Something to note about Apollo, if it was a scam then the Soviets were also in on it because they reported tracking the flights and publicly acknowledged the moon landings. So you'd have not just a conspiracy, but a large-scale multinational conspiracy between international antagonists. It's not far to then conclude the entire Cold War must've been an Orwellian-style sham in such a scenario. I won't get into the argument about it directly--but you don't really get a limited conspiracy with Apollo. If you want to believe it's a fraud, then you're going to have to go all the way with it.
For my part I have no trouble at all believing rockets from 50 years ago could work better than their modern equvialents. I've spent my entire adult life watching reliability decrease while cost increases on everything from shovels to cars to household appliances. The X-35 demonstrator flew more than twenty years ago and the resultant F-35's still don't work right. NASA in particular is barely anything more than a pork barrel grifting program these days, actual results are quite secondary if even that. It's almost more unusual to find modern stuff that actually works right.
Danth
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