reply to post by thegagefather
I didn't post "part 1" because it's only 6 minutes long... But honestly, It's worth watching.
This film is over three hours long! Tell you what, over the next few days or weeks, I will watch the film and post my comments, starting with Part 1.
It sure looks professional. Look, there's a man with a British accent sitting behind what looks like a newsreader's desk. He must be important and
know what he's talking about. He says he has startling new information. Good thing he told us that it's startling and new, because otherwise we might
think it was old and silly. And he promises us
whistleblowers. I sure hope he's found real whistleblowers, because if he dredges up Bill
Kaysing or Ralph Renée we'll know he's already spinning.
What's this? Werner von Braun himself? In 1959, von Braun told Congress that man wouldn't be able to orbit the Moon until 1969, and not land until a
few years later. That proves it, right?
No. Here is a picture of the sort of rocket von Braun thought was necessary in 1959:
Von Braun and his colleagues developed a methodical plan to lay the logistics for long term exploration and settlement of the Moon. It required
reusable spacecraft constructing a permanent manned space station that would be used as a base for lunar exploration. The gigantic landing craft would
be built at this space station.
Von Braun thought all this was doable in fifteen years. As it turns out, a cheaper, faster system was used. No orbital infrastructure was required.
Nothing was reusable. If von Braun thought all this could be done in under twenty years, just building a single purpose system could easily be done in
ten. Unfortunately, this faster, cheaper approach is the one that was settled on, which is why Apollo's legacy is historic, rather than ongoing.
The omniscient narrator then tells us that defense contractors in 1959 thought that only unmanned probes would be able to explore the Moon untilthe
early 1970s.I guess he hopes we won't remember that most of the Moon landings
took place in the early 1970s!
The next whistleblower is... Bill Kaysing. Oh dear. Kaysing worked at Rocketdyne, a defense contractor, as a writer. He was not involved in research
and development. He left the company under a cloud, probably related to substance abuse given his later history. Nevertheless, let's hear what he has
to say:
In 1959, Rocketdyne did a
statistical study that showed a probability of "something like" .0014 that man could land safely on the Moon.
Assuming that Kaysing didn't simply make this story up, what he is claiming is that in 1959, before men had actually been placed in orbit, when the
success rate for US launches was something like one out of three, before probes had mapped the radiation environment or sent mapping images back from
the Moon, a committee sat down and plucked figures out of the air. In 1959, they had no solid facts, only speculation.
Three minutes into the film, and its already establishing its baseline of "fact" on the ignorance prevalent in 1959. It is clear that they are going
to rely on the viewer being unable to tell the difference between fact and opinion. It is a
fact that people in 1959 were of the
opinion
that it would take decades to get to the Moon. The fact is, their opinion was wrong.
To be continued.
edit on 17-5-2012 by DJW001 because: (no reason given)
edit on 17-5-2012 by DJW001 because: (no reason
given)
edit on 17-5-2012 by DJW001 because: (no reason given)