Part 2 - Part 3
After the publication of the series of articles "Ashes fly to the Moon", many readers have questions about how to bring together all the arguments of different authors criticizing the official version of the so-called flights of American Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. It was necessary to try to create a coherent, reflecting different points of view, a picture of the largest deception of the twentieth century - called in the original English name "moon hoax". And it seemed to me, as one of the authors on this topic, that it is worth writing not just an encyclopedia, reference book, or anthology, but a guide to the American "lunar deception", because from a technical, political, and even historical phenomenon, all the history described below long ago it became an integral part of the cultural heritage, like the ruins of the Colosseum, the pyramid of Cheops or Lenin on an armored car. So welcome to our cabinet of curiosities of the American lunar program. Do not touch the exhibits with your hands!
Foreword
Over the past forty years, almost immediately from the time of the very first launches of the Apollo spacecraft towards the Moon, rumors and gossip of the following content began to circulate actively: all this is a hoax, the Moon is not real, all around a fake, fiction and deception. As if in revenge to skeptics, after a while in print, on television and radio, and now (decades later) and on the Internet, initiative groups of citizens-propagandists began to appear, who day and night try to convince the public in all imaginable languages and dialects human speech in the opposite: that the flights of American astronauts were quite real, that rumors were spread by envious people, enemies of the free world, and, of course, impassable ignoramuses and ignoramuses.
For an outside observer, all this must have produced a very strange sight: it is not interesting that the army of those who stubbornly do not believe in the truth of the American lunar expeditions or honestly doubt are so large. The strange thing is that for forty years there has been money and people are waging, in fact, an ideological war with the "heretics" of a certain new faith. Imagine that someone does not believe that the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea. So what? Everyone would have laughed and moved on. To refute such nonsense is to make unnecessary advertising complete nonsense. On the other hand, all those who were born and lived in the USSR for part of their lives remember very well the other side of the medal: if the announcer of the central television with pompous pathos claimed that rumors of an imminent price increase (monetary reform, sugar shortage, increased radiation, etc.)) are false fabrications and do not correspond to reality, then every Soviet person in the depths of his soul realized that, apparently, the rumors were indeed true.
The idea is simple: if something is purposefully refuted, it is not without reason. On the other hand, if a lot of money is spent on refuting the "refutation", this means that we are talking about very serious state interests, and admit the very possibility that a different point of view may prevail in society - like death. Such zeal is very reminiscent of the struggle of the Catholic Church with the ideas of Copernicus about heliocentrism, and in particular, the trial of Galileo. In all honesty, both ordinary people and Catholic priests do not care deeply - the Earth revolves around the Sun, or vice versa, their everyday life does not depend on it. But the question rests on the dogmas of faith, on the authority of the priests, on principles, and in matters of principle it is impossible to concede,after all, the recognition by the Catholic Church of the falsity of its astronomical ideas about the structure of the Universe will inevitably raise subsequent questions that undermine the power over the vain and mundane.
Evgeny Yevtushenko aptly says: “He knew that the Earth was spinning, but he had a family …” Therefore, everything that will be discussed later, in a sense, will be a description of the ongoing struggle of adherents of the holy faith in the flights of Americans to the Moon against the notorious blasphemers and heretics who dared to have their own point of view. Further, the sources and preconditions, objective facts and subjective arguments will be highlighted in detail, as well as the well-known arguments AGAINST the fact that the foot of an American man ever walked on the surface of our natural satellite of the Earth will be generalized.
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Origins and background
Trying to remember who was the first to raise the topic of falsified lunar flights and made it public, I caught myself thinking that such is completely mistakenly believed to be Bill Kaysing, who published in 1974 the book We Never Went to the Moon), where he formulated the main arguments of the lunar conspiracy theory. This version went for a walk mainly thanks to "Wikipedia", which can rightfully be considered the best collection of rumors and gossip, as well as nonsense of all stripes. It is characteristic that this version of the priority is insisted by precisely those sources that favor the official position of NASA.
However, more correct references point to the book of the mathematician James Cranney, who in 1970 questioned the "Hollywood TV show". However, I would not mention him as the "founding father" of the lunar conspiracy theory. The fact is that very few people have heard anything about both of the above authors, and almost no one (only a few) read their works, because their contribution, with all due respect to them, does not make any difference in this topic. And then I slapped myself on the forehead, because I remembered a detail lying almost on the surface, known not to a few, but to hundreds of millions of people: for the first time they did not just expose, but an evil laughed at the entire lunar program … the best Hollywood producers Harry Salzman and Albert Broccoli,released in December 1971 on the screens of the world the famous film "Diamonds are forever" or "Diamonds are forever" - the seventh film about the adventures of James Bond with Sean Connery in the title role. You can watch this episode from the movie here.
The film was first shown in the United States on December 17, 1971, and the filming took place from April 5 to August 13 of the same year. I need this remark to clarify the following fact: everything that was filmed was written and invented at least six months or a year before that, because the previous film by the same authors from the James Bond cycle "In the Service of Her Majesty" was rented December 1969, i.e. the filmmakers had a year to develop a new script and a year to shoot and edit. Thus, the story for Diamonds was conceived no later than mid-1970. Thus, thanks to the Hollywood blockbuster, hundreds of millions of people around the world laughed heartily at the cardboard decorations of "Luna" and the helpless antics of "astronauts" in front of the camera. There is probably no point in repeating the common truth that laughter is a powerful weapon. And if people laugh at something, then there is strong ground under it. Or - there is no smoke without fire …
In the photo: "Surveyor-7"
Moreover, in chapter 11 of the series of articles "Ashes are flying to the moon" your humble servant proves an even more curious fact: the aforementioned film was made with the full participation (and probably with money) of the legendary billionaire, the richest man in the United States at that time - Howard Hughes … At the same time, Hughes was not just a person who completely inspired the producers to mock the cardboard "Moon", his company "Hughes Aircraft" was the lead developer of the legendary lunar spacecraft "Surveyor", which made a series of soft landings on the Moon and transmitted to Earth a lot of high-quality lunar panoramas.
Surveyor 7 is NASA's seventh and last unmanned lunar station launched under the Surveyor program. Started on 1968-07-01, landed on 1968-10-01. 25.6 km north of Tycho crater. Transmitted to Earth 21091 image of the lunar surface.
In fact, the creator of the lunar automata himself allowed himself the evil ridicule of the American manned lunar program, exposed it to ridicule by mass media. At the same time, there are serious reasons to believe that Howard Hughes made deliberate leaks of information to the Soviet special services and on other, absolutely secret operations, such as, for example, the secret rise of the Soviet submarine K-129 in the summer of 1974, which the GRU General Staff learned from an anonymous letter to the USSR embassy in a few more years!
One of the most notorious scandals in the United States, associated, as many believe, with the installation of bugs by the FBI at the headquarters of the Democrats in the Watergate Hotel, and after which Nixon had to resign under the threat of impeachment, in fact had a different background. The FBI officers did sneak into Watergate, but their task was to find materials incriminating Hughes, who secretly financed the Democrats, as Nixon knew about. So much for the plot twist!
I will say more: Nixon had every reason to seek not only a connection between Hughes and the Democrats, which was still half the trouble, but also to fear a connection with the USSR, which in the long term promised Nixon blackmail from the Kremlin. Actually, the fact that all covert US operations with the participation of Hughes quickly leaked to opponents speaks for itself. I am more than sure that Hughes could blackmail Nixon with compromising material both on the Moon and on Project Jennifer (K-129 ascent). Art (like beauty) is a terrible thing, artistic truth (sometimes) is stronger than the truth of life. Therefore, Kerensky will forever remain in our minds a man who fled from the Winter Palace in a woman's dress. At the same time, the details are not so important (it was a woman's dress or a man's suit), as a symbol of cowardly flight.
For this very reason, the efforts of a string of volunteer assistants of the American bureaucratic department, called NASA, are in vain to "explain" the official version of events to those who disagree and "go astray". It's just that in the broad popular consciousness, the repeated falsity of American propaganda, which has been ostracized more than once in the international arena, is firmly identified with the "cardboard moon" as a symbol. This, if you like, is their version of the legendary "Lenin with a log". The people subtly feel the falsity, and a hundred graduated historians will never outweigh the cinematic Chapaev and the anecdotal Stirlitz - for the artistic truth will always outweigh. Therefore, the "deniers" will never be translated, just as the directors of comic clips about how studio light falls on Neil Armstrong's head, etc. For nature will still take its toll:centuries of clerical struggles against Copernicus' ideas ultimately went down the drain …
Objective facts
It should be noted that if the matter rested only on folklore or was limited to the efforts of a dozen unyielding heretic researchers, the topic would have died out by itself long ago. However, to reduce everything to the formula: "You invented it all yourself, it exists only in your imagination, but in fact nothing ever happened from this" - will not work. It's like a mystical ice pick in the last scene of the movie "Basic Instinct" - you can think of anything, but objects, things, if you want evidence, exist by themselves, apart from our imagination and evil (or good) will.
These, undoubtedly, include numerous scandals with the so-called "lunar soil". In particular, it was recently revealed that the moonstone from Apollo 11, handed over to the Dutch Prime Minister by the US ambassador shortly after the return of astronauts from the moon in 1969, turned out to be a piece of petrified wood, the Air Force reported in the summer of 2009. You can talk as much as you like about a ridiculous joke, prank, cynical behavior, etc. - but fact is fact. He no longer depends on public opinion. Here you can add a string of similar situations, when the "lunar soil" after examination turned out to be anything other than the soil of a natural satellite of the Earth.
Separately stands the so-called "Murmansk Find" - an almost mystical story about how on September 8, 1970, the surprised crew of the US Coast Guard icebreaker "Southwind" was solemnly handed over … the Apollo command module "caught by a Soviet fishing trawler in the Bay of Biscay" ! There are photographs of this event, and even sailors from the same ship were found, who confirmed the fact of this secret mission.
Mark Wade, the author of the Internet encyclopedia "Astronautics", wrote about this for the first time, your humble servant wrote about this, a well-known researcher of this topic, A. I. Popov and others. The irony of fate is that the ill-fated photographs in the Murmansk port (!) Were taken by a Hungarian photojournalist (!) And published back in 1981 …
The broadcast took place in a warm and friendly atmosphere … Here is what one of the participants from the Soviet side wrote:
“As A. V. Blagov recalls (in those years - the designer-designer of the VA ships LK and TKS),“TsKBM specialists went to Murmansk to look at this “gift of fate” … In general, it was metal, very well made of thick galvanized iron, no traces of corrosion, overall and weight model of the Apollo command module. Apparently, the manufacturing technology was designed for a small series. Unfortunately, only a set of a search light with an original optical scheme of the lantern glazing has reached us. Everything was extremely simple … Even the thermal protection was not imitated in any way … We could not afford this [building a special series of ships for sea trials] …"
That is, to the great surprise of Soviet specialists, the so-called Apollo ship was an empty tin can, hastily cut out of roofing iron …
We already lived in the era of perestroika and glasnost, and were even confident that we knew who actually killed Kirov this time, and any military secrets became open. But for some reason, you will never (!) Find a single mention of this wonderful incident in any memoirs of former workers in the space industry. Exactly the same as among American sources, where any version is relished, the most ridiculous rumors are discussed (pseudo-secret investigations about UFOs, aliens, etc. are especially touching) - no one, anywhere, ever even hinted at the Murmansk "lost find". All this means that the device of a can made of rough tin, colloquially called the descent vehicle of the Apollo spacecraft, is the strictest state secret!
We can also mention another fact, widely circulated recently, told by the famous writer on space themes A. Zheleznyakov - we are talking about Operation Crossroad, the purpose of which was to conduct a complete jamming and suppression of radio intelligence equipment on Soviet ships. located at a short distance from the launch site of the Apollo-11 spacecraft.
While at the first spacecraft launches, the USSR reported radio frequencies to all interested parties, including radio amateurs, so that the fact of the launch of the first satellite or the same Gagarin could be independently confirmed, the United States undertook a military operation so that prying eyes and ears never did not learn the parameters of the trajectory and telemetry information from the Apollo-11 spacecraft. In order to cut the ends and cover up as much as possible … By the way, an astronomical sum for those times was spent on the fight against publicity and openness - $ 230 million!
The legendary story about the presence of an object called "Apollo 11" and our station "Luna 15", which was supposed to deliver the lunar soil into orbit, was simultaneously in circumlunar orbit. The American administration expressed a storm of indignation, demanding that the flight of Luna 15 be banned, or at least that it be done so as to separate them from Apollo in time. Astronaut Frank Borman was sent on a special mission, torturing the Soviet Academy of Sciences (an outside organization, in general) with his angry calls …
Now, in hindsight, I am already beginning to suspect: hasn't Luna-15 become a victim of broadcasting false commands and jamming the Soviet flight control services of this spacecraft by American "friends" as part of Operation Crossroads ?! Remembering Leonid Filatov: "You can know Lermontov badly, you can skip Fet briefly, you can not read Blok at all, but … everything has a limit, brothers!"
Even if you convince the author of these lines in the opposite, as well as all others who disagree with the general line and course of NASA, the facts will remain, and you will not erase a word from the song. Because facts are the most stubborn thing, because they exist on their own, regardless of our opinion.
AMS "Luna-15". photo NPO them. S. A. Lavochkin.
Punctures and inconsistencies
The format of the short guide, of course, does not fully allow, with all the arguments and arguments, to justify to the readers why there are many reasons to consider the flights of the Apollo spacecraft a hoax from an absolutely scientific point of view. Nevertheless, I will try to outline them at least a little for the interested audience. All arguments against the reality of lunar missions can be divided into two categories: arguments against the authenticity of artifacts of lunar missions and arguments against the reality of the declared characteristics of the Saturn-5 lunar rocket. The first group of arguments is "direct" - the origin of lunar photographs is questioned, the absurdity of the composition in the photographs is indicated, for example, the presence of multi-vector shadows, which can occur with many light sources, which happens in a studio, but which cannot be on the Moon, because the Sun - one! In addition, A. I. Popov devoted a lot of space to the study of photographic, film and video materials of the Apollo-8 mission and came to the conclusion that this apparatus made only a half-orbital flight - orbiting the Moon without entering its orbit. There are many pictures of an absurd nature, for example, your humble servant is very fond of a photo of a boulder with traces of wind-blown erosion, which is very strange, considering that everything is in fine dust:
The so-called "flag incident" stands apart. What could be better than a Stars and Stripes banner flying in the wind! Trouble, only the wind on the Moon is not provided due to the lack of such … Below is a complete collection of banners and standards fluttering in the lunar wind (in all flights, without exception):
Attempts to come up with some chimeric explanations, one more fun than the others, will always stumble upon a banal counter-argument: a flag is a cloth object without a rigid frame, not having a rigid shape. Under the influence of gravity, each piece of matter is pulled down, not up or to the sides. Imagine a lace - a linear (special) case of a cloth. Your lace is tied to the hanger. Of course, the string hangs linearly along the gravity vector, it cannot be otherwise! And now we are assured that on the Moon (albeit there is a weak gravity) the lace for some reason bends in a groovy dance twist, makes a boogie-woogie, and even stretches up! However, neither before nor after that - such anomalous phenomena in the behavior of linen matter were not noticed by science …
Prominent researcher of the "lunar theme" Yu. Mukhin was engaged in the topic of lunar soil a lot, proving that the only real lunar soil at the disposal of mankind was provided only during the Soviet missions "Luna-16, 20, 24". Perhaps this explains the widespread theft of "real" samples of lunar soil and the widespread discovery of fossil pieces of wood, fragments of meteorites and earth stones of volcanic origin in their place. There were also less obvious incidents - your humble servant drew attention to a comic incident during the flight of Apollo 15, when, in the process of walking back and forth on the lunar surface, the astronauts leaked 10 liters of water in the cockpit. Despite the vacuum, the water formed a completely formed puddle on the floor, which was scooped out with a scoop (apparently, it was thrown out). Of course, not everyone knowsthat thermodynamics forbids the existence of liquid water in a vacuum, but such jokes are understandable only to marginal intellectuals …
This story would be incomplete without pointing out the strange behavior of the astronauts themselves and the "moon" dust. The very strange and ridiculous bouncing on the verge of circus acts of the original genre does not fit in with the fact that astronauts are in the deadly conditions of space vacuum and solar radiation, and that an awkward fall on a sharp stone can be fatal. The dust behaves no less mysteriously: when landing (according to the logbooks), the dust rises almost to the height of a 16-storey building; when riding a lunar car, the dust seems too "heavy" and extremely inert. And when taking off from the surface of the Moon, there is a complete absence of a dust cloud as such! Apparently, all the dust was blown away even during landing … The takeoff engine could not carve a single speck of dust, although, in one of the flights,a highly directional antenna was allegedly blown away by the outflowing gases! The absence of dust clouds that rise high due to the low level of gravity under the action of the exhaust gases of the rocket engine is another indisputable proof that from year to year overseas gentlemen show us combined footage from Hollywood pavilions, for without computers and special effects even Hollywood cannot to raise the "lunar" dust to a "worthy" height - sins and earthly gravity are not allowed "to paradise" …for without computers and special effects, even Hollywood cannot raise the "moon" dust to a "worthy" height - sins and earthly gravity are not allowed "to heaven" …because without computers and special effects, even Hollywood cannot raise the "moon" dust to a "worthy" height - sins and earthly gravity are not allowed "to heaven" …
Let's give the floor to "authorities"
Summarizing this part of the Guide, I would like to cite a selection of statements by various experts and authorities regarding the authenticity of lunar flights. The fact is that for some time now former Soviet cosmonauts, and sometimes current Russian officials, allow themselves to make free jokes in such a serious topic. If earlier the point of view was strict and reinforced concrete: we completely and completely cover the version of the American partners, now, without denying the previous position, at the official level, it is allowed to recognize the partial falsification of some lunar artifacts, mainly photographs and filming frames. In January 2007, the head of Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, answering questions from the editor-in-chief of AiF, said, among other things, the following: Question of the editor: “Anatoly Nikolayevich, how do you feel about the well-known myth thatthat the Americans did not fly to the moon, and the scenes of their stay there were filmed in Hollywood pavilions? A. Perminov's answer: “I am sure they were there. But the fact is that some of the filming, which became known to the general public, WERE AT THE SAME TIME in Hollywood, that is, on Earth. SO TO SAY, IN ANY CASE …
And there were inconsistencies. The film shows that the astronauts are jumping to the wrong height, their flag flies there, although they should not do it in airless space … This is what gave the critics the opportunity to say that the Americans were not on the Moon, but fabricated the plot in Hollywood. " In July 2009, renowned cosmonaut Alexei Leonov so "denied" long-standing rumors that the American astronauts were not on the moon, and the footage, broadcast on television, was allegedly edited in Hollywood. He told about this in an interview with RIA Novosti. Question: "So were the Americans on the moon or were they not?" Answer: “Only absolutely ignorant people can seriously believe that the Americans were not on the Moon. And, unfortunately, this whole ridiculous epic about the frames allegedly fabricated in Hollywood began with the Americans themselves. By the way, the first personwho started spreading these rumors, was sent to prison for libel,”said Alexei Leonov.
Question: "Where did the rumors come from?" Answer: “It all started with the fact that at the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the famous American film director Stanley Kubrick, who created his brilliant film“The Odyssey of 2001”based on the book of science fiction writer Arthur Clark, journalists who met with Kubrick's wife asked to talk about her husband's work on film in Hollywood studios. And she honestly said that there are only two real lunar modules on Earth - one is in a museum, where no filming has ever been carried out, and it is even forbidden to walk with a camera, and the other is in Hollywood, where, to develop the logic of what is happening on the screen, additional filming of the landing was made. Americans to the moon,”the Soviet cosmonaut said.
Question: "Why was studio filming used?" Answer: “Alexey Leonov explained that in order for the viewer to be able to see the development of what is happening from beginning to end on the movie screen, elements of additional filming are used in any cinema. It was impossible, for example, to film the real opening by Neil Armstrong of the hatch of the descent ship on the Moon - there was simply no one to remove it from the surface! For the same reason, it was impossible to film the descent of Armstrong to the moon along the stairs from the ship. These moments, which were really filmed by Kubrick in Hollywood studios to develop the logic of what was happening, gave rise to numerous gossips that the entire landing was allegedly simulated on the set,”explained Alexey Leonov.
Question: "Where does the truth begin and the editing ends?" Answer: “The real shooting began when Armstrong, who first set foot on the moon, got used to it a little, installed a highly directional antenna through which the transmission to Earth was carried out. His partner Buzz Aldrin then also came out of the ship to the surface and began to film Armstrong, who, in turn, filmed his movement on the surface of the Moon,”the astronaut specified.
It is worth adding to this the following words of Georgy Grechko, which have already become widely popular on the Internet, said ten years ago: “I’ll tell you what is the matter … Where does this stupid, completely ridiculous rumor come from? The thing is, sometimes you get bad pictures in space. And I think that they could not resist, and they took a picture of the flag on the moon. And the fact that they flew, that they filmed, that they brought samples, is absolutely true. They tried to improve the result a little, and now they are for it … "But you can't immediately understand: either they are joking, or they are mocking … This is all called" male solidarity "! How, you do not know what male solidarity is?
Anecdote in the subject. The husband comes home in the morning. The wife asks:
- Where have you been all night?
- Grisha had, we played chess.
The wife calls Grisha: - Grisha, my husband was with you tonight, did you play chess?
- Why did you play? We are still playing …
So, Leonov, Grechko and Perminov should have said: why did they fly? They still fly there! It would be really masculine, comradely …
Part 2 - Part 3