The Apollo Moon Landing...Was It Faked?

In 1969, America became the first nation to successfully put a man on the moon. Less than a decade before, President John F. Kennedy had made the call for America to be the first to arrive at our closest celestial neighbor. When America watched Neil Armstrong take that "One giant leap for mankind", America shot ahead of the Soviet Union is the Space Race.

But did it really happen? Since that time, skeptics have put forth evidences and reasons of why it did not while defenders have tried to disprove the theories as "Loony", pardon the pun.

The best evidence that the Lunar Landing was faked comes from the photographs supposedly taken by NASA themselves. Problems with shadowing, light sources and what could have been or not been done with equipment and technology at the time, have been the key issues behind the skepticism. Some things that do not fit well with the NASA account of the Apollo Missions:

1. Radiation - A simple issue to examine, but not a simple one to overcome when dealing with space travel. Not only is there the issue of solar flares and the radiation being presented by our our sun, but also of the Van Allen belt. This belt of radiation is actually two belts with the same name. the radiation in those belts would have to be flown through to reach the moon. It should have, in theory, been so strong that Russian scientist in the late 1950's said astronauts would need 4 feet of lead just to be safe. Oddly enough, the Apollo capsule was made of thin aluminum and no ill effects from the astronauts was reported. In 1998, the Space Shuttle and its crew flew to its highest altitude ever, 350 miles up. This is hundreds of miles below the Van Allen Belt, and yet the crew on board the shuttle reported seeing radiation so strong they could see it through their eyelids. What effect would that radiation have had on an Astronaut having to travel through the radiation belt for a long period of time in a capsule made of 1/8 inch aluminum?

2. The "Left Behind" Equipment - There was equipment left on the surface of the moon. This actually started before we supposedly set foot on moon.
1959 - Luna 2
1962 - Ranger 4
1965 - Luna 5
1966 - Luna
1966 - Surveyor 1
1969 - Apollo 11 Decent and Ascent stages
1971 - 3 Moon Buggies left by Apollo's 15-17

There is more equipment there than this, but basically, the Moon has become the largest trash dump outside planet earth. Pretty sad considering that the Astronauts were supposed to have left a kind of welcome basket for anyone who may happen across it from another world with a gold olvie branch, some recordings and the like. Not sure why they would stop off on our moon...No refilling stations...Unless they are built on the dark side...but that is another blog for a later date.

The issue has been raised that if the stuff is there, why can't we see it from earth? Not with the most powerful telescopes, not even Hubble, and even with the recent photographic mapping of the moons surface, there is no trace of the items left behind. Defenders say that no telescope would be able to pick up the objects because of how telescopic lenses work. I can only tell you that they throw out some big numbers and lose me completely. If you are a genius at math, you can check out the calculations for yourself.

3. Space Suits - Far from what we have available to Astronauts today were the space suits worn by those first Astronauts. This would be the biggest sticking point for me in the entire theory of why we didn't visit the moon. I have read the logistics of the NASA Radiation Program in reference to the Apollo missions, and I have yet to find HOW the Astronauts where protected from the radiation they would have encountered, not only in general space travel, but especially in reference to the Van Allen belt. At the time of the Apollo missions, was our technology good enough to prevent radiation poisoning of the Astronauts? In reading what the suits were made of, and with my limited knowledge of how radiation works, I can't say for certain. though this is a good question to be asked. Of all the dangers they faced, radiation and micrometeor's would have been the two biggest.

My brief outlay hardly covers the surface of what the skeptics and defenders have to say on the issue, so I will give you two very good websites to visit. Decide for yourself if we did, or did not, land on the moon.

Skeptics:
http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html

Defenders:
http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm


"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke