Editing Moon landing conspiracy theories (section)

== Origins ==
An early and influential book about the subject of a Moon-landing conspiracy, ''We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle'', was [[Self-publishing|self-published]] in 1976 by [[Bill Kaysing]], a former [[U.S. Navy|US Navy]] officer with a Bachelor of Arts in English.<ref>[[#Kaysing|Kaysing 2002]]</ref> Despite having no knowledge of rockets or technical writing,<ref>[[#Kaysing|Kaysing 2002]], p. 30</ref> Kaysing was hired as a senior [[technical writer]] in 1956 by [[Rocketdyne]], the company that built the [[F-1 (rocket engine)|F-1]] engines used on the [[Saturn V]] rocket.<ref>[[#Kaysing|Kaysing 2002]], p. 80</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://billkaysing.com/biography.php |title=A brief biography of Bill Kaysing |last=Kaysing |first=Wendy L. |publisher=BillKaysing.com |access-date=February 28, 2013}}</ref> He served as head of the technical publications unit at the company's Propulsion Field Laboratory until 1963. The many allegations in Kaysing's book effectively began discussion of the Moon landings being faked.<ref name=k-pg7 /><ref>[[#Plait|Plait 2002]], p. 157</ref> The book claims that the chance of a successful crewed landing on the Moon was calculated to be 0.0017%, and that despite close monitoring by the [[Soviet Union|USSR]], it would have been easier for NASA to fake the Moon landings than to really go there.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm |title=Did we land on the Moon? |last=Braeunig |first=Robert A. |date=November 2006 |website=Rocket and Space Technology |publisher=Robert Braeunig |access-date=May 3, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522183404/http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm |archive-date=May 22, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.billkaysing.com/hoaxtheory.php |last=Galuppini |first=Albino |title=Hoax Theory |publisher=BillKaysing.com |access-date=May 3, 2013}}</ref>

In 1980, the [[International Flat Earth Research Society|Flat Earth Society]] accused NASA of faking the landings, arguing that they were staged by Hollywood with [[Walt Disney]] sponsorship, based on a script by [[Arthur C. Clarke]] and directed by [[Stanley Kubrick]].{{efn|In 1968, Clarke and Kubrick had collaborated on the film ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', which realistically portrayed a Moon mission.}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schadewald |first=Robert J. |author-link=Robert Schadewald |date=July 1980 |title=The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet |journal=[[Science Digest]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Hearst Corporation|Hearst Magazines]] |url=http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm |access-date=April 29, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128101904/http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm |archive-date=January 28, 2013}}</ref> Folklorist [[Linda Dégh]] suggests that writer-director [[Peter Hyams]]' film ''[[Capricorn One]]'' (1978), which shows a hoaxed journey to [[Mars]] in a [[spacecraft]] that looks identical to the Apollo craft, might have given a boost to the hoax theory's popularity in the post-[[Vietnam War]] era. Dégh sees a parallel with other attitudes during the post-[[Watergate scandal|Watergate]] era, when the American public were [[Credibility gap|inclined to distrust official accounts]]. Dégh writes: "The mass media catapult these half-truths into a kind of twilight zone where people can make their guesses sound as truths. Mass media have a terrible impact on people who lack guidance."<ref name="wired">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/moon.land.html?pg=5 |title=The Wrong Stuff |volume=2 |last=van Bakel |first=Rogier |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |publisher=[[Condé Nast Publications]] |location=New York |issue=9 |date=September 1994 |page=5 |access-date=August 13, 2009}}</ref> In ''[[A Man on the Moon]]'',<ref>[[#Chaikin|Chaikin 2007]] (page needed)</ref> first published in 1994, [[Andrew Chaikin]] mentions that at the time of [[Apollo 8]]'s [[Lunar orbit|lunar-orbit]] mission in December 1968,<ref>[[#Attivissimo|Attivissimo 2013]], p. 70</ref> similar conspiracy ideas were already in circulation.<ref>[[#Dick & Launius|Dick & Launius 2007]], pp. 63–64</ref>