# Was the Apollo moon landing a hoax? (March 31, 2000) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 7, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768 "2012-08-07T18:37:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![madkaugh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/fbc32d/32.png) [@madkaugh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madkaugh)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/1 "2012-08-07T18:37:08Z")
Mythbusters did an excellent episode on this topic. XKCD points out that if NASA faked the moon landing, they’ve royally screwed up faking the following forty years. [http://m.xkcd.com/1074/](http://m.xkcd.com/1074/) ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/2 "2012-08-07T19:12:46Z")
Link - [Was the Apollo moon landing a hoax? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1758/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/3 "2012-08-07T19:23:30Z")
Yes, the March 31, 2000 Apollo moon landing was a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/4 "2012-08-08T11:13:49Z")
That’s because President Clinton promised we’d land there by the end of the millennium. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/5 "2012-08-08T13:13:58Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > That’s because President Clinton promised we’d land there by the end of the millennium. 😃 Wait, wait, would that be 1999 or 2000 or 2001 ?? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/6 "2012-08-08T13:35:36Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Wait, wait, would that be 1999 or 2000 or 2001 ?? 🙂 Even worse, was it the solar millenium or the lunar millenium? ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/7 "2012-08-08T13:49:51Z")
> [@madkaugh](#): > > Mythbusters did an excellent episode on this topic. > > XKCD points out that if NASA faked the moon landing, they’ve royally screwed up faking the following forty years. > > [http://m.xkcd.com/1074/](http://m.xkcd.com/1074/) no! ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/8 "2012-08-08T17:03:02Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Wait, wait, would that be 1999 or 2000 or 2001 ?? 🙂 It would be 2000, right? You start with year 1. First milennenium is 1-1000, Second millennium is 1001-2000. This one started in 2001. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/9 "2012-08-08T19:16:20Z")
No, you guys. It was the _Will_ennium. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/10 "2016-02-08T19:50:23Z")
Bumped because the column is back on the SD front page. **DavidB** wrote in his excellent Staff Report, _There have been other similar claims, of course, and I’m sure there will continue to be new claims of a moon landing hoax. I recently heard one that included the gem that Stanley Kubrick directed the moon footage for NASA, which was filmed “on location.” Hmmm. If he was on location, wouldn’t that mean they made it to the moon? Whoops, never mind! I’m looking for rationality in an inherently irrational subject…_ For more on that, see this weird, through-the-looking-glass documentary about various theories on Kubrick’s _The Shining_: [Room 237 - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_237) ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/11 "2016-02-08T22:16:17Z")
How many walked on the moon, 12? (think it was 12, too lazy to google it) 12 cover ups? All of them? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/12 "2016-02-09T01:21:06Z")
At the risk of thread-shitting – or conspiracy-shitting – what I want to know is: Why should intelligent people, such as we Dopers of course, give a flying rat’s ass if really stupid people insist on believing really stupid stuff like all these idiotic conspiracy theories and flat-earth stuff, and the like? They want to believe blather like that? And are foolish enough to do so, even in the face of all evidence? Okay, let them. What skin is it off any of the rest of our noses? More to the point: All those debunkers who write books and essays and SDMB posts and all the Skeptical Inquirer writers and similar – why is it worthy of their time and intellectual capacities to even pay any attention to such baloney? Okay, I can get that idiocy can be contagious and/or hereditary, because they will spread it to anyone who will listen, including impressionable young children (to the extent that they can get their creation theories and Ceiling Cat stories into the public curriculums, etc), and to their own doomed children. Yes, we need to fight the contagion of ignorance, if not the ignorance itself. Is there something more than that? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/13 "2016-02-09T01:27:34Z")
(Missed edit window above.) ETA: Speaking of the intelligence of we Dopers, on second thought I think the above phrase should be “such as _us_ Dopers of course”. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/14 "2016-02-09T02:43:39Z")
Maybe those incinerated golf clubs they found in the _Columbia_ wreckage belonged to OJ. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/15 "2016-02-09T03:56:01Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > At the risk of thread-shitting – or conspiracy-shitting – what I want to know is: Why should intelligent people, such as we Dopers of course, give a flying rat’s ass if really stupid people insist on believing really stupid stuff like all these idiotic conspiracy theories and flat-earth stuff, and the like? Because something is wrong on the Internet!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/16 "2016-02-09T10:20:42Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > That’s because President Clinton promised we’d land there by the end of the millennium. 😃 > [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Wait, wait, would that be 1999 or 2000 or 2001 ?? 🙂 > [@TriPolar](#): > > Even worse, was it the solar millennium or the lunar millenium? Slick Willie, wiggles free again. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/17 "2016-02-09T10:32:52Z")
I want to know - for people who believe the Moon landings were faked - what’s in it for them? What do they get out of believing something like that? Gratification? A feeling of being in-the-know? Smarter than sheeple? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/18 "2016-02-09T12:16:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I want to know - for people who believe the Moon landings were faked - what’s in it for them? What do they get out of believing something like that? Gratification? A feeling of being in-the-know? Smarter than sheeple? Basically. I think a lot of it starts out with “I can’t understand how they could have done it, and _I’m_ not stupid, so they must have faked it!” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/19 "2016-02-09T12:28:19Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Okay, I can get that idiocy can be contagious and/or hereditary, because they will spread it to anyone who will listen, including impressionable young children (to the extent that they can get their creation theories and Ceiling Cat stories into the public curriculums, etc), and to their own doomed children. Yes, we need to fight the contagion of ignorance, if not the ignorance itself. Is there something more than that? It’s also that this sort of stuff tends to not be free-standing but also ride along with other more pernicious forms of ignorance. As well as that letting some pseudoscience/conspiracy stories stand creates fertile soil for others to take root. If theycan pull a moon hoax then maybe they can also be controlling the economy on behalf of the International Bankers (you-know-who). If evolution is an evil plot maybe so are vaccines. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768/20 "2016-02-09T14:32:43Z")
One thing that might factor into it: In southeast Idaho is a National Monument called Craters of the Moon. It is a barren (for the most part) desolate lava field. Some of the mock-ups and tests for the Moon landing **were** done there, or so I understand. I can easily envision this creating confusion in those already somewhat confused by modern life. 😉 Major proof it wasn’t: it’s hard to confuse black basaltic lava (like the rocks in your gas grill) with beige regolith. :smack: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-apollo-moon-landing-a-hoax-march-31-2000/630768.md?page=2)