Conspiracy Theorists: Hugely Important Photo From Apollo Programme Era.

[Robert Bruce]

A fundamental rationale which defuses the conspiracy theorists hypothesis that everything about the Apollo programme was a fake, is that the Soviets never argued, hinted, alluded to, whispered about nor vocalised a case against the USA.

Neither did the Soviets erupt in anger or deny the Americans their right to claim to be the nation who got two of its citizens onto the lunar surface first and then had them walk, hop and lope about in 1/6 Earth's gravity before audaciously blasting off from the moon's surface to safely dock with the command module and successfully return to Earth.

The Soviets knew that the Americans had the superior technology to do so. Far from the antagonistic stance I'd expect the Soviets to have maintained throughout the space 'race' years, it seems that the Soviets were in fact most congratulatory toward their peers in America about the success of the Apollo moon landing programme.

Indeed they helped to celebrate certain milestones of their respective space programmes. As 'comrades' despite their physical distance from one another, the Americans and Soviets were engaged in a like purpose to conquer the technological and restrictive human challenges space continues to reveal and place in our way. If the Soviets and Americans want to expand their knowledge of and explore deep space both super-powers would need to support each other.

You must recall that this was still an era of Cold War antagonism and secrecy. Apollo 13 was the first major and near catastrophic disaster in terms of loss of life during a mission that we know off. The fallout and investigations into how the explosion(s) were caused would rub salt into an already embarrassed NASA organisation.

                                                                                                                                                                ........./to be continued