Regarding public relations, I have worked mostly at small companies where I was the only engineer with enough eloquence and personal hygiene to make a suitable appearance on television. I wish I had been able to foist off these duties on a public relations department, but unfortunately I think I was the public relations department.

I'm looking at http://www.moonhoax.com/Moonhoax/testimony.htm

It says plainly, "The 60 minute documentary DID WE GO? attempts to prove Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and also investigates how NASA made the attempt." I don't think you can get any more straightfoward than that. But then on the same page the author goes on to drag up the standard arguments, plus a few peculiar ones.

Well, yes. Ex-Nazis played leading roles in nearly everyone's space program. I gather this film director, Aron Ranen, is Jewish. This would explain his particular fascination with the connections between NASA and Nazi Germany.
I don't have the clairvoyance necessary to determine v. Braun's motives. This quickly becomes a moral issue rather than a technical or historical one. What do you do with someone who is extremely talented, but who acts in a morally questionable manner? Is it licit to direct his talents toward less questionable ends? Did his complicity with the Nazi's amount to collaboration or facilitation? Did he have a choice? Was he sympathetic to the Nazi cause, or was he simply an opportunist?

Now here's an interesting point. Look at some of the major NASA sites: Hunstville, Alabama, Houston, Texas, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Those who know U.S. demographics and what was going on in the 1960s in these areas might well take note. Racial politics really hasn't been addressed in connection with the space program.

But it's a bit of a leading question. If the KKK had a presence at KSC, it's not necessarily because NASA was infested with racism. It is likely because everything in the American South was influenced, at least to some degree, by racism during this time.

The problem with the "horror story" type of rhetoric is that with hundreds of thousands of people working in some capacity for the space program, basic statistics dictate that there will be racists, child molesters, wife beaters, tax cheats, embezzlers, and other such unsavory types somewhere in the space program. You simply can't get that many people together -- for any reason -- without those nasty elements of society being there too.

The fact that these people accomplished something extraordinary doesn't preclude the fact that they were people.

I don't mean to excuse any malfeasance that might be uncovered. I'm just saying that NASA and its contractors shouldn't be assumed to be saints.

If the documentary attempts to prove that the landings actually took place, then we'd expect this individual to report that he saw three weary astronauts with great big grins on their faces. I wonder about hype like this. If Mr. Hattleberg testifies he saw the astronauts in the capsule after splashdown, then it would indeed be a point against the hoax believers. (They have a conjectural argument all ready for this contingency though: the astronauts and capsule were simply dumped out of a high-flying cargo aircraft.) But I see no reason to invoke the sense of mystery by pointing out the paucity of his interviews. So what that he has consented to only two interviews. Has he been approached more than twice to give an interview? A more revealing fact would be how many interviews he may have turned down.

Why would an engineer be put in charge of planning a hoax?

We have v. Braun's writings from early in his career. He was obsessed with the engineering problems involved in putting a man on the moon. His concentration on mechanical perfection caused friction in the Nazi hierarchy, who wanted him to hurry up and finish the V-2. He wanted more time.

The character of v. Braun that emerges from his own writings and the statements of those who worked with him is a man whose dream was to land a man on the moon, not to fake landing a man on the moon. To him, getting there wasn't just half the fun, it was all the fun. V. Braun was focused on the process of the moon landing, not in the end result.

Now if the director's contention is that the moon landings were genuine, we'd expect Bonnie's testimony to state, in substance, that she had no knowledge of any plans to falsify the landings. Which doesn't really satisfy the criteria expressed on the web site. If there was a conspiracy, Bonnie might have known or she might not have known. All she can provide is an absence of evidence, in which case it is proper to draw no conclusion.

Again the Nazi angle. Yes, the V-2s were assembled by slave labor. Yes, von Braun knew about it, and in many cases closely directed their labor. Yes, it was a very dark hour in the history of space science.

But the connection between the horror of Nazi Germany and the allegations of conspiracy and falsification is very tenuous. Apparently the line of reasoning is that Nazi attrocities at Peenemunde establishes von Braun as a wicked character, and if he was wicked enough to employ slaves to build the rockets, then he was wicked enough to falsify the lunar landings.

Unfortunately it doesn't make a case. Nowhere in this line of reasoning is there any hook on which to hang evidence either for or against the moon landing.

We have to recall that there are people yet today who vehemently hate Nazi Germany and all those who conspired with them in any way and to any extent. And we grant them some justification. We dare not invalidate those feelings, which run deep, but we question their applicability to a logical inquiry.

Interviews with Rene are rare because he has learned that every time he opens his mouth his foot gets wedged squarely between his teeth. He has no qualifications and a host of crackpot ideas which make no sense. It makes for great stuff on Art Bell, but it's not science in any way.

It's unclear whether the film endorses or contends Rene's comments. If we fall back to the page banner, we should understand that Rene gets deconstructed.