Over the years, some netizens have questioned the authenticity of the U.S. Apollo manned moon landing program half a century ago for many reasons. One of the reasons is that more than 50 years ago, the US manned lunar landing program went very smoothly, and it took less than 10 years for the United States to achieve the first manned spaceflight to achieve a manned landing on the moon.
Moreover, during the entire Apollo manned lunar landing program, the United States successively launched seven Apollo manned lunar landing spacecraft, except for the Apollo 13 spacecraft that had to abort the lunar landing program due to an accident during the lunar journey, the other six Apollo lunar landing spacecraft successfully sent astronauts to the lunar surface and successfully returned to the earth from the lunar surface. The success rate is beyond imagination.
You know, today's technology is far from being comparable to more than 50 years ago, and now the technology is becoming more and more advanced, and it stands to reason that manned landing on the moon should be a very simple thing, but the actual situation is not as imagined. Even though the United States successfully achieved several manned missions to the moon a few decades ago, now the return of the United States to the moon is fraught with difficulties.
It is undeniable that the difficulty of landing on the moon is indeed very great, but as a comparison, our China has been very smooth in lunar exploration. Since the Chang'e-1 mission, we have launched a number of Chang'e probes to carry out lunar exploration missions, among which the Chang'e-3 probe is the first probe to land on the moon in mainland China, and has also successfully sent the Yutu lunar rover to the surface of the moon.
The Chang'e-4 probe is not only the mainland, but also the world's first probe to successfully land on the far side of the moon, and also sent the Yutu-2 lunar rover to the surface of the moon. The Chang'e-5 probe is even more powerful, completing the mainland's first lunar sample return mission to Earth, bringing back precious lunar samples from the lunar surface.
On the basis of the previous Chang'e probes, our Chang'e-6 probe was also successfully launched on May 3, and on May 8, it has undergone near-moon braking and deceleration, and entered the orbit of orbit around the moon.
The rover will then perform a series of decelerations, orbit changes, and then release the lander to land on the moon, and then collect samples on the lunar surface. The landing site of this lunar surface sample is completely different from the previous moon landings in human history, and the destination is the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon, which is more difficult than landing on the front side of the moon.
Now the Chang'e-6 probe has completed the process of going to the moon and has become a spacecraft flying around the moon. With the smooth implementation of the Chang'e-6 mission, it is estimated that doubts about the authenticity of the Apollo manned landing on the moon will reappear. Because as early as when the Chang'e-5 probe landed on the moon, many netizens questioned the authenticity of Apollo.
One of the problems is that the Chang'e-5 probe also "raised" a five-star red flag on the surface of the moon, and our five-star red flag will not flutter in the wind, while the flag planted by the United States on the surface of the moon in those years is "fluttering in the wind". What's going on?
Why the American flag is flying
From some of the footage of Apollo's manned landing on the moon, we can see the astronauts walking on the lunar surface, driving the lunar rover on the lunar surface, and some astronauts planting American flags on the lunar surface. In the picture of the flag, we can see that the flag of the United States seems to be blown up by the wind and seems to be still "fluttering in the wind".
As we all know, the moon is a planet without an atmosphere, that is, there is no air and no wind, and under normal circumstances, the flag will not float on the surface of the moon, and the flag planted by American astronauts on the moon looks as if it is blown up by the wind. So many netizens began to question the authenticity of Apollo's manned landing on the moon.
It stands to reason that the surface of the moon is almost a vacuum environment, and there will be no scene of "fluttering in the wind" on the surface of the moon, so why does the flag planted by American astronauts on the surface of the moon seem to be "floating"? Experts give an explanation.
In order to make the flag stand up, the American staff designed the flagpole, that is, a horizontal support pole was added to the top of the flagpole, and after opening, the flag could be kept open, so the flag inserted by American astronauts on the surface of the moon was propped up.
As for why the flag wobbles, the expert's explanation is that when the astronauts who landed on the moon planted a flagpole on the surface of the moon, the flag remained shaking by inertia when letting go due to excessive force. Since there is no air on the surface of the moon, the flag can be dangling for a long time, giving us the visual effect of "fluttering in the wind".
This is the reason why the flags planted by the Apollo astronauts on the surface of the moon appear to be "blowing in the wind". As for the authenticity of the Apollo manned moon landing, we will not discuss it, no matter whether I say it is true or false, it is estimated that some netizens will scold me. After all, some netizens think that the Apollo manned moon landing is real, and some netizens think it is a scam.
How difficult was the Chang'e-6 mission?
Regardless of whether the Apollo manned moon landing is true or not, human exploration of the moon has now entered a white-hot state. Over the years, many countries have launched probes to explore the moon, including China. Compared to many other countries, our missions to the moon have been very smooth, with success every time, and some of them have created human firsts.
For example, the Chang'e-6 probe, which is currently flying in lunar orbit, will be the first probe in human history to bring back samples from the far side of the moon if it successfully lands on the far side of the moon and returns to Earth, and we will become the first country in the world to bring back precious lunar samples from the far side of the moon.
It has been more than half a century since humans explored the moon, and humans have carried out as many as 10 missions to return lunar samples to Earth, so why has no one been able to bring back samples from the far side of the moon? How difficult is the Chang'e-6 mission?
The landing site of the Chang'e-6 probe is located on the far side of the Moon, which is forever facing away from Earth because the Moon is tidally locked. To put it simply, we will never see the far side of the moon on the surface of the earth, that is, the landing site of Chang'e-6.
For this reason, communication between spacecraft orbiting on the far side of the Moon and Earth will also be blocked. Therefore, probes operating on the far side of the moon cannot directly contact the ground command center. This is an objective factor that prevents humans from exploring the far side of the moon.
In order to achieve the mission of landing on the far side of the moon to collect samples and return to the earth, we launched the Queqiao-2 relay satellite in advance, which is used to solve this problem of blocked communication. The Queqiao-2 relay satellite will fly over the Chang'e-6 probe as it orbits the moon.
In this way, the Chang'e-6 probe can transmit the signal to the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, which will then relay the signal back to the ground command center. Similarly, the instructions issued from the earth were first sent to the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, and then the Queqiao-2 relay satellite was relayed to Chang'e-6 on the far side of the moon, which perfectly solved the communication problem.
Because the Chang'e-6 probe carries payloads from Pakistan, Italy, France and the European Space Agency, the mission is relatively complex, and the Queqiao-2 relay satellite is needed to operate on the far side of the moon, so the Chang'e-6 mission cycle is relatively long, from launch to return to Earth, it takes about 53 days. That's almost a month longer than the previous Chang'e-5 mission.