[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's one small step for men one giant leap for mankind said astronaut neil armstrong from apollo 11 on july the 20th 1969 the day humankind set foot on the moon should be considered nothing short of a triumph and many think it to be precisely that [Music] however as with anything of this magnitude there will be detractors there will be people who see things a lot differently so who is right who is wrong who is lying and who is not we will let you be the judge as we dive down the moon landing conspiracy rabbit hole in a nutshell moon landing conspiracy theories allege that either some or all apollo program elements and the associated moon landings were nothing but hoaxes some believe that these hoaxes were staged by nasa who may have gotten help from other organizations to pull off the world's most famous trick so where did these theories originate in 1976 a former u.s navy officer with a bachelor's degree in english named bill kazing self-published what would become an influential and highly controversial book called we never went to the moon america's 30 billion dollar swindle although he had no prior knowledge of rockets or technical writing in 1956 casing landed a job as a senior technical writer with rocketdyne the company that built the f-1 engines used on the saturn v rocket [Music] kazing worked at the company's propulsion field laboratory until the year 1963 it was the many allegations in kazing's book that effectively sparked a discussion about the moon landings being faked according to the book the chance of a successful crude landing on the moon was believed to be 0.0017 percent casing insists that even though the ussr was closely monitoring nasa it would have been easier for them to fake the moon landings than to actually go there in the year 1980 nasa was accused of staging the moon landings by a group known as the flat earth society the fes contended that the moon landings were staged by hollywood and sponsored by walt disney based on a script by legendary writer arthur c clarke and directed by noted filmmaker stanley kubrick [Music] a folklorist by the name of linda deg suggests that writer director peter hayam's 1978 movie capricorn 1 shows a fake journey to mars in a spacecraft that looks almost exactly like the apollo craft this may have inadvertently given a boost to the hoax theory's popularity during the post-vietnam war era the main question is what if anything is there to gain from faking a moon landing the answer goes all the way back to the cold war [Music] back in the 60s the united states engaged in a space race with the soviet union the ability to land a manned craft on the moon was viewed as being both a technical and national accomplishment however doing so would have significant risks it would also be costly [Music] during a famous 1962 speech then president john f kennedy famously stated that the united states chose to go because it was hard [Music] conspiracy theorists allege that nasa hoaxed the landings as a means to avoid humiliation and ensure that it would receive continued government funding kaizen claimed in his book that nasa raised about 30 billion us dollars to go to the moon and that some of this money could have been used to pay off lots of people most conspiracists believe that sending men to the moon was an impossibility at the time they maintained that the landings had to be hoaxed to fulfill kennedy's 1961 goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth in 1973 nasa accounted for apollo's cost to the u.s congress and it totaled out
to 25.4 billion u.s dollars many conspiracists focus on the inconsistencies or perceived gaps in the historical record of the moon landing missions their main point of contention is that the entire crude landing program was a hoax from start to finish some claim that the technology to send men to the moon was lacking others say that solar flares the van allen radiation belts coronal mass ejections solar wind and cosmic rays would make such a trip completely impossible a pair of scientists from argonne national laboratory named vince calder and andrew johnson offered detailed answers to conspiracists claims they maintained that nasa's portrayal of the moon landing is fundamentally accurate according to james longusky an american scientist inventor writer and educator known for his contributions to astrodynamics and space mission design given their size and complexity the conspiracy theories are impossible let's run the numbers a moon landing hoax would require the participation of more than 400 000 people who worked on the apollo project for nearly a decade the 12 men who walked on the moon the six others who flew with them as command module pilots and another half dozen astronauts who orbited the moon that's just the start too the secret would need to be kept by hundreds of thousands of people including scientists technicians engineers astronauts scientists and skilled labourers longorski contends that it would have been far easier to land on the moon than to generate such a massive conspiracy to fake the landings as of this documentary no one from nasa or the united states government has said that the moon landings were hoaxes surely by now someone would have come forward to blow the whistle on a hoax of this magnitude but you never know the majority of the moon landing conspiracists focus mainly on nasa's photos they point out artifacts and oddities in the films and pictures taken on the moon over the decades many photography experts including those who were unrelated to nasa have reported that the oddities in question are entirely consistent with what should be expected from a real moon landing they are not at all consistent with tweaked or studio imagery some of the photographic inconsistencies are as follows [Music] theory the cameras used in the landing were fitted with a transparent plate glass with the reticle etched on this would make it impossible for any photographed objects to appear in front of its grid despite this fact some photos appear to show the crosshairs of the reticule behind objects conspiracists frequently cite this as evidence that particular objects were pasted over the photographs and that's why the reticle was obscured [Music] official explanation this obscured object effect only appears in scanned and copied photos not the originals this effect is caused by overexposure the bright white areas of the emulsion bleed over the thin black crosshairs the crosshairs are only about 0.004 inches thick therefore emulsion would only have to bleed about half that much to obscure its entirety theory crosshairs are sometimes rotated or appear in the wrong place official explanation this effect is a result of popular photos being manipulated and or cropped to have a more significant aesthetic impact theory the quality of the photographs is impossibly high official explanation the apollo astronauts employed high resolution hasselblad 500 el cameras with carl zeiss optics and a 70 millimeter medium format film magazine to take photos theory the pictures have to be fake because there are no stars in any of the photos official explanation whether you're examining photos taken from the space shuttle or even photos captured during sporting events being held at night you'll notice that stars are rarely seen the light from the sun in outer space in the earth moon system is at least as bright as the sunlight that reaches the earth's surface on a clear day at noon cameras used for imaging subjects illuminated by sunlight are set for daylight exposure simply put the dim light of the stars cannot provide enough exposure to record visible images all crude landings happened during the lunar daytime that is why the stars were outshone by the sun and by sunlight that was being reflected off the moon's surface theory the angle and color of shadows are inconsistent suggesting the use of artificial lights official explanation shadows on the moon are complicated by reflective light uneven ground wide angle lens distortion and lunar dust [Music] there are several light sources on the moon the sun sunlight reflected from the earth sunlight reflected from the moon's surface and sunlight reflected from the astronauts and the lunar module all of these sources are further complicated by lunar dust wide angle lens distortion and uneven ground because of this shadows that fall into craters and hills may look longer shorter and distorted theory identical backgrounds appear in photos which according to their captions were taken miles apart this is clear evidence of a painted background [Music] official explanation the background seen in the photos were similar but not identical on earth objects that are further away will look less detailed and fainter the moon has no atmosphere or haze to obscure objects therefore mountains that could be many miles away will appear both clearer and nearer from different angles theory the number of photos taken is questionably high speeds indicate that one image was taken every 50 seconds official explanation simplified gear with fixed settings allowed two photos a second the calculation of one image per 50 seconds was based upon there being a lone astronaut on the surface it doesn't take into account two astronauts taking photographs at the same time during their extra vehicle activity theory the photos have strange artifacts such as the two seemingly matching seas on a rock found on the ground these have been labeled as possible studio props [Music] official explanation the c-shaped artifacts are likely printing imperfections and don't appear in the original film from the camera theory a western australian citizen claimed that during the life broadcast of the lunar landing a coca-cola bottle appeared for two or three moments across the lower right part of her television screen the resident also claimed that several letters appeared in the perth newspaper the western australian mentioning the coca-cola bottle incident within 10 days of the lunar landing official explanation no such newspaper reports or recordings have been found [Music] theory who filmed neil armstrong stepping onto the moon official explanation cameras on the lunar module did there are tons of arguments and theories about the moon landing which run the gamut from mechanical issues to environmental issues these are too numerous to even begin to comb through no one has brought to light a single shred of evidence that couldn't be explained however there are two particular issues that are hard to ignore the blueprints and design and development drawings of the machines involved in the apollo moon landing are missing if that wasn't strange enough the original apollo 11 data tapes which contained telemetry and the high quality video of the first moonwalk are also missing you would think that such vital documents would be almost impossible to misplace who could do such a thing how could this even happen [Music] nasa archivist at goddard space flight center dr david r williams alongside apollo 11's flight director eugene f krantz have both admitted that the original high quality apollo 11 telemetry data tapes are currently missing conspiracists point to this as evidence that they never really existed apollo 11's telemetry tapes differed from other telemetry tapes of previous moon landings because they were home to the raw television broadcast let's look at some technical aspects of the footage itself the apollo 11 lander had a slow scan television camera installed on it as a means to broadcast the images to regular television sets a scan conversion had to be performed [Music] the radio telescope at parks observatory in australia was able to receive the telemetry from the moon at the time of the apollo 11 moonwalk parks had a larger antenna than nasa's antenna in australia at the honeysuckle creek trekking station therefore it received a higher quality picture in addition to that it received better image quality than nasa's antenna at goldstone deep space communications complex [Music] this direct television signal along with a telemetry data was recorded onto 1-inch 14-track analog tape at parks the original slow scan television transmission had better contrast and detail than the scan converted pictures there's just one problem it's also the original tape that is missing a crude real-time scan conversion of the slow scan television signal was done in australia before it was broadcast worldwide that being said still photos of the original slow scan television image are available there's also about 15 minutes of footage that was filmed by an amateur eight millimeter film camera currently available later apollo missions did not use slow scan television cameras according to dr williams some of the telemetry tapes from the scientific experiments from the apollo lunar surface experiments package left on the moon still exist the program ran until 1977 and copies of those tapes have been located others are seeking the missing telemetry tapes for far different reasons the recordings are home to the original and highest quality video feed from the apollo 11 landing many former apollo personnel want to locate the tapes for posterity whilst nasa engineers looking towards future moon missions believe the recordings could come in handy for their design studies here are the facts as we know them the original apollo 11 tapes were sent to be stored at the united states national archives in 1970 however by 1984 all the apollo 11 tapes were returned to the goddard space flight center at their request in november 2006 cosmos online reported that about 100 data tapes that were recorded in australia during the apollo 11 mission were located in a small marine science laboratory housed inside the main physics building at the curtin university of technology in perth australia nasa was sent one of the old tapes for analysis but the slow scan television images were not on the tape then things got even stranger in july 2009 nasa suggested that it must have erased the original apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the tape again why would anyone delete something of such historical significance nasa issued a final report on the apollo 11 telemetry tapes in december 2009 senior engineer dick nevska who was in charge of the live television recordings during the apollo missions was put in charge of the restoration project according to nafska after a three-year search the inescapable conclusion was that about 45 tapes of apollo 11 video were erased and reused the 45 tapes consisted of an estimated 15 tapes recorded at each of the three tracking stations was this human error or an unfortunate coincidence we may never know american conspiracy theorist bart cybrol cites the relative level of the united states and ussr space technology as evidence that the moon landings could not have happened for much of the early stages of the space race the ussr was ahead of the united states yet in the end the ussr was never able to fly a crude craft to the moon let alone land one on the surface it is argued that because the ussr was unable to do this the united states should have also been unable to develop the technology to do so [Music] cybril claims that during the apollo program the ussr had five times more crude hours in space than the united states and notes that the ussr was the first to achieve many of the early milestones in outer space however most of the soviet milestones were matched by the united states within a year and sometimes within weeks in 1965 the united states started to achieve many firsts such as the first successful space rendezvous which were essential steps in a mission to the moon in terms of spacecraft hours the ussr had 460 hours of space flight the united states had 1024 hours in terms of astronaut and cosmonaut time the ussr had 534 hours of crude space flight and the united states had amassed 1992 hours by the time of apollo 11 the united states had a lead much more extensive than that moreover the ussr didn't develop a successful rocket capable of crude lunar mission until the 80s their n1 rocket failed on all four launch attempts between 1969 and 1972.
the soviet lk luna lander was tested in uncrewed low earth orbit flights three times in 1970 and 1971 in a televised programme about the moon landing hoax allegations fox entertainment group listed the deaths of ten astronauts and two civilians related to the crude space flight program as part of an alleged cover-up all of the deaths they cited except for one occurred at least 20 months before apollo 11 and subsequent flights as of november 2018 four of the twelve apollo astronauts who landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972 are still alive including buzz aldrin nine of the twelve apollo astronauts who flew to the moon without landing between 1968 and 1972 are still alive including michael collins the number of deaths within the american astronaut corps during the run-up to apollo and during the apollo missions is similar to the number of deaths incurred by the russians during the period in 1961 to 1972 at least eight russian serving and former cosmonauts died has nasa ever formally responded to all of the hoax allegations yes yes they did in june 1977 nasa issued a fact sheet responding to recent claims that the apollo moon landings had been hoaxed the fact sheet is unusually blunt and regards faking the moon landings to be absurd and outlandish nasa refers to the rocks and particles collected from the moon as being evidence of the program's legitimacy as they claim that these rocks could not have been formed under conditions on earth nasa also notes that all of the operations and phases of the apollo program were closely followed and under the scrutiny of the news media from liftoff to splashdown nasa responds to bill kasing's book we never went to the moon by identifying one of his claims of fraud regarding the lack of a crater left on the moon's surface by the landing of the lunar module and refuting it with facts about the soil and cohesive nature of the surface of the moon the fact sheet was reissued on february the 14th 2001 the day before the fox television broadcast of conspiracy theory did we land on the moon the documentary reinvigorated the public's interest in conspiracy theories and the possibility that the moon landings were faked which has provoked nasa to defend its name once again [Music] legendary filmmaker stanley kubrick has been accused of having produced a good portion of apollo's 11 and 12 footage probably because he had just directed 2001 a space odyssey kubrick's film is set partly on the moon and it featured advanced special effects for its time conspiracists claim that when kubrick was in post-production on 2001 in early 1968 nasa secretly approached him to direct the first three moon landings whilst the launch and splashdown would be authentic the spacecraft would never leave earth's orbit the fake footage would be broadcast as live from the moon there's never been official evidence to support this theory which overlooks many facts kubrick's movie 2001 was released before the first apollo landing kubrick's depiction of the moon's surface significantly differs from the way that it appeared in the apollo footage the movement of characters whilst on the moon in 2001 is vastly different from that of the filmed behaviors of the apollo astronauts in addition to that the fictitious moon itself doesn't resemble an environment with one-sixth the gravity of earth several scenes in 2001 show dust billowing as the spacecraft landed the vacuum-like environment of the moon would make the scattering of dust an impossibility kubrick did hire frederick ordway and harry lang who had worked for nasa and major aerospace contractors to work with him in 2001. [Music] kubrick also utilized some leftover lenses from a batch made by zeiss for nasa kubrick only got this lens for his 1975 film the lens was initially crafted to be a still photo lens as a result changes had to be made to it to be used for motion filming an article entitled stanley kubrick and the moon hoax appeared on the computer message service usenet in 1995 one passage regarding how kubrick was supposedly convinced to participate in the conspiracy reads nasa further leveraged their position by threatening to publicly reveal the heavy involvement of mr kubrick's younger brother raul with the american communist party this would have been an intorrible embarrassment for mr kubrick especially since the release of dr strangelove kubrick had no such brother the article was a spoof complete with a giveaway sentence describing kubrick's shooting the moonwalk on location on the moon in spite of its obvious silliness the claim was taken up in earnest paranormal radio host clyde lewis used it almost word for word whereas conspiracy theorist jay wedner gave the brother a more senior status within the party he said no one knows how the powers that be convinced kubrick to direct the apollo landings maybe they had compromised kubrick in some way the fact that his brother raul kubrick was the head of the american communist party may have been one of the avenues pursued by the government to get stanley to cooperate in july 2009 weidner posted on his web page secrets of the shining that kubrick's 1980 film based upon the stephen king novel is a veiled confession of his role in the scam project this thesis was the subject of refutation in an article published on a website called seeker nearly half a year later in december 2015 a video surfaced which supposedly featured kubrick being interviewed shortly before his 1999 death the footage showed the director confessing to filmmaker t patrick murray that the apollo moon landings were faked some quick research found that the now infamous video was a hoax talks of the moon landing conspiracy eventually made its way into academia in the year 2002 nasa commissioned 15 000 united states dollars to american space journalist and historian james oberg to write a point-by-point rebuttal of the hoax claims later on nasa canceled the commission a few months later after complaints that the book would lend credence to the accusations [Music] oberg says that belief in the hoax theories is not the fault of the conspiracists but rather that of teachers and people including nasa who should provide information to the public he hopes one day to finish his book in the year 2004 ken skelden and martin henry of the university of glasgow were awarded a grant by the united kingdom-based particle physics and astronomy research council to investigate the various moon landing conspiracy theories in november 2004 they gave a lecture at the glasgow science center where the top 10 claims by conspiracists were individually addressed and thoroughly refuted investigation of moon landing conspiracies have been featured on several popular television programs over the years and has even become a part of pop culture a 2008 episode of mythbusters was dedicated to the moon landings the mythbusters crew tested many of the conspiracists claims some of their tests were even conducted in a nasa training facility all of the conspiracists allegations examined on the show were labeled as having been busted meaning that the conspiracists claims were not valid moon landing conspiracists insist that observatories and the hubble space telescope should have the ability to photograph the landing sites on the moon this allegation directly implies that the world's major observatories and the herbal program are complicit in the hoax by refusing to take photos of the landing sites pictures of the moon have been made by hubble including at least two apollo landing sites however the hubble resolution limits viewing of lunar objects to sizes no smaller than 60 to 75 yards which is insufficient to see the features of any landing site in april 2001 leonard david published an article on the website space.com that showed a photo taken by the clementine mission a joint space project between the ballistic missile defense organization and nasa the image showed a scattered dark spot at the site identified as being the landing site of the apollo 15. the evidence was noticed by yuri skuratov of the kharkiv astronomical observatory in ukraine and misha kraslavsky of the department of geological sciences at brown university according to bernard foying chief scientist of the european space agency their uncrewed probe smart one sent back photos of the landing sites during an interview on the website foeing said given smart one's initial high orbit however it may prove difficult to see the artifact [Music] alex r blackwell of the university of hawaii pointed out that some 2002 photos taken by apollo astronauts whilst in orbit around the moon show the landing sites in 2002 a united kingdom newspaper the daily telegraph published an article saying that european astronomers at a telescope facility operated by the european southern observatory called the very large telescope would use their technology to view the landing sites according to the story dr richard west said that his team would take a high-resolution image of one of the apollo landing sites noted conspiracist marcus allen answered that no photos of hardware on the moon would convince him that crude landings had ever happened the telescope was used to image the moon and provided a resolution of 430 feet which was not good enough to resolve the 14 foot wide lunar landers or their long shadows the celine moon orbiter was launched from tanegashima space center on september the 14th 2007 by jaxa the japan aerospace exploration agency celine orbited the moon at about 62 miles altitude jaxa reported during may 2008 that they had detected the halo generated by the apollo 15 lunar module engine exhaust from a terrain camera image a three-dimensional reconstructed photo matched the terrain of an apollo 15 photo taken from the moon's surface on july the 17th 2009 nasa released low resolution engineering test photos of the apollo 11 apollo 14 apollo 15 apollo 16 and apollo 17 landing sites that have been photographed by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter as part of the process of starting its primary mission the images show the descent stage of the landers from each mission on the moon's surface whilst the scientific community as a whole has enjoyed the lro images they have not done anything to convince conspiracists that the landings happened on september the 1st 2009 india's lunar mission chandrayaan-1 took photos of the apollo 15 landing site as well as tracks of the lunar rovers the indian space research organization launched its uncrewed lunar probe on september the 8th 2008 from satish darwin space center the photos were taken by a hyper spectral camera fitted as part of the mission's image payload in 2010 china launched its second lunar probe the changi 2. the probe has the ability to photograph the lunar surface with a resolution of up to 4.3 feet
it also spotted traces of the apollo landings [Music] but what about the moon rocks brought back to earth the very objects that nasa touts as irrefutable proof could they be fake during its lifespan the apollo program collected 840 pounds of moon rocks during its six crewed missions analyses by scientists worldwide all agree that these rocks came from the moon no published accounts in peer-reviewed scientific journals exist that dispute this claim the apollo samples are easily distinguishable from both meteorites and earth rocks they show a lack of hydrous alteration products show evidence of having undergone impact events on an airless body and have unique geochemical traits furthermore most are more than 200 million years older than the oldest earth rocks nasa's moon rocks also share the same characteristics as soviet samples [Music] conspiracists argue that marshall space flight center director verna von braun's 1967 trip to antarctica which took place about two years before the apollo 11 launch was made to gather lunar meteorites that were to be passed off as fake moon rocks von braun was a former ss officer who was detained by the gestapo [Music] according to the documentary film did we go von braun may have been pressurized into agreeing to the conspiracy it is believed that doing so would have been the easiest way for him to protect himself from recriminations over his past nasa has indicated that von braun's mission was to look into environmental and logistical factors that might relate to the planning of future space missions and hardware nasa regularly sends teams to work in antarctica to mimic the conditions on other planets it is now accepted by the scientific community that rocks have been blasted from both the martian and lunar surface during impact events and that some of these have landed on the earth as meteorites however the first antarctic lunar meteorite was located in 1979 and its lunar origin wasn't recognized for several years afterwards not until 1982 lunar meteorites are rare so rare that it is unlikely that they could account for the moon rocks that nasa collected between the years 1969 and 1972. to date only about 66 pounds of lunar meteorites have been found on earth whilst the apollo missions gathered 840 pounds of moon rocks the soviet luna 16 luna 20 and luna 24 robots collected only 11.5 ounces combined that is less than one thousandth as much on the moon rocks makeup kazing once inquired why was there never a mention of gold silver diamonds or other precious metals on the moon wasn't this a viable consideration why was this fact never discussed in the press or by the astronauts geologists know that gold and silver deposits on earth are the result of hydrothermal fluids action concentrating the precious metals into veins of ore since in 1969 water was thought to be absent on the moon no geologist discussed finding these on the moon in any significant amount aside from nasa several individuals and groups have tracked the apollo missions as they transpired [Music] later missions nasa shared information with the public explaining when and where the spacecraft could be cited flight paths were followed using radar and the crafts were cited and photographed using telescopes in addition to that radio transmissions between the astronauts on the surface and in orbit have been independently recorded according to scientists reflectors from the laser ranging retroflector experiment are evidence that there were landings retroflectors are mirrors used as targets for earth-based tracking lasers lick observatory tried to detect from apollo 11's retroflector whilst armstrong and aldrin were still on the moon but they didn't succeed until august the 1st 1969 [Music] the apollo 14 astronauts deployed a retroflector on february 5th 1971 and mcdonald observatory detected it the same day the apollo 15 retroflector was implemented on july the 31st 1971 and was recognized by mcdonald observatory within a few days smaller retroflectors were also put on the moon by the uncrewed russian lunar rovers luna cod 1 and luna cod 2.
we've talked a lot about conspiracy theories and alleged scientific facts what does the public at large believe in a 1994 poll by the washington post nine percent of the respondents said that it was possible that astronauts didn't go to the moon and another five percent said that they weren't sure a 1999 gallup poll indicated that six percent of the americans polled doubted that the moon landings happened five percent of those surveyed gave no opinion for the most part this roughly matches the findings of a similar 1995 poll from time and cnn fox network officials say that skepticism rose to about 20 percent after the february 2001 airing of their network's television special conspiracy theory did we land on the moon the fox program was watched by about 15 million viewers many believe that it was this television special that fostered and promoted the hoax claims a 2000 poll conducted by the public opinion foundation in russia found that 28 of those polled didn't believe that american astronauts had landed on the moon this percentage is nearly equal in all social demographic groups a 2009 poll held by the united kingdom's engineering and technology magazine found that 25 of those surveyed didn't believe that men landed on the moon another poll indicates that over 20 percent of 18 to 25 year olds surveyed weren't sure if the moon landings transpired there are subcultures worldwide that encourage the belief of fake moon landings by the year 1977 the hari krishna magazine back to godhead called the landings a hoax the publication claimed that since the sun is 93 million miles away and according to hindu mythology the moon is 800 000 miles further away than that the moon would be nearly 94 million miles away to travel that span in just 91 hours would require a speed of over a million miles per hour a patently impossible feat even by the scientists calculations ouch it hurts even trying to think about that [Music] james oberg of abc news said that the conspiracy theory is taught in cuban schools and wherever cuban teachers are sent a poll conducted in the 70s by the united states information agency in several countries including latin america asia and africa found that most respondents were unaware of the moon landings many of the others dismissed them as propaganda or science fiction and many thought that it had been the russians that landed on the moon in 2019 ipsos a global leader in market research conducted a study for c-span to assess the level of belief that the 1969 moon landing was faked six percent of respondents believed it was not real but eleven percent of millennials were the most likely to believe it was not factual at the end of the day people are going to believe what they want to believe this has led to ongoing arguments that will no doubt resonate for ages to come we live in a world where perception trumps fact in the eyes of many [Music] believe what you want research what you can come to your own conclusions [Music] you
2021-10-25