Were the moon landings faked?

Physical evidence supports that NASA sent people to the moon to explore

Question: Were the moon landings faked?
Position1 of 2›: The Apollo missions were not faked
Argument‹2 of 3›: Physical evidence supports that NASA sent people to the moon to explore

The astronauts brought lunar rocks back from their expedition which was verified by various agencies to not be of terrestrial origin. The astronauts also left physical evidence of their presence on the moon, which proves that the moon landing was real.

The argument

Astronauts brought back a total of 842 lbs (382 kg) samples of lunar rocks and soil over the course of six missions. International teams of scientists - both affiliated and unaffiliated with NASA - have analyzed these samples and have determined that the rocks are not of terrestrial origin. The rocks, identified as mostly basalts and breccias, have chemical makeups that are very different from those found on earth. They are also estimated to be up to 4.5 billion years old; the oldest earth rocks are approximately 4.28 billion years old, which is a 200-million-year difference. With the technology available in the 1960s, it would not have been possible to organize an unmanned sample-returning mission. In fact, NASA has yet to successfully complete an unmanned sample-returning mission to and from a planetary surface. Apollo missions 11, 14, and 15 left mirrors, called laser-ranging retroreflectors, on the moon's surface. High-powered laser beams can be aimed through telescopes; the reflection of the beam bounces off of the mirrors and is returned to earth. This ongoing experiment is meant to provide data on the distance between the moon and earth but also serves as physical evidence that the moon landings were not fake. Lastly, photographs taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in 2009 show the remainders of physical evidence left by astronauts on the moon, such as footpaths, landing sites, and various scientific instruments. The abundance of physical evidence that NASA has collected over the decades is enough proof to confirm the moon landing was real, and humans have stood on the moon.

Context

Several pieces of scientific evidence are available to prove NASA's claim.

Premises

[P1]The 842 lbs of lunar samples returned across six missions are demonstrably non-terrestrial — basalts and breccias with chemistry unlike Earth rock and ages up to 4.5 billion years, older than any rock found on Earth — and 1960s technology could not have retrieved them by an unmanned mission, something NASA still cannot do. [P2] Further physical evidence remains verifiable today: the laser retroreflectors left by Apollo 11, 14, and 15 still reflect laser beams back to Earth, and 2009 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs show the astronauts' footpaths, landing sites, and instruments. [C] Because this abundant physical evidence supports that NASA sent people to the moon, the Apollo missions were not faked.

Counter-arguments

There is no way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these lunar rocks were actually sampled from the moon. Lunar meteorites have been found in Antarctica and may very well have been passed off as lunar rocks collected by astronauts. Some have theorized that aerospace engineer Wernher Von Braun's 1967 expedition to Antarctica was orchestrated for the purpose of gathering meteorites that could be used as fake lunar rocks. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is also a NASA-funded spacecraft; NASA may have been able to doctor their images of the moon to make them appear as if there was evidence of humans on the surface.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The strongest part of the case is stated with an avoidable weakness. The samples' distinguishing features are well documented — the near-absence of water and hydrated minerals, the composition of the glasses, and the exposure history recorded in solar-wind gases and cosmic-ray tracks — whereas "older than any rock found on Earth" invites the reply that lunar meteorites are recovered on Earth and are also very old. The claim that unmanned return was impossible is too strong: the Soviet Luna 16, 20 and 24 missions returned lunar material robotically in the same period, which helps the argument rather than hurting it, since what they brought back matches the Apollo samples in far smaller quantity. [Rejecting P2] The retroreflector point needs a qualification the premise omits: two French-built reflectors were placed by the Soviet Lunokhod rovers, so reflectors alone establish that objects were landed rather than that people were. Their force here comes from placement and from the size of the Apollo arrays, a detail worth keeping. The orbiter images are strong evidence with a weakness the premise does not address — they come from the agency whose missions are in question, which is why independent observation matters. [Rejecting C] The conclusion is well supported and would be better supported by what the argument leaves out: independent tracking of the missions by the Soviet Union and by observatories in several countries at the height of the competition, and the distribution of samples to laboratories worldwide, analysed for decades by researchers with no connection to the agency.

Proponents cited

Trevor Ireland
“Any attempt to make moon rocks in a laboratory would be a monumental failure and likely cost more money than it took NASA to get to the moon and back. The lunar soil is like nothing we have seen before on Earth. It is the result of eons of bombardment on the surface of the moon. The rocks have compositions that are unique to the moon.”
Ethan Siegel
“There are many different lines of evidence that point to humanity's presence on the Moon. We landed there and can see the evidence, directly, when we look with the appropriate resolution. We have extraordinary amounts of evidence, ranging from eyewitness testimony to the data record tracking the missions to photographs documenting the trips, all supporting the fact that we landed and walked on the lunar surface. We have a slew of scientific instruments that were installed, took data, and a few of which can still be seen and used today. And finally, we've brought back lunar samples and learned about the Moon's history, composition, and likely origin from it.”