More than 50 years ago, on July 20, 1969, NASA completed the seemingly impossible mission to put the first two men – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – on the Moon. Armstrong made history, jumping off the lunar lander Eagle and delivering his legendary “one small step” speech to the millions watching back on Earth. The late astronaut became an overnight sensation after planting the US flag into the lunar surface and bringing an end to the Space Race with the Soviet Union.
On return to Earth, Armstrong was questioned by the general public for shying away from the limelight and notoriously avoiding interviews, leading some to question whether the entire mission was faked.
But, Dr Tyson will not stand for the wild theories, passionately expressing why during a recent video with Penguin Books UK.
He said in November: “Have you really thought about what it would take to fake the Moon landings?
“The rocket did launch, we all saw the rocket launch, so the hardware is there, like office building blueprints for the design of the Saturn V rocket.
“Hundreds of thousands of engineering hours went behind this and the records are the designs.”
Dr Tyson went on to explain exactly why the ideas are ludicrous.
He added: “If you wanted to fake the Moon landings, you would have to fake all those documents.
“It just seems to me that it would be way easier to just go there.
“Has anyone considered that? Just go to the Moon! That is so much easier than faking all of this.
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Fellow NASA astronaut Mike Massimino was a guest on the show and gave his own verdict.
He added: “When I first met Neil, he got up in front of us and it was like we’re meeting our hero.
“He’s the man, right? But he gets up there and it seemed like he was almost painfully shy, like it was hard for him to talk.
“He didn’t mention the Moon at all, he talked about test flying and how important that is and how you have to be diligent about it and how much he loved it.
“After he was done we got to the questions and answers, then we asked him what it was like on the Moon.
“But up to that point, he was delivering his message and almost painfully shy, but he loved so much what he did that’s what he focused on.”