“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” US astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered after becoming the first person to set foot on the moon.

Those words became one of the most famous one-liners ever and the grainy pictures that Nasa broadcast on the night of July 20, 1969, from 380,000 kilometres away, remain embedded in the collective memory.

Fifty years on, however, millions of people across the globe still believe it was all a hoax and that Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle never touched down on the moon’s Sea of Tranquility. They attribute those cult images to a Hollywood studio, with the footage possibly shot by director Stanley Kubrick.

Conspiracy theories abound and innumerable internet sites are devoted to proving that the landing never happened. 

Some claim that Nasa did not have the technological expertise, while others talk of possible alien involvement. However, almost all the conspiracy theorists focus on anomalies in the photos and videos sent by Nasa to earth, such as suspicious shadows, the absence of stars in some images and the fact that the flag was fluttering when there is no air on the moon that could it make it flutter.

Yet, many scientists and science aficionados refute these theories. These include local Apollo missions specialist David Pace.

“All the ‘evidence’ cited by conspiracy theorists to prove that the Apollo missions never reached the moon have been repeatedly disproved in scientific laboratories and in TV programmes such as Mythbusters. These are due to the lack of enough scientific research or understanding of basic scientific principles,” Mr Pace, a science writer and researcher, told Times of Malta.

He gives a few examples to clarify his statement. Among others, he mentions that the flag was fluttering because the ground was too hard and Armstrong had to twist the pole continuously to insert it into the ground.

“The twisting force was transmitted to the flag’s fabric which started moving,” he noted.

Mr Pace completely dismisses the idea that the entire lunar landing was filmed on earth and calls it “totally false” since cameras and special effects technology were not advanced enough. 

He also points out to the fact that the lunar sequence in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is very different from the films transmitted by successive lunar landings which used cameras that were not well-equipped to work in lunar conditions.

He adds that although telescopes are not strong enough to show evidence of the lunar landings, a number of large telescopes detected clouds of gas and light flashes consistent with the firing of Apollo rocket stages and landers.

And, finally, he refers to the fact that the abandoned modules from Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were captured on the moon’s surface.

“All the Apollo sites have been imaged by a variety of lunar probes sent by different countries, including Japan’s Selene, India’s Chandrayaan-1 and China’s Chang’e-2 and Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters (LROs) showed landers, specific equipment left on the moon and the tracks of the lunar buggies,” he said.

Nasa is following up the landmark mission with the Artemis programme, which will send the first woman and the next man to the moon by  2024. According to Mr Pace, the importance of such a mission has  increased in the last few years, particularly after ice was detected at the lunar poles. 

“Ice can be mined to provide water, air and oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel. This means that the next manned expeditions to the moon can utilise lunar resources, thereby decreasing the expense of sending tonnes of water and fuel to the moon,” he said.

Besides, the programme aims to develop a sustainable human presence there by 2028, meaning astronauts will need to stay for extended periods of time. This would require the construction of a lunar outpost.

“Eventually, the human presence of the moon will utilise its resources to produce raw materials to make cement and bricks for construction purposes, soil for agricultural purposes and mine metals to build robots, helping expand the base,” Mr Pace noted.

“The aim is to make the lunar outpost as self-sufficient as possible due to the great expense needed to build it.”

Mr Pace pointed out two current advantages that should make the programme more feasible: the availability of private rockets, such as Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy ‒ which is powerful enough to send a manned spacecraft to the moon and costs much less than alternatives, including Nasa’s Space Launch System ‒ and the possible involvement of other countries to share expenses.

Despite all the expenses, possible obstacles and difficulties, scientists consider sending man to the moon as an essential stepping stone to ‘conquer’ Mars.

“Without a presence on the moon, it will be very difficult to send people to Mars, as it will serve as a training area and a staging post for much longer journeys to the Red Planet,” Mr Pace concluded.

David Pace will share his knowledge and expertise on the Apollo 11 mission during an event taking place on Saturday at Palazzo de Piro in Mdina. 

Organised by the US Embassy, in collaboration with Euro Media Forum, the event will be introduced by Mark A. Schapiro, the Chargé d’Affaires for the US Embassy in Malta, and will include an exhibition of Apollo 11 lunar landing models by Alessandro Bajada, as well as other 1969 memorabilia that recall the landing. 

There will also be telescopes available for participants to observe the moon. 

For more information and bookings, call 9905 2482, send an e-mail to euromedia forum@gmail.com or message the Euro Media Forum Facebook page. 

The event is also being supported by Esplora Interactive Science Centre.

What we learned from the 1969 moon landing

David Pace highlights how the Apollo 11 mission increased man’s scientific knowledge about the solar system.

• The moon has helped scientists calibrate the true age of the solar system by the concentration of craters and the dating of rocks that were brought from the Apollo missions.

• The same rocks revealed that the moon has a thick crust, about 60km, a uniform lithosphere (a second internal rock layer), a 1,000km deep and a partly liquid asthenosphere 74km across. There is probably a small iron core at the centre of the moon.

• The earth and the moon consist of the same rocks albeit of different mixtures and the youngest lunar rocks are as old as the oldest earth rocks. 

• The moon is a sort of time capsule revealing how the earth and other planets formed during the first billion years of solar system formation. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both earth and the moon can now be only found on the moon, since tectonic plate movements, ocean currents, air masses and erosive forces have destroyed this evidence on earth.

• The moon has little or no fossil water and no air. All these volatile substances were baked off the satellite’s surface, leaving vast tracts of rock and rubble. The only water found on the moon formed later on by cometary impacts. Some of this has been detected by recent space probes.