Conspiracy Theories and You! – The Apollo Moon Landing “Hoax”

The Apollo Moon Landings are, without a doubt, one of the greatest moments in human achievement. We went to the freaking MOON, people! Several times! Granted, none of this happened during the times I can remember (the last mission happened when I was about eight months old), but they happened anyhow.

Which is why I’m confused about something.

There are, for reasons unclear to me, many people out there who believe wholeheartedly the United States, and by extension other nations as well, never went to the Moon.

This conspiracy theory confuses me greatly. I can somewhat understand the rationale behind some of the other ones, but saying we never went to the Moon? Buh?

Here’s the theory: The United States, in a race with the Soviet Union, was attemping to get to the Moon. However due to technical limitations/radiation/expense/whatever, we didn’t go. Instead what we did was oh-so-cleverly fake the Moon landing on a soundstage in Hollywood. Amazingly Stanley Kubrick is the director often cited as being the one who did the filming. Apparently the government trusts the man who made Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb to be a part of a massive conspiracy and cover-up.

There’s a number of alleged flaws and problems the theorists point to in order to explain the basis of their theory. This site has a much more detailed explanation of the flaws, and rebutals for them, than what I can provide. Nevertheless, here’s some of the highlights.

You can’t see stars in the Moon landing photos! Therefore, the photos are fake!

There’s a good reason you can’t see the stars in the photos. It’s because they were taken during the daytime. The light from the Sun is so powerful it drowns out the light from the stars. If you were standing on the Moon, you’d see a few, but the camera can’t.

The flag is waving! There is no air in space! Therefore, the photos are fake!

In the videos of the Moon landings, the flag waves because the astronauts are waving it. In the still photos it appears to be waving because it was made with a wire run through it that holds it out so that it looks like it’s waving. The Moon landing deniers say this waving was caused by an errant breeze through the production studio. Of course, this implies that Kubrick, if it was him, was such an incomptetant director he couldn’t say, “Cut! Take two!”

Gus Grissom was going to come forward with information on the conspiracy. Therefore, NASA had him and the other astronauts killed by burning Apollo 1.

What.
The.
Fuck.
This ugly little idea states that NASA is in the business of murder. This belief says that NASA was willing to kill two innocent astronauts in order to silence a third. Not only is this an evil little lie conjured up by people with too much time on their hands, it isn’t even logical. As I mentioned in my article on the death of Princess Diana, surely there must be an easier way to kill an astronaut, if that’s what you want to do? I’m sure I could come up with ten easier ways before breakfast, and I’m not even out to kill someone.

Plus, of course, like all conspiracy theories worth their salt, this one depends on a whole lot of people keeping quiet and not coming forward about it. Think about it: for something of this scale, you’d have all the astronauts involved, all the NASA administration and likely everyone who ever worked at NASA during the program, all keeping quiet on this massive hoax. Considering what we know of human nature, does this seem likely?

Of course another important element of this, as well as most other conspiracy theories, is the idea that the theorist has figured this all out, in spite of what the government has done! Perhaps that’s part of the attraction of this theory? The idea that you’ve outwitted people who actually are rocket scientists and figured out their little game? Could be.

Bottom line: this conspiracy theory, like so many, works well with people who have just a little bit of knowledge. Those who vaguely remember high school physics and can say, “Hey, yeah, that doesn’t make sense!” Anyone who is at all skeptical or has any kind of real scientific learning can pop this one like the ugly zit on the face of humanity that it is.

The Apollo Moon Landings were one of the greatest moments in human history. To pretend otherwise is just insulting.