For some conspiracy theories, such as UFO's, JFK assassination, 9/11, DTV Transition - I keep an open mind.  Others, Princess Diana in particular, I dismiss out of hand.

However, there is one to which I do subscribe - the alleged 1969 Lunar Landing.

Why do I say 'alleged'?  I'll try and explain how I came to have doubts about this event.

I was 16 at the time of the alleged landing.  I was an apprentice tradesman at the Royal Corps of Signals college in Harrogate.  On the 20th July 1969, instead of the usual 22.30 lights-out, we were allowed to stay up and watch the 'first men on the moon'.  Everyone was crowded into the common room.  The lights were turned off so we could see the television picture more clearly and we were even quiet as we watched.  In addition to the cigarette smoke, the air was also full of anticipation & excitement.

What can I say?  We saw those 'ghostly' images of Neil Armstrong (allegedly) stepping on to the moon and making his historic statement, yet amidst the whoops of joy I was totally under-whelmed!  Disappointed? Oh, just a tad!  What was it that 'mankind' had just achieved?

1. Launched Apollo 11 with three men into earth orbit.
2. Broke out of orbit and headed to our moon.
3. Traveled some 250,000 miles and entered moon orbit.
4. Separated the lunar lander 'Eagle' from the command module 'Columbia'.
5. Landed said lunar lander 'Eagle' on the surface of the moon.
6. A man, Neil Armstrong, climbs down the ladder.
7. And… crap images!

I was the first to leave the common room, totally deflated, and I went to bed thinking the moon landing was a non event (and I couldn't believe that no other person was unimpressed with what they saw).

A couple of years later I was at the Science Museum in London.  There was a replica of the lunar module 'Eagle'!   I was amazed as to how small it was.  OK.  This capsule only had to accommodate two people.  But, what I didn't appreciate, then, was that it also 'allegedly' housed enough computing power for telemetry, life support, communications etc - in 1969!  I wasn't impressed and just forgot about what I'd just seen.

About a decade later, I started studying with the OU (no, the OU has nothing to do with my theory - I just started thinking) and became 'hooked' with computers.  I started to get my first understanding of available computing power (at least, to mere mortals).

When I got my first computer (a second-hand Sinclaire ZX80) in 1982 the RAM module was huge - and it was only 8K!

After years of self education (one might say 'the university of life') I started putting 1 + 1 together, only there was more than 1 + 1 - there were many 1's!  In no particular order:

1. My discoverery of the Van Allen radiation belts - no, I didn't discover them (otherwise they would be called the 'Silver' belts), but I discovered they existed.
2. The IST is in an orbit within the Van Allen belts.
3. No shuttle mission has ventured through the Van Allen belts.
4. The Hubble space telescope is within the Van Allen belts.
5. No country, since December 1972, has attempted to put a man through these belts.

All this, combined with the fact that the Apollo 11 mission carried HASSELBLAD cameras (the best in the world at the time) as did Apollo 8, 9 & 10.  So why such crap pictures?  Especially when compared to subsequent NASA 'lunar missions'?  Might the whole event have been staged just to 'get one over' the Russians?  I don't know, but it makes me wonder!

The only thing that makes me doubt my ascertation is that no country has ever challenged America's claim to have landed men on the moon.  But …

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