Excerpt:
Don't like the way history went? Just rewrite it.The head of Russia’s national space agency has proposed a mission to the moon to verify whether the American moon landings really took place.
Dmitry Rogozin responded to a question about whether Nasa’s Apollo programme actually put men on the moon back in the 1960s and 1970s during a conversation with the president of Moldova, Igor Dodon.
He appeared to be joking, as he smirked and shrugged while answering. But conspiracies surrounding Nasa’s moon missions are common in Russia.
In a video of their interaction, posted to his 815,000 Twitter followers, Mr Rogozin says: “We have set this objective to fly and verify whether they’ve been there or not”.
Nasa’s six well-documented official manned missions to the surface of the Moon, beginning with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969 and continuing with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt in December 1972, have been dogged with conspiracy theories.
But seriously, I hope Russia goes for it. It might finally motivate us to get our own space program back in shape, and if it doesn't, and they beat us there this time, I honestly wouldn't begrudge them the victory. Partly because it would be our own damn fault, and partly because establishing a permanent human presence on other worlds will have benefits for all life on Earth that transcend any current political conflicts, however important they may be.
But seriously- doing something as grandiose as going to the Moon so you can validate your fake news conspiracy theory and retroactively erase America's greatest Cold War triumph is just... so Putin. I think we may have reached Peak Putin here, folks.
