Was The Moon Landing A Fake? Essay, Research Paper

Shane Adams

Mr. Smith

Adv. English 2

April 15, 2001

Was the Moon Landing a Fake?

Some Americans now ask, “Was the moon landing a hoax?” Is this actually possible; would the U.S. government lie to our nation, let alone the whole world? The answer, no, should jump out. Hoax believers (HBs) thought they researched this thoroughly and gained enough evidence to prove that the moon landing was a hoax, but they don‘t know jack! Their whole case can be compared to a brick house with one difference. It seems like the bricks have all the corners, sides, and shape of a house. The evidence seems to be very strong, but the bricks are only one dimensional. All the “supposed” evidence crumbles after a little research. In this report I will show HBs falsified case along with the truth.

One of the most well known theories claims that no blast crater exists on the moon. In the photos showing the landing of the lunar Lander, there should be a little crater underneath the rockets of the Lander caused by the 10,000 pounds of thrust the rockets produce, right? Wrong! “When someone driving a car pulls into a parking spot, do they do it at 100 kilometers per hour? Of course not. They slow down first, easing off the accelerator. The astronauts did the same thing” (Bad). The Lander slowed down to approximately 3000 pounds of thrust. Also, most believe that the thrust of the rocket would penetrate the area directly under it, but they are wrong! Since the moon has no air, due to the absence of an atmosphere, a vacuum is present. This means the pressure of the Lander spreads out(Bad). The next theory also has to do with the air on the moon.

Another claim that has been made is that Neil Armstrong’s foot print would not be distinguishable. Imagine dumping a pile of powder onto kitchen floor. Then blow on the powder. Not only the powder blown from the momentum of your breath flies everywhere, but curlicues of air move the powder. This case does not hold truth on the moon. Since there is no air on the moon, only the dust that is physically touched is blown (Bad). This means that footprints not directly affected by the rockets can still be. What else can possibly be brought up dealing with the absence of atmosphere on the moon?

The flag ripples in the photographs taken by the astronauts; therefore, the force of wind causes this. This assumption is entirely false. In most of the photos, the astronauts are placing the pole of the flag into the moon which of course is causing movement of the flag. Now, the biggest kicker is the photograph showing the astronaut standing on the side of the flag. The design of the flag can explain this. “To compensate for the lack of an atmosphere on the lunar surface, the flag assembly included a horizontal crossbar to give the illusion of a flag flying in the breeze” (NASA). Now it is time for some more nonsense.

How did the astronauts survive the trip to the moon if they needed to pass through Van Alen’s Ring? For everyone that does not know, Van Alen’s Ring is a ring of radiation that completely surrounds Earth 500 miles above it’s surface. Yes, they would have been affected if the metal surrounding the spaceship did not protect them , but that’s the thing the metal blocked must of the radiation from entering. Also, they passed through the ring in about a hour so there was not much time for the astronauts to get radiation (Bad). Sure, if they were to be in this ring of radiation for a substantial amount of time they would have been affected from the radiation.

In a few of the pictures, the United States flag hiding in the shadow of the lunar is bright. Since the HBs believe the sun is the only source of light, this sounds reasonable. The only problem with this is that the sun is not the only source of light! The moon itself and Earth are the other “forgotten” sources of light. Compared to viewing the moon from Earth, Earth is about 15 times greater in size while viewing it from the moon. It also reflects light 8 to 15 times better making Earth about 100 times brighter than the moon. This is plenty of light considering one can read a book from the moon’s light (Bad). The light coming from the sun and moon also reflects off the rather bumper surface of the moon which can fill in shadows.

Another main argument of the HBs involves the stars. In almost all of the photos, no stars sparkle in the sky. This may be a little more complicated than other “facts” the HB attempt to persuade others with. The type of exposure the Apollo cameras used were the reason the stars did not appear. The Apollo cameras used short exposures which focus on the foreground. The close objects will be detailed while distant objects such as the moon will be fuzzy. On the other hand, long exposures focus on distant objects and this gives close objects a fuzzy look. The reason Apollo didn’t use long exposures to view the stars is because the Hubble telescope can still take better pictures of the stars than astronauts on the moon despite the greater distance.

How in the world were pictures taken of the Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon if no one else was on the moon? I wonder if the only way to take pictures is by someone taking the pictures themself?” Wait a second, maybe Apollo mounted a camera on the outside of the Lander so everyone in America could watch the first step on moon. I think the HBs throw this “evidence” in the middle of all the other crap while believers are on the hook being reeled in.

In a few of the Apollo pictures, the crosshairs hide behind an object in the image. This alone seems to convince people the photos on the moon must be fake. There is one similarity in all of the pictures that explains why this happens. The object in front of the crosshair is always white; this happens to over-exposed film. “If one would like to replicate this then take a length of black thread and stretch it taut between your hands. Close one eye and hold it in front of the other eye so that you can just focus on it. Now hold it in front of a bright light bulb” (Apollo). What does one see, the light bulb or the thread? One will see the light bulb due to the over-exposed eye (Apollo).

There seems to be one background in all of the pictures and videos of the moon so NASA staged the moon landing, right? Wrong, the keyword is seems! Since the moon has no atmosphere, it is very difficult to judge distances especially since it is so featureless. While it looks like hills in the background lay right behind the astronauts the hills are really large mountains far off. So even though they travel great distances, the mountains will still be in the background, but the angle will be slightly different.

Must one see it to believe it? The HBs observed that there was no flame from the lunar’s rockers when it launched back into space. Finally, their theory holds some truth, yet a horrible conclusion. They believe this is enough evidence to prove that we did not go to the moon. Although, the absence of a flame is caused by the fuel NASA uses in the lunar aircraft. “The lander used a mix of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide (an oxidizer). These two chemicals ignite upon contact and produce a product that is transparent” (BAD).

One of the rare theories of the Hbs is about film speed. The HBs believe that when the video of the lunar rover is doubled it looks like it was filmed on Earth. First off, one needs to watch the videos for themselves to see how ridiculous this is. The lunar rover kicked up dust in this video; and this is how the theory can be disproved. “The dust goes up in a perfect parabolic arc and falls back down to the surface. If this were filmed on the Earth, which has air, the dust would have billowed up around the wheel and floated over the surface” (Bad). Another theory proven wrong.

Many of us, at first thought, would believe that two objects on the moon would have the same length and parallel shadows if there was only one light source, the sun. This is one of the tougher theories to disclaim because it is a little hard to explain. The moon is not a perfect sphere, it has craters, elevation changes, and so forth. This means that an object on a slant may have a longer shadow than an object on a flat surface. One can think of a square; the side (flat surface) covers the same horizontal length as the diagonal (slanted surface), but the diagonal is longer. When the slope runs from left to right or right to left it changes the length, but on a camera it appears to be at a different angle.

Yes, the United States of America was in a space race with Russia which was a great motive for a hoax, but motives have never been proof of a crime (Apollo). Overall, there are so many different theories of photographs, wind, radiation, dust, and shadows, but not one of them have yet to prove that there has never been a moon landing. If the HBs actually believe that there was never a moon landing then why don’t they get some evidence that actually holds some ground.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to think. When I first saw a Fox story attempting to persuade it’s viewers that the moon landing was a hoax, I decided to do some research on this whole hoax theory. After viewing numerous articles and web sites, I concluded the HBs were absolutely wrong! Many of their theories are easily proven wrong and are pretty ridiculous after a little analyzing. Also, it seems pretty outrageous that the government spent billions of dollars on a bunch of crap. How in the world would such a huge conspiracy stay covered up after 30 years with so many people having to be in on it?

“Bad Astronomy.” Internet. www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html. 4/15/01

“The Apollo Moon Landings.” Internet. www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/