Capricorn One: Imitating and Improving on the Gagarin Fraud?
Saturday, December 13, 2025
A straight line from 1961 and 1962, to the Apollo film of 1969 and Shepard’s golf game on the lunar surface in 1971?
Introduction: Capricorn One – the movie
3 astronauts train for years for a highly anticipated mission to Mars. Before lift-off they are removed from the payload, taken into a tunnel beneath the launch pad, shuttled by a bus to a waiting air-force plane and flown to a remote desert facility. Meanwhile the rocket has lifted, flown some 30-40 miles in altitude to satiate the cameras and fanboys, and then is crashed-landed into the remote sea.
Back in the desert facility the completely confused astronauts are given a choice to perform and act out the entire flight to Mars, or have themselves and their families destroyed. The astronauts become actornauts, and they play-act the entire flight and ‘the Mars landing’ in the desert facility within a simulator. The Americans have conquered Mars. The world believes and rejoices and the ‘return journey’ begins. On the way back NASA announces there was a ‘mechanical failure’ and the world is told that the 3 men have ‘disappeared’ and are likely dead.
The 3 now know they are to be killed. They escape, two are hunted down and killed, one survives and the movie ends with the surviving actornaut arriving at his own sombre funeral. Sorry to wreck the main themes if you have not watched this movie. It is highly recommended to have a view.
Is Capricorn One (1978) the work of conspriacy theorist nutbars, whackjobs and freak shows? Are these people anti-science? Is it impossible? Or is this movie schematic more probable and more ‘scientific’ than NASA zooming and zipping through impassable ‘space’ in 1969, doing the Starship Enterprise routine, jokes, giggles and self-deprecating humour included?
The Problem Statement
The 1960s ‘space race’ appears to be a series of Star Trek episodes and more film and fantasy than reality and complex rocketry. NASA and the US space program went from guaranteed failure, to guaranteed success – all in a few months. How did that happen in the context of the ‘Cold War’ and the necessity to win the ‘space race’ and save ‘democracy’ and erase the failure of Vietnam?
It all seems so contrived and certain. Is the narrative of stupendous space success in the 1960s sound and solid or specious?
In this post:
Saint John Glenn of the Orbit
Profit Gagarin and the promi$ed land
CIA-NASA and Gehenna
Saint Alan the good Shepard and the transfiguration of NASA
Apostle Shepard and David the Shepherd
NASA: The Way, the Truth, the Light
Angels and Angles
NASA as Simon the Magus
Apostle Virgil Grissom and the sacrificial lamb
Stone tablets and crude technology
Enos the grandson of Adam ascends
Saint John of the Orbit’s ascension to heaven
Calm, meditative scripture
Through the narrow gate – the ease of re-entry
NASA’s Revelations and Divine Proofs
Worldviews
1-Saint John of the Orbit
Saint John of the Orbit, born John Glenn, was the first American astronaut to ascend into orbit and return (February 1962, more below). Saint John was an important evangeliser and prophet for almost 40 years, disseminating the gospel of space and NASA to heathens and unbelievers. After his missionary endeavour in space, Saint John promulgated the belief in the divine plans of NASA as a US Sentator for over 2 decades.
Saint John of the Orbit prepared the way for the far greater Acts of the 12 Apollo Apostles from 1969 to 1972, led by Saint Neil of the Strong Arm, and Saint Aldrin of the Bottle. Saint John played the role of the Baptist who had cleared the path for the greater works of the Christ, preparing the world for the greater divine missions of the Acts of the Apollo Apostles.
Saint John of the Orbit was a first-hand witness to the miracles of NASA and claimed to be humbled, chosen as he was, to be an instrument of divine power. His miraculous ascension and return eclipsed the lesser miracles of Saint Alan the Good Shepard, and Saint Virgil of the Sacrificed Grissom. Saint John is considered to be a Father in the Church of NASA and his sermons along with the Acts of the 12 Apollo Apostles, are sanctified canonical text, considered holy and divine.
Saint John of the Orbit’s testimony and vision as to the holiness of NASA and the US Government, was an important factor in the conversion of many to the faith. His miraculous works repaired the disbelief of the uninformed, and his sermonising, informed by the holy spirit, emphasised the divinely appointed role of NASA and ‘The Science’, convincing the doubtful. Saint John is thereby also an Apostle of Scientism, an important cultus in secular religiosity.
Saint John summarised his mystical belief in 1997, when he gave a final sermon as he exited public work to retire to quietude and the contemplation of the divine greatness of state power and its ‘science’. From his book of Revelations Saint John warned his students and disciples to be wary of any who do not profess blind faith in the divinely appointed missions of the state. True believers will evade false prophets and join themselves in a mystical union with the sacred heart of NASA and the CIA. In 1997 Saint John thundered:
“If this cynicism and apathy are allowed to continue and fester, it will not only be dangerous, but in our democracy, it will be fatal.” Astronaut-Senator John Glenn, 1997 retirement address.
Saint John’s cry was to warn us about disbelief. He was the Baptist in the wilderness begging the world to repent and cast off the sins of cynical, apathetic disbelief. If allowed to fester it could destroy the church and lead to:
Disbelief in his own miraculous ascension to heaven.
Disbelief in the US Goverment.
Disbelief in ‘The Science’.
Disbelief in ‘state education’.
Disbelief in NASA.
Disbelief that US astronauts had been to the moon and would soon be on Mars.
In Saint John’s gospel disbelief and Thomasian doubts cannot be allowed. The divinely inspired dove had descended on NASA and ‘the science’, we have no choice but to believe and follow the new Holy Writ.
Unlike the locust-eating, poor, hairshirted John the Baptist, who had his head detached from his body for questioning state authority and morality; Saint John of the Orbit’s net worth at his death comprised some U$ 5 million and his head remained affixed to his frame at the time of expiration. A lifetime invested in supporting the state, its missionary work in space and the conversion of countless souls to the faith had been rewarded. Miracles are sometimes ascribed to the relics and to the shrine of Saint John of the Orbit.
Saint John of the Orbit was angry that budgets to go to the Moon and Mars were ‘reduced’ during the 70s to 90s. He was convinced that Americans would colonise space – some 40 years ago.
2-Profit Gagarin and the promi$ed land
Saint John of the Orbit was preceded by many profiteers and dead prophets. Yuri Gagarin’s flight on April 12, 1961, must be one of the boldest and most financially lucrative prophecy-fulfilling frauds ever told. Not only did this mythical tale ennoble and anoint Soviet Russian technological and national prestige; it also galvanised the Americans into an unlimited funding frenzy (money laundering), of the military organisation dedicated to space, named ‘NASA’.
Gagarin’s April 12, 1961 epic fraud led to the simulated NASA landings on ‘the moon’ 8 years and 3 months later in July of 1969. This edited celluloid simulated production, which appears to have been largely shot in Langley Virginia at the enormous CIA-NASA training centre (next post has information on this), was used as ‘proof’ that Apollo 11, followed by 5 more fantastical journeys, landed on and reconnoitred the moon’s surface.
After 1962 and Glenn’s ‘orbital mission’, American credibility soared, capped by the July 1969 Apollo 11 ‘landing’ on the moon. These events are the foundations of modern American prestige and power. ‘Democracy’ was technologically superior to ‘Sovietism’.
There is a direct red line between Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and Saint Neil of the Strong Arm on July 19, 1969. Two book ends on the same shelf of deceit. The Americans were obviously surprised by the Gagarin con and conceded ‘first man in space’ to the Russians.
NASA even suggested they had ‘tracked’ the object when it was clear the object was never in ‘space’ and based on Gagarin’s own testimony, the entire flight was pre-recorded and sat in a tape recorder in the capsule. Probably NASA didn’t want to be criticised as a group of uninformed and unprepared amateurs.
NASA then increased the space-con’s ante and purportedly put not just one man on the moon, but 12, all of them by 1972! Talk about going all-in! There was no topping that. Game over.
After 1972, nothing.
As if the American empire, based on military power, would not have already weaponised the moon and orbs beyond if NASA had actually ‘landed on the moon’.
Even today NASA discusses building a nuclear reactor on the moon. This will never happen but does anyone ask for what purpose? Why would anyone need a nuclear plant on the moon? To power what? Is NASA telling us that the Americans are going to ‘nuclearise’ the moon and point weapons back at this planet?
We now move from the myth of Gagarin and his April 1961 prophetic confirmation, to Apostle Alan Shepard and his miraculous ascension in May 1961, witnessed by just a few. First the background to Shepard’s sharp departure from inglorious failure.
When Gagarin supposedly entered 200 miles altitude and allegedly landed safely near his parachuting-training base at Saratov Russia, NASA and the American public were thrown into a panic. It appeared that the Reds had done it again usurping the Americans and were literally miles ahead (200 miles up in fact) of the Americans in the ‘space race’. There was dismay and depression all around.
The Americans had nothing to show but a decade of rocket failures, zero manned launches into low orbit and nothing approaching the capability to enter ‘space’ or the orbital plane some 200 miles in altitude. The Russians now had Sputnik, Vostok and Gagarin and maybe were soon zooming off to the Moon and Mars. Those Red devils. Maybe Communism did produce the goods and national superiority. ‘Democracy’ and ‘Capitalism’ were losing.
The very successful American reply to Gagarin was, to put it mildly, surprisingly swift and triumphant. This immediate response intimates a lie in the event.
After nothing but failures, blown up rockets on launch pads, cartoonish attempts to lift payloads off the deck, and endless technical failures, the Americans, somehow, magically, conjured up a very successful, spotless, error-free flight of 187 km in height on May 5, 1961, just 3 weeks after the Gagarin bombshell event. NASA of course ‘landed’ Saint Shepard in a remote pasture, far from prying eyes, off the coast of the Bahamas.
Until that date, there is no indication, whatsoever, that the Americans had the technology or capability to perform a 187 km vertical ascent and safe return. Nay, not even a successful 18.7 km ascent could be manufactured. Until Shepard’s journey the US space programme was a TV sitcom of slapdash misfortunes and comedic disasters.
Let’s summarise the American record in space travel, until May 1961 (list of failures). [NASA itself was only officially founded in July 1958. Before that, rocket development and launches were conducted by military branches (Army, Navy, Air Force) and their contractors.]
Pre-NASA, 1950-July 1958
1. V2 Rocket derivatives & very early ICBMs
§ Post WW2 the Americans experimented with captured Nazi V2 rockets, developing ballistic missiles. These tests were mostly failures, including flights that went nowhere near their targets, did not reach proper altitude, or simply exploded.
§ This included rockets such as Viking, Redstone, Jupiter, Thor, Atlas and Titan. More than 2/3 blew up on the pad or exploded in flight.
2. Vanguard, US Navy
§ US civilian satellite program, justly famous for spectacular failures.
§ TV3 launch on December 6, 1957, which attempted to launch the first US satellite, rose a few feet off the ground and exploded. It was christened ‘Flopnik’ and ‘Kaputnik’. Subsequent attempts also failed.
Post NASA’s creation, July 1958-1961
1- Project Pioneer (Lunar probes) were early attempts to send probes to the moon.
§ The failures were rife including Pioneer versions 0,1, 2, 3, 4, 5, which used Atlas, Thor-Able and Juno II rockets. None achieved anything close to a lunar orbit.
2-Project Mercury, which was intended to be a precursor to manned spaceflight experienced nothing but disaster, based on Redstone and Atlas rockets.
§ Little Joe 1 (August 1959): The rocket exploded seconds after ignition.
§ Mercury-Redstone 1 (November 1960): The engine shut down immediately after ignition; the escape rocket fired, and the capsule landed just next to the launch pad, but the main rocket never lifted off. This was named the ‘Four-Inch Flight’.
§ Various other suborbital and orbital test flights of the capsule (with animals or without) had malfunctions in re-entry, parachute deployment, or ‘heat shield’ issues.
The usual 1960 rocket-disaster. No worries though. In 9 years the Americans will be laughing and telling jokes on the lunar surface. From there just a quick hop to Mars to meet up with Chewy and the boys. Good looking alien girls in the bars there you know. Fight a death star or two on the way for entertainment.
3-The Ranger program attempted to send unmanned lunar impact probes.
§ Ranger 1 (August 1961): This is AFTER Shepard’s and Grissom’s flights. This effort suffered an Atlas-Agena rocket failure, leaving the probe in a useless low Earth orbit.
§ Ranger 2 (November 1961): This also failed to achieve its intended trajectory due to an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle malfunction.
So, prior to May 1961 there is nothing but failure. Even after Shepard’s flight there is failure.
Not even unmanned probes could be sent anywhere close to targets or for any length of time. The normative test outcome was an explosion. NASA and its fanboys would say that all the above were ‘experimental’ and these failures led to success. Fair enough, you must fail to succeed.
Shepard and the ‘Freedom 7’ capsule which has less payload capcacity than my mercedes. Travelling at 5,000 mph, at 116 miles in altitude generated only an ear condition which disappeared in 1971. No injuries for either Grissom or Glenn. Those American boys are simply unstoppable.
4-Saint Alan and the transfiguration of NASA
Based on the above list, there is no hint that the CIA-NASA complex could put a human aviator payload into low orbital ‘space’ by May 1961. So, what happened between the beginning of 1961 and May 1961? There are two obvious explanations.
The first is that Apostle Shepard’s flight was a fraud. A more credible version of the Gagarin act. NASA pulled a Capricorn One and Shepard did a runner.
Or, a second option, one that NASA and its supporters must rely upon, is the ‘miracle’ story. Somehow, miraculously, all of the failures of the past decade were reformed and coalesced into a glorious success just a few weeks after the Gagarin fraud. The ultimate hail Mary, or hail Alan. Divine power interceding and transfiguring.
At the time the most complex manual system for space travel ever developed by NASA or the US military. Note the very thin ‘heat shield’. Unlikely to protect you from a BBQ flame.
Let’s go over Shepard’s supposed suborbital flight plan, on May 5, 1961, in his ‘Freedom 7’ capsule. This flight was part of the Mercury program. The Mercury program was based on a single seat design, Gemini on a 2-seat model, and Apollo on a 3-seat layout of the Armstrong-Aldrin-Collins legend.
It should be emphasised: Shepards’s flight saved NASA. The American Space program was transfigured by this powerful response to the Gagarin gag.
Below is a summary of Apostle Shepard’s historic suborbital flight on May 5, 1961 (flight detail).
· Total Time: 15 minutes.
· Total altitude: ~187 km or ~116 miles (though there are some arguments that it was much lower, 75 miles in altitude, official documents vary).
· Rocket: Redstone.
· Trajectory: High arc (up and down).
· Speed: 8200 km per hour, or ~5100 miles per hour.
· Controls: Manual and system.
· Landing: ~25 mph velocity, landing area is debatable some official records say just southeast of the Bahamas, ~490 miles east of Cape Canaveral Florida, others 100 miles north of Bahamas and ~300 miles east of the launch pad.
So goes the narrative. Does it make any sense?
5-Apostle Shepard and David the Shepherd
Apostle Shepard was long heralded in the American press as the prototypical American hero, and an essential warrior to defeat the Communists in the ‘space race’. It was life or death. Them or ‘us’. Good and Evil. World supremacy on the battlefield to be won or lost.
In this story we have the humble Shepard with the orbital slingshot containing a single projectile, aimed at the Soviet Goliath. Vanquish or die. The Shepard-boy playing David against the giant Soviet Goliath from Saratov. Space as the valley of Elam (Shepard’s biography).
Decorated Naval Aviator: Shepard graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and became a highly skilled test pilot for the Navy, flying a variety of aircraft and conducting experimental work.
Experienced: By May 1961, age just 37, Shepard had accumulated some 8,000 hours of pilot and real flight experience (compared to the dozens of hours in total for Gagarin).
Moon walker and commander of Apollo 14: During his May 1961 flight, Shepard suffered an ear condition, went off duty but was eventually reinstated in 1971, and was selected to command the Apollo 14 moon mission (age 47) in 1971. He was the 5th man to ‘walk on the lunar surface’ (the Langley CIA simulation field).
Popularised golfing on the moon.As commander of Apollo 14 Shepard was filmed live on TV hitting a few balls for the true believers. Just your average hero, clowning around. That is how we like our heroes. In control, multi-talented, cool and collected. On the moon just hitting a few for the ‘little guy’ and wowing the NASA fanboys and Star Trekkies. Saving democracy as well of course. Sadly a poor, amateurish swing. Must have been that 1/6 gravity, or the silly suit that threw the Navy man off. Did you see stars Alan?
(Sorry just a question: Who is taking the film shot and why is the light side of the moon mostly bathed in shadows except with for the top half of Shepard and the chap in the background? Is that from the large artificial light to the left?)
Rear Admiral: Upon returning to Earth, Shepard was quickly promoted to be a Rear Admiral in the US Navy and just as quickly retired in 1974, at the old age of 50. He was tired, or maybe he was compensated and rewarded for his acting acumen and bravery.
Very rich: When the ‘good’ Shepard died, his estate’s pasture was extremely fecund, worth a mere U$50 million. Smell that aroma. The fumes and fragrance from the estate and its value are stronger than the freshly fertilised polder lands in Holland in April. The aroma of dung. Armstrong, who quit NASA, working and public life after his movie role in Apollo 11, only amassed U$15 million. I wonder if Neil was nonplussed with Alan’s largesse?
As witnessed by Shepard’s career it should be emphasised that when considering NASA you are discussing a military organisation. Forget the ‘climate’, ‘Globaloney-warming’, ‘mapping ice flows’ and the dove-image. Simply a fig leaf to procure more billions in funding and to keep the money laundering flowing to the never-satiated American-Corporate-Globalist-elite.
Almost all NASA Directors have come from the military and the top astronauts, certainly in the 1960s and 70s, including Armstrong and Shepard, were military personnel. NASA is intimately tied into the military establishment and often receives its directives from the same.
When you work for the military, you sign a binding contract swearing an oath to support and fight for your nation, to support military objectives and follow orders and commit to secrecy and confidentiality. You don’t blow a whistle. Many who comply and shinny up the greasy pole keeping their mouths firmly shut, are richly rewarded. Shepard accumulated a rather vast fortune as a testimony to this fact.
6-NASA: the Way, the Truth, the Light
Saint Shepard’s heroic and terse declaration as he entered the capsule was simply, ‘Let’s light this candle’. That is what we like. The self-assured, polished, indestructible hero, laughing in the face of uncertainty if not certain death. The confidence of a David. The coolness of Tom Cruise. Scripted right out of Hollywood.
So too perhaps was Shepard’s flight.
Apostle Shepard’s ‘voyage’ is radically different and more technical than anything previously attempted.
His flight involved a manual control of the 2800 pound craft, never before attempted or tested (Mercury operational manual). While previous attempts had some safety features, Shepard’s mission required a fully integrated life support system, environmental controls, and a recovery system designed specifically for a human occupant. Otherwise, no astronaut would attempt the flight. Back to ‘health and safety’ which was missing in Gagarin’s amateurish fraud.
Mercury 3’s flight plan and high arc route.
The technology used was a sharp departure from recent failures. Luckily for Shepard the Redstone rocket decided not to do its normal launch-pad explosion (Mercury 7 Redstone Rocket). All of this never before experimented or seen complexity supposedly just worked the first time it was tried. A miracle indeed.
But, as you would expect and as we have seen with the Gagarin story, we possess little visual evidence of anything. There is no independent proof of any of the steps, including Shepard being loaded into the capsule, his face visible in the window, the ascent with Shepard inside, the descent and landing.
Apparently, half a dozen or so people ‘testified’ that they saw Shepard splash down in the capsule, rescued by a helicopter. That would be easy to create. No verification of various claims has ever been done.
There are no tests you can view of Shepard’s ‘heat shield’.
There are no tests you can view of Grissom’s ‘heat shield’ (July 1961) which apparently was not attached to his capsule (see below).
There are no tests you can view of either Enos’ (1961) or Glenn’s capsule’s (1962) ‘heat shields’ (more below).
There is a 3.5 hour gap between Shepard ‘entering the capsule’ and the flight taking off. There is ample time to do a runner.
In this photo we have Shepard taking a look inside the capsule. My mercedes has more room. The heat shield at the bottom hardly looks ‘thick enough’ to protect against the upper atmosphere, friction and 3000 F temperatures. It is barely deep enough to fight off a bunsen burner.
Pretty cramped for Alan Shepard. I am not sure that the ‘heat shield’ at the bottom of this contraption would protect anyone from anything stronger than a bbq flame. Prominent antenna on top.
The author noticed that when Shepard landed his capsule, quite remarkably and against all scientific forecast, it still held fast to its antenna. Yet, Grissom’s capsule shown further below, did not. How did the antenna survive re-entry Mr. Science and where are the massive parachutes? Wouldn’t they be nearby or still attached?
Shepard’s Mercuy 3 capsule on landing. What is with the antenna? Main cable is to the right and passes close by Shepard hanging below the chopper. How does such a flimsy asset survive the heat and violence of re-entry? Where did the chutes go?
What is also strange with the Shepard tale is the change in confidence within the US-NASA-military establishment in early 1961, even before the Gagarin bombshell in April, and 2 months in advance of America’s first manned-suborbital incursion (Kennedy was confident of success). Supposedly NASA and high US officials had already informed Kennedy that the Shepard launch should proceed and that success was pretty certain (Soviets pre-empted the certain victory of Shepard).
You could load a Mercury capsule into the belly of this craft with ease.
7-Angels and Angles
Let’s persist further. These capsules weighed about 1,286 tonnes, or roughly 2,800 pounds. Apparently the good Shepard rose, flew, turned, rotated, entered sub-orbit (and in Glenn’s case orbit, more on Glenn below), then turning and rotating again to re-enter bell-end first. Rather complicated.
Newton again
The physics of evading craft disintegration due to heat and friction is mostly concerned with converting a massive amount of kinetic energy, or the energy possessed by these heavy-mass objects at a high speed, as calculated by 1/2 mass x velocity2 into thermal energy and drag.
This takes us back to Newtonian mechanics and the ‘law’ of Kinetic energy (inferred and derived from the first and second ‘laws’ of motion, or E(kinetic) = 1/2 mass x velocity2). This equation is the basis of exit and re-entry rocketry.
Below is the trajectory for the sub-orbital space flight of Alan Shepard. At 50 miles or so, there is a complicated readjustment of the craft to proceed, bell-end first. Notice the tight and precise angular orientation of the craft.
These craft would then exit and re-enter the atmosphere bottoms first, with the ‘ablative heat shield’ protecting the capsule. Ablative is a word defining a process of slow burning. The idea is to reduce thermal energy and drag as calculated from Newton’s maths.
Terms to consider
All of this can be confusing. According to official doctrines we have the following:
Space is ~62 miles in altitude (arguably incorrect and arbitrary).
Lowest Stable Orbit is around 125-140 miles in altitude. This is the minimum altitude a craft can maintain an orbit for more than just a few days, without the atmosphere pulling it down.
(There are issues with this, given that the ISS (international space station) is constantly ‘reboosted’ to reset its altitude, and it purportedly resides at 250 miles altitude).
Low Earth Orbit is 200 to 1200 miles in altitude and this is where we find Satellites and the ISS (above the lowest stable orbit, though there are issues with both ISS and satellites maintaining altitude).
In Shepard’s flight he is flying to about 116 miles in altitude (there is some dispute about the actual altitude, some sources put it at 75 miles), just past the ‘Space’ barrier but into a region where heat and friction on re-entry back down to a higher density atmosphere pose a life-threatening problem. Shepard did not experience 0 Gravity or weightlessness because he was not above 125 miles in altitude and he was not flying at 17,500 mph (2 pre-requisites for 0 G, unless you are doing a fast parabolic arc in a 0 G plane, dropping the speed at the apex and free-falling).
Archangels and Saints
The angels of angles are central to this complex exercise. If the angles are wrong the rocket and capsule will burn up or be destroyed. Each phase is managed.
Lift off phase 0 to 20 miles: the rocket starts off at 90 degrees, accelerates quickly
Middle phase of 20-50 miles: 30-60 degrees angle, rotation in process, rotation to have the bell-end in front completed by 50 miles
Upper ascent of 50-100 miles: 5 to 20 degrees (max speed achieved)
The very precise nature of angle management entails a continuous adjustment of the angle:
Onboard computer follows a pre-programmed flight path
At the right altitudes the computer executes the continuous angle changes by making a pivot or ‘gimbal’ to the main engine nozzles (eg at 50 miles)
This provides the steering force which NASA calls the ‘Thrust Vector Control’
As the rocket approaches orbit (say 200 miles altitude), very small ‘Reaction Control System’ jets or thrusters provide the force to acquire the proper angle for suborbital, or orbital exit
A similar process is enacted for the descent but in reverse, with angles again being managed against a pre-programmed flight path
Ascent, Nose First for part of the first phase:
All air pressure and air force is focused on the small area or nose at the front
The planet’s atmosphere compresses the air and reduces the friction on the tip or nose, until the capsule arrives at roughly 50 miles in altitude
Modern capsule modules use an ablative protection, which is not true of the 1960s modules
The Rotation
The craft, now bell-end first, pushes through the 50-75-mile barrier into the upper atmosphere and targeting a zone of 0 G or weightlessness, which starts roughly at 125-140 miles in altitude. At 17,5000 mph it will stabilise (for Glenn’s journey).
For the re-entry the craft must rotate 180 degrees.
Initiation of small, low firing rockets, named the ‘Attitude Control System’ (ACS) thrusters or the ‘Reaction Control System’ (RCS) jets.
When these small thrusters or jets are fired, they are perpendicular to the spacecraft’s centre of mass, which creates a ‘torque’ or a rotational force causing a spin.
When the craft spins or rotates the astronaut, or onboard computer, will trigger a specific number of other smaller jets, to rotate the craft into the bottoms first position, so the bell-end now faces forward.
The Descent
After rotation, the blunt, ‘fat end’ is now leading the descent. This is obviously not aerodynamic. The acceleration of descent is somewhat thwarted by this design.
As the craft re-enters shield-first, the astronaut must fire the main braking engine against the motion of travel (forward). This ‘burn’ is opposite to the direction of the orbital motion and in theory would greatly further reduce the 17,500 mph velocity as the craft exits orbit into the denser upper atmosphere reducing heat and friction.
After ‘braking’, the G force will decline to 3 or 4 G’s which is a survivable G force for humans.
The superheated air is pushed away from the body of the craft as it descends.
The maximum temperature is estimated to be 3000 F which is not enough to melt the ablative and ceramic coating in its entirety.
The complicated mechanics of parachute deployment are triggered at roughly 10-11 km in altitude.
The key to all of this is apparently in the angles.
The Problems
Houston or Cape Canaveral have some problems with this narrative, especially as it relates to 1960s technology:
The onboard systems in these craft were analogue circuits, they were not ‘computers’ nor remotely close to the modern idea of an operating system defined processing engine
These onboard systems were crude, hard wired, circuit based and were never tested in the upper atmosphere (heat, friction, communications, logic, triggering complex actions and micro-managing angles)
Unlike current craft the Gemini and Mercury capsules did not have nose protection and the only way they would not burn up, would be to have the rocket and capsule perfectly angled during the ascent as discussed above.
The safety of the craft resides in the micro-management of angles and thrusts, yet there is no telemetry on trials and test cases before the Shepard, Grissom or Glenn flights, nor is there any proof of what must certainly be the necessity of thousands of hours of testing of such complex operational maneuvres by pilots or by unmanned craft in high-atmospheric simulations and LEO
Yet the first time the complex operation is tried it works – this becomes a consistent NASA theme after 1962
So how did NASA pull of the May 1961 Shepard flight?
The easiest answer is of course ‘Capricorn One’. The decade or more of utter futility was somehow reversed in just weeks. The only rational explanation is that Shepard was never on board the Freedom 7 capsule.
The Mercury Redstone was launched, happily for once did not explode on the pad, flew a few dozen miles in altitude, then crashed into the sea and man and capsule were dropped from a plane off the Bahamas, free from inquiry, isolated and controlled. Shepard would have had 3 hours to make it from Canaveral to the drop down zone. Plenty of time given it is less than 1 hour away. The Americans preferred remote sea landings. This could be one reason why.
A C 130 Hercules plane (or some equivalent) with load capacity to drop a capsule would only have needed 45-55 minutes to transport Shepard to the splash down area. Given that there is scant evidence that Shepard entered the capsule there would have been plenty of time to arrange the transport during the almost 4 hours of preflight countdown. That would be the simplest explanation for both an error free flight and the preflight certainty of success.
We need to remember a simple fact in the context of what was marketed as a life and death struggle with the Soviets over ‘space’, there is no way that NASA or Kennedy would have risked a dead astronaut or a failed flight. That would have killed off NASA and granted a ‘victory’ to the Russkies in the space-race-con battle.
Failure was not happening and Shepard’s flight had to be ‘guaranteed’ to succeed. How was that guarantee fabricated?
9-Apostle Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom the sacrificial lamb?
Virgil Grissom laughing in front of the Liberty Bell module. He wouldn’t be laughing when he ‘landed’ given NASA or someone tried to kill him.
On July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom, more senior in hours and experience to Shepard, flew into suborbital altitude aboard Mercury ‘Liberty 7’. Lovely name for a mission.
Everything was exactly the same as the Shepard flight. Same route, same arc, same machine model, same rocket, same landing zone, some height, same time. Except the hatch door which was opened.
This is very curious. In a ‘space race’ with the Soviets, wouldn’t you go beyond what you supposedly just accomplished? NASA and its cheerleaders say of course not. You consolidate, replicate, and validate what has just preceded.
And what of the hatch? The NASA fanboys always ignore the quite obvious attacks on Grissom in 1961 and then the fatal murder in 1967. Fanboys and Trekkies repeat, ‘electrical failure’ (NASA’s story about the Grissom event).
On Grissom’s splash down (from a C 130?), the hatch door was opened from the outside. There is no proof that Grissom opened the hatch from the inside, itself a complicated manoeuvre (Smithsonian, Grissom did not ‘sink his own capsule’). An emergency lever does exist on the outside to open the hatch. Water flooded into the capsule. It began to sink.
Two choppers trying to save Grissom and the Liberty Bell.
Somehow Grissom got out of the capsule into the water and weighed down by suit and equipment, began to flounder and drown. For some reason, the first helicopter ignored Grissom and attempted to save the capsule, failed and flew away. Why was saving the capsule so important? A second helicopter, knowing it was being filmed, belatedly pulled Grissom out of the water.
Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 capsule. No heat shields? Where is the antenna given that Shepard’s craft apparently landed with the antenna still attached?
Every aspect of this flight mirrors Shepard’s, except the hatch door fiasco. Is that why there is a 2-month lag between the 2 flights? Was there a plan being made to get rid of Grissom or send the troublesome Top-Gun stud a message?
When Grissom’s capsule was pulled out of the depths in 1999 no heat shield was present.
NASA maintains that the beryllium material coating, which provided the shield against re-entry friction and heat, had simply disintegrated into the salt water over 38 years. Beryllium does not decompose nor react in water so this is false.
Another excuse is that when the hatch blew, the shield somehow fell off (NASA explanation on Grissom’s heat shield). This would be very odd indeed and would indicate poor and substandard engineering.
We know there was no heat shield. Was the capsule also missing a rocket?
Did Shepard’s craft have a heat shield?
The waterlogged capsule also showed no sign that the mechanisms (plural) to open the hatch from inside were activated. Grissom never endeavoured to open the hatch door just as he maintained after the flight. Someone (a frog diver?) opened the door from the outside, using the emergency lever (NPR, Grissom did not open his hatch).
Why? Who was trying to drown Grissom in 1961? The Soviets and KGB? US Communist agents inside NASA or the military? NASA itself? Angry wife eyeing the life insurance policy?
Did the conflicts between Grissom and NASA start with the Mercury project? Was Grissom going to say something about these flights that would embarrass NASA? Or, was the intention to prove that Grissom was in the dropped capsule, thereby confirming the landing of Shepard?
10-Stone tablets and crude systems
Grissom’s and Shepard’s US craft also suffered from the Gagarin ‘analogue logic issue’. There is no reasonable chance that the crudity of these systems could manage and control the requisite complex interactions (back to thrusters, angles, speed, braking, parachutes, communications). Was Grissom complaining about this? Was there a chance he might say something in public?
As with Gagarin’s fraud, are we to believe that crude hard-wired logic circuits deploying relays, transistors, resisters and primitive programming could possibly be used in synchronicity within a large cone travelling at 5,000 mph?
That these primitive wires, circuits and connections survived and worked 100-190 miles in altitude at fantastic acceleration velocities and heat impact?
That this ‘logic’ was capable of activating thrusters, ‘retrorockets’, ‘drogue chutes’ and ‘big chutes’, as well as coordinating communications, telemetry and the support manual control operations, alll within a cone whose only heat shield was on the large bottomed end?
Fast forward to Grissom in January 1967 stating that the Apollo rocket was not going to the moon, and he could not communicate with base from the launch pad. After criticising the Apollo program and publicly saying they are going nowhere, Grissom and his 2 astronaut colleagues are fried on the launch pad in Apollo 1 (NASA and its Apollo 1 coverup). 30 months later the Americans are doing the Michael Jackson moon walk on the lunar surface.
The two Grissom episodes are just ‘accidents’ moan NASA and the fanboys. Learning experiences. Just bad luck for Gus. This seems doubtful. On 2 occasions Grissom was clearly attacked. The second attempt was planned to be 100% lethal and final. But I am sure this is all ‘debunked’ by the usual array of well paid sophisticates.
11-Enos the grandson of Adam
In biblical history Enos was the grandson of Adam, the son of Seth. The name means ‘man’. Enos the monkey-man’s orbital mission pre-dates Glenn’s by 3 months and is only 6 months after Shepard’s suborbital mission. Talk about progress in a short period of time! Forget the 10 years of failure (Enos the forgotten chimp).
Enos’ flight date: November 29, 1961, 3 months before Glenn’s record setting flight
Program: Project Mercury (precursor to manned orbital flights)
Type of Flight:Orbital spaceflight (unmanned)
Rocket Type: Atlas D rocket – same as Glenn’s
Flight Duration: Approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes
Orbits Completed: 2 orbits around the Earth (mission planned for 3, cut short due to minor capsule issues)
Altitude (Apex): Approximately 237 kilometers (147 miles)
Speed: Around 27,800 kilometers per hour (17,250 miles per hour), the speed required for orbit.
Splashdown Area: Atlantic Ocean, approximately 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Bermuda.
Outcome: Enos survived the mission in fine health and was successfully recovered.
What NASA ‘proved’ was that if the chimp can do it, anyone can! Enos rocketed into orbit at the same speed as Glenn, performing circus tricks during his 2 circuits of the globe. Not ill, not injured, not discomfitted or nauseous, he was returned safely, navigating that splash down with consummate skill and heroic fortitude, a truly magnificent simian.
The average person might wonder as to the reality of any of it. It sounds more like a Disney cartoon.
Did the super chimp have dozens or hundreds of hours of training simulation to get ready for this historic trip? Where are the proofs of his training?
How was an animal acclimated to such violent velocity and G force?
Was the chimp-man sedated or given drugs to calm him down? If so, how did he perform his ‘tricks’?
Was he ill during the simulations?
What circus tricks did he pull in the capsule as it zoomed around at 17,000 mph?
Can we see those same tricks which must have been filmed in the simulation environment?
This was a remotely-controlled flight. No successful unmaned flight at this speed or altitude had ever been done before. All had failed.
Why did the chimp-man’s journey succeed? What was different in this unmanned flight versus previous failed attempts?Atlas D Rocket test, September 1961
In any event Enos supposedly confirmed that man could survive in ‘orbit’ and pilot a safe return! It was in the newspapers. It was truth.
Enos the flinty-eyed monkey boy supposedly orbited the Earth twice on November 29, 1961, with no difficulty. Accelerating with massive G force to 17,000 mph, over 140 miles in altitude, this small, stout creature was not sick, nor injured. Truly fantastic. The evidence for the Enos flight is scant to none. But it was in the newspapers and the government said so. They never lie, so we believe.
The NASA fanboys and the true believers in ‘the science’ will be happy to know that the fraud ‘Doctor’ Salk, as much of a quack as Jenner or Pasteur, was predicting a single magic shot to cure ‘200 diseases’ – back in 1961. Just 200 of them in one magic potion. Witches were never so creative. The quackery of quackcines jostled with chimp-man to make headlines.
How comforting and how appropriate. Monkey man and monkey business.
Fanboys say. Safe and effective. 200 different ‘viruses’ destroyed by 1 master stab. Believe it. Right underneath the cartoon about Chimp boy circumnavigating the globe, doing a Magellan x2.
12-Saint John of the Orbit and the ascension to heaven
Just a few months after the heroic chimp showed how it was done, John Glenn orbited the globe 3 times in ‘space’. Or so we are told. Again, we have another ‘radical’ departure point from previous flights and programs, all in a few months (NASA’s description of Glenn’s flight).
· Date: February 20, 1962
· Program: Project Mercury
· Capsule Name: Friendship 7, nice sounding name
· Speed: 27,870 kilometers per hour (17,321 miles per hour or 7.74 kilometers per second)
· Altitude: ~the official records are in conflict, it might be 187 miles or 163 miles depending
· Rocket: Atlas D rocket
· Duration: Approximately 4 hours and 55 minutes
· Orbits Completed: 3 orbits around the Earth
· Landing Zone Area: Very isolated area in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly southeast of Bermuda (about 1,300 km or 800 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral)
Glenn’s speed is more than 3 times that of Shepard’s and Grissom’s and his total flight time, 4 hours and 40 minutes longer. The G force at 17,000 mph is phenomenal, at greater than 6 G’s probably more like 8G.
0G: Weightlessness called ‘microgravity’ (some gravity is present), the ISS astronauts train in a 0 Gravity plane, this is also where most of the photos and videos from the ISS are shot of course (another fraud)
1G: Gravity on Earth, on the terrestrial plane (your weight, in your chair)
8G: Hypergravity and massive pressure. For example if you weigh 180 pounds on Earth in 1 G, you would feel a weight of 8 times that in 8G or 1440 pounds.
6-8G for any period of time should be lethal. Glenn would have spent more than 6 minutes at this G Force. The G force calculation is based on the acceleration and deceleration compared to 1 G.
None of these astronauts including Saint John and the 12 Apostles of Apollo, experienced nausea, illness or death. Only Shepard had a complaint with his ear. In the Apollo program the ascent speed was increased to over 24,000 mph.None of the Apollo ‘astronauts’ were affected by speed, G force or radiation.
Minute 4:Speed: ~18,000 – 22,000 km/h (~11,000 – 13,700 mph)
Minute 5 to ~6:· Speed: ~27,000 – 27,800 km/h (~16,800 – 17,300 mph) – Orbital Velocity would be achieved, engine switched off.
The above flight pattern is just the beginning phase. After this, the complexity of roclet and angle management comes into play.
Glenn purportedly circumnavigated the globe 3 times in the usual very precise pattern laid out on 2 dimensional paper. He was the first American in orbit and the first to re-enter. The difference between Shepard and Glenn according to NASA, was in the Atlas D rocket used for the Glenn journey.
Before Glenn rocketed off, there were 2 reported and successful tests of the Atlas D rocket; an unmanned test in September 1961 and a chimp-manned attempt in November 1961 who orbited the globe twice, performed some tasks, and returned alive.
So, we are to believe that after just 2 test flights of the new Atlas D rocket, one including chimp-man, that this was good enough for the Top Gun stud Glenn to climb into the tin cone and zoom off to some 180 miles in alitude? If you say so.
There is more time and care in deploying a standard business application ‘in the cloud’, than with NASA flights, rocketry and life and death situations.
13-Calm, meditative scripture
Then we have the communications between Saint John and ground control. The communications belie the probable simulation. Glenn’s official communications transcript is as banal and choreographed as that of Apollo 11. It tells us nothing.
Here we have the ‘re-entry’. No, not that re-entry. Re-entry as in landing in the ocean. The communications are short, just 11 minutes, and they concern Glenn landing near Bermuda (CC in the transcripts is Command Control, Cape Canaveral Florida).
This renders as a simulation, not a real flight.
“04 41 536.2P This is Friendship 7. Ah, going to fly-by-wire. I’m down to about 15 percent on manual.
04 42 008.9CC Ah, Roger. You’re going to use fly-by-wire for reentry and we recommend that you do the best you can to keep a zero angle during reentry. Over.
04 42 091.2P Ah, Roger. Friendship 7.
04 42 133.4P This is Friendship 7. I’m on fly-by-wire, back it up with manual. Over.
04 42 181.1CC Roger, understand.
04 42 299.2CC Ah, Seven, this is Cape. The weather in the recovery area is excellent, 3-foot waves, only one-tenth cloud coverage, 10 miles visibility.”
Keep the zero angle CC said. In other words keep the capsule moving perfectly parallel to the Earth’s surface using the crude technology onboard. I would like to see that demonstrated in real time.
Given the recent re-entry and the complicated systems to enact a parachute deployment, surely the chatter could have been more realistic, detailed and personal?
“Yo Saint John, this is CC, how did the capsule hold up on re-entry, that must have been fun, Over?”
“Ah, CC here, Freedom 7 ah can you confirm no issues with chute deployment both drogue and main, Over?”
The banality. Altitude unknown. Parachute positioning unconfirmed. Good weather for a swim CC states. Roger that replies Saint John, bathing suit on, shades at the ready, Over. Time for the Beach Boys. Cue California or Bermuda girls CC, Over.
As easy as sitting in a simulation module chair and having a chat.
14-Re-entry through the narrow gate
If you search the narrative image libraries (given below) realistic proofs for either Enos’ or Glenn’s voyages are, however, rather scant. Ships and dozens of people were awaiting their splash downs for example.
So where are the photos or films of the descent from ~7.5 km matching the communications and the supposed landmarks Glenn would have seen?
Why isn’t the sky being scanned and filmed proving that the capsule did re-enter on its own power, without being dropped?
Were they afraid of failure, or was it all staged and not the business of prying eyes?
Enos had no serious ailments from the flight and re-entry which must have terrified him. You can imagine the howls of terror from chimp-man as he ‘re-entered the atmosphere’. He would have died of shock or would have been incinerated like the countless animals sacrificed by the Soviets as they probed the radiation levels and heat of the upper atmosphere and far beyond in the 1950s and 1960s.
Saint John of the terrifying Orbital journey rarely if ever discussed the re-entry in anything approaching realistic detail, in what must have been the most fantastically scary and apocalpytic moments of his life. NASA claims security, intellectual property and the reality of the Cold War. The only information to be given by the astronauts to the public, would be personal life stories and descriptions of the man’s journey from humble origins to space-hero.
Saint John was scripted to be aloof, nonchalant, cool, indifferent.
Given the terrifying ordeal that somehow ended happily, Saint John acted as the American hero must act, issuing the usual pithy ‘je ne sais quoi’ observation upon his return, mentioning that his flight was ‘just another day at the office’, and the classic, “As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind – every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.”
That is what we like. Our heroes unruffled and indifferent to danger and death. Glenn musing over contracts and component pricing in his mental excel spread-sheet as he re-enters the atmosphere at a frenzied-cranium-busting-speed, fat-bottom first, a feat no American had attempted and what must have seemed like certain death.
John Glenn’s recovery. Scant evidence exists to support the splash down and the narrative that he arrived from ~187 miles in altitude.
15-NASA’s Revelations and Divine Proof
The Soviets provided little to no information about their flights and tests. The Americans took the opposite path and began to overwhelm the public with layers of revelatory ‘evidence’ and ‘documentation’ even if that meant missing obvious and important parts or assembling irrelevant nonsense. All part of the CIA-NASA misdirection plan. The more mass of material, the less likely the peasants will be to argue or question.
Hey denier, got a question? Yeah stupid, here you go. Here is all the ‘science’ and consensus detail contained in the Bible of Space Truth. Have a look. Take your time. Ha, ha, idiot and loser. You are debunked chud!
Innumerable and complicated books of Revelations were created. To support the narrative of Glenn’s flight the standard NASA-gospel story is the following.
1. Glenn took photos which match specific geographical locations on Earth with his known orbital track and the time of day (at 187 miles in altitude atmospheric cloud cover would make this claim infeasible).
Saint John of the Orbit’s most ‘famous’ photo, from his capsule of Earth. No landmarks are visible. And where are the sides of window and why didn’t he take a wide angle shot to show us the inside of the capsule? His capsule and window were tiny. The camera hand-held. There is zero chance you take frame-perfect snaps zipping around at 17,000 mph in a gyrating, rolling, quivering tin can through an 8 inch window.
2. Continuous radio transmissions between Glenn and mission control, which were broadcast live and recorded (as with Gagarin, controlled by the military, pre-recorded, easily simulated so you don’t know what you are listening to, with full transcripts unavailable).
3. Telemetry data streamed from the capsule, indicating altitude, speed, internal conditions, and Glenn’s vital signs (all simulated at base, you would never know the difference).
4. Radar tracking data from dozens of ground stations across the globe, confirmed the capsule’s trajectory (these systems are land based, with huge gaps, not real time, with data processing issues, try again).
5. Eyewitness accounts from thousands of people involved in the launch, tracking, and recovery (as if this means anything, the more people, the easier to hide the lie).
6. Pre-flight photos and videos of Glenn being suited up and inserted into his specific capsule (this is entirely debateable and means little;time variance between capsule ‘entry’ and lift-off was 3 hours and 40 minutes, plenty of time to do a runner).
7. Existence of physical artifacts like the capsule itself, which bears the marks of re-entry (a burnt capsule would offer the same illusion).
8. Corroboration from non-US entities who would have tracked the launch and orbital passes (this is untrue of course, given that the comms were always in the control of the US military and there is no way that NASA was going to let the Soviets listen or spy).
9. Post-flight examination of the recovered capsule, its data recorders and the physical display of the Friendship 7 capsule, now on permanent exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Smithsonian Institution (as if a display means anything and the Smithsonian is famous for removing evidence which contravenes a standard narrative).
Unlike the Soviets, the Americans attempted to ‘democratise’ the data and drown the bien pensant with mountains of information. It is unlikely that the average person will have the time or interest to crawl through these metaphysical layers. But there are some issues with the above story.
The photos in general don’t show anything specific or are of extremely poor quality and do not prove anything. They could have been taken by a number of craft from a variety of altitudes. They are largely blurry and grainy except for Glenn’s famous ‘money-shot’.
The photos themselves are completely different (cloud cover, colour hues, contrasts) to those taken later by ISS (international space station) (future post).
There are no photos from the capsule showing the Earth and the sides of the window of the little box. The capsule’s window was tiny.
Hundreds apparently waited in the landing zone but none had the wit to scan the skies with a camera. No photos or films exist of the descending capsule at altitudes of 10-15 km. There is also no evidence of non-NASA ‘trackers’ confirming the descent of the capsule.
There is a persistent lie that the Russians confirmed Glenn’s flight. NASA and the US military completely controlled the comms and the tracking as they did with the Apollo flights. With the Apollo program all the feeds were shuttled through the CIA-NASA telecomms base in Perth Australia. As if NASA was going to risk a failure while the Soviets tracked and listened.
The communications between base and the capsule means little, when you understand that a simulation environment was used in training. You don’t know what you are listening to. These communications were also never confirmed by outside parties.
The capsule and personal telemetry in the simulation training environments corresponded with a real flight – this is why it is called simulation training. None of the telemetry contrary to the narrative, was independently verified and could have easily been sent during a simulation. You would never know the difference.
The capsule itself does not look like it re-entered the atmosphere and could easily have been dropped. The heat shields barely look impacted (fanboys will say, NASA scrubbed it, cleaned it, tidied it up for the Walmart-clad tourists, fact-checked, ha ha debunked).
Saint John of the Orbit’s small capsule at the Smithsonian. You know, those guys famous for transparency and honesty. Missing that antenna which was attached to Shepard’s capsule on landing.
The Americans could have sent an object some 187 miles in altitude, beaming a radio signal to confirm its flight plan. Even this is highly unlikely given all of their failures to launch anything to any altitude.
But to verify that Enos the chimp, or Glenn the human aviator was on board is rather problematic. The standard recourse for the NASA acolytes, is to invoke the number of people involved, and the numerous ships and personnel at the landing zone who saw the gentle, noble descent of man or chimp, in the capsule.
Even if Saint John went ~187 miles in altitude in 1962, which is not a certainty, and hardly likely, do you really believe that NASA had the technology to complete the rest of the 237,813 miles to the moon and back just 7 years later? Glenn’s 187 miles if he actually did fly it, is a rounding error when journeying to the moon.
‘We did it’ says the NASA acolyte and devotee. ‘We’ beat the Reds! We won! Now I am emotionally invested. I have personalised the ‘event’. I will now defend it and kill any who deny or object. I am the We.
16-Bottom Line, Worldviews
The Gagarin, Shepard, Grissom, Enos and Glenn flights don’t make a lot of sense in the context of the unrelenting failures and piles of dead served up by the Soviets and NASA in the 1950s up to spring 1961.
It is a leap of Disney’s-imagination to believe that such a sharp, profound departure from inglorious failure to certain success manifested itself in the spring of 1961 and then led to a landing on the lunar surface in just 8 years.
In early 1961 NASA didn’t even have the capability to successfully guide unmanned missions at any altitude, nor to properly test heat shields.
The systems in use were crude in the extreme and there is no telemetric test case proofs that they could perform the perfection needed in angling, rotation, rocketry, parachute deployment and mechanical agility.
Sorry, this does not pass the common sense test.
Enos the chimp’s unmanned flight, which precedes Saint John’s, strains credulity and seems more of a cartoon than reality. It is a giant leap from anything previously attempted and at first try, it succeeds. It seems that the Americans were imitating the Soviet usage (and slaughter) of animals with the decided difference being that Enos survived and was not offered to Apollyon as a sacrifice.
Saint John of the Orbit’s 1962 flight following that of Enos, is the first manned orbital-flight attempt for NASA, using complex routines never before validated and against all mathematical probability it succeeds. Again it offends common sense that this was done without incident, in perfect harmony with paper plans, with scant to little engineering detail and realistic telemetry provided.
It is with Saint John of the Orbit that the Americans begin to accumulate huge volumes of Revelatory proofs, creating so many layers of complicated revelations that even a determined mystic is reduced to tears and frustration. This is classic CIA-DoD methodology.
Whether you buy these narratives or not comes down to your worldview and trust in government.
Do you trust NASA and its ‘images’ and ‘documents’? 90% of the US population apparently do. No more than 50% of non-US populations do.
Are you happy with ‘experts’, the number of people involved and their descriptions of what they say they saw and did ? You probably watch too much TV.
In general the question comes back to Saint John of the Orbit’s fulmination at the beginning of this post: “Do you support the Saint’s admonition to blindly believe the US Government, NASA and the CIA?”
When the dogmatic NASA scripture is stripped and analysed objectively, the official space-gospels and the works of the CIA-NASA-Apostles are revealed to be incoherent, contradictory, unsupported and supernatural. Back to Celsus and his critique of early Christianity in the 2nd century.
Perhaps there is another worldview. Maybe, using Occam’s razor, if we go back to Shepard’s flight, if not to Walt Disney’s space productions in the 1950s, one can surmise that the CIA-NASA complex just become really good at making space films in the 1960s at its various simulator bases, including the massive Langley Virginia NASA simulation centre (next post). False prophets and all that.
A constant theme in reality is the criminality and mendacity of Governments who are capable of anything, no matter how depraved or demonic. The CIA-NASA complex has never proven to be honest and transparent. Quite the opposite. The CIA needed to win ‘the space race’. Any means would justify that end.
All hail.
next post: CIA’s Langley complex – simulators, a crane and a movie.
p.s. In Feb 2026 the CIA-NASA complex has promised a flight to the moon and a fly-by. They have promised this every single year for the past 30 years (and also landings, a moon bus, the Trump Tower at Tranquility Bay and a resort on Mars). How would anyone know the difference between a CGI-AI wrapped-simulation and a real flight ?
· NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Digital Image Collection: Has some Mercury-era photos.
· Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex: Sometimes displays historical photos.
==
Virgil Grissom, Gemini. A Personal Account of Man’s venture into Space, 1968 (Somewhat strangely this is publised post-mortem. His first and only major success supposedly occurred in 1961. No engineering or orbital-flight details are provided. This is a personal story, designed to impress the reader with the personal qualities of the astronaut and their journey to super-stardom. No hint of a conflict with NASA is apparent. NASA would have vetted and cleared all material.
Regarding the paucity of technical information NASA cites security concerns of course, and the fact that for some reason Grissom et al contracted with Life Magazine in 1959, to provide an exclusive insight into their personal stories, to be consumed by a non-technical public.
The narrative is that all technical details were debriefed to NASA and the US Government through various hearings and submissions which were top-secret. No program or module details were to be publicised given the ‘space race’ with the Soviets. That ‘race’ is however, long over, and the details are still missing. Surely the superstud Top Guns kept and keep detailed journals and couldn’t these be edited, the most sensitive IP removed and published?)
J. Level, Space Fraud: The massive lies and money laundering through space programmes, 2018.
Bill Kaysing, We never went to the Moon: America’s $30 billion swindle, 2002 (disorganised, photo copied notes, some good material, some bad material).
Gerhard Kowalski, The Gagarin story. The truth about the flight of the world’s first cosmonaut, 2000.
Harro Zimmer, The Red orbit. Glory and misery of Russian space travel, 1996.
Istvan Nemere, Gagarin a cosmic lie, 1990.
James Oberg, Uncovering Soviet disasters, 1988.
Marc Eliot, Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince, 1991.
Matthias Grunder, SOS in space, Breakdowns, problems, and catastrophes in manned space travel, 2000.
Ralph Rene, NASA mooned America, 1992 (somewhat more professional and readable than Kaysing’s work, some good logical objections to the moon landing narrative, needed a good editor)
