I still remember when I first saw the original Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theory videos. I must admit, they were very convincing at the time, especially without testing the claims. Soon after the allegations were made that NASA didn’t go to the Moon, but rather shot the footage inside a studio, people started analyzing the Moon Landing hoax.

Before we get to the analysis of the conspiracy theory, here’s a recent photo taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Currently in a 50 km high orbit around the Moon, it snapped this photo of the Apollo 17’s lunar module descent stage. Even the flag is visible.

It’s also worthy to note that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had previously taken photos of all the Apollo mission and Surveyor landing sites, but the images were taken from a farther distance than the recent photograph of the Apollo 17 landing site. Because of this, there is hardly anything distinguishable in those photographs.

Anyway, this photo is kinda grainy, but considering that the “photographer” is currently in orbit around the Moon, it’s very plausible that it is what they claim it is.  Most hardcore conspiracy theorists would need more evidence than that however.

Well, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. MythBusters, with a little help from www.clavius.org, actually took on the challenge of testing the claims made by the hoax theorists.

Here’s video of the MythBusters’ team taking on the challenge:

Unparallel Shadows:

Moon Reflection:

Footprint:

Flag waving:

Retroreflector: