We Will Never Forget:

July 20th, 1969, 02:56 GMT

America's Lunar Landing
© 2004 KenRockwell.com

About these reviews

NASA's 35th anniversary commemoration page is here, video is here, and the best video is here.

PREFACE

My brother Steve, on rare occasion, can be an even bigger moron and grand conspiracy lover than I am. We differ in that I respect that Mankind's greatest technical achievement of all time was the lunar landing of July 20th, 1969. In contrast Steve's love of a good hoax exceeds his pride in and respect for those who lost their lives in the pursuit of showing the world what manhood, curiosity and exploration is all about.

Thus Steve chose not to reject the arguments advanced by a TV show featuring a random guy who thought the whole thing was made up. I took my learned brother's skepticism seriously until I got to watch a tape of the show and realized it was, like most TV shows, baloney. It was obvious to me since I have a little more experience in photography and military subcontractors than Steve does. Steve has a Ph.D. in Politics with a minor in conspiracies and paranormal phenomenon and a Masters in American History and knows all about past and present government conspiracies, and I personally watched the lunar landings live on a Heathkit COLOR TV I helped my dad build and have a religious respect for Mankind's greatest technical achievement.

First off, the guy they interviewed unfortunately wasn't a crackpot. I consider myself one and resent the association. The guy who sold his show to Fox simply interviewed a more common crank. I also used to work for military subcontractors, have a security clearance and have been to Rocketdyne. I'm not at liberty to share in what capacity, but look at my last name. At these places my former coworkers rarely knew what sort of thing we were designing, much less what it went into. All the engineers are way too deep into the details to care. No one in these places knows the big picture; that's why they're called sub-contractors. Anyway, the guy interviewed worked in Tech Pubs or something. He wasn't even an engineer, much less a design engineer, and even if he was, so what; the design engineers aren't told anything at the level of where a hoax would be. On the other hand, half the guys who work in these places are also government cover up conspiracy theorists or whatever and are always loaded with opinions worthy of a real crackpot. I didn't meet that guy personally, but have met plenty like him. The TV producers introduced him as if he was a kingpin in the space program or something.

Anyway, I watched the show and laughed since almost everything was obvious to any photographer. I decided to write this page so non-photographers can reinstill whatever pride they may have lost in Man's greatest achievement. Women just can't seem to understand why men need to go to the moon any more than we comprehend their affinity for making pooping machines.

You really have to visit the Kennedy Space Center and see the huge spare Saturn V (over 33 feet around) and the tiny cockpits to appreciate what these guys did. Do you realize three guys sat together on top of millions of pounds of high explosives on very little more than a lawn chair with less room than a Mini and lit the thing off? They had to sit in that thing for a week together! No rest stops or hotels either! When you consider how many earlier attempts simply exploded like Apollo 1 and killed Grissom, White and Chaffee two years before you start to appreciate why only American men have ever made it to the moon. (OK, the Japanese did it on a cartoon once and I'll leave naysayers to offer that only we American men are dumb enough to try it, either.) Likewise, the brave crew of Apollo 11 landed with only 30 seconds of fuel left and a previously unheard of computer error popped up right in the middle of trying to land on a bizarre surface never before touched by the hand of man. This was not for the feeble of heart.

I took a quick look on the Internet to see if I could find a short listing of the points the TV show made so I could address any I may have forgotten, and lo and behold, I found several sites that have already done a far more thorough debunking of those who would dance on the graves of those who sacrificed so much in this great quest. Thus, have a look at these below and hope you get as many chuckles out of them as I did.

ANALYSIS

The best read is BadAstronomy.com. I wish I could write this well!

Clavius.org also debunks the conspiracists.

Another fairly good read is here.

NASA's 35th anniversary commemoration page is here.

NASA explains all this to children here.

Another guy from NASA explains this here.

NASA's 30th anniversary commemoration page is here.

Last and probably least, the moon landing is predicted in ancient Egypt here.