Today I am going to explain to you why it was impossible to fake the first moon landing in 1969. The video technology at that time was not yet developed far enough. I know, you can prove the topic also purely with physical knowledge. However, that was already done enough times by other people. The video technical aspect is often completely ignored. Oh, I'm sorry about the clickbait thumbnail. Please understand it as a little sarcastic homage to clichéd conspiracy videos. By the way, this is the English adaption of my recent german post: LINK. Before we start, a little personal foreword:

I like conspiracy theories a lot. In fact, from time to time I read the various theories. There is basically a new one every week. You slip into a completely contrary picture that you would usually not even think of in your imagination. It is also fun to find logic errors in these theories. Nevertheless, you should not generally face the whole topic with a raised nose. There have been a few conspiracy theories about the NSA and their abilities, and some of them were even surpassed with the revelations of Edward Snowden.

Complete Apollo 11 television broadcast [1]

Conspiracy theorists/critic arguments

Since most critics have a consensus on the arguments, I will also focus on them. Here I list which arguments or techniques are mentioned, which according to conspiracy theorists clearly speak for a television production on earth:

1. The weightlessness of the astronauts was faked with slow-motion cameras.
2. There are no stars visible in the background on the photos or the film transmission, even though they should be visible in space
3. Multiple light sources were used

Then let's explain them one at a time!

In principle, the argument that weightlessness could be simulated with a slow motion camera is not far-fetched. If the actor is practicing a little, you're surely going to get some useful results. But the term weightlessness is not correct anyway. Of course there is the same gravity on the moon, but it is weaker than on earth because of the much smaller mass of the moon. The moon is a quarter the size of the Earth, but only 1.2% of the mass of our planet. Calculatively, this is one sixth of the typical earth's gravitational pull. [2] However, the weight of the space suit must also be taken into account. The Skylab A7L suit of the Apollo 11 Mission weighed about 80kg. [3]

A slow-motion camera (often called a high-speed camera) takes more pictures per second than is necessary. For example, 50 frames per second are recorded although the later playback rate is only 25 frames per second. So you can play the material of the slow motion camera in half speed and still get a smooth picture.

The playback rate of the NASA transmission was 30 frames per second (called NTSC format which was the standard in USA). Accordingly, a camera that could take 60 pictures (or even more) per second would have been necessary. It didn't exist at that time. Not by a long shot.

This is quite simple with analogue film cameras. It is called "overcranking", so the film roll is simply moved through the camera faster and more images are exposed per second than actually necessary. But analog film cameras are totally useless if you want to transmit a possible milestone of humanity with a live broadcast. So you need video cameras that deliver a suitable video signal which can be transmitted directly to Earth. Of course, film cameras have to be developed in a darkroom beforehand. This process is not necessary with a video camera.

And here the whole theory bites its tail. There were no high-speed video cameras back then. Not even close. The only devices like the AMPEX HS-100 were more or less close to this.

Slow motion disc recorder HS-100 from the company Ampex. Source: LINK
This huge recorder was the most modern technology at that time and could only record 30 seconds of NTSC video on a disc and then play it back in slow motion. However, it should be noted that by only 30 frames per second would not have been enough for smooth playback. It was used for sports broadcasts at the time.

However, the TV broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission ran for hours without interruption. You can't get far with 30 seconds of discs, let alone the sheer size of the device wouldn't have found space in the mission anyway.

To continue describing how primitive the video cameras were back then, I would like to briefly present the specifications of the the camera which was used to film the first steps of Mr. Armstrong:

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So even with a tiny resolution of 320x200 pixels only a frame rate of 10 frames per second was possible. Not even thinking about color yet. This also explains why the continuous 143 minutes of recording looks the way they look like. But the technology just wasn't further developed at that time.

But what if it wasn't live?

Now you could of course make the argument that the signal just wasn't broadcasted live but recorded. Then you have to tie the whole conspiracy really far. A Saturn V rocket was launched at that day and the Russians would certainly have loved to bust the the Americans land in this respect. The live video signal was not only transmitted to NASA. In Australia, two locations were used for receiving the live video signal, from which NASA received one signal. So the Australian Broadcasting Corporation would also have to be par this conspiracy. The Aussie people saw the live transmission about 0.3 seconds earlier than the Americans because there was no additional transmission distance. It was also mostly only the Australian signal on air worldwide due to having better quality. Again, the signal could logically not only be received at these three stations using the appropriate technology. The Russians could've blown the whistle on that one again quite easily.

Argument 2: You don't see stars

This point is much easier to explain and is not necessarily due to the capabilities of the cameras of that time. This argument logically refers not only to the video broadcast but much more to the many photographs taken by the astronauts. The explanation should be immediately clear to everyone who has dealt with the theory of photography a little bit: The exposure of the photos was set in such a way that the astronauts and the moon surface are properly illuminated. The stars in the background glow way too weak to be visible in the photo at this short shutter speed/tiny aperture. If you could see the stars, the motifs in the foreground would simply be white. You wouldn't be able to recognize anything.

I illustrated this phenomenon up here with the help of an old photo of me. Everyone probably knows this situation, that you occasionally get pictures with a completely white sky. Although you can precisely remember that the sky was actually quite bluish or you were able to see clouds when you took that photo. Your camera set the exposure settings to get a properly exposed foreground. If I just looked at one version of my photo example above, you could conclude that the sky was completely white. Do not forget that it is extremely bright on the moon when you are on the sunny side. There is no atmosphere, no air or weather on the moon. Nothing that weakens the sun's rays, therefore the light conditions are immensely bright.

Argument 3: The images shows the use of multiple light sources

This is also a very common argument. However, it is very common that this argument is limited to a few photos and not meant to criticize the entire video broadcast. Especially one picture is mentioned and analysed over and over again. The photograph shows Buzz Aldrin climbing back into the Lunar Landing Module. In the picture it looks like that he should be in the shade because of the landing module. Nevertheless, Buzz Aldrin is brightly lit and easily recognizable. This is the perfect sign for using an additional light source, according to conspiracy theorists.
However, the fact that the lunar surface does indeed reflect light is not taken into account here. Thanks to the sandy dust, approximately 12% of the incoming light is reflected. This 12% leads to an enormous amount, after all nothing else is absorbed by the atmosphere. Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia used the discussion about this famous image for an interesting PR campaign.

Left: 3D Rendering, Right: Orignal. - Buzz Aldrin climbs in the landing module - Source: LINK
They wanted to demonstrate the performance of their new generation of graphics cards by simulating the light situation of the photo physically correctly in real time. A comparison of the two photos can be seen above. If you don't recognize it: On the left is the 3D rendering and on the right the original. Great marketing idea but actually also a very interesting subject for analysis. To achieve this, Nvidia's 3D artists had to build all objects to perfectly replicate the original and define their physical properties. You can watch a detailed video of this project under the following link:

By the way, the reflectivity of non-self-luminous surfaces is called Albedo. Our planet has a average albedo value of 0.367 but our planet has a high contrast. The snow surfaces have an albedo value of 0.8 to 0.9; forest regions however only whiten values up to 0.18. I only mention this so that you can see the value 0.12 from the moon surface in a better proportion. [4]

Summary & Explanation

Today it would of course be a piece of cake to fake such a mission from the video technical aspect. Films such as Interstellar show that even topics such as black holes can be displayed and animated correctly. This film explicitly used the knowledge of physicists to make the rendering as physically correct as possible.

In the year 1969, though, all of this was not even remotely possible. On the other hand, space travel, and rocket technology was very advanced. That's quite understandable if you think about it. During the Cold War, vast sums of investment were spent on research projects and developments that the world has never seen again. At that time, the Apollo programme cost around 20 billion US dollars. With today's inflation, that is over 120 billion US dollars. That was over 4% of the total US budget. Today NASA only has a modest percentage of 0.47% of the American state budget. [5] During certain times of the Apollo program 400,000 people were employed simultaneously. An unimaginable high number.

I hope I could give you an interesting new perspective on how to prove relatively easily why it would have been totally impossible to fake the moon landing. In my opinion, all the conspiracy theories should be seen as a compliment anyway. It only shows how magnificent the success at that time was, and how groundbreaking the development at that time went forward in this short period. If you combine politics, research, development and a decent budget, fascinating projects can be realized. Even without any (direct) military background. I would be very happy if I experienced such a time again in my life. As a joint project across national borders, even continents. It can bring an entire species closer together.

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Sources

[1]Apollo 11 broadcast - Source: NASA
[2]Calculate gravity - Source
[3]Skylab A7L Raumanzug - Source: NASA
[4] Albedo - Source Wikipedia
[5] Apollo Budget - Source: NASA bzw. Source: Wikipedia