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The first humans to visit the moon in 50 years is big news.

Over 10 days, Artemis II will launch from Florida and head one quarter million miles to the moon.

It's a practice run for an actual moon landing.

NASA hopes by 2028.

As part of the Artemis 2 mission, NASA astronauts are returning to the moon, though not yet to its surface.

But that distinction prompts snorts from detractors who claim it's impossible to return

to the moon if we never went the first time.

Moon landing conspiracy theories are as reliable as the lunar cycle.

They return repeatedly, never eclipsed by the preponderance of evidence that humans landed

on our natural satellite, not once, but six times.

According to one estimate, as many as 10% of Americans believe the moon landing was fate.

Meanwhile, lunar science continues unabated.

Scientists have finally gotten their hands on a half a century sealed lunar time capsule.

Some of it goes back to almost four and a half billion years old, so it has components within it that are the age of the moon itself.

Welcome to big picture science and a regular look at critical thinking skeptic check. I'm Molly Bentley.

In this episode, we consider why the falsehood that we never

set foot on the moon has been difficult to shake and what it reveals about our relationship

with science and its findings. This episode is Skeptic Check, Moon Conspiracy. In a series of missions, NASA's Artemis program will take us back to the moon.

In the spring of 2026, Artemis 2 plans to put four astronauts into lunar orbit for 10 days. Later, Artemis 3 astronauts will

test new systems and space suits in low Earth orbit. Then the plans for early 2028 on

Artemis 4 mission will land us on the moon again. The first landing in July 1969 came after a Saturn 5 rocket blasted off from Kennedy Space Center,

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