The BBC made a great video on their website providing five reasons that debunk claims that the moon landing was fake. The first argument being that the technology that was needed to reach the moon in 1969 existed, meaning that it was possible for the venture to take place. People also claim that the landing was faked as no stars can be seen in any of the photography / videography. However, photography expert Mark Schubin explained that the reason for this was due to high contrast. He compared it to standing outside a house on a sunny day, you open the door to look into the house but are unable to see any detail inside as it would be too bright to see anything from where you are standing. The next is concrete evidence that the moon landing was not faked. From the videos of the event, a ‘low gravity vacuum’ can be seen. This can certainly not be created or recreated in a TV studio – it would be impossible. Additionally, other countries tracked the 1969 moon landing. Senior lecturer, Antoine Bousquet explains how the Soviets had adapted ‘advanced tracking capabilities.’ Therefore, had the moon landing not taken place, the soviets would have been able to detect that this had been fabricated and was a conspiracy. If it had been fake, the Soviets would have had a lot of benefits from exposing it which would have gained support to their regime and propaganda machine. Furthermore, we have the rocks from the moon that came back with the astronauts. Those rocks are constantly being studied. They have also been studied internationally. Surely, it would have been exposed by current scientists if they were fake? Lastly, the astronauts left reflectors on the moon. Lasers can be sent to them, from the earth to the moon which in turn allow scientists to understand the behaviour / patterns / orbits of the moon. There is an overwhelming amount of concrete evidence to prove that the moon landing of 1969 was not faked. WORKS CITED: ‘Moon hoax? Five reasons why the landings were real.’ (18 July 2019), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-48845757

**TL;DR: There is plenty of evidence that the Moon landing did happen. But conspiracy theories have always thrived on the tiniest and most explainable 'inconsistencies'.** - A [2019 study] (https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/articles-reports/2019/04/25/which-science-based-conspiracy-theories-do-britons) shows that one in six Brits believe that the 1969 Apollo 11 mission was faked. The reason conspiracy theorists give for the staging of this hoax is that the US were so desperate to beat Russia in the [space race] (https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Navigation/Community/Arcadia-and-THP-Blog/July-2019/The-End-of-the-Space-Race-The-Moon-Landing) that they acted out the lunar expedition on a Hollywood set. - One of the most touted pieces of 'evidence' used to back up claims that the Moon landing was fake is the [footage of Buzz Aldrin] (https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html) on the Moon in which the American flag he plants appears to be waving in a breeze. There is no wind on the Moon's surface. However, NASA has explained that [a horizontal rod at the top of the flagpole] (https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/flag/flag.htm), which holds it in place, only creates the illusion of its fluttering. - Another piece of 'evidence' is that there are no stars visible in the [Moon landing photographs] (https://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/apollo.html). However, this is also easily explained. The photographs were taken during what we would consider to be daytime on the Moon. Photographing a brightly lit atmosphere means a high exposure level, so [stars wouldn't show up] (https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-are-there-no-stars). - There is plenty of scientifically verifiable evidence that backs up the reality of the mission. [Verified moon rocks] (https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/samples/) have been bought to Earth, there are full [transcripts] (https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/apollo-11-moon-landing-minute-minute) of the landing's air-to-earth conversations, and there are 8,400 publicly available photographs. - The landing also gave the US the chance to plant a [lunar laser] (https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/experiments/lrr/) on the Moon's surface. It is still operational today and allows us to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon by reflecting lasers off of it. - Overall: an article in [The Guardian] ( https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/10/one-giant-lie-why-so-many-people-still-think-the-moon-landings-were-faked) calls Apollo 11 "an implausible event for which there is lots of evidence" and the hoax "a plausible event for which there is zero evidence." To conspiracy theorists, the latter is much easier to latch onto.

I do not believe the moon landings were faked, however i keep an open mind. There are arguments that can be made to get through some of the "proofs" of a real landing, that have been mentioned. For instance, one argument against the moon landings being faked is that the russian government tracked appollo 11 and so were able to verify where the signals were coming from. However, a person should remember, that some of the conspiracies do not claim that it would have been impossible to send a rocket to the moon. Some of the conspiracies believe it would have been impossible to send humans to the moon. If the hoaxers wanted to give the appearance of humans on the moon, it might well have been possible to send rockets to the moon that relayed a signal sent from earth. This theoretical signal sent from earth, would be broadcast from earth, on a little known and used frequency and would be received and relayed from a radio on the rocket sent to circle the moon. Or from a relay radio sent to land on the moon. These relay radio's might have the capacity to relay, radio or pictures sent from earth. According to this conspiracy theory, the problem with sending humans to the moon was The Van Allen radiation belts, would have been deadly to astronauts, at that time, due to insufficient shielding. Another proof nasa did not go the moon is the missing stars in the photos of the moon surface; conspiracy theorists point out that the missing stars, in the background of the photos of the moon, proves that the photos were not taken in space/the surface of the moon. Nasa's counter argument is that the high contrast would have prevented the stars from showing up. However a counter to NASA's counter is easy: when the fake footage was shot on a movie set on earth, someone with knowledge of the moon, said: we can save some money and time and effort here. Due to the high contrast on the moon, the stars probably wouldn't show up." So neither NASA or the conspiracy theorists can say the lack of stars proves much. I remember watching a documentary about the conspiracy theory that nasa never went to the moon, where they had an authority on the camera's that astronauts took to the moon to take pictures. One of the guys from the camera's company was asked about one of the pictures that NASA had taken with the camera. He said that to get a picture like that with the camera the astronauts used . "was impossible". It was the lighting he said. it was impossible and couldn't happen. It has also been mentioned how the lowered gravity on the moon could not be faked because the astronauts move in low gravity, as they would, if on the moon. They appear to move in lower gravity than on earth, which means they fall back to the moon much slower. On earth if you jump up, you come down due to gravity pretty quick, but on the moon, it takes a little longer. A conspiracy documentary also dealt with this. The documentary claimed how NASA faked this, was to have the fake film made on earth at normal speed. To simulate the lowered gravity, the film was played to the public in slow motion. So any movement would look as if done in lowered gravity. The conspiracy documentary took the public footage of astronauts moving around on the moon and then increased the speed. It made the astronauts movements look as if they were moving around on earth; they moved faster and fell to the moon in normal speed, as if on earth. A great argument put forward, as proof nasa went to the moon, is the one concerning laser reflectors. The idea is that from anywhere on earth you can point a laser at a point on the moon and get your laser reflected back to you to check scientific theories. This seems to be cast iron proof that NASA has been to the moon. Until you learn that the intial proposal for these reflectors came from someone who believed they could be dropped on the moon (by robots) without having to land. This leaves us again, with the idea of NASA having sent a unmanned rocket to circle the moon (while dropping things onto the moon) but not actually landing on the moon. As for moon rocks, i consider this to be the best evidence for the moon landings being real. The rocks from the moon have been studied for over 50 years, by various countries and i find it too unlikely that a robot could have collected them by itself, from the moon surface. However, i have to counter this proof, with: i suspect scientific agreement is not caste iron proof, even if it has gone on for 50 years. Scientists sometimes do not look at evidence objectively, despite peer reviews. My position is that we probably did go to the moon, but we have no irrefutable proof that we have done it.