John Bradshaw - Moon Landing
This is It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw. Thanks for joining me. I'm at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, about 45 miles in a straight line east of Orlando. This is a very significant site for the United States and for the world. It was from here in 1961 that Alan Shepard launched to become the first American ever in space. July 16, 1969: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins launched from here and into history. History is being made at this place again and again and again. Many space shuttle missions were launched from here at the Kennedy Space Center. There has been some tragedy involved with the Kennedy Space Center, but we remember the Kennedy Space Center for real, considerable triumph.
In 1957, the Soviet Union sent a small satellite into orbit. Sputnik provoked the United States government to dive headfirst into the space race. Speaking to Congress on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said:
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon. We make this judgment affirmatively: It will be an entire nation, for all of us must work to put him there. All engines running. We have a liftoff, liftoff on Apollo 11.
Just eight years after that speech, after about 76 hours in space and after traveling 240,000 miles, Apollo 11 reached the moon's lunar orbit. On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the surface of the moon, announcing:
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
But there are some people who believe that the moon landing didn't happen. They believe that Neil Armstrong did not walk on the moon. Not Armstrong, they say, nor Buzz Aldrin, nor Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Gene Cernan, or Harrison Schmitt. There are people who believe the entire thing is a hoax. They'll tell you that that global television audience that watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon actually didn't. A 1999 Gallup poll found that, at that time, 6% of Americans believed that the moon landing was faked. You'd have to think that with the influence of the internet, that number today is much higher. In fact, it's reported that in some countries as much as 25% of the population does not believe the moon landing happened.
So how could that be? We've all seen the pictures. Neil Armstrong claimed to have walked on the moon. Astronauts from six Apollo missions were there. Did they all lie? Simply not possible. Well, it's been said that the lighting in a certain photo couldn't have been possible, and therefore it's all a hoax. People protest about the lack of stars in the sky or the lack of visible exhaust fumes. And they ask why the American flag in the film taken of Armstrong and Aldrin's time on the moon appears to be fluttering in the wind. It's often said that what people saw on TV at the time was all filmed on a soundstage somewhere and was faked. Faked so that the United States could win the space race and to distract attention from the Vietnam War. I wanted to talk to an expert about space. Dr. Don Thomas qualifies as just that. Like Neil Armstrong, he's from the state of Ohio, and he's a veteran of four space shuttle missions. Dr. Thomas, thanks very much for taking the time. I appreciate it greatly.
Dr. Don Thomas: Very welcome. I'm honored to be here with you.
John Bradshaw: Tell me when you first got this urge, the desire, or maybe the realization "I'm going to be an astronaut"?
Dr. Don Thomas: I remember that day very well. It was May 5th, 1961. That was the day we launched the first American into space from Cape Canaveral here. And, uh, in my elementary school, and I was only in kindergarten at the time, they brought all of us to our gymnasium, we sat on the floor, and I watched that launch on a small black-and-white TV, and as soon as Alan Shepard was in space, I remember sitting there saying, "I wanna do that". So that was the day, uh, that was the inspirational moment that forever changed my life. I knew that's what I wanted to do.
John Bradshaw: So one day you were sitting in a, in a vehicle much like the one behind us here, and you were thinking, "I'm about to go. I'm about". Describe that feeling.
Dr. Don Thomas: It's, it's really amazing. I remember the night before my first launch, I went out to the launch pad around midnight, and I'm just staring up at the space shuttle there, and I couldn't believe where I was and what I was about to do, knowing like 12 hours from right now I'll be inside that thing blasting off. So on launch morning, um, there's a little bit of, uh, of fear, I, I will say. You know, I'm a little scared, "Boy, I hope we make it up there", but mainly just 99 percent is just like, "I want to do this. This is the dream of my life. I've trained for four years for this moment. I want to be a part of exploration and part of the space program". So it is a huge adrenaline rush. And when I heard the engines firing, and I could feel the shaking and vibration, a few seconds later I felt the push in my back, which had indicated we had taken off. Once you feel that push, there is no turning back. You're going somewhere that day. And I remember I had my helmet on, visor down, nobody in the world could hear me, and I'm screaming inside my helmet, "Ya-hoo! Let's go"! 'Cause this is the dream of my life; it's taking place right in front of your eyes. Such an incredible moment.
John Bradshaw: Describe for me the experience of being in space. You're in a fairly confined space, but what's the, even maybe some of the mundane things, but what's that experience like, that day-to-day experience of circling the earth up there?
Dr. Don Thomas: Yeah, yeah, we work on a 24-hour day up there, just like we do here on earth. They give us seven or eight hours to sleep. You get an hour for lunch, an hour for dinner, an hour to exercise. The rest of the day you're very busy working on experiments or whatever is the objective of your mission. And the inside of the space shuttle is quite small. Our crew compartment is, uh, about the size of your kitchen at home. It's not a large area, and you'll have seven people in there for, you know, 16 days. That was the longest that I was up there. So there was always somebody bumping into you. No matter what you're doing, somebody is right there. So for me, I, I enjoy, at home, going for a walk around the block, just getting out a little bit, and in space you can't do that. So when I wanted to, uh, just get away and have a little quiet time, I would go to the window, put in some headphones, just listen to some music, and I would be in my own little world there. But, uh, the day-to-day routine up there is very busy. Shuttle missions were only two weeks long, so the pace was very, uh, quick. I mean, we had a full schedule of, of what we had to do. There was never big breaks of time where you could just hang out at the window for hours and hours. The day is very scheduled; every minute of your day is pretty much scheduled up there.
John Bradshaw: There'd be no one more familiar with the moon landing conspiracies than you, or maybe somebody, but as an astronaut, you've heard it all. Let me ask you this: Did you ever hear, ever hear a single moon landing conspiracy theory that made you say, "Hmm"? Did you ever hear even, you've heard them all, the, the fluttering flag and not enough light for the photograph and the no radiation after going through the Van Allen belt and all of that. Did any single thought or suggestion ever stop, cause you to stop and go, "Yeah, got a point there"?
Dr. Don Thomas: Uh, I've never heard a good argument like that, and, uh, I think maybe it was seven or eight years ago, we had the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft orbiting the moon, and they, this spacecraft passed over the lunar landing sites, I think from 15 or 20 miles up, and photographed them. You can see the descent stage of the lunar modules on the moon. You can't see the individual footprints of the astronauts, but you can see a trail as if they walked through deep snow, and they left a trail behind them. You can see that on the moon. So the, like, you can go to each of the landing sites and say, yeah, this is, Neil Armstrong walked to this crater, looked in there. You can see the trail with his footprints. So that is just overwhelming evidence for me; like, yes, for sure we went to the moon. Go take a look at the pictures, you know. Uh, you'll see that. So, I firmly believe we went to the moon, and I have not heard any, not even a shred of evidence that, that would make me pause and think, hmm, maybe, maybe they have something.
John Bradshaw: Because, of course, the strange thing is, if we didn't, you've got hundreds of thousands of people who worked on it, on the, on moon missions, 12 astronauts who walked on the moon, and people like you who flew, who must all be part of the hoax. How does that make you feel on a personal level when you know that someone therefore is looking at somebody like you with "NASA" on your shirt, saying, "Eh, you're part of the problem"?
Dr. Don Thomas: You know, it, uh, there's no convincing somebody who doesn't want to believe that we went to the moon. There's no convincing them. In a similar vein, there's no convincing anybody who believes the earth is flat. There's nothing I can say that'll convince them that the earth is round. And so I, I try not to engage too much. I don't want to argue with anybody about did we go to the moon or not. If you want to believe we did not go to the moon, I'm okay with that. If you want to believe the earth is flat, I'm okay with that. I don't think they're founded on, on good science or, or, uh, you know, the data, the facts at all. But if, if individuals want to believe that, have at it.
John Bradshaw: Why do you think it is that today, uh, there's an increasing, it seems, it seems, an increasing amount of chatter about this?
Dr. Don Thomas: Yeah, it's, it's a mystery, but I, I think it's from, uh, just distrust of governments anymore. We see that around the world, you know, "We don't trust your government". Uh, "All the reports are fake news". Uh, so a lot of people just think, "Well, those pictures of the landing are fake. The pictures of Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon are fake. Everything is fake". This is "fake". I'm "fake", it gets out of hand. So I think it comes just from distrust, distrust of authority, distrust of government sometimes. Um, I'm not, I'm not sure it's exactly well-placed.
John Bradshaw: It didn't seem like it at the time, but when you look back, the first space shuttle flight was really pretty close in time to the moon landing flight. We're just talking about essentially a few years. So to be able to go from that to the space shuttle leaving the earth, coming back, circling the earth numerous times, it would seem the technological leap was vast, but in time, the step was really very short. Talk to me about the technology that made machines like this possible in an age, looking back, that was pretty technologically archaic.
Dr. Don Thomas: Yeah.
John Bradshaw: There were no cell phones then. There weren't really personal computers to speak of. How did we do this?
Dr. Don Thomas: You know, the, if you look at the computer age, we went from, uh, big UNIVAC computers that took up a full room of an office building to small Compaq, uh, personal laptop computers, you know, in 20 years or so. And, and a lot of that technology really helped enable, you know, the space shuttle program. We started building the space shuttles. They got, this program was approved in 1972 while we were still landing on the moon. I think the Congress approved it during the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission. So they started working on this. It's pretty old technology by today's standards, um, but still this is an amazing vehicle. I think, uh, it, it's going to be hard to top a vehicle like this for going to space any time soon.
John Bradshaw: In a moment, the greatest conspiracy of them all. It's real, and it's all around you. That's next.
Thanks for joining me on It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw. You know, at the end of the day it probably doesn't hurt anyone to believe whatever they want to believe on this. But there's a greater conspiracy that really is going on. It's happening right before our eyes. And it's one that people are missing. And we shouldn't be missing it. Missing it will hurt you. To miss this one is to fail to understand why much of what we see in the world is actually happening. And it's fitting we talk about space because this conspiracy got its start in deep, deep space. We've identified this conspiracy yet earlier in this series, but I'll tell you what it is. Long, long ago in a place far, far away, a perfect angel decided he wanted to receive the worship that only God is entitled to.
Isaiah 14:13 and 14, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High". He came to earth and beguiled Eve, the Bible says. Paul wrote of Adam's transgression. One of their sons murdered another. Planet Earth was in free fall. So here we are 6,000 years after creation. The world is sick. The world is skeptical. Morally, society hasn't only fallen off a cliff; there's no shortage of people or institutions or even churches, if we're honest, who are willing to usher unsuspecting people in the direction of the precipice.
Someone says, "The moon landing never happened". Who are you going to check with? Well, you could ask astronauts who were there. While I'm standing here, astronauts Aldrin, Scott, Duke, and Schmitt are all still alive, so you could ask them, or people who worked on the mission or someone at NASA or the US Air Force or scientists or historians or...on and on and on. But in this colossal battle between good and evil, where do you go for authoritative answers? There's only one place, and that's the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. It was inspired by God.
Paul wrote to Timothy that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God". "But wait!" someone just cried out. "The Bible itself saying it is inspired is self-serving, unreliable". Ah, but "wait"! back. It's not that the Bible says the Bible is inspired; God says the Bible is inspired. Fulfilled prophecy indicates the Bible is inspired, and fulfilled prophecies are everywhere. Zechariah wrote ahead of time that Jesus would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. The same prophet wrote that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Daniel wrote and said when Jesus would be anointed as the Messiah. He wrote about the rise and the fall of great world kingdoms, and they all rose and fell just as he said they would. Noah said it would rain, and it rained and rained. Isaiah said a virgin would conceive. He said Jesus would be despised and rejected. He wrote that a man named Cyrus, Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia, would deliver God's people, and he wrote about him 150 years or so before Cyrus was born. We could continue. David wrote about the crucifixion of the Messiah in excruciating detail in Psalm 22. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, His own crucifixion, that Peter would deny Him, and that Judas would betray Him.
If you're looking for a reliable guide, it's the Bible, and in this battle it's what God calls us to lean on. David said we should hide God's Word in our heart. Jesus urged us to live "by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God". And why is that? Because it's reliable and it's true, and in an age where skepticism urges distrust and where postmodernism posits that you're fine believing whatever you want to believe, "I have my truth; you have your truth", there must be something that will help you cut through confusion and deceptions. And that, well, that can only be the Word of God. I'll have more in just a moment.
Thanks for joining me today on It Is Written. A few moments ago, I told you that there must be something that could help you to, to cut through confusion and even deception, and that that something has to be the Word of God. Now, before you think I'm suggesting that you'll be fine as long as you believe just like me, that's not my point, and that's the beauty of the Bible. In old times, people couldn't access the Bible. Until the time of the Reformation, the Bible was kept out of the hands of the people by a church trying to maintain its own hegemony, its control over people. Then the Bible became more accessible, and now it's so accessible it's easy enough for a person to take hold of a Bible and read it for herself or himself. You don't need someone to tell you what to believe.
You can read God's personal communication with you, pray for His guidance, and God will reveal Himself and His Word to you. That's not to say you shouldn't listen to another person or sit in a congregation. Sure, that's fine. But you don't need to cede the spiritual authority for your life to somebody else. The Bible is God's first line of communication to you. One survey recently reported that the number of Americans who identify as having no religion has risen by 266% since 1991, and that "nones," as they're called, are greater in number than Catholics or Protestants. That's in spite of the fact that today you can buy a Bible at a dollar store. Even so, less people than ever are reading the Bible.
Paul wrote that "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine". Second Timothy 4, verse 3. It seems that time has come. The Bible turns you in the direction of God. It presents a loving Savior, One who died for you so you can live eternally. The Bible presents the love of God. But there's an enemy who has succeeded in turning people away from the best news ever so that they instead would believe a lie. Well, what could be better than eternal life? Look around at what people are doing. The answer seems to be apparently a lot. What could be better than love as the basis for your existence? Of course, nothing. But there's a devil who's convinced multitudes that God isn't good, that God isn't loving, that God's ways are not worth bothering with.
Essentially, the human family has replaced God with itself. When you reject God's guidance to rely on your own, you've made yourself your own god. The wise man wrote, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death". Proverbs 16:25. There were false teachers in the days of Jesus and in the time of the early Christian church. There have been false teachers throughout the Christian era, and no doubt they exist today. And when you look into the Bible, you see in Revelation chapter 14 a time of real crisis coming for the world. Daniel wrote that there's going to come "a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation".
Daniel 12, verse 1. And John wrote in Revelation 14 that before things wrap up here on Planet Earth, there'll be a call go out to everyone in the world, a warning message, a warning message that covers what we could reduce to three main points: The third is a warning against receiving the mark of the beast. The second is a pronouncement that Babylon has fallen. And the first contains very strong encouragement to worship Christ, to worship the Creator. As Revelation chapter 14:7 says, to "worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters".
See what that comes back to? It comes back to worship, which is where this battle between sin and evil, between Christ and Satan began. Worship. How do you avoid the mark of the beast? How do you avoid false worship? How do you worship Christ and not Antichrist? It's right there in the Word of God. If the Bible is your guide, you'll stand. You'll be kept by the power of God. But step away from the Bible, build not on the rock but on the sand, and as Jesus taught in the parable, your fall will be great. How is it with you and God's Word? Are you reading it? Are you fortifying your mind with its message? Are you receiving from God on a daily basis? Is, is Jesus coming to you through the Word of God? What are you relying on? What's strengthening you? My prayer is that you'll find your strength in the Word of God.
There's a conspiracy raging. Satan is undermining the government of God, the authority of God, the place of God, so that ultimately he'll receive the worship of the world. You can see all around you just how much success he's having. But don't let yourself be dragged into a web of deception and destruction. Make the Bible your strength and your guide today. Let's pray together:
Our Father in heaven, we thank You that You've given us Your sacred Word, Your Holy Word. And we pray that You'd give us grace to live according to Your Word. Not to treat it as a set of rules we must keep, but to recognize it as an expression of Your will, of Your character. And to understand by experience that when Jesus lives His life in us, He will do in us what we could never do ourselves.
Friend, if you have sins that need to be forgiven, open your heart to God now. Say, "Lord, forgive me". He'll forgive you. If there's weakness in your life, invite Jesus to be your strength. If you're walking with Jesus right now, then we can recommit your life to Him in this very moment. If you've been distant from God, far from God, never come to God, then would you do so now? Take Jesus as your Lord. Let His Word be your guide and your strength.
Father, take our hearts; make us Your own. In this moment there are many people becoming Your children for the very first time, others recommitting themselves to You. Now keep and bless and grow each of us so that when Jesus returns, when this thing is done, we will be with You throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. Let it be so, we pray and thank You, in Jesus' name. Amen.