Joseph P Farrell –  Mr. M.D. spotted this one, and I have to admit, I’m intrigued, not the least because it is not me suggesting space-cover-ups of an epic scale this time, but Faux News itself. And this one raises so many questions and high octane speculations I simply have to blog about it.

First, a little context: I’m of that generation old enough to remember the beginning of the “space race” and its context in the Cold War of the 1960s and 1970s. Russia launched its now famous Sputnik satellite in 1957, the year I was born. It was the beginning of a new era, for the little satellite was the first man-made object to be placed permanently in space.

(The first man-made objects in lower outer space, believe it or not, were the projectiles from the giant German Paris Gun that shelled Paris from 70 miles away in 1918).

I remember President Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” warning speech when he left office; I remember President Kennedy’ speech calling for a manned lunar landing and safe return of humans before the decade was out. Most importantly, however, I remember the hype we were served up in school, on at least a weekly, if not daily, basis: according to our Weekly Readers, we were on the verge of a whole new era of space exploration; lunar landings today, lunar colonies tomorrow, Mars exploration and colonies before the century was out.

Accompanying all this hype were the “artists’ renderings” of what all of this was supposed to look like.

And it would all be accomplished by chemical rockets… and I remember the embarrassment of many teachers as the more precocious among us pointed out the difficulties of doing all these splendid things with chemical rockets.

With that in mind, now the article: Continue reading →