The phone President Richard Nixon used to talk to the first astronauts on the moon is evidence the 1969 moon landing was faked.
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In 1969, the president called the astronauts on the moon. Here’s how
If Your Time is short
- The moon landing was real.
- The photo of the phone President Richard Nixon used to call the astronauts belies the technology used to make that communication happen.
"If you still believed we landed on the moon after seeing this I don’t know how to save you," reads the text flanking several images in a recent Instagram post, including an old green push-button telephone.
"Phone call to moon," reads the label.
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PolitiFact has fact-checked plenty of claims that the moon landing was a hoax. It wasn’t; on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.
And out of context, the photo of the phone President Richard Nixon used to call the astronauts belies the technology used to make that communication happen.
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The call went from the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., to Houston, where it was then routed to space via mission control through the capsule communicator, according to AT&T, whose predecessor, the Bell System, was involved in the space program through a subsidiary that worked with NASA.
From Houston, reports Wired, the call "bounced to Manned Space Flight Network dish antennas scattered around Earth, traveled 238,000 miles to the Apollo Lunar Module, and finally hopped to its ultimate destination: antennas attached to the backpacks carried by Armstrong and Aldrin."
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The call used technology developed by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Geological Survey and several corporate contractors, including BellCom, the Bell System subsidiary that was formed at NASA’s request in 1952 and employed scientists from Bell Labs.
An S-Band Transponder developed by General Dynamics Corp. enabled the communications between Apollo 11 and Mission Control, according to the aerospace and defense company, and it had to be designed to withstand extreme cold, heat and radiation. "Hundreds of employees" in Scottsdale, Arizona, began developing the transponder in 1962.
Claims that say the moon landing was a hoax because of Nixon’s phone call rate False.
Our Sources
Instagram post, May 4, 2023
National Archives, A historic phone call, visited May 5, 2023
General Dynamics, Engineering the communications system For Apollo 11, visited May 5, 2023
Wired, Tech time warp of the week: Watch President Nixon dial the moon in 1969, Feb. 21, 2014
The Houston Chronicle, How did President Richard Nixon place a phone call to the moon?, July 19, 2019
AT&T Archives, Nixon calls the moon, visited May 5, 2023
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In 1969, the president called the astronauts on the moon. Here’s how
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