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Enigmas of the Space Program

“To boldly go. . . .” It sounded so compelling back in the 1960s. In its early days, the space program lit a fire in the public imagination like few things ever have. It came on the heels of several decades of UFO reports, which the media did pay attention to in those days.

People were filled with questions about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations and also, from a more practical perspective, about the nature of the moon and planets.

It all came together, and everyone was behind Captain Kirk and the adventures of his starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. But William Shatner was just an actor playing a role. He issued his commands from a Hollywood studio, not interstellar space. Nonetheless, there was another side to the actual space program that focused the public’s attention: the cold war and the competition between the Soviet and American space programs.

The Soviets took the early lead with their Sputniks and cosmonauts orbiting Earth. Then U.S. astronauts made the big score by landing on the moon first. The world watched these events with mounting excitement and anticipation.

It really seemed like we would soon see astronauts going on long-term voyages, landing on the moon and establishing a base, then venturing to Mars . . . and then who knew beyond that? Perhaps after exploring the planets in the solar system, they would be mounting expeditions into interstellar space.

Stop. That was nearly fifty years ago. Not only did we not get to Mars, but the highly publicized lunar mission also was scrapped for as yet unexplained reasons. The focus was shifted to much more pedestrian programs, such as the space shuttles and sending unmanned probes to investigate the planets and moons in our solar system.

What happened to the bold, stirring vision that once captured our attention and imaginations? That question is not as easy to answer as you would think.

Stripped of the science fiction elements, space—which begins where Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere end—is a brutal, inhospitable place. To say that it is an extremely rigorous environment would be an understatement; space is lethal. Out there between the stars, it is absolutely frigid. Even within the bounds of our solar system, it is either too hot or too cold to support life as we know it on Earth. And space is a vacuum with no atmosphere to breathe.

In addition, the planets have roiling toxic atmospheres. The public was not clearly thinking these realities through when the Soviets and then the Americans launched the space race. Did astronomers, astrophysicists, engineers, and various other scientists know all this? Absolutely!

The questions that the lay public should have been asking were simple. Where are our astronauts going to get the constant supply of oxygen they need? After that, where is the water they also need in constant supply going to come from? Given the Star Trek scenario, that was all taken care of; in reality, NASA still cannot overcome these issues.

Sure, they could build a space vehicle that could orbit the earth for a few days and even get to the moon and back, but a lunar base, then a long-term voyage to Mars? These were fantasies that were spun in the early heyday years of the space program.

NASA did not, and still does not, have the technological capability needed to build a lunar base or send astronauts to Mars on a long-term mission.

President Obama’s recent statements notwithstanding, administrations dating back to the Nixon-Agnew era have been chanting that mantra.

However, the galactic vision steadily got squeezed down to the redundant space shuttles and unmanned-probe missions that the public has grown less and less interested in. I, too, have seen my interest wane. I was very much alive back in the ’60s and was as caught up in the drama and promises as anyone else. Like everyone else, I also was a bit naive and too willing to accept official proclamations that should have been questioned.

The following is a direct quote from NASA’s website about the agency’s mission:

To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind. To do that, thousands of people have been working around the world—and off of it—for 50 years, trying to answer some basic questions. What’s out there in space? How do we get there? What will we find? What can we learn there, or learn just by trying to get there, that will make life better here on Earth?¹

After fifty years, enough time has elapsed to examine the record and see whether or not that mission has been fulfilled and those questions answered. What follows is a brief overview of the space program.

To begin, NASA was “launched” in 1958, partially in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite the previous year. Looking back, even NASA officials admit that in those days the agency was as much about politics as it was about science.

Then President Kennedy focused NASA and the nation on sending astronauts to the moon by the end of the 1960s. Through Project Mercury and the Gemini Program, NASA developed the technology and skills it needed for the journey. On July 20, 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two men to walk on the moon.

That encapsulates the “heady” champagne days of the space era. Landing astronauts on the moon was a huge achievement of American science and technology, a triumph over the Soviets during the cold war. But on the science side of it, what did NASA learn about the moon that has actually been of any practical benefit to taxpayers?

Other than bringing back a few geological samples to Earth, nothing much really was achieved; NASA did not add much to our knowledge, not directly from examining the moon anyway. Astronomers knew that the moon was constantly hammered by cosmic object impacts and that its surface was cratered and pockmarked, so what was the point of the mission in strict scientific terms?

At that point, NASA was envisioning the construction of a manned lunar base. That was supposed to be the real endgame of the lunar missions following the landing. In fact, a project toward that goal had been in the works for a decade prior to the lunar landing.

Project Horizon was a 1959 study regarding the U.S. Army’s plan to establish a fort on the moon by 1967, according to Heinz Koelle, a German rocket engineer with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s Project Horizon study.

The first landing was to be carried out by two “soldier-astronauts” in 1965, and more construction workers would soon follow. Through numerous launches (sixty-one Saturn I and eighty-eight Saturn II rockets), 245 tons of cargo would be transported to the outpost by 1966. Space was to be quickly militarized.

Next, the Lunex Project was a U.S. Air Force program that planned a manned lunar landing in 1961, prior to the Apollo Program. It envisaged a twenty-one-airman underground air force base on the moon by 1968, at a total cost of $7.5 billion.

In 1962, John DeNike and Stanley Zahn published their idea of a subsurface moon base located at the Sea of Tranquility. The proposed base was to have housed a crew of twenty-one in modules placed four meters below the surface The scientists believed the underground base would shield the operation as well as Earth’s atmosphere does: our magnetosphere shields the sun’s deadliest rays from hitting the earth; an underground base would be required to do this on the moon since it has no magnetosphere . . .

DeNike and Zahn envisioned nuclear reactors for energy production because they are more efficient than solar panels. In addition, atomic power would have been used to overcome the problems of the long lunar nights, and for the life-support system, an algae-based gas exchanger was proposed.

But were all of these plans real or simply smoke and mirrors? Where were these space soldiers going to get their oxygen and water? How were they going to deal with the lunar dust? A lunar base meant that soldiers would be stationed on the moon for a prolonged period.

Scientists aren’t magicians or miracle workers, but everyone was so pumped about the lunar landing that anything seemed possible . . . at least for a while.

There is no question that the plan was to follow the moon landing with some kind of manned lunar base. However, just when it seemed that all the groundwork had been accomplished and the next step was at hand, NASA pulled the plug on the lunar mission. Not only did NASA turn its focus away suddenly and inexplicably, but so did the Soviet Union. Why?

Before attempting to answer that question it may first be necessary to backtrack and take a quick look of events that led up to the Apollo 12 mission, which was the second manned lunar landing. Manned exploration of the lunar surface began in 1968 when the Apollo 8 spacecraft orbited the moon with three astronauts on board. This was mankind’s first direct view of the dark side of the moon.

The following year, Apollo 11 landed two astronauts on the moon, proving the ability of humans to travel to the moon, perform scientific research work there, and bring back sample materials. It is at this point that anomalous exchanges between ground control on Earth and the astronauts emerge, as do enigmatic events.

Aldrin and Armstrong were onboard the Apollo 11 mission. They allegedly observed some UFOs in a crater, and Aldrin filmed them as Armstrong got out of the spacecraft.

APOLLO 11 TRANSCRIPT (AUTHOR’S COMMENTS IN ITALICS)

With the post landing checks completed, Armstrong climbed out of the LM and descended to the lunar surface. . . . Armstrong’s attention was first directed at the nature of the surface material. He reported that the top layer was a fine, powdery material. He noted that he sunk in only a quarter of an inch or less, and that the footpads of the LM, which are convex discs 32 inches in diameter, had penetrated only a few inches.²

[This description makes it clear that the surface is powdery, but the powder or dust is not deep; beneath that it is hard because his boots do not sink in far, nor does the lunar module sink in deeply.]

After a quick visual check of the LM, Armstrong went ahead with his scheduled task of collecting the contingency sample—several pounds of lunar surface material which he stowed in a spacesuit pocket. In the course of his collecting, he noted that as he dug down five or six inches below the surface, he encountered hard, cohesive material.³

[The nature of the surface and subsurface is confirmed.]

Once the LM inspection and the sample collection were completed, Aldrin got out of the LM and climbed down the ladder, with Armstrong providing voice guidance. Armstrong was taking pictures of the event at the same time. The two then “unveiled” the plaque mounted on the strut behind the ladder by removing a protective covering. They read the inscription for the benefit of their world audience.

Here Men From Planet Earth

First Set Foot Upon The Moon

July 1969 A.D.

We Came In Peace For All Mankind⁴

[Who was NASA expecting would eventually read this plaque?]

The collecting of samples in bulk went forward without incident. Armstrong and Aldrin between them bagged upwards of 50 pounds (earth weight) of the loose surface material and selected rocks. These were stowed in small cloth bags and sealed and then packed in two large containers—also sealed—for eventual storage aboard the LM.⁵

[The next experiments seem a bit arcane and one can but wonder why they would have been so high on the agenda of the first manned lunar landing: a highly sensitive tremor measuring instrument and an equally sophisticated laser device to gauge distances and orbital pathways were deployed.]

The seismometer, designed to record and report events affecting the physical structure of the moon, began returning data immediately. It was sensitive enough to record the impact of the astronauts’ feet on the moon’s surface as they walked.

The laser reflector which was supposed to provide very precise information on the moon’s distance from earth and its orbital path did not immediately function. The reason for this is not clear. A few days later it commenced operating.⁶

[I question why a seismometer experiment was on the top of the priority list. Do we, on Earth, really need to know that much about moonquakes? (After all, taxpayer money funded this effort.) I can understand the logic of collecting the soil and rock samples, but measuring lunar tremors does not fit in the context of the first lunar landscape exploration.

In addition to these basic experiments, the astronauts were doing a lot of filming. This raises a serious issue. The transmission log contains a two-minute gap where NASA claims a camera overheated. If that is true, then why is that event omitted from the NASA summary of Apollo 11? What the summary does include is the following:]

During the moon walk, the TV transmission had a ghostly quality. The astronauts’ white space suits, the grey tones of the moon’s surface, the buoyancy of their movements, and the strange configuration of “Eagle” combined to give the impression that what viewers were seeing was truly from another world.

Besides the TV camera, the astronauts used a trio of other cameras for surface photography. They got both stilt [sic] and sequence coverage with a Hasselblad still camera, a Maurer data acquisition camera and the Apollo Lunar Surface Close-up camera.⁷

They had cameras and backup cameras of all kinds, and the filming went just fine. Two minutes was a very long period of silence for the first lunar landing, which was broadcast live to a billion people around the world. With multiple cameras recording the event, how could the image and sound be totally interrupted for two minutes? The astronauts had cameras covering many different angles.

When questioned about the silence, NASA insisted that the problem was the result of one of the television cameras being overheated, thus interfering with the transmission. That is a less-than-satisfactory answer.

This unexpected problem surprised even the most qualified of viewers, who were unable to explain how—in such a costly project during a live worldwide broadcast—one of the most essential elements could break down.

During the two-minute interruption, thousands of amateur radio (ham radio) operators dialed their stations onto the same frequency that the astronauts and the NASA capsule communicator on Earth were transmitting on.

During transmission of the Apollo 11 moon landing of astronauts Aldrin and Armstrong in 1969, two minutes of silence occurred in which the image and sound were interrupted. NASA insisted this problem resulted from one of the television cameras, which had “overheated,” thus interfering with the reception.

Some time after the historic moon landing, project director of the base in Houston, Christopher Kraft, made some surprising comments when he left NASA. Some of those comments are included at the end of this piece. The following conversation has been corroborated by hundreds of amateur radio operators who had connected their stations to the same frequency through which the Apollo 11 astronauts transmitted.

During the interruption—which was not as it seemed—it appears that NASA, Armstrong, and Aldrin, along with Cape Kennedy, censored both image and sound.

Below is the gist of the exchange, during the two-minute radio silence, that reportedly took place between the astronauts and NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston:

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: Those are giant things. No, no, no—this is not an optical illusion. No one is going to believe this!

HOUSTON (CHRISTOPHER CRAFT): What . . . what . . . what? What the hell is happening? What’s wrong with you?

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: They’re here under the surface.

HOUSTON: What’s there? (Muffled noise). Emission interrupted; interference control calling “Apollo 11.”

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: We saw some visitors. They were here for a while, observing the instruments.

HOUSTON: Repeat your last information!

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: I say that there were other spaceships. They’re lined up in the other side of the crater!

HOUSTON: Repeat, repeat!

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: Let us sound this orbit . . . in 625 to 5. . . . Automatic relay connected. . . . My hands are shaking so badly I can’t do anything. Film it? God, if these damned cameras have picked up anything—what then?

HOUSTON: Have you picked up anything?

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: I didn’t have any film at hand. Three shots of the saucers or whatever they were that were ruining the film.

HOUSTON: Control, control here. Are you on your way? What is the uproar with the UFOs over?

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: They’ve landed here. There they are and they’re watching us.

HOUSTON: The mirrors, the mirrors—have you set them up?

ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN: Yes, they’re in the right place. But whoever made those spaceships surely can come tomorrow and remove them. Over and out.

If one camera malfunction caused the blackout due to overheating, then how was it cooled down enough to resume normal transmission so quickly? Why weren’t the other cameras used as a backup?

Certainly, NASA engineers would have anticipated such a failure and had a redundancy sequence in place. After all, we are talking about the whole world watching this event on live television with the reputation of America’s space program on the line.

Moreover, anyone who has read the entire transmission log knows that the cameras, the quality of the images, the angles, and the lighting were not just incidental, secondary parts of the mission. They were, in fact, equal to or more important than the two experiments that were conducted on the lunar surface.

NASA and the astronauts were discussing the operational status of the cameras and the resolution of the images they were taking from the time that the Apollo spacecraft that was above the earth to until and after it landed. Furthermore, the camera functions were the issues gone over more than any other technical component during the mission. To claim that the transmission went down due to a camera failure is highly questionable.

This excuse would be revived in the next lunar mission, Apollo 12, when NASA claimed that Astronaut Alan Bean accidentally pointed the camera he was operating at the sun! Seriously, the man goes through the most intense selection and training program on Earth, only to destroy the camera assigned to visually document the mission?

Keep in mind that the subject of UFO sightings by astronauts was already a hot one since early manned space missions had produced inexplicable events and reports of sightings.

For instance, a sighting occurred during the December 1965 Gemini 7 mission. Astronauts Frank Boorman and James Lovell reported sighting a “bogey” at ten o’clock high. Exchanges with Mission Control confirmed this was not the rocket booster, and subsequently, a variety of small particles—never properly explained—were observed at a distance of three or four miles.

An earlier event, from June of that year and perhaps the best-documented astronaut sighting, occurred aboard Gemini 4. Astronaut James McDivitt reported observing “a cylindrical object with an antenna-like extension.” According to McDivitt’s account of the incident, the distance of the object, which was silvery in appearance, was impossible to gauge, but it initially appeared at least miles away.

The object was in “free drifting flight” over the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, the craft appeared to change direction so that it was on a collision course with the astronauts. They instantly started preparations for avoiding a collision, but the craft flew by them without incident.

Then, in 1966, two bright red, glowing objects captured the attention of Gemini 10 astronauts John Young and Michael Collins as they circled Earth.

Suddenly, both astronauts observed the objects in the same orbital path their craft was in. The astronauts immediately informed Mission Control personnel, who in turn requested further information. In their words, “If you can get a bearing maybe we can track them down!” Just at that particular moment, Young radioed back, “They just disappeared!”

At the time of the Apollo 11 and 12 moon-landing missions, the public knew of these encounters and reports, but while they were still buying the official NASA explanations, it was with mounting questions.

(Each of the above-mentioned incidents was thoroughly investigated by the famous [or should I say “infamous”?] Condon Committee. The conclusion was that the incidents were “unexplained” and were in the “highest category of credibility.”)

Keep in mind that these sightings were part of a sequence that went back to Roswell; the buzzing of Washington, D.C.; the Socorro incident; and more. The UFO phenomenon was not kept under wraps by the media as it has been since the 1980s. Of course, the astronaut sightings were unimpeachable, so they added a huge amount of credibility to the UFO phenomenon.

Now, given how the military and the government handled Roswell and Washington, would NASA be inclined to air or to black out yet more evidence that UFOs were real? It does not take a Sherlock Holmes mentality to answer that question.

The NASA explanation for the Apollo 11 broadcast interruption does not wash. If they had sent only one camera to film the entire event, perhaps, although who would want to give them more tax dollars after that, especially given that on the next mission, they did send only one camera, which Bean allegedly destroyed by pointing it at the sun?

After the Apollo Program, NASA focused on creating reusable ships to provide regular access to space: the space shuttles. First launched in 1981, the space shuttles flew more than 130 flights before the fleet was retired in 2011.

In 2000, the United States and Russia established a permanent human presence in space aboard the International Space Station, a multinational project representing the work of sixteen nations. In reality, the space shuttle was really a space truck that had a very pedestrian mission. The actual exploration of other planets has been conducted by probes since the last manned lunar mission.

The question now is, why did NASA and the Soviet space program both abandon their lunar missions, but now both claim they want to return to the moon? We shall delve into that in chapter 23, but before doing so, it should be enlightening to read the views of some astronauts regarding extraterrestrials, presented in the following chapters.

CONCLUSION

After a string of early successes that ended with the first lunar landing, NASA backed off the lunar-base mission. Some astronauts have reported UFO sightings during space flights. Fifty years thereafter, the agency is still talking about building a space base on the moon.