Some other possible precursors to the "hoax".

Andrew Chaiken mentions comments by America's oldest man in 1972 has be watched Apollo 17 blasting off that he did not believe any of it. How widely publicised were these views at the time?

In 1958 Isaac Asimov published a story where people flew round the moon and say it was a huge set of canvas and scaffolding. All three become psychotic. The story reveals that it was all a simulation that the men had believed it was the real thing. The sting in the tail of this story was not hoaxed moon missions but maybe the moon itself was not real but could it have planted the idea of the moon as stage set?

In the 60's many people believed that some Russian missions were hoaxes or fakes. Images of the farside of the moon from Luna 3 and footage of Leonov's space walk in particular. Could a lack of belief in Russian space achievements (or at least images of them) become translated into a lack of belief in US space achievements in the self doubt that afflicted many in the US in the 70's?

Jon