Fin vs History - Buzzt-a-Nut Aldrin’s Lunar Land Acknowledgement | The Space Race (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

With dead dogs and Russian women floating through space, the American Nazis at Nasa start to pull ahead in the contest to land man on the moon- but not before the Zambian Space Programme enters the race.   The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon. ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor CHAPTERS: CHAPTERS: 00:00 - One Small Dick For Him  05:08 - Astronauts are Boring  10:37 - Prostate’s Knackered  16:10 - First Woman in Space  20:15 - Spacewalking & Spacedogging  25:05 - Clangers Land Acknowledgement  29:40 - Dark Horse of the Space Race  34:03 - Apollo 7/8 and 9/11 37:11 - Posh Wanks in Space 40:17 - Man’s Greatest Achievement 44:51 - The Other Moon Landings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. I think Charlie would be good to send up to space as the first man. Do you think? Yeah. Like, like a good test. Yeah, it's a good test to see if it's worth it. Welcome back to Finn versus History.

I'm joined by Horatio Gould. Hello! one small dick for him one giant hog for the rest of us we're talking about the space race and this episode we're dealing with the moon landings the moon landings allegedly

did they happen we don't know this episode we're dealing with them as if they did on our patron we'll be talking about as if they didn't so we left off in the last part with the Nazis were first in space yes blood Nazis and commies

have been leading all of this, basically. They have. Yeah. They have. And the free world have been lagging behind. Yes. So this episode

will be dealing with the human space flight race. The 60s. The 60s. This is all the 50s. Yeah. The Soviets unequivocally dominated the 50s.

The Nazis won the 40s. The Soviets won the 50s. And now the Americans will take the 60s. Yes. But there is another, there is another participant in this space race,

which we will tease at the end of the last episode. I don't know when we'll bring this in, but just say that... Maybe throughout, we'll go check We'll check on what this third participant is doing, because I didn't know about this before research, and it's very, very funny. So, the Soviets have been firing dogs into space,

and now they are testing people. So Korolev, who's the genius in the space program, he wants to put a human in orbit before the US even get close. So he designed the Vostok capsule. So the Vostok capsule, let's get a picture of that up. That's like a sort of cannonball with no controls, idiot proof. Yeah. So it's the opposite. of the spaceship Charlie's currently flying. It looks like there's underwater suits. Yeah. The 20,000 knees under the sea.

Yeah, yeah. It's just a big sort of fucking, yeah, it's a big grapefruit you get in. Fire it up there. All right, okay. So this is the, yeah, to fit a person in. Nice. And the cosmonaut, as it was called,

would have to eject and parachute down because the cap, it couldn't land safely. Right. It's just a fucking ball. Yeah. So this led to the Valentin Bonderengo accident. Yes.

And so everything's so secret that a lot of this comes out later, especially on the Soviet side, it's like there's so much disinformation. So he was a young cosmonaut trainee and he's in an isolation chamber filled with pure oxygen. And after a long shift

he removes sensors from his body using an alcohol soaked cotton pad. The pad drifts onto a hot plate. Why is there a hot plate in the fucking grapefruit? Bacon. You're right. I'll take it back. It drifts onto a hot plate, ignites instantly and pure oxygen means the fire.

That's got to be one of the worst ways to go. Just an absolute fireball. What's this, Charlie? This is the bacon is good for me, kid. Do you remember it? I don't think I know this. Yeah, this is a classic. Bacon is good for me.

This is very big. She's the queen and more the sorripeak. Right. It's completely irrelevant. Wait, this is quite good, actually. Is that a deal? No, I keep losing it deals, and I don't want to make a deal anymore. I'm leaving, and you can't stop.

I'm packing my back. It is great. I do find this quite triggering because when I was in my fat, fat, fat phase, I had a bacon sandwich every morning for five years. So, probably more than that, actually, eight, nine years. So bacon is good for me. That was my catchphrase. You're built on bacon.

I was built on bacon. This is the temple that bacon built. It's the opposite of most Abrahamic religions, funnily enough. um yeah if you eat a bacon sandwich every day for five years you would have eaten the i've eaten four pigs surprisingly little actually i don't know what i don't know how many pigs i imagined but i imagine it being slightly pigs are fucking massive man i saw one yesterday and you ain't gonna it's four of those i've eaten 40 years it's big pigs big what's the sort of cholesterol damage i'm looking at how much how much sort of in the red am i for uh health benefits

primary health issues is habit it's cancer lovely stuff yeah similar similar to like smoking having that was baking

it's light you're having a fag 20 a day yeah yeah I did have a dangerous bacon that gut health colon cancer

that's living though isn't it bacon sandwich and a sick that's fucking that's going like fuck you doctor fuck you button fuck off

I'm just going outside GP surgery fuck on Yeah, fuck off. I'll see you in there. Yeah. I'll see you in there in three years. Platratism. It's nice. It's pure platratism. If the UK had a space program, the first thing you'd turn up as a bacon sandwich.

Of course. Yeah. Tim Peaks, not, he's fucking boring, isn't he? He is, yeah. Yeah. Again. Gone woke. Has he? No, but all astronauts are like that. Right. That was the big realisation. It was quite good actually in the Crown when King Philip wanted to meet the astronauts because he projected so much onto them, right?

that these were these amazing men and he felt because he was a royal he wasn't able to achieve anything he was like sort of in a gilded cage so he met them at all these questions and they were like this palace is nice wow you know they because they're just very dull people

because that's what makes it so good is there's not much going on they're like it's so dry I listened to audio of this is skipping head in the timeline there's a guy called Ed White who's the first person to do a space walk the first extra vehicular activity in space

American guy and he's like he doesn't want to come back in the capsule because he's having so much fun like looking at space but the transcript is literally like gee whiz I feel like a million dollars I don't ever want to go home

wow I mean it's really it's classic bourgeois it's like just it's utterly like but what do you set yeah because to be at that forefront of history I think it's hard to nail the lines it was it's funny

that Neil Armstrong's like line wasn't oh fuck oh fuck I'm on the moon What would you be saying on the... You'd be saying this is mad. You'd be busing, as we said last time. You'd be busing. I'd be the first man to bus on the moon.

Yeah, you would. You might still be. Anyway, some Soviet cunt has a very bad time in a capsule, dies instantly. The Soviet suppress it to preserve the illusion of perfection, what we'd be saying last time. Now, we get to April 12th, 1961. Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin. Yuri...

In, he orbited the... I believe I was how he pronounced it in the Russian. He orbited the Earth once aboard Vostok. one and becomes instantly world famous he's like 27 or 20 he's 27 at the time he's one of the big stars of this story and he was selected partly because he looked good in propaganda posters right and he's tiny yeah fits in the tiny capsule but he basically when he was launching apparently the scientist colorev was like I don't love this because he's literally it's 50 50s whether he's back or not but he was he had like an air of invincibility about him he was just like a fuck it let's go

kind of guy we'll do it live we'll do it live yeah Bill o'Reilly so he's it what was his background he's like fighter pilot they're all they're all they're all kind of ex-fighter pilots right okay

yeah before launch he said boi gaui which is let's go yeah like sort of like yoshi

yeah let's go boyakasha boyha which is ironic of course because he's flying from Borat Space Center

which is the Soviet one I guess that is ironic wow we are now he wasn't allowed to steer because the Soviets

didn't trust human pilots yet. Does that mean that the dog was allowed to steer? Yeah, I don't know. The dog's just sniffing which way to go. Anyway, after he ejects from the capsule and lands in rural Russia... Tye would be ejecting in the capsule. In many ways he has been.

It's been to get this capsule. In an orange spacesuit just sort of scares a farmer and her daughter just out in the nowhere. So the US responds to this and this is like a month later... Yeah, it's really heating up now. It's crazy how quick it all is.

Alan Shepard makes a 15-minute suborbital hop. So he wasn't in orbit, but it shows the US is in the game. So Gagarin gets to orbit. So Gagarin did the first space flight, and then this is not really anything apart from show that Americans

are close to achieving that. Yeah. So they're still way behind in 1961. Yeah. If you're born in space, what nationality I? Would that? You can't be born in space. You can be. I believe them. Sorry, in outer space, you're just out, you're dead on arrival. You can't. No, you get born, you're in a ship out there.

Right, in the space station. Yeah, you can't, yeah. Yeah, maybe in the space station. What nationality are you? It's a very good question. I don't know. I don't think it's ever happened. Yeah.

Where are you from from? Can you just space? Yeah, can you just pick? Yeah, well, your Wikipedia's page would say born international space station, wouldn't it? Yeah, I guess. It's like born in no man's land.

What would happen there? International waters. Yeah, it must be the same as international waters. Right. And you can just pick a country. I don't think it was what with your parents. I'm from. Yeah.

Marley. I'm from Mali, yeah. You're from Mali, right? Charlie from Mali. But surely, like, the gravity of a baby coming out, the lack of gravity, it's going to be awful. Well, there's shit going everywhere for starts. Well, yes, that's one thing they don't tell you about when women give birth is that shit comes out. Yeah, I know, but you can be discreet with that.

But in space, that's fucking going everywhere. It's like a fucking bowling machine. Lots of stuff. It's not just shit, it's loads of stuff. Loads of stuff. shit, piss, baby flying out like that. I wouldn't recommend giving birth in space. No, zero gravity birth.

Charlie, Google zero gravity births. It's got one of these hippie woke things, though. That's the next fad, is it? You know when you could go zero gravity for like 10 minutes? You know, you've got those flights. Yeah, yeah. Women are doing that just to give birth because apparently it's better for the baby.

Zero gravity birth is a hypothetical scenario with significant challenges, including the messy and complicated logistics of floating fluids and difficult pushing. Yeah, you can't push without gravity. Yeah. So the baby would, you know, oh, Christ. Imagine the hardest poo you've ever had.

They really hurt. Hey? Double it, at least. At least double it. Currently no woman has ever given birth in zero gravity. We've got a lot of history to crack into. So Alan Shepard, well, funnily enough, peas in his spacesuit before launch because no one has thought about astronaut toilets.

No, but they're rushing it out. Yeah. The race is heating up. They've got no time to lose. So the mission control granted him permission to piss himself. by shutting off his suit's electrical sensors to prevent a short circuit from pissing. Imagine dying because you're pissing your spacesuit.

Imagine you're so excited. You just piss a bit. You know when you like piss a little bit? Or having to be like, I'm also embarrassing to have to speak to NASA mission control about needing the toilet. Yeah. There's a whole room of people.

Can I go for a toilet? Yeah. No, you'll die. How old was Alan Shepherd? Can you Google it, Charlie, when he went in? Because if he was over 30, you know, he's going to put his Willie back in his spacesuit and there's piss just going to fly out everywhere.

Yeah, I mean, his prostate's fucked. Also, this is a 1960s, 37-year-old, so he looks about 50. Of course, yeah. But his prostate would have been absolutely knackered. Yeah. My prostate is gone. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely gone.

My one years ago. Shot to shit. I haven't got one. Yeah, I'm terrified when my prostate's going to be like when I'm older. I've already got an old man's prostate. Yeah, I'm, fuck. Is that weak bladder? Yeah.

Yeah. Weepladder, finish pissing, put your dick back in, piss all everywhere, down to your feet. Yeah, I'd pee the bed for years. Well, we know this. That's completely different. That's a different. Completely separate issue. That's psychological.

We're the same. We're connected. No, you're fucked in the head. That's why you're pressing a bit. Yeah, I don't piss like a race horse. I piss like a, I piss like a dead horse. Just falls out.

Yeah, it falls out. Yeah. It's so annoying that the piss falls out and the shit I have to push out and I get piles. It should be the other way around. Yeah, it feels like one of those, like, those myths where man gets cursed

for hubris. Yeah. Cursed to, you know, force out piss and whatever. piss out shit they get the idea the urine is absorbed by his underwear and eventually evaporates there you go shepherd was asked what he was thinking about as he sat waiting for lift off and he said the fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder so interesting yeah so what because of how just trying to cut corners just trying to cut corners is just going to get it ahead

now we get to a crucial moment 1961 john f kennedy in between fucking his interns and several other women we chose to go to the moon before this decade is out. He says decayed. Decade. Decade. So he basically says in 1961, we're going to put a man on the moon before the end of this decade, which is insanely ambitious. And given the state, given how far behind they were at this point, it's like, John. Yes. John, like you're fucking a tear. You're having a laugh. Yeah. You've lost your head. But this is very important because he actually, he was not that into the space program in private. In public he was, but in private he wasn't. In private, he was saying that was putting too much money on it. He kept trying to cut funding.

Oh, really? Right? He was just, this was his public face, but he kept on speaking to his, you know, to people about cutting money for the space race. But when he dies in 63. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Because he so publicly supported it, it really put a lot of funding behind it because it was in his memory. Oh, because they named the space, came to space enter after he dies. It just felt like because he had such an iconic speech like this, it was like, we need to get his base, they viewed this almost as a dying wish.

And that's what put a lot of thruses in the space race. Because it's then in 62, where he addresses Rice, Rice University, a stupid name for a university. And he says, we choose to go to the moon. Not because it's easy, but because I'm hard. Because I'm fucking hard. Someone, fuck me. So horny this guy.

It's a good speech, that one. It is. But my point is why I feel quite melancholic about this topic is because it's the last sort of time that you really felt like politicians in the state we're doing great things like ambition has sort of you know we haven't I don't know just feels like it's interesting as well

what I like about JFK as a president is he wasn't foxy in the way that because there's there's folksy presidents right yeah in a way Barack Obama had a foxyness Lincoln has a foxiness to him Reagan had a folksiness which is kind of like you relate to them Clinton also yeah Clinton but I like what I like about JFK is he's not

folksy he's not trying to relate to you he's like aspirational It's about dreams, ambition But he's not doing it in... Yeah. He is. Yeah, Blair's not focused even. It's like...

Yeah, Blair's very, very Kennedy, you're right. Yeah. And I do quite like that lead. It's not being like a wet blanket or giving politicians answers like Stama or something like that. Yeah. It's like looking above the crowd and saying...

Have you not seen the clip of Blair on question time where someone has a go at him and he just fucking fights back? Goes for it. He's involved. He's fighting back. Yeah. No one does this anymore.

He's just there with his jacket off. Yeah, yeah. He loved rolling his sleeves up. Blair just fucking. get stuck in. Yeah. You know, women like... Bring back aspiration.

Enough with the folksiness. Bring back, Blair. I don't relate to you. I'm far different than you. I'm better than you. I'm much smart. I'm much richer. Much better looking than you.

But this is what we're going to do. We do. I'm spending your money on this because I'm better than you. Yeah. Anyway, so 1962, John Glenn is the first American in orbit. He orbits Earth three times in the friendship. Seven. Again, they've got to stop.

Why are these names? The ship was in the friendship. Cook was in the friendship. The ship that will never sing. Yeah, interesting. A sensor said his heat shield was loose, meaning he could burn up, but NASA kept this from him during the flight so he wouldn't panic, and the sensor ended up being wrong. That's nice.

Crazy that, isn't it? Don't tell me. If I'm fuck, don't tell me. Don't tell me. Just, I'll just die. Yeah. Now we get to, we mentioned this in the last episode, Valentina Tereshkova, who's the first woman in space, she orbits the Earth 48 times, that's way too many times.

She could do donuts. Yeah, she couldn't park. She got lost. Orbiting the Earth 848 times does imply she was screaming the whole time. Orbiting once is like, what an amazing achievement. But 48 is, fucking. Yeah. But then she gets forced to marry another cosmonaut in a state ceremony afterwards.

To basically, I don't really know. Forced. Yeah, because it's like a fairy tale. The marriage was encouraged with the Soviet space authorities as a fairy tale message to the country. Nearly one year after her space flight, she gave birth to their daughter. The first person whose parents had both traveled into space. I guess they're just trying to notch these. It's a lot about these milestones, isn't it?

Yeah, but you can already feel how the USSR is starting to lag behind when they're like, okay, we'll put a woman in space. It's starting to go for novelty once. Did it as a child? Later in their marriage, the couple grew apart and refused to even stand next to each other in photographs. There you go.

Because I'm forced marriages. I guess so. So now we get to the Woschkot program, which is mainly like sort of political stunts. Yeah. Like evil can evil. Sort of. um the first like just doing fucking wheelies over the moon first multi-person spacecraft three cosmonaut

squeeze in there's no room for space suits so if the cabin pressure it goes they die instantly now the first spacewalk is by alexi leonov in 65 he nearly dies because his suit balloons so much you couldn't get back inside fuck that so this is terrifying stuff this is so terrible but all this stuff is you know even when you've got a planetary exploration like people go into the other end of the planet. It's still a sea, isn't it? It's just another sea. How terrifying being the first people to be fully... Wait, for the first spacewalk, would he be the

first human to be actually in space? Outside of craft? Yeah. I get... Can you Google that, Charlie? Alexi... It's either him or it's Ed White. Yeah. Because, I mean, that's pretty big. Yeah, that's huge. And we don't talk about this guy. We talk about Gagarin a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it is. That's pretty big. So, it's the first

person to feel what it's like to be in zero gravity. So he floated in open space for 12 minutes and nine seconds. And then a Americans do their version, I think, next. Yeah, so the American have a project called Gemini, which is now what, is that what Google's AI, the thing's called? Right.

So Gemini is they're training the astronauts to, these are all missions that have to be accomplished before they can think about landing someone on the moon. So there's like a space walk, there's docking. That's where this is the long road to, two cocks. Yeah, so the astronauts are putting their cocks together. Right, we need to get these done

before we even think about getting on the moon. You've got to whank each other off at the same time. With one hand. Yeah, and get your dicks together. But that's because what they do in the moon landing is they send a thing down and then some cunt is just lapping the moon. And they have to redock to get back.

Yes. But that is when a gay couple see that and think we could do that with our dicks. Yeah. So this is the long road. The gay space war. The gay space race. Now, we should place this.

We fucked it so badly last time, but Charlie had to do it. So, 1969 is the moon landings. Do you want to have another cracker? this. So another 1969.

Yeah. I would say 1969. It's July 1969. It's after the building of the BT Tower.

Let's just confirm that. 61, 65. It was completed in 65. Okay. Right. So the BT Tower, it can be seen

from space, can it? Probably not. But the BT Tower is there as the astronauts going. Yeah. And it's before Alex the Hurricane

Higgins won his first snooker tournament. Yes. One the first world champions, right? He only won one tournament, I think. But is he wearing a purple fedoria?

That's the key question. Let's see what Higgins. Is that 70s? That is 70s. Yeah. 72. That's nice. That's a really nice placement.

That's lovely. Unironically nice placement. He's crying, holding his baby and the snooker trophy. And the Beattie Tower is there. A man is on the moon. Yeah. It's interesting. From Beattie Tower to Higgins.

In between there, a lot got done. Yes. I choose to see the moon landings as the bridge between the BT Tower's erection and Alex Hurricane Higgins. storming the snooker world in 72. So Ed White is America's first Space Walker. He's the guy who

didn't want to go back in and the transcript is very, very lame. Can you get, Charlie, can you chat with you see the transcript of Egg White? Trying to kill himself? What? No, he did one. Yeah, he'd kept it under wraps. He was suicidal. It was out there. And then he just opened his helmet and just went, fuck this. No. He was having so much fun. Oh, right.

Yeah. That he didn't. It wasn't like a sort of Switzerland thing. Now, what the, though the Russians were first, the Americans had a much better spacewalking technology because they had thrusters. Yeah, he had a little gun that you could power himself. Yeah, so the spacewalker could actually control where it was going. Yeah. Where the Russian guy was all just basically. Fuck it up.

Yeah. Yeah. He was fucked. He said, I'm coming back in and it's the saddest moment of my life. That's kind of cool. I like that. This is bullshit. Yeah. Generally, so he's outside, he's like seeing the Earthview. I love what you do. I think that's a good... He's in the grip of the overview effect or whatever where you, you know, suddenly

think that you get all wishy-washy and think that, you know, we're all the same or whatever. Yeah. Woke nonsense. Yeah. Anyway. Right. So at one point, so he's walking, he's going, wow, I feel like a million dollars. And then at one point, the guy in the capsule goes, come on, let's get back in before it gets dark.

That's quite funny. Ed White goes, it's the saddest moments of my life. I guess so. I mean, I don't misunderstand how space works. Yeah. I think it's always dark, right? Depends which side of the earth there. Yeah, well, where's the sun and all this?

They must be in between the sun? Yeah, fine. The sun's back there, is it? Yeah. Are they ever staring into the sun from space? Because that must be quite bad for their eyes. But maybe they've got UV protection. You'd think so, wouldn't you?

Like a bit of massive sunglass lens. Yeah. I'd do that if I was involved. What's that? Oh, blind. I'd suggest that. Oh, what, just putting a UV? Do you ever test?

Sometimes I just look at this on and, like, a test in my eyes. Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. You were struggling with basically seeing and hearing. You can do a couple of sense. seconds and then it gets really unbearable. Yeah.

And how often do you do that, I have interest? When the sun's out. Do you also put your ears next to drills to see how much they can last? Yeah. Ed White is the first American in space, not on the craft. Neil Armstrong on Gemini Mission 8 sends the spacecraft into a deadly spin, but he calmly activates the re-entry thrusters and saves the mission. He's cold as ice, Neil.

Yeah, he is. That's why he's boring, but he's... He's not Buzz Aldrin punching a conspiracy. No, no, no. You've seen that? That's great stuff. There's a guy just pestering buzz-aw... This is like when he's Buzz Aldrin's like 70 or 80.

Like pestering him. He's like... He's just constantly saying, yeah. Black he never leaves him alone. Hey what? That guy never ever leaves him alone. No. And he goes up to me, he's like, why aren't you honest about not landing on the moon?

Why aren't you honest? He's like, just please leave him alone. And then at some point he'd just fucking... It would be fucking annoying, though. Yeah, it would be. But does that make him seem more or less guilty? Because are you more or less likely to punch one of the face if you've done it or if you haven't done it.

If you also, you can see he's in fucking good nick for like a 70 year old. Buzzlight you're named after Buzz Woodwin. Yes. That's just, there's two things just... Now, you've learned what he's learned today. We know what Charlie's going to take away from this episode.

Yeah. Buzz Lightier. It's, yeah. Why? Because no one else's called Buzz, are they? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Woody's named after Woody Allen.

Really? No. No. You can't do that to him. You can't do that too. You can't do that too. So the fact that Neil Armstrong is so ice cold, that's why NASA want him to land on the moon.

in 67 so now we get to the start of the apollo program which is having successfully proved that you can uh people can live in space for 10 12 for 14 days yeah they can shove their dicks together and have all the fun they want up there what's the yeah it's like i guess it's space dogging isn't it wait what docking is space dogging yes is in going somewhere you won't be judged because there's no there's no kind of um judgment about gay stuff yeah you got someone someone shouting at you over a radio what are you gonna fucking do about i'm up here and they're can hear you come as well yeah yeah if you want to tell me off come up here yeah yeah exactly you'd hate what i'm doing up here it's uric gruggerin that's what we do

that's when you start firing out the slurs yeah because what they're gonna do oh i'd have such fun in space because we're like we need to stop him this is awful what you're gonna do the first thing 650 million people around the tv listening and i'm just screaming homophobic slurs raises i go you're old do you smell i can smell i can smelly from here. Just imagine that. Someone getting down from there. We can't. We can't. Have him. It's going to take us a year to get up there. It's a great

leap for the white man. Imagine that. Turn his mic's off. We can't. So funny. I'd be so funny. I mean like Armstrong, the missed opportunity to say something so hilariously funny. It would be so good. Like if he if he'd farted as he came down the one, oh no. Like it's live, isn't it?

It'd be me it live. Anyway. Do you think he, um, I mean, when do you reckon he wrote that line. Do you think that he prepared that line? Well, there's a whole thing about it because he actually gets it wrong. Well, there's a dispute as to whether he says one small step for a man one's giant leap for all mankind or... No, I think he does

say that, but I think he'd plan to say it's one step for a man. He maybe says one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. But it's better the other way, right? It's more... It doesn't make as much grammatical sense, but it feels more. No, but when you're writing, you're meant to cut all the words you don't need. Right. So it's

much more literary to say, small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. And you want that to be a little tight. Yeah. You don't want fat. I would have been like, it's like one, like, it's one kind of like much smaller than big kind of like step forward from a person. Yeah.

That's me slash man. Well, nowadays, British guy. Nowadays, you'd have to do, you'd have to be all woke. Well, so obviously this is a great victory for all genders and all races. I do a land acknowledgement. Obviously, I'm here on stolen land. moon. The moon. I acknowledge the original moon people, of the fuck they are.

The clangers. The clangers. We've stolen this from the clangers. That's their language. Yeah, you do a clangers land acknowledgement. And then you'd say something how you recognize all genders and that even that you want to decolonize the moon, even though you're a white man. I'm doing this to make sure that no one colonizes it. Yeah. I'd say the moon belongs to the aborigine people.

Yeah. Give it to them. They've not had much recently. Let's give them this. But also, it's just, like, you'd probably just be like, oh, fuck, fuck, I'm on the fucking, fuck, I'm on the fucking moon. This is fucking terrifying. This is crazy. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's probably what they said in Apollo 1, actually.

Let's get to that. Now, on the launch pad of Apollo 1, so this isn't even a, they're not going up anyway. This is just like a test. This is not even a joke, this one. No, this isn't funny, actually. It's not funny. It's not funny because it's American boys who die. They're on the launch pad, and then they're testing with pure oxygen, which seems to be the running,

problem here. Maybe cut that with something. I would learn from my mistakes. They're in the launch part and a fire starts in the capsule and then in the film is it First Man or is it Apollo 13? I can't remember

but they show this and they're trying to undo the fucking hatch with like a radiator key basically and they can't undo it and the fire just engulfs all three of them. It's a pretty terrifying way to go out. Yeah it's awful so to Gus Grissom, Ed White who's the first Space Walker and Roger

Chafee, They all die instantly, just on a test launch pad. And so NASA pauses for 21 months as they kind of rebuild the spacecraft and, you know, give everyone a bit of space. And then this is the big moment, one of the big moments is the death of Korolov. Basically, Korolov, out of nowhere, dies from a routine surgery. But he was arguably weakened by his years in Stalin's gulags. So this is where kind of the two different ideologies are starting to really form a little bit. and the kind of flaws in the sort of Soviet ideology,

which is if you put everyone in a gulag, when you're trying to do a space program, you could potentially risk falling behind. You know, he had kidney problems, lung problems, because he'd been in Siberia for years. What was the routine surgery, Charlie? Can you find out? What was the, how routine are we talking?

Dental? Oh, no, I think it was more serious than that. He was under general, I think. A benign polyp removed from his large intestine. It's like fucking, so he dies. And as you said earlier, how it was split into competing factions who was going to get the finance. The person who Coral was against was like they hate each other so much. It was like a deep, deep rivalry where they kept trying to undercut each other and would like fall behind to make sure the other one didn't get something.

And that competition is what basically took the space race down. And to be honest, if they got all of their finances in one together operation, they'd probably. would have done it first. And if Coralov had survived. Yeah. So after Coralov's death, the Soviet moon program disintegrates, their giant N-1 moon rocket

explodes four times. Yeah. One blast was so huge it was visible from 50 kilometres away. Yeah. Well, we are out. And they're basically out the race. Yeah, 968.

I don't think the American knows they're out the race, but they are, basically from Coralov's death. Yeah. They're out. So, again, we must stress that this is the race for second place, the Nazis win the space race.

Now, while this is all going on, there is a third country that is competing in the space race and that is the newly founded country of Zambia. Who are a bit of a dark horse in this race. Yep, your words.

They are in more ways than one. In 1960, there is a guy called Edward Mukukutin Colossel and he envisions a Zambi being led mission to the moon and eventually Mars with his chosen astronauts

or quote, Afronauts. That's not something I've made up. That's what he calls them. That's not me being racially insensitive. He calls them that, Afronauts. And these are a group of 12 teenagers trained on an abandoned farm. So they're Gagarin, right?

That would be lead astronaut was a 16 year old called Matha Mwemboa. Why are you Gagarin? Mbamba. Mwamba. An un colosso found the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy in 1960. Nice. Because obviously...

Philosophy as well. Yeah. They're chucking a lot in there. Let's get it all in there. Let's do it all. So obviously 60s in Africa is a huge... Independence movement, decolonization. All that stuff.

So he, what he wants to do... There's a huge desire in Africa to modernize, right? Yes. But I feel this might be sort of running before you can walk. Yeah, slightly. Yeah. Now, they have a specially trained... Space Girl, Martha Mwambwa,

they're going to send two specially trained cats and a missionary, but I have warned the missionary, he must not force Christianity on the people of Mars if they do not want it. So this is where people start to think maybe he's not serious, maybe this is a satire, although he has maintained till his death that he was serious. Well, this is it, yeah.

I think this is, people around it have said it's a joke, but he's never dropped the bit. And when you see the footage of the training camp, it is hard not to think it's a joke. It's kind of amazing. It is pretty funny. It's a good bit. It is a very good bit.

So they're on an abandoned farm. Because it was getting very serious to space race. So it was nice to someone let a bit of pressure out. Yeah. There we go. He wears a cape and a helmet. Right. So what they're doing is there's one guy in a helmet who's in a sort of an oil barrel.

Yeah. And he's being floated down a river. So this is their rocket, which is a, it's generally just a big kind of tin can. It's a tin can. And they also have their training. And bear in mind that at this point, America and the US is. are I've sent several trips to outer space.

They've lunar probes, the Gemini programs in existence, and they are rolling a man down a hill in an oil drum. They're going the wrong direction, which is meant to simulate weightlessness. They're also, they're on a tire swing. They're going to cut the ropes to simulate the weightlessness you may feel for like

half a second. Oh, this is great gear. It's pretty funny stuff. Yeah. Now, so the training, as I said, they would roll down a hill inside a 200-liter oil drum when they hit a big bump and Coloso would celebrate saying they'd just experienced anti-gravity

would use a tire swing he taught them how to walk on their hands claiming it was the only way people could walk on the moon yeah come on he's having a laugh he is yeah and the centre of the program was the D-Kaloo-1 a rocket named in honour of President Kenneth Kenkaunda which is actually a 10 foot oil barrel

with an air hole and they were going to launch it in October 64, which would coincide with Zambia's Independence Day. So this is before America is... They were ridding the race in many ways until the mid to late 60s. But the government ban him from doing it because they think it's going to be humiliating.

And they're not wrong. Yeah, fair. That's kind of fair enough. If they actually went through with a launch of a guy in a fucking oil drum, some people think that it was like pure media provocation because Time Magazine did cover it. Yeah. and stuff.

But in later interviews, one with the president in 2016, the space program was described as, quote, it's not a real thing. But N Coloso maintains that he was being serious for the entirety of his life. Yeah, I mean, he's just, it seems like a great comic. Yeah, he's Kaufman all the way to the end. He's committing to the bit. Yeah.

Don't back down. We are going to get, we're going to get someone in space. Yeah. In a tin can. Lovely stuff. Hello, I'm Dorian Linsky. And I'm Ian Dunn. We're the hosts of Origin Story, the podcast about the history that shapes

our political discourse today. Our eighth season is all about the story of socialism from its earliest experiments to the present day. From Marx to Mao, Lenin to the Labour Party, Gramsci to Gorbachev, we'll be exploring the people, the events and the ideas behind socialism and communism. So please join us as we journey through an idea that has changed the world. You can listen to us or watch us on video, on Spotify, your regular podcast app, or now on YouTube. Anyway, back to the other space race. What are you saying?

What are you saying? What are you saying enough for this? No, what are you saying if you were on your first moment? On the moon? It's an opportunity to say something deeply problematic. Yeah, just having really, if you just have a, use it as a really conservative talking point platform, it's just very funny. The whole world's come together for this moment. And you're saying, no, we are different and we should close our borders.

I am pooing. I'd go Britain first. I am pooing. I'd go England for the English. No, it'd be funny if Buzz Aldrin cornered Neil Armstrong and said, who are you here to meet? That would be funny. If he caught a nonce in the car park of the moon. Right.

That's the funny thing to do. Yeah. Apollo 7 is the first successful crude flight, which designed, tested the redesigned command module. Yeah. Apollo 8 is the first humans to orbit the moon, and this is where the famous Earthrise photo is taken. That's the big one. That's the big one. Apollo 9 is a couple months later, and that's the first manned test of the lunar module in Earth's orbit.

Right. And then Apollo 10 is the dress rehearsal for the landing. And these are all with different crews. Yeah. So the thing I said that Apollo 8, Charles Lindberg, who's the guy who flies across the Atlantic, yeah, the male Amelia air crash. Yeah. He was talking to the crew of the Apollo 8, and Apollo 8 was like, oh, I kind of wish we were

going to be on Apollo 11, though, because that's the one where they're actually going to land on the moon. And he was like, no, no, no, you're the most important one. you're the most important flight that's ever been in human history because that was the first time they worked out they could go around the dark side

of the moon and they could actually get into the orbit of the moon but it wasn't the most important flight was it no that did come later yeah yeah the most important flight was when they landed on the moon

the most important flight was the second plane of 9-11 that's the important flight if we're being dicks about it that was actually the most important one and then we get to Apollo 11 so you've got Buzz Aldrin

who is that's where Buzz Light is named after he's a bit fruity than Neil, right? Aldrin and Armstrong Mr. Potatoerhead. You've got

the three astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Mr. Potazerhead and Slinky the dog and was it Bo Beep? Nuneo. Nune of the Hoover.

Teletov is. Nune of the Hoover's in there. No, Nune of the Hoover's the spaceship. Right. Yeah. Right.

That used to be my one impression I could do. Really? Yeah. Before Hitler. But now you do so any impression.

Nunu and Hitler. I can do Nunu and Hitler. What kind of party is it? Is it a Nunu party or a Hitler party? Those other two kind of parties I go to, I guess. Yeah. And you've stopped going to the Nuneo ones now. Yeah, and I just kind of Hitler ones.

So, yeah, you've got Mr. Potato Head, who's what, Michael Collins. Yeah. Yeah, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, they are probably like the polar opposites personality-wise. Buzz Aldrin's Catholic. Right. And he takes communion up there on the moon. Yeah. He has wine and a fucking biscuit.

Yeah. Well, they are all very religious. Are they? Yeah, Neil Armstrong's very religious as well. So, dramatic moments. We get to Apollo 11. Now, to pee, astronauts used what looked essentially like a big condom. Always be safe.

Hooked up to a bag with a short hose. So they're having posh wanks in space, basically. Spills happened often. Right. Which, again, that's comforting to know. As a man whose prostate's completely gone, I like the fact that they had a dribbly willy up in space. so on July

the 20th I didn't realize the fucking they're in space for like two weeks damn I thought it's just like a there and back

it's a long holiday Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin they so they all take off from Cape Canaver and the Apollo 11 film

which is all made from documentary footage is really good have you seen it it's really good it's really really good it's all restored footage there's like

there's loads of people just camping out watching their cars they all go into space and then they separate whatever Eagle Lander and then

Michael Collins is he has to just orbit above there's that amazing normal dog orbit about it's incredible about imagine going all the way there to the moon

and he's looking out the window being like are they golfing and then they come back in and be like yeah it was fine it was fine it was nothing

trying to make him so it doesn't feel bad yeah but the great the quote is that the guy narrating it says no one no one has ever felt

lonelier than Michael collards when he went around the dark side of the moon because you couldn't even see the earth Yeah. I get quite lonely.

Hey? I don't think it's as lonely as this. Do you think it's lonely? Are you saying it was lonelier? Yeah, recently I've been pretty lonely, yeah. Right. But as in, he can't even see the earth. Yeah, but I, you know, I get sad as well.

Right, yeah. I guess he should just sort it out, shouldn't he? All right. So he was the second and loneliest anyone's ever been. Yeah. Charlie gets lonely. No, Charlie, it must feel lonely behind those computers when you can't see or here.

And don't doubt that. It's like Helen Keller working in telecommunications. She doesn't know what the fuck going on. It's a caveman being shown in a fucking NASA control center, basically. Yeah. It must be terrifying. It must be absolutely terrifying for it. Incredibly lonely.

I don't doubt it's lonely being you. But this man is on the dark side of the moon while his two mate. No, I'm sure he was lonely as well. Yeah. He's trained to, because he doesn't know if they're going to survive or if the eagle lander's going to come back. So he's just orbiting and dark. And he's trying to think he's done training to just like get himself back to Earth on his own if they die. Legate it.

Ditch him. If he goes, ah, fuck it. Do you ever do that when you're like 11? Sorry, are you saying Michael Collins could have done an Irish goodbye

just left them on the moon. Fuck it. See you guys. I'm thirsty. Do you ever go around a shopping centre with your friends and then occasionally say should we ditch him

and then you just run away? Oh yeah, I've done that. It's kind of the cruelest thing you could do. Did that happen to you a lot? Yeah, I did actually. Should we just ditch him? I mean, it is funny.

It's pretty funny. Legger. Do you think this is other countries do this? Or does it feels quite British. Yeah. I like in New Zealand

I don't think they're doing this sort of stuff. No. Ditch him. Should we ditch him? Yeah. Oh my shall we ditch him?

Let's leg it. Yeah. It's quite British. Yeah. Fuck him. Fuck him, man. One of the three people I actually like in this world.

Fuck him. So the Eagle Lander goes down and is seconds from running out of fuel. Seconds. Yeah. Yeah.

The whole thing, the jeopardy of the whole thing is crazy. Literally biting his nails. Yeah. Charlie is on, in a fucking in knife edge. Armstrong takes

over the manual controls of the spacecraft because the computer keeps steering them into a boulder field. Aldrin accidentally breaks a circuit breaker which armed the ascent engine. So without that they would have been stranded. They used a felt tip pen to shove it into the switch to then saves the mission.

Fucking hell. Yeah. So the jeopardy. All right. So Charlie we need to, this is a history podcast again. Let's create a tense this is man's greatest achievement, landing on the moon. Okay. So 20th July 69, the eagle lander descends onto the surface of the moon.

A soundscape. Armstrong and Aldrin lands on the surface of the moon and Armstrong says to mission control the eagle has landed. The eagle has landed. Now Armstrong opens the hatch and he steps down the ladder

and he says the immortal first sentence Oh, fuck, I'm going to bus. I mean, the thing is, I guess the opportunity is, if you say that, people will know that forever. That is locked in. That is history guaranteed forever. Because it's on TV, isn't it, right? 650 million people are watching it live.

So, oh, fuck, I'm going to bus. What around? You'd probably be able to hear it from space and we're going, what? Before you're Michael Collins coming back and going, so what did you say when you got on there? Oh,

fucked it. You go back in there, you're bright red, your head in the hands. And Michael Collins is like, what did he say? And Buzz is like, just don't.

Let's just get back. Mike, leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. He fucked him.

He absolutely fucked. Was it that bad? No, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that. What did you say? Oh, fuck, I'm going to bust. I just panicked. I got really in my own head about it

It's still pretty impressive I mean I've had some awkward car journey's back But imagine coming back from the moon When you've just been like Congrats Yeah The whole way there You've been like

One small step for A man or just man Man mankind Foot down Would they be right Of like blasphemy Like Because this is also in the 60s They're still like

Well Nixon Swearing on TV and stuff like that Nixon Yeah Lenny Bruce is being banged up Yeah Nixon's president So Nixon just hearing that I'm gonna bus

I'm gonna bus I'm gonna bus but it's also quite it would have been quite a forward thinking one because what's bus mean you know

yeah it's just it's a new it's a new thing can you find out what 60's slang for coming is because what would what would the

Armstrong equivalent be yeah well I guess to be fair if him and Buzz wouldn't have been docking themselves since the

I'll bus a nut no they would have got it oh fuck I'm gonna bus a nut oh fuck I'm gonna bus a nut I just, yeah, all of the pageantry around term such as spunk and splooge

Fuck, I'm going to sploge That would be worse You'd have to do the press conference You'd have to apologise, I think Yeah You'd be forced to by Nixon You'd be cancels Yeah, I think it would have a huge fallout

But also it'd be so funny For the first man on the moon To have done such a stupid man thing And said, I'm going to fucking bust His back at the space cross The entire way back because you can't even really just looking at her

can we stay up do we have to go back can we please stay up can you fire me into space can you buy me into space we fucked it so hard and they're like I don't think everyone

was watching it like you know not everyone's into space it wasn't that many I bet it was probably like a couple of thousand people there's other stuff on

yeah I'm sure it wasn't I'm sure it wasn't half a billion people yeah no I'm sure it wasn't the entire population the planet yeah

fucking around. Because he starts to feel better about it because it takes two weeks to get back. Yeah. They would have forgotten about it. You know you do something really stupid and then you're like, oh, you know, it's bad and then after a couple of days you're like, oh, that's fine.

Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. And then you actually ride back and they're like, what the fuck did you say? I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember.

What was he said? I don't think I said anything. Oh, fuck, I'm going to bust her not. So his first words were not that. One small step for man, one giant leap of mankind. They're partly adlib for man. partly planned. There's all the debate as we said about

whether it was in it. And then so the Americans have won the space race. The Zambians are out, I'm going to say. Zambians just missed it. They've just missed it. They've not yet got that tin can off the ground. They've all drawn down a hill. Now they have won that

race of oil drum down a hill. It's basically like space cool runnings, isn't it? We are the Zambian space program. Anyway, now there are a few more missions and they do actually play golf in the Apollo 15 or 16 they play golf because they go they go back a few times but so there's I think there's a total there's maybe 16 or 70 17 is the last Apollo in like

72 so they keep going back but this is an interesting fact 90% of the stuff we know about the moon came from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and they were there for two and a half hours so what were the other missions about I in my head because I'm thick I thought it was the only one that actually they're the only guys to go out on the moon no There's several more people went. Right. How many times have people been, how many people have been on the moon, Charlie?

12. Right. Yeah, I know that. And how many, how many missions? Uh, a seven, well, 17. 17 apollos, but only from Apollo 11 were they landing. Apollo 13 is the famous one where, uh, they all nearly died,

but Jim Lovell, who Tom Hanks played in Apollo 13. Right. Saves them on re-entry. Okay. Do you remember that there's, yes. Yes, I have seen Apollo 13. Yeah, it's a great film. I have seen Apollo 13.

Um, but they don't, they basically, yeah, Pretty much all the information we have about the moon is from that first two and a half hours. Because it's the samples, right? Yeah. Yeah. Buzz takes loads of samples and they do lots of experiments and shit. And they land safely. Take a lot of photos.

Yeah. Apollo 14 Commander. Yeah, there you go. I mean, they're just taking a piss at this point. Yeah. Fucking hell. I mean, that does make it seem like the boys have just been too pissed off. Yeah, but you can also see why the conspiracy theories are coming around.

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Is that the issue? Is that the ruffling of the flag part of the, well, get into it. That's on the Patreon. So a man has landed on the moon. Man has yet to go back since 1972.

Yes. We haven't gone back. Because there's no, there's no reason to put that money. It's a rock, is it? Yeah, what you're going to prove? But why aren't we going up there to,

well, we should go up there and see why are women's periods attached to this? What's going on? What's going on with that? Can you sort this out? Yeah. We should sort out what, why on earth is the moon involved

in women's reproductive cycle? It's mad, isn't it? Yeah, who knows. Anyway, man has landed on the moon. That is, this has been our space race. series. If you want more, more!

Greedy pigs. We're going to dig into what actually might not have happened. Yeah, what might not have happened. This whole thing we've been talking about might all be complete bollocks. A load of shit.

Might be all a load of shit. Maybe it was all faked. We're going to get into that on our Patreon bonus episode. Did Kubrick and direct it? Did Kubrick direct it? Three pounds a month you can become a truther. Did buzz actually bus on the moon?

Did buzz buzz buzz on the moon? Yeah. Bus Aldrin. Bus Aldrin. Bust a nut aldrin Bust a nut aldrin That's on the Patreon But if not

Thanks for stopping by And we will see you next time For more history You know You know You know You know

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