DID ANYONE REALLY LAND ON THE MOON?

The National Post published a fascinating article written by Calum Marsh which bears being published in my blog. Here is what he wrote.

                                                           

Part of the reason the moon landing has been a matter of such particular fascination (and fixation) for such men and women is the apparent truth it demonstrates about the government on a world-historical scale. To the ardent conspiracy theorist, the government is capable of anything — except, of course, sending men to the moon.

It was the summer of 1969. The world’s attention was skyward toward the moon, where Apollo 11 approached its epoch-making destiny. But in a house on the beach off the coast of central California was a man who knew better than to care. His name is Bill Kaysing. He is a former technical writer at Rocketdyne, the company that built the spacecraft’s main propulsion units.

In his book, We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, which features chapters such as “Elements of Rocket Propulsion” and “Were the Astronauts Manchurian Candidates,” he describes his personal apprehensions about the veracity of the project:  “Why, of all people, shouldn’t I be captivated with the prospect of seeing the fruition of my work and the labours of thousands of others who had contributed to the Apollo voyage programs?” he wonders. “Somehow I seemed to have perceived that the Apollo project had become a gigantic hoax and that nobody was leaving Earth for the moon, certainly not in July of 1969.”

He begins with skepticism and proceeds to confirm his own disbeliefs. Kaysing’s book represents what he calls “an invitation to NASA or other groups or concerned individuals to review the concept present and refute it with some indisputable evidence that we have, indeed, landed on the moon.” Of course, evidence such as “photos” or “superficial items” will not suffice to satisfy his dubious mind.

“Why did astronauts seem to score attractive jobs following their return? Why did various other astronauts, those whose launch attempts failed, wind up conveniently dead? And why did we never hear about gold or silver or diamonds on the moon? The questions tormenting such doubters “have never been satisfactorily answered by NASA,” Kaysing argues.

We have all, at some time or another pondered these mysteries. Only Kaysing seeks at last to solve them. “Recognizing that ASP officials would cover their tracks as effectively as the CIA agents who concealed the murderers of President Kennedy,” he explains sensibly enough when introducing his original research that the author made an unusual effort to find clues that would indicate that a simulation had, in fact, taken place.”

The effort was certainly unusual. On page 21 of his book, he presents a facsimile of a well-known photograph of the lunar surface, the black of outer space cresting up beyond the horizon behind. It bears a terse caption: “Where are the stars?” Yes, it was foolish of NASA’s counterfeiters to have left stars out of what Kaysing concludes is an obvious composite. Were these photos as fraudulent as he maintains, and had they included whatever details whose absence he cites as clinching proof of their fraudulence, Kaysing would chalk the added touches up to NASA’s fastidiousness. Photos can be faked. So, of course, they must be.

“Look closely at both of these purported moon landing shots,” Kaysing writes above a straightforward pair of moon pictures pasted side by side. Most of his proof has this same tone of self-appointed expertise: don’t trust the word of NASA; your own eyes can see the truth. It is enough that something merely seems true.

Skeptics like Kaysing are not persuaded by photographs or live broadcasts or even by the rocks that were brought back to Earth from the moon. How can evidence compete with instinct? How can images of the real moon convince you it’s not a sound stage? If one feels according to one’s gut that, say, the shadows cast across the lunar surface by the landing module ought to be pointed another direction, or that the landing module ought to have created a blast crater that should have been visible in pictures of the craft, that counts for more to the obstinate conspiracy theorist than easily manipulable trivialities such as facts.

One simply has to look for potential motivation.  NASA was ashamed of the $30 billion it had invested in the project without result. Some impatient and powerful politicians were embarrassed that the Soviet Union had continued to outpace their progress in the space race; the president was desperate to distract an aggrieved public from its dissent toward the Vietnam War.

Always the same nefarious machinations of the powers that be, whatever explanation the theorist chooses specifically to believe. The point, ultimately, seems to be to pull the wool over the eyes of an impressionable populace. It is the theorist alone who sees the secret truth — and can tell the rest of us “sheeple” to wake up to it.

Like most conspiracies of this scale, a non-factual counter-argument can be made that it is difficult to imagine so many people preserving the fiction such as thousands who worked on the Apollo missions; hundreds who were responsible for the launch and the landing and were eyewitnesses to its success and most especially, three men were actually in space, two of them walking on the surface of the moon. So incredible would the feat of faking the moon landing and keeping the reality of the hoax a secret for half a century, that it barely seems worth the effort. It would have been easier to just land on the moon.

Well, conspiracy theorists have an explanation for the breadth of the subterfuge, too. They point to the many other historical instances of government deception — the fact that we know of them because they were at some point exposed or confessed does not seem to trouble them.

The Flat-earth Movement is the best symbol of the increasingly diminished value of truth and intelligence.

How a constant desire to be entertained made us 24/7 performers in an unreal reality.  It is the nature of the conspiracy theory to doubt reason and favour feeling. A hunch can be seductive; a hunch was all it took for Kaysing to disregard the transmissions beamed into what he calls his “boob tube,” and to pursue on the strength of his inexplicable conviction the proof necessary to make vague suspicions look like certain truth.

Casting doubt on photographs of the moon because they seem to you to contain errors or contradictions is a handy way to feel superior to the benighted masses who accept whatever happens to be presented to them by the representatives of the status quo. And it’s less work for the layman to doubt by sight or intuition than to actually investigate these claims or learn anything concrete about the facts.

That is the end of Calum Marsh’s article. Now I will give you my own opinion.  

We have two other words that describe conspiracies. They are Fake News.

Kaysing does raise two interesting points however.  In the NASA photo of the landing, he asks, “Where are the stars ?” He also asked, “Why isn’t there a depression where the landing module ought to have created a blast crater that should have been visible in pictures of the craft? 

I am not sure that the stars would show in the photo as the light from the stars may have not been bright enough to see in the photo if the speed of the camera was set to operate as a fast speed. I think that I can explain why there was no depression caused by the landing craft. When we saw one of the astronauts jumping up and down on the surface of the moon, he went up several feet off the surface and when he came down, it was a slow descent. That is because there is much less gravity on the moon because the moon is much smaller than Earth. It follows that the module came down slowly and hence, the blast would have been far less than if it was on Earth and for this reason, the blast was simply blowing the sand and small stones evenly about the surrounding area. 

Conspiracy theories have been around for ages.  Some people are habitual conspiracists who bring us a variety of various conspiracy theories. For example, some people believe that world politics are controlled by a cabal instead of governments or that scientists are deceiving them. Here is another one. scientists systematically deceive  the public. These twits are obviously   mentally disturbed, uneducated or have other motives such as creating fake news which is what prompts them to submit their ridiculous theories. 

Here is one for you to consider. The moon is made of cheese. That statement has been said so many times, it is conceivable that many people whose brains aren’t in full gear actually believe it.