Nasa hits back at Kim Kardashian's moon landing conspiracy

US space agency Nasa has rejected reality star Kim Kardashian's claim that the 1969 space mission to land the first man on the Moon was faked.

"Yes, we've been to the Moon before... 6 times!" Nasa acting administrator Sean Duffy wrote on social media.

Kardashian made the comments on the latest episode of her long-running TV series The Kardashians, telling co-star Sarah Paulson she thought the Moon landing "didn't happen".

Despite being consistently debunked, conspiracy theories as to whether humans actually reached the Moon have persisted for more than 50 years, particularly with the rise of social media.

In the episode, Kardashian can be seen showing Paulson an interview with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who along with Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission.

"I'm sending you a million articles with both Buzz Aldrin and the other one," Kardashian says, before reading a quote allegedly from Aldrin responding to a question about the scariest moment of the expedition.

"There was no scary moment because it didn't happen. It could've been scary, but it wasn't because it didn't happen," she reads.

Kardashian appears to be referring to comments made by Aldrin during a talk in the UK in 2015. During that exchange, Aldrin does not seem to suggest that the expedition did not happen, but instead that a scary moment did not happen. However, he is then prompted to recite an anecdote about a broken circuit breaker.

In her conversation with Paulson, Kardashian is later seen telling a producer that she believes the Moon landing was fake.

"I think it was fake. I've seen a few videos on Buzz Aldrin talking about how it didn't happen," she says. "He says it all the time now, in interviews. Maybe we should find Buzz Aldrin."

Aldrin has not yet commented on Kardashian's remarks.

Fact-checkers, including at the Reuters news agency, have previously debunked conspiracy theories in which Aldrin's comments have been misinterpreted to suggest he has admitted the landing did not happen.

Following the Kardashian broadcast, Duffy tagged the reality star in a post on X, rebuffing her comments, and promoted Nasa's current moon exploration program Artemis, which is "going back under the leadership" of Donald Trump.

"We won the last space race and we will win this one too," he added.

In response, Kardashian wrote back asking about the interstellar object named 3I/Atlas, which astronomers said could be the oldest comet ever seen.

"Wait…. what's the tea on 3I Atlas?!?!!!!!!!?????" she replied.

Duffy later invited Kardashian to the Kennedy Space Center for the launch of the Artemis mission to the moon.

For decades, scientists and experts have rebutted conspiracy theories claiming the Apollo 11 mission was a hoax.

"Every single argument claiming that Nasa faked the Moon landings has been discredited," according to the Institute of Physics.