What If The Russians Got To The Moon First?

By James Donahue

We just celebrated the 35th Anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the Moon with much hoopla and fanfare. I remember when it happened.

It was July 20, 1969 and I was working as a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. We had a television on in the newsroom. Within minutes after the televised and historic walk, we were sent by the editor to the street to get a general public reaction. Instead of watching events unfold, I was standing in the hot sun on a Kalamazoo street corner, getting stupid senseless comments from unwitting passersby.

Since then, there has been much speculation about the reality of what we were being told and shown that day. A great conspiracy theory has grown among people who think the whole Apollo Moon project was a fake, and that we never got there at all. It was just a publicity stunt because we were in a race against the Russians and were bent on letting everybody think that we got there first.

It has occurred to me that if the Russians were also in the race, somehow in the news frenzy of the day we lost track of just what they were doing. Is it possible that they also sent men to the moon? Or really got to the moon? Or possibly got to the moon before we did?

Remember that the Russians were the first to send a successful orbiter around the Earth on Oct. 4, 1957, and they soon followed that fete by sending a living dog, and then a man, Air Force Major Yuri Alekseyevich Gararin into orbit.

We didn’t get John Glenn into space until 1962. But by then the race to the moon was on. The question is, did the Russians secretly beat us there?

That may sound like a silly question, since we never heard any boasting from the Russians about such an accomplishment. But remember that we were in the midst of a cold war in those days, and a lot of things the Russians were doing was top secret. And a lot of the things the U. S. government said we were doing was probably propaganda and political hype.

This is why people think our moon trips may have been faked. But if we went so far as to pull of such a costly and elaborate hoax, what would have been our motives?

Suppose the Russians did get to the moon. What do you think they might do once they arrived?

We know that throughout history, government interest in modern technology always has had a military objective. This is the mystery behind the Apollo moon missions. Why did our astronauts just devote their time walking around, taking pictures, setting up scientific experiments and collecting moon rocks? If they were really there, wouldn’t our military be interested in turning the moon into some kind of military weapon?

If the Russians got there instead of us, perhaps this is what they did.

I read a troublesome story in the publication Weekly World News a year or two ago about a bizarre plot by the Russians to blow up the moon.

The article said the plan, approved by the Russian government, was designed to cause the Earth to tilt differently and consequently improve the Russian growing season. The bad side of the plan, the story said, was that the change would impact weather in the United States.

Demolishing the moon, the story said, “will be a simple matter of placing about 600 multi-megaton nuclear warheads on Soyuz-type rockets and launching at the target.”

The horror of this story is that a bomb attack like that probably wouldn’t destroy the moon, but it could send it flying out of its perfect orbit around the Earth. This, in turn, would have a devastating impact on all life on this planet.

Everything in the sea, the migration of birds and insects, the change of seasons, and even the menstrual cycles of humans and animals is linked to the regular cycles of the moon and the ocean tides.

Destruction of the moon would be the perfect doomsday device. Once done, nothing could stop the consequential horrors.

Just suppose the Russians got to the moon and planted 600 multi-megaton nuclear bombs somewhere on its surface. Having a device like that poised and ready to blow at the push of a button would do a lot to bring world peace.

Was something like that behind the sudden friendship between Russia and the United States during the Reagan years? With that kind of an iron over our heads, the prospect of corporate profits from a staged cold war with Communist Russia was no longer as practical as it once was.

And this conjecture raises yet other questions. Why is Bush in a new rush to send men back to the moon? What are the Chinese up to with their new rush into space? And, if this plot exists, why aren't the Russians using it to stop a looming war between China and the U.S.? 

As the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott once said: “Oh what a tangled web we weave . . .”

Or did we?