LUNATICS

Russian Official: We’ll Double-Check Truth of US Moon Landing

Some did think the Russian official might have been joking.

Russia might be making a mission to the moon, perhaps to see whether NASA astronauts did land there almost 50 years ago. The head of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said that a proposed voyage is aimed at verifying American moon landings. Dmitry Rogozin said in a Twitter video posted Saturday that “We have set this objective to fly and verify whether they’ve been there or not.” The Associated Press points out  Rogozin’s statement came in response to a question about whether the American moon landings were real, noting in its report that he “appeared to be joking, as he smirked and shrugged while answering.” Conspiracy theories rooted in doubt about moon landings abound in Russia, however, and an official there called for an investigation several years ago. The Soviet Union axed its attempts at lunar exploration in the mid-1970s because four test rockets had exploded, marking an embarrassing defeat in the space race.