Yes. GenX/Y/Z won't want to dirty their hands with propagating a Lie, especially when it erroneously detracts from the magnitude of the accomplishment.
The consequences for being caught in such a huge lie would be embarrassing and damaging to the reputation of the United States. Why would they try to lie about something if they were 100% guaranteed to get caught?
If there was some obstacle preventing NASA from going to the Moon it would have been easier to just come right out and admit it then.
They see how religion is believed, yet if you simply read the bible, without bias, it provides you with all the evidence you need that Yahweh is a evil sadistic narcissistic hypocrite. Yet 2.5 Billion people don't see it that way. What does this tell them? Creating a false belief is easy so long as people WANT to believe it, and you present it confidently.
And in the end, they have a "valid excuse" - they were "trying to win a Cold War" - to "deceive the Russians" - and even this wasn't likely to be the REAL reason, it's the lie they told those invovled, that they were part of a "war effort, based on deception" -- these were Patriots carrying a BURDEN. It tore their lives apart in ways -- Armstrong wouldn't even celebrate the event many times, and became a recluse. Patriots - keeping national secrets, told "for the good of America"... that's how they packaged it.
Upon succeeding, Nixon sold is as the springboard for "World Peace and Unity", which EVERYONE wanted - and to finally "end the Red Scare" via a space-based alliance with Russia by 1972.
This "fear of being caught" didn't stop the "JFK assassination", "Gulf of Tonkin -> Vietnam", "bay of pigs" or the "Daniel Ellsberg" fiasco. Lies and deception were a hallmark of Johnson and Nixon. But not JFK, nor RFK -- they were too honest, to genuine -- and then assassinated.
This is the context I considered as I developed my conclusions, and why I put "little stake on Claims and what they recorded as history".
Not surprisingly - who wants to spend exorbitant time to "be a party pooper" where the sure result is being insulted/ridiculed... and for what? It would be like running through the churches yelling "it's all Lies! There is no Heaven!" -- and even though this *might* be true -- who does this?? And if they do, are they successful? Nope.
In my mind, Apollo thrived and survived like a massive, but mostly harmless Religion, as an operation of the DoD, conducted by Patriots with Patriotic motives... If they were caught, they'd be "justified" as simply "a DoD operation that failed"... "Failure was not an option"-- "We needed to beat the Russians, even if it was only a delusion -- Ancient Art of War teaching".
Now that they're all dead or feebly old - it's time to reveal it -- so that it can stop "holding back science".
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From a "Follow the money" perspective -- if they had "admitted failure" - they would have taken a HUGE hit in voter confidence... making them look very inept (vs. the MOST competent govt/nation on earth) -- and there would have been no follow-on space exploration spending. These govt contracts are very profitable -- and probably come with kickbacks for politicians.
So it would have been WAY WORSE to admit failure -- especially given that faking it proved to be rather simple... ~500 military men, or trusted civilian Patriots with top secret clearances, involved, is my guess. Spilling the beans was considered TREASON. They were doing this FOR AMERICA... Armstrong bore this burden of Lying (and for him, IMO, was a burden) - patriotically.
That's the current model in my head regarding all of this -- and I have many more reasons to share this - but this belongs on a NEW THREAD. Not here.