Did We Land on the Moon, Essay Example

On July, 1969, NASA reported that it successfully landed Apollo 11 on the moon, carrying the first man to travel into outerspace. While many pictures and videos were taken of the event, many people argue that the moon landing did not really occur due to discrepancies that existed in the photos that were shown to the public in addition to logistics of the ability to actually enter space and be able to land on a different planet. Some of these conspiracy theories include the fact that there are no stars seen in the picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon, that the American flag he placed there is not waving showing that there is no wind, and that the radiation from space would have killed the crew so landing on the moon would have been impossible. In addition to these theories, there are many others. Despite these claims that the moon landing didn’t really happen, not that many people actually believe this because they think that the evidence that favors the moon landing is more convincing. Ultimately, this essay will show that the moon landing really did happen and that the arguments provided by non-believers are false because the evidence that they give is both not truthful and not logical.

One of the major conspiracy theories that “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” discusses is that the photographs aren’t truthful and NASA created the photos in order to create a hoax and convince people that man is able to land on the moon even though they couldn’t. Although this seems ridiculous, NASA would have had several reasons for doing this. Firstly, the main point of NASA is to explore space and discover new things outside of our planet. To be able to do this, it would be helpful if they were able to land a man on the moon to make the exploration more effective. However, it is very difficult to build an aircraft that is able to just take pictures of space and it is even more difficult to build an aircraft that can carry a man and a lot of equipment into space. It is even more difficult to safely return the man and the equipment back to earth. Many people therefore believed that it was not possible to do this sort of a thing, and that NASA tried and failed in this attempt. In order to keep their credibility, people believe that NASA faked the photos of the moon landing so that people would still believe in this government institution and it would continue to receive funding. Another motivation for faking these moon photos would be due to the Cold War that the United States was having with Russia. Although this war was more of a technology race than an actual fight, the United States government was not willing to lose. Both the United States and Russia were developing advanced flight technology at the same time with the hope that they would be able to send a man to space. Even if the United States wasn’t able to send someone to space, it would benefit by appearing to have done so, which would cause them to win this fight with Russia. As a consequence, many people believe that NASA faked the photos so that it would appear to be doing better than Russia, which would increase the opinion that the world has of the United States.

The opinion that the moon landing photos have been faked are wrong for several reasons. Since the famous image of the first man landing on the moon appears to have no stars, many people believe that our ability to land on the moon has been a hoax and the pictures have been made up. However, there is no logic that can prove this because since we had never been to the moon before this moment, we wouldn’t know whether or not we would be able to see stars from it either through our eyes or through pictures. It is scientifically possible that a man standing on the moon will not be able to see stars the way that we can from Earth because he is closer to them or maybe because there is something in the atmosphere that makes them more difficult to see. Therefore, there is no real evidence to say that because we don’t see stars in the moon landing pictures that it also must be fake. It is possible to contradict the beliefs of people that believe in this conspiracy theory based on other pictures that have been taken of space. For example, many people think the night sky is beautiful and try to take pictures of the stars only to find out that they are unable to see any stars in their photographs after they’ve been developed. Even with digital and professional photography cameras, it is difficult to be able to capture pictures of stars unless the camera has a very good quality and the photographer is skilled. When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in the 1960’s, this kind of excellent quality camera did not exist. The photos we have of the moon landing are very low quality, which isn’t surprising for the technology of the time. Furthermore, even if better photography technology did exist at the time, it wouldn’t be very likely that NASA would allow it to be on the space craft. Since this was the first time sending a man to the moon, NASA had to make sure that their astronaut would be safe. To ensure this, it is likely that they had to minimize the amount of equipment that they could possibly send with him. Since a good quality camera would have been very large in the 1960’s, even if it did exist, it would have taken up too much room in the space shuttle and have prevented the flight from being successful.

There are other conspiracy theories that argue that we didn’t land on the moon on the basis of the photos of the moon landing. One theory argues that since the flag wasn’t moving, there was no wind, and the photograph couldn’t possibly have been taken in space. The second theory says that since there is no crater under the spaceship during the landing, the moon landing must be a hoax. The primary counterargument that contradicts the belief that we didn’t land on the moon depends on the specific evidence that critics of the moon landing use to argue their opinion. For example, there is no crater impact when the spaceship landed on the moon because the moon has a lack of gravity. On earth, we could expect a crater impact but this is not true on the moon. In addition, the American flag in the video recording is not waving because there is no wind on the moon. We can’t apply our understanding of physics on earth to the physics of a different planet.

When people claim that there is no wind blowing on the moon in the video, we didn’t land on the moon, they are committing the slippery slope fallacy because they fail to explain why there could be no wind blowing on the moon. In order to effectively prove they are correct, the conspirators who believe this need to be able to provide information explaining why they think that wind can blow in space. Information that would help support this opinion would be to study weather data in low gravity and it is likely that experiments similar to this have been conducted before the moon landing because this information that NASA would have needed to make the landing a success. Furthermore, since there is sometimes windy weather on Earth and sometimes weather that isn’t windy, it is strange for people to assume that the videos and photos couldn’t have been taken at a time that wind wasn’t blowing if any wind could be present in space.

People who believe that there was no moon landing also present the unsupported claim that the radiation in space is enough to kill any living thing that passes through it. Despite this scientists have proven this untrue because they measured the radioactivity from space and compared it to the amount that is capable of killing someone. They found that the radioactivity in space isn’t close to the amount that can kill someone. It is strange that the people who believe in this theory were so willing to accept this sort of information without determining whether it was true first. It is likely that the amount of radiation is space is equal or less than the radiation on Earth because it is harder for radiation to diffuse through space because it is a vacuum. When the spaceship lands on the moon, it will be exposed to slightly more radiation because they are leaving the vacuum and entering a place that has gravity. Despite this though, less gravity usually means less radiation and since the moon blocks the sun, certain parts of the moon will be extremely protected from this radiation. In a sense, this is an Ad Hominem fallacy because the claim that radiation levels on Earth could potentially kill someone is irrelevant to the survivability of people in space as a result of radiation. Unless someone completely understands the physics of outerspace compared to the physics of Earth, they are not educated enough to make this claim and cannot possibly realize that the two concepts are completely unrelated. This is therefore an example of a faulty warrant.

Although it is clear from what was discussed above that the people who argue that the moon landing was false have claims that support this that are without evidence and with false reasoning, there are many more claims from these people that can be proven wrong. These conspiracy theories fall victim to faulty warrants, faulty reasoning, and commit logical fallacies. One of the major logical fallacies that these people make is that they attempt to argue that there was no moon landing based on deductive reasoning. Basically, they argue that since stars should be seen from the moon because they’re closer to the moon than earth, and there are no stars present, that the moon landing must be false. Although this statement follows deductively, since the statement saying that the “stars should be seen from the moon because they’re closer to the moon than earth” is false, the entire statement becomes false. The evidence against this argument is provided in one of the examples above. Another attempts to disprove the moon landing is made when people argue that since rough impacts make a crater, and there was no crater from the impact, then the spaceship never landed on the moon. This is also an example of deductive reasoning. However, this example is different than the reason stated above in the star photography example. Since the critics who believe that no moon landing occurred decided that there must be equal gravity on the moon and earth, they fall victim to faulty reasoning. Although they managed to have an argument that follows deductively, the validity of their statement is flawed so the argument isn’t effective. Lastly, the moon landing disbelievers say that because the flag in the photographs has no wind, the photo must have been taken on earth because only the earth can have no wind. This is also an example of deductive but faulty reasoning because we cannot know the weather on another planet unless we’ve experienced it.

In conclusion, the moon landing was a real event. While disbelievers try to discredit the landing by providing evidence and logic arguments, these arguments use many logical fallacies and faulty reasoning that weakens these claims. When making an argument, it is therefore important to do proper research to insure that holes can’t be poked into it. Unless someone does this first and tried to analyze their own argument using these elements, it’s not worthwhile to make this kind of a claim in the first place.

Works Cited

MrSayonara7777. “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIy8ZqqK5G8>