Henk Terlingen and Rudolf Spoor (r.) (1969)

Rudolf Spoor, a grandson of Cornelis Spoor and Emilie Catharina van Wickevoort Crommelin, sprang into the public eye as a Dutch broadcast director when a historic event took place on 20 July, 1969: the First Man on the Moon! His popular narration of the events leading up to the Apollo 11 moon landing has since been transcribed into a YouTube video.

(Dutch) Wikipedia has an interesting biographical profile on Rudolf Spoor which is hereby reproduced verbatim:

Rudolf Spoor (Heemstede, 16 augustus 1938) is een voormalig Nederlands televisieregisseur, die vooral evenementen voor zijn rekening nam.

Biografie[bewerken]
Spoor, lid van de familie Spoor, verbleef na de MULO een jaar in het Engelse Woking om zijn schrijf- en spreekvaardigheid in de Engelse taal op een hoger peil te brengen. Daarna deed hij in de avonduren een studie aan de Fotovakschool. Daarnaast had hij interesse in ruimtevaart en raketten; zo vuurde hij in Zandvoort een zelfgemaakte raket af. Na zijn militaire dienstplicht begon hij als kabelsleper bij de NTS.

Loopbaan[bewerken]
Spoor begon 1960 zijn loopbaan als cameraman. In 1962 was hij cameraman bij de televisie-uitzending van de uitvaart van koningin Wilhelmina. Nadat hij een advertentie had gelezen in de Elsevier, vroeg hij een sollicitatiegesprek aan bij Carel Enkelaar. Daarna volgde hij voor een jaar een regiecursus.

Hij was tot 2002 regisseur bij de NOS en wordt ook wel hofregisseur genoemd. Hij was regisseur van de eerste maanlanding. Hij had de televisieregie bij veel Prinsjesdagen en Koninginnedagen.

Hij deed onder andere de tv-regie bij het huwelijk van kroonprins Willem-Alexander en prinses Máxima op 02-02-2002 en was als zodanig verantwoordelijk voor het shot van 'de traan van Máxima'. Ook was hij als regisseur betrokken bij de televisie-uitzending op 28 januari 2013, waarin koningin Beatrix haar aftreden bekendmaakte. Spoor werd verder uitgenodigd om in november 2008 aanwezig te zijn bij de kroning van de koning van Bhutan.

Daarnaast was Spoor zo'n 20 jaar de regisseur van de nationale intocht van Sinterklaas.

See also video:
Interview with Rudolf Spoor

Govert's interview with Rudolf: Rudolf Spoor has a wealth of information, photos and memorabilia regarding the Apollo space project. He went to Houston and Cape Canaveral numerous times and is even now still in contact with some of these 'space' people. Rudolf has also had discussions with some Dutch sceptics and has found them difficult to convince of another point of view, but Rudolf knows better. He believes that 12 men walked on the moon and he's met most of them personally. If a hoax were involved it is inconceivable that this would not at some time have come out by some indiscretion of one or two of those people and/or their families.

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Moon Landings: Fact or Fiction?

In the years since the NASA Apollo missions to the Moon, there has been a great deal of controversy over whether the moon landings did, in fact, take place. Were these historic space flights factual or just an elaborate hoax intended to have America win the 'space race' through clever stratagems? Naturally historians, truth-seekers and researchers, both pro-and-con, have attempted to validate their respective points of view and to discredit their opponents. The jury is still out regarding the veracity of the moon missions, but some interesting revelations have come to light that make people legitimately question whether it all happened exactly as the media would have us believe.

They cite the lethal radiation of the Van Allen belts and the absence of any 'fogging' of film by radiation as evidence that neither man nor film ever traversed the Van Allen radiation belts. Neither were any lab animals ever sent to the moon prior to a manned mission. As pioneer sceptic, Ralph Rene, once quipped, "You don't send the man where you haven't sent the monkey!" Other oddities include the absence of stars in any of the pictures taken on the moon; no attempts to photograph the starry canopy as seen from the moon; no attempt to toss a ball upward to prove that a 1/6 gravity environment existed; troublesome shadows; no blast craters made by the descent engines of the Lunar Modules; and no flame or smoke visible from the ascent stage or steering thrusters of the Lunar Module. Collectively these anomalies suggest that all the Apollo moon missions were elaborately faked in a studio except for the launch and recovery operations.

In the Netherlands the Apollo 11 live broadcast was erased within 5 years according to Rudolf Spoor, Television Director of the Apollo moon landings, NOS. Unfortunately many other artifacts from that era including spacecraft blueprints, rock samples, original video tapes and video equipment, have been destroyed or have gone missing. This makes independent verification difficult.

For example, sceptics wonder how two fully-suited astronauts standing within the confined space of a Lunar Module (LEM) could possibly exit the craft through a 32" hatch door that swung inward! If this feat alone were impossible then it would have exposed every Apollo mission as a hoax.

In Jeffrey Kluger's book, Page 142, we read: "In a ship like the lunar module, this apportionment of space was especially important since the cockpit was so small - barely the size of two phone booths - that the placement of every switch, throttle, and storage bay had to be planned down to the fraction of an inch. Cramped as the ship was when the astronauts were floating about in it in shirtsleeves, it was even more so when they were dressed in the balloonlike suits and laboring under the suitcaselike backpacks they would have to wear on the lunar surface."

"In order to leave this tiny ship, the astronauts would have to open the hatch in the forward portion of the bulkhead and then, one at a time, get down on their hands and knees and back out onto the porchlike platform that led to the descent ladder...As soon as the door was opened and swung inward, the junior pilot would thus be backed against the right wall of the cockpit until the commander had maneuvered his entire body out of the ship and shut the hatch behind him. At this point, the copilot would waddle to the left, open the hatch back up, and follow his commander down...Armstrong would be the one flattened against the wall..." The hatch door is in pink... Enlarge Enlarge

Enlarge The hatch door above the floor had a hinge on the right that would have forced the second astronaut into a floor space of only a few inches while he waited for the first astronaut to exit. There was no room for either astronaut to take a step backward because of the barrier posed by the stowage equipment bay, the ascent engine cover, and the environmental control equipment.

Enlarge Enlarge The Thin Man Can you visualize another fully-suited astronaut standing behind this door, patiently waiting for the first man to get out? How 'flat' can a fully-suited astronaut be?

Try putting on this space suit inside a telephone booth! Then bend down
to turn the door hatch lever near the floor. Open the hatch door.
Raise a leg about 32" to side-step the door as it swings inward.
Now turn around, drop to your knees and exit backwards while
your partner is squashed between the open door and the curved wall.
Good Luck!

Getting back into the LEM after a moonwalk would be even more difficult. The first astronaut inside would have to squeeze past the 32" door in order to get behind it sufficiently to close it again. This astronaut would then assume a 'flattened' position - pressed against the wall to allow enough room for the second astronaut to enter. Then he too would have to squeeze behind the hatch door in order to close and seal it before repressurizing the cabin.

And then the two astronauts would have to undress and deal with their diapers and urine bag. All this activity would take place in a space equal to two telephone booths and with no chair to sit on. This routine would have been repeated three times by astronauts John Young and Charles Duke (Apollo 16), and Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17), who made three EVA's (moonwalks) during their missions.

Picture credit: NASA, scan by Kipp Teague

Here we see Neil Armstrong inside a LM simulator without his helmet, gloves, and PLSS backpack attached. Already he looks cramped. Now picture Buzz Aldrin standing next to him in a similar state of dress. One PLSS backpack is stored in the equipment bay behind Armstrong while the other is stored on the floor between the legs of Armstrong and Aldrin. The helmets are also stored on the floor or on the ascent engine cover (which appears missing in this picture).

A great deal of bending down and turning around - with, and without, the PLSS backpacks attached - will be required before they can de-pressurize the cabin, bend down to open the hatch door, sidestep the large inward-swinging door, turn around, drop to their knees, and exit backwards through the hatch. One astronaut will be pinned between the hatch door and the cabin wall on the right while the first astronaut performs his egress maneuver.

Simply attaching a helmet to the astronaut will involve bending over to pick up the helmet, raising one's arms and elbows, and lowering the head - tasks for which there seems to be insufficient clearance. Then he would have to bend down again to pick up his gloves. No photographs appear to exist of both astronauts, fully-suited inside the LM simulator with helmet, gloves and PLSS backpack attached - all ready to open the hatch door. Perhaps that's because it was virtually impossible for the astronauts to get dressed, leave and re-enter, and to get undressed within the limited space and clearances available inside the LM.

Would you travel 240,000 miles into the vacuum of space, through hazardous radiation belts, and use this cramped spacecraft sheathed with aluminum about the thickness of 2 or 3 layers of aluminum foil to go for a walk on the Moon? Therefore, were the Apollo manned moon landings fact or fiction? You be the judge!

All photo and diagram credits: NASA

Audio Highlights of Apollo 11 - First Moon Landing, 20 July 1969

#1 - Lunar Module (LM) 'Eagle' makes its descent to the lunar surface #2 - International reaction to the Moon Landing #3 - Description of Equipment & Experiments #4 - Pre-MoonWalk preparation #5 - Lunar exploration, picture taking (un-edited audio) #6 - Setting up experiments, planting flag, telephone call from President Nixon, re-entering the LM 'Eagle' (long un-edited audio) #7 - Buzz Aldrin re-enters LM (short un-edited clip) #8 - Neil Armstrong re-enters LM (short un-edited clip)

Notes: The above news clips of actual radio broadcasts are sequential but have been condensed for brevity, clarity, and interest. A web browser such as Google Chrome may be required if your Internet Explorer web browser doesn't work. Otherwise 'right-click' on the icon and 'Save Target As' to download the .mp3 files. In Clip #3 (see 1:00 minute mark), Walter Cronkite explains how Mike Collins in the orbiting command module cannot descend below 10 miles above the lunar surface (because of mountainous lunar terrain) to rescue or dock with the ascending LM. This simplistic comment hides the extremely complex nature of an orbital rendezvous as explained in the NASA (YouTube) video "Lunar Orbit Rendezvous". In Clip #3 (see 7:50 minute mark), James Burke's demonstration of doffing the Apollo space suit can also be viewed on YouTube. Notice the volume of apparel involved, and ask yourself whether 2 astronauts standing side-by-side could dress/undress for each EVA (3 EVA's for Apollo 16 & 17) and where they might place these garments within the limited space of two telephone booths. Is there even enough ceiling clearance to allow them to don/doff their bulky helmets? Apparently no photos or videos exist of astronauts suiting/unsuiting inside a LM simulator to prove that this activity was possible. The audio toward the end of Clip #4 seems muddled. This is the period when Neil Armstrong would be manoeuvering around the open hatch door. One wonders if this confused commentary was intentional so as to obfuscate the impossible activity of a fully-clad astronaut getting in front of the hatch door and then turning around, and dropping to his knees in order to exit the LM cockpit which had about as much space as 2 telephone booths. In the beginning of Clip #5 we hear Buzz Aldrin guiding Neil Armstrong as he exits backwards out the hatch. Since Buzz Aldrin was supposed to be 'flattened' and pinned between the wall of the LM and the open hatch door, one wonders how he was able to view his partner in order to calmly provide these meaningful instructions. A few seconds later we find Buzz Aldrin in the doorway handling his end of a 'clothes line' conveyor belt that was used to ferry camera and equipment down to Neil Armstrong. How was Aldrin, dressed in a bulky space suit, able to get around the inward-swinging hatch door and then begin working the 'clothes line' so quickly?! In the unedited Clip #7 how was Buzz Aldrin, wearing his bulky space suit, able to unhook the incoming moonrock box from the 'clothes line' conveyor belt; stow it in the stowage bay; and then quickly turn around to provide guidance to the incoming Neil Armstrong? In the unedited Clip #8, note how quickly Neil Armstrong was able to re-enter the LM as Buzz Aldrin closes the hatch door behind him. Meanwhile, in only a couple of minutes Buzz Aldrin apparently has managed to stow the incoming camera and moonrock box and get himself squeezed on the other side of the hatch door to enable Neil Armstrong to enter. In these few minutes Neil has also managed to stand up and get on the other side of the inward swinging hatch door in order for it to be shut and latched. This is completely unrealistic considering the cramped conditions inside the LM as explained above! These two short audio clips should be sufficient in themselves to expose the whole Apollo moon program as an elaborate hoax! James Collier also questioned the ability of the astronauts to move around within the LM's tight space limitations in his YouTube video "Was It Only a Paper Moon?" (See 7.08 min. mark, and 18.50 mark, and 37.50 mark). Audio Credits: CBS, NBC, CBC Tape recordings made by Edward Crommelin, Vancouver, Canada

Looking forward of the mid-step bulkhead (the cockpit), the hatch door is pink and the only available floor space is red. The distance from the hatch door (a 32" square) to the mid-step bulkhead is 36". Since the front console (yellow) juts out 8", there is only 28" of useable floor space in which to stand, front-to-back. Opening the hatch door would obviously necessitate the astronaut having to lift his legs over the inward swinging door, and then turning around, before dropping to his knees and exiting backwards. The astronauts therefore travelled 240,000 miles through the vacuum of space to arrive on the moon's surface in this sardine can! Would you do it?!

Looking toward the rear of the mid-step bulkhead we see that the astronauts had no possibility of moving into this rear stowage section.