Man on the Moon...in Nevada?

There are a plethora of conspiracy theories floating around regarding Neil Armstrong’s lunar landing and subsequent moon walk in order to disprove the United States’ claim to dominance during the Cold War. Some of the theories of these conspiracy creating hippies make some sense while other theories were derived from Dumb and Dumber. But regardless of the theory, the concept is about as wet as dry ice.

First of all, they say that if you speed up the moon walk video, it looks like an average person running. I happen to work with a guy that works in slow motion, and he looks more like a fart in a whirlwind than a moon walker.

They say that the dune formations from the moon video match with the dune formations somewhere in Nevada. If any of you have ever been around sand dunes, you’ll know that they move around more than a toddler.

They say that the United States made it up so that it could one up the socialists, who had dominated the capitalists up to that point. Good point, but our hockey team still beat theirs. Our amateurs are better than their pros.

They say that the video of the flag in space is flawed because the flag has the appearance that it is waving in a wind free environment. Gravity provides a downward force on the flag. The absence of gravity means the flag floats. Floating flag looks like wavy flag.

Aside from all the components of this conspiracy theory, the main reason I have a hard time believing that we never walked on the moon is the same reason Benjamin Franklin would give. Ben once said that three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

How many people would have to be in on a secret like this and keep silent about it? First there are the actors. Then there are the stunt doubles, extras, cinematographer, his assistants, and the list goes on.

They ask why we haven’t been back to the moon. I’ve only been to Niagara Falls once, and I never went back. Same thing, right?

Actually, Apollo 13 was headed there, and Tom Hanks showed us what happened with that trip. NASA has been granted billions of dollars to send another craft in that direction, but it looks as though they may not need as much money because, of all things, competition. Commercial passenger flights to the moon could be happening as soon as 2012, which means NASA has competition, the same thing it had during the Cold War.

It’s funny to think that the source of motivation for the socialists during the Cold War was competition. Can’t we all just share the thrill of victory?


Next weeks' topic: Bankruptcy