From 1968 to 1972, the US sent a number of people to the moon. Twelve of them walked along it. Since then, no one has returned to the moon. Over the years, much of what these people did while they were there has either become of no interest to the public or is simply ignored. Most people know that Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon, and that's enough.

Thanks to the popular movie, many of us are familiar with the Apollo 13 mission, which miraculously returned to Earth after an onboard explosion. Still there are tons more interesting facts about what these people did and said during their historical journeys. We have compiled a list of such facts for you.

One of the most popular photographs of the first moon landing shows Buzz Aldrin standing next to an American flag. However, this flag had a very unfortunate fate, as it fell a few hours later when Neil Armstrong returned to the command module. After Aldrin pressed the rocket launch button, he looked out the window and saw how the nozzle explosion swept everything away, including the infamous flag.

Remarkably, the other flags still on the Moon, placed there by successive astronauts, and which were placed far enough away from the rocket, all turned white. For forty years, unfiltered sunlight and radiation have completely burned out the red and blue colors.

Unauthorized psychic experiments

During the Apollo 14 mission, unbeknownst to the Houston authorities (and even the crew members), Edgar D. Mitchell performed several unscheduled extrasensory perception experiments. During the first hours of his sleep time on the way to the moon and back, Mitchell focused on the symbols that are commonly used in psychic trials. Together with a group of doctors in Florida, he arranged the sessions in advance, hoping to figure out if thoughts could be transmitted thousands of kilometers into space. The results were zero, to put it mildly.

Apparently, Mitchell and his partners on Earth were out of sync. In any case, the results were published in the 1971 issue of The Journal of Parapsychology, for no reason.

When we think of astronauts, the stern and strong-willed men who participated in the beginning of the space program, we would never imagine them sobbing and wiping away tears if not for Alan Shepard. Truly, this is one of the most underrated American astronauts. He was not only one of the first Americans in space, but at the age of 47 became the oldest person ever walked on the moon. After resigning from the space program a few years earlier due to an inner ear disorder, Shepard vowed to fight the affliction and return to the game. In early 1971, he was part of the Apollo 14 mission.

By the way, this is the same astronaut who on the Moon made the longest throw in history (“for miles and miles”). However, few people know that this very astronaut could not restrain his emotions when he took his first steps on the lunar surface. Alan Shepard cried while standing on the moon. Although what is there such a thing - in the end, he could not wipe his tears in any way.

Lunar communion

Astronauts have been warned by NASA bosses that since virtually the entire world will be listening, they should not participate in any religious ordinances while traveling to the moon. Since they represent the whole of humanity, why offend members of other faiths? However, Buzz Aldrin considered the occasion too important to let slip by.

Thus, after the landing was completed and everyone was waiting for the historic steps, Aldrin turned on the radio and asked everyone who was listening to find a way to mark this moment in history and thank everyone they saw fit. For him, this meant opening a small flask of wine and taking out the loaves of bread he had brought with him. After reciting a passage from the Gospel, he ate bread and drank wine, becoming the first and so far the only person to honor the Christian ritual of communion on the moon. Neil Armstrong watched his partner with respect but indifference.

First words

Neil Armstrong's famous words when he took the first step on the moon are (according to the official story): "It's one small step for a man, but a giant leap for all mankind." Of course, these words have become the subject of endless debate, plus many argue that he misspoke and said not “for a man”, but “for a man”, which slightly underestimates the significance of his words.

In fact, the first words that were spoken on the surface of the moon while still inside the ship are usually understood as the first words after a safe landing, namely: “Houston, here is the base of tranquility. The eagle has landed. However, there was so much technical jargon exchanged between the astronauts before and after these words that it's actually hard to tell which words were first spoken on the Moon.

To complicate matters further, Armstrong's landing was so soft that no one could be completely sure what he said immediately after landing. Decryptions come down to three possible options. Aldrin could indicate that the contact light had turned on by saying "contact light". Armstrong could then instruct Aldrin to turn off the trigger motor with the words "switch off". Aldrin turned off the engine and said "ok, stop the engine." None of these phrases were significant, so it is perhaps better to take Armstrong's message to mission control in Houston as a starting point.

What does the moon smell like?

Astronauts visiting the moon were surprised by its pungent smell. Of course, they didn't feel it until they got back to the lunar module and took off their suits. The smallest powder was everywhere, on the hands and on the faces of the astronauts. Some have tasted moon dust. But the first contact of lunar dust with oxygen in four billion years gave rise to a very specific smell.

Most astronauts described it as the smell of spent gunpowder, which they were familiar with. military service. Why did he smell like that? Unknown. Chemically, the moon and gunpowder are not similar at all, so there are various theories as to why this happened. The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, said that the moon smelled like wet ashes in a fireplace.

Records or prestige

Of course, "-11" can be called the "highlight of the program", and in general this is a very expressive moment in space exploration by mankind. However, the dress rehearsal for this mission, Apollo 10, set several records that have yet to be broken. In addition to the cool names (Command Module Charlie Brown and Lunar Module Snoopy), the three men who flew on the mission went down in history as the people who traveled further from home than anyone else. Eugene Cernan, Thomas Stafford, and John Young traveled more than 408,950 kilometers from Houston when they reached the far side of the moon.

Due to the timing of their mission, the Moon was particularly far from the Earth, and the planet's rotation flipped Houston to the opposite side of the Earth. Even though the crew of Apollo 13 was technically further from the Earth's surface, Apollo 13 traveled a gigantic distance from its launch point. After setting this record, the team set another one - they picked up a speed of 39,897 kilometers per hour, returning home. At the moment this maximum speed with which a person has ever moved.

Lunar Module Pilots

Astronaut Pete Conrad was a man who expanded horizons. As commander of Apollo 12, the second manned flight to the Moon, he waited until his module was on the dark side of the Moon and out of radio signals, and then did the unthinkable: on the way from the surface of the Moon to the lunar module, he allowed his pilot to fly, " hold the helm." Thus, he, as it were, showed that "lunar module pilot" is not just a name.

The job of the lunar module pilot (like many others) was to ensure that the commander received all the information needed to fly under his command. He could only fly the lunar module if the commander couldn't fly for certain reasons that never happened. As they drifted on the dark side of the moon, Conrad turned to the pilot, Alan Bean, and said, "You can steer this transport for a minute." Surprised but pleased, Bean was happy to take control, if only for a little while.

Priceless sculpture

David Scott, commander of Apollo 15, wanted to pay tribute to the many people who . Before starting his mission, he asked the Belgian artist Paul von Hooydonk to create a small statue that could honor all the astronauts - American and Russian - who died in pursuit of the dream of all mankind. The sculpture looked like a human, but did not represent race, gender, or nationality. There was no commercial profit from the goodwill gesture, just a tribute to the memory of all the astronauts who died in the line of duty.

The artist agreed, and on August 1, 1971, the crew of Apollo 15 left a finger-sized figurine on top of Mons Hadley, next to a plaque bearing the names of 14 famous cosmonauts who had died (in fact, two more Soviet cosmonauts had died by this point, but the USSR not reported yet). A few years later, the artist decided to "raise" some money by selling signed copies of the sculpture, but Scott convinced him that this was a violation of the agreement. Perhaps someday a small statue will be in the lunar museum on the surface of the moon.

scientist on the moon

As the Apollo program was canceled due to budget cuts, NASA came under more and more pressure from the scientific community to send a real scientist to the Moon while possible. Up to this point, NASA had only sent its own test pilots trained as astronauts. But they took only an abbreviated course in geology and, of course, could not replace those who devoted their whole lives to the study of rocks.

What did Neil Armstrong eat on the moon?

We have already learned that when the rocket took off, the American flag fixed on the Moon fell due to the explosion of the nozzle. We also learned that the first words of a man on the moon sounded different than is commonly believed. But do you know what kind of food the astronauts tried during the first landing on the surface of our satellite?

It is believed that the first dish Neil Armstrong tasted on the moon was a baked turkey. Of course, it was not at all like a Thanksgiving dish, but was in liquid form. But the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, tasted bread and wine. The fact is that he was an elder in the church and decided to conduct the Christian rite of the Eucharist.

With that in mind, NASA began hiring scientists and training them in astronautics, right down to how to fly a plane. These guys had no chance, but when it became known that Apollo 17 would be the last mission to the moon, Harrison Schmitt, a Harvard geologist, was called. He had completed the intensive training required to qualify as an astronaut and was ready to go.

Needless to say, sending a geologist to the moon is like sending a military historian during the Great Patriotic War. Schmitt spent three days poking around on the moon and even brought back some interesting specimens. Other scientists went into space later, but Schmitt remained one of those who walked on the moon.

How did the Americans take off from the moon? This is one of the main questions asked by supporters of the so-called Lunar conspiracy, that is, those who believe that American astronauts did not really go to the moon, and the Apollo space program was a massive hoax invented in order to splurge. around the world. Despite the fact that today most scientists and researchers are inclined to believe that the Americans really landed on the moon, skeptics remain.

takeoff problems

Many sincerely do not understand how the Americans took off from the moon. Additional doubts arise if we recall how the launches from the Earth are arranged. For this, a special cosmodrome is being equipped, launch facilities are being built, a huge rocket with several stages is needed, as well as entire oxygen plants, filling pipelines, installation buildings and several thousand service personnel. After all, these are operators at the consoles, and specialists in and many other people, without whom one cannot do in order to go into space.

All this on the Moon, of course, was not and could not be. Then how did the Americans take off from the moon in 1969? This question remains one of the key ones for those who are sure that the American astronauts, who became famous all over the world, did not leave the Earth's orbit at all.

But all conspiracy theorists will have to be upset and disappointed. This is not only possible and quite understandable, but, most likely, it actually happened.

Force of gravity

It was the force of gravity that ensured the success of the entire expedition to the Americans. The fact is that on the Moon it is several times smaller than on Earth, and therefore there should be no questions about how the Americans took off from the Moon. It wasn't that hard to do it.

The main thing is that the Moon itself is several times lighter than the Earth. For example, only its radius is 3.7 times smaller than the earth's. This means that it is much easier to take off from this satellite. The force of gravity on the Moon's surface is about 6 times weaker than Earth's gravity.

As a result, it turns out that the first cosmic speed that an artificial satellite must have in order to rotate around celestial body, do not fall on it, significantly less. For the Earth, it is 8 kilometers per second, and for the Moon, 1.7 kilometers per second. This is almost 5 times less. This factor became decisive. Thanks to such circumstances, the Americans took off from the surface of the moon.

At the same time, it must be borne in mind that a speed that is 5 times less does not mean that a rocket should also be five times lighter for launch. In fact, to get off the moon, a rocket could weigh hundreds of times less.

Mass of missiles

If you thoroughly understand how the Americans took off from the moon in 1969, then there should be no doubt about this achievement. Let's talk in detail about the initial mass of rockets, which depends on the required speed. According to the well-known exponential law, the mass grows disproportionately fast with the growth of the required speed. This conclusion can be drawn based on the key formula of rocket propulsion, which was deduced at the beginning of the 20th century by one of the theorists of space flights, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.

When launched from the surface of the Earth, the rocket must successfully overcome the dense layers of the atmosphere. And since the Americans took off from the moon, they did not face such a task. At the same time, it must be remembered that the thrust force of the rocket engines is also spent on overcoming air resistance, but the aerodynamic loads that put pressure on the body force the designers to make the structure as strong as possible, that is, it has to be made heavier.

Now let's figure out how the Americans took off from the surface of the moon. On this artificial satellite there is no atmosphere, which means that the thrust of the engines is not spent on overcoming it, as a result, rockets can be much lighter and less durable.

Another important point: when a rocket launches into space from the Earth, the so-called payload must be taken into account. The mass is taken into account very solid, as a rule, it is several tens of tons. But when starting from the moon, the situation is completely different. This very "payload" is only a few centners, most often no more than three, which just fits in the mass of two astronauts with the stones they have collected. After these justifications, it becomes much clearer how the Americans were able to take off from the moon.

Lunar launch

Summing up the conversation about how the Americans took off into space, we can conclude that in order to enter lunar orbit, a ship with a crew on it can have an initial mass of less than 5 tons. At the same time, about half can be attributed to the necessary fuel.

As a result, the total mass of the rocket, which was launched from the Earth and went to its artificial satellite, was about 3,000 tons. But the smaller your vehicle, the lighter and easier it will be to drive. Remember that a large ship needs a team of several dozen people, but a boat can be driven alone, without resorting to outside help. Rockets are no exception to this rule.

Now about the launch facility, without which, of course, the Americans would hardly have been able to take off from the moon. His astronauts brought with them. In fact, they were served by the lower half of their lunar ship. During the launch, the upper half, which contained the cabin with the astronauts, separated and went into space, while the lower half remained on the moon. Here is the original solution that the designers found so that they could fly away from the moon.

Additional fuel

Many continue to wonder how the Americans flew from the Moon to Earth when they did not have special fueling devices. Where did such an amount of fuel come from, which was enough to reach an artificial satellite and return back?

The fact is that additional refueling devices were not required on the Moon, the ship was completely refueled on Earth on the basis that there should be enough fuel for the return trip. At the same time, we emphasize that the Moon still had a kind of flight control center at launch. Only he was at a great distance from the rocket - about three million kilometers, that is, he was on Earth, but his effectiveness did not become any less from this.

"Luna-16"

Asking the question of whether the Americans could take off from the moon, it must be admitted that they did not make any special secret from the technical data of the ships, publishing the main figures and parameters almost immediately. They were even cited in Soviet textbooks for higher educational institutions when studying the features of flight into space. Domestic specialists who worked with these data did not see anything unreal or fantastic in them, which is why they did not suffer from the problem of how the Americans flew away from the moon.

Moreover, it was Soviet scientists and designers who went even further when they created a rocket that was able to make such a flight without any human participation at all, without two astronauts who still managed the ship and controlled it in the case of the Americans. This project was called "Luna-16". On September 21, 1970, for the first time in the history of mankind, an automatic station launched from the Earth, landed on the Moon, and then arrived back. It only took three days.

An automatic station delivered about 100 grams from the Moon to Earth. Later, two more stations repeated this achievement - these were Luna-20 and Luna-24. They, like the American ship, did not need additional filling stations, special facilities on the Moon, special pre-launch services, they completely independently and autonomously made this way, successfully returning back each time. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in how the Americans flew away from the Moon, because within the framework of the Soviet space program this path was repeated more than once.

"Apollo 11"

In order to finally dispel all doubts about how and on what the Americans flew away from the moon, let's figure out which rocket delivered them to the artificial satellite of the Earth and back. It was the Apollo 11 manned spacecraft.

The crew commander on it was Neil Armstrong, and the pilot - During the flight from July 16 to 24, 1969, they managed to successfully land their ship in the area of ​​the Sea of ​​Tranquility on the Moon. American astronauts spent almost a day on its surface, to be more precise, 21 hours 36 minutes and 21 seconds. All this time, in lunar orbit, a command module pilot named Michael Collins was waiting for them.

For all the time spent on the Moon, the astronauts made only one exit to its surface. Its duration was 2 hours 31 minutes and 40 seconds. Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. It happened on July 21st. Exactly a quarter of an hour later, Aldrin joined him.

At the landing site of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, the Americans planted the flag of the United States, and also placed a scientific instrument, with which they collected about 21.5 kilograms of soil. It was brought back to Earth for further study. On what the astronauts flew from the moon, it was known almost immediately. No one made secrets and riddles from the Apollo 11 spacecraft. Returning to Earth, the crew of the spacecraft underwent a strict quarantine, following which no lunar microorganisms were detected.

This flight of Americans to the moon became the fulfillment of one of the key tasks of the American lunar program, which was designated by US President John F. Kennedy back in 1961. He said then that the moon landing should take place before the end of the decade, and it happened. In the lunar race with the USSR, the Americans won a landslide victory, becoming the first, but the Soviet Union managed to send the first man into space earlier.

Now you know exactly what the Americans flew from the moon and how they were able to do all this.

Other arguments of supporters of the Lunar conspiracy

True, the matter is not limited to doubts about astronauts taking off from the surface of the Moon. Many admit that it is clear how the Americans took off from the moon, but, according to them, those who must explain the inconsistencies associated with the photo and video materials brought by the Americans are silent.

The fact is that in many photographs that serve as proof that the Americans were on the moon, artifacts are often found, which apparently appeared as a result of retouching and photomontage. All this serves as additional arguments in favor of the fact that in reality the shooting was organized in the studio. It is doubtful that the retouching and other photomontage methods popular at that time were often used solely to improve image quality, as was the case with many images received from satellites.

Conspiracy theorists claim that video footage and photographic evidence of American astronauts planting the US flag on the moon clearly show ripples that appear on the surface of the canvas. Skeptics believe that such ripples appeared as a result of a sudden gust of wind, and in fact on the Moon, which means that the pictures were taken on the surface of the Earth.

They are often told in response that the ripples could not have appeared from the wind, but from damped vibrations, which would certainly have arisen when the flag was planted. The fact is that the flag was mounted on a flagpole located on a telescopic horizontal bar, which was pressed against the pole during transportation. The astronauts, once on the moon, failed to push the telescopic tube to its maximum length. It was because of this that the ripples appeared, which created the illusion that the flag was fluttering in the wind. It is also worth noting the fact that in a vacuum, oscillations die down longer, since there is no air resistance. Therefore, this version is quite reasonable and realistic.

Jump height

Also, many skeptics pay attention to the low jump height of astronauts. It is believed that if the shooting was really done on the surface of the Moon, then each jump should have been several meters high due to the fact that the gravitational force on an artificial satellite is several times lower than on the Earth itself.

Scientists have an answer to these doubts. Indeed, due to a different gravitational force, the mass of each astronaut also changed. On the Moon, it increased significantly, because in addition to their own weight, they were wearing a heavy spacesuit and the necessary life support systems. A special problem was created by the pressurization of the suit - it is very difficult to make the quick movements that are necessary for such a high jump, because in this case significant forces will be spent on overcoming internal pressure. In addition, by jumping too high, astronauts risk losing control of their balance, with a high degree of probability this can lead to their fall. And such a fall from a considerable height is fraught with irreversible damage to the backpack of the life support system or the helmet itself.

To imagine how dangerous such a jump can be, you need to keep in mind that any body is capable of making both translational and rotational movements. At the time of the jump, efforts can be unevenly distributed, so the astronaut's body can receive a torque, start spinning uncontrollably, so it will be almost impossible to predict the place and speed of landing in this case. For example, a person in this case can fall upside down, get seriously injured and even die. The astronauts, well aware of these risks, tried in every possible way to avoid such jumps, rising above the surface to a minimum height.

Deadly radiation

Another common conspiracy theory argument is based on a 1958 study by Van Allen on the radiation belts. The researcher noted that solar radiation flows that are fatal to humans are restrained by the Earth's magnetic atmosphere, while in the belts themselves, according to Van Allen, the level of radiation is as high as possible.

Flight through such radiation belts is not dangerous only if the ship has reliable protection. The crew of the Apollo spacecraft during the flight through the radiation belts was in a special command module, the walls of which were strong and thick, which provided the necessary protection. In addition, the ship was flying very fast, which also played a role, and the trajectory of its movement lay outside the region of the most intense radiation. As a result, the astronauts had to receive a radiation dose that would be many times less than the maximum allowable.

Another argument cited by conspiracy theorists is that photographic films must have been exposed to radiation due to radiation. Interestingly, the same fears existed before the flight of the Soviet Luna-3 spacecraft, but even then it was possible to transmit photographs of normal quality, the film was not damaged.

Shooting of the Moon with a camera was repeatedly carried out by many other spacecraft that were part of the Zond series. And inside some of them there were even animals, such as turtles, which were also not affected. The radiation dose based on the results of each of the flights corresponded to preliminary calculations and was significantly below the maximum allowable. Detailed scientific analysis all the data obtained proved that on the route "Earth - Moon - Earth", if solar activity is low, there are no fears for human life and health.

Interesting history of the documentary Dark side Moon", which appeared in 2002. In particular, it showed an interview with the widow of the famous American director Stanley Kubrick, Christiana, in which she said that US President Nixon was very impressed with her husband's film "A Space Odyssey 2001", which was released on screens in 1968. According to her, it was Nixon who initiated the cooperation of Kubrick himself and other Hollywood specialists, the result of which was to correct the American image in the lunar program.

After the screening of this documentary, some Russian news outlets claimed that it was a genuine study that was proof of the Lunar Conspiracy, and the interview with Christiane Kubrick was seen as a clear and undeniable confirmation that the American moon landing was filmed in Hollywood under the direction of Kubrick.

In fact, this film was pseudo-documentary, as the creators themselves admit in its credits. All interviews were composed by them from phrases deliberately taken out of context, or played out by professional actors. It was a well thought out prank that many fell for.

At the end of last week, American scientists released data according to which the majority of participants in manned flights to the moon died from severe cardiovascular diseases, while other astronauts have this cause of death much less frequently. According to researchers, this is a consequence of the dose of radiation received in space. The news caused a mixed reaction, and the debate about the reliability of NASA's lunar program flared up again. At the request of the editors of Life, the popularizer of astronautics and the press secretary of the Dauria Aerospace company, Vitaly Egorov, spoke about the main misconceptions and stereotypes that constantly accompany many discussions about people on the moon.

1. Lunar landing was filmed in the pavilion

NASA, of course, had pavilions with a mock-up of the lunar module and an imitation of the lunar surface. There was a test site where lunar craters were simulated. But all this was created and used to train astronauts so that unusual conditions were more familiar to them and allowed them to work more efficiently. This is a normal stage in the preparation of any mission. In the same way, Soviet drivers of the lunar rover trained at the training ground in the Crimea and on the volcanoes of Kamchatka. And not to fake pictures from the moon, but to be prepared for what awaits them there. Those images that are officially listed as lunar are actually taken on the Moon and can be analyzed for compliance with satellite images of the lunar surface.

The myth "was filmed in a pavilion" is held by many Russian cosmonauts and space specialists, who have no doubts about the authenticity of the American flights to the moon. Our cosmonauts say: "They flew, but some details of the landing could be filmed already on Earth and shown just for clarity - how it was." In my opinion, such a position is partly forced, as our specialists protect themselves from the need to explain all sorts of controversial moments of photo and video shooting with a waving flag or the absence of stars in the sky, and the like.

2. The flag is waving, but the stars are not visible

A frequently encountered argument in discussions, which, according to its asserters, should prove a conspiracy. But, firstly, actually flying to the moon and filming a landing on the moon are two different things, and one does not exclude the other. Secondly, you need to know the conditions on the surface a little better and watch videos and photos more carefully. As for the flag, everything is simple there, the astronaut just waves it with his hand. If you watch not five seconds of filming the installation of the flag, but take a longer recording - they are now all published on the YouTube video service - you can see a direct connection between the "draft" and the astronaut who approaches the flag. He grabbed the flag - the wind rose, let go of the flag - the wind died down. And so several times.

As for the stars that are not in the photo from the Moon, this is also explained simply: they sat down in the afternoon. Although the sky on the moon is black, the cameras were set up for shooting in daytime conditions, because the brightness of the sun on the moon is even higher than on earth. If you look at the footage taken at the International space station, then there are also no stars visible in the black sky, if the shooting was carried out on the sunny side of the Earth.

3. The tapes of the first landing were missing.

This myth has some grounds, although it does not fully correspond to reality. All photographs and videos that were filmed on cameras on the surface of the Moon by the Apollo 11 expedition have been preserved and are now published. The footage of a live television broadcast, which was conducted from the Moon to the NASA receiving station and distributed to various television studios, was rewritten. Since everyone saw the broadcast anyway, and the recordings of these frames were stored in television studios, NASA did not particularly value magnetic coils with broadcast in their archives and re-recorded them with a light heart when the need arose in the 80s.

They realized it only in the 2000s: as it turned out, the recordings on television studios were left with a big loss of quality, and at NASA stations they received a better signal. The broadcast sources were never found, so they tried to improve the quality with the help of specialists from Hollywood. Therefore, now Hollywood officially took part in the preparation of the records of the lunar landing, and this was openly written on the NASA website. However, this does not cast doubt on the fact of the first landing and five subsequent ones, the records of which were no longer lost.

4. After the completion of the lunar program, the Saturn-5 rocket disappeared without a trace

A myth based on the fact that it is no longer possible to resume the production of this rocket, since all the performers and contractors of this system have long disappeared or changed their direction of activity. In addition, the difference in the capabilities of the rocket of the 60s, which put 140 tons into low earth orbit, and modern rockets, whose record is only 28 tons, is very surprising.

Saturn-5 itself has not disappeared, NASA has two samples of the rocket, which are located in the museums of the Space Center. Johnson (Houston) and Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral). Plus, there are several dozen F1 engines that provided outstanding rocket capabilities. Now NASA has a small group that is engaged in reverse engineering (reverse engineering): based on the surviving samples, it develops new version engine using modern technologies. But this work does not have a high priority, since NASA has engines that are superior to the F1 in a number of ways.

Similarly, "disappeared" Soviet missiles H1 and "Energy". Now, if in Russia there is a conversation about creating a super-heavy rocket, then they are talking about work practically from scratch, and not a return to the Soviet legacy.

The most important contribution of the lunar program remained in the form of the colossal experience of the US space technology developers, who were able to translate it into the Space Shuttle program. If the entire NASA lunar program took place in Hollywood, then America simply would not be physically able to implement the space shuttle program. Let me remind you, if you count with the shuttle itself, the Space Shuttle system launched up to 90 tons into low Earth orbit.

5. Now America does not have its own rocket engines, which means that it did not exist before

The successful sale of Russian RD-180 and RD-181 engines to the United States has created a misconception among some Russians that America has forgotten how to do it, or even did not know how to do it rocket engines.

Here, too, it is easy to dispel doubts with two simple facts: the most powerful Delta IV Heavy rocket to date is American, and American RS-68 engines are installed on it.

These engines are oxygen-hydrogen and are inherited from the Space Shuttle program. Their problem is high cost, so it is more profitable for the United States to buy Russian ones.

The most powerful rocket engines of our time - more powerful than the F1 and RD-171 - are solid-propellant SRBs, which are also left over from the shuttle. The SRB is now being installed on the new SLS super-heavy rocket, which is supposed to launch 70 tons into low Earth orbit. It was the SRBs that became the reason why NASA did not resurrect the F1.

For more applied tasks, such as launching satellites or supplying the ISS, both Russian engines and SpaceX's American Merlins are used in the United States.

6. To take off from the moon, you need a rocket and a spaceport, and they were not there

Actually they were. The lunar landing module was not only a means of soft landing, but also a take-off device. Top part The module was not only a cabin for astronauts, but also a launch rocket, and the lower part of the landing module acted as a cosmodrome.

To launch from the surface of the Moon and enter the circumlunar orbit, much less energy is required than to launch from the Earth, since there is less gravity, there is no atmospheric drag, a small payload mass, and therefore large rockets can be dispensed with.

7. All lunar soil is missing or carefully hidden by NASA

During six moon landings, astronauts were able to collect and deliver 382 kilograms of lunar samples. Most are now stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory in Houston. About 300 kilograms are now really inaccessible for research: they are stored in a nitrogen atmosphere so that terrestrial conditions, primarily atmospheric oxygen, do not lead to a change and destruction of the samples. At the same time, about 80 kilograms of samples are available for study by scientists around the world, including Russian ones, and if you wish, you can find scientific publications that compare lunar meteorites, samples from Soviet stations and samples delivered by Apollo astronauts.

In Russia, anyone can see a few grains of lunar soil at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow. There is both Soviet and American lunar soil.

Some soil samples delivered under the Apollo program were indeed stolen or disappeared from the vaults of museums and institutes, but this is an insignificant percentage of the total amount of moon rocks and dust delivered.

For those interested in the topic, I can recommend a photo report by a young Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, who visited the Lunar Sample Laboratory tours and posted the photos on his blog.

8. Cosmic radiation should kill everyone

Today, the press often discusses cosmic radiation along the way. In the context of these conversations, the question is raised of how people flew to the moon if radiation is so dangerous.

To understand the difference in flight conditions, it is worth remembering that a flight to Mars is a year and a half, and a flight to the Moon under the Apollo program is less than two weeks. If you carefully study the results of studies of the effect of cosmic radiation during a flight to Mars, you can find out that in 500 days of flight an astronaut will receive a dose that is approximately one and a half times higher than the permissibleexposure level. If for astronauts this level corresponds to a 3 percent increase in the threat of cancer, then a flight to Mars already gives 5 percent of such a threat. By comparison, smokers increase their cancer risk by 20 percent.

The design of the spacecraft should also be taken into account. The lunar module had no additional radiation protection, but its skin included an aluminum case, a hermetic shell, and multilayer thermal protection, which created an additional screen from cosmic particles. At the same time, only 40 percent of the area of ​​​​the lunar module directly protected the pilots from space conditions. In other areas of the surface, they were additionally covered by a multi-meter service compartment with equipment and rocket fuel and a landing module.

Do not forget about the Soviet and then Russian experiments on the study of cosmic radiation. Now the Phantom and Matryoshka experiments are being implemented on the ISS, and the Phantom flew to the Moon in Zonda-7, which made it possible to assess the degree of human damage by cosmic particle flows. In general, the conclusions are encouraging: if solar flares no, you can fly. If it were not possible, then Roskosmos probably would not have been working on the lunar program at the end of the 2020s and would not have made plans to build a lunar base.

The political leaders of the USSR immediately congratulated the United States on the successful lunar program, and Russian cosmonauts and scientists still express confidence in the reality of landing people on the moon. The conspirators have to explain this somehow in order to remain committed to their idea. And so the idea was born that the USSR was also in a conspiracy. As arguments in favor of a conspiracy, facts from the history of our countries are usually cited, which belonged to the period of detente of international tension: arms limitation, trade cooperation, the Soyuz-Apollo program.

Despite the fact that Soviet Union no longer exists for a quarter of a century, of course, there is no documentary evidence of any of his participation in the Lunar conspiracy. Moreover, there was not a single piece of evidence from contemporaries that could confirm the fact of such a conspiracy. Although now, it would seem, nothing is preventing the withdrawal of the Americans to clean water.

10. No one has seen traces of astronauts on the moon, and the "landing site" is forbidden to be viewed and studied.

Earth's most powerful modern telescopes are unable to see traces of the lunar landing. They can see surface details as large as 80-100 meters, which is much larger than the size of the lunar module. The only way to see the lunar modules and astronaut footprints is to send a satellite to the moon or a rover to the surface.

Over the past 15 years, satellites from Europe, India, Japan, China, and the USA have been sent to the Moon. But I could only see more or less qualitatively NASA satellite LRO. Detailing his images - up to 30 centimeters, it allows you to see the lunar modules, scientific equipment on the surface, paths trodden by astronauts, and traces of lunar rovers.

The satellites of India and Japan tried to see the traces of American landings, but the detail of their cameras at 5-10 meters did not allow them to see anything. The only thing that was possible was to identify the so-called halos - a spot of light soil, which arose from the impact of rocket engines of the landing stages. Using stereo imaging, Japanese scientists were able to recreate the landscapes of the landing sites, and they showed full compliance with what is seen in the astronauts' photographs: large craters, mountains, plains, faults. In the 60s, there was no such technique, so it would not have been possible to model the landscape in the pavilion.

In 2007, the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition was announced for the development of a private lunar rover, which must reach the moon and overcome a certain distance. The winner should be paid up to $30 million. As part of the competition, there is an additional $2 million Legacy Award for the team whose lunar rover can photograph one of the Apollo lunar modules or Lunokhods. Fearing that crowds of private robots will rush to the sites of historic landings, NASA has published recommendations not to get too close to the landing sites, so as not to trample on the astronauts' tracks and ruin historical monuments. Currently, only one of the contest teams has announced that they are going to take a look at the Apollo 17 lunar landing site.

In 2015, a group of space engineers appeared in Russia, which undertook to develop a microsatellite capable of reaching the moon and filming the Apollo landing sites, the Soviet Moons and Lunokhods with a quality exceeding NASA LRO. Funding for the first part of the work was sought through crowdfunding. There are no funds yet to continue the work, but the developers do not intend to stop and hope for the support of large private investors or the state.

On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. However, to this day one can hear the opinion that the landing of the Americans on the moon is a great hoax.

The "lunar conspiracy" theory

In 1974, American Bill Kazing's book We Never Flew to the Moon saw the light of day. It was the beginning of the spread of the "lunar conspiracy" theory. Caseing had reason to bring this up because he worked for Rocketdyne, which built rocket engines for the Apollo program.

As arguments confirming the staging of flights to the Moon, the author draws attention to the incidents of "lunar photographs" - the unevenness of shadows, the absence of stars, the small size of the Earth. Keyzing also refers to the lack of technological equipment of NASA at the time of the implementation of the lunar program.

The number of supporters of the "lunar conspiracy" grew rapidly, as did the number of revelations of a manned flight to the moon. So David Percy - a member of the British Royal Photographic Society - has already made a more detailed analysis of photographs provided by NASA. He argued that in the absence of an atmosphere, the shadows on the Moon should be absolutely black, and the multidirectionality of these shadows gave him reason to assume the presence of several sources of illumination.

Skeptics also noted other strange details - the waving of the American flag in vacuum conditions, the absence of deep funnels that should have been formed during the landing of the lunar module. Engineer Rene Ralph brought up an even more compelling argument for discussion - in order to prevent astronauts from being exposed to radiation, spacesuits had to be covered with at least 80 cm of lead!
In 2003, the widow of American director Stanley Kubrick, Christiane, added fuel to the fire, who stated that the scenes of the landing of the Americans on the moon were filmed by her husband in Hollywood pavilions.

About the "lunar conspiracy" in Russia

Oddly enough, but in the USSR no one seriously questioned the Apollo flights to the moon. In particular, in Soviet press after the first landing of Americans on the moon, materials appeared confirming this fact. Many Russian cosmonauts also spoke about the success of the American lunar program. Among them are Alexei Leonov and Georgy Grechko.

Alexey Leonov said the following: “Only absolutely ignorant people can seriously believe that the Americans were not on the moon. And, unfortunately, this whole ridiculous saga about shots allegedly fabricated in Hollywood began precisely with the Americans themselves.

Truth, Soviet cosmonaut did not deny the fact that some scenes of the Americans' stay on the Moon were filmed on Earth in order to give the video report a certain sequence: “It was impossible, for example, to film the real opening of the hatch of the descent ship on the Moon by Neil Armstrong - there was simply no one to film it from the surface!”

The confidence of domestic experts in the success of the lunar mission is primarily due to the fact that the process of the Apollo flights to the Moon was recorded by Soviet equipment. These are signals from the ships, and negotiations with the crew, and a television picture about the exit of astronauts to the surface of the moon.

In the event that the signals came from the Earth, this would be immediately exposed.
Pilot-cosmonaut and designer Konstantin Feoktistov in his book “The Trajectory of Life. Between yesterday and tomorrow,” writes, in order to reliably simulate a flight, it would be necessary “to land a television repeater on the surface of the Moon in advance and check its operation (with transmission to Earth). And in the days of simulating the expedition, it was necessary to send a radio repeater to the Moon to simulate the radio communication of Apollo with the Earth on the flight path to the Moon. Arranging such a hoax, according to Feoktistov, is no less difficult than a real expedition.

Also, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the “lunar conspiracy”, calling in an interview “complete nonsense” the version that the United States faked the landing on the moon.
However, in modern Russia revealing articles, books, films continue to be published about the impossibility of technically carrying out such a flight, they are also scrupulously analyzed and criticized by photos and videos of the “lunar expedition”.

Counterarguments

NASA admits that they are bombarded with so many letters with this or that argument proving the falsification of flights that they are not able to fend off all attacks. However, some of the objections can be discarded, knowing the elementary laws of physics.

It is known that the location of the shadow depends on the shape of the object casting them and on the surface relief - this explains the unevenness of the shadows in the lunar photographs. Shadows converging at a far point are nothing more than a manifestation of the law of perspective. The idea of ​​several sources of illumination (spotlights) is untenable in itself, since in this case each of the illuminated objects would cast at least two shadows.

The visibility of the banner fluttering in the wind is explained by the fact that the flag was mounted on a flexible aluminum base, which was in motion, while the upper crossbar was not fully extended, which created the effect of a wrinkled canvas. On Earth, air resistance quickly extinguishes oscillatory movements, but in an airless environment, these movements are much longer.

According to NASA engineer Jim Oberg, the most convincing evidence that the flag was set on the Moon is the following fact: when astronauts passed near the banner, it remained absolutely motionless, which would not be the case in the earth's atmosphere.

The fact that the stars in the daytime on the moon will not be visible, astronomer Patrick Moore knew even before the flight. He explains that the human eye, like the lens of a camera, simply cannot adjust to both the illuminated surface of the Moon and the dim sky at the same time.
It is more difficult to explain why the lander did not leave funnels on the lunar surface or, at least, did not disperse the dust, although NASA experts motivate this by the fact that during landing the device greatly slowed down and landed on a sliding trajectory.
Probably the most compelling argument of the conspiracy theorists is that the ship's crew simply could not overcome the Van Allen radiation belt surrounding the Earth and would burn alive. However, Van Allen himself was not inclined to exaggerate his theory, explaining that the passage of the belt at high speed did not threaten the astronauts.
However, it remains a mystery how the astronauts escaped from the powerful radiation on the surface of the Moon in fairly light spacesuits.

Gazing at the moon

A little forgotten in the heated debate is that the astronauts, after each successful descent, installed laser rangefinders on the Moon. At the Texas McDonald Observatory, for several decades, directing a laser beam at the corner reflector of lunar installations, specialists received a response signal in the form of flashes, which was recorded by highly sensitive equipment.
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, the automatic interplanetary station LRO took a whole series of images at the landing sites of the lunar modules, fixing presumably the remains of the equipment of the American crews. Higher resolution photographs were later taken that show footprints from the rover and even, according to NASA, trails of footprints from the astronauts themselves.
However, pictures taken by disinterested parties inspire more confidence. Thus, the Japanese space agency JAXA reported that the Kaguya apparatus discovered possible traces of the Apollo 15 presence. A member of the Indian Organization space research Prakash Chauhan said that the Chandrayaan-1 lander received an image of a fragment of the lander.
However, only a new manned flight to the moon can finally dot the “and”.

Throughout 2010, a massive display of documentaries dedicated to the landing of Americans on the moon.

A lot of details and a lot of interesting things about this supposedly amazing mission have been demonstrated this year.

But what really?

Since childhood, every boy of my generation dreamed of becoming an astronaut and surf the expanses of space. Or become a constructor and create spaceships. And I was just like everyone else.

But my dreams were lucky to come true. In 1983, I entered the institute, where they began to teach us how to design the very rocket engines on which the process of space exploration is going on.

I am infinitely grateful to my teachers, who were able to instill in me (as well as all my classmates) this subtle feeling, which allows me to relate to pieces of iron and various chemicals as something alive, having its own character and its own possibilities. Taught to invent, design and analyze.

Time has passed. And in the summer of 2010, while watching another American film about the landing on the moon, I became interested in an interview with Neil Armstrong- the first of the people who, according to the United States, landed on the surface of the Earth's satellite. Neil, aged and, it seems, wiser, answering a journalist's question, passionately told what impression the lunar soil made on him when landing:

“He was like powder! Like talc! Small-small. Only here is the smell ... It smelled so disgusting from him, as if something had burned down. It's like burning rubber...

After these words, my wife and I looked at each other in bewilderment, and after silence she asked: “ But are the spacesuits not tight? »

This case became another “pebble” that turned the bowl of my “scales” into the plane of complete skepticism regarding the authenticity of the "US lunar mission".

The fact is that in another popular science TV show - "Destroyers of Legends" (USA) - its participants, with the help of specialists from NASA and the opportunities provided by this agency, consistently recreated in Earth conditions all the controversial moments that illustrate the "lunar mission".

These are long jumps, and a swinging flag, and intricate running on the surface of the moon, and much more. It has been clearly proven that all this can be done on Earth without much difficulty.

But personally, I want to elaborate on just one hard fact: was it possible for the American lunar module flight module to take off from the surface of the moon?

Takeoff from any surface of the planet is carried out using a jet engine, the thrust of which must be sufficient to overcome the gravity of the planet and lift the weight of the aircraft.

A simple school formula is known to everyone: force is equal to mass times acceleration. The force with which the spacecraft presses on the surface of the Earth (is attracted to it) is the weight of the apparatus. It is equal to the mass of the apparatus, multiplied by the acceleration of free fall on a particular planet. Mass - the value that is indicated in the passport for each device.

The force of a running engine that lifts a craft is called thrust. For the spacecraft to take off, the thrust must be greater than the weight of the spacecraft on a particular planet.

In addition, a margin is needed that will provide the acceleration necessary to achieve aircraft the so-called first space velocity- the speed at which the device will be able to enter the circumplanetary orbit. The lunar module also had to reach this speed in order to be picked up by the return vehicle in orbit of the Moon.

Under Earth conditions, the thrust of the engine can exceed the mass of the rocket by ten times, as, for example, the engine of the first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle participating in that American space flight. A rocket weighing 3 million kilograms (3 thousand tons), overcoming the acceleration of free fall of 9.8 m / s2, was accelerated to the first space velocity by an engine with a thrust of 34 million Newtons. That is, the engine thrust of 34,000,000 Newtons is equal to: 3,000,000 kg times 9.8 m/s2 plus a margin of 10 - 15 percent.

According to the published performance characteristics, the lunar module (USA) has a total mass of 16.5 thousand kilograms, the mass of the landing compartment is 11.7 thousand kilograms, the mass of the take-off compartment is about 4.5 thousand kilograms; the takeoff stage engine has a thrust of 1590 newtons. According to the above formula, such a thrust can lift on the Moon, where the acceleration of free fall is 1.62 m/s2, an apparatus weighing only 980 kilograms.

Thus, the take-off compartment of the Lunar mission weighing 4599 kilograms cannot be lifted from the Moon by an engine with a thrust of 1590 Newtons. Moreover, the same module, all the more, could not fly in earthly conditions, because the lack of engine thrust on Earth was exacerbated here by another five times.

Therefore, no Americans flew to any moon, or at least they definitely did not return from it.

For what reasons Soviet space explorers agreed to recognize this "flight", we are not even interested, because this does not affect the very possibility of implementing the Lunar mission.

But the fact that the takeoff compartment of the American lunar module did not have an appropriate engine, and also did not even have fuel and oxidizer tanks in its design, is eloquently explained by the fact that the average age of four hundred employees of the American Control Center lunar mission was 26 years old. These are young specialists, without work experience, without skills, without the necessary technical literacy. The oldest of them was 36 years old, in order to compensate for his age, three people still had to work at the Center, who were still 18 years old.

And this one " Kindergarten allegedly accomplished what, almost half a century later, is still beyond the capabilities of NASA. In which secret laboratories like "NASA-Hollywood" sniffed "lunar soil" Neil Armstrong, one can only guess.

Andrey Tyunyaev