The American lunar program is fact or fiction. How the Americans took off from the moon: scientific explanation and facts

At the end of last week, American scientists released data according to which most of the participants in manned flights to the moon died of severe cardiovascular diseases, while other astronauts have this cause of death much less frequently. According to researchers, this is a consequence of the dose of radiation received in space. The news caused a mixed reaction, and the debate about the reliability of NASA's lunar program flared up again. At the request of the editors of Life, the popularizer of astronautics and the press secretary of the Dauria Aerospace company, Vitaly Egorov, spoke about the main misconceptions and stereotypes that constantly accompany many discussions about people on the moon.

1. Lunar landing was filmed in the pavilion

NASA, of course, had pavilions with a mock-up of the lunar module and an imitation of the lunar surface. There was a test site where lunar craters were simulated. But all this was created and used to train astronauts so that unusual conditions were more familiar to them and allowed them to work more efficiently. This is a normal stage in the preparation of any mission. In the same way, Soviet drivers of the lunar rover trained at the training ground in the Crimea and on the volcanoes of Kamchatka. And not to fake pictures from the moon, but to be prepared for what awaits them there. Those images that are officially listed as lunar are actually taken on the Moon and can be analyzed for compliance with satellite images of the lunar surface.

The myth "was filmed in a pavilion" is held by many Russian cosmonauts and space specialists, who have no doubts about the authenticity of the American flights to the moon. Our cosmonauts say: "They flew, but some details of the landing could have been filmed already on Earth and shown just for clarity - how it was." In my opinion, such a position is partly forced, as our specialists protect themselves from the need to explain all sorts of controversial moments of photo and video shooting with a waving flag or the absence of stars in the sky, and the like.

2. The flag is waving, but the stars are not visible

A frequently encountered argument in discussions, which, according to its asserters, should prove a conspiracy. But, firstly, actually flying to the moon and filming a landing on the moon are two different things, and one does not exclude the other. Secondly, you need to know the conditions on the surface a little better and watch videos and photos more carefully. As for the flag, everything is simple there, the astronaut just waves it with his hand. If you watch not five seconds of filming the flag installation, but take a longer recording - they are now all published on the YouTube video service - you can see a direct connection between the "draught" and the astronaut who approaches the flag. He grabbed the flag - the wind rose, let go of the flag - the wind died down. And so several times.

As for the stars that are not in the photo from the Moon, this is also explained simply: they sat down in the afternoon. Although the sky on the moon is black, the cameras were set up for shooting in daytime conditions, because the brightness of the sun on the moon is even higher than on earth. If you look at the shots taken on the International Space Station, then there are also no stars in the black sky, if the shooting was carried out on the sunny side of the Earth.

3. The tapes of the first landing were missing.

This myth has some grounds, although it does not fully correspond to reality. All photographs and videos that were filmed on cameras on the surface of the Moon by the Apollo 11 expedition have been preserved and are now published. The footage of a live television broadcast, which was conducted from the Moon to the NASA receiving station and distributed to various television studios, was rewritten. Since everyone saw the broadcast anyway, and the recordings of these frames were stored in television studios, NASA did not particularly value the magnetic coils with the broadcast in their archives and re-recorded them with a light soul when such a need arose in the 80s.

They realized it only in the 2000s: as it turned out, the recordings on television studios were left with a big loss of quality, and at NASA stations they received a better signal. The broadcast sources were never found, so they tried to improve the quality with the help of specialists from Hollywood. Therefore, now Hollywood officially took part in the preparation of the records of the lunar landing, and this was openly written on the NASA website. However, this does not cast doubt on the fact of the first landing and five subsequent ones, the records of which were no longer lost.

4. After the completion of the lunar program, the Saturn-5 rocket disappeared without a trace

A myth based on the fact that it is no longer possible to resume the production of this rocket, since all the performers and contractors of this system have long disappeared or changed their direction of activity. In addition, the difference in the capabilities of the rocket of the 60s, which put 140 tons into low earth orbit, and modern rockets, whose record is only 28 tons, is very surprising.

Saturn-5 itself has not disappeared, NASA has two samples of the rocket, which are located in the museums of the Space Center. Johnson (Houston) and Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral). Plus, there are several dozen F1 engines that provided outstanding rocket capabilities. Now NASA has a small group that is engaged in reverse engineering (reverse engineering): based on surviving samples, it is developing a new version of the engine using modern technologies. But this work does not have a high priority, since NASA has engines that are superior to the F1 in a number of ways.

The Soviet H1 and Energiya missiles "disappeared" in a similar way. Now, if in Russia there is a conversation about creating a super-heavy rocket, then they are talking about work practically from scratch, and not a return to the Soviet legacy.

The most important contribution of the lunar program remained in the form of the colossal experience of the US space technology developers, who were able to translate it into the Space Shuttle program. If the entire NASA lunar program took place in Hollywood, then America simply would not be physically able to implement the space shuttle program. Let me remind you, if you count with the shuttle itself, the Space Shuttle system launched up to 90 tons into low Earth orbit.

5. Now America does not have its own rocket engines, which means that it did not exist before

The successful sale of Russian RD-180 and RD-181 engines to the United States has led some Russians to believe that America has forgotten how to make rocket engines, if not.

Here, too, it is easy to dispel doubts with two simple facts: the most powerful Delta IV Heavy rocket to date is American, and American RS-68 engines are installed on it.

These engines are oxygen-hydrogen and are inherited from the Space Shuttle program. Their problem is high cost, so it is more profitable for the United States to buy Russian ones.

The most powerful rocket engines of our time - more powerful than the F1 and RD-171 - are solid-propellant SRBs, which are also left over from the shuttle. The SRB is now being installed on the new SLS super-heavy rocket, which is supposed to launch 70 tons into low Earth orbit. It was the SRBs that became the reason why NASA did not resurrect the F1.

For more applied tasks, such as launching satellites or supplying the ISS, both Russian engines and SpaceX's American Merlins are used in the United States.

6. To take off from the moon, you need a rocket and a spaceport, and they were not there

Actually they were. The lunar landing module was not only a means of soft landing, but also a take-off device. The upper part of the module was not only a cabin for astronauts, but also a launch rocket, and the lower part of the landing module acted as a cosmodrome.

To launch from the surface of the Moon and enter the circumlunar orbit, much less energy is required than to launch from the Earth, since there is less gravity, there is no atmospheric drag, a small payload mass, and therefore large rockets can be dispensed with.

7. All lunar soil is missing or carefully hidden by NASA

During six moon landings, astronauts were able to collect and deliver 382 kilograms of lunar samples. Most are now stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory in Houston. About 300 kilograms are now really inaccessible for research: they are stored in a nitrogen atmosphere so that terrestrial conditions, primarily atmospheric oxygen, do not lead to a change and destruction of the samples. At the same time, about 80 kilograms of samples are available for study by scientists around the world, including Russian ones, and if you wish, you can find scientific publications that compare lunar meteorites, samples from Soviet stations and samples delivered by Apollo astronauts.

In Russia, anyone can see a few grains of lunar soil at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow. There is both Soviet and American lunar soil.

Some soil samples delivered under the Apollo program were indeed stolen or disappeared from the vaults of museums and institutes, but this is an insignificant percentage of the total amount of moon rocks and dust delivered.

For those interested in the topic, I can recommend a photo report by a young Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, who visited the Lunar Sample Laboratory tours and posted the photos on his blog.

8. Cosmic radiation should kill everyone

Today, the press often discusses cosmic radiation along the way. In the context of these conversations, the question is raised of how people flew to the moon if radiation is so dangerous.

To understand the difference in flight conditions, it is worth remembering that a flight to Mars is a year and a half, and a flight to the Moon under the Apollo program is less than two weeks. If you carefully study the results of studies of the effect of cosmic radiation during a flight to Mars, you can find out that in 500 days of flight an astronaut will receive a dose that is approximately one and a half times higher than the permissibleexposure level. If for astronauts this level corresponds to a 3 percent increase in the threat of cancer, then a flight to Mars already gives 5 percent of such a threat. By comparison, smokers increase their cancer risk by 20 percent.

The design of the spacecraft should also be taken into account. The lunar module did not have additional radiation protection, but its skin included an aluminum case, a sealed shell, and multilayer thermal protection, which created an additional shield from cosmic particles. At the same time, only 40 percent of the area of ​​​​the lunar module directly protected the pilots from space conditions. In other areas of the surface, they were additionally covered by a multi-meter service compartment with equipment and rocket fuel and a landing module.

Do not forget about the Soviet and then Russian experiments on the study of cosmic radiation. Now the Phantom and Matryoshka experiments are being implemented on the ISS, and the Phantom flew to the Moon in Zonda-7, which made it possible to assess the degree of human damage by cosmic particle flows. In general, the conclusions are encouraging: if there are no solar flares, then you can fly. If it were not possible, then Roskosmos probably would not have been working on the lunar program at the end of the 2020s and would not have made plans to build a lunar base.

The political leaders of the USSR immediately congratulated the United States on the successful lunar program, and Russian cosmonauts and scientists still express confidence in the reality of landing people on the moon. The conspirators have to explain this somehow in order to remain committed to their idea. And so the idea was born that the USSR was also in a conspiracy. As arguments in favor of a conspiracy, facts from the history of our countries are usually cited, which belonged to the period of detente of international tension: arms limitation, trade cooperation, the Soyuz-Apollo program.

Despite the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists for a quarter of a century, there is, of course, no documentary evidence of any of its participation in the Lunar conspiracy. Moreover, there was not a single piece of evidence from contemporaries that could confirm the fact of such a conspiracy. Although now, it would seem, nothing is preventing the withdrawal of the Americans to clean water.

10. No one has seen traces of astronauts on the moon, and the "landing site" is forbidden to be viewed and studied.

Earth's most powerful modern telescopes are unable to see traces of the lunar landing. They can see surface details as large as 80-100 meters, which is much larger than the size of the lunar module. The only way to see the lunar modules and astronaut footprints is to send a satellite to the moon or a rover to the surface.

Over the past 15 years, satellites from Europe, India, Japan, China, and the USA have been sent to the Moon. But only the NASA LRO satellite could see more or less qualitatively. Detailing his images - up to 30 centimeters, it allows you to see the lunar modules, scientific equipment on the surface, paths trodden by astronauts, and traces of lunar rovers.

The satellites of India and Japan tried to see the traces of American landings, but the detail of their cameras at 5-10 meters did not allow them to see anything. The only thing that was possible was to identify the so-called halos - a spot of light soil, which arose from the impact of rocket engines of the landing stages. Using stereo imaging, Japanese scientists were able to recreate the landscapes of the landing sites, and they showed full compliance with what is seen in the astronauts' photographs: large craters, mountains, plains, faults. In the 60s, there was no such technique, so it would not have been possible to model the landscape in the pavilion.

In 2007, the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition was announced for the development of a private lunar rover, which must reach the moon and overcome a certain distance. The winner should be paid up to $30 million. As part of the competition, there is an additional $2 million Legacy Award for the team whose lunar rover can photograph one of the Apollo lunar modules or Lunokhods. Fearing that crowds of private robots will rush to the sites of historic landings, NASA has published recommendations not to get too close to the landing sites, so as not to trample on the astronauts' tracks and ruin historical monuments. Currently, only one of the contest teams has announced that they are going to take a look at the Apollo 17 lunar landing site.

In 2015, a group of space engineers appeared in Russia, which undertook to develop a microsatellite capable of reaching the moon and filming the Apollo landing sites, the Soviet Moons and Lunokhods with a quality exceeding NASA LRO. Funding for the first part of the work was sought through crowdfunding. There are no funds yet to continue the work, but the developers do not intend to stop and hope for the support of large private investors or the state.

As you know, the Americans were the first to land on the moon. Is it so? After all, 1/5 of the population of America, including astronauts and scientists, still do not believe this. Let's try to get through to the truth by carefully examining the pictures and videos taken from the surface of the moon.

1. NASA journalists refuse to answer questions. They have frozen all lunar projects and are not accepting funding from other countries for re-landing on the moon.

2. In photographs allegedly taken on the surface of the satellite, you can see a stone with the letter "C". This is how things are celebrated in Hollywood. NASA answered this question twice. The first is that the astronaut drew this letter with his finger on the stone. But since this is absolutely impossible, later they began to claim that it was just dust.

3. The lunar surface has 1/6 of the gravity of the Earth, so jumping on the moon is higher. If you fast-scroll through the movements of the astronauts, you will notice that the people in the suits are moving in exactly the same way as they would move and jump on Earth.

4. As on Earth, on the Moon, light comes from the Sun. In the pictures, the shadows from objects fall in different directions. This can only happen if there are several light sources. Draw your own conclusions.

5. And the flying American flag, installed by Armstrong. What is this? There is no air on the moon, which means there is no wind, and the flag does not stop waving - an inexplicable phenomenon. America explained this with a sewn-in wire, but the wire itself is also motionless.

6. The dust on the surface of the Moon is almost weightless due to the low force of gravity. When our lunar modules touch the surface of the moon, the dust is a pillar. The Americans apparently have their own laws of attraction, since the pictures show that there is not a single speck of dust around the jumping person.

7. There is very high radiation on the moon. According to the calculations of American scientists, a spacecraft landing on the moon along with people should have walls 80 cm thick and made of lead. All experimental monkeys did not survive even a week after visiting the moon. The American landing took place in 1969, when NASA spacecraft had a thin surface, only a few millimeters, made of foil.

8. In NASA photographs from the lunar surface, no stars are visible, but only a dark sky, in Soviet photographs there are a lot of stars.

These seemingly unaccounted for little things reveal the truth to the whole world. Does this mean that the Americans were not on the moon? It is impossible to say for sure, but draw conclusions ...

To the 40th anniversary of the flight of the American spacecraft "Apollo-11"

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"Thatisonesmallstepforaman,onegiantleapfor mankind) - these words were said by Neil Armstrong when the first man stepped on the surface of the moon. This landmark event took place 40 years ago, on July 20, 1969.

1. Twice two questions

As the decades passed, many legends and speculations developed around the topic of human visitation to the moon. The most famous and sensational of them is that American astronauts did not land on the surface of the Moon, and all television reports about the landing and the Apollo program itself were a grandiose hoax. Some wisecrackers have even reworded Armstrong's phrase about "humanity's giant leap" into "humanity's giant swindle." The "irrefutable argument" in favor of the fact that people were not on the moon is already devoted to extensive literature and dozens, if not hundreds of films shot in different countries and in different languages.

Almost simultaneously with this, at the end of the 1980s, in the (then still) USSR, information was made public about the presence in the 1960s-1970s. Soviet program of manned flights to the moon. It became known that in the USSR it was also planned to first fly around the moon by astronauts, and then land on the surface of our natural satellite.

However, the leadership of the USSR, as well as the United States, saw only political meaning in landing on the moon.

After the flight of Apollo 11, it became clear that the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind the United States in the implementation of the lunar program. According to the leaders of the CPSU, the flight of Soviet cosmonauts to the moon under such conditions would not have had the desired effect in the rest of the world. Therefore, the Soviet lunar program was frozen at a stage already close to manned flight, and it was officially announced that the USSR had never had such a program. That the USSR moved in an alternative way and paid main attention not to political prestige, but to scientific research of the moon with the help of automatic devices, in which our cosmonautics, indeed, has achieved great success. This is the most popular explanation for why Soviet cosmonauts never repeated the achievements of their American rivals.

So, in the historiography (if I may say so) of the lunar problem, two differently solved questions now dominate:

1. Did the Americans land on the moon?

2. Why was the Soviet lunar program not completed?

If you look closely, then both questions are interrelated, and the very formulation of the second is, as it were, the answer to the first. Indeed, if the Soviet lunar program really existed and was already close to being realized, why can't it be assumed that the Americans were able to really bring their Apollo program to life?

Another question that follows from here. If Soviet space specialists had even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the fact of the American landing on the moon, would the Soviet leadership, based precisely on the political goals of the lunar program, not have brought it to the end only in order to convict the Americans of the universal lie and inflict the most mortal blow to the international prestige of the United States, while simultaneously raising the authority of the USSR to an unprecedented height?

Although these two questions already contain the answer to the very first one, let's deal with everything in order. Let's start with the official version of the history of the Apollo program.

2. How a German genius took the Yankees into space

The successes of American rocket science are associated primarily with the name of the famous German designer Baron Wernher von Braun, the creator of the first combat ballistic missiles V-2 (V-2). At the end of the war, Brown, along with other German experts in the field of advanced military technology, was taken to the United States.

However, the Americans did not trust Brown to conduct serious research for a long time. While working in the Huntsville, Alabama arsenal on short-range rockets, Brown continued to design advanced launch vehicles (LVs) capable of reaching space velocity. But the contract for the creation of such a rocket and satellite received the US Navy.

In July 1955, US President Dwight Eisenhower publicly promised that his country would soon launch the first artificial Earth satellite (AES). However, it was easier said than done. If we have the genius of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev quite quickly created fundamentally new missile systems, then the Americans did not have home-grown masters of this level.

Several unsuccessful attempts by the Navy to launch its invariably exploding rocket prompted the Pentagon to treat the former SS Sturmbannfuehrer, who became a US citizen in 1955, more favorably.

In 1956, Wernher von Braun received a contract to develop the Jupiter-S intercontinental ICBM and satellite.

In 1957, the news of the successful launch of the Soviet satellite sounded like a bolt from the blue for the Americans. It became clear that the United States was significantly behind the USSR in terms of penetration into space. After another failure of the Navy with the launch of its launch vehicle, the main work on the creation of promising launch vehicles and satellites was concentrated in Brown's hands. This area of ​​activity was withdrawn from the Pentagon. For her, in 1958, a special structure was created - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the US federal government.

Brown headed the John Marshall Space Center, which became NASA's Space Flight Center in 1960. Under his leadership, 2 thousand employees worked (then more), concentrated in 30 departments. All of the department heads were originally German, former employees of Brown's V-2 program. On February 1, 1958, the first successful launch of the Jupiter-S launch vehicle and the launch of the first American satellite Explorer-1 into orbit took place. But the crown of Wernher von Braun's life was his Saturn V rocket and the Apollo program.

3. On the way to the moon

The year 1961 was marked by a new triumph of Soviet science and technology. On April 12, Yuri Gagarin made the first flight on the Vostok spacecraft (SC). In an effort to create the appearance of covering the backlog from the USSR, on May 5, 1961, the Americans launched the Redstone-3 launch vehicle from the Mercury spacecraft along a ballistic trajectory. The first officially recognized American astronaut, Alan Bartlett Shepard (who later walked on the Moon), spent only 15 minutes in space and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean just 300 miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral. The cosmic speed of his spacecraft never reached. The next quarter-hour suborbital flight of Mercury (astronaut Virgil E. Grissom) took place on July 21, 1961.

As if in mockery, on August 6-7, the second full-fledged orbital flight of the Soviet spacecraft took place. Cosmonaut German Titov on Vostok-2 spent 25 hours and 18 minutes in space, making 17 revolutions around the Earth during this time. The first normal orbital flight for the Americans turned out only on February 20, 1962 (astronaut John H. Glenn) thanks to the new, more powerful Atlas launch vehicle. The spacecraft "Mercury" made only 3 revolutions around the Earth, having spent less than five hours in orbit.

In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy proclaimed a kind of "national project" designed to put an end to the US lag behind the USSR in the space field and to overcome the inferiority complex that arose among the Americans.

He promised that the Americans would land on the moon before the Russians, and that this would happen before the end of the 1960s. From now on, any manned space flight programs in the United States (the next was the Gemini project) were subordinated to one goal - the preparation of a landing on the moon. This was the start of the Apollo project. True, Kennedy did not live to see its implementation.

Landing on the moon required the solution of two very difficult technical problems. The first is maneuvering, undocking and docking of spacecraft modules in near-Earth and near-lunar orbits. The second is the creation of a sufficiently powerful launch vehicle capable of giving the payload, consisting of a two-module spacecraft, three astronauts and life support systems (LSS), the second space velocity (11.2 km / s).

In the course of the flights of the Gemini spacecraft around the Earth, there has already been a tendency to overcome the backlog of the United States from the USSR in solving complex problems for spacecraft and man in space. Gemini 3 (crewed by V.I. Grissom and John W. Young) on ​​March 23, 1965, made the first maneuver in space using manual control. In June 1965, astronaut Edward H. White left Gemini 4 and spent 21 minutes in outer space (three months earlier, our Alexei Leonov - 10 minutes). In August 1965, the crew of Gemini 5 (L. Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad) set a new world record for the duration of an orbital flight - 191 hours. For comparison: at that time, the Soviet record for the duration of an orbital flight, set in 1963 by the pilot of Vostok-5, Valery Bykovsky, was 119 hours.

And in December 1965, the Gemini 7 crew (Frank Borman and James A. Lovell) completed 206 orbits in 330 and a half hours! During this flight, Gemini-6A (Walter M. Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford) approached at a distance of less than two meters (!), and in this position both spacecraft made several revolutions around the Earth. Finally, in March 1966, the Gemini 8 crew (Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott) made the first orbital docking with the unmanned Agena module.

The first spacecraft of the Apollo series were unmanned. On them, the elements of the flight to the moon were worked out in automatic mode. The first test of the new powerful Saturn-5 launch vehicle was carried out in November 1967 in a block with the Apollo-4 spacecraft. The third stage of the launch vehicle gave the module a speed of about 11 km / s and put it into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 18 thousand km, after which the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. On "Apollo-5" in February 1968, different modes of operation of the lunar module were simulated in an unmanned satellite orbit.

"Saturn-5" is still the most powerful launch vehicle in history.

The launch weight of the launch vehicle was 3,000 tons, of which 2,000 tons was the weight of the first stage fuel. The weight of the second stage is 500 tons. Two stages brought the third with a two-module spacecraft into the satellite orbit. The third stage gave the spacecraft, consisting of an orbital compartment with a sustainer engine and a lunar cabin, divided into landing and takeoff stages, the second space velocity. Saturn-5 was capable of launching a payload weighing up to 150 tons (including the weight of the third stage with full tanks) into near-Earth orbit, and 50 tons into a flight path to the Moon. At the cosmodrome, this entire structure rose to a height of 110 m.

The first manned flight under the Apollo program took place in October 1968. Apollo 7 (Walter M. Schirra - the first man to fly into space three times, Donn F. Eisele, R. Walter Cunningham) made 163 revolutions around the Earth lasting 260 hours, which exceeded the calculated one when flying to the Moon and back. On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 (Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, for whom this was the third space flight, and William A. Anders) set off on the first manned flight to the Moon in history. In fact, at first it was planned to work out by the crew all the elements of a flight to the Moon in satellite orbit, but the lunar descent vehicle (lunar cabin) was not yet ready. Therefore, it was decided to first fly around the moon on the orbital module. Apollo 8 made 10 orbits around the moon.

According to some reports, it was this flight that became decisive in the freezing of the Soviet leadership of its own lunar program: now our lagging behind the Americans has become obvious.

The crew of Apollo 9 (James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, Russell L. Schweikart) in March 1969 performed all the maneuvers associated with the undocking and docking of modules, the transition of astronauts from one compartment to another through a sealed joint no spacewalk. And Apollo 10 (Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young - for both it was the third flight into space, Eugene A. Cernan) in May 1969 did all the same, but already in lunar orbit! The orbital (command) compartment made 31 revolutions around the Moon. The lunar cabin, having undocked, performed two independent revolutions around the Moon, descending to a height of 15 km above the surface of the satellite! In general, all stages of the flight to the moon were completed, except, in fact, landing on it.

4. The first people on the moon

Apollo 11 (commander - Neil Alden Armstrong, lunar module pilot - Edwin Eugene Aldrin, orbital module pilot - Michael Collins; for all three it was the second flight into space) launched from Cape Canaveral on July 16, 1969. After checking the onboard systems, during one and a half turns in near-Earth orbit, the third stage was turned on and the spacecraft entered the flight path to the Moon. This journey took about three days.

The design of the Apollo required one major maneuver during the flight. The orbital module, docked with the lunar cabin with its tail section, where the sustainer engine was located, was undocked, made a 180-degree turn and docked to the lunar cabin with its nose section. After that, the spent third stage was separated from the spacecraft rebuilt in this way. The other six flights to the Moon followed the same pattern.

When approaching the Moon, the astronauts turned on the main engine of the orbital (command) module for braking and transfer to a lunar orbit. Then Armstrong and Aldrin moved to the lunar module, which was soon undocked from the orbital compartment and entered an independent orbit of the artificial satellite of the moon, choosing a landing site. On July 20, 1969, at 15:17 Eastern US time (23-17 Moscow time), the Apollo 11 lunar cabin made a soft landing on the Moon in the southwestern part of the Sea of ​​Tranquility.

Six and a half hours later, after putting on spacesuits and depressurizing the lunar compartment, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon. It was then that he said his famous phrase.

Live television broadcast from the surface of the moon was carried out to hundreds of countries of the world. It was watched by 600 million people (out of a then world population of 3.5 billion) in six parts of the world, including Antarctica, as well as the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.

The USSR ignored this event.

“The lunar surface at the time of landing was brightly lit and resembled a desert on a hot day. Because the sky is black, one could imagine being on a sand-strewn sports field at night, under the spotlights. Neither stars nor planets, with the exception of the Earth, were visible, ”Armstrong described his impressions. About the same thing he said to the TV camera and shortly after reaching the surface: “Like a high-mountainous desert in the United States. Unique beauty! “Great loneliness!” echoed Aldrin, who joined Armstrong 20 minutes later.

“The ground on the surface is soft and loose,” Armstrong reported of his impressions, “I easily raise dust with the toe of my shoe. I only sink an eighth of an inch into the ground, but I can see my footprints.” “The grayish-brown soil of the Moon,” wrote the November (1969) issue of the magazine “America”, published in the USSR, “turned out to be slippery, it stuck to the soles of the astronauts. When Aldrin inserted the pole into the ground, it seemed to him that the pole entered something damp. Subsequently, these "terrestrial" comparisons began to be used by skeptics to confirm the idea that the astronauts were not on the moon.

Returning to the lunar cabin, the astronauts pumped up oxygen, took off their spacesuits and, after resting, began to prepare for takeoff. The spent landing stage was undocked, and now the lunar module consisted of one takeoff stage. The total time the astronauts spent on the Moon was 21 hours and 37 minutes, of which the astronauts spent just over two hours outside the lunar cabin.

In orbit, the lunar compartment joined the main one, piloted by Michael Collins. He was destined for the most unenviable, but also the safest role in the lunar expedition - circling in orbit, waiting for his colleagues. Moving into the orbital compartment, the astronauts battened down the transfer hatch and undocked what was left of the lunar cabin. Now the spacecraft "Apollo 11" was one main block, which headed for Earth. The return trip was shorter than the trip to the Moon and was only two and a half days - falling to Earth is easier and faster than flying away from it.

The second moon landing took place on November 19, 1969. Apollo 12 crew members Charles Peter Conrad (the third flight into space; he made four of them in total) and Alan Laverne Bean stayed on the surface of the Moon for 31 hours and a half, of which 7.5 hours outside the spacecraft for two exits. In addition to installing scientific instruments, the astronauts dismantled a number of instruments for delivery to Earth from the American automatic spacecraft (ASA) Surveyor-3, which landed on the surface of the Moon in 1967.

The Apollo 13 flight in April 1970 was unsuccessful. In flight, a serious accident occurred, there was a threat of failure of the LSS. Having forcedly canceled the landing on the Moon, the Apollo 13 crew flew around our natural satellite and returned to Earth in the same elliptical orbit. The commander of the ship, James Arthur Lovell, became the first person to fly to the moon twice (although he was never destined to visit its surface).

This seems to be the only flight to the moon that Hollywood has responded to with a feature film. Successful flights did not attract his attention.

The near-disaster with Apollo 13 made it necessary to pay increased attention to the reliability of all spacecraft onboard systems. The next flight under the lunar program took place only in 1971.

On February 5, 1971, American astronaut veteran Alan Bartlett Shepard and newcomer Edgar Dean Mitchell landed on the moon near the Fra Mauro crater. They went to the lunar surface twice (more than four hours each time), and the total time spent by the Apollo 14 module on the Moon was 33 hours and 24 minutes.

On July 30, 1971, the Apollo 15 module landed on the lunar surface with David Randolph Scott (the third flight into space) and James Benson Irwin. For the first time, astronauts used a mechanical vehicle on the Moon - the "lunar car" - a platform with an electric motor with a power of only 0.25 horsepower. The astronauts made three excursions with a total duration of 18 hours and 35 minutes and traveled 27 kilometers on the Moon. The total time spent on the moon was 66 hours 55 minutes. Before starting from the moon, the astronauts left a television camera on its surface, which worked in automatic mode. She transmitted to the screens of terrestrial television the moment of takeoff of the lunar cabin.

The Lunar Vehicle was used by members of the next two expeditions. On April 21, 1972, Apollo 16 commander John Watts Young and lunar module pilot Charles Moss Duke landed at Descartes Crater. For Young, this was the second flight to the moon, but the first landing on it (in total, Young made six flights into space). Almost three days SC spent on the Moon. During this time, three excursions were made with a total duration of 20 hours and 14 minutes.

The last people to have walked on the moon to date, December 11-14, 1972, were Eugene Andrew Cernan (for whom, like Young, this was the second flight to the moon and the first landing on it) and Harrison Hagan Schmitt. The Apollo 17 crew set a number of records: they spent 75 hours on the Moon, of which 22 hours were outside spacecraft, traveled 36 km on the surface of the night star and brought back 110 kg of lunar rock samples.

By this point, the total cost of the Apollo program had exceeded $25 billion ($135 billion in 2005 prices), prompting NASA to curtail its further implementation. Scheduled flights on Apollo 18, -19 and -20 were cancelled. Of the three remaining Saturn-5 launch vehicles, one launched the only American Skylab orbital station into orbit in 1973, and the other two became museum exhibits.

The liquidation of the Apollo program and the cancellation of some other ambitious projects (in particular, a manned flight to Mars) were a disappointment for Wernher von Braun, who became NASA's deputy director of space flight planning in 1970, and may have hastened his death. Brown retired from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.

Having initially stimulated the start of the lunar programs of the USA and the USSR, the Cold War then directed the development of space technologies into the narrow channel of the arms race.

For the United States, the Space Shuttle program of reusable use became a priority, for the USSR - long-term orbital stations. It seemed that the world was heading irresistibly toward "star wars" in near-Earth space. The era of cosmic romance and the conquest of spaces was fading into the past...

5. Where does the doubt come from?

After several years, doubts began to be expressed: did the Americans really land on the moon? Now there is already a fairly large layer of literature and a rich film library proving that the Apollo program was a grandiose hoax. At the same time, there are two points of view among skeptics. According to one, the Apollo program did not carry out any space flights at all. The astronauts remained on Earth all the time, and the “moon shots” were filmed in a special secret laboratory created by NASA specialists somewhere in the desert. More moderate skeptics recognize the possibility of real flybys of the moon by the Americans, but the landing moments themselves are considered fake and film editing.

Adherents of this sensational hypothesis have developed a detailed argument. The strongest argument, in their opinion, is that in the footage of the landing of astronauts on the moon, the lunar surface does not look like (again, in their understanding) it should look like. So, they believe that stars should be visible in the pictures, since there is no atmosphere on the moon. They also pay attention to the fact that in some pictures, supposedly, the position of the shadows indicates a very close, within a few meters, location of the light source. They also note an excessively close and, as it were, cropped horizon line.

The next group of arguments is related to the "wrong" behavior of material bodies. So, the US flag set by the astronauts waved as if under gusts of wind, while there was a vacuum on the Moon. Pay attention to the strange movement of astronauts in spacesuits. They argue that under conditions of gravity six times less than the earth's astronauts had to move huge (almost a dozen meters) jumps. And they assure that the strange gait of the astronauts just imitated, under the conditions of terrestrial gravity, a “hopping” movement on the Moon with the help of ... spring mechanisms in spacesuits.

They suggest that almost all the astronauts who flew, according to the official version, to the Moon subsequently refused to talk about their flights, give interviews, or write memoirs. Many went crazy, died mysterious deaths, and so on. For skeptics, this is proof that the astronauts experienced terrible stress associated with the need to hide some terrible secret.

It is curious that for ufologists, the strange behavior of many astronauts of the “lunar detachment” serves to prove something completely different, namely, that on the Moon they allegedly made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization!

Finally, the last group of arguments is based on the thesis that the technologies of the late 1960s and early 1970s did not allow three people to make a manned flight to the Moon and return to Earth. They point to the insufficient power of the then launch vehicles, and most importantly (an irresistible argument in our time!) - to the imperfection of computers! And here the skeptics contradict themselves. Thus, they are forced to admit that in those days there were no opportunities for computer-graphic simulation of the course of the lunar expedition!

Supporters of the authenticity of the landings of man on the moon have an equally detailed system of counterarguments. In addition to pointing out the internal contradictions of the skeptical theory, as well as the fact that its arguments can be used to prove several mutually exclusive points of view at once, which is logically considered an automatic refutation of all of them, they provide a physical explanation for the noted "oddities".

The first is the lunar sky, where no stars are visible. Try looking up at a clear sky at night from the bright light of a street lamp. Can you see even one star? But they are there: as soon as you move into the shadow of the lantern, the stars will show through. Looking at the lunar world in the brightest (in a vacuum!) light of the Sun through powerful light filters, both the astronauts and the "eye" of the television camera, of course, could only capture the brightest objects - the lunar surface, the lunar cabin and people in space suits.

The moon is almost four times smaller than the Earth, so the curvature of the surface there is greater, and the horizon line is closer than we are used to. The effect of proximity is enhanced by the absence of air - objects on the horizon of the Moon are visible as clearly as those located near the observer.

Fluctuations of the foil flag occurred, of course, not under the influence of the wind, but according to the principle of a pendulum - the shaft was stuck with force into the lunar soil. In the future, he received more impulses for oscillations from the steps of the astronauts. The seismograph installed by them immediately caught the ground shaking caused by the movement of people. These oscillations, like any others, had a wave nature and were accordingly transmitted to the flag.

When we see astronauts in space suits on TV screens, we are always amazed at their clumsiness in such a bulky design. And on the Moon, despite a sixfold lower gravity, they would not be able to fly with all their desire, which for some reason was expected of them. They tried to move by jumping, but then they found that the earth step (in spacesuits) is also acceptable on the Moon. On the screens, Armstrong easily lifted a heavy (on Earth) toolbox and said with childish delight: “This is where you can throw any thing far!” However, skeptics claim that the scene was feigned, and that the box from which the astronauts then took out scientific equipment was ... empty at that moment.

The hoax would have to be too grandiose and long-term, and more than one thousand scientists would have to devote more than one thousand scientists to the secret!

It is unlikely that even a totalitarian state is capable of exercising such strict control over such a mass of people and preventing information leakage. The crew members of Apollo 11 installed a laser reflector on the Moon, which was then used for laser ranging from the Earth and determining the exact distance to the Moon. Was the location session also fabricated? Or were the reflector and other devices that transmitted signals to Earth until the 1980s all installed by machines?

The astronauts of all six expeditions that landed (according to the official version) on the Moon brought to Earth a total of 380 kg of samples of lunar rocks and lunar dust (for comparison: Soviet and American AKA - only 330 grams, which proves a much higher efficiency of manned flights on compared with AKA for studies of celestial bodies). Were they all collected on Earth, and then passed off as lunar ones? Even those whose age is 4.6 billion years, what has no recognized analogues on Earth? However, skeptics say (and they are partly right) that there are no reliable methods for accurately determining the age of such ancient rocks. And all these centners of lunar soil were allegedly brought to Earth by machine guns. Then why is their weight three orders of magnitude higher than that brought by all other AKAs combined? And if they are terrestrial, then why is their composition identical to the lunar soil delivered by automata to Earth or analyzed by our Lunokhods on the Moon itself?

It is also noteworthy that skeptics concentrate their efforts mainly on refuting the authenticity of the first landing of a man on the moon. Whereas, in order to confirm their theory, they need to separately refute the authenticity of each of the six officially occurring landings. What they don't do

As for the imperfection of the then technologies, the “deadly” of this argument reflects the inferiority of the consciousness of modern civilized humanity, which has put itself in a fatal dependence on computers.

Just at the turn of the 1960-1970s. civilization began to drastically change the paradigm of its development. The attitude to conquer space was replaced by the attitude to the production and use of information, moreover, for utilitarian, consumer purposes. This caused a surge in the development of computer technology, but at the same time put an end to the external expansion of mankind. Along the way, in the same years, the general attitude towards scientific progress began to change - from enthusiastic it first became restrained, and then negative began to prevail. This change in public sentiment was well reflected (and perhaps, to a certain extent, shaped) by Hollywood cinema, one of the textbook images of which was a scientist whose experiments and discoveries become a terrible threat to people's safety.

Most modern people, brought up in the categories of linear progress, find it difficult to imagine that even 40-50 years ago our civilization was in some respects higher (I would even say higher) than it is now, more idealistic. Including in the field of technologies related to penetration into extraterrestrial space. This was facilitated by the competition of alternative socio-economic systems. The virus of self-satisfied all-consuming consumerism has not yet completely killed the romance and heroism of struggle and expansion.

Therefore, all references to the impossibility for the Americans to build a lunar spacecraft in the 1960s are simply untenable. In those years, the United States really overtook the USSR in many areas of space research. So, another triumph of the overseas power was the AKA Voyager program. In 1977, two vehicles of this series were launched to the distant planets of the solar system. The first flew near Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, the second explored all four giant planets. Thousands of stunning images were transmitted to Earth, which bypassed the pages of all popular science publications. The result was sensational scientific discoveries, in particular, dozens of new satellites of the outer planets, the rings of Jupiter and Neptune, and others. Is this also a hoax?! By the way, communication with both ASCs, which are now at a distance of 90 astronomical units (14.85 billion km) from the Earth and are already exploring interstellar space, is still maintained.

So there is no reason to deny the ability of the civilization of the second half of the last century, including the United States, to make a series of manned flights to the moon. Moreover, a similar program was carried out in the USSR.

Its presence and the degree of its development serve as the most important proof of the authenticity of the event that took place 40 years ago.

6. Why did our astronauts never go to the moon?

One of the answers to the question posed is that the Soviet leadership, unlike the American one, did not concentrate its main efforts on this direction. The development of cosmonautics in the USSR after the successful launches of satellites and the first manned flights became "multi-vector". The functions of satellite systems were expanded, spacecraft for near-Earth flights were improved, ASCs were launched to Venus and Mars. It seemed that the first successes in themselves created a fairly solid and long-term backlog of Soviet leadership in this area.

The second reason is that our specialists failed to solve many technical problems that arose during the implementation of the lunar program. Thus, Soviet designers were unable to create a sufficiently powerful launch vehicle, an analogue of Saturn-5. The prototype of such a missile is the RN N-1 (on the picture)- suffered a series of disasters. After that, work on it, in connection with the already completed flights of Americans to the moon, was curtailed.

The third reason was that, paradoxically, it was in the USSR, unlike the United States, that there was real competition between the options for lunar programs between the joint design bureaus (OKB). The political leadership of the USSR was faced with the need to choose a priority project, and due to its scientific and technical incompetence, it could not always make a good choice. Parallel support of two or more programs led to the dispersion of human and financial resources.

In other words, in the USSR, unlike the USA, the lunar program was not unified.

It consisted of various, often multifunctional projects that never merged into one. The programs for flying around the moon, landing on the moon, and creating a heavy launch vehicle were implemented largely separately.

Finally, the leadership of the USSR considered the landing of a man on the moon exclusively in a political context. For some reason, the lag behind the United States in the implementation of a manned flight to the moon was for some reason assessed by him as a worse admission of defeat than an “excuse” that the USSR did not have a lunar program at all. Few people believed in the latter even then, and the absence of a hint of at least trying to repeat the achievement of the Americans was perceived both in our society and throughout the world as a sign of a hopeless lag behind the United States in the field of space technology.

The project LK-1 ("Lunar ship-1"), which provided for a flight around the moon with one astronaut on board the spacecraft, was signed by the head of OKB-52 Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey on August 3, 1964. It was guided by the UR500K launch vehicle developed in the same design bureau (a prototype of the subsequent Proton launch vehicle, successfully tested for the first time on July 16, 1965). But in December 1965, the Politburo decided to concentrate all the practical work on the lunar program in Sergei Korolev's OKB-1. There were presented two projects.

The L-1 project provided for a crew of two to fly around the moon. Another (L-3), signed by Korolev back in December 1964, is a flight to the Moon of a crew of two people, with one astronaut landing on the surface of the Moon. Initially, the term for its implementation was appointed by Korolev for 1967-1968.

In 1966, the Chief Designer dies unexpectedly during an unsuccessful operation. Vasily Pavlovich Mishin becomes the head of OKB-1. The history of the leadership and scientific and technical support of Soviet cosmonautics, the role of individuals in this is a special topic, its analysis would take us too far.

The first successful launch of the Proton-L-1 complex was carried out from Baikonur on March 10, 1967. A model of the module was launched into the orbit of the satellite, which received the official designation "Cosmos-146". By this time, the Americans had already conducted the first Apollo test in automatic mode for almost a year.

On March 2, 1968, the prototype L-1 under the official name "Zond-4" flew around the Moon, but the descent in the earth's atmosphere was unsuccessful. The subsequent two launch attempts were unsuccessful due to failures in the operation of the launch vehicle engines. Only on September 15, 1968, L-1 was launched on the flight path to the Moon under the name "Zond-5". However, the descent took place in an unplanned area. The atmospheric descent systems also failed Zond-6 upon its return in November 1968. Recall that already in October 1968, the Americans switched from automatic to manned flights under the Apollo program. And in December of the same year, the first triumphant flyby of the moon was made by Apollo 8.

In January 1969, the RN started to feel down again at the start. Only in August 1969 did the successful unmanned flight of Zonda-7 take place with a return to Earth in a given area. By this time, the Americans had already visited the moon ...

In October 1970, the Zonda-8 flight took place. Almost all technical problems have been solved. The next two devices of this series were already prepared for manned flights, but ... the program was ordered to be curtailed.

The L-3 project, intended for landing on the moon, had significant differences from the American one. The flight principle was the same. However, the more powerful LK engine did not require the cabin to be divided into landing and takeoff stages. Another difference was that the astronaut's transition between LOK and LK had to be carried out through outer space. This was due to the fact that by that time, domestic cosmonautics had not yet solved the technical problems associated with the hermetic docking of two spacecraft. The first successful experience of this kind was made by ours only in 1971 when launching the Soyuz-11 spacecraft to the Salyut-1 orbital station. And already in March 1969, the Americans on Apollo 9 performed the first hermetic docking and undocking in history and the transition from one space module to another without a spacewalk. The need to create a lock chamber in the Soviet LOK and the presence of a pilot in a spacesuit there sharply limited the useful volume and payload of the entire lunar complex. Therefore, only two people were planned for the expedition, and not three, as with the Americans.

Tests of individual elements of the flight to the moon were initially carried out within the framework of the Soyuz and Cosmos projects. On September 30, 1967, the first docking of the Kosmos-186 and -187 unmanned vehicles in orbit was performed. In January 1969, Vladimir Shatalov on the Soyuz-4, Boris Volynov, Alexei Eliseev and Yevgeny Khrunov on the Soyuz-5 made the first docking of manned vehicles and the transition from one to another through outer space. The development of undocking, braking, acceleration and docking of the LK in near-Earth orbit continued even after the decision to cancel the manned flight was made in the early 1970s.

The main obstacle to the lunar project was the difficulty in creating the H-1 launch vehicle.

Her preliminary design was signed by Korolev back in 1962, and the Chief Designer made a note on the sketch: “We dreamed about this back in 1956-57.” With the creation of a heavy launch vehicle, hopes were associated not only with a flight to the Moon, but also with long-distance interplanetary flights.

The design of the H-1 launch vehicle was a five-stage (!) initial weight of 2750 tons. According to the project, the first three stages were supposed to bring a load with a total weight of 96 tons to the flight path to the Moon, which included, in addition to the lunar ship, two stages for maneuvering near the Moon, descending to its surface, lifting from it and flying away to Earth. The weight of the lunar ship itself, which consisted of the orbital compartment and the lunar cabin, did not exceed 16 tons.

The N-1 rocket, the first test of which took place in January 1969 (after the first flyby of the Moon by the Americans), was plagued from beginning to end by fatal failures caused by engine failure. Not a single launch of the H-1 was successful. After the catastrophe during the fourth launch in November 1972, further work on the H-1 was stopped, although the causes of the accidents were identified and completely subject to elimination.

Back in 1966, Chelomey proposed an alternative project for a lunar expedition based on the creation of the UR700 launch vehicle (a further development of the UR500, that is, the Proton, which was never carried out). The flight pattern for this program resembled the original American project (which they later abandoned). It provided for a single-module lunar ship, without division into orbital and takeoff and landing compartments, with two astronauts on board. However, OKB-52 gave the green light only to the theoretical development of this project.

If it were not for the hasty political decision of the Soviet leadership, it can be argued that, despite all the technical problems, our cosmonauts could quite realistically have carried out the first flight around the moon in 1970-1971, and the first landing on the moon in 1973-1974. .

But at this time, after the successful flights of the Americans, the leaders of the CPSU cooled off towards the lunar program. This indicates a drastic change in their mentality. Is it possible to imagine that if the United States managed to get ahead of us in the development of the first satellite or the launch of the first cosmonaut, the Soviet space program would have been curtailed at an early stage? Of course not! In the late 50s - early 60s. this would be impossible!

But in the 70s, the leaders of the CPSU had other priorities. The need to pay special attention to the military component served only as a pretext for curtailing the lunar program (especially since the beginning of the 70s is characterized by a détente of international tension). From now on, the prestige of Soviet cosmonautics was based only on constantly updated records of flight duration. In 1974, as a result of corporate intrigues, Mishin was fired from the post of head of OKB-1. He was replaced by Valentin Glushko, who not only stopped all work on the H-1, even theoretical ones, but also ordered the destruction of copies of this launch vehicle ready for testing.

The question posed in the title of this section is quite appropriate to supplement with another one: why weren't our astronauts on Mars? More precisely, near Mars.

The fact is that the H-1 project was calculated as a multi-purpose one. This launch vehicle (which was planned only as the first in a family of heavy carriers) was developed in the future not only for a lunar ship, but also for a “heavy interplanetary ship” (TMK). This project provided for the launch of spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit, which made it possible to fly several thousand kilometers from Mars and return to Earth.

The development of the LSS of such a ship was carried out on Earth. Volunteer testers Manovtsev, Ulybyshev and Bozhko in 1967-1968. spent a whole year in a sealed chamber with an autonomous LSS. Similar experiments of much shorter duration began in the United States only in 1970. Subsequently, the many months spent by a number of Soviet crews on the Salyuts formed suspicions that the leadership of the USSR was preparing to carry out the "Martian program". Alas, it was only speculation. Such a program did not exist in reality. Work on the TMK was terminated at the same time as work on the H-1.

In principle, a manned flight around Mars with a return to Earth would have been quite realistic for the USSR already in the early to mid-1980s.

Of course, provided that all elements of the lunar program suitable for use in flight to Mars continued to develop and work on them did not stop in the 70s. The morale of such a flight would be comparable to the landing of the Americans on the moon, if not more. Alas, the later Soviet leadership once again missed a historic chance for a great country...

7. Is there a future for lunar expeditions?

This requires, first of all, a radical change in the mentality of modern civilization. Despite the occasional promises by the leaders of the United States or the leaders of our cosmonautics to organize a manned flight to Mars, it is clear that they are no longer perceived by society with such enthusiasm as 40-50 years ago the promises of the first flights into space and to the moon. George W. Bush announced the goal of returning Americans to the moon by 2020 and the subsequent flight to Mars. By that time, several presidents will already be replaced, and Bush, in case of non-fulfillment of his "destiny", as they say, bribes will be smooth.

In our time, space research and the conquest of world spaces have decisively shifted from priorities to the periphery of public interest in literally all countries of the world.

This is clearly seen in the proportion of messages of this kind in the general media stream. If in Soviet times almost every citizen of the USSR knew whether our cosmonauts were now in orbit and who they were, now only a small minority knows for sure whether cosmonauts are currently on board the International Space Station. However, most probably do not even know what it is.

Meanwhile, the effectiveness of manned flights for scientific research was proved by the same Apollo expeditions. During the three days of their stay on the Moon, two astronauts managed to do the volume of scientific work, which exceeded by orders of magnitude those that were carried out by both of our lunar rovers in 15 months! The Apollo program was essential to scientific and technological progress. Many of her achievements were then used in a variety of projects. Testing the latest equipment in the conditions of deep space flights is a completely unique opportunity, fraught with a sharp leap forward in all scientific and technical fields. The multibillion-dollar costs of the Apollo program eventually paid off and made a profit thanks to the introduction of new technologies.

However, despite the projects of long-term manned stations on the Moon that appear from time to time, the governments of the leading powers of the world, either individually or together, are in no hurry to fork out for such programs. The point here is not only in stinginess, but also in the lack of ambition. Extraterrestrial spaces have ceased to excite and attract people. Mankind clearly needs additional incentives to activate the cosmic vector of its development.

Special for the Centenary

Each nation individually and all of humanity as a whole strives only forward to conquer new horizons in the development of the economy, medicine, sports, science, new technologies, including the study of astronomy and the conquest of space. We hear about big breakthroughs in space, but have they really happened? Did the Americans land on the moon, or was it just one big spectacle?

suits

Having visited the "US National Air and Space Museum" in Washington, anyone who wants to make sure: the Americans' spacesuit is a very simple dressing gown, sewn in haste. NASA claims that the spacesuits were sewn at a bra and underwear factory, that is, their spacesuits were sewn from the fabric of underpants and they supposedly protect against the aggressive space environment, from radiation that is fatal to humans. However, maybe NASA has really developed ultra-reliable suits that protect against radiation. But why then was this ultra-light material not used anywhere else? Not for military, not for peaceful purposes. Why was help not provided with Chernobyl, albeit for money, as American presidents like to do? Well, let's say perestroika has not yet begun and they did not want to help the Soviet Union. But, after all, for example, in 79 in the USA at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant there was a terrible accident of the reactor unit. So why didn't they use durable spacesuits developed using NASA technology to eliminate radiation contamination - a time bomb on their territory?

Radiation radiation from the Sun is detrimental to humans. Radiation is one of the main obstacles to space exploration. For this reason, today all manned flights take place no further than 500 kilometers from the surface of our planet. But the Moon has no atmosphere and the level of radiation is commensurate with open space. For this reason, both in a manned spacecraft and in a spacesuit on the surface of the Moon, the astronauts had to receive a lethal dose of radiation. However, they are all alive.

Neil Armstrong and the other 11 astronauts lived an average of 80 years, and some are still alive today, like Buzz Aldrin. By the way, back in 2015, he honestly admitted that he had not been to the moon.

It is interesting to know how they were able to survive so well when a small dose of radiation is enough to develop leukemia, a cancer of the blood. As you know, none of the astronauts died of oncology, which raises only questions. Theoretically, it is possible to protect yourself from radiation. The question is, what protection can be sufficient for such a flight. Engineers' calculations show that to protect the astronauts from cosmic radiation, the walls of the spacecraft and the spacesuit at least 80 cm thick, made of lead, are needed, which, of course, was not there. Not a single rocket can lift such a weight.

The suits were not just hastily riveted, and they were missing the simple things necessary for life support. So in the spacesuits used in the Apollo program, there is no system for the withdrawal of waste products. The Americans, either throughout the flight with plugs in different places, endured, did not write or poop. Or everything that came out of them they immediately processed. Otherwise, they would simply suffocate on their excrement. It's not that the system for excreting waste products was bad - it was simply absent.

Astronauts walked on the moon in rubber boots, but it's interesting to know how they did it if the temperature on the moon ranges from +120 to -150 degrees Celsius. How did they get the information and technology to make shoes that are resistant to wide temperature ranges? After all, the only material that has the necessary properties was discovered after flights and began to be used in production only 20 years after the first landing on the moon.

official chronicle

The vast majority of space images of the NASA lunar program do not show stars, although they are abundant in Soviet space images. The black empty background in all the photographs is explained by the fact that there were difficulties with modeling the starry sky and NASA decided to completely abandon the sky in their images. At the time of the installation of the US flag on the moon, the flag was fluttering under the influence of air currents. Armstrong adjusted the flag and took a few steps back. However, the flag did not stop waving. The American flag fluttered in the wind, although we know that in the absence of an atmosphere and in the absence of wind as such, a flag cannot wave on the Moon. How could astronauts move so quickly on the Moon if gravity is 6 times lower than on Earth? An accelerated view of the astronauts' jumps on the Moon shows that their movements correspond to those on Earth, and the height of the jumps does not exceed the height of the jumps under the conditions of Earth's gravity. You can also find fault with the pictures themselves for a long time in the difference in colors and minor blunders.

Lunar soil

During the lunar missions under the Apollo program, a total of 382 kg of lunar soil was delivered to Earth, and soil samples were donated by the US government to leaders of different countries. True, without exception, all regolith turned out to be a fake of terrestrial origin. Part of the soil mysteriously simply disappeared from museums, another part of the soil after chemical analysis turned out to be terrestrial basalt or meteorite fragments. So BBC News reported that a fragment of lunar soil, stored in the Dutch museum Rijskmuseulm, turned out to be a piece of petrified wood. The exhibit was handed over to Dutch Prime Minister Willem Dries, and after his death, the regolith went to the museum. Experts doubted the authenticity of the stone back in 2006. Finally, this suspicion was confirmed by an analysis of the lunar soil, carried out by specialists from the Free University of Amsterdam, the conclusion of the experts was not comforting: a piece of stone is a fake. The American government decided not to comment on this situation in any way and simply hushed up the matter. Also, similar cases occurred in Japan, Switzerland, China and Norway. And such embarrassments were resolved in the same way, regoliths mysteriously either disappeared or were destroyed by fire or the destruction of museums.

One of the main arguments of the opponents of the lunar conspiracy is the recognition by the Soviet Union of the fact that the Americans landed on the moon. Let's analyze this fact in more detail. The United States was well aware that it would not be difficult for the Soviet Union to come out with a refutation and provide evidence that the Americans had never landed on the moon. And there was plenty of evidence, including material. This is the analysis of the lunar soil, which was transferred by the American side, and this is the Apollo 13 apparatus caught in the Bay of Biscay in 1970 with full telemetry of the launch of the Saturn-5 launch vehicles, in which there was not a single living soul, there was not a single astronaut. On the night of April 11-12, the Soviet fleet lifted the Apollo 13 capsule. In fact, the capsule turned out to be an empty zinc bucket, there was no thermal protection at all, and its weight was no more than one ton. The rocket was launched on April 11, and a few hours later on the same day, the Soviet military finds a capsule in the Bay of Biscay.

And according to the official chronicle, the American apparatus circled the Moon and returned to Earth supposedly on April 17, as if nothing had happened. The Soviet Union at that time received irrefutable evidence of the falsification of the moon landing by the Americans and it had a fat ace up its sleeve.

But then amazing things began to happen. At the height of the Cold War, when a bloody war was going on in Vietnam, Brezhnev and Nixon, as if nothing had happened, meet like good old friends, smile, clink glasses, drink champagne together. History remembers this as the Brezhnev thaw. How can one explain the completely unexpected friendship between Nixon and Brezhnev? In addition to the fact that the Brezhnev thaw began quite unexpectedly, behind the scenes, there were chic gifts that President Nixon made personally to Ilyich Brezhnev. Thus, during his first visit to Moscow, the American president brings Brezhnev a generous gift - a Cadillac Eldorado, assembled by hand on a special order. I wonder for what merits at the highest level Nixon gives an expensive Cadillac at the first meeting? Or maybe the Americans were indebted to Brezhnev? And then - more. At the next meetings, Brezhnev is presented with a Lincoln limousine, followed by a sports Chevrolet Monte Carlo. At the same time, the silence of the Soviet Union about the American lunar scam could hardly be bought for a luxury car. The USSR demanded to pay big. Can it be considered a coincidence that in the early 70s, when the Americans allegedly landed on the moon, the construction of the largest giant, the KAMAZ automobile plant, began in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the West allocated billions of dollars in loans for this construction, and several hundred American and European automobile companies took part in the construction. There were dozens of other projects in which the West, for such inexplicable reasons, invested in the economy of the Soviet Union. Thus, an agreement was concluded on the supply of American grain to the USSR at prices below the world average, which negatively affected the well-being of the Americans themselves.

The embargo on the supply of Soviet oil to Western Europe was also lifted, we began to penetrate into their gas market, where we are still successfully operating. In addition to allowing the US to do such a lucrative business with Europe, the West essentially built these pipelines itself. Germany provided a loan of more than 1 billion marks to the Soviet Union and supplied large-diameter pipes, which at that time were not being produced in our country. Moreover, the nature of warming demonstrates a clear one-sidedness. The US is doing favors to the Soviet Union while getting nothing in return. Amazing generosity, which can easily be explained by the price of silence about the fake moon landing.

By the way, recently the famous Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who defends the Americans everywhere and everywhere in their version of the flight to the moon, confirmed that the landing was filmed in the studio. Indeed, who will film the epochal opening of the hatch by the first man on the moon, if there is no one on the moon?

Destroying the myth that Americans landed on the moon is not just a minor fact. No. The element of this illusion is interconnected with all world deceptions. And when one illusion begins to collapse after it, according to the domino principle, the rest of the illusions begin to collapse. Not only are delusions about the greatness of the United States of America crumbling. Added to this is the misconception about the confrontation of states. Would the USSR play along with its irreconcilable enemy in the lunar scam? It's hard to believe, but, unfortunately, the Soviet Union played the same game with the United States. And if this is so, then it becomes clear to us now that there are forces that control all these processes, which are higher than the states.

Questions, questions...

Friends from Kyiv sent me an American film by Island World "For All Mankind"("For all mankind"- with a polyphonic translation into Russian), directed by Al Reinert, released in 1989 for the 20th anniversary of the landing on the moon of the first people - American astronauts N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin. The film raises a lot of questions, even without watching it.

"For All Mankind", full NASA movie (1989)

(without translation into Russian - in English)

For example, why is the Soviet audience not familiar with him? Why was this and subsequent anniversary films never shown on our television? For example, in the USSR it was not shown for ideological reasons, but after all, already under Gorbachev, we opened the doors for the propaganda of the older pale-faced brother. Why did US agitprop never insist that its main achievement - landing on the moon - be promoted in the captured country?

Long road

A few general figures. This ostensibly documentary about the first people on the Moon is 75 minutes long. In about half an hour, you will definitely begin to swear: when will the moon finally be? The fact is that landing on the moon and everything else about the stay of astronauts on the moon (everyone, not only Armstrong and Aldrin) take only about 25 minutes in the film, and shooting on the moon is about 20.5 minutes, and the astronauts themselves there are less than 19 minutes. Agree that this is not much, if we consider that according to legend, the astronauts of all expeditions spent about 400 hours on the Moon.

You ask: What is shown in the first 50 minutes of the film? Yes, whatever!

How astronauts dress before launch, how they are examined, how they walk, how they are lifted onto the ship, how they take off, how they admire the view of the Canary Islands from space, how they change clothes, how they eat, how they shave with an electric razor, how they are thrown by objects suspended in weightlessness, how they sleep, how they eat again, how they shave again, however, now with a safety razor. How the music of the audio player is listened to, what kind of music it is, what the musicians said when it was recorded, etc. and so on. Since there is no hurry, they show how the astronauts jokingly shoot a video about themselves, how they draw screensavers for it, these screensavers (4 or 5), of course, are necessarily shown to the audience. How astronauts broadcast a comic TV report on sports news from space, scores in basketball league matches are transmitted. Etc. and so on. And all this with sparkling American humor. For example, they joke merrily, showing how the astronauts are recovering (it is explained in detail that the bags with excrement must be tightly closed with lids, otherwise the excrement will stick around the entire cabin). When one goes to recover, the rest, making faces, put on oxygen masks, letting the audience know that it stinks badly. Funny. In general, in the abyss of space, there is an abyss of humor. American.

So that the audience does not get bored too much, an accident is arranged: "leakage of liquid oxygen in the maintenance compartment, where oxygen is stored for the crew to breathe." This liquid oxygen is shown as a fountain. For some reason, the MCC is looking at something that looks like a storage battery and give a peppy command: "Try plans No. 4 and No. 3." At this command, the astronaut grabs a roll of adhesive tape and quickly seals something with it, brilliantly saving the life of the crew.

Spectators are not deprived of original views, but first a few words about the design of the Apollo spacecraft. It is launched into the Earth's orbit by two stages of the Saturn rocket, the third stage accelerates it to the Moon. The Apollo itself consists of the main unit, which houses the cockpit and engine. In this cabin, astronauts fly to the moon and return to Earth. The engine of the main unit slows down the Apollo near the Moon and accelerates it to return to Earth. A lunar cabin is docked to the engines of the main unit, in which two astronauts descend to the Moon and return to the main unit. A landing platform is docked to the lunar cabin from the side of its engine, the engine of which puts the platform and the lunar cabin on the surface of the Moon. (The lunar cabin then starts from this platform).

Launch vehicle "Saturn-5""

1. Emergency Rescue System (SAS).
2. Compartment of the crew of the spacecraft "Apollo"
3. The engine compartment of the Apollo spacecraft.
4. Lunar cabin of the Apollo spacecraft.
5. Lunar platform.
6. Equipment compartment.
7. Third stage (rocket S-4B).
8. J-2 engine.
9. Second stage (rocket S-).
10. Five J-2 engines.
11. First stage (rocket S-1C.
12. Five F-1 engines.

The crew compartment is small: it is a cone with a diameter at the base of 3.9 m and a height of 3.2 m. . There are no gateways.

Nevertheless, 2 hours after the launch from the cosmodrome, when the Apollo with the third stage of the Saturn was supposed to be still in Earth orbit, someone from the Armstrong crew decided to urgently take a walk in space: they opened the hatch and went out. There were enough TV cameras inside the crew compartment, but at that time they were not filming, and this is not surprising: after all, oxygen must be lowered from the Apollo into the open hatch, and the two remaining crew members would also have to put on spacesuits. That astronaut who went into outer space did it solely to hang in empty space and say, "Hallelujah, Houston." Soon, Houston demanded that he return to the compartment, since in a few minutes the Apollo acceleration to the Moon began. By the way, the absence of the third stage of the Saturn was clearly visible.

In the film, the mission control center (MCC) looms annoyingly. Since there is nothing to show in it - the consoles and the people behind them, the poor director climbed out of his skin to diversify the picture: he showed how they worry at the MCC, and how they rejoice, and how they laugh at the endless jokes of the astronauts, and how they yawn, and how they drink coffee, how they eat, how they smoke. The trousers and boots of the flight director are shown three times in the film, and everyone should remember that the trousers are short and the boots are brightly polished. At the very least, with this technique, the director pulled the MCC footage for 9 minutes of the total time of the film.

Be that as it may, but in the end with jokes, jokes, music and songs, the astronauts finally flew up to the moon.

My technically savvy acquaintances claimed that the Americans could not land on the moon due to the fact that they had no experience in docking spacecraft. Really. According to legend, on the way to the Moon, the astronauts had to undock the main block of the Apollo from the third stage of Saturn, turn it 180 degrees and dock again to the lunar cabin so that the upper hatch of the main block was aligned with the upper hatch of the lunar cabin, otherwise Armstrong and it was impossible for Aldrin to cross into it.

So, not a word is said about this most complicated operation in the film! There are no shots of the farewell of the astronaut remaining in the main block with those going into the lunar cabin, no shots of their return. But this is not a scene of the departure of small and large needs by the astronauts and not a scene of their shaving, these were supposed to be the most powerful shots in terms of drama. But they are not for any lunar expedition! Moreover, after approaching the Moon, the cameras of the crew compartment were no longer turned on, and there is not a single frame with its interior. The main block was shown outside all the time. If I am right and the Americans dropped lunar cabins on the Moon without astronauts, then it should be so, because all three astronauts were in the crew compartment and it was impossible to show it, just as it was impossible at that time to shoot scenes of farewells and meetings that did not take place without real weightlessness .

On the moon

Anyway. And so they finally sit down. A television camera located somewhere outside (neither it nor the portholes on the lunar cabin in its drawings were found by me), filming the landing on the moon. Approximately a few meters from the surface, as seen from the shadow on the Moon's surface, what looks like jets of gas from an engine flickers in front of the lens and then the camera shakes with the impact of the landing. No pebble, no sand, no speck of dust flew out from under the engine of the lunar platform with a thrust in a vacuum of 4530 kG. But when, at the end of the film, the launch from the moon of the lunar cabin of some next Apollo, starting from its metal platform, is shown, then from the jet of the engine with a thrust of 1590 kG, stones flew up at a tremendous speed, at least 20-50 kg by eye. Nothing to say - cinema! Hollywood. By the last series, they guessed that the engine jet should somehow act on the ground.

A few words about the fact that people who are sure that the Americans were on the moon consider the lighting spotlights of the shooting pavilion that have fallen into numerous photographs to be glare on the lens. Spotlights also hit the frames of this film and they are well distinguishable from glare. (When the camera is rotated, the highlights change shape and follow the camera, while the spotlights remain stationary).

The Americans for the first time installed corner reflectors of a laser signal on the lunar surface. Since then, the photon signal reflected from them has been repeatedly recorded in sessions of laser ranging of the Moon at observatories in various countries, including the USSR. This is considered reliable evidence of the presence of Americans on the moon. True, opponents immediately admit that “later, similar devices were delivered to the Moon in Soviet experiments with Lunokhods and are used for the same purposes along with American ones,” i.e. for their installation, it is not necessary to land a person, this can also be done by an automatic station. The USSR also delivered a corner reflector to the Moon and took soil samples, but does not boast that its astronauts were on the Moon. So this is absolutely circumstantial evidence. And direct evidence of the presence of American astronauts on the moon is genuine film and photography. You can't make them anywhere.

The most touching, of course, are the shots of the installation of the American flag. "On the Moon" one astronaut drove a peg into the ground, another planted a flagpole on it. According to legend, the flag was made of stiff fabric on a wire frame, i.e. the flagpole looked like the letter "G". So the flag had only one free corner, and this corner showed that it was really free. It fluttered so merrily in the wind of the "airless" space of the "Moon" that the astronaut was forced to pull it up. Hanging angle. But as soon as the astronaut departed, the flag fluttered merrily again. (Probably, some damn Negro opened all the time and closed the gate in the filming pavilion, creating a draft).

Since the too obvious absurdity of these frames began to immediately catch the eye of any more or less reasonable person, America's fans tried to get out of the situation by offering some explanations for this fact. It is worth dwelling on them in more detail. At the moment, all pro-American scientists adhere to one of two mutually exclusive hypotheses. The first asserts that “these are just natural vibrations of the flagpole-flag elastic system”. But one must not only know these clever words, but also figuratively imagine what it is. Take something elastic, for example, a ruler, hold one end of it, pull it back and release the free one. These are elastic vibrations in their purest form. Their peculiarity, like any oscillations, is that the oscillating part of the system deviates from the zero position all the time - the one in which the oscillations subside.

So, in the film there is no hint of these very "elastic oscillations". The flag is blown away by the wind in one direction from the zero position, and the ribbon stretching behind the astronaut "going into space" is also blown off in one direction. She always covers him only on one side and trembles in the draft. Those. and "spacewalk" is also a Hollywood fake. By the way, with this "exit" cumulus clouds are visible as close as they are seen from an airplane, and not from a space station. (By the way, American journalists themselves caught NASA on the fact that they gave the press photos of "spacewalk" obviously falsified). By giving this forgery, the Americans show that they have a catastrophic lack of material for a film about the flight to the moon. For the sake of justice, it should be noted that in the spacewalk scene there are a number of shots of clearly cosmic origin: in particular, the inclusion of the sustainer engine in Earth orbit - the jet from the engine is just the same as it should be when it flows into a vacuum (very underexpanded), is visible its structure in the form of shock waves. So they still flew into space. And installation is a matter of technology.

The second hypothesis is that the flag had a motor that created vibrations. But, in addition to the fact that it is rather difficult to imagine such a thing, it should also be noted that the oscillations created by the motor must, firstly, be strictly periodic, and secondly, have a wave profile that is constant in time. We don't see anything like this in the pictures. Of course, enthusiasts can assume that there, inside the flag, there was also a Pentium II or even III (and why not? Near the motor!), Which pulls the flag at random intervals in a random direction with a random effort, but still we do not consider the realm of science fiction.

In addition, an important caveat should be made: Truth is always concrete, and therefore the realization of both mutually exclusive hypotheses is impossible. If it's a matter of free oscillations, then why involve the hypothesis with a motor? After all, this is simply stupid! If there was a motor, then who do you need to be in order to believe in the hypothesis of free oscillations? As you wish, but even if one of these hypotheses were true, it means that the supporters of the other are simply extremely stupid. Sometimes there are instances that try to combine these two hypotheses and talk about free oscillations with a motor, but this already stems from elementary ignorance of physics, and, apart from the advice to read school textbooks, such people simply have nothing to say.

Another psychologically very interesting episode. The astronauts, like O. Bender of reference, presented the world with proof that they were really in the airless space of the Moon. One astronaut took a hammer in one hand, a bird's feather (!) in the other, raised them to shoulder height and simultaneously released them. The hammer and feather hit the ground at the same time. But for us, firstly, it is not this cheap trick that is important, but the fact that the American children of Lieutenant Schmidt planned this on Earth in order to prove their stay on the Moon, for which the astronauts took the "feather" with them. If they really were on the moon, then why is this necessary? Secondly, in Hollywood they were not smart enough to understand that they had conducted a physical experiment by which one could calculate the acceleration of free fall, and by its value to understand whether this happens on the Moon or not. I think that if they understood this, they would stick a feather in the ass of the one who came up with this trick. But more on that below.

All "lunar" shots are frankly playful: the astronauts play their stay on the Moon, and this is striking. For example, an episode: between the TV camera and two astronauts there is about 20 m of sandy surface. About 2 meters from the chamber, a stone 10 centimeters in diameter and 20 centimeters high vertically sticks out. There are no other more or less large stones anywhere else. In theory, the astronauts themselves had to install the TV camera and, moving away from it, they had to stumble over this stone. The episode has begun. An astronaut from afar moves back to the camera and joyfully exclaims: "Look, what a stone!" And in the center of the frame begins to raise it. Those. this is the "lunar" version of the joke about the piano in the bushes.

In these shootings "on the moon" there is not a single documentary, natural episode. Here is an astronaut demonstrating a useful activity - he drives a small pin into the ground. There are no wires coming from the pin, there are no devices - a bare metal pin. He scored, put the hammer in his pocket, turned and ran, singing some song. And why did he take him to the moon and why did he score?

Lunar episodes with astronauts are clearly played in slow motion in order to create the appearance of astronauts moving "like on the moon." When running and jumping, the astronauts slowly leave the surface and slowly descend. For several minutes of the film, they deliberately fall to show that the fall is slow. Considering the risks of actually and very carefully being on the Moon, the behavior of the astronauts with their pranks and falls clearly indicates that if they and the MCC are not completely kamikaze, then this is not the Moon.

Let's get back to running. If we ignore the slow motion, it is clear that the astronauts in spacesuits are very hard. But they are on the moon, where the weight is six times less than on earth, despite the fact that the strength of the muscles remains the same. For example, astronaut Aldrin in a space suit (about 11 kG) and with a life support pack (45 kG) weighs 161 kG on the Earth, and 27 kG on the Moon. Let's remember the school and count a little.

Running on the moon

When walking and running, the foot lifts us off the ground and throws us up to a certain height. h. The energy of this throw is equal to our weight multiplied by this height. On the moon, our weight will be 6 times less, therefore, with the same usual muscular effort, the leg will throw us to a height h 6 times higher than on Earth.

From high h we are brought back to earth by the force of its attraction in time t, calculated by the formula

(It seems doubtful to me that such a decrease in speed would be noticeable by eye, I'm afraid that I won't be able to tell by eye whether a person is walking at a speed of 5 km/h or 4.1 km/h, whether a car is traveling at a speed of 10 km/h or 8 km/h).

Let's assume that on Earth Aldrin, wearing just his shorts, makes it above the surface in the 0.14 seconds we calculated. step length of 0.9 m. On the Moon in a spacesuit, his speed will decrease by 1.22 times, but the time before descending to the surface will increase by 0.71 / 0.14 \u003d 5.1 times, therefore, the width of Aldrin's step will increase by 5 ,1 / 1.22 = 4.2 times, or up to 0.9 x 4.2 = 3.8 m. The suit makes movement difficult and, let's say, for this reason, its step will decrease by 0.5 m on Earth. On the Moon, it will also decrease by this distance and will be 3.8 - 0.5 \u003d 3.3 m.

Therefore, on the Moon in a spacesuit, the astronauts' step speed above the surface should be slightly slower than on Earth, but the height of the ascent at each step should be 4 times higher than on Earth, and the step width should be 4 times wider.

In the film, the astronauts run and jump, but the height of their jumps and the width of their steps are much smaller than on Earth. This is not surprising, because when they were filmed in Hollywood, they still had at least an imitation of a spacesuit and a life support pack, they were pretty loaded and it was hard for them. And slow-motion playback cannot hide this heaviness. Astronauts kick their feet very hard when running, kilograms of sand fly out from under their feet, they can hardly raise their legs, their socks are rowing along the surface all the time. But slowly....

Such an episode. Aldrin with jokes and jokes jumps from the last step of the lunar module to the "Moon". The height is about 0.8 m, he holds the stairs with his hands. Since his weight in the suit is 27 kg, i.e. four times lighter than in shorts alone on Earth, then for his trained muscles this jump is tantamount to jumping on Earth from a height of 0.2 m, i.e. from one step. Let each of you jump from such a height, without even holding on to anything with your hands, and look at your condition. Aldrin, while jumping from the step, slowly sank to the surface, then his knees began to bend and he bent at the waist, i.e. he hit so hard during the "lunar landing" that his trained muscles could not keep his body in a spacesuit in an upright position.

ground pressure

A little preface to the next calculation. My opponent brought me a thick book "Lunar Soil from the Sea of ​​Abundance" Nauka, M., 1974, so that I myself could read and make sure that the lunar soil delivered by the Soviet automatic station "Luna-16" corresponds to the soil taken by the astronauts . Yes, it says so in the book. But how is it set? Our scientists reported to the Americans the results of studies of lunar soil, and the Americans informed us that they had the same. Of the 400 kg of American "lunar soil" not a gram was sent to the USSR for research, and, it seems to me, still. Yes, a certain amount of lunar soil can be obtained using automatic stations. But since these samples were taken in the absence of people - meaninglessly, just like they were taken by Soviet automatic stations - the scientific result from the study of these samples should not have differed greatly from zero.

For example, the American Lunar and Planetary Institute holds 2 conferences a year dedicated to the Moon, and a lot of lectures are given there. And yet, we know little about the composition of the Moon. And where does this knowledge come from? Two or three point samples from the most uninteresting and uninformative points of the Moon - from flat areas? It is possible to analyze these samples for at least a hundred years by any new methods of analysis, but all the same, these analyzes will not say anything about the Moon, since on the surface of the Moon, as well as on the Earth, there may be the devil knows what that is not related to either the crust or the structure of the planet . But there is not the slightest hint that the Americans on the Moon made at least the smallest attempts at geological exploration! The USSR, with the help of then imperfect automatic stations, could not carry out any geological exploration, but they, with people and cars, why didn’t they try to do it? Why didn't they take samples of soil, bedrock and ore deposits meaningfully?

The fact is that with the help of their lunar soil, the Americans were ahead of the USSR only in a single issue - in proving the existence of paranormal phenomena.

A specialist in this matter A. Kartashkin in the book "Poltergeist" (M., "Santax-Press", 1997) reports this:

"Alexander Kuzovkin wrote an article "Some Aspects of the UFO and Poltergeist Phenomenon".

It tells (with reference to the Moskovskaya Pravda newspaper of October 6, 1979) about an absolutely incredible case. Recall that by that time American astronauts had already visited the Moon and brought samples of lunar soil back to Earth. Of course, this soil was immediately placed in a special sophisticated encrypted storage. Suffice it to say that this vault cost $2.2 million to design and build. Of course, that the room with the lunar soil was guarded with particular partiality. It is all the more striking that a significant number of samples of lunar soil soon ... disappeared without a trace" . (Highlighted by me - author's article)

And Americans lament that we know very little about the Moon. But how can you learn more if Barabashka stole the most valuable samples from the unfortunate Americans. How do you like this American Lamb? No patriotism!

Regarding the footprints of the astronauts "on the Moon", such data from the aforementioned book on lunar soil are of interest. The researchers write (p. 38) that the lunar soil "is easily molded and crushed into separate loose lumps. Traces of external influences - tool touches - are clearly imprinted on its surface. The soil easily holds a vertical wall ..." From this it formally follows that shoe protectors astronauts, compressing the soil from above and from the sides, could leave a clear mark. (Though I find it difficult to understand how the researchers could estimate soil moldability with a sample less than a stack in size.) But the researchers write that the soil "... when poured freely, has an angle of repose of 45 degrees (and they give a photo). That is, the soil without pressing does not" hold the wall ". If we pour wet sand into a glass on the beach, and then we turn the glass over and remove it, then the sand will retain the internal shape of the glass, it will hold the wall even without pressing, with free pouring in. And if we pour dry sand into the glass and turn it over, the sand will spread, forming a cone with an angle of repose, i.e. he does not hold the wall.

It follows that the footprint of the tread of the soles of American astronauts should be clear only in the center, and along the edges of the shoes, where the ground is not pressed, it should crumble at an angle of 45 degrees. Such a trace - with crumbling edges - was left on the Moon by our "Lunokhod". In American photos, the soil keeps the wall on the footprints both in the center of them and from the edges. Those. it's not moon soil, it's wet sand.

Further from this book, you can find out the compressibility of the lunar soil. But first, let's calculate. There is a famous full-length profile shot of Aldrin. It is unlikely that his height is less than 190 cm, taking into account the soles and his helmet. In relation to his height, the length of his shoes is about 40 cm. From the photo of individual footprints of the astronauts, it can be seen that the width of the footprint is almost equal to half its length, i.e. the sole area is about 800 sq. cm, to take into account the rounding of the sole, we reduce this value by a quarter - up to 600 sq. cm. The track has 10 transverse treads, and given the approximately equal size of the depressions, these treads are 2 cm wide and high. The surface area of ​​the protectors is estimated at half the total area of ​​the sole, i.e. in 300 sq. cm. Aldrin's weight on the moon is well known - 27 kg. Hence, the pressure on the ground only by the protectors is less than 0.1 kgf/sq.cm.

From diagram 7 on p. 579 in the mentioned book, it follows that at such a pressure, the lunar soil will shrink (settle) by less than 5 mm. Those. in real lunar soil on the moon, even the protectors of the soles of an astronaut could not completely sink. But in all the photos, the prints of the soles are imprinted in such a way that the side surfaces of the shoes form vertical walls even above the sole! If these footprints really were on the Moon, then we would not see the full footprints of the astronauts' shoes, but only shallow strips of tread. No, it's not the Moon, it's all 161 kG of Aldrin's Earth weight pressing down on the wet sand!

Acceleration of gravity

Now back to the hammer and feather drop experiment. In this trick, it was important for the Americans that the hammer and the "feather" fall at the same time, but they did not realize that the time for which they would fall is also important. The astronaut dropped them from a height of at least 1.4 m. The average fall time for several measurements gave a result of 0.83 seconds. From here, according to the formula a = 2h/t squared, the free fall acceleration is easily calculated. It amounted to 2 x 1.4 / 0.832 = 4.1 m / s. in a square. And on the Moon this value should be 1.6 m/sec. squared means it's not the moon! Experimented, nerds?!

There is another episode in the film. An astronaut is running, and on his shoulder he has a bag full of samples. One stone falls on the run and falls to the ground in 0.63 seconds. Even if the astronaut bent his knees very strongly while running, the height from which the stone fell could not be less than 1.3 m. According to the above formula, this gives the value of the gravitational acceleration of 6.6 m/sec. in a square. The result is even worse!

The question before me was - is this difference my mistake in measuring time? I made seven measurements of the time of the fall of the stone and got (sec.): 0.65; 0.62; 0.61; 0.65; 0.71; 0.55; 0.61. On average - 0.63, we will not consider the standard deviation, since even the maximum error in both directions turned out to be 0.08 sec. If it were on the moon, then the time of the fall of the stone would be

The difference between 1.27 and 0.63 is much larger than my error of 0.08 sec. So it's not a mistake, and therefore not the moon!

The launch of the lunar cabin from its platform from the Moon was also shown. Firstly, the flame of a running engine was not visible at the starting cabin. Nevertheless, several dozen stones flew out from under the platform very quickly. One stone had an upper zero point, after which it began to decline until it went off the screen. Focusing on the dimensions of the cabin, I roughly estimated that while the stone was visible, it fell by 10 meters. But the time of the fall could not be determined. I could not press the button at the right speed on the stopwatch: the minimum that I could squeeze out of the stopwatch and myself was 0.25 seconds. But the speed of the fall of the stone was even greater, it disappeared before the stopwatch could squeak under my finger. Therefore, let us assume that the stone descended by 10 m precisely in these 0.25 seconds. Then the free fall acceleration is 2 x 10 / 0.252 = 320 m/s2. This, you see, is somewhat more than 1.6 m/s squared on the Moon and 9.8 m/s. squared on earth. Was it the sun?

I think that's the point here. The lunar cabin "during launch" was lifted up with a winch, and the winch cable cannot be fixed so that it passes exactly through the center of gravity, and the winch itself is difficult to set strictly in the center of gravity, and if you raise the cabin quickly, pull it, then it will begin to sway ( hang out). I had to pull slowly, and then scroll the film very quickly. As a result, the stones, which simultaneously rose up with an expelling charge, acquired incredible speed.

Battle for the Moon

But why did the Americans need it - to take a huge risk in order to deceive the entire population of the Earth? Why risk your career like that? Yes, because, having lost to the Soviet Union in the lunar race, they lost everything - 30 billion from the federal budget, prestige, conceit, careers, jobs. No one in America would need this Moon for nothing, and no one could convince the American taxpayer to allocate money to an organization that is unable to defend America's prestige. So there is a motive. NASA knew how to send three people to the Moon and FLY AROUND the Moon, but had no technical experience with landing on the Moon. How to undock from the "mother" ship (flying in lunar orbit) and lower in a smaller, self-contained "shuttle" (lunar module), launch a lunar landing rocket pushing the module with a force of 10,000 pounds, bring the module to the planned lunar landing site, land, put on spacesuits, go to the surface, tinker, act out a scene on the surface, ride on the moon, return to the module, take off, rendezvous and dock with the mother ship, and finally return to Earth.

So they faked everything. Considering that Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey block blaster was being filmed at the same time, the technology for the necessary special effects already existed. And for a tidy sum of 20 billion dollars, you can make a very long movie.

In a video released on VHS cassette, titled "It's just a paper moon", American investigative journalist Jim Collier points out several minor inconsistencies listed below:

1. Two Apollo astronauts fully dressed in spacesuits simply could not physically fit in the module and, in addition, open the door, because the door opened INSIDE, not out. They wouldn't be able to get out of the module while wearing their space suits. He (D.K.) measured distances with a film.

2. The Apollo astronaut was physically unable to squeeze through the tunnel connecting the mother ship and the module. It's too narrow. Collier went to the NASA museum and measured it. The ends of the tunnel contained a ring of docking devices. The NASA "in-flight" footage we've been talking about was allegedly taken during a flight to the Moon and shows the astronauts flying freely through the tunnel, which in itself says a lot, apart from the fact that the film didn't show any docking devices. Plus, the hatch of the tunnel opened in the wrong direction. So these shots were taken ON GROUND.

3. On the frames taken during the flight to the Moon, BLUE light is visible pouring into the windows of the spacecraft. But since there is no atmosphere in outer space capable of decomposing light into a spectrum, space is BLACK. These shots were taken ON GROUND, most likely in the cargo hold of a supersonic aircraft that went into a deep dive to create the effect of weightlessness.

4. Photos taken by the astronauts who landed on the moon show the module standing on a flat, smooth, undisturbed surface. This could not have been the case if they had actually landed on the moon with the help of jet engines, the pressure of which was 10,000 pounds per square inch. The entire surface of the landing site would be severely damaged. These pictures were taken ON THE GROUND.

5. There are no stars in any of the pictures of the Apollo astronauts. None. This cannot be. Astronauts, if they were on the Moon, would be surrounded by stars shining with white light, the presence of an atmosphere would not prevent them from sparkling to their fullest. These pictures were taken here ON GROUND. (Usually it is objected that due to the different brightness it is impossible to capture the surface of the Moon and the starry sky at the same time with high quality. Opponents probably do not know that the Moon is a very dark object, its albedo is only about 10%. Now I am holding Bakulin, Kononovich and Moroz's book "Course of General Astronomy", where a photograph of the lunar landscape transmitted by the Luna-9 station is shown on page 322. A piece of the sky is visible on it - and there are stars on it!)

6. Each astronaut and objects standing on the lunar surface cast many shadows, and shadows of various lengths. This cannot be. There is no other source of light on the Moon than the SUN, and, quite obviously, the light must fall in one direction. So these pictures were taken ON GROUND.

7. Considering that the lunar gravity is 1/6 that of the Earth, the "cock's tail" of dust raised by the wheels of the "dune carriage" (lunar rover) would have to rise SIX TIMES higher than it would be on Earth when driving with the same speed. But this is not. In addition, the dust falls in layers - LAYERS! What is impossible where there is no atmosphere. The dust should have fallen in the same smooth arch as it had risen.

8. Even in a collapsible form, the lunar rover could not physically fit on the lunar module. Collier went and measured everything. A few feet missing. Pictures taken "on the moon" show astronauts GOING to the module to take out the rover. Then the shooting ends. When the moon panorama reappears, the rover has already been dismantled. How oooooooooooooooooooooooool!

9. The Lunar Module crashed - CRASHED - during its only test on Earth. So why was his next test an attempt to land ON THE MOON? If you were an astronaut's wife, would you let him participate in such a suicide attempt?

10. None of the Apollo astronauts ever wrote a book on the topic "How I Went to the Moon" or any other memoirs on the same topic.

11. But that's not all - far, far, far from everything. You can talk about the placement of guide engines, smoke from burning rocket fuel, and so on and so forth ...

Two great discoveries

In 1982, 10 years after the complete end of the lunar program, a beautifully illustrated book "Space Technology" (Space Technology) was published by a team of American, Soviet and other authors. The chapter "The Man on the Moon" was written by the American R. Lewis.

The section from this chapter, "Some Summary," I will give in full, so that no one will think that I have hidden any of the outstanding American achievements. But I draw your attention to the fact that in this chapter there should be only that knowledge about the Moon that was obtained due to the stay of a person on this satellite of the Earth, and not a general la-la. Therefore, evaluate what exactly R. Lewis wrote in this section so that it turns out to be longer than three lines.

So: "The Apollo 17 expedition was the last expedition to the Moon. During six visits to the Moon, 384.2 kg of rock and soil samples were collected. In the course of the research program, a number of discoveries were made, but the following two are the most important. "First, it was found that the moon is sterile, no life forms were found on it. After the flight of the Apollo 14 spacecraft, the previously introduced three-week quarantine for the crew was canceled."

Amazing discovery! The "Small Soviet Encyclopedia" for 1931 (I did not find anything earlier) states: "The moon is devoid of atmosphere and water, and therefore life" . For this "important" discovery, it was necessary to send people to the moon ?! And most importantly, what exactly did the astronauts do to discover this discovery? Quarantine passed, did you work as experimental mice?

“Secondly, it was found that the Moon, like the Earth, went through a series of periods of internal heating. It has a surface layer - a crust that is quite thick compared to the radius of the Moon, a mantle and a core, which, according to some researchers, consists of iron sulfide ".

And what exactly did the astronauts do for this conclusion? Indeed, in their soil samples (as well as in Soviet ones) sulfur is completely absent! How did the Americans determine that the core was composed of iron sulfide?

“While the Moon and Earth are quite close in chemical composition, they differ significantly in other respects, which supports the view of scientists who reject the assumption that the Moon separated from the Earth during the formation of the planets.

The conclusion that no forms of life have ever existed on the Moon is confirmed by the complete absence of water here, at least on the lunar surface or near it "...

According to limited seismic survey data, the crust of the part of the moon closest to us has a thickness of 60-65 km. On the part of the Moon remote from us, the crust can be somewhat thicker - about 150 km. Under the crust to a depth of about 1000 km is the mantle, even deeper - the core.

After 30 years, the Americans began to send automatic stations to the Moon in order to still find out what their astronauts allegedly had already "discovered".

The results are reported, for example, in the article (Feldman W., Maurice S., Binder B., Barraclough B., Elphic R., Lawrence D. Fluxes of fast and epithermal neutrons from Lunar Prospector: evidence for water ice at the lunar poles // Science 1998. V. 281. P. 1496 – 1500.) Read.

The American spacecraft Lunar Prospector worked in lunar orbit for eighteen months.

Throughout its mission, this machine, weighing 295 kg and slightly larger than a household washing machine, has constantly puzzled scientists with amazing discoveries. For the first time in early 1998, Lunar Prospector stunned the scientific community by discovering a huge amount of ice in the shaded areas near the lunar poles!

When rotating around our natural satellite, the device experienced minor changes in its speed. Calculations based on these indicators revealed the presence of a core in the Moon. Assuming that it, like on Earth, mainly consists of iron, experts calculated its size. In their opinion, the radius of the lunar core should be from 220 to 450 km (the radius of the Moon is 1738 km).

Lunar Prospector's magnetometers detected a weak magnetic field near our natural satellite. This field was used to specify the size of the nucleus. Its radius turned out to be 300-425 km. With such dimensions, the mass of the core should be about 2% of the mass of the moon. We emphasize that the core of the Earth with a radius of about 3400 km accounts for a whole third of the mass of the planet.

So . The valiant American astronauts "found out" that the core of the Moon has a radius of 1738-1000=738 km. And the automatic station found out that it is equal to 300-425 km, two times less! Valiant astronauts "find out" that the core of the Moon is composed of iron sulfide. And "Lunar Prospector" found out that there is little iron in the core. Valiant astronauts "find out" that there is no ice on the Moon. And "Lunar Prospector" found out that there are many!

So what is the difference between the results of the landing of the Americans on the moon and empty chatter?

I think I have already answered the question indicated at the beginning of the article - why the Americans do not require Russian TV to show these films about their "most outstanding victory in the 20th century." We, the generation that received a normal education, have not yet died out, we have not yet been completely replaced by those who chose Pepsi and safe sex. Well, how can we show such nonsense? And, looking at this American propaganda fake about landing on the moon, we have to state: no, you guys weren't there!