Is the Apollo moon landing real or fake?
Source: [ Knowledge Online ]
The half-century-long U.S.-Soviet Cold War era, the birth of a number of great scientific and technological achievements, decades of worship; however, with the gradual disappearance of the Cold War, these epoch-making achievements in the history of human civilization and its authenticity is increasingly subjected to the scientific community and the public doubt. Following the Reagan era of Star Wars program was proved to be a full race after the fraud, Americans have always been proud of the Apollo manned spacecraft first moon landing feat recently actually also caught in the whirlpool of the authenticity of the debate. Not long ago, Russian researcher Alexander Goldov published an article entitled "The Greatest Forgery of the Century," which raised many questions about the photographs of the U.S. moon landing taken in 1979, arguing that all the photographs and movie documentaries supposedly taken by U.S. astronauts on the moon were faked in Hollywood studios. Geldof also emphasized that he had reached this conclusion after a long and careful scientific analysis and authentication of all the photographs of the moon landing. By coincidence, Bill Kane, an American scientist who once participated in the Apollo program, even threw a bombshell a few days ago. In his officially published book "I Never Went to the Moon", he pointed out with justifications that the Apollo program deceived the whole world, and that all the images were only taken in the simulated lunar test site on the Antarctic continent, and that the American astronauts had never been to the moon. This statement can be shocking, a stone stirred up a thousand waves, the American public questioned the Apollo program has reached a peak in decades, according to an authoritative poll, nearly 25 million Americans said they do not believe that the Apollo operation is real. What is more intriguing is that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has remained silent on this controversy, making it more and more confusing. Not to mention that if the Apollo program is indeed a forgery of the U.S. government and public opinion will bring a devastating blow to the credibility of the world, alone on the current situation of the many opinions and calls for forgery is very loud, people will have to ask: has been priding itself on the absolute honesty to the public, openness of the U.S. government and the press in the end, how much to hide things? How many other controversial achievements of human civilization like the Apollo program will come back into the limelight to be re-examined?
The 1960s were a time of intense Cold War fighting between the United States and the Soviet Union, and U.S. manned spaceflight activities were particularly intense, with the Apollo flights to the moon being one of the most notable achievements. As early as the beginning of the 1960s, NASA proposed the "Apollo to the Moon Program". Subsequently, there is such a classic version of the history: after eight years of hard work, Apollo 1 to 10 has carried out a number of near-Earth orbit flight test and moon landing preview. 1969 July 16, "Apollo - 11" spacecraft into the lunar orbit, after a successful landing, the captain Armstrong first went up to the capsule. Captain Armstrong first walked on the hatch platform, climbed down the 5-meter-high 9 steps, and then, his left foot carefully touched the moon surface, thus the world-shaking photo of the first human footprints on the moon was born. Armstrong was overwhelmed with emotion: "It's a small step for a man, but it's a leap for mankind!" Eighteen minutes later, another astronaut, Aldrin, also stepped onto the surface of the moon. The two photographed the lunar surface, collected moon rocks and soil, conducted experiments and sent back probe information to ground control. At the end of the flight, Armstrong and Aldrin flew off the surface of the Moon in the lunar module, ascended into lunar orbit, and rendezvoused and docked with the Command Module piloted by Collins, which was waiting in lunar orbit.The three astronauts*** returned to the Earth in the Command Module and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The entire flight lasted 8 days, 3 hours and 18 minutes, and stayed on the lunar surface for 21 hours and 18 minutes, accomplishing a historic feat.
Decades of skepticism about the authenticity of the Apollo program have never disappeared, with the 1980s U.S. movie Capricorn One insinuating that the Apollo program might have been a hoax. But the cries of skepticism have never been as loud as they are today. None more so than Bill Kane, who in his book raised several questions about the photos of the moon landing:
1. The moon has no atmosphere, so there is no air to refract, so the stars should be clearly visible in the lunar sky, but not a single star can be seen in the photos provided by NASA;
2. When the spacecraft landed on the surface of the moon, a huge cloud of dust was blown off by the propellers, and a large amount of the dust was removed by the propellers, which was then used as a shield. When the spacecraft landed on the Moon's surface, there should have been a huge cloud of dust being blown up by the thrusters, but the Moon's land surface was shown as calm in the photographs and the documentary;
3. Some of the photographs of the Moon landing show obvious gouges, and there is a hidden line between the distant and close-up views, which makes people wonder if the "fading scanning" method used in the movie stunts was used, i.e., drawing the distant view first and then using the light to scan it. The movie is a "fading scanning" method of movie stunts, in which a distant scene is drawn first and then disguised by light and shadow.
Some astronomy enthusiasts have also pointed out that even on Earth, where a jet engine can blow an egg-sized rock dozens of meters, on the moon, where gravity is much weaker, the landing capsule would have at least blown a spectacular plume of smoke, which must have been flying, but on the video provided, the opposite is true. #S#
After the release of Goldorf and Kane's book, a debate about the Apollo program arose on the Internet, with proponents of the Apollo hoax claim making the following points and evidence:
First, the Apollo photos of the moon landings were faked. Comparisons of solar incidence angles calculated from shadows on photographs taken on the lunar surface and NASA's published astronauts' activity times on the lunar surface, coordinate points, and lunar phase cycles reveal very clear inconsistencies. The opponents pointed out that, in the case of Apollo 11, the lunar landing point was in the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, 23.5 degrees east longitude, 0.6 degrees north latitude, the launch time from Earth was 13:32 GMT on July 16, 1969, and the time of extravehicular activity on the Moon was about two and a half hours, from the 109th hour, 7 minutes and 33 seconds to the 111th hour, 39 minutes and 13 seconds. The angle of incidence between the sunlight and the lunar surface was calculated to be only 6 degrees to 7 degrees, almost immediately above the horizon. But the Apollo 11 photo of the American flag planted on the moon shows that the angle of incidence of sunlight was about nearly 30 degrees, clearly illogical.
Second, the moon landing video was also faked. After analyzing the Apollo moon landing video, it has been suggested that the astronauts in the videotape had the same jumping motion and height on the moon surface as they did on the ground. And the gravity on the moon is one-sixth that of the earth, and should easily jump six times higher and six times farther than on the earth. But from the video, the astronauts jumped less than a meter away from the ground.
Thirdly, the engineering progress of the lunar landing program was counterintuitive: in January 1967, Apollo 1 had only just been developed, and the technology was extremely immature. During a test of filling the lunar module with pure oxygen, a fire caused by a wire friction resulted in the death of three astronauts. Subsequently, many major improvements were made, and the development of the hardware technology for the moon landing program was delayed for more than a year, but it was only in July 1969 that a successful moon landing was achieved in such a short period of time, which was unconvincing from a technical point of view.
Fourth, why was the Saturn V, the rocket used to carry the Apollo moon landing spacecraft, abandoned? The Saturn V launch vehicle was of enormous power, and its technical achievements exceeded those of all types of rockets and space shuttles of the present time, but it was abandoned, and even the drawings were not saved. What is even more surprising is that the United States until today have no suitable vehicle to send the space station to Earth orbit, is because there is no powerful launch vehicle, the modern space shuttle is only once no more than twenty tons of small load into the Earth's low orbit, and the 1960s developed Saturn V, legend has it that it can easily more than one hundred tons of load to the Earth's orbit, and push out dozens of tons of objects out of the Earth's gravitational circle, which should make launching a space station a breeze. In the five years before and after the moon landing, the U.S.*** launched 17 Saturn V's for carrying Apollo spacecraft with a 100% success rate! With such an excellent performance record, it is puzzling that it should quit the world, and NASA has so far only answered by saying that the Saturn V is too expensive to build.
Fifth, how to explain the effect of radiation from cosmic space on astronauts? It is well known today that there are all kinds of cosmic radiation in outer space, some of which can be deadly. The average nuclear power plant uses a few meters thick layer of lead plus concrete to block possible leakage of nuclear radiation, it is obviously unrealistic to have a spaceship use a few meters thick metal layer to block radiation, and the teeny millimeter thick spacesuits worn by astronauts are not at all effective in blocking high-energy rays, and how was this fatal problem estimated and solved when the moon landing took place?
Sixth, are Armstrong's footprints possible? As Kane points out, when the lunar module landed on the surface of the moon, it was bound to blow up huge amounts of dust, so how did Armstrong's first footprints come to be so clear in the photo? And if landing on the moon's rocky plane was the best option to avoid the huge dust, where did the footprints come from? The U.S. government has not been able to provide a clear answer to this question.
Skeptics have raised a number of other issues, such as the effect of temperature on the camera equipment: Daytime temperatures on the lunar surface can reach as high as 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and the photographs show that the astronauts used cameras that were exposed outside of their suits, without any insulation. How can you take a picture when the film fails at 150 degrees when it is curled by the heat?
Of course, voices defending the authenticity of the Apollo moon landings have also pushed back firmly, and in response to Kane's claim that there are no stars in the photographs, Chinese photographer Bao Kun pointed out that, when photographing the moon at night in a clear sky, the approximate exposure combination of F5.6/1/2-1 second/ISO100 degrees Celsius (depending on atmospheric visibility) is such that the stars in the night sky will not leave a trace on the negative. The stars in the night sky will not leave a mark on the negative. Even the brightest stars in the night sky, such as Sirius in Orion, also need to be exposed to more than 2-3 seconds, and left behind is only the movement of the star's trajectory. The photographic environment of the #S# lunar surface is in fact to put the Earth's day and night together in front of the camera, two completely different and opposing choices, it is simply impossible to shoot the effect of the conventional sense of the two can only reside in one of them, so the moon landing photos can not be said to have been faked. As for the brightness and contrast between light and dark in the photos, Bao Kun believes that it cannot be due to the use of artificial light in the fake, the most direct reason is that the surface of the lunar module itself is a giant reflective light source, reflecting the sun's rays onto the surface of the moon, resulting in an uneven contrast between light and dark.
Mr. Fang Zi Zhou, who is a doctoral candidate in chemistry in the United States, refuted the counterfeiting theory from the perspective of the human environment of the Apollo moon landings, and his reasoning was: first of all, the U.S. government took too many risks in counterfeiting. The moon landing process was once broadcast live to the world, once the fake was exposed, the loss of credibility is unimaginable; Moreover, the Apollo program involved tens of thousands of engineers and technicians, how easy it is to block their mouths? So many scientists will not take their own personality jokes. Second, the U.S. press is credible, and its ability to monitor public opinion will never allow such a big lie to be staged. Furthermore, the evidence provided by the proponents of the fake story is merely a technical analysis of some photographs and video footage, and does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the Apollo program was a bluff and a hoax.