My Viewpoint: No, the moon landing was not faked. Countless pieces of evidence and first-person sources support the landing.
The theory that the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was a U.S. Government hoax lives on, even though there is video and photographic evidence of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong planting a national flag in space. Moon landing conspiracy theories allege that certain or all elements of the Apollo Program and related Moon landings were staged hoaxes by NASA, perhaps with assistance from other organizations. Moon landing deniers have also pointed out anomalies in the historical record to call into question NASA's story about the Apollo efforts.
Conspiracy theorists then claim that NASA choreographed NASA's moon missions in a movie studio, and there are telltale signs on footage and photos giving the game away. While conspiracy theorists argue that it would be cheaper and easier to stage an Apollo 11 moon landing rather than actually accomplish one, six crewed Moon landings took place between 1969 and 1972.
The most prominent claims are that the associated moon landings were faked and the twelve Apollo astronauts did not really walk on the Moon. Because photographs and videos from the Apollo missions are available only through NASA, there is no independent confirmation that the moon landings were anything other than a hoax. Despite voluminous evidence, samples of dust and rocks, TV footage, and hundreds of thousands of people making the event, surveys indicate as many as 6 percent of Americans believe that Apollo 11 astronauts never landed on the Moon.
Polls have routinely shown for years that about 5 percent of Americans think the Apollo moon landings were faked, Roger Launius, a former head historian at NASA, told The Associated Press recently. Although an extraordinary amount of evidence (including 382kg of Moon rocks collected during six missions; confirmations by Russia, Japan, and China; and images by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the tracks made by Neil Armstrong in moondust), belief in the Moon-hoax conspiracy has been surging since 1969. Based on his 1976 book, he imagined that movie studios staged Mars landings, tapping into conspiratorial claims that NASA's own Apollo moon missions were directed by Stanley Kubrick.
With no evidence at all, Bill Keesing insists that although the Soviets were watching the Apollo efforts very closely, successfully faking the moon landing was easier than actually doing so. Nasa was founded in 1958 and managed to get Alan Shepard into space in May 1961 -- but when John F. Kennedy announced the U.S. should commit the U.S. to the goal, before the end of the decade, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth, that seemed like overkill. Following those milestones, President John F. Kennedy challenged the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): Put a human on the Moon within 10 years.
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