Nasa has set the record straight after Kim Kardashian claimed the moon landings were faked.
The space agency’s acting administrator Sean Duffy took to X on Thursday to counter the reality TV star’s assertions about the famed Apollo 11 mission.
The space agency chief responded to comments broadcast on the most recent instalment of “The Kardashians”, where the 45-year-old media figure expressed her belief that the 1969 lunar expedition never occurred.
During the programme, Kardashian displayed what she claimed was an interview featuring Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin with actress Sarah Paulson.
She referenced numerous articles about Aldrin and his fellow moonwalker, though she didn’t name Neil Armstrong directly.
Ms Kardashian told the actress on the episode that the space mission “didn’t happen”.
The reality star read aloud a purported Aldrin quote about the mission’s most frightening moment: “There was no scary moment because it didn’t happen.
“It could’ve been scary, but it wasn’t because it didn’t happen.”
Ms Kardashian said on the episode that the space mission ‘didn’t happen’
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There is currently no confirmation on the veracity of whether Aldrin actually made such remarks.
Kardashian subsequently told production staff that she regularly explores conspiracy theories.
“I think it was fake,” she stated, claiming she had viewed multiple videos of Aldrin supposedly denying the lunar landing occurred.
Responding, Mr Duffy wrote: “Yes, @KimKardashian, we’ve been to the Moon before 6 times!”
Sean Duffy shot down Ms Kardashian’s claim
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He went on to highlight Nasa’s forthcoming Artemis programme, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
“We won the last space race and we will win this one too,” Mr Duffy said.
The Nasa administrator subsequently extended a personal invitation to the television personality, suggesting she visit Kennedy Space Center to witness the Artemis mission launch first-hand.
The Institute of Physics stated that “every single argument claiming that Nasa faked the Moon landings has been discredited.”
Ms Kardashian responded to Mr Duffy’s post, enquiring about an astronomical phenomenon rather than addressing the lunar landing dispute.
“Wait…. what’s the tea on 3I Atlas?!?!!!!!!!?????” she responded, referencing the interstellar object that astronomers have identified as potentially the most ancient comet observed.
3I/ATLAS will pass close to Nasa’s Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency’s Hera between last October and November 6.
European scientists have published preliminary research about the encounter, stating the spacecraft will be “immersed within the ion tail of 3I/ATLAS, providing the opportunity to detect the signatures of an interstellar comet’s ion tail.”
Sean Duffy went on to extend a personal invitation to Kim Kardashian
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The Tailcatcher programme, which tracks celestial meetings like this, calculates the spacecraft will come within approximately five million miles of the comet’s charged particle stream.
This represents an extraordinary chance to examine material from another star system.
Ion tail encounters are exceptionally rare – making contact with a visitor from interstellar space does not happen often.
Many such crossings have likely occurred undetected in the past, registering merely as minor variations in solar wind and magnetic field readings.
Samuel Grant, a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told Space.com: “We have virtually no data on the interior of interstellar comets and the star systems that formed them.
“Sampling the tail in this way is the closest we can currently get to a direct sample of such an object, and thus a different part of the galaxy.”