Over the years there have been many claims that the Apollo astronauts did not go to the moon. That the moon landings were faked. In articles, you often here the word “crackpot” or “conspiracy theorist” mentioned when a person brings up the idea that the Apollo astronauts did not go to the moon.
These are classical ad hominem attacks, which attack the character of a person, rather than the evidence that is presented.
But lets look at some of the evidence, instead of calling people names, and see if there is evidence that the moon landings are not what they seem.
But before we go on, let us just remind ourselves of the famous quote by Carl Sagan, who stated: “Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence.”
It is not the conspiracy theorist that is making the “extraordinary claims” here. It is in fact, if you look at it objectively, NASA themselves - there has been no objective third party trips to the moon to measure NASA’s claim.
Remember science is about repeatability.
Who has gone to the moon, since NASA?
The answer is, no one.
So it is NASA that is making the “extraordinary claim” here, not the conspiracy theorist, when looked at with an objective lens. And just because the claim is largely believed to be true within testimonial, does not mean it is fact in terms of reality.
All the evidence of the moon landings, comes from astronauts themselves.
Now you might say, that there is a mirror on the moon, that reflects a laser from Earth, as famously bought up, as support for the moon landings.
This does not prove that the astronauts went to the moon. This just proves that there is a mirror there.
The claim that the moon landings are a hoax, does not stem from the idea of a probe going to the moon, or subsequent mechanised equipment, but that the astronauts did.
That is, the claim in question is: humans walked on the moon. And that the photos shown are real and true.
That is the claim.
So lets have a look at some of the claims made by NASA.
- The photos on the moon.
NASA has a public record of the time spent on the moon. It also has a traceable record of the amount of photos taken on the moon.
Here is the list of time spent on the moon by each Apollo mission and the number of photos taken.
Apollo 11 (1 EVA) 2 hours, 31 minutes (151 minutes)
Apollo 12 (2 EVAs) 7 hours, 50 minutes (470 minutes)
Apollo 14 (2 EVAs) 9 hours, 25 minutes (565 minutes)
Apollo 15 (3 EVAs) 18 hours, 30 minutes (1110 minutes)
Apollo 16 (3 EVAs) 20 hours, 14 minutes (1214 minutes)
Apollo 17 (3 EVAs) 22 hours, 04 minutes (1324 minutes)
Total minutes on the Moon amounted to 4834 minutes.
Total number of photographs taken was 5771 photos.
So what is the problem you might ask?
Well, it is simple mathematics. The amount of photos that came back from the moon, would have meant that the astronauts would have had to take 1.19 photos every lunar minute while on the moon to account for the amount of photos taken.
And remember the cameras that were being used and the way they were operated.
The cameras were the heavy Hasselblad cameras. A very heavy camera designed to work in space. The astronauts had this fixed to their space suits. They had to manipulate these cameras with heavy gloves, which in a vacuum would add to difficulties given that air filled gloves “expand” in a vacuum; as the laws of physics show.
The astronauts also would have had to aim and shoot, in this very difficult environment, and adjust exposure to suit the environment.
There are many other factors that would have made the task extremely time consuming. The astronauts also had many other duties while on the moon, according to NASA.
So how did they manage to take the amount of photos they did?
If you put all this together a picture starts to emerge, that the photos that came back from the mission where far too high to be taken in the allotted time.
Not by a small factor, but by an order of magnitude.
It could be equated comically as going to Disney Land for 3 minutes and coming back with 300,000,000 photographs, many of which are perfect in forms of exposure. That is, the number is fantastically high for the amount of photos taken in the allotted time.
The numbers do not support the claim made by NASA, that they went to the moon. And remember, that is what it is, a claim. It has not been tested independently. It has not been repeated, even the methodology. The only evidence is testimonial. The claim being similar to: “At the end of the rainbow there is a pot of gold. I have seen it, and so have others, and we have photos.”
- The many anomalies with the photographs
There are a number of problems within the photographs themselves, proving they were either tampered with, or are false locations i.e. not taken on the moon.
Although there are many photos that display these anomalies, perhaps one of the most clear are these two photographs taken. The first photograph can be found on the NASA archive HERE, and is called AS15-82-11057. It was taken on 2nd Aug.
The second photograph can be found on the NASA archive HERE, and is called AS15-82-11082. Take also on 2nd of Aug.
These two photographs are taken at different times, according to NASA, and are from different locations miles apart.
So what is the problem? Well, the backgrounds in both images are exactly the same.
There is also another problem, there is the Lunar Module in the first photograph which does not repeat in the second. This means, that in the second photo if it was the same location, there would be no one there to take the photograph – since no Lunar Module means, no astronauts.
Note Occam's razor: In this case the simpler one is usually better OR the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is.
So what is the hypothesis with less assumptions? Well, that the photographs taken were taken on Earth.
But at the end of the day you have to decide for yourself. However, if anything that can be learned, it is that maybe proof of the moon landings, either a hoax or real, may never arrive, until that day comes that humans go back.