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Apollo 11

Amid an era of global political suspicion the greatest conspiracy theory of all time casts doubt on what should be the greatest achievement of the age. Did the Apollo 11 astronauts really land on the moon, or was this an elaborate hoax by NASA to satisfy political demands?

Bill Kaysing the former head of technical publications for Rocketdyne is considered, by many, to be the father of moon conspiracy theorists. Both he and Ralph René the author of "NASA Mooned America" set out their stall with all the evidence supporting their theory.

• Contradicting shadows in photographs
• Moon walk was a slow motion film
• No stars in night sky
• Flag fluttering in a breeze
• Lack of Computing power to land the lunar module
• Can’t manipulate camera to take photographs
• Dust below lunar module should have been disturbed
• Film would be damaged by radiation

Jay Windley is a trained aerospace enginer who runs a website dedicated to repudiating the moon landing conspiracies at www.clavius.org. He accepts the challenge of countering all of the conspiracy claims.

• Diverging shadows can occur on earth and depend on the objects casting the shadow and the surface of the terrain upon which the shadow is being cast. (see image below)
• Documentary makers tried to create their own moon walk hoax and discovered it was not possible.
• The Hasselblad 500 EL cameras used on the Apollo missions were specially built with large shutter release buttons so the astronauts could activate them.
• The lunar module was tracked by independent scientists from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in England
• The human eye and the camera aperture cannot adjust to show the stars which are relatively dim compared to the lunar surface.
• Astronauts have brought back material which has been scientifically proven to be of extraterrestrial origin.

In short, Jay and the documentary makers successfully, and convincingly, counter each claim made by the conspiracy theorists.

The picture, to the left, demonstrates the effect of apparently non-parallel shadows on a sidewalk somewhere in the USA. It is probable that the road in the foreground is on a slope which would mean the shadows striking the grounds at different heights thereby causing the diverging shadows.

Photographs taken by Jay Windley with a Hasselblad camera to try and replicate the astronauts conditions exhibit the same phenomenon and add further credence to the non-conspiracists.

 

In total, the Apollo missions brought back over 380kg of lunar soil and rock samples. Some of these samples contain lunar spherules, glass globes, which can be seen to have been exposed to radiation levels not possible on earth.

The photograph, to the right, demonstrates the illusion that there are no stars in the night sky above this brightly lit cityscape. There are in fact many stars visible in the sky but at too low a light level, compared to the bright city, to be discerned either by the human eye or the camera.

This is the same situation the astronauts would have encountered when they were standing on the brightly lit lunar surface.

One further thought is provided by the documentary makers. The Soviets and the East Germans had spies monitoring every aspect of the Apollo mission, and if there had been even a hint of it being a hoax they would have known all about it and broadcast it to the world. A giant leap for mankind was indeed the fantastic achievement it was always hailed to be.