Lunar expeditions. Why were the Americans definitely on the moon?
The moon is not a bad place. Definitely worth a short visit.
Neil Armstrong
Almost half a century has passed since the Apollo flights, but the debate about whether Americans were on the Moon does not subside, but is becoming increasingly fierce. The piquancy of the situation is that supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory are trying to challenge not real historical events, but their own, vague and error-ridden idea of them.
Lunar epic
First the facts. On May 25, 1961, six weeks after Yuri Gagarin's triumphant flight, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to the Senate and House of Representatives in which he promised that an American would land on the moon before the end of the decade. Having suffered defeat at the first stage of the space “race,” the United States set out not only to catch up, but also to overtake the Soviet Union.
The main reason for the lag at that time was that the Americans underestimated the importance of heavy ballistic missiles. Like their Soviet colleagues, American specialists studied the experience of German engineers who built the A-4 (V-2) missiles during the war, but did not give these projects serious development, believing that in a global war long-range bombers would be sufficient. Of course, Wernher von Braun's team, taken from Germany, continued to create ballistic missiles in the interests of the army, but they were unsuitable for space flights. When the Redstone rocket, the successor to the German A-4, was modified to launch the first American spacecraft, Mercury, it could only lift it to suborbital altitude.
Nevertheless, resources were found in the United States, so American designers quickly created the necessary “line” of launch vehicles: from Titan-2, which launched the two-seat Gemini maneuvering spacecraft into orbit, to Saturn 5, capable of sending the three-seat Apollo spacecraft "to the Moon.
Redstone
Saturn-1B
Of course, before sending expeditions, a colossal amount of work was required. Spacecraft of the Lunar Orbiter series carried out detailed mapping of the nearest celestial body - with their help it was possible to identify and study suitable landing sites. The Surveyor series vehicles made soft landings on the Moon and transmitted beautiful images of the surrounding area.
The Lunar Orbiter spacecraft carefully mapped the Moon, determining future landing sites for astronauts.
Surveyor spacecraft studied the Moon directly on its surface; parts of the Surveyor-3 apparatus were picked up and delivered to Earth by the crew of Apollo 12
At the same time, the Gemini program developed. After unmanned launches, Gemini 3 launched on March 23, 1965, maneuvering by changing the speed and inclination of its orbit, which was an unprecedented achievement at that time. Soon Gemini 4 flew, on which Edward White made the first spacewalk for Americans. The ship operated in orbit for four days, testing attitude control systems for the Apollo program. Gemini 5, which launched on August 21, 1965, tested electrochemical generators and a docking radar. In addition, the crew set a record for the duration of stay in space - almost eight days (Soviet cosmonauts managed to beat it only in June 1970). By the way, during the Gemini 5 flight, Americans for the first time encountered the negative consequences of weightlessness - a weakening of the musculoskeletal system. Therefore, measures have been developed to prevent such effects: a special diet, drug therapy and a series of physical exercises.
In December 1965, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 approached each other, simulating a docking. Moreover, the crew of the second ship spent more than thirteen days in orbit (that is, the full time of the lunar expedition), proving that the measures taken to maintain physical fitness are quite effective during such a long flight. The docking procedure was practiced on the ships Gemini 8, Gemini 9 and Gemini 10 (by the way, the commander of Gemini 8 was Neil Armstrong). On Gemini 11 in September 1966, they tested the possibility of an emergency launch from the Moon, as well as a flight through the Earth's radiation belts (the ship rose to a record altitude of 1369 km). On Gemini 12, astronauts tested a series of manipulations in outer space.
During the flight of the Gemini 12 spacecraft, astronaut Buzz Aldrin proved the possibility of complex manipulations in outer space
At the same time, the designers were preparing the “intermediate” two-stage Saturn 1 rocket for testing. During its first launch on October 27, 1961, it surpassed the Vostok rocket in thrust, on which Soviet cosmonauts flew. It was assumed that the same rocket would launch the first Apollo 1 spacecraft into space, but on January 27, 1967, there was a fire at the launch complex in which the crew of the ship died, and many plans had to be revised.
In November 1967, testing of the huge three-stage Saturn 5 rocket began. During its first flight, it lifted into orbit the Apollo 4 command and service module with a mock-up of the lunar module. In January 1968, the Apollo 5 lunar module was tested in orbit, and the unmanned Apollo 6 went there in April. The last launch almost ended in disaster due to a failure of the second stage, but the rocket pulled out the ship, demonstrating good survivability.
On October 11, 1968, the Saturn 1B rocket launched the command and service module of the Apollo 7 spacecraft with its crew into orbit. For ten days, the astronauts tested the ship, conducting complex maneuvers. Theoretically, Apollo was ready for the expedition, but the lunar module was still “raw.” And then a mission was invented that was not initially planned at all - a flight around the Moon.
The flight of Apollo 8 was not planned by NASA: it was an improvisation, but was carried out brilliantly, securing another historical priority for American astronautics
On December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 spacecraft, without a lunar module, but with a crew of three astronauts, set off for a neighboring celestial body. The flight went relatively smoothly, but before the historic landing on the Moon, two more launches were needed: the Apollo 9 crew worked out the procedure for docking and undocking the ship modules in low-Earth orbit, then the Apollo 10 crew did the same, but this time near the Moon . On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin stepped on the surface of the Moon, thereby proclaiming US leadership in space exploration.
The crew of Apollo 10 conducted a “dress rehearsal”, performing all the operations necessary for landing on the Moon, but without landing itself
The Apollo 11 lunar module, named Eagle, is landing
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's lunar walk was broadcast through the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in Australia; the original recordings of the historical event were also preserved and recently discovered
This was followed by new successful missions: Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17. As a result, twelve astronauts visited the Moon, conducted terrain reconnaissance, installed scientific equipment, collected soil samples, and tested rovers. Only the crew of Apollo 13 was unlucky: on the way to the Moon, a liquid oxygen tank exploded, and NASA specialists had to work hard to return the astronauts to Earth.
Falsification theory
On the Luna-1 spacecraft, devices were installed to create an artificial sodium comet
It would seem that the reality of expeditions to the Moon should not have been in doubt. NASA regularly published press releases and newsletters, specialists and astronauts gave numerous interviews, many countries and the global scientific community participated in technical support, tens of thousands of people watched the takeoffs of huge rockets, and millions watched live television broadcasts from space. Lunar soil was brought to Earth, which many selenologists were able to study. International scientific conferences were held to understand the data that came from instruments left on the Moon.
But even during that eventful time, people appeared who questioned the facts of the astronaut landing on the Moon. Skepticism towards space achievements appeared back in 1959, and the likely reason for this was the policy of secrecy pursued by the Soviet Union: for decades it even hid the location of its cosmodrome!
Therefore, when Soviet scientists announced that they had launched the Luna-1 research apparatus, some Western experts spoke out in the spirit that the communists were simply fooling the world community. Experts anticipated the questions and placed a device on Luna 1 for evaporating sodium, with the help of which an artificial comet was created, whose brightness was equal to the sixth magnitude.
Conspiracy theorists even dispute the reality of Yuri Gagarin's flight
Claims arose later: for example, some Western journalists doubted the reality of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, because the Soviet Union refused to provide any documentary evidence. There was no camera on board the Vostok ship; the appearance of the ship itself and the launch vehicle remained classified.
But the US authorities never expressed doubts about the authenticity of what happened: even during the flight of the first satellites, the National Security Agency (NSA) deployed two surveillance stations in Alaska and Hawaii and installed radio equipment there capable of intercepting telemetry that came from Soviet devices. During Gagarin's flight, the stations were able to receive a television signal with an image of the astronaut, transmitted by an on-board camera. Within an hour, printouts of selected footage from the broadcast were in the hands of government officials, and President John F. Kennedy congratulated the Soviet people on their outstanding achievement.
Soviet military specialists working at Scientific Measuring Point No. 10 (NIP-10), located in the village of Shkolnoye near Simferopol, intercepted data coming from the Apollo spacecraft throughout the flights to the Moon and back.
Soviet intelligence did the same. At the NIP-10 station, located in the village of Shkolnoye (Simferopol, Crimea), a set of equipment was assembled that made it possible to intercept all information from the Apollo missions, including live television broadcasts from the Moon. The head of the interception project, Alexey Mikhailovich Gorin, gave the author of this article an exclusive interview, in which, in particular, he said: “For guidance and control of a very narrow beam, a standard drive system in azimuth and elevation was used. Based on information about the location (Cape Canaveral) and launch time, the flight trajectory of the spacecraft was calculated in all areas.
It should be noted that during about three days of flight, only occasionally did the beam pointing deviate from the calculated trajectory, which was easily corrected manually. We started with Apollo 10, which made a test flight around the Moon without landing. This was followed by flights with the Apollo landings from the 11th to the 15th... They took fairly clear images of the spacecraft on the Moon, the exit of both astronauts from it and the journey across the surface of the Moon. Video from the Moon, speech and telemetry were recorded on appropriate tape recorders and transmitted to Moscow for processing and translations.”
In addition to intercepting data, Soviet intelligence also collected any information on the Saturn-Apollo program, as it could be used for the USSR's own lunar plans. For example, intelligence officers monitored missile launches from the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, when preparations began for the joint flight of the Soyuz-19 and Apollo CSM-111 spacecraft (ASTP mission), which took place in July 1975, Soviet specialists were allowed to access official information on the ship and rocket. And, as is known, no complaints were made against the American side.
The Americans themselves had complaints. In 1970, that is, even before the completion of the lunar program, a brochure by a certain James Craney was published, “Has Man Landed on the Moon?” (Did man land on the Moon?). The public ignored the brochure, although it was perhaps the first to formulate the main thesis of the “conspiracy theory”: an expedition to the nearest celestial body is technically impossible.
Technical writer Bill Kaysing can rightfully be called the founder of the “moon conspiracy” theory.
The topic began to gain popularity a little later, after the release of Bill Kaysing’s self-published book “We Never Went to the Moon” (1976), which outlined the now “traditional” arguments in favor of the conspiracy theory. For example, the author seriously argued that all deaths of participants in the Saturn-Apollo program were associated with the elimination of unwanted witnesses. It must be said that Kaysing is the only author of books on this topic who was directly related to the space program: from 1956 to 1963, he worked as a technical writer at the Rocketdyne company, which was designing the super-powerful F-1 engine for the rocket. Saturn-5".
However, after being fired “of his own free will,” Kaysing became a beggar, grabbed any job, and probably did not have warm feelings for his previous employers. In the book, which was reprinted in 1981 and 2002, he argued that the Saturn V rocket was a "technical fake" and could never send astronauts on interplanetary flight, so in reality the Apollos flew around the Earth, and the television broadcast was carried out using unmanned vehicles.
Ralph Rene made a name for himself by accusing the US government of faking flights to the moon and organizing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
At first, they also did not pay attention to Bill Kaysing’s creation. His fame was brought to him by the American conspiracy theorist Ralph Rene, who posed as a scientist, physicist, inventor, engineer and science journalist, but in reality did not graduate from a single higher educational institution. Like his predecessors, Rene published the book “How NASA Showed America the Moon” (NASA Mooned America!, 1992) at his own expense, but at the same time he could already refer to other people’s “research”, that is, he looked not like a loner, but like a skeptic in searching for truth.
Probably, the book, the lion's share of which is devoted to the analysis of certain photographs taken by astronauts, would also have gone unnoticed if the era of television shows had not come, when it became fashionable to invite all kinds of freaks and outcasts to the studio. Ralph Rene managed to make the most of the sudden interest of the public, fortunately he had a well-spoken tongue and did not hesitate to make absurd accusations (for example, he claimed that NASA deliberately damaged his computer and destroyed important files). His book was reprinted many times, each time increasing in volume.
Among the documentaries dedicated to the “lunar conspiracy” theory, there are outright hoaxes: for example, the pseudo-documentary French film “The Dark Side of the Moon” (Opération lune, 2002)
The topic itself also begged for film adaptation, and soon films appeared with claims to be documentaries: “Was it just a paper Moon?” (Was It Only a Paper Moon?, 1997), “What Happened on the Moon?” (What Happened on the Moon?, 2000), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon” (2001), “Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation into the Authenticity of the Moon Landing” Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings, 2004) and the like. By the way, the author of the last two films, film director Bart Sibrel, twice pestered Buzz Aldrin with aggressive demands to admit to deception and was eventually punched in the face by an elderly astronaut. Video footage of this incident can be found on YouTube. The police, by the way, refused to open a case against Aldrin. Apparently, she thought the video was faked.
In the 1970s, NASA tried to cooperate with the authors of the “lunar conspiracy” theory and even issued a press release that addressed Bill Kaysing’s claims. However, it soon became clear that they did not want dialogue, but were happy to use any mention of their fabrications for self-PR: for example, Kaysing sued astronaut Jim Lovell in 1996 for calling him a “fool” in one of his interviews.
However, what else can you call the people who believed in the authenticity of the film “The Dark Side of the Moon” (Opération lune, 2002), where the famous director Stanley Kubrick was directly accused of filming all the astronaut landings on the Moon in the Hollywood pavilion? Even in the film itself there are indications that it is a fiction in the mockumentary genre, but this did not stop conspiracy theorists from accepting the version with a bang and quoting it even after the creators of the hoax openly admitted to hooliganism. By the way, another “evidence” of the same degree of reliability recently appeared: this time an interview with a man similar to Stanley Kubrick surfaced, where he allegedly took responsibility for falsifying materials from lunar missions. The new fake was quickly exposed - it was done too clumsily.
Cover-up operation
In 2007, science journalist and popularizer Richard Hoagland co-authored with Michael Bara the book “Dark Mission. Secret History of NASA" (Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA), which immediately became a bestseller. In this weighty volume, Hoagland summarized his research on the “cover-up operation” - it is allegedly carried out by US government agencies, hiding from the world community the fact of contact with a more advanced civilization that has mastered the solar system long before humanity.
Within the framework of the new theory, the “lunar conspiracy” is considered as a product of the activities of NASA itself, which deliberately provokes an illiterate discussion of the falsification of the lunar landings so that qualified researchers disdain to study this topic for fear of being branded “marginal”. Hoagland deftly fit all modern conspiracy theories into his theory, from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to “flying saucers” and the Martian “Sphinx.” For his vigorous activity in exposing the “cover-up operation,” the journalist was even awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, which he received in October 1997.
Believers and non-believers
Supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory, or, more simply, “anti-Apollo” people, are very fond of accusing their opponents of illiteracy, ignorance, or even blind faith. A strange move, considering that it is the “anti-Apollo” people who believe in a theory that is not supported by any significant evidence. There is a golden rule in science and law: an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. An attempt to accuse space agencies and the global scientific community of falsifying materials of great importance to our understanding of the Universe must be accompanied by something more significant than a couple of self-published books published by an aggrieved writer and a narcissistic pseudo-scientist.
All hours of film footage from the lunar expeditions of the Apollo spacecraft have long been digitized and are available for study.
If we imagine for a moment that in the United States there was a secret parallel space program using unmanned vehicles, then we need to explain where all the participants in this program went: the designers of the “parallel” equipment, its testers and operators, as well as the filmmakers who prepared kilometers of films of the lunar missions. We are talking about thousands (or even tens of thousands) of people who needed to be involved in the “lunar conspiracy.” Where are they and where are their confessions? Let's say they all, including foreigners, swore an oath of silence. But there must remain piles of documents, contracts and orders with contractors, corresponding structures and testing grounds. However, apart from quibbles about some public NASA materials, which are indeed often retouched or presented in a deliberately simplified interpretation, there is nothing. Nothing at all.
However, “anti-Apollo” people never think about such “little things” and persistently (often in an aggressive form) demand more and more evidence from the opposite side. The paradox is that if they, asking “tricky” questions, tried to find answers to them themselves, it would not be difficult. Let's look at the most typical claims.
During the preparation and implementation of the joint flight of the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft, Soviet specialists were allowed to access official information of the American space program
For example, “anti-Apollo” people ask: why was the Saturn-Apollo program interrupted and its technology lost and cannot be used today? The answer is obvious to anyone who has even a basic understanding of what was happening in the early 1970s. It was then that one of the most powerful political and economic crises in US history occurred: the dollar lost its gold content and was devalued twice; the protracted war in Vietnam was draining resources; youth were swept by the anti-war movement; Richard Nixon was on the verge of impeachment in connection with the Watergate scandal.
At the same time, the total costs of the Saturn-Apollo program amounted to 24 billion dollars (in terms of current prices we can talk about 100 billion), and each new launch cost 300 million (1.3 billion in modern prices) - it is clear that further funding became prohibitive for the shrinking American budget. The Soviet Union experienced something similar in the late 1980s, which led to the inglorious closure of the Energia-Buran program, the technologies of which were also largely lost.
In 2013, an expedition led by Jeff Bezos, the founder of the Internet company Amazon, recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean fragments of one of the F-1 engines of the Saturn 5 rocket that delivered Apollo 11 into orbit.
However, despite the problems, the Americans tried to squeeze a little more out of the lunar program: the Saturn 5 rocket launched the heavy orbital station Skylab (three expeditions visited it in 1973–1974), and a joint Soviet-American flight took place. Soyuz-Apollo (ASTP). In addition, the Space Shuttle program, which replaced the Apollos, used the Saturn launch facilities, and some technological solutions obtained during their operation are used today in the design of the promising American SLS launch vehicle.
Working box with moon rocks in the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility storage
Another popular question: where did the lunar soil brought by astronauts go? Why isn't it being studied? Answer: it has not gone anywhere, but is stored where it was planned - in the two-story Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility building, which was built in Houston, Texas. Applications for soil studies should also be submitted there, but only organizations that have the necessary equipment can receive them. Every year a special commission reviews applications and approves from forty to fifty of them; On average, up to 400 samples are sent out. In addition, 98 samples with a total weight of 12.46 kg are exhibited in museums around the world, and dozens of scientific publications have been published on each of them.
Images of the landing sites of Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 taken by LRO's main optical camera: the lunar modules, scientific equipment and the “paths” left by the astronauts are clearly visible
Another question in the same vein: why is there no independent evidence of visiting the Moon? Answer: they are. If we discard the Soviet evidence, which is still far from complete, and the excellent space films of the lunar landing sites, which were made by the American LRO apparatus and which “anti-Apollo” people also consider “fake”, then the materials presented by the Indians (the Chandrayaan-1 apparatus) are quite sufficient for analysis ), the Japanese (Kaguya) and the Chinese (Chang'e-2): all three agencies have officially confirmed that they have discovered traces left by the Apollo spacecraft.
"Moon deception" in Russia
By the end of the 1990s, the “moon conspiracy” theory came to Russia, where it gained ardent supporters. Its wide popularity is obviously facilitated by the sad fact that very few historical books on the American space program are published in Russian, so an inexperienced reader may get the impression that there is nothing to study there.
The most ardent and talkative adherent of the theory was Yuri Mukhin, a former engineer-inventor and publicist with radical pro-Stalinist beliefs, noted for historical revisionism. In particular, he published the book “The Corrupt Wench of Genetics,” in which he refutes the achievements of genetics in order to prove that repressions against domestic representatives of this science were justified. Mukhin's style is repulsive with its deliberate rudeness, and he builds his conclusions on the basis of rather primitive distortions.
TV cameraman Yuri Elkhov, who participated in the filming of such famous children's films as “The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1975) and “About Little Red Riding Hood” (1977), undertook to analyze the film footage taken by the astronauts and came to the conclusion that they were fabricated. True, for testing he used his own studio and equipment, which has nothing in common with NASA equipment of the late 1960s. Based on the results of the “investigation,” Elkhov wrote the book “Fake Moon,” which was never published due to lack of funds.
Perhaps the most competent of the Russian “anti-Apollo activists” remains Alexander Popov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a specialist in lasers. In 2009, he published the book “Americans on the Moon - a great breakthrough or a space scam?”, in which he presents almost all the arguments of the “conspiracy” theory, supplementing them with his own interpretations. For many years he has been running a special website dedicated to the topic, and has now agreed that not only the Apollo flights, but also the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were falsified. Thus, Popov claims that the Americans made their first flight into orbit only in April 1981 - on the Columbia shuttle. Apparently, the respected physicist does not understand that without extensive previous experience, it is simply impossible to launch such a complex reusable aerospace system as the Space Shuttle the first time.
* * *
The list of questions and answers can be continued indefinitely, but this makes no sense: the views of the “anti-Apollo” are not based on real facts that can be interpreted in one way or another, but on illiterate ideas about them. Unfortunately, ignorance is persistent, and not even Buzz Aldrin's hook can change the situation. We can only hope for time and new flights to the Moon, which will inevitably put everything in its place.
On July 20, 1969, man first set foot on another celestial body. Along with the first human flight into space, this event is one of the key events in the entire world history. Human intelligence, will and curiosity helped usher in a new space age.
The most famous people to have walked on the Moon, of course, were those who first landed on it. They were Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. But the Apollo 11 crew members are not the only ones who visited our satellite. A total of 12 astronauts visited the lunar surface during six landings.
Apollo 11, July 20, 1969
Neil Armstrong; Edwin Aldrin
Six hours after landing on the moon, Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, said his famous phrase: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” . Aldrin and Neil were on the surface of the Moon for 2.5 hours. And if Armstrong was the first person to set foot on another celestial body, then Aldrin became the first person to urinate on another celestial body. Of course, in a special tank in a spacesuit.
Apollo 12, November 19, 1969
Charles Conrad; Alan Bean
After the successful first landing of man on the Moon, a second flight soon followed. Charles Conrad walked on the Moon for 3 hours and 39 minutes, during which he collected samples of lunar soil and experimented with the solar wind. Alan Bean spent 2 hours and 58 minutes on the surface of the Moon. His task was to place a television camera on the surface in order to transmit to Earth a color picture with video footage of our satellite. However, during installation, the camera lens was pointed towards the Sun for several seconds, which caused it to malfunction, so earthlings were left to be content with photographs of the lunar surface.
Apollo 14, February 5, 1971
Alan Shepard;Edgar Mitchell
On his first day on the Moon, Shepard was outside the craft for 4 hours and 49 minutes, setting up scientific equipment and collecting rocks from the surface. On their second day on the Moon, Mitchell and Shepard traveled to the nearby Cone Crater and installed scientific instruments on the lunar surface. Their exit lasted 4 hours 35 minutes.
Apollo 15, July 31, 1971
David Scott; James Irvine
The Apollo 15 mission included being on the lunar surface for 3 days. For the first time, astronauts slept in the lunar module without spacesuits, and traveled on the surface in a specially designed lunar rover. Therefore, it is not surprising that the time spent by David Scott and James on the surface of the Earth's satellite is more than 18 and a half hours. The total distance that the astronauts traveled on the “Lunomobile” is 27.76 km, and the maximum travel speed reached 13 km/h.
James Irwin and the Lunar Rover | NASA Apollo 16, April 20, 1972
Charles Duke; John Young
The astronauts remained outside the lunar module for a total of 20 hours and 15 minutes. This mission set a record for the mass of scientific instruments delivered to the Moon - as much as 563 kg. Charles and John were on our satellite for 3 days, and the result of their work was travel to the Stone and Smoky mountains, the Northern Ray crater and the collection of lunar soil samples.
Apollo 17, December 11, 1972
Eugene Cernan; Harrison Schmitt
Apollo 17 is the last flight to the Moon to date, during which people were landed on the surface. The crew set two records at once: the maximum number of soil samples brought to Earth - 110.5 kg, and the longest time on the surface of the Moon - 22 hours 3 minutes.
Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon | NASA
Editor's opinion:
We often hear that the moon landing was faked by the Americans in order to force the USSR to spend huge sums on the space program and, ultimately, ruin it. Sometimes it seems that people who shout that the Apollo 11 mission was filmed on Hollywood soundstages simply forget or do not know about the existence of five more lunar landings, the veracity of which is beyond doubt. It is our deep conviction that such events and achievements have no political and national boundaries. We need to stop supporting stupid arguments and move together towards new discoveries and worlds that await man in deep space.
Illustration: depositphotos.com
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For almost 40 years no man has set foot on the moon. The last lunar expedition with human participation, according to official data, took place in December 1972 on the American spacecraft Apollo 17. But there were rumors that there was another mission with which something allegedly happened. All information on this flight was strictly classified. And now materials have been made public that will become a real sensation...
This is just the version that is used as the basis for the science-fiction film Apollo 18, directed by Russian producer Timur Bekmambetov. It is known that the Apollo 18 flight was indeed planned in the United States for 1974. Everything was ready for the mission: the launch vehicle, the lunar module, the crew. But it allegedly did not take place. Why?
Ah, "Apollo", ah, "Apollo"!..
The Apollo space program was adopted by the American government in 1961. Her goal was ambitious - to send the first man to the moon. It is believed that the American authorities pursued not so much scientific as political goals - to achieve superiority in space over the USSR.
The Americans approached the Moon gradually. The first Apollos with astronauts on board first flew in low-Earth orbit, then began to enter the orbit of the Moon. It is known that one of the first ships caught fire on the launch pad and the crew of three people died.
However, at the cost of enormous material costs, scientific research and human sacrifice, the Moon was finally conquered by the Americans. On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on its surface. His words then spread throughout the world: “This is one small step for a person, but a giant leap for all mankind.”
Armstrong and his colleague Edwin Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the Moon. They managed to take with them 28 kilograms of lunar soil. In lunar orbit, the third crew member, Michael Collins, was waiting for the astronauts in the Apollo 11 spacecraft. The three of them returned safely to Earth.
Then, within three years, five more American manned spacecraft visited the Moon. The astronauts removed about 380 kilograms of lunar rocks and learned to move on the Moon on a lunar rover. In the early 70s, American newspapers wrote excitedly about the brilliant prospects for the exploration of the satellite planet.
It was assumed that it would be possible to place rocket bases on the Moon, extract minerals, and even build a launch pad there for flights to other planets. In 1974, the flights of Apollo 18, Apollo 19 and Apollo 20 were to take place. But suddenly the government abruptly curtailed the entire program.
The official reason for this decision was a lack of money in the treasury. According to estimates, the Apollo program cost the United States between 25 and 30 billion dollars. It was said that lunar dust was 35 times more expensive than diamonds, and each lunar module would cost 15 times less if it were made of pure gold.
Therefore, they say, American President Richard Nixon, who at that time was bogged down in the costly war in Vietnam, made the decision to cut funding for Apollo. They say he always disliked this project, which was the brainchild of his predecessor, John Kennedy.
Moreover, the main political goal of the Apollo program had already been achieved. “We needed to take revenge after the Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin was the first to fly into space,” explained one NASA (American National Space Administration) employee. “Well, they flew off and proved the power of American science and technology...” What else was needed?
However, many noticed a strange detail. The main costs for the last flights of the Apollo program in 1972 had already been made. Saturn launch vehicles and lunar modules were built and crews were staffed. So the savings on space weren’t too big.
And was it worth abandoning a large-scale project for her sake? Or were there other, more compelling reasons for this, which the government chose to remain silent about?
restricted area
There is a version that the Americans encountered something very dangerous on the Moon that scared them. Most likely - with some manifestations of the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations. At least in the 70s, American newspapers began to cautiously write about this.
Former NASA director Christopher Craft, for example, after leaving his post, released a recording of astronaut Neil Armstrong's conversations with mission control in Houston. From this conversation it becomes clear that during the first flight to the Moon, American astronauts saw a UFO!
“These are giant things...” Armstrong says excitedly. - No, no, this is not an optical illusion... There are other spaceships here. They stand in a straight line on the other side of the crater... They are watching us... The structure of these objects is simply incredible. I haven't seen anything like it until now! Look, they're moving up..."
“We can clearly see two objects,” say employees of the Control Center in Houston. -Can you film something? Are they in front of you? Are you hearing any noises from the UFO? What's there? Repeat your last message! The control center is calling Apollo 11... Communication has been interrupted...”
According to Kraft, three flying saucers accompanied Apollo 11 during its flight to the Moon, and then landed on the edge of the crater. Armstrong and Aldrin allegedly saw with their own eyes how aliens in spacesuits emerged from the “saucers.” They did not come into contact with American astronauts...
They say that not a single flight under the Apollo program was complete without strange observations. Apollo 12, which launched on November 14, 1969, was allegedly also accompanied in space by two unknown luminous objects that repeated all the maneuvers of the American ship.
The Apollo 15 astronauts allegedly saw a huge “saucer” flying over the surface of the Moon. The crew of Apollo 16 on the lunar surface saw a huge UFO in the shape of a cylinder with a sharp tip. And the astronauts from Apollo 17 saw moving luminous objects on the slope of the lunar mountain.
“During the Apollo manned flights, there were strange observations from spacecraft that the astronauts could not explain,” NASA chief information officer Donald Ciestra said in a report to policymakers in Washington.
However, the greatest horror was experienced by the Apollo 13 crew, who were unable to reach the Moon at all. On the way to lunar orbit, an oxygen tank exploded, causing the main ship to lose power. The astronauts were saved only by moving to the lunar module of the ship, where there was oxygen.
Mission Control Center managed to turn Apollo 13 back and put it into low-Earth orbit. After six days of space wandering, the astronauts, sick, frightened and terribly exhausted, returned to Earth.
There were rumors that there was a nuclear explosive device on board Apollo 13. They say they wanted to blow it up on the Moon for some scientific purposes such as seismic research. However, the explosion was supposedly prevented by aliens by staging an accident on the ship.
Whether this is true or not is unknown, but the Apollo 13 astronauts allegedly saw some mysterious lights from the windows... After this story, it finally became clear that space is not something to joke about.
Apollo 18
In the film, produced by Timur Bekmambetov, the Apollo 18 mission still goes to the Moon in the strictest secrecy. Astronauts encounter unknown and aggressive life forms on a satellite planet. As a result, none of them returns to Earth...
Could this be true? Why not. Astronaut Neil Armstrong is credited with saying that he allegedly said in an interview about the flights to the Moon: “We were made to understand that the place was taken.” If we assume that the last American flight to the Moon really ended tragically, it becomes clear why they haven’t set foot there in the last 40 years...
The deeper the first human flights to the Moon go into history, the more myths and gossip about them arise. More and more sites are appearing on the Internet, the authors of which, with manic zeal, are trying to prove that there was no such event as the CONQUEST OF THE MOON by PEOPLE in the history of the twentieth century, and the APOLLO spaceships either did not fly anywhere or carried robots (shod in the boots of astronauts) to the Moon. . We are offered to consider photographs and videos of people on the Moon to be fakes fabricated in Hollywood. As a response to the muddy stream of lies, slander and vile fabrications addressed to the Heroes of Space, who conquered the Moon, as an outpost of historical truth, as a tribute to the feat of NASA astronauts, I, cropman, created this site.
Historical reference: In May 1961, US President John Kennedy, speaking in Congress, set a task for his country: to deliver the first people to the Moon and return them back to Earth. Two years later, a vile killer cut short the earthly path of this great dreamer. But the daring Apollo project, which had gained momentum by that time, could no longer be stopped; the Americans continued to stubbornly and persistently solve the task set by President Kennedy. Neither technical difficulties nor the death of the Apollo 1 crew during ground tests in January 1967 stopped them. On July 20, 1969, they landed the first humans on the Moon and then successfully returned them to Earth. The age-old dream of mankind has come true! The first people on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. Then the Americans carried out five more successful lunar expeditions.
This site contains a collection of direct and indirect evidence,
and any evidence to support the statement:
1. For a space flight (successful or not) in the USSR, cosmonauts were awarded the title “Hero of the USSR.” Neil Armstrong flew into space on March 16, 1966 on the Gemini 8 spacecraft. Edwin Aldrin flew into space on November 11, 1966 on the Gemini 12 spacecraft. No one has ever disputed these flights (around the Earth), and if we do not have double morals, then we should consider Armstrong and Aldrin to be Heroes. Many astronauts also traveled to space before joining the Apollo program. Question: can Heroes “part-time” be swindlers, swindlers, forgers, scammers who have deceived gullible and naive humanity? And not individual individuals, but the entire squad of astronauts, without exception, without exception. You have to be an amputee of conscience to answer - yes, they can. It has long been noted that those who constantly suspect other people of meanness, as a rule, are scoundrels themselves. “Every scoundrel,” said V.V. Stasov, “always suspects other people of some kind of baseness.”
2. Everyone knows that lying is bad, but many Americans are believers. For them, lying is excluded in principle - violation of the ninth commandment, for which the Lord can condemn to eternal torment in hell. Therefore, for me personally, the words of one believer Edwin Aldrin weigh more than the words of all the atheists and nihilists who are not afraid of either sin or God’s judgment, which for some reason are all the would-be NASA whistleblowers I know.
3. 36 thousand NASA specialists and 376 thousand contract workers directly or indirectly participated in the Apollo program, and to this day none of them have admitted or repented of lying. But the conspirators must be small in number, otherwise information leakage is inevitable and the conspiracy is doomed to failure. More than four hundred thousand is a completely absurd number of participants for a successful scam. How did it happen that among the thousands of scoundrels who deceived gullible humanity, not a single traitor was found? The absence of at least one repentant conspirator (lunar Snowden) is a gaping hole in the “lunar conspiracy” hypothesis.
4. The authors of the Apollo program are scientists, subjects of Science. These are people of a special kind, they have their own system of fundamental values and priorities (where honor and conscience do not come last). A real scientist is as alien to Mammon as the mathematician Grigory Perelman (who rejected a million dollars). No one can put together such people into a cohesive team of liars, swindlers, scammers (authors of the greatest hoax).
5. Falsification of flights to the Moon had no chance of success, because at the same time as Apollo, Soviet machine guns flew to the Moon. The Soviet Union could inspect any of the American landing sites on the Moon. AMS Luna-15 landed on the Moon at the same time as Apollo 11, Lunokhod-2 landed on the Moon just near Apollo 17 (~175 km). It makes no sense to start a scam that has absolutely no PROTECTION from discovery. Even a pickpocket at the market will not pick someone else's pocket, knowing that he is being watched, that he is being guarded. It's better to be left without prey than to be caught.
6. Falsification of flights to the Moon could only have TEMPORARY success. Footprints on the Moon remain unchanged for a million years. Sooner or later the secret will become apparent and then what? A national disgrace, the damage from which will be several orders of magnitude greater than the size of the prize money for winning the lunar race? Weren't NASA leaders aware of Abraham Lincoln's postulate: "You can fool some people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time"? Falsification must be immortal (and Lincoln forbade this) or not be born at all.
7. Did the Americans really need a victory in the lunar race? Did they have nothing else to soothe their wounded pride? They are already first in science (in terms of the number of Nobel laureates), first in economics (in terms of gross national product), first in sports (in terms of the number of Olympics won). Well, they wouldn’t have been able to become the first on the Moon, since Mars and the entire solar system are ahead, they will find something to recoup on. Is it worth risking your reputation for the sake of some Moon? Whistleblowers are clearly exaggerating the degree of motivation of the “lunar swindlers.” It was wiser for the United States to pass the next stage of the space race (well, they passed several stages before that) than to go for an insanely risky forgery.
8. By the way, whistleblowers cannot clearly explain why the falsifiers “overslept” such prestigious space achievements as: the launch of the first satellite, the flight into space of the first living creature, the flight there of the first man and the first woman? Why were flights to the Moon, which are the most difficult to fake, targeted for falsification? Where were the counterfeiters with their Hollywood before? It was obviously easier and thousands of times cheaper to fake the first manned spacewalk, for example. And 2 months before Apollo 11, Apollo 10 flew to the Moon. Why didn’t the “swindlers” during that flight announce the landing of people on the Moon? Instead, they risked losing priority by allowing Luna 15 to be the first to deliver lunar soil to Earth. They couldn't have known in advance that it would crash...
9. Addressing the session of the UN General Assembly on September 20, 1963, President John Kennedy officially and publicly invited the Soviet Union to join the United States in jointly pursuing an expedition to the Moon. I believe that by rejecting this invitation, the Russians, who at that time were ahead of America “by several laps” in the space competition, deprived themselves of the moral right to audit the results of the lunar race at its end.
10. On the contrary, citizens of the Soviet Union have every right to share the triumph of the winners of the lunar race, because without the participation of their country in this race, there would be no people on the Moon to this day. It was the USSR’s primacy in space achievements in the era of the first space flights, which hurt the pride of the Americans and forced them to implement the Apollo program, which was clearly ahead of its time, to return to the United States the primacy it had temporarily lost in scientific and technical achievements. We should not deny flights to the Moon, but be proud of them - without our participation they would not have taken place. That is why in the title of this web page I wrote “People” and not “Americans” flew to the Moon.
11. NASA is actually proving its worth by “in splendid isolation” (after the collapse of the USSR) exploring the Solar System. Mars and Venus, the Jupiter system and the Saturn system have already been explored, recently the Messenger probe began researching Mercury, and the Down probe, having examined the asteroid Vesta, went to Ceres and is exploring it. Finally, the New Horizons probe reached Pluto. It is not surprising that it was NASA that delivered the first people to the Moon. This is just one, in a series of others, space achievement of the Americans. Now, if the Republic of Burkina Faso had announced a flight to the moon for its citizens, I think understandable doubts would have arisen, even despite the translation of the name of this African country (Homeland of Honest People).
12. There are scientific instruments on the Moon - laser corner reflectors, seismometers that record moonquakes, equipment for measuring solar wind, detecting traces of the atmosphere and measuring heat flow from the bowels of the Moon. Astronomers and selenologists from many countries around the world worked with these devices for a long time (until 1978). Laser corner reflectors are still available for lunar location experiments today. These scientific instruments are located exactly at the declared landing sites of the Apollo lunar modules. There is no reason to doubt that they were brought there by members of lunar expeditions.
13. During six lunar expeditions, astronauts delivered to Earth about 380 kilograms of lunar soil, which, due to the conditions of its formation (vacuum, cosmic radiation, micrometeorites), cannot be faked. Samples of lunar soil were transferred for study to scientists from many countries around the world, and research reports on these samples were published in scientific journals. For example, on April 13, 1972, NASA representatives visited the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The transfer of samples of lunar soil delivered by the crew of Apollo 15 took place in exchange for samples of lunar soil delivered by the Luna 20 station.
14. American scientists who examined the lunar soil delivered by the crew of Apollo 11 discovered minerals unknown at that time on Earth. And only 14 months later, Soviet soil appeared (delivered by the automatic soil sampling station Luna-16) with the same previously unseen minerals. Also, for the first time, the Americans declared that free iron from lunar soil does not oxidize in air, which was later confirmed by Soviet researchers, who managed to issue a patent for the discovery. The incomprehensible ability of NASA “scammers” to guess new minerals and unusual properties of chemical elements in lunar soil is another insoluble problem of those who deny flights to the Moon.
15. In July 2002, a daring theft of a safe containing lunar soil occurred at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, committed by student intern Ted Roberts and three accomplices. The thieves were caught trying to sell stolen goods through the website of the mineralogy club. The trial took place. The organizer of the theft received 8 years in prison, of which he served 6. I would like to ask those who deny flights to the Moon: which of them is ready to serve 6 years behind bars for the sake of temporarily possessing “fake” lunar soil? Or is the soil still genuine?
16. The crew of Apollo 12 delivered to Earth some parts of the Surveyor 3 apparatus, which stood on the Moon for almost two and a half years. In particular: samples of aluminum pipes, a piece of glass cladding, wire scraps, a scraper from a mechanical shovel and a television camera. Thus, the creators of new space technology had the most valuable data on space materials science at their disposal. How could these objects return to Earth if lunar expeditions are fiction?
17. As a result of lunar expeditions, a huge amount of data was formed in the NASA archives. This data was later digitized and posted on the Internet on NASA websites. Here is a partial list of these sites:
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/images11.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/images12.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/images13.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/images14.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/images15.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/images16.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html
Magnificent lunar panoramas were made from photographic materials from lunar expeditions, which can be admired for a long time on the monitors of modern computers in full-screen viewing mode. Here they are:
18. On each Apollo flight, the astronauts filmed themselves, the interior of the spacecraft, and views out the window on 16 mm film. All these films (digitized, of course) are now publicly available. Google "Apollo 16mm onboard film" and have a look. While watching, pay attention to the duration of the episodes illustrating the state of WEIGHTLESSITY - often the episodes last tens of minutes. But no one has yet learned to create artificial weightlessness on Earth for longer than tens of seconds. Special effects in films of those years were very primitive, and computer graphics appeared 20 years later.
19. Apollo 15 commander David Scott, while on the Moon on August 2, 1971, demonstrated in front of a television camera Galileo's famous experiment, during which a hammer and an eagle feather fell onto the lunar soil at the same time. There was no way this could have happened on the Hollywood pavilion, because the feather would have fallen slower than the hammer due to friction with the air. http://youtu.be/w0GqrtbQnxI
20. The astronauts of the Apollo 16 expedition (Young and Duke) brought to Earth photographs of the Milky Way and some galaxies in the ultraviolet range. These images were taken by the astronauts using a small telescope they took with them on the flight. As is known, ultraviolet radiation does not pass through the earth's atmosphere, so Young and Duke at least visited outside the earth's atmosphere. By the way, the telescope remained on the Moon, so the first lunar observatory has been waiting for its astronomers for 40 years.
21. Thanks to seismometers delivered by astronauts to the Moon, it was possible to conduct several active seismic experiments there. Since the Apollo 12 flight, the take-off stage of the lunar cabin, after the astronauts returned to the main block, was decelerated and dropped onto the lunar surface. The impact of a device weighing 2.5 tons at the first lunar cosmic speed (1.6 km/s) was equivalent to an explosion of 800 kg of TNT. And starting with the flight of Apollo 13, the last stage of the Saturn 5 rocket was also sent to the Moon. The fall of a stage weighing 15 tons onto the Moon at a speed of 2.5 km/s produced an effect similar to the explosion of 10 tons of TNT. At the same time, seismometers on the lunar surface recorded seismic vibrations caused by the fall of stages and lunar cabins. The fall of the third stage of the rocket that sent Apollo 13 to the Moon was a real surprise for selenophysicists: after the impact, the Moon literally hummed like a bell. The seismic vibrations lasted for four hours. Suspicions arose that the Moon was hollow inside. On May 13, 1972, a meteorite measuring 2 m at a speed of 20 km/s fell 142 km from seismic station A-14. The impact was so strong that a crater with a diameter of 100 m was formed. Instruments at seismic stations A-12 and A-14 went off scale, and at stations A-15 and A-16 (located 967 and 1026 km respectively) they received recordings of the strongest moonquake. Lunar seismology simply would not have been born if the Apollo program had been just a hoax.
22. Currently, lunar exploration is carried out not only by the United States (LRO), but also by China, Japan and India. An Indian satellite has obtained data confirming the presence of traces of Apollo 15 astronauts on the Moon (izvestia.ru). And the Japanese Kaguya probe transmitted data to Earth, on the basis of which a 3D model of Mount Hadley was built. It is enough to compare the view of this model from the landing site of the Apollo 15 astronauts with the photograph of Mount Hadley, brought to Earth by Scott and Irwin, to recognize that in Hollywood of the sixties of the last century they could not build a set that coincided in the smallest detail with the original located on the Moon (Hadley .jpg).
23. The reality of the Apollo program is best demonstrated by the development of a similar program in the USSR (by the way, carefully classified and even officially denied by Soviet propaganda of those years). Only with the advent of the era of glasnost its details and its name became known: N1-L3. The N1 rocket was inferior in characteristics to the Saturn 5 rocket, but could still deliver one astronaut to the Moon. Unfortunately, “there is no sadder story in the world than the story of...” our lunar rocket. After four unsuccessful launches, the project was closed. Further tests made no sense - by that time the Americans had already completed flights to the Moon. It was more convenient to pretend that the Soviet Union was not going to risk the lives of Soviet cosmonauts. That's what they did.
24. With the advent of artificial Earth satellites (AES), astronomers have new instruments designed to observe them. The largest observatories in the world began to create satellite tracking stations and photograph them. Astronomers have learned to photograph even interplanetary stations, and satellites in low orbits are visible like cars on the streets of Moscow from orbit. Of course, flights to the Moon were also monitored. The photographs have been preserved and are available. Whistleblowers will be able to explain: how did NASA involve astronomers from around the world in the “lunar scam”? Hardly.
25. In 1958, the International Committee for Space Research (COSPAR) was created. COSPAR unites leading scientific institutions of many countries and international scientific unions whose activities are related to space research. COSPAR annually convenes international symposia on space exploration, which provide an opportunity to take stock of the results of space research. In June 1970, the XIII Session of COSPAR was held in my hometown, at which the first man to set foot on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, made a presentation. The idea that international astronautics experts can be “duped like the last suckers” looks convincing only in the minds of real, and not imaginary, suckers.
26. On October 14, 1905, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) was founded in Paris. Nowadays, more than 60 countries of the world are members of this international organization. The FAI ensures control over aviation achievements around the world, compares them and thereby contributes to the development of design ideas, aviation, aviation sports, and their progress. It also monitors advances in astronautics and interplanetary flight, recording records in this field as well. Currently, the FAI takes into account and registers the scientific, technical and record achievements of not only manned spacecraft, but also automatic stations flying both around the Earth and to other planets of the solar system. NASA had no problems registering the numerous space records set during the Apollo program, although FAI commissioners checked everything carefully and scrupulously.
27. The USSR controlled the progress of the Apollo program with its own funds. For this purpose, at the end of 1967, specialists from NII-885 created a special control radio engineering complex, which made it possible to receive signals from the American Apollo spacecraft flying around the Moon and landing on its surface. This complex used a TNA-400 antenna with a dish diameter of 32 m, which was located in Crimea, near Simferopol. Tracking was carried out on the spacecraft of the Apollo 8, Apollo 10, Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 expeditions from December 1968 to November 1969. From these spacecraft, telephone conversations between astronauts and the Earth and telemetric information on the status of onboard aircraft were received with good quality. systems
28. In this video, details of the lunar terrain captured by the Apollo 11 astronauts through the lunar cabin window are convincingly identified with details of the latest lunar map related to the descent trajectory of the lunar cabin before landing on the Moon. In 1969, there were no lunar maps of such high resolution yet, and even Stanley Kubrick could not have created scenery that was 40 years ahead of its time.
29. In this collage, one of the frames of the film taken by the Apollo 14 astronauts in February 1971 during takeoff from the Moon is superimposed on a fragment of a modern high-resolution photograph of the Moon. See how the details of the images match. Lunar maps with such resolution simply did not exist 40 years ago, so it is easy to understand that the real lunar surface, and not a Hollywood set, is visible through the window of the take-off stage of the Antares lunar module.
30. In another collage, one of the frames of the film taken by the Apollo 15 astronauts in the first seconds of takeoff from the Moon is proposed to be compared with a fragment of a modern photograph of the landing site of the Falcon lunar module, taken by the Lunar Orbital Reconnaissance Survey on June 11, 2011. The coincidence of the details of the lunar relief in these images can only be explained by the fact that the real lunar surface is depicted.
31. In April 1972, the Apollo 16 astronauts (Young and Duke), taking off from the surface of the Moon, shot a film, a fragment of which is posted. At the 31st second, a frame appears that can be compared with a fragment of the LRO image - M175179080LR. Look how similar the details of the lunar surface relief are on these
32. In December 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts (Cernan and Schmitt), taking off from the surface of the Moon, shot a film, a fragment of which is posted. At the 42nd second, a frame appears that can be compared with a fragment of the LRO image - M129086118LR. Look how similar the details of the lunar surface are in these two images, taken 40 years apart.
33. A favorite pastime of NASA whistleblowers is finding photographic materials in the vast archives of lunar expeditions, in which they can point out the discrepancy of some details with “how it should really be.” This is followed by accusations of photomontage and forgery, and a loud presentation of new evidence of the “moon scam.” For example, the flag is not installed later, because has no shadow. These evidence hunters don't realize that 40 years ago the only photo editing tool was scissors! They simply do not know that personal computers appeared 10 years later, and the Photoshop program 20 years after the expeditions to the Moon, which means that to falsify all NASA lunar photographs, a whole army of photo editors armed with scissors was required.
34. The world scientific community (with the exception of a few eccentrics) is unanimous in the opinion that the Apollo lunar expeditions are genuine and reliable, and the “lunar conspiracy” hypothesis is the brainchild of amateurs and poorly informed pseudo-experts. However, in fact, there is no single hypothesis of a “NASA conspiracy”, because the whistleblowers cannot agree among themselves, either the Americans did not fly anywhere, or they flew, but only around the Earth, or they flew to the Moon, but not to it disembarked. Until these “skeptics” develop a unified version of the “lunar conspiracy,” I see no reason to call their contradictory hypotheses a theory.
35. A funny incident happened with the editorial office of the International Scientific Journal "Vityaz". One of the most odious haters of the United States (permanently banned from Wikipedia), Anton Kolmykov, managed to squeeze his absurd article “How the United States flew to the Moon...” into this supposedly peer-reviewed journal. After several protests from the scientific community, the editors of the Vityaz magazine came to their senses and renounced Kolmykov’s already published article as an anti-scientific heresy. Now issue 6 of this magazine is downloaded from its archive in a shortened form (without the ill-fated article). Although the Vityaz magazine is not on the list of the Higher Attestation Commission, it is nevertheless represented in the New Library and should be excluded from there, but the sword does not cut off a guilty head.
36. The vast majority of Soviet and Russian cosmonauts, as well as specialists working in space, do not doubt the authenticity of human flights to the Moon on Apollo spacecraft. And no one will ever convince Leonov and Makarov, Bykovsky and Rukavishnikov, Popovich and Grechko, who themselves were preparing for flights to the Moon, that this is a completely insoluble technical problem:
“And in open space, just so you know, you need protection, a whole meter of lead!
This means they didn’t fly to the moon, to avoid a lethal end!”
37. In 2000, the Public Opinion Foundation conducted an all-Russian survey of the urban and rural population (1,500 respondents). To the question: “DO YOU BELIEVE THAT AMERICAN ASTRONAUTS REALLY WENT TO THE MOON?” answered yes/no, among all respondents - 51/28, with higher education - 62/21, with incomplete secondary education - 38/30, living in Moscow and St. Petersburg - 62/25, living in rural areas - 45/29. Historical truths are not established by voting, but this sociological study clearly indicates the reasons for Russians’ distrust of flights to the Moon. This is a lack of education, erudition and culture among the respondents.
38. In the history textbooks of all countries of the world, the first flights of people to the Moon are recorded as a historical fact. Despite the numerous cries of those who refute this fact, whose websites are multiplying by “cross-pollination,” none of the professional historians is going to rewrite their monographs or school textbooks. The status of this event (the flight of people to the Moon) in historical science remains unchanged - “fact” and not “myth”.
39. Encyclopedias in the languages of all peoples of the Earth contain articles dedicated to the first flights of people to the Moon. An encyclopedia is a scientific reference publication containing information that does not raise any doubts, containing only objectively reliable data. The authors of encyclopedias are usually the most erudite scientists with deep knowledge of the subject they write about. Therefore, in all encyclopedias it is written in black and white that 12 people have visited the Moon. Do you think there is at least mention of the “moon conspiracy” hypothesis in encyclopedias? I could only find such a mention on Wikipedia, if you have more luck, please let me know.
40. Museums of science and technology in various cities around the world have exhibitions dedicated to space research. There are exhibits on display that provide material evidence of the authenticity of lunar expeditions. Here are examples of such museums: Museum of Science and Industry postage stamps. Interestingly, upon the return of the Apollo 15 crew to Earth, a famous philatelic scandal occurred. NASA management approximately punished astronauts for bringing postal envelopes on board Apollo 15 in excess of the authorized norm. NASA whistleblowers remain silent about this incident, because it shows that the moral character of NASA employees was at the proper height and accusing them of super-swindle (deception of all mankind) is a hopeless matter.
42. Opponents of human flights to the Moon (a gentle epithet for the debunker Oleg Oleinik), or simply put, NASA haters never tire of repeating the thesis that for 40 years no one COULD repeat not only the flight to the Moon, but even the flyby of the Moon. So this thesis of theirs is not true! We can only say that no one WANTED. In the USSR, the Zond spacecraft was created and tested in flight. In essence, this is an ordinary Soyuz, but without a living compartment, launched onto the trajectory of a flight around the Moon by a Proton rocket. In such a ship, two weeks before the Apollo 8 astronauts, 2 Soviet cosmonauts were ready to fly around the Moon (the first in the history of mankind), but management canceled the launch because the previous Zond-6 ship crashed during landing. Nowadays, rumors have appeared on the Internet that one of the two seats on such a ship, which could fly around the Moon in 2015, has already been sold for $150 million. So the Moon has long been accessible not only to NASA.
43. The real truth about flights to the Moon is contained in the books of S.P.’s associates. Korolev and in the books of chroniclers of Soviet cosmonautics. Here is a non-exhaustive list of these books:
Boris Evseevich Chertok "Rockets and people. Moon race"
Vasily Mishin "Why didn't we fly to the moon"
Verdict: the opinion that flights to the Moon are a blatant hoax is marginal (from the French marginal - on the side of the margin), that is, insignificant, insignificant, secondary, remaining the lot of amateurs, ignoramuses and charlatans.
HONOR AND GLORY TO THE CONQUERERS OF THE MOON!
SHAME AND DISGRACE TO THE STEALERS OF HEROES!
P.S. There is no doubt that my collection of arguments in favor of the reliability of the first flights of people to the Moon is incomplete. If you know of arguments that could add to this collection, send them to me by e-mail and they will be published here. But the gentlemen who have refuted need not worry, I have read enough of their fabrications and therefore I immediately SEND them all to a well-known address (I forum I mean, not what you thought). Now available pdf version of Nikomo’s book “Anti-Popov”, which reveals the anti-scientific nature of the conspiracy insinuations of A.I. Popova, as well as mine
