On a more serious note, if things weren't ready by Apollo 11 and additional testing needed to be done, why fake it? Apollo 12 also landed within Kennedy's vowed 'before this decade is out'.
Back in the late 80's I was playing "Trivial Pursuit" and one of the questions was, "What is the date of the first day of the 21st century?" I thought, "Well, that's uncharacteristically easy. January 1st, 2000, of course." Confident that I had it right, I saw that the answer was January 1, 2001! "What the hell???" I blurted. Then I thought about it for a second and it dawned on me. Yes! Each century begins in the --01 year because there was no year zero. If you theoretically trace our calendar back, to BC, it will go directly from the end of 1BC to 1AD.
I looked it up in three encyclopedias and they confirmed it. The year 2000 is entirely in the
20th century. Likewise, all decades will begin with the --1 year. So 1970 is part of the decade in which Kennedy set his goal.
And all of that hype about the new millennium beginning Jan. 1, 2000?... nope, they were wrong. And I never saw one commentator anywhere mentioning the error.
I have often wondered if we may have lost three astronauts because nobody at NASA ever gave this a thought. Well, why would they in the 1960's?
Clear skies,
Brant