Continuing along the same lines as Capricorn One, we have Apollo 18, about a secret Defense Department mission to the Moon. I actually kind of enjoyed this film in the way that I enjoy suspenseful sci-fi schlock, and in terms of simple science like gravity, oxygen, and appearance of the lunar surface, it does better than most Moon films, including the otherwise enjoyable movie Moon.
But it further supports the picture of government conspiracy and the space program. Anyone who has ever worked for the government, dealt with the government grant process, or, heck, even tried to fill out the full version of a 1040 form by hand knows that the government specializes in overcomplicating incredibly simple tasks.
Here’s a true story: I was on a review panel that awards telescope observing time on a major NASA satellite. The review was held in a large hotel in a major city, and reviewers traveled from all over the world for 2-3 days of discussion. NASA took care of all the travel arrangements, so most reviewers chose to fly to the location, but I lived a relatively short distance away, so I drove my own car. After the review, I got reimbursed for my travel expenses. Since it was only a 2 hour drive, I was expecting to get paid the standard mileage rate (around $0.50/mile) and that would be it. Instead, I got the mileage, $24/day for parking (which I didn’t pay for) and the full government meals and incidental expenditures rate for both days on which I drove (around $75/day). The reason? It was less expensive to give me a larger reimbursement than to calculate my actual expenses, once you factor in the human cost to fill out numerous forms, collect itemized receipts (with last 4 digits of credit card number and last name), determine if my specific parking had been prepaid (not just that N spots were paid for), fax the forms back and forth to collect appropriate signatures, etc.
I’m not trying to highlight government waste here, but inefficiency. People honestly believe that a government that has overcomplicated the travel reimbursement process to the point that it’s easier and cheaper to pay the maximum than calculate true expenses is also capable of vast conspiracies involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, billions of dollars, secret facilities… and for what purpose? This level of delusion was somewhat understandable during the paranoia of the Cold War, but not now.
The fact that there are so many people who continue to deny that the Moon landings occurred is part of a larger truth: there is a strong anti-science sentiment in our society. That’s one of the things I hope to expose with this blog. No nit is too small to be picked. We shall leave no stone unturned. And if that stone turns out to be an alien on the Moon? Well… we’ll save that for a post on astrobiology.