Participants of the last three expeditions of the Apollo program drove about 90 km on the Moon, traveling on a special lunar rover

In May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy set an unprecedented task for the country - to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, this audacious plan was put into action. So, how did the preparations for this event go and how did first manned flight to the moon.

The symbolic footprint of an astronaut's sole on the lunar soil is evidence that a human foot has finally set foot on the moon

In the middle of the 20th century, the set goal seemed completely unattainable, because humanity was only taking timid steps in space. Less than a month after the flight of Yuri Gagarin, and behind NASA (National Aeronautics and space research) was only a 15-minute suborbital flight by astronaut Alan Shepard. However, the moon landing became a matter of national pride for the Americans. The USSR was ahead of the United States by launching the first satellite and the first man into space, therefore, in the darkest period " cold war» John Kennedy decided to stake out the Moon for America. His decision marked the beginning of a large-scale space program, and the advanced scientific and technical developments carried out for the Apollo project gave much modern world its current form.

From the very first days of the space age, discovered by the launch Soviet satellite On October 1, 1957, the Moon became an obvious target for unmanned probes. The first to reach it in 1959 was the Soviet Luna-2 probe, which crashed on the lunar surface, but managed to send its photographs to Earth. A month later, Luna-3 flew around our night star and photographed its reverse side for the first time in history. The USSR took a clear lead in the space race, however, having taken a powerful run towards the goal, the United States began to gradually reduce the gap.

In 1962, the American Ranger IV also reached the Moon, but to the great annoyance of scientists, it did not transmit the expected television picture to Earth. But in 1964-1965, Rangers VII, VIII and IX took over 17 thousand photographs, including the first close-ups of the lunar surface. In 1966, the USSR recorded another outstanding success when Luna 9 made the first soft landing on the Moon. For Soviet Union the expedition to the moon was no less a political trump card than for the United States, but if America openly developed its space programs, then in the USSR the same intense work was carried out under the cloak of secrecy. All unmanned probes collected information necessary for the landing of a person. Following the "Rangers" was followed by a series of "Surveyors", which carried out soft landings and took samples of lunar rocks. The satellites of the Lunar Orbiter series, equipped with powerful photographic equipment, served the same purpose, which made it possible to map 95% of the lunar surface and explore possible landing points.

Expeditions to the moon would be nothing to think of without a giant leap in manned flight technology. The first astronauts in 1961 were only passengers on their ships, flying on simple suborbital trajectories. Over time, the Soviet program "Vostok" and the American "Mercury" began to set more and more difficult tasks for pilots, and later NASA began to launch two-seat ships of the Gemini series, gradually increasing the duration of flights, during which astronauts mastered the science of space piloting. After all, an expedition to the moon will require a crew of three people, which will spend more than a week in space and correct the course to the nearest fraction of a second. Moreover, in the cramped space of space modules, the entire filling must be extremely compact, including on-board computers, which in those years were huge colossus occupying large rooms.

A flight to the moon was unthinkable without a new, much more powerful launch vehicle. Launching the Gemini capsule into Earth orbit required much less energy than sending the Apollo on a journey of more than 300,000 km. So, with a major overhaul of the Saturn I rocket, NASA created the mighty Saturn V.

By early 1967, after many years of hard work, the Apollo program was finally ready to launch, as the successful launch of Apollo 1 with a modified Saturn-IB (Saturn-V was under development) convincingly showed. ). However, it was at this moment that disaster struck. During pre-launch training, a fire broke out in the hermetically sealed Apollo command module, spreading instantly in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, and astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee suffocated in the smoke. The investigation undertaken in the wake of the accident and the introduction of significant changes in the design of the command compartment delayed the program for more than a year. During this time, the USSR could well have taken the lead in the "lunar" race, but there was also a tragic incident in April 1967. The planned flight, which provided for the docking of two ships in orbit, ended in the death of cosmonaut Komarov, when the Soyuz-1 descent vehicle with high speed crashed into the ground.

In October 1968, flights under the Apollo program were resumed with a new powerful launch vehicle and a reconstructed command compartment. In order to run it into low Earth orbit, Apollo 7 was launched, but even before its launch, NASA set about preparing a new space “surprise”, spurred on by rumors that the USSR was preparing a manned flight around the moon.

This is how the Earth rises from the Moon. The picture was taken during the Apollo 8 expedition. The lunar horizon is about 570 km from the ship, and the Earth is 384 thousand km

Fortunately for NASA, the Soviet vision never came to fruition, and in December 1968 the US achieved its biggest success to date. The Apollo 8 spacecraft, with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lowell and William Anders on board, flew to the Moon, made 10 orbits around it and returned to Earth (which is much more complicated than the simple flyby of the Moon planned by the Soviets). During their 20 hours in lunar orbit, the astronauts tested the navigation and communications systems intended for use in landing on the moon. Two months later, Apollo 9 entered Earth orbit to test the module that was supposed to deliver the first people to the lunar surface. For 6 hours, the lunar module flew separately from the command module, after which it successfully docked with it. On March 13, 1969, the astronauts returned to Earth.

Onward to the moon!

More than two months later, the Apollo 10 crew conducted further tests of the lunar module - this time in lunar orbit. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan descended in it to 15 km above the lunar surface, while John Young remained in the command module. The success of this expedition convincingly confirmed NASA's readiness to land the first people on the moon.

Apollo 11 crew (left to right): Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. On July 16, 1969, they embarked on a historic flight from Earth to the Moon.

On the morning of July 16, 1969, a three-stage Saturn V rocket launched from the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, which launched the Apollo 11 spacecraft with three astronauts on board. They were Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. The total length of the rocket and ship was 111 m, and the launch weight was almost 3,000 tons. Every second, burning 15 tons of fuel and liquefied oxygen, powerful engines the first stage developed a speed of 10,000 km / h and in 2.5 minutes raised the rocket to a height of 65 km above the Earth. After that, the first stage was fired, and the engines of the second stage started working. 9 minutes after the launch, she also completed her task, lifting the ship to a height of 185 km and increasing the speed to 25,000 km / h. Finally, after the separation of the second stage, the engines of the third turned on.

Waiting orbit

1. Access to low Earth orbit. 2. Start from near-Earth orbit. 3. Re-docking of the command and lunar modules. 4. Circumlunar orbit. 5. Landing of the lunar module. 6. Way back. 7. Splashdown

In just 3 minutes, the ship reached 28,000 km/h, enough to remain in a near-circular Earth-holding orbit. After turning off the engines of the third stage, the crew performed routine checks of the ship's systems and began to prepare for a three-day flight to the Moon 384,000 km long.

Restarted for five and a half minutes, the engines of the third stage tore the spacecraft out of the Earth's gravity, and it headed for the Moon with an initial speed of over 39,000 km/h. Now it's time to prepare the three modules (command, propulsion, and lunar) that made up Apollo 11 for entry into circumlunar orbit.

Apollo modules

It looked like a bunch of command and engine compartments "Apollo" from the board of the lunar module on the way to the moon

The conical command module contained a control panel and living quarters. The command module was a single bundle with a cylindrical engine compartment, in which, in addition to the marching propulsion system, there were orientation system engines and a power supply system.

The lunar module in which the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon. He was provided with two rocket engines- one for descent, the other for return to orbit

Finally, the lunar module was attached directly to the third stage of the Saturn, in which the astronauts landed on the surface of the moon.

Moon landing

Separated from the Saturn, the main block of the command and propulsion modules made a U-turn and docked top to top with the lunar module. After that, the bundle of the main block and the lunar module separated from the third stage of the Saturn, which by that time had completed its task. The necessary course corrections were made using small thrusters, but the main thruster did not turn on, and under the influence of the Earth's gravity, the spacecraft gradually slowed down. At 48,000 km from the moon, the speed of Apollo 11 only slightly exceeded 3,000 km/h, but here the forces of lunar gravity had already come into play, and the ship began to accelerate again. To decelerate and transfer the ship to a lunar orbit, the main engine was turned on, which was now located in the bow of the bundle.

Through the windows of the command module, the Apollo 11 astronauts observed the lunar surface from a height of 100 km, focusing all their attention on the proposed landing site in the Sea of ​​Tranquility - a vast lunar plain that got its name several centuries ago, when scientists believed in the existence of lunar seas. The next day, Armstrong and Aldrin moved to the lunar module, which received the call sign Eagle. Collins remained in the command bay while the LM separated and began a gentle descent towards the lunar surface, using the landing stage's thruster to decelerate and correct course. At that moment, the whole world held its breath. Finally, the astronauts found a flat area, hovered over it for a minute and a half meters and landed on the surface of the Moon covered with centuries of dust, about which Armstrong reported to the Mission Control Center on Earth: “The bottom of the Sea of ​​Tranquility is speaking. The Eagle has landed. This truly historic event took place. July 20, 1969 at 20:18 GMT.

The highlight of the expedition was the moment when Neil Armstrong descended the ladder to the lunar surface. Stepping on the dark gray ground, he said: “For one person it’s a small step, but for all mankind it’s a giant leap forward”.

On the moon

Astronaut Edwin Aldrin descends from the Apollo 11 lunar module onto the surface of the moon. The picture was taken by the first man to walk on the moon - Neil Armstrong

Following Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin set foot on the moon, and moving around in low gravity turned out to be very easy, despite the bulky spacesuits. First of all, the astronauts set up an American flag, stretched over a rigid frame, so that the fabric would not sag in the complete calm of airless space.

This epochal event was in the center of attention of the entire world press, and the TV reports sent to Earth by the small TV camera of the lunar module were watched with great interest by viewers in many countries.

Giant lunar crater. The picture was taken during the first expedition to the moon "Apollo 11". In the background is the lunar rover used by the pioneers.

Before returning to the lunar module, the astronauts conducted a series of scientific experiments and collected about 20 kg of lunar rock samples.

The critical moment of the whole expedition came - the launch from the Moon. After all, in the event of a failure of the launch engine of the lunar module, people would forever remain on the moon without the slightest chance of salvation. However, on this and all subsequent expeditions, the starting engine worked flawlessly.

The way home

To take off from the lunar surface, the launcher was separated from the module and served as its launch platform, which was destined to remain on the Moon. Turning on the starting engine, the astronauts first went into low lunar orbit, and then into orbit with the command module. With a few impulses from the maneuvering engines, Michael Collins approached the lunar module, took up a convenient position for docking, and, having docked both modules, the first lunar explorers joined their colleague. They took with them the collected samples of lunar soil and equipment, which was to be returned to Earth. Then they undocked from the lunar module and turned on the main engine, which was supposed to deliver them to Earth. Before entering the Earth's atmosphere, the astronauts separated the engine compartment, and the command module was deployed stern first to increase braking by friction against the atmosphere. At an altitude of about 7 km, small braking parachutes opened, and 3 km from the surface, the main parachutes opened.

An inflatable pontoon was placed under the splashed down capsule with astronauts to prevent it from sinking.

Soon the command module splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, and the crew flew to the base, where a triumphant meeting awaited them. On July 24, the astronauts returned to their homeland after spending 8 days in flight. In the words of President Nixon, it was "the greatest week in the history of mankind since the creation of the world."

Subsequent expeditions

The Apollo 12 spacecraft hovered over the Saturn V launch vehicle. On its bottom you can see the chassis of the lunar module

A series of flights to the moon under the Apollo program ended in December 1972. By that time, 12 astronauts had been there, and some of them not only walked, but also traveled on the Moon. Members of each expedition spent more and more time on the Moon. The second landing was made by the crew of Apollo 12 in November 1969, landing on the Ocean of Storms near the place where Surveyor 3 landed in 1967. Astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean brought some of the components of this probe to Earth, and scientists got the opportunity to find out how they behaved various materials in open space conditions.

The flight of Apollo 13 largely justified the superstitions associated with the "unlucky number". On the way to the moon in April 1970, due to a defect in the power supply system, an oxygen tank in the engine compartment exploded. Realizing that the main tank would soon lose all oxygen and energy, Jim Lowell's crew was forced to transfer to the Akveries (Aquarius) lunar module. It had enough air to fly, but this time the air filters began to malfunction, and the astronauts had to replace them with incompatible filters from the command module. Fighting for the survivability of the ship, they burned too much fuel even to just turn around and fly back. Instead, they had to perform a dangerous maneuver - to fly around the moon, and then, without the help of on-board computers, turn on the lunar module main engine in order to set a course for Earth. And yet, despite all the difficulties, the astronauts returned home safe and sound, where they were greeted as national heroes.

Launch of Apollo 14. The expedition lasted 9 days

At the beginning of 1971, after a general check of all systems, Apollo 14 launched, delivering another crew of astronauts to the moon. In this expedition, a modular equipment transporter was used for the first time - a two-wheeled cargo trolley.

Far more ambitious goals were pursued by the Apollo 15 expedition undertaken in mid-1971, equipped with a lunar rover powered by electric batteries, which allowed astronauts to make long trips to collect samples of lunar rocks. Later, two more expeditions used the same lunar rover - Apollo 16 (April 1972) and Apollo 17 (December 1972).

Launch of Apollo 17. It was the only night launch in the entire Apollo lunar program.

At first, the Apollo program included two more flights to the Moon, but weakening public interest and budget cuts led to its premature closure. The last flights were already carried out under the Skylab application program - in 1973, the Saturn-V rocket launched the first American space station into near-Earth orbit, and in 1975 the first joint flight of the Apollo-18 and Soyuz-19 spacecraft took place, docking which in orbit has become a symbol of political detente.

In the years that have passed since the end of the Apollo program, space exploration has taken other paths, including flights of reusable spacecraft, the creation of the most sophisticated robotic probes to study distant planets and large orbital stations. Manned flights to other planets had to be abandoned due to their exorbitant cost and budgetary constraints. And yet someday we will certainly return to the moon, this time to stay there for a long time. In 1992, NASA sent the Clementine probe, the first in 20 years, to the Moon, equipped with much more sophisticated equipment than the Apollo. In the course of a detailed survey of the Earth's satellite, he also led the search for minerals, which, apparently, will become the main commercial justification for returning a man to the moon. The same probe picked up signals indicating the presence of ice in a crater covered with an eternal shadow near the moon. south pole. And if there is water on the moon, then its colonization will go much easier.

Although the "moon race", like all flights under the Apollo program, was put in the service of political goals, they nevertheless remain an outstanding achievement of scientific and technical thought.

What will be remembered in the history of the summer of 1969? The grand rock festival at Woodstock. The release of the film "Easy Rider", which heralded the end of the hippie era. The conflict between the USSR and China on Damansky Island. The coming to power of Richard Nixon, the destruction of the village of Song My in Vietnam and anti-war protest marches. The refusal of John Lennon from the Order of the Knight of the British Empire. And an event comparable to the first manned flight into space - the landing of an American astronaut on the moon. Neil Armstrong took "a small step for one man, but a giant leap for all mankind." The moon was conquered.

Of all the space objects visible to the naked eye, it was the Moon that most attracted the attention of man. Some peoples revered her above the Sun, poets dedicated their lines to her, astrologers believed that she influences the fate of rulers and the life of states. The most mysterious properties were attributed to the moon, to the point that cows' milk curdles from its light, and in childless women, under its influence, twins are born, and six-fingered ones.

The moon always faces the Earth with the same hemisphere (the so-called visible side Moon). The period of revolution of the Moon relative to the Sun is 29.53 days, so that the lunar day and lunar night last almost 15 days each. During the lunar day, the surface of the Moon heats up and cools down at night; while the temperature on the surface of the moon changes.

And man has always dreamed of setting foot on the moon. But the Moon is like that elbow from the proverb, close, but you won’t bite. The dream took on a visible shape in the second half of the twentieth century, with the beginning of space exploration. In January 1956, the Soviet Union decided to create an artificial Earth satellite and a manned spaceship. The great space race between the USSR and the USA began.

Onward to the moon!

On October 4, 1957, the two-stage R-7 Sputnik launched the world's first artificial satellite Earth. The satellite has been in space for three months. During this time, the word sputnik managed to enter many languages. The Americans responded by launching the Explorer 1 artificial Earth satellite in April 1958. In both countries, intensive preparations were underway for a manned flight into space and landing on the moon.

At the first stage, the USSR managed to get ahead of the USA. In September 1959, the Soviet automatic station "Luna-2" for the first time reached the surface of the Moon in the area of ​​the Sea of ​​Clarity, and in October, the "Luna-3" station photographed the far side of the Moon for the first time. The US began to get nervous. In the summer of 1960, work on the Apollo project was announced. The project included a manned flight around the moon and landing a man on its surface.

The gravitational field of the Moon has been studied most carefully. This is explained not only by the needs of astronautics, but also gives scientists important information about the structural features of the Moon. These studies have revealed the non-centrality of its gravitational field, due to the inhomogeneity of the density of the interior. The acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Moon was 1.623 m/s 2 , that is, 6 times less than on Earth.

After Yuri Gagarin (April 12, 1961), and later Alan Shepard (May 5, 1961), flew into space, the Moon Race began. In May 1961, the United States adopted a program to conquer the moon. The Americans were extremely annoyed by the fact that the first person to fly into space was a Russian. Since the USSR forever staked out the place of the discoverer of space, in the USA it was decided to focus on the lunar program.

US President John F. Kennedy very much hoped to land a man on the moon before the USSR did. He managed to secure a $25 billion congressional appropriation for this program. The US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has come to grips with the development of the program. In turn, in the USSR on April 12, 1962, the existence of a lunar space program in the country was officially announced for the first time. But the project existed only at the stage of intentions. It was finalized only in 1964.

The American automatic station "Ranger-7" reached the surface of the Moon on July 31, 1964. In August 1964, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev signed the secret Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR under the number 655/268 "On the work on the exploration of the Moon and outer space." The space industry was given a specific task: in May - June 1967 to fly around the moon, and in September 1968 to make a soft landing on the lunar surface and return back. By decision of the government, the so-called "lunar group" was created, headed by the USSR pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.

But then the Soviet lunar project stalled. In October 1964, Khrushchev was removed from his post. Leonid Brezhnev took his place, but he did not have much interest in astronautics. Gradually, lunar projects moved from the category of priority to the area of ​​secondary importance.

The matter was complicated by the fact that the two most prominent figures of Soviet cosmonautics, Academicians Korolev and Chelomey, could not agree on what the launch vehicle should be for a flight to the Moon. Korolev proposed a fundamentally new, environmentally friendly N-1 engine, which was supposed to run on oxygen and hydrogen. Chelomey advocated the proven Proton engines. In January 1966, Korolev died. After a long rivalry, the leadership decided to stop at Chelomey's version. But in the tests over and over again there were oversights that led to accidents.

In the end, in 1967, the Decree of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers "On the unsatisfactory state" was published. lunar program"". The USSR realized that it would not be possible to win the Lunar Race: there was still an opportunity to fly around the Moon first, but it would not be possible to land on its surface before the Americans.

On December 21, 1968, American astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders launched to the moon aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft. It was the first flight outside the Earth orbit. Astronauts were the first people to see the far side of the Moon. Apollo 8 made several orbits in lunar orbit, after which it successfully returned to Earth. The first leg of the Moon Race was won by the United States.

After American astronauts circled the Moon, a similar Soviet program became irrelevant. There was still a meager chance to try to get ahead of the United States with the landing of a controlled spacecraft on the surface of the Earth's satellite.

On July 13, 1969, the Luna-15 automatic station of the new generation was launched in the USSR, which was supposed to deliver samples of lunar soil to Earth. On July 16, the Apollo 11 spacecraft (crew: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin) launched into space. On July 20, the Soviet automatic station Luna-15 and the lunar module landed on the surface of the moon, but Luna-15 crashed. And on July 20 at 03:56 GMT, Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon for the first time in human history. The second stage of the Moon race also remained with the United States.

However, work on the Soviet lunar program did not stop there. In September 1970, the Soviet automatic station "Luna-16" brought to Earth about 100 grams of lunar soil. But there was no longer any talk of launching manned spacecraft to the Moon. In November of the same year, the Lunokhod-1 self-propelled vehicle was delivered to the surface of the Moon, which worked there for 9 months. Thus, the USSR took a partial revenge for the defeat in the Moon race.

But by 1973, the United States, having completed its lunar program, switched to the development of the Skylab long-term near-Earth orbital station. The USSR, having suffered repeated failures with the launch of H-1 rockets, which were supposed to deliver astronauts to the moon, also curtailed work in this area. As the end of the lunar program in 1973-76, automatic stations were launched in the Soviet Union, during which Lunokhod-2 was delivered to the Moon, and soil samples were returned to Earth. The moon race is over.

Did Armstrong walk on the moon?

In mid-1995, a story began to circulate in the media that, in addition to his world-famous phrase, Neil Armstrong said another: "Good luck to you, Mr. Gorsky." For a long time, no one could understand what she was referring to, and only recently the astronaut allegedly revealed the secret. While still a boy, he heard the neighbor's wife, whose surname was Gorsky, deny him intimacy, promising to please him only when the neighbor's boy flies to the moon. Much to the dismay of lovers of spectacular stories, this "true" tale is nothing more than an anecdote. Armstrong never said such a phrase.

The landing of a man on the surface of the moon was watched by more than half a billion television viewers around the world. the globe. This record was broken only 4 years later - Elvis Presley's Hawaiian concert in 1973 was watched by a billion people. In addition, during the lunar expedition, the most expensive telephone conversation in the history of mankind took place - President Nixon personally spoke with the astronauts from the Oval Office. The lunar expedition literally shook the world.

And almost immediately there was a theory that the flight to the moon was nothing more than a skillful falsification. For the first time, talk about this arose after journalists became interested in the fate of the astronauts who took part in the lunar flights under the Apollo program (in total, 33 astronauts took part in it). Almost a third of them died in car and plane crashes! At the same time, a version of strange coincidences began to circulate through the pages of the media. The journalists wondered: "What kind of strange epidemic of catastrophes is affecting the astronauts? Maybe the root of this lies in their violation of the secrecy of flights?"

Footage from the surface of the moon began to be carefully studied by both professionals and amateurs. Of particular surprise was the moment the US flag was installed on the surface of the Moon, which flew as if in the wind, although there is no atmosphere on the Moon and, therefore, the flag should not waver. Proponents of the staging theory began to offer other evidence. Astronauts walk on the Moon in inflated spacesuits, in a vacuum it would be impossible to work in such spacesuits. The boots of the suits were dusty. From the boot of one of the astronauts on the lunar soil left a suspiciously clear imprint. The area that the astronauts walked on had a micro-grained surface structure, corresponding to a sandy desert, which is not found on the Moon.

Emblem of the Apollo 11 expedition. Photo courtesy of www.nasa.gov

The American film "Capricorn-1" (1978) added fuel to the fire. The story of how astronauts who were preparing for a flight to Mars were taken off the ship at the last second, and the further flight and landing were simulated using television, found a warm understanding among the audience. Americans are perhaps more affected than anyone else. Virtually any even slightly known event in the US immediately begins to be explained by some kind of conspiracy, usually led by an invisible or shadow government. These conspiracies include everything: the landing of aliens in 1947 in the United States, the assassination of Kennedy, the number 13, which is present on American banknotes in various variations, the war in Iraq, and, of course, the landing of astronauts on the moon.

There is even a legend that Capricorn 1 director Peter Himes originally wanted to "send" his characters to the moon, but was strongly advised not to. Allegedly, they were afraid of revealing the true facts: the deserts of California imitate the lunar surface very well.

"Capricorn-1" only strengthened the confidence of skeptics that the entire lunar epic was imitated. Numerous facts that refute this "conspiracy" are usually not taken into account. The theory that the Americans did not land on the surface of the moon is still very popular. And she has a huge number of supporters around the world. The debate about whether Armstrong really walked on the moon will continue for a very long time, and there are several reasons for this. There will always be a large number of gullible simpletons who are pleased to know that they "actually know the truth." People with a sophisticated imagination will also always be missed in abundance.

But the answer to the question of whether the Apollo 11 expedition actually flew to the Moon was given a long time ago. NASA officially denied all fabrications. Anyone can verify this by visiting the official website of the agency. Documents confirming the irrefutability of the astronauts' stay on the Moon are in the public domain. In turn, numerous independent examinations confirmed the authenticity of photo and video materials related to this flight. But people want to believe that in reality, according to Jerzy Leca, "everything was not like it really was."