Page 206 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

January 31, 1958, America sent its first rocket into space. This was the Explorer 1 Mission atop a
Juno 1 rocket. The total weight lifted into space was 30 pounds (14 kilograms). By 1967 NASA’s
most capable rocket, the Saturn 1B, could reportedly lift 46,000 pounds (23 tons) into low earth
orbit. NASA would need a rocket capable of lifting 260,000 pounds (130 tons) into low earth orbit,
and then boosting 90,000 pounds of that payload into a lunar trajectory to carry it an additional
240,000 miles to the Moon, and an equal number of miles on the return. How do you get from 23
tons in low earth orbit (approximately 120 miles) to 130 tons in low earth orbit, with the additional
task of delivering the Apollo spacecraft all the way to the Moon and back (nearly half a million
miles) in a little more than one year’s time? You call in Superman, Wernher Von Braun, and assign
the task to him.

One goal of this book is to help Christians discern when they are being propagandized. When Satan
and his human disciples intend to pull off an extraordinary deception, they begin by laying the
groundwork for their illusion so it will not seem so incredible when it is revealed. Prior to the Apollo
Space Program, magazines, science fiction books, television shows, and movies began regaling the
public with stories of men exploring space via rockets. Werhner Von Braun’s book Conquest of the
Moon was merely one of a great many media publications which began to seed into the thoughts of
mankind the idea that men could reach beyond their own planet to the heavens beyond, extending
their dominion over the creation.

Conquest of the Moon arose from a series of lengthy articles in the very popular Collier’s magazine.
Collier’s was the fourth most popular magazine in the 1940s and 1950s. It lagged behind only Life,
Look, and The Saturday Evening Post. In 1952, Collier’s organized a symposium of the world’s
leading experts in space exploration. Among them were Wernher von Braun, then technical director
of the Army Ordinance Guided Missile Development Group; Fred L. Whipple, chairman of
astronomy at Harvard University; Joseph Kaplan, professor of physics at UCLA; Heinz Haber, of
the US. Air Force Department of Space Medicine; and Willy Ley, an authority on space travel and
rocketry. The symposium published a series of articles which appeared in Collier’s beginning in
March of 1952 and running through April 1954. These articles served as the source for three books,
all of which were highly illustrated: Across the Space Frontier (1952), Conquest of the Moon (1953),
and The Exploration of Mars (1956).

These books in turn spawned many additional publications.