Fox News host Will Cain grilled retired astronaut Eileen Collins on various conspiracies on the moon landing, claiming that 25 percent of his viewership still believed it to have been faked.
“I hear your affirmative case and I don’t deny your affirmative case. I don’t come to you today — this is not a debate and I would not even classify myself as a skeptic,” Cain told Collins in an interview Friday.
“But I do know that skeptics remain. Twenty-five percent of our viewers right now remain skeptical, so I wanted to have you address some of those arguments that are the sources of the skepticism.”
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins piloted Apollo 11 to the moon in 1969, with Armstrong and Aldrin becoming the first two humans to walk on its surface. The mission was a defining moment in the space race between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union.
Collins, who was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission, chuckled in response but addressed the points Cain laid out.
This included how a 1969 telephone call between then-president Richard Nixon, Armstrong and Aldrin had been made, prior to the advent of cellular mobile technology, how the American flag was waving in the famous footage of the landing, and the direction of the shadows also seen in the footage.
In response, Collins added that the moon landings were unprecedented historical events and that no one had known what was going to happen when the first men stepped outside the space shuttle.
“No one had ever been to the moon before, and now they’re taking a tremendous risk to their lives… and decades, 50 years later, we say it didn’t happen. I think that’s really an insult to the people that made the Apollo program happen,” she said.
Cain shot back: I totally understand that argument, Eileen, but the point of our conversation is actually to address some of that skepticism and see if it doesn’t hold weight, and the affirmative argument you’re making is one that I find compelling as well.
“These men were heroes. However, the points — points are still made and they’re worth addressing as is always the case in anyone who has a counter argument. It’s not the dismissal of the counter argument, it’s the response to the counter argument that is powerful.”
NASA recently responded publicly to reality TV star Kim Kardashian, after she claimed she did not believe the moon landings had happened during a recent episode of her reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Writing on X, NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy wrote: “Yes, @KimKardashian, we’ve been to the Moon before… 6 times!
“And even better: @NASAArtemis is going back under the leadership of @POTUS. We won the last space race and we will win this one too.”
