Conspiracy theorists who believe Michael Jackson was an alien and that the moon landing was a staged hoax set in a secret Hollywood studio may soon have to invent entire new wacko theories.
Nasa has confirmed that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be taking photos of the Apollo landing sites as they scout out new landing sites and seek to prove that we really did take one giant step for man-kind on the moon.
Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a robotic spacecraft designed to map out the moons surface to help prepare for future lunar missions.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will orbit 50 kilometres above the moons surface to carry out it's mission of mapping the Moon's surface in high-resolution (1 metre per pixel) images of the Moon's surface from pole to pole.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also carry instruments that will enable it to make detailed 3-D maps of the Moon's surface.
Nasa has yet to give specific timelines for the flyby and photo shoot but sometime soon there will hopefully be concrete proof consisting of hi-definition photos of the Apollo lunar module's descent stage (the bottom part of the lunar module that housed its propulsion system), which was left on the Moon's surface when the Apoolo astronauts re-joined the lunar command module orbiting the Moon.
Other remains left on the Moon include a golf club, US flags, as well as the Lunar Rovers used in the Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 missions.
In the early hours of May 16, 1990,
after a week spent watching old
video footage of man on the Moon, a
thought was turning into an
obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering?"
the 47 year old American kept asking
himself when there's no wind on the
atmosphere free Moon? That moment
was to be the beginning of an
incredible Space odyssey for the
self- taught engineer from New
Jersey. He started investigating the
Apollo Moon landings, scouring every
NASA film, photo and report with a
growing sense of wonder, until
finally reaching an awesome
conclusion: America had never put a
man on the Moon. The giant leap for
mankind was fake. It is of course
the conspiracy theory to end all
conspiracy theories. But Rene has
now put all his findings into a
startling book entitled NASA Mooned
America. Published by himself, it's
being sold by mail order - and is a
compelling read. The story lifts off
in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri
Gagarin into space, leaving a
panicked America trailing in the
space race. At an emergency meeting
of Congress, President Kennedy
proposed the ultimate face saver,
put a man on the Moon. With an
impassioned speech he secured the
plan an unbelievable 40 billion
dollars.
And so, says Rene (and a growing
number of astro-physicists are
beginning to agree with him), the
great Moon hoax was born. Between
1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships
headed to the Moon. Six claim to
have made it, with the ill fated
Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks
apparently exploded halfway being
the only casualties. But with the
exception of the known rocks, which
could have been easily mocked up in
a lab, the photographs and film
footage are the only proof that the
Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes
they're fake. For a start, he says,
the TV footage was hopeless. The
world tuned in to watch what looked
like two blurred white ghosts throw
rocks and dust. Part of the reason
for the low quality was that,
strangely, NASA provided no direct
link up. So networks actually had to
film man's greatest achievement from
a TV screen in Houston - a
deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that
nobody could properly examine it. By
contrast, the still photos were
stunning. Yet that's just the
problem. The astronauts took
thousands of pictures, each one
perfectly exposed and sharply
focused. Not one was badly composed
or even blurred.
As Rene points out, that's not all:
The cameras had no white meters or
view ponders. So the astronauts
achieved this feet without being
able to see what they were doing.
There film stock was unaffected by
the intense peaks and powerful
cosmic radiation on the Moon,
conditions that should have made it
useless. They managed to adjust
their cameras, change film and swap
filters in pressurized suits. It
should have been almost impossible
with the gloves on their fingers.
Award winning British photographer
David Persey is convinced the
pictures are fake. His astonishing
findings are explained alongside the
pictures on these pages, but the
basic points are as follows: The
shadows could only have been created
with multiple light sources and,in
particular, powerful spotlights. But
the only light source on the Moon
was the sun.
The American flag and the words
"United States" are always Brightly
lit, even when everything around is
in shadow. Not one still picture
matches the film footage, yet NASA
claims both were shot at the same
time. The pictures are so perfect,
each one would have taken a slick
advertising agency hours to put them
together. But the astronauts managed
it repeatedly. David Persey believes
the mistakes were deliberate, left
there by "whistle blowers" who were
keen for the truth to one day get
out.
If Persey is right and the pictures
are fake, then we've only NASA's
word that man ever went to the Moon.
And, asks Rene, "Why would anyone
fake pictures of an event that
actually happened?" The questions
don't stop there. Outer space is
awash with deadly radiation that
emanates from solar flares firing
out from the sun. Standard
astronauts orbiting earth in near
space, like those who recently fixed
the Hubble telescope, are protected
by the earth's Van Allen belt. But
the Moon is to 240,000 miles
distant, way outside this safe band.
And, during the Apollo flights,
astronomical data shows there were
no less than 1,485 such flares. John
Mauldin, a physicist who works for
NASA, once said shielding at least
two meters thick would be needed.
Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers
which took astronauts from the
spaceship to the moons surface were,
said NASA, about the thickness of
heavy duty aluminum foil.
How could that stop this deadly
radiation? And if the astronauts
were protected by their space suits,
why didn't rescue workers use such
protective gear at the Chernobyl
meltdown, which released only a
fraction of the dose astronauts
would encounter? Not one Apollo
astronaut ever contracted cancer -
not even the Apollo 16 crew who were
on their way to the Moon when a big
flare started. "They should have
been fried", says Rene. Furthermore,
every Apollo mission before number
11 (the first to the Moon) was
plagued with around 20,000 defects
a-piece. Yet, with the exception of
Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't
one major technical problem on any
of their Moon missions. Just one
effect could have blown the whole
thing. "The odds against these are
so unlikely that God must have been
the co-pilot," says Rene.
Several years after NASA claimed its
first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the
second man on the Moon" was asked at
a banquet what it felt like to step
on to the lunar surface. Aldrin
staggered to his feet and left the
room crying uncontrollably. It would
not be the last time he did this.
"It strikes me he's suffering from
trying to live out a very big lie,"
says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for
his life.
Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who
baited the Apollo program, was due
to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the
landings build up. In January 1967,
he hung a lemon on his Apollo
capsule (in the US, unroadworthy
cars are called lemons) and told his
wife Betty: "If there is ever a
serious accident in the space
program, it's likely to be me."
Nobody knows what fuelled his fears,
but by the end of the month he and
his two co-pilots were dead, burnt
to death during a test run when
their capsule, pumped full of high
pressure pure oxygen, exploded.
Scientists couldn't believe NASA's
carelessness - even a chemistry
students in high school know high
pressure oxygen is extremely
explosive. In fact, before the first
manned Apollo fight even cleared the
launch pad, a total of 11 would be
astronauts were dead. Apart from the
three who were incinerated, seven
died in plane crashes and one in a
car smash. Now this is a spectacular
accident rate. "One wonders if these
'accidents' weren't NASA's way of
correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of
saying that some of these men didn't
have the sort of 'right stuff' they
were looking."
NASA wont respond to any of these
claims, their press office will only
say that the Moon landings happened
and the pictures are real. But a
NASA public affairs officer called
Julian Scheer once delighted 200
guests at a private party with
footage of astronauts apparently on
a landscape. It had been made on a
mission film set and was identical
to what NASA claimed was they real
lunar landscape. "The purpose of
this film," Scheer told the
enthralled group, "is to indicate
that you really can fake things on
the ground, almost to the point of
deception." He then invited his
audience to "Come to your own
decision about whether or not man
actually did walk on the Moon."
A sudden attack of honesty? You bet,
says Rene, who claims the only real
thing about the Apollo missions were
the lift offs. "The astronauts
simply have to be on board," he
says, "in case the rocket exploded.
It was the easiest way to ensure
NASA wasn't left with three
astronauts who ought to be dead." he
claims, adding that they came down a
day or so later, out of the public
eye (global surveillance wasn't what
it is now) and into the safe hands
of NASA officials, who whisked them
off to prepare for the big day a
week later.
And now NASA is planning another
giant step - Project Outreach, a 1
trillion dollar manned mission to
Mars. "Think what they'll be able to
mock up with today's computer
graphics," says Rene Chillingly.
"Special effects was in its infancy
in the 60s. This time round will
have no way of determining the
truth.
9 SPACE ODDITIES:
1. Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard
played golf on the Moon. In front of
a worldwide TV audience, Mission
Control teased him about slicing the
ball to the right. Yet a slice is
caused by uneven air flow over the
ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and
no air.
2. A camera panned upwards to catch
Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off
the Moon. Who did the filming?
3. One NASA picture from Apollo 11
is looking up at Neil Armstrong
about to take his giant step for
mankind. The photographer must have
been lying on the planet surface. If
Armstrong was the first man on the
Moon, then who took the shot?
4. The pressure inside a space suit
was greater than inside a football.
The astronauts should have been
puffed out like the Michelin Man,
but were seen freely bending their
joints.
5. The Moon landings took place
during the Cold War. Why didn't
America make a signal on the moon
that could be seen from earth? The
PR would have been phenomenal and it
could have been easily done with
magnesium flares.
6. Text from pictures in the article
said that only two men walked on the
Moon during the Apollo 12 mission.
Yet the astronaut reflected in the
visor has no camera. Who took the
shot?
7. The flags shadow goes behind the
rock so doesn't match the dark line
in the foreground, which looks like
a line cord. So the shadow to the
lower right of the spaceman must be
the flag. Where is his shadow? And
why is the flag fluttering if there
is no air or wind on the moon?
8. How can the flag be brightly lit
when its side is to the light? And
where, in all of these shots, are
the stars?
9. The Lander weighed 17 tons yet
the astronauts feet seem to have
made a bigger dent in the dust. The
powerful booster rocket at the base
of the Lunar Lander was fired to
slow descent to the moons service.
Yet it has left no traces of
blasting on the dust underneath. It
should have created a small crater,
yet the booster looks like it's
never been fired.
