In 1969, American astronautics experienced its most important triumph - man first stepped on the surface of another celestial body. But despite the deafening PR of the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, the Americans did not achieve the global goal. The patriots, of course, could be proud of this outstanding achievement, but the Soviet Union since the flight of Yuri Gagarin had staked out space primacy for itself, and even the American landing on the moon could not shake it. Moreover, a few years after the lunar epic in the United States itself, they started talking about the fact that for the sake of the dubious authority of the country's authorities, they went for an unprecedented forgery. They simulated a flight to the moon. And after half a century, the question of whether the Americans were on the moon remains controversial.
Briefly, the chronology of the American lunar program looks like this. In 1961, President Kennedy presented the Apollo program to Congress, according to which, by 1970, Americans must land on the moon. The development of the program proceeded with great difficulties and numerous accidents. In January 1967, in preparation for the first manned launch, three astronauts burned to death in the Apollo 1 spacecraft right on the launch pad. Then the accidents magically stopped, and on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 crew commander Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the only satellite of the Earth. Subsequently, the Americans made several more successful flights to the moon. In their course, 12 astronauts collected almost 400 kg of lunar soil, and also rode a rover car, played golf, jumped and ran. In 1973, the US space agency, NASA, caught up and calculated the costs. It turned out that instead of Kennedy's declared $ 9 billion, $ 25 has already been spent, while “there is no new scientific value of the expeditions”. The program was curtailed, three planned flights were canceled, and since then, the Americans have not gone into space beyond near-earth orbit.
There were so many inconsistencies in the history of Apollo that not only freaks, but also serious people began to think about them. Then came the explosive development of electronics, which allowed thousands of enthusiasts to analyze the materials provided by NASA. Professional photographers began to analyze photographs, filmmakers peered at the footage, engine specialists analyzed the characteristics of the missiles. And the combed official version began to burst noticeably at the seams. Then the lunar soil, transferred to foreign researchers, will turn out to be petrified earthly wood. Then the original recording of the broadcast of the landing on the moon will disappear - it was washed away, because there was not enough tape at NASA ... Such contradictions accumulated, involving more and more skeptics in discussions. To date, the volume of materials of "lunar disputes" has acquired a threatening character, and the uninitiated person risks drowning in their heap. Below are set out, as briefly and simplified as possible, the main claims of skeptics to NASA and the available answers to them, if any.
1. Everyday logic
In October 1961, the first Saturn rocket was launched into the sky. After 15 minutes of flight, the rocket ceases to exist, exploding. The next time this record was repeated only after a year and a half - the rest of the rockets exploded earlier. Less than a year later, "Saturn", judging by the statement of Kennedy, literally killed tomorrow in Dallas, successfully threw some two-ton blank into space. Then the series of failures continued. Its apotheosis was the deaths of Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee right on the launch pad. And then, instead of understanding the causes of the tragedies, NASA decided to fly to the moon. Followed by the flyover of the Earth, flyby of the Moon, flyby of the Moon with imitation of landing, and, finally, Neil Armstrong informs everyone about a small and large step. Then lunar tourism begins, slightly diluted by the Apollo 13 accident. In general, it turns out that for one successful flyby of the Earth, NASA took an average of 6 to 10 launches. And they flew to the moon almost without errors - one unsuccessful flight out of 10. Such statistics looks at least strange for anyone who deals with more or less complex systems in the management of which a person participates. The accumulated statistics of space flights allows us to calculate the probability of a successful lunar mission in numbers. The Apollo flight to the Moon and back can be easily divided into 22 stages from launch to splashdown. Then the probability of successful completion of each stage is estimated. It is quite large - from 0.85 to 0.99. Only complex maneuvers like acceleration from near-earth orbit and docking “sag” - their probability is estimated at 0.6. Multiplying the numbers obtained, we get the value 0.050784, that is, the probability of one successful flight barely exceeds 5%.
2. Photo and filming
For many critics of the US lunar program, skepticism towards it began with the famous frames in which the American flag either pulsates as a result of damped vibrations, or trembles due to the fact that a nylon strip is sewn into it, or simply flutters on a nonexistent To the moon to the wind. The more material was subjected to serious critical analysis, the more conflicting footage and video surfaced. It seems that the feather and the hammer in free fall fell at different speeds, which should not be on the moon, and the stars are not visible in the lunar photos. NASA experts themselves added fuel to the fire. If the agency limited itself to publishing materials without detailed comments, the skeptics would be left to their own devices. All analyzes of the flight paths of stones from under the wheels of the "rover" and the height of the astronauts' jumps would remain in their inner kitchen. But NASA representatives first revealed that they were publishing original raw material. Then, with an air of offended innocence, they admitted that something was being retouched, tinted, glued and mounted - after all, the viewer needs a clear picture, and the then equipment was far from perfect, and the means of communication could fail. And then it turned out that a lot of things were filmed in pavilions on Earth under the guidance of serious photographers and representatives of the film industry. Outwardly, it looks like NASA is gradually retreating under the pressure of evidence, although this may only be an apparent impression. Recognition for the processing of photo and video materials for skeptics actually meant an admission that all these materials were falsified.
3. Rocket "Saturn"
The aforementioned Saturn rocket, or rather, its modification Saturn-5 with an F-1 engine, before the first flight to the Moon did not pass a single test launch, and after the last Apollo mission, the remaining two rockets were sent to museums. According to the declared indicators, both the rocket and the engine are still unique creations of human hands. Now the Americans are launching their heavy rockets, equipping them with the RD-180 engines purchased from Russia. The chief designer of the Saturn rocket, Werner von Brown, was fired from NASA in 1970, almost at the time of his triumph, after 11 successful launches of his brainchild in a row! Together with him, hundreds of researchers, engineers and designers were expelled from the agency. And “Saturn-5” after 13 successful flights went to the dustbin of history. The rocket, as they say, has nothing to carry into space, its carrying capacity is too great (up to 140 tons). At the same time, one of the main problems in the creation of the International Space Station was the weight of its components. It is a maximum of 20 tons - this is how much modern rockets lift. Therefore, the ISS is assembled in parts, like a designer. With the current weight of the ISS at 53 tons, almost 10 tons are docking stations. And “Saturn-5”, theoretically, could throw into orbit a monoblock weighing two current ISS without any docking nodes. All the technical documentation for the giant (110 meters long) rocket has survived, but the Americans either do not want to resume its operation, or they cannot. Or perhaps, in reality, a rocket of much lower power was used, unable to deliver a lunar module with a supply of fuel into orbit.
4. “Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter”
By 2009, NASA was ripe for a "return to the moon" (skeptics, of course, say that in other countries space technology has reached such a level that the risk of exposing the lunar scam has become too great). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) complex was launched as part of the program for such a return to the Moon. A whole complex of instruments for remote research of our natural satellite from a circumlunar orbit was placed at this scientific station. But the main instrument on the LRO was a three-camera complex called the LROC. This complex took a lot of photographs of the lunar surface. He also photographed the Apollo landings and stations sent by other countries. The result is ambiguous. The photographs taken from an altitude of 21 km show that there is something on the surface of the Moon, and this “something” really looks quite unnatural against the general background. NASA has repeatedly emphasized that for photographing, the satellite descended to an altitude of 21 km in order to take the clearest pictures possible. And if you look at them with a certain amount of imagination, then you can see lunar modules, and chains of footprints, and much more. The images are, of course, indistinct, but for transmission to the Earth they had to be compressed with a loss of quality, and the altitude and speed are quite high. The photos look pretty impressive. But compared to other images taken from space, they seem like hobbyist crafts. Four years earlier, Mars was photographed with a HIRISE camera from an altitude of 300 km. Mars has some kind of distorting atmosphere, but HIRISE's footage is much sharper. And even without flights to Mars, any user of services like Google Maps or Google Earth will confirm that on satellite images of the Earth it is possible to clearly see and identify objects that are much smaller than the Lunar Module.
5. Van Allen radiation belts
As you know, the inhabitants of the Earth are protected from the harmful cosmic radiation by the magnetosphere, which throws radiation back into space. But during the space flight, the astronauts were left without her protection and had to, if not die, then receive serious doses of radiation. However, several factors speak in favor of the fact that flight through the radiation belts is possible. Metal walls protect from cosmic radiation quite tolerably. "Apollo" was assembled from alloys, the protective capacity of which was equivalent to 3 cm of aluminum. This significantly reduced the radiation load. In addition, the flight passed quickly and through not the most powerful areas of radiation fields. Six times the astronauts were lucky - during their flights to the Sun, there were no serious flares that multiplied the danger of radiation. Therefore, the astronauts did not receive critical doses of radiation. Although the increased mortality from cardiovascular diseases, characteristic of radiation sickness, among those who have visited the Moon, has been established objectively.
6. Spacesuits
The life support systems of astronauts on lunar expeditions consisted of a five-layer water-cooled spacesuit, a container with oxygen, two containers with water - for ejection and cooling, a carbon dioxide neutralizer, a sensor system and a battery for powering radio equipment - from the spacesuit it was possible to contact the Earth. In addition, a valve was placed at the top of the suit to release excess water. It is this valve, along with the zipper, that is the link burying the entire chain. Under vacuum and ultra-low temperatures, such a valve will inevitably freeze. This phenomenon is well known to the old high-altitude climbers. They conquered the highest peaks of the planet with oxygen cylinders, the valves of which very often froze, although the pressure difference was relatively small, and the temperature rarely dropped below -40 ° C. In space, the valve was supposed to freeze after the first blowing, depriving the suit of its tightness with the corresponding consequences for its contents. Nor does the moonsuit add any credibility to the zipper that runs from the groin through the entire back. Wetsuits are supplied with such fasteners these days. However, in them "zippers", firstly, are covered with a powerful valve made of fabric, and secondly, the pressure on the zipper in a diving suit is directed inward, while in a spacesuit the pressure acts from the inside, in the direction of the space vacuum. It is unlikely that a rubber “zipper” can withstand such pressure.
7. Behavior of astronauts
The most abstract, not verified by any measuring instruments, claim to flights to the moon. Astronauts, with the possible exception of the first expedition, behave like children who, after a long winter spent indoors, are finally released to take a walk outside. They run, do kangaroo-style jumps, drive around the moon in a small car. This behavior could somehow be explained if the astronauts flew to the moon for several months and had time to miss the space and fast movements. Equally playful behavior of astronauts could be explained by the wonderful nature of the moon. We were preparing to land on lifeless gray (actually brown) stones and dust, and after disembarking we saw green grass, trees and streams. In fact, any lunar photo, even taken in the rays of the bright sun, cries out: "It's dangerous here!" The general unfriendly appearance, sharp edges and tips of stones and rocks, a landscape bounded by the blackness of the starry sky - such a situation can hardly induce adult trained men in considerable military ranks to play in a fresh vacuum. Moreover, if you know that a pinched tube can lead to death from overheating, and any damage to the spacesuit can be fatal. But the astronauts act as if in a few seconds the command “Stop! Filmed! ”, And the businesslike assistant directors will serve coffee to everyone.
8. Water flooding
Bringing the Apollo back to Earth was a very challenging task. In the 1960s, the return of spacecraft, even from near-earth orbit, where the speed from motion is about 7.9 km / s, was a huge problem. Soviet cosmonauts constantly landed, as reported in the press, "in a given area." But the area of this area is hazy to be thousands of square kilometers. And all the same, the descent vehicles were often “lost”, and Alexei Leonov (one of the most active supporters of the Lunar program, by the way) and Pavel Belyaev almost froze in the taiga, landing at an off-design point. The Americans returned from the moon at a speed of 11.2 km / s. At the same time, they did not make an obvious turn around the Earth, but immediately went to land. And they clearly fell into the atmospheric window about 5 × 3 kilometers in diameter. One skeptic likened this accuracy to jumping from the window of a moving train to the window of a train moving in the opposite direction. At the same time, outwardly, the Apollo capsule during descent is much smaller than the descent vehicles of Soviet ships, although they entered the atmosphere at a speed one and a half times less.
9. The absence of stars as evidence of the preparation of falsification
Talk about not being visible in any photo from the lunar surface is as old as lunar conspiracy theories. They are usually countered by the fact that the photos on the moon were taken in bright sunlight. The surface of the Moon, illuminated by the Sun, created an excess of illumination, so the stars did not fall into any frame.However, the astronauts took more than 5,000 photographs on the Moon, but they never took a picture in which the surface of the Moon was overexposed, but the stars would fall into the frame. Moreover, it is difficult to assume that, making an expedition to another celestial body, the astronauts did not receive instructions to take a photo of the starry sky. After all, such photographs would become a colossal scientific resource for astronomy. Even in the era of great geographical discoveries on Earth, every expedition included an astronomer, who first of all, when discovering new lands, sketched the starry sky. And here the skeptics got a full reason for doubts - it was impossible to recreate the real lunar starry sky, so there are no photos.
10. Cooling the lunar module
In recent expeditions, astronauts have left the Lunar Module for several hours, de-energizing it. Upon their return, they allegedly turned on the cooling system, reduced the temperature in the module from a hundred degrees to acceptable, and only then could they take off their spacesuits. Theoretically, this is permissible, but neither the cooling circuit nor the power supply for it is described anywhere.
