Posted on 01/05/2003 5:06:37 PM PST by ContentiousObjector
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Is that the moon or a studio in the Nevada desert? How can the flag flutter when there's no wind on the moon? Why can't we see stars in the moon-landing pictures?
For three decades, NASA has taken the high road, ignoring those who claimed the Apollo moon landings were faked and part of a colossal government conspiracy.
The claims and suspicious questions such as the ones cited here mostly showed up in books and on the Internet. But last year's prime-time Fox TV special on the so-called "moon hoax" prompted schoolteachers and others to plead with NASA for factual ammunition to fight back.
So a few months ago, the space agency budgeted $15,000 to hire a former rocket scientist and author to produce a small book refuting the disbelievers' claims. It would be written primarily with teachers and students in mind.
The idea backfired, however, embarrassing the space agency for responding to ignorance, and the book deal was chucked.
"The issue of trying to do a targeted response to this is just lending credibility to something that is, on its face, asinine," NASA chief Sean O'Keefe said in late November after the dust settled.
So it's back to square one -- ignoring the hoaxers. That's troubling to some scientific experts who contend that someone needs to lead the fight against scientific illiteracy and the growing belief in pseudoscience such as aliens and astrology.
Someone like NASA.
"If they don't speak out, who will?" asks Melissa Pollak, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation.
Author James Oberg will. The former space shuttle flight controller plans to write the book NASA commissioned from him even though the agency pulled the plug. He is seeking money elsewhere. His working title: "A Pall Over Apollo."
Tom Hanks will speak out, too.
The Academy Award-winning actor, who starred in the 1995 movie "Apollo 13" and later directed the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon," is working on another lunar-themed project. The IMAX documentary will feature Apollo archival footage. Its title: "Magnificent Desolation," astronaut Buzz Aldrin's real-time description of the moon on July 20, 1969.
While attending the Cape Canaveral premiere of the IMAX version of "Apollo 13" in November, Hanks said the film industry has a responsibility to promote historical literacy. He took a jab at the 1978 movie "Capricorn One," which had NASA's first manned mission to Mars being faked on a sound stage.
"We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity," Hanks said. "There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened."
A spokesman for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington says there will always be those who will not be convinced. But the museum does not engage them in debate.
The spokesman acknowledges, however, that if a major news channel was doing a program that questioned the authenticity of the Holocaust, "I'd certainly want to inject myself into the debate with them in a very forceful way."
Television's Fox Network was the moon-hoax purveyor. In February 2001 and again a month later, Fox broadcast an hourlong program titled "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?"
Roger Launius, who agreed to Oberg's book just before leaving NASA's history office, says the story about the moon hoax has been around a long time. But the Fox show "raised it to a new level, it gave it legs and credibility that it didn't have before."
Indeed, the National Science Foundation's Pollak says two of her colleagues, after watching the Fox special, thought it was possible that NASA faked the moon landings. "These are people who work at NSF," she stresses.
The story went -- and still goes -- something like this: America was desperate to beat the Soviet Union in the high-stakes race to the moon, but lacked the technology to pull it off. So NASA faked the six manned moon landings in a studio somewhere out West.
Ralph Rene, a retired carpenter in Passaic, N.J., takes it one step farther. The space fakery started during the Gemini program, according to Rene, author of the 1992 book, NASA Mooned America!
"I don't know what real achievements they've done because when do you trust a liar?" Rene says. "I know we have a shuttle running right around above our heads, but that's only 175 miles up. It's under the shield. You cannot go through the shield and live."
He is talking, of course, about the radiation shield.
Alex Roland, a NASA historian during the 1970s and early 1980s, says his office used to have "a kook drawer" for such correspondence and never took it seriously. But there were no prime-time TV shows disputing the moon landings then -- and no Internet.
Still, Roland would be inclined to "just let it go because you'll probably just make it worse by giving it any official attention."
Within NASA, opinions were split about a rebuttal book. Oberg, a Houston-based author of 12 books, mostly about the Russian space program, said ignoring the problem "just makes this harder. To a conspiracy mind, refusing to respond is a sign of cover-up."
Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell does not know what else, if anything, can be done to confront this moon madness.
"All I know is that somebody sued me because I said I went to the moon," says the 74-year-old astronaut. "Of course, the courts threw it out."
The authorities also threw out the case involving Apollo 11 moonwalker Aldrin in September.
A much bigger and younger man was hounding the 72-year-old astronaut in Beverly Hills, Calif., calling him "a coward, a liar and a thief" and trying to get him to swear on a Bible, on camera, that he walked on the moon. Aldrin, a Korean War combat pilot, responded with a fist in the chops.
Okey dokey.
Not only dumb but technically incorrect insofar as shielding requirements.
So, Harry Callahan never answered your ping, apparently.
Alas, the fluoride got him.
I like how Buzz gets to the key subject at hand without getting bogged down in the details.
I think he'll resurface with a gripping story of alien abduction and anal probes someday.
I'm reminded of this everytime I see Pelosi, Kennedy, Hildebeast, Reid, Slick, sKerry,....
"...Armstrong is an engineer and I believe he is an honorable man. I for one would like to hear it all from him...."
I am currently reading an authorized bio of him, "First Man-the life of Neil Armstrong". Good book. If Neil, Buzz, and the other ten guys that walked on the moon sadi they did, I'll believe them. This cannot be the Mother of all Hoaxes.
"...as that one imbecilic mark did to Aldrin, at the expense of his jaw...."
I've seen the clip. Buzz got a real good shot in on this clown. I've also seen the same guy hounding John Young. He tried the same thing and Young took off running for an elevator. Young could have matched Aldrin with a shot of his own. That jerk has houded all those that went to the moon. They hate the prick with a passion.
You have that right! Buzz is an American Hero plain and simple. Disrespect him and you deserve the consequences.
"...I like how Buzz gets to the key subject at hand without getting bogged down in the details...."
Just like he did assisting Neil with landing on the moon, eh?
Try google. These "questions" have been answered many times. See Project Apollo Radiation Protection and Instrumentation.
The Van Allen belts aren't all they are cracked up to be by the "crack pots" out there. A blast from Solar flares would be more worrisome, but the Apollo astronauts received doses far lower than the occupational exposure limits allowed by the NRC. And over the last 30 years, none of the astronauts has exhibited any ill effects from their missions.
Is this issue still alive?
Armstrong was never one to run his mouth. I don't think he'll be helpful.
Hummmm? Maybe because they don't have a couple hundred billion dollars to blow on a publicity stunt?
Don't get me wrong. I was divoted to the 60s space program. I visited "The Cape", stood next to a Saturan V, saw Apollo 11 being being put together in the VAB, met astronauts and consider July 20, 1969 to be among the most important dates in human history. BUT, the manned space program was mostly a pissing match with the Soviets that thankfully, we won. It was not necessarly a wise investment of resources.
You mean it wasn't? 8-)
Well, if you listen to Walter Cronkite's science advisor, Richard C. Hoagland, NASA's been covering up Martian-built
structures on Mars for 40 years...
Any way, the last I heard, there are five arrays of the French corner reflectors. Three Apollo, and two by Soviet-French
missions. The Soviets deposited theirs about the time of Apollo too.
thanks for your reply #319. I had forgotten about the Russian retro-reflector arrays.
Notice that my last comment was in January of 2003.
These threads don't ever die out.
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.
