The idea that the «Apollo» mission was filmed in a Hollywood studio was never based on scientific data, but was fueled by mass culture and distrust toward governments in the 1970s.
Key initiators of the myth were figures such as Bill Kaysing, a technical writer who possessed no engineering background, as well as the success of science fiction films, such as «Capricorn One».
However, the technical reality of 1969 proves that staging such an undertaking on Earth would have been more difficult than the journey itself, as the lack of advanced technologies, such as digital graphic rendering, rendered impossible the artificial reproduction of parallel shadows from the sun and the behavior of bodies under conditions of low gravity.
Why do images and videos seem «strange» to the human mind?
Most arguments of skeptics collapse as soon as the laws of physics are applied to the vacuum environment:
- Sky without stars
The photographs were taken under bright sunlight.
The cameras were configured with an exceptionally fast shutter speed owing to the huge glare from the white spacesuits, with the result that faint stars did not have sufficient time to register on film.
- The «movement» of the flag
The cloth was not waving from wind (as a vacuum prevails on the Moon), but featured a special horizontal rod to prevent it from hanging limp.
The apparent motion was due to inertia and vibrations transmitted by twisting the pole into the ground, which continued for a long time due to the absence of atmospheric drag.
- Sharp footprints in dry soil
Lunar dust (regolith) does not resemble the wet sand of Earth, but consists of sharp, microscopic rock fragments that compact perfectly together.
The irrefutable evidence.
Beyond visual material, tangible evidence exists that does not admit dispute.
The astronauts brought back to Earth 382 kilograms of lunar rock, which were examined by scientists across the entire world, including Soviet academics, and bore unique traces of cosmic radiation without a trace of moisture.
Concurrently, the special reflectors (laser retroreflectors) left on the lunar surface enable even today any observatory in the world to calculate with millimeter precision the Earth-Moon distance.
Why did the Soviet Union not denounce the fraud?
If the planetary competition of the era concealed an American illusion, Moscow would have had every interest in exposing it and dealing a crushing blow to the prestige of the US.
On the contrary, Soviet tracking stations in Yevpatoria (a historic coastal city and important port on the western coast of the Crimea peninsula, on the Black Sea) accurately recorded the radio signals broadcast directly from the surface of the Moon, confirming the success of the mission.
The absence of return and the «lost» details.
The reason humanity did not immediately return to the Moon is not an inability to repeat the undertaking, but enormous costs.
During the space race, NASA was funded with nearly 4.5% of the national budget of the US, a percentage that today has been drastically curtailed.
The technology of the «Saturn V» rockets was not lost, as blueprints exist in archives; however, their manufacturing remains cost-prohibitive, as modern space technologies are more economical and efficient for current exploration needs.
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