A note to those who doubt we went to the moon – By Martha Lemasters

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One of my pet peeves is a group of conspiracy individuals who doubt if our astronauts ever actually went to the moon. They cite as evidence a flag that appears to be waving, and their belief that an astronaut in those heavy gloves couldn’t possibly work a camera. They believe it was all manufactured in a sound stage.

It saddens me that these non-believers even stalk the astronauts as they make speeches across the nation, calling them fakes and frauds.

I liken these folks to the following analogy:  If you stand at the edge of a beach near me, we can feel the cool saltwater wash over our bare feet. We can watch the gentle waves slowly erase the remains of a sand castle nearby. On a clear day, we can look out to see perhaps a dozen miles of rippling blue before it meets the horizon.

But how little this scene indicates of the ocean’s actual immensity! Thousands upon thousands of nautical miles expand beyond us, connecting the coasts of every continent. Profound depths lay beneath the surface and ceaseless activity of powerful currents impact the weather of the entire planet.

It’s easy to lose sight of this level of magnitude because the default of the human mind is to think far too small—and be content with that.

I believe it’s hard for a small human mind not educated as an engineer, physicist, or software engineer, or simply one who cannot think big, to comprehend the magnitude of what it took to put men on the moon.

More than 400,000 people worked on the Apollo Program, each contributing to the overall success of the moon landings. I was one of those people. Try to keep a secret to just a few of these people that we’re going to operate out of a sound stage?…not possible.

Yes, I am certain we went to the moon, in fact it was my company’s Instrument Unit that laid out the trajectory, programmed by honest, hard-working IBMers, who gave more than 10 years, three shifts a day to Apollo.

There were no clandestine meetings, no cover-ups; every meeting was documented and laid down for history. It was honest-to-goodness American ingenuity and hard work that took us to the moon and back.

I would draw the non-believers’ attention to the moon rocks that were brought back as evidence…more than 800 pounds, examined by numerous scientists and geologists and declared authentic, without a doubt.

I like Neil Armstrong’s comment to one of the non-believers when one of them put before him a Bible and asked him to swear on the Bible that he actually walked on the moon. “I’m afraid that Bible that you have there is fake too.”

Think for a minute of the immensity of the Apollo Program and all those who cannot believe it happened…then think about the even greater immensity of the power, the magnitude of God and you will see how so many people can refuse to believe in God…because the default of the human mind thinks too small.

Whatever is infinite in scope continually impels us to think bigger, to search bigger.

Be a big thinker!