What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Was the Artemis II Mission Fake?
The Artemis II moon mission was a full success. Its crew of four astronauts splashed down safely on earth last week after traveling further into outer space than any humans before them. Like most Americans, I followed the mission with a sense of wonder and pride that felt out-of-place in 2026–this was actual history being made, and even my blackened heart swelled. But not everyone was excited; some people are not buying this whole "orbiting the moon" thing and are convinced that the mission never happened. Everyone is lying, the images and videos we've seen are bogus, and spaceflight doesn't even make sense. I've spent a lot of time digging into the many conspiracy theories online surrounding Artemis II, and there are two rough categories. The first is people who nitpick video feeds for "evidence" that the mission wasn't genuine. I'll address some of those theories later, but first, I want to talk about the more interesting kind of space-skepti...
