Apollo vs. the lunar conspiracy: what is more feasible to implement?

Prologue


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Astronauts Aldrin (left) and Armstrong in Houston during a moonlit workout (April 22, 1969)

Do you know who I have always been reminded of by conspiracy theories? Intrusive chess players.

Yes, yes, there are those who continue to walk the king against your boat. And you get lost, mouth agape from surprise: didn’t he read the standard endgames and don’t know his fate - checkmate no later than the 16th move? What's happening? He hopes that you forgot how this is done, that you will become bored and you quit playing?

And they remind me of people repairing the dam. You have breached their theory there, here, here. Everything, water has flowed. But no, for every such fact, they have a counterargument with which they plug gaps, and soon their dam becomes an ugly blanket of patches that no longer form any theory in themselves.

When such a feeling is born in your discussion - you know, you are arguing with conspiracy theory. And also know - you are taken to exhaustion, and any uncertain or weak fact on your part is interpreted as an inability to defend your point of view and a victory of conspiracy theory. Alas, this is the psychology of such disputes, and to refute them, you must, first of all, not go into the swamp where you are being pulled.

And then what to do? Yes, everything is very simple. We must shut up. And then ask the conspiracy theorist to tell everything from the beginning. No, no, do not retell the theory, which is usually the "essence of what happened." And to describe. All. How was done. In detail. From the very beginning.

Let’s do so by the example of a lunar conspiracy, which is tenacious against the backdrop of the missions of LRO, Opportunity, Rosetta and today's daily pictures of all of Pluto approaching.

What is the operation to deceive the USSR and the whole world? Apollo is not good, it is a noble, strong man. Take someone else from mythology, for example

Priap program


So what? In a sense, symbolic. To hell with the Soviets, we are you ... however, okay.
So, history tells us that the Apollo operation was conceived under Eisenhower and urgently approved by Kennedy, who, in May 1961, spoke in Congress against the backdrop of Gagarin’s flight, lobbying for the allocation of $ 9 billion by NASA in order to catch up and surpass the USSR by 1970.

Let's think from scratch. Who could give rise to a conspiracy in this situation?

NASA? It is unlikely that there is a whole trickle of negative motivation. Both professional ethics and pride in previous developments in the industry (compare with how in the Soviet automotive industry reacted to the instruction “to copy” a western Simca car while developing “Moskvich” -2141) - the fathers of the American astronautics have already achieved orbital flights and were not found in the trash . And any creep “but let's not bother and shoot the Moon in Hollywood” in such a highly specialized team is a signature on a statement of professional unsuitability.

Any minister’s initiative? The same unsuitability and retirement, in the worst case. At best, they will advise you to sleep. And in any case, you will have to listen to advice, because the question is about a serious industry and at the same time about political prestige. Various ministries and departments, and the government will be involved. And everyone will have to consult about such a delicate offer, and convince everyone will not succeed.

Congress? Public Hearing About Conspiracy Allocation? This is not serious and is not mentioned in history.
It turns out that the only person in the state who has sufficient influence for such an initiative and at the same time is the president of the United States is the means to implement the entire program from and to. Excellent. We will proceed from the fact that we have an adventurous president, and in 1961, Kennedy embezzled $ 9 billion on films about the moon. Let's continue to carry out our plan.
Person involved in the Priap program: 1

Shooting day


It would seem that easier? Take and shoot the landing process in the scenery. And that’s it, for four years you can depict the hectic activity of preparing a space flight. After all, everything has long been shot. Stop, no. We agreed to speak everything. Let's list what exactly we need to shoot. This is, firstly, the broadcast from the ship. Yes, but didn’t you know? On the way back and forth from Apollo 11, “live broadcasts” were made, in the first days there were two unplanned broadcasts, 16 minutes on the first day and 50 minutes on the second, planned 35 minutes on the second, 1 hour 36 minutes in third, then on the Moon’s orbit, there’s a surface broadcast, on the way back - broadcasts for which the ship was deployed to show the Earth and the Moon in opposite windows and the final one, with words of triumph and gratitude.

Eeee ... yes. Nixon. That is, Kennedy, who died tragically from two bullets, did not have time to reap the benefits of his fake lunar program Priap. Lindon Johnson, who replaced him by taking the oath right on board the plane, was, of course, a Democrat, but could the Republican Nixon, having learned about the conspiracy, refrain from permanently smashing his political opponents on the wall? The meme “party of crooks and lunar conspirators” would have arisen without any force, and even the Internet would not have been needed. Here comes the first logical “fork”. Either the Apollo program was real and quietly developed, or our Priap program survived the succession of the three presidents without much difficulty. This only reinforces the assumption that the plot was built at the very top and was rooted very firmly. Palming a fake broadcast to the whole world against the backdrop of the president,
The person involved in the Priap program: at least 3

But we were distracted. Yes, you need to shoot in Hollywood ... no, it’s better at a secret CIA movie studio with the president, a scene about a landing on the lunar module, the Moon nearby, the Earth from afar, with all the realistic foreshortenings, imitation of zero gravity (Michael Collins on the way back sent greetings to the earth kids, having fun with water in zero gravity) and low lunar gravity, sane light ... And that everything was so, on the level. Indeed, as history shows, shooting from the Apollo 11 mission is very realistic, because the level of cinema about landing on celestial bodies at that time was approximately like this:


Images from the original television series Star Trek

Okay, I will omit the obvious arguments that even if the director, cameraman and production designer say that we are filming something like “Plan 9 from outer space,” rather than shooting the moon for a plot - they still recognize their brainchild on the day of the broadcast and will not be silent. The person involved in the Priap program: at least a dozen . One way or another, you can make very closed shootings, but people will still work on them. But in reality, the purely technical complexity lies elsewhere.

Hello from space


Do you often receive signals from the lunar orbit? I here - no. Yes, and you - for sure, too. TV channels, for example, also can’t catch the signal that the spacecraft transmits on the path between the Earth and the Moon, and transmit it to their viewers on their own. And for half a century since the Apollo program, the situation has not changed much. In the world there are only three devices capable of this - 70-meter colossal plates of long-distance space radio telescopes. Two are Soviet, one is American. It was she who received the very broadcasts from a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers from a tiny ship. And she stands - that's bad luck! - not even in the notorious Houston, but in the Mojave Desert, California. Plate of Goldstone California Observatory

70 m Antenna in Goldstone


Well, what can I say? Since all communication is through this thing, then this is a great place to implement the Priap program! We found it! We found the opportunity to put our films, filming and audio recordings on a reel player and broadcast to Houston, on radio and television, to the whole world! This is victory! Well, think about the Priap program, a couple more dozen people from the observatory staff will find out ... People
involved in the Priap program: several dozen

... Meanwhile, half a million people come off the sofas and get ready to go to the launch site near Cape Canaveral. The Soviet ambassador to the United States, Dobrynin, however, was not among those, citing employment. But it is replaced by spectators in military uniform on the decks of a small squadron of 8 Soviet ships sailing 50 km from Miami. They all want to see one thing - the launch of Saturn 5.

Real rocket


In principle, it’s not difficult to organize a rocket show for the Priap program. Half a million hamburger eaters will not distinguish Saturn 5 from the Soviet East, they can be given anything metallic and oblong for a lunar rocket. Well, it’ll sink somewhere there in the ocean after the start, away so that they can’t see from Cape Canaveral.
Uh, no. There is a subtle point here. The same Houston. Mission Control Center. Think it over. A huge situational center with huge screens, where live broadcasts from the launch pad and from the ship are interspersed with dozens of continuously incoming telemetry data - altitude, speed, pressure, emergency sensors - from a real ship. And here comes another fork.

Just spit on it all will not work. The MCC team quickly learns that no one on the launch day was on a shift in Houston, which means that imitation of activity is needed for these dozens of people. In principle, they can also be recruited and made to work for a conspiracy (The person involved in the Priap program: more than a hundred ). Well, or in order not to particularly disclose this secret - to make them work with fake broadcasts and fake telemetry.
What do you think, in order to occupy dozens of highly skilled specialists, how reliable should fake telemetry be? For some reason, it seems to me that it should be incredibly thought out and worked out. In fact, you need to develop a ship, think it through to the smallest detail, and then present all the possible telemetry parameters in the form of data coming in continuously throughout the week that adequately changes in flight conditions. Would you take up such a job? Well, imagine how you come up with at least just the tachometer data of a truck traveling from Siberia to Moscow. 1x1000 rpm, during the week, second by second. Interesting and fascinating activity, isn't it?

But were we talking about a fork? There is also a little option: still make a real ship, and then experts from Houston will not be deceived, andthe person involved in the Priap program is again several dozen . Think a bad option? But think about something else: not only will you need to somehow switch telemetry from a fake rocket launch on Cape Canaveral to a fake broadcast from Goldstone under the nose of dozens of employees of the latter, hundreds of Houston employees, thousands - of the cosmodrome near Cape Canaveral and half a million direct launch viewers with a billion viewers in addition - you need to put on a launch rocket somewhere!

To the ocean! Into her ocean! Not. Firstly, no one will vouch for the accuracy of the hit and the absence of unnecessary witnesses in the given water area. Secondly, the launch is monitored by specialists not only from the loyal Houston, but also from countries around the world, and our secret object should not intersect with any other trajectories. The president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Keldysh, specifically noted that the Soviet Luna-15 will not interfere with Apollo 11. And the launch trajectory (and the alleged fall into the ocean under the Priap program) could well be tracked by recently deployed Soviet over-the-horizon radars , which in principle were created for this. So what? Into orbit? Well, suppose we settled on this option. Now let us all look around and think over.

We initiated the false Priap lunar program, for the implementation of which we will have to use the existing infrastructure of our industry in any case (if only because the attention of the whole world is riveted to the event): space centers named after Presidents Kennedy and Johnson (colloquially - Houston and Cape Canaveral), Goldstone's long-range space communications center. We will need telemetry from the ship and a launch vehicle to effectively launch at least to the Earth’s orbit. As a result, we come to the conclusion that at this stage we are simply forced to do everything for real! And it will be more effective, simpler and will not require dedicating hundreds of people to the secret of the conspiracy! So come on! Let's make a rocket!

What can I say. And just that the rocket must be very real. Just completely, from start to finish. It is in the USSR that the development of an industry looks like this: Khrushchev’s enthusiasm for the idea — the construction of a design bureau around the office of the general designer — several years of painful development — PROFIT. But capitalists have everything according to the laws of the market: outsourcing and contractors. Saturn-5 is a prefabricated structure, the first stage was developed by Boeing specialists, the second - by NAA, the third - by Douglas. Each of them had smaller contractors, such as Beech Aircraft, who had adjusted thermostat supply voltage in due time.oxygen tank of the main Apollo 13 module, which led to burnout and explosion. And what, does any of these companies write in the terms of reference - “develop a model of the lunar module”, “construct a blank with a center of gravity like that of the proposed landing module”? This is again several hundred people who know: I poured ball bearings into the third-stage adapter, and now they are saying through the box that astronauts are flying there. And this is not the level of leadership and top managers, these are professional hard workers - designers, engineers, ordinary specialists. And they do not care deeply about the imperial ambitions of politicians or the threat of losing their prestigious job, for example, at NASA.
A person aware of the Priap program: hundreds, if not thousands

Do you already feel the level of absurdity? To simulate the landing on the moon, the launch vehicle should be fully capable of developing a second space velocity, previously not required in heavy manned spacecraft, and the ship should have full "forcemeat" for landing and take-off from the lunar surface. This whole theater of the absurdity becomes even crazier if we add at least one stage of falsification, into which dozens, or even thousands, of people involved become dedicated. Many thousands more specialists are potentially able to solve this fraud, some of whom live in dense communist Russia, where for some reason they have not yet launched a bear into space, but very soon they will overtake the States in this area. What will happen if the States sit in a puddle in the lunar race and the Priap program opens? Ohhhh, Kukryniksy shake hands to the elbows about their cartoons, The Crocodile circulation will surpass any Charlie, and the country's prestige, NASA's professionalism and the face of the nation will be covered by such a public tsunami of slop that ... Mr. Nixon, do you really want to take a chance? Or maybe 4 years of quiet sitting in the presidential chair is still better? Well, here the story is against us. In some ways, Richard Nixon was indeed a political adventurer and did not sit until the end of his term.

Applied value of falsification


But what about our Priap program? After all, it all started so well, making a movie and showing it to the whole world. But it turned out how difficult. But still there is one small loophole. Logical and very correct. Why risk people? We will do everything for real, for this we really need $ 9 billion from Kennedy and 4 years of development, innovative lunar modules and a heavy launch vehicle. But this whole system - too complex, extra-ship activity - is a priori dangerous, and prestige, as we have deduced above, is really of great importance. Let's fly to the moon. Fly around This is not scary. But here is the landing and all the photo materials with the broadcast - forged. Everything for the first time should go smoothly. People must not die or suffer.
The person involved in the Priap program: nevertheless, several dozen

Okay, good. True, the meaning of the program is not visible from this - to spend money and time, so as not to step on the moon. But what is going on? Neil Armstrong nearly dies, testing a lunar lander on Earth. Ejection from a height of 60 meters - base jumpers nervously smoke aside: LLRV disaster No. 1, May 6, 1968 at the US Air Force base Ellington Why test it if you are not going to use it?

Apollo 11 LLRV 1




And in general, say, the danger to people was crucial? Yes, something I strongly doubt it. Readers probably still found the death of the STS-51 and the more so the STS-107 - and the Shuttle flights after that continued until the 135th mission. And the Apollo survived the tragedy at the very beginning - the ship with the index “1” burned down on the launch pad at the preparation stage, becoming a crematorium for V. Grissom, E. White and R. Chaffee. But the program did not close.

Good, but we must. We must at all costs implement the Priap program! Let not even logic be left in it! But we just need to do it all. I will repeat the configuration of the program we came to: make a manned flight to the moon, simulate a landing on the surface. At the same time, attention to the mission will be riveted from around the world, so in order not to screw it up, you need to send false telemetry data, a cinema about the exit to the surface and an interview with Nixon in the broadcast. Later - release fake photos and filming.

But first ... you need to return the astronauts to Earth. And yes, you won’t be able to get them like an ace from the sleeve, because they fall from the sky in the descent vehicle, and the television broadcast of the return via the Intervision system is even conducted to the Soviet Union! So even more so, we are flying for real with astronauts on board. And then - a holiday, jubilation, Priap successfully ... well, in general, he deceived the whole world.

Not. Not a holiday and an interview. Astronauts are in the strictest quarantine, and under the same conditions, the load of lunar soil - regolith - first falls on the mainland. And a line of scientists from hundreds of institutes is already lining up for him. Well, every handful of soil is now sprinkled with articles in leading scientific journals!

And here - yes, it will not penetrate the soil from Neil Armstrong's mother-in-law's garden. Lunar soil should not be like any terrestrial mineral, experts will immediately understand the fake. But, as it turns out, there is a discrepancy in our hypothesis about the Priap program. Regolith is really not like any earthly soil. Is he really from the moon? How was it possible to get 21 kg without landing on the surface (I am silent about the delivery of the seismograph and corner reflectors to the lunar surface). But I’m immersing myself in details, but I promised not to get into the swamp of disputes about particulars.

Well, speaking as a whole, our invented conspiratorial Priap program is a good plan. Make an “idle flight” to the Moon, so that in case of malfunctions not to screw up the whole world. But the fact is that ... the Apollo program successfully coped with this mission !!!

Yes, imagine, after orbiting training at the Earth and working off everything that could be worked out, NASA completes the Apollo 10 mission. Now everyone thinks that Apollo is 11-17, it seemed as if nothing had happened before them, and of the astronauts they recall only Armstrong and Aldrin.

And Apollo 10 was just that “idle” operation to fly around the moon without a moon (but with undocking and undocking of the lunar module). Now the names of these three astronauts are undeservedly forgotten, but I consider it necessary to mention them: Eugene Cernan, Thomas Stafford, John Young. Eugene Cernan, Thomas Stafford, John Young After all, these are the first people in history (UPD: thanks tractus_lepus

The Apollo 10 Prime Crew - GPN-2000-001163



, the first in history, naturally, was the Apollo 8 crew James Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman) flew into outer space, at a distance of almost 400 thousand kilometers from Earth. This achievement is more impressive than numerous orbital flights, and let it not look as bright as access to the lunar surface - but it does not become a less important milestone in space exploration.

So, I digress. A head-on question: why was the Apollo 10 mission not suitable for simulating a surface landing and broadcasting a heap of fake data? Do not lie that you didn’t manage to make a fake movie, you had 4 years to shoot, and only a month and a half passed between the 10th and 11th missions.

Conclusion


If I were the leader of the Priap program, I would close it for senseless uselessness. From it there are much more potential problems, and the complexity is comparable to a real lunar program. It does not explain why the fake broadcasts were not transmitted earlier, during the Apollo 10 mission, nor why it was necessary to take risks 6 more times during 13 years, when the prestige of the championship on the Moon was obtained. It was clearly not only a matter of prestige, but of obtaining the maximum of scientific information, while the country could still technically and economically draw on a successfully launched program.

Plus, where did we stop there, counting the number of people aware of the conspiracy? A few dozen of the most conservative estimates? And how to silence them? What would you ask for hiding such sharp politically significant information (despite the fact that you already got the moon from the sky)? For example, each with a million dollars and a box of red M & Ms in addition - isn’t it cheaper to break through those unfortunate $ 9 billion through Congress?

Everything else is the details. Those who wish can continue to break their spears about the lack of stars in the pictures, showing that they can only photograph on a smartphone, or prove that instead of the lunar surface, the chronicle shows pumice, which I do not consider it necessary to object.

I just want to add that the Apollo program is really a big adventure. Since then, space exploration, alas, crushed. Therefore, let's not spit in the face of those many who have designed and built, and those few who have come face to face with the most severe environment surrounding us - outer space.

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