Quiet

[Andromeda]

Wow, it's quiet here.  I almost miss Heiwa.

Let's chat...

How did you guys get interested in manned space flight in the first place?  How did you discover the hoaxists, and join ApolloHoax?

Personally, my first love was astronomy and astrophysics.  I was a small child when I got into it by way of being a sci-fi fan.  Interest in manned space flight came later, when I was a teen.  I first heard hoax claims at around the same time (from a friend who was reading a hoaxist book, I don't know which one) and thought they sounded bizarre.  I never doubted the moon landings, and joined this board fairly recently.

[gillianren]

Okay, let me make you all feel old real quick.

The first space mission I remember was the space shuttle's first mission.  My parents got us up early to watch it on TV, as I recall.  My dad was career Air Force, and while we never talked about it, I'm pretty sure he was proud of the connection between the USAF and the history of manned space travel.  I remember a couple of times when he woke us up for something space-related, including an eclipse.  I know that I was enough into the concept of space travel that a teacher's aide stopped me in the halls to tell me about Challenger, because she knew I would care.  I was probably in third grade.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that into hard science fiction.  Most of the sci-fi I read is more about people than science.  I'm not good at advanced math, though I am the fastest person I know at calculating tips.  (Faster than friends with smart phones, sometimes!)  I took physics in high school, though I didn't learn anything in particular.  I've never taken chemistry.  I've never taken calculus.  I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff that gets discussed around here; some of the jokes about how ridiculously ignorant HBs are in science go over my head, because I don't understand the concepts, either.

The first I knew that there was anyone who doubted the Moon landings was when I read Phil Plait's book.  It frankly stunned me.  I may not know a lot about science, but I do know a lot about history, and I knew there was no way a Moon landing hoax would still be a secret.  It also doesn't take much to know that the science doesn't work, either, but I'd never looked into it.  I joined what was then still the BABB, and I made friends.  I joined here because, much as I appreciate (most of) the restrictions of what I still call BAUT, I do like having a place that's a bit looser with regards to politics and religion yet still reasonably polite.  But "reasonably polite" is still really important to me, so I don't venture into most of the places where hoax belief is discussed these days.

[Abaddon]

Wow, it's quiet here.  I almost miss Heiwa.

Let's chat...

How did you guys get interested in manned space flight in the first place?  How did you discover the hoaxists, and join ApolloHoax?

Personally, my first love was astronomy and astrophysics.  I was a small child when I got into it by way of being a sci-fifan.  Interest in manned space flight came later, when I was a teen.  I first heard hoax claims at around the same time and thought they sounded bizarre.  I never doubted the moon landings, and joined this board fairly recently.

Heiwa? He is having lots of fun on the cluesforum, a site so bat shit crazy that Heiwa is getting bashed about for correcting them. I expect he will be banned from there eventually as a shill for the scientific establishment.

First mission I remember in real time was the Voyager Launches, I was only three at Apollo 15. Still, there was plenty of retro coverage that I do remember. Sagan's Cosmos was shown late at night here and was mandatory family viewing (lights off, of course) not in the sense of compulsion, but in the sense that if you missed and episode, everyone wanted to know what was more important than Cosmos. All of us were sci-fi/fantasy hounds. Until the day she died not too long ago, my mother loved the spontaneous round ups which occurred to go to whatever latest sci-fi film was on release. One of us would call another and say"Hey, see that film that's out?". They would call another, they would call another, they would call the mother. By now, the originator was already on wheels and had possibly collected the first sibling. It was critical to move fast, so that you had time to get the scoff=7 kilo bag of pick-n-mix, 4 litre tub of Ben-n-Jerry's, gallon of drink of choice (Fanta in my case). Great days. Sadly, My mother having passed, and two out of four siblings living abroad, never to be recreated. Or at least not until my two Abaddonettes are old enough for such movies. I have plans.

Just my 2c.

ETA: Patrick Moore's The Sky at Night. How could I forget that!

[Allan F]

Quiet - yes. Everybody is lying in their foxholes, weapons loaded, waiting for the other side to pop up and do a crazy raindance again. First to see a target, call in the Jaytillery.

When I was in grade school, I read a book about the Apollo programme. I don't remember the title or anything else about it, sorry. Later, when attending our verision of high school, and later university, I learned some math and physics, and after the internet came about, I now and then came across the hoax idea. In the later years, after 911 and all the weird ideas about it, and all the bad physics it involved, the hoax ideas came up time and again in a newspaper, where reader comments were allowed. It spurred me to search out the information needed to refute their ideas. The more I learn, the more I see how impossible a hoax becomes. I have never had any doubt about the reality of the Apollo programme, but did not have the specifics. Now I spend a couple of hours every week looking at hoax ideas and why they are so wrong. Every time some new claim comes up, I learn something new, when searching for the appropriate info.

[Donnie B.]

I'm a boomer.  I've been following the space program since the first Mercury missions.  I watched launches whenever I could, built models of all the spacecraft, and, well, you name it.

One thing that kept my interest high was National Geographic magazine.  My parents subscribed, and I was always fascinated by the photos and diagrams of the missions, published a few months after each.  One image that sticks with me was the drawing of the Nova launch vehicle, proposed but never built, which would have been used for the direct-ascent lunar missions if that had been the chosen profile.  Imagine a first stage with eight or even NINE F-1 engines... it would have rocked the continent on liftoff.

I think I stumbled on to the HB world via Bad Astronomy.  I still can hardly believe it's not all some elaborate joke.

[gillianren]

I will say that growing up just down the road from JPL provided some interesting experiences.  I saw the Hubble being built.  I saw variations on Mars rovers being tested in their parking lot.  I have a picture of myself somewhere taken using the artificial colour system for I think Voyager, but it could have been any number of other probes.  And they judged our science fair, which is, you know, no pressure for seventh-graders.

[smartcooky]

My interest in space and astronomy dates back to when my parents gave me two books from the LIFE Science Library for my 11th birthday in 1966

Man and Space by Arthur C. Clarke
Planets by Carl Sagan

It was the first time I had ever heard of either of these two writers and I was hooked. I don't know whatever happened to "Planets" but I still have this one...



We didn't have any live TV coverage of the space programme in those days. Newsreel footage of launches in the Gemini program was often days after the event, and when the Mercury program was on, there wasn't even TV where I lived in NZ (the first TV translator in Nelson went on air in 1964). If you were lucky, you got to see a few minutes of coverage in the "Movietone News when you went to the movies.

My father helped me to find the Voice of America on our old Stewart-Warner short-wave radio and I listened avidly to the live transmissions of the first Apollo missions in 1968.

Incidentally, it was the VOA that triggered my enduring love of Jazz, listening to Willis Conover's' "Jazz Hour"

Listening to this gives me goose bumps after all these years...

[Echnaton]

Growing up in Houston, I couldn't help but follow the space program.  It was home town business in what was then a comparatively small city.

I was aware of the Mercury launches, remember the Gemini flights and was adamant about following the Apollo program.  The development came from my getting older and an increase in the amount of video coverage for the flights.  I remember as a child puzzling how a rocket could work in space.  Nothing my mother could tell me helped solve the mystery, even though she fully understood why.  I was also perplexed why the force of the space vacuum wouldn't just pull the capsule or space suit apart.

Faced with these dilemmas it seemed the best thing to do was to bide my time, pay attention and learn rather than jump to the conclusion everyone was lying to me.

One of my favorite memories was watching the Apollo EVAs.  One mission in particular, I had watched two EVAs and the third was on a school day so my mom let me skip school to be able to watch the whole thing.  I was scolded by a teacher who apparently thought that her instruction was more important than watching a couple of guys on the moon.  I just listened quietly, knowing that a much higher authority had agreed that my preferences were better.  School was important in our family, which served to reinforced the importance of activities that we missed school for. 

[qt]

How did you guys get interested in manned space flight in the first place?

That's a question I cannot answer, at least not exactly.

I can remember the moon landings, but I was very young, and failed to appreciate how significant they were - the television and the books I read were filled with people travelling in space, after all.

Certainly by the time I was about 15 or so, before the first shuttle flight, but when plans were well under way, space travel was considered extremely exciting in my crowd at school.  So I guess somewhere between the age of three and fifteen.

How did you discover the hoaxists, and join ApolloHoax?

I don't have a good answer for this one either.  I think I have been dimly aware of this site for a long time, but didn't join until recently.  What brought it to my attention in the first place, and why I eventually joined, I have no idea.

I have on many occasions heard people in real life refer to the hoax theories, but I cannot remember any of them ever seeming to think they were anything but ridiculous.

When I was at the uni, there was a well known personality around campus who would gesticulate wildly, and shout fiercely at no one in particular about all manner of conspiracies which were taking place, a small number of which might actually have been true.  I never heard him refer to any moon landing hoax.  People would mock him, avoid him, or just ignore him, but I don't remember anyone ever arguing with him.  So this web site is something of a novelty for me.

[gillianren]

I have on many occasions heard people in real life refer to the hoax theories, but I cannot remember any of them ever seeming to think they were anything but ridiculous.

This is interesting to me, because it's only happened to me once.  I've met a lot of Kennedy conspiracy theorists, and I have a friend from college who's a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, but I have only once met someone who said they doubted Apollo.  Then again, maybe I've met more and they just haven't said anything.

[qt]

This is interesting to me, because it's only happened to me once.  I've met a lot of Kennedy conspiracy theorists, and I have a friend from college who's a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, but I have only once met someone who said they doubted Apollo.  Then again, maybe I've met more and they just haven't said anything.

I think my wording may have been unnecessarily convoluted.

Although I have met quite a few people who have heard of the hoax theories (including someone I have known for a while, and who just mentioned them a few days ago), I have not ever met anyone who claimed to believe them.  Every single person I can recall, who ever mentioned the hoax theories, thought they were beyond idiotic.

[gillianren]

I'm usually the one who brings them up, usually in the context of "can you believe this moron I'm dealing with online?"  I have friends who have never been here or on BAUT who still make Moon Man references.  And "solid solar surface," another personal favourite of bad science.

[qt]

I'm usually the one who brings them up, usually in the context of "can you believe this moron I'm dealing with online?"  I have friends who have never been here or on BAUT who still make Moon Man references.  And "solid solar surface," another personal favourite of bad science.

I expect the topic frequently comes up because I might have worked space exploration, or astronomy, or something similar into the conversation.  However, I am very confident that I have not referenced the hoax theories at all unless the other party brings them up.  For the most part, I don't deal with these online morons, but rather watch others deal with them.  And if I did, I don't think I'd want anyone in real life to know I was dealing with them

[gillianren]

If I bring it up, it's usually funny--or else so frustrating that I need to vent.

[BazBear]

I missed being a baby boomer (at least by one definition) by one day (born 1/1/1965). I was 4.5 when Apollo  11 landed, and that is one of my earliest solid memories... and it also hooked me on all things space related.

IIRC, the first real exposure I had to the hoax theory was when a couple I am friends with told me about that blasted Fox Network crapumentary, and the HB nonsense in it that they had bought hook, line, sinker, fisherman, and boat. That prompted me to look into the HBers claims, and the rebuttals, in order to show my friends how ridiculous those claims were.

Yes, I was able to disabuse them of that B.S., though it wasn't easy!