It's also very easy to say that Mr. Burns is either an outright charlatan [...], or a straight-up, card-carrying member of the Woo-Woo brigade.
I think he's an outright liar. There are indeed claims of the supernatural in the book, which the skeptic can reject categorically and the gullible can accept if they wish. But there are other claims as well that have nothing to do with supernatural concourse and which, but for Burns' selective modesty, would be susceptible to fact-checking. I speak principally of the essay he claims to have written for a physics degree, "proving" that, as of 1963, the American space program could not succeed at Kennedy's challenge. It's layman's hogwash, and in no physics college in the civilized world would it be considered meritorious of a subject-matter degree. The half that isn't layman's misconceptions is simply repeated denialism and argument from incredulity.
The latter is especially baffling when you consider that he's writing in 2013 and seems to have arbitrarily chosen 1963 as the bellwether date for feasibility. If you accept the premise of the claim, that's when he wrote the paper, hence that must be the perspective. But on the one hand, I don't believe he wrote that in 1963, and on the other hand it makes no sense not to have revised it to account for what happened afterward.
In 2013, looking at a milestone in 1969, you have to consider what happened in the period 1963-1969 to see whether your 1963 predictions came true. Repeatedly saying, "I don't think NASA can solve this problem" is rational opinion (although not necessarily informed) if you really do happen to be in living in 1963, but it's very dishonest if something happened in the interim to invalidate your prediction and you fail to account for it when you write in 2013.
In his letter he reiterates that he "knew" in 1963 that travel to the Moon was impossible, and that he was hoping "some breakthrough" would occur. Apparently, writing in 2013, he didn't think to check for that breakthrough. He just seems to have assumed that all his lay handwringing in 1963 would be valid forever. That breakthrough, of course, was Project Gemini and the bulk of Apollo development that accompanied it. Neil Burns' writing is entirely ignorant of anything that happened in the space program after 1963. That would almost work, except that the ghosts of astronauts in his book manage to be just as ignorant as he.
In short, he does what most other conspiracy authors do. He picks some arbitrary point in the past and makes uninformed, denialist claims from that perspective. "In the 1960s, computers filled entire rooms," and "In the 1960s, NASA had barely gotten a man into orbit," etc.
I'm preparing a Clavius page to respond to his essay.
I can't speak for anyone else here, but I am judging the book on the ridiculous claims made by the author.
Agreed. Burns desperately wants someone to buy his book and praise him as the "entertaining" author he is in his own mind. So he insinuates that a proper judgment of the book comes only if you buy it and read it, or at least circulate it around. He seems completely oblivious to the notion of a claim being absurd on its face.
Not as rude as impugning the reputation of one of the most famous people in history though.
And shamelessly trying to ride his coattails to a semblance of success. It's historically dishonest, unabashedly egotistical, and in my opinion it's immoral and distasteful. No one really cares if you trample all over Mary Queen of Scots' reputation in your quest for personal glory. She's long dead, and her legacy long since diluted by subsequent history. But when you prey on the memory of a recently deceased man of no small achievement, and you do it in such a way as to rob him of his credit and assume it upon yourself, it's deplorable.
In my several years writing on this subject I have seen many people challenge the accomplishments of NASA, Neil Armstrong, Wernher von Braun, and the host of lesser-known colleagues. I have seen them fumble through what they think is an historically and technically amenable argument in support of that challenge. I have seen them defend their beliefs (and their commerce) with passion. But not until now have I seen someone mount that challenge on such intentionally insubstantial grounds, via such puerile tactics, and to such an obviously self-aggrandizing end.
I am fairly confident in saying that it's "entertainment value" is probably lower than a snake's belly.
I think so. As I said, even charitably disregarding the author's factuality claim and treating it as fiction, it alternates between tedious and pompous. Its plot meanders pointlessly through the biography of an exceptionally boring man and its characters are all the same flat grey mush.
