore discredits and exposes them. ... Falsification may mean: The act of disproving a proposition, hypothesis, or theory. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances Mountbatten-Windsor, née Spencer) (1 July 1961–31 August 1997), commonly, but incorrectly, known as Princess Diana, was for fifteen years the wife of HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. ...


Scientific method

Application of the scientific method to this scenario would allow each explanation of an event as a separate hypothesis, like this: Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ... Look up Hypothesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Real landing hypothesis: NASA's portrayal of the Moon landing is fundamentally accurate, allowing for such common errors as mislabeled photos and imperfect personal recollections.
Hoax hypothesis: NASA's portrayal of the Moon landing is an orchestrated hoax.

In this type of evaluation, any hypothesis that is contradicted by the observable facts may be rejected.[24] The lack of narrative consistency in the hoax hypothesis occurs because hoax accounts vary from proponent to proponent. The 'real landing' hypothesis is a single story, since it comes from a single source, but there are many hoax hypotheses, each of which addresses a specific aspect of the Moon landing. The evidence regarding the Moon landings is met by hoax believers with skepticism, who label the NASA story as unconvincing propaganda made by the establishment to cover up the alleged lie.[citation needed] For other uses, see Establishment. ...


An example of such an exchange is the evidence for the landing of the Apollo 11, Apollo 14, and Apollo 15 retroreflectors on the Moon. Scientists have reflected lasers off these to measure the distance between Earth and the Moon (see Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment).[25] Hoax proponents such as Marcus Allen say that because the Russians placed mirrors on the Moon using robotic missions,[26] the presence of similar mirrors should be explained by, for example, a secret American robotic mission with an express aim to place retroreflectors on the Moon to provide misleading evidence and corroborate that part of the Apollo missions.[23][27] This article covers the Apollo 11 mission itself. ... Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program and the third mission to land on the Moon. ... Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the Apollo program and the fourth mission to land on the Moon. ... Retroreflectors are clearly visible in a pair of bicycle shoes. ... The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment from the Apollo 11 mission The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. ... Marcus Allen is the British distributer and publisher of Nexus magazine, and a well known proponent of, as he puts it, news and information that is overlooked, unreported or ignored by the mainstream media. He worked as a photographer in the 1960s, and is a proponent of the idea that...


Hoax claims examined

As mentioned above, many hoax claims focus on perceived problems with specific portions of the historical record surrounding the moon landings. Below is an overview of these claims as well as their associated debunking from various sources:


Missing data

Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.

1. Blueprints and design and development drawings of the machines involved, telemetry tapes, and the original high quality video of the Apollo 11 Moonwalk are missing.[28] For more information see Apollo program missing tapes. Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... For other uses, see Blueprint (disambiguation). ... Telemetry is a technology that allows the remote measurement and reporting of information of interest to the system designer or operator. ... The Apollo missing tapes are the missing original recordings of the transmissions (Slow-scan television and telemetry data) broadcast during the Apollo 11 moonwalk[1]. // The video of the Apollo 11 moonwalk was transmitted in Slow-Scan TV (SSTV) format (see Apollo TV camera). ...

a) Dr. David Williams (NASA archivist at Goddard Space Flight Center) and Apollo 11 flight director Gene Kranz both acknowledged that the Apollo 11 telemetry data tapes are missing. Hoax proponents interpret this as support for the case that they never existed.[29]
  • Only the Apollo 11 telemetry tapes made during the moonwalk are missing—and not those of Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.[30] For technical reasons, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module carried a Slow-scan television (SSTV) camera (see Apollo TV camera). In order to be broadcast to regular television, a scan conversion has to be done. The radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia was in position to receive the telemetry from the Moon at the time of the Apollo 11 Moonwalk.[31] Parkes had a larger antenna than NASA's antenna in Australia at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, so it got a better picture. It also got a better picture than NASA's antenna at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. This direct TV signal, along with telemetry data, was recorded onto one-inch fourteen-track analog tape there. A crude, real-time scan conversion of the SSTV signal was done in Australia before it was broadcast around the world. The original SSTV broadcast had better detail and contrast than the scan-converted pictures.[32] It is this tape made in Australia before the scan conversion which is missing. Tapes or films of the scan-converted pictures exist and are available. Still photographs of the original SSTV image are available (see photos). Also, about fifteen minutes of the SSTV images of the Apollo 11 moonwalk were filmed by an amateur 8 mm film camera, and these are also available. Later Apollo missions did not use SSTV, and their video is also available. At least some of the telemetry tapes from the ALSEP scientific experiments left on the Moon (which ran until 1977) still exist, according to Dr. Williams. Copies of those tapes have been found.[33]
  • Others are looking for the missing telemetry tapes, but for different reasons. The tapes contain the original and highest quality video feed from the Apollo 11 lunar landing which a number of former Apollo personnel want to recover for posterity, while NASA engineers looking towards future Moon missions believe the Apollo telemetry data may be useful for their design studies. Their investigations have determined that the Apollo 11 tapes were sent for storage at the US National Archives in 1970, but by 1984 all the Apollo 11 tapes had been returned to the Goddard Space Flight Center at their request. The tapes are believed to have been stored rather than re-used, and efforts to determine where they were stored are ongoing.[34] Goddard was storing 35,000 new tapes per year in 1967,[35] even before the lunar landings.
  • On November 1, 2006 Cosmos Magazine reported that some one-hundred data tapes recorded in Australia during the Apollo 11 mission had been discovered in a small marine science laboratory in the main physics building at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. One of the old tapes has been sent to NASA for analysis. It is not known if the slow-scan television images are on any of the tapes.[36]
b) Hoax proponents say that blueprints for the Apollo Lunar Module, rover, and associated equipment are missing.[37]
  • Four mission-worthy Lunar Rovers were built, but three were carried to the Moon on Apollo 15, 16, and 17, and left there. After Apollo 18 was canceled (see Canceled Apollo missions), the other lunar rover was used for spare parts for the lunar rovers on the upcoming Apollo 15 through 17 missions. The only lunar rovers on display are test vehicles, trainers, and models.[43] The "Moon buggies" were built by Boeing (the New Encyclopædia Britannica Micropedia, 2005, vol 2, p 319).[44] The 221-page operation manual for the Lunar Rover contains some detailed drawings,[45] although not the design blueprints.
c) Bart Sibrel said "In my research at NASA I uncovered, deep in the archives, one mislabeled reel from the Apollo 11, first mission, to the Moon. What is on the reel and on the label are completely different. I suspect an editor put the wrong label on the tape 33 years ago and no reporter ever had the motive to be as thorough as I. It contains an hour of rare, unedited, color television footage that is dated by NASA’s own atomic clock three days into the flight. Identified on camera are Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins. They are doing multiple takes of a single shot of the mission, from which only about ten seconds was ever broadcast. Because I have uncovered the original unedited version, mistakenly not destroyed, the photography proves to be a clever forgery. Really! It means they did not walk on the Moon!"

The evidence offered in the reel of footage 'found' by Bart Sibrel is limited and it is important to note that the extracts used have themselves been edited to remove portions that contradict and debunk his theory that the shots of a distant Earth seen by people on T.V. were faked. This portion of the film is never shown by hoax proponents. The NASA atomic clock referred to is not the same clock as that used during the Apollo missions. [46] Aerial view of Goddard Space Flight Center. ... Gene Kranz in a more recent photo. ... SSTV transmissions often include station call signs, RST reception reports, and radio amateur jargon. ... Apollo Lunar Television Camera TV cameras used on the Apollo (and later ASTP and Skylab) missions varied in design, with image quality improving significantly with each design. ... The 64 meter radio telescope at Parkes Observatory A radio telescope is a form of directional radio antenna used in radio astronomy and in tracking and collecting data from satellites and space probes. ... The big dish The Parkes Observatory is a radio telescope observatory, 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. ... Canberra Deep Dish Communications Complex Honeysuckle Creek was a NASA spacecraft-tracking station near Canberra, Australia at 35°35′02″ S 148°58′37″ E from 1967 to 1981. ... The Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (GDSCC) —commonly called the Goldstone Observatory— is located in Californias Mojave Desert (USA). ... Scan conversion or scan rate converting is a technique for changing the vertical / horizontal scan frequency of video signal for different purposes and applications. ... This article is about the 8 mm film format. ... The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, or ALSEP, was a set of connected scientific instruments left on the Moon when the Apollo program ended. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Curtin University of Technology - Building 408, with adjacent 3. ... For other cities named Perth, see Perth. ... For the Soviet robotic rovers, see Lunokhod programme. ... For the Soviet robotic rovers, see Lunokhod programme. ... The Grumman logo The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading producer of military and civilian aircraft of the 20th century. ... The LEM flight instrumentation panel and front windows. ... An aviation museum located in Long Island, NY. Contains full scale models of airplances from various time periods. ... Apollo 18 was a cancelled flight within the Apollo Program, which would have been the eighth attempted lunar landing. ... National Air and Space Museum exterior The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, and is the most popular of the Smithsonian museums. ... Merritt Island and Kennedy Space Center (shown in white). ... A view from the lagoon behind the Museum of Science and Industry, the only in-place surviving building from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition and a National Historic Landmark. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City 234. ... For the Soviet robotic rovers, see Lunokhod programme. ... Due to budget constraints there were many canceled Apollo missions during Project Apollo. ... The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661) is a major aerospace and defense corporation, originally founded by William Edward Boeing. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ... Bartholomew Winfield Sibrel is a Nashville, Tennessee-based amateur filmmaker who claims that the six Apollo moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were hoaxes. ...


Technological capability of USA compared with the USSR

At the time of Apollo, the Soviet Union had five times more manned hours in space than the US.[47] They had achieved:

  1. First manmade satellite in orbit (October 1957, Sputnik 1).
  2. First living creature to enter orbit (November 1957, Sputnik 2).
  3. First to safely return living creature from orbit, two dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats (August 1960, Sputnik 5).
  4. First man in space (April 1961, Vostok 1).
  5. First man to orbit the Earth (April 1961, Vostok 1).
  6. First to have two spacecraft in orbit at the same time (though it was not a space rendezvous, as frequently described) (August 1962, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4).
  7. First woman in space (June 1963, Vostok 6, as part of a second dual-spacecraft flight including Vostok 5).
  8. First crew of three cosmonauts on board one spacecraft (October 1964, Voskhod 1).
  9. First spacewalk (EVA) (March 1965, Voskhod 2).

On January 27, 1967, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 1 died in a fire on the launch pad during training. The fire was triggered by a spark in the oxygen-rich atmosphere used in the spacecraft test, and fueled by a significant quantity of combustible material within the spacecraft. Two years later all of the problems were declared fixed. Bart Sibrel believes that the accident led NASA to conclude that the only way to 'win' the moon race was to fake the landings.[48] In any case, the first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7, occurred in October, 1968, 21 months after the fire. Sputnik 1 (Russian: , Satellite-1, or literally Co-traveler-1 byname ПС-1 (PS-1, i. ... Sputnik 2 (Russian: , Satellite 2) was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal - a dog named Laika. ... Belka and Strelka orbited the Earth and returned safely on Korabl-Sputnik-2 During the 1950s and 1960s the USSR used a number of dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights to determine whether human spaceflight was feasible. ... Sputnik 5 was a USSR artificial Earth satellite from the Sputnik space program, launched on August 19, 1960. ... “Gagarin” redirects here. ... Vostok 1 (Russian: , meaning Orient-1 or East-1) was the first human spaceflight. ... A space rendezvous between two spacecraft, often between a spacecraft and a space station, is an orbital maneuver where the two arrive at the same orbit, make the orbital velocities the same, and bring them together (an approach maneuver, taxiing maneuver); it may or may not include docking. ... Vostok 3 was a mission in the Soviet space program. ... Vostok 4 was a mission in the Soviet space program. ... 1963 USSR postage stamp depicting Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: ; born March 6, 1937), is a retired Soviet cosmonaut and was the first woman to fly in space, aboard Vostok 6 on the 16th of June 1963. ... A joint flight with Vostok 5, Vostok 6 carried the first woman into space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. ... Like Vostoks 3 and 4, Vostok 5 and 6 were joint missions in the Soviet space program, and like the previous pair, came close to one another in orbit and established a radio link. ... Voskhod 1 (Russian: ) was the first spaceflight to carry more than one person into space and the first flight without space suits. ... Astronaut Bruce McCandless on an untethered EVA Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth and outside of his or her spacecraft. ... Voskhod 2 (Russian: Восход 2) was a Soviet manned space mission. ... is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... Apollo 1 is the official name given to the never-flown Apollo/Saturn 204 (AS-204) mission. ... Apollo 7 was the first manned mission in the Apollo program to be launched. ...

  • NASA and others say that these achievements by the Soviets are not as impressive as the simple list implies; that a number of these 'firsts' were mere stunts that did not advance the technology significantly, or at all (e.g. the first woman in space).[49]
  • A close examination of the many flight missions reveal many problems, risks, and near-catastrophes for both the Soviet and American programs. A negative 'first' for the Soviets was the first in-flight fatality, in April 1967, three months after the Apollo I fire, as Soyuz 1 crash-landed. Despite that disaster, the Soyuz program continued, after a lengthy interval to solve design problems, as with the Apollo program.
  • Before the first Earth-orbiting Apollo flight, the USSR had accumulated 534 hours of manned spaceflight whereas the US had accumulated over 1,992 hours of manned spaceflight. By the time of Apollo 11, the US's lead was much wider than that (see List of human spaceflights, 1960s.)
  • Most of the 'firsts' above were done by the US within a year afterwards (sometimes within weeks). In 1965 the US started to achieve many 'firsts' which were important steps in a mission to the Moon. See List of Space Exploration Milestones, 1957-1969 for a more complete list of achievements by both the US and USSR. The USSR never developed a successful rocket capable of a Moon landing mission — their N1 rocket failed on all four launch attempts. They never tested a lunar lander on a manned mission.[50]

Soyuz 1 (Russian Союз 1, Union 1) was part of the Soviet Unions space program and was launched into orbit on April 23, 1967, carrying a single cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, who was killed when the spacecraft crashed after its return to Earth. ... This is a detailed listing of human spaceflights from 1961 to 1969, spanning the Soviet Vostok and Voskhod programs, the start of the Soviet Soyuz program, the American Mercury and Gemini programs, and the the first lunar landings of the American Apollo program. ... See also Space Race Space firsts Space exploration Categories: | | ... Two N1 Moon rockets appear on the pads at Baikonur Cosmodrome in early July 1969. ...

Photographs and films

Photo of the Earth taken from behind the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.
Photo of the Earth taken from behind the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.
Main article: Examination of Apollo moon photos

Moon hoax proponents devote a substantial portion of their efforts to examining NASA photos. They point to various issues with photographs and films purportedly taken on the Moon. Experts in photography (even those unrelated to NASA) respond that the anomalies, while sometimes counterintuitive, are in fact precisely what one would expect from a real Moon landing, and contrary to what would occur with manipulated or studio imagery. Hoax proponents also state that whistleblowers may have deliberately manipulated the NASA photos in hope of exposing NASA. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 593 × 599 pixels Full resolution (2349 × 2373 pixel, file size: 497 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Photo of Earth taken from behind the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 593 × 599 pixels Full resolution (2349 × 2373 pixel, file size: 497 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Photo of Earth taken from behind the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. ... Those who believe that the Apollo Moon Landing was a hoax often engage in examination of Apollo moon photos. ...

The original Buzz Aldrin photograph.
The original Buzz Aldrin photograph.

1. Crosshairs appear to be behind objects. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2349x2373, 1146 KB) Summary Edwin Aldrin as photographed by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 11 lunar EVA. Source: http://www. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2349x2373, 1146 KB) Summary Edwin Aldrin as photographed by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 11 lunar EVA. Source: http://www. ...

  • Overexposure causes white objects to bleed into the black areas on the film.

2. Crosshairs are sometimes misplaced or rotated.

  • Popular versions of photos are sometimes cropped or rotated for aesthetic impact.
The photo mockup made for the book Moon Shot. The second astronaut is located in the 'fold' in the middle of the scanned photo.
The photo mockup made for the book Moon Shot. The second astronaut is located in the 'fold' in the middle of the scanned photo.
TV image of the actual scene.
TV image of the actual scene.

3. The quality of the photographs is implausibly high. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2584x2212, 168 KB) Summary Scanned by myself. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2584x2212, 168 KB) Summary Scanned by myself. ... Image File history File links Apollo_14_golf. ... Image File history File links Apollo_14_golf. ...

  • There are many, many poor quality photographs taken by the Apollo astronauts. NASA chose to publish only the best examples.[51][52]

4. There are no stars in any of the photos. The Apollo 11 astronauts also claimed to have not remembered seeing any of the stars in a press conference after the event. This article is about the astronomical object. ...

  • The sun was shining. Cameras were set for daylight exposure.[12], pp. 158–160.

5. The color and angle of shadows and light are inconsistent.

  • Shadows on the Moon are complicated by uneven ground, wide angle lens distortion, light reflected from the Earth, and lunar dust.[12], pp. 167–172. Shadows also display the properties of vanishing point perspective leading them to converge to a point on the horizon.

6. Identical backgrounds in photos are listed as taken miles apart.

  • Shots were not identical, just similar. Background objects were mountains many miles away. Without an atmosphere to obscure distant objects, it can be difficult to tell the relative distance and scale of terrain features.[53] One specific case is debunked in Who Mourns For Apollo? by Mike Bara.[54]

7. The number of photographs taken is implausibly high. Up to one photo per 50 seconds.[55]

  • Simplified gear with fixed settings permitted two photographs a second. Many were taken immediately after each other. Calculations are based on a single astronaut on the surface, and does not take into account that there were two persons sharing the workload during the EVA.

8. The photos contain artifacts like the two seemingly matching 'C's on a rock and on the ground.

  • The "C"-shaped objects are most likely printing imperfections not in the original film from the camera.

9. A resident of Perth, Australia, with the pseudonym "Una Ronald", said she saw a soft drink bottle in the frame. Location of Perth within Australia This article is about the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia. ... A soft drink is a drink that contains no alcohol. ...

  • No such newspaper reports or recordings have been verified. "Una Ronald"'s existence is authenticated by only one source. There are also flaws in the story, i.e. the emphatic statement that she had to "stay up late" is easily discounted by numerous witnesses in Australia who observed the event to occur in the middle of their daytime, since this event was an unusual compulsory viewing for school children in Australia.[56]

10. The book Moon Shot contains an obvious composite photograph of Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon with another astronaut. Moon Shot: The Inside Story of Americas Race to the Moon is a book written by Alan Shepard and Donald K. Deke Slayton, two of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. ... For other persons named Alan Shepard, see Alan Shepard (disambiguation). ...

  • It was used in lieu of the only existing real images, from the TV monitor, which the editors of the book apparently felt were too grainy to present in a book's picture section. The book publishers did not work for NASA.

11. There appear to be "hot spots" in some photographs that look like a huge spotlight was used at a close distance.

  • Pits in moon dust focus and reflect light in a manner similar to minuscule glass spheres used in the coating of street signs, or dew-drops on wet grass. (see Heiligenschein)[57]

12. Footprints in the extraordinarily fine lunar dust, with no moisture or atmosphere or strong gravity, are unexpectedly well preserved, in the minds of some observers – as if made in wet sand. Heiligenschein (holy light) is the name for an optical effect which creates a bright spot around the shadow of a persons head when this person is looking at it. ...

  • The dust is silicate, and this has a special property in a vacuum of sticking together like that. The astronauts described it as being like "talcum powder or wet sand".[54]

Ionizing radiation and heat

Challenges and Responses Radiation hazard symbol. ...


1. The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt and galactic ambient radiation (see Radiation poisoning). Some hoax theorists have suggested that Starfish Prime (high altitude nuclear testing in 1962) was a failed attempt to disrupt the Van Allen belts. Van Allen radiation belts The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, held in place by Earths magnetic field. ... Radiation poisoning, also called radiation sickness, is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. ... The debris fireball stretching along Earths magnetic field [1] with air-glow aurora as seen at 3 minutes from a KC-135 surveillance aircraft The flash created by the explosion as seen through heavy cloud cover from Honolulu 1,300 km away Another view of Starfish Prime through thin...

  • The Moon is ten times higher than the Van Allen radiation belts. The spacecraft moved through the belts in just 30 minutes, and the astronauts were protected from the ionizing radiation by the metal hulls of the spacecraft. In addition, the orbital transfer trajectory from the Earth to the Moon through the belts was selected to minimize radiation exposure. Even Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too dangerous for the Apollo missions. Dosimeters carried by the crews showed they received about the same cumulative dosage as a chest X-ray or about 1 milligray.[58] Plait cited an average dose of less than 1 rem, which is equivalent to the ambient radiation received by living at sea level for three years.[12], pp. 160–162
  • The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the Moon. Irene Schneider reports that thirty-three of the thirty-six Apollo astronauts involved in the nine Apollo missions to leave Earth orbit have early stage cataracts that have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure to cosmic rays during their trip.[59] However, only twenty-four astronauts left earth orbit. At least thirty-nine former astronauts have developed cataracts. Thirty-six of those were involved in high-radiation missions such as the Apollo lunar missions. [60]

2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation. James Van Allen at National Air & Space Museum (NASM), 1981, Photo courtesy of NASM. Explorer I model and Pioneer H probe in background James Alfred Van Allen (September 7, 1914 – August 9, 2006) was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa. ... A dosimeter is any device used to measure an individuals exposure to a hazardous environment, particularly when the hazard is cumulative over long intervals of time, or ones lifetime. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... The gray (symbol: Gy) is the SI unit of absorbed dose. ... The röntgen (roentgen) equivalent in man or rem (symbol rem) is a unit of radiation dose. ... For considerations of sea level change, in particular rise associated with possible global warming, see sea level rise. ... Human eye cross-sectional view, showing position of human lens. ...

  • The film was kept in metal containers that prevented radiation from fogging the film's emulsion.[12], pp. 162–163 In addition, film carried by unmanned lunar probes such as the Lunar Orbiter and Luna 3 (which used on-board film development processes) was not fogged.

3. The Moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted. Lunar orbiter spacecraft (NASA) The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five unmanned Lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States in 1966 through 1967 with the purpose of mapping the lunar surface before the Apollo landings. ... Luna 3 (E-3 series) was the third spacecraft sent successfully to the moon and was an early triumph in the human exploration of outer space. ...

  • There is no atmosphere to efficiently couple lunar surface heat to devices such as cameras not in direct contact with it. In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiative heat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was adequate to control the temperature of the film within the cameras; lunar module temperatures were controlled with similar coatings that gave it its 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, the astronauts did notice increased cooling loads on their spacesuits as the sun continued to rise and the surface temperature increased, but the effect was easily countered by the passive and active cooling systems.[12], pp. 165–67 The film was not in direct sunlight, so it wasn't overheated. [61]
  • Note: all of the lunar landings occurred during the lunar daytime. The Moon's day is approximately 29½ days long, and as a consequence a single lunar day (dawn to dusk) lasts nearly fifteen days. As such there was no sunrise or sunset whilst the astronauts were on the surface. Most lunar missions occurred during the first few earth days of the lunar day.

4. The Apollo 16 crew should not have survived a big solar flare firing out when they were on their way to the Moon. "They should have been fried." In space exploration, a lunar day is the period of time it takes for the Moon to complete one full rotation on its axis. ... Apollo 16 was the tenth manned mission in the Apollo program and the fifth mission to land on 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.[62][63]

Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program. ...

Transmissions

Challenges and responses


1. The lack of a more than two-second delay in two-way communications at a distance of a 250,000 miles (400,000 km).

  • The round trip light travel time of more than two seconds is apparent in all the real-time recordings of the lunar audio, but this does not always appear as expected. There may also be some documentary films where the delay has been edited out. Principal motivations for editing the audio would likely come in response to time constraints or in the interest of clarity.[64]
The relative sizes of, and distance between, Earth and Moon, to scale, with a beam of light travelling between them at the speed of light.
The relative sizes of, and distance between, Earth and Moon, to scale, with a beam of light travelling between them at the speed of light.

2. Typical delays in communication were on the order of half a second. Download high resolution version (1024x92, 4 KB)Self-made File links There are no pages that link to this file. ... Download high resolution version (1024x92, 4 KB)Self-made File links There are no pages that link to this file. ...

  • Claims that the delays were only on the order of half a second are unsubstantiated by an examination of the actual recordings. It should also be borne in mind that there should not be a straightforward, consistent time delay between every response, as the conversation is being recorded at one end - Mission Control. Responses from Mission Control could be heard without any delay, as the 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 relaying communications from the Moon, then five hours before transmission they were told to stand down. The big dish The Parkes Observatory is a radio telescope observatory, 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. ...

  • The timing of the first Moonwalk was moved up after landing. In fact, delays in getting the Moonwalk started meant that Parkes did cover almost the entire Apollo 11 Moonwalk.[65]

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

  • While that was the original plan, and, according to some sources, the official policy, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) did take the transmission direct from the Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek radio telescopes. These were converted to NTSC television at Paddington, in Sydney. This meant that Australian viewers saw the Moonwalk several seconds before the rest of the world.[66] See also The Parkes Observatory's Support of the Apollo 11 Mission, from "Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia" (The events surrounding the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying the live television of man's first steps on the Moon were portrayed in a slightly fictionalized 2000 Australian film comedy The Dish.)

5. Better signal was supposedly received at Parkes Observatory when the Moon was on the opposite side of the planet. Honeysuckle Creek was a NASA spacecraft-tracking station near Canberra, Australia from 1967 to 1981. ... In contrast to an ordinary telescope, which produces visible light images, a radio telescope sees radio waves emitted by radio sources, typically by means of a large parabolic (dish) antenna, or arrays of them. ... NTSC is the analog television system in use in Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and some other countries, mostly in the Americas (see map). ... Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells the story of how the Parkes Observatory was used to relay the live television from ur mothers bedroom to her bathroom. ...

  • This is not supported by the detailed evidence and logs from the missions.[67]

Mechanical issues

Challenges and responses


1. No blast crater or any sign of dust scatter as was seen in the 16mm movies of each landing [3], p. 75.

  • No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion System was throttled very far down during the final stages of landing. The Lunar Module was no longer rapidly decelerating, so the descent engine only had to support the module's own weight, which by then was greatly diminished by the near exhaustion of the descent propellants, and the Moon's lower gravity. At the time of landing, the engine's thrust divided by the cross-sectional area of the engine bell is only about 10 kilopascals (1.5 PSI)[12], p. 164, and that is reduced by the fact that the engine was in a vacuum, causing the exhaust to spread out. (By contrast, the thrust of the first stage of the Saturn V was 3.2 MPa (459 PSI), over the area of the engine bell.) Rocket exhaust gases expand much more rapidly after leaving the engine nozzle in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. The effect of an atmosphere on rocket plumes can be easily seen in launches from Earth; as the rocket rises through the thinning atmosphere, the exhaust plumes broaden very noticeably. Rocket engines designed for vacuum operation have longer bells than those designed for use at the Earth's surface, but they still cannot prevent this spreading. The Lunar Module's exhaust gases therefore expanded rapidly well beyond the landing site. Even if they hadn't, a simple calculation will show that the pressure at the end of the descent engine bell was much too low to carve out a crater. However, the descent engines did scatter a considerable amount of very fine surface dust as seen in 16mm movies of each landing, and as Neil Armstrong said as the landing neared ("...kicking up some dust..."). This significantly impaired visibility in the final stages of landing, and many mission commanders commented on it. Photographs do show slightly disturbed dust beneath the descent engine. And finally, the landers were generally moving horizontally as well as vertically until right before landing, so the exhaust would not be focused on any one surface spot for very long, and the compactness of the lunar soil below a thin surface layer of dust also make it virtually impossible for the descent engine to blast out a "crater".[12], pp. 163–165

2. The launch rocket (Lunar Module ascent stage) produced no visible flame. The pascal (symbol Pa) is the SI unit of pressure. ... A pressure gauge reading in PSI (red scale) and kPa (black scale) The pound-force per square inch (symbol: lbf/in²) is a non-SI unit of pressure based on avoirdupois units. ... MPA is a TLA (three-letter acronym) that may mean: Macedonian Press Agency Marine Protected Area Maritime Patrol Aircraft Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad (AAR reporting mark MPA) Master of Public Administration Master of Public Affairs Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics Metropolitan Police Authority Mid-atlantic Pagan Alliance Motion Picture Association... This article is about the former American astronaut. ...

  • Hydrazine (a fuel) and dinitrogen tetroxide (an oxidizer) were the Lunar Module propellants, chosen for their reliability; they ignite hypergolically –upon contact– without a spark. Hypergolic propellants happen to produce a nearly transparent exhaust. Hypergolic fuels are also used by several space launchers: the core of the American Titan, the Russian Proton, the European Ariane 1 through 4 and the Chinese Long March, and the transparency of their plumes is apparent in many launch photos. The plumes of rocket engines fired in a vacuum spread out very rapidly as they leave the engine nozzle (see above), further reducing their visibility. Finally, most rocket engines use a "rich" mixture to lengthen their lifetimes. While the excess fuel will burn when it contacts atmospheric oxygen, this cannot happen in a vacuum.

3. The rocks brought back from the Moon are identical to rocks collected by scientific expeditions to Antarctica. Hydrazine is the chemical compound with formula N2H4. ... Nitrogen tetroxide (or dinitrogen tetroxide) is the chemical compound N2O4. ... Hypergolic rocket fuels spontaneously ignite when their two components come into contact with each other. ... Transparent glass ball In optics, transparency is the property of allowing light to pass. ... Titan is a family of U.S. expendable rockets. ... The Proton (Прото́н) rocket (formal designation: UR-500, also known as D-1/ D-1e or SL-12/SL-13) is a Russian unmanned space vehicle design, first launched in 1965. ... Ariane is a feminine name. ... CZ-2F rocket A Long March rocket (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Pinyin: ) is any rocket in a family of expendable launch systems operated by the Peoples Republic of China. ...

  • Chemical analysis of the rocks confirms a different oxygen isotopic composition and a surprising lack of volatile elements. There are only a few 'identical' rocks, and those few fell as meteorites after being ejected from the Moon during impact cratering events. The total quantity of these 'lunar meteorites' is small compared to the more than 840 lb (380 kg) of lunar samples returned by Apollo. Also the Apollo lunar soil samples chemically matched the Russian Luna space probe’s lunar soil samples. In addition, unlike the Antarctic lunites, the rocks recovered from the moon do not exhibit the effects of atmospheric friction.

4. The presence of deep dust around the module; given the blast from the landing engine, this should not be present. The Luna programme (occasionally called Lunik) was a series of unmanned space missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. ...

  • The dust around the module is called regolith and is created by ejecta from asteroid and meteoroid impacts. This dust was s