July 16, 1969, 1:30 p.m. GMT, director Stanley Kubrick is in his chair, reviewing with writer Arthur C. Clark» the events they agreed upon.
Scene 1: Day outside, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The three heroes: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins are heading to the launch pad, to board the spacecraft for the Apollo XI mission, which will take them to the surface of the moon.
Three, two, one. "Action!" Stanley yells.
The camera starts to rotate, showing the Saturn 5 rocket igniting and setting off on its journey into space.
After 4 days..
The second scene: an outside night, the lunar vehicle lands on the surface, and Neil Armstrong descends from it, becoming the first human to walk on the surface of the moon and saying his famous words: “This is a small step for man, but it is a giant leap for mankind!” Buzz Aldrin follows, plants a US flag on the roof, snaps a few photos, and heads off toward the ground.
After another 4 days..
The third scene: An outside day, the Pacific Ocean, the spacecraft lands in the middle of the ocean, and the ship "Hornet" picks them up, so that the three heroes return to Earth, announcing the victory of the United States in the space race.
Stanley yells at the end: Well done everyone, great job guys.
If you think about it a bit, this scenario might sound like a Hollywood movie scenario. But can you think of a studio operating on a budget of $175 billion in today's prices?
Biggest budget movie in history
What would it take to recreate the Moon on Earth in a Hollywood studio, then build a real spacecraft, put astronauts in it, and film the landing from start to finish?
Assuming that NASA was planning the film long before the day of the landing in 1969, it is expected that they would have to work with the equipment and technology available in the early 1960s, as they would have had to spend more time and money in order to obtain the required technologies To film the landing process so that it looks real, more than the actual transfer and travel to the moon.
The Apollo moon landing program cost a total of $25 billion from the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the project in the mid-1970s, which is equivalent to $175 billion in today's prices, after accounting for inflation.
And if we assume that all this money has already been used to direct the largest cinematic movie, then how was it spent? Let's take, for example, the salaries of the heroes of this work.
At the time, NASA had about 411,000 employees. Dr. David Grimes of Oxford University estimated that this secret could be kept for up to three years and eight months, before someone spoke up and told the truth.
So, how do you get 411,000 employees to keep a secret about a fake moon landing mission for more than three years?
You might bribe them to buy their silence for a while, but keep in mind that the average salary of NASA workers today is $63,000 a year, so if we divide the entire project budget at today's prices by the number of NASA workers in the 1960s, each A person earns about $425,000, which is the equivalent of seven years' salary today.
Of course, this bribe would have to continue until all employees at NASA had died by then, as they would have had to accept much less, given the cost of equipment and production needed to make such a massive movie.
You may have noticed that the shadows in the photographs appear to be parallel on the surface of the moon without dispersion, as photography experts say that these shadows accurately reflect the position of the sun from a distance of about 150 million km.
In order for Stanley Kubrick to create such a solar effect in a studio here on Earth, he would have needed to illuminate the scene with millions of ultra-bright lasers, which were very expensive in 1969, and the only color available was red. Now, we can change color using computer generated graphics, but back then it was impossible to change images using computers.
A picture sent by the "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter" probe of the lunar surface in 2009
In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back high-resolution images of each of the landing sites of the Apollo missions on the lunar surface. The tire tracks of the rovers used by the astronauts are visible on the surface, along with their shoe marks. In order to fake such traces, NASA would have had to send something to the Moon, like robotic rovers on Mars, to leave the traces behind.
The cost of this vehicle will be about $ 224 million, with the addition of another $ 583 million for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to take these pictures.
Ultimately, the cost of faking the moon landing is much higher than the actual cost of landing on it.
Science drove "A Space Odyssey"
There are many different reasons why some people believe in a NASA conspiracy to fake the moon landing, and even believe in conspiracy theories in general.
But the dilemma here lies in the fact that most of those who believe in such theories do not have any real scientific background, and have done little research in the fields of science, space and astronomy, such as landing on the moon, or even how Hollywood effects work, or How is NASA funded and how much is it spending on these projects, or any related topic that might enhance their vision.
Evidence of the Apollo 11 moon landing has been documented by third parties, far from NASA or the entire United States, such as the Bochum Observatory in Germany, the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom, and many other observatories.
Stanley Kubrick was able to make his genius movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 1968, with all this perfection, dazzling effects, scientific accuracy, anticipation of the future, and depiction of the space age in an unprecedented way, for a very simple reason, which is because it used a team of astronomers and science specialists Aeronautics, and aerospace engineers, to help him design the spacecraft that appeared in his film, choose the space-specific lighting effects, and even design the astronauts' suits in the film.
Stanley Kubrick did not help NASA and direct the moon landing movie, but on the contrary, he used its scientists and engineers to direct his wonderful movie about the era of the space race.
A final scene: the lights darken, the film ends, and the names of the heroes of this historical work are written on the screen.