And our dear friend Clyde Lewis of course quoted the "spoof" article in his essay "Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky":

http://clydelewis.com/dis/gorsky/gorsky.html

"The crude versions were seen in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 a space Odyssey. It has even been suggested that Kubrick was selected as The director in Charge (a la Wag the Dog) of the moon landings. That he will never get the credit he deserves for their direction. Author C.Powers wrote:

The story goes that in early 1968, Kubrick was secretly approached by NASA officials who presented him with a lucrative offer to "direct" the first three moon landings.

Initially Kubrick declined, as "2001: A Space Odyssey" was in post-production at the time, but NASA threatened to publicly reveal the heavy involvement of Stanley's younger brother, Raul, with the American Communist Party. This would have been an intolerable embarrassment to Mr. Kubrick, especially since the release of "Dr. Strangelove". Kubrick finally relented, and for sixteen months he and a special effects team -- led by Douglas Trumbull worked in a specially built sound stage in Huntsville, Alabama, "creating" the first and second moon landings. This effort resulted in hundreds of hours of 35mm and video "footage" of the Apollo 11 and 12 moon missions.

The bogus Apollo 11 mission was masterfully staged in July of 1969. A Saturn V rocket with astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins was launched into low Earth orbit, remaining there while NASA carefully released Kubrick's studio footage to the press. After the spectacular "lunar landing" and "return to Earth," the astronauts reentered Earth's atmosphere and made a perfect splash down in the Pacific, right on schedule. Several months later, the Apollo 12 mission was successfully staged in a similar manner.

Mr. Kubrick refused to direct the Apollo 13 mission, however, because NASA officials rejected his screenplay in which the Apollo 13 mission fails. Kubrick insisted that a dramatic failed mission from which the astronauts were safely returned to Earth would ultimately prove to be NASA's "finest hour."

NASA maintained that a failed mission would unnecessarily jeopardize the agency's image, so Kubrick quit the project. Ironically, NASA later decided to use the failed mission scenario, for which Randall Cunningham -- a little known but highly respected British director was recruited to direct.

Kubrick's relentless perfectionism is evident throughout the Apollo production, from the chilling "1201 alarm" during the final seconds of the Eagle's descent to the lunar surface, right down to the lunar dust covering the astronaut's EVA suits."

So, clearly Clyde Lewis is quoting from the "spoof" article - and I´ll claim that he perfectly well knows that the article was just a "spoof". How do I know ? Well, because

(1): Clyde "forgets" to tell about the source for his above info. If he told his readers about the source, they would of course know that the source is a spoof. But now - well, now they can not check out his source.

(2): Clyde "forgets" to quote THIS part of the "spoof" article:

"Consequently, the moon walk sequences were actually filmed on location in the Sea of Tranquility. Kubrick did not accompany the crew to the lunar site because of his well-known fear of flying. However, all of the scenes were carefully scripted in advance, and Kubrick was able to direct remotely from the Johnson Space Center in Houston -- a film making "first."

Had Clyde quoted the above, his readers would of course have known that Clyde´s source was merely a spoof. But Clyde forgot to ............

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BTW, I have done some research on the credited author "C. Powers".

In the newsgroup alt.galactic-guide, there was a July 5, 1996 posting giving some info on the original story.

Read that post HERE

A. Back in 1995, the story was posted in the newsgroup alt.humor.best-of-usenet. In other words, meants as a joke from Day 1.

B. "C. Powers"´s email was cwpowers@gate.net.

Now armed with that knowledge, I looked up his email on the Usenet and found that from 1994 to 1996, Christopher Powers posted 26 times in various newsgroups, including several times in alt.movies.kubrick.

So ... the mysterious "whistleblower" (Ha !) "C. Powers" is - most likely - Stanley Kubrick fan and alt.movies.kubrick poster Christopher Powers. Author of a piece that back in 1995 was posted in alt.humor.best-of-usenet !!


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Man In Black on 2002-08-01 15:52 ]</font>