Saturday, January 23

Armstrong11.com Falsehood

There is, along the Wasatch Front in Utah, a billboard campaign set up by Reagan Advertising (at Armstrong11.com) stating that the first word spoken from the Moon was "Houston". As a fellow blogger - Hi Mike! - states on his blog, that's a bunch of hooey - not so much brilliantly stimulating, but Bravo Sierra. Not bob's bs, but real, pure, capitalized BS.

I heartily agree. "Houston" wasn't the first word spoken from the Moon, but "Contact" - when the "feelers" attached to the landing pads made initial contact with the lunar surface.

Forty-one years later, that bit of detail has been lost, likely because "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" is monumental, but not necessarily factual, as far as what the record states. Reality is lost in translation. Sticking to the facts is what advertisers should do; changing literal history just to make for better advertising is abhorrent.

If you don't agree with what I've said here, what follows is the actual account of what was said and done during the epic flight of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969:

On this page at time index 102:45:40 (you'll have to scroll through a bit of text to see it) is the "contact" reference from above, beginning with:

Aldrin: Contact Light

followed by:

Armstrong (on-board): Shutdown

It's necessary to comment here that there was a hell of a lot of conversation going on between the astronauts themselves and Mission Control in Houston. And everything was recorded. Had there been an audible burp, even that would have become part of the record. And of history.

It's not until time index 102:45:58 - give or take a few seconds - that "Houston" is said, and one cannot deny that other things were said before "Houston".

I'm sure that Reagan Advertising will have reason to doubt what has been said here, on Mike's blog, and others who have taken this whole matter to task. Continuing the spread of this falsehood and re-arranging history to suit advertising's hold on us should be avoided at all costs - using one of man's greatest accomplishments to do so is just plain wrong.

[Update: Look who has been visiting my blog!]

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks Bob for the cross link. With your greater readership, perhaps Reagan "Mad Men" will take notice. Or, at least, when the idiots perform their poll, more Utahns will actually get the question right.

Rachelle said...

The link you provided was from the special "Directors Cut" edition DVD in the "Extras" section under "Deleted Scenes". You know, the film they made when they (allegedly) faked the moon landing altogether? Don't worry, those who believe the billboard is truly factual must also believe that Tom Hanks went to the moon!

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