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Thousands of newsmen and photographers line the banks of a lagoon at the Cape Kennedy Press Site on July 16, 1969 as the Saturn 5 Rocket with Apollo 11 astronauts aboard thunders from its launch pad three and a half miles away.
After decades of space travel, claiming that NASA rockets can’t reach space is Pants on Fire!
If Your Time is short
- NASA rockets have reached space numerous times.
An Instagram post claimed that NASA space travel by rocket is fake because the space agency’s rockets aren’t capable of getting there.
"We don’t lie, like NASA," said the text over a video.
The video begins with a clip of a young man stating that the rockets can’t reach space because "they would run out of fuel, it’s all made up."
He suggested that rockets are merely launched into the sky before landing in an ocean.
"They will never launch a rocket from the middle of the country; it won’t make it to the ocean, it’ll crash on dry land," he said. "So, NASA has to launch rockets from Texas and Florida because it’s right by the water."
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Featured Fact-check
There are numerous examples of NASA space missions, including these:
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On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.
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Humans were last on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972, when the lunar module Challenger was filmed using a small, portable television camera attached to a pan-and-tilt unit that could be controlled from Earth via a high-gain antenna on the lunar rover, as the National Air and Space Museum explained on its website.
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The International Space Station has been visited by 269 people from 21 countries, according to NASA, which has launched rockets there.
NASA launches rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Kennedy Space Center in Florida, near the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX, a company NASA chose to create a moon lander, launches from Boca Chica, Texas, along the Gulf Coast. Launches are done over water for safety, partly to avoid populated areas, in case of a malfunction.
After decades of space travel, it’s false and ridiculous to claim that NASA rockets can’t reach space. We rate the Instagram post Pants on Fire!
RELATED: Fact-checks about space
Our Sources
Instagram, post, June 14, 2023
PolitiFact, "NASA did not fake footage from the International Space Station," June 23, 2023
PolitiFact, "A remotely controlled camera captured Apollo 17 leaving the moon, not some doomed astronaut," June 19, 2023
PolitiFact, "Fifty years after Apollo 11, moon landing hoaxes still thrive online," July 18, 2019
PolitiFact, "The James Webb Space Telescope and the images it has taken are real," July 18, 2022
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After decades of space travel, claiming that NASA rockets can’t reach space is Pants on Fire!
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