Fly me to the Moon

I know of several people who are working on the “642 things to write about” list.  As of yet I haven’t taken that plunge, even though it might help me blog more than once a quarter.  Nope, what’s on my mind today is the Apollo moon landings.  

As much as I’d like to I am not going to rant and rave about why we should either go back to the moon or go to Mars I won’t.  Neil Degrasse Tyson has already done so, and far more eloquently than I ever could.  Nope, the thing that’s eating me is the astounding number of people who, for one reason or another, are convinced the moon landing that took place just over 45 years ago was a hoax.  So, I am compiling a list of less than 642 reasons why those people are wrong.

#1 There was more than one.  People tend to forget that we actually landed on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972.  Which leads into…

#2 The sheer number of moving parts involved.  Think for a minute how many thousands of people would have to be involved in creating a hoax of that magnitude once, let alone multiple times.  And in 45 years NOT ONE reputable person has stepped forward and stated there were any illusions created.  Think about how exciting it is to have a big secret.  You can’t WAIT to share it!  And yet some people have no trouble believing that thousands of members of the armed forces, scientists and other support personnel have all squashed that urge for almost half a century.  Not one deathbed confession. Not one person who, as a result of a stroke or other brain injury, forgot any threats that might have been placed on their lives and the lives or their families if they talked about it.  I leave it to you to decide how plausible that really is.

#3 Apollo 13.  Yes, that was a real event and not just yet another blockbuster starring Tom Hanks.  Why would you stage a failure?  That certainly wouldn’t impress the Russians much, which according to most hoaxers was the main impetus for this in the first place.

#4 We left stuff up on the moon.  Including mirrors used for laser ranging experiments that are still ongoing to this day.  You can’t bounce a laser beam off a mirror that doesn’t exist.  You can’t place them accurately by just driving by and shoving them out a window, nor would they have likely survived such a fall.  And if you think this is all a part of the hoax too then see #2.

#5 I don’t have any delusions that the US government- under any president or Congress we’ve ever had- is competent enough to pull this off this level of an illusion. I love my county and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.   But yet in the era of Wikileads and one where the head of the CIA can’t even keep his own extramarital affair a secret I’m to believe this government pulled this humongous sham off?  Yeah right…..

#6 These guys said we went to the moon.

If you aren’t familiar with these two gentlemen, they are Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, hosts of the long running TV show “Mythbusters”.  As the title suggests, they dispel myths using scientific experiments, many of which rely heavily on their extensive background in special effects- a field that requires a great deal of knowledge in a wide range of sciences.  They are probably the only people on TV I trust.   They devoted one entire episode of their show to this topic.  Among the items covered were:  why and how a flag could appear to be waving in the vacuum of space, how the supposed incorrect shadows have a logical explanation and how difficult it would actually be to simulate walking in 1/6 Earth’s gravity here on Earth.

I don’t actually believe that anyone in the hoaxing community will take off their foil hats long enough to read my blog and change their minds.  But if I do then score one for the good guys.