Originally Answered: Did Neil Armstrong really land on the moon?
So, is not only harder to fake than to do in reality, is impossible. We couldn't fake it today, never mind with 1960s technology.
I'm talking mainly about Apollo 17 here as the one with the most interesting rocks returned, because returned by a geologist. But if you are doubtful about Apollo 11 you will surely be even more skeptical about Apollo 17.
You can watch the video of his expedition and share his excitement as a geologist as he made new discoveries on the Moon every hour.
Remember - every time he picks up a rock sample there - as a researcher you can go and ask to see that very sample and analyse it and test it to check or confirm theories about the lunar surface.
The rocks you can go and see - they look exactly as expected from the videos -same shape, same composition, if they pick up orange soil, they return orange soil, if they pick up a strangely shaped rock, they return a rock of exactly that shape...
Have a read about Harrison Schmidt's field trip, here A Field Trip to the Moon - and more detailed accounts elsewhere, the discoveries they made.
For instance this one
Troctolite 76535
And, just for an example, this 2009 paper examining isotope ratios in this rock, and giving new results about the moon Early Lunar Magnetism
Could you imagine that back in 1969 some scientist involved in the fake anticipated that some time in 2009 someone would examine this rock and want to find out the isotope ratios of Argon and manipulated them to make them appropriate for a an instrument not yet invented to answer a question not yet asked?
MICROMETEORITE DAMAGE
The rocks are similar to Earth rocks, true - that was a surprise, how similar they are, and lead to the theory that the Moon was formed by an impact with the Earth.
But not identical. One obvious difference is that they all had micro-meteorite impacts which Earth rocks don't have. At a level you can explore with the electron microscope - no way that could be simulated in 1960s.
I don't think we could do it convincingly today - if we spent a million dollars trying to simulate a gram of lunar rock so that a randomly selected sample would look right in an electron microscope, surely we'd fail.
Also they were very very dry, lacking in volatiles and not hydrated like their Earth counterparts. And many are as old as 4.5 billion years old, older than any Earth rocks. See Moon rock
Some of the conspiracy theorists say that they are lunar meteorites - but the lunar meteorites are rare, and not known at the time. The first lunar meteorite was discovered in the 1980s. Lunar meteorite.
Others think unmanned rovers on the Moon brought the rocks back - but if so, how do they exactly match the rocks the astronauts pick up in the videos? Also, the Russian Luna program returned a total of 0.326 kg of samples in three missions. Luna programme
And do you think they managed to simulate Apollo astronauts walking on the Moon to look real, to this day?
It's easier to think so in hindsight with movies such as Gravity - but even these have flaws that the experts notice.
But back then, the most sophisticated movie about the Moon done before the landing was 2001, the year before - where this is their best footage they managed, after five years of work on the film, for the lunar sequence:
I can tell you the film was pretty amazing to watch at the time. We didn't know any better. It came out in 1968, the year before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
But look at it today - and is obvious those astronauts are just walking slowly, doesn't even resemble the lunar walking on the Moon.
Some conspiracy theorists think Apollo used rejected footage from 2001.
Even today, our movies of astronauts on the Moon surface are not convincing for those who watched the Apollo landings. For instance on the "Apollo 18" movie - looks nothing like the real thing, just walking slowly basically.
I think myself, the only way to do it reasonably convincingly, even today - apart from microgravity flights and film everything in planes 20 seconds at a time - is something like this
Which NASA did have in the 1960s - but - I've never seen anyone suggest they used this - and - how could you anyway - attach wires to absolutely everything that moves to counteract sideways effect of the Earth's gravity (including flag etc).
In a Mythbusters episode they looked at the idea that the moon walking could be done by slow motion video, and showed that it didn't look exactly like the lunar footage + other tests of moon conspiracy ideas. Episode 104: NASA Moon Landing
PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN FROM ORBIT AROUND THE MOON
And you can now see photographs of the tracks they made on the Moon, taken from orbit.
See also The Great Moon Hoax
HYPOTHESIS - MAYBE PART OF THE REASON FOR THIS SKEPTICISM IS BECAUSE THE ASTRONAUTS ARE SO CALM AND UNEXCITED
Actually I wonder if part of it was because most of the astronauts were so professional about it and calm. They don't really seem like people doing things for the first time ever. not like most of us in such a situation.
Maybe it looks as if they can't be in any danger because they are so very calm? Maybe that's where some get the idea perhaps it is all a film set and they were never in any danger?
But remember these are people who are professionally trained to be calm in the middle of a crisis in a jet fighter which is about to crash. It takes years of training to be as steady and calm as that - you and I could never do it without that training (unless you are in a similar profession).
Same is true today, here is the account of the astronaut who nearly drowned in his spacesuit recently.
EVA 23: exploring the frontier
And Chris Hadfield talking about his experience of going blind in his spacesuit during a spacewalk, and why he didn't panic
What I learned from going blind in space
On that first landing on the Moon especially - though they had done everything they could to make it safe - there was certainly a real risk that they would crash (even through momentary pilot error) and a significant risk that once landed, they would not be able to leave the Moon again but would die there or crash on take off. And they all knew that.
The US had prepared a speech for the president to say in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts landed, and could not take off from the Moon again.
Here it is
But you'd never guess that they knew that from the way they talked.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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