"From a combination of the Vietnam War, but also there was this geopolitical element of thinking, 'We’ve won the race'. "The answer is we changed our priorities," Ojha says. But this was no grand conspiracy this was geopolitics. Throughout the 1970s there were ambitions to establish a permanent lunar base before turning to the next major space exploration challenge: Mars. Maybe that's because we never went to the Moon in the first place?Īpollo 17 wasn't meant to be the end of the story, of course. "All the wrinkles are there because it’s literally been screwed up for four days en route to the Moon."Ĭonspiracy status: debunked Conspiracy theory 5: if we really went to the Moon in 1969, why have we never been back?Īpollo 17, the last Apollo mission to land astronauts on the Moon, took place in 1972. "Because it’s been set up like this, it appears to be waving in the wind," Ojha explains.
A telescopic pole has been extended along the top in order to make the flag fly proudly (yes, NASA really did think of everything). Look again at the image, and in particular along the top edge of the flag, and you will find the answer.
"One of the crowning moments in terms of US national pride was seeing the Stars and Stripes on the surface of the Moon," Prof Ojha says.īuzz Aldrin salutes the US flag during the Apollo 11 Moon landing (NASA)īuzz Aldrin saluting the proudly waving American flag on the Moon remains one of the iconic images of the Apollo 11 mission, a declaration of US supremancy over space race rivals the Soviet Union.īut if there is no atmosphere on the Moon, there is no wind - so why is the flag waving? Is this the proof that conspiracy theorists have been seeking? In that situation, faint objects like stars simply aren't going to show up.Ĭonspiracy status: debunked Conspiracy theory 4: the Apollo 11 US flag is waving in the wind. If you're going to take a photo of a brightly lit scene, your camera's shutter speed needs to be fast and your aperture incredibly small. The sky may look black, but remember, this is in fact daytime on the Moon. Here's another solution: both the astronauts and the lunar landscape itself are brightly lit by the Sun.
First man on the moon picture full#
NASA could not have faked the full wonder of the lunar sky, and so they simply chose not to include any stars at all. If the image really was taken on the Moon, shouldn't the sky be filled with stars? After all, there is no atmosphere to distort the image, no clouds to interrupt that glorious view.Ĭonspiracy theorists argue that the lack of stars in the Apollo 11 mission photographs prove that the event was staged. Here is another Moon landing photograph which has caught conspiracy theorists' eye.īuzz Aldrin carries experiment equipment during the Apollo 11 Moon landing (NASA) Travelling through the Van Allen radiation belt if you are going fast enough – which you need to be if you’re going to the Moon – is no problem whatsoever."Ĭonspiracy status: debunked Conspiracy theory 3: why are there no stars in pictures of the NASA Moon landings?
/851512-resize-56a48d825f9b58b7d0d7828a.jpg "first man on the moon picture")
"In a similar way, the transit time through the Van Allen radiation belt right at the beginning of the Apollo voyages was incredibly short. From a science point of view, as long as you walk across quite quickly, looking at the thermal conductivity of your feet, you are not going to have enough thermal energy going into the soles of your feet to burn you. "If you’ve ever done firewalking, you’ll know the one thing you don’t do is linger around in the middle of the firepit. If that is the case, how did the Apollo astronauts travel through the Van Allen radiation belt and out of Earth's orbit unharmed? Surely the amount of radiation would have killed them? Doesn't this prove that the Moon landings were a hoax? Just like the images from Apollo 11, the shadows will not be parallel. Go outside when the Sun is low in the sky and see this effect for yourself. Artists have been using this for centuries." If you are trying to reduce on to a two-dimensional plane a three-dimensional situation, you can make lines do all sorts of weird things. "You have all seen this phenomenon yourself, where, because of perspective, parallel lines appear to be non-parallel. "This is on the surface of the Moon, but we can reproduce this effect any time we want to on Earth," Prof Ojha explains. Surely if the Sun were the only light source, then the shadows should be parallel? Doesn't this prove that the whole scene was mocked up in a studio, with multiple light sources creating different shadow patterns? This image has been taken as proof by conspiracy theorists that the Moon landings were faked. Photograph taken by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 Moon landing (NASA)
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