Anybody out there old enough to remember this 1977 movie? It starred Elliot Gould, James Brolin, Brenda Vaccaro, Sam Waterston (yes, that Sam Waterston), Hal Holbrook and O.J. Simpson (yes, that O.J. Simpson). There’s even a short cameo by Telly Savalas.
The premise of the film was that a supposed first manned landing on Mars was an elaborate government conspiracy hoax and that the televised broadcasts from the space vehicle were all created on a movie set.
The reason I bring this up is because yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the date Neil Armstrong became the first of 12 astronauts to set foot on the moon.
I remember watching the historic event unfold on TV. It was a Sunday night, and even the Ed Sullivan Show had been pre-empted. Hurry up, already, I thought as we waited and waited and waited for Armstrong to step out of the Apollo Lunar Module.
Later, there would be jokes made about it taking so long for him to emerge because he was trying to think of just the right first words to accompany his first steps on the moon. (In hindsight, I think he said just the right thing, so in my opinion the wait, whether for inspiration or technical difficulty, was well worth it.)
But there are those who insist, like the premise of Capricorn One, that all our lunar landings have just been one great government hoax. Seriously? You think for a single moment that any 12 men could manage to keep something like that quiet?
Well, think again!