The Apollo Moon Landings

Read the article and answer the questions. Houston, We Have a Problem.

The trailer of a Slovenian documentary, Houston We Have a Problem, alleges a new twist to the Cold War: The Americans bought a secret Yugoslav space programme which enabled them to go to the moon.

The video, posted by user “YugoslavianSpace” on January 9, 2012, has been viewed by almost 800,000 people. More than fifty years after America announced its intention to go to the Moon in May, 1961, it has caused several experts to come out and have their say.

The trailer claims that the full documentary, entitled Houston, We Have a Problem - to be released later this year - will show that the CIA discovered a secret Yugoslav space programme in 1960 and, behind in the space race with the Soviet Union, they bought the entire programme from Yugoslav President Tito in March, 1961, just two months before President John F Kennedy announced America's lunar ambitions.

According to the documentary, the origins of the Yugoslav space programme lay in the writings and work of Herman Potočnik, whose 1929 book Problem Voznje po Vesolju (The Problem of Space Travel) inspired Wernher von Braun, former Nazi and architect of the American space program.

What America did not get their hands on were other secret writings and drawings by Potočnik, and these were found by Tito's secret service in 1947, and they played an important part in the Yugoslav space programme, which was started in 1948.

Living standards in Yugoslavia improved considerably, and the socialist country enjoyed rapid economic development with generous American financial aid.

The trailer claims the documentary will reveal how Tito built the biggest secret underground space centre in Europe, and that in fact some of the American rockets were made in Yugoslavia, while Tito and his wife were regular visitors at NASA's facilities. The base is at Zeljava on the Croatian- Bosnian border, also known as Army Base 505.

The authors of the documentary are Boštjan and Žiga Virc, and the full story will only be revealed in the full documentary.

Adapted from: http://digitaljournal.com/article/317682

Decide whether these statements are true or false according to information provided about the trailer.

1. The trailer of Houston We Have a Problem claims that the moon landings didn’t actually happen. FALSE 2. America were behind the Soviets in the space race. TRUE 3. Herman Potočnik set up the Yugoslav space programme. FALSE 4. Potočnik’s secret writings and drawings were found by the Nazis. FALSE 5. Yugoslavia received considerable financial aid in exchange for their space technology. TRUE 6. Some of the American rockets were made on the Croatian-Bosnian border. TRUE

Find words in the text with these meanings.

1. states something as a fact but without giving proof – ALLEGES 2. an adjective used to describe something related to the moon – LUNAR 3. an agency concerned with the gathering of intelligence data – SECRET SERVICE 4. money, food, etc. that is sent to help countries in difficult situations – AID 5. buildings, services, equipment, etc. that are provided for a particular purpose – FACILITIES Reactions to the trailer of Houston We Have a Problem.

Read the following reactions to the trailer and give your opinion.

Reactions Your opinion "In 1961, Yugoslavia could not even produce a decent harvest,"

“Bravo Yugoslavije! Mi smo bilo najlepse!”

“I really have no words for this. What possible set of motives would compel someone to make a documentary about how the United States bought Yugoslavia's active but secret space program in order to launch its own?” – internet viewer via Google+

Europeans along with Yugoslavs made America the leading country in the world, not Americans themselves -.- Nikola Tesla was a Yugoslav, remember?

"There's a lot of coincidence in time, but just because two things sort of happened one after the other does not necessarily mean that there's causation1 involved.” – Bill Barry, chief historian at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Josip Broz Tito was just like Steve Jobs - a visionary

"We are in the phase of gathering all the facts, but we still need a lot, a lot of confirmation. We still need a lot of documents and archive-gathering so we can confirm. The film is based on real events with some dramatization and fiction added."

– The film's principal writer, Slovenian Bostjan Virc 1 (causation): the process of one event causing or producing another event

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