Elon Musk’s SpaceX made history this morning after pulling off the world’s first commercial spacewalk – the most ambitious objective of the Polaris Dawn mission.
But an outrageous theory circulating online claims that the spaceflight company faked the entire thing, akin to the staged moon landing conspiracy.
Conspiracists responded to livestream video of the spacewalk on X, formerly Twitter, saying that it didn’t appear to be real footage from space.
‘That looks just as fake as when NASA faked it,’ X user James Doty wrote.
‘Until I myself fly to space I’m convinced this s*** is faked anyone with brain can f****** tell,’ wrote X user ifxgabriel.
There is no evidence to suggest that SpaceX faked the Polaris Dawn spacewalk. But this isn’t the first time people have cried ‘hoax’ over a daring space mission, and it likely won’t be the last.
Polaris Dawn mission commander Jared Isaacman emerged from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft early this morning and ventured into the vacuum of space.
The Polaris Dawn mission launched early Tuesday morning, carrying four private astronauts to space aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The mission had several challenging – and dangerous – objectives. First, Crew Dragon would fly farther than any spacecraft has gone since man walked on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
To do that, it would have to pass through the Van Allen radiation belt – a zone of extremely high space radiation that threatens both astronaut health and spacecraft functionality.
Polaris Dawn managed to achieve both these goals with no major upsets.
But the biggest test came this morning, when mission commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis ventured outside of Crew Dragon wearing suits that had never been tested in space before.
SpaceX livestreamed the nearly two-hour-long process from start to finish on X, although Isaacman and Gillis each only spent about 10 minutes outside the spacecraft.
Isaacman was the first to exit around 6:50 am ET, using a scaffold-like “Skywalker” framework extending from the hatch for stability.
Once exposed to the vacuum of space, Isaacman performed a series of planned movements to test the mobility and comfortability of his pressurized spacesuit.
During SpaceX’s livestream of the Polaris Dawn spacewalk, some viewers claimed that the footage had to be fake. One pointed to the awkward positioning of Isaacman’s arm as evidence
But as soon as Isaacman emerged from Crew Dragon, a collection of viewers began responding to the livestream saying that the footage had to be fake.
‘You talk about the moon landings being faked, what the f*** is wrong with his left arm!’ X user Randy Bohling replied.
Gillis performed the same spacewalk protocol after Isaacman returned inside, but conspiracy theorist viewers weren’t convinced by her either.
But these claims are false. There is no factual evidence to support the idea that SpaceX faked this spacewalk, or any aspect of the Polaris Dawn mission.
People have been claiming that missions to space – and the images and footage captured during them – are fake since the Apollo missions.
Conspiracy theories around the moon landings have persisted for over 50 years, despite a wealth of factual information that proves these theories to be false.
Conspiracists argue that certain aspects of photos from the Apollo missions – such as the orientation of shadows, lack of stars and the American flag waving – are proof that the moon landings were faked.
But each one of these theories has been debunked.
Conspiracy theorists have taken this photo as proof that the moon landings were not real because the shadows in the image are not parallel, but this is actually due to perspective
Some believe that shadows in the moon landing photos are proof that the image was staged. This claim is based on the fact that these shadows are not parallel to each other.
The idea behind this is that if the sun were the only source of light – as it would be if the photo was taken on the moon – then the shadows should be parallel to each other. But that is not true.
Due to the influence of perspective, shadows can appear non-parallel to each other even when there is only one light source. If you go outside while the sun is low in the sky, you can see this effect for yourself.
Conspiracy theorists have also pointed to the lack of stars in moon landing photos as reason to believe the images cannot be real.
The reason that no stars appear in the photos from the moon landing is because the lunar surface is brightly lit by the sun, which obscures the stars from view
The American flag appears to be waving in this photo because a telescopic pole has been inserted along the flag’s top edge.
But the reason stars don’t appear in these photos is because the moon is brightly lit by the sun, obscuring the camera’s view of distant stars.
The photo of the American flag planted on the lunar surface remains one of the most iconic images from the moon landing.
But some believe it had to be staged because the flag is ‘waving’ despite there being to atmosphere or wind on the moon.
If you look closely at the top edge of the flag, however, you can see that a telescopic pole has been extended along the top in order to make the flag fly.
Thus, each of these theories – and others that challenge the authenticity of the moon landings – have been debunked.
But as the Polaris Dawn spacewalk has shown us, this type of thinking isn’t going away any time soon.
