The Apollo Hoax has always surprised me for the form it takes. But I think I just this moment, re-reading this thread, figured out why it takes this form.
On the face of it, this is what you have; a group of people (the hoax believers) who generally have a poor understanding of science and engineering and almost without qualification have no background in aerospace engineering or space sciences, suggest a conspiracy theory, and chose as the strongest support for their claim technical and scientific arguments!
This is what primarily attracted me. I'm no scientist. To really understand how Apollo was achieved and what motivated some of the choices really does require the proper education and training. And to properly critique those choices -- well, you should really have credentials in the field to do that.
However, the specific arguments the hoaxies make are often wrapped in misunderstandings that can be tested on the level of kitchen-table science. I'd want to be a Hassleblad engineer to really discuss the thermal properties of the camera, but I only need to be a self-taught cartoonist, or a weekend photographer, in order to show the "converging shadows" arguments of the hoaxies are utter nonsense.
So why do the hoax promoters lead with claims that are so easy to dismantle? Why are they going into science and logic when their strengths are perhaps more in emotional argument and the murky haze of political, social, behavior speculations?
And the reason that just came to me is this; they aren't a rocket scientist, but they play one on YouTube. They reach for what appear to be mistakes in basic science and logic because those are easy to illustrate and sound intelligent. They fight fire with fire; confront the entire idea of the cadre of rocket scientists who managed these feats with what look to be scientific blunders.
And they succeed because their target audience is no better at science or logic then they are, and in any case is uninterested in disagreeing.
And there is another, closely-related reason. Many of the things the hoaxies like to point at and claim violate science, do indeed violate something. But that something isn't science; it is intuition, the "common sense" formed of of a lifetime of experience at the bottom of a gravity well swimming in a blanket of compressed gas at almost exactly the triple point of water; a most peculiar environment indeed by the standards of the universe.
So they have their little videos and their sound-bite quotes of "no stars were visible" and "it got very cold on board" and they are easily able to point and gibber, "This doesn't make sense! This is obviously scientifically wrong!"
Oh, yes. And once they've found one of these killer observations (like "no stars"), they'll hold on to it with sheer emotional doggedness. This I am convinced is why we get ever more esoteric discussions with some hoaxies about whether a specific astronaut on a specific mission meant exactly what he said when he described seeing or not seeing extra-lunar objects. Because somewhere down there in the hoaxies emotional makeup is that treasured "aha!" moment when they realized there were no stars in the backgrounds of the Apollo Surface Record, and they are unwilling to finally let go of that first love.
