Hi guys,
I saw an artifact-quality video recently (
http://www.petapixel.com/2010/04/26/apollo-11-launch-at-500-frames-per-second/) and my enjoyment of it was mildly lessened by all these people who think the moon landing was faked. I'm an aerospace engineering grad student and I also work part time at NASA, so this kind of hits close to home for me.
Why do surprisingly many people insist it was faked? It seems like it's basically rooted in a deep mistrust of the government that was maybe warranted in the 60's (what with the CIA testing drugs on unwitting subjects, the environment of the cold war and all) but has stuck around and stayed fashionable until today. There's this general distrust of science as well, although everyone is eagerly willing to take everything we get from it for granted. These, combined with the rather specialized knowledge involved in going around in space seems to make Apollo a magnet for conspiracy theories.
There are no technical reasons why we couldn't do it at the time...the arguments involving the van Allen belts, the computer technology of the time, etc. are easily refuted with a little bit of research and specialized knowledge. The worst one I've heard was from a guy at the golden gate bridge that the lunar lander ascent engines were tiny compared to the Saturn V, so how could it have taken off from the moon? It's hard to address that one in person, since before you can start talking about conic sections and the gravitational parameter of the moon and the logarithmic nature of the rocket equation you've already lost them when you first pause for thought, which identifies yourself as an 'other' who's part of the system and can't be trusted. When you start talking about the physics involved, that's apparently a 'proof from authority' and I'm somehow just repeating the party line.
Also, did you know that a specially modified F-15 once went from brakes locked on the runway to 98,400 feet in three minutes, 28 seconds? Imagine if the cold war hadn't ended - we'd either all be living on the moon by now or we'd all be hideously mutated survivors roaming a radioactive wasteland. Either one sounds like an attractive alternative to finals week.