Motives: We Never Went to the Moon pp. 18-22

 If you read the academic literature on conspiracy theories the most important sticking point is how to define them. Ever since Keeley defined the concept back in 1999, there have been numerous tweaks and changes to the definition. My 2021 Dissertation had its own definition, and they continue to be adjusted and improved. One nearly consistent feature of the various academic attempts at defining “conspiracy theory” is that the theorists always has malicious motives for their theory. When I cover this in my courses I explain that I have doubts about this feature (in fact, I don’t use it in my definition at all); because while we can easily see the nefarious motives in covering up the truth about the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, or the Flat Earth; this isn’t necessarily the case. I construct a conspiracy theory about a secret plan to give everyone a free puppy (or kitten), even the philosopher Dentith talks about a conspiracy to throw a surprise part—which can hardly be considered nefarious.

Kaysing, here, is going to inadvertently argue a third example—the Moon landing was faked in order to give the appearance that the US beat the USSR to the Moon. The motive here is that the US needed to beat the USSR at something, and the Moon Shot was the thing that we settled on. Is this an evil or malicious plot? Only if you are a person that believes that the truth can never be hidden can we say that this is a malicious conspiracy theory, and I think that ethical bar is too idealistic to be practical.

I will say that this chapter at least gives me hope for the organization of this book. Unlike our last book beginning at the motive for the conspiracy makes sense. I will remind my readers that this book was written during the Cold War so the idea of a competition between the USSR and the US was a very real thing. The people who bought this book remember with terrifying alacrity the Cuban Missile Crisis, they very likely panicked at the possibility of war after Kennedy’s assassination, they know the proxy war the US lost in Vietnam. The Moon landing was a shining moment of American supremacy that seemed untainted by any of the cultural and social struggles of the 60s. Kaysing writes, “To realize how important it was to ensure a successful ‘man on the moon’ project, we must first examine the roots of the desire and need for this all-important flight.”

He then claims that US propaganda made comparisons between the cultures of the two in order to highlight the US supremacy to determine three things. The first is how much labor was necessary to earn a specific amount of food. This is an interesting one because it hearkens back to Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” where he explains that this kind of measure is the sole determiner in the strength of a nation. Currency is fixed at a measure of labor exchange to buy a certain amount of a basic crop (wheat, corn, rice) and that high wages are a sign of strength because the labor force can feed itself.

I don’t know who won this fight while Kaysing is writing. I do know that because of the belief in “Capitalist Genetics,” a rejection of Darwinism because it was too liberal, and the use of pseudoscience called “Lysenkoism” the USSR is going to lag behind in food production (this is also ignoring the Holodomor, as well as food production shortages due to Nazi invasion).

The second is “ownership of automobiles.” This category is a biased one because automobile ownership was deemed a social good in the US, something that Americans were supposed to aspire toward; but it was a not a universally shared value even amongst our allies. The English do not have the same car culture that Americans have.

The third he claims is “female beauty: Russian women were usually shown wearing shawls and long skirts made of heavy burlap.” What? According to Kaysing US propaganda thinks that unless Americans are secure in the knowledge that Soviet women are covered in rags and long skirts that suddenly we’re all buying plane tickets to Moscow and eating borscht. Kaysing also fails to mention how American women are being portrayed during this era.

Note: It has been conjectured that the Soviets intended that a totally spurious race take place, knowing that the financial strains would contribute to a weakening of the U.S. financially and as a world power.

No, this has not been a serious conjecture. I would love for Kaysing to explain where he heard this because it completely contradicts the Soviet effort. It also contradicts the joint attempt between the US and the USSR that Kennedy and Khruschev were floating as an idea. The important reason that this never happened is because Kennedy died and Khruschev just didn’t like Johnson.

There’s an odd throwaway line that immediately follows this, “However, this is not in keeping with the wheels-within-wheels concept that there is no real competition between the U.S. and Russia (or any other country, for that matter), since the ultimate manipulators are in league.”

I haven’t skipped anything. He just mentions this and moves on. What we are left with is that Kaysing has the idea that not only the Moon Landing is fake, but also the entire Cold War, and the Middle Eastern tensions which caused the energy crisis. In fact, any crisis is fictional. This is a surprising drop for this book. I thought (and said in the introduction to this series) that we were dealing with an event conspiracy theory, not this. As quickly, and as abruptly as it is mentioned he moves on to more history. Alright, pin in that comment I suppose.

“Little was done prior to WWII in the US as far as space travel was concerned. Only Goddard and his lone-worlf experiments advanced this technology. As usual, the military was a decade or two late in recognizing an advanced weapons potential.”

These three sentences have so much wrong in them that it’s hard to parse it down. First off, the second sentence and the third are non-sequiturs. Goddard is of note because he was getting the technology to work. He was a literal groundbreaker in rocket technology, but other people were attempting…just unsuccessfully. The context is important too, Goddard is working during the interwar period making actual physical rockets. His seminal work, “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” was only published two years after WWI—when the plane was new. Claiming that the military was ignorant of the importance is technically correct, but they are also dealing with a flood of new technologies which have been battle tested. The V-1 and V-2 Rockets worked, but not effectively. Once the British figured out what was happening, they began to counter them pretty well. The V-2s couldn’t be shot down but they were very inaccurate. However, the V-1 and V-2 were proofs of concept, and despite what Kaysing wants to imply, both the Soviets and the Americans stole as much Nazi research and scientists as they could (it’s just that the US landed the legend of von Braun while the Soviets nabbed the Peenemunde research facility), as well as dumping as much money as possible into the programs.

The Russians won with Sputnik and Kaysing accurately points out what a shock to the system this was. He quotes Johnson’s comment that Sputnik pointed out that maybe the US wasn’t the best at everything. More importantly though it was Eisenhower’s reaction to Sputnik. It drove a focus on science that had been largely ignored by the government. Sputnik is what put evolution into biology textbooks because scientific understanding could no longer be ignored. Kaysing says that if not for Sputnik there would have been no Moon landing decision. This is false. The space race was already in full swing, in fact, the reason that Sputnik only had a broadcast antenna was because the Russians felt the US was going to beat them into space. The original design had a plethora of scientific gadgets on it. They rushed the pared down model into space to claim “first.”

Nevertheless, we have our foundation for why. Next week we’ll begin chapter 3 which is supposed to cover the “how.”