Editing Moon landing conspiracy theories (section)

=== NASA technology compared to USSR ===
{{See also|Space Race|Timeline of the Space Race}}
Bart Sibrel cites the relative level of the United States and USSR space technology as evidence that the Moon landings could not have happened. For much of the early stages of the Space Race, the USSR was ahead of the United States, yet in the end, the USSR was never able to fly a crewed spacecraft to the Moon, let alone land one on the surface. It is argued that, because the USSR was unable to do this, the United States should have also been unable to develop the technology to do so.

For example, he claims that, during the [[Apollo program]], the USSR had five times more crewed hours in space than the United States, and notes that the USSR was the first to achieve many of the early milestones in space: the first artificial [[satellite]] in [[orbit]] (October 1957, [[Sputnik 1]]);{{efn|According to the 2007 ''[[Nova (American TV series)|NOVA]]'' episode "[[List of Nova episodes#Season 35: 2007–2008|Sputnik Declassified]]," the United States could have launched the ''[[Explorer 1]]'' probe before Sputnik, but the [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] administration hesitated, first because they were not sure if international law meant that national borders kept going all the way into orbit (and, thus, their orbiting satellite could cause an international uproar by violating the borders of dozens of nations), and second because there was a desire to see the not yet ready [[Project Vanguard|Vanguard satellite program]], designed by American citizens, become America's first satellite rather than the Explorer program, that was mostly designed by former rocket designers from [[Nazi Germany]]. A transcript of the appropriate section from the show is available at "[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/sputnik-impact-on-america.html Sputnik's Impact on America]."}} the first living creature in orbit (a dog named [[Laika]], November 1957, [[Sputnik 2]]); the first man in space and in orbit ([[Yuri Gagarin]], April 1961, [[Vostok 1]]); the first woman in space ([[Valentina Tereshkova]], June 1963, [[Vostok 6]]); and the first spacewalk ([[Alexei Leonov]] in March 1965, [[Voskhod 2]]).

However, most of the Soviet gains listed above were matched by the United States within a year, and sometimes within weeks. In 1965, the United States started to achieve many firsts (such as the first successful [[space rendezvous]]), which were important steps in a mission to the Moon. Furthermore, NASA and others say that these gains by the Soviets are not as impressive as they seem; that a number of these firsts were mere stunts that did not advance the technology greatly, or at all, ''e.g.'', the first woman in space.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.clavius.org/techsoviet.html |title=Clavius: Technology – beating the Soviets |last=Windley |first=Jay |website=Moon Base Clavius |publisher=Clavius.org |access-date=September 5, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/2013/06/17/women-in-space-part-one-female-firsts-in-flight-for-space-exploration-and-research/ |title=Women in Space Part One, Female Firsts in Flight for Space Exploration and Research |last=Warren |first=Liz |date=June 17, 2013 |work=A Lab Aloft |publisher=NASA Blogs |type=Blog |access-date=July 18, 2013}}</ref> In fact, by the time of the launch of the first crewed Earth-orbiting Apollo flight ([[Apollo 7]]), the USSR had made only nine [[spaceflight]]s (seven with one cosmonaut, one with two, one with three) compared to 16 by the United States. In terms of spacecraft hours, the USSR had 460 hours of spaceflight; the United States had 1,024 hours. In terms of astronaut/cosmonaut time, the USSR had 534 hours of crewed spaceflight whereas the United States had 1,992 hours. By the time of Apollo 11, the United States had a lead much wider than that. (See [[List of human spaceflights, 1961–1970]], and refer to individual flights for the length of time.)

Moreover, the USSR did not develop a successful rocket capable of a crewed lunar mission until the 1980s – their [[N1 (rocket)|N1 rocket]] failed on all four launch attempts between 1969 and 1972.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sovnding.htm |title=Soviet Lunar Landing |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia Astronautica]] |publisher=Mark Wade |access-date=November 25, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090224200322/http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sovnding.htm |archive-date=February 24, 2009}}</ref> The Soviet [[LK (spacecraft)|LK]] lunar lander was tested in uncrewed low-Earth-orbit flights three times in 1970 and 1971.