Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (13 page)

That is precisely the belief of an increasing number of Americans. It is an apparently outlandish conspiracy theory that was ridiculed when it first appeared in the early 1970s but has slowly gained credence ever since. After Watergate, Americans became immeasurably more cynical about their government. So when the 1978 film Capricorn One portrayed a NASA attempt to fake a landing on Mars, many were prompted to suspect that the film was actually based on inside information. Since then opinion polls have consistently indicated that millions of Americans have their doubts about the moon landings. These doubts were fanned by a Fox Documentary made in 2002, which gave the conspiracy theorists the chance to put their case.

W
ERE THE LANDINGS FAKED
?
So what is that case? What is it about the moon landings, watched by millions at the time and for many years after seen as evidence of one of mankind's supreme achievements, that makes the conspiracy theorists suspicious?

Perhaps the best known questions posed by the conspiracy theorists are to do with the photographs of the landings. Why does the American flag appear to be waving in the wind when the moon has no wind? And why are there no stars visible in the sky? Not only that, why do photographs that purport to be taken miles apart appear to have identical backgrounds?

So what explanations can NASA, or anyone else, offer to explain these apparent anomalies? Well, quite a few. Taking them in order: the flag is apparently waving because it had just been unwrapped and then twisted as the flagpole was screwed into the ground. The reason no stars are visible is because the cameras that were used were set for quick shutter speeds, in order not to over-expose the film in the very bright light. The dim light of the stars simply does not have a chance to show up on the film. This same effect can easily be observed on Earth. If you take a picture of the night sky with the camera set for a bright sunny day then the stars will be invisible. The allegation that the backgrounds are identical in different photographs does not stand up to detailed analysis either. A careful comparison of the backgrounds that are claimed to be identical in fact shows significant changes in the relative positions of the hills.

It is just the same on Earth, where a mountain range will appear in much the same place in the backgrounds of photographs taken several hundred feet apart.

W
HY NO BLAST CRATER
?
The photographs are just one set of issues that have been raised by the conspiracy theorists, however. Some of their other questions deal with more mechanical matters.

Why was there no blast crater visible following the lunar landings? Why did the launch rocket not produce a visible flame? How did the spaceship and its crew survive the journey through the Van Allen radiation belt?

Here are the official scientific responses. There was no blast crater for the simple reason that the Lunar Modules braked before landing, rather than crashing violently into the moon's surface. In any case, their impact was diminished by the much weaker gravity on the moon. There was no visible flame because the Lunar Module used hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide, propellants chosen for their ability to ignite upon contact and without a spark. Such propellants happen to produce a nearly transparent exhaust. As for the Van Allen belt, the mission was well prepared for this. The orbital transfer trajectory from the Earth to the Moon through the belts was selected to minimize radiation exposure so that the spacecraft moved through the belts in just thirty minutes. The astronauts were protected from the radiation by the metal hulls of the spacecraft. The dosage received by the astronauts was no more than that gained from a chest X-ray.

M
OON ROCKS
Finally, one particularly complex part of the conspiracy theory has to do with the question of the moon rocks. These are usually seen as the ultimate proof that the moon landings did indeed take place. How else could these rocks, completely different to anything seen on Earth, have come in the possession of NASA? Conspiracy theorists point to the Antarctic expedition of Wernher von Braun, two years prior to the Apollo mission. According to this theory, this mission was used to collect lunar meteorite rocks that could be used as fake moon rocks in a hoax. Von Braun was susceptible to pressure from the authorities. He would have agreed to the conspiracy in order to protect himself from recriminations over his past as a former Nazi.

Well it is a nice theory and it does have some scientific rationale. There are indeed lunar meteorites to be found in Antarctica. However, the first meteorite identified as a lunar meteorite was not found until 1981, over a decade after the moon landings. It was only identified as such because of its similarity to the lunar samples returned by Apollo, which in turn are similar to the few grams of material returned from the moon by Soviet sample return. The total collection of identified Antarctic lunar meteorites presently amounts to only about 2.5 kilograms, less than one per cent of the 381 kilograms of moon rocks and soil returned by Apollo. Furthermore, the detailed analysis of the lunar rocks by many different scientists around the world shows no evidence of their having been on Earth prior to their return.

For every point raised by the conspiracy theorists there seems to be a rational scientific explanation. So is there any likelihood that America faked the moon landings? Not really. As scientists have pointed out, given the amount of work it would have taken to fool the world on such an epic scale it would have been easier to just go to the moon.

For many years, scientists have speculated about the existence of life on Mars, the Red Planet. In many ways, the planet is similar to Earth, having a cycle of days and nights that corresponds to our own, and also having seasons (although the seasons are different because Mars has a longer year). Since the seventeenth century, our knowledge about the planet, some of it conflicting, has accumulated, so that today many believe that simple life forms – or the potential for them – exist, or have existed, there.

One of the major controversies has centred around whether or not Mars has the basic features necessary to support life as we know it: in particular, water. Most recently, in 2005, the European Space Agency's probe, Mars Express, brought back high resolution photographs of a frozen lake that nestled within a crater in Vastitas Borealis, a great plain in the northern part of Mars. The Agency team also discovered a subterranean "frozen sea" on the planet, as well as ice at each of its poles. These finds have prompted the renewed speculation that Mars once supported life and possibly continues to do so.

A
PAST CIVILIZATION
?
In the late eighteenth century, the scientist William Herschel first demonstrated that the polar ice caps of Mars waxed and waned according to the seasons. A century later, many more features of the planet had been discovered, revealing its similarity to Earth. It appeared to have sea and land masses and it revolved around the sun on a similar axis to the Earth. Then came the extraordinary claim that a telescope sighting had revealed a system of canals on the planet. The claim was later found to be false, but fascination with the idea of life on Mars persisted.

In the nineteenth century, the eminent British scientist William Whewell and the American astronomer Percival Lowell popularized the idea that there was life on Mars. Their ideas inspired H.G. Wells to write his science fiction classic
The War of The Worlds
in 1897. This work of fiction, perhaps more than any other, crystallized our beliefs and fears about life on the planet. It told the story of alien beings trying to escape from a doomed civilization there by attempting to take over the Earth.

F
ACT OR FANTASY
?
In the centuries that followed, speculation about an alien civilization on Mars continued, but scientific research seemed to fly in the face of those who believed that there was any type of life at all on Mars. During the 1960s and 1970s, space probes such as Mariner 4 and Viking were sent to make tests, but they appeared to reveal that the planet was a dry, dusty place full of UV radiation, with no sign of rivers or seas. It was hard to believe that any form of life could survive in such a climate. There were one or two dissenting voices who interpreted the findings differently, such as Dr Gilbert Levin, who had designed one of the tests, but most self-respecting scientists gave up the quest to find life on Mars and left speculation to the science fiction enthusiasts.

Then, in 1996, news came that a meteorite from Mars had been found. After an asteroid collision, the meteorite had fallen off Mars and hurtled through space for millions of years, entering the Earth's atmosphere about 13,000 years ago and landing in Antarctica, where it was discovered by a NASA team in 1984. ALH84001, as the lump of rock was called, was examined microscopically by scientists from NASA and Stanford University and was thought to show evidence of fossilized microbes.

At a press conference on 7 August 1996, pictures of the meteorite were shown. Long, worm-like structures, thought to be very tiny bacteria, could be discerned within the rock. This was a stunning discovery and it rekindled interest in the issue of life on the planet Mars once more. Some scientists claimed that the rock had simply undergone chemical changes during its passage to Earth, which had made these long, worm-like patterns on it, but others were convinced that the meteorite had once and for all confirmed that primitive forms of life inhabited the planet, or at least had done so at an earlier date.

T
HE ORIGIN OF LIFE
In the new millennium, many more discoveries about Mars have been made by NASA. Evidence of subterranean lakes has been found and scientists now believe that Mars was once a planet with seas, which could conceivably have supported forms of life. The gas methane has also been noted to be present in the atmosphere of Mars, a finding that also points to unusual life forms there: organisms that can metabolize carbon dioxide and hydrogen to make methane. A recent survey conducted at a conference of the European Space Agency found that seventy-five per cent of scientists now accept that life on Mars once existed and twenty-five per cent believe that it continues to do so.

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the current climate of research is that it raises questions about how all life begins, not only on Mars but on Earth as well. Today, many scientists believe that there is no real mystery about the origin of life. It is not the hand of God or chance that causes it to begin, but the presence of just the right conditions, such as water and various gases. If the right conditions exist, life springs into being by itself.