BA (the man, not the cause) on NPR

[pghnative]

Kudo's to Phil for his (unfortunately) brief appearance on the Chicago Public radio show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". (Look here (http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/archives.html) for the April 28 show for anyone who wants to listen. Phil is on pretty near the end, as I recall).

For those who aren't familiar with the show, the host and three celebrities take a humorous look at the week's news, quizing callers-in about events (usually bizarre) reported in the media. One of the show's gags is called the "Bluff the listener" game, wherein one of the celebrities gives a short synopsis of a bizarre story, while the other two invent stories with a common theme as the real one, and the listener has to pick the true story. After the listener guesses, a guest expert reveals the answer.

This week's "bluff the listener" theme was a NASA scandal from years back that (supposedly) just surfaced this week, and the expert proved to be the BA himself:clap: . The possible answers were:

a) NASA employees inviting friends in for parties in the training pool
b) an astronaut smuggling a corned beef sandwich into orbit
c) Buzz Aldrin revealed to have mooned Neil from inside the LM while Neil took his first step on the Moon.

(I won't give the answer, but I suspect most on this board will know it)

[ToSeek]

"c" would have been a little tricky considering the lack of atmosphere.

[Moose]

b) an astronaut smuggling a corned beef sandwich into orbit

Pretty sure I remember hearing about this one.

[The Bad Astronomer]

:-)

I'll be writing about this on the blog on Monday. Witht he extrasolar planet thing, I totally forgot to plug the show, and Peter Sagal emailed me to remind me! I feel awful about that. But it was fun to help out!

[Jeff Root]

I shook the hand that held the sandwich.

:p

It was shortly after the hand came back from the Moon... again.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[Lord Jubjub]

"c" would have been a little tricky considering the lack of atmosphere.

I just listened to the podcast of that episode. The fake story had a mysterious set of 'prints' on the inside of the lunar module. Buzz Aldrin was supposed to have confessed that he mooned Armstrong from inside the module.

Actually, if the sandwich story hadn't sounded familiar, I would have been tempted to pick that story.

[Maksutov]

Somehow it seems that Neil and Buzz both were Mooned.