Herring
Muriel's in
I know this is wildly off-topic haha, but I too used to think the landing was beyond our abilities of the era.
Then I learned about tech and… Eh, not really. Antiquated systems by modern standards, more nuts, bolts, and valves than anything super electronic - but the same tech was powering jet fighters, nuclear reactors, etc of the era too.
I'd say the fact other countries (who'd have a lot to gain from exposing the USA faked the first moon landing - not sure if you're saying all subsequent Apollo moon landings were faked too) have sent craft around and to the moon which always seen things left there from the Apollo missions is more of an acid test that it happened.
Plus, Occam's Razor. It's more plausible that man went to the moon in 1969 than not, given that in order for it to have been faked all of the following must be true:
- Everyone involved in the moon landings who knew it was fake kept quiet
- A rocket was launched as a front, and tracked the intended route to fool ground astronomers
- With the real astronauts in to account for the hours of POV film footage taken in zero gravity during the mission, and the live broadcast to networks mid-way through
- Scripted radio transmissions were broadcast in real-time to convince anyone tuning in
- Countries with spies and moles who knew it was staged chose to sit on the info, even during the Cold War
- Billions was spent developing technologies, engineering and science to take man to the moon but not use it
- This development did happen as it was reused/repurposed for later missions not involving the moon, filtered out to everyday life through private companies, filled research papers of the era, etc
- Lunar samples returned from the moon and distributed worldwide for research were fake, and no-one noticed
- (or acquired by a covert moon mission involving robots long before the 1990s - which opens up a can of worms about who developed/worked on that, why did that not leak, why was that technology suppressed until the mid 80s,etc).
There's a simplistic reason for why: money.
The reason the USA ever got to the moon at all was driven by political need. The USA government, spooked by the USSR advancing, threw pretty much unlimited money, resources, manpower at the project for the prestige and the American public were behind them.
But after they won the race it became harder to justify the colossal expense for each victory lap. There's not an awful lot to "do" on the moon for a human (especially scientifically). It's risky, and it's astronomically expensive.
As the political landscape shifted and the Cold War kicked in, oil prices rose, inflation hit, the American public were more concerned with earthly matters than trips to the moon. The NASA budget was cut, and ongoing expenditure had to be justified as 'greatest rewards for minimal cost' and there was the rest of space to investigate.
By the time the Cold War ended in the 1990s, technology had advanced to the point where it was more useful (and safer) to send robots packed with sensors than humans in bulky suits.
That's changed a little in recent years as the plan is to go back, in partnership with private companies, with a view to colonisation for the purposes of …ransacking the rock to make multi-billionaires super-trillionaires.
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