Forty five years ago, two Americans touched down on the moon and walked upon its surface. Now, NASA is trying to do it again with Constellation, an ambitious project to return humans to the moon by 2020.
But if NASA could do it in the eight years between President John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech that led to the historic first lunar landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, some wonder why it is so difficult to go back? By 2020, 16 years will have passed since NASA launched its new moon-bound vision in 2004.
For one thing, the goal this time around is significantly expanded from last time.
10 reasons for the Apollo landings were 'faked'
1) When the astronauts are putting up the American flag it waves. There is no wind on the Moon.
2) No stars are visible in the pictures taken by the Apollo astronauts from the surface of the Moon.
3) No blast crater is visible in the pictures taken of the lunar landing module.
4) The landing module weighs 17 tons and yet sits on top of the sand making no impression. Next to it astronauts’ footprints can be seen in the sand.
5) The footprints in the fine lunar dust, with no moisture or atmosphere or strong gravity, are unexpectedly well preserved, as if made in wet sand.
6)When the landing module takes off from the Moon’s surface there is no visible flame from the rocket.
7) If you speed up the film of the astronauts walking on the Moon’s surface they look like they were filmed on Earth and slowed down.
The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt.
9) The rocks brought back from the Moon are identical to rocks collected by scientific expeditions to Antarctica.
10) All six Moon landings happened during the Nixon administration. No other national leader has claimed to have landed astronauts on the Moon, despite 40 years of rapid technological development.
