The Mythbusters will be taking on the enduring Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theory on August 27.

The Mythbusters take on one of their biggest, most controversial myths ever: Could the July 1969 moon landing have been an elaborate hoax? First, Adam and Jamie focus on photos, testing the theory that two of NASA’s most famous images were shot in a studio. Then, they investigate the myth that to get the classic “low lunar gravity look” the government shot the footage in a studio and then simply slowed it down. And Grant, Tory and Kari take on the claims that the footage of footprints and flags flapping in zero gravity had to be faked.

(Apparently whomever wrote their press release flunked out of science class; the moon has 1/6 gravity.)

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy acted as a consultant for the show. One of the commenters on his post referenced this xkcd cartoon about the Mythbusters, which sums them up nicely.

I’m glad someone is holding this perennial piece of horse hockey up to skepticism again (Penn and Teller covered it briefly a few seasons ago, but their audience is limited to Showtime subscribers). It won’t shake the faith of the True Believers, but it might convince a few fence-sitters.

This is one of those conspiracy theories that just make me itch to slap somebody, so I may have to try and catch the show.

(via The Daily Grail)