The Man in the Moon

Written 25th July 2006: I was listening to the 3 and 1/2 hour, 3 to 6:30, Iain Lee Afternoon Wireless Show, today, on LBC 97.3 London (Sky Channel 0177 or via the internet : http://www.lbc973.co.uk/ ) and Iain was still receiving calls about the Moon landings. He had been discussing it yesterday, but the controversy continues. A number of people think the Moon landings were faked and that man has never walked upon the moon. My old Italian housemate, Nando is one of those who thinks they didn't happen. Nando finds conspiracy theories interesting, although he thinks most are nonsense. The only two he actually agrees with are that men never landed on the Moon and that the US government deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen. Today, I am only discussing the former.
Iain Lee is convinced the Moon landings did occur and argues strenuously for that conclusion. My great-grandmother used to say the moon landings were faked. Ironically, she died in 1970, the year after Neil Armstrong supposedly walked on the moon. Could it be that the US government bumped her off, to keep the secret from getting out? Her oldest daughter, my grandmother's sister, worked at the company that built the Lunar Module, or LM as it was known. She worked on building the LM and she seemed convinced the landings actually occurred, at least in front of people. Mysteriouly, she took me on a trip to Washington, D.C., the same year as Apollo 11 landed. During that trip was the first time I flew on an airline, the first time I had lobster, and the first time I stayed in a hotel in my life. The purpose of the trip to the US capital was never explained. While in Washington, she bought me a badge commemorating the Apollo 11 landing. By coincidence, she died exactly ten years after her mother. Was she also killed to keep something she knew secret? Her sister, my grandmother, also worked in the aerospace industry and eventually worked at Grumman Aerospace, the manufacturers of the LM. My grandmother used to say I was a Moon child and that I would act differently when there was a full Moon. She's dead, now, as well. Was she killed to keep her from revealing something that her sister told her? When I was away at boarding school and at university, my pet cat, Misty, used to spend a lot of time with my grandmother's sister. Misty was killed in 1979, exactly 10 years after Apollo 11 supposedly landed on the Moon and one year before my grandmother's sister met her demise. Was he killed to keep him from revealing something she told him?
By now, you are probably wondering which way I lean, regarding the Moon landings. By revealing my conclusions, might I be placing my live in danger? I am fairly sure the Moon landings were not faked. I read an excellent article, a couple of years ago, debunking the claims of the doubters. But there is one thing that I thought of, which I told Nando. If the American government had faked the Moon landings, surely the Soviets would have told the world. This was during the height of the cold war and spilling the beans would have been a public relation coup for the USSR. The Soviets used to engage in electronic intelligence gathering and would have been all over this. They could see the progress of the Apollo spacecraft on radar and would have been able to pick up the radio telemetry from the spacecraft, and the astronauts. So I find it highly improbable that such a secret could be kept. In addition to the Soviets, there would be people on the American side who would know of the deception. There would be enormous financial incentive in leaking the story to the media, or writing a book. A caller, today asked Iain, why doesn't NASA use the Hubble telescope to photograph the stuff the astronauts left behind on the Moon, thus proving they had been there? Surely, some such proof would settle the debate, once and for all. Alternatively, maybe the doubters are just suffering from lunacy.