In Their Own Words: Apollo Astronauts say “We Went to the Moon”

by Nancy Atkinson on November 7, 2008

Image from Apollo 15. Credit: NASA

Image from Apollo 15. Credit: NASA

Someone approached me recently and wanted to ask about how the US faked going to the Moon back in the 1960′s and 70′s. I was so shocked, appalled and dumbfounded, I really didn’t know what to say. I just directed them to Phil Plait’s Moon Hoax Hoax info. Then I wondered, what do the Apollo astronauts say if someone asks them the same question? Now I know. I just finished watching “In the Shadow of the Moon,” a documentary of the Apollo era presented by Ron Howard, directed by David Sington (*correction). It’s a wonderful film with fantastic and rare footage along with interviews of several of the Apollo astronauts. I highly recommend it! And the end, as the credits are rolling, each of the astronauts responds to an unsaid question about the those who think this greatest adventure in human history was a hoax:

Mike Collins: “I don’t know how I would grab someone by the collar who didn’t believe and shake them and somehow change their mind.” And later Collins added, “I don’t know two Americans who could have a fantastic secret without one of them blurting it out to the press. Can you imagine thousands of people being able to keep this secret?”

Charlie Duke: “We’ve been to the moon nine times. If we faked it, why did we fake it nine times?”

Alan Bean: “Some of the tabloids are saying that we did this in a hanger in Arizona. Maybe that would have been a good idea!” (meaning, it would have been a lot safer)

Dave Scott: “Any significant event in history, somebody has had a conspiracy theory one way or the other about it.”

Gene Cernan: “Truth needs no defense. Nobody, nobody can ever take those footsteps that I made on the surface of the moon away from me.”

And Buzz Aldrin said this on a the UK TV show, “Where Are They Now:” “I’m an honest person. If I tell you I was on the moon and you choose not to believe it, forget it.”

The next time someone approaches me, I’ll be better prepared. And I can hardly wait for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s launch early next year. LRO will carry a powerful camera into low orbit over the Moon’s surface. While its primary mission is not to photograph old Apollo landing sites, it will probably photograph them, many times, providing the first recognizable images of Apollo relics since 1972.

The spacecraft’s high-resolution camera, the LROC, or Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, has a resolution of about half a meter. That means that a half-meter square on the Moon’s surface would fill a single pixel in its digital images.

Apollo moon rovers are about 2 meters wide and 3 meters long. So in the LROC images, those abandoned vehicles will fill about 4 by 6 pixels.

Check out “In the Shadow of the Moon” website.


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  • Paul Eaton-Jones

    By all means allow the conspiracy nuts their say but direct them to their own sites and not clog up serious science discussion sites. If anybody is interested I’m having a real ding-dong with some fools over on the 4th October thread regarding the non-geomagnetic reversal story. Should anyone wish to get involved please lend a hand.

  • Oscar Estevez

    The way to disprove it is to get a man walking on the moon again. I doubt that will happen any time soon.

  • Oude Kaas

    Is the flag still there? Or did they take the flag when they left? if the flag is still there, can’t one of the many satellites orbiting the moon now, just take a picture of it?

  • CSanford

    “whilst there is no doubt humankind went and landed on the Moon, where is the direct evidence that this actually happen?”

    I don’t know about you, but it’s kinda hard to get evidence that is anymore direct than shooting video of Americans landing, walking, and driving on the moon.

    I guess the only other thing I can think of is if someong actually got samples of lunar regolith and brought it back with them….wait a sec….

  • Redneck Wonderland

    CSanford,
    You just missed my point. Video or telemetry can be doctored or manipulated. Moon rocks could be made or found here on Earth. I.e. Although unlikely, it could have been staged or faked
    If you wish to present scientific proof of some experiment or event it must be both reproducible and verifiable.
    It is like Edmon Hillary climbing mount Everest. We only had his word (and the his Tibetan companion, Tenzing Nogay) that he reached the summit on the 29th May 1953. He claim was proven once Swiss Jürg Marmet made it to the summit in 1956, as Hillary had buried some sweets (lollies) in the snow which Marmet found. The same issue was faced when it was claimed that George Mallory reached the summit in 1924, and died on the way down (his body found in 1999.) Due to this, Hillary decided to left evidence of his successful ascent – the sweets.
    Again, no doubt mankind did land on the moon, but the hypothesis is valid only if flaws or differences can be explained. Moon hoaxers do have a point though – man landing on the Moon has no verifiable independent evidence.
    Until we show such proof, speculations and moon hoaxes will continue.

  • dollhopf

    Salacious B. Crumb,

    to say that the reason for landing on the moon in 1969 was “to divert people’s from the Vietnam war, Soviet successes and civil unrest” is just ANOTHER conspiracy theory (CT)!

    As already mentioned here it makes no sense at all, because the order to land on the moon was given by JFK in 1961. And nobody could know at that time what problems America would have to deal with in 1969.

    But what about that: if one was crazzy enough he could combine both CTs and claim that the landing was (a) faked to (b) “divert people’s from the Vietnam war, Soviet successes and civil unrest”. ;) )

    I guess that the insight of Redneck Wonderland reasonably explains the core problem of the whole hoax grap.

  • http://www.atheists.org Dawkin Mills

    The Discovery Networks show – Mythbusters recently did an episode debunking the conspiracy theories widely held on the internet. The episode was called – “NASA Moon Landing.” You can also watch it on YouTube.

  • http://www.griffithobservatory.org Anthony Cook

    There have been some questions regarding imaging the landing sites remotely:

    I recall that Chandrayaan-1, which India just placed around the moon two days ago, will have a resolution of 5 meters, the highest of any of the currently operating satellites operating in lunar orbit right now. NASA’s LRO, due for launch in April, is to have 1 meter resolution.

    Kaguya, Japan’s orbiter, has a 10-meter resolution, and has created images in 2D and 3 D of several of the Apollo sites. The data has been used to reproduce the detailed perspective of the mountains visible in the Apollo 15 panoramic images of Hadley Rille. While hardware can’t be seen at this level of detail, discoloration created by the LM blast is hinted at in some of the multi-spectral views. Take a look at JAXA’s excellent Kaguya image gallery at http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

    The only orbital images that I know of that shows Lunar Modules and Rovers were taken by the mapping cameras in the Service Modules of Apollos 15, 16 and 17, which had 1 meter resolution.

    Amateur and professional astronomers, many of whom had no connection to NASA, were able to visually and with video, follow the Apollo spacecraft nearly to the moon (until the glare of the moon itself was too much to contend with). Look through the pages of Sky and Telescope magazine in 1970 to read the eyewitness accounts by amateur astronomers seeing the Apollo 13 explosion.

    Anthony Cook
    Astronomical Observer
    Griffith Observatory

  • Salacious B. Crumb

    Dollhopf,
    Thanks for your recent response.
    I would like to point out that not me but Jean-Pierre stated this in the post of : November 9th, 2008 at 10:37 am.
    Hence your assertion that “”Salacious B. Crumb, to say that the reason for landing on the moon in 1969 was “to divert people’s from the Vietnam war, Soviet successes and civil unrest” is just ANOTHER conspiracy theory (CT)!” is incorrect.
    Furthermore the actual quote from Jean-Pierre was;
    “Wasn’t the main reason for the moon landing and subsequent cancellation of the program Apollo, that it was there to divert people’s from the Vietnam war, Soviet successes and civil unrest?”
    My general comment of support of this was as an interpretation was the American drop in interest in the Apollo programme was partly due to such diversionary factors. On and after 1969 these social changes were profound on the American psyche, causing changes in the priorities of the U.S. However, I think, however, I more asserted that the main problem was to do with economic factors.

  • dollhopf @ Salacious B. Crumb

    roger that

  • dimedr

    why can you see wires on the nauts backs in tons of the Nasa videos on their site?

  • Val Fitzgerald

    dimedr:

    To respond to your question: why can you see wires on the astronauts backs in tons of the Nasa videos on their site?

    Ummm…gee, to hang them up over a wall-sized Moon poster so it can LOOK LIKE they’re walking on the moon…? Oh GEEZ, THOSE people again?

    Hey–that’s why we WALKED ON THE MOON. With our BIG FAT FOOTSTEPS–OK?
    Oh wait–right! I forgot–we sent one of those shoe-walking machines to the moon in a rocket–the door opened–ANOTHER shoe (with no one inside it of course) kicked the shoe-walker to the lunar surface–where it then proceeded to ‘walk’ and ‘leave proof’ that Man had not only landed–but actually walked–(not to mention, played golf!) on the Moon!

    Let’s see how fast the NeoCONS latch on to that one. They never get over it, how Mankind’s signature achievement came through the greatest Liberal Administration since that of FDR–that of Kennedy/Johnson–instead of their own disgusting reactionary selves, that can only destroy whatever they touch..

    Wires sticking up from the astronaut’s backs? Hmmm…maybe to BOOST THE RADIO SIGNALS TO THEIR COM DEVICES??? (Hard to broadcast WITHOUT A DIRECTION, OR CAPTURE DEVICE LIKE AN ANTENNA–!)

    Oh LOL, you people are hysterical. Or would be, if you weren’t so sick out of your minds with pure jealousy…

  • Chandra

    I’m not very cofident that we went to the moon.
    Check out wiki for moon hoax theory. It sounds interesting. These hoax theories are like 9/11 conspiracy theories – possible but lack public support.

  • Chandra

    Also check out Mythbusters (Season 7) on wiki.
    Some NASA images seem to be fake.
    Inspite of these i still feel we made to the moon – atleast once if not 9 times. That’s good enough for national n human pride.

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