The basic story Angus was not disputing the actual lunar landing (although that is a natural follow-on) but saying that the filming of the landing and all the moon photos were a hollywood style production handled by Stanley Kubrick and using the 2001 A Space Odyssey set.

What seemed to be pretty much beyond doubt was that Kubrick and the film crew were heavily involved in many aspects of the space program, even down to re-designing rocket shapes and applying gold leaf to the fins and stuff. All the big wigs were basically as impressed as all get-out with Kubrick's film and so contracted him to make the space program/moon mission as spectacular for public propaganda purposes as he could.

The film guys had unprecedented access to everything down to writing the 'first step for man...' speech. In return, years later, Kubrick called in the favour and called NASA to demand to be allowed to borrow their super-dooper one-of-a-kind camera lens (worth $20,000 or something huge for those days anyway) to film Barry Lyndon.

not only using my majors of politics and history but also using my minors of sociology and philosophy, and even my 'know very little about' interests of cosmology and economics. [...] My speciality seems to lie in the ability to synthesize theoretical conceptual stuff from many different angles, to link it all together and to spit it back out as it applies to the world in my lifetime. It makes for a very busy head sometimes.

I want to be moonlit when I grow up. And hayden. But cooking (?do I have that right)is not my forte and neither is music. But I'll take the rest. I got my BS in physics(astro thesis) and political science, a little by accident. I'm in astro now, but when I leave it, it wil be for a masters program in the international field, by gum.

moonlit ... I'm pretty sure they were all filmed specifically for this and were very much in on the joke.

It had me fooled right up until they said one of the hitherto unseen rolls of film (can't recall if it was still or moving) had a shot of a photograph of Kubrick, lying discarded on the "moon's surface". I don't know why but something suddenly clicked and I realised I was watching one of those April 1st shows. Of course, from then on, it got so ridiculous that only a complete ninny would continue to believe it but prior to that it was very convincing.

The basic story Angus was not disputing the actual lunar landing (although that is a natural follow-on) but saying that the filming of the landing and all the moon photos were a hollywood style production handled by Stanley Kubrick and using the 2001 A Space Odyssey set.

Exactly, moonlit and that's why it had me going in the beginning. To elaborate on what you said; Nixon and Co. feared the Apollo 11 crew might not be able to get back to Earth and because of the amount of money spent, it would be a huge public relations disaster and devastating blow to public morale. To counter any possible problems, they decided to photograph and film fake footage as a back-up measure. They asked to use Kubrick's 2001 moon set but Stanley was not supposed to have anything further to do with it. However, he was so disgusted by the amateurs they had putting on the show, that he ended up directing it for them.

Now, here's where it gets even more elaborate. Even though the Apollo 11 crew made it safely back to Earth, they claim the camera equipment used was inadequate and they returned with no usable footage. Thus, the fake footage was used anyway and that is what we've all been seeing for the last 30 years.

Ms. H, when in doubt, blame Reagan. I'm all about demystifying "national heroes", especially ones who get by on charm.

Another reason why it is often more comfortable to talk from an academic perspective on these ideas/theories/topics is that it leaves less room for miscommunication errors or problems with people taking offense

I dig this. It's like talking in lawyerese: lawyers aren't intentionally obfuscating; they're just being really, really specific about which word means which thing. I'm reasonably following along, except for the part where I feel like I should be jotting down notes.

the whole 'Communism = evil' thing

Oh my lord. You're suddenly reminding me of a classmate I had in a post-colonial literature class. we were reading Ngugi wa Thionggo, who for the record is a very genial -- angry, but genial about it -- Kenyan socialist. And this classmate, who is 3rd generation Cuban (i.e., grandparents fled Castro, grew up in the Cuban areas of Miami, completely brainwashed by her family and/or ethnic enclave-itis *), kept coming back to "How can America possibly be bad?" And finally, after much Socratic dialogue, out comes this winner: "But America is good, and Communism is just evil." Everyone else in the class was just polite enough not to laugh and laugh, but the upshot was that she could not be convinced that political theories have no inherent moral bias.

[*] Cuban-Americans in Miami are somewhat notorious, as a community, for knee-jerk "Communists drink the blood of babies!" sentiment. I thought this was a stereotype, until I met this woman. I really wanted to refer her to the Cuban-American novelist Achy Obejas, who has written a lot about the issue, but I suspect she's the sort who also knee-jerk thinks "Lesbian feminists drink the blood of babies!", so really, she should have just dropped the class at the beginning of the semester.

99% of my formal training in politics is from analysis of nationalist (fictive) literature. Which is a way of saying, I have no formal training at all.

I was only partially watching the first part but at some stage it just clicked that the sentences on their own read very differently to the whole. That was when I starting getting suspicious.

I just really loved the bit about applying the gold leaf to the fins of the rocket for a huge amount, even though it had absolutely no effect on anything but to make it look more expensive.

I just really loved the bit about applying the gold leaf to the fins of the rocket for a huge amount, even though it had absolutely no effect on anything but to make it look more expensive.

See, in hindsight that should've registered as a hoax indicator but it was just insane enough to have a ring of truth about it. I could totally see a Hollywood production designer insisting on that. :)

Re hindsight and 20/20 vision: Jack Torrance, the "Hollywood Producer". All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

heh

sarameg I want to be moonlit when I grow up.

Sarameg, if you've got any sense you'll go for more money. That's another reasons I've been pondering the nunnery option. I figure that you're in a good place to be looked after in your old and infirm years with no real health cover and certainly no special bits like dental, and let's face it, that's one of the things that nuns are good at. (snerk)

Ms. H, when in doubt, blame Reagan

In fact one of the reasons that those in Hollywood who knew about Kubrick and the moon film stuff kept quiet was that they were promised a reward with the next election ....... Bingo! You got Reagan.(that part made me laugh too)

99% of my formal training in politics is from analysis of nationalist (fictive) literature. Which is a way of saying, I have no formal training at all.

Nutty, have you read Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said?

Sarameg, if you've got any sense you'll go for more money. That's another reasons I've been pondering the nunnery option.

Laughing rather hard here. If I had any sense, I'd stay in programming, where there is money. But I hate it so.... ANd I understand the appeal of nunneries. Except the pesky religion thing keeps tripping me up.

One thing I know about NASA: too bureaucratic to ever, ever, ever be able to manage a fakeout of hoax. Some days I'm surprised we manage to produce the results...

Right. The problem with conspiracies is that it takes two people to conspire. Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. I mean, for crying out loud. If the Mafia leaks like a sieve, how can you imagine the bland, plain federal government can keep secrets? I mean, have you seen government buildings? I'd be broadcasting secrets on a CB radio, just in hopes of getting the perks of being interviewed on Dateline.

Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said

Not in a long time. Or actually, I think I read several of his essays, or selected chapters, rather than the whole book. I tend to think that Said is pulling a certain amount of his thesis out of his butt, or rather, that he's taking a very limited point of view on the conceptsof empire and ethnicity and political-cultural identity. But then, I tend to feel that way about 90% of recent post-colonial analysis: it's too narrowly modern in scope, and doesn't have any anthropological distance.