Precisely 50 years ago, Apollo 9 took three astronauts into low Earth orbit, where two of them opened a hatch into the void to perform a spacewalk - a crucial step to the Moon Landings. This week, a new chapter in America’s space programme came to a triumphant close when Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, having successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

But today, a large and growing number of people will insist that none of the above ever happened. Apollo 9, Apollo 11, the Dragon Capsule, the ISS - they dismiss it all. And not because of the decades-old conspiracy theory that the moon landings were hoaxed by Nasa, but because of an emerging belief that the entire edifice of space is fake.

It is, inevitably, a predominantly online movement. There, amid a handful of trolls, countless tweets, videos and blogs pumped out by passionate “planers” are winning huge audiences by lending credence to the idea that the entire architecture of our solar system as we know it is a fraud.

They and fellow believers rally under the hashtagged banner: #spaceisfake.

One video shared on YouTube explaining the “space is fake” conspiracy has racked up 1.6m views after being uploaded just two weeks ago.