Was Whitey on the Moon?

1.4 billion Chinese want to know

Six Apollo landing sites were established between 1969-1972. The One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act makes those sites no-fly zones. 

Apollo sent 12 men 240,000 miles to the Moon and back, yet after the last mission in 1972, no human being has travelled more than 400 miles above the Earth’s surface.

In the history of space exploration, just 500 men and women have orbited the Earth, which is just the beginning. There was the 234,000-mile journey through the unknown to get to the Moon on a tank of gas in an unshielded spaceship, followed by the main ship giving birth to the untested lunar module, which landed perfectly on the Moon. That same untested lunar module, with no ground crew, blasted off from the Moon and ascended 69 miles to lunar orbit. Using more untested technology, the ever-reliable lunar module located, caught up to, and docked with the mother ship while still in lunar orbit, before shedding the lunar module and commencing the 234,000-mile journey home.

The Too-Big Ask

On April 14, 1961, two days after Gagarin’s historic flight, Kennedy asked what space goal we could attain before the Soviets, and was told that America’s best hope was a manned Moon landing, because the Soviets were so far ahead that they would achieve anything attainable in Low Earth Orbit (space-walks, prolonged flight, rendezvous and docking maneuvers, etc.), so our best bet was to shoot for a far-off goal.

But NASA had been in existence for less than three years, having been created in 1958 in response to the USSR’s Sputnik. The problem was that none of the required technology existed. TV remotes were a decade away. We lacked the rocket technology, the navigation system, the computer technology, the spacesuit technology, the space docking technology and the EV technology for a lunar landing vehicle. By 1967, the Apollo program was years behind schedule, nothing was working properly, missions were repeatedly delayed, fire in Apollo 1 killed 3 astronauts, including Gus Grissom, who was so disenchanted with the progress that he hung a lemon off the lander, saying that they were so far behind that there was little chance of fulfilling Kennedy’s promise. In May 1968, Neil Armstrong was almost killed during failed testing of the Lunar lander. If NASA were unable to successfully land the craft on Earth during testing, what chance did they have to do it on the Moon?

A year later, everything came together perfectly and, on their first attempt, men landed on the Moon.

Skepticism

Today, with a half-century of space exploration under our belts and the technology perfected, NASA wants to take twice as long to put a man on the Moon. That’s like saying we might be able to develop a video game as advanced as Pong, and a battery-operated calculator to fit into your pocket

In real life, The moon landing was greeted with remarkable skepticism by one-fourth of Americans and the majority of the world. In 2016, 52% of Brits and 57% of Russians said it didn’t happen, including 73% of people aged 25-34. Thanks to a media blackout, most of us are unaware of this and of the reasons for the widespread doubt but China’s upcoming, permanent moon base, and comments by Russian and Chinese space scientists have revived the issue. Here’s an update on nineteen of their concerns:

1. Success rate. There were 135 US space shuttle missions from 1981-2011, two of which, Challenger & Columbia, were catastrophic failures, for a 1.5% failure rate. The infinitely more complex Apollo moon landings, with much older technology, claimed a 100% success rate. Zhang Hailian, deputy chief engineer of China's aerospace industry, said, with 1968 technology, the odds of 6 successful landings in 4 years is about 0.1%.

2. Time. With 21st century tech, China took 51 hours and several attempts to connect the returning moon probe to the mother ship orbiting the moon, then fly around Earth a few times before descending. With 1960s technology, NASA needed just 60 hours to complete a moon walk, erect a flag, drive a moon vehicle, collect moon soil, connect with the mother rocket and land on earth.

3. Flags. The US flag flapped like there was wind. China’s silk flag hangs like cardboard.

4. Stars. NASA images showed no stars. Chinese images shows the stars in their blazing brightness.

5. Spacesuits. The moon temperature ranges from 250°F (121°C) (above the melting point of plastic) in daylight, to -208°F (-133°C). To cool, warm and protect astronauts, China's spacesuit weighs 500 pounds (226 kg). NASA's weighed 180 lb. The Agency claims it has lost its spacesuit technology.

6. Rover. Fifty years before practical EVs, NASA Rover was fueled by electricity, but there’s no battery visible and (since Li batteries were decades in the future) its weight would be immense.

7. Gravity. NASA showed astronauts kicking up dust, which landed on the ground before the astronauts. In testing on earth, astronauts were attached to wires on ceiling. Dust was not.

8. Radiation. In a 1994 interview, NASA administrator Dan Goldin admitted they would have to find a way to overcome the effects of cosmic radiation if man was ever to venture out of Earth orbit, despite the fact they had successfully done it 6 times 25 years earlier. In 2005, NASA reiterated that the radiation problem was a ‘showstopper’ for man returning to the Moon.

9. Rocks. No earth compounds can be found in China's moon rocks. All compounds in NASA's sample are found on Earth. No new materials were discovered in the Apollo flights, even though the apparent expeditions were of much longer duration. The US gifted the The Netherlands with a moon rock which, when analyzed, was an earth rock.

10. Dirt. The lunar surface has a phenomenon called sugar frosting. Surface soil is dense, with a layer of light-colored soil on the surface and dark soil below.

    The tracks of Chinese rovers show that surface dust has a distinctly different color than excavated lunar soil, while the Apollo videos and photos show no difference.