President Trump heading for the far side of the Moon |
Robyn Williams: The Science Show. With some surprises on the Moon. More birds, and lots of brains. So let's go lunar.
Well, it's the Year of the Moon, of course the 50th anniversary and everything has been preparing for it and NASA's been holding press conferences, God knows what else! And I'm delighted to welcome Dr Clarence Lovejoy. Dr Lovejoy, you must be busy already in this Year of the Moon.
Clarence Lovejoy: I am indeed. It's already quite frantic.
Robyn Williams: It's hard to believe isn't it that it was 50 years ago that all that happened, at a time when, as President Clinton once observed, the 'computer capacity of Apollo 11 was less than that of an average family car'.
Clarence Lovejoy: Yes. And that is the paradox we've been bothered about.
Robyn Williams: Now, one slightly confusing attribution, you are, it says here on the press release, you are from 'Honeysickle Crock'—and I presume that's a misspelling, the kind of computer created spelling, re-spelling, that's thrust upon us now and then from our iPads. You are surely from the tracking station near Canberra, Honeysuckle Creek which so famously, with the dish at Parkes, brought us the Moon landing.
Clarence Lovejoy: No, Honeysickle is right, and we're based in LA near Burbank. It's the AI Transgalactic Coordination Hub for Affordable Space Travel.
Robyn Williams: What a mouthful. But you are Australian?
Clarence Lovejoy: Yes, I am. A few of us there. They brought us over to LA in the early '60s. The Australians had a special expertise NASA wanted and we were pleased to help.
Robyn Williams: Expertise? What kind?
Clarence Lovejoy: In fakery. In taking an event and augmenting it. As we did with the Test Match coverage, remember? We got the coverage sent by telex. This was long before satellites and live stuff. But the cricket was described ball by ball as if it was being watched by the ABC commentator, and a shot was performed by hitting the table with a pencil to sound like bat on ball.
[Archive cricket commentary audio]
Robyn Williams: Almost convincing. But what's that got to do with Armstrong and Aldrin and their landing on the Moon?
Clarence Lovejoy: Well, as many know, that's how we faked it in 1969 at Burbank.
Robyn Williams: You can't be serious.
Clarence Lovejoy: Perfectly serious. You can't really think that the Moon, all that distance away, can be reached by puny rockets and fallible human beings. Yes, they tried. Remember all those NASA rockets being launched and blowing up after just a few seconds, again and again? It was embarrassing. It made us look stupid. Some training astronauts got killed in the process, remember? And the Soviets were getting away with all their own enormous propaganda victory, having done little more than send up a Sputnik satellite the size of a grapefruit. Barely above the rainclouds. Then a stray dog that got burned up in hours…
Robyn Williams: But that was real, surely.
Clarence Lovejoy: Yes. It was, but Gagarin wasn't. A cosmonaut from Central Casting who barely did an orbit in a biplane, let alone a space vehicle. The commies were creaming the headlines and America had to do something or concede defeat. So President Nixon was determined to make America great again.
Robyn Williams: In Burbank?
Clarence Lovejoy: Yes. In Burbank. We already had the expertise to do space, do adventures, make superheroes without leaving the ground.
Robyn Williams: But how on earth, without leaving the Earth, did you manage to get all those scientists over all that time, to go along with the deception?
Clarence Lovejoy: That was the easy bit. They took the money, millions, billions of dollars, all those careers, all that jargon, encounters with Planet AXOF, 30654, or space shots that will travel for 27 years before you need to report back, or gravitational waves that no one can comprehend, let alone see. And we just put a bit of cute animation on news bulletins, a few misty sequences mashed together by the weird nerds in their fantasy studio at Disney. And it's so exciting for all those willing crowds cheering at home. We got great again and stayed great. Besides, truth is relative. There is no absolute truth, as our leader keeps reminding us.
Robyn Williams: Back to 1969, the landing. Just listen:
[Archive Moon landing audio]
Robyn Williams: Was that really fake?
Clarence Lovejoy: Nice, wasn't it?
Robyn Williams: And the walk, the flag, the first step?
Clarence Lovejoy: Showbiz! But we tried to fool the Americans and put an Australian flag there.
Robyn Williams: And I must say, it seemed to be fluttering in the wind, but there's no wind on the Moon.
Clarence Lovejoy: No, none. A Brit producer thought it was the Union Jack and pulled the plug. No one realised it was Australian. But it was changed anyway.
Robyn Williams: So, Professor Lovejoy, all this has been going on for 60 years and the kids in schools have been learning all this stuff, talking about black holes and new planets and space travel, and you're telling me it was all a massive fake and we shall have to reset our minds to being Earth-bound and in a way back in the 1960s when everything still remained to be done. It's hard to take in. Same as with climate science, hundreds of thousands of scientists in every country mounting a deception over 50 or 60 years.
Clarence Lovejoy: Yes. Very hard. And if you will keep this to yourself until July, total bullshit as we say where I come from in Hoax Bluff.
Robyn Williams: Total?
Clarence Lovejoy: Total. Of course there was a Moon landing. Apollo 11 then 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. Twelve guys did walk and play golf and sing on the Moon and live to tell the tale. But there is a master plan. Are we alone?
Robyn Williams: A master plan? To do what?
Clarence Lovejoy: This isn't being recorded?
Robyn Williams: No…and that's the truth, just between ourselves.
Clarence Lovejoy: Well, look at what we've been saying and what's been revealed on Fox News by Rush Limbaugh and the Daily Telegraph. President Trump is now convinced there has been no landing on the Moon. No first step for a man, no great leap forward for mankind. So it's up to him. Donald Trump is all set to become the first man on the Moon, and we're doing everything we possibly can to send him there.
Robyn Williams: When?
Clarence Lovejoy: As soon as we can. Before the Russians warn him about what's going on. Before he makes government in the US unworkable, before he grabs too much more pussy. And that's what the Elon Musk SpaceX Adventure was about two weeks ago. Docking with the Space Station and coming back. That's how we can get the President to the Moon.
Robyn Williams: Yes, it all worked marvellously well, didn't it, but surely someone will leak it to him before that.
Clarence Lovejoy: He doesn't listen. He only wants to hear something that makes him glorious.
Robyn Williams: But isn't he scared of getting up there at the top of the rocket, having his hair messed by an astronaut's helmet, leaving his entourage and so on?
Clarence Lovejoy: He doesn't have the imagination to see what he's in for. He lives in a bubble of proud ignorance. He will be satisfied, consumed with the glory of the Donald, the hero of space travel, the ultimate superhero, beyond Popeye, Bart Simpson, Forrest Gump or even Wonder Woman.
Robyn Williams: And where will he land? The same place as Armstrong and Aldrin?
Clarence Lovejoy: No. We're sending him to the far side of the Moon. The Chinese have already set up a small camp there. He won't be able to send any tweets. It will be secure.
Robyn Williams: And when he finds out he's been duped, that he's not Number One, what then?
Clarence Lovejoy: He won't believe it. And we'll beam down false news on him from a Chinese satellite nearby. He will remain happy as the greatest orange hero the universe has ever seen. He will have made the Moon Great Again.
Robyn Williams: And do what? He can't just sit there tweeting.
Clarence Lovejoy: He's going to build a wall on the Moon, one you can see from China. He's been told there will be a backup team landing soon with gear to make bricks out of Moon dust. The wall will stretch right around the entire lunar surface.
Robyn Williams: To keep someone out? Who - intra-galactic Mexicans?
Clarence Lovejoy: No. The President knows of a far greater threat, the ultimate enemy, one he realises is on the move again.
Robyn Williams: Who? Who is that?
Clarence Lovejoy: It's the Daleks. They're back. President Trump is going to protect all of us from the Daleks. It's his mission, all those cosmic crooks and ET drug addicts. We shall be saved!
Robyn Williams: Dr Clarence Lovejoy, from AIMLO in Burbank.
© Australian Broadcasting Corporation