In December 1972, Gene Cernan gazed at the horizon, scanning the uneven craters scattered across the surface. Turning his head, he climbed up and into the lunar module "Challenger", with their destination set to Earth. This marks the end of the Apollo Program, no humans have ever gone back to the moon since.
Many conspiracy theories had been created since the last lunar landing, with some even believing NASA never made it to the moon. Some considerations leading to this are why aren't there stars on the images taken on the moon, how did they survive the radioactive exposure, and why didn't we return since?
The cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s had brought both countries to the brink of a nuclear war. With both countries gradually beginning an arms race, they looked up towards the skies as the concept of controlling space is thought of as a game-changer in the midst of this indirect war. Thus, it became their priority to beat the other nation in the race to dominate space.
The Soviet Union struck their first blow by launching the first satellite "Sputnik 1" and also achieved in sending the first male cosmonaut (Soviet Astronaut) into space, first female cosmonaut in space, and the first space walk performed. The United States, on the other hand, failed to keep up and would often lag a few months behind their rival Soviet Union. America is certainly not winning any "battles" needless to say, the space race.
Clearly, it's important, because you've got a president who steps up and says we're going to do it, makes it a policy objective, makes it a budgetary priority and reaffirms that commitment
Roger Launius
In 1961, a "young" democrat was elected as the 35th president of the United States. John Franklin Kennedy, Jack or JFK, had vowed to put The United States ahead of the space race, and the best way to accomplish this is to do mission impossible; land humans on the moon. This is America's chance to prove to the world that they are still the superpower and will not be threatened by the communist.
Many individuals believe the moon landing was faked to fool Soviet Russia. They have some strong evidence such as starless pitch-black skies to prevent errors in the constellation. However, hardware limitations most likely failed to capture stars under the bright moon surface which reflects sunlight. Faking the moon landing is implausible because of its sheer size and scale of the project. No former NASA employees had leaked information claiming that this is a hoax, which is unlikely, especially after the Soviets collapsed. It is impossible for there to be zero whistleblowers in the decades passed, either that or NASA employees are good at keeping secrets.
With the Soviet Union out of the way, the United States no longer have the incentives of returning to the moon, which is why there was no future mission to the moon, until now. The new Artemis project funded by NASA in collaboration with SpaceX and Blue Origin will bring us back again to this heavenly body, this time for mankind.
Images used in this post are from Unsplash, royalty-free images. All sources are embedded in the images.
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