Yes, it was first believed to have landed upright, but then it turned out to have tipped over. This need not necessarily have happened during landing, because the moon suffers from quakes just as Earth does, and the lunar surface is quite different too. It's mostly dust, and not always very stable. Gravity's also a lot lower there — about 1/8th of Earth's gravity — and there is no atmosphere.
I remember having read that it tipped over due to having been tripped in its descent by one of the landing legs catching on a rock or something, but I'm not certain whether that was with regard to NASA's probe or the earlier Japanese one, which also landed upside down. I
think it was NASA's probe, but I could be wrong.
Well, it is possible that they're not receiving any usable video footage from the lander itself due to the thing not standing up straight and the cameras thus facing the wrong direction, showing nothing but the ground underneath the probe.
Actually, the shots that were filmed at a soundstage on Earth were fake, just as Kubrick's testimony. As the matter of fact, the guy pretending to be Kubrick was not Kubrick but an actor, and the whole thing was allegedly some sort of mockumentary to fuel the conspiracy theories. Likewise for that whole
"Alternative 3" documentary, which was fake as well, notwithstanding that a certain
Fearless Leader™ and his faithful flock of sycophants believe that it was real.
It was real, though. But as I explained — and I know that it's difficult to come to terms with — the moon is a
very different environment to Earth, and things/objects do not always behave there as they would on Earth.
Well, I can only speculate about the reasons why. I think that part of it is the attempt to keep the weight down by not including equipment that's not deemed absolutely necessary, in part also because back at the time, a round trip to the moon was the event of a lifetime — it had never been done before — whereas nowadays, it's more of an
"Oh, if we forget about something then we'll take care of it on our next mission." The magic of that first excursion toward another celestial body is no longer there. With all of space exploration's endeavors of the last five decades, sending a robot to the moon is almost merely a simple routine now.
Secondly, this particular mission is also far more specific regarding its objectives. It's not a general-purpose
"Let's try to get human beings to land on that rock and see what it's like over there"-thing anymore, but a specific geological survey.
Thirdly, then there's also how much time and attention the media are willing to devote to it in the midst of far "sexier" news, like the upcoming race for the White House between two rather controversial figures, the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and whatever sports game or reality show Joe Sixpack is interested in these days.
Yes, and the whole thing was controlled by two 8-bit Commodore C=64 computers.
Okay, yes, and three humans too.
Maybe it's not so much the technology that's backsliding, but rather human ingenuity. Furthermore, back in the day, the whole thing was one big NASA event, but nowadays most of the mission's logistical support rests in private hands. The rocket that launched the thing toward the moon was from SpaceX — the lander itself is from yet another company, called Intuitive Machines — and SpaceX has already long proven that they can not only launch the thing up into space, but also get it to land here on Earth again — and even on a floating platform at sea — after having sent its payload on the way. So the awe-moment of that particular aspect has already long expired, and especially since there are no humans onboard of the probe itself — it's a robot.
Perhaps not a good comparison, but it's a little like the first ship sailing toward an as yet uncharted continent, versus hopping on a plane in New York to go and sign a business contract in Abu Dhabi.
Another aspect is that there are no cameras on the lunar surface to film the touchdown due to the landing site now being near the lunar south pole, as opposed to near the equator, where the other lunar landings have occurred.
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