To quash any lingering doubts as to whether or not we went to the Moon, Astronomy is setting the record straight, once and for all.
The seven Project Apollo manned expeditions to the Moon will long be remembered as expressions of America's pioneering spirit and sheer technological prowess. That is, if the landings really happened.

For the past several decades, a small group of NASA-watching sleuths has repeatedly tried to pawn off the incredulous idea that the Apollo Noon program really was an elaborate, $30 billion hoax filmed in a movie studio. This group believes the United States needed to cement its world leadership during the Cold War by pretending to pull off what really was a technologically impossible stunt. Moon hoax proponents think they've come up with suspicious evidence that scientists, investigative reporters, and every- one else on Earth apparently has overlooked for more than thirty years. The far-out idea drew 15 million viewers when FOX-TV twice ran a documentary on this subject in 2003.

Seeds of doubt
In the October 30, 1938, theatrical radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds, actor Orson Welles managed inadvertently to convince 1.2 million Americans that martians were invading Earth. So, for conspiracy theorists, it's easy to imagine that with $30 billion and the awesome power of the United States government, the world could be made to believe almost anything. If Hollywood can fake perfectly believable dinosaurs, space aliens, and fantasy planets, why not a visit to the Moon?

A former aerospace technical writer, Bill Kaysing kicked off the Moon conspiracy idea in 1975 in a self-published book with the blunt title We Never Went to the Moon. Several copycats have followed him -- Moongate: Suppressed Findings of the U.S. Space Program by William L. Brian [1984], Ralph Rene's NASA Mooned America [1994], and Dark Moon-Apollo end the Whistle Blowers by Mary Bennet and others [1999].

But don't expect to find these books on The New York Times best- seller list. According to a 1999 Gallup poll, an inconsequential 5 percent of the population in the United States actually believes we never went to the Moon. [Coincidentally, this is the same percentage of the population estimated to be intoxicated at any given time.) However, 42 percent of the American population believes the government routinely hides information from us. This generalized suspicion keeps the Moon hoax idea popping up like a zombie in some cult-classic horror film: You blow its brains out, but the monster just keeps lumbering along.

Fuzzy logic
It doesn't help Moon conspiracy theorists that not one person from the Apollo era's 35,000 NASA employees or 200,000 contractors has ever stepped forward with "whistle-blowing" insider testimony or "smoking-gun" memos about a staged event. Conspiracy theorists also need to explain how the Hollywood special-effects wizards who presumably pulled off Academy-Award-winning moonwalk scenes have managed to remain stone silent for decades [despite the fact it would look great on their resumes!]. This lack of proof forces conspiracy theorists to counter that the government scared and murdered potential tattletales, including its own astronaut-heroes in a reprehensible assertion that the tragic 1967 Apollo 1 fire was rigged. A casual browse through Moon conspiracy Internet sites is a mind- numbing journey into the dark side of common sense. The conspiracy theorists are their own worst enemies. They serve up a witch's brew of paranoia, lamebrain science, goofy amateur photo-analysis, and gaping contradictions in logic you could sail the Titanic through. Dark Moon author Mary Bennet purportedly uncovered "secret" documents that show Apollo was a hoax. Bill Brian [Moongate] agrees Apollo was a scam but, suspects we reached the Moon with the aid of a secret, anti-gravity device that NASA reverse-engineered by copying parts of a captured, alien flying saucer.

Mission implausible
Under cold scrutiny, everyday logic, and low-level science, Apollo conspiracy theories implode faster than a black hole. NASA's own actions are inconsistent with how anyone would attempt to pull off a Moon hoax. If what actually happened during the Apollo program was scripted, the government showed a penchant for gambling and brinkmanship. For example, the government "pretended" to almost kill one of the crews [Apollo 13] to boost television ratings. NASA also had an astronaut "pretend" to break a camera [Apollo 12] after squandering billions of dollars on Hollywood special effects.

The scientific samples, photographic evidence, and telemetry from the Moon are incontrovertible. For this to be otherwise, the world's foremost planetary scientists would have to be dead wrong [imagine the book: Moon Rock Analysis for Dummies]. Or even more fantastic, scientists have their own international conspiracy to pawn off phony data -- an idea even more impossible than a government conspiracy.

The hours of astronaut moonwalk video are far too complex to have been faked with 1960s motion-picture special-effects technology [unless the Apollo billions were really spent building a time machine to bring back from the future an image-rendering computer and powerful animation software].

Seeing is believing
One Moon conspiracy theorist claim is that you can't simply look at the Moon and directly see evidence of human visitation. The six lunar-lander descent stages left on the Moon are small compared to our satellite as a whole -only about 15 feet across. Even the eagle-eyed Hubble Space Telescope can see an object no smaller than 265 feet across at the Moon's distance. However, two researchers, Misha Kreslavsky of Brown University and Yuri Shkuratov of the Kharkov Astronomical Observatory in the Ukraine, recently uncovered the first direct visual evidence of human visitation to the Moon. They had been comparing the 1994 Clementine lunar orbiter images with Apollo images taken more than thirty years ago for evidence of fresh cratering activity. In doing so, they discovered a disturbed regolith [but no impact crater] around the exact location of the Apollo 15 landing site.

Five small, nuclear-powered stations left behind by the astronauts transmitted telemetry information from twenty-five separate experiments, yielding information about the Moon's seismic activity, subsurface temperature, rate of micrometeorite impacts, and other surface properties. In77, the experiments were turned off for budgetary reasons. However, the central station transmitters continue to send signals that have been used for spacecraft navigation checks, gravitational experiments, mapping planetary positions, and precisely measuring Earth's shape. The stations also include a small mirror array called a retroreflector that astronomers have used to bounce laser beams off the Moon for more than thirty gears to precisely measure distances to an accuracy of three-quarters of an inch.

Some 842 pounds of Moon rocks -- ancient anthracites, lava basalts, and breccias {agglomerations of fractured pieces from meteorite impacts} -- have been shared with the worldwide geology community. Radioisotope dating of these samples indicates ages significantly older {4.4 billion years} than the oldest Earth rocks {3.8 billion years}, meaning the rocks are very well preserved, partly because they are bone-dry. You simply don't walk down to the beach and pick up a 4.4 billion-year-old rock. Trying to fool the entire geology community is like trying to fool Mother Nature. Where did these rocks come from if not from the Moon's surface?

Fantastic voyage
Fundamental to the conspiracy theory is our supposed inability to go to the Moon. Some scientists were saying the very same thing at the time American pioneer Robert Goddard was launching rockets in a Massachusetts farm field. The thought of humans traveling to the Moon was so fantastic even early science-fiction writers didn't predict it happening for centuries to come.

Going to the Moon certainly was rocket science. But you don't need breakthrough physics or warp-drive to make the trip. The modern rocket engine is based on science principles formulated by Isaac Newton centuries ago. The hardest part of going to the Moon is climbing out of Earth's gravitational field. The immense launch complex at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the extraordinary Saturn V rockets that hurled our astronaut pioneers to the Moon were what accomplished this task, and nothing was phony about them. Ask any one of the thousands of media or VIP guests who witnessed the mighty rockets climb majestically on Promethean flames into the topaz Florida skies.

Besides, NASA didn't need such a brawny rocket for a hoax. It could have launched a few small rockets {Saturn 1-B class} and explained it was assembling the Moon ship in low Earth orbit [a strategy considered in the 1960s]. Also, hoaxers could have gotten away with a single vehicle. The actual lunar orbit rendezvous approach -- requiring a separate orbiter and lander vehicle --was so complex it automatically invited scrutiny by doubters.

To the danger zone
To be sure, space travel is hazardous. One obstacle cited by detractors is the Van Allen radiation belts, which are caused by Earth's magnetic field. Electrons and protons zipping along magnetic field lines can degrade electronics on spacecraft. But rushing toward the Moon at 7 miles {11 km} a second, the Apollo astronauts spent just a few hours within the belts.

The biggest potential threat for space travelers is from solar flares. The radiation from a giant flare is equal to 40 billion atomic bombs exploding at once. Fortunately, this amount of radiation is dispersed widely through space.

Also, the Sun was at a minimum in its 11-year cycle of activity during the Apollo years, so deadly flares were rare. A radiation sensor outside the Apollo 12 spacecraft registered one small solar flare, but no increase in radiation dose to the crewmen in the spacecraft was detected.

Another popular Moon conspiracy idea is that micrometeoroids would have sandblasted the spacecraft either in space or on the Moon's surface. This far-out claim has no basis in reality. It's well documented that even when Earth passes through a particularly intense meteoroid shower, nothing happens to spacecraft. The November 1999 Leonid meteor storm, the most intense since the dawn of the space age, dramatized this point. Not one of seven-hundred operational satellites was damaged during the Leonid meteoroid onslaught.

Is it real or computer graphics?
The crux of the conspiracy theory is the allegation that the moonwalks were filmed on a huge movie set. The argument for synthetic images seems very believable when you look at a film like Red Planet {2000}, which offers convincing panoramas of astronauts trudging across Mars. Today we take all these fantasy scenes for granted thanks to the revolution in computer graphics and digital-image processing made possible by microcomputers. Now, images can be completely fabricated with precise control of all scene elements: lighting, texture, motion, and choreography.

Cinema special-effects technology of the 1960s was an emerging art and was truly primitive by today's awesome capabilities. No microcomputers, digital-image processing, or 3-D animation software existed. The decade's landmark space film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, illustrates the pinnacle of special-effects capability in the 1960s. 2001's special effects took more than two years to complete, employed an army of technicians and some of the movie industry's top effects-experts, and swallowed a big chunk of the film's $10.5 million budget.

Even by 1977, all the fantastic Star Wars scenes were classic studio effects. Making the final film involved the laborious process of optical printing, where separated elements of a scene had to be assembled directly onto motion-picture film by repeated passes of the film through gigantic optical printers. The film pioneered the computer motion-controlled camera -- critical for crafting space scenes as good as the Apollo footage.

Quiet on the Moon set
The first images from the 1969 Apollo 11 landing are so fuzzy it seems like almost anything could have been pulled off-- except the effects of the Moon's 1/6 gravity on astronaut motion. A cinematically naive assertion by Moon hoax advocates is that all scenes were filmed in the Nevada desert. To do this, technicians would have needed to block out the sky -- an inconceivable task to pull off without the use of a matte box in front of the lens to block some of the camera's view. This would have required that the camera remain stationary.

A key problem with a matte box is that shadows would have noticeably changed direction, shifting from west to east as the Sun moved across the sky during the hours of filming. [The Sun moves 15° per hour across Earth's sky, but 13° per day across the Moon's.]

Lunar photography 101
A boringly long and trivial list of conspiracy "proofs" exists that argues the moonwalks were artificially lit with classic Holly wood studio lighting. These claims prove only one thing-- the conspiracy theorists know less about photography than a high school freshman joining the camera club. Despite truly boneheaded assertions to the contrary, all Apollo images are absolutely accurate and consistent with the reality of a single, really bright light source -the Sun. The only "fill" lighting is from sunlight reflecting off the lunar surface.

Allegations of multiple shadows from multiple lights are red herrings. You can duplicate the Apollo shadows by taking pictures of select foreground and background objects on a sunny day with a $10 camera. The shadows are always parallel but converge toward a point on the horizon as seen in wide-angle lenses.

Topping it off is the highly publicized "gotcha" that there are no stars in the lunar sky. Perhaps the accusers forgot it was daytime on the Moon when pictures were shot. Try photographing stars at midnight with a simple camera pre-set for a sunny day and see what develops. The film used in the primitive Apollo cameras -- and even that in the cameras on the space shuttle today -- does not approach the dynamic range needed to capture faint starlight in a sunlit scene. As in 2001 and other space movies, Hollywood special-effects wizards could have inserted stars for artistic effect, but this would have been a dead giveaway the Apollo images were fake.

Mirror on reality
NASA's choice of reflective coatings on helmet visors for the Apollo astronauts also challenges the concept of a fraud. Any catalog photographer will tell you he or she spends hours setting up the lighting to photograph a shiny object like a toaster. The mirrored surface reflects the cam era and studio, so a photographer must build a "tent" around the object to reflect the light.

The astronaut helmets were not only reflective gold [for protection against ultraviolet radiation] but also curved, so they acted like wide-angle rear-view mirrors [caution: cinematographer may be closer than he appears]. The helmets would have reflected the entire hoax setup: lighting, cameras, and the soundstage technicians. Today, digital trickery allows for realistic reflections to be inserted onto visors. If the Apollo footage really was faked, NASA never would have selected such helmets. In all space movies --including 2001 -- astronauts have clear, see-through helmets. NASA could have done the same, and no one would have been any wiser.

Peter Pan on the Moon
I find it amazing that Moon conspiracy theorists obsess over nerdy details about lighting but blithely ignore the precise motion of all objects in the Moon's 1/6-gravity environment. This is the real nail in the coffin against faked Moon videos. Using real actors, it is absolutely impossible to duplicate motion in the absence of gravity or reduced gravity convincingly unless the shot is heavily reprocessed or synthesized digitally.

Conspiracy theorists can't dismiss hours and hours of Apollo footage showing all lunar objects following simple ballistic paths that appeared completely different than they would under the tug of Earth's gravity. This can't be done with slow motion or other conventional film effects. Endless subtleties exist in the Apollo scenes showing the precise, gentle pull of gravity on a true extraterrestrial world: the way dust flew along long, shallow parabolic trajectories when it was kicked up; the trajectories of myriad foil pieces blasted off the lander when the Apollo 16 ascent module lifted off. A final tour de force is footage of the entire Moon rover bouncing along on big arcs.

Curtain call
Thanks to FOX-TV's gambit for ratings, the Moon hoax got some time back in the spotlight, but the effect was minimal. This way-out idea will always hover on the dim periphery of basic common sense, alongside the outrageous collection of other equally absurd "it-never-happened" conspiracy theories.

But the Moon conspiracy folks discredit American heroes, anger a lot of space engineers and scientists, and exasperate NASA spokespersons. The "we-never-went-to-the-Moon" authors come off to the vast majority of the thinking public as nothing more than fools.

For as long as there is a civilization on Earth, the intelligence, boldness, and bravery of the men and women behind the Apollo missions will be remembered. That will never be said for their detractors. All they have managed to do is try and put our national heritage up for sale -- and for nothing more than TV ratings.

PHOTO (COLOR): Is this the moon or Nevada? The facts clearly show the manned landings on the Moon could not have been faked. Here, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity. Astronaut Nell Armstrong, commander, took this photograph with a 7Omm lunar-surface camera.

PHOTO (COLOR): A plume of flame signaled the liftoff of the Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle at 9:32 A.M. EDT on July 16, 1969, as astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin headed from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A to the Moon.

PHOTO (COLOR): Lunar orbiters have gathered recent evidence that we've been to the Moon. This image, taken by the Clementine spacecraft, shows a diffuse dark spot at the exact location of Apollo 15's lunar module, Falcon. Lunar geologists believe the discoloration was caused by the craft's engine blast at takeoff. The other designated areas and are related to fresh impact craters.

PHOTO (COLOR): Solar flares are a danger to astronauts in space. This hydrogen-alpha image of the Sun [the bright area to the upper right of the image is a large flare] was taken on June 7, 2003, from Portal, Arizona.

PHOTO (COLOR): Micrometeorites are not a threat to astronauts because impacts from them are rare and the holes they leave are tiny. This micrometeorite impact occurred on one of the metal test-collectors of Skylab, which orbited Earth from 1973 to 1979.

PHOTO (COLOR): Apollo is blasted off the lunar surface on its way to rendezvous with the orbiting command module and then back to Earth. Everything about the launch, which was documented on film by a camera aboard the lunar roving vehicle, appeared exactly as it should in 1/6 gravity.

PHOTO (COLOR): Astronaut Alan Shepard, Apollo 14 commander, stands by the U.S. flap= on the Moon's Fra Mauro Highlands. The fact that no stars appear in the sky is a result of the brilliant lunar landscape contrasting with the dark sky. The photographic film used in 1971 did not have sufficient dynamic range to record such differences in brightness.

PHOTO (COLOR): Shadows in Apollo images are consistent with what would be expected on the surface of an airless body at the Moon's distance from the Sun. This Apollo 14 image shows a front view of the lunar module Antares reflecting a circular flare caused by the brilliant Sun.

PHOTO (COLOR): Astronaut Alan Bean, lunar module pilot for Apollo 12, holds a container filled with lunar soil collected during extravehicular activity. The visor reflects no technicians or sound stage equipment a tough feat to pull off if this picture had been taken in a studio on Earth.

PHOTO (COLOR): Dust captured on film behaved exactly as expected in the Moon's reduced gravity. In this photograph, astronaut Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 mission commander, kicks up a bit of dust while driving the lunar roving vehicle during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity at the Taurus-Littrow landing site.