¶ … english class. Topic- When Neil Armstrong uttered famous line,"s small step a men, giant leap mankind," referring "giant leap" mass deception? Did American astronauts make moon 1969, entire tale a mere slice blue cheese? Choose a position For Against authenticity moon landings. Moon landings -- a hoax?

There is much controversy regarding moon landings, as even though most of the general public considers that people have actually landed on the moon, a series of individuals are skeptic regarding the topic. According to NASA and to the American Government, there have been a total of six manned landings on the moon. There are a series of factors that have come to be discussed over time concerning how man has never landed on the moon and how the whole matter was a hoax meant to boost the U.S.' image as leader of the world. Some people trust that technology has made it possible for Americans to be able to create fake videos and pictures of moon landings. Conspiracy theories have always created much confusion, influencing people to lose their trust in practically everything. Even with that, considering that data regarding moon landings is substantial, it is very probable for people to have actually landed on the moon and for skeptics to be ignorant concerning facts.

When considering the general context of the space race, it is only natural for one to consider that either the U.S. Or the Soviet Union considered faking facts with the purpose of getting the upper hand. Not being able to equal or to surpass a contestant is likely to have one resort to unorthodox methods of getting in front. As a result, it is normal for someone to think that there was no actual moon landing and that the U.S. simply forged data in order to have the international public (with Americans and Soviets in particular) to believe that they were able to land on the moon and that they did it more than once. Given that the Cold War was in its apogee at the time, this counted as a significant win for the U.S. In front of the Soviet Union. Communists seemed less capable and Americans started to appear as they were able to conquer any land, regardless of its location. Taking into account the condition that NASA found itself in the late 1960s and the fact that they had to go through a lot of trouble to demonstrate that the U.S. was superior to the Soviet Union from several points-of-view, it seems less surprising that they were capable of forging data. The Soviets had already been the first to perform a series of space-related missions and, in point of fact, made America seem as if it were unable to match it in terms of space-related acts. It is probable that NASA was pressured into faking evidence to show that they reached the moon. Perhaps they were initially confident about how they would reach the moon but they gradually came to realize that it was impossible to do that. This made it difficult for them to back down and influenced them in falsifying data (Plait, 2002, p. 155).

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 motion picture 2001, A Space Odyssey contributed to making it look as if the moon landings were a hoax. The director used realistic shots and people in the late 1960s had difficulties telling whether Kubrick's film was fictional or whether the NASA moon landings were forged. It was all about Special Effects and the evolution that they experienced until the time. "Early in the film we saw realistic renditions of

The landing of a shuttle at the base was depicted in exquisite detail (Shapiro, 1999, p. 4). It is thus generally accepted that people had the technology available to shoot scenes resembling a moon landing.
Surely, the U.S. was determined to defeat the Soviet Union in the space race and this means that they were capable of performing a great deal of efforts in order to do so. The prospect of certain success might have been essential in influencing them to falsify data. Even with that, given that a real moon landing could have had a huge effect on the masses; it seems less improbable for NASA to have actually been on the moon. Landing on the moon would be one of the greatest proofs regarding how the U.S. was superior in technology.

Although it is difficult for an ordinary individual to come up with truthful data to demonstrate that the moon landings did take place, a NASA expert or someone who is experienced in lunar-related matters would most probably have little trouble highlighting particular elements that prove how the moon landings were real. Moon landings conspiracy supporters rely on several factors in promoting the belief that people did not land on the moon. The absence of stars in the pictures and videos taken by astronauts is one of the most conclusive evidence that hoax supporters emphasize. However, the reason for which stars did not appear in moon landing photos was that the cameras used were set to have short exposures, thus meaning that they did not capture light coming in from stars. Taking a photo using a similar exposure time on Earth, at night, would provide similar results and it would be impossible for stars to be visible in this photo.

Another important factor fueling hoax supporters is the radiation in space and the fact that it did not seem to affect astronauts on the moon. The Van Allen radiation belts are a zone of intense radiation starting at about 375 miles above the surface of the earth. These belts stretch as high as 40,000 miles above the earth. The radiation belts posed a serious threat for the well-being of astronauts, but NASA was able to solve the problem by choosing a route that would subject astronauts to as little radiation as possible.

While hoax believers claim that radiation levels are higher after these radiation belts, the truth is that it is actually lower, given that the belts trap radioactive particles. "In the end, over the course of the trip to the moon and back, the astronauts got, on average, less than 1 rem of radiation, which is about the same level of radiation a person living at sea level accumulates in three years" (Plait, 2002, p. 162).

Conspiracy theorists mainly fail in devising theories meant to prove that lunar landings did not exist because they compare the Moon with the Earth. They find it strange that the dust around the lunar module and the dust that astronauts stepped on did not move significantly. However, this is because there is no air on the moon and dust thus moves very little when it interacts with something.

Temperature is yet another factor that conspiracy theories take into consideration when concerning lunar landings. The temperature on the moon at the time when astronauts landed is believed to be somewhere around 120 degrees Celsius, meaning that it would have been impossible for a human being to survive in such a hostile environment. Theorists did not consider the fact that a lunar day lasts for about four terrestrial days. NASA chose lunar mornings as the perfect time when astronauts should land. Temperatures were much lower in the morning than they were during the day, as it took several terrestrial days for temperature to go up. The fact that shadows are low in every picture taken on the moon supports this fact, as such pictures could have only been taken in the morning. Because there is no air on the moon and because lunar dust is a very bad conductor when considering its ability to conduct heat, the surface of the moon is actually…