Doses of radiation during the flight to the moon

I have long wanted to find information on this topic. In my understanding, only these facts can accurately say whether the Americans flew to the moon or not. And here you are. We read and rejoice, well, or we are upset, as you like ...

To determine the doses of radiation during the flight to the moon we have considered solar wind and flows of protons and electrons; solar flares, which, together with the X-ray radiation of the Sun, sharply increase the radiation hazard for astronauts during activity maxima; galactic cosmic rays(GCR) as the most high-energy component of the corpuscular flow in interplanetary space (150-300 mrem per day); also touched Earth's Radiation Belt (ERB). It was pointed out that for cosmonauts the RPZ is one of the most dangerous factors on the Earth-Moon communications route.

We will determine the doses of radiation during the passage of radiation belts, as well as take into account the radiation hazard solar wind. Let us use the generally accepted model of the Earth's radiation belt AP-8 min (1995).

The proton component of the earth's radiation belt

On fig. Figure 1 shows the distribution of protons of various energies in the plane of the geomagnetic equator. The abscissa shows the parameter L in Earth radii, the ordinate shows the proton flux density in cm-2 s-1. This figure shows the time-averaged values ​​of the proton flux density according to the data of Soviet and foreign authors, relating to the period 196I-1975.

Rice. Fig. 1. Time-averaged proton flux density profiles in the plane of the geomagnetic equator (numbers near the curves correspond to the lower limit of the proton energy in MeV).

On fig. 2 shows the results latest research composition and dynamics of the proton component of the Earth's radiation belt, performed on artificial Earth satellites and orbital stations.

Rice. 2. Distribution of integral proton fluxes in the plane of the geomagnetic equator. L is the distance from the center of the Earth, expressed in radii of the Earth. (The numbers next to the curves correspond to the lower limit of the proton energy in MeV).

Rice. 3. Meridional cross section of the Earth's radiation belt and the Apollo splashdown site. Shells L = 1-3 - the inner part of the RPZ belt; L \u003d 3.5-7 - the outer part of the RPZ; L is equal to the radius of the Earth. The red dots indicate the splashdown sites of Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, located near the geomagnetic equator.

Rice. Fig. 4. Averaged over time and over all values ​​of longitude intensity profiles of electrons of various energies at the geomagnetic equator. The numbers next to the curves correspond to the electron energy in MeV. (a) and (b) for the epochs of minimum and maximum solar activity.

The figure shows that during the epoch of maximum solar activity, the radiation dose created by the outer belt increases by 4-7 times. Recall that 1969 - 1972 was the peak year of 11-year solar activity. As for protons, for the electronic component of the ERP there is a universal height variation, n=0.46. The height variation for electrons is less critical than for protons. For example, for electrons at latitudes λ~30° (V/Ve=3) and λ~44° (V/Ve=10), the radiation doses of the electron component will decrease by 1.7 and 3.1 times, respectively. This means that according to NASA's scheme of flight to the Moon and return to Earth, the Apollos can't get past the electronic component of the RPZ. The results of the calculation of the radiation dose and the used characteristics of the electronic component of the RPG are shown in Table 2.

Tab. 2. Characteristics of the ERP electronic component, effective electron range in Al, time of flight of the ERP by the Apollos to the Moon and when returning to Earth, the ratio of specific radiation and ionization energy losses, X-ray absorption coefficients for Al and water, equivalent and absorbed dose of radiation*.

The results show that conventional spacecraft shielding reduces the radiation impact of the electronic component of the radiation belts by a thousand times. The obtained values ​​of the radiation dose are not dangerous for the life of astronauts. The main contribution to the radiation doses is made by electrons with an energy of 0.3-3 MeV, which generate hard X-rays.

Note that the radiation effect is 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than the official NASA report for the Apollo missions. So for Apollo 13 the value of the absorbed dose is 0.24 rad. The calculation gives a value of ~34.5 rad, this 144 times more. At the same time, the radiation effect almost doubles with a decrease in effective protection from 7.5 to 1.5 g/cm2, while the NASA report indicates the opposite. For Apollo 8 And Apollo 11 official radiation doses are 0.16 and 0.18 rad, respectively.

The calculation gives 19.4 rad. This is 121 and 108 times less, respectively. And just for Apollo 14 official doses of radiation are 1.14 rad, which is 17 less than the calculated one. For the electronic component of the RPG, there are seasonal variations. On fig. Figure 5 shows the fluxes of relativistic electrons for one passage of the belt according to the GLONASS satellite data and the geomagnetic indices Kp and Dst for 1994-1996. The bold lines represent the results of smoothing measurements. The presented data demonstrate well-marked seasonal variations: electron fluxes in spring and autumn are 5-6 times greater than the minimum ones in winter and summer.

Rice. Fig. 5. The time course of the fluxes of electrons with an energy of 0.8-1.2 MeV (fluences) integrated over the flight of the GLONASS satellite through the radiation belt for the period from June 1994 to July 1996. The indexes of geomagnetic activity are also given: daily Kp-index and Dst-variation. Bold lines are the smoothed values ​​of fluences and Kp-index.

Launch and landing Apollo 13 took place in the spring, respectively, on 04/11/1970 and 04/17/1970. Obviously, the electron fluxes will be several times higher than the average ones. This means that the value of the absorbed dose of radiation will increase several times and will be 43-52 rad. This is 200 times more than official data. Similarly, for Apollo 16(launch and landing, respectively, 04/16/1972 and 04/27/1972) the radiation dose will be 25-30 rad. During magnetic storms there is a change in the intensity of electrons in the RPZ sometimes 10-100 times and more during the epoch of maximum solar activity. In this case, radiation doses can increase to dangerous values ​​for the life of astronauts and amount to 10 Sieverts or more. As a rule, particle injection dominates during these periods, especially during strong magnetic disturbances. On fig. Figure 6 shows intensity profiles of electrons of different energies under calm conditions (Fig. 6a) and 2 days after the September 4, 1966 magnetic storm (Fig. 6b).

Rice. Fig. 6. Electron flux profiles under quiet conditions six days before the storm (a) and two days after the magnetic storm (b). Numbers near the curves are electron energies in keV.

One of the flights to the moon according to NASA was Apollo 14: Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Stuart Rusa 01/31/1971 - 02/09/1971 GMT / 216:01:58 Third landing on the Moon: 02/05/1971 09:18:11 - 02/06/1971 18:48:42 33 h 31 min / 9 h 23 min 42.9.

On January 27, a few days before the Apollo launch, a moderate magnetic storm began, which turned into a small storm on January 31, which was caused by a solar flare in the direction of the Earth on January 24, 1971. . Obviously, an increase in the level of radiation can be expected by 10-100 times or 1-10 Sieverts (100-1000 rad). In the case of a radiation dose of 10 Sieverts radiation effect when flying through the Van Alen belt - 100% fatal.

Rice. 7 The result of exposure to radiation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Flight results Apollo 14 was:

1) demonstrated excellent physical fitness and high qualification of the astronauts, in particular, the physical endurance of Shepard, who at the time of the flight was 47 years old;

2) no morbid phenomena were observed in the astronauts;

3) Shepard gained half a kilogram in weight ( first case in the history of American manned spaceflight);

4) during the flight, the astronauts never took medication;

5) demonstrated the advantages of lunar exploration with the participation of astronauts in comparison with the flights of automatic vehicles ...

On fig. Figure 8 shows the change in the intensity profiles of electrons with an energy of 290-690 keV before and after the magnetic storm.

Rice. 8. Flux densities of electrons with an energy of 290-690 keV for various moments of time on the shells of the Earth's radiation belt from 1.5 to 2.5. The numbers next to the curves indicate the time in days elapsed after the electron injection.

Rice. 8 shows that after 5 days the density of electron fluxes with energy 290-690 keV significantly expanded and 40-60 times higher than before the magnetic storm, after 15 days - 30-40 times higher, after 30 days - 5-10 times more, after 60 days - 3-5 times more. Only after 3 months the electronic component of the RPZ comes to an equilibrium state. Significant spatial and temporal changes in electron fluxes in the entire region of belts during one year are shown in fig. 9.

Rice. 9. Changes in the fluxes of electrons with energy >400 keV in radiation belts during 1 year. Shades of gray-black show a change in the flow of particles: the blacker the shade, the greater the flow of particles. It can be seen that the largest particle fluxes are observed during magnetic storms (geomagnetic index Kp). At these moments of time, the density of electrons between the inner and outer radiation zones increases by several orders of magnitude at distances of 2.5-5.5 Rz.

As can be seen, significant variations in the electronic component of the ERR in intensity and space relative to the quiet state of the Earth's radiation belt take a quarter of a year. During magnetic storms, particle fluxes expand significantly into the outer region and "slide" closer to the Earth, filling previously empty regions of trapped radiation.

A sharp increase in electron fluxes creates a real threat to satellites and spacecraft pilots on the Earth-Moon path, located in the zone of bursts of their flux. Quite a few cases have already been noted when the failure individual systems satellites or even the termination of their operation is associated with a sharp increase in the flow of relativistic electrons. A powerful stream of electrons with an energy of several MeV pierces through the shell of the satellite, electrons with lower energy generate a huge stream of secondary bremsstrahlung, consisting of hard X-rays.

Doses of radiation in the circumlunar space and on the surface of the moon

In Earth orbit, astronauts are protected by the Earth's magnetosphere. In circumlunar space or on the surface of the Moon, the entire solar wind flow is received by the body of the spacecraft or lunar module. The proton flux can be neglected (obviously, except for solar-proton events). The density of the electron flux in the solar wind changes by two or three orders of magnitude, sometimes within just one week.

When colliding with the skin of a ship or a module, the electrons stop and give rise to X-ray radiation, which has a huge penetrating power (the thickness of the protection of 7.5 g/cm2 of aluminum will only reduce radiation doses by half). Below is a graph of changes in the radiation dose rad/day from 1996 to 2013, which an astronaut receives with an external shield thickness of 1.5 g/cm2:

Rice. Fig. 10. Changes in the radiation dose rad/day from 1996 to 2013, which an astronaut receives with an external shield thickness of 1.5 g/cm2 in circumlunar space. The non-linear scale on the left shows the electron flux levels for the solar wind according to the ACE satellite data, n the linear scale on the right is the radiation dose in units of rad per day. Horizontal lines mark levels for comparison: yellow is the dose from a single chest x-ray, orange is the dose from a vertebral tomography.

From fig. 10 shows that the doses of radiation in the circumlunar space and on the lunar surface are irregular. In the year of minimum solar activity, radiation doses are 0.0001 rad. In the year of maximum solar activity, they change from 0.003 to 1 rad/day (note - for electrons rem = rad; the irregularity of electron flows in the solar wind during the years of maximum solar activity is associated with solar flares that occur daily).

For a month of stay in circumlunar space, astronauts for the value corresponding to October 1-31, 2001 receive doses of 0.5 rad, an average of 0.016 rad/day; for the value corresponding to November 1-30, 2001 receive doses of 3.4 rad, average 0.11 rad/day; the average for two months is - 3.9 rad for 60 days or 0.065 rad / day. This means that the doses of radiation received by the astronauts of 9 missions only in the circumlunar space are higher than the doses declared by NASA and should have significant variations.

This contradicts the data of the Apollo missions. With a higher electron flux density, as well as with a long stay outside the Earth's magnetosphere (100 days), the doses can approach the values ​​of radiation sickness - 1.0 Sv. Additionally - Archive of radiation doses from January 1, 2010 . Obviously, these radiation doses are added to other doses, for example, when passing through the Earth's radiation belt, as a result, we have the same values ​​that an astronaut receives when flying to the Moon and returning to Earth.

Discussion

It has been 40 years since the Apollo missions. Until now, no one gives an accurate forecast for geomagnetic disturbances. They talk about the probability of geomagnetic disturbances (magnetic storm, magnetic storm) for a day, for several days. Weekly forecast accuracy is below 5%. A more unpredictable character is noted for solar wind electrons. This means that with a probability of at least 20-30%, the astronauts of the Apollo missions will fall into the unpredictable powerful electron flow of the Earth's radiation belt and the solar wind. The flight of Apollos through the external RPZ and the solar wind in the era of the active sun can be compared with a hussar roulette, when one cartridge is loaded into an empty drum of a 4-shot revolver! 9 attempts were made. Probability of not getting acute radiation sickness

This is equivalent to almost 100% radiation sickness.

Summing up, let's say: double passage of the Earth's radiation belt according to the NASA scheme leads to lethal doses of radiation of 5 Sieverts or more during magnetic storms. Even if Apollo were lucky:

1. radiation doses during the passage of the proton component of the EPR would be 100 times less,
2. the passage of the electronic component of the EPR would be at a minimum geomagnetic disturbance and low magnetic activity,
3. low electron density in the solar wind,

then the total dose of radiation will be at least 20-30 rem. Doses of radiation are not dangerous for human life. However, in this case, the radiation effect by two orders higher than the values ​​stated in the official NASA report! Table 3 shows the total and daily doses of radiation from manned flights on spacecraft and data from orbital stations.

Table 3. Total and daily doses of radiation from manned flights on spacecraft and orbital stations.

It can be noted that the Apollo radiation doses of 0.022-0.127 rad/day received by astronauts during the flight to the Moon do not differ from the radiation doses of 0.010-0.153 rad/day during orbital flights. The influence of the Earth's radiation belt is zero. Although the present calculation shows that the radiation doses of missions to the Moon will be 100-1000 times or more higher.

It can also be noted that the lowest radiation effect of 0.010-0.020 rad/day is observed for the ISS orbital station, which has an effective shield of 15 g/cm2 and is located in the Earth's low reference orbit. The highest radiation doses of 0.099-0.153 rad/day were noted for the Skylab OS, which has a shield of 7.5 g/cm2 and flew in a high reference orbit.

Conclusion

Apollo didn't go to the moon they circled in a low reference orbit, protected by the Earth's magnetosphere, simulating a flight to the Moon, and received doses of radiation from a conventional orbital flight. In general, the history of "man being on the moon" is several decades old! The flight of the Americans to the moon can be compared to a chess game. On the one hand, there was NASA, the great-power prestige of the nation, politics and NASA "lawyers", on the other hand there were Ralph Rene, Yu. I. Mukhin, AI Popov and many other enthusiastic opponents. Many chess checks were placed by the opponents, one of the last being "Man on the Moon. The sun in the Apollo pictures is 20 times bigger!" This article declares a NASA checkmate on behalf of all opponents. Despite the danger of RPZ and politics, of course, humanity will not remain forever on Earth ...

The deeper the first flights of people to the moon go down in history, the more myths and gossip about them arise. More and more sites appear on the Internet, the authors of which, with maniacal zeal, are trying to prove that there was no such event as the CONQUERATION OF THE MOON by PEOPLE in the history of the twentieth century, and the APOLLO spacecraft either did not fly anywhere, or carried robots to the Moon (shod in astronauts' boots) . Photographs and videos with people on the moon are offered to be considered fakes fabricated in Hollywood. As a response to a muddy stream of lies, slander and vile fabrications against the Heroes of Space who conquered the Moon, as an outpost of historical truth, as a tribute to the feat of NASA astronauts, I, cropman, created this site.

Historical reference: In May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy, speaking in Congress, set a task for his country: to deliver the first people to the moon and return them back to Earth. Two years later, a vile killer cut short the earthly path of this great dreamer. But nothing could stop the audacious Apollo project, which had gained momentum by that time, and the Americans continued stubbornly and persistently to solve the problem set by President Kennedy. Neither technical difficulties nor the death of the Apollo 1 crew during ground tests in January 1967 stopped them. On July 20, 1969, they landed the first humans on the Moon and then successfully returned them to Earth. The age-old dream of mankind has come true! The first people on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. Then the Americans carried out five more successful lunar expeditions.

This site contains a collection of direct and circumstantial evidence,
and any arguments in favor of the assertion:

1. For a flight into space (successful or not) in the USSR, cosmonauts were awarded the title "Hero of the USSR". Neil Armstrong flew into space on March 16, 1966 on the Gemini 8 spacecraft. Edwin Aldrin flew into space on November 11, 1966 on the Gemini 12 spacecraft. These flights (around the Earth) have never been disputed by anyone, and if we do not have double standards, then we should consider Armstrong and Aldrin - Heroes. Many astronauts also went to space before they became part of the Apollo program. Question: can the Heroes "in combination" be swindlers, swindlers, falsifiers, cheaters who deceived the gullible and naive humanity? And not individual individuals, but the entire detachment of astronauts, without exception, without exception. You have to be an amputee of conscience to answer - yes, they can. It has long been noted that those who constantly suspect other people of meanness, as a rule, are scoundrels themselves. "Every scoundrel," said V.V. Stasov, "always suspects other people of some meanness."

2. Everyone knows that lying is not good, but many Americans are believers. For them, lies are excluded in principle - a violation of the ninth commandment, for which the Lord can condemn them to eternal torment in hell. Therefore, for me personally, the words of one believer Edwin Aldrin weigh more than the words of all the atheists, and nihilists who are not afraid of either sin or God's judgment, which for some reason are all the unfortunate whistleblowers of NASA known to me.

3. 36,000 NASA specialists and 376,000 contractors directly or indirectly participated in the Apollo program, and none of them have confessed or repented of the lie to this day. But the conspirators must be small, otherwise information leakage is inevitable and the conspiracy is doomed to failure. More than four hundred thousand - a completely absurd number of participants for a successful scam. How did it happen that among the thousands of scoundrels who deceived gullible mankind, not a single traitor was found? The absence of at least one repentant conspirator (lunar snowden) is a gaping hole in the "lunar conspiracy" hypothesis.

4. The authors of the Apollo program are scientists, subjects of Science. These are people of a special kind, they have their own system of fundamental values ​​and priorities (where honor and conscience are not in the last resort). A real scientist is also alien to Mammon, like mathematician Grigory Perelman (who rejected a million dollars). It is impossible for anyone to put together a close-knit team of liars, swindlers, swindlers (authors of the greatest hoax) from such people.

5. The falsification of flights to the moon had no chance of success, because at the same time as the Apollos, Soviet machine guns flew to the moon. The Soviet Union could inspect any of the American landing sites on the Moon. AMS Luna-15 landed on the Moon at the same time as Apollo 11, Lunokhod-2 landed on the Moon just near Apollo 17 (~ 175 km). It makes no sense to start a scam that has absolutely no PROTECTION from exposure. Even a pickpocket in the bazaar will not reach into someone else's pocket knowing that he is being watched, that he is guarded. It's better to be left without prey than to be caught.

6. Falsification of flights to the moon could only have a TEMPORARY success. Footprints on the moon remain unchanged for a million years. Sooner or later, the secret will become clear, and then what? A national disgrace, the damage from which will exceed the prize money for winning the lunar race by several orders of magnitude? Didn't the leaders of NASA know Abraham Lincoln's postulate: "You can fool a certain number of people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time"? Falsification must be immortal (and Lincoln forbade this) or not be born at all.

7. Did the Americans really need a victory in the lunar race? Did they have nothing more to appease their wounded pride? They are already the first in science (in terms of the number of Nobel laureates), the first in the economy (in terms of the gross national product), the first in sports (in terms of the number of Olympics won). Well, they wouldn’t have been able to become the first on the Moon, so ahead of Mars and the entire solar system, there is something to recoup. Is it worth risking reputation for some moon? Whistleblowers clearly exaggerate the degree of motivation of the "lunar swindlers". It was wiser for the United States to pass the next stage of the space race (well, they passed several stages before that) than to go on an insanely risky forgery.

8. By the way, the whistleblowers cannot clearly explain why the falsifiers “overslept” such prestigious space achievements as: the launch of the first satellite, the flight of the first living creature into space, the flight of the first man and the first woman there? Why were the flights to the moon, which are the most difficult to fake, the object of falsification? Where were the counterfeiters with their Hollywood before? It was obviously easier and a thousand times cheaper to fake the first exit of a person in outer space, For example. And 2 months before Apollo 11, Apollo 10 flew to the moon. Why did the "scammers" during that flight not announce the landing of people on the moon? Instead, they risked losing priority by allowing Luna 15 to be the first to deliver lunar soil to Earth. They couldn't have known in advance that it would break...

9. Addressing the session of the UN General Assembly on September 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy officially and publicly invited Soviet Union join the United States to jointly implement an expedition to the moon. I believe that by rejecting this invitation, the Russians, who at that time overtook America in the space competition "by several laps," deprived themselves of the moral right to revise the results of the lunar race after it was over.

10. On the contrary, the citizens of the Soviet Union have every right to share the triumph of the winners of the lunar race, because without the participation of their country in this race, there would be no people on the moon to this day. It was the superiority of the USSR in space achievements in the era of the first flights into space, which painfully hit the pride of the Americans, forced them to carry out the Apollo program, which was clearly ahead of its time, in order to return to the United States their temporarily lost superiority in scientific and technological achievements. We should not deny the flights to the moon, but be proud of them - without our participation they would not have taken place. That's why in the title of this web page I wrote "People" and not "Americans" flew to the moon.

11. NASA actually proves its worth, "in splendid isolation" (after the collapse of the USSR) exploring the solar system. Mars and Venus, the Jupiter system and the Saturn system have already been explored, recently the Messenger probe began researching Mercury, and the Down probe, having examined the asteroid Vesta, went to Ceres and explores it. Finally, the New Horizons probe made it to Pluto. There is nothing surprising in the fact that it was NASA who delivered the first people to the moon. This is just one, in a series of others, the space achievement of the Americans. Now, if the Republic of Burkina Faso announced the flight to the moon of its subjects, I think understandable doubts would arise, even despite the translation of the name of this African country (the Motherland of Honest People).

12. There are scientific instruments on the Moon - laser corner reflectors, seismometers that fix moonquakes, equipment for measuring the solar wind, detecting traces of the atmosphere and measuring the flow of heat from the bowels of the Moon. Astronomers and selenologists from many countries of the world worked with these devices for a long time (until 1978). Laser corner reflectors are available for lunar location experiments today. These scientific instruments are located exactly at the declared landing sites of the Apollo lunar modules. There is no reason to doubt that they were brought there by members of the lunar expeditions.

13. During six lunar missions, astronauts delivered to Earth about 380 kilograms of lunar soil, which, due to the conditions of its formation (vacuum, cosmic radiation, micrometeorites), cannot be faked. Samples of lunar soil were handed over to scientists from many countries of the world for study, and reports on the research of these samples were published in scientific journals. For example, on April 13, 1972, NASA representatives visited the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The transfer of lunar soil samples delivered by the Apollo 15 crew took place in exchange for lunar soil samples delivered by the Luna-20 station.

14. American scientists who studied the lunar soil delivered by the crew of Apollo 11 discovered minerals unknown at that time on Earth. And only 14 months later, Soviet soil appeared (delivered by the Luna-16 automatic soil sampling station) with the same previously unseen minerals. Also, for the first time, the Americans stated that free iron from the lunar soil does not oxidize in air, which was later confirmed by Soviet researchers who managed to file a patent for the discovery. The incomprehensible ability of NASA "swindlers" to guess new minerals and unusual properties of chemical elements in lunar soil is another insoluble problem of those who deny flights to the moon.

15. In July 2002, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, there was a daring theft of a safe with lunar soil, committed by student intern Thad Roberts with three accomplices. The thieves were caught trying to sell stolen goods through the website of the mineralogical club. The court took place. The organizer of the theft received 8 years in prison, of which he served 6. I would like to ask those who deny flying to the moon: which of them is ready to serve 6 years behind bars, for the sake of temporarily possessing "fake" lunar soil? Or is the ground still real?

16. The crew of Apollo 12 delivered to Earth some parts of the Surveyor-3 apparatus, which stood on the Moon for almost two and a half years. In particular: samples of aluminum pipes, a piece of glass cladding, wire scraps, a scraper of a mechanical shovel and a television camera. Thus, the most valuable data on space materials science were at the disposal of the creators of new space technology. How could these items have returned to Earth if lunar expeditions are fiction?

17. As a result of lunar expeditions, a huge amount of data was formed in the archives of NASA. These data were later digitized and posted on the Internet at NASA sites. Here is a partial list of these sites:
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/images11.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/images12.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/images13.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/images14.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/images15.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/images16.html
http://next.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/images17.html

Magnificent lunar panoramas were made from photographic materials of lunar expeditions, which can be admired for a long time on the monitors of modern computers in full-screen viewing mode. Here they are:

18. On every Apollo flight, the astronauts filmed themselves, the interior of the spacecraft, and views through the porthole on 16mm film. All of these films (digitized, of course) are now publicly available. Google "Apollo 16mm onboard film" and take a look. While watching, pay attention to the duration of the episodes illustrating the state of WEIGHTLESSNESS - episodes often last tens of minutes. But no one has yet learned to create artificial weightlessness on Earth for longer than tens of seconds. The special effects in the movies of those years were very primitive, and computer graphics appeared 20 years later.

19. Apollo 15 commander David Scott, while on the Moon on August 2, 1971, demonstrated Galileo's famous experiment in front of a TV camera, during which a hammer and an eagle feather fell on the lunar soil at the same time. There was no way this could happen in the Hollywood pavilion, because the feather would fall slower than the hammer due to air friction. http://youtu.be/w0GqrtbQnxI

20. Astronauts of the Apollo 16 expedition (Young and Duke) delivered images to Earth Milky Way and some galaxies in the ultraviolet range. These images were taken by the astronauts using a small telescope taken with them on the flight. As you know, ultraviolet radiation does not pass through the earth's atmosphere, so Young and Duke at least traveled outside the earth's atmosphere. By the way, the telescope remained on the Moon, so the first lunar observatory has been waiting for its astronomers for 40 years.

21. Thanks to the seismometers delivered by the astronauts to the Moon, it was possible to set up several active seismic experiments there. Starting from the flight of Apollo 12, the takeoff stage of the lunar cabin, after the astronauts returned to the main block on it, was braked and dropped onto the surface of the Moon. The impact of an apparatus weighing 2.5 tons at the first lunar space velocity (1.6 km / s) was equivalent to an explosion of 800 kg of TNT. And starting with the flight of Apollo 13, the last stage of the Saturn-5 rocket was sent to the Moon. The fall of a stage weighing 15 tons onto the Moon already at a speed of 2.5 km / s produced the effect of an explosion of 10 tons of TNT. At the same time, seismometers on the lunar surface recorded seismic vibrations caused by the fall of steps and lunar cabins. The fall of the third stage of the rocket that sent Apollo 13 to the Moon was a real surprise for selenophysicists: after the impact, the Moon literally hummed like a bell. Seismic vibrations lasted for four hours. There were suspicions that the Moon is hollow inside. On May 13, 1972, a meteorite fell 142 km from the A-14 seismic station, 2 m in size at a speed of 20 km / s. The impact was so strong that a crater with a diameter of 100 m was formed. The instruments at seismic stations A-12 and A-14 went off scale, and at stations A-15 and A-16 (located at 967 and 1026 km, respectively) received records of the strongest moonquake. Lunar seismology simply would not have been born - if the Apollo program were just a hoax.

22. Currently, not only the United States (LRO), but also China, Japan and India are carrying out lunar exploration. The Indian satellite received data confirming the presence of traces of the stay of the Apollo 15 astronauts on the Moon (izvestia.ru). And the Japanese Kaguya probe transmitted data to Earth, on the basis of which a 3D model of Mount Hadley was built. It is enough to compare the view of this model from the landing site of the Apollo 15 astronauts with the photograph of Mount Hadley brought to Earth by Scott and Irwin to admit that in Hollywood of the sixties of the last century they could not build a scenery that coincides in great detail with the original located on the Moon (Hadley .jpg).

23. The reality of the Apollo program is best convinced by the development of a similar program in the USSR (by the way, carefully classified and even officially denied by the Soviet propaganda of those years). Only with the onset of the era of glasnost did its details and its name become known: N1-L3. The H1 rocket was inferior in performance to the Saturn-5 rocket, but still could deliver one cosmonaut to the Moon. Unfortunately, "there is no sadder story in the world than the story of ..." our lunar rocket. After four unsuccessful launches, the project was closed. Further tests did not make sense - by that time the Americans had already completed flights to the moon. It was more convenient to pretend that the Soviet Union was not going to risk the lives of Soviet cosmonauts. And so they did.

24. With the advent of artificial Earth satellites (AES), astronomers have new instruments designed to observe them. The largest observatories in the world began to create satellite tracking stations and photograph them. Astronomers have learned to photograph even interplanetary stations, and satellites in low orbits are visible as from orbit - cars on the streets of Moscow. Of course, flights to the moon were also tracked. The photographs have been preserved and are available. Whistleblowers will be able to explain: how did NASA involve astronomers from around the world in the "lunar scam"? Hardly.

25. In 1958, the International Committee for the Study of outer space(COSPAR). COSPAR unites leading scientific institutions many countries and international scientific unions whose activities are related to space research. COSPAR annually convenes international symposiums on space exploration, which allow summing up the results of space research. In June 1970, the XIII Session of COSPAR was held in my hometown, at which the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, made a presentation. The idea that international space experts can be "raised as the last suckers" looks convincing only in the minds of real, and not imaginary suckers.

26. On October 14, 1905, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) was established in Paris. Today, more than 60 countries of the world are members of this international organization. The FAI provides control over aviation achievements throughout the world, compares them and thereby contributes to the development of design ideas, aviation, aviation sports, and their progress. She also oversees achievements in astronautics and interplanetary flight, recording records in this area as well. At present, the FAI takes into account and registers scientific and technical and record achievements not only of manned spacecraft, but also of automatic stations flying both around the Earth and to other planets of the solar system. NASA had no problem registering the numerous space records set during the Apollo program, although the commissioners of the FAI checked everything carefully and scrupulously.

27. The USSR, by its own means, controlled the progress of the Apollo program. To do this, at the end of 1967, NII-885 specialists created a special radio control complex, which made it possible to receive signals from American spaceships Apollo, who flew around the moon and landed on its surface. This complex used the TNA-400 antenna with a dish diameter of 32 m, which was located in the Crimea, near the city of Simferopol. The spacecraft of the Apollo 8, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, and Apollo 12 expeditions were monitored from December 1968 to November 1969. From these spacecraft, telephone conversations between the astronauts and the Earth and telemetric information about the state of the onboard missions were received with good quality. systems.

28. In this video, the details of the lunar terrain, captured by the Apollo 11 astronauts through the lunar cabin window, are convincingly identified with the details of the latest lunar map related to the descent path of the lunar cabin before landing on the Moon. In 1969, there were no such high-resolution lunar maps, and even Stanley Kubrick could not have created scenery that was 40 years ahead of its time.

29. In this collage, one of the frames of the film, taken by the astronauts of Apollo-14 in February 1971 during takeoff from the moon, is superimposed on a fragment of a modern high-resolution image of the moon. See how the details of the images match. Lunar maps with such a resolution simply did not exist 40 years ago, so it is not difficult to understand that the real lunar surface, and not Hollywood scenery, is visible in the window of the take-off stage of the Antares lunar module.

30. In another collage, one of the frames of the film taken by the Apollo-15 astronauts in the first seconds of takeoff from the Moon is proposed to be compared with a fragment of a modern image of the landing site of the Falcon lunar module, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 11, 2011. The coincidence of the details of the lunar relief in these images can only be explained by the fact that the real lunar surface is depicted.

31. In April 1972, the Apollo 16 astronauts (Young and Duke), taking off from the surface of the Moon, shot a film, a fragment of which is posted. At the 31st second, a frame appears that can be compared with a fragment of the LRO image - M175179080LR. See how the details of the relief of the lunar surface coincide on these

32. In December 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts (Cernan and Schmitt), taking off from the surface of the Moon, shot a film, a fragment of which is posted. At the 42nd second, a frame appears that can be compared with a fragment of the LRO image - M129086118LR. See how similar the details of the lunar surface are in these two images taken 40 years apart.

33. A favorite pastime of NASA whistleblowers is to search for photographic materials in the vast archives of lunar expeditions, on which one can indicate the inconsistency of some details with "how it should really be." This is followed by an accusation of photomontage and forgery, and a loud presentation of new evidence of the "moon scam". For example, the flag is not mounted later, because has no shadow. These evidence miners don't realize that 40 years ago scissors were the only photomontage tool! They just don’t know that personal computers appeared 10 years later, and Photoshop 20 years after the expeditions to the moon, which means that to falsify all the lunar photographs of NASA, a whole army of photo editors armed with scissors was required.

34. The world scientific community (with the exception of a few eccentrics) is unanimous in the opinion that the Apollo lunar expeditions are genuine and reliable, and the "lunar conspiracy" hypothesis is the brainchild of amateurs and poorly informed pseudo-experts. However, in fact, there is no single hypothesis of a “NASA conspiracy”, because the whistleblowers cannot agree among themselves in any way, either the Americans did not fly anywhere, or they flew, but only around the Earth, or they flew to the Moon, but they didn’t landed. Until these "skeptics" develop a single version of the "lunar conspiracy", I see no reason to call their contradictory hypotheses a theory.

35. A funny incident happened to the editors of the International Scientific Journal "Vityaz". One of the most notorious haters of the United States (banned indefinitely from Wikipedia), Anton Kolmykov managed to embed his absurd article "How the United States flew to the moon ..." into this supposedly peer-reviewed journal. After several protests from the scientific community, the editors of the journal Vityaz came to their senses and renounced Kolmykov's already published article as anti-scientific heresy. Now issue 6 of this journal is downloaded from its archive in an abridged form (without the ill-fated article). Although the Vityaz magazine is not on the VAK list, it is nevertheless represented in the NEB and should be excluded from there, but the sword does not cut the guilty head.

36. The vast majority of Soviet and Russian cosmonauts, as well as specialists working in space, do not doubt the authenticity of the flights of people to the Moon on the Apollo spacecraft. And no one will ever convince Leonov and Makarov, Bykovsky and Rukavishnikov, Popovich and Grechko, who themselves were preparing for flights to the moon, that this is a completely insoluble technical problem:

"And in open space, so you know, you need protection, a whole meter of lead!
So, they didn’t fly to the moon, to avoid, so that the lethal end!

37. Foundation" Public opinion"In 2000, he conducted an all-Russian survey of the urban and rural population (1500 respondents). To the question:" DO YOU BELIEVE THAT AMERICAN ASTRONAUTS REALLY WENT TO THE MOON? "They answered - yes / no, among all respondents - 51/28, with higher education - 62 /21 with incomplete secondary education - 38/30, living in Moscow and St. Petersburg - 62/25, living in the countryside - 45/29.Voting does not establish historical truths, but this sociological study clearly indicates the reasons for the distrust of Russians in flying to the moon This is a lack of education, erudition and culture among the respondents.

38. In the history books of all countries of the world, the first flights of people to the moon are recorded as historical fact. Despite the numerous cries of the deniers of this fact, whose sites multiply by "cross-pollination", none of the professional historians is going to rewrite their monographs or school textbooks. The status of this event (the flight of people to the moon) in historical science remains unchanged - "fact", not "myth".

39. Encyclopedias in the languages ​​of all peoples of the Earth contain articles on the first flights of people to the moon. An encyclopedia is a scientific reference publication containing information that does not cause any doubts, containing only objectively reliable data. The authors of encyclopedias are usually the most erudite scientists with deep knowledge of the subject they write about. Therefore, in all encyclopedias it is written in black and white that 12 people have been to the moon. And what do you think, are there at least mentions of the "lunar conspiracy" hypothesis in encyclopedias? I could only find such a mention on Wikipedia, if you are more lucky - please let me know.

40. Museums of science and technology in various cities around the world have expositions dedicated to space research. There are exhibits that are material evidence of the reliability of lunar expeditions. Here are examples of such museums: Museum of Science and Industry postage stamps. Interestingly, upon the return of the Apollo 15 crew to Earth, a well-known philatelic scandal took place. NASA officials roughly punished astronauts for bringing mail envelopes on board Apollo 15 in excess of the authorized norm. NASA whistleblowers keep quiet about this incident, because it shows that the moral character of NASA employees was at the right height and incriminating them with super-swindle (deception of all mankind) is a hopeless case.

42. Opponents of human flights to the Moon (a tender epithet of Oleg Oleinik's debunker), or, more simply, NASA haters do not get tired of repeating the thesis that for 40 years no one could repeat not only the flight to the Moon, but even the flight of the Moon. So this thesis of theirs is not true! We can only say that no one WANTED. In the USSR, the Zond spacecraft was created and tested in flight. In fact, this is an ordinary Soyuz, but without a domestic compartment, launched onto the trajectory of a flight around the Moon by a Proton rocket. In such a ship, two weeks before the Apollo 8 astronauts, 2 Soviet cosmonauts were ready to fly around the Moon (the first in the history of mankind), but the management canceled the launch, because the previous Zond-6 ship crashed during landing. Rumors have surfaced online these days that one of two seats on such a ship, which could go around the Moon in 2015, has already sold for $150 million. So the Moon has long been available not only for NASA.

43. The real truth about flights to the moon is contained in the books of S.P.'s associates. Koroleva and in the books of chroniclers Soviet cosmonautics. Here is a non-exhaustive list of these books:
Boris Evseevich Chertok "Rockets and people. Moon race"
Vasily Mishin "Why didn't we fly to the moon"

Verdict: the opinion that flying to the moon is a blatant hoax is marginal (from the French marginal - on the side in the margins), that is, insignificant, insignificant, secondary, remaining the lot of dilettantes, ignoramuses and charlatans.

HONOR AND GLORY TO THE CONQUERERS OF THE MOON!
SHAME AND SHAME TO THE DEFAMERERS OF HEROES!

P.S. There is no doubt that my collection of arguments in favor of the reliability of the first flights of people to the moon is incomplete. If you know the arguments that can replenish this collection - send them to me by e-mail and they will be published here. But the gentlemen of the refuted need not worry, I have read enough of their fabrications and therefore I immediately SEND them all to a well-known address (I forum I mean, not what you think). Now Available pdf version of Nikomo's book "Anti-Popov", which reveals the anti-science nature of A.I. Popova, as well as my

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

"One small step for man, one giant leap for humanity" (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 was received by 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 in 1960 became the Center space flights NASA. 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 American astronaut officially considered as such, Alan Bartlett Shepard (who later went to the Moon), spent only 15 minutes in space and made a splashdown in Atlantic Ocean only 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, it has already been outlined that the US lags behind the USSR in deciding challenging tasks 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 took 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 Irvine. 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, “ cold war” then directed the development of space technology 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. The world seemed to be heading towards 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 spacesuits.

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 to AKA for Research 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 exact definition 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, it is difficult to imagine that 40-50 years ago our civilization was in some respects higher (I would even say - loftier) than 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 to distant planets solar system Two devices of this series were launched. 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 outer planets, rings of Jupiter and Neptune, etc. 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 decides to concentrate all practical work according to the lunar program in OKB-1 Sergey Korolev. 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 into earth's atmosphere turned out to be 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 open 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 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 time almost every citizen of the USSR knew whether our cosmonauts were now in orbit and who exactly, now only a small minority knows for sure whether the 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. For three days of stay on the moon, two astronauts managed to do volumes scientific work, which exceeded by orders of magnitude those that both of our lunar rovers carried out 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

For a long time I wanted to write about this very “immortal feat”, about flying to the moon, that is. This flight has long become a symbol of America and has firmly entered human history. However, questions remain, moreover, the more time passes after the end of the last flight, the more questions arise. Mankind achieved a lot in that very 20th century, the 20th century is generally a century of achievements. And what's more, like a cherry on the cake - a flight to the moon.

But with this "cherry" just not everything is clear and not everything is unambiguous. So, let's go back half a century ago: the USSR launched the first satellite of the Earth (1957) and the first man into space (1961). For the US, this was a terrible slap in the face. The Americans unambiguously claimed world leadership, and here it is ... And something had to be done with this, and somehow it was necessary to save their reputation. This is how the task was set by President John F. Kennedy. Get ahead of the Russians.

The funny thing is that those who chose the targets for this show were clearly very poorly versed in space technology. Otherwise, they would not have stuttered about the moon. At the time of the adoption of the Apollo program, the highest achievement of manned astronautics was flight in the thermosphere around the Earth. That is, the little man was thrown into orbit, he spun along it in " spacecraft and… landed back on Earth. All right, end of the show.

By the way, looking ahead, we can say that to this day all cosmonauts, astronauts and teaconauts are doing about the same thing: “Riding on an orbital carousel”. What did you think? The presence of some "orbital stations" does not change much here. Well, the little man stays in orbit longer: half a year, a year... This is interesting from the point of view of medicine, but not from the point of view of manned astronautics.

Many films have been made about interstellar travels, many books have been written about alien worlds in other galaxies... And this has become a part of our culture and our consciousness. We believed in the flights of "humans" to Mars and Alpha Centauri for so long that we forgot that since the time of Gagarin, manned cosmonautics have not advanced very far. Rather, it tramples on the same near-Earth orbit. All the same "fun attraction". No, of course: docking / undocking in orbit, different evolutions there, assembling orbital stations ... But that’s all strictly in orbit around the planet Earth.

And then suddenly seven flights to the moon, of which six were successful ... Fantastic. The funny thing is that the USSR, with all its industrial and scientific power, could not launch a single person even around the moon ... Shame on the jungle! Just a disgrace and a disgrace! But the Americans "rolled" 27 astronauts around the moon (12 of them landed on the moon)! If you count from Apollo-10 to Apollo-17, plus Apollo-8. Nine ships with a crew of three. Here it is, the superiority of American technology ...

That is why the American nation is exceptional. Not a single "low-born" alien could rise above low orbit. And twenty-seven Americans flew around the moon ... Involuntarily, you begin to envy. Here we mostly talk about Apollo-11, but, sorry, these Apollos were just to hell! Here is me as a person with technical education, that's what excites me. Reliability and repeatability of the developed technology.

The Apollos went to the moon like a regular bus. It even gets boring. And this, of course, reflects the advantage of American technology and the American way of life. No one else has been able to or even come close, and even half a century later, everyone else can only dream and make plans. This is what technology/democracy was like in the US in the blessed 60s. Over time, the Americans themselves began to understand that "does not meet," and it is the first flight to the moon that is mentioned more. It's Armstrong. Well, they remembered “to the heap” and filmed a “movie” about the unsuccessful 13th. Thirteenth, what a coincidence! That is, in hindsight, the "extraordinary success of American technology" tends to be somewhat downplayed. Allegedly, not everything was so great ... There were problems.

Any technically literate person understands that such a bold flight to the moon on a new, untested technique is very risky. And the word "risky" does not quite fit here, rather a gamble. In itself, a manned flight around the moon is already a gigantic achievement that no one has yet repeated and does not dare to repeat. It's been almost fifty years. Nearly half a century. And yet: those same 27 Americans remained unique heroes who flew around the Earth's satellite.

Only them, more nobody. But flying around the moon, without landing on it, is, in theory, an order of magnitude easier than traveling to the moon. Decoupling in lunar orbit, landing of the lunar module, after which the launch of this module, docking ... and a safe return. somehow too much Beautiful. That doesn't happen. At the level of technology of the 60s (essentially post-war). And even today it is quite a risky enterprise.

That's why everyone immediately talks about the flight on moon. Just like that on Moon (for some reason I remembered "Flying over the cuckoo's nest" and the key phrase of one of the patients). They talk about the construction of inhabited lunar modules, draw pictures ... Why does no one offer to launch one Russian / Chinese / Japanese around Moon? It's much easier, and it will be an achievement.

But no. Only the Moon. And as already mentioned, to this day, all the astronaut heroes hang out in low orbit of the thermosphere. Heroic thermonauts ... And only the Americans were able to break this vicious circle. And that was in the late 60s and early 70s. And few of those "heroes" survived to the present day. I don’t want to say bad things about those who fly into space, but, in fact, they both dangle and dangle above our heads in the upper atmosphere of planet Earth and sometimes talk about distant galactic wanderings.

Why today sharp Is interest in "manned astronautics" falling? And it was all. Everything has already been ... Repeatedly. And what is an astronaut today? That's half a century ago - yes! Just when the Americans were actively leaving the Earth's gravitational field and rushing towards the craters of the Moon... it was a glorious time, a heroic one.

For some reason, no one followed in their footsteps, which is strange. Excuse me, did they privatize this Moon? By right of pioneers? Apollo 8, December '68, first flight around the moon. Almost half a century has passed, but no one else: neither Russia, nor Europe, nor China dreams of sending an astronaut on an orbital flight around the Moon. Why do I keep talking about such an insignificant event? Yes, because the flight of man around The moons are already a real feat and the greatest engineering achievement.

For this, it is already possible to give medals, orders and forever add to the lists. The flight of various unmanned objects there is not at all the same. They (these impudent "drones") have already got out behind limits of the solar system. And the Americans only got to the moon. But what composition! "Spin" live seagulls / spacemen / astronauts around the moon and return them to Earth alive is a major engineering challenge. By itself, without any landings.

It was all the more interesting in the 60s, when there were serious fears that our Soviet cosmonauts, having made an orbital flight, might land not on the territory of the USSR and not even on the territory of the socialist. community (by mistake, not out of malice!). And people were scratching their turnips, thinking about what to do in such a case. And even then the Americans could deliver a person to the surface of the moon and take him away from there ... Compare the level of technology.

Moreover, even after half a century, this level of technology has not been blocked by anyone. By the way, this is the ambush: after the first breakthrough of Columbus to the New World (if he, of course, was the first), dozens of ships very quickly repeated his route. And there was no less risk: the Europeans had no experience in ocean voyages, navigation was in its infancy, the ships were miserable (Columbus' flagship - 200 tons of displacement). And yet, very soon it became a bit hot on the Atlantic routes.

The same applies to even more difficult and long-distance voyages to India (the flagship of Vasco da Gama is even smaller than the Columbus one). At what level of technology and how everything boiled! It literally bubbled up. Ships one after another reached the shores of the East Indies and the West Indies. Literally in packs. Where did it come from ... We sat on the shore flat earth, sat ... and suddenly. Moreover, it is impossible to say that the technological development in Europe of the 16th century went by leaps and bounds.

Magellan's feat was not repeated by anyone for a very long time? So no matter how it is not necessary ... It was possible to swim and not around the world to any point on the planet.

And the feat of the American astronauts remained unrepeatable. But modern technologies and technologies of the 60s are two big differences. Computer technology and electronics have gone ahead simply incredibly. Now, even if we compare the power of the computer on which this article is typed, and the computing power of the Houston Space Center, Then in 68…

Reactive technology also does not stand still. As well as materials science. Well, in the field of machine tool building there was a real revolution. Then CNC machines took their first, uncertain steps. And today ... huge machines that provide accuracy of several microns on multi-meter parts. Humanity has come a long way. The possibilities for the manufacture of spacecraft are now incomparable with what it was then. And the possibilities for designing these same ships today are completely different (thanks to the same computers and automated systems design).

That is, today it is much easier and cheaper to “pile” a system similar to the legendary APOLLO. And the possibilities for calculating flight trajectories today are completely different. Well, no matter how much you grumble that “noday is not the same as today”, in fact, there are an order of magnitude more opportunities for flights to the moon today. However, they nobody not in a hurry to use, more and more people are breaking into the APOLLO museum. View, take a picture, admire the "unparalleled feat" of the astronauts of the 60s ...

When TVs were like that, and even the Rockefeller family didn’t have iPhones or smartphones, people flew to the moon. It's hard to believe today, but it's true!

Here they immediately begin to explain that the Americans, six having flown to the moon once, they skimmed off all the cream in this matter. And then immediately a counter question: “Why six once?" What is it for? What does this prove? After all, the question was who first step on the dusty surface of the moon. It seems that Armstrong was the first. The issue was closed by Apollo-11. All the cream was removed already then. Every flight costs money big money. But these devils continued to scurry to the moon like a shop on a Friday night.

But every flight is not only a lot of money, but also a big risk. Anything can happen in space, and you can’t send a “technical” to the Moon ... Well, once, well, a maximum of two. And that's all - to drink, wash the victory ... But no, they flew and flew ... like at public expense in Sochi in the summer ... What is there, on the Moon, smeared with honey? It seems to me that it is because of the perseverance of the Americans that it is worth looking at the moon. They dug up something there... Kolchak's gold?

You see, what is the trick: this whole story of the “unparalleled feat of the American people” is full of inconsistencies and blunders - before the APOLLO program, the Americans were clearly inferior to us in manned astronautics. Then a big breakthrough! Then... nothing. Only the shuttle that "broke down". But that doesn't happen. And where did that same Saturn-5 launch vehicle “evaporate”? Saturn engine? Author Not is a specialist in rocket-comic technology, but the “miracle on the moon” cannot but raise questions.

Crank the “corps de ballet” six times with access to Earth orbit, flight to the Moon, reassembly, undocking, accident-free landing on an unexplored planet, launch from the lunar surface, docking in lunar orbit, launch from lunar orbit to Earth, splashdown in the ocean near with an aircraft carrier (from the second space velocity!) ... Yes, you need to pray for American engineers! You do know that landing on Earth from the second space mission is in itself a very difficult task for manned astronautics. A childish task, even today.

No, as a computer simulation it is not so interesting, but to embody all this in metal ... Once again: the one who set the task (to fly to the moon!), Was an obvious amateur. Because even today it is not clear whether this is achievable at all (that is, fly there and return back, return alive). Why did it call for such a stormy "enthusiasm" among space designers? And the fact is that their “hobby” is very expensive. And under the "Lunar program" you could get billions. And develop astronautics to the best of our ability.

At the same time, there was no deception as such: the Moon in theory achievable for humans with the help of rocket technology. It is only necessary to body the carrier more powerfully ... which is what the Russians / Americans did. And by the way, the Russians and the Americans had serious problems with the carrier.

“In early May 1966, the first tests were carried out to launch Saturn into outer space, which were unsuccessful - at the time of launch, the second stage of the rocket failed and was completely destroyed. After that, it was decided to send this rocket for the necessary revision and, approximately at the beginning of 1967, conduct repeated tests to launch it. But in the end, the rocket stayed for repair work much longer than originally planned, and only on November 9, 1967 was it able to re-attempt an unmanned flight, which this time turned out to be very successful.

The next flight, which took place on April 4, 1968, was supposed to confirm the debugged performance of the rocket and be the final in a series of planned tests, but failed due to the failure of the second stage engines, and the third stage was completely torn apart at the time of launch. In general, there were many problems, and long repairs were planned to solve them. Just 8 months after the massive failure on April 4, 1968, Saturn V lifted off with humans on board, heading straight for the Moon. As a result, already on July 20, 1969, American astronauts landed on the surface of the moon for the first time in the history of mankind.

Why such a long quote - everyone has heard about our “suffering” when creating a carrier (there are a lot of discussions on the Internet, sometimes in raised voices!), But as for the Americans ... for some reason everyone thinks that everything was a “bundle” with them. You read, it means that everything is bad with us and is torn at the start (the rocket men are discussing - for dozens of pages of the forum), and grief, and shame, and disgrace ... and then suddenly (when we, clasping our heads in our hands, are sitting by the wreckage of a burnt carrier! ) news - the Americans are already walking on the moon ... And we realized that we lost EVERYTHING. Get drunk and shoot...

The main reasons for the "zrada" are as follows: strife between Korolev, Chelomey and Yangel (Beria on them already did not have!); as well as “insufficient funding”: allegedly the United States allocated 25 billion “green” money for the “lunar project”, and the USSR only 2.5 billion “wooden money” - hence the result, or rather its absence. Allegedly, there was NASA in the USA, but we didn’t have NASA - hence the confusion and vacillation and squabbling between competing firms.

Say what you like, but the USSR was much more centralized system than the US. And even in space. As for money, they don't always decide everything. Money is only one of the resources. No less important People. And it's very critical. time. To master money (not saw it!), you need time and qualified professionals. Filling up the project with money, we will not solve the problem. As strange as it sounds. Then (along the way) it turns out that “here the guys need to be prepared”, that is, the guys are smart, but they need to prepare, then it turns out that R&D itself needs not only money, but also time.

Suddenly. That is, at first the “genius / general designer” will knock out money, people and equipment, and then ... then we will find out that everything is not so simple. The process has begun, but the result is still far away. And America here is not much different from Russia. So, in 66-68, Saturns are torn in America, and in 1969 N-1 in the USSR begins to torn. Lepota…

You know, colleagues, I look at all this disgrace (in retrospect) and make one unfunny conclusion: the flight to the moon in the late 60s was not up to earthlings ... Not up to it. No, it is certainly possible to try and experiment, no one forbids this. But before a real flight to the Moon and back ... as to the same Moon on foot. It is simply meaningless to compare with the flights of astronauts in low Earth orbit. Different things, incomparable never.

The space program hit a technical/economic/time ceiling. But what about the Americans with their 25 "lards" (in the prices of the late 60s!)? Do they have a higher ceiling? Well, you have a non-working launch vehicle and a bunch of dough next to it. Has it become easier? Here is such a "ring" logic. Why were the Americans able to solve technical problems with the launch vehicle? Because they were more advanced in technology. And why are they more advanced in technology? Well, they did land on the moon! Even the kids know this!

For some reason, everyone assumes that the United States could deliver a man to the moon (two pieces at once!), but the USSR did not (even one)! They proceed from the fact that Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969 ... and this is recognized by everyone ... Well, cool! The lunar path shines with silver ... People like to believe in miracles, they like fairy tales about princesses and dragons. You know, as one old Odessa Jew said: “It can be difficult for a doctor to believe in an immaculate conception.”

Back in the early 60s, the United States lagged behind the USSR in space technology. The inhabited capsules of the USSR had thick, strong walls, and there were no problems with creating an internal atmosphere. Gemini had problems just with strong walls and with the atmosphere. By the way, yes, the Americans burned in an oxygen atmosphere in the early 60s, but we also had such a precedent. How much was in common in our space programs ... And then, suddenly, the Americans have committed giant leap forward. Literally eight years after Gagarin's flight.

Why would it suddenly? What were the prerequisites for this? By the way, we finished the N-1 already in the early 70s and never finished it ... But the Americans had a lot of money ... And what will it give you when the carrier explodes and the deadlines are burning? No, if we are talking about systematic long-term work for the future (by the mid-70s, maybe by the end, fly), then yes - money becomes a decisive factor. But when you need to fly tomorrow, but neither the Russians nor their American "competitors" have a working heavy launch vehicle to go into orbit...

What will "quad billion money" give you in such a situation? Buy zaboristaya dope for the whole team? The refusal of the USSR from the “Moon race” is one of the most reasonable decisions of the “party and government”. No, they harnessed themselves, figured out how complicated and expensive everything was ... and refused. "Quadrilliard" we needed for other purposes. One of the reasons for the refusal is the high risks for the crew. It would be more correct to say - transcendental. The loss of an automatic station is just the loss of an automatic station. Taking risks with people is another matter entirely.

But the Americans were not afraid and took a chance ... and won. Well, you know, this is precisely what leads to serious reflections - this win at Russian roulette. How well everything turned out for them, no matter how much they twisted the drum of the revolver ... And were there cartridges in the drum? It hurts too much fun Americans jump on the surface stranger hostile planet. They also dragged buggies there and drove buggies. How close and homely this moon is... like a beach in California.

It's not about cowardice / courage, just the environment imposes serious restrictions. In real life, astronauts on the moon are suicide bombers. There is a very high chance of not returning - the equipment is completely new and untested. Any failure, error and ... everything, hello. Gymnasts under the dome of the circus without insurance. But how confident they are! And how self-confident the leadership of the flight program ... Over and over again sending people to the "minefield".

As it turned out much later, everything was not as smooth with Gagarin's flight as with Leonov's spacewalk...

“During the flight of Gagarin, 11 emergency situations were recorded”

“The Soviet cosmonauts conducted their first spacewalk two and a half months earlier than the Americans. Everyone knows this. But very few people know that during the flight of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, on board of which were Pavel Belyaev (commander) and Alexei Leonov (co-pilot), there were several serious emergency situations. And three or four of them are fatal."

“On November 28, 1966, the launch of the “first” automatic Soyuz-1 (which was later renamed Kosmos-133 in a TASS report) ended in an emergency deorbit. On December 14, 1966, the launch of Soyuz-2 also ended in an accident, and even with the destruction of the launch pad (there was no open information about this Soyuz-2).

And it all happened during the flights on orbit of the planet Earth. The technology is new, the risk is deadly. So what about the fact that: "Gagarin flew into space, he did not see God ...", I do not agree. In a stormy sea Not there are atheists. And here people walk very close to death. So, for sure, Gagarin repeatedly recalled God in orbit, and Leonov, when he was stuck in the airlock.

But the Americans already in the late 60s with technology (much more complex) everything was fine. Problems? No problem!

But both ours and their space technology was in many respects similar and approximately the same level. Why such a gap in results? The results of more powerful funding would have affected ... in ten to fifteen years. If the technical solution is not developed, then buy it is impossible, no matter how much money you allocate for it.

The funny thing is that further, instead of developing the Saturns, the Americans created the Shuttles. Which began to actively explode, and which had to be abandoned. It just looks like the truth. And now they fly on Russian carriers (heirs of Armstrong's glory ...).

A lot has been written about the “lunar scam”: the first publications appeared already in the early 70s and it was in the USA. It's simple: technically literate people began to doubt. Doubt the very possibility of flying to the moon at the level those technologies. The author shares these doubts: it is absolutely impossible to fly to the Moon based on technologies that do not guarantee the safety of flights to the Earth's orbit. From the word at all.

Analyzing photographs from the moon... it's something with something, but we'll leave it to specialists in photographic technology. But recently it turned out that the film, which recorded the first landing on the moon, disappeared somewhere ... Yes, a lot of things disappeared from the archives due to an oversight. But not only.

“So, during a day and a half of the flight between the Earth and the Moon, when the crew had nothing to do, there were practically no movies and photographs of the Earth and the Moon. There are, of course, funny episodes of the American original genre of "fiction documentary" inside the cramped space of the Apollo lasting no more than 40 seconds, which can easily be filmed aboard a plane falling along a parabola, but nothing more. And where are the unique shots of the receding and rotating Earth or the approaching and rotating Moon, which would never and nowhere else be possible to take off hand, except in such flights? There are no such records."

From the comical: recently it turned out that the Americans No reliable model of the "space toilet". What was on the ISS is broken ...

And the first real American "space toilets" were erected on the Shuttles, but they were unsuccessful. The devil, as they say, is in the details. But how did they fly to the moon, without a toilet? Good question…

It's funny: almost half a century has passed since the first flight, and the controversy continues. Were there or were they not? The author, not being a specialist in nuclear physics, leaves the problem of Van Allen belts aside.

No, of course, there are a lot of excellent studies on this “heroic theme” topic, it is very difficult to compete here. But if you just calmly analyze well-known facts at your leisure, without delving into research ... then even then it will be extremely difficult to believe in "expedition". That is, it is still somehow possible to believe in Armstrong “dancing” on the Moon (we all read fairy tales in childhood), but to believe in flying “back and forth” six times on the technology of the 60s is incredibly problematic. If only he were a hobbit...

Although Ostap Ibragimovich would certainly have appreciated the project.

For almost 40 years, no man has set foot on the moon. The last lunar expedition with the participation of people, according to official data, took place in December 1972 on the American spacecraft Apollo 17. But there were rumors that there was another mission with which something allegedly happened. All information on this flight was strictly classified. And now materials have been released that will become a real sensation ...

This is just the version that underlies the science fiction film Apollo 18, shot by Russian producer Timur Bekmambetov. It is known that the Apollo 18 flight was indeed planned in the United States for 1974. Everything was ready for the mission: launch vehicle, lunar module, crew. But it allegedly did not take place. Why?

Ah, Apollo, ah, Apollo!

The Apollo space program was taken over by the US government in 1961. Her task was ambitious - to send the first man to the moon. It is believed that the American authorities pursued not so much scientific as political goals - to achieve superiority in space over the USSR.

The Americans approached the moon gradually. The first Apollos with astronauts on board first flew in near-Earth orbit, then began to orbit the Moon. It is known that one of the first ships caught fire on the launch pad and the crew of three people died.

However, at the cost of huge material costs, scientific research and human sacrifice, the Moon still submitted to the Americans. On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on its surface. The whole world then flew around his words: "This is one small step for a person, but a giant leap for all mankind."

Armstrong and his colleague Edwin Aldrin then spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon. They managed to take with them 28 kilograms of lunar soil. In lunar orbit in the Apollo 11 spacecraft, a third crew member, Michael Collins, was waiting for the astronauts. The three of them returned safely to Earth.

Then, within three years, five more American manned spacecraft visited the Moon. The astronauts took out about 380 kilograms of lunar rocks, learned how to move around the moon on a lunar rover. In the early 70s, American newspapers excitedly wrote about the brilliant prospects for the development of the satellite planet.

It was assumed that it would be possible to place rocket bases on the Moon, extract minerals, and even build a launch pad there for flights to other planets. In 1974, the flights of Apollo 18, Apollo 19 and Apollo 20 were to take place. But unexpectedly, the government abruptly curtailed the entire program.

The official reason for this decision was the lack of money in the treasury. The Apollo program is estimated to have cost the United States between $25 billion and $30 billion. It was said that moon dust cost 35 times more than diamonds, and each lunar module would cost 15 times less if it was made of pure gold.

Therefore, they say american president Richard Nixon, who at the time was bogged down in the costly Vietnam War, made the decision to cut funding for Apollo. He is said to have always disliked this project, which was the brainchild of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy.

Moreover, the main political goal of the Apollo program had already been achieved. “We needed to take revenge after Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin flew into space first,” explained one NASA official. - Well, they flew, they proved the power of American science and technology ... ". What else was needed?

However, many noticed a strange detail. The main costs for the last flights under the Apollo program in 1972 had already been made. Saturn launch vehicles and lunar modules were built, crews were completed. So the savings in space came out not too big.

And was it worth it to abandon a large-scale project for it? Or were there other, more compelling reasons for this, which the government preferred to keep silent about?

restricted area

There is a version that the Americans encountered something very dangerous on the Moon, which scared them. Most likely - with some manifestations of the activity of extraterrestrial civilizations. At least in the 70s, American newspapers began to write about this cautiously.

Former NASA director Christopher Kraft, for example, after leaving his post, released a recording of astronaut Neil Armstrong's conversations with the mission control center in Houston. From this conversation, it becomes clear that during the first flight to the moon, American astronauts saw a UFO!

“These are gigantic things…” Armstrong says excitedly. - No, no, this is not an optical illusion... There are other spaceships here. They stand in a straight line on the other side of the crater... They are watching us... The arrangement of these objects is simply incredible. I haven't seen anything like it so far! Look, they're moving up..."

“We have a good view of two objects,” say employees of the Control Center in Houston. - Can you film something? Are they in front of you? Do you hear any UFO noises? What's there? Repeat your last message! The control center is calling Apollo 11... Communication has been interrupted...”

According to Kraft, three flying saucers accompanied the Apollo 11 during the flight to the moon, and then landed on the edge of the crater. Armstrong and Aldrin allegedly saw with their own eyes how aliens in space suits came out of the "plates". They did not come into contact with American astronauts ...

It is said that not a single flight under the Apollo program was without strange sightings. Apollo 12, which launched on November 14, 1969, was allegedly also accompanied in space by two unknown luminous objects that repeated all the maneuvers of the American spacecraft.

The Apollo 15 astronauts allegedly saw a huge "saucer" flying over the surface of the moon. The crew of "Apollo 16" on the lunar surface saw huge UFO in the form of a cylinder with a sharp tip. And the astronauts from Apollo 17 saw moving luminous objects on the slope of the lunar mountain.

"During the manned flights under the Apollo program, there were strange sightings from spacecraft, the origin of which the astronauts could not explain," NASA information chief Donald Cistra said in a report to politicians in Washington.

However, the biggest horror had to endure the crew of Apollo 13, who could not fly to the moon at all. On the way to lunar orbit, an oxygen tank exploded, causing the main ship to be de-energized. The astronauts were saved only due to the fact that they moved to the lunar module of the ship, where there was oxygen.

The mission control center managed to turn Apollo 13 back and put it into low Earth orbit. After six days of space wanderings, the astronauts, sick, frightened and terribly exhausted, returned to Earth.

There were rumors that a nuclear explosive device was on board Apollo 13. Say, they wanted to blow it up on the moon for some scientific purposes such as seismic research. However, the explosion was allegedly prevented by aliens, setting up an accident on the ship.

It is not known whether this is true or not, but the Apollo 13 astronauts allegedly saw some mysterious lights from the windows ... After this story, it finally became clear that jokes are bad with space.

Apollo 18

In the film, produced by Timur Bekmambetov, the Apollo 18 mission goes to the moon after all in the strictest secrecy. Astronauts encounter on the satellite planet unknown to us and aggressive life forms. As a result, none of them return to Earth...

Could this be true? Why not. Astronaut Neil Armstrong is credited with the words that he allegedly dropped in an interview about the flights to the moon: "We were given to understand that the place was taken." If we assume that the last flight of the Americans to the moon really ended tragically, it becomes clear why in the last 40 years they have never gone there ...