When Alan Shepard swung the club twice to drive the two golf balls "miles and miles and miles" on the lunar surface, little did he know that mankind's moon landing would be questioned by a person from the world of sports someday.
Almost 50 years after Shepard's successful Apollo 14 lunar mission of 1971 and Neil Armstrong's "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for the mankind” moment in 1969, their fellow American and NBA star Stephen Curry has become the latest person to join the bandwagon of moon landing conspiracy theorists.
The two-time NBA MVP, who often rises to an astronomical height for his smashing slam dunks, sparked a "celestial" controversy when he said on The Ringer's Winging It podcast that he didn't think the moon landing was real.
With a massive social media backlash and a NASA invitation for a free tour of Johnson Space Center in Houston coming his way, the caught-of-guard Golden State Warrior Point guard has finally dubbed his "conspiracy theory" a joke, putting the controversy to rest.
Stephen Curry responds to NASA's invitation on social media, December 11, 2018. /Screenshot of Stephen Curry's Twitter
While accepting the NASA "junket" invite, Curry told ESPN, "One thousand percent. Obviously I was joking when I was talking on the podcast. I was silently protesting how stupid it was that people actually took that quote and made it law as, 'Oh my God, he's a fake moon landing truther,' whatever you want to call it, yada, yada, yada. So I was silently protesting that part about it, how the story took a life of its own."
"But in terms of the reaction that I've gotten, I am definitely going to take [NASA] up on their offer. I am going to educate myself firsthand on everything that NASA has done and shine a light on their tremendous work over the years. And hopefully people understand that education is power, informing yourself is power."
"For kids out there that hang on every word that we say, which is important, understand that you should not believe something just because somebody says it. You should do your homework and understand what you actually believe. But I'm going to go to NASA and I'm going to enjoy the experience wholeheartedly."