The Myth of the Moon

“We choose to go to the moon.” Although just an excerpt from one of former President John F. Kennedy’s memorable speeches, these words revamped the most historic and unprecedented race in the history of the United States. The “Space Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union was much more than just a dash to the moon. Some believed that whoever won the race, won the Cold War. With so much at stake, the countries spent billions of dollars on research and development for crafts suited to endure the harsh environment of space. The Soviet Union had successfully landed an unmanned module on the moon in 1959, and a decade later, on July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong is said to have walked on the moon. This moonwalk, and those that followed, have been criticized, researched, and refuted by many conspiracy theorists. Physical, astronomical, photo, and video analysis provide hard evidence against any such walk ever taking place. Some physicists and engineers believed the current technology prevented any possibility of landing a man on the moon. These skeptics do believe that spaceflight is achievable at low altitudes just beyond Earth’s atmosphere, but voyaging outside this range presents a multitude of obstacles which make travel seemingly impossible. Man has never set foot on the moon.

On October 1st, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the “National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958”, thus creating NASA (NASA – The National Aeronautics and Space Act). After the U.S.S.R had already made its claim to space exploration by sending the Sputnik satellite into orbit in 1957, the “Space Race” began by the signing of this act. The Cold War was in full swing and tension between the two countries was palpable, with some Americans believing the Sputnik satellite was actually a vehicle for dropping a nuclear bomb. In the years that followed, NASA successfully launched several satellites into orbit, and by the time of the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, the U.S....