Curry expressed the sentiments during a recent appearance on the podcast "Winging It," hosted by NBA players Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore along with Annie Finberg, a digital coordinator for the Atlanta Hawks.
During the December 10 broadcast, this week's Western Conference Player of the Week was asked his opinions about a variety of topics, including the sounds dinosaurs made. (You know, important sports-type stuff… or maybe that's just what men talk about?) However, the topic soon shifted to the veracity of NASA's claims to have put 12 men on the moon in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Curry asked the others: "We ever been to the moon?"
The room agreed it was a no.
"They're going to come get us," Curry replied. "Sorry, I don't want to start conspiracies."
That led to a discussion of all the conspiracy theories out there about the moon landings, such as that all the film footage was shot on Earth by noted science fiction director Stanley Kubrick, the New York Times noted.
This caught the attention of NASA, however, which extended Curry an invitation to their Johnson Space Center in Houston (we're wondering if anyone said "Houston, we have a problem" during this exchange).
"We'd love for Mr. Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets," Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesman, told the NYT. "We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks stored there, and the Apollo mission control. During his visit, he can see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we're doing now to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay."
It's clearly something of a sore spot for NASA, considering they have a section of their website dedicated to debunking the various theories about how the landings were faked and how you can identify the telltale signs in footage from the missions.
NASA sent six pairs of astronauts to the moon on the Apollo missions, the last in 1972. During those missions, they collected numerous rock and dust samples and scientific readings from experiments. Perhaps the most famous was the first actual test of Galileo's supposition that independent of air resistance, a feather and hammer would fall at the same speed (he was proven right). They left behind objects, too, including a US flag, moon rovers, landing equipment they couldn't bring home and reflectors used to measure the moon's distance from Earth with extreme accuracy.
Of course, if Curry isn't convinced by the past, maybe future US or Chinese missions will change his mind. US President Donald Trump has announced his intention to send US astronauts back to the moon, and the China National Space Administration has laid out a plan for robotic missions to the moon to be followed up by manned missions, which would be a first for the country, Sputnik reported. CNSA launched its first new probe to the lunar surface, Chang'e-4, late last week.