Was it a conspiracy?

The story about the moonlanding being a hoax is as old as the event itself, I guess. The Mythbusters managed to bust all the "evidence" hoax believers came up with. That of course only proves the theories and their evidence were not good enough, that does not prove the lading itself. But think of this... The US could, back then in a big political fight with the Soviet Union, not afford a total embarrassment, and if it was a hoax and would be exposed, that would really have been. Furthermore what you need to realize is this. The people actually going to the moon were only a few, but the people who stayed on Earth to guide the entire process, where over tens of thousands. It's impossible to keep a secret with that many people involved. If it really was a hoax, a whitle-blower would have stood up ages ago. And so we can go on for ages, but I don't have enough characters in this comment box. Let's suffice to say, the moon landing was real.

I'm convinced it wasn't a hoax, though elements may have been falsified or kept secret.

It isn't a hoax.

1 our enemy at the time (USSR) congratulated us and was following the rocket (an ICBM) very closely. they would have called BS on us..
2 China has pictures from our 1972 moon landing via telescope.

Now that's interesting and probably the best case against the conspiracies

Real

Lol

I think that it was real, but they came back to Earth to take pictures maybe.

I watched Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Masterclass the other day, and he had something interesting to say about this.

https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-degrasse-tyson-teaches-scientific-thinking-and-communication?sscid=c1k3_k8maw

At one of his science events, Tyson was confronted by a man who was convinced the moon landing was faked. Tyson went over some of the evidence why that wasn't the case, including the calculation of the fuel on the Saturn V rocket -- being just enough to propel the astronauts out of earth's gravity and to the moon, and then lift the landing pod *back* from the moon into outer space for the journey home back to earth.

The man still wasn't buying it.

Tyson asked the man what single piece of evidence would be enough to convince him the moon landing was real. The man said: Photos of the moon landing site would convince him.

So, Tyson supplied the man with a link to NASA's website, where the public can access photographs taken from spacecraft orbiting the moon which depicted the moon landing site.

The man saw the photographs, returned to Tyson, and said something about NASA being controlled by the government, so none of those photographs could really be trusted.

Tyson replied: I showed you the evidence you asked for, and you're still not satisfied. I'm not wasting any more of my time. We're done here.

Moral of the story: Know when to disengage. You can argue endlessly with conspiracy theorists and still not get anywhere, because they are more emotionally attached to their view of the world than to reality.

I would also say this. If conspiracy theorists applied an ounce of the skepticism they routinely apply to mainstream knowledge to their own claims, their worldview would collapse. A true attitude of skepticism requires questioning all the information you're given: and when you do, the mainstream view of the world suddenly doesn't look so bad.

Conspiracies are complex systems and break down. This one requires hundreds of not thousands of co-conspirators. Someone would feel compelled to tell it all.

Exactly, like the Flat Earth conspiracy theory (though I would like to call it paranoid idiocy instead)

Why would they keep it a secret, anyway? It's not like it has any use to hide it all after so many years

A newspaper reporter (back when they looked for verifiable facts) would have paid someone to break silence long ago!

Exactly!

No