The 1960`s Moon Hoax

Collin Lasko

18 March 2007

English 1520

The 1960`s Moon Hoax

During the Cold War years , the rivalry between the United States and the USSR was played out quite significantly through the Space Race (Space Race - Wikipedia . This was an informal competition between the two countries , beginning with the USSR 's successful launching of Earth 's first artificial satellite , Sputnik 1 , on 4 October 1957 , and ending in 1975 , with the historic docking of the US Apollo and the USSR Soyur while still in orbit . During this period , the countries

strove to outdo each in the development and deployment of space technology , the tangible milestones being the exploration of outer space through manned and unmanned missions and to have their people be the first to land on the moon

While the Soviets focused on unmanned missions through their Luna space program and successfully landed spacecraft on the moon , the Americans were the first to actually set foot on lunar soil . The three men who were part of the successful Apollo 11 mission to land on the Moon were Neil Armstrong , the Commander of the mission , Edwin Aldrin , the lunar module pilot , and Michael Collins , pilot of the command module Columbia At 4 .17 :42 pm , Eastern Daylight Time , the lunar module Eagle landed on the surface of the moon and Armstrong stepped out , watched by over 500 million people on television all over the world . Aldrin and Armstrong planted a US flag on the surface of the moon , and unveiled a plaque affixed to the side of the lunar lander . The lunar lander itself , along with the plaque was left behind , and is still present on the Moon 's surface . The inscribed plaque , signed by then President , Richard Nixon and the three astronauts , stated : Here men from the planet earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969 AD . We came in peace for all mankind .Historically , conspiracy theories surrounding the missions to the Moon began even before December 1968 , the time of Apollo 8 's mission (Chaikin . One of the strongest voices for this theory was the late Charles K . Johnson , president of the International Flat Earth Society In his inimitable style , he stated that reports of the moon landings were nonsense ' and that they were faked by Hollywood studios (Schadewald . In 1974 , shortly after the series of Apollo moon missions were completed , William Charles Kaysing , wrote We Never Went to the Moon : America 's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (Kaysing , a book that established him in infamy as the father of the Moon hoax movement . Ever since , a significant number of people has subscribed to the view that the moon landings were staged by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA . Just a year after the first Moon landing , an opinion poll by Knight Newss indicated that more than 30 of the 1721 US residents polled were suspicious of NASA 's trips to the moon (Bakel . In a 1999 Gallup poll , 6 of the US population believed that the...