Original article (in Croatian) was published on 21/4/2026; Author: Ivan Nekić
The AI-generated image features the Artemis II astronauts, but a television studio has been artificially added around them.
Conspiracy theorists and flat-Earth proponents have long denied the existence of outer space and the planets of the Solar System as understood by modern science and astronomy. NASA’s space missions are among the most frequently targeted subjects of misinformation on social media and within conspiracy theory communities.
These theories claim that astronauts have never actually travelled into space and that rocket launches and Moon missions were filmed in television studios. Despite extensive documentary evidence – including live broadcasts, photographs and video recordings – showing that Moon missions and human spaceflight have indeed taken place, conspiracy theorists remain unconvinced. Their latest target is NASA’s Artemis II mission.
A private Facebook user shared a collage of images allegedly proving that an official photograph from the mission was taken in a studio rather than aboard the spacecraft, accompanied by the caption (archived here):
“Some people go to the Moon, some to Mars, and I’m going to bed. Keeeeep watching everything!”
The “studio” image was generated by artificial intelligence
NASA’s Artemis II mission was not filmed in a television studio, and there is no evidence that it was staged. The lower image in the collage is clearly AI-generated.
Several visual inconsistencies reveal this. The astronaut on the left has an unnatural indentation within the arm. The faces of two astronauts are noticeably distorted. The woman standing to the left of the Black astronaut has unnaturally twisted fingers, while the front of her left foot points outward even though her lower leg is facing straight ahead.
Our assessment is further supported by Hive Moderation, an AI image detection tool, which concluded there is a 99.8% probability that the image was generated using artificial intelligence.
The mission itself was also broadcast live on NASA’s official YouTube channel, where viewers could watch the launch and hear real-time conversations with the astronauts as they travelled toward the Moon.
A broadcast glitch fuelled another conspiracy theory
The Artemis II mission has generated several conspiracy theories in addition to the fabricated studio image. One of them centres on a video that allegedly proves the mission was staged.
The video, recorded on a smartphone from a television broadcast, shows an interview with the Artemis II crew while they were floating in microgravity. A woman speaking off camera can be heard asking, “What’s wrong with the caption behind that ball?” as the camera zooms in on text that appears to overlap part of the mission’s official mascot.
According to AFP, the clip showing the supposed broadcast glitch accumulated more than 1.5 million views on social media, reinforcing longstanding conspiracy theories claiming that NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing was staged in a Hollywood studio.
However, the original interview contains no such broadcasting error. A reverse image search shows that the footage originated from a CNN YouTube broadcast on April 5 titled “Artemis II crew speaks while headed to the moon.” The footage was taken directly from NASA’s official live stream during the fourth day of the mission. The section circulating online corresponds to approximately 4 minutes and 36 seconds into the broadcast, but no text is seen overlapping the floating object.
The toy visible in the video is the official Artemis II mission mascot, named Rise. The plush toy serves as the mission’s zero-gravity indicator and was inspired by the iconic Earthrise photograph taken during an earlier lunar mission.
Hany Farid, co-founder of GetReal Security and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP that the clip simply shows “a failed text overlay in the broadcast.”
“Since we only see the text on the blue portion of the rotating object, I suspect the broadcaster failed to insert the blue banner onto which the text was supposed to be overlaid,” Farid explained.
Artemis II travelled farther from Earth than any humans before
The Artemis II crew – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, together with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – made history by becoming the first humans to fly around the Moon in more than half a century, travelling farther into deep space than any previous crew.
They returned to Earth with valuable observations of little-studied lunar craters, a solar eclipse and meteor impacts on the Moon, which scientists hope will provide important new insights for future lunar research.
After spending ten days in space, the crew safely returned to Earth on April 10. All four astronauts were successfully recovered after their capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, and the mission was widely regarded as a major success.
In conclusion, the lower image in the circulating collage, which allegedly shows NASA’s Artemis II mission being filmed in a studio, was generated using artificial intelligence. Artemis II was extensively covered by the media, including live broadcasts from the spacecraft itself, while crew members communicated directly with journalists throughout the mission. The expedition also produced a wealth of new scientific observations and imagery that will play an important role in future exploration of the Moon.
