Glenn E. says:

While I do believe the US landed on the moon. Because faking it would have been way more expensive, than just going there. That’s a lot of people to be paid extra to keep quiet. Right?

What I’ve come to believe was faked, was that famous, supposedly “impromptu” speech that Neil Armstrong gave, as he step off the LEM onto the moon. “That’s one small step for man…”. But it should have been, “That’s one small step for a man…”. Because “[all of] man” and “mankind” are essentially the same thing. And sounds dumb to say twice, in the context of “a small step” vs “a giant leap”. The first “a” makes it specific to a single man’s step. But Armstrong didn’t say the first “a”. So basically he was too distracted to get his lines perfect. And NASA was dumb, to heap that load of BS showmanship on him to do, at the time.

And even if he had said it, as scripted. It’s kind of an awkward thing to start by saying “That’s …”, when you’re jumping off a ladder. I don’t think anyone ever noted Armstrong for his powers of poetry, before or since. So very likely NASA had it written up for him, to say. All very Hollywood and such. But being more the test pilot, than poetry reader. Armstrong delivered the line, with less wordage than it seem to require. Pilots tend to speak in shorthand, without a lot of “the”s and “a”s, they know will get lost in transmission.

I’ve also heard that the “a” got cut off by a communication glitch, even though he spoke it. That would be one extremely well timed glitch, if so. And it does answer the question, why Armstrong didn’t say “This is one small step…”? Which is the way a lot of people misremember it as being said. Instead of “That’s one small step … for man”. Which sounds more like what was written by someone, not in the moment of experiencing the event. But anticipating it, in the future.

It’s a trivial detail, I know. But it’s telling, of how much this was theater, rather than just scientific endeavor. Tv camera and all. And what they brought back was rocks and soil samples. Not to figure out where the moon came from, as advertised. But whether or not the moon possessed rare earths in abundance. And both the US and Russia sent unmanned probes to the moon, for soil testing. I highly doubt they did that, to test if anything grew up there. And that’s what probing Mars will be about, for quite some time. It’s mineral wealth.