NASAs world-shaking and exciting televised exploits nearly half a century ago held us spellbound with many
successful trips to the moon and back. With the advance of the internet these images have come under extensive and damning examination.
The fact that people find criticism of that narrative to be incorrect is less significant than the fact that many persons, patriotically and emotionally, must refrain from even questioning what today have been clearly exposed as fictitious narratives, moon-buggies and all.
One of the reasons that persons are reluctant to suspect that creating illusions has been NASA's primary job is because a possible why eludes them.
Visual technical tricks such as CGI editing, digital animation, and green screening are used widely and effectively today in television presentations along with paid crisis actors. Although one knows these tricks exist, that awareness does little to overcome the immense influence of audio-visual presentations on the human brain.
Our brains were assaulted at the start of this new millennium on Sept. 11th by an expensively crafted television production centered around the urban renewal project and detonations of all nine buildings in Manhattan's old World Trade Center. Since then we have been presented television shows, packaged as news, of an Aurora, Colorado theater shooting, a massacre of young school children in Connecticut, and a bomb that killed and injured spectators at the Boston Marathon, among others.
Despite resulting questions that, rationally considered, invariably cast suspicion on the narratives, one quickly learns how difficult it is to find persons willing to even consider logical questions. We have discovered the meaning of cognitive dissonance as well as realize that it exists even among educated neighbors. As a result, we may spend time ad nauseam dissecting narratives in efforts to present questions more persuasively rather than to move forward in our thinking from the what to the who and, especially, the why.
The why pertaining to narratives presented to the masses prior to engaging in war hostilities, as well as during wartime, is evident. We can go back to the battleship Maine, tales of German soldiers in Belgium during WW-1, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor prior to WW-2, narratives that continue even today demonizing Germany's leaders and events during National Socialism, the Tonkin Gulf story that escalated the Pentagon's plans for Vietnam, and more recent stuff such as a war on terror, weapons of mass destruction, and extremism exemplified by stories and images of Muslim atrocities.
Now that we are becoming increasingly aware of what Mr. Adolph Hitler suggested to be the more believable nature of a big lie, as well as its brazen and repeated use today, we are obliged to examine skeptically nearly everything told us that came from and that continues to come from television and newspapers.
Attorney-Judith Resniks' resume has her leaving, in 1980, a position at Yale to teach law at the University of Southern California. She remained there, it says, until returning east to Yale in 1997. If that time-line for Attorney Resnik is accurate, it puts her in Los Angeles, home of Hollywood's Paramount Picture Studios, at the time of her "space shuttle" videos. She did not return to Yale until 1997.
Soon after Challenger's 1986 explosion NASA-Judith Resniks' heart-broken father, Marvin, moved from Akron, Ohio to Encinitas, California (for the weather, no doubt) where he remained until his death in March, 2010. Prior to his death he collected more than $2 million from the manufacturer of Challengers O-Rings, failure of which had been determined by NASA to have been the cause of his beloved daughter's death.
I wonder if heart-broken Marvin Resnik ever knew that a brilliant young woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to his beloved daughter and, coincidentally, carrying his daughters name, Judith Resnik, lived only an hours drive away.
Space myths do more, in times of peace, than funnel huge sums of money into companies that manufacture killing machines in war, particularly flying ones. Space myths turn mankind's thoughts and eyes skyward into the mysterious infinite. They serve to educate previously uninformed masses about the cosmos. They oblige humans to acknowledge their own place in one of very many solar systems.
They also augment narratives designed to distract us from examining important social and economic issues. Brave astronauts, said to be training for future missions such as in Star Trek and 2001 Space Odyssey, represent what a modern forward thinking government can accomplish.
Lesser mortals, somewhat intimidated by such supermen and superwomen may feel less qualified to speak truth to power. Space program myths do all of these things. We are left to speculate in proposing more answers to why.
The society of homo sapiens has been controlled and our awareness of personal mortality, after a pitifully short existence, mollified by myths since recorded history began. Myths were connected to religion. They go back further as evidenced by ancient burials. Mankind's propensity and apparent emotional need for myths and fables has merely been taken advantage of by those who own and operate today's mass media.
If human life survives challenges of modernity, future generations may look back on todays myths with the same curiosity as ours when we consider wonderful narratives of the ancient world involving gods and goddesses, as well as religious dogma and mysteries of the Middle Ages.
Columns may be copied or reproduced in their entirety with credit to author, Stewart Ogilby.
