On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Amstrong set foot on the moon. However, to this day one can hear the opinion that the American landing on the moon is a great hoax.
Lunar conspiracy theory
In 1974, the book by American Bill Keyzing “We Never Fled to the Moon” was published. It was the beginning of the spread of the theory of the "lunar conspiracy". Keyzing had reason to bring this up, as he worked for Rocketdyne, which built rocket engines for the Apollo program.
As arguments confirming the staging of flights to the Moon, the author draws attention to the incidents of "lunar photographs" - uneven shadows, the absence of stars, the small size of the Earth. Keysing also refers to the insufficient technological equipment of NASA at the time of the implementation of the lunar program.
The number of supporters of the "lunar conspiracy" grew rapidly, as did the number of revelations of a manned flight to the moon. So David Percy - a member of the British Royal Photographic Society - has already made a more detailed analysis of the photographs provided by NASA. He argued that in the absence of an atmosphere, the shadows on the moon should be absolutely black, and the multidirectionality of these shadows gave him reason to assume the presence of several sources of illumination.
Skeptics noted other strange details - the waving of the American flag in an airless space, the absence of deep craters that should have formed during the landing of the lunar module. Engineer Rene Ralph brought up an even more compelling argument for discussion - in order to prevent the astronauts from being irradiated, the spacesuits had to be covered with at least 80 cm of lead!
In 2003, the widow of American director Stanley Kubrick, Christian, added fuel to the fire, claiming that the scenes of the American landing on the moon were filmed by her husband in the pavilions of Hollywood.
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On the "lunar conspiracy" in Russia
Oddly enough, but in the USSR no one seriously questioned the Apollo flights to the moon. In particular, materials confirming this fact appeared in the Soviet press after the first landing of the Americans on the moon. Many Russian cosmonauts also spoke about the success of the American lunar program. Among them are Alexei Leonov and Georgy Grechko.
Alexey Leonov said the following: “Only absolutely ignorant people can seriously believe that the Americans were not on the moon. And, unfortunately, this whole ridiculous epic about the allegedly fabricated Hollywood footage began with the Americans themselves."
True, the Soviet cosmonaut did not deny the fact that some scenes of the Americans' stay on the Moon were filmed on Earth in order to give the video report a certain sequence: “It was impossible, for example, to film the real opening of the hatch of the descent ship on the Moon by Neil Armstrong - there is simply no one from the surface was removed!"
The confidence of domestic experts in the success of the lunar mission is primarily due to the fact that the process of Apollo flights to the Moon was recorded by Soviet equipment. These are signals from the ships, and negotiations with the crew, and a television picture about the astronauts' exit to the lunar surface.
In case the signals were coming from the Earth, it would be immediately exposed.
Pilot-cosmonaut and designer Konstantin Feoktistov in his book “The Trajectory of Life. Between yesterday and tomorrow "writes that in order to reliably simulate the flight, it would be necessary" to land a television repeater on the surface of the Moon in advance and check its operation (with transmission to Earth). And in the days of the imitation of the expedition, it was necessary to send a radio relay to the Moon to simulate the Apollo's radio communication with the Earth on the flight path to the Moon. " To arrange such a hoax, according to Feoktistov, is no less difficult than a real expedition.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke about the "lunar conspiracy", calling in one of his interviews "complete nonsense" the version that the United States had falsified the landing on the moon.
Nevertheless, in modern Russia, exposing articles, books, films about the impossibility of technically carrying out such a flight continue to be published, they are also scrupulously examined and criticized by the photo and video materials of the "lunar expedition".
Counter-arguments
NASA admits that they are bombarded with so many letters with this or that argument proving flight falsification that they are not able to parry all attacks. However, some of the objections can be discarded knowing the elementary laws of physics.
It is known that the location of the shadows depends on the shape of the object casting them and on the surface relief - this explains the unevenness of shadows in lunar photographs. The shadows converging at the far point are nothing more than a manifestation of the law of perspective. The idea of several sources of illumination (spotlights) is untenable in itself, since in this case each of the illuminated objects would cast at least two shadows.
The visibility of the cloth fluttering in the wind is explained by the fact that the flag was installed on a flexible aluminum base, which was in motion, while the upper crossbar was not fully extended, which created the effect of the cloth wrinkling. On Earth, air resistance quickly dampens oscillatory movements, but in an airless environment, these movements are much longer.
According to NASA engineer Jim Oberg, the most convincing evidence that the flag was planted on the moon is the following fact: when astronauts passed next to the banner, it remained absolutely motionless, which would not be in the conditions of the earth's atmosphere.
Astronomer Patrick Moore knew before the flight that the stars would not be visible on the moon during the daytime. He explains that the human eye, like the lens of a camera, simply cannot adapt simultaneously to the illuminated surface of the moon and the dim sky.
It is more difficult to explain why the lander did not leave behind craters on the lunar surface, or, at least, did not disperse the dust, although NASA experts motivate this by the fact that during landing, the device greatly slowed down and landed along a sliding trajectory.
Probably the most compelling argument of the conspiracy theorists is that the ship's crew simply would not have been able to overcome the Van Allen radiation belt surrounding the Earth and would have been burned alive. However, Van Allen himself was not inclined to exaggerate his theory, explaining that the passage of the belt at high speed does not threaten astronauts.
Nevertheless, it remains a mystery how astronauts escaped from powerful radiation on the lunar surface in light enough spacesuits.
Peering into the moon
In heated debates, it was a little forgotten that the astronauts, after each successful descent, installed laser rangefinders on the moon. At the Texas MacDonald Observatory, for several decades directing a laser beam to the corner reflector of the lunar installations, specialists received a response signal in the form of flashes, which was recorded by highly sensitive equipment.
For the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, the LRO automatic interplanetary station took a whole series of images at the lunar module landing sites, presumably fixing the remains of the equipment of the American crews. Later, higher-resolution photographs were taken on which you can see the tracks from the rover and even, according to NASA, the chains of tracks of the astronauts themselves.
However, pictures taken by uninterested parties inspire more confidence. Thus, the Japanese space agency JAXA reported that the Kaguya spacecraft had detected possible traces of Apollo 15's presence. And an employee of the Indian Space Research Organization Prakash Chauhan said that the Chandrayan-1 apparatus received an image of a fragment of the lander.
However, only a new manned flight to the Moon can finally dot the "and".