Believe it or not, this is a very controversial question: Did man really step foot on the moon? I'm sure many of you that were alive to see Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969 would go "of course we did!" But there are still a lot of skeptics out their that think this was all a big hoax. Well I wasn't around back then to see it, but I really think we did land on the moon! Here's some proof....
One way to prove that we landed on the moon is to take a picture of the landing site. Above is an image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that's orbiting the moon and taking pictures, of the Apollo 11 landing site and astronaut foot prints. It sure looks like we landed and walked there! The Astronauts also left a reflector on the moon, much like one that you have on your bicycle. With a very high powered laser you can actually bounce the laser beam off this reflector, and trust me astronomers have tried this out and succeeded. I mean seriously, who would pass up the opportunity to play with a high powered laser? (See episode 63 of The Big Bang Theory. Point proven.) The reflectors are also used to accurately measure the distance between Earth and the moon and do tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Now you may ask why haven't we gone back? And my short answer to that is money and ethics. Sure it's cool to send astronauts into space, but If we can do better science with cheaper robotic equipment and don't have to put lives in danger, then why would we send man to the moon again? Don't get me wrong, I'm very much for manned space missions, but in our society we tend to do things the cheapest and safest way we can. And that means, sadly, no more manned missions to the moon.
Want to see more proof that the moon landing was real? Check out Mythbusters episode #104
Image credit: NASA/LRO
