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Product Name: Superfraud
Product Description
The history books lie. So do the encyclopedias and the commemorative videos and the 25-year-old coffee mugs with the proudly smiling faces of Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins. When Armstrong got down from that ladder, proclaiming that it was only a small step for him but a giant leap for mankind, he was merely setting foot on a dust-covered sound stage in a top-secret TV studio in the Nevada desert. NASA's cold warriors and spin doctors faked the whole moon landing. Come to think of it, they faked all six moon landings - spending around US$25 billion to prove to the world that not even the Soviets, especially not the Soviets, could hold a candle to the US when it came to space exploration.
Well, at least, that's the view of writer Bill Kaysing. It's also the conviction of millions of Americans who have learned to distrust their government with a passion. Most of these skeptics don't even appear to be steamed about the alleged superfraud. They shrug and raise their palms and go about their business. Not Kaysing. He seems to have never heard a conspiracy theory he didn't like, and this one tops 'em all. For almost 20 years now, he has been trying to get out "the most electrifying news story of the entire 20th century and possibly of all time." He has written a book aptly titled We Never Went to the Moon and won't give up trying to uncover more evidence.
Kaysing, a white-haired, gentle Californian whose energy level seems mercifully untouched by his 72 years, worked as head of technical publications for the Rocketdyne Research Department at their Southern California facility from 1956 to 1963. Rocketdyne was the engine contractor for Apollo.
"NASA couldn't make it to the moon, and they knew it," asserts Kaysing, who, after begging out of the "corporate rat race," became a freelance author of books and newsletters. "In the late '50s, when I was at Rocketdyne, they did a feasibility study on astronauts landing on the moon. They found that the chance of success was something like .0017 percent. In other words, it was hopeless." As late as 1967, Kaysing reminds me, three astronauts died in a horrendous fire on the launch pad. "It's also well documented that NASA was often badly managed and had poor quality control. But as of '69, we could suddenly perform manned flight upon manned flight? With complete success? It's just against all statistical odds."
President John F. Kennedy wasn't convinced at all that the endeavor was next to impossible. In fact, he had publicly announced in May 1961 that "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth" would be a Number One priority for the US, an accomplishment that was to instill pride in Americans and awe in the rest of the world. And so, Kaysing believes, NASA faked it, acting in accordance with the old adage that in a war, the truth is often the first casualty. (Cold wars, he and his fellow conspiracy believers say, are no exception.)
To hear him tell it, NASA had good reason to stage moon landing after moon landing, instead of simply admitting that lunar strolls would have to remain the stuff of science fiction novels, at least for a while. "They - both NASA and Rocketdyne - wanted the money to keep pouring in. I've worked in aerospace long enough to know that's their goal."
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