By Tim Binnall
The former head of Russia's space agency raised eyebrows over the weekend when he suggested that the United States did not actually land on the moon. The surprising assertion came about this past Sunday when Dmitry Rogozin, who served as the leader of Roscosmos from May of 2018 until being dismissed from the post in July of last year, took to social media and recounted a remarkable story. "About ten years ago, when I worked in the government," he wrote, "I sent an official request to Roscosmos to provide me with documentary evidence of the Americans' stay on the moon."
Rogozin indicated that his initial curiosity had come about because he was "painfully embarrassed" by how cosmonauts returning to Earth "could barely stand on their feet," while their American counterparts "crawled out of their lunar ships like cucumbers from the garden." However, the response to his request proved to be ratter perplexing and seemingly only raised more questions than answers. According to Rogozin, he was given a copy of the book Conquest of the Moon by Astronauts along with an assurance from pioneering cosmonaut Alexei Leonov that the Apollo landings were genuine because he had been told as much by the astronauts who accomplished the historic feat.
Still skeptical, Rogozin says that when he eventually became the head of the space agency, "I continued my search for this evidence, but I didn't find anything there." What he did discover was that Russian officials were not very pleased with his line of inquiry to the point that he received a call from one high-ranking individual "accusing me of 'aggravating the international situation' with my doubts." In his defense, Rogozin insisted that he was merely trying to determine "the true state of affairs" with regards to lunar exploration as "it was not clear to me how the United States, at that level of technological development of the 60s of the last century, did what they still cannot do now?"
Rogozin ultimately concluded his post by musing that instead of finding evidence that American astronauts had landed on the moon, his investigation led him to what he considers to be "proof that their people were in our 'establishment.'" As one might imagine, historians and other experts have called his account into question by pointing out that, during the space race, the Russians were closely watching America's progress and observed the lunar landing both from here on Earth as well as by way of their own craft orbiting the moon at the time, which makes his claim of Roscosmos not having any evidence of the event to be rather dubious. What do you make of Rogozin's audacious claim? Share your thoughts with us at the C2C Facebook page.