I think that the logical course of action in designing a conspiracy would be to call as little attention to yourself as possible.

Most conspiracy theories require the conspirators to act irrationally or stupidly. The whistle-blower hypothesis was formulated precisely because the previous conspiracy theories require NASA to be monumentally inept. The vast number of "anomalies" couldn't be rationally attributed to NASA stupidity, so they had to be attributed to deliberate sabotage of the hoax. Of course, it never crosses the conspiracy theorist's mind that the utter implausibility of his conspiracy theory might be due to there not having been a hoax.

As long as we're talking about direct observation of Apollo 13, there are telescope photos of the Apollo 13 spacecraft near the moon, surrounded by a cloud of debris. Pretty good trick, huh?

If you want someone (...) to believe a lie, you must present them with convincing data.

This is one of many questions I've asked SAMU, and which he has not answered. Does he think the entire repository of the world's rocket scientists was wrapped up in Apollo? There should have been reams of engineers from other countries thinking, "Why is NASA claiming the spacecraft has grown cold? My expertise in thermodynamics suggests it should be warming."

No one except SAMU has challenged NASA's claims regarding the thermal situation on Apollo 13. Is SAMU simply that much smarter than the rest of the world when it comes to thermodynamics.

The fact is that no one on this board has the data to accuratly compute the thermodynamic properties of the CM, SM, LM or all three connected together.

Nor would we want to. Such a computation, accurately computing the thermodyanic properties of the spacecraft as a passive entity, and accounting for reflection, absorption, and emission of radiation, would be an enormous undertaking.

please continue as I do find the info interesting.

I'm trying to sprinkle some general principles of spacecraft design in my rebuttals. I figure you wouldn't necessarily be here if the construction of spacecraft didn't present some degree of passing interest.

I only recall Samu incinuating that it could be either a spy satellite or a nuclear platform.

Spy satellites were routinely sent into orbit disguised as other payloads, or in many cases as secondary payloads. Many a monkey rode into space with a KH-4 or one of its cousins along for the ride. It would be fairly easy and fairly boring to send a spy satellite up with an Apollo mission. You certainly don't need to pre-empt the expected Apollo payload to do it.

An orbital nuclear platform has limited use. Its location in the sky at any one instant would be strictly dictated by orbital mechanics. You'd have to wait as long as 90 minutes to drop a nuke on a bad guy's head. By then it could be all over. If you've already got Titans and Atlases that can be launched in minutes and reach their targets in less than an hour, you have all you need. The only thing you gain from an orbital platform is the illusion of invulnerability. It would be harder, but not impossible, for the Soviets to knock it out of orbit.