The head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, has stated that there is no doubt about the authenticity of the Apollo missions, citing the lunar soil samples shared with Soviet scientists as evidence.
During a parliamentary session, Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov addressed the long-standing conspiracy theories regarding the Apollo missions. He emphasized that the shared lunar soil samples from the Apollo missions provided conclusive proof of their authenticity. These samples, according to Borisov, were extensively analyzed by scientists in both the USSR and other countries, confirming their extraterrestrial origin.
“According to the expertise of our Academy of Sciences, the lunar soil turned out to be lunar indeed,” Borisov affirmed, emphasizing that the analysis results left no doubt about the samples’ origin.
However, Borisov’s predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, expressed skepticism about the Apollo missions, claiming that no definitive proof was ever presented to him. He recounted instances of academics criticizing him for challenging the official narrative, accusing him of jeopardizing international relations and undermining the “sacred cooperation with NASA.”
Despite the USSR’s meticulous monitoring of the US space program, the authenticity of the Apollo missions has been questioned since Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk on July 21, 1969. Conspiracy theorists argue that the moon landings were staged by NASA in response to the Soviet Union’s pioneering space achievements, including Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight in April 1961.
While numerous arguments debunking these conspiracy theories have emerged over the years, polls indicate that between 5 and 20 percent of Americans remain skeptical about the Apollo program’s veracity.
A 2020 survey conducted by the Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM) in Russia revealed that almost fifty percent of Russians believe the Apollo expeditions were fabricated by the US government. Only 31 percent expressed absolute confidence in the authenticity of the American astronauts’ moonwalks.
The US concluded its lunar landing program with the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
Earlier this year, a US-made spacecraft successfully landed on the Moon for the first time in over fifty years, marking what NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called “the US return to the Moon.” However, NASA’s Artemis program has faced numerous delays, pushing back the anticipated return of American astronauts to the Moon to no earlier than 2026.