We Didnt Have the Technology to Land on the Moon and Take Off Again
The Moon landings were faked. Apollo xi didn't happen. Humans never set foot on the Moon. Heard all this before?
Conspiracy theories surrounding the Moon landings have proved worryingly persistent in the 50 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their kickoff small steps on the lunar surface.
NASA's landmark achievement is all the same beingness challenged.
Despite there being a wealth of data online debunking these conspiracy theories, the cries of hoax continue. Why?
"We find ourselves awash in an sea of information online," National Space Centre Discovery Director Profesor Anu Ojha said during a 2019 lecture at Royal Museums Greenwich.
"In that location has been more than information produced in the final two years than in the whole of homo history. This data ocean is getting more than turbulent every single twenty-four hour period," he continued. "The only tools we have to navigate through this maelstrom are the critical thinking skills that we are trying to develop in people as scientists."
So how can scientific discipline help to debunk Moon landing conspiracy theories?
Conspiracy theory 1: shadows in the Moon landing photos prove the images were faked
Take a await at the image below, and at the total panorama on the NASA website. Await closely at the shadows cast by astronaut Neil Armstrong and another object only out of shot. What'south wrong with them?
They're not parallel.
This image has been taken equally proof past conspiracy theorists that the Moon landings were faked. Surely if the Dominicus were the merely low-cal source, then the shadows should be parallel? Doesn't this evidence that the whole scene was mocked up in a studio, with multiple light sources creating different shadow patterns?
Well, no.
"This is on the surface of the Moon, merely we can reproduce this effect whatever time we want to on Earth," Prof Ojha explains. "You have all seen this phenomenon yourself, where, because of perspective, parallel lines appear to exist non-parallel. If you are trying to reduce on to a 2-dimensional plane a 3-dimensional situation, you can brand lines practice all sorts of weird things. Artists have been using this for centuries."
Go outside when the Sun is low in the sky and see this effect for yourself. Just like the images from Apollo 11, the shadows will non exist parallel.
Conspiracy status: debunked
Conspiracy theory 2: Apollo astronauts could not have survived Earth's radiation field
Globe is surrounded past a zone of charged particles known as the 'Van Allen' radiation belt.
"These are regions surrounding the Earth in our magnetic field where loftier energy trapped particles from the Sun tend to get confined," Prof Ojha says. "What that means is if you are going into these regions, there are extremely loftier radiations concerns."
If that is the case, how did the Apollo astronauts travel through the Van Allen radiation belt and out of Earth'south orbit unharmed? Surely the amount of radiation would have killed them? Doesn't this prove that the Moon landings were a hoax?
Prof Ojha has a killer reply.
"My answer to that is... firewalking," he says.
"If yous've ever done firewalking, you'll know the i thing you lot don't do is linger around in the middle of the firepit. You cross as quickly as you tin can. From a science betoken of view, as long as you lot walk across quite quickly, looking at the thermal conductivity of your anxiety, you lot are not going to have enough thermal energy going into the soles of your anxiety to fire you lot. You're absolutely fine. Just don't hang around in the center!
"In a similar way, the transit time through the Van Allen radiation belt right at the get-go of the Apollo voyages was incredibly short. Travelling through the Van Allen radiations belt if y'all are going fast enough – which you demand to be if you're going to the Moon – is no problem whatever."
Conspiracy status: debunked
Conspiracy theory 3: why are there no stars in pictures of the NASA Moon landings?
Here is another Moon landing photograph which has defenseless conspiracy theorists' eye.
If the image really was taken on the Moon, shouldn't the sky be filled with stars? Later all, there is no atmosphere to distort the paradigm, no clouds to interrupt that glorious view.
Conspiracy theorists contend that the lack of stars in the Apollo 11 mission photographs testify that the outcome was staged. NASA could not have faked the full wonder of the lunar sky, and and so they only chose not to include any stars at all.
Here's some other solution: both the astronauts and the lunar mural itself are brightly lit past the Sun. The sky may expect blackness, but call up, this is in fact daytime on the Moon.
If you're going to take a photo of a brightly lit scene, your camera'due south shutter speed needs to exist fast and your aperture incredibly small. In that situation, faint objects like stars simply aren't going to evidence up.
Conspiracy condition: debunked
Conspiracy theory 4: the Apollo 11 United states of america flag is waving in the wind... but there's no wind on the Moon
"One of the crowning moments in terms of Usa national pride was seeing the Stars and Stripes on the surface of the Moon," Prof Ojha says.
Buzz Aldrin saluting the proudly waving American flag on the Moon remains one of the iconic images of the Apollo 11 mission, a declaration of The states supremancy over space race rivals the Soviet Union.
But if there is no temper on the Moon, there is no wind - so why is the flag waving? Is this the proof that conspiracy theorists have been seeking?
Await once again at the paradigm, and in particular along the top edge of the flag, and you lot volition find the answer. A telescopic pole has been extended forth the top in order to make the flag wing proudly (yes, NASA really did call up of everything).
"Considering it's been prepare like this, it appears to be waving in the wind," Ojha explains. "All the wrinkles are in that location considering information technology'southward literally been screwed up for four days en route to the Moon."
Conspiracy status:debunked
Conspiracy theory v: if nosotros actually went to the Moon in 1969, why have nosotros never been back?
Apollo 17, the final Apollo mission to state astronauts on the Moon, took place in 1972. Since then, humans accept never returned.
Possibly that's because nosotros never went to the Moon in the first place?
Apollo 17 wasn't meant to exist the cease of the story, of course. Throughout the 1970s there were ambitions to institute a permanent lunar base of operations before turning to the side by side major space exploration claiming: Mars.
It never happened. Only this was no 1000 conspiracy; this was geopolitics.
"The reply is nosotros changed our priorities," Ojha says. "From a combination of the Vietnam State of war, but also in that location was this geopolitical element of thinking, 'We've won the race'. Just as we'd got proficient at doing science on the Moon, we abandoned it."
Instead, attending turned to the Space Shuttle programme and, latterly, the International Space Station, which has been permanently inhabited past teams of astronauts since November 2000. But that doesn't mean humans couldn't return to the Moon in the futurity...
Conspiracy status:debunked
Apollo 11 fifty years on: leaving our mark on the Moon
The Moon landings were non a hoax. Apollo 11 did happen. Humans actually did gear up foot on the Moon.
We have countless images, videos, lunar samples and scientific data to testify information technology. But more than than that, homo exploration has literally left its mark on the Moon'south surface.
"In 2009 we sent a lunar reconnaissance orbiter to map the lunar surface in three or four orders of magnitude more resolution than had ever been managed before," Prof Ojha says. "Every single Apollo landing site was pictured. Absolutely stunning.
"What really strikes me about these images is that those footprints, those tracks of the lunar vehicles - they're going to maintain their integrity for millions of years," he says. "No matter what we do to ourselves equally a culture, we've really left our mark on the cosmos."
Source: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/moon-landing-conspiracy-theories-debunked
0 Response to "We Didnt Have the Technology to Land on the Moon and Take Off Again"
Post a Comment