Posted on 02/10/2003 9:59:36 AM PST by TomB
There's going to be a comedic section here,'' Bart Sibrel says. ''Some man-on-the-street kind of interviews that I did.'' He hits the fast-forward control to race through a rough cut of his new documentary. Sibrel's studio, located along a strip of storefront recording joints and one-room editing suites known as Nashville's Music Row, is actually his tiny two-room apartment, crammed with mixers and Apple computers. On a Sony Trinitron, the video screeches to a halt and then rolls on some average folks exercising their First Amendment right to express heartfelt opinions on both sides of a debate.
One American says, ''Yes, I think we walked on the moon.''
Another American offers balance: ''Jury's still out in my opinion.''
Sibrel cranks up the background music he has selected, and the familiar voice of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe brings it on home: If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon. If you believe there's nothing up my sleeve, then nothing is cool.
Sibrel is part of a new generation of conspiracy mega-theorists. They don't toy with the small stuff. Ever since the passing of that sweet, simpler time -- when the Trilateral Commission ordered the hit on John Kennedy and the Queen of England managed the drug cartels -- the narratives of big suspicion have been distorted by the same force that has reshaped our partisan politics, action movies and morning TV talk shows: outrage inflation. To be noticed now, a theory must be of a scope only Stephen Hawking could measure, and it must be promulgated by an amiable spokesman who can deftly juggle often absurd contradictions. Sibrel is not your father's conspiracy theorist -- some grumpy autodidact with a self-published book raging at the gates of the establishment. Sibrel came of age in the post-Watergate era. He has absorbed the real lesson of the last two decades: push for belief in ever bolder and more unlikely ideas. Plus, he knows how to make decent television.
Sibrel's first documentary, ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon,'' is a 47-minute feature contending that what people saw on their television screens that famous July night in 1969 was in fact filmed on a back lot. (Sibrel says he believes that it was probably directed by Stanley Kubrick and shot at Area 51 in Nevada.)
Sibrel introduces his thesis with a lighthearted visual montage of real rockets, entertainingly blowing up. As Dinah Washington performs her 1962 hit ''Destination Moon'' (''Come and take a trip on my rocket ship, we'll have a lovely afternoon''), one rocket after another fires off, then hooks right back around to plunge nose first into the launching pad and explode in a spectacular ball of fire. (''Kiss the world goodbye, and away we'll fly, destination Moon.'')
Statistics are vague, but somewhere between 6 and 10 percent of Americans say they don't believe astronauts ever landed on the moon. That percentage is growing, in part because conspiracy theorists now have easy access to media tools -- jump cuts, dissolves, special effects, studio-quality voice-over, zippy credits -- that bolster their theories with something they've never had before: the elegant formatting of television truth.
The megatheories provide huge umbrella explanations of the world around us. The black-helicopter/New World Order videos that began popping up after the collapse of Communism still sell well. ''The Bible Code,'' which argues that events in the past and the future were encrypted 3,000 years ago in Holy Scripture, is again a best seller in its sequel edition. Sibrel is a smaller-scale challenger, but his sales are growing; so far he has moved 20,000 copies of his first film, all through the Internet.
To the generations raised after the moon shot, Sibrel's questions do tease one's curiosity: Why is there no crater beneath the lunar landing module, even through it could allegedly fire 10,000 pounds of thrust? Since the only light source on the moon was the sun, why do the astronauts' shadows tilt in toward each other in some photographs, instead of running parallel? Why is the flag waving in the breeze on an airless moon, and why are there no stars in the dark space sky?
NASA has been confounded by these questions, though not because the agency is unable to answer them. Rather, the old science geeks believe it is beneath their SAT scores to respond at all. As James Oberg, a noted space writer, recalls: ''NASA put out this press release in 2001 that said something like: 'There's a debate about whether we went to the moon. We did.' End of press release. They are hampered by their own conceit.'' While NASA may have the facts on their side, in terms of understanding how the contemporary media work, the space agency is light years behind Bart Sibrel.
continued......
This story is entirely too kind to the pinhead.
Nice to see the NYT can be "fair" to moon hoax advocates but not conservatives.
</>sarcasm
Not only was the dust layer covering the lunar regolith suprisingly thin, but the blast from the engine itself was much less than you would expect.
By the time the LM was about to land, it weighed in the vicinity of 3000 pounds in the 1/6th gravity of the moon. Obviously then, then engine only needed to be throttled up to that level to hover or slightly below that to land. Now, the nozzle of the descent engine is around 50(?) inches across, which yields a surface area of around 2000 square inches. That means the pressure of the blast coming out of the nozzle, right at the nozzle, would be around 1.5 p.s.i. I'd say that most people blowing through their mouths could produce more pressure.
People hear "rocket engine" and assume power such as the Saturn V or the Shuttle's SRBs, but they didn't need much oomph for a small craft on the moon.
Another way to put this into perspective is to look at a Harrier SVTOL jet. If you've ever seen it land on a field, you see that it doesn't leave a crater, and yet the weight of the plane is around 24,000 pounds{very approx.), so each of the four nozzles has to put out at least 6000 pounds of thrust. Each nozzle puts out twice what the LM put out!
(As you can see, I'm a real Apollo nut.)
Aldrin's right hook to the nose is particularly impressive. Outside a hotel, Sibrel suddenly appears in front of the second man to walk on the moon and badgers him with the Bible. Aldrin recognizes him, and it's no surprise: earlier in the year, Sibrel had conned Aldrin into a regular interview. On that first occasion, when Aldrin figured out the documentary's angle, he ripped off his microphone and provided Sibrel with a quick overview of his theories: ''I think you're full of [astronaut jargon deleted],'' Aldrin explained.On this second encounter, Aldrin tried to brush Sibrel aside several times. When that failed, the astronaut launched his fist in a graceful parabola that landed, without any guidance from Houston, right between Sibrel's eyes.
"Houston, this is Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed."
"To the moon, Alice!"
Under Apollo 15 they landed partly on a depression or crater so the view is somewhat obscure:
Didn't seem to ba any good photo's of the landing bell from the other missions.
AHA!!! That obviously means they're hiding something.
Well......
OK, maybe I don't miss them THAT much.
Whatever you do don't squeeze their heads when you try to remove them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.