First: has anyone heard any buzz from the "Men can't go in to space."* individuals regarding Spaceship-1 and the X-Prize?

Second: what's y'all's take on this:

http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/

TIA

*The whole "Man has never been in space or even orbit" conspiracy is...well, basically that we've never been in orbit and that the Challenger disaster was staged because Christa McAuliffe was going to "spill the beans" that you could see stars in near orbit, etc.

Hi Bill. First, although we don't have a very high opinion of the various theories denying space exploration, we try to keep the discussion at a higher level than name-calling. So the moderator may get after you for characterizations like "nutjob".

I personally haven't heard any attempts at explaining away the flight of Rutan's spacecraft. SpaceShipOne didn't go into orbit; its feat is comparable to the flights of Mercury 1 and 2 and the X-15. While it did reach the accepted boundary of space, it didn't attain the speeds and altitudes of the space shuttle or other orbital craft.

The "lost cosmonauts" theory is an old one too. The Soviets have their conspiracy theorists just as we do, only their space program was carried out in much greater compartmentalized secrecy than the American program. So it leaves much more ambiguity through which to thread fanciful stories.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Oh, I know about SS1's flights being very high altitude as opposed to orbital, I just didn't know if anyone of the...more spirited conspiracy believers had latched on to it yet.

Somewhere, I've got a book by Robert Heinelin wherein he talks at length about a trip he took to Russia right around the time of Gagarin's flight, and how a week before Gagarin flew, he talked with a few students while strolling around Moscow and that they were all gushing about the recent spaceflight and how they couldn't wait to tell the world...then a week later, Gagarin went up...so RAH's theory was that either the Russians lied about when Gagarin flew or there was "a dead cosmonaut in orbit around the earth".

I'm not saying RAH was right, and he certainly had his own views of the Soviets, but it was interesting to read years ago (I passed it off as Red baiting), but then I stumbled across Lostcosmonauts.com...

I'm not saying I believe it, just that it's interesting reading. Might make a good political thriller!

Shepard's flight was called Mercury-Redstone 3 and Grissom's flight was called Mercury-Redstone 4.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

I just can't resist giving a shout out to The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society and their motto "Birds Fly- Men Drink".

The lost cosmonaut theories were not even credible in the cold war period, as this articleby James Oberg written in 1975 shows http://astronautix.com/articles/phapart1.htm.

The theories of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers have been thouroughly bebunked by the Swedish space tracker Sven Grahn http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/Torre/TorreB.html.

These fabrications are the Soviet equivalent to the Apollo hoax.

Jon

The "Man Will Never Fly" website is a hoot. It's a satirical website, right?

Don't forget to ask for your T-shirt

JonClarke,
Not sure if it's just me, but I cannot open your links.

Don't take it personally. I can't either. The servers exist, but the subdirectories don't.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

You need to take the period of the end of JonClarke's links. These should work.

James Oberg Link

Sven Grahn Link

Sorry guys, my bad ops:

I have seen one poster on another forum state that he no is firmly on the "it was real" side of the issue. He saw the video from SS1 and there were no stars in the scene!!!!! That proves NASA was right in his opinion.

Whatever works.

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"Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than learn the multiplication table." - Somerset Maugham

Yes, because Large Corporations, Lie Less, than The Governmert ...

:roll:

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

Okay, there is a period after "html", which isn't supposed to be there. If you remove it, the URL works just fine. DUH!!!! I cannot believe you people didn't think of that.

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~Anna~

Try reading the post four above yours.

I did, but then I remembered: I can't read!
Sorry, just looked through what people were writing about and saw the "boo-hoo, your link doesn't work" message and noticed the period at the end. So I hit "reply" and, well, did. Without scrolling down first to see if someone's already said that. Do I get like a message board replying speeding ticket or something?

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~Anna~

No, just a smart-alec reply like the one two posts up... :wink:

Welcome to the BABB, by the way.

Well, anything smart is always good and thanks for welcoming me. This is a pretty interesting board. Other "moon conspiracy" and space-related boards just bore each other with stuff copied and pasted from other websites and keep exchanging snippy remarks and names. *dreamily* Reminds me so much of highschool.
I've always believed that men have in fact walked on the moon, but recently I have been wondering about the fluttering flag... Which felt extrememly dissapointing, 'cause I already thought that the human race was advanced enough to send people to nearest planets. I'm sure there is a decent explanation for it, but I'm usually too busy to watch TV to see shows on that subject.
I'm originally from Russia, but being born after the cold war ended (and let's face it, the children aren't at fault for what their grandparents have done) I never really saw the space race as a race per say. I've always hoped for some kind of a team effort of all the scientifically advanced countries to explore more. We are all humans, and should act as teamplayers, not hinder each other. The whole science concept will benefit from it, and especially the space technology.

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~Anna~