{"id":114103,"date":"2018-07-09T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=114103"},"modified":"2018-07-12T12:25:47","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T11:25:47","slug":"how-high-the-moon-or-the-greatest-deception-of-them-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/07\/how-high-the-moon-or-the-greatest-deception-of-them-all\/","title":{"rendered":"How High the Moon? Or the Greatest Deception of Them All…"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Fake news” is nothing new. In less glamorous times, perhaps, it was known as subterfuge, lying, deceit, deception, advertising or public relations.\u00a0One of the advantages of aging is that one may look back and, in so looking back, events which, at the time of perception, seemed perfectly plausible, can be peered at more closely and, can, in fact, be seen for what they really were.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Thus Pearl Harbor, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident’ that launched the Vietnamese debacle, and, more recently, the ostensible discover of Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ — all of these events, considered in the reflective hindsight of reason, have been exposed.<\/p>\n

We now know that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was, at the very least, a provocation<\/a>; that the unleashing of nuclear weapons upon Japan was strategically unnecessary<\/a>; that the Gulf of Tonkin events were a lie<\/a> and, of course, that Colin Powell’s ‘proof’ to the United Nations that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction <\/a>was false.<\/p>\n

Lies of course have consequences and governments employ them to serve various interests of State: all governments lie, needless to say, to serve themselves.\u00a0Indeed a complete catalogue of governmental deceptions would be virtually immeasurable: it may be far more fruitful to ask when these entities actually tell the truth. And even then, one should be sceptical: for truth, like Scripture, may be a devil’s tool as well: “for oftentimes to win us to our harm the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betrays in deepest consequence” as Banquo tells Macbeth (Act I, Scene 3).<\/p>\n

In casting my eye over the vast array of State deceptions during my own lifetime, from JFK\u2019s assassination by a lone rifleman to the implosion of World Trade Tower 7 from office fires on 9\/11, I had never thought to question the Apollo moon missions. These achievements, after all, represented humankind at its best: the striving for and reaching a goal that had hitherto been thought impossible.<\/p>\n

The landing of a man on our moon was, we were told, something that transcended nationalism: although carried out by the United States, it unified all of our fragile species for several glorious years.<\/p>\n

The Apollo missions occurred at a time when the United States was deeply at war, both hot and cold, and in the aftermath of a series of political assassinations, civil rights marches and student revolt. They were, as I remember them, the bright and shining examples of America\u2019s masterfully benevolent exceptionalism, a kind of salve for the wounds we had inflicted, a beacon to our shuddering masses in the midst of strife. To doubt them \u2013 as a few cranks I knew at the time insisted on doing \u2013 was as absurd as doubting apple pie. Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

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Apollo 11 lunar sky<\/p><\/div>\n

History, in the decades since I was a teenager and now, has intervened, and I suppose that the weight of so many duplicitous occurrences has led me to cast an eye on what I had hitherto thought to be unassailably true. In so doing I have been led to the conclusion that this giant leap for mankind was the greatest deception of them all.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a cover-up, it didn\u2019t hide a crime, it wasn\u2019t a provocation used to justify another egregious assault somewhere far away. It was a masterstroke of propaganda, a masterpiece of psychological persuasion whose radiant glow continues to this day. How could a State capable of such powerful magnificence be so tawdry, bellicose and relentlessly destructive? Impossible \u2013 unless one is willing to face the very heart of the evil of power.<\/p>\n

I write therefore not to persuade but to invite my readers, however few, to question, to bear with me as I raise my own questions. There are so many improbabilities in the sequences that led to the Apollo moon landings that I can hardly do them justice: others have delineated and described them well, and they include the absence of a stepwise testing protocol, numerous photographic anomalies, and the lack of any independent verification of NASA\u2019s claims. Rather than attempt to manage this morass I will instead direct you to a compact handful of works which I believe are worth investigating (appended), but in passing I will \u00a0mention a few of the anomalies that caught my reflective eye: the absence of dust on the landing pads of the lunar module, the lack of a crater underneath the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) which would have been formed by the rockets thrusting for descent, and the repetition of identical background images in ostensibly different lunar locations.<\/p>\n

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Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module footpad: not a speck of dust!<\/p><\/div>\n

Furthermore, as a reasonably thoughtful person, I will ask you to consider the following major issues.<\/p>\n

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  1. Why hasn\u2019t NASA or anyone else for that matter returned a human being to the lunar surface since 1972?<\/li>\n
  2. Could the astronauts\u2019 space suits have protected them from the severe fluctuation of temperatures on the lunar surface (a 500 degree Fahrenheit swing from above boiling point in the sun to far below freezing in the shade)? Could they have protected them sufficiently from cosmic radiation and the dangers of micrometeorites?<\/li>\n
  3. Could the photographic film in the famous Hasselblad cameras used to take the iconic lunar photos have survived the radiation of space?<\/li>\n
  4. Could the Command Module\u2019s heat-shield have effectively prevented the craft from melting during re-entry into the atmosphere of Earth at speeds of 40,000 kmh?<\/li>\n
  5. Why are there no recent photos in fine resolution of the relics of the Apollo missions left on the lunar surface?<\/li>\n
  6. Where are the stars?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    NASA\u2019s Right of Return<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Given the wonderfully successful lunar landings of twelve astronauts during the Apollo missions, one would expect that returning to the moon would be a cinch for the agency that orchestrated the accomplishments in an era of relatively low computational technology.<\/p>\n

    Not so, apparently. Incredibly enough NASA astronaut Don Pettit<\/a> asserts that NASA destroyed the technology used during the Apollo missions and that \u201cit\u2019s a painful process to build it back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

    NASA engineer Kelly Smith<\/a>, when speaking of the Orion program, asserts that the problems of radiation have to be solved before we can send people into deep space beyond low earth orbit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    For the definitive treatment of these baffling matters, please see New Zealander Phil Kouts\u2019 most recent article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    NASA is having so much trouble getting \u2018back\u2019 to the moon simply because they never got there in the first place, and the obstacles posed by sending and returning a human being into deep space beyond low earth orbit have not yet been overcome.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Space Suits: the International Latex Corporation<\/strong><\/p>\n

    For astronauts to survive on the lunar surface during their extravehicular forays, they needed to be encased in spacesuits that would offer protection from severe temperatures, the radiation of space, and the danger posed by micrometeorites which would have been fatal if they created even a miniscule tear in the fabric of the suits.<\/p>\n

    Were their spacesuits and life support systems capable of these objectives? NASA of course claims yes, as they would, and the ILC contends that their suits did all that was required<\/a>, though others<\/a> have raised doubts, particularly with respect to radiation. I for one am flabbergasted to have seen the Apollo astronauts frolicking on the ostensible lunar surface with such abandon, knowing that a gash or tear into their garments would mean virtually instant death.<\/p>\n

    Dave McGowan has his own take on what he dubs the \u2018magic suits\u2019:<\/p>\n

    The Apollo spacesuits supposedly weighed in at 180 pounds each, including the PLSS backpacks. You would think that with the advanced technology now available, NASA would have been able to streamline the package. To the contrary, the suits now worn aboard the space shuttle weigh in at 310 pounds each. And ILC claims that it takes three months and 5,000 man-hours to produce each one. Back in the \u201860s, they claimed to be cranking out a minimum of nine of them for each Apollo flight<\/em>. (Wagging the Moondoggie<\/strong>, Part 9<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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    Astronaut Alan Bean in the magic spacsuit during Apollo 12<\/p><\/div>\n

    You be the judge.<\/p>\n

    The Magic Kodak Film<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Apollo astronauts were outfitted with a modified Hasselblad 500 EL camera. It had no viewfinder and it housed a 70 mm thin emulsion Kodak film. It had no radiation protection.<\/p>\n

    How can film subjected to cosmic and galactic radiation on the lunar surface be unaffected, when radiation at 240 miles above the earth resulted in fogging or clouding<\/a>?<\/p>\n

    Re-entering the Atmosphere at 40,000 km\/h: the Command Module Heat Shield<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The angle of the Command Module upon re-entering the Earth\u2019s atmosphere had to be perfect for the craft\u2019s ablative thermal shield to absorb the immense heat and allow the vehicle eventually to splash down safely into the ocean. Curiously enough, for its new Orion program, NASA is having problems reproducing Apollo\u2019s success in protecting the spacecraft during re-entry. As Phil Kouts writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe importance of a totally reliable and effective heat shield cannot be overstated. The availability of a proper heat shield was absolutely critical for the safe return of all the Apollo crews. NASA\u2019s admission that the agency cannot now recreate the thermal shield of a return module is absolutely astounding. Such an admission could only be compared to an inconceivable statement that, for example, American military officials admit that after using armoured steel in their tanks during WWII, some 40 years later they don\u2019t have the technology at hand to develop armoured steel, and have great difficulty in reproducing such steel despite the previous experience during the war.\u00a0The GAO report concludes:\u00a0‘With respect to Orion’s thermal protection system,\u00a0facilities available from the Apollo era for testing large-scale heat shields no longer exist.’ (GAO, 2008 p.14)\u201d<\/p>\n

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    Apollo 11 Command Module: could the upper part of the structure survive the heat of re-entry?<\/p><\/div>\n

    Unless the Command Module were encased\u00a0in its entirety<\/em>\u00a0by a thermally resistant shell that could withstand the searing heat of re-entry \u2013 up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit \u2013 it would simply have melted as it was engulfed by the flames engendered by its penetration of the atmosphere. Bear in mind that re-entry from low earth orbit, as accomplished by the Space Shuttle, is a different matter altogether, with significantly lower speeds and temperatures.<\/p>\n

    Independent Photographic Evidence of the Lunar Landings<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In John Noble Wilford\u2019s book We Reach the Moon (1973<\/em><\/a>)<\/em>, he writes that that the Lunar Orbiters of the 1960s which preceded the Apollo missions were equipped with a high\u00a0resolution\u00a0lens (Eastman Kodak) that could pick out details “as small as the top of a card table.”<\/p>\n

    If that was the case, why then haven’t succeeding orbiters like Selene<\/a> and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter achieved\u00a0resolution\u00a0fine enough to show clearly evidence of the landings?<\/p>\n

    And to carry this point further, if earth-orbiting satellites at very high distances can achieve very fine detail,\u00a0e.g., enough to show individual cars, etc., why don’t the lunar photographic satellites<\/a>, closer to their target and moving more slowly, achieve at least the same?<\/p>\n

    The Stars That Didn\u2019t Shine in the Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Like the famous dog that didn\u2019t bark in Conan Doyle\u2019s Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze<\/em>, during the Apollo missions stars apparently didn\u2019t shine. In a lunar sky that had no distorting atmosphere Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would have been provided with a dazzling and spectacular display the likes of which no one had ever seen before, a peering into the vast bright twinkling immensity of the universe. At the Apollo 11 press conference<\/a>, the three astronauts were asked specifically about stars by reporter Patrick Moore. The incredulous answer from Michael Collins is: \u201cI don\u2019t remember seeing any.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    A Hubble Space Telescope image of the stellar sky: imagine the view from the moon!<\/p><\/div>\n

    A View of the cosmos from the International Space Station:<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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    Can you see stars from up here? Oh yeah baby! Check out the Milky Way as it spins & paints the heavens in a thick coat of awesome-sauce! pic.twitter.com\/MsXeNHPxLF<\/a><\/p>\n

    — Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) August 16, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n