We DID land on the Moon... right? (updated)
The catalyst for this article was discussions i had with two intelligent people who argue that man may never have set foot on the Moon. One has serious doubts and the other rejects the idea completely and it is the latter which has a background in aerospace, though mostly with missile technology. These discussions were certainly not my introduction into such claims however as i looked into the Moon hoax conspiracy many moons ago (pun intended). There are many people who disbelieve that man walked on the Moon, some very smart and some just plain stupid, and the number seems to be growing. Smart people are just as easily fooled as is the dummy however.
If you've read some of the content on this website, especially in the history section, you'll know my beliefs are not main stream. I revel in finding fault with a given narrative and following the trail of breadcrumbs to a sound, or at least a logical conclusion. If you accused me of being a conspiracy theorist, i stand unapologetically guilty, however i'm also a conspiracy 'factist', if you will. I'm interested in truth, not confirming my own biases. Truth is not always easily discovered, however in this case there are literally tons of evidence readily available and, in the end, that which is presented by the debunkers fails miserably when measured against the supporting evidence.
My questioning of mainstream narratives began at an early age and when i delved into the validity of the Apollo Moon landings, i would not have been surprised in the least had the evidence led me to conclude that the whole thing was a big fat hoax as so many posit. Matter of fact, i would have preferred such a conclusion because it would have been yet another well deserved nail in the coffin of mainstream media and government bullshit, but the facts conclusively prove otherwise as we shall see.
CLAIM: If we went to the Moon, how come we never went back?
ANSWER: We did, 5 times, and that's only the number of manned missions where humans actually walked upon its surface.
CLAIM: The entire Apollo 11 Moon landing was filmed using a miniature section model of the Moon hung upside down on a ceiling.
ANSWER: I don't know about this particular debunker, but personally i haven't yet been able to a) miniaturize myself to fit the scale of a model, b), managed to walk on my ceiling, or c), managed to kick up dust and drop things and have them fall up. Lastly, the morons who assembled the American Moon "documentary" in question rely heavily, as many other debunkers do, on discussions and problems that arose very early during the planning stages of the space program when a great deal of such problems had not yet been solved, as though nothing further could be learned from subsequent research and development.
CLAIM: Wikileaks released video showing the moon landing was shot in a studio.
ANSWER: Wikileaks never published any such video. The video referenced is a compilation which includes behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of Capricorn 1 (1970) and actual footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Even the "fact checking" website, Snopes, founded by a criminal and a prostitute, actually gets this one right.
Links to the full videos:
CLAIM: The Apollo missions never left Earth orbit.
ANSWER: If that was the case then there should be evidence of sightings of the Command Module as it orbited Earth in the night sky due to light from the Sun reflecting off of it as is the case with satellites.
CLAIM: There can be no combustion in a vacuum.
ANSWER: Fuels that contain or produce oxygen as they burn will burn in an oxygen deprived environment.
CLAIM: There is nothing in a vacuum for a rocket engine to push against.
ANSWER: Every reaction creates and equal and opposite reaction, even in a vacuum.
CLAIM: The intense radiation level of Earths Van Allen Belts were not survivable by a human given the minimal protection offered by the craft.
ANSWER: While "minimal" is an exaggeration, the claim is not entirely without merit. Nevertheless, the level of radiation doesn't matter if you pass through the belts quickly enough and are sufficiently protected. At 1.14 rads for the entire mission, the astronauts of Apollo 14 received the highest dose of radiation and that amount was well below 400 rads which is the level designated for acute radiation poisoning and 10,000 rads which is the level of a lethal dose. From Apollo Rocketed Through the Van Allen Belts | Popular Science:
By February of 1964, NASA was confident that Apollo crews would be passing through the belts fast enough that the spacecraft's skin and all the instrumentation lining the walls would be enough protection.
[...]
To monitor radiation exposure during the flights, Apollo crews carried dosimeters on board their spacecraft and on their persons. And these readings confirmed NASA had made a good choice. At the end of the program, the agency determined that its astronauts had avoided the large radiation doses many feared would ground flights to the Moon. Over the course of the lunar missions, astronauts were exposed to doses lower than the yearly 5 rem average experienced by workers with the Atomic Energy Commission who regularly deal with radioactive materials.
CLAIM: The heat of the Van Allen Belts would have melted the Apollo space craft.
ANSWER: While it is true that the particles of the belts are more than hot enough to melt aluminium, their density is so low that their heat is of no concern.
CLAIM: There's no blast crater or radial dispersion of material under the Lunar Excursion Module which would have resulted from its engine as it landed on the Moon.
ANSWER: The Moon is a rock; gravity is 1/6th that of Earth so not as much thrust is required to land as would be necessary on Earth; in some instances the engine was apparently shut down just prior to the Lunar Module contacting the surface in order to avoid debris from damaging it; dispersion of the dust can be seen in some photographs captured from the Command Module, the Japanese Space Agency Selene probe, the Indian Chandrayaan-1 probe, all of which would have to be co-conspirators.
CLAIM: Lack of a radial disbursement of material under the Lunar Modules engine nozzle cannot be explained by shutting down the engine before touchdown since this would have risked damaging the fragile vehicle.
ANSWER: The Lunar Module had some serious shock absorption capability with the primary struts having 32 in. of compression travel; the Lunar Module could sustain a fall of approximately 40 feet; the Lunar Module weighed approximately 36,000 lbs. on Earth, but far less on the Moon; considering its Earth weight alone, much less the added load and tremendous vibration it needed to withstand during the Apollo launch, the Lunar Module was obviously not the flimsy contraption the debunkers would have us believe.
CLAIM: The Lunar Module was too fragile to withstand space travel.
ANSWER: This claim often seems to hinge on a "thin foil" being the only barrier to space in parts of the Lunar Module which is a gross exaggeration. This argument is then used to insinuate that the entire 36,000 lb. machine was fragile. Also see the previous question.
CLAIM: Stanly Kubrick confessed to filming the Apollo 11 Moon sequence.
ANSWER: "In a statement released through a spokesperson, the [Kubrick] family made it clear the film published on YouTube was a complete hoax, using an actor who was purporting to be the Clockwork Orange film director." (source)
CLAIM: The U.S. flag is blowing in the wind on the "Moon".
ANSWER: Momentum happens in a vacuum too when the pole to which the flag is attached is adjusted. And if the Apollo 11 mission was filmed in a studio, well, there probably wouldn't have been any wind there either. Lastly, this assumes those perpetrating the hoax were too stupid to recognize such a blatantly obvious oversight.
CLAIM: There's photo's of Coke cans and Labatt beer cans on the Moon.
ANSWER: See the last part of the answer above, as well as the next answer. There was plenty of other equipment left on the Moon however, as is evidenced in photographs captured by probes sent by several countries, as well as those captured by the Apollo Command Module, all of which the debunkers avoid. Such equipment includes 70+ vehicles, vehicle tracks, sensors, transmitters, seismometers, reflectors, Lunar Modules, payload transport pallets, solar panels, cameras, foot prints, and the Apollo 11 service module which may still be orbiting the Moon, all of which would have to be forgeries by several countries, all of which would have to be co-conspirators. Lastly, forging this much evidence is utterly unnecessary as it only increases the risk of being exposed.
CLAIM: There's cars and trucks on the Moon.
ANSWER: This is another goofy claim made by "Apollo investigator" Scott Henderson, who also states beer cans can be found in the Moon photo's. Rocks come in all sizes and shapes and when imagination is fueled by confirmation bias, a rock can suddenly transform into a 1960 Corvette convertible apparently.
CLAIM: Converging shadows prove that the light source was much closer to the areas being photographed than the Sun would have been, therefore the Moon photography was performed in a studio.
ANSWER: Easily debunked using a light bulb and 2 fingers to create shadows on a table. Shadows of objects illuminated by a single light source can indeed converge, especially when they are produced by irregularly shaped objects resting on an irregular surface, and this is not dependent on the distance of the light source. There is also the matter of perspective and the camera equipment used.
CLAIM: There are no stars in the photographs allegedly taken from the Moon.
ANSWER: Do you see stars during the day time? It's day time all the time in space. The only time the astronauts could, and did in fact see stars, is when they were in the shadow of the Earth, the Moon when orbiting it, or standing in the shadow of the LM when they were on the Moon.
CLAIM: There are no stars in photographs taken from the Moon because it would have been impossible to create an accurate representation of the visible universe.
ANSWER: They couldn't have used enlarged photographs of the universe as a backdrop? Or painted them onto the photographs? Also see the above answer.
CLAIM: The astronauts said they didn't see any stars.
ANSWER: While some of the Apollo astronauts did in fact state they didn't recall seeing any stars, they also stated that they could see stars when they stood in the shadow of the Lunar Module, when orbiting the back side of the Moon, or when looking through optical devices. Also the astronauts had darkened visors to protect their eyes during the Moon walks. Also see the two previous answers.
CLAIM: The astronauts are too well lit in photographs when they were in shade.
ANSWER: The Moon is highly reflective; lightening of darker areas can be accomplished in the darkroom (known as "dodging").
CLAIM: The film used in the Hasselblad 500EL camera could not have withstood a vacuum.
ANSWER: Even an experiment by debunkers, Apollo Film Subjected to a Vacuum, which used a different type of film and development process, and which subjected the film to harsher conditions, clearly showed that this claim is false. For more detail and answers to several other claims put forth by the debunkers regarding the cameras, see Debunking Gary Fong/Apollo Detectives - Cameras CAN work on the moon.
CLAIM: Photographs taken by astronauts on the Moon are too well composed considering there was no viewfinder on their cameras.
ANSWER: Have you seen all of them? Did cropping photographs suddenly become impossible post-Apollo? Did they not practice beforehand? Is it necessary to forge 8,000+ photographs in order to perpetrate a hoax?
CLAIM: The camera crosshairs in photographs on the "Moon" are behind certain objects.
ANSWER: While that appears to be the case in some of the photographs, it isn't. The crosshairs were on a glass plate in the camera so they could not possibly be behind anything being photographed. The reason the crosshairs appear to be behind certain objects in some of the photographs is because they are washed out when they intersect a brightly lit object, such as a space suit and, in fact, the crosshairs can be seen in some of the photographs used by the debunkers.
CLAIM: Given the technical challenges it is extremely unlikely that 6 out of 7 Apollo missions could have met with success.
ANSWER: This ignores all that happened prior to Apollo 11. The space program had many failures, including the loss of 3 astronauts and the failure of Apollo 13. So did the automobile industry. Do we not learn from our mistakes? The space program was a massive effort comprised of approximately 375,000 people at its peak that, contrary to what some of the debunkers imply, wasn't thrown together over night by a handful of incompetent people. Many of the debunking videos i've seen feature clip after clip of NASA failures early in the space program while omitting any mention of how these problems were overcome through continued, documented engineering. The aircraft industry had many failures too, yet planes are flying today because lessons were learned and changes were made. That's what R&D is all about. Furthermore, why fake 6 landings? Why not quit after 1 or 2? Again, the more fakery, the higher the chance of being exposed.
CLAIM: Some of the Apollo 11 astronauts acted strange upon return, as though they had been threatened to not disclose the hoax.
ANSWER: This is another very thin claim, however assuming the astronauts actually did act strange upon return, i think this could possibly be due to having seen things they didn't expect, possibly on the way to the Moon or on their orbit around the dark side of the planet (there is some evidence of artificial structures on the dark side which is never seen from Earth). Another possible answer is their general state of fatigue after having endured such an intense and dangerous mission.
CLAIM: Given the complexity and technological limitations of the time, it would have been impossible for the Service Module to re-dock with the Command Module after leaving the Moon.
ANSWER: This is the only potentially reasonable argument against the Apollo Moon landings that i've heard and, quite interestingly, this argument was made by a friend who spent decades in the aerospace industry, much of it working with missile systems. The core of the argument is that the very delicate and precise maneuvering required to re-dock with the CM would have been impossible given the technological limitations at that time, particularly the very limited computing power. I think this argument overlooks the human-in-the-loop factor however. While re-docking was certainly a highly complex operation, which is why it was practiced, successfully, during the Gemini program, i suspect the automated portion of it (computer controlled burn times, vectoring, etc.) would only have to place the Service Module in the proximity of the Command Module on approximately the same course and velocity after which the pilot could take control and do what the computers may have been incapable of.
final comments
Yes, images, communications, telemetry and other evidence can be forged, however this overlooks the massive heaps of evidence that collectively prove beyond any doubt that man walked on the Moon. Simply put, the evidence which i've considered that the debunkers bring to the table ranges from inconclusive to thoroughly retarded and most of it lands on the latter end of the scale.
One of the most obvious shortcomings of the debunkers is that they conveniently ignore the mountainous body of convincing evidence which contradict their claims, including that provided by countries and organizations other than NASA which orbited the moon and photographed some of the equipment left there during the Apollo program. Such evidence is the result of the work of approximately 400,000 people over a ten year period. One cannot possibly ignore this evidence and proclaim to be objective and when both bodies of evidence are weighed, it is blatantly obvious on which side the greater credibility lies.
A massive compilation of photographs, video and information for Apollo missions 11 to 17 is contained on the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal website. Also see the MOON HOAX: DEBUNKED! website, as well as this fine video from the SmarterEveryDay YouTube channel which explores the construction of the Saturn 5 rocket:
Video: I Asked An Actual Apollo Engineer to Explain the Saturn 5 Rocket - Smarter Every Day
More recently i came across this video by EEVblog, Moon Landing Hoax BUSTED, in which he compares surface images of the ascent of the Apollo 17 lunar module captured from both the rover based camera and a camera in the lunar module. Following is the video description:
Dave does something no one else has done before - compare the original Apollo 17 16mm ascent camera footage to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photos.
Will footage from 40 years apart match up to confirm the moon landing?
Also see:
Video: "The moon landing hoax theory is absurd and baseless"
Debunking Lunar Landing Conspiracies with Maxwell and VXGI
Explore the truth behind the iconic Buzz Aldrin moon landing photo. See how modern graphics innovations can shed new light on a 45-year-old conspiracy theory.
UPDATE 18-Nov-2024: Another ding-a-ling enters the Apollo hoax ring
UPDATE 9-Feb-2026: I stumbled across a comprehensive debunking video by Everyday Astronaut that provides a lot more detail about the Apollo missions:
The Truth About The Moon Landings - YouTube
There are honestly some decent and common questions about the Apollo program's moon landings that I figured we should check out ourselves. Because there's no denying things from the Apollo program look unusual and are quite literally foreign to us in all other contexts.
00:00:00 - INTRO
00:04:40 - APOLLO 17 LIFTOFF FOOTAGE
00:19:05 - WHY DON'T WE SEE STARS
00:25:40 - LUNAR SHADOWS
00:32:00 - CROSSHAIRS BEHIND OBJECTS
00:34:10 - WHY DID THE FLAG WAVE
00:38:00 - ASTRONAUTS ON WIRES
00:47:15 - FOOTPRINTS / PROP ROCKS
00:49:05 - MOON ROCK OR WOOD
00:51:35 - VAN ALLEN BELT RADIATION
01:07:55 - DID NASA FAKE FOOTAGE
01:12:55 - LOST APOLLO 11 TAPES
01:19:30 - LOST SATURN V PLANS
01:23:00 - THE LUNAR LANDER'S THIN SKIN
01:27:50 - LUNAR ROVER DUST
01:29:30 - OTHER PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
01:37:20 - DID ANYONE ELSE TRACK THE MISSIONS
01:40:15 - THE SOVIETS' REACTION TO APOLLO
01:42:10 - ORBITAL MECHANICS OF APOLLO
01:51:15 - DELTA V OF APOLLO
02:04:30 - WHY HAVEN'T WE GONE BACK
02:14:30 - SUMMARY