Transmissions

1. There should have been more than a two-second delay in communications between Earth and the Moon, at a distance of 400,000 km (250,000 mi).

The round trip light travel time of more than two seconds is apparent in all the real-time recordings of the lunar audio, but this does not always appear as expected. There may also be some documentary films where the delay has been edited out. Reasons for editing the audio may be time constraints or in the interest of clarity.

2. Typical delays in communication were about 0.5 seconds.

Claims that the delays were only half a second are untrue, as examination of the original recordings shows. Also, there should not be a consistent time delay between every response, as the conversation is being recorded at one end – Mission Control. Responses from Mission Control could be heard without any delay, as the recording is being made at the same time that Houston receives the transmission from the Moon.

3. The Parkes Observatory in Australia was billed to the world for weeks as the site that would be relaying communications from the first moonwalk.

However, five hours before transmission they were told to stand down.

The timing of the first moonwalk was changed after the landing. In fact, delays in getting the moonwalk started meant that Parkes did cover almost the entire Apollo 11 moonwalk.

Personnel in the Parkes control room. L-R (rear): George Kropp, William Reytar L-R (front): Robert Taylor (NASA Operations Manager), Wilson Hunter (NASA representative in Australia), John Bolton (Director, Parkes Observatory)

4. Parkes supposedly had the clearest video feed from the Moon, but Australian media and all other known sources ran a live feed from the United States.

While that was the original plan, and, according to some sources, the official policy, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) did take the transmission direct from the Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek radio telescopes. These were converted to NTSC television at Paddington, in Sydney. This meant that Australian viewers saw the moonwalk several seconds before the rest of the world.[138] See also Parkes radio astronomer John Sarkissian's article, "On Eagle's Wings: The Parkes Observatory's Support of the Apollo 11 Mission"[139] The events surrounding the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying the live television of the moonwalk were portrayed in a slightly fictionalized Australian film comedy "The Dish" (2000).

5. Better signal was supposedly received at Parkes Observatory when the Moon was on the opposite side of the planet.

This is not supported by the detailed evidence and logs from the missions.