And within forty years of Yuri Gagarin’s orbit of the earth in 1961, thousands of other people had done the same.
Um, no. The number is closer to 525. Not even a thousand people yet. Your arguments lose credibility very early on if you can't get that little bit of information, which took me ten seconds on Google to find, correct.
I used to be in that camp too until I actually started to seriously examine the photographic and video record of the alleged moon landings.
Yawn. Another 'I used to believe until the evidence overwhelmed me' conspiracy theorist. You're nothing new so far.
The sheer number of inexplicable anomalies and apparent impossibilities
What is inexplicable and apparent to you may not be so to others. So far I have not seen a single 'inexplicable' anomaly in any Apollo picture.
Many of the NASA Apollo images and videos allegedly taken on the moon, show tell-tale signs of crude compositing and re-touching, as well as the use of studio lighting, stage backdrops, scale models, Scotchlite screens and even chroma-keying.
Present your evidence of same then. Here. Not in a video link. I won't sit through a pointless YouTube video. If you have arguments present them here.
From a production perspective, there would be no need for any more than 2 actors, as their faces would be hidden by a visor for all of the moon landing footage.
Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance of the record. Their faces were NOT hidden by visors for the entire extent of the footage. Neil Armstrong's face is clearly visible early in the Apollo 11 EVA, Harrison Schmitt spent a fair bit of time with hsi visor up on Apollo 17, and Buzz Aldrin's face is clearly visible even through the gold visor on one Apollo 11 photo. In any case, what of the film and TV inside the spacrcaft where the astronauts are not wearing helmets with visors?
They probably also used some audio and video footage of the real astronauts taken previously during training simulations.
Impossible to reconcile with the record. There are clearly far more than two voices on the Apollo record, and in many cases they are discussing live events.
However, if the Apollo landings were faked, there are a number of good reasons why the truth will come out soon.
Do you know how long conspiracy theorists like you have been telling us the truth will come out 'soon'?
If any of these space agencies attempts a manned lunar mission in the future, and the photos and videos of the moon differ significantly to those of the Apollo missions, then people will start to ask serious questions.
Indeed, and they would be justified in doing so. However, if they DO agree with NASA's version of events, you can bet your bottom dollar that the conspiracy theory crowd will NOT ask those questions about their own conclusions and will simply assume that they are in on the cover-up.
If NASA wants us to believe the Apollo moon landings were real, the onus is on them to provide irrefutable evidence to support their claim, and they have failed to do this.
No, I'd say their provision of evidence is quite adequate. The problem is your definition of irrefutable.
The photo and video evidence can be discounted because of the many inexplicable anomalies they contain, and by virtue of the fact that it is possible to create realistic images of the moon using a studio set up.
Prove it.
The moon rock evidence can also be discounted because the same rocks can easily be found in Antarctica.
No, they are not the same. To imply that the whole world's geologists can't tell the difference between a rock that was picked up on the Moon and brought back in a sealed container and one that came screaming through the atmosphere and slammed into the ground, then sat in a wet atmosphere for heaven knows how long is simply ridiculous.
Also, a piece of moon rock that NASA gave to the Dutch national museum turned out to be nothing more than petrified wood.
No, NASA never presented that as a moon rock.
In any case, in order to collect rocks from the moon, you do not need to send humans there. The Soviet Union was using robotic landers to collect moon rocks in the 1960s and 70s.
And they matched the Apollo samples perfectly well.
A reflector could be landed on the moon just as easily as a probe.
It could. So where is the evidence that it was?
But in any case, in the 1960s the Soviets showed that they could bounce laser beams off parts of the moon’s surface without the need for a laser reflector.
Yes, you can, but you get a much stronger signal with a retroreflector.
And as for claims that the Soviet’s were able to track the Apollo craft all the way to the moon and back, well that’s a big red-herring because the Soviet’s were only able to do this from 1972,
Prove it.
which incidentally, was just a few weeks before NASA cancelled the Apollo 18 mission and abandoned the rest of the program altogether.
Wow, your ignorance of hsitory is staggering. Apollo 18 was cancelled in 1970, not 1972.
On top of that, NASA has made itself look even guiltier by attempting to cover up their sloppy mistakes in the photographic record of the Apollo program. They have recently been caught altering and removing the incriminating photos from their website in an attempt to cover their tracks.
Prove it. The entire record is available on various sites. Altering NASA's website will make no odds.
As for a conspiracy like this needing thousands of people to keep secret, well that’s a red-herring too, because in reality, the Apollo program was completely compartmentalized so only a handful of senior insiders would have needed to know the big picture.
Bull. If the engineers and scientists don't know the program is fake, they will build hardware that will actually do the job it is supposed to do, thus removing the need for a fake anyway. Engineers and scientists DO NOT work by just blindly following instructions from management. Their competence and professional pride will make damn sure they point out if the stuff they are asked to work on will not work.
Do you have anything in the way of evidence to present, or can we expect the usual handwaving about what they 'probably' did, or 'could' have done?