Oh, The Randomness! We Never Went to the Moon pp. 184-187

 The first section of this week’s appendix is titled “The Astronauts.” This section does something that we haven’t seen in a while—it raises an interesting point. It does so accidentally, but the point is still raised. Kaysing tells us that he was invited to a televised debate with Buzz Aldrin to discuss whether the Moon landing was faked. Aldrin didn’t show up, and Kaysing acts as though this was an act of cowardice, “it was his obligation as a man and public servant to defend his case in person.”

Aldrin was not a public servant. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. The man comment is just proto-toxic masculinity, Kaysing is trying to shame him into showing up. We are told that Armstrong has disappeared because he won’t speak to either Kaysing or his co-investigators. Finally, we are told that “Astronaut Irving’s mother berated me on radio when I appeared on the Jim Eason show in San Fransisco. But when I offered to debate her son on the same program, there was dead silence.” Kaysing likely means James Irwin, the pilot for Apollo 15.

The issue that Kaysing raises is an important one—do experts have a responsibility to debate people like Kaysing? On the one hand letting these people talk unchallenged allows them to spread their conspiracy theories. On the other hand, there is no benefit to actually talking to them. By engaging with people like Kaysing you give them legitimacy. If Aldrin showed up, Kaysing would then brag that he was the guy who debated Aldrin about the Moon landing. It spreads the conspiracy, and it’s not like Alrdin is going to convince him. Everything Kaysing could say could just be met with a response like, “When I was on the Moon, literally standing on it…” but Kaysing isn’t going to accept anything like that. It’s probably best for the Irwin, Armstrong, and Aldrin to not give interviews but let people like me argue who should. Ignoring it hasn’t solved the problem.

Our author then does something strange, the most obvious reason for a conspiracy theorist to claim that the astronauts won’t give interviews is because of the coverup, because “they” won’t let them. Instead, Kaysing believes that the astronauts are afriad of the PSE (the psychological stress evaluation) that would be used via the television to determine if they were lying. A normal lie detector hooked up to your arm, chest, and finger, is a bullshit device. It measures stress not truth (and even then not really). Throught the television there are too many factors that would make such a device’s ability to even measure stress doubtful.

We are then given two pages on Thomas Baron, but we already covered that in the proper book. We’re just being treated to a reiteration that we should think it’s odd that Baron died because of his report. We have to let the air out of this aspect of the theory, there is no accusation against NASA in the Baron report. It’s just that the private company doing it was shoddy in their work. Even the General noted this in his report that they needed to get up to speed with both the timeline and quality. I’m skipping this part.

“NOTE TO READERS-As you read the following material, I don’t ask you to believe me…only to keep an open mind.” What he means is that an open mind is agreeing with him, this is a tired conspiracy theorists’ tactic. This note to readers is in an odd place: midway through the appendix? It should be in the beginning of the book, or at the very least the beginning of the appendix.

Our next section is, well it’s something. It’s titled “Other Hoaxes as Supporting Evidence,” he tells us that one of his men in the Navy told him to never save money but spend it having a good time. The context is that they were getting ready to invade Japan which kind of colors your outlook on life when you’re getting ready to invade a country that only the great Khan was successful at landing on and whose soldiers have repeatedly demonstrated that they would rather die than surrender. Thinking about the interest rate of your savings account is probably less important than buying that bottle of rum and playing dice before the invasion. This is the section, that’s it. There aren’t other hoaxes for us to read about. It’s just this.

Finally, we end with “The Minneapolis Doctor.” This unnamed doctor says that face shield of the helmet would crack due to the extreme temperature differentials of the surface of the Moon. An unnamed airline pilot also agreed saying that, “it required very careful regulation of the windshield temperatures to prevent cracking when descending from high altitudes.” Yes, careful regulation which is something that would have been considered.

Next week we continue with this weird subject shotgun attempt to make a case.