Recently, China's Chang'e-6 probe, during its scientific mission, found no direct evidence of the U.S. Apollo moon landing program, such as clear traces of the Apollo Basin. The news quickly sparked widespread discussion and speculation around the world, especially the controversy over whether the historical U.S. mission to the moon was real or not, and was once again pushed to the forefront. The United States, through its ambitious Apollo program, succeeded in sending astronauts to the surface of the moon in the 60-70s of the 20th century and claimed to have made a huge leap in human history. However, over time, quite a few controversies and conspiracy theories have arisen around the authenticity of these tasks, especially in the absence of independent third-party verification.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been synonymous with space technology and exploration since the successful landing of Apollo 11 in 1969, and the Apollo program is regarded as a milestone in human scientific and technological progress. However, some critics and conspiracy theorists argue that the US moon landing was an elaborate hoax to demonstrate its technological and political superiority during the Cold War, especially to outperform the Soviet Union in the space race. These suspicions were not unfounded, and in 1976, former U.S. Navy officer Bill Casey published The Never Moon: America's Three-Dollar Scam, which sparked widespread public discussion on the subject. The book presents a variety of theories and evidence to try to prove that NASA's lunar images and data were made on Earth.
In addition, the far-reaching was the 1977 film Capricorn One, which, although a fictional work, depicted a NASA falsifying space missions due to domestic political pressure, which further fueled public skepticism about real space missions. These cultural works and publications have had a profound impact on society, leading some people to seriously consider the possible veracity of these conspiracy theories.
With advances in science and technology and the rise of other countries in space exploration, especially China's remarkable achievements in lunar exploration projects, this suspicion has taken on new life. One of the goals of China's Chang'e lunar exploration program is to verify the traces of multiple phenomena and historical missions on the moon, including the Apollo landing site in the United States. Deputy Chief Designer Pei's speech at a press conference, although taken out of context, was enough to trigger a series of speculations and polemics.
The actual location and significance of the Apollo Basin is particularly critical in this discussion. Although Pei's remarks were misinterpreted by some media and the public as "no evidence of the Apollo landing" was found, in fact, the Apollo Basin was a crater formed by an asteroid impact and was not directly related to the landing site of the Apollo mission. In 2009, the U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and later China's Chang'e-2 were also launched
A number of high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface have been provided, showing the remains of various pieces of equipment left behind by the Apollo mission, such as the lunar module and the rover.
In the face of these third-party verifications, as well as the scientific community's in-depth analysis of lunar soil samples and other direct evidence, many scientists and experts, such as Academician Ouyang Ziyuan, insisted that the U.S. moon landing was real. They point out that some of the visual anomalies that occurred during the moon landing, such as the "flying" of the national flag, the absence of stars in the photo, and the multiple appearances of astronauts' shadows, can be reasonably answered by scientific explanations.
Considering all this information and evidence, although Chang'e-6 did not directly find any traces of the Apollo Basin, it is not enough to prove that the US moon landing was a hoax. In fact, broader and systematic evidence supports the authenticity of the Apollo mission. The historical Apollo program not only demonstrated the courage and innovation of human exploration of the universe, but also laid the foundation for later space exploration activities, including the current Chang'e lunar exploration program in China. For the future, we should pay more attention to and support space exploration activities on a global scale, and hope that astronauts from more countries will be able to leave human footprints on the moon and even further into space.