Forty-seven years ago, United States astronaut Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, became the first humans to set foot on the moon (Smith, 2014). Many conspiracy theorists still insist the moon landing was a hoax. Apollo 11, its mission objective was to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth on May 25, 1961(Launius, 2010). Additional flight objectives included scientific exploration by the lunar module, or LM, crew; deployment of a television camera to transmit signals to Earth; and deployment of a solar wind composition experiment, seismic experiment package and a Laser Ranging Retroreflector (Loff, 2015). Neil Armstrong, born 1930 and died 2012, was an astronaut, military pilot, and educator (Biography.com Editors, 2001). Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, born 1930, is an astronaut (Biography.com Editors, 2001). Conspiracy theorists have pointed out many items of pictures taken of the moon landings, and they have made many conclusions that that it was faked.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was started in 1958 as a part of the United States government. They are in charge of the United States science and technology that has to do with airplanes or space. This corporation makes satellites, satellites help scientists learn about Earth. Scientists study things in the solar systems, and farther away. The headquarters is in Washington D.C. There are ten NASA centers all over the United States. They began to plan for human spaceflight (May, 2009).

The first claim is if NASA landed on the moon, there would be a blast crater beneath the lunar module to mark its landing. An impact crater is the excavation of a planet’s surface when it is struck by a meteoroid (NASA Administrator, 2013). Craters are circular excavated holes made by impact events (NASA Administrator, 2013). In several pictures of the moon landing, it seems as though the module was simply placed there. There should be a blast crater underneath the lunar module. NASA explained that the module required significantly less thrust in the low-gravity conditions than it would have done on Earth. The surface of the moon itself is solid rock; a blast crater would not be feasible.

The second claim is that in order to reach the moon, astronauts had to pass through what is known as the Van Allen Radiation Belt. The Van Allen Radiation Belt has two zones encircling the earth in which there are relatively large numbers of high-energy charged particles (Kumar, 2014). The belt is held in place by Earth’s magnetic field and stays perpetually in the same place. The Apollo missions to the moon marked the first ever attempt to transport living humans through the belt. Conspiracy theorists believe that the sheer levels of radiation would have cooked the astronauts in route to the moon, despite the layers of aluminum coating the interior and exterior of the spaceship. NASA has explained that the short amount of time it took the astronauts to traverse the belt, meaning that the received only small doses of radiation (Teitel, 2014).

The third claim is that two photos from the Apollo 15 mission clearly have identical backdrops; NASA stated these two photos were taken miles apart. One photo shows the lunar module. When photos were taken, the module had already landed (Teitel, 2014). NASA has said that since the moon is much smaller than Earth, horizons can appear significantly closer to the human eye (Teitel, 2014).

Conspiracy theorists believe the United States government was desperate to beat the Russians in the space race. They faked the lunar landings with Armstrong and Aldrin acting out their mission on a secret film set. With the photos and videos of the Apollo missions only available through NASA, there is no independent verification that the lunar landings were anything but a hoax (Wu, 2007). Winning the space race represented a massive feather in the anti-communists. The light source of photographs is based on how light behaves in Earth’s shadows. Apollo 11 collected over 382 kilograms of moon rocks, they were studied and discovered, they are of non-terrestrial origin and there is no contradiction that claims they are from the moon.

Although, many have justified why the photographs do not look real. Believers of the moon landing explain that the moon has no atmosphere, and the refraction and reflection make the photographs different. They also explain that The Lunar Module was covered in reflective paneling, and that would have a major effect on the way light reflects the surface. The rising and fallings in waves, the wavelike motion, on the moon’s surface would also have an effect on shading. The lack of stars have also been cited as proof, but they explain that the cameras were set to daylight exposure and would not have been able to show the stars. They also explain that the mission of the astronauts was to take pictures of the moon, not the view of the stars from the moon’s surface (Shaw, 2016).

In conclusion, there are many pieces of evidence supporting the theory that all moon landings have been faked. For many this information may not be enough, but for others, it might be just the right amount of conclusive evidence to support the idea that it was all a hoax. All of this evidence furthers the grander theory that the United States is incredibly powerful and can mask or hide things they claim to have done just to gain more power throughout the world. Some would even conclude that the United States has done things like faking the moon landing or beating the Russians to space, all to gain respect and admiration in the world. It is not hard to assume the country has gone out of its way to gain power and money, especially with all the possible marketing that came with the race to space.

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