Wild conspiracy theory about what REALLY happened to Space X crew during historic Polaris Dawn private space walk

Elon Musk’s SpaceX made history this morning with the world’s first commercial spacewalk, the most ambitious goal of the Polaris Dawn mission.

But a bizarre theory is circulating online that claims the space company staged the whole thing, similar to the staged plot surrounding the moon landing.

Conspiracy theorists responded to the spacewalk livestream on X, formerly Twitter, saying it did not resemble real footage from space.

“That looks just as fake as when NASA faked it,” wrote X user James Doty.

“Until I fly into space myself, I’m convinced this is fake and anyone with half a brain can see it,” wrote X user ifxgabriel.

There is no evidence that SpaceX faked the Polaris Dawn spacewalk. But this isn’t the first time people have cried “hoax” about a daring space mission, and it likely won’t be the last.

The Polaris Dawn mission launched early Tuesday morning, carrying four private astronauts into space aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The mission had several challenging — and dangerous — goals. First, Crew Dragon would fly farther than any spacecraft had since humans walked on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.

To do that, it would have to travel through the Van Allen radiation belt, a zone of extremely high radiation in space that threatens both the health of astronauts and the functionality of the spacecraft.

Polaris Dawn managed to achieve both goals without any major surprises.

But the biggest test came this morning, when mission commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis exited Crew Dragon in spacesuits that had never before been tested in space.

SpaceX streamed the nearly two-hour process from start to finish live on X, though Isaacman and Gillis each spent only about 10 minutes outside the spacecraft.

Isaacman was the first to exit the plane at about 6:50 a.m. ET, using a scaffolding-like “Skywalker” frame extending from the hatch for stability.

After being exposed to the vacuum of space, Isaacman performed a series of planned movements to test the mobility and comfort of his pressurized spacesuit.

But as soon as Isaacman came out of Crew Dragon, many viewers on the livestream immediately reacted, saying that the footage had to be fake.

“You’re talking about a fake moon landing, what the hell is wrong with his left arm!” X user Randy Bohling responded.

Gillis performed the same spacewalk protocol after Isaacman was back in space, but conspiracy theorists were not convinced by her either.

But these claims are false. There is no factual evidence to support the idea that SpaceX faked this spacewalk, or any aspect of the Polaris Dawn mission.

Ever since the Apollo missions, people have been claiming that space missions and the images and footage captured during them are fake.

Moon landing conspiracy theories have persisted for over 50 years, despite the abundance of factual information proving these theories to be false.

Conspiracy theorists claim that certain aspects of photographs from the Apollo missions – such as the orientation of the shadows, the lack of stars and the waving American flag – prove that the Moon landings were staged.

But each of these theories has been debunked.

Some believe that shadows in the moon landing photos are evidence that the image was staged. This claim is based on the fact that these shadows are not parallel to each other.

The idea behind this is that if the sun were the only light source – as would be the case if the photo was taken on the moon – the shadows should be parallel to each other. But that is not true.

Due to the influence of perspective, shadows can appear non-parallel to each other, even when there is only one light source. If you go outside when the sun is low in the sky, you can see this effect for yourself.

Conspiracy theorists also point to the lack of stars in photos of the moon landing as reason to believe the images cannot be real.

The reason there are no stars in these photos is because the Moon is brightly lit by the Sun, blocking the camera’s view of distant stars.

The photo of the American flag on the lunar surface remains one of the most iconic images of the moon landing.

However, some believe it had to be staged, as the flag ‘flies’ despite the atmosphere or wind on the moon.

However, if you look closely at the top edge of the flag, you will see that there is a telescopic pole extended at the top to allow the flag to fly.

This disproves all of these theories – and others that question the authenticity of the moon landings.

But as the Polaris Dawn spacewalk showed us, this kind of thinking isn’t going away anytime soon.