The controversial ex-head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, has expressed doubts that the US actually landed people on the moon in 1969. He wrote this in a post on his channel on the Telegram messenger platform. Even before he became boss, he had asked Roskosmos for evidence of the Apollo 11 moon landing and only received a book saying that the US astronauts had told about it. During his time at Roskosmos, his “research” was met with “angry accusations” from “amateur scientists” that he was undermining “sacred cooperation with NASA” and aggravating the international situation. They didn’t convince him.
Always new provocations
Kremlin-loyal hardliner Rogozin was deputy prime minister in Russia for years before heading Roskosmos from 2018 to 2022. In this position, after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, he attracted attention with increasingly drastic threats to the West. Among other things, a video was made public at the time in which two Russian cosmonauts departing from the ISS wave to their NASA colleague and apparently leave him behind on the crashing International Space Station. The cooperation in the operation of the ISS is one of the few between the West and Russia that has survived the war of aggression. Rogozin was then dismissed as head of Roskosmos in mid-July, and since then he has been even more radical.
That he was not convinced of the US moon landing in 1969, despite several years at the head of Russia’s space agency, should now once again belong to Rogozin’s provocations and at best suggests that his “research” was not very serious. According to the US magazine ArsTechnica, his alleged doubts fit with a growing wave of denials of what is undoubtedly the greatest achievement of the US space agency NASA. If an ex-aerospace boss joins in, that is by no means harmless and should be criticized.
If Rogozin had seriously tried to get answers to his questions, he would certainly have been referred to the Soviet lunar probe Luna 15. It was launched a few days before Apollo 11 and crashed after the manned moon landing. In addition, on several moon missions, mirrors were brought to the earth’s satellite, which are used for precise distance measurements. Those from Apollo 11, 14 and 15 can still be used.
(my)
