Original subtitles

I think you should read this carefully.

This is the way we could get to the moon.

It's pretty remarkable that it even flies.

Bara: There's a lot of people who don't believe

We actually brought any rocks back from the moon.

We brought a lot of rocks back from the moon.

Bara: None of nasa's decisions made any sense.

Narrator: In 1962, nasa scrapped its plan to get to the moon

In favor of a 50-year-old idea from an obscure soviet engineer.

The question is why.

So, we have a mystery we're looking into.

Man: You know, it's amazing that we haven't learned more

About the best way to get to the moon.

Our concern is the integrity of the lunar module

And all its systems.

Narrator: And did this risky strategy prove too dangerous to pull off?

Armstrong almost got killed trying to fly it.

So nasa had to fake the lunar landing to save face.

A former fbi agent,

A conspiracy theorist and former aerospace consultant,

And an american astronaut are investigating...

The truth behind the moon landing.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

You know, I have a problem with something.

Oh. You have lots of problems.

♪

What I want to know is how did nasa build a spacecraft

That was able to get from the earth

To the moon and back again?

Jenkins: That's actually a good question

Because nasa's chief engineer, wernher von braun,

Didn't believe we could build a big enough rocket

To make it to the moon and back.

♪

Wernher von braun was nasa's lead aerospace engineer

And a former member of the nazi ss during world war ii.

After the war, von braun was one of more

Than 1,500 german scientists and engineers

Who secretly moved to the u.S.

In operation paperclip to help america

Defeat the soviets in the space race.

The soviets were beating us.

But not for long.

Bara: The soviets had taken the lead,

So president kennedy threw down the gauntlet

To get us to the moon before they could.

Because that goal will serve to organize

And measure the best of our energies and skills.

The problem was von braun initially put his weight

Behind a flawed strategy called direct descent

That ultimately proved unworkable.

In direct descent,

The astronauts fly from the earth to the moon

And back again in a single spacecraft.

In order to do that, you'd need a vehicle that could hold

Enough fuel for both legs of the journey.

But that would require a rocket

Almost as big as the empire state building.

It would be too costly and take too long to develop

And build in time to meet jfk's end-of-decade deadline.

In short, nasa was stuck.

They needed a new plan and they needed it fast,

And sometimes when you're under pressure like that,

You make bad choices.

So nasa went to plan "b."

Actually, plan "c" thanks to a little-known

Nasa engineer named john houbolt.

Let's take a look at this footage

From the apollo 11 control center in houston,

The day we landed on the moon.

Okay, now pay attention to von braun right here.

"john.

Thank you, thank you."

Of all the people involved that day,

Von braun is congratulating someone

Who's been entirely invisible ever since.

John houbolt.

Von braun got all the glory for engineering the moon landing,

But he made a point to thank the man

Who came up with the ultimate plan.

It's really amazing because here you have von braun,

Who is undeniably the u.S.'s most important rocket developer

And a showman himself,

Actually acknowledging somebody else.

This is a major reason why I don't believe

We made it the moon and back.

None of nasa's decisions made any sense.

How did we go from superstar von braun's plan

For a giant rocket to some new plan from a nasa nobody?

I'd imagine that finding out about houbolt

Will be key to testing the conspiracy claim that in 1969,

There was no way we made it to the moon and safely returned.

♪

♪

Jenkins: I'm gonna do some digging on my own.

John houbolt died in 2014,

So I'm heading to the buehler planetarium in davie, florida,

To talk to an expert on houbolt's theories,

Historian bill causey.

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you as well.

I'm hoping he can shed some light

On houbolt's role in all of this.

So, we have a mystery we're looking into.

Who was john houbolt and what was his plan?

Well, you know, it's amazing that we haven't learned

More about john houbolt.

As a mid-level manager, a lot of people didn't think

John was a serious voice in how to go to the moon.

Houbolt wrote a piece about lunar-orbit rendezvous,

And he sent a copy of it to von braun,

And he said to von braun in his cover note,

"I think you should read this carefully.

This is the way we could get to the moon."

Speaking of that, can you explain

The lunar-orbit rendezvous?

The best way to get to the moon would be to take two vehicles,

Have one of them land on the moon, with two astronauts,

Have the third astronaut orbit the moon,

And then when the two astronauts would lift off from the moon,

Join the third astronaut, and they would all come home.

Lunar-orbit rendezvous was actually first proposed

By a soviet engineer and mathematician

Named yuri kondratyuk almost 50 years before the moon landing.

He published a book of his ideas about interplanetary flight,

Including trajectories,

To take spacecraft to lunar orbit and back to earth.

Even today, the route is known as kondratyuk's loop.

I find it ironic that a soviet originated the concept

That nasa claims got us to the moon

Rather than one of von braun's ideas.

The other idea was called earth-orbit rendezvous.

For earth-orbit rendezvous,

Nasa would launch multiple rockets

That would rendezvous and dock in earth's orbit.

There, they would assemble, fuel, and detach a lunar module

That would fly directly to the moon

And back into earth's orbit.

Melvin: The reason von braun seized on earth-orbit rendezvous

Was because it would create a platform

That would remain in earth's orbit

For other programs beyond apollo.

Essentially, it would create the world's first space station.

Jenkins: To this day, some scientists insist

That earth-orbit rendezvous

Would've had the best long-term results.

Von braun and the rest of his team at nasa

Had settled on earth-orbit rendezvous,

But it was not without its challenges,

Including a heavy-fuel payload

Needed to fly to the moon and back again.

Lunar-orbit rendezvous, with its lightweight lander,

Would require less fuel.

But houbolt's solution was falling on deaf ears.

When john first proposed his idea,

It was not well received.

He was very stubborn, and he was convinced

He had the right idea of how to get to the moon.

Bara: Imagine all these nasa scientists

Debating the right plan, and no one could agree.

Maybe they should've spent less time arguing

And more time building.

The thing that I have a problem with is houbolt's lander itself.

Armstrong almost got killed trying to fly it.

Melvin: What's amazing is you have wernher von braun,

Who's been working on a plan to get to the moon for years,

This rocket pioneer.

And then you have this outsider, john houbolt,

Who figures it out himself.

All I got to say is going up against von braun

Could not have been easy.

I'm reconnecting with leland and mike

In alexandria, virginia,

To give them the full download

On the david and goliath struggle

Between houbolt and von braun.

We're on our way to interview an eyewitness

Who claims to have information on how it really went down.

Back in the 1960s, david chudwin was a reporter

Who was looking into the space race at kennedy space center.

♪

Like von braun, chudwin was at kennedy space center

The day of the apollo 11 launch.

♪

I was at the liftoff.

I watched the liftoff from the v.I.P. Site

Where president johnson

And all the other dignitaries were.

This was 3 1/2 miles from pad 39, the launch pad.

We couldn't get any closer because if the rocket exploded,

It would kill everybody.

Von braun was at a press conference that I attended.

It was the heads of all the different nasa centers.

And the thing that I remember most from that press conference

Was they asked him, "how big is this?

How important is this?"

And he made a very telling statement.

He compared it to when amphibians came out of the ocean

And settled onto the land.

Whenever a former ss officer starts talking about evolution,

I get a little nervous.

So, there must have been a lot of rivalry

Between the two camps,

The e.O.R. People and the l.O.R. People, right?

Everybody felt very strongly that their way

Was the best way to get to the moon.

It was an important national decision

To figure out how to meet kennedy's goal.

You see, it was a very gutsy decision

To do lunar-orbit rendezvous because it involved a rendezvous

Between two spacecraft in lunar orbit,

250,000 miles away from earth.

Von braun was reluctant to even consider houbolt's idea

Because an earth-orbit rendezvous,

If something went wrong,

The spacecraft could just parachute back to earth.

But in lunar-orbit rendezvous,

Even a small problem could leave our astronauts

Stranded in the cold vacuum of space.

Now, do you think we would've made it to the moon

If we had gone with von braun's plan?

We would've made it to the moon,

But we would've never have met kennedy's deadline

Of reaching there and returning by the end of the decade.

Jenkins: Earth-orbit rendezvous would require

Nasa to develop two enormous rockets

And the construction of a platform in earth's orbit,

And that would likely put us past kennedy's deadline.

In a conference where they were looking

At the different ways of getting to the moon,

Von braun kind of threw in the towel

And said that he agreed with houbolt's method

Of getting to the moon.

Von braun was eventually persuaded

By the engineering arguments

That lunar-orbit rendezvous was the way to go.

Now, at nasa, it's always been my experience

That the best idea always wins.

Von braun was savvy enough to know

That he needed to get behind the idea

That would get us to the moon first.

Do you think there was any animosity

Towards houbolt from von braun?

Von braun was complimentary to houbolt

And very graciously invited him to come to mission control

During the landing to be a witness to it.

So he wasn't supposed to be there originally?

Von braun's who invited him personally?

-Right, exactly. -That's incredible.

Yeah.

Von braun's really regarded high, yet houbolt,

Outside of nasa, no one knew who he was.

Well, I don't think houbolt was in it for popularity or fame.

Houbolt was a very serious engineer.

He was not a political figure,

Whereas von braun was very much a politician.

And then everyone lives happily ever after, right?

Wrong!

Because now von braun is committed

To houbolt's overly complicated plan,

Which has one major defect

That I believe stopped us from getting to the moon.

♪

John houbolt is one of the most interesting mysteries

Of the moon landing.

Houbolt managed to convince nasa

To go with lunar-orbit rendezvous,

But that was the easy part.

The real challenge was putting this very complex plan

Into effect.

Sure, nasa commits to houbolt's plan,

So the thing that I have a problem with here...

Is houbolt's lander itself.

This is a big deal to the conspiracy community.

This thing is like a giant rube goldberg contraption.

It's got wires and tubes and fuel tanks,

And it was really, really difficult to control.

Houston, apollo 11.

How many miles out do you have us now?

About 50,000.

So, instead of flying one rocket to the moon and back,

Nasa commits to an overly complicated plan

Involving multiple spacecraft...

Houston, we're all go.

...Including a totally new one

Called the lunar excursion module,

Or the lunar lander.

You're go for landing. Over.

Piloting that vehicle is virtually impossible.

Full forward, drifting to the right a little.

I mean, it's hard enough to take off or land a plane

Or a helicopter on earth

Because of things like wind shear and gravitational pull.

♪

On the moon, it's a whole other deal.

There's virtually no atmosphere and just a sixth of the gravity.

So to take off and land,

You'd need a brand-new kind of specialized vehicle

And an entirely new set of skills to operate it.

♪

Do you expect me to believe that neil armstrong

Flew this crazy contraption

For the very first time and it went flawlessly?

Come on.

Melvin: It sure wasn't beginner's luck.

Neil trained for hundreds of hours

In all kinds of conditions.

Here's a video of neil training.

♪

At the time, nasa had the world's

Most sophisticated computerized flight simulators.

♪

Look, this is like a video game.

This is not really representative.

That's how we train.

Nasa also developed the lunar landing training vehicle,

The lltv, that armstrong learned to fly.

It was very, very difficult to control.

In fact, armstrong himself almost got killed

Trying to fly it.

I think we have that footage.

There he is.

♪

♪

Uh-oh.

Okay, there's neil ejecting.

Wow.

All: Oh!

The close call.

Yeah, he got out.

Bara: Yeah, I mean, the controls were so sensitive

That he just over-controlled, and that's --

Again, that's nasa's best pilot,

So I'm gonna call b.S. On houbolt's great plan.

So your conspiracy theory, your b.S., is

If he couldn't control that vehicle,

That we couldn't control it descending to the moon?

Yeah, I mean, the lunar lander itself, the lem,

Was actually harder to control than that training vehicle.

Jenkins: I got to call b.S. On mike calling b.S.

I don't need someone who's never been to space

Telling me how hard it is to fly in space.

♪

To prove mike wrong,

Chad and I are heading to edwards air force base

In southern california.

I've got a lead on an eyewitness who created the vehicle

That armstrong had to eject from

So we can find out what really happened.

You know, if there's a way to figure out

The real story of the lunar module,

Then this is the place -- edwards air force base.

There are conspiracy theorists that say

That neil armstrong crashed the lunar lander

And therefore couldn't have landed on the moon.

Whoa, chad, look at that.

♪

This is the place -- edwards air force base.

Edwards air force base has been a primary testing

And training base for the air force

And the space program since 1933.

Jenkins: This is where the legendary chuck yeager

Famously broke the sound barrier

Aboard the bell x-1 back in 1947.

Melvin: It was where the first test pilots were proving

That they had the right stuff.

Jenkins: This is where armstrong trained to get ready for the moon,

And now, thanks to a former colleague of leland's,

We have security clearance and a promise of cooperation

With our investigation.

-Hey, kevin. -Leland, hey.

-How you doing? -Good to see you again.

-Long time. -Absolutely.

This is my buddy chad jenkins.

How are you, kevin? Nice to meet you.

Come on in. Have a seat, guys.

Melvin: Kevin rohrer is a good buddy of mine from my nasa days.

He's now the chief of strategic communications

At the neil armstrong flight research center

Based at edwards.

He promised to help us find what we're looking for.

One of the things that we're trying to figure out is,

Did the lunar lander work?

And the next thing is, there are conspiracy theorists

That say that neil armstrong crashed the lunar lander.

So if he couldn't handle that, how could he land on the moon?

Well, it's true. He did eject and crash one.

But I've got one thing

That I think you'd really be impressed with.

What's that?

Whoa, chad, look at that.

This is one of the lunar landing training vehicles,

Which were prototypes of the lunar excursion module

That neil armstrong landed on the moon.

They were the unsung heroes of the apollo program.

You gonna go sit up in there?

Yeah, I want to get in there and go for a ride.

Yeah.

Bara: You couldn't pay me to ride in that thing.

Its controls were ridiculously sensitive

And it almost killed our best pilot.

Armstrong may have survived the crash,

But there was clear evidence that houbolt's

Big plan wasn't gonna fly.

Hey, tony, can we get this thing operational, you think?

Give us a little time.

Jenkins: Leland -- he's like a kid in a candy store.

Unfortunately for him,

This thing hasn't been operational for decades.

Melvin: This really looks like a tinker toy

With engines and jets, you know.

For someone to be sitting up there flying,

As a simulation for the lander,

Is pretty remarkable that it even flies.

It's like the first human drone ever to be built.

That's what I see it looks like. -Yeah. Drone.

I just think it's cool from a history standpoint

That neil armstrong and all the astronauts

Under the apollo trained on this.

Yeah.

Hello, gene. I'm leland melvin.

This is my friend chad. -Hi. How are you?

Jenkins: Kevin arranged for us to meet

With former chief engineer gene matranga.

He offered to reveal the story of what really happened the day

That armstrong lost control of the vehicle.

You're a living piece of nasa history.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

The pleasure is mine.

As one of the chief engineers, gene knows all the secrets.

Let's see if he's willing to give them up.

Could this thing really fly?

Yes, it really flies.

So, there are conspiracy theorists out there

That don't believe that this vehicle could balance

On a thin column of thrust.

What do you say to that?

I say that we demonstrated that it does it.

It works. The proof is in the pudding.

Melvin: The conspiracy theorists say

That the lunar lander was too unstable to fly.

They insisted that it would've been impossible

To hover balanced on a thin column of thrust

And that any movement would've caused it

To spin out of control.

But the truth is, every rocket must balance

On a column of thrust.

This stability problem is as old as rocketry itself.

But engineers had already solved the issue

Of rocket balance by the 1940s.

Man: This is but a small part of the training necessary

To learn to fly the lunar module itself.

Melvin: The lunar lander used an onboard computer

That had two guidance systems to correct for balance.

They would automatically adjust the center of gravity

Based on the movements of the module.

This is really another case of conspiracy theorists

Thinking something's impossible

Because they don't understand the science.

How does this work?

It works at the jet engine

Supports five-sixths of the vehicle weight,

Which simulates the lunar gravity.

It always points straight down.

Jenkins: On earth, we live on the bottom of an ocean of air

Weighing us down.

But the moon has no atmosphere.

So this test vehicle has to compensate for that.

The vehicle is allowed to tip because of the gimbal system.

A gimbal is a pivoted support

That allows the rotation of an object around a single axis.

The reason it's used is so that the jet engine

Always points down toward the surface,

Allowing the rest of the craft freedom to maneuver.

And it allows the vehicle to maneuver the way

It would on the moon, getting the very extreme angles

That they would have to have to successfully maneuver it

To where they wanted to land.

You had to do all of this to simulate the lunar condition.

Sure, the engineers at nasa had it all figured out.

Theoretically it worked.

It could get off the ground,

But an aircraft is only as good as its pilot.

And if it's too hard to operate, it's basically useless,

And that's what we were dealing with.

Hey, gene, I'm gonna go up in the cockpit.

Take a look.

♪

Leland is lucky that thing

Hasn't been operational in years,

Or we might have to find ourselves another astronaut.

So, your two hand controllers.

So, you got three degrees over here,

And then one degree over here going up and down.

Yes.

Okay, so four degrees to fly this.

What's remarkable is how primitive

This is compared to the advanced equipment

I was used to working with on the space shuttle.

Maneuvering the wrong way just by one degree

Could lead to disaster.

You know, this gives me an even deeper appreciation

For what neil armstrong had to deal with.

So, you had your comm system here in the back.

I see a lunar sim switch. What does that do?

That puts you into the lunar simulation mode

Where the engine is gimbaling

And the vehicle is performing

The trajectory you want to perform.

The lunar sim switch is the key to getting the correct feel

You would need to land on the moon.

It simulates what it feels like

If gravity is only one-sixth of the earth's.

I think I understand the controls,

And I wish we could get this thing going again

And give it another shot.

♪

Jenkins: So, what was the timeline once president kennedy

Announced we were gonna go to the moon

When you all started developing this training module?

We came up with the idea in 1961.

We came up with a conceptual design, and it was crude,

But it gave the idea of what we wanted to do.

The vehicles ultimately got delivered to us in '66.

Okay.

We made our first flight in '67.

Wow, that wasn't a lot of time to practice.

How close was this -- how close did this replicate

The lunar module once they got to the moon?

It replicated it exactly.

-Did it really? -Yes, it did.

Sure, it replicates the lunar lander,

But if you can't fly the thing in southern california,

You sure as hell can't fly it on the moon.

I watched the video of the actual crash,

And it looked like he was pitching up and rolling

Before he ejected out of the vehicle.

-Yes. -Now, what caused the crash?

The problem wasn't with the vehicle itself.

It was the way that it was operated.

It was a human error.

Is he saying nasa's best pilot

Wasn't able to handle the vehicle?

Man: Apollo 11, apollo 11, this is houston, over.

Armstrong and aldrin are cramped in this rather flimsy vehicle

That is descending quickly towards the moon's surface.

Communication is spotty, the computer's freezing up,

And fuel is very limited,

And they're fast approaching the one-minute mark,

60 seconds before a mandatory abort.

Forward, forward.

♪

It's the 1960s human drone.

This is the first human drone.

Melvin: Yeah.

♪

Jenkins: Now, what caused the crash?

Matranga: The problem wasn't with the vehicle itself.

It was the way that it was operated.

It was a human error.

Somebody on the ground was watching to see the usage

Of the fuel as it was expended, and he got distracted.

Oh, and he ran out of fuel?

He ran out of fuel, yes.

♪

Melvin: So neil didn't have the insight on the vehicle

To see that he was running out?

He did not, no.

We telemetered all the information to the ground,

And we relied very heavily on ground people

Monitoring those things.

And then they could radio to neil then?

-Yes. -And that never got --

That communication never got passed.

-Never happened.

-Wow. -Wow.

♪

Armstrong had to rely on his ground crew.

But as an experienced pilot, he knew when he was in danger.

When he hit the emergency ejection switch,

Small rockets propelled his seat upward,

And an explosive charge opened his parachute.

No matter how good the craft and the pilot,

Sometimes things do go wrong and you need a backup plan.

So we all know about neil's time that he crashed one of these,

But how many times did he fly this before and after?

I know he had about 20 flights when he crashed it.

And so he flew it a number of times

Besides just the one time he crashed.

-Absolutely. -Yeah.

You know, this is really typical of conspiracy theorists.

They take one little detail

And blow it way, way out of proportion.

I can't wait to see mike's face

When we drop this truth bomb on him.

So, gene, how did neil armstrong's training

With this help him land on the moon?

It gave him the confidence, the feel psychologically.

If neil didn't have extensive training in the test vehicle,

I believe the landing of the apollo 11

Could've ended in tragedy.

When he flew the lunar lander to the moon's surface,

Things didn't go as originally planned.

The navigational computer made an error

And had them on course to land in a boulder field.

So neil had to manually override the system

And fly the lander to a safer area.

He was dangerously low on fuel,

So every move he made was crucial.

Neil made the comment

And it was repeated by several other people

That if they had not had this experience to feel this feel,

They would have been very seriously

Considering aborting on the moon.

Oh, really?

Jenkins: It's July 20, 1969,

And the apollo 11 lunar module

With neil armstrong and buzz aldrin on board

Detaches from the command module

And begins its descent down to the surface of the moon.

Almost immediately, things go wrong.

Apollo 11, apollo 11, this is houston, over.

Radio communication between the lunar module

And mission control starts to falter.

[ radio chatter ]

And then, four minutes into the landing sequence,

The onboard computer guidance system

Suddenly displays the error code 1202.

Armstrong and aldrin don't know what that means,

And they don't have time to look it up in the flight manual.

Armstrong radios to mission control.

Armstrong: Give us the reading on the 1202 program alarm.

Roger. We got you. We're doing that alarm.

Down on earth, 240,000 miles away,

The flight controllers at houston scramble

To figure out what the problem could be.

Picture it.

Armstrong and aldrin are cramped in this rather flimsy vehicle

That is descending quickly towards the moon's surface.

Communication is spotty, the computer's freezing up,

And fuel is very limited.

More than half a billion people around the world

Are on the edge of their seats, watching the landing on tv.

They know how high the stakes are.

But very few understand

Just how dangerous the situation actually is.

There are three possible outcomes --

Land safely, crash, or abort the mission.

Mission control decides that to abort

During the middle of the landing sequence

Without a functional computer

Is almost as risky as trying to land,

So they proceed.

And armstrong takes manual control of the landing.

700 feet, 21 down, 33 degrees.

Manual latitude control is good.

But then they discover another major problem.

They suddenly realized they're not where they should be.

They overshot the planned landing area.

Instead of a nice, flat plane,

Now there's a crater field with massive boulders.

Armstrong levels the module

And starts looking for a better place to touch down.

They're whizzing along the surface

And running low on fuel.

Meanwhile, down on earth, mission control

Isn't exactly sure what's going on.

700 feet, 21 down, 33 degrees.

Armstrong and aldrin are fast approaching the one-minute mark,

60 seconds before a mandatory abort.

60 seconds.

But there's a major problem.

They're in very low orbit.

Forward. Forward.

Altitude velocity lights.

Luckily, armstrong sees a viable target ahead.

30 seconds.

30 seconds, fuel almost gone.

Only 10 feet above the surface.

The descent engine blowing up so much dust

That visibility is almost impossible.

3 feet down, 2 1/2.

We've got some depth. Contact lights.

Okay, engines stop. Command override off.

And then suddenly touch down.

Tranquility base here. The eagle has landed.

Mission control, which has fallen silent,

Explodes with relief and celebration.

Roger, tranquility. We copy on the ground.

You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.

The eagle has landed.

So, without this, we probably would not have landed

On the moon.

It's a distinct possibility.

If anything, neil's crash helped us identify

What some of the potential problems were

And made sure the actual lunar lander

Was ready for a successful moon landing.

Tranquility base here. The eagle has landed.

♪

Jenkins: A lot of people base their suspicions

Of the lunar lander, really,

The entire moon landing on the fact that during training,

Armstrong barely ejected in time before the lltv crashed.

But it turns out he flew dozens of times without incident.

And while we were at edwards, we obtained some old

Nasa training films, and look what we discovered.

Melvin: It's performing just like it's supposed to.

And it's balancing on a coordinated system

Of rocket engines.

This footage -- and there's plenty of it --

Is proof positive that the lunar exploration module

Was a viable way to land on the moon.

Yeah, mike, I think the evidence is pretty convincing.

I mean, upon dozens upon dozens of tests without a failure.

Yeah, I've actually never seen this footage before.

I've only seen the footage of armstrong,

You know, crashing and ejecting, so...

♪

I got to say this is fairly impressive.

And, you know, this training is really crucial.

It gave armstrong the confidence.

As he was descending onto the lunar surface,

He, you know, went into manual control.

He overrode the auto-flight control system

To land the eagle.

Look, this video footage is all well and good,

Bara: But it still leaves me with one overriding question.

Where is the evidence?

If we went from the earth to the moon, where is the evidence?

Where is that?

Training videos and official testimony are fine,

But if these guys want to convince me

The moon landing actually happened,

I need to see something tangible,

Some physical evidence.

There's a whole lot of questions about the lunar rocks.

People who don't believe we actually brought

Any rocks back from the moon.

We brought a lot of rocks back from the moon.

♪

-Hey, josh. -How you doing?

-Leland. -Good to see you.

Mike, thank you for coming today.

You know, mike wants physical evidence we've been to the moon,

So I'm gonna give it to him.

-Hi. -Leland.

-I'm bret bennington. -Bret.

Hi, bret. I'm mike.

I'm taking him to the cradle of aviation museum

In garden city, new york,

To check out moon rocks brought back from the lunar surface

And to talk to curator josh stoff

And geologist bret bennington.

Bara: Nasa claims it brought back rocks from the moon,

But their true origin and authenticity are up for debate.

There's a lot of people who don't believe

We actually brought any rocks back from the moon.

We brought a lot of rocks back from the moon, a lot of samples,

And they're really interesting and unique.

Melvin: The apollo missions collected 2,200 samples

From the lunar surface.

Josh, there were -- what? -- Six missions

That brought moon rocks back?

How many pounds?

About 840 pounds, I believe in total,

Were brought back on six missions.

Bara: There's a whole lot of questions

About the lunar rocks and soils

And the samples that were brought back.

How do we know that the moon rocks

That were brought back were actually from the moon

And not just earth rocks?

Here we go.

Mike's conspiracy theory is flaring up again.

What he needs is a healthy dose of science.

You know, every rock has a story to tell.

I mean, the reason why geologists study rocks

Is because locked up inside the rock

Is the information about the origin of the rock,

About the history of the rock,

What the rock has experienced since it formed.

And putting together that information from rocks

In different parts of the moon,

We could put together the history of the moon itself.

It is important to understand

That nasa's mission was more than just planting a flag.

One of the main objectives was to study

The geology of the moon,

And collecting samples on the surface was a big priority.

The apollo astronauts trained for their missions

By collecting rock and soil samples in mexico, alaska,

And other locations throughout the american west.

Neil armstrong received geologic training on iceland

Where the country's basaltic rock

Was similar to the rocks found on the lunar surface.

What is the difference between a moon rock and an earth rock?

So, it turns out that moon rocks are similar to earth rocks

In some ways, but quite different in other ways.

The earth is a very wet planet.

There's water on the surface. There's water in the interior.

The moon is a very dry world.

Now, water is a highly reactive chemical substance.

When you look at moon rocks, especially when you look at them

Microscopically, you don't see the evidence

Of chemical activity caused by water

That is ubiquitous in earth rocks.

In other words, just from the fact that you can tell

If they were never actually exposed to water,

That indicates they're from some other place?

The geologists who first looked at the moon rocks had trouble

Recognizing what they were looking at.

For example, basalt.

Very common type of rock on the moon,

Very common type of rock on the earth.

Terrestrial basalts show evidence

Of having reacted with water,

And geologists sort of used that to help them recognize

That they were looking at a basalt.

I know a handful of facts about rocks,

And one is that basalt is created by volcanic eruptions.

The last time I checked, there were craters on the moon,

Not volcanoes.

Basaltic rock is volcanic.

Is that correct? -Yeah.

Generally, so, I mean, how did those form on the moon?

I mean, there aren't any active volcanoes on the moon.

It doesn't look like there ever were.

Was it from the crater impacts, the meteor impacts?

There were plenty of volcanoes on the moon in the distant past.

When you look up at the moon in the sky, the dark areas,

The seas, the maria, those are enormous lava flows.

Melvin: The dark areas on the face of the moon

Are actually dried lava.

They are left over from ancient volcanic eruptions.

Volcanic mountains rarely formed because lunar lava bubbled up

And spread quickly, flooding large areas.

These dark areas are called maria,

Which is latin for "seas."

So you can look at the moon rocks

And tell that they've never been exposed to water

And that they're billions of years old,

So they couldn't possibly have come from the earth.

Exactly. That is the conclusion.

And there is tiny amounts of water

That can be found in moon rocks, but to find that water,

You need very, very intensive analytical techniques.

You look at any earth rock and you can see that that rock,

Throughout its existence,

From when it formed to the present,

Has been interacting with water.

Bara: This is like taking an intensive geology class,

Which I completely respect, but there are other ways

That material from the moon can get to the earth,

And it could be used as false evidence of a moon landing.

In the conspiracy community, there are people who say

That the samples that you're looking at

Are actually lunar meteorites that have been blasted off

The surface of the moon and landed here on earth,

And that's what you're actually looking at,

Not rocks that were brought back on the apollo missions.

In 1967, two years before the apollo missions,

Wernher von braun and other nasa officials

Took a trip to antarctica,

Where they gathered small chunks of meteorites,

Which some say were later passed off as moon rocks.

Would they look different under a microscope

Than a genuine lunar rock sample brought back by the astronauts?

♪

♪

♪

Bara: In the conspiracy community, there are people who say

That the samples that you're looking at

Are actually lunar meteorites,

Not rocks that were brought back on the apollo missions.

We are at the cradle of aviation museum in garden city, new york,

Talking to geologist bret bennington.

We're trying to convince mike that the moon rocks brought back

By the astronauts from the landing are the real deal.

It's an uphill battle.

Would they look different under a microscope

Than a genuine lunar rock sample brought back by the astronauts?

Well, they would look different because, for one thing,

Going through the earth's atmosphere,

They develop what's called a fusion crust

From the heat of entering the earth's atmosphere.

Fusion crust is a thin coating of glass

That covers the outside of a meteorite.

When a meteorite falls through the atmosphere

At very high speeds,

Friction with the air raises its surface temperature

To over 3,000 degrees fahrenheit.

The fusion crust forms as the rock begins to cool.

Also, once they're on the surface of the earth,

They get wet, and so the minerals inside the rock

Begin to react to the surface of the earth,

Whereas as a pristine sample of moon rock

Brought back by the apollo astronauts

Kept in a sealed environment,

Delivered to the lunar receiving lab in houston,

Is not going to have any evidence

Of having ever seen any water.

So you can tell a lunar meteorite

From a pristine sample of moon rock.

Nice.

Dr. Bennington revealed

That many of the rocks brought back from the moon

Were shared with geologists from around the world,

Who all verified their authenticity.

To me, that verifies that we shut down the conspiracy theory

That we never landed on the moon once and for all.

I think we've closed the case, mike.

Well, I mean, I have to agree.

It seems like the evidence really supports the fact

That these rocks are from the moon.

The question is, how did they get here?

I don't know, but I do think

That are pretty consistent with --

I'm in agreement that I think we're looking at probable --

Probable samples of real moon rocks.

♪

♪

We gathered so much substantial evidence in the past few days

That I think we really shattered several conspiracies

That challenge the moon landing.

So, guys, we debunked the theory

That the lunar lander couldn't be trusted,

And we had a geologist confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt

That nasa's moon rocks are authentic.

Both important revelations, don't you guys agree?

I vote yes.

Yeah, I guess I got to --

A little louder, a little louder.

Okay, fine, I agree.

What's up with that?

Melvin: You know, I'm down for some healthy skepticism,

And I like mike.

But I got to say, watching the geologist sack him every time

He said some conspiracy garbage,

Well, it just brought a big smile on my face

That still won't go away.

But there is one other thing that we haven't discussed.

I spoke too soon.

And this is a really big deal.

The moon rocks were impressive, but a bigger issue still exists.

Why can't we see all the materials

That were supposedly left behind on the moon by the astronauts?

Why haven't we seen the landing sites,

The footprints, the left-behind equipment,

The descent stage of the lunar module?

Where is that?

Man, he's always wanting more, isn't he?

-Right. -Our investigation continues.