Apollo put twelve astronauts on the Moon across six missions between 1969 and 1972. They brought back 2,196 samples weighing 842 pounds, which researchers still study. Observatories have bounced lasers off reflectors the astronauts left to measure the Earth-Moon distance to about 3 centimeters. In 1977, a Soviet radio telescope picked up the transmitters the astronauts left and found their positions matched NASA's reports. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged the Apollo 12, 14, and 17 sites, and India's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter photographed the Apollo 11 lander in 2021.
Maye can hold any opinion he likes. A 12-year-old who idolizes an NFL quarterback hears an adult they admire treating settled evidence as an open question. That same kid sits in a science class where a teacher is working to build the habit of checking evidence first.
Our country needs more engineers, technicians, and scientists. Students decide early whether math and science belong to them. Every public figure who shrugs at evidence gives a student one more reason to shrug. Celebrities have reach, and reach carries a duty to look something up before speaking.
Maye's conspiracy class presumably covered how to weigh evidence. The Moon landing makes a good practice problem, and one call to any physics department would settle it in ten minutes. The reflectors are still on the Moon, and the physicists still have the measurements.
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