Russian official wants to investigate whether U.S. moon landings actually happened

In this July 20, 1969, file photo, a footprint left by one of the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission shows in the soft, powder surface of the moon. (AP Photo/NASA)

The increasingly tense relationship between the United States and Russia might be about to face a new challenge: a Russian investigation into American moon landings.

In an op-ed published by Russian newspaper Izvestia on Tuesday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the government's official Investigative Committee, argued that such an investigation could reveal new insights into the historical space journeys.

According to a translation by the Moscow Times, Markin would support an inquiry into the disappearance of original footage from the first moon landing in 1969 and the whereabouts of lunar rock, which was brought back to earth during several missions.

"We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon], and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific — or perhaps cultural — artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened," Markin wrote, according to the Moscow Times translation.

The op-ed is unlikely to raise worries among NASA officials. In 2009, NASA itself admitted that it had erased the original video recordings of the first moon landing among 200,000 other tapes in order to save money, according to Reuters. However, NASA has since restored copies of the landing, using recordings from other sources such as CBS News. The organization says that due to restoration efforts, the recordings' quality is superior to the original one that has gone missing.

This file photo from July 19, 1969, released by NASA, shows the Earth as seen from the Apollo 11 command module as it orbits the Moon. (NASA)

NASA did also emphasize the uniqueness of lunar soil and rock in the past. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," David McKay, chief scientist for planetary science and exploration at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where most of the material is stored, was quoted as saying by NASA's Web site in 2001.

So, why is Investigative Committee member Markin speculating about conspiracy theories surrounding U.S. moon landings that happened decades ago? In his op-ed, the Russian official also emphasized that "U.S. authorities had crossed a line by launching a large-scale corruption probe targeting nine FIFA officials," according to the Moscow Times.