Apollo Mission: A Vitory In History

Apollo 11 Mission: A Victory in History

"One small step for man, one giant leap for man kind," was heard all around the world on July 20, 1969, for America had successfully landed a man on the moon and returned him safely to Earth. Unfortunately, the rejoice for this victory soon died after people started asking questions about different subjects on the moon landing, creating a conspiracy. But with the United States' determination to win the Space Race, NASA's capabilities that allow them to pursue this mission in 1969, and the lack of evidence to prove the Apollo 11 mission to be a hoax, the world is able to declare that the American man has landed on the moon.

The United States’ determination to win the Space Race is mainly contributed to the Apollo 11 mission. Mr. John F. Kennedy was so aspired to beat the Russians that he sacrificed his money to build what is now known as the Kennedy Space Center. “President Kennedy did not want the world to view the United States as a country lagging behind Communist Russia. NASA officials knew that Russia had the capability to achieve a lunar landing. If the United States had not prepared at this moment, the Russians might have again had an opportunity to come out ahead.” (J.F.K and Space Program).

A factor that had struck Kennedy’s nerve was the success of the Sputnik launchings. Sputnik was “a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites”(Sputnik). The launchings of Sputnik surprised the United States, making Kennedy even more eager to lead America into being the first country to land a man on the moon.

With Sputnik and the technological advancements Russia had over the United States, America did not have one second to think about making a cover-up. According to the conspiracy, “the government faked everything. The photographs, the launching, and even the television broadcast, which was shot in the depth’s of the desserts in Arizona, were a cover-up” (Conspiracy Theories64). But the United States did not even consider faking this mission. It would have been one of the greatest government cover-ups of all time, and an uncovering of a faked lunar mission would have cost the government the trust of its citizens, allowing every great victory in the future of America to be questioned and put down. Destruction soon after would have fallen on this beautiful country. Kennedy wanted to come out on top; he wanted America to be the best country in the world, not a country lagging behind communists. Therefore, the government's determination to win the Space Race led them to one of the greatest victories of all time.

One of the conspiracy theories mentions that NASA’s technical capabilities in 1969 were not compatible with the actual difficulty of the mission. This claim is false. The rocket in the Apollo 11 Mission, Saturn V, was built under the construction of Werner Von Braun. Mr. Von Braun states “The actual rocket itself is a missile, modeling the missiles used in WWII. With the knowledge of building missiles for Germany during the war, I was able to recreate a bigger and more powerful missile/rocket for the Apollo Missions” (Gravity’s Rainbow52). With this theory, NASA was able to have a rocket compatible with the time period, for they were using a model from the past. Thus, NASA’s technical capabilities were very compatible with the time period.

Also, a concept that is known as the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous, LOR for short, was used in the Apollo 11 mission. LOR consists of different stages: “a main spacecraft, the command module, carries a smaller lunar module from Earth orbit into orbit around the Moon. The lunar module then carries the astronauts down to the surface, and back into lunar orbit again. In lunar orbit the lunar module rendezvous with the command module, which returns the astronauts to Earth.” (LOR) The only problem NASA had with this concept was the docking of the lunar module to the command module in lunar orbit. They simply had to teach the astronauts how to dock the modules together and also practice the techniques. The LOR method has been used by space scientists since the 1920’s; it was a very common concept to NASA. Also, NASA is using again a concept that came from the past. Therefore, with the missile like rocket and the very common LOR method, NASA had the capabilities in 1969, proving the conspirators wrong once again.

Although the conspirators try to prove that the Apollo 11 mission was a hoax, they have a lack of evidence in their analysis’s. Many of their claims come from the pictures taken during the mission. The first claim comes from all of the pictures; why are there no stars in the background of any of the photographs? Professional photo analyst Ian Goddard was able to explain to America why there are no stars in the background: “To be able to take in the light from stars you need a long exposure of time and complete darkness. The moon’s surface was so bright because of the sun reflecting off of it that the f-stops on the camera were very high, giving the shot only a short time of exposure and not complete darkness”(Fake?) If the astronauts wanted to take pictures of stars, their frames would have been pure white. The light from the moon’s surface would have been exposed so long that everything else that was supposed to be in the picture would have been cancelled out.

The fact that there are nonparallel and illuminated shadows also confuse the conspirators. British scientists elaborate on both claims. “Conspiracy believers suggest that because the shadows are not parallel there must be вЂ?additional’ lighting. If additional lighting has been used then this suggests that the photos could not have been taken on the Moon and must have been taken in a film studio...If you viewed the scenes from above then the shadows would be parallel, however, with a low sun angle and the perspective of the camera, the shadows appear to be divergent”(Apollo