There were several points made on the show that needed better answers than NASA was able to provide.

The show was produced and edited by conspiracy theorists. Do you really think they would present strong evidence that told a different story than what they were trying to say? I spoke with Dr. Brian O'Leary, who was the astronaut interviewed for the program. He said he spoke to the producers for half an hour, and told them he thought it was very unlikely that NASA had hoaxed the moon landings. Why didn't the producers include that very important statement? Why did they only include the part that made it sound like he believed it might have been hoaxed?

The answer is clear. The NASA spokesman was included only to give the illusion that the producers were presenting both sides of the story. They weren't. If they wanted to, they could have talked to any number of other NASA experts, or other experts outside of NASA. They could have consulted textbooks or college professors. But they didn't.

Why must we rely on sites like this to disprove the conspiracy theorists?

This is what's called a "complex question". That is, the conspiracy theorists want you to believe that NASA is primarily responsible for defending its version of history. The conspiracy theorists have shifted the burden of proof away from themselves and onto NASA. Unfortunately it's not NASA's -- or anyone else's -- responsibility to disprove the arguments of the hoax believers. It is, in fact, the responsibility of the conspiracy theorists to show that their hypotheses are more than just "might have been" and "what if".

NASA, in general, doesn't pay much attention to conspiracy theorists, except when specifically asked. That's because conspiracy theorists don't really care what NASA says. If NASA disproves their claim, they just say NASA is lying. There's really nothing NASA can say that will be taken seriously by the conspiracy theorists. If everything you said was just twisted around by malicious people, wouldn't you tend you keep your mouth shut too?

The fallacious premise behind the complex question is that only NASA can provide the answers. In fact, the principles of space travel, photography, etc., are well known to people outside of NASA. They can be found in college classes, textbooks, learned from practicing engineers and scientists.

If the conspiracy theorists were actually interested in the answers, they could find them in any number of places. But they aren't generally interested in the answers -- they're interested only in doing damage by asking the questions.

Some people at NASA have written web pages talking about the hoax theories. And the education department has a whole slew of materials that give the correct facts about Apollo. It's just that they aren't explicitly labeled, "To be used to dispute hoax claims."

But that's as may be. NASA's version of history isn't in any danger of being seriously undermined. We talk about it here because we like talking about Apollo history and technology. Some of us participated in building it. Some of us study it in retrospect. Some of us like solving these kinds of problems. Some of us like pointing out the flaws in other people's lines of reasoning.

The conspiracy theorists are upset at NASA's relative silence because they rely on NASA's acknowledgement to validate their theories. They want NASA to recognize them so that they can get some free publicity from NASA.

It has nothing to do with whether NASA can provide answers. The answers are out there for anyone to see. It's all about the posturing of the conspiracy theorists to maintain the illusion that their arguments have no answers.

These allegations are very serious.

They would be if there were any real evidence behind them. Because most people don't understand a lot about rocket science they don't understand how silly the conspiracy theorists' arguments sound. But NASA knows, and that's why NASA doesn't generally take them seriously.

What I hate even more is the idea that my government might have lied to me to save face.

What you might hate even more than that is the idea that the producers of the Fox program deliberately lied to you in order to get you to believe them, buy their books, and think they were hot stuff. They seem to be people who hate government just for the fun of it, not because they have any real evidence that anything was done wrong.

The conspiracy theorists believe in government corruption and deception as if it were there religion.