To the 40th anniversary of the flight of the American spacecraft Apollo 11
"One small step for man, one giant leap for humanity" (Thatisonesmallstepforamanonegiantleapfor mankind) - these words were said by Neil Armstrong when he was the first man to set foot on the surface of the Moon. This epochal event took place 40 years ago, on July 20, 1969.
1. Twice two questions
Over the decades, many legends and speculations have developed around the topic of man visiting the Moon. The most famous and sensational of them is that American astronauts did not land on the surface of the Moon, and all television reports about the landing and the Apollo program itself were a grandiose hoax. Some wits have even reinterpreted Armstrong's phrase about "humanity's giant leap" into "humanity's giant swindle." An extensive literature and dozens, if not hundreds of films shot in different countries and in different languages have already been devoted to the “irrefutable argument” in favor of the fact that people have not been to the Moon.
Almost simultaneously with this, at the end of the 1980s, information about the presence in the 1960s-1970s was made public in the (then) USSR. Soviet program of manned flights to the Moon. It became known that the USSR also planned to first fly around the Moon by astronauts, and then land on the surface of our natural satellite.
However, the leadership of the USSR, as well as the United States, saw only political meaning in the moon landing.
After the Apollo 11 flight, it became clear that the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind the United States in implementing the lunar program. According to the leaders of the CPSU, the flight of Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon under such conditions would not have had the desired effect in the rest of the world. Therefore, the Soviet lunar program was frozen at a stage already close to a manned flight, and it was officially announced that the USSR seemed to have never had such a program. That the USSR was moving along an alternative path and paid the main attention not to political prestige, but to scientific research of the Moon with the help of automatic vehicles, in which our astronautics, indeed, achieved great success. This is the most popular explanation for why Soviet cosmonauts never replicated the achievements of their American competitors.
So, the historiography (so to speak) of the lunar problem is now dominated by two differently resolved questions:
1. Did the Americans land on the Moon?
2. Why was the Soviet lunar program not completed?
If you look closely, both questions are interconnected, and the very formulation of the second is, as it were, an answer to the first. Indeed, if the Soviet lunar program really existed and was already close to implementation, why can’t we assume that the Americans were able to actually implement their Apollo program?
One more question arising from this. If Soviet space experts had had even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the American landing on the Moon, would the Soviet leadership, based precisely on the political goals of the lunar program, not have carried it through to the end only in order to convict the Americans of a universal lie and thereby damage the most fatal blow to the international prestige of the United States, while simultaneously raising the authority of the USSR to unprecedented heights?
Although these two questions already contain the answer to the very first one, let’s look at everything in order. Let's start with the official version of the history of the Apollo program.
2. How a German genius took the Yankees into space
The successes of American rocketry are associated primarily with the name of the famous German designer Baron Wernher von Braun, the creator of the first combat ballistic missiles V-2 (V-2). At the end of the war, Brown, along with other German specialists in the field of advanced military technologies, was taken to the United States.
However, Americans did not trust Brown to conduct serious research for a long time. While working on short-range missiles at the Huntsville Arsenal in Alabama, Brown continued to design advanced launch vehicles capable of reaching escape velocity. But the US Navy received the contract to create such a rocket and satellite.
In July 1955, US President Dwight Eisenhower publicly promised that his country would soon launch the first artificial Earth satellite (AES). However, it was easier said than done. If in our country the genius of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev quite quickly created fundamentally new missile systems, then the Americans did not have home-grown masters of this level.
Several unsuccessful attempts by the Navy to launch its rocket, which invariably exploded at launch, prompted the Pentagon to take a more favorable view of the former SS Sturmbannfuehrer, who became a US citizen in 1955.
In 1956, Wernher von Braun received a contract to develop the Jupiter-S intercontinental ICBM and satellite.
In 1957, the news of the successful launch of a Soviet satellite came like a bolt from the blue to the Americans. It became clear that the United States was significantly behind the USSR in penetrating space. After another failure of the Navy to launch its launch vehicle, the main work on creating promising launch vehicles and artificial satellites was concentrated in the hands of Brown. This area of activity was removed from the Pentagon. A special structure was created for it in 1958 - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the US federal government.
Brown headed the John Marshall Space Center, which became NASA's Space Flight Center in 1960. Under his leadership, 2 thousand employees worked (later more), concentrated in 30 departments. All department heads were originally Germans - former employees of Brown on the V-2 program. On February 1, 1958, the first successful launch of the Jupiter-S launch vehicle took place and the first American satellite, Explorer 1, was launched into orbit. But the crowning glory of Wernher von Braun's life was his Saturn 5 rocket and the Apollo program.
3. On the way to the moon
The year 1961 was marked by a new triumph of Soviet science and technology. On April 12, the first flight on the Vostok spacecraft was made by Yuri Gagarin. In an effort to create the appearance of covering the gap with the USSR, on May 5, 1961, the Americans launched the Redstone-3 launch vehicle with the Mercury spacecraft along a ballistic trajectory. The first officially considered American astronaut, Alan Bartlett Shepard (who later walked on the Moon), spent only 15 minutes in space and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean just 300 miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral. His spacecraft never reached escape velocity. The next quarter-hour suborbital flight of Mercury (astronaut Virgil I. Grissom) took place on July 21, 1961.
As if as a mockery, on August 6-7, the second full-fledged orbital flight of the Soviet spacecraft took place. Cosmonaut German Titov spent 25 hours and 18 minutes in space on Vostok-2, during which time he completed 17 revolutions around the Earth. The Americans achieved their first normal orbital flight only on February 20, 1962 (astronaut John H. Glenn) thanks to the new, more powerful Atlas launch vehicle. The Mercury spacecraft made only 3 revolutions around the Earth, spending less than five hours in orbit.
In 1961, US President John Kennedy proclaimed a kind of “national project” designed to end the US lag behind the USSR in the space field and overcome the inferiority complex that had arisen among Americans.
He promised that the Americans would land on the moon before the Russians and that this would happen before the end of the 1960s. From now on, any manned space flight programs in the United States (the next was the Gemini project) were subordinated to one goal - preparation for landing on the Moon. This was the start of the Apollo project. True, Kennedy did not live to see its implementation.
Landing on the Moon required solving two very complex technical problems. The first is maneuvering, undocking and docking of spacecraft modules in near-Earth and lunar orbits. The second is the creation of a sufficiently powerful launch vehicle capable of giving the payload, consisting of a two-module spacecraft, three astronauts and life support systems (LSS), a second escape velocity (11.2 km/sec).
During the flights of the Gemini spacecraft around the Earth, it has already become clear that the gap between the United States and the USSR in solving complex problems for spacecraft and humans in space has already been overcome. Gemini 3 (crew V.I. Grissom and John W. Young) performed the first maneuver in space using manual control on March 23, 1965. In June 1965, astronaut Edward H. White left Gemini 4 and spent 21 minutes in outer space (three months earlier, our Alexei Leonov - 10 minutes). In August 1965, the Gemini 5 crew (L. Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad) set a new world record for orbital flight duration of 191 hours. For comparison: at that time, the Soviet record for the duration of an orbital flight, set in 1963 by Vostok-5 pilot Valery Bykovsky, was 119 hours.
And in December 1965, the Gemini 7 crew (Frank Borman and James A. Lovell) completed 206 orbits in low-Earth orbit in 330 and a half hours! During this flight, a rapprochement with Gemini 6A (Walter M. Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford) was made at a distance of less than two meters (!), and in this position both spacecraft made several revolutions around the Earth. Finally, in March 1966, the Gemini 8 crew (Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott) made the first in-orbit docking with the unmanned Agena module.
The first Apollo series spacecraft were unmanned. They automatically practiced elements of a flight to the Moon. The first test of the new powerful Saturn 5 launch vehicle was carried out in November 1967 in a block with the Apollo 4 spacecraft. The third stage of the launch vehicle gave the module a speed of about 11 km/sec and placed it into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 18 thousand km, upon leaving which the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. At Apollo 5 in February 1968, different operating modes of the lunar module were simulated in unmanned satellite orbit.
Saturn 5 still remains the most powerful launch vehicle in history.
The launch weight of the launch vehicle was 3,000 tons, of which 2,000 tons was the weight of the first stage fuel. The weight of the second stage is 500 tons. Two stages launched the third with a two-module spacecraft into satellite orbit. The third stage gave the spacecraft, consisting of an orbital compartment with a propulsion engine and a lunar cabin divided into landing and takeoff stages, a second escape velocity. Saturn 5 was capable of placing a payload weighing up to 150 tons into low-Earth orbit (including the weight of the third stage with full tanks), and 50 tons onto the flight path to the Moon. At the cosmodrome, this entire structure rose to a height of 110 m.
The first manned flight under the Apollo program took place in October 1968. Apollo 7 (Walter M. Schirra - the first man to fly into space three times, Donn F. Eisel, R. Walter Cunningham) made 163 revolutions around the Earth lasting 260 hours, which exceeded the calculated flight to the Moon and back. On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 (Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, for whom it was his third space flight, and William A. Anders) set off on the first-ever manned flight to the Moon. In fact, at first it was planned for the crew to work out all the elements of the flight to the Moon in satellite orbit, but the lunar descent vehicle (lunar cabin) was not yet ready. Therefore, it was decided to first fly around the Moon on an orbital module. Apollo 8 completed 10 orbits around the Moon.
According to some reports, it was this flight that became decisive in the USSR leadership freezing its own lunar program: our lag behind the Americans has now become obvious.
The Apollo 9 crew (James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, Russell L. Schweickart) in March 1969 performed all the maneuvers in low-Earth orbit related to the undocking and docking of modules, the transition of astronauts from one compartment to another through a sealed joint without going into space. And Apollo 10 (Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young - for both this was the third flight into space, Eugene A. Cernan) in May 1969 did the same thing, but in lunar orbit! The orbital (command) compartment completed 31 revolutions around the Moon. The lunar cabin, having undocked, completed two independent revolutions around the Moon, descending to a height of 15 km above the surface of the satellite! In general, all stages of the flight to the Moon were completed, except, in fact, landing on it.
4. The first people on the moon
Apollo 11 (ship commander - Neil Alden Armstrong, lunar module pilot - Edwin Eugene Aldrin, orbital module pilot - Michael Collins; for all three this was the second flight into space) launched from Cape Canaveral on July 16, 1969. After checking the on-board systems, during one and a half orbits in near-Earth orbit, the third stage was turned on and the spacecraft entered the flight path to the Moon. This journey took about three days.
The Apollo design required one major maneuver during flight. The orbital module, docked with the lunar cabin with its tail section, where the propulsion engine was located, was undocked, made a 180-degree turn and docked to the lunar cabin with its bow section. After which the spent third stage was separated from the spacecraft rebuilt in this way. The remaining six flights to the Moon followed the same pattern.
When approaching the Moon, the astronauts turned on the propulsion engine of the orbital (command) module to decelerate and transition to lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the lunar module, which was soon undocked from the orbital compartment and entered an independent orbit of the artificial satellite of the Moon, choosing a landing site. On July 20, 1969, at 15:17 eastern United States time (23:17 Moscow time), the Apollo 11 lunar cabin made a soft landing on the Moon in the southwestern part of the Sea of Tranquility.
Six and a half hours later, after putting on spacesuits and depressurizing the lunar compartment, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon. It was then that he said his famous phrase.
Live television broadcast from the surface of the Moon was carried out to hundreds of countries around the world. It was watched by 600 million people (out of the then world population of 3.5 billion) in six parts of the world, including Antarctica, as well as the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
The USSR ignored this event.
“The lunar surface at the time of landing was brightly lit and resembled a desert on a hot day. Since the sky is black, one could imagine being on a sand-strewn sports field at night, under the beams of floodlights. “No stars or planets, with the exception of the Earth, were visible,” Armstrong described his impressions. He said roughly the same thing to a television camera shortly after surfacing: “Like the high desert in the United States. Unique beauty! “Majestic loneliness!” echoed Aldrin, who joined Armstrong 20 minutes later.
“The soil on the surface is soft and loose,” Armstrong reported about his impressions, “I easily raise dust with the toe of my shoe. I only sink about one-eighth of an inch into the ground, but I can see the tracks of my feet.” “The greyish-brown soil of the Moon,” wrote the November (1969) issue of America magazine, published in the USSR, “turned out to be slippery, it stuck to the soles of the astronauts. When Aldrin inserted a pole into the ground, it seemed to him that the pole was going into something raw.” Subsequently, these “earthly” comparisons began to be used by skeptics to confirm the idea that astronauts had not been to the Moon.
Returning to the lunar cabin, the astronauts pumped up oxygen, took off their spacesuits, and after resting, began to prepare for takeoff. The spent landing stage was undocked, and now the lunar module consisted of one takeoff stage. The total time the astronauts spent on the Moon was 21 hours 37 minutes, of which the astronauts spent only a little more than two hours outside the lunar cabin.
In orbit, the lunar compartment joined the main one, piloted by Michael Collins. He was destined for the most unenviable, but also the safest role in the lunar expedition - circling in orbit, waiting for his colleagues. Having moved into the orbital compartment, the astronauts battened down the transfer hatch and undocked what remained of the lunar cabin. Now the Apollo 11 spacecraft consisted of one main unit, which headed for Earth. The return journey was shorter than the route to the Moon and lasted only two and a half days - falling to Earth is easier and faster than flying away from it.
The second lunar landing took place on November 19, 1969. Apollo 12 crew members Charles Peter Conrad (third flight into space; he made four in total) and Alan Laverne Bean spent 31 hours and a half on the surface of the Moon, of which 7.5 hours outside the spacecraft over two trips. In addition to installing scientific instruments, the astronauts dismantled a number of instruments from the American unmanned spacecraft Surveyor 3, which landed on the surface of the Moon in 1967, for delivery to Earth.
The Apollo 13 flight in April 1970 was unsuccessful. A serious accident occurred during the flight, and there was a threat of failure of the life support system. Having been forced to cancel the landing on the Moon, the crew of Apollo 13 flew around our natural satellite and returned to Earth in the same elliptical orbit. The ship's commander, James Arthur Lovell, became the first person to fly to the Moon twice (although he was never destined to visit its surface).
This seems to be the only flight to the moon to which Hollywood responded with a feature film. Successful flights did not attract his attention.
The near-disaster with Apollo 13 forced us to pay increased attention to the reliability of all on-board spacecraft systems. The next flight under the lunar program took place only in 1971.
On February 5, 1971, veteran American astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard and newcomer Edgar Dean Mitchell landed on the moon near the Fra Mauro crater. They walked onto the lunar surface twice (each time for more than four hours), and the total time the Apollo 14 module spent on the Moon was 33 hours 24 minutes.
On July 30, 1971, the Apollo 15 module carrying David Randolph Scott (third space flight) and James Benson Irwin landed on the lunar surface. For the first time, astronauts used a mechanical means of transportation on the Moon - a “lunar car” - a platform with an electric motor with a power of only 0.25 horsepower. The astronauts made three excursions with a total duration of 18 hours and 35 minutes and traveled 27 kilometers on the Moon. The total time spent on the Moon was 66 hours 55 minutes. Before launching from the Moon, the astronauts left a television camera on its surface that operated in automatic mode. She transmitted to the screens of earthly television the moment of take-off of the lunar cabin.
The “Lunar Car” was used by the participants of the next two expeditions. On April 21, 1972, Apollo 16 commander John Watts Young and lunar module pilot Charles Moss Duke landed at Descartes Crater. For Young, this was the second flight to the Moon, but the first landing on it (in total, Young made six flights into space). The spacecraft spent almost three days on the Moon. During this time, three excursions were made with a total duration of 20 hours and 14 minutes.
The last people to walk on the Moon today, on December 11-14, 1972, were Eugene Andrew Cernan (for whom, like Young, this was the second flight to the Moon and the first landing on it) and Harrison Hagan Schmit. The Apollo 17 crew set a number of records: they stayed on the Moon for 75 hours, of which 22 hours were outside the spacecraft, traveled 36 km on the surface of the night star and brought 110 kg of lunar rock samples to Earth.
By this time, the total cost of the Apollo program exceeded 25 billion dollars (135 billion in 2005 prices), which prompted NASA to curtail its further implementation. Planned flights on Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled. Of the three remaining Saturn-5 launch vehicles, one launched the only American orbital station, Skylab, into satellite orbit in 1973, the other two became museum exhibits.
The liquidation of the Apollo program and the cancellation of several other ambitious projects (notably the manned mission to Mars) were a disappointment to Wernher von Braun, who became NASA's deputy director for spaceflight planning in 1970, and may have hastened his death. Brown retired from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.
Having initially stimulated the launch of the lunar programs of the USA and the USSR, the Cold War then directed the development of space technologies into the narrow channel of the arms race.
For the USA, the Space Shuttle reusable spacecraft program became a priority, for the USSR - long-term orbital stations. It seemed that the world was uncontrollably heading toward “star wars” in near-Earth space. The era of cosmic romance and the conquest of space was becoming a thing of the past...
5. Where do the doubts come from?
After several years, doubts began to be expressed: did the Americans really land on the Moon? Nowadays, there is already a fairly large layer of literature and a rich film library that prove that the Apollo program was a grandiose hoax. At the same time, there are two points of view among skeptics. According to one, no space flights were carried out at all as part of the Apollo program. The astronauts remained on Earth the entire time, and the “lunar footage” was filmed in a special secret laboratory created by NASA specialists somewhere in the desert. More moderate skeptics recognize the possibility of Americans actually flying around the Moon, but they consider the landing moments themselves to be fake and a film montage.
Proponents of this sensational hypothesis have developed detailed arguments. The strongest argument, in their opinion, is that in the footage of astronauts landing on the Moon, the lunar surface does not look the way (again, in their opinion) it should look. So, they believe that stars should be visible in the photographs, since there is no atmosphere on the Moon. They also pay attention to the fact that in some photographs, the position of the shadows allegedly indicates a very close, within a few meters, location of the light source. An excessively close and seemingly cut off horizon line is also noted.
The next group of arguments is related to the “wrong” behavior of material bodies. Thus, the US flag, planted by the astronauts, fluttered as if under gusts of wind, while there was a vacuum on the Moon. They also pay attention to the strange movement of astronauts in spacesuits. They claim that in conditions of gravity six times less than that of Earth, astronauts had to move in huge (almost ten meters) jumps. And they claim that the strange gait of the astronauts actually imitated “jumping” movement on the Moon under the conditions of gravity with the help of... spring mechanisms in spacesuits.
They suggest that almost all the astronauts who flew, according to the official version, to the Moon, subsequently refused to talk about their flights, give interviews, or write memoirs. Many went crazy, died mysterious deaths, etc. For skeptics, this is proof that the astronauts experienced terrible stress associated with the need to hide some terrible secret.
It is curious that for ufologists, the strange behavior of many astronauts of the “lunar squad” serves to prove something completely different, namely, that on the Moon they allegedly came into contact with an extraterrestrial civilization!
Finally, the last group of arguments is based on the thesis that the technology of the late 1960s and early 1970s did not allow three people to make a manned flight to the Moon and return to Earth. They point to the insufficient power of the launch vehicles of that time, and most importantly (an irresistible argument in our time!) - to the imperfection of computers! And here the skeptics contradict themselves. They are thereby forced to admit that in those days there were no possibilities for computer-graphic simulation of the progress of the lunar expedition!
Supporters of the authenticity of the moon landings have an equally extensive system of counterarguments. In addition to pointing out the internal contradictions of the skeptical theory, as well as the fact that its arguments can be used to prove several mutually exclusive points of view at once, which logically is considered an automatic refutation of all of them, they provide a physical explanation for the noted “oddities.”
The first is the lunar sky, in which no stars are visible. Try looking at a clear sky at night while under the bright light of a street lamp. Will you see at least one star? But they are there: if you move into the shadow of the lantern, the stars will appear. Looking at the lunar world in the brightest (in a vacuum!) light of the Sun through powerful light filters, both the astronauts and the “eye” of the television camera, naturally, could only record the brightest objects - the lunar surface, the lunar cabin and people in spacesuits.
The Moon is almost four times smaller than the Earth, therefore the curvature of the surface there is greater, and the horizon line is closer than we are used to. The effect of proximity is enhanced by the absence of air - objects on the horizon of the Moon are visible just as clearly as those located close to the observer.
The oscillations of the foil flag occurred, naturally, not under the influence of the wind, but according to the principle of a pendulum - the pole was forcefully stuck into the lunar soil. Subsequently, he received more impulses for vibrations from the steps of the astronauts. The seismograph they installed immediately picked up the ground shaking caused by the movement of people. These vibrations, like any others, were of a wave nature and were accordingly transmitted to the flag.
When we see astronauts in spacesuits on TV screens, we are always amazed at their clumsiness in such a bulky structure. And on the Moon, despite the gravity being six times lower, even if they wanted to, they would not be able to fly, which for some reason was expected of them. They tried to move by jumping, but then they established that the earthly step (in spacesuits) was acceptable on the Moon. On the screens, Armstrong easily lifted a heavy (on Earth) toolbox and said with childish delight: “This is where you can throw any thing far!” However, skeptics claim that the scene was faked, and that the box from which the astronauts later took out scientific equipment was... empty at that moment.
The hoax would have to be too grandiose and many years old, and more than one thousand scientific specialists would have to be dedicated to the secret!
It is unlikely that even a totalitarian state is capable of exercising such strict control over such a mass of people and preventing information leakage. The Apollo 11 crew installed a laser reflector on the Moon, which was then used for laser ranging from Earth to determine the exact distance to the Moon. Was the location session also fabricated? Or were the reflector and other devices that transmitted signals to Earth until the 1980s all installed automatically?
The astronauts of all six expeditions that landed (according to the official version) on the Moon brought to Earth a total of 380 kg of samples of lunar rocks and lunar dust (for comparison: Soviet and American spacecraft - only 330 grams, which proves the much higher efficiency of manned flights on compared to AKA for celestial body research). Were they all really collected on Earth and then passed off as lunar? Even those 4.6 billion years old that have no recognized analogues on Earth? However, skeptics say (they are partly right) that there are no reliable methods for accurately determining the age of such ancient rocks. And all these centners of lunar soil were allegedly brought to Earth by automatic machines. Then why is their weight three orders of magnitude higher than that brought by all other AKAs combined? And if they are terrestrial, then why is their composition identical to the lunar soil delivered by automatic machines to the Earth or analyzed by our “Lunokhovers” on the Moon itself?
It is also noteworthy that skeptics concentrate their efforts mainly on disproving the authenticity of the first manned landing on the Moon. Whereas, to confirm their theory, they need to separately refute the authenticity of each of the six landings that officially took place. What they don't do.
As for the imperfection of the technologies of that time, the “destructiveness” of this argument reflects the inferiority of the consciousness of modern civilized humanity, which has placed itself in a fatal dependence on computers.
Just at the turn of the 1960-1970s. civilization began to radically change the paradigm of its development. The focus on conquering space was replaced by a focus on the production and use of information, moreover, for utilitarian, consumer purposes. This caused a surge in the development of computer technology, but at the same time put an end to the external expansion of humanity. Along the way, in those same years, the general attitude towards scientific progress began to change - from enthusiastic it first became restrained, and then negativity began to predominate. This change in public sentiment was well reflected (and perhaps, to a certain extent, shaped) by Hollywood cinema, one of whose textbook images was the scientist, whose experiments and discoveries become a terrible threat to people’s safety.
It is difficult for most modern people, brought up in the categories of linear progress, to imagine that 40-50 years ago our civilization was in some respects higher (I would even say more sublime) than it is now, more idealistic. Including in the field of technologies related to penetration into extraterrestrial space. This was greatly facilitated by the competition of alternative socio-economic systems. The romance and heroism of struggle and expansion has not yet been completely killed by the virus of smug, all-consuming consumerism.
Therefore, all references to the impossibility of the Americans building a lunar spacecraft in the 1960s are simply untenable. In those years, the USA really overtook the USSR in many areas of space research. Thus, another triumph of an overseas power was the Voyager program. In 1977, two devices of this series were launched to the distant planets of the solar system. The first flew close to Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, the second explored all four giant planets. Thousands of stunning photographs were transmitted to Earth, making the rounds of all popular science publications. The result was sensational scientific discoveries, in particular, dozens of new satellites of the outer planets, the rings of Jupiter and Neptune, etc. Is this also a hoax?! By the way, communication with both spacecraft, now located at a distance of 90 astronomical units (14.85 billion km) from Earth and already exploring interstellar space, is still maintained.
So there is no reason to deny the ability of civilization in the second half of the last century, including in the United States, to make a series of manned flights to the Moon. Moreover, a similar program was implemented in the USSR.
Its presence and the degree of its development serve as the most important evidence of the authenticity of the event that took place 40 years ago.
6. Why did our astronauts never go to the Moon?
One answer to the question posed is that the Soviet leadership, unlike the American one, did not concentrate its main efforts in this area. The development of astronautics in the USSR after the successful launches of artificial satellites and the first manned flights became “multi-vector”. The functions of satellite systems were expanded, spacecraft for near-Earth flights were improved, and spacecraft were launched to Venus and Mars. It seemed that the first successes in themselves created a fairly strong and long-lasting foundation for the leadership of the USSR in this area.
The second reason is that our specialists were unable to solve many technical problems that arose during the implementation of the lunar program. Thus, Soviet designers were unable to create a functioning, sufficiently powerful launch vehicle - an analogue of the Saturn-5. The prototype of such a rocket is RN N-1 (on the picture)– suffered a number of disasters. After which work on it, in connection with the already completed American flights to the Moon, was curtailed.
The third reason was that, paradoxically, it was in the USSR, unlike the USA, that there was real competition between lunar program options between the united design bureaus (OKB). The political leadership of the USSR was faced with the need to choose a priority project, and due to its scientific and technical incompetence, it could not always make a good choice. Parallel support of two or more programs led to the dispersion of human and financial resources.
In other words, in the USSR, unlike the USA, the lunar program was not uniform.
It consisted of various, often multifunctional projects that never merged into one. The programs for flying around the Moon, landing on the Moon and creating a heavy launch vehicle were implemented largely separately.
Finally, the leadership of the USSR viewed the landing of man on the Moon solely in a political context. For some reason, he regarded lagging behind the United States in carrying out a manned flight to the Moon as a worse admission of defeat than an “excuse” as if the USSR did not have a lunar program at all. Few people believed in the latter even then, and the absence of hints of attempts to at least repeat the achievement of the Americans was perceived both in our society and throughout the world as a sign of a hopeless lag behind the United States in the field of space technology.
The LK-1 project (“Lunar Ship-1”), which envisaged a flyby of the Moon with one cosmonaut on board the spacecraft, was signed by the head of OKB-52, Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey, on August 3, 1964. It was guided by the UR500K LV developed in the same design bureau (the prototype of the subsequent Proton LV, first successfully tested on July 16, 1965). But in December 1965, the Politburo decided to concentrate all practical work on the lunar program in Sergei Korolev's OKB-1. Two projects were presented there.
The L-1 project envisaged a flight around the Moon with a crew of two. The other (L-3), signed by Korolev back in December 1964, is a flight to the Moon by a crew, also of two people, with one cosmonaut landing on the lunar surface. Initially, the deadline for its implementation was set by Korolev for 1967-1968.
In 1966, the Chief Designer unexpectedly dies during an unsuccessful operation. Vasily Pavlovich Mishin becomes the head of OKB-1. The history of the leadership and scientific and technical support of the Soviet cosmonautics, the role of individuals in this is a special topic, its analysis would take us too far.
The first successful launch of the Proton-L-1 complex was carried out from Baikonur on March 10, 1967. A mock-up of the module was launched into orbit, which received the official designation “Cosmos-146”. By this time, the Americans had already conducted the first test of Apollo in automatic mode for almost a year.
On March 2, 1968, the L-1 prototype, officially named Zond-4, flew around the Moon, but its descent into the Earth’s atmosphere was unsuccessful. The next two launch attempts were unsuccessful due to malfunctions in the LV engines. Only on September 15, 1968, the L-1 under the name “Zond-5” was launched onto the flight path to the Moon. However, the descent took place in an unplanned area. The atmospheric descent systems also failed Zond 6 upon its return in November 1968. Let us recall that already in October 1968, the Americans switched from automatic to manned flights under the Apollo program. And in December of the same year, the first triumphant flyby of the Moon was made by Apollo 8.
In January 1969, the RN again became depressed at the start. Only in August 1969 did the successful unmanned flight of Zond 7 take place, returning to Earth in a given area. By this time, the Americans had already visited the Moon...
In October 1970, the Zond 8 flight took place. Almost all technical problems have been resolved. The next two devices in this series were already prepared for manned flights, but... the program was ordered to be curtailed.
The L-3 project, intended for landing on the Moon, had significant differences from the American one. The basic flight diagram was the same. However, the more powerful LC engine did not require dividing the cabin into landing and takeoff stages. Another difference was that the astronaut’s transition between the LOC and the LC had to be carried out through open space. This was due to the fact that by that time the domestic cosmonautics had not yet solved the technical problems associated with the hermetically sealed docking of two spacecraft. The first successful experience of this kind was carried out by ours only in 1971 when launching the Soyuz-11 spacecraft to the Salyut-1 orbital station. And already in March 1969, on Apollo 9, the Americans performed the first ever hermetically sealed docking and undocking and transition from one space module to another without going into outer space. The need to create an airlock chamber in the Soviet LOK and the presence of a pilot there in a spacesuit sharply limited the useful volume and payload of the entire lunar complex. Therefore, only two people were planned for the expedition, and not three, like the Americans.
Testing of individual elements of the flight to the Moon took place initially within the framework of the Soyuz and Cosmos projects. On September 30, 1967, the first docking in satellite orbit of the Kosmos-186 and -187 unmanned vehicles was performed. In January 1969, Vladimir Shatalov on Soyuz-4, Boris Volynov, Alexey Eliseev and Evgeniy Khrunov on Soyuz-5 made the first docking of manned vehicles and the transition from one to another through outer space. The development of undocking, braking, acceleration and docking of the spacecraft in low-Earth orbit continued even after the decision was made to cancel the manned flight in the early 1970s.
The main obstacle to the lunar project was the difficulty in creating the N-1 launch vehicle.
Its preliminary design was signed by Korolev back in 1962, and on the sketch the Chief Designer made a note: “We dreamed about this back in 1956-57.” With the creation of a heavy launch vehicle, hopes were pinned on achieving not only a flight to the Moon, but also long-distance interplanetary flights.
The design of the N-1 LV was five-stage (!) with an initial weight of 2750 tons. According to the project, the first three stages were supposed to launch a cargo with a total weight of 96 tons onto the flight path to the Moon, which included, in addition to the lunar ship, two stages for maneuvering near the Moon, descending to its surface, rising from it and flying off to the Earth. The weight of the lunar ship itself, which consisted of an orbital compartment and a lunar cabin, did not exceed 16 tons.
The N-1 rocket, the first test of which took place in January 1969 (after the first flyby of the Moon by the Americans), was plagued from beginning to end by fatal failures caused by engine failure. Not a single N-1 launch was successful. After the disaster during the fourth launch in November 1972, further work on the N-1 was stopped, although the causes of the accidents were identified and could be eliminated.
Back in 1966, Chelomey proposed an alternative project for a lunar expedition, based on the creation of the UR700 launch vehicle (a further, never implemented, development of the UR500, that is, “Proton”). The flight pattern for this program was reminiscent of the original American project (which they later abandoned). It provided for a single-module lunar ship, without division into orbital and takeoff and landing compartments, with two astronauts on board. However, OKB-52 gave the go-ahead only for the theoretical development of this project.
If it were not for the hasty political decision of the Soviet leadership, it can be argued that, despite all the technical problems, our cosmonauts would quite realistically be able to carry out the first flyby of the Moon in 1970-1971, and the first landing on the Moon in 1973-1974 .
But at this time, after the successful flights of the Americans, the leaders of the CPSU lost interest in the lunar program. This indicates a drastic change in their mentality. Is it possible to imagine that if the United States had managed to get ahead of us in developing the first satellite or launching the first cosmonaut, the Soviet space program would have been curtailed at the initial stage? Of course not! In the late 50's - early 60's. this would be impossible!
But in the 70s, the leaders of the CPSU had other priorities. The need to pay special attention to the military component served only as a pretext for curtailing the lunar program (especially since the beginning of the 70s was characterized by a relaxation of international tensions). From now on, the prestige of Soviet cosmonautics was based only on constantly updated flight duration records. In 1974, as a result of corporate intrigue, Mishin was fired from his post as head of OKB-1. His place was taken by Valentin Glushko, who not only stopped all work on the N-1, even theoretical ones, but also ordered the destruction of copies of this launch vehicle ready for testing.
The question posed in the title of this section is quite appropriate to supplement with another: why weren’t our astronauts on Mars? More precisely, near Mars.
The fact is that the N-1 project was designed as a multi-purpose one. This launch vehicle (which was planned only as the first in a family of heavy launch vehicles) was developed in the future not only for a lunar ship, but also for a “heavy interplanetary ship” (TMK). This project provided for the launch of the spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit, which made it possible to fly several thousand kilometers from Mars and return to Earth.
Testing of the life support system of such a ship was carried out on Earth. Volunteer testers Manovtsev, Ulybyshev and Bozhko in 1967-1968. spent a whole year in a sealed chamber with an autonomous life support system. Similar experiments of much shorter duration began in the United States only in 1970. Subsequently, the many-month stay of a number of Soviet crews on the Salyuts created suspicions that the USSR leadership was preparing to implement the “Mars program.” Alas, these were just speculations. Such a program did not exist in reality. Work on the TMK was stopped simultaneously with work on the N-1.
In principle, a manned flight around Mars with a return to Earth would have been quite feasible for the USSR already in the early to mid-1980s.
Of course, provided that all elements of the lunar program suitable for use in the flight to Mars continued to develop and work on them did not stop in the 70s. The moral effect of such a flight would be comparable to the American landing on the Moon, if not more. Alas, later the Soviet leadership once again missed a historic chance for a great country...
7. Is there a future for lunar expeditions?
This requires, first of all, a radical change in the mentality of modern civilization. Despite the promises made from time to time by US leaders or the heads of our cosmonautics to organize a human flight to Mars, it is clear that they are no longer perceived by society with the same enthusiasm as the promises of the first flights into space and to the Moon were 40-50 years ago. George W. Bush proclaimed the goal of returning Americans to the Moon by 2020 and a subsequent flight to Mars. By that time, several presidents will have already changed, and from Bush, if his “intentions” are not fulfilled, as they say, the bribes will be smooth.
In our time, space research and the conquest of world spaces have decisively shifted from priorities to the periphery of public interest in literally all countries of the world.
This is clearly visible from the share of messages of this kind in the overall media flow. If in Soviet times almost every citizen of the USSR knew whether there were currently our cosmonauts in orbit and who exactly, now only a small minority knows for sure whether the cosmonauts are currently on board the International Space Station. However, most probably don't even know what it is.
Meanwhile, the effectiveness of manned flights for scientific research was proven by the same Apollo expeditions. During their three days on the Moon, two astronauts managed to complete a volume of scientific work that was orders of magnitude greater than what both of our lunar rovers completed in 15 months! The Apollo program was important for scientific and technological progress. Many of her developments were then used in a variety of projects. Testing the latest equipment under conditions of long-distance space flights is a completely unique opportunity, fraught with a sharp leap forward in all scientific and technical fields. The multibillion-dollar costs of the Apollo program were ultimately fully recouped and profitable thanks to the introduction of new technologies.
However, despite the projects of long-term manned stations on the Moon that appear from time to time, the governments of the world's leading powers, either individually or together, are in no hurry to fork out money for such programs. The point here is not only a matter of tight-fistedness, but also a lack of ambition. Extraterrestrial spaces have ceased to excite and attract people. Humanity clearly needs additional incentives to activate the cosmic vector of its development.
Special for the Centenary
American Patrick Murray"exploded" the world media with an incredible sensation - he published an interview with the now deceased director Stanley Kubrick, recorded 15 years ago.
“I committed a huge fraud on the American public. With the participation of the United States government and NASA. The moon landing was faked, all the landings were faked, and I was the person who filmed it,” Stanley Kubrick claims in the video. In response to the interviewer’s clarifying question, the director repeats once again: yes, the American landing on the Moon is a fake, which he personally fabricated.
According to Kubrick, this hoax was carried out on instructions from the US President Richard Nixon. The director received a large amount of money for participating in the project.
Patrick Murray explained why the interview appeared only 15 years after the death of Stanley Kubrick. According to him, this was a requirement of the non-disclosure agreement that he signed when recording the interview.
The loud sensation, however, was quickly exposed - the interview with Kubrick, whose role was actually played by the actor, turned out to be a hoax.
This is not the first time that the topic of Stanley Kubrick's participation in what has been called the "moon conspiracy" has been raised.
In 2002, the documentary film “The Dark Side of the Moon” was released, part of which was an interview with the widow of Stanley Kubrick Christiana. In it, she claimed that her husband, at the initiative of US President Richard Nixon, inspired by Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” took part in the filming of the landing of American astronauts on the moon, which was carried out in a specially built pavilion on Earth.
In reality, the film “The Dark Side of the Moon” was a well-staged hoax, as its creators openly admitted in the credits.
"We've never been to the moon"
Despite the exposure of such pseudo-sensations, the “moon conspiracy” theory is still alive and has thousands of supporters in different countries of the world.
July 21, 1969 astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon and uttered the historical phrase: “This is one small step for a man, but a giant leap for all mankind.”
The first human landing on the surface of the Moon was televised to dozens of countries, but some were not convinced. Literally from the first day, skeptics began to appear, convinced that there was no landing on the Moon, and everything that was shown to the public was a grandiose hoax.
On December 18, 1969, The New York Times published a short article about the annual meeting of members of the comic Society in Memory of the Man Who Will Never Fly, held in a Chicago bar. In it, one of the NASA representatives allegedly showed other tipsy members of the public photos and videos of the astronauts' ground training activities, showing a striking resemblance to footage from the Moon.
In 1970, the first books were published expressing doubts that earthlings had actually visited the Moon.
In 1975, American writer Bill Kaysing published the book “We Have Never Been to the Moon,” which has become a reference book for all supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory. Kaysing claimed that the entire moon mission was an elaborate hoax by the US government.
Bill Kaysing formulated the main arguments of supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory:
- NASA's level of technological development did not allow sending a man to the Moon;
- Absence of stars in photographs from the surface of the Moon;
- The astronauts' photographic film should have melted from the midday temperature on the Moon;
- Various optical anomalies in photographs;
- A waving flag in a vacuum;
- A smooth surface instead of the craters that should have been formed as a result of the landing of the lunar modules from their engines.
Why is the flag flying?
Supporters of the version that the Americans have never been to the Moon point to numerous contradictions and inconsistencies in the materials of NASA's lunar program.
The arguments of conspiracy theorists and their opponents have been collected in dozens of books, and citing them all would be extremely reckless. For example, we can look at the incident with the American flag on the moon.
In photographs and video footage of the installation on the Moon by the Apollo 11 crew of the US flag, “ripples” are noticeable on the surface of the canvas. Proponents of the “lunar conspiracy” believe that these ripples were caused by a gust of wind, which is impossible in the vacuum of space on the surface of the Moon.Opponents object: the movement of the flag was not caused by the wind, but by damped vibrations that arose when the flag was planted. The flag was mounted on a flagpole and on a horizontal telescopic crossbar, pressed against the staff during transportation. The astronauts were unable to extend the telescopic tube of the horizontal bar to its full length. Because of this, ripples remained on the cloth, which created the illusion of a flag fluttering in the wind.
Almost every conspiracy theory argument is refuted in this way.
Was the USSR's silence bought with a bribe?
The Soviet Union occupies a special place in the “moon conspiracy”. A logical question arises: if there was no landing on the Moon, then why did the Soviet Union, which could not but know about it, remain silent?
Adherents of the theory have several versions of this. According to the first, Soviet specialists were unable to immediately recognize the skillful forgery. Another version suggests that the USSR agreed not to expose the Americans in exchange for certain economic preferences. According to the third theory, the Soviet Union itself participated in the “lunar conspiracy” - the leadership of the USSR agreed to remain silent about the tricks of the Americans in order to hide their unsuccessful flights to the Moon, during one of which, according to the “conspirators,” the first cosmonaut of the Earth died Yuri Gagarin.
According to supporters of the “lunar conspiracy” theory, US President Richard Nixon ordered an operation to simulate the flight of astronauts to the Moon after it became clear that technology did not allow for a real manned flight to the Earth’s satellite. For the United States, it was a matter of principle to win the “moon race” against the USSR, and for this they were ready to do anything.
In an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, the best Hollywood masters were allegedly involved in the operation, including Stanley Kubrick, who allegedly filmed all the necessary scenes in a specially built pavilion.
Arguments and Facts
In 2009, on the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon, NASA decided to finally bury the “moon conspiracy.”
The automatic interplanetary station LRO completed a special task - it photographed the landing areas of lunar modules of earthly expeditions. The first ever detailed photographs of the lunar modules themselves, landing sites, elements of equipment left by expeditions on the surface, and even traces of the earthlings themselves from the cart and rover were transmitted to Earth. Five of the six revenge landings of American lunar expeditions were captured.
Traces of the presence of Americans on the Moon, independently of each other, have been recorded in recent years by specialists from India, China and Japan using their automatic spacecraft.
Supporters of the “moon conspiracy,” however, are not giving up. Not really trusting all this evidence, they claim that an unmanned vehicle sent to the Earth’s satellite could have left traces on the Moon.
How Hollywood played into the hands of skeptics
In 1977, the American feature film Capricorn 1, based on the “lunar conspiracy” theory, was released. According to its plot, the US presidential administration sends a supposedly manned ship to Mars, although in fact the crew remains on Earth and reports from a specially built pavilion. At the end of the mission, the astronauts must appear before the admiring Americans, but upon returning to Earth, the spacecraft burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. After this, the special services are trying to get rid of the astronauts, officially declared dead, as unwanted witnesses.
The film “Capricorn-1” significantly increased the number of skeptics who believe that such a scenario could well be applied to the lunar program, especially since the authors used references to the real history of the Apollo program in the plot. For example, at the beginning of the film, the US Vice President mentions that $24 billion has been spent on the Capricorn program. This is exactly how much was actually spent on the Apollo program. The film says that the US President was absent from the Capricorn launch due to urgent matters - the real head of the United States, Richard Nixon, was absent from the Apollo 11 launch for a similar reason.
Soviet cosmonauts: the Americans were on the moon, but they filmed something in the pavilion
It is interesting that Soviet cosmonauts and designers, theoretically most interested in exposing the “lunar conspiracy,” never expressed doubts that the Americans actually landed on the Moon.
Constructor Boris Chertok, one of the companions Sergei Korolev, wrote in his memoirs: “In the USA, three years after the astronauts landed on the Moon, a little book was published in which it was stated that there was no flight to the Moon... The author and publisher made good money on a deliberate lie.”
Spaceship designer Konstantin Feoktistov, who himself flew into space as part of the crew of the Voskhod-1 spacecraft, wrote that Soviet tracking stations received signals from American astronauts from the Moon. According to Feoktistov, “arranging such a hoax is probably no less difficult than a real expedition.”
Astronauts Alexey Leonov And Georgy Grechko, who took part in the Soviet manned flight program to the Moon, confidently declared: yes, the Americans were on the Moon. At the same time, they agreed that some of the landings were filmed in the pavilion. There is no crime in this - the staged footage was only supposed to clearly demonstrate to the public how everything really happened. A similar technique was used when covering the achievements of Soviet cosmonautics.
Astronomically expensive Moon
There is no merit to the argument that the United States did not have the technical capability to take astronauts to the Moon. All now declassified documents indicate that both the USA and the USSR had such a technical capability. However, in the Soviet Union, having lost the “lunar race”, they preferred to curtail further work, declaring that a manned flight to the Earth’s satellite was not planned.
Another question asked by supporters of the “moon conspiracy” is: if the Americans really visited the Moon, then why did they curtail further research?
The answer to this question is quite banal: it's all about money.
Having lost almost all the main prizes of the first stage of the “space race,” the United States threw incredible amounts of money at that time into a manned flight to the Moon. In the end, this allowed them to win.
But when the euphoria subsided, it became clear that the “lunar prestige” was placing a heavy burden on the American economy. As a result, it was decided to cancel the Apollo program - as they thought, in order to return to the Moon in a few years with a more extensive and cheaper research program.
Conspiracy theory 2.0
Programs for the construction of permanent lunar bases were developed in both the USA and the USSR. All of them were interesting from a scientific point of view, but required truly astronomical investments. The question of industrial development of the Moon remains a matter of the distant future.
As a result, no earthling has flown to the Moon for more than 45 years. And this became the reason for many supporters of the “lunar conspiracy” to become adherents of its, so to speak, modernized version.
According to it, American astronauts really were on the Moon, but found traces of the presence of an alien civilization there, which it was decided to keep in the strictest confidence. That is why flights to the Moon were officially stopped, and a cover operation was launched in the media, part of which was disinformation about the staging of the Apollo program.
But this is a topic for a separate story.
Each nation individually and all of humanity as a whole strives only forward to conquer new horizons in the field of economic development, medicine, sports, science, new technologies, including the study of astronomy and space exploration. We hear about big breakthroughs in space exploration, but did they really happen? Did the Americans land on the moon or was it just one big show?
Spacesuits
Having visited the “US National Air and Space Museum” in Washington, anyone can verify that the American spacesuit is a very simple robe, hastily sewn. NASA states that the spacesuits were sewn at a factory for the production of bras and underwear, that is, their spacesuits were made from the fabric of underpants and they supposedly protect from the aggressive space environment, from radiation that is deadly to humans. However, maybe NASA really has developed ultra-reliable suits that protect against radiation. But why then was this ultra-light material not used anywhere else? Not for military purposes, not for peaceful purposes. Why was no assistance provided with Chernobyl, albeit for money, as American presidents like to do? Okay, let’s say perestroika hasn’t started yet and they didn’t want to help the Soviet Union. But, for example, in 1979 in the USA, a terrible reactor unit accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. So why didn’t they use durable spacesuits developed using NASA technology to eliminate radiation contamination - a time bomb on their territory?
Radiation from the sun is harmful to humans. Radiation is one of the main obstacles in space exploration. For this reason, even today all manned flights take place no further than 500 kilometers from the surface of our planet. But the Moon has no atmosphere and the level of radiation is comparable to outer space. For this reason, both in a manned spacecraft and in a spacesuit on the surface of the Moon, astronauts had to receive a lethal dose of radiation. However, they are all alive.
Neil Armstrong and the other 11 astronauts lived an average of 80 years, and some are still living, like Buzz Aldrin. By the way, back in 2015 he honestly admitted that he had never been to the moon.
It is interesting to know how they were able to survive so well when a small dose of radiation is enough to develop leukemia - blood cancer. As we know, none of the astronauts died from cancer, which raises only questions. Theoretically, it is possible to protect yourself from radiation. The question is what protection would be sufficient for such a flight. Engineers' calculations show that to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation, the walls of the ship and spacesuit needed to be at least 80 cm thick and made of lead, which, naturally, was not the case. No rocket can lift such weight.
The suits were not just hastily riveted together, but they lacked simple things necessary for life support. Thus, the spacesuits used in the Apollo program completely lack a system for removing waste products. The Americans either endured it with plugs in different places throughout the entire flight, without peeing or pooping. Or they immediately recycled everything that came out of them. Otherwise, they would simply suffocate from their excrement. This does not mean that the system for removing waste products was bad - it was simply absent.
Astronauts walked on the moon in rubber boots, but it is interesting to know how they did it when the temperature on the moon ranges from +120 to -150 degrees Celsius. How did they obtain the information and technology to make shoes that could withstand wide ranges of temperatures? After all, the only material that has the necessary properties was discovered after the flights and began to be used in production only 20 years after the first landing on the Moon.
Official chronicle
The vast majority of space images from NASA's lunar program do not show stars, although Soviet space images have an abundance of them. The black empty background in all the photographs is explained by the fact that there were difficulties with modeling the starry sky and NASA decided to completely abandon the sky in its photographs. When the US flag was planted on the moon, the flag fluttered under the influence of air currents. Armstrong straightened the flag and took a few steps back. However, the flag did not stop fluttering. The American flag fluttered with the wind, although we know that in the absence of an atmosphere and in the absence of wind as such, a flag cannot flutter on the Moon. How could astronauts move so quickly on the Moon if gravity is 6 times lower than on Earth? An accelerated view of astronauts jumping on the Moon shows that their movements correspond to movements on Earth, and the height of the jumps does not exceed the height of jumps in Earth's gravity. You can also find fault with the pictures themselves for a long time regarding the differences in colors and minor mistakes.
Lunar soil
During the lunar missions under the Apollo program, a total of 382 kg of lunar soil was delivered to Earth, and samples of the soil were presented by the American government to leaders of different countries. True, all regolith, without exception, turned out to be a fake of terrestrial origin. Part of the soil mysteriously simply disappeared from museums; another part of the soil, after chemical analysis, turned out to be terrestrial basalt or meteorite fragments. Thus, BBC News reported that a fragment of lunar soil stored in the Dutch museum Rijskmuseulm turned out to be a piece of petrified wood. The exhibit was given to Dutch Prime Minister Willem Dries and after his death the regolith went to the museum. Experts doubted the authenticity of the stone back in 2006. This suspicion was finally confirmed by an analysis of lunar soil carried out by specialists from the Free University of Amsterdam; the expert conclusion was not reassuring: the piece of stone is a fake. The American government decided not to comment on this situation in any way and simply hushed up the matter. Similar cases also occurred in the countries of Japan, Switzerland, China and Norway. And such embarrassments were resolved in the same way, the regoliths mysteriously either disappeared or were destroyed by fire or the destruction of museums.
One of the main arguments of opponents of the lunar conspiracy is the recognition by the Soviet Union of the fact of the Americans landing on the moon. Let's analyze this fact in more detail. The United States understood perfectly well that it would not be difficult for the Soviet Union to make a refutation and provide evidence that the Americans never landed on the moon. And there was plenty of evidence, including material evidence. This is the analysis of lunar soil, which was transferred by the American side, and this is the Apollo-13 apparatus caught in the Bay of Biscay in 1970 with full telemetry of the launch of the Saturn-5 launch vehicles, in which there was not a single living soul, there was not a single astronaut. On the night of April 11-12, the Soviet fleet lifted the Apollo 13 capsule. In fact, the capsule turned out to be an empty zinc bucket, there was no thermal protection at all, and its weight was no more than one ton. The rocket was launched on April 11 and a few hours later on the same day, the Soviet military found the capsule in the Bay of Biscay.
And according to the official chronicle, the American spacecraft circled the Moon and returned to Earth supposedly on April 17, as if nothing had happened. At that time, the Soviet Union received irrefutable evidence that the Americans had faked the moon landing, and it had a fat ace up its sleeve.
But then amazing things began to happen. At the height of the Cold War, when a bloody war was going on in Vietnam, Brezhnev and Nixon, as if nothing had happened, met like good old friends, smiled, clinked glasses, and drank champagne together. This is remembered in history as the Brezhnev Thaw. How can we explain the completely unexpected friendship between Nixon and Brezhnev? Apart from the fact that the Brezhnev thaw began quite unexpectedly, behind the scenes, there were gorgeous gifts that President Nixon personally gave to Ilyich Brezhnev. So, on his first visit to Moscow, the American president brings Brezhnev a generous gift - a Cadillac Eldorado, hand-assembled by special order. I wonder for what merits at the highest level Nixon gives an expensive Cadillac at the first meeting? Or maybe the Americans were indebted to Brezhnev? And then - more. At subsequent meetings, Brezhnev is given a Lincoln limousine, and then a sporty Chevrolet Monte Carlo. At the same time, the silence of the Soviet Union about the American lunar scam could hardly be bought with a luxury car. The USSR demanded to pay big. Can it be considered a coincidence that in the early 70s, when the Americans allegedly landed on the moon, the construction of the largest giant, the KAMAZ automobile plant, began in the Soviet Union. It is interesting that the West allocated billions of dollars in loans for this construction, and several hundred American and European automobile companies took part in the construction. There were dozens of other projects in which the West, for such inexplicable reasons, invested in the economy of the Soviet Union. Thus, an agreement was concluded on the supply of American grain to the USSR at prices below the world average, which negatively affected the well-being of the Americans themselves.
The embargo on Soviet oil supplies to Western Europe was also lifted, and we began to penetrate their gas market, where we are still successfully operating to this day. Apart from the fact that the United States allowed such profitable business with Europe, the West, in fact, built these pipelines itself. Germany provided a loan of more than 1 billion marks to the Soviet Union and supplied large-diameter pipes, which at that time were not produced in our country. Moreover, the nature of warming demonstrates a clear one-sidedness. The US is doing favors for the Soviet Union while getting nothing in return. Amazing generosity, which can easily be explained by the price of silence about the fake moon landing.
By the way, recently the famous Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who everywhere defends the Americans in their version of the flight to the Moon, confirmed that the landing was filmed in the studio. Indeed, who will film the epoch-making opening of the hatch by the first man on the moon if there is no one on the moon?
Busting the myth that Americans walked on the moon is not just an insignificant fact. No. The element of this illusion is interconnected with all the world's deceptions. And when one illusion begins to collapse, the rest of the illusions begin to collapse after it, like a domino principle. It is not only misconceptions about the greatness of the United States of America that are crumbling. Added to this is the misconception about the confrontation between states. Would the USSR play along with its irreconcilable enemy in the lunar scam? It's hard to believe, but, unfortunately, the Soviet Union played the same game with the United States. And if this is so, then it now becomes clear to us that there are forces that control all these processes that are above the states.
Questions, questions...
Friends from Kyiv sent me an American film from the Island World studio "For all mankind"("For all mankind" - with polyphonic translation into Russian), directed by Al Reinert, released in 1989 to mark the 20th anniversary of the landing on the moon by the first people - American astronauts N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin. The film raises a lot of questions, even without watching it.
"For All Mankind", full NASA movie (1989)
(without translation into Russian - in English)
For example, why is the Soviet audience not familiar with him? Why were this and the next anniversary films never shown on our television? Let’s say that it was not shown in the USSR for ideological reasons, but already under Gorbachev we opened the doors to the propaganda of our older, pale-faced brother. Why did US agitprop never insist that its main achievement - the landing on the moon - be promoted in the conquered country?
Long road
A few general numbers. This supposed documentary about the first men on the moon runs 75 minutes. After about half an hour, you will definitely start swearing: when will the moon finally appear? The fact is that the landing on the Moon and everything else about the astronauts’ stay on the Moon (all of them, not just Armstrong and Aldrin) take up only about 25 minutes in the film, and the filming on the Moon is about 20.5 minutes, and the astronauts themselves there are less than 19 minutes. You will agree that this is not much, if you consider that, according to legend, the astronauts of all expeditions spent about 400 hours on the Moon.
You ask: But what do the first 50 minutes show in the film? Whatever!
How astronauts dress before launch, how they are examined, how they walk, how they are lifted onto the ship, how they take off, how they admire the view of the Canary Islands from space, how they change clothes, how they eat, how they shave with an electric razor, how they throw objects suspended in zero gravity, how they sleep, again how they eat, again how they shave, although now with a safety razor. How they listen to music on an audio player, what kind of music it is, what the musicians said when they recorded it, etc. and so on. Since there is nowhere to rush, they show how the astronauts jokingly make a video about themselves, how they draw screensavers for it; these screensavers (4 or 5), of course, are necessarily shown to the audience. As astronauts broadcast a comic TV report about sports news from space, the scores of basketball league matches are broadcast. Etc. and so on. And all this with sparkling American humor. For example, they make fun jokes showing how the astronauts recover (it is explained in detail that bags with excrement must be tightly closed with lids, otherwise the excrement will stick all over the cabin). When one goes to recover, the others put on oxygen masks, making faces, letting the audience know that it stinks a lot. Funny. In general, there is an abyss of humor in the abyss of space. American.
To keep the audience from getting too bored, an accident is staged: “a leak of liquid oxygen in the service compartment where oxygen for the crew’s breathing is stored.” This liquid oxygen is shown gushing out like a fountain. For some reason, at the control center they look at something that looks like a battery and give a cheerful command: “Try plans No. 4 and No. 3.” At this command, the astronaut grabs a roll of tape and quickly seals something with it, brilliantly saving the lives of the crew.
The audience is not deprived of original views, but first a few words about the structure of the Apollo spacecraft. It is launched into Earth orbit by two stages of the Saturn rocket, and the third stage accelerates it towards the Moon. Apollo itself consists of a main block, which contains the crew cabin and engine. In this cabin, astronauts fly to the Moon and return to Earth. The main block engine slows down Apollo at the Moon and accelerates it to return to Earth. The lunar cabin is docked to the main block engines, in which two astronauts descend to the Moon and return to the main block. A landing platform is docked to the lunar cabin on the side of its engine, the engine of which lands the platform and the lunar cabin on the surface of the Moon. (The lunar cabin then launches from this platform).
Saturn 5 launch vehicle"
1. Emergency rescue system (ESS).
2. Apollo crew compartment
3. The engine compartment of the Apollo spacecraft.
4. Lunar cabin of the Apollo spacecraft.
5. Lunar platform.
6. Equipment compartment.
7. Third stage (S-4B rocket).
8. J-2 engine.
9. Second stage (S- rocket).
10. Five J-2 engines.
11. First stage (S-1C rocket.
12. Five F-1 engines.
The crew compartment is small: it is a cone with a diameter at the base of 3.9 m and a height of 3.2 m. The lower, widest part of the cone is filled with supplies and equipment, in the upper there are seats for three crew members, at the top of the cone there is a hatch for access to the lunar cabin . There are no gateways.
Nevertheless, 2 hours after launch from the cosmodrome, when Apollo with the third stage of Saturn was still supposed to be in Earth orbit, one of Armstrong’s crew decided to urgently take a walk in space: he opened the hatch and went outside. There were enough television cameras inside the crew compartment, but at that time they were not filming, and this is not surprising: after all, oxygen should be released from Apollo into the open hatch, and the two remaining crew members would also have to put on spacesuits. The astronaut who walked into outer space did so solely to hang in the vacuum of space and say, “Hallelujah, Houston.” Soon, Houston demanded that he return to the compartment, since in a few minutes the Apollo acceleration to the Moon began. By the way, the absence of the third stage of the Saturn was clearly visible.
The mission control center (MCC) looms annoyingly in the film. Since there is nothing to show in it - the consoles and the people behind them, the poor director did his best to diversify the picture: he showed how they worry in the control center, and how they rejoice, and how they laugh at the endless jokes of the astronauts, and how they yawn, and how they drink coffee, how they eat, how they smoke. The flight director's trousers and boots are shown three times in the film, and everyone should remember that the trousers are a little short and the boots are brightly polished. With this technique, at the very least, the director stretched the MCC footage into 9 minutes of the total film time.
Be that as it may, but in the end, with jokes, music and songs, the astronauts finally flew up to the Moon.
My tech-savvy friends argued that the Americans could not land on the Moon due to the fact that they had no experience in docking spacecraft. Really. According to legend, on the way to the Moon, astronauts were required to undock the Apollo main block from the third stage of Saturn, turn it 180 degrees and dock again to the lunar cabin so that the upper hatch of the main block aligned with the upper hatch of the lunar cabin, otherwise Armstrong and it was impossible for Aldrin to cross into it.
So, not a word is said about this most complex operation in the film! There are no shots of the astronaut remaining in the main block saying goodbye to those moving into the lunar cabin, there are no shots of their return. But this is not a scene of the astronauts discharging minor and major needs, or a scene of them shaving, these should have been shots of the most powerful drama. But they are not available for any lunar expedition! Moreover, after approaching the Moon, the crew compartment cameras were no longer turned on, and there is not a single frame of its interior. The main unit was always shown outside. If I’m right and the Americans dropped lunar cabins onto the Moon without astronauts, then so it should be, because all three astronauts were in the crew compartment and it was impossible to show it, just as it was impossible at that time to film scenes of farewells and meetings that did not take place without real weightlessness .
On the moon
Anyway. And so they finally sit down. A television camera located somewhere outside (neither it nor the windows on the lunar cabin were found in its drawings) films the landing on the Moon. About a few meters from the surface, as can be seen from the shadow on the surface of the Moon, what appears to be jets of gas from an engine flashes in front of the lens and then the camera shudders with the shock of landing. Not a pebble, not a sand, not a speck of dust flew out from under the engine of the lunar platform with a thrust in airless space of 4530 kG. But when at the end of the film the launch of the lunar cabin of some next Apollo is shown from the Moon, starting from its metal platform, then from the jet of the engine with a thrust of 1590 kgf stones flew upward with enormous speed, to the eye no less than 20-50 kg. Nothing to say - cinema! Hollywood. By the last episode, they realized that the engine jet must somehow act on the ground.
A few words about the fact that people who are confident that the Americans were on the Moon consider the lighting spotlights from the filming pavilion that appeared in numerous photographs to be lens flares. The spotlights were also included in the frames of this film and they are clearly distinguishable from glare. (When you turn the camera, the highlights change shape and follow the camera, but the spotlights remain stationary).
The Americans were the first to install corner reflectors of a laser signal on the lunar surface. Since then, the photon signal reflected from them has been repeatedly recorded in lunar laser ranging sessions at observatories in different countries, including the USSR. This is considered reliable evidence of Americans being on the Moon. True, opponents immediately admit that “similar instruments were later delivered to the Moon in Soviet experiments with Lunokhods and are used for the same purposes along with American ones,” i.e. To install them, it is not necessary for a person to land; this can also be done by an automatic station. The USSR also delivered a corner reflector to the Moon and took soil samples, but does not boast that its cosmonauts were on the Moon. So this is absolutely circumstantial evidence. And direct evidence of the presence of American astronauts on the Moon is genuine film and photography. You can’t make them just anywhere.
The most touching, of course, are the shots of the installation of the American flag. “On the Moon” one astronaut drove a peg into the ground, another planted a flagpole on it. According to legend, the flag was made of rigid fabric on a wire frame, i.e. the flagpole looked like the letter "G". So the flag had only one free corner, and this corner showed that it was indeed free. It fluttered so merrily in the wind of the “airless” space of the “Moon” that the astronaut was forced to pull it down. The corner is sagging. But as soon as the astronaut walked away, the flag fluttered cheerfully again. (Probably, some damn Negro opened all the time and closed the gate in the filming pavilion, creating a draft).
Since the obvious absurdity of these shots began to immediately catch the eye of any more or less intelligent person, fans of America tried to get out of the situation by offering some explanations for this fact. It is worth dwelling on them in more detail. At the moment, all pro-American scientists adhere to one of two mutually exclusive hypotheses. The first claims that “these are just natural vibrations of the elastic flagpole-flag system.” But you need to not only know these clever words, but also figuratively imagine what they are. Take something elastic, for example, a ruler, pinch one end, pull it back and release the free one. These are elastic vibrations in their purest form. Their peculiarity, like any oscillations, is that the oscillating part of the system constantly deviates from the zero position - the one in which the oscillations will die down.
So, in the film there is no hint of these very “elastic vibrations”. The flag is blown away by the wind in one direction from the zero position, and the ribbon trailing behind the astronaut “going into space” is also blown away in one direction. She always covers him on one side only and flutters in the draft. Those. and “going into space” is also a Hollywood fake. By the way, with this “exit” cumulus clouds are visible as close as they are visible from an airplane, and not from a space station. (By the way, American journalists themselves caught NASA giving the press photographs of the “spacewalk” that were obviously falsified). By giving this fake, the Americans are showing that they are sorely lacking material for a film about a flight to the Moon. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that in the scene of the spacewalk there are a number of frames of clearly cosmic origin: in particular, the switching on of the main engine in Earth orbit - the jet from the engine is exactly what it should be when expiring into a vacuum (severely underexpanded), visible its structure in the form of shock waves. So they still flew into space. And installation is a matter of technology.
The second hypothesis is the assumption that the flag had a motor, which created vibrations. But, in addition to the fact that this is quite difficult to imagine, it should also be noted that the oscillations created by the motor must, firstly, be strictly periodic, and secondly, have a wave profile that is constant over time. We don't see anything like this in the photographs. Of course, enthusiasts can assume that there, inside the flag, there was also a Pentium II or even III (and why not? Next to the motor!), which pulls the flag at random intervals in a random direction with random force, but still We do not consider the area of science fiction.
In addition, a significant caveat should be made: Truth is always concrete, and therefore it is impossible to implement both mutually exclusive hypotheses. If the issue is free oscillations, then why involve the hypothesis with a motor? After all, this is simply stupid! If there was a motor, then who do you need to be to believe in the hypothesis of free oscillations? Whatever you want, even if one of these hypotheses were true, it means that the supporters of the other are simply extremely stupid. Sometimes there are individuals who try to combine these two hypotheses and talk about free oscillations with a motor, but this stems from a basic ignorance of physics, and, apart from advice to read school textbooks, such people simply have nothing to say.
Another psychologically very interesting episode. The astronauts, like O. Bender, showed the world proof that they were really in the airless space of the Moon. One astronaut took a hammer in one hand and a bird feather (!) in the other, raised them to shoulder height and released them at the same time. The hammer and the feather fell to the ground at the same time. But, firstly, what is important to us is not this cheap trick, but the fact that the American children of Lieutenant Schmidt planned this on Earth in order to prove their stay on the Moon, for which the astronauts carried a “feather” with them. If they really were on the moon, then why is this necessary? Secondly, Hollywood was not smart enough to understand that they conducted a physical experiment by which one can calculate the acceleration of free fall, and by its value understand whether this is happening on the Moon or not. I think that if they understood this, they would stick a feather in the ass of whoever came up with this trick. But more on that below.
All the “lunar” shots are frankly playful: the astronauts play out their stay on the Moon, and this catches your eye. For example, an episode: between a television camera and two astronauts there is approximately 20 m of sandy surface. About 2 meters from the camera, a stone 10 centimeters in diameter and 20 centimeters in height sticks out vertically. There are no other more or less large stones anywhere else. In theory, the astronauts themselves were supposed to install the television camera and, moving away from it, were obliged to trip over this stone. The episode has begun. The astronaut from afar moves back to the camera and joyfully exclaims: “Look, what a stone!” And in the center of the frame it begins to rise. Those. This is the “lunar” version of the joke about the piano in the bushes.
There is not a single documentary, natural episode in this filming “on the Moon”. Here is an astronaut demonstrating useful activity - driving a small pin into the ground. There are no wires coming from the pin, there are no devices - a bare metal pin. He hammered, put the hammer in his pocket, turned and ran, singing some song. Why did he take him to the moon and why did he kill him?
The lunar scenes with the astronauts are clearly played in slow motion in order to create the appearance of the astronauts moving “like on the Moon.” When running and jumping, astronauts slowly lift off the surface and slowly descend. For several minutes in the film they deliberately fall to show that the fall is slow. If we consider the risk of a real and very careful stay on the Moon, then the behavior of the astronauts with their self-indulgence and falls clearly indicates that if they and the Mission Control Center are not completely kamikazes, then this is not the Moon.
Let's get back to running. If you ignore the slow motion, you can see that the astronauts in their spacesuits are having a very hard time. But they are on the Moon, where the weight is six times less than on earth, despite the fact that the muscle strength remains the same. Let's say, astronaut Aldrin in a spacesuit (about 11 kG) and with a life support pack (45 kG) weighs 161 kG on Earth, and 27 kG on the Moon. Let's remember school and do a little math.
Running on the Moon
When walking and running, the leg lifts us off the ground and throws us up to a certain height h. The energy of this throw is equal to our weight multiplied by this height. On the Moon, our weight will be 6 times less, therefore, with the same usual muscular effort, the leg will throw us to a height h 6 times higher than on Earth.
From high h we are returned to earth by the force of its gravity over time t, calculated by the formula
(It seems doubtful to me that such a decrease in speed would be noticeable by eye; I’m afraid that I won’t be able to tell by eye whether a person is walking at a speed of 5 km/h or 4.1 km/h, whether a car is driving at a speed of 10 km/h or 8 km/h).
Let's assume that on Earth Aldrin, wearing only his shorts, makes it above the surface in the 0.14 seconds we have calculated. a step 0.9 m long. On the Moon in a spacesuit, his speed will decrease by 1.22 times, but the time before descending to the surface will increase by 0.71/0.14 = 5.1 times, therefore, Aldrin’s step width will increase by 5 ,1/1.22 = 4.2 times, or up to 0.9 x 4.2 = 3.8 m. The spacesuit makes movement difficult and, let’s say, for this reason its step will decrease by 0.5 m on Earth. On the Moon it will also decrease by this distance and amount to 3.8 - 0.5 = 3.3 m.
Therefore, on the Moon in a spacesuit, the astronauts' step speed above the surface should be slightly slower than on Earth, but the height of the rise with each step should be 4 times higher than on Earth, and the width of the step should be 4 times wider.
In the film, the astronauts run and jump, but the height of their jumps and the width of their steps are much smaller than on Earth. This is not surprising, because when they were filmed in Hollywood, they still had at least an imitation of a spacesuit and a life support pack, they were pretty loaded and it was hard for them. And replaying the filming in slow motion cannot hide this heaviness. Astronauts tread very heavily with their feet when running, kilograms of sand fly out from under their feet, they can barely lift their legs, and their toes are constantly paddling along the surface. But slowly...
Such an episode. Aldrin, with jokes and jokes, jumps from the last step of the lunar module to the “Moon”. The height is about 0.8 m, he holds onto the ladder with his hands. Since his weight in the spacesuit is 27 kg, i.e. is four times lighter than wearing only shorts on Earth, then for his trained muscles this jump is equivalent to jumping on Earth from a height of 0.2 m, i.e. from one step. Let each of you jump from such a height, without even holding on to anything with your hands, and look at your condition. Aldrin, when jumping from the step, slowly sank to the surface, then his knees began to bend and he bent at the waist, i.e. he hit the moon so hard that his trained muscles could not hold his body upright in the spacesuit.
Ground pressure
A little preface to the next calculation. My opponent brought me a thick book “Lunar soil from the Sea of Abundance” Nauka, M., 1974 so that I could read it myself and make sure that the lunar soil delivered by the Soviet automatic station “Luna-16” corresponded to the soil taken by the astronauts . Yes, that's what the book says. But how is this established? Our scientists reported to the Americans the results of studies of lunar soil, and the Americans informed us that they had the same thing. Of the 400 kg of American “lunar soil”, not a single gram was sent to the USSR for research, and, it seems to me, that is still the case. Yes, some amount of lunar soil can be obtained using automatic stations. But since these samples were taken in the absence of people - thoughtlessly, in the same way as they were taken by Soviet automatic stations - then the scientific result from the study of these samples should not have differed much from zero.
The American Lunar and Planetary Institute holds 2 conferences a year dedicated to the Moon, and a lot of lectures are given there. And yet, we know little about the composition of the Moon. Where does this knowledge come from? Two or three point samples from the most uninteresting and uninformative points of the Moon - from flat areas? These samples can be analyzed for at least a hundred years using any new methods of analysis, but still these analyzes will not say anything about the Moon, since on the surface of the Moon, as on the Earth, there may be God knows what, not related either to the crust or to the structure of the planet . But there is not the slightest hint that the Americans made even the slightest attempt at geological exploration on the Moon! The USSR, with the help of then imperfect automatic stations, could not conduct any geological exploration, but they - with people and cars - why didn’t they try to do it? Why weren’t soil samples, bedrock and ore deposits meaningfully sampled?
The fact is that, with the help of their lunar soil, the Americans were ahead of the USSR in only one issue - in proving the existence of paranormal phenomena.
A specialist in this matter, A. Kartashkin, in the book “Poltergeist” (M., “Santax-Press”, 1997) reports this:
“Alexander Kuzovkin wrote an article “Some aspects of the manifestation of the UFO and poltergeist phenomenon.”
It tells (with reference to the newspaper "Moskovskaya Pravda" dated October 6, 1979) about an absolutely incredible incident. Let us remember that by that time American astronauts had already visited the Moon and brought back samples of lunar soil to Earth. Of course, this soil was immediately placed in a special, sophisticatedly encrypted storage facility. Suffice it to say that this storage facility cost $2.2 million to design and build. Of course, the room with lunar soil was guarded with particular partiality. It is even more amazing that a significant number of lunar soil samples soon... disappeared without a trace" . (Emphasis added - original article)
And Americans lament that we know very little about the Moon. How can you find out more if Barabashka stole the most valuable samples from the unfortunate Americans? How do you like this American Drum? No patriotism!
Regarding the traces of the soles of astronauts “on the Moon,” the following data from the above-mentioned book on lunar soil is interesting. The researchers write (p. 38) that the lunar soil is “easily shaped and crushed into separate loose lumps. Traces of external influences—the touch of a tool—are clearly imprinted on its surface. The soil easily holds a vertical wall...” It formally follows from this that shoe protectors astronauts, squeezing the soil from above and from the sides, could leave a clear mark. (Although I find it difficult to understand how the researchers could estimate the moldability of the soil with a sample less than a stack in size.) But the researchers write that the soil “...when poured freely, has an angle of repose of 45 degrees (and gives a photo). That is, the soil without pressing does not “hold the wall.” If we pour wet sand into a glass on the beach, and then we turn the glass over and remove it, then the sand will retain the internal shape of the glass, it will hold the wall even without pressing, with free pouring in. And if we pour dry sand into the glass and turn it over, the sand will spread, forming a cone with an angle of repose, i.e. it does not hold the wall.
It follows that the tread mark of the soles of American astronauts should be clear only in the center, and along the edges of the shoes, where the soil is not pressed, it should crumble at an angle of 45 degrees. This is the kind of trace - with crumbling edges - that our Lunokhod left on the Moon. In American photos, the soil holds a wall on the footprints both in the center and at the edges. Those. This is not lunar soil, this is wet sand.
Further from this book you can find out the compressibility of lunar soil. But first, let's do the math. There is a famous full-length shot of Aldrin in profile. It is unlikely that he is less than 190 cm tall, taking into account the soles and his helmet. In relation to his height, the length of his shoes is approximately 40 cm. From the photos of individual astronaut footprints it is clear that the width of the footprint is almost equal to half its length, i.e. the area of the sole is about 800 sq. cm; to take into account the rounding of the sole, we will reduce this value by a quarter - to 600 sq. cm. The trail has 10 transverse treads, and taking into account the approximately equal sized depressions, these treads are 2 cm wide and high. Let us estimate the surface area of the treads to be half the total area of the sole, i.e. in 300 sq.cm. Aldrin's weight on the Moon is well known - 27 kg. Hence, the pressure on the ground using only protectors is less than 0.1 kgf/sq.cm.
From diagram 7 on page 579 in the mentioned book it follows that at such pressure the lunar soil will compress (settle) by less than 5 mm. Those. Even the treads of an astronaut’s soles could not be completely immersed in real lunar soil on the Moon. But in all the photos, the prints of the soles are imprinted so that the side surfaces of the shoes form vertical walls even above the sole! If these footprints really were on the Moon, then we would not see the complete footprints of the astronauts’ shoes, but only shallow strips of tread. No, it’s not the Moon, it’s all 161 kg of Aldrin’s earthly weight pressing on the wet sand!
Acceleration of gravity
Now let's return to the experiment with the falling of the hammer and the "feather". In this trick, it was important for the Americans that the hammer and the “feather” fall at the same time, but they did not realize that the time during which they fall is also important. The astronaut dropped them from a height of no less than 1.4 m. The average fall time based on several measurements gave the result of 0.83 seconds. From here, using the formula a = 2h/t squared, the acceleration of gravity is easily calculated. It amounted to 2 x 1.4 / 0.832 = 4.1 m/sec. squared. And on the Moon this value should be 1.6 m/sec. squared, that means it’s not the Moon! Have you experimented yet, smart guys?!
There is another episode in the film. An astronaut is running with a bag full of samples on his shoulder. One stone falls down while running and falls to the ground in 0.63 seconds. Even if the astronaut bent his knees very strongly while running, the height from which the stone fell could not be less than 1.3 m. According to the above formula, this gives the value of the acceleration of gravity of 6.6 m/sec. squared. The result is even worse!
I was faced with a question: is this difference not my error in measuring time? I took seven measurements of the time the stone fell and got (sec.): 0.65; 0.62; 0.61; 0.65; 0.71; 0.55; 0.61. On average - 0.63, we will not count the standard deviation, since even the maximum error in both directions turned out to be 0.08 seconds. If this were on the Moon, the time it would take for the stone to fall would be
The difference between 1.27 and 0.63 is much greater than the 0.08 second error I allowed. This means that this is not a mistake, and therefore not the Moon!
The launch of the lunar cabin from its platform from the Moon was also shown. Firstly, the flame of a running engine was not visible near the starting cabin. Nevertheless, several dozen stones very quickly flew out from under the platform. One stone had an upper zero point, after which it began to decline until it went off the screen. Based on the size of the cabin, I roughly estimated that while the stone was visible, it fell by 10 meters. But the time of fall could not be determined. I was unable to press the button on the stopwatch at the required speed: the minimum that I could squeeze out of the stopwatch and myself was 0.25 seconds. But the speed of the stone’s fall was even greater; it disappeared before the stopwatch could squeak under my finger. Therefore, let’s assume that the stone fell 10 m in exactly these 0.25 seconds. Then the acceleration of gravity is 2 x 10 / 0.252 = 320 m/sec2. This, you see, is somewhat more than 1.6 m/sec squared on the Moon and 9.8 m/sec. squared on Earth. Wasn't it the Sun?
I think that's what's going on here. The lunar cabin “at launch” was lifted up with a winch, and the winch cable cannot be secured so that it passes exactly through the center of gravity, and it is difficult to align the winch itself strictly at the center of gravity, and if you lift the cabin quickly and pull it, it will begin to swing ( hang out). I had to pull it slowly and then scroll the film very quickly. As a result, the stones, which simultaneously rose upward with an expelling charge, acquired incredible speed.
Battle for the Moon
But why did the Americans need it - to take a huge risk in order to deceive the entire population of the Earth? Why risk your career like that? Because, having lost to the Soviet Union in the lunar race, they lost everything - 30 billion from the federal budget, prestige, self-esteem, careers, jobs. No one in America would need this Moon for nothing, and no one could convince the American taxpayer to allocate money to an organization that is unable to defend the prestige of America. So there is a motive. NASA knew how to send three people to the Moon and FLY AROUND the Moon, but had no technical experience when it came to landing on the Moon. How to undock from the "mother" ship (flying in lunar orbit) and lower it into a smaller, self-contained "shuttle" (lunar module), launch a lunar landing rocket pushing the module with a force of 10,000 pounds, fly the module to the planned landing site, land, put on spacesuits, go to the surface, tinker, act out a scene on the surface, ride on the Moon, return to the module, take off, rendezvous and dock with the mother ship, and finally return to Earth.
That's why they faked everything. Considering that Stanley Kubrick's blockbuster 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed at the same time, the technology for the necessary special effects already existed. And for the tidy sum of 20 billion dollars you can make a very long movie.
In a video released on VHS cassette called "It's just a paper moon", American investigative journalist Jim Collier points out several minor inconsistencies, listed below:
1. Two Apollo astronauts, fully dressed in spacesuits, simply physically could not fit into the module and, in addition, open the door, because the door opened INWARDS, not outwards. They would not have been able to exit the module while wearing their spacesuits. He (D.K.) measured distances using film.
2. The Apollo astronaut was physically unable to squeeze through the tunnel connecting the mothership and the module. It's too narrow. Collier went to the NASA museum and measured it. The ends of the tunnel contained a ring of docking devices. The NASA "in-flight" footage we were talking about was supposedly taken during the flight to the Moon and shows the astronauts freely flying through the tunnel, which in itself says a lot, apart from the fact that there were no visible images on film. docking devices. Plus, to all this, the tunnel hatch opened in the wrong direction. So this filming was done ON EARTH.
3. Footage taken during the flight to the Moon shows BLUE light pouring through the windows of the spacecraft. But since in outer space there is no atmosphere capable of decomposing light into a spectrum, space is BLACK. These shots were taken ON GROUND, most likely in the cargo hold of a supersonic plane going into a deep dive to create the effect of weightlessness.
4. Photos taken by the astronauts who landed on the moon show the module standing on a flat, smooth, undisturbed surface. This could not have happened if they had actually landed on the moon using jet engines that were pressurized at 10,000 psi. The entire surface of the lunar landing site would have been seriously damaged. These pictures were taken ON GROUND.
5. There are no stars in any of the photographs of the Apollo astronauts. Not one. This can't be true. Astronauts, if they were on the Moon, would be surrounded by stars shining with white light, the presence of an atmosphere would not prevent them from sparkling to their fullest. These pictures were taken here ON EARTH. (The usual objection to this is that, due to different brightnesses, it is impossible to capture the surface of the Moon and the starry sky at the same time and in high quality. Opponents probably don’t know that the Moon is a very dark object, its albedo is only about 10%. Right now I’m holding in my hands the book “Course in General Astronomy” by Bakulin, Kononovich and Moroz, where on page 322 there is a photograph of the lunar landscape transmitted by the Luna 9 station. It shows a piece of the sky - and there are stars on it!)
6. Each astronaut and objects standing on the lunar surface cast many shadows, and shadows of varying lengths. This can't be true. There is no other source of light on the Moon other than the SUN, and, quite obviously, the light must fall in one direction. So these pictures were taken ON EARTH.
7. Considering that lunar gravity is 1/6 of Earth's gravity, the "rooster's tail" of dust raised by the wheels of the "dune stroller" (lunar rover) would have to rise SIX TIMES higher than it would be on Earth when driving with the same speed. But this is not the case. In addition, the dust falls in layers - LAYERS! Which is impossible where there is no atmosphere. The dust should have fallen in the same smooth arch as it had risen.
8. Even when disassembled, the lunar rover could not physically fit on the lunar module. Collier went and measured everything. A few feet are missing. Pictures taken “on the Moon” show astronauts HEADING to the module to remove the rover. After which the shooting ends. When the lunar panorama reappears, the rover has already been disassembled. How awesome!
9. The Lunar Module crashed - CRASHED - during its only test on Earth. So why was his next challenge trying to land on the MOON? If you were the wife of an astronaut, would you allow him to participate in such a suicide attempt?
10. None of the Apollo astronauts ever wrote a book on the topic “How I Went to the Moon” or any other memoirs on the same topic.
11. But that’s not all - far, far, far from all. We can also talk about the placement of engine guides, smoke from burning rocket fuel, and so on and so forth...
Two great discoveries
In 1982, 10 years after the full end of the lunar program, a beautifully illustrated book “Space Technology” was published by a team of American, Soviet and other authors. The chapter "Man on the Moon" was written by the American R. Lewis.
I will give the "Some Summary" section of this chapter in full, so that no one will think that I have hidden any of the outstanding American achievements. But I draw your attention to the fact that this chapter should contain only that knowledge about the Moon that was obtained thanks to man’s presence on this satellite of the Earth, and not general blah-blah. So consider what exactly R. Lewis wrote into this section to make it longer than three lines.
So: “The Apollo 17 expedition was the last expedition to the Moon. During six visits to the Moon, 384.2 kg of rock and soil samples were collected. During the implementation of the research program, a number of discoveries were made, but the most important are the following two. "First, it was established that the Moon is sterile, no life forms were found on it. After the flight of the Apollo 14 spacecraft, the previously introduced three-week quarantine for the crew was canceled."
Amazing discovery! The “Small Soviet Encyclopedia” for 1931 (I couldn’t find anything earlier) states: "The moon is devoid of atmosphere and water, and therefore life" . For this “important” discovery it was necessary to send people to the Moon?! And most importantly, what exactly did the astronauts do to make this discovery? Have you passed the quarantine, have you worked as experimental mice?
“Secondly, it was found that the Moon, like the Earth, went through a series of periods of internal heating. It has a surface layer - a crust that is quite thick compared to the radius of the Moon, a mantle and a core, consisting, according to some researchers, of iron sulfide ".
What exactly did the astronauts do to reach this conclusion? Indeed, in their soil samples (as in Soviet ones) sulfur is completely absent! How did the Americans determine that the core consists of iron sulfide?
“Although the chemistry of the Moon and Earth are quite similar, they differ significantly in other respects, which confirms the point of view of scientists who reject the idea that the Moon separated from the Earth during the formation of planets.
The conclusion that no forms of life have ever existed on the Moon is confirmed by the complete absence of water here, at least on or near the lunar surface."
According to limited seismic data, the crust of the part of the Moon closest to us is 60-65 km thick. On the part of the Moon distant from us, the crust may be somewhat thicker - about 150 km. The mantle is located under the crust to a depth of about 1000 km, and the core is even deeper.
30 years later, the Americans began sending automatic stations to the Moon in order to still find out what their astronauts had supposedly already “discovered”.
The results are reported, for example, in the article (Feldman W., Maurice S., Binder B., Barraclough B., Elphic R., Lawrence D. Fluxes of fast and epithermal neutrons from Lunar Prospector: evidence for water ice at the lunar poles // Science. 1998. V. 281. P. 1496 – 1500.) Read.
The American spacecraft Lunar Prospector operated in lunar orbit for eighteen months.
Throughout its mission, this device, weighing 295 kg and slightly larger than a home washing machine, continually puzzled scientists with amazing discoveries. For the first time in early 1998, the Lunar Prospector stunned the scientific community with the discovery of huge amounts of ice in the shadowed areas near the lunar poles!
When rotating around our natural satellite, the device experienced minor changes in its speed. Calculations based on these indicators revealed the presence of a core on the Moon. Assuming that, like on Earth, it consists mainly of iron, experts calculated its dimensions. In their opinion, the radius of the lunar core should be from 220 to 450 km (the radius of the Moon is 1738 km).
Lunar Prospector's magnetometers detected a weak magnetic field near our natural satellite. Based on this field, the dimensions of the nucleus were clarified. Its radius turned out to be 300-425 km. With such dimensions, the mass of the core should be about 2% of the mass of the Moon. Let us emphasize that the Earth’s core, with a radius of about 3400 km, accounts for a full third of the planet’s mass.
So . Valiant American astronauts “found out” that the core of the Moon has a radius of 1738-1000 = 738 km. And the automatic station found out that it is equal to 300-425 km, half as much! Valiant astronauts “found out” that the core of the Moon consists of iron sulfide. And the Lunar Prospector found out that there is little iron in the core. The valiant astronauts “found out” that there is no ice on the Moon. And Lunar Prospector found out that there are many!
So how do the results of the American moon landing differ from idle chatter?
I think I have already answered the question raised at the beginning of the article - why the Americans do not demand that Russian TV show these films about their “most outstanding victory in the 20th century.” We, the generation that received a normal education, have not yet died out, we have not yet been completely replaced by those who chose Pepsi and safe sex. Well, how can we show such nonsense? And, looking at this American propaganda fake about the moon landing, we have to admit: no, guys, you weren't standing there!
Donald Trump's adviser admitted that the Apollo mission never reached the Earth's satellite
Donald TRUMP gave American astronauts an ambitious order - to resume flights to the Moon and lay the foundation for the future conquest of Mars.
Our astronauts will return to the Moon for the first time since 1972. This time we will not only leave our flag and footprints there, the US President promised.
The easiest thing would be to leave all this stupid talk about flying. Because the mission was and remains impossible.
NASA expects to conduct the first flight of an uninhabited capsule around the Moon in 2019. If successful, the next mission will already have a crew on board. But this will not happen until 2021.
That is, in 1972 they supposedly walked calmly on the Earth’s satellite, but now, 50 years later, they are not sure that they will even get there. It turns out that technology has not developed all this time, but has degraded.
The adviser commented on the inconsistency Donald Trump in Science and Technology, Professor at Yale University David Gelnerter. He openly stated that the Americans did not fly to the Moon and Apollo never landed there.
The first Rovers were just models and did not know how to drive. That's why the NASA photo shows footprints, but no tire tracks.
If NASA scientists today claim that they still don't know how to properly protect a spacecraft from radiation in the Van Allen Belt, why the hell are we supposed to believe that they walked through it in aluminum foil spacesuits in 1971? The answer is very simple: this never happened,” he told reporters from the threshold of the White House.
American newspapers, naturally, did not publish the words of this high-ranking “madman.” NASA supported Trump’s optimistic promises with another portion of declassified footage of the lunar expedition. The film, as always, is of disgusting quality, making it more difficult to discern the forgery.
Later the car was improved, and astronauts rode it in the desert In the video we watch the astronauts ride on the Rover self-propelled vehicle. Previously, Rover was shown only in a parked version. It was funny. In the first photographs of the lunar vehicle, everyone noticed the absence of wheel tracks. There are plenty of astronauts' footprints, but none from wheels. Neither in front nor behind. How did the lunar vehicle end up in this particular place without leaving any trace of its arrival? There was a version that he was simply placed on the set with a crane.
Now the Rover is moving. Familiarity with a school physics course is enough to understand that the car rolls on the Earth, and not on the Moon. This can be seen from the trajectory of soil flying out from under the wheels. Sand settles and stones fly, although in airless space they should fall at the same speed.
There is no air on the moon. Therefore, both pebbles and the smallest particles, meeting no resistance, fly along symmetrical trajectories In addition, it is not clear why they needed a car on the Moon with an electric motor power of only one horsepower. And it is doubtful that the lunar module would suddenly have 325 kilograms of carrying capacity to load this strange cart.
The Americans wanted to demonstrate to the whole world their undoubted technical superiority, but the pursuit of special effects played another cruel joke on them.
On Earth, grains of sand, due to air resistance, fly along sharply asymmetrical trajectories resembling a triangle and fall In general, cinema is cinema.
Americans are as far from the moon today as they were in 1972.
What kind of Moon can we even talk about if they can’t even take off without our engines,” explains the senator Alexey Pushkov.
Really. The Americans can't live without our engines. But now their power is clearly not enough to implement the lunar program. And guess who will be the first to rush to the satellite when there is enough of it. Naturally, we will not see any American flank there.
It’s even clear how the State Department will explain it: “It was stolen by aliens.”
The triangular shape of the plume behind the supposedly lunar “Rover” corresponds to the braking of grains of sand in the air Dying confession
In 2014, an interview with the famous film director was published Stanley Kubrick. His friend is also a director T. Patrick Murray interviewed him three days before his death in March 1999. Previously, Murray was forced to sign an 88-page non-disclosure agreement for the content of the interview for 15 years from the date of Kubrick's death.
In the interview, Kubrick spoke in detail and in detail about the fact that all the lunar landings were fabricated by NASA, and he personally filmed the footage of the American lunar expeditions in the pavilion.
KUBRIK was ruined by his long tongue In 1971, Kubrick left the US for the UK and never returned to America. All this time, the director led a reclusive life, fearing murder. He was afraid of being killed by the intelligence services, following the example of other participants in the television support of the US lunar scam. Actually, that’s what happened.
