On July 20th of 1969 Neil Armstrong made history when he made one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind on the moon. For some the moon landing is something every American should be proud of but some skeptics believe otherwise they think it’s one big joke. For all we know, some random guy in Hollywood agreed to a contract and dressed up as an astronaut to make people believe in the “American dream”. A lot of these conspiracy theories drew from the idea of the Space Race between Russia then the Soviet Union and the United States. But what is guaranteed is that not many believe we truly landed on the moon
Cold War tension: For us to understand how the space race began we have to go back to the ending of WW2. Both the U.S. and USSR were allies but there was still some tension between the two powers because of the pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany and because of the Soviet’s ideas. Neither country trusted each other this culminated in a conflict that we know as the Cold War where both countries would continue to threaten one another although this really wasn’t a war it was more of a competition both countries would wanna beat one another in whatever they could weather it was sports, advancements in technology or getting involved with the issues of other countries. Slowly the two countries’ conflicts became a part of life. War in Korea and words going back and forth carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by events like the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
The beginning of a race to space: things really started heating up when on October 4th of 1957 the soviets would send the world’s first artificial satellite and first-manmade object to be placed into earth’s orbit. Now a few Americans weren’t too happy about this in the United States, space was seen as the next frontier viewing it as a part of the American tradition of exploration. But finally in 1958 the U.S. launched its own satellite Explorer 1; it was designed by the U.S. army under the guidance of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. Later that same year President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and space administration(NASA). The soviets continued to stir the pot heavily when in 1959 they took another big step forward and launched the Luna 2 it was the first space probe to hit the moon but they didn’t stop cause in April 1961, the soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit earth traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1.
Project Apollo: Something that would rock the U.S. and the world completely happened when in December of 1968 we saw the launch of the Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon. What we didn’t know was that something even greater would overshadow this historic feat when on the 16th of July 1969 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on Apollo 11 en route to the moon. After landing successfully on July 20th, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface. Even giving the famous quote “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Crazy conspiracies: To those who kept reading thank you I know you’ve been waiting in anticipation for this mainly because this is what this article is all about. Immediately after the moon landing a lot of people began to have crazy doubts about whether or not we landed on the moon. The most popular theory is that someone was hired in Hollywood to fake the moon landing. Who may you ask it could be none other than Stanley Kubrick now because Stanley never really denied these allegations; some continued to believe that it was all still faked. One good reason for the moon landing being faked could have been our rivalry with the Soviets during the space race after John F. Kennedy made a claim in 1962 during a speech that before the end of the decade the U.S. would send a man to space. So maybe feeling pressured the U.S. felt they had to do something to prove who the best world power was. In 1976 a self published book by Bill Kaysing was released Kaysing was a former US Navy officer with a Bachelor arts in English. Kaysing was hired as a technical writer in 1956 by Rocketdyne, the company that built the F-1 engines used on the Saturn-V rocket. Many of the allegations Kaysing made in his book started to stir a pot of discussions about the moon landing being faked.
Funny theories: No wind on the moon… but the flag is waving. When I first learned about this conspiracy I thought huh that is odd why is the flag waving there’s no air on the moon and I was almost convinced till you look at the picture a little closer there’s a pole on top of the flag. Someone might be saying “but the flag is still waving” it is not the flag is just really wrinkly from all that time being locked up in a spaceship and finally upon arrival it was wrinkled up.
If we’ve been to the moon why haven’t we been back: The last Apollo mission to land astronauts on the moon was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 since then not a single human being has returned. A lot of conspiracy theorists might say that’s enough to prove we didn’t actually land on the moon. This wasn’t really a conspiracy, it was geopolitics, a culmination of the vietnam war and the idea that we had won the space race was enough to convince us we didn’t have to go again. The U.S. still wants to make it to mars; it just hasn’t been accomplished yet.
