Conspiracy theorists have suggested that NASA and SpaceX's launch was called off because it was "fake" and that they had no plans to take astronauts Robert L Behnken and Douglas G Hurley to the International Space Station.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported that the organizations were set to make history on Wednesday, May 27, by attempting the first launch of a manned-mission from American soil after 11 years, only to scrap it just 20 minutes before liftoff.
The launch was set to take place from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at 4.33 pm EDT but problems arose when the weather around the site was deemed to be a problem and was declared "red", which meant the spacecraft would not take off under the conditions.
In a tweet, NASA explained, "Today’s launch was scrubbed due to weather. There were no issues with the @SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. The next launch attempt is Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. ET. #LaunchAmerica."
SpaceX provided a similar explanation. "Standing down from launch today due to unfavorable weather in the flight path. Our next launch opportunity is Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT, or 19:22 UTC."
But several Twitter users were seemingly unimpressed with the reasoning and claimed this was another attempt at faking a space mission. They brought up the Apollo 11 mission that landed American Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, which has repeatedly been the subject of conspiracy theories that it was staged in a film studio, as proof for their logic.
"I watched the live feed for five hours and they didn't launch. Smh. Clearly, they were trying to find a way to fake it just like they did the moon landing! Be better NASA," one person wrote.
"No front-facing camera on the rocket again? And more CGI instead of video footage?" a second user asked.
A third tweeted, "I'm just going to say that the fake moon landing looked more convincing than that SpaceX thing yesterday and that was 50 years ago."
"NASA don't exist. Gov did it fake every time. They were having issues with green screen this time and hence they postponed the launch," another added.
The poor weather that was blamed for the failed launch is said to have had to do with tropical storm Bertha forming off the coast of South Carolina earlier in the day, with records showing a tornado warning was issued close to the Space Center.
The decision to call it off was made to ensure the safety of the astronauts in an emergency such as a rocket failure. In such a scenario, the capsule carrying them would blast away to safety and parachute into the Atlantic. But if it had happened in poor weather, rescuing them would become complicated.
The canceled launch was considered historic not only because it was expected to end America's dependency on Russia for space, but also because it would be the first time a private organization such as SpaceX would be launching NASA's astronauts.
