Rocks ruin conspiracy theories

♦ Rocks collected from the Moon 50 years ago dispel any notion that the lunar landing was faked, scientists have said.

Prof Trevor Ireland, a space rock expert from The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said no conspiracy could have made the rocks.

“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,” said Prof Ireland from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences. “The lunar soil is like nothing we have seen before on Earth.”

Prof Ireland said the scenario of an unmanned mission retrieving the Moon rocks was also impossible.

“There are 380kg (838lb) of Moon rocks. Getting this amount of material back to Earth is just as difficult as getting the 21 Apollo astronauts on seven missions to the Moon and back to Earth.”