I was browsing through the 10,000,000 articles website when I stumbled across this article about Bill Kaysing's attempt to sue Jim Lovell back in 1999.

As I read through article, I was amazed at the number of inaccuracies. There were many, but one in particular caught my eye...

More than half?? I simply can't believe that to be possible...and of course there is no justification for how they arrived at that number, it is simply "stated".

With articles such as this floating around "out there", it is little wonder that people could be fooled into believing the Moon hoax "rubbish".

Journalistic integrity??...I think not...

Never let the facts get in the way......

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And while with silent,lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God. JGM

The above quote has no religious significance whatsoever

Hey, R.A.F., I agree with you about journalistic integrity. Consider the following: "But Kaysing is difficult to dismiss. A graduate of South Carolina University, he worked for Rocketdyne Corporation, the engine contractor for the Apollo programme, from 1956 to 1963."

So what? Lot's of people in well-educated positions flip their lids. What about the most recent US Navy/NASA astronaut who's up on charges?

Being a high-ranking, well-educated scientist in no way shields anyone from taking a dive off the deep end.

It's simple: Kaysing is FOS.

Ignore him and move on!

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Mine: "Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that."

Heinlein's: "Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." "Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite."

You've illustrated exactly why I have a problem with this article. It leads readers to make wrong conclusions...

ie...

You've just discribed Bill Kaysing as being a "high ranking, well educated scientist"...

He was neither...

Maybe they meant "more than half of America's woo-woo population".

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Headlines like Crackpot Sues Heroic Astronaut don't sell well.

Kaysing, of course, was reasonably educated: he had a college degree at a time when fewer did than now. His education was simply in a field irrelevant to space travel. But he was never high-ranking and never a scientist.

For his survey the reporter probably asked two other guys in the newsroom, one of which said yes.

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

I'd buy it.

That's exactly what I thought. Then again, I doubt we count as "general population."

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Journalistic "Integrity"?

That ranks right up there with "corporate ethics", "jumbo shrimp", "arrogant humility", "government integrity", "scientific belief", and many others.

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Hearing a journalist talk about integrity or ethics rings about as true as hearing a prostitute talk about chastity.

Can I add "civil war"?

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Apollo unbelievers go here for immediate salvation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khDI2MsWSYc

"I had a hand in Tom Morrow's kiester."
-JayUtah

"The only physical proof nasa has that they landed men on the moon is 840 lbs. of rocks"
-straydog02

Sure. As long as I can add "militant pacifist"!

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or how about "legal ethics" there might be such a thing but lawyers do not pratice it that often.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
Contact Carl Sagan

I'd add "statistical certainty"

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Observatorio de la Ballona

You know, I really don't like judging an entire field by the failings of a few. Sure, the few are really prominent. But I'm currently waiting to hear how a very good friend did on the Bar exam, and I've spent some time as a journalist myself.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I would agree about judging the entire field. There are good journalists and bad ones, just as in any other field.

The difference is that journalists have a great pipeline of communication to the public, so when they distort, omit, or make up facts, they must be called on it in the loudest manner possible. Willfull deceit is a terrible thing, particularly in the hands of those who write what is on the front page.

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Observatorio de la Ballona

Having read that article, to some point it is convincing, with Kaysings background.
Sure did that is dangerous .. to people who know little about the facts of the Apollo Moon Landings.

But just like Torque's said .. "let the Facts get in the way"..

I'm sure , Lovell or others who are involved and "Knows" the truth will surface and speak up against him.

Kaysing's background was zilch re the claims he made.

He was a technical writer for Rockwell. Technical writers take what is given to them by the engineers and make it readable. The engineers know what's really going on and make the critical decisions (except for Morton Thiokol et al) about what the design should be and what modifications will improve it. Plus tech writers are usually responsible for maintaining the body of work for each project.

A technical writer cleans up the typically ungrammatical mess the engineers throw at him/her, and submits it for publication, either internally or externally.

Therefore, a technical writer has adequate knowledge of what she/he's looking at, which is required in order to deal with the subject matter intelligently, but is more an editor and librarian, and definitely not an engineer.

After a while though, based on my experience, some technical writers get to thinking they're on the same level as engineers re technical input, and get inflated egos. Kaysing is a prime example, especially when someone who never was trained as an engineer tries to mimic one. Kaysing's BA was, appropriately, in English.

BTW, none of this is meant as a put down of technical writers. They are valuable resources in almost all company organizations which provide products and services. But they're not engineers.

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The technical writers at companies I've worked for generally take the material I give them and make it wrong. I once found information on the same procedure in six different places in our manuals. All different. And all wrong. This was after I had written it out in detail for them.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

I generally write better than the technical writers. But I also tend to write more expensively, so the company prefers that the writers do it. I do remember once having written a summary of some scientific findings I had made while working for a large company. Their writer rendered an executive summary that converted my carefully-worded prose into a buzzword-laden, mealy-mouthed corporate word-goo that conveyed almost the opposite meaning.

The writer I have now use