Tag Archive for 'Apollo'

What do you Make of the “Houston, we have a problem” Film Claiming that a Secret Yugoslavian Space Program was the Source of American Success in the Space Race?

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on January 27, 2012 in space.
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They have got to be kidding! At least that’s what I thought, but apparently not. I received a call from Richard Solash, a reporter with Radio Free Europe about ten days ago to discuss a film being made by Slovene director Ziga Virc and writer Bostjan Virc that alleges that Tito’s Yugoslavia had a secret space program and secretly sold space knowledge to NASA, in the process making Tito rich and making if possible for the U.S. to achieve its Apollo program. Here is a Radio Free Europe news story about it. The filmmakers made a trailer offering the thrust of their argument and it quickly generated quite a lot of buzz in the Balkans. The trailer is here:

It is a fascinating, misleading, and in places highly contentious trailer for what is being billed as a “docudrama.” It claims that in 1960 the CIA discovered a secret Yugoslav space program, one that the United States exploited to win the space race with the Soviet Union, “buying” the whole shebang from Yugoslav strongman Tito in March 1961, not long before President Kennedy’s announcement of an American lunar landing program. The Yugoslavian space effort was based, according to this trailer, on the work of Hermann Noordung, a Slovenian-born artillery officer in the Austrian Army who wrote a book, The Problem of Space Travel, that was published in 1929 not long before his death. When I served as the NASA Chief Historian between 1990 and 2002 the history program had this work translated into English and published in the NASA History Series. It has recently been reprinted with additional prefatory material in an excellent new edition by the Centre of European Space Technologies (KSEVT) in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

JFK

President John F. Kennedy in his historic message to a joint session of the Congress, on May 25, 1961 declared, "...I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." This goal was achieved when astronaut Neil A. Armstrong became the first human to set foot upon the Moon at 10:56 p.m. EDT, July 20, 1969. Shown in the background are, (left) Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and (right) Speaker of the House Sam T. Rayburn.

Those commenting on the assertions made in this film have been highly critical. Viewers of the trailer have referred to it as a “mockumentary,” a “documentary,” and a “fantasy.” Of those three characterizations “documentary” is probably the term least closely related to what is being proposed for this film. William Barry, the current NASA Chief Historian, was kinder than most when he said that “I would be very curious to see if there is any real historical evidence that holds up…” Full disclosure, I was also quoted in the same news story as Bill Barry questioning the assertions made in the film trailer.

Buzz Aldrin

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module LM pilot, stands beside the Passive Seismic Experiments Package PSEP. The Laser Ranging Retroreflector LRRR, U.S. Flag, television camera and the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera ALSCC and LM are visible also. Image taken at Tranquility Base during the Apollo 11 Mission.

Since that time there have been many comments back and forth. The film’s principals, Bostjan Virc and Ziga Virc, contacted me by e-mail insisting that “most media misinterpreted our project without asking us anything. Some of them stated it as a real documentary and some of them claimed it’s a spoof or mockumentary. From the first beginning we present it as a docudrama…That means a movie, where the basis is a reality with added dramatisation and some fiction elements.”

As a “documdrama” I’m curious as to whether this proposed film will be something like “The King’s Speech” just recently released that is presumably a true story, but also has some notable fictional elements and at least one gross distortion of the historical record in the position of Winston Churchill on the abdication of Edward VIII from the British throne? Or will it look and feel like a documentary with an announcer narrating events but have fictional elements in it? The meaning of “docudrama” appears to serve as a license to make up whatever might be desired and to include it in the film. Where is the line between fact and fiction in this proposed work? I’ll look forward to seeing what the Vircs come up with.

flag

Geologist-Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 Lunar Module pilot, is photographed next to the American Flag during extravehicular activity (EVA) of NASA's final lunar landing mission in the Apollo series. The photo was taken at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. The highest part of the flag appears to point toward our planet earth in the distant background.

I will be fascinated to see how this unfolds. I have many questions about the trailer’s arguments. Many of the connections made seem ridiculous at best; disingenuous at worst. As Carl Sagan said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The “post hoc ergo propter hoc” approach to arguments in the trailer are solipsistic and I await the proof to support them. I’m also interested in the filmmaker’s documentation about Hermann Noordung, additional papers he may have, etc. I truly question this story, but I want to hear what others have to say about it. Any thoughts?

Roger Launius is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Alien Hoax Revealed at the National Air and Space Museum!

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on November 2, 2011 in Aviation, Education, History, Research, space and Web & New Media.
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Last Friday, the Museum hosted an online conference devoted to critical thinking in the Internet age. Using four conspiracy theories in aerospace history to demonstrate effective research techniques, staff from our Museum, the US Department of the Navy, and National History Day engaged with students and teachers from across the globe.

Here are the topics we examined:

  1. What happened to Amelia Earhart? Did she crash in the Pacific, or was her disappearance fabricated as part of a government plot?
  2. Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt know about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened?
  3. What are UFOs and are we being visited by extra terrestrials?
  4. Did Americans actually land on the Moon? Or was it all an elaborate hoax?

 

Buzz

Buzz Aldrin salutes the American flag on the Moon.

We chose this theme because it provides excellent examples of why it is important to examine every story with a critical eye. Conspiracy theories always challenge the accepted narrative, interpreting details that institutional analysis either deliberately omits or cannot explain. As such, the people who question these official stories have already begun the process of critical thinking, but they haven’t necessarily followed through to the end.

In order to conduct a more thorough inquiry into each of these subjects, our presenters stepped through a critical thinking checklist that can be described in further detail on the Virtual Salt website. Shortly put, when examining any topic, one should evaluate its Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness and Support (CARS). If we apply this tool to any of the conference topics, we discover that the likelihood of conspiracy is very low, but it should be noted that this isn’t always the case. These questions are helpful for any historian or researcher and can be applied to any resource being considered — from newspaper articles to archival photos to historic artifacts.

 

close encounters

The mother ship model used for the 1977 film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

The conference concluded with a panel discussion during which our historians described some of their most exciting discoveries. Our own Tom Crouch, senior curator in the Aeronautics Division, discussed how he determined that the wing tips of the world’s first powered airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer were actually made from carriage spreaders. This contribution to the historical record shed light on who Orville and Wilbur Wright really were and how they worked. It was an exciting moment in his career.

Another panelist, Randy Papadopoulos, secretariat historian at the Department of the Navy, probably summed it up best when he described a particular “aha” moment he once had:

You realize, wow! This is a singular event. This is something that no one else has considered… The devil is in the details — you have to do some digging to find out, but when you do, you feel this tremendous sense of relief. [You realize] okay, I actually made a contribution that’s original. I’ve done something new here.

We’d like to thank all of our panelists for continuing to contribute original insights through their dedicated and thoughtful research. And thanks to everyone from around the world who participated in our online event.

For those who couldn’t attend, please check out the recordings online.

We enjoyed producing this conference, and we hope to do more. Please let us know what kind of topics you’d like to see us examine in future online events.

Ivey Doyal is a content manager in the Web and New Media Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

What are Your Favorite Aerospace History Conspiracy Theories?

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 10, 2010 in Astronomy, Aviation, Education, History, News & Events, Planetary Science, Research, space and Stories.
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We have been discussing at the National Air and Space Museum the possibility of pursuing an educational workshop on the place of conspiracy theories in modern America, especially as it relates to aerospace history but also in the broader context of our national history. Does it hold any interest for you? If we go forward with this idea it will be focused on teaching critical thinking and analysis of evidence. What do you think of this possibility?

Of course, as a society we embrace ideas of conspiracy as an explanation of how and why many events have happened all the time. Conspiracies play to our innermost fears and hostilities that there is a well-organized, well-financed, and Machiavellian design being executed by some malevolent group, the dehumanized “them,” which seek to rob “us” of something we hold dear.

Conspiracy theories abound in American history. Oliver Stone’s film, J.F.K., shows how receptive Americans are to believing that Kennedy was killed as a result of a massive conspiracy variously involving Fidel Castro; American senior intelligence and law enforcement officers; high communist leaders in the Soviet Union; union organizers; organized crime; and perhaps even the Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Stone’s film only brought the assassination conspiracy to a broad American public. For years amateur and not-so-amateur researchers have been churning out books and articles about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. It has been one of the really significant growth industries in American history during the last 45 years.

Numerous other instances of significant movements in American history have also been motivated at least in part by the possibility of conspiracy. The anti-Masonic crusade in the early nineteenth century was prompted by a fear that Masons were conspiring to overthrow the government and establish a totalitarian state in which they were supreme. Near the same time an anti-Catholic effort arose to fight a perceived “papal conspiracy” to take over the U.S. The Populist movement of the 1890s was predicated in part on a belief that there was a grand conspiracy of business interests in the East who sought to subjugate farmers by setting prices and making them dependent on “moneyed interests.” Some have argued that in 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt manipulated events in the Pacific to provoke the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor so he could join the Allies in a war against Nazi Germany. More recently, some argue that there is a conspiracy of scientists, politicians, and others to convince the world of global warming and thereby force changes in the economy and lifestyle. There is a counter-conspiracy that a well-organized conspiracy exists to defeat belief in global warming and thereby ensure that nothing of significance changes.

If we were to go forward with an educational program relating to aerospace conspiracies and their place in our history, I would ask for your list of major conspiracy theories in air and space. I will start with my list. Please understand that I do not specifically subscribe to any of these theories. What do you think of them? What else would you add? What do you think does not need to be discussed? I welcome your thoughts.

Here is my list of major aerospace conspiracies:

  • The Wright brothers were not the first to fly—small numbers of advocates argue that Alberto Santos-Dumont, John Joseph Montgomery, or some other experimenter was actually first and that a conspiracy—who is involved in the conspiracy is idiosyncratic—exists to keep the truth from the public.
  • Amelia Earhart did not die in a Pacific plane crash in 1937—she was really an American spy captured by the Japanese or she suffered some other such nefarious end.
  • Denials of the Moon landings—a small but vocal group insists that humans have never landed on the Moon and that the U.S. government is lying to us about it.
    • Saturn V

    The Launch of a Saturn V during the Apollo program. Some believe humans never landed on the Moon.

  • Extraterrestrials are visiting Earth, and have been since at least 1947 at the time of the “Roswell Incident”—advocates claim that the government knows the truth of this but denies the allegations. This is a broad area that includes Area 51, alien spacecraft, extraterrestrial bodies, and perhaps even live aliens residing in the U.S. while the government is withholding this truth.
    • Face On Mars

    This image was taken at Mars by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter in 1976. It caused a sensational speculation that it was an artificial construct built by an intelligent civilization on Mars.

  • The face on Mars—the Viking orbiter in 1976 took a single photograph of a part of the Martian surface that appeared to look like a human face staring up toward the sky. NASA insists it looks this way because of light and shadow on a hillside but conspiracy theorists belief that this is part of a cover-up to keep the truth of alien life on Mars quiet.
    • Face on Mars

    A later image from Mars Global Surveyor showing the same hill that supposedly had a human face.

  • The 9/11 attacks by airplane into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were staged by government agents because…the reasons given are broad and often shocking.
  • The Apollo 1 astronauts killed on January 27, 1967, were eliminated by NASA dirty deeds to keep them from revealing…choose the secret of your choice.
  • The Air Force has a super secret spaceplane, the Aurora, which flies military missions into orbit on a regular basis.
  • Contrails from highflying aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for some nefarious purpose undisclosed to the general public.
  • The Bermuda Triangle—a region in the western part of the Caribbean bounded roughly by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico—is a place where presumably a mysterious force makes aircraft and surface vessels disappear and the U.S. government is lying about it.

Do you have other conspiracy theories relating to air and space history that we might discuss?

Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on July 26, 2010 in Astronomy, Behind The Scenes, Planetary Science and space.
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July 15-24 marked the 35th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), the famous “Handshake in Space.” ASTP was the first American-Soviet space flight, docking the last American Apollo spacecraft with the then-Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. This joint effort between the two major world players was based on an agreement signed in 1972, and it set a precedent for future joint efforts, such as the Shuttle-Mir Program and the International Space Station.

Handshake

Astronaut Stafford (foreground) shakes hands with cosmonaut Leonov on July 17, 1975. The historic handshake kicked off approximately 47 hours of docked operations in orbit. The picture is reproduced from a frame of 16mm motion picture film. (Credit: NASA)

ASTP also provided an opportunity for American astronauts to systematically observe and photograph the Earth from outer space, thus providing scientists with new data for exploring and studying the Earth from orbit. What most people don’t know is that the National Air and Space Museum played an important role in this aspect of the mission.

Dr. Farouk El-Baz was the founding Chairman of the Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies and he was the principal investigator for the Earth Observations and Photography Experiment on ASTP.  He was instrumental in getting this photogeology experiment included on the mission. Dr. El-Baz had previously trained Apollo astronauts to make visual observations while orbiting the Moon (you may have seen him portrayed in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon), and now the target was Earth.  He worked with Research Assistants Delia Mitchell Warner and Sue McLafferty to plan flyovers that the astronauts performed in their T-38 aircraft so they could practice observing and photographing geologic features from above. While in space, the astronauts took some 2,000 pictures, about 750 of which were of good quality (e.g., not cloud-obscured).

Observations and Photography Experiment

A characteristic photograph from the Earth Observations and Photography Experiment: a view of part of southwest Africa in Angola, where unique drainage patterns are controlled by broad, partially vegetated dune fields. (Credit: NASA)

Dr. El-Baz gathered a team of scientists to analyze the images in the areas of geology, oceanography, hydrology, meteorology, and more. Orbital photographs, with their large aerial coverage, permit direct study of large structures, broad distributions, and remote and inaccessible parts of the globe where size makes conventional field surveys impractical. The applications of these photographs are widespread, including updating and correcting maps, monitoring Earth resources, studying dynamic geologic processes, and surveying ocean features. The Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Museum houses an archive of hard copy ASTP images.

In the Museum’s Space Race gallery you can see the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft in the docked configuration.  The Apollo command and service modules on display are test vehicles.  The docking module that joins the two spacecraft is back-up flight hardware, and the Soyuz spacecraft is a full-scale model built by Energia Design Bureau, the organization that originally built the Soyuz.

Apollo-Soyuz

A recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous on display in the Space Race gallery at the National Air and Space Museum.

Meghan Cassidy is an intern in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the National Air and Space Museum.

Is Resistance Futile?

Published by Roger Launius on May 9, 2010 in History, Planetary Science, Research, space and Stories.
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In Star Trek: The Next Generation the intrepid crew of the United Starship Enterprise repeatedly face the Borg, cyborgs intent on assimilating the biological creatures of the universe into their collective consciousness. Their meme, “resistance is futile,” serves as a convenient tagline for this ongoing plot device in the fictional series, but it also may foreshadow a more realistic future for humanity as we reach into space. When considering the far future and the potential for humans to colonize other bodies in the solar system and beyond, perhaps humanity will adapt to the space environment through modifications of the human body like those found on the Borg.

This idea was first broached by scientists Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in a 1960 NASA study. They remarked: “Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space.”  They proposed a variety of modifications that would allow humans to withstand radiation, the absence of atmospheric oxygen, and other hazards of space. They coined the term “cyborg” to describe this adaptation.

Sojourner and Astronaut on Mars

The classic image of humans and robots working together is depicted in this NASA artwork. Sojourner, the Mars Pathfinder rover named after former slave and famous abolitionist Sojourner Truth, is visited many years after its mission by a descendant of its namesake, in this artist’s rendering. Like the human, Sojourner the rover paved the way for those that followed. This image was produced for NASA by Pat Rawling.

Since that time, NASA has refrained from serious consideration of the ideas offered by Clynes and Kline, although a few studies in the 1960s investigated these possibilities. But what of the future, especially the distant future? To date, human presence in space has consisted of what might be characterized as extended camping trips, often a week or more but rarely exceeding a half year in length.  Yet space advocates continue to propose far lengthier stays, from planetary outposts to solar system colonization.

If colonization of the solar system, and the rest of the galaxy, is truly desirable, will it be done by Homo sapiens?  In undertaking this cosmic venture, humans might change, especially if very long periods of time are involved.  Humans born and raised on extraterrestrial locations would change naturally in response to different conditions.  Given advances in biotechnology, others might reengineer themselves.  The current debate over the superiority of humans versus robots in space could disappear in the presence of such alterations.

A provocative possibility appears in the rapid rise of biotechnology, suggesting that humans may become cyborgs through the application of sophisticated machinery in ways at least initially unrelated to space exploration. In many ways we are already there, with millions of people enjoying a better quality of life, or in some cases life itself, through the incorporation of pacemakers, joint and limb replacements, cochlear hearing implants, artificial organs, and a potential list of even more sophisticated enhancements. Future possibilities are astonishing.

How might we remake the human body to more effectively meet the rigors of space exploration? Skeptics may scoff at this possibility as nothing more than bioscience fiction, but space exploration was itself fiction in the truest sense of the word less than 75 years ago. Advances in biotechnology could take place with similar speed.

Robonaut

NASA’s Robonaut (foreground) is a step forward in terms of human/machine interaction. Here it performs a mock weld while Ames Research Center's K10 robot assists two EVA crew inspecting a previously welded seam.

The result, given sufficient time, may be the emergence of a new age of space exploration. Technological developments now beginning to take place might permit a true merger—humans equipped with robotic parts or machines possessing sentient qualities. In that sense, humans and robots would explore space together—really together.

The implications of such developments for the future of space exploration are fascinating.  They are made more interesting when one considers the degree to which humans might change during the millions of years available to colonize the galaxy. Who knows what derivations of the human form could emerge? Such developments would alter the traditional debate over space exploration in ways that provide a new paradigm quite different than the one casting humans with all of their biological limitations into the extraterrestrial realm. Such developments might make space travel more attainable, though in unconventional ways.

So, is there a Borg in our future? Possibly; even probably. In fact, we may already be there with all of the biotechnological enhancements now routinely offered to human beings. This possibility, moving as it does away from the necessity of maintaining organic life under Earth-like conditions throughout the cosmos, offers a fascinating option for space travel. If we did not require Earth-like conditions to survive, our ability to colonize strikingly diverse non-Earth-like worlds would expand. Many spheres, including those within the local solar system not currently suitable for human occupation, might prove acceptable. Is it possible that once cyborgs emerge—and undertake space travel—they will shoulder the burden of carrying the essence of humanity to other worlds? Resistance may be futile, if the Borg really are us. But they need not be feared.

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum. Howard E. McCurdy is professor of public affairs at the American University,Washington, D.C. They pubished Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), from which the ideas here are taken.

Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. to be awarded the National Air and Space Museum's Lifetime Achievement Award

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on April 22, 2010 in History and space.
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On April 28th, we will be awarding the National Air and Space Museum’s Trophy Award for Current and Lifetime Achievement. The Trophy was initiated in 1985 and has been given every year but one since then. This year, the Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., for a lifetime of service to aerospace, especially for his role in defining the responsibilities of Mission Control for human spaceflight at NASA. Anyone who has seen the Hollywood film Apollo 13 knows how crucial the mission controllers were in saving that mission and its crew from disaster. While the filmmakers may have exaggerated a few things, in that regard they were correct. Mission controllers—at first located at Cape Canaveral, later on in Houston—were critical to the success of all the human missions into space, and it was Kraft who determined their roles and responsibilities. By the time of the first crewed Apollo missions beginning in 1968, Kraft had been promoted to be Director of Flight Operations, and although he was no longer directly “in the loop” at Mission Control in Houston,  the controllers on duty were all his disciples, following his plan.

Chris Kraft

Gene Kranz (center) and Chris Kraft (right) at the flight operations director console in the mission operations control room of JSC's mission control center.

Last July, Kraft spoke at the Museum along with the three Apollo 11 astronauts: Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Edwin Aldrin, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the historic first human journey to the Moon’s surface.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9fCPhspOCQ]

In his remarks, Kraft reminded the audience how the success of Apollo depended on fundamental research done many years earlier at NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, at Langley Field, Virginia, a few miles from the town where Kraft grew up. He began working there in 1945, after graduating from college, and joined the Space Task Group shortly after the Soviet Union orbited Sputnik, when NACA was being absorbed into the newly-created NASA. It was from those humble beginnings that the triumphs of America’s space program emerged.

Dr. Chris Kraft will be participating in a live, online educational conference on Wednesday, April 28th.  Registration for the event is now open.

Paul Ceruzzi is a curator specializing in aerospace computing and electronics in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum.

Why Do People Persist in Denying the Moon Landings?

Published by Roger Launius on April 1, 2010 in History and space.
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In the summer of 2009 the United States celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the first Moon landing, Apollo 11. Amidst all of the hoopla virtually every news story, especially in the electronic world, made some comment about a supposedly rising belief that humans have never landed on the Moon.  Why?

Buzz Aldrin

This image of Buzz Aldrin saluting the U.S. flag on the Moon in 1969 is often used by Moon landing deniers as evidence that the landing was filmed on Earth, because the flag appears to be waving in the breeze, and we all know there is no breeze on the Moon. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who’s set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). Of course the flag waved—no breeze required!

Of course, from almost the point of the first Apollo missions, a small group of Americans have denied that it had taken place. This group seems to be expanding as the events of Apollo recede into history. Aided by a youth movement that does not remember what went down in the Apollo era and for whom distrust of government runs high, it is among that cadre of Americans where those who are skeptical have proliferated. Jaded by so many other government scandals, these younger members of society whose recollection of Apollo is distant to begin with finds it easy to believe the questioning they see on myriad Moon hoax web sites. Lack of understanding of science and failure to employ critical analytical skills make them more susceptible to this type of hucksterism.

There has been considerable research on the parts of society that embrace conspiracy theories of all types. Arguing that conspiracism writ large represents a fundamental part of the political system, legal scholar Mark Fenster claims in Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture (Minnesota, 2008), that such conspiracies represent “a polarization so profound that people end up with an unshakable belief that those in power ‘simply can’t be trusted’.”

At the time of the first landings, opinion polls showed that overall less than five percent “doubted the moon voyage had taken place.” Fueled by conspiracy theorists of all stripes, this number has grown over time. In a 2004 poll, while overall numbers remained about the same, among Americans between 18 and 24 years old “27% expressed doubts that NASA went to the Moon,” according to pollster Mary Lynne Dittmar. Doubt is different from denial, but this represents a trend that seemed to be growing over time among those who did not witness the events.

Perhaps this situation should not surprise us. A lot of other truly weird beliefs exist in society. Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt has been philosophical about this turn: “If people decide they’re going to deny the facts of history and the facts of science and technology, there’s not much you can do with them. For most of them, I just feel sorry that we failed in their education.”

While it is inappropriate for us to take this denial seriously and opinion surveys show consistently that few do, for those raised in the postmodern world of the latter twentieth century where the nature of truth is so thoroughly questioned it is more likely to gain a footing.

The media, especially, have fueled doubts over the years. While this may not be viewed as a definitive statement, a child’s bib I have seen places the blame squarely on the media’s back. It reads: “Once upon a time people walked on the moon. They picked up some rocks. They planted some flags. They drove a buggy around for a while. Then they came back. At least that’s what grandpa said. The TV guy said it was all fake. Grandpa says the TV guy is an idiot. Someday, I want to go to the moon too.”

No question, the February 2001 airing of the Fox special Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? changed the nature of the debate. In this instance a major network presented a conspiracy scenario without any serious rebuttal that might have been offered. As USA Today (April 9, 2001) reported in the aftermath of the show: “According to Fox and its respectfully interviewed ‘experts’—a constellation of ludicrously marginal and utterly uncredentialed ‘investigative journalists’—the United States grew so eager to defeat the Soviets in the intensely competitive 1960s space race that it faked all six Apollo missions.”

JFK

The Decision to Go to the Moon: President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 speech before a Joint Session of Congress, in Washington DC, USA. Vice President Lyndon Johnson (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (right) are in the background.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans made it possible to reach the Moon. This launch of Apollo 11 represents one of the most watched events in human history. It defies credulity that so many people could have perpetrated such a hoax.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans made it possible to reach the Moon. This launch of Apollo 11 represents one of the most watched events in human history. It defies credulity that so many people could have perpetrated such a hoax.

The Fox show raised the profile of Moon landing deniers. And it sparked considerable response. Marc Norman at the University of Tasmania quipped, “Fox should stick to making cartoons. I’m a big fan of The Simpsons!”

Whereas NASA had refrained from officially responding to these charges—avoiding anything that might dignify the claims—the Fox show demanded that it change its approach. After the Fox program first aired, NASA released a one-paragraph press release entitled, “Apollo: Yes, We Did,” that was minimalist to say the least. It also posted a NASA information sheet originally issued in 1977 to readdress some of the concerns and pointed people with questions to various Internet sites containing responses. NASA officials added, “To some extent debating this subject is an insult to the thousands who worked for years to accomplish the most amazing feats of exploration in history. And it certainly is an insult to the memory of those who have given their lives for the exploration of space.”

Denials of the Moon landings appropriately should be denounced as crackpot ideas. I look forward to the time when we return to the Moon and can tour “Tranquility Base” for ourselves.

Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Barbara Marx Hubbard and the Origins of the Pro-Space Movement in the 1970s

Published by Roger Launius on March 24, 2010 in History, Research, space and Stories.
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The formal beginnings of the modern “pro-space movement”—really an extension of the ad hoc efforts to gain and sustain public support for an aggressive spaceflight agenda earlier led by Wernher von Braun and others—might be best traced to the June 1970 formation of the Committee for the Future (CFF), a small group of space activists, dreamers, and misfits.

Meeting in the home of Barbara Marx Hubbard, daughter of the toy king, and her husband, artist-philosopher Earl Hubbard, in Lakeville, Connecticut, they proposed establishing a lunar colony. They unabashedly offered this as a great utopian experiment in which humanity, free from the constraints of everyday society, could create a perfect community.

Barbara Marx-Hubbard

Barbara Marx Hubbard

The CFF’s charter clearly voiced these utopian ideals: “Earth-bound history has ended. Universal history has begun. Mankind has been born into an environment of immeasurable possibilities. We, the Committee for the Future, believe that the long-range goal for Mankind should be to seek and settle new worlds. To survive and realize the common aspiration of all people for a future of unlimited opportunity, this generation must begin now to find the means of converting the planets into life support systems for the race of Men.”

They concluded, “A Challenge of this magnitude can emancipate the genius of Man.” They also offered shares in the lunar colony to millions of investors, immediately creating a constituency that could lobby Congress for funding for bold space ventures.

They convinced Representative Olin Teague, a longtime supporter of Apollo, to sponsor a resolution calling for a study of the feasibility of this lunar effort. When NASA, the aerospace industry, and the science community opposed the resolution, fearing that it might jeopardize other plans, it died a prompt death in Congress. CFF then rewrote the bill to propose a “citizens in space” mission in low-Earth orbit, called “Mankind One,” but NASA opposed that as well and it met a similar fate.

Many within NASA apparently agreed with the ideology of the CFF, although they eschewed its political strategies. Barbara Hubbard wrote how upon first meeting Christopher C. Kraft, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (renamed the Johnson Space Center in 1973), he told her, “This step into the universe is a religion and I’m a member of it.” Hubbard was deeply troubled, however, by the reaction of NASA to the CFF’s proposals. She wrote, “The corporate decision of NASA as a government agency was less responsive than the decision of any of its individual members.” One may trace to this incident the beginnings among the Committee for the Future of a wariness that NASA might not “do the right thing” in opening the space frontier to “citizen activities.” Such wariness continues to the present among many in the pro-space movement.

Organizing symposia, called “synergistic convergences” or SYNCONs, and publishing literature about a hopeful future in space, members of the CFF converted a sizable group of mostly young people to a utopian future in space. Space groupies came from everywhere to participate in the SYNCONs, some wearing “Star Trek” uniforms, energizing a loyal base of activists who firmly believed that only through space settlement will the human destiny of a perfect society be realized. While the Committee for the Future ceased to exist as a separate organization in the mid-1970s, Barbara Hubbard continued her commitment to an expansive human future in space.

Most assuredly the space professionals at NASA and in industry considered Barbara Hubbard and the CFF, both then and now, somewhat “wacky” and without substance. But the CFF represented a strain of spaceflight enthusiasm that could not be ignored—one that emphasized individual activism and blatant utopianism and it gained a greater respectability when later espoused by more credible advocates such as Princeton University professor Gerard K. O’Neill and Cornell University astrophysicist Carl Sagan in the latter 1970s.

Barbara Marx Hubbard has remained involved in futurist activities since this time. She was a founding member of the World Future Society, the Society for the Universal Human, and co-founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

Roger D. Launius is a Senior Curator in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum

The Whole Earth Disk: An Iconic Image of the Space Age

Published by Roger Launius on December 23, 2009 in History and space.
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Earth from Apollo 17. NASA Image #AS17-148-22727

Who has not seen the bright blue and white image of the Earth, swaddled in clouds and looking inviting, in numerous places and in various settings? Taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts on December 7, 1972, this photograph is one of the most widely distributed images in existence. It was the best one taken by these astronauts of a fully lit Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. Sometimes called the “blue marble,” this photograph taken during the translunar coast en route to the Moon, showed the Mediterranean Sea area in the north and extended to a good depiction of the to the Antarctic south polar ice cap. There was a heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere but the majority of the coastline of Africa is clearly visible, especially the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, and portions of the Asian mainland.

As early as 1966, environmental activist Stewart Brand began a campaign for NASA to release an image of the whole Earth in space. Brand even made up buttons that asked, “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the Whole Earth yet?” He sold them on college campuses and mailed them to prominent scientists, futurists, and legislators. Not until the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, however, did “Whole Earth” become a reality. As Brand recalled: “I was a big fan of NASA and of then ten years of space exploration that had gone up to that point, and there we were in 1966, having seen a lot of the moon and a lot of hunks of the Earth, but never the complete mandala… it was a bit odd that for ten years, with all the photographic apparatus in the world, we hadn’t turned the cameras that 180 degrees to look back.” This story has been told and retold in various ways, with some authors suggesting that Brand had alleged a NASA cover-up of secret photographs, although, his statements do not reflect this belief.

To capture this iconic image the astronaut/photographer used a 70-millimeter Hasselblad camera with an 80-millimeter lens. It was virtually impossible to tell who on the Apollo 17 crew actually took the photograph—Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, or Harrison Schmitt—all of whom took many photographs with the Hasselblad cameras aboard the spacecraft during the mission. More recent analysis credits Schmitt with the photo, but it cannot be determined for certain.

Stewart Brand put the photograph on the cover of his Whole Earth Catalog. This image, and the other stunning photographs of the Earth taken from space, inspired a reconsideration of our place in the universe.  It became the rallying cry of environmental activists, politicians, and scientists during the annual Earth Day celebrations. They used it as an object lesson of the Earth as a small, vulnerable, lonely, and fragile body teeming with life in a dull, black, lifeless void. While self-regulating and ancient, humanity proved a threat to this place. According to Brand and other ecologists, the Earth required human protection and the Whole Earth disk signaled its fragility.

Earthrise as seen from Apollo 8 spacecraft while orbiting the Moon in December, 1968. NASA Image #EL-2001-00365

The whole Earth image, as well as the earlier Earthrise photograph prompted the people of the world to view the planet Earth in a new way. Writer Archibald MacLeish summed up the feelings of many people when he wrote at the time of Apollo, that “To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now that they are truly brothers.” The modern environmental movement was galvanized in part by this new perception of the planet and the need to protect it and the life that it supports.

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Another First for The Museum – Virtual Conferences

Published by Tim Grove on November 3, 2009 in History, News & Events, space and Web & New Media.
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Astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as he salutes the U.S. Flag during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA). NASA Image #GPN-2000-001131

The National Air and Space Museum is holding its first ever virtual conference for educators on Tuesday, November 10 from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST.   Since we’re in the middle of the 40th anniversary commemorations of the Apollo missions, we decided to focus on this important period in American history.  Staff from our Division of Space History will discuss some fascinating topics such as the real story behind President Kennedy’s famous speech challenging Congress to send Americans to the Moon;  the role of computers—a new technology in the 1960s; the myth of presidential leadership during this time period; the intersections of Ralph Abernathy, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Moon landing; the rise of six iconic Apollo images and how they have been used over time; and the denials of the Moon landings by a small segment of the population and their evolution since the 1960s.  They will also explain the complexity behind the Saturn Rocket, the Command, Service, and Lunar Modules and the technique of Lunar-Orbital Rendezvous.   Museum educators will provide tips for helping students analyze primary source materials. The program will support the NASA History Advanced Placement and Human Geography Advanced Placement projects and is generously funded by NASA.

As an added bonus, Apollo astronaut John Young graciously agreed to record a special invitation to participate in the conference and answered some of our questions about his experiences in space.

New to virtual conferencing? A virtual or online conference is similar to other professional conferences only you access it online. Registration is free and open to everyone. And since we know people are busy and the conference schedule will not be convenient for everyone interested, all the conference sessions are recorded and archived so you can play them at any time.

Whether you’re an educator or not, we invite you to join us for this free event.  And, help us spread the word!

Visit the Smithsonian Virtual Conference web site for more information and to register.

Tim Grove is an education specialist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Education Division.