Why would the Russians dispute it? They have no motive to.
The Soviet Union sent the first man into space, he did a complete orbit! The first Mercury mission was just up and down.
The Soviet Union did that on the equivient of £200,000 (not adjusted to todays value).
The Soviet Union were the world leaders in research to the long term effects of living in space.
The Soviet Union was also a lot further ahead with the hydrogen bomb than the US, though they were second to test they dropped theirs from a plane. The US one was a fixed structure 4 stories high.
Why would the Soviet Union wish to openly discredit the West? This is not how they acted previously. All their propoganda was directed internally, towards the population. I think that it is your assumption that the Soviet Union would discredit the US to the world based on your experience of western politics, not a study on the history of the Soviet Union.
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Originally Posted by Tom_bz
how would we know ALL the variables to space and how the moon's condition and no atmosphere would come out on video or picture or how things would behave in those conditions?
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Most of the mission details were worked out, little was left to chance. But like you I do wonder how much guesswork had to go into choosing a suitable landing site. Could a flat surface be detected from Earth at that time?
It is easy to test the performance of film in a vaccuum. You can be pretty sure of the results. We can use cameras in extreme environments on Earth.