The United States is known world-wide for one of their greatest accomplishments, the moon landing. NASA spent approximately 260 billion dollars in today’s money on this conquest, so why is it so controversial? Along with almost every other great achievement, certain groups of people don’t believe these were possible to attain. Every claim against the moon landing has been debunked and discredited, and I’m planning on explaining a few popular explanations. Many disbelievers claim that the astronauts that were assigned to the Apollo 11 mission would have died from radiation before they could have reached the moon. Another popular reason had to do with a photograph NASA had posted during the moon landing. It contained Neil Armstrong’s shadow, and the shadow of another inanimate object. The problem was that the shadows were pointing in divergent directions. Many people took this as NASA messing up their editing, but there is a scientific explanation for that too. Just like how that picture was misinterpreted, a picture showing the American flag waving on the moon was causing chaos between both the believers and non believers. Although all of these claims can be disproven, another point that should be brought up is that it’s almost impossible they would post a picture so blatantly “exposing” them if they had a multi billion dollar budget to “keep their secret.”
NASA’s budget for the Apollo Mission spacesuits was reaching close to 1 million dollars in today’s currency. With this budget and the fact scientists and engineers dedicated 3 years of their life into perfectly creating these suits, there wasn’t much room for error. Of course, with all their research, radiation levels in outer space were taken into account. Aluminum, Teflon, and Titanium were used while creating and designing the Apollo Mission space suits. All three of those materials are known to block radiation from reaching us. Radiation wasn’t the only piece of evidence people were distrustful of.
One of the photographs that had a lot of negative attention brought to it was posted on NASA’s Apollo Mission collection. This image contained Neil Armstrong’s shadow, along with another object’s shadow that was in frame. The reason this caused so much commotion and chaos was because the shadows were pointing in different directions, or weren’t parallel. After that became popular, it became noticeable that many people paid attention to shadows on their moon compared to their own planet.When a light source is closer to 2 objects, it can cause the shadows to not be parallel. People can test this out in their own home with 2 cups and a flashlight if needed. In fact, it’s possible for a light source to create multiple shadows, but that isn’t the case with this particular photo.
Finally, another one of the most controversial photographs includes the American flag “swaying in the wind” on the surface of the moon after the first step was taken. Countless articles were written using this as proof that the moon landing was fake because there is no wind on the moon, but yet again, this can be disproven. The upper length of the flag is usually straight, no matter how the rest of the flag is viewed. If you look closely, you can see the fabric is in more of a cylinder shape when it comes to that area of the flag. We can determine NASA was prepared for the fact that there was no wind to boost the flag on the moon, but they persevered through this issue in order to capture the famed picture.
Without any data, the Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory is just an idea with no facts to back it up. The moon landing will continue to be one of America’s greatest accomplishments. Decades of hard work creating space suits resistant enough to face the radiation belt face on, scientifically correct photographs, and our flag waving on the moon is enough to prove NASA’s achievements and breakthroughs.
Sara Berkane – DePaul College Prep – DMSF Class of 2027
Photo by WikiImages on Pixabay