JUNE 2024
Current Affairs
•
Entertainment
•
Environment
•
Literature
WERE THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDINGS REALLY FAKED OR NOT? Danha Kim MANY YEARS AFTER the “Eagle” Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) supposedly landed on the moon back in 1969, rumours and conspiracy theories began to escalate on whether or not it was fake. Theory 1 - Shadows from the picture taken during the moon landing prove that the landing was faked
Insert (Above): Buzz Aldrin saluting the US flag
To debunk this theory took some time, but in the end, it was all thanks to NASA’s organisation and attention to detail. On the particular edge of the flag, there is said to be a telescopic pole that has been extended along the top to make the flag fly proudly in the ‘wind’.
Insert (Above): Photograph taken by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 Moon Landing
After examining the picture of Neil Armstrongs’ shadow and another object just out of sight, people observed that the shadows shown in this picture were not parallel. Their reasoning was that, “If the sun was the only light source, then the shadows should’ve been parallel.” However, this theory was quickly disproved when Professor Ojha explained in an article that, “Anyone can reproduce this effect for themselves. If you are trying to reduce onto a 2D plane a 3D situation, lines can do all sorts of weird things that make lines appear not parallel.” He lay the blame on perspective, and pretty soon the accusations saying the picture was mocked up in a studio simmered down.
Conspiracy status - debunked Theory 3 - Apollo astronauts could not have survived Earth’s radiation field This theory is slightly different to the others, as it implies that not only was the moon landing faked, but so was every single other space visit out of the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belt. The Van Allen belt surrounds Earth with a zone of charged particles. If you enter these regions, there are extremely high radiation concerns. If that was the case, how did the Apollo astronauts travel through that belt and out of Earth’s orbit unharmed? Surely the lethal amount of radiation would’ve killed them? ‘The Apollo moon landings were a hoax’, many agreed.
Conspiracy status - debunked Theory 2 - There is no wind on the moon, but the Apollo 11 US flag is waving in the wind In the picture of Buzz Aldrin, one of the 24 to go to the moon (and one of the 12 to walk on it), we can see that the American flag is flapping in the wind. Way back in the 18th century, it was revealed that there was no atmosphere on the moon (therefore no wind), so why was the flag waving without a source too? Insert (Above): A picture explaining the Van Allen radiation belt
1