Power Relations Analysis of Moon Landing Conspiracies 

What Discourse & Knowledge are Prominent:

Major Theories Behind a Fake Moon Landing (Moon landing conspiracy theories, debunked, n.d.).

• Shadows in the Moon landing photos prove the images were faked.

  • The idea is because the shadow and Neil Armstrong are not parallel. 

    • As science and math prove, because of perspective, parallel lines appear non-parallel since you are trying to reduce a 2D plane to a 3D situation. 

• Apollo Astronauts would not have been able to survive Earth's radiation field. 

  • People believe the intense radiation belt when you leave Earth's orbit would result in significant harm or death. However, scientists determined that the radiation belt is incredibly short, and going through it fast enough means you do not experience the effects of the radiation. 

• No Starts in the Pictures of the Moon Landing.

  • Conspiracy theorists hold that it is impossible for there to be no visible stars in the photo. They believed that NASA could not fake the glorious element of the sky, so they chose not to include stars. 

    • However, that ignores that the sun slightly lights up the lunar landscape during the daytime on the Moon, making the stars invisible. 

    • When someone takes a photo of the sky, the stars are still incredibly far away, and the camera has difficulty capturing it in a high-quality manner. 

• Why Haven't We Returned to the Moon Since 1972?

  •  Conspiracy theorists believe that the mission halt is because we never went in the first place. 

  • However, US priorities changed after the 1970s due to geopolitics. 

    • War in Vietnam and the belief that the US won the space race. Thus, there was no need to continue voyages, and it decided to set its sights on Mars as the next space expedition goal. 

 

What is subordinated & Its Implications? 

The Moon landings were actual events, and the countless images, videos, lunar samples, and scientists can attest to the event's realness. People who believe that the Moon landing was fake are trying to disprove science and the work of scientific institutions. 

• Power resides in the ideas and thoughts people hold, which push people to act. 

  • People, especially Americans, enjoy conspiracy theories and offering counter-explanation. 

  • People discredit the Moon landing as a method of showcasing a distrust for the government and its entities. While also setting the limitation of sciences. 

    • This drives people to assume that the government and scientists always lie to us. People want to believe that they can recognize the government's deception. Pointing out the flaws in scientific systems allows people to think they understand the world's truth. 

    • People should be critical of the government. However, conspiracy theorists ignore raw data and a paper trail of evidence. 

      • They choose to rely on their own opinion of reality that is plausible. 

• Creating a Reality that Ignores Science

  • People now give into concepts like the Moon landing being faked, allows for people to create a reality where science is being dismissed. 

    • Science is essential to protect the livelihoods of many and our future as a society. 

  • The Moon landing being fake is among anti-vaccine, anti-climate change conspiracies too. This serves as a window into how the faked Moon landing theory hurts the scientific community. 

    • Marginalized audience 

      • Scientists are being treated as fear-mongers and working to scare people rather than help. 

      • Scientists are being treated like marginalized communities that suffer violence. However, their work is being discredited through laws and actions that put larger communities and the planet at risk. 

      • Establishing distrust of science through these conspiracy theories allows people to perceive that they know more than scientists or that scientists openly lie to the public. 

        • Nevertheless, this has real-life effects that are incredibly harmful. 

          • People are dying and developing disabilities due to anti-vaccine theories. 

          • Extreme weather and climate change are killing people and the planet's infrastructure that keeps us safe. 

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Third Persona:

• Every day people who do not contribute to science often see it as a threat to their intelligence. Rather than learn from scientific communities, they create conspiracy theories to feel superior by discrediting the data. 

  • People use knowledge as a source of power, and if they cannot understand the current discourse about the moon landing, they will create false realities that fit their narrative as a way to gain power. 

    • They can exercise control even though they are wrong since evidence of the moon landing has repeatedly proven true. 

• Scientists are the ones who produce discourse about knowledge. However, society has moved away from trusting and valuing scientists as they used to. 

  • Their authority from educational certification and institutional roles needs to be increased to gain the public's attention. The scientific industry fights daily to earn public time to fight these conspiracy theories. 

 

My Opinion on Power Relations Analysis:

1. Power relations are a valuable analysis for understanding why people control discourse because sometimes it feels unimportant to talk about these topics. After all, the answer seems obvious. However, this analysis reminded me that people often move from scientific reality to one full of delusion of conspiracy theories. 

2. It would be helpful to add additional criticism methods like audience analysis to thoroughly examine why specific communities fall prey to conspiracy theories and how that shapes their worldview in the modern era. 

3. Ultimately, examining the Moon landing through power relations helps understand why discourse may result in dispelling misinformation and the success of the misinformation infiltrating scientific communities.