![]() Not even the Russians, who were years ahead of the US in the space race, ever came close.Īpollo sent 12 men 240,000 miles to the Moon and back, yet after the last mission in 1972, no other human being has ever travelled more than 400 miles above the surface of the Earth.ĭespite being orders of magnitude more complex and dangerous than anything else ever attempted before or since, and despite sending men 600 times further than would ever be achieved again, Apollo’s safety record is miraculous. Nobody has come anywhere near to replicating what was achieved. The Apollo landings were more than 45 years ago, yet it remains completely unprecedented as a technical achievement. ![]() Improbably, just over a year later, everything came together perfectly and on their very first attempt they successfully landed on the Moon without a hitch. ![]() If NASA were unable to successfully land the craft on Earth during testing, what chance did they have to do it on the Moon? In May 1968, Neil Armstrong was almost killed during failed testing of the Lunar lander. He felt they were so far behind that there was little chance of them making it in time to fulfil Kennedy’s promise. One of the astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 disaster - Gus Grissom, was so disenchanted with the progress they were making he hung a lemon off the Apollo lander. Could NASA really have pulled off the biggest hoax in history - the faking of the moon landings? Evidence for Apollo chaosĪs late as 1967, the Apollo program was in disarray. Since Kaysing’s book, opinion polls have somewhere between 6–20% of Americans believing the moon landings were a hoax, despite the vast majority of mainstream commentators regarding the belief as almost a byword for conspiratorial irrationality.īut Kaysing had some seemingly convincing evidence to back up his claims. Kaysing, whose employer Rocketdyne had worked on the Saturn V rocket, was suspicious of the Apollo program even before the moon landings, and alleged that NASA did not have the technology to achieve what they had claimed. Talk that the landings were faked arose immediately, but it wasn’t until Bill Kaysing, a senior technical writer for a NASA contractor, published his book ‘We Never Went to the Moon’ in the 1970s that the hoax theory really took hold. Indeed during a live ITV broadcast on the night of the landing, famous British TV historian AJP Taylor questioned the veracity of what he was seeing. The astronauts returned to Earth safely, bringing with them moon rocks and a whole array of iconic, beautifully framed photographs.īut the suspicion that it was a bit too perfect struck some almost immediately. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins ![]() Less than 8 years later an estimated 500 million people watched the incredible feat live on television - an astonishing demonstration of American preeminence to the world. President Kennedy announced the Apollo program in 1961, vowing to land man on the Moon before the end of the decade.Īfter years of floundering behind the Russians in the space race, the US took a leap forward unprecedented in its ambition. It’s the greatest achievement of mankind, but ever since Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon in 1969, conspiracy theories have abounded.
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