Nearly 50 years ago, on July 20 1969, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made history for all of humankind as they set foot on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission. Despite the historic mission and overwhelming proof, many have believed the US and NASA faked the Moon landing. There are several theories suggesting why they would have done this, but the most prominent is that the US wanted to get one up on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
However, a NASA historian has established why he feels people should not believe the Moon landing conspiracy theory, and fears it will get worse over time as living memory of it recedes.
Roger Launius, who served as NASA’s chief historian from 1990 to 2002, said at a presentation with NASA’s Future In-Space Operations working group: “Americans love conspiracy theories.
“The thing that concerns me more and more about this is, as time passes and the Apollo landings are farther into the past and fewer people remember them, it might be easier to embrace these kinds of ideas.”
Mr Launius says if the Moon landing were faked, the Soviet Union would have proved it.
He said: “They had both the capability and the desire to disprove this, if it was true — you know, if we hadn’t landed on the moon but were faking it.”
Now however, NASA is looking to go back to the Moon, which will undoubtedly prove the country has the capability to do so.
NASA has decided it has unfinished business on our lunar satellite and wants to set up a permanent base on the Moon, with the missions hopefully taking place in 2024.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine made the announcement that he wants to set up a lunar colony and called on “the best and brightest of American industry to help design and develop “human lunar landers”.
The base would be used as a checkpoint between Earth and Mars while also allowing astronauts to study the Moon in close detail.
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