Elon Musk raised some doubts about the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon-landing mission

SpaceX and Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk has recently raised some doubts about the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon-landing mission. He has said that the mission was an anomalous situation in a “Full-Send” podcast. “The fact that we were able to go to the Moon in ’69 was such an anomalous situation it was like reaching into the future and bringing the technology forward,” susk. If aid Mwe watch the podcast in depth then, we can come to a conclusion that the statement is taken out of context and these lines should not be taken seriously.

The truth of Conspiracy Theories around Moon Landing

There are many doubts that are raised by people. And those can be answered very easily by the evidence that NASA holds. Various other space agencies have also confirmed that the Moon Landing was real. 

Till now 12 people have visited the moon. The last manned mission to the moon was in 1972 by the USA. Now, the question arises, which is why we have stopped visiting the moon since then. Even Musk pointed this out in his tweet where he said, “Only 66 years from first controlled, powered flight to landing on the moon. Now, half a century later, we are still unable to return. This must change.” 

As we have not been visiting the moon for half a century and there was a space race going on between America and Russia, so America planned a drama of landing on the moon and broadcasted it everywhere by mass media. This is the logic that is most widely given by the promoters of conspiracy theories around the moon landing.

The vagueness of this conspiracy theory can be measured by going into its origin. There was a book named “We never went to the Moon” which was published in 1976. It was written by someone who was neither a mathematician (like Virahank) nor a scientist. The book got popularized due to the vested interest of various people.

Why Have We Stopped Visiting The Moon

The reason for this is explained in this video:

The Moon’s atmosphere can be considered devoid of gasses for all practical purposes. But there are solid dust particles on the surface of the Moon. The reason for their existence is the regular crashing of meteorites (sizes ranging from micrometers to kilometers) on the surface of the moon. These crashes create dust close to the surface of the moon.

These dust particles are the main reason which is stopping us from visiting the moon again. The last time when astronauts came back, their suits were filled with dust. They could not get rid of these as the dust had stuck tightly to their suits and could not be removed easily. The reason for sticking was the static charge that was present in the dust. And the reason for this static charge was the sunlight. 

When the sunlight strikes one portion of the Moon, it positively charges the dust particles by the photoelectric effect (electrons are released when the light of a certain wavelength strikes an atom). The released electrons negatively charge the dust particles which are not receiving sunlight. Thus everywhere on the surface of the Moon, the dust particles are charged.

Now, these charged dust particles stick to the suits of astronauts just like hair gets attracted to the comb after it gets statically charged by continuous combing. These dust particles even enter the thin gaps in the astronomer’s suit. They become a serious issue for the astronaut. Even the vision gets cloudy if it sticks to certain parts of the suit.

Scientists were struggling to solve this issue which got solved recently after the discovery of carbon nanotubes and the flow of charges through them. Now the existing suit needs to be modified and it will start repelling the charged dust particles (by creating a repulsing shield) whenever the astronauts wish to. This was the main obstacle to our visits to the Moon.

Settlement on Moon

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the most sought organization which could complete the vision of establishing a city on the Moon. Musk has repeatedly stressed that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 primarily to help humanity colonize Mars. He believes that it is vital that we become a multi-planet species and thus have both a much-reduced probability of extinction and the thrill of meaningful space exploration.

SpaceX is developing a 100-passenger spaceship called Starship and a giant rocket known as Super Heavy, which together constitutes the transportation system that will bring Moon and Mars settlement within reach. The dream of settlement on other planets seems to be a strong possibility in the near future if we accept this challenge.

Expansion is life and contraction is death. So we must expand ourselves to the fullest and find out the limit …or the existence of any limit.