2019/5b.plaintext

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   2 To the editor of the New York Post:
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   4 The headline of this story writes itself: The Soviets have infiltrated our space agency NASA and have actively embarked on a programme of sabotage, aimed at killing our astronauts and destroying our mission. Not content with supporting war across the Far East and fomenting revolution across the Americas, they are now camped in our backyard in Cuba and have taunted us with their own space programme. Now they have launched an attack on the heart of our country in an attempt to destroy our morale and to reassert their dominance in space.
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   6 No part of the lunar programme has been unaffected by their agents. There are constant leaks of our technology to the engineers at Baikonur, and our plans are laid bare to aid the USSR in its efforts to overtake us. Our brave astronauts have been repeatedly placed in harm’s way and it is only because of the effectiveness of our security agencies and the bravery and skill of our astronauts that no one has been killed in space so far. It is only a matter of time before our enemies succeed.
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   8 Our political masters do not want you to know that the Apollo X lunar module guidance programme was corrupted by Soviet agents or that the Apollo XI astronauts were almost killed by a collision with their own service module as they re-entered the earth’s atmosphere. These brave astronauts could have been killed by the actions of Soviet operators who had infiltrated the programming and engineering teams. Our politicians want you to think that Apollo XII was struck by lightning during its launch and that it was this that took out the control circuitry. But ask yourself, why would a machine as advanced as the Saturn V be vulnerable to a natural phenomenon as common as lightning on the Florida Peninsula? And how likely is it to have been struck twice? Clearly someone set out to sabotage this launch just as they tried to sabotage both the Apollo X reconnaissance and the Apollo XI moon landing and re-entry.
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  10 These are powerful enemies able to strike at any aspect of the Apollo programme and only a strong response from our government has any hope of stopping them.
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  12 For the sake of our astronauts and of our national pride I urge the President to threaten the strongest possible retaliation if further attacks are launched against us.