Man on Moon is not a mystery - it’s fact (From Blackpool Citizen)

Man on Moon is not a mystery - it’s fact

5:16pm Thursday 9th July 2009

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Being Neil Armstrong, BBC 4, Sunday, 9pm and Man on the Moon, BBC 4, Sunday, 10pm IF you are one of those people who think the USA faked the moon landings then you might as well not bother reading any further because you won’t like (or believe) what I have written this week.

Because this week I’ll be celebrating the fantastic achievement of 40 years ago when a brave bunch of test pilots risked their lives setting out on what was the greatest adventure of modern times.

Conspiracy theorists probably won’t have time to read this review anyway as they will be busy spreading the word that Michael Jackson isn’t really dead — he’s just doing the moonwalk with Elvis in a cave somewhere.

All of the many moon programmes this last week showed how Russians did catch the Americans with their space pants down.

They put the first two Sputnik satellites in orbit, then launched a dog into space, followed by the first man and the first woman and it was only when President Kennedy set a deadline to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s that American began to overtake the Russians, helped by billions of dollars of investment.

I watched two programmes back to back on Sunday night, the first, Being Neil Armstrong, BBC 4, 9pm, was one of those silly BBC documentaries about ‘searching’ for the real Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, who has become a recluse following the global fame that engulfed him on his return from the moon.

The second, Man on the Moon, BBC 4, 10pm, made a few years ago but still relevant, was a great tale, simply told, of derring-do by a bunch of fearless test pilots who became the first American astronauts.

Of course the conspiracy theorists think Armstrong never went there in the first place, which is tantamount to calling those 20 men who really did risk life and limb to go to the moon, liars. I believe Armstrong has punched one unbeliever on the nose when he dared question the authenticity of the landings. Quite right too.

Despite all the theories about the so-called fake landings I believe that if they had been fabricated someone would have blabbed by now.

The lure of filthy lucre, especially in America, would be too great to ignore for someone who could definitively reveal the moon landings had never happened.

The sheer number of people who would have to have been in on the deceit defies logic — and no-one who has been involved at any significant level in NASA’s space programme has ever said the landings were faked.

Being Neil Armstrong was a non-starter from the word go as there was never a cat in hell’s chance of the team ever securing an interview with a man who is seen in public only slightly more than Osama bin Laden — so why do it?

The Moon Landings, however, was a factual programme which gave a concise and gripping history of the influential sixties decade where men made of the right stuff pushed back the frontiers of exploration to their very limit using very basic computers.

In July 1969 I can vividly remember getting up in the middle of the night and watching, with my dad, the first man stepping on the moon live (or perhaps it was a crater in Arizona) and thinking what an amazing feat that really was.

It was one of those ‘where were you’ moments that you will never forget and, like science fiction writer Ray Bradbury said, it was a privilege to have been alive on the earth at that time to witness such an amazing event.

The Weakest Link, BBC1, 5.15pm, every weekday Now on to more down to earth programmes — fronted by a face-lifted Anne Robinson.

Why is this appaling programme still broadcast?

Why do hapless members of the public put themselves through national humiliation for a paltry couple of grand?

What could possibly make anyone in their right mind want to stand there and be insulted by a presenter who can’t wink properly because her face has been pinned behind her ears?

Take it off the air — and while we are on the subject of programmes based around putting people in televisual stocks, get rid of Big Brother and all those other programmes where rich people in television get even richer through the humiliation of poor sods who are so desperate for their 15 minutes of fame they will put up with any kind of abuse.

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