The Apollo Moon landing conspiracy claims that few, or all the elements of the famous landing were faked by National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). NASA and others intentionally deceived people into believing that they did land on the Moon by manufacturing, destroying, and tampering with photos, evidence, rock samples, and telemetry tapes. The controversy started when Bill Kaysing published a book called, "We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle" in 1974. Earlier, the effect of mass media made people to believe that they actually landed on the Moon. However, the airing of "Conspiracy Theory" on Fox TV changed many minds about this fact. Possible Motives Some of the possible reasons for the US Government to fake the Moon landings are as follows as:

• One key reason was the Cold War prestige. The US Government wanted to win the space race against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was already ahead in the space race, having sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova into the space. They had also undergone the first walk in space. The first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was sent by the Soviet Union too, and hence, the Americans were under tremendous pressure. Going to the Moon could be risky and expensive, and faking the mission would be easier, and would also guarantee success.
• NASA raised USD 30 billion for this mission, which could have been used to pay people who were involved in faking it.
• The US Government wanted people to get distracted from the Vietnam War, and by faking the mission, they successfully distracted the attention of the people all around the world.
• There were enormous problems in the space program, and a false mission was the only choice, with the main concern being the promise of the then American president, Mr. John F. Kennedy, of "achieving the goal (Lunar landing) before this decade is out."

Evidence of the Conspiracy Theory There are few evidences, which clearly prove that the Moon mission was a complete hoax. Evidences include photographs taken by the astronauts, when they landed on the Moon. These photographs show various anomalies. Some of the data and blueprints related to the Apollo mission are missing, too.

• The cross hair, which should have been in front of the object, were behind the object. In few of the photographs, they were either misplaced or rotated.
• The Apollo 11 telemetry tapes made during the mission are missing, but the tapes of Apollo 12, 14,15, 16, and 17 are surprisingly intact. Not only the telemetry tapes, but even the blueprint of the Apollo Lunar Module is missing.
• No stars are present in the photographs.
• The photographs contain various sources of light, which are evident from the multiple shadows of the rocks; however, in reality, the only source of light on the Moon is sunlight.
• The American Flag and the words "United States" are clearly visible, even though everything else is in shadows.
• There were various photographs, which NASA claimed were taken miles apart, but had identical backgrounds.
• The video communication during the landing was instantaneous, i.e. the astronauts replied instantly to Mission Control in Houston. The fact is that light energies of the electromagnetic spectrum and radio waves travel at approximately 186,000 miles per second. This means that the time taken by the astronauts to respond to the questions by Mission Control must have been over 2 seconds, since the Moon is around 250,000 miles away from the Earth.
• The Lander weighed 17 tons and boosters were fired to slow down its descent, but still, there was no sign of a blast crater or dust underneath it.

The controversy does not end here. There were deaths of many astronauts and people related to NASA, a few years before the launch of Apollo 11, which are believed to have been possibly killed as a part of cover-up. Some of those people were Virgil Ivan Grissom, Michael J. Adams, Robert Lawrence, Thomas Baron, etc. Thomas Baron was a NASA worker. He was fired from NASA, after he made accusations about the cause of the Apollo 1 fire. He was an outspoken critic of the Apollo program. Baron and his family were killed in an automobile collision with train. If related aspects are studied properly, many more loopholes can be found in the fake video that NASA made to boast of their forged success. This is believed to be the result of greed and ambition of America to become a global superpower, surpassing the Soviet Union in a giant leap. However, nothing can be said about the truth.