What People Are Misunderstanding This Week: Was the Artemis II Mission a Fake?
The Artemis II lunar mission was a complete success. The crew of four astronauts splashed down safely on Earth last week, having traveled further into space than any human before them. Like most Americans, I followed the mission with a sense of wonder and pride that seemed out of place in 2026—it was truly historic, and even my blackened heart swelled with joy. But not everyone was thrilled; some don’t believe the “moon-skipping” story and are convinced the mission never happened. Everyone is lying, the images and videos we’ve seen are fake, and spaceflight is pointless.
I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the numerous online conspiracy theories surrounding the Artemis II mission, and I can identify two main categories. The first are people who meticulously search the footage for “proof” that the mission wasn’t genuine. I’ll explore some of these theories later, but first, I want to discuss a more interesting kind of cosmic skepticism—the kind that stems from a lack of imagination.
Scientifically Proven Conspiracy Theories About Artemis II
Scientifically informed skepticism questions the specific details of this mission and the space travel itself, with a feeling of, “This just ca n’t be true.” And I get it. The very idea of people just like you and me strapping into a rocket and hurtling past the damned Moon, then returning safely to Earth, is so impressive it can seem unbelievable. So I contacted Joel Myers , a theoretical cosmologist and professor at Southern Methodist University, to get scientifically sound, realistic answers about how spaceflight actually works.
But let’s get one thing clear first:
Steven Johnson : Was the Artemis mission a hoax?
Joel Myers: Absolutely not.
SJ : …That’s the official version. But unofficially, just between us, it was a lie, right?
JM : No, still not. It wasn’t fake.
SJ : Okay then.
“The rocket’s trajectory will lead back to Earth.”
Many online conspiracy theorists have questioned the Artemis’s flight path. The rocket didn’t blast off straight toward the Moon. Instead, it appeared to be heading back toward Earth, destined to land in the Bermuda Triangle.
According to Myers, this is intentional. “The biggest challenges are leaving the atmosphere and then the Earth’s gravity well,” he said. “But the spacecraft doesn’t ascend vertically; it moves along a trajectory that puts it into orbit around the Earth.”
To place Orion into low-Earth orbit, NASA chose a trajectory whose descent curve matches the curvature of the Earth, so the spacecraft effectively always falls toward the planet but misses the Earth. To reach the Moon, it first needs to enter orbit around the Earth, and then expand the orbit until the Moon is in the path.
“Going straight up in a straight line from Earth to the Moon would be an extremely difficult task. It would require a lot more energy, and there’s no reason to do so,” Myers said.
“How could they see anything on the ‘dark side’ of the Moon?”
Many people online have expressed dissatisfaction with the stunning photographs of the “dark side” of the Moon taken by astronauts. “If it’s dark, how can they take pictures of it?” people have asked. The problem largely revolves around the phrase “dark side of the Moon,” and I blame Pink Floyd for this (and much more).
“The same side of the Moon always faces the Earth, and the opposite side, more technically, we call the far side of the Moon,” Myers said. “When the side of the Moon facing the Earth is dark, during a new moon, that means the other side of the Moon, the far side of the Moon, is illuminated. From the vantage point from which this image was taken, the Sun was directly behind the photographer, so it illuminated the far side of the Moon.”
“The fact that someone was there to take the picture, with the far side of the moon illuminated, is even more compelling evidence that it is not a fake,” he added.
“How can you slow down a ship with just a couple of parachutes?”
The Artemis mission’s Orion crew module returned to Earth at about 25,000 mph. It then slowed to 20 mph for splashdown, using just three tiny parachutes. How is that even possible? According to Myers, most of the deceleration isn’t due to the parachutes. “Air resistance, or the passage through the atmosphere, slows the craft significantly,” Myers said. “They passed through kilometers of atmosphere, which significantly reduced their speed by the time the parachutes deployed… the parachutes deploy only later to slow the descent to a comfortable level for a human landing and splashdown.”
Video evidence of Artemis conspiracy theories
Now that we’ve covered the science, let’s look at the conspiracy theories based on the footage. There are numerous videos online that scrutinize footage from the Artemis mission to prove it didn’t happen. But they all tend to prove the mission’s reality rather than expose it as a hoax.
“A bag of food floats through an astronaut’s ear.”
In the video above, you can see what looks like a bag of food “passing” through an astronaut’s ear. “Don’t tell me it’s a glitch or an artifact,” TikTok user @knightfallenangel says in the video. Sorry, but I tell him it’s a video artifact: compression noise caused by high-definition video being reduced to a size small enough to transmit from space to Earth and then sent to your iPhone. Crystal-clear video would be the best indicator of a fake, because under such unusual conditions, it wouldn’t have to travel such a long distance.
“The green screen is glitching.”
The video above allegedly shows a green screen “disappearing” into the mission footage. The refutation is contained within the video itself. First, it’s a broadcast from a single station, not NASA’s own broadcast. The same interview shows no interruptions on other stations . The best explanation is that the local station is using some kind of green screen to display its online graphics. Ride, the mission’s plush mascot, wears a hat in various shades of green and blue. When the right shade of green/blue appears in the video, the local broadcast replaces it with the station’s graphics.
If the original footage had been shot against a green screen, you would have seen the background in some parts of Ryde’s hat every time the green/blue parts of the toy appeared on screen. (My own conspiracy theory is that NASA chose the color of Ryde’s hat as subtle evidence that it wasn’t green screen .)
“Why doesn’t the iPad float in the air?”
In this photo, the iPad isn’t actually floating, but I’m guessing it’s held in place by Velcro, which was specifically designed to keep objects from floating away during space missions . It’s also possible there are magnets.
Also, the photo that often accompanies these shots , which appear to show astronauts on wires in a green-screen studio, was created using artificial intelligence.
This can be seen by the extra fingers, as well as those black wires, which would be clearly visible in any footage shot against a green screen in this studio.
“Christina Koch’s hairstyle proves the mission was staged.”
Some people noticed that astronaut Christina Koch wore her hair loose during the mission. I’m not sure how this proves the video was faked, but her hair actually proves the footage is authentic. First, her hair fanned out from her head because it wasn’t affected by gravity. Second, green screen doesn’t do a good job of rendering translucent materials like hair, especially when lit from behind. In that case, you’d see “scatter”—green bangs around her head. Overall, Koch’s hairstyle would have been a special effects nightmare. The CGI precision required to perfectly animate “weightless hair” while simultaneously correcting for the “scatter” might be achievable in a matter of moments (with a large team and millions of dollars), but there are hours of footage available. If this had been a green screen, someone would have simply told Koch to tie her hair back or put on a hat.
This launch video shows the astronauts leaving the spacecraft via a cable car.
NASA chose April 1 as the launch date for the Artemis II mission. Scientists say the date was chosen based on orbital mechanics, mission requirements, weather conditions, and lighting, but what if it was a subtle hint that the entire mission was a big joke? Whether or not it was a joke, take a look at this clip from NASA’s launch video:
We’re talking about these capsules. Just before the rocket launches, the capsules fly off in opposite directions, as you can see here:
“See? Those astronauts aren’t going to fly on a rocket,” some concluded. But if the mission was faked, why even take astronauts on Orion? And why make their “escape” so obvious? What you’re actually seeing is the Artemis launch escape system —an emergency escape mechanism in case of launch pad failure.
Science belongs to everyone.
AEES is just one aspect of the mission, which has been thoroughly documented. NASA describes every detail in detail . There aren’t many secrets here, which is what makes the proliferation of these strange theories so puzzling.
“Conspiracy theorists have a certain group mentality. They see themselves as anti-authority and don’t accept what the mainstream media feeds them,” Myers says. “But as a scientist, I find this a bit confusing because, unlike many other topics around which conspiracy theories arise, there’s no sense of authority in the scientific process. It’s for everyone. The discoveries we make as a human species belong to the entire species.”
“I hope that after seeing some of the scientific achievements, some of the experiments that astronauts can conduct, they’ll understand that this is truly an amazing achievement for humanity, and we can all take part in it. It’s not a matter of ‘us versus them.'”