• Question: Was the moon landing fake?

    Asked by Harvey Mills to Pam, Christopher, Andrew on 4 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by DORITOsnorterROBOTLEGGANG.
    • Photo: Christopher Youens

      Christopher Youens answered on 4 Mar 2019:


      Definitely not. There were six landings on the moon during the Apollo missions. This was built on the legacy of the Mercury missions which taught the Americans that a person could survive in space, to Gemini which covered spacewalking, rendezvous, docking, and long missions. By the time Apollo 7 launched there was a wealth of experienced gathered to allow for the moon missions, and even then they slowly built up to landing.

      Apollo 7 – Low earth orbit test of the command module
      Apollo 8 – First mission to orbit the moon (check out the earthrise picture from that mission, absolutely stunning)
      Apollo 9 – First test of the lander in space, whilst in earth orbit
      Apollo 10 – ‘Dress rehearsal’, nearly a complete mission with the lander getting to within a few miles of the surface of the moon
      Apollo 11 – First landing

      After that Apollos 12, 14, 15, 16, & 17 started to do more scientific experiments and sample collections. These samples are still being used by geologists today, and you can see a moon rock at the Science Museum in London!

      I’d really recommend a book called ‘Man on the Moon’ which talks a lot about the people involved with these missions, and the movie ‘Last Man on the Moon’ about Gene Cernan who flew during the Gemini missions, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17.

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