The key piece of evidence, according to Yuri Borisov, are the lunar soil samples shared with Soviet scientists
The head of the Russian space agency has weighed in on the decades-long conspiracy debate, noting that there are no doubts that soil samples retrieved by Americans during their Apollo missions actually came from the Moon.
The Roscosmos chief was questioned about whether American astronauts had actually landed on the Moon during a parliamentary session on Wednesday. The key piece of evidence that the Apollo missions were real, according to Borisov, is the fact that back then NASA shared soil samples from several manned flights with its Soviet colleagues.
“According to the expertise of our Academy of Sciences, the lunar soil turned out to be lunar indeed,” Borisov reassured lawmakers, insisting that the samples were studied in labs of many countries, not just the USSR, and it’s definitely not from this planet.
The previous head of Russia’s space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, was far more skeptical about the Apollo missions, saying that while many in Roscosmos defended Washington’s version of events, no conclusive proof was ever presented to him. According to Rogozin, several unnamed academics even angrily criticized him for complicating international relations and undermining the “sacred cooperation with NASA.”
Despite all the US missions being closely monitored by its space rival, the USSR, at the time, skeptics have been questioning the authenticity of the Apollo program ever since astronaut Neil Armstrong put his feet on the Moon on July 21, 1969. Theorists claim that the Moon landings were actually staged by NASA, which needed to quickly respond to the Soviets after they sent the first man, Yury Gagarin, into space on April 12, 1961.
Many of the arguments of conspiracy theorists have been debunked over the years, but between 5 and 20 percent of Americans still believe their country’s lunar program to be nothing but a hoax, according to various polls.
As for Russia, a survey by the Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM) found back in 2020 that almost fifty percent of Russians think that the US government “falsified” the Apollo expeditions, with just 31 percent absolutely sure that American astronauts actually walked on the surface of Earth’s satellite.
The US stopped sending landers on the Moon after the Apollo 17 mission concluded in December 1972.
Earlier this year, a US-made spacecraft touched down on the Moon for the first time in more than a half-century, marking what NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called “the US return to the Moon.” However, NASA’s Artemis program has suffered numerous delays over the years, with the return of American astronauts on the Moon now expected no earlier than 2026.
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