Russian Official Calls For "International Investigation" of the Apollo Program

MarkWhittington writes: According to a Tuesday article in the Moscow Times, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee named Vladimir Markin suggested that an international investigation be mounted into some of the "various murky details surrounding the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972." Markin would particularly like to know where some of the missing moon rocks went to and why the original footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing was erased. Markin hastened to add that he is, of course, not suggesting that NASA faked the moon landings and just filmed the events in a studio.

Comments

Of course not.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Markin hastened to add that he is, of course, not suggesting that NASA faked the moon landings and just filmed the events in a studio.

Of course he's not suggesting that. He's suggesting that Putin wants another sideshow and is desperate enough to think this'll do it....

Re:Of course not.

[Jason Levine]

Exactly. I did an IMDB search and found a Sci Fi movie from 1969 - Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun. Take a look at some of the effects. They were probably state of the art then and must have looked amazing, but they look extremely fake nowadays. Even if NASA had gotten the best and brightest of Hollywood on the "moon landing production", I doubt that 1) they could have pulled it off with so much realism, 2) they could have all kept the secret for so long, and 3) they wouldn't have used their knowledge from faking the moon landing to make more realistic movie special effects.

Re:Of course not.

[ShaunC]

Not only that, but at the time of the Moon landing, the Russians themselves were rather heavily involved in that arena. Had the landing been faked, Russia absolutely would have known; they would have distributed the proof far and wide to humiliate and one-up the Americans. It's just a tad late for a Russian to start asking questions.

Re:Of course not.

[dunkindave]

Obviously those are fakes. You can tell by the fact that they show a lander on the moon. :-D

Sadly, that is how a conspiracy theorist actually thinks. In this case, NASA publishing photos from a probe orbiting the moon to prove NASA went to the moon 40 years ago will be labeled as the complicit organization just putting out more lies. These people will only believe something when it is put directly in front of them (sometimes not even then), and since they can't go to the moon to see these artifacts for themselves, you can't prove it to them, and any second-party proof you present will be dismissed as fake or lies. It is one of the tenets of how they make claims that within their requirements for "proof", the claim becomes non-falsifiable.

Re:Of course not.

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Not only that, but at the time of the Moon landing, the Russians themselves were rather heavily involved in that arena. Had the landing been faked, Russia absolutely would have known; they would have distributed the proof far and wide to humiliate and one-up the Americans. It's just a tad late for a Russian to start asking questions.

That and Parkes (I have a relative who worked there at the time, he didn't work for NASA). And Fresnedillas.. Oh, and the Japanese.

Why is it that the same people who claim the Moon mission was a fake, happily believe the Moon is now a secret military base, the world is ruled by shape shifting lizard aliens, all technology was reverse engineered from crashed alien space craft, and that 9/11 was an inside demolition job kept totally secret (and that no one outside the Manhattan project knew the US was working on nuclear weapons). Is it the fluoride in the water, gang-stalking mind-control rays, or just the high altitude chem sprays?

Re: Of course not.

[davester666]

He loves football, but has really tender feet. That's why he lives on Endor.

Re: Of course not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you don't believe the primary evidence, this is very compelling secondary evidence. The Soviets were locked in the space race with the U.S. and would have done anything to embarrass the U.S. The fact that they did not do that suggests that it actually happened.

The tapes were re-used

[whitelabrat]

A while back there was a huge hunt to find the original tapes used to record the lunar landing. It is suspected that the tape was re-used due to NASA's tight budget and they couldn't afford more tape. The tape was very expensive at the time so it was common to just re-use what they could find. The Apollo mission was done, so why would they need to keep the tape around. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

That or it's stashed under someone's coffee table and forgotten about.

Let Russia Bankrupt Themselves To Check

[Irate Engineer]

Fine, go ahead Russia, spend a chunk of your GDP and put some boots on the Moon and fact check the U.S.

Oh yeah, make sure to make some more nuclear missiles. That's not cheap either, but security!

But wait...weren't these exact activities what caused the USSR to bankrupt themselves back in the 90's? Just checking.

No hate Russia, but you need to rein in your rhetoric. You have been beaten by playing this hand before.

Re:and 1 ....2......3.... Begin

[Rei]

Clearly fake. I can tell from some of the pixels.

Okay, okay, the bottom 90% of the vehicle that gets to a translunar trajectory is real because we saw it go up and disappear. But the top 10% was faked. That makes sense.

Re:No it is just grandstanding

[gstoddart]

Investigating the US space program. Ummm, well I mean

Hey! Look over there, a Yeti!

There is nothing in this article other than some idiot saying he objects to the US appointing themselves in charge of investigating corruption, and by the way, we should look into their claims of landing on the moon.

Not that he thinks they lied about the moon.

This is very thinly veiled distraction and innuendo.

Don't treat it like it's a coherent anything. It's complete gibberish.

This is the fucking Wookie defense.

Inflammatory headline?

[Sibko]

Okay, so I decided to do a little digging on the actual op-ed piece. It's available here: http://izvestia.ru/news/587742

Here is a translation of what he said regarding the moon landings, courtesy of washington post:

“No, we are not saying they never flew up there and just filmed a movie instead. But all these scientific, or perhaps even cultural artifacts are part of an international human heritage, and their disappearance is a great loss for all of us. An investigation would reveal [what happened and where they are].”

This is ALL he says about the moon landings. The slashdot post insinuates, "various murky details surrounding the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972." but the actual piece after translation and in context with the corruption tone of the article looks like an accusation of US officials selling off or stealing material recovered from the moon. Not an accusation that the US never went to the moon. He even explicitly says that's not what he's questioning.

But I guess we gotta get our pitchforks and torches out because it's the evil bad Russia.