The head of Roscosmos, Russia's own space agency, wants to verify if the American moon landing in 1969 really happened.
Roscosmos Head On Moon Landing Conspiracy
In a video posted on Twitter, Dmitry Rogozin talked about the popular conspiracy theory claiming that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never really walked on the surface of the moon nearly 50 years ago. He proposed the creation of a Russian mission that will be tasked if the historic scientific achievement really happened or was it a Hollywood production all along.
"We have set this objective to fly and verify whether they've been there or not," he said.
Отвечаю на вопросы президента Молдавии: были ли американцы на Луне, зачем у @roscosmos есть истребители и трамваи и как российская космонавтика поможет молдавскому винограду?https://t.co/IRV3HUT6Sz — Дмитрий Рогозин (@Rogozin) November 24, 2018
Rogozin appears to be joking. After all, NASA and Roscosmos are still in good terms, with the former still relying on Russia's Soyuz program to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
However, the conspiracy surrounding the 1969 lunar landing is common in Russia. In 2015, an article was published in the newspaper quoted Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson Vladimir Markin, questioning the disappearance of the film footage of the event. He proposed that an international probe should be launched.
NASA lost the footage along with other 200,000 videotapes that were intentionally wiped to make space for new data and to save money. Since then, the U.S. space agency has turned to Lowry Digital to restore the footage from broadcast videos of the landing.
The Soviet Union, which was locked in a space race with the United States during the Cold War, abandoned its lunar program in the 70s after four of its rockets exploded.
NASA Returning To The Moon
Earlier this year, NASA laid out a sustainable campaign to put humans back to the surface of the moon and eventually, to Mars. Part of the agency's plan is to launch an orbital platform that will host scientists, as well as scientific equipment to study Earth's natural satellite. It will also serve as the jump-off point for astronauts who want to walk on the surface of the moon.
