Editing Moon landing conspiracy theories (section)

=== Moon rocks ===
{{Main|Moon rocks}}
[[File:Apollo 15 Genesis Rock.jpg|right|thumb|[[Genesis Rock]] brought back by Apollo 15 – older than any rocks on Earth]]
The Apollo program collected {{convert|838|lb|kg|abbr=on|order=flip}} of [[Moon rock]]s during the six crewed missions. Analyses by scientists worldwide all agree that these rocks came from the Moon{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}} – no published accounts in [[Peer review|peer-reviewed]] [[scientific journal]]s exist that dispute this claim. The Apollo samples are easily distinguishable from both [[meteorite]]s and Earth rocks<ref name="greatmoonhoax" /> in that they show a lack of [[mineral hydration|hydrous alteration]] products, they show evidence of having undergone impact events on an airless body, and they have unique geochemical traits. Furthermore, most are more than 200 million years older than the oldest Earth rocks. The Moon rocks collected by the Apollo program also share the same traits as Soviet samples.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Papike |first1=James J. |last2=Ryder |first2=Graham |last3=Shearer |first3=Charles K. |date=January 1998 |title=Lunar Samples |journal=[[Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry]] |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=5.1–5.234 |publisher=[[Mineralogical Society of America]]|location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0939950461}}</ref>

Conspiracists argue that [[Marshall Space Flight Center#Directors, 2000s and beyond|Marshall Space Flight Center Director]] [[Wernher von Braun]]'s trip to [[Antarctica]] in 1967 (about two years before the Apollo 11 launch) was to gather [[lunar meteorite]]s to be used as fake Moon rocks. Because von Braun was a former [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] officer (though one who had been detained by the [[Gestapo]]),<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.reformation.org/wernher-von-braun.html | title = Wernher von Braun in SS uniform | work = The Reformation Online | publisher = Bible Believers Press | access-date = October 18, 2006 | archive-date = September 23, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190923153153/http://www.reformation.org/wernher-von-braun.html | url-status = dead }} Source cited: [[Walter Dornberger|Dornberger, Walter]] ''V-2'' (1958) New York: Viking Press {{OCLC|255209058}}.</ref> the documentary film ''Did We Go?''<ref name="didwego" /> suggests that he could have been pressured to agree to the conspiracy to protect himself from recriminations over his past. NASA said that von Braun's mission was "to look into environmental and logistic factors that might relate to the planning of future space missions, and hardware."<ref>{{cite web | url = http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/yy/y1967.html | title = Marshall Highlights for 1967 | publisher = [[Marshall Space Flight Center]] History Office | access-date = July 24, 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140804170335/http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/yy/y1967.html | archive-date = August 4, 2014 | url-status = dead }} Originally "published in a news release issued in late 1967 by the Marshall Center Public Affairs Office."</ref>

It is now accepted by the scientific community that rocks have been blasted from both the [[Mars|Martian]] and lunar surface during [[impact crater|impact events]], and that some of these have landed on the Earth as [[Martian meteorite|meteorites]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Head |first1=James N. |last2=Melosh |first2=H. Jay |last3=Ivanov |first3=Boris A. |date=November 2002 |title=Martian Meteorite Launch: High-Speed Ejecta from Small Craters |journal=Science |volume=298 |pages=1752–1756 | doi=10.1126/science.1077483 |pmid=12424385 |issue=5599 |bibcode=2002Sci...298.1752H|s2cid=2969674 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Great Interplanetary Rock Swap |author=Cooke, Bill |journal=Astronomy |volume=34 |issue=8 |year=2006 |pages=64–67 |location=Waukesha, WI |publisher=Kalmbach Publishing |issn=0091-6358|bibcode=2006Ast....34h..64C }}</ref> However, the first Antarctic lunar meteorite was found in 1979, and its lunar origin was not recognized until 1982.<ref name="Korotev2005">{{cite journal | author = Korotev, Randy | title = Lunar geochemistry as told by lunar meteorites | journal = Chemie der Erde | volume= 65 | pages = 297–346 | year=2005 | doi = 10.1016/j.chemer.2005.07.001 | issue = 4|bibcode = 2005ChEG...65..297K }}</ref> Furthermore, lunar meteorites are so rare that it is unlikely that they could account for the {{convert|380|kg|abbr=on}} of Moon rocks that NASA gathered between 1969 and 1972. Only about {{convert|30|kg|abbr=on}} of lunar meteorites have been found on Earth thus far, despite private collectors and governmental agencies worldwide searching for more than 20 years.<ref name="Korotev2005" />

While the Apollo missions gathered {{convert|380|kg|abbr=on}} of Moon rocks, the Soviet [[Luna 16]], [[Luna 20]] and [[Luna 24]] robots gathered only {{convert|326|g|lk=out|abbr=on}} combined (that is, less than one-thousandth as much). Indeed, current plans for a Martian sample return would only gather about {{convert|500|g|abbr=on}} of soil,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Exploration/Mars_Sample_Return2 |title=Mars Sample Return |publisher=[[European Space Agency]]}}</ref> and a recently proposed [[South Pole-Aitken basin]] robot mission would only gather about {{convert|1|kg|abbr=on}} of Moon rock.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Lunar South Pole-Aitken Sample Return (2002) |url=https://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/lunar-south-pole-aitken-sample-return-2002/ |last=Portree |first=David S. F. |date=November 7, 2012 |magazine=Wired |publisher=Condé Nast Publications |location=New York |access-date=May 2, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Duke |first=Michael B. |date=June 2003 |title=Sample return from the lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin |journal=[[Advances in Space Research]] |volume=31 |issue=11 |pages=2347–2352 |location=Netherlands |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |bibcode=2003AdSpR..31.2347D |doi=10.1016/S0273-1177(03)00539-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon99/pdf/8017.pdf |title=Sample Return Mission to the South Pole Aitken Basin |last1=Duke |first1=M. B. |last2=Clark |first2=B. C. |last3=Gamber |first3=T. |last4=Lucey |first4=P. G. |last5=Ryder |first5=G. |last6=Taylor |first6=G. J. |date=September 24, 1999 |access-date=May 2, 2013 |display-authors=3}} Paper presented at the "[http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon99/moon99.3rd.html New Views of the Moon II: Understanding the Moon Through the Integration of Diverse Datasets]" workshop held on September 22–24, 1999, in Flagstaff, AZ. The workshop's [http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon99/pdf/program.pdf preliminary program] (PDF).</ref>

On the makeup of the Moon rocks, Kaysing asked: "Why was there never a mention of gold, silver, diamonds or other precious metals on the moon? Wasn't this a viable consideration? Why was this fact never dicussed [''sic''] in the press or by the astronauts?"<ref>[[#Kaysing|Kaysing 2002]], p. 8</ref>